And boy did it go wroooong. I've been playing tanks in mmo's for quite a while now so i think i know what i'm doing. Something in ESO just feels very off about the combat. Especially in group combat and in pulls of more than 2 mobs things get very chaotic.

I'm a level 12 dragonknight with sword and board playstyle and have only 1 aggropull ability and it's a single target one at that. In that dungeon i've had pull of 6+ mobs at several times. But no way to get those to focus on me in a consistant manner.

Plus fighting in first person mode you lose a lot of what's going on around you, and in third person mode everything just feels weird, very very weird. The attack cones and things you have to block/interrupt are very unclear.

I don't know man, i never was a fan of the combat but the world and the crafting kind of kept me playing, but since i really want to tank, the combat engine has to work properly. i just get the feeling the combat was not made to be played in a group.

I remember trying the first dungeon during beta and it was just a clusterfuck since noone had picked up any aoe abilities yet while there was plenty of big aoe fights. It all worked out great when I went in later with a proper build though, so it might just be an early-game thing. Having that said I completely agree that group combat in the game is .... not good. As you said, first-person mode just kills combat awareness (which MMOs are all about) and third person feels like skating on an icerink while flailing around a nerfbat.

Yeah you might wanna keep going and see if you unlock some better abilities as you go along. Early game tanking is never especially good.

Though trying to keep track of 6+ mobs and the allies they are trying to nibble the knees off of must suck in first person...

Yeah I haven't tried tanking yet but looking at the abilities I have noticed there is little to no aoe abilities in tanking trees and only 1-2 aggro moves. Many of the abilities you need for tanking are also in non tanking trees for some reason. For example on the dragon knight when you evolve the banner ultimate on the ardent flame tree it can cause large bonus aggro for you. But it is the ultimate of a skill tree that is literally all dps other than that and one other skill. So why would a tank be buying skills in it? Meanwhile the tree with the most tank applications (spell reflect, bonus to blocking power, bonus armor skills) ends in a ranged aoe "leap" move that is pure dps??? WAT???

The skills are there, they are just all over the place. The games combat does have more in common with Skyrim than it does other MMO's and that is the real problem. Cause Skyrim is single player. I suspect most of it gets evened out at higher level once you have a ton more skill points under your belt.

Actually, skating around an icerink flailing at people with a nerfbat sounds pretty awesome

yeah it really does suck. There was a fight in an earlier quest where i had to kill this mob who could drain health from you and then spawn 4 orbs. If you let one of those orbs reach her, she gets full health again. But keeping track of the orbs in first person is just impossible. I had to switch to third person, but then you lose all sense of depth in the combat, it's really hard to tell if you're actually hitting an enemy. And your character feels very disconnected from the actual world. it's hard to describe really.

Combat has never really been a strongpoint in an ES game (although skyrim improved alot) but in an MMO you spend alot of time in combat. So the feeling has to be right. I can only imagine what the pvp feels like. It's a real shame though, cause i like the other stuff in the game, the fact you are exploring a world instead of going from quest hub to quest hub feels great in an mmo nowadays. I really like the crafting also. A reall bummer about the combat imo. :(

From what I have read and friends, group content is quite different to usual party setups in other mmo. As a tank, your not meant to be able to tank everything, but rather pick one or two of the greatest threats to the party. The rest is about crown control, dodging and hoping the other group members use there abilities and dodge/block effectively.

If you like this or not I guess is up to you. I'm going to go in with an open mind later today when I finish downloading, but i'm not sure if i'm going to like it.

My experience with a dungeon in the beta was not overly positive for many of the same reasons. However, as a DPS I can tell you I was geared/skilled for taking on small numbers of enemies myself, so the tank holding aggro on adds was not really a big deal. Only the big guys really mattered.

As for how the healer handled things, I have no idea.

I think this game focus more on cc, every class have several skills related to crowd control. It's not like most other modern MMOs were enemies will only attack the tank if the group does everything correctly. I actually ended up running my first dungeon (spindlecrutch) two times. With the first group we got swarmed all the time and died on every encounter. With the other group we used a lot more cc (and head a better healer) and people barely died at all. The best approach seemed to be when we let the tank only deal with the most dangerous enemies and have one person focus mostly on cc with some DPS, one guy full on DPS and the fourth person as a healer. I really enjoyed my first experience with dungeons in this game because it felt somewhat different from games like WoW and FF XIV yet not as unstructured as something like GW2 were everyone are basically just DPS. I can see how you would hate it if you are used to playing a WoW style tank that handles the entire enemy group because that role doesn't really seem possible in this game at least at the lower levels.

Another thing is to make sure to block power attack, you won't be able to tank/heal trough the damage those deal. Also keep in mind that we were all just around level 12 out 50 when we entered the first dungeon so things may change at higher levels, but I doubt it will ever turn into WoW.

You should play the game in third person. Playing this game in first person is like playing WoW in first person. It makes no sense.

The third person camera is odd and the first person camera is clunky as hell.

It's almost like the games not fun....

As someone who was in beta eons ago, one of my pieces of feedback was that the offset third person camera was uncomfortable to look at and could be disorientating to people. That an option to center the camera would be incredibly useful.

When they introduced first person view, my feedback was that it NEEDED an FOV slider, as their default FOV felt like Skyrim's default 70-75FOV. Ok for a TV. A vomitorium on a PC.

It's a good thing they give players the option of centering the third person camera and adjusting the FOV in the launch version of the game!

Oh...

It seems like because of the first person view being "the way to play this" they should make it so tanks have an AOE taunt or something.

Or maybe this game isn't intended to be trinity. I don't know. Sounds like it's not balanced for group content, though.

First person view preferred play is a first for an MMO technically so it is an interesting concept but they have to balance the game around that play style and since the first person view came in later I know for a fact this game was not built from the ground up with it in mind.

it's loosely based on a trinity, you have tanks/dps/healers. But the classes them selves are very much "do whatever the hell you want" it's just all over the place. I don't hate that, but i hate the fact that it seems hard to follow a straight path to become something you want to be.

The game would greatly benefit from FOV options, i don't really get bothered by FOV stuff, but in this game you need to be able to be aware of your surroundings, especially as a tank or healer. Playing the game in third person just doesn't feel right at all and isn't a real solution to the problem at hand. And indeed the game wasn't built with the first person view in mind, but then again the third person view is messed up too :D

I'm a fan of trinity style games, i like knowing my role in an mmo, i hated guildwars é because of the fact that there was no trinity, it may seem innovative but if it's done in a wrong way it really messes up things. I came into this as: hell yes i'll be tank with "realtime" combat, but then i got burned.

I don't know, maybe i should give the game another chance with another type of class, maybe i'll try a character with a bow. I'm just so bummed out because i'm so into the world and crafting side of things and the combat is letting me down so hard.

the thing is, games like WoW where there is 1 tank with 18 mobs wailing on him, a healer keeping his health at full at all times, and a bunch of DPSers picking off the zombie-esque mobs that dont even realise they are being backstabbed.. isnt very fun, nor is it dynamic.

In this game ive found that you can never stand still in a dungeon, i mostly play a mage with a heal staff and a fire staff, i play in both first and third person. red cones and circles means you should get back, roll if you realised it a little late, yellow flashes on an enemy means block to deflect, then heavy attack to knock them down, in a dungeon this gets a little crazy which i totally understand can make it hard for you to focus on tanking. i normally initiate with my aoe fire spell, then knock back 3 enemies with a different fire spell, switch to heal staff and let the tank get aggro off me by walking to the back of the pack. it sounds like your issue wasnt so much that you didnt know how to tank, but rather your group didnt know how to lose aggro.

Well i created a new character today. a woodelf nightblade, been playing as an archer and having loads more fun with the combat. I've even done things that i couldn't clear with my "tank". Groups of 3 mobs are no problem now, with my other character it was a real pain in the ass.

Let's hope the fun keeps up.

I dont think you are in the guild, if you would care to join we would love to have you, we have almost unlocked the guild store.

You can contact me @Grimmie92 ingame

i'm an EU player unfortunately

man i read this as MAKING a dungeon :(