Project: Tanker

Those of you that have been following my Twitter feed and my Facebook have known that I've been leveling up a Tank recently.  I was inspired to create this character by a forum thread by realmatic called "The Lost Art of Tanking".  Basically, it was a plea or more of a "WTF happened to all the decent Tanks?" type of thread.  And having experienced all of the early level KQs through my Trickster, I couldn't agree more.

Time and time again, it was my Trickster, DaydreamBeliever, forced to step to the fore and tank end bosses.  Over and over, Tanks just wouldn't properly Mock, wouldn't spam aggro generating skills like Kick, so I would simply out-damage them and wrestle aggro away from them.  Of course, I did my best to do this as a Trickster.  I enjoy testing other people as much as I enjoy testing my own limits.  I constantly put pressure on Tanks and Clerics, never to the point where I'm surely going to die or where they or are party are put in serious danger, but just to test how skilled they truly are.  As far as the low-mid level tanks of Bijou go, it's pretty poor.



^--- Tanking Honeying KQ - (the annotations cut off, view in full screen) ---^


There are a small handful of decent ones and a ton that talk a good game, but really are more bravado than truly skilled.  I was hoping that by making a true Tank, maybe it could inspire some people to make that choice, to get in and do the dirty work rather than opt for the more glamorous damage dealing route.  I remember listening to a couple of Fighters go on and on about their damage, bragging back and forth and measuring their manhood by their damage range, only to see them both go splat when KKP jumped.  Of course I laughed like heck offline when it happened, but went about my business and got the KQ done.  Players that want to boast like that typically aren't very skilled, a knowledgeable player can see right through it, so I just let em continue to spout their nonsense, my eyes endlessly rolling in my skull.

As you know, I already have a 9x Fighter, WinterLace, so I am extremely comfortable in playing the class already so honestly, I'm mostly just powerleveling myself at this point when I get on at home.  I do participate in Kingdom Quests though just to test myself, meet some people, and have some fun.  The only failed KQ so far that I've been a part of was a Honeying KQ in which we had no Clerics from the start, we did make it to Giant Honeying, but ran out of time as we were killing the mobs surrounding him.

At this point, I'm pretty proud of myself, I've gotten a lot of compliments from partymates as well as others in the KQ, so of course that's pretty good validation for this whole project.  I'll continue to make videos of the KQs that I participate in since I think that's a better training tool than having other Fighters or other classes directly observe me, they really can't tell what I'm doing and why for the most part.  At least through video, I can show it and post some notes via the annotation tool.

So anyway, hope you enjoyed this entry, I'll continue to update Project: Tanker in the weeks to come.