Can we talk about these "untauntable" bosses

Peekachu99

Quintus can only be taunted if the tank hits him first, including splash and aoe. This is most certainly a bug, and prior to a few months ago taunting him worked as intended.

As for the Volenfell trio, there are lots of tactics already mentioned. I prefer to keep the yelllow one pinned in the corner while red (aggro-immune) is kited. He's kinda slow and easy to run from. In the case of both on me (the tank) I can perma-block or heal (class dependent) if red randomly aggros too.

Onitenchu

I've been tanking since pc beta on this game and it's never bothered me. Only a few out of dozens and dozens are like this. Besides the skills do more than taunt. Undaunted or sword and shield are multi faceted skills. If you encounter a non tauntable boss move to assist strategy if your group can't handle it maim the boss and guard your healer. Problem solved

Onitenchu

On that boss on vet tank pulls green to far back, who ever is reds focus kites, kill either blue or red depending on how quick to react to red your team is. It's super easy like that on vet hardmode

Baconfat79

As a tank in those fights, the best thing to do is go into full-on support mode. Stalwart Guard is particularly useful here, as you can still take the damage that is aimed at your teammates. I use that in addition to following the boss around and spamming Igneous Shield to soak up as much of the damage as possible.

bellanca6561n

Glurin wrote: »

bellanca6561n wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Perhaps the general idea here is to help break up the Holy Trinity of RPGs. No more building solely for tanking, healing, and DPS, cause that boss don't care if the "tank" insulted his mama. Glass cannons will be shattered, healers will be squished, and tanks will be left to fend for themselves until they are beaten into submission.

Honestly I wish there was a little more content that punished min/max sheep like this in every other MMO.

So if you like fights that make the tank role useless, how would you feel about fights that make the healer role useless? Maybe a mechanic where during the fight no healing is possible, forcing the healer to switch entirely to DPS for that fight.

Or how about fights that make the DPS role useless? Maybe the boss has an unbreakable damage shield for the entire fight, and the only way to beat him is for the tank to drag him to places where he (and everyone else) starts taking environmental damage through the shield, so you have to out-heal the fight to win it, without actually doing any DPS.

Excellent point as always.

You can't move beyond the trinity simply by breaking it.

Maybe not, but it's a start.

Perhaps but I've had rather enough of that this week.

The trinity was created as part of the whole movement in the genre to make evident to everyone what they're meant to do. Online games were originally VERY obtuse regarding that. Each player had to puzzle out their next move without any direction whatsoever.

But I think the audience has gone beyond the need for such things. Yet, if you mean to innovate you need to begin with a fresh approach to combat systems, not simply make them work some of the time.

code65536

Some responses, clarifications, and additional bosses:

• Dwemer Centurions: When they're doing their spin-and-chase attack, they ignore taunt and go after a random player. This affect the Darkshade 1 final boss (but only during that phase; he respects taunt otherwise), the red centurion in Volenfell, and the green centurions in vDSA Stage 8. This appears to be an intended mechanic affecting any centurion doing that attack.
• Quintus in Volenfell: This is almost certainly a bug, as it didn't used to be this way, and combat addons will show that when I Pierce him, he gets the resistance debuff but not that taunt debuff. The gargoyle respects taunt just fine.
• Drodda in Direfrost: Her positioning isn't affected by taunt, but her standard ice attacks with her staff goes to whoever has taunt. This is most noticeable when you're doing this fight tankless on vet HM and suddenly notice a lot of hard hits that take away big chunks of health.
• Garron in Wayrest 1: Same as Drodda; he positions himself at will, but his attacks will go to the tank.
• Spider Daedras: Specifically, the Whisperer and the Spawn of Mephala, will shoot out a ball that does a lot of damage and knocks someone down. This attack ignores taunt (and only this attack--their other attacks and their positioning respect taunt).
• Spawn of Mephala: She sheds taunt prematurely and needs to be frequently retaunted. Probably a bug, though it is a very old one if it is.
• Rilis in Banished Cells 1: See my rant here.

Onitenchu

There are actually several bosses that agro dump. That's a classic mmo mechanic

Alucardo

leepalmer95 wrote: »

I just 4 dps all the dungeon nowdays anyway, it's just faster.

In some cases it's faster to just bring a tank. Wipe less, lose less time. Even if 3 members manage to die from AOEs, if I'm on my tank I can safely rez the healer. You'd be hard pressed trying to come back from the jaws of death with a squishy af dps guy.
It's overconfident damage dealer comments like this that makes me wish they'd make dungeons even harder so people appreciate that tanks can actually make their lives easier and runs quicker.

Onitenchu

It's always easier with a good tank a healer and 2 good dps.

cbaudersub17_ESO

In my opinion, the bosses that ignore or seem to ignore taunts are not overly difficult. Whether it is intended or not, it can teach how to dodge, avoid, block, and bash to the other members of the party. Often overlooked player skills.

RE Quintus in Volenfell: At least in one recent run, it seemed as Quintus gets into a cycle where he is just intent on swinging at one player (much like the common turn and hit). Taking the hit while blocking seemed to put him a manageable state for a period. Possibly a coincidence, but something I plan on checking out for the next tremorscale run.

DocFrost72

Having a boss without the vulnerability to taunt is as sensible as making a boss immune to damage. One of your roles is entirely wasteful, and it should be reserved to a mechanical issue, not a blanket one.

Ie- Crucible last two bosses are immune ro damage, until you kill their atros. Random target, untauntable attacks are cool, but a boss with no taunt switch is not so much.

Curragraigue

UrQuan wrote: »

bellanca6561n wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Perhaps the general idea here is to help break up the Holy Trinity of RPGs. No more building solely for tanking, healing, and DPS, cause that boss don't care if the "tank" insulted his mama. Glass cannons will be shattered, healers will be squished, and tanks will be left to fend for themselves until they are beaten into submission.

Honestly I wish there was a little more content that punished min/max sheep like this in every other MMO.

So if you like fights that make the tank role useless, how would you feel about fights that make the healer role useless? Maybe a mechanic where during the fight no healing is possible, forcing the healer to switch entirely to DPS for that fight.

Or how about fights that make the DPS role useless? Maybe the boss has an unbreakable damage shield for the entire fight, and the only way to beat him is for the tank to drag him to places where he (and everyone else) starts taking environmental damage through the shield, so you have to out-heal the fight to win it, without actually doing any DPS.

Excellent point as always.

You can't move beyond the trinity simply by breaking it.

Actually, I'm starting to think that the idea of the boss who you can only hurt with environmental damage could be done in a way that would make it a really interesting fight that would be engaging for all roles.

Say it's a fight in a dwemer ruin (or maybe somewhere in the Clockwork City), and the only way to hurt the boss is to pull him into a blast furnace area where he and the tank (or whoever pulled him in there) will be trapped until the furnace runs out of fuel. The furnace will do a certain amount of damage to his health without affecting his unbreakable damage shield before it runs out of fuel. The tank has to survive during that time, with the aid of heals from the healer (who should stay just outside the blast furnace, but can heal into it). If the tank dies, the boss will stay in there taking damage until the fuel is used up, at which point he'll come out to try to kill the other players, and someone will have to go in to res the tank.

Meanwhile, the DPS are off fighting a swarm of adds in the furnace's fuel chamber who are trying to cut off the fuel supply to the furnace. If they don't burn them down fast enough, then the fuel gets cut off early, so the boss takes less damage. Maybe the DPS had to fight through adds in a control room to start the furnace in the first place.

Once the furnace's fuel supply is cut off, the tank has to drag the boss to a different blast furnace where the process begins again. Say there are 4 furnaces, and if the adds don't prematurely cut off the fuel supply, each furnace will burn down 25% of the boss' health bar. If the adds do prematurely cut off the fuel supply to one or more furnaces, then an additional mechanic comes into play where the DPS have to fight through a different group of adds to activate a different control room mechanism that will activate neutral adds (I'm thinking dwemer worker spiders) who will start the fueling process of the furnaces again. Meanwhile, they need to fight the adds controlled by the boss who are trying to kill all of the neutral adds before they do the appropriate repairs & work to get the furnaces going again.

I like the idea. There is a current boss that is set up for it as well. The bear in Selene's dungeon. For fun I line him up to charge the chokethorns that seem to give him a short stun. If you keep the same charge mechanic the tank can taunt the bear to charge in the direction of the chokethorns to damage the bear and thin population. Increase the damage from the Chokethorns so everyone takes damage from them so you need heals. DPS can thin population while avoiding boss.

@UrQuan

MattT1988

I do a lot of tanking. I actually don't mind the occasional untauntable boss to switch things up a bit and add a bit of a new challenge to things, it meant I had to make my build a little more flexible. Putting some time into my DW skill line and making myself a dps set to switch into when needed. I actually encourage the developers to give us these new kind of mechanics so every fight just isn't buffy buffy, stabby stabby, blocky blocky rinse and repeat.

Someone earlier mentioned a boss with an impenetrable damage shield and you'd have to taunt it and move it to certain areas to do damage. I actually wouldn't mind a boss like this. Would be a cool new challenge.

NewBlacksmurf

I have a better idea. Make the taunt do something else as more and more things are 4 dps kinda based for dungeons.

Meaning if we can do a little self healing ppl just go all dps and if that's what this game wants to do stop tricking us. All or none.

acw37162

Drodda is tauntable.

She has a standard mechanic on targeting one of tge other three players for her ranged ice attack and a chance to target any of the four players for her life drain attack.

Her teleport is random also.

Other then these you can hold her without much issue.

NoMoreChillies

If bosses ignore taunt then groups can ignore tanks

not a good path to follow imo

raj72616a

a tank does not just taunt and hold block. a tank also buff allies and debuff mob, interrupt channel attack, block heavy attack to stun boss, heal self and allies, and contribute maybe 10~20% of group dps.

GrimMauKin

It's probably not a popular opinion, but it makes sense to me otherwise everything gets a little formulaic. I'm not suggesting thtat bosses are made the same but various creature have different invulnerabilities and vulnerabilities.

My Nightblade had to get used very quickly to the fact that quite a lot of MOBs are invulnerable to Fear, Stun, Invisibility etc.

I don't think that there's any harm in a few bosses that require a bit more thought than the usual Healer, Damage Dealer, Tank approach to combat.

(All that said I'm a pretty rubbish player anyway).

Glurin

bellanca6561n wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

bellanca6561n wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Perhaps the general idea here is to help break up the Holy Trinity of RPGs. No more building solely for tanking, healing, and DPS, cause that boss don't care if the "tank" insulted his mama. Glass cannons will be shattered, healers will be squished, and tanks will be left to fend for themselves until they are beaten into submission.

Honestly I wish there was a little more content that punished min/max sheep like this in every other MMO.

So if you like fights that make the tank role useless, how would you feel about fights that make the healer role useless? Maybe a mechanic where during the fight no healing is possible, forcing the healer to switch entirely to DPS for that fight.

Or how about fights that make the DPS role useless? Maybe the boss has an unbreakable damage shield for the entire fight, and the only way to beat him is for the tank to drag him to places where he (and everyone else) starts taking environmental damage through the shield, so you have to out-heal the fight to win it, without actually doing any DPS.

Excellent point as always.

You can't move beyond the trinity simply by breaking it.

Maybe not, but it's a start.

Perhaps but I've had rather enough of that this week.

The trinity was created as part of the whole movement in the genre to make evident to everyone what they're meant to do. Online games were originally VERY obtuse regarding that. Each player had to puzzle out their next move without any direction whatsoever.

But I think the audience has gone beyond the need for such things. Yet, if you mean to innovate you need to begin with a fresh approach to combat systems, not simply make them work some of the time.

Oh we are well past the "need" for a job description. We are deep, deep, deep into "there can be no other way" territory. Just look at this very thread. It was started on the premise that all dungeon bosses must be adjusted to comply with the Trinity formula, and followed up with several agreements.

Like it or not, the only way we're ever going to have a chance of moving past the Trinity is to break it every now and then.

TC_Lee13

With Vollenfell and Darkshade last bosses, I always manage to tank them using chains which seems to do the trick just fine and I can hold aggro.

bitels

Glurin wrote: »

bellanca6561n wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

bellanca6561n wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Perhaps the general idea here is to help break up the Holy Trinity of RPGs. No more building solely for tanking, healing, and DPS, cause that boss don't care if the "tank" insulted his mama. Glass cannons will be shattered, healers will be squished, and tanks will be left to fend for themselves until they are beaten into submission.

Honestly I wish there was a little more content that punished min/max sheep like this in every other MMO.

So if you like fights that make the tank role useless, how would you feel about fights that make the healer role useless? Maybe a mechanic where during the fight no healing is possible, forcing the healer to switch entirely to DPS for that fight.

Or how about fights that make the DPS role useless? Maybe the boss has an unbreakable damage shield for the entire fight, and the only way to beat him is for the tank to drag him to places where he (and everyone else) starts taking environmental damage through the shield, so you have to out-heal the fight to win it, without actually doing any DPS.

Excellent point as always.

You can't move beyond the trinity simply by breaking it.

Maybe not, but it's a start.

Perhaps but I've had rather enough of that this week.

The trinity was created as part of the whole movement in the genre to make evident to everyone what they're meant to do. Online games were originally VERY obtuse regarding that. Each player had to puzzle out their next move without any direction whatsoever.

But I think the audience has gone beyond the need for such things. Yet, if you mean to innovate you need to begin with a fresh approach to combat systems, not simply make them work some of the time.

Oh we are well past the "need" for a job description. We are deep, deep, deep into "there can be no other way" territory. Just look at this very thread. It was started on the premise that all dungeon bosses must be adjusted to comply with the Trinity formula, and followed up with several agreements.

Like it or not, the only way we're ever going to have a chance of moving past the Trinity is to break it every now and then.

You cannot design your game to be trinity-based, and then ignoring it for few dungeons. You cannot just "break it every now and then" without giving players something difrent to play with.
They made step in right direction whith planar inhibitor, designing intetesting mechanics for it, but bosses that was mentioned in this topic are either buged or lazy design- "we want players to break trinity so we just made boss immune to taunt"

elantaura

One reason I hate tanking is because of too many untauntable bosses, taunt is your core job and they take it away. On a fair few bosses.
it's kind of like they don't actually want tanks in this game. People may wonder why there are a lack of tanks.think about it As a noob who might like tanking the game teaches you that your job is pointless early on. There may be more to tanking later on, but what's the point in going on just become DPS. They could have made some bosses immune to shields I.e something like damage decreased with that buff, or blazing or whatever basically picked on some other aspect.but nope let's just take away taunt.

They could have made a boss have to be taunted and lead to a point, or a few with idk environmental damage to survive and where DPS can hit,healer heals through. They could have made it so damage only works if a debuff is applied. They could have had a priority race keeping adds off some npc and healer heals all whilst holding boss. I have spent all of 30 secs or thought on this as I type, but no let's just make untauntable the thing.
There were several aspects they could have used, it could have been used to teach buffing and debuffing to the masses. Just like DPS checks are in dungeons.

but no it's all part or the DPS race of this game, there is nothing clever about it. Google build, farm equipment, burn.. let's take away taunt and put an emphasise on over the top DPS. Wonder why there are no tanks in gf and few in guilds and long waits or few good ones for trials and the DPS que is silly

Katinas

Untauntable bosses are a welcome change in ESO to introduce a new sort of challenge to a group. It is hugely fun to tank the daedroth boss in Ruins of Mazzatun when the boss drops the taunt and you have to retaunt it. Vila Theran is hugely fun to tank in that you have to outrange her to position her in a more favourable spot for your DDs to damage her from melee range. Tanking The Engine Guardian you are only responsible for positioning the dwemer adds as the boss completely ignores whatever taunt.
It is a refreshing experience for a tank to sometimes deal with boss mechanics that require you to think differently, to rather focus on adds, your position, shielding allies or helping mitigate the damage that not only comes to you but is spread all over the party. It would be sad days indeed if all the tanking in ESO was like crocodile boss in Wayrest Sewers 1 - you just stand in one position and do absolutely nothing because boss has an absolute minimum of mechanics.

Glurin

bitels wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Oh we are well past the "need" for a job description. We are deep, deep, deep into "there can be no other way" territory. Just look at this very thread. It was started on the premise that all dungeon bosses must be adjusted to comply with the Trinity formula, and followed up with several agreements.

Like it or not, the only way we're ever going to have a chance of moving past the Trinity is to break it every now and then.

You cannot design your game to be trinity-based, and then ignoring it for few dungeons. You cannot just "break it every now and then" without giving players something difrent to play with.
They made step in right direction whith planar inhibitor, designing intetesting mechanics for it, but bosses that was mentioned in this topic are either buged or lazy design- "we want players to break trinity so we just made boss immune to taunt"

Thank you for proving my point.

ESO is not as reliant on the Trinity as people think. If anything it's the community that forced the Trinity onto ESO. We have a serious problem with being able to look beyond damage meters and BIS and tanks that are supposed to do everything except heal and do damage. And it's getting worse, despite being given the tools to break away.

bellanca6561n

Glurin wrote: »

bellanca6561n wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

bellanca6561n wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Perhaps the general idea here is to help break up the Holy Trinity of RPGs. No more building solely for tanking, healing, and DPS, cause that boss don't care if the "tank" insulted his mama. Glass cannons will be shattered, healers will be squished, and tanks will be left to fend for themselves until they are beaten into submission.

Honestly I wish there was a little more content that punished min/max sheep like this in every other MMO.

So if you like fights that make the tank role useless, how would you feel about fights that make the healer role useless? Maybe a mechanic where during the fight no healing is possible, forcing the healer to switch entirely to DPS for that fight.

Or how about fights that make the DPS role useless? Maybe the boss has an unbreakable damage shield for the entire fight, and the only way to beat him is for the tank to drag him to places where he (and everyone else) starts taking environmental damage through the shield, so you have to out-heal the fight to win it, without actually doing any DPS.

Excellent point as always.

You can't move beyond the trinity simply by breaking it.

Maybe not, but it's a start.

Perhaps but I've had rather enough of that this week.

The trinity was created as part of the whole movement in the genre to make evident to everyone what they're meant to do. Online games were originally VERY obtuse regarding that. Each player had to puzzle out their next move without any direction whatsoever.

But I think the audience has gone beyond the need for such things. Yet, if you mean to innovate you need to begin with a fresh approach to combat systems, not simply make them work some of the time.

Oh we are well past the "need" for a job description. We are deep, deep, deep into "there can be no other way" territory. Just look at this very thread. It was started on the premise that all dungeon bosses must be adjusted to comply with the Trinity formula, and followed up with several agreements.

Like it or not, the only way we're ever going to have a chance of moving past the Trinity is to break it every now and then.

I agree....clicked the agree button too.

It's not only what @raj72616a noted - that having the boss hate you above all others is but one of three basic tank roles - but, as others have noted too, this game has tried to expand the notion of the trinity more than other post World of Warcraft AAA online games have.

What's missing in SO MANY of these discussions is full and frank exchanges with developers.

Yes, they can be dangerous. Most of the best minds I've worked with in game development over the years are terrible communicators. At times I wondered if the two skill sets somehow excluded each other.

Doesn't matter. I never lost a single customer due to the awkwardly honestly of a member of my team participating in a forum discussion.

RAGUNAnoOne

UrQuan wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Perhaps the general idea here is to help break up the Holy Trinity of RPGs. No more building solely for tanking, healing, and DPS, cause that boss don't care if the "tank" insulted his mama. Glass cannons will be shattered, healers will be squished, and tanks will be left to fend for themselves until they are beaten into submission.

Honestly I wish there was a little more content that punished min/max sheep like this in every other MMO.

So if you like fights that make the tank role useless, how would you feel about fights that make the healer role useless? Maybe a mechanic where during the fight no healing is possible, forcing the healer to switch entirely to DPS for that fight.

Or how about fights that make the DPS role useless? Maybe the boss has an unbreakable damage shield for the entire fight, and the only way to beat him is for the tank to drag him to places where he (and everyone else) starts taking environmental damage through the shield, so you have to out-heal the fight to win it, without actually doing any DPS.

@UrQuan I admit the second sarcastic idea I like and would love to see ingame.

Loves_guars

raj72616a wrote: »

a tank does not just taunt and hold block. a tank also buff allies and debuff mob, interrupt channel attack, block heavy attack to stun boss, heal self and allies, and contribute maybe 10~20% of group dps.

I agree and I do this but even when you become "the bard" or "the resurrector", change skills and gear, because untauntable bosses, you are still pretty useless for the group, at least that's what I feel everytime.

Cryptical

bellanca6561n wrote: »

What's missing in SO MANY of these discussions is full and frank exchanges with developers.

Yes, they can be dangerous. Most of the best minds I've worked with in game development over the years are terrible communicators. At times I wondered if the two skill sets somehow excluded each other.

Doesn't matter. I never lost a single customer due to the awkwardly honestly of a member of my team participating in a forum discussion.

This.

There needs to be examples of how the developers see the various pieces they design function together.

Templar stakes out a small territory as a "house" wrobel says... Let's see that in action, in solo and group examples of both pvp and pve.

Same for sorc, dragon knight, night blade.

Drummerx04

UrQuan wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Perhaps the general idea here is to help break up the Holy Trinity of RPGs. No more building solely for tanking, healing, and DPS, cause that boss don't care if the "tank" insulted his mama. Glass cannons will be shattered, healers will be squished, and tanks will be left to fend for themselves until they are beaten into submission.

Honestly I wish there was a little more content that punished min/max sheep like this in every other MMO.

So if you like fights that make the tank role useless, how would you feel about fights that make the healer role useless? Maybe a mechanic where during the fight no healing is possible, forcing the healer to switch entirely to DPS for that fight.

Or how about fights that make the DPS role useless? Maybe the boss has an unbreakable damage shield for the entire fight, and the only way to beat him is for the tank to drag him to places where he (and everyone else) starts taking environmental damage through the shield, so you have to out-heal the fight to win it, without actually doing any DPS.

vRoM final boss can hist sap the healer literally rendering them useless and there are a huge number of unpurgeable defiles present in RoM and CoS. I actually sort of like the idea of a boss that needs to be moved to certain areas to damage it.

Tannus15

I don't mind the concept of untauntable bosses, but it would be nice if the fight designers put some consideration into what role the tank could be playing for the fight instead of just being dead weight. The fact is that you want a tank for enough of the dungeon that penalising the team for having a tank for 1 or 2 encounters seems poor design.

Some quick ideas: Group resource return on taunt, or give the boss a full damage shield which is dropped while taunted, or boss is snared for 70% movement speed while taunted instead of actually changing attack focus to the tank.

Some semi-vital role to play instead of just straight up taking the hits.