The game always goes after the warlock

eyebreaker7

I play a barbarian and my nephew is playing a warlock. He can stand a good ways behind me and do nothing while I attack and the mobs run right past me and go after him. We went into a dungeon and the mobs still went after him mostly. He is using damage and healing while I just smash face. It just seems wrong to ALWAYS go after the warlock. Is this normal because he uses healing? It makes sense to go for the healer but they run right past me even while he's just standing there doing nothing. We been testing and it's crazy.

rikitaki

Yes, healers are always higher priority target. Tanks can overthrow this to themselves by taunts and some threat bonuses - but if tank is not present, healing always steals attention of mobs.

...and it is possible that the hierarchy is defined by class, not by healing as an action. TBH I never tried.

pskitten

Can agree as a fellow SW, very easy to pull aggro.
I feel it's mostly a "threat" factor due to the HDPS a SW can conjure.

zimxero

Boss aggro is pretty manageable by tanks.. but otherwise falls to HDPS. If SW is noticing high aggro pull in normal play it is probably due to a high radius of their AoE. When I put on a 30' radius 10 seconds x 33 magnitude DoT "Path of the Blade" on an assassin it works like a magnet. Also, the first to get damage on the enemies has to have that aggro 'pulled' away from them. SW is probably the best class to move in fast and get an attack off due to their speed and range. Are you damaging enemies before the tank & other DPS?... if so, your sucking the enemies toward you. This is not always bad. Maybe you're not seeing a glitch.

sandukutupu

The warlock (I think) is identified as a healer by the game AI. I always attack the mobs healers first so they don't get a leg up on the party. When playing as my warlock without a party, I attempt to let my companions take the brunt of the attention. I attack from a great distance and should anything get nearby I use my Shift to zip away to better vantage point. Recently when I do Saving Souls in Avernus, I use those ruins to my advantage by ducking around corners to avoid death while I heal up.

Back some time ago there was some companion items (like Girdle of the Loyal Defender) had +10% Threat generation making your companion more of the target. Prior to mod 16 warlocks had a feat that place a super high threat onto the soul puppet. I don't know, if threat generation even works anymore.

micheal1979

I have a lock as well and if I am with a tank with stats capped, yes even offensive ones, aggro is no issue. If I am with higher dps than myself, aggro is also not an issue. I do tend to steal aggro from growing tanks and dps but usually due to them not having stat caps not just because I am on a warlock. My Babr, Lock, Ninja (warden ranger), and Wiz are all at the same levels of threat generation.