Guild Wars 2

I see a lot of negative opinions on the Taunt effect, so I figured it be best to have a more positive discussion on the subject here to avoid any more trouble.

What’s some positive things about the new Taunt effect that intrigue you?

For me, Taunts add a new dynamic to PvE. We may get large scale group dungeons in the future, with lots of mobs thrown at us during boss fights. This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group. We may get a AoE Ground target attack that applies Taunt to a mob of enemies hit, and force them to run to the tank, to position them for a nice AoE damage field laid out by your team, while the rest of the team is focusing down the boss.

Also the bosses could taunt players and lead them into a Doom AoE, and this is when the Support Role also becomes more important, because now your job on the team is to cleanse taunt from your group members before they walk into a doom trap or something dangerous…

So many ways to build PvE around this new addition. And it makes the Support/Control roles seem more fun and rewarding to play in PvE than it was in Vanilla.

As for PvP, well same as above in terms of Taunting targets into a death trap of doom! Makes this an awesome tool!

But also now Support role players now have to step up their game some more, and be ready to counter Taunt, so their allies don’t get set up for traps using this new effect. You have to play support more strategic and time your moves better.

I see so many benefits to the game from Taunt status effect.

Knighthonor.4061:

This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group.

Forgive me if I’m not all that excited for a return to the trinity system.

Morsus.5106:

Knighthonor.4061:

This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group.

Forgive me if I’m not all that excited for a return to the trinity system.

Taunt won’t bring back the trinity. Zerker team is king.

I just want my nomad warrior to feel like a tank.

Why do people have the misguided opinion that Taunt is for tanking and not simply a control/positioning effect. You don’t even need to have tanky gear; cast taunt and kite or dodge the attack and you don’t even need to worry about the damage.

Guardian of Angels.9867:

How does Taunt bring back the trinity system when it’s a CC to make you attack your allies (it’s the opposite of fear)

So because you start hitting your teammates you suddenly need a tank / trinity? :/

IMO it’s much more interesting to see how it will be used against bosses with big attacks. Instead of dodging Kohler’s attack, someone Taunt’s him and then we go back DPSing him down.

Guardian of Angels.9867:

How does Taunt bring back the trinity system when it’s a CC to make you attack your allies (it’s the opposite of fear)

The OP is hinting at a trinity system by talking many times about a tanking role.

In fact, if you exclude the things that the effect currently in the game called “Pull” already does, all that’s left in the OP are references about a tanking role. Bringing enemies together so you can use AoE on them? Pull could have used for that since release.

Taunt is at best redundant, at worst one more broken thing among a sea of broken things.

Morsus.5106:

IMO it’s much more interesting to see how it will be used against bosses with big attacks. Instead of dodging Kohler’s attack, someone Taunt’s him and then we go back DPSing him down.

If the idea is to interrupt his attack, assuming that CC effects work on bosses, instead of Taunt you could use any other similar effect already in the game (Stun, Daze, Push, Pull, Fear, Knock Down, Knock Back, and so on). And even if those were useable, people would likely still see them inferior as just dodging the big attack and focus on DPSing the boss.

GoldenTruth.2853:

Why do people have the misguided opinion that Taunt is for tanking and not simply a control/positioning effect. You don’t even need to have tanky gear; cast taunt and kite or dodge the attack and you don’t even need to worry about the damage.

Because people still haven’t gotten out of the WoW mindset. Same reason my first full set of exotics was Soldier/Knights because I thought it would allow me to tank.

OP what do you know of HoT pve that would even let this cc even be relevant to use? “If it can be zerged it will be zerged” unpunished zergs won’t let you create what was not meant to be.

People see taunt and instantly think of the traditional aggro grabbing tool. I honestly don’t think it’s going to work that way. It probably won’t be spammable, and, while less likely, it probably won’t reset or increase that user’s aggro afterwards.

What i mean is, most games will make taunt increase the taunter’s threat towards a monster, either matching it with whoever’s threat is highest, or automatically making their own threat the highest. B’s threat meter on a boss is 95%, A taunts boss, A’s threat jumps to 96%, and stays there. I don’t think it’ll be this way. I think A will taunt boss, but the threat meters will go back to whatever they were before.

Taunt shouldve probably just been left as a creature only skill, or at the least handled differently. Being forced to change targets and getting target locked is reasonable, but losing control of the character is completely unecessary. don’t think we need more ways to lose character control when fear still exists.

think also on all guard event/mission you need to kepp someone alive with taunt for exempel oozo in aether or hackin eterninty you can make the emo,es focus on you instead of theam

Morsus.5106:

Knighthonor.4061:

This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group.

Forgive me if I’m not all that excited for a return to the trinity system.

Drama queen…

Taunt as they describe it is no different from Fear, other than the direction it makes you run.

Knighthonor.4061:

This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group.

While I’m all for making healing and tanking viable (not required, Trinity is about locking people into those three roles, simply making them options isn’t bringing back Trinity), the fact is GW2 is downright punitive to anyone trying to play a healing or tanking role. Taunt won’t make tanking more effective, increasing healing power/toughness scaling and introducing an intervention mechanic (the opposite of aggro management, instead of magically grabbing attention you have to actively position yourself to shield others from attacks) is what’s needed to make tanking viable before we should even talk about effectiveness.

I think it’s good, as OP mentioned the reason of large scale events/dungeon events where one of the players can let the enemies attack him for a while.

People are so mindset with the MMO trinity system and so afraid that GW2 may become something like this that they completely forget that it’s just a new mechanic known from a vast array of games. For example there is a well known status effect in many Final Fantasy games (the single player ones) called berserker, where you – the players – mindless attack. Don’t forget that this effect is only temporary, you can’t build up ‘aggro’ nor do I think it will last very long (a couple of seconds). Still, this can in some cases rescue the party’s kitten and lets add the devs some interesting new boss mechanics. Also, finally there MAY be a use for non-zerker gear outside PvE.

Xenon.4537:

Morsus.5106:

Knighthonor.4061:

This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group.

Forgive me if I’m not all that excited for a return to the trinity system.

Drama queen…

Taunt as they describe it is no different from Fear, other than the direction it makes you run.

Can’t wait for the tear of the trinity lovers.

Knighthonor.4061:

This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group.

There’s no tanking role, lel. It’s dps/control/support.

Also the bosses could taunt players and lead them into a Doom AoE, and this is when the Support Role also becomes more important, because now your job on the team is to cleanse taunt from your group members before they walk into a doom trap or something dangerous…

With one single exception that no one uses anyway, status effects are not cleanse-able by anyone but yourself.

runeblade.7514:

I just want my nomad warrior to feel like a tank.

You just can’t generate aggro reliably in a group.

Pandaman.4758:

Knighthonor.4061:

This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group.

While I’m all for making healing and tanking viable (not required, Trinity is about locking people into those three roles, simply making them options isn’t bringing back Trinity), the fact is GW2 is downright punitive to anyone trying to play a healing or tanking role. Taunt won’t make tanking more effective, increasing healing power/toughness scaling and introducing an intervention mechanic (the opposite of aggro management, instead of magically grabbing attention you have to actively position yourself to shield others from attacks) is what’s needed to make tanking effective.

You can already position yourself in the line of fire, but that tactic is rarely used.

rotten.9753:

runeblade.7514:

I just want my nomad warrior to feel like a tank.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1mxlA13ICk

You just can’t generate aggro reliably in a group.

Why did i just sit here for 12 minutes at 7am in the morning watching that.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Pandaman.4758:

While I’m all for making healing and tanking viable (not required, Trinity is about locking people into those three roles, simply making them options isn’t bringing back Trinity), the fact is GW2 is downright punitive to anyone trying to play a healing or tanking role. Taunt won’t make tanking more effective, increasing healing power/toughness scaling and introducing an intervention mechanic (the opposite of aggro management, instead of magically grabbing attention you have to actively position yourself to shield others from attacks) is what’s needed to make tanking effective.

You can already position yourself in the line of fire, but that tactic is rarely used.

True, but that’s probably because it’s a dumb thing to do. There’s no mechanic that encourages taking the hit for the squishy behind you, because everyone is responsible for their own defenses.

rotten.9753:

With one single exception that no one uses anyway, status effects are not cleanse-able by anyone but yourself.

Lol, I use that virtue of courage trait all the time. I can tell you it’s fairly powerful as well. For a class where you don’t have many stunbreakers having a Guardian with you who can is very helpful.

Not everyone runs the faceroll builds only.

Lol at all the people thinking you can use Taunt often and that it’s a long effect.

It’s a CC effect and as such, will have a relatively long CD and a relatively short duration. Just like all the other CC effects in the game.

If it would be spammable with long duration it would just break the whole game, period.

Wake up.

Tom Gore.4035:

Lol at all the people thinking you can use Taunt often and that it’s a long effect.

It’s a CC effect and as such, will have a relatively long CD and a relatively short duration. Just like all the other CC effects in the game.

If it would be spammable with long duration it would just break the whole game, period.

Wake up.

Someone thinking clearly on the internet? gasp

Morsus.5106:

Knighthonor.4061:

This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group.

Forgive me if I’m not all that excited for a return to the trinity system.

Don’t worry Taunt will only force the target to attack the one using it for a couple of seconds, it won’t affect the Threat list, for REAL tanking to work Taunts put the tank on the top of the list. So no trinity is coming and no tanks.

maddoctor.2738:

Morsus.5106:

Knighthonor.4061:

This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group.

Forgive me if I’m not all that excited for a return to the trinity system.

Don’t worry Taunt will only force the target to attack the one using it for a couple of seconds, it won’t affect the Threat list, for REAL tanking to work Taunts put the tank on the top of the list. So no trinity is coming and no tanks.

not really, taunt (as in WOW) changes agro only temporarily, so taunt isn’t really mandatory for holy trinity, it’s just a tool to manage situations when tank isn’t able to hold agro on all mobs… on the other hand strict agro system is mandatory for holy trinity… and that doesn’t have anything to do with taunt in any meaning

I really hope these topics about taunt will stop soon, it’s becoming to be boring to read wrong assumptions over and over…

MaXi.3642:

maddoctor.2738:

Morsus.5106:

Knighthonor.4061:

This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group.

Forgive me if I’m not all that excited for a return to the trinity system.

Don’t worry Taunt will only force the target to attack the one using it for a couple of seconds, it won’t affect the Threat list, for REAL tanking to work Taunts put the tank on the top of the list. So no trinity is coming and no tanks.

not really, taunt (as in WOW) changes agro only temporarily, so taunt isn’t really mandatory for holy trinity, it’s just a tool to manage situations when tank isn’t able to hold agro on all mobs… on the other hand strict agro system is mandatory for holy trinity… and that doesn’t have anything to do with taunt in any meaning

I really hope these topics about taunt will stop soon, it’s becoming to be boring to read wrong assumptions over and over…

/insert clapping gif

i am fine with the taunt thing. what i am concerned about is that “tanks” will be needed to make it usefull. that basically means a return of the trinity system.
and the reason why i love guild wars 2 is the “no-trinity-system”.

also i hope taunts don’t trigger on bosses at all. but it could be a good thing to pull normals, veterans and elites together. the end of the line of sighting! yay.

Doctor Faustus.6372:

i am fine with the taunt thing. what i am concerned about is that “tanks” will be needed to make it usefull. that basically means a return of the trinity system.
and the reason why i love guild wars 2 is the “no-trinity-system”.

also i hope taunts don’t trigger on bosses at all. but it could be a good thing to pull normals, veterans and elites together. the end of the line of sighting! yay.

Well last I checked, DPS was needed for everything. Does that also mean the return of the trinity system? Its a play style. you dont like tanks, well dont play them. People that want more than Damage role would enjoy changes to improve the non-damage roles in the game.

Taunt will be usefull for those pesky beetles. :P

Hey can we get move positive voices in this thread regarding Taunt. There is already a Negative thread on Taunts on the first page…

Knighthonor.4061:

Doctor Faustus.6372:

i am fine with the taunt thing. what i am concerned about is that “tanks” will be needed to make it usefull. that basically means a return of the trinity system.
and the reason why i love guild wars 2 is the “no-trinity-system”.

also i hope taunts don’t trigger on bosses at all. but it could be a good thing to pull normals, veterans and elites together. the end of the line of sighting! yay.

Well last I checked, DPS was needed for everything. Does that also mean the return of the trinity system? Its a play style. you dont like tanks, well dont play them. People that want more than Damage role would enjoy changes to improve the non-damage roles in the game.

There are no “non-damage” roles in the game. For PvE at least. Some do more damage some do less but everyone is going for full damage. at least in a experienced group that is going to beat the kitten out of every dungeon. Non-elitists really shouldn’t care about anything cause they don’t care about mechanics anyways. Someone who’s playing tanky gear right now (in PvE) doesn’t have any idea of the game mechanics.

It’s CC, which means it will be:
a) pretty much useless in PvE
b) balanced around PvP

It’s a reverse Fear, I don’t really see an issue with it. It just adds diversity.

NoobOnSteroid.7192:

It’s CC, which means it will be:
a) pretty much useless in PvE
b) balanced around PvP

It’s a reverse Fear, I don’t really see an issue with it. It just adds diversity.

If Dungeons, especially Raid dungeons, dish out large number of pact mobs during boss fights, somebody will be needed to gather up those mobs of risk wipe.

AoE attack that applies Taunt to enemies hit, will be useful for guiding mobs of NPC to a specific location to be handled properly and keep the team alive.

There you all. I just gave you a scenario in PvE where Taunt can be extremely useful and provides the team with much needed defense while they handle the main target, which is the boss.

A few Controllers in the group would work wonders with dungeons designed like that.

MaXi.3642:

maddoctor.2738:

Morsus.5106:

Knighthonor.4061:

This allows the Tanking role to be more effective and useful to the group.

Forgive me if I’m not all that excited for a return to the trinity system.

Don’t worry Taunt will only force the target to attack the one using it for a couple of seconds, it won’t affect the Threat list, for REAL tanking to work Taunts put the tank on the top of the list. So no trinity is coming and no tanks.

not really, taunt (as in WOW) changes agro only temporarily, so taunt isn’t really mandatory for holy trinity, it’s just a tool to manage situations when tank isn’t able to hold agro on all mobs… on the other hand strict agro system is mandatory for holy trinity… and that doesn’t have anything to do with taunt in any meaning

I really hope these topics about taunt will stop soon, it’s becoming to be boring to read wrong assumptions over and over…

Sorry I haven’t played WoW but I played enough tanks in Trinity MMORPGs to know how Taunts work. Also, according to this I’m 100% correct so I don’t know where your “wrong assumptions” come from:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Taunt_

Saving you the trouble:
generating enough threat so the warrior matches the current top entry in the mob’s aggro list

And it has an example below:

A melee damage dealer has 1000 points of threat on a mob. A warrior taunts the mob, thereby immediately gaining a threat value of 1000, and forcing the mob to attack the warrior for three seconds. After that time, threat works normally for the mob, and if no one is at 130%/110% (ranged/melee) of the tank’s threat, the warrior remains the mob’s target.

Taunt is GW2 is a status effect. It doesn’t increase threat, once Taunt is over the mob will go and attack whoever was on top of the list. A GW2 example:

A melee damage dealer has 1000 points of threat on a mob. A Revenant has 500 points of threat on the same mob. The Revenant taunts the mob, the mob attacks the Revenant for 3 seconds, BUT his threat remains at 500 (adjusted as normal for CC skills). If nobody hits the mob, after 3 seconds pass the mob will go back to the Melee Damage dealer provided he is still in range and the Threat didn’t change. In other games with Aggro mechanics after you taunt, if NOBODY uses any skills, the mob will remain on the Tank.

I hope that was a simple explanation on how tanking works.

Knighthonor.4061:

NoobOnSteroid.7192:

It’s CC, which means it will be:
a) pretty much useless in PvE
b) balanced around PvP

It’s a reverse Fear, I don’t really see an issue with it. It just adds diversity.

If Dungeons, especially Raid dungeons, dish out large number of pact mobs during boss fights, somebody will be needed to gather up those mobs of risk wipe.

AoE attack that applies Taunt to enemies hit, will be useful for guiding mobs of NPC to a specific location to be handled properly and keep the team alive.

There you all. I just gave you a scenario in PvE where Taunt can be extremely useful and provides the team with much needed defense while they handle the main target, which is the boss.

A few Controllers in the group would work wonders with dungeons designed like that.

good point.
but you’re missing one thing: ANet isn’t able to design content like that. They don’t design anything that needs advanced group coordination like that.
reason is: noobs keep complaining about content that is too hard.

Or you could do it the way such a scenario is handled now: stack in a corner, drop ice bows/great swords, DPS mob down in seconds while also damaging the boss …

Guardian of Angels.9867:

How does Taunt bring back the trinity system when it’s a CC to make you attack your allies (it’s the opposite of fear)

So because you start hitting your teammates you suddenly need a tank / trinity? :/

Did I read the update wrong? You attack your allies? Because friendly fire was never a thing, it was my understanding that the affected player/creature would run toward the source of the taunt and start auto attacking them.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Lol, I use that virtue of courage trait all the time. I can tell you it’s fairly powerful as well. For a class where you don’t have many stunbreakers having a Guardian with you who can is very helpful.

Not everyone runs the faceroll builds only.

You should consider using virtue of courage before the stun happens instead of wasting a grandmaster trait if you want to be more skillful.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Guardian of Angels.9867:

How does Taunt bring back the trinity system when it’s a CC to make you attack your allies (it’s the opposite of fear)

So because you start hitting your teammates you suddenly need a tank / trinity? :/

Did I read the update wrong? You attack your allies? Because friendly fire was never a thing, it was my understanding that the affected player/creature would run toward the source of the taunt and start auto attacking them.

nah. he is wrong. you’re totally right there… don’t know where he got that from. probably dreamed about it.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Guardian of Angels.9867:

How does Taunt bring back the trinity system when it’s a CC to make you attack your allies (it’s the opposite of fear)

So because you start hitting your teammates you suddenly need a tank / trinity? :/

Did I read the update wrong? You attack your allies? Because friendly fire was never a thing, it was my understanding that the affected player/creature would run toward the source of the taunt and start auto attacking them.

The wording isn’t very clear.

It states that in PVP a Taunted player will continue attacking their target, but only with auto attacks, which is “weird” for a skill named Taunt.

There is also this part: “Taunt will be used to both reposition foes and change your foes’ targets”, since the skill is called “Taunt” it is the logical conclusion that changing a foe’s target means forcing it to attack the player that used it on him.

Nothing about attacking allies though

Knighthonor.4061:

If Dungeons, especially Raid dungeons, dish out large number of pact mobs during boss fights, somebody will be needed to gather up those mobs of risk wipe.

AoE attack that applies Taunt to enemies hit, will be useful for guiding mobs of NPC to a specific location to be handled properly and keep the team alive.

There you all. I just gave you a scenario in PvE where Taunt can be extremely useful and provides the team with much needed defense while they handle the main target, which is the boss.

A few Controllers in the group would work wonders with dungeons designed like that.

There won’t be any dungeons in HoT, if we get any content challenging enough it will be set in open world where you can just play how you want.

rotten.9753:

Knighthonor.4061:

If Dungeons, especially Raid dungeons, dish out large number of pact mobs during boss fights, somebody will be needed to gather up those mobs of risk wipe.

AoE attack that applies Taunt to enemies hit, will be useful for guiding mobs of NPC to a specific location to be handled properly and keep the team alive.

There you all. I just gave you a scenario in PvE where Taunt can be extremely useful and provides the team with much needed defense while they handle the main target, which is the boss.

A few Controllers in the group would work wonders with dungeons designed like that.

There won’t be any dungeons in HoT, if we get any content challenging enough it will be set in open world where you can just play how you want.

I can’t imagine someone saying “Hardcore content” and meaning Open World.

probably there will be some dungeons with only one room and one single boss with good mechanics. just because of the skipping issues they have right now with dungeons.

maddoctor.2738:

I can’t imagine someone saying “Hardcore content” and meaning Open World.

Imagine Anet.

I don’t know if anyone is still harping about this in the thread, but I feel the need to address the whole “Trinity” thing. Yes, ArenaNet claims to have broken the mold, but they didn’t. Not entirely, at least. Instead, they took the trinity, broke the roles up and gave a little bit of each to every profession. A warrior with banners is buffing the party, a guardian with “Save Yourselves” removes conditions, an elementalist can tank a little when attuned to earth. Adding the Taunt mechanic doesn’t bring back the trinity, nor had it ever really gone away. You could still go into any dungeon with any 5 professions, so long as each one is built right (or have synergistic builds).

rotten.9753:

maddoctor.2738:

I can’t imagine someone saying “Hardcore content” and meaning Open World.

Imagine Anet.

I think both Tequatl and Triple Trouble in open world are quite hardcore imo, depends what would you call hardcore

MaXi.3642:

rotten.9753:

maddoctor.2738:

I can’t imagine someone saying “Hardcore content” and meaning Open World.

Imagine Anet.

I think both Tequatl and Triple Trouble in open world are quite hardcore imo, depends what would you call hardcore

both not hardcore enough. the problem is: when things are too hard, too many players will complain. they should just invent a hardmode for everything PvE-based. And ArenaNet: finally make an instanced version of worldbosses please!

i agree with opener. Taunt makes for great opportunities for strategical combat. And given it’s a control effect, and not condition i think we can be sure that it’ll be short and scarce enough to not turn the whole game into perma taunt spams into the “tanks” (which we don’t have).

ZeftheWicked.3076:

i agree with opener. Taunt makes for great opportunities for strategical combat. And given it’s a control effect, and not condition i think we can be sure that it’ll be short and scarce enough to not turn the whole game into perma taunt spams into the “tanks” (which we don’t have).

This. Don’t get why people go all zomg tankz screwz my gamez nonono you should go to the armory. Grow up.

Valento.9852:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

i agree with opener. Taunt makes for great opportunities for strategical combat. And given it’s a control effect, and not condition i think we can be sure that it’ll be short and scarce enough to not turn the whole game into perma taunt spams into the “tanks” (which we don’t have).

This. Don’t get why people go all zomg tankz screwz my gamez nonono you should go to the armory. Grow up.

To be fair, the OP does talk about tanks a lot. Even in the first post.