Idea for tanking: please be nice :)

Valentine07

My thoughts: So just a typical day, yaknow. tryna do my pledges in a super long queue and was like "huh theres not enough tanks in this game." so i decided to make a tank to get fast queues and then realized something about tanking. the reason we dont have many tanks is because playing as a tank, specifically our block mechanic, is really really boring. At least to me it felt that way and obviously, others feel the same or we wouldnt have such a big shortage of tanks for normal casual players XD. So i thought to myself: "what would make tanking more appealing to more players?" and i realized that lots of people enjoy classes such as stamblade or magplar with thrassian and the high risk high reward system seems to be attractive to alot of players. So how can we have something thats both safe and high risk high reward? I would like to introduce my idea for a blocking rework to lay the foundation for the new mechanic "parry"!
The Idea:
So essentially we would remove blocking from the stamina bar entirely and create a new gauge called the block gauge that scales off of hp, class passives and weapon. Each weapon type would have its own base amount of block stats plus scaling from your max hp and when you block an attack, instead of draining you stamina it would drain your block gauge and a portion of the damage would roll over into your hp. each second you are holding block would increase the amount of block gauge you lose per hit and increase the amount of damage rolling over onto you so essentially, you can no longer permablock unless you take specific traits and glyphs to lower block gauge cost. it's regeneration would be tied to your hp regen and healing. a small portion of healing done to you will roll over into block gauge and block regen from self heals is greatly reduced. overhealing would go directly into the block gauge and the idea behind this is to make tanks more reliant on healers. so no healing means basically little to no block regen. now, the reason for all this is to implement a new mechanic called "parry" and it would be when a targetted blockable attack is incoming and instead of holding block you tap it at the exact moment it impacts, you negate the attack and all effects from it as well as gaining 100% chance to parry all targetted attacks that are blockable for 0.5 seconds AND you refill a large portion of your block gauge! the risk part is that if you whiff a parry you get hit by the full force of the blow with no help from a block and just eat the damage and possible stun/knockback. in order to keep from a parry machine, parry would have an internal cooldown of 15 seconds. Also, probably possible to still implement parry without reworking block but i kinda wanted a way for blocking to be.. more exciting i guess and actually need the healer.

deleted221106-002999

Block is already broken since a previous round of 'performance' improvements and doesn't need to be broken further in my view.

Tanking is already super-challenging in pugs since, as a pure tank, you are at the mercy of whatever group rng throws at you - this pretty much covers 'risk/reward' OP referred to.

Parry is already subsumed pretty much in 'interrupt' mechanics or, at least, rendered redundant.

Inventing yet another abstraction layer is rarely, if ever, a good idea however appealing it may seems when it's your own idea(s) since it usually just serves to add further unnecessary complexity.

But keep the ideas coming (and thanks for sharing) - that's healthy and welcome.

AcadianPaladin

Interesting idea but I don't think tanking needs to be made harder. It is plenty hard. Taunt and block are mechanically not that complicated because the tank has so much to keep track of and watch out for and the profession is very unforgiving of mistakes which can often lead to full group wipes.

Here is why I and many other tanks do not enjoy pug tanking:
1. Pugs generally charge ahead creating mayhem. What a tank wants is the group to hold off until after the tank does their pull. That allows the tank to taunt & turn the boss, be the initial target for the adds, taunt a few of the more troublesome adds, perhaps pull in a couple of the more dangerous ranged adds. All leading to a fairly clumped grouping focused on the tank. Then the dps should open up by dropping their killing zones on the tank and pouring on the damage. In some dungeons (BC1, VoM. . . ) there are specific spots that if the tank goes first, every foe in the whole chamber will go to melee range on the tank due to line of sight making the fight very easy for the group if they wait until the tank has done the pull - which pugs don't do.
2. Low dps. Pure tanks do remarkably little dps. They can mitigate damage and sustain their bars pretty well but they can't do damage. It is frustrating, particularly with bosses who gradually increase their damage over time or gradually increase the adds they spawn when group dps is low.

The situation is entirely different for a guild group all up in voice who will let the tank 'lead' the fight. That kind of tanking is great fun.

zvavi

Sounds like you need to go tank dlc dungeons, and roll dodge heavy attacks for high risk high reward.

Wuerstal

zvavi wrote: »

Sounds like you need to go tank dlc dungeons, and roll dodge heavy attacks for high risk high reward.

I read stuff like this so often, yet I have all HMs in all dlc dungeons and still didn't need to dodge heavy attacks... (except Maarselok) Even in Trails... Honestly I think tanking is to easy. Atleast with a group that doesn't suck. Good dmg cancels so many mechanics for the tank that I get really bored during tanking. I almost fell asleep while tanking vCR+3 or vAS+2 (main tank) because you do the exact same thing for like 20 minutes with no challenge what so ever... (for me).

But I see that tanking has a very steep learning curve so I think what should be done are little tweaks here and there to make it more diversified. A new system for tanking will likely just bring a whole lot of problems... so yeah.

(not like ZOS cares about a healthy tank or heal enviroment, as seen in the last 10 patchnotes they mostly care about dps...)

zvavi

Wuerstal wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Sounds like you need to go tank dlc dungeons, and roll dodge heavy attacks for high risk high reward.

I read stuff like this so often, yet I have all HMs in all dlc dungeons and still didn't need to dodge heavy attacks... (except Maarselok) Even in Trails... Honestly I think tanking is to easy. Atleast with a group that doesn't suck. Good dmg cancels so many mechanics for the tank that I get really bored during tanking. I almost fell asleep while tanking vCR+3 or vAS+2 (main tank) because you do the exact same thing for like 20 minutes with no challenge what so ever... (for me).

But I see that tanking has a very steep learning curve so I think what should be done are little tweaks here and there to make it more diversified. A new system for tanking will likely just bring a whole lot of problems... so yeah.

(not like ZOS cares about a healthy tank or heal enviroment, as seen in the last 10 patchnotes they mostly care about dps...)

The guy just got into tanking, said he just made the tank, so I assumed he didn't get to that level yet, I do agree that main tanking vAS is kinda boring (unless you are main tanking as a damage dealer). I am used to tanking for pugs where you can't trust neother healer nor damage, so all resource management is done by me, and roll dodging ends up less resource heavy (than outhealing it myself)

MrBrownstone

You don't get tanks because you queue for normal dungeons. Normal dungeons don't require tank or healer. All the pug tanks queue for vet.

Spartabunny08

Valentine07 wrote: »

My thoughts: So just a typical day, yaknow. tryna do my pledges in a super long queue and was like "huh theres not enough tanks in this game." so i decided to make a tank to get fast queues and then realized something about tanking. the reason we dont have many tanks is because playing as a tank, specifically our block mechanic, is really really boring. At least to me it felt that way and obviously, others feel the same or we wouldnt have such a big shortage of tanks for normal casual players XD. So i thought to myself: "what would make tanking more appealing to more players?" and i realized that lots of people enjoy classes such as stamblade or magplar with thrassian and the high risk high reward system seems to be attractive to alot of players. So how can we have something thats both safe and high risk high reward? I would like to introduce my idea for a blocking rework to lay the foundation for the new mechanic "parry"!
The Idea:
So essentially we would remove blocking from the stamina bar entirely and create a new gauge called the block gauge that scales off of hp, class passives and weapon. Each weapon type would have its own base amount of block stats plus scaling from your max hp and when you block an attack, instead of draining you stamina it would drain your block gauge and a portion of the damage would roll over into your hp. each second you are holding block would increase the amount of block gauge you lose per hit and increase the amount of damage rolling over onto you so essentially, you can no longer permablock unless you take specific traits and glyphs to lower block gauge cost. it's regeneration would be tied to your hp regen and healing. a small portion of healing done to you will roll over into block gauge and block regen from self heals is greatly reduced. overhealing would go directly into the block gauge and the idea behind this is to make tanks more reliant on healers. so no healing means basically little to no block regen. now, the reason for all this is to implement a new mechanic called "parry" and it would be when a targetted blockable attack is incoming and instead of holding block you tap it at the exact moment it impacts, you negate the attack and all effects from it as well as gaining 100% chance to parry all targetted attacks that are blockable for 0.5 seconds AND you refill a large portion of your block gauge! the risk part is that if you whiff a parry you get hit by the full force of the blow with no help from a block and just eat the damage and possible stun/knockback. in order to keep from a parry machine, parry would have an internal cooldown of 15 seconds. Also, probably possible to still implement parry without reworking block but i kinda wanted a way for blocking to be.. more exciting i guess and actually need the healer.

When have tanks or healers for that matter ever really gotten a buff? A great 5 piece or monster set?

All I remember is nerf plague doctor, nerf green pact, nerf fortified brass. Nerf armor, nerf block oh and woeler got them to double the block cost so no more permablock. Play as you want? Not tanks. You want to know why tanks aren't popular well this is why. Healer same problem. Nerf after nerf. Practically no more healers in pvp. Heal yourself or forget it. Only people who only play these certain roles are the ones who still maintain it.

I have no idea what the devs are thinking here but I guess this is what we have now so. This is a sore spot for me I started this game tanking and healing and to put nicely I am extremely pissed over how they've handled tanks and healers.

I want my tank back please.

Gundug

The idea behind the parry system described is not terrible in concept, but would be awful in execution. Blocking in this game is unreliable due to latency issues, where hits are not always consistent in timing with tells. Bosses also vary greatly in the timing between initially showing their tell and actually striking. There is no way people would be able to reliably block at the exact moment, unless the window for “exact moment” was fairly large.

Another issue, for me at least, is that I can sometimes be holding block uninterrupted long before an attack, with sufficient stamina, and the game still fails to register that I had blocked.

deleted210809-001958

for me tanking is pain (with random group in 4ppl content) because with ~60-70% chance you will get low dps group and will suffer with damn vBC2 for an hours.

Stahlor

Tanking in ESO became a big support role. The time, where you stand and hold block is over. Tanks are using back bar lightning staff and sets like Olorime, Alkosh, Powerful Assault etc. to buff the group. Sometimes they even run bow on the backbar to boost their own damage. As soon as you start playing a proper support tank, it's not boring anymore. Beside that it also depends on the content, of course. The non-DLC dungeaons have become so easy nowdays, that you rather run without a tank to have fun.

Kadoin

People pretending that tanking is hard when its quite boring. The only difficulty you encounter is dealing with bugs most of the time. Mechanics as a whole in PvE are boring IMO because they don't actually punish DPS and everything eventually turns to a boring burn.

JanTanhide

Gundug wrote: »

The idea behind the parry system described is not terrible in concept, but would be awful in execution. Blocking in this game is unreliable due to latency issues, where hits are not always consistent in timing with tells. Bosses also vary greatly in the timing between initially showing their tell and actually striking. There is no way people would be able to reliably block at the exact moment, unless the window for “exact moment” was fairly large.

Another issue, for me at least, is that I can sometimes be holding block uninterrupted long before an attack, with sufficient stamina, and the game still fails to register that I had blocked.

Yep, the failure of the game to acknowledge we are blocking is a huge issue. When ZOS reworked how blocking works is when ZOS ruined it for many Tank players.

I use a Keyboard and Mouse Overlay in OBS when I Tank so I can see my Tank blocking well before the hit and many times my Tank is "not blocking" when indeed I am holding block with a full Stamina bar.

It is unbelievable that ZOS did this and has not fixed it.

Wuerstal

Stahlor wrote: »

Tanking in ESO became a big support role. The time, where you stand and hold block is over. Tanks are using back bar lightning staff and sets like Olorime, Alkosh, Powerful Assault etc. to buff the group. Sometimes they even run bow on the backbar to boost their own damage. As soon as you start playing a proper support tank, it's not boring anymore. Beside that it also depends on the content, of course. The non-DLC dungeaons have become so easy nowdays, that you rather run without a tank to have fun.

I run a full support setup with alkosh and whatever is needed (Powerful assault, Torugs, yolna, etc.) with shockstaff and I think that it's still pretty easy (for me). Tanking the dlc dungeons is sometimes ok but when you have a group that has good dmg then it gets boring by default.

Tanking needs adjustments.
Its hard to learn for new players because the content they can do is way to easy. then when you get to your fist raids and dlc dungeons it gets progressevly harder at a very steep curve. After you have done alot and are max cp there are only a few bosses that even requiere full attention. vCR for example is kinda ok? but after tanking it 5 times now (even +3) its already geting boring. Play warden -> slap on crystaliced shield and your good.

I am saying this fully aware of the fact that there are players worse than me. They absolutely need to be considerd. We can't balance the game around me. But at the moment I really hate tanking like 95% of the content of the game.

I have some ideas how to change tanking/make it more rewarding but that does not belong here for now.