I didn't at all read Vouivre as saying that tanks should be allowed to skip expansions and that he/she wants "free hand outs" (whatever that would mean in the context of a video game). I saw him/her as suggesting that tanks are in the unique situation that, while they can't bypass any content, most other classes can do so by popping a merc tank which is immediately scaled to the strength of the new expansion; therefore, the fact that these classes will be subpar in DPS or healing does not prevent them from playing right away. I'd agree that if we rely upon players to slow their pace to allow us to AA and gear up, when they could just bring out a pet or a merc and forge on ahead, then we are inevitably setting the stage for disaster. The pace of progression for tanks is off-skew. I think that's clear enough and fair commentary. For my part, I don't personally have problems, but the key thing is that my group has patience. They want ME as tank, even if a pet or merc at certain points is more ready, even if it means joining me in interminable aug camps instead of doing the fun stuff. Not everyone has that luxury.
Sophia, you are very correct in that groups have to be patient to get their tank up to snuff. A great many tanks don't have this luxury though, so gotta do the best they can w/ the merc, etceteras. I think it is great that you are able to do that. I don't get the huge problem with getting up to T1 RoF though, all the stuff is droppable/sellable, and often is for sale for 10k or less, besides maybe BP/legs. I've seen plenty of 2k hp items for just 1k or 2k. Is no reason at a price of 10k or less a dedicated tank can't get a new piece of gear every week, if not every day. Is tons of empty wimp trash zones w/ diamonds and such dropping quite frequently, where you could easily kill up several K an hour as even the most undergeared/no AAed tank ever, hell a merc could for you in fact. So any reading this thread, please don't tell me a tank can't get geared to at least T1 RoF level in a hurry.
Pricing varies by server. I know that most if not all visible pieces sell on my server for a minimum of 20k going up to 150k. Regardless, yes you can buy power in the bazaar.
Well said Kurayami about gearing in T1... Hell, you can even buy good augs in the baz.. So far in RoF, think I made 3 million plat completely low balling the baz prices... Was pretty wonderful.
Tanks have always had to have better gear and more aa. Its still 10x easier to get those now than it was 5-6 years ago. And there really is not anything you can give to groupers without giving to raiders that doesn't simply invalidate raid gear in the first place (which is unfair and won't happen, like 60 ac type 7 off slot augs or something). Honestly, the problem is more people wanting too much too fast. If you have 10 days played and are in 1000 hp gear, yeah, grinding to 100 and tanking in t2 RoF isn't really a reasonable thing. There are plenty of spots where you CAN tank and should work on stuff. And exploiting easy gear missions is always important too (something like that sarith mission that was soloable without killing anything, thats several pieces of gear easy for anyone). You don't need the 2000 hp group/raid gear available to tank t1 RoF, it just means you are going to have to pick and choose with named you camp, focus on the ones you can kill first, gear up on those, then move up.
Moving beyond SoD and into UF era ac on shields I think would accomplish this. Though I admit it may invalidate SoD era shields but there has to be SOME statue of limitations on that old of raid gear. No other class has been held back in such a major slot as tanks. Imagine if mages didn't move beyond SoD era EM ears. Group tanks are being intentionally held back in such a critical slot. Maybe T3 will resolve this but I don't have a lot of faith.
