Spell/Magic Tanking - Would this be intriguing to you?

Eronakis

I have always thought that it would be interesting if there was a dedicated Magic Caster that strictly "tanked" other Magic Caster NPC's. To be clear, this "Spell Tank would be another cloth caster with no melee capabilities. I am not talking about a traditional Battle Mage with melee capabilities. If this were a class, I could see them providing support damage and potential CC as other additional roles when they're not able to "spell tank". 

A question I am sure some of you are wondering is simply, what is the point when we have melee mitigation tanks who just pull aggro anyways? Solid Question. 

I suppose that for a "Spell Tank" to have at least a 50% "spell tanking" ratio of gameplay, I think the approach to the modern trinity model would have to change. Group dynamics would change and how you approach NPC's for combat. Instead of the traditional, tank aggros a trash pack or 1 NPC at a time with focus fire, I feel like a group of players vs a group of NPC's in 1v1 fights would warrant a "spell tanking" class. IE: Melee players naturally fight Melee Npc's and Magic Casters players naturally fight other Magic Caster NPC's. After their respective targets die, then of course focus fire would then ensure. 

Here are some abilities I came up with for the vision. These abilities are strictly used for "spell tanking".


*NOTE* that this is meant for PVE gameplay ONLY.

Temporal Shield - Absorbs up to 50% spell damage over 10 seconds, and healing the Sage's health and mana by 10%  - 45 second cooldown

Prismatic Bubble - Immediately Dispells all damage over time effects on you and mitigates 50% spell damage for the next 5 seconds - 30 second cooldown

Choking Dust - Interrupts a spell casted in that spell school for 1 second. Then for the next 2 casts they have a 50% chance to fizzle. - 30 second cooldown

Spell Lock - Completely silences your target from casting any spell school for 8 seconds - 45 second cooldown

Blur - Your body blurs between dimensions and mitigates 100% spell damage for 15 seconds - 90 second cooldown

Phase Step - You teleport 5 yards behind you, getting out or spell range. 2 Charges before a - 30 second cooldown

Mirror Skin - Reflect back 50% of the total spell damage back onto the target. - 45 second cooldown


***Please Vote and tell me why you would or would not find this as an intriguing role?

Vrika

Eronakis said:

I feel like a group of players vs a group of NPC's in 1v1 fights would warrant a "spell tanking" class. IE: Melee players naturally fight Melee Npc's and Magic Casters players naturally fight other Magic Caster NPC's. After their respective targets die, then of course focus fire would then ensure. 

Bad idea. Being in a group is about doing things together. If you try to prevent the group from acting together and force them into separate 1v1 fights it's boring for the players.

deniter

That's how shaman class used to work in classic WoW. It was pretty easy to tank one caster while others were in melee. Earth Shock used to make extra threat in addition to damage and silence effect and while it was on CD you had Grounding Totem and War Stomp if you were tauren.

Eronakis

Vrika said:

Eronakis said:

I feel like a group of players vs a group of NPC's in 1v1 fights would warrant a "spell tanking" class. IE: Melee players naturally fight Melee Npc's and Magic Casters players naturally fight other Magic Caster NPC's. After their respective targets die, then of course focus fire would then ensure. 

Bad idea. Being in a group is about doing things together. If you try to prevent the group from acting together and force them into separate 1v1 fights it's boring for the players.

That's not true at all. 

Take this in for consideration. 

The game of American Football is a team sport but with individual responsibilities. Your Quarter Back distributes the ball (Attacks) while your Offensive line blocks and protect (support) your Quarter Back. There are other different types of attackers that complement your QB such as your Running Back and Wide Receivers. Each player on the team performs individually but when executed correctly it's a team effort.

The idea is you start out 1v1 but after your target dies then you would be focusing on same targets. Just another level of depth instead of the mindless trinity gameplay we have now. In order for this style of gameplay to work, class design would have to be sound and combat mechanics would have to provide a fun experience.

Albatroes

Can't you already magic tank in Rift and ESO? Before them, you could tank as a RDM in FFXI, so the concept isn't exactly new. Could tank with occulism in Archeage too (well I'm not 100% on this now with skill changes in 4.5).

Vrika

Eronakis said:

Vrika said:

Eronakis said:

I feel like a group of players vs a group of NPC's in 1v1 fights would warrant a "spell tanking" class. IE: Melee players naturally fight Melee Npc's and Magic Casters players naturally fight other Magic Caster NPC's. After their respective targets die, then of course focus fire would then ensure. 

Bad idea. Being in a group is about doing things together. If you try to prevent the group from acting together and force them into separate 1v1 fights it's boring for the players.

That's not true at all. 

Take this in for consideration. 

The game of American Football is a team sport but with individual responsibilities. Your Quarter Back distributes the ball (Attacks) while your Offensive line blocks and protect (support) your Quarter Back. There are other different types of attackers that complement your QB such as your Running Back and Wide Receivers. Each player on the team performs individually but when executed correctly it's a team effort.

The idea is you start out 1v1 but after your target dies then you would be focusing on same targets. Just another level of depth instead of the mindless trinity gameplay we have now. In order for this style of gameplay to work, class design would have to be sound and combat mechanics would have to provide a fun experience.

Would your system be any different from teleporting everyone into separate 1v1 instances, until one instance battle is solved at which point the winner gets to go to make 1v1 instance into 1v2?

Eronakis

Vrika said:

Would your system be any different from teleporting everyone into separate 1v1 instances, until one instance battle is solved at which point the winner gets to go to make 1v1 instance into 1v2?

It wouldn't be phase or instance based at all. There would be engage mechanics for the players. Once you're engaged on a target you're locked on that target. Not sure why you would think that?

Vrika

Eronakis said:

Vrika said:

Would your system be any different from teleporting everyone into separate 1v1 instances, until one instance battle is solved at which point the winner gets to go to make 1v1 instance into 1v2?

It wouldn't be phase or instance based at all. There would be engage mechanics for the players. Once you're engaged on a target you're locked on that target. Not sure why you would think that?

Once you've engaged your 1v1 target, others might as well be background graphics until one of the battles is resolved?

MadFrenchie

Vrika said:

Eronakis said:

Vrika said:

Eronakis said:

I feel like a group of players vs a group of NPC's in 1v1 fights would warrant a "spell tanking" class. IE: Melee players naturally fight Melee Npc's and Magic Casters players naturally fight other Magic Caster NPC's. After their respective targets die, then of course focus fire would then ensure. 

Bad idea. Being in a group is about doing things together. If you try to prevent the group from acting together and force them into separate 1v1 fights it's boring for the players.

That's not true at all. 

Take this in for consideration. 

The game of American Football is a team sport but with individual responsibilities. Your Quarter Back distributes the ball (Attacks) while your Offensive line blocks and protect (support) your Quarter Back. There are other different types of attackers that complement your QB such as your Running Back and Wide Receivers. Each player on the team performs individually but when executed correctly it's a team effort.

The idea is you start out 1v1 but after your target dies then you would be focusing on same targets. Just another level of depth instead of the mindless trinity gameplay we have now. In order for this style of gameplay to work, class design would have to be sound and combat mechanics would have to provide a fun experience.

Would your system be any different from teleporting everyone into separate 1v1 instances, until one instance battle is solved at which point the winner gets to go to make 1v1 instance into 1v2?

Honestly, it would be enjoyable if only to break up the tank and spank monotony.

Enemies could possess certain traits or skills that are countered by specific classes, so that choosing who to engage became important for everyone, instead of DPS reading forums while waiting for the tank to go pull, rinse, repeat.

Boss mobs would obviously still require such teamwork.  Though even there, there's potential for phases that require players to each contribute individually to a collective goal for that phase in the same manner.  Like I said, it could enrich content.  Not sure it is a good idea for all group content, though.  More like an accent that makes a dungeon more interesting.

Eronakis

Vrika said:

Eronakis said:

Vrika said:

Would your system be any different from teleporting everyone into separate 1v1 instances, until one instance battle is solved at which point the winner gets to go to make 1v1 instance into 1v2?

It wouldn't be phase or instance based at all. There would be engage mechanics for the players. Once you're engaged on a target you're locked on that target. Not sure why you would think that?

Once you've engaged your 1v1 target, others might as well be background graphics until one of the battles is resolved?

There would have to Engage and Disengage Mechanics available. The idea is once you aggro a group of NPC you aggro the entire group. There would be communication in the group and a bit of strategy associated with different Encounter Composition of NPCs. Of course, there would be other variables to consider that a player would learn as they level. Those variables would include, NPC Race (determines how they might be have in an encounter), NPC Class (determines their toolkit) and NPC AI Rank (determines the difficulty of NPC). 

ENGAGE & DISENGAGE

To help negate the method of focus firing 1 NPC or collecting them into 1 group for AOE is the Engage and Disengage mechanic. Also note, that most classes don't have access to AOE abilities.

Attacker Classes use Engage 1 NPC, Melee or Caster. Once you target that NPC, you will have a 10 second window before Engage starts. Meaning that you have to unclick or untarget said NPC. This allows the player some time to determine what sort of Encounter their up against.

After the 10 second duration is up, then you're fully Engaged on that target and that NPC will attack you. Players must be careful who they choose to fight in the Encounter. Once the player is Engaged, they can choose to Disengage and have another player Engage on your behalf before the NPC get's in range to deal damage. If the NPC is in range to deal damage then the player who Disengages will receive an Disengage penalty. (Increases damage dealt and increases critical strikes against you which can result into an early death).

If a Player does not click a target to determine Engagement, then the NPC will determine Engagement when in range of damage. If you do not attack that Engaged NPC then you will receive a Disengage penalty. Hopefully this will keep players focuses on their NPC they are specifically fighting.

Note: There will be some cases where Caster Classes or even Melee classes will end up focus firing 1 NPC. The idea is to limit focus fire by all Attacker classes at the beginning of the Encounter.

EXAMPLE

For simplistic sake I am only considering Player and NPC group composition as well as the NPC AI Rank. 

*Player Group = 3 melee, 2 caster (1 being the "spell tank") and 1 healer

*NPC Group = 3 melee, 2 NPC casters and 1 healer

So naturally, the 3 melee PC's will engage with each of the melee NPCs. And the 2 casters will naturally engage with the other 2 caster NPCs. 

*Note* That classes will have access to some defensive abilities for the off times they may not get healed. 

For the simplistic sake of this example, let's only focus on the 2 NPC casters. You have a "Spell Tank" and another one that deals DPS and perhaps has 1 CC ability. For whatever reason, let's say the group decides to CC the NPC healer first. So the "Spell Tank" player will then focus on the highest ranked NPC caster because it will produce a ton of damage and could quickly kill another player. The idea is that each class would have specific tool sets to engage with what they feel like they would best fight against. There will be a lot of NPC compositions in said gameplay. 

And sure for argument sake, the caster player could CC the other NPC caster that the "Spell Tank" would engage with and then focus down the healer quickly. That's the beauty of said system. There is no wrong way to victory. The "Spell Tank" would be effective in dealing decent damage or providing other means of support when they're not "spell tanking". 

It's a different way of thinking. 

There are a lot of other components that need to talk about this said gameplay system. It has a ton of layers that I haven't mentioned. But for the intention for the thread's sake, I wanted to redirect it back to the "spell tank".

alkarionlog

Eronakis said:

I have always thought that it would be interesting if there was a dedicated Magic Caster that strictly "tanked" other Magic Caster NPC's. To be clear, this "Spell Tank would be another cloth caster with no melee capabilities. I am not talking about a traditional Battle Mage with melee capabilities. If this were a class, I could see them providing support damage and potential CC as other additional roles when they're not able to "spell tank". 

A question I am sure some of you are wondering is simply, what is the point when we have melee mitigation tanks who just pull aggro anyways? Solid Question. 

I suppose that for a "Spell Tank" to have at least a 50% "spell tanking" ratio of gameplay, I think the approach to the modern trinity model would have to change. Group dynamics would change and how you approach NPC's for combat. Instead of the traditional, tank aggros a trash pack or 1 NPC at a time with focus fire, I feel like a group of players vs a group of NPC's in 1v1 fights would warrant a "spell tanking" class. IE: Melee players naturally fight Melee Npc's and Magic Casters players naturally fight other Magic Caster NPC's. After their respective targets die, then of course focus fire would then ensure. 

Here are some abilities I came up with for the vision. These abilities are strictly used for "spell tanking".


*NOTE* that this is meant for PVE gameplay ONLY.

Temporal Shield - Absorbs up to 50% spell damage over 10 seconds, and healing the Sage's health and mana by 10%  - 45 second cooldown

Prismatic Bubble - Immediately Dispells all damage over time effects on you and mitigates 50% spell damage for the next 5 seconds - 30 second cooldown

Choking Dust - Interrupts a spell casted in that spell school for 1 second. Then for the next 2 casts they have a 50% chance to fizzle. - 30 second cooldown

Spell Lock - Completely silences your target from casting any spell school for 8 seconds - 45 second cooldown

Blur - Your body blurs between dimensions and mitigates 100% spell damage for 15 seconds - 90 second cooldown

Phase Step - You teleport 5 yards behind you, getting out or spell range. 2 Charges before a - 30 second cooldown

Mirror Skin - Reflect back 50% of the total spell damage back onto the target. - 45 second cooldown


***Please Vote and tell me why you would or would not find this as an intriguing role?

you are aware most games the clothes class can tank spells since motstly clothes have a higher defense, healers just need to keep then healed, so it the end don't matter who is tanking, also note most games now are more flexible when making parties, as long you have a healer don't matter the rest

Eldurian

Mage takes tend to be a class that comes out of games with high levels of allowed build customization.

In particular, healer tanks and CC tanks are common in PvP sandboxes due to the way people tend to focus on healers first, and the fact CC abilities are not heavily damage dependent so a dedicated CCer works best as a frontline PvP tank.

Vrika

Eronakis said:

For simplistic sake I am only considering Player and NPC group composition as well as the NPC AI Rank. 

*Player Group = 3 melee, 2 caster (1 being the "spell tank") and 1 healer

*NPC Group = 3 melee, 2 NPC casters and 1 healer

So naturally, the 3 melee PC's will engage with each of the melee NPCs. And the 2 casters will naturally engage with the other 2 caster NPCs. 

*Note* That classes will have access to some defensive abilities for the off times they may not get healed. 

For the simplistic sake of this example, let's only focus on the 2 NPC casters. You have a "Spell Tank" and another one that deals DPS and perhaps has 1 CC ability. For whatever reason, let's say the group decides to CC the NPC healer first. So the "Spell Tank" player will then focus on the highest ranked NPC caster because it will produce a ton of damage and could quickly kill another player. The idea is that each class would have specific tool sets to engage with what they feel like they would best fight against. There will be a lot of NPC compositions in said gameplay. 

And sure for argument sake, the caster player could CC the other NPC caster that the "Spell Tank" would engage with and then focus down the healer quickly. That's the beauty of said system. There is no wrong way to victory. The "Spell Tank" would be effective in dealing decent damage or providing other means of support when they're not "spell tanking". 

It's a different way of thinking. 

There are a lot of other components that need to talk about this said gameplay system. It has a ton of layers that I haven't mentioned. But for the intention for the thread's sake, I wanted to redirect it back to the "spell tank".

1. Wouldn't your healer be forced to engage the NPC healer, because otherwise he'd get 1v1 against some other opponent and be unable to heal others?

2. Wouldn't you be unable to CC or kill the enemy healer, because as long as your own healer can't do it, no-one else can touch him or they'd get disengage penalty?

3. Why would the spell tank focus on highest ranked NPC caster? Is your logic that the highest ranked caster is so good that he will kill anyone in 1v1, except that a tank character can mitigate enough damage that dps will quickly kill their own weaker opponents and will then help the tank

Po_gg

Actually, AoC has DT. Sure, not a perfect match for OP's "To be clear, this "Spell Tank would be another cloth caster with no melee capabilities." because the terms no melee, and tank (at least MT), that's pretty much a contradiction. If you grab aggro, and the mob is melee, you will fight in melee range...   unless you kite, or CC, but then you are just as much as a tank, as any other ranged characters.

DT is what OP seeks, just with heavy armour and melee. Mitigate and self-heal with magic, aggro with magic, while standing in the front of the line.

AoC also has the HoX, an another melee mage, but definitely not a tank - a clear example of how "bright" the idea of putting a clothie in melee range is, even with some magical protection. (Hint: not very bright.)

kjempff

For the specific ideas you list I have no comment, but on a more general note...

Could be interesting to have a offtank type of role who is specialized in dealing with adds that use magic&elemental damage. With abilities to draw caster enemy aggro away from the more physical tanker, and even better if that resulted in co-op mechanics/synergies especially between the two tank types. Even even better if that also resulted in more role overlaps and versatility in the rather static trinity roles.
(not a removal of roles like some "mmo" do, but more kinds of roles and more versatility in overlap and situational dynamic adapted roles)

Eldurian

Po_gg said:

Actually, AoC has DT. Sure, not a perfect match for OP's "To be clear, this "Spell Tank would be another cloth caster with no melee capabilities." because the terms no melee, and tank (at least MT), that's pretty much a contradiction. If you grab aggro, and the mob is melee, you will fight in melee range...   unless you kite, or CC, but then you are just as much as a tank, as any other ranged characters.

DT is what OP seeks, just with heavy armour and melee. Mitigate and self-heal with magic, aggro with magic, while standing in the front of the line.

AoC also has the HoX, an another melee mage, but definitely not a tank - a clear example of how "bright" the idea of putting a clothie in melee range is, even with some magical protection. (Hint: not very bright.)

I interpreted it less as having no melee-range capabilities and more as no abilities where you are swinging a literal melee weapon. So for instance the Skullknight from ArcheAge which uses a magical ability to pull all it's enemies into melee range and then drop magic AoE after magic AoE with high amounts of Crowd Control on nearby enemies would qualify as a mage tank.

Wizardry

FFXi already covered every aspect of combat done ever,so this would be nothing new and just limiting overall abilities/capabilities.

A ninja tank with shadows doesn't get hit,however if a fast dps type or an AOE type foe then you need a more traditional tank.Then you could have a Blue Mage for example,capable of many different abilities,from healing to tanking,buffs,debuffs it  goes on and on.

If you have a class that strictly deflects or absorbs magic,what happens to the rest of the game mobs,you never fight them?This is why a sub class rules over all of these altaholic designs because "versatility" a huge improvement on game play and character customization so you can fight literally ANYTHING.

FFXI didn't just lazily toss crap together either,they had mobs that required you to be versatile and not just some stagnant magic deflector.

On the subject of adds or maybe some boss spawns adds,you have MANY roles already for that ..AOE dmg AOE sleep,AOE stuns etc etc.Nobody is going to reinvent combat because it has already been done,what we need to see is devs actually making the best form of combat and not with all these goofy ideas like limitations on how many choices you can have yada yada.
Bottom line ,there is room to tweak and improve but i already seen the best form of rpg combat and played it for years.

sunandshadow

I like the idea of a tank who tanks via magic, but not the idea of a tank who can only tank magic.

StoneRoses

Voting is pretty pointless.

Clearly someone has not played a whole lot of MMORPGs and didn't bother doing their homework.

As some have identified already it's been done and even pointing out those games that have them. Even Champions Online have non-melee tanks like the Glacier Archetype.

Eronakis

StoneRoses said:

Voting is pretty pointless.

Clearly someone has not played a whole lot of MMORPGs and didn't bother doing their homework.

As some have identified already it's been done and even pointing out those games that have them. Even Champions Online have non-melee tanks like the Glacier Archetype.

Hmm, been playing MMORPG's since 2002, as you can see in my avatar picture, it's the Wizard Spires in Greater Faydark lol.

I never said it wasn't being done. The question was, do you find this role intriguing? Read full OP before you comment : )

Lokero

As others have mentioned, there have been specific encounters in MMOs for ages now that actually had casters tanking or off-tanking during fights.  So, obviously, it works and people will do it.

That said, I'm not sure how much those casters enjoyed being pushed into those roles...

Since you are familiar with Everquest:

I remember some fights in EQ being tanked by casters.  One in particular that comes to mind was Venril Sathir in Kunark.  Enchanters(and some other casters with damage absorption perhaps) ended up tanking him often with their Rune spells, in order to absorb his lifetaps.

As to the "individual battles" thing, I remember guild in WoW having our frost mage off-tank(with their ice shield) the ranged dude(think he cast some kind of magic bolt attacks) in Gruul's Lair, while someone else dealt with the other secondary boss, etc.  Iirc, there were 3 bosses at once in that raid battle, maybe more, but at least 3.  Granted, that was a raid encounter, but the basis is the same.

So, these tactics are probably familiar to most players already.  The major difference would be if playing "spell stopper" was a full-time thing.  That would have the potential to get old fast if there weren't a fair amount of reactive/strategic abilities to it.

I think it should be randomized, and that the so-called "spell tank" shouldn't just be a tank.  So, if the enemy group doesn't have any spellcasters, the character isn't useless.  In other words, I think they need to bring something else to the table other than blocking spells, or they'll be pretty useless in other fights.

TL:DR-----
I like the premise of a caster counter-spelling and shutting down an enemy caster, in general, but I don't think anyone would enjoy it much as a one-dimensional playstyle.

Scot

An interesting idea, what would go against it is the design philosophy of MMOs has changed. You get far fewer role types and this is not a standard one. Lots of abilities we once thought we standard like crowd control/locking more rarely even make it into MMOs. Zerg is all and I think we can all see how this role is not very Zerg like.

But in the right sout of MMO this would be a good class, you just have to balance the fact that it is rather dependant on having certain other roles (spell casters) to fight. There are ways round that, but they are not easy.

Warlyx

Wizardry said:

FFXi already covered every aspect of combat done ever,so this would be nothing new and just limiting overall abilities/capabilities.

A ninja tank with shadows doesn't get hit,however if a fast dps type or an AOE type foe then you need a more traditional tank.Then you could have a Blue Mage for example,capable of many different abilities,from healing to tanking,buffs,debuffs it  goes on and on.

If you have a class that strictly deflects or absorbs magic,what happens to the rest of the game mobs,you never fight them?This is why a sub class rules over all of these altaholic designs because "versatility" a huge improvement on game play and character customization so you can fight literally ANYTHING.

FFXI didn't just lazily toss crap together either,they had mobs that required you to be versatile and not just some stagnant magic deflector.

On the subject of adds or maybe some boss spawns adds,you have MANY roles already for that ..AOE dmg AOE sleep,AOE stuns etc etc.Nobody is going to reinvent combat because it has already been done,what we need to see is devs actually making the best form of combat and not with all these goofy ideas like limitations on how many choices you can have yada yada.
Bottom line ,there is room to tweak and improve but i already seen the best form of rpg combat and played it for years.

u talking FFXI , and MAGIC TANK and dont mention Rune fencer the epitome of Magic tanking... RF can tank magic mobs like its nothing , wards and bar-spells , + magic eva gear its a joke.

Akulas

Love AOE CC tanking. Frost Mage, Psi Mage, Temporal Mage etc. Should bring back mage tanking to the genre.

anemo

Usually when the devs start with a "magic damage tank", they have later updates that bring them closer to a normal "damage tank".

"Mission Impossible" style specialists just do not survive, and eventually get "buffed" into a more typical class. 

Scot

anemo said:

Usually when the devs start with a "magic damage tank", they have later updates that bring them closer to a normal "damage tank".

"Mission Impossible" style specialists just do not survive, and eventually get "buffed" into a more typical class. 

This is exactly my point, mainstream MMOs now do not like specialists, but I am sure they would have a place in the right MMO.