Tanking: Should the "Tank" Primary Class Be the Be-All-End-All Tanking Class?

Interested in hearing all opinions on:

-Should Tank Primary classes be the only and/or most dominant tank choice?

-Should other, not necessarily all, Primary Class variants have secondary options that make them just as viable as tanks or even off-tanks?

-Should the Tank Primary class have some variant options to focus more on other roles than simply tanking all of the time?

-Should the Tank Primary class be renamed assuming it can fill other roles besides simply tanking?

Looking forward to what you all have to say!

Edit:
More questions resulting from this post I want to hear opinions on:

-Is role overlap so wrong? If it is should there really be 9 classes or even variants at all? If its so bad to have a role covered by more than one class, then shouldn't there be just 4 classes? Healer(support), Physical DPS, Magical DPS, and Tank?

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Comments

Noaani

IMO, tank/* and Summoner/tank should be the only viable options to tank any content.

Within that, tank/tank should be perfectly viable on all content, while each other tank has content/situations it is good in, and content/situations it is just not suited to.

George_Black

Only a tank primary should tank rbs and instanced pve.

Noaani

George Black wrote: »

Off tanking.. go nuts

In almost 20 years of playing MMO's, most of it at the top end, I have never once had a dedicated off tank for any PvE content.

I'm convinced this is only something people do when they don't trust their tank.

Dygz

Same thing goes for Fighter, Mage and Summoner.

Sardokus

The Trinity systems work best tried and true over the years and I am not a fan of everyone can do everything class system. Can another melee class off tank to make for smoother pve pulls ? Absolutely. However a main tank should be necessary to bear the main brunt of absorbing damage so the rest of the party can do their job. Everyone should have distinct roles for a balanced composition to achieve X goals. If a dungeon requires 2 tanks maybe , can a hybrid help pull aggro off weaker hitting mobs thats another possibility. People want to feel empowered that they are doing the best possible job for the role they have in the party and should be rewarded for such.

SirChancelot

Dolyem wrote: »

Interested in hearing all opinions on:

-Should Tank Primary classes be the only and/or most dominant tank choice?

-Should other, not necessarily all, Primary Class variants have secondary options that make them just as viable as tanks or even off-tanks?

I opened this can of worms once, so good luck to you for trying again.

My opinion is that I hope more than just tank/X can be a viable tank. I would love to see most X/tank options if properly geared and spec'ed to tank to be able to. If not I feel like party composition is going to get really repetitive.

But there are a lot of people here who don't feel the same.

Honestly, it depends on how much secondary archetype augments can change the primary abilities, and we just don't know enough about them yet to have that talk...

bloodprophet

Good question. Let's change it a little to gain perspective.

Should the Summoner be the end all be all best Summoner or should any /Summoner be able to also have the ability to have access to all the best summons?

If the answer is yes then they need to get rid of the archetype system all together and allow everybody to be whatever they want at all times.

If the answer is no. That all archetypes should be good and strong in their own way. Then why should tank not follow this same logic?

One of the big draws for me was the idea they were getting back to the idea of community and working together by making each archetype special and different. Not the same rehashing of homogenization of everyone can do everything or everyone is DPS with a self heal and rez. Every archetype should be the best at what they do. The augments blurring the lines so players can customize their build as they choose I think is a good idea. But it should not go sooooo far that the primary archetype has become irrelevant.

Vhaeyne

TBH, I don't mind if a non-tank class could feasibly tank some things.

Something like a summoner's summon, being able to tank some things in some situations. That said, I think a "real" tank should always be better.

I hate when there are tank specs that get outplayed by non-tanks due to poor class design.

George_Black

Give X/tank the ability to tank most content and nobody will want to invite a tank in a pve or pvp group. They bring nothing to the table besides tanking.
Might as well do away with the class concept in mmorpgs. Just "play as you want" crap.

How would you like it if all X/healers could heal the group, X/mages,rangers could dps for the group etc etc?

X/Summoners could summon any pet-like object you want and be summoners.

X/Rogues could be good assassins.

.......

SirChancelot

bloodprophet wrote: »

Good question. Let's change it a little to gain perspective.

Should the Summoner be the end all be all best Summoner or should any /Summoner be able to also have the ability to have access to all the best summons?

See this is why having the tank archetype share the same lable as a 'holy trinity' slot is weird.

Most MMOs that stay around a while usually have more than one tank or healer. People like variety. Now this doesn't mean that some end up being better than others for certain content or that some aren't easier to play and manage than others... But still, the choice is there rather than having every party require at least one tank/x and cleric/x in them...

Dygz

Ashes also has more than one tank and more than one healer.
But, by design, Primary Archetype Tank is main tank. You can have a whole bunch of other off-tanks.
Primary Archetype Cleric will be the most powerful healer. You can have a bunch of other healers, but...
An 8-person group will always want to have a Primary Archetype Cleric - by design.

https://discord.com/channels/256164085366915072/256164085366915072/739365922246098987
Q: If i use secondary cleric can i heal others?
A: indirectly there are some augments when applied to certain skills that can do this. But it would not replace a cleric (primary) archetype

SirChancelot

George Black wrote: »

Give X/tank the ability to tank most content and nobody will want to invite a tank in a pve or pvp group. They bring nothing to the table besides tanking.
Might as well do away with the class concept in mmorpgs. Just "play as you want" crap.

How would you like it if all X/healers could heal the group, X/mages,rangers could dps for the group etc etc?

X/Summoners could summon any pet-like object you want and be summoners.

X/Rogues could be good assassins.

.......

This is why I also mentioned spec'd and geared for it.
I'm going to skip over your DPS for the group part because yes they all should be able to DPS
Mage/hunter/rogue/fighter in any mixed mashup possible should still be able to DPS...

Not all X/summoners might even summon pets. A fighter/summoner might just summon extra blades to float around and copy his moves for more "on hit effects". But I could also see two different bladecallers making very different builds, one could lean into his secondary archetype augments more than the other.
However, neither of those bladecallers are going to replace a wildblade who could still be a summoner with his pets but use fighter secondary augments so rather than sitting in the back like a mage he gets up in your face with sword or spear and fights alongside his summons. Again these all play differently.

I've said this before with tank/summoner summoner/tank. One is a summoner who can tank through his summoned minions, the other is a tank who can summon Shields or support effects. Neither would make the other obsolete. These would just be different play style of tanks.

One of these things existing doesn't negate the other. All it does is give people more options to choose from. But this is where the gear and specializing comes in, if a fighter/tank for example barely uses his secondary archetype augments, puts all of his stat points into attack stats, is geared out for DPS, no he shouldn't magically be able to tank just because he's an x/tank, he should get stomped by a boss. Now if he rolls sword and shield and all plate, puts all of his points into defensive stats, and leans heavily into his secondary archetype augments doing everything he can to make it a tank character. Then go for it, let him tank.

*Copy and paste whole argument for cleric and healing with any primary matchups you want*

Eff it, I want a necromancer that uses all of the life augments so rather than summoning skeletons I'm summoning guardian angels that heal my targets instead... Go wild intrepid! Lol

While I'm on that topic if clerics can do life or death schools, making them either be healer role or DPS role... Will tanks have a school that allows them to be more DPS role than tank role oriented?

Damn, I cycled back to the same punchline again we just don't know enough about any of this to talk about it yet.

George_Black

Tank/mage, tank/ranger top dps.

Dygz

Cleric Secondary Archetype has 4 Schools of augments.
We can expect DPS from the Death School. And probably DPS also from at least one of the other 2 Schools.

Dygz

Summoner/Tank is not really just a different playstyle of tanks. It's really a different playstyle of Summoner.
Summoner/Tank is a sub-class; not a dual-class.

CROW3

Dygz wrote: »

But, by design, Primary Archetype Tank is main tank. You can have a whole bunch of other off-tanks.

That’s how I would expect this to work as well. A lot of solid off tanks, but one core main tank.

SirChancelot

George Black wrote: »

Tank/mage, tank/ranger top dps.

Sure, but probably not too DPS unless they go straight glass cannon... But if that's your desired build you probably should have said fighter not tank as your primary.
Given they also need to accept they won't be able to tank anymore. That they want to be an elemental bruiser like a spellsword but less of a fragile? I would be shifting a lot of my stat points from tank skills to damage skills to pump out that kind of DPS

Look at the passive skill trees for tank. You can choose stuff like health, Regen,DMG mitigation OR you could put your points into damage, cooldowns reduction, crit rate... You can't do everything, you have to choose what you want. Do you want to be a tank or DPS, not both.

SirChancelot

Dygz wrote: »

Summoner/Tank is not really just a different playstyle of tanks. It's really a different playstyle of Summoner.
Summoner/Tank is a sub-class; not a dual-class.

Yes it would play different than a primary archetype tank because it's a summoner not a tank. I am saying it would be a different play style for tanking as in trinity role. (Again this is why I feel it's silly to be called tank, it leads to confusion)
Yes a subclass by choosing broodwarden instead of shadowmancer my subclass works different. Now my line up of summonable minions kits me out for filling the Trinity role of tank INSTEAD of DPS. A broodwarden would deal less damage than all of the other summoner subclasses because it has better survivability ... And then if I pump all of my upgrade points for skills into tanky stuff instead of damage again, I'm building my summoner to be a tank instead of a damage dealer. Not a dual-class? Just a tank.

George_Black

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

George Black wrote: »

Tank/mage, tank/ranger top dps.

Sure, but probably not too DPS unless they go straight glass cannon... But if that's your desired build you probably should have said fighter not tank as your primary.
Given they also need to accept they won't be able to tank anymore. That they want to be an elemental bruiser like a spellsword but less of a fragile? I would be shifting a lot of my stat points from tank skills to damage skills to pump out that kind of DPS

Look at the passive skill trees for tank. You can choose stuff like health, Regen,DMG mitigation OR you could put your points into damage, cooldowns reduction, crit rate... You can't do everything, you have to choose what you want. Do you want to be a tank or DPS, not both.

And if your desired build is to tank you should get tank as primary.

Dygz

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

Sure, but probably not too DPS unless they go straight glass cannon... But if that's your desired build you probably should have said fighter not tank as your primary.
Given they also need to accept they won't be able to tank anymore. That they want to be an elemental bruiser like a spellsword but less of a fragile? I would be shifting a lot of my stat points from tank skills to damage skills to pump out that kind of DPS

Look at the passive skill trees for tank. You can choose stuff like health, Regen,DMG mitigation OR you could put your points into damage, cooldowns reduction, crit rate... You can't do everything, you have to choose what you want. Do you want to be a tank or DPS, not both.

A Primary Archetype Tank always main tanks because that's is what their Active Skills do.
A Primary Archetype Tank will not be a glass canon because their Active Skills provide Damage Mitigation.
They will be able to gain some "canon" effects from Mage augments.

I don't know what you mean by "damage" skills since Secondary Archetypes do not provide skills.
The only skills a Primary Archetype Tank has are Tank skills - unless you want to include Weapon Skills.

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