Who to kill first?

I've been wondering about this for a while. In pve, who do you kill first? I've mostly targeted the melee enemy (warriors and assassins) first, then ranged enemy (ele, mes, nec, rangers), and finally the healers (monks, rits). Recently I've been playing with a few people that have a serious hate for monks, they always want them dead first. It wouldn't matter if there were a couple of assassins and/or warrior in the group of enemies, they would target the monk first. When I target a melee enemy and they would overide my target by targeting the monk in the back of the group.

Any insight would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Well you usually want to take out the healers first to prevernt them from healing, then the people that do the most damage such as the Elementalists, then the assasins and warriors.

Rits and Monks should be your primary target, especially if the monk/rit of that type, or in that area is known to play resurect spells.

Yeah dude. Always take out the healers first, then the squishies and the melee characters last. Though it may seem hard to fathom when some warrior is trying to cave your skull in, trust me, it works.

The longer the healing characters stay alive, the more damage they negate.

I like to take out the most damaging people first, i.e. Wardens of the Tree, Naga Warriors, Jade Brotherhood Mages, and etc, before going for their healers. I can take those damage dealers out pretty fast even if they have a healer.

But you can take the group down even faster when the healers die out first.

In pve I normally have the warrior gain aggro as much as possible then pick off any threats which slipped through the net before going for the healers. Although this takes slightly longer it guarantees your healers wont get pve spiked by those nasty lvl 30 mobs. >.>

Yeah I agree about the healers. I've tried both ways, taking out melee guys, and taking out healers, but if you focus all your fire on the healers, which I've always done running with henchman mostly, they will die pretty fast. And then once they're out of the way, the rest of the guys die pretty fast as well. It can get messy sometimes when you try to take out the melee guys first, because it's going to take longer usually.

Well since a lot of my PvE builds involve enchantments, and nearly every mesmer and half the necs in factions seem to have enchant removal, I go for mesmers first, then necs sometimes, then monks/rits and everything else. NPC Monks/Rits rarely negate dmg fast enough for me so I don't worry about them too much most of the time. If there aren't mes/necs I might go for the ele first, in cases like the dragon moss. After casters are dead I'll kill rangers and their silly condition spread and lasty kill those silly tree trunk hammers.

You should take out the Rts first, if they have disenchantment it will reek havoc on your team. Also they are the ones who usually rez. Monks or Eles next your choice. The warriors are the easiest to dodge so I prefer to leave till after casters are all gone.

It really depends on what your characters role in a team is. If you're solo, then healers first, definately. But in a balanced team, you should know your place. For instance, an SS necro is going to want to target the melee foes first, whereas a Ranger or Mesmer can concentrate more on the healer and other spellcasters first. The tank should be trying to aggro as much as possible, while the primary damage dealer should be taking out the biggest threat.

In Cantha, I've gotten into a habit of taking out the boss mob first. They do 2x the damage, which if your not careful, can wipe your team in seconds with a good AoE/spike. In Tyria, the bosses are just simply tougher and can withstand much more damage, so take them out last.

Healers and Rits first. Then the biggest PITAs, like mesmers or spike eles. Others are taken out at leisure.

IMO:

Elementalist Bosses > 3 to 4 Oni > Monks > Rits > Mesmers > Necros > Rangers > Sins > Warriors

It takes a lot longer to take out the melee enemies when they have a monk healing them. So take out the healers and ritualists first. Just image how long you would last without healers on your team compared to with them.

The only exception I can think of are the wardens of earth.

It all depends on the situation.
If you're in a pug that is halfway organised, they'll want everyone to attack the same target. Someone will call and everyone just hammers on that target.

If you're in a more advanced team then a lot more options will open up for you.
The monks in PvE usually don't have heal party or they can't heal 2 of their allies at the same time. If your team is fighting several monsters at once then the enemy monks will get pressured and their energy drains uber fast (They can run out of energy too). They'll have to heal several things at once which for them, without an 8 skill skill bar.. is pretty much impossible.

If you have a mesmer on the team then the mesmer can sometimes shut down and/or kill the monk while the rest of the team works on the other monsters.
Rangers can work in the same way by using poison, choking gasses, interrupts, disrupts, pets etc..

Some rangers will be barragers. They want their enemies to be clumped up, close together, balled up. That way they'll be able to get the maximum out of their barrage (They can hit 6 enemies at once with arrows, that also means they can heal themselves for 30 hp every 2 seconds or so with vamp mods).
Those rangers obviously won't go for single targets, they'll go for whatever is balled up. Their build dictates their behaviour. If that is good or bad.. I'll let you decide.

When I play my warrior it's like a rock. Nothing can push me over, nothing can even damage me but when I see mesmers I'll lock onto those and make them bite the dust asap. I don't care if there's 50 monks around, I want those mesmers dead.

When I play my ranger I usually shut down whatever is pissing off the team the most. In unwaking waters for example, I'll always be focusing on kuunavang. In other areas I'll probably mess up monks or mesmers or doubledamage uberbosses.

But in most less advanced pugs where you have W/Mo with 5 /mo spells, healing monks with nothing but 10+ energy spells, rangers with pets and only pets... You're better off calling the monk, killing that one and then killing everything else. On their own, the warrior will be unable to do sufficient damage (even if he is half smiting...), the monk won't be able to keep the team up (he'll be out of energy 90% of the time) and the ranger will be messing around with dead pets.
Just go for the enemy monks, rits, mesmers etc then and hope that the warrior monsters don't kill your monks before your own warriors get there...

Tadaa: this is what Assassins are meant for...killing those healers in a few slashes...then get to the next target....

In the meanwhile, SS'ers go on warriors, Tanks..tank? , Rangers interrupt, and everyone does his job!

Off topic: Sounds great but how many assassins actually do that? =/

Rits are severely annoying, since they have 2 skills which will rez the party, even after they have died.

Kill them before they lay the spirit, or 30 seconds after the fight, you may be looking at having to redo it.

Um...me? And I try to spread the word around!


It works like a charm to me...tele in, kill, tele out, tele in, kill, tele out, pick up loot, /dancenew, /rank!!

You want to kill whoever is the bigger threat to what your team is doing first. This holds true in PvP, and in PvE. In PvE it's usualy going to be the Monks and Ritualists, which are also some of the easiest targets to drop, as they have the least armor, and their skillsets in PvE are just plain bad...

Thanks for the replies everyone.

After getting killed by an ele boss and his 2 ranger buddies in 3 hits (full 485hp), that's what I'm worried about the most. Non-boss melee enemies don't do as much damage as an ele boss, however that incident will always be in the back of my mind.

As a warrior, I try to keep as much aggro on myself. I don't know if I should run pass the warriors to kill the monk and let the casters on my team deal with the warriors and assassins.

As a SS necro, I usually arcane echo SS and cast it on the melee enemies. Then I switch to the soft target that's doing the most damage to my team and cast shivers on them.

As a ranger, mesmer, or ele, I focus the damage dealers first. Mostly ele and mesmer.

As a monk, I have no fight power. So I hit T and spacebar until someone needs healing.

Maybe I have this thing backwards, as I have been trying to prevent anyone on my team from dying over finishing off them as quick as possible.

my two cents: warriors should take the melee foes on and let the casters deal with the casters. i HATE when warriors run past all the warrior and assassin foes and head for the caster backline, leaving OUR caster backline open to warriors and assassins.

but that only really works with a well organized group/PUG. if you have an ele in your group who insists on being at the front and taking aggro first - it really doesn't much matter anymore if you try to keep warrior and assassin aggro on you.

guess it just really depends on the situation and how chaotic things are. cantha can be pretty chaotic, so any attempt to control aggro (i.e. keep warriors off your groups' casters) is difficult.