Guild Wars 2

I want to tank, it seems that Mesmer is pigeon holed into tanking. Is there any other class that can tank in GW2 in Fractals?

Mesmer isn’t the only tank, Rev, Guard, even Ele CAN tank. The reason a mesmer tanks is lower dps than the rest, but they provide quickness and alacrity, so this class logically loses the least when they tank as their goal isn’t to provide dps but rather strengthen others. As for fractals, tanking is different there, there’s not someone who can purposely grab aggro away from others, as such, just help your party in ways that your class does and you’ll be good. (mesmer quickness, warrior might, guardian protection, ele dps, necro condi, etc etc)

Like Sorin said, any class can tank in GW2, even though some are better than others. The reason that chrono is the tank is because its personal DPS is so godkitten miserable that you don’t lose anything by making it the tank, and it can still perform its alacrity/quickness rotation as a tank as well.

There really isn’t much tanking in fractals.

from your other threads i have the feeling you are completly new to instanced content.

you have to differ between the content…while in raids certain bosses (not all of them) have their aggro mechanic on toughness, this does not mean that its the same for every mob in the whole game.

then, on the other side, in content like dunegons and fractals, you absolutly do not need any sort of tank. depending on the group it can even hurt to bring defensive stats to the table, since mobs will die slower and therefore have more chance to do damage and people not reacting to it, resulting in a wipe. even defensive utilities (lets say sandstorm of tempest, which is a 10 second permablind for every mob in range) have their duration…in high levels the group can simply get rekt if their defensive skills are not present anymore….and a high healthpool or the biggest tankiness won’t help at all, you will still get one or two shotted if you do not dodge the big attacks. even from trashmobs.

it is and was always just way better to go on the full offensive, bring defensive utilities which will disable the mobs and since druids are in the meta (while the good groups always also use these completly with offensive stats, there are groups who run druids in magis gear in fracs) you can simply outsustain the small incoming damage.

for example your mesmer right now: sure, he tanks in raids where a aggro mechanic is, since it is good to hold the boss away from your group, so they can do their stuff, without hurting the mesmer’s dmg output too much.
but do you realise that most of them run them also in zerker gear, with some commanders in between for boon duration and minimal more toughness so the mesmer can get aggro?

mesmer is a utlitie monster. what he provides to the group if right played is permanent alacrity and quickness, resulting in a huge dps increase.
ontop of that, he is the protector of a group more or less. you need high understanding of the fights and good reactions to play him right, since his 1 second disortion must be well timed to safe your group in case they do not dodge or they simple do not have to if you tell them.
then there are reflects, his blocking well, boonstrip, portal plays and a kittenton of crowd control.

mesmer is by god not a class which you can play like: fire and forget.

and to be honest with you…you sound like you have no idea and you never set a foot in group based content where it really matters to play in a group.
you should explore the content first, getting a understanding on why certain stuff is done and how its done and maybe play a easy class for starters.

you said you wanted to play warrior in a nother thread…maybe roll with it. do your job with banners, learn when to cc with headbutt and look that you keep up the might.
maybe think about rotations a bit and watch some videos about it once you explored the content and groupplay.

or, even better, find yourself a mentor. there was a mentor list somewhere here, dunno if they are all still active, but it never hurts.

for the players which explored all the groupplay and strats it took a long time to get to this point and even tho their understanding of the game is probably unmatched, its no need to go the whole bumpy road if you can simply learn from someone.

and let me tell you, once you learned, you will find yourself in a spot where you will never complain again in the glassyness of a zerker warrior and that he dies too fast.
you will be bored as hell from openworld content since everything simply dies too fast.
you will go on a stroll once in a while to enjoy the story or some new map and think back about how you struggled once and now everything is just too easy.

Yeah, it’s definitely worth noting that chronotank is far and away the most difficult class to play in raids. Not only do they have one of the most complex rotations (not quite as bad as engie), but it’s essential that they perform that rotation perfectly or their entire squad will lose DPS. At the same time, they need to be handling the boss mechanics. On some bosses like gorseval this is pretty easy, but on others it can be a ton of mechanics you need to be paying attention to and reacting appropriately to while properly performing the combo and sometimes while moving the boss itself.

It is not a class and roll that is amenable to a beginner. It’s not impossible obviously, but you should know what you’re getting yourself into before you gear up a Mesmer for it.

I can’t think of any bosses in fractals that have a tank. They just don’t aggro based on toughness, so you can’t hold their aggro.

Raids are the only content where a tank is really used because many bosses aggro on toughness, so becoming the tank is a simple matter of being the person with the most toughness. Chrono is frequently used for this, but I’ve also seen ele and druid tank as well. Both of those would be running heal builds while tanking.

The problem isn’t that chronomancers are the only profession that can tank. The problem is that, in the current meta, the difference between bringing and not bringing a chronotank is far too wide a gap. You lose too much utility.

This is also true of PS warriors, druids/rangers and elementalists (in the last case, for their damage).

Can you raid on any profession? Of course. Will you struggle/suffer for it if you try to bring something not on the approved list? Most likely (unless you have a very experienced group, almost definitely).

No matter how much people want to deny it, raids are about the meta – and while that is partly a player created problem, it is a problem that only ArenaNet can really solve.

Raids are a mess. The only skill required comes primarily from the ability to copy paste builds, a gear grind and then a tiny bit of practice.

As I’ve said before, however, I would have far less of an issue with it if there were some way – preferably through tiered levels – to let people realistically experience the content regardless of playstyle, build preference or gear related timesinks.

Blaeys.3102:

The problem isn’t that chronomancers are the only profession that can tank. The problem is that, in the current meta, the difference between bringing and not bringing a chronotank is far too wide a gap. You lose too much utility.

This is also true of PS warriors, druids/rangers and elementalists (in the last case, for their damage).

Can you raid on any profession? Of course. Will you struggle/suffer for it if you try to bring something not on the approved list? Most likely (unless you have a very experienced group, almost definitely).

No matter how much people want to deny it, raids are about the meta – and while that is partly a player created problem, it is a problem that only ArenaNet can really solve.

Raids are a mess. The only skill required comes primarily from the ability to copy paste builds, a gear grind and then a tiny bit of practice.

As I’ve said before, however, I would have far less of an issue with it if there were some way – preferably through tiered levels – to let people realistically experience the content regardless of playstyle, build preference or gear related timesinks.

Don’t want to get too sidetracked, but “The only skill required comes primarily from the ability to copy paste builds, a gear grind and then a tiny bit of practice.” isn’t correct. See any ele in any other guild besides qT. Same gear yet their damage is significantly lower.

TBH, the real issue was with the latest balance patch in terms of tank. Previously, with 1 mesmer, you could make an argument that having a different tank, such as 1 druid, was a great alternative. But now that the balance makes 2 mesmers “mandatory”, it doesn’t make sense to not have at least 1 of them tank.