Opinions: Should tanks work for aggro?

[Naoki34]

I have been seeing this theme come up alot. The question of aggro, and the changes from HV - SB, the difficulty, the strategy, and skill ceiling.

I wanna hear your thought on tanking. and the philosophy of working for aggro as a tank.

Yes, SE's worst idea to make it too easy unless you have a tauntl you won't get any aggro. Although between tank with the posture tank, always allows to steal the aggro to another tank.

They did this for players too bad to be able to hold the Aggro in a dungeon.

[DRKoftheAzure]

Yes, SE's worst idea to make it too easy unless you have a tauntl you won't get any aggro. Although between tank with the posture tank, always allows to steal the aggro to another tank.

They did this for players too bad to be able to hold the Aggro in a dungeon.

So make the tank stances have a downside of aggro increase get smaller as you get to higher levels to where they need to use taunts and aggro combos at the higher levels...? If so, then the next question would logically be how early do we implement aggro combos because taunts are as early as level 16 if I remember right tanks get Shirk at level 48, so at least before level 50...

[Mikey_R]

More tank mechanics so we dont die of boredom. As for being bored on dungeons, unless they decide to add dungeons back as end game content with hard version or their own spin of Mythic+ like WoW, I don't see the pacing changing much, its gonna be grab the many trash mob as you can, AoE, rinse and repeat and kill boss. I just see dungeons as a boring way to pick your tomes faster.

One suggestion I have made in the past, more abilities that can be interacted with via low blow and interject. However, rather than just keeping the same formula and stopping the attack, expand it to do more interesting things.

eg. If a boss has a raidwide that does damage and inflicts, say, paralysis. If you stun it during the cast, the damage still goes out, however the paralysis is removed.

Recently I have thought of other ways they can interact. You can have a boss that starts a mechanic, then has a longer cast for a raidwide. If you leave it alone, it goes off at the same time as another mechanic, causing massive damage or even wiping the raid, however, if you stun/interrupt, the cast finishes immediately, making the damage come earlier, which gives the healers time to heal before the other mechanic happening at the same resolves (hopefully that makes sense), or or you stun/interrupt, the secondary effct is removed, but it does more damage. One for savage/ultimate, if you DO stun/interrupt, it makes the attack deadlier, encouraging you to NOT use the stuns/interrupts. Obviously, this last one sounds a bit.. odd, however, if you start to ingrain into people's mind that stunning/interrupting is good, it can cause the tank you have to think a bit more before just mindlessly pressing the button whenever they see the cast bar.

Obviously, most people talk about how tanks are boring, just blue DPS. However, with a system like this that actively causes the tank to be aware of what the boss is doing, it gives something else to concentrate on. Add in things like positioning the boss properly to make mechanics easier to handle, or in 8 man bosses, spawn an add that is actually deadly, needs proper positioning, give it the stun/interrupt changes I mentioned etc. This way you also give the OT something to do. You could even have the boss and add have a 'co-op attack' that requires co-ordination between the tanks to get through properly.

I know I always shoot down the past enmity system, however I am a firm believer that the enmity management should be replaced with something else to keep the tank's mind occupied. Hopefully, SE does try and make things more exciting, however I highly doubt it. All I can do is hope for the best.

[ItMe]

eg. If a boss has a raidwide that does damage and inflicts, say, paralysis. If you stun it during the cast, the damage still goes out, however the paralysis is removed.

They had stuff like this in the old Alexander raids.
I think theres one in the last raid of the first tier where you have to stun the bosses leg as it releases steam (your tell to stun it) and it acts exactly like you suggest.
I'm surprised we haven't seen this kind of thing more often.

[Ultimatecalibur]

They had stuff like this in the old Alexander raids.
I think theres one in the last raid of the first tier where you have to stun the bosses leg as it releases steam (your tell to stun it) and it acts exactly like you suggest.
I'm surprised we haven't seen this kind of thing more often.

That probably worked due to the fight having 3 targets in Normal and 5 targets in Savage. The steam spouting leg entity was actually providing a buff to the (untargetable at the time) main body which was actually casting the ability. A lot of fights work by bosses spawning additional untargetable entities that various effects and AoEs originate from because entities in the system can only have 1 effect originate from them at the same time.

[Mikey_R]

There is no reason why they cannot do it again though, as an example:

Boss spawns orbs around the edge which explode after a set time. This leaves the centre of the arena safe to stand. The boss then uses an ability that hits the centre of the arena and pushes the party to the edge and deals damage and inflicts, say, magic vuln up. If the ability isn't stopped, you get pushed back, then orbs explode, killing you. There are several ways you can use stuns/interrupts to potentially stop this combo from killing you. eg, CC the boss action, this could either prevent the knockback, prevent the vuln up or make the boss cast it straight away, which gives you the time to run back to the centre to dodge the orbs. You could make the orbs targetable, but unkillable, stun the orb to prevent it's aoe from going off, giving a safe location to get pushed back to, the stun could just delay the orbs AoE, meaning you get knocked back to this location, then run out before the orb goes off.

As you can see, several ways to deal with the same mechanic. Assuming you can only do 1 of these on a per fight basis, you can tailor the mechanic to each fight. it can be, you will get knocked back a certain direction, so you have to stun a certain orb, have different patterns of orbs that means you have to get knocked back to this specific location etc. and this is just one thing I've thought off the top of my head.

So, while there is that limitation of one skill cast per entity at a time, you can still design mechanics with one boss that can utilise multi target CC. It's just a case of being creative in how you program the mechanic.

[Ultimatecalibur]

So, while there is that limitation of one skill cast per entity at a time, you can still design mechanics with one boss that can utilise multi target CC. It's just a case of being creative in how you program the mechanic.

I know. I wasn't saying it couldn't or shouldn't be done, just explaining how it was done in that case.

[Ariel_Valmont]

If I wanted to work I wouldn’t be playing a game... it’s not broke no need to try and fix it.

[ArianeEwah]

If I wanted to work I wouldn’t be playing a game... it’s not broke no need to try and fix it.

I seriously hope you were being sarcastic.

[Ariel_Valmont]

I seriously hope you were being sarcastic.

If it walks and talks like a duck...

The current stystem of enmity generation for tanks is fine, the devs should be able to think of alternative methods of making tanking engaging.

Tanks are already the least represented role for the most part, do you think more people will be attracted to the role, when they have to deal with DPS stroking their epeen by making it difficult for the tank to hold enmity?