How do we encourage tanking?

Vhozek · December 2017

Questing as a tank is a dreadful chore and tanking for players in the overworld is a joke because nobody needs you unless they're killing a World Boss. That also doesn't mean that every dps needs a tank or that every tank needs a dps in all cases in the overworld.
An AoE taunt is not the solution we need. I used to want an AoE taunt my first month playing until I realized I rather have more to do as a tank than just pressing 1 button. I mean, it was already boring so it doesn't make sense to make it worse.

theslynx · December 2017

I think the problem has been dealt with to some extent outside MMOs. There are two issues: (a) tanking isn't always exciting and (b) it's slow for solo play.

Games like Dragon Age (party-based single player RPG) have solved (a) by having NPC companions and letting party members efficiently handle damage. They've solved (b) by making giving tanks more strategic options to control and redirect the battlefield while also debuffing enemies or buffing allies. It's a bit more engaging than ESO's primary focus of taunting and staying alive, letting passives do the rest of the work.

I don't see ESO using NPC allies any time soon, but if I wouldn't be surprised to see future MMOs attempt something like party-based combat in MMOs with AI allies who drop out when you're joined by other players. Diablo III already does something like this.

Tan9oSuccka · December 2017

You can still be a good tank and not be a useless HP meat sack.

I use 5 heavy Hundings Rage, 3 agility, 2 Cyrodiils Crest and 2 Veledrith.

You can still easily kill stuff questing, skyshards etc with the same setup.

Not meta tanking for sure, but you don’t need much for most Vet content, excluding Vet DLCs which I use a different setup.

LordSarevok · December 2017

Questing and exploring is an absolute nightmare when you pull 3-5k Dps. Respeccing and carrying multiple sets of gear other than the many we already carry for end game content tank wise, is time consuming to say the least. The only way would be to add a Dps companion to help in questing. My dps is so bad that when I finally got around to collecting all my surveys today, I would literally sneak around the nodes to avoid conflict, even damn skeevers... It takes forever to kill anything. Give us an option to hire a mercenary to help with solo questing! Enter a group instance and poof, mercenary friend goes away.

Jpk0012 · December 2017

Make them fun? They have too much responsibility, and they give up making a fun character. Fair trade? I don't think so.

They are obsolete in content with well built higher CP characters. They get left in the dust.

I don't feel like taking the blame every time a dps decides to stand in the red, or has built his toon with 13K HP so gets one shot by trash. Then he blames the tank or healer.

I have shelved my tank in favor of my healer(who can tank, dps and heal???) and a sorc - who just pretty much is easy mode as it gets.

xaraan · December 2017

Long winded post, but...

ZoS needs to take a hard look at not just tanking, but themselves in order to help tanking IMO.

Just to say where I'm coming from game wise: I tank trials (vet, HMs), dungeons, I've run tanky pvp builds, etc. So I feel like it's all do-able as is, but most of my comments will come from a place of making it more balanced and enjoyable, not just do-able for me or a small % of tanks/builds.

What I mean when I say ZoS needs to look at themselves: They seem to make changes sometimes as if the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

For Example: Changes have been made (some for sake of PvP) about permablocking and more closely - regen of stam while blocking. We know this wasn't just about pvp, or they could have added a no regen while blocking tag to battle spirit. I've seen mention from devs that they want to encourage more active play in the tanking position. Where as the other side that is making content doesn't take these changes into consideration and creates multiple scenarios in high end content, where you can't drop block consistently to regen or do heavy attacks. And swapping back and forth between ice staff blocking and standard blocking doesn't work as well because the rate you can get both your regens to tick (even in a build for it) while you use the other to block doesn't sync up, that's not even taking into consideration using any of those resources to taunt or use other skills.

Again, I'm talking the hard, end game content, not basic vet dungeons - most differences I'm talking about you'll only see when tanking with different classes on the newest vet HM dungeons and HM vet trials.

What it comes down to is this: Every class needs to be able to regen stam in some fashion while blocking, as long as they are working for it in some way besides the hour long heavy attack. This is a key reason that DK is so good for tanking - the stam return from using earthen and the resource return from using your ulti. The only other classes that offer something similar is Warden (if you run the stam morph of netch and the return is nearly worthless in that situaiton) and Sorc might be able to squeeze in Dark Exchanges in some situations. ZoS might read: DK is too strong then, but no - it's not that tanking is so OP on DK for this reason, it's that is it bearable and enjoyable vs using other classes (I've tried it on many classes, it's all do-able, but that's not what this is about). To me it allows me to be more active as a tank, using abilities and doing other things besides holding block and wondering whether my concern over resources is bigger than my concern over holding aggro.

Possible Solutions: DK's are fine as they are IMO, don't need any help here.

Templars - one morph of their little templar house circle they put down should have a stam return on it. Not a stam regen buff, but a flat return like the netch does for Warden (except maybe a bit higher since it actually costs resources to use).

Warden - in a pretty good spot too, but the netch is a bit weak for this use. Could look at making the netch have a magicka cost and give an upfront burst of stam before it's smaller tick kicks in.

Sorcs - they are in an OK spot with Dark exchange, but it's a bit hit or miss depending on the fight. The fact it gives a heal back as well might swing this into at least being worth the hassle.

NBs - the worst thing they did was start tinkering with siphoning strikes coming from a NB tank perspective (not so much saying it's bad for DPS, just talking from tank standpoint here). It used to be the thing that made it worthwhile to deal with the harder single target boss fights where you'll get less return to at least be awesome at dealing with waves of mobs before the boss fights.

In the end it all comes down to all classes being able to have fun with all roles. If players that are already being challenged with a new role or new content can't even use the class they actually enjoy playing, then it's going to limit the amount of tanks in the game period. Not even counting people not willing to tank because they just don't like that sort of role.

Other issues that dent other classes: No way to group mobs up as efficiently as a DK (chains) the warden pull comes close and it's good enough for them, but other classes are left hanging. You can use Swarm Mother, but that prevents you from running any other set for all of those classes. There is also no other Talons type skill past encase on a sorc.

I really wish the Undaunted line had been used to flesh out dungeon roles since that's what the Undaunted are all about. They could have added some sort of pull ability for any class to access, they could have used something like the webs to create a sort of talon's like snare that's use-able by everyone, etc. They already have managed to give every class a shield w/ bone shield (though there should be a magic morph) and 'shards/heal' with Orb. They could have used this line to bridge that role gap with other classes. And you could make them all synergy dependent to be strong like seems to be another goal of the Undaunted line - teamwork theme: Maybe the webs just create a snare, but when synergized actually stick mobs in place while like a hard CC for example. I'd have also added passives in this line to convert an ice staff into a tanking item instead of taking away the ability of ice staves to be usable as DPS weapons.

The other issue I'll lay at ZoS' feet is that they have a bad habit of nerfing something to try a fix, then seeing it doesn't work and nerfing something else and never looking at what was originally nerfed. Take for instance Black Rose - it went from being a bit strong so several people were giving it a try so it seemed to be the issue, but it wasn't the issue, so: then ZoS nerfed the constitution passive when everyone noticed it wasn't just Black Rose and never reverted the changes to Black Rose, so now it's technically double nerfed and virtually useless. If someone wants to dedicate a five piece set bonus to boosting that nerfed passive, they should correct this and allow it since the passive itself got nerfed. There are already sets that give better flat regen bonuses than this in the game - fix it. Might help in some of the areas mentioned above to balance things out for some builds.

The last thing on them is to take a look at content design. If you are going to continually add a bunch of one-shot mechanics that already have to be blocked (so you can't drop block in some situations at all and sometimes barely weapon swap) and you are going to give them to multiple mobs so that a tank has to pull aggro on more than just one boss or a couple mobs, then you need to look at what you are giving tanks to work with not just for blocking but resource wise.

Just to look at it from PvP side: Some of the changes to being tanky have been OK in PvP, some haven't mattered much at all, but mostly they changes haven't directly addressed the problems, they just chipped at it a little. Usually the builds that are bad for tanks in PvP are niche, you can look at that player, whose fighting them, what they are wearing, etc. and tell it's a combination of things and not just this class is broken or that skill is broken (usually). Those things should be addressed specifically and not just with blanket nerfs to passives or classes. The other side of the coin in PvP are that tanks should be allowed to be tanks, but they should be able to be super tanky and suddenly burst someone down, but if someone is just hard to kill and just stands there holding block, so what. Let them, focus them down after they watch their friends die, etc. But most of the fixes I've seen come to address the tanky builds in PvP have never fixed them, only hurt tanking in general.

Before random people pop up with I have this X class build, I'm sure there are several high end players out there that have tanks in various classes and pull off all content. Great, me too. I'm looking at the differences in the classes though and that some have an easier time of doing the basic job than others while still providing more for the team and frankly, there are major differences and problems between classes for the tanking role.

Past all this, it's just on the player. Maybe people just don't like support roles, you can't make them or make them feel penalized for not liking them (they probably already feel that way just trying to queue for dungeons as dps). There is also a tendency to have more pressure on your shoulders as a tank or healer (some rightly so, some not so much) and that's going to turn some off. I will say some of the best DPS players I've run with have also done a bit of tanking and healing and know what goes down on the other side and handle fights better, so it's worth a try to all, even if you don't want to do it full time.

Ruckly · December 2017

Give people extra bag space for one tanking set. That would be 14 slots in total for tanking only gear. IMO I like how it works presently because when I cue as tank I'm in almost instantly and plow through the run. Taunt,taunt,taunt,taunt,taunt,boneshield,taunt,taunt,boneshield,heavy attack, boneshield, heavy attack, healing circle, heavy attack sprint to next group repeat. And purifying light every six seconds on bosses.

One other thing that would make tanking better is if tanks autoloot instead of having to click on corpses. When there are only a couple of mobs left standing there isn't really anything left to do unless my magicka is low and I need to frost staff heavy attack otherwise I would rather get a head start to the next pull.

randomkeyhits · December 2017

Its really simple, you can't help tanks.

or healers.

The game is designed about and around doing damage so most people go damager because they get stuff done faster.

"Done Faster" is one of those damager mantras which is purely a construct of the player population but.... they want to apply it to everything.

So group content where if you play as designed, with appropriate numbers of each role, goes well and smoothly if the group know the instance. The go faster crowd begrudge being in an instance for anything beyond the bare minimum and believe you can use damager burn to get past mechanics, which often you can.

So a player who wants to start off as a tank finds overland slow, the try hards in the normal dungeons leaving them behind and if they communicate at all are told "don't need tanks for easy stuff" so they shrug, break out a damager set and start to follow the herd and find overland is now faster and easier too.

So its no surprise that most tanks stick with friends away from pug life and such.

Oh yeah and who wants abuse from a damager who doesn't know mechanics dictates the boss is guaranteed drop aggro?

I will give ESO 10/10 for MMO consistency because it plays out exactly the same as every other triad MMO.

paulsimonps · December 2017

Ruckly wrote: »

Give people extra bag space for one tanking set. That would be 14 slots in total for tanking only gear. IMO I like how it works presently because when I cue as tank I'm in almost instantly and plow through the run. Taunt,taunt,taunt,taunt,taunt,boneshield,taunt,taunt,boneshield,heavy attack, boneshield, heavy attack, healing circle, heavy attack sprint to next group repeat. And purifying light every six seconds on bosses.

One other thing that would make tanking better is if tanks autoloot instead of having to click on corpses. When there are only a couple of mobs left standing there isn't really anything left to do unless my magicka is low and I need to frost staff heavy attack otherwise I would rather get a head start to the next pull.

How is inventory management improvements an incentive to tank? This would not change anyone's mind to swap to tanking.

Prof_Bawbag · December 2017

Lets face it, it's not just ESO that has this issue. Both healing and tanking are niche choices by dd standards. Even single player games become a chore when you opt for a more "support" role. I get there are people out there that love tanking and healing, but the vast majority prefer to damage their way through any given game.

Ruckly · December 2017

paulsimonps wrote: »

Ruckly wrote: »

Give people extra bag space for one tanking set. That would be 14 slots in total for tanking only gear. IMO I like how it works presently because when I cue as tank I'm in almost instantly and plow through the run. Taunt,taunt,taunt,taunt,taunt,boneshield,taunt,taunt,boneshield,heavy attack, boneshield, heavy attack, healing circle, heavy attack sprint to next group repeat. And purifying light every six seconds on bosses.

One other thing that would make tanking better is if tanks autoloot instead of having to click on corpses. When there are only a couple of mobs left standing there isn't really anything left to do unless my magicka is low and I need to frost staff heavy attack otherwise I would rather get a head start to the next pull.

How is inventory management improvements an incentive to tank? This would not change anyone's mind to swap to tanking.

It might not change everyone's mind to swap to tanking but I don't think you can assert that it would not change anyone's mind. If you have a tanking set tucked away in a portable wardrobe with health enchants and health set bonuses and heavy armor then that saves you 14 slots. Meanwhile you can run your light/medium armor all stamina/magicka enchant dps set when you're not tanking. Make the wardrobe one click of a button to switch gear. It's not so much an incentive to tank as it is removing a disincentive to tank.

paulsimonps · December 2017

Ruckly wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Ruckly wrote: »

Give people extra bag space for one tanking set. That would be 14 slots in total for tanking only gear. IMO I like how it works presently because when I cue as tank I'm in almost instantly and plow through the run. Taunt,taunt,taunt,taunt,taunt,boneshield,taunt,taunt,boneshield,heavy attack, boneshield, heavy attack, healing circle, heavy attack sprint to next group repeat. And purifying light every six seconds on bosses.

One other thing that would make tanking better is if tanks autoloot instead of having to click on corpses. When there are only a couple of mobs left standing there isn't really anything left to do unless my magicka is low and I need to frost staff heavy attack otherwise I would rather get a head start to the next pull.

How is inventory management improvements an incentive to tank? This would not change anyone's mind to swap to tanking.

It might not change everyone's mind to swap to tanking but I don't think you can assert that it would not change anyone's mind. If you have a tanking set tucked away in a portable wardrobe with health enchants and health set bonuses and heavy armor then that saves you 14 slots. Meanwhile you can run your light/medium armor all stamina/magicka enchant dps set when you're not tanking. Make the wardrobe one click of a button to switch gear. It's not so much an incentive to tank as it is removing a disincentive to tank.

Max inventory size is 200, without mount upgrades its 140. You are telling me you can't fit in 14 armor pieces in there without filling up? What exactly are you constantly carrying with you? I mean sure it will sway some people that are terribly bad hoarders. But if we really want to incentivize people to tank then this is not the answer.

paulsimonps · December 2017

xaraan wrote: »

Long winded post, but...

ZoS needs to take a hard look at not just tanking, but themselves in order to help tanking IMO.

Just to say where I'm coming from game wise: I tank trials (vet, HMs), dungeons, I've run tanky pvp builds, etc. So I feel like it's all do-able as is, but most of my comments will come from a place of making it more balanced and enjoyable, not just do-able for me or a small % of tanks/builds.

What I mean when I say ZoS needs to look at themselves: They seem to make changes sometimes as if the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

For Example: Changes have been made (some for sake of PvP) about permablocking and more closely - regen of stam while blocking. We know this wasn't just about pvp, or they could have added a no regen while blocking tag to battle spirit. I've seen mention from devs that they want to encourage more active play in the tanking position. Where as the other side that is making content doesn't take these changes into consideration and creates multiple scenarios in high end content, where you can't drop block consistently to regen or do heavy attacks. And swapping back and forth between ice staff blocking and standard blocking doesn't work as well because the rate you can get both your regens to tick (even in a build for it) while you use the other to block doesn't sync up, that's not even taking into consideration using any of those resources to taunt or use other skills.

Again, I'm talking the hard, end game content, not basic vet dungeons - most differences I'm talking about you'll only see when tanking with different classes on the newest vet HM dungeons and HM vet trials.

What it comes down to is this: Every class needs to be able to regen stam in some fashion while blocking, as long as they are working for it in some way besides the hour long heavy attack. This is a key reason that DK is so good for tanking - the stam return from using earthen and the resource return from using your ulti. The only other classes that offer something similar is Warden (if you run the stam morph of netch and the return is nearly worthless in that situaiton) and Sorc might be able to squeeze in Dark Exchanges in some situations. ZoS might read: DK is too strong then, but no - it's not that tanking is so OP on DK for this reason, it's that is it bearable and enjoyable vs using other classes (I've tried it on many classes, it's all do-able, but that's not what this is about). To me it allows me to be more active as a tank, using abilities and doing other things besides holding block and wondering whether my concern over resources is bigger than my concern over holding aggro.

Possible Solutions: DK's are fine as they are IMO, don't need any help here.

Templars - one morph of their little templar house circle they put down should have a stam return on it. Not a stam regen buff, but a flat return like the netch does for Warden (except maybe a bit higher since it actually costs resources to use).

Warden - in a pretty good spot too, but the netch is a bit weak for this use. Could look at making the netch have a magicka cost and give an upfront burst of stam before it's smaller tick kicks in.

Sorcs - they are in an OK spot with Dark exchange, but it's a bit hit or miss depending on the fight. The fact it gives a heal back as well might swing this into at least being worth the hassle.

NBs - the worst thing they did was start tinkering with siphoning strikes coming from a NB tank perspective (not so much saying it's bad for DPS, just talking from tank standpoint here). It used to be the thing that made it worthwhile to deal with the harder single target boss fights where you'll get less return to at least be awesome at dealing with waves of mobs before the boss fights.

In the end it all comes down to all classes being able to have fun with all roles. If players that are already being challenged with a new role or new content can't even use the class they actually enjoy playing, then it's going to limit the amount of tanks in the game period. Not even counting people not willing to tank because they just don't like that sort of role.

Other issues that dent other classes: No way to group mobs up as efficiently as a DK (chains) the warden pull comes close and it's good enough for them, but other classes are left hanging. You can use Swarm Mother, but that prevents you from running any other set for all of those classes. There is also no other Talons type skill past encase on a sorc.

I really wish the Undaunted line had been used to flesh out dungeon roles since that's what the Undaunted are all about. They could have added some sort of pull ability for any class to access, they could have used something like the webs to create a sort of talon's like snare that's use-able by everyone, etc. They already have managed to give every class a shield w/ bone shield (though there should be a magic morph) and 'shards/heal' with Orb. They could have used this line to bridge that role gap with other classes. And you could make them all synergy dependent to be strong like seems to be another goal of the Undaunted line - teamwork theme: Maybe the webs just create a snare, but when synergized actually stick mobs in place while like a hard CC for example. I'd have also added passives in this line to convert an ice staff into a tanking item instead of taking away the ability of ice staves to be usable as DPS weapons.

The other issue I'll lay at ZoS' feet is that they have a bad habit of nerfing something to try a fix, then seeing it doesn't work and nerfing something else and never looking at what was originally nerfed. Take for instance Black Rose - it went from being a bit strong so several people were giving it a try so it seemed to be the issue, but it wasn't the issue, so: then ZoS nerfed the constitution passive when everyone noticed it wasn't just Black Rose and never reverted the changes to Black Rose, so now it's technically double nerfed and virtually useless. If someone wants to dedicate a five piece set bonus to boosting that nerfed passive, they should correct this and allow it since the passive itself got nerfed. There are already sets that give better flat regen bonuses than this in the game - fix it. Might help in some of the areas mentioned above to balance things out for some builds.

The last thing on them is to take a look at content design. If you are going to continually add a bunch of one-shot mechanics that already have to be blocked (so you can't drop block in some situations at all and sometimes barely weapon swap) and you are going to give them to multiple mobs so that a tank has to pull aggro on more than just one boss or a couple mobs, then you need to look at what you are giving tanks to work with not just for blocking but resource wise.

Just to look at it from PvP side: Some of the changes to being tanky have been OK in PvP, some haven't mattered much at all, but mostly they changes haven't directly addressed the problems, they just chipped at it a little. Usually the builds that are bad for tanks in PvP are niche, you can look at that player, whose fighting them, what they are wearing, etc. and tell it's a combination of things and not just this class is broken or that skill is broken (usually). Those things should be addressed specifically and not just with blanket nerfs to passives or classes. The other side of the coin in PvP are that tanks should be allowed to be tanks, but they should be able to be super tanky and suddenly burst someone down, but if someone is just hard to kill and just stands there holding block, so what. Let them, focus them down after they watch their friends die, etc. But most of the fixes I've seen come to address the tanky builds in PvP have never fixed them, only hurt tanking in general.

Before random people pop up with I have this X class build, I'm sure there are several high end players out there that have tanks in various classes and pull off all content. Great, me too. I'm looking at the differences in the classes though and that some have an easier time of doing the basic job than others while still providing more for the team and frankly, there are major differences and problems between classes for the tanking role.

Past all this, it's just on the player. Maybe people just don't like support roles, you can't make them or make them feel penalized for not liking them (they probably already feel that way just trying to queue for dungeons as dps). There is also a tendency to have more pressure on your shoulders as a tank or healer (some rightly so, some not so much) and that's going to turn some off. I will say some of the best DPS players I've run with have also done a bit of tanking and healing and know what goes down on the other side and handle fights better, so it's worth a try to all, even if you don't want to do it full time.

Agree on a lot of points. Stamina management is indeed a great deal for Tanks, and DKs do it best, actually in the next point, CC, they do as well. As you say, DKs are fine as they are, no need for buffs no need for nerfs. Wardens are not bad either, the buff to frozen gate made it much more usable in dungeons, and btw I think you forgot Gripping Shards was a thing cause you mentioned only encase as a close 2nd to Talons, encase would be 3rd to Talons and Gripping Shards 2nd, but anyway. Nightblades and Templars are indeed in a really bad spot Tanking wise, horrible stamina management and almost zero CC skill.

The nightblades Fear is the opposite of what most groups want and is purely a PvP Skill. Changing the manifest terror morph to where the feared targets do not run away could do the trick, it has a delay and still has a trap component, so it would not be broken for PvP usage and still have great value for PvE Tanks. Not really sure how to fix what they did to siphoning though, the stamina gain is too little for the cost and you really have to drop block a lot, sure you can animation cancel a light attack in but that takes a lot of effort while other classes can do it almost effortlessly.

Templars, there could be something in swapping around and adding some effects to the Rune focus skill to add stamina management. Give one skill stamina return and the other magicka, and then give one the minor protection and the other the minor vitality. Either way you combine it both healer and tanks will like the skill.

I have also several times given the idea to make the fighters guild ability a chain like ability for non DK/Warden Tanks, think its still something the devs should consider. I like the idea though to buff the Trapping Webs ability, making it a root instead of a snare would perhaps make people more inclined to use more non DK Tanks, but again, it would still have a draw back since its stamina based and would not replace what the DKs have. Though maybe just make one of the morphs do that and have one be still more of a damage ability. Do however think that the synergy should work on any target in its AoE, its useless against bosses, which as an undaunted synergy, kinda blows.

Solariken · December 2017

code65536 wrote: »

There is no shortage of tanks.

Just a shortage of tanks who are willing to place themselves at the mercy of the poor DPS output of random groups that they--by virtue of being tanks--cannot carry.

XD

Blunt but true. One time when tanking a PUG vDCII, after rezzing everyone in the group at least a dozen times, I was forced to solo Engine Guardian from 85%. Most boring 35 minute fight in ESO history.

Liofa · December 2017

You don't see many tanks because of several reasons .

1- A tank that plays with good players doesn't want to PUG anymore . Tanking is about support . If you are supporting a really bad team , they still suck . This makes you feel useless and bad . All decent tanks prefer to play with their friends . Personally , I rather not do a dungeon if I have to take a random healer and/or DD . I want to see DDs pulling really high numbers because I am busting my *** to increase their DPS . A DD posting a good parse after a boss fight is also your achievement .

2- Gear . There are only few item sets to even consider using on a tank . Funny enough , most common one is a DD oriented item set , Alkosh . Tanks didn't get a good set in the last several patches . For example , the only reason not to use Alkosh right now is synergies being unreliable . Next patch , synergies are getting fixed , making Alkosh a must to use , after 2 years of release of Maw of Lorkhaj . You also have to use supportive sets . Going full tank mode only makes you feel like a useless brick . Going Tank/DPS is nowhere close to being as useful as full support too .

3- Responsibility . One mistake can lead to wipe . Many players just cannot play with that burden . It can be scary for new players .

4- Solo-play is exhausting . Damage is almost non-existant on tank builds . There are ways around it but they are still nowhere close to playing with DPS sets .

5- Tanks are not necessary for most content . We all know how small end-game community is . Most end-game guilds' tanks at least heard about each others name . That small . Other than end-game content , tanking is almost optional except few places .

6- Lack of opportunity to have a spot in end-game raid groups . As I said before , end-game community is really small . Most guilds already have at least 2 tanks and backup tanks ready . It is very unlikely that you will find a spot in a good guild .

These are all I can think of at the moment but surely there are other reasons .

I don't think we should encourage tanking . Because game doesn't reward tanks and ZOS can't simply fix every problem I mentioned above . Potions are expensive , upgrading gear is expensive . Everything is expensive . For most builds , every single item is BoP . I wouldn't recommend a tank role to a new player . New players also need to learn animation cancelling . Tanking is really not the best role to practice that .

Runefang · December 2017

There are three main problems with tanking in this game aside from the usual that all MMOs face (they need leadership qualities, a lot of content knowledge etc).

Damage
The damage floor is too low and the ceiling too high. A low damage floor results in pugs where the group DPS is 5k, I don't want to hang around in those. A high damage ceiling results in groups of 3DDs + Healer or 4DDs who can burn through vet dungeons without a tank.

Class
DKs are simply the best tanks, not overpowered at all just equipped with the most useful abilities. I already have a DK tank, so now I have no incentive to roll another tank to try a different style because they're all so inferior to DKs.

Content
Partly related to the damage ceiling being high, but there is so much group content where a tank is not the most efficient use of a group member slot. Given the game appears to be built around the MMO trinity, having a full trinity should be optimal not optional.

All that said I quite enjoying tanking, as in the actual mechanics of it in a dungeon/trial, but the game needs to make a tank more important to the group.

Dawnblade · December 2017

Let's see...tanking generally requires specific builds, CP, and gear, tends to put more pleasure on the player filling the role than that of damage dealers, and oh by the way, sucks for completing the majority of content.

Is it any wonder few want to tank?

Other games have addressed this through a number of means, some of which may or may not work in ESO, including:

Provide incentives for tanks to queue up by offering additional rewards (rewards need to be enough to get more tanks to queue without being so generous they cause other issues).

Create systems to allow players to create and save multiple builds, and swap between builds with little to no costs (removes the costs and tedium of switching between damage / solo set up and tank / group set up).

Remove tank stats / map tank stats to other stats and / or have the stats / set bonuses which apply change based on the build (works better in games with clearly defined tank specs, reduces the need for specific role based gear).

Changes to make tanking more enjoyable (subjective, but this would include changes designed to make tanking more engaging in group content while making it less annoying and slow in PVE content).

Surgee · December 2017

I hate how in Arena as a tank I make pretty good damage, I take LOTS of damage on me, cast debuffs on enemies, buffs on allies etc....and then I'm at the very end of the scoreboard because tanking, buffing etc doesn't count, only heal and kill.

Surgee · December 2017

Give us AP for taking damage. In Cyro tank is not fun because you can't kill almost anything, but all those meta cancer builds kill you quick anyway.

I think the bigger question is, how to encourage people to use other weapons in pvp than 2h?

Runefang · December 2017

Surgee wrote: »

Give us AP for taking damage. In Cyro tank is not fun because you can't kill almost anything, but all those meta cancer builds kill you quick anyway.

I think the bigger question is, how to encourage people to use other weapons in pvp than 2h?

Behold the health tank AP farmer who runs into the eye of the storm, hits shields and then runs away.

MrGarlic · December 2017

xaraan wrote: »

Long winded post, but...
-snip- .

@xaraan pretty much hit the nail on the head with that post.

I totally agree with the aggro pull in the undaunted line idea.

efster · December 2017

+1 to @xaraan 's entire post. I like tanking - on a NB. I learned on a NB, cleared near everything on a NB, and when I tried DK, it wasn't fun. I don't care how optimal it is, I play this game for fun - I already have a challenging and rewarding day job and I don't want another. I have one main character and no time to build a zillion alts for every occasion.

Tanking anything remotely difficult on a NB is a hot mess right now, outside of experienced groups where the other members can make up for what a NB tank lacks. This is not fun. Anecdata, obviously, but I can only speak for myself.

The larger point is that if ZoS actually followed through design-wise on "any class can do any role" instead of just saying it's ~possible~ , there would be more tanks and healers.

Magdalina · December 2017

code65536 wrote: »

There is no shortage of tanks.

Just a shortage of tanks who are willing to place themselves at the mercy of the poor DPS output of random groups that they--by virtue of being tanks--cannot carry.

^^^^^^ This ^^^^^^^

The way to encourage tanks in groupfinder is to encourage dps in groupfinder. And no, 5k per person doesn't qualify for dps.

Runefang · December 2017

Magdalina wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

There is no shortage of tanks.

Just a shortage of tanks who are willing to place themselves at the mercy of the poor DPS output of random groups that they--by virtue of being tanks--cannot carry.

^^^^^^ This ^^^^^^^

The way to encourage tanks in groupfinder is to encourage dps in groupfinder. And no, 5k per person doesn't qualify for dps.

The sheer number of bad DPS is terrible though, it might be an issue with game design rather than the general population's ability.

I'd rather see it be a little easier to hit 10k dps. Not everybody has time to read guides, forums, practice on the dummy etc.I want to see the damage floor lifted, make it easier to hit 10k dps by just spamming a few skills. I'm sure people will have an issue with that but meh, it's just a game not a job.

zaria · December 2017

Juju_beans wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Tanking (and healing), to many, is 'being responsible for the run'. And they don't want that responsibility/pressure/etc. You're not going to get most of them to tank or heal with bribes.

Shortage of tanks & healers for groups & groupfinder has been an issue in MMOs for eons.

I've had several bad experiences as a healer in wow doing dungeons so I stopped doing them and did pvp healing instead.
I'm leveling a templar right now and have been just random healing at dolmens, delves and public dungeons. Also plan to do some pvp healing. I'm on the fence about group dungeon healing in ESO and haven't decided yet if I'm going to venture into that.

Mostly heal, benefit is that its not an huge difference between an healer and an dps in build. You want to put cp into the healing cp node but at higher cp its not an big issue. You can adjust how many damage skills you have on bars depending on difficulty. And this depend on group, Blackheart as pledge today planned to do it on veteran and thought I was because I had to heal so much but it was just fake tank

Has still not tanked, has an DK who i plan tank with, also the warden might work better as tank, healing on her feel clunky. In dungeons I feel that sorcerer healer is more dynamic and an sorc healer can also do serious dps.

Runefang · December 2017

Juju_beans wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Tanking (and healing), to many, is 'being responsible for the run'. And they don't want that responsibility/pressure/etc. You're not going to get most of them to tank or heal with bribes.

Shortage of tanks & healers for groups & groupfinder has been an issue in MMOs for eons.

I've had several bad experiences as a healer in wow doing dungeons so I stopped doing them and did pvp healing instead.
I'm leveling a templar right now and have been just random healing at dolmens, delves and public dungeons. Also plan to do some pvp healing. I'm on the fence about group dungeon healing in ESO and haven't decided yet if I'm going to venture into that.

@Juju_beans - Healing is both fun and easy in ESO, I'd definitely recommend it. I've literally never had a bad experience doing it yet. People seem to get very stressed over stuff in WoW, ESO is more relaxed in general.

Just be prepared to do some DPS as well as heal, or bring coffee to keep you awake when you run with awful DD players who do less DPS than just your wall of elements.

Magdalina · December 2017

Runefang wrote: »

Magdalina wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

There is no shortage of tanks.

Just a shortage of tanks who are willing to place themselves at the mercy of the poor DPS output of random groups that they--by virtue of being tanks--cannot carry.

^^^^^^ This ^^^^^^^

The way to encourage tanks in groupfinder is to encourage dps in groupfinder. And no, 5k per person doesn't qualify for dps.

The sheer number of bad DPS is terrible though, it might be an issue with game design rather than the general population's ability.

I'd rather see it be a little easier to hit 10k dps. Not everybody has time to read guides, forums, practice on the dummy etc.I want to see the damage floor lifted, make it easier to hit 10k dps by just spamming a few skills. I'm sure people will have an issue with that but meh, it's just a game not a job.

Oh there most certainly is an issue with game design. The issue is, it IS extremely easy to hit 10k dps(and you do only need like 2-3 skills for that), but alarming number of people(even those in cp ranks) don't even reach that because the game doesn't teach them how. And by that I don't mean it doesn't provide them with intricate rotations, I mean it allows them to be as imperfect as possible when open world questing without even ever hinting that full heavy armor stamplar jesusbeaming might actually be...subpar performance-wise.

There is exactly zero learning curve in ESO nowadays up until you hit vet dungeons and then SUDDENLY...

Doctordarkspawn · December 2017

code65536 wrote: »

There is no shortage of tanks.

Just a shortage of tanks who are willing to place themselves at the mercy of the poor DPS output of random groups that they--by virtue of being tanks--cannot carry.

This.

I'd also submit in addition, make tanking more *** fun.

You'd add to the number of tanks by millions if you actually made tank specs with active rotations people had to be awake for. As it is, it's just bar management. People dont play an action oriented game for bar management.

Metafae · December 2017

code65536 wrote: »

There is no shortage of tanks.

Just a shortage of tanks who are willing to place themselves at the mercy of the poor DPS output of random groups that they--by virtue of being tanks--cannot carry.

^^This

The problem isn't getting more people to tank, but encouraging dps to not be ***.

brandonv516 · December 2017

I for one don't need special consideration or encouragement to play my tank. I enjoy activating synergies, knowing when to let my block down, conserving resources smartly, and essentially "taking command".

It's not for everyone though.