A common question that people ask is, how will tanking work in an action based RPG? In traditional style MMORPGs, as most of you know, it involves tanks that build threat, hate, enmity, whatever… using their attacks and taunt skills. As a result of this, the mob focuses on that player, and in most situations, everyone else is pretty free to do as they please aside from dealing with positional aoes or adds. TERA does have the traditional aggro and taunt systems, but what about special attack patterns, target switches, and projectiles in an action combat system? What can you do besides relying on building and maintaining a numeric value?
Players are able to make use of collision or body blocking, to actually get in the way of attacks to assist in defending your team. Additionally, due to manual blocking and evasion, you must learn the proper cues and develop reflexes to optimize your damage avoidance, mitigation, and positional team defense. Not only do these higher demands on player skill add interesting dynamics to PvE game flow, but it enables a much larger potential for PvP tanking than seen in traditional systems. No longer do you need a pillar to hump, you could use your friendly local lancer.
TankingFollow
Here is an example of a lancer tanking in a Party. It seems as though they are simply doing quests, however you can see the idea of the lancer using his AOE taunt at the beginning of each pull in order to gain aggro.
hey goober, welcome! cool video link, I'm sure aoe taunting will make life easier for a lot of people.
Hey thanks. What is your view on warrior/berserker tanking? Im thinking that warriors and berserkers will be the sort of 'Dodge/evasion' Tanks, while Lancers will be more of the Aoe and block mitigation tank.
People are speculating that a warrior will make for a better tank then a Lancer. Im not too sure about that, but its still early to tell.
People are speculating that a warrior will make for a better tank then a Lancer. Im not too sure about that, but its still early to tell.
Warrior is definitely the evasion tank. their evasion skills are very strong- fast, far traveling, and with temporary invulnerability. Berserker isn't so much of an evasion tank though as they don't have the same type of evasion skills as Warrior or Slayer, but they get a block skill like Lancer, just weaker. it's hard to know right now, but it's very possible that blocking vs evasion will be better for different situations thus giving both a practical use.
Im having the feeling that warriors will be favored for end game raid bosses. The idea of avoiding a hit rather then taking one might put less stress on the healers. Lancers move slower so they might not be able to avoid as many hits as the warrior can, but who knows what the fights will be like in the future.
you might want to consider that warriors may not always be able to avoid hits or enough hits as a main tank due to mp management issues, and that lancer has 90% dmg reduce on their block skill which can be held. it's also possible that end game battles will desire both. warriors dodging slow but strong single enemies, while lancers grab mobs or body block major attacks or projectiles that would hit soft classes. no one really knows what end game is like yet.
22 posts
Also sounds maybe like when a warrior does get hit (or hit consecutively) may cause more of a strain on healers if the damage they receive when hit far > the amount a lancer would take..esp with those high damage hitting bosses.
Added to that if a main tanking warrior does go down due to this type of aspect, the situation would increase in difficulty.
Edited, Jul 18th 2010 5:38pm by Godbone
Added to that if a main tanking warrior does go down due to this type of aspect, the situation would increase in difficulty.
Edited, Jul 18th 2010 5:38pm by Godbone
That is also very possible. It all depends on how they design their end game encounters.
6 posts
I see that there is no knockdown resistance stat for any class, I wonder how this is going to work. Seeing that for the Lancer, being able to physically block a player or mob due to collision detection you would think keeping KD res high would be highly sought after for a Lancer. Getting steamrolled would not do the healer or the lancer any good.
Some skills and gems can add to knockdown resistance, as well as skills that bring people back up. So a Lancer might want to use those skills or stack or gems.
7 posts
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Here's a good video depicting a Lancer tanking from a Priest's perspective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frUXpEtCOJo
As seen, the Lancer's Shield isn't always going to hold back the mobs, but still mitigates damage. I don't know if the Lancer was using Riposte or not when coming out of block, but it looked like that damage taken with the shield up reduces MP.
This is a good video showing how some bigger Mobs will act regardless of aggro/threat/hate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3vERPN7rxI
This is also shown with a Warrior tanking and some players died a time or two. This leads me to believe everyone will have to be on their guard, regardless of who's tanking.
On the Warrior as a tank, if played well, the Warrior may not have to use their dodge skill all the time and simply time their attacks so that at the end of an animation, they're free to walk away afterwards to dodge the attacks.
It's also been said that aggro generation from mobs will be different, here's quote from the Gamespot Hands-on
We're told that part of TERA's aggro management will involve character facing. If you're a ranged damage character attacking a monster, it's in your best interest to not attack from the front because you'll be more likely to draw the beast's ire than if you had attacked from a flank or from the rear. Though we eventually got the hang of it, doing battle with a sorcerer still wasn't as easy as we thought it would be because spells require you to stand perfectly still to cast them.
Source: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/teratheexiledrealmofarborea/news.html?sid=6266418&om_act=convert&om_clk=newsfeatures&tag=newsfeatures;title;1
I hope that Blue Hole adds a few more interesting quirks like this towards aggro generation.
tl; dr
Lancers and Warriors are two sides of the same coin, Mobs sometimes act without regards to aggro, BHS is making different quirks towards aggro.
Here's a good video depicting a Lancer tanking from a Priest's perspective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frUXpEtCOJo
As seen, the Lancer's Shield isn't always going to hold back the mobs, but still mitigates damage. I don't know if the Lancer was using Riposte or not when coming out of block, but it looked like that damage taken with the shield up reduces MP.
This is a good video showing how some bigger Mobs will act regardless of aggro/threat/hate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3vERPN7rxI
This is also shown with a Warrior tanking and some players died a time or two. This leads me to believe everyone will have to be on their guard, regardless of who's tanking.
On the Warrior as a tank, if played well, the Warrior may not have to use their dodge skill all the time and simply time their attacks so that at the end of an animation, they're free to walk away afterwards to dodge the attacks.
It's also been said that aggro generation from mobs will be different, here's quote from the Gamespot Hands-on
Quote:
We're told that part of TERA's aggro management will involve character facing. If you're a ranged damage character attacking a monster, it's in your best interest to not attack from the front because you'll be more likely to draw the beast's ire than if you had attacked from a flank or from the rear. Though we eventually got the hang of it, doing battle with a sorcerer still wasn't as easy as we thought it would be because spells require you to stand perfectly still to cast them.
Source: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/teratheexiledrealmofarborea/news.html?sid=6266418&om_act=convert&om_clk=newsfeatures&tag=newsfeatures;title;1
I hope that Blue Hole adds a few more interesting quirks like this towards aggro generation.
tl; dr
Lancers and Warriors are two sides of the same coin, Mobs sometimes act without regards to aggro, BHS is making different quirks towards aggro.
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