PvE: Pulling A Mob (Is this a bug or intended?)

I always thought of pulling as more of an exploit than a skill. The idea of an army organised enough to destroy a kingdom like Ascalon being fooled by "I challenge you all to a duel, one at a time" is kind of stupid.

You want counter-intuitive, odd, and annoying? >.>

Take a party to Sanctum Cay, and weild the Sceptre of Orr. When your group aggros a mob, the aggro is redirected to you, because of the Sceptre. Now run. Fast. Whatever speed buff you have, use it to outrun the fire imps at the start.
If you run faster than them and pass them, they'll leave you alone... as long as you keep running. However, if your party is still nearby, and therefore still drawing aggro for your party... The aggro will still be directed to you. If you stop running, the monsters will actually ignore your party for the most part, and go after you.
Let's say we're talking about the 3rd group of fire imps. The first being shortly after stepping off the ship, the 2nd being in the somewhat narrow passage, and the third being out of the passage. If your party aggros them, and you're way back at the ship by Evennia, they'll still come for you.

Well, at least, I encountered this on my mesmer using Illusion of Haste and holding the Sceptre with a full party. It's been a couple patches and builds since then, so it might not be the same, but I'd try it for fun anyway.

This is a little off topic, but my question is, do pets have the same sort of intelligence? I play as a monk/range and it seems to me that my pet isn't aggressive enough in engaging enemies.

As I understand it, pets only engage upon noting aggro upon you. You can't send them in ahead, nor can you tell them not to engage.

I'm next to sure pet AI is henchmen AI. Kind of quirky but generally they will attack whatever you attack.

I think people on this thread have been dancing around the point here and that is specifically 1. that Arenanet has an anti-farming philosophy. The blind and deaf mobs from DAOC or EQ are built to farm. Heck the even respawn, blinking into existence while you are standing there.

And 2. Guild Wars was built on an idea of grouping and guilding. If the mobs didn't work together, there would be no reason for players to work together in PvE. The Grawl healers are the best example of teamwork I have ever seen in NPC monsters in an RPG. Is it realistic? Yes. Does it make it harder to farm endlessly and accrue insane amounts of gold and XP to pad your basement-dweller lifestyle? That too. There are games out there for you people. Go play them and leave us alone.

-F

Pulling, pillung a link, and attacking a large group, all still depends on your creativity on how to take the situation on. Obviously pulling in some situations would be the wiser thing to do, and sometimes it's not wise at all. It offers more challenge in my opinion, being put into different situations. If pulling was the same as it was in many others MMO's All someone would have to do to beat the game is pick off the monsters in a group one by one, I find that concept boring. Guild Wars is supposed to be team work, to tackle situations and problems in a team, using different concepts, that's why they give you roughly 150 skills from each class to use and mix and match with, for different situations.

Not everyone who enjoys the art/science of the pull is a farmer. I'd tell you where you can put your assumptions, but I think you can figure it out.

I've noticed that I can in fact get the warrior henchman (Stefan?) to run out ahead by Targetting a mob without necessarily having to engage in combat (Shift+Ctrl+Space). My pet, however, won't start attacking until a mob's actually noticed me.

Would be nice if the behavior is dependent on the temperament of the animal. A wolf might be more interested in defending its companion while a tiger is more aggressive.

Pulling is a tired old tactic that's being put out to pasture, now Cindare you say that GW doesnt allow it because it's an excuse not to right more "elegant" code. Well coming from a programmer's standpoint writing AI that only thinks for itself is much less complicated then writing AI that acts as a group. Hence why we've seen the mobs that can be pulled one by as far back as the text based MUDs. The reason that you can pull out mobs one by one is that there AI is too simplistic too realise that one of it's kin has been attacked even if it's only 10 feet away. In these games mobs generally have an awareness of a few meters, sometimes less they will aggro if you walk into this awareness range or if you attack another mob that's in it's awareness range. The mobs were too stupid to even yell something as simple as "help", it really made no sense that a humanoid seemingly intelligent creature wouldn't call his buddies for aid. It also made no sense that insects of a same colony wouldnt go to aid a companion, since they all have a hive mentality in the real world (attack one attack them all). Also in most MMOs all mobs will attack the PC even if there of differing species (even opposing species will work together to fight PCs). GW is the first MMO I've seen where mobs of opposing species (or factions) will attack one another. Such as the White Mantle attacks Summit Dwarves.

Now before you go saying I don't "get it" hear me out, I get it I played a ranger in FF XI. Yes pulling can be quite entertaining and rewarding, it was a skill to avoid the other mobs and just pull your target (especially in FF since some of the mobs had a rather large awareness zone). But also take into account that maybe you don't "get it", pulling was necessary in those other games since most of the time a single mob was a challenge for a party, in GW any one mob generally isnt gonna be that hard. Even the bosses go down hard to a good party or even a group of henchmen.

Also take into account that perhaps you and your partner are being a little narrow minded when it comes to the role of the ranger in games. Just because traditionally they have been "pullers" doesnt mean that they always need to be pullers, perhaps they can fill other roles. What that is I'm unsure of since I haven't played a ranger in GW yet.

Finally we come to the end of my long winded post, pulling is NOT impossible in GW. It's impossible in the traditional "one by one" way, but you can pull a group of six or so out of a group of thirty. For example I was working my way from Iron Mines to Copperhead Mines earlier this moring, and I came across the group of thrity or so Summet Dwarves and Ice Golems. I was able to "pull" small packs of them at a time and avoid fighting the whole batallion of dwarves which would have obviously gotten me slaughtered. So pulling is possible, just not in the same way as other MMOs. SO really you and your partner just need to broaden your perspectives of gameplay techniques and let go of the tried MMO strategies (which are really MUD strategies when you get down to it).