Guild Wars 2

Anyone else feels like having a warrior in a group makes him a Tank instantly.

We always run with a warrior and he has the mobs on him 95% of the time. When hes not there, all the mobs run randomly towards party members. Is this normal?

The second most “aggroed” class Ive seen is the Guardian.

Aggro isn’t random, but it’s not as predictable as in some other games, and there aren’t high threat moves you can use either. So you can’t have someone easily “tank” all types of mobs in all situations, but some professions and specs can definitely do it more reliably than others.

Have a look at the wiki entry on this:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

The reason your warrior seems to have the mobs on him much more than other professions is probably just that he’s able to gather mobs up and do a lot of constant melee damage to them all. Helps if he’s using a shield too apparently – according to the wiki, which itself is based off Anet interviews.

On the other hand a ranged player doing the same amount of damage would have a harder time holding aggro.

Aggro’s random in this game from what I’ve been told, or at least it’s based on who’s doing the most damage. People claim it’s because logically an AI will go for the one attacking them the most, but when most AI have trouble moving from point A to point B without getting lost or dying I’m willing to bet it’s just random.

From what I have been told (and it appeear that way to me too)
(1) its based on hits per second (not damage)
(2) The mob will move to who ever it hitting the mob, if the closest is a melee class, then it does not move but just keeps hitting that guy instead
(3) Using a shield means they have 2 choices to hit, they seem to like hitting shield more
(4) If the mob has more then one player in range, if one player is less then 25%, it will switch to ‘finish’
(5) reviving a char REALLY annoys them and they go for that player doing the revive first (if in range)

This would explain why warrior or guardians keep aggro.

Hadn’t seen that wiki article before, but sure explained why I tend to be an aggro magnet – engineer with lots of aoe damage (grenadier), shield, kiting using CC to avoid attacks (cripple, chill) and reviving when possible.

our warrior started using a shield BECAUSE he was tanking all the time. All the points seem valid but wonder if theres anything else.

I agree with the fifth thing Najur said, that reviving a charr really sends them into a flurry. I was helping a guildie with the Claw Island but he gets swamped by Risen. While NPCs were fighting them I figured I’d just res him to continue. Even when I don’t try to attack the risen, even when I stand there for a second, the moment I start to res my guildie (a charr) they dropped everything and beelined for me. Something about Atheist demon cats really makes enemies unhappy.

Interesting stuff. I’ve seen parties asking for guardians and warriors for dungeon runs, and one guy even asked for a tank. I think they still exist, if to a lesser extent.

I just hope that it doesn’t get to the point that everyone assumes you should try to tank as a warrior. See, I like the warrior class, but hate tanking /shrug.

I did see a guy being mercilessly chased by an NPC in WvW. He was doing some sort of AoE damage and kiting it, but the mob was right on him the whole time he ran around. Everybody else was trying to do enough damage to the mob to kill it, but this guy really got its attention. Was kinda funny the way the NPC was single-minded in its pursuit of this guy.

I’ve never had a problem losing aggro by gaining a little distance and halt attacking for a moment. Just don’t rez the demon cats til your far away

Aggro often but not always favors based on range.
It can also favor based on damage and a priority list of professions (which changes spawn to spawn, monster to monster).

Are you a mostly ranged group but for the warriors? Are they glass cannons that do -too much- damage?
- Both of these could lead to them having too much aggro.

@ Aramanth – he meant ’’char’’ as in character, not a Charr.

Natjur.4017:

From what I have been told (and it appeear that way to me too)
(1) its based on hits per second (not damage)
(2) The mob will move to who ever it hitting the mob, if the closest is a melee class, then it does not move but just keeps hitting that guy instead
(3) Using a shield means they have 2 choices to hit, they seem to like hitting shield more
(4) If the mob has more then one player in range, if one player is less then 25%, it will switch to ‘finish’
(5) reviving a char REALLY annoys them and they go for that player doing the revive first (if in range)

This would explain why warrior or guardians keep aggro.

The list on the wiki cited above is much much more accurate than this one.

Which would explain how an Ele can constantly draw aggro for outdamaging warriors and guardians that try to tank the same mob.

As far as the OP is concerned, do all your members target the same mob when they run randomly at you or do you all just fight everything in sight making it random to begin with? If you all target the same mob and one person is closer than the rest to the adds they should be the one that ends up targeted not some random assortment.

The primary source of aggro is proximity, then other sources comes into account. I “tank” the effigy fairly often when doing 1 of the CoF bosses.