Guild Wars 2

That extra toughness results in extra aggro makes adding toughness for survivability a futile effort. This because the extra mob attention is likely to cancel out any survivability gained from the additional toughness.

It makes more sense for monsters to go after the guy doing the most damage, not the one being the most resilient to damage. I like to play a more defensive role, combined with a lot of support. But that’s kind of hard if you are the number one priority for monsters. At the underwater fractal I’m always the one being chased around by hundreds of baby jellyfish. They always have it in for me. Is it my attitude? My splendid outfit? My gorgeous looks? Or is it just my high toughness?

In my opinion, it should be determined by a bunch of factors.

It should really be random, with additional factors impacting the likelihood. Examples:

• “Racial enemies” (bandits, inquest, flame legion, nightmare court, sons of svanir) more likely to go after the respective race first
• Separatists more likely to go after Charr first
• Harpies more likely to go after male characters first
• Sons of Svanir, flame legion, dredge etc. could also have a thing to go after female characters more often
• I’m sure we’d be able to find some examples of creatures going after a specific class, too.
• Ascalonion ghosts (confused as they are) – completely random. Everybody’s a Charr invader to them.
• Oozes – completely random, as they have no concept of such things as gender, profession, etc.

This would allow for more tactical team play, and through their role in the team (based on the specifiy situation) maybe even give players more of a feeling of “racial identity”…

I agree with the op. DPS seems a far more reasonable agro maker than toughness.

danbuter.2314:

I agree with the op. DPS seems a far more reasonable agro maker than toughness.

In GW1 it was the person who would die first (based on health+armor) who had highest agro. Made perfect sense.

I like the fact that agro is based on toughness. The boss is distracted by me while I net and overcharge shot him to keep him distracted while the heavy dps people in my party slam his hp. As long as I can keep a little distance everything goes smoothly.

If you’re going for a defensive role and the person who does the most damage gets the most aggro, and there’s no taunts in this game. How would you get the aggro to properly defend the group?

There’s a reason more toughness = more aggro. Damage is another factor as well as being close to the enemy

Going high defense is not just about being the tank, it is also about surviving those “oh crap!” moments.