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
Fight design
With just two tanks, a fight can only really be subdivided into two groups. With the allowance of more tanks, you have the ability to split fights up more which only creates more variety.
As an example: Shiva from FFXIV. Due to a stacking debuff you have a staff tank and sword tank. With more tanks you could take the fight design further against a boss that is a master of many weapons. A sword tank, a mace tank, an axe tank and so on.
Another example is a situation where there are two enemies that have to be pulled apart and tanked away from each other. With two tanks you just keep the enemies apart and maybe move them around. With more tanks maybe you need to make shapes or formations out of the locations the enemies are being tanked. Adding more tanks in larger group content allows for more dynamic fights.
Socially
In a guild how many tanks will you need? Imagine a 40 person guild that is able to split up for 8 person content just fine, but then coming together for 16 or 40 player content would potentially be very awkward if those larger group fights only accommodate 2 tanks. Thus, correctly balancing the number of tanks required for each kind of content will be important. And keeping that ratio even (or at least close to it) among all activity types would be ideal for grouping purposes.
Archetype design
Primary archetype cannot be changed but secondary can. This can lead to an assumed situation where a group would like another DPS and if a tank tries to fill that role by having their secondary archetype as a DPS spec they likely won’t do enough damage. However, I would assume that the opposite is true; if a group needed an additional tank, someone with a DPS primary could change their secondary archetype to tank and could fill that role.
The issues I see with this scenario:
- It gives all the flexibility to DPS archetypes and none of it to the tank archetype.
- It causes off-roleing to occur too frequently.
- It further pushes people away from actually rolling a tank primary archetype.
Summary
All this said, I do believe that having a hard requirement on the number of tanks in different content types might be necessary. Look at something like Overwatch's decline. The game really struggled due to poor metas stemming from minimal limitations and structure. Not the same genre, but the example can still apply here. Only with testing what works in Ashes can the exact right fit for this game be found.
I've been wondering about this, I want to know how much skill point allocation and gear stats choices make an impact on how a character will play. If I make a tank/fighter and build everything towards being a DPS shouldn't he still pump some good damage. Yes I acknowledge all of his activated abilities will be the tank archetype abilities, but if all of this skill points are put into damage instead of health and mitigation, he should work like a DPS right?
For the TLDR:
More activity than just "taunt the boss to take a few hits for me" or "off-tank, go grab adds in the corner" are the fantasy of every tank that I know. Fights with just those simple tasks are nice for a break. Nice to keep us on our toes for specific things. Nice for a relaxing fight between really intense battles that make you pucker. But they should be the exception, not the rule. Make things interesting for tanks by requiring more thoguht and activity.
Keep raid roles at a similar ratio of Tanks:Healers:DPS:Support, with maybe a small bit of flex per fight. That gives tanks a decent reason to really push to improve instead of "just farming money" in dungeons because they can't ever find a raid spot. More tanks in a raid means they gear slower, keeping them in the same tier as the rest of the raid. They feel the same challenge and need to push that way.
ALSO:
Change the Tank class name. It drastically lessens the pride in telling someone your class. Makes me feel like Forrest Gump.
"Anyway, like I was sayin', tanks is the fruit of the raid. You can be a Bard/Tank, Summoner/Tank, Cleric/Tank, Ranger/Tank, Rogue/Tank. Dey's uh Tank/Bard, Tank/Mage, Tank/Fighter. Tank/Tank. Just Tank."
For the long-winded version:
Main Tank with a single Off-Tank that only exists to swap for single abilities or phases to give the Main Tank a chance to recover or lose a debuff?
That playstyle is horrendously boring if overdone. A couple fights like that to mix it up and keep you on your toes is fine. Great even. If that is the core design that is used to create a need for Off-Tanks....THAT is something that makes tanks quit playing the tank role.
If you mean Main Tank with an Off-Tank because the "Main" tank is holding the boss while Off-Tank grabs adds or the second boss that is held until last to kill?
That's decent fight design as well, as long as it isn't terribly often.
I do tend to prefer raids where multiple tanks are needed. There should be a need to strategize and coordinate with each other.
Tank A on Boss 1, while B and C pick up adds. Boss 1 gets to 30% life or so and Boss 2 comes out. Boss 2 has a different damage type, so Tank B is more fitted to pick it up. Tank 2 does this and now only Tank C is able to pick up adds. At 10% Boss 1 is going to do two Tank Buster attacks within seconds of each other, so Tank C Needs to taunt Boss 1 off of Tank A after the first tank buster and Tank A needs to pick up adds now. When Boss 1 dies, it gives Tank C a buff. When Boss 3 comes out, Tank C needs to pick it up because of their buff and specific mitigation abilities making it the most effective for the next 3 minutes of the buff remaining. Hopefully Boss 2 was slain before Boss 1.
You now have a soft cap "enrage" until that buff wears off. Then Tank A, B, and D will need to pick up Boss 3 if the raid cannot kill it quickly enough to have Tank C remain alive. Yes, that's right. I said Tank D. Tank D has been cherry-picking very specific adds that need to be tanked away from everything else. They've got the right kit to withstand the type of damage coming in and be able to peel off those specific adds out of the waves coming in.
Four tanks. Specific jobs. All vital, rather than simply taunting for a single skill or just bulk-gathering all the adds that swarm the party so they can all be dropped with AOE quickly. DPS will now need to prioritize targets. AOE smaller adds. Burst down big adds. Burn the boss when able, killing them in the right order and saving cooldowns for the right times. Healers would have mass chaos to manage, with everyone taking damage from varying sources. Fun times!
DEFINITELY prefer fights that require more dynamic activity or a solid strategy.
The role of tank has so few people interested in it, for most games, and the number needed for a raid is far less per capita than in a dungeon party. This means that the "Main" tank is geared out quickly, with the "Off" tank being a close second. EVERYONE else lags behind, unless loot drops are terribly against tank loot. This also means that the good tanks get gear fastest and are expected to stick with the group until the rest get geared up. But then the "Main" tanks tend to get bored running the same bosses 17 more times after they've been as geared as possible, just because the rest of the raid is only half geared.
On a further note, I try to reiterate this every time I can: Can the "Tank" class be renamed? Please?
Most of the time, people say "We need a tank!" because there are so few tanks playing that they will settle for any tank, rather than calling for the most optimal or the one with the more desired playstyle to fit the party. Any tank will do, so why specify?
There are plenty of circumstances in a raid where people say:
"We need another healer" or "We need more ranged" or "Does anyone know a good caster?" or "We need more melee on this boss, so the ranged can spread out better."
If it is, indeed, named "Tank" because that's all people ask for when they need one, then you should name all the classes like the below:
Tank
Healer
Caster
Ranged
Melee
Stealth
Pet class
Support
Would you prefer more traditional MMORPG main and off-tank roles, or would you prefer to see combat experiences with several tanks fighting?
I would prefer both systems where a tankswitch is also possible or even needed due to impossebilitys to keep 1 tanke alive all the time where a switch would be needed on the hardest bosses. maybe in a way that the more a tank get healed he builds up a resisance to the heals and needs to loose that resiscance by not beeing healed for a while to reset the resistance. or to cure some debuffs with potions and medikits that wouldnt heal with spells, however the useage of potions and medikits may take some time and in this he can not fight.
depending on the raid dungeon or else its needed to prepair well, maybe also have a skill that lets the tank reduce its aggro or distribute it with other tanks to do the switch.
so a tank switching a bit like it was seen in Log Horizon (Anime)
Some ideas that the first response from Lashing inspired some imagination that I would hope you might consider is a potential twist for how threat works (mainly for raid/boss type encounters).
If we reimagine threat and how a tank would work where we don't just say a tank has a threat generating skill and after the tank has threat the boss will attack and follow the tank, maybe instead the tank has to respond to how the mob is acting.
I will use a few examples to explain the idea and then hopefully it should get your imagination going to think about other possibilities of the concept.
1. In order for a tank to gain agro at the beginning is to stand in front of the boss. The boss might look to other players but the tank could have a few high mobility type skills to allow them to continuously get in front of the boss forcing it to deal with the tank.
2. The boss is free to do side swipes at any melee character or change focus to them since they are so close but they could have abilities that would help them survive like an assassin evasion/dodge etc.
3. Part of this redesigned threat mechanic would be that a boss mob might have a primary way of how it decides threat such as vision. This goes back to the whole point of the tank reacting to the boss and always standing in front of the boss to keep more aggro but the boss if it has good enough vision might see the casters behind the tank. So then a tank might have an ability say like a paladins blinding light that would partially blind the boss and lower its field of vision and distance allowing the dps to be safe. (effectively managing threat)
4. Building off point 3. this would also open the door to caster classes like mages casting something like illusion wall/field to hide all the range dps or heals for a certain amount of time.
5. Building further off points 3 and 4 you can expand this to say character smell, body temp if fighting a snake mob etc. This could additionally then factor in your environment, are you fighting in a dark cave with low visibility at night, is it daytime, is it winter so everybody is colder or more covered up.
This creates a dynamic where the tank would still play an important role of tanking the majority of the dmg because somebody still needs to eat the dmg and not die but also have important abilities that they can use to react to how the boss is acting and to help manage threat. But importantly it also puts threat management on the other players as well and requires potentially more cooperation on how to manage the threat, how do you spread out but also have effective threat management. At the end this is just an idea I thought could be cool and maybe fun but it could also potentially not be as fun as the good old tank meta we are used to.
TLDR: Tanking could be more reactive and more about you being the big guy always stepping in front of a boss while the whole group or raid have to all contribute to managing threat in a different way.
All my experience is small group content and pvp ranking , so that's the perspective I bring to the table.
For a tank to be affective at thier job, they really need to be the most toxic character in the close vicinity in either a pvp or pve scenario.
In pve threat should be generated mostly though CC abilities , damage mitigation, taunts and interrupts.
Depending on the pve content , one tank should be sufficient or multiple maybe needed.
In pvp that is by either being a CC nuisance that slows , stuns , interrupts or pushing , pulling and disrupting the plans of their enemies, or by blocking and controlling a valuable bottleneck , mitigating damage of them and their allies.
Or by being a serious threat to kill enemy dps in a 1v1 situation.
Someone in the comments mentioned front lines of tanks more akin to historical battle formations, obviously on a smaller scale. It sounded interesting.
Also renaming the class to a less slang term would be useful. I think someone already mentioned this also.
What makes tanks fun in MOBA style games is the tank V tank plays. The most high intense gameplay is when the supports are godly providing peeling for a DPS, blocking incoming crowd control abilities by the other tank, mitigating damage through shields, wall blocks, or damage reduction or passives. And having those abilities will necessitate communication and shot calling when it comes to engagement and disengagement.
Adding variety to off tanks will make PVP so much more interesting and provide so many different synergies and plays than just having one “tank” class. For mass pvp, and group skirmishes the off tank roles will be so much more dynamic for synergy plays in providing peel and support than just a traditional tank revolved simply around PVE threat generation.
For example a Bard x Tank could provide more damage mitigation with their build
A mage x tank could provide ranged peeling abilities with fire walls as an augment to a standard fireball or something to control the battlefield and give opportunities to their dps for engagement and disengagement. Or an electric shock can turn into full blown stuns or slows ect.
So many MOBA support classes have these kinda diverse concepts for the “tank/support” class. It facilitates the Rock Paper Scissors approach giving players more options to how they want to support their PVP gameplay and will definitely make Mass pvp and skirmishes more engaging and class archetypes more meaningful.
Tank are warriors, able to carry heavy plates on their body, generate threats and attract enemies, this makes them strong, strong enough to apply strong and accurate blows when the targets are close, even more if they are stunned and/or don't have protected with sturdy equipment.
Tank are not invulnerable and immortal, but they are tough, so tough that the energy used to protect himself consumes him and opens up his resistance, and like everything in the world there is a weakness, TANK should be vulnerable to piercing damage applied by spears, swords, slashes. etc. that are not defended, would have their protections or magic resistance mitigated if they receive negative effects.
And thinking along this line we can define the TANK class,
*Now we are going to use a SWOT on the characteristics mentioned above.
Strengths
✜ High resistance.
✜ High Strength.
Weakness
✜ Slow when moving.
Opportunities
✜ Melee Combat with Swords, Spears, Axes, Maces and Shields.
✜ They can do a lot of damage to some players, but are rarely (if ever) the best DPS.
Threats
✜ Piercing damage in melee combat.
✜ Breakable magic resistance.
✜ Equipment durability, should punish character defense.
[PVP] TANK vs. other classes
Tank vs. Fighter
✜ High potential damage from the Fighter on the Tank, however balanced with the amount of CC applied by the tank on the enemy, it can equal in 1v1 combat.
Tank vs. Tank
✜ Imminent and long combat, whoever manages to apply more damage and more control would win the combat.
Tank vs. Rogue
✜ Tank Achilles Heel, if not controlled by CC the Tank is vulnerable to your piercing attacks.
✜ However if they are stunned and controlled, the Rogue would be exposed to the TANK's furious attacks, in 1vs1 if the tank is caught unprepared it can suffer retaliation, but the roguer is not strong and fast enough, it can be in danger when attacking a tank.
Tank vs. Ranger
✜ Ranger shouldn't be considered a threat to TANKs, because of its resistant plates, piercing damage from long distances could be mitigated in % of its resistance.
✜ Ranger should apply effects that would reduce the approach of the TANK, but if he let the ranged approach he would be in a situation as critical as the Rogue, he would receive control (Stuns) and so the damage would be applied to them.
✜ It would be a hunting and hunter combat, where the tank would try to hold or attract the ranged, while the ranged attacks and runs trying to keep the distance, but it will be difficult to apply significant damage to the TANK.
Tank vs. Mage
✜ When involving spells in combat, there are several variables that can influence combat.
✜ When the Tank is protected (Items) or over a protection (Buffer), incoming attacks: elemental damage, control effects, among others, would be mitigated by %.
✜ In Combat it would be similar to Ranger, but the number of control spells over the TANK would be greater and consequently the effects can weaken the target, that's when the damage is directed.
✜ In AoE damage that the Debuff is not applied on the specific TANK or in the group, this damage can be mitigated if there is protection, maintaining the resistance of the TANK.
Tank vs. Summoner
✜ Due to the lack of references, this combat is under analysis, but approaching the elements mentioned in the Mage combat.
✜ I would need an analysis of the “summoned” beings.
Tank vs. Cleric
✜ There should be no combat between the classes, they simply could not obtain victory when facing each other, for both.
✜ Cleric shouldn't have damage to take down a TANK, but if the TANK manages to control Cleric, with stuns and abilities that break healing spellcasting, maybe there's a possibility to beat him.
✜ Result could be modified by character specialization.
“Cleric should be able to damage both Dead and non-living Creatures.”
Tank vs. Bard
✜ Like Cleric, there should be no combat between classes, it would simply be a control applicator without damage, over a resistant TANK, Bard if he doesn't have healing abilities, when captured by the TANK control, they could suffer retaliation.
✜ The Result could change depending on the character's specialization.
This could completely change the dynamic of how the trinity works, and would allow you to create more dynamic boss fights, where the role of a group of tanks is more about repelling a boss to create room for their team.
- Boss does a big AoE fire breath - Tanks react with a front-line turtle to block the size of the AoE behind them
- Boss jumps behind the party - Tanks dash to the backline and force the Boss to step backwards so the team can reset formation
- Boss pounces on a particular teammate - Tank dive-tackles the team member to take their place being mauled (hence their tankiness is important)
To increase the dynamism of the fight further, so that tanks aren't just reactive, give them boss objectives - ways that they can cause a boss to topple over, or to tire out a boss, or to force a boss into a certain position on the field.This kind of system is PvX friendly, because it's closer to how tanks work in PvP - thus there's no need to differentiate between PvE skills and PvP skills. The tank is an obstacle, not a target, but he won't let you pass to get to the real target.
PvE: You just end up against a bag full of HP and will have to deal with whatever comes in between. The tank being the one who can stand toe to toe for a moment with a boss having constant damage while range and close damage dealer will have to run and avoid big damage simply because they have no shield and mitigation.
Healer keeping everyone healthy and alive (with the help of the tank casting his barrier when needed).
What makes it fun are the battle mechanics and "fight the huge" feeling.
PvP: it's another story ! Human will use their skills, knowledges, tricks and environment (at least the good ones) to deal with any situation. Arena being also different from open pvp and siege.
Why a tank ? Because he is the one on the front line protecting the ram, war siege and comrades with his shield, barrier, warcry, aura and so on.
It is my point of view and I understand this is not what Intrepid intend to do.
Curious and eager to see what's going to be for Ashes of creation.
My original tank build relied on Damage Reflection and taunts.
Argent would rely on spiritual interventions and incoming damage turned back as threat.
Guardian would harness battle manoeuvres like parry, pivot, intercept to produce threat.
Keeper would summon a tanking pet to produce threat. The keeper would boost pet threat through attacks.
Knight would rely on bleeds/prowess to compound threat and deal great amounts of damage for further threat.
Nightshield would produce Shadow Shields which will convert damage from team mates into threat.
Paladin would harness target binds, bonds and battle connections to increase threat.
Spellshield would utilise shields on self to produce threat, plus elemental conjuration to boost threat/damage.
Warden would utilise birds of prey and Fae to produce more threat/damage.
Basically, the tanks would be dps equal to other dps, but would more often add additional threat generation instead of health or mana. In effect, the tanks would be amalgamated into Damage/Threat instead of Damage/Regeneration for healers or Damage/Damage over time for DPS.
The builds above would enable the 'tanks' to be viable in PvP and PvE because the 'tanks' would be built for PvX. The trick would be to enable these classes to operate together, but, also enable these classes to work independently.
Then 1 Tank per Party within the raid has to be required for Raids.
Everything else is a shitty design decision at best and is the exact reason why we see tank and cleric shortages in many games. Needed for group play, forced to sit out raid content and fucked in solo play will understandably lead to discontent with the class. Which afterwards leads to shortages of these archetypes, longer search periods and a generally unhappier party experience.
Also consider having abilities that are designed one way for PVE but operate slightly differently against players to provide the desired outcome. Such as a taunt that generates threat will instead cause an affected player to lock onto you attacking/following you for a few seconds.
A lot of valuable feedback by the community in this topic!
For example, the enemy has taken X total damage and thus change their target priority from nearest enemy to the top 5 highest damage dealers and move/target the closest one of those 5. The tank, would need to either A.) now deal more damage to be considered a threat or B.) need to move into the enemy's forward view arc to stand between a raycast sent from the enemy to the target ally, essentially "blocking" the enemy's aggression where they would get attacked instead until the enemy battle awareness changes againor the tank is removed from that forward arc. The key point Im trying to make is to force the tank to need to be moving around the combat space in order to protect allies and hold the enemies attention not just cycle through skills.
Side note: I think itd be kinda interesting actually if the tank had a toggle "Block/Guard" skill. When toggled on, dmg reduction goes up drastically, allowing them to soak up to X total dmg (based on weapon/shield) and stop many attacks. However, they cant use certain skills and their auto attack speed is reduced. But when its turned off they revert to their typical defense stats. So like if a dragon did a breath attack, if the tank had "Block/Guard" toggled on, the range of the attack would stop at them, whereas if it was toggled off, it would still hit every player within its total range.
i am sorry if this goes all over the place....
1. the tank should be good at damage mitigation (either by being able to take the damage directly, absorbing a percent so that it like does 70% instead of the full 100, avoiding it), higher health, lower dps.
2. the tank could be able to "control" up to like 5 people's agro and over that he has a lower percent chance to have it. and the mob has a "hate list" of 10. so, if a 6th mob comes up and i start hitting it i could pull the agro off of the tank.
3. an example would be the tank and each of the 6 others in the group do 100 damage, the mob would see it like the tank did 500 damage or take up 5 slots on the hit list, so the 5 in front of, nearest etc would have seen it that way but the last guy hit a 6th mob so that mob sees it like the tank did 350 damage and the one guy that attacked the mob specifically did 100 damage. the mob would then have an 80% chance to attack the tank and 20% to attack the guy.
it is kinda like who do you pay attention to, the big guy in battle gear right in front of you, the sniper 200 feet away, the guy that looks like a civilian that walked past, the guy with the rocket launcher 100 feet away, the medic 50 feet away
3. the tanks abilities should help prevent damage to them, those near them or behind them and keep the mobs targeted on them.
4. i think there are many classes that can off tank by having stone walls, skins, avoiding damage, summoned tanks.
maybe if you had 5 tanks in a raid, they could protect only so many behind them, maybe they don't use their ability to make them seem like twice the threat that they normally are. if it was only 5 of the same guys doing the same abilities then the mob would be confused and keep turning to attack the one who has the most/least health, the one who has done the most damage to it.
so, it all depends on how many mobs and tanks, your raid could do most of his attacks on the tank but does special attacks against healers, ones who have the least health etc. you could have one main boss who summons additional creatures that a second tank would have to get agro on since the main tank is focusing on the main boss. if you had a tank and an extremely high dps that could out agro the tank if there was just 1 so then you would need 2 to offset that high dps so that the mobs attacks are focused one and sometimes hitting the other instead of the dps.
I want to be able to play as a tank who has sustain, but can also deal out decent damage. Maybe not as fast as a primary DPS class - but my sustain and damage output ratio should be balanced, and this determined on how I chose to spec and equip my tank character.
What I see in my head when I picture my ideal tank character... Slow moving attacks that deal heavy damage, and enough sustain to make up for my slow attack speed. I want to be an intimidating force when leading my guild into war. What I don't want to be is a big cuddly support bear.
I don't want my class to shoehorn me into the "tank" role - I want flexibility.
And I want the same flexibility when forming a party, we should be able to enter a dungeon with whatever team make up we want.
This would allow people to actually experiment with their characters, builds, and equipment to come up with something truly unique. The opposite would defeat the purpose of non-class-locked weapons and gear.
Edit: Going off of what some other people have said to add to my point... If I want to be a more support tank then that should be determined by secondary class and equipment. AOE buffs should be linked to having something like bard or summoner secondary. Tanks more focused on sustainability (the ability to be a meat shield), would likely choose to be a guardian (tank,tank), or could gain self healing augments from having cleric secondary. Pull abilities could be linked to ranger. Players who want to deal more damage could have fighter or rogue secondary.
This ^
I'm in this exact same boat too, have asked previously multiple times with no real answer, but as you say, maybe they haven't been ready/able/willing to discuss & decide before this. So hopefully the fact that they're asking means that now is the right time to discuss & that they'll make a decision on this soon and tell us.
I really, REALLY hope they think through tank scarcity. I've played SOOO many MMO's that haven't, and it's been a huge pain in those games. This isn't a new problem to solve, there are many solutions out there.
I would honestly most love it to be as you say, that x/tank classes could off-tank. This would still mean that tank/x classes would be better & more desirable for group content, and near-mandatory (if not actually mandatory) for raid content, but that groups weren't entirely screwed by only 1 in 8 being able to tank.
Plus it would mean that if any player did want their x/tank character to be able to off-tank, they'd still need to have a build/spec/gearset/hotbars and actually know how to play it, in order to do that.
Hehe yes, precisely. Please Intrepid, please, for the love of god, change the name ! Champion, Guardian, Vanguard, Bastion, there's lots of names that would work just fine, but not Tank ... that just makes the game sound silly & cheap.
Nice post SirChancelot, I feel like you really get it :-)
AFAIK (others can probably correct me if I'm wrong or if this has changed) no, the current intention isn't that Fighter, or Cleric, or even any x/Tank classes will be able to tank. I beleive it's been previously stated that no class combination will be able to tank other than Tank/X, and possibly one of the Summoner pets might be able to off-tank. That's it.
I genuinely hope that this changes prior to launch otherwise it will give rise to worse tank scarcity than we've seen in any MMO for years. Hopefully this Dev Discussion will bring this to light and effect change.
1) Please change name of tank to something else
2) Please allow x/Tank classes to off-tank
These two things would be awesome
I like this idea, they could also do something like what lost ark has with the tank reacting to a boss attack to stagger the boss. So as an example a dragon starts to do a big fire breath attack, the tank could do a charge ability that either stops or redirects the attack. So the tank uses an ability to change where the boss is looking.
But I fearly like playing support classes in general, which includes one or two tanks in games like LoL or Warframe.
I believe the usual gamplay of threatassesment, threat managment and soking dmg is quit bland and could use some spicy love.
Things that I think would make tanking more interresting/variant are the following.
Positioning:
Make it not just the usual, "stand as close as possible and away from the team" approach of positioning for tanks. Maybe instead of running toward the mob, some tanks could focus on intercepting a monster when it trys to sprint towards your teammates. Intercept -> counter / block -> stun / cc -> disengage as soon as your team has repositioned themselve. (zoning enemys from your team)
Or give tanks the ability to move allies, kinda like thrash in LoL.
In short make not only your own positioning relevant but alsow that of allies and enemys. And give players agency to make both planned and instant decisions about it.
CDR interactions:
Don't just give dps players the option to work toward empowering skills or decreasing its cooldown.
Why shouldn't some tanks be able to smash buttons as fast as possible? Make it so there are important cooldown refunder abilities that can miss and wola! Here is another thing pvp players can learn to both play with and against, while rewarding players for actually focusing on the game instead of watching a stream on their second monitor...
Ashes having so many classes is both a bune and bane for tanks. a bune because many different classes offers the possibility of wastly different gameplay and tankmechanics. Which inturn allows more peopl to find a tanking style that fits, is fun to play. A bane because balancing might turn all but one usless in comperrison.
Creating tension toward non meta players that just wanne have fun.
To both. There should be content that can be solved regardless of what classes are in the comp. There should be combat where you need a Main Tank, and maybe an Off Tank. And there should be content where Tanky Bois (and Grills) can go do tank things by design, like needing to aggro control a lot of different Big Bads that a single tank or single tank with off tank just can't do.
You have a huge world out there. Would be a shame to not have this kind of variety.