Update Discussion: November 6, 2020

[Yaffy]

I did a wintertide group and I only ever even came close to dying maybe 3 times in the whole run, all 3 times were when I pulled ~5 elites

Something I'd like to bring up that I think is important when discussing expectations for tanking is how many enemies you should be able to handle at once, because personally I believe that 5 elites is honestly a fair number to pull in your situation while a lot of others might think this is crazy high, especially after ages of game play of pulling only one enemy at a time. Let me explain what I mean.

First off, there are two facts about Project Gorgon that need to be explained:
1. Specific party compositions (Ex. 4 DPS, 1 healer 1 tank) are in no way required to beat dungeons currently. You can beat dungeons with any composition.
2. By default doing more damage is the most appealing option, because by killing things faster you can grind EXP and get loot faster. Therefore players are biased towards building DPS.

So as a baseline, I think it's fair to say that a full DPS party can reliably handle one elite enemy at a time, because that's the bare minimum for them to be able to complete the dungeon. I think everyone can understand this since most parties have played around pulling a single elite at a time for quite a while.

However, the thing is that if you add a tank into the mix (5DPS + 1Tank), the tank is useless if the party can still only handle one elite at a time. If the tank only pulls one enemy, then they are pulling just as many as a full DPS party would, except they will kill the enemy slower because they do less damage. Therefore, if the tank wants to be useful, they need to be able to handle at least TWO elites at once, or else why even have them in the party?

Continuing on, if we add a healer/support into the mix (4DPS +1Tank +1Support), then we end up with a similar problem if the party can still only handle two enemies at once. What is the point of the healer if the party can't handle more enemies and they just slow down the party by doing less DPS? Therefore, it should be expected that a healer + tank should allow the party to confidently handle three or more elites at once.

At this point you can probably see what I'm getting at. The ability to handle tougher encounters (In this case, more enemies at once) is the goal of non-DPS orientated classes. In many other MMORPGs, this is accomplished by making content virtually impossible to complete with a full DPS group, but because Project Gorgon Content is possible in a full DPS group, a balanced party should be more efficient at clearing the content in order to justify lowering DPS output. The most simple way to achieve this is to allow the party to pull more enemies, since by pulling more enemies you eliminate downtime and improve efficiency by having abilities apply to multiple enemies at once. Your party probably isn't going 3x faster just because you're pulling three mobs instead of 1, but you're probably speeding things up if nobody is dying.

Therefore, when asking yourself if a tank is too effective or not effective enough, you should compare what the party can normally handle vs what the addition of the tank allows them to handle.

If a weak party can't handle a single enemy but you allow them to handle one, then you're making a huge impact as a tank.
If a normal party can normally handle one enemy but you let them handle two, then you're helping a lot.
If a strong party can normally handle three enemies but you let them handle four, then you're doing something.
If an incredibly geared party can handle four enemies and you're still just pulling four mobs, you're probably not helping.

Because a super geared party of DPS can handle 3-4 elites (Possibly more), I think it's more than fair to say that taking on 5 elites in the same party is expected when you add in a tank. It's also important to remember that your effectiveness as a tank is very heavily reliant on your other party members (DPS killing things lowers the damage you take, healers significantly improve your ability to take on longer fights and good support stacks their mitigation with yours), so having a good party should multiply your effectiveness even more.

There's more to tanking than just the number of enemies you can pull, like improving consistency, clear speed, directing the party, etc. But basically what I'm getting at is that if you have a good party, you SHOULD be able to pull a lot of mobs, even if it seems crazy because a well geared party can already pull a good number of enemies. It just feels extra exciting because all those enemies are all trying to murder one player (you) at the same time which is definitely a unique feeling because you're probably used to people dying to getting hit by just one.
On the other hand if your party is only strong enough to handle one mob but you let them pull five, then there might be a problem. Once you're making "Crazy pulls" and you aren't reliant on five people behind you to do so, or you're pulling entire sections of the dungeon because you've hit virtually invincible status (With or without help), then your tank build is getting out of hand.

If player damage gets nerfed and full DPS parties can't instantly nuke elites down like they can now, this will make a heavy impact on the number of enemies you can pull since each enemy will damage you more before dying, so if damage scaling gets toned down then you will see a noticeable decrease in what you can pull as a tank. After all for each target your party can instantly nuke down, that's an extra mob you can safely pull because it won't be hitting you for very long.