A tank or meat shield is a character class commonly seen in co-op video games such as real-time strategy games, role-playing games, fighting games, multiplayer online battle arenas and MUDs. Tank characters deliberately attract enemy attention and attacks (potentially by using game mechanics that force them to be targeted) to act as a decoy for teammates. Since this requires them to endure concentrated enemy attacks, they typically rely on a high health pool or support by friendly healers to survive while sacrificing their own damage output. Since they keep other members of a team alive, tanks often take on an unofficial leadership role:"The tank acts as the de facto leader of the group by pulling and holding monsters' attention. It's up to me to set the pace as we clear the dungeon. But more than knowing how much the party can handle at once, I need to know where those monsters need to be positioned, what direction they should face, and what abilities they can use that might threaten the group. I'm also expected to stay on top of all the current meta strategies for beating a dungeon. When shortcuts are found that let players skip monsters, I need to know them."The term was used as early as 1992 on Usenet to describe the warrior class on BatMUD.

Overview

In most games with tank classes, three factors contribute to a tank's survivability: Depending on the game, a tank may employ any combination of these: