5 replies to this topic

[dngrs]

I know trinity is gone though not really because sword and board guards or warrs with tanky items, traits and skills are still "tanks" but I haven't seen any footage of one.

How important are tanks in this game? Especially in spvp. Anyone played this way in the betas?

[agm]

dngrs, on 31 July 2012 - 05:53 PM, said:

I know trinity is gone though not really because sword and board guards or warrs with tanky items, traits and skills are still "tanks"

They take only a little less dmg than other professions, its not even nearly enough to make them tanks. GW2 is all about equal dmg/aggro distrubution and AoE heals.

[Maal]

Tanking, in all game, WoW or GW2 is about controling the mob.
In wow it's about making the boss target you and only you, building defence to take the hits.
In gw2, you cannot take too much hits, and even if you wanted there is no way to make sure the boss target you. To control the mob you need to stun him, knock him down, blind him... and everybody have to throw some stuff in there to make sure it stay down.

[Dibrom]

dngrs, on 31 July 2012 - 05:53 PM, said:

I know trinity is gone though not really because sword and board guards or warrs with tanky items, traits and skills are still "tanks" but I haven't seen any footage of one.

Highlighted the important part up there.  You can stock up on toughness and vit with any profession, but it's not going to make them a tank.  For sPVP if you want a build to sit on cap points the most important things you can have are knockbacks and stability.

[Sebyos]

Well the most toughness you get from a shield is 90 as guardian, but... since you get to 1.2k toughness or more as 80, the 90 points are not so amazing. In explorable mode and PvE in general tanking just doesn't work. Even with a shield you play mostly like dps which means dodging and moving.

In sPvP the few uses of shield I saw were mostly guardians to defend some capture points or warriors as escape tool since they become invincible, but I don't have a lot of experience with those professions.

Overall I can see how useful some tanky skills are, but I can't see many uses to a full tanky build. It just doesn't offer much more mitigation and loses damage, control or support.

[Maxtofunator]

There have been videos of tanky builds for sPVP, and most of them are point holders, but they don't do quite so well at taking points from people, but they are built with enough CC to hold the point and stay alive safely until help arrives from the roamer. The examples of this are engineer with pistol/shield and bombs/flamethrower, warrior with 2 handed hammer, and to an extent the mace, the guardian with the hammer, and there are a few more that escape my train of thought because those were the 3 classes I spent the most time making builds for that revolved around that concept.