What's the point of tanks characters when enemies focus mages 80% of the time?

[DrakenKin]

No matter where you place the mage, front, back, behind, far behind, flanks, surrounded with friendlies, a lot of the time the AI will just focus him first and keep focusing him every time you revive him.

Spiders will all teleport on mage until he dies. Skeletons will all walk up to him to attack him even at the cost of getting hit by opportunity attacks. Etc.

The tanks have no taunts or ability to protect their teammates, I can't even pin down an enemy by being at melee range, because they don't seem to care about opportunity hits. Tanks are also very rarely focused. I bet the AI just goes for whoever has the least AC, which is smart and makes sens, and frankly i like an AI that tries to win.

But that means that every class including fighters should go DPS and the only AC that matters is the lowest one. Since mages end up with the lowest most of the time, you'll want to build them as tanks or at least multiclass into a tank class (when it will become possible). Which is kinda weird. I mean i'll do it, but it's weird to have this as a consequence of how AI behaves.

What are your thoughts on this?

[jonnin]

The enemy shoots/hits at what it can get to. A mage can move out of cover, magik someone, and move back into cover. The enemy should have to fight thru (taking AOO and hits) to even think about attacking your mage if you put the caster in a good location on the first round. Granted, there are ambush fights where you can't get safe easily, but those are the minority.

[DrakenKin]

Origineel geplaatst door Curath:

I haven’t experienced combats being quite as bad (and I’ve completed the early access content). However, I might try building a 2h Fighter with 16STR/16CON, and remove their armor! If every monster now swarms them, I’ll get to use that Divinity-like Cleave ability from heavy weapons quite a lot.

Isn't the cleave ability once per combat or once per rest? It's not unlimited.

Origineel geplaatst door Keepenater:

I like the fact they target clerics and mages first. Think about it. If you were them why the ♥♥♥♥ would you target some idiot using a sword ans shield who only hits one target a round for 1d4 to 2d6 damage when you could focus the healer or the guy hitting 3 people at once with burning hands for 3d6 each? Common sense would dictate you take out the casters first. That's what we players often due in mmos too.

Yes, and how does a bunch of animal about you? does that make sens?

But here's the real thing. If you were fighting 4v4 in a squad setting, it makes sens to go for the squishies. But in a setting while you can be fighting 17+ units at a time, or fighting something like multiple minotaurs that can jump on you for damage and knockback AND add 2 additional attacks per turn each with a pretty high crit chance it seems, not being able to manage aggro (i know it's an mmo term, but managing AI priorities in RPGs even without taunts is the same thing), is a bit touchy.

Not because it's harder, we will always find ways to defeat the AI. That's not the problem, only issue is that it reduces the variety of builds you might want to try, especially at the highest difficulties.

[Keepenater]

Origineel geplaatst door Draken:

Origineel geplaatst door Curath:

I haven’t experienced combats being quite as bad (and I’ve completed the early access content). However, I might try building a 2h Fighter with 16STR/16CON, and remove their armor! If every monster now swarms them, I’ll get to use that Divinity-like Cleave ability from heavy weapons quite a lot.

Isn't the cleave ability once per combat or once per rest? It's not unlimited.

Origineel geplaatst door Keepenater:

I like the fact they target clerics and mages first. Think about it. If you were them why the ♥♥♥♥ would you target some idiot using a sword ans shield who only hits one target a round for 1d4 to 2d6 damage when you could focus the healer or the guy hitting 3 people at once with burning hands for 3d6 each? Common sense would dictate you take out the casters first. That's what we players often due in mmos too.

Yes, and how does a bunch of animal about you? does that make sens?

But here's the real thing. If you were fighting 4v4 in a squad setting, it makes sens to go for the squishies. But in a setting while you can be fighting 17+ units at a time, or fighting something like multiple minotaurs that can jump on you for damage and knockback AND add 2 additional attacks per turn each with a pretty high crit chance it seems, not being able to manage aggro (i know it's an mmo term, but managing AI priorities in RPGs even without taunts is the same thing), is a bit touchy.

Not because it's harder, we will always find ways to defeat the AI. That's not the problem, only issue is that it reduces the variety of builds you might want to try, especially at the highest difficulties.

Animals it makes sense to target the guy with sword and board. Minotaurs aren't that dumb and would be smart enough to target a caster. A lot of enemies sure, they should just be targeting the closest person really which should be the warrior. Their ranged units i think would target casters though. That's how i usually do battles when i dm for pen and paper. Zombies and other unintelligent things i usually just have target the closest foe. Something i think this game should do too.

[Dorok]

If in all cases all enemies go to lowest AI, it looks more like a tactical design not yet finished. It's not looking like a proper design.

In older D&D Mage Armor time was depending of the level, but in DD5 I see it's 8H. No matter how, it looks like a reasonable cast for all characters without any armor and with abjuration. For some combats Shield of Faith could help.

And if you argue you are using all spells for defense, so why bother, it's because for now you still have cantrip, and later your mage user will be a source of many tools and a source of high power. I doubt it changed that no matter how no class match magic users for amount of damages.

And people about min/max cannot have no magic user, would make no sense. At first it's a penalty to manage but soon it will change, ok perhaps it's more at level 5 where finally magic users feel powerful. For more spells but less choices, pick sorcerer instead of wizard, they become useful faster.

Still this AI behavior is looking like a tactical design not yet polished.

[Lanto]

If AI would simply run and gun the closest character then the fights would become highly exploitable...Buff the hell out of one pawn and watch enemy go at him while he is holding the chokepoint. No variations, no comon sense, just blind mmo logic. This is already possible to an extend, but isnt it much easier to simply keep the caster out of danger and CC the biggest threat area? Yes, there are much less manageable enemies that you cant simply CC due to their huge stats, but thats early acess for you.
I have no doubt that the Taunt will be added at some point, but dont expect it to be the MMO tier brain dead agro pull that affects everyone on the screen. As of now im just happy i can thunderwave a bunch of trigger happy gobbos into the abyss below.

[| 2♠7♦ | MEDIC ✚ |]

lol, add a little DEX points to your mage)

[AndyHawk]

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kOMoR56YtbI/U4IFQtgsNoI/AAAAAAAAAbc/FJJH2GsjWec/s1600/aggro.jpg

[DrakenKin]

Origineel geplaatst door Dorok:

Still this AI behavior is looking like a tactical design not yet polished.

Good point.

Origineel geplaatst door 2кЖитель SHINIGAMI ATTANO:

lol, add a little DEX points to your mage)

I don't have that choice unfortunately. I wanted to make the mage companion (gale?) viable. But he was a preview of what would happen if my main was a mage. (I main a rogue right now.)

At least if you don't main a mage, you can switch him on or off the team. Which i think is the way to go if the AI remains the same.

[Dorok]

Origineel geplaatst door C4ptainGrumpy:

If AI would simply run and gun the closest character then the fights would become highly exploitable...

This would be also unfinished tactical design.

The problem of enemies rushing attack character with lowest AC is all do that in all context.

Sure it's good if it happens, but not all enemies or at least not all enemies types, moreover in some context it would be rather dumb that an enemy do that.

[Lanto]

I think putting "simpler" AI on enemies with int score of 4-5 and under would be a good compromise

[talemore]

Fighters are not tanks in D&D
Mages gets better at tanking than fighters but they're not tanks
The balance is offset by being a short D&D game where underdark is in 1st act
Because even if mages are better at tanking than fighters they're unable to tank the finals

Fighter and Paladin become spectators at endgame

[Valor]

The idea that front line classes, Fighter, Paladin, etc. Aren't "Tanks" is just boomer talk.

No, there is no taunt, but a fighter can punish an enemy for moving through the front line and into the back line.

The people that don't understand that and how it works are typically the people who don't play on more difficult settings where tactics are involved.

However, to the OP - The mobs will target your Wizards, Warlocks, etc. But it's your job to create a front line to punish them for it. Essentially if they rush the wizard, they should have to pay for it.

[Keepenater]

Origineel geplaatst door NPC:

The idea that front line classes, Fighter, Paladin, etc. Aren't "Tanks" is just boomer talk.

No, there is no taunt, but a fighter can punish an enemy for moving through the front line and into the back line.

The people that don't understand that and how it works are typically the people who don't play on more difficult settings where tactics are involved.

However, to the OP - The mobs will target your Wizards, Warlocks, etc. But it's your job to create a front line to punish them for it. Essentially if they rush the wizard, they should have to pay for it.

That's all well and good. What about ranged units that don't need to move to hit? D&D doesn't follow MMO rules. Paladins can use sanctuary and compelled duel on pen and paper but that's about it for tanking abilities and they're not in EA unfortunately.

[DrakenKin]

True, but the payment is not that punishing. It's the usual opportinity attack that will be either a miss or a small damage that won't be enough to secure the kill. It's still something and i'll take it.

If it wasn't for the skill checks, and this early in the game (level 4 cap) i'd honestly just run a party of 4 rogues for combat. Nice melee, nice ranged, nice backstabbing, high AC, no spell tokens so no need to rest. It's just nice overall.

This is not BG3 however, probably just 5e where the rules make rogues strong, flexible, and practical for combat. I came to the same conclusion after playing Solastas demo, which is the other EA 5e RPG coming this month. (The demo is 1-2 hours only, the engine is old but it feels a lot more like D&D, you should check it out guys.)

I'll be curious to see how this meta changes as they unlock more level cap.

[Revan619]

positioning, positioning, positioning