Guild Wars 2

Its very annoying indeed and happens way too often to me also. It reminds me a time when cataclysm came out there was alot of the same stuff happening. I Hope theres a fix coming soon.

Happened to me many times, a few minutes ago I got a vet shadow imp
down to half health which then became invulnerable, just had to leg it,
not much else I could do.
It seems in some situations that they’ve incorporated it into the game to
stop ranged classes from picking mobs off from places inaccessable to them
but it needs some serious reworking.
The same with underwater combat, had many mobs go invulnerable if you’re
at the wrong angle.

Hi,

(Warning, I’m going to write a bit of a wall of text about this – please read it all and accept that I am making statements based on my personal in game experience, common sense and my limited knowledge of game mechanics.)

I have been affected by a very similar issue over the last few days only!

I noticed a couple of trends that seem to affect and / or cause the issue when at certain points in the game landscape;

1, When on land: If attacking a mob from below or above – mob on raised ground and character on lower ground or the other way round.

2, Under water: When mob or character is near an obstacle or the water edge but still under water.

In both cases, one of two things (or both) happens;

1, The mob becomes invulnerable and retreats or just retreats without becoming invulnerable (not just fall back).

2, The mob gains health almost to full almost instantly.

Additionally to these, the character loses ‘focus’ on the selected mob and will attack another one if near enough. This can cause aggro to the original mob the character was fighting and lead to the rather sudden demise of said character as it receives damage from both (or all) mobs but cannot return damage to the ‘bugged’ mobs!

On thinking about the issue, I pondered on the following;

1, Is this retreat or invulnerability a game feature or a game bug?

In other games, there is a game ‘anti cheat’ feature that stops a player attacking a mob or stops the mob from getting damage – especially from ranged attacks if the mob cannot ‘path’ to the player character. When I first started to play GW2, I noticed that this ‘mechanic’ seemed to not be in play and, to be honest, I thought that this was a good thing and much more true to life than other games! After all, a ranged character would not put down a bow or stop spell casting just because a foe could not ‘path’ to them in a ‘real’ situation – the opposite would be true and the ranged character would use the technique to best advantage.

The invulnerability suggests that there is an ‘anti cheat’ feature to stop ranged attackers attacking a mob that cannot ‘path’ to them. The retreat without invulnerability suggests a bug – either in the general game or specifically in the ‘anti cheat’ feature.

So! Is this a game feature or a game bug?

2, Is this issue caused by some kind of lag (a very wide description as lag has many causes);

Simply put; lag could possibly cause the mob to loose focus on the player character as the player character seems to disappear from the game due to lag – maybe ‘client / server update’ lag.

3, Is this issue a boundary issue?

Particularly between under water and on water surface or on land, there are demonstrable boundaries;

A, Fight a water dwelling (non amphibious) mob under water then rise to the water surface – usually the water dweller will loose focus and retreat due to the water / surface boundary – this is fair enough.

B, Fight a water dwelling (non amphibious) mob from the river / lake bank – sometimes this is possible for a range character – sometimes it is not. There needs to be a clear distinction on this! Maybe a mod can post and answer this – are we allowed to ‘shoot fish in a barrel’ so to speak? Does or should the boundary apply to mobs and / or player characters and if so why can we (I) sometimes attack a non amphibious submerged mob and sometimes not?

C, Fight a water dwelling amphibious mob under water then rise to the surface or go on land. The mob will usually continue the attack regardless of the boundary and follow the player character no matter how many times they go in or out of the water! This is good except sometimes it seems that the boundary makes amphibious mobs loose focus!

An exception to fighting in or out of water – no matter the foe – gives an advantage to the foe! This is when a player character is in shallow water and unable to ‘dive’ and the game will stop the player character using any weapons – land based or water based. When this happens, more often than not (my experience), the mob will continue attacking and the player character will take damage without being able to damage the mob.

It is hardly fair of the game to punish a player character that cannot fight back because of a game mechanic but will allow a mob to continue causing damage in this case. It is especially unfair if the game uses an ‘anti cheat’ cheat mechanic to disallow players certain attacks when the other mechanic allows a mob to continue an attack though the player character cannot (because of a game mechanic) retaliate.

So, sorry for the wall of text. Those are my thoughts on this issue though. It will be interesting to see an official (dev or mod) answer regarding these issues.

Edits – mainly for spelling and a little rewording to clarify!

I have had this since day 1 and I was in the head start.

I have gotten used to it and not as common as it used to be but still rather annoying.

Paulus magintie.7432:

I have had this since day 1 and I was in the head start.

I have gotten used to it and not as common as it used to be but still rather annoying.

Yeah. it probably has been in since I started playing but it is just in the last few days I noticed it! I started a new elementalist and that is when I noticed the issues. My engineer and ranger made previously did not seem to have the issue.

Oh, well! We play on regardless.

I’ve been encountering this problem since day 1 and it has gotten really old. I just watched a veteran risen brute regenerate up to full health twice on me.

This is not a bug, every enemy has a territory a zone of influence to prevent them from going too far from their spawn. If you are having this issue all you have to do is not back up everytime you have to have to evade an attack but travel in a circle around the enemies to prevent them from leaving their spawn area.

Mira is correct. If you run too far away, the mob will reset by going invulnerable and beginning to heal. Shorten your kiting range.

actually, the above two posts are only partly true, as far as concerns the problem – The enemies are displaying a relatively normal invulnerability and quickly regen to full health function of monsters that have been pulled outside their aggro radius and are returning to spawn…

…however, sometimes they seem to be activating this behavior even when they’re still right next to their spawn location. I’ve gotten it quite a few times as a thief going into stealth – the enemy appears to lose track of me, but, as I move to backstab position, they suddenly get a speed buff, run back to their original position, and almost totally reheal in a matter of seconds

it sounds like other conditions, like being near water for some people, are also triggering the “return to spawn” condition long before the target is reaching it’s actual aggro limit.

It is a bug when the enemy goes invulnerable only a few feet from its spawn point. I don’t run into it too often on land but underwater I see it more often.

I have played since the first BWE and the past several days have been the first time my guildies and I have seen this issue become so prevalent.