Tank Mentality in Prophecies

I have been doing the ZQuests recently and when it is in EotN, Factions, or Nightfall I find intelligent groups that realize a tank is a waste of damage capability and all you need is a competent monk and Protective Spirit. But whenever the quest is in Prophecies everyone seems to revolve around the idea that you need a tank. And that thats all a warrior can do. While eles are damage in HM. (Fire nukers in Hells Precipice lolwut?). I swear it is like 2006-2007 all over again. Anyone know why this is 0_o?

Maybe a lot of the people doing the Prophecies Z-Quests only have Prophecies so they're still stuck in that mind set.

I monk a lot, and every good monk HATES to have a destroy of bones wailing on them with KD chain. I'd take 3 tanks over 3 casters any day.

You have confused tanks with frontliners.

Frontliners hold aggro and destroy enemies.

Tanks stand still and do HURR HURR I TAKE NO DMG HURR DON'T HELP WITH KILLING DDDDZZ!

The melee still should be holding aggro, its just that you don't dedicate your bar to being hard to kill.

THIS.

but then again if you just bring 2 minion masters there's 20 little exploding tanks right there

Holy damage/AoE/undead or otherwise lack of corpses makes your MMs useless.

People do that with Spirits now. Place 4-5 spirits to tank, 2-3 defensive spirits and heal while dealing damage.

Or take a Perma-SF and ask him to bring an offensive Scythe or Dagger variant.

This is like arguing with my wife - I sincerly doubt that everyone doing Z quests in prophecies wants to use a tank. Some of them would have to be the same people who quest in other areas.

Personally, I've encountered groups (PUGS) in all areas that want to tank. I've also noticed that some people will crap on Warrior tanks, but will go gaga over perma tanks.

Bottom line - whatever floats yer boat.

I'm with the OP where I don't understand why people need tanks for the regular part of the game. Even if you get a so-called tank, most of the time they are worthless in your typical PUG because of the crap aggro system. What will happen is that the tank will rush in and start hitting things, but only bodyblocks one target. The nukers or miscellaneous support will typically be too close behind and the monsters then spread out and hit the so-called "squishy" targets anyway.

I suspect that the reason why people want a "tank" is due to the brilliant gimmick builds that have filled the game and often center around a SF assassin, a 600 smite monk, or (rarely) a terra tank.

IMO there is NO such thing as a tank in this game, that is a stupid word. Guildwars LACKS a hate system, therefore anyone could become the target of an angry mob....

so, you ran into 2 PUGS that wanted a tank instead of you; another (female?) ele.

r u mad nou?

yeah there's like 2-3 places in guild wars where minions aren't effective.

15+ minions dying to aoe/holy damage/whateverelseyoucanthinkof = 15 death novas popping. HOW USELESS.

Honestly, I think it's because Proph is the easiest campaign to finish and unlock HM in.

If you're running a HM Zmish in any of the other campaigns, the people that have the HM status to join you likely know what they're doing.

I've puged /w some hardcore ineptitude in proph, and they're nowhere to be found in Fac/NF/EotN(to a lesser extent) and that's my theory.

People hate change.

nuf said

The sad truth about tanking NPC mobs is their aggro system will totally ignore the tank, much like human players do. That's one of the aspects that is shared in PvE and PvP fighting. Monsters ignores the tank and goes for the weaker targets only to get back at the tank once they've killed everyone else, which is like how human players react in PvP. It's aggravatingly annoying. It's better off if the warrior that was tanking make a dedicated Save Yourselves! build if the goal is to support the team in some way. Party wide damage reduction is a better choice than trying to hold aggro as a tank and it's a lot more effective. Not to say that it's a good build overall, but better compared to tanking. The current aggro system is an unfortunate leap from the good old days, but at least it's tolerable.

No, I am a warrior, that runs a damaging build (BLASPHEMY!) that can hold aggro as well as a tank while killing things.

false. they attack the thing with the least armor, and then the target with the least health.

hence why i run minors and survivors and a shield set in pve: nothing attacks me.

OT:

personally, as a monk, as long as i have prot spirit and shield of abs, i really dont care who wants to aggro. the nuke could aggro for all i care. as long as the rest of the team knows how to not run into the mob thats being aggroed before they lock the tanker as the target, i dont care. unfortunately, that rarely happens because people in general kinda suck.

Half decent War that knows how to hold aggro + half decent Monk that knows how to prot saves the War 8 slots on his bar that he can use to blow stuff up.

you dont need a tank. pve is a joke anyway

Yeup.

The best part is when you get kicked after failing a mission because you "couldn't hold aggro".

Back in the old days of EQ, three large unchangeable facts of gameplay created the whole tank paradigm.

1. An "aggro" or "hate" system that is easily manipulated to force monsters to attack a single target.
2. Mobs that turn out more damage than can be healed.
3. Only effective means to reduce incoming damage is having higher armor.

The most effective way of dealing with it was to have a warrior with high armor and hate creating skills force all of the mobs to attack him.

Guild wars is just entirely different.
1. No hard hate system to force attacks
2. A backline is able to keep up with damage being dealt
3. The entire protection line and the block mechanic can reduce damage on any character.

The reasons that tanks evolved are just not present in GW.

Short answer: Pugs are horrible 95% of the time

Long answer: Pugs are horrible 95% of the time

I'v never run a tank build that I know of. Sometimes I use Endure Pain or Dolies sig. But for the most part I enjoy 4 attack skills and 4 non attack skills. I don't even use tactics. Axe and strength all the way. But for some reason I am still capable of taking damage forever as long as I have some good healing support.

If it works, then people should play what they want and since everyone claims pve is too easy then I see no problem with people playing any bar they want. Unless PvE is not as easy as everyone claims.

'holding agro' isn't a one man job.

the ai will prioritise targets based on who attacked first, proximity, armor and health level.

all you need is 1 team member who overextends to cause a party wipe. classic example being the ele with the trigger itch who always has to hit the enemy first before the frontline can engage.

but it is true you cant really lock targets attention with something like a taunt. closest thing gw ever had was the old cog trick.

As a monk: I don't really care who goes in first, because the AI's going to target little miss/mr squishy who used two superior runes, a radiant set, and minor vigor anyway. Or something. That's the guy I'm going to have to prot, not the warrior with Endure Pain.

My real problem is when five people decide to ball up nicely for the 400+ damage fireball... but that has nothing to do with a tank, and they're ridiculously stupid if they blame it on one.

dont you hate it when theres some retard warrior thats like TANK LFG!!!! and he has like 3 superiors and has like 300 health with gladiators defense and those gay wammo monk skills (i think its like mending, vig, and that other maintainable one)

i dont pve much but when i do i really like flaming these guys hardddd. i mean, wtf is a tank in GW anyways monsters in pve are a joke and they come in like groups of 5

You must like the good old days. 7 Hero's FTW

Try kiting.

Also, Devastating Hammer is not a "KD chain".

I think in my whole years of playing GW I never ran anything "tank" related unless it was using the cog, in which case that was a perfectly well-known exploit. That was probably one of the things that really drew me to GW: not aggro system. WoW can be fun topping some DPS charts but in general if everyone's doing their job it can get pretty boring. In GW it felt so much more active...too bad ANet kinda borked it up.

@Burst: Eeeeew Rachel??? It's all about Arakune, yo!

The only 'tank' skill a warrior needs.

As the OP says you don't need a full tank bar to do the job of holding aggro - which is entirely possible in Guild Wars with a mixture of pre prot and team co-operation. Warrior goes out front with preprot and the rest of the team doesn't follow until enemy aggro is settled on the warrior who then doesn't move while he and the rest of the team smashes stuff. There's a more detailed guide elsewhere on this site if you feel the need to play that way. No threat levels, no messy creams or gels.

To be honest though, its more fun to just run in and mash stuff :P

I actually like tank's, it means i can play monk while eating my lunch (just need to press protective spirit and seed of life periodically).

In all seriousness a tank isn't needed, just somebody/something to hold aggro (watch your energy burn while trying to stop 5 different targets from dying).

I know why I didn't take that z-quest yesterday. Far too many people just suck at Hell's and there were not enough guildies online for play when I was on. Time/reward isn't that great for the effort with H&H so I decided to go off-line early and do some other stuff.

The same reason I only played two round of AB. To finish the old quest I still had open so I could collect reward and get the quest again. We lost the first match bc of bad allied teams, got a nice victory the next match. Quest updated, bye.
I'll play when most random players are gone again.

It's not a crap system. The "standard", hate-based systems are crap though.

because people are stupid and don't think about party makeup, mission requirements or generally what is bad to play.

Front line warriors holding agro and making shit blow up is good , filling their bars with health and armour buffs and doing nothing is bad.

>:O

Lolis > Bees. Besides, I want to play a character that takes more skill than this: http://ggxlol.highervoltage.net/ara-flowchart.gif

To be honest though, we're both outnumbered by the Noel players.

Yea we had a few playing it at a tourney here and most seemed pretty infatuated with her. I still liked playing as my dear-christ-what-the-hell-is-that glob buddie and held my own for a bit, but it got a bit bleeeh.

Ah well, back to Bison and Gen. You cannot dodge what you cannot SEE!

The only real use for tanks is to make the enemies gather and waste their long-recharge damage spells so the party can attack while they recharge those skills. And that can be easily done by minions.

In GW, enemies will not just pick a target and lock to it. They will change targets under certain conditions.
An enemy set as a tank will have a REALLY low priority as a target than any other character, so as soon as the tank receives any skill from the party members or the party members attack the enemies attacking the tank, they will be aware of the other players and change targets as soon as any member of the enemy party see were they are, and even withut seein them if the player is dealing damage to the enemy.
The only ways to go around that is positioning in a way that prevents them from moving though the tank, like holding them in a corner or next to a rock or tree, and that can't be done anywhere, or keeping all party members but the tank out of the sight of all the enemy party members, and the latter doesn't always work.

And people that pretend to 'hold aggro in PvE' is... well... put any word you please in there.
It doesn't matter if you Flare or Fire Storm, they will forget the Tank and go for the elementalist as soon as they can. AoE is not just to deal damage to many enemies. How do you use pure damage multi-hit AoE spells like the Heats or fire breath against melee atackers? You wait until they are going to you location, and start casting so the damage starts when they are some steps from you. When they get to you, they will have took 2 hits in the middle of an AoE and move away, when they are coming back, another has finishedis finishing, and here they go again, run back and forth until they die. THAT'S how you keep melee attackers away in PvE with fire AoE spells without having to move around too much, not by pretending them to target a character with high armor and health while you nuke them and yelling others things like "Who was the idiot that broke aggro?", when it was you the one that 'broke aggro' by casting protective spirit over the tank.

If you can raise minions, they are all the damage eaters you'll ever need, their low health makes them look really tasty to monsters.
Otherwise spirits do just fine thanks to their increase in 4 levels, it's really easy to get them with 80 armor, and healing them is not a problem. 60..100 Health every 5 seconds with summon spirits is more than enough to heal all your spirits.

In PvE rangers stop targeting you as soon as you dodge a couple of their arrows (yes, arrows can be dodged, I know it, you know it, but it seems no PUG member knows it). Melee attackers(excepting shadow stepping assassins) stop targetting you when you go through another ally so they get bodyblocked. That makes most enemy martial weapon users barely a problem.

Elementalists, Death Necromancers, Domination Mesmers and Channeling Ritualists are the only real PvE threats, if any. Once you learn to deal with them, you can beat anything with relative ease.

An extremely tough tank = mob up 20+ monsters before destroying them all with whatever means possible = only one monk needed + the one monk can chat on phone and pick his nose while monking + all the damage dealers can have sup runes and it wouldn't matter. Killing tiny groups of 3 monsters with prot spirits and no tank is /yawn in comparison.

And holding aggro do work, or else there wouldn't be such a thing as speed clear that everyone is constantly whining about.

I do agree tanking in prophecies (other than UW/Fow) is counter productive because there are never enough powerful mobs to take advantage of, none of prophecies monsters have rigged damage or super armor to warrant balling up monsters with tank.

"Tanking" has changed a great deal from the good old days of GW. It used to be that for a war to tank he had to load up on defencive skills that all but wiped out his dmg potential.

Now a "tank" is a Strength based war with Defy Pain. 1 skill, admittidly an elite, and you have a tank. This means you can pack on 7 offencive skills and still do the job of dealing dmg.

Sword wars can bring Final Thrust, the strongest non-elite attack skill in the game, and if used correctly deal out great dmg.

Axe wars can still deal DeepWound and have Executioner's Strike as a follow-up.

Hammer wars KD.

Granted all builds deal more dmg with dmg elite skills, and none of these builds can match the D-Slash spammer for shear damage.

Lets face facts. Warriors will always be the first ones to take dmg or to move into a mob. Good, bad or otherwise if that war goes down you are playing a man short till he is res'd and another player down during the res/healing.

A good warriors job is as follows;

1) take initial volley of dmg from mob
2) seek out primary target, usually a monk or other caster
3) fall back and help your team when you have the skills to do so. ie. cripple/KD melee hounding your backliners.

The best wars in this game, regardless of build, are those that know what targets to attack. Knowing that while a melee can cause some problems for your monk the Ranger interupting or the Mesmer hexing/stripping enchants is more important.

I can't stand tanks in PvE (or even worst in RA) who bring defy pain and just waste party slot, tanking is not possible in most occasions anyways. "Save Yourselves" + nice spike with attacking skills(with deep wound of course) is far better.