Templar Stamina Tanking: Blazing Vs. Bone Shield

The_Antiquarian

I am focusing on becoming a tank, mainly using stamina build. Which would you guys prefer? Bone shield or blazing shield?

Also is it true that Bone Shield absorbs all damage, including magika as well?

Thank you very much everyone! Btw I hate the fact that Blazing Shield uses magika! Only if it uses stamina, I would have chosen Blazing Sun!

Reverb

Blazing shield does damage in return, making it my choice. But it does have a sorta high mana cost. You'll need your stamina as a tank, so using bone shield with it's additional stam consumption may not be the best. On the other hand, it would be unwise to rely on blazing shield without being sure you have enough mana to run it as needed, which is a risk if you've focused everything into stam.

Spottswoode

Yes, both absorb all types of damage.
Blazing shield will deal more damage in general as it can proc burning light. Blazing shield is better for PvP and general PvE.

Spiked bone shield will deal more damage to bosses as it reflects a flat 30% of melee damage.
Both have their uses and you should learn the use then both.

The_Antiquarian

Reverb wrote: »

Blazing shield does damage in return, making it my choice. But it does have a sorta high mana cost. You'll need your stamina as a tank, so using bone shield with it's additional stam consumption may not be the best. On the other hand, it would be unwise to rely on blazing shield without being sure you have enough mana to run it as needed, which is a risk if you've focused everything into stam.

I thought bone shield's variant, spiked shield has the ability to return damage as well!

You are right. Zenimax did everything to make the decision making process difficult when it comes to building builds.

Also, if I make blazing shield the only ability that uses magika, wouldn't that be ok even if I focus everything on stamina?

Brasseurfb16_ESO

I think both options are good.

Blazing Shield has a high magicka cost but will passively boost your Melee Block Mitigation and Critical Damage if you don't have any other Aedric Spear abilities equiped. It also deals more AoE dmg compared to Spiked Bone Shield.

Spiked Bone Shield is only usefull against physical damage, and the reflect portion of the skill only works against melee damage. But that reflected damage can proc the damage and stamina return from Evil Hunter and the synergy is quite usefull to protect your team.

The_Antiquarian

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

I think both options are good.

Blazing Shield has a high magicka cost but will passively boost your Melee Block Mitigation and Critical Damage if you don't have any other Aedric Spear abilities equiped. It also deals more AoE dmg compared to Spiked Bone Shield.

Spiked Bone Shield is only usefull against physical damage, and the reflect portion of the skill only works against melee damage. But that reflected damage can proc the damage and stamina return from Evil Hunter and the synergy is quite usefull to protect your team.

Wow i completely forgot to account for aedric skill passive bonus by having more skills set.

mr_wazzabi

Can you stack both blazing shield and bone shield, or will one cancel out the other?

Reverb

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Can you stack both blazing shield and bone shield, or will one cancel out the other?

You can stack as many shields as you want. Add healing ward to the ones you listed, stand in channeled focused and slam combat prayer too, if you want to be nearly impervious to damage. I'm sure there are several other shields or ward options for you that I'm not even thinking of right now. Of course you wouldn't have the resourses to deal any damage, or to keep it up for long.

AfkNinja

Both morphs of the Templar shield suck, it's super weak unless you stack health and even if you do it lasts 6 freakin seconds. To top it off any dmg over the cap of the shield hits you unmitigated and can still crit, this leads to the shield causing you to take more dmg in some circumstances than you would without it. Until it is fixed I can't recommend it to anyone. Annulment for Magic and Ward Ally/Healing Ward are both better. You'd get more mitigation out of using Shuffle over Blazing Shield and you have much better skills if you want dmg.