Newb here - having difficulties controlling flow of combat.

(Please just skip to the questions below, if you're one of those TL- DR folks )

As the title implies, I'm a relative newbie to GW, although, fairly experienced with MMOs - been playing 'em about 3.5 years and have racked-up time in LotRO, AoC, WAR, WoW, and Aion, during that time. Got interested in GW after hearing about GW2 and decided to give it a whirl so I'd have some understanding of lore, gameworld, and player base before jumping into the new game.

I tend to always gravitate to tank-like classes since I enjoy the look of sword n' board, rather than any real innate love of tanking - it just feels and looks right to me in a fantasy setting. In GW, I currently have a level 14 warrior, have been soloing the content using henchmen, now picking my way through the Shiverpeaks, and am mostly enjoying playing.

Bringing my pre-conceived notions from other games in general and tanking in specific, however, my one real struggle is in controlling the pacing, targeting, and flow of combat in GW. Probably better stated, is my lack of control.

After the initial pull, all hell breaks loose, and I'm running willy-nilly across the field trying to pull mobs off my squishies.

Early on, I said "hell with it," and just focused on burning mobs down as quickly as I could. That worked fine, for the most part, but seems combat is getting more both more difficult and more tactical as I progress (go figure, right?!) and, simply put, I like to exert more control over the battle than I currently seem to have. And, did I mention I HATE a wipe, 'cause then I have to go back and do the whole thing over (which, has caused more than a couple of rage-shutdowns in some of these longer missions).

Clearly, I understand this is a different sort of a game than I'm used to (I've never had to manage "pets" - if you'll excuse the phrase), and so, therefore requires a different sort of management.

***

Coming to my point, I'd mostly like to know the following:

a.) am I doing it wrong?

b.) should I just resign myself to the fact that mobs're gonna run past me to get to my squishies regardless of what I, as a "tank," do and, therefore need to get used to it?

c.) are there some strats that will better help me control the pace of combat?

d.) is there another class, perhaps, that gives you more situational "control" over PvE encounters?

Thanks in advance for reading the wall of text and look forward to your responses.

If you really want to play as a tank in GW, you need to be the only thing inside the enemy's aggro bubble until they've all targetted you, because a high-health high-armour target is way down on the AI's priority list. If there's another juicier target in range (eg caster, monk, henchman who's lower level than you), the AI will go for that instead, as you've discovered.

You will need to flag your heroes/hench out of aggro range and have a build that's designed to keep you alive during the initial damage spike while you're without backup, then unflag them so they run in and start killing stuff. You need to stand still once you unflag, as moving will break aggro, and you need your heroes/hench to not use skills that cause enemy AI scatter (ie avoid AoE DoTs such as firestorm). If you're able to pull enemies to a corner (eg use a long/flatbow from range) and stand where they can't get past you, it'll work even better.

Personally I've always found playing a caster much easier.

a) I think you're preconceived notions from other MMOs are slipping into the thought process here. There really is no 'tanking' in GW (a point which can be debated but for this purpose is irrelevant). At least in the way you are meaning. Enemy AI are attracted to low HP and Armor so if they smell that close by, then that's what they go for (ie: casters especially). So, to answer your question: yes...it's being done wrong.

b) & c) Short answer to b...NO. Short answer to c...YES. As I said before, AI goes after low HP and Armor but that's workable. Strategies for controlling aggro include pulling...body-blocking...flagging of heroes/hench...and finally all out destruction of the enemy.

Pulling: flag heroes/hench back from you a little bit and use a longbow or ranged weapon to pull them to you. Once the enemy is attacking you, unflag your allies and let them do their job.

Body-blocking: use the pulling technique except do it around a corner or using a wall. Don't allow the enemy to get around you to your allies by blocking them physically. It takes a little practice to trap them next to the wall but it does work.

Flagging: used in the previous 2 examples above. Keep them back and let them go when needed.

Destruction: Bring a combo of heroes/hench that completely destroy the enemy so quickly that it doesn't matter if they get past you.

d) Specific crowd control measures can be used by just about any profession. It's all about the skills that are used.

I suggest you play around with pulling, body-blocking, flagging. Especially when dealing with hero/hench. Once you get the hang of stuff and how skills complement each other it comes much easier.

Body blocking on corners is a great method of minimizing leakage to your squishies in the back. Try and stack enemies up on a wall or corner with you between them and your henchmen. Utilize the flag system to manage the distance between you and heroes. Another more effective way to play the warrior class with your henchmen is to be a damage dealer, or damage reducer. Tanking is only effective with Players as apposed to AI, as you can't control henchmen 100% and their skill set limits your tanking ability.

Make your bar more useable in situations where there is high pressure on your casters and you will be more successful. Warriors can deal a lot of damage to other squishies, or can run interupt builds. Warriors can also run defensive oriented builds that protect your back line and allow your midline to deal the damage.

All in all, if you like the warrior class, change the way you play so that you can handle mobs. Pull more selectively, flag henchmen back while pulling to avoid over agro, and either try to be a ganker, or defender. Tanking just isn't practical in general PVE practice unless you are running specific team builds that allow for it, and are in the correct area.

In other words: you're probably better off playing your tank as a REAL tank - heavy armor, mobility and a lot of firepower. Not a bunker

Thanks folks for all the great responses (yet another thing I like about GW is the maturity with which many seem to approach the gameplay).

So, in summary:

a.) actively use the henchmen flag in order to minimize aggro
b.) use tactical blocking when able
c.) adjust build/skillbar to emphasize DPS, interrupt, and/or defense


Another question I thought to ask is, any suggestions on optimal henchman composition?

I'm running 6-mans now and I've not been taking any other warriors with me thus far (I think the two I could possibly add are Little Thom and Stefan). I've been building what I thought was a heavy DPS group (me, heals, ranger, necro, ele, mesmer). However, in retrospect, there may not be much heft to that line-up and could be a real contributor to my problem (no wonder the melee are always at my back-line, right?).

What're thoughts on a solid generic henchman group? Two warriors, healer, ranger, necro, ele? Perhaps, three warriors? Is that too much armor?

read this to better understand aggro mechanics in gw: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Aggro

also, there really is no tank role in common gw play, especially when playing with heroes/henchmen (tanks usually only come into play in specific team builds). unless you're really set on playing a tank role, i suggest playing the warrior as gw intended: melee dps (+some utility).

You're early on in the game, which means you're up against problems that don't necessarily apply to the parts of the game that the majority of people are playing in. Eg, you only have henchmen and no heroes; you have less than max armour, health, attributes and weapons; you have a very limited skill set; you've only got access to one healer and she's terrible. All these things get better the further through the game you go, but for now you won't be able to take advantage of many of the things that make combat go faster and easier (such as having customisable and individually flaggable heroes, or a party with two healers, for example).

The biggest help you can give yourself at the moment is to make sure that you're the right level for the areas and quests you're trying to do. If the henchmen are higher level than you, you're in trouble. You'll need to go back and find some quests you've overlooked in the earlier areas if this is the case.

Next thing is to manage the number of enemies you're attacking. Make sure you're only fighting one group at a time, and that you're doing it somewhere away from other groups that might otherwise wander too close and get pulled in to the fight. If you regularly find yourself fighting two or more groups at a time, you need to work on your flagging and pulling. There's a patch outside Yak's Bend which is particularly nasty for first-timers.

You might need to wait longer than you have been doing between fights so that your henchmen go into combat with full or near-full energy bars. If you find you're surviving and fighting well against the first group you fight but you're struggling with low health and not killing things very quickly by the time you've got to the third, it's probably because you're not giving your caster hench time to recover. Warriors need to go from one fight to the next quickly to keep their adrenaline going, but that puts more of a strain on the casters.

When you're working out which henchmen to bring, bear in mind that the AI for melee isn't as good as it is for casters. You'll find Stefan and Thom are prone to charging off and aggroing enemies from several groups at once, making your life a lot harder. You don't have that many hench to choose from at the moment so you'll probably find that the lineup you're currently using is the best after all. If you do want to make changes, I'd suggest swapping the ranger out for one of the fighters rather than dropping one of the casters.

Something of great import, which I don't think anyone's mentioned yet, is to call your targets. Your henchmen will target whatever target you actively tell them to (most of the time ... there are odd and annoying exceptions).

See http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Target#Calling_targets for more information and instructions on how to do it. Some methods are preferable to others depending on what you're doing but for the most part you can get away with ctrl+click.

If you're already doing this then ignore me, but if not it will definitely help in how quickly you take down your enemies.

P.S. One of my first characters in this game was a Warrior, and I had a similar learning curve (I'm sure anyone who started playing without friends and/or a Guild went through this, too). One of the first skills you get as a Warrior is Sprint. While you practice and refine your "tanking" technique you may benefit from using it (as I did) to A: run to safety so you can res your team & avoid a wipe, B: for staying in front of your henchmen in areas with pop-ups, and C: so you can quickly run willy-nilly from mob to mob when flagging & body blocking fails.

I'm one of those people who would say there is no wrong way, but....

"Tanking" doesn't work well in GW. It is possible to do with a team of mostly humans, if the humans know to stay out of agro range, etc., but even then it's not really any better than other strats.
With Henchmen it's nearly impossible to tank properly. You can try flagging the henchies out of range while you gather up the mobs, but it's very difficult to keep them out of range, and, as you have noticed, the mobs will go after the squishies.

You will need to learn to "call" targets. Then you can send your henchies after particular targets (such as enemy healers) while you try to take on any enemy melee characters who are after your squishies.

Any damage dealing, ranged class, such as Ranger, Elementalist, or Necro. I particularly like Ranger (in Prophecies, without Heroes) because a pet can act as a body blocker.

I will also add that this control you are looking for doesn't exist. I've only heard of games allowing some way to focus or deflect aggro. There is no way to control aggro in the game if everyone is in the bubble.

With henchmen, I simply found the only thing to do was to make the battle end fast, and that always means taking out enemy healers first. Call the target (Default Ctrl+Space Bar) and let the party spike it.

Then I would look to see if the enemy has a high damage dealer like an elementalist, who might be carrying AoE. That is absolutely lethal to henchmen, since they ball up and will usually stand in it. It's commonly frustrating to solo with henchmen for this reason, you will have to really get used to flagging them around to stay out of trouble.

True tanking would mean flagging your henchmen and running ahead, allowing aggro to focus on you, and then unflag your party. You can do that to some extent, to at least take the brunt of some hexes and spells, but I wouldn't push it. Hope some of this is helpful.

"Save Yourselves!" is what you want.

That's about it, since "Watch Yourself!" has been nerfed to oblivion.

Also, the more damage you do and the less HP you have, the more likely they are to target you.

So put on a defense weapon with a damage mod, rather than a fortitude mod (unless all damage is armor ignoring degeneration hexes and conditions).