Possible way to fix tank shortages: more damage.

moderatelyfatman

I've noticed of late a big difference in the CP between tanks and other classes, and I put this down to a real shortage of tanks. It was really obvious last night doing vDirefrost (below) and vCoS during last night's pledges. In CoS the tank had about 400CP whereas the dps and healers were around 2000. In both cases, the tanks did a pretty good job despite their inexperience.

I play tanks in other games but I really don't enjoy tanking in ESO. I think compared to other MMOs, the tanks in ESO do too little damage and I find it very frustrating at times just standing there while the light attack specialist dps whittle away at the boss at a speed slightly exceeding geological erosion.

I think the current tank style is suitable for vet content such as trials where you have a large number of dps and the damage is so high that the tank must go fully defensive. For other content such as dungeons, even HM dlc dungeons, it would be nice if a hybrid tank playstyle was better supported.

If the classic tank is a heavily armored knight, I think of this new hybrid as a barbarian: not quite as tough as a classic tank and not able to put out flat damage like a dps, but operates in well time bursts where they can do both for short periods of time (a bit like how the DK's Corrosive armor works in PvP).

BejaProphet

Your post hinges on a mistaken assumption. The assumption is that the “tank” is a thing that can be tweaked by the developers. But that isn’t the case.

In ESO there is only the job of tanking. The thing you and I call a tank is simply somebody intending to do that job. You yourself have 100% control over how much damage your tank has. You get the tool kit to design a “tank” in whatever way you see fit.

TLDR. The devs have already given you the tools you desire.

fred4

To elaborate on @BejaProphet's response, here are some examples of my dungeon tanks, aka tank / DD hybrids with taunts, armor debuffs, everything expected from a tank. For example this Arcanist is perfect for vDSA. Here we see him soloing the first two vet Cauldron bosses. Builds are included in the videos or descriptions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI4_wb0pGu4

The following video illustrates how far you can push a Brawler build as a tank. The vet Shipwright's Regret first boss hits really hard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuCXG3RRuxk

Furthermore the Bound Aegis skill of sorcerer was heavily buffed, since that video was made. It enabled Hyperioxes to be a tank with 150K DPS in his fully optimised world record trial group:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZj35esDUz8

For a higher damage Brawlersorc, look no further than the following build. This includes a 30K parse on a normal dummy, equivalent to perhaps 50K on the trial one (it's optimised for penetration in a dungeon rather than a trial). It's squishier than my previous sorc build, but should be perfect for normal dungeons and non-DLC vet ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w00hhYOod4I

Furthermore you can still slap the Tormentor set on a magplar (backbar) and gap close with Explosive Charge. It will only taunt one enemy now, but it still makes for a lightweight tank for normal dungeons.

That said, if you are doing random dungeons, even random normals, it can be useful to have a conventional tank setup in your back pocket, either via gear change (Dressing Room addon or the like) or via the armory station / assistant, in case you end up in a particularly hard one. For example the first boss fight in even just normal March of Sacrifices is a bit too hard for a templar with a taunt, though should be no problem with my sorc builds.

baconaura

the answer is basically none of the good tanks run rnd or pledges, because they know they can easily recruit people for vet hm dailies easily. and randoms people are like 90% of the time garbage.

All the people in this post talking about tanks doing real damage, are missing the real problem. people queuing for rnd or pug dailies, most of the time don't know how to play the game well. whether it is fake dps, where they just spam one skill, or tanks and healers with no group buffs. its not hard to just be on a meta arcanist, slot a taunt, and still do 70% of damage of the group.

there is a large skill gap between 90%of the casual players who think overland is hard enough, and don't care about optimizing, and the 5-10% who are at least wearing cohesive sets that are trying to optimize for the content.

BejaProphet

baconaura wrote: »

the answer is basically none of the good tanks run rnd or pledges, because they know they can easily recruit people for vet hm dailies easily. and randoms people are like 90% of the time garbage.

I think you are overstating the problem. Most of my gameplay is random pug tanking vet content. My groups probably have around a 90% success rate for vet DLC’s. Maybe better. Yes, the group members I get paired with are lacking often enough that I believe a good number of tanks avoid it for that reason. But 90% being garbage is way too harsh. I would say that the majority of players I encounter are competent enough to complete vet DLC’s if they have a solid tank who does their job.

Im just guessing when I say this but, I bet for every tank who avoids group finder for the reason you stated, there is just as many tanks who hide from fear of being exposed. I think there are a lot of tanks who fear what they’d find out the moment their elite DD buddies stopped trivializing the content for them.

But that’s just my hunch.

baconaura

I find its sorta hard to screw up as a tank in non hm content with a competent group. In my experience i see way more bad dps than bad tanks. The only bad tanks ive encountered are the ones with *** attitude like “you pull your problem” and throw a tantrum and refuse to taunt the rest of the dungeon because they want to die on such a dumb hill in a random pug. Like most groups explain mechanics to new tanks, and most people can roll or block a heavy.

Bad dps on the otherhand, i feel really turns people off tanking. It just makes the role seem incredibly boring and more difficult than it should be and not fun. No tank likes holding trash for several minutes watching dps struggle for their life doing god knows what to get such low damage.

moderatelyfatman

fred4 wrote: »

To elaborate on @BejaProphet's response, here are some examples of my dungeon tanks, aka tank / DD hybrids with taunts, armor debuffs, everything expected from a tank. For example this Arcanist is perfect for vDSA. Here we see him soloing the first two vet Cauldron bosses. Builds are included in the videos or descriptions:

That said, if you are doing random dungeons, even random normals, it can be useful to have a conventional tank setup in your back pocket, either via gear change (Dressing Room addon or the like) or via the armory station / assistant, in case you end up in a particularly hard one. For example the first boss fight in even just normal March of Sacrifices is a bit too hard for a templar with a taunt, though should be no problem with my sorc builds.

Thanks so much, @fred4! I will look at these things.

My main issue is that damage tanking is not supported by the game: both damage and healing scale off max magicka/stamina and weapon/spell damage, so it's easy to have a dps who can bring heals to the table (especially with madgen and magplar).

There are so very few skills that scale with max health.

BixenteN7Akantor

At least Oakensoul upped the DPS of many players who really needed more DPS

moderatelyfatman

BixenteN7Akantor wrote: »

At least Oakensoul upped the DPS of many players who really needed more DPS

I think arcanist has had a bigger effect than Oakensoul, as newbie players generally don't have access to maxed out antiquities.

But from time to time, I still wind up tanking or healing in groups with a total dps of around 10-15k. I think a lot of the new players tend to play ESO like a first person shooter where they do lots of light attacks follow by a skill or ulti every now and again.

Elyu

All good points above.

Simply put; why spend an hour doing 8 key pledges when you could do 6 key pledges in 20 mins with a "fake tank" build? (i.e. DD+tank hybrid)
Or: why queue as a dps and spend ages sitting in queue, when you could get an insta queue pop by queuing as tank?

So it's a few overlapping problems:

ESO doesn't really need "real" tanks for vast majority of content in-game, which means there's very little in-game teaching mechanism for teaching people how to tank for the content that actually requires it.
Too few people are incentivised to play tank, because it's such an unrewarding playstyle with PUG groups.
Too few people are incentivised to improve their DPS - after all you can buy vet trial carries so why learn to improve yourself?
Too few options for aquiring transmute stones in any reasonable quantity - hence why random normal groups have such a disparity of skill + playstyle (make vet trials drop lots of transmutes at end of every run!)

BixenteN7Akantor wrote: »

At least Oakensoul upped the DPS of many players who really needed more DPS

Got to disagree with this - oakensoul just gives lazy players ("fake DPS") an excuse to try even less - I've run vet DLC dungeons as a tank with 2000+CP DPS using oakensoul and doing AWFUL DPS.

baconaura wrote: »

No tank likes holding trash for several minutes watching dps struggle for their life doing god knows what to get such low damage.

This sentence gives me PTSD

Nerouyn

baconaura wrote: »

the answer is basically none of the good tanks run rnd or pledges, because they know they can easily recruit people for vet hm dailies easily. and randoms people are like 90% of the time garbage.

All the people in this post talking about tanks doing real damage, are missing the real problem. people queuing for rnd or pug dailies, most of the time don't know how to play the game well. whether it is fake dps, where they just spam one skill, or tanks and healers with no group buffs. its not hard to just be on a meta arcanist, slot a taunt, and still do 70% of damage of the group.

there is a large skill gap between 90%of the casual players who think overland is hard enough, and don't care about optimizing, and the 5-10% who are at least wearing cohesive sets that are trying to optimize for the content.

I'm returning after a long absence and finding many thing about the game improved and really liking the look of scribing.

Burdened by classes it ain't Morrowind or Skyrim Online but it's quite a good single player game in an online setting.

Dungeon content?

Still hot trash for my tastes.

ESO healing is 5% healing and 25% completely mindlessly spamming aoe heals and buffs and 70% DPS. That will never be my idea of a good time.

Plus a lot of running out of red circles. Ugh.

Some people love the hell out of learning boss mechanics.

For me boring as hell. Not hard at all. Just not interesting or fun. Or immersive.

I and many other players probably only set foot inside dungeons when forced to, like to get antiquity leads. Or for events.

I've not tested them yet but my hope is that with a decently geared companion I'll be able to solo these dungeons to just get those few things I would actually use from them.

Sockermannen

Someone on reddit mentioned a few months ago that the lack of tanks might be a symtom of the lack of competent DDs in the group finder. It’s a theory that makes sense to me as a support main.

When i do my pledges on healers or tanks i always try and DDs from guilds since even half decent DDs are a dime a dozen these days with arcanist and oakensoul available. Alot of the time when i use the group finder as a tank i get stuck with people who do little or very poor damage, sometimes i even get hate thrown my way when i express my reason for leaving. Sure, most of the time it’s enough to clear but it can take alot longer than necessary.

In short the person suggested that alot of supports would be more comfortable using the group finder if it ment that they got better DPS players out of it.

BejaProphet

I do agree that bad DD’s are probably the main thing that drives tanks away from group finder. I just have a higher view of the average player I get in group finder.

Savos_Saren

I do think ZOS tries to make tanking a little more fun. They've added damage to some class skills that are considered to be "tank" skills. For instance- Gripping Shards is an AOE immobilizer that does higher damage based off your health (a tank normally runs higher health). The same with certain "tank sets" like Leeching Plate and Bahraha's Curse- which keep the tank alive and their damage is based off health.

Doing some damage while drawing aggro is fun. Tanks shouldn't be popping out as much damage as the DPS- but it does feel more enjoyable in PUG content. Having one or two class skills that do damage based off high health or high resistances does make tanking more fun.

edward_frigidhands

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

I've noticed of late a big difference in the CP between tanks and other classes, and I put this down to a real shortage of tanks. It was really obvious last night doing vDirefrost (below) and vCoS during last night's pledges. In CoS the tank had about 400CP whereas the dps and healers were around 2000. In both cases, the tanks did a pretty good job despite their inexperience.

I play tanks in other games but I really don't enjoy tanking in ESO. I think compared to other MMOs, the tanks in ESO do too little damage and I find it very frustrating at times just standing there while the light attack specialist dps whittle away at the boss at a speed slightly exceeding geological erosion.

I think the current tank style is suitable for vet content such as trials where you have a large number of dps and the damage is so high that the tank must go fully defensive. For other content such as dungeons, even HM dlc dungeons, it would be nice if a hybrid tank playstyle was better supported.

If the classic tank is a heavily armored knight, I think of this new hybrid as a barbarian: not quite as tough as a classic tank and not able to put out flat damage like a dps, but operates in well time bursts where they can do both for short periods of time (a bit like how the DK's Corrosive armor works in PvP).

You control how much damage your tank has. You can build a tank that works however you would prefer it to with more damage/healing/control instead of defense.

chessalavakia_ESO

Due to ESO's PvP you'd likely need to be careful about increasing the damage of tanks too much.

I'd argue the tank issues specific to ESO is that the fights lean too much on mechanics, that taunting in ESO is more of hassle than players are used to from other games, and that players deal too much damage.

Thus, when you play tank in ESO you alternate between being useless because the players you are with do so much damage that your job doesn't really matter to being stuck playing Memorization Simon Says with people complaining if you mess up.

I generally do dungeons with just Mirri on my tank rather than queuing to join a group as a tank because the experience feels better.

Overall in gaming, tanks run into the issue that the role has too much power and the role frequently isn't appealing to a wide enough audience when it comes to visuals, character, lore, or sound.

If the role you play has lots of power, people increasingly put pressure on the people playing the role which leads to players either quitting the role or never actually trying it in the first place.

baconaura

Yeah, if you want a tank to do more damage, why not just make a dps more tanky, and just slot a taunt? which would work in like 95% of dungeons, but then the downside is you get called a fake tank lol. Like If your a tank, and taunting, and healing, and needing to deal damage, it is just showing you how bad the rest of the group is.

i think the way it is, is just gonna remain that way. As I said earlier, my thoughts on the reason there aren't alot of good tanks in the queue, is because of bad dps making things not fun for the tank. Which means your just left with new tanks, and dps or healers queuing as tank to get into dungeons faster to get their rnd done for transmutes.

Sluggy

The reason there is a 'shortage' of tanks in dungeon queues is because they are so rarely needed anymore for dungeons. Sure, maybe some of the vet DLC dungeons might need them but even there it is becoming less and less worthwhile to run a traditional trifecta group of tank, healer, and damage-dealer.

More damage won't solve this problem. It's already easy enough for me to slap on a taunt, tank everything, and still mop up 50%-75% or more of the total damage in most easier dungeons. Really, as a person that used to love tanking and used to love the challenge and mystery of pugging normal and vet dungeons alike it really is just a drag now. If I queue as a 'real' tank (real meaning, I actually wearing all sets, and using all skills designed for the role because even when I'm 'fake' tanking I can still perfectly taunt everything and stay alive) then I just feel like a fifth wheel. I'm always at the back the group, struggling to keep up, rarely able to taunt or CC anything before it's all dead, and generally just bored with how useless my role is. This is even for most vet content these days. The real problem is power creep and the fact that so much utility has been brought along for the ride with skills that damage dealers use that there is little value in actually specializing anymore. Giving me more damage won't fix this. It literally is a part of the problem that began several years ago.

As and example of how I feel these days. When I queue for a dungeon as a tank, if I see someone using Rush of Agony or Dark Convergence then I just leave immediately and log off. There's no reason for me to even be there since the only possible value I could have brought via skill and knowledge has been superseded by those sets. I don't feel bad about leaving either. They got their queue to pop and they absolutely won't miss me in that dungeon. They likely won't even notice that I left.

El_Borracho

No. This game is not Skyrim. There should not be a tank that can also do the damage of a DD as that would make tanks and healers completely obsolete.

GloatingSwine

ESO Tank experience in normal/low Vet dungeons.4

Unfortunately I don't think that toothpaste is going back in the tube. The base game dungeons are designed for characters still in the 1-50 path to complete them and veteran versions don't really push that too far

Which also means it's hard to learn to be a tank when nobody needs a tank, but it's also hard to learn when there's no margin for error.

So you can make tanks feel the burn in dungeons again by, for example, putting a third tier of dungeons on top with a desirable reward (Perfected Monster Sets maybe?) but that doesn't build a pipeline for new players into tanking.

moderatelyfatman

El_Borracho wrote: »

No. This game is not Skyrim. There should not be a tank that can also do the damage of a DD as that would make tanks and healers completely obsolete.

Definitely not sugesting that.
However, healing scales off the same stats that scale damage (typically weapon/spell damage and magicka) so it's easy to hybridise a dps/healer.
What I'm suggesting is that there should be a class skill or two that scales damage off health. Ideal skills would be ones that do AOE DoTs (such as Sorc Lightning Form) which would not impact PvP. This would help the tanks put out about 5-10k AOE dps in total which will help the dps clear trash mobs while the bosses will still need dedicated dps to take down in a timely manner.

BXR_Lonestar

I'm going to be honest here, I'm finding that healers are in just as short a supply - if not shorter supply - than tanks. I have 2 healers I can use in PVE and 3 tanks (working on a 4th), and when I put groups together to run hard dungeons, I'm always playing healer because no one else we know regularly run healers in high end PVE content.

I also have DPS characters, but I never get in enough practice playing DPS in this kind of content to be able to play them in higher end content.

El_Borracho

@moderatelyfatman I still have to disagree. Tanks should be wet noodles in PVE and PVP. The power creep in this game has been out of control for the last 2 years with DDs. While there are some really, really bad DDs you will find in Group Finder, lack of DPS in dungeons is not the issue. With DDs, its more DDs who refuse to learn mechanics and expect to be carried through a vet DLC dungeon, but that is a different topic.

The fix for more tanks is to make tanks necessary in group content. They are not necessary in the vast majority of normal dungeons. Which is why if you want a real tank in a random dungeon, you run a vet dungeon. Random normals at this point are a step above overland world bosses. That's not going to change, and nor should it.

moderatelyfatman

El_Borracho wrote: »

@moderatelyfatman I still have to disagree. Tanks should be wet noodles in PVE and PVP. The power creep in this game has been out of control for the last 2 years with DDs. While there are some really, really bad DDs you will find in Group Finder, lack of DPS in dungeons is not the issue. With DDs, its more DDs who refuse to learn mechanics and expect to be carried through a vet DLC dungeon, but that is a different topic.

The fix for more tanks is to make tanks necessary in group content. They are not necessary in the vast majority of normal dungeons. Which is why if you want a real tank in a random dungeon, you run a vet dungeon. Random normals at this point are a step above overland world bosses. That's not going to change, and nor should it.

@El_Borracho
I was doing a normal random dungeon on my tank. The dps had about 800CP and this was the group dps...

Yes, I was doing half the party damage. And this is not an isolated incident.

El_Borracho

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

@moderatelyfatman I still have to disagree. Tanks should be wet noodles in PVE and PVP. The power creep in this game has been out of control for the last 2 years with DDs. While there are some really, really bad DDs you will find in Group Finder, lack of DPS in dungeons is not the issue. With DDs, its more DDs who refuse to learn mechanics and expect to be carried through a vet DLC dungeon, but that is a different topic.

The fix for more tanks is to make tanks necessary in group content. They are not necessary in the vast majority of normal dungeons. Which is why if you want a real tank in a random dungeon, you run a vet dungeon. Random normals at this point are a step above overland world bosses. That's not going to change, and nor should it.

@El_Borracho
I was doing a normal random dungeon on my tank. The dps had about 800CP and this was the group dps...

Yes, I was doing half the party damage. And this is not an isolated incident.

LOL. Brutal. I have quit several dungeons on my tank. Usually with a bow spammer or a player who is clearly a PVP build who struggle in a place like normal Bedlam Veil. But at the same time, I have also slapped a taunt on my Arcanist DD and taken over for the fake tank while burning things down to get through a random.

There are some bad players in the randoms. But bad players get better with experience, at least most of the time. I just don't think its a good idea to power up tanks in response

Soarora

It really is a circular issue where some group is going to lose. ZOS can add hard dps checks to content that are not really hard to reach but would weed out the real low dps, but then low DPS people would complain and that doesn’t fix mechanic problems. ZOS can add an achievement requirement where you have to pass a test, but then the problem people in question would complain. ZOS could add a new level of dungeons that’s just not possible for these people to do either by achievement requirements or by content difficulty… which would be awesome but then ZOS is working for no money? Can’t just buff DPS or else higher levels will have too much powercreep. Cant buff tank DPS or else PvP has too much powercreep (utilize “against monsters”?)…

I don’t have much trouble pugging usually, but its extremely rare I get a group that has guildmate levels of competence. Sometimes it gets really bad though, like I had to learn the mechanics in elden hollow…

Necrotech_Master

i ran a pretty high dps tank back in the day before they changed proc scaling lol, was hitting a solid 12k dps with that tank lol, due to the proc scaling and game changes since then, i avg about 8k using exactly the same build

i still have decently high dmg tanky characters nowadays, before the armor changes, and back when ice staff heavies taunted, i had a mag warden in full light armor that was hitting 22k dps in content with just under capped resistances (also before proc scaling changes), this character nowadays using a slightly modified build can still hit around 10-12k, a bit more tanky, but less dmg

if we went back to the old proc scaling method, it would be easy for a tank to hit 30k dps (in content, not parsing) and have 35-40k hp and capped resists

i usually run a tank for dungeon queuing, because i can get in faster, i dont care about the group dps, but what puts me off running dungeons with PUGs is the non-sportsmanlike conduct from people in there is speedsters, anyone who does not want to play as a team, and sometimes generally toxic people (though the category i run into the most is speedsters, which does overlap a bit in the 2nd category of not wanting to team play)

sneakymitchell

I remember that one time with randoms. They were amazed by me dpsing the fight as a tank while everyone else is dead.

Yudo

My story is a bit different. I enjoy tanking and have tanked most HM vet dungeons/trials, would say am very experienced. However I still struggle to get into groups because how inflexible group expectations are. Be it organised or pug. From not having the exact gear sets they want to now having the right hp, I get removed from groups because they think I am fake tanking. (26K hp). I am not kidding, I get kick from 50% of groups that I could tank with one eye closed.
You cannot convince me every single group is pushing scores.

(Double ice magicka tank with almalexia body, crimson for pen + monster or mythic of choice).

dmnqwk

You'll never fix tanks by adding more damage, only by reducing the effort required to tank.

After 2 decades of tanking (I began my first couple of years as a healer) who pugs a lot, runs randoms with anyone and experiences various games' take on both tanking and dungeon finders I can categorically state that you won't increase the number of tanks just by increasing the numbers.

Tanking takes effort, more effort than dpsing.
Players want an easy option and pick that which requires the least effort - sure you will argue a few dont but that's why we have any tanks at all.

The only way to increase the number of tanks is give them an easier job than dpsing - forget taunts in randoms have every mob automatically taunted by the tank, so they 100% always attack them!

Coming from a background of enjoying high dps while tanking, I do tank less because of the low dps issue - but thats only after years of tanking in eso. What really puts me off tanking these days is I'm getting older and want to put the same amount of effort into the game as 95% of the player base - aka no effort.

And you can't do that as a tank.

Soarora

Yudo wrote: »

My story is a bit different. I enjoy tanking and have tanked most HM vet dungeons/trials, would say am very experienced. However I still struggle to get into groups because how inflexible group expectations are. Be it organised or pug. From not having the exact gear sets they want to now having the right hp, I get removed from groups because they think I am fake tanking. (26K hp). I am not kidding, I get kick from 50% of groups that I could tank with one eye closed.
You cannot convince me every single group is pushing scores.

(Double ice magicka tank with almalexia body, crimson for pen + monster or mythic of choice).

Trials have setup requirements for a reason: tanking is more than just keeping enemies off the other players. Part of the tank’s job is to buff players and debuff enemies, so trial groups put tanks in specific sets as part of organizing the group as a whole.

Dungeons don’t need the strict requirements because there’s less of a leader than with trials and the DPS checks aren’t as high. There are people who get sweaty about dungeons but they seem to usually be “trial people”. People I know who mostly or only do dungeons, one of the reasons is because they don’t want to be told what to do with their build.

I’ve heard of people getting health checked before as a way to find fake tanks though honestly I think people who do that are overstepping.