Attacks not hitting the target?

Swordbreaker

Over and over i find myself swinging my greatsword, casting with my staff, throwing a fireball or firing my crossbow and the attack simply misses. With ranged stuff the projectile goes right through them like a ghost, and with my greatsword it sounds like i hit them, sometimes even causes elemental effects cuz of my enchantment, but it deals no damage. Is this a glitch or something? Twice in the past 10 mins i've died to a boss cuz i'm about to land the last hit but my attacks do no damage and he proceeds to murder me. Am i missing out on something here? Is the combat like that crappy system from Morrowind where your skill with a weapon determines your chances of the blade actually hitting them? Or it is just lag of some sort?

Varicite

What level are the enemies you're fighting?

You have a chance to miss against enemies of a higher level than you. It's really pretty noticeable.

My issue is that while in the middle of a combat, I will be fighting an enemy and for some reason the game decides to target my Wrecking Blows or Critical Rushes on the rat directly behind the guy I'm targeting.

Never had this problem prior to the latest patch, and I've been playing for a pretty long time.

rosarose

I have had the same issue as @Varicite In the middle of a fight, suddenly the game decides that I should kill the rat behind the mob/boss i am fighting. I'ts quite annoying sometimes, but I haven't experienced missing target without hitting anything.

Molagent

ESO in beta and a while after launch had some issues with hit detection. Practically a numbers game in every sense, if the "last blow" was stronger than a possible hp pot, or regen ability on intake then you'd end up dying if you couldn't beat the targets hp in the next hit. It wasn't very common, but it happened a lot. Another thing is you really need to perfect your combat, if the crosshairs are zoomed in then you're good to go otherwise you're not. You can be up close and completely miss with ease or not even do a bit of damage while the other targets can do damage. Some mobs have weird pathing so they'll follow you for much longer than they probably should yet if you stop suddenly they'll attack do damage and run away.

The best advice I can give is record it if it happens excessively that way you can catch the errors yourself and show them. Otherwise we might as well think you're a moron who can't hit the broadside of a barn.

Cuyler

I recommend picking up the addon "combat cloud". This will give you cues as to if you've truly missed your target or if it's just lag. You can format the settings to give basic info without cluttering up your screen.

In addition the game camera in 1.6 defaults the reticle to the far right position. You may benefit from adjusting the horizontal setting so the reticle falls closer to the center of your view.

Finally in 1.6, a dead body in front of the enemy will negate your targeting, it's possible a previous enemy you killed that fell directly in front of your current enemy was blocking you from targeting. the only ways to avoid this is to move to the side to get a better line of sight and retarget or "tab target" to lock on.

MissBizz

If you're having the "hitting the rat behind the mob" issue, you can "target" an enemy, although it just helps, doesn't make the combat totally like other tab target mmo's.