Leveling/PvP ideas for Tanks and Healers

We've all experienced the arduous task of leveling a tank or a healer for your guild, friends or maybe to experience something challenging. Some of us may have had help and some may have put in the time and patience to solo those levels. I hope there is going to be a way to help Tank/X and Cleric/X level effectively enough that players don't fall far behind compared to other DPS classes.

Since tanks generally don't have the damage output as a dps class, allow tanks to have less downtime in between pulls with better sustain options spent by whatever our resource is going to be (i. e. Rage). When it comes to PvP, tank damage output will be low but give us the tools to cause area denial, CC, damage mitigation cooldowns for a small area effect or nearby ally. Not to steal anything from WoW but their stances are a simple way to help Tanks pick the perfect stance for the situation. I want to be a menace on the field, not a shadow of a thought.

Healers will obviously do more healing than dps so I hope they'll have a nice dynamic between healing and dps'ing. Downtime is also usually something that holds a healer back doing subpar damage but easily staying alive through their healing. The templar in ESO had an ability to sap resources from dead mobs or players which would be a nice feature to reduce their downtime. In PvP, healers are typically saving their resource to keep their allies alive but never really having a chance to contribute or kill other players. Also, having to have a quickslot bar for all healing and buffing doesn't allow much room for offensive skills. I hope healers will receive the option of casting healing and buffing spells on allies while using the same spell and buffs on their enemies but it is the antithesis of the ability. Buffs are debuffs, direct healing causing damage and healing over time (HoT) are damage over time (DoT).

I think it is important that the primary class has these sustain and damage abilities instead of relying on the secondary class to provide them because then you'll pigeonhole players into certain Tank/X or Cleric/X combination.

What are your ideas?

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Damokles

Sarevok wrote: »

If the leveling speed was from 1 - being slow AF and 5 - being Fast; I would like to see tanks and healers at a 3.5, DPS/Tank hybrids at a 4 and pure glass cannon melee or spell DPS at a 5.

Here is how i would want to see it:
From 1 to 5 (Slow like a snail to fast like sonic)

Pure Tanks, Tank Supports (Tank/Tank, Tank/Cleric, Tank/Bard) - 2

Offtank Supports (Bard/Tank, Cleric/Tank) 2.5

Pure Supports, Tank DPS (Cleric/Cleric, Bard/Bard, Tank/DPS) 3

Support DPS, DPS Offtanks (Bard/DPS, Cleric/DPS, DPS/Tank) 3.5

DPS Support (DPS/Bard, DPS/Cleric)4

PURE DPS (DPS/DPS) 5

Narys

I personally really liked the idea of "Cleric Stance" in Final Fantasy XIV, this allowed you to activate it and swap your Intelligence (used for magic damage) and Wisdom (used for healing amount) stat meaning you could get an increase in damage for your spells but at the cost of lesser healing. Was great to use when soloing or doing an activity that didn't require healing.

Gimlog

Have a look at this.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Leveling
Tanks and healers may be better for one of this and solve your problem.

Atama

I play tanks most of the time in MMOs. It’s just the role that feels most natural to me. I have lots of experience leveling them. Depending on the game, there are a few ways to mitigate (heh) the slower kill times, like @Virtek alluded to.

1) Swap specs if allowed. I did this in WoW, swapping between an Arms spec melee DPS Warrior with a huge axe to kill enemies quickly, and a Protection Warrior for group or end game stuff. In Lord of the Rings Online, my Guardian could swap pretty much the same way.

2) In games that don’t allow that sometimes I’d grab a huge group of enemies and AoE them to death. Maybe it took 5 times as long for each one to die, but when I’m hitting 5 simultaneously and laughing at them plinking off my armor it evens out.

3) And sometimes I take on an enemy way above my level. It takes forever to kill it but once I do it drops awesome loot and a ton of XP. This can be risky though, since sometimes even if it can’t hurt you very much, if you also can’t hurt it very much either, then it ends up nickel-and-diming you to death faster than you can kill it. But often a tank can beat things that would splatter an equivalent DPS class, it just takes more patience.

But yes, I have never hated leveling a tank. If you find them fun to play, usually you will find them fun to level, even solo.

Noaani

Damokles wrote: »

Sarevok wrote: »

If the leveling speed was from 1 - being slow AF and 5 - being Fast; I would like to see tanks and healers at a 3.5, DPS/Tank hybrids at a 4 and pure glass cannon melee or spell DPS at a 5.

Here is how i would want to see it:
From 1 to 5 (Slow like a snail to fast like sonic)

Pure Tanks, Tank Supports (Tank/Tank, Tank/Cleric, Tank/Bard) - 2

Offtank Supports (Bard/Tank, Cleric/Tank) 2.5

Pure Supports, Tank DPS (Cleric/Cleric, Bard/Bard, Tank/DPS) 3

Support DPS, DPS Offtanks (Bard/DPS, Cleric/DPS, DPS/Tank) 3.5

DPS Support (DPS/Bard, DPS/Cleric)4

PURE DPS (DPS/DPS) 5

See, to me, this depends more on other factors in the game than anything else.

Since we are talking specifically about leveling speed, not killing speed, the main factor in determining this is the ratio of experience earned via kills vs quests.

If quests offer up a good amount of the xp a character would be expected to earn, the question then turns to how the quests manifest in game. If the game has a lot of "kill 20 of these mob that are all close together quests" (as is likely in a game like Ashes, like it or not), then the fastest leveling character isn't going to be the pure DPS, as the pure DPS is probably only able to take one or two of these mobs on at a time. The tank/DPS hybrid though, even though they may kill individual mobs slower, could probably take on 5 or 6 at a time, and assuming they have attacks with a frontal arc attack, could probably kill 5 or 6 in about the same time as the pure DPS can kill 3 or 4.

On the other hand, if the quests involve getting to a specific location that is past many mobs, the class with stealth may well be at an advantage.

Then you have to look at the death penalties the game has. If xp is one of them, pure DPS classes are at an even bigger disadvantage as they absolutely will die more often than a tank/DPS or healer/DPS hybrid.

The only real time a pure DPS (as in, glass cannon) is at an advantage over all other classes while leveling is in games with no real death penalty, and where killing mobs with reckless abandon is as good a means of gaining xp as questing is - or where the bulk of quests require less than 8 kills or are fetch/deliver style quests.

Now, if we were talking about pure kill speed, then obviously DPS classes should be way out in front. However, we are talking leveling speed, and just killing isn't the whole story there.

Damokles

noaani wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

Sarevok wrote: »

If the leveling speed was from 1 - being slow AF and 5 - being Fast; I would like to see tanks and healers at a 3.5, DPS/Tank hybrids at a 4 and pure glass cannon melee or spell DPS at a 5.

Here is how i would want to see it:
From 1 to 5 (Slow like a snail to fast like sonic)

Pure Tanks, Tank Supports (Tank/Tank, Tank/Cleric, Tank/Bard) - 2

Offtank Supports (Bard/Tank, Cleric/Tank) 2.5

Pure Supports, Tank DPS (Cleric/Cleric, Bard/Bard, Tank/DPS) 3

Support DPS, DPS Offtanks (Bard/DPS, Cleric/DPS, DPS/Tank) 3.5

DPS Support (DPS/Bard, DPS/Cleric)4

PURE DPS (DPS/DPS) 5

See, to me, this depends more on other factors in the game than anything else.

Since we are talking specifically about leveling speed, not killing speed, the main factor in determining this is the ratio of experience earned via kills vs quests.

If quests offer up a good amount of the xp a character would be expected to earn, the question then turns to how the quests manifest in game. If the game has a lot of "kill 20 of these mob that are all close together quests" (as is likely in a game like Ashes, like it or not), then the fastest leveling character isn't going to be the pure DPS, as the pure DPS is probably only able to take one or two of these mobs on at a time. The tank/DPS hybrid though, even though they may kill individual mobs slower, could probably take on 5 or 6 at a time, and assuming they have attacks with a frontal arc attack, could probably kill 5 or 6 in about the same time as the pure DPS can kill 3 or 4.

On the other hand, if the quests involve getting to a specific location that is past many mobs, the class with stealth may well be at an advantage.

Then you have to look at the death penalties the game has. If xp is one of them, pure DPS classes are at an even bigger disadvantage as they absolutely will die more often than a tank/DPS or healer/DPS hybrid.

The only real time a pure DPS (as in, glass cannon) is at an advantage over all other classes while leveling is in games with no real death penalty, and where killing mobs with reckless abandon is as good a means of gaining xp as questing is - or where the bulk of quests require less than 8 kills or are fetch/deliver style quests.

Now, if we were talking about pure kill speed, then obviously DPS classes should be way out in front. However, we are talking leveling speed, and just killing isn't the whole story there.

Oh, i didnt mean leveling speed but rather killing speed xD
I didnt see that in your earlier post sry

Ventharien

I'm going to be some form of tank, as i am in any mmo (and really any rpg that lets me fiddle with my stats and armor), and i have never had a problem leveling. I think it requires a change of thought compared with dps, and that hangs people up. You start thinking less in terms of kill speed, and more in terms of efficiency. As others have stated in this post, who cares if you kill things a 1/5 as fast as a dps, when you can kill 5-6 things simultaneously. And can actually respond to that pesky glass cannon pvper that waits till you are in an engagement to attack you. I do agree healers get the short end of the stick in many titles, but if you chose to be a healer, then you knew your main goal, through whatever facet your subclass/ augments might take you, was to keep other people up and running. That kind of necessitates you to not be a good solo player. Which is balanced out by your ability to increase the power of even one leveling partner. Me and my usual gaming buddy always go healer and tank, and since we're pretty much always on at the same time, we just become area pulling monsters. The world is a dungeon and alot of things need to die

Ventharien

Also since you brought up ideas in pvp as well, I'd love if tanks had a switch on their taunting abilities, where if they were used in pvp, the targets would do reduced damage unless fighting their taunter. Especially if there is a graphic or overlay that clearly shows who taunted you. That way tanks could actually be tanks in pvp, as opposed to drags on team dps as they are seen in some mmo titles.

Atama

Ventharien wrote: »

Also since you brought up ideas in pvp as well, I'd love if tanks had a switch on their taunting abilities, where if they were used in pvp, the targets would do reduced damage unless fighting their taunter. Especially if there is a graphic or overlay that clearly shows who taunted you. That way tanks could actually be tanks in pvp, as opposed to drags on team dps as they are seen in some mmo titles.

That’s exactly how taunts worked in PvP in Star Wars: The Old Republic. It was pretty neat.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4872063

Noaani

Ventharien wrote: »

Also since you brought up ideas in pvp as well, I'd love if tanks had a switch on their taunting abilities, where if they were used in pvp, the targets would do reduced damage unless fighting their taunter. Especially if there is a graphic or overlay that clearly shows who taunted you. That way tanks could actually be tanks in pvp, as opposed to drags on team dps as they are seen in some mmo titles.

I'm not a huge fan of this, unless it is made absolutely clear which tank you need to be targeting in prder to do full damage.

My preference for taunts in PvP is that they force your target to target you, much as they do on PvE.

Damokles

noaani wrote: »

Ventharien wrote: »

Also since you brought up ideas in pvp as well, I'd love if tanks had a switch on their taunting abilities, where if they were used in pvp, the targets would do reduced damage unless fighting their taunter. Especially if there is a graphic or overlay that clearly shows who taunted you. That way tanks could actually be tanks in pvp, as opposed to drags on team dps as they are seen in some mmo titles.

I'm not a huge fan of this, unless it is made absolutely clear which tank you need to be targeting in prder to do full damage.

My preference for taunts in PvP is that they force your target to target you, much as they do on PvE.

I think that the taunt idea with reduced damage makes a bit more sense.
A forced attack would be like a hard cc for a long duration after all and intrepid wants to avoid hard cc as much as possible.
I think that it would be enough, if the tank anc taunted enemy were tethered by a line to show that they are taunted.

insomnia

Damokles wrote: »

We know that people will be able to choose their secondary class at lvl 30, but we dont really know when the lowest level for skill augments would be.

I recall they said it would be earlier on. But i might remember wrong. The augments are ment to be based on the secondary class, so it would seem wierd that the secondary classe first comes at level 30.

I recall they said that some classes will just have a harder time leveling on their own. Plus that warriors won't have stances

Noaani

Damokles wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Ventharien wrote: »

Also since you brought up ideas in pvp as well, I'd love if tanks had a switch on their taunting abilities, where if they were used in pvp, the targets would do reduced damage unless fighting their taunter. Especially if there is a graphic or overlay that clearly shows who taunted you. That way tanks could actually be tanks in pvp, as opposed to drags on team dps as they are seen in some mmo titles.

I'm not a huge fan of this, unless it is made absolutely clear which tank you need to be targeting in prder to do full damage.

My preference for taunts in PvP is that they force your target to target you, much as they do on PvE.

I think that the taunt idea with reduced damage makes a bit more sense.
A forced attack would be like a hard cc for a long duration after all and intrepid wants to avoid hard cc as much as possible.
I think that it would be enough, if the tank anc taunted enemy were tethered by a line to show that they are taunted.

The way I see it, either it would be too over powered, or it would have no actual point.

As a DPS (most of the time), if I am going after a healer, and a tank casts a taunt with this damage reduction mechanic on me, it would need to be reducing my damage by a significant amount in order to make me want to not take on this healer, and instead shift over to the nearby tank, which puts me in a situation where I am trying to attack a tank that has a healer ally nearby.

If the debuff is 25%, I'll not even think twice about sticking to the healer. If a tank is unable to convince a single DPS to target the tank instead of the healer, then what is the point of the tank? In order to convince a DPS to target the tank instead of the healer, the DPS needs to think they will be better off trying to kill the tank with a healer healing them than they would be trying to kill the healer first and then the tank (this applies to both 1v2 PvP and *v* PvP).

Anyone that has PvP'd should know fairly well that there is almost no point where it is worth attacking a tank if there is a healer near by rather than taking on the healer first. Even if you halve my damage output, I am still better off trying to take down the healer.

The only time a player would make a conscious decision to target a tank where they are doing full damage over a healer where they are doing half damage is if there is a damage parse going on, and they want to have the highest damage output possible regardless of the outcome of the fight.

However, if I now put my (occasional) guild leader hat on, if my tanks have an ability that is able to flat out reduce the damage of opponents by 35%, you had better bet I'd be maximizing that.

My initial thought is a tank-ball with a healer in the middle. This means opposing players have no real means of targeting the specific tank that has the debuff on them (unless the game provides them with a specific mechanic to do this), and if I have enough tanks in my tank-ball, they will literally be able to drop the DPS output of my opponents by over a third.

Being a debuff and little else, I wouldn't expect it to stack (meaning tanks in my tank-ball can maintain a sense of confusion in the enemy by constantly shifting which tank has each enemy debuffed). It also won't have an immunity period (if it did, it would fall back in to the category of taunts being worthless in PvP).

So to me, having tanks do this is either worthless, or turns tanks in to PvP debuffers. What it doesn't do, in my opinion, is put tanks in control of the battlefield.

On the other hand, if you go the CC route as I said above, the first thing that would happen is that forced targets with a duration on them would have an immunity afterwards (as I would assume almost all CC would).

This in itself makes the tank-ball unworkable.

The other thing you could do is make some taunts simply change the enemies target (including the target of the current spell they are casting), but not force them to maintain that target. This need not have any immunity period to it at all, as it doesn't really need to be classified as a CC spell, as CC needs duration imo.

If a tank proves to be good at taunting me off of the healer every time I am about to land a big spell on them, making that spell hit said tank instead, you had better believe it would then be my choice to try and take out that damn tank.

This makes tanks the masters of the battlefield in PvP, which I'm sure is supposed to be their role.

Sarevok

Just make our taunt in PvP some form of damage debuff on the target but buff their damage against the tank.

i. e. Tank taunts target. Now target gets a -30% dmg done to other targets but a +30% bonus damage to tank. This way tanks won't abuse during 1v1s.

Honestly, since we can use all weapons and armor, if they could make the Tank abilities slightly change in values or mechanics based on the weapon we have equipped I am hoping Tanks can find that middle ground they want between Survivability and DPS. That's all I need really. To not fall off on leveling progression when I don't have or don't want to group up. It's not that I don't expect the tanks to kill faster and progress slower than pure DPS, I do really, it's just I don't want to see tanks killing 1 mob for every 5 DPS' mobs. One of the many factors most players don't play a tank is a arduous task of leveling one. Same with healers. Both classes are vital in games like this so if they make it fun and not monotonous then we may see more!

Ventharien

@noaani I'd be cool with that too if it was easier than having some ui effect to show you who the taunt user is.

Ventharien

@Atama Yeah i remember enjoying the system alot.

Atama

The point of taunts in PvP becoming debuffs is not to make them effective as taunts, and therefore coerce people into attacking tanks. If that was the goal then they’d just go ahead and let the taunt force you to target the tank for a duration. Instead, the point is to make the taunt skill be useful for something. Otherwise it’s a wasted spot in PvP. And honestly, in many (most?) MMOs that’s exactly what a taunt is, just something you never use in PvP because it’s worthless.

Turning it into a debuff against all but the taunter makes it a semi-taunt debuff. It’s a cool idea and gives a tank another reason to be in PvP. Maybe he’s not serving in the same role he’d serve in PvE, but he’s doing something useful and it’s at least thematically related to his class.

Noaani

Atama wrote: »

The point of taunts in PvP becoming debuffs is not to make them effective as taunts, and therefore coerce people into attacking tanks. If that was the goal then they’d just go ahead and let the taunt force you to target the tank for a duration. Instead, the point is to make the taunt skill be useful for something. Otherwise it’s a wasted spot in PvP. And honestly, in many (most?) MMOs that’s exactly what a taunt is, just something you never use in PvP because it’s worthless.

Turning it into a debuff against all but the taunter makes it a semi-taunt debuff. It’s a cool idea and gives a tank another reason to be in PvP. Maybe he’s not serving in the same role he’d serve in PvE, but he’s doing something useful and it’s at least thematically related to his class.

I don't understand this thought process.

I totally agree that if developers do nothing to taunts in PvP, they are effectively useless.

What I don't get is that you seem to be championing giving taunts a purpose - any purpose - over trying to make them have a similar use and function as they have in PvP, which would then in turn give tanks a similar use and function in PvP to what they have in PvE.

Sarevok wrote: »

i. e. Tank taunts target. Now target gets a -30% dmg done to other targets but a +30% bonus damage to tank. This way tanks won't abuse during 1v1s.

The problem with this is that it would mean any two DPS would beat any tank/healer combination in PvP 100% of the time.

It still leaves tanks effectively useless at controlling the battlefield in PvP, as all they are really able to do is keep one DPS character off of one ally. Not really all that useful in terms of large or small scale PvP.

If this were how it made it to live, I'd probably tell all three of my raid tanks (I won't ever have more than three) to have a DPS or healer alt for when we need to PvP, as tanks are not worth taking.

Zackallic

I like this topic.

While leveling solo as a Healer / Tank can and has sometimes been a struggle with some games. These classes tend to level a lot easier and faster with partys / dungeons. (Bigger XP runs)

Main reason is these style of players tend to be smaller due to the learning curve compared to DPS. Not saying DPS doesnt have a curve. You want to be the highest DPS you have some rotations to practice and gear to grind.
But the idea tends to scare people of having to not only focus on the enemy but also your party as well and taking the blame when something goes wrong.
Because of this there are less of these class's which makes queuing or finding a party so much easier than DPS because your always in short supply and needed.

Kinda ran off course there for a second but this actually tend to be a system mechanic trade off with the 3 Holy Trinitys. Solo Grind is Harder. Party Grind is easier. vs DPS even grinding i think.

Some things that did help a little for solo healers are spec trees and being able to switch between.

Example: SWTOR. As a Sith Sorc you could invest in the re-spec perk where you could change between a DPS Sith Sorc or a Healer Sith Sorc on the fly. That way when your out soloing mobs were easier. But while you have a operations que waiting. When you get sent over you just re-spec back into your healing tree.

Honestly not a huge fan of it, but it did make things easier.

Atama

noaani wrote: »

Atama wrote: »

The point of taunts in PvP becoming debuffs is not to make them effective as taunts, and therefore coerce people into attacking tanks. If that was the goal then they’d just go ahead and let the taunt force you to target the tank for a duration. Instead, the point is to make the taunt skill be useful for something. Otherwise it’s a wasted spot in PvP. And honestly, in many (most?) MMOs that’s exactly what a taunt is, just something you never use in PvP because it’s worthless.

Turning it into a debuff against all but the taunter makes it a semi-taunt debuff. It’s a cool idea and gives a tank another reason to be in PvP. Maybe he’s not serving in the same role he’d serve in PvE, but he’s doing something useful and it’s at least thematically related to his class.

I don't understand this thought process.

I totally agree that if developers do nothing to taunts in PvP, they are effectively useless.

What I don't get is that you seem to be championing giving taunts a purpose - any purpose - over trying to make them have a similar use and function as they have in PvP, which would then in turn give tanks a similar use and function in PvP to what they have in PvE.

Simple. Because players do not like losing control over their characters. Stunlocking is not fun, nor is being “mind controlled”, and something that forces you to focus on a target leads to bad feelings. You can’t apply the same crowd control consequences to players that you apply to NPCs. It pisses people off and drives them away. There’s a reason why developers won’t touch this with a ten foot pole. You don’t want to ask people to give their money to have fun then punch them in the groin, which is how players usually react to that sort of thing.

WoW implemented diminishing returns on CC like stuns to prevent stunlocking and such, and watering down CC like that means that again you don’t have the same rules in PvP that you do in PvE.

ESO allows you to use CC in PvP but anything “hard” like a root or fear, anything that takes away control (as opposed to a hindrance like a snare) can be broken out of.

The examples are endless. It’s not something that MMOs do, because people don’t like it.

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