Guild Wars 2

This has been going on since forever so I finally decided to ask.

Anyone know why the enemy only attack me? It’s almost as if I’m the only person in the game.

Not complaining, just curious to see if it’s my stats, armor, weapons, or maybe my luck is really bad. Or my character is so hot that they all love/hate me.

No matter who I play with, whether it’s random people in events or my guild, in PvE or in a dungeon, the enemy completely ignores the other players and they chase me, and all I do is run around while everyone else kills them. I don’t mind the lesser mobs, but when it’s the champions or in a dungeon, it gets frustrating.

I’ve used different characters with different professions and it’s the same result.

My friends notice it too, so it’s not just me who sees it. We are all level 80, but it’s happened even before I hit 80 and it happens a lot especially when I play with them. It doesn’t happen as much with random players, but enough to be frustrated.

I’m flattered that the enemy loves chasing me and I like the challenge, but it gets annoying after so many times.

Does this happen to anyone else?

I think its dependent on the enemy and a number of factors. If you attack first, obviously it will target you first. Also Ive noticed with some, if you are dealing the most damage it will switch to attack you. Its situational though from my experience.

There are other factors present beyond the normal range and top threat factors. Wearing a shield seems to increase enemy hate as well as stacking toughness. It’s not well defined as you play through the game and the mystery of it all can be frustrating at times. Reviving an ally will also send you to the top of the aggro meter.

I first noticed a violation of common sense on my ranger. At level 35 upon the acquisition of rare weapons and armor mobs began ignoring my pet and making a beeline for me. I tried an experiment. I remained outside of aggro range but within range for my bow attacks. I sent in my pet but did no attack myself. The mob ignored my pet and headed straight for me. Bizarre. I had the good fortune to try 5 points in beastmastery which solved the pet tanking problem, but I’ve been aware of the mystery of aggro in this game ever since.

Ya it’s weird. Just tonight I tried an experiment. I had my friends attack first and I just laid back and attacked much later, and that’s when the boss started chasing me around.

I used my ranger for that, but even with my elementalist, I get the enemy only chasing me too.

Do you have a lot of Toughness?

I think it’d damage related whenever i play a glass cannon guard with very high damage i always seem to pull everyone onto me, its basically the whole agro deal from any other mmo,

I have a feeling its damage/stat related also.

My mesmer is the only character I have a mostly class cannon build on and while running Twilight Arbour to finish my armour set, whenever I would come across the wurm boss I would always be singled out. It would literally be to the point every run in 5-6 runs where I could hide behind the rock up top and take all the aoe focus while the other people in my party could just freely down the boss.

I noticed when my party changed the agro priorities changed also, as soon as another mesmer or elementalist joined my party (most likely to go class cannon classes) I would tend to get less focus or it would split more between me and them.

Oglaf.1074:

Do you have a lot of Toughness?

I’m not sure what a lot is since I don’t know how my toughness compares to other players. I try to balance it out. Currently it’s at 1,470 for my ranger.

Yeah I’m a Ranger, and sometimes a mob will just lock on to me, plough through everybody else, and seem intent on ripping my eyes out.

Everybody else has to follow on as l dodge and kite around trying to break agro.

Odd, I get this on my Ranger too. No other profession I play has this issue, except my Ranger.

It’s to the point that they even keep focusing on me when I’m downed. Had a group once where the mobs just wouldn’t let up on me. Ended up kiting the whole time and eventually got downed. And the mobs just piled up on me until I was dead. Was nice for the rest of the party as they had nothing to worry about, but was hell for me.

This happens pretty much all the time on my Ranger.

I find aggro to be odd in this game. There are times when I’m not targeted at all and there are times when enemies will do nothing but follow me ignoring anyone else around. It was obvious when you fought the abomination at the end of the Plinxx chain in CS. Typically 1 person had aggro the whole time and just kited while 50 others DPS’d.

Story mode is also frustrating. You might be in a mission with 5 NPC’s fighting 10 enemies. Most times the enemies will ignore the NPC’s and beeline for you.

I haven’t played my ranger yet enough (lvl 22ish) to have noticed anything different with them. However my necro when using minions seems to often get aggro even though there are 4-5 minions running around. When on my war, I’m glad they aggro me.

I just don’t get what triggers the lock on aggro. But that mechanic allows you to take advantage of the old tank and spank technique too.

Hi everyone,

In this page you will find all you need to know about aggro in GW2. Hope it helps you improve your game experience and feel a bit less targeted.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

Thanks for your understanding

I have noticed this on my Ranger as well as my Thief.

I can be standing there doing absolutely nothing (pet even in passive mode) and be attacked while other members in my party beat on mobs and not draw any attention to them.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Odd, I get this on my Ranger too. No other profession I play has this issue, except my Ranger.

It’s to the point that they even keep focusing on me when I’m downed. Had a group once where the mobs just wouldn’t let up on me. Ended up kiting the whole time and eventually got downed. And the mobs just piled up on me until I was dead. Was nice for the rest of the party as they had nothing to worry about, but was hell for me.

This happens pretty much all the time on my Ranger.

This is exactly what happened to me all last night in the dungeon. They were kicking me when I was down and weren’t attacking anyone else.

I play a GC Warrior GS and has 100 % aggro. Have no problem dealing with champ mobs event in orr map despite having 20+ people around. Yet a strange misfire hitting other players down they continue to chase me. Aspect: Appearing there is manual control for AI to change players ID target.

Some more stuffs on aggro after experimenting with it quite a bit:

1) Different mobs can have different priorities. There is no rule that works 100% of the time.

2) Most mobs lock on to a target and don’t even consider changing until that target is able to break aggro or downs. I suspect this is why people feel like they are getting aggro all the time.

2a) It is possible to get mobs to break aggro via stuns or disables or something that makes the mob think for even a moment it can’t get to its current target. I use this trick all the time with my longbow ranger. If I need to lose aggro-longbow IV.

3) There are some big exceptions to rule 2. Trying to revive someone will get many mobs to ignore their current aggro table and beeline for the person trying to revive.

4) Proximity is likely the biggest source of aggro in the game. The closer you are to a mob, the more likely it is to want to beat on you instead of someone else. This also helps my ranger as longbow IV is a knockback.

5) Some mobs make a beeline for low toughness opponents. Ironically, this is a big part of what makes bears such great tanks for rangers. Bears have the minimum toughness for a pet. Add in that bears are melee pets and hence, get to minimum proximity, and it’s pretty obvious why they are great at pulling aggro. Once there, bears have tons o’ hit points and a self heal to keep themselves alive even though they have no armor.

6) Other mobs prefer high toughness opponents. I have no idea why as this makes no tactical sense. It’s just something I’ve observed by having both a DPS and a tank warrior. There are some mobs that lock onto my tank warrior even when every other member of my party is doing more than double the damage.

7) Guardians get a bonus to pulling aggro. Melee DPS guardians might as well be walking around with “Aggro me” taped to their backs.

8) Some mobs have special conditions for aggro. The champ karka guarding the rich ori vein is a great example. That thing WILL go after anyone that tries to mine if it’s within aggro range of the ori.

9) Aggro proximity doesn’t seem to care about vertical. It’s possible to get mobs to kite a very long ways from their ‘home’ as long as that distance is mostly vertical and doesn’t include any jumps or drops, and mobs can’t jump, and they’ll give up and go home at the point where they can’t pathfind to their target. (this is by far the easiest way to break aggro in dungeons as well…if a mob beelines for you, and you are too squishy to want that, jump onto something that makes it impossible for the mob to pathfind to you)

10) The higher up on the food chain a mob is (the circles around their portrait: none-bronze-silver-gold-purple) the more likely it is to have some quirk in its aggro table. If a higher strength mob is also an ‘always there’ kinda spawn, it’s almost a certainty to have some special aggro rules. Thankfully, it’s usually pretty easy to figure out what those are and adjust accordingly.

Moderator.1462:

Hi everyone,

In this page you will find all you need to know about aggro in GW2. Hope it helps you improve your game experience and feel a bit less targeted.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

Thanks for your understanding

Thanks for your reply. A few concerns I have.

1) closest target to them
2) who is dealing damage
3) top damage dealers
4) who is using a shield / has more toughness and overall armor

• As a ranger, I was farthest away and also attacked last using my bow.
• There is a warrior in my group who I’m guessing deals more damage than me.
• I don’t use a shield.
• Not sure how everyone else’s toughness is, but mine is average I think.

As a consequence, to lose aggro, the player moves to be further from the NPC than other players or allies and ceases all attacks. A typically effective Guild Wars 2 technique to lose aggro is to roll away (dodge) from the hostile NPC. This is based on the fact that the distance travelled away from the hostile NPC by rolling is greater than the distance a player could run in the same amount of time. Lastly, a jump seems slower than a run – jumping away from the NPC will not help on a flat surface.

I did this, stopped attacking and just ran the entire time. The boss kept chasing me no matter where I went. One time, the his health resetted after I ran too far even though my party was still attacking.

The enemies pretty much attacks randomly, or they got priorites. As said, who got the most toughness, who got the most vitality, who’s far away, who’s close, who’s attacking it, who is not attacking it, who’s a Light user, who’s a Heavy user.

etc.