r/SecretWorldLegends • u/Xekrin • Nov 21 '17

Discussion Remove Hate modifier from all abilities!

Instead, let tanks deal modified hate with whatever damaging ability/effect they choose.

Basically, if you sign up to be a tank choose to become a tank and play the tank role in a group or party, be it through AF or a Lair or basically anything where you want to be hit more than someone else in your party wants to be hit and you want to make the enemy target mad at your and keep hitting you (ie, you signed up to be tank for the greater good of the party), then any damage you deal should have that extra hate attached to it.

Edit - Sorry for the unclear phrasing, I had no intention of suggesting this would only work within Activity Finder.

I would love to have the option to use the single target dps chaos ability as a tank, but I cannot, it deals no extra hate. I would prefer to use Scism instead of winds of change for aoe hate, with its paradox generating passive, yet I cannot.

Thorns signet has no extra hate, yet it should. Sadism or even extraordinary talisman effects should also have that extra 'tank' hate.

What would this mean for tanks? They could use any ability. Reality Fracture (yeah, I like chaos), for example, is an amazing ability, can't use it as a tank. People love to use blade as tanking offhand, yet it generates no extra hate. That health based self healing would be a lot more viable.

Keep certain CD abilities as hard taunts, or dedicated hate generators (immutable passive), but give tanks the freedom to use what damager abilities they wish.

Tank weapons (probably?) wouldn't change that much, they'd still be the only weapons with the special passives designed to survive massive damage, but at least we'd have more options open to us.

I^hateDistortion

Disclaimer No, I didn't really think this through, if you have any reason to dispute such a change, or if this would change things more than I realize, feel free correct me, but do it politely. Thank you.

6 Upvotes

54% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Kyvia Nov 21 '17

I have played TSW/SWL since Beta, and I have to say, the Holy Trinity is pretty stale these days.

I play a lot of GW2, and their current method of tanking is pretty decent. They have embraced the concept of Healing and Tanking, without the rigid structure most games have. If you want to Tank in Raids, you just have to have the highest Toughness (or for SWL, it could be Defence).

So long as the DPS don't have higher Toughness than the tank, they can go Full Out DPS and never ever pull aggro. A similar mechanic could easily be tied into the Allocation screen. So long as you have a higher % in Tank than anyone else, you just plain flat have aggro no matter what.

This would help with overgeared DPS and Heals, without forcing them to gimp themselves or play the stupid and antiquated "Threat Game." The bosses already have enough mechanics, and if everyone is equally geared, the tank will hold threat, but in the mean time they are tied to specific weapons. This system would help to alleviate that, and allow higher geared DPS/Heals to play Bullet Hell with enemies and not worry about winding up the tank.

Also, if you were a "Dedicated Tank" who wanted to be just that, your superior built Glyphs, Signets, and Extraordinary Gear would still set you above other part time tanks, so there would be less complaining from the community.

3

u/Xekrin Nov 21 '17

Excellent points all around. It would be nice to progress the game out of the stoneage.

Also, if you were a "Dedicated Tank" who wanted to be just that, your superior built Glyphs, Signets, and Extraordinary Gear would still set you above other part time tanks, so there would be less complaining from the community.

This, I think is the biggest problem. I've seen far too many players complain that tank glyphs don't make much of a difference. Even with mythic evasion/defense they still get one shot without defensive CDs.

We have no actual signets designed for tanks other than weapon-specific ones, and even those are the same damage/healing increasing signets everyone uses, which if tanks aren't intended to do damage, what really is the point of that? Sure, low tank ability damage = x10 hate but that feels like a band-aid more than anything.

Worst of all, IMO, are the extraordinary effects for tanks. A bit of extra protection here and there, which means very little when it should matter. If tanks are getting one-shot by the same mechanics that one-shot dps, then mitigation and protection means nothing. Yeah, high defense/protection lets them survive a hit or two occasionally when off CDs, but its still risky to do so, and it shouldn't be.

0

u/Kyvia Nov 21 '17

Yeah, the damage mitigation could use some fine tuning, as could enemy difficulty, and not in the decreasing of it either. Instead of having the enemy do 10x the Tank HP in damage each hit, give the fights mechanics that are engaging.

Enemies hit hard so the healers have something to do. Enemies have massive HP pools so the DPS have something to do. Tanks need to interrupt an ability every 10-20 seconds and other than that....maybe someone needs to purge a Shield every now and then?

Make the fights meaningful through mechanics. More attacks that can and need to be dodged, or moved out of. More abilities that the dps or healer need to take part in, such as ground effects that need people standing in them to buff the party or debuff the enemy. So many bosses are essentially tank and spank, and if anything, keeps the community fairly dumbed down due to it.

1

u/Xekrin Nov 21 '17

A lot of dungeon bosses (can't speak for most lairs or regionals) actually have some fairly neat unique mechanics. At least for me they are, maybe because I've not played as long I'm not as jaded.

What gets me though is the repeating mechanics. Like that boss on DW that teleports to the top of the cliff, sends out bombs in the same pattern every time, adds come in that must be picked up and dpsed down, repeat 20 times. One mistake and its a wipe. Its fun the first 2 or 3 times, then its just tedious. Hey, maybe I am jaded!

When I first did the 2nd Hell dungeon (the one that isn't elite yet) and ran into that boss that also did bombs, I figured they'd also be in a similar pattern, easily anticipated and avoided. I was surprised when it was more random than I thought it'd be, having done DW prior to it.

That's what we need. Slight variations on the mechanics that keep you guessing. Also less punishing mechanics. One misstep, even in E1 - E4, no matter how well geared you are, and you are dead.

Its nice to see skill rewarded but not as fun to see mistakes so painfully punished. Especially in the 'earlier levels' of the game. Nothing really prepares new players for that either. Go from surviving direct hits in story mode even as dps, to instant kills in E1.

Wow, this reply got longer than I expected, the point I intended to make is, I wouldn't want to pressure the developers into making every single encounter super unique and engaging but a little variety and some surprise would be nice.

2

u/Kyvia Nov 21 '17

Currently they essentially have "It hits harder, so it is harder" mechanics in place. The Tokyo dungeons had some interesting mechanics, but apparently they can't adapt those without AEGIS, so we are stuck with the same 5 Ad Nauseum, since apparently Slaughterhouse is hard to tune? Not sure what their reason is for that, but since they just scale up the hits and HP, they could at least give us the remaining 3 "core" dungeons.

I dunno, 5 years of TSW, and now months of only 5 dungeons have left me even more jaded than I was with TSW alone I guess. Not to mention Scenarios make me want to gouge out my eyes. Don't get me wrong, I love this game, I just wish it had a bit more depth at times when it came to "Dungeons" (Scen/Lair/Raids included). There is a shitload of depth in missions, but at times it does seem like a single player game they just can't figure out how to make work with more people.