Can we talk about aggro/tanking?

kirnmalidus

I couldn't find an existing thread about this, so I thought I'd start the conversation.

I hear/see a lot of people complaining about how aggro works in this game. They seem to have two key points (note this is my first MMO, so I'm not sure how aggro worked in other MMOs or "should work" based on that):
- There aren't any/many taunt type abilities for tanks
- Even when tanks use the taunts available mobs ignore them

From what I've been able to tell in my limited dungeon runs in ESO, you draw aggro from mobs if you are (1) healing or (2) dealing a lot of damage. Due to the lack of taunt abilities and/or how these abilities work, tanks seem to have an issue holding aggro as they are able to in other MMOs (or so I gather, again this is my first MMO). As a Nightblade with pretty high DPS that uses a lot of siphoning for self heals, I draw a lot of aggro in group situations.

If you think about it though, maybe this is how aggro should work. When you attack a pack of mobs, do you kill the guy who does little damage and can take a lot of damage in return first, or do you kill the healers and the high-damage mobs first? Wouldn't a good mob AI also focus on killing healers and DPS in a player group as opposed to wailing away on a high health/armor "tank" that isn't doing much damage to the mobs?

This also explains why taunts are basically non-existent – logically a good mob AI should ignore them anyway, as they don't really make sense except maybe for less intelligent mobs (beasts).

Personally I think people who want to play as tanks in this game need to adjust to how mobs handle aggro. Instead of standing away from DPS/healers and trying to draw mobs towards them they need to get between ranged DPS/healers and the mobs. You know, kind of like a front line and back line in combat.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Are others experiencing the tanking issue and aggro behaviors as I've described them or do you have a different experience?

Travail

Tanks aren't designed to hold aggro against every single enemy in a large mob. Instead, the tank should be using crowd control to keep enemies in check. If you are a dps or healer running in a PuG, you should also probably have some CC because you don't know what build the tank is using beforehand, and you don't want to be stuck in a group without any CC at all.

Tanks play the role of "controller" during trash pulls, physically stopping enemies from hitting teammates as opposed to generating aggro. AoE roots/stuns/knockdowns (anything that prevents melee attackers from moving) and damage debuffs are key. Talons, Encase, Bombard, and Volcanic Rune are all solid choices. Other classes have some less reliable abilities for trash pulls, like the Templar's Blinding Light.

If they want, a tank can actually swap to a DPS spec during trash pulls without much harm done. They shouldn't be a glass cannon, but they generally don't require a sword+board for trash pulls; and most of the time you don't need a true taunt, either. The two tanks I regularly run with (I'm a healer) don't keep a taunt on their bar except for boss fights, though they do generally keep their shield equipped at all times (for the bash damage.)

You can also drop AoE ultimates during trash pulls to make these fights fairly trivial. Often, it's more important to ult on trash pulls than it is during boss fights. If one player drops an ultimate per trash pull, sometimes your group can be dropping an ultimate on nearly every large trash pull in a dungeon.

-Travail.

kirnmalidus

I think we are in agreement. Tanks need to worry more about CC to keep mobs away from players, and not rely only on aggro/taunts to do so.

yake82

Trash needs control, bosses needs taunts.

About generating agro... Ive heard that high armor rating generates agro, like healing does.

Can anyone confirm this?

Teelo

I find the aggro in the game a bit weird. As a tank sometimes I have the feeling that my taunt does nothing (the mob chases the sorcerer...).

Yesterday I was healing with my alt. I was supposed to tank but the pug healer was not, so in the end we had no tank. We wiped on Allene Pellingare (Wayrest Sewers). On the next pull I was not ready (30m behind changing my skills)... the boss charge me even with the other 3 dps hitting. I haven't cast anything.

I'd really like to know why I was topping its aggro list... not reset from previous try ? I also heard of a strange theory: outside taunt, the aggro check is made when the guy on top of the list hits the mob... in this case, as a healer I was not hitting!

Andy22

kirnmalidus wrote: »

- Even when tanks use the taunts available mobs ignore them

Thats not at all my experience as NB tank, playing all public and vet dungeons up to Vet5.

Here are my observations:
- both existing "taunts" work reliably, the only exception seem to-be a few veteran bosses.
- some bosses reset there aggro after some skills/abilities (often after a teleport, special phasing mechanics, special AE damage phase)
- bosses do special attacks, that despite being taunted target a random player

The one boss i know for certain has "wonky" aggro mechanics is "Spawn of Mephala" in veteran fungal. I finished this boss a couple of times and in 3 runs, i did literally follow the boss and used both taunts every 5 second's, without any effect, while the boss kept chasing the healer. I could than also temporarily regain aggro, but its so inconsistent to my other experience that i note it here.

Some confusion seems to center around the fact that your melee taunt can actually miss and its often hard to see/notice if the "attack" did land or not.
Except for the noted boss + special attacks and "aggro reset", i never experienced a situation where a "successfully" taunted mob switched to a other player.

So in regard to boss aggro, ESO has the most "easy" boss aggro mechanic out of any MMO i ever played. On the other hand ESO seems not to use any special "increased/extra thread" mechanic for skills. So many other games will allow the tank to slot/skill/use some form of mechanic to "virtually" increase there aggro, so they get attacked over some crazy DPS.

ESO don't has such a system, so its rather hard to gain aggro of several spread-out trash mobs/adds in a short time. Thats why DK talons are so nice, since they root + damage, which removes the necessity of either dealing more ae DPS as tank than your actual DPS or running around using the single target taunts on multiple enemy's in short succession.

kirnmalidus

Thank you for the constructive input, this is exactly the discussion I was hoping to have.

ZoM_Head

Travail wrote: »

Tanks aren't designed to hold aggro against every single enemy in a large mob. Instead, the tank should be using crowd control to keep enemies in check. If you are a dps or healer running in a PuG, you should also probably have some CC because you don't know what build the tank is using beforehand, and you don't want to be stuck in a group without any CC at all.

Tanks play the role of "controller" during trash pulls, physically stopping enemies from hitting teammates as opposed to generating aggro. AoE roots/stuns/knockdowns (anything that prevents melee attackers from moving) and damage debuffs are key. Talons, Encase, Bombard, and Volcanic Rune are all solid choices. Other classes have some less reliable abilities for trash pulls, like the Templar's Blinding Light.

If they want, a tank can actually swap to a DPS spec during trash pulls without much harm done. They shouldn't be a glass cannon, but they generally don't require a sword+board for trash pulls; and most of the time you don't need a true taunt, either. The two tanks I regularly run with (I'm a healer) don't keep a taunt on their bar except for boss fights, though they do generally keep their shield equipped at all times (for the bash damage.)

You can also drop AoE ultimates during trash pulls to make these fights fairly trivial. Often, it's more important to ult on trash pulls than it is during boss fights. If one player drops an ultimate per trash pull, sometimes your group can be dropping an ultimate on nearly every large trash pull in a dungeon.

-Travail.

I disagree, mobs should not be a Tank's role at all, it uses way too much magicka and the Tank really needs it for supporting himself.

Tanks have very high health and just enough magicka and stamina to block and stay alive. Trash pulls should be all DDs secondary, they are the ones with high magicka or stamina.

My opinion though.

Andy22

Elmojito1000eb17_ESO wrote: »

Tanks have very high health and just enough magicka and stamina to block and stay alive. Trash pulls should be all DDs secondary, they are the ones with high magicka or stamina.

My opinion though.

I guess thats more of question what class u pick as tank. Ofc a DK uses his crazy good talons and other ae skills, while a NB tank will have leeching strikes slotted.
So the DK does what he does best that is ae cc + dmg + shields + standard. The NB using leeching strikes has lots of sta/magicka, so spaming vulcanic rune or any other cc skill, is a good help to the group.

Rarely grouped with a Sorc/temp tank, so i don't know what good options they have.

Basically each tank type should utilize whatever he thinks helps the group best to survive, given to what skills he has access to.

As example i often have boneshield sloted as tank, not for the massive armor on myself, but only to help my fellow healer a bit, given that i have more magicka than i need normally.

Talmet

Elmojito1000eb17_ESO wrote: »

Travail wrote: »

Tanks aren't designed to hold aggro against every single enemy in a large mob. Instead, the tank should be using crowd control to keep enemies in check. If you are a dps or healer running in a PuG, you should also probably have some CC because you don't know what build the tank is using beforehand, and you don't want to be stuck in a group without any CC at all.

Tanks play the role of "controller" during trash pulls, physically stopping enemies from hitting teammates as opposed to generating aggro. AoE roots/stuns/knockdowns (anything that prevents melee attackers from moving) and damage debuffs are key. Talons, Encase, Bombard, and Volcanic Rune are all solid choices. Other classes have some less reliable abilities for trash pulls, like the Templar's Blinding Light.

If they want, a tank can actually swap to a DPS spec during trash pulls without much harm done. They shouldn't be a glass cannon, but they generally don't require a sword+board for trash pulls; and most of the time you don't need a true taunt, either. The two tanks I regularly run with (I'm a healer) don't keep a taunt on their bar except for boss fights, though they do generally keep their shield equipped at all times (for the bash damage.)

You can also drop AoE ultimates during trash pulls to make these fights fairly trivial. Often, it's more important to ult on trash pulls than it is during boss fights. If one player drops an ultimate per trash pull, sometimes your group can be dropping an ultimate on nearly every large trash pull in a dungeon.

-Travail.

I disagree, mobs should not be a Tank's role at all, it uses way too much magicka and the Tank really needs it for supporting himself.

Tanks have very high health and just enough magicka and stamina to block and stay alive. Trash pulls should be all DDs secondary, they are the ones with high magicka or stamina.

My opinion though.

what?

"Mobs should not be a Tank's role at all"....I'm confused, mobs is a term for enemy npcs...so, everyone's role in the group is dealing with mobs. So..first, what was that sentence supposed to be? And second, what exactly do you think a tank's role is?

A tank needs magicka to support himself AFTER dealing with mobs...a tank just standing there in a corner, doesn't need anything...because he isn't taking any damage.

Think of it this way. In most MMOs, a tank has to juggle survivability with threat production. Too much of one & not enough of the other = group wipe. Not enough threat = mob loses agro. In this game, part of the "threat" is cc...yeah, the tank doesn't have agro on mobs that have been cc'd, but if they aren't hitting the group, it amounts to the same thing (keeping the DPS/healers from taking too much damage)

BKTHNDR

I feel like this argument comes mostly from low level people who run the first set of dungeons and don't understand why they can't keep every mob on them at once like other MMOs. Getting into vet ranks, I personally, haven't seen tanks struggle in the way of holding the stronger mobs at bay while the rest of the team takes care of everyone else. People just need to realize that the mechanics here are different and to adjust accordingly.

Travail

Elmojito1000eb17_ESO wrote: »

Travail wrote: »

Tanks aren't designed to hold aggro against every single enemy in a large mob. Instead, the tank should be using crowd control to keep enemies in check. If you are a dps or healer running in a PuG, you should also probably have some CC because you don't know what build the tank is using beforehand, and you don't want to be stuck in a group without any CC at all.

Tanks play the role of "controller" during trash pulls, physically stopping enemies from hitting teammates as opposed to generating aggro. AoE roots/stuns/knockdowns (anything that prevents melee attackers from moving) and damage debuffs are key. Talons, Encase, Bombard, and Volcanic Rune are all solid choices. Other classes have some less reliable abilities for trash pulls, like the Templar's Blinding Light.

If they want, a tank can actually swap to a DPS spec during trash pulls without much harm done. They shouldn't be a glass cannon, but they generally don't require a sword+board for trash pulls; and most of the time you don't need a true taunt, either. The two tanks I regularly run with (I'm a healer) don't keep a taunt on their bar except for boss fights, though they do generally keep their shield equipped at all times (for the bash damage.)

You can also drop AoE ultimates during trash pulls to make these fights fairly trivial. Often, it's more important to ult on trash pulls than it is during boss fights. If one player drops an ultimate per trash pull, sometimes your group can be dropping an ultimate on nearly every large trash pull in a dungeon.

-Travail.

I disagree, mobs should not be a Tank's role at all, it uses way too much magicka and the Tank really needs it for supporting himself.

Tanks have very high health and just enough magicka and stamina to block and stay alive. Trash pulls should be all DDs secondary, they are the ones with high magicka or stamina.

My opinion though.

All I can say is, I recommend people put some AoE CC on their tanking bar and give it a try, and I'll let them be the judge. Quite literally, often the only thing I need on my Templar tank bar during trash pulls is Volcanic Rune. I don't even have to block or taunt, just use Volcanic Rune repeatedly on everything. And I'm running 7/7 light armor, so normally I'd be kind of squishy if I didn't keep my armor buff up. That doesn't matter when everything's lying flat on its back, though.

One reason you want your tank to bring the CC instead of your dps is that the tank is already dealing low damage. When the dps stop their damage in order to use a CC, it hurts your group's overall damage output far more than when the tank uses CC. Especially if you want to run a dungeon quickly and efficiently, it's good to let your dps do what they do best, while the healer and tank handle the defensive side of things.

-Travail.

ZoM_Head

Created a Templar Healer just the other day. In Banished Cells, our tank could not aggro anything, despite him constantly using Puncture.

We actually tested this, he taunted a boss, she glowed red (showing signed of taunt), ignored him and started casting spells on me (the healer) who was at least 20m away and weapon sheathed and just standing not doing anything.

Even with two DPS players constantly bombarding her and me not even moving, she kept her focus on me, despite the taunt.

After two or three more uses of puncture from the tank, did she finally shift her attention to the tank.

This is the same for mobs, the tank rushes in, roots everyone down with dark talons, the moment root breaks and the healer is all the way back, he gets attacked....its really buggy in this game, even as a healer just standing there you get priority from the AI despite the tank taunting.

Kililin

FWIW many spells are random target and ignore aggro. initial agro is distributed across the group, even if you are standing in the next room.

ZoM_Head

Travail wrote: »

Elmojito1000eb17_ESO wrote: »

Travail wrote: »

Tanks aren't designed to hold aggro against every single enemy in a large mob. Instead, the tank should be using crowd control to keep enemies in check. If you are a dps or healer running in a PuG, you should also probably have some CC because you don't know what build the tank is using beforehand, and you don't want to be stuck in a group without any CC at all.

Tanks play the role of "controller" during trash pulls, physically stopping enemies from hitting teammates as opposed to generating aggro. AoE roots/stuns/knockdowns (anything that prevents melee attackers from moving) and damage debuffs are key. Talons, Encase, Bombard, and Volcanic Rune are all solid choices. Other classes have some less reliable abilities for trash pulls, like the Templar's Blinding Light.

If they want, a tank can actually swap to a DPS spec during trash pulls without much harm done. They shouldn't be a glass cannon, but they generally don't require a sword+board for trash pulls; and most of the time you don't need a true taunt, either. The two tanks I regularly run with (I'm a healer) don't keep a taunt on their bar except for boss fights, though they do generally keep their shield equipped at all times (for the bash damage.)

You can also drop AoE ultimates during trash pulls to make these fights fairly trivial. Often, it's more important to ult on trash pulls than it is during boss fights. If one player drops an ultimate per trash pull, sometimes your group can be dropping an ultimate on nearly every large trash pull in a dungeon.

-Travail.

I disagree, mobs should not be a Tank's role at all, it uses way too much magicka and the Tank really needs it for supporting himself.

Tanks have very high health and just enough magicka and stamina to block and stay alive. Trash pulls should be all DDs secondary, they are the ones with high magicka or stamina.

My opinion though.

All I can say is, I recommend people put some AoE CC on their tanking bar and give it a try, and I'll let them be the judge. Quite literally, often the only thing I need on my Templar tank bar during trash pulls is Volcanic Rune. I don't even have to block or taunt, just use Volcanic Rune repeatedly on everything. And I'm running 7/7 light armor, so normally I'd be kind of squishy if I didn't keep my armor buff up. That doesn't matter when everything's lying flat on its back, though.

One reason you want your tank to bring the CC instead of your dps is that the tank is already dealing low damage. When the dps stop their damage in order to use a CC, it hurts your group's overall damage output far more than when the tank uses CC. Especially if you want to run a dungeon quickly and efficiently, it's good to let your dps do what they do best, while the healer and tank handle the defensive side of things.

-Travail.

This is a sensitive topic, and here is why.

There is no AOE taunt, and even if there is the tank will just die quickly.

In Veteran Zones, the tank has 85%+ of his attributes dedicated to health, he/she has very little in stamina and magicka. The tank relies on his magicka to sustain his health and stamina.

The main taunt (close range puncture) uses stamina, blocking heavy attacks an spells uses stamina, defensive posture/absorb magic uses stamina, roll/dodge uses stamina....you see where this is going?

In Vet dungeons, the AOE spells from enemies is huge, even with knockback immunity from heavy armour (which uses stamina) you take a huge beating that hits your health hard.

This is where your magicka comes in, to restore and regen your health and stamina. Not to mention inner fire from undaunt taunt, it is a must have in vet dungeons, so many bosses have such huge aoes you can not get close enough to use puncture.

If a tank CC mobs and taunts the biggest thread (a paladin or sentinel for example), his magicka is just barely enough to keep him alive to face that bigger threat. His team is busy taking out the mobs.

So you see my point? should the tank CC? yes and no.....i believe all classes should have CC options, dark magic has encase, but no classes have this or something similar.

No CC for stamina builds (root/lock downs). or am i missing something?

PS: Volcanic Rune is unlocked at Mages Guild level 6, it will take quiet some time to unlock and more to morph...

dragnier

Having played as a NB Tank, I have to admit that NB is a bit limited on the AoE CC compared to DK and Sorc tanks. I think Templar also lacks an effective AoE CC.

NB does have Ultimates with AoE CC, but only two possible non-Ultimate AoE CC skills; and those skills are lackluster.

Aspect of Terror morphed into Manifestation of Terror sets a trap that must arm but then will fear anything in its radius for 4 sec. The fear does not bread on damage. The down side is the mobs go in every possible direction and don't stay grouped for AoE DPS.

Fire Rune morphed into Volcanic Rune sets a trap that must arm but then causes enemies to get thrown into the air and stunned for 3 sec. The down side here is similar to the previous option, but not as bad. The mobs still get knocked apart somewhat which is bad for AoE DPS.

Even with the passives in the Siphoning line, Ultimate doesn't build fast enough for a NB tank to spam the snare or stun Ultimate skills enough to be useful.

On the other hand, if the tank can taunt the biggest threats in the pack of mobs, then they are doing their job. Tanking is not about CC, it is about target assessment and singling out the heavy hitters to keep away from the squishy dps/healer types.

I do think something is off a bit with threat in this game because I have run into occasions with bosses and normal mobs where the taunt just did not work even if I hit it multiple times trying to get them back on me. There needs to be some way for tanks to build threat above and beyond what the DPS can do vs. a taunted enemy. Perhaps some mechanic added to the taunt skills themselves that increase the tanks' threat building for the duration of the taunt.

Andy22

dragnier wrote: »

I do think something is off a bit with threat in this game because I have run into occasions with bosses and normal mobs where the taunt just did not work even if I hit it multiple times trying to get them back on me.

Elmojito1000eb17_ESO wrote: »

In Banished Cells, our tank could not aggro anything, despite him constantly using Puncture.

We actually tested this, he taunted a boss, she glowed red (showing signed of taunt), ignored him and started casting spells on me (the healer) who was at least 20m away and weapon sheathed and just standing not doing anything.

I did around 100 runs in all 3 of the first veteran dungeons and except for one fungal boss and the random abilities, this has never happen once to me?

In my tank setup i deal very little damage, so there should be some cases where a boss turns away from me and attack healer/dps with normal none special attacks while being taunted (glowing), but except for this fungal boss i cant recall any other cases?

The only difference i noticed is that as NB tank, i might taunt more frequently than other tanks? I usually hit the taunt every 5-8 seconds. So maybe the stated 15 second part is "bugged"?

kirnmalidus

From today's ask us anything post, a bit more insight into the taunt abilities and holding aggro:

So I'm trying to figure out how to hold decent agro, and it's just not working out right. On bosses, I hit them with Ransack and it doesn't even do anything. I can empty my magicka and stamina with offensive abilities and it just seems like bosses don't care about abilities; they just randomly attack players. – Anrik

There are two taunt abilities in the game, Inner Fire and Puncture. Puncture, which morphs into Ransack, will definitely taunt a boss or any creature off of a teammate. Repeated uses of the ability, however, don’t taunt the boss any more effectively. Use it once and give the enemy time to re-acquire a target: you. If the enemy was in the middle of an attack, it won’t pull off of your teammate immediately. Also, remember that other actions (such as damage and healing) may cause the enemy to re-acquire those targets even if it is focusing on you already. Using your taunt at those times is important.

Remember that you don’t want all of the enemies on you. Your other teammates will likely have enemies engaging them as well. In a boss situation, if used sparingly and in a timely manner, Ransack will allow you to hold and effectively tank the boss. You can also hold the boss by being the sole damage dealer on it and dealing a lot of damage, but the boss is more likely to re-acquire if you don’t use some kind of taunt.

Andy22

mhh, if thats true, than i guess i never noticed this aggro switching, because i simply taunt too frequently. On the other hand they not specifically mention this DK ability, that seems to act as a taunt as well?

kewl

Taunts do work. It's that sometimes bosses have special attacks that target a random player.

kirnmalidus

From the quote above, I think this is the important part that I'm trying to point out and people seem to be overlooking: "Also, remember that other actions (such as damage and healing) may cause the enemy to re-acquire those targets even if it is focusing on you already."

Fersaken

I am now VT10 and I will say this.

Taunts work fine, even taunting every single mob in a group. Just hold down shield block and you will be fine. If the mobs don't die fast enough, get new dps.

The point is trash doesn't live long enough to do much damage / kill you.

Most the time I run in talons, then ransack as many mobs as I can until talons wears off then talons again, then ransack some more. This works easy enough for me, and my group seeing that none of us die.

To people who say there is no aggro in this game, you couldn't be more wrong. Why does it always seem the mob is quick to go after the healer when taunt wears off? Its random? Really then why is it always the healer and not dps?

Taunt never breaks short, period. The mob may turn and cast one of its mechanics at someone in the group but soon as the cast is done it returns back to the tank that taunted it.

kirnmalidus

Fersaken wrote: »

To people who say there is no aggro in this game, you couldn't be more wrong. Why does it always seem the mob is quick to go after the healer when taunt wears off? Its random? Really then why is it always the healer and not dps?

Nobody in this thread is arguing there isn't aggro in the game, just that it doesn't work how people think it should. To your point, aggro targets healers and DPS.

Theron75

Taunt is fine. So are the aggro tables, with a few rare exceptions (bugs). Boss mechanics *should* allow for aggro drops/reset once in awhile, it keeps things interesting. Tanking in ESO isn't like other MMOs. There is far more focus on boss mechanics, player movement, and buffs/debuffs than the "meatshield" mentality of stacking HP and defense and relying on a healer to keep the tank up.

All of my tanking experience in ESO has been in PUGs (that's pick-up group for the MMO impaired) thus far, and I've had very few problems with tanking on my DK. The most difficult part is discovering what you can absorb (do I block or burn an ability?), what you should avoid (do I stand in this red circle or run away from it?), and knowing where everyone is in relation to the boss.

Most trash MOBs can't be tanked, they need to be controlled. DK perform this well with talons, DoT damage, and snares. If you need to taunt trash, you need to find better DPS for your group. It's very easy to get overwhelmed by trying to tank a large pull. In my experience, it's better to just burn through them with the rest of DPS, and keep an eye on your healer.

Shaun98ca2

Trash mobs don't really need a "tank". They need extra attention and CC.

By attention I mean dodging red and interrupting and blocking by 3 DPS and 1 healer.

Healer having to deal with trash makes the healers job VERY hard. Healer getting stunned, knocked down or having to block could mean your death.