A tank (also known as a meat shield) is a type of character class in gaming. Tanks in real-time strategy games and role-playing games focus on large amounts of health, armor, or both.

Tanks are often represented as an armored fantasy warrior.

Contents 1 Archetype 2 Role in games 3 See also 4 References

[edit] Archetype

• High health: large amounts of health make this character class ideal for absorbing damage that would normally go to lower health classes.

• High damage mitigation: large armor or avoidance help in absorbing damage, and causes the opponent's strategy to typically deal with killing tanks last and low-armor support units first.

[edit] Role in games

In large group play found in many role-playing games, the role of the tank is to protect players that are low-armor or low-health classes. In games such as Shaiya this is done through the tank gathering and holding the mobs (monsters) in PVE or by debuffing the enemies in PVP so the weaker "squishies" have the ability to attack without risking death from these enemies.

In real-time strategy games the role of the tank is to provide a health buffer for weaker ranged classes. Many basic strategies in games such as Starcraft and Warcraft 3 revolve around learning to micro-manage units so they do not attack tanks first, but the weaker classes in the back-lines.

[edit] See also

• Healer (gaming) is another common archetype focused on restoring the health of one's allies.
• Spell-caster (gaming) is another common archetype focused on dealing damage, while being relatively weak.
• DPS is another common archetype also focused on dealing damage.

[edit] References

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