Zorrashi wrote: »

Typically when I play games, I don't want to get hit and see my health bar take damage.

Thus, tanking in an MMO is foreign to me. Intentionally taking damage, expected to have shields or mitigation all the time, expected to live through it, basically being a taunting human shield. Madness.
Being a tank, for me, is basically like waving a flag over your head that reads: Kill me!

I am literally intrinsically adverse to tanking. I think of the role and all see is "DO NOT DO THAT".

code65536 wrote: »

3) Tanking and healing are support roles. You don't taunt or heal enemies to victory. You win by killing, and the tank and healer's jobs, ultimately, are to keep the DPS alive while they do the killing. This isn't always a popular view among the tanking community, but it's the stark reality, in this game and in all other games: the DPS is, inherently the main role. This has repercussions when it comes to doing solo content, including questing and delving. And, yes, Maelstrom. I do not view the "tanks can't do Maelstrom" complaints as valid because you're not supposed to! It's a group support role--what on earth are you supposed to support in solo play? Full tanks that lack DPS specs struggle when it comes to questing, delves, and all other solo content, not just Maelstrom. We just don't hear about it because that sort of solo content has been nerfed so far into the ground that it poses no challenge to anyone. A full tank without a DPS spec is simply boring and pointless outside of group content and is thus unattractive to many people. A lot of the tanks that I know are either gear-swap tanks like me (switching between full DPS or full tanking with a change of gear and bars) or have other characters that they play most of the time, letting their tank character out of the barn only when a tank is needed. These people tend to not PUG as a tank.

Farorin wrote: »

I have one character who is a tank, and tanking in PVE is fun and dynamic, but I also like to play PVP with my characters and as such am thinking of respeccing him, thus he won't be tanky.

Heavy armour as a full set is literal trash in PVP, dedicated tanks are literally useless in PVP, and thus the only reason to tank is if you are a strict PVE only player. Or have a strict PVE only character. As stated above, I love playing both on all my characters, thus tanking is not one of my priorities.

Mivryna wrote: »

I actually really love tanking. The main issue is that I prefer highly agile forms of tanking, likes swashbuckling or kiting with ranged attacks. In some games, such forms of tanking are built into the game mechanics. But in ESO it's almost an absolute necessity to tank by blocking with a shield. Evasion effects help a bit, but ultimately the damage is way too spiky without going fully into health and damage reduction.

It's particularly stressful on my Sorcerer, since the spillover damage from Hardened Ward is not mitigated. You could have 99.9% damage reduction, but still be killed instantly because of the Ward mechanics. So the only option for a Sorcerer is traditional heavy-armor-and-shield tanking with out using wards.

I've tried using Medium armor with Armor Master and using Immovable for high mitigation, but the short duration on the Armor Master buff makes it really difficult to keep up with, especially since many Sorc builds are already low on skill bar space to begin with.


Maybe there would be a place for alternative tanking forms if there were some Trials/Dungeons based on a high rate of small damage numbers, and one-shot attacks that are telegraphed enough for a quick response. Bosses with a lot of ranged attacks could be fun as well, especially if Light Armor's extra Spell Resistance could be a way to soak up damage.

HeroOfNone wrote: »

LegendaryNinja wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Needs an "all of the above" option (except the too hard option)

There are too many negatives to being a tank.
HA is pointless.
In PvP, tanks are just annoying more than a threat as their damage is so low that it really doesn't matter in most situations.
Nerf after nerf after nerf makes an already tedious job even more tedious and less enjoyable.
Content is so easy a caveman can do it. Or in this case 3 DPS+healer.

Where's the positive to being a tank apart from a faster queue time in group finder? (which honestly isn't a good thing sometimes when you get stuck with bad dps/heals that just refuse to listen.)

I've always hated tanking and this game just reaffirms my hatred for the job all the more.

@Silver_Strider Super Awesome Post. I've had some fun with my Black Rose set, I just debuff the enemy and spam the crap out of Vigor and Rally. But I totally understand your concerns, I believe zenimax will add some Heavy Armor changes in Dark Brotherhood DLC; @HeroOfNone Do you know of any specifics?

not on the inside to know, but I keep tossing out ideas. we are supposed to see an improvement at some point.

In my opinion there are a few areas they could improve it with, but there are cons:

Mitigation: they need to up the unblocked mitigation. I know they didn't want to reduce hits for more than 50% of an unblocked hit, but its kinda pointless when I can wear no armor and wear high armor and get almost the same hit reduction for blocking. It also would kill PVP again with how high the regenerations are. so I'd like to see mitigation go up, but they would have to reduce block damage reduction and also reduce regenerations in PVP

Critical hits: another spot they can improve heavy armor over others is by giving an impenetrable bonus or by reducing the amount of crits enemies can do (how impenetrable used to be). this would serve as a counter to glass cannon builds. Still have issues with regenerations and heavy armor still can't do damage compared to others

Damage abilities: there should be more damage abilities specific to the tank. for example, reflection attacks that are based on how much damage you take that if you're skillful, wipe out the enemies. making guard one of those abilities, with morph options to return damage or to give a damage shield to your party would help. this may require sacrificing abilities. Also, giving extended reach and hit chance against things like dodge roll or shuffle with heavy attacks and other abilities would also help.

There is a ton you cann do with the armor bonuses and sets, but these are sort of my top 3, especially upping the mitigation while reducing regenerations across the board in PVP.

HeroOfNone wrote: »

LegendaryNinja wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Needs an "all of the above" option (except the too hard option)

There are too many negatives to being a tank.
HA is pointless.
In PvP, tanks are just annoying more than a threat as their damage is so low that it really doesn't matter in most situations.
Nerf after nerf after nerf makes an already tedious job even more tedious and less enjoyable.
Content is so easy a caveman can do it. Or in this case 3 DPS+healer.

Where's the positive to being a tank apart from a faster queue time in group finder? (which honestly isn't a good thing sometimes when you get stuck with bad dps/heals that just refuse to listen.)

I've always hated tanking and this game just reaffirms my hatred for the job all the more.

@Silver_Strider Super Awesome Post. I've had some fun with my Black Rose set, I just debuff the enemy and spam the crap out of Vigor and Rally. But I totally understand your concerns, I believe zenimax will add some Heavy Armor changes in Dark Brotherhood DLC; @HeroOfNone Do you know of any specifics?

not on the inside to know, but I keep tossing out ideas. we are supposed to see an improvement at some point.

In my opinion there are a few areas they could improve it with, but there are cons:

Mitigation: they need to up the unblocked mitigation. I know they didn't want to reduce hits for more than 50% of an unblocked hit, but its kinda pointless when I can wear no armor and wear high armor and get almost the same hit reduction for blocking. It also would kill PVP again with how high the regenerations are. so I'd like to see mitigation go up, but they would have to reduce block damage reduction and also reduce regenerations in PVP

Critical hits: another spot they can improve heavy armor over others is by giving an impenetrable bonus or by reducing the amount of crits enemies can do (how impenetrable used to be). this would serve as a counter to glass cannon builds. Still have issues with regenerations and heavy armor still can't do damage compared to others

Damage abilities: there should be more damage abilities specific to the tank. for example, reflection attacks that are based on how much damage you take that if you're skillful, wipe out the enemies. making guard one of those abilities, with morph options to return damage or to give a damage shield to your party would help. this may require sacrificing abilities. Also, giving extended reach and hit chance against things like dodge roll or shuffle with heavy attacks and other abilities would also help.

There is a ton you cann do with the armor bonuses and sets, but these are sort of my top 3, especially upping the mitigation while reducing regenerations across the board in PVP.