I want to be a better tank

OldGamerESO

I started tanking for perhaps the wrong reasons.. I want to run dungeons and no one seems to want DPS. Even the healer slots are taken pretty quickly. But tanks are always needed and it seemed like it might be fun, although possibly stressful.

My goal is pretty simple and not very ambitious. I want to be a solid tank for Normal and Vet 4 man dungeons with pugs. I would love to play with friends or a regular set of people but the more organized guilds seem to be very trial focused and are way more hardcore than I want to be. Every other guild I join SAY they run dungeons but they really don't. LFG for Gold or Silver in my guilds is met with silence. (What they do have is lots of raffles. Any way to turn off the 5x day per guild notification of the MotD changing? Which is always about raffles, and how much we need gold and look a this motif you can win... Sorry I got sidetracked there.)

The dungeon finder is broken with a 1+ hour queue time even for tanks. So I do what everyone else does. I stand around in the undaunted enclave and wait for a group to start. Even the random normal dungeon and silver groups have LFH1M Tank spamming in the zone.

So I read up on a bunch of builds and have tried many of them for Magicka Templar, Magicka Nightblade and Stamina Dragonknight. Some of the issue I run into I think will be better with better gear and I am working on that. I wish so many builds were not so dependent on very specific gear (like Engine Guardian, Bloodspawn, etc) because I can barely tank normals let alone Vet dungeons so I don't have access to those pieces. Also some builds are extra-complicated (e.g. Warhorn returning resources (DK) so you need ultimate so you use Tavya/Bloodspawn and you better have dodge up 100% so You can blow your horn every X seconds so you don't run out of stamina)

First this is what a trash pulls is like for me:

Move to back bar, cast buffs, flip to front bar. I now have 18 seconds before first buff goes. Move into room. Before I even use my taunt once the dps have opened fire. I need to get aggro on all these mobs... see one is trying to kill my healer over there... (taunt), oops that glass cannon dps just almost died (taunt). Oops I am standing in red (move) , oops I get staggered for dropping shield and took a hit. Shield up. Now I have 5 overlapping circles on me.. dodge left. SHield up. oops my stamina is low, oh my armor buff ran out, move to back bar cast 3 buffs.. wow what just took me to half health? Oh shield was dropped, oops, out of stamina... oops a dps just died. Oh I am on the wrong bar, flip to front bar.. wait I pushed it twice and how I am on back bar again. Everyone is running around.. the entire floor is full of red circles and red rectangles. For some reason I am not really getting heals. I am sitting at half health so I use my self heal (depending on class, BoL, GDB) Oops the healer is dead. I go try to res him.. I can't find his body. Opps the other dps died. I res the healer finally. He dies immediately. I am out of resources. I die. We all res. They yell at me.

I need a drink. And yes, I know this is all L2P and ESO is easy mode and I suck. It is just that I would like to suck less.

Ok.. so my issue is only partially about class/race/build/equipment), but about how the heck can I actually keep track of so much stuff going on when we are fighting. Maybe I am too old to do it or I need a build that lets me relax a little tiny bit. But here are the issues.

• My pugs are always dying in trash pulls and blaming me for not taunting. I have both ranged and melee taunt available to me)
• My buffs never seem to last very long so they run out and before I re-apply them I am dead. Watching 3-4 buffs count down then switching bars to recast them while also managing everything else is difficult. Losing any buff can mean a quick death.
• The chaos of a trash pull is like red all over the ground everywhere, with 15 mobs running around chaotically killing my team. I have been working on a chain pull then taunt with DK.. is it worth trying to do a LOS pull to group things with other classes?
• If I am blocking then I don't regenerate stam so I use potions but then I still run out (much faster on magicka classes). Yes I do try the various mechanics each class has for stam generation, but it is not always useful. Light/heavy attacks don't work well with trash unless I can group them up or I am running around.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

AverageJo3Gam3r

Sounds like your teammates suck. No one should ever engage until the tank does. You'll want to run a large AoE ability (I use caltrops). If you're the first one to engage, you can hit all the trash mobs with this ability. You'll pull initial aggro. Next, focus on taunting only large/dangerous mobs. Two handed enemies, archers, and casters. All DPS should have around 17k health and should be able to withstand a little aggro, so don't worry about the rest of the mobs.

If your buffs are running out on trash mobs, sounds like your DPS are no good. It shouldn't take that long to clear a simple trash pack

And yes, you will pull your hair out trying to keep everything taunted. It takes too much stamina to do that and takes too much blocking.

Last thing that helps is CC. That's one of the reasons dragon knights are considered the best tanks, because of talons. Each cast means 4 seconds that mobs are not chasing your teammates.

nine9six

No, Thank You

Addon

Will deal with those MOTDs for you.

Asmael

To get the initial aggro from a trash pack, you can start by using an AoE, you have quite a few available depending on your current build: stamina builds can use caltrops, DKs can use Volatile Armor, saptanks can use Sap Essence... This allows you to force the mob to focus you for the first seconds, enough to focus on taunting as many of them as possible.

if the DDs do the first pull and die, they kinda need to L2DD, but anyway, let's keep going...

For tankiness, you need to keep 2 buffs up, the most important being Elude (morph of Evasion, from the medium armor skill line), and another one being your source of Major Ward / Major Resolve (hardened armor for DK, Shadow abilities for NB, Channeled focus for templars, Hurricane or Boundless storm for sorcs). You shouldn't have to focus on damage if you're having trouble, so don't try to keep Major brutality / Sorcery and the like up. Only focus on the role at hand - in this case, keep the aggro up and staying alive. You're not a damage dealer nor a healer.

Try not to hold block all the time, instead, try to use block only when really pressured, or when an enemy is using a power attack (usually the ones that stagger / CC you). Spamming light attacks will do you no good as a tank, so focus on using only fully charged ones when you have some free time.

As a newbie tank, you should probably stick to stamina DK, until you get more comfortable with tanking in general, this is one of the easiest to sustain. Note that you don't have to use Chains on every ranged NPC you see, focus on taunting and staying alive first. Keep it simple by having a main bar with Defensive Posture, Puncture (any morph) for taunting and your self heal (try to get Vigor, Dragon blood is pretty lackluster). Things are much easier if you don't have to bar swap every 5 seconds. For ultimates, Magma Shell allows you to stay alive when things are rough, and when things are pretty smooth, you can use Aggressive Warhorn.

You should get jewelry with block cost reduction and Sturdy on most armor pieces, as well as a fair amount of CPs in Shadow ward for reduced block cost, and about 25-30k health. Again, you'll be able to drop some block cost reduction later, as you get more comfortable with tanking.

Robbmrp

OldGamerESO wrote: »

First this is what a trash pulls is like for me:

Move to back bar, cast buffs, flip to front bar. I now have 18 seconds before first buff goes. Move into room. Before I even use my taunt once the dps have opened fire. I need to get aggro on all these mobs... see one is trying to kill my healer over there... (taunt), oops that glass cannon dps just almost died (taunt). Oops I am standing in red (move) , oops I get staggered for dropping shield and took a hit. Shield up. Now I have 5 overlapping circles on me.. dodge left. SHield up. oops my stamina is low, oh my armor buff ran out, move to back bar cast 3 buffs.. wow what just took me to half health? Oh shield was dropped, oops, out of stamina... oops a dps just died. Oh I am on the wrong bar, flip to front bar.. wait I pushed it twice and how I am on back bar again. Everyone is running around.. the entire floor is full of red circles and red rectangles. For some reason I am not really getting heals. I am sitting at half health so I use my self heal (depending on class, BoL, GDB) Oops the healer is dead. I go try to res him.. I can't find his body. Opps the other dps died. I res the healer finally. He dies immediately. I am out of resources. I die. We all res. They yell at me.

Just awesome.... and welcome to the life of a tank... with the exception of taunting, that exact same thing could have been said if you were a healer.

When you have impatient DPS in the group, they will expect you to work wonders and always start pulling things and wonder why the tank doesn't have aggro. One kill to help Taunt is Inner Fire, do you have that slotted? It's magicka and ranged so it won't deplete your stamina as fast. It's in the undaunted skill line so try and get that asap if you don't have it.

SolarCat02

I am assuming you are on PC? Since you mentioned watching buff counters. If you were Xbox, I would volunteer to run with you sometime.

You are learning what you need to do. That's a tough time to be a tank with a full PUG. My suggestion would actually be to find a friend to run with, either a healer or a DPS that lets you grab aggro first. If you are going in with one person you play with regularly, it's a lot easier than a full on PUG.

Another option is to go to the starting zone and see if you can find a low level player or two who want to learn the dungeons. You don't need a four man for this (in fact, it's best for you learning if you have less than four), and lower levels for their first dungeon are already expecting to run into friction so they are more forgiving of themselves for dying. You will be overleveled so no need to worry about keeping your buffs 100% or dying while rezzing the low level. This way you get to practice the very basics of tanking without focusing on the more complicated parts. You need to develop your Tank Vision, the ability to focus on seeing what you need to see so you can do what you need to do. You won't get in game XP for this, but the less the newbies die the better you are doing the tanking basics, so it's good tanking practice and you have a good gage to use.
(Note: This works well for both support roles for learning. Or for teaching new DPS. I two man with newbies on my healer; if they already are good at avoiding red I make them self-tank too).

If neither of those options will work, it's good to warn the group you are still learning, and do NOT be afraid to call out the DPS for aggroing before you taunt.



Basic tanking tips, for ESO:
- You do not need to taunt everything, nor should you. Tank needs to understand the big threats to the group and prioritize. And sometimes the tank is better off taunting the things the DPS should not be attacking instead (ghost cats in normal Selene's Web, for an easy example) to better allow them to attack the boss.
- When tanking enemies with damaging AoEs, turn them away from the group. This keeps them focused on you, without hurting the DPS. The boss or other enemies, rather than the tank, should be the filling in the sandwich.
- Tank should be able to stand in red without panicking. Not saying you should always stand in red, but sometimes it's unavoidable, and you need to be able to survive enough on your own to let the healer react. If losing one of your buffs means you will probably die, then you need to change something about your build. You may want to look into the more selfish tanking sets for now, rather than the group support ones? Group support comes AFTER you feel comfortable and confident with the main role of tanking.

insape

Hi there,

lol I've retyped this several times because I keep making it too long, I'll try and keep it short.

You have summed up exactly how I felt about tanking in this game before being helped by a great guild I joined. Tanking is hard and people who have never tanked are quick to blame the tank for things that aren't the tank's fault.

this is purely from a DK perspective, I'm not sure about other classes:

Trash fights: don't try and taunt everything use snares (either caltrops or my favourite: cinder storm) to slow down mobs and keep them bunched up combined with choking talons (15% damage reduction and keeps them still). Taunt the really big bad ones but hopefully the dps AoE the rest before anyone takes too much damage for healer to sort out.

buffs: especially on console these can be problematic, I run volatile armour and shuffle which fortunately have the same sort of life span and are visually very obvious so I just keep and eye on this and refresh when necessary. This is easier when you are calm and you become calm by practising a lot and being confident with mechanics.

stamina: as a DK you get stamina back by using igneous shield (which can be used whilst blocking) and ultimates. Combine these with potions and champion points and sustain shouldn't be too bad. You don't need the monster helms to tank dungeons, I've ran vet imperial city with tavas/morihaus the former can be crafted and the latter can be bought for 1k a piece. Also try not to over block, if there are no heavy attacks and you're not taking big damage then just face tank it. Finally if you heavy attack you get stamina back, so if you get a chance weave one of these in, more useful in boss fights but as you might have noticed I use mainly magicka abilities in trash fights.

Standing in red: sometimes you have to, in trashfights I don't worry two much about red spots, I avoid them if possible but honestly I never feel like I can't take it, check your armour, are you close to that magic 33k in spell and physics resistance? If not and you feel squishy try a few reinforced pieces or defending weapons.

That's still a bit longer than I wanted but hopefully should help you out, I tried to follow deltia's tank build, but I swapped bloodspawn and ebon set out for morihaus and found it to be adequate and still good ultimate regen

Deltia's tank:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_BvRyvFkJQ

nine9six

Don't be afraid to stand back an watch your herp derp DPS run ahead and get themselves killed when they've no business leading a run.

Brrrofski

I can't speak for templar tanking but I tank often on my saptank.

Firstly, if dps pull aggro first, let them keep aggro. They'll soon learn. Use an aoe to gather mass aggro (for a templar, Ritual of Retribution is good and taunt the hard hitters. One of two adds can go after dsp if it doesn't hit hard, don't panic too much.

Practise. Eventually you have a rhythm and know exactly what you're doing. It falls into place. Replying buffs becomes second nature. You learn each pull and each boss fight so know what to do in what order. Keep at it, you'll get there.

Look for some builds though. Being in heavy armor abd holding block doesn't work anymore. It's constant bar swapping and buffs, the right gear (to an extent) and learning rotations.

leandro.800ub17_ESO

Some quick recomendations of someone thats tanks since day 1. Already completed Vet New Dungeons

-Go Stamina Dragonknight
-Use Class like Imperial or Nord
-Focus on self bufs and let healer worry about heping dps
-Go 1h Shield on both bars
-Get to around 30k hp 30k stam
-Sets for full tanking to use: Footman ; Hist Bark ; Mazataum ; Yokeda ; Lunar Bast ;

kylewwefan

My main niteblade ends up tanking quite a bit. I have a few different armor sets always carrying around. Armor Master/ footman set is way over the top most times. I have an ebon/hircines set that's usually more than adequate and looks cool like a Christmas tree. Bloodspawn is good; I really like lord Warden, but it confuses people on portals often. I can switch armor and a few skills around and be extra DPS in no time.

Forestd16b14_ESO

Want a AoE to get trash mobs before the hot headed DPS does. Caltrops are nice but pricey. Class wise DKs have ash strom templars with templar house. You'll also want a CC skill talons from DKs very good but not a DK try trap beast from fighters guild just something to stop one or two enemies in there tracks.

NBrookus

You have some great advice here, but you are saying you are having trouble without monster sets. That may or may not be gear; you can certainly tank without them. What are you wearing now?

fred4

Two things stood out to me about your original post. The first, don't try to rez other players. Your job, as a tank, is to keep the bosses / mobs engaged so that others can do the rezzing.

Secondly you mentioned having difficulties with normal dungeons? Or perhaps not. You just want to be a good tank in them. In any case I recommend you try to solo some of them! I'm not sure how the game scales these days, but I've done this since well before I reached maximum CP. It's how I learnt the basics of tanking. You can work in your own time without others pressuring you.

Furthermore I'll go against the grain and recommend you try it on your Magicka Nightblade, because it will allow you to more or less perma-block. It's an easy playstyle. You'll feel tremendous pressure, but you can deal with it using this build:

Main bar: One hand + Shield

Funnel Health (Swallow Soul is better solo, but you also play in a group, so...)
Siphoning Attacks (To replenish Stamina and Magicka while blocking and from light attacks)
Defensive Stance (Only for the passive that improves blocking)
Sap Essence (Major Sorcery, AOE and healing for trash fights)
Refreshing Path (Healing and increased resistances from passive)
Ultimate: Veil of Blades (Damage reduction and AOE)

For the second bar, use a resto staff and put Healing Ward on the bar as an emergency heal. The rest doesn't really matter. When you are surrounded by mobs bar swapping can be a liability, so let's keep things simple for now.

The playstyle is as follows. Buff with Siphoning Attacks and lay down a Refreshing Path as you are running towards the enemies and during the fight. Initially hold block permanently as you are fighting. For mobs, keep spamming Sap Essence, but throw in a few Funnel Health, since the heal from the latter keeps going for 8 seconds on top of Sap Essence. For single target it's the other way around. Mostly Funnel, but throw in Sap Essence for extra healing and Major Sorcery.

Your Magicka and Stamina will gow down, but Siphoning Attacks will replenish some of both, yes, even Stamina, while you're blocking, especially when surrounded by mobs and using Sap Essence. You have to watch your resource pools carefully. As they move down, you'll have to drop block and throw in a few light attacks. Because you are using Siphoning Attacks, that will replenish your resources, both Stamina and Magicka. No need for heavy attacks.

At this stage, with 531 CP, I solo normal dungeons mostly in light armor with 1H + Shield or some fights even just as a DPS with a destro staff. You will still want at least one DPS and one tanking focused gear set with you to do that. For proper tanking I use Footman and Seducer armors (at least 5 heavy), and would recommend Sturdy traits and Defending weapons. I recommend trying things on the cheap, e.g. CP150 purple armor is sufficient. Use purple food and Atronach mundus. Tri-pots, if you can afford them, otherwise just Stamina potions that you find. Aim to have at least 25K health, with food.

The normal dungeons that I find you can solo are these:

Banished Cells, except to complete the very last fight you need high (ranged) DPS rather than tanking.
City of Ash
Spindleclutch
Crypt of Hearts
Volenfell
Fungal Grotto
Darkshade Caverns
Arx Corinium

By the way, I'm old and slow compared to some of the young guys I meet in PvP. Soloing dungeons is ultimately a bit tedious, but it is nice when you do it first and while it won't teach you everything about tanking, it'll teach you the survival part and you'll know it won't be your fault when a group has problems in a normal dungeon. I got the best compliment from a healer once. He said he loved Nightblade tanks. They're so self sufficient!

DaMastodon

I have very little tanking experience in this game, but I agree with a point that was made earlier in the thread: your dps don't sound like know how to nuke things fast enough. I mostly dps and heal, and I consider myself a little bit above average. I can tell you that a dps with any skill should be able to stay alive against at least 2 or 3 non-elite mobs. Unfortunately, you'll run into that in the dungeon finder from time to time. I joined one a week or so ago and the guy that queued as healer was running a 2h and bow lol

OldGamerESO

This is all really great advice!

@fred4 : Soloing some dungeons would help me figure out sustain issues. Does it scale up to 160cp or is that only with a random? I have been using Seducers. I had thought to move to a better tanking set but would lose sap-sustain. What stam should I have on that magicka nightblade. Mine is really low at 8K. What should I bump it up to? For a trash mob should I try to see if I can tank them indefinitely? I tried volenfeld but the fire boss guy kept knocking me around and burning me alive in a sea of fire.

@insape : Deltia's tank looks great but is based on gaining Utimate fast using Tavya. As he says "he gives up mitigation" for this. Can I sustain by going Hist Bark and still generate enough ultimate to restore stam?

And in general I have been using blue 150 gear but I can bump them to purple while I farm for mats. I didn't want to commit to 160 gear until I knew what I really wanted. Baharah's 5 piece looks likes a good set to add to main 5 peice. I need to do the thief's guild stuff to grab that I think.

Thanks again everyone for helping me out!

fred4

I'm quite sure if you are CP160+, the dungeon will be scaled to 160.

Looking up my NB, as I'm writing this. Outside of Cyrodiil, I have:

Magicka: 31.2k (with purple food) or 26.1k (with Orzorga's Red Frothgar)
Health: 27.4k (food), 28.1k (Frothgar)
Stamina: 17.0k (food), 12.7k (Frothgar)

Magicka Recovery: 1387 (food), 2022 (Frothgar)
Health Recovery: 417
Stamina Recovery: 611

Spell Resist: 27.3k (Unbuffed)
Physical Resist: 23.0k (Unbuffed)

Gear has health enchants, except 1 piece has the Hakeijo enchant.

Jewelry is 3 pieces of Footman, CP140. The rings are Robust, the Necklace Healthy. This predates Shadows of the Hist. I believe you can now get CP160 Footman from Dragonstar, or buy it in a guild store. The rings have the Shield Play enchant. The Necklace has a Magicka cost reduction enchant.

Shield is Footman with a health enchant.

I use 2 pieces of Magnus for head and shoulders, simply because I have them. You could substitute a monster set, if you have one.

I have the full Undaunted Mettle passive and am wearing 5/1/1. My race is Breton, so no Stamina bonus there. 8k Stamina is really low. Working with a somewhat larger pool is better, I think. If you buy Footman jewelry, you'll get some from there, on account of them being Robust.

I haven't tanked with my character since before Magicka costs have risen, and thus chose Seducer as my current armor set, since that's kind of what you have to do these days. I would experiment with food vs. Red Frothgar.

CP: 100 into Magician (cost reduction)
75 into Arcanist (regen)
Just 1 into tumbling and 1 into Shadow Ward (blocking)

To be honest that distribution came about, because I like being able to perma-cloak in PvP. Also, if you make Sturdy gear, you'll get much better value out of that than from CP. Cost reduction is nice for NB, especially cost reduction on jewelry, which shaves off a flat amount rather than a percentage. If you put all cost reduction on jewelry, you'll hammer the cost of Funnel Health down so much that it is a net gain (!!), at least before Shadows of the Hist. No sustain issues then, if you ease off on the Sap a bit and throw in more Funnel.

With Sap and Siphoning attacks up you'll want to position yourself to be surrounded by the maximum number of enemies. It increases both the healing and the Siphoning proc chance. Some of the most dangerous places are those where there are a lot of mages or archers who are spread out, because that reduces the effectiveness of Sap (this is what kills me in the final fight of Selene's Web, see below).

CP: Red Tree:
Thick Skinned: 15
Elemental Defender: 31
Hardy: 68
Resistant: 53 (I also PvP)
Quick Recovery: 10

Should you see whether you can tank a trash mob indefinitely? Hmm. With the above tank build, it will feel that way, cause you'll have little damage, but in general you'll be glad to get them over with and you will want to use the Veil of Blades Ultimate in some cases to thin the herd and just hang on and survive.

To be honest, when I replay the dungeons now, I go in with 5 Julianos, 4 Magnus and 3 Willpower (5 light), in other words a DPS setup and my only tanking concession is one hand and shield. This works in the majority of places that I've listed. You can still Sap tank with that gear, however I might even go in with the destro staff, at which point it becomes a question of mowing everything down with Elemental Blockade and Sap quickly enough that you survive. Doesn't work everywhere though and may be something you can only do with full CP. I recommend an Ice Staff for the 60% snare from Elemental Blockade to make melee enemies more manageable.

I find my limit, for soloing, is Selene's Web. That's where I need to switch to the above tanking setup for those spirit panthers and I can't do the last phase of the final boss fight at all.

By the way, if you are in the full tanking gear with the above mitigation, blocking and Refreshing Path, standing in fire isn't usually an issue. Getting hit by the Adjudicator harvester boss in vWGT won't kill you. Standing in the rotating lightning in the Molag Kena fight won't kill you either, at least not immediately, whereas as a DPS you typically must tumble through that.

The Volenfell fire is gone. That dungeon was buggy and you sometimes couldn't progress past that boss. I think they got rid of the fire because of that. Yeah, getting knocked into the fire can be bad, but the beauty of a Sap tank is that you can keep block up most of the time, so you don't get caught out by CC so easily. As far as I remember, I found his rotating attack more of a problem, since it eats through block. I think I handled him as a ranged fight on my Magicka NB.

There are some fights where I switch to ranged. So my second bar, for soloing, is typically something like:

Funnel Health (again, yes, double barred)
Harness Magicka
Healing Ward
Inner Light
Merciless Resolve
Ultimate: Meteor

The last boss in Spindleclutch is one I handle ranged on my Magicka NB. It is tedious, because there is a lot of CC. You are constantly incapacitated and must run away from AOE and use both shields, but it can be done.

Of course, once you tank in a group, your skill loadout will change a bit. I typically switch in Double Take, the Shade (either Morph) for boss damage reduction, and Mark Target on the second bar. The latter two abilities help the whole group.

fred4

Forgot to mention, all my attribute points are in Magicka. I'm also a DPS and switch to tanking with gear alone. I also PvP with the character, so a bunch of my gear has Impen traits. I think that's just about good enough for the 4 man dungeons, but maybe not be good enough for trials, certainly not for veteran trials. People I know, who do those, tend to have specialised characters with attributes, CP, armor traits, everything set up "just so" for their intended function.

If you're in a pickup group people will be suspicious if you don't have enough health (which they can see) or if you're not using 1H + S as a tank. Exactly what your health should be, is debatable. A lot of people would probably say 30k+. Certainly high health can prevent you from being one shotted. The thing about NB tanks, though, is that ability to keep block up for a large portion of the time. I think we can get away with less.

Arciris

For casual play, I would say that tanking Easy Mode is actually Magika Sorcerer Vampire.
Very easy to gear up for a starter build:
5 HA Seducer, 5 Bahara's Curse (sword and shield on bar 2 to proc it, on bar 1 you can keep Willpower sword and shield), any Monster Set you can get your hands on (preferred Engine Guardian or Bloodspawn but really for most dungeons you can even run Maw of the Infernal for the lolz). Put every point and enchants in magika, healthy rings, 1 piece monster set and racials should be enough health with purple food (for some stamina). I like Argonians better for this, but any magika or health race will do actually.
As you find better gear you can try different combos of course, but these 2 sets are quite easy to come by.
On Bar 1 (willpower bar) keep hardened ward and harness magika (both shields combined should grant you a fat 40k damage shield) as they scale off max magika. Then distribute your skills as you best see fit.
An example:
Bar 1: (willpower)
Hardened ward, Harness Magika, Mist Form, Summon, Bound Aegis/Inner light
Ult: Aggressive Warhorn if you have it, if not, go for Meteor just for the Mages guild passives.
Bar 2: (Bahara's)
Encase, Lightening Flood, Taunt, Summon, Bound Aegis/Inner light
Ult: Overload
Bar 3 (overload bar/buff bar): Lightening Form, Evasion, Power surge, Summon, Bound Aegis/Inner Light

- Prefer Inner Light over Bound Aegis when a healer is keeping up Combat Prayer.
- Summons can differ from dungeon to dungeon and group to group: Clannfear for a tankier pet and self heal, Twilight Matriarch for a great heal support. When they are an hindrance, replace them with Structured Entropy on all bars(in that case you'll need Dark exchange for self heals).
-Taunt can be Inner fire (don't morph it) or Puncture, depends on the boss, if you need range or debuffs.
- Bar 2 is your trash pull bar, feel free to remove Encase in Boss fights without adds. Endless Fury is a good replacement, to help your team in execute phase or Dark Exchange, if you struggle with resources (no Engine Guardian) or even Essence Drain for ultimate regen (15 over 3 secs).
So, for Trash Pulls: Drop Lightning Flood from afar and Encase them as they start running to you. That way you can anticipate hasty DDs Then Taunt biggest threats.
- Shock spells have a chance to apply Concuss effect, which in turns debuffs targets with Minor Maim (15% less damage done) both lightning Flood and Lightening Form are Shock spells, keep them up at all times, as well as your shields.
- Mist Form: anytime you run out on stamina to block or break free, pop Mist form but weapon swap/cancel it rapidly to not be inactive for 5 secs. If you don't want to go Vamp, then Dark Exchange is the skill you need
- Make sure to refresh your overload buffs before poping Warhorn, all of them last 20 secs, you should have enough ultimate after that time to access your overload bar again to reapply them on time.
-When you need burst damage (Plannar Inhibitor portal phase) go Overload - 1-shot portals easily. In extreme need of magika, 1 or 2 shots of overload will also help a lot.

For CP:
Blue tree: distribute points equally in Elemental Expert and Blessed first, keep 10 points for the Atronach, i like the light attacks with swords, axes, etc (first star grants a chance to return damage when blocking) and 31 points for Thaumaturge.
Green tree: if you're at cap, it's easy: 100 points in magika cost reduction and the rest in block, roll dodge and break free cost reduction.
Red tree: 100 points in Bastion, rest in Hardy and Elemental defender. With the remaining points try to get the last star of the Lord.

For jewelry enchants: magika cost reduction of course.

acw37162

I run a NB tank with much thanks to @Gilliamtherogue for his videos, math, and general information sharing.

5 Tavas
5 Baharas Curse on my S&B bar
2 Bloodspawn

I either run double S&B or S&B and Resto (4 Baharas on the resto)

All infused with Hakejo again thanks @Gilliamtherogue.

I even run decisive weapons to be a ulti generating machine.

To echo some above comments, if your DPS are dead set on dying first let them. As you said above DPS are a dime a dozen and the wait for a new one is no time.

Taunting every mob In a trash pool is a waste of resources, be the first to AoE as many as possible and then taunt the highest priority target archers, big guys running around with 2 headers, giant dadera etc. if something wonders off range taunt it back.

Roatating buffs should get easier with practice and smaller pulls. Once you get the hang of it it will become second nature.

Always carry Major Resolve and Major award and if you have a class skill that gives Minor Reslove and Ward stack these whenever you can.

Carry Absord Magica (defensive posture) and use this whenever you have a boss with a ranged Magic attack i.e. Nerienith Lord Warden or ranged magic adds it completely negates them and heals you.

Know what attacks from bosses and adds are bash able.

Tanking pugs can be rough most of them think they know what's going on but don't actually know what's going on.

Leave a group of they are a pain, your a tank someone else need one I promise.

fred4

So many different approaches. Bahraha's looks good too. You'll have to decide on a philosophy and commit to it. Wanna build ultimate? I like the recommendation of Tava's and Bloodspawn. Then use Heroic Slash.

For my blocking NB build, I wouldn't go with Bloodspawn ... the stam regen is a bit wasted and the Spell Resistance will already be on the limit. I'd probably recommend Engine Guardian or Malubeth.

If you want to test infinite sustain, go to Selene's Web and try to solo the spirit panther fight. You'll know it when you see it. It is NASTY and right on the limit of what I can handle with my blocking build. If you don't kill the boss, it is an endless fight.

Shanjijri

fred4 wrote: »

I got the best compliment from a healer once. He said he loved Nightblade tanks. They're so self sufficient!

If the healer was an elegant Khajiit Nightblade, maybe it was me. I exactly said that to a few Nightblade tanks. I love Nightblade healers and tanks.

newtinmpls

My best friend (husband) has recently started tanking, and his is based off of the Blazing Shield Templar Tank build.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZDzhIR1tnU

Even very new to the tank role, he did/does ridiculously well with it - so it seems like it might be a place for you to start. It's on my "to do" list, but I haven't done much playing with it yet.

Brrrofski

leandro.800ub17_ESO wrote: »

Some quick recomendations of someone thats tanks since day 1. Already completed Vet New Dungeons

-Go Stamina Dragonknight
-Use Class like Imperial or Nord
-Focus on self bufs and let healer worry about heping dps
-Go 1h Shield on both bars
-Get to around 30k hp 30k stam
-Sets for full tanking to use: Footman ; Hist Bark ; Mazataum ; Yokeda ; Lunar Bast ;

Great advise. Ditch your class and use another one.

Other classes can tank absolutely fine too. DKs have chains that no other class does. Only advantage. Templars can heal others, saptanks put out good damage. For 4 man dungeons, either of them are probably better.

fred4

Having been up against Blazing Shield builds in PvP, I'll second that recommendation. As far as I understand them, these are builds where you spec for really high health, like 50k+, at which point Blazing Shield will be huge and it returns decent damage to attackers. The high health and large shield sound perfect for a tank and I can believe that this will trump every other build in terms of effectiveness, although I have not played a Templar myself.

OldGamerESO

I've never wanted to try that because it make the Templar only useful as tank since you have to change race and put points in health. Can't swap out equipment for another role. And you need a lot of CP invested in Bastion, and you have a lot less Magicka for healing and adding support. I am not sure it is worth it but I admit it sounds fun to try. Like the sorcerer-tank you could also double shield with absorb magic.

I am willing to turn my Dk into tank only, but not my Templar .

DaneWilson87

fred4 wrote: »

Having been up against Blazing Shield builds in PvP, I'll second that recommendation. As far as I understand them, these are builds where you spec for really high health, like 50k+, at which point Blazing Shield will be huge and it returns decent damage to attackers. The high health and large shield sound perfect for a tank and I can believe that this will trump every other build in terms of effectiveness, although I have not played a Templar myself.

I've got 44k hp when I'm 4 man self buffed, pre-pull. And my blazing shield hits consistently for 4-8k. It depends on how much incoming damage before I put up a new one. But I will spam it when going in on a pack and grab aggro on them.

I run Histbark + Endurance + Song of Lamae.

I'm thinking about running Histbark + Footmans + Bloodspawn. Or Tava's + Footman's + Bloodspawn.

fred4

I'm going to post another build here. It is not the best at anything, but turned out the most all round useful build that I've made using only a single set of armor, and it's easy to play. The single-target DPS is good and can be quite bursty, but at the same time it has high health and tankiness. It's weakness is a lack of AOE DPS.

This build is for a Nord stamina DK. It is a non-standard build, although I have met a few others who are doing similar things.

Armor sets: 5x Torug's Pact, 5x Viper, 2x Bloodspawn. 5 Heavy, 1 medium, 1 light. Hakeijo enchants on the big pieces. Stamina enchants on the small ones. All weapon damage enchants on the jewelry. Stamina enchant on the shield. Main weapons with Infused trait. A mixture of enchants on the weapons, from the following list: Poison damage, Disease Damage, Increase Weapon Damage, Prismatic. Mundus: The Thief.

The idea is to maximise weapon and armor set procs by combining Torug's Pact and Infused weapons. The tooltip of the poison and disease damage enchants comes out as 5,000. The prismatic one at 8,000. The enchants can proc every 1.6 seconds or thereabouts. The Viper enchant (tooltip: 7874) every 4 seconds.

The beauty of this is that the enchants, as well as Viper, do not depend on your stamina, nor your weapon damage. This is both good and bad. The average single-target DPS against giants and Mammoths is about 12.5k (self-buffed, no Ultimates). You will not be a DPS champion with this build and you do not reap big improvements from pushing Stamina and Weapon Damage, because half your damage comes from procs. You can push damage a bit more by going medium and using Skoria, but really the point of the build is to push health and tankiness instead. I currently have 32 points in Health, 24 in Stamina, and 8 in Magicka with this build.

Main Bar: Dual Wield, so you have 2 enchanted weapons. Swords are preferable, because the DW passive pushes the enchats and Viper higher. You could use 2 Infused, but I actually went with a Defending weapon in the off-hand. The reason for this is that the secondary weapon only procs every third light / heavy attack or from Twin Slashes. Twin Slashes incidentally ONLY procs the secondary weapon enchant. Basically you're not going to get the secondary weapon enchant to proc every 1.6 seconds, so Infused is a bit wasted on it.

Bloodthirst
Dragon Fire Scales (or Volatile / Hardened Armor)
Steel Tornado (or Fossilize in PvP)
Shuffle
Evil Hunter (for more crit)
Ultimate: Dawnbreaker (PvE/PvP) or Ferocious Leap (PvP)

Off Bar: One hand and Shield

Heroic Slash
Shielded Assault (gap closer)
Igneous Shield
Resolving Vigor
Coagulating Blood
Ultimate: Standard of Might (PvE) or Ferocious Leap (PvP: Big shield from high health, even in PvP)

Potion: Speed, Major Brutality and Stamina. Dragonthorn, Blessed Thistle, Namira's Rot. I like this potion, because it has no Columbine in it, so it's not super expensive. The speed is really useful in PvP. One of the problems with this build is that your best source of DPS is Bloodthirst and you have to keep on top of your opponent for the 0.6 seconds that takes to complete. This is also why Shuffle is on the front bar to clear snares.

I am not a really good player, but I've had more success with this build in vMA and in PvP than with any other. I don't think it is the best build ever and it has a ceiling, but it's easy to play. For DPS, basically spam Bloodthirst / light attacks. Nothing else really improves on that with this build. The value of Steel Tornado in PvE is even a bit questionable with this build. Basically what this means is that I could stuff a lot of utility onto the front bar, e.g. Dragon Scales, Fossilize, Shuffle, Evil Hunter (for player detection in PvP).

There is really only one buff: Shuffle. It sounds like you hate buffing up as much as I do. The three heals on the back bar are more reactive and I typically go Igneous Shield, Vigor, Coagulating Blood in sequence. The much maligned Dragon Blood is actually a really good burst heal in that combo, especially if it was already running. I thought I couldn't live without Rally, but I can. Green Dragon Blood is not recommended, as long as you use my recommended potion, which does the same thing.

What else? Did I mention it's a bit bursty? Your first hit will proc both your weapon enchant and Viper reliably. No RNG (I'm looking at you, Red Mountain). This has some interesting consquences. It helps one shot or near-one shot some things in Maelstrom. I just finished Banished Cells solo. You have to kill off the floating bubbles, before they heal the final boss. That turned out really easy with Flying Blade. There really is more punch in that first hit than I get on any of my other characters. I think closing portals in WGT will be easy with this build. And in PvP ... well I have been told I don't do enough damage in duels, but I still have hope.

I could go on. There are some issues with CP to mention. There's a reason you'd use Pierce Armor, not Ransack. But I have to go. If anyone is interested, let me know.

fred4

I forgot to mention I use tri-drinks with this build. Magicka recovery is as important as stamina recovery, while Health recovery is boosted by the Nord passive.

In case you're scratching your head as to why I posted this build here, it feels almost as tanky as my NB Sap tank while soloing dungeons. It already uses 1H + S and could easily be adapted for tanking, but you'll also have some bite. I think it will suit the 4 man dungeons.