SAP Tank, are they still viable?

Torbschka

Hey guys,

tehre arent many up to date guides out there. For some1 who have never played nb, its pretty hard to understand if it would be still viable option in pvp, i just checked videos guides from july.

so, are there any sap tanks here or any1 who can give me some information about this playstyle, pro's/Con's etc.?

thanks, I really appreciate it!

Septimus_Magna

Yes, very viable and not even that hard to play.
Resource management is pretty easy with Siphon Attacks and you can self-heal with Sap/Swallow Soul most of the time.

D3usEX has a good Sap tank build link here

I used 5x Willows instead 5x Histbark because you already get 20% dodge chance from Mirage/Double Take.

Torbschka

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Yes, very viable and not even that hard to play.
Resource management is pretty easy with Siphon Attacks and you can self-heal with Sap/Swallow Soul most of the time.

D3usEX has a good Sap tank build link here

I used 5x Willows instead 5x Histbark because you already get 20% dodge chance from Mirage/Double Take.

Yeah I already found this one, but he was mainly focusing on PvE, isnt he?
Anyway, thanks for your answer! Do you think, that a sap tank has advantages over a magicka dk (both more the tanky-dps type)? Do u think a magicka DK can manage 1vsx better or a sap tank?

Septimus_Magna

Im not sure if there's any good tanky-dps type for pvp tbh.

With the current dmg/healing reduction its too easy for dps specs to survive the dmg from a tanky spec.

Magicka DKs lack mobility which greatly reduces survivability in pvp.
Magicka NBs have great mobility and utility with Double Take, Dark Cloak+Conceiled and Shade.

Therefore the survivability of a magicka NB is a lot better, especially in 1vX situations.
I dont have a lot of pvp experience with a magikca NB but I hear its pretty hard to play and really strong if it works.
Prox Det is really useful to increase your burst so it gets stronger once you unlock it.

Crown

@Torbschka The concept of the "Sap Tank" is flawed, and dates back from pre 1.5. Back then, you could have a nightblade in all light 5 x seducer / 5 x archmage and Cyrodiil's Light rings who had effectively unlimited magicka do a lot of damage with sap / invisibats.

Now, unless you're gearing for damage (minimum 5 light armor and sets that actually give you max magicka and spell damage with spell damage enchants), you're not going to kill anyone by moving around and casting sap. All you're going to do is make your opponents laugh that you haven't evolved with the times.

If you're fighting people who don't know how to play, you might do ok, but if you expect to be useful to a group or get kills you're going to have a bad time.

The concept of the tank in PvP doesn't work. Opponents who see you as such will ignore you and focus down your team mates. You'll be the last one alive - but how does that help your team win the fight or make points? It doesn't - it just means that you're the last person to go down and you won't be getting many kills.

thelordoffelines

Tanks in general are no longer viable. Stack damage or gtfo.

WillhelmBlack

Strongest Tanks in the game right now.

SturgeHammer

@TheBull has a pretty cool Siphoning NB you might want to check out.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/223390/sunshines-early-bright-magicka-nightblade-build-blood-flow/p1

kaithuzar

Crown wrote: »

@Torbschka The concept of the "Sap Tank" is flawed, and dates back from pre 1.5. Back then, you could have a nightblade in all light 5 x seducer / 5 x archmage and Cyrodiil's Light rings who had effectively unlimited magicka do a lot of damage with sap / invisibats.

Now, unless you're gearing for damage (minimum 5 light armor and sets that actually give you max magicka and spell damage with spell damage enchants), you're not going to kill anyone by moving around and casting sap. All you're going to do is make your opponents laugh that you haven't evolved with the times.

If you're fighting people who don't know how to play, you might do ok, but if you expect to be useful to a group or get kills you're going to have a bad time.

The concept of the tank in PvP doesn't work. Opponents who see you as such will ignore you and focus down your team mates. You'll be the last one alive - but how does that help your team win the fight or make points? It doesn't - it just means that you're the last person to go down and you won't be getting many kills.

I believe there can be exceptions such as elf bane which while being heavy gives 2x + sp dmg bonuses as well as things like molag kena that when combined with 2 torugs, duel wielding swords with nirnhoned, & sp dmg enchants on all jewelry can boost sp dmg a decent amount (excluding buffs like relentless focus, struct entropy, sp dmg pots)
(This isn't all that standard at this time but it's kind of me making a case for my build)

In a time when people are starting to wear impen armor again I keep debating how necessary is the crit dmg from 5 light, can we crit on shields or not (at this time?) b/c I remember them talking about it but don't remember if anything was done.

Personally I feel the concept of a heavy armor sap tank that constantly uses fear to cc enemies can be very helpful, if you want to throw in proxy det, rapid maneuvers, war horn, veil, soul tether, etc.. it can be effective.

I don't really think of sap as an ability that will kill in a 1v1 but in group play imagine 24 or 48 people all sapping?
I see it as more of a point that one aoe hits an enemy (or multiple enemies) & doesn't kill him/her but by the time the last user in the group/zerg train hits his/her aoe button everyone in the group should've got a tap on them & they should be dead.

Now I do agree just a stam rock with no cc or group usage abilities & no dmg, that holds a shield & hopes his stam is going to regen this patch is rather pointless.

WRX

Ill have to disagree with some posts here.

Tanking, and Sap Tanking are totally different.

Tanking in sense is like holding block and doing little damage.

Sap Tanking, in order to be effective, requires you to crank your damage and penetration and let siphoning do the regen. Because of this, sap tanking does a lot of damage, healing, and ulti gen is always going. I rewatched some of my recording recently, and fully buffed my SD is ~4200, and saps are consistently over 5k crits on good players.

TLDR; Its effective, but nothing like pre 1.6

Crown

@WRX That's not really sap tanking, that's just a high damage build that uses sap, and stays alive a bit longer due to self-heal. Remember the days when Krim, Jager and I would actually tank 20 opponents in a tri-veil while sapping and bats'ing, with a good chance at killing them all? Those were the days of the sap tanks.. Now people don't really understand what they're doing, and I find that advising new players on the concept ends up making them less capable than they should be / they don't learn how to play.

WRX

Crown wrote: »

@WRX That's not really sap tanking, that's just a high damage build that uses sap, and stays alive a bit longer due to self-heal. Remember the days when Krim, Jager and I would actually tank 20 opponents in a tri-veil while sapping and bats'ing, with a good chance at killing them all? Those were the days of the sap tanks.. Now people don't really understand what they're doing, and I find that advising new players on the concept ends up making them less capable than they should be / they don't learn how to play.

The only difference then was the ulti gen bats, and the fact that veils would end up receiving both effects when stacked.

That was a high damage build (for that time) that uses sap, just a lot more effectively than post 1.5, but that can be said for nearly any build.

If he is looking to run as a magicka nb, especially in groups, advising him otherwise would be difficult for me. Granted you aren't going to hold off huge numbers for long, but again, that can be said for any build. Block cost and ulti gen aren't as effective.

WRX

EDIT: I'm reading the OP asking essentially, is running a sap build still effective in PvP.

Yes, and you will be fairly tanky for the state this game is in, and still pull great numbers. But like every other build, you won't be the rock you were in 1.5.

Crown

There's a difference between running a "sap build" and running a "sap tank".

It's the "tank" part that I have an issue with as way too many people don't understand that there is no such thing as a tank in pvp.

TheBull

The biggest problem with sap "tanks" now a days is stamina regen. They run dry on stam so quick, get cc'd and killed.

Like Crown said, the days of Krim style sap TANKS are long gone. Back then you could hold block to mitigate incoming dmg while healing and regenerating stam.

Now as WRX was saying, you could go with a sap AoE dmg build for large group play. You could also give the build I'm running a shot that's built more for solo and 1vX.

dodgehopper_ESO

thelordoffelines wrote: »

Tanks in general are no longer viable. Stack damage or gtfo.

While true I would argue that this is not a good thing. ZoS needs to change this pronto. A lot of people (including myself) enjoy tanking in PVE, but we prefer to PVP. Ideally I would like to tank in PVP as well but it is not viable. I have had to change my build to suit the changes in the game, and this means I can no longer enjoy the PVE side as much as I use to. I am not alone in this. The complaints about the tanking/mitigation nerfs were made long before they were even implemented. I'll grant there are a handful of insane pve tankers who like the changes. I personally find them to be awful. They've ruined a whole archetype for pvp, how can that be a good thing. For PVE they've made tanking very simplistic and boring. You would have to pay me to tank in a dungeon now because it just isn't fun. This whole issue is lose-lose. Its lose for the players, and its lose for ZoS because they've hemorrhaged players thanks to this folly of a design decision.

Edit: I would like to add that Tanking did have a use in pvp in the old days. I had a great time running about drawing fire and creating a nuisance. If people ignored me they were guaranteed to get cc'd and debuffed which just made dps have an easier time finishing them off. My damage was sufficient to make kills as well for pvp purposes. While the taunt effect is meaningless in pvp (though they might want to consider this) I definitely think the tanking role existed quite well once upon a time. If I can sucker 5 guys to beat on my shield while my healer keeps me juiced and I keep them debuffed, I've done my job.

Crown

@dodgehopper_ESO How do you address the issue that if you can't taunt a player, you're not tanking? You're just standing around being rather usless and will be the last one to die in an engagement. Can you imagine the opposing raid leading saying, "ignore dodgehopper - he's just a tank, focus their healers, then DPS, and we'll get back to him later"???

EDIT: If you're running around applying debuffs and cc, then you're a disruptor, not a tank. Disruptors can be very valuable to groups.

dodgehopper_ESO

Crown wrote: »

@dodgehopper_ESO How do you address the issue that if you can't taunt a player, you're not tanking? You're just standing around being rather usless and will be the last one to die in an engagement. Can you imagine the opposing raid leading saying, "ignore dodgehopper - he's just a tank, focus their healers, then DPS, and we'll get back to him later"???

EDIT: If you're running around applying debuffs and cc, then you're a disruptor, not a tank. Disruptors can be very valuable to groups.

Well in pvp that's exactly what a tank is. I view tanking in pvp (in most MMORPG's) as the guy who is extremely annoying. That's their purpose, to debuff, to crowd control and to generally create a nuisance and break up enemy lines. I've never heard of the 'Disruptor' role but it sounds cool so I'll live with that. The point I'm trying to make is that there was a time you simply could no ignore me because I was just that annoying. People would try to annoy me, and I made sure they paid a price for doing so. The cost was pretty simple, ignore me and get interrupted, debuffed, and snared. Attack me and face the fury of my Blazing Shield or Spike armor or Boundless/Disintegrate. It use to be a beautiful thing, and I'm just not seeing it any more. The biggest problem I had directly was with vampire dk bat ultimate regen builds. It was all good and well when I annoyed those guys until some randoms would get chain-taloned in and started really feeding his bats. Beyond that instance though it worked great, and I was still able to debuff and whatnot but the Bat builds made my life a lot more difficult.

If taunting actually forced players to attack you for a time (a separate form of soft cc) that would be cool I suppose. That's another issue entirely though. I personally rather the intelligence behind this tanking 'Disruptor' as you describe it. The disruptor forces people attack him or be debuffed/snared/cc'd. Its a choice. This build can make kills but its a slow and steady wins the race type of build. The current design of the game doesn't really allow for this though, as I've previously stated. I personally think it should.

WRX

Crown wrote: »

There's a difference between running a "sap build" and running a "sap tank".

It's the "tank" part that I have an issue with as way too many people don't understand that there is no such thing as a tank in pvp.

This I do agree with. I guess my point is the sap tanks, were never sap tanks. They were DPS machines that would stay alive because of mechanics and bad players.

There has never been such a thing as a tank in PvP

MisterBigglesworth

I would argue that a PvP tank is someone who takes the full brunt of an attack so that others don't have to.

By this definition, the "tank" is the 6 random people in a zergball who take 100% aoe damage so the others don't have to.

So, yes it's not a distinct role in PvP, but tanking still exists.