A lot has been said about the space 5e carves out for the mechanical archetype of the tank, and how you should build one. I'm not going to talk about that. This post takes for granted that tanking in the MMORPG sense doesn't work well in 5e, and that while it's possible to make a character that can do it, your options are pretty limited and it's not all that great. If you disagree, that's fine, but this probably isn't the place for it. Not least of all because it's already been hashed out a million times elsewhere.
Let's take a quick look at the role of the MMORPG tank, and in so doing, make some unconventional suggestions for players who want to play tanks for various reasons.
What's a tank supposed to do? It's a little more complicated than it seems. "Take all the hits" doesn't paint the full picture. Most characters would just die! That's why they need a tank. A tank uses specific methods. 1: A tank needs to be tough enough that those hits don't kill him faster than his healer(s) can heal him. He needs to reduce incoming damage, prevent damage-increasing debuffs. 2: A tank also needs to have ways to pull those hits away from other targets. Keep them from getting hit. But obviously, putting a solid wall between enemies and allies, or facilitating a total escape, doesn't satisfy the prompt. The goal is to keep allies alive long enough for their DPS to kill the enemy.
So we have a simple goal -- keep the party safe while they fight -- fulfilled in a very specific way. That way doesn't work in 5e very well, but the goal can still be accomplished. It's just going to feel different, and in some cases VERY different.
First of all you can prevent movement a lot more effectively with spells than with the threat of opportunity attacks. Entangle, Web, Black Tentacles, Spike Growth, Levitate. Stuff like this will keep your enemies away from your allies while still letting your team attack them.
Secondly you can defend against ranged attacks and spells against everyone, rather than directing everything towards yourself. Warding Wind, Water Wall, Aura of Warding. In extreme circumstances you can use Darkness or Fog Cloud.
You can increase your party's mobility to keep them away from enemies. Longstrider, Fly, Freedom of Movement, Maneuvering Attack, Mantle of Majesty. Removing your opponents' reactions lets your party keep moving away from them even in tight spaces, so use Shocking Grasp, Mind Whip, Slow, and Dissonant Whispers.
You can remove high priority targets in a million ways. Stunning Strike, Banishment, Hideous Laughter, Menacing Attack, Hypnotic Gaze, Enthralling Presence. If one guy is way more dangerous than the rest (or if he's alone!), making him useless is the same as protecting your allies.
You can use general damage reduction effects to bridge any gaps in your strategies. Stoneskin, Shield of Faith, Bless, Death Ward, Bane. You can pick specific ones for specific scenarios, like Aura of Life against undead, Protection from Energy against dragons, Protection from Evil and Good against devils. Put them on your allies!
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So, what's my point? The best tank class is actually Wizard? I mean, yeah, kind of! There's a lot of options out there, and some of them let you wear heavy armor and stand next to enemies, but if you can bear it, you should consider taking a different route. Taken another way, if you want to "tank," rejoice because you don't have to be constrained to just the Beefy Boi classes!
This is just my philosophy. If you don't agree then that's ok, I'm sure our experience all depends on our campaigns. So if I sound like I'm saying "This is the truth" then please take it as meaning "my truth based on my gaming experience" rather than a universal truth.
The role of a tank will depend on the way that the DM builds encounters to a large extent. If you have a bunch of basic minions who generally just take the attack action, then imposing yourself between the party and the enemies is a good way to flat out stop them getting there. With the threat of opportunity attacks, the character's base damage potential (excluding on your turn only abilities) increases to 200% from levels 1-4, 150% from level 5+ when Extra Attack is available, and lessens for Fighters after 11th level. This of course reduces for things like two weapon fighting, PAM, Flurry of Blows etc but the increase is still massive. I would say that these types of encounters with a number of creatures are the bread and butter of D&D and combats against 5 spellcasters are generally rarer.
Therefore, what is often missed in tanking discussions:
A tank in 5th edition must be able to deal strong damage
The threat of that damage must force the enemy not to ignore the tank
The tank's threat potential should increase when the tank is ignored
The tank should therefore not stack nothing but defensive capabilities, but...
The tank's abilities should force the enemy attacking them to be less effective than attacking the rest of the party
For this reason, Druids make lousy tanks, except at the lowest levels. Their Wildshape may give them a great pool of hit points, but it generally also makes them much less effective in combat than a pure combat class. They also typically have poor AC, meaning the wildshape gets knocked off them fast. Moreover though, the wildshaped form can be ignored in order to attack other more potent damage dealers.
The best tank in the game is: anything other than the caster that has been polymorphed into a Giant Ape or T-Rex. You occupy 9 squares and can body block, as well as having insane hit points, and it's not your concentration.
Barbarians are the best example of hard hitting tanks in the game. Rage, all on its own, simply gives them a huge defence, but Reckless Attack is the best example of what happens if you ignore the tank. And the best feat for a Barbarian tank? Great Weapon Master. If you attack the barbarian, this lessens the likelihood of them swinging wildly with GWM. If you ignore the barbarian, they will go hell-for-leather on you with +10 to their damage as one of (if not the) highest sustained dps modes in the game before level 11. Of course, they might want to draw attacks onto their rage, and that Advantage on attacking them given by Reckless Attack performs that function brilliantly. For these reasons, offensively built barbarians outclass almost every other class as a tank. The barbarian is the only class for whom Sentinel is not a must-have ability, because if the enemy does ignore the barbarian, they die. (obviously Sentinel is just really awesome anyway).
The second best tank in the game does these things in a very different way. Eldritch Knights packing shield, protection from evil and good, booming blade and later on hold person and warding wind (for both disadvantage on ranged if you cover the party, or movement disruption if you're close), again taking Sentinel and either Warcaster (if you use a shield) or Great Weapon Master (if you don't use a shield), is the next best tank. The EK has to choose whether they're going for plate and a shield with defence fighting style (AC26 with shield, and disadvantage from Prot Evil and Good/Blur) or take Protection or Interception, or whether they want to go for AC19 (24 with Shield) and use GWM to smash faces. The EK is a weaker damage dealer than the barbarian, but doesn't consume healing resources like a barbarian does, since he doesn't get hit as much and absorb elements is nifty in a pinch. Oddly, Savage Attacker becomes a much stronger feat for an EK tank using a one hander like a longsword or battleaxe than for most classes; it isn't going to rocket damage to the sky, but it significantly increases average damage (when rolling a d8, always reroll a 1-4, as there's a 5/8 chance you get the same or better). This makes the EK a machine that consistently pumps out damage with Booming Blade and Warcaster, until 3rd attack at level 11, when you're dealing a lot of damage anyway. One of the most effective things about the class is that if you don't focus the EK, they get to use their spells on things like Prot Good and Evil on an ally instead of themselves, further protecting the party, and they don't have to blow spell slots on Shield, freeing them up for Hold Person (again, locking down the enemy). A lot of people criticise the EK, but mostly because they don't see it as a tanking subclass and want to play it as a battlemage blaster (which it isn't).
Adamantine Armour is more or less a must for a tank, and the more attacks you draw, the more important that becomes. You don't want to boost your AC to insane levels without comparative damage, though, or the DM will just start ignoring you.
Why wizards aren't the best tank? The chance to save on immobilising spells gets higher and higher as time goes by. Hold Person, Dominate Monster, Grease and Web - all these kinds of spells tend to fail against bosses, especially once they have legendary resistances, leading to nil damage outputs. They're also effects that tend to need Concentration, and can often end before the monster even takes its turn in a busy fight. The Barbarian and the EK get up their in the opponent's face ASAP and start controlling the fight through positioning and damage output.
Anyway this has got far too long.
TLDR: Damage dealing is an equal priority for the tank compared to survival ability.
basically, thats not the place to disagree but, you say that to be a tanker you must do support stuff and its better to be a wizard becouse of that bunch of druid/ranger/paladin/cleric spells?
I mean, if you don't want argumentation thats fine, but this probably isn't the place for it. It's nice you have a controversial opinion that makes you feel happy for it, but a social forum implies argumentations and disagreement and if you want to stand the point just for your self you can always make a private notebook or dm yourself on your chat app
I mean, if you don't want argumentation thats fine, but this probably isn't the place for it. It's nice you have a controversial opinion that makes you feel happy for it, but a social forum implies argumentations and disagreement and if you want to stand the point just for your self you can always make a private notebook or dm yourself on your chat app
I'm open to argument, I'm just not looking to rehash the same "can a tough guy tank build work in 5e" discussion you can find everywhere.
This is just my philosophy. If you don't agree then that's ok, I'm sure our experience all depends on our campaigns. So if I sound like I'm saying "This is the truth" then please take it as meaning "my truth based on my gaming experience" rather than a universal truth.
The role of a tank will depend on the way that the DM builds encounters to a large extent. If you have a bunch of basic minions who generally just take the attack action, then imposing yourself between the party and the enemies is a good way to flat out stop them getting there. With the threat of opportunity attacks, the character's base damage potential (excluding on your turn only abilities) increases to 200% from levels 1-4, 150% from level 5+ when Extra Attack is available, and lessens for Fighters after 11th level. This of course reduces for things like two weapon fighting, PAM, Flurry of Blows etc but the increase is still massive. I would say that these types of encounters with a number of creatures are the bread and butter of D&D and combats against 5 spellcasters are generally rarer.
Therefore, what is often missed in tanking discussions:
A tank in 5th edition must be able to deal strong damage
The threat of that damage must force the enemy not to ignore the tank
The tank's threat potential should increase when the tank is ignored
The tank should therefore not stack nothing but defensive capabilities, but...
The tank's abilities should force the enemy attacking them to be less effective than attacking the rest of the party
For this reason, Druids make lousy tanks, except at the lowest levels. Their Wildshape may give them a great pool of hit points, but it generally also makes them much less effective in combat than a pure combat class. They also typically have poor AC, meaning the wildshape gets knocked off them fast. Moreover though, the wildshaped form can be ignored in order to attack other more potent damage dealers.
The best tank in the game is: anything other than the caster that has been polymorphed into a Giant Ape or T-Rex. You occupy 9 squares and can body block, as well as having insane hit points, and it's not your concentration.
Barbarians are the best example of hard hitting tanks in the game. Rage, all on its own, simply gives them a huge defence, but Reckless Attack is the best example of what happens if you ignore the tank. And the best feat for a Barbarian tank? Great Weapon Master. If you attack the barbarian, this lessens the likelihood of them swinging wildly with GWM. If you ignore the barbarian, they will go hell-for-leather on you with +10 to their damage as one of (if not the) highest sustained dps modes in the game before level 11. Of course, they might want to draw attacks onto their rage, and that Advantage on attacking them given by Reckless Attack performs that function brilliantly. For these reasons, offensively built barbarians outclass almost every other class as a tank. The barbarian is the only class for whom Sentinel is not a must-have ability, because if the enemy does ignore the barbarian, they die. (obviously Sentinel is just really awesome anyway).
The second best tank in the game does these things in a very different way. Eldritch Knights packing shield, protection from evil and good, booming blade and later on hold person and warding wind (for both disadvantage on ranged if you cover the party, or movement disruption if you're close), again taking Sentinel and either Warcaster (if you use a shield) or Great Weapon Master (if you don't use a shield), is the next best tank. The EK has to choose whether they're going for plate and a shield with defence fighting style (AC26 with shield, and disadvantage from Prot Evil and Good/Blur) or take Protection or Interception, or whether they want to go for AC19 (24 with Shield) and use GWM to smash faces. The EK is a weaker damage dealer than the barbarian, but doesn't consume healing resources like a barbarian does, since he doesn't get hit as much and absorb elements is nifty in a pinch. Oddly, Savage Attacker becomes a much stronger feat for an EK tank using a one hander like a longsword or battleaxe than for most classes; it isn't going to rocket damage to the sky, but it significantly increases average damage (when rolling a d8, always reroll a 1-4, as there's a 5/8 chance you get the same or better). This makes the EK a machine that consistently pumps out damage with Booming Blade and Warcaster, until 3rd attack at level 11, when you're dealing a lot of damage anyway. One of the most effective things about the class is that if you don't focus the EK, they get to use their spells on things like Prot Good and Evil on an ally instead of themselves, further protecting the party, and they don't have to blow spell slots on Shield, freeing them up for Hold Person (again, locking down the enemy). A lot of people criticise the EK, but mostly because they don't see it as a tanking subclass and want to play it as a battlemage blaster (which it isn't).
Adamantine Armour is more or less a must for a tank, and the more attacks you draw, the more important that becomes. You don't want to boost your AC to insane levels without comparative damage, though, or the DM will just start ignoring you.
Why wizards aren't the best tank? The chance to save on immobilising spells gets higher and higher as time goes by. Hold Person, Dominate Monster, Grease and Web - all these kinds of spells tend to fail against bosses, especially once they have legendary resistances, leading to nil damage outputs. They're also effects that tend to need Concentration, and can often end before the monster even takes its turn in a busy fight. The Barbarian and the EK get up their in the opponent's face ASAP and start controlling the fight through positioning and damage output.
Anyway this has got far too long.
TLDR: Damage dealing is an equal priority for the tank compared to survival ability.
This is a very reasonable philosophy. It's been my experience, however, that a single opportunity attack isn't enough to adequately keep enemies off the squishies. Even ignoring the scenarios where monsters can go around you without getting close, you have evasive enemies that can Disengage or teleport, then you have tough enemies who simply don't die to your attacks. And if there's more than one enemy, they can slip past you after you use your reaction. Tactically minded monsters might even do what our Fighter does, and Dodge before moving away just to take that opportunity attack so the rest of the party doesn't have to. And all of this does nothing against ranged attacks or spells.
Last session our tank (an Eldritch Knight) was unable to keep two oozes off our Wizard. He hits pretty hard, but the monsters had a lot of HP and they just kept pressing forward. The Wizard died, and the EK and I both ended the fight unconscious.
And yes, legendary resistances and high saving throw numbers can make it harder, but then you can just pivot to "save for half" types of effects. Web still makes difficult terrain even if they succeed.
basically, thats not the place to disagree but, you say that to be a tanker you must do support stuff and its better to be a wizard becouse of that bunch of druid/ranger/paladin/cleric spells?
My use of the word Wizard is mostly for comic effect, because Wizard is famous for being fragile. There's a lot of good spells in the tanking theme for Wizards, but based on my rough estimates, the best class would be Cleric (or Divine Soul Sorcerer). They lack some of the area-control options, but their direct damage mitigation options are great. The Nature Domain gets you Spike Growth, Plant Growth, and Wind Wall, to fill in those gaps, as well as Dampen Elements to further enhance your damage mitigation, so right now, without an extensive analysis, that would be my pick for the most effective "tank."
Great topic and I really liked your analysis. I am a big fan of playing tanks and I have tested several builds to accomplish that effectively.
Two specific builds that proved to be quite good in my personal experience:
1. Basic Ancestral Guardian optimized around HP and mental saves. You could do exotic things like a Gnome using a Belt of Dwarvenkind.
2. Abjurer. Whether Mark of Warding Dwarf or Hexblade multiclass. You will have plenty protection through Arcane Ward. Armor of Agathys is just icy on the top adding more THP (the problem is that the retributive damage from it could intimidate some creatures). And all the versatility from Wizard spells already mentioned.
1) massive single-strike damage - if it’s possible to do a ton of damage with one hit when doing an attack of opportunity, you become a lot “stickier”.
2) if you can protect and/or heal enough allies in a wall that prevents bad guys from getting around (similar to the polymorph huge creature idea), you also make for a great tank.
What was basically described in the OP's post is a Crowd Control(controller) Kiter option. This is pretty solidly accepted as a strong tactic but, it is not synonymously seen as "tanking".
Therefore, what is often missed in tanking discussions:
A tank in 5th edition must be able to deal strong damage
The threat of that damage must force the enemy not to ignore the tank
The tank's threat potential should increase when the tank is ignored
The tank should therefore not stack nothing but defensive capabilities, but...
The tank's abilities should force the enemy attacking them to be less effective than attacking the rest of the party
Damage is just one way to get people to pay attention to you, it isn't the only way. There are two main points to tanking:
Be more appealing as a target than the rest of the party
Be better at taking attacks than the rest of the party
The first can be accomplished by doing a lot of damage, especially through the threat of powerful opportunity attacks, but it could also be done by making the rest of the party less appealing as a target, using terrain to make it difficult to get to them, using sentinel to stop them or attack them for attacking others, etc. It can also be accomplished by appearing to be an easy target, which is where some conflict with the second point comes in. Someone in full plate with a shield is less appealing as a target than someone in basic clothes who always leaves themselves open to attacks.
…that those hits don't kill him faster than his healer(s) can heal him.
I think this point is often missed. Tanks are part of a tripod - they don't work unless combined with the other two roles (healer, damage dealer).
A tank generally can't defeat an encounter on their own - the amount of damage incoming is usually more than their hit points. They are not supposed to be able to do so. All they need is to manage the rate of loss of hit points to be less than the heal rate of the healer, over enough time for the damage dealer to get the enemies to zero.
…that those hits don't kill him faster than his healer(s) can heal him.
I think this point is often missed. Tanks are part of a tripod - they don't work unless combined with the other two roles (healer, damage dealer).
A tank generally can't defeat an encounter on their own - the amount of damage incoming is usually more than their hit points. They are not supposed to be able to do so. All they need is to manage the rate of loss of hit points to be less than the heal rate of the healer, over enough time for the damage dealer to get the enemies to zero.
People can talk about the legitimacy of the few extant taunt effects, but until healing is made a viable combat option to use round to round, the tank won't truly work. But that's alright, I think. The question to ask is, "would anybody have fun healing every turn in D&D?" And I find it hard to imagine the answer would be yes, even if it was a viable strategy. As I understand it, it largely works in MMOs by leveraging the moment-to-moment pacing of a computer game, testing player reflexes, which D&D can't do. Minus that, it's gotta be pretty repetitive. Though I'm open to discussion on that. I've never actually played any MMOs, so my understanding is pretty limited.
I think "healing isn't fun" is an unsupported hot take that you see trotted out a lot on forums, but which I've never seen in the real world. Players choose healer roles in MMOs, and in tabletop games, about as often as they choose control or tank roles. Yes, everyone loves big damage numbers, so there's a segment of players that wants to see their character deal damage more than they want to see them be a productive part of a team dynamic... but I think that says less about "healing/control/tanking isn't fun" than it does about "damage IS fun."
Even dedicated healers in 5E usually have an action or bonus action to spare to put some damage on the board to scratch that itch, I don't think its an issue.
I think "healing isn't fun" is an unsupported hot take that you see trotted out a lot on forums, but which I've never seen in the real world. Players choose healer roles in MMOs, and in tabletop games, about as often as they choose control or tank roles. Yes, everyone loves big damage numbers, so there's a segment of players that wants to see their character deal damage more than they want to see them be a productive part of a team dynamic... but I think that says less about "healing/control/tanking isn't fun" than it does about "damage IS fun."
Even dedicated healers in 5E usually have an action or bonus action to spare to put some damage on the board to scratch that itch, I don't think its an issue.
I would disagree with the sentiment of "healing isn't fun." I have a lot of fun playing a healer. I would never play one in 5e. Healing is fun when I can outpace damage taken and still contribute damage to the fight. In combat, healing in 5e is almost always less effective at keeping people alive than doing damage; outside of combat, healing is usually a waste of spell slots because hit dice healing is more effective.
Dealing damage is almost never effective at "keeping people alive" directly, and it's pretty rare to have a setup where you dealing damage communicates to the table "I just saved you from dying!" rather than "I just killed that guy!" Like... I guess if a monster has your teammate unconscious in its mouth and is running away with them, killing the monster is directly "keeping people alive"... but in general in most combats? It doesn't tell that story at all.
Healing may not be efficient, but every time you do it, you are narratively "keeping people alive." If that's a role that is interesting to you as a player, healing (any healing) is perfectly fine at performing that function, even if there are other functions that have a greater impact on the speed and balance of the overall combat.
The only edition of D&D that really had meaningful 'tanking' was 4th edition. The 'protect the squishies' job in 5e, to the degree it exists, is covered by spellcasters (I would probably go with a moon druid; they have healing, great zones, walls of meat with spells like Conjure Animals, creature forms with inherent knockdown or grapples, and massive durability), though there are optional rules (e.g. 'mark' in the DMG) that improve the situation somewhat.
I think a well built sorcadin is a fantastic tank. Like, a martial that just stacks AC is one that the DM is going to ignore. But, if there's concentration at stake, the DM might make an attack anyways in hopes of breaking concentration. Even more so if that same martial also has incredible melee prowess, as most sorcadins inherently do.
Let's say there's a character who's buffing the party, casting and concentrating on really good effective control spells around the battlefield, AND is dealing high damage? That's practically impossible to ignore. The DM is then highly incentivized to attack the sorcadin, and what might happen? Chances are they'll miss, but it probably won't stop the DM from trying because to do so is punishing.
I think "healing isn't fun" is an unsupported hot take that you see trotted out a lot on forums, but which I've never seen in the real world. Players choose healer roles in MMOs, and in tabletop games, about as often as they choose control or tank roles. Yes, everyone loves big damage numbers, so there's a segment of players that wants to see their character deal damage more than they want to see them be a productive part of a team dynamic... but I think that says less about "healing/control/tanking isn't fun" than it does about "damage IS fun."
Even dedicated healers in 5E usually have an action or bonus action to spare to put some damage on the board to scratch that itch, I don't think its an issue.
Okay, players choose the healer role, but they don't end up doing what I said, which was healing every turn in combat. As you say at the end there, in 5e they all put damage on the board. So really we haven't gained any insight.
I think a well built sorcadin is a fantastic tank. Like, a martial that just stacks AC is one that the DM is going to ignore. But, if there's concentration at stake, the DM might make an attack anyways in hopes of breaking concentration. Even more so if that same martial also has incredible melee prowess, as most sorcadins inherently do.
Let's say there's a character who's buffing the party, casting and concentrating on really good effective control spells around the battlefield, AND is dealing high damage? That's practically impossible to ignore. The DM is then highly incentivized to attack the sorcadin, and what might happen? Chances are they'll miss, but it probably won't stop the DM from trying because to do so is punishing.
I agree with your idea, though I'm going to say if you're playing against the DM's instincts rather than those of the monsters you're facing, that sounds kind of irritating. I prefer when tactics line up with the creatures that are using them. But that's really neither here nor there. I was drawing a bit of aggro with my Paladin using concentration spells. But only from enemies with at least some grasp of how magic works. Not, like, bat swarms.
However, in a strong party, everyone's a threat. And if some of them are easier to kill than you, well, they're probably going to be the priority targets.
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A lot has been said about the space 5e carves out for the mechanical archetype of the tank, and how you should build one. I'm not going to talk about that. This post takes for granted that tanking in the MMORPG sense doesn't work well in 5e, and that while it's possible to make a character that can do it, your options are pretty limited and it's not all that great. If you disagree, that's fine, but this probably isn't the place for it. Not least of all because it's already been hashed out a million times elsewhere.
Let's take a quick look at the role of the MMORPG tank, and in so doing, make some unconventional suggestions for players who want to play tanks for various reasons.
What's a tank supposed to do? It's a little more complicated than it seems. "Take all the hits" doesn't paint the full picture. Most characters would just die! That's why they need a tank. A tank uses specific methods. 1: A tank needs to be tough enough that those hits don't kill him faster than his healer(s) can heal him. He needs to reduce incoming damage, prevent damage-increasing debuffs. 2: A tank also needs to have ways to pull those hits away from other targets. Keep them from getting hit. But obviously, putting a solid wall between enemies and allies, or facilitating a total escape, doesn't satisfy the prompt. The goal is to keep allies alive long enough for their DPS to kill the enemy.
So we have a simple goal -- keep the party safe while they fight -- fulfilled in a very specific way. That way doesn't work in 5e very well, but the goal can still be accomplished. It's just going to feel different, and in some cases VERY different.
First of all you can prevent movement a lot more effectively with spells than with the threat of opportunity attacks. Entangle, Web, Black Tentacles, Spike Growth, Levitate. Stuff like this will keep your enemies away from your allies while still letting your team attack them.
Secondly you can defend against ranged attacks and spells against everyone, rather than directing everything towards yourself. Warding Wind, Water Wall, Aura of Warding. In extreme circumstances you can use Darkness or Fog Cloud.
You can increase your party's mobility to keep them away from enemies. Longstrider, Fly, Freedom of Movement, Maneuvering Attack, Mantle of Majesty. Removing your opponents' reactions lets your party keep moving away from them even in tight spaces, so use Shocking Grasp, Mind Whip, Slow, and Dissonant Whispers.
You can remove high priority targets in a million ways. Stunning Strike, Banishment, Hideous Laughter, Menacing Attack, Hypnotic Gaze, Enthralling Presence. If one guy is way more dangerous than the rest (or if he's alone!), making him useless is the same as protecting your allies.
You can use general damage reduction effects to bridge any gaps in your strategies. Stoneskin, Shield of Faith, Bless, Death Ward, Bane. You can pick specific ones for specific scenarios, like Aura of Life against undead, Protection from Energy against dragons, Protection from Evil and Good against devils. Put them on your allies!
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So, what's my point? The best tank class is actually Wizard? I mean, yeah, kind of! There's a lot of options out there, and some of them let you wear heavy armor and stand next to enemies, but if you can bear it, you should consider taking a different route. Taken another way, if you want to "tank," rejoice because you don't have to be constrained to just the Beefy Boi classes!
This is just my philosophy. If you don't agree then that's ok, I'm sure our experience all depends on our campaigns. So if I sound like I'm saying "This is the truth" then please take it as meaning "my truth based on my gaming experience" rather than a universal truth.
The role of a tank will depend on the way that the DM builds encounters to a large extent. If you have a bunch of basic minions who generally just take the attack action, then imposing yourself between the party and the enemies is a good way to flat out stop them getting there. With the threat of opportunity attacks, the character's base damage potential (excluding on your turn only abilities) increases to 200% from levels 1-4, 150% from level 5+ when Extra Attack is available, and lessens for Fighters after 11th level. This of course reduces for things like two weapon fighting, PAM, Flurry of Blows etc but the increase is still massive. I would say that these types of encounters with a number of creatures are the bread and butter of D&D and combats against 5 spellcasters are generally rarer.
Therefore, what is often missed in tanking discussions:
For this reason, Druids make lousy tanks, except at the lowest levels. Their Wildshape may give them a great pool of hit points, but it generally also makes them much less effective in combat than a pure combat class. They also typically have poor AC, meaning the wildshape gets knocked off them fast. Moreover though, the wildshaped form can be ignored in order to attack other more potent damage dealers.
The best tank in the game is: anything other than the caster that has been polymorphed into a Giant Ape or T-Rex. You occupy 9 squares and can body block, as well as having insane hit points, and it's not your concentration.
Barbarians are the best example of hard hitting tanks in the game. Rage, all on its own, simply gives them a huge defence, but Reckless Attack is the best example of what happens if you ignore the tank. And the best feat for a Barbarian tank? Great Weapon Master. If you attack the barbarian, this lessens the likelihood of them swinging wildly with GWM. If you ignore the barbarian, they will go hell-for-leather on you with +10 to their damage as one of (if not the) highest sustained dps modes in the game before level 11. Of course, they might want to draw attacks onto their rage, and that Advantage on attacking them given by Reckless Attack performs that function brilliantly. For these reasons, offensively built barbarians outclass almost every other class as a tank. The barbarian is the only class for whom Sentinel is not a must-have ability, because if the enemy does ignore the barbarian, they die. (obviously Sentinel is just really awesome anyway).
The second best tank in the game does these things in a very different way. Eldritch Knights packing shield, protection from evil and good, booming blade and later on hold person and warding wind (for both disadvantage on ranged if you cover the party, or movement disruption if you're close), again taking Sentinel and either Warcaster (if you use a shield) or Great Weapon Master (if you don't use a shield), is the next best tank. The EK has to choose whether they're going for plate and a shield with defence fighting style (AC26 with shield, and disadvantage from Prot Evil and Good/Blur) or take Protection or Interception, or whether they want to go for AC19 (24 with Shield) and use GWM to smash faces. The EK is a weaker damage dealer than the barbarian, but doesn't consume healing resources like a barbarian does, since he doesn't get hit as much and absorb elements is nifty in a pinch. Oddly, Savage Attacker becomes a much stronger feat for an EK tank using a one hander like a longsword or battleaxe than for most classes; it isn't going to rocket damage to the sky, but it significantly increases average damage (when rolling a d8, always reroll a 1-4, as there's a 5/8 chance you get the same or better). This makes the EK a machine that consistently pumps out damage with Booming Blade and Warcaster, until 3rd attack at level 11, when you're dealing a lot of damage anyway. One of the most effective things about the class is that if you don't focus the EK, they get to use their spells on things like Prot Good and Evil on an ally instead of themselves, further protecting the party, and they don't have to blow spell slots on Shield, freeing them up for Hold Person (again, locking down the enemy). A lot of people criticise the EK, but mostly because they don't see it as a tanking subclass and want to play it as a battlemage blaster (which it isn't).
Adamantine Armour is more or less a must for a tank, and the more attacks you draw, the more important that becomes. You don't want to boost your AC to insane levels without comparative damage, though, or the DM will just start ignoring you.
Why wizards aren't the best tank? The chance to save on immobilising spells gets higher and higher as time goes by. Hold Person, Dominate Monster, Grease and Web - all these kinds of spells tend to fail against bosses, especially once they have legendary resistances, leading to nil damage outputs. They're also effects that tend to need Concentration, and can often end before the monster even takes its turn in a busy fight. The Barbarian and the EK get up their in the opponent's face ASAP and start controlling the fight through positioning and damage output.
Anyway this has got far too long.
TLDR: Damage dealing is an equal priority for the tank compared to survival ability.
basically, thats not the place to disagree but, you say that to be a tanker you must do support stuff and its better to be a wizard becouse of that bunch of druid/ranger/paladin/cleric spells?
I mean, if you don't want argumentation thats fine, but this probably isn't the place for it. It's nice you have a controversial opinion that makes you feel happy for it, but a social forum implies argumentations and disagreement and if you want to stand the point just for your self you can always make a private notebook or dm yourself on your chat app
I'm open to argument, I'm just not looking to rehash the same "can a tough guy tank build work in 5e" discussion you can find everywhere.
This is a very reasonable philosophy. It's been my experience, however, that a single opportunity attack isn't enough to adequately keep enemies off the squishies. Even ignoring the scenarios where monsters can go around you without getting close, you have evasive enemies that can Disengage or teleport, then you have tough enemies who simply don't die to your attacks. And if there's more than one enemy, they can slip past you after you use your reaction. Tactically minded monsters might even do what our Fighter does, and Dodge before moving away just to take that opportunity attack so the rest of the party doesn't have to. And all of this does nothing against ranged attacks or spells.
Last session our tank (an Eldritch Knight) was unable to keep two oozes off our Wizard. He hits pretty hard, but the monsters had a lot of HP and they just kept pressing forward. The Wizard died, and the EK and I both ended the fight unconscious.
And yes, legendary resistances and high saving throw numbers can make it harder, but then you can just pivot to "save for half" types of effects. Web still makes difficult terrain even if they succeed.
My use of the word Wizard is mostly for comic effect, because Wizard is famous for being fragile. There's a lot of good spells in the tanking theme for Wizards, but based on my rough estimates, the best class would be Cleric (or Divine Soul Sorcerer). They lack some of the area-control options, but their direct damage mitigation options are great. The Nature Domain gets you Spike Growth, Plant Growth, and Wind Wall, to fill in those gaps, as well as Dampen Elements to further enhance your damage mitigation, so right now, without an extensive analysis, that would be my pick for the most effective "tank."
Great topic and I really liked your analysis. I am a big fan of playing tanks and I have tested several builds to accomplish that effectively.
Two specific builds that proved to be quite good in my personal experience:
1. Basic Ancestral Guardian optimized around HP and mental saves. You could do exotic things like a Gnome using a Belt of Dwarvenkind.
2. Abjurer. Whether Mark of Warding Dwarf or Hexblade multiclass. You will have plenty protection through Arcane Ward. Armor of Agathys is just icy on the top adding more THP (the problem is that the retributive damage from it could intimidate some creatures). And all the versatility from Wizard spells already mentioned.
A couple aspects many people miss:
1) massive single-strike damage - if it’s possible to do a ton of damage with one hit when doing an attack of opportunity, you become a lot “stickier”.
2) if you can protect and/or heal enough allies in a wall that prevents bad guys from getting around (similar to the polymorph huge creature idea), you also make for a great tank.
What was basically described in the OP's post is a Crowd Control(controller) Kiter option. This is pretty solidly accepted as a strong tactic but, it is not synonymously seen as "tanking".
Damage is just one way to get people to pay attention to you, it isn't the only way. There are two main points to tanking:
The first can be accomplished by doing a lot of damage, especially through the threat of powerful opportunity attacks, but it could also be done by making the rest of the party less appealing as a target, using terrain to make it difficult to get to them, using sentinel to stop them or attack them for attacking others, etc. It can also be accomplished by appearing to be an easy target, which is where some conflict with the second point comes in. Someone in full plate with a shield is less appealing as a target than someone in basic clothes who always leaves themselves open to attacks.
I think this point is often missed. Tanks are part of a tripod - they don't work unless combined with the other two roles (healer, damage dealer).
A tank generally can't defeat an encounter on their own - the amount of damage incoming is usually more than their hit points. They are not supposed to be able to do so. All they need is to manage the rate of loss of hit points to be less than the heal rate of the healer, over enough time for the damage dealer to get the enemies to zero.
People can talk about the legitimacy of the few extant taunt effects, but until healing is made a viable combat option to use round to round, the tank won't truly work. But that's alright, I think. The question to ask is, "would anybody have fun healing every turn in D&D?" And I find it hard to imagine the answer would be yes, even if it was a viable strategy. As I understand it, it largely works in MMOs by leveraging the moment-to-moment pacing of a computer game, testing player reflexes, which D&D can't do. Minus that, it's gotta be pretty repetitive. Though I'm open to discussion on that. I've never actually played any MMOs, so my understanding is pretty limited.
I think "healing isn't fun" is an unsupported hot take that you see trotted out a lot on forums, but which I've never seen in the real world. Players choose healer roles in MMOs, and in tabletop games, about as often as they choose control or tank roles. Yes, everyone loves big damage numbers, so there's a segment of players that wants to see their character deal damage more than they want to see them be a productive part of a team dynamic... but I think that says less about "healing/control/tanking isn't fun" than it does about "damage IS fun."
Even dedicated healers in 5E usually have an action or bonus action to spare to put some damage on the board to scratch that itch, I don't think its an issue.
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I would disagree with the sentiment of "healing isn't fun." I have a lot of fun playing a healer. I would never play one in 5e. Healing is fun when I can outpace damage taken and still contribute damage to the fight. In combat, healing in 5e is almost always less effective at keeping people alive than doing damage; outside of combat, healing is usually a waste of spell slots because hit dice healing is more effective.
Dealing damage is almost never effective at "keeping people alive" directly, and it's pretty rare to have a setup where you dealing damage communicates to the table "I just saved you from dying!" rather than "I just killed that guy!" Like... I guess if a monster has your teammate unconscious in its mouth and is running away with them, killing the monster is directly "keeping people alive"... but in general in most combats? It doesn't tell that story at all.
Healing may not be efficient, but every time you do it, you are narratively "keeping people alive." If that's a role that is interesting to you as a player, healing (any healing) is perfectly fine at performing that function, even if there are other functions that have a greater impact on the speed and balance of the overall combat.
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The only edition of D&D that really had meaningful 'tanking' was 4th edition. The 'protect the squishies' job in 5e, to the degree it exists, is covered by spellcasters (I would probably go with a moon druid; they have healing, great zones, walls of meat with spells like Conjure Animals, creature forms with inherent knockdown or grapples, and massive durability), though there are optional rules (e.g. 'mark' in the DMG) that improve the situation somewhat.
I think a well built sorcadin is a fantastic tank. Like, a martial that just stacks AC is one that the DM is going to ignore. But, if there's concentration at stake, the DM might make an attack anyways in hopes of breaking concentration. Even more so if that same martial also has incredible melee prowess, as most sorcadins inherently do.
Let's say there's a character who's buffing the party, casting and concentrating on really good effective control spells around the battlefield, AND is dealing high damage? That's practically impossible to ignore. The DM is then highly incentivized to attack the sorcadin, and what might happen? Chances are they'll miss, but it probably won't stop the DM from trying because to do so is punishing.
Okay, players choose the healer role, but they don't end up doing what I said, which was healing every turn in combat. As you say at the end there, in 5e they all put damage on the board. So really we haven't gained any insight.
I agree with your idea, though I'm going to say if you're playing against the DM's instincts rather than those of the monsters you're facing, that sounds kind of irritating. I prefer when tactics line up with the creatures that are using them. But that's really neither here nor there. I was drawing a bit of aggro with my Paladin using concentration spells. But only from enemies with at least some grasp of how magic works. Not, like, bat swarms.
However, in a strong party, everyone's a threat. And if some of them are easier to kill than you, well, they're probably going to be the priority targets.