Aggro in this game...

[Freezard]

I play together with two other players (currently level 25), one is built like a tank and the rest of us are ranged magicians. Naturally we want enemies to attack the tank so that the other two can just deal damage from a safe distance but that never really happens. What happens is:

Enemies will target and chase the guy they first see. But even if we send in the tank first, for some reason they will switch target after a short while and chase one of the magicians. Once they start chasing they will never stop unless you run several screens away to reset the aggro. This just results in our tank actually chasing the enemies who are chasing one of our magicians, who has to constantly run around and slow them. Pets don't affect anything either, there's only one way for them to take aggro and that is a taunt skill, but taunt doesn't seem to exist on items.

TLDR; Are there any items or skills that help with aggro? Or is the system just really, really bad?

[Lord_WC]

Originally posted by Freezard:

TLDR; Are there any items or skills that help with aggro? Or is the system just really, really bad?

By bad you mean mobs don't keep hitting a fully armored guy in front of their faces doing (and getting hit back by him) for 10 damage, but prioritize two squishy mages who deal 1231013241234 damage into them and would die in two hits?
Yeah, in this sense the system is bad and is dumb.

If it was a honest question - tanking works in this game if you are clever enough to fight in chokepoints and block the route of the enemies there. And also, not matter how much you think glass cannon builds work in this game, they don't. No matter what you do a good 50-60% resist is something every character should aim at - it helps enormously.

[Honorable_D]

Why would you think its inherently bad rather than simply not designed to allow for dedicated "tanks"? Maybe the devs don't want you to be able to cheese the harder difficulties by having a meatshield that does no damage just sitting there facetanking while the other players get to totally ignore the resists mechanic?

Granted, resists aren't super fun but they are very important to not just the combat system but also the gearing system. With no resists built into the combat then the gearing game just becomes stacking DPS stats - which is a super no-brainer and very shallow.

All of the above said, I honestly don't know what the devs plan is for the aggro system. Two of the pets have "Taunt for X amount of seconds" in the tooltips of their abilties; does Soldier not have anything like that?

[Dialtone]

They go after the first target spotted or first person to attack their allies, then when they receive damage they'll go after the enemy that is hurting them the most. This is a good thing as it would be extremely dumb for a boss or strong monster to just stand and beat on a very strong tank that is doing very little damage while being obliterated by a powerful caster. The AI needs some intelligence, without features like this many other people would complain that the AI is stupid. It may lead to extra challenge in battles, but that's the point of an AI. Otherwise if people feel the AI shouldn't play smart then Grim Dawn may as well have enemies that just stand there and go BOO, not saying you're saying this, just saying it cuz some people may feel that way.

There are skills that will generate aggro and there are pets that also do this.

Edit: Just checked and Blade Arc does indeed have "Taunt target for X seconds", the amount of time goes up per level.

[Freezard]

I don't know if the Soldier has anything like taunt, I play the Conjurer. And it's not like I'm going full damage, I value resist and armor just as much. But as far as I know, Conjurer and Arcanist have no real defensive skills except a little healing so obviously I was thinking of going mostly damage for those classes.

Enemies not hitting tanks kinda makes sense. But does it make sense for magicians to throw their ranged spells on enemies who are standing right in their faces? And does it make sense for two players to be able to just attack 20 enemies without them ever fighting back since they're just chasing the third target for forever? Because that's how the gameplay is for the most of the time for us, and sorry but that is not smart AI, as you can see it's easily exploitable and mostly just annoying.

EDIT: Also it's close to impossible for tanks to block enemies because most enemies are lightning fast and the outdoor areas are really open so there aren't many chokepoints there. Sure we've managed to block enemies in doorways but it's not entirely reliable.

[Kotli]

Well you want to get one of the taunt items. The earliest one you can get is the level 32 ring Sentinel's Seal does an AOE taunt on block.
Other than that you want the Tank to charge into battle (so they are the first thing the mobs see) and use what ever AOE skill (IE Warcry) they got to grab mobs attention.

[Jessian Kaanneo]

that is one idea i wish crate can add sometime this year. Tank / Pet abilities to " taunt " enemies or x amount of enemies allowing squishy characters some breathing room (( Veteran and above levels)).. so fingers crossed.

[NUKINGFOOBS]

said it before, the game is about surviving being surrounded. no rhyme or reason in the AI save a few uniques : / tank / ranged aggro mechanics would do this game justice. now its just a stat show with enjoyable skull crushing

[GuNNuP]

That's the magic of these types of games, each chracter is well rounded. It's not made for the trinity that WoW has, yes there is one or two zDPS builds in diablo. But that isn't the rhyme or reason of these games. The "tanky" characters should also do enough damage to be able to beat the game themselves. Just like the glass cannons should have the survivability to beat the game themselves. The rhythem of these games are to find the middle ground so you can be the most efficient. While this game doesn't have dedicated servers, but that is still the point if you want to go through the game to end game.

These games have co-op in mind, but not the rule of other games with raid bosses or bosses in general, they want to target everything or anything.

In end game diablo 3 is one of the most skill based things to be featured in the top 1000 players. These games DO take skill late game, (if the devs made that possible) but generally speaking there is little to benefit this game by making modes that make people strive to be the best. Because who knows who is cheating or not, Loot is dropped on YOUR machine, Not on the server.

So play this game for the fun, not the competitive nature some other games have. But saying it's not skill based is rediculus.

[digital_mana]

Originally posted by bearsdenred:

that is one idea i wish crate can add sometime this year. Tank / Pet abilities to " taunt " enemies or x amount of enemies allowing squishy characters some breathing room (( Veteran and above levels)).. so fingers crossed.

There are already pet abilities, player abilities, and items that taunt mobs in the game :)

[Hextravert]

If you use Wendigo Totem, both your party and the enemies can stop chasing one another.

Originally posted by Freezard:

Enemies will target and chase the guy they first see. But even if we send in the tank first, for some reason they will switch target after a short while and chase one of the magicians. Once they start chasing they will never stop unless you run several screens away to reset the aggro. This just results in our tank actually chasing the enemies who are chasing one of our magicians, who has to constantly run around and slow them.

[m30w]

People wanting to play glass cannon characters in a regular rpg, while a 0dmg tank sits there spamming skills, lol.

[Nigerian King of Scam]

Here's how the Boss in Steps of torment is for me (Pet build)
-Enter boss area
-pets aggro the boss
-boss ignores the pets dealing 1200+ damage each strike
-boss chases summoner who didn't even cast a curse or anything
-kite around the central pillars with the boss glued to me
-pets chase him
-the only one able to hit the boss is the raven
-do this for five minutes
-boss finally dies

Now compare this to the Necromancer in Diablo II: LoD.
-Enter boss area
-Skeletons go for the boss
-start hitting him
-boss attacks the most apparent threat (skeletons and mercenary)
-necro has to do his best of avoiding any stray ranged attacks
-boss dies

I'm not saying no enemy should ever attack the summoner, but having to kite or make basically every build a tank because so many hard hitting enemies are like heat seeking missiles isn't really that great either. It hurts build viability if you absolutely must be a tank, and I think it hurts team play if every character has to follow the same formula.
Why even bother with multiplayer if everyone has to be more or less the same.

[Mr Murlocking]

Hello newbies fellows, Grim Dawn Players.

Here's some great tips if you are trying to build a "TANK" class in Grim Dawn or any games with weird aggro.

First off, there's already abilities with Taunt but when those are on cooldown you need to rely on a different strategy.

The main taunt ability is in Soldier, and it's called Blade Arc.
When this ability is on cooldown I suggest rotating skills with Control effects such as :

Terror (Terrify)
Confuse
Knockdown
Stun
Slow
Freeze
Sleep
And probably a few more that I missed.

Once you have enough CC (Crowd Control), tanking should not be an issue anymore.

[Mordeth Kai]

This game realy needs a good aggro aura.

[Mr Murlocking]

Originally posted by m30w:

People wanting to play glass cannon characters in a regular rpg, while a 0dmg tank sits there spamming skills, lol.

Rofl!