Heavy armor sorc tank?

Lynx7386

Anyone done a build like this? cant decide if it would be better to focus on magicka or stamina for stats, but in general trying to build something for a tank sorceror that uses heavy armor and a 1h/shield. I think magicka would probably be a better focus, using lightning form and encase for aoe packs, but I'm not sure where primary/single target damage is going to come from - crystal fragments isnt so easy to use up close when you're being attacked.

phaneub17_ESO

Magicka. I've seen naked Sorc tanks hold up quite well with just a one-handed weapon for Pierce Armor taunts. That might change when Hardened Ward changes to 6 seconds, but you still get quite a punch. Bound Armaments is deceptive, don't use it for tanking you'll just be wasting a slot on both bars to keep it up.

Acsvf

Single target damage? Why?

psychotic13

You could do s&b defensive bar and inferno staff offensive, that way when you need single target dps you can just crushing shock weave, even use frags. Use the rest of the space on that bar for buffs then have your taunts ect on your shield bar?

aLi3nZ

I tried heavy armour sorc tank vcip with Magika focus and failed. Had like 30k resist and 20k sheilds but it didn't help too much. I guess mark of the pariah isn't a great set. Can't remember what other gear I had. Probably 3x endurance. I was just using liquid lightning for damage.

Lynx7386

Acsvf wrote: »

Single target damage? Why?

Soloing/leveling

mistermutiny89

If you've played a sap tank or dk tank you'll cry in frustration about how average a tank sorc is.

However, maybe it's not my playstyle.. There's a build on Tamriel Foundry in the sorc theory crafting with footage of him tanking VWGT as a vampire and yawning through it.

Have a look, see if you like it.

Lynx7386

It's times like this when I really wish we had a 1h Magicka weapon type.

emily3989

A wand or a ray gun would be nice. Off hand could be holding a book or something, seen that in other games.

Lynx7386

I was thinking more like runestone + shield for magicka tanking

Autolycus

My stam sorc has a stam tank setup using 5 Footman, 5 Leeching Plate, and 2 Night Mother. The build is still a work in progress, however I feel virtually unkillable in all dungeons, etc. I haven't spent enough time refining this build yet to be confident in something like vMoL, but for any other trial or dungeon I feel totally fine about it. Honestly, I haven't refined this yet because it's not my main. I used to run this setup on my main before the CP changes that sent poison damage into Mighty instead of Thauma, effectively turning it into a stam set instead of the magicka set it used to be.

In most cases a healer isn't even needed in this setup, even without the use of shields. A magicka sorc tank would have better results with Bahraha's Curse though, since it scales with EE and Thauma, rather than Mighty and Thauma.

illuminousflux

I run 5 heavy armor master with engine guardian, 3pc agility and 2pc endurance(using jewelery and weapons) works pretty well on my storc, footman would be a nice addition, but i don't have it yet. I end up with about 32-33k stamina, 30k health, and 14k magicka

CreepyPahuska

There's been a lot of discussions about that. I recommend playing a full magicka build since the sorcerer has a lot of magicka-based abilities that fits in a tank build. Most of them would be useless in a stam build. Sorcerer tank in heavy armor is 100% viable, and the "nerf" on hardened ward won't change anything about that.

Bound Armaments is deceptive, don't use it for tanking you'll just be wasting a slot on both bars to keep it up.

Use the Bound Aegis morph instead to get the Magicka bonus, it will increase the size of your damage shields (they scale only on magicka)

Here's a build I copy/pasted from another topic. I've been through pretty much everything with it :

Attribute Points :
54 into Magicka and 10 into Health. I get most of my Health with set bonuses and glyphs. putting points into magicka makes your character more versatile, cause one thing that is nice about sorc tanks is that champions points aren't incompatible between DPS & Tank build, so you can easily become a DPS just by changing your skills and your equipement.


Magicka : 30.5k
Health : 29k
Stamina : 13.5k

Mag Recovery : 1419
Health Recovery : 457
Stamina Recovery : 616

Spell Resistance : 33.7k (38.9k with the Armor Master buff up)
Physical Resistance : 31.6k (36.8k with the Armor Master buff up)

The most important stats are :
Magicka : your damage shields scales entirely on your max magicka, 30k Magicka is nice, it's not really necessary to have more, but try not to have less
Health : Well, this is obvious, you're a tank so you need HP, nothing new here, but since you spam your damage shields, you don't need a lot of HP like a stamina build. I go down to 26.7k when I'm on my second bar and it's enough. Don't go over 29k, you won't need that much.
Stamina : Even if this is a magicka build, you still need stamina to block, rupt, taunt, etc... in most cases 13k of stamina is good but I keep a set of jewels with the robust trait to get a bit more in some occasions. Raids for example require a more "classical" type of tanking so I try to get up to 15k or 16k by sacrificing some magicka & magicka regen.

Magicka recovery : You'll be spamming your damage shields a lot so obviously, recovery is important, 1300 is good, you can go higher but don't sacrifice too much of the other stats

Spell and Physical Resistance : It doesn't reduces the damages absorbed by your shields, but you still need a decent resistance cause you won't be able to have your shields up 100% of time. 30k is fine, going over 33 or 34k is useless.

Skills :

Bar 1 : One Hand & Shield
Hardened Ward (your main shield, absorbs both physical & magical damages)
Pierce Armor (your taunt, the other morph is useless for a tank)
Absorb Magic (I almost never use this, but the passive bonus for having it slotted is really nice)
Harness Magicka (your secondary shield, it absorbs magical damages and restores a lot of magicka)
Bound Aegis (Minor resolve, Minor Ward, and most importantly 8% more magicka)

Ulti : Suppression Field (stuns everyone for 12 seconds, this is by far the best CC skill in the game)

Bar 2 : Restoration Staff
Restraining Prison (your main CC ability to keep mobs from running in all directions)
Inner Fire (your magicka ranged taunt)
Liquid Lightning (The other morph is nice too, maybe even better. This is your damaging AOE skill. It adds a bit of DPS and helps you aggro packs of mobs)
Boundless Storm (Major Resolve and Major Ward, try to keep this up all the time)
Bound Aegis (needs to be in both bars since it's a toggle)

Ulti : Energy Overload (tanking with Overload is really fun and does a nice DPS, and it gives you access to a third bar)

Bar 3 : Energy Overload
Mage's Wrath (Finisher)
Inner Fire
Hardened Ward
Boundless Storm
Bound Aegis

Champion Points :
Red :
Bastion : it increases the size of your shields, put 100 points in it.
Hardy & Elemental defender : since Thieve's Guild, I've heard that those two reduces the damages before they hit your shields. I haven't been able see it for myself yet, but if it's true, it's really nice.
Block Expertise : it's always nice to have a few points here if you can.

Green :
Go for arcanist & magician to increase your magicka recovery and reduce the magicka cost of spells.

Blue :
There isn't really anything related to tanking here, so you can put some DPS based points like Elemental Expert

I manage my ressources mostly by using heavy attacks, with the sword or with the staff, depending on wich ressource I need. Energy overload also restores magicka on every hit, and Harness Magicka also restores magicka when it gets damaged, so basically, you'll rarely run out of magicka.
I only block when it's really necessary (heavy attacks for example, to avoid stuns and other CC... or when you have too many mobs on you and your shields can't hold them)

Link to full message

Jar_Ek

After DB, it will probably be more even but atm magicka tanks are way more capable of self sustainment.

Storm_Beast

Just came across this. I run a HA sorc tank and it's so fun and definitely viable. Haven't updated the build in a while but I basically use what I posted here. It's beastly - fast movement, cc, self heals etc...

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/171073/pve-sorcerer-tank-build-2-0-8-the-storm-beast

Erraln

Well, it's not precisely what you're after but I've done some pledge healtanking this update on my Altmer Sorc. 5 Infal with jewelry, 5 Kagrenacs in heavy with vMA Resto/Lightning. Slot Inner Light, Inner Fire, Twilight Matriarch, Warhorn and Absorption Field, some heals on the resto bar and WoE on the Lightning staff for AoE support. Couple of flex slots after that. Preferred resto staff would be Master's for the stamina return, I don't have it yet though. It's fun, and it's pretty hard to run out of magic with a Heavy Armor Restoration heavy attack. Block or dodge the 1shot mechanics, hold aggro, and heal through everything else while speeding mob pulls with 3 DPS buddies. Probably wouldn't work in trials

RouDeR

Dudes i have Redguard Stam sorc with 5 pieces Black Rose 3 agility 2 endurance + 2 scourger all prismatic ench
My stats are 15k magica , 40k stam , 30k health( out of cyrodil) and 3200 WP , using wherewolf for ulti , and i can solo *** city of ash like no problemo , magica sorco tank sux for pvp all the way ,

For skills use Dark Deal + huricane + crit surge + Vigor and whatever else you want to do dmg with , in pve in WW form this sorco tank has almost 48 k stamina and 4000 + WP and can do 25-30k crits , PVP i ve managed to burst madafaking gangers with insane 13-15k hows .

Bobby_V_Rockit

illuminousflux wrote: »

I run 5 heavy armor master with engine guardian, 3pc agility and 2pc endurance(using jewelery and weapons) works pretty well on my storc, footman would be a nice addition, but i don't have it yet. I end up with about 32-33k stamina, 30k health, and 14k magicka

Pretty near identical my set, heavy armour (Dreugh King Slayer) with either engine guardian or valkyn skoria, depending if healers alright. 3 peice robust endurance (174 weapon enchant on each), Leki's sword and axe. About 32k stam, 22k health, 15k magicka and 3800 wd.

Seems pretty damn effective so far

Qbiken

As long as you don´t streak across the entire map while taunting a boss go ahead XD (worst vDSA experience I had with a sorc tank) :P

MuddledMuppet

Get ready to laugh...

5 morihaus, jewellery sword&board
5 heavy eternal hunt, reinforced & nirn for small pieces
Engine guardian set

Puts me at circa 32 k resists, roll dodge thru all enemies, pierce armour like a madman, dark deal when needed...

It's insane fun, the most fun I've had tanking period.

Finished wgt vet with it, haven't tried ICP yet but can't see why not.

Gives awesome cc with restraining prison, morihaus knocks down on roll, hunt immobilises and together with hurricane help keep up agro, dodge roll passive in champion tree leaves most bosses off balance therefore more DPS from team

Engine guardian, tri-stat foods and dark deal meet all resource requirements, go for Max regen if rolling loads, Max base stam if blocking most etc

Very fun build!

Mac10murda

I thought about a sword and board mag sorc for pvp , when low on stam just Los and dark deal

Cathexis

@Lynx7386 , @FENGRUSH is doing some interesting utility/group based stam tank experimenting right now. I would suggest that if you like stam styles, although mag generally is a lot more balanced all around. If you follow fengs builds the only advice I would give is maybe using rapid regen or combat prayer to jack up your ulti regen (if healing still generates ult but I havent tried it out in a while).

Dracane

I used to be a light armor sorc tank. This was fine for dungeons.
But in veteran dragon star arena for example, I realized that damage shields are not strong enough to handle that high burst and CC spam of certain mobs.

I now switched to a heavy armor setup to have more passive survival and better sustain than light armor. It's better

SirDopey

RouDeR wrote: »

Dudes i have Redguard Stam sorc with 5 pieces Black Rose 3 agility 2 endurance + 2 scourger all prismatic ench
My stats are 15k magica , 40k stam , 30k health( out of cyrodil) and 3200 WP , using wherewolf for ulti , and i can solo *** city of ash like no problemo , magica sorco tank sux for pvp all the way ,

For skills use Dark Deal + huricane + crit surge + Vigor and whatever else you want to do dmg with , in pve in WW form this sorco tank has almost 48 k stamina and 4000 + WP and can do 25-30k crits , PVP i ve managed to burst madafaking gangers with insane 13-15k hows .

@RouDeR , any chance you can post a screenshot of your stats?

CP5

Amazed I missed this thread before, and how has no one here mentioned health stacked sorc tanks? Full heavy armor, currently running 4k health regen easily and 50k health meaning I have the buffer time to do pretty much anything I need to. With a pocket full heal and powerful boss execute max health sorc tanks are amazing.

crcraig

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Magicka. I've seen naked Sorc tanks hold up quite well....

Had I known naked tanking was doable, I wouldn't have farmed for gear...ever.