Point of a Tank?

[Lhancelot]

About the only time I feel like I did anything useful is when I get a whisper from some random healer or DPS I was just in a match with, asking if I want to team up. But most of the time I think that's less to do with my awesome tankiness, and more to do with the fact that I actually watch the turret.

 

I honestly feel that tanks solo queing are pointless. First, they rarely get acknowledged and healed by someone on the team. People tend to only heal themselves or their buddies.

 

Most decent healers are in a premade, with their own tank so if you enter a match solo as a tank, chances are you are either guard-fighting over the same people on your team, or simply are not needed.

 

As a solo healer queing, I actually prefer seeing decent dps tbh, only because I know we got a chance to kill ****. Most pug tanks are awful. They not only guard wrong targets, but they do pitiful damage which won't help.

 

I play my sorc healer anyway, I don't need a guard very often and even tell people that.

 

I tell them, don't bother guarding me unless I really seem to need it. Just guard a good dps so they are harder to kill and easier for me to keep up. that or log on a dps, I like running with 3 dps.

 

Sorc healers don't need a guard, guard is for wimpy merc/ops healers that get shut down by good dps just staring at them.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Lhancelot

[kweassa]

The thing is, anyone can do that "bothersome" role, provided that there's enough heals to go around. As a matter of fact, in terms of being bothersome -- as in, being a nuisance and prohibiting enemy players to perform normally -- something like a sent/mara with a healer behind its back, would actually be better, since nobody is going to just facetank/ignore a sent/mara waving its double lightsticks in one's face.

 

In a sense, the only saving grace for a "tank" in terms of role distribution is the guard function, since even DPS classes can taunt... and the great irony is that you don't need to build a real tank with tanky stats to guard someone. You can just build a skank, go DPS oriented, and do the same.

 

Another big irony is that the guard function -- the one skill that differentiates a tank class from others, is essentially detrimental to one's game play. Without healers, guarding cuts down on your lifespan seriously. What this means, is that to be a tank, to do your own designated role in combat, you need someone else behind your back. Which class in the game needs someone else to steadily do one's role?

 

I mean, a DPS class with a healer behind certainly helps to do its job better, but its prime functionality as a DPS isn't effected by it. Same with healers with a tank guarding it. Sure it helps it with the survivability, and certainly makes healing easier, but is the healer's healing function seriously effected if there are no tanks to guard it? In contrast, guarding someone without a healer is viewed by many as just "controlled suicide" in most cases .

 

For pity's sake, real tank players really, really need their Defense stats working for all incoming damage types for the initial hit/miss calculation.

[LadyDarkkitten]

The thing is, anyone can do that "bothersome" role, provided that there's enough heals to go around. As a matter of fact, in terms of being bothersome -- as in, being a nuisance and prohibiting enemy players to perform normally -- something like a sent/mara with a healer behind its back, would actually be better, since nobody is going to just facetank/ignore a sent/mara waving its double lightsticks in one's face.

 

In a sense, the only saving grace for a "tank" in terms of role distribution is the guard function, since even DPS classes can taunt... and the great irony is that you don't need to build a real tank with tanky stats to guard someone. You can just build a skank, go DPS oriented, and do the same.

 

Another big irony is that the guard function -- the one skill that differentiates a tank class from others, is essentially detrimental to one's game play. Without healers, guarding cuts down on your lifespan seriously. What this means, is that to be a tank, to do your own designated role in combat, you need someone else behind your back. Which class in the game needs someone else to steadily do one's role?

 

I mean, a DPS class with a healer behind certainly helps to do its job better, but its prime functionality as a DPS isn't effected by it. Same with healers with a tank guarding it. Sure it helps it with the survivability, and certainly makes healing easier, but is the healer's healing function seriously effected if there are no tanks to guard it? In contrast, guarding someone without a healer is viewed by many as just "controlled suicide" in most cases .

 

For pity's sake, real tank players really, really need their Defense stats working for all incoming damage types for the initial hit/miss calculation.

 

Or for the self healing to come back. seriously this was one reason tankasins were so great, they could actually heal themselves enough to keep themselves up. Kinda like a dps op can if its played right. Solo tanking in pugs though can be very frustrating for sure. If you guard you die 8-12 times and if you don't you get the protection numbers of a dps who knows to keep his taunts on cd:-with about half of his damage.

[kweassa]

Or for the self healing to come back. seriously this was one reason tankasins were so great, they could actually heal themselves enough to keep themselves up. Kinda like a dps op can if its played right. Solo tanking in pugs though can be very frustrating for sure. If you guard you die 8-12 times and if you don't you get the protection numbers of a dps who knows to keep his taunts on cd:-with about half of his damage.

 

I'd agree to it under the specific condition that the functional self-preservation in form of self heals is directly linked with tanky stats. If its another one of those things that you can just use it in the same way when you're a DPS-gear setup in tanking stance, then it solves nothing and makes it even worse.

 

...

 

Just for example (not carefully thought out -- literally, just for sake of exampling), like when Defense stat works against all incoming damage, and so defense/immortal guard/jugg will heal for 5% of its HP every time it successfully parry/deflects incoming damage... if something like this happens a real defense tank has something like around 35% average defense chance, and 83% defense chance when Saber Ward is on. It will shrug off around one out every three attacks made against it and heal itself, and when SW is activated, will be pretty much 'invincible mode' -- at the price of using almost of its mod/augment slots for defense mods, since you need around 2,000 defense to achieve these stats, which, for the record, is also a stat that is absolutely terrible in regards to diminishing returns/softcap. (Also, defense augments don't have any END stat on it, and therefore, your overall HP is also a tad lower than most)

 

So if its something like this, then obviously this trait is useless to a 'skank' build -- it works only if you really go tanky and give up all them offense mods/enhancements/augments and invest heavily into defense. The price you pay for being tanky, is ofcourse, your lightstick hits like a featherduster.

 

If its setup this way, so that self-healing will not be added on top of 'skanks', but will be directly linked with the tanky stats, to be effective for those who really build tanks as it is originally intended, then I'd be up for it.

[foxmob]

That's the way I try to play a tank also. But for two things...

 

You say "classic absorb/shield tank". I'm not sure if you actually mean to stack those stats, or if you just used that as a label -

 

shield/absorb/defense gear is high endurance by default. but the choice of words was in opposition to grabbing dps gear and skanking (b/c guard is your biggest gift to the team, and you want high end for that.

Edited April 4, 2016 by foxmob

[LadyDarkkitten]

I like that idea kweassa. Tying some self heals into the tank stats is a neat way to kill 2 birds with one stone. Making the stats viable and letting tanks without healers actually perform their role properly.

[OmegaDagger]

I am not sure if this is still the case (or if it ever was), but isnt all guard damage converted to "white" damage, and can therefore be mitigated by defensive stats? If this isnt the case, maybe it should be. This would allow tanks to gear with more standard defensive stats and throw guard around without needing a healer.

[foxmob]

This would allow tanks to gear with more standard defensive stats and throw guard around without needing a healer.

 

I'm sure some genius will come in here and refute this, but you are supposed to feel like you're lacking something w/o a healer. the game is based around the trinity concept. all roles should be accounted for. the only reason they aren't is because BW put a higher value on frequency of pops than quality. but yeah...I think you should be in trouble w/o heals.

[Kaedusz]

I'm sure some genius will come in here and refute this, but you are supposed to feel like you're lacking something w/o a healer. the game is based around the trinity concept. all roles should be accounted for. the only reason they aren't is because BW put a higher value on frequency of pops than quality. but yeah...I think you should be in trouble w/o heals.

 

I am not sure this should apply as strongly in PvP as it does in PvE.

[kweassa]

I am not sure if this is still the case (or if it ever was), but isnt all guard damage converted to "white" damage, and can therefore be mitigated by defensive stats? If this isnt the case, maybe it should be. This would allow tanks to gear with more standard defensive stats and throw guard around without needing a healer.

 

Guard damage just happens, Omega. It passes through initial hit/miss and shielded/unshielded defense layers. But mechanics-wise, its not guard that is the problem. The problem is that the tank doesn't have any of his 'tanky' stats pulling its weight.

 

 

It's a +50% DR to all damage by itself. Let's just leave out the extra 5% for easier calc. Let's say somebody hits the guardee with a 2.5k attack, this is initially mitigated down to around 1250 damage since it first passes the "guard" layer. This damage is then split into half, and 725 damage each goes to the guard and the guardee. Let's say the guardee is a sorc/sage with around 20% DR -- he receives 580 damage. The guard is a tank with 50% DR, so receives 362 damage.

 

Let's assume there are no healers, and the tank decides to guard some other class who is under fire, and 3 enemies with a DPS of 2.5k/sec decide to focus your guardee... you receive 1087 DPS. This is actually not so bad by itself. You'll be able to fight for little over a minute with the enemies keep beating on your guardee.

 

The problem is when the enemies, noticing this, just decides to turn away and attack you instead. Its a total of 7.5k DPS that falls upon you.. and since none of your defense stats are working properly, the only defensive mechanic that is working for you is DR -- which reduces the incoming damage down to 3.25k DPS ... an average tank with 70k HP is going to last just over 20 seconds in a 3v1 situation. Since people usually have higher than 2.5k DPS, and temporary max burst attacks also go over 2.5k DPS, in reality you last around maybe 10~15 seconds if you don't have any CDs. If all your CDs are ready to use, and also a healing item, you'll last maybe 20 secs.

 

Now, the problem starts at this point, where you can just dump all tanking stats and go full blown DPS -- and you'll last about the same time. Without a healer, in those 20 seconds of fighting, if you're a "skank" in DPS set-up you can at least hurt one of those three DPS that's killing you bad enough to either kill it, or drive it away, thus reducing incoming damage by another 33%. In a real tank setup, no such luck. You obviously can't survive 33% longer even if you're a real tank.

 

So the problem, if summarized, is this:

 

1. When you appeal your role as a tank for the team, its not really you and your tanking skills that's doing anything. It's a one-button toggle that does everything, and that's the only thing your teammates expect from you. They don't expect you to be "tanky" and hold out against many enemies for a long time. All they want is you to be the meatshield that burps out taunts.... and the taunting part can be covered by other DPS as well.

 

2. Your tanky stats can't tank at all.

 

Imagine a situation where an enemy throws 10 attacks at you, all doing 3k damage, for a total of 30k damage inflicted. In theory, if you have 35% average defense chance as I do, then (despite relying on probabilites) the mathematical expectancy of that chance should dictate that I can usually parry/deflect around 3 of those attacks to avoid 9k damage.

 

Unfortunately, since nearly half of the attacks people make are Force/Tech, out of those 10 attacks 5 attacks are just destined to land on me no matter how awesome my Defense rating is. So, out of the remaining 5 attacks, I'd deflect 1.5 of them. If we take in to account how accuracy over 100% just directly subtracts from my preciously acquired Defense chance, in reality, despite a heavy investment into Defense and sacrificing vital stuff like END, POW, CRIT, etc etc... my 35% Defense chance only allows me to avoid 1 out of those total 10 attacks thrown at me.

 

So, out of 10 attacks made against me, 9 of them will land. DPS usually have around 35% crit, so out of those 9 attacks, 3 of them will land on me with no chance of being shielded. So 6 attacks remain, and finally now my shield chance applies -- in which case, with such investment into Defense, I have 35% shield chance at 30% absorption.

 

So, of those 6 attacks, I can expect to shield two of them by 30%.

 

Let's do a total count here. The enemy makes 10 attacks against me.

 

1. I get to totally avoid a grand total of 1 attack, despite 35% defense chance.

2. I get to partially mitigate 2 attacks by 30% with my shield.

3. 7 attacks land on me anyway, no mitigation whatsoever except my default resistance.

 

So out of total 30k damage attempted at me, my grand investment into tanky stats allowed me to mitigate 4.8k damage. MITIGATION FACTOR OF a miserable, 16%

 

...and this is what I get for sacrificing my mods, enhancements, and augments into Defense. A guardian tank that is barely over 70k default HP, has bottom-feeder level of pitiful damage, but faithfully investing into tanky stats... and all I get is bloody 16% mitigation factor of total incoming damage. Count it mates. Bloody. 16. percent.

 

You know what that's like? It's like you sacrifice all your major modding slots and augments, and the amount of extra "tankiness" you gain is worth less than the flimsy robes the sorc/sages wear. You invest 2,000 defense and gain an extra cloth robe. That's what this is.

 

How the heck is this fair! Woop-dee-bloody-too.

 

It ain't the guard damage son. Guard is actually fine.

 

Why there is no point in tanks? Because in reality, no matter how you try hard, you can never really be a 'tank' in PvP in the first place. That's why people just dump everything into END. At least you can be a big hunk of a meatshield, even if you can't tank worth shi*.

 

Unless defense works against all incoming attacks, and this stupid freebie defense-bypass of force/tech goes away, tanks will always be pointless.

Edited April 5, 2016 by kweassa

[FoxWinkle]

There is real problem with some game mechanics that should be addressed next update. Tank Guard really need to change in the game. My idea would be guard has a cooldown from swapping targets and has a set damage of like 25k then its off and on a 10 sec cooldown. This would challenge PVE players and change PVP for the better. The way it is now there are so many stalemate's in PVP or very one sided and is not challenging players the right way. In arena any good team is build the same and there is no way to be successful with out it.

The second change should be making steatl's sleep dart and all variations to be a 1 meter skill. Stealth should not be able to sleep a target that is in the center of a steath scan and then when you need to brake it, be able to flask for 8 sec and steel cap in PVP. Stealth is a very powerful skill in it self and giving a far range on their crowd control is to much. Think how different arena could be and change PVP forcing players to work together better and keeping every match from being the same thing over and over...

Edited April 5, 2016 by FoxWinkle

[Altheran]

It's a +50% DR to all damage by itself. Let's just leave out the extra 5% for easier calc. Let's say somebody hits the guardee with a 2.5k attack, this is initially mitigated down to around 1250 damage since it first passes the "guard" layer. This damage is then split into half, and 725 damage each goes to the guard and the guardee. Let's say the guardee is a sorc/sage with around 20% DR -- he receives 580 damage. The guard is a tank with 50% DR, so receives 362 damage.

 

[...]

As far as I know, there is no 50% DR build in Guard. Some people (falsly) call it that, because splitting damage is almost all it does

(exception made of the tiny 5%) which can be perceived as 50% DR. But it doesn't do that.

 

So, taking your example of a 2.5K hit, it splits in 1.25K each, goes in each player's respective DR and the end. You halved it one time too much, I believe.

[Greezt]

*snip*

 

First of all, as Altheran commented there is no DR apart from the 5% the guarded person gets, split in two. So an 2.5k attack on someone guarded will deal 1187.5 to him and the same to the tank (before calculating DR/buffs etc.)

 

Another thing is that more than half of all attacks are force/tech, not less.

 

Finally, the main idea you paint is true, but even if a reasonable amount of damage was shieldable, the problem is that death in pvp comes from burst. Burst is almost always not shieldable (crits), so even if damage was more evenly distributed it wouldn't matter. As long as the mechanics stay this way, tanks will gear for endurance DPS.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Greezt

[OmegaDagger]

So is it the consensus that guard preserves damage type? I heard though the rumor mill many eons ago that guard damage was converted to white damage.

[kweassa]

First of all, as Altheran commented there is no DR apart from the 5% the guarded person gets, split in two. So an 2.5k attack on someone guarded will deal 1187.5 to him and the same to the tank (before calculating DR/buffs etc.)

 

Sorry about that part. Its came from a common mistake made.

 

Another thing is that more than half of all attacks are force/tech, not less.

 

Actually, its about half, with almost all classes. The ratio of 'white damage' (so to speak) is actually a bit higher than most people perceive, since with almost all classes there is at least one or two high-damaging attack categorized as melee or ranged. Also absolute majority of the setup attacks and fillers are melee, ranged. The ratio is melee/range is roughly similar to the total amount of force/tech... although I admit the actual ratio of DAMAGE, in comparison, is much higher for force/tech.

 

 

Finally, the main idea you paint is true, but even if a reasonable amount of damage was shieldable, the problem is that death in pvp comes from burst. Burst is almost always not shieldable (crits), so even if damage was more evenly distributed it wouldn't matter. As long as the mechanics stay this way, tanks will gear for endurance DPS.

 

Defense -- meaning parry/deflect -- not shield. The problem is with a stat named Defense, which is supposed make you literally "DEFEND" against an attack to avoid its damage, is not working.

 

Doesn't matter if its burst or not, if Defense would work the way it should be working. As it is, Defense is a stat that's most heavily hit by diminishing returns, and yet, the projected return simply does not match the investment.

 

If I get to totally avoid damage for 3~4 attacks made against me out of 10, you can bet your arse people will start giving it a damn, as an option to explore. Its not like a skank can do this. It's a tank thing which people sacrifice all possibility of being able to kill anyone in a 1v1.

 

For some reason, people think its okay for a healer to be unkillable in a 1v1 and just facetank anyone, but they don't think a tank should be the same. Why is that?

[LadyDarkkitten]

Tank stats always worked this way though. Its sad that it is this way, but thats the way it is. On my JUG though I only die ever under 3 circumstances, but those circumstances guarantee my death.

 

1) a concealment op attacks me and no ally tries to intervene.

2) 2+ dps foucs me and batter me down or burst me down in a stun lock

3) I use the guard abilty.

 

For the record I know it was stated above, but guard damge reflects 50% of the actual damage of the attack without any mitigation at all. A 12k hit does 6k flat damage to me, while maybe doing 3k mitigated damage to my guarded ally.

 

So if I see the healer operative has been targeted by a sniper and a pt, I throw a guard on him ye? I also threat scream on top of the bursting powertech while using my single target taunt on the sniper. So pretty much Ideal conditions right?

 

So powertech uses retract blade 2k railshot 12k rocket punch 6k railshot 14k mag blast 5k very simple opener 37k damage loses 30% because he was taunted so hes done 25,900 damage. So I get 12950 damage, my healer gets 12950 damage in 5gcds. Happens pretty fast.

 

Lets assume sniper puts out similar number or its a mara or whatever bursting. Your now losing one quarter to one third of your health and so is your healer. In 5 seconds. Your healer at this point is running and healing himself. You maybe throw some CC on the pt. A back hand buys you 4 secs and means if he CC breaks you can choke him. Maybe instead try to force push him on top of the sniper so you can leap and awe them both. More damge is going into your healer though and your taunts have worn off abd are now on CD. Healers below half health using defensives and you are at half health stuck in no mans land trying to peel. 7-8 secs have past. thats wut 4 heart beats? 5 breaths? so fast...

 

At this point if there isn't a second healer who can step in and heal YOU while your healer heals himself you die and its the act of guarding that has killed you. This is why its such a bad idea to use guard in the pugs. Its why I SOOO miss my tankasins self heals.

[kweassa]

For the record I know it was stated above, but guard damge reflects 50% of the actual damage of the attack without any mitigation at all. A 12k hit does 6k flat damage to me, while maybe doing 3k mitigated damage to my guarded ally.

 

Actually, aside from the double-halving mistake I made, the rest of the formula applies. After the damage is split into halves (...which is after a 5% DR is applied), then each of the damage goes through the resistances of the guard and the guardee respectively... so if a 100 damage lands, its first reduced to 95, and then split into 47.5, and then your resistance to that damage type is applied.

[LadyDarkkitten]

quibbles about resistances aside it doesn't change the basic point I'm making that guard damage kills tanks.

[kweassa]

quibbles about resistances aside it doesn't change the basic point I'm making that guard damage kills tanks.

 

Actually, it sort of does -- because as an influential role that offers essentially something equivalent to a "50% damage reistance to all" (this definition is the root of my mistake in the previous posts, btw) -- which doesn't have any restrictions and limitations, as in duration or CD, the incoming guard damage to the tank is IMO a reasonable penalty to be suffered - lest a tank without the heavy burden of constant incoming guard damage would assume just a too powerful role. Think about how much people are totally frustrated with the guard/jugg + sorc/sage combos.

 

The problems as a true-tank I face everyday -- as a total nutcase with misguided pride about "real-tank builds" who still PvPs with high-Defense() , is not that the damage I suffer from guard is too much, but rather my ability to tank incoming damage is just "LULZ!!" level of pathetic when compared to a single toggle-power I slap onto someone under my protection.

 

That's why people don't view tanks as tanks, but rather meatshields. None of my tanking abilities do anything to help others. That single target, toggle ON./OFF guard does all the "tanking" the team needs, not me. My entire build, powerpool, existance, is less useful to my team, than a single toggle power. That's why skanks that at least have good attack power, contributes more to the match. It's a meatshield like I am, but at least that skanky meatshield can hit someone hard.

 

For tanks to appeal a role, they need to be considered severely difficult to put down. Maybe not as tough and invincible as sorc/sage healers in a 1v1 fight, but at least it needs to be tough enough to make sense.

 

Like, what should happen, if a super high DPS meets a super tanky tank?

 

In theory, the fight should be close. The tank can't hit worth for shi* and maybe barely tickles the DPS, but in turn the DPS has considerable amount of his attacks not making it through. As a result the fight is almost always a very long one, and as the tank chips away the HP from the DPS with his feather duster, most of the super-duper attacks made by the DPS is deflected/parried and avoided... and slowly, a long process of attrition where both sides suffer a long fight, until one goes down.

 

In reality, a super tanky tank in stats, is actually not super tanky, and only about as tough as a DPS skank with 0 investment into shields or defense.... so the tank tickles the DPS, and the DPS keeps smashign the tank over his head with an aluminum bat. This is why people would just rather invest in more HP (so they can at least be smashed over their head a few more times), rather than build real tanks.

 

In other words, I need a real role here where my specs and stats do something. This is what hurts tanks the most. Their tanky stats don't do shi*, so they rather dump it all and go DPS. The only reason people would like tank is because he can use 'guard', not because its an impressive tank. This hurts!

[Ansultares]

Working on a low hp pure tank pvp set, just for the lols.

 

The first and most amazing aspect of it is that you've got 5-8k less health than a pure DPS.

[kweassa]

Working on a low hp pure tank pvp set, just for the lols.

 

The first and most amazing aspect of it is that you've got 5-8k less health than a pure DPS.

 

The world certainly could use more nut cases.

[Wimbleton]

I get so giddy when I get a properly geared PT tank in my grp. I get that immo is doing better dmg, but I love the fact that a PT tank can shut down a melee train, the only real threat that can eventually get me, thereby prolonging the fight and giving us more opportunities to get a kill.

 

Point of a tank is to spread dmg, apply trauma, control and corral and bring a bit of dps.

[kweassa]

Point of a tank is to spread dmg, apply trauma, control and corral and bring a bit of dps.

 

...which none of it has to do with tankistats. Oh the darned irony!

[Glower]

Working on a low hp pure tank pvp set, just for the lols.

 

The first and most amazing aspect of it is that you've got 5-8k less health than a pure DPS.

 

More like for /cry.

 

It was possible in 1.0-2.0... maybe in 3.0. But after 4.0 (dots, crit %%, defense domination on gear which is tied to useful stats...) it is just a waste of stats most of the time.

 

Meat shield without bones. So sad.

[Ansultares]

The world certainly could use more nut cases.

I think you've got that covered.

 

More like for /cry.

Nothing much else to do.

 

65.3k with the end stim (62.9k w/o), 54.72% shield chance, 26.25% defense chance.

 

I can always swap to a dps set mid-match.

Edited April 7, 2016 by Ansultares