Threat Management

Threat is the system by which enemies pick their targets. Much as you look out for Arcane Horrors or Blood Mages among the enemy ranks, so your enemies will first try to eliminate the biggest danger to themselves, and each enemy assesses threat individually. Managing threat enables you to control the fight, guiding the enemy to attack a strong character (your tank) instead of a frail one.

The initial threat rating when your party encounters trouble is based on class potential, so warriors will be the priority target. After that, the class threat generation applies to all subsequent actions and your characters’ threat level is determined in real time by various factors:

• Proximity accounts for up to 100 points of threat when up close, falling to 1 point at 60m distance on a linear scale (the maximum amount of threat being 1,000). This factor naturally distinguishes melee fighters over ranged attackers. If you want to give your tank an early advantage, make sure he or she piles straight into the enemy to draw them in.

• Damage is the major factor and can alter threat priorities during a fight. Warriors can maintain their high threat by inflicting plentiful damage, although tanks will always do less than damage dealers in the long run. This is why your tank needs to Taunt opponents or to use other abilities to maintain their attention.

• The amount of threat generated by damage is directly proportional to the harm inflicted on the enemy. If a companion’s attack cuts an enemy’s health bar in half, the threat that your companion poses to the enemy will rise by 50% of maximum threat (so, +500). Damage dealers can thus generate threat spikes, especially when concluding a cross-class combo. This is when they need to use whatever abilities they have to lower or transfer threat, as revealed in the table to the right.

• Items that affect threat generation (such as Ghillie Brogues) impact directly on these amounts, so keep them for your most powerful damage dealers.

• Secondary damage also builds threat, albeit slowly, so mages and warriors with support skills will accrue threat from the damage buffs they apply to the whole party.

• Against a larger enemy or boss, a change in threat priorities can be a viable tactic to keep them occupied so that the previous target can recover. “Kiting” an enemy (see Combat Strategy on the previous page) can postpone their attacks and is especially effective if the boss can be slowed by magic or other talents.

Threat-Related Abilities