Guild Wars 2

I have noticed since I started playing this Necromancer that I always seem to pull the threat of the mobs I fight in groups the most.
I just killed a champion with 3 other people, heres how the fight went:
Example FightChampion fight began, boss jumped around to different people, eventually he stayed on me for like 40 seconds and I died. I got revived, attacked the boss One time & he turned on me. He stayed on me until I died. I got revived again, everyone else was still attacking him, and he Immediately turned on me before I did Anything and knocked me down again, and fortunately he died before I did.
This is just One of the times that the bosses and mobs decide to go to me first, In dungeons Im the first to die in a boss fight, Well over half the time, I do the mechanics correctly, I stay out of the fire, but the mobs decide to kill me first.

As it stands, I have been dying way more than anyone else in Dungeons because of this reason, which is putting me at a disadvantage because of repair bills and I have lost loot due to having to run back & not getting credit for the kill, luckily I still get the chests.

Please Fix Necromancer’s Threat Table, if a threat table even exists, if not somthing about necromancers spells are attracting mobs.
This puts Necromancers at a disadvantage in Dungeons, and gives them more repair bills than other classes.

Oh thought id point out, that i was once fighting a big boss in orr with like 40 other people, and the boss kept aggroing me alot more out of everyone else.

I have only done the lvL 30 isntance so far, but to my experiance mostly was from the floor, dead. Every fight I ended up pulling agro like a tank using taunt. I could use my dodge, wiggle around, and then just die since I dont have any defensive skills.
Every group fight in out in the world against PvE I pull agro also. Im kiting like hell out of world group “bosses”.

There must be something wrong with the way agro works.

Thank god, I thought it was just me.

Have this same problem in WvW, playing necro when I atack camp, I’m the only one who gets aggro all the time from Veteran Supervisor, even 5+ other ppl is atacking with me.

You know. I always just thought my facetank necromancer build was awesome. But I have noticed a lot of my necro friends who aren’t built for tanking do tend to maintain a lot of aggro even when they’re not doing anything.

I was running TA with a guildie the other day and the thief aggro’d some mob. The mob ran straight passed him and right to the necro without the necro even moving. It was a sight to see. Perhaps it’s got something to do with a lot of good necro builds requiring the defensive stats like Vitality and Toughness. I know Toughness along with things like proximity and weapon selection are all included in the way mobs determine aggro. So if you’re running with a group of people in berserker gear you’re more likely to have aggro over, say, a tank-spec’d guardian.

Daethz.2417:

I just killed a champion with 3 other people, heres how the fight went

And what champion was this?

If it was (for example), a risen abomination, that’s pretty much how they work: pick a target and chase it for a long time, eventually picking another one (but that “other one” has a 33% chance of being the same, if there are only 3 people nearby).

The good news is that a competent necro should be able to solo a champion abomination (it’s actually easier than doing it in a group of 3 people, because it will gain less frenzy).

MMOJumper.8504:

the thief aggro’d some mob. The mob ran straight passed him and right to the necro

I suspect the thief used a stealth skill and then broke it before you noticed it. When a player stealths, aggroed enemies will immediately pick another target, even if that target never actually attacked them.

Simpler creatures (ex., wild animals) pick their target mainly based on recent damage received and proximity (which means you can drop aggro by canceling your attack and running away, while someone else moves closer). Bosses and mini-bosses usually follow some extra rules (ex., select a new melee target every 10 seconds, or aim a ranged attack at a random distant target every 5 seconds, etc.), but I doubt there’s any class-specific logic in the AI routines.

Whenever I dungeon with my buddies I’m a huge agro magnet. No idea why, I do have better gear.

Yeah I’m noticing this in several lvl 80 events and dungeons with highly organized groups.

Since I have a tanky life force build I not only enjoy it but I often get praises of “HOLY kitten NECRO TANK!!1”. =)

Like MMOJumper said, your toughness values has influence on a mob aggroing you. So if you got higher toughness than everyone else out of your group/surroundings most mobs are more likely to attack you.
There are some exceptions. Some mobs favour the lowest Toughness target or smthg like that.

same thing for me too! maybe because my necro has high toughness?

To my knowledge, aggro pulls in this game are based off of a few things (don’t ask for source, this was november when I learned this):

1. Max HP
2. Recent damage done
3. Total damage done
4. Being a Guardian
5. Proximity when “aggro’ed”

It might also have to do with armor, but I don’t recall that. Basically, when a mob “aggros”, or decides to attack, it does so based off of those things. It will attack targets with high HP, targets who have done a lot of total damage (this decays over time, so if you did 10k damage 1 minute ago, it has little bearing anymore, recent damage being an aggro effect derives from this), how close you are to the target, and then finally Guardians have a little increased aggro-ness; meaning if all other things are similar, guardians should pull aggro.

This is why necros very often pull aggro, and why I have nearly perma-aggro in dungeons. We tend to have decent frontloaded damage with wells/marks, we almost always will have the highest HP, tied with only warriors, we can often be close range for DS/axe/dagger/well abilities, and since we have strong sustained damage, even if your thief far outclasses your frontloaded damage and proximity, the decreasing weight for that initial burst will eventually make your sustained damage out-prioritize him.

Basically speaking: if you want the closest experience to face-tanking every mob in the game, play a dagger/well necro.

My necro is build as a tank/powermancer and i’m still stealing argro like crazy….. I did troll once and I had the argro the entire fight… died like 5 times >.<

Luckily I can take it but it leaves me yelling at my guildmates to freaking do something while I cc and dodge like crazy.

Remember that you draw increased aggro with higher Toughness. Many conditionmancers run Rabid armor, which boosts Toughness, making you a much bigger priority for enemy AI. The same is also true when you run Soldier’s armor.

If you are a power build, you’re just going to end up with tons of aggro, you really can’t avoid it. High HP, close range, good damage = high priority target.

Not sure here… But it might be the conditions stacking up doing insane amounts of damage… thereby stealing aggro…

I face the same problem… Tough mobs go right for me most of the time, especially bosses and champs. In WvW and the guild supervisors its explained by the fact that noone else even hurts em except for our bleeds.
Either that or ANet really has it in for necros, like every other MMO company. Necromancers do tend to be a very low tier class, at least in the MMOs ive played at the time I played em, very weak class.

Even when I played a hybrid with crappy armor I pulled aggro like crazy…

You guys are definitely onto something. My necro is build pretty tanky, and in any dungeon I run, or even in PvE, in any sort of sustained fight the enemy or boss always ends up on me, and just wont shake.

It used to be pretty annoying, but now I find it amusing, unless there’s casters/ranged enemies. I just juggle cripple and chill and kite in circles, back and forth in lines without getting touched, and it keeps my party safe too.

I have a conditionmancer, 2k condition damage, 2k precision, 2k toughness. What gets me killed over and over is my 2k toughness. If there isn’t another player with more toughness than me, I always get focused. I end up going down a lot because I can’t handle being targeted 95% of the time.

I’m a glass cannon power necro, no defensive stats whatsoever and I’m the first one to pull aggro in dungeons. It may be because I’m just much better than pugs I play with…

i just noticed this like 10 minutes ago in a world boss event. I must have downed like 5 times in 2 minutes lololololol. it’s not a horrible problem if you know how to stay alive.. but if your skillset isn’t fit i could see you in deep water every conflict.

I m just curious if there are similar threads in the forums of other professions….

I m not saying i m not getting agroed as a necro, but after playing half classes up to certain levels it never felt like i was taking agro more often on my necro than on other professions and i dont recall any guildmate necro saying otherwise.

I m not sure how agro excactly works but i ve heard that AoE dmg, ST and AoE healing/regeneration, current hp (not max hp), perhaps lvl and what others mentioned before all count somehow to determine which player is targeted.

I think that best thing to do when u get unintended agro is to go behind your group and ease up on your dps a little bit. This seemed enough to save me most of the times.

Fact is a group has to work in tandem in order for everyone to stay alive and since the way agro works in this game is different than other MMOs it takes some time to get used to

Enferian.2705:

I m not saying i m not getting agroed as a necro, but after playing half classes up to certain levels it never felt like i was taking agro more often on my necro than on other professions and i dont recall any guildmate necro saying otherwise.

I play together with someone I know in RL a lot, and we’ve played as necro/ele teams with both of us in either role. Generally while leveling up, the elementalist got all the aggro until some trait points went into water (for HP). I don’t have any other similar comparisons involving a necromancer, but in my experience it’s definitely not the class that gets the most aggro. Before we figured out the impact of extra health on the elementalist, often enough I attacked some mob with my necro while my ele friend just stood there, only to see the mob run off and attack the elementalist. We tend to use D/D on both classes, but it even happens when the elementalist uses a staff and is a bit away from the action.

According to the wiki, aggro is based on damage, but also on toughness. This could have an impact, since many necro builds involve toughness.

I also think it is because of conditions stack… mainly when you are attacking a camp in WvW and the mob have that boon… only conditions really do a great harm to him so it is easy for us to get aggro… I get it all the time and that kittening hammer the mob uses hits like a truck.

The champion risen abomination at the end of the Plink chain is a necro killer. Maybe it’s Zaithan ways of dealing with competition.

Retreating, not attacking, backing off, dying, etc does not reset his aggro table. He’ll be back on me as soon as he hears my footsteps. He even does his new nice ramming attack trying to hit me behind the walls when I waypoint after dying.

Not one of my other 80 is an aggro magnet like my necro is. Dungeons feels the same, but normally you can kite all the way while they cripple/dps him, but it’s my role in guild group now. Run Lola Run!

Usually because a lot of necros go full rabid gear they aggro a lot. When I used to have a zerker set I would not aggro anything. Some light classes like Elementalist and Necromancer prefer to stack toughness because it benefits conditions therefore end up pulling aggro from guardians/warriors at times, making the fight somewhat less managable if they aren’t good tanks. Rabid builds are just not good tanks unless you hybrid with some HP.

damny.9342:

According to the wiki, aggro is based on damage, but also on toughness. This could have an impact, since many necro builds involve toughness.

I cant say for sure how agro mechanics work i will just say that in the article on the wiki there is a message on top stating that the info might be outdated.

Lets assume that what is stated in the wiki is correct…
Retreating, dying etc not reseting the agro table could be true. however in these cases u stop doing damage which gives a chance to other players to “catch up” on dmg done and move above you on the agro table and thus take the agro off of you at least for some time.

Doing controled test is tricky since it would require to kill specific mobs with the same people in equivallent gear (eg all players using only exotic gear) in various specs/classes doing the same rotation in each test.
Even though i havent done any controled tests it seems to me that the agro mechanics are more complicated than simply damage and toughness and from what i hear and read from other playes perhaps different mobs value agro differently.

If you think about it, being calculated in such a simple way doesnt really make sence.

For example rabid/knight and soldier gear give the same amoutns of toughness if i m not mistaken, while rabid/knight offers more dps than soldier’s. If aggro is calcualted in such a simple way then a player with more defensive gear (soldier’s) will get agro less often than one with more offensive gear (rabid/knight) thus making the defensive gear useless in most cases.

Also sometimes it feels like there is a minimun time that a mob can agro a player. This makes sense to prevent a boss from going back and forth from player to player without ever hitting anybody.

Finally we all know that “the grass is always greener on the other side”. It might just seem like we take agro more often than others, but this might not be the case…

Sorry for the long post.

TL;DR i have no idea how agro mechanics work but i dont think they are as simple as dmg/toughness based.

As for minimum time for aggro, when peoples (we’re talking more than 10-20 here at Plinx) rally you non-stop and just spam their best attack while shouting: “Run Razdhul Run lol!” while you don’t even attack and just kite him for the whole fight (which lasts forever), something is definitely fishy. I’m even getting whispers to be the bait when event pops up.

Like I said before, business is rough for a necro in Zaithan’s territory. There can be only one!

I’m thinking of setting up my treadmill in my computer room and run at the same time as my necro, I’ll be the most fit guy in the whole gaming community

Panhauramix.2784:

As for minimum time for aggro, when peoples (we’re talking more than 10-20 here at Plinx) rally you non-stop and just spam their best attack while shouting: “Run Razdhul Run lol!” while you don’t even attack and just kite him for the whole fight (which lasts forever), something is definitely fishy. I’m even getting whispers to be the bait when event pops up.

Like I said before, business is rough for a necro in Zaithan’s territory. There can be only one!

I’m thinking of setting up my treadmill in my computer room and run at the same time as my necro, I’ll be the most fit guy in the whole gaming community

i dont know mate… it sure is strange… personally i never had such a big problem though…

Just to clarify, i said ‘minimum time’ meaning if a mob targets you it will hit you for at least X secs… i never talked about maximum time for aggro and what u describe seems to be based around that.

the treadmill idea is nice though.. i might do the same

I have noticed this too, happens a lot out in WvW when taking camps (not so noticeable when taking keeps) and I remember doing the halloween dungeon where the mad king litterally didnt attack anyone other than me until I was dead, once I was up again he resumed attacking me. Definately doesnt happen on my other characters.

was just going to make a post on necro agro, good to see one. I wear all PVT gear and at moment have 2360 AP, 1944 tough, 1894 vitality. My guild mates have been watching the silly necro agro for a while now and laughing. To give an example that we have done many many times. Attack a camp in WvW. For the initial attacks i will not even enter the camp and will not attack. 95% of the time the supervisor will run through the guild group that is attacking and run straight to me. I will have no minions up and no attacks. It has actually become quite the humor break for the guild. When questing in PvE with any guild member I will have agro 100% of the time, even from our insane warrior in dps spec. Do not have this issue on my ele or even my guardian who I want agro with

Why would we want to escape when pulling all their aggro means I can drop a bunch of wells/marks on myself, jump into DS, hit 4, and win?

Lol I always gave my husband a hard time because he is constantly being attacked.. now I am leveling a necro and I see that they are always after me There is something odd with necros and agro for sure.

Being Necro in pve is all about making guardians look useless as tanks

PVT and good life force gain is win

I second this annoying oddity: when doing TA, the Nightmare Vines, dogs, spiders, random nightmare court, etc. all immediately run to me, regardless of the rest of my group comp.

I wear light armor. I’m less squishy than the average wearer of light armor—given toughness gear being best in slot—but it’s not reasonable to expect me to be able to hold onto every single mob in the entire dungeon while running for my life.

When I die—which happens frequently, given how enticing a necromancer must be—even if it takes another 80% of the boss’s health to rez me, I am immediately assaulted again by everything in the vicinity.

ANet, you really need to look at your aggro mechanics. I don’t want to tank, I’m not geared to tank, I’m not specced to tank, it’s not fun for me to tank, and I am sick and tired of tanking every bloody mob in every bloody dungeon.

At least come up with a decent way of sharing the burden.

Actually, its really easy to deal with aggro as a necro. Its an on-going joke whenever I dungeon with people, and its something they all actually appreciate. With 0 defensive investment outside of traits (I wear rare armor, with Power/Condition Damage/Magic Find in every dungeon run I do), I very rarely am downed in dungeons. Its really easy to stack LF in dungeons, so easy, in fact, that often I find myself with full LF before my DS CD is even up. Just going into DS a lot, using siphoning wells, chill/cripple/fear to kite, and plague when it gets really nasty will keep you alive through even the craziest fights.

Yeah, try the same run in full rabid or full Soldier hehe (Because I think Toughness is a culprit here). It’s not really a “Down” problem for me though, I’m normally the group leader so I prefer having the boss on me all the time while other rez because they missed an evade. I can take a lot of punishment in soldier gear + well protection traits and regen.

Just today, I’ve almost soloed Kholer while playing with 4 new players that couldn’t dodge. For all the fight, he was on me non-stop, the only thing hitting them was the rope and spin. Of course been unable to dodge a lot (and you need to save one for the rope) means you have to take it all in the face, which gratefully we can.

I understand that’s it not for everyone though, and it’s not written in the manual that tanking privileges are granted on this class.

Normally when we try to blind date him with the troll, both need to stomp me first, then they duke it out

Im pretty sure its something to do with toughness, Just ran p3 arah today with about 200-300 more toughness than i usually do. Lupi never stopped aggroe on me until i was dead. Before i boosted toughness he didnt target me much.

gunna do it again tomorrow and see if he keeps targeting me.

Enferian.2705:

I cant say for sure how agro mechanics work i will just say that in the article on the wiki there is a message on top stating that the info might be outdated.

Maybe, but toughness contributing to aggro just fits my experience very well. I’ve played many of my characters as hybrids or tank-ish builds for soloing and the instant I switch them to glass cannon builds, they hardly get any aggro anymore in events.

If you think about it, being calculated in such a simple way doesnt really make sence.

Well, it’s probably more complicated and based on a few more things than just damage and toughness. But that doesn’t mean damage, toughness, and vitality can’t still have an observable effect.

Also sometimes it feels like there is a minimun time that a mob can agro a player. This makes sense to prevent a boss from going back and forth from player to player without ever hitting anybody.

This is different between mobs, some of them (e.g. Risen Abominations) seem to switch aggro much less often.

I love the aggro, it means that if something downs another player I can just pull it away while the rest of the players res the downed players.

Use a staff, while it is chasing you cast your staff skills in front of you. You should have no problems killing any non-ranged monster in the game with that. And since you most likely have aggro, your team mates and other players should have no problem helping you take on whatever else needs to be done.

Same happens to me, i’m the monsters puppet for about 90% of the time in dungeons. Running with rabid gear. But it’s nt bad, sure it gives me control on the survavibility of the party.

What i hate the most is the wurm boss in Twilight arbor, i can’t even come out of the cliff that they all shoot at me, really boring.

Brett.4305:

Why should game code state x class or x stat draws all aggro?

Its like no one has read what I put…

If you have a combination of high HP, high armor, are close to the mobs, and have done the most damage, how does it NOT make sense for you to get hit? Do you want the thief way at the back of the group with 15k hp and 1.5k armor to get aggro? No. Their aggro makes sense, it targets the person that is most capable of handling mobs (the person with the highest combo of defensive stats and damage), and then whoever is closest (otherwise there could be things like leashing to abuse).

The system makes sense, and it gives you plenty of ways to deal with aggro: back off in the fight, stop being the first in, only hit as many mobs as you can handle, or just realize you are likely to take aggro, and outfit yourself to handle it.

Actually i think it would make more sense if aggroe was on low hp and low defense people. Mobs and bosses can down the weaker defense players faster. But i guess anet is making the game easier for us by having them target tankier players.

Yes, it would make sense within the enemy perspective if they constantly targetted the weakest, but that would break gameplay a lot: no need for tanks, everyone plays glass cannon.

I agree with u on that bhawb. Tanky builds would be useless, unless they could pull aggroe with a skill or something.

I thought i would add to this post to keep it going as i feel it is an issue.
I farm CM alot. Paths 1 & 3. Recently i deceided to try condition build out on necro, i got full exo rabid gear with karma & token.
Previously i did this as a glass cannon mesmer and a mixed zerk/knights warrior. Never had any issues dieing other than silly mistakes.

Now onto the necro:
Practically every bandit pack im full focus of all the mobs, all rifleman only seem to exclusively use their red target attack on me. And im rushed at by thugs and other melee bandits.
I tried to keep out of range and let wars/guardians be in battle first, but it seems as soon as i begin to do attacks i am focused. Looking at health bars its only me taking dmg/getting conditions. The middle bosses on both routes seem to just tunnel me aswell. Its got to the point now that ive done the instance enough with this build to know to take both specrtal wall and armor to try keep myself alive and tanking, going condi dmg shouldnt mean i am the groups tank.

It feels like in this game making yourself tougher just means you take more dmg in a dungeon which makes no sense..

I cant see any other gear choice other than dropping condi dmg down alittle and going for rampagers. to gain power & more crit over toughness & some condi dmg.

As a final note i think the aggro behavior varies between some mobs, in fractals i dont feel am i focused at all, my high survivability is really effective there and doesnt just reward me with more incoming attacks. maybe they programmed newer ai differentl behavior?

Stack defensive stats in order to gain survivalbility…to result in more aggro and less survivability. No, it does not make sense.

The game already encourages glass cannon builds by being plagued with lame one-shot mechanics where toughness and vitality lose meaning. In places where there aren’t such mechanics, people eventually become annoyed with constantly being targetted no matter what and switch to builds that can pass the TARGETTMEEEE baton to someone else. i.e. something with less toughness like glass cannons.

Besides, the game was specifically designed with the anti-trinity approach was it not? Forcing aggro on high toughness players shoves the role of a the tank onto them regardless of their intention for gaining such stats and essentially punishes them for doing so. But due to that same no-tanks approach in game design no class can handle so much aggro and survive well, even the classes that can be built to be super tanky like necromancers and guardians.

I mean…I get the logic behind it; you have high toughness, you’ll fare better than those who don’t, so we’ll make you a priority target so you guys can have a better time fighting tough bosses. That’s fine. To a limit. Conditions ignore toughness to start with. Nor does everyone have perfect dodging skills or perma vigor, especially necromancers whose only access to vigor is…what, using Well of Power when you are affected by bleeding? I find myself pretty much forced to use Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew for increased endurance regeneration when I run dungeons with the constant aggro on me.

Had another incident today that definately proves it (to me at least).
I joined a fight at a supply camp, I only attacked the guild claimer and yet the half dead (when I joined) quartermaster ran straight to me when I joined the fight and stayed chasing me until she died. I never even hit her once.

This is a common problem? Here I thought the bosses just viewed me as a threat andas such decided to always spam their mechanics on me,