The nature of tank role, elite content and tank role shortages

Given tanks have proper gear to run elite, 200 arts, maxed augments and high cr. It is getting harder to find tanks to run elite contents, which one of the following the reasons for the shortage:
1. Dcuo always make contents very tank dependent therefore put stress on tanks, even average tanks are rare to find. Too much work with little gain.
2. Tanks role is very hard, require perfection and demanding, not many people can do it. If tank died, entire team is dead. Dying once is not an option compared to other roles.
3. Most people playing dps, controller and healer are mostly under geared, don't understand the mechanics or expect tank(s) to carry them
4. Dcuo is too lazy, The mechanics are too complex if put on dps, healer and controller. Easier for dcuo to put stress on tank.
5. Unexperienced tanks Not knowing the dlc content is the problem
Feel free to add more, just want to know why....

The community nowadays is very dps centric and low quality. The average player isn't going to stick their neck out to tank elite content. It really isn't hard and there's artifacts and allies now. It falls down on the tank to know mechanics and be a leader but the rest of the group has to be just as good too as far higher elite levels are concerned

It would definitely be interesting to put more pressure specifically on other roles. I agree that a lot of the pressure does fall on tanks mostly since generally if they die, then everyone dies; but if anyone else dies, then it's still possible to clear the instance.

The easiest way to reduce pressure on tanks is to make enemies hit less hard. Or to reduce the gear/artifact requirement (since other roles can do fine at <200), make them do specific things. Like keeping enemies CC'ed for a certain amount of time, pulling enemies to certain spots, etc. To increase pressure on the other roles, content should have mechanics that require everyone else to participate. Something like Atlantis The Throne last boss, but with more people and for more of the fight.

DPS: harder DPS checks, or phases where they can't attack so they have to pay attention. Like reflect mechanics, but please I love DCUO so give people time to react. A fairly radical idea could be a melee only raid, e.g. a small room or heavily reduced damage at range.

Troll: are mostly underutilized, could have constant power drain as a "power check", or need a specific combination of debuffs on an enemy.

Heal: the only way I see to keep pressuring them is just to make them heal more, like heaving more unavoidable (but not immediately lethal) damage sources (e.g. DoTs). I think TOWWe is a pretty good example of this.

In general: positioning mechanics (e.g. stand in the right spot, face the right direction) can challenge everyone. DCUO also has pretty flexible in-combat mobility with jumps and rolls, though I don't think they're used much (best example I can think of Fatal Exams wind room). People would probably complain it's too gimmicky, but they're definitely interesting.

The reason I stopped tanking elite content, boils down to tanks (always used to) get the blame for every wipe.

The last elite content I tanked was BOP. Clocktower, "tank do this, tank do that," when it was the dps's not staying away from each other, or not blocking and getting pulled in near me and killing me with their opposite color mechanic. I used to tank all the time, loved it. I still gear my tank, still have my artifacts, still keep my augments maxed, but I'm not tanking elite for anyone. Too much hate gets (got) put on tanks: I play for fun, not stress.
I'll dps elite, I'll solo heal elite, but that's fun.

I’ve gotten to the point where I only run elite with people I know. I generally only tank in elite , and for the reasons you mentioned I won’t tank for pugs.

1. Yeah because content is group based and groups should require a tank, sometimes even two. I know, shocking.
2. Its not that its hard but mileage may very and also the knowledge players need for their Power. Same argument can be said for every other role.
3. The a player problem and also to an extent a community problem. Elite doesnt actually have much of a requirement to run it besides the little start in the description. Every other requirement is a community standard or viewpoint. Not every player will know everything. Not everyone watches the Youtube videos or streams. They experience it in game but that kind of thinking gets those players kicked instead of learning the fights. Granted, some players just dont want to learn and dont listen.
4. Thats not laziness. Mechanics arent always for the Tank. The other roles, especially DPS, also have some Mechanics but fail to do them. Some mechanics actually require a second tank but no one runs that or for Adds to be burned but DPS arent focusing on that but just the boss and letting "splash damage" take care of the adds. Healers have their own mechanic every fight, keep everyone alive lol.
5. I point to #3. The best way for someone to know the fight is to experience it. But players cant understand or believe a wipe so when it happens, everyone leaves. So how is the Tank or other players suppose to learn? A wipe doesnt mean failure. Leaving the group after a wipe is the true failure.

Its weird because I play a Tank so I dont see a shortage. What I see is a shortage of teamwork and understanding and high unrealistic expectations unless a player opens their wallet in order to be in some "elite" runs. Everyone can make their own group and follow their own rules with what players to run with. Elite is suppose to be the hard stuff. Community standards may need to shift their view point but it never will.

I just wish we could punish the DPS because all I see is them opening their mouth like they run the place.

Oh ya lol, I let em die (if I'm tanking) and they go start a fight they can't handle without me to absorb the punishment. Then I'll type in chat: "wait for the tank."

I tank for folks I know and would never do it for folks I don't. The stress isn't worth it and I play to enjoy myself not to start pulling my hair out . There isn't a shortage of tanks they are around but allot don't run Elite and don't care one bit about it and if they do run Elite it's with friends/league mates not someone asking in LFG.

+1

I'm the same, I only ever tank or for that matter even run elite raids (I do PUG elite duos) with my league now, because I just cannot be bothered putting up with the toxic cesspit that is PUG elite content

I play the game to enjoy myself no subject myself to stress or a blame game if things don't go well, especially for a bunch of randoms I couldn't care less about.

I PUG plenty of normal content, but that's where my pugging remains

Well, the dcuo definition of elite is to buff the crap out of enemies and causes tanks to die very easily, aka one or two shotted. So why bother with that if you walk into a bar and instantly die. Elite should be about surviving and and about not dying instantly.

As far as other reasons…there too much horizontal stuff such as adaptive augments, origin mods, weird sp tree, artifacts, allies, and other stuff. It just used to be gear mods, sp, and skill. So, you could have 800sp and still be worthless without having all other stuff maxed out (besides skill as that not a stat). So why bother anyway. I quit tanking as it is boring, dps seem to tank for you, and tank powers are shet for dps side.


Oohhh, just put that lasso shet on and assume you the best tank ever!

There is no tank shortage its always players from EU that say this. EU population is low thats the issue.

Tanking is simple once u play with a good group tanking got WAY easyier with the artifacts and content design and so on now if you dont know the mechanics thats on you learn them. The content is not tank centric biggest nonsense i read, its dps centric and others have said this previously too.

when dcuo first released the content was very tank centric FOS 123 a tank could legit carry a group because most of the difficulty was on the Tank nowadays they balanced it its harder now for DPS,healers,trollers to survive easyier on the Tank,its a group synergy thing not a single roll ever heard of teamwork?!

There are tanks who solo Tank six dimensions elite raid (but u need a group who has some level of skill meaning they need to launch the boss which most of the average players are struggling with to do such a simple task).

Like i go into sffe with LFG and the damage is AWFULL how does this community expect good tanks with max arts to tank for you if you cant even do the absolut basics of dealing single target damage? These bosses have barely any HP and look it up on youtube how quickly skilled dps kill such a boss while the average wannabe elite groups needs like 4 -5 times longer to kill the same boss while Providing less support to the tank,really? I think dcuo needs to balance dpsing better the gap between groups is so large no good tank wants to play with low dps.

The tanks u are looking for are busy playing with top end groups like someone said above there he only tanks for the league which makes sense pugs are delusional u can put the best tank there they will still blame the tank.

Harder dps checks? Good joke,we have seen that in TOTD E upscaled didnt go to well. We have to move away from dps checks and dps centric design. Only top end groups benefit from such a dps centric/dps check design due to the large gap interms of Damage output of groups..

The difficulty on the Tanks on Elite Raids need to be high,ideally 2 tanks for Elite raids. Paradox had high Tanking difficulty and we and the devs know how popular that raid was. All Raids that are considered difficult or that had high longevity had high Tanking difficulty its obvious that this goes hand in hand. i dont know a single elite raid thats considered difficult and good while having low tanking difficulty only good quality raids have high tanking difficulty like Darksides war factory,false idolse,hive raid,shattered gotham,monsters of metal and i think fellowship of arcane was goood too.


Boring/easy raids are those with low tanking difficulty.

No one wants to run 2 heals. No one wants to run 2 tanks. That discourages people from trying their hand at tanking.

The reason for the above attitude is that content is way too DPS focused.

Exactly this.

What role should tanks have? It's elite content, it should be a challenge.

Very true.

Form a better group? Inspect other players before you begin. This is on you/us as a player, we agreed to join. Can't expect pro players everytime. Pug groups are a gamble. If you see a player screwing up a mechanics, explain it to them. I've formed many groups where undergeared players knew their stuff. Undergeared doesn't always mean they'll underperform.

DCUO is too lazy? Mechanics are too complex? Talk about a paradox. This is on players and players only! Blaming devs of being lazy and complex is not fair. Troller in PCE lassoing the add wasn't hard. Dps most of the time won't pickup someone right next to them. Can't blame Devs for players' shortcomings.

Unexperience is a problem but that's when the group should explain to the tank. Not everyone comes out of the womb knowing mechanics. They need EXPERIENCE to become not "Unexperienced".

I’ve been tanking elite lately and I’m pretty much done with it already. Last night, 2 snipers out with Lois. 2 tanks, one smothered in adds. Everyone just complaining instead of focusing burn or helping to lunge. Left, don’t need it so I’ll just tank reg for the remainder of the dlc.

I play all roles in elite. My toons have maxed arts etc and over 630 SP. I'm only saying this to convey that I see the instances from multiple perspectives.

My experience is this; once in raids, it's usually a DPS that starts a wipe. Someone goes to rally them, when a rally isn't possible, and the dominos fall. The Tank usually dies last. However, in terms of preparation no one wants to teach, and it's very difficult to get into things as a first-time Tank, since you're relied upon to lead so often. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of shortage for anything LFG-based, the toxicity heaped upon someone who hasn't learned everything in the first week is ridiculous.

Once in the raids, as I said, it's usually a DPS that dies first, they're fragile. However, the dominos start to fall because of bad rallies. Either people not waiting a second for some damage effect to pass, or non-trolls doing pickups when they're literally in the way of the Troll. What I mean by that is that if they let the Troll do the pickup the Troll can drop agro or at least shield (sorry HL trolls) and get a pickup, where a DPS will get knocked off mid-way through turning the cogs, and then the person times out. That's the #1 most common error I see.

Obviously, there are desperate situations where everyone needs to do rallies, but I very often see people fail to properly evaluate the different rally situations that can arise.

I also will re-iterate (from other similar posts) that most Tank powers don't come up when people talk about "Best DPS" powers, which will always lead to fewer players using any power. (doesn't matter if it's true or not.) Look at how many healers are electric these days. It's not because Electric is better than Water for healing, it's because Electricity is a great -- and more importantly, accessible -- DPS power. I feel like if Ice and Atomic Might get a little buff to DPS we'd see many more tanks. If Melee was viable in high-end content, Rage would be on the come up, like it always is, whenever Melee is good.

Tanks can also be perceived as more SP intensive, and/or harder to spec properly.

Lastly, I think it's the hardest role for a new player to approach, even if they want to. Since Tanks are required to start fights and lead the way, and many groups don't want to spend time teaching a newer player. That player then gets stuck in a sort of educational limbo where in order to play their role they have to manage to learn instances, how and when to begin fights, where to go and position etc. while still learning the role. No other role has that sort of entry barrier, after all -- they get to follow the Tank

You wanna punish subpar dps? 2 words.

Enrage-Timer