The problem with having “Tank” as a class name

Hello all, I believe this discussion may have come up before, but I really would like Steven and friends to reconsider the name “Tank”. Overall, they have done a good job at naming the other classes and subclasses, but they ruin the immersion of the game by using the class name “tank”. Tank was a code name given to military vehicles being created in 1915. It has been a slang term for classes and archetypes in many video games given to the role that is used to absorb/mitigate or “tank” damage. Having a class name feels very uncharacteristic compared to the other class names. It’s like naming your cat “Cat”. It’s cute and punny, but is that what they really want for their game? What class do you play? Oh, I play a tank! Yea, but like what class? TANK!! *insert meme of a tank with a face on it... drooling*

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Dygz

Steven did not confirm that Summoners would be viable main tanks.
The official role of Tank is Tank. The official role of Summoner is Support.
Summoners will be able to Summon pets that can tank. Which means whatever is Summoned can be given some Tank abilities, but that does not mean that will allow the Summons to be main tank. Expect them to off-tank.

Sathrago

Dygz wrote: »

Steven did not confirm that Summoners would be viable main tanks.
The official role of Tank is Tank. The official role of Summoner is Support.
Summoners will be able to Summon pets that can tank. Which means whatever is Summoned can be given some Tank abilities, but that does not mean that will allow the Summons to be main tank. Expect them to off-tank.

He did in the last AMA. He said that summoners role is defined by what pet they summon and specialize in. Why would he say that they can be tanks dps and healers if they cant actually fulfill those roles? And if what you say is true then summoners cant be dps or healers. Since they aren't directly named healer or dps.

Now he did not explicitly say they could main tank, but he has never once made a distinction otherwise.

Dygz

Summoners will be able to tank, dps or healing for their Summons.
That does not mean that a Summoner can replace the need for a Primary Archetype Tank or a Primary Archetype Cleric.
The dev goal is that an 8 person group will need one of each Primary Archetype.
Expect a Summoner to be able to use their Summoner to off-tank rather than main tank.

The quote states, "The role the pet can take is up to the Summoner. They can take a more traditional Tank role, a more traditional Support role, a more traditional DPS role. And they are going to be able to determine that when they are allocating their skill points."
You should not expect a tank Summons to have all of the abilities of a Primary Archetype Tank. You should not expect a dps Summons to out DPS a Mage Primary Archetype or a Rogue Primary Archetype.
You should expect the Summons to greatly Support the Primary Archetype Tank or Mage or Rogue or Cleric.

This is similar to x/Tank and x/Cleric.
Although I expect a Summoner might be in-between a Tank/x and an x/Tank.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Expect a Summoner to be able to use their Summoner to off-tank rather than main tank.

Off-tanking is a thing that amateurs do.

If a summoner is unable to replace a tank/* in a group setting, then a summoner is unable to tank.

Steven has the goal of all groups wanting to have one of each primary class. However, that is not the central tenant that all class design decisions revolve around. He has to be more practical than that, allowing groups to function with a less-than-ideal setup. I mean, no game has a singular setup that you have to have in order to function in a group setting.

SirChancelot

Sathrago wrote: »

You mistake what I meant. Steven recently re-confirmed that summoners are being designed with the intent for them to be able to specialize as a tank, healer, or dps according to what talents they pick for their pet. This is before a secondary archetype is considered.

I got you, I heard that too. It's what made me think that a summoner/tank could be a good tank.

Atrushan

Dygz wrote: »

Summoners will be able to tank, dps or healing for their Summons.
That does not mean that a Summoner can replace the need for a Primary Archetype Tank or a Primary Archetype Cleric.
The dev goal is that an 8 person group will need one of each Primary Archetype.
Expect a Summoner to be able to use their Summoner to off-tank rather than main tank.

The quote states, "The role the pet can take is up to the Summoner. They can take a more traditional Tank role, a more traditional Support role, a more traditional DPS role. And they are going to be able to determine that when they are allocating their skill points."
You should not expect a tank Summons to have all of the abilities of a Primary Archetype Tank. You should not expect a dps Summons to out DPS a Mage Primary Archetype or a Rogue Primary Archetype.
You should expect the Summons to greatly Support the Primary Archetype Tank or Mage or Rogue or Cleric.

This is similar to x/Tank and x/Cleric.
Although I expect a Summoner might be in-between a Tank/x and an x/Tank.

Steven also said that the goal was for the holy trinity. If Summoners are able to spec into tank, support, OR DPS, they should be able to do the job at full effectiveness in the role they select IF they choose to put all their points into that. Otherwise they are NOT part of the holy trinity and are an outlier. That said, the way Steven described Summoner is already an outlier since they will be able to spec into different positions(unless there's some sort of system where the Summoner is locked into their choice). If Summoner is in the holy trinity considered a support, then they can't be considered a tank, or a dps. If Steven said that Summoner was a really interesting class because they could choose what they wanted to be, then I would assume he meant it in the most literal sense, otherwise there's no point in giving them that option. As far as Summoner being a support, they'd need to purely buff/debuff/heal to be anything viable as a support. Not every dungeon is going to be an 8 man, if I recall, which will mean Summoner will need to be able to fill a role in the party. If a Summoner doesn't put in any points in it's support tree, then how is it going to be a support? And if that's the case, Summoner will not be able to join any dungeon content outside of 8 mans.

Noaani wrote: »

Atrushan wrote: »

I can't wait until someone makes a summoner and focuses on tanking and people kick them because they're "not tanks".

If a summoner isn't as good a tank as a tank, why wouldn't people kick them from the group if they have a tank available to them?

From what I took from what Steven said, Summoners will be able to main tank, or DPS, or support depending on where they place their points. Otherwise we're going to see them in the same limbo of being forced to be too weak because otherwise they'll be too powerful like summoners in other games and I would hate to see that, and I hope Steven also wouldn't want to put Summoner in that position.

Dygz

Atrushan wrote: »

If Summoners are able to spec into tank, support, OR DPS, they should be able to do the job at full effectiveness in the role they select IF they choose to put all their points into that. Otherwise they are NOT part of the holy trinity and are an outlier. That said, the way Steven described Summoner is already an outlier since they will be able to spec into different positions(unless there's some sort of system where the Summoner is locked into their choice). If Summoner is in the holy trinity considered a support, then they can't be considered a tank, or a dps. If Steven said that Summoner was a really interesting class because they could choose what they wanted to be, then I would assume he meant it in the most literal sense, otherwise there's no point in giving them that option. As far as Summoner being a support, they'd need to purely buff/debuff/heal to be anything viable as a support. Not every dungeon is going to be an 8 man, if I recall, which will mean Summoner will need to be able to fill a role in the party. If a Summoner doesn't put in any points in it's support tree, then how is it going to be a support? And if that's the case, Summoner will not be able to join any dungeon content outside of 8 mans.

I'm pretty sure the Summons (which is what Steven calls the pets) won't have enough Tank abilities to main tank.
It's very likely that Summoner could sit between Primary Archetype/x and x/Secondary Archetype.
Most likely, a Summoner will not tank as well as a Primary Archetype Tank but will tank better than a Secondary Archetype Tank.
But, since Steven has stated that the goal is for every 8-person team to need one of each Primary Archetype, it seems unlikely that Summoner will be designed as an easy replacement for Primary Archetype Tank or Primary Archetype Cleric, etc.
Summoner is versatile and can choose their "role" but that doesn't mean they can replace the other Primary Archetypes.
Again, an x/Tank is a Tank, but that doesn't mean that an x/Tank replaces the need for a Tank/x in an 8-person group.
Even when using a Tank Summons, the primary role of the Summoner will be to support the Primary Archetype Tank, rather than to main tank.

Summoner should be fine outside of a dungeon. Summoner doesn't have to tank as well as a Primary Archetype Tank to succeed outside of a dungeon, just as Fighter/Tank doesn't have to tank as well as Primary Archetype Tank to succeed outside of a dungeon.

Sov54

maouw wrote: »

I hope a bard chronicles this thread in-game and fills an entire shelf in a library.

Oh, I can hear it already:

"Although he is a simple medieval man,
Tank is his name.

Mindlessly to battle he charges,
ignoring all the pain.

Although he is a simple medieval man,
wearing a wedding dress and a knife
This is the quest of his life:

In his mind he is a German 1943 Panzerkampfwagen V Panther,
And from his dream he won't be persuaded."

daveywavey

Sov54 wrote: »

maouw wrote: »

I hope a bard chronicles this thread in-game and fills an entire shelf in a library.

Oh, I can hear it already:

"Although he is a simple medieval man,
Tank is his name.

Mindlessly to battle he charges,
ignoring all the pain.

Although he is a simple medieval man,
wearing a wedding dress and a knife
This is the quest of his life:

In his mind he is a German 1943 Panzerkampfwagen V Panther,
And from his dream he won't be persuaded."

You're hired!

Kalv1441

I like pie

daveywavey

Kalv1441 wrote: »

I like pie

What kind of pie is your favourite?

Anikir

Hi!

A few month ago i spend 4 hours to translate all classes to spanish (i´ll put a link down to prove it XD) and they are all great but "tank" as archetype name do not feels very immersive to me. Totally agree with @Cripsus
If Steven Shariff and developers will consider to change it in the future let me sugest Champion as an option.

I know the term you have already assigned to the arenas of the military nodes. Could you give it away to the poor "tanks" and the Champions we build out call Gladiators, like we hired them from a ludus in ancient Rome?

Ave Tulnar!

https://ashesofcreation.es/community/foro-general-ashes-of-creation-en-espanol/nombrar-las-clases-en-castellano/#post-121

Dygz

Probably won't be changed to Champion because that's the name for the Military Node Arena avatar.

Anikir

Dygz wrote: »

Probably won't be changed to Champion because that's the name for the Military Node Arena avatar.

Gladiators?

Murdach

My issue with using Tank as a class name is that it should describe a role instead. You dont want to confuse people if you are DPS or Supporting on a Tank. Causes issues.

Sathrago

Murdach wrote: »

My issue with using Tank as a class name is that it should describe a role instead. You dont want to confuse people if you are DPS or Supporting on a Tank. Causes issues.

If tank is used in the lore of the world you will have no issues. Plus, tank is not the name of your final class. Meaning, unless you start out as a summoner or a tank you will never confuse another class for a tank nor will you confuse a tank for a dps/healer.

Dygz

Murdach wrote: »

My issue with using Tank as a class name is that it should describe a role instead. You dont want to confuse people if you are DPS or Supporting on a Tank. Causes issues.

The primary role of a Primary Archetype Tank is tank.
And almost every ability of a Tank either has Threat Generation or Damage Mitigation.
A Fighter could try to tank, I suppose, but the official primary role of a Fighter is DPS.
Out of the 8 Primary Archetypes, Tank is the only one that has an official primary role of tank.

A Summoner will not be confused as a Tank. They have different active skills.
A Summoner will be able to Summon minions that can tank.

Anikir

Most accurate names 8 archetipes: big weapons DPS, tank, small weapons DPS, bows DPS, magic DPS, multitasker, healer, buffer. Screw Verra!

Adaegus Wintermight

Cripsus wrote: »

Tank was a code name given to military vehicles being created in 1915. It has been a slang term for classes and archetypes in many video games given to the role that is used to absorb/mitigate or “tank” damage. Having a class name feels very uncharacteristic compared to the other class names.

I couldn't agree more. The name "Tank" is immersion breaking. Shield Master, Shield Maiden/Patron or Shield Brother/Sister is a better fit. Warlord, Centurion, Legionnaire are good too.

Adaegus Wintermight

mcstackerson wrote: »

How is this any different to names like summoner or fighter? Yes, those names have been used for classes in the past but isn't it a similar situation where a fighter is someone who fights and a summoner is someone who summoners?

Because Tank isn't a word the people of vera would use LIKE fighter or summoner. If anything "tanks" would be called siege weapons. New Idea for the tank name replacement! *Siegebreaker*. The word "tank" doesn't fit in the lexicon of the fantasy world we're playing in. How weird would it be if you were asked by your town guard to "Go dps down that dragon and bring me his head for phat loot and exp." It's the same situation.

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