Possible way to fix tank shortages: more damage.

Soarora · May 5

dmnqwk wrote: »

You'll never fix tanks by adding more damage, only by reducing the effort required to tank.

After 2 decades of tanking (I began my first couple of years as a healer) who pugs a lot, runs randoms with anyone and experiences various games' take on both tanking and dungeon finders I can categorically state that you won't increase the number of tanks just by increasing the numbers.

Tanking takes effort, more effort than dpsing.
Players want an easy option and pick that which requires the least effort - sure you will argue a few dont but that's why we have any tanks at all.

The only way to increase the number of tanks is give them an easier job than dpsing - forget taunts in randoms have every mob automatically taunted by the tank, so they 100% always attack them!

Coming from a background of enjoying high dps while tanking, I do tank less because of the low dps issue - but thats only after years of tanking in eso. What really puts me off tanking these days is I'm getting older and want to put the same amount of effort into the game as 95% of the player base - aka no effort.

And you can't do that as a tank.

Sometimes tanking is the easiest job though. While DPS and healers have to do dynamic rotations, in the same fight the tank could just taunt every so often and hold block. Sometimes you can also just not even hold block and just stand there. The CPM of a tank is the lowest of the 3 roles. I know it can also be the most difficult role depending on situation but just that— depends on the situation.

Elyu · May 6

As I have seen many others point out on these forums - it all stems from the fact that ESO is essentially a "DPS only" game, you don't NEED a tank or healer per se, just 1-2 people who can keep the DPS alive.

I've run random normals as "fake tank" where I'm carrying the rest of the group.

I've run DLC dungeons on vet mode on my "real" tank grouped with oakensoul heavy-attack players that make a wet noodle look OP.

I've run DLC dungeons on vet mode as healer with guildies running optimal arcanist DPS setups, and barely had time to cast some buffs before an add pack, or even a boss, is dead.

I've seen videos of score-pushing trifecta runs where for vet trial HM the tank is running a "fake tank" build and running as essentially a DPS with a taunt slotted.

From all of this we can see that the same "holy trinity" of tank+heal+dps.....simply doesn't fit very well into ESO's combat mechanics, and the "tank" and "heal" roles are defined by the community, and there isn't a whole lot of in-game incentive to improve in your given role (imagine if you gained increased gear drops depending on your contribution to the group!)