Should tanks have the same DPS offspec option as healers?

[Wdova]

We have 3 tanks, 3 mdps, 3rdps and 3 healers per realm. On each side I rolled each of the role. When I want tank in frontline I log tank. When I want to deal DPS I chose mdps, when I want nuke from distance I chose RDPS, when I get bored by both tanking and DPS I grab my healer.

It isn´t that hard guys.

Unles DPS can replace tank or healer role, I dont see logic behind Tank or healer replacing the DPS role.

[Wildheart]

Yes

[zulnam]

Thanks to tanks (lol) having all their core role abilities as... core abilities, the role is nowhere near like a healer going DPS.

A 2H tank can still guard, taunt, challenge, bellow. These are really the base of what tanks do in their role, along with self mitigation and the obligatory group/individual buffs.

But all tanks also have group/individual buffs even in their 2H spec, again from core. chosen/knight have auras, ib/bg have dark protector / oathfriend, bo/sm have the individual buffs (iirc sm ideal group 2H spec is still to pick up WW).

So really even a 2H tank should, in a group setting, behave like a regular tank. just with more damage and better coordination with dps MT.

You really don't have an excuse not to use your tank kit even if you go balls-deep DPS spec and not the ideal 2H group spec.

[Alubert]

All for this, would freshen up the solo meta which is basically dominated by WH/WE and dps healers.

WoW does it well with wars/palas, it may feeling jarring to some, particularly those that are a bit change phobic, but I think this could really freshen things up.

Would be tricky to do it without making dps tanks super op though in small scale / solo play, but worth a crack!!

The thing is, RoR is unique because of its strong archetypes and the special role of the tank. I don't want to see anything here that's similar to what's in WoW. If we wanted that, we'd be playing WoW instead of RoR.

Besides, a solo tank is a great archetype for solo roaming.

[agemennon675]

I think its always a good idea to give the options to players instead of limiting them

[anstalt]

I think 2h tanks are, generally, in a pretty good place, though I say that only from a black orc point of view.

Solo, im fine. I can kill some, lose to some, have close fights against others. Feels fairly balanced. Sure, it sucks getting kited to death by DPS healers and SWs and so I'd love a gap closer, but at the same time I see so much whining about WHs and WLs that it feels really good to be able to beat most of them.

Small scale, also fine. The utility and survivability you lose as a 2h isn't too bad and your team can usually make that up, and you're pressure damage is more useful.

Large scale, yeh, 2h tanks kinda suck. Theres too much damage floating around that your decrease in survivability is really noticable, so you can't really function as a good tank. But you also dont do enough damage to take a DPS place. I dont feel the need to make 2h more viable for large scale. DPS healers aren't really viable for warbands, regardless of what the devs attempted. Just like WEs aren't really viable either, their AoE may have been inceased but it stil sucks!


The changes I would like to see:

1) Make 2h tanks more viable pre-BiS.

I tried out 2h BO on a number of occasions while ranking up and it pretty much always sucked. Late 30s scenarios it worked, and BiS it worked, but otherwise it was just painful. I'd like to see some changes to make it more viable at lower ranks.


2) Focused Offence change

I mean, there's so many useless tactics in this game, but this one is shared with all tanks and never used so seems fair to update it to something useful.

I like the idea of a stacking buff - every time you defend damage from a guarded target, you get a stacking buff. Damage or defence (or both!!), dont care. Thematically, its the tanks getting angry that their little buddy is getting hit. The longer the fight, the tougher the tank gets. Wouldn't affect solo. If you get the balance point right, then in warbands you'd hit full stacks quickly, but in small scale it'd be hard to hit max stacks.

[Starx]

Large scale, yeh, 2h tanks kinda suck. Theres too much damage floating around that your decrease in survivability is really noticable, so you can't really function as a good tank. But you also dont do enough damage to take a DPS place. I dont feel the need to make 2h more viable for large scale. DPS healers aren't really viable for warbands, regardless of what the devs attempted. Just like WEs aren't really viable either, their AoE may have been inceased but it stil sucks!

I dont think 2h sucks in wb, I think it would be better to say it very niche and heavily gear depedent. Just because you go 2h doesnt mean you can't also build full defensive. Things like kotbs wounds debuff+MF or bg crit debuff can be really strong, but you will need to survive on your own and guard someone, and be put in a group where you aren't going to be guarding something like a choppa/slayer.

Obviously you can really only afford to run 1 or 2 tanks doing this as you are giving up hotl stacks, and only ones that actually bring something useful which those 2 are the only ones that come to mind atm, but should in a very high end WB be decent imo.

Also sorry if im being a bit nitpicky and ignoring this is mainly about dps tanks and not neccesarily 2h being brought to a wb purely for utility rather than being a dps proper.

[gersy]

short answer: no

long answer:

it's different than with healers because of guard, punt, challenge, taunt, bellow, m4. tank is already the most powerful and influential role in the game in terms of securing and deny kills, this becomes especially true at higher skill levels of gameplay and in small-mid scale content like 6v6, SCs and city siege

dps healers (which are properly specced in to dps, i'm not speaking about weird solo/duo builds or hybrids, but true dps) take large hits to their healing capability. i'm talking about true healing capability here, the ability to sustain a party, not token off-healing or healing in 2-4 player combat situations. i mean that full dps specced dps healers legitimately lose the option to be a healer in basically all cases.

it is important to remember that this game is foundationally crafted for and balanced around group gameplay (6-24 player parties and warbands) and that careful balancing act has to be taken in to account when considering changes like this

this means that for tanks to be able to deal damage like a dps, and for that to not completely break the game, they would need to lose out on a lot of what makes them a tank. for tanks to be in the same position (allowing them to fully spec in to dps) you would have to do a few things

you'd have to either HEAVILY change or outright remove mechanics guard, challenge, taunt, single target punts, heavy armor and morales like bellow and immaculate defense from tanks somehow when they choose to spec dps. whether by a tactic like focused offensive but with more restrictions or some other convoluted design. the only way to ensure that the game would not instantly break and prevent balance from becoming horribly disfigured would be to disallow tanks to do most or all of these things

in the past we have sees triple or quadruple tank comps in SCs (speaking of premade teams running it, usually with a dps geared/focused offensive spec tank class substituting a dps, not what you get when you queue randomly) occasionally and they are an absolute nightmare to play against and it's incredibly cheese-y due to triple guard and stacking of tank elements

to get this to work you will land at a point where you've done a tremendous amount of re-tooling and reworking and you end up with a just another dps class with a different thematic and flavor and likely broken the game along the way. therefore i believe that, however unfortunate, it is not viable from a design, workload and game health perspective to allow tanks to play as a dps in the same manner that healers do

[anstalt]

Large scale, yeh, 2h tanks kinda suck. Theres too much damage floating around that your decrease in survivability is really noticable, so you can't really function as a good tank. But you also dont do enough damage to take a DPS place. I dont feel the need to make 2h more viable for large scale. DPS healers aren't really viable for warbands, regardless of what the devs attempted. Just like WEs aren't really viable either, their AoE may have been inceased but it stil sucks!

Also sorry if im being a bit nitpicky and ignoring this is mainly about dps tanks and not neccesarily 2h being brought to a wb purely for utility rather than being a dps proper.

As mentioned, only coming at this from a BO point of view. We give up quite a bit of utility by running a 2h, as well as quite a bit of defence. SnB BO just beats 2h in warband+ scale fights.

I don't really know what the other tanks are like when comparing specs. BG has a reputation for being the best 2h tank but i dont know if that means its on par with SnB in warbands.

[krumhur]

Large scale, yeh, 2h tanks kinda suck. Theres too much damage floating around that your decrease in survivability is really noticable, so you can't really function as a good tank. But you also dont do enough damage to take a DPS place. I dont feel the need to make 2h more viable for large scale. DPS healers aren't really viable for warbands, regardless of what the devs attempted. Just like WEs aren't really viable either, their AoE may have been inceased but it stil sucks!

Also sorry if im being a bit nitpicky and ignoring this is mainly about dps tanks and not neccesarily 2h being brought to a wb purely for utility rather than being a dps proper.

As mentioned, only coming at this from a BO point of view. We give up quite a bit of utility by running a 2h, as well as quite a bit of defence. SnB BO just beats 2h in warband+ scale fights.

I don't really know what the other tanks are like when comparing specs. BG has a reputation for being the best 2h tank but i dont know if that means its on par with SnB in warbands.

We are talking about warbands and in that context BG is suited to be 2h utility wise, the crit chance debuff works only with a 2h spec. Same thing goes for the kotbs.

On the other hand, the damage is lacking, BG is probably the lowest damaging tank at the moment due to different factors which can summarised in being too stats hungry: you deal 100% physical damage thus requiring high weapon skill investments, but you need also crit to make some procs happen plus high strength to support your damage, and of course defensive stats if you play in a WB. You usually have to give up something and most of the time it's damage.