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.
My Tank Experience - God help us
Sinistxr
Member, Alpha Two
Positives
- Grapple is nice for setting up pulls
- AOE taunt is very useful to do our job properly
- Reflect is a nice skill expression unfortunately with high ping reading animations can be hard (maybe have a cast bar under the health bar for mobs hard hitting abilities so we can react better, ive seen people say some mobs have this already? but not the casters I was fighting in Church)
- Active blocking is an interesting gameplay feel but it needs to cancel autos when pressed
Negatives
- Reflect can be cancelled by blocking, weapon swings and other abilities
- We have no self sustain a 30s heal, reflect and Indomitable Spirit/Last Stand seems like you're going for a warrior in WoW but they have more tools to sustain themselves and leveling is even worse (Indomitable Spirit is lvl 15+) you don't have enough tools to deal with how much incoming damage you are taking I feel like I'm a training dummy being propped up by my healer this is awful gameplay.
- You have a lot of stuns/knockdowns etc this is great for PvP but this doesn't help me in PvE when I'm facing a caster and I use all my stamina for blocking so I have none to sprint away and kite the mob (kiting a mob 90% of the time is also bad gameplay it makes me want to log out)
- We have so many abilities that transfer the damage from other members to the tank (again this is PvP) but why would I want to do that when I'm dying in PvE I want more defensives for myself!
- Vengeance is a joke atm why would I press that button to drop my block (damage isn't important when you're in the dirt, that shield doesn't do anything for me)
- I love getting crit by a mob for 1.6k when my health is just over 1k while being lvl 9 facing a lvl 11 mob this just seems like too much since we have no real cooldown coverage / active mitigation add more abilities or change the existing ones to give us meaningful DRs 10% DR on Fortify is awful capped at 20% when I can die in 2 hits add something like Shield Wall from Warrior in WoW it has 2 charges and is reduced by spending resource they even have a 40% DR on Demoralizing Shout which is a 40s cooldown same as Fortify. Maybe I could deal with 3 crits at once with better CDs than what we have but crits with a 2 level gap is unnecessary it clouds your judgement on how bad a pull will be I don't think this a fun gameplay mechanic.
- Making us rely on a healer this much is bad gameplay and its even worse when they are a random who doesn't know how to play the game very well (we have no way to gauge skill level in this game / its just a sort of feeling you go off since we have no numerical value for a quick evaluation) instead I risk death and XP Debt trying to figure out if they can handle a pull
- XP debt is horrible because being the tank we are dying more than others with no way to sustain ourselves
Most of these are the same issue add more defensives / cooldown coverage for the Tank Archetype!
I love PvE is other games but making us a training dummy for a Cleric to heal isn't fun.
Also noting that the Secondary Archetype might provide more tools for us to live but this doesn't solve how bad it feels before you reach level 25.
Please look at this I am losing my mind over how awful the gameplay is in its current state. It makes me not want to login which is unfortunate because I support the game and their vision.
- Grapple is nice for setting up pulls
- AOE taunt is very useful to do our job properly
- Reflect is a nice skill expression unfortunately with high ping reading animations can be hard (maybe have a cast bar under the health bar for mobs hard hitting abilities so we can react better, ive seen people say some mobs have this already? but not the casters I was fighting in Church)
- Active blocking is an interesting gameplay feel but it needs to cancel autos when pressed
Negatives
- Reflect can be cancelled by blocking, weapon swings and other abilities
- We have no self sustain a 30s heal, reflect and Indomitable Spirit/Last Stand seems like you're going for a warrior in WoW but they have more tools to sustain themselves and leveling is even worse (Indomitable Spirit is lvl 15+) you don't have enough tools to deal with how much incoming damage you are taking I feel like I'm a training dummy being propped up by my healer this is awful gameplay.
- You have a lot of stuns/knockdowns etc this is great for PvP but this doesn't help me in PvE when I'm facing a caster and I use all my stamina for blocking so I have none to sprint away and kite the mob (kiting a mob 90% of the time is also bad gameplay it makes me want to log out)
- We have so many abilities that transfer the damage from other members to the tank (again this is PvP) but why would I want to do that when I'm dying in PvE I want more defensives for myself!
- Vengeance is a joke atm why would I press that button to drop my block (damage isn't important when you're in the dirt, that shield doesn't do anything for me)
- I love getting crit by a mob for 1.6k when my health is just over 1k while being lvl 9 facing a lvl 11 mob this just seems like too much since we have no real cooldown coverage / active mitigation add more abilities or change the existing ones to give us meaningful DRs 10% DR on Fortify is awful capped at 20% when I can die in 2 hits add something like Shield Wall from Warrior in WoW it has 2 charges and is reduced by spending resource they even have a 40% DR on Demoralizing Shout which is a 40s cooldown same as Fortify. Maybe I could deal with 3 crits at once with better CDs than what we have but crits with a 2 level gap is unnecessary it clouds your judgement on how bad a pull will be I don't think this a fun gameplay mechanic.
- Making us rely on a healer this much is bad gameplay and its even worse when they are a random who doesn't know how to play the game very well (we have no way to gauge skill level in this game / its just a sort of feeling you go off since we have no numerical value for a quick evaluation) instead I risk death and XP Debt trying to figure out if they can handle a pull
- XP debt is horrible because being the tank we are dying more than others with no way to sustain ourselves
Most of these are the same issue add more defensives / cooldown coverage for the Tank Archetype!
I love PvE is other games but making us a training dummy for a Cleric to heal isn't fun.
Also noting that the Secondary Archetype might provide more tools for us to live but this doesn't solve how bad it feels before you reach level 25.
Please look at this I am losing my mind over how awful the gameplay is in its current state. It makes me not want to login which is unfortunate because I support the game and their vision.
2
Comments
I find casters the easiest, running tremoring strike with the added passive, make short work of even the most annoying mobs (Looking at you fire mage based mobs). The trip skills are also invaluable for damage mitigation, and interrupting annoying spells and skills that mobs have. Kiting ranged mobs is not the move.
Hard agree, there are too many damage redirection skills that feel utterly useless. The range is too short on protect for my liking, and having to drop another skill point just to make it slightly tolerable is no good.
With the trinity setup, there is no way out of this one. I find running heavy mitigation, trips, reflect, intercept (for my self, not for others), indomitable spirit and fortify provides me with all the tools needed at level 15+. On the way to these levels it is pretty unforgiving though.
Leveling is tough with out a group, but once you get a little gear (We are heavily gear dependent) and 15+ it starts smoothing out. I can grab packs of 4+ at Remnants of Sephillion and just basically auto attack and hold threat and stay alive just fine with a single cleric.
This is the reality of it. the goal is for tanks to need a dps as much as a dps needs a tank.
Right now clerics and bards are too good at soloing and don't need either really, and I'm not sure if there is an easy way to fix that.
Yeah... And without a clerick we are just a dummy