Threat is a new concept to me. How does this work.

We have not received permission from LeoTheElder to share the quoted post.

It's a number generated when you take an action so that the mob decides if to hit you or not. In some games, if the mob hits you, it goes back down too.

So if you are DPSing, imagine that for every point of damage you do, you get 1 point of threat (some call it 'hate')

And your Tank, doing less DPS than you, also has other abilities that allow them to instantly get an amount that is HIGHER than even your DPS (in some games it sets it higher than you, in other games it gives them like... let's say you do 400 DPS, their ability gives them like 6000 of this number), so the enemy continues to attack the Tank.

If the Tank stops using that ability, your number will become higher, and the mob will turn and hit you. Depending on how hard it hits you, your number will go down.

If it drops below the Tank's number again (even without them doing ANYTHING, in most games) the mob will turn back to hit the tank more.

Some games do this in easier or more difficult ways (for example, the mob doesn't turn again just from your number dropping, someone else's number which is above yours has to go up at least a TINY bit, which can make Tanking more interesting/harder in a few situations).

Hope that helps.

We have not received permission from LeoTheElder to share the quoted post.

It is generally only for mobs being engaged, but some games allow you to attack NPCs, some fight back, some do not.

One complex implementation is that if you hit NPCs in one game I know and generate threat, they move AWAY from you based on how much you have, and there's different ways to do that.

In some games it ticks down over time. In one I play it fills up two SEPARATE numbers, one which ticks down, one which only goes down when you get hit.

Games can implement it in very complex ways, but generally if you cannot HURT an NPC, they are not paying attention to your threat meter. It's not impossible though. It is a number that can be used in many creative ways by developers. Just USUALLY isn't. Just the mob you have damaged, or 'The Mob gained threat relative to me because I healed/supported someone who was damaging it'.

We have not received permission from LeoTheElder to share the quoted post.

Glad if it helped. Generally all you need to know if you are unfamiliar with it in games is to look out for gear that increases it by some percentage when you do things. The rest is testing. Generally if you want to be a traditional dungeon style tank, you won't even need that type of gear until you get to bossfights, so you'll definitely have time to ease into understanding it more.

And as a small additional point, Lineage 2 used the "threat" abilities from a tank to force the enemy player's targeting onto the tank, so the usually pve abilities were useful in pvp too. I dunno if Intrepid would try that, but it's been done before and by a game that inspired quite a few mechanics in Ashes, so there's a small chance.

We have not received permission from Songcaller to share the quoted post.

God damn weaklings