[Review] [Tank] Focused Offense

[Eathisword]

Damn... A tank discussion !

Anything above 15% increase damage is too much.
I'll give myself as an example : outdamaging pug is trivialy easy as a dps IB (pug play should matter somewhat imo). Outdamaging premade is doable (depends on the premade), without FO, without GWM, without Raze. None of that. I have SS outdamaging, outkilling double mara premade, BW, sorc, SH. And IB arent even the top damage dealing tank. Or to put it in other words, in a solid premade a good dps tank can already dish out 70-80% of a true dps damage. Adding more than 15% would put em over the top.

Anything 15% or below is useless, as for tank that rally want to focus on damage, you get GWM for 10% damage 5% parry.

Hence, I don't think keeping the +damage part of the tactic has any point. Once a suitable idea for the ''buff'' part of the tactic is agreed upon, a suitable downside can be think of.

I like the +strikethrough idea. Although some tank already have one with no downside so they wouldn't benefit from that at all. Other tanks have a +crit tactic (BO, IB, SM, BG) so crit wouldn't be much use to them.

So for me, I think a suitable option, that no tank have, would be something like the Rdps/mdps tactic :
+X WS +X strength with an equivalent toughness reduction. Kinda like Fighting Chance and such.

I understand OP's idea to give the tank a debuff that is at the core of the mechanic, like guard, to mirror dsp healer. But in truth, dps healer like WP/dok benefit a lot from DF tactic in their melee healing output, so losing 20% casted healing output doesn't really affect them much. So it is not equivalent at all to a guard reduction, which would cripple a tank's ability to be useful.

My 2 cents to take with a grain of saltyness !

[GodlessCrom]

Doesn't +str/ws kindof just equal a percentage damage increase though? I mean you're increasing the damage you output, and it's by a set amount, it's just not written as a percentage. Otherwise I agree with everything you said, and I think the -toughness debuff is a good way to balance the tactic (blaqwar brought up something similar).

[Penril]

A DPS Dok/WP can still heal themselves just fine (Rend Soul worked the same even in .ab ex, right?).

A DPS Zealot/RP can switch his Harbinger and heal. Yeah, he gets hit by Divine Fury, but he can still heal.

.ab ex DPS AM/Shaman have great Lifetaps.

A Tank that uses FO can only focus on DPS. They will need guard from someone else, and they don't even have detaunts.

[porkstar]

As Porkstar mentioned, people already ran/run 1 SnB 1 2H, or even 2 SnB 1 2H comps.
IBs can remain really tanky despite going for the 2H build.

He said they ran that on live. Which probably has something to do with crazy gear stats (again). Offensive Warpforged for example.

Let's keep the "well, on live..." posts out of this thread please.

You're right and it wasn't intended as such. I don't have the ability to get this comp together in RoR or even 6 people to play with for that matter. Can't say 100% it's still viable in RoR but it would seem to be. Maybe melee train meta needs a buff in RoR? I'm not sure I guess. I'll just say tread carefully with this tactic. Tanks do good dmg in RoR.

[Penril]

Isn't this the "Age of rDPS"? It certainly is in RvR.

[zumos2]

Isn't this the "Age of rDPS"? It certainly is in RvR.

Spoiler:

I would say this is a bit off-topic, but the moderator asked the question himself soo

Do you mean roaming groups? Because large scale bombing will always be melee focused. And the reason most roaming groups are ranged is not necesarrily because it is stronger, but because it fits the playstyle of roaming. It is much easier to disengage when enemy reinforcements arrive while if you engage with a melee group you generally are stuck in the fight until you kill em all or die. And in scenarios melee groups will generally win the objective because they can "push" the ranged away.

[Eathisword]

Doesn't +str/ws kindof just equal a percentage damage increase though? I mean you're increasing the damage you output, and it's by a set amount, it's just not written as a percentage. Otherwise I agree with everything you said, and I think the -toughness debuff is a good way to balance the tactic (blaqwar brought up something similar).

It does, and it doesn't. The lower your existing damage output is (low strength), the more you would benefit from a +stat tactic compared to a +damage tactic. As extreme, if you hit for 1 damage, a 15% damage increase would give you nothing. If you hit for 1000 damage, a 15% increase puts you at 1150. So the more offense you have the more you benefit. And that kind of tactic would become more and more strong damage wise as the gear progress and weapon dps get higher. You hit harder, and the tactic benefits you more. It's part of the power-creeping problem. Hence the multiple reference about live : RR100 2h had a dps value of +120. Then you could easily softcap strength. So adding 15% damage to that was HUGE.

With stats, it allows you to be more in the middle. As, if you already have 1050 strength, adding 150 more will be negligible as you will softcap. Below that, it will add a fix 1 dps bonus for every 5/10 points added (ability/auto-attack).

All in all, a stats increase would let tank have more option for gear, talisman, potions and buff, than a flat +damage. It would not let the top damage tank do more. But it would give them more options and become a viable tactic choice depending on what the drawback is.

And let's not kid ourselves anyway, as Gerv pointed out, any change to this tactic would mostly be irrelevant as most tank are already clogged up with necessary tactic, that benefits their group a lot and cant really be switched out.

[GodlessCrom]

I'm not a competitive six-manner, so maybe peterpan could weigh in on it, but it certainly seems like rdps are becoming more and more meta. Certainly they're far easier to play than melee classes, and sorc/BW are the highest dmg class in the game in addition to being the simplest.

Also thanks for the explanation Volgo. It makes sense.

And a couple people have suggested -Toughness debuff instead of -armor. Does anyone know how much Toughness impacts the damage you take relative to armor? I.e. how much toughness should tanks, on average, lose to justify a str/ws buff, or a % dmg buff? And how does that compare to armor debuff? Obviously Toughness impacts all damage, not just phys, so could perhaps make 2h tanks even squishier when engaged by BW/Sorc/Magus (which already melt them)?

[porkstar]

I think the tactic is fundamentally flawed in that it provides a buff for one source (the tank) while debuffing the tank vs all opposing forces which would seem impossible to balance given almost infinite scenarios. Is there a way to buff the tank dmg (one source) and debuff the tank vs minimal sources such as -X% less healing received or the FO tank's guard radius is decreased (I know its already small D=) ?

Or maybe provide a buff for multiple sources (group) +X% dmg and debuff the tank -X% healing received.

[anarchypark]

my english is not good, patience plz
i'm worried about DPS tank will take over MDPS role

1. damage
15% dmg is not a joke
tank can perma snare, stick to the target
debuff & cc are bonuses that DPS don't have

DPS's cc are mostly escape plan, their snare have long CD, have to use it on right moment
now imagine MDPS having all the tanks cc

2. armor
most tanks have 4k+ armor, with FO it's 2600+
it's in the medium armor range, mdps range
despite their armor in same lvl, utility and cc make their dps can't be in same lvl

3. -toughness instead of -armor
tank have 160 toughness tactic
you need 2 tactic slots, still 4k armor + 15% dmg is a lot

4. tanky mdps
some mdps stack armor and parry
there are tank, DPS tank, tanky mdps, mdps
if DPS tank with FO would cover role of mdps area, mdps might need something like Focused Defence

5. guard mechanic
DPS tank often don't care where their guarded target is
cuz running around to endangered ally means your dps is wasted
honestly you don't play dps tank for guard job, with FO? even less
preventing guard mechanic means little here

my conclusion
current FO makes you mdps, comes with both pros and cons of mdps
you can't have both cc and damage
if you really want to reduce -33% armor, simply give up some dmg %