The real reason why you won't find any tanks in the dungeon queue

NewBlacksmurf

The only solution is honestly to remove the classic trinity from the game.

Early on you could specialize in a focus but after a certain point for stats and food you needed to balance out other points/food.

To me, the game is really designed for folks who do a good amount of damage who also have 1-2 skills outside of their role. But the devs have changed it to a pseudo classic MMO which isn’t working overall. So essentially anyone could blame everyone else as it is today cause it’s set up all crazy.

Here is what i mean:
If you go with a classic trinity, then the tank has to be very tanky, the healer has to heal AND keep resources up AND the 2 DPS have to be min/max in some vet dungeons.

That behavior is going to place most people in a failure situation almost every time with a few exceptions.


If we went back to a balanced setup where we had a focus of a role but not a classic trinity, you’d have essentially 4 dps who could mix and match skills per encounter as needed instead of everyone trying to force their build and rotation onto others.

Just an observation, but until the feedback gets off make X better and nerf Y these threads will continue.

Part 2 is remove PvP from PvE

Ratzkifal

When I have to carry people with low dps I switch to Plague doctor and Harbinger (and Selene if possible), which often gives me higher dps than they have. It's not good dps, but it's better than bad DDs and it helps a bit at least.

ol_BANK_lo

Carbonised wrote: »

People always complain about the lack of tanks, especially for dungeons and dailie queue.

Well, after having gotten my tank setup back again yesterday, I queued for the daily pledges, looking forward to taking a go with my new setup.

The good part: instantly got into groups for all 3 pledges. I did vet Banished 1, vet Vaults of Madness, and normal Bloodforge.

The bad part: Never in my life have I seen such low DPS. Banished 1 should be a walk in the park even on vet. While the 2 DDs were CP'ed somewhere around 170, they did so stupidly little damage that it was embarrasing. Trash took so long to clear out, basically no AOEs were used, bosses took forever to take out too. I think my Embers and Engulfing were actually doing half the damage there.
When we came to the boss in Banished, the group wiped twice (them first, then I dies trying to rezz the group). When I asked one guy why he didn't rezz the rest, he said he couldn't (lack of soul gems? Didn't he just get like 3-4 soul gems just from killing the dungeon bosses?). The DDs kept dying in the blue fire AOEs that the boss casts, instead of simply moving out of it. 3rd time we finally took the boss down.

Second dungeon was even worse, though I ewnt with a new group. Of course no one knows the mechanics of the first boss, so after he did his retribution mechanic, one of them died, and no one rezzed. I had to ask them to rezz the guy, since group DPS was so horrible we needed every one standing.
I've heard rumors about the guy who was just standing spamming snipe, but I've never met him, until now. He was literally standing still just spamming snipe over and over. Occasionally there was a poison spray, but other than that just snipe, snipe, snipe.
and when we came to Grothdarr they of course stood still in his lava until they died. Last boss they had no idea how worked. Every AOE wiped at least 2, many times all 3, of the group members, both the inside and the outside one. No one did any AOEs so we were often overwhelmed by adds, even as I tryed to taunt the larger ones and do damage with embers and engulfing. Several times I had to pop barrier and rezz one of them as I was the last person standing.
It also took 2 or 3 wipes to finish it.

Bloodroot was a little better. 2 DDs were around CP 130. When I mentioned that I hoped they had sufficiently enough DPS to do the dungeon, one of them instantly quit (I guess he took the hint). Our replacement was luckily around CP 600.
But again, when our healer died due to lag at the minotaur island boss, I waited for at least five minutes for someone to rezz, but no one did, and I had to actually rezz our healer while keeping taunt on the boss simultaneously. Other than that, it went somewhat smoothly.

If this is going to be the scenario, then I will be sure to run with only competent and high level people, no matter how trivial the dungeon. While I like tanking, I don't like to waste 2 hours doing dungeons that should be over in less than 1, while the group DPS is through the floor and people die to even the simplest mechanics. If this is the fate of most tanks, then I certainly know why you can't find any in the group finder.

Take home lessons: If you queue as a DPS, at least do a reasonable amount of damage. It doesn't have to go through the roof, but you have to do better than just standing and spamming snipe. If you get a dungeon that's above your skill level, at least have the decency to quit the group so they can find a better replacement. Several of the newer ones are very mechanic heavy, and I'm sorry but if you don't get it after a few tries, then I'm not going to stick around and waste my time and equipment repairs on you. In the same vein, don't queue for hard DLC dungeons like Hist, Reach or the soon coming Dragon Bones when you're level 40 something. Even on normal, that just makes you a liability. And for all the gods's sakes, when someone dies it's the damn DPS's jobs to rezz them. Don't just continue standing there spamming snipe on the boss while people fall like flies around you, expecting the tank to grab aggro, keep themselves alive and manage to rezz the dead as well.

Even though I get your frustration...you found out what most people already know. Pugging is for people who don't have established groups or guilds, and have not learned mechanics or sets. I tried tanking Direfrost and Spindle II (which are on the same day) - both bosses which heal themselves. The dps couldn't do enough damage to overcome the healing.

That said, I joined my first guild at Vet 6 back in the day. That was the first I started learning about mechanics, and the first time I learned you could craft gear and buy tradeable sets from the traders....yes, a total noob. Some of these people may turn out to be good players, but they need guidance. But anyone who gets into a guild, or gets enough friends to play, will always use those people to run dungeons.

Take away: don't pug if you ain't ready for the pain

ol_BANK_lo

Narvuntien wrote: »

There is nothing in game to inform people how to dps (or heal or tank).

There is nothing in game to inform people of how difficult the dungeon are about to enter.

The questing is so easy that no one ever feels the need to look up builds or feels they are bad enough they need to learn.

Banished cells is one of the dungeons you are directed to to get the undaunted questline.

Yep. The first dungeon I ever entered was Fungal. I went in with one other person - another girl who had no idea what she was doing. I didn't know what a tank or healer was. I didn't have set gear...just random stuff I picked up. Honestly, if I hadn't joined a guild with nice people to teach me, I may have quit the game a long time ago. It would have gotten too frustrating. I feel bad for the people I first ran WGT and ICP with back when those were the first DLC dungeons, and by far the hardest.

Magdalina

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

The only solution is honestly to remove the classic trinity from the game.

Early on you could specialize in a focus but after a certain point for stats and food you needed to balance out other points/food.

To me, the game is really designed for folks who do a good amount of damage who also have 1-2 skills outside of their role. But the devs have changed it to a pseudo classic MMO which isn’t working overall. So essentially anyone could blame everyone else as it is today cause it’s set up all crazy.

Here is what i mean:
If you go with a classic trinity, then the tank has to be very tanky, the healer has to heal AND keep resources up AND the 2 DPS have to be min/max in some vet dungeons.

That behavior is going to place most people in a failure situation almost every time with a few exceptions.


If we went back to a balanced setup where we had a focus of a role but not a classic trinity, you’d have essentially 4 dps who could mix and match skills per encounter as needed instead of everyone trying to force their build and rotation onto others.

Just an observation, but until the feedback gets off make X better and nerf Y these threads will continue.

Part 2 is remove PvP from PvE

So instead of 2 potato dps with semi decent(?) healer/tank who can at least somewhat (albeit slowly) carry them through we will have 4 role-less potatoes who wouldn't be able to stay alive (because they don't really know how to heal nor avoid damage) AND wouldn't be able to do any damage either (because why would they be able to dps then if they cannot dps NOW when they don't have to deal with agro and even get some heals and buffs?). Yup that sounds like the perfect solution!

Carbonised

BANK_IT_HERE wrote: »

Take away: don't pug if you ain't ready for the pain

Yeah that's not really a solution. Obviously ZOS wants us to use the group finder tool, they keep expanding it and trying to make people use it.

So thanks for the advice, but I've pugged a lot before, and I know what I get into. Usually when i pug I do it as DPS, however, and even when you get a bad group, you can usually overcome. My point with this post was showing that as a pure tank (not a DPS with a taunt slotted), it looks very different. As tank you're much more dependent on the group than you are as DPS, and that's why people will queue as DPS and not as tank, and until something changes, there will always be a large shortage of tanks in the group finder.

I've already hinted at what could be made better. like better explanation of dungeon mechanics so people can learn to avoid them, better explanation of skill use and damage calculations, so it's not so complicated and hard to get into, and someone else mentioned passing a "training dungeon" where you had to pass certain milestones, such as a DPS number in order to queue for harder content.

Stuff like that is a lot more contructive than simply saying "don't pug, or deal with it".

Wifeaggro13

Turelus wrote: »

Let's hope with the new changes and guides to levelling/builds within the game newer players can start to learn some of the mechanics needed for DPS.

some of this is that the other is animation canceling. i believe it was a bad idea to leave animation canceling in as a feature and design encounters around it. rotations and builds should have been the primary factor not this. you can have the proper build , rotation, gear and know the mechanics but be horrible and not perform any where near a player that is expert at exploiting this bug with sub par gear

Magdalina

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Let's hope with the new changes and guides to levelling/builds within the game newer players can start to learn some of the mechanics needed for DPS.

some of this is that the other is animation canceling. i believe it was a bad idea to leave animation canceling in as a feature and design encounters around it. rotations and builds should have been the primary factor not this. you can have the proper build , rotation, gear and know the mechanics but be horrible and not perform any where near a player that is expert at exploiting this bug with sub par gear

Do you really believe that weaving(I assume that's what you mean in regards to animation cancelling for dps) makes up most of the dps? Even on Alcast's parses he shows in videos(and I'm pretty sure he is a really good expert at "exploiting this bug") light attacks are maybe 15-20% of the dps at the very most. Personally on my parses it's usually more like 10 because I'm running relatively high ping and am not that good with weaving(and I'm not claiming to be a super pro godmode dps but I can definitely hold my own in vet content). That's on a build that's even utilizing light attacks at this point, there're heaps of heavy attack builds with top numbers out there. Do you honestly think those elusive 20%(let's be generous) would turn a 5k dps into a 30k one?

Ermiq

I always wonder how you guys may have such incredibly bad experience with PUGs.
Also, OP, were those a vet dungeons or normal ones?

I use Group Finder all the time as a healer (normals and vets), and sometimes as a DD (very bad DD actually, my solo target DPS is like 8-15K now depending on group buffs/debuffs and food, I'm 480CP , I queue as a DD in normals only and I'm still working on my gear to encrease DPS). And such bad PUGs is quite rare scenario for me.
8 of 10 PUG runs are quite good, not excellent though. Average group DPS is like 20-25K but it's quite enough for normal dungeons. Yeah, I know you want every group to deal at least 40-50K DPS, but it's not gonna happen ever. There're a tons of people who haven't got full item sets enchanted with golden glyphs. Actually I consider this a normal behavior since you don't actually need to run dungeons when you already have item sets and you already can reach high DPS. Isn't it the main purpose of dungeons to collect the gear? Do you expect people doing dungeons in full enchanted gear with proper traits or what?

Of course I know about crafted gear. I might be wrong here and I'm sorry for that, but I don't use it if I know that I'll change it soon. I'm doing dungeons when I need to get those dungeon's sets. It makes sense. I don't need dungeons if I already have the gear I want.

And of course there's a problem with light-attack-only guys or other standing-in-red individuals. But, again, they're quite rare in my experience.

Carbonised

My post has been moved off to die in the unused subsection of the forums

Oh well, thanks for the fun while it lasted. Shame on you, mod, if it had stayed in fresh, the devs might actually have gotten a tip or 2 on how to make more tanks queue in group finder.

xb1LL_mr_sir_LL

ive used GF a few thousands times i enjoy the randomness.
what i do is find at least 1 other person from zone chat before i que when im on my tank.
that way i know theres someone in the group that knows how to read/communicate.

Carbonised

Eremith wrote: »

I always wonder how you guys may have such incredibly bad experience with PUGs.
Also, OP, were those a vet dungeons or normal ones?

It's in the OP. Vet Banished I and Vet Vaults o' Madness. Even if vet, they shouldn't be hard at all. And if people have trouble with that content, why even queue for a vet to begin with.

Also, I noticed these guys looting an undaunted bust from the bosses, which only happens on your first clear of the dungeon on vet, so obviously they hadn't even done it before, at least on vet, and I guess they just queued and counted on better players carrying them through.

Aisle9

vamp_emily wrote: »

People who don't have patients really shouldn't use the dungeon finder. You are better off forming a group in zone chat with your preferred requirements.

I don't mind tanking for new players. Sometimes it takes longer and sometimes players just give up but that is ok.

Do not use group finder if:
- You have anger management issues.
- You constantly complain about ESO
- You are in a rush
- You think you are the best player in the world
- You say the words "You suck!" a lot

Use group finder if:
- You are new and want to see what dungeons are like
- You have plenty of time to play
- You like helping others
- You have patients
- You just can't find the 4th person and you will take anyone

OR... and I know it's revolutionary, but hear me out... instead of leaving people inside their echo chambers where only using light attacks is not a valid tactic and if you're not doing even average dps you're fine to queue as dps, because you play to have fun(TM), we should help them by pushing them to do better, you know teach a man how to fish ?

But, then again, you have people spouting nonsense like "Animation canceling is an exploit", so I guess there's that too.

Positive reinforcement is all well and good, but if someone sucks, they should be told, considering it's group content, they should be taught how to work with teammates.

If a boss has a dps race mechanic and the group dps is low, I don't need to say "You guys are terrible", but I sure as hell will say "Yeah, it's not going to happen, the dps is too low".

It takes me 2 tries to determine that, open Combat Metrics, see 25% of the group's dps as a tank... yeah, we're screwed.

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Let's hope with the new changes and guides to levelling/builds within the game newer players can start to learn some of the mechanics needed for DPS.

some of this is that the other is animation canceling. i believe it was a bad idea to leave animation canceling in as a feature and design encounters around it. rotations and builds should have been the primary factor not this. you can have the proper build , rotation, gear and know the mechanics but be horrible and not perform any where near a player that is expert at exploiting this bug with sub par gear

Animation canceling is not an ESO thing, every game has some way to cancel animations and it's widely accepted as "advanced gameplay". It's actually very appealing to players that believe personal skill and proficiency should have an impact on how the game is played.

Just saying.

grkkll

I run stam/mag dps, healer and tank though not great in any. I pug every day as healer and tank at the mo, as a tank my biggest gripe is having my taunt removed by the dps using sword and board/pierce, "please don't taunt" seldom makes a difference then they complain if they get zapped by the boss. I kinda expect low dps from time to time though, part of pugging it is.

monktoasty

The real reason is lack of a good game design plan. The grouping system wasn't well thought out

MaxwellC

Precisely why I stopped tanking after recently wasting 4 hours on WGT pledge.
No one knew the mechanics and after pulling aggro from every mob on the first boss + picking everyones lock we finally beat her.
The second boss I had to explain why I let aggro go of the tank but even then they all died and I had to res all 3 then keep all aggro through the healer bosses flames why the DD boss executed those who got too low HP with his spin to win.
Third boss the DD was bad and the healer was worse (even for a 690 CP templar) all the healer would do was spam BoL so after she got booted we got a decent 400CP healer and beat the second boss.
Last
Fourth boss(kena) was the worse, it got so bad that I had to tell the DD who was a sorc to tank because we just kept wiping over and over and over. I put on my DD gear and setup but even after finally burning him to her last phase everyone kept dying by playing around in the walls of lightning or the sorc tank would lose aggro and the other 300 CP dude would just get dropped.

There needs to be more competent players in group finder but there are those all star groups although your chances are close to getting a tempering alloy from your blacksmith survey reward.

GimpyPorcupine

New player starts the game, is level 3, and sees all these 690s running around melting things, want to get there. Hears that you can get to 50 quickly by buying carries in Skyreach, ports there.

The CP curve has such sharp scaling that it takes very little time to get to 160, and as soon as they get there, they start running the necessary dungeons to get the gear.

There's a quest in the Bankorai story line, Halls of the Dead, where you have to bring the ghost a sword, and the correct answer is the training sword. Skill trumps gear every time. But it's really easy to get to 160 without ever learning to play.

The sad part is that the people you queued with will probably not stick with the game once they realize that the latest build from <insert youtube channel here> doesn't activate god-mode for them.

Ermiq

Carbonised wrote: »

Eremith wrote: »

I always wonder how you guys may have such incredibly bad experience with PUGs.
Also, OP, were those a vet dungeons or normal ones?

It's in the OP. Vet Banished I and Vet Vaults o' Madness. Even if vet, they shouldn't be hard at all. And if people have trouble with that content, why even queue for a vet to begin with.

Also, I noticed these guys looting an undaunted bust from the bosses, which only happens on your first clear of the dungeon on vet, so obviously they hadn't even done it before, at least on vet, and I guess they just queued and counted on better players carrying them through.

Well, for vet it is not good, I agree.

By the way, very often I see people in guild chats telling they went to vets accidentially. They didn't even know it's a vet, and they realized that only when they get 2 keys for the pledge.
It's on the game, the Group Finder interface is not clear enough. I myself went to vet dungeon accidentially, it happened when I reached 50 lvl on my first character and I didn't notice that there are vet dungeons in the list now. Those vet dungeons are on top in GF, and new players just don't notice that.

phileunderx2

A decent dps soon learns that to actually que as described will get you no where. So then they either become fake tanks/healers or they make tank or healer friends and just run with them. I have a sorc that I have qued for dps on and the thing NEVER pops. So I just solo easy dungeons.

anitajoneb17_ESO

Carbonised wrote: »

My point with this post was showing that as a pure tank (not a DPS with a taunt slotted), it looks very different. As tank you're much more dependent on the group than you are as DPS

I think a tank pugging a dungeon should have some spare gear in inventory to swap and transform into a DPS, or a DPS-with-a-taunt, for this type of situations. In most dungeons it's easier to get through without a proper tank than with insufficient DPS.

Carbonised wrote: »

I've already hinted at what could be made better. like better explanation of dungeon mechanics so people can learn to avoid them, better explanation of skill use and damage calculations, so it's not so complicated and hard to get into, and someone else mentioned passing a "training dungeon" where you had to pass certain milestones, such as a DPS number in order to queue for harder content.

Stuff like that is a lot more constructive than simply saying "don't pug, or deal with it".

Is it really ZOS' job to explain dungeon mechanics ? Isn't it part of the game and fun to work on them, figure them out, elaborate strategies and pass them along ?
Same goes for builds. Is it ZOS' job to tell us how to play, what to wear... ? While I agree that skill and damage calculations should be far better documented and 100% transparent, I still think the way we use and combine them should remain for us players to find out. We'll always be better than ZOS at playing the game. ZOS are on the creative side of the design, we're on the creative side of the gameplay. I don't like to see creativity hindered by directions and instructions...

MMO are meant to be social, people who refuse social interaction in ESO will always be sort of behind in gameplay - and many other things. Group finder is one of the most "unfiltered" public places in the game, and like IRL, you'll stumble upon anything there : people you love, people you despise, annoying people, nice people, talented people, idiots, etc etc... the list could go on forever. I don't think it's for ZOS to "filter people" for us. So be ready for anything... or don't PUG, that sums it up pretty well in the end.

Jpk0012

Absolutely hate playing my tank for this reason.

At least with my healer I can let the idiots die, and kill things on my own. As a tank, I'm at their mercy.

And group with people that are CP1-159 has to be the worst. They get little to no damage bonus, and you know their gear isn't at their level.

I don't think its a ZOS/ESO issue. Its a people issue. They just want to sit in a spot and hit one button.

Nightfall12

Just one point to add, you complained about them looting the bust, and therefore it must be the first time. This is not true. It could be the first time they finished it, or it could be that they finished before Busts were added. I have completed Vvom and have my wonderful what was prosperous, now invigorating grothdar mask, But that was waaaaay back before the housing updates. So if i ever get around to doing the vet version again I will get the bust.

Personally i have never enjoyed The Vet dungeons, it brings out the worst in people. I prefer the non-vet dungeons where if you get a PUG full of bad players you can still have fun.
I built my tank to be offensive and defensive. Not a fake tank, i can taunt and take the damage, but in many of the PUGs sometimes i get in those early dungeons you know Bc1 FG1 Spindle1 and its me at cp690 and 3 lvl 14 guys. DO i just tear through it? I could, but i ask if if the first time anyone is doing it. Remember just because you want to tear through speed run it and get your reward means everyone else is the same. The only normal Dungeon I have had trouble with on my tank was Cradle of shadows, because my Pug couldn't stop me from dying to the instant kill mechanic. I could save them, but they let me die every time. That was not a fun one.
If there could be changes added to the Dungeon Finder I would add flavor options. A checkbox that asks are you planning a speed run, or will you actually talk to your group?

TeamSeinfeld

This has to be luck of the draw. I’m currently around cp450 and the last ten Vet dungeon runs I’ve done have ALL been with cp690. When I first started doing Vet dungeons (at around cp10?), I didn’t know my dps was subpar because the PS4 doesn’t give feedback afterwards. It wasn’t until someone pointed it out and I made more of an effort to change gear, watch YouTube videos etc.

Tetrafy

I still tank dungeons no problem on norm. Ive had one incident with a fake healer (sub par dps) And weaker dps but we made it through. The only real dungeon I have issues with is darkside 2 I believe its called with the spider. Most people dont understand the mechanics so it makes it brutal with the poison.

Jura23

ESO_Blash wrote: »

There’s only one advice and one solution to this problem:

DO NOT PUG

No YouTube guides, no forum posts, not even the new levelling advisor Zenimax introduces with Dragon Bones will stop new and unexperienced players from showing up in the dungeon finder or zone chats.

Sorry, stupid advice. I myself am not the best and not the worst player out there. I play healer right now and I always pug. Sometimes it's more smooth and sometimes less, but I finish the dungeon 9/10 times, that's for sure. If somebody sucks, I také it as a challenge. People are still complaining content is too easy and then they complain about incompetent teammates. Doesnt make sense.

josiahva

I really do not have this problem. Every day I log in I PUG tank at least one dungeon. Its true that occasionally I find a group with abysmally low DPS that I have to carry through, but for the most part I get average groups and occasionally I get a group that actually knows what they are doing. Each and every type of group I get though allows me to improve my own skill. Bad groups provide new challenges in keeping them up and myself alive at the same time, while average and good groups allow me to try out skills I rarely use and new ways to use the environment to my advantage. I am always looking for a more efficient way to defeat a given boss or use some combination of skills. The group finder makes me a better player regardless of the group I draw.

Aurielle

I empathize completely. You're probably preaching to the choir though, I'm sad to say. I have to expect that any Snipe spammer who visits these forums won't be a Snipe spammer for long.

The onus is on ZOS to explain dungeon roles more clearly, and help noobs prepare for them. I outlined some suggestions for a training dungeon recently, which could potentially help: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/390002/idea-training-dungeon-for-all-roles

Giraffon

I pug tank normal dungeons all the time. My favorite ones are the ones where I port in and the blue portal is waiting for me to go catch up with the group. This means the last tank rage quit or wasn't a real tank. Almost without fail, my max CP tank is greeted with "Finally!" Sometimes I just charge in and tank the final boss and all done. I love those! I'm done in like 2 minutes!

If I come in on a tougher boss, I'll usually ask if anyone has questions about the mechanics before we start. We'll go in and if we don't get it the first time, then they GET a lesson from the tank about the mechanics.

I only do vet pugs when I'm after gear. My master crafter can improve the blue drops so the purple drops alone aren't worth going through a Vet PUG. In normal dungeons, I can actually have fun and look like a rock star doing it.

DoctorESO

.

ruikkarikun

If you have static group-friends dosen't mean all have it.

Last days I decided to do some vet pledges, and didnt any because of time queue.

I'm in 5 guilds (490 members each), and I shouted at all zone chats for PLEDGES, shouted at all guild chats and didnt find any group.

I'm sure you are happy with that yes?