Questions about Tanking (New)

Jcamps30

Hey. I'm fairly new at the game as I got it few days ago. I'm thinking about leveling a Tank class for my friends and such as we need one. If I make a tank, will I be stuck as a tank, or could I respec and go DPS?.

Or should I just make a pure main tank?.
(Of-topic:) Anyone have a good tanking or Sorc(ranged/Destro) (other toon) leveling guide?

MissBizz

Although race and class may sway you to be a tank, you can most definitely respec and go down another road if you choose - this will be costly though, so don't expect to be doing it every day.

As well, once people get really up there, they may have enough skills levelled up to step-in as a different role (DPS for example) by just a simple gear swap.. although this is usually once someone reaches max level and has some champion points. Of course they likely do better at the role they were originally geared for, but are very viable.

Offhand I don't know of any sorc tank builds, sorry You can try google, just remember to watch for guides that say they are 1.6 ready, or are newer.. as a lot of things changed in 1.6

Jcamps30

Won't let me edit above;
I noticed all my abilities are Magicka, I don't understand this for a tank. Would you split Magicka/HP/Stam?

MissBizz

It really depends on your build, and I personally have never looked into a sorc tank. All class skills start as magicka and SOME of them have stamina morphs. Weapon skills (such as 1h & shield) are stamina based. It REALLY depends on your build. You'll need stamina for blocking, dodging, interrupting and sword skills (such as the stamina taunt which is used more widely than the magicka taunt), but if you're heavily relying on magicka abilities (such as damage shields) you may want to go more into that.

Spliting up your attributes is usually not the best thing to do when going for DPS - as skills scale off the maximum stat (skilsl that cost magicka scale off of max magicka), although for a tank that uses many magicka skills it's hard to avoid splitting your stats.

Jcamps30

Sorry. I didn't mean to add the sorc part. Playing the game and typing so I lost track. Just pure DK tank. I found the asnwer anyways for the Tanking Attributes. Pure HP apparently

Smuggles

You could try putting most stats in hp and some into magicka or stam/depending on the type of dps you want to do. Both magicka and stamina are viable tank traits. Then you just enchant your armor for stamina or magicka. After a while, you will have plenty of skill points and you will just need to switch armor sets and abilities on your bar in order to change. I advise going all magicka with hp armor enchants with your dk. A good starting point is deltia's laceration levelling build. Hope this helps ya.

Jennifur_Vultee

Jcamps30 wrote: »

Sorry. I didn't mean to add the sorc part. Playing the game and typing so I lost track. Just pure DK tank. I found the asnwer anyways for the Tanking Attributes. Pure HP apparently

While pure health is nice it also gimps your ability to sustain your attacks. I have a VR14 Dragonknight tank that was all 62 points into health and I had 28K HP unbuffed and 31k buffed...but I was always running short on magic since a lot of my skills use magic. After resetting my skills I put 42 points into health and 20 into magic and though I'm down to a little under 24k health my magic went up and with food buffs to magic and stamina I typically have plenty of resources now.

Additionally having more magic will increase the damage output of your spells, I may not be a DPS powerhouse but my DPS did go up after putting the 20 points into magic.

likewow777

Tanks are really the only type of character left that benefit from being a hybrid (focus on magicka and stamina, while also increasing health). Like you mentioned, though, most class skills are magicka based. Certainly, the abilities a tank needs, CC, self heal, shields, and even one of the taunts, tend to use magicka (there are exceptions). For that reason, many choose to do a magicka-based tank, opting for a smaller stamina pool that can be boosted with food, if needed.

My tank is a VR14 High Elf Templar with all attribute points in health. Because of the High Elf racial passives, I tend to enchant armor with stamina/health and focus on reducing cost of block, increasing block mitigation, and use my large magicka reserves to shield myself from damage.

Health: ~27.5k
Magicka: ~14k
Stamina: ~13k

I prefer blue magicka/stamina food because it increases stats more than purple, and my health is decently high as is. That bumps me up to:

Magicka: ~19k
Stamina: ~18k

Furthermore, because of my larger than usual magicka pool, and because I'm a Templar, I can change all gear (and I mean ALL of it) and be a healer. My magicka goes up by a little bit, but my health drops to ~19k (acceptable for end game). At that point, I choose to use drinks to buff my magicka regen up to ~2k.

You mentioned DPS, however, and that is a bit more tricky. Good DPS, the stuff worthy of legend, really comes from builds designed to do damage and nothing else. I tried to make the above VR14 do DPS with 2H, a while back. Crap DPS. I might go back and try again, but you really need your main damage pool to be astronomical in size. My DK 2H, for example, has 30k stamina. She's an Imperial, so that helps, but all attribute points are also in stamina, all enchants are health or stamina, etc. My magicka pool on her is literally the base amount a VR14 has by simply existing. I can't heal myself often, but skills hit like trucks.

My 2 cents.

o_Skellington_o

There's no reason you can't make a character that can tank and do something else. As far as your stats are concerned, you'd definitely want to invest in health. You're no good if you can't take a hit. I'm pretty sure the onky taunt in the game is from one handed and shield. When you hit lvl 15 you'll get your second weapon. The 2 handed weapon line has some good abilities in it. So does dual weild. You could also try out destruction staff. Really, you can do anything you want. You just have to decide what you want to do if you're not "tanking" and go from there. You'll probably want to invest in stamina as well. Search the Internet for builds of the type you want and use that as a starting point.

likewow777

o_Skellington_o wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the onky taunt in the game is from one handed and shield.

There is also one in the Undaunted skill tree. The third skill, Inner Fire, is a ranged taunt. The 1H+S taunt is certainly the go-to one in the game, though, and is easier to get.