Taunt and Tank viability in PvP

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

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Damokles

I think that the problem with current tanks is that threat is not managed in the right way most of the time.
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.

zeyji

Yeah I also remember the rezz-mesmer in GW2. In SWTOR tanks felt like tanks in my opinion (apart from the Dot-spread meta) and the damage reduction from a taunt felt like a fair punishment. It would also be interesting if a taunt would lock on the dps to the tank for a few seconds so they wouldn't be able to target anything else for the duration

Ventharien

There was actually another tank thread pretty recently where this came up. I like the the idea of damage reduction, but some people thought other after effects of the taunt might work better.

ataulfos

the idea around tanks in AoC is control the field so i hope there will be a lot of skills and ways of doing this from reducing damage to taunts and walls but im prety sure tanks will be very unique with theyr skills and how they have an impact in the battlefield, and haveing diferent off classes will allow tanks that rush in directly to the backline allowing them to resist the damage while trying to get the enemy healers to other kind of tanks that protect the front line or back line with tauns and stuff, depend on the skillset u build up the strategy u will use

Damokles

Ventharien wrote: »

There was actually another tank thread pretty recently where this came up. I like the the idea of damage reduction, but some people thought other after effects of the taunt might work better.

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.

Noaani

A damage absorption ability is a fairly useful tool in both PvP and PvE, and I would expect to see at least one or two tank classes in Ashes with it.

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.

Ventharien

Damokles wrote: »

The other thread was about tanks in PvP, this is more general i believe^^

The post title is taunt and tank viability in pvp. Or maybe it was edited.

Ventharien

@noaani Yeah i agree. Otherwise you get relegated to task oriented pvp scenarios (cap the flag, hold the point) almost exclusively. It would be cool if being a collidable object could make tanks more viable as battle field controllers, but that would work best with multiple tanks, and that would be like herding cats lol

Plateau

Hard CC is one of the strongest things in PvP, and tanks usually have the most or easiest-to-use CC. Plus, ya'know, taking less damage than everyone else is pretty nice. So I'm not worried about the viability of tanks (in group PvP at least).

Damokles

We have all to remember one important thing here:
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.

Wandering Mist

Damokles wrote: »

I think that the problem with current tanks is that threat is not managed in the right way most of the time.
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.

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.

Damokles

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

I think that the problem with current tanks is that threat is not managed in the right way most of the time.
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.

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.

Ventharien

Anchor howl was awesome!

WizardTim

High survivability makes tanks a potentially potent type on the battlefield. It's the trinity's over reliance on healers that really hurts tanks in this regard imo. Meaning the survival focused classes typically don't do much surviving on their own, ironically.

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.

Wandering Mist

Thinking about this a little more, a lot of it depends on what kind of pvp we're talking about. In a deathmatch where the objective is to just kill each other traditional tanks have little value. However, if the objective is to hold a capture point or run with a flag then tanks suddenly become godlike.

Varkun

IMO the fact that you have weight and can not pass through another person will add somewhat to a tanks presence.
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.

Bot

zeyji wrote: »

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

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.

Noaani

Damokles wrote: »

Tanks currently have the highest amount of hard CC abilities.

I would assume that by the time the game goes live, the support class will be the most effective CC class in the game.

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.

Bot

noaani wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

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.

This isn't true at all, a tank's role in PvP is surviving and disrupting. Tanks as a part of the environment that creates choke points by forcing the enemy to go around them or risk being cc'd. They're disruptors due to this as well as because they should be on the enemy's backline or protecting healers/dps from being attacked so they can survive longer. They do all of this while surviving so they can get off more rotations and maintain presence, especially in a situation where you need to keep an enemy off or away from something. Tanks become more and more useful to the point that they are essential for large scale PvP. Similar to how you probably wouldn't want a tank for killing a small group of mobs or mobs 1 by 1, but you'd definitely want a tank for something like a dungeon or large wave pve.

Damokles

bot wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

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.

This isn't true at all, a tank's role in PvP is surviving and disrupting. Tanks as a part of the environment that creates choke points by forcing the enemy to go around them or risk being cc'd. They're disruptors due to this as well as because they should be on the enemy's backline or protecting healers/dps from being attacked so they can survive longer. They do all of this while surviving so they can get off more rotations and maintain presence, especially in a situation where you need to keep an enemy off or away from something. Tanks become more and more useful to the point that they are essential for large scale PvP. Similar to how you probably wouldn't want a tank for killing a small group of mobs or mobs 1 by 1, but you'd definitely want a tank for something like a dungeon or large wave pve.

Where did you get that quote it is not from this thread...

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