I'm at a loss as to how I'd see them balance the tanks while keeping them with different strengths within the realm of tanking. Honestly I think it should be more of a different playstyle/flavor than completely different tanking specialties, so they all tank just about the same for any given mob but the means are rather different.
I don't want to see (as others have suggested) there be an AoE tank. I feel that aggro generation should be a near full time job of tanks (in most games it is braindead easy to keep a mob on you) and mobs should (in general) hit hard enough that tanking 2 would leave the healer treading water very quickly, sort of like we saw in the May stream. If the tank had 2 gurkha mobs on him then he would be toast, level appropriate mobs should be dangerous and adds should have to be quickly CC'd (in general). I want to fear the patrol/add like I used to instead of an add walking in and a tank hitting taunt before carrying on like nothing happened. Hell I'd like to see aggro reduction vs all other mobs when currently at the top of the hate list for some intelligent/humanoid types based on the thought that if they see a group attacking their friend then they'd try to go for someone else to best help their engaged pal.
So for Dire Lord, assuming they do get a pet, perhaps one of their specialties is dumping their hate onto their pet for some breathing room at times and the other key for them is debuffs/negative auras. Much the same as how in the May stream they said the goal is all healers can perform the job well but differently, example being the shaman can heal about the same as cleric but uses debuffs to get him there.
Paladin might have blessings/battle prayers, short term or single attack party buffs for strength/shielding/damage as well as granting a chance to heal on hit for a % of the damage done. This could give the healers a little breathing room, possibly allowing them to throw out some non-heal spells here and there.
Warrior, I don't know. Maybe they have they most weaponskills or the only tank with chained attacks, the widest variety of CC/interupt abilities.
Having 1 tank be the best at single (or multi) target tanking is, in my opinion, an awful idea. In such a scenario that one tank excels in single target tanking then that tank is the defacto best tank for the vast majority of content, most groups running CC on adds or otherwise single/split pulling.
I don't think it will be as simple as slapping a "best" sticker on any given class based on what type of encounter you are facing. If progression is handled in a meaningful way, each tank class should be able to hold their own in just about every metric I can think of. I think it's more important to consider what an individual character brings to the table rather than what class they play. What kind of gear do they have? Which abilities/spells have they unlocked? What is the quality tier (apprentice/adept/master, etc) of those abilities/spells? In what way have they specialized their character? What does your group composition look like, and what tank would be able to provide the most meaningful buffs or utility for that composition?
Now if you have three tanks who are maxed out in their progression in each of these respective areas, then you can start considering which "class" might have an advantage for a specific fight. This is more of an "end-game" scenario which I think Pantheon is trying to steer away from. My hope is that our progression and experience will trump which class we play for as long as possible. The idea of comparing warrior vs paladin vs direlord just seems really premature at this stage. I understand the idea of "If all else is equal, which then would be ideal?" but the key, in my opinion, is prolonging the amount of time where this is the question you are asking yourself.
Wow, definitely didn't expect 4 pages from a tank thread : ) All I have to add is I think it would be cool to have more abilities that are used on the fly in combat, requiring both critical thinking and foresight. For example an ability (or Adanced Ability) for Dire Lords to be able to sacrifice X% of maximum or current health and then transfer that same % of aggro from whichever target you chose back to you. I want to see more critical thinking on the fly, that with proper execution, the group is like "damn, that was a sick "spirit leech" to save us man!! Adding you to friends!" Not necessarily knee jerk reactions, but enuogh of a mixture of both to where someone's skill and foresight will be exemplified; and, on the contrary, have newbs popping "spirit leech" and killing themselves with it. I want abilities similar to this kind of critical thinking for all classes. The thing that will make this game niche or huge, is making it "new enough," by implenting just enough innovation and change to combat, questing, etc to make it feel like a new experience. Given that - in a vacuum - combat is the most important aspect of an mmorpg, I hope the team comes up with things like this to really make combat feel fresh and most importantly, exciting/dynamic. The same can be said for mobs and boss mobs. There needs to be innovation and smart design. Design that is challenging and dynamic in the non-cheap/controller throwing way.
Beefcake said:oneADseven said:I don't think it will be as simple as slapping a "best" sticker on any given class based on what type of encounter you are facing.
Nope. Wrong. Ogre Dire Lords > all others. Definitive. It has been declared, so it shall be.
Why do I feel like there will be jokes about Beefs character not being smart enough to know the difference between death and feign death?
philo said:Beefcake said:oneADseven said:I don't think it will be as simple as slapping a "best" sticker on any given class based on what type of encounter you are facing.
Nope. Wrong. Ogre Dire Lords > all others. Definitive. It has been declared, so it shall be.
Why do I feel like there will be jokes about Beefs character not being smart enough to know the difference between death and feign death?
Death is what happens to the mobs in front of me. Feign death is what everyone else does when I have to log out To make the wife happy.
What a great bunch of responses here...
So good to hear from people who play tanks.
My question to you all who are the meat shields... Do you care about how much dps you do as long as you are holding agro and controlling the pace of combat ?
Thanks for all this discussion,
Kiz~
I see my job as a tank is to maintain threat, position the mob, protect the healer, and to know the fight.
Yes, it's a simplification, but if those 4 things are done everyone's job in the party is far easier.
My job as a tank is not to top any kind of damage meter.
Have a good one! 8)
I'm fine with doing weak DPS as long as I have the ability to control the battlefield through other means. At the same time, though, I would like the ability to unlock more of a DPS oriented build or specialization over time. I plan on grouping for 95% of my sessions ... but every now and then, I might want to solo. I don't expect to be able to solo like other classes but it would be nice if "solo efficiency" was something I could work towards. Between situational gear and combat stances I'm sure we'll have some flexibility. Something to consider though ... historically, tanks are the least utilized class in a raid set-up. You bring the minimum necessary to get the job done.
If you allow warriors to specialize for DPS this increases the chance of being able to bring extra warriors on a raid. Maybe they will spend the majority of their time as a "tank" for grouping ... but for raids, they could change their role to more of a "berserker" or "fury" DPS warrior. They don't have to be comparable to true DPS classes but I think it's important that tanks can fulfill more than just a "tanking" role when it comes to raiding. I spent 5 years playing EQ2 and we never brought a paladin on our raids. What was the point? We did bring a berserker though.
The raid cap was set at 24 and we very rarely used more than 3 tanks. Fighters represented 25% of the playable classes in game, but only filled up 12.5% of the team. A second or third bard, enchanter, summoner, rogue, wizard, ranger was preferred over bringing a single paladin or even monk in most cases. This lead to us keeping a minimal amount of tanks on our roster (to prevent them from constantly sitting out from raids) which was a real pain ... we had a few people roll tank alts to ensure we had enough meat shields available during non-raid hours. So basically the least desirable archetype for raids was the most sought after archetype for grouping. The disparity was annoying.
oneADseven said:I'm fine with doing weak DPS as long as I have the ability to control the battlefield through other means. At the same time, though, I would like the ability to unlock more of a DPS oriented build or specialization over time. I plan on grouping for 95% of my sessions ... but every now and then, I might want to solo. I don't expect to be able to solo like other classes but it would be nice if "solo efficiency" was something I could work towards. Between situational gear and combat stances I'm sure we'll have some flexibility. Something to consider though ... historically, tanks are the least utilized class in a raid set-up. You bring the minimum necessary to get the job done.
If you allow warriors to specialize for DPS this increases the chance of being able to bring extra warriors on a raid. Maybe they will spend the majority of their time as a "tank" for grouping ... but for raids, they could change their role to more of a "berserker" or "fury" DPS warrior. They don't have to be comparable to true DPS classes but I think it's important that tanks can fulfill more than just a "tanking" role when it comes to raiding. I spent 5 years playing EQ2 and we never brought a paladin on our raids. What was the point? We did bring a berserker though.
The raid cap was set at 24 and we very rarely used more than 3 tanks. Fighters represented 25% of the playable classes in game, but only filled up 12.5% of the team. A second or third bard, enchanter, summoner, rogue, wizard, ranger was preferred over bringing a single paladin or even monk in most cases. This lead to us keeping a minimal amount of tanks on our roster (to prevent them from constantly sitting out from raids) which was a real pain ... we had a few people roll tank alts to ensure we had enough meat shields available during non-raid hours. So basically the least desirable archetype for raids was the most sought after archetype for grouping. The disparity was annoying.
That last bit is a real tricky conundrum that reveals another angle to this discussion.
Good food for thought...
Thanks,
Kiz~
In my experience tanking in different games:
EQ1-Monk OT
Feral Druid OT vanilla (yes actually feral rather than resto in vanilla) transitioning to MT in BC
WoW Warrior tank in groups up through Cata
The amount of DPS depends on how much weight you are expected to pull. Tanking is a form of single target CC or few target CC. If we assume that all classes that are good at tanking can perform relatively the same in a black box then their exact DPS doesn't matter so much. What becomes important is what do those players do when there is already enough tanks available.
If their DPS with best of the best gear is still half that of a terribly geared DPS class then we will see the common shortage of tanks as no one wants to consistently sit on the side lines due to 1 out of 4 classes being a tank but only 1 out of 5, 6, or 8 group members needing to be a tank. If tanking was more defined by gear equipped, toggled stances and active abilities rather than purely based on the classes base abilities then idle tanks could make out of combat choices to fill roles other than single target CC.
D20 systems have hammered this concept into the ground over and over and generated a fairly robust option system for tanky characters to give up defenses in order to gain offensive boosts. The easiest way to model it is the difference between 1 hand weapon + Shield, 2 hand weapon and 2 weapon fighting. Sword and Board fighting is typically the base line for both damage and what tanking really means. Two handed weapons tend to retain some defensive options including reach but do 50% more damage than a single 1 handed weapon. Ranged weapons typically do around 25% more than a single weapon but have the benefit of the highest up time of physical combat due to freedom of positioning. 2 weapon fighting is an extremely aggressive fighting style and tends to achieve about 75% more damage than a single weapon but at the cost of having both hands full and needing to commit fully to the fight which limits defensive stances.
Base weapon proficiency could provide a few active abilities and an appropriate fighting stance that is available to all classes with the weapon proficiency. Then class special active abilities and personal buffs are added on top of weapon proficiencies to differentiate the classes. Then I think we have a good base line to tune DPS for both active tanks and out of work tanks. The target is that a Top end DPS geared tank in an aggressive, low defensive stance is at least equal to a poorly geared DPS in terms of raw damage but the DPS class will bring its own secondary benefits.
Having these options built into the weapon styles/proficiencies will also allow for more dynamic encounter designs, after all what good will a shield do you against fire elementals you might as well pull out a second sword and go to town.
TLDR
Full Tank = Sword and Board + Defensive Stance + Damage mitigation actives and single/few target CC actives
Off Tank = 150% of Full tank DPS +Balanced or No stance + weapon attack actives and some active damage mitigation
Vulnerable Tank = 175% of Full Tank DPS + aggressive stance/lowered defenses + weapon attack actives
DPS Default = 175% of Full tank DPS + weapon attack actives + class specific damage boosts + class specific group benefits.
As always this is an idea that is in a more general design form and needs lots of number crunching for balance and play testing for fun.
Trasak
P.S. this board hates my prefered text formatting
Is it too much to ask of the player base if the deepest areas of a undead inhabited dungeon are only available if you have a Paladin to tank down there ?
What if the final few chambers could only be accessed if you had a druid to heat the way through a frozen passage ?
Should content be blocked like that or is it best to just let every tank be viable for every type of content ?
I kind of like the idea of forming up your group then deciding a good spot based on that groups makeup versus hanging out somewhere and just trying to get by with whoever shows up.
Thanks again,
Kiz~
I don't like the idea of content being blocked based on your group composition. There is no issue with clerics or paladins being ideal vs undead but it shouldn't get to the point where a group feels that one class is required in order to explore or adventure. Ideally there will be situational gear that a warrior could pick up that will allow them to do extra damage or have better aggro versus undead. I think it's perfectly reasonable for one class to excel in an area compared to their counterparts but it shouldn't be all or nothing. A warrior with advanced progression and situational gear should be more effective in an undead necropolis than a paladin with moderate progression and no situational gear.
When it comes to raiding, I feel a bit differently. If the raid cap is large (36+) I think it would be great to have areas of the game that are only accessible if a certain class is present. When you are dealing with larger numbers, you don't have to choose one or the other. All classes should have areas where they feel "required" in end-game if you go with a large raid cap. I would even extend that and say that each specialization could be required under certain circumstances. I'd like to see a raid boss that just isn't possible unless you have both a debuff rogue/shaman in raid. I would like to see areas of a raid zone (or bosses) only accessible if you have a scouting ranger ... or using your example Kiz, a druid or wizard that can melt huge ice walls.
oneADseven said:I don't think it will be as simple as slapping a "best" sticker on any given class based on what type of encounter you are facing. If progression is handled in a meaningful way, each tank class should be able to hold their own in just about every metric I can think of. I think it's more important to consider what an individual character brings to the table rather than what class they play. What kind of gear do they have? Which abilities/spells have they unlocked? What is the quality tier (apprentice/adept/master, etc) of those abilities/spells? In what way have they specialized their character? What does your group composition look like, and what tank would be able to provide the most meaningful buffs or utility for that composition?
Now if you have three tanks who are maxed out in their progression in each of these respective areas, then you can start considering which "class" might have an advantage for a specific fight. This is more of an "end-game" scenario which I think Pantheon is trying to steer away from. My hope is that our progression and experience will trump which class we play for as long as possible. The idea of comparing warrior vs paladin vs direlord just seems really premature at this stage. I understand the idea of "If all else is equal, which then would be ideal?" but the key, in my opinion, is prolonging the amount of time where this is the question you are asking yourself.
I'm not quite sure I agree with this, but perhaps I'm reading it incorrectly.
Maybe getting out of the "best" mindset would be good, as you say, but I don't necessarily think having tanks that excel at particular tanking abilities over others is a bad thing. Individual player skill is great, and hugely important - we agree there - but if tanks (or any classes) didn't have variations then I can't help but think the game would get very stale.
To me it's the difference between a ranger and a rogue. Both are DPS heavy classes, and both do the job of a DPS role quite differently. Why would that be different with tanks? Why would one tank class not fulfill the roll of tank different from another? Individual skill should play a heavy role in their playstyle, but class should DIRECT that role based on class abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Otherwise we're just going towards another form of class homogenization, which I think we can all agree we don't want. But again, maybe I'm missing your point. Please correct me if so.
Nephele said:Tralyan said:
Good ideas, as well. Shield block/parry/riposte/etc kind of slipped my mind when trying to think of strengths vs weaknesses.
I also admit that this is a thinly veiled attempt at trying to re-create my favorite class of any MMO to date - the Warden in Lord of the Rings On-line. A medium armor, spear wielding tank that relied on avoidance mitigation. Aggro was generated through aggro leeches, and they were incredibly self-sufficient with Heal leeches and heal over time skills to make up for the lack of armor mitigation. It was a fresh take on tanks that I dearly miss. Then you also had your cookie cutter tank, the Guardian, that relied on heavy armor mitigation and force taunts. The mantra for the two tanks in LOTRO was:
You ask for a Guardian by class, but you ask for a Warden by name.
Sigh, I miss those days.
Good discussion.
I just had to respond to this. I played a Champion tank in LOTRO :P (At least, up until the point where they made it *really* unviable to do that and relegated the Champion class to being DPS always).
I think there's an important theme here though - if you're going to have multiple classes that function within a role, those classes should go about that role in different ways.
So for tanks, it makes sense that one class is going to be the heavy-armor-wearing, taunt-based damage sponge. And when we think about it the three announced tank roles we tend to think of variations on that theme.
But what if we approach damage mitigation differently. We've talked a lot about aggro generation and situational fights (paladins are best vs. undead, etc). Let's extend that.
What if Dire Lords, for example, mitigated damage not through heavy armor, but through a passive debuff effect on their opponents? The aura of fear that surrounds them causes attacks to miss, blows to land with less force, that sort of thing? Because of this, the Dire Lord can forego heavy armor and instead use massive weapons and sweeping attacks that other tanks would struggle to pull off with all that armor getting in the way.
What if Paladins, instead of being armor-plated shield walls like they are in so many games, sacrificed some armor weight for passive reactive heals or regen effects. This means that a paladin would be more vulnerable to big hits, but much more difficult to wear down over time with smaller strikes when compared to a warrior.
I would love to see an evasion-based tank but from previous games I know that evasion tanking is *really* hard to balance right when you get into boss fights, just because evasion doesn't always stop the monster from landing that massive blow on you. For normal encounters it can balance out but when you have a single monster that just hits like a truck, it makes it pretty tough on the healer trying to keep that evasion tank standing. I think that's why Monk hasn't been specifically called out as a tank role even if there's been some discussion about how they'll potentially be able to off-tank via evasion.
Ha! I completely forgot about the Champion. My good buddy played a champion and was constantly playing as my off-tank (necessary during those times when Wardens were broken messes), and we made one hell of a team.
I really like your examples and train of thought here. For Dire Lords, I think it would be really cool if they had a perpetual pocket off-tank in the form of a skeleton pet, but then they'd really be crawling into Necromancer territory.
As for the evasion tank, the difficulty in balancing (and playing!) is almost exactly WHY I want to see something like that. I love the idea of classes that are, as I said, "Called by name, and not by class". As PvP won't be a huge consideration in Pantheon, class balancing won't be as big an issue as it is in many other games. Really looking forward to that.
To sum up my thoughts Tralyan, I think it's perfectly reasonable for one class to excel in certain areas compared to their counterparts. There should definitely be a unique flavor to each class, but I think it should be awhile before we get to the point where a group decides that a paladin is automatically the best tank to bring along if you plan on farming undead. A well progressed warrior with situational gear or abilities should be able to outshine a regularly equipped paladin in an undead environment. My main point is that player skill/progression should trump what class we play. There is nothing wrong with diversity or classes being "ideal" under specific circumstances, but I hope that our progression paths are deep and meaningful enough to where any good tank can bridge the gap and be capable of holding their own. I will be playing a warrior. I really like killing undead and or playing in haunted/undead zones/environments. I have no issue with paladins being "more desirable" because of their advantages against undead ... I just don't want to feel like warriors are handicapped, if that makes sense.
To put things in another perspective, I think these advantages can be extrapolated across multiple classes. If paladins are the "best" tank for undead, wouldn't clerics also be the best healer due to their holy affinity and shared traits with the paladin? Wouldn't monks be better than rogues/rangers since they specialize in hand-to-hand combat, and are very proficient with blunt weapons? Skeletons are probably going to be weak vs crushing so would a monk always be ideal over the other 2 melee classes? I think rogues/rangers should have a way to bridge the gap to some degree. Rangers can equip blunt arrows and maybe rogues can use maces rather than daggers. I just want to avoid the possibility of cookie cutter compositions forming up based on what you are fighting. I have seen this happen in plenty of games ranging from group play to raid play. I have seen certain classes struggle to find groups while others find them with ease, consistently. All classes should be desirable and flexible enough to fulfill their archetype role in the vast majority of content in the game.
Eventually, I think it would be great if a group decides that they can form a "super group" where their combined strengths and composition is designed to exploit a specific type of enemy weakness. I think it would be a ton of fun finding my own role in those kind of groups whether it's grouping or raiding, but it's very important that all classes provide that unique desirable flavor if any are going to get it. Content should be diverse enough so that if a group does decide that they want to form a super group to farm undead, there are different compositions that could be just as powerful against other mob types in the world. Maybe rogues or rangers are more suited for fighting mobs that have a weakness to piercing. Maybe warriors are the better tank against mobs that have blood as seeing it can help enrage their bloodlust and battle fervor. All of that is perfectly fine and dandy ... I like situational flavor ... but if we are going down that road make sure each class has a chance to shine. I have had good friends get royally screwed based on the class they played. There is nothing worse than being a raid leader and telling a friend they have to sit out from content because bringing multiple players from a different class is more beneficial than bringing a single player from their class.
Imagine a scenario where there is an undead zone that has a really nice quest line. Classes that excel vs undead will probably have a much easier time finding a group to complete that quest. As a warrior, I know I'll be able to get a group no matter what. Paladins could be 50% more effective vs undead but that will never stop me from getting a group down there. But not all classes have the luxury of being a tank that can start their own groups. DPS classes, specifically, have to rely on tank/healer friends far more than tanks/healers have to rely on DPS. This can be an uncomfortable situation for players that need updates in certain areas but are shunned because of the class they play. A group will have to sacrifice efficiency to bring them along. In modern gaming, that's known as "carrying." It's a really slippery slope with how all of this gets managed. In my opinion, it's not that difficult to balance classes to where they can all perform their archetype role pretty similarly but offer unique flavors or situational advantages. The hard part is balancing the game world in a way to where each character has an equal opportunity to shine. And it doesen't need to be exactly equal ... I just don't want to see massive disparities. If monks are the best melee vs undead and rogues are best vs armored opponents ... there should be some consistency in how many of each mob type are available in the world. Undead, specifically, have a tendency to occupy entire zones whereas armored creatures are sprinkled in sporadically.
I know this is a bit of a tangent ... I never thought it would be easy trying to explain all of this and some of it may sound a bit contradictive. Do I want equal opportunity or niche roles? I think the answer is somewhere in the middle ... equal opportunities for niche roles to thrive. Also, progression should allow players to bridge the gap to some degree when it comes to these roles. I think it would be cool if a warrior was able to spend a significant amount of time farming situational gear or an extra ability that can help put them on par, in an undead environment, with a standard paladin. If both the paladin/warrior are fully progressed then it's reasonable that the paladin would have the edge.
@oneADseven - I gotcha. What you're describing is something I'm against as well, so perhaps we agree with each other. I've never been a fan of different classes excelling against different mobs, for the exact reasons you've laid out. As in, Paladins being better against undead, Dire Lords being better against mages, etc.
What I AM for, however, is for a difference in simple playstyle.
You, as a warrior, are in a zone with predominantly undead mobs (or any type of mob, really, since that's what we agree on). Your focus, as a warrior, is not on being better against any particular type of mob, rather it's one tanking using the strenghts and weaknessess inherent through the warriors own unique playstyle. Aggro generation, mitigation, pulling and CC. Maybe warriors excel at block and parry, but their armor mitigation overall is slightly weaker than the paladin or dire lords. Maybe your aggro generation against multiple mobs is weak compared to your single target aggro, which forces you to change your playstyle in comparison to a paladin, who maybe excels at multiple target aggro but is weaker in single target.
I don't want all tanks to have the same method of generating aggro, or the same method of mitigating incoming damage, or even the same methods for pulling and mob positioning. Give me one tank that generates aggro through hate leeches, and one that uses force taunts, and one that has AoE battle cries, or whatever different methods VR can come up with.
Those are the differences I'm all for. Each tank is just as effective as the next, on any mob and in all scenarios - their effectiveness is simply reached through different means. Your warrior and my paladin should both have the potential of being equally as effective in the same zone, we just use different ways to reach that potential. I hope VR finds unique ways to differentiate between tanks, other than just the same ol "Oh, this one is good with 1 hand and shield and this one with a 2 hander". That's what I'm hoping for. In a lot of MMO's I've played, it seems that one tank is just a cookie cutter version of the next with different skins, and that's a big ol' yawn fest.
oneADseven said:I'm fine with doing weak DPS as long as I have the ability to control the battlefield through other means. At the same time, though, I would like the ability to unlock more of a DPS oriented build or specialization over time. I plan on grouping for 95% of my sessions ... but every now and then, I might want to solo. I don't expect to be able to solo like other classes but it would be nice if "solo efficiency" was something I could work towards. Between situational gear and combat stances I'm sure we'll have some flexibility. Something to consider though ... historically, tanks are the least utilized class in a raid set-up. You bring the minimum necessary to get the job done.
If you allow warriors to specialize for DPS this increases the chance of being able to bring extra warriors on a raid. Maybe they will spend the majority of their time as a "tank" for grouping ... but for raids, they could change their role to more of a "berserker" or "fury" DPS warrior. They don't have to be comparable to true DPS classes but I think it's important that tanks can fulfill more than just a "tanking" role when it comes to raiding. I spent 5 years playing EQ2 and we never brought a paladin on our raids. What was the point? We did bring a berserker though.
The raid cap was set at 24 and we very rarely used more than 3 tanks. Fighters represented 25% of the playable classes in game, but only filled up 12.5% of the team. A second or third bard, enchanter, summoner, rogue, wizard, ranger was preferred over bringing a single paladin or even monk in most cases. This lead to us keeping a minimal amount of tanks on our roster (to prevent them from constantly sitting out from raids) which was a real pain ... we had a few people roll tank alts to ensure we had enough meat shields available during non-raid hours. So basically the least desirable archetype for raids was the most sought after archetype for grouping. The disparity was annoying.
I'd rather they just adjust raiding to scale to need as many tanks as there are groups over having class archetypes being interchangeable.
I'd much prefer tanks doing 60% of the damage of a DPS but without having to trade off their mitigation so it's still something to consider when filling slots for normal groups. Maybe the dungeon/area has lots of patrols and you can't find a CC class so you take a second tank to pick up adds/patrols. Same for other archetypes, maybe the area has very hard hitting mobs so you take 2 healers with one main healing and the other weaving between healing/dps as needed.
To a certain degree I worry more about tankdeflation than tankinflation. Not from a dps perspective, but from a no tanks around to group with or you have a secondary toon as tank. In my opinion a lot of the tank issues started when raids really just required one or two tanks. Other tanks started to feel unloved because they could not compete in raids because the guild already had their primary tanks, so there really was not that much of a need for other tanks.
So to strike some type of balance games started to have the hybrid options. I.e. the Berserker. In my opinion Rift really went too far in trying to balance dps and make claase. Then the leather classes started to feel threatened, so you had a constent arms race between these classes and then when these 2 classes started to bump-up against the finger wigglers, then classes really started to blur the lines. And one of the main contributors to this cycle were when battle logs started to be captured.
I hope that VR can re-capture the holy trinity and make tanks feel love at the end game levels, while still in their traditional roles. I.e. being a meat shield and saving party/raid members from aggro, while still needing to be a needed asset for end game content.
I started out with a Pally in EQ1, because I liked the feeling of having all that armour. I did not care about dps and more than likely I did not even know wht dps was back in 2000. If I was a tank in VR I would be happy tanking and just controlling the fight and not even doing any dps.
Perhaps VR can capture the idea of groups within raids and those groups needing a holy trinity.
Angrykiz said:Tanks, the core of the holy trinity... but what happens when they start out damaging the dps ?
why would the tanks outdamage the dps?
and if you afraid that the dps will be to high for the tank to hold aggro;
there is a very simple solution,
shield offhand item has passive stat of +100%* threat generation.
this way, when the damage of the DPS characters creeps up due to gear, you just add new shields with higher threat multiplier.
*the actual numbers can be tweaked.
Tanking should be the challenge and focus of the class. DPS work to do the most they can without taking threat, healers work to keep the tank & others alive without taking threat, tanks work to keep the attention of the mob. Threat & mitigation should be an active focus, not hit taunt or equip shield then focus on doing damage like it is in pretty much every MMO out there today.
Iksar said:Tanking should be the challenge and focus of the class. DPS work to do the most they can without taking threat, healers work to keep the tank & others alive without taking threat, tanks work to keep the attention of the mob. Threat & mitigation should be an active focus, not hit taunt or equip shield then focus on doing damage like it is in pretty much every MMO out there today.
I really feel you are generalizing the act of tanking. Most if not all games have "high threat" abilities that you need to priority over just "doing damage". I think I understand what you are going for though, and I agree. Tanking should defintely be more than /attack /afk
Iksar said:Tanking should be the challenge and focus of the class. DPS work to do the most they can without taking threat, healers work to keep the tank & others alive without taking threat, tanks work to keep the attention of the mob. Threat & mitigation should be an active focus, not hit taunt or equip shield then focus on doing damage like it is in pretty much every MMO out there today.
We alrdy know this isn't going to be this way simply becuae the mobs can randomly select players and cast spells/abilties, so im sure they will have some small stuns and such like this to prevent these mobs from hurting/killing our comrades so this by itself makes it more challenging for the tanks by itself, especially if you have more than one mob on your aggro list.
Porygon said:I really feel you are generalizing the act of tanking. Most if not all games have "high threat" abilities that you need to priority over just "doing damage". I think I understand what you are going for though, and I agree. Tanking should defintely be more than /attack /afk
Well yes, but generally it isn't much more than hit taunt, do a rotation of threat combo (or AoE taunt and cleave a few times), then do DPS and throw another threat combo/taunt out every now and again. Or their DPS is tied to their threat combo. Anyway, I am saying it doesn't take much of any effort at all to hold aggro in modern MMOs even when the DPS are blowing all their biggest abilities.
I agree in a group situation dps should do significantly more damage then a tank. This is due to high damage positional attacks from flanks, rear or ranged. However this is not true if a dps has agro in which case they cannot use there high dps positional or ranged attacks. Thus as long as the dps doesn't have agro there doing lots of damage if they have agro there doing less then a tank! It should be all about knowing your role and playing your class right. As one might surmise a dps class should be weak in a solo situation while a tank should be strong. At least as strong as what soloable content there may be.. weather thats green or blue solo mobs. A cleric should also be strong solo due to second best damage mitigation and healing. I would give the cleric the second highest default or auto attack. I would also consider giving the cleric some single target cc as well.
The tanks auto or default attack should do more then any other class. There toggle or situational attacks should do less then any other class but should have generate high threat. I also believe that tanks should have limited cc or interupts. A shield bash could knock down or interupt. A pomel strike should have a limited stun. Any cc should be very short in duration and single target. This shouldn't step on the toes of a true cc class such as the enchanter.