I read most of Jons articles, commentaries, and Videos, and find them informative and spot on.. Lets just chalk this one up to a Holiday hangover or perhaps just a hangover.. I don't recall Jon Wood, being or claiming to omnipotent, and anyting other than human.. That said, in the greatest respect, He is an EVE Noob, fresh off the EVE learning cliff, and I beleive you were pushed off by, hopefully, someone in a starter corp... If your in a player corp please let me know whom they are, I would like to war dec, and get few kills under my belt..
This wasn't written by Jon. It was written by the EVE correspondent - of which one of the requirements stated "Must be an active player and knowledgeable about your assigned game." Source
The errors shown in the article aren't merely down to opinion - they are fundamentally wrong, and that's what people are complaining about.
I bet right about now, Jon has his hand on his head and is wondering how to deal with this astounding fuckup. lol
I was just going to point out the same thing with the compensation skills as Nyphur already did. I have been trying out the passive shield tanking versus active shield tanking for a while, and can honestly say that it was hard to read this article, which presented almost no useful information, and inspired me to post for my first time, simply to point that out.
Thanks to those that provided more intel on tanking. You are appreciated.
I'm sorry, but the article is frankly horrible. It is shallow at best, incomplete in places and incorrect at worst <<<much better guide>>>
The OP deserves a bit of credit for trying, but like Arcangel says, the article is terribly lacking. It's commonly known that tanking is divided between active and buffer tanking, which in turn is divided in shields and armour based on the combination of your ship and skills. Not to mention that you don't always need a tank at all, because ewar, raw speed or raw dps can keep you alive instead.
That's like saying the kid who failed a class in school deserves credit for trying despite failing to the meet the standard. Or me telling my boss I should still get paid (IRL) if I fail to fix some broken piece of comms equipment because, hey, I tried.
This article doesn't just fail to meet the standard I'd expect the biggest non-game-specific MMO site on the internet to hold themselves to, it shows an obvious lack of any kind of research. The author asking anyone who's played Eve more than a month for feedback before posting could have improved this article to an acceptable level.
In response to the op's tthread......miners and traders are screwed if they have use thier skills to figure out thier Tanking skills LOL!! If...IF they train more industry skills than combat that is. LOL
Played : WOW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ2, SWG, and WAR. Playing EVE Online and AOC. Wtg for SW:TOR and WOD
Originally posted by theArcangel Shield buffer tank: Fleet Rokh (because the Rokh is a great fleet sniper but a horrible armor tank. It's pretty much the only shield tanked battleship in nullsec fleets)
Nah, Mael has one of the best tank amongst BS. And it's a shield tank... Yes, it's not a buffer but still shield.
He should of just check eve online forums. It had one of the most complete tanking guides of the game in it that i have seen so far. It is very informative and everyone should go check it out.
What I don't understand is, with the wealth of information about different types of tanking in Eve on the net, how could anyone write such a poorly thought out article? I don't want to discourage people from writing guest articles, but please know at least something about your topic. This author knew just about nothing about the topic. Almost anyone after playing the 14 trial should have a better grasp of tanking in Eve than this author.
I know it is hard to review articles writtten by guests with so many MMO's out there, but this one was just so wrong in just about everything it is almost inexcusable that this slipped through.
I've never been one for posting on forums but this article, for a lack of a better word, made me sign up for account so I could say something. Nothing that is written in it is correct . I don't need to expound on it since others have already. I can't belive this discraseful pieece of trash is still posted.
While some of the Information is ok, and the spirit of this write good.
I have to agree with many here that the tanking type is decided by the ship first and foremost, then Skills.
Galente and Amar have primarily Armor tanking Ships
Caldari and Minmatar have primarily Shield tanking Ships (albeit Minmatar can be more flxible than others)
And engineering power related Skills is equally important to both Armor or Shield tanking, so to draw a clear Engineering=Shiled tank and Mechanics=Armor tank line, can be a bit misleading.
All in all, there is many skills involved to efficiently Tank in EVE, and one has to expect several months of gameplay before reaching the efficient levels.
Then again EVE is a very slow paced, long term Character leveling game (and while I know some may not like the term "leveling", EVE is a Level based game in my opinion, it is just that you don't see the number of your levels, but in essence, the longer you play the more skills you have and the more skills you have the higher your level is).
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Whomever wrote this article never has played EVE in any serious way.
First off, there are TWO types of shield tanking, Active, and Passive. The vaguely described method here is the active one.
Also, which method of tank to use, Armor, or Active Shield or Passive Shield is determined by the SHIP and it's slot arrangements. More midslots? Ship is a shield tank. More low slots? Its an armor tank. Does it get skill bonuses to shield resists AND has lots of low and midslots? Then it can be a Passive Shield Tank.
The article also doesn't at all touch on other uses of tank, such as BUFFERED armor tanks which are commonly used on battleships, that don't have any local repair, but use remote repair from other fleet battleships to maintain tank, nor on DOOMESDAY tank. The author clearly has never left highsec nor pvp'ed.
I am indeed surprised that this article was published too, because it has so many errors in it that, even though many ppl posted about it before me, they still missed the one written in the very first line:
"To keep your ship alive in EVE, you must have a tank."
It is basically incorrect, and gives a completely wrong POV on EVE to start with.
By what the Author says, she means as "a tank" only a way to increase your ship's armour or shield hitpoints, resistances, and repair/regeneration capabilities, and that's at least incorrect, since there are other types of "tank" which she didn't mention, and don't mean you do anything to your armor or shield. The first ones that surface to my mind are:
- speed tank (you go so fast that your tranversal prevents guns to track you, and missiles explosion velocity isn't enough to hit you)
- EW tank (shutting out an enemy's targeting ability with ECM, or cutting down his targeting range with damps, or lowering his gun's tracking/range with tracking disruptors... the enemy simply won't do damage to you anyhow)
- gank tank (you do so much damage that your enemy hasn't even got time to land a couple hits that he's already burning... a bit extreme?)
- hull tank (it's somewhere between fact and legend... often going together with gank tank... for tough guys only! )
On the other hand, "to keep your ship alive" you have other means, including:
- not engaging enemies/slipping through their hands (using warp core stabilizers, speed, cloak, whatever...)
- distance, AKA being out of enemy's range (snipers usually have no tank, stealth bombers too, etc)
- being in Empire without wardecs, not going to belts in 0.8 and below and avoiding combat missions (well you still could meet one suicide ganker, but then you probably have something he wants and should have actually fit a tank)
It's maybe a bit harsh to shoot on the article writer as she could have played EVE for a while and written the article with the best intentions in mind, but the problem with this game is that it's very complex, and has so many sides that also long term players don't usually make definitive sentences on it, but mostly use "could be" and "AFAIK" as common interpunction in their talks... so this could be a case of excessive enthusiasm on her side, writing an article a bit too early about such a difficult and vital EVE topic.
I'd humbly suggest the author or the MMORPG staff to put offline the article and ask one of the previous posters (who have a lot more experience than me) some advice to correct it and maybe transform it in a series of articles as it should actually be.
It reads as if the writter had "borrowed" someone's character then had to ask a few questions in order to play and simply tried to rewrite how they were told to use the character. The write up is close to how you would explain the game to someone who's never played but has access to a developed character, but even then it's horrible.
Anyone following that "shield vs armor tanking" guide (?) would end up hating the game since nothing would make sense from what they thought they knew.
Garbage - dump the ficticious guide and have someone knowledgable write it.
p.s. no mention of Transversal Velocity!?!? I mean, it is supposed to be about Tanking...
At this stage, the only question that remains is : when is this article going to be thoroughly edited ? Bonus question : how long has the correspondent been playing EvE ?
seriously, it doesn't matter. i've only been reading the correspondent articles for eve and coh and they seem to be equally hit and miss... you MIGHT get some really basic information from an article that isn't totally rubbish... but don't hold your breath on it.
i'm skeered to look at the correspondent articles for other games... if they follow this trend, they'll either be useless fluff, or totally incorrect babblings of someone who proclaims themself to be an expert but is lying, or just an eternal-noob.
stop the madness already.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I felt so bad for people having to read that article that I felt compelled to start a series of articles on tanking. Part 1 is a bit of an intro and talks about armour tanking. Part 2 will look at shield tanking and I think part 3 will cover alternative tanking techniques like speed tanking, outranging enemies etc. and tips and tricks (haven't decided yet). Hope you like it!:
Well done Nyphor, excellent article. The big problem with short articles on tanking in Eve, you are just scratching the surface of the topic, but you get too in depth and you lose most of your readers.
Well done Nyphor, excellent article. The big problem with short articles on tanking in Eve, you are just scratching the surface of the topic, but you get too in depth and you lose most of your readers.
True enough. I was going to do a single article on shield vs armour but decided to go for a multi-part guide. As a general rule, I limit multi-part guides to two or three but it's really a matter of trying to fit all the material into as few posts as possible. There's a lot to tanking that it's hard to fit it all in. After trying to find links for my earlier post here, I realised there was a distinct lack of good public guides on tanking. My own tanking guide wasn't anywhere but EON issue 2 so I decided it was time to make one everyone can see. Writing for massively affords me that opportunity nicely, which is why I love writing my weekly column there.
Insert signature that doesn't break the rules here
Comments
This wasn't written by Jon. It was written by the EVE correspondent - of which one of the requirements stated "Must be an active player and knowledgeable about your assigned game." Source
The errors shown in the article aren't merely down to opinion - they are fundamentally wrong, and that's what people are complaining about.
I bet right about now, Jon has his hand on his head and is wondering how to deal with this astounding fuckup. lol
I did not expect something like this from mmorpg.com ,all mistakes already pointed .Can we hope a fix to article
I was just going to point out the same thing with the compensation skills as Nyphur already did. I have been trying out the passive shield tanking versus active shield tanking for a while, and can honestly say that it was hard to read this article, which presented almost no useful information, and inspired me to post for my first time, simply to point that out.
Thanks to those that provided more intel on tanking. You are appreciated.
The OP deserves a bit of credit for trying, but like Arcangel says, the article is terribly lacking. It's commonly known that tanking is divided between active and buffer tanking, which in turn is divided in shields and armour based on the combination of your ship and skills. Not to mention that you don't always need a tank at all, because ewar, raw speed or raw dps can keep you alive instead.
That's like saying the kid who failed a class in school deserves credit for trying despite failing to the meet the standard. Or me telling my boss I should still get paid (IRL) if I fail to fix some broken piece of comms equipment because, hey, I tried.
This article doesn't just fail to meet the standard I'd expect the biggest non-game-specific MMO site on the internet to hold themselves to, it shows an obvious lack of any kind of research. The author asking anyone who's played Eve more than a month for feedback before posting could have improved this article to an acceptable level.
In response to the op's tthread......miners and traders are screwed if they have use thier skills to figure out thier Tanking skills LOL!! If...IF they train more industry skills than combat that is. LOL
Played : WOW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ2, SWG, and WAR.
Playing EVE Online and AOC.
Wtg for SW:TOR and WOD
Nah, Mael has one of the best tank amongst BS. And it's a shield tank... Yes, it's not a buffer but still shield.
He should of just check eve online forums. It had one of the most complete tanking guides of the game in it that i have seen so far. It is very informative and everyone should go check it out.
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=319967
Link above to the eve online forum post.
What I don't understand is, with the wealth of information about different types of tanking in Eve on the net, how could anyone write such a poorly thought out article? I don't want to discourage people from writing guest articles, but please know at least something about your topic. This author knew just about nothing about the topic. Almost anyone after playing the 14 trial should have a better grasp of tanking in Eve than this author.
I know it is hard to review articles writtten by guests with so many MMO's out there, but this one was just so wrong in just about everything it is almost inexcusable that this slipped through.
I've never been one for posting on forums but this article, for a lack of a better word, made me sign up for account so I could say something. Nothing that is written in it is correct . I don't need to expound on it since others have already. I can't belive this discraseful pieece of trash is still posted.
When you pick correpondents please check how long did they actually played that game...especially for older mmos and not only the writing skills...
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. A. Einstein
At this stage, the only question that remains is : when is this article going to be thoroughly edited ?
Bonus question : how long has the correspondent been playing EvE ?
While some of the Information is ok, and the spirit of this write good.
I have to agree with many here that the tanking type is decided by the ship first and foremost, then Skills.
Galente and Amar have primarily Armor tanking Ships
Caldari and Minmatar have primarily Shield tanking Ships (albeit Minmatar can be more flxible than others)
And engineering power related Skills is equally important to both Armor or Shield tanking, so to draw a clear Engineering=Shiled tank and Mechanics=Armor tank line, can be a bit misleading.
All in all, there is many skills involved to efficiently Tank in EVE, and one has to expect several months of gameplay before reaching the efficient levels.
Then again EVE is a very slow paced, long term Character leveling game (and while I know some may not like the term "leveling", EVE is a Level based game in my opinion, it is just that you don't see the number of your levels, but in essence, the longer you play the more skills you have and the more skills you have the higher your level is).
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Whomever wrote this article never has played EVE in any serious way.
First off, there are TWO types of shield tanking, Active, and Passive. The vaguely described method here is the active one.
Also, which method of tank to use, Armor, or Active Shield or Passive Shield is determined by the SHIP and it's slot arrangements. More midslots? Ship is a shield tank. More low slots? Its an armor tank. Does it get skill bonuses to shield resists AND has lots of low and midslots? Then it can be a Passive Shield Tank.
The article also doesn't at all touch on other uses of tank, such as BUFFERED armor tanks which are commonly used on battleships, that don't have any local repair, but use remote repair from other fleet battleships to maintain tank, nor on DOOMESDAY tank. The author clearly has never left highsec nor pvp'ed.
I question if they ever left the station.
I am indeed surprised that this article was published too, because it has so many errors in it that, even though many ppl posted about it before me, they still missed the one written in the very first line:
"To keep your ship alive in EVE, you must have a tank."
It is basically incorrect, and gives a completely wrong POV on EVE to start with.
By what the Author says, she means as "a tank" only a way to increase your ship's armour or shield hitpoints, resistances, and repair/regeneration capabilities, and that's at least incorrect, since there are other types of "tank" which she didn't mention, and don't mean you do anything to your armor or shield. The first ones that surface to my mind are:
- speed tank (you go so fast that your tranversal prevents guns to track you, and missiles explosion velocity isn't enough to hit you)
- EW tank (shutting out an enemy's targeting ability with ECM, or cutting down his targeting range with damps, or lowering his gun's tracking/range with tracking disruptors... the enemy simply won't do damage to you anyhow)
- gank tank (you do so much damage that your enemy hasn't even got time to land a couple hits that he's already burning... a bit extreme?)
- hull tank (it's somewhere between fact and legend... often going together with gank tank... for tough guys only!
)
On the other hand, "to keep your ship alive" you have other means, including:
- not engaging enemies/slipping through their hands (using warp core stabilizers, speed, cloak, whatever...)
- distance, AKA being out of enemy's range (snipers usually have no tank, stealth bombers too, etc)
- being in Empire without wardecs, not going to belts in 0.8 and below and avoiding combat missions (well you still could meet one suicide ganker, but then you probably have something he wants and should have actually fit a tank)
It's maybe a bit harsh to shoot on the article writer as she could have played EVE for a while and written the article with the best intentions in mind, but the problem with this game is that it's very complex, and has so many sides that also long term players don't usually make definitive sentences on it, but mostly use "could be" and "AFAIK" as common interpunction in their talks... so this could be a case of excessive enthusiasm on her side, writing an article a bit too early about such a difficult and vital EVE topic.
I'd humbly suggest the author or the MMORPG staff to put offline the article and ask one of the previous posters (who have a lot more experience than me) some advice to correct it and maybe transform it in a series of articles as it should actually be.
It reads as if the writter had "borrowed" someone's character then had to ask a few questions in order to play and simply tried to rewrite how they were told to use the character. The write up is close to how you would explain the game to someone who's never played but has access to a developed character, but even then it's horrible.
Anyone following that "shield vs armor tanking" guide (?) would end up hating the game since nothing would make sense from what they thought they knew.
Garbage - dump the ficticious guide and have someone knowledgable write it.
p.s. no mention of Transversal Velocity!?!? I mean, it is supposed to be about Tanking...
seriously, it doesn't matter. i've only been reading the correspondent articles for eve and coh and they seem to be equally hit and miss... you MIGHT get some really basic information from an article that isn't totally rubbish... but don't hold your breath on it.
i'm skeered to look at the correspondent articles for other games... if they follow this trend, they'll either be useless fluff, or totally incorrect babblings of someone who proclaims themself to be an expert but is lying, or just an eternal-noob.
stop the madness already.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I felt so bad for people having to read that article that I felt compelled to start a series of articles on tanking. Part 1 is a bit of an intro and talks about armour tanking. Part 2 will look at shield tanking and I think part 3 will cover alternative tanking techniques like speed tanking, outranging enemies etc. and tips and tricks (haven't decided yet). Hope you like it!:
http://www.massively.com/2009/01/05/eve-evolved-the-art-of-tanking-armour-tanking/
Insert signature that doesn't break the rules here
Well done Nyphor, excellent article. The big problem with short articles on tanking in Eve, you are just scratching the surface of the topic, but you get too in depth and you lose most of your readers.
True enough. I was going to do a single article on shield vs armour but decided to go for a multi-part guide. As a general rule, I limit multi-part guides to two or three but it's really a matter of trying to fit all the material into as few posts as possible. There's a lot to tanking that it's hard to fit it all in. After trying to find links for my earlier post here, I realised there was a distinct lack of good public guides on tanking. My own tanking guide wasn't anywhere but EON issue 2 so I decided it was time to make one everyone can see. Writing for massively affords me that opportunity nicely, which is why I love writing my weekly column there.
Insert signature that doesn't break the rules here
WOW! I feel bad for the writer of the article.
I really hope this site gets someone better at writing helpful articles on Eve.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum