Best Skill Line to pair up with Sword&Board - PVE Tanking

Novokaine

Hey guys,

wanted to get an opinion on what you think the best skill line would be for PVE (mostly) tanking with a 1h/shield. I am a DK and mostly spam magicka abilities, except for taunt and shield bash.

currently I am lvling a resto spec because I enjoy healing and also have the dual wield skill line semi opened (but I'm not in love with it, seems weak)

Any ideas / opinions would be great!

Thanks!

Sproeikoei

My personal favorite is Draconic Power and here's why:

Draconic Power is basically the tank skill-tree of the Dragon-Knight but it's also full of self-healing and sustained combat abilities.
So if you don't mind having to take longer than a dps when it comes to PvE then this is a good skill-tree to invest in.

To break it down in more detail and why I have personally chosen this skillcombination:

Dragon Blood heals you the less HP you have + more health regeneration. Morphing it into Green Dragon Blood will also give you a stamina regeneration boost (which is good for blocking and sword&shield skills) .

Inhale is an AOE heal, healing you an amount per enemy that's near you and after that dealing them an X amount of dmg.
Morphing it into Drain Essence will grant you magicka for up to 20% of the amount of damage dealt by the outburst.

Reflective Scale is your anti-mage and archer skill and they are mostly the heavy damage dealers in PvE. All projectiles will be shot back at the caster/shooter for 4 seconds.
Morping it into Reflective Plate will increase your spell resistance helping you deal with the pesky AOE abilities that mages and archers tend to throw on you.

Now that you have all the sustain you'll want to be able to attract aggro and taunt the enemies and even more importantly: tank the melee hits.

Puncture is the main taunt ability of the sword&shield skill-tree so it's a must in every tank's kit.
You can either morph it into Ransack or Puncturing Strikes depending on your own preference.

Shield Charge is going to be your entrance or engage into any fight.
Morphing it into Shielded Assault will also give you that bit of extra "health" before the fight starts.

Now I've chosen to lend the ultimate of the Ardent Flame skill-tree, Standard of Might, because it adds to your AOE skills and ability to survive in AOE situations.

Xsorus

Novokaine wrote: »

Hey guys,

wanted to get an opinion on what you think the best skill line would be for PVE (mostly) tanking with a 1h/shield. I am a DK and mostly spam magicka abilities, except for taunt and shield bash.

currently I am lvling a resto spec because I enjoy healing and also have the dual wield skill line semi opened (but I'm not in love with it, seems weak)

Any ideas / opinions would be great!

Thanks!

If talking dungeon tanking, Then Inhale is very good because it acts like an AOE taunt

if soloing with 1 handed shield, pickup Cinder from the Earth Heart line....

ZoM_Head

Sproeikoei wrote: »

My personal favorite is Draconic Power and here's why:

Draconic Power is basically the tank skill-tree of the Dragon-Knight but it's also full of self-healing and sustained combat abilities.
So if you don't mind having to take longer than a dps when it comes to PvE then this is a good skill-tree to invest in.

To break it down in more detail and why I have personally chosen this skillcombination:

Dragon Blood heals you the less HP you have + more health regeneration. Morphing it into Green Dragon Blood will also give you a stamina regeneration boost (which is good for blocking and sword&shield skills) .

Inhale is an AOE heal, healing you an amount per enemy that's near you and after that dealing them an X amount of dmg.
Morphing it into Drain Essence will grant you magicka for up to 20% of the amount of damage dealt by the outburst.

Reflective Scale is your anti-mage and archer skill and they are mostly the heavy damage dealers in PvE. All projectiles will be shot back at the caster/shooter for 4 seconds.
Morping it into Reflective Plate will increase your spell resistance helping you deal with the pesky AOE abilities that mages and archers tend to throw on you.

Now that you have all the sustain you'll want to be able to attract aggro and taunt the enemies and even more importantly: tank the melee hits.

Puncture is the main taunt ability of the sword&shield skill-tree so it's a must in every tank's kit.
You can either morph it into Ransack or Puncturing Strikes depending on your own preference.

Shield Charge is going to be your entrance or engage into any fight.
Morphing it into Shielded Assault will also give you that bit of extra "health" before the fight starts.

Now I've chosen to lend the ultimate of the Ardent Flame skill-tree, Standard of Might, because it adds to your AOE skills and ability to survive in AOE situations.

Everything i wanted to say was already mention here, can not get better than this.

The only downside is that i see it running more class focused, meaning light armour for magicka reduction and resistance. You do not have to off course, but you can run 5 light and 2 heavy.

Or you can go all heavy and survive more.....i have seen light armoured players use one handed and shield. It looks wrong, but on paper it is technically correct (class based skills = magicka).