The Tank build this one runs (also, help with skill bars)

OneKhajiitCrimeWave

Ok, so since the update this one has been testing a different build on the Imperial DK tank that this Khajiit plays on. This is designed for Ultimate Generation as well as the Resistances.

Head - Heavy Reinforced Pirate Skeleton
Shoulder - Heavy Reinforced Mighty Chudan
Chest - Sturdy Shalk Exoskeleton
Hands - Reinforced Shalk Exoskeleton (Still looking for sturdy)
Waist - Sturdy Shalk Exoskeleton
Legs - Infused Shalk Exoskeleton
Feet - Divines Shalk Exoskeleton (again this one wishes to have sturdy)

Jewellery - Werewolf Hide
Main Weapon - Defending Axe of Werewolf Hide
Off Hand - Reinforced Shield of Werewolf Hide.

Unbuffed resistances are:

Spell - 30,144
Physical - 29,599

Health - 28,446
Stamina - 29,918
Magicka - 14,398

Front Bar as follows:

Pierce Armor, Invasion (used to gap close archers and range), Burning Talons (this one prefers over Choking Talons), Absorb Magic, Heroic Slash and the ultimate is Aggressive Horn.

The issue this one has with this bar is 1 skill. As this one automatically has Minor Heroism permanently from 5 pieces Shalk, Heroic Slash is not needed on the bar but this one is not sure what skill to replace it with. The 5 piece of Werewolf providing 5 ultimate when damaged means that Evasion is not needed.

Back Bar is:

Stone giant, Igneous Shield, Resolving Vigor, Unstoppable, Inner Beast and the Ultimate is Magma Shell (Rarely used)

This one does not know whether to put Igneous weapons on the front bar, or Chains? Or does this one move a skill from the back bar to the front and then slot a different skill on the back bar?

Mr_Apollo

Okay, I don't wanna sound mean, but...I think you have a lot of spread out sets around that...your build is around Ultimate Regen yet you don't have one of the most useful set combos, Tavas Favor and Bloodspawn, so lets go ahead and state what each set does:

Tavas Favour
(2 Items) Adds 1064 Maximum Health
(3 Items) Adds 129 Stamina Recovery
(4 Items) Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
(5 Items) When you dodge an attack you receive the blessing of Tava and gain 9 Ultimate over 3 seconds.

Bloodspawn
(1 items) Adds 129 Stamina Recover
(2 items) When you take damage, you have a 6% chance to generate 15 Ultimate and increase your Physical and Spell Resistance by 6450 for 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds

Equip Shuffle (Evasion morph) and keep it up, basically, shuffle will give you major evasion, which means, you have a 20% dodge chance while the effect is active, which means, not only will you dodge attacks for no stamina cost, but you will also gain 9 ultimate for 3 seconds, and it has no cooldown. Equiping Heroic slash and using it each time the effect ends will give you your ultimate pretty darn quickly. I also advise on 5 heavy, 1 medium and 1 light due to the Undaunted passive for extra health. Both of those sets are really good for an ultimate regen tank build, I highly advise.

Skillwise though:

I as a DK normally have a mainly dps bar for soloing and helping with the dps and a support bar, where I keep all my buffs.

1-Pierce Armour
2-Obsidian Shard (heals as well)
3-Searing Strike (Heals if spammed, can be switch to venomous claw though if youre more of a stamina one)
4-Choking Talons (Its much better than burning ones because it also debuffs enemies AND boss, itll make them deal less damage
5- Chains (cant quite remember the morph, but the one who refunds magica, basically you can spam it on a boss for an unlimited DPS, and it can also be used in mobs to bring them closer to you for taunting)
Ultimate- Aggressive Warhorn

Backbar
1-Inner rage (Theres only two taunts in this game, get this one for the second taunt, its ranged and highly useful)
2-Shuffle
3-Igneous Shield (Shields and will give you major mending giving you more healing done)
4-Draw Essence (to regain magica, good one)
5-Coagulating blood (For self heals)
Ultimate- Magma Shell (My panic button)

Volatile armor is also useful if you want to change for any of those skills

This is merely a suggestion, you can try it on PTS if you wanna test out the build, but I normally use this one for ultimate regen. Its highly useful. Your thoughts would be appreciated

OneKhajiitCrimeWave

This one is a console player so no PTS unfortunately. Dark Moons

This one tried the Tava's Tank and was not very fond of it, as Khajiit found the ultimate generation relied mostly on dodging (pure chance) while the build this one runs now provides ultimate whether dodging or taking damage. This one does however want to test a Heavy Head and Shoulder of Bloodspawn to see if this can generate even faster while having the necessary amount of resistance so cap can be reached (not sure if it's possible as the head and should currently provide around 10k of resistance between them total).

They do provide ultimate generation on a similar rate (around 40-45 seconds to build enough for warhorn) and generates like crazy during trash mobs, even when this one is not able to get Heroic Slash going (when the DPS is good).

Maybe chains could be the way forward as the other skill

This one can maybe swap the weapon/shield around to get a medium belt and have a 6-1 rather than the 7-0 Khajiit currently runs. Worthy of testing at least.

Mr_Apollo

Love it when peeps actually take advice rather than bitching. Bloody love it mate! Made my day. Either way, youre right, but youll find out that the 20% dodge chance is per hit, and it procs on a single hit, that 20% dodge chance saved my tanky sorry ass multiple times, im pretty sure you can also raise your resistance (if you think you don't have enough) with mundus stones and CP points into spell resistant (which raises your spell resistance). By equipping 5/1/1 will also let you use the light and medium armor passives for 1 item, and will allow you to use heavy passives with 5 pieces as well, which is good. I advise in mixing Armor Master on if you don't want Tavas Favor, basically because if you want to switch Shuffle with Unstoppable, it will raise your resistance by a ton. Ill post the stats

(2 items) Adds 1064 Max Health
(3 items) Adds 1935 Physical Resistance
(4 items) Adds 1935 Spell Resistance
(5 items) While you have an Armor Ability slotted, your Max Health is increased by 5%. When you use an Armor Ability, your Physical and Spell Resistance is increased by 5332 for 10 seconds

d8rmir

Liofa has a build designed for this purpose in his thread on tamrielfoundry, I suggest you to check it out:

http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/pve-horny-tank-stamina-dk-tank-build-dark-brotherhood/

Personally I would drop the shalk set, as you say it doesn't stack with heroic slash and you are using heroic slash anyway for the minor main debuff on the target. You should definitely take the akaviri dragonguard set into account, as it reduces the cost of warhorn to 213, and you can slot it on your back bar, so you have an additional 2 set piece bonus on front bar (Liofa uses agility here). As to bloodspawn, there is just nothing better at the moment.

Skillwise, you don't want invasion and I have never seen the stone giant being used actually. Again, give a look at Liofa's setup. The must here is to have pierce armor (or ransack), igneous shield and heroic slash on your main bar.

@Liofa sorry for invoking you, your builds have been very inspiring for me, and I felt like it could be helpful to share them.

OneKhajiitCrimeWave

This one did think about using the Dragonguard set for this purpose although humble Khajiit could not make it work without using Tava's and as noted above, Tava's was not the favourite setup of this one.

Hmmm.... This one does have much to ponder, although this one has now embarked on making a crazy new tank build so will be having fun in the lab with a few build ideas.

Mr_Apollo

@d8rmir

Why wouldn't he want evasion? I run Hist Bark on 3 of my 5 tanks and its my go all set, its highly preferable for me DUE to the major evasion when blocking, its great, saved my life countless times and its highly useful. Its one I usually advise as a backup set if they want a dummy set until they get the one they want through farming due to its ability to evade attacks quite often. What is your reason for not having evasion? And personally don't use Heroic slash, but that must be because ive never seen a great use to it due to not liking a build based on ultimate regen.

@OneKhajiitCrimeWave

Yeah, big boost for having the game on the computer, PST is highly useful for build testing and such. As a console player I wish you luck encourage to ask questions if you so have.

d8rmir

@OneKhajiitCrimeWave

Well, you can combine werewolf and dragonguard, if you go with:
werewolf jewels, belt and gloves
dragonguard chest, legs and boots, and offhand sword and shield
agility mainbar sword and shield
bloodspawn head and shoulder

So you would have 5 heavy and 2 medium, which is what many people wear anyway (with ebon and alkosh).

Mr_Apollo

@d8rmir

Again...why have 5 heavy and 2 medium when he can have 5 heavy, 1 light and 1 medium AND activate undaunted passive for the extra boost on health, stam and magica?

d8rmir

Mr_Apollo wrote: »

@d8rmir

Why wouldn't he want evasion? I run Hist Bark on 3 of my 5 tanks and its my go all set, its highly preferable for me DUE to the major evasion when blocking, its great, saved my life countless times and its highly useful. Its one I usually advise as a backup set if they want a dummy set until they get the one they want through farming due to its ability to evade attacks quite often. What is your reason for not having evasion? And personally don't use Heroic slash, but that must be because ive never seen a great use to it due to not liking a build based on ultimate regen.

@OneKhajiitCrimeWave

Yeah, big boost for having the game on the computer, PST is highly useful for build testing and such. As a console player I wish you luck encourage to ask questions if you so have.

@Mr_Apollo I always use evasion, and the build I linked uses it.
Sorry for being ambiguous, I was just saying that you need to have those three skills (slash-shield-pierce) all together on your main bar, as you need to refresh them very often. Then I personally keep evasion on my back bar, as it lasts longer. As to heroic slash in particular, many people use it because (1) ulti regeneration (2) damage debuff on the target (3) reapply the crusher debuff from the enchant on the weapon.

As to your second question, if he wants to wear 5 pieces of a set that is necessarily heavy and 5 pieces of a set which is necessarily medium, the best combination is the one I suggest. And many people do want such a combination, to wear ebon and alkosh. No way to include a light piece. If you can, for instance if you use a crafted set like hist bark or tava's, then yes, go with 5/1/1.

Mr_Apollo

d8rmir wrote: »

Liofa has a build designed for this purpose in his thread on tamrielfoundry, I suggest you to check it out:

Skillwise, you don't want invasion and I have never seen the stone giant being used actually. Again, give a look at Liofa's setup. The must here is to have pierce armor (or ransack), igneous shield and heroic slash on your main bar.

@Liofa sorry for invoking you, your builds have been very inspiring for me, and I felt like it could be helpful to share them.

Was this just a mistype then? Curious really

@d8rmir

d8rmir

@Mr_Apollo
Invasion not evasion

As to the 5/1/1 you have a point actually, you can play around with the monster set and actually have the full undaunted mettle. Still it would be a waste in this case, as you don't want the dragonguard buff on both bars.

Mr_Apollo

@d8rmir

My apologies, did not realize Invasion was an actual skill, cheers.

d8rmir

@Mr_Apollo no need to apologize, we are mostly saying the same thing, just a little misunderstanding. Cheers.

OneKhajiitCrimeWave

This one uses invasion simply for mobility to get to the archers like in S.O to stop Taking Aim while DD's destroy the Overchargers. Originally it was shielded assault which should have been more useful overall.

When your ultimate generation relies on taking a hit like Werewolf Hide does then Evasion is counterproductive to the generation of ultimate.

The main point is that this one is simply not fond of the Tava's/ebon/blood spawn tank, and wanted a different and unique option to generate ultimate as fast.

It may not be popular as the Ebon/Tava's tank but it does work quite well.

Still, this one is experimenting and may find an even better combination in future.

OneKhajiitCrimeWave

Also, it's nice that so far everything has been civil and productive as it allows for much better discussion overall.

d8rmir

@OneKhajiitCrimeWave Ok I see your points, let me reply to both of them.

Invasion: I was tanking sanctum last saturday evening, and I didn't feel the necessity to gap close the archers..some motivation: (1) the animation is quite long and you have time to simply walk there (2) in a 12 men raid there was always someone close enough to interrupt the archer (3) you can actually just aggro all other mobs and drag them to the archer so you always are in melee range and can interrupt him. But maybe I just didn't notice them and someone died because of me A compromise could be slotting invasion instead of chains just for this trial, I don't think that there is much stuff there that can be chained anyway (except on the pull before manti ofc). But as I said, I haven't felt the necessity, so personally I will not do it.

Evasion: werewolf hide has a 5 seconds cooldown anyway, during these 5 seconds evasion gives only benefits. And you mostly have multiple enemies hitting you at the same time, so even if you dodge one another one will hit you and werewolf will proc on cooldown anyway. I think that it would be an advantage overall. But: I have never tried werewolf hide, so I am just speculating here.

Liofa

Hello ! I have some experience with ultigen tanking as @d8rmir said ^^ First of all , I want to say that in trials , reducing armor is much more important . Ultigen builds seem like they give lots of DPS to the group but if you reduce boss armor , it is much more effective . I have 2 setups usually . One is for ultigen (the one that is linked in this thread) and one for reducing armor . A DPS who was pulling 42k tops while I was using ultigen build , now pulls more than 50k on Rakkhat each time when I use armor reduction build . You can find what I use in the same link . Now that I told you the difference I will explain why you should use some stuff and why you shouldn't . If you decide to run armor reduction build , you don't have to read what I say below .

Shalk set : This set is sadly useless because it doesn't stack with Heroic Slash which is a must to run not because of the Ultigen but because of the Minor Maim . You protect yourself AND your friend by using it . It costs a bit more stamina than other skills but as a DK tank , you shouldn't have any resource problems .

Werewolf set : It depends on you getting hit and it is not certain that you will get hit every 5 seconds . On the other hand , Akaviri Dragonguard makes your Warhorn cost 37 less which you can get that number in 45-50 seconds with Werewolf in a realistic situation . My ultigen build uses Warhorn every 30-40 seconds thanks to Dragon . I tried both , Dragonguard is faster . Also , there is a discussion about resource management with Dragon . People think you will reduce your sustain because Dragon reduces the effectiveness of Battle Roar . It doesn't make any sense because you use Ultimate at a faster rate . It is the same thing . In terms of resource sustain ; faster and cheaper ultimate = slower and expensive ultimate . The only difference is the more uptime on Warhorn .

Chudan and Pirate Skeleton : Sadly , resistance values don't matter that much . Most tanks start a game with the passion of being immortal with having insane amount of resistances . It doesn't work that way in ESO . There is a resistance cap which is 33150 . After that point , any resistance bonus you get is useless . This is the reason why you don't need these sets . Here is the thread that talks about things that you should know as a tank : https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/279426/damage-mitigation-explanation-and-list-of-options-updated-for-a-third-time/p1 Read everything in this thread , literally , read everything .

Tava's Favor : This set is a must if you want to run Ultigen build . There is no item set that gives more Ultimate than this one . Even though it procs from Evasion dodges , I actually do some Roll Dodges if I know that boss won't move and I have enough Stamina . It is definitely amazing and really easy to use .

Hope the things I said answer your questions . Cheers !