Well there's nothing wrong with having a staff for your backbar as a tank.
Ideally you'd want ice staff since ZOS made that a tanking weapon, but since chilled procs Minor Maim (or whatever it is that gives ice staves Minor Maim), it's less useful since tanks already have Low Slash on their S&B bar compared to the not-so-common Concussed and Off-Balance. Were it not for that one CP star that gives increased damage to off-balanced enemies, it wouldn't be so good.
But staves also offer more flavor to tanking than just dual S&B; at which point if you are, you're just gimping yourself of extra buffs and debuffs. I'm also sure most serious endgame tanks would have already had staves.

starkerealm wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

I do feel, however, that tanks should be given the option to have a full strength enchant on their swords. I think the introduction of a new shield glyph that increases the strength of the main hand enchant would suffice.

That could be achieved with a modification to the S&B passives.

But that wouldn't solve the problem of having 2 full strength enchants on sword and board. Having it as a shield enchant would would provide a tradeoff where if a tank wanted a full strength enchant on their sword they would have to give up the stat bonus enchant on their shield.

twing1_ wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

I do feel, however, that tanks should be given the option to have a full strength enchant on their swords. I think the introduction of a new shield glyph that increases the strength of the main hand enchant would suffice.

That could be achieved with a modification to the S&B passives.

But that wouldn't solve the problem of having 2 full strength enchants on sword and board. Having it as a shield enchant would would provide a tradeoff where if a tank wanted a full strength enchant on their sword they would have to give up the stat bonus enchant on their shield.

This is assuming that the initial problem was the S&B having access to two full power enchants. The problem was DW's ability to run double weapon enchants, but S&B gains an 8th body slot, which is relevant, but not nearly as powerful, especially given that tanks will usually run hybrid builds anyway, where the extra enchant doesn't transform into a meaningful DPS bump.

They should have altered the S&B passive, "Sword and Board" to counteract this change for tanks.

For example, Sword and Board II could have been changed from:

With one hand weapon and shield equipped
Increases your Weapon Damage by 5% and the amount of damage you can block by 20%.

to:

With one hand weapon and shield equipped
Increases your Weapon Damage by 5% and the amount of damage you can block by 20%. Enchants on the main hand weapon now have 100% greater potency.

LiquidPony wrote: »

AlienatedGoat wrote: »

I thought it was stupid then and I still do, as an endgame tank shouldn't have to use a non-tank weapon to get the best crusher uptime or offbalance.

Ice staff is a tank weapon, though.

If you read again, you'll see I'm talking about lightning staves.

But frost staves are just as bad. They're clunky and inferior to S&B in every way (except enchantment now).

starkerealm wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

End game tank, everybody dream of: best armor - stamina dps set with zero tanking bonuses, lightning staff as main weapon for minuscule increase in off-balance status and self-inflicted ravage health potion for increased ulti-gain from bloodspawn.

Yeah, see... this is the thing.

Alkosh is a DPS set. I understand why @Woeler used it. I get the legitimate arguments for including it on your tanks. But, it is basically a dead set pick to help the raid's overall DPS.

Tanks can get pretty creative with their back bar, if they're so inclined. I'm not even going to mock the idea of running a lightning staff back there, you can use it to apply crushing shock, and pick up a ranged interrupt. Bow isn't unusable, because you can use Bombard to get a cone immobilize. Normally something that only Sorcs get to play with. Ice Staff isn't a bad pick because Frost Blocade can lock up adds. (Again, at range, so you can manage them.) (You don't need the block passives or the taunt passive for a frost staff as a tank, and probably don't really want either one.)

But, even then, the lightning staff is kinda underwhelming as an option.

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

End game tank, everybody dream of: best armor - stamina dps set with zero tanking bonuses, lightning staff as main weapon for minuscule increase in off-balance status and self-inflicted ravage health potion for increased ulti-gain from bloodspawn.

At competitive endgame, tanks are basically picking up the slack of everyone else. It becomes less about tanking and more about doing as much of everyone else's job as you can while still doing yours. I don't really like it, and I wish this wasn't the case, but that's how it is. There isn't much room for creativity or variability in tank loadouts, since there is always that one tank setup that the top guilds find works best for certain score runs and then everyone else copies it into the ground. Then it becomes "the" tank setup, and any deviation is met with scorn.

That's why its so upsetting to me that ZOS would go out of their way to further pigeonhole endgame tanks into one setup. We don't have much wiggle room to begin with.

First like someone else said give shields their own set of enchantments one being increase potency of weapon enchant secondly this nerf to 1h enchants is a direct nerf to dw in pve and pvp and snb in pvp. Side effect this also is a buff to bring 2h in line with dw for dps. Now as for ice staves the moment they gave a free range taunt was the moment I began using an ice stave I’ve been manning a tank since launch and have been waiting up till that change to get out of double barring snb. Another work around begins with a question. Why is tanks only ones using crusher wouldn’t that be a good enchant for say the healer to run? Tanks could then either use absorb health mage or stam enchants or enchants that reduce enemy damage. Tanks role and focus should be to control the battlefield by grouping trash mobs with roots and chaining in external adds. Now with that said I also back up main is a healer. A healer role is a keep group alive and should be providing group buffs as well as enemy nerfs. Sadly this game every one wants to be a damage dealer and support roles are sorely needing something interesting. No offense to anyone but the dd players are beyond spoiled in this game.

Example:
tanks are almost expected to run sets not really meant for tanks besides like ebon.

LiquidPony wrote: »

AlienatedGoat wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

End game tank, everybody dream of: best armor - stamina dps set with zero tanking bonuses, lightning staff as main weapon for minuscule increase in off-balance status and self-inflicted ravage health potion for increased ulti-gain from bloodspawn.

Yeah, see... this is the thing.

Alkosh is a DPS set. I understand why @Woeler used it. I get the legitimate arguments for including it on your tanks. But, it is basically a dead set pick to help the raid's overall DPS.

Tanks can get pretty creative with their back bar, if they're so inclined. I'm not even going to mock the idea of running a lightning staff back there, you can use it to apply crushing shock, and pick up a ranged interrupt. Bow isn't unusable, because you can use Bombard to get a cone immobilize. Normally something that only Sorcs get to play with. Ice Staff isn't a bad pick because Frost Blocade can lock up adds. (Again, at range, so you can manage them.) (You don't need the block passives or the taunt passive for a frost staff as a tank, and probably don't really want either one.)

But, even then, the lightning staff is kinda underwhelming as an option.

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

End game tank, everybody dream of: best armor - stamina dps set with zero tanking bonuses, lightning staff as main weapon for minuscule increase in off-balance status and self-inflicted ravage health potion for increased ulti-gain from bloodspawn.

At competitive endgame, tanks are basically picking up the slack of everyone else. It becomes less about tanking and more about doing as much of everyone else's job as you can while still doing yours. I don't really like it, and I wish this wasn't the case, but that's how it is. There isn't much room for creativity or variability in tank loadouts, since there is always that one tank setup that the top guilds find works best for certain score runs and then everyone else copies it into the ground. Then it becomes "the" tank setup, and any deviation is met with scorn.

That's why its so upsetting to me that ZOS would go out of their way to further pigeonhole endgame tanks into one setup. We don't have much wiggle room to begin with.

How's this really any different from what healers or DPS do, though?

Because virtually any buff/skill/debuff/effect that can be moved from the DPS or healer gets shunted to the tank, not the other way around.

Tanking design in this game is just terrible, it's like they have no design and have tried to just wing it as the game evolves.

My idea of a tank is a build that is 100% selfish, yet its not selfish because the tank is holding agro from the rest of the team as they buff and heal him. He wears heavy armour and has a massive shield and looks like a god. And he absolutely does not have a damn staff.