Taunting mechanic in ESO, why tanking is giving me monstruous headaches.

mielgatorwb17_ESO · February 2015

I'm making this post to discuss the taunting mechanic, which is actually giving me great pain even through I made my best accommodating to this system since the release.

Be aware that i'm mostly giving feedback on high end PVE content, I won't even care talking about Veteran Dungeons where packs basically last between 5 to 10seconds.

First : Threat generation is weird or non existant for tanks

Tanks generate barely to no threat over a pack of monsters, I tried many AOE builds, and while it's efficient in most of the weak veteran dungeons BECAUSE packs die fast, when you're doing DSA Veteran or content with an alike difficulty, it's a waste of magicka/stamina. Sometime you might want to cycle CC, but most of them will be immuned to, not a solution either. Taunting them independently while they are all packed is also a pain, making it even more harder. (4 axes during AA last boss in hard mode, no one ?)

Second : Taunts duration is only 15seconds

While monotarget taunts is already a pain to manage, they only last a handful of 15seconds, meaning in many situation, the time you take targetting monsters, taunting, driving them together, using your others skills, well, you're good to retaunt everything, given the fact you havn't lost most of them and still have enough magicka/stamina to retaunt.

Third : Taunts are only monotarget.

While I understand that giving tanks only monotarget taunts make it harder for tanks to get all the monsters on them, in some situations (like, more than 5 monsters) It become impossible to do anything else than : taunting.

Fourth : Sometime, even when taunted, mobs don't care.

Yeah, there are case of bosses that litterally overlook the taunt, you just launched it, nope, he'll like the healer better, you still see the visual effect, nope, still like the healer better. Maybe it's and intended mechanic, maybe not, nevertheless, it's a pain and shouldn't exist.

So, I already see it coming : But in ESO tanks arn't supposed to take all monsters on them. Let me tell you this : BULL****./

EDIT : As @Cyhawk said, While it's not required to take all monsters on the tank, it's still needed to take MOST of them, which in DSA Veteran translate in a minimal amount of 6 monsters, taking the fifth arena last wave as exemple, you need to keep : The boss, two gargoyle, 1 two handed dude, 2 rogues. Most medium armor DDs are killed in two bolts by a caster, one bolt if they took some AoE damages. This is an irrefutable truth./EDIT

In most high end PVE content, a lone monster can litterally destroy a medium armor dude, and while he'll be able to offtank for a moment, it wont last long, basically they'll last so long they have stamina to block/evade, and won't do their job correctly so long they have a mob running after their ass, even if the tank take a few seconds to taunt the astray monster, by the time he do this he'll lose one or two more.

One easy solution I see here, that won't require to add anything, would be to up the taunt duration to 30 seconds. How many time I tell to myself : If only my taunt lasted a little more...

Another solution, would be to add a short duration high cost AOE/FAOE taunt, making it easier to grab the astray monsters and maybe save someone.

Last solution I came up with, but clearly not the best as it would make tanking too easy IMO, is to modify one passive in One handed & Shield to make tanks generate threat on any damages they do.

Discuss

Cyhawk · February 2015

Long story short, you're doing it wrong. You can keep your threat level up very high by using things like Caltrops, Talons, Ash cloud as examples. You SHOULD be damaging your target as much as possible through long DoTs that conserve magicka and you'll keep that threat level up. There is also a built in "screw it, i'll do what I want" mechanic where if taunt is lost, they'll go after a random target.

If you're losing taunts one of three things is happening.
* You missed. Many bosses use things like blinding flashes and sparks to create a miss chance. Using something like CLS can determine if you actually hit or not. If you don't do damage, you didn't taunt them.
* You began the fight with a taunt. This does NOT taunt contrary to popular belief. I mean it should, but it doesn't so theres that.
* Someone else is taunting. Either through not reading or not understanding the game, many undaunted pug groups I've run into this issue where people think inner fire is a good dps skill. Also sometimes in something like SO the offtank will accidentally taunt (and never fess up to it)

15 seconds for the taunt is plenty. You can keep up to 10ish targets taunted at all times easily with proper group support for resources. Using abilities like Caltrops gives you extra time to retaunt if needed. For trash pulls, they shouldn't even last that long to retaunt anyways.

Tanking in ESO is about knowing what to taunt and what not to taunt. You're doing it very wrong if you're taunting everything and trying to keep it up. Hell in trash pulls I don't even bother taunting at all unless its 'big' npcs that can one-shot squishy people. I just toss caltrops on my feel, ash cloud and chain pull everything that doesn't want to get close or just flat out isn't coming in close fast enough.

Outside of the first taunt not working bug, nothing needs to be changed about taunt mechanics. Just the way people think it should work.

mielgatorwb17_ESO · February 2015

On a second thought, i'll come back on my words and keep them for later, Still I clearly don't agree with what you said.

Your post make me angry in a sense that you question my capability and understanding of the game as a player when i'm clearly not the only one with this situation. A vast majority of tanks i've met (if not all) during the last year had the same issue. Only a handful of "progamers" living on this forum keep singing the same old song again and again, because they play the only mainstream class since ESO's release and have fairly less troubles than any others.

Let me just tell you something : following your thoughts, in whatever direction you look, damage dealers will always have more threat generation than a tank, and tanks playing AOE builds in City of Ash & DSA Vet does not keep untaunted monsters on them after the third second of engagement once DDs has begun to unleash their potential. Sure they wont go on the healer. But DDs will be pushing up daisies.

The reason is simple : DDs have more Spell power, More Weapon Power, More critical rating, more ressources, more regen. If you don't taunt, mobs don't stay, unless you have unoptimized DDs with you.

eric22santiago_ESO · February 2015

My problem with the current tanking situation, and possibly on lines of your troubles, is that there aren't many PURE tanking abilities in the game. While a 30 second taunt is FAR too long of a taunt, having other taunts and tanking abilities would help to not only make tanking a more controlled environment but would make it more fun as well.

ESO utilizes the trinity of MMO classes with tank, healer, and dps. But within those 4 classes there is not a single PURE taunt (we are not going to consider any damaging or CC ability as a threat builder) let alone a PURE tanking skill line. Templar has an entire skill line, Restoring Light, dedicated to healing and while Dragon Knight has a skill line maybe 2 that have SOME nice tanking abilities they are a far cry from a real set of tanking abilities.

ESO needs to rework one of the classes, imo the DK, skill lines to address tanking. One of the classes needs to have a skill line with taunts, stuns, intercepts, saves, invuln, etc. to complement a player who wants to tank so that he does not have to resort to spamming a taunt found in a universal skill line such as 1h sword and board.

Pmarsico9 · February 2015

Cyhawk wrote: »

Long story short, you're doing it wrong. You can keep your threat level up very high by using things like Caltrops, Talons, Ash cloud as examples. You SHOULD be damaging your target as much as possible through long DoTs that conserve magicka and you'll keep that threat level up. There is also a built in "screw it, i'll do what I want" mechanic where if taunt is lost, they'll go after a random target.

If you're losing taunts one of three things is happening.
* You missed. Many bosses use things like blinding flashes and sparks to create a miss chance. Using something like CLS can determine if you actually hit or not. If you don't do damage, you didn't taunt them.
* You began the fight with a taunt. This does NOT taunt contrary to popular belief. I mean it should, but it doesn't so theres that.
* Someone else is taunting. Either through not reading or not understanding the game, many undaunted pug groups I've run into this issue where people think inner fire is a good dps skill. Also sometimes in something like SO the offtank will accidentally taunt (and never fess up to it)

15 seconds for the taunt is plenty. You can keep up to 10ish targets taunted at all times easily with proper group support for resources. Using abilities like Caltrops gives you extra time to retaunt if needed. For trash pulls, they shouldn't even last that long to retaunt anyways.

Tanking in ESO is about knowing what to taunt and what not to taunt. You're doing it very wrong if you're taunting everything and trying to keep it up. Hell in trash pulls I don't even bother taunting at all unless its 'big' npcs that can one-shot squishy people. I just toss caltrops on my feel, ash cloud and chain pull everything that doesn't want to get close or just flat out isn't coming in close fast enough.

Outside of the first taunt not working bug, nothing needs to be changed about taunt mechanics. Just the way people think it should work.

Ok look, this really isn't very constructive.

Anybody pointing at Caltrops is pointing at something that takes a very long time to grind up. And it's CC.

OP has a very strong point here. There is no threat in this game. There's a debuff or there isn't.

Heavy Armor greatly hurts tank DPS because of how resource starved they are and there's not really anything in the Sword and Shield line that has a threat modifier. In fact, nothing exists with a threat modifier, and you could argue threat doesn't exist. All that exists is a taunt.

Which is why when I run any Veteran aside from City of Ash, there's no need for a tank. You get a DPS sorc to taunt with Inner Rage and port around throwing out some damage. Which reduces the need for a pure healer as well. So group DPS goes up.

So in fact, one could argue that if you are using a pure tank in anything but DSA, Trials, or VCOA, you are the one in fact doing it wrong.

Karanshade · July 2015

I haven't reach veteran yet , far from it , but from my limited experience , I have this feeling that Tanks are not supposed to exist in ESO. At least the model of the game is not oriented into having a guy running around with a full pack on him and the rest of the DPS around in circle , free to clap and dps. It s a good thing.I always hated the concept of tanks in MMOs. DPS should be clever , use CC , use some escape and the fight should be a brawl.

I know the realism argument is not the best but at least some realism are to be achieved. And for the love of me ,how can you picture a big 10 vs 10 fights where suddently for no reason , a full 10 man team will follow one of the others guy around ? Is that a fight ?

SO yeah for ESO to be a free of tanking game attempt. Or at least to respect the elder scroll philosophy , you can have a tank but you dont have to have a tank. Its just one strategy and since threat control do not exist , it won't be the mandatory easiest one.
I know it won't last because the marketing branch will soon tell the dev that 'most people' will be lost if they can't identify easily their role in one of the three categories. Already some veteran dungeons do requiere a tank which is a sign they gave up.
So I m sorry to say but OP post gives me great pleasure to read. I want my dungeon to be brawl area , where fight occurs and battle awareness is the key to success. Use that CC to save a friend in trouble , vanish and kite , kill or be killed. Not this boring ridiculous spectacle of the 'guy with 10 pals' glued to his ass and his friends AOEing at will.

So yeah for the dream even so it won't last.

Avenias · July 2015

mielgatorwb17_ESO wrote: »

I'm making this post to discuss the taunting mechanic, which is actually giving me great pain even through I made my best accommodating to this system since the release.

Be aware that i'm mostly giving feedback on high end PVE content, I won't even care talking about Veteran Dungeons where packs basically last between 5 to 10seconds.

First : Threat generation is weird or non existant for tanks

Tanks generate barely to no threat over a pack of monsters, I tried many AOE builds, and while it's efficient in most of the weak veteran dungeons BECAUSE packs die fast, when you're doing DSA Veteran or content with an alike difficulty, it's a waste of magicka/stamina. Sometime you might want to cycle CC, but most of them will be immuned to, not a solution either. Taunting them independently while they are all packed is also a pain, making it even more harder. (4 axes during AA last boss in hard mode, no one ?)

Second : Taunts duration is only 15seconds

While monotarget taunts is already a pain to manage, they only last a handful of 15seconds, meaning in many situation, the time you take targetting monsters, taunting, driving them together, using your others skills, well, you're good to retaunt everything, given the fact you havn't lost most of them and still have enough magicka/stamina to retaunt.

Third : Taunts are only monotarget.

While I understand that giving tanks only monotarget taunts make it harder for tanks to get all the monsters on them, in some situations (like, more than 5 monsters) It become impossible to do anything else than : taunting.

Fourth : Sometime, even when taunted, mobs don't care.

Yeah, there are case of bosses that litterally overlook the taunt, you just launched it, nope, he'll like the healer better, you still see the visual effect, nope, still like the healer better. Maybe it's and intended mechanic, maybe not, nevertheless, it's a pain and shouldn't exist.

So, I already see it coming : But in ESO tanks arn't supposed to take all monsters on them. Let me tell you this : BULL****./

EDIT : As @Cyhawk said, While it's not required to take all monsters on the tank, it's still needed to take MOST of them, which in DSA Veteran translate in a minimal amount of 6 monsters, taking the fifth arena last wave as exemple, you need to keep : The boss, two gargoyle, 1 two handed dude, 2 rogues. Most medium armor DDs are killed in two bolts by a caster, one bolt if they took some AoE damages. This is an irrefutable truth./EDIT

In most high end PVE content, a lone monster can litterally destroy a medium armor dude, and while he'll be able to offtank for a moment, it wont last long, basically they'll last so long they have stamina to block/evade, and won't do their job correctly so long they have a mob running after their ass, even if the tank take a few seconds to taunt the astray monster, by the time he do this he'll lose one or two more.

One easy solution I see here, that won't require to add anything, would be to up the taunt duration to 30 seconds. How many time I tell to myself : If only my taunt lasted a little more...

Another solution, would be to add a short duration high cost AOE/FAOE taunt, making it easier to grab the astray monsters and maybe save someone.

Last solution I came up with, but clearly not the best as it would make tanking too easy IMO, is to modify one passive in One handed & Shield to make tanks generate threat on any damages they do.

Discuss

Wall of text does 100k damage to you. Ok jokes aside, i agree with the gist that mono taunting is inefficient to say the least, i would prefer at least 1 aoe taunt. Tanks have been and still are my fav role, fun to get up close and personal with the enemy monster.

HungryHobo · July 2015

I have never played a tank, but I have read somewhere if you "Over-Taunt" enemies you'll lose their threat. Are you possibly taunting too much? I think it was if you taunt more than 3 times in 10-12 seconds you'll start losing threat.

Colosso-monstro · July 2015

Karanshade wrote: »

I haven't reach veteran yet , far from it , but from my limited experience , I have this feeling that Tanks are not supposed to exist in ESO. At least the model of the game is not oriented into having a guy running around with a full pack on him and the rest of the DPS around in circle , free to clap and dps. It s a good thing.I always hated the concept of tanks in MMOs. DPS should be clever , use CC , use some escape and the fight should be a brawl.

I know the realism argument is not the best but at least some realism are to be achieved. And for the love of me ,how can you picture a big 10 vs 10 fights where suddently for no reason , a full 10 man team will follow one of the others guy around ? Is that a fight ?

SO yeah for ESO to be a free of tanking game attempt. Or at least to respect the elder scroll philosophy , you can have a tank but you dont have to have a tank. Its just one strategy and since threat control do not exist , it won't be the mandatory easiest one.
I know it won't last because the marketing branch will soon tell the dev that 'most people' will be lost if they can't identify easily their role in one of the three categories. Already some veteran dungeons do requiere a tank which is a sign they gave up.
So I m sorry to say but OP post gives me great pleasure to read. I want my dungeon to be brawl area , where fight occurs and battle awareness is the key to success. Use that CC to save a friend in trouble , vanish and kite , kill or be killed. Not this boring ridiculous spectacle of the 'guy with 10 pals' glued to his ass and his friends AOEing at will.

So yeah for the dream even so it won't last.

So I should throw away my heavy and go light with a destro staff instead of tanking? If tanking wasn't supposed to exist then the heavy and 1h/shield skill lines are absolutely pointless. So if they want people to still use those but still get rid of tanking then they'll need to revamp those skill lines

mateoz · July 2015

I tank vdsa often and I agree 100% with the OP, try and ask any experienced tank about last boss of vdsa, you have like 25% miss chance just to voice an exemple.

In such end game content relying on luck for aggro is very bad game design because dont forget you dont want to overtaunt either.

the best Iv see in other mmo is one of OP
Last solution I came up with, but clearly not the best as it would make tanking too easy IMO, is to modify one passive in One handed & Shield to make tanks generate threat on any damages they do.

In another popular mmo there is a hidden multiplier of 4x for Tank.
DD had to do 4x the damage / heal to get the mob on them, then a tank can do slight damage to keep mobs on him and if one guys go all out like crazy he was getting aggro and died. it is working in other mmo

my 2 cents

SLy_Kyti · July 2015

I agree with the OP.
And he's not "doing it wrong" its just that successful Tanks have worked out "accommodations" for putting up with crap soft taunts and No AoE taunt. My two coppers anyway.

Zsymon · July 2015

The whole point of tanks not having the same taunting capacity as in other games, is to give more responsibility to the DPS members of the group. In most games DPS is incredibly lazy, they don't need to do anything but stand stationary and spam one single skill. In ESO the DPSers have to stay on their toes, they have to CC the trash monsters if they want to stay alive.

Bringing in more threat for tanks would be a major mistake for ESO, because here it is actually fun to be a DPS in dungeons, rather than incredibly boring.

Also, if tanks had more threat, they would have to block more, and since in the next patch block stops stamina recovery, they would not be able to handle their threat. People complain content is too easy, maybe this change to blocking will make things more interesting and difficult again.

koetty · July 2015

Ye, tanking will be even more harder when holding block doesn't generate stamina any more :-/
Only solution I see is to only taunt the harder enemies.