Enlighten me about Tanks that dont tank

Now I don't come down on tankers on my team for not having taunt. I do question why one would roll a tanker...and hang back and let brutes go in (which were all smash built) ..I have seen several times a tanker just sit back scared to be on the front...always going in after the entire team engages.

I am confused to. I only have one Tanker. I thoroughly enjoyed it and believe that my ideal tank should have taunt...should have taunts slotted in aoe dot that allows it (elect armor).

With that in mind I learned how well Tankers truly tank well.

Pre-GR I can understand maybe a tank trying to build towards offensive heavy ..being that no Brutes on blue side yet.

Now in the age of Brutes becoming a Hero, is there really any good reason why one would make a Tanker that is offensive strong? I find it boggling since Tanks are superior in the art of holding mobs on them vs dishing it out vs a Brute.

I figure that kind of player would roll a Brute to play like a Smash face type over a tank... I guess I was wrong. Cause lately all I seem to have seen is scared Tankers in groups for the last two days.

So enlighten me on the other kind of Tankers out there ...maybe I am misjudging the players using them. I found it too strange though to see such a timid tanker more than once...that didn't even bother or was able to keep agro in the teens.

Well, before this whole thread breaks down and we need to end up talking about various BBQ recipes, and about which style of BBQ is better (Dry Rub, duh), I want to break down your post a bit, if that's okay.

There are basically two factors here:

1) Why do some people play wussy Tankers

2) Why do some people build offensive Tankers.

These are two completely distinct issues. My responses:

1a) People sometimes see great high-level Tankers, and think to themselves, "I'd like to take damage like that, I'm gonna roll up a Tanker!" Then they roll up a Tanker, but find that at the low levels, they can't take damage like that high-level one could all by himself. They try, and find themselves dying a lot. This can breed a certain wussiness into them. A Pavlovian response from being beaten to the floor because they don't have the ability to take the punishment as well at the low levels, even though teams tend to expect them too.

Edit -> Since I just saw that you were talking about teen-level Tankers, I think that this might be a big part of it. In the teens, Tankers might be getting the last of the basic armors, but without SOs, they're not as strong as they could be. Meanwhile, enemy attacks are ramping up in damage, so Tankers are seeing a large increase in the damage they are taking.

1b) Some people just can't play Tankers well. This isn't something you or I can change. Some people just don't play certain classes as well as others. But they might still try because they think it's fun.


2) Again this might depend on the person. Some people might want to use a certain powerset hero-side from level 1-50, without needing to switch over, and only Tankers have that set blueside. Others might like the various powersets, but want the higher natural Def/Resistance numbers that Tankers get from their powers, and don't mind doing a little less damage. Other people will realize that attacking generates aggro, and so want to focus on that way of generating Threat. There are many different reasons for wanting to play a heavy-assault Scrapper. Each person is likely to have a slightly different reason.

Enlighten me as to why all controller AoE immobilize powers must be used from melee range. Or why that defender chose to use an attack rather than heal me.

(I'm hoping for Ice/Ice on Scrappers, and playing Tankers pre-SOs taught me that not being glued to the green numbers vs. full spawns is certain faceplant.

But don't let this "but battlestars and Star Destroyers don't - " post stop the discussion!

... I don't like barbecues. Meatlovers' pizza, please!)

Keep in mind that there's a difference between an 'offense strong' tank and a timid tank. Being offensively capable does not preclude actually doing your tanking job - tanking is much, much more a mindset than a build. I personally run a shield/mace with damage bonuses out the wazoo and a ton of AoE attacks, but I still am first in, last out, and taunting the heck out of everything (by hitting it with my mace or shield, more often than not ).

Timid tanks that hang back and don't do their job are more than likely just sub-par players. You find those on all ATs, they just tend to be more noticeable for tanks, I think, because of how visible a role tanks usually have.

On the other hand, if you're still at low levels, a lot of tanks aren't really capable of truly *tanking* yet. Invul doesn't even get its taunt aura until 16, taunt durations in general suck at low levels, and most tanks aren't tough enough to take on entire spawns yet without more slots and SOs in their powers. While I still think a tank shouldn't be going in *last*, in the teens or earlier it's a lot easier to forgive them for being a bit hesitant.

Tanks that don't have Taunt and Tanks that don't go in first, lead the Team and try to get the Aggro are two different things.

There are many Sets that don't need Taunt to get and hold Aggro if the Tank attacks first. /Fire with SD/ or Inv/ for Example. Why not slot them for more Damage if they are able to do this and don't sacrifie their Survivability. Some of these Tanks can dish out more Damage than many others on the Team will do SD/ and Fire/ are supposed to Tank and do Damage.

If a Tank doesn't tank....maybe he has a worse Build or is Build for Soloing or is a Chicken, don't know, but he should play another Class or doesn't join Teams in which the PPL need a real MT.

Fireball > Taunt

I really wanted some enlightenment on it , and didn't want to assume they just sucked. Maybe there was a good reason I didn't know.

Also my only Tanker experience was a mace/elec. And in GR I was holding agro like a champ..first used that aoe dot aura slotted with taunt...once I actually got the taunt skill... I was very heavy in def with like 1 attack =) (minus sands,brawl) at the time. So because of my only experience I didn't want to misjudge my latest experiences with Tankers.

I am starting to think my gut feeling about them was on the money. Just sub par players.

Most of them minus one guy I recall didn't go in first at all. I was forced to on my Brute (Which specifically says Smash Built in note) on every fight. Due to I didn't want my squishy team mates to get Alpha. I could not hold mass agro well though =\. I felt bad to. And angry at the Tanker for not even being a "tank".

Seeing this happen several times with several differ teams...I started to wonder am I misjudging these Tankers....but I guess I am not...they were mostly just poor players.

*villain only player here- reason so ignorant to Tankers*

All Tanks should mitigate damage.

Not all Tanks use Taunt to mitigate damage.

A dead enemy does Zero damage.

If you build a tanker who can take lots of damage but not dish any out (because you skipped high-damage attacks in favor of redundant mitigation), you are DOING IT WRONG.

If you build a tanker who forgoes important defense powers in favor of more damage, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

If you roll a tanker but don't have the balls to direct your imaginary character into a room full of imaginary monsters before your imaginary friends go first, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.



Anyway...



There is a certain kind of gamer who make good tanks. We like to go first and enjoy the rush of almost dying. /Actually/ dying makes us go RAWR and want to go back for more.

Other people shuffle back and forth at the entrance to the room and go "But what if I die?"

What I see happening there is that the tankers are wanting you to go in first on a brute, one to probably take the alpha in the teen levels, the other to allow you to generate high fury before they go in, take aggro and "gimp" your fury generation.

It maybe a case of Tankers letting Brutes have initial aggro to ensure that those Brutes get a good fury bar. There was a lil tiff about a Brute wanting to take an alpha instead of a Tanker on the ITF ages ago and I think a Dev agreed it would be good to let the Brute go first. Brutes need to lead in DPS.

I don't see a hard rule, you've got to weigh up whether its suicidal for the Brute or not. Just as a Tanker don't be too long behind unless some team mates still need help.

I have seen Brutes hide behind my Dominator. I get dissappointed in this because I expect Brutes to do one thing properly and that's be insanely fearless.

The ability to play a blueside Brute is relatively recent. Scratch that, extremely recent. Thus, if you thematically wanted to play a comic book brick type, and wanted to be a hero, you were a Tanker. Lots of comic book bricks don't tank, they wade into combat and pummel things until they run out of things to pummel. Thus, lots of players interested in playing comic book brick types blueside play Tankers who don't tank, they just wade into combat and pummel things until they run out of things to pummel. It's gonna take time for the existing population of non-tanking Tankers to wear down and slowly convert to the far more satisfying non-tanking blueside Brutes.

In the mean time, don't invite a Tanker assuming he can or will tank for you. He'll probably soak up some aggro no matter what, but he's still reasonably likely to have no serious interest in tanking. Over time, this will likely change, but for now, we have a bunch of people out there playing Tankers for reasons that have nothing to do with what the AT does really well and everything to do with what AT fits (or at least used to fit) the comic book image of who they wanted to play best.

There's nothing wrong with telling a Tanker who doesn't want to tank that you really want somebody who will put forth a serious and effective effort to control aggro, and that if he cannot or will not do so, he's really not who and what you need in your group. There's also nothing wrong with just bringing him along for the ride, Tanker damage isn't really that bad, after all, and like I said, even if he isn't trying to tank, he's probably going to soak up a good bit of aggro regardless.

I can't see any reason to play a non-tanking Tanker any more beyond inertia. You have time and Inf invested in making the character as close to your chosen image as possible, and don't want to scrap it to start over from level 1. For fresh, newly made Tankers, this holds rather little water, IMHO. Maybe I'm just deluding myself, though. Personally, the only thing I can see that a Tanker does better than a Brute is tank, so if you don't want to tank, roll a blueside Brute instead. Well, that and Ice Armor, anyway. Not holding my breath on that one.

For the first part, I'm going to give the Tanker the benefit of the doubt and say that, as Aett noted up above, the level might be a key issue...

Enhancements: Most Tankers in their teens are likely using DOs and probably can't afford too many of those without a sugar daddy or market pvp. These don't give much in the way of effective bonuses, so the character may be pretty weak.

Defensive Primaries: Levelling a defense-focused Tanker early on is just a nightmare, because you can't get enough defense for it to be useful. Everything hits quite often and hits for full squishy-equivalent damage. Cascading defense failure is also a problem. It's just an ugly ride at the start.

Resistance Primaries: Even with resistance-based primaries, you can run into a situation where you've got maybe 20% resistance to a damage type at that level (possibly even none). That means 80% of incoming damage gets through and Gauntlet keeps drawing aggro. You've got more hp than anyone else, sure, but you're going to go through it fast under those conditions.

Endurance: Pre-Stamina, tanking is often more about endurance than damage. It's really easy to floor your blue bar without quality enhancements and recovery boosts.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy: If you've ever gone on a faceplant cycle with an early-level tank, you don't want to do it again. Especially if you're used to seeing fully-developed Tankers laughing in the face of, well, everything. You may delete the toon outright. You may hang back and let others do the dirty work. Either way, it may take a bit for them to get on track.

Told Not to Tank: Ever been on one of those bossy teams? None of us would ever be that bossy, I'm sure. Still, they're out there. Could be another Tanker told them to hang back because they died too often. Could be a Controller who wanted to show them how unnecessary Tankers were. Could be a squishy who liked to throw AOE damage early and demanded protection. Could be lots of things, but they might've been brought up in less than ideal circumstances.

Never Learned: New Tanker, new to tanking. Whether you're new to the game or just used to someone else taking the alpha (assuming a willing sacrifice exists), they just might not have the hang of it yet.

I remember my ice tank. To these people who think tank=attack, they are going think I'm really boring.

I didn't get a second attack until level 22.

But putting all my abilities into taunting and being indestructable was really fun! I could just hop into a mob and read a book! They couldn't do anything to me.

This allowed me one time to hold 2 mobs of Lt Freakshow. It was horrifying and my team kept dying, get back up, and then died again. Meanwhile.... I'm at my max taunt, surrounded by Lts and they can't do a thing to me!

Extremely rewarding experience!

Tanking is fun, for me at least. But I can see how just standing in mob doing very little for hours can be rather boring to some.

I hope you're kidding. Ya know, if you had taken some attacks, maybe you could have taken advantage of your indestructibility to whittle down the number of foes a bit so that there weren't extras to spill over onto your teammates? Being a tank is not simply about surviving everything. Survival is a means to an end, and that end is protecting your teammates. If your teammates died, it doesn't matter if you lived. You failed. Now, everyone fails sometimes, but it's not something to be proud of.

All of my Tankers have attacks, even my Stone/Stone. My Ice/SS is an aggro magnet, but I can also dish out some damage. I couldn't play a toon without attacks no matter how survivable, it would bore me to tears.

I did, however, see something odd that made me sad involving a Tanker. This one had Concealment, Teleport and Medicine. We were running +4 and zoned in to an outdoor map with blinkies and got ambushed, resulting in a couple of dead squishies. Questions arose as to where the tank was, look at the map and he's bouncing all around. A nudge by the team leader to kick and he says "I was looking for glowies". I believe he also proclaimed he was a "healer".

I'd say that this thread is filled with perfect advice Tanks at the start are squishy as anything and really can't be relied upon to absorb any alpha whatsoever in a decent team. They just don't have the hp, the resistance or the defence for it. At the early pre SO levels it's really a team's responsibility to take a bit of aggro each at the start and get as much control and debuff out there as possible before the tank takes over. If the tank just wades in he falls flat on his face. Possibly if the tank invests all his slots into his primary and then has full DOs in them so it is the equivalent of SOs he might survive but that is, to me, extremely suboptimal.

At 22, the tank's survivability increases exponentially. Then it's about time that a decently built tank can take full aggro and hold it comfortably long enough without eating dirt.

For me, the magic mark on all my builds seems to be 40 or so. At 40 there's a full attack chain with all the goodies, there's all the defences slotted completely, and there's tough and weave. At 40 your Tank becomes a God/Goddess and the rest of the team are just there as filler! ahem Wade through your +4 TF @ 8 players and watch your enemies' feeble and embarassing attempts at bringing you down! *sighs whistfully*

The road to getting there can be rough at the start.

Like everyone said, the first one is they just get their ***** kicked constantly, either because they built wrong or don't have good team support, so they're timid about jumping in first.

As for the second one, I'm not sure there's a good gameplay reason now that going rogue's out. You can play all the tanker sets on brutes, so powersets isn't a good reason anymore (aside from characters already built), and if you're doing damage those extra defenses don't mean too much. And if they build themselves up to have super duper defenses then...well...they're basically a tank using punchvoke to taunt anyway.