Guild Wars 2

[QUESTION]: What stats (if any) affect aggression the most?

Supposively, the community has documented Armor and overall Toughness as a primary method for holding aggression of mobs. As such, I gave it a shot upgrading to full Knight armor instead of my standard mix of Knight and Magi equipment. After running two full paths of Sorrow’s Embrace using my new armor, I’ve noticed how much more difficult it has become to hold aggression over other players. This leads me to believe that there are stronger factors to aggression than Toughness (such as Vitality and/or Healing Power).

Using the information on the wikipedia page, I definitely hold the top two methods (closest target and dealing damage). However, switching armor sets has actually increased my damage and Toughness (methods 3 and 4). However, I seem to have lost aggression toward enemies through the change. Spending over 25g and 1,000 badges of honor, I’d really like to have some solid evidence on what exactly factors for aggression.

It would take a lot of time, effort, and above all, gold to document what armor sets statistically offer the highest potential for aggression. I hope a developer can enlighten the community on how it works.

Viralseed.9362:

It would take a lot of time, effort, and above all, gold to document what armor sets statistically offer the highest potential for aggression. I hope a developer can enlighten the community on how it works.

The devs made tanking impossible in GW2. There are no tools that help to decide how much aggro someone has and no skills directly affect aggro. The devs went even as far as giving different mobs different aggro behavior. And now you think they’ll simply TELL you how it works? Sure you thought that through?

From my experience, damage and proximity are the most important factors. Quite possible that there’s also randomness into it.

IMO the aggro mechanic is effectively a RNG. I wonder how many times i have seen big bads ignore multiple people meleeing them as fast as they can to stomp over to little ol’ me sitting out on the edge of my range pewpew-ing with autoattack.

And as long as the aggro is as it is, all fights turn into brawls where you just pick a target at random and drop a ton of hurt on him.

Well I’m hoping that’s not the case as there’s already so many things that are in favor of pure damage than any other playstyle. I always aim for a tank as my first character, hands down. I’ve had my Guardian since launch and developed in into the best tanking character that I could. But today after purchasing the remaining Knight armor pieces I needed, I watched as mobs were pulled out from in front of me and killed off my companions while I maintained 50%+ health.

I’m not asking for traditional tanking. I don’t want an aggression meter or supreme survivability against attacks. Dodging is a part of the game and it should stay as such. You see healing builds, but none are traditional. Healing builds are usually short bursts or slow regeneration. What I want to see is a build that makes sense in any dungeon run of any game: holder of aggression. If I die, it’s because I didn’t dodge, heal, or interrupted. I accept that on every run. I’ve been trying to play Guild Wars 2 actively, but I can’t be bothered knowing that my traditional character archetype is pointless against the standard full Berserker professions.

It’s certainly not pure randomness and it’s also not pure damage. Although the zerker horde will shortly tell you that your traditional character archetype is pointless, I’ve seen defensive players do a really fine job in dungeons. You just can’t hold the aggro all the time, that’s not possible and not intended.

I’m sure the Berserker horde will get on my case eventually. I already have to navigate carefully through LFG websites to avoid such a problem (which should be unnecessary). I can handle my own as a defensive build more than the GS Zerk Warrior earlier today though more experienced players will tell you he was just bad. I just look at the Guardian and see a class with massive, defensive potential but rarely could I hold aggression over the other players. I’ll have to do more experimenting if we don’t get a solid answer, but it may be possible that Toughness is not the primary stat for aggression as I did a better job with a balance mix of Toughness/Vitality/Healing Power among other stats.

Any feedback/responses are welcome here. I would like to see some attention brought up on the subject. Again, I’m not asking for the standard “absorb damage like a boss” method of tanking. Think evasion tank with some minor mitigation (Protection) and interrupts (ex. Banish).

Resurrect or heal some one in a dungeon battle and you’ll see evidence of Aggression..

That’s an indirect form of aggression that generally punishes players trying to do a friendly act. It happens, yes, but it can all be avoided if a single player capable of surviving combat holds aggression against the mob in the first place.

Well, healing draws aggro and reviving is the strongest form of healing in the game. Also, from the point of view of the enemy, it’s not a friendly act
Note that, if you want to revive someone without drawing aggro, there are ways to do that. A thief or a mesmer can cloak downed players and a guardian can shield them.

Generelly, it would be quite simplistic if mobs would attack those with the best armor. Why should they do that?
As I said, it’s not intended that one guy has the aggro all the time, because that would mean that for 4 people, defence would be irrelevant. Though if all team members know what they do, it’s possible to get close to that.

It really depends…

Nightmare Vines in TA prioritize 1200 range weapons.

Lupicus prioritizes depending on which phase. In phase 1 he’ll usually stick to 1 or 2 people he’ll target with the grub, no idea what it’s based on though. In transition grub from phase 1 to phase 2 will be on the closest target. In phase 3, if you’re downed, he’ll be on you like flies on poop. He’ll dome you, life leech you etc.

Some mobs prioritize on movement or damage etc.

It’s pretty hard to tell on most mobs, because it seems random until you go through trial and error to find out. Although armor can usually play a pretty big roll, it’s not the make or break of aggro.

From what I and some guild members and the like have observed, it really seems to depend on the specific attack being used. Shadowstep or other similar teleport attacks seem to target on the furthest enemy away (lots of people have noticed this). The boss at the end of the cliffside fractal will consistently teleport someone who is reviving into the cages, crossing from one end of the room to another and ignoring all other characters attacking him. I imagine that all attacks with certain behaviors all choose targets the same way, but it really seems to be based on specific attacks.

Viralseed.9362:

I’m sure the Berserker horde will get on my case eventually. I already have to navigate carefully through LFG websites to avoid such a problem (which should be unnecessary). I can handle my own as a defensive build more than the GS Zerk Warrior earlier today though more experienced players will tell you he was just bad. I just look at the Guardian and see a class with massive, defensive potential but rarely could I hold aggression over the other players. I’ll have to do more experimenting if we don’t get a solid answer, but it may be possible that Toughness is not the primary stat for aggression as I did a better job with a balance mix of Toughness/Vitality/Healing Power among other stats.

Any feedback/responses are welcome here. I would like to see some attention brought up on the subject. Again, I’m not asking for the standard “absorb damage like a boss” method of tanking. Think evasion tank with some minor mitigation (Protection) and interrupts (ex. Banish).

same,… as a defensive warrior using my PVT set there is no zerk player no matter how much damage they are causing that will draw aggro out of me when I equip my shield. Specially since I’m barely dodging and keeping my body close to the mob.

I run a “tanky” war in kngihts gear and some prime times I’ve noticed aggro have been….

I was doing AC path 1 with some friends (where I knew I had the highest toughness) and the final boss seemed to love me. I pretty much just kept running in a circle and he kept chasing me and kept on me for about 90% of the fight. He may have changed targets when someone started doing high dps to him, but they were able to disengage to fully heal while he just kept chasing after me.

Another was with….what’s her name…the boss of the AR mini dungeon. A couple of times it was just myself and a thief. She would focus clearly on me for everything except the shadow step (which always targets the farthest person), to the point where she would teleport across the entire area to spike him, then come running back to attack me and just leave him alone.

Oh another in fractals is more of an easter egg than anything else. During the hammer fractal whenever the cultists point, I’ve noticed that they always point at the person with the highest toughness. But I never noticed anything regarding their aggro.

Viralseed.9362:

I’m sure the Berserker horde will get on my case eventually. I already have to navigate carefully through LFG websites to avoid such a problem (which should be unnecessary). I can handle my own as a defensive build more than the GS Zerk Warrior earlier today though more experienced players will tell you he was just bad. I just look at the Guardian and see a class with massive, defensive potential but rarely could I hold aggression over the other players. I’ll have to do more experimenting if we don’t get a solid answer, but it may be possible that Toughness is not the primary stat for aggression as I did a better job with a balance mix of Toughness/Vitality/Healing Power among other stats.

Any feedback/responses are welcome here. I would like to see some attention brought up on the subject. Again, I’m not asking for the standard “absorb damage like a boss” method of tanking. Think evasion tank with some minor mitigation (Protection) and interrupts (ex. Banish).

Toughness is definitely not the key stat as people seem to be happy to spread. My own testing seemed to be completely random. And as many of us have experienced, there are times where a player can be doing nothing at all but running for their lives and still the boss or mob will stay on them, attacking them. My personal favorite is walking past a person fighting mobs in the open world, full berserker gear, not even targeting the enemy… The mob breaks off the person killing them, to attack me. I cant even begin to explain this within the confines of ABC action and XYZ stats give more threat. Well how much threat does minding your own business give? Apparently a lot.

Anet has outright said they have no interest in dedicated tanks or healers in this game and have since beta taken steps to insure that no one can ever protect, or heal you better than you can yourself. (with the exception of the downed state) And I would wager that if the community found a way to acquire or keep threat on demand, Anet would fix it quickly. You are not meant to and they don’t want you to.

Sorry to say, but you are not the first of us to come into the game wanting to “tank” and been disappointed by your options. My guardian is now a berserker