Sorc Tanking - Pre 1.6

Layenem

I know the first couple of comments are bound to be "But you can't tank vdsa or SO" which has already been proven wrong and "You won't be able to do that in 1.6" which you have NO PROOF of. So let's move on to the real of this all...

Originally I wasn't going to share this with the ESO community. Not because I'm some elitist or I don't share my information, because I most definitely do share it. Unfortunately, I have PTSD and there are certain events that trigger it that I tend to stay away from (this is why some of you have seen me post a few comments and then walk away from the post all together.)

Now that that is out there I'm very much open to discussion about this but unless you can prove to me that you "know best" I'm not going to give you much weight in a final say. Truth is, I've been sorc tanking in every armor type since PTS was private (before the game went live) and I'll continue to do so. When 1.6 comes out I may very well be using heavy armor again, or medium, who knows. Theorycrafting, however, is best left on paper since most people tend to forget the difference between a theory and a practice. I promise this time, for the other Sorcs who have been trying and struggling with tanking on our class, I'll post 1.6 tanking setups once I get them hashed out instead of hiding from trolls.

Here goes. Light Armor Sorc Tank - Layenem Style!


Sorc Tank – FAR from TankISH

In ESO there is a concept that you can either embrace or struggle to accept and at which point you practically cap yourself off at how many players you have access to and how “situationally stable” you become as a player. The top two examples I’m referring to here, and hear a lot of, are “Sorcerer’s can’t tank…” and my favorite “No one can tank in light armor…” While these statements held absolutely true in most MMOs prior to ESO this is the furthest from what we can call “truths” now. What I’m saying is that I’m a mitigation tank at its core and I do it better as a Sorcerer in light armor than you can with your other class in heavy armor.

Why? Easy. With the right gear and one ability from stamina and one from magicka we reach the hard cap (34 points shy of the hard cap in Spell Resist… we’re talking less than .1%). I’m heavily invested in mitigation tanking right now on my Sorcerer and for plenty of reasons. With my core group of guys (sorry, no gals, not on purpose… cough Ahdora level up cough) – Kurse, Kraive, Dubah, and myself – we’ve got a full understanding of how I tank and how they can excel within the group.

“Layenem, what’s your secret?” I’m glad you asked, weird reader that I’ve never met before… (PS. Stop interrupting me while I tell my story, it’s unraveling to my cause!) So using two abilities, that literally recover their costs in stamina and magicka by the time they have to be reapplied, I can focus on a lot more things during the fight that allows my DPS and Healer to do their jobs easier.


The Gear:

I think it is important to first talk about my armor type choices before we get into these two abilities and how I utilize them to function as a Mitigation Tank. At first I started out with 7 pieces of heavy armor believing that this was a firm foundation for tanking and necessary. With the changes to damage from bosses in 1.5, however, I’ve realized the necessity for Spell Resistance more than ever now and the fact that one of the passives from the Undaunted skill tree now gives +% to health, stamina, and magicka I WANTED to wear at least one piece of light and medium. Once I put on the first piece of light armor I noticed a huge difference in a few things… and decided to make a change!!!

The first change was that my armor mitigation, which was roughly 600 points above the hard cap, making all 600 points useless, barely went down while my spell resistance improved almost 100 points. This made me perk up an eye brow… So I decided to throw on my healing set of gear, all light armor, and my tank buffs. I was shocked. Of course I need more testing to be sure so I went and created a full set of gear – 5 light, 1 heavy, 1 medium – and proceeded to test out my new theory for two days in the toughest dungeons we could run, to include Veteran City of Ash and Veteran Crypt of Hearts. The results were outstandingly satisfying!

Essentially, I managed to increase my spell resistance from just over soft cap to hard cap, decrease my spell cost and increase my magicka regen. This opened up all kinds of doors for me. Now with my gear giving me magicka regen in abundance, I could focus on all stamina regen enchantments on my jewelry. Right now I’m currently rocking 5 piece Hist Bark set bonus (18% chance to dodge while blocking – I live with my shield up), 5 piece Warlock’s for the additional 22 magicka regen, and the Engine Guardian helm/shoulder set (medium helm and heavy shoulder; on ability use regenerates either health, magicka, OR stamina for a total of 1417 over 6.5 seconds.) I thought the Malubeth set would be good here for PvE but it’s not, it doesn’t trigger enough (though I’m told it’s great for PvP.)

Right now my stats (with a Consummate food buff, Thundering Presence IV, and Ring of Preservation IV; no PvP bonuses) are as follows:

Health: 2840 (with Emperor buff this hits soft cap)
Stamina: 1772
Magicka: 2324
Stamina Regen: 126
Magicka Regen: 118
Spell Resist: 3132 (increases vs undead, Daedric, and WW; hard cap value 3200)
Armor: 2999 (increases vs undead, Daedric, and WW; hard cap value 3200)

As you can see, the values are prime for a Sorcerer tank, especially with how I go about tanking in each fight!


The Armor/Spell Resist Increasing Abilities:

We’ll talk about the magicka ability first: Lightning Form (Thundering Presence morph). At a whopping 294 magicka cost, and a regen of 118 magicka per second, you can see how it virtually costs nothing for its 9 second duration. Hell, you could even do the Boundless Storm morph for more movement speed but that’s more PvP focused… and I don’t PvP much. With that up as all the time, I have plenty of magicka to make use of the magicka taunt, Inner Fire (undaunted skill line), to keep big enemies focused on me while holding up my block and keeping my feet out of enemy damage.

The second key ability, primarily for boss fights, is Circle of Protection (Ring of Protection morph). The only reason I morphed this ability at all was to gain the increased duration from 16ish seconds to 20 seconds, making it so that every 4th or 5th time I cast it I virtually saved an entire cast. With my stamina regen at 126, the ability cost being 258, and my 18% chance to avoid having to block at all while holding block (saving a ton of stamina) I can keep this up 100% of the time on bosses. The only downfall is that the ability is ground target, which means if I have to move around the room a lot then there is no point in planting this ability. Lucky for me I have enough stamina regen to pull in the heavy armor skill tree ability Immovable (Unstoppable Morph – again I only morphed it for more duration) to do the same thing with slightly less cost efficiency; not my preferred ability of the two.


The Weapon and Ability Setups:

My first weapon and bar setup is: Sword and Board, Lightning Form (Thundering Presence), Defensive Posture (no morph), Circle of Protection (Ring of Protection), Inner Fire (Inner Beast), and Mage Light (Inner Light). My second weapon and bar setup is: Restoration Staff, Grand Healing (Illustrious Healing), Mage’s Fury (Mage’s Wrath), Dark Exchange (Dark Deal), Inner Fire (Inner Beast), and Mage Light (Inner Light). As a tank I only use two Ultimates: War Horn (Aggressive Horn) and Negate Magic (Suppression Field); though I rarely use Negate Magic. There really isn’t much need for the second but I’ve got nothing else to put in that slot.

So essentially I start any fight by taunting enemies, using Inner Beast, and focusing on the bigger/tougher enemies. Each zone is going to have different enemies, and each time they add a new update it seems these enemies shift in which one is more dangerous than the other. Basically, if there is one archer in a pull of five mobs then I will taunt all the other mobs because the archer will be dead within seconds. Why? Have you ever been power shot in the face by the archers in 1.4? No? Everyone else has, where have you been?


The Functionality:

Once I’ve got a nice hefty group of enemies gathered around for story time, I make sure that I move as many of them as I can to a caster or archer (I don’t have the chain pull that DargonKnights have so I have to walk them over… woe is me) and let my DPS take care of any small enemies (spiders and such.) Once my DPS has dispatched any annoying little spiders or mini atronachs summoned by casters they will come over and Area of Effect (AoE) damage my listeners… effectively ending story time for a few moments.

Now since my healer hardly has to heal me, high mitigation + block reduces another 28% or so, he/she can focus on keeping my DPS alive… which isn’t that difficult since they can clean up little adds in seconds! Keep in mind that this might not work with your group if the healer isn’t ready to heal the DPS instead of the tank, or if the tank is also taking damage, or if the DPS can’t kill smaller enemies fast enough. Synergy isn’t just a button you use, it’s also how your group functions! (One of the reasons why I prefer to rock new content with my primary four… and yes, we’ve taken a TON of people through the content with us after we figured it out.)

This is a rinse and repeat for all non-boss pulls until we get to a boss, at which point being a mitigation tank is easier on the entirety of the fight as there is no spike damage and no unnecessary damage being taken by the tank, once again allowing the healer to focus on keeping the DPS alive. Sometimes this will cause a healer to become bored, but all of the healers that run with me also DPS sometimes pulling 1k DPS plus keeping everyone alive.

If you really want to see this in action then I urge you to head on over to my stream and watch a few of the latest videos: www.twitch.tv/layenem (Shameless plug? Nah, investigative journalism? We’ll let Sheogorath determine that!)


The Conclusion:

In order for any other class to pull this off as well as a Sorcerer does they’d have to keep two or three other abilities up at all times, limiting their resources, which in turn limits their effectiveness in this build type. Don’t fret though, because Sorcerer tanking is the hardest tanking to LEARN. If you want easy mode tanking you’re in the wrong class!

As always, you have to find out what you love to do when you play a game. Your style, your likes, even your own gaming strengths and weaknesses, are all key elements to how you play in Elder Scrolls Online. (I could never tap tank as a Nightblade… I don’t have that mental skill set.) So before you go about asking “What’s the best…” you need to instead say “What do I want to do the most?” Because even though you’re worried that you might make a decision that would make you that non desirable DPS for raids or groups, as is the situation with most MMOs on the market, I promise you that the differences between the starting “classes” (much more of an archetype system to be honest) is never going to be so dramatic as to consider one class useless while another is in top demand… exploits excluded. (Personally, if you’re only capable of defeating content by exploiting game flaws then you’re not a real gamer anyways. Don’t like that determination? Don’t exploit content, play the game like a real gamer does!)

Enjoy, and go whoop some a$$!!!


The Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ebqE7gh1RnXvwW5U7ce-8qk8sfBClhDNEHwTNPBKbiQ/edit

Gyudan

Did you tank Veteran DSA and Sanctum Ophidia with that setup or just Dungeons?

Layenem

Gyudan wrote: »

Did you tank Veteran DSA and Sanctum Ophidia with that setup or just Dungeons?

Everything.

FallenProphet

Nice little guide

Cody

Sorcerers can tank. I have seen it. They just tank differently than the other three.

All classes can tank. again, they all just tank differently than each other.

If one were to try to play a tank NB like a tank DK, or a tank DK like a tank NB, they would find themselves struggling. Same applies to sorcerer tanks.

Qyrk

Unfortunately, I've experienced some 'classist' comments whenever I tank dungeons, but as a sorc tank, it is viable and heaps of fun.

What is your reasoning behind gearing up with warlock instead of footman?
I also find that in pve, morphing defensive posture to absorb magic helps a ton in oh *** moments against casters for the extra heal. Any reason against morphing yours? it will be great to have some great discussions surrounding some sorc tank theorycrafting .

DeLindsay

I will make my comments based on my VR14 NB, MS - Tank/Healer (OS is DPS). First I love that there are at least a few people Sorc Tanking end game content, I think we need more of them, as well as more DK Healers and Templar DPS. The stigma against them are childish and baseless.

Layenem wrote: »

Health: 2840 (with Emperor buff this hits soft cap)
Stamina: 1772
Magicka: 2324
Stamina Regen: 126
Magicka Regen: 118
Spell Resist: 3132 (increases vs undead, Daedric, and WW; hard cap value 3200)
Armor: 2999 (increases vs undead, Daedric, and WW; hard cap value 3200)

From a Healing standpoint I'd be nervous with your Health being as low as it is, even though your Resists/Armor are quite good (with ability use). Especially as even with Emperor you're only getting to ~3090 Health, dep on what you have that increases Health %. Soft cap of 3162 is adequate imo but I don't like relying on a PvP buff server in order to reach it.

From a Tanking standpoint you say you live with Block up, but you don't wear 5pc Footman or 5pc Ward of Cyrodiil (Medium) for the 12% Block mitigation. As you say you are built as a mitigation Tank, that would seem to go hand in hand. And 12% Block mitigation at all times while Blocking vs 18% Dodge change while Blocking is still superior for mitigation. My Stamina is just a tad lower than yours but NB's have zero Stamina problems when Tanking, and my Magicka is only 134 less than yours, also eating tri-food. I could easily get my Magicka to equal yours while still having over 3K Health without Cyro buffs but I'm happy with my ~3250 Health and 2190 Magicka, to each their own on that.

Layenem wrote: »

The Weapon and Ability Setups:

My first weapon and bar setup is: Sword and Board, Lightning Form (Thundering Presence), Defensive Posture (no morph), Circle of Protection (Ring of Protection), Inner Fire (Inner Beast), and Mage Light (Inner Light). My second weapon and bar setup is: Restoration Staff, Grand Healing (Illustrious Healing), Mage’s Fury (Mage’s Wrath), Dark Exchange (Dark Deal), Inner Fire (Inner Beast), and Mage Light (Inner Light). As a tank I only use two Ultimates: War Horn (Aggressive Horn) and Negate Magic (Suppression Field); though I rarely use Negate Magic. There really isn’t much need for the second but I’ve got nothing else to put in that slot.

No Low Slash > Deep Slash/Crippling Slash? As a Tank in ESO, I feel our job is 3 things:

• Absorb/reduce the damage from enemies too strong for non-Tanks to handle.
• Debuff the enemy with anything we can, Low Slash, Puncture, Shades (NB), etc.
• Do as much dmg as we can after we've achieved an appropriate balance of the above 2.

Arguably at current NPC's don't have much Armor value or Spell Resistance so morphing Puncture > Ransack at current is the superior option. In 1.6 many Tanks will probably change that morph to Pierce Armor as ZoS has said they are adjusting NPC values. But Low Slash and it's morhps reduces the damage the enemy can do, and that makes for happy healers. It also stacks with NB's Shades. Also I see you didn't morph Defensive Posture. Absorb Magicka is an amazing ability against caster Bosses. That and Harness Magicka in the Light Armor tree.

Layenem wrote: »

Now with my gear giving me magicka regen in abundance, I could focus on all stamina regen enchantments on my jewelry. Right now I’m currently rocking 5 piece Hist Bark set bonus (18% chance to dodge while blocking – I live with my shield up), 5 piece Warlock’s for the additional 22 magicka regen, and the Engine Guardian helm/shoulder set (medium helm and heavy shoulder; on ability use regenerates either health, magicka, OR stamina for a total of 1417 over 6.5 seconds.) I thought the Malubeth set would be good here for PvE but it’s not, it doesn’t trigger enough (though I’m told it’s great for PvP.)

Very interesting, I found the exact opposite to be true while NB Tanking. I could hardly ever see the EG set proc while Tanking but Malubeth procs quite often. I'd still rather use Blood Spawn but I just can't get the gargoyle to drop his Helm no matter how many times I've farmed him.

All in all I'm happy to see players doing Roles that many consider "wrong" and being successful at it. I was the exact same way in Rift from launch, I played a Cleric Tank/DPS, both of which were laughed at and yet I was one of my my Guild's MTs for GSB (first Raid in Rift).

Ahdora

@DeLindsay I can't speak as to why he makes the above choices in his build, but I can tell you he's a breeze to heal. Seriously my favorite tank to run any content with. He's the one who tanked every one of the vet dungeons, save CoA (set to max level) for me, when I was between V3 and V7, and tanked DSA for me when I was V9. My heals were (are, I'm V11) much weaker than yours and it's easier to keep him alive than a DK in most fights, in my experience.

Hopefully he will be along to discuss some of these finer points with you guys. I'm happy to see the positive responses here! So nice to know there are folks with open minds here on the forums. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it, heh.

DeLindsay

Ahdora wrote: »

@DeLindsay I can't speak as to why he makes the above choices in his build, but I can tell you he's a breeze to heal. Seriously my favorite tank to run any content with. He's the one who tanked every one of the vet dungeons, save CoA (set to max level) for me, when I was between V3 and V7, and tanked DSA for me when I was V9. My heals were (are, I'm V11) much weaker than yours and it's easier to keep him alive than a DK in most fights, in my experience.

Hopefully he will be along to discuss some of these finer points with you guys. I'm happy to see the positive responses here! So nice to know there are folks with open minds here on the forums. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it, heh.

Doubt it, VR10+ is the exact same as VR14 just without the shinys. I wear 5pc Mara + 4pc Healer's Habit + 2pc EG for Healing, all of which you have access to at VR11. You could get the 2/3/4 set bonuses that Healer's Habit gives prior to VR13 (or close to it stat wise) with Syrabane's Grip. And really my setup is for sustained Healing because of DSA and I almost never OOM. I could just as easily wear my DPS set (for FunnelBlade) for max Spell Dmg and be fine, I'd just have to heavy attk more often.

I too have healed a Sorc Tank (once in a Vet Dungeon) who was easy to heal. I have no idea if it was the OP or not as it was a while ago. Hell I've even been in a pug Gold Pledge where the lead was weary about me Healing because I am a NB lol. We did Vet DC, speed run and no death Gold Key hehe.

EDIT: Also keep in mind I'm a Vampire who has Tanked/Healed even the really bad Fire damage Vet Dungeons. I lose out on 1 Jewelry glyph because I have to wear a Fire resist, so it's possible your Heals are a tiny bit stronger than mine even.

Ahdora

DeLindsay wrote: »

Ahdora wrote: »

@DeLindsay I can't speak as to why he makes the above choices in his build, but I can tell you he's a breeze to heal. Seriously my favorite tank to run any content with. He's the one who tanked every one of the vet dungeons, save CoA (set to max level) for me, when I was between V3 and V7, and tanked DSA for me when I was V9. My heals were (are, I'm V11) much weaker than yours and it's easier to keep him alive than a DK in most fights, in my experience.

Hopefully he will be along to discuss some of these finer points with you guys. I'm happy to see the positive responses here! So nice to know there are folks with open minds here on the forums. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it, heh.

Doubt it, VR10+ is the exact same as VR14 just without the shinys. I wear 5pc Mara + 4pc Healer's Habit + 2pc EG for Healing, all of which you have access to at VR11. You could get the 2/3/4 set bonuses that Healer's Habit gives prior to VR13 (or close to it stat wise) with Syrabane's Grip. And really my setup is for sustained Healing because of DSA and I almost never OOM. I could just as easily wear my DPS set (for FunnelBlade) for max Spell Dmg and be fine, I'd just have to heavy attk more often.

I too have healed a Sorc Tank (once in a Vet Dungeon) who was easy to heal. I have no idea if it was the OP or not as it was a while ago. Hell I've even been in a pug Gold Pledge where the lead was weary about me Healing because I am a NB lol. We did Vet DC, speed run and no death Gold Key hehe.

Fair enough.

When I was healing those V12 dungeons, I was below V10 (DSA too) and it was admittedly hell on resources. As it is I rarely run out of magicka or even have to worry about it too much, but trying to heal through that high damage at like V3... I guzzled a lot of pots, lol

I love changing someone's mind about nightblade healers. It's always a good feeling. I do not enjoy getting passed over for temps, but it's not that big of a deal. Just proving myself one group at a time. My level is an issue in getting passed up as well, but until I finish up a project I'm working on I'm not playing. Too distracting. So leveling is on hold. I can tell people all day that I don't need to be V12+ to heal the things they are running, but they remain unconvinced and only take me along if they can't find someone else.

Baby steps! They're coming around, heh.

PhatGrimReaper

I've tanked with a DK since eso launched and I have just created a sorc specifically to build a tank for a new challenge and because sorc is the only class you hardly ever see tanking, even though it has great potential.

This gives me hope for my new toon... thanks for sharing!

Layenem

@Qyrk‌ Footman's is both heavy and I don't need the additional block mitigation. It's not a hard 12% increase in block, it just raises our current block mitigation by 12% of its total. It only brings me from 28% to 31.6% mitigation from blocking. While some people appreciate the additional 3.6% mitigated I've yet to be in a situation where it was a make or break thing vs being able to keep every add taunted off of my group and focused on me. I could, by all means, carry around an interchangeable set for bosses but, again, until I see the need I won't utilize that practice (especially when my healers are finding it easy enough to heal me that they can now DPS as well).

@DeLindsay‌ I'll try to go over this in order, though I might miss some things.

First I wanted to focus on this one:

DeLindsay wrote: »

No Low Slash > Deep Slash/Crippling Slash? As a Tank in ESO, I feel our job is 3 things:

• Absorb/reduce the damage from enemies too strong for non-Tanks to handle.
• Debuff the enemy with anything we can, Low Slash, Puncture, Shades (NB), etc.
• Do as much dmg as we can after we've achieved an appropriate balance of the above 2.

This isn't a blanket ruleset for tanking. By far. The first one, dependent on the type of tank you are, is an absolute otherwise you're not a tank.

The second isn't nearly as important and should only be considered if you have the resources to provide the debuffs. This rule is not specific to a tank and should be utilized by the most opportune role (i.e., if I have a NB who is a DPS I'm going to have him/her use shades, my magicka DPS already uses Elemental Drain, stamina taunt breaks more times than it sticks so going for that debuff is more of a nuisance than anything - otherwise it's up all the time.) The debuff must be valuable to the fight otherwise what's the point? Is it worth wasting resources and taking away a needed dodge roll or block mitigation or the ability to keep my mitigation up? Most times not. Not even close. I'll say this, if you find me tanking AA and Hel Ra I keep Elemental Drain and Pierce Armor up on all bosses. I even run Rapids for the raid. Again, that situation provides plenty of healing that I don't need to worry about my Circle of Protection.

Now on to the one where I've yet to find a viable consideration for. "Do as much dmg as we can..." My healer can out DPS me 3x... EASY! So if my damage mitigation causes me to hide behind my shield so that my Healer does 1k DPS vs my 300 DPS then guess what I'm doing! It's not about US DPSing, it's about providing our group the opportunity to DPS more.

That's where the tradeoff comes in. Do I use this debuff? Will it make my resources questionable? If I tuck behind my shield will my groups overall DPS be higher than if I was swinging my sword around?

To me, tanking in ESO comes down to three rules, slightly different than yours but with the entire group in mind:

1) Mitigate (through one of four tanking means) damage in order to provide your group the opportunity to fulfill their roles.

2) Distract/Debuff/CC as many enemies as you can (taunt, root, stun, generally CC - not all of these, pick one! You don't have to do ALL of these you just need to do one effectively) your enemies in order to provide your group the opportunity to fulfill their roles.

3) Once steps 1 and 2 are complete put your group in a position to maximize total DPS output. (Nine times out of ten this means the tank isn't DPSing... since, you know, we're not wearing DPS type gear)

This is how I look at my role within a group as a tank. The issue I see a lot of tanks struggle with is that they don't view their role within a group, they just view their role as if four people were playing separately from each other.

DeLindsay wrote: »

From a Healing standpoint I'd be nervous with your Health being as low as it is, even though your Resists/Armor are quite good (with ability use). Especially as even with Emperor you're only getting to ~3090 Health, dep on what you have that increases Health %. Soft cap of 3162 is adequate imo but I don't like relying on a PvP buff server in order to reach it.

There's zero concern here. I know most people like to just max out what they can or only listen to what others have done. I've run everything testing out how much stamina or magicka or health I need to survive the harshest portions of a fight and these numbers are above those necessities. And I don't rely on the PvP buff server at all! I've only ever had it up for a few days. This is where my health sits 99% of the time and even a v3 NB healer can keep me going in v12 CoH or a v9 NB healer can keep me going in DSA and Hel Ra/AA (I wouldn't take anything less than a v14 into vdsa or SO though lol) IF my healer complain (which all of this is done with them helping me find those sweet spots) then the adjustments are made. Based on practice. Not on theory. This would be a highly effective min/max of my attributes as played in my role.

DeLindsay wrote: »

From a Tanking standpoint you say you live with Block up, but you don't wear 5pc Footman or 5pc Ward of Cyrodiil (Medium) for the 12% Block mitigation. As you say you are built as a mitigation Tank, that would seem to go hand in hand. And 12% Block mitigation at all times while Blocking vs 18% Dodge change while Blocking is still superior for mitigation. My Stamina is just a tad lower than yours but NB's have zero Stamina problems when Tanking, and my Magicka is only 134 less than yours, also eating tri-food. I could easily get my Magicka to equal yours while still having over 3K Health without Cyro buffs but I'm happy with my ~3250 Health and 2190 Magicka, to each their own on that.

Footman and Ward are both not Light Armor. This is the primary portion of this build. Without light armor it's not a light armor sorc tank I can give you my heavy armor setup if you'd like, where Footman is utilized, but I find it insanely boring. I think you're confusing what I'm doing here. I don't tank in heavy BECAUSE it's boring, because it's a snooze fest. That might change in 1.6... might! Light Armor sorc tanking provides the biggest rush so far as tanking goes... as ALL gameplay goes because of the risk vs reward but I can tell you this: I've run with thirty or more healers ranging from v1 to v14 and "shouldn't be healing" to "so good they make you wanna cry out for joy" and haven't had a single complaint... well except when one healer didn't like a fight strat we were using and wanted to tunnel the lich boss in Wayrest. That's not happening!

DeLindsay wrote: »

Arguably at current NPC's don't have much Armor value or Spell Resistance so morphing Puncture > Ransack at current is the superior option. In 1.6 many Tanks will probably change that morph to Pierce Armor as ZoS has said they are adjusting NPC values. But Low Slash and it's morhps reduces the damage the enemy can do, and that makes for happy healers. It also stacks with NB's Shades. Also I see you didn't morph Defensive Posture. Absorb Magicka is an amazing ability against caster Bosses. That and Harness Magicka in the Light Armor tree.

I've done a TON of testing and I can tell you that my groups DPS per player (per hit rather) is increased by 11% which is a considerable amount. Especially considering that I'm already so far into soft cap that I MIGHT gain 60 armor from Ransack. So here we're going to have to agree to disagree as I find Ransack completely useless. As far as Low Slash... I won't use it. I don't need to currently. Since all of my healers are happy. The most issues we have with "damage done by a boss" is when someone doesn't get out of a red. I'm not going to handicap them, instead I'm going to expect them to improve and get out of the reds. As far as hitting me? Again, IF they complain we'll look into it. Until then I've got a build set with specific items in place and exchanging one of these for the other has to be worth it (which Low Slash has yet to be so). Since I've had a healer die here and there (mostly the smaller ones or one of my strong healers messing around with new stuff) my healing bar is setup so that I can keep myself (and my group) alive while they get the healer back up. It's because of this second bar that vdsa is possible for a sorc tank.

DeLindsay wrote: »

Very interesting, I found the exact opposite to be true while NB Tanking. I could hardly ever see the EG set proc while Tanking but Malubeth procs quite often. I'd still rather use Blood Spawn but I just can't get the gargoyle to drop his Helm no matter how many times I've farmed him.

This is indeed interesting as one of the people testing this with me was a NB tank who couldn't get it to proc often enough either. Works on adds, not on bosses. For us. And seeing as how I don't have any damage mitigating ultimates the Blood Spawn set is utterly useless as a sorc tank. Oh how I wish sorcs had something that mitigated a % of damage like the other three classes do in our ultimate field.

All in all I see what you're saying, but for Light Armor sorc tanking it's not viable. I've been testing every angle since before the game went live. I've got a tank setup for Heavy, Medium, and Light (medium being the worst by a long shot - will change with 1.6). I've even got gear for all three tanking setups as a sorc tank. There are abilities that I know other tank types use that just don't work for how I tank and some just don't work for a sorc tank.

I had a DK tank one time tell me that our 3 jobs were the same as you listed. I just want to point out that none of the healers that ran with both of us preferred him over me when it came to tanking... and he was a DK... I challenge tanks to consider that our job isn't ever going to be adding DPS from our own weapon, but providing the opportunity for more DPS by our group (specifically in this case referencing the healer). All three classes have far more potential for self healing than a sorc so I can't imagine there being any issue with you guys providing the chance for your healers to hit 1k DPS while keeping you alive. If I can do it on a Light Armor sorc tank I know the other classes can!

I am curious as to who spread those rules around since I've seen four or five people use those exact rules with me without justification as to why they'd add in their 300 DPS vs letting a healer add in 1k DPS. Seems like a pride thing vs a logical approach at winning the encounter. At least for this particular DK it was. In having to prove that he could DPS (less than I do when I DPS while tanking mind you) he merely showed that he was more concerned about his personal numbers and not the success of his group. That mentality drives me insane.

DeLindsay

Layenem wrote: »

I am curious as to who spread those rules around since I've seen four or five people use those exact rules with me without justification as to why they'd add in their 300 DPS vs letting a healer add in 1k DPS. Seems like a pride thing vs a logical approach at winning the encounter. At least for this particular DK it was. In having to prove that he could DPS (less than I do when I DPS while tanking mind you) he merely showed that he was more concerned about his personal numbers and not the success of his group. That mentality drives me insane.

I'd be curious to see a video from your regular Healer that does 1K DPS on Boss fights while keeping everyone alive. Saying that, as a NB Healer I can easily push out 400+ DPS without even budging my Magicka pool, or >800 DPS if I push fairly hard but then I could run into Magicka issues if something goes bad so I tend to stay somewhere in the middle. This is wearing my sustain Healing set not my DPS (max Spell dmg) set.

As for the "rules" for Tanks in an MMO, I've known those 3 basic rules to be true for any MMO and any Tank type (PvE content), with slight modifications in certain cases. Also, if you have #1 and #2 covered then you should have no problem pushing out your ~300 DPS while your Healer puts down his/her w/e high DPS value. While Tanking there's really few abilities I absolutely HAVE to put on my bars, the rest are Utility. Why not use 1 or more of said Utility slots to add a debuff to the Boss? When I'm DPS and time is important (speed Trials, Blood Spawn in Vet SC, etc), there's no way in hell I'm going to waste part of my rotation to drop Shades. I leave that to the Tank or Healer, both of which I do when I Tank or Heal (drop Shades). I also go well over Hard Cap for Armor (with abilities) and almost as high as you for Spell Resistance (with abilities). I hit somewhere north of 2900 and Fire/Poison/Disease resist hard cap (Fire Glyph due to Vampire, Bosmer Racial for the other 2).

As for Blood Spawn 2-set and Sorc Tanks, I can see your point. I mean I suppose you could drop Flawless Dawnbreaker more (since many Bosses are Undead/Daedric and it has a low cost). Or possibly using Aggressive Horn for higher group DPS and since it has a fairly high cost Blood Spawn could help but meh. For NB's that set is amazing thanks to VoB. One other thought if you are a Vampire is Devouring Swarm could be a nice Ultimate for Sorc Tanks who want to use the Blood Spawn set.

As I said, I'm happy that people are playing Roles that others frown upon and succeeding at it. My comments were not in any way criticism, just inquiries for an in depth explanation of said practice.

Layenem

DeLindsay wrote: »

I'd be curious to see a video from your regular Healer that does 1K DPS on Boss fights while keeping everyone alive. Saying that, as a NB Healer I can easily push out 400+ DPS without even budging my Magicka pool, or >800 DPS if I push fairly hard but then I could run into Magicka issues if something goes bad so I tend to stay somewhere in the middle. This is wearing my sustain Healing set not my DPS (max Spell dmg) set.

I'll do you one better! If you're in the EP side of the house just get in contact with @denoht in game.

As for the rules, I can name a few MMOs where there was zero CC and debuffs being done by the tanks. EQ1 and 2 for example had the debuffs and CCs coming from other classes. I don't know much about WoW, though I don't care much about it either. TERA was a game where there wasn't much debuffing and CCing from the tanks. SWTOR wasn't done by the tanks either.

As is there's only one or two other games where you aren't actively blocking so anything you don't actively block in can't be compared to ESO or TERA, and those two can't be compared to as threat in TERA wasn't a "lock" system it was earned threat through agro. You had to work for it there, not so much here (and those tanks didn't do jack for DPS).

Sasky

Very well-written guide. You do an excellent job of indicating how a sorc tank handles differently than other tanks (and each class is rather different, at least from healing viewpoint). The only point you didn't mention is how amusing it is to see a tank use bolt escape to get out of red instead of a dodge roll.

Layenem wrote: »

... well except when one healer didn't like a fight strat we were using and wanted to tunnel the lich boss in Wayrest. That's not happening!

Heh, I remember that being a healing challenge pre-1.3 with the lower regen softcaps. Besides that, it's just like ranging the Daedroth in BC was: it's boring and ultimately hurts your playing skills.

Layenem

Sasky wrote: »

The only point you didn't mention is how amusing it is to see a tank use bolt escape to get out of red instead of a dodge roll.

Actually, lol, I suck at this! Horribly bad hahahaha (I know... Layenem sucks at something? It's true!)

And the Lich Boss... UGH we took that guy on like 10 times before my brother finally said "SCREW THIS! Stack, I'm just going to try to heal through it..." I can tell you our jaws dropped when he did... None of us, not even him, realized how powerful he actually was lol

PhatGrimReaper

"... I challenge tanks to consider that our job isn't ever going to be adding DPS from our own weapon, but providing the opportunity for more DPS by our group

Well said!!
When tanking end game content or VR12+ Dungeons, the tank should be focused on controlling the threats, shielding your group from damage and not being a burden on healer/keeping themself up, so healer can focus on everyone else.... Dead DPS do no DPS.
That being said there are exceptions, fights where it helps if the tank can chip in... bloodspawn is a good example(rage timer) or the last boss in Fungal(I use resto and innerfire for this one... works well).
I was in a group facing Bloodspawn just a couple of days ago where we wiped three times until I swapped in some damage skills to help burn him down... It didn't cause more work for the healer(GDB keeps me up) and it didn't make life harder for the DPS.... we went from wiping three times to burning him before the rage... coinsidence, I think not.

At the end of the day there is no absolute right way except the way that gets the group to the loot.

In my opinion, tanking in ESO is all about how you can adapt to a new/different set of cirumstances.... There is at least one boss who is easier to beat with one DK than she is to beat with the whole group(Mezeluth Vet CoH).

I love your take on tanking and the ideas envolved in your build, but saying that tanks shouldn't dps at all is the same as saying sorc's shouldn't tank.... It's limiting the possibilities in a game designed for endless possibilities.

Layenem

@PhatGrimReaper‌ I couldn't agree with you more! I'll swap over to my resto staff to use my execute ability when a boss is below 20%... there are times when I'll run Destro staff on my second bar and DPS my butt off (I'm not in the position to out do my healers in DPS, but when they HAVE to heal because of a ton of damage it helps to bring the enemies down quicker and I can't mitigate any of that damage)

When we're taking new healers through, sometimes v2-6 in a v12+ zone, I'll pull out a few heals (final boss FG, Bloodspawn, etc...) to help them out.

Situational tanking is a MUST, but stating that you HAVE to do any particular events outside of mitigation and threat management is basically saying "No matter what, no matter the situation, you just do THIS. I don't care if the boss is AoEing, I don't care if you need to move... you just do this. Nothing else. Just this..." That only breeds dumb players that think that's all that they can do and wind up incapable of adapting and becoming better players in their roles.

Saturn

PhatGrimReaper wrote: »

I've tanked with a DK since eso launched and I have just created a sorc specifically to build a tank for a new challenge and because sorc is the only class you hardly ever see tanking, even though it has great potential.

This gives me hope for my new toon... thanks for sharing!

I recommend stacking health and going away from the high magicka consumption armour/spell res buff tanking that most sorc tanks are using. My sorcerer has 3.9k health with the emperor bonus and food buff. I personally think that armour and spell resistence beyond a certain point is useless and that more health is preferable. I have tanked vDSA to completion using such a build, going full heavy armour, Hist Bark x5, Footman x5 and Ashen Grip x2 for extra health (although I will be swapping this out for the Engine Guardian or Blood Spawn 2 piece set once the RNG gods favour me).

Just to prove that I am not lying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX9MXq9J7ao

As for "great potential" I highly disagree. I think Zenimax have not made the classes balanced enough so that they can all tank on the same level (or heal for that matter). It is clearly reflected in the sorcerer's passives that it was meant as a DPS and that tanking or healing wouldn't be truly viable for endgame content. I was really upset to hear that they didn't address this in 1.6, but rather just made Pet DPS a thing, which honestly promotes a lazy playstyle if you can just sit back and have NPCs do your role for you..

That being said, a great tank is not determined by his/her role, but more on the skill of the player. I have seen Dragonknight and Templar tanks do a worse job than I, when trying to keep themselves alive or keep a good taunt rotation. My hope is that once Zenimax introduces spellcrafting that the new classless abilities will enable every player, regardless of class, to pick up a role and play it viably and effectively.

Layenem

Saturn wrote: »

I recommend stacking health and going away from the high magicka consumption armour/spell res buff tanking that most sorc tanks are using. My sorcerer has 3.9k health with the emperor bonus and food buff. I personally think that armour and spell resistence beyond a certain point is useless and that more health is preferable.

Effective. Not the only method. By far. Don't be that guy lol

Layenem

Also, there are major differences between Light Armor and Heavy Armor tanking. 1.6 (so long as they don't mess up how Dark Exchange works) is undoubtedly going to be the stomping ground for HIGH health, heavy armor sorc tanks! I'll make it work with every armor type, but the high health is going to be king... in 1.6!

DeLindsay

Layenem wrote: »

Also, there are major differences between Light Armor and Heavy Armor tanking. 1.6 (so long as they don't mess up how Dark Exchange works) is undoubtedly going to be the stomping ground for HIGH health, heavy armor sorc tanks! I'll make it work with every armor type, but the high health is going to be king... in 1.6!

Yeah I'm kinda hoping this isn't the direction it's heading. Other MMO's have went this way, where Tanks just stack Health and nothing else, and it leaves the system lacking imho. I do hope that our choices in Gear/Abilities/Champ Points will mean something (at least early on) and it won't just end up being "LF1M Tank, must have 46K+ Health" or something to that point.

Wifeaggro13

Layenem wrote: »

I know the first couple of comments are bound to be "But you can't tank vdsa or SO" which has already been proven wrong and "You won't be able to do that in 1.6" which you have NO PROOF of. So let's move on to the real of this all...

Originally I wasn't going to share this with the ESO community. Not because I'm some elitist or I don't share my information, because I most definitely do share it. Unfortunately, I have PTSD and there are certain events that trigger it that I tend to stay away from (this is why some of you have seen me post a few comments and then walk away from the post all together.)

Now that that is out there I'm very much open to discussion about this but unless you can prove to me that you "know best" I'm not going to give you much weight in a final say. Truth is, I've been sorc tanking in every armor type since PTS was private (before the game went live) and I'll continue to do so. When 1.6 comes out I may very well be using heavy armor again, or medium, who knows. Theorycrafting, however, is best left on paper since most people tend to forget the difference between a theory and a practice. I promise this time, for the other Sorcs who have been trying and struggling with tanking on our class, I'll post 1.6 tanking setups once I get them hashed out instead of hiding from trolls.

Here goes. Light Armor Sorc Tank - Layenem Style!


Sorc Tank – FAR from TankISH

In ESO there is a concept that you can either embrace or struggle to accept and at which point you practically cap yourself off at how many players you have access to and how “situationally stable” you become as a player. The top two examples I’m referring to here, and hear a lot of, are “Sorcerer’s can’t tank…” and my favorite “No one can tank in light armor…” While these statements held absolutely true in most MMOs prior to ESO this is the furthest from what we can call “truths” now. What I’m saying is that I’m a mitigation tank at its core and I do it better as a Sorcerer in light armor than you can with your other class in heavy armor.

Why? Easy. With the right gear and one ability from stamina and one from magicka we reach the hard cap (34 points shy of the hard cap in Spell Resist… we’re talking less than .1%). I’m heavily invested in mitigation tanking right now on my Sorcerer and for plenty of reasons. With my core group of guys (sorry, no gals, not on purpose… cough Ahdora level up cough) – Kurse, Kraive, Dubah, and myself – we’ve got a full understanding of how I tank and how they can excel within the group.

“Layenem, what’s your secret?” I’m glad you asked, weird reader that I’ve never met before… (PS. Stop interrupting me while I tell my story, it’s unraveling to my cause!) So using two abilities, that literally recover their costs in stamina and magicka by the time they have to be reapplied, I can focus on a lot more things during the fight that allows my DPS and Healer to do their jobs easier.


The Gear:

I think it is important to first talk about my armor type choices before we get into these two abilities and how I utilize them to function as a Mitigation Tank. At first I started out with 7 pieces of heavy armor believing that this was a firm foundation for tanking and necessary. With the changes to damage from bosses in 1.5, however, I’ve realized the necessity for Spell Resistance more than ever now and the fact that one of the passives from the Undaunted skill tree now gives +% to health, stamina, and magicka I WANTED to wear at least one piece of light and medium. Once I put on the first piece of light armor I noticed a huge difference in a few things… and decided to make a change!!!

The first change was that my armor mitigation, which was roughly 600 points above the hard cap, making all 600 points useless, barely went down while my spell resistance improved almost 100 points. This made me perk up an eye brow… So I decided to throw on my healing set of gear, all light armor, and my tank buffs. I was shocked. Of course I need more testing to be sure so I went and created a full set of gear – 5 light, 1 heavy, 1 medium – and proceeded to test out my new theory for two days in the toughest dungeons we could run, to include Veteran City of Ash and Veteran Crypt of Hearts. The results were outstandingly satisfying!

Essentially, I managed to increase my spell resistance from just over soft cap to hard cap, decrease my spell cost and increase my magicka regen. This opened up all kinds of doors for me. Now with my gear giving me magicka regen in abundance, I could focus on all stamina regen enchantments on my jewelry. Right now I’m currently rocking 5 piece Hist Bark set bonus (18% chance to dodge while blocking – I live with my shield up), 5 piece Warlock’s for the additional 22 magicka regen, and the Engine Guardian helm/shoulder set (medium helm and heavy shoulder; on ability use regenerates either health, magicka, OR stamina for a total of 1417 over 6.5 seconds.) I thought the Malubeth set would be good here for PvE but it’s not, it doesn’t trigger enough (though I’m told it’s great for PvP.)

Right now my stats (with a Consummate food buff, Thundering Presence IV, and Ring of Preservation IV; no PvP bonuses) are as follows:

Health: 2840 (with Emperor buff this hits soft cap)
Stamina: 1772
Magicka: 2324
Stamina Regen: 126
Magicka Regen: 118
Spell Resist: 3132 (increases vs undead, Daedric, and WW; hard cap value 3200)
Armor: 2999 (increases vs undead, Daedric, and WW; hard cap value 3200)

As you can see, the values are prime for a Sorcerer tank, especially with how I go about tanking in each fight!


The Armor/Spell Resist Increasing Abilities:

We’ll talk about the magicka ability first: Lightning Form (Thundering Presence morph). At a whopping 294 magicka cost, and a regen of 118 magicka per second, you can see how it virtually costs nothing for its 9 second duration. Hell, you could even do the Boundless Storm morph for more movement speed but that’s more PvP focused… and I don’t PvP much. With that up as all the time, I have plenty of magicka to make use of the magicka taunt, Inner Fire (undaunted skill line), to keep big enemies focused on me while holding up my block and keeping my feet out of enemy damage.

The second key ability, primarily for boss fights, is Circle of Protection (Ring of Protection morph). The only reason I morphed this ability at all was to gain the increased duration from 16ish seconds to 20 seconds, making it so that every 4th or 5th time I cast it I virtually saved an entire cast. With my stamina regen at 126, the ability cost being 258, and my 18% chance to avoid having to block at all while holding block (saving a ton of stamina) I can keep this up 100% of the time on bosses. The only downfall is that the ability is ground target, which means if I have to move around the room a lot then there is no point in planting this ability. Lucky for me I have enough stamina regen to pull in the heavy armor skill tree ability Immovable (Unstoppable Morph – again I only morphed it for more duration) to do the same thing with slightly less cost efficiency; not my preferred ability of the two.


The Weapon and Ability Setups:

My first weapon and bar setup is: Sword and Board, Lightning Form (Thundering Presence), Defensive Posture (no morph), Circle of Protection (Ring of Protection), Inner Fire (Inner Beast), and Mage Light (Inner Light). My second weapon and bar setup is: Restoration Staff, Grand Healing (Illustrious Healing), Mage’s Fury (Mage’s Wrath), Dark Exchange (Dark Deal), Inner Fire (Inner Beast), and Mage Light (Inner Light). As a tank I only use two Ultimates: War Horn (Aggressive Horn) and Negate Magic (Suppression Field); though I rarely use Negate Magic. There really isn’t much need for the second but I’ve got nothing else to put in that slot.

So essentially I start any fight by taunting enemies, using Inner Beast, and focusing on the bigger/tougher enemies. Each zone is going to have different enemies, and each time they add a new update it seems these enemies shift in which one is more dangerous than the other. Basically, if there is one archer in a pull of five mobs then I will taunt all the other mobs because the archer will be dead within seconds. Why? Have you ever been power shot in the face by the archers in 1.4? No? Everyone else has, where have you been?


The Functionality:

Once I’ve got a nice hefty group of enemies gathered around for story time, I make sure that I move as many of them as I can to a caster or archer (I don’t have the chain pull that DargonKnights have so I have to walk them over… woe is me) and let my DPS take care of any small enemies (spiders and such.) Once my DPS has dispatched any annoying little spiders or mini atronachs summoned by casters they will come over and Area of Effect (AoE) damage my listeners… effectively ending story time for a few moments.

Now since my healer hardly has to heal me, high mitigation + block reduces another 28% or so, he/she can focus on keeping my DPS alive… which isn’t that difficult since they can clean up little adds in seconds! Keep in mind that this might not work with your group if the healer isn’t ready to heal the DPS instead of the tank, or if the tank is also taking damage, or if the DPS can’t kill smaller enemies fast enough. Synergy isn’t just a button you use, it’s also how your group functions! (One of the reasons why I prefer to rock new content with my primary four… and yes, we’ve taken a TON of people through the content with us after we figured it out.)

This is a rinse and repeat for all non-boss pulls until we get to a boss, at which point being a mitigation tank is easier on the entirety of the fight as there is no spike damage and no unnecessary damage being taken by the tank, once again allowing the healer to focus on keeping the DPS alive. Sometimes this will cause a healer to become bored, but all of the healers that run with me also DPS sometimes pulling 1k DPS plus keeping everyone alive.

If you really want to see this in action then I urge you to head on over to my stream and watch a few of the latest videos: www.twitch.tv/layenem (Shameless plug? Nah, investigative journalism? We’ll let Sheogorath determine that!)


The Conclusion:

In order for any other class to pull this off as well as a Sorcerer does they’d have to keep two or three other abilities up at all times, limiting their resources, which in turn limits their effectiveness in this build type. Don’t fret though, because Sorcerer tanking is the hardest tanking to LEARN. If you want easy mode tanking you’re in the wrong class!

As always, you have to find out what you love to do when you play a game. Your style, your likes, even your own gaming strengths and weaknesses, are all key elements to how you play in Elder Scrolls Online. (I could never tap tank as a Nightblade… I don’t have that mental skill set.) So before you go about asking “What’s the best…” you need to instead say “What do I want to do the most?” Because even though you’re worried that you might make a decision that would make you that non desirable DPS for raids or groups, as is the situation with most MMOs on the market, I promise you that the differences between the starting “classes” (much more of an archetype system to be honest) is never going to be so dramatic as to consider one class useless while another is in top demand… exploits excluded. (Personally, if you’re only capable of defeating content by exploiting game flaws then you’re not a real gamer anyways. Don’t like that determination? Don’t exploit content, play the game like a real gamer does!)

Enjoy, and go whoop some a$$!!!


The Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ebqE7gh1RnXvwW5U7ce-8qk8sfBClhDNEHwTNPBKbiQ/edit

Lol i dont understand ive been tanking with my sorc better then my vr 14 dk with full yokeda since 1.3 . Ive done every 4 man with my sorc . And most of the first two trials with him. Running ageis and lightning armor in warlock and seducer. I have as much mit as my dk. If i wear heavy i have 1 k more armor and 1 k more spell resist.
But in all honesty ive come to the con clusion there is no tanks in eso only dps with taunt with the righ healer. Been playing my dk just to build a shield healer because peoe say i cant pull it off. Sorc will still get to run a major and minor aromor buff so i suppose they will get even better as tanks when soft caps are removed.