papakami wrote:Ryan -
Answer this question: What is the single most important way a tank can be a "good tank". I'm not looking for a list here of all the abilities a tank can bring... just the single most important one. You know - the one that is mandatory per your own words.
Any response that is not "guard" - is an ignorant response. It is the single most important, most powerful, most fundamental ability the tank brings to the group. It is the defining ability of that archetype.
Now - once you're done trying to argue silliness and arrive at Guard. What does guard do? Redirects damage.
To straw-man the OP into saying this main objective is incorrect, and argue that a tank does "so much more", is exactly that. A straw man argument. The OP is not stating this is the ONLY thing a tank does. Just the MAIN thing.
The CA comment was made to a CA member. You yet again demonstrate a failure to read so you have linked it to someone else and made a lolwtf comment on it. Try reading first.
Try naming people first. In this case you have; smartly enough, but the times before I had to guess and sift through your posts again just to see to whom you were referring (and usually that still clears up nothing). I didn't even know you were referring to me with your initial l2read comment. I read well enough; you're stating certain things awfully.
All this talk of "OP this and OP that" is admirable, but it helps if you actually call people by their name as displayed on the forums. You're not on one of the chans, here.
Single most important way to be a "good tank"? Use guard
EFFECTIVELY. See how I differ the inherent use of the ability from the actual skill involved in using it in the most effective way possible? Guard requires more than simply activating it; it requires you to be mindful of your guard range, your positioning to not get punted out of that, and to swap guard to the correct target when pressure shifts. A good tank does not only use guard, he knows how guard works for and against him in every situation. Their main objective is thus to be a proper tank, NOT activate one ability and do /follow on the MA while jerking off. If you consider me to have completed my main objective by selecting a party member and clicking guard, while I spend most of the time nowhere near my guarded target/nor switch to a party target that is, how am I benefiting ANYONE?
One more thing; what the **** are we using the term redirect for? It seems more logical to use the Guard tooltip's definition of SPLITTING damage. It's an inherently flawed phrase too, since a tank is able to soak up more damage with block + parry than the person whose damage he's splitting off to himself, but redirect is a term used for URLs.
