the lack of tanks...

We have literally 1 tank class in the game and its a kittening cloth class.. why.. just why!...if a plate class doesn't get a bloody tanking spec in the next expansion I'm really going to be worried for the future of this game.

Am I wrong? stupid? should cloth be the only tank? like we've had 2 expansions and still no tank specs.. other than Cronomancer..hell rework renegade into a tank or something.I doubt Anet will notice or answer this post hell they'll probably delete it since I'm criticizing them XD

If scrapper spewed out group quickness and alacrity, it could be a tank (considering it was billed as a tanky spec) but has since been gutted because apparently having both Alchemy and Scrapper is too tonky for PvP and those changes were never split for PvE. Shame really.

Any other class will never be better. You can tank without tank Stats. Evade Is still better then soaking dmg. Maybe if new tank Will bring something new to buff teamates.

I think you have it wrong. There are multiple specs and builds that can tank as well if not better than chrono. They just dont buff as well.

@zealex.9410 said:I think you have it wrong. There are multiple specs and builds that can tank as well if not better than chrono. They just dont buff as well.

that's the exact issue there should be a class that can compete with crono at least don't get me wrong I love my crono tank but I want something more than the buff bot it is.its just thematically funny to me that a cloth user tanks coming from wow lol I've officially seen every amour class tank now lol (aside from mail in wow)if they do give us a new tank it will still probably be dwarfed by crono (lol I use an asura crono btw) XD

The problem is not that we dont have tank specs, legit every spec can tank if wanted. The problem is most others tanks doesnt bring anything besides a high thoughness character. A druidtank is the closest to the actual comp, with him and chrono just switching positions.

What stops ppl from playing other tank builds is also simply that there is no need for tanks in the first place, with deimos maybe one of the exceptions. On most bosses you simply need someone to move the boss. Thats why the generell buff chrono was made into a tank, cause if sth was supposed to tank, then one of the builds which would lose the least fron that. Which is Chrono or Druid, and sonce Chrono had the most dodge/invul/blocks, well he was made into the “tank“.

To the matter of making a alternative to chrono:Ren and fb was once one, but with the alac rework they first of need to release a condidmg, cduration, healpower and boonduration stat, cause otherwise renegade wont be able to do dmg and buff at the same time(which he needs to if he wants to be a alternative with fb).The next thing is that the uptime was bad before already as also the cc in compare to chrono, so there they would need some more buffs as well.

There is multiple tank builds, and as others have pointed out, none surpass chrono due to multiple reasons (some of which can be addressed, others not as much):

A.) GW2 raid/fractal meta first and foremost is designed with role compression in mind. What is the minimum amount of non dps do you need to pass an encounter

B.) Mesmer and Thief are the 2 classes designed the most around active damage mitigation in form of evades, blocks and invuls and movement.

C.) Chrono is the top tier boon support class which brings all the boons required to the group while also providing cc.

A+B+C = chrono tank meta.

Now is there easier setups to clear raids? Absolutely.

We ran a Minstrel Tempest as tank through wings 1-4 this week and he literally made the group immortal (while taking 1 druid spot). Downside? We lost 1 dps spot which was only partially covered by chronos running Dueling/Illusions builds on some boss fights. (this entire thing was more an accident, our tempest healer forgot he had minstrel on when we started VG and he and us were to lazy to change the setup so we ran with it :# ).

If you ask me, the tempest healer tank setup was one of the smoothest, brain dead easiest clears I had with half PUG groups in ages. Will the tempest tank be meta now? No. Why? Because people are used to doing things 1 way and copying high end meta groups (which run with only 1 druid instead of 2 mostly thus removing the spot for a 2nd healer).

EDIT: minor correction, we did not actually lose a dps spot since the tempest took one of the druid spots. We did lose some cc which had to get covered.

Just make Quickfire in FB give alacrity equal to quickness duration (with no cooldown so it's always equal) and remove the burn stack on it. BAM! Replacement for chrono if needed.

Yeah I heard it before Tempest is a top healer you are a half healer even without heal equip.( so for I heard Snowcrow using them @ Dhuum regularly)

For Tempest a plus is also it can start with fireoverload which gives you might quickly the also increased the numbers of pulses which also should have increase the amount of might you get also as a healer you have concentration stats which increase the duration of might

The reason for choosing for support/tank and heal druid and chrono are in their class specific boons which no other class has they toned it down with the last few patches but its hard to break their supremacy.

If I had no clue of this game I would instinctively go with guardian as tank/support which is in PvP/WvW the case Firebrand has with book 2 even heal which is a little OP .I also met once a guardian in the fractals he ended up in one DPS slot which in the result gave me perma quickness as weaver. I don't have Arc Dps but the result was more then okay. Despite this some 'how obsolete he is' discussion started during the run.Basically this was : BS(or was it weaver?), Weaver, Guardian, Druid, Chrono

How effective this is differs greatly I know but in some cases this is very interesting. Hmm ah this must be this built then : https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Firebrand_-_Quickness_DPS is there also a power variant of this?

@darksoverign.5360 said:

@zealex.9410 said:I think you have it wrong. There are multiple specs and builds that can tank as well if not better than chrono. They just dont buff as well.

Iirc warlocks tanked back in the day. Vanilla and tbc.

Every class profession can "tank" as said. A light armor class doing so kinda proves it. But when it comes to which class does it best, no comment. Closes alternative I could offer atm is having a banner slave tanking, while the indispensable chrono(s) taking the role of dmg dealers.

ele can tank. :>

@zealex.9410 said:

@darksoverign.5360 said:

@zealex.9410 said:I think you have it wrong. There are multiple specs and builds that can tank as well if not better than chrono. They just dont buff as well.

Only on very specific bosses designed for this. And only magic damage (mainly shadow), never physical.

We don't need another abomination like chronomancer. Just nerf him already.

The top raiding guilds promote a lot of confusion among already confused players with equating the words "viable" and "optimal". As mentioned above, a Tempest tanking with healing gear can promote easy facerolls for any wing because it brings the single thing not even Druid can properly do without sacrificing GotL: raw outgoing healing. Likewise, a Scourge even without Epi bouncing can make even the laziest group succeed at no-greens VG and able to ignore all the distracting AoE during Sab, among other nice things. Any class you want can probably find something useful to bring while tanking as long as the rest of the team adapts to it (which is where the pug mentality does pose a problem).

The role of Chronomancer as it currently is was probably first unintended by Anet. VG has such low damage and its attacks are so telegraphed that I honestly doubt they intended the aggro mechanic to necessarily create a specialized tank role. Nevertheless they have now played around that and have designed themselves into a corner where the Chrono+Druid duo will never go away as long as the classes exist. They are the optimal support by design, even if accidentally so, after all Anet created boons like quickness before they decided to created raids. And also consider that in many of the fights there even isn't any kind of aggro so there is quite literally no tanking role proper.

The top raiding guilds promote a lot of confusion among already confused players with equating the words "viable" and "optimal". As mentioned above, a Tempest tanking with healing gear can promote easy facerolls for any wing because it brings the single thing not even Druid can properly do without sacrificing GotL: raw outgoing healing. Likewise, a Scourge even without Epi bouncing can make even the laziest group succeed at no-greens VG and able to ignore all the distracting AoE during Sab, among other nice things. Any class you want can probably find something useful to bring while tanking as long as the rest of the team adapts to it (which is where the pug mentality does pose a problem).

The role of Chronomancer as it currently is was probably first unintended by Anet. VG has such low damage and its attacks are so telegraphed that I honestly doubt they intended the aggro mechanic to necessarily create a specialized tank role. Nevertheless they have now played around that and have designed themselves into a corner where the Chrono+Druid duo will never go away as long as the classes exist. They are the optimal support by design, even if accidentally so, after all Anet created boons like quickness before they decided to created raids. And also consider that in many of the fights there even isn't any kind of aggro so there is quite literally no tanking role proper.

@"maxwelgm.4315" said:The top raiding guilds promote a lot of confusion among already confused players with equating the words "viable" and "optimal". As mentioned above, a Tempest tanking with healing gear can promote easy facerolls for any wing because it brings the single thing not even Druid can properly do without sacrificing GotL: raw outgoing healing. Likewise, a Scourge even without Epi bouncing can make even the laziest group succeed at no-greens VG and able to ignore all the distracting AoE during Sab, among other nice things. Any class you want can probably find something useful to bring while tanking as long as the rest of the team adapts to it (which is where the pug mentality does pose a problem).

The role of Chronomancer as it currently is was probably first unintended by Anet. VG has such low damage and its attacks are so telegraphed that I honestly doubt they intended the aggro mechanic to necessarily create a specialized tank role. Nevertheless they have now played around that and have designed themselves into a corner where the Chrono+Druid duo will never go away as long as the classes exist. They are the optimal support by design, even if accidentally so, after all Anet created boons like quickness before they decided to created raids. And also consider that in many of the fights there even isn't any kind of aggro so there is quite literally no tanking role proper.

Druid is only optimal because chronomancer covers everything the other supports could bring but better. Most of the utility druid brings is part of core ranger not druid. Druid only brings healing and might. While most things chronomancer brings are actually part of chronomancer as boon share just doesn't work without continuum split and alacrity is only available for chrono, not core.

Quickness is not the problem. The combination of quickness and alacrity (introduced after they wanted raids) in one character coupled with very good CC, pulls, reflects and the highest range for boonshare in the entire game is the problem.

@darksoverign.5360 said:We have literally 1 tank class in the game and its a kittening cloth class.. why.. just why!...There are other tanks; that's just the popular one because of its other benefits. The devs didn't design chrono to be a tank; clever players just figured out it was both possible and more efficient.

There is no lack of tanks, just like there is no lack of supports or healers for that matter. Some specs simply happen to be more efficient at their given tasks or the specific content in question. As musthave as Chronomancers and Druids are in raids, they couldn't lay a finger on the suppport monster that is the Firebrand once the topic moves towards WvW. This happened in every single MMORPG I have played. There has always been one class which was detably superior to all others at a specific encounter.

Chrono isn't exactly a tank. It's primarily a boon-dispenser / supporter. The tank-role can be picked up by anyone with enough toughness, but since the chrono's role as a supporter is unaffected by stats, the chrono looses almost nothing for wearing toughness equip.

So any tank spec would really need to be a support spec that doesn't rely on its stats. And it would need to have better support and worse dps than chrono because the profession that looses the least amount of dps for picking toughness gets the tank role.

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@darksoverign.5360 said:

@zealex.9410 said:I think you have it wrong. There are multiple specs and builds that can tank as well if not better than chrono. They just dont buff as well.

Why is chronomance an obomination?

@zealex.9410 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@darksoverign.5360 said:

@zealex.9410 said:I think you have it wrong. There are multiple specs and builds that can tank as well if not better than chrono. They just dont buff as well.

Because it does too much stuff, too well.Like able to go chaos and apply almost all relevant boons. Even rev + firebrand combo tends to apply less boons than a single good chaos chrono.Like having moa which is more breakbar damage than anythin else.Having the best pull in the game.Having a lot of blocks and invulns on top of that.Being able to mightstack reasonably well too.Healing and cleansing if you spec for that15k DPS if only only need the "basic" boons

Basically, chrono is absolutely busted. Completely broken. Players cried about SoI nerf, cried about distortion nerf, ... Yet here we are - not a single class can touch chronomancer. Not a single class can actually replace it without sacrificing a lot of goodies. There is not ONE record in fractals or raids that stands without the use of a chronomancer.

Just nerf it; because if we make all other specs this broken then in all honesty I don't think balance will ever be possible.

Chrono and druid already have competition - firebrand and renegade, which are even better in some scenarios. The problem is popularity of those builds.

Chrono is mainly a tank due to role condensing and having 2 more active invulns compared to other options, which shows up as most classes needing to evade while chrono can simply press sword 2 or shield 4 to avoid the same stuff. And as such, chrono is harder to mess up as.Other healers can tank in W1 just as well, just requires evading backwards into the wall during blues at VG to prevent moving the boss (speaking of normal strat).Tanking Gorseval isn't even worth mentioning (though Kitty does it to avoid nitpicks) as it's just standing a few steps ahead of the squad doing the normal thing.At KC, tank doesn't matter as long as the tanking person just moves the boss to statues properly.
At Xera, Blurred Frenzy is a bit problematic for the tank, but it can be dealt with by counting her auto-attacks and evading thru her as she starts her BF or using some longer block/invuln thru it.At MO, literally anyone who knows how to claim can tank. Easier on classes that don't require total focus on rotation for every centisecond of the fight as Claim requires ground-targeting though it's insta-cast and doesn't interrupt DPSing by itself. Kitty's done it a couple times as power reaper, for example.At Deimos, pretty much anything with some way to avoid getting downed by Mind Crush can tank. With ranged strat, tank would just need to evade forth and back to avoid pizzas (OK luring oils to sides in 2 left-1 right pattern leaves lots of room for that) or use some multi-block/channeling block thru it. For ex. heal-engi can do it exactly as well as chrono by using Tool kit 4 for blocking pizzas and shield 5 or hammer 4 (in case of scrappers) for Mind Crush.Kitty hasn't killed SH yet (she's too scared of those walls) so she can't say much about it yet, but she's heard that anything with good enough survivability can tank her.

And when it comes to relative DPS losses, with a healer tanking there isn't any, just requires a tiny bit more skill to do if said healer doesn't have blocks (and is actually less stressful in W1 IKHO as you can focus on healing the squad with 0 worries about the tank's survival).A condi-DPS would get a few tons of dps drop from using trailblazer's gears instead, but that drop is usually 5k or less in golem DPS and some of it gets paid back in both chronos getting to focus 100% on booning and other jobs.And when it comes to survivability, trailblazer's scourge is quite insane if taking Parasitic Contagion (even Xera's Blurred Frenzy mightn't be an issue by using a barrier and throwing the confusion stacks back at her with F5).Condi-FB has native block on mantra-heal avg. every 12 secs (+passive blocks from F3-virtue) so it's no different from chrono at most bosses.

Don't think about tanking as power DPS, though. It's not a good idea. Might not be too bad if you'll need less than 1300 toughness for it but if it's anything above that...just don't do it. Seriously. Don't do it unless tank derps so hard that there's no other way than you tanking it as power DPS. Power DPS has huge DPS drop from trading a power stat for toughness since power DPS is based on multipliers.For ex. on DH, which retains good crit. rate even without precision-stat due to traits in Radiance, Kitty measured about 45% drop in DPS from using Soldier's instead of Berserker's. The DPS drop is noticeably worse for most power DPS builds.Power reaper could get away with few pieces of Cavalier's gears, Spicy Marinated Shrooms and taking Death Magic for Corrupter's Fervor since it gets all the necessary crit. rate from fury, banners and Decimate Defenses.

Kitty's also recorded some videos playing various tank builds and now made a playlist with them (and apparently she'll need to record more in the tank department for more tank builds and better vids of old builds). https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0zPlu63lO8YohcQj7Jz7RuzQ3Rv189oJ

Tank role isn't really well designed in GW2 to begin with. Chrono or not, all you do is pulling the boss around. There is close to none aggro management besides and when choosing to play anything other than chronotank you sacrifice too much of the profession performance. Tanking needs a design overhaul for GW2 or we're stuck with what we have now until the game dies.

@Etheri.5406 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@darksoverign.5360 said:

@zealex.9410 said:I think you have it wrong. There are multiple specs and builds that can tank as well if not better than chrono. They just dont buff as well.

No class can replace chrono because there is no class that can do the same. Firebrand and renegade might be better on some bosses if mantras start prioritising guys in your subsquad.Also tides of time on big hitbox with sigil of paralization is more breakbar damage then moa.

Chrono is not best tanking option but doesnt lose anything while doing it. If you want true tanks then you need a fight where full minstrel chrono has dificulty to survive.