Having played exclusively tank classes in MMO’s for some time now, I’m extremely interested to see that Star Wars: The Old Republic is planning a similar approach to Warhammer Online in regards to PvP tanking. An interview with BioWare’s lead PvP designer over at Darthhater.com has some great information on what tanks can expect their role to be in PvP.
One of the more interesting features to me is the ‘Guard’ mechanic. Tanks will be able to reduce incoming damage to friendly characters by ‘guarding’ them, sharing the tanks defensive stats with the guarded player. This encourages the tanks to play a heavy support role, guarding healers and weaker armoured characters keeping them in the fight longer, or storming the frontlines alongside a damage class and providing them the extra defense required to take out some key enemy players. Any damage absorbed by the tank through guarding players is tracked and counts towards their final score providing a solid incentive to switch guard targets around frequently for maximum benefit.
Warhammer Online’s approach to taunts also appears to be making an appearance in The Old Republic. Mythic Entertainment essentially dealt with PvE abilities such as taunts by making them work differently within PvP. Instead of forcing a target switch it would reduce the taunted characters damage output till they attacked the tank a set amount of times. This taunt system, in combination with the guard mechanic means that a tank can provide excellent support to healers and hopefully draw enemy fire away from weaker characters. I really enjoyed this feature in Warhammer and I can’t wait to try it out in The Old Republic.
Back when I played World of Warcraft, before the dual spec and item stat changes, tanking in PvP wasn’t really viable due to most tanking abilities being focused around PvE. Although a hunter could force you to change target to his pet through the use of a hunter skill, a tanks taunt was useless and would not perform the same function. Frustrating.
I’m not saying it was impossible of course, I used to tank in PvP a lot, although mainly in Alterac Valley where tanks could actually be useful. Alterac Valley is a PvP battleground that could be won simply by killing enemy players, or you could also push up to the enemy base and take out a named NPC for an instant win. This naturally provided a solid use for tanks although still mainly in a PvE capacity, any PvP relied heavily on backup from teammates.
During my time playing the Alterac map, I learnt to approach PvP tanking a little differently. As tank damage was low and PvE styled taunts and NPC aggro mechanics do not really translate to playing against real players, tanks found their useful abilities cut back significantly. To most PvP players, a tank was simply a punching bag with high health rather than a threat to be dealt with. The only way to draw focus on yourself as a tank would be to attempt to disrupt the enemy support classes as much as possible. With careful target selection, good use of slowing abilities, interrupts, stuns, and whatever other tricks you had up your sleeve, you could somewhat pressure healers and disrupt the support they give to the DPS players.
Whilst the addition of dual specialisation brought in the ability to swap between two different talent specifications with the click of a button, enabling players to switch from a PvE style to a PvP focused one easily, this didn’t actually make tanking any more required in a PvP environment. It was nice that I could switch to a more damage focused build and take part in PvP, but I still wanted to play my tank with all his abilities rather than a damage dealer with a different set of skills.
By the time Warhammer Online came along I was ready for a change. The fact they were treating tanks as equally viable in PvP as the damage classes was the icing on the cake, and so it was that I reluctantly hung up my shield in World of Warcraft to take up arms as an Ironbreaker in Warhammer Online.
The Ironbreaker tank was able to perform knockbacks, snares, crowd control, and could provide great damage reduction to teammates through the guard mechanic. The tools at your disposal meant that despite lowish damage output (which could actually be very reasonable at times), an unchecked tank was a strong threat to a team due to their ability to lock down healers and prevent support reaching the damage classes. Many times I’ve seen scenarios and Keep battles (Warhammer Online’s version of Player vs Player) turned around by the actions of a few well played and well placed tanks. Watching a line of enemy characters running from your advancing team is a satisfying sight as a tank leading the charge!
This was some of the most fun I’ve had playing tank classes in MMO’s and thankfully seems to be a model more and more titles are following. As someone who picks the tank classes first in most MMO’s this is music to my ears. Flicking between two separate specs, maintaining two separate sets of gear with entirely different stats, sometimes even using completely different abilities to those you know well from PvE tanking – this is not something that encourages people to play tank classes in my opinion.
Hopefully Star Wars: The Old Republic will get the balance right and I can once again enjoy PvE and still be a useful addition to the PvP battlefield as a tank.