Tanking University

thedude33

Wanted to start a thread for new players and new wannabe tanks. I read something this morning about red circles under mob = bash and white lines = block? Now I don't know if that is true, but it got me thinking. I know of Woelers site with gear suggestions. What I have never found is tips and tricks, the actual mechanics of being a tank.

My tank just hit 50 and I am in the process of deciding on gear. Still, I know gear is only one part of the process. I see many posts complaining about tanks not doing their job. I checked youtube and found some really old 2014 videos. Nothing really up to date.

So I was hoping for people to come on here and give their tips and tricks ...how to tank.

Betsararie

Do we really need a school for permablock?

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

https://woeler.eu

DocFrost72

The basics:

Blocking is your best defense. Wearing at least 5 pieces of heavy armor and you'll have enough resistances for your average dungeon, but blocking cuts damage by at least 50%. To that end: use block cost reduction glyphs and sturdy gear to help keep that up as much as you can.

Turn your combat cues on. Red lines racing out of your target? Bash! White lines flying out of your target? Block!

You don't have to, or even want to taunt everything. Even in trash packs, you should be going for enemies that will CC (crowd control) your allies and lock them down. If an enemy does a lot of damage, like the bigger two handed wielding enemies in dungeons that deal big spikes of burst damage, keep them taunted for sure. And of course, keep the boss on you.

Hold your target still. DPS lay down lots of dots that increase their overall damage, and quote a few are ground based. If you're running the boss around, your allies will do less damage and the healer will have to use burstier heals in order to keep you topped off instead of stacking healing springs under you.

You resurrect second to last. Of a dps dies, the other can res. If both die, the healer can keep you alive while you res. If you have it under control though, you can have the healer res. That will be a long ways off though.

More in depth tips:

In ESO, tanks and healers are going to offer the majority of buffs to your team. You'll want things like pierce armor and low slash to increase allied damage and lower enemy damage, respectively.

On that same line, try mixing sets that make you really sturdy (pun intended ) with sets that help allies. Torug's pact, a 3 trait set, offers great support by making your weapon enchantments better and happen more often. Things like crusher enchants will weaken enemy resistances.

You'll want to grab warhorn, the ultimate from the alliance war assault tree. It may seem daunting, but it comes really quick! The aggressive horn morph will not only give allies 10% more health and make them tougher, but will give them a lot more damage for a short window.

Im sure that isn't comprehensive, but others may help you too. The most important thing? Have fun, and go get yourself in dungeons to practice practice practice!

pizzaow

At a very high level your goals are (in order of priority):

1. not die
This is obvious. If you're dead, you certainly can't do the rest, so make your build as tanky as it needs to be* to not die.

2. hold boss aggro
This is simply taunting at least once every 15 seconds. You can't over-taunt in ESO, so feel free to taunt every 5-10 seconds (note that you _should_ be taunting at least every 10 seconds for the major debuffs).

3. position boss (turn him away from group and keep him in the same spot)
A lot of bosses have a nasty cleave attack which will 1-shot DPS. So, get in the habit of turning the boss away from the group. It's also very important to keep the boss still; DPS lay down AOEs, ultimates, etc. and part of your job is to keep the boss inside that. It's very frustrating for DPS to have to lay down all their AOEs again.

4. know mechanics (bash/dodge specific attacks)
Sadly, this is specific to each fight. On the bright side, most bosses don't have a mechanic which will 1-shot the tank or you need to interrupt. The ones that do, you'll learn quick enough; don't be afraid to ask for advice when appraising a fight.

5. control adds as much as possible ("chain" and taunt as many adds as you can)
This is closely related to number 3. If all the dps lay down their AOEs and ultimates in one big death zone, your job is to get adds in there as best/quick as possible (range taunt, chains, talons...).
Also, learning the 'high priority" adds is very useful. The boss is your highest priority, but most fights have some secondary adds that you'll want to taunt too (protip: they are usually the ones with a 2H weapon). Great tanks have all the spawn points memorized and can taunt/pull things in almost instantly.

6. *buff the group
This is largely gear related, and where most of the end-game builds focus. Notice it's way down here at #6. When picking your gear, remember #1... many of the buff/support sets come at the expense of health/survivability. It's much better to live and not buff the group, then to die frequently.

Most tanks that get complaints on the forums fail at 1-3. Think about how chaotic it is if the tank is dead, 1-shoting DPS or running around the room. This is what is very annoying as a DPS/healer.
If adds don't get chained in/taunted right away or you aren't buffing DPS then the fight might take a little longer, but most groups are still pretty happy.

Most of all have fun, and good luck!

Liofa

Blanco wrote: »

Do we really need a school for permablock?

Don't let people like this guy make you think tanking is only permablocking . That is a good start . Permablocking tanks need to spend extra effort on self sustain which makes them worse . Many players seem to not know this , like this lovely person here .

I would say learn animation cancelling first . There are 7 types of it , every single of them is very important .

- Light Cancel
- Medium Cancel (not important but good to know)
- Heavy Cancel
- Block
- Swap
- Roll Dodge
- Bash

These are crucial for whatever role you play . Will make you play more efficently in both offensive and defensive way .

Another thing you need to learn is fights themselves . This is something you can only learn by visual teachings . Youtube videos can help a lot , even though not really the best learning way . But that is definitely the easiest way to get a visual lesson for the fight you will be throwing yourself into .

Best way to learn tanking is , tanking . Yeah , basically just go and tank . I recommend trying to find videos first since they will give you an idea of what's to come . Most efficent way is going with friends . Just tell them that you won't be blocking at all . See what attack hits for how much damage . Best way to sustain your resources is knowing the fight . If you are blocking an attack that does 1 damage , it costs (let's say) 100 stamina . If you block an attack that does 10000 damage , it still costs 100 stamina . So , knowing what to block and what not to block will help your sustain more than anything . This is the most important thing . Make sure you learn what attack hits for how much damage . Without enough knowledge of the fight , you will run out of resources even with the best healer and full selfish sustain setups . This is really important . Whatever you do , learn this .

There are some attacks that can be interrupted . If you see red strings coming out of your opponent's body , that means you can interrupt that . For example , Rakkhat does an animation to buff the Hulk . During this animation , you can see the red strings clearly . You can interrupt it . Same with Hulk . It does an AOE Stun ability that can be interrupted . There are few enemies that doesn't show the red strings around them while doing interruptable attacks , those you just need to learn yourself because I am sure if I start listing them , I will forget some . This is the thing you talked about . There are soooo many attacks that you need to block but doesn't show white lines so I will just say ignore white lines thing . Some white-lined attacks don't even tickle while there can be no-white-line attacks that can one-shot the tankiest tank if not blocked .

Knowing your class is a whole another topic . Best way to learn is simply reading your passives . Just read through them and try to understand how to utilize them . Quick example can be made of course . Many builds used Bull Netch on their back bar for passive stamina restore but none of them read the Savage Beast passive . That passive wants you to activate an Animal Companion ability every 8 seconds to restore 4 Ultimate which makes Bull Netch much more effective on front bar for easier access . Things like this can make a whole page so I will just stop after this example . You need to figure out your class yourself .

Tanking in ESO is more like playing a support . Your skills , item sets , even CP passives must be towards group support . Group support can be offensive and defensive . Choosing both or focusing on only one and deciding which one is more important decides the way of how fight is going to be . In a fight your group barely takes any damage , most-loved Ebon set becomes complete garbage . If you are alone in a fight and getting damage frequently , Lord Warden monster set becomes useless and Blood Spawn shines . While the exact opposite can be said for many fights .

Rest is all about theorycrafting . I am making my own builds and I can easily say they outperform most meta builds in terms of support . They require advanced knowledge of fights since getting hit by an attack while on back bar can mean death for me . Start with a defensive setup and start dropping selfish defensive items for more group support oriented ones as you get used to tanking .

Hope this helps . Good luck

VaranisArano

I love to tank. I love talking about tanking. Thanks, OP, for giving me a reason to talk about tanking. I'm not going to pretend this is an exhaustive guide, so everyone feel free to add stuff I left out.

Here's the basics (applicable for normal and veteran dungeons)
The basic job of a tank is to taunt the boss, hold boss aggro, and don't die. If you can do that, you are a tank.
A good tank taunts the boss, holds, boss aggro, doesn't die, holds the boss more or less still, debuffs the boss, buffs the group, and provides crowd control.

How a good tank does all of those things is up to the tank. Any class can be a good tank, though the skills and gear they use to do those things will vary. You'll find that Dragonknights and Wardens have skills that make those jobs very easy, but Sorcerers, Templars, and Nightbaldes can all make effective tanks.

Must-Have Skills
Since every class can tank, the only must-have skill is that YOU MUST HAVE A TAUNT!
There are no AOE taunts; there are 3 single-target taunts.

• Puncture: First skill in One-Hand and Shield. I highly recommend the Pierce Armor morph because it grants both major fracture and major breach, two potent debuffs. (If you ever wondered why people think its necessary to to have a shield in order to tank, this skill is why. The passives in 1H&S are nice, but this is where the gold is at.)
• Inner Fire: Third skill in the Undaunted Line, a ranged magicka taunt (Very useful for ranged fights and for combining with the Swarm Mother monster set)
• Frost Staff heavy attack with passive: you need to unlock the Ancient Knowledge passive in order to turn a Frost staff heavy attack into a ranged magicka taunt. This also has the effect of making blocking with a frost staff cost magicka instead of stamina. In my opinion, while Wardens have made ice staff tanking slightly more viable, Frost staff tanking is inferior to tanking with a shield. (If you run normal dungeons, you are very likely to encounter a DPS with a frost staff who has this passive and didn't realize that it will taunt the boss with a heavy attack. I like to deal with such misguided people gently with a warning...the first time. If said DPS taunts the boss a second time, I'm going to let them handle it.)

Mechanics of Tanking
Trash Mobs: you want to provide crowd control. This can be done in a huge variety of ways, but there is no AOE taunt in the game. In order to deal with large groups, you want to use an AOE or Crowd Control skill to slow, stun, lockdown, or draw in the mob to you as much as possible. In certain dungeons, there are adds with more health or that are more dangerous and it will be greatly appreciated by your DPS and Healer if you taunt or grab those adds so they focus on you.

Bosses:
1. You want to keep the boss taunted and as still as possible. Your DPS are almost certainly throwing ground-based AOEs where the boss is at, so you don't want to drag the boss all over the arena.
2. Generally, if you get streaky white/yellow lines, you need to block because the boss is winding up for a big attack. If you get red lines, you need to interrupt (think Ogrims when then do that chest-pounding heal). If you get a red cone, block. If you get a red aoe, hold block or if you know you can't survive, roll dodge on out of there.
3. Be mindful of mechanics, many times you can turn the boss away from your group so the big attack comes at you and not your squishier teammates - notable examples are Selene's bear and the Spindleclutch I aoes, and there are many more.
4. Lag is going to kill you. Its okay. I spend lots of time yelling "I blocked that!" at the screen. You'll learn on harder vet fights to block AS SOON AS you see the indicator for the big attack so that game actually registers that you blocked. Normals are okay because you'll have enough health/resistances to survive a failed block, usually.

Gear for Tanking
I recommend gearing like you were running a vet dungeon, because it makes running random normal dungeons a walk in the park even if you get a bad healer or low DPS.
Good tank gear allows you to survive, buffs your resistances, and at best, buffs the group.

Resistances
The resistance cap for physical and spell resistance is at somewhere between 31-33k resistances. This works out to be about 50% damage mitigation. The harder the content you want to do, the closer you want to be to the cap. You can get resistances from armor, set bonuses, and class skills. Personally, I stack resistances to the cap (using monster sets like Lord Warden's Dusk or Mighty Chudan) if I'm doing hard vet dungeons, otherwise I wear a different set to do a bit more DPS when I know I don't need full resistances to complete the content.

Health
You probably want somewhere close to 30 to 35k+ health, unless you are going for a build that needs a TON of health in order to use skills that scale with max health, such as a DK's igneous shields. For that to be effective, I think you need something along the lines of 60-70K health, and those are specialized builds.

DPS
You are a tank. DPS is nice, but optional. My MagDK does about 4-6K DPS, which is enough to kill some bosses very, very, slowly. A friend's stam warden who's even tankier does around 2k DPS. If you take the role of tank seriously, its more important that you be a good tank than that you do higher DPS.

Gear Recommendations
Take this one with a grain of salt, okay? Every tank is different and will have their own preferences, not to mention differing abilities to get crafted, zone sets, and dungeon sets. This part is mostly based on my experiences and is in no way intended to be an exhaustive list of good tanking gear in the game. Personally, I recommend that tanks use one "tanking" set and one set to do whatever they want with, whether more DPS or more debuffs, etc, but there's nothing preventing someone from wanting to be a "pure" tank and just doubling up on the tankiness.

Best Tank Gear for a general tank build: Ebon Armory. Ebon Armory drops from the group dungeon Crypt of Hearts 1 & 2 in Rivenspire, and it is a fantastic tank set for normal and vet dungeons. It gives you a ton of health and it gives your group members a small health bonus. When your DPS are running around with 17k health compares to your 30lish health, the 1k bonus from Ebon Armory is a substantial buff to the group.

Plague Doctor drops from Deshaan and gives you a ton of health, about equal to the health from Ebon armory but without the additional group health buff. This is often combined with Green Pact if you want to have a TON of health, but having a TON of health is only good if your build relies on using skills that scale off of max health.

Crafted Sets: Hist Bark, Whitestrake's Retribution, and Tava's Blessing would have been on this list but the Tava's/Bloodspawn meta took a nerf to the knee this last update. It looks like Fortified Brass from Clockwork City will be good if you want a set that gives you a ton of resistances. I used Whitestrake's while I was learning to tank, and that damage shield was great for when I had to rez dead teammates.

Reminder: once you've got your health and resistances where you want, which will probably take you at least one set of armor, feel free to experiment. On my magDK, I've used silks of the sun, knightmare, and Worm Cult as secondary sets at one point or another.

One Final Statement
The tank is a very important member of a dungeon team.

We've all heard people say that its possible to complete nearly every single normal and vet dungeon in the game without a tank and that's TRUE. So why have a tank?

A good tank brings order to the chaos. A good tank provides crowd control so that trash mobs don't spread out all over the room and the DPS don't have to chase, allowing them to burn down the mobs for a quicker, easier run. A good tank debuffs the boss and buffs the group so DPS and heals are better. A good tank holds aggro on the boss so that the boss doesn't run out of the arena chasing a kiting DPS and reset the whole encounter (that happened to me on a no-tank run, needless to say, my DPS slotted a taunt so that didn't happen again) and holds the boss more or less still so that DPS aren't chasing the boss around trying to kill it. A good tank doesn't die so that all of these benefits continue and the group doesn't have to deal with an enraged boss trying to kill them.

There is very little in this game that I find more satisfying than finishing a random dungeon and having group members comment on what a difference it makes to run a dungeon with a good tank.

All you tanks and soon-to-be tanks, have fun tanking!

Hanzus

WOW, last five guys that posted, HUMONGUS HELP, for the OP, I gave all 5 of you an insightful, you guys deserved way more.
You guys took the OP serious and helped in a big way, awesome support!

thedude33

Awesome. This was exactly the type of stuff I was looking for. I'm going to make a set of the new clockwork armor right now. Gotta figure out what to combine it with. Off to do some theory crafting and price checking on Traders.

AcadianPaladin

Fabulous info above from several gracious and knowledgeable posters! As a healer, I consider the tank as leader and foundation of my group. My primary focus is on supporting my tank, so studying how they do what they do is always of much interest.

raj72616a

thedude33 wrote: »

Awesome. This was exactly the type of stuff I was looking for. I'm going to make a set of the new clockwork armor right now. Gotta figure out what to combine it with. Off to do some theory crafting and price checking on Traders.

if you just want high resistance, i suggest buying the Pariah set from guild store, it's dirt cheap and provide tons of resistance.
it says "Increases your Physical and Spell Resistance by up to 11904 based on your missing Health", even at full health you still get ~2500 resistance, it's easy to reach resistance cap.

for crafted set, Whitestrake is great for beginner as mentioned above.

i'd say that while having a tank is very helpful for most dungeons, you might feel useless / helpless in a few particular dungeons:

Darkshade Caverns II - final boss circle around the room, you cannot aggro and hold it. low dps group can't even get thru the jellyfish mini boss no matter how good you tank.
Fungal Grotto II - 2nd mini boss is a dps test, you can't help if the dps ain't good enough.
City of Ash II - dps test here and there. final boss is dps test too, especially for hard mode
Direfrost - final boss attack randomly or in AOE, you can't aggro/pull/hold boss. seriously for this fight it's better for the tank to switch to dps.
Tempest Island - final boss attack randomly or in AOE, but at least this boss doesn't heal itself. but the longer the fight goes, the more accidents you will get. eg, you walk/roll out of AoE, a gust of wind knock you back into AoE range, the AoE burst take half of your health and most importantly knock you back, and you fall just out of the boss's minimum charge range, so the boss immediately follow up with a charge attack before you can get up, and you die. your teammates desperately try to rez you, but always get interrupted by the wind just 0.2 sec before the rez finish.

VaranisArano

I disagree on most of these.
Darkshade II - sure a tank is technically useless, so most tanks will switch into DPS mode for this fight, BUT crowd control like DK chains or Swarm Mother set that pulls adds in makes it much easier to deal with the dwarven spheres. Basically, you switch to an off-DPS role and focus on crowd control, debuffing the boss, and buffing the group.

Fungal Grotto II - every little bit helps, especially if your group has low DPS in the first place. I'll often save an ultimate for Bandu's chain adds like Dawnbreaker so I can help if its one of the better DPS who get chained. You may not help a lot, but unless you do literally no DPS, you can still help when needed.

City of Ash II - Yes, DPS is important and so you'll want to have the ability to DPS, but your tanking is super important in this dungeon too. For all that most of the bosses have a DPS race attached, they are also normal bosses who benefit from getting the normal tank treatment. The Fire Maw needs a Tank - one strategy relies on the tank positioning him, my preferred method involved me tanking him and slowly whittling him down so the DPS never had to deal with too many adds at a time. The Ash Titian needs a tank who can hold aggro on both the Titan and an air atronach at the same time - and the air atronachs hit hard on vet. This was one of the hardest fights for me to tank. Even Valkyn Skoria himself benefits from a tank, or at least someone who can use positioning to help with the fire bursts. Sure, you'll probably want to bring at least some DPS, but this dungeon definitely benefits from a tank.

I don't know the fights in Direfrost or Tempest Island as well, since I run them less, but these are definitely fights to bring some DPS and focus on debuffing the boss and buffing the group.

Something for tanks to keep in mind is that even when you feel useless in a fight, the part of your job that is debuffing the boss and buffing the group is still important and still useful. Its good to be able to do DPS when needed, but make sure you keep up with the debuffs, buffs, and crowd control that a tank does very well.

raj72616a

VaranisArano wrote: »

Something for tanks to keep in mind is that even when you feel useless in a fight, the part of your job that is debuffing the boss and buffing the group is still important and still useful. Its good to be able to do DPS when needed, but make sure you keep up with the debuffs, buffs, and crowd control that a tank does very well.

true, at bare minimum you would be using pierce armor and crusher enchant to give ~7k penetration, which translate into ~10% more damage, and heroic slash to provide 15% damage debuff on boss.

thedude33

Just combined plague with the new clockwork ..and am at 46% resistance? Cap is only 35% ?

Dunno how I got that high.

VaranisArano

Its a "cap" as in you can have higher numbers than 33K in spell and physical resistance, but they don't actually count (unless you are being hit with a player with enough penetration in PVP).

raj72616a

cap is ~33k resistance, which means 50% damage reduction

paulsimonps

Everyone that wants to tank end game content and make their own tanking builds should read and understand this:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/279426/damage-mitigation-explanation-and-list-of-options/p1

Will be updating it soon to include anything new that might have been added with CWC.

thedude33

So having some luck with dungeons, but had a question. How do you know when it is ok to stand in the red and when not to? I have only been doing regular dungeons. I know Veteran are much harder.

For instance, CoA2 regular I pretty much stayed in the red with all the fire aoes. Didn't really damage me. I know eventually it will not turn out well if I stay in the red, but how will I know when I can or can't ?

raj72616a

to stand in stupid or to move around, that depends on your build. i pug a lot so i can't always rely on healing from the healer. personally i only stand in red that i can out heal by myself.

eg, banished cell ii, daedroth boss, i'd just stand in stupid, but final boss i have to avoid the fire.

tempest island, direfrost keep, i'd avoid the growing red circle AoE blast from boss. there's no reward in eating the extra damage even if i can manage to mitigate it.

but Spindle1, FG1, EH1, i don't bother to move around and just use Vigor/Bone Shield/etc to overcome the damage. the advantage of keeping the boss at one position outweight the minor cost of a bit self healing.

Morgul667

It is nice to see some very good advises delivered on the forum

Good job guys

paulsimonps

thedude33 wrote: »

So having some luck with dungeons, but had a question. How do you know when it is ok to stand in the red and when not to? I have only been doing regular dungeons. I know Veteran are much harder.

For instance, CoA2 regular I pretty much stayed in the red with all the fire aoes. Didn't really damage me. I know eventually it will not turn out well if I stay in the red, but how will I know when I can or can't ?

Trial and Error.

VaranisArano

thedude33 wrote: »

So having some luck with dungeons, but had a question. How do you know when it is ok to stand in the red and when not to? I have only been doing regular dungeons. I know Veteran are much harder.

For instance, CoA2 regular I pretty much stayed in the red with all the fire aoes. Didn't really damage me. I know eventually it will not turn out well if I stay in the red, but how will I know when I can or can't ?

My tanking build that I bring into normal dungeons is the same one I bring into veteran dungeons, though I might use less resistances from a monster set and more DPS instead. There's also a couple of different types of red. There's the big red aoe used by bosses, there's red telegraphed attacks by bosses, and then there's red circles from environmental hazards.

On Normal, I can stand in most red boss AOEs as long as I block (if I don't I'll lose a managable chunk of health). Some dungeons, I can take a hit from a telegraphed attack with a red cone, but others, like the first boss of Imperial City Prison, I have to block his red cone attack (most embarassing moment of my tanking career was when I kept dying to that attack because I was honestly forgetting to block it, LOL.) As for enviromental AOEs, I can stand in most red circles without worrying as long as I have a self-heal ticking so that the healer doesn't complain too much.

On Veteran, I can stand in most red boss AOEs but I MUST hold block, and it still takes a chunk of my health, sometimes a large chunk. I will usually use self-heals immediately, because the healer might be healing me, or the healer might be focused on a squishy DPS who needs help more than I do (most times, DPS need to roll dodge out of these and its very easy to accidentally die). I have to block all telegraphed attacks with a red cone or white flashing lines because those will usually one-shot (Like the Lava Queen in vet Blessed Crucible, or Selene's Bear in vet Selene's Web) and getting increased health doesn't help. As for enviromental AOEs and red circles, it depends. Usually I can stand in red for a while with self-heals, but it does make the healer work harder, so if I can I'll usually try to move even if I don't need to.

Overall, its a matter of trial and error. The blockable ones you'll most likely find out when you fail to block or the game doesn't register that you blocked (lag is...fun.). Surviving environmental damage is one where if you can stand in it comfortably, your healer isn't stressed, and your self-healing can keep pace, go for it.

Joy_Division

Blanco wrote: »

Do we really need a school for permablock?

Yes. Because tanking isn't permablocking and comments such as yours is exactly why the ESO community should be educated on what good tanking actually is.

thedude33

I'm going to search for a video to help me see these red and white lines people are talking about. Currently I don't see #&*!, except for a massive screen splash of color. I can't tell the difference between an aoe attack, a cone attack, a special attack etc.

DeathHouseInc

Really glad you made this post. I just started tanking since XP bonus and love normal dungeons but tried a vet (falkreath) the other day and damn I will be really disappointed if tanking turns out to be 24/7 block fest ;\ My sustain was terrible and I could not block the minotaurs enough to stave off the one hit club skill. I wreck normal dungeons they are a complete breeze but fun because of tactics. Vet dungeons have me worried I will no longer like tank play style though.

I play a NB tank btw and it is a ton of fun. I really don't like the idea of the stam DK tank.

VaranisArano

DeathHouseInc wrote: »

Really glad you made this post. I just started tanking since XP bonus and love normal dungeons but tried a vet (falkreath) the other day and damn I will be really disappointed if tanking turns out to be 24/7 block fest ;\ My sustain was terrible and I could not block the minotaurs enough to stave off the one hit club skill. I wreck normal dungeons they are a complete breeze but fun because of tactics. Vet dungeons have me worried I will no longer like tank play style though.

I play a NB tank btw and it is a ton of fun. I really don't like the idea of the stam DK tank.

Falkreath is one of the harder vet dungeons, most DLC dungeons are harder and require more from the tank, dps, and healer. If you've been doing a lot of normals and want to start running vets, I suggest starting with the easier veteran dungeons and get a feel for how your build and tanking style work under pressure as you work your way up the list. For example, Fungal Grotto 1 will probably feel easier than normal WGT, but Blessed Crucible or Selene's Web can be a right pain when you're learning to do them. The dungeons don't have to be a block fest.

If you need more sustain, you could try getting sturdy trait on gear or using enchantments that will help with sustain.

ZeroXFF

There was a lot of good advice, and it was mentioned before, but this one really makes a giant difference, so I want to highlight it:
Use block cost reduction enchants on your jewelry

These enchants are very powerful because their values are applied after the multipliers from passives, CPs and gear. I wasn't using them up until I ended up wiping in vet Bloodroot Forge for hours, with one of the main reasons being that I couldn't deal with the fissures on Galchobhar, because I ran out of stamina even when I was at 100% when I stepped onto the fissures, and that despite 19% block cost reduction from CPs and a ton more from 1hs passives. But since I made this adjustment I noticed that a lot of other mechanics have become much easier to deal with, and wasting an opportunity for a heavy attack is no longer a death sentence. I still use different enchants for the easier content to help with DPS and/or healing (I'm playing a magicka templar, so I can help a lot on the healing front if I have to), but when it comes to surviving difficult situations, this has made the biggest difference of all changes that I ever made.

VaranisArano

thedude33 wrote: »

I'm going to search for a video to help me see these red and white lines people are talking about. Currently I don't see #&*!, except for a massive screen splash of color. I can't tell the difference between an aoe attack, a cone attack, a special attack etc.

Hi! It can be really difficult to keep track of a chaotic combat situation, especially when the boss is right in your face and the DPS just dropped liquid lightning on you Some of this will come with experience as you learn the fights and learn what to look for. It might also help for you to change some of the colors of the combat cues. But what I'm going to talk about here is the visual signals that tell you which cue is which and more importantly, where you can practice recognizing and responding to each type.

ZOS recently (with Morrowind, I think) made a change to allow us to change the color of combat cues like that because I number of players with red-green color blindness really struggled with seeing the effects against certain backgrounds. In Settings, make sure you've got the combat cues turned on, and then you should be able to mess with settings in order to change the colors if the default is hard to see. (Personally, I find that I struggle with seeing red ground-based aoes will a Warden healer uses that bright teal field of flowers, for example).

A quick guide to recognizing the different types of boss attacks (that aren't a specific mechanic to that dungeon):

• Big ground-based AOE - this red circle spreads out from the boss like a circular wave along the ground before it goes off. Often it will fill most of the fighting arena. You can lessen the damage by blocking but sometimes you'll get stunned or knocking around even if you are blocking. As a tank, I usually just block - on vet as a healer or DPS, I roll dodge out. Examples: Kragh - FG 1, Swarm Mother - Spindleclutch 1, Tempest Island has a bunch of these.
• Charge Attacks - the boss sets himself like a sprinter, a big long red rectangle appears across the floor and then the boss charges, knocking down anyone in her path. Early in the fight you can sometimes block and stay standing, but eventually you do get knocked down, so its better to just move away. If you need practice, the minotaur boss for the Gold Coast Folly daily is great for practicing charges in a very enclosed area. Examples: Death's Leviathan - Crypt of Hearts 1, mini bosses like charge attacks, especially the bone colossus types.
• Small ground-based AOE - this red shape extends from the boss in the direction of the attack. The tank needs to block, everyone else needs to be out of the way. This is where the rest of the party really appreciates it if the tank has the boss facing away from the rest of the party. This can be a circle, a cone, a rectangle, but it indicates the danger zone. Done right, the tank is the only one hit by this attack. Examples: Pelligare Brother - Wayrest Sewers 1, Overfiend - Imperial City Prison, Darkshade Caverns 1 & 2 has a bunch of bosses that do these. If you need practice, lots of overland PVE enemies have these, especially archers have a big cone attack.
• Environmental AOEs - Some bosses just like to make the arena a misery to fight in, summoning (usually) temporary environmental hazards that inconvenience everybody, but especially vampires since these are usually fire-based. Some bosses like to stack overlapping hazards for extra annoyance. This is the quintessential "standing in stupid" which you can probably stand in in normal dungeons and should be able to manage for a bit in vet dungeons as the tank, but it does sometimes make the healer worry for a bit. So a good rule of thumb is that you might be able to stand in stupid, but the healer doesn't always appreciate it. Take care of your healers A second, rarer type is the fire lines that emanate from the boss, these hit hard on vet and you want to dodge as many as you can. I recommend moving away from the boss for more room to see them coming - the Lava Queen and Valkyn Skoria do this) Examples: High Kinlord Rilis - Banished Cells 1, City of Ash 1 and 2 has a bunch of bosses that do these ground aoes hazards. If you need practice, lots of overland PVE enemies have these, especially spellcasters. Scamps and Daedroths are particularly annoying.
• Single target Special Attack - Signaled by white streaky lines, this is a special attack from the boss. Tank needs to block this, as block it will often stun the enemy for a little bit. Think of it as the BOINNNG! as they bounce off your shield. Examples: Lava Queen's overhead attack - Blessed Crucible, Selene's Bear in Selene's Web, Kragh's overhead arm smashing - Fungal Grotto. If you need practice, lots of overland PVE enemies have attacks. If you need practice, lots of overland PVE enemies have these, especially humanoid enemies with 2handers or 1 hand and shield.
• Interrupt-able Attacks - Signaled by red streaky lines, this attack can be interrupted by a shield bash or interrupt. The tank needs to interrupt this attacks as soon as possible. You can stop these attacks from damaging your party or stop the enemy from healing itself or others. Examples: Hive Lord - Darkshade Caverns 1, various enemies who can self heal like Xivkyn Cauterizers, ogrim, healers, Head Shepherd Neloren, and various enemies with interrupt-able attacks like storm atronachs, Xivkyn, spiders, etc. If you need practice, I'd practice on Xivkyn, as they have a lot of interrupt-able attacks that make the fight difficult if you miss the interrupt.

Most of these attack cues can be seen on PVE overland enemies, but most players and especially most tanks can outright ignore attacks from most overland enemies. If you need to change the colors so its easier to see, by all means do so. But, it might also be worth doing some overland questing and re-training yourself to notice and pay attention to those combat cues from the different enemies. Personally, I find that Xivkyn and other daedra like scamps and daedroths are the best for training since they often have two or more types of special attacks and the consequences for messing up are really annoying - for a challenging practice run, run around the districts of the Imperial City just killing the regular daedra. If you want to practice it with boss-like pressure, grab a healer and 2 DPS and do a World Boss run, as those are pretty similar to just fighting a dungeon boss without the trash mobs in between. Once you've got yourself set to where you can see the colors reliably, and you've retrained yourself to see the combat cues, hopefully things get easier.

raj72616a

VaranisArano wrote: »

• Interrupt-able Attacks - Signaled by red streaky lines, this attack can be interrupted by a shield bash or interrupt. The tank needs to interrupt this attacks as soon as possible. You can stop these attacks from damaging your party or stop the enemy from healing itself or others. Examples: Hive Lord - Darkshade Caverns 1, various enemies who can self heal like Xivkyn Cauterizers, ogrim, healers, Head Shepherd Neloren, and various enemies with interrupt-able attacks like storm atronachs, Xivkyn, spiders, etc. If you need practice, I'd practice on Xivkyn, as they have a lot of interrupt-able attacks that make the fight difficult if you miss the interrupt.

an important example is First Mate Wavecutter from Blackheart Haven.
failure to interrupt that channeled attack may result in the whole group getting wiped by one single attack.

SupremeRissole

So many really good points from knowlegable players, so I'm probably going to double tap a few points already said but here goes:

I recommend being a seasoned DPS before making a tank, because the tank needs to have the most knowledge of mechanics, this is one of the reasons that lots of trial core leaders are tanks. You need to know where to keep the boss or adds. Yes you need to keep it still but keeping them in the right spot is very important and makes life easier for everyone. E.g Velidreth on vCoS if you back up against the wall and go into first person view you will get hit by less drain orbs. Its those little tips and tricks that come with experience.

You must be self-sufficient meaning dont be reliant on a healer. My group does not run a healer for any 4 man content meaning I have to be 100% self sustaining, no shards, no orbs, no heals. This allows us to burn through dungeons very easy. Funnily enough, the quicker everything dies the less resources you use trying to tank everything, for mobs I can just use chains and talons and everything is dead before it has gotten close to hurting the dps.

12 man content and 4 man have very different playstyles for tanks. Trial tanking is a lot more of permablock and using shards.
Content like DLC and vDSA IMO are harder and a lot more fun to tank, especially without a healer. using things like chains and interrupts and taunts will make you unable to permablock so you need to pick your time to drop block and heavy attack.

Lastly, you are a SUPPORT role. You shouldnt be trying to do DPS, if the content is easy enough that you can do dps its probably content that doesnt need a tank in the first place. Like I said we dont run a healer so because the DPS doesnt have buffs like spell power cure, I need to focus on buffing my group where I can with alkosh and the like.
Tank needs to be flexible, there is no one BiS build. I carry about 6 different gear combos so that I can give the group what they need. If they are struggling to survive I'll wear Ebon, if they want more dps I'll use Alkosh, if they are colse I'll use lord Warden. Its all situational so dont think that you can farm two sets of gear and be done with it.

In summary, tanking IMO is the hardest and one of the most valued roles in ESO, yes there's lots of content that can be done without a tank, but the content that does need one, is really fun.

VaranisArano

That's all really good advice for tanking non-basic content once you are already a more experienced tank. I include dungeon runs with 1 tank and 3 DDs in that category.

However, much of it is not good advice for beginner tanks focusing on normal and veteran dungeons. First, it is in no way necessary to do dungeons on a DPS first as though you somehow "graduate" to tank. A new tank can learn how to do dungeons as a tank.

Being self-sufficient is excellent advice IF you intend to do content with 1 tank and 3 DPS. Otherwise, having some forms of self-heals are helpful but you don't need to build like you'll NEVER run with a healer. If you choose to run 1 tank/3DPS runs, crowd control and keeping the boss still become the most important parts of your job.

You are a SUPPORT role, but that means you do your job as a tank. Taunt, hold boss aggro, don't die, hold the boss still, debuff the group, buff the group, and crowd control. If you are doing all of that, by all means do some DPS! My DPS of about 4-6K comes from my taunt, debuff, crowd control, and self-heal/DOT. You'll often see healers throw in DPS while they are healing, and as long as no one dies, no one bothers the healer about it. Same for tanks - as long as you are doing your job, throw in some DPS if you can. If you find yourself able to do a lot of DPS then either you are doing easy content that isn't taxing your resources as you fulfill your tanking duties, or you're in a PUG and group DPS is low and you decide to DPS because you are already meeting tank duties and you just want the group to hurry up and kill the boss. Or both.