are tankers still needed?

[jubakumbi]

45 minutes ago, Abraxus said:

And there ya have it! 🙂

If only others could realize we are discussing ideas and opinions, not attacking peoples personal integrity.

I am sure there are things we agree on and and disagree on, as we have discussed, even passionately, but I would prefer to discuss ideas without people twisitng my words into personal attacks...

 

I have always noticed you, @Abraxus, tend toward the same outlook... kumbaya! 🙂

Nothing new, IMO, as most people I have encountered in my life, both physical and virtual, have a very hard time separating a difference of opinion from a personal attack.

I usually try and follow the social mirror philosophy - I try to engage others as they choose to engage me...it's not as if I am unable to clap back... 🙂

 

[jshmoe1236123]

8 minutes ago, jubakumbi said:

If only others could realize we are discussing ideas and opinions, not attacking peoples personal integrity.

I am sure there are things we agree on and and disagree on, as we have discussed, even passionately, but I would prefer to discuss ideas without people twisitng my words into personal attacks...

 

I have always noticed you, @Abraxus, tend toward the same outlook... kumbaya! 🙂

Nothing new, IMO, as most people I have encountered in my life, both physical and virtual, have a very hard time separating a difference of opinion from a personal attack.

I usually try and follow the social mirror philosophy - I try to engage others as they choose to engage me...it's not as if I am unable to clap back... 🙂

 

You two are going to make me cry.... *tear*

[Abraxus]

3 minutes ago, jubakumbi said:

If only others could realize we are discussing ideas and opinions, not attacking peoples personal integrity.

I am sure there are things we agree on and and disagree on, as we have discussed, even passionately, but I would prefer to discuss ideas without people twisitng my words into personal attacks...

 

I have always noticed you, @Abraxus, tend toward the same outlook... kumbaya! 🙂

Nothing new, IMO, as most people I have encountered in my life, both physical and virtual, have a very hard time separating a difference of opinion from a personal attack.

I usually try and follow the social mirror philosophy - I try to engage others as they choose to engage me...it's not as if I am unable to clap back... 🙂

 

There are many reasons for the way that folks engage in discourse, and I have my own ideas/theories on the subject.  But, articulating to any degree would derail this thread to the point of locking, so I won't go there.  Suffice to say that the more passionate a person is on a topic, the more they can feel that opposition is a commentary on them personally.  I always endeavor to disagree diplomatically, when having to disagree, and that works for the most part.  But, not always.  Sometimes, one just has to be the party in a discussion/argument/debate that says "agree to disagree", and politely walks away. 

[Abraxus]

1 minute ago, jshmoe1236123 said:

You two are going to make me cry.... *tear*

Then you are surely an enlightened individual, who can recognizes a good "mutual admiration" vibe when they see one. 😉

[ironjoe]

At the same time I like to ask for team members to help out with some tactics on different missions. For example sometimes people don't like having a stalker on the team. When ever I have one on a team I call out trouble enemies and ask them to make that their priority target and thank them for murdering them quickly. People like when what they are doing gets recognized. That sort of thing occurs most often on level 1-50 content. On 50+ content I always like when someone calls out the tactics to use in the trial so I don't mess things up on accident. I'm still relearning a lot of the higher end stuff and it takes several runs through to get it down for me. With actual herding I have done that when groups want to take on +4 content when the group is below 50. Doing different corner pulls is still highly effective for dismantling different rooms that would cause a wipe otherwise. At higher 50+ it's more about grabbing that agro quickly to clump up the enemies to be knocked down by the team. The challenge I like at that level is finding the rhythm for when to leave that last remnants of a group to gather agro on the next. It's a balance of not leaving behind the team but getting there ahead to get things gathered. I do like keeping the team together for our powers complementing each other but that can also be less necessary at higher levels. Stealthy characters running around doing stealthy things is obviously an exception. That being said it's all dependent on team composition and what people want to do as there is a lot of flexibility between preferred play styles and what works for the team.

[Heraclea]

I am often on a tanker.  It's my AT of choice for soloing new and unknown content.  Whatever it's going to throw at me, a tanker is likelier than anything else to survive it.  It's also a good indication of how team-unfriendly that content is. Alas, a whole lot of the newer material is something you want to experience solo only; more mobs will always be a liability even if you're running it effectively at -2 due to incarnate shifts. 

 

But on a team, I tank.  I will take point if you let me and try to ball up the mobs as best as I am able, with a taunt to the plinkers and standing in the middle of the rest.  If you don't need me for that, or if you want to go solo the team spawns on your own, fine with that too.  You know how to work your characters and what they're capable of better than I am.  Same thing with the controller who wants to immobilize all the mobs first; I figure they have a plan, and how controllers work is a mystery to the gods themselves.  Masterminds want to clog the choke point with pets, that's fine.  MM pets' hit points are even more expendable than mine. 

[Leogunner]

21 hours ago, Abraxus said:

Basically, what I was trying to get across was that, I followed the tank to help him do his job.  The others that decided to go their own way (mainly in the interest of saving a little time), and got killed repeatedly, chose their own fate.  I was not going to try to split my healing abilities between two disparate groups.  I chose the traditional route of following the tank, and kept him, and the main part of the team alive to the best of my ability.  I would have preferred to turn the difficulty up a notch, and have the entire team focused, together, and moving forward, but the lower difficulty level convinced some that they could go it on their own, and they paid for that decision repeatedly.  Nothing right, or wrong.  Not pontificating on anyone's play style.  But, if I am a healer on a team, and you decide to split off from the tank, then you're on your own, because I will be where the meat shield is.  That's all. 

 

However, all that said, if their splitting off in the interest in time was costing the team unnecessary wipes, then I would have had a problem.  Hopefully, explains a little better what I was thinking in my post, and restores your high opinion of me (thanks for that BTW). 

So what you're saying is they would have gotten more mileage out of a bubbler than your healer?

[Abraxus]

4 hours ago, Leogunner said:

So what you're saying is they would have gotten more mileage out of a bubbler than your healer?

Well, this thread was in regards to Tank/Tankers, so I didn't want to go off on a "Healer" tangent.  I will just say that when I play a healer, there was a time when I took the "empathy" part of the job a little too literally.  I felt bad if I couldn't heal well enough to keep everyone alive, no matter what.  Even when the team members made it difficult, or impossible for me to do so.  At some point, when speed became the driving factor for the majority of TF runs, and splitting the team to cover more ground presented me with that scenario increasingly more often, I would end up feeling like I failed in the ONE thing this character was built to do.  Support the team, and help it to succeed. 

However, upon further reflection, I resolved myself to the fact that I was being put in positions where even the best healer in the game couldn't keep everyone alive in the scenarios being presented.  So, in order to have any fun playing this character, I had to make a decision on how to play him in this new reality.  Since following the Tank was no longer the hard, and fast rule it once was for everyone, I decided that would be the figurative line drawn.  I would follow the tank, or the player in the tank role, work diligently to keep that player alive, and all those in close enough proximity to them to benefit from my support.  I would no longer feel responsible for those that went their own way.  They were perfectly free to play however they liked, but to do so was acknowledgment that they considered that pursuit more important than the support I provided, and I would no longer hold myself responsible for them, and so to be a slightly less empathetic empathy healer.  Now, I'm much more contented when playing that character.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Abraxus

[VV]

On 9/20/2019 at 1:52 PM, Heraclea said:

I am often on a tanker.  It's my AT of choice for soloing new and unknown content.  Whatever it's going to throw at me, a tanker is likelier than anything else to survive it.  It's also a good indication of how team-unfriendly that content is. Alas, a whole lot of the newer material is something you want to experience solo only; more mobs will always be a liability even if you're running it effectively at -2 due to incarnate shifts. 

 

But on a team, I tank.  I will take point if you let me and try to ball up the mobs as best as I am able, with a taunt to the plinkers and standing in the middle of the rest.  If you don't need me for that, or if you want to go solo the team spawns on your own, fine with that too.  You know how to work your characters and what they're capable of better than I am.  Same thing with the controller who wants to immobilize all the mobs first; I figure they have a plan, and how controllers work is a mystery to the gods themselves.  Masterminds want to clog the choke point with pets, that's fine.  MM pets' hit points are even more expendable than mine. 

This is my basic policy on my tank. If the team lets me, I will make the run go faster. If they team wants to go crazy, that's cool, too, I'll just do my best to keep everyone alive. I never "wait here" or anything like that, I see it as my job to keep things moving forward as fast as possible, while making life more convenient and more efficient for my teammates. That means as close to zero downtowm between mobs as possible. Or delivery is even better. I do my best to keep things moving just at the upper edge of the team's ability.