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Sentinel Ideas!
Unscathed
Member
Hi, I've just recently began to do some research into AOC and am becoming extremely intrigued woth the game, it's systems, and the potential of it's class and archetype combinations. One class in particular has me super excited because I have hope that it could finally be a potential proper ranged based tank: the sentinel! A ranger first and a tank second. Imagine it:
A crossbow in main hand, a shield in the off. Heavy armor leg, boot and helmets with medium chest piece (for aiming mobility, of course). The medium chest piece is ok anyway, because that's where the shield comes in! Now that I have the badass vision of appearance out of the way, on to some of the abilities that could be used.
The crossbow could shoot special bolts that draw aggro, maybe do elemental damage, explosive bolts to knock back, or even tranq bolts that cause enemies to sleep to help mitigate damage, the possibilities are endless! Even without all of the fancy elemental effects, the crossbow could just be used to mostly dish out damage, pull mobs, utility, etc. You could draw enemies in with your bow, leading them into traps you set or just have them straight up go toe to toe... if they dare. Then comes the shield, this bad boy not only would be used for protection, but could also be used to knock enemies back and stun them to mitigate damage (kinda what tanks do, also beneficial for rangers). There could be bombs, vials, many creative ways to add utility and fun ways to deal damage and manipulate mobs and aggro that would all make perfect sense for a cross bow, heavy armor and shield toting maniac! Just the sheer number of possibilities make me salivate and feel like a kid again. If you make the sentinel or any other class even close to a proper ranged tank like this, you have my sub, and you will always have my sub. Hope the devs see this and take some inspiration! Thanks for reading and would LOVE everyone's opinions on my vision.
A crossbow in main hand, a shield in the off. Heavy armor leg, boot and helmets with medium chest piece (for aiming mobility, of course). The medium chest piece is ok anyway, because that's where the shield comes in! Now that I have the badass vision of appearance out of the way, on to some of the abilities that could be used.
The crossbow could shoot special bolts that draw aggro, maybe do elemental damage, explosive bolts to knock back, or even tranq bolts that cause enemies to sleep to help mitigate damage, the possibilities are endless! Even without all of the fancy elemental effects, the crossbow could just be used to mostly dish out damage, pull mobs, utility, etc. You could draw enemies in with your bow, leading them into traps you set or just have them straight up go toe to toe... if they dare. Then comes the shield, this bad boy not only would be used for protection, but could also be used to knock enemies back and stun them to mitigate damage (kinda what tanks do, also beneficial for rangers). There could be bombs, vials, many creative ways to add utility and fun ways to deal damage and manipulate mobs and aggro that would all make perfect sense for a cross bow, heavy armor and shield toting maniac! Just the sheer number of possibilities make me salivate and feel like a kid again. If you make the sentinel or any other class even close to a proper ranged tank like this, you have my sub, and you will always have my sub. Hope the devs see this and take some inspiration! Thanks for reading and would LOVE everyone's opinions on my vision.
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Plate Mail, spear and Bow. Thats what i imagine a Sentinel to be. Still a ranger, maybe a bit less mobility but more damage reduction.
I would assume an Archer first tank second would be closer to a damage mitigation support than a tank. Like laying down suppressive fire to reduce movement and maybe damage. Or seeing how some games make versions of tanks that involve trapping (I.e. the dragon Hunter I think from Guild wars 2) an Archer tank might involve using traps, zone control, or decoys.
The protector of the white tree are great
The bash move that I was suggesting wouldn't throw the enemy super far or anything, it would just knock them back just far enough for a few seconds to keep them at a range to mitigate some damage. If moving around a little bit is annoying for the melee DPS, then that's a bit lazy and minor mobility could add a little depth to the combat anyway. The tank doesn't have to be the ONLY character that moves around a little. As for why should there be a ranged tank if it'll be melee distance anyway? Because this is a role playing game! It's all for the flavor. All of these ideas can be tweaked accordingly, of course. This is just a rough draft.
ranged tanks can work just fine, just design some of the bosses around ranged tank being more advantagous. Which really isn't a hard thing to do. it usually includes the bosses having primarily ranged abilities and some effects that make melee tanks a bit harder/less effective to execute @Wandering Mist
It would have to be a very very niche set of mechanics to make it worth taking a "ranged tank" while at the same time not gimping the melee dps, and to me it isn't worth it.
What niche set are you talking about? There is dozenss of things you can implement, that would favor a ranged tank over a melee tank without bothering melee dps at all, the same way there is dozensof things that you can implement, that favor an evasion tank over a pure mitigation tank. Mechanic wise you really aren't limited at all, except one thing: the boss can't chase after the tank like a mad dog aka either be ranged himself or stationary.
In terms of tank balance (pve) there is one simple truth: You have to design bossfights that favor one over the other or most of the tanking choices will be simply subpar. Literally the only way to ensure, that people aren't being bullied/excluded/seen unfavorably for their choice of prefer tankclass/spec is and will always letting the guilds know, that they will periodically need said tank spec or they'll shoot themselves into the kneecap.
Don't get me wrong, things like a ranged tank will never be the primary tank for a guild, simply because his strengths can't be utilized in many fights. However, providing them with the opportunity to excel in let's just say 1/5th to 1/10th of the fights goes a very long in making them a meaningful and interesting way to play the game.
Alternating in your boss design to a point, where ranged tanks, evasion tanks, mitigation tanks and possibily even reflection or sustain tanks have a non meme place to exist:
Alright then, design a boss fight that favours a ranged tank over a melee tank that doesn't also affect the melee dps.
Just to clarify once more. I'm not talking about kiting the boss at all. That's just a terrible idea as it would punish most melees DPS far too much. A class designed around kiting bosses would indeed be a terrible idea as that would end up with raid teams benching melee dps for ranged dps.
But here we go. Let's start out with the easy ones (aka past examples):
Mimiron during the Raid of Uluar in WotLK had a ranged tank for phase 3 and 4 as the primary tank. (Amusingly enough, while not realling having a ranged tanking class i nthe first place
or... warlocks tanking Kaelthas, Mage Tanks tanking the council in black temple. A Mage Tank tanking Krosh Firehand in Gruul's Lair, Warlock tanks in the blood countil, ilidan p3 and icecrown citadel
Just a few examples (primarily restricted to WoW for now) for bosses that had a ranged tank as part of the boss design for varying reasons. Wildstar a couple of those as well. Engineers (Their version of medium ranged, sligthly less tanky tanks) very favored as primary tank in multiple bossfights and secondary tank role in some others.
Ranged Boss (basics) Attacks are mostly are given in all of these bossfights. As you said, a melee boss, that isn't stationary are usually not very accessible for ranged tanks, at least in raid environments. Minibosses - Addbosses and Adds could often be taken by a ranged tank (at a melee range if necessary)
Just a couple of mechanics, that would indeed favor a ranged tank over a melee one:
Just to get one more misconception out of the way:
We might be in sentinel thread, but i'm primarily talking about Tank Primary / Ranger secondary aka. the warden (or similar classes). Ranger primaries shouldn't tank actively.