Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
One of the classes with multiple Summons rather than one big one.
But, it would be interesting to see Keeper v Brood Warden.
Quite the opposite. I think being able to switch role actually brings in more meaningful choice as you are making tradeoffs that are more impactful with each augment you select.
We're comparing these two things:
1) Making a choice once and being locked into your role forever
2) Making dozens of choices with each augment/weapon/armor/skill that are impactful enough to modify your role.
I want more of the choices to be meaningful, not less. A choice that is one and done isn't very meaningful and it limits the choice over time to try out new things with your character.
Having only Tank/x be tanks is actually more homogenized than having multiple X/Tank be able to tank. If its Tank/x only, then literally "every" option for tanking has the same skills.... so you have one playstyle (your skills) for tanking.
WoW has multiple playstyles for tanking:
1) Warrior: Traditional sword and board non-magical tank. Uses rage resource mechanic. Tends to rely on lots of CDs.
2) Paladin: Holy tank who uses sword and board, but augments with holy magic. Uses holy power + mana resource mechanics.
3) Druid: Bear tank. No shield/parry mechanics. Focuses on dodging and a larger health pool + strong self healing. Most basic of all rotations among the tanks. Uses rage resource mechanic, but very different than warrior in how rage is spent.
4) Brewmaster: mitigates damage through stagger... Most damage taken is applied as a 10 second dot which can be purified from time to time by drinking brews. Fewer CDs than other tanks. Energy mechanic. Tends to be able to smooth out damage intake more than other tanks. Poor self-healing. Good mobility. Uses energy resource system.
5) Deathknight: dual-wielding plate tank. Augmented by dark magic with strong self healing done through DPS. Rune resource system. Tends to have the most spiky health pool, but strongest self healing. Strong anti-magic mechanics.
6) Demon Hunter: More of an agility/evasion type of tank. High-mobility. Some self-healing, but often stays alive though kiting.
The only skill that each of these classes have in common is taunt. Outside of that how they DPS, mitigate damage, and their cooldowns are all very different. This is literally the opposite of homogenization.
Not all of these classes are perfectly balanced and of course with how much WoW has been optimized by the playerbase there is always a meta, but you can pretty much clear content with any of the classes. What matters is the playstyle. The playstyle of the tank can have implications for the healers as well. For example, with a DK the healer needs to learn to not panic as much regarding the DKs health, and instead see where the runic power is (if the DK has runic power, he/she is about to do a massive self heal and you can focus on healing the raid. if not, the DK needs help ASAP). Whereas with a Brewmaster the healer may find hots are most effective as the Brewmaster is going to always be tanking damage, but it isn't likely to be spiky damage. With a Warrior it may be more about cooldown management communication.
I think this will depend on the degree to which you apply augments. What if a rogue/tank who focused heavily on defensive augments + plate armor + a shield could tank as well as a tank/rogue who gets similarly setup? Or what if a tank/rogue focuses in more on damage increasing augments (perhaps the strongest of which also reduce his damage mitigation ability and threat modifiers, but give big DPS buffs through poison dots) and a 2-h weapon instead of a shield? You could be in a place where depending on the augments selected either class could be viable for a DPS or tank role, but not both as the same time. Not perfectly balanced of course (thats near impossible), but close enough that the variance won't make a difference compared to the players skill.
Or perhaps tank/rogue isn't a viable tanking setup, but tank/tank, tank/cleric, tank/fighter, and tank/summoner are viable tanks with some variability in strengths/weaknesses? (brute grit for a fighter, self-healing for a cleric, high mitigation for a tank, and utility/companion/absorb from a summoner). With 8 sub-classes to choose from, a tank only needs about ~4 of them to be viable tanking specs. Perhaps if the sub-class is a bard they can become more of a off-tank/support class (able to hold adds, but not tank boss while also buffing up the group). The three remaining sub-classes could be focused more on turning the tank into a DPS role. Mage brings AOE/elemental damage. Rogue provides poision/dot damage increase. Ranger focuses more on single target damage and perhaps adds some more range to attacks, but doubles down on physical damage.
Probably not a healer role for the tank class as that might not fit well with the tank fantasy (of course, the class name needs to change because "tank" isn't really a fantasy. Something like "Guardian" would be better). This is okay as not every class needs every role. If most have 2, some 3, and some all 4, then you got some good variety. You won't see everyone roll the classes that have all 4 because people will gravitate to the playstyle/fantasy that they prefer, not who can do the most number of roles. For example, I love the WoW Monk playstyle and I do all three Melee DPS/Tank/Heals on it. I'm not as much of a fan with some of the roles on the Druid class however and even though it has access to 4 roles (melee DPS, ranged DPS, tank, and heals) I only do tank and ranged DPS on that character).
Let's take Rogue as another example. They are of course a bit more DPS oriented so perhaps when they are paired up with fighter/mage/ranger/rogue/summoner their primary role is still DPS, but they have different flavors of DPS that may have pros/cons. tank as a "shadow guardian" sounds like it should be very tanky and perhaps it could be a evasion heavy based tank. Cleric might be a healer or support type of class (healer might be a bit of a stretch for class fantasy, but it depends on what their abilities end up looking like and to what degree they could be augmented. support might be more appropriate). Bard of course would probably make sense to turn the Rogue into more of a support class (I think bard would generally make most other classes move toward support except perhaps the Cleric class).
radically change can mean quite a bit here. They don't explicitly state it couldn't be role changing. the "primary focus on base archtype" could be considered the playstyle of the class as you still have the same core abilities, they are however "radically changed" by some augments (and potentially less so by others). This could give good player choice to what degree you want to change your role... do you want to go fully into another role? or do you want to be more of a jack of two roles, master of none?
I don't think IS has fully locked in the plan on this and I think they intend to test out lots of different things around this over the alpha/beta. they seem to be very careful with much of the communcation/expectation setting on this and have not locked themself in one way or another.
The quick comment in discord is probably the best quote to base your evidence on, but Steven could have easily been saying that just so people would not be worried that the cleric would not be viable or become obsolete because all the other classes just build off-healing through cleric off-spec. The last quote here indicates that they actually want to push around the roles a bit. Literally he's saying the augments have different levels of degree to which they change spells as well as a desire to have these augments cause "influence over their role".
"Some cleric augments applied to certain skills will indirectly provide the ability to heal others. These will not replace the need for a cleric archetype."
---Steven
That does explicitly state your role will not be changing.
Also, what I stated -several times- is that the devs will not balancing to ensure that secondary archetypes can main tank.
And that is what probably not means when I said secondary archetypes will probably not be able to main tank.
Don't act like what I wrote is, "No secondary tank will ever be able to main tank - that is completely impossible."
Steven stated that Cleric augments will not replace the need for a Cleric archetype, so we should expect the same to be true for Tanks and the other Primary Archetypes.
We also have some idea of what is meant by "radically change" from the quotes for Summoner augments:
"Summoners will e able to Summon things - as described in their name. Things that they can Summon will be different animals, potentially spirits depending on what secondary class they choose, potentially even corpses.... Some Summoners will have the ability to Summon multiple things. Some Summoners will only be able to Summon one powerful thing. Some Summoners might not be able to Summon things anymore as much as they will be able to Summon effects or temporary energies. Depends on the secondary class you choose."
It's highly unlikely that "radically change" means change primary role because, again, we have the quote:
"Some cleric augments applied to certain skills will indirectly provide the ability to heal others. These will not replace the need for a cleric archetype."
And the devs are not going to be balancing the classes to ensure that Secondary Archetypes can replace the need for a Primary Archetype. They are balancing to ensure that each version of Primary Tank can main tank. They are not balancing to ensure that Secondary Tanks can main tank.
As I have previously stated - it's not impossible that individuals will be able to find builds that replace the need for a Primary Archetype Cleric or a Primary Archetype but expect that to be rare rather than common.
Sure, we don't have a dev quote that explicitly states "Tank augments will not replace the need for a Primary Archetype Tank."
We only have a quote for that regarding Clerics.
But, even if we did, there would still be people arguing that if the majority of players wanted that to change, Steven would change it to make them happy.
Or, "Steve explicitly said that but it's possible he didn't mean that."
So...it really doesn't matter what Steven explicitly states or not.
At launch, we will see what the game play is actually like.
A group can do content where damage is spread out, let's say fighting a plant monster that does constant AoE and has a passive DoT aura.
In this fight, augments are probably enough and you probably don't need a Cleric/X.
A group can try to do content against a dragon who stacks debuffs and hits fairly hard single target with little chance of the target running out of range to heal naturally.
In this content 'augments will not be sufficient to replace a Cleric archetype'.
It's a Role Playing Game. I feel like philosphically @Dygz is leaving out whether or not the discussion here is 'can do X in raid level content/deep dungeon boss fight' so it devolves into semantics unnecessarily.
How much content requires a Cleric, and how much content requires a Tank/X, is dependent on content much more than on class design.
@Dygz - either stick to talking about 'raid' level content or explain why you're a reactive ball that constantly posts stuff that has no determined merit to a real discussion. Are you unable to see the perspectives of others, or trolling? You've claimed in other threads that you have been involved in game development (or design?) yet nearly every post you make treats other people's perspective as nothing more than 'contrary to the design spec document', which, itself, is (unfortunately) pretty mutable still.
I guess that's how some developers that don't really do the 'design' part are trained to act, so, is that it? Have you been 'the implementation person' following the spec for your 10 years?
There's so much potential here, that doesn't mess with the overall feel of the game, I just don't want to keep doing what Dygz does and writing a whole essay every time to explain why/nuance.
And I bet the devs don't either. I can't speak for them with surety, but in my career we'd make sure never to spend too much time explaining nitty gritty details or underlying functionality to the clients. It led to confusion and nitpicking even with the Customer Relationship Managers assigned to the clients, since they weren't as technical.
I'm trying not to act like 'the dev translator' here since I don't know them, but I can see the signs of 'minimizing clarity in spec' littered throughout their communications.
I can give a massive dissertation on why the thing the Devs said is probably not to be taken literally, and that's even without a full consensus on what 'group content' means.
I have consistently said that x/Tanks can off-tank. And that just because an x/Tank can't main tank that does not mean they cannot tank at all.
That is not me being binary.
Steven has said that they are balancing the game around groups of eight. Where a group will want one of each Primary Archetype. So, I'm not sure why I should make a distinction between groups and raids.
The argument here has not been, "It should be possible to find encounters where you don't need a Cleric/x.
And then I say: "Impossible!"
The argument has been: "I want augments to change the playstyle of a Primary Archetype radically enough that the character can switch to make the Secondary Archetype the primary role.
And I am saying: "That is not a goal of the game design. Don't expect to be able to do that as a common thing.
In my third post on the first page, I wrote: "It's not necessarily totally impossible but you shouldn't expect an x\Tank to main tank. You could probably survive some group content without a Tank\x. Especially if you have several x\Tanks in the group."
Yet people want to argue as if I didn't say that.
The quote about not replacing the need for a Cleric/x was not a response to a question about raids.
The question was: "If I use Clerics as a secondary rather than Primary will I still be able to heal others. Or only self-healing?"
Steven's answer was: "Indirectly there are some augments when applied to certain skills that can do this. But it would not replace the need for a Cleric archetype."
Which means, that is true in general - not just in raids.
So...you'll have to point out to me specifically where what I've said has no merit.
The OP states: "There's so little information on augments and secondary effects..."
And I go out of my way to find the dev info and share it so that everyone can see the context of the dev quotes we have and draw their own conclusions but you say my posts have no merit?
You don't have to agree with my conclusions. We can disagree.
And then we wait to see what the game looks like when/if it launches.
What I can say is that I feel like you're not adequately communicating that type of thing, or you're 'arguing with people who might not be understanding what you meant, without reminding them of that'.
For example, you say it's a matter of degrees, that they can off tank, but what is your definition of that? If an X/Tank goes into a dungeon full of bears and raptors, and for whatever reason their build is good at tanking bears and raptors, then you might just not need a Tank/X for that content.
At that point, some would argue that the Augments have changed the character enough for it to be 'A tank'. Depends on if you define tank as 'can tank most things, not just bears and raptors'.
When someone hears 'you can probably offtank' they don't necessarily hear what they want to hear, even if what they want to hear is a thing you can do in the game. You have specifically communicated before, these things, but your communication style once you feel you need to clarify something is generally 'using the design spec' which is bad for people who are concerned because they can't read between the lines of everything and were apprehensive about the design spec in the first place.
As one experienced developer to another, therefore... can you tone it down a bit with that? Whenever you post a set of quotes, it starts the whole thing over precisely because the language used is exactly the original language that causes the friction, and the nuance is not necessarily easy for everyone.
That's what caused me to say that it had no determined merit. If someone is 'concerned that they won't get what they want' because the quotes from Steven and Jeff were unclear, mild rewording explanations don't help?
I think I'll stand by that concept. The question of whether or not you're actually doing that or I'm just triggered, is a different matter.
I don't think I need a definition.
The argument has been - "I want augments to radically change abilities enough that my Secondary Archetype Tank can change roles to Tank."
We have the quote from Steven that Cleric augments will not replace the need for a Primary Archetype Cleric.
So, we can infer that Tank augments will not replace the need for a Primary Archetype Tank.
The devs have said that group encounters are designed to have one of each of the 8 Primary Archetypes in the group. They want the size of the basic group to be 8.
So, when Steven says that Cleric augments will not replace the need for a Cleric/x, that indicates to me that it will be rare that an x/Cleric will be able to fill that missing Cleric/x role.
I'm trying to wrap my mind around why even a Ranger/Tank would be especially good at tanking bears and raptors, specifically.
Seems to me that 8-person group encounter would be designed and balanced to need a Tank/x and a Ranger/x. So, the Ranger/Tank would still need to be focused on fulfilling the Ranger role and their augments would not be sufficient enough for them to also be main tank. I think the Ranger/Tank would not be able to hold sufficient threat because pretty much all of the Tank abilities do multiple tanky things - especially generating threat. And I don't believe that the Tank augments will be able to generate as much threat as the Tank abilities. I think each Tank augment will likely do one tanky thing rather than multiple tanky things.
Just as Cleric augments will not replace the need for a Primary Archetype Cleric.
But, what do I think would happen in that encounter? I think the Ranger/Tank would have some augments from the Threat School on their Ranger abilities as well as some augments from the Damage Mitigation School. And I think they would be tanking some bears and raptors fairly well, but not as well as the Tank/x.
And, based on what Steven said, if they did not have a Tank/x, I think the group would still strongly feel the need for a Tank/x, even if they somehow muddled through without one...and muddling through without a Tank/x would be rare.
If you are an x/Tank, you are a tank.
I don't understand how anyone could argue against that.
I don't think it matters whether you can tank most things or just bears and raptors...although, again, I don't know why it would be just bears and raptors.
If you are a Secondary Archetype Tank, you are a Tank. A Secondary Tank.
Right. I know they don't hear what they want to hear.
They want what they want and they don't want any disagreement.
And it ultimately doesn't matter what the design is because they will just say, "Well, if enough people want what I want, they will change the design", or, "The devs probably didn't really mean what they said."
But, I post the dev design philosophy for those who don't know what it is.
And, I try to give warnings for when a drastic change to the design could have a negative impact on the release schedule - not because making the change would be a "waste of time" - but because the devs may either ignore requests because it's going to add too much time or if they do add the time, that will likely cause delays in the schedule. As long as people are OK with delays in the schedule - they can request whatever they want. (Well, they can request whatever changes they want anyways, I'm just saying you shouldn't be surprised by significant delays in the release schedule if they meet requests for drastic changes).
I think the friction is caused when people don't want to hear any disagreement with their hopes.
"You disagreed with me, therefore, you disagree completely!!!"
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a different goal.
Just because players want something does not mean the devs will give it to them.
That's not necessarily because the devs don't want to, sometimes that can be because there isn't time in the schedule to do so.
Sometimes it's because there are things the devs won't change - like when someone suggested that what should distinguish Elves from Humans is that the Elves should show coloration that reflects Corruption because Corruption permeated so much of Verra...and when I said the lore won't support that, they responded with, "Well, the devs can change that lore for the sake of making Elves look unique!"
And when I said Steven is not going to change the lore in that specific way just to make the Elves look distinct, people reacted as though I said the Elves will never look distinct from Humans! We will be stuck with what we see in the Alpha One Preview!"
My tone grates on people initially. Most people eventually get it.
I do think some of your posts are inflammatory though, @Dygz
hahaha
If you choose the augment route, you are seeking a Jack of all trades rather than a specialization. Granted, your primary archetype gives you a base specialization, but for the other roles you should not be as good as those who dedicate themselves.
At the same time a bad player should struggle as a main tank. It is too important of a role for weakness.
The problem you run into there @RocketFarmer is if you make the high skill/ work position do the same job as the specialized one, which really just requires competence, people stop using the skilled thing, or worse, complain that the specific one is overpowered. At the end of the day, Super amazing people, and just absolute unteachable bad players are both rare. Most people are just competent, with some being good, and some needing some practice or teaching.
Have ever tried tanking a pve raid boss while being constantly being cc , chain pulled away and getting attack to disrupt what you are doing , its not that easy while you also have to time your tanking abilities and react to the bosses attacks as well. I imagine guilds are going need a couple of tanks to hold it together.
But it's also doubtfull you'd as tank be the target of the pvp in this situation either way. Groups tend to form around bosses in roughly concentric circles, Healers on the outermost area. They'd most likely be the high prize other groups would be hunting for.
I would target the tanks first , try to break the aggro they have so tanks in my group can get the aggro and move the boss into more favorable position so we can better inflict the damage needed for looting rights. Control of the raid boss is more important in my opinion and it will keep the opposition from being able dps as efficiently as they would be able to do otherwise, keeping the boss mostly out of their aoe.
Case in point. Both tank/x and x/tank should be able to competently maintain hate on a boss and have enough damage mitigation to survive. The tank/x should also be proficient at pulling and maintaining hate on the other mobs so that those don’t swarm the healer or dps. The x/tank would be less proficient unless their damage on those mobs is high enough or healing for that combo. Each should be able to do similar things but not necessarily the same. That would be the variety.
Examples:
A cleric/tank would hope their combination of tank and healing effects builds and maintains sufficient hate to be effective.
A summoner/tank would utilize summoned critters to either tank the boss or contain the mobs. Might be a good combo for a dual boss fight.
The dps/tanks would obviously use a combo of tanking and damage.
The bard/tank might be able to reduce the hate level other party members generate to make tanking relatively easier. And then some healing like the cleric/tank.
Some combos may have more dps than damage, so there would be a time element for them. Advantage being the ability to take mobs down faster, but may need to regroup if the fight drags out too long.
The cleric/tank combo may be more of a battle of attrition.
And in all cases, tanking is only as successful as the skill of the group and how well the coordinate.
Since Cleric augments will not replace the need for a Cleric/x it seems unlikely that Tank augments will replace the need for a Tank/x.
Competently maintain hate on a boss is subjective, I suppose.
The variety for main tank really comes with how augments change the gameplay of the Primary Archetype Tank.
There are 8 variations specifically designed for with Secondary Archetype augments. They will all be viable main tanks.
And there will also be variations if there is a focus on racial augments. A Ren'Kai Primary Archetype Tank can play quite differently than a Py'Rai Primary Archetype Tank.
Expect other variations from those who focus on social org augments or religious augments.
But, the devs are not balancing combat to ensure that augments allow an x/Tank to be main tank... or replace the need for a group to have a Primary Archetype Tank.
Need to take the augment as a sum total combined with how skillful or creative players are at their play. It all depends on the hate calculations and what goes into that plus what the group brings as a team.
The overall party may be less effective with an x/tank because the other players need to keep their healing or dps at a level that doesn’t peel off mobs or the boss. Or it may mean fights would be less forgiving to those who make mistakes. Stupid groups should wipe if we stick to the risk/reward concept, IMHO.
Then there are tactics such as ping-ponging. Using space and effective hate generation.
Hence my main point is that x/tank will likely be more challenging to play, and that includes more challenging for the group. That means tor demanding dungeons or boss fights you will most likely want the tank/x character over the x/tank. However there may be special circumstances where an x/tank might be as good or even better than a tank/x. Very special circumstances.
Example of a special circumstance. A dps/tank group should have greater overall dps (unless as I mentioned the dps players need to nerf their damage to avoid hate). The way dungeons are being designed, a faster and easier kill early in the encounters leads to progressively more difficult encounters. So this group might have a more powerful final fight. Will they survive? That’s another question. A tank/dps may have something slightly more manageable. But if a group wanted an all or nothing dungeon experience then they might choose to go dps/tank. Hopefully Intrepid’s design factors this and makes it truly difficult and truly epic.
I think x/tank builds are for players who want a couple of “tanky” augments to give them a little variety.
This is what you wrote.
And that is why I replied: "Competently maintain hate on a boss is subjective, I suppose."
Because I don't think that the devs are designing with that in mind. But, it depends on what "competently maintain hate on a boss and have enough damage mitigation to survive" is supposed to mean for an x/Tank.
That is certainly true for a Tank/x.
An x/Tank can assist with Tank stuff, but their primary role is their primary role, so they should not be expected to be able to competently maintain hate on a boss and survive - rather they should be expected to assist the main tank.
It might be possible for individual x/Tanks to make a build that allows them to "competently maintain hate on a boss and have enough damage mitigation to survive."
But, "should", for an x/Tank, is a greater degree of expectation for success than what the devs have said so far.
I don’t think the seven x/tank options will make the eight tank/x options less viable or less meaningful. I am most interested in seeing how the tank augments effect the tank primary archetype. If the tank augments are too meh, then I might consider tank/non-tank. If the tank augments are good enough for an x/tank to be viable, then tank/tank ought to rock. But again, we will have to wait for the details on these augments.
Overall, the stronger the tank and the game design around it, the bigger the TPK/wipe should the tank or party screw up. I want it to be challenging so there is more meaning in the doing. I think that’s kind of what they are after, especially by building in progressively more difficult encounters based on player performance.
Even if tank augments aren’t great, it might be interesting to try an x/tank to see how far you can last. In that situation you would probably need a better than average party who can handle the unexpected (or expected if you think the x/tank can’t hang with them). I suppose that would be the best way to determine whether it’s viable or not, and I’m sure folks will be testing this as soon as it comes out either for Alpha 2 or the Betas.
The devs are highly unlikely to craft x/Tanks to work the way you think they "should".
I don't understand why an x/Tank would not be able to hang with a group.
You could have a Guardian in a group with 7 x/Tanks if you wanted to.
I don't see any way that x/Tanks could make a Tank/x less viable so I don't know why you mention that.
People can have fun experimenting to see if an 8 person group can beat 8-person group-encounters with just one x/Tank and no Tank/x , sure.
In this case, we can be fairly certain that the devs are not going to choose to give themselves double the workload by trying to ensure, throughout the entire life of the game, that x/tanks will be viable main tanks in addition to the 8 variations of Tank/x.
Mages don't sustain tanking as well, certainly not without another Mage to give them extra mana for the job. Result - expensive, inconsistent (won't even matter if they are squishy or not)
Clerics don't generate enough threat without the same issue, takes too much energy, they do much more DoT and mitigation which are better spent on others
Result - Teammates have to hold back a lot, making everything slow, or they have the mage problem
Rangers lose damage when the enemy is too close to them, in the current intended implementation, and also lack sustain somewhat
Result - Often can be secondary tank only, or combine with another tank, or requires teammates to give up
damage for defense, but at least they can offset this with their own provided damage. Quite hard to do
Bards generally don't generate much threat either, and tend to spend more time not building melee DoT. Magical/performance DoT usually doesn't generate any.
Result - Relies on melee for damage but isn't necessarily even up to Tank DPS levels, no instant damage mitigation (they could be nice and allow you to flip 'generating hate/threat' on, by applying the Threat augment to a Performance, but even then it'd still be hard to control the enemy)
Summoner - Pigeonholes a class that is supposed to do multiple things, into one thing. In FFXI summoners don't tank because rotating your summons is optimal for buffs and adaptation, but you can't just 'rotate out' your big tanky summon and everything be fine, in any longer combat. Also summons are harder to heal.
Result - Even if you can heal summons or they get the healing from on-hit abilities or similar, it's a lot of work. I'd still expect this to be one of the more viable X/Tank
Rogue - Either loses a lot of their damage from positioning bonuses due to the enemy always being in their face, or has to build for high evasion rather than melee output, hampering them
Result - Why even try? Half your Rogue abilities probably don't work if you maintank so where is your fun? Tank/Rogue with Rogue-gear would do this job so much better (at least with the augment styles I expect). Probably still possible though, since you could gear tankily and hope that evasion balances out Tank's natural higher defense. It usually doesn't, and your healer works much harder unless your evasion is much higher (I say this as a Ninja tank from other games). This could still work, though, so I expect there will be Rogue/Tanks out there.
Fighter - Now we're getting somewhere, but Gap Closers and Strong Blows don't do as good a job on most things compared to Tank abilities, they're normally tuned down, damage wise, so initial hate generation is an issue.
Result - Probably the most viable, but with the only real advantage being DPS, so limited moreso to things that don't hit very hard, but die fast, for some reason, and killing them quickly is a benefit. I actually expect to see a lot of these in areas with that enemy type, for 'fastest EXP'!
If I were designing this, I would make minimal effort to alleviate any of these results. If you consider the result to be fine and 'a challenge', or 'works for you because of what you want to fight', great. If you want changes so that you don't have those problems while tanking "It Who Sunders The Land"...
Edit: Lacerate is an early, powerful skill... Rogue Augments may play off Bleed effects... The Tank/Rogue is called 'NightShield', with a likely shortening to NiS... which is as close as you can reasonably get to 'Nin' in Ashes' lore...