Idea for new skill line for tanks (Blood magic)

MartiniDaniels · December 2018

As everyone knows and discusses, that we don't have many players ready to queue as tanks for everyday pledges / randoms because pve tank builds are far from what you need in overland/pvp.

What's tank most defining features - high HP and good sustain/overheal which become useless when you got in easy in medium dungeons if your tank is up-to-snuff for dlc vets / trials etc.

So idea is to introduce new skill line which utilize HP and overall sustain:
1. A couple of skills which damage scale of HP and also cost HP. This is literally blood magic known from many games. You burn your blood to do damage then heal it back with HP% self-heal every tank have. This won't be easily exploited in PVP since healing is halved there.
2. High cost buff with stam/magicka morphs which rise tank own penetration so his damage skills from point 1 will be effective.

Result - if you are in hard dungeon - play as usual. Got in easy - medium - slot 2-3 blood magic skills and do damage without changing all gear (and even with changed hybrid tanks are crippled dps due to abilities and cp spent on health and survivability).

PrayingSeraph · December 2018

This ain't dragon age...

Dr3sden · December 2018

It would be nice to making tanking more enjoyable for people. Not sure this is but it's nice it's being talked about.

MartiniDaniels · December 2018

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

This ain't dragon age...

Lol, 75% of class skill lines in ESO are taken out from nowhere and never existed or mentioned in previous games/lore.

Also blood magic is common in fantasy genre, it's not DA:O invention. Btw there was blood magic in previous games (for vampires) given that protagonist in ESO is connected to vampire daedra (Molag Bal), it's easy to provide this skill line for soulless vestige without being a vampire..

MartiniDaniels · December 2018

This will make healers more useful too.. overheal is an issue now, if there will be group member who spend health constantly, healer resources will be better utilized (i.e. now every healer spams combat prayer, but if all group is 100% HP healing from prayer is wasted, with blood magic it will be used by tank).

brandonv516 · December 2018

So like the Nightblade skill Malevolent Offering.

It heals others but drains your health. The scaling is not based on health though.

So we have a Blood Magic skill mixed with a whole bunch of other skills that don't really make much sense.

Dr3sden · December 2018

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

This will make healers more useful too.. overheal is an issue now, if there will be group member who spend health constantly, healer resources will be better utilized (i.e. now every healer spams combat prayer, but if all group is 100% HP healing from prayer is wasted, with blood magic it will be used by tank).

This is a good point. It would allow healers to be connected to tanks in teams. Though I wonder would it upset them like someone standing in stupid would? Imagine someone dying with nothing around hurting them but themselves?

MartiniDaniels · December 2018

brandonv516 wrote: »

So like the Nightblade skill Malevolent Offering.

It heals others but drains your health. The scaling is not based on health though.

So we have a Blood Magic skill mixed with a whole bunch of other skills that don't really make much sense.

Yes, and there were some health-based things in warden, which were changed and nerfed due to pvp exploits or maybe just to help ice mages, i don't remember.

Dr3sden wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

This will make healers more useful too.. overheal is an issue now, if there will be group member who spend health constantly, healer resources will be better utilized (i.e. now every healer spams combat prayer, but if all group is 100% HP healing from prayer is wasted, with blood magic it will be used by tank).

This is a good point. It would allow healers to be connected to tanks in teams. Though I wonder would it upset them like someone standing in stupid would? Imagine someone dying with nothing around hurting them but themselves?

I guess skill won't fire anyway if there is insufficient health to cast it.

WuffyCerulei · December 2018

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

This ain't dragon age...

It's Dragon Age if you imagine hard enough!!

MartiniDaniels · December 2018

So ok, for 40k hp scale:
Skill number 1 - spammable - 4k health spent - 10k damage done
Skill number 2 - pluggable dot - something like 1k health per second for 3k damage per second
Skill number 3 - penetration buff, cost 5k magicka/stamina penetration for same cost, depending on morph, for 20 seconds
Skill number 4 - expensive aoe cc like 6k health spent, stuns everything in 8m radius for 4 seconds.

idk · December 2018

People keep trying to "fix" tanking but there is not an issue with the number of tanks.

The issue is with GF and that issue is the all to common poor dps found in those groups. That is the reason tanks are so rare for GF.

Any decent tank, and for that matter any decent DPS and healer, can get into a group easily via their raiding guilds and such. Even forming the group up via zone is usually a huge step up from the average random GF group.

So yea, create a new tanking method and once again most decent tanks will still avoid the GF.

Ignore the actual issue and it will never be fixed.

ccfeeling · December 2018

Sounds funny , because in ESO , block costs stamina / magicka if you are the rare ice staff tank ,
if blood magic , active / passive could make the things changed , block costs HP , a different story

ESO_Nightingale · December 2018

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

As everyone knows and discusses, that we don't have many players ready to queue as tanks for everyday pledges / randoms because pve tank builds are far from what you need in overland/pvp.

What's tank most defining features - high HP and good sustain/overheal which become useless when you got in easy in medium dungeons if your tank is up-to-snuff for dlc vets / trials etc.

So idea is to introduce new skill line which utilize HP and overall sustain:
1. A couple of skills which damage scale of HP and also cost HP. This is literally blood magic known from many games. You burn your blood to do damage then heal it back with HP% self-heal every tank have. This won't be easily exploited in PVP since healing is halved there.
2. High cost buff with stam/magicka morphs which rise tank own penetration so his damage skills from point 1 will be effective.

Result - if you are in hard dungeon - play as usual. Got in easy - medium - slot 2-3 blood magic skills and do damage without changing all gear (and even with changed hybrid tanks are crippled dps due to abilities and cp spent on health and survivability).

what if your character is HIV positive?

MartiniDaniels · December 2018

idk wrote: »

People keep trying to "fix" tanking but there is not an issue with the number of tanks.

The issue is with GF and that issue is the all to common poor dps found in those groups. That is the reason tanks are so rare for GF.

Any decent tank, and for that matter any decent DPS and healer, can get into a group easily via their raiding guilds and such. Even forming the group up via zone is usually a huge step up from the average random GF group.

So yea, create a new tanking method and once again most decent tanks will still avoid the GF.

Ignore the actual issue and it will never be fixed.

Really, idk why you need a "decent" tank other then in dlc vet. Topic is about how to make tanks more flexible to content, not about why there is small number of them in GF. Because "decent" tank is complete broke in overland content (if you not juggle gear) and not very effective bag of meat if GF send tank to easy dungeon.

Dr3sden · December 2018

idk wrote: »

People keep trying to "fix" tanking but there is not an issue with the number of tanks.

The issue is with GF and that issue is the all to common poor dps found in those groups. That is the reason tanks are so rare for GF.

Any decent tank, and for that matter any decent DPS and healer, can get into a group easily via their raiding guilds and such. Even forming the group up via zone is usually a huge step up from the average random GF group.

So yea, create a new tanking method and once again most decent tanks will still avoid the GF.

Ignore the actual issue and it will never be fixed.

What if tanks had more of impact on bad groups? Maybe different gear set or something else to avoid the fear of bad group?

idk · December 2018

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

idk wrote: »

People keep trying to "fix" tanking but there is not an issue with the number of tanks.

The issue is with GF and that issue is the all to common poor dps found in those groups. That is the reason tanks are so rare for GF.

Any decent tank, and for that matter any decent DPS and healer, can get into a group easily via their raiding guilds and such. Even forming the group up via zone is usually a huge step up from the average random GF group.

So yea, create a new tanking method and once again most decent tanks will still avoid the GF.

Ignore the actual issue and it will never be fixed.

Really, idk why you need a "decent" tank other then in dlc vet. Topic is about how to make tanks more flexible to content, not about why there is small number of them in GF. Because "decent" tank is complete broke in overland content (if you not juggle gear) and not very effective bag of meat if GF send tank to easy dungeon.

Really? Your first sentence below which clearly states the main purpose of your post.

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

As everyone knows and discusses, that we don't have many players ready to queue as tanks for everyday pledges / randoms because pve tank builds are far from what you need in overland/pvp.

The first part is correct. The rest is false an fabricated as long as you actually listen to real decent tanks, which I clearly explained in the post you quoted yet you ignored.

Ignore the real reason decent tanks avoid the GF then you are not fixing the issue. Again something in what you quoted.

Also, a decent tank is hardly broken in overland. I easily swap from a vet HM trial tank to being able to dps quests without issue in moments. Even thought I am not changing CP, just gear and some skills, my lame dps is still more than a significant number of those we find in GF.

Dr3sden wrote: »

idk wrote: »

People keep trying to "fix" tanking but there is not an issue with the number of tanks.

The issue is with GF and that issue is the all to common poor dps found in those groups. That is the reason tanks are so rare for GF.

Any decent tank, and for that matter any decent DPS and healer, can get into a group easily via their raiding guilds and such. Even forming the group up via zone is usually a huge step up from the average random GF group.

So yea, create a new tanking method and once again most decent tanks will still avoid the GF.

Ignore the actual issue and it will never be fixed.

What if tanks had more of impact on bad groups? Maybe different gear set or something else to avoid the fear of bad group?

Some classes can do tank DPS builds now. Clearly they use DPS skills and some sets which is fine for dungeons since most do not call for a pure tank.

However, the bigger issue the more tanking the build is the less damage it should do. The reason Zos would not consider the idea above, of a real tank build doing decent damage, is PvP. That alone is the killing blow to the idea.

However, as I stated above, the OP is about solving the GF issue yet ignores the reason most decent tanks avoid the GF. As long as that is ignored it is not an idea attempting to be a solution.

Hotdog_23 · December 2018

Tanks are not fun to play when questing for the most part due to low dps. That's why you tell people to level as dps then switch to tank. When you change characters and go from 20-30k dps to 4-5k it gets boring pretty quick questing as a tank. I know giving tanks DPS would break pvp but in my opinion that's why they're are not many tanks in the game. Yes I know before anyone say's that just switch tank sets for dps sets and you can do decent dps for questing but by the lack of tanks I think it is proven that people are not willing to do that.

Jeremy · December 2018

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

As everyone knows and discusses, that we don't have many players ready to queue as tanks for everyday pledges / randoms because pve tank builds are far from what you need in overland/pvp.

What's tank most defining features - high HP and good sustain/overheal which become useless when you got in easy in medium dungeons if your tank is up-to-snuff for dlc vets / trials etc.

So idea is to introduce new skill line which utilize HP and overall sustain:
1. A couple of skills which damage scale of HP and also cost HP. This is literally blood magic known from many games. You burn your blood to do damage then heal it back with HP% self-heal every tank have. This won't be easily exploited in PVP since healing is halved there.
2. High cost buff with stam/magicka morphs which rise tank own penetration so his damage skills from point 1 will be effective.

Result - if you are in hard dungeon - play as usual. Got in easy - medium - slot 2-3 blood magic skills and do damage without changing all gear (and even with changed hybrid tanks are crippled dps due to abilities and cp spent on health and survivability).

I've never understood this argument that tanks lack the necessary damage for overland content, though.

My tank slaughters the typical landscape enemy. A couple of damage over time attacks, monster set proc, execute - they're done. They rarely live through a single rotation. World Bosses can take awhile - but that's the price you pay for being harder to kill. And my tank is hardly geared for damage.

I'm not necessarily against your idea, though. A Dark Knight-like class sounds cool. But I really don't think this is going to effectively address the shortage of tank's problem.

Jeremy · December 2018

Dr3sden wrote: »

It would be nice to making tanking more enjoyable for people. Not sure this is but it's nice it's being talked about.

I see a lot of new tanks hang it up after their first DLC dungeon and go back to playing DPS.

Bloodroot is a prime offender. I know of several would-be tanks who quit it after that dungeon.

Royaji · December 2018

Terrible and unrealestic idea. Health scaled damage skills are not a way to go.

Health is a defensive stat and defensive stats should not increase your damage. Same way as ZOS wanted to make sure that max magicka does not increase both your offensive and defensive capabilities through changes to shields. This will lead to very problematic PvP builds, with 70k health and a pocket healbot wrecking everything left and right. And no, ZOS does not balance PvP and PvE separately, no matter how much you want it.

And most importantly all this will do is help lazy tanks. It is not hard to have a more offensive build. Gear can be changed, skills can be changed, attributes can be solved through food (max stam + stamina recovery) and enchants. Defensive CPs have nothing to do with dealing damage. And it is not necessary to run 100/100 blessed/elfborn if you are not a trials tank. Just distribute your blue tree how a DD will do. No major survivability loss. Just give us loadouts through base game UI and call it a day. This is already a non-issue on PC with addons.

And I agree with idk, this does not solve the issue of tank shortage in groupfinder. Instead of forcing bad ("fake") DDs to get better you just want to force tanks to carry them even more. This is not how it works. Just because a dungeon is easy there is no reason why should a tank be multitasking through maintaining taunt, debuffs and dealing damage while DDs just light attack from across the room.

paulsimonps · December 2018

Tanks don't need damage in groups like this for more people to play tanks in dungeon finder, damage dealers need more damage, specifically the bad ones. Like many have already pointed out most good tanks avoud the GF like the plauge cause there is only so much we can carry. But adding damage to tanks will mess up PvP a lot so that is never going to happen anyway. Instead feedback, suggestions and ideas should revolve around how to raise the floor if the average dps, like adding proper fricking tutorials about how the game works and stuff.

Jeremy · December 2018

paulsimonps wrote: »

Tanks don't need damage in groups like this for more people to play tanks in dungeon finder, damage dealers need more damage, specifically the bad ones. Like many have already pointed out most good tanks avoud the GF like the plauge cause there is only so much we can carry. But adding damage to tanks will mess up PvP a lot so that is never going to happen anyway. Instead feedback, suggestions and ideas should revolve around how to raise the floor if the average dps, like adding proper fricking tutorials about how the game works and stuff.

In respect to veteran DLC dungeons you have a point.

But when it comes to the base dungeons, I rarely ever have any DPS issues when I queue up as my tank.

paulsimonps · December 2018

Jeremy wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Tanks don't need damage in groups like this for more people to play tanks in dungeon finder, damage dealers need more damage, specifically the bad ones. Like many have already pointed out most good tanks avoud the GF like the plauge cause there is only so much we can carry. But adding damage to tanks will mess up PvP a lot so that is never going to happen anyway. Instead feedback, suggestions and ideas should revolve around how to raise the floor if the average dps, like adding proper fricking tutorials about how the game works and stuff.

In respect to veteran DLC dungeons you have a point.

But when it comes to the base dungeons, I rarely ever have any DPS issues when I queue up as my tank.

Then you should count yourself luck my good sir cause for most of us it can be pretty bad. Ever done a Elden Hollow 2 where the DPS couldn't out heal the healing adds on HM and the boss got back up to 100% hp Everytime one spawned? I learned that run that the adds are not infinite and I got to see the entire platform covered in fire, thank god we had a good healer with us.

Jeremy · December 2018

paulsimonps wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Tanks don't need damage in groups like this for more people to play tanks in dungeon finder, damage dealers need more damage, specifically the bad ones. Like many have already pointed out most good tanks avoud the GF like the plauge cause there is only so much we can carry. But adding damage to tanks will mess up PvP a lot so that is never going to happen anyway. Instead feedback, suggestions and ideas should revolve around how to raise the floor if the average dps, like adding proper fricking tutorials about how the game works and stuff.

In respect to veteran DLC dungeons you have a point.

But when it comes to the base dungeons, I rarely ever have any DPS issues when I queue up as my tank.

Then you should count yourself luck my good sir cause for most of us it can be pretty bad. Ever done a Elden Hollow 2 where the DPS couldn't out heal the healing adds on HM and the boss got back up to 100% hp Everytime one spawned? I learned that run that the adds are not infinite and I got to see the entire platform covered in fire, thank god we had a good healer with us.

I wouldn't say it's a regular occurrence. But that is one of the fights I can recall having some problems on in the past. Also the boss of that Ice Castle (I can't remember the name). The one with the mage who drains life if you don't break free. And Valkyn Skoria if they don't have the damage to kill before you run out of platforms.

So I'm not saying it doesn't happen. But it's rare enough that it doesn't scare me away from using the activity finder. I guess it's possible I'm just getting lucky. Though I have to tell you, luck usually isn't my strong area. lol ; ;

TheShadowScout · December 2018

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

This ain't dragon age...

Exactly.

Blood magic isn't really a thing in ESO, lore-wise.

Well... unless you count vampires.... or maybe that one mages guild skill "Equilibrium"... or possibly the nightblade skill "Malevolent Offering"...

So there you have it, the few useful things already packaged into the game... nothing more is really needed in that direction.

MartiniDaniels · December 2018

idk wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

idk wrote: »

People keep trying to "fix" tanking but there is not an issue with the number of tanks.

The issue is with GF and that issue is the all to common poor dps found in those groups. That is the reason tanks are so rare for GF.

Any decent tank, and for that matter any decent DPS and healer, can get into a group easily via their raiding guilds and such. Even forming the group up via zone is usually a huge step up from the average random GF group.

So yea, create a new tanking method and once again most decent tanks will still avoid the GF.

Ignore the actual issue and it will never be fixed.

Really, idk why you need a "decent" tank other then in dlc vet. Topic is about how to make tanks more flexible to content, not about why there is small number of them in GF. Because "decent" tank is complete broke in overland content (if you not juggle gear) and not very effective bag of meat if GF send tank to easy dungeon.

Really? Your first sentence below which clearly states the main purpose of your post.

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

As everyone knows and discusses, that we don't have many players ready to queue as tanks for everyday pledges / randoms because pve tank builds are far from what you need in overland/pvp.

The first part is correct. The rest is false an fabricated as long as you actually listen to real decent tanks, which I clearly explained in the post you quoted yet you ignored.

Ignore the real reason decent tanks avoid the GF then you are not fixing the issue. Again something in what you quoted.

Also, a decent tank is hardly broken in overland. I easily swap from a vet HM trial tank to being able to dps quests without issue in moments. Even thought I am not changing CP, just gear and some skills, my lame dps is still more than a significant number of those we find in GF.

Dr3sden wrote: »

idk wrote: »

People keep trying to "fix" tanking but there is not an issue with the number of tanks.

The issue is with GF and that issue is the all to common poor dps found in those groups. That is the reason tanks are so rare for GF.

Any decent tank, and for that matter any decent DPS and healer, can get into a group easily via their raiding guilds and such. Even forming the group up via zone is usually a huge step up from the average random GF group.

So yea, create a new tanking method and once again most decent tanks will still avoid the GF.

Ignore the actual issue and it will never be fixed.

What if tanks had more of impact on bad groups? Maybe different gear set or something else to avoid the fear of bad group?

Some classes can do tank DPS builds now. Clearly they use DPS skills and some sets which is fine for dungeons since most do not call for a pure tank.

However, the bigger issue the more tanking the build is the less damage it should do. The reason Zos would not consider the idea above, of a real tank build doing decent damage, is PvP. That alone is the killing blow to the idea.

However, as I stated above, the OP is about solving the GF issue yet ignores the reason most decent tanks avoid the GF. As long as that is ignored it is not an idea attempting to be a solution.

Why you use such obvious things as arguments, while you look like experienced TESO player, and so you clearly understand that those things are not completely true:

1. Addons won't help console, and on PC it's just minority of playerbase use gear/skill switch ones at all and they shouldn't be forced to use them;
2. "Decent tanks" - what is this? I am in 3 active guilds, majority of people I talk and run have wide selection of chars, tanks included, so tanking is not like some magic or hidden art - almost any experienced player knows how to do it and was tanking in his own time before get bored of it;
3. No way hybrid tank-dps can be of any use in hard dungeons, because there is no room for middle ground in hard content - you are either or tank, or dps, or healer, any "hybrid" is carried by the group. If you talk about hybrid in easy-medium dungeons - yeah it's viable, but as soon as you get in dlc vet you need to swap gear/skills to become real tank - otherwise you'll die in few seconds since ton of mobs hit hard even through block (if you are not a full-geared tank). Also even in easy-medium dungeons hybrid tanks irritate average group, they want tank to gather mobs and buff dps instead of killing boss by himself, i won't say i'm TESO super-expert, but i tanked a lot with all classes and very different builds and you always feel when group is uneasy or irritated. With hybrid they will not be irritated only when they are carried (newbies) or when they don't care (cp810 nukers). With full classical tank (ALL mobs leashed/chained, ccd, horn on cd, tank health don't go abruptly down etc) they are all usually happy in any conditions.