Boss aggro question

Dekkameron

Hullo, the other day i was in a guild group with a single high level (43) and another who was 23.
My character was level 19 and slightly under level for the level 20ish dungeons we were doing.

But here is the thing, as soon as we engaged a boss, it would instantly target my character first regardless if i had even attacked or not and continue attacking me until i either died or it died itself.
Every single boss did this to me and i couldn't help feel somewhat victimized.
At one point the high level whipped out a sword and shield to try and taunt them off me. This "sometimes" worked but more often than not the boss might pause for a second before carrying on its merry way to put some more pain on me.

What is causing this? It's certainly not aggroing me because i'm the biggest threat or doing the most damage, so i can only assume the bosses are targeting me first because i am slightly underlevel or because i have the lowest health in the group.

Anyone understand why?

Dekkameron

Oh and after a while we decided we could use this mechanic to our advantage and i just ran around spamming dark passage whilst they nuke the bosses, but this only worked with melee bosses and ranged would just spam magic etc till i was dead then decide to engage the others.

SexyVette07

Are you wearing plate armor? Ive heard of a rumor on these forums that the boss might target the person with the most armor.

I am in no way confirming, just something that ive seen posted here by others. Tell us about your character, maybe that can help us figure it out.


FYI there are abilities with hidden taunts.

Dekkameron

SexyVette07 wrote: »

Are you wearing plate armor? Ive heard of a rumor on these forums that the boss might target the person with the most armor.

I am in no way confirming, just something that ive seen posted here by others. Tell us about your character, maybe that can help us figure it out.


FYI there are abilities with hidden taunts.

Actually i was wearing heavy armour and the others were using medium.
By jove i think you've cracked it!

and it's not about the abilities as they would go for me straight off the bat without me doing anything at all.

My char is a Nightblade siphon build in heavy armour with sword/shield or destro staff.

Sacklunch

Welcome to the non-logic based boss/mob combat of ESO. Short answer your ***ked. From what I have noticed from playing my 4 alts(I have 1 in every faction) and from the beta testing I did as well is that there is no logic in the boss targeting, or the player targeting either. You can try swapping your armor but I do not see it helping. My alts are all completely different but in every group I'm in the bosses attacks are usually completely random, although I will say one thing that I have noticed is that they do tend to attack the weakest player a lot. I read the post Q&A the devs put up and they even say that agro does not stack and even if you manage to taunt a boss it will not last. My guess it that they are running an algorithm with the base variables of heath and previous attacks on group IE lowest health + least attacks = next target. My advise ranged weapon, stick and move, and BLOCK.

Dekkameron

Yup, i definately was the one with the lowest health/level so that's prolly why they all wanted me dead so much.