When players realize they're not limited to a few sets and youre not always running trials. I enjoy tanking tbh. I've run Sap tanks, Lightning builds, the DK meta, warden powerful assault. All have their place, except Sap tanking is dead.

ccfeeling wrote: »

I changed all my chars to DPS because Zos killed my NB tanks

I dont like to stay with meta tank classes, if I cannot play something I want, just skip it.

NB Tanking was fun af. RIP. Although I see them sometimes, it's just not the same.

Control, Variety, Stop Nerfing.

CONTROL:

The fun part of tanking is trying to put as much control over a chaotic situation as possible, so the more it's taken down to just standing there and poking stuff and holding block and making a heavy attack when you can, the more boring it gets.

A good tank used to be able to keep the poison from spreading to everyone in Sanctum Ophidia, but now it just goes all over, so that was something that was good that was changed for the worse (I guess to create more/artificial challenge). Or knowing to hold Earthgore boss a particular way to aim his lava, which doesn't work despite rumors to the contrary - but it should work.

And I actually like that there are no group taunts, but when mobs will one shot players as soon as they make a heavy attack, then they all have to be taunted and they all have to be taunted immediately. I can't tell you how many dps I've seen eat dirt on the first pull of MHK b/c all the mobs to heavies within the first few seconds of a fight and it's not possible for them all to be taunted by then. (This same one-shot heavy mechanic by normal mobs also prevents the whole 'heavy attack for resources' b/c you don't have a break between five or six different mobs all one shotting you long enough to complete a heavy). We can put that on DPS though, but at the final fight, especially in HM - two werewolves spawn at almost the same time the large wolves get free and all four need to be taunted immediately b/c they will one shot players, even with light attacks in some cases - and you if you have to bar swap to range taunt something, that creates more problems b/c the boss and anything else on you are staggering one-shots as well during this time. Those are just a few examples, I'm sure we could come up with more or nitpick those, but just to give an idea.

Basically it feels like the dungeons have become more about RNG and not about having a good tank to do smart things during a fight. And instead of solving that problem, they've just turned up the one shots to require tanks, but left it to tanks to feel like nothing but punching bags and buff monkeys to let the others in the group have more fun as their eyes light up at their big parses.

VARIETY:

Part one- CLASS VARIETY
Class variety for end-game tanking or even hard tank runs is horrible (could be hard in easier dungeon b/c of team). It's pretty much at DK as meta mostly b/c god forbid the DPS miss a single possible buff in the game or they can't play apparently, so you have to have engulfing. If your group lives without that, Warden is solid - at least you make a trade off with durability in some cases to group utility. And after that it goes downhill fast. Sorc feels like they can be selfishly tanky pretty easily, but lack some group utility, Templars are almost tanky and almost have some good utility, but end up coming up short enough that it feels like 'why bother' and Nightblade Tanking is RIP lately.

Now, we can argue and nitpick over "I've done this and that with my XX Class Tank no problem" if we want - I tank with all those classes. So yeah, content can be completed with them, but they aren't balanced, nor to they bring all the needed tools to the table. So for one - classes need to be better balanced for the role b/c maybe someone will enjoy tanking on a Nightblade that hates it on a DK. IMO, at this point, only DK and Warden feel like they are in the right spots for the tanking role - where they don't both do the exact same things skill wise, but come with the same basic tanking tools and both offer interesting things for the group. I was hoping to create a post after the next patch talking about some of my feelings on tanking balance between classes, so hopefully that will go deeper into offering ideas or more specifics.

Part two- GEAR VARIETY
Ebon/Alkosh/Lord Warden - kill me now. Not even counting that I hate the stupid red balls floating around my characters, it's just boring. Ebon - flat buff, yeah, at least it's decent for both group and tanking, but Alkosh is literally only good for the DPS and sucks as a tank other than obviously offering the debuff is good. ZoS- you have a stam dps set you created that is only being used for tanking - maybe you think it's 'neat' but it isn't. Change the buff to be self only, or change the set and swap the five piece with Lunar Bastion to actually make it a tanking set, or something. Because as it stand, nothing else in the game will offer anything nearly as good as that debuff wise, so it will ALWAYS be meta. Ebon, you can argue - maybe I'll run Torug's cuz that extra 600 pen is so OP right DPS! or some other almost good set and it's not the end of the world, but if your group is anywhere near decent - running Alkosh is going to be the best choice. So tanking set meta has been stuck with one of the oldest sets in the game combined with another set that isn't even build for tanking that is several years old. That = boring IMO.

And on top of gear, you should add another passive to heavy armor. Not specifically saying what, but if you do decide some passive should be taken away, then you should create a new one to take its place - not just split another passive in two and give them less. Create something that would be more useful in pve than pvp if you felt like whatever you removed was hurting pvp. You should also re-examine previously nerfed gear like Black Rose - if you nerf something b/c you felt like it was too strong and it ended up being the passive that was too strong, not the set, so you nerf the passive - then go back and look at the set again b/c Black Rose is a dead set at this point. It's easy, and frankly lazy, to just see something OP and ruin it - its harder to balance it, but it would be more worthwhile IMO. A few sets will always shine through as 'the best' but it doesn't mean there has to be such a cliff of crap gear after those first few 'best' options.

But for any excitement I have of creating a necro-tank this summer, it fades as soon as I remember I just have to farm more Ebon and Alkosh again. yay? And unlike my DPS characters, I know each patch there will not be a good heavy armor set that is worth running over those, so nothing to look forward to except... nerfs to tanking usually.

STOP NERFING:

Whether intentional or not, I think every single patch for over two years I've dreaded as my preferred role got hit again and again, weaker every time. (Granted - this coming patch only has a couple nerfs - the one-hand enchant change - another mess up on your part for sword/board imo as it could have easily been corrected with a passive added that gives the full enchant, and the Argonian nerf which only effects argonian players obviously). Sometimes things do need to be nerfed, but if you are doing it again and again and again, patch after patch, then chances are, whatever you thought the problem (or what people are telling you was the problem) was is not it. Whatever your goal is for how you want tanking to function in your game isn't meshing with either the players or your game or both. So maybe you need fresh eyes on the problem. But despite tanking not being the most popular role to begin with, I've watched the numbers of tanks just dwindle to almost nothing.

Every time I DPS though, I feel like I'm on vacation, but always 'back to work' when I tank b/c it's just not as fun as it used to be. You can't do as much b/c everything is so expensive skill wise for what we have and now you mostly just spend your time trying to survive special damage that is made to make the fact you build your character to be tanky feel like a waste of time. Oblivion damage has to be the dumbest thing in the game, or bleeds and other dots that ignore purge mechanics. (Let's let this guy be tanky, and this guy be damagy, BUT we will give this damage guy something that makes the tanky guy irrelevant, so now he is neither tanky nor damagy - yay fun!) Frankly, stop being lazy. Sound like an insult? Sorry, aiming more for wake up call if you haven't noticed the lack of tanks in your game. All in all, the role has just become a chore anytime it's not cakewalk content, which at that point you don't even matter anyway.

SPEAKING OF FRESH EYES:

I think feedback for this role is the most difficult to get accurately in the game (Healers may have the same problem though). For several reasons: Non end-game tanking is so easy that you don't even need a tank half the time, so players that talk about doing veteran banished cells frankly won't have great feedback on the role and it's true abilities/needs. End-game raiders are probably a decent pool of players knowledge wise, but whether or not they know the true limits of the role/class/races is a point I would argue in some cases. As any of us that have run even something as simple as a 4 man dungeon with an inexperienced pug group vs. experienced and skilled players can tell you how easy the tanking role is the better the team is. So if you have a tank that is only giving you feedback from the PoV of someone that only tanks for the best end game raid/dungeon teams, then he won't be a good judge on the shortcomings IMO. On top of all that, you also have a very different tanking style in pvp vs. pve, so players that do one or the other and not both will also miss some observations. I guess it's not news to say that all the feedback we see in the forums isn't great (most of it is really rough and I feel for you zos if you actually look through all this stuff to find what's good), but whatever hand has been guiding this role through decisions and feedback channels has not been working well for years now. Maybe that will change, I know staffing is a little different now, but too early for me to know that much.

Dexter51eb17_ESO wrote: »

pros to be a tank:
- insta group finder;
- you are leader (only if there is no speedrun guys )
- you control the flow of the battle. Creating packed group of mobs very very fast is kinda art.
- buffs, debuffs, protect
- beautiful tricks to control mobs and bosses (choke points, wall taunt, range pulling, trash skips, etc)
- group will follow you anyway, even if you want to kill an optional boss. They are your own pets
- you still have kinda rotation, maintain all your buffs/debuffs at 90-100% uptime, self sustain your resources, avoid one shots, dodge when need it, know mechanics best

Can confirm people (an entire guild even) will follow my tank off of cliffs to their death (but not mine). I’m not saying if I’ve ever done it on purpose.

I tank because it allows me to make a big difference in many fights and enables me to partially compensate for weaker or lesser skilled players. For instance I can litteraly choose between saving or killing ignorant newbie dps with low health standing in veteran Drodda's aoe circle by hitting them with my beefed up igneous shield right before the boom happens, absorbing the deadly blow which they should have avoided in the first place.

The thing that frustrates me to hell and makes me stop playing is group finder teaming me up with terrible healers/dps. Devs could solve that by implementing proper solo-qualification-tutorials (VMA style but for your core role) that are required to enable you to queue for veteran random dungeon queuing.

This would keep normal mode as a free-to-all training ground while "vet" and even harder "vet dlc" queues would require harder qualification levels, ensuring that proper groups are being formed instead of carrying dead weight all the time.

SaltySudd wrote: »

Gravord wrote: »

Tank is brain dead easy to play and it gets even more boring when your dps are bad, forcing you to waste time.
Want more tanks? Get more dps to learn their role.

clocksstoppe wrote: »

Nothing. Tank and healer are braindead roles you pick to reduce your queue times.

I will never understand these types of comments geared towards tanks and healers. Tanking and healing require more situational awareness and understanding of mechanics compared to DPS.

Plus, in my experience, DPS tend to be the ones who are the most "brain dead". Especially in trials. They just get focused on their rotation and ignore mechanics and sometimes have to have their hands held the entire trial.

I agree. Situational awareness is so rare with most players in this game.

People in trials, even Cyrodiil and group content are so focused on “me me me me”.

Raiden_Gekkou wrote: »

The overwhelming amount of garbage dps in this game keeps me from ever making a non-pvp tank. If the average dps got better, you'd see more tanks pugging, but most of the good tanks only run with guildmates or friends because randos tend to be horrible.

My warden tank, few events ago farming indrik stuff in random dung, had 0 passives, 2 abilities on hotbar, taunt and lotus flower for heal on heavy attacks. Doing those heavy attacks and occasionally blocking ended up doing 25% team dps...
On such state of a char can easily tank 80% of the game content, with exception for vet trials and few dlc dungs. Tanking is extremely easy in eso and anyone saying otherwise is fooling himself.

SaltySudd wrote: »

Gravord wrote: »

Tank is brain dead easy to play and it gets even more boring when your dps are bad, forcing you to waste time.
Want more tanks? Get more dps to learn their role.

clocksstoppe wrote: »

Nothing. Tank and healer are braindead roles you pick to reduce your queue times.

I will never understand these types of comments geared towards tanks and healers. Tanking and healing require more situational awareness and understanding of mechanics compared to DPS.

Plus, in my experience, DPS tend to be the ones who are the most "brain dead". Especially in trials. They just get focused on their rotation and ignore mechanics and sometimes have to have their hands held the entire trial.

Last need of healer awareness went out by the window with introduction of Earthgore.

It seems like there is a tank shortage because of the long wait for one int he dungeon queue, but I don't really think that is the case at endgame. Only 1 or 2 people out of 12 need to be tanks for most endgame stuff, and I notice that most calls in craglorn of LFM are not looking for tanks. So it seems like enough people are choosing to do that role.

Despite generally having enough tanks in the game, I think there are a few things that contribute to not having enough tanks in the group finder tool. The default role is DPS. Tanking is generally something a player chooses to do with their second or third or later character, not their first. They already have experience and relationships in the game. Often they will power level to 50 (because leveling a tank by doing quests would be so tedious) and then do the dungeons on vet with guildies, maybe picking up achievements for their new toon at the same time to level undaunted faster. Experienced people leveling a tank will often avoid group finder like the plague because dps is so bad in normal queue that normal can take longer than a vet, but the brand new tank might not be confident enough to try vet without doing it with friends. So you have a situation where the players queuing as support role players (healers and tanks) are usually not brand new to the game, while most new players are queuing as dps. Those newer to the game are more likely to use group finder in the first place. This is the primary reason for the imbalance in group finder.

The solution for dps is to find a few good tanks to queue for dungeons with. Tanks are grateful because they don't like to play dps roulette in group finder. Of course, this makes it even harder for OTHER dps to get a tank, because yours is now taken. And the cycle continues.

Lyserus wrote: »

Honestly More variety, and tanks need to be stronger at least in overland

Tanks have probably the least variety in character building, and they are a pain to use in overland content if yours is a end-game pure tank

Not true on PC...a simple gear/skill changing add-on lets you swap to decent-DPS with the click of a button to easily do overland garbage content and even normal and vet dungeons(though I would draw the line at vet DLC dungeons)

I rarely if ever do pledges now, have hundreds of keys, and stick to dlc hm.
When I did pledges I ran a hybrid mag DK that could do about 10k single target and 30k aoe. It still could do the older dlc dungeons pugging.

Why did I stop pledges? The content was too easy and stale. I could solo almost any of it if need be but it was just the same old stuff.

Now I tank with 3 dps the DLC HM for motifs. Most all the fights are not that difficult and the only challenge comes from trying to get no deaths in a few of the later DLC (I'm looking at you mhk). The only challenge being to avoid one shots mainly from adds.

What does tanking need to make it more appealing?

For me:
-design dungeons better. vmos (last boss)was a step in the right direction, encouraging movement and coordination rather than dps check. The later iterations have less (ie get rid of) one shot, random stacking of mechanics like scale and fang.
-enable tanks and healers to level whilst in their limited dps roles/gear
-modify or get rid of the dungeon finder que penalty
-stop degrading pve utility skills that tanks need, especially for non dk/wardens (eg rapids, timestop cost changes or make silver leash have a mag morph)
-some form of in game introduction to tanking for beginners to gather some idea about the basics

Tasear wrote: »

What makes tanks happy in their role? Why do they enjoy it?

Two words 'sap tank' - i've not enjoyed tanking since these were removed Will try necro but their sustain looks a bit iffy...

Then there are little things like Ebon/Alkosh are still BIS, so you're not playing to upgrade your toons gear either... less sense of achievement for tanks? They don't mitigate more damage each expansion, but mobs seems to hit harder each one.

Aeo