How do the tanking mechanics work beyond damage/taunts?

MasterLanz

In most games there's more to aggro than taunting and doing damage. Sometimes stuff like how much or little armor you have determines AI target priority. Sometimes current health % affects aggro. In ESO's case, I could also see things like bashes, dodges, blocks and interrupts affecting aggro. Does anyone know if these things affect aggro?

Sihnfahl

Yeah - wear a dress.

Seriously. The mobs seem almost single-minded in their realization that the person in the full plate isn't going to go down easy. But the person wiggling their fingers while wearing pajamas? Yeah, they're gonna go down nice and fast.

MasterLanz

So - wait... Having LOW armor makes you higher aggro? Are you sure that's not just because low-armor characters are typically high-dps or healers who pull a lot of aggro regardless?

Sihnfahl

I can hit something a LOT - get it so there's a noticeable leak of red on its health bar - without a mage jumping in or even a heal because of my damage mitigation and self-heals.

Within three attacks, the mage is jumping for cover and I'm fighting to get the mob to pay attention to me.

MasterLanz

Hm. I've had similar experiences, but as a tank I'm not built for raw damage output and since there is nothing that passively increases aggro generation, I just pop Ransack every 5-10 seconds or so and expect that without ransack I wouldn't hold aggro at all.

Sihnfahl

Yeah, aggro in this game seems to be 'whatever'.

TheBaldGuy

ZOS put out a long time ago that tanks are not meant to tank everything. Not sure how that holds today more than a year after I read it on one of their q/a's but yea. Tanks hold the big nasty and dps take out the little ones. Healers heal. That's tanking mechanics in this game for you.

strikethub17_ESO

I'm a bit iffy on how tanking is going to work. I've actually avoided all of the 4 man dungeons up until this point as I'm waiting to see how things go on that front. If the only option for tanking is the 1 aggro generating skill that we have and nothing else has any affect on aggro (armor, HP, ability usage, etc.) then I'm not entirely certain that dungeons are going to be an enjoyable experience... especially if you don't have a dedicated and well coordinated group of people on VOIP.

Ioana

I've seen an issue with healing aggro and dps aggro. As a tank in the dragonknight line there are really only 2 successful goads working for me. The chain trololol pull(Magica) and the sword and board first feat(Stamina). But keeping aggro is not difficult once you find the right rotation. Damage is sub par for a tank but not oblivious. A diverse group is where it's at.

adri_sumb14_ESO

I think one of the ways to make tanking a better experience is to actually show which target hits like a truck. In its current state, you're pretty much taunting anything that "looks" tough or attacking the healer.

MasterLanz

Well, for ordinary pulls I don't even bother tanking. I swap to my secondary weapon set (dual wield) and I have Health Funnel with Ring of Preservation so that I'm still helping the party stay durable. It doesn't seem worth taunting normal mobs, since they die so fast anyways.

flarefireb16_ESO

There's a lot more to tanking in this game than spamming Puncture. I strongly recommend reading this guide as it explains ESO's tanking concepts pretty well.

My two septims: Use crowd control. Lots of it. On my DK tank, Burning Talons is by far my favourite ability. On my sorc, it's Encase. By rooting the melee mobs in a pack, you're preventing them from attacking your party members. By the time the root ends, half the pack is dead anyway.

Edit - fixed link

blackgryf

I agree to the above comment about spamming Puncture. I run a Nightblade Tank and I like to use AOE Control and Damage powers to keep a handle on the pulls. I use Lotus Fan to move between groups, Crippling Grasp, Power Extraction and Veil of Blades.

Luewen

Sihnfahl wrote: »

Yeah, aggro in this game seems to be 'whatever'.

Also we need an aoe taunt in the game...

SuperScrubby

I off tank using damage, but I do find the tanking mechanics to be a bit iffy as well. I've also noticed that there seems to be more threat generated when you're the person initiating so most of the group will attack you first.

But it's only for a small window so it's partially up to the group to burn the mobs down while the tank has their attention. For boss mechanics it's not as bad since they using their abilities and most of my damage is DoT.

OZGODUSA

There doesn't seem to be aggro that you build. You can temporarily take aggro by taunts but when the healer casts spells or the dps do damage they will probably out aggro the tank. So you need the healer to be able to take damage and be able to heal party members tanking their own mobs and kiting while the tank takes the biggest guy and focuses it and everyone else stays away from it. Remember they said anyone can tank and (self) heal to some extent.

Svann

flarefireb16_ESO wrote: »

There's a lot more to tanking in this game than spamming Puncture. I strongly recommend reading this guide as it explains ESO's tanking concepts pretty well.

Do you have a new link for that guide? Its just taking me to your guild website.

Llamaalarmallama

I had a lot of issues in the beta with tanking. In live though it seems to have just clicked.

For boss pulls, walk up to it (or have some kind of gap closer on your alt bar). Once in contact with it, hit your taunt then start hitting it with your mainhand.

Watch for it doing AOE, step out of those, block a few attacks if your health is low until you can pop a self heal or your healer can get you sorted, if it leaves you, hit your taunt again, repeat.

The key problem I think is a lot of folks are assuming they have to spam abilities which then leaves them out of resources. Make use of CC and all that, sure. Have a heavy, defensive damage setup on your alt bars to help with smashing down adds but once you get past trying to tank EVERYTHING in the room (which if you manage it will get you killed, no matter how much you block) and focus on 1-2 mobs + help CC/damage the rest it's all good.

MasterLanz

I noticed an odd aggro thing today. I was doing Elden Hollow and I (the tank) went to grab an Alit. I hit it with Funnel Health, and instead of coming after me, it went straight for the healer who had popped a heal a few seconds before I pulled (though she wasn't healing me). Even after burning all my magicka on 4-5 funnel health shots, the Alit still wouldn't attack me until I taunted it.

Obviously aggro from heals is really high.

mark2472

MasterLanz wrote: »

I noticed an odd aggro thing today. I was doing Elden Hollow and I (the tank) went to grab an Alit. I hit it with Funnel Health, and instead of coming after me, it went straight for the healer who had popped a heal a few seconds before I pulled (though she wasn't healing me). Even after burning all my magicka on 4-5 funnel health shots, the Alit still wouldn't attack me until I taunted it.

Obviously aggro from heals is really high.

Haha, well... that's a good thing being a paladin-type tank. I lose aggro and teammates are losing health? Pop a few heals and accomplish two things at once, healing and gaining aggro.

Koensol

Luewen wrote: »

Sihnfahl wrote: »

Yeah, aggro in this game seems to be 'whatever'.

Also we need an aoe taunt in the game...

I hope you realize that tanks in this game aren't build to tank ALL mobs in a pull. If you had an AoE taunt, you'd die almost everytime, except maybe when you have that uber ultimate. Also I think AoE taunting removes that special part of this game. Right now playing a dps is more than just mindless spamming. Healing is more than mindless healspamming. People need to actually pay attention. Please people stop asking for WoW mechanics.

kongkim

As long as it do not end like i other mmo's were one man tank everything and have all aggro. Its both stupid and borring that there is not action for anyone els and one man taking on all mobs.

Hope they will tweak the AI a little and let then think and switch targets from time to time. So no one can just stand in the background and spam nukes and heals all the fight.

Getorix

The #1 cause of agro problems in this game is dps using AoE's.

And im not sure its true but I remember reading a few threads on the beta boards saying that heavy armor actually has an agro modifier in it and I see an awful lot of DK dps in full plate.

mark2472

Getorix wrote: »

The #1 cause of agro problems in this game is dps using AoE's.

And im not sure its true but I remember reading a few threads on the beta boards saying that heavy armor actually has an agro modifier in it and I see an awful lot of DK dps in full plate.

Yea, I've been in groups where the dps would use tons of AoEs then wonder why they die so fast... I would pull a group of mobs with my own AoE and have most of the mobs' attention and start to go after the healers/casters to interrupt them. Next thing I know the dps has all the aggro and is dying, even after I empty what little magicka I have as a tank to heal them with my Templar heals. Then they're like, "dang... our tank sucks."

MasterLanz

I encourage AoEs, personally. In most dungeons I've run, AoEs just wipe out the pulls so fast that they don't become a threat. There was one group I ran where both DPS were AoEs and they both would drop synergy attacks at the start of the pull, I'd trigger both synergies (one then the other) and everything would be dead.

Actually, I would think that synergies are probably a really important factor in that, since when I trigger a synergy (like Impale) then I am causing that AoE and that not only doubles the DPS, but it also probably helps me fight off the high aggro they're generating.

So protip for DPS: Use attacks that create synergy opportunities for your tank to use.

flarefireb16_ESO

adamrussell52_ESO wrote: »

flarefireb16_ESO wrote: »

There's a lot more to tanking in this game than spamming Puncture. I strongly recommend reading this guide as it explains ESO's tanking concepts pretty well.

Do you have a new link for that guide? Its just taking me to your guild website.

Whoops! Looks like I messed up the link. Fixed it in my post, but I'll link it here again for good measure

spinedoc

Mopping up group damage due to aggro issues doesn't seem to be a huge problem for me as a healer, although I haven't gotten very far dungeon wise and maybe things change later. What kills me is people who stay in the AOE circles, and nobody blocking special attacks. I did EH the other day and the other 3 players would not budge when an AOE attack was coming, so all 3 of them got hit for a large part of their health and I had to burn mana to emergency heal them, doable but very risky. Also I was the only one blocking special attacks, I'd be at range, see a special attack brewing, run in and block it and run back out, shouldn't the tank be doing this?

As for a boss turning it's attention on me, so far I've been able to deal with this, maybe it's meant to be like this. I try to protect myself as much as I can by casting any armor/spell protection spells I have, slowing the boss down with a snare or knockback, blocking his special attacks, dodging, etc. I only have one spell from the fighters guild that adds aoe armor that uses my stamina so I usually have a full bar of stamina to help me avoid aggro.

It's kind of refreshing. When you encounter a healer in a group of mobs who do you target first? You probably target the healer and ignore or CC the non healer mob beating on you. Why wouldn't a NPC mob do the same? Same thing with a dps. It seems the trick is throwing away the old tank paradigm and assigning a much higher level of responsibility to non tank group members.

natsuki

spinedoc wrote: »

It's kind of refreshing. When you encounter a healer in a group of mobs who do you target first? You probably target the healer and ignore or CC the non healer mob beating on you. Why wouldn't a NPC mob do the same? Same thing with a dps. It seems the trick is throwing away the old tank paradigm and assigning a much higher level of responsibility to non tank group members.

Reminds me of a web comic I saw once (forget the name) where NPCs got together and had a meeting where they decided to start going after healers first. A few frames later you see beat up and broken PCs with barely enough coin for repairs and wealthy happy vendor NPCs.

dnotecmb16_ESO

I've not had any issues with Destruction Staff or Restoration Staff users pulling agro. The problem I have, whether I'm tanking or healing, is the melee DPS. They seem to pull a lot of agro and die like they forgot to wear their armor.

Either way, once you get past the WoW tanking mentality and start tanking like ESO is meant to be, it isn't that bad. In my experience, deaths are usually from not understanding a boss mechanic or an over-pull on trash, rather than because someone failing at their role in the group.

Filodendron

Apparently the devs wanted to try some original, having the tank/healer/dps trinity without an aggro system. I know many view it as an unique style but this doesn't mean it's good.

I've seen pulls of 10+ mobs, basically the whole room and although tank can't hold them off with good CC it's manageable. However i've seen other games mimic this style, i wouldn't call it completely original and the problem with those games is that tank ends up being useless.
Once you get good enough gear and have plenty of damage/CC you won't need a tank and i fear the same thing is gonna happen here, i hope i'm wrong.

Regarding how aggro works here's an example.
I was in a dungeon with a friend and i found a chest in one of the rooms. While i was opening the chest my friend went into the next room and attacked a pack of mobs. Few of those mobs completely ignored my friend who attacked them and went straight for me, in another room, out of line of sight. Where is the logic in that?

MasterLanz

Yeah

Filodendron wrote: »

Regarding how aggro works here's an example.
I was in a dungeon with a friend and i found a chest in one of the rooms. While i was opening the chest my friend went into the next room and attacked a pack of mobs. Few of those mobs completely ignored my friend who attacked them and went straight for me, in another room, out of line of sight. Where is the logic in that?

Yeah, I've had problems with this as well. I think level plays a big part of it. Also, there's the fact that everyone in the same party is treated as being 'in combat' as soon as any member of that party draws aggro from a mob. For example, if one player attacks an enemy, he'll pull all the mobs that are in that enemy's group, but he will only have aggro on the one he attacked. The rest will default to whoever is the highest priority target, which seems to ignore distance but doesn't ignore things like level. So if you were 23 and attacked 1 enemy in a group of 4, and one of your party members was 22, those other 3 mobs are all going to go after that level 22 buddy, regardless of where he is in relation to where you were.

A distance-based priority system would help to make sense of the aggro considerably. It would also make tanking a bit more practical since if the tank goes in first, all the mobs would default onto the tank, which at least means that mobs that are not receiving aggro will at least be on the tank until something changes.