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

I don't think I missed anything.
The reason that you need someone in an 8-person group is because you're missing one of the expected 8 Primary Archetypes.
You don't really need a Secondary Archetype. You may want a Secondary Archetype for a variety of reasons.
Secondary Archetype is mostly about how an individual player likes to player their Primary Archetype.

You choose a Ranger/Tank when you need a Ranger/x.
x/Tank is just the way that player likes to play Ranger/x.

Nerror

Azherae wrote: »

Honestly, I sometimes wish reality wasn't like this, it causes me to suffer from low-grade solipsism. Even this post is intended to elicit a specific reaction that fits my models.

You really fascinate me @Azherae . I mean nothing negative. It's just the way you approach things and see people. Adding datapoints and categorizing and such

SirChancelot

Holyshiet... You really are missing it... I really don't know how to break it down Barney style for you anymore than that you're still not understanding the question I'm asking...

Go read my post again but slower and then answer the actual scenario...

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

Holyshiet... You really are missing it... I really don't know how to break it down Barney style for you anymore than that you're still not understanding the question I'm asking...

Go read my post again but slower and then answer the actual scenario...

Let me help a bit, perhaps...

Dygz wrote: »

You choose a Ranger/Tank when you need a Ranger/x.
x/Tank is just the way that player likes to play Ranger/x.

If you needed a Ranger, and it is true that you need 'only a Ranger' for some explicitly 'Ranger' thing that a Ranger does, but you are one of those darn 'elitists', then you don't take 'the Ranger/X', you take 'the Ranger/most effective secondary'.

If the Ranger/Tank says 'I'd like to join, I'm a Ranger/Tank', and that darn 'elitist' goes 'We don't need a /Tank, go change your secondary to Rogue for this content', there's a certain set of people who now find themselves in a difficult and for some extremely stressful position. They want to Ranger/Tank, they want to group, but social anxiety demands they conform.

Whereas a better design would cause this to happen less often and maybe make people with that condition or related conditions, who often play MMOs precisely to help deal with them, less likely to be put in these stressful situations.

Which aspect of what I'm saying here, if any, do you consider to be 'the perspective that doesn't reflect reality'?

Azherae wrote: »

It's not hard to understand, we just all disagree on what exactly 'Primary' is.

Um. This is like saying we disagree on exactly what a class is.
I'm sticking as closely as possible to the Ashes definitions.

Azherae wrote: »

I perceive the primary ability of a Tank as 'Damage Mitigation', not 'holding attention'. The latter is just 'synonymous and somewhat required'.

But 'holding attention' is something I view as no one's role in particular. It's not actually 'required' in some games' designs, it's just a very convenient specialization to have in a world with strong melee attackers who, for some reason, focus all their attacks on one person.

This is fine, I suppose but... I'm talking about primary ROLES not primary ABILITIES.
In Ashes, the primary role is defined by the Active Skills. The secondary role is defined by augments.
In response to the question - If i use secondary cleric can i heal others?
Steven answers - indirectly there are some augments when applied to certain skills that can do this. But it would not replace a cleric archetype

Steven must mean Primary Archetype Cleric, otherwise we have circular logic with secondary cleric replacing secondary cleric. He and Jeffrey have also said something similar about the need for Primary Archetype Tanks in an 8-person group.

Steven also says: Certain archetypes are capable of moving the gap between their counterpart per-se. If I am a Tank archetype and a Mage is my counter, I can take a Mage secondary and kind of bridge the divide slightly; and then move my identity that direction ever so slightly.

This is strong indication that Active Skills help fulfill the Primary Archetype role - the primary role.
And augments help fulfill the Secondary Archetype role - the secondary role.
Relying on augments will not replace the need for that representative Primary Archetype.
Cleric augments will not replace the need for a Primary Archetype Cleric in an 8-person group - by design.
Many of the Tank Active Skills specifically generate Threat, so we should expect Primary Archetype Tanks to be the best at generating Threat due to their Active Skills.
Threat School augments are unlikely to compete with those Active Skills.
Just as Steven indicates that Life School augments will not be able to compete with Cleric Healing Active Skills.
Cleric Active Skills help fulfill the primary role of Cleric/x. Cleric augments help fulfill the secondary role of x/Cleric.

Azherae wrote: »

In MOBAs for example a Tanking champion focuses on 'denying the enemy access to strike points on their allies'. The allies have the enemy attention, the Tank is just 'preventing them from dealing damage to the one who has that attention'.

Ashes is not a MOBA.

Azherae wrote: »

So a Fighter, who is doing a lot of damage, and therefore holding attention, is not 'Tanking'. They are 'holding attention'. If they aren't built defensively, they will fall, or the healer might, depending on how the healing is spread out. In a "Trinity' designed game, enemies may be built to make this a bad idea, but it's not required.

In Ashes, a Fighter/Tank who is using Tank augments is tanking. Most likely they will not be tanking as well as a Tank/x.

Azherae wrote: »

The Fighter could choose to, for whatever reason, spec toward increasing the enmity the enemy has for them, and hold attention even better. Are they 'Tanking' yet? In my mind, no, they're not mitigating enough damage.

What's in your mind is fine. But, if an x/Tank is using Tank augments, they are tanking. Especially if they are using augments from a Threat School or a Damage Mitigation School.
You can try to assign some arbitrary measure of how much mitigation is true mitigation, if that's what you like to do, sure.
But, if the x/Tank is using augments that specifically state the effect is added Damage Mitigation, the x/Tank is using damage mitigation.

Azherae wrote: »

In fact, 'Tank' only technically implies 'Armored Damage mitigation', whereas 'Guardian' or similar implies 'actually doing this stuff'.
I'm sure that Tanks will have lots of 'hey, leave them alone!' abilities, but that's still viewable as 'mitigation applied to the enemy's current target'.

I don't think I'm talking about implication.
It's not about the labels. It's about the Active Skills and augments.

Azherae wrote: »

This is the thing to consider. The reason any character who wishes to Tank cannot do so simply by 'putting on enough Armor' is that they put on the Armor to help the party with Damage Mitigation, and if they do not do enough damage or generate enough enmity, they are not the target, so that specific method of Damage Mitigation is not happening.

That is not the thing to consider, but of course, you may consider that if you wish.
The thing to consider is what Active Skills the Primary Archetype has and what augments (in this case Secondary Archetype augments) are being used with that character.

Azherae wrote: »

A 'Tank' by game definitions is effective when they are efficient at mitigating damage. Mages are not generally good Tanks because their damage mitigation is often inefficient, or they simply aren't allowed to wear gear that would allow them to do it.

In RPGs, Mages are designed to be glass canons while tanks soak (mitigate) damage. Mages tend to have much less Constitution than tanks.

Azherae wrote: »

If they run out of MP, they no longer generate enmity. If they no longer generate enmity, they are not the target, and any defensive skills they are using, don't matter, unless they can apply those skills toward the current target of the enemy, which most Mages cannot do.

OK.

Azherae wrote: »

The continual oversimplification of this complex and interesting game dynamic is starting to wear thin. Dygz probably isn't even trying to oversimplify it. Dygz just 'repeats what is said'. Just... stop engaging.

Yeah, you ran out of steam there and became increasingly irrelevant to anything I've said.

Azherae wrote: »

If the Ranger/Tank says 'I'd like to join, I'm a Ranger/Tank', and that darn 'elitist' goes 'We don't need a /Tank, go change your secondary to Rogue for this content', there's a certain set of people who now find themselves in a difficult and for some extremely stressful position. They want to Ranger/Tank, they want to group, but social anxiety demands they conform.

Whereas a better design would cause this to happen less often and maybe make people with that condition or related conditions, who often play MMOs precisely to help deal with them, less likely to be put in these stressful situations.

Which aspect of what I'm saying here, if any, do you consider to be 'the perspective that doesn't reflect reality'?

It's a cute assertion.
Let's play and see what happens.

Dygz wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

If the Ranger/Tank says 'I'd like to join, I'm a Ranger/Tank', and that darn 'elitist' goes 'We don't need a /Tank, go change your secondary to Rogue for this content', there's a certain set of people who now find themselves in a difficult and for some extremely stressful position. They want to Ranger/Tank, they want to group, but social anxiety demands they conform.

Whereas a better design would cause this to happen less often and maybe make people with that condition or related conditions, who often play MMOs precisely to help deal with them, less likely to be put in these stressful situations.

Which aspect of what I'm saying here, if any, do you consider to be 'the perspective that doesn't reflect reality'?

It's a cute assertion.
Let's play and see what happens.

Nah, never mind. It's just helpful to position relative to others who take longer to get you to these positions. Hopefully this is enough for now and the rest of us can move back to talking about something else.

ptitoine

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?

-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?

I think Off tank should be viable to tank high end scenario Depending on the way you build your character.
Cause unlike most other MMO in this one u can wear whatever you want. So im guessing if you a Mage/Tank (Like Npc in Warcraft 3) And wear Plate and shield. Im thinking you could tank properly cause the tank offspec would probably add taunt and Prot effect to your spell.

Thats just what I think i may be wrong tough

The people who are in favor of off tanking, what exactly do you want the limits of off-tanking to be?
How better at tanking do you want a Tank/X to be in comparison to a X/Tank?

ptitoine

JamesSunderland wrote: »

The people who are in favor of off tanking, what exactly do you want the limits of off-tanking to be?
How better at tanking do you want a Tank/X to be in comparison to a X/Tank?

I dont think the main difference will be into Tank/X - X/Tank. But the way u build your character. Cause they said there is no limitation on usable gear. So I think tanking will vary in so many ways compared to other MMORPG.

Like if you build your mage/tank with Plate and shield and put stats into Def and such. Maybe using earth magic to create shield and armor around him. With taunt added effect to his Original mage spells. Could be quite a viable way to tank.
Same could be said with a Cleric/Tank wearing Plate and shield. His way of tanking would be more around self heal (Like Blood DK in WoW maybe)

I really dont think tanking will be restricted to Tank/X but more in the way you decide to build your character. I might be completly wrong but thats what i understood when they said there would be no restriction on gear

We could ask the same thing about all the other Primary Archetypes:
What's the divide between a Fighter/x and an x/Fighter?
What's the divide between a Cleric/x and an x/Cleric?
Such that Cleric augments will not replace the need for a Primary Archetype Cleric in an 8-person group.
I'll leave it up to the devs to figure out the details.

But, it seems as though the devs are balancing encounters around the Active Skills; not the augments.

ptitoine wrote: »

I dont think the main difference will be into Tank/X - X/Tank. But the way u build your character. Cause they said there is no limitation on usable gear. So I think tanking will vary in so many ways compared to other MMORPG.

Like if you build your mage/tank with Plate and shield and put stats into Def and such. Maybe using earth magic to create shield and armor around him. With taunt added effect to his Original mage spells. Could be quite a viable way to tank.
Same could be said with a Cleric/Tank wearing Plate and shield. His way of tanking would be more around self heal (Like Blood DK in WoW maybe)

I really dont think tanking will be restricted to Tank/X but more in the way you decide to build your character. I might be completly wrong but thats what i understood when they said there would be no restriction on gear

Even tho there will be no limitations on usable gear, the 1° archetype will have the core of your skillset in which augments from your 2° archetype will be applied, i don't think tank 2° archetype augments will be superior to Tank 1° archetype core skills in terms of tanking functionality (Aggro Generation, CCs, damage mitigation, passive skills and etc) and i don't think gear will be able to compensate for this gap enough to the point where a off-tank performs the same or very similar to an actual tank.

I understand what your expectations are, but it's important to take in consideration what implications this could mean to the Trinity system, like a Tank/fighter through gear and 2° archetype fighter doing the same or very similar damage to a Fighter/Tank, the informations and statements we currently have don't support such ideas.

ptitoine wrote: »

I dont think the main difference will be into Tank/X - X/Tank. But the way u build your character. Cause they said there is no limitation on usable gear. So I think tanking will vary in so many ways compared to other MMORPG.

Like if you build your mage/tank with Plate and shield and put stats into Def and such. Maybe using earth magic to create shield and armor around him. With taunt added effect to his Original mage spells. Could be quite a viable way to tank.
Same could be said with a Cleric/Tank wearing Plate and shield. His way of tanking would be more around self heal (Like Blood DK in WoW maybe)

I really dont think tanking will be restricted to Tank/X but more in the way you decide to build your character. I might be completly wrong but thats what i understood when they said there would be no restriction on gear

You should try it and see how well it works.
But, based on what the devs have said, you should do so with the expectation you MIGHT find a way to do that, rather than you SHOULD be able to find a way to do that.

I mean, I think you can easily find some fairly strong x/Tanks. But, Steven and Jeffrey have said x/Tank will not replace the need for a Tank/x in an 8-person group.

ptitoine

JamesSunderland wrote: »

I understand what your expectations are, but it's important to take in consideration what implications this could mean to the Trinity system, like a Tank/fighter through gear and 2° archetype fighter doing the same or very similar damage to a Fighter/Tank, the informations and statements we currently have don't support such ideas.

Cause the way I see it, I might be completly wrong, it will be more like Guild War 1 type of archetype for the character. Like Main class will have Unique effects related to this class but is still viable as Off spec if u combo with the Unique effect of another main class

-Like in GW Paragon would regain Mana on end effect of Buffs (Battle cry/Hymn) So if u were a Paragon/Warrior using Warrior spell but gaining Mana for buff would work differently then Warrior/Paragon of the same build cause the combo synergy isnt the same.

So the way I see it like I said might be wrong. But will be more around the synergy and combo u make more than just the main class used. Cause in the Alpha 1 there werent much spells. Unlike in the game you'll have to choose and discard somes

JamesSunderland wrote: »

ptitoine wrote: »

I dont think the main difference will be into Tank/X - X/Tank. But the way u build your character. Cause they said there is no limitation on usable gear. So I think tanking will vary in so many ways compared to other MMORPG.

Like if you build your mage/tank with Plate and shield and put stats into Def and such. Maybe using earth magic to create shield and armor around him. With taunt added effect to his Original mage spells. Could be quite a viable way to tank.
Same could be said with a Cleric/Tank wearing Plate and shield. His way of tanking would be more around self heal (Like Blood DK in WoW maybe)

I really dont think tanking will be restricted to Tank/X but more in the way you decide to build your character. I might be completly wrong but thats what i understood when they said there would be no restriction on gear

Even tho there will be no limitations on usable gear, the 1° archetype will have the core of your skillset in which augments from your 2° archetype will be applied, i don't think tank 2° archetype augments will be superior to Tank 1° archetype core skills in terms of tanking functionality (Aggro Generation, CCs, damage mitigation, passive skills and etc) and i don't think gear will be able to compensate for this gap enough to the point where a off-tank performs the same or very similar to an actual tank.

I understand what your expectations are, but it's important to take in consideration what implications this could mean to the Trinity system, like a Tank/fighter through gear and 2° archetype fighter doing the same or very similar damage to a Fighter/Tank, the informations and statements we currently have don't support such ideas.

While I don't disagree here, there's one 'problem' with this that is specific to Tanking and actually is probably the entire cause of the discussion.

Right now what Tanks do is only distinguished from what other Archetypes do by a little bit. This may change, but that's where we are currently (discussions of base Archetypal stats aside).

We have Javelin and Ultimate Defense. Everything else is 'I hit the thing and generate extra Threat' (dismissing the Block Chance one because Tanks could choose not to use Shields).

So it's easy to come to the conclusion that if a different Archetype could get close to the base defensive stats of a Tank by putting on Plate Armor, they could just /Tank, 'generate additional threat' on their own abilities, and the result would be the same.

I expect that once Intrepid unveils more Active Skills that seem like more than just 'Yep, here's some damage and threat Generation', people will naturally see whatever gap exists between Tank Primary and Tank Secondary.

Until then, experience has taught many that in 'freeform' games, anyone can tank if they can get enough mitigation, it's just not always a good idea because they would be more effective gearing to do their primary role. But not that many games offer build freedom but don't also let you manage to do this, do they?

But we can expect it, since the concept of the effectiveness of Tank in PvP scenarios also relies quite heavily on those things.

Azherae wrote: »

While I don't disagree here, there's one 'problem' with this that is specific to Tanking and actually is probably the entire cause of the discussion.

Right now what Tanks do is only distinguished from what other Archetypes do by a little bit. This may change, but that's where we are currently (discussions of base Archetypal stats aside).

We have Javelin and Ultimate Defense. Everything else is 'I hit the thing and generate extra Threat' (dismissing the Block Chance one because Tanks could choose not to use Shields).

So it's easy to come to the conclusion that if a different Archetype could get close to the base defensive stats of a Tank by putting on Plate Armor, they could just /Tank, 'generate additional threat' on their own abilities, and the result would be the same.

I expect that once Intrepid unveils more Active Skills that seem like more than just 'Yep, here's some damage and threat Generation', people will naturally see whatever gap exists between Tank Primary and Tank Secondary.

Until then, experience has taught many that in 'freeform' games, anyone can tank if they can get enough mitigation, it's just not always a good idea because they would be more effective gearing to do their primary role. But not that many games offer build freedom but don't also let you manage to do this, do they?

But we can expect it, since the concept of the effectiveness of Tank in PvP scenarios also relies quite heavily on those things.

Sure, you are correct, right now the alpha 1 lv15 tank is extremaly simple in terms of its tanking resources, simple class augments of threat generation and damage mitigation would do the trick for an off tank in this comparison(tank passive skills).

But, i really don't see that being a thing in the future taking in considerarion the trinity concept and Steven's statements, how far exactly will be able to push a X/tank in off-tanking is still a mystery.

Btw Azherae, what is my Class forum personality?

I certainly couldn't say with any proper sensible response. Unfortunately I admit I built up a biased perception regarding you from the RNG CC thread, so anything I would say would be based entirely on that experience. I dislike this, so I have been trying to make sure to 'purge' it and develop a new, more reasonable perception of you through your other posts.

That said, I've just checked my data files and it appears you are in fact undecided about your Class and were leaning toward Knight, so maybe I should just stick with my perception of 'Defensive but brutal Fighter who drops their guard only when the other side agrees to drop their weapons'.

If you don't think of yourself as that, I'll keep trying to understand you properly.

Edit: Though, as my last post surely revealed, I am still likely to TREAT you as that for the time being, hence 'approaching with open hands and no weapons' when engaging you in conversation'.