Goregrinder wrote: »

That's a loaded statement that implies there is a problem with the "tank" meta. There isn't....it's a L2P issue.

Learn to waste time blocking and healing until you've got enough on your side to zerg?

In GW2, they have two types of pvp available. A world vs world where your skills are (mostly) the same as PvE with armor and traits having a big impact and then for smaller scale more "competitive" pvp they actually remove a lot of the variables by providing flat stats to weapons and armor, a toned down class selection and then a spread of options for some stat sets. All of these things are heavily tuned and balanced with the benefit of these changes rarely touching the other aspects of the game. Playing it still feels impactful (class identity) and there is still a fluctuating meta but on balance is a much more polished feeling experience. This is something ESO could benefit from I feel, with a system like the one I mentioned it is much easier to introduce incremental tuning passes without contending with the fact you are making player's gear and investments worthless and reduces the impact such tuning also have in other parts of the game.

The WvW gametype is far more chaotic due to the nature of allowing fully customized builds, with only the most out performing skills/traits getting tweaked. Even then, those changes rarely cross over to PvE.

The aspect I enjoyed about the sPvP with standardized stats is that a level one player can go into it and on paper be competitive with a max level player and the only factor that affects who wins and loses is reliant on player skill and understanding of skills and tactics without completely weighting it so the newcomer has no chance. That feels like a nice curve that rewards clever planning and skill without completely smothering someone just coming in. Bgs for the most part feel like a step in that direction, as a primarily PvE player it's actually got me playing pvp again since the cost for losing a fight isn't a 20 minute horseride back to the fight while dodging gankers.

In regards to cyro, I think they should ramp up the chaos. WvWvW seems like an impossibility to balance and I miss the days when you would have to repell dragon leaps onto the keep walls and other insanity.

ThePhantomThorn wrote: »

defense is too easy to build into, and offense has far more diminishing returns.

this sums the whole thread.

if u just bring back the DoTs a bit more (between now and Elswyr?) both on the duration, the skills, the quantity, the perks... everything...

then u'll see those tanks melt into a puddle of DK poison....


but now, for example, my DK is a poor man's stamSorc/StamPlar....

Goregrinder wrote: »

Cathexis wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

That's a loaded statement that implies there is a problem with the "tank" meta. There isn't....it's a L2P issue.

Naw, it's really not. It's been a key talking point for many, many patches. It's a conversation about the overarching quality of competitive combat, about how excessive tanking makes it flat, it has nothing to do with learning about it.

Learn how to play against tankier targets, once you do your life will become easier my friend.

I know how to play against tanker targets. That's not really the problem being discussed. The issue is the degree to which the effectiveness of tanking slows the overall combat meta. It's reasonable to conclude that if the overwhelming sense is that tanking is drawing out engagement in combat to a senseless degree, that that's not good for the overarching combat experience.

Let me give you an example, if I'm at a keep and there's let's say like 4 of us there, and a zerg of 30 shows up. Were disorganized, but experiences players. The impact of survivability, specifically innate survivability can be so high that, even if we were to systematically dismantle opponents who do not defend themselves at peak efficiency, we would not be able to counterplay the group.

That's a stagnant combat situation. It doesn't promote combat... And you might say "well one side is bigger so the rules should say they win" but that is antithetical to the nature of PvP, in that you want to encourage engagement not stagnate it.

xylena wrote: »

The good players waste time defensively stalling in between attempts to one shot.
The bad players waste time defensively stalling in between attempts to zerg.

See, most of combat in the Tank Meta is spent literally wasting time, because years of nerfing offense and deleting counterplay has left this as the most efficient strategy at any marginally competitive or better level, group or solo, potatoes notwithstanding. Players only exist in two states: healing back to full, or dead. There's no pressure or momentum, less room than ever for expression of skill, hence people using words like "flat" and "stagnant."
<snip>
I miss the dynamic, responsive combat this game once had.

Amen.

The sheer amount of burst damage out there now makes running without strong heals and defense a recipe for getting one shot. 8k burning talons. 10k ignites. 12k shackles. 15k molten whips. These are all normal damage values for me in moderately defensive builds. Then there are things like the 25k cold stone treb single shots.

Of COURSE people are going to build tanky with that much damage rolling around. Nevermind the lag delay trying to get your heal/potion/bar swap/buff/shield/dodge/whatever you need to respond to an incoming damage spike.

I miss when there were playstyles other than burst or die. When fighting was a matter of outplaying and countering your opponent in multiple steps, instead of tank-tank-tank-burst.

Davadin wrote: »

ok. I've bee playing MOST nights in PC NA since before (North) Elsweyr was released. I've cycled through 3 campaigns in Kaalgrontiid in PC NA.



I guess I'll pop the elephant in the room.


What is the tank meta?

Sure, some people survive better after the DoT nerf, but I was online nearly every night, and still... I killed a lot, I died a lot, I dueled a lot, I zerged and got zerged a lot.... SURE I feel like I can runaway a bit better but 9 out of 10 times when somebody getting focused by more than 3 people (which is 90% of action in Cyro), they will die.

They will.

The rare exceptions is probably the pure tank build running around a castle in an rss, the ball group throwing heals and necro ult that die when they got negated, and the rank40+ sorc that can runaway faster than you can say "sorc!".


So WHY, for the love of Vivec, is everyone in the forum are UP IN ARMS on the whole TANK META idea?

Is it more BG? Is it more specific class? Is it EU? Is it specific times of the day that this is happening, coz I sure hell don't see a HUGE change.

Disclaimer: I play mostly solo in PC NA Kaalgron between 10PM - 2AM EST.

Tank meta is mainly from players who, quite frankly, aren’t very good at pvp and only use their spammables. Their damage can easily be countered with hots, get blown up in seconds, and can’t understand why it feels like they aren’t doing any damage.

Most would be shocked to learn most of the people they’re fighting are wearing light and medium armour and stacking damage stats. There are enough out there to convince each other the problem isn’t each other.

‘Tankiness’ is only effective if it’s up to the environment where you’re playing. If it’s solo or BGs, it requires just enough so you don’t get bursted. If it’s cyrodiil then it means a lot more because the burst from 12+ players is a lot more.

Past the required tankiness it’s always about stacking damage stats for more pressure and healing.

The ‘tank meta’ is code for ‘why does it feel like I’m doing no damage’ or ‘why can’t I kill anyone without investing anything in defense’?

BRP DW and resto. They're 2 pc sets that not only offer more mitigation than most (all?) 5pc sets but to add insult to injury they have 1 pc bonuses after ZOS removed 1 pc bonus from vMA and Arena weapons

Honestly the game isn't in a terrible place and you should be able to build tanky, but it's just a little too easy to build tanky rn

There are only a handful of builds/playstyles in Cyrodiil right now. Glass Cannon, Bomb, LoS Speed Demon, Heal Tank, Damage Tank, or PvE-build AP feeder.

Most people hate every build/playstyle that’s not their own, and thinks every counter to their build should be nerfed. It’s exhausting.

I play an actual heal tank with one other tank our sole purpose is to see how long we can keep a zerg occupied andsurvive. It usually end with multiple meatbags and coldfire raining down on us. The point of this comment is this: we've tanked megazergs(30-50 players) For 20 minutes, and on the other hand I've been killed by only 3 player within 1 minute. Can you guess which of those 2 groups has players who actually know what they're doing? After answering that, do you still think the issue is heavy armor/defense stats? Or maybe it truly is a "L2P" issue... If you're not talking about actual tanks and only about tanky DDs, then I don't know what to say there, as I'm a full blown-hits like a soggy wet noodle-tank. EDIT: I've been tanking in pvp for about 2 years and I actully survived better during the dotbuff patch.

@ThePhantomThorn Not surprised to see this coming from a Stamblade. “Incap > bow proc > exec > dead.” All of this in a matter of seconds from stealth no less? That’s not healthy gameplay either.

Low damage isn’t the issue. The real issue is how easily players can come back from soaking a tremendous amount of damage. It all comes down to self healing and how even 2 seconds is enough to go from 10% to full (looking at you magplars).

Get low? Dodge vigor dodge. SnB block til full. Stack 3 shields with hots to boot.... PvP is just a constant tug of war with too much burst damage as well as too much healing (strange, it’s like as if healing scales with weapon/spell damage, hmm...)

This is why either defile needs to be more accessible and available to every class, or you reduce the effectiveness that healing scales with weapon/spell power.

We just need more sources of defiles (major and minor), but preferably with short duration so you actually need to reapply it every 4 seconds or so and on targeted single target abilties which arent bundled together with CC and tons of dmg (see old incap, which got nerfed to the point of almost being useless).
A bit unrelated to this topic, but also remove cast times from ultimates, find some other way to "balance ultimates", it *** with the combat flow of the game and makes it unfun. There is already enough delay comming from the trashy performance of the game, no need for further delays through cast times (at least on ultimates).

Nord_Raseri wrote: »

I play an actual heal tank with one other tank our sole purpose is to see how long we can keep a zerg occupied andsurvive. It usually end with multiple meatbags and coldfire raining down on us. The point of this comment is this: we've tanked megazergs(30-50 players) For 20 minutes, and on the other hand I've been killed by only 3 player within 1 minute. Can you guess which of those 2 groups has players who actually know what they're doing? After answering that, do you still think the issue is heavy armor/defense stats? Or maybe it truly is a "L2P" issue... If you're not talking about actual tanks and only about tanky DDs, then I don't know what to say there, as I'm a full blown-hits like a soggy wet noodle-tank. EDIT: I've been tanking in pvp for about 2 years and I actully survived better during the dotbuff patch.

there it is.

IMHO, ive been here for years, and even before Elswyer, you got full-blown-tanks pulling 10-20 people running around tower and survives....

only different with Dragonhold is DoT is nerfed and healing was still buffed from Elswyer. So ball group needs a bit more effort to break down (hint: negate), but i simply can't see "everyone in Cyro is now playing tank!" coz holy hell, i just played solo for 1hr and got around 135k AP and 40% of it is combat (not defense, keeps, etc.)

Thank you everyone for answering my post. I understand now with the definition, but im standing my ground that there is no tank meta right now. Just more people decide to build tankier so they're a little bit.... just a little bit harder to kill.

Keylun wrote: »

I don’t think it’s heavy armour that is the problem. The meta is having the front bar for attacks (any weapon) and the back bar is for buffs and defences with the shield or ice staff.

i think thats not "meta", i think thats just MMO 101.

ThePhantomThorn wrote: »

Davadin wrote: »

ok. I've bee playing MOST nights in PC NA since before (North) Elsweyr was released. I've cycled through 3 campaigns in Kaalgrontiid in PC NA.



I guess I'll pop the elephant in the room.


What is the tank meta?

Sure, some people survive better after the DoT nerf, but I was online nearly every night, and still... I killed a lot, I died a lot, I dueled a lot, I zerged and got zerged a lot.... SURE I feel like I can runaway a bit better but 9 out of 10 times when somebody getting focused by more than 3 people (which is 90% of action in Cyro), they will die.

They will.

The rare exceptions is probably the pure tank build running around a castle in an rss, the ball group throwing heals and necro ult that die when they got negated, and the rank40+ sorc that can runaway faster than you can say "sorc!".


So WHY, for the love of Vivec, is everyone in the forum are UP IN ARMS on the whole TANK META idea?

Is it more BG? Is it more specific class? Is it EU? Is it specific times of the day that this is happening, coz I sure hell don't see a HUGE change.

Disclaimer: I play mostly solo in PC NA Kaalgron between 10PM - 2AM EST.

the tank meta is the high defence in the meta.
simply put. players build very defensively, which slows down the game and leads to decline in pvp.
not only that healing is very high making players even harder to kill.

you have played since release. can you honestly tell me that players are as hard to kill now as they have ever been?
yes players die. but they take alot longer than they should. eg, i hit my incap and bow proc. these should land and deal enough damage to bring into execute. in reality the target breaks free before incap, and dodges one if not both hits. tank meta doesnt just refer to heavy armour, it refers to all defence. a proposed fix would be to remove the cast time and add a defile and stun back onto incap. therefore the skills would land, and therefore the player would die.
on a dk it may be a little easier, with applying dots and then leaping being a little harder to avoid.
its not just one update. it has been creeping in since before i joined the game in cwc. bit by bit they nerfed damage, removed stuns, buffed healing and buffed defence.
perfect example is the elsweyr grim focus change. took off minor berserk and added on up to 15% damage mitigation. nerfing offence buffing defence.
even medium armour is really tanky. i remember in scale my stamplar (in med) had 35k resists and brp dw. it felt almost immortal. in MEDIUM ARMOUR.
everyone is running bloodspawn if not troll king. because it stops them from dying. very few players running damage monster sets these days.
think about it.
why do people all have close to 30k hp? and max resists? because if hey survive then they can just wait for an opening. then they strike, killing their opponent. sound fine... but they can tank even the higher damage builds. just turtling for several minutes before either killing or dying.
players should die, and quick.

gotcha.

but let me tell you what i've seen: not even half the people runs 30k health in Cyro. most 20-25k. medium armor can be just as tanky is not a latest-patch situation.


so personally, people can already die. maybe not as quick as the DoT meta in Elswyr......... but i really dont think it's much different.