Quote:
Originally Posted by Volibear
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Just because a bard can wear plate and stack hip gear does not mean he is an efficient tank. Reducing damage comes down to two components. Mitigation and avoidance. Bards can wear plate but only mitigate slightly better than a cleric and significantly worse than a sk/pal/warrior. Avoidance is where they really get hit hard. With caps of 75 for riposte and parry even rangers will do a better job of absorbing damage.
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Everything you said is true, but I think it's pretty much a given that a group's survivability comes down to more than the tank's mitigation and avoidance. I certainly can't speak for 50+, but quick and reliable cc, snares, and taunts are pretty significant things to offer a group.
If you don't have a warrior, sk, pally, or monk to tank, presumably you've got a bunch of squishies that can bring dps, cc, or heals, but probably can't pull or take hits. A bard could probably turn this into a decent dungeon crawling group.
For most dungeons that I've experienced, if a group couldn't handle things with a competent bard pulling/tanking, they probably wouldn't do very well with a real tank instead.
It's certainly worth mentioning in a newbie guide that as a bard you can, under certain circumstances and when properly played, act as the group tank. I think people here may just be uncomfortable with the phrasing the OP used? I mean, the ability for a group to keep up with respawns after their tank bails isn't negligible.