Against kite-tanking

[Beltharas]

Let's be honest, kiting sucks. No one likes kiting (except maybe that hunter who gets to rotate his camera while pewpewing instead of just standing still pewpewing, but ignore him). Problem is that a lot of the end game bosses right now really reward kiting and punish a tank for facing his foes. Please consider this when designing instances, maybe by adding a stacking dot the farther the tank is, or by adding more slows. If kiting is an easier way to beat a fight, then everyone is gonna kite. Of course this means designing content that can be face-tanked, and not only by the elite 1% of tanks

[Gandolf_TheOld]

Let's be honest, kiting sucks. No one likes kiting (except maybe that hunter who gets to rotate his camera while pewpewing instead of just standing still pewpewing, but ignore him). Problem is that a lot of the end game bosses right now really reward kiting and punish a tank for facing his foes. Please consider this when designing instances, maybe by adding a stacking dot the farther the tank is, or by adding more slows. If kiting is an easier way to beat a fight, then everyone is gonna kite. Of course this means designing content that can be face-tanked, and not only by the elite 1% of tanks

As in real life, some foes are too strong to take on face to face. Thus, smack them to get their attention, then run away and let your posse beat them down to where you can take them on mono a mono.

Not glamorous, but a valid tactic and effective.

[Brinuw]

Kiting is a viable tactic, but only when its mechanically driven. For example:
Isvithka in Anvil putting purple eye over someone's head and them having to kite to avoid getting chomped is a good use of kiting. Not necessarily the most fun, but its good.
Fell Beast in Barad Guldur (mirk raid) putting eye over someone's head and them having to kite to avoid getting chomped and healing the beast.

when there's a mechanical reason to kite, and its short duration, then its decent use of tactics

However, the current balance in fights like House of Rest boss 1 where the damage is tuned up so high that the standard strategy is for the tank to grab everything and just run in circles is just lazy instance design.

[Felisleo]

I seem to recall that when they rebalanced-nerfed the Captain and reduced his morale the Dev's promised they would adjust instance damage accordingly.

Having a boss one shot the tank would not be an issue.

If you do find yourselfs in a situation where the Tank is unable to stand face to face with a Boss, open a bug report as this is clearly an error.

[Joedangod]

If you do find yourselfs in a situation where the Tank is unable to stand face to face with a Boss, open a bug report as this is clearly an error.

Tanks can stand face to face with the bosses. There's just no reason to when you generally take less damage by kiting.

[Oelle]

so the "solution" is to give bosses a ranged attack that deals more damage than melee attacks, but only gets used, if the target with highest threat is not in melee range.

However... if they did that... then it may often be required to take a healer into instances that can now be completed with just tank and damage dealers (or maybe a support class for a bit of healing).

Some prefer playing with tank+heal+support+damagedealer s... others simply want to finish content as fast as possible... which means content doesnt get played the way some dev might have intended it to be.

[Joedangod]

so the "solution" is to give bosses a ranged attack that deals more damage than melee attacks, but only gets used, if the target with highest threat is not in melee range.

There are more graceful solutions that could be implemented I suppose. If boss AA damage kept increasing and only reset after hitting a target you could ensure that a kiting tank takes about as much damage as one who just stands there. Still a bit finicky as you'd need to cap the damage on that scaling formula lest people get 1 shot.

Think my preferred route is just ensuring that tanks actually contribute something other than being a meat-shield, giving tanks adequate DPS of their own both helps us move away from the forced taunt meta and gives tanks a reason to be constantly smacking the boss.

[Landara]

I tried to face tank Boss 1 HOR T3, I lived but melee dps died and died again. Really isnt an option unless dps is all ranged even then, i am sure the random bleeds would thin out the ranged dps rather fast if the dwarves are allowed to stand still and cause havok. So T3+ kiting is the only option as far as i see it right now.

Puglak boss 1 kinda the same, you can face tank the boss and the adds, but any melee who enter too close will receive more wounds than you can poke a stick at. So i think most people just kite because its easier? the illusions on Boss2 specifically the mumak thing certainly isnt to be face tanked on the highest tiers, kiting is the only option from what i have experienced, its certain death/wipe for those who stand still.

[JiiPee]

Puglak boss 1 kinda the same, you can face tank the boss and the adds, but any melee who enter too close will receive more wounds than you can poke a stick at. So i think most people just kite because its easier? the illusions on Boss2 specifically the mumak thing certainly isnt to be face tanked on the highest tiers, kiting is the only option from what i have experienced, its certain death/wipe for those who stand still.

Puglak boss 1, devs got a drunk, smoke something and there came a masterplan to troll everyone. They designed that fight to be a kite fight. Mobs are so slow that it wont even affect melee dps. And even that you can actually face tank it. Boss gets a heal buff if you facetank it. It does wear out but makes fight last longer because heal is quite strong on higher tiers.
Very good design. Like whole instance with stun spam. /s

[Thurallor]

I don't know how wardens ever do kite tanking. I've only got a finite number of fingers and toes.

[Erionor]

I don't know how wardens ever do kite tanking. I've only got a finite number of fingers and toes.

Mouse with 12 side buttons. Essential kit for a warden, and for every class in my book

[DoRonRon]

The disadvantage of the introduction of essence and the player option to stack the perceived optimal stat along with no morale cap...

With every other tanking stat suffering diminishing returns and who knows what mobs have to by-pass a deal of it what can you do but rock in with 2m morale and mobs built to take much of it away and healers desperate to replenish it.

It would be hugely tedious, if not already, standing still and taking a beating without any movement. Just adjusting relative position can diminish the incoming as mobs will have to adjust position to reach you. Taking it further and further as required to a full kite is the logical step in reaction to how the game has "developed".

Reducing most tanks to a glass-wall with huge moral pool. Can't just remove morale essence without adjusting a whole heap of content, so they added them back into the box as a cop out. Who's interested in balancing block, parry, evade (and their partials), resistance, finesse, physical mitigation and tactical mitigation for each encounter they may face though?

[Nihria]

Let's be honest, kiting sucks. No one likes kiting (except maybe that hunter who gets to rotate his camera while pewpewing instead of just standing still pewpewing, but ignore him). Problem is that a lot of the end game bosses right now really reward kiting and punish a tank for facing his foes. Please consider this when designing instances, maybe by adding a stacking dot the farther the tank is, or by adding more slows. If kiting is an easier way to beat a fight, then everyone is gonna kite. Of course this means designing content that can be face-tanked, and not only by the elite 1% of tanks

Be careful with your wishes. Maybe your dots and punishes will be reworked, but without making the bosses any easier. And then? Then who fills up?

Do you play a tank class that can currently tank the 6s and 12s on T3+ without kiting? Please make a video or a guide about it, I would be very interested.
I'm playing a Cappy and a Minstrel. With both i did the 6s at T3 and the 12s at T2. The tank at 6s Boss always had to kite, there wasn't a chance to withstand without. And at the 12s at Boss 2 you must kite the boss to right places to kill him, without you can't.

And what is with fear effects, kicks, pushes and so on? You got also "kited" often enough. It's part of the game

[the7hing]

Puglak boss 1, devs got a drunk, smoke something and there came a masterplan to troll everyone. They designed that fight to be a kite fight. Mobs are so slow that it wont even affect melee dps. And even that you can actually face tank it. Boss gets a heal buff if you facetank it. It does wear out but makes fight last longer because heal is quite strong on higher tiers.
Very good design. Like whole instance with stun spam. /s

DoP boss 1, is perfectly tankable at spot.
Cant say the same for HoR bos 1 ....

[KillAllFrep]

Kiting really isn't necessary for most content, and the easiest way to ensure kiting can't be used to overcome/avoid mechanics is just to give bosses a 30% run speed boost. This will exceed Sprints/Make Haste etc. and thus kiting is no more... All you'll achieve is having the boss hit you in the back where you can't BPE him.

Think my preferred route is just ensuring that tanks actually contribute something other than being a meat-shield, giving tanks adequate DPS of their own both helps us move away from the forced taunt meta and gives tanks a reason to be constantly smacking the boss.

Yeah, FFXIV does something similar to this whereby a tank is a perfectly viable DPS, just with tanky survival cooldowns, and an "aggro gen" stance for each tank, without which you're essentially just a DPSer. FFXIV has pre-defined group configs though and if you're a "tank class" you can only be 1 of 4 in a "fellowship" equivalent or 2 of 8 in a "raid" equivalent.

Personally I find it extremely fun being a tank that can really meaningfully DPS, then I log back onto LotRO Captain and I'm doing 8k DPS to a boss, I might as well just not have any damaging component attached to my skills when real DPS classes are getting upwards of my total boss-fight damage output but with a single skill like Heart-seeker lol.

[cwswim03]

Let's be honest, kiting sucks. No one likes kiting (except maybe that hunter who gets to rotate his camera while pewpewing instead of just standing still pewpewing, but ignore him). Problem is that a lot of the end game bosses right now really reward kiting and punish a tank for facing his foes. Please consider this when designing instances, maybe by adding a stacking dot the farther the tank is, or by adding more slows. If kiting is an easier way to beat a fight, then everyone is gonna kite. Of course this means designing content that can be face-tanked, and not only by the elite 1% of tanks

Very true. Boss 2 and Boss 3 of the raid reward kiting/triangle taunting. Bad design

Kiting really isn't necessary for most content, and the easiest way to ensure kiting can't be used to overcome/avoid mechanics is just to give bosses a 30% run speed boost. This will exceed Sprints/Make Haste etc. and thus kiting is no more... All you'll achieve is having the boss hit you in the back where you can't BPE him.



Yeah, FFXIV does something similar to this whereby a tank is a perfectly viable DPS, just with tanky survival cooldowns, and an "aggro gen" stance for each tank, without which you're essentially just a DPSer. FFXIV has pre-defined group configs though and if you're a "tank class" you can only be 1 of 4 in a "fellowship" equivalent or 2 of 8 in a "raid" equivalent.

Personally I find it extremely fun being a tank that can really meaningfully DPS, then I log back onto LotRO Captain and I'm doing 8k DPS to a boss, I might as well just not have any damaging component attached to my skills when real DPS classes are getting upwards of my total boss-fight damage output but with a single skill like Heart-seeker lol.

Tanks shouldn't be able to dps as well.

[Andellien]

Agreed. There is a difference between dodging/evading/blocking an oncoming attack and physically just running around in a circles like a coward in the room. Its bad game design.

I do chuckled at the poor melee dps trying their bestest in landing a damage while the tank runs around in circle. Partically because it look like one of those silly commedy cartoon shows where someone chase after another trying their best to beat up something, but failling miserably.

In the case of LOTRO melee output dps would gradually be lower due to the fact that they are constantly playing a game of chase and catching up to the enemy mobs, subsequently missing not due to the lack of finesse but just because they could not catch up.

[Elmagor]

As long as MMO exists and tank role exists, kite-tanking mechanic will exists too. "Just stand and get damage all into your face" never sounds like good idea