Are some pets better at holding agro than others, and if which which are best?

I haven't been able to find this info yet, maybe I just missed it.

Pets with high toughness - bears are notorious for aggro, thats where Bearbows come from.

Moas and Drakes are also tanky, and rule of thumb is:

• Bears are tanks with impairing skills - toughness: 2211
• Moas are tanks with supportive skills - toughness: 1524
• Drakes are tanks with damaging skills - toughness: 2211

Bears are excellent tanks as their family skills heal them and renders them invulnerable for a few seconds

Moas have a family skill that heals allies in an Aoe

Drakes have a family skill that apllies weakness in a PBAoE that cleaves, and is also a blast finisher

Special mentions:

• Devourers have highest aggro with 2898 toughness but are ranged pets

• Porcines also share 2211 toughness and a porcine family skill is a long knock down, making them solid candidates for soulbeast pets. Additionally, each porcine pet has a specific set of possible skills coming from their Forage (F2) skill - although the name, icon and CD is the same, the "found" skill differs from one porcine to another:

• Pigs give healing related forage skills

• Boars give CC related forage skills

• Siamoths give support related forage skills and

• Warthogs give condition related forage skills

Thank you for the info, much appreciated.

@ProtoMarcus.7649 said:Special mentions:

• Devourers have highest aggro with 2898 toughness but are ranged pets

• Porcines also share 2211 toughness and a porcine family skill is a long knock down, making them solid candidates for soulbeast pets. Additionally, each porcine pet has a specific set of possible skills coming from their Forage (F2) skill - although the name, icon and CD is the same, the "found" skill differs from one porcine to another:

• Pigs give healing related forage skills

• Boars give CC related forage skills

• Siamoths give support related forage skills and

• Warthogs give condition related forage skills

I never knew this about the porcines. Thanks for that info!

I did 100% map completion with a short bow ranger using Devourer pets. As long as you let the pet land the first attack, you're basically invisible. Flank until enemies are dead. Devourer also has that reverse tunneling escape, making it invulnerable for about 3 seconds. Enemies will chase it like candy.

You do realize, that most people leave their pets on "guard" which means the pet automatically rushes in to attack... . 99% of pve is aggro via proximity, not toughness. so if your pet is there first, it aggros. :facepalm:

@"Kitrace Starbird.1742" said:You do realize, that most people leave their pets on "guard" which means the pet automatically rushes in to attack... . 99% of pve is aggro via proximity, not toughness. so if your pet is there first, it aggros. :facepalm:

The post is about holding aggro

A pet initiating combat can gain initial aggro, but if a player attacks and has higher toughness than the pet, it'll gain the aggro.

Aggro in GW2 is not limited to proximity, there are numerous factors and toughness is one of them (in most situations)

Also even on Guard the pet only attacks if you order it with F1, or initiate the attack yourself

@"Kitrace Starbird.1742" said:99% of pve is aggro via proximity, not toughness. so if your pet is there first, it aggros. :facepalm:

That's not even remotely correct.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

Proximity does play some role but the primary weighting seems to be total armor/toughness value.

A cat will almost never be targeted by an enemy while bristleback and devourers will get focused even if they're at max range and you're melee.

It's why their "-90% damage if not targeted" system works so well because almost all good dps pets have too low of toughness to ever be focused by an enemy.