How do we fix the tank meta

ThePhantomThorn

So the tank meta has been plaguing eso pvp for a long time. And now they have ridiculous heals aswell.

So let’s throw some ideas around on how to fix it.

Going to make some quick points
-Increase damage. Rn it’s so hard to kill players.
-Make defensive stats harder to invest in. So getting a casual 28k hp while stacking 5k wd is not possible
-Add better med damage set options. Eg, a set similar to fury, but rather than taking damage procs of dealing damage. (therefore a reason to run med)
-Nerf heavy armour. Its just too strong.
-reduce group healing through battle spirit, this way players can’t just stack heals over their entire group, and stop the players from being immortal because their 30hp isn’t constantly being topped of by a nearby healer
-punish players for running heavy. Eg reduce wd/movement speed. Because rn there are no disadvantages

MajBludd

I'm sure a lot run heavy but I dont think it's as many as we might think. A lot use med for more mobility.

Is it heavy armor itself that needs looked at or specific sets that actually contribute to this "tank meta"?

Soris

Maybe you should stop wanting to destroy someone's build but try to improve your gameplay. Everybody is "tanky"in a way in this game if you know how to and what to do. That being said even the squishest glass cannon guy can be "tanky" as hell by avoiding damage. You can't kill someone if you can't hit them, right?

If you gonna destroy in-your-face style tanking, then you gotta destroy line of sight, rollypollies, damage shields, cloak, streak etc. Which is a terrible idea to begin with. They are just different ways of playing "defensive" and most of them dont require stat investing at all. Line of sight for example.

A nb dodgerolling then going in cloak and attack from cloak with his high burst is basically the same thing in different color with a dk face tanking you until he stack his furry and then leap on you. See what im saying?

ThePhantomThorn

Soris wrote: »

Maybe you should stop wanting to destroy someone's build but try to improve your gameplay. Everybody is "tanky"in a way in this game if you know how to and what to do. That being said even the squishest glass cannon guy can be "tanky" as hell by avoiding damage. You can't kill someone if you can't hit them, right?

If you gonna destroy in-your-face style tanking, then you gotta destroy line of sight, rollypollies, damage shields, cloak, streak etc. Which is a terrible idea to begin with. They are just different ways of playing "defensive" and most of them dont require stat investing at all. Line of sight for example.

A nb dodgerolling then going in cloak and attack from cloak with his high burst is basically the same thing in different color with a dk face tanking you until he stack his furry and then leap on you. See what im saying?

No. Heard of detect pots?
Nbs in general have much lower hp and resists. Catch them off guard and they’re dead.
And you do know that heavy armour can dodge roll and use los?

And do you think it’s ok to have 5-6k wd 30k hp and have 40k resists?

‘In your face style tanking’ would still be possible, if u sacrifice damage for tankyness. Fair. Lose and gain. No loss from running heavy rn.

And kiting takes skill. Block healing doesn’t.

But if corse there had to be a player that’s just:
Tank meta is just fake news. Your just a bad player.
Just like global warming.

MartiniDaniels

Nerf "healing done" on battle spirit level. This will solve whole ton of problems and this easy tweak without ruining classes/item sets.

Qbiken

Or we can just get rid of cast times on skills and give back players stuns on abilities that used to have stuns on them......

If you still think heavy armor is the issue you're on the wrong track. Medium armor is more popular than ever.

An extremely one sided view that doesn't look at the bigger picture. Is cross healing a bit overtuned? Yes. But best way to deal with this imo would be:
(Read some of these from Thogard in another thread)


Reduce the tooltips of rapid/radiating regeneration (which is the biggest culprit) and vigor. Allow resolving vigor to heal allies again but for half the value of the self healing tooltip.

Add penalty for stacking HP. For every 10k HP over 25k HP it becomes 50% less effective.

Reduce the potency of minor maim down to 8% instead of the current 15%

Improve DoT damage by 20% (in thogards post he proposes 10%, which I personally think is a bit on the lower end).

These 4 changes together with removing cast times and reintroducing stuns to abilites like frags, shalks etc would be enough to counter the tankier meta we've now, without screwing everyone over.

Rianai

Nerfing Vigor/RR without touching class skills mostly hurts those classes that don't have good class healing, while those that don't rely on resto staff (eg. magplar) would remain untouched.

Balance has to be adressed on a case by case basis. Big across the board changes, like they have been doing since elsweyr and like many players are proposing, don't work. It just shifts the meta arround, but doesn't improve balance.

Nerfing brp resto and dw would be a good start. Having spammable on demand acess to such powerful defensive buffs is most likely one of the main offenders. CP are another issue (changing elfborn/precise strikes to not affect healing would be my first idea to reduce CP healing - since there are no "counter CP" to crit healing - unlike crit dmg).

Iskiab

Qbiken wrote: »

Or we can just get rid of cast times on skills and give back players stuns on abilities that used to have stuns on them......

If you still think heavy armor is the issue you're on the wrong track. Medium armor is more popular than ever.

An extremely one sided view that doesn't look at the bigger picture. Is cross healing a bit overtuned? Yes. But best way to deal with this imo would be:
(Read some of these from Thogard in another thread)


Reduce the tooltips of rapid/radiating regeneration (which is the biggest culprit) and vigor. Allow resolving vigor to heal allies again but for half the value of the self healing tooltip.

Add penalty for stacking HP. For every 10k HP over 25k HP it becomes 50% less effective.

Reduce the potency of minor maim down to 8% instead of the current 15%

Improve DoT damage by 20% (in thogards post he proposes 10%, which I personally think is a bit on the lower end).

These 4 changes together with removing cast times and reintroducing stuns to abilites like frags, shalks etc would be enough to counter the tankier meta we've now, without screwing everyone over.

I agree with some of your premises, but these changes are way too heavy handed but have some good ideas.

I like the vigor and radiating regen ideas.
I don’t like the high health ideas. It’s not required, people running too high health are gimping themselves already
Adding stuns onto everything is a terrible idea, it would not be fun
Change battle spirit to reduce damage and healing to 40%.
Minor maim nerf is okay

I don’t see an issue with players being able to be tanky. The issue is tanky players can still kill inexperienced players with burst, or gang up to use gimped burst to kill players.
Glass canons only work as a sorc 1v1 because streak. If damage drops people who prefer high damage builds think it’ll effect them more but they’re wrong. It’ll effect tanky builds more. Higher damage makes investing into damage less important and investing into tankiness more important. Damage needs to be something you invest into to get.

ThePhantomThorn

Iskiab wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

Or we can just get rid of cast times on skills and give back players stuns on abilities that used to have stuns on them......

If you still think heavy armor is the issue you're on the wrong track. Medium armor is more popular than ever.

An extremely one sided view that doesn't look at the bigger picture. Is cross healing a bit overtuned? Yes. But best way to deal with this imo would be:
(Read some of these from Thogard in another thread)


Reduce the tooltips of rapid/radiating regeneration (which is the biggest culprit) and vigor. Allow resolving vigor to heal allies again but for half the value of the self healing tooltip.

Add penalty for stacking HP. For every 10k HP over 25k HP it becomes 50% less effective.

Reduce the potency of minor maim down to 8% instead of the current 15%

Improve DoT damage by 20% (in thogards post he proposes 10%, which I personally think is a bit on the lower end).

These 4 changes together with removing cast times and reintroducing stuns to abilites like frags, shalks etc would be enough to counter the tankier meta we've now, without screwing everyone over.

I agree with some of your premises, but these changes are way too heavy handed but have some good ideas.

I like the vigor and radiating regen ideas.
I don’t like the high health ideas. It’s not required, people running too high health are gimping themselves already
Adding stuns onto everything is a terrible idea, it would not be fun
Change battle spirit to reduce damage and healing to 40%.
Minor maim nerf is okay

I don’t see an issue with players being able to be tanky. The issue is tanky players can still kill inexperienced players with burst, or gang up to use gimped burst to kill players.
Glass canons only work as a sorc 1v1 because streak. If damage drops people who prefer high damage builds think it’ll effect them more but they’re wrong. It’ll effect tanky builds more. Higher damage makes investing into damage less important and investing into tankiness more important. Damage needs to be something you invest into to get.

i can see what your saying.
but damage is quite hard to invest into.
on my ganker i run nma and spriggans with veli. almost 19k snipe tooltip with continuous and throw in a leash and incap... i hit hard. and anyone over 30k is a no go.
and i am made for damage.
however a pure tank is virtually unkillable (or for at least 5 - 10 mins)
defense is too easy to build into, and offense has far more diminishing returns.

Qbiken wrote: »

Or we can just get rid of cast times on skills and give back players stuns on abilities that used to have stuns on them......

If you still think heavy armor is the issue you're on the wrong track. Medium armor is more popular than ever.

An extremely one sided view that doesn't look at the bigger picture. Is cross healing a bit overtuned? Yes. But best way to deal with this imo would be:
(Read some of these from Thogard in another thread)


Reduce the tooltips of rapid/radiating regeneration (which is the biggest culprit) and vigor. Allow resolving vigor to heal allies again but for half the value of the self healing tooltip.

Add penalty for stacking HP. For every 10k HP over 25k HP it becomes 50% less effective.

Reduce the potency of minor maim down to 8% instead of the current 15%

Improve DoT damage by 20% (in thogards post he proposes 10%, which I personally think is a bit on the lower end).

These 4 changes together with removing cast times and reintroducing stuns to abilites like frags, shalks etc would be enough to counter the tankier meta we've now, without screwing everyone over.

and i really like these ideas


i thinkbuffing traits like divines and adding more stuns and scorces of major defile and major / minor berserk would increase dmg in a indirect way.
eg, maj protec is easy to get with brp dw.
maj berserk is only on reaping mark and atro synergy as far as i know.
almost everyone has 100% uptime on minor protec but what about minor berserk?

ThePhantomThorn

MajBludd wrote: »

I'm sure a lot run heavy but I dont think it's as many as we might think. A lot use med for more mobility.

Is it heavy armor itself that needs looked at or specific sets that actually contribute to this "tank meta"?

and tbh sets like fury and seventh really bufs heavy armour for damage. i can understand why people would like running a tanky spec but hitting that amount of damage in heavy is ridiculous.

Alienoutlaw

blame the youtubers/streamers and theory crafters the sheep follow every patch telling everyone what the new "META" is this month, if ppl thought for themselves there would be more variety of builds in the game, literally EVERYONE is wearing the same gear thanks to a few ppl

ChefZero

ThePhantomThorn wrote: »

So the tank meta has been plaguing eso pvp for a long time. And now they have ridiculous heals aswell.

So let’s throw some ideas around on how to fix it.

Going to make some quick points
-Increase damage. Rn it’s so hard to kill players.
-Make defensive stats harder to invest in. So getting a casual 28k hp while stacking 5k wd is not possible
-Add better med damage set options. Eg, a set similar to fury, but rather than taking damage procs of dealing damage. (therefore a reason to run med)
-Nerf heavy armour. Its just too strong.
-reduce group healing through battle spirit, this way players can’t just stack heals over their entire group, and stop the players from being immortal because their 30hp isn’t constantly being topped of by a nearby healer
-punish players for running heavy. Eg reduce wd/movement speed. Because rn there are no disadvantages

I don't want to offend you but your suggestions show lack of experience in theory crafting builds.

ZOS must shake up many basic things but I doubt they will do it or if they will handle it properly. Crafting a build is about making choices, because you want A but have to miss B for that. That's how it should be.

Means ESO needs a separation in scaling of damage done, healing on allies and self healing. So for example damage doesn't sxale with max mag/stamina anymore and healing allies scales only with mag/stamina. Self healing could scale with max health like they dark cloak anf others they implemented more and more.

Or/and another thing could be to reduce healing in general but buff the healing done values on buffs and sets. Changing healing received to self healing received and buff that values too. Yadda yadda...

Of course crosshealing and smart-heals are a problem in general but changing stuff like that to target group members for example would (hopefully) touch more performance but won't change healing in coordinated group play.

Iskiab

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

blame the youtubers/streamers and theory crafters the sheep follow every patch telling everyone what the new "META" is this month, if ppl thought for themselves there would be more variety of builds in the game, literally EVERYONE is wearing the same gear thanks to a few ppl

People don’t have to follow others, but it is easier. I mean, I spend millions and have spent probably over a thousand transmutation stones finding the sweet spot on offense and defense. Issue with doing it yourself is expensive and time consuming. I totally understand why people copy/paste builds.

For my main I’ll level every weapon ability, grab as many skill points in the game as I can and level up skills to test them. Your average player just doesn’t have enough time for that. If I was more casual I’d totally copy/paste.

echo2omega

The counter to tank was oblivion damage. However there are far too few sources of oblivion damage coupled with the fact they deal far too little damage and can be easily healed through.

the second aspect is healing.
Which can be countered with defile. HOWEVER many sources of major/minor defile were changed/removed resulting in too few sources of defil to counter healing.

KillsAllElves

22k cap on all resistances
25k health cap
No 5+heavy armor
Limitations on self healing
SnB should not be allowed in cyrodiil
If you want to kill some one use a staff, bow or a bladed/blunt weapon.
not every one is running 5 heavy, the common build practice is crafted 5 piece offensive set 5 defensive set very common monster set is troll king, stacked with 1000+ health recovery.
Potentates is another problem.

People cried about the so called power creep so zos went on a crusade to nerf class and weapon abilities, Now people cry about this tanky meta in cyrodiil (which is a problem) but offer little to no constructive arguments and or sugestions to combat this problem.
damn near everyone wants to be fake me out proto-tanks. I put the blame zos and the player for this crap show!

Cathexis

There are several contributing factors but the big one is that people want to revolve class identity around roles, which, sure, that makes sense aesthetically. In practicality though, it results in an overpopulation of whatever class is optimized best for the meta - and since in practicality tanking is also by extension healing then of course the tank/heal class becomes 75% of the population...

...And then when that tries to be changed, since an overwhelming number of players play the same class, the perception is that that class is being nerfed, and/or that this is an attack on class identity.

The perception that a class doesn't "stand" out, in actual fact, is in varying degrees of perception, just the normalizing of the meta.

So in that regard, my opinion is that the first step is in unhooking class identity from roles, and instead looking at it as a case of styles of skill utility and combos, and variability in the sorts of class based buffs/debuffs, and what classes look like with different role and stat orientations. An important discrepancy in that regard I think is to look at homogeneity across class abilities, and ensure proportionality, since that's where distinct elements between classes (and so between players) are coming into play.

That combined with the second big factor I would say which is that survivability is far too easily contingent on passive ability rather than active ability, and that this weighting across active/passive abilities needs to be reversed.

The third thing I would consider is that there needs to be some kind of normalizing balance in terms of defensive stats between heavy and light/medium armor. One thing to consider might be to provide two base defensive stats on all armor types, defense and dodge. Light armor would provide the highest passive dodge % and the lowest armor, heavy would provide high defense and low passive dodge, and medium would fall in between. With some balancing, this might bring armors more in line with each other, and also would be an opportunity to scale down defensive stats overall.

I think just addressing these issues would go a long way in bringing the tank meta under better control. But it means fundamentally letting go of the idea that roles are inherent to classes and by extension the identity (a concept which, while not true of MMOs, is very true to the elder scrolls series). It also means accepting that engaging means having a risk/reward balance, and the overwhelming majority of zerglings vote no on a steeper risk/reward balance in PvP than zero risk/maximum reward (since every patch consistently reinforces ballgroup without fail, we won't even get into aoe caps and them being something no one wanted, and are also something to be removed).

They need to look at reorienting cp, and I think the best solution I've been able to theorycraft is just to reduce the cp bonuses to correspond with your active mundus (so if I want wizard bonuses I have to have the wizard mundus, and so forth). No CP has been, stereotypically, significantly more balanced (still very tank heavy) than CP, with tank bonuses in particular in CP being off the charts. This would just generally reduce the impact of cp as a stop gap measure to avoid having to do massive overhauls to the entire system, and would enhance the dimensions mundus stones bring to the game.

Many people have made great suggestions patch after patch that have had limited impact, so I think part of the reason is that there's only so long players can shout until they are blue in the face, and then on top of that there's varying miscomprehension about the balance of skills, roles, class identity, and how these things come into play with respect to the apparent vision of what changes look like that comes with each patch...

Like for example I read about concerns of oversimplification of abilities in the last couple patches, which coincided with a shift of players leaving WoW - In that instance the shift signified nothing to do with balance issues but just an attempt to cater to a newer player base, and so there too you have a problem impacting tank meta, something completely variable and external to the game's mechanics, that has more to do with the game's economic mandates. So not only is it not so simple, but overwhelmingly the suggestions players make or who they are will likely have a chaotic impact, especially if they aren't introduced with hard data or experience, and may fly in the face of the goals of development (who have to cater to economic implications).

Lastly, a big problem with it is that the objective or vision sets an incredibly low bar in active PvP, compared to where players, especially veteran players, tend to hope for as an experience. It has been the lynchpin for the systematic dismantling of 1vX, to the empty shell of what it is now. I think it's good to be inclusive, to set a standard where every player can compete, but I think that can be a detriment to the aesthetic of the game (for example in instances like snipe dodge warnings, where players can have add-ons that tell them what's hitting them from behind) or in tanking threshold (where risk of death is borderline negligible, especially in group numbers). The pace of combat has considerably slowed, and while that seems reasonable to create inclusivity, PvP is, fundamentally, a competitive arena, and right now that slowing of pace and dumbing down simply caters to group oriented players and drives the bigger fish eats the smaller fish dynamic (or rather specifically, its lack of dynamic). This is especially pertinent to 1vX, or small scale dynamics, where you just don't have players doing high risk/high reward and making truely epic plays, in the same ways you used to, something that many veteran players enjoy. The best metaphor I would say for the arc of the game is that it started out like paintball and ended up like football -- it went from more spontaneous, chaotic fun to a very controlled, rigid, team sport.

irstarkey57

Something blatantly obvious to me is to give medium armor a physical pen bonus like light armor has. The sneak bonus is worthless.

MartiniDaniels

irstarkey57 wrote: »

Something blatantly obvious to me is to give medium armor a physical pen bonus like light armor has. The sneak bonus is worthless.

And give light armor +15% to maxmagicka? Deal

Zer0_CooL

Guys can someone please explain to me why everyone is talking about a supposed tank meta? After the latest DoT nerf my MagDk is running light armor with like 16k physical resistance to make up for the dmg loss.

Edit: not to mention the lack of sustain with the increased cost on all my dots.

KillsAllElves

Zer0_CooL wrote: »

Guys can someone please explain to me why everyone is talking about a supposed tank meta? After the latest DoT nerf my MagDk is running light armor with like 16k physical resistance to make up for the dmg loss.

Edit: not to mention the lack of sustain with the increased cost on all my dots.

Its a term for the high resistance stacking and healing.

Mag DKhas been awful at sustain for quite awhile. The recent nerf to mag sustain is beyond ridiculous.

evoniee

dont touch my nord and warior's fury

Kagukan

Make DoT's great again!

sharquez

I don't think that Tankiness and the ability to deal damage should be separated. Citing games like Team Fortress or Overwatch, (now i know that they are not only different genres but have controlled teams sizes as well just bear with me)
Tanks not only can deal damage, they can decide the game through skilled play, and well timed ultimates.

In those games tanks cannot really heal themselves actively in a fight and rely on their individualized mitigation techniques to soak up damage along with support from their team mates
.
In the context of ESO PVP healing is too readily available to everyone with high damage, everyone can do everything and there's no structure to limit the overwhelming of another faction by sheer numbers or build homogeny.

Removing the ability of high damage, high resist characters to self heal effectively would help with that. basically what i'm sayin is in my opinion you should be able to pick to be highly effective from 2 of the following: Damage, Resist, Support.

Unfortunately Freedom of build is the name of the game in ESO and to implement such restrictive structure into the gameplay this late is going to cause some riots. At this point it may be time to grudgingly accept that this will never be a competitive structured PVP environment.

notvenousdrake

L2p

(Btw rip juice wrld)

xylena

Nothing needs to be nerfed further. It's time for some un-nerfs.

Revert the various nerfs to DoT abilities, Bleed mechanics, and Defiles (dating back at least to Summerset).
Remove cast times on melee Ultimates (single worst change in game history).
Restore the stuns on abilities such as Dizzying Swing, Incap Strike, Spear Shards, and Crystal Fragments.
Restore the Major Defiles on abilities such as Reverb Bash, Incap Strike, and to Diseased status.
Restore the old Viper and Tremorscale proc mechanics, and the damage of Puncture.

I'd hardly shed a tear if PvP blocking and group healing were gutted, but again, nothing needs to be nerfed further.

ThePhantomThorn

xylena wrote: »

Nothing needs to be nerfed further. It's time for some un-nerfs.

Revert the various nerfs to DoT abilities, Bleed mechanics, and Defiles (dating back at least to Summerset).
Remove cast times on melee Ultimates (single worst change in game history).
Restore the stuns on abilities such as Dizzying Swing, Incap Strike, Spear Shards, and Crystal Fragments.
Restore the Major Defiles on abilities such as Reverb Bash, Incap Strike, and to Diseased status.
Restore the old Viper and Tremorscale proc mechanics, and the damage of Puncture.

I'd hardly shed a tear if PvP blocking and group healing were gutted, but again, nothing needs to be nerfed further.

viper...

yes please
but tbh this would really make a difference

Cathexis

sharquez wrote: »

I don't think that Tankiness and the ability to deal damage should be separated. Citing games like Team Fortress or Overwatch, (now i know that they are not only different genres but have controlled teams sizes as well just bear with me)
Tanks not only can deal damage, they can decide the game through skilled play, and well timed ultimates.

In those games tanks cannot really heal themselves actively in a fight and rely on their individualized mitigation techniques to soak up damage along with support from their team mates
.
In the context of ESO PVP healing is too readily available to everyone with high damage, everyone can do everything and there's no structure to limit the overwhelming of another faction by sheer numbers or build homogeny.

Removing the ability of high damage, high resist characters to self heal effectively would help with that. basically what i'm sayin is in my opinion you should be able to pick to be highly effective from 2 of the following: Damage, Resist, Support.

Unfortunately Freedom of build is the name of the game in ESO and to implement such restrictive structure into the gameplay this late is going to cause some riots. At this point it may be time to grudgingly accept that this will never be a competitive structured PVP environment.

I do think there is merit to what you are saying, in that the balance of roles, at its core isn't definitive enough, and that implementing such a structure, not just because of the player base but because of the nature of the game, would cause a lot of problems. Personally I don't think this is the way to go with it anyway though, as it's a viewpoint characteristic of traditional MMO balance. I think the problem is wider in scope and more grey, with respect to balance. The intensity of healing/damage soaking has simply replaced employing strategic engagement. In short, to me it boils down to players essentially having the mathematical capacity to be like "why move around or use stealth when I can stand still and do nothing."

vamp_emily

I think all self healing needs to be removed from the game ( skills/buffs/armor ).

Also since I am here make NBs great again, bring back one shot kills, stuns, and knock backs.

Goregrinder

That's a loaded statement that implies there is a problem with the "tank" meta. There isn't....it's a L2P issue.

Cathexis

Goregrinder wrote: »

That's a loaded statement that implies there is a problem with the "tank" meta. There isn't....it's a L2P issue.

Naw, it's really not. It's been a key talking point for many, many patches. It's a conversation about the overarching quality of competitive combat, about how excessive tanking makes it flat, it has nothing to do with learning about it.

Goregrinder

Cathexis wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

That's a loaded statement that implies there is a problem with the "tank" meta. There isn't....it's a L2P issue.

Naw, it's really not. It's been a key talking point for many, many patches. It's a conversation about the overarching quality of competitive combat, about how excessive tanking makes it flat, it has nothing to do with learning about it.

Learn how to play against tankier targets, once you do your life will become easier my friend.