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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I think Slov has nailed it. I MT'd from Vanilla to Cataclysm in WoW and the role evolved nicely. Tanking should be challenging and you need to feel like a hero, it doesn't need to be overly complex but you need those abilities which make you stand out in critical moments from any other tank.
Also make it that a specific class and builds are purely design for this, when you start creating too many hybrids, it results in the fundamental of the role having to change and incorporate other aspects. The main tank, needs to be heavy, hard, and full of utility to keep aggro, stay alive (but with difficulty) and save others.
As for Tank participation, I think its important to acknowledge that parties are made up of 8 players, and only 1 of them (with Summoners maybe being able to contribute) are going to be the Tank.
There needs to be a very delicate balance between the Tank not getting instant-popped, and the Tank not being a raid boss.
In Overwatch, they recently changed it from 2 tanks, to 1 tank, but compensated that tank with extra power, and I think the general consensus of the Overwatch community was that it was a good change.
In League, tanks often teeter along the edge of OP or useless. If a tank isnt strong enough to stand on the front line and withstand the entirety of the enemy team for long enough and dish out some CC, you might as well have gone a Juggernaut/Bruiser (Fighter in Ashes case).
Also, a problem that might occur is in PvP/Duels. If Tanks do go the more "raid boss" route, in order to be able to stack up against multiple DPS opponents, then Tanks might outshine other archetypes in PvP/Duels.
Another topic that I think is important to discuss about Tanks is stats and abilities.
If you have 5 tanks, each speccing into the resistance of 1 type of damage, and 5 dps, each speccing into 1 type of damage, then 4 of the tanks will be useless, while only 1 of the dps will be useless. Theres an obvious imbalance when it comes to offensive vs defensive stats. Offense only has to build stats that go with their damage types, while tanks need to guard against many damage types.
As for abilities, Tanks should have hate building abilities, damage mitigation abilities, movement abilities solely for engagement, CC abilities, and shielding abilities. You can obviously sprinkle in some DPS here and there, but thats not the primary fantasy of a tank.
I absolutely love tanking and I think my favorite form of it was in World of Warcraft as a Warrior. I always got a kick out of being one of the highest DPS because I knew how to cycle my mitigations, buffs and mobility abilities.
I'm extremely biased when it comes to composition. My wife and I have tanked side by side for years. I've always mained and she was my off tank. My favorite memories from MMOs were from boss fights where we needed to switch bosses or kite things away from one another.
I think the things that tanks need the most of are threat builders, damage mitigation for self and party, and mobility buffs.
I saw others state that they would like mobs to break threat as they go lower in health as they begin to realize the DPS are much more threatening. I think this is an awesome idea and I love the idea of having to regain aggro.
My favorite part of being a tank is that it normally comes alongside being the raid leader and there typically are a ton of moving parts that tanks need to be aware of.
So having a few things that we are very good at doing feels right and letting the DPS focus on CCs, Healers on healing and assisting in mitigation and Bards focusing on buffing the party.n
I would also love to see bosses where tanks need to swap agro. Say the boss has an ability that would kill the tank if they take it twice so you need upwards of 5 tanks to coordinate hot swapping aggro.
While tanks are definitely meat shields I think that since they also tend to be leaders that the role should be very specific and have a few key abilities but I'd love to see each archetype tank work differently in that execution.
For example a Guardian is your traditional tank and spank sword and board, while the Knight does a bit more damage and has more mobility to access.
One of the things I really tend to dislike and you see it most in ESO, tanks are absolutely trash at damage. I hate that. I'm the frontliner, the heavy hitter, the scariest bastard in the bunch. I should be able to quest and kill things at a decent pace, maybe not as fast as a primary DPS but I should definitely be top 5 out of 10.
When it comes to PVP tanking has never felt great. I've always just felt a bit slow, had the health but not the damage output to where I don't really understand what my role is as PVP seems best between DPS.
I could see it in a caravan system or siege where I'm soaking the damage and defending and able to mitigate those in coming blows and holding the front lines but I think if I'm doing substantially less damage. I should also be receiving substantially less damage.
So I guess my core take aways are
1. I love the traditional tank and off tank setup but raids that require more would be sick!
2. Tanks should be specialized in mitigation, mobility and threat generation.
3. I want to also do a decent amount of damage like maybe 75-80% of a pure DPS
4. Alpha One tank felt so good at the start before the nerf, bring back the axe throw chain grab hit combo. Seriously I felt like a God in PVP 😂
5. In PVP I'd like it to be like a 5vs1 scenario to take a tank down. I can hold a dragon so make me feel like I can! Nothing feels worse than getting ganked by a rogue and then stun locked and just dying.
It's PvP tanking that is gonna be difficult and with a hybrid combat style with 8 man group balancing? OOF
Overwatch did tanking balance as an action game with group balancing and I think some of the most fun tank gameplay I've ever had was as Reinhardt.
It'd be dope to put up a huge ass magic shield. LOS block the action skills. Maybe add an ability that forces tab target players to swap their target over to you? If you are wanting the tank to be a dps sponge, then there has to be a reason / ability to target a tank.
Another idea is to just have a straight damage reduction or redirection to a tank in proximity to other players. That will give enemy tanks reasons to Pull (Death grip) / CC tanks away from the party.
* Damage mitigation
* Crowd control
* Zone control
* Threat generation
The tank should have the best skills to prevent damage and have the most HP. He should be able to prevent foes from hurting his allies by knocking them down and rooting them. He should also be able to create walls, cages and barriers with collisions to make sure it's hard to get around him to attack the people he protects. Finally, he should be able to control the aggro in PvE and make sure ennemies focus on him instead of the glass cannon.
The tank should be the best by default at these 4 schools with his default skills.
Augmenting the tank, you should be able to trade off some of those aspect for the advantage of other classes, exemple losing some damage mitigation for more mobility. Etc.
Other classes should be able to borrow some of these responsibilities through augments where they would trade their own specialized benefits for some Crowd control or Threat generation for exemple.
This way, the tank would be the best at its job, but someone could augment his class in a way that is closer to their playstyle.
I really like the idea that tanking has a low barrier to entry but a very high skill cap. Tanking should be something that anyone (not any class) can do with some basic taunt mechanics that would allow groups to be successful, but should also include abilities/mechanics/positions/gearing/etc that enable someone to master and excel at in such a way that they stand out among other tanks. A lot of people have had some great ideas as to what these options are to make tanking a high skill cap so I wont go into it, but I just wanted to emphasis the need for tanking to have enough depth and complexity that it becomes a desirable roll for people who want that depth.
As for the balance between pvp and pve, I very firmly fall in the camp that every spec and build should NOT be viable for high level pve and pvp. I do not think someone who is speced and geared for high level pve content should be able to take that same build and have it be viable for high level pvp. If someone can successfully do both then I think there is a fundamental issue with balancing in the game as a whole. I firmly believe that not every spec and roll should be able to work at high level in ever situation - meaning I think imbalance is important to a lively game that has meaningful choices. That is not to say that there shouldn't be a viable tanking spec for pvp, just not one that does both pvp and pve (for example the pve specc could lean more into taunt and threat mechanics, while the pvp could lean more into team damage mitigation and cc)
what can a tank do if dps are doing so high amount of damage that their damage threat is useless against the amount of damage dpsers do or if someone pre-pulls any target.
What if tanks had any kind of ability to make some or everyones damage or heal into the tanks threat for the mobs?
Ofc making the tank having 100% threat at all times will make it boring in the long run, so tanks should work for their threat in some kind. But it will also be quite problematic if the tanks is undergeard or underlevel which makes it impossible for them to tank.
I would also see some kind of fights where the tank need to do something more then just simply stand there and keep threat.
Like for example:
- On some bosses they gotta use an ability to keep the raid safe from harm. ( shielding the raid or block something )
- Being more then 1 tank to swap tanking due to stacks of some kind the boss gave or they do some kind of cleave damage and they need to be more then 1 to survive it.
- All tanks should have their own way of tanking or dealing with different kind of scenarios, whether it is blocking, dodging or soaking the damage.
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Would you prefer more traditional MMORPG main and off-tank roles, or would you prefer to see combat experiences with several tanks fighting?"
I definetly prefer the more traditional way with main and off tanks - in special raid encounters there may be 4-5 main tanks needed to control multiple bosses at the same time.
Multiple main tanks tanking one boss should be worse compared to 1 main tank and may be 2 off-tanks.
I like it when aggro management is needed by both tanks and dps (and may be even healers - switching the tank heal ... to avoid aggro) this avoids the "Leeeroooyyyy" behaviour that is so common in our days...
But please make the Tanks needed and viable in PVP too (with one and 2 handed weapons)... gap closer + cc + protection for mates ...
Personaly i like the idea of an evasion tank in pve and pvp but i hope these tanking styles are viable:
Evasion tanks
Control tanks
Shield tanks
Magical tanks?
Most of the time pulling aggression works well in PvE but is not quite as viable in PvP so giving the tanks crowd controls like taunts and pulls can be valuable in both so long as the tank is still positioning themselves correctly in PvP to have their abilities effect the enemy players.
Taking Damage is one thing that is consistently done well in other games but it still does not make it very useful when other players can just walk around the tank and go hit the damage dealers and the healers. Sure you could beef up pulling aggression enough by giving a lot of crowd control but I think that would become more annoying if CC is too prominent and persistent. So while I believe CC is a good idea to have on tanks I think there is a better way to make a tank effective at protecting teammates without becoming annoying to fight because CC is so common.
To balance that, I think Tanks should also have abilities like Auras that protect players that are within a certain distance of them. For example, an aura that when activated protects against certain types of basic attacks or just giving surrounding allies increased defense. In other words having auras and support abilities like bards and clerics may have but instead of healing and damage buffs theyre specified toward protecting others from damage.
Hopefully with a decent mix of both protection auras and "aggression pulling" CC they should be a viable member of a team in both PvP and PvE without taking any jobs away from the other arhcetypes.
I personally have over a decade of tanking experience, both from a competitive end-game PvE perspective, and from a PvP perspective. In that time the biggest issues I've encountered are as follows.
1. Aggro/threat generation is too simple, push a button and you have constant agrro for _____ time.
2. Aggro/threat generation where multiple tanks are needed to "juggle" is gimmicky or designed for single tanks only.
3. Tanks aren't strong enough to survive on their own without being completely selfish/limiting their ability to support the group with off-healing, crowd control, enemy debuffs, or damage buffs for allies.
4. Bosses are built around a basic attack pattern which ultimately leads to mind-numbing grinding for the tanks. I know Intrepid and Steven's vision for the game is to make fights, even with non-boss mobs, to be more dynamic, but its worth noting. The 100th time you face tank something its going to be more boring than the 10th...but you don't want the 10th time to feel boring already. DPS/Healing roles often have something to occupy them, at high levels, like a rigorous rotation or positioning (outside of speed runs few keep the same position run to run) whereas the tank(s) almost always have the exact same fight everytime.
5. Make it challenging to maintain the resources required to buff/support a high level raid group, no one likes a overbuffed tank that never runs out of resources.
6. Don't make them just a walking fortress, give tanks enough damage to kill random mobs or players if that player/mob is a low enough level/skill/or geared. One of the worst feelings as a tank is uselessness while playing alone/in a small group that doesnt have a specific objective.
7. Last one that I can think of atm is not designing fights which have mechanics for both the tank and the rest of the group to avoid/deal with individually. Example would be having a AoE blast which kills everyone except the tank unless they are behind cover, then another ability which kills the tank unless other people do something to split the damage or redirect it. This gives the group a chance to support the tank, instead of just the other way around. Everyone loves to hate on other roles for failing their "thing" so having some more interdependencies would be refreshing!
*Edited to include some solutions*
1> Have a dynamic aggro system where the tank will be ignored in favor of a high damage/healing target unless they complete XXX steps within XXX amount of time. Example of this would be they must be debuffed or stunned, damaged with light attacks or other damaging abilities, and targeted with some type of aggro generation (like a taunt) every 15 seconds or they will lose interest.
2> Design a ability or ultimate ability which instantly overrides other forms of aggro for a short period, this allows the tank (or off tank) the time to perform a proper aggro cycle.
3> Give them enough options for healing/mitigation/resources to sustain on their own, outside of having a healer in the group.
4>Give mobs and bosses especially multiple attack patterns which they have a rng chance of swapping mid combat. Obviously keep typical stances/forms which change base on health lost or dps in addition to the rng forms. A proper tank can learn to recognize each attack and react accordingly, even if they won't be able to predict the order they follow.
5> Just like healers and dps often have a tight resource window to maximize dps/hps, tanks should have a very narrow window in which to balance their buffing/debuffing ability vs their own personal health and sustainability.
6> Give some tanking abilities augments which have scaling damage or hit hard enough without scaling to make them a threat instead of just a meat shield. These would have to be limited or give up parts of tanking to achieve, prevents them from being broken.
7> Already mentioned above.
Cheers and keep up the good work! We appreciate you guys!
I agree on the points here.
From my perspective the tank should lean more towards support with redirection, control and mitigation of a fight.
They might be the frontline that takes most of the hits but mobs should not focus only on them based on threat. Whatever damage the tank doesn't absorb themselves they should be able to redirect or mitigate by for example getting in the way of the attack or say deflecting the attack onto something/someone else.
They should control what mobs/players can and can't do with CC, debuffs, effects etc.
These things should be translatable into making them desirable and viable in PvP as well.
The more flexibility and variety, the better. If many different classes, and maybe even archetypes, can be off-tanks and even main tanks, that would be great.
I'm not a fan of game design that forces you to have specific classes to beat content, but since the Cleric is the only real healer, that ship has already sailed. Maybe there's still hope for the game to have tanks that are not Tanks (this archetype name sucks balls, btw) and to have Tanks that can DPS and/or off-tank.
I would also like if combat was minimally 1v1 balanced, or else tanks and healers can become broken, either very OP or dogshit. I don't really understand why Intrepid did not choose to balance combat first for 1v1 fights and secondly, by consequence, balance group combat. That makes balancing combat a lot easier, in my mind.
In any case, I hope tanking classes are fun to play, have an average skill ceiling (I believe that DPS should have the highest skill ceiling, healers/buffers the lowest skill ceiling and tanks somewhere in between) and that the archetype name "Tank" is changed to anything else, maybe "shield boy".
Cheers
I would also like to be a bit useful when going solo. Of course, Tank is a group-oriented role. Still, I'll be out on my own every now and then. I would find it frustrating if solo leveling was more tedious because of my class (like in early ESO).
For example, some games have Tank Buster abilities which require a Tank to use a specific skill at a specific time or get one-shot. But what if a Tank could actually modify or change what abilities the mob is going to use. For example, just before the big hit the Tank disarms the mob. So instead of getting to use its big ability, it has to run across the room and retrieve its weapon. Or the party has shifted to the left side of the mob, and when the mob is about to unleash its cone attack, the Tank throws a Distract ability to the mob's right side and that's where it unleashes the cone attack.
I loved the ‘easy to play, difficult to master’ feeling I experienced early in the genre, and it would be great to feel that again is Ashes. If you’re just running amok with some friends or hitting a dungeon, one level of skill would be sufficient to enjoy your time in game, and if you’re doing hardcore end game raiding, another level of skill was required. With plenty of skill based reward built into the holy trinity, you could feel accomplished and content as you learned how to tank bigger and better things, and that was a feeling that brought me back time and again to the games I tanked in!
The tank identity is first and foremost a support role. You maintain the tempo and rhythm of the encounter. While damage is important because everyone wants to have that "look at me" moment. As a tank, your focus should be on not dying and have the tools to extend that to your raid. You have to maintain aggro, positioning, and whatever support style you bring to the table. I believe Ashes of Creation has a very unique way of solving this issue through your 64 class system or 8 with the base "Tank" class. You have 8 unique ways approaching the situation through 8 unique playstyles that don't need to be vastly different but can accomplish the same with with minor tweaks to the base class. The party/raid will look to you for direction as a tank. The tank role is a thankless role, but IMO is the most rewarding role to play. You are the foundation of any party or raid to stand on to be successful. Being able to tweek your tank style to the encounter could be the answer it needs without having to play 8 different characters.
If a boss hates healers. Play the tank that has massive self healing (similar to the Blood Death Knight spec in WoW) to generate additional threat through self healing. If the Boss has tank busters that can be dodged but not blocked or eaten in general like a rogue or through the "dodge/roll" mechanic. Use the Nightshield which might have extra rolls or extended iframes in their rolls to increase dodge capabilities (similar to the warrior tank style in Terra). If the boss has a persistent debuff. Running a Siren style tank with party/raid buffs will help. If the boss is weak of a certain element. Augment those abilities through your Shadowmancer or Shadow Caster classes. There will certainly be encounters where damage will be priority to make certain checks. Dreadnought will provide in those areas respectively. I have seen on a couple occasions where DPS are forced to do the job of tanks (one that comes to mind is Crowd Control on Gluth in the Naxxramas raid in WoW). Utilizing the Sentinel tank class that might have enhanced snares and roots to keep a boss or adds from getting to their target that do not have an aggro table and just fixate the whole fight. One cool aspect I would love to see is some form of a bond between tanks through 1 spec. Maybe guardian creates a buff or soul bond with the other tank and permanently buff 1 or both to take % less dmg or increase % resistance or health to tackle a boss hitting really hard that would require more "tanking" that would not require a healer to just stand there and tunnel healing a tank the whole encounter.
The biggest problem I've seen in any MMO regarding tank roles is tank representation in both PvE and PvP respectively.
In PvE, I feel the class system opens up all those possibilities competitively and casually alike. Making each tank spec compelling and exciting for competitive players while making them approachable for casual players is always the hardest task. There is almost no room for error in the tank role so the stakes are always high. Making the want and excitability of tanking needs to be just as high.
In PvP, the tank role has always been the ugly duckling. Not wanted, and 99% of the time, broken (good and bad). I have not really seen a good answer for this problem. Tanks have the ability to completely negate damage or deal to much compared to the damage they don't take or the amount of crowd control they sustain. I wish I had an answer for this one...
There is one direction that I've seen the tank role go in for the better and that is getting rid of the mentality of Main Tanks and Off Tanks as class or spec specific. They are only really used now for encounter specific situations regarding to responsibilities correlating to tanking the boss or additional responsibilities (mechanics or add in a fight). Tank specs and the tank community have come a long way for the better in thinking all tank specs should be able to take a hit when thinking "Is it possible for this spec to tank this content". The answer should always be yes.
It's also important to have multipurpose CC or Aoe abilities that generate threat against PvE mobs so that they are viable in both PvE and PvP, since this is a PvX game.Tanks in PvP should be disruptors and initiators, utilizing their damage absorption, Crowd Control, buffs and debuffs to be effective.
PvP
Crowd Control Tanks ( stuns slows disrupts Physical Barriers)
Mitagation Tanks (buffs or shields)
Heal Tanks ( Self-Healing focus)
PvE
Crowd control requirements on bosses that affect them in certain ways
Threat generation and mitigation built into the skills, not as a required stat. Pvp should not be compromised for PvE Threat generation. (Maybe a few skills that generate extreme threat generation)
depending on the scale of the raid or dungeon multiple tanks should be needed/viable.
2 tanks with same skills but one has slightly better gear with exact same skill queue tank with highest gear should out aggro the other tank. Aggro should be Dynamic and dissapate over time with opportunities to steal aggro by opposing groups at world bosses. (Make this hard to do but maybe opportune times liek 30% 60% 90% reset aggros or triggers new threat generation requirements.
This then creates problems in itself. New tanks learning content or how to tank being grouped with people who race ahead with their dps builds pulling mobs and screaming at the tank to “do their job”. It’s quite humiliating and turns people off wanting to play that role.
While there’s no perfect way to handle it a tank shouldn’t hit hard but should be able to take the hits and provide CC. This encourages the dps and the healer to stay behind the tank and deal damage/heal.
So what happens when in Ashes you’re wandering around and come across a caravan being attacked? You decide you want to defend the caravan and be the local hero. However, you’re a PvE tank and there’s no one else around. Your tank build is going to be pretty useless against players attacking the caravan since you can’t output high amounts of damage on your own. Will these types of engagements all be PvE until you engage in them, thus becoming PvP events or maybe you can somehow swap from a PvE to PvP build on the fly?
Traditional roles work but they do turn more casual players off. Guild Wars doesn’t have set classes and while this works for most of their content it has caused problems with their raid community. Their solution was build templates, which allows for instant swapping of gear to support different roles for different content. Such a solution may work in Ashes, particularly if you were relaxing at your local node when it suddenly gets attacked. A quick gear swap and you’re ready to defend your node.
Things to keep in mind & what I'll touch on:
1. A Tank doesn't need to wield a shield to be a tank.
2. Character building/stat allocation(Primary Stats & Secondary Stats)/character identification
3. Active Blocking, Tab Blocking & Directional Damage Reduction Bonus
4. Main tank vs Off-Tank
5. Metas
PVE
I feel tradiontal roles of a Main Tanks and Off-Tanks would be best, but there should be encounters that test the ability of the tradiontal tanks and the rest of the group, whether it be a dungeon group, raid group or anything in between.
There should be encounters with mechanics that require the tanks to swap or add additional tanks, erc.
Just like there should be encounters that require more healers or a DPS check.
Main tanks traditionally are the Tanks that initiate the encounter with the target(s) that will end the encounter.
Off-tanks are usually the tanks that pick up addiontal targets that are not said target(s).
Depending on character builds, encounters, mechanics, etc. It could require tanks to swap roles, positions, add additional tanks, etc.
Currently there is not enough information about this, but it should be brought up, I believe there should be Secondary stats to allow tanks to build their tanks how they see fit. There are MANY ways to build a tank and the player should be allowed to do so.
Another issue this brings into play though is active blocking and directional damage reduction bonus, that in my eyes, will create a gap between off-tanks and main tanks and add a META.
Let me explain.
Based off what we know, active combat, including Blocking will be better than tab target combat, if the player succeeds at doing the required event.
What that means is activley blocking will be better than tab target blocking, and if they add an additional directional damage reduction to active blocking it will create a meta between main tanks and off tanks.
(Actively blocking will make it so you cannot attack)
A main tank that is actively blocking with a directional damage reduction bonus will be better at main tanking than an offtank that has to pick up adds.
It makes no sense to have an active combat off tank running around and picking up adds as they won't benefit from a directional damage reduction bonus and less benefit to active blocking, until atleast the adds are grouped up.
If there's a directional damage reduction bonus, it will benefit tanks that build their character towards damage reduction.
A tank that wants to have more dodge, Parry, crit reduction, health pool, will be less beneficial and I believe it will force a meta to stack damage reduction.
How can this be fixed?
While tab targeting or actively blocking keep the same stats across the board.
If you have 20% chance to block in tab targeting you should have 20% chance to block while in active combat.
That being said, while actively blocking, add a bonus to incoming directional damage, but let the tank decide where these benefits will go.
As an activley blocking tank you will not be able to attack, so you should have benefits because you can't attack and because you're successful in blocking a directional attack.
This will make it so based off the encounter, you may have different tanks that will successful based off their character build.
Maybe a fight needs more physical damage reduction or magic reduction. These are two different tank builds.
Maybe a boss has a higher chance to crit and you want a tank with more of a crit damage reduction and larger health pool.
Let players build their characters how they see fit.
PVP
Tanks in PvP need to have a reason to be there.
Usually what happens is Damage will outweigh Survivability.
It should be hard to kill a tank, thats the reason they're a tank, just like they shouldn't do a bunch of damage.
I do agree that having CC abilities as a tank will be beneficial, but it should be a choice to build you character that way for PVP.
The next issue I have is actively blocking in PVP.
While actively blocking in PVP you won't be attacking and most of the time damage outshines Survivability, I believe it will make it almost pointless to be actively tanking while in PvP.
That being said, it also brings to the attention of ranged single target damage and melee aoe damage.
Fix this by adding an AoE target cap for melee and let full damage be dealt on a single target then reduce the damage as more targets are added to a point where it caps off on targets.
If you don't, ranged will be the meta for PvP, especially arenas.
You won't find me being melee doing 60% of normal damage in any arena, when you can do full single target damage as a ranged player.
Now melee will be the meta for most PVE content though.
Stack AoE damage .
Hopefully we will get more info from Intrepid on all of this, but right now there's alot of grey area.
Hopefully they've thought about alot of this and have fixes for these things.
Thanks for coming to my rant. I should probably just make a video.
One of the biggest problems in MMORPGs is the lack of tanks for dungeons.
We've seen this in World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft Classic, and Elderscrolls Online, where it can take a DPS an HOUR to find a group for a dungeon, but a tank can find a group instantaneously. It has become so bad in some games that tanks can charge fees for their tanking services. I think that tank scarcity occurs because, in many MMOs, guilds focus on raiding content and most raid groups have a large amount of DPS and Healers compared to tanks. Let me show you an example with WoW Classic.
Your standard raid group in World of Warcraft The Burning Crusade has a raid group of
25 Players.
2 Tanks
6 Healers
17 DPS
That is:
1 Tank for every 3 Healers
and
1 Tank for every 8.5 DPS
Now a standard dungeon group has
5 Players
1 Tank
1 Healer
3 DPS
So hypothetically, there are about 5.5 DPS and 2 Healers waiting for a tank.
Raid composition is of course not the only problem with Tank scarcity, but I think it is the largest problem.
The AshesofCreation Wiki states that group content will be "tailored for 40,16, and 8 person group sizes"
"Parties will have up to eight (8) players in a single group
Raids will have 40 man groups."
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Group_sizes
So, to correct for tank scarcity we would have the correct proportion of the 4 roles within Ashes of Creation. Tank, Healer, Support, and DPS. So as an example:
8 person group -
1 Tank
4 DPS
1 Support
2 Healers
16 person group-
2 Tanks
8 DPS
2 Support
4 Healers
40 Person group-
5 Tanks
20 DPS
5 Support
10 Healers
This part is just an example, we don't know how many players we need for each role
In this case, if guilds recruit, as they usually do, based on their raid teams, then their 40-man group can break into 5, 8-person groups, and there are enough tanks to go around for each of the 5 groups.
ᚺᛖᚨᚱᚦ ᛟᚠᚦᛖ ᛊᚺᚨᛞᛟᚹ ᛁᛗᛁᚱ
I prefer when the tank's primary defense stat is block, otherwise, why am I lugging around a ten-pound hunk of metal? It's not the tank's job to hop around and dodge, roll, and DPS. Nor should the tank's threat generation correlate to DPS in any way.
A tank should have around two to three gap closers and two to three taunts in their kit, with one taunt being an AOE "oh S..T" with a heavy CD. If tanks today were the same as they were twenty years ago, players wouldn't bring up the "PVP vs PVE argument. Long ago, the majority of a tank's kit was CC, that way even if you couldn't hold agro you could still control the mobs. A tank's primary objective is to control the fight, and what is more aggravating than CC locking? A Tank (in dungeon/raid spec) should always be bottom of the DPS charts.
Somewhere along the way tanks were changed and CC was given out to every other class for PVP.
DPS doesn't want to be cc locked by tanks, won't stand to be out dps'd by tanks and doesn't think that a raid tank should be unkillable even though It can take multiple hits for hundreds of thousands of damage from raid bosses and just one of those hits is enough to kill an entire raid.
Take the Tank/Tank or Guardian class. Would a heavy CC kit really be that bad to fight in PVP if they hit like a wet noodle? It's not a guardian's job to DP, Guardian should be a Raid tank. Raid tanks have three jobs, Control the encounter, don't die, and control agro. That's all. PERIOD
The Tank primary kit should be focused on controlling encounters.
Augment a Tanks abilities to do more damage/ less CC or more movement/gap closers, or more self-sustainability with some secondary archetypes.
In Ashes, the ability to change your secondary archetype will open tanks and all primary archetypes to hundreds of thousands of possibilities. Each primary archetype is modified differently with each secondary. Then factor in any class that can use any weapon and any armor class and sprinkles in the custom crafting dial that allows master crafters to add almost ANY stat to those weapons and armor. There are more ways to play an archetype in Ashes than most people will ever try.
So all those people that want "tanks to be viable in PVP" can just go swap out to a DPS secondary archetype and swap gear loadouts.
All those people who don't want "boring old tanking" can swap to a secondary that offers more evasion and zoomies.
Given that we haven't seen how secondary archetypes are going to affect the abilities of each primary archetype, It's a little soon to be talking about what we want to change.
Flexibility - I want be able to have a variety of build options and I want some of those options to be a decent damage one. I wouldn't expect the same amount of damage as a DPS class but I want to be a significant 1v1 threat to a DPS if I build more offensively.
Active CC Threat - As a tank, obviously you typically have a massive effect on the outcome of combat, especially if you are the only tank in a group. What I don't like is when some games give me abilities that visually look super cool but don't actually do all that much because my passive abilities, stats and the fact that I'm just standing in front of the rest of the group to take hits is what makes me significant. To me, that's boring and I won't play that class. I want to be active. I want powerful CC abilities that I have to time correctly for them to be effective. I want to feel like my actual skill is keeping my teammates alive, not just my presence and ability to press 'W' to walk straight at the enemy. DPS should naturally draw aggro if they are dropping enemies left and right. It doesn't make sense for an enemy to focus on a tank if their power is all in defense. I want to be a threat because I force them to pay attention to me, not with the same exact button (one taunt button that I spam) that just gives them a command to attack me but because they actually can't touch my DPS and healers as long as I'm alive. That is the class I will play constantly. That feels powerful and exciting.
Mobility - I get that someone in heavy armor would realistically be slower than someone in light. I would like the option to play a light armored dodge/evasion tank. My dream would be a quick, agile warrior who can use both shield and sword/spear or a two-handed weapon (two handed spear fighting like Oberyn Martell would be absolutely amazing too!). You guys are building AoC with a risk vs reward mantra and this is a great place to let that shine. Let me play a tank who has to know when to dodge and when to dish out a precise hard CC strike that infuriates enemy DPS. Let me be able to dodge and run around the battlefield to protect my healers. If I can have a shield and spear with light armor, let me dash to the enemy DPS attacking my healer, hit them with a stunning shield bash and then sweep their legs out from under them with my spear to deliver a spear strike while they are laying on the ground. If I mess up, I'll feel it and be punished. That's okay. It adds to the thrill. It's the price I pay for dropping the heavy armor to gain my mobility and I will happily accept that trade. And please let this be a decent option and not a sad alternative that makes people disappointed if their group's tank builds this way.
like walls? Be a wall, play a tank today and say goodbye to that useless dmg dealing.
I second this completely.
As for the original question 'do prefer tank and off tank vs multiple tanks' I feel like it's pretty obviously 'both'. A tank has two jobs. Damage mitigation and hate mitigation. An off tank can provide either of these to allow for more dps and cc from the tank or to provide even more mitigation that outpaces one tanks timers. Multiple tanks on the other hand allow for more complex encounters with multiple primary targets, damage types and a stronger positional threat element. An off tank can handle another primary targets kind of but not nearly as effectively in terms of maintaining a position just by the very nature of what an off tank is.
Off tanks in my opinion is more about taking one of those two parts of what a tank does and doing it very well while working with the AoE specialist to keep adds off relevant party members to maintain overall dps on whatever the primary target is.
This also is why I think Summoner/Tank would be better off being able to be a full tank rather than just an off tank as it's a natural way of allowing that sort of smaller party to take on multiple threats.
Personally I'd love a game that would allow multiple tanks literally form a shield wall/phalanx with a Shield and Spear users or such.
This would give a massive defensive bonus to frontal attacks but with the debuff to being flanked just like IRL. But it would give combat a more, tactic oriented take, rather than the chaotic "Death ball" PvP most MMORPGs do in open world pvp.
Group tactics/ group mechanics for PvX combat would be unique, and give PvP a fun new take we don't see much if at all. It would make large scale PvP more than just a cluster of players all mixed in. But also would put more weight on Officers to train their members properly so they don't scatter. War is still chaos, but this gives us more options in how we wish to battle or coordinate our forces.