Warrior and Guardion tanking????

[Belishine.7493]

this is a good topic right now becouse this is sooo odd it makes no sence. I have been playing mmorpg for a long time so when it comes to war and guard its soo odd that they can not tank in this game at all...Why!!?? i know in any other game the war can tank and it can dps but why in this game can the war not tank at all we have the heavy armor and the hp to tank but we cant tank its like the war class is brocken becouse it cant tank for raids and stuff. as for guardion they like palidons so in short they should be able to tank by self-healing and they have the armor for it so why cant they tank at all also its one of the things that makes the game feel verry off for any old time mmorpg players. I know your about to say becouse the mes can do it better but that is not a good resoning for why the 2 most known class in all of gameing cant tank at all for raids and stuff. in short it feels like the classes were hit just to make the mes supper good everywere but the staples of the mmorpg just get caned for it. so why cant the war and guard tank at all ples explane this to me without useing the words becouse mes is jsut better at everything and that is that i want a real responce for this.

[InsaneQR.7412]

Well Gw2 has no tradotional trinity as you might recall. Thus there is no fixed tank role.

In group content it is decided differently who us the tank. Normally its the one with the highest toughness. In other parts its the one fixated by the boss so a fluent tank so to speak.

 

Warrior and Guard both could do tanking very well.

Guard has many active defenses and a plethra of blocks.

Warr has s a plethra of immunities and dmg mitigation, so passive defenses.

 

Reason why mesmer (or rather chrono) is the go to tank in raids is because they can cover multiple utility roles.

Tank wise i would actually argue that warr and guard are better, but mesmser can cover a full boon support, off healer and tank at the same time and still deal consistent dps and reliable CC (although not that high still good).

The reason why that is the meta is simple to deduce: less support roles needed more dps roles possible.

 

Personally i think Sbreaker would be an awesome Offtank with good CC and dmg while soaking dmg.

And FB would be a sweet quickness boon support tank.

Chrono is just plain out better (i know you didnt want to hear that) but not because its a "better tank" so to speak but because it can handle so many utility roles at once.

[TanksK.4795]

I mean..It makes sense right? I don't know why pink butterfly light armor class has to dominate tank spot...

[steki.1478]

> @"TanksK.4795" said:

> I mean..It makes sense right? I don't know why pink butterfly light armor class has to dominate tank spot...

 

Because it's the most useful class while tanking. Tanks in other games have only that role, mesmer is more versatile in that field since it can support while tanking with no issues.

[Dadnir.5038]

If the mesmer's support could be given outside of a relatively tanky setup, the warrior would probably be used as a tank because banners don't need a specific setup to be usefull.

 

Anyway, any profession can tank, the tools are there for all professions. Mesmers are the one taken because their support is necessary and "optimal".

[Zawn.9647]

because we have mesmers in this game and they are the developer's favorite class - so they "tank/support" in raids while being top notch at PvP, WvW Roaming, stealthing, disengaging, etc :)

[Imperadordf.2687]

That's because Chrono's meta build already includes a lot of defenses. To tank, both warrior and guardian need to take tanky gear, thus sacrificing DPS.

[Belishine.7493]

ok but i still dont understand why the hell the 2 classes that have heavy armor that are made for fighting never tank in this game it makes no sence at all for a light armor class to tank. it just feels like they dont think completly when they made a choice like this.

[steki.1478]

> @"Belishine.7493" said:

> ok but i still dont understand why the hell the 2 classes that have heavy armor that are made for fighting never tank in this game it makes no sence at all for a light armor class to tank. it just feels like they dont think completly when they made a choice like this.

 

They both "tank" in pvp modes. Warr has 10+ seconds of damage imunity and guard has lots of access to blocks. Pvp modes are also more suited for burst damage so you can still do meaningful damage. Structured pve revolves around sustained dps, which you cant afford while using skills and cooldowns on damage mitigation. Both warr and guard are fairly worse supports than chrono in pve as well.

 

Pve doesnt have tank role, it's just a person holding aggro, so the build that loses the least will be the "tank". Since in pve you want supports and damage dealers, you'd want one of the supports to hold aggro since they are tankier than dps. You could easily "tank" on a healer, but due to druid (best buffer/healer in pve) having small radius on some heals/buffs and chrono having lots of active defenses, meta choice for "tanking" is chrono.

[starlinvf.1358]

To unconfuse the OP, the concept pretty simple. Combat in this game isn't focused on Damage soaking....... which is the keystone of Cleric and the Holy Trinity. In that trinity design, the incoming attrition damage scale is pretty linear on both sides. The key difference is that while PCs have a much lower HP pool, the Healer replenishes it. If you were to add up the amount healed on the Tank during a WoW dungeon raid, it could realistically be 2 orders of magnitude higher then their Max HP, and reasonably close to the boss they were all fighting. The Raid boss on the other hand typically won't heal; so their HP pool is massive to compensate.

 

GW2 raids are modeled on a similar principle; except theres 2 key differences. The lethal damage threshold is a lot lower due all the classes having a PvP minded scale of damage. Secondly, we have no reliable targeted healing, While is possible to recreate the Trinity in a team comp, its grossly inefficient and has higher risk factor, even with bunker builds. This problem is what lead to the creation of ChornoTank. Because this game's buildcraft is so flexible, most classes are capable of role compression.... in fact, its the foundation of why open world builds are multifaceted enough to allow support, self sustain and damage functionality to create solo builds. Thats critical to understanding what comes next.....

 

Chorno is inherently a support spec. As a single build, it offers 2 extremely potent boons that effectively double the DPS of the group. Chrono also has a Shield offering 2 blocks on a fairly short cool down, plus a 3rd block on their second weapon set. This is on top of the fact that Mesmer is also a Duelist class at its core, and excels at 1v1 combat with multiple options for damage **avoidance **, can share some of those defenses with Allies, and base line access to a large amount of hard CCs, which are important to most boss fights. Even when speced for damage, their defenses make them practically untouchable. This makes them a perfect candidate for an Evasion Tank, and doesn't cost them their support role functions to be able to take on. By compressing 3 functions (Evasion Tank, Alacrity, Quickness generation), its freed up 1 (sometimes 2) additional party slot for other things. To get Alacrity and Quickness without a Chrono would take a combined effort of a Renegade and a FireBrand. With the Druid doing Healing/Might stacks, thats automatically 3 mandatory builds Per Sub Group, where the Chorno/Druid combo only takes 2.

 

 

If a warrior or guardian were to tank, both would have to give up substantial DPS to support more defensive builds. Since Chrono is already giving up most of its weak damage potential to run Support, thats one more slot that can be dedicated to a high DPS build or Fight specific build. And _its not to say either guard or warrior are incapable of tanking._.... ** theres just not reason to**, when Chrono can do better, does other stuff, and takes less coordination to make work.

 

What Team Comp would you need to have a Guard do tank? Lets assume Firebrand is good at it and generates quickness. So we pair with a Renegade or Chrono for Alacrity. If Firebrand can heal in this fight, we toss out Druid and swap in Soulbeast to keep ranger spirits. Still need a Warrior for Banners, also raises the question of it needs to be might stacker (which takes it from a DPS slot to a Offensive support, losing damage to do so). Thats 4 slots already- 1 non-dps Tank/healer, 2 DPS Support, 1 DPS, and 1 open slot. Double that because warrior might is limited to 5 people, and thats costing 8 slots minimum for the Comp. Those last slots would probably on take a Deadeye, Weaver, or Holosmith as a DPS. If the Warrior tanks, this is still basically the same types of classes, but the Warrior DPS is even lower as the Firebrand still needs healing power investment.

 

With the Chornotank comp, we'll assume 2 Chronos and 2 Druids for the Support roles; druids can also bring 2 additional spirit types to the fight. 1 Warrior for the whole team since banners cover 10 people. Thats just 5 slot for the baseline buffs, **_leaving 5 slots open for any DPS or fight specific build._** You want a "real response" to why this meta came to be? Here it is.

 

Some groups even shave this down further by dropping one druid from the comp.

 

[Belishine.7493]

it still seams like a bad desighn for mes to be a tank and the staple of rpg like war and guard to not tank ever in raids. i could see guard tanking becouse they did add the overhealins makeing a barior for damage medagation. if guard could get this and then add it to the party and have it decay at a slower time then the necros then i could see them tank but this will require a rework or a new elite. i just want to see the war and the guard finaly tank in raids and stuff rather then just the dam mes alll the time.

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"Belishine.7493" said:

> it still seams like a bad desighn for mes to be a tank and the staple of rpg like war and guard to not tank ever in raids. i could see guard tanking becouse they did add the overhealins makeing a barior for damage medagation. if guard could get this and then add it to the party and have it decay at a slower time then the necros then i could see them tank but this will require a rework or a new elite. i just want to see the war and the guard finaly tank in raids and stuff rather then just the dam mes alll the time.

 

Because your brain is stuck in this rigid (and largely incorrect) mind set that trinity mechanics are a foundation of RPGs. They definitely are not. And in fact, didn't really exist as a design pillar prior to MMORPGs and its potato AI behaviors. The closest thing to it would be concept of a front line and back line in party formations, with the front lines physically obstructing movement. Half the RPG video games, and nearly all MMOs ignore collision with friendly units and line of sight concerns..... which is part of the reason why taunt/centralized tanking could even exist, and is actually kind of needed to protect "back line" units.

 

Overhealing in Firebrand isn't meant to be "damage mitigation"; just not like its not for Druid, which also overheals even after the nerf. The numbers they accomplish are a carry mechanism for PUG groups, which are likely not able to avoid damage like a practiced static group. If it was meant to be integral for the design of the boss fight, healers would be under constant pressure and would need better "targeted" spike healing. GW2 healing skills display the exact opposite characteristics, with sustained healing being low value and small AOE, while all external/group burst healing skills have very larger effect areas and long cool downs. We call them Panic Buttons, because these shouldn't be needed except when something goes terribly wrong. The reason for this is every class has access to at least 1 large value self-healing skill that the sustained healing helps compliment. So when group's health is being over taxed, its not just overtaxing the healer, its overtaxing the combined self sustain potential of the whole party..... of which the Tank is actively supposed to mitigate against by keeping key targets occupied. And if thats the intent for this system, then I could call THAT bad design, given theres already a ton of pressure on team comps to meet minimum DPS and CC thresholds, split group requirements, and encounter specific builds to address various mechanics. Our healing mechanics are built completely the wrong way if this was what they were shooting for. Thats kind of the reason WoW Raids go up to 40/50 man groups..... 10 slots is not a lot of room to meet that many build conflicting requirements, without the benefit of heavy role compression.

 

 

 

But then look at how the specs mechanics operate. Firebrand can't tank and heal at the same time, given how their skills work (too bursty, and an active tome monopolizes their attention). Druid isn't even that good of a sustained healer as a skill set, because Staff is heavily conditional on positioning and would have to be BEHIND the tank (the most dangerous places in a boss fight) in order for those skills to function properly. Celestial Avatar is burst healing, and also extremely conditional on when it can be used (ie needs full CA, and has an Cooldown on the transform itself). The skills that avoid this problem are completely passive (water spirit being one of the stronger ones). That leaves Ele and Rev as the 2 classes that could get sustainable healing at a high enough value to act as dedicated healer; yet I rarely see either of them be accused of overhealing.

 

And thats not even BEGINNING to get into the purpose of the Barrier mechanic and Support Scourge. So no... the over healing in most of the support builds is not designed around the idea of damage mitigation as a strategy; its designed around the idea of reversing mistakes (aka getting hit too much) so the party doesn't constantly wipe. Those strong burst heals aren't sustainable either..... often having a minute or more between uses, and often chained in a rotation for their secondary benefits rather then their raw healing. Any straight "only does healing" skills get no real respect in this meta; so much so, that Ventari was augmented with additional support features AFTER it was introduced to the game, and STILL couldn't find a good place in the meta. Chorno Tank was not the reason for that Lack Luster appeal..... its the fact that pure healing is the least valuable aspect of a support build, because most conceptual tank builds (especially ones built on Minstrels stat) can sustain themselves pretty readily.

 

Speaking of which; Overwatch's community had this long drawn out myth that a Support Class needed to have strong healing to be viable. Its also became the center piece argument of Symettra's placement in the roster, as most of her kit excelled at holding a position rather then keeping people alive. Then you have an offensive support like Zenny, whose pretty bad in direct 1v1 combat, but has strong damage and a debuff that can amplify it, making him one of the most dangerous +1s in game. He also has terrible healing, and gets a lot flak for it. And don't even get me started on the whole "Orisas not my tank" thing after she was added.

 

Its as if a game not designed around a rigid 1:1 role requirement that resembles a house of cards, can somehow behave in a way that its design logic allows for. As broken as Chrono is in terms of role compression, we're not the ones relying heavily on a design principle that scales most heavily on DPS, to design the game's "hardest fights". And sadly, we don't have much of a choice until the AI gets smart enough to fight a like a player, rather then a potato playing Rock/Paper/Scissors.

 

[iKeostuKen.2738]

Are you kidding me? if anything warrior needs to be seriously toned down with how much they can actually tank. They dont really have much of any trade off at all while being able to absorb damage, all the while dishing out even more at times on shorter cooldowns then other classes. It has insane access to stability, mobility, high bursts of damage as well as being able to absorb damage from more then 5 people for a decent period of time.

 

People may say, "Well they dont have good ranged options", which doesnt even matter cause when you have stability anda re able to cover long distances in a skill or 2, range doesnt mean much.

 

This is coming from a WvW perspective.

[Scud.5067]

Putting the, ''There are no tanks in GW2 _(but really, there is and its a Mesmer, specifically Chronomancers)''_ spiel aside, I kinda agree with you.

 

It would be nice to see Warriors and Guardians - heck, anyone else - move to be en par with Mesmers, with regards to tanking, in a Raid environment

 

Outside of Raids - see _''There are no tanks in GW2 etc etc ....''_

 

 

However, having no tanks _(kinda, ish ok.. )_ is not 'bad' design. It is a design you don't like. And that's ok. But that doesn't make it 'bad'. Having only one class as a viable tank in a Raid setting? Ok, yeah, we can kinda agree that's 'bad' - for a given value of 'bad'.

 

[Uden Reavstone.3426]

Bunker Guardian and Bunker Ele are both very fun builds that can tank, support, and do some damage and cc (Ele more so than Guardian). They might not be the meta anymore, but nothing says you can only play the meta. I don't.

[Dace.8173]

> @"Belishine.7493" said:

> it still seams like a bad desighn for mes to be a tank and the staple of rpg like war and guard to not tank ever in raids. i could see guard tanking becouse they did add the overhealins makeing a barior for damage medagation. if guard could get this and then add it to the party and have it decay at a slower time then the necros then i could see them tank but this will require a rework or a new elite. i just want to see the war and the guard finaly tank in raids and stuff rather then just the dam mes alll the time.

 

Just because the game design isn't what you are accustomed to doesn't mean it's bad game design. One could also say that because other games restrict tanking to just the heavy armor classes that they have bad game design because they are clearly unimaginative, uninspired, dull, boring, and are just carbon copying games like WoW and Everquest. The issue isn't that they can't tank, it's that people in GW2 want more out of a tank than just tanking, which is what you are basically talking about. The tank tanks the healer heals the DPS DPS etc etc etc. When it comes time to raid most raid parties want more out of the various members of the party than just straight up one role. Mesmer gets picked over Warrior or Guardian not because they can't tank, because they can, but because people who do raids want more out of every member of the team. Thus the key here isn't to make Warrior or Guardian more tanky or better at tanking as you would suggest. The fix would be to move Guardian and Warrior further away from the game design you want them to be stuck to and make give them more to do outside of just tanking.

 

But really the problem is the mindset of the players. People have very rigid ideas about what makes for a good raid party and they don't really deviate from that. Because there is very little deviation from the "perfect and ideal" a lot of professions that are very good at what they do get sidelined in favor of chasing benchmark performance. Just like you have this very rigid idea of who should be good at tanking other players have very rigid ideas of how closely they stick to the highest level of maximum efficiency.

 

However, this is really not a case of bad game design. Warriors and Guardians are fully capable of tanking. They are also fully capable of being and doing other things too. Not being tethered to the Holy Trinity makes it possible for both professions to become so much more than would be allowed for otherwise. This, in turn, will allow future Elites to explore beyond just soaking up damage. It's one of the reasons why this game is so much fun. It's not for everyone but it not being for you doesn't make it bad.

[Oglaf.1074]

Introducing the unholy MMORPG trinity for Raids was one of the biggest mistakes Anet have made with the game. Simple as that.

 

The lack of it was one of the biggest attractions to the game initially for me.

[steki.1478]

> @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> Introducing the unholy MMORPG trinity for Raids was one of the biggest mistakes Anet have made with the game. Simple as that.

>

> The lack of it was one of the biggest attractions to the game initially for me.

 

Ele and guard can heal without elite specs. Warr is also pretty durable to be tank. Elite specs just made supports useful in more fields, and "trinity" would exist regardless of any post core game content.

[Oglaf.1074]

> @"steki.1478" said:

> > @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > Introducing the unholy MMORPG trinity for Raids was one of the biggest mistakes Anet have made with the game. Simple as that.

> >

> > The lack of it was one of the biggest attractions to the game initially for me.

>

> Ele and guard can heal without elite specs. Warr is also pretty durable to be tank. Elite specs just made supports useful in more fields, and "trinity" would exist regardless of any post core game content.

 

That does not a trinity make. All content prior to Raids did not require it.

 

 

[steki.1478]

> @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > @"steki.1478" said:

> > > @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > > Introducing the unholy MMORPG trinity for Raids was one of the biggest mistakes Anet have made with the game. Simple as that.

> > >

> > > The lack of it was one of the biggest attractions to the game initially for me.

> >

> > Ele and guard can heal without elite specs. Warr is also pretty durable to be tank. Elite specs just made supports useful in more fields, and "trinity" would exist regardless of any post core game content.

>

> That does not a trinity make. All content prior to Raids did not require it.

>

>

 

That's because old content is a joke. Bosses would die in 20 seconds at most, without you taking any damage. It also had minimal build diversity since conditions builds were most of the time useless (they barely existed) and not all classes have access to aoe buffs or high burst.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Warriors and Guardians can tank. But there's no reason for them to, since it represents a DPS loss, given the current alternatives.

 

In other games, you only have a narrow set of choices for tanks. In GW2, theoretically any class can control the aggro of the boss while not dying.

[Oglaf.1074]

> @"steki.1478" said:

> > @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > > @"steki.1478" said:

> > > > @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > > > Introducing the unholy MMORPG trinity for Raids was one of the biggest mistakes Anet have made with the game. Simple as that.

> > > >

> > > > The lack of it was one of the biggest attractions to the game initially for me.

> > >

> > > Ele and guard can heal without elite specs. Warr is also pretty durable to be tank. Elite specs just made supports useful in more fields, and "trinity" would exist regardless of any post core game content.

> >

> > That does not a trinity make. All content prior to Raids did not require it.

> >

> >

>

> That's because old content is a joke. Bosses would die in 20 seconds at most, without you taking any damage. It also had minimal build diversity since conditions builds were most of the time useless (they barely existed) and not all classes have access to aoe buffs or high burst.

 

No, even when dungeons was the premiere PvE content there was never any need for the trinity. The game was designed from the ground up to allow such builds but never require them.

 

As I said, it was a biiiiiig selling point of the game.

 

[Belishine.7493]

Soo what i am seeing is that the raid junk is messing this all up becouse they made a trinity for it but with that to be stated no one want to try stuff out of the raw dumed down meta that makes this game soooo boring to play now.

[Oglaf.1074]

> @"Belishine.7493" said:

> Soo what i am seeing is that the raid junk is messing this all up becouse they made a trinity for it but with that to be stated no one want to try stuff out of the raw dumed down meta that makes this game soooo boring to play now.

 

Like the endgame of 99% of MMORPGs indeed.

 

[kasoki.5180]

Most of this topic is about explaining why chronomancer is the "main tank" in this game. So the argument about holy trinity not having any place in this game is simply not true. This game has a pseudo version of holy trinity and this entire topic proves it. Holy trinity is result of specialisation of labour within group content which will always yield better results than every player in the group being an "ok hybrid".

 

Biggest problem with this isn't the fact that a light armored wizard is "main" tank, the problem is that it was never advertised from the beginning as such. Unlike Guardian who was always advertised as "protector" class, mesmer was never advertised as "this will eventually be meta main tank class".

 

Problem with this game is that classes don't have a predictable identity, so if I want to play a certain style, my safest bet is to have one toon of each class. Thats because you don't know what Anet is gonna do with next patches or with next elite specs. Any class can go in any direction, which is both a positive and a negative for this game.