Why tank population is so small?

AvalonRanger · June 2022

WySoSirius wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

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

Even as a leading legit tank . The dps ignore that and rush anyway , so as a tank I tend to give up like most probably have and probably agree

Some dps ignore pace and situation, and go rush by solo, and die many times.
Sometime low Level player who has dungeon pledge wants to kick those type of DPS.
I accepted that.

FeedbackOnly · June 2022

Kingpindragon wrote: »

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.

Crimson oath is fun too. The needles coming out are immersive. The stats on the sets are tank like too

dmnqwk · June 2022

I think the deciding factor as to why so few tanks is... ESO is designed that way.

Most MMOs experience an issue with tank populations being small for a variety of reasons.

1) Tanks have to learn the most mechanics to survive
2) Tanks get blamed before dps for failure (healers get more blame in some games less in others)
3) Tanks have poor single target damage and have to make up for it by pulling more mobs
4) The ratio of tanks required for dungeons to raids (trials) causes a schism that means tanks are forced to not be tanks if they want to raid.

1,2 and 4 are the same across most MMOs, but 3 is unique to this game. Most large MMOs allow the tank to pull somewhere in the region of 30-50% damage of DPS, with stronger AoE skills allowing you to raise this in high AoE situations. That is achieved by being able to pull more mobs in a single go.
ESO is counterintuitive to this strategy by the removal of AoE taunts/threat and by having unlimited aoe capability for dps.

In other games, a dps will pull 10k damages and the tank sitting on 3-5k. When you're fighting 4 mobs the numbers would become 20k for the dps and 12k for the tank (closing the gap). A more competant tank would also be capable of pulling 2-3 groups of mobs together and then keeping threat on them all. Unfortunately, since taunts are single target that's not possible without putting the group at risk of serious complications like death. So you have to do each group one at a time. (there is limited chaining groups together, but it's very limited compared to other MMOs)

Without the ability for better tanks to make the dungeon a better experience (quicker, easier) beyond a very rudimentary point... there's no incentive to keep tanking.

My Warden has 3 saved builds - trial tank, tank and stamden setups and honestly, even though I've spent 20 years primarily tanking ESO has no incentive for me to bother doing it in dungeons. I might as well just be a DPS where getting better actually improves the fight more than being a better tank does (outside of dlc vets when I'll still queue as a tank, if I needed to do them anymore).

Gnesnig · June 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Hell. If you don't stand in Red you're already a better DPS than like 70% of pugs I tank in.

In some dungeons that's really a challenge, though. Such as Shipwright's Regret.

Troodon80 · June 2022

LordRukia wrote: »

Tanks hit like wet noodles and are boring to play compared to dps , you can argue this but numbers don't lie. Personally I rather heal because its more flexible with dps and is pretty active compared to tanking but nothing beats dps role for me and the majority I imagine share this sentiment.

Numbers don't lie, true. However, numbers don't show the whole truth without some context, either. The majority will hold your sentiment, or similar, because for every tank there are two DDs, and a healer can in many cases be considered a DD-lite. It's a bit skewed, you see?

It isn't a competition for which role is more valuable. People will play the roles they do for a reason, and the "numbers" don't necessarily represent those reasons, only which role is played "the most."

Most DDs I know just want to parse. They don't want to play mechanics. Mechanics are for support roles to play. When given a mechanic to play, they usually fail it. Spectacularly. And looking purely at PUGs it's not hard to see why, they have no idea what bashing or interrupting is, for starters. For example, the tank is pinned (Cradle of Shadows) and needs teamwork to get free? More likely, the tank will probably just die and then get called garbage for dying when it was up to the other three members of the group to free them, but they were completely oblivious because hurr durr monkey push buttons, monkey do DPS. Same thing for AoEs. They'll just sit there getting toasty rather than move, and then call the healer a "fake healer" because they didn't heal enough.

I, for one, have mained a tank in ESO since the beginning (started on a templar tank and moved to DK due to a narrow-minded end game scene at the time (2014~2016)) and enjoyed playing it in the content that tanks were and are required (dungeons and trials) and never found it to be boring. I started playing with a friend and we did most of the overland content together; myself on tank and them on DD. That was before we even had CP. I have since made and played every class as a tank and find each one brings something different and, in some cases, those things are more desirable than others, especially regarding group composition. Same thing with the healer role. All the way through trifectas like Godslayer (Hand of Alkosh) and Dawnbringer.

I don't find tanking to be boring. The context here: I suppose you could say I'm one of those "sweaty" players who will always aim to be better, to improve myself, to get higher uptimes and increase my value to whatever group I'm in, helping to make the whole group better than the sum of its parts; not merely taunting and blocking. If you're referring to taunting and blocking, doing the absolute bare minimum expected of a tank then, yes, it's incredibly boring, at least for me. I couldn't play like that. Others may not think so. Tanking for me has never been boring because I always have something to do, something which could always be done better.

Counter: I find doing DPS somewhat mind-numbing. All you need to do is WASD (or dodge) to avoid AoEs and mash the number buttons in the appropriate order to win. Which is why I occasionally like to play DD to take a break from tanking. But I like playing all roles for different reasons, not least among the reasons is that by playing all roles you become better at any one given role due to the different perspectives and the experiences that comes with them.

jaws343 · June 2022

I used to run my tank fairly regularly, but now mostly stick to my DPS.

Why?

Well, when the group is doing poorly, my tank is just kind of stuck there along for the ride. I can tank out bosses for a while, but if the DPS isn't staying alive, or isn't doing significant damage, well, the run is a bust. One of the last runs I was in, prior to backseating my tank, was a normal random Banished Cells 2. Ended up in a group with all sub-50 players besides myself as a tank. We get a few bosses into the dungeon and the group, besides myself, kept wiping to add waves during one of the boss fights. And the damage was so low, that during that fight where the boss jumps in portals, the DPS barely did a few percent of damage to the boss (if they weren't dying to the adds) before she jumped into the next portal.

Conversely, on my DPS, if I end up in a terrible group, and depending on the dungeon, I can just carry it, or at the very least, make up for poor performances of other players. I remember once having to solo the Ogres in scalecaller because the rest of the group kept dying. Couldn't possibly do that on a tank.

The outcome of many encounters are far more within your control as a DPS than they are as a tank, which makes tanking kind of a drag. Now, there are certainly fights where a poor tank is going to cause the run to fail as well, but those are much, much rarer.

JanTanhide · June 2022

It's smaller than Healer and definitely smaller than DPS. Seems like we all want to run damage which is really what the game is based on.

With that said I have three Tanks and really enjoy Tanking. I've tanked most of the Vet DLC's (not the latest yet) and really have fun doing so.

As a few others have posted I won't just hop into a Vet DLC dungeon on my Tank without first running it to learn the mechanics in Normal mode or in Vet with friends so we can all learn the dungeon mechanics. It's not fun PUGGING a dungeon in Vet on my Tanks if I don't know the mechanics. I won't do that to others who for the most part expect the Tank to know the mechanics (in Vet at least) for a PUG run.

Many times when I do the daily pledges in Vet I get groups of players (some well over 2,000 CP) that have no idea how to play their character(s). It's a bit strange to me how some players can reach these high CP levels and have no idea how their character works.

I've seen the Pet Sorc build in Imperial City Prison Vet just sit there and "Light attack, Shield, Activate Pet" over and over and over. Like....don't you have anything else to do? LOL. Bow builds that just light attack, snipe, heavy attack and stand in the red and die.

So yes, there is a lower population of Tanks in the game and I think part of it is because we just don't want to spend an hour running FG1 (just an example folks) in Vet with three others that only know how to light attack.

Also, Streamers. Oh my, some Streamers are the worst to run with in my opinion. Especially those that play those little games in their streams with those little Bots. I don't know what it's called but I see it a lot.

If you get a Streamer in your group often (in the times I've seen it happen) the Streamer just stops in the middle of the dungeon to play the mini game with their viewers. That doesn't help the others in the group get the dungeon completed.

One more thing I want to add about Vet DLC PUGS: When I Tank a Vet DLC PUG I do so with plenty of time allotted. I won't rush and I take the time for others in the group to learn the dungeon if needed. It's a game and it should be fun. I understand some just want to get it done quickly but in a PUG run I don't think we should expect that to happen. So relax and have fun.

HerrKeinTipp_MrNoTip · June 2022

drsalvation wrote: »

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.

Fantastic writeup of a really insightful view!

Jpk0012 · June 2022

ESO is very tank unfriendly.

A lot of content tanks aren't needed. If you have a tank chances are you are only pulling it out to run a dungeon with. This is not true for healers, that can just run a damage bar and be useful in other content where heals aren't needed.

Also, more and more content is just a mobility/twitch test. Tanks in PvP are pointless, because PvP is all about burst and no good player is going to target a tank first, even so a tank is probably just going to get burst down, anyways due to resistance caps.

Amottica · June 2022

ForzaRammer wrote: »

Because most tanks don't want to waste time with below average damage dealers, and are not good at kicking them

I honestly tried. After leveling my tank and guild mates warned me about tanking for random groups in the GFI still tried to help the GF.

After dealing with tanking for various GF groups with low DPS and/or oblivious to obvious mechanics, I can across a group that could not kill Urata in CoA II even though I would pull the adds in and keep them rooted. I also had a similar issue with a random group in Direforst where they would not break the stun fast enough so she just healed up. THey also kept dying to her PBAOE which is very obvious when it will happen.

Why should tanks queue for a random group and have these experiences when they can easily avoid it?

SpiritofESO · June 2022

starlizard70ub17_ESO · June 2022

I found for me, running either my DKstam or TemplarStam as a tank, becomes pretty boring once you've learned the skill rotation and gear set up. The only excitement usually comes from running in pugs with DPS or healers who can't do either.

Elendir2am · June 2022

ESO has changed from favoring DDs when I started, to punishing tanks at present time.

My first character was DK tank. I enjoyed to do group content with him, although solo content was tedious boredom.
However, ZOS has been finding new way how to screw tanks constantly that I started to lose all entuziasm.

I stopped to do veteran trials as tank at first. Then one day, I decide to try DK DDs. I planned to use armory to jumping between tank and DD setting.
It is half of year I didn't use tank template. Playing as DD is soooo much more fun, that I dont see any reason to switch back.

Magio_ · June 2022

Amottica wrote: »

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?

A barrier of entry in terms of parse checks for DPS, at least for Veteran dungeons. The amount of times I've had to swap my Healer to DPS to pick up the slack of DPS players that shouldn't be queueing for Vet dungeons so it actually gets completed is too many to count.

DigiAngel · June 2022

I enjoy the heck out of tanking. I have a main tank, and 3 alts. The three alts all are DK's, have TremorScale/Dark Convergence/Ebonheart. I haven't tanked in a while because...honestly there's no point to it for me right now. I don't need the crystals, and I've all but given up on getting the medium shoulders I've been wanting (settled on light...guess that's good enough). I used to run all 4 every day getting all the dailies and pledges, but now..eh..once in a while maybe.

bmw · June 2022

Unfortunately......and ultimately it comes down to knowing the mechanics and leading. I would tank but I lead people all day 5 days a week 10 hrs a day. I DONT want to do it in a game where I come to relax. I prefer to heal. SO MUCH easier.

zaria · June 2022

DD is the default role as you need damage to do the content. Level up an resto staff and you are an healer.
Tanks are next level, at this point you probably are in so many friendly guilds you don't bother to pug.

I mostly stopped tanking as its so many tanks wanting to do pledges and stuff.

francesinhalover · June 2022

in most games now a days tanks deal dmg, on eso tanks just feels boring. a fix would be to give the role damage too and more tools for aggro, but pvp exists so rip

Paralyse · June 2022

It would be helpful if this game, as some other games do, had zones specifically designed as tutorials for the three roles (dps, healer and tank) to teach players new to that role the bare fundamentals needed to start with. WoW had something like this (I forget the name) that players could queue for to "qualify" for progressively more difficult content -- that restriction was dropped, but the training system is still there

Those are basically instances where the player and some NPC's are the only things there - no other players
With situations (scripted events) that teach each skill and then a final situation that pulls everything together.

Tank instance trainer: taunt, block, roll dodge, chains/ranged taunt, sword & board, self heals, self shields, debuffs, bashing/interrupting, recognizing when one of your groupmates is being targeted

Healer instance trainer: single target / aoe heals, hot's, player & group damage shields, buffing the group, positioning to make sure your heals and buffs are hitting the group, purges, recognizing when someone is critically low on hp

Dps instance trainer: single target vs aoe, light attacks, LA weaving, heavy attacks, blocking, moving out of bad stuff, melee/ranged interrupts, self heals/self shields, execute when below X% health, combat resurrect, etc

It would be 100% optional and repeatable any time. For players who just want to practice dps/tanking/healing without the pressure of real players.

Another thing that might help is adaptive solo content, where the hp/damage of things you are fighting automatically adjust based on your role. Such systems allow tanks and healers to complete overland content in about the same time as dps would complete the same content.

GrizzlyTank · June 2022

Well, decided to try again and if it's more than one enemy then just... No...

It just feels really messy flailing your camera around to get aggro on every enemy.

Hamiltonmath · June 2022

I often fake tank normals, and vet hm (not dlc). We usually get trifectas and I usually get yelled at because the boss will be free for like 2-3 seconds. Just dodge once if I lose taunt, sheesh. And before I get pooped on for not having 50k health as a tank, I'm responsible for taunt and adds, that's it. Stop yelling at me if I outparse you.

DagenHawk · June 2022

It's been my experience that no matter how legitimate a Tank is someone is going to screech "Fake Tank"

It's just not worth it to even try anymore.

S0Z0H · June 2022

AvalonRanger wrote: »

Why decent tank population is so small?

Many people complain about fake tank or healer in group activity.
Especially in PUG team in random dungeon. Before build my DPS character,
I never believe those complaining, until I actually met fake tank player as sign
in DPS character at queue.

So.....many.....fake. (except decent style low CP tank)

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

Then...

Sometimes, normal dungeon become solo public dungeon because of fake role players.
This is totally nonsense. Do it with decent tank, we can finish normal dungeon run really first.
Especially in Lead hunting or gear farming right?

So....

Why decent tank population is so small?

For more experienced players with stronger toons, the normal dungeon content mechanics can almost always be skipped to opt for just burning the boss, just everyone going in and doing damage.

That's why many people don't need to hop on their tank toons or look for a tank from a guild.

Once you do more Vet dungeons or trials, real tanks are more common, but even in those , a good amount of players can just burn the boss, as they say, just focusing giving damage, then in many cases too for the vet or end game content, mechanics can be skipped there too, if there's enough dps.

Real tanks are out there, just a lot of players don't feel it's really needed if they think the content isnt that difficult.

When I first started playing years ago, I felt the same way though, I was angry at all the fake tanks, but later I did it myself out of convience.

Tanking also usually requires you to kind of direct the battle , and some people don't want that responsibility. They just wanna kill things or sit back and heal. Tanks are basically the leaders.

Also, if u que up as a tank , u get a way faster match making experience and u get to ur dungeon pronto

KaGaOri · June 2022

Got interested in support roles and wanted try something more involved than healing. Tried to build tank, but got hit with problem looking like this:

As a DD one naturally learns to hit stuff just by playing the game. Then there's dummy to train on to do higher damage. As a tank one has to acquire whole new set of player skills rest of the game doesn't really prepare for. Kind of failed to find place where to start and learn the basics and now have 1700 cp tank who can't reliably taunt multiple targets, isn't sure what can be blocked and what has to be rolldodged and fails at resource management on occasion.

As tanking beginner can't jump directly into "desperately needs powerfull tank" content and content which isn't difficult to tank can be soloed by strong DDs and is populated by speedrunners. Both is frustrating - either won't get to do anything and can barely keep up with the group, or will make mistake and cause group wipe.

Then there is expectation of tank knowing every mechanic in every dungeon, need to farm way too many different sets, plus questing in overland sucks, since everything takes forever to die.

Tanking just isn't casual fun like playing DD and ZOS does very little to make it easier or more atractive.

wolfie1.0. · June 2022

AvalonRanger wrote: »

Why decent tank population is so small?

Many people complain about fake tank or healer in group activity.
Especially in PUG team in random dungeon. Before build my DPS character,
I never believe those complaining, until I actually met fake tank player as sign
in DPS character at queue.

So.....many.....fake. (except decent style low CP tank)

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

Then...

Sometimes, normal dungeon become solo public dungeon because of fake role players.
This is totally nonsense. Do it with decent tank, we can finish normal dungeon run really first.
Especially in Lead hunting or gear farming right?

So....

Why decent tank population is so small?

Better question: why do you not want to tank all of the time?

Also, I think you answered part of your own question as well. When you have the ability to build a character that deals damage while aslo being a pseudo tank/healer you get problems.

AvalonRanger · June 2022

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

AvalonRanger wrote: »

Why decent tank population is so small?

Many people complain about fake tank or healer in group activity.
Especially in PUG team in random dungeon. Before build my DPS character,
I never believe those complaining, until I actually met fake tank player as sign
in DPS character at queue.

So.....many.....fake. (except decent style low CP tank)

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

Then...

Sometimes, normal dungeon become solo public dungeon because of fake role players.
This is totally nonsense. Do it with decent tank, we can finish normal dungeon run really first.
Especially in Lead hunting or gear farming right?

So....

Why decent tank population is so small?

Better question: why do you not want to tank all of the time?

Also, I think you answered part of your own question as well. When you have the ability to build a character that deals damage while aslo being a pseudo tank/healer you get problems.

Yea, simply say, just like that. Most good replay. You're very smart man.
I'm tired of being tank all the time. It's a disgusting role rather than boring.

According to my latest tanking experience...

There're too many effortless and irresponsible bad DPS player everywhere.
They usually ignore situation and pacing. Keep standing dangerous zone just like the statue,
and kill themselves so many time. Even I nailed boss character at the corner of room, They're
doing same careless, and not much helpful. If it's normal dungeon, then It'll be OK. But in Vet,
no thanks. Please stay in normal run only.

More badly, those type of player keep blaming tank or healer because of their own fault
with very crude word. Being PUG tank is very stressful moment.

So I'm enjoying DPS moment now, but I encount fake tank so many times also.
Then, we can't become pure DPS anymore. That is conclusion of this thread.

AvalonRanger · June 2022

KaGaOri wrote: »

Got interested in support roles and wanted try something more involved than healing. Tried to build tank, but got hit with problem looking like this:

As a DD one naturally learns to hit stuff just by playing the game. Then there's dummy to train on to do higher damage. As a tank one has to acquire whole new set of player skills rest of the game doesn't really prepare for. Kind of failed to find place where to start and learn the basics and now have 1700 cp tank who can't reliably taunt multiple targets, isn't sure what can be blocked and what has to be rolldodged and fails at resource management on occasion.

As tanking beginner can't jump directly into "desperately needs powerfull tank" content and content which isn't difficult to tank can be soloed by strong DDs and is populated by speedrunners. Both is frustrating - either won't get to do anything and can barely keep up with the group, or will make mistake and cause group wipe.

Then there is expectation of tank knowing every mechanic in every dungeon, need to farm way too many different sets, plus questing in overland sucks, since everything takes forever to die.

Tanking just isn't casual fun like playing DD and ZOS does very little to make it easier or more atractive.

If you can kill world boss by solo, but can't kill Elyswer dragon by solo.
Then, that build is cross point at the graph.

ccfeeling · June 2022

Tanking is pretty relaxing to me , low dps , just kill mobs slowly , I will wait , DPS down , no problem , I will rev them , healer down , no problem , I can self healing ...

No stress , never , unless achievement run

AvalonRanger · June 2022

ccfeeling wrote: »

Tanking is pretty relaxing to me , low dps , just kill mobs slowly , I will wait , DPS down , no problem , I will rev them , healer down , no problem , I can self healing ...

No stress , never , unless achievement run

Agree, I have same experience like you. But If I do solo killing, sometime high CP DPS blame me,
because I couldn't revive. Low or High Lv is meaningless for the tank. If DPS die by careless,
then it's a just useless canon.

Kingpindragon · June 2022

I once tank a pug trial, back when ice staff taunted. Long story short I couldn't keep taunt and the much of the group cussed me out BAD. Turn out to be a dps taunting. No one apologized. I decide to never tank a pug again. Too much trauma lol