Agro problem - how to stay alive?

first of all no im not a tankplayer^^

but there is still one problem left i cant find a solution for, the agro
as soon as I am at a monster(I'm trying to play the assa in PvE) doing a combo EVERYTHING, and i mean everything is turning on me and shooting/casting/slashing/laughing me to death.

this is not the only problem. the other one is how to reach my victim. either port or run, thats the question.
i tried it both.

waited until my team was at the enmies, targeted the enemy(monk or ritu), death charge in. everybody turns on me and starts shooting/casting/whatever
ok, i finished my combo, port back to a ally(still have 25% of life), enemy is dead cause of the amount of blood he lost*g*
turns on shadow refugee to heal..
problem: everybody keeps on shooting/casting on me
one or two shots/lighning bolts/whatever and i am dead...

hmm, well, lets try another tactic!

sneack around with shadowstep...
shadowstep and running to the lucky enemy...
everybody turns on my sho...you know the rest
ok, i reached my victim, 50% health left, do my combo, enemy dead, port back(10% life left), turns on shad.....peng! dead...


do you have similar problems with the agro?
i mean, i really want to play an assa, but i cant see a good use for him/her in PvE...


if such a thread already exists, please dont slap me(or at least only a bit), im kinda new here^^

greetz from switzerland

Whats your secondary?

A/N has the Touch Skills which would work wonders with shadow step. Steal life while you are in the middle of the mob. Poison them. use Viper Defense.

warrior is my secondary

I do see many problems like yours, where we warp in, Unsuspecting Strike and... Get spiked, with lightning spells, mind burn, a couple of necro spikes, whatever, and drop to the group immediately. Get ressed, repeat. It's gotta do with the A.I, is all I can think.

hmm, at least im not the only one with this problems^^

i tried to fiend a solution in the defensive skills of the warrior, bonettis for example...

I tend to pve with henchies instead of pugs, so I have this very problem myself. The only thing I've found, and it only halfway works, is to use either a bow or staff to call a secondary target and send the fighter hench charging in. Once he catches agro, you can usually slip in with you daggers and hit your primary target. Now, as I said, this only halfway works, because I've noticed that, even at range, sometimes the AI enemies just ignore the rest of the party and key on me anyway.

yea, made the same experience with henches...
its almost impossible to win any fight with them, as soon as you are dead(and this happens very quickly...) they are staying there doing nothing but getting killed..

is there nobody with a solution or are we to wait for a AI patch?

Never had that happen to me. Maybe a little bit in the beginning, but usually I can retreat after droppin my combobomb and keep up my regen enough to stay alive. Are you using a combination of regen skills and run away skills?

im using a 4 attack combo
it looks like that: crytical eye -> the way of lotus -> shadowstep -> combo -> shadow refugee -> tele back cause of shadowstep -> dead

That's because the Healer henchie (I don't recall the name) sucks and doesn't heal you even when you're standing right next to it after returning from your assassination. I mean, seriously, I thought Mhenlo-the-Tank was bad, but this henchie just takes the cake.

Yeah, I've been wondering if it's an inherent problem with being an assassin leader of henchies, or if I just suck at being an assassin.

It has to do with the AI's priority system.

For example: We all know that in the first GW, the enemy AI was sexually attracted to Elementalists and (to a slightly lesser degree) Mesmers & Monks, while it all but ignored Rangers. This wasn't such a big problem though, because as a caster, you could just sneak into the battle after the AI aggroed the warriors, and then proceed to attack from a distance. But if a caster was the first to charge into a battle, or moved too deep into the thick of things after the battle began, they were toast.

In Factions, however, the AI is now sexually attracted to Assassins. The problem with this, of course, is that Assassins are not ranged character like casters are, so they can't get around the aggro priority as easily as casters.

The solution: clever usage of 3 things:
1. Shadow Stepping
2. Defensive skills (multiple!) from your Assassin and/or secondary lines
3. Monk Protection spells, either from your secondary, or from a Protection Monk.

Seriously, a Protection Monk is an Assassin's best friend.

still, its extremly unfair for people who does not have a good guild where the members help each other...

my only hope for assa is a patch from anet, if this does not come, there wont be any sense in playing a assa in pve and that would be a damn pitty!

Drizzt (moving beyond the copyright issue):

I would be glad to assist you... My assassin's name is Shadowmaster Jian.

All:

I let the tank draw aggro -- then shadow step to the enemy -- kill it.

Easy as pie. Mending also helped early on.

I have the same problem, and am very tired of it... mine seems alittle worse though, i was playing with lower lvl ppl, to test it out... my lvl 20 assasin, and some lvl 15's... but all agro was on me... (back tracked to test it) seems that when u shadow step, everything changes to attacking u (or almost everything)

Funny thing i tried, put recall on someone way in back, warrior rushs in, shaddow step into group, then recall out... i did it and all heck broke loose, they turned on me, then i was gone, some ran after me, others turned around like warrior wasnt even there any more... was rather funny....

could be a bug with that skill. For now see if you can find a bonder or protect monk to help u.

Henchies haven't really been a problem for me at all, in fact I can usually let them kill most of the mob with little interaction from me.

What you need to do is get as close as you can to the mob without aggroing it yourself, then call the closest target to you, you don't need to attack it with a bow or staff or anything, just select the closest monster to you (press C) then do Ctrl+Space. Right as you call the target, walk back so you don't start running up to the target and just let your henchies move in and start taking the aggro. After a few seconds of them fighting, i'll pop in and start cutting some enemies up, then get out. It seems to work pretty well for me anyway.

Quote: Originally Posted by angshuman