Tanking With LT - LT's Tanking Top 10

Personofsecrets · February 2016

Dear @LegendaryNinja ,

Thank you for writing the post "Reasons not to Tank in ESO(Both Group and Solo Play), Is it not Attractive?. Thank you @Wing for drawing my notice to said post and thank you to @usmcjdking, @Scyantific , and @MaximusDargus for being encouraging of my tanking and place on the forums.

I come here today to follow up on my word and post about the parts of tanking that are the most frustrating. These are issues that really gnaw at my will when playing ESO and things that I am sure there are solutions to. Without further prefacing I now introduce the top 10 things that make tanking a pain in the butt.

Number 1 - Arcane Softcaps

It is hard for players to know how much block cost reduction, overall mitigation, and mitigation via armor work. One basically has to test these for themselves or find someone who has done the prerequisite hours of blocking a single attack over and over again in order to understand how soft caps affect tanking stats. I do think that these stats were made very carefully as it looks as through the developers had a clear vision of how heavy armor and sword plus shield skill lines synergize with each other. For example, the Bracing and Fortress passives give a player exactly 50% block cost mitigation and at that amount further mitigation to block cost adds in a soft cap styled diminished way. Regardless of that careful planning though, these stats are hard for average people to grasp.

Even some of the so called best players in the game (with top NA scores) have been totally confused and wrong about how these stats work. Some people think that block cost depends on damage mitigation or that it changes based on the enemies fought against. Some people don't even know about the 50% damage mitigation via armor cap and have argued with me that there is no such thing because "they could tell." This is a sad state to be in and overall I find this type of system to be anti-player because it is one in which players believe they have achieved something, but are being unknowingly affected by diminished returns.

Number 2 - Theory Crafting Don't Matta

As I tried to indicate in number 1, I have done quite a bit of testing that is pertinent to the tank role. I do have to say that out of the 3 roles, tanking seems to have the most leeway build wise. There are many cool sets that can be run, but despite that, it feels like changing up those things really doesn't matter much. There are many ways to gain useful stats in exchange for non-useful stats. There are plenty of racial options that are interesting. In the end though, I feel that if we aren't getting one shot, then we are easily surviving without a problem. There isn't much to do with the exception of figuring out how to get around having no stamina regeneration and getting around the stamina regeneration nerf is just not compelling game play. I am always trying more and more ridiculous things on dungeon runs because otherwise the bore of keeping my stamina at 80% is maddening.

Number 3 - The Nerf Then

Now that I have mentioned it a few times in number 2 it is time, I will talk about it more formally. The stamina regeneration nerf that was brought about during ESO Live 21 and was tirelessly fought against. The nerf was astroturfed which means nobody really supported it at a grass roots level until fake support was said to exist and people then jumped on that bandwaggon. I challenge you, the reader, to find three separate threads on these forums before the dates of ESO-Live 21 where people where upset about tanks blocking. More than half of the people voting in polls at the time, and still today, didn't want or like the nerf.

This nerf really brought out the worst of the community as it became extremely clear when people, who where not tanks and had little experience or care for the role, viciously argued that tanks should be brought down a notch. It also brought out the worst of the developers. It embarrasses me that Rich had to get the consultation of his loved ones before he felt correct enough in flipping the switch that turned off tanks stamina. It wasn't your families choice to decide on, it wasn't streamers who had trouble surviving in wayrest sewers choice to decide on, and it was not "tanks" who use medium armor and steel tornado in their number one leader board runs choice to decide on. Rich had the duty of fleshing out what the average tank felt about this and perhaps he believes that the average tank really did want this nerf, but I don't think that such investigative work took place and now we pay for this design choice as we have to obsess about how every one of our choices affects our stamina.

Number 4 - The Nerf Now

I think that the anti-nerf sayers were accurate in how the portrayed the after math of the nerf. I also don't believe that development is really taking tanking greatly into account despite "caring" so much for us tanks that they would make sure we were having a good time via giving us a big nerf.

There are still many archetypes of tanks, but they tend to focus on the extreme of what to do over and over in order to not run out of stamina. To me this was a bad switch because I want to use things like heroic slash, rapid maneuvers, circle of protection, vigor, and shield charge without feeling bad for it. It is also not intuitive for players to want to go to extremes rather than go to a balanced approach when deciding on their tank build. Now I feel, even during the build and testing process, that I should be laser focusing on what is happening to my stamina. The "solution" has been worse than the "problem" at causing boring play that is tedious to the player.

I also don't see the developers carefully considering the tank role or their views about players always blocking when designing new content. vWGT shows that view because it contains bosses that don't require a tank. Tanks do nothing against the Planar Inhibitor and are of minor help against the pitiful damage dealing Adjudicator boss. It is just odd that the only significant attack of the Adjudicator ignores the tank because it is an aggro free attack. There are and continue to be enemies that one shot tanks who are not blocking (so much for "just holding block the whole time" @Wrobel ), and that type of design continues on to the new trial. There are new enemies in the upcoming DLC that literally make a tanks armor rating 0 and they have one shot me if I'm not blocking. I dare you to imply again that I shouldn't be holding block the whole time, especially against enemies that get rid of all of my other damage mitigation.

Overall the logic that created the nerf was flawed, it created even more boring game play in my view, and to this day development of new content comes from a place where tanks either don't matter or better be holding block the whole time. This is not a nice mix of experiences for us tanks.

Number 5 - PVP is Imbalanced

As predicted, the nerf talked about in 3 and 4 had an impact in PVP. I actually like "tanking" in PVP. That means that I like having alot of damage mitigation and a build that favors regeneration over spike damage. This is all fine and well, but there are imbalances that make my type of play disadvantaged. It is strange how players can spam their high powered attacks over and over with no cost to their regeneration, but a tanky player cannot block those attacks without suffering the penalty to their regeneration. This difference indicates an imbalance between those play styles. Additionally, I think it is strange how glass cannon builds get to abuse survival skill such as hardened ward and cloak, but can still output huge damage. A tankier build clearly makes a player more survivable, but where is the damage that hardened ward and cloak users get? Well, it is non-existent, and no I'm not saying that tanks should have damage, but am saying that there should be a better balance between survivability and damage output and that only tanks really have to make that trade off in a meaningful way.

Number 6 - Buffs and Communication

It is that time of the games life span where we are on PTS again. I am so tired, so very tired, of the lack of communication that occurs with regards to many of the tanking topics that I have brought up. Look at DK chains for example. That skill has gone through 2 huge changes now with almost no communication from the developers as to why they do what they do and still, after more than 6 months of time, the skill has a bug where it just doesn't work sometimes because of the target being "too high or too low."

I must say that there have been positive buffs for tanks, but they are outnumbered by the nerfs and the lack of communication is very frustrating. I made, for example, an enlightening post about the Black Rose set during the 1.6 PTS and, with no word as to why from the developers, the set suffered a change that many found to be negative. I made, for example, an enlightening post about the vMA sword and board during the Wrothgar PTS and, with no word as to why from the developers, the vMA tanking items were changed, but the developers took none of the tanks of the time feedback when changing those items and they remain horrible to this day. The developers really should have sat down with us and discussed these changes, but, until recently, they have been mostly absent when it comes to talking about tanking buffs.

Even Obsidian Shard, a skill I wrote about buffing during the 1.6 PTS, was buffed quite well, but my thread about that skill was deleted after a player essentially told me in that thread that nobody cared about the skill or tanking. I got no feedback from anyone at ZOS about why my thread was deleted and that remained the case after reaching out to a forum moderator, but low and behold one of my suggestions were taken and the skill is better of today or that change. If @ZOS_GinaBruno had just been allowed to comment on my thread that something was being done, then I would have had alot more confidence in the development team and there would have been less vitriol expressed toward me, but instead there was nothing said. There would have been much more moral on the PTS forum.

I just don't understand why the developers act this way and, moving toward the future, I hope that @Wrobel and @ZOS_RichLambert can sit down with some of us tanks and discuss positive changes that can be done. I do think that the developers are getting better and am hopeful that these types of communication issues about buffs and nerfs do not persist. On another note, I believe that the forum suspension penalty should be limited as there are many of my tanking friends being no longer able to communicate here because of views that they expressed months and months ago which were views born out of the same frustrations that I have with the developers over some of their nerfs and lack of communication.

Number 7 - Itemization

Many tanking sets are just not striking the correct cord for the role. Jolting and the Maelstrom tanking items are probably the worst offenders, but even something as subtle as stamina regeneration being on the Endurance or Tava's favor set are big drawbacks.

Why does Glorious Defender have weapon damage? Why does Pariah literally copy Footman but in a worse way? Why is Footman even good when players suffer such huge diminished returns to damage mitigation? Why did the Kena undaunted set get buffed to give spell and weapon damage as a one piece bonus, but the Lord Warden set set continues to only give spell resistance, the easier of the resistances to obtain I may add, rather than spell and physical resistance. Why was the Black Rose set changed when literally nobody complained about how it worked at first?

There is much to be desired with new tanking sets. There are some good ones that are made, but things like the Jolting Arms set and the Maelstrom Sword are extremely unsettling.

Number 8 - Mechanical Difficulties

There are a few things that would be nice to have a rework as to make them not so frustrating. One of those things are vulnerable frames. What I mean by vulnerable frames are times during which a tank cannot block. Those frames occur during a bar swap and at the end of a roll dodge. Some say that having vulnerable frames for those actions necessitates that tank do those things in a skillful way, but I disagree with that notion.

Combat can be very fast in this game and require quick reactions. Combat can require these reactions to such an extent that players can't afford to not switch their bars or roll dodge at certain times and, inherently with those actions, comes the risk of vulnerable frames and a one-shot. It is for this same reason that I hate the 1.6 change to extended chains. There isn't time to look at every enemies feet for the indication of it being CC=immune and therefore every chain pull, up until thieves guild, has come with the jarring risk of being pulled across the room.

Another agitating mechanic is how full up a tank bar gets. The whole reason for having to swap bars so much and risk having vulnerability frames is because the primary bar is so clogged with passive effects that useful abilities have to be dedicated to the secondary bar. My first bar is now a taunt, a passive health buff, a passive damage/block cost buff, two passive magic regen buffs, and my stamina restoration skill. only 2 out of 6 skills on my primary bar get actually used.

If that wasn't bad enough, when I do swap bars I am immediately penalized for doing so and I don't just mean by gaining vulnerability frames. When I swap bars, even if my set bonus buffs, enchantment buffs, and passive skill buffs are the same on both bars, there is a moment between switching bars that I am not considered as having those equipped items or skills (the vulnerability frames), and I lose base states such as my health when switching. For example, if entropy is giving me 2k health and is on both of my bars, when I switch bars my health drops by 2k. So if I was at 28k max health, then I would be at 26k out of 28k health after the bar swap.

These issues just don't have to exist and I am slightly annoyed that I have never gotten my discussion about this issue responded to by a member of the development team.

Number 9 - Tanks Don't Matta

I learned as early as patch 1.4 that I was not needed for raids. There is almost always a tank to fill that coveted spot. I also learned that many pieces of content are completed much more quickly if a tank is not used. For example, most of the best scores for trial content involves a tank that is more focused on damage dealing via spamming a skill like steel tornado than mitigating damage.

For months I have had interest in joining trial guilds, but the need for me is just not present, for months we have now been mostly irrelevant in PVP, and for months have the developers not said anything significant about tanking. I've tried hard to make this role fun for a number of people, but much of that effort is all for naught.

Number 10 - Sum of It's Parts

If any of these reasons for tanking being sort of crappy was by itself, then maybe there wouldn't be much reason for concern. I very easily came up with 10 reasons that make tanking, and to a further extent ESO, unenjoyable. Perhaps some of the issues are small and perhaps there is no use talking about things that probably wont be changed, but all of these issues really come together, in my mind, to make something that is not player friendly and is damaging toward the game as a whole.

I would like to thank you all for reading. Everyone, especially tanks and developers, are welcome to comment about where I am right and you find the same issues or even about where you think I am incorrect in my observations. This concludes my tanking top 10.

Edit

Number 11 - MORE STUPID NERFS AS WE MOVE TO DARK BROTHERHOOD

OLD BLOCK COST @ 58% = Fortress + Bracing + Def Stance

NEW BLOCK COST @ 58% = Fortress + Defensive Stance + 100 Champion Point + 2-3 Sturdy Trait

In exchange for 100 CP and 2-3 Traits, if we get hit a bunch of time, then we get a minimum amount of extra damage that we most likely wont even get to utilize because we are getting hit a bunch of times and need to focus on surviving.

ZOS IS KILLING US ON THESE TRADE DEALS

zerosingularity · February 2016

To be fair, tanks don't "need" stamina regen while blocking, they just want it. Probably time to stop beating a dead horse. When a v9 can tank vCoA (v16 scaled) and sustain his resources, things are just fine.

And if you are a dk tank, heroic slash is good, more ult=more resources. (And maelstrom sword helps regen, though I have yet to test it cause I need to grind more levels.)

Tanks are getting a pvp buff in dark brotherhood, but are currently still tough to kill. Your time will come, be patient.

Some of the other concerns are fine though, but I am only commenting on these few points.

Julianos · February 2016

Nice post , tho tanks still though, I started this game with tank in beta and i still play with my DK tank and hes pretty immortal.

If you enchant your jewelery with block cost reduce 3x and use defensive posture on your bars with 5x or more heavy armor you wont loose too much stamina while blocking and don't use block expert star its a waste.

Another thing there is a hidden mitigation cap at %50 so you need 30k spell resist 30k armor with these numbers you can do heavy attacks to restore your stamina easly no one needs perma blocking or stam regen while blocking

for DK tanks just get engine guardian set 5x willow's path 3x endurance and distrubute attirubute points evenly on everything use 3 stats food now you will have good regen on everything and good resource pool and DK can use 1 resource to recover another thanks to passives and active abilities. With engine its get more easy for example if my engine proc for magicka i start spaming ignious shield while giving me shield it recover %5 stam with every cast thanks to the passive and i dont waste lots of magicka thanks to engine guardian. Try all the things above and you will see you dont need stam regen at all my stam never get drops under %50 40 while tanking especially with a templar around.

Wing · February 2016

sup @Personofsecrets

ima go over my own thoughts of tanks as fast and obvious as I can.

1) armor needs to give a flat amount of armor and provide a flat enchant bonus per location, having variable locations (while reasoning for those bonuses is not bad) benefits people who only wear 1-2 pieces of heavy armor, they can select the 1-2 locations that give the MOST ARMOR per location and receive no downside via build because light and medium rely on bonuses via passives that only require set amount of pieces worn.

this few pieces giving a massive armor bonus allows non tanks to "catch up" and receive huge armor bonuses for tiny investment.

2) the stamina regen nerf was just bad, nobody works with it, if people want to perma block they do via specific class skills or passives. the better tanks can still perma block, there just now restricted to certain build paths to do it, only noobs and tank diversity was killed as a result of it.

plus stamina regen being a dump stat on a tank is stupid.

3) tanks trade damage for survivability, something the other archetypes don't have to do. the same stats that boost magicka damage also boost healing from magicka sources, the same skills that boost regen, or lower cost, that are good for healing, are also good for magicka DPS. and its the same for things like Vigor, Rally, dodge rolling, and blocking. stamina builds invest in damage, cost reduction, regen, etc. all those things that boost their damage and sustain boost their healing and survivability.

there is no damage based off mitigation, there is no damage based off of max health. everyone has equal survivability in their own way, tanks are just the only ones that do NO DAMAGE as a result.

4) a follow up to #3, a lot of this game is played solo, and solo play as a tank is boring and takes too long. as I noted above stamina builds and magicka builds survive just as well, whilst EVICERATING mobs in a fraction of the time. this makes them faster to play, more fun to play, level faster, get cp faster, get gold and items faster, etc.

5) a continued follow up to #3 and #4 is they are useless in pvp because of this, magicka and stamina builds will outlast you because they can survive just as well, recover resources better, and do damage. all you do as a tank in pvp is die slower, but you don't kill anyone, and you still die, just slower.

Tanks need some form of damage, that befits the style of play, based on damages mitigated and health pool.

SlayerTheDragon · February 2016

As long as you keep the aggro, a good healer should keep you alive. I find it easy to keep tanks up, until the point that they loose the aggro - then the whole crap house comes down fairly quickly.

Julianos · February 2016

Wing wrote: »

sup @Personofsecrets

ima go over my own thoughts of tanks as fast and obvious as I can.

1) armor needs to give a flat amount of armor and provide a flat enchant bonus per location, having variable locations (while reasoning for those bonuses is not bad) benefits people who only wear 1-2 pieces of heavy armor, they can select the 1-2 locations that give the MOST ARMOR per location and receive no downside via build because light and medium rely on bonuses via passives that only require set amount of pieces worn.

this few pieces giving a massive armor bonus allows non tanks to "catch up" and receive huge armor bonuses for tiny investment.

2) the stamina regen nerf was just bad, nobody works with it, if people want to perma block they do via specific class skills or passives. the better tanks can still perma block, there just now restricted to certain build paths to do it, only noobs and tank diversity was killed as a result of it.

plus stamina regen being a dump stat on a tank is stupid.

3) tanks trade damage for survivability, something the other archetypes don't have to do. the same stats that boost magicka damage also boost healing from magicka sources, the same skills that boost regen, or lower cost, that are good for healing, are also good for magicka DPS. and its the same for things like Vigor, Rally, dodge rolling, and blocking. stamina builds invest in damage, cost reduction, regen, etc. all those things that boost their damage and sustain boost their healing and survivability.

there is no damage based off mitigation, there is no damage based off of max health. everyone has equal survivability in their own way, tanks are just the only ones that do NO DAMAGE as a result.

4) a follow up to #3, a lot of this game is played solo, and solo play as a tank is boring and takes too long. as I noted above stamina builds and magicka builds survive just as well, whilst EVICERATING mobs in a fraction of the time. this makes them faster to play, more fun to play, level faster, get cp faster, get gold and items faster, etc.

5) a continued follow up to #3 and #4 is they are useless in pvp because of this, magicka and stamina builds will outlast you because they can survive just as well, recover resources better, and do damage. all you do as a tank in pvp is die slower, but you don't kill anyone, and you still die, just slower.

Tanks need some form of damage, that befits the style of play, based on damages mitigated and health pool.

When you say like this sounds sucks but pure tanking is always useless in PVP unless you have a specific role in a raid like carrying scrolls. Tanks meant to tank bosses with millions of health and tons of damage in PVP %90 of people got same health same skills same mitigation same damage roughly. So there is no need for tank technically tank is a meat bag for mindless boss npcs but in pvp why would anyone attack a tank ? I usually ignore them. But if you want damage while sucking up tons of damage its kind a asking "god mod".

If you wanna feel important in PVP with tank then you should ask diffrent elements from zos but not damage.
For example capturing stuff like flags or scrolls or whatever its a tank job.

Personofsecrets · February 2016

I almost forgot to mention you @Sensesfail13 , thanks to you also for chiming on on my account board.

Tabre · February 2016

What are talking about, man? It's much more fun as a tank to have to sit there and focus on your stamina bar instead of doing things like chaining in adds and using talons or adding some dots to contribute to DPS. I love having to stand there and take hits to the face instead of blocking. So much better this way.

Personofsecrets · February 2016

zerosingularity wrote: »

To be fair, tanks don't "need" stamina regen while blocking, they just want it. Probably time to stop beating a dead horse. When a v9 can tank vCoA (v16 scaled) and sustain his resources, things are just fine.

And if you are a dk tank, heroic slash is good, more ult=more resources. (And maelstrom sword helps regen, though I have yet to test it cause I need to grind more levels.)

Tanks are getting a pvp buff in dark brotherhood, but are currently still tough to kill. Your time will come, be patient.

Some of the other concerns are fine though, but I am only commenting on these few points.

The Maelstrom Sword basically gives back patch 1.3 levels of stamina in exchange for using up a set piece and costing not only a deep slash use, but also a fully charged heavy attack. Totally poor design where the developers tried to push a mechanic that nobody likes (fully charged heavy attacks) so that they could pretend to be giving tanks tools to make stamina management not as bad.

It is a very transparent move on part of whoever designed that item.

Personofsecrets · February 2016

Wing wrote: »

sup @Personofsecrets

ima go over my own thoughts of tanks as fast and obvious as I can.

1) armor needs to give a flat amount of armor and provide a flat enchant bonus per location, having variable locations (while reasoning for those bonuses is not bad) benefits people who only wear 1-2 pieces of heavy armor, they can select the 1-2 locations that give the MOST ARMOR per location and receive no downside via build because light and medium rely on bonuses via passives that only require set amount of pieces worn.

this few pieces giving a massive armor bonus allows non tanks to "catch up" and receive huge armor bonuses for tiny investment.

2) the stamina regen nerf was just bad, nobody works with it, if people want to perma block they do via specific class skills or passives. the better tanks can still perma block, there just now restricted to certain build paths to do it, only noobs and tank diversity was killed as a result of it.

plus stamina regen being a dump stat on a tank is stupid.

3) tanks trade damage for survivability, something the other archetypes don't have to do. the same stats that boost magicka damage also boost healing from magicka sources, the same skills that boost regen, or lower cost, that are good for healing, are also good for magicka DPS. and its the same for things like Vigor, Rally, dodge rolling, and blocking. stamina builds invest in damage, cost reduction, regen, etc. all those things that boost their damage and sustain boost their healing and survivability.

there is no damage based off mitigation, there is no damage based off of max health. everyone has equal survivability in their own way, tanks are just the only ones that do NO DAMAGE as a result.

4) a follow up to #3, a lot of this game is played solo, and solo play as a tank is boring and takes too long. as I noted above stamina builds and magicka builds survive just as well, whilst EVICERATING mobs in a fraction of the time. this makes them faster to play, more fun to play, level faster, get cp faster, get gold and items faster, etc.

5) a continued follow up to #3 and #4 is they are useless in pvp because of this, magicka and stamina builds will outlast you because they can survive just as well, recover resources better, and do damage. all you do as a tank in pvp is die slower, but you don't kill anyone, and you still die, just slower.

Tanks need some form of damage, that befits the style of play, based on damages mitigated and health pool.

Thank you for bringing up that point about heavy armor @Wing . It is sort of odd how non-tanks get to abuse the armor ratings of large pieces while still getting 5-piece light or medium bonuses. This sort of reminds me of how Nirnhoned was changed as to not be abused by people using a single piece of Nirnhoned gear.

Soriana · February 2016

Hey @Personofsecrets , great post with great insight into the challenges faced by a small and largely silent group of people I have found. I was against the stam regen nerf from the beginning and still find myself struggling with having 'fun' watching the green bar instead of watching the boss mechanics. I certainly think a 50% reduction would have been more in line with reality...well, as much reality as you can have in an MMO! As I see the templar's begging in thread after thread for their impending nerfs not to happen, I am reminded of the over 45 page post we had going about the stam regen change, and the fact it did nothing in the long run.

I am certainly not a theory crafter nor am I a min-maxer; I enjoy tanking and love the pressure/responsibility the role entails. I will keep rolling with the punches and evolving as much as I can as I love the game but wow, your post definitely put it in perspective for me.

MaxwellC · February 2016

I gave up on @Wrobel after seeing the latest ESO live, it literally made me frustrated when he brought up his "Homogenize" excuses when it came to DK changes. I for one wanted stam regen to stay the same when blocking no nerfs because hows it fair in the sense that you can block but regain magicka?

It made dungeons for me a pain when templars don't wanna use shards and expect me to self regen like some miraculous battery that never stops working.

Personofsecrets · February 2016

Soriana wrote: »

Hey @Personofsecrets , great post with great insight into the challenges faced by a small and largely silent group of people I have found. I was against the stam regen nerf from the beginning and still find myself struggling with having 'fun' watching the green bar instead of watching the boss mechanics. I certainly think a 50% reduction would have been more in line with reality...well, as much reality as you can have in an MMO! As I see the templar's begging in thread after thread for their impending nerfs not to happen, I am reminded of the over 45 page post we had going about the stam regen change, and the fact it did nothing in the long run.

I am certainly not a theory crafter nor am I a min-maxer; I enjoy tanking and love the pressure/responsibility the role entails. I will keep rolling with the punches and evolving as much as I can as I love the game but wow, your post definitely put it in perspective for me.

Thank you for the encouragement Soriana. I am pretty sure that I remember you posting on that old massive anti-nerf thread. I'd like to know any of the troubles that you find, particularly ones that I have not mentioned, and would appreciate if you share them here.

Praeficere · February 2016

Some late-night rambling from me.

While the Blocking Regen change didn't stop tanks from necessarily being tanks, it hampers choice and role-satisfaction by forcing one mundane build structure upon all tanks.

Desirable sets and stats are foregone to instead maintain the longevity of the right click.

With a good team, you can tank with a far lower amount of Resistance and Max Stamina to become a psuedo-DD. With weaker group members, you are left to fall asleep with your right mouse button taped down. This is not tanking, nor is it enjoyable. A tank should not be measured on how long they are able to right click, but how they control the enemy and aid their allies.

There is a fair gap between bad and good tanks: The ability to self-sustain, resource management, positioning and control of mobs. However, with the AoE 1-Button focus of PvE content currently (Not vMoL and vMA of course), the inexperience of new tanks canoften be forgiving, but on the occasion - detremental.

Tanking well doesn't feelsatisfying or impactful, you just see less Impulse and Steel Tornado.

I want to feellike I'm helping my team and am being useful, infact.. I want to be useful and impactful. There are a few issus with this of which most you have stated throughout your time, although I do find that your recent posts carry too much of your frustration, although it is understandable.

So I've got enough to stamina to right click, chained some mobs in.. good, so how do I aid and boost my team? Debilitate my enemies? I can't, because I have to itemise to being a boring right-click meatbag.. as well as there being else to itemise for...Not many tools either.. Sure, we can pick up more regen, but for what? To spam more talons and Igneous Shield - to let us block more? It's a pathetic shield used only to return stamina.

Tanking is boring and dissatisfying.

End of messy rambling, I do believe ZOS want to improve on role-satisfaction, they have some good and smart people. However, having one team in-charge of most of the gameplay/combat/balance alongside an update only every 4-5 months, it's not going to happen. ZOS lack in management and structure, severely, and I doubt this will ever change. ESO is that game with a huge-amount of potential that will never be realised, no matter how much we hold on.

obscure7 · February 2016

Great post, @Personofsecrets. It looks like you covered all the basics about the difficulties of tanking, and even gave some back-story for some stuff I didn't know about.

For me, by far the hardest thing about tanking is stamina management. Not damage mitigation, not holding aggro, not even timing heavy attacks to coincide with boss rhythms. As somebody said above, you end up paying more attention to your green stamina bar than you do to your own health, the boss mechanics, team-mate activity, etc. Your build ends up being committed to stamina management. Your skill use becomes dedicated to stamina management. Your approach to your role becomes dedicated to stamina management. Ultimately, the way you play the game becomes all about stamina management.

The rules of a tank are pretty simple: (a) hold as much aggro as possible, (b) mitigate as much damage as possible, (c) otherwise help out the team as much as possible. In order to maximize one's effectiveness with all three aspects, a significant amount of stamina is required, as well as a good strategy to manage it. You can't perma-block because you need to regenerate, but you also need to know the one-shot mechanics that must be blocked at all costs. I really dislike that so much effort is paid to managing my own stamina rather than maximizing my mitigation or maximizing the potential of the team.

Not going to get into the PvP side because that's a whole different animal. Anyways, thanks for the post, Personofsecrets. I hope that your post illuminates some non-tanks and makes them a bit more appreciative of what we do.

Praeficere · February 2016

You know, I used to tank because I found it fun and prideful.

Now I tank so my friends can do what they like and aren't forced into a mind-numbing experience.

Islyn · February 2016

I still just want to know what the hell is Tanking with the LT?

Tabre · February 2016

Praeficere wrote: »

You know, I used to tank because I found it fun and prideful.

Now I tank so my friends can do what they like and aren't forced into a mind-numbing experience.

You know, I used to tank because I found it fun and prideful. Now I don't tank.

AFrostWolf · February 2016

Well written. I agree with point 5 a *** ton.

Personofsecrets · February 2016

Islyn wrote: »

I still just want to know what the hell is Tanking with the LT?

I t means to tank with Lord Thornos, the great Orsimer Tank of the Ebonheart Pact.

TotterTates · February 2016

Hey everyone, I'm going to be typing up a history of tanking in ESO today(ish). I'll post it here when I'm done.

Just wanted to jump in and say nice job @Personofsecrets

Frenkthevile · February 2016

Praeficere wrote: »

You know, I used to tank because I found it fun and prideful.

Now I tank so my friends can do what they like and aren't forced into a mind-numbing experience.

AverageJo3Gam3r · February 2016

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Wing wrote: »

sup @Personofsecrets

ima go over my own thoughts of tanks as fast and obvious as I can.

1) armor needs to give a flat amount of armor and provide a flat enchant bonus per location, having variable locations (while reasoning for those bonuses is not bad) benefits people who only wear 1-2 pieces of heavy armor, they can select the 1-2 locations that give the MOST ARMOR per location and receive no downside via build because light and medium rely on bonuses via passives that only require set amount of pieces worn.

this few pieces giving a massive armor bonus allows non tanks to "catch up" and receive huge armor bonuses for tiny investment.

2) the stamina regen nerf was just bad, nobody works with it, if people want to perma block they do via specific class skills or passives. the better tanks can still perma block, there just now restricted to certain build paths to do it, only noobs and tank diversity was killed as a result of it.

plus stamina regen being a dump stat on a tank is stupid.

3) tanks trade damage for survivability, something the other archetypes don't have to do. the same stats that boost magicka damage also boost healing from magicka sources, the same skills that boost regen, or lower cost, that are good for healing, are also good for magicka DPS. and its the same for things like Vigor, Rally, dodge rolling, and blocking. stamina builds invest in damage, cost reduction, regen, etc. all those things that boost their damage and sustain boost their healing and survivability.

there is no damage based off mitigation, there is no damage based off of max health. everyone has equal survivability in their own way, tanks are just the only ones that do NO DAMAGE as a result.

4) a follow up to #3, a lot of this game is played solo, and solo play as a tank is boring and takes too long. as I noted above stamina builds and magicka builds survive just as well, whilst EVICERATING mobs in a fraction of the time. this makes them faster to play, more fun to play, level faster, get cp faster, get gold and items faster, etc.

5) a continued follow up to #3 and #4 is they are useless in pvp because of this, magicka and stamina builds will outlast you because they can survive just as well, recover resources better, and do damage. all you do as a tank in pvp is die slower, but you don't kill anyone, and you still die, just slower.

Tanks need some form of damage, that befits the style of play, based on damages mitigated and health pool.

Thank you for bringing up that point about heavy armor @Wing . It is sort of odd how non-tanks get to abuse the armor ratings of large pieces while still getting 5-piece light or medium bonuses. This sort of reminds me of how Nirnhoned was changed as to not be abused by people using a single piece of Nirnhoned gear.

I don't have an issue with that. It makes sense that head, chest, and leg pieces give more armor because that's where the vital organs and arteries are. What needs to happen is they need to buff the 5 piece bonus for heavy armor. Giving a bigger resource return from constitution would be a start.

Islyn · February 2016

Praeficere wrote: »

You know, I used to tank because I found it fun and prideful.

Now I tank so my friends can do what they like and aren't forced into a mind-numbing experience.

That makes me sad

and is really nice of you.

hrothbern · February 2016

Awesome post @Personofsecrets ,

Hope it helps to bring the Tank in perspective of the devs as well

Inarre · February 2016

Very well put.

I think the idea of a tank and tanky builds are at an extreme disadvantage. I will even go so far as to say that templars and dks are feeling this imbalance especially. The "vision" for these classes is to sustain, but are unable to due to this incredible imbalance between regeneration and offensive and defensive resources.

I don't want to drag class based QQ to this thread so lets end that subject there, but I wanted to make the point that the tank's plight affects more than just pure tank builds. This is affecting all players who wish to build with a focus of taking a lot damage in mind.

There definitely needs to be a focus on balancing builds and classes that live off of offensive burst damage, speed and CC with classes that focus on sustain, tanking and damage mitigation. Unfortunately anyone in this day and age of cyrodiil (or anywhere) who builds with the aim of max sustain and damage mitigation are doomed to fail.

Many changes have been made with the focus of any class, any build, play the way YOU want. Unfortunately this simply isn't true. If you want to live, you have no choice but to build one way, and thats high damage, speed and CC.

Personofsecrets · February 2016

I look forward to the post @TotterTates . I still am preparing tanking info for the guide. It has been a long time due to not knowing the best way to present infotmation, working, and pts training runs.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · February 2016

Personofsecrets wrote: »

. I am always trying more and more ridiculous things on dungeon runs because otherwise the bore of keeping my stamina at 80% is maddening.

Nice post. And take it from me, truer words were never spoken. Let me go grab 2 crematorial guards to make this fight a little more interesting.

Personofsecrets · February 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

. I am always trying more and more ridiculous things on dungeon runs because otherwise the bore of keeping my stamina at 80% is maddening.

Nice post. And take it from me, truer words were never spoken. Let me go grab 2 crematorial guards to make this fight a little more interesting.

At least I learned about Annulment!

code65536 · February 2016

Thanks for the great post, and keep fighting the good fight.

Personofsecrets · February 2016

code65536 wrote: »

Thanks for the great post, and keep fighting the good fight.

Thank you Code. One thing I am really proud about is how many players have banded around tanking in an attempt to make it better. It was great, for example, when we found out that block cost had been artificially increased during the Wrothgar patch, we made a huge thread, got developers involved, and the nerf reverted thanks, I think, to our dedication and echoing the same notions about tanking nerfs being bad for tanking.

I think that a community just dedicated to tanks would be cool to start. If anyone knows how to make such a thing, then maybe put up the tank forum and we can discuss with each other without worrying about our tone or non-tanks poisoning the well.