Project: Gorgon is a 3D fantasy MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) that features an immersive experience that allows the player to forge their own path through exploration and discovery. We won't be guiding you through a world on rails, and as a result there are many hidden secrets awaiting discovery. Project: Gorgon also features an ambitious skill based leveling system that bucks the current trend of pre-determined classes, thus allowing the player to combine skills in order to create a truly unique playing experience.
The Project: Gorgon development team is led by industry veteran Eric Heimburg. Eric has over a decade of experience working as a Senior and Lead Engineer, Developer, Designer and Producer on successful games such as Asheron’s Call 1 and 2, Star Trek Online and other successful Massively Multiplayer Online Games.
I tend to agree. I've thought for years that those abilities, blocking stance in particular, requiring 0 mods to be effective never made any sense. With a staff build you could relatively easily solo any physical damage boss in the game, and I tended to see staff used for damage for every build, including tanks, because all you ever needed to tank was just those 2 abilties, completely unmodded, which meant everyone can build damage too, as you said.
I also find dungeon runs with an unarmed tank much more fast-paced and much more fun than runs with a staff tank. Exact same reasons as you stated Yaffy, less standing around and I can't tell you the number of times I've been in groups where the staff tank user dies multiple times from their blocking stance and deflective spin going on cooldown and essentially having nothing else to offer.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the unarmed mod removed because unarmed was just TOO good at tanking. I specifically remember doing gk runs where unarmed tanks could pull something like 10 elites and tank them all easily. Obviously this was before crit changes, but I still see players achieve similar things nowadays even with the nerf and crits introduced, it just means you have to have pig/bard/rabbit support, extra skin, cc etc now. So I wouldn't mind seeing that mod make a comeback, honestly I never played a tanking build so didn't really notice the difference between removing this mod or say the one which passively always reduces damage, but now you've explained it, it does make more sense. The numerical values would 100% have to be nerfed in some regard though.