Tanking in Guild Wars

[Guided Daggers]

I started with Guild Wars as my first real MMO, playing as a Dervish, mostly. I always focused on doing damage and using monks to keep me alive. In the two months that I played WoW, I used a Paladin to tank.

Recently, someone asked me to come as a Tank to UW, so I slapped together a build that can keep me alive against pretty much anything except for Air Magic... But, shouldn't we just rely on our monks to keep us alive? And since it isn't possible to attract the attention of mobs, like in WoW (where you can taunt), is tanking viable?

[BrettM]

Tank-and-spank is possible in GW. Because you can't taunt, you have to be far ahead of the rest of your team until all the aggro fixes on you. At that point the rest of the team moves in and hopefully nukes the foes around you before they break aggro and go after the others. That's why a GW tank can't depend on monk healing while gathering aggro, because the monks can't be in range or they will draw aggro away from the tank. The tank has to be a self-sufficient survival machine, leaving little or no room for any offense on the skill bar.

[Lady Rhonwyn]

But at one point, the rest of the team must come in aggro range... Unless you only bring rangers with flat- or longbows...

[Guided Daggers]

I see... So you could e.g. use a tank to ball all the enemies up, so an elementalist can nuke the living hell out of them?

[Lady Rhonwyn]

Yep, that's the idea

[Aoi Enishi]

The tank has to be a self-sufficient survival machine, leaving little or no room for any offense on the skill bar.

This concept is old and flawed, as someone who frequently tanks with multiple professions in setups with tiny teams (XM) and often no healers i can say that with the right amount of ingenuity and teamwork one can have a virtually immortal tank dishing out dmg at 70-80 pr hit. In fact in XM we are often in situations where the tanks damage is essential for the team being able to kill anything. Then again we are also often in situations where the so-called healer is outfitted with dmg skills because he/she would otherwise get bored.

[RD]

Just so you know if you start doing UW regularly, there are builds people typically use when they do certain areas. If you're with friends/guildies, it shouldn't make a difference, but in case you were going to try a pick up group, people might kick you immediately if you ping the wrong bar. It's silly, but wanted to bring your attention to it.

Anyway, in certain parts of the maps (especially in UW), you can "body block" enemies, so you're standing in front of the group, keeping them from getting to your party. This is another great way to tank, as they'll have no choice but to only attack you. You basically have to wedge them between the environment (a ledge, for example) and yourself.

Beyond that, I'm a Mesmer, so I can't help that much :)

[Guided Daggers]

Thanks a lot for the suggestions, RDarken. I'm probably going to do UW only to help out a buddy for his Obby armor, as I have set shorter-term goals for my own HoM, so I guess my build doesn't matter that much.

[Fluffball]

I'm a little late to the party, but I'll add that your first notion of tanking being useless is right except in things like speedclears, or other weird, organized instances like Aoi's 3 man teams or whatever. For normal play, tanking is a no-no.

[huangjinmei]

I know Guild Wars 2 is to be a 'true MMO(Massively Multiplayer Online)', unlike GW1, which was a CORPG more than anything else. The scenery and animations are wonderful, as we can expect from ArenaNet.The feeling is great, just like standing inside the same ground.
As Mike O'Brien, a founder of the ArenaNet declaration that "We founded ArenaNet to innovate,so Guild Wars 2 is our opportunity to question everything,To make a game that defies existing conventions."
Everything was polished, combat feels great, although it maybe a little chaotic

the idea you gives ,wow i will take into account