The squishiness of the solo tank?

jesterstear · May 2014

Watching folks around me play, it seems that the best way to survive solo is

1) burst dps

kill mobs before they have a chance to summon, heal or charge power attacks

2) range dps

3) knockbacks

4) knockdowns

5) slows and kiting

Meanwhile, my Templar tank is set up for sword and board tanking with an off-healing capability through the restoring light class skills.

My toolbar was set up with four stamina based skills from the Sword and Shield weapon skills line, and one class based heal -

1) Ransack - attack that taunts your target for 12 seconds and reduces their damage 25%

2) Absorb magic - duration 1 minute, the next spell cast on you is absorbed and you get healed by it instead

highly situational !

3) Low cut - debuffs enemy damage another 20% and slows their movement.

so situational I can't ever remember using it. never have enough stamina for such niceties, and a melee kiting skill, huh?

4) Repentence

Restores 50% stamina and about 20% health when an enemy falls. Useful, but in the sort of fights where you get most of this tend to be the ones where you least need it anyway.

My class skill heal occupies the final slot, but it's hard to say because the lettering is wearing off my [5] key. Honour the Dead - cost 300 Magika, Heals 300 or so health. Instant cast. When used on a target below 50% health, 60% of the power cost of the skill gets returned over 12 seconds. It gets used a lot!

So, where other people were using CC, ranged attacks and burst DPS to take down elites or pairs of mobs, I just walk up to them and start left clicking. I've heard that even at the softcap armour doesn't add that much mitigation (15% compared to full cloth?) and i'm slowly autoattacking a pair of mobs, trying to dodge two sets of power attacks or take down the healer while the other puts a red circle around their feet. I felt quite vulnerable up to 30 or so, in fact the first 15 levels I seemed to wind up dead far more than a "tank" should.

That said, I probably fare a little better than CC/DPS types would against bosses, since dungeon bosses are immune to the CC effects, and the points I wasted on marginal survivability bonuses might make the small difference between not surviving and surviving.

Then at level 30 I finally realised that I had enough skill points to buy a DPS skill. Went for the Templar Sun Fire line, the "Vampire's Bane skill", which replaces Low Cut on my quick bar. This is a ranged fireball that puts a long lasting DoT on the opponent, slows their movement speed and runs off Magika - now I've got two skills that use Magika, two that use Stamina and the on-defeat restoration skill that uses neither.

It seems to make a big difference to soloing world bosses! I can open with it from range, kite a bit. Fight in melee till they attempt a power attack, then I can back up, set them on fire again and kite while I regen. Ended up soloing Reconaissance Camp with ease, though perhaps that's a world boss that's not as difficult as it looks (two diamonds on the health bar, but they seem underpowered compared to some of the one diamond elites I fought and can be taken one at a time)

It's got me thinking about all the Munchkin build choices you could go for if you weren't trying to fill a particular group niche.

KenjiJU · May 2014

So are you asking something or..?

disexistencenub19_ESO · May 2014

The shield bash passive in 1h and shield will help your dps as well, as far as stamina goes. Bashing something with a shield with those talents and some gear focus is quite good and not too heavy on the stamina for damage as long as you get some cost reduction stuff. It is one of the bread and butter components of 1h and shield.

In general though, a lot of tanks seem to make the mistake of too much defense focus, making them weak in some regards for solo play. Or, at least slower. I tend to balance a bit between damage and tank abilities myself, as it makes life easier when roaming about without a group and lets you kill stuff at a reasonable pace. For dungeons, you can just trade in/out certain skills pertaining to the situation.

sCouraGeFire · May 2014

My tank bar looks completely different:

Puncturing Sweep
Reflective Light
Inner Fire(ranged taunt, uses magicka)
Invasion
Unstoppable(or Absorb Magic)

Empowering Sweep

Reflective light followed by Inner Fire, then invasion, puncturing sweep, Empowering sweep, shield bash. Use unstoppable if needed. I've found that blocking and waiting for hp to regen and using defense abilities helps me out more than having a heal on my tank bar. Blocking a power attack for instance gives you a little time for resources to recover, also we block 15% melee from our class skills where only the dk gets a 10% block bonus. Being Redguard helps me as far as stamina goes though, and using the tower buff as well.

My alternate bar is archery

Venom arrow
Binding Javelin
Acid Spray
Breath of Life (or Blazing Spear)
Reflective light

Solar Disturbance

I usually start out with a power attack, followed by reflective light, venom arrow, when they get close i will acid spray them all and binding javelin the nearest melee and use venom arrow on the casters in the back. When I have blazing spear on my bar, I start with that instead of a power attack. Heal as needed, went with breath of life for the times that I group up, I can usually use stamina attacks while my magic regens and magic when its available.

5 heavy armor, 2 light and i am keeping the 3 piece "seducer" crafted set bonus for 3% cheaper spells and 3 piece "twilight's embrace" set for getting healed 10% more

TicToc · May 2014

Ransack does not reduce their damage, it reduces their armor by 40+% (which is going to make your DPS better) and increases your own armor by quite a bit.

Shield charge stuns, as does Focused Charge, so you have some CC there. Binding Javelin does a 3+ second knockback.

Immovable from the Heavy armor tree is a really good defensive spell, which I have but don't always slot. I generally slot Ring of Preservation (morphed from Circle of Protection), from the Fighters Guild tree. It does not give you as much defense as immovable, but it lasts longer and provides some healing.

You are right, low cut is situational. Great if you are tanking for a group, not so much for soloing. I use biting jabs for my main attack, but since you want to go all stamina based you could go with Silver bolts from the Fighters guild tree. Which, by the way, is ranged.

The problem you are having is not that you are playing a tank, but that you are not playing it effectively. You have two abilities on your main bar that are situational, which is a waste. You also are gimping yourself by not using other Templar skills, but if that is what you really want there are ways around it.

Next is your approach, as you claim to just walk up to them while left clicking. You could open with a high damage ranged attack like solar flare (or you could use silver bolts), and then charge in, stunning them right from the start. Plant down a circle of protection (or other defensive spell of choice) and proceed to pummel them down.

Always keep moving. You can avoid most area mob attacks by simply stepping out of them while circling to their side. And use blocks and interrupts when appropriate. It sounds like you are dodging far too much. If you are dodging when you should be interrupting, you are denying yourself a powerful stun, and making the fight drag out. Likewise, dodging when you could easily side step also wastes time (and stamina) that could be used to inflict damage.

I do not have a heal on my primary bar. If I need to heal I have to switch to my secondary bar. In most fights I do not need to heal. In some boss I may need to heal once.

My primary soloing loadout, atm is:

Biting Jabs
Binding javelin
Ring of Preservation
Shield Charge
Ransack

It is very effective for soloing. Sometime I will swap out RoP for Solar flare to open with a big opening salvo...just for variety. It work well too.

The main thing is to put skills that are going to be useful every fight onto your hotbar. Situational ones can go on the secondary bar or be swapped in when the situational need seems imminent.

Xithian · May 2014

First off, if you are solo then you are most likely better off with Pierce Armor than Ransack. If you are in full plate and wearing a shield then you are already hitting the lower end of the softcap on armor.

Secondly, Low Slash is also not in much demand during solo play. As you've said yourself, it's such a low priority that you rarely use it. Probably on your opening chain on boss fights, but even then you run out of stamina if you try and keep it up while doing other things. You noted the snare for kiting, but really this skill shines in PvP after using Shield Charge to lock down ranged characters. If you want to keep it, morph it to Deep Slash and it becomes a lot more useful as it lowers magic damage as well. If you still don't think you'll use it then drop it altogether.

As to Absorb Magic, I personally don't care for it. It's probably getting eaten up early enough in a fight that the healing is lost. Even when it's not, it's healing that you have little control over and thus I avoid it.

I play with Pierce Armor and Deep Slash (I've actually just dropped Deep Slash as well, but it did get me very far), ignoring the rest of the active skills for sword and board. Between those two you will keep your stamina bar busy enough. The passives are all excellent to have. You have a heal on your bar, which means you have two more slots.

--- end of personal experience ---

I play a nightblade, so the rest of this is purely armchair speculation.

My future templar is going to have Channeled Focus for magicka returned, which can be used either to dish out more damage or for healing as needed. I haven't used it so I can't say whether or not it returns enough to be worth slotting. I would at least give it a shot, replacing Absorb Magic and Repentance with that and a good damage ability that uses magicka.

Either way I don't recommend having a bar full of stamina abilities as this hurts you more than it helps. You have better uses for stamina. Your shield bash is beastly and your block is a life saver. As a tip, any instant cast skill can be cast WHILE blocking. Pop out to use light/heavy attacks during pauses in attacks. Last night I solo'd a V2^^^ boss that way on my V2 nightblade.

jesterstear · May 2014

Thanks for the suggestions, i'll have a look at developing some neglected skill lines.

I made the original post not so much because I was having undue difficulty in solo play, but because of a post in the "Players Helping Players Forum" from someone complaining about being left out of the group in lieu of a tank, then seeing that tank die to a landscape mob. He wrote "I thought they were supposed to be a bodyguard character, but they went down really quickly" then started off down the 'what are tanks good for' line.

I was kind of drawing attention to the fact that whilst DPS and CC are a good way to go solo, and probably make for a solid instance DPS character too (on the trash mobs and adds), a tank, like a healer, is a support character, they are there to enable the DPS to do their job.

As a support class you can expect to have a less optimal experience solo - in other games it tends to make for slow , but safe progress, but in this game it can get you killed too - you're not so much tougher than everyone else, and the combat mechanics make fighting in melee with no CC risky.

My character as a hybrid healer/tank has even fewer points to spend on DPS or CC than a normal Templar tank, at low levels. We'll see if this hybrid build proves too compromised later on, but so far it seems to work for dungeons. The main area of compromise appears to be spending points/enchants on magika. I've only got 5 skillpoints and one or two enchants in it, but i'm equipping magika regen jewellery and with high elf passives it is softcapped. I guess as a dedicated tank, i'd put nothing in here at all.

Soloing I can obviously do well in attritional fights, but you get the odd mob that is WAY more difficult than the rest, who perhaps are designed to be kited - elites that are not CC immune, but can take you down in 2 or 3 normal attacks.

Maybe that's just how different builds fare with different mobs, or is it a lack of play testing?

The two diamond elite Reconnaisance Camp world bosses were easy, and most single diamond elites can be beaten without using any active skills at all. Yet those single diamond Storm Atronachs in Ilayas Ruins proved impossible for me to solo, most people were going in mob-handed but even then they'd regularly take a few players with them. And way back at Shrouded Vale (greenshade), that Orc Captain took some beating, and racked up quite a body count too.

Cheatingdeath23 · May 2014

I have a templar build with sword and board as my two weapon slots.

One is ranged, with silver shards and the fireball as my primary attacks, plus charge to get up close and a heal, the other is close up, with several up close attacks.

I find myself being very good at staying alive in PvE mobs (less so PvP mobs because I am only level 25) and dishing some damage. Using charge and shield bash (and silver shards with vampire) can really do some damage in PvP.