Tanking improvement that should come out with HotR

Zedrian

Hello

I am concerned today about the drop in Vet Trials population, and especially the serious lack of Tanks for End-Game PVE. When I look at leaderboards on PS4 EU, there are barely 10-12 teams that have cleared most vet trials. Before Morrowind there was a plethora of competitive trials guilds and the leaderboards were always filled (except maybe vmol?). After Morrowind, you just need to clear the trial you will be in the top 300 or 400 of the Weekly leaderboard. That drop in population may be due to a large portions of players that may have gone to PvP, but I also think a lot players quit the game with Morrowind. Too many changes, too fast, without explanations and guidance from the game designers. I know for a fact, many French speaking DK tanks that had optimal setups left the game, and when there are no tanks, there are no teams for trials. After a while the healers and DPS from these teams tend to quit quickly after. Morrowind may of attracted a lot of new players, but what about the players that sticked to the game for many months and many years? I have PC PTS access, and as I see it right now I don’t think Horns of the Reach will solve the loss of interest in DK tanks and in tanking in general.

I personally find the current orientation of tanks as Punching bags with little tactical utility, little group utility and maximizing survival is boring. I feel Zenimax wants me to care only for myself and not for the group. Here are how I see the changes over time:

• Before the Champion Point systems, many tanks were punching bags, static, holding aggro as they could. They had perma blocking because they could regen through blocking.
• Then we had CPs and especially all the sets from One Tamriel that gave a unique opportunity for tanks to think as to how they could be useful to the group. We could buff, protect and heal the group and even use Healer sets (worm, mending, sanctuary, SPC, etc…) to maximize bonuses in trials. To me One Tamriel was the best patch for tanks to theory craft and play their tanks the way they wanted to seeking optimal solutions based on trials and situations. We converted our max health to max resource stats and we could build skill rotations just like DPS or Healers do. From then on, Tanks had the largest wardrobe of possibilities that made tanking a true investment, but a fun investment
• Then Morrowind came, with a serious revamp on resource management forcing tanks to be careful not to carelessly spam skills. To me that is fine, but the new trial gave way to the old and boring setups of High health punching bags. At least the combo of Spell Symetry – High Health – Purge and Obsidian made the DK tanks very useful to the entire team
• Then Zenimax decided to nerf Spell Symetry making shield 50% weaker… I don’t care as much of my shield than the ones I give to the team. I removed spell symmetry from my skill bar to play with high magicka regen… But again the intention is to limit the utility of the DK to the group and a focus on its own survival
• With Horns of the Reach, while there are no class changes so far, the new set that provides Major protection with limited mobility indicates this trend that tanks should beware of their survival instead of its group. The vision of a selfish and boring tank…
• I know the Warden Tank is also viable and provides a lot of interesting utility, but DK tanks are often stubborn and wish to remain DK tanks. A lot of Tanks I know have multiple DK tanks (I have 3, the other tank in my guild has 4) with different setups and orientation (Offensive or Defensive Off Tank, High health tanks, utility main tank). I welcome other classes to be tanks, but I don’t think nerfing DK tanks to the ground is way to go. Today we lost another French player we know is tired of the game, and decided to move to some other game.

This is a bit of a long rant, but I think we should take the PTS opportunity for the community to provide valuable insight as to how Zenimax should cater to the tanking community. I know Zenimax can listen to the community. So lets try to make tanks great again and thank you in advance for your input.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Rungar

change all the trials to 6 man dungeons and add them to the pledges and groupfinder. Know your audience.

Alcast

Reason why so many people dropped out in Morrowind.
1. Sustain changes
2. Nerf nerf nerf
3. *** FPS (like on console its a joke, you go into vhof and bam like 5 fps wtf)

There is not even a lot of people on the PTS testing out stuff, most people

Jitterbug

Rungar wrote: »

change all the trials to 6 man dungeons and add them to the pledges and groupfinder. Know your audience.

Interesting idea that has nothing to do with the OP.

theamazingx

Rungar wrote: »

change all the trials to 6 man dungeons and add them to the pledges and groupfinder. Know your audience.

Of course, delete the endgame, that's the answer! Not as though normal trials are already close to a soloable level or anything

casparian

Here's the perspective of someone who used to love tanking, but quit in U14 to pursue other roles:

I quit tankng a couple of months ago and haven't looked back. I would love to tank in this game -- it's a needed role, and I enjoy enabling other players to succeed -- but as a tank, there just isn't enough to do. Once I get enemies taunted up and in the right position, I'm pretty much done for the fight. My responsibilities include
- block
- reapply taunt
- wait for DPS to kill things
- heavy attack sometimes
- wait some more
- block while waiting

I'd love to bring my tank out of retirement, but that "rotation" just isn't fun or challenging. Even the more difficult tank challenges in this game, like vAA axes, are just variations on the standard wait-while-blocking theme. Inevitably while tanking, my mind starts to wander and I find myself losing concentration on the fight. There's just not enough to do and not enough skill involved.

I'm not trying to say tanks are unskilled -- tanking is very demanding in that the role requires you to understand the fight and to know what the other roles need you to do. But that's a very cerebral challenge, and doesn't require the same level of mechanical mastery and constant activity that, say, a DPS rotation does.

Even as a healer, I'm more engaged than I am while tanking. As a healer, I'm constantly alert because anything could happen -- a DPS could make a mistake and need an emergency heal, etc. As a Morrowind-era tank, pretty much nothing can happen to me unless the group wipes. The most that can happen out of the ordinary is that I'll have to pop a shield ult instead of warhorn and res someone.

It's not just about skill and a static playstyle, either. When I first made my tank back in 2016, I was attracted to tanking because I was told all good tanks in this game were support tanks, not just unkillable aggro-holders. I was taught that being a good tank was about being just tanky enough to provide crucial buffs to my group without dying. Now, the meta has shifted such that I can't afford to focus on providing buffs and debuffs. It made me feel less useful as a tank.

I don't know what should happen to tanking in this game. But the high-health, stationary, unkillable punching bag that my tank had to become in U14 is not fun.

Br1ckst0n

You dont have to play a high health "punching bag" in hof. Obviously that is an easier way to learn the trial but once you advance you can go for buff/debuff sets again.

The main problem with hof and tanks is that:

1. you cant position the endboss yourself
2. holes
3. lack of cleave abilities from bosses

Myerscod

I main tank on PS4, running tava / ebon / bloodspawn. I've tanked all Craglorn vet trials since morrowind the same way I did pre morrowind spamming horn as fast as possible through uber ult regen.

Tava
Drain
Heoric
Igneous
Decisive light attack etc etc

Not sure what you're getting at OP?

Feanor

Could it be that nerfing the vet dungeons down to the point you can do 4 DD runs has an impact on new players wanting to tank and learning it? Noooo, totally impossible!

NordSwordnBoard

paulsimonps

Ok, you lost me OP, what is the purpose of the thread?

Dymence

casparian wrote: »

- block
- reapply taunt
- wait for DPS to kill things
- heavy attack sometimes
- wait some more
- block while waiting

If that's all you're doing as a trials tank, you're doing it wrong.

josiahva

I fully agree with the OP. While I have never played the perma-block useless tank, I do feel that is what ZoS wants you to play. I have always focused on group utility(I was spamming shields on my group for a year before it was ever the meta) but ZoS seems to hate tanks that are actually marginally useful beyond holding aggro and applying buffs and de-buffs. I dont find tanking boring yet, there is generally a lot for me to do in a given fight...I just wish ZoS saw tanks as something other than punching bags for mobs and bosses.

That being said, I have some interesting ideas for a warden tank I am now building that will add some interest back into the game for me...again with the focus being group utility. I now feel that a Warden can offer more than a DK for tanking..built right. As to whether this build will be worthy for trials...we shall see.

Zedrian

Feanor wrote: »

Could it be that nerfing the vet dungeons down to the point you can do 4 DD runs has an impact on new players wanting to tank and learning it? Noooo, totally impossible!

Good point and it has been difficult to find good new tanks...

paulsimonps wrote: »

Ok, you lost me OP, what is the purpose of the thread?

HotR is providing no improvements to the gameplay of tanks and answers with a new set that provides 0 utility. Zenimax changed the sustain by nerfing helping Hands, battle roar, spell symmetry, and obsidian shields is nerfing Group Support skills not survival. The survival is easier in Morrowind for the tank alone due to the CP rebalance. In vet trials as an off or even main tank, I just go full DPS on one bar so I can find myself useful. I found the Warrior in Vet HM a lot easier now. My writing skills may not be the best but I attempted to explain clearly my points about utility tank vs. meatbags ^^

paulsimonps

Zedrian wrote: »

Feanor wrote: »

Could it be that nerfing the vet dungeons down to the point you can do 4 DD runs has an impact on new players wanting to tank and learning it? Noooo, totally impossible!

Good point and it has been difficult to find good new tanks...

paulsimonps wrote: »

Ok, you lost me OP, what is the purpose of the thread?

HotR is providing no improvements to the gameplay of tanks and answers with a new set that provides 0 utility. Zenimax changed the sustain by nerfing helping Hands, battle roar, spell symmetry, and obsidian shields is nerfing Group Support skills not survival. The survival is easier in Morrowind for the tank alone due to the CP rebalance. In vet trials as an off or even main tank, I just go full DPS on one bar so I can find myself useful. I found the Warrior in Vet HM a lot easier now. My writing skills may not be the best but I attempted to explain clearly my points about utility tank vs. meatbags ^^

There are more ways to do group support. Major Evasion+Tactician passive helps with off balance up time. Ulti gen builds still helps a lot with Major Force up time in more organized groups. High regen builds got more access to utility skills. High HP builds still works they are just not brokenly strong now. Resistance debuff builds still work too, which can be done with Alkosh or Torugs Pact or other sets but the other sets are physical only. Can also use Torugs/Infused to get strong and good up time on Weakening glyphs for extra survivablity. There is still a lot you can do for Group Support as a tank, but yes the new update didn't add any new sets that can do that heavy armor wise, though if you use jewelry and weapons of the Draugrs Rest set you can use your heavy attacks to heal your allies. Not the Strongest of HoT but its an AoE HoT, and most tanks do have a lot into Blessed. But disregarding the lack of new sets the update is not all meatbag tanking, its much more than that, just got to look around at stuff a bit.

Doctordarkspawn

Alcast wrote: »

Reason why so many people dropped out in Morrowind.
1. Sustain changes
2. Nerf nerf nerf
3. *** FPS (like on console its a joke, you go into vhof and bam like 5 fps wtf)

There is not even a lot of people on the PTS testing out stuff, most people

When Alcast has to state it, times is sad.

Doctordarkspawn

OP, I suggest you look anywhere else for a MMO that'll take anything from a tanks perspective. In the words of the Combat director, "Tanks are not fun". Do you seriously expect these people to lisen to you? Think again.

This is the only MMO I've ever seen that asks for feedback and actively stops lisening to it. Your plea's fall on deaf ears.

Tannus15

I have 4 tanks, one of each class and each one has different roles to play.

My DK is my trials tank. He's the high health punching bag and I pretty much only use him for trials. In a 12 person group, you really do have 1 role and if you screw it up you've just wasted 11 other peoples time. I'm totally fine with this tank not bringing anything to the table apart from being insanely hard to kill. He's got the meta plague doctor, ebon, blood spawn.

My sorc tank is my DPS tank. I use him for vMA and pledges. Knight errant, seventh legion or brands of the imperium with tremorscale or selene. What does he bring to the table apart from taunt and block? 15k dps, 6khps. He's a mini group in his own right.

My templar heal tank. Spell power cure, Wyrd tree and troll king. Can't find a healer? Don't worry, I got this. This guy is a ridiculous amount of fun, but I don't take him to vet DLC.

And lastly my newest addition to my tanking family, my magi-blade sap tank. I'm still working out what to do with him to be honest. Right now he's wearing rattlecage, medusa and nerien'eth. He's ok, but I'm not happy with him as is. Needs more attention but I got distracted by my 2 new warden characters.

Zedrian

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

OP, I suggest you look anywhere else for a MMO that'll take anything from a tanks perspective. In the words of the Combat director, "Tanks are not fun". Do you seriously expect these people to lisen to you? Think again.

This is the only MMO I've ever seen that asks for feedback and actively stops lisening to it. Your plea's fall on deaf ears.

I have played MMOs as Tank since DAOC, and tanks are fun but the current appeal and meta some described in this thread has discouraged some tanks or is not attracting new players as tanks. Yesterday we converted a veteran DPS into a tank, and he loved it on vHoF. The challenge of survival and the tactical role you provide in a trials can be thrilling. I do think Zenimax listens, and the last patch of HotR is a pretty positive response to the community expectations. Saying something even for the slim chance it is heard is better than doing nothing.

aeowulf

They also pretty much removed NB tanks from the game with the Morrowind update when their 'passive' form of stamina gain was removed. They now have to drop block and light attack to regain stamina. Makes it way too complex to be fun.