Guild Wars 2

Hello!
Thanks for taking the time to read this topic.

I’m having problems with threat, in fact, A LOT of problems.

I’ve run CoF a ton of times (who hasn’t?), and I find myself having aggro on the majority of mobs more often than not (which feels remarkable considering we’re 5 members in the group). I’ve tried to look at it from an objective perspective (and not just “omg I always have aggro lol!”), and something seems a bit off with the threat mechanics.

The following scenarios occur on a common basis:

1. Aggroing more than half the mobs on the devourer gauntlet event, even when standing at the bottom of the slope, and not attacking any but the closest 3-4 devourers.
2. Getting grilled by all 3 flamethrower-mobs simultaneously.
3. Aggroing the final boss before entering the room, even after the other groupmembers have entered and begun hitting acolytes. I retain aggro throughout the fight, even after the boss has teleported to other players, he always runs back to me.
4. Ground targeted spells and direct spells cast by enemy spellcasters are more often than not aimed at me, even if I have the reflective wall up.
5. It frequently happens that I retain aggro on dynamic champion events (in the outside world) for 10 minutes or more. 10 players plus can be whacking away at the champion mob, but even so it will do everything in it’s power to chase me down.

These scenarios happen frequently regardless of me playing melee (greatsword) or ranged (scepter/focus), and does not seem to happen less frequently if I hang back for a while before entering the fight, I seem to steal aggro very quickly (2-3 strikes is usually enough).

If anyone has any clue as to how the threat mechanics work, I’d love to hear them. Gear related? Toughness? Armor? First strike?

I’d like to avoid this much attention from mobs, having to dodge, heal, weapon swap, and keep defensive abilities on constant cooldown while rallying 2-3 times per pull is not that fun in the long run.

Not sure what it is based on, but depending on my build, I seem to pull a lot more aggro. Toughness and or Vitality traits seem to turn me into an aggro magnet.

Hmm, I only have 10 points in the toughness traits, and 0 in the vitality trait. Would make sense if people with higher toughness/vitality generated more threat though.

I’m toughness/vit specced as a guardian and have no problem keeping mobs on me in dungeons such as CoF. On the final boss, I have to smack him once, and I can go on my merry way and he’ll follow me around like crazy.

I see, well as I mentioned, my problem is that I’m not that tanky (only 10 points in the toughness trait, 0 in vitality) but I’m still getting aggro like crazy, and dying a lot as a result. This is while my groupmembers remain relatively unharmed. Sure, it may be a skill issue (meaning I suck), but in the end I just run out of defensive options and dying because of it.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

“Guardians draw more aggro with less dps.”

yep threat is determined by proximity and damage dealt mainly. If you have threat just stand at max range with a ranged weapon and let it hit some other melee, if your group is all ranged well then have fun kiting.

I see. So instead of a holy trinity, Anet went with some sort of semi-tank system with that design move?

So basically what this means for me is, melee damage dealing Guardians are sub-par in GW2. I don’t even do near as much damage as my Warrior friend (who seldom has aggro whenever we play), but I still get to tank most of the mobs?

I’m going to have to either play completely at range with scepter/focus or staff to avoid aggro, or go all out tank with shield (which means I’ll generate even more threat) to survive getting aggro as much as I already do.

Lunarpac.4631:

I see. So instead of a holy trinity, Anet went with some sort of semi-tank system with that design move?

Playing primarily as a sword/sword bleed and shout warrior, it’s less like they removed the ‘holy trinity’ and instead just removed dedicated healers. I generally do group content with a friend of mine who is a guardian, and in those situations it’s impossible to pull aggro off him at all – but he finds it funny that he can easily tank basically any enemy in the game indefinitely.

Without a good guardian, enemies stick to me like glue, and it’s such that I just don’t bother doing dungeons with pickup groups. I’ve always enjoyed playing a tank role in MMOs, but against GW2 bosses, once I run out of dodges and blocks I’m dead. Add to that what appears to be an aggro table that persists through death, and suddenly dungeons aren’t fun or rewarding.

I did Honor of the Waves story mode the other day with a group consisting of a ranged thief, an elementalist and 2 rangers. At least 30% of my participation in the Huntsman fight consisted of both the huntsman and his pet beating on me while I was downed, and allies were reviving me. I’d slowly die, run back from the waypoint, and as soon as I entered the room, the Huntsman would call birds and focus on me and I’d be downed within 20 seconds again. Switch to longbow to reduce my aggro? Now I’ve still got the boss beating me in melee range (thus not helping with aggro,) except now I do less damage and have no blocks. Not long before doing that dungeon, I took down a champion giant devourer with the assistance of a ranger and elementalist, using only my longbow (because that particular mob didn’t care to come into melee range, it just spams an aoe stone throw) and never once did the thing put down an aoe field that wasn’t centered on me.

I’ve seen a lot of people talk about how you’re not supposed to be able to stand up to a boss for any real length of time – except as a guardian or warrior it seems you really have no choice, and unless you build specifically for that, you can’t.