Tank needs a "provoke" skill

I usually fall into the "Tank" category in my parties, however I find it rather difficult to keep the mobs focused on me. They seem to just attack who they want really, which usually seems to be the monk. Granted going for the healer is a pretty good strategy, but there should be a way for a tank to do his job. In most other MMOs this has been in the form of a provoke or taunt skill, which allows a tank to add hate onto himself so that the mob in question attacks him. I believe this skill is in need in Guild Wars, it would allow us tanks to tank and keep the mobs off the healers and mages. Granted the skill would obviously be PvE only, but thats really a minor thing.

It's just the way people run from monsters... rather then pressing E & Q and trying to circle their way away from it... they just turn around, and run back side first... this allows them to hit for critical hits every time... and well... they're gonna follow and keep attacking... but if they just stood there, and let the tank get the monster... and then Q or E and circle around the warrior... warrior gets the aggro... blame the players a little, and the ai a little... them thar ai are smart (enemies of course)...

provoke skill would be useless because people don't obey rules like come attack me...

an interrupt skill which allows you to deal 2-3 more blows on a target who is not targeting you... would be highly beneficial BOTH OFFENSIVELY AND DEFENSIVELY... d-ue to the wording/coding.. this attack would allow a warrior to either interrupt a warrior attacking a monk with 3 successive blows... or a warrior to triple attack a monk who is not attacking him/targeting him...

the warrior paying for being offensive
and the monk paying for not defending himself...

Thats why I said the skill would really only be for PvE, unless of course the player character is forced to attack you if you provoke him (ie the player loses control of his character for a few moments and his character attacks you).

This will never be implemented because there are no skills intended exclusively for PvE or PvP.

Not intentionally no, but functionally there are skills that are nigh useless in PvP that are usefull in PvE and vice-versa.

I'd heard Necrotic Traversal was disabled for PvP in the tombs and arenas...

I agree on that provoke thing.. when you're dealing with NPCs, someone has to be in charge, and it sure as hell can't be Alesia. But that's another complaint altogether. ^_~

Oh yeah.. and the world doesn't revolve around PvP. This game is for all of us.

The world doesn't revolve around PvE. This game is for all of us.

I found a great skill for drawing aggro is Cyclone Axe. As the party tank, I'd always lead and time a cyclone to hit as many as I can. A good number of them would then run past me, turn around, and try to hit me in the back.

Yeah cyclone axe works well, but you still have the problem of the hammer and sword war being ineffective at drawing aggro.

"Taunt proximity" and "Taunt AE", (used like plague touch/sending) skills would work decent in both PvE AND PvP and have strategic uses.

"Taunt" (Tactics/energy) - melee range single target - Force targeted mob/player to target you for 3-7 seconds.

"Provoke" (Tactics/adrenaline) - Shout AE - Force all adjacent enemies to target you for 1-4 seconds.

What would be so bad with having 2 skills like this? The aggro in this game is horrific, random, and crippling at some times. And it would give the warrior some more use out of a vastly underpowered attribute line.

It would be silly in PvP, as they'd be must have skills for a Warrior, and you'd just end up unable to control who you were targeting for most of the game. As a lot of people would be forced into targeting those Warriors with those taunt abilities rather than being able to focus fire on a single softer target, you'd be unable to kill anyone, leading to a stalemate.

Unless it also affected being unable to target allies, in which case monks would be rendered useless.

Pretty big problems if you ask me. They could possibly be solved with outrageous recharge times, but then they would not be very good for PvE.

Yeah it would be silly in PvP, but then again so is Necrotic Traversal.

I always thought that "provoke" or "taunt" in MMORPGs were a particularly stupid idea. It's just silly and is too unrealistic. (A bit of unrealism is good, but taunt is TOO unrealistic.)

Instead, I'd really like to see more co-op-defensive skills.

For example, for warriors:

Guard Stance. Stance.
For 10 secs, you have 75% chance of taking damage instead from projectiles and melee attacks that the targeted adjacent ally would normally receive. This stance ends early when targeted ally moves and stops being adjacent to you.

Cover shields. Stance. Shield skill.
For 10 secs, while wielding a shield, you have 75% chance of blocking projectile spells and missile weapons aimed at either yourself or any adjacent allies standing behind you. You must be facing the source of the projectile.

Defensive Wall. Stance.
For 30 secs, if there is another nearby ally using Defensive Wall, any enemy trying to move past/through the pair of you will be prevented from doing so, and will also be hit with a free attack from your weapon.

Phalanx. Shield skill. Stance.
With a shield equipped, for every adjacent ally also using Phalanx, the entire group gets a bonus to Armor against all damage of NN. However, movement is slowed by 90%.


These sorts of skills would make positioning, already important, more important. ( a good thing) And make AOE over time spells less useless in pvp, and have other sorts of goodness.

yah... i was thinking up the same thing this morning..
taunt - make everyone auto target you... that would **** up an offensive cast or two...

GOOD IDEA

Ideally, anything too stupid for real players to fall for shouldn't work on monsters either. The game is a lot better off without any kind of Taunt skill that allows you to short-circuit when monsters try to do something actually intelligent like gank the monk.

PvE does not need to be made any easier, or cheesier, and this would do both, IMHO.

The whole idea of "tanks" is ridiculous anyhow. What monster is going to spend it's time trying to chew on a tin can when it can sink it's teeth into the succulent flesh of the mage standing right next to him? Monsters ought to run from mobile tin cans, while attacking the weak and relatively helpless. In the real world, predators go for the easy target, the baby before the mother, and the mother before the nasty looking bull. They don't even have to reason it out, they do this instinctively. Whether intelligent or not, the LAST person in the party any monster should try to attack is the walking steel-encased arsenal of badassedness.

auto targeting would work... because the COMPUTER itself is making you switch from healing some ally, or hexing some foe... to accidentally hexing THE TARGET or healing yourself...

In the real world, the mother will harass anything going after her baby until all attention is on her. Often a mate will try to draw attention away from the mother and her young... Isn't that basically the same thing as what we're asking for? Besides.. I'm not sure how cows are relevant. ^^;..

At any rate, I'm feeling at this point that being a warrior is mostly useless.. can't protect the healer from 6 mobs at a time, can't heal myself.. Hm.

The only people that seem to hate this idea so far are casters.

As a W/Mo I find Signet of Judgment to be VERY helpful for getting everything in a small radius focused on me.

It's already possible for a warrior to get critters attention in PvE.

I got one warrior, and I try as best as I can to "intercept" critters going for softie in the party.

Quite often, critters the 1st one entering their range, 1st one casting a spell, or a healing... Not all critters got the same target priority, so you need to understand the critter logic.
In some case, for the warrior to just enter critter radius first will be enough. Sometimes, they'll go for the 1st attacker; then you need the warrior to attack first, and if you want to avoid to get multiple groups, that means it can be helpful for your warrior to have a ranged attack (of whatever your second profession is). Be carefull then about your henchie behaviour; quite often henchie seems to follow warrior target; if you got some warrior henchie, chances are they'll start to run toward the ennemy, and that can be a problem.
Sometimes, they'll go for the healer/softie in your group no matter what you do. Then, you still have a few different options:
- body block (provided landscape helps) and interception, a critter you hurt might reconsider the soft target and go for you... Cyclone axe can help too.
- get a skill to slow down ennemies attacking your softie. When a group of whatever surround your healer, it may be time for a few "slow down the killing" skills. Unfortunately, the warrior got very few of them (only one I think about is "watch yourself"), but hey, you got a second job for a reason, don't you? If your purpose in a group is to get the critter to hit you, or to get them to stop hurting your group, you can take skills like Eruption or Ward against Foes or Frozen Burst... Stuff like Lava font or Inferno will deal damage to those around your healer, but not slow them down or give you a tactical advantage (like blindness) that would help your softie to get out of the tough spot... In the curse department, shadow of fear.
Either that... or you let the softie taking a skill that will help him/ her to walk out of trouble for cheap.
- kill the critters attacking the softie really fast; after all, if the warrior is not the target, is there a better time to start a frenzy/ berserker stance? You got to get some confidence that your softie got what it takes to hold a bit, giving you the time to kill whatever is on his back.

Louis,