Frustration of heavy tanking (Long post) .

SVKFrankenstein

If you dont want to read this monstrosity , just scroll down for main points . And sorry for my english .



SO i started to play ESO as tank . I wanted to be a guy in heavy armor with sword and shield , taking biggest hits for group . Tanking in light armor with stick is really joke for me and i think that even if there is few players who are doing this , most of people who wanted to tank in this game , wanted so as me .
There is few topics about people cannot find party for dungeons or group quests . Well i tell you why you cant find tanks at least . Its simple - they most likely left game in disgust , because they are useless . Nobody want to feel useless and even slowing to group .

So Yesterday i has this great idea to go some 1-10 vet rank dungeons .
After almost 2 months of PvP because my old PvE group left ESO i crafted brand new set , put on abilities and hit that search button , get party eventually fast and ported to Banished cells . And this is where it started ...

1. First thing what happened is that party was bugged . We had 2 crowns markers . One above our leader was freaking big and second was howering 10 meters away above random life bar in air . We didnt see another party member and he did not see us . So we decided to go out and reinvite group . After which i ben disconected by error , loged in , find out that i am still in group with no one just me and cannot disband or leave and needed another relog . After that , thanks God , everything was ok .

Conclusion :
I cannot belive that after this many months Zenimax was still not able to fix grouping in this game . Its super frustrating in state it already is . You get annoyed even before actuall dungeon starts .


2. We get to the first boss , kill her and then i realized one thing . Boss and trash before was heavly nerfed . I found this later with every single boss and trash mobs in Banished cells and Fungal grotto . Dont know what happened while i was in PvP but its not only their HP or base damage . They have even abilities nerfed . Most of Bosses right now are joke .

Conclusion :
While this may be good change for new players , it is very bad decision for Tanks . If tanks was not needed before , right now they are anchor to whole group . You dont feel like you are helping group . You feel like if you had stick and light armor and spam AOE , dungeon could be much faster - and unfortunatelly its truth


3. We make our way to second boss - Daedroth which need to be kitted around room . Like all bosses here i done this one many times . So i pulled him and started to kite him . Realize my surprise when he randomly started to attack another party member , like 3 seconds after taunt . And before you ask if it was his cone flame attack , no it was not . So i taunted him again - nothing . And again - nothing . After like 4th taunt he finally started to chase me - well for maybe 5 seconds , then he started randomly chase another party members and again ignore my taunts . At the end we killed him but i feel even less as tank with whole fight trying to taunt boss which ignored me .
Problem is this happened trough BC and FG on 70% of bosses . Breaking taunts every 3 seconds and / or ignoring them completely for no apparent reason .

Conclusion :
As tank you are suppose to hold boss back from other party members and take biggest hits . Right now with design of bosses and taunt obviously bugged its impossible and your contribution to fight is 0 . Again i dont know what happened here but my only conclusion is that many bosses gradually get broken and boss design in this game is really bad for tanks .


4. After each fight we done i realized that even if i am vet rank 12 , with full sets , purple food and potions i am doing almost no damage and every boss fight is taunt spam fest for me .

Conclusion :
Its impossible to do at least damage as Sword and Board tank in heavy armor because whole fight you trying to taunt boss and when he is not actually ignoring you , block his attack which result to almost 0 offensive . Besides that everyone know that Heavy is right now super useless .
So conclusion ? While you cannot tank properly because of point above you cannot do even average damage .

In my opinion , Bash nerf was one of worst decisions for tank Zenimax done . Instead of removing Bash glyphs and removing bash chance for crits or just nerfing it in PvP , they decided to ruin this abillity to ground . It was really only at least averge source for tank damage . While non glyphed in heavy armor i could do at least 350 dps with it . Was that really so Overpowered ?


At the end of this dungeons run instead of feeling good i felt ... well not angry , not pissed or annoyed , but sad . Sad and thats even worse . Sad that even if i love this game , there is really not much to do for me other than to slow down groups in Dungeons . And this is really frustrating

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So here is shorter version of problems with tanking and PvE dungeons :

Tanking (Heavy ) :

- No need for tanks small damage when dungeons are all about nuke
- Almost no contribution to actuall tanking because of boss designs and broken bosses with mechanics that dont need or flat ignore taunts , which is main point to actually have tank in group .
- Still only need for 1 tank in Trials which discourage many people to do tanking .

Dungeons (Overall )

- Grouping is still not fixed after 5 months
- Rewards from dungeons are really bad
- No point of repeating dungeons after first run / getting max level with undauted .

I still hope that Zenimax is going to fix all this and make heavy armor tanking with sword and shield viable , but after so long time and PvP broken right now - which is obviously much higher on their priority list - one can hope and wait only so long

Natjur

I have tanked banished cells a few times lately, (using sword and board, but 7 light armor)
Yes all vet dungs got 'adjusted' but vet Crypt still needs a good tank. Most vet dugns is about high DPS and moving lots.
The second boss Daedroth, the player who kept getting aggro, were they range or melee? Daedroth is untauntable but will go after the closest player. If the others are range, then no issues. As you have to keep moving due to fire, its hard to make sure your close enough for him to go after you but still far enough to move out of the fire

They are reviewing all dugn and adding a new daily dugn quest (for undaunted line) soon. Then vet dugns might be worth doing for anything other then the few achievements.

I still don't see tanking in heavy armor as required, I still find tanking in light armor (but over the armor cap) better. Sword and Board is still needed for the passives and the reflect.

Imp666

I have to totally agree with the OP. I used to tank dungeons in 7/7 light because prior to1.3.3 heavy was just useless with the softcaps being so low. Switched back to 7/7 and full stamina build. Boss tanking that way is easier now due to the improved resource regeneration, but the fact remains that aside from the debuff provided by the taunt, our contribution to most of the fights is insignificant and the enjoyment provided by the current state of tanking is minimal. One of the main reasons for the whole situation is the contradicting design of tanking skills and classes and the dungeon encounter design. Large trash packs with no aoe taunts. No aggro enhancing skills forcing tanks to taunt spamming since there is no way to dps threat anything. Lots of skills but only five available slots limiting skill selection and versatility of tanks.

Sometimes it feels like you are trying to race Daytona in a Hummer:-P

Head.hunter

So tanking in heavy armor is still so/so? I find the game enjoyable even if standard tanks are not the most op, although I haven't been playing for almost 2 months so my opinion on that is not the best.

SBR_QuorTek

Pretty much fix armor classes into 3 tiers with max caps attached to it, if wearing like 5 pieces of light armor... you would be having ligth armor soft cap + hard cap... same with any other type of armor for starters.

Also the small stuff, personally not had to many issues with taunts myself, they seem to work for me, but it annoy the crapload out of me whenever I switch toolbar it seem to reset....

8 toolbar slots per toolbar would be a nice addon if so, and would most likely benefit everyone better as well.

Magdalina

Try BC hardmode, your tanking will be REALLY needed there, trust me:P They do need more tanking checks like that though.

Far as nerfing dungeons goes, dunno. I ran BC and Spindle once at vet 2-4, then took a lengthy break and didn't run any til vet 8 or so. Have been running these a lot lately. A few things seem to be either bugged or tweaked, but mostly seems all the same to me, except that now I can deal with stuff soooooooo much better^.^

Overall, yeah, tanks need more love. So does heavy armor and melee in general. There still are quite a few occasions where a tank is...if not irreplaceable, then certainly making things much easier. Personally, I prefer.to have a tank with me, means squishy me feel safer:P He just needs a backup range weapon for some unmelee-able fights and it's all good. Some tanks I know also do very decent damage either through class skills or by switching to another weapon when tanking isn't supernecessary, but that's not aust or anything. But I can understand where you're coming from, a lot of my tanky friends told me basically same thing.

Still though...I know these few kickass tanks still around, and I do wish there was more chance for them to show what they're capable of, that'd be do much funer!

Troponin

I hear people saying all the time in zone chat "You don't even need tanks in this game."

Here is the issue; You might not THINK they're needed, but they sure as hell make dungeon runs go smoother. There is nothing worse than being a dps clothie or healer and having the big hitter in every pull run straight to you and start jacking you up. So then you spend the entire time running circles like an idiot trying to get away from him. Some spots are really tough to kite bosses too. The platform they are standing on is just too small.

One other thing I like to do is be the interrupter to let the group dps non-stop. I feel like if I dont take care of that as the tank, then it will never get done.

Artis

tanking is boring and feels like you don't contribute as a tank. Well, at least not as much as others. The fights should be impossible to win without a tank Or somewhere close to that.

SVKFrankenstein

Wow , thanks for responses everyone . I see you have similiar experiences with tanking .

@Natjur
About Daedroth . Idk , never have had problems with him and i was doing many runs before with my guild party . Never once he lost agro to me like while before i started this topic . I have feeling something is seriously wrong with that boss . I never registered he is untauntable before becuase like i said i have him taunted allright like 2-3 months before .
About chnges in future - well i just hope they helps . Still waiting and hoping for 1.4 .

I agree pretty much with everyone here . Fact is that heavy tanking . Hell even tanking itself is not very enjoyable and dont feel important .

I heard that dungeons are smoother and better with tanks from my guildies already , but that doesnt change fact that i still feel of unimportance .
I really hope Zenimax is going to think more about tanks while designing new boss battles . We need more tank checks and more situations where tank is needed .
Also i hope boost to heavy tanking is comming - i really dont like idea of tanking in light

lathbury

Every tank we take in trials is in heavy we have 4 in guild and rotate the guy tanking while the others switch to their dps spec. We would not get through any fights I can think of without a decent tank.

Nestor

SVKFrankenstein wrote: »

Boss and trash before was heavly nerfed . I found this later with every single boss and trash mobs in Banished cells and Fungal grotto .

Bosses are Keyed to the Leader of the Group

OK, I am one who does not do the Group Dungeons that often. So, the Wayrest Sewers I waited until I was L46 to go do them. I group up with another L42 player, and have a L23 join us. The last guy was closer to the level for this place than other two of us were. I was group leader. Well, the trash was easy, I could have solo'd all the trash mobs in that place. The Bosses? The first one killed me twice, the other L42 twice, and the poor L23 I don't know how many times. I have never had a tougher battle in the game than in Wayrest Sewers, even Molag Bal and Mannimarco were push overs in comparison. Nothing in Coldharbor was as tough the Wayrest Sewers. We all stood around after and said almost the same thing at the same time, "Wow, was that harder than it was supposed to be?" I also noticed this in group dungeon in Auridon, the bosses were insane.

So, I have to ask, what level was the Group Leader when you entered the Dungeon? Also, did that group leader have Veteran or Normal set for Dungeons?

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO

so what your saying is that you want it to be the same as other games? if the point is to distract the boss from smashing your allies and inturrupting abilities, why isnt being all medium and rolling out of the way, or being a mage and taunting from distance/bolting to keep distance totally legit? if they are fulfilling the roll without having to do it exactly the same way as other games, is it really that bad? clearly it is for you if you want the role locked down to only heavy sword and board but is it that bad for the game as a whole? also, in all the trials I ran the tank is always heavy sword board.
Im not suggesting its not a proper concern you have, I do understand it. what I dont want is every game ever made to play out with the same mechanics because people expect them and dont want to try different styles.

as for bash nerf people are still complaining you can block between animations let alone dpsing while blocking!

SVKFrankenstein

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO wrote: »

so what your saying is that you want it to be the same as other games? if the point is to distract the boss from smashing your allies and inturrupting abilities, why isnt being all medium and rolling out of the way, or being a mage and taunting from distance/bolting to keep distance totally legit? if they are fulfilling the roll without having to do it exactly the same way as other games, is it really that bad? clearly it is for you if you want the role locked down to only heavy sword and board but is it that bad for the game as a whole? also, in all the trials I ran the tank is always heavy sword board.
Im not suggesting its not a proper concern you have, I do understand it. what I dont want is every game ever made to play out with the same mechanics because people expect them and dont want to try different styles.

as for bash nerf people are still complaining you can block between animations let alone dpsing while blocking!

What i am saying is that i want heavy armor tanking at least as much viable as light and medium tanking , what i am wanting is to feel satisfied after dungeon and not useless . Which right now i am not in slightest .
If you read what i wrote , then you know that i said nothing about rolling / dodging / bolting / taunting from distance to be bad things . I said nothing about nerfing viability of medium and light tanking . I did not said a thing about role being locked down to only heavy sword and board .
What i said is only that style is not suitable for me and i dont like it and i want to tank in heavy . Whats the other point of heavy armor right now ? because i dont see any and even this point is bad .
So i dont really understand why are you picking at this topic and trying to color me as some light and medium tanking hater ?

Smashadamz

To be honest people say you dont need tanks but it all comes down to how your group is built. As a templar tank i now run 2 heavy 5light with 2200 magic and around 2400 hp (with no food or buffs). I use the seducer set so i can spam for quite a long time. With my current set up you can tank AND heal almost all the vet dungeons and just bring along 3 dps.

Draxuul

I`m sorry OP i stopped reading after point number 2. But my first reaction to your post is THANK GOD someone actually feels the same way i do about the lack of challenge in this game .

Though i`m not a big fan of the whole Tank, Healer, DPS thing . I`m a big fan of challenge.

I`m glad this game doesn`t require anyone to be specialised , i`m glad that it`s kinda hard for a tank to actually hold aggro. I`m glad that the healer might get attacked and that DPS might also get attacked during fights because of the lack of taunt abilities in this game.

This way no one gets to be lazy and just spam heals or spam nukes. But i do have to say that the lack of challenge makes either way of grouping completly meaningless.

Whether someome preffers the old school way or this new school way of grouping matters not because the game isn`t hard enough .

But the reason why the game isn`t hard enough is because some people complained that it was too hard , either during the Beta which i wasn`t a part of or shortly after release which once again i wasn`t a part of. I started playing a bit over a month ago , or i should say about 3 weeks before the release of Update 3 .

I killed Molag Bal about a week before Update 3 and he was a real joke to kill. Not long after that , Update 3 comes out and my character becomes even more powerful than he was before the update because of the changes they made to heavy armor passives as well as the tweaks they made to my class. So that means that the fight against Molag would`ve been even easier than it was if i had waited another week before killing him. He was already too easy as is .

I hate lazy people , they are the reason why this game is too easy now and they represent the majority of the player base . It`s so frustrating to see how everyone wants to feel like gods and how they don`t even want to work for it .

People don`t want to feel like there is a chance for failure , they`re willing to run dungeons so they can get rewards as long as the run itself isn`t too hard . They have no desire for challenge and no desire to feel like there is even the slightest chance for failure . Their sattisfaction doesn`t come from actually completing the dungeon. Their sattisfaction comes from looting a corpse.

This is pathetic and infuriating to me and to all other who feel the same way.

Draxuul