Best tank class in IC

WyldfireWyrm

My experience with tanking comes from being a healer for them and my very limited experience as a V1 Templar tank that I've shelved for the most part because I'm not sure I really enjoy the play style and lack of CC.

My personal experience as a healer had been that NB tanks are awesome, DK tanks are pretty good, Templars are rough even though they get the job done, and Sorcs are very difficult.

I've been in discussions where all sorts of statements are made about each class in equal measures positive and negative. So I'm hoping some tanks of all classes can chime in to help resolve my confusion.

What class will be the best tank and why?
How is that tank in terms of damage, CC, survivability, and just plain old fun?

Lefty_Lucy

In my opinion, Dragonknights will be the best tanks for this update.

This is because Dragonknights are inherently tanky with passives that increase their resistances, as well as the most useful tank passive in the game: Battle Roar.

Getting low on HP / Stam / Magicka? Just use an ultimate. Battle roar's got your back.

Stamina based DK's will be able to put out ridiculous damage, even in Heavy Armor. So you can build for tanking and still do an incredible amount of damage. DK's have excellent CC's, and are incredibly fun (in my opinion). They are just the full package in this update.

Check out my other post in this forum for an example of the tankiest build I have ever used!

Waffennacht

Im not going to argue that sorc tanks are the best. I have no way to prove or disprove the "better than" or "worse than" arguments.

I will say Sorc tanks are very good.

Here is why I think Sorc tanks can be beefy tanks.

1. Hardened Ward. As I loom through abilities (esp Dk) I do not see a shield that prevents all incoming like Hardened Ward. Ive also noticed most shields do not provide as much protection as hardened ward. When combined with another damage mitigation ability this becomes an insanely tough shield to break.

2. Buffs. As a Sorc you get passives that increase spell resistance. You have spells that drastically increase both armor and spell resistance while still damaging the opponent. An increase of over 4000 while still having unhampered range attacks is nothing to sneeze at.

3. Healing and maneuver abilities. DKs have the ability to bring enemies to them. We have the ability to go to them while stunning and injuring enemies along the way. With the update sorc movements will be increased which can be very valuable when getting enemies away from allies. With clannofear being a percentage based heal, this becomes a MASSIVE heal. 35% of my health is, lets say a modest 7.5k. That's an instant heal (and if you had already summoned him before battle that's a free spell) he also adds to health regen (with passive) and gets aggro (also easily spammable with passive that adds magicka when they leave) then we gots the other pet too. Oh not to mention all dark magic moves heal for 8%, in just a few clicks you can heal about half your health and have a huge shield.

4. DPS. as a Sorc we invest in magicka, this helps our awesome ward but also makes our DPS higher, so while we tank we can help out the DPS players (or heal) making their life far easier. (This also grabs the aggro) We also have an abundance of Roots or knock down range effects and great AoE damage spells.

I tank with my Sorc, in my dungeon experience my allies had to run after me as I jumped into mob after mob killing. I felt like they were the support to Me lol.

Again Im in no way saying anything about the other tanks. Im sure they're great. Im just saying a correctly done Sorc can be a great tank.

Oh yeah there area TON of CP perks that directly improve a Sorc Tank. I have found many spots to put those CP points that directly impact the Sorc Tank.

Thanks for your consideration (at least our existence is being recognized!)

WyldfireWyrm

Sweet. Thanks for the replies guys.

Its no surprise to me that DKs were the first recommendation. Much like the Templar healing skill line, DKs seem to have a dedicated tanking line.

I love the idea of a pet build Sorc tank. It seems pretty awesome to me. Sorc tanks have just been so very difficult for me to heal in the past. Obviously that could just be my dumb luck that I wind up with people who just can't play them right. I'm glad they got a spokesperson here.

FriedEggSandwich

Waffennacht wrote: »

Im not going to argue that sorc tanks are the best. I have no way to prove or disprove the "better than" or "worse than" arguments.

I will say Sorc tanks are very good.

Here is why I think Sorc tanks can be beefy tanks.

1. Hardened Ward. As I loom through abilities (esp Dk) I do not see a shield that prevents all incoming like Hardened Ward. Ive also noticed most shields do not provide as much protection as hardened ward. When combined with another damage mitigation ability this becomes an insanely tough shield to break.

2. Buffs. As a Sorc you get passives that increase spell resistance. You have spells that drastically increase both armor and spell resistance while still damaging the opponent. An increase of over 4000 while still having unhampered range attacks is nothing to sneeze at.

3. Healing and maneuver abilities. DKs have the ability to bring enemies to them. We have the ability to go to them while stunning and injuring enemies along the way. With the update sorc movements will be increased which can be very valuable when getting enemies away from allies. With clannofear being a percentage based heal, this becomes a MASSIVE heal. 35% of my health is, lets say a modest 7.5k. That's an instant heal (and if you had already summoned him before battle that's a free spell) he also adds to health regen (with passive) and gets aggro (also easily spammable with passive that adds magicka when they leave) then we gots the other pet too. Oh not to mention all dark magic moves heal for 8%, in just a few clicks you can heal about half your health and have a huge shield.

4. DPS. as a Sorc we invest in magicka, this helps our awesome ward but also makes our DPS higher, so while we tank we can help out the DPS players (or heal) making their life far easier. (This also grabs the aggro) We also have an abundance of Roots or knock down range effects and great AoE damage spells.

I tank with my Sorc, in my dungeon experience my allies had to run after me as I jumped into mob after mob killing. I felt like they were the support to Me lol.

Again Im in no way saying anything about the other tanks. Im sure they're great. Im just saying a correctly done Sorc can be a great tank.

Oh yeah there area TON of CP perks that directly improve a Sorc Tank. I have found many spots to put those CP points that directly impact the Sorc Tank.

Thanks for your consideration (at least our existence is being recognized!)

I don't disagree with anything you say, but how does a sorc keep agro? You won'the be able to do enough dps to maintain agro for very long if you're also trying to tank. And cc is useless against most bosses. The skills we have to increase spell res and armour are nice but still pretty meaningless in full light. But if you don't go full light then your stats suffer. Just some things to think about.

Zlater

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

Im not going to argue that sorc tanks are the best. I have no way to prove or disprove the "better than" or "worse than" arguments.

I will say Sorc tanks are very good.

Here is why I think Sorc tanks can be beefy tanks.

1. Hardened Ward. As I loom through abilities (esp Dk) I do not see a shield that prevents all incoming like Hardened Ward. Ive also noticed most shields do not provide as much protection as hardened ward. When combined with another damage mitigation ability this becomes an insanely tough shield to break.

2. Buffs. As a Sorc you get passives that increase spell resistance. You have spells that drastically increase both armor and spell resistance while still damaging the opponent. An increase of over 4000 while still having unhampered range attacks is nothing to sneeze at.

3. Healing and maneuver abilities. DKs have the ability to bring enemies to them. We have the ability to go to them while stunning and injuring enemies along the way. With the update sorc movements will be increased which can be very valuable when getting enemies away from allies. With clannofear being a percentage based heal, this becomes a MASSIVE heal. 35% of my health is, lets say a modest 7.5k. That's an instant heal (and if you had already summoned him before battle that's a free spell) he also adds to health regen (with passive) and gets aggro (also easily spammable with passive that adds magicka when they leave) then we gots the other pet too. Oh not to mention all dark magic moves heal for 8%, in just a few clicks you can heal about half your health and have a huge shield.

4. DPS. as a Sorc we invest in magicka, this helps our awesome ward but also makes our DPS higher, so while we tank we can help out the DPS players (or heal) making their life far easier. (This also grabs the aggro) We also have an abundance of Roots or knock down range effects and great AoE damage spells.

I tank with my Sorc, in my dungeon experience my allies had to run after me as I jumped into mob after mob killing. I felt like they were the support to Me lol.

Again Im in no way saying anything about the other tanks. Im sure they're great. Im just saying a correctly done Sorc can be a great tank.

Oh yeah there area TON of CP perks that directly improve a Sorc Tank. I have found many spots to put those CP points that directly impact the Sorc Tank.

Thanks for your consideration (at least our existence is being recognized!)

I don't disagree with anything you say, but how does a sorc keep agro? You won'the be able to do enough dps to maintain agro for very long if you're also trying to tank. And cc is useless against most bosses. The skills we have to increase spell res and armour are nice but still pretty meaningless in full light. But if you don't go full light then your stats suffer. Just some things to think about.

hehe, sorcs can use heavy and not have magicka or stamina problems, at the cost of a little DPS, so instead you actually literally use inner fire on everything and for huge groups you can just use encase. It's scary swapping to heavy for the first time, but trust me, you will fall in love with heavy seducer

From my experience on my tank and on my healer, I'd say it goes a lot like this:

-NB's really prevail in group scenarios, huge DPS and tanking ability, also lots of fun to play, need alot of healing, but they do half of it for you.
-Sorcs undoubtedly have the highest Mitigation of all, but also require the highest focus. Lots of amazing tricks, just not so good for PvP.
-DK's are the most popular choice, with some super powerful situational skills, very handy to have, very squishy and demanding on the healer.
-Templars are the playdough of every group, will fit in to any slack the group has and can instantly switch from heal, tank and DPS midflight.

PhatGrimReaper

Zlater wrote: »

-DK's are the most popular choice, with some super powerful situational skills, very handy to have, very squishy and demanding on the healer.

If this is your experience of DK tanks, I would say you've been running with people who are doing it wrong. A magicka DK may not be the immortal bastion of destruction they used to be, but the term squishy being applied to a DK tank is like a personal affront .
It's true that PVP isn't as DK friendly as it was in 1.2-1.4ish... (#bringbackvampireGODMODE) and a DK can't face tank 15+ people for extended periods of time while slowly wiping them out one by one (sometimes not even slowly), but for PVE DK is far from squishy. With the exception of Templars, DK Tanks use the least abilities from outside their class skill lines for tanking....
GDB, Hardened Armor, Choking Talons, Extended Chains, Obsidian Shield, Drain Essence, Eruption, Burning Embers, Flame Lash, Reflective Scale, Fossilize, Standard of Might and last but definitely not least Magma Armor (God Mode) are all class abilities that either provide CC, self heals or damage mitigation, not to mention that a lot of these abilities also provide additional damage.
You should also note that there are at least three abilities from each of the three skill lines represented.... DKs are inherently well fitted as a tanking class.

I'm not going to say that DKs are 'THE BEST' or that another class is crap, but squishy, really????

/end rant

WyldfireWyrm

New question.

What resource(s) does each tank class function best with, magicka, stamina, or a combo of both? And of course health is a given.

Stannum

as you have in IC PvP health stats, DK becomes OP as they have % healing with DB. So if you're 45k hp tank in PvP areas you will heal for 15k at use no matter of your build, manapool or spellpower. And you still have battle roar passive and group shield..

WyldfireWyrm

dancing.in.the.webeb17_ESO wrote: »

as you have in IC PvP health stats, DK becomes OP as they have % healing with DB. So if you're 45k hp tank in PvP areas you will heal for 15k at use no matter of your build, manapool or spellpower. And you still have battle roar passive and group shield..

So you're saying magicka for DK?

Stannum

WyldfireWyrm wrote: »

dancing.in.the.webeb17_ESO wrote: »

as you have in IC PvP health stats, DK becomes OP as they have % healing with DB. So if you're 45k hp tank in PvP areas you will heal for 15k at use no matter of your build, manapool or spellpower. And you still have battle roar passive and group shield..

So you're saying magicka for DK?

no difference stamina or magika build you have, DB restores % of max HP

Harasdar

dancing.in.the.webeb17_ESO wrote: »

as you have in IC PvP health stats, DK becomes OP as they have % healing with DB. So if you're 45k hp tank in PvP areas you will heal for 15k at use no matter of your build, manapool or spellpower. And you still have battle roar passive and group shield..

dancing.in.the.webeb17_ESO wrote: »

no difference stamina or magika build you have, DB restores % of max HP

Uhm...no

DB health 30% of the live you lost...and to heal 15k you must have lost 45k. If you have lost 15k you heal 5k. (all without any bonus etc. to keep it simply here).

paulsimonps

Even as a DK Tank I would say from my testing on the PTS that the Sorcs have an upper hand because of their ridiculous ease when it comes to resource management.

Harasdar

paulsimonps wrote: »

Even as a DK Tank I would say from my testing on the PTS that the Sorcs have an upper hand because of their ridiculous ease when it comes to resource management.

Better resource managment than battle roar??? Place standard and resources are full again...blood spawn, heroic slash, light attack, synergies...ultimate is full again

actosh

Harasdar wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Even as a DK Tank I would say from my testing on the PTS that the Sorcs have an upper hand because of their ridiculous ease when it comes to resource management.

Better resource managment than battle roar??? Place standard and resources are full again...blood spawn, heroic slash, light attack, synergies...ultimate is full again

....and blood spawn procs almost all the time, at least thats how it feels for me.

Dracane

Waffennacht wrote: »

Im not going to argue that sorc tanks are the best. I have no way to prove or disprove the "better than" or "worse than" arguments.

I will say Sorc tanks are very good.

Here is why I think Sorc tanks can be beefy tanks.

1. Hardened Ward. As I loom through abilities (esp Dk) I do not see a shield that prevents all incoming like Hardened Ward. Ive also noticed most shields do not provide as much protection as hardened ward. When combined with another damage mitigation ability this becomes an insanely tough shield to break.

2. Buffs. As a Sorc you get passives that increase spell resistance. You have spells that drastically increase both armor and spell resistance while still damaging the opponent. An increase of over 4000 while still having unhampered range attacks is nothing to sneeze at.

3. Healing and maneuver abilities. DKs have the ability to bring enemies to them. We have the ability to go to them while stunning and injuring enemies along the way. With the update sorc movements will be increased which can be very valuable when getting enemies away from allies. With clannofear being a percentage based heal, this becomes a MASSIVE heal. 35% of my health is, lets say a modest 7.5k. That's an instant heal (and if you had already summoned him before battle that's a free spell) he also adds to health regen (with passive) and gets aggro (also easily spammable with passive that adds magicka when they leave) then we gots the other pet too. Oh not to mention all dark magic moves heal for 8%, in just a few clicks you can heal about half your health and have a huge shield.

4. DPS. as a Sorc we invest in magicka, this helps our awesome ward but also makes our DPS higher, so while we tank we can help out the DPS players (or heal) making their life far easier. (This also grabs the aggro) We also have an abundance of Roots or knock down range effects and great AoE damage spells.

I tank with my Sorc, in my dungeon experience my allies had to run after me as I jumped into mob after mob killing. I felt like they were the support to Me lol.

Again Im in no way saying anything about the other tanks. Im sure they're great. Im just saying a correctly done Sorc can be a great tank.

Oh yeah there area TON of CP perks that directly improve a Sorc Tank. I have found many spots to put those CP points that directly impact the Sorc Tank.

Thanks for your consideration (at least our existence is being recognized!)

*Grabs Shieldbreaker*

Seriously, your theory is not goingt to work. Unreliable and more vulnerable to CC than normal tanks.
And it has a very hard counter.

And the rest of your post is flawed with wrong informations. 35% heal in pvp is not true, as it is cut by 50%.

kogadrake

Harasdar wrote: »

DB health 30% of the live you lost...and to heal 15k you must have lost 45k. If you have lost 15k you heal 5k. (all without any bonus etc. to keep it simply here).

This would assume that you have not +healing you initiate or +incoming healing, which is not the case most of the time. Yes it starts off at 33% of your missing health, but then the +healing and +healing received comes into play, and there are ways to setup to buff it enough to make it heal 90%+ of the missing health.

Waffennacht

Dracane wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

Im not going to argue that sorc tanks are the best. I have no way to prove or disprove the "better than" or "worse than" arguments.

I will say Sorc tanks are very good.

Here is why I think Sorc tanks can be beefy tanks.

1. Hardened Ward. As I loom through abilities (esp Dk) I do not see a shield that prevents all incoming like Hardened Ward. Ive also noticed most shields do not provide as much protection as hardened ward. When combined with another damage mitigation ability this becomes an insanely tough shield to break.

2. Buffs. As a Sorc you get passives that increase spell resistance. You have spells that drastically increase both armor and spell resistance while still damaging the opponent. An increase of over 4000 while still having unhampered range attacks is nothing to sneeze at.

3. Healing and maneuver abilities. DKs have the ability to bring enemies to them. We have the ability to go to them while stunning and injuring enemies along the way. With the update sorc movements will be increased which can be very valuable when getting enemies away from allies. With clannofear being a percentage based heal, this becomes a MASSIVE heal. 35% of my health is, lets say a modest 7.5k. That's an instant heal (and if you had already summoned him before battle that's a free spell) he also adds to health regen (with passive) and gets aggro (also easily spammable with passive that adds magicka when they leave) then we gots the other pet too. Oh not to mention all dark magic moves heal for 8%, in just a few clicks you can heal about half your health and have a huge shield.

4. DPS. as a Sorc we invest in magicka, this helps our awesome ward but also makes our DPS higher, so while we tank we can help out the DPS players (or heal) making their life far easier. (This also grabs the aggro) We also have an abundance of Roots or knock down range effects and great AoE damage spells.

I tank with my Sorc, in my dungeon experience my allies had to run after me as I jumped into mob after mob killing. I felt like they were the support to Me lol.

Again Im in no way saying anything about the other tanks. Im sure they're great. Im just saying a correctly done Sorc can be a great tank.

Oh yeah there area TON of CP perks that directly improve a Sorc Tank. I have found many spots to put those CP points that directly impact the Sorc Tank.

Thanks for your consideration (at least our existence is being recognized!)

*Grabs Shieldbreaker*

Seriously, your theory is not goingt to work. Unreliable and more vulnerable to CC than normal tanks.
And it has a very hard counter.

And the rest of your post is flawed with wrong informations. 35% heal in pvp is not true, as it is cut by 50%.

Pre update (an on xbox) theory, no its my build.

Clannofear maybe changed in PvP, dunno exactly yet.

Shield breaker... ah yes, im waiting on update to see (and ive already started my changes in anticipation)

Im not yet willing to debate as i could be wrong post update.

WyldfireWyrm

I want to focus more on PVE. PVP is intriguing and I'll probably do some down the road, but for now I'm only interested in tanking from a PVE standpoint.

Scyantific

Should have made that clear in the OP then. Are you talking about tanking post-IC patch in general, or tanking in the Imperial City itself?

WyldfireWyrm

Scyantific wrote: »

Should have made that clear in the OP then. Are you talking about tanking post-IC patch in general, or tanking in the Imperial City itself?

Tanking post-patch.

Scyantific

That's much better.

Honestly I still find DKs to be the Tier 1 tanking class post IC. Sorcs can get up here though. I'm able to swap between magicka dps and tank and not have a hard time with either (22k HP/32k MP DPS & 26k HP/26k MP Tank)

My build is Sword and Board/Resto Staff with 5 Footman/5 Seducer/Engine set. Spamming shields pretty much keeps the dwarven sphere popping up every few seconds restoring whatever I need. Daedric Minefield helps with CC. Pretty much the only thing I feel that we're lacking as Sorc tanks is a good ultimate. Negate Magic doesn't compare to Nova/Consuming Darkness/Standard in terms of damage mitigation, but it's good as a mass CC for mobbing. Atro doesn't really do much other than draw aggro and deal damage (which isn't bad, just not as good as something like Magma Armor).

Waffennacht

Scyantific wrote: »

That's much better.

Honestly I still find DKs to be the Tier 1 tanking class post IC. Sorcs can get up here though. I'm able to swap between magicka dps and tank and not have a hard time with either (22k HP/32k MP DPS & 26k HP/26k MP Tank)

My build is Sword and Board/Resto Staff with 5 Footman/5 Seducer/Engine set. Spamming shields pretty much keeps the dwarven sphere popping up every few seconds restoring whatever I need. Daedric Minefield helps with CC. Pretty much the only thing I feel that we're lacking as Sorc tanks is a good ultimate. Negate Magic doesn't compare to Nova/Consuming Darkness/Standard in terms of damage mitigation, but it's good as a mass CC for mobbing. Atro doesn't really do much other than draw aggro and deal damage (which isn't bad, just not as good as something like Magma Armor).

You should be able to answer this: How many attribute points in health to get to your level of health? Also any health enchantment? Currently I run all magicka based enchantments. Post IC do I/should I reconsider this?

Gees I wish they'd give us the update already! I really wanna see how my build is gonna hold up. With recent changes Im thinking Ill finally go for the 5 set bonus (sorry magicka with shield nerf we may have to go more classic survivability)

Scyantific

I'm rolling a Dunmer Sorc, so Mag+Stam bonuses means slightly more health points available. Currently doing 45 Magicka rest Health.

Basically:
-Seducer 5pc (all heavy + Sword and Board , Chest and Legs Infused with Gold Health enchants, Gold Magicka on the rest)
-Engine 2pc (right now I have Medium Infused Head for Stamina, Light Divines Shoulders for the Undaunted 6% bonus)
-Footman 5pc (Rings + Neck + Feet and Belt; Health on Belt and Feet; Spell Cost Redux on Neck, Shield Play on Rings)
-Structured Entropy on main bar + Tri-Stat v15 food usually pushes me to around 26k health.

Master_Kas

DK #1 tank in this update.

Followed by templars maybe.

Harasdar

kogadrake wrote: »

Harasdar wrote: »

DB health 30% of the live you lost...and to heal 15k you must have lost 45k. If you have lost 15k you heal 5k. (all without any bonus etc. to keep it simply here).

This would assume that you have not +healing you initiate or +incoming healing, which is not the case most of the time. Yes it starts off at 33% of your missing health, but then the +healing and +healing received comes into play, and there are ways to setup to buff it enough to make it heal 90%+ of the missing health.

@kogadrake This post was because some people wrote (hope you read the quotes in my post) that Dragon blood is scaling to max. Health...but that just isn't the case. And as I didn't want to confuse people while explainig the simple mechanisms of the spell (that's what I pointed out in brakets )

And yes, there are ways to get to 90% of lost live...

Assuming you lost: 15,000 hp
Base-Healing: 4,950 hp (33% from 15,000)
Major/Minor Mending (38%) + Championspoints (25%): 8,068.5 hp
Major/Minor Vitality (38%) + Championpoints (25%): 13,151.7 hp
That would make: ~88% adding some gear and other stuff ~90% possible....
...but don't think that scenario is just the normal case, you don't get all those buffs all the time and most people (me included) don't have 200 CP to put in just those two stars. Don't think mentioning an ideal setup helps clearing anything By the way think with that setup a templar's "breath of life" would heal similar numbers.

I think best tank classes are Dragon Knight or Templar, as both have good self heals, damage mitigation and good resource managment. Nighblades Tanks are fun to play, but lag in selfheal, but if you know what you are doing can be good tank too. Have not played Sorc too long, just wasn't my class for tanking...