PUG Tank: Utility or DPS?

OldGamerESO

TL/DR: My tanks feel useless: either the group is great and don't need a tank, or the group is terrible and my dps isn't high enough to help.

I have never looked into a tank that can do some decent dps, most of my tanks add utility and either shields/healing to the group in addition to buffs and boss debuffs. But after a 90 minute Spindle 1 Vet last night I began to wish I could have done more DPS on the Whisperer, which literally took 40 minutes. I was running a DK tank and I was popping war horn, keeping the boss taunted/breached/maimed, keeping weapon buff up on group and giving the whole group 10k shields every 3 seconds. One DPS did not understand the boss's spit mechanic and accused me of not holding aggro even though I had explained the fight. He laughed at me and told me I was a newb and an idiot and then disbanded half way through the fight. The healer and other dps died repeatedly and I kept rezzing them. I never died during this fight. But my own dps is pathetic.. something like 2K I was thinking if I could get it to 10K-15K then these long dungeons might get faster. Most of my tanks are nigh well unkillable in any vet 4-man. I almost never die under any circumstances. If I get a great group with great DPS then I become useless in a different way.. they don't really need a tank. They run ahead anyway and aggro/kill stuff as if I wasn't even there.

Maybe I should stop going for capped resistance, shield usage reduction, +stats, etc and instead design a minimum Tanky tank that can do great DPS? I have heard of mSoc tanks that don't even run heavy armor, or do anything at all special to tank except run massive shields and use sword and board for big hits. Maybe I should go that route? My mSorc tank right now is still pretty traditional running heavy armor.

I like running dungeons, and I like the group finder. Every time you join the queue there is an adventure.

Brrrofski

DPS for sure.

Just hold aggro on stuff that will one shot people then DPS.

DeadlyRecluse

For pugging, providing a lot of group utility means having a lot of faith in your group to actually take advantage of that...

I'd say for pugs, be able to do 10kish dps, and read the group. If your DDs are not great, help out. If they are doing their job, play more supportive. No sense in warhorning a pair of 6k dps DDs.

WarpigFunk

Vet content - utility / DPS
normal content - DPS
Trials - utility

Rickter

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

For pugging, providing a lot of group utility means having a lot of faith in your group to actually take advantage of that....

This right here.

go magicka DK. slot 5 Rattlecage, 2 skoria 5 seducers OR 5 kagrenac's hope.


chain, taunt, talons, inhale, burning breath, eruption, burning embers, standard of might, whip whip whip, watch the world burn

*EDIT Disclaimer: this is not a competitive trials build. its just for pugging pledges and possibly pvp.

pizzaow

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

For pugging, providing a lot of group utility means having a lot of faith in your group to actually take advantage of that...

I'd say for pugs, be able to do 10kish dps, and read the group. If your DDs are not great, help out. If they are doing their job, play more supportive. No sense in warhorning a pair of 6k dps DDs.

This is all great advice.

When pugging, I usually slot warhorn on one bar and standard of might on by back bar. You should be able to tell by the first trash pull how good the group dps is. If things are melting, use warhorn, otherwise use standard. For most group dungeons I'll run tremorscale, it's not a ton of dps, but you sound like you don't need bloodspawn/lord warden to survive. You probably have a couple flex spots too... if the dps is bad I'll run venomous claw and power slam, if the dps is good I'll run orbs and talons/vigor more often. Again, its not great (not even good) DPS, but there are some dungeons where I'll pull the most dps :-/

If I wasn't so lazy I'd probably switch my bars/skills/gear to run a different weapon (than S+B) on my back bar, but sadly consoles don't have easy ways to save configurations yet, so I just slot 2 skills instead.

Kozai

For PUGing I would definitely suggest being able to flex into more dps. A "dps" gear set helps, something like Thunderbug and Grothdar's, with some damage enchanted jewelry, which you can switch out for more tanky gear for times when that is needed. Obviously you can switch in more dps skills too as needed.

I feel your pain, I was in more than one normal dungeon, not even vet, that stalled out for lack of dps and disbanded on my tank. That is why I set up a higher dps build, but keep my tankier gear for when I need it. It would be hard to do that with a truly trial-worthy tank, but that is what alts are for.