For dragonknights, their main key advantages are resource management through ultimate use, as well as great support abilities. Their ward protects all allies in range, they have an ultimate that caps incoming damage at 3% of your health for a time, and their earthen heart abilities restore 5% of your total stam when activated. They also have class based passives for blocking and spell resistance. Best choice in my *opinion* is a stamina based class like redguard or imperial, as stated above.

Templars have very powerful support options for any group. Their armor buff also reduces all incoming damage by 8% and increases healing received, when morphed. Templars are better off as magicka tanks because they can use puncturing sweeps and other self heals within their class to stay alive, and if you are standing in your rune then cast a heal, it will be great for surviving even the most massive onslaughts. For magicka tanking, try out dunmer. They get max magicka and max stam, so you can always try out stamina later without feeling out of luck.


Night blades are hands down my favorite tanking class. Magicka night blades heal not only themselves but the entire party marginally with their siphoning attacks, gaining the nickname "sap tanks." Their stamina counterparts pop siphoning strikes and surprise attack, granting them extra armor for about 10-11 seconds and doing a fair chunk of damage, while not losing resources.

Sorceror tanking I know little about, but from what I have been told it is lots of fun in its own right. If you use lightning form and bound armor to the appropriate resource type, you can move fast, hit for an AoE dot just by standing still, and even have high mobility with moves like streak. Not to mention your pets, which can be useful as they can take the heat off of you for a second or heal you.

TL:DR

All classes have something to offer, it's really how you want to play them out. Magicka and stam tanks are viable, and if you spec into your role right you can swap gear and DPS. Breton or dunmer for magicka tank, imperial or redguard for stam.

Dont go Nord

I have two characters capable of tanking, and they fill very different roles.

I have a magicka DK with a tanking setup that is suited for a "traditional" tank role.

• Very defensive and "tanky"
• Lots of support capabilities: Chains for mob positioning, Talons for area CC and mob positioning, and Deep Breath for AoE interrupts
• Reliable resource management: guaranteed stamina from each stomp of my foot, and ultimates restore my resources
• Does virtually zero damage
• Mediocre self-healing

To further compound her role as a support machine, she wears Blood Spawn + Tava's so that I'm an Aggressive Warhorn factory.

My DK is the tank that I'll use if asked to tank a trial, and for 4-man content, it's a tank that I don't mind using if I know that I'm in a good group--a group that could actually make use of the type of support that I provide. However, I hate running a PUG dungeon with my DK tank because it places me at the mercy of the rest of the group. If I get a good group with good DPS, it's fun to tank with my DK. If I'm in a bad group, with bad DPS, all the support that I provide is wasted, and since I'm incapable of doing much damage or healing, I can't carry the group and am helplessly at the mercy of the rest of the group.

Usually, if my DK tank ends up in a bad PUG, I switch her out of tank into light-armor-and-staff DPS (maybe with a sword-and-shield back bar to off-tank a boss) because otherwise things just don't die. But switching to light-armor "tanking" usually means me dying a lot. This is why I rarely do Group Finder as a tank on my DK.

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My main is a magicka nightblade and she too carries a set of tank gear in her bag... and she's the best tank for 4-man content and for PUGs.

• Squishier and not as "tanky" as my DK, but that's fine for the 4-man content in this game.
• Very good DPS (by tank standards, at least). And very good self-healing. I can solo most normal dungeons in my tank gear.
• Very limited support capabilities.
• Resource management is tougher, as Siphoning Attacks is an RNG proc, and light-attack procs of SA require that I drop block, which isn't always feasible.

The gear setup is also very different. I run heavy Kagrenac's, Engine Guardian (it's good for a nightblade tank since I have a cheap spammable ability--Funnel--that I'm casting every GCD, and it fills the gap left by the nightblade's mediocre resource management), Willpower, and Torug's. It's like a DPS setup, except in heavy. I have a bit over 25K health and 17K stam--both stats are worse than what I have on my DK--but I also have 33K magicka and 2K unbuffed Spell Damage. With that much magicka and SD, I can out-DPS many PUG DPSs. And with that much magicka and SD, I put out a lot of off-healing (Funnel is better than Swallow) and usually am not too worried about bad healers.

The way my tank "supports" the group is that I provide a lot of DPS and off-heals (well, a lot by tank standards), and War Horns or Veils whenever the situation calls for it. It's great for 4-man content because, there, the DPS contribution from the tank can actually make a difference, and it's awesome for running PUGs because if I get a bad group, I have the DPS and heals to carry them. I would not even consider taking her into a 12-man trial, however, as she is simply not the kind of tank you need for that sort of content.

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So, really, it depends. You want to tank 4-man content and do well in Group Finder? Nothing can beat a magicka nightblade tank for two simple reasons: Funnel Health and Sap Essence. These abilities are (1) insta-cast and block-castable (you do not want to be stuck in a channel or cast animation while tanking, and you need to be able to block-cast while tanking) and are (2) class abilities, which mean that you can use them regardless of what weapon you have equipped, allowing you to use sword-and-board on both bars. Couple that with the healing from both abilities and Funnel's range, and this is why nightblades are simply unmatched in their ability to do DPS as a tank. No other class comes even remotely close.

If you want to be a traditional tank with good survivability and awesome support capabilities, you really have to go with a DK. Especially for something like vMoL, where talons, chains, and AoE interrupts are all very important. When it comes to supporting the group, the no other class comes remotely close to the DK.

I love both of my tanks, and I have a lot of fun tanking on both characters. But it's two very different playstyles.

There's simply no best class to tank with. Some are just easier to master than others. Most people choose DK cause it looks like an obvious choice, but really, any class can tank anything, from spindleclutch to the Maw of Lorkhaj.

My main is a magicka sorcerer tank. There aren't a lot of people choosing this class to tank, but it has a lot to offer.
The sorc tank relies mostly on his damage shields. You can stack a lot of shields to absorb damages before they even hit your HP bar, thus, you don't block a lot and don't need tons of stamina.
Another advantage of the sorcerer is his mobility. You get major expedition with the same skill that gives you Major Ward/Resolve, and you have the Streak to teleport around. Tanking in TESO isn't always about standing still like a pilar, holding block and waiting for the DDs to do their job, so high mobility is a real plus.
The sorcerer also has great CC skills. People usually say that DK has the best CCs, but I wouldn't trade any of theirs for any of mine. Restraining Prison & Negate are just awesome.

Someone above talked about using pets, honnestly I don't recommend it. They use 2 skill slots each, and you don't need a self heal as a sorc tank. The healers are supposed to take care of your health, and if you're low on HP, it's better to spam your shields than to spam a heal (that is quite expensive)

If you want more informations on sorc tanks, here's a more detailed post I wrote in another thread : Sorc Tank Questions

Reorx_Holybeard wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

I have two characters capable of tanking, and they fill very different roles.

I have a magicka DK with a tanking setup that is suited for a "traditional" tank role.
...

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My main is a magicka nightblade and she too carries a set of tank gear in her bag... and she's the best tank for 4-man content and for PUGs.
...

Thanks for the details on your NB tank! I've just started playing a DK tank and found a lot of the same problems as you mentioned with "bad" PUGs...its hard to make up the DPS as a tank unless you switch to a more DPS specific role in medium armor.

For your NB tank what sort of DPS are you capable of achieving on typical vet dungeon AoE and bosses? I've been thinking of trying to make a tank build with my magicka NB...

The tank build on my magblade is a pure gear/food-swap build, since I usually DPS on her.

• 64 points in magicka
• Thief mundus (because I'm too lazy to switch to another stone for tanking and then have to switch back)
• 5H / 1M / 1L
• 5p Kagrenac
• 2p Engine Guardian
• 3p Willpower (I use the cheap healthy/robust ones), with 1x SD and 2x mag cost reduction enchants
• 2p Torug sword-and-shield on both bars (I just use the same nirn Torug swords that I use for my DPS dual-wield bar)
• Tri-stat enchants on head, chest, legs (infused)
• I have a target health of 25K and target stam of 16K that I try to hit after eating purple food, and then everything else goes into magicka. I juggled my enchants to meet these targets (I ended up with 25.5K health, 17K stam, and 33K magicka).

As for DPS, it usually ranges from 7-11K single-target, and 10-30K AoE (much more variability there, namely mob density). I do have and use proxdet.