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"Tanking" sucks in this game
strategicz
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
I was hoping to actually play a defensive tank which is kind of what the guardian was advertised as. However, it is obvious that if you play a "tank" you must use a talent build focusing on damage, you must gear like a primary damage dealer, you must play like a primary damage dealer. This is all kind of sad because there are so many great tanking talents in this game that have to go to complete waste just because threat is so terribly broken that guardians must be damage dealers first and tanks last.
I don't understand why the threat issues have gone on for so long. Yes, I know that if you gear and spec like a damage dealer that threat will be fine and you can "tank" bosses. However, it seems really daft that I must be stuck playing my "tank" like a rogue or some other primary damage archetype to be able to even have a shot as filling my intended role. If I wanted to play a damage dealer I would have made a rogue from the beginning.
In addition to this flawed system there is an even more flawed system behind it.... when your primary function is to absorb damage why would you wipe all threat gained from the target if you take a single unmitigated blow? That is just insane. If we had much higher guard then I could see this working, but with our extremely limited guard it is a tedious process constantly refreshing a mark just to lose all threat you gained from it if you happen to make even the slightest of mistakes. Especially since the only way to actually hold threat is to focus 100% on damage, which makes you more prone to take extra damage in the first place.
Does anyone else see how overly flawed this system is in practical application?
I don't care about holding threat on infinite adds or anything like that, it would just be nice to have strong single target threat without having to become another boring damage dealing class. There are so many tanking/utility encounters that I would love to use but it is impossible because I have to focus on my damage at all times to be even remotely effective.
Hopefully sometime soon guardians can be reviewed and Cryptic can decide if we are suppose to be tanks or damage dealers. It would be nice to be given strong single target threat in addition to being able to gear defensively and use more defensive/utility encounters.
I don't understand why the threat issues have gone on for so long. Yes, I know that if you gear and spec like a damage dealer that threat will be fine and you can "tank" bosses. However, it seems really daft that I must be stuck playing my "tank" like a rogue or some other primary damage archetype to be able to even have a shot as filling my intended role. If I wanted to play a damage dealer I would have made a rogue from the beginning.
In addition to this flawed system there is an even more flawed system behind it.... when your primary function is to absorb damage why would you wipe all threat gained from the target if you take a single unmitigated blow? That is just insane. If we had much higher guard then I could see this working, but with our extremely limited guard it is a tedious process constantly refreshing a mark just to lose all threat you gained from it if you happen to make even the slightest of mistakes. Especially since the only way to actually hold threat is to focus 100% on damage, which makes you more prone to take extra damage in the first place.
Does anyone else see how overly flawed this system is in practical application?
I don't care about holding threat on infinite adds or anything like that, it would just be nice to have strong single target threat without having to become another boring damage dealing class. There are so many tanking/utility encounters that I would love to use but it is impossible because I have to focus on my damage at all times to be even remotely effective.
Hopefully sometime soon guardians can be reviewed and Cryptic can decide if we are suppose to be tanks or damage dealers. It would be nice to be given strong single target threat in addition to being able to gear defensively and use more defensive/utility encounters.
Post edited by strategicz on
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I agree that threat is borked right now.
I made a HORRIBLE mistake of gearing my tank... well, like a tank. I picked gear with the best defense, deflection, ac, and other defensive stats. I don't have enough AD to gear all over again for damage and so while my group moves on I will be left behind.
In the early dungeons my defensive gear/build was never an issue and I seemed to hold threat fine. As my group got more and more gear I could hold threat on bosses less and less.
It is at the point now that unless I completely re-gear from scratch I am dead in the water with my group.
My only options are;
A) Go back and farm the easier dungeons (that everyone is sick of doing, so good luck telling them we need to farm for me all over again)
C) Spend real-life money on enough gear to get back into the game just to watch this change dramatically all over again if/when they fix the problems.
So, as you can see, they should fix this sooner than later. I doubt I am the first person tricked into thinking this was an actual tanking class and obtained gear for that sole purpose.
It isn't really a great situation to be in because Cryptic either can't fix a real problem or has no idea what they want us to be in their game.
I guess I should have just geared for damage from the get-go, but that is something I am paying for now.
It is kind of sad when someone playing a tanking class feels this way about gearing defensively, lol.
I never want to go without someone like him.
I'm a cleric with broken aggro and he still managed to keep away everything that would hit me like a truck.
Yeah. When you gear for damage and play like a damage dealer, you can keep threat just fine. However, for someone wanting to play like a tank and not a glorified damage dealer with a shield, it kind of sucks.
It really isn't a matter of "lol learn2play", but a matter of me not seeing the point in wasting all of my time, effort and resources re-gearing from scratch to be forced into game play that I didn't want in the first place.
Like I said before, if I wanted to be a damage dealer I would have rolled one.
You seem to come from other MMO.
Why would a monster fight a can of unbreakable steel if there are more fragile and dangerous targets ?
I hope that tanks will not become monster magnets just to justify the passive tank playstyle.
You clearly didn't read all of my posts before copy/pasting this response. I never asked to be a "monster magnet" just to have strong SINGLE TARGET threat while still being able to gear defensively and use the more interesting tanking/utility encounter abilities. Otherwise, we're just glorified damage dealers and the class should not be listed as a "tank" or "guardian". It should just be changed to "fighter".
I could do the same thing as a rogue with the same results. The only problem is: I don't want to be a damage dealer, hence why I rolled a "tank" in the first place.
I agree, I hope tanking is not simply turned into the 1 spec system. BTW most times while tanking I rarely get the opportunity to just sit in one spot and tank, normally I am moving the target around and helping my team when stuff hits the fan, especially the cleric. If we are doing say Mad Dragon I am the only one on the boss for the majority of the fight while the team is killing stuff off. Having the ability to do dps while this is going on helps out. I prefer all three trees be viable for tanking, everyone has their own style of play and pigeon holing everyone into one tree is not a good direction for these classes and imo the future direction of this game.
I have to admit that I have not yet played GF.
But I think that GF powers are useful even without being the center of the battlefield.
Otherwise there would be no doubt among GF players that GF suck.
You also said that you specced for defense even though it worked worse over time.
Why continuing the hard way ?
Go back and actually read my first two posts before responding anymore. Both posts answer everything in the above quote.
I have read them.
I could tell you to read mine as well as they answer your points.
But since I have not played GF, I can not contradict you based on my gaming experience.
Which would not match your (failing) playstyle anyway.
I just wonder why some players still like the GF because they have probably chosen that (tank) class for the same reason as you did.
Nobody choses GF to be damage dealer.
You don't seem like you get the point.
Yes, I am sure no one made a guardian to be a damage dealer when the game launched and they rolled one. However, the game REQUIRES guardians to gear for damage, spec for damage and use a damage rotation for optimal damage to have a chance at keeping threat on bosses with rogues doing extremely high damage.
I will say it again for clarity: Guardians can be just fine if you play them like a rogue with a shield, but the problem is I don't want to be a rogue, even with a shield. They need to make the protector path viable so players have an option to play like an actual tank.
A guardian's role could be so much more varied and interesting, but the most effective way to play them in high-end content is as a damage dealer and that is my overall problem.
I could easily adapt and be fine. However, I don't see the point in spending resources and time into a something I don't want to do. That does not sound like much fun at all.
It would be like if you made a rogue and then were told you needed to stack defense/deflection/AC and spend your time defending yourself from attacks because your damage was broken and you were just more useful this way.
I understood from your last post that you are not happy because your playstyle does not work
and there is no other way then playing like a rogue with shield to be useful.
I have checked the forums (full of complaints anyway) and many GF players evoke these points:
- not robust enough. GWF, Rogue and Cleric are as robust. True ? Other GF advise to be mobile.
- you must make high damage. As I said, monsters attacking a toothless can is stupid.
- you must be quick on your keyboard because marks vanish quickly. Requires more skill and effort than other classes.
- the high thread generation of clerics. Although this is meant to force defenders to stay near the cleric instead of targeting the boss.
What is your playstyle ?
What is the tank style you expect ?
Maybe some GF can give advice.
Maybe we can all agree that GF must be fixed.
Maybe a GF is meant as versatile mix between GWF (mob handling) and TR (boss handling).
All intelligent groups take 2x cleric 1 cw. Rest doesn't matter, although ideally you just want dps for the boss so 2x TR is best, or at least 1xTR 1x GWF. You might get a sympathy group as a GF but you'll always be the welfare leech of the party.
Which is incorrect, you should have said:
All groups that want to use a OP stacking mechanic, which will most likely get changed to not be able to stack, and cheeze a instance take 2x cleric. You could easily replace the GWF or even one of the clerics with a GF that is approperiety geared/spec to deal damage and still be able to down the encounter.
The fact is that 2x cleric is by far better at the current point in time than 1xcleric 1xgf. Unless you're sploiting.
1. You do have to spec for DPS.
2. You do not have to gear for DPS.
To further explain point 1, it comes back to what you're saying that all the Epic encounters in the later part of the game basically one shot your Guard meter with no reliable way to recover it. Even with Iron Guard and deep feats in Protection, there are many bosses in the game that simply go nuts and drain your Guard in one or two abilities (to say nothing about multiple packs of mobs that do the same). This means you're forced to manually dodge them regardless of how you spec. The Tactician Line is utterly worthless with all it's utility basically being a non factor in the large things of consideration. This leaves the Conqueror tree which due to game mechanics basically makes this the best choice of tree to spec into as the other two don't do enough to make any kind of game changing difference. The huge amount of +Damage you get from it basically generates the vast majority of the threat you will need to generate to hold threat. Essentially it's the only spec that you will see a noticeable difference in.
To explain point 2, most of us "uber" tanks are using the Stalwart Bulwark set which is all Defense/Deflection/Recovery/Regen. The only additional power we get is from the 4 piece bonus which adds a significant chunk of power (roughly 7000+ on most people). Statistically speaking, this gear alone is enough to bring your Defense near cap (45%) along with still providing a large amount of Recovery (AP Gain and Cool Downs) as well as give you quite a bit of Deflection (around 15%). There's really not much more defensive you can go stat wise simply because higher Defense/Deflection/Regen gear doesn't exist. It's really a "best of all worlds" situation going on. This leaves your Jewelry up to you and honestly it doesn't matter because you're strong offensively and defensively at this point.
So while I understand that our class design is pretty poor all around, namely that we're supposed to ignore our class mechanic of Guard, we can hold threat through our DPS and at the same time be the most effective target to be taking hits since we are actually geared defensively to be a tank. I certainly think our mechanics are just terribly designed and implemented it also isn't a scenario where we're 100% useless either.
I'd be more worried when they decide to nerf the parts that are working without addressing the parts that aren't.
No no, the cat isn't playing the GF. The cat helped design the GF alongside the dev team randomly slapping their dicks on the keyboard.
bring 2 clerics if you want to, but dont just go "GF suxxors". We can quite easily fill that aoe dps roll you assign to just GWF. You dont even NEED 2 clerics either. Feel free to say "Most groups bring 2 clerics because it trivializes encounters" Its true, its factual and doesnt stigmatize and entire class to boot.
You're complaining about GFs stacking Power through a set bonus (not exploiting) that requires them to do their job (get hit) which allows them to hold threat which many GFs couldn't do which prompted Clerics to start actually abusing the 2x Astral Shield Mechanic which fundamentally renders an entire class in the game pointless.
I mean it's cool and all you want to exploit the dual or triple stacking shields. I get it. Abuse it while you can. But getting the required damage to hold threat so you don't need to abuse a game mechanic isn't exploiting. It is, in fact, the exact opposite.
we are not 1 shotting bosses, unless you call adds bosses. When spec/geared offensively GF are competing with the other DPS classes (rogues/gwf).
With how this community is if GF could 1 shot bosses it would be Clerics/Rogues/GWF out of a job and you would see groups of 5 GF running around. Its not happening. GF do have problems, specificly that we are forced into 1 spec to be viable, but there you go we actually have a spec that makes us decent not at only doing damage, but taking it as well.
Part of the problem is not all GFs realize how to spec/gear right right now. Many of us went down the Def tree thinking that was the way we needed to go, and got a rude awakening. We need to get the information out there, and get GFs specing/gearing right. Once you get a properly spec GF in your party you will know why we keep coming onto the forums saying "We are Good! You want us in your Party!"
I would expect to be kicked from a group if i wasnt holding agro or fighitng for #1 DPS spot at this point. If a rogue joins your group in defense gear and a crappy spec, you dont go around yelling that Rogues are pointless, and start booting every rogue that joins your party. The problem is the GFs best spec for the game atm is counter intuitive untill you realize 3 things.
1) Threat is not given to us, we have to work at it, which means specing for DPS
2) Guard is useless and its better to just move out of the way of the BIG TELEGRAPHED HIT.
3) The damage bosses dish out that isnt telegraphed can be taken/healed through by anyone.
What we need the community to do is tell these GFs that are struggling (not even their fault, its completely unintuitive) that there is a valid way of tanking in this game, and that they should check out the forums. Specificly Envy's and Rokuthy's threads on the subject.
And to make it easier for people interested in seeing how tanks are supposed to gear/spec:
Rokuthy's Thread
Envy's Thread
Wow had sundering spam for warrior which was a debuff taunt and City of Heroes just had an aoe taunt. I think if they removed astral shield from the game then you would have to look for geared def tanks, but then theres still the problem of threat. They just need to increase the mulitpliers. It also seems they really just been balancing from end game and GF's and GWF get the shaft while leveling.
With astral shields you really just can get clerics and dps, then faceroll keyboard.