1) Tanks are often the most boring class, without any abilities that stand out.
No, but they are a little slower to level and scale with gear on a pass/fail basis more.
2) Tanks because of defensive are weaker classes.
yes. see above.
3) People are scared to play them In a trinity system :
a) Your often expected to know your taunts perfectly without fault.
Sure. people die if you don't.
b) You get blamed often with others mistakes. ( you better have tough skin to take backlash )
Tanks making mistakes kill people. But it is something new tanks struggle with: did you screw up or someone else?"
c ) Your often expected to know the Dungeon / Raid well.
Or learn on your feet but yes. because again, tank mistakes are fatal.
d) Your often expected to lead.
comes with the role.
e) Your expected to handle the asshat in your group.
This is the fun part about tanking. He...tends to die a lot if tank doesn't like him. I wonder why
YES to all of the above.. IF.. but only IF you look at combat from modern day AOE combat that seems to be the norm.. Too many of today's game like to focus on "group" combat.. The art of "pulling" a single mob away from the pack is almost extinct.. The art of using a variety of CC skills is equally rare.. These roles along with the tanks ability to focus on his duties made group living or dying a GROUP responsibility, not just one man's job.. This is why I support the other trinity roles.. Bring back CC, pulling, kiting and whatnot, so group members can assist or minimize any mistake made by each other (even the tank)..
MMORPGs PVEs are in practical terms lobby games. You log-in in and find people to play through automatical systems or manually via chat shouting, then you play dungeons in instances.
Alternatively you log-in and play with limited pre-selected amount of people (your guild and/or RL colleagues)
Seriously why do such social and invested gameplay as tanking (or healing for that matter) in a damn lobby game?
Much better to just dps or pvp.
PS. Then we come to realize that for this (dps or pvp) hack&slash games (Diablo,PoE,Van Hellsing, Grim Dawn, etc) or PVP games (Battlefield, Call of Duty, Dota 2, etc) are superior than MMORPGs.
Everything is better in a good guild including tanking.
When tanking for random groups however, the tank is one of the keystones of the group who has a lot of responsibility. He might need to know the pulls or how to face the mobs. The things that make a successful or fail group.
DPS are a dime a dozen and besides cranking out DPS the only thing they worry about is not standing in the poo.
Healers are key too and after tanks, healers are the second hardest to get.
It's all relative, really. I play tanks almost exclusively. Right now I've got 1 level 90 DPS and 6 tanks (1 of each class, plus a second Panda) at level 90.
I actually find the levelling process quicker with a tank. With DPS classes, you are limited almost exclusively to single targets. They go down faster, but there is more downtime acquiring mobs, too. Generally, I get pissed when I have to take on single mobs. When I'm levelling, if I'm taking fewer than 6 or 7 mobs at once, then I'm really not satisfied. Many times I can pull 10 or 11 and get away with it (depending on the class). Plus, DPS usually has downtime for healing, etc. whereas my tanks don't need to eat to keep going, I can use their pre-canned self-heals to get by.
As far as your points, TBH, healers aren't that much differemt, and probably worse to level. My priest is at level 85 and I can't level him anymore without throwing up in my mouth a little. You can level as a DPS healer class, but they still aren't as effective as, say, a mage.
As far as Raids go, Tanks and Healers always take the brunt of the blame. They should know the fights (more than a DPS really needs to know it) and they have a more complex role. Basically, if you're a Tank and you die, you generally wipe. If you're a healer and you die, you also usually wipe, but maybe not to the extent of a tank. If you're a DPS? Meh, we might be able to get by without a few of them. TBH, my expectation is that everyone knows the fight. I have no problems raiding with people who haven't done a fight before, it's the ones who are completely ignorant.
PS. Then we come to realize that for this (dps or pvp) hack&slash games (Diablo,PoE,Van Hellsing, Grim Dawn, etc) or PVP games (Battlefield, Call of Duty, Dota 2, etc) are superior than MMORPGs.
Include them in the category of MMO. Problem solved.
And yes, i agree ... Diablo, PoE, Van Helsing (glad to mention this, very fun indie game) ... are superior to classical MMO. However, marvel heroes is practically like these games, so not all is lost.
1) Tank is the De Facto leader of the group, the one who sets the pace and controls the mobs and is expected to know the dungeon inside and out. Alot of people dont like the responsibility or the potential blame.
2) You are basically fighting both the mobs and the aggro generated by other players, which can be problematic if you are significantly outgeared (depends on the game)
3) You may be needed like crazy for pugs, but generally not in guilds. Ive been in many, many guilds that have had tons of people roll tank and healers, expecting to be needed at endgame, only to find we are really short on geared DPS. This is aleviated somewhat by classes that have a dual purpose. Tanks have the lowest represenation in raids usually, which makes it a hightly sought after spot in guilds, and many times guilds play favorites trying to get their 1 or 2 tanks geared up really fast so they can progress.
PS. Then we come to realize that for this (dps or pvp) hack&slash games (Diablo,PoE,Van Hellsing, Grim Dawn, etc) or PVP games (Battlefield, Call of Duty, Dota 2, etc) are superior than MMORPGs.
Include them in the category of MMO. Problem solved.
And yes, i agree ... Diablo, PoE, Van Helsing (glad to mention this, very fun indie game) ... are superior to classical MMO. However, marvel heroes is practically like these games, so not all is lost.
What problem you're taking about? I don't see a problem here to solve to be honest.
Hack&slash/ARPG games are just ok being labelled as hack&slash games/ ARPG games.
Wow, reading most of the replies is so pathetic and sad. Gaming has been reduced to something where no one wants to try, think, struggle, or fight through anything.
People saying that the "tank should know every fight, every boss, every dungeon", what a load of bull $h!t. How about playing a game for fun, and actually working with a team to get through something? Not just have it handed to you on a silver platter while you mash your DPS buttons brainlessly. I honestly can't believe what I am reading.
This is the problem with games these days, the players playing them and the mindsets around what fun actually is, and what a game actually is.
For me, tanks are the most fun class because of all the morons out there. So thank you. Even if I don't know a fight/dungeon/boss perfectly, it is still easily the most engaging and skilled task in an MMO. It is far from boring, what so ever. The difference between a great tank and an average tank is something that most apparently don't understand.
It carries great responsibility and you get to set the pace for the group. You protect the group. You pull and basically do all the real work. It is the only class that feels like you are playing a game at all, as it requires you to actually be doing different things than standing there and mashing buttons.
It isn't the tanks fault that a bunch of silver platter babies want everything handed to them and 90% of the gameplay to be solo. I can't believe these posts are on the MMORPG forums, what the hell?
In some games, that's the reason why too few players want to play a tank class. But that's not the underlying reason why too few players want to be a tank. In games where tank classes deal good damage when solo, you get more people playing the tank class, but a lot of those playing a tank class don't want to be a tank when in groups.
ding, ding, ding, that's me to a "T".
I loved my tank in Tera and play a guardian in Lotro. Heck, I even enjoy tanking. But the groups one gets are just so rude and high maintenance that I, as a rule, stopped grouping with strangers.
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In some games, that's the reason why too few players want to play a tank class. But that's not the underlying reason why too few players want to be a tank. In games where tank classes deal good damage when solo, you get more people playing the tank class, but a lot of those playing a tank class don't want to be a tank when in groups.
ding, ding, ding, that's me to a "T".
I loved my tank in Tera and play a guardian in Lotro. Heck, I even enjoy tanking. But the groups one gets are just so rude and high maintenance that I, as a rule, stopped grouping with strangers.
On tera and many other mmos i have rolled healer, sadly i have noticed this as well and it is annoying as heck. MY job is to keep the team alive not cater to ONE team member. Sure most of my attention goes to the tank but yea..keeping them alive keeps the team alive. Few nights ago i had someone yelling at me because they died...they were DPS and pulled aggro from the tank, they also never bothered to MOVE out of the AOE and when i attempted to heal them would run behind the monster until my lock broke >>. But as hiveleader said "rule one of healing: its YOUR fault"
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Get rid of the " any class can solo" garbage and bring back the trinity. Classic dungeon crawls would be nice too. Everyone wants to speed run everything too.
Having played almost every MMO released since the Holy Trinity system, I can say the real reason people don't tank is... because it takes skill to be a good tank. Real skill. One of the main flows in the Trinity system is exactly that: a brain-dead person can deal DPS or heal, but a tank needs to be aware of the entire map. He has to account for: Boss, adds, positioning, area-based skills, high-damage single-target skills and, most importantly, the other players' mistakes. You need to be able to respond swiftly and accurately to every situation that arises, and "most" of the time, you're expected to be the leader / hold the group together.
I exclusively play tanks and healers, because they're the jobs I enjoy the most, and tanking is the only one that's "challenging" enough. I usually use the healer to get to know the dungeons and fight mechanics, since you literally have to use 3 skills at most, and then go in with the tank.
Now, I've read many people post an ABERRATION about tanking: they deal low damage.
Seriously? Low damage? There is no faster way to quest than with a tank. Except for FF XIV, a tank can just round up a bunch of mobs, and take them down effortlessly. Yes, one-on-one they deal less damage (most of the time, anyway), but they make up for it with their sturdiness. The problem is most players are brain-dead anyway, and attempt to play tanks just like they play a DPS class.
So, why do most games lack tanks? Because most people don't have the required skills for tanking. Plain and simple.
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. The art of using a variety of CC skills is equally rare..
Not in D3 .. if you want to survive higher greater rfits, cc (and escape skills) is a must.
we're talking MMOs I think.
close enough .. D3 is listed under the "MMO list" here, with its own forum. Not to mention the instanced dungeon is essentially similar play style as pve endgame in many MMOs.
Originally posted by ninjapy Get rid of the " any class can solo" garbage and bring back the trinity.
It seems that for every "wheres teh innovations????" post on these forums, there an equal number of these.
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Originally posted by nariusseldon Originally posted by RobokappOriginally posted by nariusseldonOriginally posted by Rydeson. The art of using a variety of CC skills is equally rare..
Not in D3 .. if you want to survive higher greater rfits, cc (and escape skills) is a must.we're talking MMOs I think.close enough .. D3 is listed under the "MMO list" here, with its own forum. Not to mention the instanced dungeon is essentially similar play style as pve endgame in many MMOs.
That's odd, D3 isn't a Massive Multiplayer Online game. Not sure why it would be listed as an MMO when the most you can play with are 3 other players at a given time.
Originally posted by Franconstein Having played almost every MMO released since the Holy Trinity system, I can say the real reason people don't tank is... because it takes skill to be a good tank. Real skill. One of the main flows in the Trinity system is exactly that: a brain-dead person can deal DPS or heal, but a tank needs to be aware of the entire map. He has to account for: Boss, adds, positioning, area-based skills, high-damage single-target skills and, most importantly, the other players' mistakes. You need to be able to respond swiftly and accurately to every situation that arises, and "most" of the time, you're expected to be the leader / hold the group together. I exclusively play tanks and healers, because they're the jobs I enjoy the most, and tanking is the only one that's "challenging" enough. I usually use the healer to get to know the dungeons and fight mechanics, since you literally have to use 3 skills at most, and then go in with the tank. Now, I've read many people post an ABERRATION about tanking: they deal low damage.Seriously? Low damage? There is no faster way to quest than with a tank. Except for FF XIV, a tank can just round up a bunch of mobs, and take them down effortlessly. Yes, one-on-one they deal less damage (most of the time, anyway), but they make up for it with their sturdiness. The problem is most players are brain-dead anyway, and attempt to play tanks just like they play a DPS class. So, why do most games lack tanks? Because most people don't have the required skills for tanking. Plain and simple.
I don't think tanking takes anymore skill than a healer or dps. I've played tank roles most of my MMO times but I also DPSed a lot and healed a lot. The problem with why players don't go tank roles is because from level 1 to max level you spend a majority of your time soloing and it's not wise to solo as a tank than it is as a DPS. From that point on most players just don't make the transition from DPS to TANK because even at max level you still have to do daily quests or even pvp and you can't tank in most games while pvping.
I personally like to do all the above but if I could have only two spec then that means a pvp spec or pve dps spec will be out (if I am always tanking for dungeons and raids). So yeah I'll have ot make a bit of a sacrifice unlike a DPS chara will be able to keep his pve spec and pvp spec. Not to mention in raids there are only what 2 or 3 tanks you bring at the most. So chances are unless you have buddies or are really just that good of a tank you won't make it to a 25 man raid and if you're not the main tank then it's rather boring. But really I don't think tanking requires all that much skill what it does require is gear, a little more than the other classes. In fact most raiding guilds decide to gear up the tanks first if they can.
I love to tank and always have, but there seems to be an elitism coming from DPS that they're the only ones that matter because they're the ones killing the boss. I can't stand it when a DPS pulls, then I tell them to stop and they tell me,"You're the Tank, pick it up after I pull." Or if they do get aggro and keep bursting the target and cry about the tank not being able to pick aggro back up on the mob. My favorite is when you pull a bunch of mobs and a DPS proceeds to burst on a target that you're not attacking, then cries when they aggro. DPS is the main reason why it's hard to get a Tank.
Just some small steps for the DPS that don't know what they're doing:
1) Don't pull unless asked to, or if you ask first.
2) If you get aggro, don't run away from the tank.
3) If you get aggro, don't keep bursting on that target
4) Always remember that even though you're the one killing the boss, without healing and a good tank, you aren't going anywhere.
5) Unless told otherwise, attack the tank's target. In most games, tanks have very little AoE threat.
Not really anything to do with Tanking, but I play WoW and raid without DBM or almost any mods (well anything that have to do with combat). I do this because I like the challenge. I don't see a point in playing a game with a mod that tells me when to do something. It's like playing a game that says "Press W in 3 seconds. Press 1 in 4 seconds. Press 5 in 2 seconds." That is the most boring game I've ever heard of. DBM, Recount, Skada, and all of these mods are the bane of the Tank and the Trinity. You should play a game to have fun, not to "cheat" your way to success. There's no fun in defeating something when you didn't do it, all you did was just follow instructions that were plastered on your screen.
Can someone give me a real world fight situation in any part of history where one or a few people played the "tank" for a number of other people.
You won't be able to name any because its never happened. To be sure there are defensive formations, but in those everyone is part of whatever that tactic is (shield wall, pike formation etc.).
You will be able to find many rather specific "answers" to the OPs question, but the more overall answer is that it unnatural and therefore assinine those other "answers" are all just symptoms of that. Tanking "works" by destroying other game mechanics its inherently a bad design.
In reality what should happen in something like a, let's just abritrarily pick the number, 25 man raid is that 15 people should create a shield wall/phalanx formation with multiple lines where a back line fighter can take the place of a front line fighter who is tired or injured and this should be at a choke point. This is your "tank" and then various ranged fighters and possibly various support should then operate behind them.
In other cases once something engages with a fighter it should have a hard time disengaging without risking mortal danger. At the same time it almost impossible for one person to keep 2 people tied down if those 2 people have any idea what they are doing. When I get into a fight with 3 people the danger is not (initially) that 3 people are hitting me. The danger is that I cannot protect myself at all angles simultaneously. MMORPGs do not work this way, although they make some attempts at positional stuff.
There is a reason in real life why someone does not just run past you and start attacking your friend behind you. Its because they will have exposed their back and you will stab them and kill them in a very very short amount of time. Exposing your back is a big no-no in real fighting. All competent fighters avoid this at all costs, even with armor. Really especially with armor because the weakness of armor is the exposed parts and a nicely setup run at someone's back is your best chance to get to a sweet spot.
In real life the "threat" is what will happen if you do certain things. Not how many times I hit them or how many times I insulted their mother. If I engage a single person with my sword. They do not continue the engagement with me because I hit them with my sword. They continue even if they don't want to because if they don't the consequences are disasterous for them.
Thus as you can see the mechanics of tanking are almost exactly backwards from how they would in fact work. And in real life you don't tank rather it is the mechanics of engagements themselves. It is simply the natural consequences of violence that keep two fighters stuck to each. Nothing more, nothing less.
Did you seriously bring the real world into this? There is no healer that would heal a fighter while he is fighting either. A fighter injured is out of the battle and the medic will bring him back only after many months of rehabilitation.
A system simulating reality would be boring as hell, just people slashing swords at the boss over and over again. These games are not so much about simulating reality as they are about finding fun and interesting mechanics.
You have to lead and keep the group alive and have better than average gear. Also manage to get agro off of over eager DPSers. You don't necisarily have to know the encounter but if you don't there certanly needs to be a guide to teach you. So, the answer is because it's easier to hang at the back and DPS.
Just like there are thousands of blue collar workers compared to team leaders/supervisors/managers its the same with dps/healers/tanks. People in general shy away from responsibility especially any role where their performance is on display and open to critique.
Try getting a dps to do the belts or engineer role in SoO - no one wants to do it because their performance is on display and failure becomes obvious.
My thoughts on fixing it are:
Remove threat and make tanks hold agro via dps only (buff them)
Make healers like the mage healer spec in Rift (80% heals thru dps rest thru healing)
Leave dps as they are
There's no point removing the trilogy because without it they become dumb or death / repawn fests like fighting a target dummy aka GW2
Can someone give me a real world fight situation in any part of history where one or a few people played the "tank" for a number of other people.
You won't be able to name any because its never happened. To be sure there are defensive formations, but in those everyone is part of whatever that tactic is (shield wall, pike formation etc.).
You will be able to find many rather specific "answers" to the OPs question, but the more overall answer is that it unnatural and therefore assinine those other "answers" are all just symptoms of that. Tanking "works" by destroying other game mechanics its inherently a bad design.
In reality what should happen in something like a, let's just abritrarily pick the number, 25 man raid is that 15 people should create a shield wall/phalanx formation with multiple lines where a back line fighter can take the place of a front line fighter who is tired or injured and this should be at a choke point. This is your "tank" and then various ranged fighters and possibly various support should then operate behind them.
In other cases once something engages with a fighter it should have a hard time disengaging without risking mortal danger. At the same time it almost impossible for one person to keep 2 people tied down if those 2 people have any idea what they are doing. When I get into a fight with 3 people the danger is not (initially) that 3 people are hitting me. The danger is that I cannot protect myself at all angles simultaneously. MMORPGs do not work this way, although they make some attempts at positional stuff.
There is a reason in real life why someone does not just run past you and start attacking your friend behind you. Its because they will have exposed their back and you will stab them and kill them in a very very short amount of time. Exposing your back is a big no-no in real fighting. All competent fighters avoid this at all costs, even with armor. Really especially with armor because the weakness of armor is the exposed parts and a nicely setup run at someone's back is your best chance to get to a sweet spot.
In real life the "threat" is what will happen if you do certain things. Not how many times I hit them or how many times I insulted their mother. If I engage a single person with my sword. They do not continue the engagement with me because I hit them with my sword. They continue even if they don't want to because if they don't the consequences are disasterous for them.
Thus as you can see the mechanics of tanking are almost exactly backwards from how they would in fact work. And in real life you don't tank rather it is the mechanics of engagements themselves. It is simply the natural consequences of violence that keep two fighters stuck to each. Nothing more, nothing less.
You said it. Congratulations.
Now I'm going to say it. MMORPGs are not real. They are games. As games they do not have to operate like the real world. We play them because we "like" how they don't operate like the real world. It's all fantasy and we enjoy that fantasy very much.
As per the title of this thread "Why are tanks hard to get?" I guess that would depend on the game. When I use to play City of Heroes tanks weren't all that hard to find because they were fairly popular. However...sometimes they were hard to get because of that popularity as they were in demand because of their damage absorbing/deflecting abilities, and once they reached the low 40's they were really getting powerful. The saying "A good tank is hard to find" was often quite true because the best tanks were always busy; either soloing or successfully running teams.
As for teaming with a tank, all the finer points have already been discussed adequately. It requires knowledge, learning and understanding. You learn how an archetype operates by watching another play them, you learn what they need by watching and listening and then you understand first hand by playing one yourself and you see how other archetypes play with you. If you're not willing to listen, learn and understand then you're not ready to team with others.
( Patience helps too. )
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Being a tank also gives you the the choice who you want to play with. You wont see that many tanks LFG, because its easy to get guildies of friends for a dungeon run. Tanking might seem boring for some people, but if you are skilled, well equipped tank, people will do whatever you want to get in your group
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YES to all of the above.. IF.. but only IF you look at combat from modern day AOE combat that seems to be the norm.. Too many of today's game like to focus on "group" combat.. The art of "pulling" a single mob away from the pack is almost extinct.. The art of using a variety of CC skills is equally rare.. These roles along with the tanks ability to focus on his duties made group living or dying a GROUP responsibility, not just one man's job.. This is why I support the other trinity roles.. Bring back CC, pulling, kiting and whatnot, so group members can assist or minimize any mistake made by each other (even the tank)..
MMORPGs PVEs are in practical terms lobby games. You log-in in and find people to play through automatical systems or manually via chat shouting, then you play dungeons in instances.
Alternatively you log-in and play with limited pre-selected amount of people (your guild and/or RL colleagues)
Seriously why do such social and invested gameplay as tanking (or healing for that matter) in a damn lobby game?
Much better to just dps or pvp.
PS. Then we come to realize that for this (dps or pvp) hack&slash games (Diablo,PoE,Van Hellsing, Grim Dawn, etc) or PVP games (Battlefield, Call of Duty, Dota 2, etc) are superior than MMORPGs.
Everything is better in a good guild including tanking.
When tanking for random groups however, the tank is one of the keystones of the group who has a lot of responsibility. He might need to know the pulls or how to face the mobs. The things that make a successful or fail group.
DPS are a dime a dozen and besides cranking out DPS the only thing they worry about is not standing in the poo.
Healers are key too and after tanks, healers are the second hardest to get.
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It's all relative, really. I play tanks almost exclusively. Right now I've got 1 level 90 DPS and 6 tanks (1 of each class, plus a second Panda) at level 90.
I actually find the levelling process quicker with a tank. With DPS classes, you are limited almost exclusively to single targets. They go down faster, but there is more downtime acquiring mobs, too. Generally, I get pissed when I have to take on single mobs. When I'm levelling, if I'm taking fewer than 6 or 7 mobs at once, then I'm really not satisfied. Many times I can pull 10 or 11 and get away with it (depending on the class). Plus, DPS usually has downtime for healing, etc. whereas my tanks don't need to eat to keep going, I can use their pre-canned self-heals to get by.
As far as your points, TBH, healers aren't that much differemt, and probably worse to level. My priest is at level 85 and I can't level him anymore without throwing up in my mouth a little. You can level as a DPS healer class, but they still aren't as effective as, say, a mage.
As far as Raids go, Tanks and Healers always take the brunt of the blame. They should know the fights (more than a DPS really needs to know it) and they have a more complex role. Basically, if you're a Tank and you die, you generally wipe. If you're a healer and you die, you also usually wipe, but maybe not to the extent of a tank. If you're a DPS? Meh, we might be able to get by without a few of them. TBH, my expectation is that everyone knows the fight. I have no problems raiding with people who haven't done a fight before, it's the ones who are completely ignorant.
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Not in D3 .. if you want to survive higher greater rfits, cc (and escape skills) is a must.
Include them in the category of MMO. Problem solved.
And yes, i agree ... Diablo, PoE, Van Helsing (glad to mention this, very fun indie game) ... are superior to classical MMO. However, marvel heroes is practically like these games, so not all is lost.
1) Tank is the De Facto leader of the group, the one who sets the pace and controls the mobs and is expected to know the dungeon inside and out. Alot of people dont like the responsibility or the potential blame.
2) You are basically fighting both the mobs and the aggro generated by other players, which can be problematic if you are significantly outgeared (depends on the game)
3) You may be needed like crazy for pugs, but generally not in guilds. Ive been in many, many guilds that have had tons of people roll tank and healers, expecting to be needed at endgame, only to find we are really short on geared DPS. This is aleviated somewhat by classes that have a dual purpose. Tanks have the lowest represenation in raids usually, which makes it a hightly sought after spot in guilds, and many times guilds play favorites trying to get their 1 or 2 tanks geared up really fast so they can progress.
What problem you're taking about? I don't see a problem here to solve to be honest.
Hack&slash/ARPG games are just ok being labelled as hack&slash games/ ARPG games.
Wow, reading most of the replies is so pathetic and sad. Gaming has been reduced to something where no one wants to try, think, struggle, or fight through anything.
People saying that the "tank should know every fight, every boss, every dungeon", what a load of bull $h!t. How about playing a game for fun, and actually working with a team to get through something? Not just have it handed to you on a silver platter while you mash your DPS buttons brainlessly. I honestly can't believe what I am reading.
This is the problem with games these days, the players playing them and the mindsets around what fun actually is, and what a game actually is.
For me, tanks are the most fun class because of all the morons out there. So thank you. Even if I don't know a fight/dungeon/boss perfectly, it is still easily the most engaging and skilled task in an MMO. It is far from boring, what so ever. The difference between a great tank and an average tank is something that most apparently don't understand.
It carries great responsibility and you get to set the pace for the group. You protect the group. You pull and basically do all the real work. It is the only class that feels like you are playing a game at all, as it requires you to actually be doing different things than standing there and mashing buttons.
It isn't the tanks fault that a bunch of silver platter babies want everything handed to them and 90% of the gameplay to be solo. I can't believe these posts are on the MMORPG forums, what the hell?
ding, ding, ding, that's me to a "T".
I loved my tank in Tera and play a guardian in Lotro. Heck, I even enjoy tanking. But the groups one gets are just so rude and high maintenance that I, as a rule, stopped grouping with strangers.
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
On tera and many other mmos i have rolled healer, sadly i have noticed this as well and it is annoying as heck. MY job is to keep the team alive not cater to ONE team member. Sure most of my attention goes to the tank but yea..keeping them alive keeps the team alive. Few nights ago i had someone yelling at me because they died...they were DPS and pulled aggro from the tank, they also never bothered to MOVE out of the AOE and when i attempted to heal them would run behind the monster until my lock broke >>. But as hiveleader said "rule one of healing: its YOUR fault"
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Having played almost every MMO released since the Holy Trinity system, I can say the real reason people don't tank is... because it takes skill to be a good tank. Real skill. One of the main flows in the Trinity system is exactly that: a brain-dead person can deal DPS or heal, but a tank needs to be aware of the entire map. He has to account for: Boss, adds, positioning, area-based skills, high-damage single-target skills and, most importantly, the other players' mistakes. You need to be able to respond swiftly and accurately to every situation that arises, and "most" of the time, you're expected to be the leader / hold the group together.
I exclusively play tanks and healers, because they're the jobs I enjoy the most, and tanking is the only one that's "challenging" enough. I usually use the healer to get to know the dungeons and fight mechanics, since you literally have to use 3 skills at most, and then go in with the tank.
Now, I've read many people post an ABERRATION about tanking: they deal low damage.
Seriously? Low damage? There is no faster way to quest than with a tank. Except for FF XIV, a tank can just round up a bunch of mobs, and take them down effortlessly. Yes, one-on-one they deal less damage (most of the time, anyway), but they make up for it with their sturdiness. The problem is most players are brain-dead anyway, and attempt to play tanks just like they play a DPS class.
So, why do most games lack tanks? Because most people don't have the required skills for tanking. Plain and simple.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. - Ernest Hemingway
close enough .. D3 is listed under the "MMO list" here, with its own forum. Not to mention the instanced dungeon is essentially similar play style as pve endgame in many MMOs.
It seems that for every "wheres teh innovations????" post on these forums, there an equal number of these.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
we're talking MMOs I think.
close enough .. D3 is listed under the "MMO list" here, with its own forum. Not to mention the instanced dungeon is essentially similar play style as pve endgame in many MMOs.
That's odd, D3 isn't a Massive Multiplayer Online game. Not sure why it would be listed as an MMO when the most you can play with are 3 other players at a given time.
Check out this article on Why Crafting Sucks
I don't think tanking takes anymore skill than a healer or dps. I've played tank roles most of my MMO times but I also DPSed a lot and healed a lot. The problem with why players don't go tank roles is because from level 1 to max level you spend a majority of your time soloing and it's not wise to solo as a tank than it is as a DPS. From that point on most players just don't make the transition from DPS to TANK because even at max level you still have to do daily quests or even pvp and you can't tank in most games while pvping.
I personally like to do all the above but if I could have only two spec then that means a pvp spec or pve dps spec will be out (if I am always tanking for dungeons and raids). So yeah I'll have ot make a bit of a sacrifice unlike a DPS chara will be able to keep his pve spec and pvp spec. Not to mention in raids there are only what 2 or 3 tanks you bring at the most. So chances are unless you have buddies or are really just that good of a tank you won't make it to a 25 man raid and if you're not the main tank then it's rather boring. But really I don't think tanking requires all that much skill what it does require is gear, a little more than the other classes. In fact most raiding guilds decide to gear up the tanks first if they can.
Check out this article on Why Crafting Sucks
I love to tank and always have, but there seems to be an elitism coming from DPS that they're the only ones that matter because they're the ones killing the boss. I can't stand it when a DPS pulls, then I tell them to stop and they tell me,"You're the Tank, pick it up after I pull." Or if they do get aggro and keep bursting the target and cry about the tank not being able to pick aggro back up on the mob. My favorite is when you pull a bunch of mobs and a DPS proceeds to burst on a target that you're not attacking, then cries when they aggro. DPS is the main reason why it's hard to get a Tank.
Just some small steps for the DPS that don't know what they're doing:
1) Don't pull unless asked to, or if you ask first.
2) If you get aggro, don't run away from the tank.
3) If you get aggro, don't keep bursting on that target
4) Always remember that even though you're the one killing the boss, without healing and a good tank, you aren't going anywhere.
5) Unless told otherwise, attack the tank's target. In most games, tanks have very little AoE threat.
Not really anything to do with Tanking, but I play WoW and raid without DBM or almost any mods (well anything that have to do with combat). I do this because I like the challenge. I don't see a point in playing a game with a mod that tells me when to do something. It's like playing a game that says "Press W in 3 seconds. Press 1 in 4 seconds. Press 5 in 2 seconds." That is the most boring game I've ever heard of. DBM, Recount, Skada, and all of these mods are the bane of the Tank and the Trinity. You should play a game to have fun, not to "cheat" your way to success. There's no fun in defeating something when you didn't do it, all you did was just follow instructions that were plastered on your screen.
Can someone give me a real world fight situation in any part of history where one or a few people played the "tank" for a number of other people.
You won't be able to name any because its never happened. To be sure there are defensive formations, but in those everyone is part of whatever that tactic is (shield wall, pike formation etc.).
You will be able to find many rather specific "answers" to the OPs question, but the more overall answer is that it unnatural and therefore assinine those other "answers" are all just symptoms of that. Tanking "works" by destroying other game mechanics its inherently a bad design.
In reality what should happen in something like a, let's just abritrarily pick the number, 25 man raid is that 15 people should create a shield wall/phalanx formation with multiple lines where a back line fighter can take the place of a front line fighter who is tired or injured and this should be at a choke point. This is your "tank" and then various ranged fighters and possibly various support should then operate behind them.
In other cases once something engages with a fighter it should have a hard time disengaging without risking mortal danger. At the same time it almost impossible for one person to keep 2 people tied down if those 2 people have any idea what they are doing. When I get into a fight with 3 people the danger is not (initially) that 3 people are hitting me. The danger is that I cannot protect myself at all angles simultaneously. MMORPGs do not work this way, although they make some attempts at positional stuff.
There is a reason in real life why someone does not just run past you and start attacking your friend behind you. Its because they will have exposed their back and you will stab them and kill them in a very very short amount of time. Exposing your back is a big no-no in real fighting. All competent fighters avoid this at all costs, even with armor. Really especially with armor because the weakness of armor is the exposed parts and a nicely setup run at someone's back is your best chance to get to a sweet spot.
In real life the "threat" is what will happen if you do certain things. Not how many times I hit them or how many times I insulted their mother. If I engage a single person with my sword. They do not continue the engagement with me because I hit them with my sword. They continue even if they don't want to because if they don't the consequences are disasterous for them.
Thus as you can see the mechanics of tanking are almost exactly backwards from how they would in fact work. And in real life you don't tank rather it is the mechanics of engagements themselves. It is simply the natural consequences of violence that keep two fighters stuck to each. Nothing more, nothing less.
A system simulating reality would be boring as hell, just people slashing swords at the boss over and over again. These games are not so much about simulating reality as they are about finding fun and interesting mechanics.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
It's pretty simple really games mirror real life.
Just like there are thousands of blue collar workers compared to team leaders/supervisors/managers its the same with dps/healers/tanks. People in general shy away from responsibility especially any role where their performance is on display and open to critique.
Try getting a dps to do the belts or engineer role in SoO - no one wants to do it because their performance is on display and failure becomes obvious.
My thoughts on fixing it are:
Remove threat and make tanks hold agro via dps only (buff them)
Make healers like the mage healer spec in Rift (80% heals thru dps rest thru healing)
Leave dps as they are
There's no point removing the trilogy because without it they become dumb or death / repawn fests like fighting a target dummy aka GW2
You said it. Congratulations.
Now I'm going to say it. MMORPGs are not real. They are games. As games they do not have to operate like the real world. We play them because we "like" how they don't operate like the real world. It's all fantasy and we enjoy that fantasy very much.
As per the title of this thread "Why are tanks hard to get?" I guess that would depend on the game. When I use to play City of Heroes tanks weren't all that hard to find because they were fairly popular. However...sometimes they were hard to get because of that popularity as they were in demand because of their damage absorbing/deflecting abilities, and once they reached the low 40's they were really getting powerful. The saying "A good tank is hard to find" was often quite true because the best tanks were always busy; either soloing or successfully running teams.
As for teaming with a tank, all the finer points have already been discussed adequately. It requires knowledge, learning and understanding. You learn how an archetype operates by watching another play them, you learn what they need by watching and listening and then you understand first hand by playing one yourself and you see how other archetypes play with you. If you're not willing to listen, learn and understand then you're not ready to team with others.
( Patience helps too.
)
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.