Guild Wars 2

I know me again with another question about another alt. I’m playing a Mesmer right now. gs/s/s set. I carry a lot of toughness and vitality because I mostly do solo PvE.

I usually open up on a mob with Phantasmal Berserker then Mirror Blade to start popping clones on my target. I don’t know what it is but I take agro almost every time in every situation and through the who battle. I know the clones are not the most threatening target but I thought part of that was for them to confuse the target so the mob might target them.

I’ve had situations, which I tested on purpose, where another player attacked a target while I just stand there and I pulled agro doing nothing. I do use a signit that gives me random boons ever few seconds. Could that cause mobs to target me?

There have been a lot of situations, like small groups on champions where I held off for a second to see what happened and sure enough it was all up in my face LOL Groups of 3 on a veteran, them, at least 3 clones, and sure enough I’m the one running circles.

Is toughness a primary factor? I thought it would be more DPS but no matter what I try skills wise I can’t seem to shake it. Maybe they just hate me because I’m ugly

I know this isn’t Mesmer forums but it is a question about agro in general. How can I shake this curse without losing the buffs I need to survive on my own.

While what causes agro seems to change from one mob to the next, the general consensus is that toughness is a mob attractor. Also rezzing people and using a shield seem to be high on the list.

When I first took my Ranger to Orr, he had rare armor and high toughness. Champions would take one look at him and run him down. It didn’t seem to matter who else was there and what damage they were doing. He was an agro magnet. I then put him into exotic armor and reduced the toughness, went back, and agro was greatly reduced.

The amount of health you have, as a ratio to your toughness may also be a factor. You might try changing that also to see if it affects agro.

Many people have made claims about the toughness thing but as someone who frequently runs around with 2025 toughness(3236 armor) I don’t that to be true. The toughness could be higher but the people I run around with use more offensive specs so I know I still have the highest toughness. It has never seemed like I was getting more aggro. In fact I checked with the person who was getting the most aggro and they had less toughness.

It IS possible that I don’t notice the aggro simply because I am able to take a lot of damage. It is also possible that the armor prefix is being checked rather than actual toughness value. The person in our group who typically gets most of the aggro is wearing knight’s while I have cleric’s. Knight’s does provide more toughness than cleric’s.

Then there is the time we fought Subject Alpha in CoE path 1. It decided to stick with the person with berserker for all the encounters.

In my own experience the amount of damage you deal to your enemie is the greatest magnet…about the toughness I don’t know. But you could try to swith to a different set up and see what the effect is. Let us know!

In regards to a Mesmer, its an illusions thing.
Enemies, when they spot u, often tend to just ignore your clones and phantasm and go for u anyway.

You might experiment with reducing toughness then reducing vitality and see how the mobs react to you. You didn’t say what level you were, what armor you have or trait lines. Assuming you are max level in full exotics, you can try getting greens for the experiment. They are cheap and let you try out different builds. Or if your traits give you a lot of toughness, you can see what happens when you respec.

some things I’ve noticed influence aggro:
-toughness
-burst damage
-proximity
-first to attack

then different mobs handle aggro differently. some will stick with one target (fractal’s mossman), others will switch if another target is more appealing (fractal’s Legendary Dredge Powersuit)

being a mesmer, I’ve also noticed that when a mob has aggro on you, they will attack you over your clones. it’s annoying how they always know it’s you before you even do anything, even if you’re running away.

Got this from the wiki:

— Depending on the damage and type of attack, whenever a player attacks an enemy, that player generates an amount of threat. —

Also, on the “Gaining and losing aggro”, they do mention that for neutral mobs shields and toughness is taken into account.

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

Hope this helps.

I find the greatest factor is who initiates, if someone with high burst/dps like a warrior initiates they’re gonna get threat entire time, however on my guard if i flash in and initiate i hold aggro from the burst war unless i switch to ranged.

Initiator>>>>>Proximity>>>Toughness>Damage, atleast from my experience difference between damage and toughness is basically ignorable, and that most bosses either pick a random target and stick to them(could just be that each phase picks the initiator and haven’t noticed) or pick a random target constantly through out the fight.

Tested this mostly with a good warrior buddy of mine on my guardian whenever he started combat he held aggro, told him to let me start combat. After we started doing that for the most part, he didn’t have to deal with more than the occasional cleave damage.

Fellow Mesmer here, and I’ve noticed a few things in trying to get Phantasms/Clones to be the target of an enemy.

One) Open with a Clone, then a Phantasm, then use a damaging attack. The initiator holds a LOT of aggro in most fights. Not all, but its a good general rule.
Skills: Mirror Images, Decoy, I.Defender, Phase Retreat (followed by a cancel so you don’t auto-attack).
Note: One DE in Cursed Shore with the Risen Giant basically LOCKS onto the Initiator of the fight to the point that NOTHING else matters to his aggro. Only when the Initiator of the fight dies or goes out of range will he focus on somebody else … until the initiator is revived or releases and runs back.

Two) Not all enemies react the same. “Animals” like wolves behave on the “Proximity” level more then anything else. Thus being a ranged fighter with Illusions constantly generated in melee can handle these fights rather well. Risen mobs on the other hand seem to ignore proximity once they have a target.
Skills: Scepter Auto-attack, Sword Clones, Mirror Blade, I.Defender. Deceptive Evasion also works on this, when doding backwards … just can seem that it doesn’t work when the enemy immediately swings and pops the Clone generated.

Three) Damage also sways aggro. When dealing with Clones, this means your Condition Damage and Crit Chance applies slightly to if a Clone has even a chance. For some enemies where Damage done to them is the primary means of determining who to attack, Clones aren’t going to draw much attention. For others, having a decent Condition Dmg and Crit Chance means they can keep up.
Skils: I.Zerker, I.Warlock, I.Duelist, I.Swordsman, I.Defender (Retal), I.Warden. Staff Clones, Sword Clones, and G.Sword Clones with High Precision and Condition Dmg.

Four) Toughness plays a key in aggro … but its relationship when the fact you and your Illusions SHARE that Toughness makes it strange. Toughness does mean your Clones and Phantasms have a CHANCE of being able to take a few hits, and likely WILL last a number of hits with Signet of Illusions slotted. The thing is that sometimes I’ve found it HARDER to loose aggro onto clones in a Rabid or Knight set of gear in comparison to my normal Rampager’s armor. Of course I’ve only noticed that on specific fights such as the DE Golem in Malchor’s Leap that I solo for a quick Champ kill on the Daily (and no Chest dropping DE is up) and I know his aggro methods aren’t the norm.
Other times combined with Proximity, Knight’s and Scepter vs. Wolves for example, I won’t even be blinked at by the enemies I kill as Clones and Phantasms constantly spawn in melee, while I’m sitting comfortable at range from the pack of wolves and the Veteran wolf.
Note: Having NO Toughness can also cause the enemy to ignore you quite often as well. It can be common to initiate a fight, see the enemy run at you, only to suddenly swerve and attack a NEARBY player with HIGH TOUGHNESS because that enemy relies on Proximity and Toughness over anything else.

Five) Healing seems to also pull aggro, again dependent on the enemy for the degree. Strangely the AoE Regeneration given by Phantasms when traited 15 in Inspiration seems to help draw the attention of enemies. Go figure.

That said, the one Phantasm that Draws aggro the most I’ve ever seen during a fight is the Phantasmal Defender. That discounts say opening blows with a I.Duelist or other high damage Phantasm, of course. Between Proximity, Multi-activation Retaliation Damage, AoE Regeneration, and the fact enemies seem to react to him holding a shield as a player holding a shield … its kinda common for him to draw aggro from anybody when I use him … if he survives long enough even with the Signet of Illusions equipped.