Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

Been playing GW2 since first beta and I have yet to fully understand how aggro works on mobs/bosses. Take lastnight for instance. Went into CoE Path 2 with guildies on my Engineer (Main Character). Every boss and I mean every boss litterally locked onto me and constantly attacked me whilst seemingly ignoring the rest. I couldn’t understand why.

So asked in party what everyones attack power was. Now I have gone with a Power/Crit build splitting the stats nearly 50/50. Dont have a high Condition Damage/Duration stat. Everyone in party stated there power and I had 3rd Highest. So we guessed that it wasn’t down to power.

Then a guildie mentioned that they had heard about Toughness. So we looked at those stats and I had the lowest at 1095. So it wasn’t that. Then we looked at Vitality. I had 1114 Vitality giving me roughly 18k health. Again I was towards the bottom of the pile.

So I am wondering if any of you know why I seem to gain aggro so much. I generally tend to use a Grenade build when in dungeons switching between Flamethrower/Bomb/Rocket launcher kits as each fight demands.

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

Check the wiki for aggro mechanisms.

That said, sometimes it is just plain random luck and the boss will focus on you until you are dead.

I run an Engie main and rarely pull aggro, but there are those times that the boss just likes what I’m wearing that day and won’t leave me alone until he pimp slaps me down and takes my stuff.

Generally, the person with the highest toughness will draw more aggro.

The toughness = aggro thing was unfounded speculation by some guy with a questionable grasp on the game’s mechanics, but who got a lot of attention because he made a lot of videos. Aggro is for the most part random and/or determined from boss to boss, so there’s no way to consistently control who aggroes onto you. If you were being targeted a lot in CoE (Alpha actually pretty much targets everyone all the time) then it is likely you had some stat or behavior that the boss was programmed to prioritize. There’s no way to really tell what said factor was without testing it systematically, though.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The toughness = aggro thing was unfounded speculation by some guy with a questionable grasp on the game’s mechanics, but who got a lot of attention because he made a lot of videos. Aggro is for the most part random and/or determined from boss to boss, so there’s no way to consistently control who aggroes onto you. If you were being targeted a lot in CoE (Alpha actually pretty much targets everyone all the time) then it is likely you had some stat or behavior that the boss was programmed to prioritize. There’s no way to really tell what said factor was without testing it systematically, though.

… and nobody has actually bothered to do the test, just lots of random speculation and hearsay.

For CoE p1 during the last fight, SA actually seems to go for whoever has does the most damage.

Khisanth.2948:

… and nobody has actually bothered to do the test, just lots of random speculation and hearsay.

For CoE p1 during the last fight, SA actually seems to go for whoever has does the most damage.

Missywink.7162:

Then a guildie mentioned that they had heard about Toughness. So we looked at those stats and I had the lowest at 1095. So it wasn’t that. Then we looked at Vitality. I had 1114 Vitality giving me roughly 18k health. Again I was towards the bottom of the pile.

Wouldn’t the fact that I had the lowest Toughness in the group go to show that the “Toughness = Aggro” theory has been Tested ? Sure it’s not a 100% test, but it does go someway to proving the theory to be false.

Thank you for all the answers everyone. Have read the wiki and to be honest I am still not sure as to why I pull all the aggro Must like Asuran Engineers I guess.

Toughness is said to be a factor in aggro mechanics, but how a boss responds to it can differ from boss to boss. Having high toughness should make you draw more aggro from most bosses. But maybe there are bosses that target players with low toughness instead?

Missywink.7162:

Khisanth.2948:

… and nobody has actually bothered to do the test, just lots of random speculation and hearsay.

For CoE p1 during the last fight, SA actually seems to go for whoever has does the most damage.

Missywink.7162:

Then a guildie mentioned that they had heard about Toughness. So we looked at those stats and I had the lowest at 1095. So it wasn’t that. Then we looked at Vitality. I had 1114 Vitality giving me roughly 18k health. Again I was towards the bottom of the pile.

Wouldn’t the fact that I had the lowest Toughness in the group go to show that the “Toughness = Aggro” theory has been Tested ? Sure it’s not a 100% test, but it does go someway to proving the theory to be false.

Thank you for all the answers everyone. Have read the wiki and to be honest I am still not sure as to why I pull all the aggro Must like Asuran Engineers I guess.

Well it shows that it doesn’t automatically mean you get all the aggro with higher toughness but it doesn’t show if it matters at all or how much. The other wrinkle in the problem is that people always talk about ‘toughness’ but the thing that matters is armor. Then there is the issue of toughness from traits versus gear versus consumables versus other sources. The final value thing might be the only thing that matters but it could also be just looking at the base values.