Guild Wars 2

In its current state, Toughness supposedly makes enemies more likely to choose you to attack out of a group. While this would make sense for someone wanting to be a “Tank” or just hold the attention of the boss, it had led to nothing but frustration for me, personally.

I play a Condition necromancer and use the popular Rabid gear type, which is Condition Damage Precision and Toughness. However, I find that when playing my necro, I draw more aggro than anyone else in my party. Especially when compared to my Mesmer and Ranger, my Necromancer almost always has the boss’s focus, even when I’m standing as far away as I can while still attacking.

I propose we change how this works a bit.
Here are my possible solutions:

1. Make Armor Class factor into the aggro calculation. For example, a character with 2000 Armor who is wearing Light armor will not draw as much aggro as a character with Medium or Heavy armor with the same amount of Armor. I obviously don’t know enough specifics to make an exact calculation, but I’d like Armor type to factor in more heavily, particularly since Warriors and Guardians are the most common “Tanks” in the game.

2. Increase the amount of Aggro having a Shield equipped generates. Shield is obviously a defensive weapon, so I’d like to see it draw a bit more attention.

3. Change the way range affects Aggro. Increase the aggro generated by players who are within 600 range (especially those with high Armor). Additionally, fix range-based Aggro generation for players outside of 600 range to be the same, regardless of distance. It’s not fair to ranged classes whose main weapon has 900 range (such as Scepter) to be more heavily targeted than classes whose main weapon has 1200 range or greater.

Thanks, and I hope you consider implementing some, if not all, of these fixes.

I think that another problem is exploring the toughness triats. There is good stuff there, but getting 15 points is really risky in PvE because of the aggro system

I’d suggest we just put toughness/armor much lower on the list of things that draw aggro. It’s ridiculous that when I’m kiting on my elementalist burning skills mostly in water/earth for heals and CC, I’m the one holding the boss’s aggro when everyone else is standing still throwing massive DPS at it’s face. I’m almost positive it’s because I’m running almost all knight’s gear because when I swap to my berzerker set I’m seeing much less aggro on me, especially if there’s a heavy class in the party.

In my opinion, aggro should be determined in this order: Damage>Range>Armor/Toughness>Shields

We need a proper aggro management system. It would be helpful if I could pull a champion off of guildmates that are downed and currently getting mudholes stomped into them.

Well, part of this problem comes from (like you said) no one else holding aggro over you.
Whenever I play on my high toughness guardian my party has no problem running whatever.
(Of course, there’s still a dozen other aggro components that should remain absolutely the same)

But it’d be a nice addition to turn on/off your toughness aggro, in my opinion.

It’s a tradeoff – do you want to take the risk of playing squishy, or the risk of attracting too much attention but surviving it easier?

It shouldn’t BE a tradeoff. Toughness should make you tougher, not “more likely to die because everything wants to hit you, plus you do less DPS”

Dead DPS is worst DPS. If you gather much aggro, it means the rest of your party probably has less survivability than you do, and so you are giving them free reign to deal damage. If you have toughness and you can’t handle the aggro, I feel bad for you.

I just wish there was some BALANCE with it. Out of 5 party members, I almost ALWAYS have aggro when I’m on my Necromancer. I wear the gear I do because it gives Necro a bit of extra survival, because they lack consistent Vigor-granting. I just don’t want to be punished for wanting some survivability.