Guild Wars 2

For whatever reason, I have a huge tendency to be focused in Dungeons, I’m not even a wtfomgbbq damage glass-cannon, heck, most would probably say my build sucks for damage output, I’m a prec/toughness/condi Warrior, and I use a Sword with an axe/mace/shield and a longbow on my 2nd weapon set, I sit at 20k HP and 3100 Armor and for some weird reason mobs just jump on me and ignore my group, I mean, aggroing one mob is fine, but why on earth do I get every single one’s attention?

I’ve never been able to figure out the aggro system in this game; seems every mob reacts differently. However, as far as INITIAL AGGRO goes, the bigger armor you wear, the more likely you are to get attacked. If both a Warrior and a Thief walks into aggro range of a mob, the mob WILL target the Warrior.

I agree with you; this is a problem for Warriors who aggro as easily as Guardians, but have a helluva lot harder to deal with it – even is we don’t go glass cannon we can’t tank as well as a Guardian.

I did CM exploration as the only guy in Heavy Armor yesterday; we had to have one of the guys in Light Armor to log his Warrior just to share the aggro. The initial burst from CM mobs (especially the ones who apply Poison and 25 stacks of Bleed with one attack!) was just too much to handle.

There is also a damage and proximity component to aggro, and a shield-related component aswell, so I guess being a melee heavy armor guy who dishes decent damage and uses a shield is what’s killing me, but I have almost no way to avoid it then unless I go pewpew ranged with my LB, which STILL draws aggro.

This information could be incorrect at parts as i’m not 100% sure how aggro works, but as far as i can remember from what i’ve read in the past there are different mobs that generate “threat” in different ways. Some prefer to attack the player with the highest armor, some attack the lowest. Some prefer to attack melee some prefer to attack range. I think whoever first aggros the mob/hits first also plays a part on who keeps aggro on that mob. Like i said though i’m not 100% sure

Indeed. As I said, aggro seems to vary greatly. For example, “Riflemen” in CM tend to target people in the Light armour over Medium armour, and Medium armor over Heavy.

They will also ignore anyone hitting them in melee if there are other targets available.

That’s odd, I find its whoever attacks them first will hold all the attention. But even then I find if they start going for someone else, you just get in their face mashing control skills and they’ll be back on you instantly.

I often hold aggro when I’m doing the most damage on a given boss (subjectively). Perhaps you need to do alot more damage than the other partymembers to pull aggro? Damage certainly plays a role though.

If you attack first you got alot of aggro from the get-go. As Balsco says, Proximity also seems to matter.

Healing (your party) seems to generate alot of aggro.

Not sure how (de-)buffs factor into all this but I have a feeling that it’s a relatively normal system with many variables making it difficult for one player to hold aggro indefinitely (at some point you’ll be running away to survive, so your dps drops and aggro switches).

For the records, I bet there’s some wily developers reading this and laughing their butts off because the aggro system is in fact random and we’re here theorycrafting about what makes it tick xD

Different mobs and bosses and have different aggro mechanics, but the majority of them will target the person in the dungeon with the highest toughness. The second thing that aggro is based off is proximity, the closer you are the more aggro you generate. Damage also causes aggro

The highest aggro mechanic in the game is rezzing someone.

it is possible for a glass zerker ranger etc to pull aggro off a tank but rarely happens.

Hope that helps

edit: yes healing too, ive done a shout heal in CoF brazier room and had every mob in there run to me instantly

I once had a group in TA of 3 Guardians, an elementalist and me(a Warrior), and they were all very supportive except me, the result was that I dealt as much damage as the other 4 did together and due to the fact that I stack toughness and I’m melee, the mobs only attacked me…had a bossfight where the boss didn’t touch any of them.

really highest toughness gets aggro ? when ever i roll my glass cannon warrior i always get aggro O_O i barely have any armor on me like 2.4 only

Swagger.1372:

really highest toughness gets aggro ? when ever i roll my glass cannon warrior i always get aggro O_O i barely have any armor on me like 2.4 only

As I said, initial aggro tends to favour Warriors/Guardians. I guess Toughness comes into player afterwards when damage gets dealt, or if two Warriors/Guardians aggro the same mob at the same time?

that’s just sad

While aggro clearly varies, it appears that the default aggro AI for most enemies prefers high armor targets, maybe they also favor high health or damage because warriors seem to get aggro more than guardians.

Personally my warrior takes aggro over other warriors usually. I’m not sure why. My guess is that damage potential is important, including how much total damage the AI expects from conditions. Like my warrior bleeds for 12+ seconds per stack so it probably considers that a huge threat.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve accepted it and I just expect to have aggro, and play accordingly. It actually feels good once you accept it. I’ve realized that I have a lot of control over the enemies. As long as the enemies are trying to attack me, I’m basically tanking for my team. This differs from other MMOs in that I do not want the enemies to actually land hits on me. I just want them to be going for me.

Here’s a good example of why this is good. Say I’m fighting Kohler in AC and multiple allies get pulled. I just kite him away from them with my rifle, because he always goes for me 100% of the time. Now my allies can bandage and/or res each other.

In short:
Yes, yes you are.

In long:
Different enemy have different aggro mechanics. They even often use a combination of these. There was a great threat floating around regarding theese a while ago. If you want to know more do some research.

That said the most common used are the following:
target in melee range (hello warrior)
highest armored target (3100 armor say hi)
Shield (yes i have seen enemy that usually go for the highest toughness target switch on the skimpy guardian for switching to scepter + shield)

So yeah, having read your stats it is obvious you will be the first to get bashed.
Btw from my expirience with pugs you will be first target most of the time even with as low as 2,7k armor (soldiers prefix armor alone) because almost no one runs the meatshield setup.

Well, I switched my traits from defense to tactics and stopped using a shield, now I use a warhorn, not only do mobs focus me less, my group also benefits so much more, heck, warhorn is the best defensive weapon for a warrior I guess.

Ever since I first started playing this game, I too, have been an insane aggro magnet.

Several event bosses, with 25+ other players around, have stuck to me LIKE GLUE. I can Kite, Dodge, Flee, etc, and the whole time, there are a dozen other targets furiously attacking the boss, many of which are melee, but NOPE, that mob only has eyes for lil ol me, shooting away with my rifle at range 1200.

I’m not complaining by the way, I actually find this to be quite funny, and strategically sound (or stupid on the bosses part). With two dozen players on the boss, he’s crippled/chilled/immobilized 100% of the time, trying to melee a high toughness target who can easily maintain 1200 distance and kite him in a large circle. It’s pretty much like a carrot-on-a-stick-treadmill.

The same thing happens in dungeons. In AC last run, the kool-aid troll was my best friend from start to finish, and I don’t think he made a single successful attack against me.

For the record, I run a high power/toughness build, so I hit like a truck, and take hits like a champ. I run GS/Rifle, and so when I’m getting focused by dangerous mobs in melee (read: always) I switch to rifle, and kite like a pro.

yea man… I have no idea what in the world is going on… when I play my thief, no one cares about me at all… my ranged rifle/LB warrior though… seriously… the second I enter combat, all the enemies stop attacking my group and legit go for me… it’s sad/scary to see a giant brawl in a dungeon, then I shoot someone and all the 4-5 enemies stop attacking my team and just turn around and try to kill me…

The other day I was doing story mode in Sorrow’s Embrace… and you know that fire golem out there… he wouldn’t even attack anyone until he killed me… like he would only go for me, down me, then as I was channeling, he still kept attacking ONLY me… like non-stop… my entire team was standing right next to him damaging him and he didn’t care… he was determined to kill me even in the downed state…

this wasn’t like a one-time event… it happened OVER AND OVER AND OVER…

As soon as I saw you use the word “Shield” I knew why you keep getting agro. The combination of a shield and high toughness, will mean you have a good chance of getting threat, throw high health in the mix and it happens even more.

It seams to happen when you have 20k+ Health, 3k+ armor and a shield.

Yeh thougness seems to be the trigger, i run with 3.3k armor hammer/healingshout build and the moment i enter a room everything wants me dead.

Its a good thing really, makes the job of the glasscannon’s a lot easier.

Renquist.9530:

Its a good thing really, makes the job of the glasscannon’s a lot easier.

On the other hand it sorta screws over a lot of people. “Yeah, my Thief has a hard time surviving dungeons. I’ll just add some Toughness and it’ll be OK!”

Switch “Thief” with “Mesmer” and it will be a true story involving one of my IRL friends, haha.

yeah I had 1300 toughness on my mesmer, after first dungeon run had to go swap it out for mostly zerker gear to stop getting aggro when a real tank wasn’t around