[PVE] Dragonknight Tank "Bubbleknight" (~50k Health, ~35k Armor, high survability)

Admiral_Schneider

Hi guys, this is Admiral Schneider.

I just submitted a build I am playing for a while now but I got no feedback. I want to share it here too so I may get feedback from Tanks that are a more experienced than me (vTrail Standards).

You can find the build here (http://esoacademy.com/builds/dragonknight-bubblemaster/). I hope you like it and give me feedback and suggestions what i can improve.

Thank you in advance.

Best regards,
Admiral Schneider

Foxic

That build will not work for vet trials.

Your health is far far too high. You can complete all content in the game with 30-35K health as the main tank. Your magicka and stam are both extremely low, you will not be able to sustain

Also if you don't run sword and shield on both bars you will surely die.

The meta trials main tank setup is 5 alkosh, 5 ebon, 2 bloodspawn. While the meta off tank setup is 5 alkosh, 5 powerful assault, 2 flex monster helm.

Summoning @woeler for anything I've missed as he's one of the best tanks in the game

TankHealz2015

Super Awesome write up!
Very thorough!
Thanks!

Admiral_Schneider

TotallyNotVos wrote: »

That build will not work for vet trials.

Your health is far far too high. You can complete all content in the game with 30-35K health as the main tank. Your magicka and stam are both extremely low, you will not be able to sustain

Also if you don't run sword and shield on both bars you will surely die.

The meta trials main tank setup is 5 alkosh, 5 ebon, 2 bloodspawn. While the meta off tank setup is 5 alkosh, 5 powerful assault, 2 flex monster helm.

Summoning @woeler for anything I've missed as he's one of the best tanks in the game

@TotallyNotVos I thought about your feedback and talkes about it with someone from my guild who actually does vTrails.

To start with the energy management bases on heavy attacks. He made clear that I won't have the time to do full heavy attacks with my staff. It would take too much time. From here on everything snowballs my build into mistakes.

I just went to PVP to test this fact. I can't sustain under heavy stress like too much cc or attacks with too much impact.

Means the build is a fun build / starter build and I have to make thoughts about other non standard stuff, that got another base for energy management or doesn't require this kind of attention. This doesn't mean I will give up those sets. I will just try to make it viable in another way.

Foxic

Admiral_Schneider wrote: »

TotallyNotVos wrote: »

That build will not work for vet trials.

Your health is far far too high. You can complete all content in the game with 30-35K health as the main tank. Your magicka and stam are both extremely low, you will not be able to sustain

Also if you don't run sword and shield on both bars you will surely die.

The meta trials main tank setup is 5 alkosh, 5 ebon, 2 bloodspawn. While the meta off tank setup is 5 alkosh, 5 powerful assault, 2 flex monster helm.

Summoning @woeler for anything I've missed as he's one of the best tanks in the game

@TotallyNotVos I thought about your feedback and talkes about it with someone from my guild who actually does vTrails.

To start with the energy management bases on heavy attacks. He made clear that I won't have the time to do full heavy attacks with my staff. It would take too much time. From here on everything snowballs my build into mistakes.

I just went to PVP to test this fact. I can't sustain under heavy stress like too much cc or attacks with too much impact.

Means the build is a fun build / starter build and I have to make thoughts about other non standard stuff, that got another base for energy management or doesn't require this kind of attention. This doesn't mean I will give up those sets. I will just try to make it viable in another way.

For sure, you dont need to be absolutely meta to clear vet trials. Keep trying until something works

JamieAubrey

Broken Link

Admiral_Schneider

@JamieAubrey corrected the Link. It should be aviable again.

AzuraKin

high health tanking for dk has a place, you dont need a lot of resources as a tank because you are using both pools, heavy hits to restore stamina leaving magicka the only one that regen solely off regen and such. yes while you can tank with lower health, max health builds like this do not focus on a turtle mentality (taunt then hide behind shield) they focus more on bringing more to the table then just taunt and block. for example a 60k health dk can shield allies with a shield for 10k, they can self heal from 20% health for 16k health with dragon blood base (with passives can shoot to over 24k health which is immensely powerful, you can couple this with fact dk team shield protects them for twice as much (20k) plus they can also protect themselves with bone shield for 20k health as well (stamina), this means as long as a tank has the needed regen to use thier magicka abilities every appr 4s, a high max health dk can very possibly take over the healers role as well as tanking. and this is something top end group dungeon tanks shoot for. yes trials they dont because trials tanks are more about the buffs they bring to the table rather then eliminating a role. a lot of people have this idea this game is meant to be played by 1 set of gear, its not.

while damage dealers and for good part healers in pve can get by with 1 set of gear for solo, group, and trials, tanks on the other hand should have at least 2 sets for pve, 1 for trials, and 1 for group/solo dungeons. also everyone dps, heals, tank should have at least 1 seperate set for pvp though sets for group and sets for solo pvp are differing but that gets into your personal pvp style choice, and healers in pvp should have the option to combine several differing sets such as spc, sanctuary, worm cult, transmutation together to provide for all the group gear synergy needs, 250 more spell/weapon power, 12% more healing, 5% reduced cost (not a big deal for most teammates, but a huge help for your purge spammer) and 1300 impen.

the healer set can be used, but i would only use it only if the above gear sets are fully utilized.

Mr_Apollo

Why...why do peeps insist on having +35k of health for tanks...more health doesn't equal to your skill or how well you'll tank, if your resistance is absolutely crap then youre going to have trouble, if you actually have good resistance then put some of those points into resources cause oh golly you need it

-Magica to keep yourself alive and start buffing your team and debuffing the enemy
-Stamina to obviously block and also some of those buffs and debuffs

You're going the right way, but id advise on raising those resources, that and I don't see that many buffs for the team, or lets say debuffs as well..a set that could do damage while doing your tank role would also help (Tremorscale, Thunderbug, Jolting, Twin sisters, etc.)

Admiral_Schneider

@AzuraKin @Mr_Apollo Thats the point with this build, I want to defend my Allies with my Obsidian Shield. Ressources don't matter so far because I easily can restore about 9 k magicka with one heavy restoration staff attack (It scales by passive from heavy armor, restoration staff passive and Tenacity from champion points). I regain 5% Stamina by casting Obsidian Shield itself because it's Earthened Heart skill (I should point out this in my build).

Howerer this build is not viable for vTrails because I am not allowed to do Heavy Attacks over 2 Seks. I'd take too much damage. I'd need the ressources I have regained to heal myself. At this point I am only self sustaining and not a benefit for my group anymore.

Thats why I will mark this build as a build for starter or non-Trail build. For having fun at most (I am really having fun with this build.) I am already at an overworked version of this build which doesn't beed restro staff heavy attacks for restoring mana but still will use restro staff.

I will need a little bit time to gain the nessessary skills for the build but I hate PVP so much.

AzuraKin

lol pvp is like running a neverending dungeon.

Admiral_Schneider

In PVE you can be choosey with your team-mates in PVP you neither can choose your opponent nor your teammates. Exept you run with a PVP guild but I won't do it since I don't like it from start.

Asardes

Restoration staff is bad on a tank, really bad. If you are caught on that bar when the boss charges, it will one shot you even if you block, because you will lack the mitigation passives from 1H+S. Tanks should have passive magicka regeneration from CP, mundus, gear. Also 15K stamina si way too low, especially if you plan on using immovable brute. That alone costs almost 1/3 of your pool and has to be refreshed every 15s. Ingenous shield only restores 5% from the helping hands passive. So you will have to spam that 6 times just to recover the cost of casting brute. Armor master is bad as tanking set. It only gives you health and resistance which is not that important, especially if your setup is over capped. 30K resistances and 30K health is enough for all content currently in the game. Going to the cap you only gain 1.7% more mitigation, because that's capped at 50%. Actually it makes no sense to go over 32K in any case, because any half competent healer will run combat prayer and that adds 1.5K spell and physical resistance. And if you actually wear full pirate skeleton you will make that healer's life miserable. The damage mitigation is worthless, compared to the huge heal debuff. Vampire Cloak set is useless for a tank, especially on a build that has so little magicka because the 3rd piece bonus is entirely wasted - you won't be damaging anything with 16K magicka anyway.

So what I see here is:
- wasted resistance and health
- expensive and useless skills slotted
- horrible resource management
- reduced group utility
- a nightmare to heal in intense fights, where a tank is really necesary
Almost an opposite of what a tank should be.

Target resource pool values should be:
~15K magicka | ~30K health | ~25K stamina
>1.5K magicka regeneration
~30K resistance

If you want to do a proper build you can use one of the following sets:
- Ebon Armory (dropped) - those 17K DDs would feel much better with 18K health and farming COH1/2 is way easier than BHH
- Tava's Favor (crafted) - if you already like running armor skills on your bar why not go for shuffle and gain ultimate regeneration on dodges on top of constant magicka and stamina regeneration
- Armor of the Seducer (crafted) - if you like being a magicka tank that's the way to go because the cost reduction and added regeneration are really necessary
- Willow's Path (crafted) - an often overlooked set, but very flexible. You can swap various regeneration bonuses around
- Bloodspawn (dropped) - there's really no better tanking set: increased resistance and ultimate regeneration on hit
- Lord Warden (dropped) - also procs on hits and grants the group increased magicka resistance
- Engine Guardian (dropped) - procs on ability activation, but the RNG is not that relaible but as DK receiving magicka instead of stamina is not that bad.
- Roar of Alkosh (dropped) - a decent set because it debuffs, but farming it can be tedious, because that trial is not a cakewalk even on normal mode.

nordsavage

Tanking 101, resistance caps at 32.5k.

Admiral_Schneider

@Asardes I don't really agree with you. I am playing this build for about 2 weeks. The feedback I got from the groups I walked with and from my main group is thet the build is really self running. You are pointing out weaknesses which are covered by some parts of this build.

Asardes wrote: »

So what I see here is:
- wasted resistance and health
- expensive and useless skills slotted
- horrible resource management
- reduced group utility
- a nightmare to heal in intense fights, where a tank is really necesary
Almost an opposite of what a tank should be.

1. Wasted resistance and health:
The soft cap is at 32k armor and magic resist. When I am at 1h+S i have the 35k, which is still 33.5k when reduced due cap. When I am at the restoration staff I have ~30k which doesn't get capped. There is no cap for health so far (or I just don't know).

2. Expensive and useless Skills slottet:
I totally don't agree with you at this point. The Armor Skill and Entrophy are for health and the armor master set. They scale this set pretty much. The 2 spots are nessessary. The Talons snare the enemys so that melees can't get to my group and reduce the output damage of all mobs by 8%. Igneous weapons... With that you can save 1 Skill slot at each group member. Coagulating Blood is my main self heal. It imrpoves with less health and my champion passives. Igneous Shield is a 20k Shield for me and 10k Shield for each member in 12m reach. Yes they are expensive but worth it.

3. Horrible resource management:
The resource management bases on heavy attacks. I need to do them to regain resources but I also deal about 200-400k damage each bossfight since I put a few points in Staff Expert. It works sof far (exept vTrails we already pointed that out).

4. Reduced Group utility:
Yes I am missing War Horn because I am not lv 5 in Alliance War but i marked it as replacement skill.

5. A nightmare to heal in intense fights:
They don't need to heal me because I am able to heal myself. I shield the most damage with Igneous Shield and the calculation for Shields insn't like the calculation on health. Armor is not calculated but armor pen isn't as well. That way I reduce damage DIRECTLY with Pirate Sekelton and Vampire Cloak. I get 38% reduced damage in total but 15% healing less. so if I sum this up there is still a 23% difference a healer doesn't need to heal. I don't get you in this point.

I don't have time left for now to continue.

Asardes

Well, it really depends on what group content are you doing. Vanilla game dungeons are pretty easy. Have you tried running some of the vet DLC dungeons or VDSA on that setup? 2 weeks is not that much actually, and in time you will realize why is not working where it really matters. In really hard boss fights you won't be able to do any staff heavy attacks because the pressure is so high. You might be barely able to do sword heavy attacks.

nordsavage

Well as a tank, I can well and truly say that it is a wasted stats and selfish build that does nothing for your team. There are so many more useful sets with actual functions. I say again you have too much health and armor that doesn't factor in peripheral buffs. I can do so much more with half your health and 2/3 your resists.

Admiral_Schneider

@Asardes I succeeded vDSA and it worked well. Ofc vDSA is a lot practise itself and I really can't understand how you should be able to sustain the last boss with a casual build.

@nordsavage Yes the sets and 6/12 Skills are just for my character. But since I run this build I say to my healers 2 Things:
1. Focus on the damage dealers, i am fine.
2. I won't need any support skills so look what the damage dealers need.

I think that's why my people like this tank build

If you want to i can upload a video, I just got a bad one with 30 pictures/second. I am still searching for a software I am statisfied with.

nordsavage

Admiral_Schneider wrote: »

@Asardes I succeeded vDSA and it worked well. Ofc vDSA is a lot practise itself and I really can't understand how you should be able to sustain the last boss with a casual build.

@nordsavage Yes the sets and 6/12 Skills are just for my character. But since I run this build I say to my healers 2 Things:
1. Focus on the damage dealers, i am fine.
2. I won't need any support skills so look what the damage dealers need.

I think that's why my people like this tank build

If you want to i can upload a video, I just got a bad one with 30 pictures/second. I am still searching for a software I am statisfied with.

Video or not, I have seen these builds many times and they do not compete with real tank setups.

AzuraKin

well i do kinda agree armor master is a horrible tank set, i actually working on a build to get away from my current armor master build because i always feel like with it i need to be constantly blocking while trying to taunt and keep armor skill up.

that said i also think 30k resistance or having s/b isnt necessary outside of trials. and i say this because of this, i have tanked in light armor on a dps with white, yes white quality armor. also only had 17k health so go suck it. tanking isnt some static thing where you have to have this cant have that its about staying alive holding the necessary aggro and well supporting team how you like.

my tank right now is testing a build that has 45k health (dark elf yes not best race but at the time i made toon i figured i would do dk dps then figured i like dk tank better :P) and currently at 3400 health regen, still working out a few skills but have solid hopes onces skills all trained and i set up bar, i will be able to replace healer in 4 mans. oh ye and reistances is at 16k/17k if i feel i need a little more defenses i pop my dk defense skill but for most of the time, i just run without the defense. i also run dw right now, yes s/b is nice cause got some useful skills, but hey lets face it dw has some nice defenses too you get what i saying? its not what you use, its how you use it. its not what health you have, but why you have the health you have. so yes i have tanked fights with s/b, dw, staves, 16k health to 45k health. and end of the day, health dont *** matter, resist dont *** matter, all that matters is you stay alive everyon on team stays alive, and you kill ***.

Asardes

Blazing shield tank is not the best option for PvE. I've actually made the calculation and the

AzuraKin wrote: »

my tank right now is testing a build that has 45k health (dark elf yes not best race but at the time i made toon i figured i would do dk dps then figured i like dk tank better :P) and currently at 3400 health regen, still working out a few skills but have solid hopes onces skills all trained and i set up bar, i will be able to replace healer in 4 mans.

I assume you are trying a blazing shield build for your Templar. I've actually made some calculations for a 60K health build and the damage return from that shield are insignificant even when fighting hordes of trash mobs. It amounts to something like 4K DPS. You can just go as a full magicka templar with sword and board, in 5L/1M/1H and you could still have high resistance and high mitigation. Pick a set that gives you high regeneration, for example a 5 piece Armor of the Seducer and pair it with some dropped sets. Make a shield and sword from Alessia's Bullwark to add a bit more physical resistance and you can tank while spamming puncturing sweep. You won't die even with 17-18K health, and even heal in the mean time. And for high magicka pool builds harness magicka has higher mitigation than blazing shield.

Admiral_Schneider

@nordsavage What do you implying with "real tank setup"? In my opinion a tank supports a group on different ways. Spotting mobs is support, increasing damage is support, taking damage for the group is support, preventing damage is support as well.

There are very much ways to support your group and these ways are not fixed on 2-3 sets and exactly that is what I am trying to do here. I am trying to support my group by being standalone, preventing damage and including standardbuffs of dragonknight. Thats the meaning of this special build and it fullfills almost all points of things a tank should do.

So what is the meaning of "real tank setup"? Is it to play a meta build which everybody is playing?

You don't know how often I hear that kind of stuff.

Admiral_Schneider

I just have to remember that point where I stood in DSA with a restoration staff and didn't get 1-shot. Kappa.

nordsavage

Admiral_Schneider wrote: »

@nordsavage What do you implying with "real tank setup"? In my opinion a tank supports a group on different ways. Spotting mobs is support, increasing damage is support, taking damage for the group is support, preventing damage is support as well.

There are very much ways to support your group and these ways are not fixed on 2-3 sets and exactly that is what I am trying to do here. I am trying to support my group by being standalone, preventing damage and including standardbuffs of dragonknight. Thats the meaning of this special build and it fullfills almost all points of things a tank should do.

So what is the meaning of "real tank setup"? Is it to play a meta build which everybody is playing?

You don't know how often I hear that kind of stuff.

It has nothing to do with meta. You simply chose sets that do not synergize with your team. You may as well stitch EVERLAST into your gear because you are nothing but a punching bag while tanks like me use sets that buff, debuff, shield, heal and other effects. Who cares if you have 20k health over standard when with half that I can put up 20k shields for the whole team plus debuff the enemies and do some fair healing. All that meat build is doing is making healer feel like they need to spam more heals due to the large health gap. You say standard debuffs that means just pierce armor and crushing, 6k-ish penetration, while at peak alone with one of my set ups is closer to 11k maybe even more. Standing alone loses to standing together. I see a guy with 35k+ outside of PvP he just wants people to see a large number for ego or does not know what he is doing.

Admiral_Schneider

@nordsavage okay I think I get your point now. All I did with this build was to seperate me from my group so they don'need to care for me. But if I'd start relying on my group I can get a Build that benefits my group more or even make combos with it.

Okay l will abadon this build for now and concentrate on the next one. After i got a special alliance war skill I can test it and share it again if I think it is worthy. This one ain't.

I will still try to avoid meta thoe. I hate builds that rely on stamina.

Asardes

I tank with 26.6K health. I have no trouble tanking any vet dungeon in game and when I do get killed It's usually either:
- an one shot attack that would kill me, because I didn't get out of the way in time (ex. Selene, Kra'gh, Votaty of Velidreth)
- running out of stamina at the wrong time, leaving me unable to dodge or properly block an attack that's not an one shot (ex. Molag Kena stacking "liquid lighting" and getting hit by the lightning spokes at the same time)
- stacking multiple DoTs and debuffs, then receiving a strong attack from a boss even while blocking (ex. Dranos "steel tornado" or Velidreth's "corpulence" after being hit by red AoE and/or having my healing and resistance debuffed)
- receiving multiple normal attacks in a short time from trash adds, after running out of magicka for shields and reflect (ex. Maw the Infernal adds if nobody burns at least a few of them, archers at Xal-Nur if nobody releases the Wamasu).

In none of those cases having more health would have actually saved me. In fact I tried Velidreth with 38K health and 15K stamina, by shifting all points in health, and I died much faster, because I ran out of stamina for dodging and blocking really quick. And I've done the opposite, not buffing my health and leaving it 19.8K, and then trying to run vet dungeons. The only thing I noticed that I ran out of stamina faster (I use blue health & stamina food). One hay I ran 3 VICP HM - for some reason most of my friends wanted me to tank it - with no buff and had no issues with it.

AzuraKin

exactly, while i have not explored max health templar builds, i can tell you a properly balanced max health dk has some good team synergy, pve; 10-12k team shields, major sorcery/major brutality team buff, couple with troll king or heal monster set, can proc healing with several healing options that dont need restro staff. on top of that they can apply penetration for both magicka and physical, and minor maim. oh and they can survive selene's bear thing in vet selene's web (block 16-20k phys resist: only 42k damage plus 3k follow up.

DarkDeller

I tank just fine with my 65k health blazing shield tank

DarkDeller

I run an imperial health blazing shield tank in ove with no problems. I have 65k health with 2k mag regen. I use 5 piece HA plague dictor with 5pc green pact and malubeth as my monster set. My shield deals pretty decent damage return aswell.

Acid_Glow

Not Bad might try it out when I get the Chance