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Tank discussion - Opinions after 1st A2 Weekend

Hello Glorious community of Ashes of creation.

I am a man with an insane amount of experience when it comes to MMORPG's. Usually at their highest level.
Let me preface that I enjoyed my time on the Tank class (Lvl. 13) and would like to share the good, the bad, and the ugly, this is pure feedback. I mean no harm :)
Important note: We started the game without clerics or bards at the start. Some people rerolled to them at some point.

Lvls 1-5: Tank feels very nice to play, you get your damaging spells and are able to charge - stun - *taunt* - and hold mobs pretty well. Overall I am, personally, happy with this side of the tree. I love Protecting/Support playstyle and it makes you feel like a bruiser, with option to help your team-mates.
One weird thing at the moment, is that one of the charges has too long of an animation, but always hits its target {Pulverize.} and the other is fast, but seems to always miss a moving target. (Shield Slam.)

Lvls 5-10: From lvl 5 onwards Tank becomes a bigger struggle without a healer, no ranged damage without real sustain in melee, if you are solo the road from 5-10 is a painful one but you can do with some kiting, but it is not very pleasant.
Grapple is a super fun ability (Probably my favourite.), but sometimes if you use it on a Monster, it hits you before you can block because it's animation is long.

Lvls 10-13: From lvl 10, you buy your Brass upgrades for your gear, weapons, shield and if you turn off your tank stance, you can safely farm most mobs from a distance, not the most riveting tank gameplay but I loved the chill/farming during night hours where you just hang out with the homies and talk. Once you get Indominable Spirit and you combo it with Shake It Off, you can brush off some of that *collateral* damage you take once in a while while farming mobs from a distance, but it is nowhere near being a good, sustained heal that makes you feel like you can stand with the mobs in melee. Even if they are several levels lower.

Proposed changes:
1. Make block a-lot stronger, even with block up, a hit from a bear hits me for 368+hp sometimes in lvl 10 gear and it takes my stamina away, AND costs you your *weapon finisher* damage if you use it. Currently it is just better to Kite the mobs, I personally think that should not be the case especially for a tank. We already have no damage, why not make us actually tanky. (I got oneshot or killed many times by lower lvl mobs). Possibly make it omnidirectional with some passive on tank tree.
2. Fortify should not consume a resource, which yes, it does not need, in the first place, but it does consume it if you have it available. It is already used by our *key* ability Vengeance.
3. I would like to see more passive Temporary hp generation talents in the *talent* tree.
4. More passive Damage reduction. A-lot more. I'm talking 20% at its current state, maybe more, and we already get 25% from the combination of Iron aura and Grit. I just feel like I'm slightly tankier fighter, with no damage. For an easy comparison, put the difference of Fighters effective dps and our dps, into our sustain, either some temporary hp, or damage reduction.

What do you, my fellow tanks think about the Tank in it's current state?
Do you have any tips for me? Maybe something i do not know about like a good combo of abilities, or a must have one.

I am speaking from three days of experience on a Class I never played before, maybe I missed something that makes tank THE tank. And the servers were a little laggy, channeled abilities like spin from the goblins in Oakbane or Zombie invokers were instant and impossible to react to sometimes, which added to couple of deaths on my list {yes i know about the laugh}.

All in all, I saw many other classes like Mages and Bards mass pull and live without any major issues, where i would struggle more and take waay longer to kill. And i saw rangers kiting mobs that i could not even dream of kiting without abusing terrain and pathing. And I felt not needed at all. Monsters still hit me really hard, Block was barely taking damage off if hits, if they got another ranged class, kiting the mobs would just be more efficient.

I know this is not a Solo game and know this, my review was more solo/duo player minded, but even when we were a group, I felt like my role was not needed as classes could kite, and do what I did, without losing only some or any hp during the encounter. And when my role was needed, I got one-shot by some spin that I couldn't react to / my block did not work on.
All in all, I had VERY limited PvP encounters and usually it was me getting deleted by lvl 15 mage when i was lvl 9 or me being lvl 13 and scaring off some lvl 7 from MY herbs hah!

Had a great deal of fun, and middle finger to the people that DDOs'd the servers, not cool.

Lastly, if you wanna follow me on the journey to become one of the best if not the best tank in the game, feel free to come by to my twitch - Kheiltar where I will play every single possible weekend of A2. :)
Do not be afraid to talk, give me tips or ask questions, I like to remain transparent.
Good luck on your travels.

Comments

  • GarrtokGarrtok Member, Alpha Two
    You can even be a potent damage dealer with a 2h sword. Soloing and grinding is very easy with that
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