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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Azherae

Well, since we know that Fighter/Cleric can heal (some amount) then we could probably figure something out by 'stepping away from Tanking' to a discussion about something we actually 'know'.

A Fighter/Cleric would, by definition, be able to heal some 'percentage' of what you could rely on from a full Cleric. And therefore, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that a Fighter/Tank would be able to 'tank' some percentage of what you could rely on from a full Tank.

I can't contribute because I'm not used to 'faceroll tanking' style games, where the Tank basically just has to 'do a rotation and not mess it up and they will succeed'. Tanking is a 'team effort' in at least half the games of this type, that I play, and that leads to 'any team that puts a sufficient damage-mitigation class in the same slot as a Tank and makes a greater effort, succeeds in having that class act as the Tank'.

So...

How much heals could a Highsword sling if a Highsword could sling heals?

Percimes

Noaani wrote: »

My expectation with almost all */tank classes is that they will be the high survivability build for your class.

If this is how it works out, it would mean a fighter/tank is a fighter that has a bit more in the way of survivability than a regular fighter/fighter, but is still a fighter, not a tank.

Since there is more to tanking than just survivability, this says to me that it is unlikely that a fighter/tank would be able to be an actual tank.

Same this with a mage/tank - it is a mage with higher survivability than the other mages. No one is going to expect it to be able to tank

The only exception to this that I see is the summoner - this is because summoners dont really have a "role" as such, so their role is the class they take as a secondary.

To push this a little farther. What if all group members had the same secondary archetype but no one had it as a primary? Let say, everyone is x/tank, but no one is tank/x. What level of functionality could we expect from such a party. Nothing in the realm of raid capacity most likely, but in the non-boss part of dungeons? In PvP battlefield? How about if everyone was x/cleric, but not proper cleric?

It's something my friends and I talked about a long time ago for a D&D party concept: everyone multi-classing/dual-classing fighter or thief. The idea has been, more or less, adapted by many over the years in other games. There are videos of full parties of mages or paladins in WoW for example.

The reverse concept, which seems less viable, would be for every group members to share the same primary archetype, but with a different secondary. A full group of tank/x could be a nightmare to finish off, but a full ranger/x group could make a frightening entrance. Bam! Healer down!

Dygz

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

[
I'd be ok with fighter/cleric coming up with a build to heal. They have said the cleric augments will be able to heal themselves AND those around them.
But again just choosing your primary and secondary archetype isn't the only aspect of building your character if you make this character and don't dump enough points into mana pool and mana regen as a passive. If you weren't getting gear that gives bonuses for healing, then no you shouldn't be able to heal.
They would also have to expect that they are going to lose all of their DPS aspect.

That dev quote also says that Cleric augments will not negate the need for a Primary Archetype Cleric in an 8-person group.
People using augments from the Cleric's Life School will be able to heal. They just won't be able to heal as well as a Primary Archetype Cleric using Active Skill heals.

Dygz

daveywavey wrote: »

I'm hoping that Bard/Tank can augment the Bard skills to provide additional survivability for the whole group. Plus, you get to be a shmexy Siren.

Right. Seems like a Cleric/Tank should be able to augment Hallowed Ground with a Damage Mitigation augment that works for any ally in that AoE.
And that should be similar for a Bard/Tank using Bard AoEs.

JustVine

Dygz wrote: »

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

[
I'd be ok with fighter/cleric coming up with a build to heal. They have said the cleric augments will be able to heal themselves AND those around them.
But again just choosing your primary and secondary archetype isn't the only aspect of building your character if you make this character and don't dump enough points into mana pool and mana regen as a passive. If you weren't getting gear that gives bonuses for healing, then no you shouldn't be able to heal.
They would also have to expect that they are going to lose all of their DPS aspect.

That dev quote also says that Cleric augments will not negate the need for a Primary Archetype Cleric in an 8-person group.
People using augments from the Cleric's Life School will be able to heal. They just won't be able to heal as well as a Primary Archetype Clerics using Active Skill heals.

So let's look at this further. 'Won't be able to heal as well as'.

Ok you are a fighter/cleric and took healing. Let's ask, why?

Noaani would go 'you don't trust your healer.' I would go 'because hopefully this frees up the cleric to have a somewhat more offensive build that they both enjoy'. In a good system neither option is incorrect, just different and has situational advantages and disadvantages.

Alternatively let's ask how good is this healing?

If it isn't very good, it's a very fair question to ask why the designers made that option available at all. To trick 'less skilled builders'? 'Flavor that makes you superficially help your allies with your band aids?' If it's low impact compared to things that let you do more damage, people have no reason to choose it. That's very bad design.

But if its designed well, how many /clerics do you need before your party heals as well as a cleric?

The answer to this question is less important than how you decide the answer to it.

My reasoning behind the answer is: Just because you can heal didn't mean you do everything a cleric does, but maybe for your teams style the rest just isn't that neccesary. For everything but top end raid content, your team is good at avoiding or resisting debuffs, or damage mitigation etc.

Im sure you all have differing reasonings behind answering that question.

Atama

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

I'd be ok with fighter/cleric coming up with a build to heal. They have said the cleric augments will be able to heal themselves AND those around them.

You are incorrect. Cleric augments do not allow you to heal others. The only class that is confirmed to be able heal others aside from Cleric is Bard. Now, I also assume that Summoner can heal since that is a “jack of all trades”, so it seems that it should have a healing summon, but that’s only a guess on my part.

Azherae wrote: »

Well, since we know that Fighter/Cleric can heal (some amount) then we could probably figure something out by 'stepping away from Tanking' to a discussion about something we actually 'know'.

A Fighter/Cleric can only heal themselves.

https://www.ashes101.com/classes#archetypes

“While Bard does have some direct off-healing ability, the intention is for Clerics to be the main healer and Bards to be the off-healer and support. Additionally, when taking Cleric as a secondary Archetype, while you may gain some self-sustain augments, you will not be gaining any direct heal abilities.”

JustVine

Atama wrote: »

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

I'd be ok with fighter/cleric coming up with a build to heal. They have said the cleric augments will be able to heal themselves AND those around them.

You are incorrect. Cleric augments do not allow you to heal others. The only class that is confirmed to be able heal others aside from Cleric is Bard. Now, I also assume that Summoner can heal since that is a “jack of all trades”, so it seems that it should have a healing summon, but that’s only a guess on my part.

Azherae wrote: »

Well, since we know that Fighter/Cleric can heal (some amount) then we could probably figure something out by 'stepping away from Tanking' to a discussion about something we actually 'know'.

A Fighter/Cleric can only heal themselves.

https://www.ashes101.com/classes#archetypes

“While Bard does have some direct off-healing ability, the intention is for Clerics to be the main healer and Bards to be the off-healer and support. Additionally, when taking Cleric as a secondary Archetype, while you may gain some self-sustain augments, you will not be gaining any direct heal abilities.”

She was reffering to these.

Choosing life augments will provide self-healing benefits as well as limited life-giving benefits to other players.[30][28]
Some cleric augments applied to certain skills will indirectly provide the ability to heal others. These will not replace the need for a cleric archetype.[31]

Atama

So there are indirect healing opportunities through augments. Interesting.

Azherae

Atama wrote: »

So there are indirect healing opportunities through augments. Interesting.

My expectation is pretty simple.

Hit enemy, cause AoE healing or AoE Castigate effect (HP and MP regen).

And I'd expect this to be incredibly easy to balance to be both 'useful' and 'not enough to easily replace a Cleric' as a result. Three stacks of Regen on your Tank is not enough in hard content, but it's also a viable option instead of 'just hit the mob harder', especially if it's an AoE enemy that is constantly doing some small damage to everyone.

The Cleric would continue to heal the Tank, while not having to spend as much mana on everyone else, making the whole experience smoother.

It's not that hard to imagine people 'planning to go level up on some enemy type that definitely has AoE or reflects some portion of melee damage' and explicitly going 'Exp party 6/8, lf Fighter (pref Highsword) and Bard) while they already have a Cleric.

Dygz

JustVine wrote: »

My reasoning behind the answer is: Just because you can heal didn't mean you do everything a cleric does, but maybe for your teams style the rest just isn't that neccesary. For everything but top end raid content, your team is good at avoiding or resisting debuffs, or damage mitigation etc.

That. And/or you like to heal some. And/or you like to support the Cleric.
And/or you like the overall Highsword thematics.
Even for top end raiding, x/Clerics will still be viable.

SirChancelot

Noaani wrote: »

If you pick tank as your primary, you are a tank, that is your role.

Why are clerics going to be able to heal or DPS then. If they are the primary healing archetype why do they have the option of not being a healer. Why wouldn't the same logic apply to a tank.

If this is the final word on that, it's enough to make me, who's been a main tank player for a decade, to not want to be a tank in this game.

Azherae

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

If you pick tank as your primary, you are a tank, that is your role.

Why are clerics going to be able to heal or DPS then. If they are the primary healing archetype why do they have the option of not being a healer. Why wouldn't the same logic apply to a tank.

If this is the final word on that, it's enough to make me, who's been a main tank player for a decade, to not want to be a tank in this game.

There isn't any specific indication right now that Cleric has the option to 'DPS and not bother healing' though. Not effectively.

And similarly, the argument doesn't make sense relative to Tanks because Tanks don't 'tank OR do damage', they do both. But Clerics don't 'Heal and Tank'.

SirChancelot

Dygz wrote: »

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

[
I'd be ok with fighter/cleric coming up with a build to heal. They have said the cleric augments will be able to heal themselves AND those around them.
But again just choosing your primary and secondary archetype isn't the only aspect of building your character if you make this character and don't dump enough points into mana pool and mana regen as a passive. If you weren't getting gear that gives bonuses for healing, then no you shouldn't be able to heal.
They would also have to expect that they are going to lose all of their DPS aspect.

That dev quote also says that Cleric augments will not negate the need for a Primary Archetype Cleric in an 8-person group.
People using augments from the Cleric's Life School will be able to heal. They just won't be able to heal as well as a Primary Archetype Cleric using Active Skill heals.

This could just be due to the fact that clerics have activated abilities for remove curses or clear poison, if I have cleric secondary I'm not going to have that primary skill. I accept this, and if my party has a cleric/fighter who wants to be more melee DPS oriented than a healer he will still have access to those remove curse spells and our party will run just fine. It can still work.

Look at my party over here breaking Metas while diggs is over there in a party of double Downs cuz THATS THEIR ROLE!!¡!

😁

wherediditrun

George Black wrote: »

The meta will be here, make no mistakes. There is a lot of wishful thinking and I am saying this because we have seen what games like eso or aa managed to do with their "play as you want". Nothing.

Sure. But that's a problem due to few addressable aspects:
Proficiency of a spec is related too much to specs hard stats.
Patches tuning specs come out once a year or so.

Design classes with more impactful soft stats.
Tune the classes with small patches each quarter or so.
Not to balance the game per say, but to shake up the meta just enough to keep people solving it.

The only problem is that soft stats generally relate to action combat design.
Although, maybe not necessarily.

Will Ashes gonna do it? Doubt it. I'm coming to an impression that Steven spent his innovation tokens on node system already and they won't be experimenting too much.

Dygz

Just as a Cleric can choose abilities that don't have healing, a Tank could choose abilities that don't generate Threat or have Damage Mitigation. That is possible.

Dygz

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

This could just be due to the fact that clerics have activated abilities for remove curses or clear poison, if I have cleric secondary I'm not going to have that primary skill. I accept this, and if my party has a cleric/fighter who wants to be more melee DPS oriented than a healer he will still have access to those remove curse spells and our party will run just fine. It can still work.

It's because augments are not as powerful as Active Skills.

SirChancelot

Dygz wrote: »

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

This could just be due to the fact that clerics have activated abilities for remove curses or clear poison, if I have cleric secondary I'm not going to have that primary skill. I accept this, and if my party has a cleric/fighter who wants to be more melee DPS oriented than a healer he will still have access to those remove curse spells and our party will run just fine. It can still work.

It's because augments are not as powerful as Active Skills.

Oh, so augments won't change the primary archetype skills very much?

CROW3

I sat down earlier today and sketched out my thoughts on this topic. Interested in whether this meets / counters your thinking or expectations.

The idea is that 'secondary tanks' (those classes that do not start with the tank archetype) have 1) a greater ability to survive as solo players, and 2) have the potential to become solid off-tanks

That said - all things being equal - a fighter/tank, will never be as capable a tank as a tank/fighter. Likewise, a tank/fighter will never be able to dps as well as a fighter/tank. Same combination constraint on the tank / healing side of the trinity.

Dygz

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

Oh, so augments won't change the primary archetype skills very much?

Augments are not as powerful as Active Skills. Augments augment.
Augments change Active Skills significantly.

Secondary Archetype creates a sub-class; not a dual-class.

SirChancelot

Dygz wrote: »

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

Oh, so augments won't change the primary archetype skills very much?

Augments are not as powerful as Active Skills. Augments augment.
Augments change Active Skills significantly.

I know augments aren't skills themselves, so saying they aren't as powerful doesn't make sense...
So they change skills a a significant amount?
Enough for it to shift what role that ability can be used for... Like DPS ability can now be used to heal?

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