Update Discussion: October 15, 2020

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yaffy

Are you playing Cow/Unarmed or Unarmed/Shield? The mods you listed are shield mods which you can't use as a cow, so I'm a bit confused..

---

I should have elaborated a bit more. Obviously experiences may vary, but as a new player enquiring about viable tanking setups, cow/ua was consistently touted as the only real viable option. I'm not here to argue meta, merely to represent my own experiences as Humanoid/hammer/shield, and I also wanted to give my two cents about how I feel about it with regards to efficacy and future room for improvement. I can't speak to cow/ua as I've never played it, but I can speak to tanking in general, where it feels good and where it feels bad and wanted to make sure that my feedback got heard. Regardless of all this, some problems are universal. Elite damage is a problem for any tank build and at times makes the entire concept unviable, I would like to see armor matter more, for both players and mobs, that way things can slow down and roles can feel more defined. Of course this is an overly simplistic 'blanket' fix, but it would go some way in making fights last for more than a few seconds of button mashing, as well as rewarding tanks for actually trying to build tanky.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Celerity

Just wanted to add that in order to fix the issue where you can feel tanky vs solo mobs but not elites, flat mitigation could just have different values against elites. Keep it where it is for solo mobs, then have it doubled (or whatever number) against elites. Also part of it is just that death doesn't mean much outside of full wipes or playing hardcore/fairy. Revives are cheap, especially with tether and it's normally easy to run back anyway.

---

You absolutely hit the nail on the head regarding death and the lack of consequences thereof. I am anything but elitist and I believe games should be fun, but in a game that is so focussed on consequence (which is amazing by the way!) why is death essentially so meaningless?

I'd argue that it is more fun to have an element of risk in everything that is done, rather than not have to worry about anything, people will think twice about going ham on a boss if it means they might spend the next ten minutes with -20% stats due to Rez effects or losing some skill levels temporarily. I don't believe people should be driven to irritation and frustration by overly harsh penalties, but right now death is just a free teleport at best and a minor setback at worst. I understand that this game doesn't need to be traditional in terms of defined roles, but those roles exist nonetheless and more cause and effect would go a long way in adding value to healers and tanks as well as fleshing out a group into a more fun and team based experience.

Thanks for clarifying cow/UA for me. As I mentioned, I am new and can only really speak to my own experiences and what I've heard, I'm hoping all manner of tanking can be viable, the entire concept needs some help!

"I should have elaborated a bit more. Obviously experiences may vary, but as a new player enquiring about viable tanking setups, cow/ua was consistently touted as the only real viable option. "

I'll speak to this point. Not at Crag, but as a general comment about how people react in the game. A lot of times I see the same answer in chat, over and over and over, and they aren't always correct. Or it's 1 answer, when there are a lot of different ways to solve a problem. Why? Because we tend to crowd source information. If you yell out "how do I do X?" you might get an answer from the people paying attention to chat and happen to be online at the time. They will also give an answer based on their knowledge. Obviously. But a lot of times they don't actually have a lot of knowledge, they just yell out what they saw yelled out in an earlier chat. Most people probably haven't played Cow/UA, but they'll yell it out as a tanking option.

It's also a quick answer. A more difficult discussion doesn't generally happen.

Tanking involves armor, skills, mods, group composition, and the use of meditation, potions, alternate gearing for specific problems, alcohol, (and now candles), drugs, and all the odd little things in PG. Ask a simple question, get a simple answer.

Hats off to Cragstone for becoming an alcoholic to further his tanking research. 1900 AC is just insane :)