Tanking too easy?

a.skelton92 · August 2015

Hello everyone,

Before i start i do not wish to offend or discredit any who play as a tank.

My main question is; is it too easy on this game to be an effective tank? I ask as I want to make one (all i have ever played in any MMO) but as this game has limited skill slots and no CD's it just "looks" to me as if there would not be any thought process behind trying to mitigate damage as all the main skills for sustainabilty can be spammed? Is there still "skill" and timing etc that goes into tanking on this game or can any chimp slapping the pad/ keyboard be effective at the role? Every other person is a tank it seems so I assume the latter part of that.

Thank you very much for reading.

Aett_Thorn · August 2015

Tanks wearing mostly heavy armor may have some resource management issues that they will have to contend with, which limits how often their skills can be spammed. With the new issue, Stamina resource management will be even more of a challenge, as will Tanking in general, so if you are making a Tank now, it's probably a good time.

If every other person you see is a Tank, I really don't know where you are, as about 80-90% of people I come across in game are DPS of some sort.

Steel_Brightblade · August 2015

Any chimp can tank if your just looking at mitigation and survival but threes a big difference between that kind of tank and a good tank. A good one will be holding aggro of main threats, controlling the rest, laying out mobs to be in a better position for dps to kill them, using utility to improve your groups damage and survival skills and several other things, essentially the tank brings order to the chaos rather than just shielding and mitigating.

Brrrofski · August 2015

I play as a tank. I would happily swap roles with the DPS guys I run with for a nice change.

When there's one big, hard hitting boss, it's cool. I can even get busts of DPS in there then.

But when you're juggling 2/3 bosses, or bosses that teleport, or bosses with adds, or mobs with 4 or 5 heavy hitters (like in trials) it is a lot to concentrate on. You make a mistake and it can wipe you. Lose aggro on the boss, or fail to aggro before a certain mechanic comes into play and your dps or healer can get one shotted.

Resource management is a huge thing. You burn through stamina too quick and you got none left to block and you will get pounded by the boss. When there's aoe, sometimes it's a choice between roll dodging and having no block on the follow up attack or take the damage from aoe and be able to block the follow up. Depends on boss to boss. Deciding whether to use magic to get a shield up or keep that bit for an emergency heal. If you got no resources left and lose aggro on the boss, you cannot get aggro back. Boss is off smacking your healer about. That's not good.

We were doing dragonstar for the first time and that was an education in tanking. Trying to aggro 4/5 big hitters per mob and keep track, keep fire damage dealers off our vamp dps. Got the timing of a block wrong once on the final boss, got knocked on my back just as a giant bubble of death came up and I couldn't escape in time so I died and we then wiped. Did it on second attempt but still, One split second mistake cost us. We wiped and it was my fault.

Not saying it's harder or easier than other roles, but my lord it is stressful.

Not sure where you're seeing all these tanks either. Most people are dps. Just go to your undaunted enclave.

"Need tank and healer" echoes around the place

Winterpsy · August 2015

It's a ton of responsibility.

I play group content a lot, myself taking the tank role.
Most of the time if I go down it's a wipe. Any other role would go down the others can pick them up.

As tank, keeping the aggro you are practically keeping those mobs in line who tend to foil resurrection attempts (like heavy attack uppercutters or rooters)

I honestly dont know about those player who just hold the block and lean back.

I do a lot of a work, taunting, reorganizing enemies, watching team mates, range taunting etc. It's very enjoyable actually.

Brrrofski · August 2015

Winterpsy wrote: »

It's a ton of responsibility.

I play group content a lot, myself taking the tank role.
Most of the time if I go down it's a wipe. Any other role would go down the others can pick them up.

As tank, keeping the aggro you are practically keeping those mobs in line who tend to foil resurrection attempts (like heavy attack uppercutters or rooters)

I honestly dont know about those player who just hold the block and lean back.

I do a lot of a work, taunting, reorganizing enemies, watching team mates, range taunting etc. It's very enjoyable actually.

It's stressful but incredibly rewarding. Almost like conducting an Orchestra. You're determining a lot of what's happening in a fight. Maw the infernal is a great example. Trying to keep thar fire spread to a minimum is crucial to people staying up.

Dragonstar is another good challenge as a tank. Watching those portals trying to quickly identify who is thr bigger threat requires a lot of though processing in split seconds.

a.skelton92 · August 2015

Ah, great. Thank you for the responses everyone! Just what i was looking for. Hearing about the hardships of tanking only makes it more interesting and intriguing and i was hoping to hear this! I was worried (for whatever reason) that it would be in someway "watered down" on a console MMO. Looking forward to running some dungeons with you folk in the future!

Brrrofski · August 2015

Well, I doubt we'll be running together. What's that saying? "Too many tanks don't kill the boss"

vladimilianoub17_ESO1 · August 2015

Brrrofski wrote: »

Winterpsy wrote: »

It's a ton of responsibility.

I play group content a lot, myself taking the tank role.
Most of the time if I go down it's a wipe. Any other role would go down the others can pick them up.

As tank, keeping the aggro you are practically keeping those mobs in line who tend to foil resurrection attempts (like heavy attack uppercutters or rooters)

I honestly dont know about those player who just hold the block and lean back.

I do a lot of a work, taunting, reorganizing enemies, watching team mates, range taunting etc. It's very enjoyable actually.

It's stressful but incredibly rewarding. Almost like conducting an Orchestra. You're determining a lot of what's happening in a fight. Maw the infernal is a great example. Trying to keep thar fire spread to a minimum is crucial to people staying up.

Dragonstar is another good challenge as a tank. Watching those portals trying to quickly identify who is thr bigger threat requires a lot of though processing in split seconds.

You forgot to mention VCoA.That instance is fun for tanks,specially the titan boss,if the grp use the tactic of burning down the boss the tank have to keep both adds on him and boos.You end up with basically all attacks in that fight going to the tank.I love it,running side to side avoiding boss fireballs and avoiding both adds,using all mitigation you have and keeping aggro on boss and 2 adds its just fun.The Daedroth boss can be fun too.If people use the pillar close to the tree tactic,as a tank,prepare your mitagation abilities cause at the end you r going to take massive damage from boss and like 20+ adds.Tanking is fun.

Oh another thing most tank forget to do,which dps will love you if you do it, is keeping the mobs/bosses in the AoE DoTs area.Like for example,Shooting Star and Liquid (splash is the name? the sorc aoe dot).Have seen many tanks moving the targets all around like crazy without need.

Shunravi · August 2015

vladimilianoub17_ESO1 wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

Winterpsy wrote: »

It's a ton of responsibility.

I play group content a lot, myself taking the tank role.
Most of the time if I go down it's a wipe. Any other role would go down the others can pick them up.

As tank, keeping the aggro you are practically keeping those mobs in line who tend to foil resurrection attempts (like heavy attack uppercutters or rooters)

I honestly dont know about those player who just hold the block and lean back.

I do a lot of a work, taunting, reorganizing enemies, watching team mates, range taunting etc. It's very enjoyable actually.

It's stressful but incredibly rewarding. Almost like conducting an Orchestra. You're determining a lot of what's happening in a fight. Maw the infernal is a great example. Trying to keep thar fire spread to a minimum is crucial to people staying up.

Dragonstar is another good challenge as a tank. Watching those portals trying to quickly identify who is thr bigger threat requires a lot of though processing in split seconds.

You forgot to mention VCoA.That instance is fun for tanks,specially the titan boss,if the grp use the tactic of burning down the boss the tank have to keep both adds on him and boos.You end up with basically all attacks in that fight going to the tank.I love it,running side to side avoiding boss fireballs and avoiding both adds,using all mitigation you have and keeping aggro on boss and 2 adds its just fun.The Daedroth boss can be fun too.If people use the pillar close to the tree tactic,as a tank,prepare your mitagation abilities cause at the end you r going to take massive damage from boss and like 20+ adds.Tanking is fun.

Oh another thing most tank forget to do,which dps will love you if you do it, is keeping the mobs/bosses in the AoE DoTs area.Like for example,Shooting Star and Liquid (splash is the name? the sorc aoe dot).Have seen many tanks moving the targets all around like crazy without need.

VCoA is probably one of my favorite, if not my favorite 4man to tank. There is a good amount of stuff to pay attention to, the fights are fun. It's a good instance.

Zsymon · August 2015

Steel_Brightblade wrote: »

Any chimp can tank if your just looking at mitigation and survival but threes a big difference between that kind of tank and a good tank. A good one will be holding aggro of main threats, controlling the rest, laying out mobs to be in a better position for dps to kill them, using utility to improve your groups damage and survival skills and several other things, essentially the tank brings order to the chaos rather than just shielding and mitigating.

Controlling trash monsters is the DD's job though, not the tanks.

PhatGrimReaper · August 2015

Zsymon wrote: »

Steel_Brightblade wrote: »

Any chimp can tank if your just looking at mitigation and survival but threes a big difference between that kind of tank and a good tank. A good one will be holding aggro of main threats, controlling the rest, laying out mobs to be in a better position for dps to kill them, using utility to improve your groups damage and survival skills and several other things, essentially the tank brings order to the chaos rather than just shielding and mitigating.

Controlling trash monsters is the DD's job though, not the tanks.

DD's job is to kill s***.... you can make their lives easier and make the run more successful/smooth for the entire group by helping them as much as you can. Chains/ranged taunt, group all the adds in a tight little bundle and let your DD get their Tornado/Impulse on.
This isn't your average MMO... CC is the tanks responsibility. Every second that a DPS is CCing a mob is time he could be doing his job killing stuff.

Brrrofski · August 2015

vladimilianoub17_ESO1 wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

Winterpsy wrote: »

It's a ton of responsibility.

I play group content a lot, myself taking the tank role.
Most of the time if I go down it's a wipe. Any other role would go down the others can pick them up.

As tank, keeping the aggro you are practically keeping those mobs in line who tend to foil resurrection attempts (like heavy attack uppercutters or rooters)

I honestly dont know about those player who just hold the block and lean back.

I do a lot of a work, taunting, reorganizing enemies, watching team mates, range taunting etc. It's very enjoyable actually.

It's stressful but incredibly rewarding. Almost like conducting an Orchestra. You're determining a lot of what's happening in a fight. Maw the infernal is a great example. Trying to keep thar fire spread to a minimum is crucial to people staying up.

Dragonstar is another good challenge as a tank. Watching those portals trying to quickly identify who is thr bigger threat requires a lot of though processing in split seconds.

You forgot to mention VCoA.That instance is fun for tanks,specially the titan boss,if the grp use the tactic of burning down the boss the tank have to keep both adds on him and boos.You end up with basically all attacks in that fight going to the tank.I love it,running side to side avoiding boss fireballs and avoiding both adds,using all mitigation you have and keeping aggro on boss and 2 adds its just fun.The Daedroth boss can be fun too.If people use the pillar close to the tree tactic,as a tank,prepare your mitagation abilities cause at the end you r going to take massive damage from boss and like 20+ adds.Tanking is fun.

Oh another thing most tank forget to do,which dps will love you if you do it, is keeping the mobs/bosses in the AoE DoTs area.Like for example,Shooting Star and Liquid (splash is the name? the sorc aoe dot).Have seen many tanks moving the targets all around like crazy without need.

I've not done that yet. Only ran dragonstar so far. Did it first time with only two wipes, so happy with that.

Looking forward to trying some more though.