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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Dev Discussion #47 - Tanking: Threat Mitigation
Glorious Ashes community - it's time for another Dev Discussion! Dev Discussion topics are kind of like a "reverse Q&A" - rather than you asking us questions about Ashes of Creation, we want to ask YOU what your thoughts are.
Our design team has compiled a list of burning questions we'd love to get your feedback on regarding gameplay, your past MMO experiences, and more. Join in on the Dev Discussion and share what makes gaming special to you!
Dev Discussion - Tanking: Threat Mitigation
For people who prefer to play the tanking role, do you enjoy holding threat as a prevalent part of combat? Would you prefer threat mechanics to be a part of combat initiation, or throughout the entire duration of combat?
Edit: Here is a follow-up question for you non-tanking players
For non-tanking players, are you fond of having to play your role with threat in mind?
Keep an eye out for our next Dev Discussion topic regarding Training!
Important Update
Hello all!
On Friday, we showed off some updates for the Tank archetype during the January Development Update Livestream. The recording shown on the livestream was re-recorded. I know some of you have left feedback on this thread regarding threat mitigation, so be sure to check out the re-recording on YouTube if you haven't already
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwWK9HJNJRQ 
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Comments
Iirc we already have that cone formation thing, so I think a mechanic of random agro by the mob that tank can "feel" beforehand and has a second or two to get in position and set up a defensive stance in front of the target would be great.
In other words, please try out something new with this archetype.
In my experience tanks are often locked into pve roles or flag carrier roles in pvp. Hence why I request decent damage for the pvx tag. There is no holding aggro in pvp and there should be no mitigation of damage when holding aggro in pve. It is fine to be evasive but evasion and damage sponge at the sane time is rubbish. Someone should still be taking damage unless the tank has positioned the boss to prevent damage.
It's difficult to describe the issues due to the broadness of tanking in general. I just wouldn't want to play a tank if I would be locked into pve only in a pvx game.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/357275#Comment_357275
TLDR I would like threat management to be fairly easy on the opening of a pull an progressively get harder as the fight goes on. This solves the biggest issue I always see people have with threat systems. They do not want to wait to deal damage. With the tank having abilities that can preemptively prevent someone from pulling threat off them. In addition some mobs should have things they hate that makes them more likely to target a specific party member. Like a mob that hates healers or a mob that hates fire. That way the tank knows they need to focus on people with the negative affinity with their threat management skills. Please refer to my link for more details.
I view threat management as a group coordination thing, therefore, and it requires at least some effort from everyone. Anything less is completely uninteresting to me. For clarity, I'm 100% an Evasion Tank. Every game. I have never chosen to play a 'straight mitigation' style tank, that I can remember, even my MOBA choices are more about 'force opponent to chase' and 'root them while I move away'.
My main game historically didn't even have the Tank be the one to engage, as they lacked the skills to drop or avoid unwanted aggro, so ranged classes with such skills or Bards would pull, therefore the initial Threat/Hate would be important. Other games, I am fine with pulling and 'getting into position for initial Aggro' because again, I'm Evasion Tank, it doesn't often matter.
To me, threat management is about riding the line of 'how much mitigation do I need, and how much can I remove for accuracy or other paths toward damage/control?'
This, however, depends a LOT on the TTK of a group vs a strongish enemy in the game. Using the one I am used to, which is also what I observed in Alpha-1, it would have to be similar, where the hate generation is a consistent, sometimes complex system, and knowing 'when to put energy into mitigation' vs 'when to put energy into spiking hate after an ally does something powerful' is one of the primary skills of an experienced Tank.
I don't remotely enjoy the flow of 'Do an ability at start to get hate and now, how good a Tank you are comes down to if you can CC the Mob's big stuff and how much damage mitigation you have'. I do not enjoy games where the 'effective way of fighting a mob' is to 'prevent the mob from actually doing all of its dangerous things', as it reduces the variety. It doesn't matter what the mob actually does if the main gameplan is always just 'stop it from doing that'. However, if mobs are allowed to realize and use their abilities, some of them will probably cause reductions in hate values, requiring the 'constant management'.
I'm not sure what this question is asking. Holding threat is what defines the tank role so this seems to be self-evident.
Would you prefer threat mechanics to be a part of combat initiation, or throughout the entire duration of combat?
If it is possible for a dps to pull threat by their cumulative damage (when the boss is being tanked optimally), say in the middle of a raid boss, then Ashes will need some kind of threat warning system that surfaces that information to the dps and the tank as well. Otherwise, you will have a mage pull aggro on a world dragon boss with no warning whatsoever. It might be funny but it isn't really good gameplay if the mage is wondering when he will pull aggro and the tank never knows when he might be required to suddenly taunt. And if one dps can pull aggro off the tank, then it might set off a chain of dps pulling aggro...in which case the taunt cooldown becomes an issue.
With proper balancing, threat should matter without making the tank play a mini game where they need to taunt reflexively every pull and then waiting for taunt to come off cooldown again
In all the MMOs I've previously enjoyed, management of threat was an active process which everyone in the party needed to be aware of. Stuff like "the DPS needing to decide whether to commit to burst damage, based on how confident they are that the tank has control of the situation", or "quickly cycling aggro away from the healer when they need to save someone" for instance, is important to me feeling engaged, and feeling like my party has the potential for effective teamwork.
I also agree with the point Azherae made about CCs - while it's fun if tanks have some ability to disrupt enemy attacks, if it's either too easy to do consistently, or if CCs have low cooldowns, combat can quickly get monotonous.
Plus, by having this available you also enable the capacity to drop hate onto others without requiring an explicit ability that does so. Emergent game play!
Having threat determined by the pull seems like a really terrible idea to me and decreases diversity of pull situations. Especially if we see abilities like in alpha 1 where the tank can pull targets or charge at them, it would be a shame if you couldn't combine that with a Mage or Ranger pull because they take so much initial threat.
Also, tying threat generation to mitigation abilities is a mechanic I like a lot. Whenever I use something like a Damage Reduction Stance, it should understandably upset the target a whole lot.
Who pulls might depend on party statuses, other enemies in the area, what buffs or prep is underway by others, requiring their time or focus.
It should be a continuous consideration for the entirety of the fight: Tanks have the greatest focus, but the arrangement of buffs from your Bard, who and in what order the Cleric heals, how the DPS manage their abilities, and what the Rogue does to move threat around in order to allow additional tactical choices on behalf of other teammates should all be a part of the dance of threat management.
Threat management can provide additional layers of depth to healing as well. Not just "keep the tank alive", but managing the types and levels of healing used on each teammate in order to keep hate off yourself, while anticipating upcoming events.
Threat management should be a consideration for buffers: Do I give the Ranger more attack or will it make him pull aggro off the Tank? If he does, how long can he last, and is that useful to us? (Which brings up coordination with the healer's CD/MP/focus)
The worst thing you could possibly do is make Threat management a simple one-time thing, or the focus of only one or two players. Done right, it allows a complex party interplay, creating and capitalizing on opportunities, adapting to unexpected shifts in situations, or ways that your responses to situations change the focus of the opponents and the shape of the battlefield.
Threat management should start at the beginning of the planning phase, and end only when all enemies have fallen. It should be everyone's responsibility. It's a huge, crucial layer of depth and complexity to create strong team dynamics and sustain lasting interest in gameplay.
If there is no threat mechanic, then tanking is a lot more abstract in my opinion. I prefer threat mechanics. Not just as an occasional tank, but as any role. Particularly dynamic threat mechanics like tp that let the enemy react differently depending on how much damage is done to them at once that lets them do special abilities through out the fight like in FFXI. If hate isn't dynamic the game is too simple for my taste and tanking becomes very bland. You don't need fancy ai, just dynamic threat. We have a really old game that worked very well to prove it.
I feel like I have a unique perspective, as I enjoy tanking in some games but not others. I don't like games where they make it impossible for me to tank in the scenarios that interest me in tanking as I tend to play classes that can easily spec into tanking. When I do tank I tend to prefer to either off tank (ie hold focus on a secondary add for part of the duration of the fight OR swap tank with with my primary tank for part of the duration) OR tank for specific types of enemies that are more about positioning, quickly adapting to an enemy, and mitigating certain types of adds. Usually these fights tend to be against spell casters, dragons, or really anything that does magic as main damage and requires a lot of spacing from the party.
When I tank, I do not prefer to hold threat personally, I rather do it from a separate entity ie a summon. The reason I like tanking as a summoner is when the enemy is mainly magical in nature and requires a lot of mobility from the rest of the party. I prefer tanking such targets over my paladin because it frees them up to off tank more physical based adds, and frees up the party to focus on spacing. Usually I'm primary tank for these types of battles but need a secondary or off tank to help me mitigate adds or help me swap summons to switch to the right elemental resistance.
Additionally summoners in another game I play are good at having their loyal summon tank. So when an enemy uses Charm I can continue tanking because my summon does not get charmed, even though my team can get charmed, and I am able to run away from the range of the charm in time. I usually am main tank for these types of battles.
I love mitigation style abilities where I can swap threat between me and my summon. I love mitigation in terms of damage reduction, summoning temp hp buffering shields, and other forms of damage reduction. I love supporting my team with these as they lead to far more interesting and dynamic fights.
To answer your key questions:
Yes it should be part of combat initiation. Yes it should be throughout the entire duration of combat. Yes you can make threat pulling moves for tanks and hopefully as an augment. To make it work in PvP just make it force the targets reticle to focus on the activating player.
But PvE encounters are much more interesting when the whole group is involved in managing threat.
A couple of additional points for tanks:
Tank did have a lot of hard cc. Useful in pve and pvp except when facing a green as a red tank. The reason taunt is mentioned is because tank lacked a taunt at all. The constant threat generation was too tank and spank. It meant even evasion tanks would have the boss glued to them.
Common threat mitigation I hope to see is:
1. Rush a mob generating high amount of threat opening the path clear for the party and positioning the mob(s) as needed.
2. Pull mobs to the tank to allow for removing a single mob out of aggro range of other mobs.
3. AOE maintain threat on a large group to keep from DPS pulling aggro from a single mob.
Unique or new threat mitigation types I hope to see is:
2. Multi-tank a skill used in combination with other tanks to hold and rotate threat to keep above the raid. This could be simple as a skill that always put the tank threat on top of the meters.
3. Support threat generation from other classes such as a Bard boosting the threat of all tanks.
- a. In my opinion it is important to make all tanks viable in a raid rather than always having a main tank and off tank scenarios. I have yet to see this done well in any rpgmmo.
4. Shield threat generation. Some games now have this specific ability such as a “shield bash”. Give more use out of having a shield and making it more relevant as a tank gives the tank their unique place in the game.5. Weapon giving use of specific weapons that generate threat as they are used.
6. Gear additives that generate threat when attacked or used. This could be by putting spikes on a shield and armor OR enchanting a weapon to generate more threat.
I enjoy playing the tank in all rpgmmo’s and look forward to see the discussion and other ideas from the community.
On an unrelated note, I think proximity might be an interesting mechanic for holding threat, especially for tanks with melee subclasses. The closer you are to the mob, the more threat certain (but not all) abilities generate. Of course this would have to be coupled with the ability to move around effectively on the battlefield so you can recover aggro when the mob runs off.
Then if you wanted to not be the tank, you could go into normal stance where you could use a 2h and do dps...
Please consider the Pet/Summons tanking as well. How a Pet should hold agro - by skills or by letting it attack
first and getting some agression. That's also very interesting development for each tanking pet. The other thing to consider is if you don't have a tanking pet with tanking based abilites, can that pet manage to build up threath and be able to tank or the mobs will focus the main character!
Thanks!
Give me that list. I want to see it
Lashing, great feed back on your link. I agree with the majority of it. Bringing life to tanks in PVP is a concern and can easy be over come with cc / defensive hold the line or break through abilities that make them more viable.
in my experience and in my wants as an MMO player whos main roles have always been DPS or Tank a tank should 100% be a threat mitigater. a tank should go into a dungeon with its role being to generate enough threat while being supported by cleric wizard sorceress ect. that the dps is able to do its job successfully. granted with AoC comes 64 subclasses which will of course bring incredible new ways to play an MMO but in the end a Tanks Job is TO TANK, you cant tank properly with out having the highest threat level . i dont believe a tank should just ALWAYS have the highest threat level either, as in games like NeverWinter threat is largely determined by who the enemy sees first and who is dealing the most damage so the tank should have abilities to generate threat or gear or enchantments that generate threat as well as pets that generate threat or tank a hit for the tanks every once in a while, which should all be available no matter if theyre a buffing tank and dps tank or a bastion tank ect. i understand that some people want tanks to be gods that cant be killed, or be a true dps with tanking abilities or a healer thats better than an actual healer just with tanking abilities and that just should not be the case ever.
If you were to cross Tank into Ranger you will get Warden which would have caltrops to lay down. In PvE it would constantly slow and generate threat, but it PvP it slows and generates a dmg done reduction debuff. Both zone control and both useful in PvE and PvP, but separate from one another to allow tuning separate.
If you were to cross Tank into Bard you will get Argent which you could instead of being a tank yourself you could project your song and defensive stats to another target. In PvE you could project that threat generation and defensive buff through someone else effectively allowing anyone to tank forcing the whole role of "tank" outside of the box completely. In PvP it would be similar but instead of threat generation you could reduce duration of CC or remove CC completely. To make it balanced maybe making it a channel to force the choice of priority in the players hands.
At the end of the day the tank role is a support role, so keeping the support handshake from PvE to PvP I think should be the goal IMO. Adjusting damage numbers will always be tricky, but attaching threat generation to the specific subclass unique abilities should make each tank subclass fresh and clearly unique from each other. It will allow each playstyle in subclasses to approach the threat/mitigation problem in both PvE and PvP differently, but still hold that feeling of I'M A TANK!
I would like to see high-end raiding/dungeon boss combat to involve the dynamic way output of DPS/threat gain from each character in determining which character(s) the boss is going to target. This will involve threat gain from tanks (or tank-like classes i.e. fighter) to have some higher value than that of the DPS classes that will be doing the majority of the damage to the boss (these classes could be ranged or melee damage classes). This means that I would prefer combat and threat management to be involved in all parts of the combat instead of just the initiation of the combat. I would hope that these values would be hidden and require high-end parties/raid groups that aim to complete challenges both fast and at arduous difficulties to have great communication lines and able to adapt to this dynamic combat environment.
In terms of what I personally would like to do if I would play the tank class, I would like to feel like I am not just sitting AFK taking damage while being healed, have a bot to auto spam all of my threat gain/damage reduction skills off cooldown, and not need to communicate with my party based on the situation. I would like to feel that I am the frontline, the vanguard, keeping the boss at bay, shielding my party from attacks, and the need to move from one place to another to maximize my effectiveness based on the situation all the while my party is doing the damage to the boss. Have a skill that allows me to shield my party or redirect damage from them for a short duration on an ability that is only mastered through knowing the boss's attack pattern and communication with my party when I am needed the most.
Most of my dream in terms of playing an MMO that could be the most immersive would be something similar to DnD, where the enemies are controlled by a person who can make intelligent plays in order to increase the difficulty, or Log Horizon, an anime that is based on a future MMO where high-end PvE raids/dungeons are not simply maximizing DPS and dodging AOE wipe mechanics, but dynamic fights that involve many different variables (key ability cooldowns, threat management between DPS output by damage classes and threat gain by tank classes, and unknown mechanics at the hardest of difficulty raids that are not portrayed as simple dodging or managing an item). I know that all of these things are a pipe dream for any game coming out in the next 10 years, maybe even 20. I just wanted to share some of my thoughts on this topic, I did not go into very much detail about the dynamic combat I would like to see since I honestly think my comment would not be seen by many people. If it does get a ton of traction, maybe I can another time.
In all regard Tanks need the initial hit to pull great aggro & from then on it needs to be harder to hold overtime with Crowd control skills from single pull to AOE pull depending on weapon design to recover aggro from being a, well crappy tank.
I'd suggest a Tank Stance & a Damage Stance. Depending on how the skills work, Unfortunately it will be abused regardless.
E.g. Tank stance = steal mobs. Damage stance = drop aggro mob kills players.
If aggro is on the auto/main attacks only it'll feel dead to play. If its only specific skills only then you run the risk of well every MMO out there & bad tanks blowing there skill loads & not being able to get control till a near wipe.
I hope you are looking into the more Elyon way even if it means a rework Skill "Banana" = Xdamage%(lower amount) PVE +skill effect (AOE/Dot/Aggro), Xdamage% (higher amount) PVP skills + no skill effect. ~ e.t.c./Vice Versa for the same Skills. that will at least help & remove the need for Stances.
Tanks can't be the total package of God mode Block, God mode Damage, God Mode Aggro Control, God Mode Defense in every situation. Seen that before. Wet sponge, low damage, high aggro PVE, Dry sponge, balanced damage & limited defense & block PVP. Zero Speed buffs.
But as your last live stream showed you already have something ready & don't actually care. Yes we were paying attention during it unlike others!
Main Tank here. Yes, threat should be a prevalent part of combat, it should be robust system and NPCs should have increased threat against Healers as well, the more they heal the more threat they generate making the Tank always necessary and making it near impossible for a Fighter to replace a Tank like we have seen on the latest cleric showcase.
Would you prefer threat mechanics to be a part of combat initiation, or throughout the entire duration of combat?
100% throughout the entire duration of combat. Threat needs to make the Tank be always necessary in group content, if not, people will just run with DPSes doing AoE farm like in classic WoW. ALL NPC packs should have CCs that prevent players from running away and they should target the healers getting increased aggro the more they heal not only getting threat from getting hit. Threat needs to be on a decay system that it lowers over time but it spikes if there is healing happening or if the mob gets hit (healing generates more threat tho) but Tank skills override those. There should also be taunt skills for PvP to force a player to lock on your target for a few seconds.
A: For me personally, i do indeed enjoy holding threat as a prevalent part of group combat, with things like passive hate generation with attack skill generating considerably more hate than they would otherwise based on its damage and active powerful threat skills that can force the enemy to attack you even if your threat isn't the current highest on it for short periods in important moments and to have such skills make enemies deal reduced damage to anyone else other than the source of the threat skill to make it so that even if the enemy uses AoEs the threat skill will still be effective in mitigating other party members received damage.
Q: Would you prefer threat mechanics to be a part of combat initiation, or throughout the entire duration of combat?
A: Certainly throughout the entire duration of combat!
I want to see all types of threat mechanics, both from players and enemies:
Skills that increases the threat generated by you or someone you choose(overtime or instantly),
Skills that decreases the threat generated by you or someone you choose(overtime or instantly),
Skills that transfer part of the threat you currently have or is generating to someone you choose,
Skills that removes part of the threat you or someone else currently have.
i expect such mechanics to exist inside the basic skillset of all classes if possible and see improvements around that aspect in a possible Tank Secundary Threat Augment school.
As for bosses and monsters, i expect them to have skills that shuffle party members threat numbers around, straight up reset those numbers, randomly gain or remove threat points of random people in their vicinity and to have stats such as resistance to threat generation/diminishing skills.
Overall, i expect threat mechanics to be deep and meaningful for every class in a group but especially for the tank, the ultimate threat manager.
Aren't we all sinners?