Can we please get aggro management back?

[Jojoya]

Holding aggro doesn't mean much anymore nowadays. I'd like to return to having both a tank stance or dps stance, and actually having to pay attention to the aggro list, instead of just popping tank stance and forgetting about it. What does everyone else think? Should we go back to a similar tanking system that Stormblood had?

MMO players don't seem to like aggro management in general. WoW also ended up doing the same thing with tank threat (enmity) back in 2012 because there were too many complaints from players who hated having to hold back on DPS until tanks had a sufficient threat lead.

Personally, I think aggro management should be a part of group play in MMOs but those of us who feel that way seem to be a small minority. I don't think it will ever return in a meaningful fashion.

It's to the point that MMO developers should probably stop designing around the holy trinity and just let whatever DPS is dealing the most damage become the main aggro target, enhancing toolkits with additional personal and support mitigation tools.

[Saccharin]

MMO players don't seem to like aggro management in general. WoW also ended up doing the same thing with tank threat (enmity) back in 2012 because there were too many complaints from players who hated having to hold back on DPS until tanks had a sufficient threat lead.

Personally, I think aggro management should be a part of group play in MMOs but those of us who feel that way seem to be a small minority. I don't think it will ever return in a meaningful fashion.

It's to the point that MMO developers should probably stop designing around the holy trinity and just let whatever DPS is dealing the most damage become the main aggro target, enhancing toolkits with additional personal and support mitigation tools.

The problem WoW had/has was that dps players damage scaled much higher than tanks. The nature of the gear curve means it eventually gets to a place where one tier is a huge leap so if a player is 15 ilevels behind it caused them to loose aggro. No one wants to wait five minutes so a tank can gain enough threat to stave off your fun buttons.

Blizzard redefined tanks with what they called active mitigation - tanks had to do stuff other than keep threat to stay alive. It was a model blood DKs had used since they were introduced.

Personally I'm in the school of thought that tanks and healers should not do significant dps and if they have spare time then bosses need to be tuned better or do more, or more frequent damage.

The problem with abandoning the Trinity is that you get boring encounters. GW2 started out like that and has introduced it slightly.

Games without the trinity have weak boss damage and become roll out of danger games. That got really boring in GW2 base game; hopefully it's improved in recent ex pacs.

Besides, being a tank is more about knowing what you're doing and how to treat boss mechanics. In particular, knowing when to dodge an AoE and return while it's visual effects are going off (ability permitting!) so you dont move the boss and kill peoples' combos etc.

It's astonishing how many 'tanks' take the boss for a walks. Don't get me started on tanks that go to dps and take a bosses cleave to the group...