Talk:Tank

I find Elementalists are often equally good as a tank as a Warrior. --Tetris L 19:18, 16 Sep 2005 (EST)

How is that? Elementalist armor is made of toilet paper, it's completely useless! :) There is no defense that the elementalist can conjure that the warrior cannot, in return, the warrior has an edge (+25 AL and a shield) that the ele cannot make up. --Karlos 20:31, 16 Sep 2005 (EST)

Elem Armor is weaker than warriors', but they can compensate some of that with some nice defensive spells (especially earth magic) and with the MASSIVE melee damage output they can deal. The trick is to kill all adjacent foes before they kill you. Granted, if foes use ranged attacks you're f*cked. But that goes for warriors too. :) --Tetris L 20:42, 16 Sep 2005 (EST)

Like I said, nothing the ele can conjure that the warrior cannot. Ward against melee gives a 50% chance to evade, Defensive Stance gives a 75% chance. Try tanking the Dredge Brutes or the Bladed Aataxe and you'll see that an else is the worst option. Tanking is not about leading the charge to wipe out the enemy, tanking is about damage absorption. And a warrior is the bane of rangers, not the other way around. Warriors are the reason rangers have all those dirty tricks like Throw Dirt, Escape, Flee and Run for your life! :) --Karlos 21:13, 16 Sep 2005 (EST)

I don't question that Warriors are the best tanks. I'm just saying that they are not the only tanks. For me damage absorption isn't the definition of tanking. For me a tank is somebody who is suited to engage the enemy in melee, Kilroy Stonekin style, front row, to protect the other party members that use ranged attacks or spellcasting from the second row. And warriors are definetly not the only ones who are suited for melee attacking. --Tetris L 21:28, 16 Sep 2005 (EST)

I agree, as far as defensive tanking (keeping melee units focus on you) goes, a geomancer can go a long way with with Armor of Earth, Kinetic Armor, Obsidian Flesh, Ward Against Melee, Ward Against Foes (to stop them from reaching soft targets), Aura of Restoration, a spammable spell (like Stone Daggers to keep Kinetic Armor running and feed Restoration. Toss Crystal Wave or Aftershock some PBAOE damage and you're all set. --theeth 17:28, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

heh heh.. Then you go to the Fissure of Woe and get your behind handed to you in a platter by something called Abyssals and you learn, the very hard way, that tanking should strictly be for warriors. :) I was with a PBAoE Geomancer yesterday. Poor thing died 4 times before we even got to the forgemaster. She was totally distracting the monks and we ended up asking her to just stay back (where she only had one spell she can hurt people with). Abyssals got her two times, Skeletal Berserkers got her once and the big bad Dragon Lich another. Tanking Geomancers, in my opinion, are a gimmick... They can be totally cool and surprise your foes in certain situations, but it's not something you can use everyday. Kinda like a running quarter back.. Useful and surprising every now and then. Disastrous if used repeatedly. :) --Karlos 17:36, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Regardless who's tanking, if you have a me/n or n/me to cast Sympathetic Visage, Enfeebling Blood and Shadow of Fear on top, normal damage output is a reduced to a nicely manageable 16.5% with approximately no chance of addrenaline-based attack. Another exemple of why teams need to be well balanced and stay out of the 3 warriors, 2 nukers, 2 monks and one whatever pattern. --theeth 18:12, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Unless you're going questing/farming with guildies or friends, there's no point in contriving some elaborate solo build that relies on others. I'd say 90% of the parties that go in FoW are random people meeting in ToA. I personally never heard of the 3-2-2 rule you mentioned. Most of the FoW parties have a 2W-2E-2Mo rule and the UW ones have a 2W-2E-2Mo kind of rule. It's more of a generic build really. A specific build might have great success farming certain areas, but not others and requires coordination. --Karlos 19:49, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to drudge up this question again but I really don't like the line "...Tank is a term that denotes a warrior." It sounds as if Tank and Warrior are synonyms or interchangeable, they are not. Consider this use of the word Tank. "Damn our Warrior just disconnected, can we get one of the rangers to Tank for a bit?" How about if I have a rough go at defining "Tank".

To Tank is to try and get most mobs to attack you instead of other party members, for this reason Tanks normally stand at the front of the group. Because they need to be able to take a lot of punishment, Warriors are generally used as Tanks in most situations.

The reason I came across this article was because in the Elementalist Ranger article it was said that "Having a pet can be beneficial for an Elementalist by providing extra damage to targets, and pets also another target for enemies to hit (aka meatshield)." Meatshield really just being another word for tank, for a character with a pet, the pet is their Tank.

Consider this sentence: Most people think that Warriors make the best Tanks although others will argue that Geomancer's can also make terrific Tanks. Whether or not you agree with the sentence is irrelevant, the sentence certainly makes sense in my opinion. If "Tank is a term that denotes a warrior" is part of the definition of a Tank then the sentence wouldn't have made sense. The role of a Tank isn't exclusively performed by a Warrior, other classes can attempt it. The role of a healer or minion master can only be performed by a specific class but with a well thought out skill set or in unusual circumstances other classes can Tank albeit less successfully. Can we remove the line "...Tank is a term that denotes a warrior." from the article? --Xasxas256 09:55, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

It should say "despite what tank actually means, in Guild Wars it is almost always used as a synonym for warrior."--Cloak of Letters 14:33, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I do not agree to your proposal as I mentioned eons ago. I'll give you two points to think about:

a) Try telling a Fissure group or Team Arena group that you are a Geomancer tank that will do just as a good as a warrior, see if they believe you. :)

b) All other clasess that may attempt to "tank" will rely on enchantments which means that they cannot face mesmers/necros that disenchant which means they are not real tanks.

As cloak says, in Guild Wars it is used exclusively as warrior. The verb "to tank" is used more loosely but when a party is looking for a tank there's no question what they are looking for. You can simply explain in "To Tank" that other classes can attempt to tank as well using a variey of techniques. --Karlos 15:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Re: point (b) — I think I can adapt Invincimentalist to be an indefinite Obsidian Flesh tanker. At 16 earth, Armor of Earth + Kinetic Armor + Obsidian Flesh = an obscene +166 armor, and Galigord's Stone Staff even gives the +20% enchant needed. Run in, cast Ward Against Melee, Ward Against Foes, and plop yourself down like a Stone Daggers spitting turnip. The only counters I can think of OTTOMH are Chilblains/Well of the Profane and exclusively shadow damage skills, and at least a Chilblains strategy can be defeated with altering the enchantment order, covering, and/or making the necro Fragile. (This is a purely theoretical exercise; I've never played a geomancer, so there's probably some detail I missed; also, I agree that no sensible GW player uses "tank" to refer to anything but Warriors, perhaps even just W/Mos.) — Stabber (talk) 02:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I could tell you lots of stories of warrier tanks I've partied with who obviously thought they were invincible just because they had 20 more AL than the rest of our party. Aggroing large groups of foes Leeroy Jankins style they were killed again and again. They failed miserably (and off course, blamed it on the monks' bad healing). Well, Mr. Warrior Tank, here is news for you: Your shiny armor doesn't reduce damage from most spells and hexes. You're just as vulnerable against those as the monk in the back row. Now ... does this story prove that Warriors are bad tanks? No. Just like your story about a failed Geomancer tank doesn't prove that Geomancers are always bad tanks.

A definition article should always start with the definition. This article starts with "tank = warrior". Well, as a definition, that is plain and simply wrong. If tank was just an other term for warrior, then we wouldn't need a separate term. And we wouldn't have to ask "Who will be our tank?" at the beginning of a mission. The definition of tank is a melee attacker who serves as a shield in the front row, to block the way to the spellcasters and ranged attackers in the second row, to aggro foes and draw their attention and damage at himself and to absorb that damage.

Again, nobody questions that tanks are the best tanks, and that the article should clearly say that. All we're asking for is that the article mentions the possibility of other professions (even though less suited for it) taking over the role of a tank. Is that too much to ask for? I will come up with a suggestion for an alternative wording that hopefully anybody can live with. If not, we can put this matter to a vote.

One last, additional thing: I want to challenge the separation of the noun part of the article into offensive and defensive tanks. In my opinion there is no such separation. To be suited for his role a tank must always be both. --User:Tetris L/Sig 02:12, 30 November 2005 (UTC)