I never tank in mmo before but want to give it ago with dk or temp will I find it hard in dungeons worry I won't be able to hold aggro :/.

i think there is only 1 taunt and its only for 1 monster

so yes holding aggro might be hard

luckily all classes have some kind of CC or can take a few hits, so you being able to hold the toughest enemy is likely enough

take this with a grain of salt as i havent played a tank and havent grouped enough in this game, just what ive heard/read

also there are some mechanics that im not sure how work, that could help you hold aggro on multiple mobs, lets say a sorc does a lightning splash on the mobs which is an AE DOT, if you as the tank hit the synergi, making the lightningsplash explode instantly for high damage, who gets that extra aggro you or the sorc? i dont know but would love to know if someone else does

Dw, if your with me! This healer will makes your life easyer!

Honestly, the best thing to do is just jump in and do it.

You'll fail and wipe, and that's OK. You just keep getting back up until you get into the swing of things.

Tanking is hard in any game. Any good gamer is going to give you crazy mad respect for jumping in.

Full healer is stronger than one could imagine in this game. All I had was healing skills, and still I could hold my own in battle

You won't. Get the big guy and let everyone else worry about the little buggers that cause havoc.

Make sure to play the lower level dungeons while leveling up, especially right after release. Everyone will be newbs and no one will care about your learning phase. Compared to, say, trying to tank an end-game dungeon that has been out for a while and you are expected to already know what to do

Well DK abuse of their AoE root to keep aggro. CC have 2 roll. it prevent mobs to jump on your teamate and it generate tons of aggro. But the game has been designed in a way that your teamate will get some beating

As said above, that's something you'll learn by simply trying. Ofcourse, the first time it will be hard, yet slowly you'll get the hang of it. 'Tanking' is an important role in every MMORPG, and there is always need of 'Tanks'.

I wish you good luck, and hopefully you'll enjoy your role.

Best regards,

Zhunk

To dismiss a popular stereotype, ESO is NOT a traditional MMO.

You do NOT require 1 Tank, 1 Healer and 2 DPS in a party.

I have proven this countless times to people during the last few betas, and had some VERY strong parties to boot.

As a rule you WILL need some form of healing. That MAY be one dedicated healer, though parties with 2 part time healers have been stronger.

A character that has a sword and board (ie Taunt attack), heavy armor and melee abilities does work WELL in groups, and can help stabilize damage from the stronger sources, giving people more time to focus on their strengths. As a "Tank" you will NOT be expected to take ALL the damage. As a rule that would be a recipe for disaster, as your damage taken will be very heavy. The best groups I've been in have had the damage spread fairly evenly across the party, but had a heavy taking slightly more or keeping the tougher creatures occupied.

However.. I have also been in groups with NO tank. The heaviest armor in some groups has been medium, from Nightblades, and those have worked well too, typically where there are multiple people with a heal slotted - it's meant we could cope with spike damage but still push on at speed.

The short version:

===============

Be flexible. Don't worry about how "well" you'll tank. You dodge (double tap) out those red zones, block heavy attacks, and Taunt the worst threats when you can - you'll do fine. If you get a party that's constantly dying, it's most likely not your fault. If their level average is too low for the place they are in, they probably will struggle. If they have a bad attitude, simply leave and find a nicer group.

^

That would make sense considering a large number of heals in the game are heal-over-times. Which are useful when damage is spread out, not so much when it is focused on one source. That, and the large number of CC's available to every class.

TIP:

If you are a min-maxer, I usually discourage this sort of thing, as it's better to be flexible... BUT there weren't many die-hard tankers in Beta, so perhaps there will be a shortage of people like you on release too:

If you were to pick a Dragon Knight, and happened to be Imperial (Order Imperial Digital edition), that would give you a pretty good boost to your stats and shield use.

If you focused on Heavy Armor, sword and shield, and put your levelup point into Health religiously, you would potentially have a VERY big health pool and take some killing. You might also find that a certain Dragon Knight HEALING ability, which does a PERCENTAGE heal became increasingly awesome. Socket the Undaunted one too if you feel the need for backup. Taunt perhaps for one position and 2 more to assign. Your call.

Wish you luck with your tanking experiment

Any class can tank at the low end levels, we'll see how the higher end ones play out; it feels more about learning to dodge and learning your block timings in general. I believe mitigation is soft-capped at 50%? Someone please correct me.

Best advice. Leave the trolls to play with the trolls. Try find a "noob" guild; people have a better sense of humor when they are also learning.


Question: do you see ESO falling into the zerker/DPS meta (GW2's main meta whereby you avoid damage by nuking the boss as fast as possible)?

No, and that's one of the things I love about it. It really depends on the party. I've been with all sorts of party makeups, all sorts of abilities, and it's been different every time. As that scales up to higher levels the styles and differences become more apparent - just makes it more fun.

You have that flexibility too tho. I usually play a character that can heal and dps. Even I face that tradeoff. If I nuke a target it's less damage to the party, but the resources I just blew I might need for healing them. What else you have with you shapes how safe your choices are.

I played as healer in last beta and plan to play Orsimer tank once the game launches. Judging from my experience as healer from last beta, i'd say that majority of the PUGs will plainly svck.

Simply because people are unfamiliar with game, bosses and mechanics. Also, like other already pointed out, theres really only one taunt ability and no AoE agro generation, meaning that DPS are supposed to survive atleast few stray mobs. ESO is made this way and people dont realize this yet.

So dont mind PUGs, there will be alot of terrible groups with people dying left and right. All you can do is Puncture two, maybe three mobs and expect the rest of the group to do their jobs.

I hate to hear players claiming that you wont really need a tank like in others mmo because they didnt needed one in their normal dungeon. I highly doubt the heroic version will be possible to beat without a traditional tank especially wh3n zenimax stated several that tanking will be a core role.

Yeah I understand that everyone need to taking care care of themselves too. But you ll need a competant tank.

If I was in your group, I too would be scared that you find tanking hard.

Simon's advice is pretty sharp. I'd like to add a couple of odd details that doesn't seem to be common knowledge.

The higher your armor rating, the more aggro you generate. The lower your HP value (concrete value, not max or percentage), the more aggro you generate. You'll want to keep your armor rating as high as possible not just for survivability, but for generating aggro. As a tank, you won't want to keep your health low to generate aggro, but be aware of that mechanic. It's for this reason that I keep +Health equipment in my healer's inventory. If I suspect my healer may have low health compared to the party, I'll switch out items to avoid that.

Sometimes, a root is your best way to control aggro. I don't mean the roots that break on damage (though CC in general is worthwhile in dungeons). But if a mob is rooted, they tend to favor whoever is standing closest.

And to reinforce what's been said: your skill at blocking and dodging is AT LEAST as important as your build and equipment.

Far as I can tell, the "job" of the tank here is not to hold agro all the time but to absorb the big hits that would kill someone else. So you just need to figure out when to taunt and trigger your defensive abilities.

Yeah so would you rather it be easy?

I tanked Spindleclutch at 10 with DK. Trust me you can get aggro. 1 hand and shield puncture generates a ****ton of hate. I did die a few times but hey it strongly recommends lvl 12.

edit - melee combat is like a game of chess once you get use to it. 1 hand shield strongly recommended.

You shouldn't mindlessly use your resource bar, always, always keep an extra for that healing spell or that taunt or that amazing CC, no matter the class.

There is "tank noob can't hold aggro" here, mobs are semi conscious now, they will clearly know who is healing and they will go after that guy, or that ranged guy or the guy behind swinging a sword.

Everyone should know when to back off and save their own hide and dodge, use CC, everyone must know to do this, the tank in this scenario has the taunt for sure, but its just there to be like "HEY LOOK AT ME MONSTER, I SAW UR SISTER LAST NIGHT HUEHUE", basically to take the punishment and get the monster's attention as much as possible, yet it's not like he's alone and the monster knows it, so always be quick on your feet. Also the tank isn't supposed to be immobile either, no excuse to take free damage when you can clearly dodge or block a important hit.

Heroic version? Are these in or conjecture?

I know we were low level, but in the beginner dungeons we had a nightblade, a templar, and a Dk as tanks. I was the healer. All 3 did very well. Sure the boss got away a few times, but they got him back pretty fast. Adds were dispatched prompty by the DPS and me. You won't be able to keep all mobs focused on you all the time, but you don't have to. Try to stay out of red zones as much as you can.

Overall i did not see a reason for worry.