What makes a good Tank?

VDoom1

A lot of people have already thrown in some great stuff about what makes a good tank. The basics are, stay alive. The tank is easily the most important group member. And on second place, or maybe even sharing first place is the healer. Without the tank, dead. Without the healer, dead. Its very easy to predict that when the tank falls, it is almost a certainty that everyone else will also die. Why is that? Because the tanks job, what the tank is suppose to do. Is be the target for all enemies. A tank is suppose to draw all enemies to him/her and keep them distracted. So naturally, when the tank dies the enemies will spread out and several of them will attack dps or the healer. And your all screwed, pretty much. So bottom line, the tank is basically a decoy or distraction for all enemies. And the tank and healer are both very important, so they have to stay alive. If a dps dies, no big woop just resurrect him/her.

lathbury

the good thing about the role is it can be done well by pretty much any class and they all bring something different to the role.

Kas

A good tank needs to understand and master the mechanics of the trials bosses he is supposed to tank and run a cookie cutter tanky build for that.

Other than that, tanking is pretty weird. You taunt the main boss and press block. And then you have a couple of options:

1) Taunt and CC several other targets (100% is usually not possible especially not for the full duration of a fight) to allow a healer to concentrate on buffs / dps himself and you dps group-mates to fully run their rotations without much movement and blocking.

2) Pull all targets in the exact same spot. DKs can use chains for that. The major factor is just moving with taunted targets appropriately. If everything is standing within sorc's lightning AoE, DK's eruption or NBs path/wall/whatever, your group dps is increased immensely. this also means that you have to know the content so that you can decide when you move out of the red AoE and when it's not that dangerous and better to stand still so that ground dots do not have to be refreshed. This is way more important than many tanks think and can make a HUGE difference.

3) Heal. This has become the most typical way for me and my guild. One templar tanks and heals and 3 DDs burn down stuff. Very solid way to quickly finish 4-man content and not too hard. The tank will usually only take the msot important target and dd's will watch out for themselves. If everyone's really good, almost no heal is needed anyway.

5) Swap to full DD when appropriate. Good Tanks will swap to full DD on stuff like the 3rd WGT boss, Lord Warden, Bosses 3+4 in Darkshade Caverns and so on. There are encounters where you just don't need a tank. A good one will thus swap to a DD layout.

5) Do damage as a tank. I don't think this still makes sense too much but it was quite popular for vDSA. A Stamina DK was running s+b and dual wield in medium armor and responsible for tanking the few things that needed tanking and using chains when needed. 90% of the time he was just steel tornado-ing stuff. Likewise, healing was also sparsely needed and mostly covered by repentance and combat prayer. Essentially groups were running 4DD to chase for the top scores. In current content, this is usually not needed and beneficial, especially because 2) or 3) usually enable more overall group dps. DSA was special with people killing mobs while still in portal-form and splitting the group to spawn-kill everything in different locations.

Something that is often over-appreciated and NOT on my list (outside of trials, where it's kinda appropriate): Do everything for perfect tankyness and mitigation. This isn't really needed. You can self-sustain your health through all 4-man content with much less than perfect mitigation. You don't even need a healer for that (but for dungeon mechanics where damage is dealt to all group members). If you work hard for that 35k armor, perma block and magma armor on top, it's simply overkill.

Rune_Relic

Kas wrote: »

A good tank needs to understand and master the mechanics of the trials bosses he is supposed to tank and run a cookie cutter tanky build for that.

Other than that, tanking is pretty weird. You taunt the main boss and press block. And then you have a couple of options:

1) Taunt and CC several other targets (100% is usually not possible especially not for the full duration of a fight) to allow a healer to concentrate on buffs / dps himself and you dps group-mates to fully run their rotations without much movement and blocking.

2) Pull all targets in the exact same spot. DKs can use chains for that. The major factor is just moving with taunted targets appropriately. If everything is standing within sorc's lightning AoE, DK's eruption or NBs path/wall/whatever, your group dps is increased immensely. this also means that you have to know the content so that you can decide when you move out of the red AoE and when it's not that dangerous and better to stand still so that ground dots do not have to be refreshed. This is way more important than many tanks think and can make a HUGE difference.

3) Heal. This has become the most typical way for me and my guild. One templar tanks and heals and 3 DDs burn down stuff. Very solid way to quickly finish 4-man content and not too hard. The tank will usually only take the msot important target and dd's will watch out for themselves. If everyone's really good, almost no heal is needed anyway.

5) Swap to full DD when appropriate. Good Tanks will swap to full DD on stuff like the 3rd WGT boss, Lord Warden, Bosses 3+4 in Darkshade Caverns and so on. There are encounters where you just don't need a tank. A good one will thus swap to a DD layout.

5) Do damage as a tank. I don't think this still makes sense too much but it was quite popular for vDSA. A Stamina DK was running s+b and dual wield in medium armor and responsible for tanking the few things that needed tanking and using chains when needed. 90% of the time he was just steel tornado-ing stuff. Likewise, healing was also sparsely needed and mostly covered by repentance and combat prayer. Essentially groups were running 4DD to chase for the top scores. In current content, this is usually not needed and beneficial, especially because 2) or 3) usually enable more overall group dps. DSA was special with people killing mobs while still in portal-form and splitting the group to spawn-kill everything in different locations.

Something that is often over-appreciated and NOT on my list (outside of trials, where it's kinda appropriate): Do everything for perfect tankyness and mitigation. This isn't really needed. You can self-sustain your health through all 4-man content with much less than perfect mitigation. You don't even need a healer for that (but for dungeon mechanics where damage is dealt to all group members). If you work hard for that 35k armor, perma block and magma armor on top, it's simply overkill.

Does that consitute a tank or a hybrid ?
To me that simply states tanks arent required by content so you can go hybrid.
Feels like you are kind of saying hyrbid is the new tank.
Regardless..hybrid is a hybrid. Not a pure tank.

Bah. i am listening to myself wondering if I am being argumentitive for the sake of arguing or actually have a point.
lol.

code65536

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Kas wrote: »

A good tank needs to understand and master the mechanics of the trials bosses he is supposed to tank and run a cookie cutter tanky build for that.

Other than that, tanking is pretty weird. You taunt the main boss and press block. And then you have a couple of options:

1) Taunt and CC several other targets (100% is usually not possible especially not for the full duration of a fight) to allow a healer to concentrate on buffs / dps himself and you dps group-mates to fully run their rotations without much movement and blocking.

2) Pull all targets in the exact same spot. DKs can use chains for that. The major factor is just moving with taunted targets appropriately. If everything is standing within sorc's lightning AoE, DK's eruption or NBs path/wall/whatever, your group dps is increased immensely. this also means that you have to know the content so that you can decide when you move out of the red AoE and when it's not that dangerous and better to stand still so that ground dots do not have to be refreshed. This is way more important than many tanks think and can make a HUGE difference.

3) Heal. This has become the most typical way for me and my guild. One templar tanks and heals and 3 DDs burn down stuff. Very solid way to quickly finish 4-man content and not too hard. The tank will usually only take the msot important target and dd's will watch out for themselves. If everyone's really good, almost no heal is needed anyway.

5) Swap to full DD when appropriate. Good Tanks will swap to full DD on stuff like the 3rd WGT boss, Lord Warden, Bosses 3+4 in Darkshade Caverns and so on. There are encounters where you just don't need a tank. A good one will thus swap to a DD layout.

5) Do damage as a tank. I don't think this still makes sense too much but it was quite popular for vDSA. A Stamina DK was running s+b and dual wield in medium armor and responsible for tanking the few things that needed tanking and using chains when needed. 90% of the time he was just steel tornado-ing stuff. Likewise, healing was also sparsely needed and mostly covered by repentance and combat prayer. Essentially groups were running 4DD to chase for the top scores. In current content, this is usually not needed and beneficial, especially because 2) or 3) usually enable more overall group dps. DSA was special with people killing mobs while still in portal-form and splitting the group to spawn-kill everything in different locations.

Something that is often over-appreciated and NOT on my list (outside of trials, where it's kinda appropriate): Do everything for perfect tankyness and mitigation. This isn't really needed. You can self-sustain your health through all 4-man content with much less than perfect mitigation. You don't even need a healer for that (but for dungeon mechanics where damage is dealt to all group members). If you work hard for that 35k armor, perma block and magma armor on top, it's simply overkill.

Does that consitute a tank or a hybrid ?
To me that simply states tanks arent required by content so you can go hybrid.
Feels like you are kind of saying hyrbid is the new tank.
Regardless..hybrid is a hybrid. Not a pure tank.

Bah. i am listening to myself wondering if I am being argumentitive for the sake of arguing or actually have a point.
lol.

It depends on the content, really. For trials, you want and need to be a full-time tank, and all this stuff about doing damage is nonsense. For 4-man content, the hybrid approach works well. See my earlier post in this thread. I even have two different tanks, one better suited for the 4-man stuff, one better suited for the 12-man stuff.

Still, for 4-man content, it's better for the healer to be the one to turn DPS than for the tank to turn DPS. I've 2-manned and soloed many dungeon runs (obviously without a dedicated healer or tank) and also 4-DPS'ed dungeon runs (and 4-DPS'ed vDSA), and the role that we miss the most is easily the tank role. You're very quickly reminded just how important the tank is--even in "easy" dungeons--when a boss one-shots someone before they have a chance to react and block. Whereas if you have good DPS who avoid stupid and a tank who taunts the right things and is self-sufficient, you can do without much healing. As a healer in 4-man content, I usually just lay down an extended ritual and sometimes rapid generation, and then I just DPS since in a competent group, those two HoTs are enough 99% of the time, and I'll throw out a BoL once in a while if someone takes burst damage. And since heal potency is scaled from the same stats as damage for a healer, a healer is much more suited for damage than a tank. (I never bother putting CP into Blessed unless healing a 12-man trial; for all the 4-man content, including vICP/vWGT, your heals are potent enough even with zero Blessed.)

That having been said, my DK does have a full DPS spec that I switch to with just a gear swap (she has all attributes in magicka, and you can achieve pretty crazy swings in stats through gear alone), so in situations where it makes sense: Grobull, Engine Guardian, and Planar Inhibitor, I will switch to full DPS. But in all three of these situations, you can still remain a tank. It's not ideal, but still very much viable (pull Grobull away from the group, taunt the Engine Guardian's adds, and for Planar Inhibitor, if you hold the pinion until the blue phase portals start, you will never get portal duty--you'll get lots of Heat Stroke, but the tank is better equipped for dealing with it and since the DPS and healer won't be getting Heat Stroke at all, in a way it actually makes the healer's job easier since they can just heal the tank and not worry as much about the DPS).

Tan9oSuccka

I seem to do pretty well with my Nord Stamina DK.

6 Heavy armor, 1 medium (Personally any set works really, I use 5 Hundings, 3 Robust Agility and 2 Engine Guardian), S&B taunt, and even mix of health and stamina attributes.

Vigor, Razor Caltrops and Obsidian shield are very, very helpful.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

DKs currently make the best tanks for 3 reasons:

1. CHAINS, CHAINS and more CHAINS.
2. Igneous Weapons. You save your group on either expensive potions or a skill slot. If you are a DK tank and don't run igneous, rethink your life.
3. DKs are the only class that can effectively regen stam while blocking.

Templars can be cool if you want to tank and heal at the same time. I know a few people that do this really well, but it takes a lot of skill. I also feel like Templar tanks always seem to run significantly higher health bars (probably because of blazing shield). Someone earlier was posting about 42k health, and I saw a guy with 50k one time (and he was awful). I am not saying that it is necessarily bad, but if you are stacking that much health, you are probably sacrificing something else. If all you do is spam blazing shield, you really arent doing much for your group. I get nervous when I see a tank with more than about 30k. Most good DK tanks I know run with less than 25k.

Edit: For the record, probably the best tank I know is a Templar, but even he jokes about how he is not a DK. Haha

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Deleted - Double Post

Saturn

From my point of view I would say the most important things for a tank are:
- Staying alive (if you die your group is usually f**ked)
- Making sure everything is focusing on you (so other people don't die)
This pretty much applies everywhere. How you go about accomplishing these two things is a matter that is completely subjective. Usually with a DPS you know what you have to do, what skills to use / not to use. With a Tank it is possible to do well without any shiny gear.

I've tanked on a Sorcerer, Nightblade and Dragonknight, and if you haven't tanked before I would recommend choosing Dragonknight first. You get an ultimate that makes you invulnerable (almost anyway) for 11 seconds, you get good buffs (for yourself and your group), chains (great for grouping enemies), awesome passives (like increased block mitigation, resources when using ultimates), and much more.

If you are using 7 heavy pieces it is quite easy reaching the armour / spell resistance hardcap (really only takes one major armour buff to do so). Usually people focus on resources so they can block / taunt more.
If you for example focus on the Inner Fire taunt as your main, you want to stack magicka so you can use it a lot.

Since they took away Overtaunting your only worry is keeping your resources up so you don't run out of stamina and drop your guard (because they will get you killed).


I recommend using abilities such as Structured Entropy (more health) and Defensive Posture (8% increased block mitigation) on your tank bar, alongside the Footman set (12% increase block mitigation), since this will make it extremely hard to kill you while you are blocking.
Sidenote: If you are using two taunts, make sure they are on the same bar. A lot of tanks tend to die because they swap bars a lot.

Saturn

Eocosa wrote: »

Class stuff aside being a good tank generally comes in phases: 1 you staying alive so you can stop a full wipe makes you a meh tank, keeping your team mates alive makes you an okay tank, buffing your teams dps while doing the above makes you a good tank, and finally being able to add SOME dps while doing all of the above makes you a great tank!

I wish people would stop promoting damage tanking... I've never seen it work in any serious content, except in vDSA (but that's not really tanking anyway, that's just dpsing with a taunt).

code65536

Saturn wrote: »

Eocosa wrote: »

Class stuff aside being a good tank generally comes in phases: 1 you staying alive so you can stop a full wipe makes you a meh tank, keeping your team mates alive makes you an okay tank, buffing your teams dps while doing the above makes you a good tank, and finally being able to add SOME dps while doing all of the above makes you a great tank!

I wish people would stop promoting damage tanking... I've never seen it work in any serious content, except in vDSA (but that's not really tanking anyway, that's just dpsing with a taunt).

The reason people promote damage tanking is because there is so little serious content for tanks in this game. Few people ever get a chance to tank a trial, and most of the tanking in this game is with the not-so-serious 4-man content. The OP did ask about trials tanking, so I agree that we should steer him away from damage tanking.

(But damage tanking isn't necessarily bad--I enjoy it on my nightblade, though I would never have her tank a trial.)

socivL

beer

Autolycus

There is some reliable information here, but truthfully, this is far from one of the better tanking threads I've seen here. OP, you have been unlucky enough to attract a lot of trolls to your thread.

I made some recommendations here:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2893407/#Comment_2893407

I also recommend portions of this thread, particularly Totter Tates suggestions and his mitigation calculator:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/254916/ultimate-tank-build/p1

There is literally nothing stopping a tank of any class from doing even the most challenging content in this game. Yes, I mean literally. Every class has their own ways to round up mobs and to cap every source of mitigation. In fact, the vast majority of mitigation stems from virtually everywhere except class abilities. Certain abilities, like chains, are nice and convenient, but like I said, every class has their own way around this. Chains is typically preferred because it's the easiest and laziest way to round mobs up (don't take me the wrong way, I love DK tanks, but it's true).

Feel free to PM me directly OP, and I'd be more than happy to help, if you want my insight. I'll have to respectfully steer clear of this thread though. There's too much misguided and wonky feedback here for my liking.

bedlom

Always making sure the rest of the group especially the healer is agro free to do there job.
Being a tank is not an easy job to do but you always can tell when you got a really good tank in you're group.

Nifty2g

taunt things, hold block, don't die

if you got a good group of players you can add some dps to the mix, you can also tank with 5 medium armor and do some cool things with your build. but typically just do what a tank is mean to do, hold taunt, make use of tab target, and try not to die. use a build where you can manage your stamina with ease and without a mic. too many times i see a tank just randomly start light attacking or heavy attacking then getting one shot

xblackroxe

Well I don´t really like the idea of tanks doing damage. Its so insignificant anyway that it doesn´t really makes sense.
Tank does much more dps with just keeping mobs in place and having a good support.

Basically as tank you should:
1.) survive and taunt
2.) stand the f* still with the mobs (nothing is more annoying than a guy the runs around with all the mobs making you either not cast ground AoE or recast it too often)
3.) support (Warhorn, Warhorn, CC, basically everything that adds dps to the group and more Warhorns)
4.) Don´t try to do damage if you don´t know what to do.

MaxBat

OP,

I admit I'm biased. But of all the possible armor choices available to you, I still maintain that a good tank look something like this:

Good luck.