So i just invited a couple of friends to join me in FF14. Excited. One of them is likely going to go healer, the other a caster. So what I'm wondering is how the aggro mechanics work in FF14...

Thus far, i notice that no matter how hard i slam an enemy, i cant steal aggro. Pugilists have some pretty good survival skills that would allow me to take a considerable amount of hate for a while, contingent on being able to take it and then let it go and give it to another combatant when i've done my part.

However i havnt been able to figure out how that works. As far as i can tell, the guy who started attacking first, keeps 100% of the aggro. If a mob goes after some one, and they start dying, i have no way to step in and apply myself to keep that from happening.

Further, i've gone as far as to stand there and stop attacking, but i cant get aggro off of me once a mob has me in their sight.

I'm wondering if i'm doing something wrong or if this is just how the game works.