Ranged Tank

[TheodoreMcIntyre]

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Well, as it stands, all enemies already have their flanks exposed in some form or another without having to kite. Now, if you did have a kiting tank, another problem arises, again, with melee DPS. See, you have to be in a pretty close range to use any melee attack in the game, aside from jumps and a few other select skills, and the way the game processes melee attacks is a little weird, so if you try and run and use a melee attack on an enemy but they run out of range before the animation finishes, it will cancel a skill.

Though, this may all be moot depending on what they do with Dark Knight. I was kind of hoping machinist would fulfill ranged tank hopes. Looking like the Eng from guild wars 2, and that's not all bad.

Screw it, I'm going to hop on the most populated server I can find and try it out. See how much I take. Keep the ideas coming if you'd like, or rage against it and call me a fool. I will always dream.

I don't think anybody's particularly mad at you for it.
I mean, I know it's definitely possible.
To say it isn't would be silly.
It would just require alot of reworking of some of the fundamental ways the game processes combat.

[aisustrong]

I mean, I know we have summoner and Titan Egi, yes, but Titan Egi is a very poor tank and loses aggro very fast, with no way of taking aggro back if it dies. It also has a pretty big lack of enmity generation in general and isn't designed to really tank very well. A proper puppet tank would have to be an entirely different class, with a much bigger emphasis on their pet taking damage and generating hate, and likely a rework of the way you command your pets to use skills.

can confirm, titan is sadly not that great
went into coperbell normal as smn and tried to main tank with it
he just doesnt have enough moves and the enmity he was putting out was roughly comparable to halone-less gladiator (ie, terrible and just enough to scrape by depending upon level of content)

[Askio]

Though, this may all be moot depending on what they do with Dark Knight. I was kind of hoping machinist would fulfill ranged tank hopes. Looking like the Eng from guild wars 2, and that's not all bad.

Screw it, I'm going to hop on the most populated server I can find and try it out. See how much I take. Keep the ideas coming if you'd like, or rage against it and call me a fool. I will always dream.

[Vorpal_Spork]

Which only leaves being an archer I suppose. Viable in this game? I've only stuck to Summoner and Gladiator so far when it comes to duking it out long term. But my favorite two things to play are tanks--mage tanks and range tanks in particular. So I'm bored and need ideas to make the range tank viable, until the dark knight comes out to satisfy the tanky mage in me.
Any suggestions?

To my knowledge the only MMOs that have ranged tanks are SWTOR and Planetside, but the ones in Planetside are actual tanks.

[Grayve]

To my knowledge the only MMOs that have ranged tanks are SWTOR and Planetside, but the ones in Planetside are actual tanks.

Even the SWTOR tanks weren't truly ranged. Sure, they had ranged attacks for pulling, and a ranged pull and leap, but their main combo was built around Stock-strike/Rocketpunch and Ion Blast/Flame Sweep, both of which were close range, under 4m.

[Vorpal_Spork]

Even the SWTOR tanks weren't truly ranged. Sure, they had ranged attacks for pulling, and a ranged pull and leap, but their main combo was built around Stock-strike/Rocketpunch and Ion Blast/Flame Sweep, both of which were close range, under 4m.

They had a lot more ranged attacks than they did melee attacks though. Or at least bounty hunter did. My only trooper was a healer.

[Askio]

They had a lot more ranged attacks than they did melee attacks though. Or at least bounty hunter did. My only trooper was a healer.

As someone that played a vanguard, most trooper abilities are ranged. But many of the abilities relied on being close, like gaining Ion Pulse and Shoulder Cannons.
Hmmm, I suppose I'm wanting to set aside the idea of tanking in dungeons to just solo tanking.

I actually got my wish. A galdiator in the first Duty wasn't pulling, so I did it so our healer wouldn't get eaten alive. Our "tank" got annoyed I was doing their job, and said "I want to watch you die," and the 3 others in my party proceeded to stop as I was pulling 6 enemies. I then made them eat those words by killing all the enemies with nary a scratch.

[Kuwagami]

To put it simply : you can't have a ranged tank.

Mage tank ? sure. Easy enough with simply the cleric as an example. Heavy armor, mace, magic. Done.

But ranged tank ? How do you tank at range distance ? All mobs are closing up the distance except a handful of them (mostly the kedtraps and monkeys). So a ranged tank is a false concept. It'll be a melee tank with ranged weapon, but this ranged weapon will have no use. You can attack mobs from afar already if you lose them (provoke, tomahawk, shield lob)

The only way you can have a ranged tank is a kiting tank, and it's just THAT bad of an idea.

[PWilson]

A ranged tank?

Why would you bring a gun to a sword fight? :P

[ChaozK]

Since most enemies in this game are attacking from close range, even a ranged tank would spend most of his time in melee range. The closest thing for the concept of a ranged tank is probably a gunblade wielder, that way you would use your sword most of the time but would have an excuse for having better options for pulling and aggroing from distance.