Curse

Cataclysm · Dec 15, 2006, 03:29 AM // 03:29

I tank all the time, all you gotta do is make sure you go in first, far enough ahead the aggro is devoted to you but not so far monks cant get there in time

aohige · Dec 15, 2006, 03:32 AM // 03:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by unmatchedfury

GW doesn't belive in aggro. itts the monks job to tank the damage. The monk is now on the receiveing and mitigating end of dmg in guild wars. by religated all the responibility to one class it makes the game alot easier.

No, it's not.

Even in Domain of Anguish, the hardest and insanely damaging part of the game, a "good Warrior tank" is what holds the aggro most of the time.
In almost every single party we did DoA with, the best aggro-holding has been the Warrior. (Except in Gloom)

Unfortunately, from reading this thread, it seems that a lot of tanks don't know how to hold aggro, and other teammates don't know how to stay out of aggro.

They go straight for your monks first?
You know why?
Because that monk, was in range of their aggro when they approached the tank, that's why.
Tank needs to grab aggro MUCH further away than what most people are aware of. Tank moves in, gets aggro. THEN everyone else crawls up, and proceed to nuke/hex/heal etc. You need to be an extra full aggro circle away when tank gains aggro. Almost two aggro circles away, to be safe. Make sure to step back out of the aggro as soon as you're done casting.

If your tank can't survive those few seconds, then he's not worthy to be playing a tank.

Make sure you do buff him up, before you sent him off, of course. Protective Spirit, Life Bond, Barrier, Life Sheath, Weapon of Warding, yadayada. Whatever you happen to have as protection.

I figured this was basics of PvE, but alas, a lot of people are not aware of it, it seems...

Trevor Reznik · Dec 15, 2006, 04:21 AM // 04:21

Warriors are the single best damaging class in the game. Relegating them to the role of a tank is pathetic, and leads to poor play by the rest of the team because no one learns how to kite or heal different players. Stacking monsters on a tank and nuking them to death is a system for other games, not Guild Wars.

Try this out in PvE:
Triple Chop/Dismember/Penetrating Chop/Penetrating Blow/Critical Chop/Cyclone Axe/Flail/Res Sig. You'll be amazed how fast things die. Now add another 4 warriors running similar bars, and maybe an orders necro, and you'll tear through mobs faster than you could ever imagine. No more of this waiting around for meteor shower to recharge.

Priest Of Sin · Dec 15, 2006, 04:27 AM // 04:27

After testing your aggro theory, I've found that I can pull a Kournan Guard towards me after he breaks aggro by using Bulls Strike (or any KD really, except for hammer ones). Just some interesting trivia to break up the flaming.

resume flaming

Xiaxhou of Trinity · Dec 15, 2006, 04:40 AM // 04:40

Haha flame away. It was an interesting question that I came up (or thought so), but an aggro control skill for a warrior would of course change gameplay greatly, but wtf? For anyone who plays PvE and most especially to anyone who plays a warrior, the points Avarre made should be well known. Run in take the blunt of the aggro; let monks heal; pummel monsters with as much dmg as you can (and if you're like me who doesn't trust most of the monks out there carry some defensive shout or another). I always did resent the name "tank", since before the ai change W/Mo was the prof combo that said "tank" and meant "oh im a warrior that can heal myself take me". Heal sig anyone? With the new ai, it takes the whole team to control aggro so they dont get flanked out by too much aggro, allowing the monks to do their jobs wtihout getting seizures

I say warriors are doing paper damage because in instances like RoF chain islands, you're doing from 10-20 dmg with your attacks, and 40-60 dmg with attack skills. As a ranger, I'm doing more dmg with just barrage, and eles are eles (the nukkas, no not nigga i meant nuker =]) Warrior is my favorite profession, and with the new elite Soldier's Stance, I've gotten masters on a few missions with that and heroway. Well the thread was to see where warriors stand in PvE at the moment, of course the flaming makes it hard to read the posts with THOUGHT, but maybe I had a bad opening post and title. To that I changed the title to warrior, sorry for inconvenience caused by a stupid abbreviation.

valtonray · Dec 15, 2006, 05:05 AM // 05:05

warriors can still hold aggro as long as they know what they are doing and the other member's are careful not to interrupt it

Sekkira · Dec 15, 2006, 07:59 AM // 07:59

10-20 damage per hit on a standard hit is pretty damn good considering that's every 1.33 seconds, even faster if you have an attack stance, 10-20 damage every .9s.

People assume Warriors do paper damage because they don't see those amazing 90-150 damage numbers popping up. People, including you don't seem to realise how often those big numbers pop up as compared to how often those 10-20 damage numbers pop up when playing a Warrior.

WasAGuest · Dec 15, 2006, 01:30 PM // 13:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by aohige

They go straight for your monks first?
You know why?
Because that monk, was in range of their aggro when they approached the tank, that's why.

Not true, a monk going out with AI can in fact grab aggro three bubbles away (less now as it's been tweaked); but it still happens. This happens when using the flags to direct the AI to attack. The mobs will engage for a second or two then make a dash towards the player (I've had this happen playing a monk or an ele).

This is yet another reported bug with the AI. Insta-monk aggro is what I had seen it called and adapted the name myself.

Back on topic: A skill for a warrior to force a target switch to themselves would in no way make PvE easy as some people are assuming. Those that are saying that are thinking far too simply. As we all know, mobs still use player skills vs using "racial" abilities. Therefore if a taunt was put in, we can bet the mobs would have it as well. It would also be very simple to make as well. If you are taunted and attacking, you could not be able to switch targets for X seconds.

Mobs would then be able to protect it's back line rather than the "rush the back line and leave itself exposed" like we have now. This would add a whole new dynamic to the game in both PvE and PvP and make warriors more than what has been suggested they be.

The only players I can imagine not wanting this kind of improvement in PvE are those unwilling to adapt to such a new challenge (and mechanic) or the hard core PvPer who doesnt want their sure fire winning methods challenged.

samcobra · Dec 15, 2006, 03:21 PM // 15:21

First of all.. lets talk about tanks. Tanks are (in the context of this and many other MMOs), a character that goes to soak up damage. These characters are very important in certain areas of the game, like Domain of Anguish for example. However, warriors by themselves, fall short at tanking to things like earth eles or monks. Then, you go for damage. An ele might use searing flames to do 119 damage every 2 seconds, but, within about 5 or 6 constantt casts of SF, you're out of energy, so your damage stops (remember, no gg, just SF), warriors go in there, they do about 20 damge every second and after maybe 6 seconds, deep wound. BOOM, 20% of your health gone. but the warrior is far from done, he can just sit there and autoattack and continue to deal his 20 damage per second over minutes or he can use his adren skills to deal higher armor-ignoring damage. Meanwhile our searing flames ele has switched to his high set after about 15 seconds and now waits for 40 seconds for his 4 pips to refill that 80 energy he blew. in that 40 seconds, the warrior does 20*40=80 damage by not even using skills plus the extra damage from his adrenal skills. Now, searing flames is a very overpowered ele skill, but just a reaffirmation of some numbers.

The point is, an ele is a tank. An ele is a damage dealer.However, an ele is NOT both a tank and a damage dealer. (yea, crystal wave, gg... where'd my energy go?) Warriors on the other hand can survive the brunt of battle for a long time and yet dish out crazy damage.

Antheus · Dec 15, 2006, 03:54 PM // 15:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by WasAGuest

Not true, a monk going out with AI can in fact grab aggro three bubbles away (less now as it's been tweaked); but it still happens. This happens when using the flags to direct the AI to attack. The mobs will engage for a second or two then make a dash towards the player (I've had this happen playing a monk or an ele).

Please don't mix heroway with tanking. AI is stupid. It doesn't know how to tank, and no ammount of flags will help. And yet, Devona alone does a better job than apparently most players do.

You cannot grab agro from 3 bubbles away. The only exceptions where this occurs is with special patrols that are designed to agro based on bubble touching a certain spot, rather than mobs itself.

The agro behaviour changes once you engage the mobs. If you retreat, certain mobs will extend their agro range to entire radar range or even a bit further.

Same rules still apply. They scan their agro range (4-8x now of agro bubble) and find most suitable target. But on initial agro they will always have the same mechanics.

Also, they go for you since you're not running enough health. The only time they zone in in this way is when you have the least health in group, or ideal ratio of low AL/health.

With the changes in AI, running 500+ health in PvE makes things much much easier. But still, this mostly again applies to pure hench teams, or mostly hench teams.

But never mix tanking issues between henchies and player groups, since they operate completely differently. The greatest complaints about most common issues come from players who played exclusively with heroes, and then found themself in a player group. Rules are completely different. Despite that, most of the time, full heroway group will work in harmony, since they understand at least the basics of positioning and consistently behave with respect to their role. This often makes them a much better choice than unsychronized player groups.

But the most important thing about playing a monk with respect to agro management is to have lots of health. This way, some other hero/hench will get bulk of agro, but you'll be safe to prot them and keep them alive.

Carth` · Dec 15, 2006, 04:33 PM // 16:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre

OK, look: "Tank" is a job description, just like "Healer" and "Nuker". All tanks are not warriors, and all warriors are not tanks, but they are the most common. Not all monks are healers, and not all Eles are nukers.

There is also the issue of what Tanking involves. It's not just absorbing damage, and in fact, some tanks might not absorb damage at all, but Block and Evade or cause Blindness/Weakness, etc. I'd say the job of a tank is to gather aggro and distract the brunt of the enemies' attacks so that the more squishy and less defensive characters can do their jobs, like nuking and healing.

The warrior is a natural tank because of the armor level and shield, so it's very easy to simply point at a warrior when the need for a tank arises. Of course this is also backed up by the warrior's skills that give more health, armor, and defensive stances. Guess what: Eles have all sorts of AoE spells, Monks have all sorts of Healing spells, thus solidifying all their roles. It's not a misconception, it's how the game was designed.

For me, a tank is someone tanking, it can be a warrior, a monk, an ele, etc. With the correct skills, anyone can tank. It's a role, not a profession. Tank != warrior.

A healer is also a role, not a profession. If someone asks for a healer, I presume that is what they want. I will not join with my prot monk, boon prot, bonder, zb prot, or smiter. A ritualist can be a healer. Healer != monk.

I also presume nuker to mean someone using fire magic. If someone asks for a nuker I would not join with a water elementalist, or a fast casting Me/E using air magic.

Quote: