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4 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2009 - 9:22AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2003
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I specifically chose to put this topic in the optimization forum because I feel, by and large, the Optimization posters are typically smarter than the average forum bear, and because this issue pertains to the assumptions that we have when we look to design our party (specifically, our Defender) for optimal performance.
It occurs to me that we are NOT all on the same page with regard to how much damage the Defender should reasonably be expected to soak. Some among us seem to think that a Defender is very much like an MMO "tank." In other words, some of us feel that the Defender should be virtually the *only* guy taking hits.
This is ridiculous.
Why do people feel this way? There are a few reasons.
1) MMORPGSs. Massively Multiplayer games have created the convention of the "main tank." And because 4E has incorporated *some* of that convention into its concept of "Defender," people behave as if some = all.
2) Stupid DMs. Some DMs, either unimaginative or perhaps buying into the MMO mentality, utilize the "Dogpile DM" approach to handling monsters. They act is if monsters are obligated to stay on the Defender.
3) The Battlerager. I'm just going to say it: This Fighter build is broken down the middle. However, because it CAN take so much damage, it perpetuates the lie that D&D Defender = MMO main tank.
Do you see how this mentality affects the sort of builds you can use? If your DM is running an MMO, you're probably not going to get away with your Greataxe-wielding Great Weapon Fighter. And yet too often we're all arguing about what does/does not work without consideration for the environment in which build is intended to perform.
Myself, I'd like to see the MMO/Main-tank mindset killed once and for all. Intelligent monsters shouldn't dogpile on the tank. Rather, they should select targets based on a common sense threat vs. risk analysis. Easier-to-kill, high-threat targets (such as obvious strikers, like sorcerers) should be targeted long before harder-to-kill, low-threat targets (such as defenders.) Intelligent monsters should ALWAYS try to evade the defender. I will say it again: Intelligent monsters should ALWAYS TRY TO EVADE THE DEFENDER!
Particularly tough defenders (such as Battleragers) should actively discourage monsters from continuing to engage them. Why waste your time against a very tough, low-threat opponent when that squishy Invoker back there could wipe out half your crew? It doesn't make any sense.
Please, intelligent people, go forth and dispel the MMO mindset. Demand that your DMs make Defenders *work* for their stickiness. Open up new builds by removing the Defender's need to soak any and all damage. Lets all get on the same page of the discussion... and not have to base builds on ridiculous assumptions.
-Unmaker
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4 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2009 - 9:55AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Mar 22, 2008
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I specifically chose to put this topic in the optimization forum because I feel, by and large, the Optimization posters are typically smarter than the average forum bear, and because this issue pertains to the assumptions that we have when we look to design our party (specifically, our Defender) for optimal performance.
It occurs to me that we are NOT all on the same page with regard to how much damage the Defender should reasonably be expected to soak. Some among us seem to think that a Defender is very much like an MMO "tank." In other words, some of us feel that the Defender should be virtually the *only* guy taking hits.
This is ridiculous.
Why do people feel this way? There are a few reasons.
1) MMORPGSs. Massively Multiplayer games have created the convention of the "main tank." And because 4E has incorporated *some* of that convention into its concept of "Defender," people behave as if some = all.
2) Stupid DMs. Some DMs, either unimaginative or perhaps buying into the MMO mentality, utilize the "Dogpile DM" approach to handling monsters. They act is if monsters are obligated to stay on the Defender.
3) The Battlerager. I'm just going to say it: This Fighter build is broken down the middle. However, because it CAN take so much damage, it perpetuates the lie that D&D Defender = MMO main tank.
Do you see how this mentality affects the sort of builds you can use? If your DM is running an MMO, you're probably not going to get away with your Greataxe-wielding Great Weapon Fighter. And yet too often we're all arguing about what does/does not work without consideration for the environment in which build is intended to perform.
Myself, I'd like to see the MMO/Main-tank mindset killed once and for all. Intelligent monsters shouldn't dogpile on the tank. Rather, they should select targets based on a common sense threat vs. risk analysis. Easier-to-kill, high-threat targets (such as obvious strikers, like sorcerers) should be targeted long before harder-to-kill, low-threat targets (such as defenders.) Intelligent monsters should ALWAYS try to evade the defender. I will say it again: Intelligent monsters should ALWAYS TRY TO EVADE THE DEFENDER!
Particularly tough defenders (such as Battleragers) should actively discourage monsters from continuing to engage them. Why waste your time against a very tough, low-threat opponent when that squishy Invoker back there could wipe out half your crew? It doesn't make any sense.
Please, intelligent people, go forth and dispel the MMO mindset. Demand that your DMs make Defenders *work* for their stickiness. Open up new builds by removing the Defender's need to soak any and all damage. Lets all get on the same page of the discussion... and not have to base builds on ridiculous assumptions.
-Unmaker
Ironically, I think the very reason you posted this here is the reason the CO forums may not be the appropriate place for it.
From what I can see, the CO board already operates under this assumption.
I see suggestions as to how to make your defender 'stickier' more often than how to make him more tough(though certainly, being CO, we see both approaches).
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4 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2009 - 10:29AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2003
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Ironically, I think the very reason you posted this here is the reason the CO forums may not be the appropriate place for it.
From what I can see, the CO board already operates under this assumption.
I see suggestions as to how to make your defender 'stickier' more often than how to make him more tough(though certainly, being CO, we see both approaches).
I guess it never occurred to me that I'd be preaching to the choir. I suppose I'm just used to posters frantically disagreeing with whatever I say, no matter how reasonable.
The thing is, I'm not sure which forum this topic is best suited for. It concerns Defenders, but the root of the problem is systemic. I want to address Defenders and DMs alike.
-Unmaker
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4 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2009 - 10:34AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Mar 20, 2009
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Even in MMOs it isn't always a good idea to have every single monster hitting the main tank. I can think of several cases where I've healed groups in Warcraft, seen the tank was taking too much burst damage, asked another party member to help off-tanking, and completed the dungeon. In the same circumstances, I'd suspect groups with the mentality described by the OP would end up giving up half-way through, with moans about under-geared tanks (a common result in pick-up-groups). Even classes that wouldn't even be considered for main-tanking can off-tank effectively (e.g. rogues and shaman).
So the problem isn't MMO players themselves. The problem is stupid and uncreative MMO players, who have learnt one formula (tank + healer + 3 DPS) and never progessed to realising that it's a guideline, not a hard and fast rule.
However, having said that, a perfect tank would be very sticky, and would be able to take all the damage from every monster on the table. So of course that's what people on a character optimization board would post about.
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4 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2009 - 10:44AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2003
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So the problem isn't MMO players themselves. The problem is stupid and uncreative MMO players, who have learnt one formula (tank + healer + 3 DPS) and never progessed to realising that it's a guideline, not a hard and fast rule.
Just to be clear, I didn't intend to accuse MMO players as a whole. I myself have been an MMO-player since UO. My gripe has more to do with people apply their understanding of one paradigm... to another paradigm which, while similar, is not the same.
-Unmaker
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4 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2009 - 10:55AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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Ah but I think the MMO-style main tank created mentallity can be killed by an MMO-gimmick that is a lot less gimmicky in D&D.
In WoW (since it's the 800 lbs gorilla in the room) you do have the main tank that takes all the damage...
...but not really, Crowd Control is (...was) an integral part of doing a dungeon/heroic/raid. The main tank was never supposed to actually tank everything. You lock down some ennemies while you tank engages the mob only he can "tank" for a while.
Even WoW saw that the
-one player to tank them all
-and back to the wall pull them
leitmotiv that was the initial raids was boring after a while. Some bosses where created to be "gimmick tanked" by a warlock, a mage or a Moonkin druid.
This can be done less gimmickly in D&D. You have monsters with damaging auras and high Will attacking powers...seems to me this monster can be "tanked by a Mage or Warlock or Laser Cleric way more efficiently.
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4 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2009 - 11:11AM
#7
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Throwing artillery/controllers into the mix really makes it so your defender really can't just absorb everything. At that point they have to be able to take the blunt of the melee damage so everyone else can tank, no real way for them to tank that many spread out mobs.
That's where pretty much most of your non-defenders have to 'tank' per say. Many non-defenders are taking damage. The MMO CC could also be assigned to the controller role. Crowd Control ~ Controller sound pretty similiar to me.
It it's an entire melee fight, then your defender should be taking the blunt of the damage.
Majority of the time though marks alone have keep monsters wanting to attack the defender. When AC's can be very similiar in this system, why would a monster want to suffer penalties to attack and any extra side effect to have around the same chance of hitting a non-defender as hitting the defender himself?
I think the bigger problem here is people not wanting 'tanks' per say because D&D has really failed with them in the past. D&D really didn't have good ways for people to tank besides being engaged in melee, having high defenses, and doing lots of damage. Unless you got a creature in a 5 foot wide passage and did come one at a time, you really had no need for a tank because they weren't going to be able to keep people off of you. Then you look at how good hybrid 'tanks' were (3E Druid/Cleric) and how they were better than your normal 'tank', why would you ever really want one? It's like you have gone from an a game full of 'solo' characters in the past to a game full of 'team' characters now. I think that makes the game 100% better now, since there is such a large portion devoted to teamwork. But that's for another discussion.
As well I don't think the MMO mentality is new either in D&D. The best example I can think of is the 'healbot' Cleric of 3E. Tons of single target and aoe heals and buffs, links almost perfectly up with a healbot in MMOs.
Now that 4E finally has got it right with tanks, people are throwing a fit because MMOs have had the ideal of 'tanks' right for along time.
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4 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2009 - 11:13AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Aug 20, 2007
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I wouldn't say this comes from MMO players. The job of the fighter has always been to take the damage so the squishy mages don't have to. The problem is, pre-4e, there was absolutely no mechanic that pushed monsters into going along with this(aside from just getting in their way, and that only worked with ground locked melee monsters). So, over the years, DMs have just gotten used to the sub-optimal approach of having the monsters attack the fighters first, whether justified or not(and in the older editions of D&D, it most certianly was -not- justified).
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4 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2009 - 11:19AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2003
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It it's an entire melee fight, then your defender should be taking the blunt of the damage.
Yes, Defenders should TRY to take the brunt of the melee damage, but note that "brunt" does not equate to all, and note that I said TRY. Monsters should attempt to evade the Defender... rather than behaving as if they are obligated to attack him.
-Unmaker
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4 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2009 - 11:21AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2008
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It occurs to me that we are NOT all on the same page with regard to how much damage the Defender should reasonably be expected to soak. Some among us seem to think that a Defender is very much like an MMO "tank." In other words, some of us feel that the Defender should be virtually the *only* guy taking hits.
This is ridiculous.
I've never heard this and it sounds like you're referring to a very specific couple of posts. It may even be a misunderstanding.
A defender is performing his role when he takes a hit in the place of his team mates. This does not mean it is the only possible way to fulfill his role. This does not mean he must always do this, and insisting otherwise just seems artificial. No one's the authority of what qualifies as necessary or definitive. This is another case of trying to insert laws into what is essentially a guideline.
I'm gonna have to agree with AlphatheGreat - this is a lot more about game design and personal preferences, rather than specific optimization.
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