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Tools for Tanks in small scale group PvP
Maciej
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
One of the least fun things to experience as a tank in PvP is simply being a weak damage dealer with insufficient ability to protect your team mates, and watching your entire group being picked one by one. Being the last man standing on the losing team is a pretty bitter pill when you know that if you were a healer or even just a full damage dealer, you could have been on the winning team. Tanks are unique in their PvE trinity role in that the moment you step into PvP territory, the main tool in your arsenal - building threat - stops to function entirely, as it should, removing agency from other players would be worse than tanks being weak in PvP.
There are scenarios where tanks can be quite good in PvP regardless: 1v1, anything objective based (CTF or hold the ground), and large scale PvP (Javelin should do well there), but this is not this threat. This is small scale group PvP (3-8 people per group) where the only objective is to wipe the other team.
One game I think did tanks justice there was Warhammer Online, where all tanks shared the following two abilities:
Guard - which was a stance that transferred portion of the damage taken from a friendly target to the tank. This was plenty strong (though one had to be careful with it since getting aoe cleaved with the target you are guarding could kill you, and fast), and as far as I remember it didn't have a duration limit (though there was a hefty cooldown so you couldn't swap targets at will). Two healers would still be better protection than a tank and a healer, but the tank could still function as a (weak) damage dealer while guarding, which made quite a difference.
Taunt - on top of forcing the enemy NPC to attack the tank, taunt applied a damage output debuff on the target. This debuff didn't apply if the taunted person was attacking the tank, and it would disappear in few hits when the taunted person attacked the tank. This worked quite well in that it didn't force people to attack the tank (no loss of agency), but it heavily incentivized doing so, at least for a couple of seconds.
I'd be quite happy to see one or both of those appear in AoC in some form. If active Taunt is not a thing in AoC, having threat generating skills apply a stacking damage debuff on the target that you can reset by switching targets to the tank for a while could work just as well.
There are scenarios where tanks can be quite good in PvP regardless: 1v1, anything objective based (CTF or hold the ground), and large scale PvP (Javelin should do well there), but this is not this threat. This is small scale group PvP (3-8 people per group) where the only objective is to wipe the other team.
One game I think did tanks justice there was Warhammer Online, where all tanks shared the following two abilities:
Guard - which was a stance that transferred portion of the damage taken from a friendly target to the tank. This was plenty strong (though one had to be careful with it since getting aoe cleaved with the target you are guarding could kill you, and fast), and as far as I remember it didn't have a duration limit (though there was a hefty cooldown so you couldn't swap targets at will). Two healers would still be better protection than a tank and a healer, but the tank could still function as a (weak) damage dealer while guarding, which made quite a difference.
Taunt - on top of forcing the enemy NPC to attack the tank, taunt applied a damage output debuff on the target. This debuff didn't apply if the taunted person was attacking the tank, and it would disappear in few hits when the taunted person attacked the tank. This worked quite well in that it didn't force people to attack the tank (no loss of agency), but it heavily incentivized doing so, at least for a couple of seconds.
I'd be quite happy to see one or both of those appear in AoC in some form. If active Taunt is not a thing in AoC, having threat generating skills apply a stacking damage debuff on the target that you can reset by switching targets to the tank for a while could work just as well.
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A really cool ability ESO has that some tanky builds utlize is called negate. This ability casts an aoe silence and can really effect pvp especially in pivotal moments. Things like this help to define a tank and gives them a use in both worlds.
However you are right. Usually you lose the primarily role of a tank, reducing or taking the damage done by enemies to the party. Usually tanks in pvp are just tanky supports.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
The problem with tanks is that their threat role makes little logical sense. It's a game thing. NPCs should ignore them too. Threat is being perceived as dangerous. Low offence with high defence is a dot.
[/end opinion]
Proposed solutions:
For their taunt to make sense it would have to be a mind control effect. Turn their party members invisible (or everyone looking like him) to the taunted target(s). Area taunt ftw. You attack him because he's the only one you see (or you can't tell who's who).
They could have lots of crowd control to prevent people to get to their party. Slow, root, stun, knock down, charges with a knock back, ... Terrain control in short.
A caster flavour for tanking would be to put up magical barriers on party members. "Blink" an opponent somewhere else.
For tanks to have a role in pvp they must be more than meat shields.
The best way to solve this issue that I have seen is simply to make taunts work in PvP.
Tants have values, translate that value to a length of time, and make it so any enemy the tank casts a taunt on is forced to target that tank for that duration.
All of a sudden, a tanks role in PvP is the same as their role in PvE - which is really what the aim should be.
I'm not a huge fan of the forced taunt in PvP that you see in games like League of Legends, but what I would love is for a developer to use the "Anchor Howl" ability from Log Horizon.
When "Anchor Howl" is used on you, you aren't directly forced to attack the tank, but if you try to attack anyone else you get hit by a ton of damage. This to me is a lot more engaging gameplay that makes more sense in a pvp environment.
My issue with that is the lack of being able to see the person in question and target them.
I would be fine with this if it also included a target change to the tank, and if having this ability cast on you by a second tank, it cancels the first.
Without a forced target change, this ability would be far to frustrating to use in large scale combat, where there may be a dozen enemy tanks in range, and any number of them may appear as if they are mages, rangers or healers.
That's true, there would need to be some kind of indicator for which tank has taunted you, and a condition that you can only be taunted by one tank at a time.
Indeed.
I dont see a simply visual indication being enough - one need only look at the spell effects as they stand now to understand how hard it would be to spot anything actually important in very large scale combat.
I cant think of any indication that would work for something this instantaneously important, which is why I think a forced target change is a minimum requirement.
@Noaani's concern is quite valid here I think. Receiving damage is harder to ignore than simply having a damage output debuff as an incentive/punishment. With that said, Warhammer had massive Realm vs Realm PvP as one of its main pillars, I believe taunts simply didn't stack and "who has taunted me?" has never been much a problem in practice - the range was short enough that you could see who is taunting you, and in most cases they would do so to peel you off a healer or a glass cannon so it was easy to connect which tank had you in sights. If the scale of the battle was so large where that situation was too difficult to scan, as melee dps you likely had bigger problems already.
With that said, a debuff that damages you when you attack tank's allies should be fine if you apply it at melee or very close to melee range. If two tanks do it at once it should be fine to make the debuffs stack without stacking the effects, and then attacking either of the two tanks drop both debuffs. This way you disincentivize tanks from piling on the same target, which would be analog to PvE - you don't want two tanks on the same target unless they are doing some coordinated switching to manage boss mechanics.
AOO doesn't quite make sense in real time combat in MMO, but this made me think about flipping the threat buildup in PvP to apply a stacking "Threat" debuff that increases damage taken on the target, but only from the tank that is stacking the debuff. This way that tank you are ignoring will, over time, literally become an increasingly larger threat to you, until you switch targets and attack the tank to reset the debuff. It should be fine in PvE too.
Maybe have a popup on the HUD that said something like "player has taunted you, press hotkey to target them".
Of course, in order for the taunt to stay in effect the tank would need to stay within certain range of the target.
Some melee classes (likely rogues) could well have abilities firing off every three quarters of a second. Without a target change associated with this, it would mean they would have literal fractions of a second to react.
This kind of thing would work perfectly well for slow casting classes, but without a target change, an ability like this cast on a fast casting class could be devastating due to no fault of the player playing that character.
We know tanks get that wall ability, as well as the yoink ability and the frontal cone knockdown. Those are really good in groups, large and small.
If any of you played Warhammer Online, remember the Marauder pull? That was used to yoink the healers/casters one by one to the frontline, to be chewed up by your groupmates. The Marauder was a melee DPS and thus somewhat squishy compared to a tank, so there was some risk to doing the pulling. For a tank, this is a crazy strong ability combined with other CC to keep the target down, while your team mates wail on it, because they can stay alive while pulling.
In larger groups with multiple Marauders, I was often part of essentially daisy chain pulling a target from their back line to our back line where a murder squad was waiting for them. Basically a marauder ran up and pulled from their backline to their frontline, and another marauder stood ready to pull the same target further back behind our frontline to get murdered. It was very effective with practice.
If Intrepid is nice to tanks, giving them a cripple ability to reduce run speed of the opponent is just the icing on the cake, and they'll be dangerous enough on the battlefield to force the other side to deal with them, rather than ignoring them.
We don't know how "fast paced" the various classes will play just yet. What my suggestion will do is force a slightly more cautious playstyle that relies on picking your moment to attack and being much more aware of your surroundings than you would normally.
Whether that is a good or a bad thing is up for debate.
Basically, this would mean that all classes would effectively play the same in PvP, not because of what the class is, but because of what other classes force you to do.
To me, this means that the debate is about what is worse - forced target, or a forced PvP meta.
A few people have said this, yet no one has gone in to any detail of what would be bad about it.
To me, if tanks in PvP had taunts that forced you to target them, the basic strategy of PvP would be to kill the tanks first, or to run around them. Essentially, the fact that they can force you to attack them means that most players are likely to simply attack them first - again allowing the tank to fulfil the same role in PvP as they do in PvE.
Further, since there should be cooldowns on all taunts, there would absolutely be times where tanks have no taunts left up, meaning they need to play the resource management game with their abilities. Since the forced target wouldn't be more than 1 or 2 seconds (or, shouldn't be more than that), tanks won't be able to force players to attack them 100% of the time - though groups of tanks will be able to prevent rivals from attacking healers or DPS.
The main time I see this as being an issue is when you are faced with multiple tanks. To me, the simple solution to this is to treat taunt as the game would any other CC. If they have deminishing returns on stun, then have that on taunt. If they have immunity after a stun, have an immunity after a taunt.
Again, a lot of people have said they don't like the idea, yet no one has said *why* they don't like it.
I remember
CC - In a team fight, the tank is the front line and (usually) initiates collision with the enemy team.
Most LoL tanks have an ability or two that they use to cc anyone who gets too close - in this way they "Peel" for the back line, forcing enemies to find a different route to reach the back line. It doesn't even have to be hard cc - sometimes a slow is more than enough to stop an enemy getting into range of the back line. That said, the most effective tanks in LoL have large AoE hard CC abilities with long cooldowns. It's their big red button that they press to start the chaos (or to counterattack/turn the tide on a fight that already started)
AoE DoT - Most tanks also get an item with a "burning aura" doing DoT to nearby enemies - while this doesn't add too much advantage in a 1v1 - this quite naturally forces the enemy team as a whole to step back - coz the damage output of the DoT adds up quickly the more people are affected by it (The tank becomes a walking AoE). Likewise, this has consequences for tactical positioning.
Skill Shot Blocking - Tanks in LoL generally have larger hitboxes, which makes it harder to hit the back lines with a skillshot projectile when the tank is blocking the way. Literally a body shield.
There are also items that let tanks share a portion of their armour/resistance in an aura, items that absorb a portion of the damage taken by an ally, and items that shield the entire team for a time, but these items are usually purchased by supports.
Two big reasons.
1. It's a game mechanic nightmare. So you stand there with your cleric and an enemy tank taunts you. Great, now you can't target your team mates to heal them, and you can't do anything to the tank either. Or you are a melee class and the tank taunts you from atop a wall or in a hallway from behind the frontline. Awesome, now you can't target anybody else, and you can't get to the tank. Or the same with a ranger or wizard, and the tank just walks out of line of sight, while you stand there like a doofus and can't do anything but get chewed up or attempt to run away.
Sure, you could put all kinds of conditions on the taunt, such as, must keep line of sight or it breaks if the tank moves out of melee range, but that just makes it suck for the tank IMO, and makes it way too situational and easy to avoid by taking a step out of melee range.
2. The first reason ties into the second, which is Player Agency in combat. It's generally bad design to reduce player agency, because it feels bad for the players. A debuff works much better in terms of player agency, because the target retains full control of their character, where a forced target lock removes it. Giving players the choice to react to their circumstances will almost always feel much better than forcing them into a specific action.
Edit: Spelling mistakes.
Hard CC definitely needs to be kept on a very short duration yeah. A couple of seconds at most, with diminishing returns. I don't mind a little hard CC in the game though, but they should definitely disallow any form of stunlocking.
I still shudder sometimes at the CC we saw in the beginning of Dark Age of Camelot. Anyone remember that? You could get mezzed for literally 1½ minute, where you just stood there unable to do anything. And Midgard could AOE stunlock entire raids indefinitely, until that finally got nerfed.
To your first point - that is totally invalid if the game opts for an offensive and defensive target, as some players have requested.
Even if the game doesn't go that route, a healer should not be in taunt range of an enemy tank. If you are in that range, then your side has probably already lost.
Also, AoE heals are a thing, so even if the above two were not true, for the second or two that you are forced to target the tank, you could just use an AoE heal, and when it's over you are immune to taunt for a little bit to carry on with healing.
To your second point - this is an argument against all forms of CC, in all situations. The only CC that would be less intrusive than a tanks taunt would be a slow.
Turning tanks in to debuff bots in PvP combat would mean their PvP role is completely and totally segregated from their PvE role. This is the key thing to be avoided in my opinion.
Every mechanic like that needs to have counterplay. Yes, on it's own CC is bad for the reasons you state (nobody likes to have no control or agency over their character). So to counter it you give players ways to break CC through items or abilities.
Diminishing returns on CC also need to be a thing to stop stun-locking, and Intrepid are well aware of this.
Awesome news
Thanks for the swift response. A Mist never wanders far
Even then I really dislike the idea of a class ability taking control from me as opposed to my character. Want to slow my healer? fine, but don't futz who I personally have targeted
Lastly we don't know if the charge will be an interrupt or CC ability, then you have Javelin, if you make the taunt one you now have 2-3 hard CCs by level 10...that's an insane precedent to set.
And what use does a DPS have for a defensive target? You point is indeed invalid.
As for the CC argument, if the forced target lock only lasts at most 1-2 seconds, sure, ok, that could work, as long as there are diminishing returns and immunity timers as well, just like there should be for other hard CC.
Edit: Spelling Mistakes.
Good point. It makes a difference.
Well let's play devil's advocate here; any class ability that deals damage "takes control" from you when it is used to kill your character. But obviously, making characters immortal to avoid that frustration is a silly idea. Yet the lack of internal consistency revealed by reframing your argument like this plainly shows that taking control from you is not in and of itself a bad thing, or even something that should necessarily be avoided.
Dark Age of Camelot had entire support classes built around the concept of impeding enemy players through crowd control, and also supporting their allies by removing that crowd control in turn. Guild Wars 1 had builds that were plainly defined as taking control away from *you* the player, because the person devoted their entire build to interrupting literally every spell you wanted to cast, so you needed to try to adapt to the presence of someone who could quite literally stop you from using any of your character's skills if he wanted to do so. Both these games had significant depth and intrigue to their group combat dynamics that would otherwise be lost if we started down this rabbit hole of "Oh well players will be annoyed by this thing's presence, so we should just remove it."
Don't start down that rabbit hole. It is not a place you want to go.
I swear this happens in every single thread. "Don't force me to target something" does not equate to "Make me immortal b/c death is an inconvenience" There's absolutely no call to be that pedantic and the only reason we would start "down that rabbit hole" is b/c of the sheer number of people on this forum that'll happily argue every. single. punctuation. mark. so long as it delays them from admitting that someone might have a valid counterargument.
CC is a valid and fun way to spice up PvP, however I could easily point out Blizzard's games where you're getting rocked so often that you can barely do anything and there are matches where you might as well get up and make a sandwich b/c even w/ DRs and teammates your character won't be moving for about 2 solid minutes.
Losing control of my character is expected but I do feel losing control of what I do, such as being forced to target something, is one step too far. At the very least if I'm just stunned I have 2 seconds where I can figure out if I need to quickly target a teammate and start spamming a button for as soon as it wears off and you can't even do that if taunt works on players.