Guild Wars 2

Does anyone know if we can see other player’s conditions applied on a boss or can you only see your own?

Also is there a way to see which person has aggro? Like in other mmos there’s usually a mini character icon next to the boss during an encounter.

You see all conditions from all players on the boss. I’d prefer the opposite, to know how I’m doing, but hey, at least I get an idea of how much it’s hurting.

There is no way to see who has aggro and, outside raids, there isn’t going to be any single player the constant focus of the target — GW2 doesn’t have tanks or healers in the same way most games do, and you should assume that if you hit an enemy, it’s probably gonna hit you back some time regardless of other players being around the place.

Is there some reason you ask about aggro management, like, are you concerned about how to do fractals, or trying to understand why you keep getting attacked in the open world, or something?

BoxerBrute.9148:

Also is there a way to see which person has aggro? Like in other mmos there’s usually a mini character icon next to the boss during an encounter.

Most bosses don’t “aggro” like that. There is an icon over the character’s head for the few bosses that do.

Mostly, aggro is more dynamic and depends on the foe. Some of the factors include: proximity, character health, character DPS, who hit first, who hit most recently, toughness, some random factor, and probably a bunch of things we haven’t figured out yet.

Some bosses are deliberately foolish; they always go after who ever hit them last, so it’s trivial to maintain aggro. Other bosses are more clever — like players, they try to determine the biggest threat and neutralize them first (or the weakest link and take them out).

I don’t remember seeing any comprehensive list of bosses next to aggro mechanics; I think most skilled players just remember what works for who. (So if you have a specific question, I’m sure someone here can answer it.)

I was just curious with the aggro thing since It was pretty common in the other mmos Ive played. But that explains that, thank you.

That is relatively simple in most cases. The boss will face whoever it is attacking.

BoxerBrute.9148:

I was just curious with the aggro thing since It was pretty common in the other mmos Ive played. But that explains that, thank you.

Like the lack of the tank-healer-dps “trinity”, GW2 is much more dynamic in a bunch of ways than other MMOs. It’s valuable to question all your assumptions like these, I found when I came from WoW, because many of them don’t hold true.