The Definition Of Tank...

May i copy this and use it as my sig? I laughed when i read it :P

Tank: Also known as "Tanker", this refers to a character-often a Warrior primary-with heavy armor and high hit points who fights in melee and soaks up damage that might otherwise devestate less-protected characters.
(Guild Wars: Factions stratagy guide definition)

Tank: Any character, PC or NPC, that takes aggro and remains alive so that the casters and other characters can fight in reletive safety. Traditionally a Warrior.
(my defintion)

Tank: One who guzzles massive amounts of alcoholic beverages, in a surprisingly short amount of time..... oh wait.......

Narrow point of view...I often tank during chest runs so that others can get to a chest, open it and get their drop without dropping dead. Taking aggro and running mobs away from chest has become most profitable (over 200k in the last 3 weeks as a casual farmer)..."worthless?" maybe in PvP, but quite useful if you are accumulating wealth.

lol sure knock yourself out

First off to adress the mesmer thing. Yes emsmers can tank but no it isnt worth it when you have warriors that can take more damage and become less of a burden to the monks on your team.

In my opinion and I have gotten into arguements with my mindless alliance members on it. A tank may have 1 or 2 attack skills (usually I use 2) and the rest are stances and shouts that benefit your team (with the acception of "For great Justice" I use that for my 2 attack skills). My view on tanks are that they collect all the aggro so you damage dealers (Casters and maybe 1 ranger) can kill the enemies easily without them moving everywhere. All the attention of your enemies should be on the tank because they are you armored vehicle that do enough damage to annoy your enemies. You may have a secondary tank that stops and enemies that leak through and get into the casters, but mainly tanks collect aggro. There are not tanks that have all attack skills and dont care about aggro, tanks are normally looking at their radar observing the red dots and making sure they are all on him (woops her also, damn politcial correctness!)

In PVP you do not have tanks, unless you are facing AI which only happens when you fight the zaishen, and also if you are fighting mindless idiots. The definition of tank serves no purpose in PVP as having everyone on your team attack the warrior first normally is pointless when you have good Monks and sometimes Rit's.



To sum it all up, tanks take more damage then they deal. Tank's are not damage dealers so stop saying "Tank LFG" when your skill bar has all attack skills and you dont know how to manage aggro and lead your team. Yes tank's should be the ones leading your group to, they do of course run into the groups first and they decide when to aggro, hopefully not your casters...


ADDED: The Definition of a tank and real life is different then a tank in Guild Wars. You cant go off and say that a tank in real life does massive damage so a tank in guild wars can too! They are 2 very different things and real life tank definitions serve no purpose in this arguement.

Although people may have their own detailed, reasonable definitions of 'tank', 'tank' in the game itself simply means warrior in most situations.

In other words,
Tank == Warrior primary

When you see 'tank lfg' or 'glf tank', most likely that tank refers to a warrior primary.

lol @ mrscoombes,
the true definition of a tank ^^
i agree with that though, a tank shud be sum1 who can both take an deal dmg, a pure dmg absorber wud be more of a meat shield than a tank IMO :P

You obviously don't play in PUGs very often. On many occasions I've acted as a tank and been the only reason the group survived. Sad, but true.

Tank back before the AoE improvement just stood there took dmg while the once l££t fire ele's nuked them to hell.

IMO a tank should just soak up dmg and leave the dmg dealing to the pro's.

A person who says Tank LFG is dull. There's only warriors ingame not tanks.

You can hold aggro to an extent (not all), but not tank. To tank would basically be impossible since the gear trick was taken from the game.

As a warrior you have higher armor than most against physical and decent elemental defense, so that's why you want to hold aggro. A simple armor buff, USEFUL attacks that do bonus damage or add conditions/remove stances/interrupt, and a heal, coupled with adequate monks go a long way.

A warrior with low weapon mastery and high tactics 0 str and high healing is useless. High armor and a simple heal from Healing signet when not under heavy fire goes farther since the more time you spend killing the less you have to heal. With an armor buff you can heal sig away without too much extra damage as well.

Compare this to the healing prayers warrior that, with its low energy regen and energy pool, is restricted to primarily adrenal attacks since it cannot use that many energy skills for attacks.

It is this and more Warriors that use strenght based skills such as endure and dfy pain to absorb most of the damage.Warriors that use thier weapons mastery are the damage dealers.Yes castors can tank but it is different.

Agro control is the job of the entire party, not just the warrior. If the party is too close to the warrior when the mob is agroed, then there will be problems. If the casters get too close even after the mob is agroed, or if casters use DoTAoEs (even if they snare them) then there will still be problems. If casters or rangers pull, then agro won't go as smoothly either. Anyone who henches should have a longbow on swap, so warriors should have longbows on swap if pulling is needed. There are 8 players in a party, and this isn't WoW. All 8 of them play a part in agro control.

A properly build warrior, with high weapon mastery can deal plenty of damage and 'tank.' Just ask anyone who farms FoW with a warrior. A 'true' tank with 9-12 weapon mastery, and a bar full of stances/healing prayers is a waste of space.

To get the most out of tactics and strength skills, you don't need a high spec in either of them. By pumping weapon mastery, and wearing a +1 weapon mastery helm, nothing is being 'gimped' in terms of atribute points.

Tank = Meatsheild or "Bullet bag" if you like

Indeed it is, it's easily the most overlooked useful Warrior skill, especially by wammos that think their monk skills are better.

Shout. You gain +3 Health regeneration for each condition you are suffering.

The gear trick made tanking a bit "mindless" both for the warrior and the rest of the party. Now agro handling takes a bit skill and party interaction, so considering your average PUG it is much harder to do effective tanking nowadays.

Regards,
Cloudbunny

Tank



Btw, 90% of the time aggro control in PvE isn't the tank's fault, it's the eles that are so desperate to use their spells that they follow super close behind, or even go first so that they have all aggro. Playing a bonder you get far more energy from Essence Bond or Life Bond on the ele than the warrior.

rofl.

Ele's and their silly PBAoE spells... you'd think they'd learn to at least carry armor of the earth if they're going to do all that silly nonsense.

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