I have queued as a tank with my DPS/healer in the past for normal/vet dungeons, but it was for specific dungeons, I used a taunt (for vet – on normal things die too fast), and I never had any issues. I understand it’s a nuisance for other players to have the boss in their face unexpectedly, especially if they are low level, so I mostly do it when farming with preformed groups, and the other members are aware. For this reason, I don’t mind when people queue as a tank as long as they kill things quickly on normal, and keep aggro on vet. I’ve queued as my actual role for the event, because I figured there'd be a lot of potential for mishaps, but so far thankfully there weren’t any problematic runs, even though there were fake tanks in a few of them.

One thing I’d like to note is that queuing as a tank when a DPS who can kill things fast, does not entirely absolve a person from responsibility. A recurrent theme in this thread and similar ones is that ‘the other group members might die, but I kill everything fast , so at least we finish the run quickly’, but that does not take into consideration the fact that if the group had an actual tank, then these people might not have died, and therefore won’t waste soul gems and have repair costs, etc. So if you do queue as tank with your DPS, keep an eye on the rest of the group, because by changing your role you are partly responsible for what happens to them. I was in a run earlier with my DPS (queued as DPS), and got in a group of <50 players without an actual tank (a lvl23 player had queued with both tank/DPS roles selected); as a result when the other members were getting aggro their health was yoyo’ing all over the place, so I had to keep casting vigor to keep them from dying, even though it wasn’t my responsibility. Just something to keep in mind when running as a tank with your DPS.

Tanking a normal dungeon

Step 1: http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Whitestrake's+Retribution+Set

Step 2: Equip an ice staff

Step 3: Use a persistent aoe snare/root

Step 4: Taunt with ice staff

Step 5: Use magicka gained from ice staff taunt to unload damage or use pocket heals

Step 0: Use a magicka build

Step 0-2: Pre-buff with immovable ect.

The only shady area is when a group of 2-4 strong adds spawn on a boss and you have to decide between waiting for four ice staff taunts or using inner fire and dumping your magicka pool in the process.

If you run an open world magicka dps build it's very simple to refit without respecing by equipping an ice staff and a heavy armor set.

krachall wrote: »

Effective tanking in a normal dungeon is 100% effective for any character with one level 1 skill: puncture.

Grab a sword and shield, kill one mob, slot puncture, and, voila, you’re a tank.

Not if you only have 15k health and stuff all physical resistance in something like Bloodroot Forge, with the healer using all if their energy keeping you alive instead of the DD's.

Saucy_Jack wrote: »

Well, for example. I have a max cp magplar, which I run (rightfully) as a healer.

I also have a level 15 DK alt that can't do ANYTHING. BUT, I can't join the queue unless I pick a role. So what do I pick? My alt sucks at tanking, sucks at DPS, and sucks at healing, because he's level 15. So I just pick a role at random and call it day. I don't do that to spite anyone; I do that because no matter what role I choose, I know my impact in the dungeon is going to be completely negligible.

Or should I do parses in order to find out that I do 20 dps vs 21 hps, and therefore should always queue as a healer?

You queue as DPS and do your best, or TBH you dont queue. If you dont taunt, or you dont heal, dont queue for tank or heals. If you 100% suck at everything then yeah, dont queue, no one wants you.