Why the hate for plate wearers #savethetanks

So in the R44 missed questions @DarkStarr said taunt and tanks should not be able to out aggro archers and mages in a fight. My question is then whats the point of having heavy armor or shields or defensive abilities or anything relating to being a defensive minded player. When in a boss fight if Ibam already doing less than half the damage of an archer or mage and giving up 4 to 6 of my ability slots for defensive abilities they all become meaningless if I cannot in some way force the mob to focus its damage on me. I become just a guy who takes up a slot in a group or raid that could and should be replaced by a more effective damage dealer. Boss fights then become just a simple race to see who can kill who fastest. There are plenty of other ways to make fighting enemies incur risk to the whole party without making an entire playstyle obsolete. We need to make tanks a viable option not just a waste of time and exp. #savethetanks

 

Mh? Can you link the statement?
If that's true i am rather puzzled why we have plate witht he deff skills at all.
Not to mention the question how to tank mobs and bosses.....^^

 

Fruck: Is taunt going to get another look? I asked it last time, then tested and I cannot hold aggro from decent archers. Rapid shot and the the damage and hit rate is impossible to overcome - even spamming taunt.
Currently taunt appears to be working as expected. It is expected that archers spamming rapid shot and multishot will be able to out taunt you. Lots of small hits generate more agro than a few big ones. Taunt is the best way to generate agro creatures but casters piling on dots and archers will likely always be able to out agro a tank. This is by design and, as in any game that uses agro, it is on them to be responsible and manage their agro.

While I agree to a point about dps spamming at the beginning of a fight the fact is taunt alone does not work well enough to establish anything and the way they have created their combat around spamming and even the new heat system encourages it. Also saying other games work just like this is a flatout lie I have tanked in other mmos and never have issues with aggro even with dps going all out

 

Still not sure if they want a different system from the "standart tanking" template or if that's a missconception.

 

If they wanted a system different from standard tanking then again why bother with all of the skills that are only useful for that direction and why compare with other games and say that yours is similar

 

besides.. they always change things around... if more people say it doesn't work then I'm sure they'll look into it again...

edit: you can even tag @Chris about aggro... he likes to change things... LOL

edit: in a way, I kinda understand what @DarkStarr is saying... an archer or a mage doing a continuous barrage of quick hits will out aggro a tanker's taunt...

again, we are in development so feedbacks like yours will help transform this game into a better game at launch... so keep your feedbacks and suggestions coming...

 

The implementation of taunt is not good for boss tanking, but it has it's uses elsewhere. To understand that you need to understand what taunt does, and it does 50 damage worth of agro as an AOE. So it is good for collecting lots of trash mobs agro, not so good for taunting to tank 1 mob

 

chain+shield+wand = mage tank guess the question is more towards why do single handed weapons suck so much or they actually expect the game to be a challenge where dps actually have to use skills to drop aggro and actually have to work to not pull off the tank?

 

I understand wanting to challenge dps but there are better ways to do so rather than marginalizing a playstyle and large chunk of skills. Also on the topic of taunt why does leveling it not do anything but lower the cooldown slightly. Taunt should become more and more effective and provide greater amounts of threat generation. Also as an idea defensive stance should increase threat generation amongst all skills amd double or triple the effectiveness of taunt.

 

No offense but why do you think NPCs should be stupid?
Just because there is one guy roaring in heavy armor while he is slamming his shield again and again in the face of one and the same enemy…why should the remaining enemy’s just focus on this guy?

Maybe this will mean that one heavy armor guy is keeping the strongest enemy busy while the remaining group tries to kill the other enemies and maybe this means there need to be 2-3 heavy armor users in a group of 8 and not just one…means you have an at least doubled chance to be part of a group and that isn’t bad either.

Thinking about it it could be even well-intentioned that they are not just focusing on one guy as heavy armor is not best suited for every kind of damage in SotA and someone else might be more resistant against some kind of damage because of his skills and gear. Maybe there are even some conditions possible where a mage in cloth armor would be the most suited “tank”.

And maybe you are doing lesser damage than a mage/archer but I’m quite sure that you most certainly in reverse receive lesser damage than said mage/archer, right? Every option you choose has advantages and disadvantages and it is up to yourself to pick what you like.

 

First of all this isnt a perfect little world that does or should ever work like the real world. It is a game an escape and should be treated as such. A little bit of realism goes a long way the fact is that you and people who think like you that everything should mirror life 100% are a poison to this or any other GAME. Now back on topic if a tank cannot get the mob to attack him his defensive abilities mean less than nothing. Fine I take less damage but if none ever comes my way whats the point. So because you want your perfect little second reality my playstyle should be completely and utterly invalidated and be made to be useless so that if I want to group up and play with others...which hello is the whole point of a multiplayer game... I become a liability. Another fact for you is the concept of a tank or upfront fighter who gets in the way of damage and protects his group mates is not new its been around since d&d edition 1 its just that in that game there is no real taunt the upfront fighters have trips and stuns and crowd control and actual competitive damage with their counterparts

 

Talking to them? No offense to you. (the NPCs I relish offending and want to kill.)

 

Sounds like it makes alpha damage shine in boss fights. You can do a ton of damage using charged attacks and aimed shot as an archer and it sounds like thatdoesnt generate as much aggro.

Is that the case? Cuz charged+aimed shot does aloooooot of damage

 

Yeaa.. we gave up working with taunt a while ago.

If im with a tank i literally cant use skills or aggro is with me. Every. Damn. Time.

The only way to avoid this is like 3 (escape?) Uses where you decrease aggro, and tank spamming taunt. But that quickly becomes annoying and is part of reason its easier to just switch to dps msge and run stupid amount of def skills. Boom mage tank.

Its a classless system! So ive been told in not allowed to refer to people as Mages or Tanks or Archers. So tske all notions of class roles out of it.
Want to be a tank? Run with ranged using all the def skills to get 80% avoid like evrryone else.
Or be a mage and just dps ans run def skills to 80% avoid like everyone else.

Otherwise... good luck lol.

Edit-- the npcs ARE stupid tho.. i can run circles for 40 min after i rapid fire it.. snd my tank just keeps lightly beating it to death. How is that smarter then being effected by a skill properly? Lol

 

Maybe I have to write some more.
The point is you engage most likely the strongest enemy and all surrounding enemies start attacking you too simply because you are the first in sight. Till this point all normal.
But if you are not alone there are also some other people in your group doing something like healing or throwing fireballs. The enemies must be quite focused (or dumb) to ignore everything your companions are doing as in the same situation just with avatars on both sides the healers could be shortly after starting the fight the ones who get most attention by damage dealers as their healing is maybe the most annoyance.

I would say for the one(s) you are bashing as “tank” it sounds reasonable that they keep focusing on you even if they would notice some healers in the background…as you are right in from of them to scratch and bite them. But the remaining enemies standing slightly away from the main event will have a better overview and if they would see there is a guy constantly healed they might think too that it would be wise to kill the healer. I mean no one of the enemies wants to die or wants to commit suicide…actually they most likely would like to kill you and your group and the next group and so on and that way I would guess they should act that way. They do not have to be incredible smart but they shouldn’t be dumb either.

And actually this would be a less “perfect little world” as you described it as the group might have to change its action depending on the enemies behavior and cannot fight the same fight with the same approach over and over again.

And why do you think you as a “tank” would be useless. As I said maybe a group would just need more than one of your kind. Just as an example instead of the “classic” 1T+1H+6D the most preferred group constellation could be 3T+2H+3D. Tank1 is engaging the boss and healer1 is keeping him alive, Tank2 and Tank3 are engaging a group of adds and are kept alive by healer2. Tank2+3 would often change their focused enemy to keep all adds engaged. The remaining 3D would have to choose depending on the situation do they kill the adds, just the most annoying adds or do they try to kill the boss first.
It could be simply possible that you alone are not able to protect a group and that this workload must be divided.

 

Sure I can deal with needing more than 1 tank in some situations that is common and expected when fighting a boss with powerful minions perhaps. However when going 1 on 1 with a boss like the pheonix or dragon however tanks are completely useless and bring no value to a group.

And @MrBlight thats kind of the purpose of this thread. Yes it is a classless system which has major detrimental balancing flaws, however to say that oh you should just be a mage or archer if you want to play this game and forget about playing what you want because it sucks, just totally negates the whole purpose of a classless system. What I want to play is a dude in heavy armor with a sword and shield who goes into battle with friends and is able to distract monsters and soak up the damage so his friends can worry about shooting their arrows and not standing in the fire.

The whole purpose of the classless system is to let people play what they want and change on the fly if they decide later to play something else. It should not mean that only 1 or 2 ways of playing are viable and "lol change playstyle newb" to everyone else. That is neither fun nor engaging and certainly does not promote community or longevity.

 

Not even sure what game you are playing. Boss fights in this game right now are just single target. Our comp generally when killing bosses or high level content is all DPS. Every once in a while someone wants to be a dedicated healer but cross healing works just fine. All the OP seems to want is to have tank skills to work which they don't currently do. An average sword and board player could never hold aggro from an average DPSer. That is why some people that I know who like to tank are picking up more healing skills or a bow. We use a dual wielding beserker with poison or a light armor archer most of the time to tank a boss.

It seems the OP just wants to have a role when raids or harder content comes out. This might mean balancing in other places as well.

 

• They don't want to trivialize tanks by simply have them disregard damage completely, stack as much defense as possible and then taunt.
• They don't want to trivialize DPS by simply maxing their damage output without consequence.

 

Actually no one is playing SotA...we are playing the alpha of SotA…that is or at least should be a difference.
Currently your impression might be true but I would guess this will change.

 

I think we are a little past Alpha since there are more wipes and the official release is right around the corner.

What I said is not an impression on the game, it's how the actual game is being played right now. I am sure things will continue to change, that is how MMOS work.