Guild Wars 2

Greetings all.

I wasn’t sure if this should go here or in the Revenant area. But as it is about aggro, my Guardian, and the new Revenant I thought I would post here first and if the powers that be decide it needs to be moved, they can do so.

So, I have been playing a Guardian since release. And I have noticed that he is the aggro magnet to beat all other aggro magnets. You name it, it comes for me. MoBs that I don’t even hit but are kited near me will stop who they are chasing and come after me. Vines will come outside of event areas underground to hit me even if I am FAR outside of the event area. I honestly cannot really walk or run anywhere without drawing aggro on anything remotely near me.

I usually play with my wife and she mostly plays her Mesmer so most of the time it is usually not an issue as I keep things off of her while she melts them down and I beat on them. However it does make getting certain achievements where you are required to avoid stuff nearly impossible to acquire as I cannot avoid anything. I don’t play alts and this is my only character in the game.

Now I have been considering changing to a Revenant when Heart of Thorns releases. I was really impressed with it this past Beta weekend and the Glint Elite spirit pretty much sold me on a class change. I did not notice being such an aggro magnet while on my Revenant, but really only played him on this past Beta weekend and alternated between him and a Dragonhunter to check them both out.

So, for those who put in some more time playing the Revenant over the Beta weekends, my question is this:

Did you notice being an aggro magnet? Did things stop chasing other people to come to you? Did you pull aggro without doing any damage or doing much of anything at all just by being there? Could you shake any aggro you had on you?

Everyone’s experiences will be appreciated.

Thanks.

I’m 99% sure the aggro in GW2 is based on your armor stat. Mobs will go for the person with the highest armor stat.

So if you play a guardian in Knights or Soldiers gear, it is quite likely that you’ll pull a lot of aggro initially because of your insane armor stat.

However, this is not always true. Not all mobs function this way. Some will go after the person who has done the most damage, some will go after the person closest to said mob and some have scripted events where a mob will target a random player within a certain range.

However, most trash mobs will typically go after the person with the highest armor rating, at least initially. That is my finding at least.

Actually there are different aggro scripts.

They mentioned it before GW2 release. Some monsters will direct those in range or with ranged weapons, others those with lightest armor or heaviest. Some based on proximity or density of players and so on.

IT’s not fixed.

Most mobs follow the armor and proximity rule, the higher your armor and the closer you are to them, the greater the chances are that they will chase you relentlessly, I play a rabid warrior and I have about 3600 armor, I know your pain, but it depends on the stat combo you’ll use for the revenant and the one you’re using for your guardian.

It’s your stats. I remember shortly after launch my ranger had rare knight’s gear and was traited for high health and toughness. I went into Orr and encountered a group of people fighting a champ, including at least one melee person. I ran over and pinged him with my shortbow and he immediately took off after me, chased me down and killed me. When I came back, he dropped aggro again on the others and he and I ran around in a circle until he was killed. The same thing happened with the second champ I came across over there. I showed up and immediately got his full attention. I changed out my gear at that point to exotics and that behavior stopped.

Some things I think attract their attention. Underleveled for the area (A big one. They can see that and it’s a major aggro factor). Lower stats than the other people there (rares or greens when the other people have exotics). High toughness. Equipping a shield. High vitality.

I thought I read somewhere that equipping a shield would increase aggro as well. Not sure how you play a guardian, but that could play a factor.

If you have high toughness, that will definitely do it, though. I frequently play with someone who runs Rabid gear on their Engi and they’re always a constant aggro magnet.

Thanks for all the explanations and insight, everyone!

I guess it could be my stats. I regularly run Soldier armor (exotic). I had tried to check out the aggro system and how it worked in Guild Wars 2, but all I could find was theories. I had thought that since the Guardian was a heavy armor class and the Revenant would be as well that they might suffer the same fate.

I don’t normally run a shield as that weapon is rather sucky for a Guardian (another whole kettle of fish) but I do trait my armor for Soldiers. I will try another combination and see what that does for me. Not sure yet how I would trait a Revenant so it is something to keep in mind.

Thanks again!

Armour and specifically toughness is definitely a factor but it’s not everything. Alot of things can matter and it varies from mob to mob, as others have mentioned. Some simply go for the first target that approaches them with higher priority and don’t switch, other’s might go after whomever is at range with preference or whomever is kicking out the most DPS or simply boons.

For example, I’ve always run my Ranger in full Berzerker gear, and without fail the mid-dungeon CoE Golem boss will focus on him every single time I fight him, no exceptions. This has always been the case and I’ve never been sure quite why, especially seems it happens even if I’m in a team full of other full-on Berzerkers with both better defense stats (Warriors) or inferior defensive stats (Thieves). Stealthing doesn’t seem to help either, after the stealth ends he’ll just focus entirely on me again regardless.

Likewise though, when I used to run full Clerics gear on my Guardian, the HotW p2 end-boss would dogedly chase him down and focus on him the entire fighting, without so much as even blinking at anybody else in the party. This actually worked to my teams advantage usually though because it literally meant I could just swim around in circles (as this boss is almost entirely melee focused with his hard hitting attacks), and he would relentlessly follow me enabling the rest of my party to literally beat on him with no fear of repurcussion. It was totally impossible to switch his aggro to anyone else, everytime, without fail.

Since I’ve started playing my Guardian always in Berzerker gear however, he’s not so relentless in his pursuit of me. Don’t get me wrong, he still focuses on me more than other party members, and does still spend most of the time following me around, however, these days if a party member does a CC on him (float/sink, whatever), he will now attack that party member for a bit, before returning to chase me (whereas before, after the CC ended he would just come straight back after me when I ran full Clerics),

I’ve also noticed with Guardian, that your high reflect potency tends to be a factor that draws much mob aire too. This is something I’ve noticed while using Whirling Defense on my Ranger on occassion aswell, mind, usually if there’s no superior reflectors in the party (basically, Guards or Mesmers). In many cases, it seems the more projectiles you reflect, the more likely mobs are to focus on you. That appears to be a factor too. Just something to think about also.