The traditional model of PVE tanking, which revolves around the “threat” (aggro) mechanic, severely limits the gameplay experience of MMORPGs. I’ll share an alternative model that would provide a much more dynamic combat experience.
PVE tanking and the “holy trinity” (tank/healer/DPS) themselves are not the issue – the problem is that they tend to be implemented with threat-based mechanics. In this article, I’m not going to advocate ditching the “holy trinity” as ArenaNet (AN) did with Guild Wars 2 (GW2) last year.
Why Threat-Based PVE is Lame
Here’s what’s wrong with threat-based PVE:
- It defies common sense. Why would an intelligent boss and his buddies attack the tank, who is the toughest, most-armored, highest HP target who is also the least capable of inflicting meaningful damage?
- It dumbs down PVE encounters. You have threat, boss attacks you. You don’t have threat, you can do whatever you want
- It creates an environment where where the focus tends to be on the UI not the combat: watching threat meters, tracking cooldowns, using abilities is optimized rotations, and listening to addons/mods tell you what to do and when – as opposed to having to continually read and react to situations and what your opponents are doing
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