In need of help tanking

UnknownXV

Hi,

I recently joined a group to run through Spindleclutch (Glenumbra group dungeon). I am a Templar with a full set of white crafted level 12 heavy armor (I'm level 13) and I use a sword + shield.

I found the attempt challenging, to say the least. I died a lot more than I liked, which caused the group to be sluggish and I felt responsible. I don't like that. I want to be able to tank better. There are a few areas I felt were most problematic. First though, this is my build:

I'm currently using Ransack and Puncturing sweep. Ransack is great for single target taunting, and Puncturing sweep is a decent AoE (though it doesn't hold aggro that well). I also have Aurora Javelin, Sun fire and Sun Flare (for pulls). I have 1 point into magicka, 7 into health and 4 into stamina. I was also using a potion to increase my stamina regeneration by 3.

Now, the first major problem I experienced was holding aoe aggro. I've looked through all the skills I can get, and none of them provide aoe taunt. So I imagine it is designed to be difficult to manage larger groups. Should I keep Puncturing sweep for this or does something else serve me better? Most of my time was spent moving around trying to Ransack as many mobs as I could, and following it up with Puncturing sweep to try and round up anything else I could. It "sort of" worked, but it didn't feel as smooth as it should have.

The next issue is my survivability. I felt weak. I'm at 360 spell resistance, and 469 armor. Against lighter enemies in melee, I did alright, but casters would drop my health by ridiculous levels. I would frequently die in larger pulls towards the end with 3-4 casters in them. As a tank, how can I increase my spell resistance more?

Finally, after many deaths, we made it to the boss. The Whisper. What a challenge this was. I would open the fight with solar flare into solar fire, rush in and Ransack to get taunt. I'd block for a few seconds to try and absorb some damage, as well as focus on her potential aoe 1 hit. I'd follow up with more solar fires and puncturing sweeps to avoid using stamina (ransack taunt lasts 15 seconds according to the tooltip). Even so, I had to block often to stay alive, and this drained my stamina down fast. I think I can manage that, but the issue in this instance that I had was The Whisper's projectile magic attack. Even at half health, it would one hit me. This is most confusing. In the end "we" only beat her after I died and the healer died, and the sorcerer and DK kited her around to finish her off.

Like I've been saying, this feels off. I should have much more resistance, shouldn't I? I didn't really feel like I was much tougher in resistance than my allies.

I'd appreciate any help, thanks.

Meneleas

As a DK tank I also found the first dungeon (Spindle) fairly punishing - big groups of mobs and really forced to single target taunt / generate aggro (ransack mostly). From a tank pov the first dungeon seems poorly thoughtout and isn't v fun. I'm not sure why anyone thought the first dungeon should have melee and caster pulls of so many mobs at once. On the plus side by the 2nd tier of dungeons (Sewers etc) my DK had a lot more tools and tanking through it was fun and seemed quite balanced.
So don't worry if the first dungeon tier was a struggle - it gets easier as you get the skills.
That doesn't help you specifically on Templar but just a general note - the first dungeons were the 'worst' designed I've done so far when considering the available skill sets to new players.

dnotecmb16_ESO

You're not supposed to tank every single mob, when you have a trash pull of seven or eight mobs, the tank should take on the hardest, most dangerous of them and the DPS should handle the weaker ones.

Everyone should be able to take a few hits from a trash mob, especially if the healer is half-competent.

Tanking in ESO doesn't work like other MMOs where you soak up all the damage of everything, here you need to prioritize and share the work.

UnknownXV

That's curious to know, dnot. I thought my purpose was basically to aggro every single mob, as many as I could. Rather hectic to try this.

Pelerin2014

dnotecmb16_ESO wrote: »

You're not supposed to tank every single mob, when you have a trash pull of seven or eight mobs, the tank should take on the hardest, most dangerous of them and the DPS should handle the weaker ones.

Everyone should be able to take a few hits from a trash mob, especially if the healer is half-competent.

Tanking in ESO doesn't work like other MMOs where you soak up all the damage of everything, here you need to prioritize and share the work.

Well said, it took me a few runs of the early dungeons to realise this - but now that I understand better - I'm having a great time tanking.

Kingspian

I do differently. I move around alot, i use fiery breath to pull aggro on all mobs and the dps takes care of them. NPC usually run to the healer first the fire stops them all and comes to me. I love it!!!! But yea as a tank you get hiy alot but you need to attribute health and stamina. Health regen is important too! There are alot of stuff you can learn as i do. I was a squishy tank in my firt 3 dungeons and i was terrible. Now doing pretty good!