Greetings, glorious adventurers! If you're joining in our Alpha One spot testing, please follow the steps here to see all the latest test info on our forums and Discord!
Options
Taunt and Tank viability in PvP
zeyji
Member
Having played many MMOs both PvE and PvP I have often found the issue of tanks being a bit less useful than Healers/DPS in PvP. One system which did a great job of making tanks useful in PvP was SWTOR. For everyone who didn't play it: Each tank has a guard which he can place (and switch) on a group member. If the guarded players stands within a certain range of the tank, 50% of the damage is redirected to the tank as well as some damage reduction. Also taunt does decrease the damage a target deals when hitting a player other than the tank while under the taunt effect.
This does not mean that this system should be copied but it is to showcase that there are great ways to make tanks viable in PvP aside from Crowd Control and just absorbing a ton of damage. Because in most MMOs this alone will not make tanks a used specc in PvP. Do you guys know other great usages of taunt or other tank mechanics for PvP? I only played WoW, GW2, SWTOR and FF14 so there are surely more great options
This does not mean that this system should be copied but it is to showcase that there are great ways to make tanks viable in PvP aside from Crowd Control and just absorbing a ton of damage. Because in most MMOs this alone will not make tanks a used specc in PvP. Do you guys know other great usages of taunt or other tank mechanics for PvP? I only played WoW, GW2, SWTOR and FF14 so there are surely more great options
3
Comments
GW2 for example has "tanks" but they dont really FEEL like a tank if you know what i mean? You would think that the GUARDIAN or warrior class would be tanks, but no: the trickster (mesmer) class is the tank in the current meta.
If they implemented a threat system, where dps classes are actually punished for overaggroing a boss or overpulling extra mobs, then i think more people would appreciate good tanks more. A system, where you actually contributed by giving the dps classes more breathing space for dealing their damage.
The other thread was about tanks in PvP, this is more general i believe^^
But yeah i would also like the taunt to be applicable in PvP.
If you know Karma from LoL, then something like her bind animation (where the tank and the target are linked by a translucent link), to signify them being taunted.
However, that by itself doesn't make a tank viable in PvP. They need to offer more - as there is no situation where that damage absorption ability is more useful than if that tank were instead a healer.
To me, every class needs to bring a little bit more than it's archetype would suggest in order to be a worthwhile class in PvP. This means that DPS need to be able to do a little bit more than just dealing damage and healers need to be able to do a little bit more than just healing allies.
In terms of tanks though, they need to be able to do their primary task - which is attracting enemy attention - before they worry about any secondary aspect of the class such as damage absorption.
As long as tanks are unable to force the enemy to attack them (either willingly or unwillingly), then there is no point bringing a tank along in PvP situations instead of a different class.
I believe that Steven stated to not like hard-CC abilities, and that they will try to prevent widespread hard cc as much as possible, with relatively long CD or short durations.
Skills that we know have hard CC currently:
Soul Paralyse - Locks down user and targeted enemy (Cleric)
Shield Might - Single target knockdown or stun (Tank)
Ice Prison - Paralyze single target enemy (Mage)
Shieldthrow - Stun first target hit at Rank 3 (Tank)
Impale - Pull single target enemy to user at Rank 1, Stun enemy at rank 2 (Tank)
Proximity Chain Stun - Mark targeted area and all enemies that leave it will be stunned. (Cleric)
Skills with soft CC:
Tentacles - AoE that roots targets (Mage)
Trap - Roots single target (can be upgraded to stun) (Ranger)
Snare - Root single target (Ranger)
Tanks currently have the highest amount of hard CC abilities.
That's because GW2 was never designed around a holy trinity class system. It wasn't until players asked for end-game content (i.e. raids) that the devs tried to ham-fist in healing and tanking into the mix. The results were......rubbish to say the least.
You know it's funny, the best "taunt" skill I've seen for tanks didn't actually come from an mmorpg, but from an anime - Log Horizon. In Log Horizon there is a skill called "Anchor Howl" which is an aoe taunt. When used in PvP it doesn't stop enemy players from attacking other targets, but if they try to attack anyone other than the tank they will get hit by a huge counter-attack from the tank.
Oh my god, i totally forgot that xD
Loved Log Horizon, and their classes.
Tanks should be more resistant to CC effects as well as actually focused on survival. If they were a big enough threat on a PvP battlefield, then enemies would focus fire on them first and then move on to the squishier targets. Which is how it ought to play out anyway.
I think taunts should do what Anchor Howl does it Log Horizon though. You taunt, they ignore you, instead of them doing less damage to others, you should do massive damage to them. That puts more pressure on them targeting and attacking their taunter, or risk being obliterated.
That anchor howl sounds like a pretty cool ability.
I do have some concerns as to the viability of tanks in pvp, really need to see how alpha 1 shapes up to get an idea of the direction of abilities and uses.
I think as a temporary skill that'd be good. Archeage does a really good job of tanks being useful in PvP. Out of the defense tree alone you could do a combo that would grant you a 20m shout skill that debuffed the enemy's combat stats while also forcing them to target you. The tree also had stuff like a skill that granted some cc immunity to an ally for a few seconds, a single target long range pull, and a temporary wall you could put up to create a choke point. Archeage in general I think did a great job at getting skills right to make every role feel useful in PvP.
To me, the issue with tanks in PvP is that - unlike any other class - tanks roles are totally different in PvE vs PvP.
To me, this is actually stupid.
If a game can't find a way to make every class perform the same function in PvP as it does in PvE, then the game shouldn't implement PvP at all.
Right now, in almost any game on the market, if you come across a tank, healer and DPS in PvP, the order you would attempt to kill them would be healer > DPS > tank. The tank takes the longest to kill, and in almost all games offers the smallest threat to you and your group - so why would you treat it as anything other than an annoyance to be cleared off after the actual fight...
All that survivablity that tanks have, and all it does in almost all games on the market is delay them from rejoining their friends after the battle has been lost - a point in time where the other two are probably lamenting the fact that you rolled a tank rather than a second DPS character.
In order to makes tanks worthwhile in PvP - make them a class that people actually want to take along - the game needs to make it so that players going up against that same trio would look at the tank as the first target they need to take down.
If you a tank is not the first class that players want to take out, then the player playing the tank would have been better off with a different class, as anything they could be doing other than being the focus of the enemies damage output could be better done by another class.
They have marginal use in holding points for PvP scenarios that have such mechanics, but for actual open world PvP - where the idea is to kill the enemy rather than hold some makeshift flag for pretend points - they are completely pointless.
Now, to be perfectly fair, very few games have PvP in the open world, and so players that haven't played such a game probably aren't aware of how useless tanks are when there is no artificial point you need to hold. Additionally, in open world PvP, players can far more readily come at you from any side, so the idea of a tank trying to protect DPS and healers by standing between them and the enemy doesn't hold up very well. Add to that the fact that in Ashes, respawn points will be somewhat random - meaning players that are killed and rejoin the fight literally can come from anywhere.
When the point of a PvP exchange is simply to kill the other group of players - a character that can't do much damage, can't heal and can easily be walked around and ignored serves no purpose.
Now, if you want to claim that tanks have marginal use in objective based, arena (and maybe siege) PvP, that's fine, you can have that.
However, while I'll give you that, if you have tanks with you in open PvP, I'll have your caravan.
Then @Wandering Mist responded with this :
I am for the anchor howl from log horizon, this ability is suitable for a tank in pvp.
Regarding a TANK usefulness in pvp, Aion did a wonderful job at making the Templar a strong class in in the hand of a good user. It is resilient with his CC resistances, it got a decent amount of self-sustainability and CC, its use of the shield and grab is what contributed a lot to its efficiency and identity in pvp. It also have a not so bad dps and huge burst capabilities, paired with strong buffs, with very long CDs which provide a huge powerspike. Making this strength also a weakness, the class is a lot less threatening after you burn up your ressources. The class does not become weak, but is quite easy to bully after. It can also protect its teammates in many ways, with some buffs/shield, single target heal, the skill bodyguard that shields a group member for 100 % damage taken. The user take X%* of it's damage within 25m range. (*scale with the skill level).
The downside is that if you play well against templar, all the classes have enough tools to kite it to the moon. So it requires a very good follow and often an extended weapon.
Well, there is a lot more to say, but basically they made it in a way that indeed you get killed in last because of the tankiness, but you have tools to efficiently protect your teammates paired with a decent amount dps/CC and huge burst, on the downside you can get kited easily and to be efficient you need a lot more game knowledge & mastery than other classes. Its efficiency is also heavily dependent on the gears.
The way I would see a well made TANK class, is something more or less close to these strengths and weaknesses. So that you play around those strengths and compensate for the weaknesses with an adapted gameplay.
This is one thing that worries me. The skills we've seen so far for tank, mage, ranger, cleric are a pretty standard MMO lineup, so I'm kind of expecting the same PvP meta behaviour as previous MMOs - but that's excluding augments, which could change everything.
Yeah, but as you say, the skills we have seen are pre-augments.
The game would really be shit if the skills listed were ss we are going to use them in game, but they are the skills you have before you modify them in to the skills you'll use.
But then the Taunt must function on a timer rather than threat. Or have it function in pvp differently than pve.
Why? A standard taunt FORCES the target to attack them for a specific duration right? Just make it so that the taunt decreases the damage dealt to targets other then the caster are reduced by x amount for the same length as the taunt duration...
Completely agree with this. Outside of holding zones in pvp, which is really just buying time for dps to get there since you can't do anything, tanks have almost no use in pvp in recent games. Even in large scale open world pvp, zergs of dps are the normal end result. There just isn't a reason to keep someone whose main trait is not dying, when you could have some else who just kill the enemy problem solved. I'm hoping the solid collision system will give them some new uses, especially in sieges, where there should be more possible bottlenecks.
As in a root effect?