Quote Originally Posted by fm_fenrir View Post
You can't get rid of tanks trying to maximize damage without gutting the functionality entirely[...]
Sunder Armor used to be a thing. Pretty sure you could even include it in a combo system without changing the classes from the ground up. Heck, you could give every ability a weapon/stat-dependent enmity modifier and then purely supportive effects with no damage whatsoever. Let some inflated enmity numbers flash up on the screen so people don't "get bored" and you're set.

But then you step outside the dungeon and lack the dedicated damagedealers to kill anything. And "that" is why we have a hard time getting rid of the damage paradigm of tanks. Frankly, tanks/healers have as much business doing damage as damagedealers have healing/tanking: None. That's the trinity design. And that's totally fine, until the trinity is broken in solo play.

That's where the mess starts. You now give tanks/healers the tools to end a fight ASAP and of course they'll try to use it in a group setting as much as possible as well. Which can't be resolved without essentially designing two different classes for each type of content. Hence, do as little tanking/healing as possible while doing as much DPS as possible.


TL;DR: Trinity design is stupid.