The "No damage" tank idea... where the hell is it from?

[ZeeHero]

I've never played a decent mmo where tanks arent expected to do their part in damage. don't think I ever will since tanking is all about holding threat and yes, DOING DAMAGE while not dying!

 

Damage is THE MOST BASIC part of gameplay no enemies will ever be defeated without it. this by logical extension means its the job of every role to an extent, yes even the support. if you're not doing as much damage as you can, you're performing at less than maximum.

 

Why do people think tanks should not damage? this goes against the idea of good performance on any role.

[DSorrow]

My guess is it comes from some of the more traditional MMOs where the roles in a team are much more clear cut. If you're a healer, you heal. If you're a damage dealer, you deal damage. If you're a tank, you tank. Everyone only has one role and that's how the classes are designed. Fortunately CoX and especially CoV ATs are designed to allow overlap into several roles.

[Redlynne]

50 minutes ago, ZeeHero said:

if you're not doing as much damage as you can, you're performing at less than maximum.

So sayeth the elitist jerks who demand gear checks before "allowing" you to join them on a raid, let alone their Guild Super Group.  We're very familiar with the mindset foisted upon us from other games, thanks to the hyper-specialization of roles in the division of labor that they foster in their Players.

 

Here in City of Heroes, we're more like "hold my beer" on this point, because we've got this.

[ZeeHero]

7 minutes ago, Redlynne said:

So sayeth the elitist jerks who demand gear checks before "allowing" you to join them on a raid, let alone their Guild Super Group.  We're very familiar with the mindset foisted upon us from other games, thanks to the hyper-specialization of roles in the division of labor that they foster in their Players.

 

Here in City of Heroes, we're more like "hold my beer" on this point, because we've got this.

I'm not asking for anyone to be required to do damage. I'm asking why wouldn't someone want to contribute as much as possible? I don't care if a particular team member is doing damage as long as were doing well as a team since why care? but on a personal level why not want to operate at max efficiency? who wouldn't want to?

 

furthermore what kind of super hero is unable to defeat villains? aka do damage.

[ZeeHero]

54 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

My guess is it comes from some of the more traditional MMOs where the roles in a team are much more clear cut. If you're a healer, you heal. If you're a damage dealer, you deal damage. If you're a tank, you tank. Everyone only has one role and that's how the classes are designed. Fortunately CoX and especially CoV ATs are designed to allow overlap into several roles.

I've played some of these "traditional" mmos and my main role was tank. I was expected to try and maximize my dps in content.

 

COH and CO are honestly the only games I've played in which I encountered people who think they shouldn't be doing damage as non "dps" roles.

 

Also I dunno about WOW I know the WoW community sucks, but in Final Fantasy 14 were really chill and IMO is a better community than what HC has now.

Edited September 22, 2019 by ZeeHero

[Redlynne]

2 minutes ago, ZeeHero said:

but on a personal level why not want to operate at max efficiency? who wouldn't want to?

 

furthermore what kind of super hero is unable to defeat villains? aka do damage.

It's when you take that notion to extremes that you start running into problems ... and guess what ... Players being the highly competitive breed that they tend to be will usually reach for the extremes as their FIRST (and only?) option, rather than as a later one.  We know this.

 

As for being "unable to defeat $Targets" ... are you talking about individually or as a force multiplier for an entire team?  Even Controllers can defeat $Targets, and they're "low" on the damage scale.  Sometimes you just need to be clever about it, rather than trying to brute force everything.

[ZeeHero]

Its not extreme to want to improve oneself and maximize how well you do, its human nature. SOMEONE Has to be carrying the group if its mostly people who dont care if they perform well, and as long as the group is being well carried it wont make a difference to me. but if nobody  steps up then the group fails.

 

No one wants to point fingers and say "you're holding us back" but its common knowledge that someone has to step up and perform at the very least.

 

and I am aware controllers are usually capable of sufficient damage. I'm not asking for everyone to be dps I am pointing out dps is a part of every role to some degree.

[DSorrow]

Just now, ZeeHero said:

I've played some of these "traditional" mmos and my main role was tank. I was expected to try and maximize my dps in content.

My experience of those kinds of MMOs was that it didn't really matter what the tank did for DPS if he had enough to hold aggro, but I guess that depends on the game.

 

3 minutes ago, ZeeHero said:

but on a personal level why not want to operate at max efficiency? who wouldn't want to?

Well, to put it bluntly, sometimes it just doesn't really matter. I'm a power gamer but sometimes I'm just playing lazy and won't use BU or Aim. Other times I'm skipping maximum efficiency if going for it doesn't fit maximum efficiency. Even then, all my characters are extremely efficient in terms of what the game is balanced against, but they aren't necessarily at their performance peak because it just isn't needed in CoX.

 

That said, personally I don't understand why someone would want to play a taunt-bot or heal-bot either because both seem extremely boring to me, but if the build works for them and doesn't hold back the team then I don't see an issue.

[ZeeHero]

Quote

My experience of those kinds of MMOs was that it didn't really matter what the tank did for DPS if he had enough to hold aggro, but I guess that depends on the game.

Well in the most well designed one I played all endgame raid encounters were designed with tank and healer dps in mind. and guess what? most people didnt let it make them toxic. the amount of toxic raiders was minimal if a loud minority.

[Heraclea]

This was more or less the consensus of the WoW community around ten years ago when I last played it.  And it was more or less true - if you were tank specced, you couldn't solo anything that required you to kill stuff with any efficiency.  And you weren't all that tanky, either; ranged mobs attacking with spells would cut you to ribbons. 

[ZeeHero]

1 minute ago, Heraclea said:

This was more or less the consensus of the WoW community around ten years ago when I last played it.  And it was more or less true - if you were tank specced, you couldn't solo anything that required you to kill stuff with any efficiency.  And you weren't all that tanky, either; ranged mobs attacking with spells would cut you to ribbons. 

Well I did quit WoW. I much more enjoy games where people can actually defeat enemies regardless of class choice.

 

and in a super hero game its even more important becuase in super hero media the tanker types are also punching people into orbit. not JUST distracting enemies.

[Sailboat]

Diablo 3 has a meta where one player maxes out durability and some team buffs (rather small buffs by COH standards).  They call the various specs "ZDPS" meaning "zero damage per second."

 

It's not that the ZDPS builds do NO damage...it's that D3's weird item set meta means a properly-geared dps gets mind-boggling multipliers, and might do 8500 times* more damage that someone with an incomplete item set.  So it's comparatively "zero" dps.

 

* I'm being conservative.  One set multiplier does something like 40,000 times more damage AND there's auxiliary gear you can use to multiply THAT.  D3 combat spam can show damage numbers in the trillions.

[VV]

6 hours ago, ZeeHero said:

Why do people think tanks should not damage? this goes against the idea of good performance on any role.

In all my years of MMOs, I have literally never heard anyone say this, except in this context. Do you have an actual like to people actually saying this?

[Frostweaver]

The closest thing I have heard is that 'tank damage is secondary to their aggro control and survivability"

And this is not a comment on their playstyle, but a clear statement of the AT design.

[Shoulung]

Well, I guess the first hero that comes to mind is Professor X; he does zero damage to anyone from his wheelchair, and very rarely even controls anyone.

[Redlynne]

7 hours ago, Sailboat said:

D3 combat spam can show damage numbers in the trillions.

Which is why D3 is stupid.

Hopelessly stupid.

[ZeeHero]

3 hours ago, Frostweaver said:

The closest thing I have heard is that 'tank damage is secondary to their aggro control and survivability"

And this is not a comment on their playstyle, but a clear statement of the AT design.

This is absolutely true however damage is still a fairly important part of the equation. roles arent as simple as "Do one narrowly defined thing only"

[ZeeHero]

4 hours ago, VV said:

In all my years of MMOs, I have literally never heard anyone say this, except in this context. Do you have an actual like to people actually saying this?

I have run into people in my time playing CO and COH who build tanks intentionally to do as little damage as possible- and do this every time they build a tank. I cannot understand this at all since it basically destroys the fun. What's wrong with a little damage? it will only make your character better. you wont have to sacrifice noticeable survivability either.

[Leogunner]

Thinking back on my time with FFXI (the first online Final Fantasy game for those unfamiliar), this kind of existed with tanks being non-damaging, healers healing in the back and DPS coordinating skillchains and magic bursts.  Back in the early era of it, there was even a secondary DPS role reliant on aiding in the management of hate/aggro, usually this was the Thief who would use a skill called Trick Attack so that their next damaging action would generate hate on the person he used the action behind (i.e. put the tank between the foe and themselves) and then later a /Thief (subjob) when it was available.  There was also the Dragoon who could manage their own hate by using Super Jump to cleanse all enmity on themselves plus part of their DPS was shared with their pet wyvern.

 

Later on, as the Ninja job became more prevalent, the means of tanking and managing hate shifted more to a DPS using shadows to absorb damage or the tank nullifying damage (thus losing less hate when attacked).  Later still, as more knowledge about the game was gathered (things like stat modifiers for skills and spells were hidden so people had to figure stuff out over months or even years), tanks started to adopt more offensive capabilities and used more gear swaps to keep hate.

 

In that game, the tanks didn't do much damage but they still ended up trying though (like gear swaps for weapon skills/spells) and the DPSs tended to buy themselves some contingency by keeping some kind of defensive stance or skill available.

 

Everything is rather complex but the game also moved far slower than in CoX.  Faster still with more modern action games.  Even now, in FFXIV, tanks still DPS, their skills are just modified by different stats.

[ParaBruce]

39 minutes ago, ZeeHero said:

I have run into people in my time playing CO and COH who build tanks intentionally to do as little damage as possible- and do this every time they build a tank. 

This has got to be a very extreme outlier at best. I literally never, ever see it, as opposed to people who put damage at a lower priority than defense and all.

 

[ZeeHero]

1 hour ago, ParaBruce said:

This has got to be a very extreme outlier at best. I literally never, ever see it, as opposed to people who put damage at a lower priority than defense and all.

 

Yeah I don't get it either. Sure as a tank survival is the first priority.. but that does not stop you from punching things good!

[VV]

So, basically, someone saying/playing this no-damage tank idea is VERY rare and just kind of silly to even bother to discuss. Ah, the good old internet, there to blow even the tiniest irrelevancy all out of proportion.

[Frostweaver]

Well, I remember back on boards over  a decade ago a few tanks were purposely built to kind of ignore their damage stats, like stone, but then IO's happened. I haven't seen hide nor hair of low-damage tanker since.

Edited September 23, 2019 by Frostweaver

[Sailboat]

I did recently see a post on some website where someone more-or-less bragged about making his Tankers with only the first two attacks because he was focused more on holding aggro for his team.  Can't find it now, might have been deleted.

[Hopeling]

21 hours ago, VV said:

In all my years of MMOs, I have literally never heard anyone say this, except in this context. Do you have an actual like to people actually saying this?

There was a thread in this subforum just a few days ago, in which someone said they prefer to be a 'real tank', ie, don't take any attacks and just spam Taunt and Provoke. It's not common, but it exists, like the "heals only" Empathy defender.

 

I've never played a game where this was literally the meta, but I'm sure there are some out there. In eg World of Warcraft, tank damage used to come primarily from high-aggro debuffs (Sunder Armor); it wasn't until later expansions that tank damage became significant.