Tanks need some kind of overhaul.

[Judicator]

The way tanks work in this game saddens me. Gone are the good old days of BG and IWD where Fighters could give as good as they got. Now tanks just sit on the front line tieing up the enemies while the other classes have all the fine. DPS characters like Barbarians, Monks, and Rogues carve everything up, spellcasters have a wide variety of things to do, but tanks just sit around eating aggro. Playing a tank is just not fun. Why couldn't they be like D&D warriors, who could deal some decent damage as well as protect the backline characters?

[petrivanzyl]

The way I see it it was your choice to make a tank instead of a balanced fighter

[Judicator]

Balanced characters are ass in this game though. They're just inferior to pure damage dealers or pure tanks.

[Guest]

No.

 

Sorry to hear that you'd rather be playing one of those other games. Why don't you go do that?

[Crucis]

The way I see it it was your choice to make a tank instead of a balanced fighter

 

It's a matter of perspective and definition.  In my view, any heavily armored, balanced fighter is a tank.  What you call a tank is what I call cheese. (EDIT) Or an "aggro-magnet". 

Edited April 24, 2015 by Crucis

[MadDemiurg]

You can build a decently tanky DD if you chose so. You want to be super tanky AND deal top damage? Balance man is upset with you.

[mazeltov]

The way tanks work in this game saddens me. Gone are the good old days of BG and IWD where Fighters could give as good as they got.

 

Offtank Eder endgame snapshot:

 

 

 

Eddie da real MVP.

[Luckmann]

The way I see it it was your choice to make a tank instead of a balanced fighter

There is no such thing as a balanced Fighter/Tank; if you don't specialize, you're going to be an utterly terrible tank, and if you specialize, you'll have abysmal killing potential.

 

I do not agree with the OP, though. Tanks do not need an overhaul. The system needs an overhaul to avoid this dichotomy. It's nothing that's fixable with tanks themselves.

 

 

The way tanks work in this game saddens me. Gone are the good old days of BG and IWD where Fighters could give as good as they got.

Offtank Eder endgame snapshot:

 

 

 

Eddie da real MVP.

 

The character screen records are bugged, though. They reset every time you switch someone out, except for your main character. I'm not saying it's relevant in this particular case, but it could be, which makes the screencap terrible for comparison. Also, "Endgame"? You're just level 10. You should be level 12 well before the end.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Luckmann

[Raven Darkholme]

Offtanks work very well in this game. Tanks with dumped might are so day 1.

[PugPug]

You're looking to 2nd Edition D&D for class balance?

[Concordance]

You don't need to build a "super tank" if you have several melee characters. Spread the engagements around to make sure no character is being hit by too many trash mobs or more than one heavy hitter, and you can strike a good balance between durability and damage output.

 

I'll say that poor pathing, lack of a "Hold Position" command and the engagement system heavily discourage melee-heavy parties and push people towards building supertanks, but that is another problem altogether.

[mazeltov]

The character screen records are bugged, though. They reset every time you switch someone out, except for your main character. I'm not saying it's relevant in this particular case, but it could be, which makes the screencap terrible for comparison. Also, "Endgame"? You're just level 10. You should be level 12 well before the end.

 

Don't remember switching characters out on this first playthrough. Rushed 4 + hired a custom Rogue. Endgame as in "right after killing the last boss;" I became pretty frustrated with the storytelling at the end of Act 2, and blitzed through the Act 3 main story arc to get to the end. Even doing that, my party was only 1k from level 11 by the last fight.

[Luckmann]

You don't need to build a "super tank" if you have several melee characters. Spread the engagements around to make sure no character is being hit by too many trash mobs or more than one heavy hitter, and you can strike a good balance between durability and damage output.

 

I'll say that poor pathing, lack of a "Hold Position" command and the engagement system heavily discourage melee-heavy parties and push people towards building supertanks, but that is another problem altogether.

 

I... don't agree. Well. I do. But I don't agree with the conclusion that it's another problem altogether. I've said it before and I'm saying it again; PoE is all of these really good ideas and good mechanics that, each by it's own, would be considered good. But then when it all ties together, the resulting gestalt is.. not stellar.

 

And that's true in this case too. The poor pathing, the lack of a "Hold Position"-command and the war on movement definitely contributes to this situation, just like the incredibly lopsided Attribute bonuses and the dichotomous armour system does.

[gkathellar]

You're looking to 2nd Edition D&D for class balance?

Which really doesn't say anything good about PoE.

 

But, more seriously: the OP is looking to the IE games for class balance, and in the IE games it was ... reasonable-ish (mostly because Bioware treated item use as the warrior's main class feature). It only fell apart if you really knew what you were doing.

 

PoE's class balance is all over the place. And not in a zany, fun way. Optimization thresholds are wildly different from class to class.

Edited April 24, 2015 by gkathellar

[Tigranes]

Why do people like to pigeonhole all their characters into MMO roles like 'tank'? I don't even know what 'tank' is. Is a tank defined by its ability to absorb damage? If so, POE fighters are far too good at it. Are you saying tanks should also be good at dealing damage? I thought that was what you people call DPS. Are you saying a fighter should be good at DPS and good at tank? Then what is it meant to be bad at? 
 

You can create balanced fighters in POE, and have Eder or any other fighter do at least middle-grade damage relative to everyone else in your party while also soaking up damage better than most. 

 

IE fighters were also not as good as Archers, Assassins, Mages, etc. at dealing damage in many cases. 

[mazeltov]

Then what is it meant to be bad at?

 

Healing!

 

 

oh wait they can heal themselves too

 

[Ouroboros226]

PoE fighters needs cleave and *drumroll*:
 

 

 

Devastating Critical [Epic] Prerequisites

Str 25, Cleave, Great Cleave, Improved Critical (chosen weapon), Overwhelming Critical (chosen weapon), Power Attack, Weapon Focus (chosen weapon).

Benefit

Whenever the character scores a critical hit with the chosen weapon, the target must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 character level + character’s Strength modifier) or die instantly. (Creatures immune to critical hits can’t be affected by this feat.)

 

[Judicator]

I'm using the IE games as an example because PoE is supposed to be a successor to those games. And in those games warriors could hold the fronlines and deal damage at the same time. Other classes could outperform them, sure, but they never felt like they weren't contributing. I think part of the problem is the way armor works. The penalty to recovery time is just so massive. Combined with an average or slow weapon and low dex a fighter makes one attack while other characters do two or three.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Judicator

[Blovski]

AI needs fixing, basically, then the minmaxing two indestructible tanks and four casters will be less blatantly ideal.

[Kaigen42]

I don't know about Icewind Dale, but I know that in the BG series, the only reason that warriors could "hold" a frontline was because the AI was too stupid to realize there was literally nothing stopping it from waltzing past them and attacking your squishier characters. In that respect, PoE is a great successor to the IE legacy.

[b0rsuk]

Balanced characters are ass in this game though. They're just inferior to pure damage dealers or pure tanks.

 

Don't blame the game for your choices. Fighters and monks can do okay by focusing on disabling effects. You can disable enemies and continue to deal damage.

[taek]

Balanced characters are ass in this game though. They're just inferior to pure damage dealers or pure tanks.

 

So you want a tank class that tanks on equal level to pure tanks while at the same time does damage at equal level to pure damage dealers.

[CriticalFailure]

Why do people like to pigeonhole all their characters into MMO roles like 'tank'? I don't even know what 'tank' is. Is a tank defined by its ability to absorb damage? If so, POE fighters are far too good at it. Are you saying tanks should also be good at dealing damage? I thought that was what you people call DPS. Are you saying a fighter should be good at DPS and good at tank? Then what is it meant to be bad at? 

 

I agree with the first part of that paragraph. I actually find it pretty funny that people refer as "tanks" to defensive characters who deal no damage... Tanks are resilient, yes, but they also have a goddamn cannon.

 

As for the second part, the way I see it, a typical warrior is an armoured guy with a sword. Armour means s/he should be well protected against physical damage, and the sword means s/he should be able to kill things with it. This doesn't mean that they should be the absolute best at both, but at least good enough. Their weakness would be anything related to magic, I guess.

 

Extremes are silly (if a "tank" can't hurt anything with a sword, what's the point of using it?) and I'd prefer it if they weren't the powergame option, but as others have said, a "balanced" approach is viable, and it seems too late for an overhaul of the whole system to me.

Edited April 24, 2015 by CriticalFailure

[Tigranes]

I'm using the IE games as an example because PoE is supposed to be a successor to those games. And in those games warriors could hold the fronlines and deal damage at the same time. Other classes could outperform them, sure, but they never felt like they weren't contributing. I think part of the problem is the way armor works. The penalty to recovery time is just so massive. Combined with an average or slow weapon and low dex a fighter makes one attack while other characters do two or three.

 

You have a crappy fighter on your party and you're wishing it wasn't so useless. Well, you're right. The only mistake is equating your crappy fighter with the crappiness of fighters for everyone. There are many testaments - and builds - that show fighters don't have to just sit there and be a sponge.

[Judicator]

 

Balanced characters are ass in this game though. They're just inferior to pure damage dealers or pure tanks.

 

So you want a tank class that tanks on equal level to pure tanks while at the same time does damage at equal level to pure damage dealers.

 

No, I want Fighters that can fight. It's ridiculous that the only class that can master weapons are such abysmal damage dealers.