What is it with people wanting to play "support/tank"?

[Vaelorian]

I've played this game for a while now. And I keep on seeing people that say: Oh I don't do much dps, I play support/tank!

I don't bash people for it, I mean I can do Torment IV by myself and thuscan carry those players in torments below IV. So I don't bother much.

But once in a while I ask them why they play that role? I mean sure I have a "taunt" as a Crusader and use "taunt" to up keep my wizard buddy safe. Any good player with such an ability included in his spec would. Am I suddenly a tank? I make my spec and built so that I can maximise my dps first and survival second. Though I might change that a little towards Torment VI.

My opinion is that these players who claim these things are either 2 things:

1. they want to play that particular role, because they like it - even though there isn't any real reason to do so
2. they want to play that particular role, because they suck at playing this game and therefore can "get away with it" if they claim they play tank/support.

If you then check how they did their gear, it is madness mostly. So I am going for the most part with option 2 here. Again I don't mind as I can clear everything fast enough. I don't expect "pro" players to show up in a random group. I am in those group mainly because it is more fun to play with multiple people. So it is fine. I just don't get that mentality. I mean it is far better to maximise your dps first. If you maximise your survival/support first, you'll be taking a LONG LONG time before anything gets downed = less survivability actually. The longer it takes the more chance you have to fail.

[Anolith]

My best guess would be that people have the mentality that dying is terrible and should be avoided at all costs (which is true for HC ofc) which is just not the case for SC.
IMO your toughness should be only as high as to stop you dying all the time. If you die a couple times in a rift then so be it.
The damage you can get up to will more than make up for it.

About the closest to "Support" I would ever go, is speccing something that was a minor loss for myself, but a nice gain for the group. For example, the Crusader law stuff (I don't play a Crusader btw) I see some people not using it, which boggles me as it is a pretty good increase to your group, even if it isn't the best for you.

[Aydinx2]

My best guess would be that people have the mentality that dying is terrible and should be avoided at all costs (which is true for HC ofc) which is just not the case for SC.
IMO your toughness should be only as high as to stop you dying all the time. If you die a couple times in a rift then so be it.
The damage you can get up to will more than make up for it.

About the closest to "Support" I would ever go, is speccing something that was a minor loss for myself, but a nice gain for the group. For example, the Crusader law stuff (I don't play a Crusader btw) I see some people not using it, which boggles me as it is a pretty good increase to your group, even if it isn't the best for you.

The Law is pretty important for my Crusader. The passive AS isn't that big but still good for more damage, but mostly the 100% crit damage rune I have on it boosts not only my DPS but also that of whoever happens to be in my party.
Besides that my build also has the snare + 80% additional crit chance to all snared enemies.

The point I'm trying to make is that even though my Crusader is built 100% for my own dmg/toughness gain, it supports the team regardless (like a proper player should).

Support builds are dumb because you're actually losing out on group-wide dmg, which makes it harder for the group to progress.

[Vaelorian]

The Law is pretty important for my Crusader. The passive AS isn't that big but still good for more damage, but mostly the 100% crit damage rune I have on it boosts not only my DPS but also that of whoever happens to be in my party.
Besides that my build also has the snare + 80% additional crit chance to all snared enemies.

The point I'm trying to make is that even though my Crusader is built 100% for my own dmg/toughness gain, it supports the team regardless (like a proper player should).

Support builds are dumb because you're actually losing out on group-wide dmg, which makes it harder for the group to progress.

Exactly. I have a Law too. I have it solely because it buffs my own DPS. I went with other specs before when I soloed but whenever I was in a group, I changed that skill into a Law aswell. Nowadays I see that the Law is in fact a very good buff for myself aswell.

Another thing I don't get is that some people do not spec accordingly to the group. Let's say that I have Valor as a Law already, another Crusader comes in and he has Valor aswell. Then expects me to change it to whatever Law or other skill.

Are people serious? Why can't they change it themselves? So to avoid all that I do change my Law right away whenever another crusader comes along. But that is me.

It was the same with playing my Barb. Whatever shout I had, no one else wanted to change if they had the same.

[Anolith]

Oh I completely agree that support/tank builds are pretty pointless. I was just saying that that is as far as I would go.
I used to get called selfish by my mates all the time cause I kept going for the best instead of support.

Hell, one time I actually met a barb with 1 mil HP, who's health barely dipped below 950k and he was very adamant that he was a Tank, and that I should be a support as that's what DH are for. I almost died out of shock. Atleast I got a good laugh out of him :P

- - - Updated - - -

Exactly. I have a Law too. I have it solely because it buffs my own DPS. I went with other specs before when I soloed but whenever I was in a group, I changed that skill into a Law aswell. Nowadays I see that the Law is in fact a very good buff for myself aswell.

Another thing I don't get is that some people do not spec accordingly to the group. Let's say that I have Valor as a Law already, another Crusader comes in and he has Valor aswell. Then expects me to change it to whatever Law or other skill.

Are people serious? Why can't they change it themselves? So to avoid all that I do change my Law right away whenever another crusader comes along. But that is me.

It was the same with playing my Barb. Whatever shout I had, no one else wanted to change if they had the same.

The amount of DH who pop their wolf howl straight after I pop mine drives me crazy... because as soon as I think "I'll just wait till they do it first..." they never do it!

[Krommm]

They are either a) stuck in the ways of other games with trifectas, or more commonly b) terrible and use it as an excuse to be bad. They might also just think they are special snowflakes since technically everyone is a DPS, but some builds are more "tanky" or "supportive".

[Bllets]

I have created a spec that increases my own damage significantly, but also boosts the groups by a fair amount. Further more I have taken Slow Time with bonus AS, because projectiles seems to be the most deadly things on higher torments (Spears from goatmens hitting for 130k on T6 as an example).

I could in theory go all out to support the group, but that fucking sucks imo. Why decrease ones own damage to increase others? So I agree with Krommm. Though I do like when I play with a Monk who "abuses" cyclone strike and have toughness enough to survive it, but I rather he actually do damage at the same time.

[LegendaryDude]

I currently have 4 70s. A barb, a sorc, and a crusader, all going for full dmg, and a monk wich i play tanky/supportive. He does like 260k dmg, but hast over 30 million toughness. I can stand in Uber Diablos Fire on t6. I choose a lot of debuff/buff skills, and i can heal people in my group, and thats pretty much all i do with him. When we decide to kill some Ubers, i switch to my monk, and my groupmates ditch all their survival skills and go full on dmg, while i make the boss move as little as possible. And it works great. I'd never play that way in a rift though

[Deldavala]

Well it all depends on group composition and how you like to play.

The monk we are running with on our torm 6 runs is using a full toughness setup with mostly buffs and utility. He currently has almost 100% uptime on around 110% dmg increase for the whole group a long with Exploding palm being the highest DPS on packs in the game. He cant kill a single white mob by himself(unless exploding palms goes off), but due to the insane buffs the 3 others are doing double the dmg.

[Bigbazz]

An effective tank can work well to allow other classes with good damage but low toughness to survive higher difficulties. Obviously it's done by taunting, stunlocking and debuffing monsters, aswell as bringing buffs. A good tank in this case can not only survive well but can lock down massive packs of monsters making it easy for others to mow them down without fear of death.

Even so though, it's quite possible to play tank and still do fairly good damage. Support without any damage is actually holding you back since the monsters health scales a lot with each player, I've seen players who do next to no damage but have high toughness due to stacking non damage gear, it obviously allows them to survive but isn't very practical in terms of team play.

[anon5123]

The only viable "support" would be something like a Monk going super-tanky and spamming Cyclone Strike to keep everything bunched up and away from the ranged, while also using things like mantras to buff the ranged.

[Milkyz]

pov from Hardcore Player (no abusing gimmick runs or farming low difficulty settings for gear):

It's way, way safer having a Monk geared towards survivability to keep mobs a bit more controlled or able to save you using Heals or Group-wide Serenity. At the moment we're doing Torment 3 (group around 600k Damage (not counting Elemental %) and 7-10mi Toughness). Our Monk plays 15mi toughness and lower damage, coupled with a more support/buff oriented setup in order to let the other people deal damage in a safer way. If we were doing "Split Runs", "Faceroll Runs", "T1 Runs" surely it would be better to have him DPS focused.

[Dezerte]

I don't know, there may be some legitimacy to it - depending on the class. Monks can be quite valuable & workable as tanks.

[Vaelorian]

Think most people go past the idea that this thread was about people who say this because they are bad.

I know full well that tanks at T6 could be very viable. But having random gems/shit gear etc is not a player that will reach tier 6 soon.

[Orange Joe]

As someone with high damage, but low toughness. I love playing with a tank.

[Vaelorian]

Changed title to cater to everyone not reading the OP.

edit: hmm seems I can't change it on the board

[miffy23]

Fact of the matter is that just like in any other public queueing scenario, public Diablo games attract hordes of inept and leeching players.
There is no "tanking" in Diablo. If you are not pulling your end of DPS and at least supplying solid buffs and debuffs via abilities to the group, or if you get twoshot by everything, you are simply leeching and not geared or knowledgable enough for the Torment level you're attempting.

That's really all there is to it, anyone claiming to play "Tank/support" is simply admitting "i'm not geared for this difficulty/I have no clue what i'm doing, please carry me to loot".

There's plenty of group play and planning involved in running T6, but that's an entirely different matter.

[Vaelorian]

Fact of the matter is that just like in any other public queueing scenario, public Diablo games attract hordes of inept and leeching players.
There is no "tanking" in Diablo. If you are not pulling your end of DPS and at least supplying solid buffs and debuffs via abilities to the group, or if you get twoshot by everything, you are simply leeching and not geared or knowledgable enough for the Torment level you're attempting.

That's really all there is to it, anyone claiming to play "Tank/support" is simply admitting "i'm not geared for this difficulty/I have no clue what i'm doing, please carry me to loot".

There's plenty of group play and planning involved in running T6, but that's an entirely different matter.

So much this!

[NoiseTank13]

Fact of the matter is that just like in any other public queueing scenario, public Diablo games attract hordes of inept and leeching players.
There is no "tanking" in Diablo. If you are not pulling your end of DPS and at least supplying solid buffs and debuffs via abilities to the group, or if you get twoshot by everything, you are simply leeching and not geared or knowledgable enough for the Torment level you're attempting.

That's really all there is to it, anyone claiming to play "Tank/support" is simply admitting "i'm not geared for this difficulty/I have no clue what i'm doing, please carry me to loot".

There's plenty of group play and planning involved in running T6, but that's an entirely different matter.

As dickish as you put it, it's true. Many times I join T3 rift games and on a hunch, stop attacking and watch the other three go at it. They either die in seconds, or don't die and the monster bar don't move, and the moment I start attacking they melt.

DPS is king. The more damage you do the less damage you take.

[Revolutions]

I'd rather run with 3 people than have a "tank" in my group. The only reason people go this route because its really easy to gear and there's not much pressure from death but it slows down the group. I don't really care for 80% increased crit I already have 60% crit. 100% CHD would be nice, but its CD is way too long to be consistent.

Sorry tanks are useless.