It feels like ***

The Then

Why thank for for starting such a pertinent thread @Personofsecrets . The Thieves Guild has brought many changes to the game and, of course because there is a new trial, we can views the tank role as something worthy of looking into.

I think the biggest change is that the developers have tried hard very hard for an entire dungeon (trial) to need multiple tanks. I think the developers hearts are in the right place here as I rarely feel needed as a tank for much at all in this game and trials are a big deal. That being said, there is still some improvements or thoughts that would be nice to express so that the developers have something to chew on as they continuously work on new content which will undoubtedly involve tanking.

I think that the big lessons are to be learned from from Sanctum and White Gold Tower. Both of those dungeons put tanks in an interesting position because there comes a time when tanks are very useful.

A.

There seemed to be an attempt at causing groups to need multiple tanks in Sanctum Ophidia. That attempt was okay, but there were some frustrating parts that ultimately made me enjoy the dungeon more once the community discovered that only one tank was really needed.

It was frustrating to have to switch from being a tank to being a DPS or to have to try and do both things on the same fight. The Serpents image was a fierce boss and it wasn't really possible to have a decent build that would help you contribute to fighting Possessed Mantikora if you were responsible for tanking the Serpent's Image hard hits. This felt bad.

For some amount of time here was a similar dynamic against the actual Serpent. A tank would hold the primary boss, but another tank would try to contribute toward efficiently killing the Lamia by using their chain pull or taunt ability to drag said Lamia to the correct place. Sometimes the Lamia tank would also grab summoned mantikoras and that is when it became especially tough to contribute meaningfully against the serpent, but also do the other jobs of add control.

It is safe to say that feeling this frustration was not a good thing. It was unsettling to have such dilemmas and because of how champion points and to a lesser extent attributes work it was far too tough to be optimal for both aspects of the previous fights mentioned. I have yet to mention that "off-tank" would be responsible to be a DPS player for the other parts of the dungeon. Like I already said, champion point or attribute specifications made this task a pain in the butt and I felt so bad for being a severely gimped DPS that I eventually stopped wanting to be off-tank.

B.

The transition to 1.6 was an interesting time due to the stamina regeneration nerf. Here we had @Wrobel implying that tanking would be more fun and @ZOS_RichLambert saying that the long term health of the game was at stake were changes to tanking not to occur.

I expected that the dungeons would be made very good for tanking. Well, I didn't really expect something to be made good for tanking, but if the developers were at least feigning to care about the role, then one would expect that content coming along with the stamina regeneration nerf would also be made with the good of tanks in mind. What we got were some okay fights, but also two very concerning boss battles which have yet to be commented on by a developer, let alone commented on in a meaningful way. Those boss fights are the Adjudicator and Planar Inhibitor.

The Adjudicator is just a very boring fight for a couple of reasons. One, the boss doesn't do any damage to the tank and two, the one damage attack that the Adjudicator does perform is aggro-free and the tank can't do much about it. These reasons come together to make a very boring fight that doesn't really call for the help of a tank.

The Planar Inhibitor outright punishes tanks for not switching their role and in that way it is very similar to my earlier qualm with Sanctum Ophidia. Tanks, us, we want to be useful during all parts of the dungeon, but when we are forced into changing up our role in order to help the group out more, then we can't do so lest we feel crappy for a champion point specification, attribute allocations, and morphs chosen.

These fights really epitomize some of the issues that are on going with tanking. Many of us just don't feel needed and when the developers nerf us for our own good, but continue to make more the same design choices that make tanking unfun, then tanks are alienated and severely demoralized.

The Now

Now that I have gone over these points, let's think about the new DLC and how they apply to the new trial. I don't just go over these stories again and again to tell history and in this case specifically I think we are doomed to see history repeat itself from a tanking perspective.

My first time fighting against the first boss, the Forgotten, involved changing aggro with myself and another tank. It wasn't that fun feeling and a bit gauche. The group learned from this experience and now that tank is just supposed to chain and talons the summoned panthers. We will progress even further to the point where I will eventually suggest that I alone am responsible for the Forgotten and his adds. Such dynamics will be more challenging for me, but with the exception of the other tank, better for the group.

What that other tank is to do though is a good question. Certainly they can DPS, but they can't be a full fledged DPS because for the second boss fight there services will be needed to some extent. Here we arrive at the same dilemma that tanks have faced from Sanctum and PVP. How do we be good at tanking some times, but good at DPS during other times without the giant tremendous hassle of switching our Champion Points, attributes, and morphs.

My first time fighting against Veshai and S'kinrai was sort of interesting. Again there is the changing aggro mechanic which will definitely get old, but this boss fight brings problems more in line with the issues from White Gold Tower. That issue is that the bosses really don't do much to the tanks. I can theory craft for hours on end, but all I need to do is hold the boss on these fights. Perhaps I get to chain an enemy here or make a dodge roll there, but I feel as though I am not contributing a huge amount.

We have to remember that these dungeons aren't even technically out yet and that these tanking issues are already starting to take root. An additional problem is that I don't even know how the developers could or why they would take these issues very seriously. I don't see what they could do to offer a panacea, but at least this feedback is now in place for us all to think about.

What can we do to avoid the issues that I bring up.

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

@Personofsecrets I appreciate that you're trying to revive this topic. It is getting wearying that we have to keep explaining these issues though, when the very game design screams that there is a problem. The Block nerf and Health Multiplier nerf were two of the worst changes to Tanking to come across our computer screens. As someone who use to play a Tank whose build also relied on doing stamina damage, I saw my build die. Its just not feasible to waste stamina on attacks (when I can make them) -and- blocks (which cut off my stamina regeneration completely). This was fine on magicka based tanks (health/magicka leaning characters) and I have alts like that. Even then however, it sucked a lot of the joy out of the build and ironically the health/magicka tank is the one people were complaining about most a la block spam.

Thank you for the support @dodgehopper_ESO , would you be kind enough to post a few sentences about the health multiplier nerf? I haven't really seen that discussed and am curious to know more about it's implications or how the game would be now without it.

Ahh, I remember that change now. I was actually hoping that, at the time, more people would discuss that as a nerf to tanks with respect to the other roles, but I think many of us were too busy discussing the stamina regeneration nerf.

You articulated the issue with the health change quite well. We have both come to the conclusion that not much will be done to restore former glory, but I think we can get some positive changes if we keep trying (sans those loudmouths that you mentioned).

@Personofsecrets
This thread is depreciated. Go post in the official tanking thread lol.

@Personofsecrets There is an official version of this one now: forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/248921/official-tanking-feedback-thread#latest

Thank you, this thread we are currently in is more directed toward the PTS, but I will certainly be writing in that other thread as well.

Personofsecrets wrote: »

I wonder if this thread helped push the official one by @ZOS_Finn ,

By the way, @ZOS_Finn , if you don't think that this PTS thread is needed anymore, then I will stop posting thieved guild related tanking ideas here and move them over to your thread.

Its quite possible - although maybe this is just a topic they've realized they needed to tackle for a while, as it relates to a lot of problems I've been stating about classes as well. For instance the loss of block regeneration really hurt my Templar/Sorcerer Tank builds a lot, which in turn highlights issues with the way shields work, passives work, regeneration works. It highlights oddities between builds DPS vs. Tank as well. I'm not really sure what is going to be happening with Nightblades, but it sounds like they are taking a bit of a hit which certainly hurts the NB Tank with the way the 'first strike' change is going for them. I think this change will do to Nightblades what they did to my Imperial's Red Diamond/Caltrops combo. Really it is sounding more and more like ZoS only wants one class to be a Tank: DK. They also want Mage Spec Sorcerers to tank too, but do a megaton of dps at the same time.

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Ahh, I remember that change now. I was actually hoping that, at the time, more people would discuss that as a nerf to tanks with respect to the other roles, but I think many of us were too busy discussing the stamina regeneration nerf.

The changes were made at different times. Health went from 1.5x magicka/stamina to 1.1x magicka/stamina back in March 2015, when the Champion System was released. With the huge jump in numbers for all three attributes, I think the health nerf was missed by a lot of people. Nobody had their resources change by exactly x10. There were so many moving parts in 1.6, with so many changes to skills and sets and whatnot that nobody really knew what to expect. People just accepted their big new resource numbers (whoa, I have 23460 health, that sounds like so much!) and I don't think many realized the health multiplier was nerfed.

The stamina regen nerf was 1.7, in August 2015.

Thank you for shedding more light on that change. There was something that I was wishing players would discuss more about rather than the stamina regeneration nerf, but it must not have been those resource changes that you date as being earlier than 1.7.

In my opinion, the class-based skills for resource return while tanking are favorable towards DKs (magicka/stamina), NBs(magicka/stam), and somewhat to magicka Sorcs.

Magicka Templar healing tanks are excellent for dungeons that go quickly with 3 DPS.

The reliance on corpses for stamina return is detrimental to Templar tanks (particularly stamina) without another templar to throw shards/spears.

Obviously this tactic can be used in any content but it makes you aware of group composition before completing harder content.

Dark Deal to return stamina is actually decent resource management for magicka Sorcs since it no longer scales with the size of your resources and they can rely on their shield to take a hard hit during the 1 sec channel.

Stam sorc tanks have declined in viability since 1.6 released but I don't need to explain my reasoning here unless someone wants.

Cinbri wrote: »

EgoRush wrote: »

Cinbri wrote: »

Templar don't have a single ability for flat restore of stamina, so templars tanks is a joke. @ZOS_Finn You watched hodor stream of trial and everyone was agree that templar can't tank, can you tell this to combat team.

I'm not sure I agree with that. We don't have anyone in the guild that bothers trying to tank on their Templar. This doesn't mean we think Templar cannot tank. I'm confident I could tank it perfectly fine on my Templar should it be needed. Want me to try? I'll work on a spec and give it a go.

Don't even bother. When devs nerfed block to not restore stamina they forgot that templar don't have a single skill for flat restore of stamina and this made him worst tanking class. By tanking I mean real tanking, not Templar tank and another templar who kind anough to drop you Shards.
Magicka Templar tanking oriented won't be able to hold block as long as DK, who can even increase resource return by using sets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S15Wh-hgv3w

Nor as long as NB who didn't even invest everything into tanking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfSK7vJio08

Remembrance can't be used without corpses, Shards can't be picked by own caster = zero flat stamina-sustain abilities. And this problem becoming a huge problem in pvp.

Shame, too. Templar tanks were great pre-1.7.

The problem is not the block stam nerf per se. The problem is that block needed to be nerfed. It did, and it STILL DOES. bear me out. Block provides extreme mitigation, as well as avoidance of CC, and reflection of abilities in some cases. That is too good. The fact that perma-block is not just a viable strategy, but the best one by far means it is wrong.

In the mean time, the mitigation which *could* be provided by heavy armor is not needed. Why? Block.

Very quickly for experienced players, and for alts with CPs, zero points in health are needed, Why? Block.

Animation cancelling "improvements" just got pulled, in part because block is so so so important it has to interrupt everything every time. If block is a good tool but not the most important choice every time, that opens up prioritization possibilities.

They also did the nerf of it to the wrong facet. Which I think is obvious and well-documented. But lets cover the facets what I'm going to suggest may help. With block such a high priority, and it running off stamina, but shutting the regen, you end up with a counter-intuitive situation where majicka races are your best blockers, specifically when they are combined with any magicka element which allows regen of stam. This is what just hit nightblades. Block is so good, there just aren't other viable choices in combat. That's boring. It also is partly behind of the devaluing of health.

It is too integral to the combat to change completely. It should still remain viable as an anti-CC, and for the reflect of effects. There are many interesting interactions there. But it's mitigation needs to be severely reduced. You don't get stunned from that heavy attack, but it still stings. Then the ability to keep blocking over and over doesn't make you unkillable, you just die slower. Heavy armor now has value, as that can provide the missing percentage of mitigation that block looses. Choosing that does lower dps for survivability. A usual and interesting trade-off. Since medium and light have less mit, that means they should prioritize other avoidance measures than block situationally more often. CC/kite for light, more dodge for medium, which also makes sense. The trade-off of stat points in health vs the relevant dps stat remains a choice longer with CP bloat incoming. Many low CP characters already invest in health some, this just extends the curve.

The mitigation point needs to be where a medium armor character is still going down under permablock if faced with reasonably overwhelming dps. They have then the choice to keep blocking or go to the wall and take some with you. Interesting. In heavy you may last a bit. Then again, your ability to take out the opponent is poorer. In PvE this revalues health as a stat, esp. for tanks. It also makes it more attractive in PvP. More players splitting points lowers overall dps group bursts potency. Also an adjustment that may be good for groups. Individuals still have trade-offs.

This also revalues healing more, as barring the use of heavy to replace lost block mitigation, you need to replace that health somehow.

tl;dr: The block nerf was half-correct.Nerfing the stamina regen was not the right parameter. The mitigation provided by successful blocks is too much. It continues to skew balance and constrain other design choices.

Dyride wrote: »

In my opinion, the class-based skills for resource return while tanking are favorable towards DKs (magicka/stamina), NBs(magicka/stam), and somewhat to magicka Sorcs.

Magicka Templar healing tanks are excellent for dungeons that go quickly with 3 DPS.

The reliance on corpses for stamina return is detrimental to Templar tanks (particularly stamina) without another templar to throw shards/spears.

Obviously this tactic can be used in any content but it makes you aware of group composition before completing harder content.

Dark Deal to return stamina is actually decent resource management for magicka Sorcs since it no longer scales with the size of your resources and they can rely on their shield to take a hard hit during the 1 sec channel.

Stam sorc tanks have declined in viability since 1.6 released but I don't need to explain my reasoning here unless someone wants.

Developers such as @Wrobel claimed that it was a good thing for each role to have a way of gaining stamina resources while blocking. What the developers didn't realize, and I'm not sure why the didn't realize this, is that they were essentially forcing players to use those stamina resource skills or methods.

You can hold aggro while in mist?