Would a ranged tank work?

[Deleted]

In any setting really League of Legends for example, though mainly WoW.

[Dakara]

Well bosses always run to melee range, so the "range tank" would still be in melee.

[Deleted]

Well bosses always run to melee range, so the "range tank" would still be in melee.

What if he had a way to keep bosses at a distance, knockback, dashes etc?

[Rucati]

No. Well, yes, but only in certain situations.

There have been fights with ranged tanks before, the first boss in Gruul's Lair who's name I forget used a Mage to tank one of the 5 guys, and the demon guy in SSC whose name I also forget (Leo something or other I think) used a Warlock to tank for part of it.

But as for a real tank class that is primarily ranged, no it wouldn't work. You can't have some melee and some ranged tanks, because it would make certain fights almost require one or the other. Plus the boss would need either insane melee range, or you'd basically just be kiting him all the time. If you have some bosses that don't melee at all and only use their ranged attacks it would work I suppose, but having all the bosses be like that would be weird.

As for other games, there are no tanks in MOBAs and I wish people would stop claiming otherwise. There are tanky heroes, sure, but with the exception of Axe in DotA and Legionnaire in HoN, there are no tanks, because it's easy to just avoid attacking the "tank" hero.

[Alvito]

They would have to change the way mobs aggro and fight things to do that. Mobs would just run right to the tank and attack away. SWTOR has a ranged class that can tank and 90% of the stuff you end up doing is melee or might as well be because you are always at that close range.

[Agent Mercury]

Sure with a ranged boss or it is just kiting with agro.

[Alvito]

What if he had a way to keep bosses at a distance, knockback, dashes etc?

So a tank that always has to kite on top of keeping aggro and watching out for all the bull shit going on? If you allow bosses to be knocked back then shammies and druids would abuse that also. Trying to force a ranged tank that is always at range into the game would cause so many problems it wouldn't be worth it.

[Zulandia]

What if he had a way to keep bosses at a distance, knockback, dashes etc?

Extremely annoying for the melee who would need to stay in melee range of a constantly moving boss. A ranged tank will not work in WoW save for a couple very niche instances.

In other games such as Moba's (since you mentioned LoL) it could work to a certain extent but it's not really the same concept since tanking there is more about peeling and disruption that actually tanking (though you obviously need to be tanky enough to survive either in the midst of their team or near their assassins as they engage your team).

[Lickintoad]

The Vanguard/Powertech in The Old Republic is a "ranged" tank. By that, it uses ranged weapons. However, most of the attacks of those classes happen within 10 meters. It works fairly well, but as was already stated, eventually it all moves into melee range, and those classes have charges and pulls to get mobs there more quickly.

In theory a ranged tank where the fight is going to take place at 35-40 meters (or wherever the ranged classes top out) would really only work when the target is also a ranged mob. Putting in enough knockbacks, ranged stuns and the like to keep a raid boss at range would trivialize tanking, since the boss would never be able to hit the tank. Nevermind the effect it would have on PvP. All in all, I think The Old Republic did it pretty well. The Vanguard still does most of its damage (and thus threat-building) at melee range, but the fact that it uses a blaster rifle makes it feel different than the two Jedi tanks.

To use a WoW example, say the hunter got a tank spec. It would look much like Legolas in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies (making actual melee attacks with arrows) or the fight choreography in Arrow, where he uses the bow itself as a melee weapon. Maybe guns would have bayonet attachments. It could work, but would enough people actually want to do it? Probably not.

[Thimagryn]

They would have to redesign most-to-all bosses to have a huge hit radius + attack. It's not a very elegant design decision, to be honest. Even Warlock tanking glyph changed abilities to work as a classic Melee tank. Caster Tank would only work in very specific scenarios, like Vanilla 4-Horseman fight.

[Airwaves]

So a tank that always has to kite on top of keeping aggro and watching out for all the bull shit going on? If you allow bosses to be knocked back then shammies and druids would abuse that also. Trying to force a ranged tank that is always at range into the game would cause so many problems it wouldn't be worth it.

You are talking like tanking is a hard job... I tanked for 8 years. It is joke easy now days. They throw agro in your face and almost every boss is just tank swaps. They have become more DPS then tanks.

[Verain]

While I was very excited for Powertech / Vanguard, the reality of the situation was that they were just more melee guys. I was crushed when I saw that the way they chose to handle the powertech and scoundrel was to have you hit shit with the base of your rifle, an improvised mace THAT IS A LASER GUN being used as a bludgeon. I will really never forgive the devs for that, it's awful.


A ranged tank would work like this:

You shoot or cast decently, and have good range. You have defenses for melee and defenses for ranged. These may or may not be the SAME defenses, but you have them.


So if you were to tank, say, Gruul, he would run his ass over to you, and you couldn't stop him or keep your distance. It would be bullshit if you had a magical kite power, because that's not tanking. But if you were to tank, say, a caster enemy, you'd be able to keep aggro and defenses up from a distance, which a melee tank couldn't do.

So, what would you give up for that perk? In WoW you could probably give up not much- like raid utility or mobility (death grip / charge). The number of bosses that want to stand at range is super small in wow. In a game with caster bosses, especially ones that need to be interrupted to make them move, this power would be valuable, even mandatory- you could make such a tank weaker, or less threatening, or less damaging, and he'd still have a valuable role.


In LoL ranged tank would be kinda powerful as well, as you'd have a decent number of the advantages of a ranged ADC while in lane. I dunno.

- - - Updated - - -

You are talking like tanking is a hard job...

Tanking can be easy at times, but in real content it is very challenging. Our tanks are always some of our best players, high raid awareness, strong fight knowledge, just very skilled, timed cooldowns, good damage... they have a hard job and make it look easy.


Tanking a heroic dungeon? Yea, that's nothing special.

[Deleted]

The caster bro of twin emps(aq40) was tanked by a lock with shadow resistance gear iirc

[Airwaves]

Tanking can be easy at times, but in real content it is very challenging. Our tanks are always some of our best players, high raid awareness, strong fight knowledge, just very skilled, timed cooldowns, good damage... they have a hard job and make it look easy.

No it fucking isn't. I used to raid lead and main tank. It is fucking easy. They made it so easy and boring I switched to DPS. I main tanked every bit of content up to DS across every kind of tank over the years.. Raid Lead all of cata. Vengeance ruined it.

[Deleted]

I can only see it work if ranged tank used his HP as resource to keep melee mobs away.

[hrugner]

Yes. Since that's too short I'll give examples:

-tank summons object at the tanking location lending the object his health. Threat stays tied to the caster, but attracts to his objects first. This could be a bone wall, an illusionary double, a pet, a shield, a cage.

-tank can remove CC immunities allowing the rest of the team to snare, root or stun the boss.

-tank has special boss only CC

-"tank" can empower other melee with appropriate stats for tanking. The empower-er also has a set of cooldown buffs to spend on his proxy.

-similar to previous, "tank" can debuff the boss enough that the boss attacks land on any player as if that player had tank stats. Some of his debuffs need to be used similar to other active mitigation methods.

Some of these would make encounters more complicated, others more simple. There's tons of other options, though the more interesting ones are those that the lazy player base would recoil from the most. Anyway, the answer "no" is simply absurd, of course it's possible; the question should be whether or not it can be fun.

[Deleted]

Yes. Since that's too short I'll give examples:

-tank summons object at the tanking location lending the object his health. Threat stays tied to the caster, but attracts to his objects first. This could be a bone wall, an illusionary double, a pet, a shield, a cage.

-tank can remove CC immunities allowing the rest of the team to snare, root or stun the boss.

-tank has special boss only CC

-"tank" can empower other melee with appropriate stats for tanking. The empower-er also has a set of cooldown buffs to spend on his proxy.

-similar to previous, "tank" can debuff the boss enough that the boss attacks land on any player as if that player had tank stats. Some of his debuffs need to be used similar to other active mitigation methods.

Some of these would make encounters more complicated, others more simple. There's tons of other options, though the more interesting ones are those that the lazy player base would recoil from the most. Anyway, the answer "no" is simply absurd, of course it's possible; the question should be whether or not it can be fun.

Also this. I can also imagine this kind of tanking to be more nerve wrecking when the big boss goes to you and you go like "AAAAH stay away! stay away!"

Here's how it could work:

Mind Control channel which costs HP. Length and cost of HP based on char's mitigation stats.
Eye of the Beast on steroids. The pet could recieve portion of char's mitigation stats.
Rotting channel CC that costs HP. Length and cost of HP based on char's mitigation stats.
Tanking totem drop that costs a big chunk of HP. Mitigation stats are based on char mitigation stats.

[Acelius]

It wouldn't work as the boss would be on the move constantly, rendering the melee classes useless.

[Airwaves]

It wouldn't work as the boss would be on the move constantly, rendering the melee classes useless.

Because they aren't already? If I still played I would have replaced everyone with ranged ages ago. Yes I was that type of GM. Deal with it.

[Keosen]

What if he had a way to keep bosses at a distance, knockback, dashes etc?

And the melees should constantly run around and re-position to attack the boss? Think about it for a bit...