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So now I’ve had the time to collect my thoughts, it’s about time we discussed the recently revealed Tank Archetype for Ashes of Creation.
I have alot of opinions about tanking because it is a very important role in group content.
Today we discuss the Archetype itself, the threat mechanics, the mace gameplay and active blocking.
As this is a feedback video I want to encourage you all to plaese give your feedback below. Steven and the team do read your comments so now is the perfect time to have your voice be heard.
If you want to discuss the tank or just Ashes of Creation further, why not come join our discord community of MMORPG boomers and zoomers desperately waiting for this game that quite litterally, does exist: https://discord.gg/muwNp8NhbB
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As this is a feedback video I want to encourage you all to please give your feedback below. Steven and the team do read your comments (my condolences) so now is the perfect time to have your voice be heard.
If you want to discuss the tank or just Ashes of Creation further, why not come join our discord community of MMORPG boomers and zoomers desperately waiting for this game that quite litterally, doesn't exist: https://discord.gg/muwNp8NhbB
I agree with narcs ideas. Both on taunt and blocking.
Making aggro management should be a more involved mechanic. NOT to the degree that a tank can't hold aggro on the same focus target but potentially on offtargets.
So making taunt a player combo is a good idea. The DPS has an ability that makes a mob skittish. This ability should be under gcd but basically have no or a very low cooldown. The DPS's ability should NOT require to target the mob because that can be a total shitshow when a lot of characters are on screen. BUT íf the dps actively targets the mob the range of the ability should increase to the normal attack range of the rest of abilites so that more skilled groups have ability to apply taunt before the mob is half across the room. The debuf of skittish should also not last longer than 10 seconds.
The tanks abilities to distract SHOULD require to target the mob.
I could even so that these 2 debuffs combined would even work in pvp. If a player is taunted the target is being switched to the tank and the taunted players hit chance is reduced by like 66%. A player can only be taunted every 2 minutes or so and the taunt debuff lasts for 5-10 seconds. The hit rate reduction applies to all targets other than the tank and a tank player can never apply the skittish debuff on another player therefore not benefit from a taunt themselves.
I enjoy threat management too, but i disagree with you. Taunt as a panic button is perfectly fine. one.
two, you can't juggle agroo between two tanks without a hard taunt. Juggling agroo between tanks for mechanics is half the fun.
No Narc it's not enough because we dont have any idea of the global kit and all the other types of tanks, boss and raid mechanics. Its a start but definitively not enough
Active blocking shouldn't be punished via stamina – it should be rewarded.
I think every time you successfully actively block you should get rage (or whatever ashes equivalent) – that you can spend on damage. However, every second you're actively blocking you're losing dps – so it incentives timing blocks for big hits and going back to damage.
Game looks promising!
I still have no idea what the drama was about, sounds to me like Narc was the only one being dramatic here.
Cant build threat when blocking. Over blocking will lead to wiping due to losing aggro.
My concern – that you jokingly touched upon – is that all the tank abilities are Action Combat.
There's no tab abilities or soft tracking. So more and more it's moving full action combat rather than hybrid.
I'll pay Action Combat, but they need to stop calling it hybrid combat when it's clearly not what it is.
Diminishing returns on Active Block makes a lot of sense.
I'd be interested to see if passive threat generation can be gained through the class passive system, or if that's what they intend.
If you can combine classes like they propose, any class could tank this way.
A mage/tank hybrid generating threat through class perks, for example.
i cant let you keep disrespecting bows like this bro
I have my worries about active blocking as well if it stays in the form of pressing the block button as often as you can to reduce incoming damage. It propably could be used as a interesting tank mechanic if ir requires precise timing ans has a significant cost or maybe charges to it. Tanks would then try to block harder hitting styles or when their hp drop and they want to give the healers a chance to catch up. The idea of having active block on any class is something I m not so happy about. Mostly I guess bacause it puts parts of the tanks playstyle on all other classes. If the other classes have some kind of crowd control or can attack from range or let their pets tank they should not need active block. Most of the tank skills were basic but aegis was pretty interesting because it was not just an aoe skill you activate and everyone stays in but something that needs continuous attention from the tank as well as the ones standing in the aegis in terms of movement and damage distribution.
Not sure whether a classic taunt is needed but some kind of measure against people getting agro certainly would be good. Maybe this is just pulling the mobs back to the tank slowing or rooting them and so giving the agroing player time to slow down on threat generation and the tank a better chance to land a few of the threat generating abilities. The suggested skittish/distracted pseudo-taunt ties in nicely with the existing combos but I'd find it more interesting if those emergency skills also had other usages so it is an active choice to play it safe and leave those cds untouched or use them for other benefits.
Love me some good copium.
As a pvp tank main, shit like this gives me a reason to live on.
My fanboying autistic brain was raised in IQ by 115% learning about tanking in video games.
Still think a stamina system would be good specifically for dodging and active blocking. Simple 0 to 100. Stamina would drain slowly when active blocking but takes additional hits the more it actively mitigates damage. Potions, food, tank passives, and some specific augmented Bard & Cleric skills can play a role in stamina regen/restoration, but tanks will still need to manage threat/dps so guarding all day won't be great. Wanna believe every tank-affiliated class has their active block changed in a unique way representative to the class too but that can happen AFTER we find a good direction.
Imagine if Ashes lets you play as Arthas the way WoW never did
Look up Tera Lancer gameplay and just watch they do on the bosses.
You mentioned having not played it and that its shut down so it doesn't matter, But the game had excellent tank design worth looking at. You'll notice immediately that while the Lancer could simply hold block, they do not. They are incredibly aggressive and use properly timed active blocks to achieve "Perfect Defense" triggers.
The way threat works in a world where DPS can actually take it from you, Simply holding block will kill your team. Its a defensive tool to be used at the right time. Much like a Dodge roll, and why i likened it to dodging.
The advantage for a Tank to Block an attack instead of physically moving to avoid it is mob control. You want to keep the mob where it is but also need to neutralize an attack. Blocking it holds the enemy in place where a dodge would disrupt its position to follow you.
Also, Valkyries and Warriors in BDO had Active Blocking too 😛
FFXIV is a terrible example for defensive abilities in an MMO. Boss encounters are made on extremely scripted timers and the cooldowns for DR abilities are matched to those timers.
Its never a choice to use a defensive. There's nothing to "Save" it for. The boss is doing a thing that demands you use one of your cooldowns to survive it.
As long as you don't activate it outside of the explicit "use cooldown now" window, you will always have at least 1 cooldown ready to be used for that tank buster.
Thats boring as hell. Tanks in XIV are nothing more than Blue DPS these days.
Good enemy and boss design is what makes or breaks active blocking.
If you're truly worried about tanks just holding down Block, you can always have all your threat on every mob engaged with you decay by 1% per second you hold the block up.
You'd only be able to hold it for a few seconds before some DPS or a Healer rips hate right off you.
Snap Blocking is the purpose of active blocks. Not turtling. Which fits in with you wanting it to be a timed parry mechanic.
Wonderful video. Agree with almost everything and I think you are probably the BEST of all content creators when it comes to understanding MMORPGs mechanics. Personally, I do think that aggro should be just one skill like a magic spell and should be "OP" with a fail rate that is 20 or 30% at same or lower lvl than the enemy, lower if the enemy is lower, but OP overall. I don't think the DPS should worry about aggro, but they should be very capable of taking aggro away from the tank JUST to make the tank job relevant. Also, the higher DPS in the game needs to be ranged characters, Mage/sorcerer because a meteor shower or powerful magic is more than a sword, also makes sense since they are cloth and glass canons, very weak. The ranged DPS can run away and hit from afar, doing a "tank" job when there is no tank, with a risk, with immobilizing or slowing down skills, helping the party to contribute damage. If the tank has weak aggro, then the party balance and tank role will be broken, aggro needs to be OP on the tank, it's the tank "shine" moment. The defense of the tanks needs to be extremely high but not 100% block with a shield and active shields have the problems mentioned. Needs to be block chance, like an actual RPG. This makes, RPG elements relevant, the tank strong, stats relevant, but also the tank not OP, and gives the healer a purpose, healers need to heal the tank and if the tank is immortal then the mechanics are broken again.
In my opinion, Lineage 2 up to C5 or even Interlude had the BEST tank/party mechanics. This is why I don't agree with people saying "L2 is pvp mmo" it was not, PVE in that game was THE BEST I played in any mmorpg and I played all of them, not Rift but almost all the others.
Add a resolve bar if you wear a shield, you can only block if you have resolve, if you tank blows your resolve bar goes down.
As for the threat mechanic, I would appreciate if support classes like Bard or whatever could make DPS'ers lose threat. Threat can be so important, but can also become so mundane if tanking hits as non-tanks is easy… I agree with you that group play needs to be very hard; if you pull threat you need to die in about two hits. If you pull threat the tank shouldn't just be able to taunt the mob off you. It should require more resources (not just an instant cast every 10sec).
Would be so interesting to play an MMO where threat is one of the most important mechanics and playing most efficiently requires the whole group to work together.
Also, absolutely correct with Black Desert animations, and not just animations, character design in Black Desert is the best too. MMORPGs should take character design from BDO, it is unbeatable.