Are tanks the most expensive and skill needed role?

Idi0ticGenius · August 2016

From majority of my time queueing up in IMS, i've encountered a lot more people struggling to tank than healing or DPS.

Tank's role puts you at the edge of the cliff. Sometimes you are walking on a glass bridge, where you do not know what would happen next. If you mess up, the whole party can go down unless you have an off-tank available or the team is skilled enoigh to stall some time. While it seems the easiest role bow, i've seen many people boast about how easy it looked for them, only to try it out and fail miserably, blaming on their lack of familiarity in class regardless of how long they've spent playing it-- that means it is not easy in anyway.

Healers are also same in terms of being deifficult to get skilled. But, although healers have many things to take care of, their main jobs are to heal and cleanse when needed.

Healer's priority goes
1. Self survival
2. Tank survival
3. DPS survival
4. Buff and Debuff

Exceptions apply when there are mechanics and such but that is the general priority if the healer is not yet skilled. If the healer is skilled, they rarely have problem in self survival, buffs and debuffs are always in check.

As i've played all three roles, i understand each of their difficulties. However, you cannot just immediately scale that a role is much more difficult than the other. Each roles have their difficulty of their own, and it also depends on the player as well.

Just because i've played this game for 2 years doesnt mean i can immediately clear a new dungeon. Just because i've cleared all dungeon in the game doesnt mean i am good at the game. Just because i've cleared a dungeon 100times as tank doesnt necessarily mean i can do the same as healer or dps. Just because i've palyed preist for a year doesnt mean i can play mystic as efficiently. You may have some knowledge to certain things prior, but familiarity is completely deifferent thing.

The point is that the major thing about this "difficulty" just depend on how familiar you are with the dungeon, class, and the game itself. In the end, it just take a but of time, effort, and practice.

WilLegend · August 2016

Its true without effort every class gets harder, my only fear about roll a tank is that with the high cost for gears. I think that I will stuck in a mid - low tier gear and will stay only running dfnm for months lol

Idi0ticGenius · August 2016

People commonly fear that tanks always require VM chest due to 4dmg reduction, but you really dont need them. Most contents are scaled based on mid tier gears, including highest top tier content. There have been proofs that even for tanks, mid tier gear is all you need for the most part while VM just gives you extra safety net-- which sometimes doesnt really help much anyways.

You don't have to gear up to BiS or past BiS to play tank. Mid tier gear is more than enough to go through all contents imo.

5H96Y49G6D · August 2016

human error

bis gear is to reduce the occurrence of that aka skip gimmicks

something all parties would appreciate.

Ketoth · August 2016

Just leaving this here:

A dedicated DPS mystic is the most expensive class to gear.

Yamazuki · August 2016

Draqsko wrote: »

Yamazuki wrote: »

feazeshero wrote: »

Yamazuki wrote: »

Tanking is not inherently expensive. It depends on your goals. A min-maxer for example would want to get the BiS gear whether they are a Brawler of Lancer. However, it all changes when you are not one. Brawler should still go for BiS weapon since they are a frontal dps, on the other hand a Lancer can save gold/resources by going with a lower tier weapon due to being able to generate far more aggro than Brawler and being a utility focused tank. The same is true for healers, it depends on whether a person min-maxes, or not. A min-maxer will still spend a lot, but for the average person they don't have to invest much in gear beyond having it for a safety net in case of a mistake. The 'lack' of tanks is actually normal. The only way to get people to play tanks is by making them op. It is the same for healers, the reason there had been a lot of them recently is because Mystic was over buffed, and people made or switched to their Mystic. This is how it was when Brawler was released, it was op so there were tanks around for a while. The tank has responsibilities, and when they are doing bad it is easily noticed. Where as you won't know a dps is doing bad, especially if they aren't dying unless you're using a meter or if there are dps checks and the group fails to pass the dps check (although that usually means all the dps did bad). This makes tanking less appealing, in addition to the fact people generally like seeing big numbers which is why people liked Brawler. People don't like "supporting", and they certainly don't like to in pug groups. Most tanks and healers that are skilled have their own groups to play with to avoid the issues.

Zoknahal wrote: »

Lancer = Fancy tanking. Requires actual skill to be a good lancer, and depends a lot on low ping to play at its best unfortunately.

Brawler = Roll your face on your keyboard, and you all good.

In my experience, the only hard thing about Brawler is Growing Fury maintenance. Lancer however, you need to manage Resolve, which with the latest change to Backstep, that drains almost half of your Resolve, is harder to manage. If you find yourself spamming the Backstep button, you are gonna be in a lot of trouble. Also, Lancers are pros at eating mana at incredible speed.

Also, for an unpopular opinion, Lancer is not harder to play than Brawler. Most of the things that make Lancer "ping dependent" apply to Brawler. Lancer is also safer than Brawler due to being able to iframe multiple times without relying on a reset (Brawler's passive that prevents death also doesn't trigger off some mechanics). People also like acting like managing resolve takes talent when it's nearly impossible to run out of resolve in PvE and managing your rage on Brawler to keep up to 100% Growing Fury (When boss allows it) takes far more effort than managing resolve that generates easily. Brawler also has to be active at all times to do the most damage they can, Lancer on the other hand can half [filtered] the damage portion and just keep debuffs up and buffs when necessary and their job is done. It's also easier to tank as Lancer when attacks completely bleed through block than Brawler, considering I did SSHM as both with poor defense. Also, Brawler eats mana quicker than Lancer.

If anyone actually played both classes frequently they would know this. Brawler was popular strictly due to how over powered it was, not because of how "face roll" the class was in PvE. Otherwise, why were there a million complaints of all the bad Brawlers? A class that is face roll and plays itself would be impossible to fail on.

Although it was amusing seeing the countless people that claimed the class was faceroll and so easy to play, especially when it was a Lancer, completely fail to play Brawler.

I hate to say this but I have to disagree with what you mention brawler going for BIS while lancer going for low tiered. Lancer is still in the same department and is always best to go for BIS gear. Sure they can still tank in mid tier gear but to fully unlock the best, it's best to go BIS just like brawler. It's like saying oh lancer doesn't need BIS.

Everyone thinks that lancer can support and all this stuff, which is true but they are also a frontal dps as well. Lancer isn't all about keeping aggro but to add to it, they do really well in damage. Healers can get away with it since they're much different where tanks really need certain gear to be able to keep up with skilled dps in the party. But for sure the person playing behind lancer requires a really good skill to master the class unlike brawler. The only issue I see as brawler is managing growing fury can be difficult and if they can't keep that up, lancer usually wins that battle easily. Right now high score runs are with lancers where brawler can beat just by a margin if things are perfect. And I think it's harder to position a boss as brawler than it is on lancer.

Managing resolve on lancer can be tricky for a new person but it's not that hard honestly once it's figured out. The only issue where I had that problem is maybe during a dfhm 1st boss if someone doesn't do their job at sorcerer or if 1st boss in sshm aim blue laser at me 4 times in a row? The key is to keep attacking and get resolve back quicker and also glyph the backstep.

If you're not a min-maxer then you don't need BiS as you will never lose aggro even with a lower tier weapon, you just need enough defense to not lose all your HP through blocks. Not everyone who plays Tera cares about min-maxing, but I suppose that is a difficult thing for people to understand for some reason. No one even ever says why Lancer is "harder" than Brawler beyond saying it's not a new class, and nor do they even perform well on Brawler in most cases. Due to changes Lancer has received they are much easier to play than they originally were, something else people seem to refuse to accept as well.

As a lancer, you want the best weapon you can get because the damage absorbed by your Stand Fast skill is directly tied to your WEAPON not armor. As a lancer, if you are good with blocking, you can get away with a lower tier armor however you absolutely need the best weapon so your block doesn't get blown through during a boss attack sequence.

Have you even looked at the absorption between Slaughter Lance/Fist, and Imperator Lance/Fist? Your defense and rolls on chest will play a big roll on whether attacks in say SSHM will go through your block or not, simply putting on Imperator Lance/Fists and saying "Screw my defense and defensive rolls" will not do anything. Your mentality is why people ended up complaining about attacks ripping through block while they all had sub optimal rolls/low defense even though slaughter properly set up was enough to stop the issue.

Jaegerberry · August 2016

As a healer, I can say as I'm sure many can, We heal carry ALOT. I've played with all types of tanks, currently I run with a +15 Gen Warrior Tank. Talk about Old School?

Sometimes though, I am hated by the gods and am given a newbie tank. This tank who has almost always solo'd his way to 65 gets into DFHM and thinks "I'm god tank..." Has to be heal carried by yours truly. Healers get the crappy end of the stick for sure. That tank now looks like a God because he was heal carried, while I suck because my cleanse missed the sorc who decided to tele out of it.
-_-

I do feel however, there are more experienced Healers than Tanks. For a while there, if you didn't know a good tank to play with, good luck finding one. Now with the brawler it seems there's more a balance. Doesn't mean the brawler tanks are good by any means.

I have full +15 Starfall, did I need it? No. It's a luxury for a priest. You don't have to have BiS gear. Most of us are rocking old jewels because it's better for healing. It's up to you.

Brawler you can get away with Slaughter and still hold aggro. Just play, and play well. Don't be a baddie.

Are tanks the most expensive and skill needed role?

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