Why tank population is so small?

Amottica

drsalvation wrote: »

Is there any point at min/maxing tank builds?
Short answer: No.
A tank will get one-shot just as any DPS with no armor if they don't follow the poorly telegraphed mechanics.
In the end, a tank with 45k health and 20k armor will die just as easily as a tank with 55k health and 25k armor, or a DPS with 22k health and 15k armor.

Based on my experience, pug players I have seen from GF that die to mechanics are dying to well-telegraphed mechanics and fail to learn from their deaths. I have told my group not to rez someone after they died to the same very noticeable mechanic a second time.

I have told such people, who tend to be melee, they may want to consider going ranged when they die to a PBAoE. Of course, they reply they do more damage in melee but fail to realize they are not doing any damage when their character is dead.

I have also have yet to see a tank or myself tanking, die to a one-shot mechanic. I figure an inexperienced tank or one that got distracted might miss the mechanic and die to it but that should not be a surprise.

MidniteOwl1913

Tanking is hard, or I should say good tanking is hard and even when done well tanks don't get the respect they deserve. The first time I ran into an actual taunting, buffing, keep the boss off you tank (like I had seen in videos) in random PUG I fell down weeping for joy. It makes damage dealing and healing so much easier and more fun not to mention faster. But it takes time to learn and work and I don't think a lot of PUGs seem to understand that base game dungeon is where people go to learn skills...

When I run into one now I wish I could type fast enough to thank a good tank in a meaningful way, but my fat fingers are really slow.

chrisub17_ESO104

I think the best solution is player run content finders. Because as others have said this is a people problem.

Not unlike a guild. Player run, unlimited members, other features specific to finding players to run content with. That we don't have something like this is ridiculous. Mmo design here is a couple of decades behind the times.

AcadianPaladin

I have a full, classic DK main tank that is basically retired. I don't really tank anymore for the following reasons:
1. When set up to tank, can't really do enough damage. I'm not talking about about doing dd damage, just 10K or so while fully set up as a tank. I blame the decision to balance pvp and pve together - particularly with the S&B skill line for this.
2. Every time I encountered a dungeon boss who ignored taunt or was programmed to briefly drop taunt, I made a note and would boycott that dungeon. My list of such dungeons was growing. If I can't fully control the boss, I'm not interested in being there as a tank.
3. Though things are improving (a little), creating a full dual staff magicka tank is not viable enough.

IonicKai

The skill gap from average player to veteran player and the total lack of damage from being a tank are why.

The first problem is incredibly difficult to solve. The gap we are talking about is absurd at greater than 100k dps difference. One vet dps is serval times the average group finder dps. They skew the difficulty of content to a degree that normal becomes a trivial couple seconds rather than something to slog through and is why players get so frustrated. As a tank you cannot do damage (point 2) and the fight only ends when things die. When dps are not doing a fair amount of damage things slow down a lot. This is frustrating from a support perspective because you are having to work many times as hard for the exact same content and not by your fault but the lack of peer player skill. This is not a fun loop for players.

The second problem can't really be solved unless they separate PvE and PvP significantly. There's already a lot of push for tanky with procs and that causes for frustrating PvP gameplay.

Edit: To be clear this is not a (nerf dps post). This is just pointing out that more needs to be done to teach people how to do more damage. I'm not saying people need to hit 100k either but the gap needs to be shrunk by exposing more ways to teach players in game how damage works, how stats build, and how to layer skills.

Troodon80

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

1. When set up to tank, can't really do enough damage. I'm not talking about about doing dd damage, just 10K or so while fully set up as a tank. I blame the decision to balance pvp and pve together - particularly with the S&B skill line for this.

Just some food for thought. I don't know what you've tried to get your DPS up, but you don't necessarily need a full loadout of tank CP. Things like Deadly Aim and Master-at-Arms work well enough on a tank in a lot of situations where you, perhaps, don't need the mitigation. When I main tank Oaxiltso (first boss in Rockgrove) in veteran hard mode, for example, I go in with a mostly DD spec in terms of CP. Obviously there's a lot of heavy armour in there, too, so lacking on various passives.

As of the last patch, I was hitting around 20k purely single target on main boss and up to 35k multi-target with just Blockade (DoT), Eruption (DoT), Clench for Minor Brittle, and Stone Giant for Stagger. There are things you can do to increase your damage output without sacrificing survivability too much -- though that obviously depends on the content. In that first boss fight, for example, I go with Flames of Oblivion for a little extra crit and have Dawnbreaker slotted for passive weapon/spell damage boost on my staff bar. You could also go with weapon/spell damage glyphs on jewellery if sustain is okay. Also light attack weaving, just like a DD, if damage is the direction you want to go then weaving is essential but often requires very tight timing between light attack, ability, and blocking to avoid getting clobbered in more recent veteran DLC content.

How much damage one can do as a tank, within reasonable expectations, will often come down to how comfortable with a specific piece of content or even a specific boss they are (for example, I don't do those numbers on Bahsei). Main tanks were doing decent damage in vAS, too.

I've seen some tanks in random dungeons try to go with two-hander Stampede and Carve, doing next to no damage but also running out of stamina to block or dodge heavy attacks. So a balance and tempered expectations are required, as well as a good understanding of how the game works.

Daraklus

I play as a tank in other games. Maining a tank in FF14 and having a lot of fun with it.
Did tanking in WoW and had fun with it (Mainly in Classic WoW).

In ESO? Not so much, for pretty obvious reasons. Mainly it's the players that soured it for me.

I would enjoy doing tanking more often if it were not for the attitude people exhibit giving the impression that you aren't actually meant to be the meatshield keeping enemy attention, but instead a "Support Character" where you are supposed to debuff and then deal a lot of damage to enemies.

Can't remember how often I got snark directed at me for wearing gear that would help me tank better.

Troodon80

Daraklus wrote: »

Can't remember how often I got snark directed at me for wearing gear that would help me tank better.

FFXIV doesn't have support sets so the playstyle is understandably different from what you might be used to. However, for example, as a comparison I know a lot of tanks who get yelled at for not using their defensive cooldowns to mitigate heavy attacks or to help mitigate raid-wide damage (e.g. Dark Missionary or Heart of Light). FFXIV isn't immune to snark if a player isn't playing how someone else thinks they should be and some of the vitriol is incredibly unpleasant. A few classes/jobs in FFXIV are viewed as more "support" leaning because of the toolkit they bring; e.g. Apocatastasis mitigation and resurrect on RDM have been seen as almost vital to any static progression group doing Extreme raids up until fairly recently.

Thecompton73

Kingpindragon wrote: »

The lack of Tank skills/build diversity can be a deterrent for some. You can build your gear to be 'selfish' or for 'group', the best 'group' gear is surprisingly limited and not very fun (though I think Turning Tide is a step in the right direction).

Your skills are pretty much set in stone depending on class choice. Pull, taunt, range taunt, buff skill, survive skill, self-heal.

You only get two weapon choices - if you want to be 'tanky'. Though I was glad when they added ice staff.

This is a big one for me. I had a really awesome off meta health recovery tank build using mist form but then they gutted the ability for all of PvE because people were abusing the mechanic in one trial. It allowed me to mitigate damage from ground AOE's that go through block and had a fun rotation of taunting, blocking while magic recovered then getting my stam back in mist form so I always had plenty for mechanics that required block to survive.
After ZOS destroyed it with their BS nerfs I've never had the desire to make another tank build.

Ascarl

For me it is race / class elitism.
If you are not the meta you will get yelled at. I tried a Khajiit sorc tank (back in the days Khajiit got a crit % increase & crit surge was pretty decent) but face a massive backlash of people who accused me of being a fanke tank.

This one decided better to be no tank than to be accused of being a fanke tank. So only Nord dragonknight tanks for everyone.

Foxtrot39

Playing argonian NB tank, pretty much the most dead build you can (not) see

alcoraptor

The (decent) tank population is not as small as it seems in the queue; it's just that the decent tanks are not queueing for random dungeons much.

I have many tanks, and have had many more negative experiences in the dungeon finder than positive ones - everything from low DPS to full-on abuse when the dds/healer die, and have quit more dungeons than I can count.
Perhaps this sounds a little elitist, but why would I want to run nFG1 in my fully-specc'd out PVE tank and risk spending 10 minutes on the first boss, getting shouted at when the DPS stands in stupid and dies, when I can run vet dungeons and trials in my guilds?

On top of that, 90% of the content in ESO is dps-orientated, and doesn't really require a tank - so unless I'm doing content that explicitly requires it (e.g. a trial or a vet dlc dungeon) I don't tend to be on my tank (it's not much fun shield bashing mobs to death in overland!)

I'd strongly recommend finding some guilds and getting a group to run with - the tanks are definitely there!

spartaxoxo

Tanking is less fun than in other games because aggro management sucks. Beyond that a lot of dps make it a nightmare to tank for them because their DPS is like 5-10k.

Browiseth

in my experience playing a tank, a lot of players do really, really, REALLY bad dps in this game. when you're playing a tank, you are just sort of sat there watching your group fumble around not really playing their role very effectively at times. in those situations, i think to myself, "this would be so much quicker if i were on my dps"

yes i know not everyone starts this game as a god tier dps, yes i know everyone needs to learn but hey...i got things to do and places to be, and dungeons go by faster (and are a lot more fun) when i'm in the dps role

MudcrabAttack

Try queuing a random vet as dps, it tends to be pretty quick compared to normal

Tommy_The_Gun

essi2 wrote: »

Tanking in ESO like many MMOs is a thankless and stressful undertaking.

You are often automatically considered to be the 'lead' of the group, everyone expects you to already know everything there is to know and you are always the 1st or 2nd person to get blamed if things go awry.


I've gone through large periods with my tank(s) where I don't even touch the tank role in pugs, because often it's not worth the trouble. Although I have to add this seems to be less frequent of an issue lately, but I might just have gotten lucky with my pugs.


A more direct answer to the tank population seeming small(other than DDs vastly outnumbering Supports anyways) is that most tanks if they have the option will play with a known group that won't yell at them for everything that goes wrong or randomly rage quit or ignore mechanics or never interrupt.

"Former" PvE Tank here. This was also, exactly my experience. ^

It has gotten to the point in which I prefer to solo the dungeon myself, rather than queuing up as a proper tank. Sure, it takes more time to do a dungeon on a solo tank-dps hybrid, but at least it is less stressful & I am enjoying it.

I only do group dungeons as a proper tank, with an actual group (using group finder) if it is absolutely necessary (the dungeon is not solo-able due to mechanics & has gear set I want or mythic lead etc).

ccfeeling

He is talking about normal dungeon ...

xaraan

I used to tank all the time, now it's a once in a while thing. I can tell you a few reasons from my perspective:

1. The first reason is PUGs. I'd rather solo a normal dungeon on my dps for one key than do a vet run with randoms for two. -- It's not worth the trouble for what group you'll get when you queue up as a real tank. I still sometimes do a vet or even a normal as a tank with the DLC dungeon if I get the urge and it all too often reminds me of why I don't like running with pugs. One run will be great, the next will be crazy - the DPS so low that it's the reason I started using the term fake-dps to go along with fake tanks. If you say a tank is fake for not taunting and holding mobs, then DPS is fake if they aren't killing stuff efficiently. I try to hang in there til the end even if the run is rough, but I've had runs where the healer bailed out b/c of how bad it was, which didn't make it better, but I understood.

The flip side of that is even though there are some pug groups that know their stuff, know the dungeon well, are quick, etc. You also have players that are just so-so, which would be fine if they didn't run into everything at a sprint like they are hot stuff and dying to mobs or making the guy in heavy armor that needs stamina to taunt and block to show up at encounters with no stamina.

The funniest thing are the players that think pulling all the mobs to one big pile is more efficient, then end up slowing everything down as you have to wait or go back for mages and archers, or you get stuck in combat and can't use doors, etc. I'm all for stacking a couple pulls, but if you are doing a normal dungeon, you should be able to wipe a pull quickly and efficiently and move on without wasting time if your dps is as good as you think.

2. The other reason is ZoS. There designs for trials and dungeons are all over the place. I've done HM vet trials, got some trifectas, blah blah, so I've seen all the different designs and levels. Of course your old stuff is so easy that tanks aren't even needed most of the time, then you have a few that feel a tank is needed and tanking is even fun. And you have some that are crazy hard with some mechanics b/c they want to force the need for a tank/healer, so you are fighting crazy one shots and dots that can't be purged. Or a trial where you need one tank, or two tanks, or three tanks, which throws off group options for some guilds. But the main issue is that they can't seem to find a way to make the job fun while making it challenging, only tedious and annoying. So I go back and forth to either feeling completely un-needed or thinking "why did I want to tank this crap?" because I'm not enjoying it. They haven't figured out that middle-ground. Frankly, DPS (and even healer to an extent) are just more fun, less pressure and less punishing.

Oh, and zos, pick a HM: Is it a banner? Is it a banner at each boss? Is it a scroll? Is it a special bunch of stuff you have to do to achieve a HM clear without clicking anything? etc. Pick one method and make all your dungeons and trials consistent.

ForzaRammer

Because most tanks don't want to waste time with below average damage dealers, and are not good at kicking them

ForzaRammer

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Tank population isn't small, DPS Population is just so huge it can feel like that.

There's also a different issue, the barrier of entry.

Tanking requires much more work to be considered a good tank. You need to know mechanics, mob density, understand boss placement, be constantly aware of your team so you can keep mobs and bosses in the right spot.

Comparatively, DPS need to understand general mechanics, stay out of red, and do as much damage as possible. Often your tank will give you the pack of mobs or boss on a silver platter for you to do your thing.

I'm not saying that DPS is easy and Tanking is necessarily Hard, I'm saying it can require more effort to be considered a Good Tank than it might take to be considered a good DPS.

Hell. If you don't stand in Red you're already a better DPS than like 70% of pugs I tank in.

Exactly, barrier of entry is too low for dps, I much rather get 2 that's average or better to begin with, so I don't need to kick and replace

Hapexamendios

Well for me I pretty much only tank for friends and guild mates.

Gray_howling_parrot

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Agenericname wrote: »

Do you believe that the queue is representative of the population of tanks in the game?

If it isnt, the question becomes, what makes them stay away?

People.

They are the worst.

In all reality, I think a lot of the "Good Tanks" are doing Vet Dungeons and Trials. Not so much the Normal stuff outside of the daily thing.

But also people are so critical of new tanks they will often not last Long enough to become "Good Tanks"

Yea theres next to zero reason to have a tank in a normal dungeon. MAybe some of the DLC ones but if you have a taunt on your bar even as a dps (destructive clench ice staff for example or inner rage), youll do most of what you need to do as a tank in a normal dungeon. Hold block here and there and maybe dodge roll.

Like you said, good tanks are doing vet content because theres not a tank in the game that wants to watch 2 new dps players light attacking with a bow 60 meters away from the boss

drsalvation

Troodon80 wrote: »

drsalvation wrote: »

This game panders to DPS.
Take for example the S&S skill 'power slam'.
There's a morph that should've been for tanks, where you would block and gain a stack of resentment, each stack increasing the damage of the skill by a small percentage up to 10 stacks.

The issue with anything ZOS tries to do on the balance side is that they have to take into account of PvE and PvP. Allowing a tank to do damage via health scaling rather than resources/stats is that you compound an issue in PvP where currently exists a tank meta (and has done for years), but where everyone is running around with high health, high mitigation, and being able to do a lot of damage. Further compounded, ultimates such as necro which add a substantial amount of health would also be abused and overall it would be a detriment to the health of other classes.

Health as a cost isn't really meaningful, either, considering the absurdly high HPS in the game within PvE content. That would mean that tanks would essentially have free abilities.

I've mentioned several times that this game should just take the fallout 76 approach; The only thing that your character brings from PvE into PvP is the outfit and style. Let PvP builds be solely for PvP and stay in PvP zones and just outright categorize skills for such activities. I mean, Mist Form is already PvP only, why not just cement it on the entire game and make PvE only skills and PvP only skills, no more need to worry about balancing stuff.
And I'm not saying to use health to cast skills, I'm saying that skills could scale off of max health.
I mean, have you ever tanked before? Tanks have little to no sustain whatsoever, even just sprinting just to catch up already drains stamina like crazy.
I'm sure blocking and consuming stamina to cast a skill wouldn't really be that much of an issue in PvP, especially since PvP is more about bursts and not about continuous dmg, so it's not like a burst would immediately grant 10 stacks after blocking.

LordRukia

Tanks hit like wet noodles and are boring to play compared to dps , you can argue this but numbers don't lie. Personally I rather heal because its more flexible with dps and is pretty active compared to tanking but nothing beats dps role for me and the majority I imagine share this sentiment.

grapedog

DD'ing is fun, and pretty carefree.
Healing is fun, somewhat carefree, some responsibility.
Tanking is usually not fun. ZOS and other players make the role not fun. Its also a pain to play that character even when not tanking without a full gear and skill respec each time you switch. At least healers also spec magicka, so its easy to swap out an armor set and some skills and do almost the same dps. Tanks dont have that option really.

drsalvation

grapedog wrote: »

DD'ing is fun, and pretty carefree.
Healing is fun, somewhat carefree, some responsibility.
Tanking is usually not fun. ZOS and other players make the role not fun. Its also a pain to play that character even when not tanking without a full gear and skill respec each time you switch. At least healers also spec magicka, so its easy to swap out an armor set and some skills and do almost the same dps. Tanks dont have that option really.

Exactly, and with armory introduced, now we know there's no plans on making tanking any fun at all, just switch to DPS after you're done with the dungeon or trial to continue enjoying the rest of the game.

Tanks hit like wet noodles and are boring to play compared to dps
This, there was no reason to take tank abilities away and rework them for DPS.
I'm talking about a single ability that scales off max health and becomes more powerful after blocking 10 times (power slam). How would dealing burst dmg after 5 seconds become a meta killer and ruin PvP?

There's no incentive to min/max tank builds, protection skills should at least scale off max health or armor, but no, a healer or a DPS can be just as effective at casting protection runes as would a tank.
And tanks will still get one-shot for not following mechanics as would a DPS.

But tank builds are completely ineffective outside of dungeons, they're worthless and an actual impediment in solo arenas (due to DPS checks which tanks can't even reach).

And seeing the state of the game, anything that could at least try to make tanking fun will be reworked for DPS instead, just like they did with power slam and other CP perks.

ccfeeling

Tank is pretty funny tbh , b/c you play like a boss

You can still build crafting with different set and cp combination , min / max , here you go .

When I PUG DLC 4 man , I would like to tank myself
What I don't wanna see is I get 2 low dps , I can handle bosses , mechanics , rev , but I can't dmg .

Last night I pugged into VSCP , hmm ...I took 20mins to visit 1st boss , no surprise , low dmg , don't know mechanics ,
we fell in dead cycle , group disbanded after three attempts .

Maybe different story when I have two good dps , just pull , taunt , loot

Tank is the role 99% can recover the whole group unless I cannot overcome the mechanics , that's the thing I love to do

AvalonRanger

Browiseth wrote: »

in my experience playing a tank, a lot of players do really, really, REALLY bad dps in this game. when you're playing a tank, you are just sort of sat there watching your group fumble around not really playing their role very effectively at times. in those situations, i think to myself, "this would be so much quicker if i were on my dps"

yes i know not everyone starts this game as a god tier dps, yes i know everyone needs to learn but hey...i got things to do and places to be, and dungeons go by faster (and are a lot more fun) when i'm in the dps role

Agree. Low damage and glass DPS is the most meaningless player.
Because it's a almost zero damage.

My main character is true tank, so I couldn't notice how fake role makes group mission
terrible situation until I start DPS character.

This is huge dilemma. I know how to build pure DPS character. But it's impossible in most of case.
Because, It is very rare case to meet decent tank at the PUG mission. Usually do it with both fake tank and
fake healer, even in Vet dungeon some bad player assign as totally fake role. It's a nightmare hard mode.

So, i prefer meta solo surviving DPS than pure DPS for PUG.
But If we can have decent tank role, pure DPS is better...I don't want to revive zero damage DPS as tank.

WySoSirius

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

My theory is people don't want to be the leader in the group, hence less tanks

Even as a leading legit tank . The dps ignore that and rush anyway , so as a tank I tend to give up like most probably have and probably agree

Pevey

The total lack of damage from "real" tanks is due to balancing pvp. Zos tries to force a tradeoff between tankiness and damage.

A vet trial ready tank in a normal dungeon is unwanted by the other 3 group members most of the time. Such a person would be useless dead weight. And that sort of tank would not want to be tanking a normal dungeon, anyway. They know they are worth their weight in gold in other content.

Normal dungeons are meant to be easy training grounds. If you are annoyed by the lack of tanks in group finder, try slotting taunt and seeing how you do. Tanking is a service provided to the dps. If there is a shortage of this service, try learning to do it yourself. In normal, just from CP and regular mechanics (blocking, interrupt, etc), you can take your basic dps toon and tank a dungeon just fine. Change up one, maybe 2 skills. Have a heal, a taunt, and for bonus points something to make you and/or the group more tanky (like warden frost cloak). You can get through any DLC on normal this way if you know what you are doing.

People in this game expect the tank to control the board, so to speak. To lead the way, set up the fight, the positions, etc. And this is fine, I like this. Running as tank lets you set the pace and make sure the job gets done quickly and easily.

People who complain about fake tanks and have what it takes to do this will eventually just start queuing as tanks themselves.

People who complain about fake tanks but could never actually be a tank themselves strike me as asking for others to donate their time. The mismatch between tanks and dps in the queue shows that ppl are not inclined to do that.

If you are a decent dps, you can ask for a tank in guild chat for content that actually requires a tank and get a volunteer almost any time, day or night.