Guild Wars 2

Seems like if I group with npc’s or player guardian/warriors despite being underpowered in damage I seem to eventually draw aggro. Especially in the kill this big bad guy events. I see the warriors/guardians in there swinging and dodging away and at some point the boss starts chasing me around until I get far enough away that I leave the fight.

Same goes for multiple mob fights. Warriors are doing aoe damage, I start up air and the next thing I know most of the mobs are chasing after me and I end up kiting the mobs while other people do enough damage to make em forget me. I even wait a few moments before casting so that the warrior has done swung at least 2-3 times.

I want to clarify I am not saying my dps is good, just with my bad dps, how is this happening

Threat is based on more than DPS.

The 2 biggest factors are distance, and toughness. The closer you are the more threat, and the lower toughness you have the more threat.

There is also a randomization factor, fuzzing all the numbers. Also mobs will from time to time wipe their threat table and acquire new targets.

Damage dealt is on the lower end of what causes a mob to hit you.

I’m gonna be honest Quin, that sounds entirely inaccurate. Threat is based off of how threatening you are to a target. How likely that target is going to die if it lets you live as opposed to another character.
With that in mind, damage done to said target would play one of the more important roles in determining threat.

Case in point, I play a staff ele, stacked with toughness. So even though I have alot of toughness, and spend most of my time at max range from an enemy I end up pulling a ton of threat because I do a ton of damage.

Not to say that damage is the only contributor to aggro, but its certainly one of the main causes.

I’ve noticed this particularly in Arah – Forgotten path. The first boss (hunter + big dude) the big dude will come after me 10-15s into the fight and stay on me for the duration of the fight. He won’t even look at anyone else. It’s just kill the clothie at all costs, it’s rather annoying since it makes it hard to get off my longer casts.

Albrizz.5047:

I’m gonna be honest Quin, that sounds entirely inaccurate. Threat is based off of how threatening you are to a target. How likely that target is going to die if it lets you live as opposed to another character.
With that in mind, damage done to said target would play one of the more important roles in determining threat.

Case in point, I play a staff ele, stacked with toughness. So even though I have alot of toughness, and spend most of my time at max range from an enemy I end up pulling a ton of threat because I do a ton of damage.

Not to say that damage is the only contributor to aggro, but its certainly one of the main causes.

It’s exactly the way it worked in GW1, and testing has shown it’s very similar. Take off your armor and stand next to a mob, it’s gona hit you.

If you do low damage then you’re doing something very wrong.

Albrizz.5047:

I’m gonna be honest Quin, that sounds entirely inaccurate. Threat is based off of how threatening you are to a target. How likely that target is going to die if it lets you live as opposed to another character.
With that in mind, damage done to said target would play one of the more important roles in determining threat.

That’s actually more or less how it was described in a couple interviews I read a while back. I also recall them saying that certain enemies will prioritize who to attack differently. So in theory an enemy could go after people based on their health or their toughness or if they’re applying a lot of boons and so on and so forth. I’m not sure if any of that made it into the game, but it’s a nice thought.

It’s probably a good idea to stop thinking of aggro as how much ‘threat’ you’ve generated and more what you’ve done to catch the enemy’s eye … which isn’t always just damage.

If I was designing a game, I would have different aggro schemes for different monsters based on their personalities, but… if I was just doing a general “screw the PCs” aggro scheme I would not do it based on which PC was most threatening, but which PC could I kill the fastest. That would be the lowest armor, lowest health target that’s in my range. I’m not saying that’s how GW2 prioritizes aggro, but if it does, it makes a lot of sense to me. If I have multiple things hitting me, I want less things hitting me as soon as possible. Of course, there would be other factors to consider. If the heavier target hits a LOT harder, then that might be the priority. If the heavier target is a lot closer and I’m a melee only monster, maybe I prioritize range more than toughness/health.

All I know is I was fighting a champion troll with one other person yesterday and that troll locked on me and chased me around that room just about from the start, save for when I got to pop my greater elemental. Then it killed the elemental before chasing me again. Mean troll. Though, I didn’t have enough condition removers slotted or traited, otherwise I probably could have kite tanked it well enough for both of us to drop it. Troll did a ranged knockdown followed by a bleed like every 10 seconds or so. Again, mean troll.