Bigger and better incentives for tanks

[AliceVirgin]

Add a new stat to parsers that shows how hard you provoke, and boom...people will want to tank. As it is now, tanking yields no e-peen stroking, which is all that matters in a game like this.

Congrats you got my first like in this forums...
What SE should do is when you block and use ability it shows the Reduction of DMG take call it Neg DMG and have it flash so if you block a huge hit it shows -X DMG that will stroke everyones EPeen

[therpgfanatic]

Congrats you got my first like in this forums...
What SE should do is when you block and use ability it shows the Reduction of DMG take call it Neg DMG and have it flash so if you block a huge hit it shows -X DMG that will stroke everyones EPeen

The problem with this is that amount blocked doesn't directly correspond to beating the encounter.

I've mentioned this in other threads. Tanks going from lv1-50 are boring and due to GCD on everything, feel pretty sluggish and slow. They do craptastic damage unless they have the top item lv in the game, and even then its a lot less than other jobs.

Seriously. When the only way for a tank to get Gold in a FATE is to spam Flash (which deals no damage and doesn't directly contribute to the success of the FATE) you know there is a problem with the design.

Not many people want to play a character whose only job is to position the enemy for other players, and his own damage plays little to no role in the encounter.

[Karnyboy]

...snip...

But that's the role of a tank, to soak the damage, I can't see why people think it's not important? Try doing endgame without a tank in your group. You're pretty important to the grand scheme of things even if you don't do massive "deeps"

Tanking is all about positioning, timing interrupts and when to use cooldowns. I find it more difficult than DPS who just needs to avoid AOE and use the right rotation, but then again that can be said about every class in this game.

[ulti_19]

Honestly I think it's more of a preference. In any mmo I play if it doesn't have a sword and shield, I don't play it. I love tanking. But most people prefer killing fast. The grind is faster, the end result is faster, you can kill faster in pvp, in most games as dps. Besides, tanks get a lot of hate in dungeons in this game too, that doesn't make people want to be the leader in a dungeon since you can roll a dps and just silently spam chains without being yelled at ever or not knowing where or what to do in most cases. If a DPS makes a mistake, no one notices for the most part, and all is well, when the tank slips up, all hell breaks loose many times haha.

[Moirear]

I don't really need an incentive to play a tank.

Things people could do is stop spreading myths about tanking that are blatantly false, like:

Tanking is hard! It's not, there are a handful of instances that are hard to tank... incidentally, those are usually also hard on the rest of the party.

Tanking is boring! Maybe in the early levels. Midgame to endgame tanking can be quite interesting.

Tanks are always the first blamed and people are mean to them! Not in my experience, not any more that some people are mean to everybody, regardless of the their role. And good players will only help you out if you're making mistakes, not put you down.


Part of incentivizing tank play by way of game mechanics can be needlessly complex and bloat the role unnecessarily—improving the situation starts with the community here.

[ulti_19]

The reason for no tanks is simply because of the pressure. Think of any dungeon or boss fight, you can be a dps class and go in it blind and no pressure for the most part. As a tank you're required to know where to go, where to tank each enemy, which way to rotate, all the mechanics, when to switch with off tanks, how to deal with stacks, what adds to agro, which way to face in each phase etc. All the dps has to do is follow the tank and damage adds or bosses. As dps if you make a mistake no one notices, one tank mistake and everyone sees and points it out etc.