Vampire NB Tank

WalksonGraves

Benefits:
1. 30% self heal
2. 30% dr below 50% hp
3. Any pot gives all resources and 20 ult in addition to it's effects.
4. Long lasting dodge
5. 6-31 ult/second

So the build itself is simple, all points into hp.
That gives you 50k hp and 10k of each resource. Almost all abilities are magika based to leave stam available for blocking. Can also be modified easily into a healer.

So front bar is
1. Inner rage (mag range taunt)
2. invigorating drain
3. dark shades (Maim + major def)
4. Swallow soul (8% healing taken + passives)
5. Structured Entropy
5. Bolstering Darkness (60% dr)

Back bar
1. Melee taunt (piercing strike)
2. Invigorating Drain
3. Mirage(dodge + minor def)
4. Teleport strike
5. refreshing path
6. assault horn

My setup is Dragon guard for reduced ult cost, hide of the werewolf as jewelry and sword and shield and Bloodspawn.

Cp points for mag are all in healing and crit, cp for thieves in mag regen, for warrior split between phys/mag resistance as always with enough spread around to grab the dr when rezzing perk and the bash heal.

3x shield play enchants to make 10k stam enough for blocking.

Final healing is 55%/35% given/taken. You could dump cp into healing taken but you'd weaken your dr too much.

Mist can be used after initating block to survive lethal one hit.

The jist of the build is when at high hp apply shades and mirage and taunt. When hp gets low spam invigorating drain, or at high hp just for the ult generation. Don't use it if the boss is about to do a heavy attack and leave yourself open. Use teleport and refreshing path for mobility to retain stam for blocks. If done properly you can either tank indefinitely in bolstering darkness if having survival issues or most likely constantly popping Assault Horn.

leandro.800ub17_ESO

Looks good on paper and i bet heath regen is no issue but tank with 10k stam i dont see it

WalksonGraves

Lol @ on paper, this build exists. The reason 10k stam works is block is reduced by 900 ish so I can use it 10 times before depletion, ignoring that my stam regen is 1500. I don't have to block non heavy attacks because my self heal overtakes the dps. The only other stam ability is piercing strike and it's cheap.

spencer2361

Just look at Deltias catalyst build. I use it and all my points are in magicka

WalksonGraves

spencer2361 wrote: »

Just look at Deltias catalyst build. I use it and all my points are in magicka

Kind of defeats the point of hp scaling abilities, I could give 2 *** about some youtubers build. I have no issues with resources but if I did there is always siphoning strikes. I don't see why being easily swatted would benefit a tank.

Rohamad_Ali

Post a video of you can . I would be interested in watching .

WalksonGraves

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Post a video of you can . I would be interested in watching .

I'll put one up later today.

pjwb16_ESO

No Chains...

WalksonGraves

pjwb16_ESO wrote: »

No Chains...

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Swarm+Mother+Set

But seriously, you can easily maneuver the ai by taunting and manipulating line of sight.

WalksonGraves

https://1drv.ms/v/s!ApixwHVb7jGagWrGI1Uv2DttmjC3

Went and had some wb adds beat up on me.
Disclaimer: Threw on a lvl 30 green ring to complete a set for this video and am not using ideal gear so im squishier than usual.

xRIVALENx

Is the 10k stamina without a food buff? If so then it would most certainly be viable.

Autolycus

If you allocate your CP across Ele Expert, Blessed, Elfborn, and Thaumaturge collectively, rather than exclusively for Blessed and Elfborn (to be clear, I'm suggesting having a respectable number of points in all four), you will optimize your setup more effectively. Diminishing returns on CP allocations makes a very strong case for spreading the points out and maximizing the benefits of several stars. Ele Expert is the main star in which to focus, followed by Elfborn, then Blessed, then Thauma, whereas Thauma only needs a few points. However, you aren't using the skills/gear that would benefit from Thauma currently, and Thauma will only boost the damage component of Invigorating Drain, not the healing portion.

Having only 10k stamina is not a problem for a NB, except for veteran hardmode trial bosses. However, I would suggest that your max magicka is too low. If you were to reallocate your health into magicka, and supplement your stamina to ~15k, your heals will be substantially more potent, and your stamina recovery is already unnecessary. I tank with ~800 magicka recovery and <700 stamina recovery in all content. The epitome of NB tanking is sustain through the use of light-attack weaving with Siphoning Attacks.

As an extension of the Siphoning Attacks concept, doing this flawlessly works wonders with respect to block cost. You don't need three shield play enchants to minimize the cost of blocking if you are able to effectively weave your attacks; in fact, you need exactly zero. What this means is that it opens you up to use SD glyphs instead, further enhancing your self-healing capabilities (alongside of higher max magicka). The point here is not to deal damage; rather, to optimize the build into one that is totally self-reliant and, by nature, efficient (to clarify, this is in fact boosting your damage, but for the ultimate purpose of boosting healing).

The low-health DR of vampirism is rather pointless, since a proper build will already reach ~85% overall mitigation just through armor/spell resist, Minor Maim, and block mitigation. Coupled with Major Evasion, there is really no point in having more DR. Bolstering Darkness is great and I advocate its use, however for anything other than hardmode trial bosses, it doesn't compare to the utility of Aggressive Horn. Same goes for vampirism; I presume you chose this more for flavor, but I suppose it could have been selected for recoveries. However, building recovery into a NB tanking setup is unnecessary because of Siphoning Attacks + light attack weaving, and your investments into this would be better spent elsewhere.

Your health is about 20k too high, imo. There's nothing wrong with having a reasonable health pool (I recommend 30k+ for hardmode trial bosses), but with that health threshold you are sinking a lot of resources into a dump stat that doesn't make you any stronger, nor does it offer any semblance of sustain, damage, healing, or group utility.

Deep Slash is a better source of Minor Maim than Shades because of its ability to proc Siphoning Attacks and because of the added utility (snare). Invigorating Drain is counter-productive since it requires a 3s channel (which is probably why you stack health, since you can't block). The ultimate gain from this skill is just unnecessary - NBs are the most effective class at rapid ult recovery already, and you're building all of your sets around ulti-gen already, so this is plain overkill. The time you spend channeling Drain is better spent debuffing mobs with Fracture, Breach, Crushing, Vulnerability, or literally any other form of CC (like snares).

I notice that you don't use Sap Essence at all. Not only is this one of the most cost-effective ways to maintain uptime on Major Sorcery and Brutality, but it also serves as an aggro skill. Applying a single Sap Essence after running into a pull almost guarantees that you have aggro on everything in range for long enough to force taunt the priority adds. Using this will boost your self-healing (especially if you supplement your magicka and SD) and will "tidy up" all of your pulls in dungeons and trials. Perhaps something worth noting here is that NB sustain does not revolve around sapping nonstop like most seem to think - true sustain comes from light attacks.

Sorry for the long-winded post. I am an advocate for finding ways to make your preferred playstyle viable in endgame content, and I think you should keep working on this build to make that happen. I could offer quite a bit of advice and help to see this come to fruition, or even if you browsed through my NB tanking guide, there might be some insight you find valuable.

WalksonGraves

I get that you're trying to be helpful but here's why it doesn't really work. Thaumaturge does zip for my build as whatever damage added is completely useless.

I have spellcrit for heals only. Hp pool is the core of a tanks utility, that and defense determines how long you can survive.
Not to mention the utility of invigorating drain is directly proportional to max hp. Sap is marginally useful, the heal is pathetic compared to invigorating drain (3k vs 6-18k) and I already do opening aoe with teleport strike. The damage bonus from sap is personal so it's worthless for a tank.

If anything I forgot to mention bone shield, I've been hitting it prior to invigorating drain to further gird myself. 15k shield that can stack with mist, so good.

Autolycus

WalksonGraves wrote: »

I get that you're trying to be helpful but here's why it doesn't really work. Thaumaturge does zip for my build as whatever damage added is completely useless.

I have spellcrit for heals only. Hp pool is the core of a tanks utility, that and defense determines how long you can survive.
Not to mention the utility of invigorating drain is directly proportional to max hp. Sap is marginally useful, the heal is pathetic compared to invigorating drain (3k vs 6-18k) and I already do opening aoe with teleport strike. The damage bonus from sap is personal so it's worthless for a tank.

If anything I forgot to mention bone shield, I've been hitting it prior to invigorating drain to further gird myself. 15k shield that can stack with mist, so good.

Do you know how to define "defense?" I mean, in terms of mitigation values: block mitigation, physical/spell resistance mitigation, buff/debuff mitigation, and class/skill passive mitigation. Block mitigation is the easiest to optimize, as this is mostly done simply by having 1H&S passives and actively blocking. Armor/spell resistances are optimized in a number of ways, one of which being through Major Ward/Resolve, which are you doing with Shades. However, there are more efficient ways than Shades to do this. Usually NB tanks do it through Refreshing Path, but that doesn't mean you have to.

I watched your video several times, and I examined the specs you posted in the OP thoroughly. You have a lot of room for improvement. Mist form is inherently counterproductive because your healer will almost always try to heal you when you reach those low levels. What this means is that you are deliberately wasting your healer's resources, and you should be alleviating that by not being squishy, rather than taking a ton of damage and then preventing heals. And, you give up a ton of mitigation by channeling Invigorating Drain. While you have a decent level of self-healing in your build, you have a serious lack of mitigation (or what you call defense).

The core of tanking utility is not their health pool. Any experienced tank will tell you that health is a dump stat - which by definition means no utility. Most trash in trials will destroy your entire shield in a single hit. There are niche scenarios in which properly-timed damage shields can afford valuable utility to your group, but of all damage shields and their potential, Bone Shield is the weakest and is also counterproductive in most practical settings (but that's an entirely different topic). You can boost the strength of Annulment to be equally as potent as Bone Shield by stacking magicka instead. The key difference here is that boosting your magicka will positively affect your other skills, whereas your health will not (hence the term "dump stat").

I have a lot of experience on my NB as a tank. My intent here was to help you learn some of the things I've already spent time on, to save you that time, and to help you improve. In your video, you take on a handful of mobs (relatively weak ones, compared to trials) and you are very squishy. You do not weave light attacks at all; in fact, you don't even use Siphoning Attacks. You frequently run out of resources and the only thing you can reliably cast is Invigorating Drain, which is part of the reason you are squishy to begin with. I can almost guarantee that you will struggle with some trials bosses in this setup, and a handful of them will probably 1-shot you if you tank like you do in the video.

One does not get better by ignoring the advice of others, but disregarding it is your choice. I know plenty of vampire tanks, and I have a great deal of experience with how to work it into builds. You don't want the help - well, that's your prerogative.

WalksonGraves

That video was to show the ult generation, did you not see the part where I said I was using lvl (not vet) 30 rings? I'm down 4k defense and 2k hp in that vid.

Btw shades are a much more efficient way of maintaining maim. Constant reapplication for 24 seconds on multiple targets and it gives you 5k defense on cast.

Mist form is only used at max hp and can be canceled instantly. No one is healing you until after you take damage so it literally is never an issue. It's far more efficient than blocking. 50% mitigation vs 75%.

Your suggestions dont help because Thaumaturge does nothing. Invigorating drain's healing isnt affected by it and increasing 2k dmg to 2.25k is hardly worth 100 cp.

Whatever damage I could put out is far less than the bonus others get from horn and every point away from your focus weakens you.

I'm not dismissing your suggestions out of hand, ive just already considered those options and found them less effective.

Autolycus

WalksonGraves wrote: »

That video was to show the ult generation, did you not see the part where I said I was using lvl (not vet) 30 rings? Btw shades are a much more efficient way of maintaining maim. Constant reapplication for 24 seconds on multiple targets and it gives you 5k defense on cast.

Mist form is only used at max hp and can be canceled instantly. No one is healing you until after you take damage so it literally is never an issue. It's far more efficient than blocking.

Okay, then I will leave you be.

Good luck.

WalksonGraves

Please show me the benefits of Thaumaturge.

NoFlash

sorry Walkson but Autolycus is 'right' in this situation. Everyone can have their own build, but if you are able to get a group and go tank a trials you will see how wrong your build is.

WalksonGraves

I completed Hel Ra with zero problems. I'll show you how a real tank works once im done farming and upgrading my new gear.

Autolycus

EvoAZN wrote: »

sorry Walkson but Autolycus is 'right' in this situation. Everyone can have their own build, but if you are able to get a group and go tank a trials you will see how wrong your build is.

That's not quite what I meant. I don't believe there is anything inherently "wrong" with vampire tanking, regardless of class. There are plenty of people (I know many personally) who tank as vamps. I meant that there is room for improvement in several areas; there are many things that @WalksonGraves can do to make this build stronger.

But it really doesn't matter, because the OP believes I am wrong and doesn't want the advice. That's his/her prerogative. No point in wasting time teaching someone who doesn't want to learn.

Truth be told, the only reason I bothered responding here after I said I wouldn't anymore is simply to clarify your quote above. It is like I said before: I advocate people catering to their preferred playstyle, and finding ways to make it viable end-game. I incorrectly presumed that the OP would accept advice and help in making it work. I actually enjoy helping people work out the kinks in their build.

It's what I've done in this game for over two years now. Historically speaking, NB tanks have been the underdog in almost everything. For the first year after ESO's release, the vastly overwhelming majority of the community absolutely would not accept a NB tank for anything, including dungeons. Meanwhile, I was busy completing everything that everyone said I couldn't. Compared to DKs, there are very few NB tanks out there, and even fewer still who are willing to share what they know with others.

WalksonGraves wrote: »

I completed Hel Ra with zero problems. I'll show you how a real tank works once im done farming and upgrading my new gear.

This is very arrogant and ignorant. It's like you think that making a few gear adjustments is going to suddenly make all other NB tanks obsolete. When you do eventually perfect your build, and I sincerely believe you will at some point, it will simply be among the other "real tank builds" that already exist. Do you think you are the first person to try stacking health and spamming Invigorating Drain? Or the first to try actively casting damage shields? Congrats on your HRC clear. Now go clear it on vet HM.

WalksonGraves

I'm just saying that there is an obvious advantage to having a deep hp pool as a tank especially when you use scaling abilities. Turning it into a sap tank improves nothing. Survivability is hp x def = time, you want a thick wall.

Autolycus

WalksonGraves wrote: »

I'm just saying that there is an obvious advantage to having a deep hp pool as a tank especially when you use scaling abilities. Turning it into a sap tank improves nothing. Survivability is hp x def = time, you want a thick wall.

There is little advantage to stacking health aside from avoiding 1-shot mechanics. If you are so keen on using damage shields, you'd benefit a lot more from using Annulment and stacking magicka, because your max magicka benefits all of your class skills, whereas your health does not. Magicka makes your damage stronger. Higher damage as a NB = more healing. I tried once already to explain this to you, and all you did was argue with me about Thaumaturge (which I specifically stated is the least important of the CP stars). Thauma is only important if you're using specific sets.

One of the most beautiful things about NB tanking is that you needn't drop block to heal yourself. You're opening yourself up to a ton of damage by using Invigorating Drain instead of taking advantage of the incredible sustain potential that NBs have to offer. A little magicka and spell damage, and you can easily stand there, blocking indefinitely, racking in the heals from abilities that don't require you to drop block, and without ever going below 70% stam.

WalksonGraves

You're totally wrong. Healing has nothing to do with damage because invigorating drain is based on MISSING HP. Healing done boosts it to 31% on the tooltip and that doesnt count healing taken. Thats 100% healing over 3 seconds. 15k a sec or less.

None of the skills I use scale with stam or mag.

Autolycus

WalksonGraves wrote: »

You're totally wrong. Healing has nothing to do with damage because invigorating drain is based on MISSING HP. Healing done boosts it to 31% on the tooltip and that doesnt count healing taken. Thats 100% healing over 3 seconds. 15k a sec or less.

None of the skills I use scale with stam or mag.

Forget Invigorating Drain. It's hindering your potential. You're right that Invigorating Drain doesn't rely upon your magicka and SD; it's also a bad tanking skill. You can heal yourself more effectively by using your class abilities. That's been my point this whole time: you are limiting your potential by relying on the wrong skills. You can do so much better if you use class skills and allocate your attributes and CP differently.

Furthermore, if you had the mitigation you think you have, you wouldn't need but a minute fraction of the healing you think you need. And you can outpace the healing of Invigorating Drain by building properly too.

I have personally tried what you are doing. That's the whole reason I commented here in the first place.

WalksonGraves

Autolycus wrote: »

WalksonGraves wrote: »

You're totally wrong. Healing has nothing to do with damage because invigorating drain is based on MISSING HP. Healing done boosts it to 31% on the tooltip and that do

Forget Invigorating Drain. It's hindering your potential.

See your inability to see the potential of the most powerful skill in the game makes your opinions meaningless.

Autolycus

WalksonGraves wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

WalksonGraves wrote: »

You're totally wrong. Healing has nothing to do with damage because invigorating drain is based on MISSING HP. Healing done boosts it to 31% on the tooltip and that do

Forget Invigorating Drain. It's hindering your potential.

See your inability to see the potential of the most powerful skill in the game makes your opinions meaningless.

That makes no sense. I literally just said I've tried it.

Look, I've been NB tanking for almost 3 years. You say that it's more efficient than blocking? Did you know that, as a NB tank, you can reduce your effective block cost to such low thresholds that you actually regain more resources than you expend by blocking? No other class can do that like a NB can, because it's done through resources regained by light-attacking with Siphoning Attacks.

WalksonGraves

Autolycus wrote: »

WalksonGraves wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

WalksonGraves wrote: »

You're totally wrong. Healing has nothing to do with damage because invigorating drain is based on MISSING HP. Healing done boosts it to 31% on the tooltip and that do

Forget Invigorating Drain. It's hindering your potential.

See your inability to see the potential of the most powerful skill in the game makes your opinions meaningless.

That makes no sense. I literally just said I've tried it.

Look, I've been NB tanking for almost 3 years. You say that it's more efficient than blocking? Did you know that, as a NB tank, you can reduce your effective block cost to such low thresholds that you actually regain more resources than you expend by blocking? No other class can do that like a NB can.

Wow 3 years. I was tanking in vanilla wow, I've tanked eso since launch. I don't know how many times you can be explained 75% > 50%.

Autolycus

WalksonGraves wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

WalksonGraves wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

WalksonGraves wrote: »

You're totally wrong. Healing has nothing to do with damage because invigorating drain is based on MISSING HP. Healing done boosts it to 31% on the tooltip and that do

Forget Invigorating Drain. It's hindering your potential.

See your inability to see the potential of the most powerful skill in the game makes your opinions meaningless.

That makes no sense. I literally just said I've tried it.

Look, I've been NB tanking for almost 3 years. You say that it's more efficient than blocking? Did you know that, as a NB tank, you can reduce your effective block cost to such low thresholds that you actually regain more resources than you expend by blocking? No other class can do that like a NB can.

Wow 3 years. I was tanking in vanilla wow, I've tanked eso since launch. I don't know how many times you can be explained 75% > 50%.

LMAO

So you avoided the question, the constructive portion of my response, yet again. You have a bad habit of focusing on the irrelevant. Tanking in WoW is different from ESO, someone with your alleged experience should know that. I tanked in WoW for years myself, but that carries no weight in ESO.

I think you are misrepresenting your experience, but it doesn't really matter. You'll eventually come to see the same things I tried to share.

Anyway, I can only argue with a brick wall for so long before I get bored.

WalksonGraves

Lol ok jr.

actosh

If u only have 50% mitigation while blocking you are doin something wrong @WalksonGraves .

Every Basic Tank Build has 78% or even more.
As long as it is working for u im fine, but i dont think u can handle hel ra warrior hm.

Gl to u.

WalksonGraves

Blocking adds 50%, that isn't my total mitigation.
I didn't say I don't block btw, I just use mist as an alternative if my stam is down. Once the boss heavy attack is over I drain him to cap out my hp. The entire time im pumping out ult so I onlt have about 10 seconds every 30 where I don't have 60% dmg reduction on top of 20% from cp, 15% from maim and reducing that by a further 75%:means 100k hit becomes easily absorbed by my colossal hp pool. But please tell me how great your cookie cutter sap tank is.