Tank build question from returning player.

Lopti

Hey, so I played ESO a lot years ago and am just returning to the game. I have an idea for a character and I just want to know if it is viable for hard end game content before I sink a hundred hours into trying to build a character around this idea but have it not work.

I want to make a Warden who wears heavy armor and wields a two handed sword on both bars. I want him to be a tank and use a combination of two handed weapon skills & Ice Skills then have his ultimate be the bear. I was thinking I could do a mix of Health & Stamina or go full health. My end goal would be able to charge into battle and do AOE slashes and ice abilities to get agro and be tanky. But I am not sure if you can really tank high end content without just going sword and shield... I just don't like sword and shield can't bring myself to play it. So if I can't get a tank to work without a sword and shield will just resign myself to being squishy and go DPS but I would prefer to tank.

Thoughts, Opinions?

Soarora

No, that will not work. You need either a sword and shield or an ice staff or else you won’t have the block mitigation and you will die. Not all content lets you roll dodge heavy attacks without punishment. Given how you describe your build, you may want to try double ice which is a valid (arguably preferred) tank setup. It isn’t impossible to do one of your bars as a 2h (probably titanic cleave from dragonstar arena) but you need to be on your game to make sure you can block heavy attacks on your tank weapon bar so you don’t die. You also may not be able to do hard endgame content with this build, depending on what you’re referring to, because as a tank you need to be giving a certain amount of utility to be optimized. A lot rides on the tank because you can remove healers in favor of damage but then the tank is even more in charge of buffs/debuffs.

Also, you cannot get aggro by hitting enemies like you describe. You can get soft aggro by doing that, sure, but you need a taunt if you’re going to tank or else large adds and bosses are very certainly going to attack other people (probably the healer).

Lopti

Thanks for the info man, I will not attempt it then with that build. For me to really fall in love with a character I first have to love the RP idea of them then find a way to make the build good enough that it can do hard content. (Which is why I am a bit addicted to POE2 at the moment...)

I am looking through abilities of other classes etc... and Arcanist looks pretty freaking awesome, I will try and come up with an RP idea that makes sword and shield cool to me. If I can an Arcanist tank with a sword and shield using runes and lovecraftian looking magic looks pretty awesome. I could just have my back bar be a two handed sword and use that in easier content then when I actually need to full on tank stick to my main bar where it is sword and board. Sounds like that might work better.

Soarora

Lopti wrote: »

Thanks for the info man, I will not attempt it then with that build. For me to really fall in love with a character I first have to love the RP idea of them then find a way to make the build good enough that it can do hard content. (Which is why I am a bit addicted to POE2 at the moment...)

I am looking through abilities of other classes etc... and Arcanist looks pretty freaking awesome, I will try and come up with an RP idea that makes sword and shield cool to me. If I can an Arcanist tank with a sword and shield using runes and lovecraftian looking magic looks pretty awesome. I could just have my back bar be a two handed sword and use that in easier content then when I actually need to full on tank stick to my main bar where it is sword and board. Sounds like that might work better.

I feel that, I didn’t like tanking until I had a character that was in roleplay truly a tank, wearing thematic sets (thankfully the thematic sets are viable and have been meta). In my experience, dungeons tend to be more flexible than trials because you only need to find 3 people who have your mindset and the content is not as difficult.

You may also later on become more okay with being a little out of character for the sake of the content, such is a sacrifice Ive slowly had to work around.

The plus side with arcanist is one of the abilities actually does put green runes over your weapons.