Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: this isn’t about challenging content or raids, there are other threads about it, go post on those. Thank you.

There has been enough talk about trinity and roles in the game. We’ve seen it in trinity games where someone with heavy armor gets attacked by countless monsters while a guy with a robe and very little defences is healing from the back, the monsters focus on the one with the armor because he is “taunting” them. This is how “tanks” work and is dumb and highly un-realistic.

So, I was wondering, how to make monsters attack a very specific target (a “tank” if you want to call them) but without manipulating some arbitary threat list. To expand this, how would that work in PVP, obviously something like the current “taunt” in GW2 is not very intelligent way of doing it because, forcing someone to involuntarily attack a target is the same as manipulating the threat list.

In the end I came up with the idea of a “challenge”. A challenge is an effect you can put on foes, in either PVE or PVP that increase your fighting ability when your target does not damage you. All professions could get this mechanic with different effects:

Necromancer: when you issue a challenge and your foe damages allies but not you, you get extra Life Force, alternative more control ability, the target is chilled.

Mesmer: a challenged foe that damages allies gets a periodic slow effect, alternatively, the Mesmer gets Quickness (or Alacrity) every time his allies are hit

Guardian: when a foe you challenged damages an ally you can teleport to them, either crippling (control) or burning them (damage)

Different effects for different profession that fit their theme. While a creature is challenged it will be compelled to attack the one that issued the challenge or suffer the consequences, they can always choose to ignore the challenge, it’s the effect that will make the challenge worth using or not, not an actual involuntary attack. Enemies controlling your actions is never fun.

A creature can only be under the effect of one challenge at a time and the challenger gets something similar to a break bar, once enough damage is dealt on the challenger, the challenge is over. Challenge retaliation works only with damage, if the attack deals no damage (target was blinded or the attack was evaded, blocked etc) then there is no retaliation.

For extra effect challenge should benefit from defensive abilities the most. So, if you spec for Toughness/Vitality you would get a boost to your damage while challenging someone. A percentage boost to offensive stats like how food works, like +10% Power based on Toughness, so the challenger get an extra benefit from using defensive stats. Also, higher defensive stats would mean your challenge will last more hits, even when focused.

More active “tanking” might be an answer to this “role” in GW2.

In terms of PvE, whatever you implement it’s going to manipulate the threat list, whether directly (taunt) or non-directly. That’s how the AI works and decides who to attack – your Challenges would have to push the person issuing the challenge up the threat list in order to stop the Challenge getting out of hand for the mob.

Now, as a encounter mechanic I think it’d be great in a fight with multiple bosses in one fight.

Yes maybe I should’ve rephrased it. Every skill, CC, damage, condition etc all generate threat and manipulate the threat list, but what I don’t want (and find unacceptable) is the ability of certain abilities in games with tank, that put the tank on TOP of the threat list using one skill. The “challenge” idea is not to give you a skill that puts you on top of the list but rather make you extra threatening until your target fights you instead of your allies.

In Guild Wars 1, tanks used to body block, but you can’t do that here. Unless you make the shield repulse and let people use it more often.

It is a really interesting idea Maddoctor, and I see it working very nice in PvP or WvW, where your opponents actually can think and decide at every opportunity.

In PvE I don’t know. I don’t think current AIs are advanced enough to make this kind of informed, meaningful and “strategic” choices. So the challenge could become another form of mandatory taunt for the mobs, or they will bypass it entirely.

It is a nice and creative way of taking the problem, but I think the problem will persist until some form of “bodyguard” mechanic allows tank characters to directly protect the squishy ones.