Ranger threat
There isn’t a normal “threat” system in GW2 like there is in say WoW. What an enemy attack is based on a priority system that may differ from mob to mob.
They attack things that have:
lowest health, lowest armor, most damage, closest target, ect. and those example can be inverse or take multiple things into consideration. Some mobs are just entirely random.
Long story short, you should always be prepared to be active in a fight and not expect your pet to tank everything for you, since it’s actually impossible in this game to tank effectively. Fighting mobs with a lot of health in my experience, I either end up never getting aggro, holding it the entire time, or a mixture of the 2.
The general Aggro/Threat system goes like this.
1. closest target to them
2. who is dealing damage
3. top damage dealers
4. who is using a shield / has more toughness and overall armor
Thief 80 | Elementalist 80 | Mesmer 80 | Necromancer 80 | Revenant TBA
I’ve found that using a CC such as cripple on a mob will make targets further away from them a much lower priority. It was once said by one of the devs that different mobs have different methods of prioritising targets so I don’t think there is a completely uniform method of aggro.
Realistically a ranger probably shouldn’t ever be aggroed unless melee. Unless pet DPS counts as the ranger’s aggro DPS, a ranger alone should do less damage than most other party members (because they split their damage with their pet). I’m a bit sceptical of whether or not mobs prioritise top damage dealers as much as others have claimed.