Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Tanking 3
The reason there are so many jobs mentioned that can somewhat tank or handle themselves alone in different situations is that I want to encourage diversity in play style, having a group with no multiple target tank and use several characters with jobs that can handle single or few targets on their own will allow you to go through levels that has several targets that needs to be taken down at the same time. Another option would be to use several “summoners” such as Beastmasters, Rangers, Hunters, Warlocks, Necromancers, Mages and Druids to let all their pets handle the tanking and only use your characters to do damage. The most obvious way to do it would be to have one of each tank style in your team and perhaps a fourth hybrid tank to handle situations that grows too big, for example a Warrior, a Barbarian and a Fencer for the main situations and a Swashbuckler for the little extra. It will always be a balance of tank, healer and damage though and perhaps that balance means there should be 5 of each in a team of 15.
Barbarian
Barbarians’ high natural resistance makes them very suitable to handle magic casting enemies. While they only wear leather armor Barbarians does not have high enough armor to handle a lot of physical damage, but this gives them both resistance and mobility enough to avoid a lot of attacks as well as mitigate much damage from casters. Fast running and jumping they can quickly close in on range targets and are particularly efficient against clusters of these with their short range are of effect and multiple hit attacks.
Too low armor to survive for long against frequent physical attacks Barbarians can’t handle multiple physical targets or fast hitting enemies. They can also get rather healer dependant.
Barbarians are still as tanks high in damage and will build threat mostly through keeping this damage up, they have skills for area of effect with their dual wielding weapons or can strike out on multiple or single targets with heavy hits. They have no specifically defensive skills.
Too low armor to survive for long against frequent physical attacks Barbarians can’t handle multiple physical targets or fast hitting enemies. They can also get rather healer dependant.
Barbarians are still as tanks high in damage and will build threat mostly through keeping this damage up, they have skills for area of effect with their dual wielding weapons or can strike out on multiple or single targets with heavy hits. They have no specifically defensive skills.
Swashbuckler
Swashbucklers are the one fencing style job to use shield, for a tanking Swashbuckler’s armor will be upgraded for additional armor and with shield Swashbucklers are able to handle themselves rather will in both situations with several physical enemies and with single hard hitting enemies where avoidance is important.
Swashbucklers’ largest weakness is against magic users as they have low resistance when upgraded to chain. Too many targets will also be a problem as the mitigation is too low but since avoidance is very high at least more than a few can be managed.
The shield is the Swashbucklers’ main mean of building threat and avoiding damage, they have skills to do hard shield attacks (and as smaller shield do more damage but has less armor and block this damage will generate high threat, and as a skill they can also make their shield be a full avoidance instead of a mitigation which makes the Swashbucklers get the highest effective avoidance available, for multiple targets they multiple target attacks with both weapon and shield.
Swashbucklers’ largest weakness is against magic users as they have low resistance when upgraded to chain. Too many targets will also be a problem as the mitigation is too low but since avoidance is very high at least more than a few can be managed.
The shield is the Swashbucklers’ main mean of building threat and avoiding damage, they have skills to do hard shield attacks (and as smaller shield do more damage but has less armor and block this damage will generate high threat, and as a skill they can also make their shield be a full avoidance instead of a mitigation which makes the Swashbucklers get the highest effective avoidance available, for multiple targets they multiple target attacks with both weapon and shield.
Pirate, Privateer and Corsair
Fencing classes with different level of armor these three are with armor upgrades (through talents) suitable for different tanking situations but in the same general style. They all use fencing weapons and are high on parry and dodge together with a gun through which combination they can keep up threat on both nearby and distant enemies.
As a range of armor level Pirates are weakest against physical and strongest against magical, Privateers are well balanced and Corsairs do best against physical.
Dodge, shoot, parry, strike and fence is the general style and even though most active skills are offensive these jobs can with correct talent build handle themselves as tanks.
Acrobat, Rogue, Assassin and Ninja
All high agility jobs will also have high dodge, if it is high enough they will most likely be able to avoid all attacks from slow hitting enemies, giving them at least a chance to hold their own in fights.
Beastmaster, Hunter and Ranger
Beastmasters, Hunters and Rangers do not tank on their own but through the force of the animals that they have summoned and control. As with the Animagi the ability to tank and what to tank depends on the beasts but in general beasts will only survive single target tanking, however, strength is in their numbers and with enough beasts under control they should be able to handle nearly any situation.
More on beast tanking later.
Musketeer tank
Another semi tank Musketeers can handle themselves in most one on one situations mainly through avoidance but can take a hit or two as well. As Musketeers aren’t truly tanks they will have problems to hold agro from others when they tank.
Fencer
The optimal avoidance tanks Fencers have high dodge together with high parry they are probably the most specialized job for extremely hard hitting enemies. Using stances to switch between full dodge, full parry and balance and either counter tanking Fencers can handle slow hitting damage enemies expertly and should never receive any burst damage at all and should rarely if ever need any heals, making them extremely independent.
There are saves for when avoidance drop below 100% but if it happens too often, as when the frequency of attacks always gets the Fencers too low they won’t survive for very long.
Fencers have three stances; balanced, parry and dodge. The balanced stance will change nothing to the Fencers’ stats and will probably use parry and dodge equally. Parry and dodge stances will nullify their respective opposite and gain half of that stat into their chosen stance stat, this will significantly increase that stat but significantly lower the total avoidance and even more the effective avoidance stagnation. Fencers have skills to replenish their parry or dodge significantly to help them if avoidance drops under 100%, they also have skills for increased counters, to build threat they can use different feigns and attack and with high hit normal attacks will always hit and very often crit.
There are saves for when avoidance drop below 100% but if it happens too often, as when the frequency of attacks always gets the Fencers too low they won’t survive for very long.
Fencers have three stances; balanced, parry and dodge. The balanced stance will change nothing to the Fencers’ stats and will probably use parry and dodge equally. Parry and dodge stances will nullify their respective opposite and gain half of that stat into their chosen stance stat, this will significantly increase that stat but significantly lower the total avoidance and even more the effective avoidance stagnation. Fencers have skills to replenish their parry or dodge significantly to help them if avoidance drops under 100%, they also have skills for increased counters, to build threat they can use different feigns and attack and with high hit normal attacks will always hit and very often crit.
Monk tank
Being perhaps the most diverse job for tanking the unarmored Monk are truly excellent for everything. Wearing only cloth they have full freedom of movement but almost no gain to either armor or resistance, however, with their naturally thick skin and resilient minds they have both high natural armor and resistance. Monks are best on single or few targets as they don’t have multiple target or area of effect attacks, however, where they are good they are truly excellent.
Having no way to attack several targets is their main weakness but a second drawback is the lack of 3 methods of avoidance and block; monks have to chose to use either fist weapons with which they can block and will get a very high chance to do so but the block value is not high and the damage will only be mitigated but with the benefit of counter attack on both dodges and blocks, not avoided, or to use a staff which will give them a chance to parry which is lower than the chance to block with first weapons and only counters on parry but which gives a significantly higher full avoidance.
The range of skills using first weapons is almost completely different from the ones available when using staves, the few available for both are defense skills to increase armor or resistance and a shield to reduce damage from next incoming attack significantly.Fist weapon skills consist of powerful single target hits (basically taunt), guaranteed counters on all attacks, significantly increased block value and return damage on blocks.Staff skills consist of single and double target hits, increased parry, increased counter on parry and parry wall which has the Monk spinning the staff so that all incoming attacks are parried and countered for a period of time.
Having no way to attack several targets is their main weakness but a second drawback is the lack of 3 methods of avoidance and block; monks have to chose to use either fist weapons with which they can block and will get a very high chance to do so but the block value is not high and the damage will only be mitigated but with the benefit of counter attack on both dodges and blocks, not avoided, or to use a staff which will give them a chance to parry which is lower than the chance to block with first weapons and only counters on parry but which gives a significantly higher full avoidance.
The range of skills using first weapons is almost completely different from the ones available when using staves, the few available for both are defense skills to increase armor or resistance and a shield to reduce damage from next incoming attack significantly.Fist weapon skills consist of powerful single target hits (basically taunt), guaranteed counters on all attacks, significantly increased block value and return damage on blocks.Staff skills consist of single and double target hits, increased parry, increased counter on parry and parry wall which has the Monk spinning the staff so that all incoming attacks are parried and countered for a period of time.
Druid and Shaman tanks
The similarities between Druid and Shaman tanks are significant, the only major difference being the use of chainmail for Shamans and leather for druids, giving the former higher armor and lower resistance and the later lower armor and higher resistance. Neither is optimal for tanking but for easy tanking situations they can both use staves and high parry ability together with natural forces to increase defensive abilities as well as keeping a few enemies busy.
All around decent neither class have any specific weakness but neither do they have any specific strength, this being their biggest weakness they can both handle most easier situations, Shaming being more suitable for physical enemies and Druids more suitable for magical enemies.
Skills to temporarily increase parry with staff or guarantee a few to several parries, different kinds of barkskin to increase either armor or resistance at the cost of mobility, attacks on multiple targets with staff and natural storm attacks to hold, damage or hold and damage single or multiple targets.
All around decent neither class have any specific weakness but neither do they have any specific strength, this being their biggest weakness they can both handle most easier situations, Shaming being more suitable for physical enemies and Druids more suitable for magical enemies.
Skills to temporarily increase parry with staff or guarantee a few to several parries, different kinds of barkskin to increase either armor or resistance at the cost of mobility, attacks on multiple targets with staff and natural storm attacks to hold, damage or hold and damage single or multiple targets.
Animagi
Shifting to different types of animals the Animagis can use a combination of their own skills and powers with those of the animal they turn into to handle almost any situation. As armored turtles they can take almost any amount of damage without feeling the pain as well as reflect magic from the hard shell, as thick skinned rhinos, hippos or huge elephants they will be able to take both physical and magical damage and trample their enemies at the same time and as agile panthers or tigers they can dodge almost any incoming attack. At the same time they can cast their effective animalistic magic to both damage and support their already powerful animal bodies. Shifting between suitable forms makes, despite the high cost, the Animagis one of the most flexible jobs available and with innate natural skills and power over other lesser animals and plants they can easily keep their end.
Although each form is powerful they also have severe limitations, slow moving turtles will never dodge anything and their attacks are slow and weak, the big animals are even easier targets and the cat animals won’t survive long if being hit. With these limitations in each form and the cost of changing as well as the limit to only a few forms (1-3 perhaps?) the Animagis have to consider their choices carefully. In certain forms they are very healer dependant.
Skill they can use in all forms are calling insects to disrupt enemies attacks and lower their chance to hit, have plants grab at enemies from below to keep them in place, explode a burst of air or water to damage enemies all around them and draw upon the powers of the nature and life around them to sustain and protect themselves when hurt.
Although each form is powerful they also have severe limitations, slow moving turtles will never dodge anything and their attacks are slow and weak, the big animals are even easier targets and the cat animals won’t survive long if being hit. With these limitations in each form and the cost of changing as well as the limit to only a few forms (1-3 perhaps?) the Animagis have to consider their choices carefully. In certain forms they are very healer dependant.
Skill they can use in all forms are calling insects to disrupt enemies attacks and lower their chance to hit, have plants grab at enemies from below to keep them in place, explode a burst of air or water to damage enemies all around them and draw upon the powers of the nature and life around them to sustain and protect themselves when hurt.
Sorcerer tank
Perhaps not the most optimal tanks Sorcerers can still handle themselves in many situations using their gravitational and time magic for defensive purposes, particularly against ranged targets where they can set up time slowing barriers to allow them the extra moments to magically deflect or avoid incoming projectiles or magical damage combined with their own wide range but weak area of effect spells to hold agro from the enemies around.
Pretty much defenseless when enemies comes too close a Sorcerer will go down quickly if no one takes care of the melee enemies in range of his threat building area.
Sorcerers have skills such as time slow which will help them avoid almost any incoming projectile, time stop to stop incoming projectiles, counter spells, spell interrupt and spell steal to hinder ranged casters from completing their spells and the ability to change the gravitational pull to disrupt any attack coming their way.
Pretty much defenseless when enemies comes too close a Sorcerer will go down quickly if no one takes care of the melee enemies in range of his threat building area.
Sorcerers have skills such as time slow which will help them avoid almost any incoming projectile, time stop to stop incoming projectiles, counter spells, spell interrupt and spell steal to hinder ranged casters from completing their spells and the ability to change the gravitational pull to disrupt any attack coming their way.
Battlemage tank
With powerful enchants to stay boost up armor and resistance enough to survive a hit and light armor for mobility Battlemages can handle most situations. Their main strength lies in the high resistance as they combine thick leather with magical shields to absorb almost all incoming magic. With their magical powers the Battlemages can seemingly be at several places at the same time as well as use their magically summoned weapons to attack at a distance making them the perfect tank for multiple ranged enemies who refuse to engage in close combat.
With comparably low armor and no shields to block Battlemages won't survive for long against too frequent physical attacks.
All Battlemages use their power to summon both offense and defense gear, the defensive arsenal consists of magic absorbing shields which tanking Battlemages can set up multiple versions of (1 without talent, 2-3 with talent), illusions to have enemies attacking shadows and short range teleportation to avoid attacks completely, they also use offensive abilities such as ranged spells to taunt enemies, short range teleportation to get in range to melee attack enemies and magically animating their summoned weapon to attack targets at a distance.
With comparably low armor and no shields to block Battlemages won't survive for long against too frequent physical attacks.
All Battlemages use their power to summon both offense and defense gear, the defensive arsenal consists of magic absorbing shields which tanking Battlemages can set up multiple versions of (1 without talent, 2-3 with talent), illusions to have enemies attacking shadows and short range teleportation to avoid attacks completely, they also use offensive abilities such as ranged spells to taunt enemies, short range teleportation to get in range to melee attack enemies and magically animating their summoned weapon to attack targets at a distance.
Gladiator tank
Gladiators are the ultimate duelist and even though they are not optimal for tanking they can still handle themselves without much support in any one on one situation. Wearing leather armor they gain high resistance to take care of casters as well as the mobility to dodge and parry easily, combined with a medium size shield (usable through talent) they get enough armor and block ability to sustain the few hits they are likely to take.
Strength as tanks lie in the ability to keep single targets busy and even take down by themselves while the more suitable tanks take on multiple or tougher enemies together with the rest of the team.
Gladiators are not specifically meant to tank so they have no specific way to take and hold agro once friends start attacking.
No specific tanking skills but duelist skills such as shield attacks, feigns and blocks or deflects are usefully balanced for damage and survivability.
Strength as tanks lie in the ability to keep single targets busy and even take down by themselves while the more suitable tanks take on multiple or tougher enemies together with the rest of the team.
Gladiators are not specifically meant to tank so they have no specific way to take and hold agro once friends start attacking.
No specific tanking skills but duelist skills such as shield attacks, feigns and blocks or deflects are usefully balanced for damage and survivability.
Paladin tank
Tanking Paladins are different from Warriors in that instead of brute force and shouts they use holy magic both to stay alive and to keep the aggression from targets on them. Paladin tanks are also heavily armored in plate and large shields plus additional magical support as well as defensive auras to reduce damage from both themselves and friends in their vicinity. Paladin tanks' strength lies in their ability to stay alive without any support; as long as they don't get in over their heads they can boost and heal themselves as well as a nearby friend or two while still holding their targets at bay. Strength against numeral enemies and particularly those who are unholy in any way Paladin tanks work best when receiving there is a constant stream of damage and no sudden bursts too often, with the diversity of choice in auras and holy buffs Paladin tanks can handle almost any type of damage; magical as well as physical.
Paladin tanks' weakness is against slow very hard hitting enemies who do heavy burst so that the Paladins don't have enough time to heal up before the next burst.
Tanking Paladins are equipped with and arsenal of defensive holy skills such as defensive auras for almost any given occasion, holy smite spells to hurt and aggravate enemies, divine protective spells and powerful self heals that will bounce to nearby friends to keep them alive when accidents happen.
Paladin tanks' weakness is against slow very hard hitting enemies who do heavy burst so that the Paladins don't have enough time to heal up before the next burst.
Tanking Paladins are equipped with and arsenal of defensive holy skills such as defensive auras for almost any given occasion, holy smite spells to hurt and aggravate enemies, divine protective spells and powerful self heals that will bounce to nearby friends to keep them alive when accidents happen.
Warrior tank
The Warriors are the most obvious choice for tanking, strong and resilient they can take a lot of beating and with ferocious booming voices they taunt all nearby enemies to keep them busy while others are free to kill them without interruption. Warriors are the essence of an armored tank; always wearing heavy plate armor large shields they have enough armor to take many hits, even though dodge is low due to the heavy armor and parry is not very high they can block often which will reduce damage taken significantly. However, they are highly dependent on a healer but since they have skills to redirect damage from nearby friends those healers can focus their full attention on the Warrior tanks.
The Warrior tanks' largest weakness, excepting healer dependency, is their low resistance, even though they can deflect spells with their large shields they will not survive heavy magical bombardment for any longer period of time.
The range of skills tanking Warriors have at their disposal are taunts (and other shouts) to keep single or multiple targets attracted, blocking skills (to temporarily guarantee blocks), defense buffs (to increase defense for an extended period of time or a whole battle) and protection skills to save others by redirecting damage from them.
The Warrior tanks' largest weakness, excepting healer dependency, is their low resistance, even though they can deflect spells with their large shields they will not survive heavy magical bombardment for any longer period of time.
The range of skills tanking Warriors have at their disposal are taunts (and other shouts) to keep single or multiple targets attracted, blocking skills (to temporarily guarantee blocks), defense buffs (to increase defense for an extended period of time or a whole battle) and protection skills to save others by redirecting damage from them.
Tanking 2
Playing World of Warcraft as a semi serious Paladin tank recently I've become quite interested in the tanking mechanic and come up with an idea of how to implement 3 very distinctly different ways of tanking and through that opening up for the idea that not only using a heavily armored fighter as a tank as mentioned in Tanks.
To implement these major differences I will introduce a new main mechanic, a diminishing avoidance; this will make each avoided attack reduce your chance to avoid the next attack and each means of avoidance will be reduced individually. This will affect dodge, parry and block. The reduction will be based on full avoidance and current avoidance and will then replenish with a percent of max value, the replenishing value can be increased by talents in some jobs and also "jumped up" by skills, taking one turn of actions.
The function to calculate this would look something like the following:
choseLargest(choseSmallest(avoidanceCurrent*A% , avoidanceMax*B%) , avoidanceCurrent*C%), meaning while avoidance is higher than a certain % of max A% will be reduced, otherwise B% will be reduced but the reduction will never be higher than C% of current.
for example for A = 45%, B=20% and C=75% and avoidanceMax = 100% and replenish is 5% per second and an avoid happens every 3rd second.
The first attack would reduce avoidance to 55% and then increased to 60, 65 and 70
1: 55 - 70
2: 38,5 - 53,5
3: 29,4 - 44,4
and will finally stagnate on 20,0 after 13 avoids (under 25% from 9 dodges) since 75% of 20 is 15 and that equals the replenishing rate.
With these values the stagnation is at 20% meaning a character would need 500% to keep it over 100% at all times.
This mechanic forces a change to the hit mechanic and the hit table, probably it will work as it does when total avoidance (plus block) is lower than 100%, if over it will create a new hit table with only dodge, parry and block at an equal ratio. This means if you can make dodges and parries stagnate over 100% you should not have any block at all and would probably do best to dump your shied if you have one, this won't be an issue very often though as shield using jobs won't be able to do that without block.
So the three distinct types will be armor tank, avoidance tank and resistance tank. Of course this is a simplification as all tanks will need to have some armor, avoidance and resistance, however a heavy armored plate and shield tank will not have to rely on complete avoidance but will take heavy damage most of the time and need lots of heals and probably not be able to handle single very hard hitting or magic using targets very well, while an avoidance tank will do well with slow hitting targets and rarely, if ever, need any heals but have huge problems with several or very fast hitting targets as the avoidance diminish will be too quick for the replenishment and therefore quickly die.
Armor tank: the armor tank relies heavily on a big hit point pool and high armor value for an even higher efficient hit point pool against physically hitting targets. The armor tank will use shield for damage reducing blocks which combined with dodge and parry will lower the avoidance reduction (since it is divided by 3). However in heavy armor dodging in particular is harder and an armor tanks will rarely reach a level where they can block or avoid all attacks. Armor tanks specialize in taking low damage frequently as they mitigate damage more than avoid it. Typical armor tanks are Warriors and Paladins.
Avoidance tanks: often lightly armored and without shields the avoidance tanks relies heavily on never taking any damage at all, having very high dodge and parry the avoidance tanks should be able to keep their total avoidance over 100% at all times. In cases when the avoidance drops below 100% they should have skills to increase avoidance, temporarily guarantee an avoid or heavily reduce the damage of the next attack. Typical avoidance tanks are Fencers and Corsair.
Resistance tanks: heavy metal armor often has low resistance making the armored tanks unsuitable to tank magic using targets, thick skinned animals and humans and leather wearing resistance tanks however are excellent at this. Typical resistance tanks are bears (shape shifted Animagi or tamed pets) and Battlemages.
Hybrid tanks: some tanks lie somewhat in between the three distinct roles and can handle situations of various sorts, these can for example have both high armor and high resistance like Barbarians, medium armor and shield but still high on avoidance like Swashbucklers or somewhat high avoidance, high natural armor and high natural resistance like Monks.
To implement these major differences I will introduce a new main mechanic, a diminishing avoidance; this will make each avoided attack reduce your chance to avoid the next attack and each means of avoidance will be reduced individually. This will affect dodge, parry and block. The reduction will be based on full avoidance and current avoidance and will then replenish with a percent of max value, the replenishing value can be increased by talents in some jobs and also "jumped up" by skills, taking one turn of actions.
The function to calculate this would look something like the following:
choseLargest(choseSmallest(avoidanceCurrent*A% , avoidanceMax*B%) , avoidanceCurrent*C%), meaning while avoidance is higher than a certain % of max A% will be reduced, otherwise B% will be reduced but the reduction will never be higher than C% of current.
for example for A = 45%, B=20% and C=75% and avoidanceMax = 100% and replenish is 5% per second and an avoid happens every 3rd second.
The first attack would reduce avoidance to 55% and then increased to 60, 65 and 70
1: 55 - 70
2: 38,5 - 53,5
3: 29,4 - 44,4
and will finally stagnate on 20,0 after 13 avoids (under 25% from 9 dodges) since 75% of 20 is 15 and that equals the replenishing rate.
With these values the stagnation is at 20% meaning a character would need 500% to keep it over 100% at all times.
This mechanic forces a change to the hit mechanic and the hit table, probably it will work as it does when total avoidance (plus block) is lower than 100%, if over it will create a new hit table with only dodge, parry and block at an equal ratio. This means if you can make dodges and parries stagnate over 100% you should not have any block at all and would probably do best to dump your shied if you have one, this won't be an issue very often though as shield using jobs won't be able to do that without block.
So the three distinct types will be armor tank, avoidance tank and resistance tank. Of course this is a simplification as all tanks will need to have some armor, avoidance and resistance, however a heavy armored plate and shield tank will not have to rely on complete avoidance but will take heavy damage most of the time and need lots of heals and probably not be able to handle single very hard hitting or magic using targets very well, while an avoidance tank will do well with slow hitting targets and rarely, if ever, need any heals but have huge problems with several or very fast hitting targets as the avoidance diminish will be too quick for the replenishment and therefore quickly die.
Armor tank: the armor tank relies heavily on a big hit point pool and high armor value for an even higher efficient hit point pool against physically hitting targets. The armor tank will use shield for damage reducing blocks which combined with dodge and parry will lower the avoidance reduction (since it is divided by 3). However in heavy armor dodging in particular is harder and an armor tanks will rarely reach a level where they can block or avoid all attacks. Armor tanks specialize in taking low damage frequently as they mitigate damage more than avoid it. Typical armor tanks are Warriors and Paladins.
Avoidance tanks: often lightly armored and without shields the avoidance tanks relies heavily on never taking any damage at all, having very high dodge and parry the avoidance tanks should be able to keep their total avoidance over 100% at all times. In cases when the avoidance drops below 100% they should have skills to increase avoidance, temporarily guarantee an avoid or heavily reduce the damage of the next attack. Typical avoidance tanks are Fencers and Corsair.
Resistance tanks: heavy metal armor often has low resistance making the armored tanks unsuitable to tank magic using targets, thick skinned animals and humans and leather wearing resistance tanks however are excellent at this. Typical resistance tanks are bears (shape shifted Animagi or tamed pets) and Battlemages.
Hybrid tanks: some tanks lie somewhat in between the three distinct roles and can handle situations of various sorts, these can for example have both high armor and high resistance like Barbarians, medium armor and shield but still high on avoidance like Swashbucklers or somewhat high avoidance, high natural armor and high natural resistance like Monks.
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