Tank aggro question

Powerburrito20 · July 2016

So I was tanking The Hive Lord in Darkshade last night and for the life of me I can't keep aggro on this thing. I'm talking chain casting pierce armor with inner fire in between and he's still leaping away on top of everybody. Can anyone out there tell me what I or the rest of the group may be doing wrong here? Or does everyone just need to stand closer to him to prevent it?

SolarCat02 · July 2016

Certain bosses have attacks that don't care about aggro. The Hive Lord's leap is one of them. If you watch, after his leap he should go back to you without you doing anything.

lolo_01b16_ESO · July 2016

Some bosses have mechanics where they loose aggro for a moment and attack an other target. This target can be either random, or selected by other rules, e.g. the person standing furthest away from the boss. As tank you usually can't do much about this and should just make sure that the boss returns to you after his jump. If people die to it, tell them to block, dodge or get more hp.

Powerburrito20 · July 2016

SolarCat02 wrote: »

Certain bosses have attacks that don't care about aggro. The Hive Lord's leap is one of them. If you watch, after his leap he should go back to you without you doing anything.

Ya, I did notice this, for the most part. Especially as soon as he leaped I would drop another inner fire on him. So I gather it's just something the group has to deal with? I did read somewhere if the whole group stands closer to him he won't leap. I was just curious if it was something I needed to do different on a tanking stand point.

Reverb · July 2016

That's one of the many bosses that disregard taunts as a mechanic. There is nothing the tank can do to prevent or mitigate this. Other party members have to block and/or dodge these hits. As long as you keep a taunt up, boss will return to you right afterwards.

Powerburrito20 · July 2016

Thanks for the responses!

socivL · July 2016

youll want to spam use your taunt button
this should make his ankles too weak to jump

SolarCat02 · July 2016

Other examples:

- Iskra the Omen in Vaults of Madness will jump on the "weakest" on the team. This can be interrupted if you are quick
- In Blackheart Haven, the boss with the harpies will periodically send out a strong magical attack against two people in your group. This MUST be interrupted as it's a one-shot for most non-tanks. The targets are random.
- In Tempest Island, the final boss will jump to someone else in the group and start a large AoE centered on wherever they were standing. (Everyone get out of it).
- In Veteran Banished Cells, the Maw of the Inferno will randomly turn to do a fire breath attack against someone, then turn back to the tank. Rilis (final boss) will also randomly assign blue fire to two group members, and also the person who goes up in the bubble seems to be random. These can't be interrupted.
- In Veteran Crypt of Hearts, you can hold the attention of the final boss but you can't keep him still. At one point he will jump to someone in the group and cast an AoE centered on him. Afterwards he throws a skull at a random player which is pretty much a one-shot. Tank needs to watch for the windup and call out block (which mitigates most of the damage).

As you can see, tank can still help with most of these, but you cannot control the target.

Powerburrito20 · July 2016

SolarCat02 wrote: »

Other examples:

- Iskra the Omen in Vaults of Madness will jump on the "weakest" on the team. This can be interrupted if you are quick
- In Blackheart Haven, the boss with the harpies will periodically send out a strong magical attack against two people in your group. This MUST be interrupted as it's a one-shot for most non-tanks. The targets are random.
- In Tempest Island, the final boss will jump to someone else in the group and start a large AoE centered on wherever they were standing. (Everyone get out of it).
- In Veteran Banished Cells, the Maw of the Inferno will randomly turn to do a fire breath attack against someone, then turn back to the tank. Rilis (final boss) will also randomly assign blue fire to two group members, and also the person who goes up in the bubble seems to be random. These can't be interrupted.
- In Veteran Crypt of Hearts, you can hold the attention of the final boss but you can't keep him still. At one point he will jump to someone in the group and cast an AoE centered on him. Afterwards he throws a skull at a random player which is pretty much a one-shot. Tank needs to watch for the windup and call out block (which mitigates most of the damage).

As you can see, tank can still help with most of these, but you cannot control the target.

Thank You, makes me feel better. I was starting to feel a bit sub-par for a bit.

SolarCat02 · July 2016

Powerburrito20 wrote: »

SolarCat02 wrote: »

Other examples:

- Iskra the Omen in Vaults of Madness will jump on the "weakest" on the team. This can be interrupted if you are quick
- In Blackheart Haven, the boss with the harpies will periodically send out a strong magical attack against two people in your group. This MUST be interrupted as it's a one-shot for most non-tanks. The targets are random.
- In Tempest Island, the final boss will jump to someone else in the group and start a large AoE centered on wherever they were standing. (Everyone get out of it).
- In Veteran Banished Cells, the Maw of the Inferno will randomly turn to do a fire breath attack against someone, then turn back to the tank. Rilis (final boss) will also randomly assign blue fire to two group members, and also the person who goes up in the bubble seems to be random. These can't be interrupted.
- In Veteran Crypt of Hearts, you can hold the attention of the final boss but you can't keep him still. At one point he will jump to someone in the group and cast an AoE centered on him. Afterwards he throws a skull at a random player which is pretty much a one-shot. Tank needs to watch for the windup and call out block (which mitigates most of the damage).

As you can see, tank can still help with most of these, but you cannot control the target.

Thank You, makes me feel better. I was starting to feel a bit sub-par for a bit.

Not a problem!

ESO is set up so that tanks have to be smart about things and use strategies other than taunt and permablock. You also can't taunt everything in most cases, so you need to prioritize and/or utilize roots.
DPS needs to be aware of the enemies and get out of the way as needed, rather than blindly attacking.
Healing draws a LOT of aggro, so healer can't just stand at the back and cast heals.

Everyone helps manage aggro outside of non-add single-boss fights. (And sometimes the tank shouldn't even taunt the boss, such as in Selene's Web on the boss with the ghost cats, where it's best if the tank taunts the cats and keeps them away from the boss so the DPS can burn the boss without worrying about the respawning ghost cats).

You're fine, and doing great! As long as you are holding the aggro that matters, interrupting what you can, and communicating upcoming attacks you can't taunt (I have found calling the actions needed like "Block!" or "Stack!" or "Switch sides!" or "Burn boss!" is better than calling the attack itself), you are doing magnificent.