why there are a lot of dds instead of tanks?

svendf

Playing all roles I have this to say.

Atm I play tank and healer the most because of que time and a bit bored playing dd. I started out as dd and find the other two roles a bit more interesting to me atm.

I play mostly normal simply because I don´t wanna wast too much time in dungeons - I want my geo`s and that´s it and can do that fine, without rushing, skiping and, what not on all healer´s and tanks.

When on healer I see more real tanks than I expect to see - that´s good. Who are you to tell people, where they can´t/should play ? Who are you to tell, what´s not needed or needed ? I seems that alot, me included ignor you and you should be.

Tanking isn´t boring. At times you can do a rotation along the way and here the experience as dd is nice t have. Other times it´s all about the boss - it depend on the group.

For me tanking is alot about being tactical, situational awareness. As a tank you are in the center of the things and because of that, you have many eyes on you. Some people don´t like that, so it´s very natural some will never get into the tanking business.

As a tank, who isn´t pushing for scoreboard or prog groups, should not be confronted, whit additional roles as in buff monkey. There is not reason. Tank main object is taunt and stay alive.

a dd should be building for damage and sustain. I do see more and more dd´s go towards survival, which is wrong, with a healer in mind. If you build for survival you will loose dps. I will go as far as, it´s better to build for dps and those, who don´t follow that line or path, is part of the problem.

Why is frustrating being a tank att times ? Too many eager "dd" beavers outthere, who need to pace themself a little.

DD´s using tormentor gear - lol how to do you really think ? What´s the deal reaaly ? DD´s sloting taunts - againg, what´s the deal ?

The lagg of healer´s and tank´s in vet orientated content isn´t because tthere are few playing the roles. I see more a problem in the way some try to attract more tanks and healers to vet content. Let people make up there own mind, where to play. Do not tell them, that they are not needed in content "You" don´t play. You are shooting yourself in the foot by doing so.

Many go the dd path beacuse it´s more easy to level that way if you are new to ESO, and they for the most stay, with that role. Can you level a tank as a tank ? Yes and you learn to build for it early on. You also learn alot about the build and later make better changes vs power leveling.

Building for a good dps these day´s or get a good start for a new player in ESO is really needed.

Bobby_V_Rockit

I much prefer the play style of my healer than my damage dealer, but gee whiz I had no idea the average DPS of others. I mean, I’m awful at this game but last night in a NORMAL banished cells 2 run, me and the tank eventually just let the DD’s die at the boss and did it ourselves. We literally watched Rillis heal himself over and over and over and it was only me and the tank even hitting him, both spamming “attack the boss”. At least as a DD I’m somewhat happy with how fast things die, and I am by NO means a speed runner and always happy to take my time. We need more capable damage dealers

Wandering_Immigrant

I think the reason we see so many more dps than the other roles is just because building for damage is more intuitive for a new player. You're unlocking new abilities, most of which deal damage, and your instinct is to play around with them and see what kind of new power you've aquired. At the same time all the enemies you encounter are already attacking you so you have no reason to pursue ways to focus them on you, and so your goal becomes to kill them faster.

For someone to pursue tanking they basically have to make a conscious decision to throw all that out the window and start playing the game from a whole different perspective.

I think most of us who love tanking can trace it back to a sort of epiphany moment. For me it was my first MMO FFXI, as one of the main support mages in a top endgame group I was always placed in the tank party. We had some really good tanks and they made it seem really fun and important and that made me want to try it.

I only really tank and heal for group PVE in ESO, but I prefer tanking and when I do I always try and show what the role is capable of, how much smoother a run can go when a tank is using all of thier tools. And I try to have fun doing it even when it's an easy dungeon, because I think the best way to recruit new tanks in the game is to set an example.

That said I think there's more tanks in the game than group finder would have you believe, they just don't PuG. I do because I like rolling the dice. But for harder content, like vet DLCs, even I only go through guildies.

JTD

At times tanking can feel very satisfying.It's just that most fights are the standard tank and spank where you occasionally have to reposition the boss next to an add or away from it. There is not much to the actual tanking of the boss. It is mostly getting hit and avoiding or blocking the 'one shots' and the occasional interrupt.

The nuance of tanking lies in keeping up the mitigation, buffs and enemy debuffs. Which are really important but don't give that instant satisfaction. Where as DD you see your impact directly by the health dropping and the enemies dying.

As tank i feel i have to open cmx to see my up times and gauge my performance. That does't help me getting immersed in helping out the group.

GimpyPorcupine

'Cause some people just like killing stuff.

Also, I think some people are intimidated by the responsibility of tanking. Or maybe it's because tanking, when done right, is hard work with very little potential for glory, but one missed mechanic and you're a pariah. Miss an interrupt on First Mate Wavecutter in Blackheart, a DD goes down, your fault. Miss a block on Selene in Hard Mode because the Maw of the Infernal procs on top of you and you can't see, your fault.

That said, I really enjoy tanking, even vet non-DLC in group finder. It's definitely the shortest queue times, and it's the fastest way to level Undaunted skill line since you don't have to wait 2 hours in queue to complete the 2 non-DLC pledges. I also enjoy making non-standard tank builds, such as the Knightmare/Power Extraction NB setup I just ran, which provided enough enemy damage debuff to make the runs really smooth.

GimpyPorcupine

I should add that if everyone who came onto the forums to complain about the lack of tanks would roll a tank, there wouldn't be a shortage.

Kalik_Gold

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

Why?

Press the same taunt button every 12 seconds for 10 minutes straight because your PUG group can't kill the boss you're on. You're sitting there, bored to tears, and there's nothing you can do about it... Then it hits you. After this boss there's another 4 bosses of this *** to come.

Slot multiple taunts, use fun sets? My Warden tank is fun, 2H / Frost Staff. My DK tank is traditional and Necro Tank for PvP, in PvE he is nonmeta also.

BlueRaven

Why is there so few tanks? Quality of life

It seems like every patch tanks get nerfed. Lower damage, tanking sets get diminished, and now they are actually physically slower moving. A practically perfect metaphor for what a tank play style feels like.

After the dungeon is over, tanks still need to get stuff done. Quests, dailies, sky shards, even just resource gathering. No one wants to spend what feels like five minutes clearing out the two lions so they can get the 3 rubite ore.

“But tanks can change out their gear, weapons, and load outs to do all that stuff!” The forums will say.

So just completely stop being a tank and become a damage dealer. Great.

Or the player can just stay a damage dealer and still do all of the content, faster, with no gear swaps, including solo arenas.

Which sounds easier?

Edit: Just wanted to add, with the new patch there will probably be even fewer tanks. Personally I used to have five, but with the free respecs I am now down to two. I will most likely keep one, but only use the tank upon special requests.

pelle412

TC_Lee13 has it exactly right in the video clip by the thread starter, but I'd also add another very real reason. When you are a tank and use the dungeon finder, quite often you get a group that is in way over their heads. That turns a normally enjoyable experience tanking into something very annoying and time consuming.

So, in essence, there isn't a shortage of tanks. There is a shortage of tanks willing to roll the dice in the dungeon finder.

MalEducado

Kalik_Gold wrote: »

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

Why?

Press the same taunt button every 12 seconds for 10 minutes straight because your PUG group can't kill the boss you're on. You're sitting there, bored to tears, and there's nothing you can do about it... Then it hits you. After this boss there's another 4 bosses of this *** to come.

Slot multiple taunts, use fun sets? My Warden tank is fun, 2H / Frost Staff. My DK tank is traditional and Necro Tank for PvP, in PvE he is nonmeta also.

the guy is talking about tanking in fungol groto 1, i think, cause in harder content... is no only taunt each 12 seconds

BXR_Lonestar

There's way more DPS than there is tanks (or healers) because this game is DPSO where DPS is pretty much the only thing that matters. Good tanks get gobbled up by set groups, and so don't really need to que to get into dungeons. Same principal applies to healers, but to a much less dramatic degree.

Juhasow

Most common group compositions :

4 man content : 1 tank ; 2-3 DDs ; 0-1 healer
12 man content : 1-3 tanks ; 7-9 DDs ; 1-2 healers

Seems pretty obvious why there is more DDs then other roles.

amm7sb14_ESO

Because all the DD's want to toss the damage sets that they don't want to wear on us, and they think that Alkosh / Yolna is the only appropriate setup.

I dont accept *anyone* trying to tell *me* how to build and play my own characters, and since DD's love to do that to the tanks in this game, I take my tanks out of the queue and group with my friends who don't do those things.

Scardan

MalEducado wrote: »

some ppl say cause you cant share the archievements, but the question is focusing in terms of matchmaking and the how its hard to find tanks, but how it hards to find a competente tank ... the key is in this clip , in my opinion, this guy is a main tank, has a lot of guides, and he did all content in our lovely game...


enjoy yourself

https://clips.twitch.tv/LovelyImpossibleAlmondKeyboardCat-p2v9NQf0-K2OrS2u

I am getting flashbacks. I was healer in Fiesta Online and it was like he describes it, lmao. It was even worse, because at death you lose 1% xp (and it takes whole day of grinding or even more to make this 1% xp) and I had to deal with extreme toxicity sometimes. xD

preevious

Again, with all the horror stories ..

"I'm a tank, and everytime I queue, both DPS pull negative numbers . .last time, they were healing the boss in FG1"

I'm the first one to thank my tank during a dungeon, and appreciate all the effort he puts making the run as easy as possible (seriously .. good tanks rules all) , but enough with the lies ..

Either you run in normal, and can't really complain when you get the odd DD, since it's normal, and everyone is a supposed beginner, there..

Or you run in vet, and the overwhelming, crushing majority of the DD you'll encounter are at least correct.

I mean, bad luck can happen, and you might end up with 2 very poor DDs, but saying it happens everytime? It's wrong, and bordeline elitist. It's incredibely rare.
Every other DD I partyfind with are at the very least in the 15-20k range. Often higher.

I don't say it never happens, but the odds are small. (especially for the 2 dds to be utterly bad)

SickleCider

Too passive. As a DD I'm doing mechanics, grabbing rezzes (well, hopefully I don't need to) and making the boss dead. That's more interesting to me.

That being said, stack and burn trials suck the fun out of absolutely everything. 🥱

Agenericname

preevious wrote: »

Again, with all the horror stories ..

"I'm a tank, and everytime I queue, both DPS pull negative numbers . .last time, they were healing the boss in FG1"

I'm the first one to thank my tank during a dungeon, and appreciate all the effort he puts making the run as easy as possible (seriously .. good tanks rules all) , but enough with the lies ..

Either you run in normal, and can't really complain when you get the odd DD, since it's normal, and everyone is a supposed beginner, there..

Or you run in vet, and the overwhelming, crushing majority of the DD you'll encounter are at least correct.

I mean, bad luck can happen, and you might end up with 2 very poor DDs, but saying it happens everytime? It's wrong, and bordeline elitist. It's incredibely rare.
Every other DD I partyfind with are at the very least in the 15-20k range. Often higher.

I don't say it never happens, but the odds are small. (especially for the 2 dds to be utterly bad)

The odds are basically irrelevant. They're enough to make it to where tanks dont want to. At that point the numerical value doesnt matter. Its arbitrary. In other words, 1:10 or 1:100 doesnt matter if the tank isnt willing to roll the dice. There are enough tanks that speak of this to give it substance.

"Every run" is either false or extremely bad luck. I'll give you that. Its not that bad, but I think you may look at it from a DDs perspective. In which case you do have some control over group damage. As a tank, you dont.

I agree with both of the videos. I also agree that there are more tanks in the game than represented in the dugeon finder. I think both contribute to the shortage.

Avalon

Most of the answers above, but an additional couple that frustrate me really bad:

A lot of bosses have certain mechanics that target whomever the boss wishes, regardless of Aggro/taunt. When I get hit by those attacks, it barely moves my health at all, but when they target DPS or Healers, I’ve heard them say it one-shot them for 18k or whatever. The entire point of being a tank is YOU are supposed to be the big brother (or sister) who tells the baddies to pick on someone their own size. So, it’s very disheartening to watch a boss I know full well has been taunted turn around and smack a DPS in the face, killing them instantly. Makes me wonder why the heck we even have tanks when the boss’ biggest attacks go to random targets anyways.

Also, lack of an AoE taunt. It’s nice and dandy that DK has an AoE root ability (that I see so rarely used), even Sorc has a decent one. But, that does nothing to force casters or archers to attack the tank. It’s generally not much of an issue, though, with good enough DPS and a real healer, just burn them down fast, move on. But, there are some fights with bosses or etc, that being able to control the field becomes near impossible due to adds. Only having a single target taunt sucks really bad.

I’ve gone to just using 2H instead of sword n board, because of all of that. I can still get my resists to over 30k, my health over 40k, use inner fire for taunt, but do a lot more DPS, which helps get Aggro way more than inner fire anyways, helps keep bosses focused on me for those off attacks.

A tank should NOT be resorting to DPS to keep Aggro. That’s why we have taunt abilities in the game. But, the mechanics in the game push to go away from them.

amm7sb14_ESO

preevious wrote: »

Again, with all the horror stories ..

"I'm a tank, and everytime I queue, both DPS pull negative numbers . .last time, they were healing the boss in FG1"

I'm the first one to thank my tank during a dungeon, and appreciate all the effort he puts making the run as easy as possible (seriously .. good tanks rules all) , but enough with the lies ..

Either you run in normal, and can't really complain when you get the odd DD, since it's normal, and everyone is a supposed beginner, there..

Or you run in vet, and the overwhelming, crushing majority of the DD you'll encounter are at least correct.

I mean, bad luck can happen, and you might end up with 2 very poor DDs, but saying it happens everytime? It's wrong, and bordeline elitist. It's incredibely rare.
Every other DD I partyfind with are at the very least in the 15-20k range. Often higher.

I don't say it never happens, but the odds are small. (especially for the 2 dds to be utterly bad)

Are the horror stories exaggerated? Yea.

But I mean, I have had wipes in vet Spindle because the DPS can't burn down Bloodspawn because they are too busy light attacking. And like the poster above me said, tanks eventually begin to just not want to roll the dice on that anymore. Especially when it's been combined with loads of experiences with DD's who think because they parse at 90k, that everything is everyone else's fault when they are spending an entire boss fight laying dead because they have 12k health and don't know how to avoid mechanics.

We get stuck with DD's who can't damage, DD's who can damage but don't know mechanics and can't stay alive, fake healers who don't give us any sort of resource sustain making our entire job harder than it needs to be, and at the end of it all, we are the ones that get blamed for everything that goes wrong. Then they cry about their queue times because there's no tanks.

Are the horror stories exaggerated? Yes. Absolutely.

Are the horror stories frequent enough to make us think twice about even taking a chance on them? Yes. Absolutely.

preevious

Agenericname wrote: »

preevious wrote: »

Again, with all the horror stories ..

"I'm a tank, and everytime I queue, both DPS pull negative numbers . .last time, they were healing the boss in FG1"

I'm the first one to thank my tank during a dungeon, and appreciate all the effort he puts making the run as easy as possible (seriously .. good tanks rules all) , but enough with the lies ..

Either you run in normal, and can't really complain when you get the odd DD, since it's normal, and everyone is a supposed beginner, there..

Or you run in vet, and the overwhelming, crushing majority of the DD you'll encounter are at least correct.

I mean, bad luck can happen, and you might end up with 2 very poor DDs, but saying it happens everytime? It's wrong, and bordeline elitist. It's incredibely rare.
Every other DD I partyfind with are at the very least in the 15-20k range. Often higher.

I don't say it never happens, but the odds are small. (especially for the 2 dds to be utterly bad)

The odds are basically irrelevant. They're enough to make it to where tanks dont want to. At that point the numerical value doesnt matter. Its arbitrary. In other words, 1:10 or 1:100 doesnt matter if the tank isnt willing to roll the dice. There are enough tanks that speak of this to give it substance.

"Every run" is either false or extremely bad luck. I'll give you that. Its not that bad, but I think you may look at it from a DDs perspective. In which case you do have some control over group damage. As a tank, you dont.

I agree with both of the videos. I also agree that there are more tanks in the game than represented in the dugeon finder. I think both contribute to the shortage.

Indeed, you make valid points.

I suppose having a bad tank (yeah, they do exist, too) is more tolerable than having bad damage. I can understand that.
A quick hell failure is better than a long purgatory success, I suppose.
And you sometime can do without a tank, though it's borderline unbearable.

Also, indeed, since I'm a DD, and can perform adequately in any content, I never find myself in groups where damage is a real issue.. still, I look at my % of group damage, when I do a run (combat metrics), so I can "judge" the other DD pretty precisely, since I know where I should stand on that scale.
Most players (all roles confounded) in the vet-running community are quite capables (barring the odd one looking for a carry).


Ultimately, what I mean to say to the community is .. roll that dice a bit more, tank friends ..
Don't expect 120k of combined DPS everytime, but you'll still get decent groups.
We need you !

xaraan

Lot of reasons: Tanking can be a less exciting job than DPS. At the low end it's hardly needed in normal dungeons, if at all. At the top end, their idea of making it challenging is filling the fight with one shots and dots that it can be a frustrating job that doesn't give you any real accomplishment when done, just a sense of relief it's over. (Secret boss in Black Drake Villa, Gryphon fights in vCR, final HM boss of vKA, etc.) And at the highest level, there is little forgivability for mistakes, where you can watch DPS screw up again and again, die and rez, etc. but if you do one thing wrong or let that crazy damage they put in get to you, you get to be responsible for the entire group wiping and losing all progress.

That's a recipe for creating a role where people will not be eager to volunteer for.

I do think the middle ground is where it shines (although prob some runs can be boring). But if it's hard enough to not put you to sleep, but not so hard that the pressure feels like a full time job. So a lot of the DLC vet dungeons, even on HM aren't too bad of an experience. But because most tanks do a lot more than just pledges, the other things can discourage them from role period and you end up with less in the mix.

Combine that with feeling like you have to be on your game, you are expected to bring certain things to the table in a run, even random pledges like: obviously taunting, wearing some sort of sets that can offer the group something like Yoln. But often you'll have DPS that don't put the same effort in they expect from others (not all, just some) and show up with horrible damage that make fights ten times harder than they need to be. (For example, if you are a DPS and doing HM of Banished Cells and there are more than 4-5 deadroth up the tank is trying to hold - then you are the problem, not the tank losing a taunt on anything there). That leads to some tanks (like me) that will not queue for DLC pledges without at least one good DPS already with me, so even more tanks not in the mix.

(before moving on, more info for DPS roles) A taunt lasts like 15 seconds, by the time you taunt one things and target and move to the next that's another second, so usually you can expect a tank to hold like 9 things or so before the having to retaunt. That's not counting the resources used for taunting and blocking and no regen while blocking before you get to spend more for retaunting or any other skills you need to use. And not counting if you made the tank sprint to catch up to you at every pull in a dungeon and show up with half stam or less. So if you are leaving whatever is piled on the tank for longer than the taunt runs and there is that much piled on them, it's your job to kill it before taunt runs out, not the tanks job to taunt everything forever as if they have endless sustain. Also, if something is chasing you: learn to kite the right way. Don't just sprint away (this applies to world bosses without a tank too). Kite around and circle through the group, bring the mob through the damage to either die or make it easy for tank to pick back up. A tank can't chase you around while you superspeed sprint away from the center of combat and try and catch the mob off you. I've seen way too many tanks get attitude from DDs in runs that don't deserve it and need to learn their role before worrying about how the tank is doing. ZoS has made the DD role super easy to do at a good enough level for content there is no excuse to not be able to kill things efficiently these days. You don't even have to do half of what you see in those parse videos on youtube to be a solid DPS for most content in the game, even HMs and vet trials (even some vet trial hardmodes). If you are one of those hiding behind "play how you want" and playing how you want is hurting your team, then don't expect people to jump to be on your team, tanks included.

Finally, it feels like every single patch zos roles out some kind of nerf to tanking. I remember, out of the 4 patches a year each year since Morrowind patch, one single patch that had a change that looked good for tanking. Every other time between armor changes, skill changes, racial changes, etc. there was something that made me hang my head about the patch for tanking. So when you feel like a gut punch is coming with every piece of new content toward your role, guess how it makes you feel. And the most recent armor changes didn't help that.

danno8

Because DPS is:

-generally more fun
-generally easier
-generally no pressure
-required for all other aspects of the game
-required less gear variability

The tank/healer problem has never been fully solved by any mmo, although it has become much better in recent years with multiple roles available to different classes, swappable skills and skill-line etc...

Grandchamp1989

kaisernick wrote: »

I feel tanking suffers the most from the design of the game over others

• Dps have dosens of way to deal decent damage.
  
• Healing is prehaps my favorate in this game due to the fact it doesnt have the requirment of clocking a persons bar to heal allows me more time to actually look at the game over the ui.

Tanking however feels like it does nothing right, the lack of a aoe taunt is baffeling as every other mmos has them and sure my tanks are great at soaking damage but they do almost no damage and thats isnt a ideal situation.

My favorate tanking in a game is actuallt in the old republic my main is a jedi guardian tank and it just plays so well you deal decent damage (not a massive amount mind but much more than you can do in eso) and its fun the movement avaliable for it makes you feel like a badass and you can easily keep the attention of mobs and stay alive.

My personal favorite tanking style is Overwatch tanking.

Reinhard got a shield to protect his team but he also got a massive hammer that does massive damage - so you find a balance.
Orisa got a shield - but she also got a gatling gun

ESO you Tank stuff that hits hard with a shield and a dull spoon.

lihentian

new dungeon vet mod boss hit 47k damage despite 40k armor/spell resistance and blocking. if you want to tank vet, you need every bit of armor and health.... which means harder to do anything else

xaraan

danno8 wrote: »

Because DPS is:

-generally more fun
-generally easier
-generally no pressure
-required for all other aspects of the game
-required less gear variability

Well said.
I had to write a book to say most of the same points lol.

Zinggling

preevious wrote: »

Again, with all the horror stories ..

"I'm a tank, and everytime I queue, both DPS pull negative numbers . .last time, they were healing the boss in FG1"

I'm the first one to thank my tank during a dungeon, and appreciate all the effort he puts making the run as easy as possible (seriously .. good tanks rules all) , but enough with the lies ..

Either you run in normal, and can't really complain when you get the odd DD, since it's normal, and everyone is a supposed beginner, there..

Or you run in vet, and the overwhelming, crushing majority of the DD you'll encounter are at least correct.

I mean, bad luck can happen, and you might end up with 2 very poor DDs, but saying it happens everytime? It's wrong, and bordeline elitist. It's incredibely rare.
Every other DD I partyfind with are at the very least in the 15-20k range. Often higher.

I don't say it never happens, but the odds are small. (especially for the 2 dds to be utterly bad)

Because you talk about vet regular dungeons, try vet dlc dungeons only, 4 hours a day, for one week, and you'll see that 80% of time (to be optimistic), the run fails after 1st or 2nd boss because of bad DDs.
Healers are never a problem

amm7sb14_ESO

lihentian wrote: »

new dungeon vet mod boss hit 47k damage despite 40k armor/spell resistance and blocking. if you want to tank vet, you need every bit of armor and health.... which means harder to do anything else

And yet when we do that, we are called "selfish tanks"

Neiska

I think it is a number of reasons, many of which have already been posted. I love tanking in MMO's, usually. I have tried it here, but hung my sword and board up, at least for now. Here are a few things I think may have been overlooked.

1. I suspect that the class skills were designed before the scaling level system was implemented. (just a hunch on my part, by all means correct me if I am wrong.) But I think this affects classes solo abilities as well as group abilities, as well as a blend between the two. The easiest way to say it, is even the DD's here aren't very squishy. Every class, no matter what main stat they build with have full and complete access to heals, damage reduction, defensive measures. This means that unlike other games, even the "glass cannons" aren't so "glass." This isn't good or bad,, its just how it is. I do think that if a "damage" doer is tough enough for a good number of bosses from skills alone, then something is amiss. Which brings me to #2.
2. Items have great impact here on a characters power. Perhaps more than skill levels, levels, and possibly even champion levels. In particular a few key sets or even the right single item can completely change things around. Take the Ring of Pale Order for example. All of a sudden a damage class has substantial free self healing, with the cost of only a single item slot.
3. Aside from the more difficult dungeons and trials, tanks simply aren't needed, for a variety of reasons. The amount of game content that requires a tank, is not equal to the content that does. If ESO wants people to play more tanks, then they should have more content that requires them, or even rewards them. Even many bosses can't be taunted, rendering the tank even more useless and unnecessary.
4. People playing tanks still have overland dailies, quests, achievements, etc they wish to do. And it is more difficult doing those things when you deal 1/8th the DPS, of even a "poor" dps. The best DPS I have managed on my Tank was 8k, and that was redlining her. Now as a tank player, I expect to do far less damage, but not near inconsequential amounts of damage. For most encounters, my armor and set procs do just as much damage, if not more, than my skills do. Wither its fighting 1 enemy, or 8, for the most part it takes the same amount of time, and for the most part, my offensive damage doesnt matter. I get more mileage out of debuffing and letting my procs do the lifting, than spend recourses trying to "push" an already insufficient damage skill to be efficient. Honestly, I wish they had 1 or 2 damage skills in the tanking line scale off hitpoints. That would go a long, long, way to helping tanks out in solo play so it wasn't so tedious and painful just to get my dailies done.

Lastly, is ESO itself. My impressions of the game thus far is while it may have started as an MMO, it now feels like a single player game with multiplayer capacity, with group roles added as an afterthought. In other games, you can be a tank main and still solo well, even if it was using tactics such as swarming or fighting multiple mobs at a time. But here, we don't even have aoe aggro tools, and the tanks toolkit here pales in comparison to what they have in other games.

1. Tanking is needed for a small part of game content.
2. Tanking as a newer player is difficult and time consuming. So fewer people are making new tanks. It quite possibly not be enough to replace the rate of tanks pausing/changing roles/etc.
3. If you solo often, being a tank can be difficult to get your daily quests done.
4. Not everyone is okay with the "gogogogogo" playstyle in random dungeons. Even if it is "easymode" some people dont find it engaging, enjoyable, or even worth cueing a random dungeon for currently. So many tanks who "can" cue for things, simply "don't". Personally, I would be doing a world boss or harrowstorm than cue for a random normal dungeon right now, from my experience its gotten worse after the patch.
5. There are no incentives to play a tank, so unless you enjoy the playstyle itself, it isnt rewarding. There also arent many tools for healers and tanks as there are for damage classes. We don't have a "tanking" or "healing" test dummy. The vast majority of sets are for damage doers, and many of the same tank build use the same handfull of items, or they just do the same things - heal X damage, reduce X damage, grants party absorb shield. While DDs get all sorts of aoe boosts, circles of improved damage, some sets even summon temporary pets or gain resources. I can think of no "tank" set that does any of that.

Again, I am a huge tank fan. And pet classes as well. But I also enjoy being able to solo efficiency. But in ESO, you cannot do both, not without the items to do so and the CP. As a newer player with only 200 cps under my belt, it simply isn't viable. Why should I claw for exp to gain a handful of CP, putting up with the drama in random dungeons, when I can just play a dps and get 15-20 cps without even focusing on it? If I tried to "main" tank here with the current system, with my items/gold/cp, it would take likely over a year to hit 800, if not longer. I simply don't have the player recourses (gold/items/crafting things) to make that anywhere near where a barebones DD is at. So its simply better for me right now to just play the game and gain CP on a DD, even if its just gaining CP for my tank I am not currently playing. Thank goodness CP is account wide, I can only imagine the pain it would be if that was not the case if you were trying to level a tank or healer as a fresh player.

I do hope they even things out, or at least do "something" for the tanks and healers to help their solo play, so they aren't so handicapped anytime they are not doing group content. I am not asking for DD damage by any means, but even a slight bump would make a difference.

PS - An afterthought struck me. I think a DD can more resemble a tank through defensive skills/morphs, the odd item or two, and slotting a taunt anyone can equip regardless of stat/weapon, than a tank is capable of resembling a DD through trying to boost their damage. The "hybridization" if we want to call it that, is very much one way. A DD can be tough, (not as tough as a tank, but tough "enough"), but the tank can't really make a few changes and really Push their damage to anywhere close to DD levels.

stevenyaub16_ESO

1. You need 8 DDs and 2 Tanks for the harder trials and just 1 tank per 9 DDs for easier ones. That already gives a surplus of DDs for dungeons. Not to mention overland tanking is bad and throughout my years of ESO I rarely found other players who were able to multi-role their characters.

All those factors makes the pool of tanks very small.

2. Tanking dungeons with trial builds (ones you see on guides) is not fun. You sacrifice all your damage to buff just 2 player's damage and in most cases it is pitiful damage. You end up being dead weight using just taunt.

Everytime I'm tanking for pledges I'm doing 30-50% of the group damage. I couldn't imagine how painful it would be if I used a defensive/buff tank build

MalEducado

danno8 wrote: »

Because DPS is:

-generally more fun
-generally easier
-generally no pressure
-required for all other aspects of the game
-required less gear variability

The tank/healer problem has never been fully solved by any mmo, although it has become much better in recent years with multiple roles available to different classes, swappable skills and skill-line etc...

TOTALLY AGREE