It is because the decent dps population is so small. Few people want to be a real tank painfully watching two dps light attack their way through a dungeon. And few people have the ability to properly tank and dps a normal dungeon at the same time.

Tanks are expected by many players to know the dungeons, and to know the add pulls. These expectations mean that tanking is mostly a thing experienced players do after they feel they are pretty skilled. At that point, they have zero desire to rank a normal dungeon. Thankfully, the game is designed so that they don’t really have to. Try slotting a taunt as dps. If you are blocking when you are supposed to block, you will get through a normal dungeon just fine. A few dlcs require a dodge roll here and there.

My theory is people don't want to be the leader in the group, hence less tanks

Do you believe that the queue is representative of the population of tanks in the game?

If it isnt, the question becomes, what makes them stay away?

Tank population doesn’t seem small to me. I can find a tank easily.

However, tanks I know, including myself, refuse to queue for a random group due to many experiences with low dps groups.

So the question is, what can be done to improve the experience of running with GF pugs so that tanks would be more willing to queue solo?

There isn't a single reason for this. There are multiple, but they are all somewhat linked in a vicious cycle.

• The number of DDs trying to skip the queue is larger than the number of tanks trying to queue, this is both a symptom and a cause at this point. This isn't specific to high CP players, either; from a low level, DDs are told by random strangers, friends, and guild mates both on the forum and in-game that it's "okay" to queue as a tank because [insert reason here]
• Most higher CP tanks find groups to run with and don't PUG, largely due to two things:
  1. Behaviour: The disrespect toward support roles is quite high especially from the low and mid-tier players and those same support roles who find decent groups to run with don't have the time or energy to put up with it, nor should they have to; remember everyone is playing to have fun, if someone is ruining someone else's fun then it's time to re-evaluate
  2. DPS: The average DPS in most PUGs is quite low. Note: I'm not saying low DPS is a bad thing, everyone starts somewhere. As a full-spec PvE tank, you don't do a lot of damage. Which means you are putting yourself at the mercy of the damage dealing players to actually kill stuff. When stuff takes half an hour to die... patience only goes so far

Most of this comes down to being a community issue, that being people. It's not an issue ZOS can realistically fix or solve without a huge overhaul. Such a solution would reduce a lot of the freedom ESO is known for. A lot of this comes down to what can be done rather than what should be done. The fact that one might be able to solo a dungeon doesn't make it a solo instance.

I've seen it often enough in zone chat where a DD will ask "Is it normal that the queue takes X minutes on DD role?" The answer is "Yes." Instead of that, you have people saying "just q as tank." The person hasn't even said it's a random normal and might be queuing for a specific veteran DLC dungeon, but the advice is the same. Just queue as a tank. When you combat this, you get the usual "You take the game too seriously" commentary. If, by too seriously, one means I wish to have fun, then yes, maybe I do take it too seriosuly and don't want to be forced to wipe in a veteran DLC dungeon because a DD wanted to skip the queue because [insert reason].

The reasons all feed into each other. Low DPS causes tanks to leave. Having tanks leave means longer queue time for DDs. DDs want faster queue times and so queue as a tank. Tank population seems to go down. DDs come to the forum to complain about the "fake tank" issue.

While it is an issue, it has a fairly simple solution: ask around and see if you can get people to help you. When you make a group, you get to dictate who joins and on what role. A new "group maker" tool to go side by side with the dungeon finder might alleviate the issue, but I don't think the issue of "fake" roles is one that ZOS should necessarily be trying to fix.

Then we come to the factor of "tank" versus "good tank." That's a can of worms I'm not going to open on the forum.

The lack of Tank skills/build diversity can be a deterrent for some. You can build your gear to be 'selfish' or for 'group', the best 'group' gear is surprisingly limited and not very fun (though I think Turning Tide is a step in the right direction).

Your skills are pretty much set in stone depending on class choice. Pull, taunt, range taunt, buff skill, survive skill, self-heal.

You only get two weapon choices - if you want to be 'tanky'. Though I was glad when they added ice staff.

AvalonRanger wrote: »

I consider my DPS building style little bit more solo surviving
character. To protect myself without decent tank, and heal myself without healer.

This is the main reason. No one wants to be stuck for an hour in normal dungeon tanking for 5k dps tanks queuing as DDs.

Generally speaking, the visual design of the abilities on the tank role in most games tends to primarily appeal to a limited audience which puts a significant damper on their appeal.

They are generally less effective in dealing with regular content which matters when you aren't enjoying the content.

The group content design is set up in such a way that the only reason you want a tank in half of the content is so the npc doesn't move for the people spamming AOE's on the ground and in the other half of the content you need the tank to know the instance well because any mistake can be massively disruptive (This rams into the issue that the group finder randomly selects a dungeon which you may or may not know well enough to tank if you want transmutes).

In group content you also have an expectation to use sets/ultimate abilities that buff the team so instead of having the occasional moment of awesome you are just a boring buffer.

ESO's combat design is also a bit "unique". By the time you are actually able to be comfortable tanking everything in normal you'll have noticed that the damage capabilities of players varies tremendously and much of the damage in the game comes from failing a reflex test. As a result, unless you are playing with a highly efficient group the run will probably go better if you fake tank.

If you are playing a real tank after all of that, it's likely you will be in demand which will mean that you will frequently queue with a group rather than solo and thus not run into randoms much.

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Generally speaking, the visual design of the abilities on the tank role in most games tends to primarily appeal to a limited audience which puts a significant damper on their appeal.

They are generally less effective in dealing with regular content which matters when you aren't enjoying the content.

The group content design is set up in such a way that the only reason you want a tank in half of the content is so the npc doesn't move for the people spamming AOE's on the ground and in the other half of the content you need the tank to know the instance well because any mistake can be massively disruptive (This rams into the issue that the group finder randomly selects a dungeon which you may or may not know well enough to tank if you want transmutes).

In group content you also have an expectation to use sets/ultimate abilities that buff the team so instead of having the occasional moment of awesome you are just a boring buffer.

ESO's combat design is also a bit "unique". By the time you are actually able to be comfortable tanking everything in normal you'll have noticed that the damage capabilities of players varies tremendously and much of the damage in the game comes from failing a reflex test. As a result, unless you are playing with a highly efficient group the run will probably go better if you fake tank.

If you are playing a real tank after all of that, it's likely you will be in demand which will mean that you will frequently queue with a group rather than solo and thus not run into randoms much.

Good Tanks get snatched up into groups pretty quick. I mostly tank in my guild. Because you get to skip lines and not deal with Toxic Pugs. On occasion when I do pug a dungeon on my tank due to schedule conflicts, it's not a great experience.

Most norm dungeons are solo-able, so there's not really a need for a tank. That being said, a lot of people simply just don't want to wait for the queue. Queueing as a tank will almost all the time get you in immediately, where as DPS have long waits. There is no "Good DPS" requirement to queue as a tank, anyone can do it. There are plenty of times that I've gotten in with DD-level DPS that have queued as a tank, and there are plenty of times that I've gotten people who barely know mechs. I'd say it's excusable in norm, but it gets very very iffy in vet, especially when the rest of the group might not be the greatest.

From my experience as a tank ever since the game released on consoles:

This game panders to DPS.
Take for example the S&S skill 'power slam'.
There's a morph that should've been for tanks, where you would block and gain a stack of resentment, each stack increasing the damage of the skill by a small percentage up to 10 stacks.

If you wanted to make tanks fun, that skill should've scaled off of max health or armor, becausae, after all, it IS the tanks who block, they're the ones who taunt and need to block. It makes sense, right? Let tanks do a little damage and help with the overall DPS, it's not like tanks are gonna beat a 100k dps character spamming all sorts of skills, a tank would only deal like 20k dmg once every 5 seconds, but it would make it an interesting gameplay aspect.

But now, that skill deals full damage at all times, instead, now you only need to block 1 time to get a 50% cost reduction (which is redundant considering you'll still consume stamina by blocking). I'm still wondering what was the point on that? It still scales off max dmg, and DPS won't be blocking as much as a tank, not only that, but the dmg increase when blocking is now part of a champion perk, not specifically to the weapon set, so that means now ANY DPS could use ANY weapon to block ONCE and get that extra damage.

Taunting in PvP? It's just not there, you can't taunt players, UNLESS you equip vanguards challenge, which allows you to taunt players for 35% dmg reduction to your teammates, but 35% extra dmg to yourself. Basically, the player will need to kill you first to be able to deal their full dmg to your teammates, which is a fun aspect...
So why can't we naturally taunt other players with taunt skills? Like, 10% instead of 35%? Why are we forced to sacrifice other useful sets just to be able to do something we should be doing without that specific armor set?

Defense levels are capped, but dmg levels are not, why is that? Some players who can't min/max their DPS will complain that there are tanks who never die, and it must be annoying, and I can agree to that, as a mediocre DPS in PvP.
And yet, even with my best tank builds, I can still get bombed and pretty much insta-killed in PvP (I know there's no one-shot skills, by insta-kill I mean in the fact that one moment I'm just wandering the streets of IC, the next moment I'm down on my knees spamming break free, and before the break free animation ends, I'm already dead, because the other player was able to spam their massive combos in such a short span of time, it's not one-shot for the player who killed me, but given my limited actions, it IS a one-shot for me).

Worthless building in dungeons and arenas

What about dungeons, solo arenas?
Vateshran is a fun arena to play as, either as tank or DPS. People who've never tanked would say there's no point in tanking since there's no challenge, but ignore how little damage tanks actually do. In the final boss, your DPS matters the most, you need to kill all adds and hit the boss with splash dmg, there's a DPS check with a ring of ghosts, which if you fail, you'll die, and then there's a portal you need to quickly close before the boss restores health, so the higher the DPS, the less chance of recovery the boss will get.
As a tank, you'll never get rid of all the adds, and the boss will most likely recover all health during the portal section, so you have to focus completely on the boss, buffing up all defenses and HoTs while dealing splash dmg to all adds that are swarming you. It's a fun challenge that puts your tank skill to the test and it's just as fun and engaging as if you were running the arena as a DPS.
But then there's that ring of ghosts. Your DPS is so low, you can't even reach 9kdps to kill a single ghost, while the minotaur ghosts are spamming fire floor, and other adds are shooting fireballs at you, and thunderstrikes are always landing on you. You'd expect buffing up your defenses and casting all your damage shields before the explosion would make for a nice tank check to survive it (something DPS will never survive, so for them it's a DPS check). But no, you get punished for being a tank who sucks at DPS (again, the game panders to DPS, taking tank skills and reworking them for DPS).

Is there any point at min/maxing tank builds?
Short answer: No.
A tank will get one-shot just as any DPS with no armor if they don't follow the poorly telegraphed mechanics.
In the end, a tank with 45k health and 20k armor will die just as easily as a tank with 55k health and 25k armor, or a DPS with 22k health and 15k armor.

The way the game is designed is that tanks are the meat shields who buff all the DPS, while the healer heals the tank who is taunting the enemy, and the DPS blame the healers for not healing them when they get in the red area or in front of the boss the tank is trying to face away from the rest of the team.
But there is no incentive for any tank to still play as a tank after any group dungeon, even overland mobs take too long to die from tanks with some dmg skills (considering who fun tank skills have been reworked for DPS instead).

The devs made it clear that they have no intentions on making support roles any fun when they released Armory.
You can be a tank for a dungeon, and then switch back to DPS to enjoy the rest of the game.


I used to main tank at all times, it feels wrong if I'm not tanking, but every subsequent update just keeps telling me that anything that made tanking fun is now reworked for DPS instead, and part of me is bitter that only until I decided to switch to DPS I'm actually able to play the rest of the game, PvP included, and part of me dies inside realizing that there's no plans on making support roles any fun to play anymore.


My solution
This will *** off a lot of people.
But considering the direction the game is taking, with tank skills reworked for DPS instead, and hybrid builds where magic is just as effective as stam skills, there's a massive overhaul desperately needed, and seeing how they're not making tanking any fun, then the roles as we know them (tank, DPS, healer) should be completely discarded:
Now make only 2 roles - Bruisers and Support.
Bruisers are the DPS tanks, the ones who taunt the bosses and damage them. Make tank armor sets increase with dmg instead of health, like resilient yokeda or harabinger. Vet dungeon mobs and bosses shouldn't deal that much of massive dmg anymore, now any player could survive blocking a charged hit, and they all still die with one-shot mechanics.
The support type is the DPS healers who can also cast buffs and have higher DPS than the bruisers.

This way now you can retain your DPS while focusing on a defense build.

The second alternative, which is more realistic:
Allow for tank sets to deal just as much damage as a DPS set.
Harbinger and resilient yokeda were nerfed to the ground, which makes me wonder, what's the point on having tank sets that deal damage, only to be nerfed to deal mediocre damage that barely does anything at all? Especially in PvP? Blocking still consumes stamina, why not make those sets as powerful as casted skills?
Why not return power slam to the tanks and allow them to deal that massive burst and just let low-slash be the S&S spammable for DPS? DD's don't always need to block, don't give them the skills where blocking was what made them stronger.

There's nothing rewarding about min/maxing tank builds, so barely anybody will want to tank.
There's nothing that tests your tanking, there are no target dummies that would damage you, so even if people wanted to, there's no way to make sure that you're actually ready for tanking.
And so far, the devs just keep making things worse and dull for any aspect of tanking.

drsalvation wrote: »

This game panders to DPS.
Take for example the S&S skill 'power slam'.
There's a morph that should've been for tanks, where you would block and gain a stack of resentment, each stack increasing the damage of the skill by a small percentage up to 10 stacks.

The issue with anything ZOS tries to do on the balance side is that they have to take into account of PvE and PvP. Allowing a tank to do damage via health scaling rather than resources/stats is that you compound an issue in PvP where currently exists a tank meta (and has done for years), but where everyone is running around with high health, high mitigation, and being able to do a lot of damage. Further compounded, ultimates such as necro which add a substantial amount of health would also be abused and overall it would be a detriment to the health of other classes.

Health as a cost isn't really meaningful, either, considering the absurdly high HPS in the game within PvE content. That would mean that tanks would essentially have free abilities.

Tanking is not rewarding in this game for casual players, that's it.

For example when you fight a world boss only top 10 dps get the loot.

What about tanks and healers?

It is a panful journey to be a tank without a team.

Its just tanking that isn't fun

The lack of AOE taunt without having to waste a 5 piece set make large mob groups a micro management nightmare to keep taunt up on top of wasting all your ressource doing so

Most of the dungeons mechanics revolve around a guaranteed one shot making any effort to build towards survivability totally nul & void

If its not a oneshot its a miss a single block and get 80k damage (basicaly a one shot) to the face while we force you to permablock the entire fight leaving 0 room for a singular mistake on your side

And as the saying goes "if the tank dies everyone die", so you get a ridiculous amount of responsabilities in a game that actively hate your role and make it as unnecessary hard as possible

Overland content is a slog to go through with abysmall damage and stealing/using blade of woe become impossible due to the heavy armor stealth debuff allowing NPC to even spot you when invisible, forcing you to waste like 10 inventory slot hauling an "overland build"

Healer at least don't get all those penalities

DoT bypass block and any damage shield and quite often your entire resistance while the game offers 0 mitigation option beside mass healing, in some trials DoT you can't avoid can go as far as dealing +18k damage/s while fully bufffed


In PVP tank are replaced by DD with ridiculous healing scaling with their damage making them totaly pointless