Curse

The Josip · Jan 09, 2010, 05:33 PM // 17:33

What for is tanking useful?

By that, I don't mean usefulness of tanking in some high-end areas (and extraordinary situations), I mean usefulness in general PvE areas; missions, quests, and such.

Example: I go Dunes of Despair (ZM HM), and see advertisements such as "GLF tank...". I got curious. So I ask what would that tank do. The answer was that he would 'distract the generals'.

Now, from what I see the mission consists of killing few monsters along the way, then killing wurms (obviously tank won't be killing those because they are on the cliff), then killing some more wurms after Ghostly is set in place, along with other monsters. And then - the entire group needs to use few minutes of spare time to rush into generals, spike-kill them so to speak, and rush back to help monk guarding the Ghostly.

So those who play in groups with tanks, or play tanks, how does it look from 1st perspective?

Xenomortis · Jan 09, 2010, 05:49 PM // 17:49

Tanking is a role for idiots who don't realise a physical is put to better use killing stuff. It allows groups to play the easy game of just nuking shit and makes the monk's job easier.
It isn't efficient though.

Gift3d · Jan 09, 2010, 06:25 PM // 18:25

bout time this dead horse got the living shit beaten out of him again.

there's a few areas where 'tanking' exists. underworld, doa, maybe fow.

in all other areas and general pve, tanking is counterproductive, doesn't work, and is just plain stupid.

now that you have the facts, there's only one step left to your goal, which is understanding it. as you may or may not know, that step's always the most difficult, exponentially. godspeed, young jedi.

Gennadios · Jan 09, 2010, 06:28 PM // 18:28

Tanking's role is for the crazy difficult areas where a single group of mobs has the capacity to take out even a competent, well prepared party because the GW development team is on crack and couldn't come up with a more viable challenge.

These areas are limited to HM Vloxen Excavations, HM Slaver's Exile, and the Domain of Anguish. Where having one frontliner soak up 800 points of damage a second is easier to manage than having all party members soak up 100 points of damage a second.

Is a tank necessary in general PvE? No, tanks generally don't add any damage to the party, and everything else can be handled by monks without need for tank'n'spank.

Gill Halendt · Jan 09, 2010, 06:36 PM // 18:36

Define "tanking".

The "tank" I use to think about is a heavily-armored frontliner who's able to soak up damage better than his teammates while doing his job - beating up things. That's pretty much "positional" tanking, which is not a bad thing at all.

Most of the people though have the passive doorstop in mind. No, thanks.

Gift3d · Jan 09, 2010, 06:45 PM // 18:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill Halendt

Define "tanking".

The "tank" I use to think about is a heavily-armored frontliner who's able to soak up damage better than his teammates while doing his job - beating up things. That's pretty much "positional" tanking, which is not a bad thing at all.

Most of the people though have the passive doorstop in mind. No, thanks.

agree. in a much lighter sense of the word that's exactly how it should be. a warrior's armor level and shield should be the only thing that attributes to 'tanking'. i mean, sure you could try to position yourself to pull a good amount of aggro, but you know once you take your second whack, the enemy's frontline is merrily plopping their asses right down on your backline. with the scattering, and inability to control mobs as well as you can in let's say, underworld for example, the doorstop idea in general pve flew out the window a long time ago.

REDdelver · Jan 09, 2010, 07:02 PM // 19:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Tanking is a role for idiots who don't realise a physical is put to better use killing stuff. It allows groups to play the easy game of just nuking shit and makes the monk's job easier.
It isn't efficient though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gift3d

bout time this dead horse got the living shit beaten out of him again.

there's a few areas where 'tanking' exists. underworld, doa, maybe fow.

in all other areas and general pve, tanking is counterproductive, doesn't work, and is just plain stupid.

now that you have the facts, there's only one step left to your goal, which is understanding it. as you may or may not know, that step's always the most difficult, exponentially. godspeed, young jedi.

These two response dont do anything for you. Ignore these posts. When you ask a question like this...that is a basic understanding type...theres a certain amount of this guru community that will respond with statements that dont help you at all. Its really sad, but guru has been tainted like this for a long time now.

Several of the other posts should help you more.

Keep in mind, the "glf tank" statement really has no defintion. Its a loosely used statement that could mean a lot of things. Some might want a permatank(for now at least until update), obsidian flesh tank, a defy pain tank, or just a warrior in general that has a lot more armor to take the initial blow of the foes damage.

A lot of people despise the whole "tanking" thought due to they feel that with the right skills, a group can kill with high dmg out thus trumping foes dmg. This all tends to be a win win thought.

The basic thought summed up would be :

High dmg output > quicker killing > less dmg taken > less healing to be done (should) = group win/success.

byteme! · Jan 09, 2010, 07:06 PM // 19:06

With Imbagons and consumables tanking is not as important as it used to be.

Anyone still remember the book trick in the early days with Sorrow's Furnace and the skill bars Warriors used at the time? Ya that was "real" tanking.

REDdelver · Jan 09, 2010, 07:11 PM // 19:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by byteme!

With Imbagons and consumables tanking is not as important as it used to be.

Anyone still remember the book trick in the early days with Sorrow's Furnace? Ya that was "real" tanking.

Dont forget about the holy text book trick in fow!

For fun thoughts: When thinking of the book trick in sorrow's furnace, you have add in the yesteryear MM. Those were the fun days of booking it with 30-40-50 minions. GG RIP true Minion Master

byteme! · Jan 09, 2010, 07:16 PM // 19:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by REDdelver

Dont forget about the holy text book trick in fow!

For fun thoughts: When thinking of the book trick in sorrow's furnace, you have add in the yesteryear MM. Those were the fun days of booking it with 30-40-50 minions. GG RIP true Minion Master

No doubt. Nowadays you got scrubs whining about how overpowered shit is. Try having this....

no scatter (ele's and smiting monks absolutely DESTROYED pve and were the farming kings, not even Shadow Form can compare to the speed)
no minion cap (50+ minions in Sorrow's Furnace anyone?)
pre-nerf soul reaping
book trick
original IWAY when there was no 33% IAS cap
Orders Necro OoV + OoP stacked
No armor cap

There's more but can't remember off the top of my head.

and what do we have now? Shadow Form pfffft LOL?!

PS. I miss the good ole days. We were spoiled.

Xsiriss · Jan 09, 2010, 07:20 PM // 19:20

There's no tanking beyond gimmicky invinci stuff (SF,600's). It's a term out of place in GW as it doesn't work in normal pve and not at all in pvp.

Popeye1906 · Jan 09, 2010, 08:00 PM // 20:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Josip

What for is tanking useful?

Example: I go Dunes of Despair (ZM HM), and see advertisements such as "GLF tank...". I got curious. So I ask what would that tank do. The answer was that he would 'distract the generals'.

Now, from what I see the mission consists of killing few monsters along the way, then killing wurms (obviously tank won't be killing those because they are on the cliff), then killing some more wurms after Ghostly is set in place, along with other monsters. And then - the entire group needs to use few minutes of spare time to rush into generals, spike-kill them so to speak, and rush back to help monk guarding the Ghostly.

So those who play in groups with tanks, or play tanks, how does it look from 1st perspective?

As you can see, you already answered a part of your question. Unless for some very specific situations, tanking is a waste of 1 party slot.

Edit: Tank n spank= If someone pings his L337 OMFG owning tank build, spank him hard.

Sookie · Jan 09, 2010, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Poor guy...all he asked was for someone to explain what tanking is...

The old concept of using a tank is to have a melee member of the team aggregate all of the foes in possibly one spot attacking him. While the monk keeps him healed, the casters pummel, nuke and blast the foes in a concerted effort to kill them all most efficiently.

That is the theory behind it. In practice, it's still used in mostly elite areas.

The Josip · Jan 09, 2010, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wuhy

whether you like the tone or not, those two posts actually make the OP less dumb

Well I despise 'tanking' and strategies that go with it, unless it's really needed to go slooow and absorb dmg (DoA etc).

But since tanking is so widespread, there must be something I'm missing. Some supercool strategy or who knows what. I mean, when people do random mission, they don't go "GLF EVAS spam mesmer" or "GLF Fevered Dreams mesmer", but you can see "GLF tank", or once inside the group "Uh we don't have a tank" (implicating it's going to be difficult). FD mesmer can shut down almost entire mobs throughout entire Venta Cemetary mission, for instance, and by shut down I mean near zero dmg so you can effectively use 1 monk (been there done that). EVAS spammer can annihilate mobs before warrior even reaches them, what on earth is there to tank or kill. And even in that case, Ebon Assassin's 'tank' and distract the enemy, and they alone probably do more dmg than 'tank' warrior. Or why not get Paragon instead of (warrior) tank.

I think it's the feeling of safety people feel when warrior with big abs is with them. I can't think of anything else.

syphonus · Jan 09, 2010, 10:53 PM // 22:53

There's no secret. What you've found is that the vast majority of GW players are dumb. It shouldn't surprise you.

maxxfury · Jan 10, 2010, 12:50 AM // 00:50

Tank is usually a term for a damage sponge to take agro and sit there taking a beating, so no one else has to.

I dont know why the term "tanking" even exists as it does, do you see a real tank (eg, a challenger mkII) driving up and sitting there taking a beating so all the support can blow shit up over its head?

Or do you see then drive in first with big armour blowing shit up, been supported from behind?

Thats how you play a warrior

get in and blow stuff up! shruggin off the hits with team support!

Thats a real tank! not a damage sponge gimp.

More on topic, i have no idea why people would choose take a much slower method for normal pve vanqs/missions when the steamroller works much better, much quicker and is much less fragile.

Its best used for elite area's that are very dangerous with high output mobs, anywere else and your doin it wrong..wasteful. sigh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Josip

But since tanking is so widespread, there must be something I'm missing. Some supercool strategy or who knows what.

erm, outside of doa ect as you said, your not missing a thing

Keep the wheels of the steamroller turning! give the frontline big sticks to hit stuff with

and:

Quote:

Originally Posted by syphonus

There's no secret. What you've found is that the vast majority of GW players are dumb. It shouldn't surprise you.

On another note: It seems a lot of people now just refer to a warrior as a tank in general terms, as in interchangable title.

Desert Rose · Jan 10, 2010, 12:23 PM // 12:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Josip

But since tanking is so widespread, there must be something I'm missing.

Using a tank isn't very efficient in "normal" PvE, but it's easy to use and has a high chance of success and still is fast enough to get master reward.

If you are playing with pugs you don't know how competent your teammate are, so it's better to use a failsafe build that takes 10 minutes to finish the mission than to use a build that takes 5 minutes but fails the first two times.

Reverend Dr · Jan 10, 2010, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Josip

But since tanking is so widespread, there must be something I'm missing.

You see Guild Wars is an MMO, so therefore it must be exactly like every other existing MMO.

Tanks really started with everquest. In that game the only way to reduce the damage monsters delt to manageable levels was to put all of the monsters attacking one highly armored target; this was also made easier by the highly armored targets having commands that forced the AI to attack them. This type of defense oriented team was just never needed in Guild Wars. Warriors in Guild Wars take roughly half the damage compared to casters, while in most traditional MMO's it isn't uncommon to se a 10X difference in taken damage from hard target to caster. Players in Guild Wars all have the same amount of hit points, while in tradtional MMO's warriors will have roughly 2-3x times more than casters. Traditional MMO's do not have the prot line of spells. All of the reasons for tanks in traditional MMO's just do not apply to Guild Wars.

And yet people are still so dumb that since Guild Wars is an MMO we must use tanks. It took people roughly two years to realize that the necro will generally outperform a nuker-styled elementalist, so really what do you expect.

Also some people are so brain dead that anything with weapon + armor = tank, insisting on calling any warrior a tank regardless of whether or not they are fulfilling that role.

HigherMinion · Jan 15, 2010, 06:57 PM // 18:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxxfury

Tank is usually a term for a damage sponge to take agro and sit there taking a beating, so no one else has to.

There's a better way to sponge damage. It's called Protective Bond ;p And also Save Yourselves!

These two skills *should* have obliterated skills such as Defy Pain, Obsidian Flesh, Shadow Form. Atleast in balanced teams, and pugs.

But some people either don't realise it, or don't want to move on. Just like all the monks that say monks>ER infuse/bonders, for example. Some people say it's a gimmick. I even heard people saying it doesn't even work just to defend their ill-thought out beliefs.

If two or more players in your team have SY! you are ALL tanks. If your whole team is under protective bond, you're all invincible.

khezial tahr · Jan 15, 2010, 09:55 PM // 21:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

There's a better way to sponge damage. It's called Protective Bond ;p And also Save Yourselves!

These two skills *should* have obliterated skills such as Defy Pain, Obsidian Flesh, Shadow Form. Atleast in balanced teams, and pugs.

But some people either don't realise it, or don't want to move on. Just like all the monks that say monks>ER infuse/bonders, for example. Some people say it's a gimmick. I even heard people saying it doesn't even work just to defend their ill-thought out beliefs.

If two or more players in your team have SY! you are ALL tanks. If your whole team is under protective bond, you're all invincible.

Just wondering... can you make a post without mentioning ER?