Guild Wars 2

Designing Challenging Content:

…and some encounters may even require a member of your group to dust off that toughness gear to bulk up and tank some heavy hits to protect the condition-build players in the back.

Now that we’ve seen the new potency of healing builds for the Ranger (Druid), Elementalist (Tempest) and Revenant (Ventari), Toughness could open up tanking builds. From experience as a Guardian in full Knight’s gear, Toughness appears to have varying degrees of success. It is almost always canceled by a solid DPS build. If Toughness already have an impact on aggression, I feel the potency is too low.

Additionally, the idea of temporary aggression through Taunt could be incredible as it is a form of aggression that doesn’t rely on the concept of “bonus threat” stats. After some minor testing, I’ve found the debuff to appear on Defiant creatures, but it doesn’t appear to affect creatures with Defiance stacks. It may, however, affect creates with Defiance bars. I’m not entirely sure if it was working as intended, but it could be amazing if it that were the case.

So when it comes to tanking…:

• Could tanking builds be created in the form of Toughness?
• Could Taunt have a strong factor for tanking?
• Could other Professions receive Taunt?