Would a ranged tank work?

[Teriz]

Isn't Wildstar having ranged tanking?

I would see how they do it before passing judgement.

[shoc]

Ranged tanking, based around the mechanic of kiting bosses around, would never work. Ranged tanks would take a fraction of the damage of a melee tank, and as a result raids would bring less healers to compensate. It would just be too overpowered and every raid group would opt to bring a ranged tank over a melee tank.

[Deleted]

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

Might instead just make fights where the tank gets some ranged abilites and the boss is a ranged boss.
I don't think it'll work out very well, and it'll just be weird. It would be annoying with the knockbacks that you suggested

[Drekmar]

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

And what if boss has to be held in one position?

[Matt0193]

No. It just won't work without drastically changing every existing AI mechanic. Unless you give all bosses Enhancement's Ascendance buff, where they can hit at 30 yards, all you will do is have some moron kiting shit and fucking up more often than you see a melee tank fucking it up.

[ro9ue]

Tinker class tank spec: drop decoy. Buff like Righteous Fury that redirects your threat to decoy. You can re-drop your decoy wherever with threat still on it, sort of like how rest druid mushrooms still hold the healing they collect. Tinker weaves in attacks that buff decoys avoidance.

[arcaneshot]

There's no way this'd work as long as people want to AOE tank. The only reason why a range tank works is the tank and the mob in question aren't trying to move.

Anything that devolves into kiting a mob isn't tanking (because, well duh, it's kiting).

[Regalbeast]

Nope, sounds pretty dumb. If you think about it, the concept of a boss only attacking one person doesn't make much sense to begin with...but with ranged it's even more silly.

[Nerrf]

Well there are situations where ranged tanking could work, but as mentioned, most run to melee.

I was lock tanking back in TBC (Kael Thas/Capernian) but it was purely situational where melee tanking wasnt possible. Strider kiting on Lady Vashj is another example and using a mage on Illidari council.

[Glassmage]

Ranged tanks? Give hunters a tank spec then, see how that works out.

[Dabrix32]

a ranged tank is an oxymoron. A tank by definition is a role that holds agro. If the tank is standing at max range once he gets threat wont the mob just run over to him thus making him a melee tank?

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Gimmick tanks like Warlocks, Mages, Hunters, SPriests have been used in the past

if they are pet tanking then its still not ranged tanking as the pets are the ones holding agro and getting beat on. If the mob is still in their face hitting them then its not ranged tanking if the mob is still in melee range of said tank.

[Deleted]

Ranged tank would be able to kite boss around. It wouldn't work so well.

[The Madgod]

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

Positioning is very important on a lot of boss fights. Blizzard would have to drastically change how they design boss encounters if this became a thing.

[Dabrix32]

Blizzard would have to drastically change how they design boss encounters if this became a thing.

Its 100% impossible unless the mob is either rooted or its a caster and attacks from range. Any boss with a melee attack is simply going to charge the tank standing at range as soon as he builds up threat. If he doesnt rush the tank then that means tank doesnt have agro and boss is raping the raid.

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Nope, sounds pretty dumb. If you think about it, the concept of a boss only attacking one person doesn't make much sense to begin with

think about it like this. If you are standing in a room with 25 people but only one of them is taunting you and talking shit which one are you going to hit first? Also there is cleave and AoE damage so they arent actually only attacking one person.

[Deleted]

gtfo 12 year old LoL faggot, disgusting.

Infracted

[mickybrighteyes]

As with everything else in a game... yes, but it depends on how everything is set up. Most players will assume 'no' simply due to how it would require some very different things in place and put in things that would arguably be overpowered (whether or not what they think is OP actually is OP... most times those arguments aren't worth the memory the text takes up)

[Tricksterjim]

You couldn't have a real ranged tank on all bosses,too many issues, such as stacking on other tank, kiting around the outside, boss positioning, etc. You couldn't be allowed knock-backs because balance and abuse issues.

but maybe you could have a ranged tank with pet. I am thinking a buffed version of hunters and locks already. Have a true soul link where the pet takes the aggro but is incorporeal , and all dmg is transferred to the ranged player. Pet cannot be healed, only the player.

There would still be challenges like moving out of stuff, but with enough creativity they could still have some things cast on the player (like floor fire) while the player would direct pet to tank in a certain position, (i.e. stacked, away from group, etc). With enough creativity it could be done, but it never will be. Too complicated. (and I know even this idea has balance issues, such as the ease of telling a pet to stand somewhere with cursor vs. moving your toon to a position).

[Mormolyce]

Pet tank maybe?

Bit hard to imagine otherwise in a WoW context since almost all bosses melee.

[mickybrighteyes]

Ranged tanking, based around the mechanic of kiting bosses around, would never work. Ranged tanks would take a fraction of the damage of a melee tank, and as a result raids would bring less healers to compensate. It would just be too overpowered and every raid group would opt to bring a ranged tank over a melee tank.

actually you're missing the part where melee dps would get benched in favor of ranged to require less coordination while kiting the boss around at the tank's leisure. Or even the fact that ranged tanking bosses would also translate to utterly stupid pvp battles against most players (imagine what would require keeping a boss at range in current wow... for 5+ minutes! like monk roll, hunter disengage, mage blink, warrior intervene and heroic leap all together wihtout shared cooldowns for starters just to help keep at bay?) IMBA so hard right there...

But overall this example of the idea is still focusing too much on simply adding the idea into the current model of the game without even bothering to modify anything. Anything that would be implemented would need to be changed while also changing what it's being added to ever so slightly. Like how bosses attack their target and what abilities they use, and how a 'tank' is able to survive an encounter. The short answer to the topic will be a 'no' unless a very great amount of care is taken when going over every little detail....

[Ilfayt]

I wonder, what if they tank was able to stay at range, take action from a ranged perspective, but have his 'body' at melee range with a boss. Think a 'physical'/'spiritual decoy system, a more engaging version of the monk's 'transcendence' ability. Just a suggestion for the idea, it would still lead to the ultimate decision of 'getting in close to take control'.

Still... a lot of stuff that wouldn't make sense in the idea of tanking, let alone the WoW environment.

Pet tank maybe?

Bit hard to imagine otherwise in a WoW context since almost all bosses melee.

That's another idea, probably would have to make the 'player and pet' linked(sorta like Soul Link) to balance things out, but you'd still be able to make an 'impact' on one side of the room while tanking on the other... Again though, this would leave the cap for 'control', pets always feel a bit clunky compared to players, and I imagine being distracted by things meant to keep ranged busy would make it hard for some people to watch things like quicker reaction taunt mechanics as closely. Whether it is 'a challenge' or outright annoying to manage would be the problem...