Quote Originally Posted by Rustic View Post
There's a lot that can be done. Give HNM's a "focus" that's generated when someone aggros them. Everyone else in a wide area loses enmity at a greatly reduced rate, meaning it's darn tough to get the HNM unstuck from the target in question. Occasional blasts aimed randomly at other targets on the hate list that aren't #1 is A-OK, especially if the focus is the only one who can interrupt them. In fact, that'd be rather awesome. Focus HNM's will also occasionally attempt to refocus on someone on their hate list- again, interruptable by the focused player.

"*yawn* <targetpc>, you are no longer worthy of my attention. <newtargetpc>, prepare to die!"

(Tank interrupts or in three seconds, new target becomes focus. If interrupted: )

"<oldtargetpc>, you dare! I will double your suffering!"

(Tank keeps focus.)

AoE's that cause worse effects if more targets are in the radius- whether it's damage or other nasty statuses. Reverse 1000 Needles style. Can be targeted on the user or as a ranged AoE. I'm sorry, were you melee zerging? No. Were you riding the enmity cap spamming ranged firepower? Not good either. AoE's that did more damage to everything AROUND the target would be interesting as well, or dealt significantly reduced damage vs. targets equipped with a shield (the larger the shield, the lower the damage)- thereby meaning that twohanded/dual wielding weapon users would take much more punishment than "sword and board" types.

"Occasionally reflects/deflects". Possibly lower evasion rate/defense, but redirects occasional attacks back at players in range. Yes, that was an awesome 5-hit WS. I'm sorry you just hit the other DD with it. And that was a lovely Detonator the Corsair just hit the healer with. The higher the enmity generated by the attack over the enmity cap, the more likely it is to proc a reflect/deflect. Odds increase with enmity levels that the attack is redirected to that target, which would work well with "focus" HNMs (see above). The higher total enmity the HNM has on it's hate list, the more often attacks are bounced. Tends to prefer tank as result. HNM replaces normal attack with reflected/deflected attack at target and briefly halts it's normal attacks to do so. May bypass shadows in process/consume multiple shadows to stop. Cannot reflect/deflect closed skillchain or magic bursted damage.
You know... on one hand a part of me says that would be a pissy thing to do - especially the reflected/deflected part - but on the other hand, that kind of thing also sounds like a very interesting and dynamic sort of fight. If they used that we would have to be at the top of our game and really pay attention to what the enemy is doing and adapt accordingly. I think I could live with that.

Edit: somehow I quoted an extra post I didn't intend to that had nothing to do with my post.