Would a ranged tank work?

[Sesshou]

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

Sure, in a game where no players ever have the choice of being a melee dps. Most games with tanks do have melee dps though... and your tank constantly doing that would be god awful design.

[Litharium]

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.

This guy is 100% correct I raid leaded and tanked a lot and as soon as vengeance hit nope easy mode. They say now a days if you TRULY want to get into heroic progression role a tank because you don't need to know mechanics very much you don't need to avoid much just know when to use CD's and swap and your golden.

[Trollokdamus]

I was thinking of a new Dark Ranger class having a tanking spec. DR would have some sort of an unholy aura which would keep his enemies at range, making them attack an aura instead of the Ranger himself (works just for melee hits, spell damage abilities would bypass it). However, whenever a melee ability strikes an aura, the latter drains his very life force in order to sustain itself, which would result in DR suffering shadow damage proportional to the amount of avoided melee damage.

[qwee]

I doubt it.
Most of the bosses are melee, pretty much any range attack that any boss got is raid damage.

[Lopina]

I'd love to see something like that, ranged tank that tries to keep the boss at range with a ranged force-field shield or bubble, having to manage boss positioning and pay with his own health (or some other resource, like willpower, w/e). Don't see a problem for melee, they could still be in boss' melee range.

[FuxieDK]

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

Moonkins were originally designed exactly as a ranged tank.. Same armor bonus as bears, and ultra high threat generaltion (but no taunt).. That didn't even last through TBC..

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

Melee would hate you and QQ/rant too much, and Blizzard would change it..

[Hubbl3]

Moonkins were originally designed exactly as a ranged tank.. Same armor bonus as bears, and ultra high threat generaltion (but no taunt).. That didn't even last through TBC..

No, they were never intended as a range tank.

[crunk]

This guy is 100% correct I raid leaded and tanked a lot and as soon as vengeance hit nope easy mode. They say now a days if you TRULY want to get into heroic progression role a tank because you don't need to know mechanics very much you don't need to avoid much just know when to use CD's and swap and your golden.

yep. basically i judge a good tank based on his ability to do high dps. very backwards from how it should work. i've noticed its particularly bad in SoO since tons of fights are "okay tank 2 taunt when tank 1 gets this debuff". i didn't play ToT but at least a lot of T14 bosses had a few interesting tank mechanics, particularly MSV. The debuff shit is lazy and makes tanking pretty much the easiest role in the game. Just mash some buttons and press taunt when DBM tells you to.

[Deleted]

Well a ranged tank would make sense ONLY if its added a boss mechanic witch in the most cases would summon flying adds or the boss go on a some sort of platform where the melles cant reach him, only ranged can have the chance to dps him and he can still shoot/thorw shit at the raid. These are the only ways i see it working. But to be full time tank ... well ... as people said boss run in melle range to hit the tank, also the boss have enough run speed so he will always stay in melle range and to avoid endless kiting to avoid triviliasing the fights.

But yeah it would be nice change to the game if added. Imagine mythic difficulty - it might add a lot more mechnics and shizzles at the fights

Just my 2 cents

[Acelius]

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.

Melee are still usefull, and you can actually beat heroic content with melee. With a ranged tank, you couldn't.

[Deleted]

There are some bosses in wow that don't move (hint hint - one has no legs). I think these could be tanked at range.. But it would be harder I guess.

[Deleted]

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

As if they dont do that already.

[Delaios]

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

That would be fun for melee.

[Edds]

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

that would slow down dps. people wouldn't want them tanking after a day

[Alvito]

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.

Im not saying it is hard but running around so you can stay at range and feed this nonsense need or desire ppl have for a ranged tank would make it difficult and boring. The ranged run away pussy tank sounds super, ppl would line up to play that.

[Bumbasta]

I don't think so. The combat system should need a huge rework in order for this to work.

[Trollokdamus]

Would be a chain knockback? Many fights require exact boss positioning and / or kiting / repositioning at a fixed time. So that boss needs to be snareable, rootable and they are often immune. Also, what damage does a ranged tank take, being out of range and all? Bosses often and mainly hit in melee range.

Why exactly would we need / want ranged tanks?

If they implement my aura idea, nothing of this would be an issue. As for the second part of your post... well, we don't really need them, but there are people who may find it enjoyable.

[Deleted]

It could work. A non-plate class (non-plate so boss can crash you if your pet die).
She/He is able to summon a pet thingy which holds agro. You share hp with pet and noone else can see your pet. Healers need to heal you. Some skills are casted by pet, some spell casted by you (so there could be a dps/tank pet specialization.)

[Gwiez]

For most boss fights they are designed with melee in mind. Ranged is at a disadvantage for boss positioning. There was a fight in BC that used a mage as a tank, melee couldn't do it. If you had a ranged tank, then every fight would have to be tankable by both ranged and melee, or else you'd have either a useless or mandatory tanking role. For dps, that's fine because there's so many in a raid, but with only 2 tanks, it wouldn't work. Sorry, interesting idea, but it wouldn't work at this time.

[Deleted]

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.

Exactly same for me! I played only 2 months with the start, and the main reason was this to not continue. I was excited about the ranged tank, and i didn't really get it why they was put that minimum range of tanking abilities...