Medium Armor Tank feasible?

zgrssd

As far as I get the game you are (in theory) supposed to make a PvE Tank by using 1 Handed+Shield+Heavy armor.
Shield has the taunt and cheaper blocking. Heavy armor has life reg, less damage, cheaper blocking and more healing received.

But in practice that will often result in you hitting the armor cap with passives alone. Plus taunting, blocking, dodging and interrupting (all stamina intensive) actually make a large part of the whole Tanking role.
So I keept wondering since beta: Is a medium armored PvE tank with classbuff on armor possible? Would it be feasible and usefull?

I am askign in particular because my Kajiit Nightblade DPS never finds any tanks. And if I al lI need is a respec with some focus on 1H+Shield, this would be ideal.

Tonturri

Ok, I typed out a whole thing of stuff but realized it was semi-pointless :B In short, yes it seems possible on paper, but I haven't had the chance to try it out yet. I've heard of successful nightblade tanks, but not any medium armor ones. With the medium armor tree, it looks like you'll get up to a 12% decrease in roll cost, which is pretty nice, in addition to whatever passives you can get to beef up block, plus the moar passives in medium skill tree to help with stamina regen. Looks fun

With a bit of messing around with abilities and morphs, it looks quite possible if you get a fast weapon(and passive! 5% attack speed increase w/5 medium armor pieces equipped) and get the syphoning strikes morph that regens a lot of stam/magicka ( though I think that's bugged currently )

zgrssd

Though that Siphoning would be the tank/selfheal area too. Siphon Strikes in particular seems ideal for that.
From Shadow so far I have been only using the first two Skill with dual wield, wich makes a pretty powerfull melee DPS build for PvE (especially agaisnt those pesky enemy healers).

I think this would be a pretty nice build, but want to get feedback before I burden any PuG's with my odd theory of tank building.

zgrssd

Let's think thsi trough as far as I am able without building it:

The core ability would have to be Siphoning Strikes.
It drops damage but DPS is a secondary notion for ESO tanks anyway.
Leeching Strikes Morph let's it also steal HP, giving effectively vampiric heal effect.
Soul Siphoner Passive boost that healing, Transfer passiv also let's it generate Ultimate. Hitting often is the key.

As taunt one could either use the Puncture or Inner Fire. Considering the other mana Drains and it's Damage reduce debuff, Puncture might be better.

Strife is a possible additional DoT/Seafheal.
The Swallow Soul Morph would give a passive increase to Healing Received identical to what heavy armors "rapid mending" gives (7%).

Agony is as close to a proper CC as we can get in ESO. 12 Seconds Stun can be very usefull, but of course most bosses are immune to stun.

Cripple can be usefull agaisnt mobile foes (especially those Melee guys with aoe). Debilitate Morph would also lower enemy damage output (redcued attack speed).
Since it does not work as snare it might even get through snare immune bosses, but not sure.

Drain Power seems not usefull for Tank role, but would have use for DPS role. Alternatively the morph can be used as extra teamheal.

Catalyst can help unburden the healer a bit.
Magica Flood passive should be useable in either config (tank uses Siphon Strike, DPS Drain Power).

And on top of that, there are all the skills in the Sword and Shield Tree to choose from.

Veiled Strike or normal stealth + Shadow Barrier Passive could be used to bolster armor, especially during "first strike" (might be possible to first strike in DPS config, then instantly switch).

Shadow tree Fortitute would be nice, but it requries a lot of Shadow abilities to be sloted wich implies high magika cost.

While not as Powerfull as heavy armor Immoveable, Evasion might be usefull.



Ultimate:
Soul Shred is usefull as Team heal but would not be useable early in combat. It does most when the team has already taken damage (and requries more active participation).
Consuming Darkness from Shadow Tree has a powerfull damage reduction, so good to use it early when damage is high/foes are many.
Death Stroke must be avoided for Tanking role, the healing debuff runs counter the base idea and Syphon Strike. Might be usefull for DPS role.


Overall tanking with this approach remindes me of the Jedi Shadow/Sith Assasin Tank from SWTOR (at least before the 2.7 update):
Not the highest armor/durability, improved healing input and Vampiric heal. Propably best combined with higher health then normal tank.
Also a surpsing array of utility powers, including a 12 second CC and stealth.
Would have the same issues however: Hard to heal and hard to play.
If you go really heavy towards Shadow Skills (for the HP buff passive) light amor might even be possible (to get all the needed mana reg).


For the alternate weapon set, either a bow or dual wield combo to deal DPS.
Dual wield is easier to use solo, but bow would offer more tactical options (when gettign close is really bad).
The first two Skill would be Shadow Cloak and Veiled Strike. Between the damage from stealth, the stun and the dual heavy attacks they can kill foes outright or set them up for the kill with the weapon. And then there come the morps on top.


There more I think about the more it seems feasible. But it also seems harder to play then conventional heavy armor tank. It would be more mobile and had more utility powers, but also lesser durability (or at least durabiltiy more based on high HP).
My biggest worry so far is that with my reflexes I might not be able to play it to top efficiency.

ZoM_Head

zgrssd wrote: »

As far as I get the game you are (in theory) supposed to make a PvE Tank by using 1 Handed+Shield+Heavy armor.
Shield has the taunt and cheaper blocking. Heavy armor has life reg, less damage, cheaper blocking and more healing received.

But in practice that will often result in you hitting the armor cap with passives alone. Plus taunting, blocking, dodging and interrupting (all stamina intensive) actually make a large part of the whole Tanking role.
So I keept wondering since beta: Is a medium armored PvE tank with classbuff on armor possible? Would it be feasible and usefull?

I am askign in particular because my Kajiit Nightblade DPS never finds any tanks. And if I al lI need is a respec with some focus on 1H+Shield, this would be ideal.

Using medium armour here on level 30 characrer, medium armour is sitting on level 37 now.

It is not feasable to be used as a tank. Using Leather and improved to fine (green), im sitting at around 640 armour rating right now and around 550-580 spell resist.

Your HP can drop very quickly in mobs or while tanking, mobs of 2 enemies can be handled nicely. 3+ enemies and you can go down very quickly.

In theory, due to the high stamina regen, critical hit chance and dodge one could be a tank, but in game reality....it does not really work. Adding a shield does boost some armour rating, that i did not test.

However, running two handed in medium armour is a bad idea in 3+ mobs, the damage you take is a bit dangerous from what i experienced.

Maybe you need to improve the armour to at least superior to get decent results or heavy armour comparable results, but spending those hard to drop embroiderys is something i do not want to spend on Leather armour.

One more thing to note. Siphoning is magicka based, it improves with magicka attributes. even so, it only heals you for 25% of the damage it causes....does not sound like much though.....IMO.

Obscure

Look at the active skill for medium armor. Don't be deceived by the wording, mechanically there is no such stat as "Dodge", only "Miss Chance". When you realize that is true then you look at other things that inflict " Miss Chance" you'll begin to see how a medium armor tank can be more viable than a heavy armor tank. As a Dragonknight, I use Cinder Storm in combination with it, and I use Ember Explosion to top it off. If it's in melee there's a 92% chance it's not hitting you between Elude, Cinder Storm, and Ember Explosion. To also mitigate damage from range, also as a Dragonknight, use Reflective Scale. My preference is Dragon Fire Scale but the other morph increases spell resist significantly and is useful for mitigating the AoE's NPCs drop that ignore miss chance and reflection.

So now your standing in mobs holding your block up only using Ember Explosion and Reflective Scale every 4 seconds and using Elude and Cinder Storm roughly every 20. This is an extremely sustainable way to tank damage in medium armor whilst also helping keep agro off the party via 70% snare from Cinder Storm. Use Extended Chains when one steps away from you and it should be smooth sailing.

Andy22

post removed, since i cant fully confirm it

Obscure

@‌Andy22

First they're absolutely additive. I have tested it and been using it for months (PTS tester). I've solo'd VR5 dark anchors with it, solo'd Cyrodiil resource camps with it, solo'd all of VR1-5 with it, I've put down many enemy players in AvA with it. I tend to think I know exactly how it works.

Secondly there is an actual "dodge" animation that procs while Elude is active, the mechanic however is not dodge it's miss chance. The wording of the skills are inconsistent and misleading, but I assure you I can stand in a pack of melee mobs and never be hit despite the 8% chance they have to do so.

Here's a video of me using an earlier version of the build solo on a VR5 Dark Anchor back in the PTS days: enjoy!

Andy22

mhh thats strange and unbalanced than, so did u actually run real test on a consistent enemy or u just "feel" it works this way from playing?

I did run tests with NB "Double Take" and what u indicate is that DK "Cinder Storm" gives aka "gains" u a extra 30% miss chance for 15 seconds and snares enemies for 70% and also damages them for around the same magicka cost than Double Take, while Double Take only gets a 15% miss chance and a extra 15% for only 3.5 seconds.

This makes "Cinder Storm" pretty awesome than.

Form my testing it was indicated that miss and dodge are separated rolls not additive, but its actually hard to test so i could also be totally wrong about this.

My reasoning also was that sparks "miss" only works for melee attacks, while "dodge" seem to work for any attack. In both cases u still get hit by AE attacks/dmg. So since they both need different check logic, it would make sense to separate the chance rolls.

So i'm sorry that i might have misinterpreted "Cinder Storm" than.

On a side-note all those effects don't work on dungeon bosses and i personally only use Vulcanic Rune, since it is just one slot and gives me a target-able 100% 4 second "miss/dodge/stun" chance for trash pulls. The downside ofc is that its a magicka ability, so sta builds might have problems using it repeatably.

ZoM_Head

Obscure wrote: »

Look at the active skill for medium armor. Don't be deceived by the wording, mechanically there is no such stat as "Dodge", only "Miss Chance". When you realize that is true then you look at other things that inflict " Miss Chance" you'll begin to see how a medium armor tank can be more viable than a heavy armor tank. As a Dragonknight, I use Cinder Storm in combination with it, and I use Ember Explosion to top it off. If it's in melee there's a 92% chance it's not hitting you between Elude, Cinder Storm, and Ember Explosion. To also mitigate damage from range, also as a Dragonknight, use Reflective Scale. My preference is Dragon Fire Scale but the other morph increases spell resist significantly and is useful for mitigating the AoE's NPCs drop that ignore miss chance and reflection.

So now your standing in mobs holding your block up only using Ember Explosion and Reflective Scale every 4 seconds and using Elude and Cinder Storm roughly every 20. This is an extremely sustainable way to tank damage in medium armor whilst also helping keep agro off the party via 70% snare from Cinder Storm. Use Extended Chains when one steps away from you and it should be smooth sailing.

Does this apply to both physical and magic attacks? or just physical?

I am asking because not all medium armour builds revolve around a dragonnight class.

Lenthas

If you're not dragonknight stick to heavy armor.
Reason being their reflective scale skill which almost nulifies strong magic attacks (aoe ones are usually avoidable or healable, but direct ones are the problem).

Other classes need the spell resistance somehow, which you can either get from light armor or heavy armor.

Sorc COULD sneak it with their light form, but I'm not sure its cost effective to have it perma up, definitely not while leveling.

Stacking a healthy amount of magicka on a DK tank and you can just spam dark talon, (green) dragon blood and reflective scale with a shield up while your team destroys them.

Medium would help with the stamina regen on that matter+ the dodge ultimate and physical dps which includes shield bashing.

ZoM_Head

Lenthas wrote: »

If you're not dragonknight stick to heavy armor.
Reason being their reflective scale skill which almost nulifies strong magic attacks (aoe ones are usually avoidable or healable, but direct ones are the problem).

Other classes need the spell resistance somehow, which you can either get from light armor or heavy armor.

Sorc COULD sneak it with their light form, but I'm not sure its cost effective to have it perma up, definitely not while leveling.

Stacking a healthy amount of magicka on a DK tank and you can just spam dark talon, (green) dragon blood and reflective scale with a shield up while your team destroys them.

Medium would help with the stamina regen on that matter+ the dodge ultimate and physical dps which includes shield bashing.

Medium armour is build around making a weapons specialist class. Basically if your build uses more stamina, go for medium armour, but no spell resist passives is a draw back.

I am not going to switch from a level 43 medium armour nightblade to level 4 heavy on a level 33 character, makes no sense to go for blocking passives, health regen passive, more melee damage and spell resisit, when using a two handed weapon, dual wielding or bow users spam their weapon skills more than their class skills.

Also the faster weapon attack speek, faster sprint + dodge, more crit.....too good to pass up.

My question still stands, does Evasion effects spells as well or not?

Andy22

Elmojito1000eb17_ESO wrote: »

My question still stands, does Evasion effects spells as well or not?

Yes, but only direct target skills/attacks. U still get hit by AE's.

Obscure

Just to clear the air a bit, presently two out of the four classes have limited build viability and that's Templar and Nightblade. You need to run one of very few builds with these classes to be as effective as the other two classes Sorcerer and Dragonknight. Seeing as Sorcs have no "evasion tank" synergy that leaves the Dragonknight as the only class that can. I'm certain someone will figure out how to do it with a Templar and Nightblade eventually, but as it stands the spec is extremely difficult to manage resources for anyone who isn't a DK (Sorcerer could do it to if they have a miss inflict skill). Not saying it should be that way, just saying it is that way. The meta game revolves around Dragonknights and Sorcerers simply because the other two classes lack their level of polish.

To follow up with practical testing, I can't be certain of the 92% miss, but with each additional miss chance source it certainly behaves as if it were purely additive. I've lotto literally done tests where I just stand there and let mobs attack me and nothing hits me. The balancing act here is ranged/AoE attacks and resource management, and only the DK is equipped with a skill to mitigate that threat significantly if not entirely with Reflective Scale.

So yes it's viable, but presently only if you're a Dragonknight, theoretically possible for a Nightblade or Templar, but I've never seen it done nor have I put in the time to do it myself. If you can't stack and sustain miss chance then you're not going to be doing any medium armor tanking. 22% from Elude and 40% from Ember Explosion will only get you so far without a class skill you can sustainably cast to maximize miss mitigation.

Lenthas

But hey, I would still hate to see the MIGHTY DRAGON KNIGHT, MOUNTAIN TANK running in medium armor...

Seems ............so wrong...... Maybe 5med/2heavy for the sake of looks, but I could never go full medium... looks so wrong .

Celless

Hi OP,

If you're looking to supplement your armor or spell resist, consider blue aspected or higher enchants on your jewelry. It should help you reach Overcharged in one or both areas depending on other passives.

I have not intentionally group tanked as a Nightblade, but when I have been getting targeted en masse, Shadow Cloak seems to make enemies stand there idly for a couple seconds and sometimes cancel enemy attacks. I imagine with proper timing, this could be used to prevent some of the bigger hits as your stamina gets low.

sCouraGeFire

I play as a templar tank, and I have 5 heavy 2 light. my 2 light pieces (gloves& belt) are part of a set bonus that gives me 100 additional armor (shield is 3rd piece). I would say mix your armor types. Wear 2 heavy 5 medium and make sure the 2 heavy pieces are the ones that give the most armor. Pick the right crafted sets and mix/match pieces and you can get all the stamina benefits without too much armor loss. I'm Redguard so I stay away from medium armor.

deathcoyrwb17_ESO

Like Obscure mentioned, medium armor dodge builds are currently only viable for DKs. Sorcs on other hand can pull off Light Armor tanking(5 LA, 2 HA) so far for VR5 dungeons, my friend hasn't manage to hit VR6 yet. Nightblades on other hand, i think it might be possible but not optimal for tanking imo. Templars, well basically, they're the most traditional paladin tanking you can get but lacking defensive CDs. Tank through Heals. They have one of the least synergy for cross skill tree combinations. They lack solid mitigation/defensive skills, Rune Focus makes you immobile, Sun Shield has one of the weakest shields in the game and shields do not use your armor, spell resist. Heavy Armor with Unstoppable and Heals is the only way. In other words Templar is a very generic class.

adshallamb16_ESO

i was a NB medium armour tank right up until about level 40 content, with the right armour and enchants it worked great and really helped my stamina management, and was nice to actually do some dmg while tanking as well, HOWEVER, it did put alot more work on my healer in magic based fights and i was only slightly into diminishing returns pre-buffs, and my spell resists was lower than i would of liked (i am / was using a pair of 190 armour rings).
around the late 30's / 40's i decided the swap to full plate was kind of needed to go properly beyond the soft cap and start chasing down the hard cap like any good tank should want to do (which i believe will be 2500 as when i along with a mate buffed my armour by a further 5k i only hit 2440 up from my standing 1850 ish) and by this tiem i had leeching strikes which took care of any resource issues i had, and after trying the veteran dungeons i would not want to be in them tanking in medium armour as much for the spellresist as anything else, even as a breton, and im now infact leveling up light armour to go the whole 5/2 approach for the added magic resists.so now i simply carry a suit of plate and a suit of medium armour with me all the time and swap as needed.
so hope this helps, yes you can tank in medium, but only upto a point and at the detriment of your healer, so id suggest doing as i do and run both suits, medium for solo / stuff out int he world, plate for when its your job to really not die, following the same theory melee dps or archers should really be in leather for dungeons as if they are in plate they are throwing away alot of dmg and not doing their job either (and light armour for casters for the same reason)

laters

MonkJayn

Lynx7386

If you're a nightblade tank, invisibility with shadow passives can take care of your spell resistance needs. At level 26, one of the passives gives me something around +400 spell resist and armor for 4 seconds when leaving invisibility or stealth. Time it properly to get the buff, and you can break the stealth immediately with a quick attack.

adshallamb16_ESO

Yes, but that's hardly a reliable solution to tanking, given that you can't get back into stealth non stop to keep the buff up, at vr1 its over 1500 for the buff out of stealth

Layers

MonkJayn

zgrssd

Lenthas wrote: »

If you're not dragonknight stick to heavy armor.
Reason being their reflective scale skill which almost nulifies strong magic attacks (aoe ones are usually avoidable or healable, but direct ones are the problem).

The 3rd Skill of the "Sword and Shield" line is Defensive Posture. wich does exactly that, but with Stamina Cost. If you are not a DK Tank, would you just not choose that one to counter the single target spells?
AoE is already covered by your dodging, after all.


So far the general consus seems to be: It is possible, but easier if you have a class/race that takes care of the missing armor class/spell resistance (like DK and Sorc) then on a nightblade.
Nightblade does have the advantage that his tanking synergy skills (Syphoning) ingore most caps/affect non-capped stuff. But he lacks any persistent bonus to armor/spell resist.

Sleepydan

You are aware you can use the medium armor dodge ability without actually wearing any medium armor?

The only time I would ever deliberately tank in medium armor is if I was a sorcerer using critical surge. The extra stamina regen is already excellent for blocking, this way the added crit chance heals me.

Otherwise, I would tank in heavy. As a dk, Templar or nb

Theron75

I have not seen any class or armor ability that would be superior to the passive mitigation of heavy armor. It would be too resource intensive.

Tanking in ESO is a job. MMO tanking is usually a no-brainer, but in this game, it's practically an art form.

Andy22

Theron75 wrote: »

I have not seen any class or armor ability that would be superior to the passive mitigation of heavy armor. It would be too resource intensive.

What "passive" mitigation skill u talking about, i mean Bracing or Resolve?

From my personal experience as NB tank, tanking vet dungeons in heavy and light armor, i prefer the light armor version more. The actual numerical advantage from heavy armor to light is about 400-600 armor, but if u are a magicka based NB tank the 15-21% magicka cost reduction is worth much more.

Regarding the OP, the only synergy i know is the sorc ability that heals on crit, but i have no personal experience with it. Other than that the crit chance, medium armor uniquely adds does nothing for u in a tank role.

Jeremy_gelber_ESO

1 ring of decrease physical harm and you make up any armor lost. then its just a tradeoff of block vs crit. and stam regen vs hp regen.

the biggest downside of nb tanking is a near complete lack of aoe's but siphoning vs boss works pretty darn well.

Still_Mind

Lenthas wrote: »

But hey, I would still hate to see the MIGHTY DRAGON KNIGHT, MOUNTAIN TANK running in medium armor...

Seems ............so wrong...... Maybe 5med/2heavy for the sake of looks, but I could never go full medium... looks so wrong .

It gets better - I find myself to be better off in a dress, rather than in medium, or heavy armour, as a DK tank. A lot of Mana-hungry utility, but the return is awesome.

EDIT: Veteran content, ofc.

Wifeaggro13

Theron75 wrote: »

I have not seen any class or armor ability that would be superior to the passive mitigation of heavy armor. It would be too resource intensive.

Tanking in ESO is a job. MMO tanking is usually a no-brainer, but in this game, it's practically an art form.

Well i agree and disagree. it comes down to magica really DK's can absloutely Tank in light armor. they have a 20 second armor buff that brings them right to cap. And in all honesty As a DK ive tanked every single VR 4man dungeon in leather. What is lost in heavy is huge comapre to what is gained in light as per the magica vs health regen ratio of heavy.
Heavy armor soft cap is reached extremely easy as is health recovery and regen.
Most of the mitigation is coming from active blocking in SNS. Ive not tried tanking in light but i assume with the plentiful amounts of magica and keeping my spiked armor buff up my healer would probably never notice. what is gained is extreme amounts of magica . when pulling trash its crucial to be able to keep CC ing which is all coming out of magica.
Stamina builds are absoloutely a joke compared to magica Light builds when it comes to performance.Right now Heavy and medium dont perform anywhere near the way light does.As for tanking being hard i disagree its byfar one of the easier games ever with their soft aggro managment . and no GCD . early EQ 2 by far was an art form AOC an art form. here its pretty easy.

Ysne58

So I have another question. What about 2 heavy, 3 medium and 2 light?

Wifeaggro13

Still_Mind wrote: »

Lenthas wrote: »

But hey, I would still hate to see the MIGHTY DRAGON KNIGHT, MOUNTAIN TANK running in medium armor...

Seems ............so wrong...... Maybe 5med/2heavy for the sake of looks, but I could never go full medium... looks so wrong .

It gets better - I find myself to be better off in a dress, rather than in medium, or heavy armour, as a DK tank. A lot of Mana-hungry utility, but the return is awesome.

EDIT: Veteran content, ofc.

This is the truth. Bad Armor passives and horrible soft caps on medium and heavy make the Build sub par.

smercgames_ESO

Ysne58 wrote: »

So I have another question. What about 2 heavy, 3 medium and 2 light?

Alot of points for very little return on that one. You will have such small bonuses that it won't matter.