Medium Armor Tank Setup: Alkosh/ Powerful Assault 32K resistance

kylewwefan

DK Alkosh/Powerful Assault/ Mighty Chudan. 34 CP to raise resistance. 3 Shield play enchants.

I've been tanking a lot lately and looking for better ways to support the team. I'm probably not the first person to come up with a build like this, wandering if I'm just wasting time trying to piece it together.

This is for dungeons, I probably wouldn't try it for trials.

Tasear

Why not Lord warden monster set?

kylewwefan

Lord warden only gives extra spell resistance as one piece. Pirate and Chudan give spell/physical for one piece. Both together add little over 5K resistance

Tasear

kylewwefan wrote: »

Lord warden only gives extra spell resistance as one piece. Pirate and Chudan give spell/physical for one piece. Both together add little over 5K resistance

The 2 piece is better for allies... more support.

kylewwefan

I have to put it together to see what my stats are looking like. I agree lord warden is helpful, but gotta cover my resistance first.

Brrrofski

kylewwefan wrote: »

I have to put it together to see what my stats are looking like. I agree lord warden is helpful, but gotta cover my resistance first.

I run all dungeons with like 26k resistances sice defending for nerfed. Reinforced shield, 5 heavy, major resistance buff and 1 piece chudan. That's all the resistance buffs I have. My other monster piece is magica recovery.

Never have a problem. Lord warden is really nice if you have melee dps though. When it procs (all the time) you get more than another resistance based monster piece anyway. Got changed to physical and spell resist in hotr.

kylewwefan

ok, I have far from optimal pieces, 4 reinforced and not really the right ones. Picked up the lady mundus for 3K physical/spell resistance. 2 Chudan heavy.

5 pieces still have Stam glyphs, haven't changed yet. 55 attribute points in health. Rest in magic. 3 shieldplay enchants currently. Magic recovery is abysmal.

With purple Tristat food
31k health, 24k Stam 14k magic. 650 magic recovery. 32.5k resistance

All gear is purple, but alkosh S/B is gold. Sword is defending, shield is divines.


Main bar has Pierce, Vigor, ransack, Igneous, Absorb. Warhorn ulti.
Back bar has inner fire, chains, talons, igneous, deep breath. Barrier ulti


I had the opportunity to try it out in normal MoL and several vet dungeons over the weekend. It works. In MoL, I was the only tank. The 2H savage armor breakers killed me a few times. Maybe some more health could have prevented it? In premade dungeon groups, it went well. For pugs not so great. it hard to beat Ebon/plague doctor IMO.
I think there's plenty enough resistance to maybe be an off tank.

kylewwefan

I pugged a few more Vet dungeons with this setup last night. Changed all the glyphs to bring me up to 35K health. It does have low magic and regen issues, so I would intend on keeping Chudan, as Keeping hardened armor up could be an issue.

Tripots are a must, but can be used sparingly. Shards and balls also help out immensely, so let the healer know.

I did have a few issues pugging, so I probably keep Ebon/plague doctor.

Much as I want it to work, feels like I'm trying to force a big triangle into a small square.

paulsimonps

I would not bother raising your resistance that high. I wear full heavy armor and I don't even have that high. Not even close. Resistance is a very overrated stat in terms of PvE Tanking.

DRXHarbinger

kylewwefan wrote: »

ok, I have far from optimal pieces, 4 reinforced and not really the right ones. Picked up the lady mundus for 3K physical/spell resistance. 2 Chudan heavy.

5 pieces still have Stam glyphs, haven't changed yet. 55 attribute points in health. Rest in magic. 3 shieldplay enchants currently. Magic recovery is abysmal.

With purple Tristat food
31k health, 24k Stam 14k magic. 650 magic recovery. 32.5k resistance

All gear is purple, but alkosh S/B is gold. Sword is defending, shield is divines.


Main bar has Pierce, Vigor, ransack, Igneous, Absorb. Warhorn ulti.
Back bar has inner fire, chains, talons, igneous, deep breath. Barrier ulti


I had the opportunity to try it out in normal MoL and several vet dungeons over the weekend. It works. In MoL, I was the only tank. The 2H savage armor breakers killed me a few times. Maybe some more health could have prevented it? In premade dungeon groups, it went well. For pugs not so great. it hard to beat Ebon/plague doctor IMO.
I think there's plenty enough resistance to maybe be an off tank.

Doesn't matter how much health you have, Shattered armor is a death sentence and intended, it was never intended for one tank.

But you can use that set up for tanking vet trials, not an issue at all. hard to get to grips with. Stats are fine bar magika recovery won't survive a vet trial. Ideally you want a sturdy shield and infused off hand at least too.

Bit ditch Chudan and put warden on, it's actually alright now with the increased radius.

Also Drain Essence on your bar, just ani cancel it and keep the warhorns going. The set up is designed for being the off tank though and not main tanking.

code65536

Powerful Assault is such a blah "tanking" set. I hate it.

For 4-man content, why not just go with the tried-and-true Ebon/Alkosh?

Or if you feel strongly that your group doesn't need Ebon, go Torug/Alkosh with infused weapons and the Crusher and Weakening enchants. Crusher with both Infused and Torug 5p is a lot of penetration with a lot of uptime. Back bar the Weakening enchant.

kylewwefan

Thanks Paul. still learning. I'm not really sure what is missing on stats other than magic recovery to make tanking in medium work better.

The resistance and health is there, but still feels a bit more squishy than I'd like.

Also, I have nothing in spell shield, but spell resistance in 5 medium is at 32.5k I only put CP into medium armor focus trying to get close to cap.

I could drop the lady mundus and go back to atro for regen and still have about 28k resist. Would that be enough?

CGPsaint

kylewwefan wrote: »

DK Alkosh/Powerful Assault/ Mighty Chudan

If you're feeling froggy, you might want to try 5-piece Alkosh + 5-piece Akaviri Dragonguard with a monster set of your choice. I personally keep Chudan and Bloodspawn on hand for different needs.

I'm trying this build out with Sword & Board on both bars to maintain the 5-5-2 sets.

• Alkosh - Jewelry, Infused/Decisive Weapons, Reinforced Shields
• Akaviri Dragonguard - 5 Heavy Armor (Infused on big, Sturdy on small)
• Monster Set - 1 Light, 1 Medium (Infused on big, Sturdy on small)

kylewwefan

CGPsaint wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

DK Alkosh/Powerful Assault/ Mighty Chudan

If you're feeling froggy, you might want to try 5-piece Alkosh + 5-piece Akaviri Dragonguard with a monster set of your choice. I personally keep Chudan and Bloodspawn on hand for different needs.

I'm trying this build out with Sword & Board on both bars to maintain the 5-5-2 sets.

• Alkosh - Jewelry, Infused/Decisive Weapons, Reinforced Shields
• Akaviri Dragonguard - 5 Heavy Armor (Infused on big, Sturdy on small)
• Monster Set - 1 Light, 1 Medium (Infused on big, Sturdy on small)

I'm tanking in 2 medium armor set and you ask if I'm froggy. Lol ! I have contemplated SPC, and already have S/B in that too. But the healer is supposed to run that.

Danksta

kylewwefan wrote: »

CGPsaint wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

DK Alkosh/Powerful Assault/ Mighty Chudan

If you're feeling froggy, you might want to try 5-piece Alkosh + 5-piece Akaviri Dragonguard with a monster set of your choice. I personally keep Chudan and Bloodspawn on hand for different needs.

I'm trying this build out with Sword & Board on both bars to maintain the 5-5-2 sets.

• Alkosh - Jewelry, Infused/Decisive Weapons, Reinforced Shields
• Akaviri Dragonguard - 5 Heavy Armor (Infused on big, Sturdy on small)
• Monster Set - 1 Light, 1 Medium (Infused on big, Sturdy on small)

I'm tanking in 2 medium armor set and you ask if I'm froggy. Lol ! I have contemplated SPC, and already have S/B in that too. But the healer is supposed to run that.

I've heard of tanks running SPC in vDSA with 3 DPS, but that wouldn't be useful in trials because as you said healers should be running it. It'd probably be really effective on a warden tank, but I've heard it's still good on a DK just using Echoing Vigor.

DRXHarbinger

Danksta wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

CGPsaint wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

DK Alkosh/Powerful Assault/ Mighty Chudan

If you're feeling froggy, you might want to try 5-piece Alkosh + 5-piece Akaviri Dragonguard with a monster set of your choice. I personally keep Chudan and Bloodspawn on hand for different needs.

I'm trying this build out with Sword & Board on both bars to maintain the 5-5-2 sets.

• Alkosh - Jewelry, Infused/Decisive Weapons, Reinforced Shields
• Akaviri Dragonguard - 5 Heavy Armor (Infused on big, Sturdy on small)
• Monster Set - 1 Light, 1 Medium (Infused on big, Sturdy on small)

I'm tanking in 2 medium armor set and you ask if I'm froggy. Lol ! I have contemplated SPC, and already have S/B in that too. But the healer is supposed to run that.

I've heard of tanks running SPC in vDSA with 3 DPS, but that wouldn't be useful in trials because as you said healers should be running it. It'd probably be really effective on a warden tank, but I've heard it's still good on a DK just using Echoing Vigor.

Yep with powerful assault too. Spam echoing vigor and boom all buffed up. Works a treat.

Asardes

This was actually the trial off-tank META at one point. Don't know it's still the case though.

CGPsaint

kylewwefan wrote: »

I'm tanking in 2 medium armor set and you ask if I'm froggy. Lol ! I have contemplated SPC, and already have S/B in that too. But the healer is supposed to run that.

Well, there is that... Anyways, Akaviri compliments Alkosh fairly well in my opinion, and is easy to farm or purchase from guild vendors. Definitely worth trying to see if it fits your play style.

Tremors

kylewwefan wrote: »

Lord warden only gives extra spell resistance as one piece. Pirate and Chudan give spell/physical for one piece. Both together add little over 5K resistance

Warden gives both now too OP

Norn

code65536 wrote: »

Powerful Assault is such a blah "tanking" set. I hate it.

For 4-man content, why not just go with the tried-and-true Ebon/Alkosh?

Or if you feel strongly that your group doesn't need Ebon, go Torug/Alkosh with infused weapons and the Crusher and Weakening enchants. Crusher with both Infused and Torug 5p is a lot of penetration with a lot of uptime. Back bar the Weakening enchant.

PA is highly reliable in 4 man content. It's basically free 250ish weapon/spell damage(with scaling buffs) that you can get 100% uptime. Assuming everyone is doing their job correctly I highly doubt that anyone needs Ebon even in DLC dungeons.

-

Alkosh on the other hand is really good if you have a Magsorc in your party, meh if you're just relying on your healers synergys.

Chudan gives you the same buff as you can get from Balance or Hardened Armor, it's only useful if you really really really need to free up a slot. Other than that Lord Warden beats it in every application. You don't need 32K res for dungeons btw, 25k ish good enough for you to not get one shot.

paulsimonps

RedVyperOfDorne wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

Lord warden only gives extra spell resistance as one piece. Pirate and Chudan give spell/physical for one piece. Both together add little over 5K resistance

Warden gives both now too OP

Yup. Here is a picture taken from live server today to confirm it.

paulsimonps

Norn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Powerful Assault is such a blah "tanking" set. I hate it.

For 4-man content, why not just go with the tried-and-true Ebon/Alkosh?

Or if you feel strongly that your group doesn't need Ebon, go Torug/Alkosh with infused weapons and the Crusher and Weakening enchants. Crusher with both Infused and Torug 5p is a lot of penetration with a lot of uptime. Back bar the Weakening enchant.

PA is highly reliable in 4 man content. It's basically free 250ish weapon/spell damage(with scaling buffs) that you can get 100% uptime. Assuming everyone is doing their job correctly I highly doubt that anyone needs Ebon even in DLC dungeons.

-

Alkosh on the other hand is really good if you have a Magsorc in your party, meh if you're just relying on your healers synergys.

Chudan gives you the same buff as you can get from Balance or Hardened Armor, it's only useful if you really really really need to free up a slot. Other than that Lord Warden beats it in every application. You don't need 32K res for dungeons btw, 25k ish good enough for you to not get one shot.

I would do Torugs Pact over Alkosh, more reliable and Infused Torugs Crusher is really strong. 2740 when all golded out.

Asardes

Lord Warden is pretty good in fights where the group stays clustered together with the tank since the proc is really useful (about 5.9% mitigation) for the people in range. They also buffed that. From what I remember it was only 5 m before. With the 50% proc rate it was up >90% of the time.

Norn

paulsimonps wrote: »

Norn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Powerful Assault is such a blah "tanking" set. I hate it.

For 4-man content, why not just go with the tried-and-true Ebon/Alkosh?

Or if you feel strongly that your group doesn't need Ebon, go Torug/Alkosh with infused weapons and the Crusher and Weakening enchants. Crusher with both Infused and Torug 5p is a lot of penetration with a lot of uptime. Back bar the Weakening enchant.

PA is highly reliable in 4 man content. It's basically free 250ish weapon/spell damage(with scaling buffs) that you can get 100% uptime. Assuming everyone is doing their job correctly I highly doubt that anyone needs Ebon even in DLC dungeons.

-

Alkosh on the other hand is really good if you have a Magsorc in your party, meh if you're just relying on your healers synergys.

Chudan gives you the same buff as you can get from Balance or Hardened Armor, it's only useful if you really really really need to free up a slot. Other than that Lord Warden beats it in every application. You don't need 32K res for dungeons btw, 25k ish good enough for you to not get one shot.

I would do Torugs Pact over Alkosh, more reliable and Infused Torugs Crusher is really strong. 2740 when all golded out.

Not for dungeons.

Asardes

In dungeons adds usually have low health anyway so you only feel that 2.7K resistance debuff (5.4% DPS increase) on the boss anyway so IMO Torug's is even better there since the single target uptime is so high. It's also more versatile since you can have two different enchants buffed, one for the weapon on each bar, for example crusher on front bar and weakening on back bar. I will definitely switch to Torug when I return my DK to tanking since it's so good this patch.

kylewwefan

I didn't notice the lord warden has changed so much. I have to try that out cause it looks good. Probably also craft a set of that tourgs.

I swapped out the lady for atronach last night. Still have 29k resistance and magic recovery back around 1k. I'm not comfortable enough to try tanking with 25k resistance.

I'm having a time wrapping my head around how I can get all the resistance but still still doesn't feel as tanky. heavy armor seems to give you something more than what's listed in passives. It doesn't seem to add up.


BTW, powerful assault pieces are skyrocketing in the traders right now. Especially weapons and shields and infused and sturdy pieces.

paulsimonps

Norn wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Norn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Powerful Assault is such a blah "tanking" set. I hate it.

For 4-man content, why not just go with the tried-and-true Ebon/Alkosh?

Or if you feel strongly that your group doesn't need Ebon, go Torug/Alkosh with infused weapons and the Crusher and Weakening enchants. Crusher with both Infused and Torug 5p is a lot of penetration with a lot of uptime. Back bar the Weakening enchant.

PA is highly reliable in 4 man content. It's basically free 250ish weapon/spell damage(with scaling buffs) that you can get 100% uptime. Assuming everyone is doing their job correctly I highly doubt that anyone needs Ebon even in DLC dungeons.

-

Alkosh on the other hand is really good if you have a Magsorc in your party, meh if you're just relying on your healers synergys.

Chudan gives you the same buff as you can get from Balance or Hardened Armor, it's only useful if you really really really need to free up a slot. Other than that Lord Warden beats it in every application. You don't need 32K res for dungeons btw, 25k ish good enough for you to not get one shot.

I would do Torugs Pact over Alkosh, more reliable and Infused Torugs Crusher is really strong. 2740 when all golded out.

Not for dungeons.

Yes, for Dungeons.

clocksstoppe

code65536 wrote: »

tried-and-true Ebon

I don't want to be rude but the best way to get disregarded as someone who doesn't know anything is to even imply using ebon, ever. There is not one single more useless tanking set than ebon. Especially in 4man, holy crap dude what are you doing..

paulsimonps

clocksstoppe wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

tried-and-true Ebon

I don't want to be rude but the best way to get disregarded as someone who doesn't know anything is to even imply using ebon, ever. There is not one single more useless tanking set than ebon. Especially in 4man, holy crap dude what are you doing..

I love this, claiming ignorance of others while being ignorant themselves. Ebon has had a place in Trials for a very very long time and I don't see that stop being a thing anytime soon. Sure, not that needed in 4 man, but most tanks I know spec for Trials and just use that in dungeons since you don't need anything super fancy for them. I mean basically every team I have ever seen done vMoL or vHoF have Ebon somewhere in the group, are you saying they are all crap tanks?

Asardes

Some harder dungeons do have 1 shot mechanics, just as vet trials so Ebon is far from useless.

kylewwefan

The lord warden is very very good now. The area is much bigger making it more useful and one piece adding physical resistance is great now too.

I think its great for 4 man. It even worked ok in normal trials.

I have got feedback that the PA is kind of meh. Don't know why though. If SPC is mandatory for Healers how come there's not more love for PA on tanks? Those 2 sets buff your DD 400 weapon/spell damage.