Inarre wrote: »

Woeler wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

Woeler wrote: »

Checkmath wrote: »

So you guys all „love“ to be a dragonknight, because only dragonknights with engulfing flames are welcome for the end content. You guys love wearing alkosh with set boni you dont need at all. So you guys loved, when people started asking tanks to run lightning blockade for better offbalance and concussion uptime?

This affects <1% of the player base if not even less. Are we talking about representing the top score leaderboard tanks or tanks in general? The overwhelming majority of people do not use these things. These things distinguish the top from the rest, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. You can run none of those things and still be a very decent tank for guilds that don't go for competitive leaderboard places. There is always going to be "a thing" that maximizes support, and those top guilds will always be pushing for those, no matter what.

I mean sure, they can make a tank-like concussion thing, or a tank-like alkosh set. But would that make tanking more fun? I'm not so sure. It would definitely make it easier though.

That's not really true. In the guild I usually raid with the hardest trial we completed was vMoL (non-hm), and I'm running with alkosh constantly unless the fight demands more survival (vHRC hm/vCR gryphons).

When I joined that guild, I didn't even have a proper DK tank, I did the first few trial runs with my magplar. And in the very first trial we did together (vAA) I was told to get ebon because people were dying on Varlariel when just 1 add was up. So there goes my Vampire Cloak set that worked so well with me trying to be a heal/mitigation tank. And thinking ahead about trials we would do as we progress, I just decided to level a DK at that point, because there is no way I could tank with alkosh on a magplar, especially since ebon was already a handicap for my build (more HP, but less effective HP due to loss of mitigation and weaker heals).

So no, it does not affect just the 1%. I still am not the 1%. But back when I so naively started doing vet trials with my magplar I sure as hell wasn't, and still I was told in the very first one to go get ebon, and that by a guild with nords for DDs and khajiits for healers. I wasn't asked to use alkosh, that's true, but at that point I just decided to do what had to be done rather than what's the most fun for me to use, because if I didn't, I might very well have been made an OT or even asked to main a DD later on when we started optimizing, because I would have been the only tank in our guild not using it.

You completely missed the point of the post and instead decided to argue that 1% should maybe be 5%.

If i understand the discussion, this player thinks running ebon/alkosh is responsible for taking away his right to play a creative and unique build, and your counter to that is that really only the top 1% should be concerned with this setup. But i dont think this player was arguing that the top 1% should be top 5%. I think the point he was trying to make was that even guilds in the top 50% often will push or straight up require these sets from a tank (even if the tank can't or doesn't know how to use them to their full potential). Your point of course still stands though, that the gear is simply not necessary for anything but top guilds.

That said i am also wondering how eliminating the requirement for certain "meta" sets on a tank will increase the fun factor. From my perspective, the more I have to pay attention to, the more challenging the fight, the more fun I personally have. So adding extra responsibilities like timing alkosh right to push up times in a fight just adds to the complexity and fun.

I suppose if your idea of fun is being able to run a build of your choosing it would be best to find a guild that is open to this. Though it blows my mind that a guild with khajiit healers are demanding meta builds from, obviously, only some of its members.

So if I read this correctly, you're saying any well respected members of the tanking community who post builds online are indirectly removing the fun from tanking because what they post become meta, and thus everyone else choice is removed because what every raid leader really wants is a mini-woeler (or whoever) tanking their trials as they can't get the real deal, so they force the tanks they do have to mimic him.

Wow, deep, but yeah I can see that logic! I don't necessarily disagree either.

aeowulf wrote: »

Taking the above jump of logic one step further, I would surmise the issue is actually more with raid leaders (who are probably not tanks) forcing/requesting their tanks to wear the same sets as (for example here) @Woeler because they can't be bothered to do research themselves <for their trial team which is obviously made up of different people to another team> and simply just go to one of the best tanking resources available on the internet telling their tanks to copy him.

I think I must of taken the red pill today...

Thanks for the compliment tho

Guppet wrote: »

Kuramas9tails wrote: »

EvilCroc wrote: »

AOE taunt.

Still don't know why this isn't a thing, even if it was a small radius.

Because many of us don’t want it. It dumbs down tanking. This game has great basics for tanking, it’s actually involved here.

We don’t want hit one button everything sticks to you. Other games have that and the ranking in them is boring compared to here.

ya AOE taunts only works if the developers were smart enough to include threat tables in their coding and an impactful target system. But the truth is tanking in this game is already dumb , its just a taunt with blocking and mob positioning. all the utility is just secondary non sense

ZeroXFF wrote: »

SquareSausage wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

SquareSausage wrote: »

Guppet wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

Guppet wrote: »

The sets I’ve mentioned will give you plenty of stamina or magica. You also don’t really need all your stats in health. I don’t l know about trials, but for everything else you can go full Stam or full magica with your attributes and still hit 35k health when in your tank gear, which is all you need if your good with mechanics. You could put 10-20 in health just while your learning mechanics if you like a bit of a cushion.

As for anyone complaining about needing extra gear to do dps, you can’t be any sort of decent tank. I have 4 or 5 tanking sets that I can switch between, having different sets is part of being an effective tank. Add in being able to switch up monster sets depending on how you feel and you should have half full bags, just with tank gear. Adding in one dps set is nothing.

Yes, because everyone starts at CP1000, knows exactly how to make a competent hybrid build and knows how to play multiple roles while also having 350 skill points to put in 3 weapon skill lines without having done any quests before. -_-

You're still missing the point. Of course it's possible to have fancy hybrid setups and even a full on DPS setup on a char with tank CPs and attributes, but it is not a reasonable expectation to have for overland content, because that content is meant to be done by everyone starting at lvl3. If tanks can't comfortably do content meant for lvl3 players, something needs to be changed.

You missing the point when you are only a tank in groups. If you focus on tanking, your focusing on stuff hitting you while someone else kills it.

Obviously when solo it’s going to take longer to kill stuff, it’s like saying the grass is too green.

You can’t ask for dps on a build that’s made to out survive stuff. You can still complete all content it will just take longer.

Not worth arguing here mate this chat has taken up the vast majority of the Tank Rep in combat character mechanics forum.

No matter how often they are told you can't spec purely into survival and expect to kill things fast the same response is it's not fair I need to change sets or skills to do different content. Maybe they don't have ESO plus and don't know how to upgrade their bags so have no room for other gear

Yeah, that's because it is unfair when a healer using 100% healing gear can do 5-10x the damage of a tank using 100% tank gear, and 2x the damage of a tank wearing a hybrid setup. And you are again ignoring the argument about low lvl players, because in the eyes of everyone expecting people to use different sets and different weapons everyone apparently starts with CP1000, 350 skill points and a maxed crafter or unlimited gold. If you guys weren't trying so hard to kill fun, I wouldn't have to argue with you so much, but it seems that you don't like fun, so that's why you're fighting against it in a thread that is literally about it.

And don't tell me it's "more fun" for you when you need half a minute to kill a mudcrab, because in that case you're either lying or a masochist. If it's the latter, I won't judge, but don't impose your kinks on everyone else.

You are really just making up numbers here.

To be able to do any real DPS as a full healer or tank you will need to at very minimum change skills, I highly doubt the healer wearing Jorvulds and olorime is pulling 20k dps with only lightning wall and ritual retribution as would be expected of an end game healer load out.

If you are then suggesting that to be the case and the healer changes his skills, then why doesnt the tank then change his skills and the ever so difficult problem of changing his weapons. if you done that and that only you could easy pull over 20k. DW front bow back, keep rest of armour the same if you want put on endless hail, caltrops, poison injection, steel torando.

The argument about new players trying to level a tank as a pure tank is almost complete fallacy anyway. If they are new they will not specc fully into being an uber survival tank as that suggests a knowledge of the game. If an experienced player chooses to do then that burden is theirs.

I never made not switching skills a requirement, because switching skills and keeping them "up-to-date" doesn't cost anything even as you level up. The requirements are:

1. The exact same gear/mundus/CP/attributes you would use for what is hard content for you.
2. Enough skills to actually effectively perform your primary role with the given gear setup.

Because that's about as far as you can reasonably expect someone to go with a char that wasn't meant (or can't yet afford) to be anything but a tank/healer.

Here is a parse that's close enough to 20k considering it's almost all purple gear, some points in HP, regen enchants on jewelry that I didn't get around to changing to spell damage and I could never actually figure out how to play mag warden DPS, which is why I made a healer out of him in the first place (after almost a year of him just gathering dust in the character selection screen).




With the DK I can't even get to 10k, even when I do switch to a vMA bow. With the Warden healer I can do that much with just blockade and weaving light attacks while actually continuing to heal. Under those conditions I do 2k with the tank. By following the rules above, I top out at 6k.

If I switch to medium Hunding's Rage + Spriggans + Stormfist (infused on all pieces since buffing Atronach mundus is pointless on a stam DD setup) with golden vMA bow back bar and daggers on front bar, that's when I get over 20k (23k actually, maybe it would even be at 25-28k if I tried harder with the rotation and golded more than just the bow and the necklace), but at that point it's a comparison between a healer with a few extra DPS skills and an entry level stam DD rather than a tank of any kind.

That's 9x difference between the biggest and the smallest qualifying numbers (18k vs. 2k), 3x difference between the highest numbers that fall within the rules (18k vs. 6k) and 1.8x difference between a healer that didn't have to change gear at all and a tank that is effectively a hybrid because he's not using a weapon that helps tanking in any way (18k vs. 10k). Now I don't know what your standards are, but to me 3-9x is in the context of tank vs. heal DPS not very different from 5-10x, and 1.8x isn't very different from 2x. I apologize for giving you a rough estimate based on numbers I saw while playing both my Templar and DK tanks and those I saw while what little playing I did with a healer and heard from other healers. I didn't know we can't have a conversation about the general orders of magnitude if we aren't pedantic about the specific numbers.

But in your case on the other hand I strongly suspect that your 20k DPS tank only exists in your imagination or looks more like a mag sorc DD with a vMA build rather than, you know, a tank.

Squaresausage thinks changing weapons and skils is what defines a tank build. its your armor and jewelry for the most part. your not gonna pull 20k in tank sets and jewelry. you won't have the stats to allow it all your crits penetration and the like plummet you lose all the passives for the large part of the community. there are those elite guys that gold out certain sets and quirk there points to pull some dps. but for the run of the mil guys like myself, you're not anywhere near 20k unless you're on trash with hybrid loadout and creative gearing you cant use on a trial boss or harder 4 man.the basic problem is the design has a loose grip on roles aside from DPS. DPS is a very firm and absolute requirement roll. the design of the content is just basic stack and burn with twitch reflex movement.Tank and healing is a limited roll , you only need 1 or two healers in trials and 1 tank aside from a few bosses. a true utility or full CC build are just non existent in content design. and the more ZOS doubles down on the current design the worse it gets

Also can we get a leash that works on group members? So when they keep sprinting ahead i i can pull them back?

To me Tanking is about controlling the battlefield, you are the field commander, you set up a battle plan and execute it, reacting to changes as they come.

Fights that are reactionary and that forces communication and movement are far more enjoyable than any other fights. When I play as a tank I want it to be reactionary, not static. Someone earlier mentioned the Twins in Maw, that is an amazing fight. You constantly have to move, reacting and communicating with your group to avoid what is coming. Be it color swaps, add drops, negates, AoEs. Its frantic and chaotic but way more fun.

As opposed to the Serpent in Sanctum Ophidia for example, or Saint Olms, where all you do is hold the boss in one spot and dodge his AoEs and then move back again, doing nothing but a set rotation of buffs and debuffs. Now mind you, I am not against doing buffs and debuffs, but its become the only thing we focus on in end game, so much that we now have rotations just like a DPS for best buff/debuff uptime. I hate doing a rotation, I do not DPS for that reason, I want reactionary combat.

Side note: I do not like reactionary blocking though, for one reason. This is not a true action combat game and knowing when and when not to block has to be known in advance cause animation comes after damage done. So while I know that blocking when only necessary is important and I do that, don't try to make it more reactionary than it is unless you are gonna change the game engine to support it. /end side note

The Twins are indeed a great example of an amazing boss fight, but there are more that follow along with it. Twins in Halls of Fabrications, First boss in Maw(could be more reactionary though, maybe more tank swapping), Triplets in Halls and Mantikora in Sanctum Ophidia. But too many of the fights are way to static and the movements are predictable, I especially hate when only 1 tank is needed in a 12 man Trial, looking at you AA and HRC.

In AA, the first boss is the storm atronach, all you do is holding in the middle and take some few weak hits. Moving to the set spaces is made by everyone and boss does nothing special other than that, static and boring and a 2nd tank is unnecessary. Second boss is the stone atronach. His movement is slow and trying to change his positioning is difficult as he will stop when doing his major attacks, his light attacks are weak. The adds coming are nothing to be afraid of and while its easier to tank with 2 tanks, its doable and at least slightly more enjoyable as 1 tank, which is bad in my opinion.

Third boss is the wisp mother ish boss. A DPS race through and through and almost nothing for the tank, or tanks to do. Hold taunt, block or reflect her abilities and wait for adds. You don't even need to taunt the adds, they are too weak to really do much harm to the group and while it gives a 2nd tank something to do, its not necessary.

Last boss is the mage, now some people have said they like the fight cause taunting the axes feels like they are contributing to the fight, but if taunting something to the side feels like contributing then all fights should be ok right? For me the axes are just another form of rotation, keep taunt up and go around the group and retaunt, or not even that, get enough AoEs and you don't need it. Taunt once then just stand there.

I could continue but I won't, TL;DR, static and rotation bases fights are boring, reactionary and movement based fights are fun. Give us adds that matter, give the 2nd tank just as active of a roll as the main tank. Giving buffs and debuffs is fine but should not be the end all be all of tanking. Others have said more about the better fights, I wanted to highlight the bad fights and why they are bad.

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Kuwhar wrote: »

I dont know, i find it fun as is. Tbh, its other players that make it not fun.

I would prefer to not feel like i have to have sets equipped that benefit others.

I havent run into that situation yet but im going start vet dungeons soon and i know my gear will get questioned.

Yes i have ebony armor in my bank.

No i dont see why i should bother equipping it just to give you 1k health.

If 1k health is the difference in life or death for you then.....

If it keeps me from wearing a set that maxes my resistances then; no.

I just dont get it, i see youtubers showing builds in which their resistances arent maxed, like 26k tops.

Why would you ever opt to not have your resistances maxed at 33k? You are the tank, your job is to soak up all the damage.

In fairness to them, any mitigation over what you need is "wasted".

Think about it this way, if you only ever take 15k hits in a fight, then it doesn't really matter if you have 20k or 28k health right? Two shots with no healing will still kill, and if you're healed you had enough to do the job. Some tanks get comfy with less armor and use the leftover stats to assist allies.

Problem being that those you group up with don’t know what YOU need to survive or where you are with YOUR learning of the instances. They often will assume you should be fully skilled and learned, while being utter noobs themselves.

Tanks also put too much pressure on themselves.

It’s quite twisted. Other players be like you need this set or your not top tier, most are not top tier, it shouldn’t be meant or taken as an insult, but it often is.

Just don’t care what people think about your gear, so long as you fulfil your role well and enjoy it.

Checkmath wrote: »

Hey guys
Lately there was that discussion about tanks not liking to mainly being responsible for debuffing enemies/buffing the group. Tanks surely want to be useful in one way or another and I bet some tanks would get bored, if they only would have to taunt and hold the boss at one position. Players are differently experienced, so that one player may be very stressed by only taunting and surviving as a tank, meanwhile others play the buff ***, because there is just nothing else to do between taunting, evading damage and healing up.
So now for my question please just once forget about maximal dps of your group, about healing or the stable position of the boss. What kind of game or boss mechanics would make playing a tank exciting. Would you love to gather orbs or shards, which prevents you from being one-shotted? Would you like to have some tactical positioning of the boss, changes of fight places due to getting buffs or debuffs depending where the boss is placed? Maybe also constant change of places to even be able to do damage to the boss or preventing him from gaining additional mechanics when staying too long at one place? Or maybe some kind of task for the tanks like transporting an item from one place to another while tanking? It also could be sacrificing a lot of health for your group members by activating important synergies, which otherwise would kill your group when not activated (naturally it would kill everyone else but the tank when activating).
So what would make it more fun for YOU to play a tank?

Combat NPCs are not engaging and/or intimidating enough
even if my 'job' is to stand there and block while buffing up the party and debuffing the boss, the fight suffers due to the main task being standing there
Selene gives me a bit of enjoyment due to dodging her bear spirit by sidestepping out of the way or dodging, but it is too infrequent to really feel satisfying

the 'problem' in boss fights more generally is that damage and healing mechanics do not facilitate much of a character to character dance with bosses
everything is snore-fest until having dodge a one-shot mechanic, then it is a snore fest again
combat never really feels active, but do realize that ground-aoe ranges mean mobile bosses simply become an annoyance to dps

have no solutions or strong feelings otherwise, aside from arena-based one-shot mechanics not making fights sound more appealing
not sure the actual design of combat would facilitate more engaged blocking and dodging of bosses that are more threatening throughout the fight rather than timed mechanics

DocFrost72 wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Kuwhar wrote: »

I dont know, i find it fun as is. Tbh, its other players that make it not fun.

I would prefer to not feel like i have to have sets equipped that benefit others.

I havent run into that situation yet but im going start vet dungeons soon and i know my gear will get questioned.

Yes i have ebony armor in my bank.

No i dont see why i should bother equipping it just to give you 1k health.

If 1k health is the difference in life or death for you then.....

If it keeps me from wearing a set that maxes my resistances then; no.

I just dont get it, i see youtubers showing builds in which their resistances arent maxed, like 26k tops.

Why would you ever opt to not have your resistances maxed at 33k? You are the tank, your job is to soak up all the damage.

In fairness to them, any mitigation over what you need is "wasted".

Think about it this way, if you only ever take 15k hits in a fight, then it doesn't really matter if you have 20k or 28k health right? Two shots with no healing will still kill, and if you're healed you had enough to do the job. Some tanks get comfy with less armor and use the leftover stats to assist allies.

It is only wasted if you also have a healer that always reacts in time. You don't always get hits of the same strength in a fight either. A DoT here, an AoE there, some light attacks etc. And if your healer is busy with something else, or just not able to react in time, having extra resistances gives you time to do something yourself. If nothing else, it keeps you alive while you wait for magicka to regen enough to cast Green Dragon Blood, or whatever other skill you use in your build, one more time.

In that sense I view mitigation and HP as regen stats. If I have high HP, my HP% based self heals heal for more, so I need fewer of them, hence saving magicka. And with high mitigation I can wait even longer between heals. And the vampire mitigation passive makes it even more desirable to make a high HP tank, so that you can still survive big hits while under 50% HP, and your heals in proportion to the incoming damage increase in power even more, even if you're not a DK. And in case of a DK it's essentially polynomial scaling of GDB vs. incoming damage while below 50%.

So it isn't just about the tank himself. Take any tank you consider the best, tell him to wear a "meta" buff bot build with 26k resistances and 35k HP, and put him with a group from a guild that just barely manages to do vAA, and he'll be just as dead as any other tank with that build if he tries tanking gryphons in vCR (when the other boss is randomly jumping to you and enraging the gryphon), the warrior in vHRC, or anything else that hits a little harder than a wet noodle.

That's not even close to the spirit of his question. He asked why anyone, ever would not go resistance cap. If you do not need the resistances (good group with experienced tank and heals), the extra resistance is a stat you could have completed without. This is exactly why we're in the (admittedly disgusting) penetration tank era.

If you need max mitigation, gear for it. Some do not, which is why they don't build for it.

Interesting, thanks for the feedback.

Though that line could apply to other sets/builds as well. Wear ebon armor >>> nobody got close to death >>> could've worn something else.

What do you mean by penetration tank era?

I will say personally, i would always opt for max resist because it gives more room for error. And since i mainly PUG i need that

I always want to play DD characters, but then get tired of waiting in the queue so I then play as a Healer.

What will make tanks fun? When people stop blaming them or healers for wipes EVERY SINGLE time. Even when it's obvious the DDs fault. You want more people to play those stop being jerks to them.

Kuwhar wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Kuwhar wrote: »

I dont know, i find it fun as is. Tbh, its other players that make it not fun.

I would prefer to not feel like i have to have sets equipped that benefit others.

I havent run into that situation yet but im going start vet dungeons soon and i know my gear will get questioned.

Yes i have ebony armor in my bank.

No i dont see why i should bother equipping it just to give you 1k health.

If 1k health is the difference in life or death for you then.....

If it keeps me from wearing a set that maxes my resistances then; no.

I just dont get it, i see youtubers showing builds in which their resistances arent maxed, like 26k tops.

Why would you ever opt to not have your resistances maxed at 33k? You are the tank, your job is to soak up all the damage.

In fairness to them, any mitigation over what you need is "wasted".

Think about it this way, if you only ever take 15k hits in a fight, then it doesn't really matter if you have 20k or 28k health right? Two shots with no healing will still kill, and if you're healed you had enough to do the job. Some tanks get comfy with less armor and use the leftover stats to assist allies.

It is only wasted if you also have a healer that always reacts in time. You don't always get hits of the same strength in a fight either. A DoT here, an AoE there, some light attacks etc. And if your healer is busy with something else, or just not able to react in time, having extra resistances gives you time to do something yourself. If nothing else, it keeps you alive while you wait for magicka to regen enough to cast Green Dragon Blood, or whatever other skill you use in your build, one more time.

In that sense I view mitigation and HP as regen stats. If I have high HP, my HP% based self heals heal for more, so I need fewer of them, hence saving magicka. And with high mitigation I can wait even longer between heals. And the vampire mitigation passive makes it even more desirable to make a high HP tank, so that you can still survive big hits while under 50% HP, and your heals in proportion to the incoming damage increase in power even more, even if you're not a DK. And in case of a DK it's essentially polynomial scaling of GDB vs. incoming damage while below 50%.

So it isn't just about the tank himself. Take any tank you consider the best, tell him to wear a "meta" buff bot build with 26k resistances and 35k HP, and put him with a group from a guild that just barely manages to do vAA, and he'll be just as dead as any other tank with that build if he tries tanking gryphons in vCR (when the other boss is randomly jumping to you and enraging the gryphon), the warrior in vHRC, or anything else that hits a little harder than a wet noodle.

That's not even close to the spirit of his question. He asked why anyone, ever would not go resistance cap. If you do not need the resistances (good group with experienced tank and heals), the extra resistance is a stat you could have completed without. This is exactly why we're in the (admittedly disgusting) penetration tank era.

If you need max mitigation, gear for it. Some do not, which is why they don't build for it.

Interesting, thanks for the feedback.

Though that line could apply to other sets/builds as well. Wear ebon armor >>> nobody got close to death >>> could've worn something else.

You are absolutely correct, they could have worn powerful assault or Torug at that point instead!

What do you mean by penetration tank era?

One of the most prevalent strategies in endgame tanking (vdsa/trial leaderboards) is to wear alkosh, use the crusher enchantment (and infused weapon), and often wear torug's pact to further reduce enemy resistances. What this does is allow the dps to remove investments from penetration and put them into other things like crit chance and weapon damage, resulting in more group dps.

And I absolutely hate this playstyle.

I will say personally, i would always opt for max resist because it gives more room for error. And since i mainly PUG i need that

Then you are built for the content you are running, and are doing your job right

Samadhi wrote: »

...
the 'problem' in boss fights more generally is that damage and healing mechanics do not facilitate much of a character to character dance with bosses
...
have no solutions or strong feelings otherwise, aside from arena-based one-shot mechanics not making fights sound more appealing
not sure the actual design of combat would facilitate more engaged blocking and dodging of bosses that are more threatening throughout the fight rather than timed mechanics

To expand on this slightly,
would rather have boss mechanics that required me to stun and/or immobilize/snare the boss(es) to prevent them from reaching their own synergy location
or perhaps a synergy location that buffs one/multiple of the dps characters if they reach it before the boss/one of the boss characters for split situations

maybe this just comes out of me spending more time tanking in PvP,
but would like it if bosses moved around more and tried to actively use the environment against me and the party
something to the effect of having to prevent enemy players from gaining access to their siege engines mid-combat

maybe a boss arena where the boss runs around a multi-tier tower trying to LOS the party between bursts of damage

Samadhi wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

...
the 'problem' in boss fights more generally is that damage and healing mechanics do not facilitate much of a character to character dance with bosses
...
have no solutions or strong feelings otherwise, aside from arena-based one-shot mechanics not making fights sound more appealing
not sure the actual design of combat would facilitate more engaged blocking and dodging of bosses that are more threatening throughout the fight rather than timed mechanics

To expand on this slightly,
would rather have boss mechanics that required me to stun and/or immobilize/snare the boss(es) to prevent them from reaching their own synergy location
or perhaps a synergy location that buffs one/multiple of the dps characters if they reach it before the boss/one of the boss characters for split situations

maybe this just comes out of me spending more time tanking in PvP,
but would like it if bosses moved around more and tried to actively use the environment against me and the party
something to the effect of having to prevent enemy players from gaining access to their siege engines mid-combat

maybe a boss arena where the boss runs around a multi-tier tower trying to LOS the party between bursts of damage

There are boss fights kind of like that in the game

I love tanking. The only thing I would change is having DPS checks for harder content. Nothing in this game is worse than having to PUG and watching a guy just bow light attack or sorc hard cast frags non stop... Even the healer could be a 100% fake and with vigor/pots/ulti we will be fine. Tanking is fun and challenging, watching 2 "dps" take almost a full minute to take down one trash mob is the worst...