It is already hard to find a tank. It is much harder to find a decent tank. It is even rarer to find a decent and friendly tank. Decent, friendly ant patient? *giggles*... 2 of them? *bursting in laughter, stops, starts crying*

Lots of good tanks out there, and as people have said already trial content for multiple tanks. Finding a good raid healer is what seems to be a challenge.

While there already is content that requires more than one tank, we could certainly use some more.

As a tank, I would be happy if Vet dungeons required a tank. Right now the only ones that do are the DLC dungeons...which is why I don't even bother with the lesser dungeons much anymore. Even vWGT can be done without a tank these days. As for trials, I think 2 tanks should be required. The new trial does a good job of that, but aside from MoL the other ones do not. In the end though I think its more important for tanks to be needed for vet dungeons. I mean...vet darkshade? a tank actually hurts the group there which is ridiculous. What I would like to see though is a new solo arena focuse on tanks and healers. vMA is great, but its a DPS only arena....that needs to be balanced badly. Surely you can design a solo arena that tests pure survival.

I agree that there need to be more tanks in the game. But I'm not sure that what's needed is content that simply requires more tanks. That seems like too brute a solution. Rather, what we need is content that is more interesting for tanks, to motivate more people to play them.

I've had a DK tank for about as long as I've been in ESO, and I have to say that my DPS and healer toons are much more fun to play. While there are certainly interesting experiences out there for tanks -- I enjoy how much some of the trials make a tank think, and it's satisfying when I enable a good dungeon run -- the vast majority of the game is not set up to reward a player for being a good tank. Most single-player content is pretty tedious (and sometimes virtually impossible) as a tank, and the scoring system for the newest game mode (BGs) hardly acknowledges the existence of tanks at all. As a tank, there is virtually nothing fun I can do without a good group (except crafting), and there is no non-group content that rewards me specifically for my tankiness. And since so many ESO players play without a regular group, there's a strong disincentive for players to roll a tank.

Put another way: DPS players are recognized and rewarded by the game specifically for their DPS performance virtually the entire time they're playing. Tanks are not; in fact, much of the game penalizes you for building for tankiness.

I suspect that ZOS' attempted solution to this problem was the introduction of Warden frost staff tanking: to me, it looks like an attempt to make tanking feel more like DPSing (flashy elemental skills, etc.). But the attempt hasn't quite worked, in part because most people aren't really attracted by the idea of tanking with a stick, and in part because ice staff Warden tanking isn't exactly trial-optimized.

A closely related probelm is that there is no "elite" solo activity specifically for tanks -- there's nothing I can do as a tank that makes me feel "wow this game is hard but it turns out I am an awesome player" unless I am in a group. What I would really like to see is something like VMA, but for tanks: imagine an arena that requires you to perform certain tasks while taking enormous amounts of damage instead of dealing it. Alternatively, VMA could be tweaked so that you could ignore mechanics due to your superior tanking ability, just like elite DPS players can ignore mechanics due their superior DPS ability.

I'm afraid that until we have some way for tanks to enjoy the game (and be recognized by the game's reward systems specifically for their tanking performance) during the time they're not in dungeons/trials, we're always going to have a shortage of tanks.

Not sure why so many voted no. All we have is the trial content. I would like some dungeons that involve 2 tanks.

More tanks! Ha! Never find one when you need one as it is, almost the whole population are dps because we like to kill things, not practice our punching bag impressions

We have plenty of tanks.

They just don't want to tank for pugs.

Making content that requires more of them won't instantly create more tanks.

I'm not sure about requiring more than one tank. I think it was mentioned already, but simply having more incentive to tank would help. I like instanced play in other games where you go into a fight as any role you like, and take one or more friends who have their own playstyle. Those games have NPC options that fill in the missing roles, like archer pets or shield bearers. In many of those instanced play sessions, it helps to be a tank to pull aggro off a target you're trying to protect. Another approach would be to burn down the mobs quickly before they reach the target.

ESO seems to favor a DPS race to get through content. There are instances in Craglorn where you're trying to protect a mage, and a tank feels right at home as they distract the trash mobs rushing out to kill the target, but when the 2 gargoyles show up you have to dps them down, there's no stopping or distracting them.

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

I play a healer and imagine there might be some similarities. That is, questing is more set up for dps than any support char. I would love it if the game could recognize what your character's focus is and provide the appropriate NPC a little often and to more precise effect. With my healer, for example, give me glass cannon NPC that can actually do some serious damage but requires serious healing/support to do it. That way, leveling up and questing a healer or tank would feel more like they are solidly in their role. The same big magicka pool that allows a healer to be a good healer also allows her to defend herself by healing through damage and doing good damage. But the tanks I know basically reconfigure out of tank mode into a less than optimal dps mode for questing - that sounds rather tedious and like it would discourage tanks.

Note: As a healer, my elf is in awe of tanks and simply adores them - mostly because they do what she cannot and enable her to do what she does better. It just seems that tanks have even less incentive to quest solo than a healer. So I'm all for anything that would encourage more tanks and healers.

There's plenty of tanks and healers.

They just don't pug.

You want incentive for them to pug, you need people to start being nice to each other. Good luck there.

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

Literally every HM vet trial requires more than one tank.

It would be nice to see a trial that requires less dps and more tanks, like 3 or 4. Make it interesting.

I tank for my Band of brothers however I am reluctant to tank for pugs because of the negativity I read on the forums. If you are not BIS, tank or not you get flamed. Whatever happened to having fun and learning on the job.