Tank (computer gaming)

In gaming jargon, a tank is a player or unit designated to protect weaker players or units in combat by drawing enemy attacks and absorbing damage. Compared to other units, tanks have a high damage tolerance and specialize in melee combat. The tongue-in-cheek term meat shield is roughly synonymous with tank, often carrying the additional connotation that the unit is relatively expendable or inconsequential and its death is preferred to the death of the units it protects.

Tanks are common features of game genres that include tactical combat. Examples include the Ultralisk from the real-time strategy game "StarCraft", the Necromancer's summoned golems and the Druid's summoned Grizzlys from the action role-playing game "Diablo II", and Deoxys and Blissey (among many others) from the Pokémon video game series.

Tank can also be a verb: "to tank" is for a strong or resilient unit to take a lot of damage in lieu of a weaker or less-resilient one. An example is when one unit stands still and takes the bulk of the damage while other units attack. The unit taking damage is "tanking damage," or simply "tanking."

Types

Many tanks have some mechanism to force enemies to prefer attacking them instead of the tank's teammates. In many games, the ability to encourage attacks on himself is referred to as taunting or provoking, although in some games the ability is entirely absent and skilled manipulation of the game's aggro system is required to prevent enemies from engaging other targets.

Traditional

The traditional tank has high hit points, robust armor, and good resistance to magic and other special attacks, surviving incoming damage by simply being tougher than his companions. He is generally paired with a healer, in order to extend the time that he can continue tanking.

Dodge

The dodge tank forgoes high hit points and damage resistance for avoiding damage altogether. The style is so called because in many games, the dodge tank dodges incoming attacks. In other games, dodging is replaced by special abilities that negate the effects of enemy attacks. For example, in Final Fantasy XI, the Ninja class uses an ability that produces "shadows". When a foe successfully hits a Ninja with the ability active, the shadow completely absorbs the attack and vanishes, leaving the Ninja unharmed. As another example, in Guild Wars, characters may use skills which either allow them to block the next attack against them, or to have a chance to block incoming attacks for a period of time, as well as spells which prevent them from being targeted by spells.

Off tank

In MMORPGs, an off tank (or off-tank) is a party member whose role is to occupy an enemy while the rest of the raid focuses energy on another enemy or mob. The off tank may also be responsible for using skills and abilities to reduce the capabilities of a main target of the raid so that the main tank can focus on protecting themselves or avoiding damage, and it may also take over tanking if the main tank is no longer able to.

Often in larger raid settings players need to handle multiple mobs and so more than one tank is needed. The first target is usually handled by the main tank because it is expected that the better geared player will be able to gain aggro quicker so that the rest of the group is able to use abilities faster. The off tank is expected to take damage from the mob and keep it away from the raid group until that first target is eliminated.

Hack-and-slash games

In computer role-playing games, tanks are warrior character classes with fighting skills and high hit points. An example of a tank in action is a swordsman with archers behind him. The swordsman has heavy armour and a shield, and thus takes less damage from his foes and protects the archers behind. The characters a tank protects might include a healer who keeps the tank (and other party members) alive, damage dealing classes with a lower damage tolerance (magic-users or rogues), or a weaker character taking advantage of the opportunity to powerlevel. Tanks in many cases have abilities to focus the attention of their opponent mobs on themselves as a way of protecting the other characters.

MMORPGs

* In "World of Warcraft", Warriors are the primary tanking class. Warriors accumulate Rage as they take damage from enemies, and can then use Rage to activate abilities which generate threat, encouraging enemies to focus their attacks on the Warrior. Druids and Paladins are hybrid classes that often fill the role of tank. Druids use Bear Form to tank, which utilizes Rage as Warriors would. Paladins, a warrior-healer hybrid, tank by using spell-casting to generate threat, even by simply healing themselves. Shamans can also act as tanks, holding aggro via threat-generating spells, but Shamans typically lack the survivability of Warriors, Druids, and Paladins. A pet under a Hunter or Warlock's control can also act as a tank. With the new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, coming out in November, developer Blizzard will be releasing the first hero class; the death knight. They have also confirmed that the death knight will be the newest tanking class.

* In "Guild Wars", a tank is a fighter with highly defensive armour and shield, whose attributes and selected skills specialize in damage absorbing, evading, and/or healing. The Warrior, Dervish and Elementalist classes are considered the most likely tanks, however, specialized other classes can serve as tanks as well in certain situations. In PvE, tanks are useful in capturing monsters' aggro and allowing other team members to attack without taking damage, though with recent monster upgrades this strategy is not longer as doable, as monsters are programmed to attack less armored targets, and there are few ways to refocus them on more armored ones. In PvP, the role of tanks is much less important, as smart human opponents will almost always try to get around the tank and attack more vulnerable targets. However, with the introduction of the expansion "" very popular is a team build consisting of 2 or 3 Monk healers and 5 or 6 people of any class using the Elite Skill called "Ursan Blessing", which heavily boosts Health and Armor Level and also gives power to knockdown all foes around caster and apply Weakness condition, lowering damage from monsters. Recent update also made Assassins a very promising tanks, since one of their spells, Shadow Form, is now possible to be maintained. It makes caster invulnerable to all melee and ranged attacks, all spells and the only thing that can damage him is Point Blank Area of Effect spell or a Signet, as both can pierce through Shadow Form's defenses.

* In "Lord of the Rings Online" the Guardian class is the clear tank of choice, specifically designed to have high damage mitigation and threat generation while having relatively low damage output. Champions can wear heavy armour and use shields, but have a poor range of threat generation , and reduce their damage output when not dual wielding or swinging a big 2 hander. Captains also have the ability to wear heavy armour and use shields, but almost no threat generating abilities beyond damage output and the enhanced threat from swinging their halberds. Burglars, Loremasters, Minstrels and Hunters have relatively poor damage mitigation and are best off sticking to the roles of dps, healing and crowd control as appropriate.

* In "EverQuest", the most common tank class is the Warrior, as it can both wear the most protective armour and generally has the most HP. Hybrids of Spellcasting classes and Warriors can also tank, such as the Shadowknight (Necromancer/Warrior) and the Paladin (Cleric/Warrior), and often it is more useful to have a hybrid as a tank because they can also provide another ability.

*In "City of Heroes", an entire character type is set aside for this brand of play. It is aptly named the Tanker archetype. Not only does every Tanker powerset include a "Taunt" power, their inherent power, Gauntlet, ensures they draw more aggro than the other archetypes, in a process the player community refers to as "punchvoking". Additionally, Scrappers can perform the task of tank, but the archetype is intentionally designed not to be as good at this task as Tankers. In "City of Villains", there is a lack of a distinct Tanker archetype, and the tankers tend to either be Brutes, due to their survivability (similar to Tankers but noticeably weaker in defence in exchange for noticeably more offence), or the somewhat expendable pets summoned by a Mastermind.

* In "Lineage 2" Humans, Elves and Dark Elves have specialised tank classes. They all take the path of knight in class progress. Human knights (Dark Avenger, Paladin) have the unique Shield Stun skill. Knights of elven races have cubics that assist them in combat. The common features of all tanks in Lineage 2 are physical & magical defence passive skills, higher shield block rate compared to other classes and 'Hate Skills' that are used to keep aggro on them. Compared to other games, they have rather limited combat abilities and low attack power. Changes in Chronicle 5: Oath of Blood and Interlude significantly increased the role of tanks in PvP with ability to aggro other players and shield blocking of spells.

* In "Final Fantasy XI", there are several classes that function well as tanks. There are 2 classes that are typically used for main tanking, though others have been used successfully for specific purposes. The two archetypical tanks are Paladin and Ninja. Though the former, with its high Hit Points and Vitality, was clearly intended as a tank, the latter derives its tanking ability from the "Utsusemi" ability that gives it shadows to block hits, and was not originally intended to be a tank. These jobs almost always use Warrior as a sub-job, as this gains them the Provoke ability, which directs the target's attention towards the person who uses it. In addition, the Paladin can cure or blind with spells to generate quick surges of hate. As the game has progressed more and more towards endgame-related activities, other tanks have come to light - Ninja subbing Dark Knight to take advantage of enfeebles that, though the enemy resists them, generate a large amount of hate and Red Mage subbing Ninja and utilizing shadows along with Stoneskin and other damage-reduction spells to take less damage even when hit are two such examples. For a brief period, a larger-than-intended hate generation from a movement speed increase song made Bard the preferable sub for any Ninja that truly wished to hold hate.

* In four character classes (out of 15) can wear heavy armor and have the highest armor rating: Warriors, Paladins, Dread Knights, and Clerics. However, Warriors usually dual-wield two weapons and they usually play strong DPS (damage per second) characters. Paladins and Dread Knights are the most common tanks in groups.

* In ' the role of the tank is divided between the forces of Order and Destruction. Each race has a "Tank" type career that while performing much the same role, does so in a different way. For example, the Chaos Chosen"' is a huge metal plated being who uses a variety of auras to hinder enemies and enhance allies (many of which do both), and the High Elf Swordmaster utilizes chains of successive attacks called a "Blade Dance". Two of the Tank Careers, the Empire's Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Dark Elf Black Guard did not make it into the game's recent launch. Unlike most MMOs, WAR's Tanks are built to not only take damage, but, given the game's PvP focus, punish enemies for not attacking them. A noteable example is that "Taunt" type skills have a negative effect on enemies if they do not attack the tank while they are in effect. In addition to granting "aggro" in PvE situations, single target taunts increase all damage the tank does to the target by 30% unless that enemy hits him 3x. Area of Effect (AoE) Taunts instead decrease the damage those enemies do to anyone but the Tank.

* In "Dark Age of Camelot" the tanks are divided up into Primary Tanks, which have the highest hitpoints and best armor, and Secondary Tanks, which have usually inferior armor, but skills which can partially make up this lack. The odd man out is the Paladin (in the kingdom of Albion), which can use as good armor as the Armsman, and, while having fewer hitpoints than the primary tanker, the Armsman, has healing chants which can give him effectively the same hitpoints over time (since he heals while being damaged, the time to death is about the same, though that changes from time to time as they patch the game). So, while he was designed to have powers like a Secondary Tank, he has the durability of a Primary Tank.

* In "Anarchy Online" the Enforcer profession is a natural choice for tanking, due to ease of acquiring good HP and defence, as well as the "Mongo" line of nano-programs (spells) designed to taunt all nearby foes onto the Enforcer. Additionally, high natural hit points allow Soldiers, Keepers and Engineer pets to tank, and Adventurers, Martial Artists and Shades are known to tank using their superior evasion skills, but it is risky as they do not have the hit points to survive long if their evades fail.

* In "Ultima Online" the player can craft his character nearly by hand, selecting and evolving any skill or stat that he want, this allow to the creation of various sorts of tank characters, but the most common and feared one is the tank mage, a mage character, that instead of having a high amount of mana, it have a high amount of HP, this allows him to withstand a large amount of damage while he concentrates in using only the stronger spells (that take a good time to cast), instead of having to run around (a character can not move while casting), or healing himself (thus not attacking)

* In "Ragnarok Online" Knights and Crusaders are often traditional tanks with their large amount of hit points, DEF, heavy armour, and their provoke ability which causes a monster to target them. Other classes that can act as tanks include Assassins (with high AGI to dodge enemy attacks) and Hunters (again, with high AGI). Another class capable of tanking is Priest (VIT and INT make "Heal" spell restore almost whole health bar) or Soul Linkers (using high AGI to dodge melee attacks and INT to power the Kaizel spell, giving him the power of self-resurrection, and Kaahi, which can automatically outheal any damage).

* In "Silkroad Online" Bladers, Glaivers and European Warriors take that role. Bladers and One Hand Sword Warriors take the role of massive tanks, having shields both characters and a lot of armor and magical defence, doing low damage in exchange for a massive defence. Meanwhile, the Glaivers and Two Hand Sword Warriors deals a lot of damage with low defence, having a typical big weapon. Two Axe Warriors are hybrid tanks doing medium damage and cursing the enemy.

*In "Runescape" , Ranged/mage characters with high defence using certain pieces of melee armour to increase resistance to melee attacks are regarded as tanks. Mages benefit from the ability to hold their enemies at a distance with freezing/binding spell while rangers benefit from the ability to hit swiftly and accurately.

* In "Helbreath", characters with high amounts of DEX and VIT, in addition to sufficient STR are often used as tanks.

* In "MapleStory", various Warrior classes are often used as tanks, especially in Party Quests. This is chiefly due to their vast amounts of HP and strong weapon attacks. In addition, most Warriors have access to much stronger armour than other classes and can therefore clear a path without taking too much damage.

* In "Hellgate London" the tanks are the Templars, either Guardians or Blademasters.

* In "Shaiya" the Defender/Guardian classes are designed as tanks, automatically gaining HP and physical defense each level and are usually equipped with a shield to further increase their HP and defense. They also gain skills like Taunt which make nearby creatures attack them, instead of others.

In Dark Age of Camelot, the Player vs. Player combat is divided up by kingdom; anyone in your own kingdom (Albion, Midgard, Hibernia) can be trusted not to attack you, since the game makes it impossible (unless you accept a duel); and since you share some goals and benefits and penalties derived from how your realm does in the inter-kingdom wars, these fellow kingdom members are, effectively, your "team;" and you are fighting against the other two kingdoms for supremacy on the battlefields and frontiers.

In this RvR (Realm vs. Realm) combat, the term "meat shield" has a special use; the Millisecond Meat Shield (abbreviated, "MMS"). For those big pushes to take over a frontier keep or obtain a relic from another realm (by raiding), some kingdoms will put a call out to all players who are logged in to go to the frontier, even if they are not tough enough to survive more than one hit.

The theory is, by providing more targets against the enemy, you make them waste hits while your fighters who are strong enough to matter can pound them for a while as they terminate the useless players. This, effectively, gives your fighters a few seconds of advantage over the enemy, during which, they can pound and take out some of the enemy soldiers; and that can make a big difference; it is equivalent to free damage performed on the enemy. It is, sometimes, the difference between a loss and a win.

MMS players also perform a function of deterrence; the group looks large and threatening, and may cause the enemy to run to get reinforcements. An alert force, however, will "click" on your force to verify levels; anyone who "cons" (short for "consider", a command that estimates the relative level of the target) grey is a decoy, rather like a wooden duck. Or, you might say, a sitting duck.

The Science fiction game "EVE Online", features exclusively ship-vs-ship combat but a tanking role is often performed against NPC ships by a large ship such as a battleship, which may also be used to do damage in a solo play style, or may be accompanied by one or more other player ships to do damage. However a vast amount of combat in EVE is PvP, which makes tanking much less pronounced and many setups rely on ships maintaining a high speed to reduce chances of being hit and reduction of incoming damage may be caused by the use of electronic warfare against other player ships, although some ships, particularly larger ones, use a heavy tank in PVP.

First-person shooters

In team-based first-person shooters, meat shields are players who play point, thereby either drawing fire to themselves or doing initial damage to the enemy team, enabling their team mates to clean up the distracted or weakened enemy players.

In FPS games with various character classes, classes that are capable of absorbing more damage are often used on point as tanks.
* The Heavy Weapons class in Team Fortress 2 possesses more than double the hit points of most other classes and has an imposing figure that simply renders him more likely to be struck by gunfire. The Heavy, like all other classes, can become momentarily invulnerable with the help of a Medic.
* In the multiplayer FPS mode of Banjo Tooie, Grunty is the clear tank, being not only giant but having twice as much health as 3 of the other 4 classes (and four times as much health as the last one).
* In the FPS 2007 remake of Shadowrun, the Troll race can take heavy fire due to the special ability they possess that hardens their skin as they take damage. It takes roughly 2-3 players to take down a Troll swiftly but that number increases to 3-4 players if its under a Tree of Life which recovers health.

See also

* Healer (gaming)
* Spell-caster (gaming)