Why tanks feel unkillable
Throne and Liberty's PVP leans on a holy-trinity setup and a rock-paper-scissors counter loop. But mastery, stat, and property stacking give Sword & Shield tanks outsized advantages, especially in battlegrounds.
They dominate PVP to the point the entire ecosystem warps around them.
The core issue players feel
To hurt tanks, DPS are forced to over-stack crit just to break through their endurance, which means sacrificing hit rating (so you can’t even land attacks on evasion players) and giving up all defensive stats in the process. This creates a warped meta where DPS one-shot each other due to these extreme glass-cannon builds, while tanks remain unkillable brick walls.
Quick fixes to stabilize the meta
- Exclude Sword and Shield from ranked and structured PVP queues until mitigation numbers are retuned.
- Normalize penetration expectations around PVP, not bossing, so DPS can invest in survivability again.
- Shift battleground objectives toward movement and control instead of raw face-tanking.
Outcome
Removing tanks from small-scale queues (even temporarily) reduces one-shot volatility, brings fights back to counterplay, and keeps time-to-kill predictable.
What tanks are forcing DPS to give up
- Hit chance
- Survivability and CC resistance properties
- Movement and utility options that keep fights dynamic
Call it what it is
PVP should be tuned around fighting other PVPers, not punching a 200,000-HP wall with 60% mitigation and layered cooldowns.
Benefits of removing Sword & Shield from PVP queues
- Stops unkillable 1vX scenarios.
- Eliminates anti-tank stat inflation so DPS can play balanced builds.
- Improves counterplay between DPS vs DPS and reduces stalemates.
- Keeps match pacing predictable and fair.