Originally posted by Demrocks Tanks require responsibility.
They need to know the encounters
They need to be geared up
More often then not you need a thicker skin, if something goes wrong its the lets blame the incompetend tank.
I loved tanking, i am good at it.
I can race trough stuff if i am with a healer that also knows what he/she is doing.
Tanking can be a blast or a disaster.
Tanking for random people is no fun, maybe you get a group with nice or fun people, but in this day and age you get the, Yooo retard can you begin ? i need to go soon ?
Yoo bro speed it up i dont got all day.
Or the anoying people that pull on purpose to make the life of the tank as misarable as posible.
This made me stop tanking for randoms and be a guild exclusive tank for 90% of my time in any mmo.
Its the people i played with that changed, not the tank or me or the healer.
The people that abuse other people verbaly with aggrasive attacks, making fun off, always knowing it better even when wrong, i have this and you suck, etc etc etc.
MMO players changed and many tanks get fed up with the abuse and /stop tanking for the random attention seekers.
Want a tank ? go roll them and do it yourself.
My 2cents
+1
The biggest reason I stopped tanking in WoW - people always wanted to blame the tank if a pull got botched, and always wanted to blame the healer if they died, and 95% of the time it was their own idiocy - not watching threat, deciding to pull on their own, not paying attention to CC, not doing CC/utility, etc.
Random people also never wanted to group with a tank unless they were very experienced and over geared. So trying to get in first runs of stuff to learn it, and trying to farm gear was extraordinarily challenging.
I love tanking, when your in a group of friends, it's my favorite thing to do. In a group of random people who do nothing but try to screw you up so they can snicker and blame you, it's the worst.
It's not the fault of the mechanic, or the trinity, it's the community.
None of the games you have listed are MMOs. They are cooperative style games at best. And no you don't, there's plenty of good ideas in MMOs that have failed or ideas that were never implemented or haven't been implemented in a long time.
MMOs learned from other genres all the time. In the beginning, if MMO is not learning from solo, SP RPG, we won't have instances, and modern MMOs.
And yes, those are co-op games ... that is the point. Learn from games other than MMOs. At least it is not rehashing failing ideas.
None of the games you have listed are MMOs. They are cooperative style games at best. And no you don't, there's plenty of good ideas in MMOs that have failed or ideas that were never implemented or haven't been implemented in a long time.
MMOs learned from other genres all the time. In the beginning, if MMO is not learning from solo, SP RPG, we won't have instances, and modern MMOs.
And yes, those are co-op games ... that is the point. Learn from games other than MMOs. At least it is not rehashing failing ideas.
Failing ideas or failing games? There's been plenty of really great ideas in games that have failed.
Its there in every mmo i currently join. There is a huge shortage of tanks, despite the fact that tanks are often the most fun mellee class to play in these games, very challenging but allowing people to shine in front of their team, because everyone notices i a tank is good at his job or not.
so why dont more people play tanks?
- tanks are scoffed uppon everytime the group fails, wether it was his fault or not
-tanks are supposed ( should they?) to lead the group and have torough knowledge of every encounter.
-tanks require the best gear ( opinion of most dps)
and probably some more....
i have learned that stepping away from the trinity ( gw2) is not the answer, it dumbs down tactical and stratecically if you dont add anything to replace it.
so how can gamedevelopers make tanking more atractive to the masses?
This is always the problem from systems that require some roles to work, but offer a lot different roles(classes) that are completly optional.
Look, in most Trinity based Boss Encounter, you need 1 Tank, and 1 Healer, and after that you only need DPS. In most cases it is even worst, because in most Boss Encounter any form of CC or Debuff is neglected, because the boss is immune to it.
With other words, if you want to have such a very simple kind of combat system, you should reduce your actual classes to exactly this. 3 classes.. Tank, Healer and DPS.. and if you do so, you will have enough Tanks and Healers available.
But what do most MMORPGs? They feature 10+ classes. 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 1 Melee DPS, 1 Range DPS, 1 Hybrid Healer with whatever, 1 Hybrid Tank with whatever, and DPS with Utility like CC like Debuff melee and ranged. But for most encounters all Hybrids are actually waste of group space, because they are not that good in that job required for that encounter. With other words.. in such a scenario it would be actually the best to reduce classes to the actually needed, actually required roles.
Or think about different strategies, group constellation, to maximize the group effect and how you can beat an enemy.
Examples from older games.
Mage Pet class.. with the pet be able to tank. This worked well for smaller encounters, but with the boss becoming bigger the pet couldn't tank anymore.
Use of CC for Mobencounters. In Encounters, where you don't have that one single Uber Boss, but a lot of different Mobs, CC and Debuff can become important and you are not that dependent from taunting/tanking, and Tank Pets could do the work, or even Hybrid melees/tanks could do the work. With other words utilize CC/Debuffing a lot more to either disable mobs, or to weaken them that much, that they are not that dangerous anymore, and withit can be tanked from a lot of different classes, and not that one specialiest tank.. now those different mobs could be tanked from any Melee/Hybrid, or from any Pet Class.. with other words divide the tanking job to different classes.
Example to make it more clear.
Group consist of 5 players for simplity.
Encounter consist of 5 mobs.
Trinity scenario: (Main Tank, Main Healer, 3 whatever)
Main Tank pull and holds aggro from all mobs. Healer heals Main Tank. The 3 other classes do damage until all enemies are down.
CC/Debuff scenario: CC Class with let say Pet, Debuff Class with simple heal, Pet Class with ranged DPS, Hybrid Warrior with simple heal(paladin), hybrid melee with more dps (Rogue)
CC class cc all but one. Those can now be either tanked of any from the pets or from one melee. Debuffer debuffs that one mob, that he don't do that much damage and/or gets more damage. All focus dmg that single mob. Rinserepeat until all are down.
Melee only scenario: 5 Melees with different hybrid capabilities. Like more Dmg(Rogue), like a little heal (monk, paladin), with little debuff and so forth.
Now you have maybe just enough CC to cc one or two of the mobs, but you do have enough melees to tank three of them and support each other.. With utilities like debuff, minor healing, blocking for each other and the like.
And now you could come up with a dozend different tactics to beat that encounter. With other words.. encounter should step away from the single UBER boss, and be much more a group of Boss mobs, that can be handled differently with either more melee, with use of more cc, with use of more debuff, with use of pets or melees, with different mixes of whatever or 0815 trinity tank and spank.
And now you can also give the enemy groups different roles or abilities. So that the mobs may have some anti CC, or may have a healer, or may have some kind of CC itself.. and it could become actually interesting.
So not so many UBER Bosses with 100x HP of any normal Player, but much more a few more enemies with different or lot of abilities. So they become easier to tank, but you do have to watch out what strategy your enemy use, and have to counter that. And more or less the same is true for Healer.
If you don't have that one UBER boss who deals a lot of Dmg, just instead different one which deals some amount of dmg, you can share up Healing to.. and it becomes easier to do other tactics instead of tank and splank.
And different tanking options well known from different pvp games without taunting:
- Guarding. Blocking for a team member. Active Blocking.. doing no dmg, but with a very increased block chance(like 70%+)
- Interception. Take the damage for a team member.
- Increased Armor Factor for group or radius to help other to tank.
- increased Damage, if you get not attacked.
- CC. Stuns, Knock downs.
- with collision detection.. different kind of way blocking.
- Walls, barriers or the like with different effects when crossed
There are a lot more tactical options.. but you have to design your game around it, you have to design your Boss encounter around it. And with one single Boss mob you will always have the least options. And it will more often than not reduced to tank and splank.
You also completely mistake me that I would come against the trinity because it is not believable. It also makes combat trivial - easy. And we've been using the same system for tens of years. Don't you think it's time for something else for a change?
We do.
MOBA combat does not use the trinity. ARPG combat does not the trinity. Stealth game combat does not use the trinity.
May be MMOs can learn from these other genre.
Good night, moba does not have taunting, however lol !! Has a lot of tanking builds... As in frontline fighters that can take a lot of damage....
Stealth games are solo oriented, there is absolutely no group cohesion inbthose games. Action rpg without trinity ( and not only the solo kind) turns in to chaos...
i love group combat in mmos because their are tactics and strategies that make groups much much stronger then the sum of the individuals, so far no other gaming system has performed better in this then trinity based combat.
MOBAs do have taunting.
Even better so for support of my statement...
You are grasping at straws now. It is not the sort of taunting you think.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Battle of Leuctra and Thebes disagree. They crushed the Spartan phalanx head on. The actually abused what you believed is the counter. Spreading out the formation weakens it. Thebes used an unbalanced phalanx to achieve local superiority and crush the Spartan phalanx inflicting massive casualties while taking few despite having inferior equipment, inferior training, and inferior numbers.
I'm not extending the term tank to any frontline fighter. I specifically said defensive and how it protects the area behind it.
Is it believable? Yes, you can study history and see numerous taunts that have appeared to work. Regardless, it is a simplification of what goes on. Yes, I find that highly believable. What I don't like is implementation a lot of the time. Early WoW tanking I liked. I was a tank. I thought it was good. There was a limit to what you could do. Most players couldn't hold agro on a single mob, much less three which was a typical pull. And speaking of pulls, it's not very believable that you enter a room in a "dungeon" and start killing people less than 10 yards away from their buddies and they just sit there and look at you dumbfounded. That's much less believable than tanking. You appear to be confusing bad tanking and content design for the Trinity system.
Another line you've repeated over and over again about trivializing content. It doesn't. Easy content trivializes content. I played GW2. I thought it was one of the dumbest systems I'd ever seen. I agree, that we need some updating. Getting rid of the Trinity is not the answer. Finding more creative ways within it is a much better solution.
Hey I'm all for having formations and heavily armored guys in front. But what I consider tanking, is the sort of tanking you call "bad tanking". Speaking with your terminology, I have only seen "good tanking" in GW1. Everything else has been "bad tanking" with minor changes.
But since in GW1 you don't necessarily need tanks, even "good tanking", I would not simplify its combat system by calling it a trinity. it is simply a game with no taunts, bodyblocking and exceptional skill design.
If we had a game that had no taunts, collision detection applying to characters and projectiles (no shooting through allies either) with at least limited physics (knockbacks, things rolling downhill), maybe some terrain rules... I'd be on board with that. Only taunts, armor and healing for defense? -No thank you. I've played this game a hundred times and it hasn't gotten better yet.
You know why people are tired of MMOs? -Its because they've played them before they've even released. Nearly every single encounter, in nearly every single game goes along the same fucking formula! How the hell can you stand it? Bores me to tears... The announcement that Wildstar's 5-man dungeons relied on the tried-and-true holy trinity (tank-healer-DPS) made me sick. That game has little if anything new to offer.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
None of the games you have listed are MMOs. They are cooperative style games at best. And no you don't, there's plenty of good ideas in MMOs that have failed or ideas that were never implemented or haven't been implemented in a long time.
MMOs learned from other genres all the time. In the beginning, if MMO is not learning from solo, SP RPG, we won't have instances, and modern MMOs.
And yes, those are co-op games ... that is the point. Learn from games other than MMOs. At least it is not rehashing failing ideas.
Failing ideas or failing games? There's been plenty of really great ideas in games that have failed.
Why make the distinction?
Just learn from good ideas from successful game in other genre.
Its there in every mmo i currently join. There is a huge shortage of tanks
Not EQII.
All plate and some leather melee players are tanks.
So the problem there is an abundance of tanks, and if you want to be the MT, you'll usually have to create a guild to be one.
WoW has it's tank shortage because they sub-classed the tanking role to a specific role. You specifically have to chose to be a tank. EQII you're a tank by class itself.
I was raid MT for years in EQ1 and EQ2. Always had good heals and mostly grouped in guild and never liked doing PUGs. Bad PUGs are separate issue and should not be confused with the tanking issue. This issue should only be discussed under the ideal circumstances that all players involved know what they are doing.
Even in the ideal situation tanking is problematic and I will tell you why. Here is the crux of the issue and it relates to the way encounter design is done. The tanks main role is to hold agro, know the scripts, know the dungeon, understand the pathing, know where and how to pull the mob into position. The problem arises in that this is boring to the healers and dps so the devs additional things to make it interesting for them. They put in one shot death touches, multiple AoEs, red messages, fail conditions, adds for the AoE for the classes to burn down not to mention all the hoop jumping and bubble moving devs throw at raids these days.
Healers and DPS basically have 1 dimensional jobs either to one sided heal or dps. The tank has to deal with everything. If a boss has a one shot AoE that is not just the healers problem. That is the tanks problem too along with all the other scripting and hoop jumping. Tanking has just become a chore to see how much stuff you can multi-task before you fail at it.
The best solution is just to dump trinity and place responsibility equally among all players. GW2 is terrible but Vindictus actually does shared responsibility in raiding correctly. After seeing how fun raiding can be without the multi-task non-sense I will never, ever, EVER, play a trinity based MMO again.
Healers and DPS basically have 1 dimensional jobs either to one sided heal or dps. The tank has to deal with everything. If a boss has a one shot AoE that is not just the healers problem. That is the tanks problem too along with all the other scripting and hoop jumping. Tanking has just become a chore to see how much stuff you can multi-task before you fail at it.
I didn't find that an issue in EQII as an paladin (because EQII wouldn't allow paladins to be MTs until 2008 when -- finally -- Guardian's snap aggro was borked allowing any other tank able class to be more than an MA or OT). The amount of healing and warding the class had to do -- and battle rezzing Guardians that died -- is how I learned to like being a plate healer. So when I burned out of EQII went searching for another game with a paladin, was surprised, found that WoW had a dedicated paladin healer (unheard of).
Never went back to tanking again and now a dedicated paladin healer.
That happened because healing was more interesting to do and definitely not one dimensional, at least at the time. Now, healing is so generic in WoW it feels like tanking, which I felt was one dimensional spamming taunts and beating the boss or mobs to generate hate.
In my opinion.. I think devs just made encounters too tank responsible.. A lot of responsibility has been put on the tank.. In the old day, all the tank had to focus on was normally 1 mob, maybe an ADD if that occurred.. Now with this AOE concept coming about, tanks now have to focus on multiple mobs at the same time.. No one else has to do that.. I think the devs hold most of the blame why tanking is becoming an endangered species.. LOL There are numerous ways to bring back Mr Meat Shield in a fun matter, but I don't think today's inner circle of dev union will allow it..
BUT if you want an overnight band aid to fix the tank problem in most games.. increase group size.. So for WoW that means going from 5 to 6 man groups... Not only did you just made the ratio better, but now you have more room for CC too.. That too was another huge issue with WoW years ago when too many encounters benefited from CC, and there wasn't enough CC to go around..
I have been thinking a lot about tanking as of late. I really enjoy games that give players a role to fulfill over having each class have a bit of everything. I think in my ideal MMO, "tanks" would be better described as "protectors." So something like this:
You choose one of four roles: Protector, Healer, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS.
The role of a Protector and that of a Healer is to protect allies and prevent them from dying.
The role of a Melee DPS or a Ranged DPS is to attack enemies and cause them to die.
Then there would be several sub-roles. These would be specs. No matter what spec or sub-role you choose, you will still be built around fulfilling your role in combat. Let's take a quick look at the Protector.
No matter the spec, Protectors will get core abilities, such as guard. When you guard an ally in your group, you will take 50% of the damage they would normally take instead of them. WAR made tanks great for PvP in this respect, and I like it. Protectors wouldn't necessarily be more "chewy" than other classes, but would have the potential to be.
A Protector can put points into an offensive path. In the offense path, the Protector would get things like increased chance to crit, increased damage, increased chance to strikethrough (bypass dodge, block, parry, etc.). The Protector would also get synergizing abilities that aid him or her in filling the role. When you crit, you will reduce the damage enemies deal to anyone but you by x%. When you crit, you absorb x% more damage from the ally you are guarding, stacking up to y times.
Alternatively, a Protector could specialize in buffing. Protectors would have buffs that are defensive in nature (in other words, no damage buffs, but mitigation buffs such as armor, elemental damage resistance, anti-crit, health, dodge, parry, block, etc.). Buffs would include long-duration, no cooldown, semi-stacking group buffs as well as short-duration, long cooldown, powerful emergency buffs.
Or a Protector could specialize in debuffs. Protectors would have debuffs that are defensive in nature (Opposite of buffs that are offensive in nature. Debuff specced Protectors would debuff an enemy's strength, damage, attack speed, crit chance, strikethrough, etc). Debuffs would include long-duration, no cooldown, semi-stacking debuffs as well as short-duration, long cooldown, powerful "emergency" debuffs.
In other words, you choose your role, and that is your role for that character for life. However, the spec you choose defines how you fill that role. With this setup, agro management isn't required by a tank at all. In fact, it could be everyone's responsibility to manage agro, whilie it would be the Protector's job (along with the healer's) to ensure that their allies stay alive, and they can do so even when enemies are attacking healers or DPS classes.
Comments
+1
The biggest reason I stopped tanking in WoW - people always wanted to blame the tank if a pull got botched, and always wanted to blame the healer if they died, and 95% of the time it was their own idiocy - not watching threat, deciding to pull on their own, not paying attention to CC, not doing CC/utility, etc.
Random people also never wanted to group with a tank unless they were very experienced and over geared. So trying to get in first runs of stuff to learn it, and trying to farm gear was extraordinarily challenging.
I love tanking, when your in a group of friends, it's my favorite thing to do. In a group of random people who do nothing but try to screw you up so they can snicker and blame you, it's the worst.
It's not the fault of the mechanic, or the trinity, it's the community.
Failing ideas or failing games? There's been plenty of really great ideas in games that have failed.
This is always the problem from systems that require some roles to work, but offer a lot different roles(classes) that are completly optional.
Look, in most Trinity based Boss Encounter, you need 1 Tank, and 1 Healer, and after that you only need DPS. In most cases it is even worst, because in most Boss Encounter any form of CC or Debuff is neglected, because the boss is immune to it.
With other words, if you want to have such a very simple kind of combat system, you should reduce your actual classes to exactly this. 3 classes.. Tank, Healer and DPS.. and if you do so, you will have enough Tanks and Healers available.
But what do most MMORPGs? They feature 10+ classes. 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 1 Melee DPS, 1 Range DPS, 1 Hybrid Healer with whatever, 1 Hybrid Tank with whatever, and DPS with Utility like CC like Debuff melee and ranged. But for most encounters all Hybrids are actually waste of group space, because they are not that good in that job required for that encounter. With other words.. in such a scenario it would be actually the best to reduce classes to the actually needed, actually required roles.
Or think about different strategies, group constellation, to maximize the group effect and how you can beat an enemy.
Examples from older games.
Mage Pet class.. with the pet be able to tank. This worked well for smaller encounters, but with the boss becoming bigger the pet couldn't tank anymore.
Use of CC for Mobencounters. In Encounters, where you don't have that one single Uber Boss, but a lot of different Mobs, CC and Debuff can become important and you are not that dependent from taunting/tanking, and Tank Pets could do the work, or even Hybrid melees/tanks could do the work. With other words utilize CC/Debuffing a lot more to either disable mobs, or to weaken them that much, that they are not that dangerous anymore, and withit can be tanked from a lot of different classes, and not that one specialiest tank.. now those different mobs could be tanked from any Melee/Hybrid, or from any Pet Class.. with other words divide the tanking job to different classes.
Example to make it more clear.
Group consist of 5 players for simplity.
Encounter consist of 5 mobs.
Trinity scenario: (Main Tank, Main Healer, 3 whatever)
Main Tank pull and holds aggro from all mobs. Healer heals Main Tank. The 3 other classes do damage until all enemies are down.
CC/Debuff scenario: CC Class with let say Pet, Debuff Class with simple heal, Pet Class with ranged DPS, Hybrid Warrior with simple heal(paladin), hybrid melee with more dps (Rogue)
CC class cc all but one. Those can now be either tanked of any from the pets or from one melee. Debuffer debuffs that one mob, that he don't do that much damage and/or gets more damage. All focus dmg that single mob. Rinserepeat until all are down.
Melee only scenario: 5 Melees with different hybrid capabilities. Like more Dmg(Rogue), like a little heal (monk, paladin), with little debuff and so forth.
Now you have maybe just enough CC to cc one or two of the mobs, but you do have enough melees to tank three of them and support each other.. With utilities like debuff, minor healing, blocking for each other and the like.
And now you could come up with a dozend different tactics to beat that encounter. With other words.. encounter should step away from the single UBER boss, and be much more a group of Boss mobs, that can be handled differently with either more melee, with use of more cc, with use of more debuff, with use of pets or melees, with different mixes of whatever or 0815 trinity tank and spank.
And now you can also give the enemy groups different roles or abilities. So that the mobs may have some anti CC, or may have a healer, or may have some kind of CC itself.. and it could become actually interesting.
So not so many UBER Bosses with 100x HP of any normal Player, but much more a few more enemies with different or lot of abilities. So they become easier to tank, but you do have to watch out what strategy your enemy use, and have to counter that. And more or less the same is true for Healer.
If you don't have that one UBER boss who deals a lot of Dmg, just instead different one which deals some amount of dmg, you can share up Healing to.. and it becomes easier to do other tactics instead of tank and splank.
And different tanking options well known from different pvp games without taunting:
- Guarding. Blocking for a team member. Active Blocking.. doing no dmg, but with a very increased block chance(like 70%+)
- Interception. Take the damage for a team member.
- Increased Armor Factor for group or radius to help other to tank.
- increased Damage, if you get not attacked.
- CC. Stuns, Knock downs.
- with collision detection.. different kind of way blocking.
- Walls, barriers or the like with different effects when crossed
There are a lot more tactical options.. but you have to design your game around it, you have to design your Boss encounter around it. And with one single Boss mob you will always have the least options. And it will more often than not reduced to tank and splank.
You are grasping at straws now. It is not the sort of taunting you think.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Hey I'm all for having formations and heavily armored guys in front. But what I consider tanking, is the sort of tanking you call "bad tanking". Speaking with your terminology, I have only seen "good tanking" in GW1. Everything else has been "bad tanking" with minor changes.
But since in GW1 you don't necessarily need tanks, even "good tanking", I would not simplify its combat system by calling it a trinity. it is simply a game with no taunts, bodyblocking and exceptional skill design.
If we had a game that had no taunts, collision detection applying to characters and projectiles (no shooting through allies either) with at least limited physics (knockbacks, things rolling downhill), maybe some terrain rules... I'd be on board with that. Only taunts, armor and healing for defense? -No thank you. I've played this game a hundred times and it hasn't gotten better yet.
You know why people are tired of MMOs? -Its because they've played them before they've even released. Nearly every single encounter, in nearly every single game goes along the same fucking formula! How the hell can you stand it? Bores me to tears... The announcement that Wildstar's 5-man dungeons relied on the tried-and-true holy trinity (tank-healer-DPS) made me sick. That game has little if anything new to offer.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Why make the distinction?
Just learn from good ideas from successful game in other genre.
Not EQII.
All plate and some leather melee players are tanks.
So the problem there is an abundance of tanks, and if you want to be the MT, you'll usually have to create a guild to be one.
WoW has it's tank shortage because they sub-classed the tanking role to a specific role. You specifically have to chose to be a tank. EQII you're a tank by class itself.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
I was raid MT for years in EQ1 and EQ2. Always had good heals and mostly grouped in guild and never liked doing PUGs. Bad PUGs are separate issue and should not be confused with the tanking issue. This issue should only be discussed under the ideal circumstances that all players involved know what they are doing.
Even in the ideal situation tanking is problematic and I will tell you why. Here is the crux of the issue and it relates to the way encounter design is done. The tanks main role is to hold agro, know the scripts, know the dungeon, understand the pathing, know where and how to pull the mob into position. The problem arises in that this is boring to the healers and dps so the devs additional things to make it interesting for them. They put in one shot death touches, multiple AoEs, red messages, fail conditions, adds for the AoE for the classes to burn down not to mention all the hoop jumping and bubble moving devs throw at raids these days.
Healers and DPS basically have 1 dimensional jobs either to one sided heal or dps. The tank has to deal with everything. If a boss has a one shot AoE that is not just the healers problem. That is the tanks problem too along with all the other scripting and hoop jumping. Tanking has just become a chore to see how much stuff you can multi-task before you fail at it.
The best solution is just to dump trinity and place responsibility equally among all players. GW2 is terrible but Vindictus actually does shared responsibility in raiding correctly. After seeing how fun raiding can be without the multi-task non-sense I will never, ever, EVER, play a trinity based MMO again.
I didn't find that an issue in EQII as an paladin (because EQII wouldn't allow paladins to be MTs until 2008 when -- finally -- Guardian's snap aggro was borked allowing any other tank able class to be more than an MA or OT). The amount of healing and warding the class had to do -- and battle rezzing Guardians that died -- is how I learned to like being a plate healer. So when I burned out of EQII went searching for another game with a paladin, was surprised, found that WoW had a dedicated paladin healer (unheard of).
Never went back to tanking again and now a dedicated paladin healer.
That happened because healing was more interesting to do and definitely not one dimensional, at least at the time. Now, healing is so generic in WoW it feels like tanking, which I felt was one dimensional spamming taunts and beating the boss or mobs to generate hate.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
In my opinion.. I think devs just made encounters too tank responsible.. A lot of responsibility has been put on the tank.. In the old day, all the tank had to focus on was normally 1 mob, maybe an ADD if that occurred.. Now with this AOE concept coming about, tanks now have to focus on multiple mobs at the same time.. No one else has to do that.. I think the devs hold most of the blame why tanking is becoming an endangered species.. LOL There are numerous ways to bring back Mr Meat Shield in a fun matter, but I don't think today's inner circle of dev union will allow it..
BUT if you want an overnight band aid to fix the tank problem in most games.. increase group size.. So for WoW that means going from 5 to 6 man groups... Not only did you just made the ratio better, but now you have more room for CC too.. That too was another huge issue with WoW years ago when too many encounters benefited from CC, and there wasn't enough CC to go around..
I have been thinking a lot about tanking as of late. I really enjoy games that give players a role to fulfill over having each class have a bit of everything. I think in my ideal MMO, "tanks" would be better described as "protectors." So something like this:
You choose one of four roles: Protector, Healer, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS.
The role of a Protector and that of a Healer is to protect allies and prevent them from dying.
The role of a Melee DPS or a Ranged DPS is to attack enemies and cause them to die.
Then there would be several sub-roles. These would be specs. No matter what spec or sub-role you choose, you will still be built around fulfilling your role in combat. Let's take a quick look at the Protector.
No matter the spec, Protectors will get core abilities, such as guard. When you guard an ally in your group, you will take 50% of the damage they would normally take instead of them. WAR made tanks great for PvP in this respect, and I like it. Protectors wouldn't necessarily be more "chewy" than other classes, but would have the potential to be.
A Protector can put points into an offensive path. In the offense path, the Protector would get things like increased chance to crit, increased damage, increased chance to strikethrough (bypass dodge, block, parry, etc.). The Protector would also get synergizing abilities that aid him or her in filling the role. When you crit, you will reduce the damage enemies deal to anyone but you by x%. When you crit, you absorb x% more damage from the ally you are guarding, stacking up to y times.
Alternatively, a Protector could specialize in buffing. Protectors would have buffs that are defensive in nature (in other words, no damage buffs, but mitigation buffs such as armor, elemental damage resistance, anti-crit, health, dodge, parry, block, etc.). Buffs would include long-duration, no cooldown, semi-stacking group buffs as well as short-duration, long cooldown, powerful emergency buffs.
Or a Protector could specialize in debuffs. Protectors would have debuffs that are defensive in nature (Opposite of buffs that are offensive in nature. Debuff specced Protectors would debuff an enemy's strength, damage, attack speed, crit chance, strikethrough, etc). Debuffs would include long-duration, no cooldown, semi-stacking debuffs as well as short-duration, long cooldown, powerful "emergency" debuffs.
In other words, you choose your role, and that is your role for that character for life. However, the spec you choose defines how you fill that role. With this setup, agro management isn't required by a tank at all. In fact, it could be everyone's responsibility to manage agro, whilie it would be the Protector's job (along with the healer's) to ensure that their allies stay alive, and they can do so even when enemies are attacking healers or DPS classes.
What do you think?