Guild Wars 2

Toughness aggro would make sense if it was actually necessary to survive as a tank but a lot of builds don’t really need it. A necro can sustain purely with high vitality thanks to how shroud scales. And of course a chronomancer can survive via abilities.

Those facts don’t really make it harmful but it does feel kinda weird.

The harm it causes is the fact that healing power often comes with toughness. This limits healing builds because a bunch of the healing power combos contain toughness. Healers don’t need the toughness in this context but they end up having less options to choose from because they have to avoid affixes that have toughness.

Why not just have an object that the tank player interacts with to gain an aggro buff? It wouldn’t change much except allow healers to spec more freely.

Well need to remember that raids only point is to be huge gold grab. If you don’t make full ascended zealot gear you are low skilled healer.

I do kind of feel that agro could be held in other ways. A debuff of whoever engages the target first for example.

The toughness based agro mechanic makes it hard for me to take ANY gear other than full glass. And lets face it. If your trying to complete content in a raid without a druid putting on a little toughness ain’t exactly horrible as long as you kill it before the enrage timer.

On that note however. It does give a purpose to toughness builds in a way. But in the end. They made it so that most of the mobs are so easy to tank through active defensive that the toughness can be completely irrelevant if your good at rolling cooldowns. It doesn’t even take skill to do it but mechanical knowledge and muscle memory since none of the bosses have anything that punishes the tank any more than its other attacks.

In other games bosses would often put some kind of debuff on a tank. Something that caused him to take more base damage for awhile, would cause his cooldowns to take longer to come back (chill would work >.> Would atleast require them to pay attention to there cleanses and cooldowns.), or have a quick cast unblockable attack it would occasionally use that bypassed shields but wasn’t a 1 shot. But it occurred quickly enough that if the tank got low it would finish him. And occured often enough that it was something the tank had to be constantly aware of.

Shadelang.3012:

I do kind of feel that agro could be held in other ways. A debuff of whoever engages the target first for example.

The toughness based agro mechanic makes it hard for me to take ANY gear other than full glass. And lets face it. If your trying to complete content in a raid without a druid putting on a little toughness ain’t exactly horrible as long as you kill it before the enrage timer.

On that note however. It does give a purpose to toughness builds in a way. But in the end. They made it so that most of the mobs are so easy to tank through active defensive that the toughness can be completely irrelevant if your good at rolling cooldowns. It doesn’t even take skill to do it but mechanical knowledge and muscle memory since none of the bosses have anything that punishes the tank any more than its other attacks.

In other games bosses would often put some kind of debuff on a tank. Something that caused him to take more base damage for awhile, would cause his cooldowns to take longer to come back (chill would work >.> Would atleast require them to pay attention to there cleanses and cooldowns.), or have a quick cast unblockable attack it would occasionally use that bypassed shields but wasn’t a 1 shot. But it occurred quickly enough that if the tank got low it would finish him. And occured often enough that it was something the tank had to be constantly aware of.

What and i thought that tanking in raids takes more skill than tournament level sPvP. Raids was supposed to be hardest content in game.

Shadelang.3012:

I do kind of feel that agro could be held in other ways. A debuff of whoever engages the target first for example.

The toughness based agro mechanic makes it hard for me to take ANY gear other than full glass. And lets face it. If your trying to complete content in a raid without a druid putting on a little toughness ain’t exactly horrible as long as you kill it before the enrage timer.

On that note however. It does give a purpose to toughness builds in a way. But in the end. They made it so that most of the mobs are so easy to tank through active defensive that the toughness can be completely irrelevant if your good at rolling cooldowns. It doesn’t even take skill to do it but mechanical knowledge and muscle memory since none of the bosses have anything that punishes the tank any more than its other attacks.

In other games bosses would often put some kind of debuff on a tank. Something that caused him to take more base damage for awhile, would cause his cooldowns to take longer to come back (chill would work >.> Would atleast require them to pay attention to there cleanses and cooldowns.), or have a quick cast unblockable attack it would occasionally use that bypassed shields but wasn’t a 1 shot. But it occurred quickly enough that if the tank got low it would finish him. And occured often enough that it was something the tank had to be constantly aware of.

Well I don’t think there’s a lack of skill required for the role. The tank’s job is to position the boss, and how the boss is positioned makes a huge difference for everyone in the raid.

Khristophoros.7194:

Shadelang.3012:

I do kind of feel that agro could be held in other ways. A debuff of whoever engages the target first for example.

The toughness based agro mechanic makes it hard for me to take ANY gear other than full glass. And lets face it. If your trying to complete content in a raid without a druid putting on a little toughness ain’t exactly horrible as long as you kill it before the enrage timer.

On that note however. It does give a purpose to toughness builds in a way. But in the end. They made it so that most of the mobs are so easy to tank through active defensive that the toughness can be completely irrelevant if your good at rolling cooldowns. It doesn’t even take skill to do it but mechanical knowledge and muscle memory since none of the bosses have anything that punishes the tank any more than its other attacks.

In other games bosses would often put some kind of debuff on a tank. Something that caused him to take more base damage for awhile, would cause his cooldowns to take longer to come back (chill would work >.> Would atleast require them to pay attention to there cleanses and cooldowns.), or have a quick cast unblockable attack it would occasionally use that bypassed shields but wasn’t a 1 shot. But it occurred quickly enough that if the tank got low it would finish him. And occured often enough that it was something the tank had to be constantly aware of.

Well I don’t think there’s a lack of skill required for the role. The tank’s job is to position the boss, and how the boss is positioned makes a huge difference for everyone in the raid.

Oh don’t get me wrong I am not saying its skill less by any means. Just that the amount of skill required isn’t particularly more than needed to be a good druid. Or needed to be a good sinister engineer. Its a different skill set. But in some ways its simpler. As you can devote your focus more often than not to a clear series of tasks that follow a predictable pattern. Vale guardian for example shows that there is indeed some skill invovlved. As timing for moving him is very important. Especially after the second split phase. Otherwise youl end up with green circles in places your dps REALLY don’t want to stand in.

Edit: TBH Tanking is something I probably would go insane doing haha my skill set is in other aspects of game play. Id have to learn something form a different perspective entirely if I wanted to be a good tank :P its why I am really glad that tank for my guild is someone else. And also why I am glad that aside from gorsevals buggy movements sometimes hes good enough at what he does that I can do my job freely.

(also I was tired when I rote my OP I didn’t quite mean it the way it came out. I wish I had been more awake when I reread it as I probably would have changed the wording ALOT)

Well the only problem I see is the type of stats available for healer.

You pretty much only have 2 options.

Zealot or Magi. Zealot is way too expensive for nothing and you can’t get any ascended trinket even if that’s probably the best set for Druid healer. That’s why so many people are using Magi.

All the other stats have some toughness, which is ok in small quantity, but a full cleric healer would have way too much toughness compare to most tank.

They should reduce the cost of Zealot to make it more par with other stats set. They should make zealot trinkets available. They should make ascended magi available in rings, amulet and back item.

They should add other type of stats like Healing Power, Power, Precision or Healing Power, Vitality, Power. Or even one new 4 stats setup like Healing Power, Power, Precision, Ferocity or Healing Power, Power, Precision, Concentration. Or stuff for condition healer like Healing Power, Condition, Expertise, Precision for example.

Frankly, you can just run zerker druid, get increased dps, and provide more than enough healing to be successful. While having zealot’s gear is nice, I’m actually starting to see druids prefer to run zerker over zealot’s regardless of cost.

Tanking is a bit awkward. It doesn’t really do a whole lot right now. My hope is for future bosses to do more direct damage to the tank that they have to deal with in some way.

Passive mitigation is too easily accessible in this game and needs to be toned down or damage needs to be increased.