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Tank
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
Not many want to be a tank...... This only applies to true mmorpg's that are not overly simple like everything we have today, as of the last 5 years nothing matters.
4 reasons:
1) Usually boring abilities.
2) Responsibilities, your expected to take charge and have tough skin to deal with the ass hats in a group.
3) Your expected to pre-know the content.
4) Too weak to solo level like other classes.
This could also apply to healers.
A lot really comes down to pressure, most don't like pressure. Most don't have TOTAL confidence.
Solution to most:
- Dynamic !!........ Make all tank classes fighter or ranger classes as they solo. "Auto re-spec" when in a group.
- Dynamic !!........ Make all healers mages as they solo, unable to heal self. "Auto-re-spec" when in a group.
Simply gray out and turn off tank and heal abilities when soloing..... Or....Dual spec like World of Warcraft.
This would "greatly improve diversity needed in groups".
Players with no intention of being a tank/healer would periodically play the roll
4 reasons:
1) Usually boring abilities.
2) Responsibilities, your expected to take charge and have tough skin to deal with the ass hats in a group.
3) Your expected to pre-know the content.
4) Too weak to solo level like other classes.
This could also apply to healers.
A lot really comes down to pressure, most don't like pressure. Most don't have TOTAL confidence.
Solution to most:
- Dynamic !!........ Make all tank classes fighter or ranger classes as they solo. "Auto re-spec" when in a group.
- Dynamic !!........ Make all healers mages as they solo, unable to heal self. "Auto-re-spec" when in a group.
Simply gray out and turn off tank and heal abilities when soloing..... Or....Dual spec like World of Warcraft.
This would "greatly improve diversity needed in groups".
Players with no intention of being a tank/healer would periodically play the roll
Comments
They're are times I say to self..... I wish I could be a fighter right now.
Honestly i miss games where you can be troll tank with super low DPS but totally defense , while people can't kill you , your hit and CC can make them sicken .
Your solution of auto-respecs / free respecs won't help anyway, tanks need completely different gear setups, not to mention different skills, than DPS so just providing them with auto-respecs would probably make things worse, forcing people to tank in inappropriate gear and with not enough experience of their tanking skills.
Personally, I don't enjoy tanking much. I had an alt tank in LotRO that I raided with, my main in WAR was a tank, and my main in SW:TOR was dual dps/tank. The issues I have with tanking:
1) It can be boring to level up. Certainly when I leveled my guardian in LotRO it didn't have a DPS spec at that point so I had to level as a tank. It just meant everything took a lot longer compared to other classes (though minstrels had it worse back then).
2) It's usually too easy in group content. You have two jobs - get aggro and mitigate damage. Mitigating damage is usually about gear and spec, whilst getting aggro is usually pretty trivial. LotRO was probably the hardest for aggro, but it was still easy. SWTOR was the easiest, my jedi shadow had a skill that boosted me to the top of the aggro list + 10%, and it was on a really short cooldown. Just made it ultra trivial to tank.
3) I always felt tanks had the least control over the outcome of a fight. Assuming you have no problem holding aggro (I never did), you basically just have to sit back and hope for the best. If anyone else in the group is struggling there is nothing you can do to help out. The most you can do is pop some cooldowns to free up the healer for a few seconds. At least as DPS, you can off-tank if the tank is struggling, or switch targets to help burn down an add, or pop cooldowns to take the pressure off the healer. As support you can do a lot more. As healer you have the power of life and death and can make critical decisions that dramatically affect the outcome. As tank.....
The main reason I ended up playing tanks was because I was fed up of playing with incompetent tanks. Other people often made out that playing a tank was difficult and took real skill so I gave them the benefit of the doubt for ages, but after I started playing them I was shocked at how easy it was.
I actually disagree with OP. I don't like the fact that all classes can solo and do everything. I like that you have to make a choice, it means that at a high level, people that choose the non-solo classes are more rare and should be more powerful.
If I were to make an MMO, I'd have a number of class groups.
1) Solo-capable
2) very inefficient, but able to solo
3) not able to solo at all
In group 2 or 3, the classes there would be super specialized and thus be amazing at their job. So a group 3 tank, is the tankiest tank ever. Group 3 dps is the epitome of glass cannon and must be protected at all costs. Group 3 healer is the best healer ever.
Group 3 class > Group 2 > Group 1.
Anyone in group 1 can off-tank but will be middling at best, in group 2, you can tank with a skillful tank, and in group 3 if you make it to level high, you can tank with your eyes closed.
I take role-playing very seriously. You are meant to have a role that you play, you don't switch back and forth. It's like playing D&D and sometimes you are one char at lvl 10 and then in a flash you can be another lvl 10 character if it suits you better. Nope.
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
1) Solo-capable = Spellslinger (instant spells, able to dish out dps in a constant stream, no AoE)
2) very inefficient, but able to solo = Mage (in between the two has both dps/aoe) some minor cast times
3) not able to solo at all = Wizard (each spell is on a 10-120 cast up time but dps is insane)
With the wizard, it can't solo because it gets interrupted with things hitting it, but given 120 second cast time, unmolested, should be able to do sick dps.
DPS goes like this, using random numbers to show:
1) Spellslinger DPS 100 - instant spells, can't be interrupted - no AoE
2) Mage DPS 140 - a mix of instant spells and spells that take 5-10 seconds to cast with AoE
3) Wizard DPS 220 - each spell takes 10-120 seconds to cast, interrupted leads to failure
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
I disagree with my self..... What ?
But my reasons mmoprg's are lacking tanks are still valid (boring, hard to solo, intimidating)
Maybe my solutions are not very good.... That's the reason for the post, any suggestions ?
Dual-spec seems the best, I could think of.
For example, if sword and shield offered great defence/cc but minimal damage, while two-handers sacrificed defensive abilities/power for greater damage output, you could change your role just by swapping weapons.