How does threat work in Valiant?

Threat decides who the enemy hits. In world zone parties, incoming damage is divided by each member's share of the party's total Threat, so a high-threat tank soaks most of it. In raids it goes further: the boss splits attention based on how thoroughly the top threat holder dominates the table, so a tank who is only barely ahead lets damage splash onto everyone else.

Can a damage dealer pull aggro off the tank?

In raids, yes. Damage generates threat, so a damage dealer who goes too hard too early can climb the threat table and take hits meant for the tank. High World Sense reduces the threat your damage generates, which is the built-in answer - an aware raider paces themselves.

How do tanks build threat?

The Presence attribute grants Threat, tank talents add more, and some gear carries threat bonuses or a threat percentage multiplier. In raids, a tank's threat is heavily amplified by their role and supplemented by their damage.

Threat & Aggro

Threat decides who the enemy hits. It works differently in each mode: expedition parties divide damage by threat share, while raids run a live threat table where a tank must genuinely dominate to keep everyone else alive.

How dangerous is this enemy? (world zones)

Before an expedition fight, your Combat Score is weighed against the enemy's difficulty to grade the encounter from trivial to lethal. Against something far above your power, your character refuses the fight rather than throwing the run away.

Threat share in expedition parties

When you fight as a formation, the enemy's damage is divided across the party by threat:

your damage share = your Threat / the party's total Threat

A tank stacking Threat absorbs the lion's share; a low-threat healer or damage dealer is largely spared. If nobody has built threat, the damage simply splits evenly — which is why an ungeared party feels like everyone is being chewed at once.

Raid threat: dominance, not just first place

Raids are where threat becomes a real skill. The boss does not simply attack whoever is top of the table — it splits its attention based on how far ahead the leader is:

A tank who dominates the table absorbs nearly all of the boss's damage.
A tank who is barely ahead lets a large fraction splash across the raid — onto people with a fraction of their health. This is how raids die without ever seeing a mechanic.

How each role generates threat in a raid:

Role	Threat comes from
Tanks	Threat stat, heavily amplified by role, plus their damage
Damage	Their damage - reduced by their World Sense
Healers	Their healing, with a role reduction

Tip

The counterplay to pulling aggro is World Sense: the higher yours, the less threat your damage generates. Awareness is literally how a good damage dealer stays off the boss's radar. See World Sense.

Losing and re-establishing aggro

Some raid bosses wipe the threat table outright as a mechanic. When that happens, tanks must re-establish dominance while the boss roams and hits whoever it likes. Those rounds are among the deadliest in the game, and they are why off-tanks exist.

Building (or avoiding) threat

Tanks want threat. Presence grants it (+3 per point) alongside Health and Mitigation, and tank talents and threat affixes add more.
Damage and healers want their output high and their threat low. Do not gear Presence; do gear World Sense if you raid.