Group Tanking

Group Tanking

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Posted by: Vaulken.6983

Vaulken.6983

If a champion sits on you, bunker build or not, you won’t last forever. I have an idea, what if:

- everyone gets 2 extra skills
- skill A taunt (50 second CD – boss will forever hate you unless taunted by someone else or the below skill goes into affect)
- skill B inflame weak spot (increase boss damage taken and dealt, 50/50 chance to pull aggro)

The idea is to rotate aggro through party members rather than the boss randomly picking whoever he wants to squish. This way a party can re-direct aggro to someone else so the defenseless player has time to rest before getting back into the fight.

Also there is the option to exploit times to increase the bosses damage taken at the risk of the boss also doing more damage and screwing up the aggro rotation order. Bunker builds at this point could be very useful allowing your group to sustain short bursts of increased damage to the boss.

This should reinforce party play and not feel like you’re doomed if a champion decides your next as it gives other party members a chance to save you before you potentially go to ground.

What think?

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Posted by: Vaulken.6983

Vaulken.6983

Then those should be made baseline. But that doesn’t address the second skill which gives bunker builds more importance.

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Posted by: Vaulken.6983

Vaulken.6983

Then those should be made baseline. But that doesn’t address the second skill which gives bunker builds more importance.

Hi. Dungeon master here. None of the boss fights in dungeons are really that hard except for VERY FEW exceptions. Among those would definitely be phase 2 of G-Lupe in Arah exp and phase 3 of Subject alpha in path 2 & 3 of Crucible of Eternity exp. This whole thread is pointless, and nothing you talk about is really necessary. I do dungeon speed clears everyday.

Not everyone is as awesome as you. I bet you have a ferrari too, or is it a lambourgini? This is besides the point, do you see any call for nerfs, I certainly don’t. This is to bring more co-ordination created by the group.

Right now everyone fends for themselves and then when someone goes down we revive them, you didn’t have to be a tank or a healer in other MMO’s to save a group from a wipe. If you have dead weight in your group there is no real way to make up for their lack of input, if they suck at surviving or dodging when the bosses is coming at them, there isn’t all that much you can do unless you’re a profession that can use area stealth.

So don’t come in here giving lip like you’re all that when you clearly have no idea what this thread is even about.

(edited by Vaulken.6983)

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Posted by: innocens.1582

innocens.1582

I think something like a taunt skill to be able to rotate agro would be a exelent idea.

a man who doesnt make mistakes doesnt do anything

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Posted by: Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713

Unnecessary. Aggro rotates already. Players being unable to control aggro, except with stuff like Stealth/Wards/Pets/Minions/Clones, makes the game more fun. Adding skills that force aggro on 1 player brings it one step closer to the unHoly Trinity, which is boring.

IT’S A SWORD. THEY’RE NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE.

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Posted by: Vaulken.6983

Vaulken.6983

Unnecessary. Aggro rotates already. Players being unable to control aggro, except with stuff like Stealth/Wards/Pets/Minions/Clones, makes the game more fun. Adding skills that force aggro on 1 player brings it one step closer to the unHoly Trinity, which is boring.

That would still be there, but not every profession has these skills. The above is supposed to put the players in the drivers seat and bring group coordination back into gameplay. Aggro does not rotate based on a players decision, you run and hide when a boss looks your way when in reality it would be more heroic where the player chooses when to go toe to toe with the boss while the others assist from the sidelines. or help a defenseless player.

Sometimes a boss will lock on to a player with a profession with no skills that cannot drop aggro this player usually goes down immediately after all survival tools are on CD. I’ve been in groups where a thief stealth bombed a player about to bite the dust, the boss turned away to another player but them immediately went back to the player that went to ground. As you can see it doesn’t always work.

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Posted by: Hadouken.4209

Hadouken.4209

There is agro and “taunts” in a way. I forget the formula, but you can definetly manage agro.

People doing more dps generate agro. People who are closer. Holding a shield gives an agro bonus. So does having lots of toughness. Its all under the hood stuff. Might be on the wiki.

My toughness stacking, shield weilding warrior gets agro pretty easy, even with low damage, just from toughness, the shield, and being in the mobs face.

oh, and i hear reviving people is an agro magnet as well.

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Posted by: nachtnebel.9168

nachtnebel.9168

I seriously don’t like that idea at all. We already have enough ways to deal with champions, if the group works as a team, almost everybody, besides those who insist on playing glass cannons, can survive a champion.

Salix Babylonica (Necro), Tharnath (Guardian), N Faculty (Mesmer),
Occam Pi (Ele), Acaena Elongata (Warrior), Finja Salversdotir (Ranger),
Bytestream (Engineer), Vim Whitespace (Thief)

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Posted by: mulch.2586

mulch.2586

I’m afraid if you made it easy to control aggro (like other games), what we have in game would be unappealing. The AI and scripts for boss fights are quite simplistic, based on the principle that tank-n-spank with no tank brings some challenge.

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Posted by: Bruno Sardine.2907

Bruno Sardine.2907

The lack of fixed aggro or taunt mechanics does promote some need to help one another. Some bosses like to fixate on a particular guy, so you need to be ready to help them out… hell, sometimes I do a body block or two on a ranged mob just to help out.

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Posted by: Vim.7318

Vim.7318

You lose agro when you go down, then the person who tries to get you up gets agro.

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Posted by: Vakirauta.6397

Vakirauta.6397

Ever considered AoE’s?

The Iron Butterfly

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Posted by: Ojimaru.8970

Ojimaru.8970

First and foremost, your suggestion is flawed and goes against the grain of the game entirely. By implementing this “taunt” mechanic, you require players to have 1 Utility slot for this “magical taunt”. This is fundamentally a no-no in Guild Wars 2 because it goes against the whole idea of “build how you want”. Indeed, dungeon runs with group of players sporting ineffective builds is extra difficult, but it isn’t impossible.

The main part of why I find GW2 dungeon fun is because of its aggro system. Unless you are still pampered by the Holy Trinity, players in GW2 have mostly learned to deal with mob aggro. We dodge, run and lay down CC to distance ourselves from enemy fire, while our teammates have learned to assist us as much as they can, including of course reviving when able.

Introducing some silly homogenous skill just to “deal” with enemy aggro is just plain lazy design. GW2’s game system already allows for so many other fun, interesting and downright quirky ways to play with enemy aggro. Take for example Caudecus’ Manor Path 2 (Seraphs) where you have to blow up the door by placing Explosive Casks in particular spots. To fight the endless stream of Bandits is nigh impossible, but it doesn’t take long for players to notice and exploit their obsessive-compulsive behaviour in keeping the Explosive Casks packed tidily in a corner.

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Posted by: Zeke Minus.5720

Zeke Minus.5720

Everyone has CC. This is a form of aggro control.

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Posted by: Vaulken.6983

Vaulken.6983

Just to clarify, these skills are separate from your slot skills. They could be class flavoured actually or both class and weapon flavoured.

Most bosses are immune to the majority of CC, if a boss has any ranged attacks all forms of control are moot. Let’s change the idea that every profession gets a ‘boss’ skill. While the ‘boss’ skill is in effect you generate lots of aggro. Once the skill is finished boss aggro resumes as normal.

Note: There could be a new boss mechanic that only allows these abilities to be used when the boss goes into a phase of vulnerability., this would be showed visibly. Say every 30% of health taken makes the boss go into a vulnerable state. At 10% health all bosses enrage.

  • Warrior: Jump onto/mount the boss and cleave/smash into weak areas. This will be a quick time event, failing to get any of the sequence right will get you knocked off and go to ground. Does significant damage and causes 15 stacks of vulnerability and bleeds.
  • Guardian: Use your magic to bind the bosses attention to you, take “x%” less damage during this based on how many players are alive. Any attacks done from behind the boss by the rest of your party does “y%” more crit damage.
  • Thief: In a flurry of blows you savage the legs of the boss causing it to bleed and trip up every time is moves. You finish by throwing acidic blinding powered into its eyes causing random blindness and confusion; the boss will attack based on areas and not players during this.
  • Elementalist: Subjugate the boss with the power of four elements. The boss is immobilized and cannot turn, any skills used by the boss does reduced damage and causes burning to the boss. A random effect will happen at the end: the element of fire explodes doing heavy damage to the boss, the element of earth cripples the boss and grants swiftness to the party, the element of water heals the party to full granting regen and reviving all downed party members or the element of air grants all boons to everyone for 15 seconds.
  • Engineer: Plant an extremely heavy duty bomb in a random place on the boss. If it explodes on the face it causes massive damage and sporadic blindness for the rest of the fight. If it explodes on the legs it causes moderate damage, sporadic immobilization and bleeding through out the fight. If it explodes around the chest area it causes major damage and sporadically stuns the boss through out the fight.

There’s a couple feel free to add your own

(edited by Vaulken.6983)

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Posted by: Slark.1263

Slark.1263

It’s possible to tank? Most I ever see groups doing is 4 people spamming buttons while the person who has aggro runs around like a chicken with his head cut off. Of course I haven’t been in many groups with a Guardian either.

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Posted by: Vaulken.6983

Vaulken.6983

Whoever was saying before, that once you are downed aggro stops and whoever revives resumes aggro is complete BS.

Went to AC exp today, ranger downs me and continues to focus me while I’m down, party member revives me, ranger does not take notice of the person who revives me even after I’m revived. It was a while before the ranger switched to someone else.

Anyone coming in here and saying Group Tanking already exists is full of it. The most experienced group I’ve been in was still a chaotic mess, we zipped through AC pretty quick with no wipes, but it was a dodge fest very accurately described by Slark.

We’ve all come to the conclusion that the dungeons aren’t particularly hard bar a few, what they really are is random with no focus which tries to emulate difficulty by confusing you making it unclear what is really going on. Then there are fights with ranged lock-on making it impossible to avoid the majority of damage, the fight turns into attrition and triage making the whole point of GW2’s combat pointless.

We all love this game, don’t turn Arenanet into Blizzard by covering your ears and pretending things are better than they are. GW2 combat AND dungeons could be much better, it certainly has the potential but it still has its flaws which undermines its concept.

When a boss attacks someone they are now the tank, the rest of the group crosses their fingers and hopes they don’t die with limited resources of stopping that from happening themselves. People can’t be responsible because there aren’t enough skills to account for this, if you add them to slot skills it contradicts “play the way you want”.

Bottom line, all classes need tailored skills for champion+ fights. Ranged lock on attacks need to be vastly thinned out or removed altogether. Anticipation animations for major attacks like crowd control and heavy damage need to be improved also.