[Discussion on the state of Darkness/Kinetic Combat]

Well, let's look at exactly what you said:

 

 

That sounds pretty insulting to me. ... If you wanted to say that the specific fight guides were bad, then you should have in the first place, because we can only see what you explicitly say.[/Quote]

Point taken. I now realize there are 14 guides I could have been referring to (1 for each class and 11 for current fights), and I'll be more specific in the future to make sure I don't reference the 3 that aren't applicable

For the record, given my comment followed a long post about how the bar for adequate tanking was pretty low I don't think it's unreasonable to ask what excellent tanking looks like, but the offense was accidental.

 

Moving on, you're not looking for a guide. You're looking for someone to hold your hand and walk you through how to maximize the use of your class in each fight. That's not helpful when new fights come out, because you're just going to look back at that guide and try to see what they say to do, rather than figure the fight out on your own.

 

You actually don't know anything about my motivations. All I asked was if there were videos or guides from people keyboard ninja considered "great". I'm not complaining about the lack of them, or moaning about people not spoon feeding me excellence, just wondering if there is any game footage of what a great tank looks like, or some sort of write up from one. I'm not egotistical enough to think I know everything about how to tank, and wanting to see how the best do it is hardly asking for a step by step on how to play. In a lot of activities, that's how people learn what they can do to get better.

 

You could always do the fights yourself enough times to master your class and then make a guide yourself for others who are in a similar position as you instead of complaining that no such guide exists.

If I ever start complaining about the lack of such a guide I'll be sure to do that. Although it will be tough to decide when I've mastered a fight when asking if there are videos or notes from other "masters" is so insulting... Interesting catch-22.

 

I've done detailed "master tier optimization" guides for shadow tanking fights in the past. In particular, pre-nerf NiM DP. It was a guide that was targeted specifically at other tanks in my guild, especially those who needed to be able to sub for me. It was enormously long (I think 35 pages in google docs?), took a long time to put together, and in the end I can count on one hand the number of people who have read it seriously.

 

So the cost/benefit ratio on master tier guides just isn't there. I can definitely sympathize with a desire to have some guidance on that front, but it's a lot of work to do this in a mass-consumable format, and also not work that would be useful to most people. The best thing to do is just send a message to someone who is taking those fights who you feel has the knowledge to help you (like Aelinis) and just ask for insight. It's easier to help someone one-on-one than write a generally available guide. :-)

 

Thanks for the information. I don't need a full proper guide, but seeing someone using their class to its' full potential as a tank would have been interesting. If nothing like that exists, oh well! And if Aelanis is the one you were going to point to as "the excellent tank in this game" I'm afraid I burned that bridge before I could even get to it (I now see why you'd be reluctant to reply to the question "who would you consider a great tank?")

 

Sorry for derailing the thread even further than it was when i found it!

[Discussion on the state of Darkness/Kinetic Combat]

Why would a beginner's guide go into detail on each fight for how to use things like phase walk and Shroud to cheese mechanics? I could get into all the things Shroud defends against, or every time when Phase Walk would help you line of sight a mechanic or get you places easily, but those wouldn't help you get any better at holding threat, and telling someone they can use Force Cloak to cancel Ion Cutter means nothing to them if they don't know what Ion Cutter is.

 

I don't stream because there really isn't reason to at this point. The hardest fights in this game have been cleared for ages, and Revan's only gotten easier. That, and the group I normally tank for is lagging very far behind on progression, to the point where I'd be showing you wipes on Commanders because we don't have the DPS/coordination for it.

 

Woah there, you're getting a bit defensive. A few things to clear up:

Of course a beginner's guide wouldn't go into the things I'm looking for. Leaving out the part where the assassin guide doesn't say it's a beginner's guide (just a guide), and my related assumption that it would be comprehensive (but if that's not what you were getting paid to make, no worries there), the obvious place to look for fight specific tips would be fight specific guides... right? And those guides were written by a healer, right? And those videos were all from the point of view of and narrated by tanks who were pretty widely regarded as "ok, but not the best", right? So let's all take a deep breath

 

All I was asking was are there better tank guides from people who actually cared about excelling, not making a statement about anyone's ability or inability to make a guide like that. I didn't mean to hit on any hidden insecurities

[Discussion on the state of Darkness/Kinetic Combat]

That's an awfully big, and largely incorrect, statement you made. Utilities are pretty straightforward, you'd have to be pretty dense to not understand how to use them in a fight.

 

Sorry, but I said "utility" not "utilities". I was looking for people to watch who did creative things with phase walk, vanish, intercede, etc, which the tank guides I've seen don't even start to get into. No offense, but if proper selection of utilities were all it took to make a tank great I'm sure keyboard ninja's post above would've looked a bit different

 

I didn't mean to imply that the guide-writers were incapable of clearing content, I was just hoping for videos from people who are at that next level. If you have videos like that I've missed I'd love to see them.

[Discussion on the state of Darkness/Kinetic Combat]

Almost every successful progression guild carries awful tanks with really outstandingly, drop-dead amazing healers. Zorz was very open about this strategy, and even joked about it from time to time. (though they did have some great tanks, just not all of their tanks were "best in the world" class) This happens for two reasons. First, tanks are generally pretty bad at their jobs, which is unfortunate but usually innocuous because of the second factor. The second factor is that having amazing healing does more than just compensate for bad tanks. Great healing gives you margins for error during progression, allowing your group just a few extra seconds to practice screwing up a mechanic or seeing just a little bit further into the fight. That advantage multiplies itself exponentially, to the point where it's almost a guarantee that the best groups in the world have the best healers in the world, but not necessarily the best (or even close to it!) DPS or tanks.

 

I've been in some groups with absolutely friggin outstanding tanks and DPS, but really shoddy healers. Those groups don't do well. I've also been in groups with outstanding tanks and healers, but really mediocre DPS. Those groups get server (and world) firsts. Most world firsts though go to the groups with highly mediocre tanks, crazy-amazing healers and really outstanding DPS. Great healing and DPS can carry sub-optimal tanking, but the inverse is not generally true.

 

So it's unfortunate, but you're right. Tanks don't really have to strive for perfection in any sense of the word. The bar is set at "adequate". With that said though, if you put head-to-head two groups with equal scheduling constraints, where one has outstanding healing, DPS and tanking, while the second has outstanding healing and DPS but poor tanking, both will be successful but clearly the former will do quite a bit better. So tank quality isn't meaningless, it's just less meaningful than quality in the other two roles.

 

Who would you consider a great or good tank? Are there people with videos or guides who are really good?

 

I was pretty disappointed for instance to find that the dulfy guides were written by people who don't even main tanks and only partly understood how to use their utility in fights when they were actually tanking.

[Discussion on the state of Darkness/Kinetic Combat]

imo, the first 2 floors of revan aren't even that difficult. If you made it through mb/cora hm, those 2 lvls arent much different in difficulty(i think even less heal intensive than cora). The 3rd floor, and getting consistency to get up to there, is what makes the fight harder than the others. Hence, imo, it doesn't really matter which tank classes you choose for the first 2 floors, all are doable. But on the core, double pt tanks shine(less margin of error and more dps), which is really where it counts

 

Trying to min-max anything about actually tanking (the taking damage part of it) seems pointless. I've seen sins go 9/10 without discharge on their bars, get to the core on revan without casting dark ward, etc. Just stand where you have to, taunt when you're supposed to, and you're set. I mean, everyone says zorz was the best guild ever, but watch one of their tank videos and see how mediocre they are. They still killed bosses just fine.