Raedwulf
16 Oct 2008, 11:44
What Was My Job Again?
Or, Eik offers an opinion…
Now, the laddie Gan says much that is both wise & true in his manuscript upon Guardians, but there is one subject that he, like most, never quite pins down. I don’t like to use the word (I am not a large water storage vessel!), but I see no other way of introducing it – Main-Tanking vs. Off-Tanking.
There seem to be a number of; not so much unspoken as thoughtless; assumptions about this subject. The first is that you must have a Guardian as a Main; the second is that all tanking roles will be assumed by any available Guardians, & the third is that there is no real difference in playing a Main- or Off-. All of these are wrong!
In the first case, the Nimminas Champions have adequately proved that even a mighty foe such as Barz can be dealt with sans Guardian. Of course, for such as he, the Champion really ought to use a Heavy Shield as Brondhae & Tiernan have done, but even without, a Champion is no small threat, as Raedwulf has proven many a time. Naturally, if there is a Guardian present, then Main-Tank he will, but the lesson that any Guardian should learn is to be the best you can all the time. There’s many a group that, if they know what they’re about, would rather take a good Champion than an average Guardian – you cannot afford to presume on your class; make sure you know what yer about & have the reputation for it! Otherwise, yer left with the groups that bleat “Need GDN & MNS”, & they are almost invariably composed of the less able of the Free Peoples.
It is worth saying, I think, that outside of Raids & Instanced Quests, the distinction between Main- & Off- is largely irrelevant. There’s rarely enough numbers or enough threat from the Enemy for the subtleties of the subject to matter. Once yer into places like The Rift & Helegrod, though, where there are veritable swarms of Normals & Elites; Elite Masters in two’s & three’s with adds; and the likes of Thorog & Thaurlach to deal with! Then, Tank or Leader, you’d better know how to use your Heavy Armour, else ‘twill be a short fight, & not because yer victorious!!
So, fer the second & third cases, I will take the arguments together for they are, in some wise, two facets of the same gem. The job of the Main Tank is simply this – get the attention of the biggest, nastiest enemy to hand & keep it! In Instanced quests & Raids, this usually means an Elite Master or stronger; in ordinary quests, it will more usually be an Elite or even a mere Signature. Since, outside of raids, it’s relatively rare for 2 Guardians to be together in a group, it follows that Guardians will spend most of their time being a Main-. Inevitably, since they develop a tendency to focus on one adversary who is constantly filling their vision, they are more likely than anyone else to be unaware of what is going on around them.
By contrast, the most important part of Off-tanking is exactly that – being aware of what is going on around. The Off’s job, mostly, is sweeping up everything else that is threatening before it gets to the soft-shelled parts of the party. Stop them finding Smaug’s armpit, if you take my meaning! ;) For these reasons, a good Champion will make a better principal Off-Tank than a Guardian. Because they are the kings of AoE they have to know what’s going on, to know whether or not they can use their skills to the full. Those AoE skills can also be used in rapid succession, unlike the Guardian’s Challenge. And, believe me, they attract a lot more attention than a Guardian's equivalents!
The nub of this is that the Guardian’s forte is focusing on a single target. Whilst they can, and do, attract the attention of multiple enemies, it’s a very good Guardian indeed that can keep all of the attention with a competent Champion about. Judicious use of Strength by Hunters will also take enemies away & nothing the Main- can do about that, be they Guardian or Champion! But more on that later.
So let us consider a scenario to demonstrate these musings. Suppose a not a-typical Rift Raid that includes 2 Guardians, a Champion, & 2 Captains. I’ve said little about Captains – they can tank, Main- or Off-, and can do it well. Their heavy armour, buffs & healing grant great survivability, even if they do not choose to use a shield. What they can’t do is hold an enemy’s attention in the face of a determined Guardian or Champion. But if they can draw that threat for long enough to persuade the foe to move, they can draw them off & keep them occupied elsewhere & out of the way.
Now we’ll have our group face the second contest in The Rift – 2 EM’s, Slave & Slave Master, & around half-a-dozen Elite Workers. Our party’s crowd control will stop the two EM’s. Conventional wisdom will say that the Guardians are the Main- & Off- Tanks; the Champion & Captains just do whatever it is they do. I say that’s wrong.
What you have there is 2 MT’s (the Guardians) & 3 OT’s (the CHM being the primary one). When those 6 Elites come running by, headed for the Lore-Masters who started the fight, no Guardian can stop them all. Challenge will only annoy 3 of them. Even with 2 Guardians there, there is no guarantee that their Challenges will hit different target unless the Guardians are widely spaced. One or two good swipes from the Champion hits everything – an untraited Blade Wall targets up to 5 in front, the Legendary Raging Blades up to 8 all round. So who’s the real Off-? The Champion, naturally!
Our normal tactic here is to place one Heavy up with the Lore-masters to pick up any Workers that get through. What might be better in this scenario is to have MT1 out in front to Challenge the first 3, the CHM OT1 a little behind to swipe the remainder (but far enough behind so they don't take any of MT1's "friends"). With good timing, he ought to be able to get almost all of them. MT2's job is then to Challenge again to try to grab 2 or 3 Workers away from OT1, since anyone will struggle to survive the efforts of a large number of Elites! Being a MT he should be able to guarantee keeping the attention of at least one. If you feel the need you can place one of the CPT OT's up with the LMs just in case; otherwise they can be down with OT1. OT1 will be taking a hell of a beating at this point - helping to relieve the pressure on the MNSs to heal him reduces their threat generation; the CPTs also stand a reasonable chance of getting at least one more target away from OT1. Once the focus of the foe has been settled where it should be (on the Heavies), the party can settle down to following the RAT around to kill them all off.
The other side of the Main / Off coin to consider is mobility. Generally speaking, the Main Tank should be stationary, in order to keep the Main Threat stationary! This is a point that can't be overstressed - knowing where the big boss is at all times means those that need to avoid him, and those that need to find him, CAN!! The only scenario I can think of where the MT's target is going to need to be moved substantially is if it's got too close to the Hunters (who need to be stationary as much as possible during fights, as everyone should know). The worst thing in the world is having an idiot MT running through the group with AoE-dealing enemies in tow, in the mistaken belief that it's their job to "rescue" someone soft on the other side. Fool!
It's the job of the OTs, and the secondary MTs if there are any, to attack any extras, or to rescue the squishier parts of the fellowship from any unwanted attention. Whether the OT's then bring the add's TO the MT or AWAY will very much depend upon the nature of the foes they face. Bringing to allows AoE to have the widest possible effect. The disadvantage of this is that it increases the amount of flailing weapons & shimmering magic in everyone's line of sight, thus increasing confusion. For that reason alone, if a particularly enemy must be removed from action by stun / mezz (Rift Slave-Master springs to mind), it must first be drawn away from the main fighting area; a beneficial side-effect being that it enables champions (& Loremasters, to a lesser extent) to exert their full might, since they are hamstrung if area-of-effect attacks are forbidden from use. In general, then, any "management" of add's is an OT job; the MT should concern themself only with the Main Threat.
Thinking while Yer Tanking...
One last word (alright, lots of words!) on the subject. Like most things, this is not something in which there is only one “right” way of going about things. You may have a preferred way of doing things, probably will, but, whatever yer role in the group, you need be flexible, aware of possibilities, whether you are a Tank or no. Above all, the Main Tank needs to have an understanding with any Hunters & Champions they're working with, fer they’re the most likely people to be exchanging threat with the MT. Now with everything I’ve already said, you might think this is the one thing that everyone should be against at all costs, but see laddie, you’ve not been thinking things all the way through.
I’m minded of tales I’ve heard from Elnar. As some of you will know, Elnar is a Hunter who operates almost exclusively in Strength stance, & that is always considered the Tank’s Bane of Banes! You’d think this was by way of being a bad thing, but the man *ahem* I mean, elf knows how to manage his threat generation in Strength. A long, long time ago, ere they were as skilled as they now are, Abarax & Elnar evolved a very nice little tactic down in Giant Valley in the Trollshaws. They were alone down there with precious little healing available, which makes life difficult when you’ve a succession of Elites to deal with! So Elnar pulls the giant from the furthest range that circumstances allow & Abarax Challenges him on the way through, keeping the foe a nice way away from Elnar. When Abarax is starting to puff & blow a bit, Elnar steals the attention. Giant runs to Elnar, hitting no-one in the meanwhile; Ab grabs the attention back & runs away a bit; & so on. End result – an enemy that spends a lot of time running back & forth not hitting ANYONE!! No bad thing!
It worked on a rock-throwing giant too, if not so well. Whilst neither a Hunter nor a Burglar can tank properly, in that they cannot do it continuously against powerful enemies, their Medium armour certainly allows them to withstand a few stout blows (in this example several rocks). Having stolen the attention, they then drop their threatening skills, until the Guardian, Champion, or Captain deems it time to resume their claims upon the foe’s time. Whilst this is hardly a tactic for normal groups or most situations, it certainly can provide very valuable seconds for a tank to recover both health & skills.
The bad side of tanking can be demonstrated by a rather more recent tale of Guardian & Champion unable to cope with the notion of a Hunter in Strength, that resulted in the Champion threatening to kick Elnar from the group, & the Guardian’s words were (I’m ashamed to say) “You noob, you’re stealing my aggro”. Elnar tells me that the foe in question was 9 parts dead. A good Guardian would see that, see his unhurt Hunter & say “Fine, he can finish him off, I’ll start on the next monster”.
Conclusions
A properly traited Guardian will always be the Main Tank. Only a Hunter in Strength stance can take attention from them. However, a good Champion in Glory stance is a perfectly adequate replacement. I've often said it, but there really is no job that needs a Guardian, as is so often bleated. Though I've yet to see it proven, I suspect that even Thorog & Thaurlach can be Main'ed by a Champion with a Heavy shield. The best Off Tank is a good Champion. A Guardian can also do a perfectly good job, though they might want to consider adjusting their traits slightly (including Parried Blows, Harasser, and /or Quickness, perhaps). Captains can perform either task, but only in the absence of the afore-mentioned, and may struggle to keep threat against the activities of even a non-Strength Hunter or a Burglar. Generally, Captains are only going to be performing a "proper" Tanking role in desparate times, small fellowships, or very large raid fights with many foes.
However, an improperly traited Guardian is a potential disaster. It's been proven recently in The Rift, both by Rędwulf & myself, that a poorly set-up Guardian cannot keep aggro properly. In Rędwulf's case, he kept stealing aggro without even trying (the Guardian in question ought ter be 'shamed of 'emselves, though I'll not name 'em! ;) ); in my case, I stole Zurm's attention in 9k of damage, despite the MT having been on him for the first 100k. Again, that's embarassing; but the real problem is that the entire fellowship or raid will instantly assume that any Guardian is set-up to be an MT. Either make sure you are, or make sure they know you're not. Otherwise trouble will ensue!
I hope these thoughts will be of some interest & use to one an' all. Whether you be hard- or soft-shelled, 'tis important that you know what you can expect from your fellows, whoe'er they be; who you can expect to be helping you & how; & who you should be askin' fer help in times of trouble! Lastly (and I do mean lastly this time!), I do not know everything there is to know about tanking. I have said "this is not something in which there is only one “right” way of going about things", & I mean it. If you have different thoughts & different tactics to offer, I would welcome hearing them!
In the Service of the West,
Eikinskjaldi of the White Company
Or, Eik offers an opinion…
Now, the laddie Gan says much that is both wise & true in his manuscript upon Guardians, but there is one subject that he, like most, never quite pins down. I don’t like to use the word (I am not a large water storage vessel!), but I see no other way of introducing it – Main-Tanking vs. Off-Tanking.
There seem to be a number of; not so much unspoken as thoughtless; assumptions about this subject. The first is that you must have a Guardian as a Main; the second is that all tanking roles will be assumed by any available Guardians, & the third is that there is no real difference in playing a Main- or Off-. All of these are wrong!
In the first case, the Nimminas Champions have adequately proved that even a mighty foe such as Barz can be dealt with sans Guardian. Of course, for such as he, the Champion really ought to use a Heavy Shield as Brondhae & Tiernan have done, but even without, a Champion is no small threat, as Raedwulf has proven many a time. Naturally, if there is a Guardian present, then Main-Tank he will, but the lesson that any Guardian should learn is to be the best you can all the time. There’s many a group that, if they know what they’re about, would rather take a good Champion than an average Guardian – you cannot afford to presume on your class; make sure you know what yer about & have the reputation for it! Otherwise, yer left with the groups that bleat “Need GDN & MNS”, & they are almost invariably composed of the less able of the Free Peoples.
It is worth saying, I think, that outside of Raids & Instanced Quests, the distinction between Main- & Off- is largely irrelevant. There’s rarely enough numbers or enough threat from the Enemy for the subtleties of the subject to matter. Once yer into places like The Rift & Helegrod, though, where there are veritable swarms of Normals & Elites; Elite Masters in two’s & three’s with adds; and the likes of Thorog & Thaurlach to deal with! Then, Tank or Leader, you’d better know how to use your Heavy Armour, else ‘twill be a short fight, & not because yer victorious!!
So, fer the second & third cases, I will take the arguments together for they are, in some wise, two facets of the same gem. The job of the Main Tank is simply this – get the attention of the biggest, nastiest enemy to hand & keep it! In Instanced quests & Raids, this usually means an Elite Master or stronger; in ordinary quests, it will more usually be an Elite or even a mere Signature. Since, outside of raids, it’s relatively rare for 2 Guardians to be together in a group, it follows that Guardians will spend most of their time being a Main-. Inevitably, since they develop a tendency to focus on one adversary who is constantly filling their vision, they are more likely than anyone else to be unaware of what is going on around them.
By contrast, the most important part of Off-tanking is exactly that – being aware of what is going on around. The Off’s job, mostly, is sweeping up everything else that is threatening before it gets to the soft-shelled parts of the party. Stop them finding Smaug’s armpit, if you take my meaning! ;) For these reasons, a good Champion will make a better principal Off-Tank than a Guardian. Because they are the kings of AoE they have to know what’s going on, to know whether or not they can use their skills to the full. Those AoE skills can also be used in rapid succession, unlike the Guardian’s Challenge. And, believe me, they attract a lot more attention than a Guardian's equivalents!
The nub of this is that the Guardian’s forte is focusing on a single target. Whilst they can, and do, attract the attention of multiple enemies, it’s a very good Guardian indeed that can keep all of the attention with a competent Champion about. Judicious use of Strength by Hunters will also take enemies away & nothing the Main- can do about that, be they Guardian or Champion! But more on that later.
So let us consider a scenario to demonstrate these musings. Suppose a not a-typical Rift Raid that includes 2 Guardians, a Champion, & 2 Captains. I’ve said little about Captains – they can tank, Main- or Off-, and can do it well. Their heavy armour, buffs & healing grant great survivability, even if they do not choose to use a shield. What they can’t do is hold an enemy’s attention in the face of a determined Guardian or Champion. But if they can draw that threat for long enough to persuade the foe to move, they can draw them off & keep them occupied elsewhere & out of the way.
Now we’ll have our group face the second contest in The Rift – 2 EM’s, Slave & Slave Master, & around half-a-dozen Elite Workers. Our party’s crowd control will stop the two EM’s. Conventional wisdom will say that the Guardians are the Main- & Off- Tanks; the Champion & Captains just do whatever it is they do. I say that’s wrong.
What you have there is 2 MT’s (the Guardians) & 3 OT’s (the CHM being the primary one). When those 6 Elites come running by, headed for the Lore-Masters who started the fight, no Guardian can stop them all. Challenge will only annoy 3 of them. Even with 2 Guardians there, there is no guarantee that their Challenges will hit different target unless the Guardians are widely spaced. One or two good swipes from the Champion hits everything – an untraited Blade Wall targets up to 5 in front, the Legendary Raging Blades up to 8 all round. So who’s the real Off-? The Champion, naturally!
Our normal tactic here is to place one Heavy up with the Lore-masters to pick up any Workers that get through. What might be better in this scenario is to have MT1 out in front to Challenge the first 3, the CHM OT1 a little behind to swipe the remainder (but far enough behind so they don't take any of MT1's "friends"). With good timing, he ought to be able to get almost all of them. MT2's job is then to Challenge again to try to grab 2 or 3 Workers away from OT1, since anyone will struggle to survive the efforts of a large number of Elites! Being a MT he should be able to guarantee keeping the attention of at least one. If you feel the need you can place one of the CPT OT's up with the LMs just in case; otherwise they can be down with OT1. OT1 will be taking a hell of a beating at this point - helping to relieve the pressure on the MNSs to heal him reduces their threat generation; the CPTs also stand a reasonable chance of getting at least one more target away from OT1. Once the focus of the foe has been settled where it should be (on the Heavies), the party can settle down to following the RAT around to kill them all off.
The other side of the Main / Off coin to consider is mobility. Generally speaking, the Main Tank should be stationary, in order to keep the Main Threat stationary! This is a point that can't be overstressed - knowing where the big boss is at all times means those that need to avoid him, and those that need to find him, CAN!! The only scenario I can think of where the MT's target is going to need to be moved substantially is if it's got too close to the Hunters (who need to be stationary as much as possible during fights, as everyone should know). The worst thing in the world is having an idiot MT running through the group with AoE-dealing enemies in tow, in the mistaken belief that it's their job to "rescue" someone soft on the other side. Fool!
It's the job of the OTs, and the secondary MTs if there are any, to attack any extras, or to rescue the squishier parts of the fellowship from any unwanted attention. Whether the OT's then bring the add's TO the MT or AWAY will very much depend upon the nature of the foes they face. Bringing to allows AoE to have the widest possible effect. The disadvantage of this is that it increases the amount of flailing weapons & shimmering magic in everyone's line of sight, thus increasing confusion. For that reason alone, if a particularly enemy must be removed from action by stun / mezz (Rift Slave-Master springs to mind), it must first be drawn away from the main fighting area; a beneficial side-effect being that it enables champions (& Loremasters, to a lesser extent) to exert their full might, since they are hamstrung if area-of-effect attacks are forbidden from use. In general, then, any "management" of add's is an OT job; the MT should concern themself only with the Main Threat.
Thinking while Yer Tanking...
One last word (alright, lots of words!) on the subject. Like most things, this is not something in which there is only one “right” way of going about things. You may have a preferred way of doing things, probably will, but, whatever yer role in the group, you need be flexible, aware of possibilities, whether you are a Tank or no. Above all, the Main Tank needs to have an understanding with any Hunters & Champions they're working with, fer they’re the most likely people to be exchanging threat with the MT. Now with everything I’ve already said, you might think this is the one thing that everyone should be against at all costs, but see laddie, you’ve not been thinking things all the way through.
I’m minded of tales I’ve heard from Elnar. As some of you will know, Elnar is a Hunter who operates almost exclusively in Strength stance, & that is always considered the Tank’s Bane of Banes! You’d think this was by way of being a bad thing, but the man *ahem* I mean, elf knows how to manage his threat generation in Strength. A long, long time ago, ere they were as skilled as they now are, Abarax & Elnar evolved a very nice little tactic down in Giant Valley in the Trollshaws. They were alone down there with precious little healing available, which makes life difficult when you’ve a succession of Elites to deal with! So Elnar pulls the giant from the furthest range that circumstances allow & Abarax Challenges him on the way through, keeping the foe a nice way away from Elnar. When Abarax is starting to puff & blow a bit, Elnar steals the attention. Giant runs to Elnar, hitting no-one in the meanwhile; Ab grabs the attention back & runs away a bit; & so on. End result – an enemy that spends a lot of time running back & forth not hitting ANYONE!! No bad thing!
It worked on a rock-throwing giant too, if not so well. Whilst neither a Hunter nor a Burglar can tank properly, in that they cannot do it continuously against powerful enemies, their Medium armour certainly allows them to withstand a few stout blows (in this example several rocks). Having stolen the attention, they then drop their threatening skills, until the Guardian, Champion, or Captain deems it time to resume their claims upon the foe’s time. Whilst this is hardly a tactic for normal groups or most situations, it certainly can provide very valuable seconds for a tank to recover both health & skills.
The bad side of tanking can be demonstrated by a rather more recent tale of Guardian & Champion unable to cope with the notion of a Hunter in Strength, that resulted in the Champion threatening to kick Elnar from the group, & the Guardian’s words were (I’m ashamed to say) “You noob, you’re stealing my aggro”. Elnar tells me that the foe in question was 9 parts dead. A good Guardian would see that, see his unhurt Hunter & say “Fine, he can finish him off, I’ll start on the next monster”.
Conclusions
A properly traited Guardian will always be the Main Tank. Only a Hunter in Strength stance can take attention from them. However, a good Champion in Glory stance is a perfectly adequate replacement. I've often said it, but there really is no job that needs a Guardian, as is so often bleated. Though I've yet to see it proven, I suspect that even Thorog & Thaurlach can be Main'ed by a Champion with a Heavy shield. The best Off Tank is a good Champion. A Guardian can also do a perfectly good job, though they might want to consider adjusting their traits slightly (including Parried Blows, Harasser, and /or Quickness, perhaps). Captains can perform either task, but only in the absence of the afore-mentioned, and may struggle to keep threat against the activities of even a non-Strength Hunter or a Burglar. Generally, Captains are only going to be performing a "proper" Tanking role in desparate times, small fellowships, or very large raid fights with many foes.
However, an improperly traited Guardian is a potential disaster. It's been proven recently in The Rift, both by Rędwulf & myself, that a poorly set-up Guardian cannot keep aggro properly. In Rędwulf's case, he kept stealing aggro without even trying (the Guardian in question ought ter be 'shamed of 'emselves, though I'll not name 'em! ;) ); in my case, I stole Zurm's attention in 9k of damage, despite the MT having been on him for the first 100k. Again, that's embarassing; but the real problem is that the entire fellowship or raid will instantly assume that any Guardian is set-up to be an MT. Either make sure you are, or make sure they know you're not. Otherwise trouble will ensue!
I hope these thoughts will be of some interest & use to one an' all. Whether you be hard- or soft-shelled, 'tis important that you know what you can expect from your fellows, whoe'er they be; who you can expect to be helping you & how; & who you should be askin' fer help in times of trouble! Lastly (and I do mean lastly this time!), I do not know everything there is to know about tanking. I have said "this is not something in which there is only one “right” way of going about things", & I mean it. If you have different thoughts & different tactics to offer, I would welcome hearing them!
In the Service of the West,
Eikinskjaldi of the White Company