[FOR PEOPLE THAT DON'T PLAY TANKS] Would tanks being able to do more damage entice you to play them?

Cooperharley

In most other MMOs, you do a decent/considerable amount of damage when playing as a tank (WoW, FF14, New World, etc.)

Playing a tank in overland content is pretty miserable for most players - it takes forever to kill anything. WBs take forever, you can't realistically do solo arenas, etc. What would it take for you to play a tank in ESO and to enjoy it? What is keeping you from playing a tank if it's not due to damage? Just looking for thoughts on what would solve the tank shortage in this game from a tank-centric theory.

Vevvev

My tank keeps both DPS and tanking gear on them to alleviate this problem. Sometimes I'll take a PvP/Solo build into a normal dungeon with a taunt slotted just cause it's durable enough to survive anything that can be thrown at it, and it has good damage.

Necrotech_Master

Other (comment below)

i usually build dps into my tanks, so i can avg 8-10k dps without a companion active

when im more heavy tanking i usually drop to around 3k dps

my main is a dk setup as 1h/shield front bar and duel wield back bar, and have a necromancer that is 1h/shield front bar and 2h back bar

the main problem with adding dmg to tank builds is pvp, so now those troll tanks that take 20 people to kill, could start killing people while they are parsing on them

Four_Fingers

Other (comment below)

No, tanks are about mitigation not damage, in PvP you should not be able to kill and not be killed with ease.

Bobargus

Other (comment below)

If the tank, in addition to having the undaunted ranged taunt skill, had an active aoe taunt skill that is ingrained into the base game - such as the already existing undaunted skill line, then i would have been more comfortable with playing the game as a tank.

In terms of playing as a tank, the idea of having to think about the aggros of everything that is around the boss and not being able to do much about it other than having to single taunt everything, makes me less willing to play as a tank in the first place.

Stncold

No. Making classes that aren't DK/necro into viable tanks that group want to bring is how I would do it. I'd like to tank on my nb, but the stupid dark cloak change killed that.

Einar_Hrafnarsson

No

I want AOE taunt, not more damage. If they give us AOE taunt/provoke, ill be tanking for sure.

DMuehlhausen

No

In most dungeons tanks can use more of a dps / speed build and do 20% of the damage. People though still won't play it cause if the group wipes they will still get the blame and trolled at times. People want more tanks, and hopefully healers when they make healing needed again, so being jerks to Tanks / Healers and more people would do it.

ghost_bg_ESO

Other (comment below)

i hardly doubt that tanks been able to do more (but not the top) dps will entice people to play tank...
people like either to get rewards or to measure "things", as there is nothing to measure on tank and healer and rewards are the same... on top of it they are looked as roles that exist either for who can't do high damage or to make dps shine even more...

(almost no one wants to play drummer and bass)

Heartrage

As a tank, I would like to see a taunt that increase my damage against non-player characters depending on the number of heavy armor pieces I’m wearing. I think that this would be the best solution to making tanks do more dps in pve while not buffing them in pvp and not making dps use competing taunts in group content.

Feljax

Other (comment below)

To be honest, playing a tank has made overland more fun. Sure, there's no risk of me dying but the mobs don't drop so ridiculously quickly that it actually feels like a proper fight. However, normally what happens is that someone else just comes along and finishes off in one shot what I'm trying to kill. Lol!

Diminish

Other (comment below)

I think they need to make viable 1 bar tank and healers a thing. Rather you love it or hate it, 1 bar builds have done wonders to make content more accessible overall to a huge portion of the playerbase. If they can somehow incorporate that into the other roles I feel more people would be inclined to try them, and play them more.

Billium813

No

Jaustink wrote: »

Playing a tank in overland content is pretty miserable for most players - it takes forever to kill anything. WBs take forever, you can't realistically do solo arenas, etc. What would it take for you to play a tank in ESO and to enjoy it? What is keeping you from playing a tank if it's not due to damage? Just looking for thoughts on what would solve the tank shortage in this game from a tank-centric theory.

What do you mean by "playing tank in overland"? ESO only defines the classic role of DPS, Tank, and Healer within the context of group content. That's it. Why would you play a classic tank build solo in overland content? Of course your damage is gonna be low and it's gonna be annoying!

You really need to differentiate instanced, grouped content like Dungeons and Trials from solo content like some Arenas and overland content. You are stuck in the "I'm a 'Tank' so I must tank at all times" mindset. This isn't WoW! You aren't set in your role all the time, you can be way more dynamic! Try using the Armory and swapping skills/sets more.

Destai

Other (comment below)

I'd be more enticed with more damage but it's not the main reason I don't tank often. For me, it's due to how hard it is to manage resources. Stamina characters have stamina pools, magicka characters have magicka pools, tank characters have...both...but I have to spec into health? It just seems odd to me. Sure I enjoy it at times, and many of my tanks are 20/20/24 m/h/s attributes, and I just can't seem to find one that feels entirely natural to me.

rpa

Other (comment below)

If content is desiged to actually require true tank, heal, dps trinity then dps is the least worry for a wannabe tank. But in easy content ability to hold aggro and survive and still do decent dps of course is preferable.

Necrotech_Master

Other (comment below)

Heartrage wrote: »

As a tank, I would like to see a taunt that increase my damage against non-player characters depending on the number of heavy armor pieces I’m wearing. I think that this would be the best solution to making tanks do more dps in pve while not buffing them in pvp and not making dps use competing taunts in group content.

one of the morphs of the undaunted taunt does give a dmg bonus against the taunted target, but the bonus is either 5 or 15% (i dont remember off hand)

the only problem with making that higher is that then you would get more dps trying to use it as a dmg buff, which is going to mess up taunts (and ive seen it happen occasionally with the undaunted taunt)

Araneae6537

I do play a tank, but some of the reasons I don’t more often have been mentioned — resources and having to single taunt. I’m glad that it looks like a conditional taunt will be added to pull abilities!

The other major issues for me are knowing what should be blocked as versus dodged, what can be interrupted, etc., but so long as it’s not a one-shot through block, I can usually keep up the fight and adapt. A major frustration I had was knowing whether enemies were taunted as Inner Rage has proven unreliable for me and then of course some bosses have attacks they do against other players regardless of aggro. At first this led to me panicking and spamming Pierce, but having the Untaunted add-on is a big help with that and helps me not waste resources.

chessalavakia_ESO

No

I don't think I've ever played a game where tanking was my favorite role. I think tanking has an excessive presence in games because developers like them and the vocal forum posters in many games include a disproportionate amount of tanks which creates an impression people like them more than they do. For example back when I played Overwatch, you would have polls with more responses from tanks than from DPS despite the fact that the game had a massive DPS surplus and a tank shortage.

The general tanking aesthetic/style has never really appealed to me as much as other options.

Tanking in general also rams into the issue that it's really easy to mess up and can be hard to stand out.

I do have tanks in ESO but, I use them for soloing PvE content or for PvP and only on very rare occasions for PvE group content.

ESO's damage dealt by npcs wildly bounces between this will tickle even the squishiest character and this is going to kill you if you don't do x.

As a result, the tank who is responsible for dealing with npc damage is generally stuck reading about the content in question before doing it in detail and then basically playing Simon Says for the duration of the encounter if the encounter has any difficulty to avoid death/allied deaths. This kind of puts a damper on doing randoms as you can get tossed into something you aren't totally ready for doing.

A fair portion of ESO's content is easy enough that it feels awkward to be tanking it on a full tank build as it isn't really necessary and it's a hassle to carry around multiple sets when you have inventory space issues.

Perceived player expectations can also put a damper on the tank role as it can feel your item/skill selection is pushed towards being a buffer/debuffer when that isn't necessarily appealing. (Additionally, depending on the group it may be ineffective.)

Players will frequently also act in ways that step on the role of tank as they will run ahead and agro things.

Many of the item sets for tanking that I run into feel like they are more functional than fun in ESO which also puts a damper on appeal.

Cooperharley

Yes

Billium813 wrote: »

Jaustink wrote: »

Playing a tank in overland content is pretty miserable for most players - it takes forever to kill anything. WBs take forever, you can't realistically do solo arenas, etc. What would it take for you to play a tank in ESO and to enjoy it? What is keeping you from playing a tank if it's not due to damage? Just looking for thoughts on what would solve the tank shortage in this game from a tank-centric theory.

What do you mean by "playing tank in overland"? ESO only defines the classic role of DPS, Tank, and Healer within the context of group content. That's it. Why would you play a classic tank build solo in overland content? Of course your damage is gonna be low and it's gonna be annoying!

You really need to differentiate instanced, grouped content like Dungeons and Trials from solo content like some Arenas and overland content. You are stuck in the "I'm a 'Tank' so I must tank at all times" mindset. This isn't WoW! You aren't set in your role all the time, you can be way more dynamic! Try using the Armory and swapping skills/sets more.

I'm not stuck on a mindset - I'm implying that if you do create a tank character and keep that identity throughout the game including in questing, killing overland mobs, overland events, daily quests, what have you, killing things will take a much longer period of time where in other MMOs, this doesn't happen because they do more damage. I use the armory system to exhaustion and have tons and tons of builds and hours in the game. What I AM saying is for people that come into this game, from other MMOs, thinking they want to tank and don't enjoy it. What makes them not enjoy it and what WOULD make them enjoy it. It'd be nice if I didn't have to use DPS builds while leveling/questing and I could do a decent bit of damage in my opinion as a tank. This is coming from someone with a couple thousand hours at least of playing every role and type of content in ESO. Thanks for your reply! Cheers

Cooperharley

Yes

Destai wrote: »

I'd be more enticed with more damage but it's not the main reason I don't tank often. For me, it's due to how hard it is to manage resources. Stamina characters have stamina pools, magicka characters have magicka pools, tank characters have...both...but I have to spec into health? It just seems odd to me. Sure I enjoy it at times, and many of my tanks are 20/20/24 m/h/s attributes, and I just can't seem to find one that feels entirely natural to me.

What I've always done is put as many points into health as it requires for me to reach roughly 40k hp and then the rest & my enchants are put into stamina and magicka

Cooperharley

Yes

Diminish wrote: »

I think they need to make viable 1 bar tank and healers a thing. Rather you love it or hate it, 1 bar builds have done wonders to make content more accessible overall to a huge portion of the playerbase. If they can somehow incorporate that into the other roles I feel more people would be inclined to try them, and play them more.

There are lots of 1 bar builds for tanking and healing FYI. Sure, you'll be missing out on some groups buffs and it won't be ideal for veteran DLC trials (and frankly frowned upon/dissuaded), but you can absolutely get away with 1 bar builds in dungeons and normal trials. Try them out! I've tried them out just to spice things up and they work well for PUGs.

Cooperharley

Yes

Stncold wrote: »

No. Making classes that aren't DK/necro into viable tanks that group want to bring is how I would do it. I'd like to tank on my nb, but the stupid dark cloak change killed that.

You can tank easily on every class. I've done veteran trials on tanks of every class. You won't have as much value as a DK or Necro, sure, but if you're smart and a good tank, you're going to be more valuable any day than an inexperienced DK tank. Play what you enjoy and play with groups that don't gatekeep based on class.

Cooperharley

Yes

Four_Fingers wrote: »

No, tanks are about mitigation not damage, in PvP you should not be able to kill and not be killed with ease.

Well lets think about PvP - what's the meta currently? Tanks. What typically do people build for in regards to damage in PvP? Burst damage. I'm not implying to give tanks burst damage - that's defeating the purpose for PvE content. I'm implying to rework say puncture and heroic slash to add a bleed effect & something like shield slam/charge to add a ground DOT (which you can very easily step out of in PvP content). Also, bringing tanks from 3-7k dps up to 20-25k dps is not going to make them insane in PvP content. That DPS doesn't transfer over into PvP whatsoever. It's halved in a perfect scenario and if you include just ground dots with cooldowns added to their abilities just to spruce up their PvE abilities a bit, it'd be nice in my opinion, but I do agree on the fact that balancing for both PvE and PvP simultaneously is a nightmare and a half!

Cooperharley

Yes

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Heartrage wrote: »

As a tank, I would like to see a taunt that increase my damage against non-player characters depending on the number of heavy armor pieces I’m wearing. I think that this would be the best solution to making tanks do more dps in pve while not buffing them in pvp and not making dps use competing taunts in group content.

one of the morphs of the undaunted taunt does give a dmg bonus against the taunted target, but the bonus is either 5 or 15% (i dont remember off hand)

the only problem with making that higher is that then you would get more dps trying to use it as a dmg buff, which is going to mess up taunts (and ive seen it happen occasionally with the undaunted taunt)

That's interesting! I've never heard of a DPS using inner rage as a damage buff. I'm more implying changing/reworking the 1H+shield skill line, which would require a tank setup generally in a group setting.

Cooperharley

Yes

Einar_Hrafnarsson wrote: »

I want AOE taunt, not more damage. If they give us AOE taunt/provoke, ill be tanking for sure.

AOE taunting would be cool! Unfortunately Rich Lambert has said on many occasions that they never plan on making this a reality - big sadge

BlueRaven

Yes

I used to have several tanks, but scraped most of them because of damage nerfs.

Yes I know I can swap out weapons and armor, I just don’t want to carry around extra gear in my bags and keep track of multiple sets.

I can’t quest with a sword and shield? Fine. I will just switch to dps.

Heartrage

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Heartrage wrote: »

As a tank, I would like to see a taunt that increase my damage against non-player characters depending on the number of heavy armor pieces I’m wearing. I think that this would be the best solution to making tanks do more dps in pve while not buffing them in pvp and not making dps use competing taunts in group content.

one of the morphs of the undaunted taunt does give a dmg bonus against the taunted target, but the bonus is either 5 or 15% (i dont remember off hand)

the only problem with making that higher is that then you would get more dps trying to use it as a dmg buff, which is going to mess up taunts (and ive seen it happen occasionally with the undaunted taunt)

It’s 10%, I just looked it up. As for not making it used by dps, that’s why I would make the bonus % scale with how many heavy armor pieces you are wearing. This way, it’s harder for a dps to make it work.

Melivar

Yes

I would love it but it would make PVP even more of a mess than it is now with the Tanky meta.

Iselin

No

Anyone soloing with a tank build is doing it wrong since it's so easy to swap gear and skills around to be a tank sometimes and a respectable DPS other times with different gear and skills.

ESO is not like other older games that locked you into a tank role where they did need to up the tank DPS so they could do solo/quest content efficiently.

merpins

Other (comment below)

If you make a solo build correctly, you should have good self sustain of all resources, including health, and be able to tank any solo-able content without any trouble. You probably wouldn't be able to tank Vet Trials, but you'd have between 40 and 70k dps, 25-35k health, and out DPS most pugs while also being the dedicated tank.

Lumenn

Other (comment below)

Having tanked in EQ at launch I could give f all about my dmg. I like traditional tanks. If my job is meat shield then by all I should be able to wade into the fray, hold everyone's attention like I had a deathgrip on their giblets, take the beating they dish while laughing in their face and saying unkind things about their momma's. As long as the healer does their part then you all get to walk out without mussing up your hair. ESO though just has you playing a tougher dps, or a healing dps. It's all dps. It's good for casual play, and not being stuck with "The Holy Trinity" but I'd tank a lot more if you give me more mitigation and area taunts, NOT damage.