Four Ways to Die - why the Tank Meta feels "off".

[karateorangutang]

snip

I'm not speaking of the classes themselves. I understand that those enjoyments are subjective to the nature of the person that is playing. Otherwise the whole formula of sectioned specialties would be worthless. This can also be applied to the whole tank conundrum as a whole.

I'm speaking simply of wait times. I don't think you can find me a person that likes waiting in a line if another option can be had.

The situation as it stands right now allows what you are describing. There is no need for high vitality and players can stack strength so their tanks can pull 800 dps. We are in agreement at this point.

The problem is stacking strength is the only gear strategy.

For players like me, who are coming in from other MMOs with more conventional tanks, it feels wrong. I am used to focusing on damage mitigation a lot more. Players mockingly call this as a desire to be a "brick wall." As if I want to be an immobile obstacle for mobs to walk around.

It is not that at all.

What I want to be is a paladin as it is described in the job lore: "Known as paladins, these men and women marry exquisite swordplay with stalwart shieldwork to create a style of combat uncompromising in its defense... To be a paladin is to protect, and those who choose to walk this path will become the iron foundation upon which the party's defense is built."

To be that kind of tank, would not require an overhaul of stats. It would simply require tank busters to hit for more damage so the damage mitigation tools at my disposal (including my gear) become more important. As I continued to survive, I would feel rewarded for my good play and good gearing choices.

In short, I don't want to be a passive brick wall. I want to be an active shield and sword!

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I'm gonna play devil's advocate anyway

Making mobs hit hard could be a viable option in alot of games, but this one it would be far less effective. The problem with that is gear scaling.

The vertical progression of gear in this game makes for a steep climb in statistical attributes for all classes. If you were to take a tank buster on a boss and make it hit for 18k instead of 10k then that would indeed force tanks to mitigate the damage more, but the problem lies in gearing. Now if the tank has to gear vit at a substantially high ilvl to even make that threshhold then you might be putting an undue burden on the tank class to even enter the instance in comparison to other classes. If its not at the higher end of the ilvl spectrum then the problem would be the same as we have now. Tanks would still gear enough vit to survive and then gear STR as it would be more effective.

The other option would be to boost the amount of auto attacks, or the damage over time to the tank. This is a better option I feel as it would force both the tank and the healer to focus on the mitigation of damage over the course of the fight. This would recquire that some of the passive defensive secondary stats get a much needed boost to make them worthwhile. However, the DPS threshold for fights would have to be significantly lowered to accomidate this whole methedology and then you have the exact same issue with DPS gearing. If you did it at the high end of the spectrum you would be gating all but the most geared DPS players and if you did it at the low then you would be undermining the difficulty of the encounter for their tastes.

It's a vexing problem that they have created with the current meta and stat growth.