Aggro – A Thoughtless System
Many players get teary-eyed when they think about the fact that there was a completely different Aggro system back in Classic. It was common for tanks to “aggro” bosses for a minute or longer. During that time, all others could either only watch or deal “wand damage”.
Sure, Aggro also had gameplay advantages, but the biggest drawback overshadowed everything else: Good damage dealers were never allowed to unleash their full potential. Because no matter how hard a tank tried, he could never maintain aggro against a good mage or warlock. As a damage dealer, it always felt wrong to be restricted by other players. Neither did the nicest T2 set help, if you had to take a little spell break every 10 seconds.
If you’re thinking “Oh, a taunt takes care of that”, you’re mistaken. Back then, taunt only ensured that the boss attacked the tank for 3 seconds. After that, it would fall back to its old value on the aggro list. And then often a clothie or rogue would be smashed.
It was actually even worse if a boss needed multiple tanks and one of them died. After a battle-rez, the second tank would then have to build aggro from scratch again – and the whole raid would have to wait.
An addon that could measure aggro (like “Threatmeter”) was an absolute must for raiders back then.
The next page deals with honorable fights and ruthless murders.
