Real question - what do people "enjoy" about tanking? What would make it "fun" other than just doing big damage? Try to keep the thread positive. Appreciate the input/thoughts.
At a high level, beating difficult encounters and finishing quests are fun to me. Broken mechanics that get in the way of accomplishing those 2 goals take away fun. At a lower level, playstyle goes a long way to dictate fun factor. I have all 4 archetypes and multiples of each that I've played over the years, some more than others. I've raided on all 4 archetypes as T1 DPS in a Wizard and BL, support as a Dirge, briefly healed as an Inquisitor and Fury and am now tanking on an SK. I raided on a Monk and Bruiser many years ago when the game was way different. The experiences across each class are different so I it's difficult to give a tank specific example of fun factor other than being able to do the job. To that end, I'm fixated on fixing broken mechanics across the board. Things tend to be frustrating when broken to some degree so removing the cloak of frustration may reveal a lot of fun without needing to add anything to the game.
I will answer globally, the game has lost finesse. it's more nag, dps, less delicate. so some classes that weren't dps at the start of eq2 lose their primary essence now. shame. so tanking imo, is still fun, u lead thee group etc, kind of cool to manage people. but a little nostalgic for open areas such as runnyeye, body pull, intercept to really save a player etc. There it is, go straight and loot.
I enjoyed being able to utilize my temps to stay alive, positioning, managing agro, being able to do some semblance of dps instead of being outparsed by a chanter with a mimic target. As far as fixing it: Get rid of autoattack 1 shots. Absolute BS mechanic, especially when youre a tank class without 4 DPs or the ability to avoid autos. Stop putting tanks in cages, portals, etc and completely removing us from the fight. Its not enjoyable or cute. Its just f***ing annoying. Stop with uncurable "no hostile" detrimentals on tanks. Again, its f***ing annoying. Fix mitigation to matter. For the love of God, fix plate tank avoidance. How the hell a bard dwing avoids more than I do with a tower shield and 400+% block chance is an enigma. Fix taunts to actually matter and allow them to be cast while stun/stifled. Idc how you do it, they need to do more than the absolute dumpster fire threat they do now. Fix the fighters 100% melee avoids. I reported it back in December, its be QA in progress since without a word about what the status is. This is akin to cleric reactives or shaman wards not working. Its a big flipping deal. Stop forcing tanks to be involved with every mechanic or script. Sometimes, i just want to relax and chill in a raid. I never, ever, get to just sit back and watch the world spin. Im constantly timing temps, snapping mobs back, getting ported/kicked, or in some combination of the above. Stop putting in mob abilities that negate my ability to snap something back. Theres nothing more frustrating than burning every snap ive got after a wipe, never getting over 17% threat, not having a force target, and watching a mob rampage through the group/raid. Fix force targets to actually be force targets. Lock other tanks out from using theirs on an affected mob. If that kills the raid because the wrong person has it, so be it. Dont do dumb things Get rid of chaotic leach for fighter heals/wards. Some classes rely on those abilities to stay alive and when you nerf them into the ground because theyre already weaker than DR, youre just proliferating the same meta thats been the norm for a decade. Fix itemization. Make mit/block gear tank only. Nobody else needs it. Add other stats to it. If youre going to force us to utilize block to improve our DR for those tanks without it, at least give us the other stats we need to do our job and hold agro. Stop screwing us for not playing berserkers. And fix DPs to at least make us immune to damage for a short period of time after one of your idiotic 12B autoattacks. I shouldnt be getting ACT callouts about DPs triggering while Im laying dead on the ground. Just a short list of why tanking blows and what could change.
I was ruminating, adding a 1 second force target on fighter single/encounter taunts might make things slightly more enjoyable.
Short, concise and accurate. Hell, I don't even play a tank, but this is spot on for things I've seen happen in groups and raids. The question is whether the skill or desire to actually effectuate the change is there for DPG.
Yup - my swashy can pull more trash in solos than my tank can without dying. Where does this make sense
Well said Priority. I have really good gear and all the buffs, maxed out just about everything and can't hold aggro as well as my healer merc. No fun.
Get rid of the need to cast Bulwark. It was an attempt to get more tanks into groups, but the problem was that there aren't enough people who WANT to tank. If things go badly in a group, people blame the tank. If the tank dies, the group usually dies. That's a lot of stress to carry, and one of the reasons I burned out on tanking. I don't think tanks need to be godly, but it would be good if they can be useful for more than just Bulwark.
In a group I can "usually" hold aggro on a name with BL and Ranger going to town. But in a raid, unless I have a pretty good hate transfer to me - it all kinds of fun trying to hold aggro (read that as in not fun).
It seems like some of the frustration with tanking could be alleviated with a very easy fix: make Fervor apply to taunts. There's plenty of other things that need to change, of course, but at least you could reasonably successfully hold aggro like you're supposed to.
Priority seems to be on the right point. For some people, it's actually bizarre how much onus is put on the tank beyond just timing defensives and switching when the nasty starts to stack too much. Precisely BECAUSE of the tank's duty to keep aggro off people, mechanics should really be more of a worry for the DPS.
Clint, sorry about this, but I see where the thread is going - would you enjoy playing your Fury as much in recent years, if it did no meaningful damage? You had been even quoted, something like "i dont heal, just dps, and hope the grp survives from my procs". Please dont make appearances that tanking can be fun without dps. Now to the real question - tanking is all about being in control. Tanks get frustrated if things get out of control. That means: can keep himself alive better than others; can pull and hold enemies, position them and decide how the fight happens; has enough dps and utility to get things done even if grp is mediocre; can carry out the script if needed. Seen lots of ppl doing tank job without playing a tank class - they were always in control of the situation and it usually annoyed the tank in grp, if there was one at all. Mages, scouts, healers, no exceptions. See what happens when you put two competitive tanks in one group. If there is control, the extra responsibility and difficulty is OK. But if a tank struggles on basics, then he's going to complain on literally everything, even more than Priority. But you know that feeling, dont you?
To take the bait a little, priest dps is pretty much in the garbage right now. I have significantly more potency than our tanks and I'm still barely keeping up with the lowest dps ones. Assuming for a moment that I am not horrible (which could obviously be the case), I'd say that tanks are clearly the strongest dps of the non-T1/chanter classes right now. Bringing this back to the positive side of things - if DPS is off the table (and there's legitimate reasons why it could be). Is it possible to make temping and agro management fun enough to keep a tank player engaged? I'd like to think so. I know I've enjoyed tanking a bit more on my monk in raid this expac. There's been more to do for multiple-tank teams and outside of a few broken temps, more tools needed to live.
in my opinion threat should be increased either by letting x% of fervor apply to it or allowing hate gain to work above 100
Read through this a couple times and I'm not sure I understand what youre saying. On the off chance I do understand, you got me. Im just a struggling tank that couldn't handle the game. I made that post up all the while not asking for a dps increase over what we have right now. Thanks for keeping me humble.
Again, I have a couple of tanks, but I don't play them much, so I'm not an authority. What I am good at is looking at situations, listening to what's happening and going from there. The issue isn't about tanks dpsing (and I know a few that can throw out the dps), the central issue is being able to get--and hold--aggro. That's the main job of the tank, so the real dpsers can do the beat down. Unfortunately, game mechanics aren't keeping up. Compare dpsers damage capability against how much aggro/threat the tank can create and there's a disparity. Secondly, as has been mentioned, dump Bulwark. Nice try, but it's a failed mechanic that hasn't worked well since it was introduced for a variety of reasons. And as Priority mentioned, stop having tanks be catapulted to cages, portaled somewhere out of the fight, etc. And in all fairness, it might be time to revisit fundamental "aggro management" techniques for group and raid participants. I remember the days of hearing "you pull it, you tank it." Let the tank get aggro, rather than raining your top damaging spells on the boss on the way in. This absolute focusing on who's on the top of the dps chart every fight is part of the problem. Raid fights require focus and coordination on the part of the team, not doing thermonuclear bombs right from the outset. I remember our tank saying once, "target through me," yet when he body pulled, he had nothing on target. That didn't stop about a 1/3 of the raid force hammering every mob that came in. I was laughing, but I don't think most of them understood why.
I could agree with this, instead of threat make it a quick force target, or a threat position as in 1-2 Threat Positions every use and not whatever junk threat it is now.
Detach the need for dps for a tank to do its job: DPS should be the last thing on a tank's mind as far as their ability to hold aggro is concerned. If we are to stick with the traditional tanking role within this game then clearly the over reliance of every tank class to do dps in order to keep on top of aggro needs to go or be reduced in terms of how numbers for threat are calculated. The base combat arts, threat generating abilities, taunts and passive hate gain should be more than enough for a tank to hold aggro. The amount of dps a tank class can do can be made into something that is secondary to the "tanking" role, i.e. it is good to kill things a bit quicker on a given tank class but it should never be a requirement for any tank class to hold aggro. This way we can revert back to somewhat a unique tank class experience whereby their defensive capability/ability to do generate AE aggro/buffs they bring to the group and raid are the discerning factor depending on the content they engage in. If a tank wants to go down the block/mit setup to counter the incoming damage then they should be allowed to w/o worrying about losing aggro due to letting go off ADC items. Similarly, if a tank class wants to do more dps, they can go as offensive as they want but the dps stats do not increase their hate generation to the level where no other tank can keep up with them in holding hate. Normal heroics are straight forward enough for any tank to be able to function fine w/o having an optimised setup. Raid encounters can be designed in such a way that with increasing difficulty of the encounters you are encouraged to have different tanks (this used to be a thing years ago but not anymore). Many different and valid opinions have been brought forward by players over the years to tackle this. One of the most underused mechanic in the game as far as tanking is concerned are the stances. It benefits some tank classes more than others and never fully utilised. A defensive stance for all tank classes normalises their hate generation and dissociates their dps from hate generation either completely or have a minimal impact (essentially damage sponge with hate generation through aggression stats, hate transfers, passive gains and threat abilities enough to hold aggro). Conversely, in offensive stance, all tank classes cannot generate aggro at all, thereby not running the risk of making certain tank classes who can tank in offensive stance all the way w/o worrying about the penalties. This way you can have "higher" dpsing tank classes in raids who can act as support dps classes in their offensive stances. To balance it with tanks who inherently do low dps in offensive stance (e.g. guardians), increase their group beneficial buffs for dps in offensive stance. So lets say you have a non-mt guardian in raid they can earn their keep by buffing other classes to do more dps. The point here is that there are a number of things DEVs can play around with and these ideas have been mentioned in some shape or form for years.
