warrior + wand = more aggro?

I was reading on the aggro wiki that, "Holding a wand or staff as opposed to martial weapons such as a sword, bow, or scythe creates additional aggro".

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Aggro

Can a warrior hold a wand/staff, and would it make sense to draw the aggro while holding such a weapon to gain additional aggro?

Im having trouble holding aggro atm, playing with group of fairly new players ~ lvl 13.

Try spacing and tell your friends to not to enter the aggro till the enemies settles on you.

It would be a waste to play warrior if you are holding a wand

Warriors used wands to gain adrenaline at range in GvG before spears were added.

For additional aggro control, stand next to a wall or obstruction on a line intersecting the enemies and the rest of your party. Use body blocking.

i just meant hold a wand when the mobs first aggro me, then switch to sword/shield

I thought enemies target based on armor rating with a few exceptions

Game Mechanics have AI cast caster hexes on people with caster weapons (wands staves) and melee hate hexes on things with swords etc.

Same applies with aggro. According to the game: If you have a wand you must be a caster, if you are a caster you must have less hp and armor, thus the AI attacks you.

so does that mean if i am wielding a wand when the mobs first target me, i will be seen as a caster? even if i switch to sword/shield after they target me

They might change targets when you start bashing them with a sword, but yes, you are correct. Mobs will usually target characters with less hp and armor, and most sword/shield sets people use have +hp to them.

So wiki says that this is true, but a warrior with a wand sounds Quite odd
But... if it works

I've found adequate spacing to be enough, but if a wand works, why not.

I haven't tested this but I'm pretty sure it'll work, at least to some extent. There are a lot of circumstances where foes judge you depending on what you're wielding. Whether it's worth the bother of swapping weapons every time you aggro is another matter. I doubt it (on my part anyway, I can't even be bothered swapping off vamp/zealous most of the time).

Does this mean that you are also level 13? In which case don't bother with tanking as a warrior. The usual co-op missions and storyline missions are not designed to be 'tank and spank' as with other MMO's you might be used to. Instead, your role as warrior would be damage, some party buffs through shouts and then crowd control via knock-down or cripple.

If your party size allows it, use a protection henchman or healer henchman along with your human friends. The NPC's will do a good job of keeping you alive whilst you run around bashing things. You can worry about aggro bubbles and builds later on in the game. If your lvl 13 then just enjoy the scenery and story

yeah it seems everyone gets aggro, ill just try to do as much dmg as possible

but i will try the wand idea

If the warrior wand thing works than it would be easier getting the enemies in fowsc to ball up.

Just for the record this game has no aggro mechanism like traditional mmo's like EQ, WoW and such have - instead you can body block mobs (unlike say in WoW where they can run through you).

Trying to get agro and "tank" in GW is not as effective as it is in some other games - in more ways than one.
If you are trying to do that, make sure the rest of the team knows it. I would advise that you only try to tank with a group of Guildmates or people on Ventrilo. The average PUG is not going to assume that you are "tanking", since it's not any better than not tanking, and will just go off and kill things. This often leads to great amounts of pinging and drawing on the map and general confusion.
Also, if you try to tank in a PUG, the agro will get past you and you may end up out of range of the healers - so don't whine at the monks.

whine at the monks?

my group is bitching me out for not holding aggro b/c they keep dying, im trying to find a solution =/

You aren't supposed to keep aggro that's not how this game works at all.

As I mentioned above this game is nothing like WoW or such games.

So explain that to them.

The main thing in GW is that you have to have someone in your group that heals and one that protects.

Usually having just one healer/protector will not be enough unless you bring both monk henchmen.

As a warrior you can provide some protection with shouts like http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Watch_yourself

Again just to make it completely clear - you do not tank in GW.

As mentioned earlier, it doesn't quite work that way. Perhaps you might be overaggroing by accident? Or try pulling with a longbow if your group tends to just run up to the mobs and attack.

Aggro goes for targets easiest to kill - it looks for both armor and health. This may be the simple reason why holding a wand makes them more likely to attack your warrior - a wand generally can't have health or armor bonuses while your sword probably had a +30hp or +5al

If you absolutely have to tank with your warrior, make sure that you don't have anybody from your party in your aggro bubble when aggroing mobs until they are all set on you - they won't attack anyone from the party then unless damaged by heavy AoE that will make them scatter.