PvE Damage Tank - Is such a build possible anymore?

Cybercore_Death

I've tried looking for a Damage Tank build before and found a few outdated builds that were never revived for the current patches, which is a shame as they looked to be quite fun to play.

I really like the idea of being able to take punishment as well as dish out some decent damage at the same time. I'm not looking to hit the 30-50k DPS mark as that would defeat the object of being a Tank (though if there were a build that could do both that would be pretty sweet).

I'm wondering if anyone knows of a build that fits this role that's up to date with current patches? Or if not, would it be possible to theory craft one as a community and make the Damage Tank a viable option again?

VaranisArano

In my experience, it really depends on what level of content you want to do, and how much of a balance you want between the tank role and DPS role. I'll compare my tank with my DPS/tank and my experiences with them in normal and veteran dungeons.

My Dunmer MagDK who is my proper tank does a slow but steady amount of damage. She doesn't die often, so I can often slowly burn down bosses. I can run any normal and vet dungeon with her.

My Imperial StamSorc DPS/Tank is more along the vein of the DPS who slotted a taunt. She's got enough health and defense to hold boss aggro and enough DPS to burn mobs and bosses down. However, I primarily run her in a group with three other DPS where she is the tank only because its useful to have someone hold the bosses more or less in place for the other DPS. I've successfully run all the non-DLC normal dungeons with her. I've tried a few of the easier vet dungeons with her, and she worked okay, but she's definitely not a true tank. She simply doesn't have the health or the resistances to be as effective as a tank or for me to be as confident with her as I am tanking with my MagDK tank, especially when dealing with veteran dungeon one-shot mechanics like AOEs that my MagDK tank can survive. When I do run her in harder content, I run her with my friend group who is willing to put up with the occasional death from a failed dodge roll in order to have the extra DPS for a faster clear. In short, she's effective, but normal dungeons are where I'd say she's at her best fulfilling both the tank and the DPS roles.

As for the StamSorc DPS/Tank build, its DW/S&B. I start with crowd control on the mobs with caltrops, then charge in with crit surge and hurricane running, use the pierce armor taunt and debuff on the boss and anything that needs it, and then start attacking with DW skills.

Those are my experiences. I'm sure others will have their own and I'm interested to see what the trials crowd has to say.

Cybercore_Death

VaranisArano wrote: »

In my experience, it really depends on what level of content you want to do, and how much of a balance you want between the tank role and DPS role. I'll compare my tank with my DPS/tank and my experiences with them in normal and veteran dungeons.

My Dunmer MagDK who is my proper tank does a slow but steady amount of damage. She doesn't die often, so I can often slowly burn down bosses. I can run any normal and vet dungeon with her.

My Imperial StamSorc DPS/Tank is more along the vein of the DPS who slotted a taunt. She's got enough health and defense to hold boss aggro and enough DPS to burn mobs and bosses down. However, I primarily run her in a group with three other DPS where she is the tank only because its useful to have someone hold the bosses more or less in place for the other DPS. I've successfully run all the non-DLC normal dungeons with her. I've tried a few of the easier vet dungeons with her, and she worked okay, but she's definitely not a true tank. She simply doesn't have the health or the resistances to be as effective as a tank or for me to be as confident with her as I am tanking with my MagDK tank, especially when dealing with veteran dungeon one-shot mechanics like AOEs that my MagDK tank can survive. When I do run her in harder content, I run her with my friend group who is willing to put up with the occasional death from a failed dodge roll in order to have the extra DPS for a faster clear. In short, she's effective, but normal dungeons are where I'd say she's at her best fulfilling both the tank and the DPS roles.

As for the StamSorc DPS/Tank build, its DW/S&B. I start with crowd control on the mobs with caltrops, then charge in with crit surge and hurricane running, use the pierce armor taunt and debuff on the boss and anything that needs it, and then start attacking with DW skills.

Those are my experiences. I'm sure others will have their own and I'm interested to see what the trials crowd has to say.

This gives me something to go on, thankyou.

If you wouldn't mind could you post details around your mDK Tank build? I already run a Dunmer DK DPS build and have pretty much everything unlocked so in theory i could swap between roles as and when needed.

DocFrost72

You can always make a high health templar tank. Something magical about having 60-70k health that all contributes to damage. Blazing shield is both a damage shield and great aoe burst, and in trash packs where you'll have plenty of enemies wailing on you the aoe damage will be pretty nice.

Along the same vein is a warden health tank. The cool thing about them is that while they don't get a damage shield for high health, they do get a health scaling heal, aoe, and dot. Gripping shards lays down a root (immobilizes) enemies around you and leaves a dot that has dmg scaled with your health, and either morph of arctic wind will be useful to you. If you want pure damage and no healing, try arctic blast but I recommend polar wind for managing health.

For either of these builds you will need equilibrium, but important thing to remember: if you use equilibrium your damage shields are halved, and that halves damage on Templar tanks.

Cybercore_Death

DocFrost72 wrote: »

You can always make a high health templar tank. Something magical about having 60-70k health that all contributes to damage. Blazing shield is both a damage shield and great aoe burst, and in trash packs where you'll have plenty of enemies wailing on you the aoe damage will be pretty nice.

Along the same vein is a warden health tank. The cool thing about them is that while they don't get a damage shield for high health, they do get a health scaling heal, aoe, and dot. Gripping shards lays down a root (immobilizes) enemies around you and leaves a dot that has dmg scaled with your health, and either morph of arctic wind will be useful to you. If you want pure damage and no healing, try arctic blast but I recommend polar wind for managing health.

For either of these builds you will need equilibrium, but important thing to remember: if you use equilibrium your damage shields are halved, and that halves damage on Templar tanks.

Some good food for thought there, thankyou. Never realised they had skills that worked in such a way. Might be a good time for me to level a Warden up.

EDIT: Forgot to ask, do you yourself run either of these and could you post any details around the builds if so?

eso_nya

For mDK:
Its a bit cheesy: 5-1-1 heavy armor, Torugs, Dragon, Bloodspawn, 64 points into magicka, trifood, ~27k health, s&b + lightningstaff, 3 points into the banish the whicked passive, use shootingstar as a spammable (against daedric/undead hords of trashmobs).
s&b: ransack - heroic slash - wings - deep breath - ingenious shield
destro: burning embers - fire breath - wall of elements - ingenious weapon (the one w/ heavy attack boost) - spiky armor

Instead of Torugs u can use julianos or kagrenacs, depepnding on the level of groupsupport u want to provide.

Cybercore_Death

eso_nya wrote: »

For mDK:
Its a bit cheesy: 5-1-1 heavy armor, Torugs, Dragon, Bloodspawn, 64 points into magicka, trifood, ~27k health, s&b + lightningstaff, 3 points into the banish the whicked passive, use shootingstar as a spammable (against daedric/undead hords of trashmobs).
s&b: ransack - heroic slash - wings - deep breath - ingenious shield
destro: burning embers - fire breath - wall of elements - ingenious weapon (the one w/ heavy attack boost) - spiky armor

Instead of Torugs u can use julianos or kagrenacs, depepnding on the level of groupsupport u want to provide.

Awesome build details, thankyou.

Would you go Vamp or not? Would you double slot Shooting Star on both bars? And for CP setup, how would you work it?

VaranisArano

Yeah, sure. My Dunmer MagDK runs S&B and Destro Staff. I usually run just S&B as the active bar and bring in the Destro Staff for a more agressive rotation, aka when something needs to be burned down or my random normal PUG group is sooo slow I actually love running random normal dungeons with this build, since she can definitely handle carrying a low DPS group through a normal dungeon if needed.

(Disclaimer, this toon does everything for me from tank to PVP healer, so I'm not going to pretend that the build and its morphs are in any way ideal or meta. This is also only for normal and veteran dungeons, and most of those veteran dungeons were done with friends. This build works, but its not top-notch. As long as I'm having fun and clearing content, I'm happy.)

I usually run ebon armory, either worm cult or Knightmare, and Grothdarr. I've run with Swarm Mother, but then I spend the entire time range taunting with inner fire and blocking while fighting trash mobs. It works really well in some dungeons and so-so in others. I don't typically use DK chains for the same reason because I would rather fight than spend the whole time chaining mobs. For harder content where I want more resistances, I use Lord Warden. I don't run trials or content where Warhorn uptime is a big deal, so I currently don't use Bloodspawn. Grothdarr gives me a nice fire AoE that meshes with how I handle fighting trash mobs and does decent damage on bosses since I'm almost always in close range.

I'll start the fight with Ingeous Weapons for the group buffs. Also, its a really nice "Ready? I'm ready!" signal for the group. Then I go in with crowd control. I use Eruption as a damaging AoE and slow on the mobs, then once I'm in the middle of the mob I alternate between Deep Breath and Burning Embers. Deep Breath deals magic and then flame damage in a ring around me making it great for dealing with trash mobs and adds, though Draw Essence is probably the better PvE morph in terms of resource management. Burning Embers is great spammable damage plus a self heal. At this point, anything that needs to get taunted gets hit with Pierce Armor for the amazing major fracture and breach debuffs. This is usually enough for most content. However, this setup is most effective when I pay attention to mob placement. I don't pull mobs in close with skills, so I have to place myself where I will attract the majority of them. If there's a choke point, that's where I am. In boss fights, Burning Embers becomes my main skill for its constant damage and self-heals, especially if I'm tanking one boss and the group is burning down the other like in Crypt of Hearts I. The self-heal just takes a little pressure off of the healer.

If I need to, I've got my Destro Staff bar with a Inferno Staff because MagDKs love fire. There, I'll use Elemental Blockade, Volatile Armor, a few repeats from the first bar, and the Destro Staff Ultimate for when I absolutely, positively, have to fill the room with a firestorm. I usually only use this if I feel like I need more DPS or like the group has got this so I can relax a little on the tank role and do more DPS. There's also room for situational useful skills like DK chains, Reflective Scales, or whatever is useful in that one particular fight but otherwise not really worth a skill slot.

If I have to, I can also switch out the Destro Staff for a Resto Staff, but that usually only happens when my friend group is trying a hard veteran dungeon for the first time and having dedicated heals near the boss makes it less frustrating for our DPS.

Hope this helps! Fortunately, DKs make for great tanks, so I'm sure you can find plenty of builds that are even more effective than mine.

DocFrost72

How to get to 60k+ health (because I do play a health tank!):

5 pieces plague doctor,
5 pieces green pact,
2 monster set pieces that both give health (malubeth is a really easy head to farm). Bonus if you can get these both in heavy, then one light and one medium when you reach undaunted mettle's second passive.

All big pieces (the ones that get the most from enchanting- chest, legs, head) infused, little pieces sturdy. You'll want purple tri stat food, and every single armor pieces enchanted to health. Attributes are tricky: you'll want to make sure you have about 15k stamina and 14k magicka, then dump the rest into health.

Since you seemed interested in the warden, skills as follows:

Bar one- Absorb magic, pierce armor, leeching vines, shimmering shield, polar wind, shield discipline/spell wall.

Bar two- expansive frost cloak, inner fire, heroic slash, gripping shards, balance (equilibrium morph, mages' guild- you'd be amazed how many people don't know what the skill is), aggressive warhorn.

idk

Fortunately the solid tank that can do solid damage is not as easy these days. A tank should not be able to do solid damage.

eso_nya

Cybercore_Death wrote: »

eso_nya wrote: »

For mDK:
Its a bit cheesy: 5-1-1 heavy armor, Torugs, Dragon, Bloodspawn, 64 points into magicka, trifood, ~27k health, s&b + lightningstaff, 3 points into the banish the whicked passive, use shootingstar as a spammable (against daedric/undead hords of trashmobs).
s&b: ransack - heroic slash - wings - deep breath - ingenious shield
destro: burning embers - fire breath - wall of elements - ingenious weapon (the one w/ heavy attack boost) - spiky armor

Instead of Torugs u can use julianos or kagrenacs, depepnding on the level of groupsupport u want to provide.

Awesome build details, thankyou.

Would you go Vamp or not? Would you double slot Shooting Star on both bars? And for CP setup, how would you work it?

Vamp might be beneficial, for cosmetical reasons, none of my char will ever go that way

Shooting Star on staffbar, something defensive on s&b e.g. s&b ult or magma armor or barrier.

I dont know the stars names, not at home atm, the core ones r:
Red: 56 into Ironclad and thick skinned, 46 into hardy and elemental defender, rest split between shield strength and healing received.
Green: 56 into block cost reduction, dodge cost reduction and heavy attack boost, rest into magicka regen.
Blue: Critical dmg boost 15~20%, 75 into thaumaturgy, ~30ish into heavy attack dmg, a few into penetration (10~15, running lover + 2 cp points for every non-divine armor in dd loadout), elemental/magick dmg boost to ~10%
Over the thumb: 46 points into the stars that give low percentages, 56 into the ones that give high.

Cybercore_Death

VaranisArano wrote: »

Yeah, sure. My Dunmer MagDK runs S&B and Destro Staff. I usually run just S&B as the active bar and bring in the Destro Staff for a more agressive rotation, aka when something needs to be burned down or my random normal PUG group is sooo slow I actually love running random normal dungeons with this build, since she can definitely handle carrying a low DPS group through a normal dungeon if needed.

(Disclaimer, this toon does everything for me from tank to PVP healer, so I'm not going to pretend that the build and its morphs are in any way ideal or meta. This is also only for normal and veteran dungeons, and most of those veteran dungeons were done with friends. This build works, but its not top-notch. As long as I'm having fun and clearing content, I'm happy.)

I usually run ebon armory, either worm cult or Knightmare, and Grothdarr. I've run with Swarm Mother, but then I spend the entire time range taunting with inner fire and blocking while fighting trash mobs. It works really well in some dungeons and so-so in others. I don't typically use DK chains for the same reason because I would rather fight than spend the whole time chaining mobs. For harder content where I want more resistances, I use Lord Warden. I don't run trials or content where Warhorn uptime is a big deal, so I currently don't use Bloodspawn. Grothdarr gives me a nice fire AoE that meshes with how I handle fighting trash mobs and does decent damage on bosses since I'm almost always in close range.

I'll start the fight with Ingeous Weapons for the group buffs. Also, its a really nice "Ready? I'm ready!" signal for the group. Then I go in with crowd control. I use Eruption as a damaging AoE and slow on the mobs, then once I'm in the middle of the mob I alternate between Deep Breath and Burning Embers. Deep Breath deals magic and then flame damage in a ring around me making it great for dealing with trash mobs and adds, though Draw Essence is probably the better PvE morph in terms of resource management. Burning Embers is great spammable damage plus a self heal. At this point, anything that needs to get taunted gets hit with Pierce Armor for the amazing major fracture and breach debuffs. This is usually enough for most content. However, this setup is most effective when I pay attention to mob placement. I don't pull mobs in close with skills, so I have to place myself where I will attract the majority of them. If there's a choke point, that's where I am. In boss fights, Burning Embers becomes my main skill for its constant damage and self-heals, especially if I'm tanking one boss and the group is burning down the other like in Crypt of Hearts I. The self-heal just takes a little pressure off of the healer.

If I need to, I've got my Destro Staff bar with a Inferno Staff because MagDKs love fire. There, I'll use Elemental Blockade, Volatile Armor, a few repeats from the first bar, and the Destro Staff Ultimate for when I absolutely, positively, have to fill the room with a firestorm. I usually only use this if I feel like I need more DPS or like the group has got this so I can relax a little on the tank role and do more DPS. There's also room for situational useful skills like DK chains, Reflective Scales, or whatever is useful in that one particular fight but otherwise not really worth a skill slot.

If I have to, I can also switch out the Destro Staff for a Resto Staff, but that usually only happens when my friend group is trying a hard veteran dungeon for the first time and having dedicated heals near the boss makes it less frustrating for our DPS.

Hope this helps! Fortunately, DKs make for great tanks, so I'm sure you can find plenty of builds that are even more effective than mine.

Really appreciate the detail you've gone into, especially with rotation as well. I really love playing as an mDK DPS so i'm exited to try out this setup as it looks like a fun build to run.

I've struggled to find a Damage Tank that is "relevant" as it were as most builds are 12 month+ old and dont reflect gear / CP changes.

Do you run as a Vamp for this build and how would you position your CP to get the most out of both sides of the build?

Cybercore_Death

DocFrost72 wrote: »

How to get to 60k+ health (because I do play a health tank!):

5 pieces plague doctor,
5 pieces green pact,
2 monster set pieces that both give health (malubeth is a really easy head to farm). Bonus if you can get these both in heavy, then one light and one medium when you reach undaunted mettle's second passive.

All big pieces (the ones that get the most from enchanting- chest, legs, head) infused, little pieces sturdy. You'll want purple tri stat food, and every single armor pieces enchanted to health. Attributes are tricky: you'll want to make sure you have about 15k stamina and 14k magicka, then dump the rest into health.

Since you seemed interested in the warden, skills as follows:

Bar one- Absorb magic, pierce armor, leeching vines, shimmering shield, polar wind, shield discipline/spell wall.

Bar two- expansive frost cloak, inner fire, heroic slash, gripping shards, balance (equilibrium morph, mages' guild- you'd be amazed how many people don't know what the skill is), aggressive warhorn.

Really appreciate the detail you've gone into with this. Is the Warden a fun build to play with? I've seen a few people running then, but as healer / support roles only and some of the skills looked pretty cool tbf.

Would you run this build as a Vamp and also how do you work your CP to get the most out of skills / armor setup?

Cybercore_Death

eso_nya wrote: »

Cybercore_Death wrote: »

eso_nya wrote: »

For mDK:
Its a bit cheesy: 5-1-1 heavy armor, Torugs, Dragon, Bloodspawn, 64 points into magicka, trifood, ~27k health, s&b + lightningstaff, 3 points into the banish the whicked passive, use shootingstar as a spammable (against daedric/undead hords of trashmobs).
s&b: ransack - heroic slash - wings - deep breath - ingenious shield
destro: burning embers - fire breath - wall of elements - ingenious weapon (the one w/ heavy attack boost) - spiky armor

Instead of Torugs u can use julianos or kagrenacs, depepnding on the level of groupsupport u want to provide.

Awesome build details, thankyou.

Would you go Vamp or not? Would you double slot Shooting Star on both bars? And for CP setup, how would you work it?

Vamp might be beneficial, for cosmetical reasons, none of my char will ever go that way

Shooting Star on staffbar, something defensive on s&b e.g. s&b ult or magma armor or barrier.

I dont know the stars names, not at home atm, the core ones r:
Red: 56 into Ironclad and thick skinned, 46 into hardy and elemental defender, rest split between shield strength and healing received.
Green: 56 into block cost reduction, dodge cost reduction and heavy attack boost, rest into magicka regen.
Blue: Critical dmg boost 15~20%, 75 into thaumaturgy, ~30ish into heavy attack dmg, a few into penetration (10~15, running lover + 2 cp points for every non-divine armor in dd loadout), elemental/magick dmg boost to ~10%
Over the thumb: 46 points into the stars that give low percentages, 56 into the ones that give high.

Haha i used Vamp before for the cosmetic purposes.

Thankyou for the CP notes. Just so i have an idea on what to look for.

Really pumped for trying this out :-)

VaranisArano

I don't run as a vamp, so I can't say whether or not that would be useful for it. Also, my CP is set for PVP more than PvE, so I can't really recommend anything there either. Sorry.

For gear, I've used Plague Doctor or Ebon Armory or Whitestrake's Retribution because I run dungeons with a lot of PUGs and having a health cushion is very nice when I'm the last survivor and have to rez someone else. Fungal Grotto II's Gaymne Bandu is the best PUG killer. The other gear set is entirely personal preference. Burning spellweave or silks of the sun would probably be better than what I have now, since Worm Cult is my PVP healer gear and I'm still experimenting with Knightmare.

Again, my MagDK tank is a tank. Her damage is slow, but steady, and I wouldn't ever queue with her in a DPS role.

Cybercore_Death

VaranisArano wrote: »

I don't run as a vamp, so I can't say whether or not that would be useful for it. Also, my CP is set for PVP more than PvE, so I can't really recommend anything there either. Sorry.

For gear, I've used Plague Doctor or Ebon Armory or Whitestrake's Retribution because I run dungeons with a lot of PUGs and having a health cushion is very nice when I'm the last survivor and have to rez someone else. Fungal Grotto II's Gaymne Bandu is the best PUG killer. The other gear set is entirely personal preference. Burning spellweave or silks of the sun would probably be better than what I have now, since Worm Cult is my PVP healer gear and I'm still experimenting with Knightmare.

Again, my MagDK tank is a tank. Her damage is slow, but steady, and I wouldn't ever queue with her in a DPS role.

No worries, appreciate your help and pointers still.

Its gives me a lot to on, along with the other build details so hopefully i can do the math and find that happy medium between them all.

I dont think i'd ever look to be able to queue as a DPS role but if i could get a hybrid that maybe had some good execute damage for the boss stages with boss shields and adds to take down if that makes sense? Then again if i could create a build that can tank and add a steady 10-15k DPS to the fight that would also be pretty sweet

DocFrost72

I would recommend vampire for a high health build, as long as you are comfortable doing so. It isn't necessary by any means, but think about the benefits: passive 10% magicka regen and the undead passive. The undead passive decreases damage taken (which works on both your health and your damage shields) by up to 33%. When you consider that passive begins to start piling up when you'd still have 30k health, it synergized exceedingly well with a high health tank.

As for the warden, I tried tanking in seducer and ebon armory and Always felt squishy. I got spoiled by my 70k health DK and for a time would just take his gear and put it on her, and that was a blast. They have a lot of cool utility, and in some fights you may even find yourself slotting out abilities. Want a better block cost? Slot bull netch to gain stamina while you're blocking. Want to play healer? With all the ult gen you have, you can pop enchanted forest (or healing thicket) dang near every 15-20 seconds, which is a huge amount of incoming healing.

Plus, I like spinners and bosmer lore, so class is a dream come true for me

Cybercore_Death

DocFrost72 wrote: »

I would recommend vampire for a high health build, as long as you are comfortable doing so. It isn't necessary by any means, but think about the benefits: passive 10% magicka regen and the undead passive. The undead passive decreases damage taken (which works on both your health and your damage shields) by up to 33%. When you consider that passive begins to start piling up when you'd still have 30k health, it synergized exceedingly well with a high health tank.

As for the warden, I tried tanking in seducer and ebon armory and Always felt squishy. I got spoiled by my 70k health DK and for a time would just take his gear and put it on her, and that was a blast. They have a lot of cool utility, and in some fights you may even find yourself slotting out abilities. Want a better block cost? Slot bull netch to gain stamina while you're blocking. Want to play healer? With all the ult gen you have, you can pop enchanted forest (or healing thicket) dang near every 15-20 seconds, which is a huge amount of incoming healing.

Plus, I like spinners and bosmer lore, so class is a dream come true for me

Sold!! Gonna have to level me a warden up now i reckon. Plus it will be a nice change from my DK DPS as well seen as i've been using it for about 2 and half years now...

I started a StamSorc to change things up a bit but i really wanna get into tanking and i think between the mDK builds above and your warden help its more doable than i thought it would be

jaws343

What is great about a high health Warden tank is a number of the spells scale from health and also help with tanking and DPS.

For starters:
Gripping shards scales from health and helps to root enemies and deals damage.
Artic Blast heals you and deals aoe damage.
Betty Netch is great.

Cybercore_Death

jaws343 wrote: »

What is great about a high health Warden tank is a number of the spells scale from health and also help with tanking and DPS.

For starters:
Gripping shards scales from health and helps to root enemies and deals damage.
Artic Blast heals you and deals aoe damage.
Betty Netch is great.

This is really good to know thankyou. Its looking like the Warden is far more useful that i initially though it was.

raj72616a

the tank builds i have are:
- stamplar tank, 30k health leeching plate defending warrior engine guardian
- 60k+ health blazplar
- 60k+ health DK

the high health dk shield tank doesnt even do 1k dps.
the blazplar tank does maybe 5k single target dps at best.
stamplar in heavy armor might sometimes reach nearly 10k dps, running dual wield on back bar with rend, blood craze, rearming trap and jab, but only for short fight because i cannot sustain (low stamina and no stam cost reduction)

i haven't finished levelling my warden so i cannot comment on that. the health based damage skill does not look very promising tho.

nb saptank was said to be able to do high dps and self heal and sustain well but that was nerfed and not viable now. or so i have heard.

if we are not talking about trial and dlc vet dungeon, you could just duct tape a shield and a little survivability tool on a dps build like i do:

 http://esoacademy.com/builds/stam-sorc-faux-tank/

sustainable 15k single target dps and bare minimum capability to perform tank duties. fine for all normal dungeons. fine for the easier vet dungeons. but you also need to have heavy armor sets in case you get into a group that requires a proper tank.

Cybercore_Death

raj72616a wrote: »

the tank builds i have are:
- stamplar tank, 30k health leeching plate defending warrior engine guardian
- 60k+ health blazplar
- 60k+ health DK

the high health dk shield tank doesnt even do 1k dps.
the blazplar tank does maybe 5k single target dps at best.
stamplar in heavy armor might sometimes reach nearly 10k dps, running dual wield on back bar with rend, blood craze, rearming trap and jab, but only for short fight because i cannot sustain (low stamina and no stam cost reduction)

i haven't finished levelling my warden so i cannot comment on that. the health based damage skill does not look very promising tho.

nb saptank was said to be able to do high dps and self heal and sustain well but that was nerfed and not viable now. or so i have heard.

if we are not talking about trial and dlc vet dungeon, you could just duct tape a shield and a little survivability tool on a dps build like i do:

 http://esoacademy.com/builds/stam-sorc-faux-tank/

sustainable 15k single target dps and bare minimum capability to perform tank duties. fine for all normal dungeons. fine for the easier vet dungeons. but you also need to have heavy armor sets in case you get into a group that requires a proper tank.

Out of the 3 tanks you have which one would be your general go to / do you enjoy playing the most?

I see a lot of builds that focus around DK for full tanking. I saw the SAP tank a while back and was sad to see it got nerfed and was no longer viable. I also looked at a Deltia tank build which he used to complete vMA but its outdated now and with him not really being invested in ESO anymore i doubt it will get revived.

The StamSorc build you posted is quite interesting. Something to definitely look at as well as i have a StamSorc i was leveling for DPS purposes.

raj72616a

i like my stamplar tank.
can't do much damage and not as survivable as blazplar but i have enough resources to do more things. like spamming echoing vigor to help with healing.
extended ritual is an AoE snare on mobs, and give you minor mending, remove debuff on you, and is a small amount of heal over time that's better than nothing.
and very importantly, when i have to rez ppl in pug, i rez 25% faster and they come back at full health.

strictly talking abt tanking ability DK should better.
but i feel more versatile when i play my stamplar tank.

Cybercore_Death

raj72616a wrote: »

i like my stamplar tank.
can't do much damage and not as survivable as blazplar but i have enough resources to do more things. like spamming echoing vigor to help with healing.
extended ritual is an AoE snare on mobs, and give you minor mending, remove debuff on you, and is a small amount of heal over time that's better than nothing.
and very importantly, when i have to rez ppl in pug, i rez 25% faster and they come back at full health.

strictly talking abt tanking ability DK should better.
but i feel more versatile when i play my stamplar tank.

I appreciate your honesty with that one man, thankyou.

Gives me a lot to think about with the Templar as well.

eso_nya

If its an option for u, u should really look into warden, they r insanely powerfull as dmg-tanks.
personally, i dont like gripping shards: Its kinda the same skill as caltrops, tho the dmg it does, u need ~50k health to get the tooltip to the caltrops number at 25k stamina.
For the setups, on mag warden i run the same stuff than on mdk from the post above (except using sentinel monsterset instead of bloodspawn), for stamina, im very happy with 7th legion, torugs and bloodspawn, w/ s&b + 2hander.
Shalks is a nice source of dmg, kiting w/ birds of prey is nice, the other morph is great when u wanna run tavas.
No more details, dont want the "buff warden"-crowd to chase me with torches and pitchforks, i'd like a dmg-boost for them aswell

Nestor

You can certainly make a tanky build that can dish out the DPS.

Cybercore_Death

eso_nya wrote: »

If its an option for u, u should really look into warden, they r insanely powerfull as dmg-tanks.
personally, i dont like gripping shards: Its kinda the same skill as caltrops, tho the dmg it does, u need ~50k health to get the tooltip to the caltrops number at 25k stamina.
For the setups, on mag warden i run the same stuff than on mdk from the post above (except using sentinel monsterset instead of bloodspawn), for stamina, im very happy with 7th legion, torugs and bloodspawn, w/ s&b + 2hander.
Shalks is a nice source of dmg, kiting w/ birds of prey is nice, the other morph is great when u wanna run tavas.
No more details, dont want the "buff warden"-crowd to chase me with torches and pitchforks, i'd like a dmg-boost for them aswell

It seems that warden may end up being the way to go after all. I've been looking for a good excuse to start one and think this is it.

Cybercore_Death

Nestor wrote: »

You can certainly make a tanky build that can dish out the DPS.

Can you offer any help / advice on this front?

And do you run one yourself?

jaws343

I was running vWGT with a mag warden tank who was able to self heal (and group heal), tank, and deal out damage. The guy probably could have soloed everything but the last boss and the planar fight. It was insane. Interestingly, he was running dual frost staves with the undaunted taunt for emergencies.

Asardes

In any case if you go with 5p heavy your max single target DPS would be in the 10-13K ballpark if you invest all attribute points in stamina/magicka and get 25K+ health from gear only.

For a magicka character It won't get higher than that because you are missing 10% spell critical (a minimum of 7% DPS loss) and 5K spell penetration (about 10% DPS loss) from the 5p light armor passives. You are also missing a lot of sustain in terms of magicka recovery and cost reduction and due to the fact you are maintaining some DPS skills in addition to the tank ones. Also if running 1h+s front bar you are missing out on the offhand weapon spell/weapon damage stat. 1h weapon attacks also recover only stamina so you'll need to run high magicka recovery and a cost reduction set like Alteration Mastery or Seducer, which is a loss in terms of missing spell damage/critical compared to a DPS set.

Pretty much the same consideration for a stamina based tank/DD hybrid but the loss of weapon critical stat is more gradual being per piece but the 12% weapon damage one needs 5p as well. Same thing about the cost reduction and stamina recovery stats with the caveat that recovery stops while blocking.

For a health based tank the maximum possible DPS is 5-7K since even if some skills do scale on maximum health the damage they deal will be pretty low in practice due to high cost and missing critical passives. At that point it would be more beneficial to the group if you ran a proper debuff tanking setup and only did tanking. For example taunting with pierce armor skill, using Torug's Pact set and an infused weapon and crusher enchant will result in a 5.3K+2.7K=8K resistance debuff; 8K/50K=16% damage increase when compared to the basic taunt with no debuff from inner fire. So if your group is doing 50K DPS you will be adding 8K DPS to that, much more than any of your DPS skills would. For example I did the numbers on Blazing Shield and the DPS output was in the 3-4K ball park in ideal conditions - really high health and plenty of mobs around to amp the shield. And there have been nerfs since then so it will end up lower in practice.

So the only answer is to run a DD build and slot a taunt, which is more viable on a magicka character since your DPS skills will run off the other pool and you will slot a shield that runs off magicka as well and saves you from the need to block anything but the heavy attacks. You can still do most of your rotation if the mechanics are simple so you will still end up with ~80% of your normal DPS: ex. if you are pulling 30K DPS you will still end up with 24K. But that only works for normal and some of the easier vet dungeons. In harder ones it's simply not survivable. There are some bosses and mechanics that will do 20K+ damage even to a blocking and almost resistance capped proper tank. So vCoS and vICP are clearly out of limits, vRoM may be viable, vWGT will be relatively easy. Not sure about the new ones since I didn't run them.

pizzaow

I love this thread. Lately, I've been (unsuccessfully) trying to find a way to do just this; my main toon is an imperial DK tank, who is normally setup to tank HM vet trials. I want to do some solo content with him as well, but it's PAINFUL... I don't mind changing gear/skills, but I'd rather not mess with attributes (currently 50 health, 14 stam).

The last thing I tried was Seventh Legion/VO with maelstrom weapons (S+B/Greatsword), which is higher DPS than my trial setup, but it's not where I'd like it to be (estimating ~10K dps). I thought I'd take him into maelstrom for fun; it was nice having such excellent survivability. I feel "at home" on my S+B bar, and really enjoy being able to turtle up/survive and replenish resources if I get into trouble. The downside is that I was introduced to new mechanics that even mediocre DPS will bypass. For example: did you know that the stage 1 boss (Maxus the Many) will spawn adds then absorb them later which heals him?

The next thing I'm going to try is 5-1-1 with medium armor and seeing if that makes a huge difference. Do you guys think 2H, Dual Wield or Bow would be best for my "DPS bar"?