Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-130.245.192.22-20170629055623/@comment-25396609-20170829021027

Tanking is a perfectly valid strategy. It's not just about soaking up hits, tanking relies on three major cornerstones.

1: Survivability. This is where high HP (or aura in RWBY) and high defsne (from wearing armor, as Jaune does) come in. High health and high defense allow you to survive more direct hits.

2: Aggro management. In order to keep the enemy off of your allies, you can't just stand around. You have to keep their attention, so tanks will use things like slow, high-damage attacks to distract and keep the enemy from moving away, grappling to force them to stay on place, or simply yelling to get their attention.

3: Counteraction. This sorta ties into both survivability and aggro, but the true key of tanking is the ability to take actions that negate, subvert, or redirect enemies. When push comes to shoves sometimes you have to stop paying attention to the thing you WERE fighting and tackles the slightly faster thing that ran past you to get to the squishier party members. Tripping them when they go past, or parrying and riposting against an attack rather than simply taking the hit.

Tanking is not cut and dry; it's an art form in and of itself.