[Sorcerer]: Deadric Tank

Nutronic

Sorcerer: Deadric Tank

Introduction

This is not a complete build. It still needs minor tweaks and a bit more flexibility on the bar. However it has been tested multiple times now since beta and once refined could be a great build for 1.6 beyond with all the wonderful changes to the deadric summons tree. Please feel free to drop any advice or comments as you see fit!

Lore

The idea was simple: You find yourself in a plane of oblivion, your soul ripped from your very being; not everyone walks the hero’s path with their sanity intact. Some heroes go feral, but they bring with them those tiny bits of savory knowledge from their past life. This is in essence what happens when a summoner begins to act like one of their summons…

Build

Attributes

10 Magicka, 15 Stamina, 37 Health

Race

Argonian (read notes), Imperial, Orsimer, Nord

Main Tanking Bar:

This build is mostly about damage mitigation and keeping as much focus on what you do as the tank. The logic is to aggravate the boss and leave additional mobs to your summons. Even before the ability to order pets around, this worked well enough that just being near the pet would cause a monster to lose interest in other players and simply focus on the tank and his (begrudgingly) loyal summons.

Weapon

Sword and Shield is the bread and butter of this build. You get your taunt, extra armor slot, and some nice buffs to keep the badness away. I prefer a weapon with the shielding enchantment and the infused trait. Getting more SR on your shield too is always attractive unless you aren't meeting your armor caps.



Ransack – is the preferred taunting option here for 2 reasons: give yourself an armor boost, and keep major boss agro off your summons. Stamina is rarely a problem with this option if you're only blocking heavy attacks and keep dodge rolling to a minimum.

Empowered ward – This morph believe it or not is preferred over Hardened Ward because of it’s utility. The bottom line is you’re going to be casting this spell a lot, a lot a lot. It’s usually good enough to absorb a few “light” attacks from a boss or 1 heavy. It also allows you to sneak in a bit more DOT from your summons AND keep them alive so you don’t have to focus on micromanaging them so much. The practical benefits are numerous enough to write an essay, but we’ll just leave this open for Q&A.

Summon Clannfear – This (relatively) little guy will be a lifesaver. It’s true for the sorcerer who isn’t tanking he’s a nuisance, but for one that is you will love him, and so will your group. He soaks up a very surprising amount of damage, he’s not too costly to recast, and he keeps damage off of you if you need to break off for any reason at all! Of all the summon abilities this is the second most important.

Summon Twilight Matriarch – It never did much damage, it goes down like a balloon in a needle factory if focused too much and it’s tricky to re-summon. None of that matters when you are healed from 30% HP to full. Yes you have a healer, and no it’s not something to 90% rely upon; but good positioning (or timely recasting) takes strain off of your healer and provides the sorcerer’s most powerful self-heal.

Bound Armaments – This is the most important spell on your bar. Simply cast and forget. Not much else to say.

Summon Greater Storm Atronach – Still feeling lonely out there with only 2 pets? Drop a third! This is where Empowered Ward shines through again as it boosts the big guy’s damage even more. That may not mean much as a tank, but keep in mind that incinerate passive DOES work on your summons. There are several good reasons to keep him on your tank bar though, to name just a few: You can drop him on over whelmed team mates to stun additional monsters, add a bit of dps and soak up agro (1.6).

Alternate Tank load out:

As a recent addition, there are some times (hard to believe) where you just don’t want your summons out, or maybe you’d be happy with just the Clannfear. Here is my own personal recommendation.

Puncture/Inner Fire – You may at times want both of these for those bosses which have no adds but need to be kited or you can’t get too close to and need to simple “shout them down” from afar. Either way, so long as you get agro when you need to hold it one of these should obviously always be on the bar.

Thundering Presence – Is everywhere and for good reason. The only reason it’s not on the primary bar is because the of the Winged Twilight. Make no mistake though, if you feel you can keep up a buff and a shield feel free to change her out. That being said once casted this spell should max out your armor if you are already running Bound Armaments.

Summon Clannfear/Encase – This is more of a play style/situational decision. Sometimes you want to wait for the right moment to drop your poor Clannfear into a pool of mobs, other times you want to just exorcise crowd control. Either option will buy you roughly the same amount of time, the only difference is ranged enemies can’t be deterred by encase, but they can be distracted by the Clannfear. Choose wisely.

Structured Entrophy – It heals you, does damage over time, and is incredibly cheap to cast. If you have the space, there isn’t a reason not to have it.
Bound Armaments – Once again unless you go ranged DPS or something silly it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever not want this on your bar. Not to mention that as a Summoning Tank you want to take advantage of all the passives the tree offers and no spell last longer or puts in more work than this one. Not to mention that heavy attack bonus plus a little light attack weaving between blocks isn’t hurtful to your entrophy.

Bound Armaments – It can never be stressed enough how important this spell is. Sure there are times where you can get around it but use it for a while and you'll miss it more than you'll want it off the bar. This also frees you up to not always have 5 heavy armor pieces or more on at any time.

Negate Magic - Either of these morphs is fine, it just depends on what you use them for and possibly what your racial/active passives are. This is just another great utility spell to have on the bar, but since you aren't DPS it will take a long time to fill up so if another sorc in your party wants to run it, don't volunteer over them.

Final Notes:

My personal experience with this build stemmed from how I reacted when I read the original racial passives in beta. I knew I wanted to play an Argonian, and I knew I wanted to have the option to cast spells. Pretty much like every other ES game. Logically though the Amphibious and Quick to Mend struck me as very "tanky" passives more so than simply 'bonus health'. It seems to me that since you're going to get a ton of healing thrown your way, why not make it count more? Also I took Alchemy as my consumable crafting trade so this just worked out even better. Lastly, sorcerers are severely lacking in self heals; but hey every class needs a weakness right? Right?

I’m going to hold off on adding my own personal DPS bars because I’m still tweaking those heavily. I’m not as deep into PVP as I’d like to be and PVE has been pretty interesting (I take on world bosses/dolmens my own level or a bit higher by myself without having to use my tank bar. With my tank bar they are just kinda too easy). That being said I’ve gone level 1 - VR1 Two-Handed (prefer axes/maces) but took up the staff at VR1.5 to see if I could make it work even with my low magicka. Surprisingly my dps has been good enough for solo PVE but I still feel I could do better as ranged DPS in group PVE. Either way, I will hold on to these bars because I’m still not sure if I prefer to use my 2H for AOE and staff for single target or vice versa. It seems like 1.6 will give me a significant buff though as I aimed to keep crit out of my damage equation (I know I’m crazy, but like I said it works for solo PVE, and pen/spell power seems to be getting buffed in 1.6 so…. Yeah).

Thank you for reading this all the way, and feel free to tear my build apart and tell me how (but most importantly why!) it sucks/rocks.

newtinmpls

Well my sorcerer tank is a bit different than yours.

Orc, heavy armor bonuses, 2-handed weapon, all stat points into health. (I'd go into what types of armor I choose for looks but that's more the RP side). All armor glyphed up for stamina.

Ability bar goes like this:
1-Crystal shard; mostly because of distance and stun. Lovely for both. If you have the passive about gaining health with dark magic damage that's a plus (I haven't taken it yet).
2-Carve (or whatever the heck it morphs into) with the splash damage passives & boosts to bolster it, and my jewelry enchanted to boost weapon damage this is shockingly effective.
3-Critical charge; gets you into the thick of things, and with a good chance of knocking folks seriously down in health
4-thundering presence (the morph of the lightning form one); start with this, then critical charge, then go crazy.
5-Winged twilight - all the more valuable to me since twice lately major beasties have gone after her and not me. May eventually be replaced with bound armor, as the bound/lightnig combo is also really good.

I initially started out dividing my stats between health, stamina & magicka and it just became unworkable. Since re-doing to just health and using the stamina for glyphs I've done much better in battles. Been to a couple of delves in Cyrodil (I'm one of those crazy/curious ones who hopped over shortly after 10th level) and with a lot of care and crouching we did pretty okay.

Nutronic

That's an interesting build you have there. a bit less on the tank side though if I may say so. Have you tried any group dungeons yet?

newtinmpls

Not since the addition of critical charge. Went okay so far.

Nutronic

Ah okay, I asked because 2Handed tanking is possible right up until the 2nd tier of normal dungeons. You'll notice the baddies will all hit harder to both you and your team mates and without a taunt it's possible to even wipe on groups of trash mobs.

Just suggesting you look into S&W as an alternative line before you hit 20

newtinmpls

I get that sword and shield is a good choice for some tanks; but it just doesn't work for my conception of this character. My partner (long story short I play with my spouse & one bit of personal made up lore is the Order of the Dragon; an alliance-neutral order that sends folks out to do good ... usually in pairs). So my partner; my 'second' is a Templar healer and she makes a point of fireballing (no idea what actual spell it is) nearby (and sometimes not so nearby) opponents "to challenge" me.

So despite myself I'm becoming relatively adept at the spell/ swing/ dodge the red/ heavy attack mess that is combat in a target-rich environment.

Arki

Had some fun on pts with a similar build. Went solo on the world boss werewolfes and dolmen in glenumbra. Survivability in heavy armor is sooo much better in 1.6! Mitigation actually works now. Ofc my dps suffers, as it should. It took some time but I managed to keep summons up and slowly get the rest down.

The heal from the matriarch is great and 30secs is actually not that long when you can survive alot longer then before in heavy. I didnt use bound armaments, but swapped in another active skill (deadric prey or what its called). Also had a few magicka enchants on to boost summons dmg.

Would be fun to try out a tweaked build for dungeon running. It will prob be a little different then pre1.6 sorc-tanking, but fun. Prob better mitigation then before but with harder tradeoffs in terms of resource-management. Luckily thundering presence is 20secs now so can be kept up without effort even on a pure health/stam build.

Btw: Only vr2, so havent tried any of this on trials/dsa etc

EDIT: For dungeons i'd prob switch the clanfear for another active skill. If nothing else then just to reduce the crowding

Nutronic

@newtinmpls‌
Ya know I can't think of a better way to play the game then with someone else. More power to you then for having a partner in crime
Just do watch out for big mobs of enemies, you can get trapped even if you're kiting pretty hard.

@myrbostadb16_ESO3‌
I had my character ported over to PTS and I personally wasn't all to impressed with the buffs to the deadric summons line. Sure most of them are nice functionally but in terms of using them either for damage or tank it didn't feel like a substantial buff. That being said, I really like the adding of pet agro from deadric curse and the Winged twilight does hit just a tiny bit harder. I just started in Craglorn today, but I think I want to hold off on trials before I test out the effectiveness of the build for true end game content. You should try switching out the clannfear for something from the dark magic line. I hear the healing ratios are getting buffed those spells usually come with some nice CC.

Before I hit level 40 I use to run around with both my summons + the deadric armor and my 2H maul and just stampede/cleave then drop my ulti every couple of minutes. It was fast, I had good DPS, and I could generate ultimate very quickly. I haven't done it since then due to trying that and failing to keep my party alive in a dungeon but I really feel like it might work well now albeit still not too high on the DPS.

Danisheraser

I like this build - looks fun. Possible to get some more testresults? Like - how is it doing in dungeons/vet.dungeons?

newtinmpls

Nutronic, what is 'kiting'?

And yes, mobs are the knell of doom. Sometimes we can get a few baddies in a corner and the "rest" somehow don't notice, but when I see the row of flashes of red aggro ..... well it's only a matter of time

Nutronic

@Danisheraser‌
Well the results from all normal dungeons have been pretty positive. My adds (specifically the Clannfear) worked exactly as I planned and pulled agro of adds, or held boss attention if/when I lose his attention. As for Venteran dungeons the results are promising but I need to work a bit harder at learning them. Two examples that come to mind are VR Spindle Clutch and VR Banished Cells.

I was called in to pug for a group that had trouble DPSing the spiders on the 2 or third boss (the one that summons like 3-4 mini bosses) and my clannfear couldn't soak up the damage long enough to let our DPSers make the kill. after switching out our healer I learned we didn't have enough DPS to get past them because out DPS was just too low. Also they decided to use the pillar in that room so that the mobs would only target me and then Deeps them down. At that point it became a better idea to just conserve magicka and hold off on my clannfear until the second wave showed up. That was where he put in work though. Until we changed out one of the DPSers for someone higher. I was holding agro on 3 bosses at once while the group kited many of the adds around. That being said we had the dungeon scaled down to VR1 or 2 I think. All I know is that I was able to keep agro on multiple waves of baddies which to me means something was working.

In BC, I found that using my adds when fighting the Deadroth need work. I just am not too great with dealing with that boss ( I can lead him all around the room but some people prefer for you to just stand in the fire, I don't like doing that lol). When/if I loose agro he will attack the clannfear first but he also like 3 shots it. For that fight I should have had innerfire (which I hadn't used at that point, so didn't even have it). I eventually had to lead him around the room the old fashion way until he killed me but was low enough for my group to get. That was VR3, at VR6 I was able to tank his fire with heals (so was my add) and we just Deeps'd him down. The other boss, the one that splits up into a group of mobs; my group wanted to lure her to a corner so we could keep everything in AOE. I've found the second bar (no adds) works best in cases like that to keep the boss contained. Other than that, I didn't bother to use my clannfear for Relis, instead I would save my matriach for casting in case I got debuffed and needed extra time to make it to a mark. That, worked, wonders! I suspect it will be important in 1.6 too since they are removing purity's effect to remove the debuff, so woot there!

I'd also like to add that in Elden Hollow VR. I got a few complements from my guild mates who told me that one of the bosses would use a OHKO move on my clannfear and save my group the trouble. I look forward to finding more awesome little things like that

@newtinmpls‌
Kiting or "to kite" means to evade by means of moving around. So if you are in a dungeon with a group of baddies and you plop down some AOE and lead them into it while also avoiding their attacks, that is kiting.

Getting more Crowd Controlling effects on your bar and keeping your ultimate charged for big pulls should help you out a bit with that (in my experience).

newtinmpls

Thanks for the definition.

So far my sorc/tank has absolutely no real crowd control; he mostly just does group damage (thunderous presence & cleave/carve sorts of things).

Nutronic

Are you sure you wouldn't rather just be a DPS then?

Nutronic

Sorry to double post but here is my Twitch account with 2 new videos of my tanking. Feel free to laugh at how my Pet almost screws us half way through the normal dungeon (treasure island) in the second video.

Newtronica's Twitch Channel

Danisheraser

Awesome info Nutro. I will definately test it out myself. Thanks

newtinmpls

As far as this particular tank goes, he is happy to be whatever his lovely second/partner needs or wants him to be.

Nutronic

No problem, let me know how your tests turn out!

I think you have the best role in the game then, dedicated spouse

newtinmpls

Its enough to make me start thinking about reincarnation; we've been siblings, adopted parent/child, and romantic partners of many odd combinations. Very fun.

rhubbert_ESO

My main is VR4 Imperial Sorceror in full Heavy Armor. Attributes are 11 each in Stam and Magicka with 27 in Health.


My main weapon is 2-hand and I use that to tank as well.

Abilities when soloing:
Carve: swings 2hander in front dealing damage and gains more ultimate for each enemy hit
Critical Rush: gap closer that deals more damage the further away you use it and always does critical damage (synergy with critical surge)
Degeneration or Daedric Minefield: I switch between Degeneration (steals health and produces chance of healing on strike to target) and Daedric Minefield (spawns 5 mines that immobilize and deal damage [also heals caster])
Critical Surge: Boosts basic attack damage and causes critical hits to heal the caster for ~20s (My build focuses on this synergy with Critical Rush and using Boons and sets for extra crit chance)
Thundering Presence: Point blank AoE damage and makes my Spell Resistance and Armor hard-capped

Ultimate: Switch it out a lot

Then I use the Undaunted taunt situationally in dungeons.

This build worked super well for me but I quit playing back in June 2014 and just started playing again. Seems to work fine still. I have completed all the Veteran dungeons up to my rank (4) without difficulty.

Danisheraser

Sorry - but you can't tank with a 2-hander once your going into vet.dungeons and trials.

newtinmpls

Danisheraser wrote: »

Sorry - but you can't tank with a 2-hander once your going into vet.dungeons and trials.

Since clearly this player is already doing what you are advising against, your post would make more sense if you would be more specific about what you think wouldn't work well.

Nutronic

rhubbert_ESO wrote: »

My main is VR4 Imperial Sorceror in full Heavy Armor. Attributes are 11 each in Stam and Magicka with 27 in Health.


My main weapon is 2-hand and I use that to tank as well.

Abilities when soloing:
Carve: swings 2hander in front dealing damage and gains more ultimate for each enemy hit
Critical Rush: gap closer that deals more damage the further away you use it and always does critical damage (synergy with critical surge)
Degeneration or Daedric Minefield: I switch between Degeneration (steals health and produces chance of healing on strike to target) and Daedric Minefield (spawns 5 mines that immobilize and deal damage [also heals caster])
Critical Surge: Boosts basic attack damage and causes critical hits to heal the caster for ~20s (My build focuses on this synergy with Critical Rush and using Boons and sets for extra crit chance)
Thundering Presence: Point blank AoE damage and makes my Spell Resistance and Armor hard-capped

Ultimate: Switch it out a lot

Then I use the Undaunted taunt situationally in dungeons.

This build worked super well for me but I quit playing back in June 2014 and just started playing again. Seems to work fine still. I have completed all the Veteran dungeons up to my rank (4) without difficulty.

I'm assuming when you last did Veteran Dungeons it was only Fungal Grotto and Banished Cells right? If I recall correctly neither of those dungeons have have "Tank check" fights. IE fights where blocking is not an option and you absolutely have to just stand there and take hits. If I'm wrong, then you must either have an amazing healer or are doing something I haven't thought of yet.

I say so because in my own experience there are fights where I either just have to trust my healer and my passives to "tank my through" or I have to dance around like a medium armor DPSer. Either way, I've found it difficult to take the really big hits from harder hitting mobs (even trash) if I don't have a shield. Aside from squeezing out every point of armor, I Also like to get the mitigation bonuses and prefer to taunt up close an personal.

That being said, I've started running VR12 content with this build (some of them in the videos) and have had mixed results. Since my Magicaka is so low, my pet is usually 5-7 shoted if I'm not spamming my shield, and I personally can't do feats like stand in fire/aoe to keep boss spread to a minimum.

@newtinmpls‌
I think what Dan is getting at is that things that work in lower levels down't work in higher levels. I use to tank in First person, with my 2 handed sword until I was level 30 and it just wasn't keeping my party alive. Then I was only using my pets to deal with trash and adds, and pretty much just jumping around (only blocking big hits) Now that I'm doing content dozens (+5VR)levels above me I have to be very careful how many hits I take and when I let my guard down.

Thankfully my passives for healing received are enough to make modest heals seem very effective, and because of my current shield stacking game play I'm able to survive things which would otherwise 1 shot me long enough to get a massive heal. Playing this way is trickier than being a DK who has tons of self sustain, or going NB who has lots of siphon options, or even Templar who has amazing heals (but probably isn't a greater tank). Sorcerers are at this weird juncture of little sustain and modest mitigation. I'm making it work mostly because when I looked at the summons line and saw it had very little DPS out put my mind immediately went to Tank. So far it has, but I'm hitting a point where continuing this way is going to take a lot more skill and much more careful planning.

The people I'm running with now want me to change out my equipment for more standard tank fair, but I'm determined to see this build through (at least until 1.6 comes out). I think it can work, but it will take many tweaks because the reality is that standard play is standard for a reason; it just works.

newtinmpls

Nutronic, thank you for your explanations and clarifying. I will confess that some of it I don't understand because I am not familiar with a lot of the jargon you use. I'm not sure what "trash and adds" are.

As for jumping around - I have to use 3rd person because 1st person doesn't give me a good enough view to "get out of the red" fast enough and efficient enough. I don't have a taunt (although the summoned critters do, oddly enough) so until I am high enough to get the undaunted one, I have to keep doing damage to everyone in order to keep them focused on me.

My healer has a habit of shooting little 'fireball' deals to incite folks into joining the attack on us, but then they want to go after her, so part of how I have to learn to play is by attacking everyone that goes after her - because once I've attacked them they will go after me.

Its pretty much the two of us; we don't tend to play in groups, although we sometimes join up with a couple friends from another state (play via skype); she's a more traditional tank/DK and he's an archer.

Nutronic

No problem Newtin. To further clarify: Adds or trash are just additional (add) Monsters (mobs) who either fill the level between bosses (trash) or spawn during a boss fight (adds).

It's important to note that you can get away with a ton of things when comes to trash mobs as everyone pretty much needs to care of themselves, but occasionally there will be one big baddie mixed in or your group will want you to pull a whole room for AOE spells.

Also, that is the same reason I started playing just dungeons in 3rd person. Usually because it's hard to watch everything when all I can see is what's in front of me.

Oh and as a bit of advice (but I'm sure you've noticed already) if you jump into a group of monsters and do massive AOE (like cleave) you can get all the agro for yourself and leave the healing to your partner. Just be aware that healing is a type of "damage" and monsters/bosses will target healers if the damage/heals they throw out are too strong (such as healing a group will generate a ton of agro).

seanb14_ESO11

Love the idea of this build, I played something very similar back when the game first came out and loved it all the way until VR2 when it started to become clear to me that sorcerers just did not have the skills to compete as a tank in the end game content (mainly due to self heals).

Question: have you or anyone tried anything like this in the late end game content? Is sorcerer tanking viable now?

Nutronic

I'm currently learning trials with that build now and I've changed a few things on it. I regularly stream my attempts though so I guess check out my channel. Otherwise I'll update this thread as it becomes more viable. In the mean time, the biggest problem I have is lack of control over my summons. for some odd reason the command key doesn't work.

newtinmpls

Cleave does seem to be effective for drawing aggro; I suspect the ongoing damage after the first hit may be contributing.

I've also started switching back and forth between 2-handed and sword and board. The taunt from the latter is really nice to use to get the big baddies turned away from my partner (or in the last few undaunteds, the rest of the party). I still struggle a little with big groups of mobs. Mostly I try and taunt the biggest or main (i.e. if there is a spellcaster summoning crap - I ignor the crap and shut that booger down), then back away or turn it so that the rest of the party can attack (or heal) mostly from behind.

After I've gotten a bunch of aggro, then switch to 2-handed and cleave the heck out of them (and I have the passives to make sure I'm doing DoT with every 2h hit). I've got expert hunter slotted, and then in the same slot on the other bar I have thundering presence - so once I get those going things do pretty okay.