TOP tank sets

paulsimonps

Peekachu99 wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

5 Fortified Brass will give you Armor cap, access to Shuffle and fantastic stamina Regen. Been playing around with that a bit lately.

Aka, nothing necessary for a tank. Might be useful for beginners but not for anyone with experience.

What a ridiculous statement. Fortified Brass, Leeching and Pirate Skeleton and you’re at cap, literally unkillable in PVE (and 3v1+ in PVP) without enough Stam to block for days. Experience means thinking outside the box, not only whatever the meta is atm.

Edit: also worth rementioning Shuffle and a cheap CC break and 15-20% dodge (depending on class, Wardens get 20).

Yea, but its overkill. You don't need it. We get enough mitigation from other sources. Meta is what it is for a reason, if it was necessary you would see more tanks use it. They are not. Support sets is what we want and are looking for in current meta, cause the game design is currently allowing us to do so. There is no benefit to making yourself super tanky once you have learned how to survive without it. Sure its a lot easier to survive with those types of sets but you lose out on giving tons of benefits to your team. In dungeons its mostly whatever you happen to be wearing will work, apart from some DLC dungeons, but for Trials not having support sets mean a lot more.

Lowered support makes it so that the team has more chance for failures, be it from lowered DPS or lowered Surviability. With that much more stuff happening that can kill someone other than the tanks lowering the possibility of their deaths is of great importance, and higher DPS is one of those ways, others is stuff like Ebon giving them higher HP or Plague Doctor if you are a DK giving them stronger shields.

Having things that only protects or heals you when its clearly possibly to survive well enough without them is just a waste.

LadyLavina

Hibiki54 wrote: »

Mainly Torugs.

Most of the best tanking sets are from dungeons, trials or overland sets. Torugs is mainly used to buff your weapon crusher enchantment for more penetration and uptime.

As someone who essentially mains a tank for the most part, I'd have to agree with this.

Trying to build a really great tank but restricting yourself to crafted sets is nerfing your potential.

I can understand why you'd want to just use crafted sets, as it makes getting your tank up and running faster. Perhaps this is just my opinion, but for the harder content, certain drop sets are usually going to perform better.

Asardes

I'm looking to make a tank build for dungeons on my Stamina Nightblade. I've already settled on Swarm Mother as monster set, and since Clockwork City update he has also gotten my old Tava's Favor set I had been using on my DK up to that point. However I'm yet undecided what to use in the other 5 slots. I have narrowed it down to 2 sets I already have: Brands of Imperium (gives shields to the group) and Leeching Plate (a bit of self heal). I don't want to farm another Ebon or Dragon, since I've already gotten those fully upgraded and being used by my Stamina DK and soon Stamina Warden, so those are excluded.

A few interesting options I've come across but dismissed for various reasons are:
- Reactive Armor: I'm not sure what constitutes a "disabling effect" in PvE context
- Beckoning Steel: may improve the pulls from Swarm Mother, but not that much since the intercept radius is small
- Hand of Mephala: snare and minor fracture, but the uptime seems a bit low and trash mobs die fast anyway
- Livewire: with the upcoming changes will limit the off balance up time on bosses and healer usually runs blockade anyway
- Ulfnor's Favor: the increase in stamina return from heavy attacks doesn't seem that great, since I already have 64 CP in Tenacity for 13% and Revitalize adding another 25% so the 30% is more like ~21% in practice.

Peekachu99

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

5 Fortified Brass will give you Armor cap, access to Shuffle and fantastic stamina Regen. Been playing around with that a bit lately.

Aka, nothing necessary for a tank. Might be useful for beginners but not for anyone with experience.

What a ridiculous statement. Fortified Brass, Leeching and Pirate Skeleton and you’re at cap, literally unkillable in PVE (and 3v1+ in PVP) without enough Stam to block for days. Experience means thinking outside the box, not only whatever the meta is atm.

Edit: also worth rementioning Shuffle and a cheap CC break and 15-20% dodge (depending on class, Wardens get 20).

Yea, but its overkill. You don't need it. We get enough mitigation from other sources. Meta is what it is for a reason, if it was necessary you would see more tanks use it. They are not. Support sets is what we want and are looking for in current meta, cause the game design is currently allowing us to do so. There is no benefit to making yourself super tanky once you have learned how to survive without it. Sure its a lot easier to survive with those types of sets but you lose out on giving tons of benefits to your team. In dungeons its mostly whatever you happen to be wearing will work, apart from some DLC dungeons, but for Trials not having support sets mean a lot more.

Lowered support makes it so that the team has more chance for failures, be it from lowered DPS or lowered Surviability. With that much more stuff happening that can kill someone other than the tanks lowering the possibility of their deaths is of great importance, and higher DPS is one of those ways, others is stuff like Ebon giving them higher HP or Plague Doctor if you are a DK giving them stronger shields.

Having things that only protects or heals you when its clearly possibly to survive well enough without them is just a waste.

Higher group DPS comes from Warhorn. Better support comes from Ebon. You can equip/ wear both of those while sitting comfortably at cap and having better mitigation and sustain with FB. You can even add werewolf hide and run a full medium tank—the 10% HP loss from HA can come from racial passives. That’s the perfect Warhorn-bot setup. Oh and you have dodge and capped resistances without needing to slot something. Again you have a spot for utility, not necessity.

You’re still not making sense or theorycrafting well other than: “it’s not meta, I don’t like it.”

Meta comes from experimentation, it does not come from mindlessly following the status quo.

Woeler

Peekachu99 wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

5 Fortified Brass will give you Armor cap, access to Shuffle and fantastic stamina Regen. Been playing around with that a bit lately.

Aka, nothing necessary for a tank. Might be useful for beginners but not for anyone with experience.

What a ridiculous statement. Fortified Brass, Leeching and Pirate Skeleton and you’re at cap, literally unkillable in PVE (and 3v1+ in PVP) without enough Stam to block for days. Experience means thinking outside the box, not only whatever the meta is atm.

Edit: also worth rementioning Shuffle and a cheap CC break and 15-20% dodge (depending on class, Wardens get 20).

Yea, but its overkill. You don't need it. We get enough mitigation from other sources. Meta is what it is for a reason, if it was necessary you would see more tanks use it. They are not. Support sets is what we want and are looking for in current meta, cause the game design is currently allowing us to do so. There is no benefit to making yourself super tanky once you have learned how to survive without it. Sure its a lot easier to survive with those types of sets but you lose out on giving tons of benefits to your team. In dungeons its mostly whatever you happen to be wearing will work, apart from some DLC dungeons, but for Trials not having support sets mean a lot more.

Lowered support makes it so that the team has more chance for failures, be it from lowered DPS or lowered Surviability. With that much more stuff happening that can kill someone other than the tanks lowering the possibility of their deaths is of great importance, and higher DPS is one of those ways, others is stuff like Ebon giving them higher HP or Plague Doctor if you are a DK giving them stronger shields.

Having things that only protects or heals you when its clearly possibly to survive well enough without them is just a waste.

Higher group DPS comes from Warhorn. Better support comes from Ebon. You can equip/ wear both of those while sitting comfortably at cap and having better mitigation and sustain with FB. You can even add werewolf hide and run a full medium tank—the 10% HP loss from HA can come from racial passives. That’s the perfect Warhorn-bot setup. Oh and you have dodge and capped resistances without needing to slot something. Again you have a spot for utility, not necessity.

You’re still not making sense or theorycrafting well other than: “it’s not meta, I don’t like it.”

Meta comes from experimentation, it does not come from mindlessly following the status quo.

More support > capped resistances.

Peekachu99

Woeler wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

5 Fortified Brass will give you Armor cap, access to Shuffle and fantastic stamina Regen. Been playing around with that a bit lately.

Aka, nothing necessary for a tank. Might be useful for beginners but not for anyone with experience.

What a ridiculous statement. Fortified Brass, Leeching and Pirate Skeleton and you’re at cap, literally unkillable in PVE (and 3v1+ in PVP) without enough Stam to block for days. Experience means thinking outside the box, not only whatever the meta is atm.

Edit: also worth rementioning Shuffle and a cheap CC break and 15-20% dodge (depending on class, Wardens get 20).

Yea, but its overkill. You don't need it. We get enough mitigation from other sources. Meta is what it is for a reason, if it was necessary you would see more tanks use it. They are not. Support sets is what we want and are looking for in current meta, cause the game design is currently allowing us to do so. There is no benefit to making yourself super tanky once you have learned how to survive without it. Sure its a lot easier to survive with those types of sets but you lose out on giving tons of benefits to your team. In dungeons its mostly whatever you happen to be wearing will work, apart from some DLC dungeons, but for Trials not having support sets mean a lot more.

Lowered support makes it so that the team has more chance for failures, be it from lowered DPS or lowered Surviability. With that much more stuff happening that can kill someone other than the tanks lowering the possibility of their deaths is of great importance, and higher DPS is one of those ways, others is stuff like Ebon giving them higher HP or Plague Doctor if you are a DK giving them stronger shields.

Having things that only protects or heals you when its clearly possibly to survive well enough without them is just a waste.

Higher group DPS comes from Warhorn. Better support comes from Ebon. You can equip/ wear both of those while sitting comfortably at cap and having better mitigation and sustain with FB. You can even add werewolf hide and run a full medium tank—the 10% HP loss from HA can come from racial passives. That’s the perfect Warhorn-bot setup. Oh and you have dodge and capped resistances without needing to slot something. Again you have a spot for utility, not necessity.

You’re still not making sense or theorycrafting well other than: “it’s not meta, I don’t like it.”

Meta comes from experimentation, it does not come from mindlessly following the status quo.

More support > capped resistances.

1/3 of that setup is for personal support. The rest of the armor setup can be for group support. As well you get an ability slot free that doesn’t need a major ward skill. And if you’re not at 50% mitigation you’re taking more damage than you should and putting more strain on the team (healer). Any added mitigation is nice: minor/ major prot, Nord.

Also, if we go into the realm of actual PVP tanking cap is not enough.

Edit: I’m not going to banter back and forth about obvious differences in methodology. There’s more than one way to build a successful tank as we’ve seen in this thread. To each their own.

Olupajmibanan

Ebon, Akaviri Dragonguard, Plague Doctor (for tanking intensive trials like vHOF) and Alkosh.

However, it is not easy to have Alkosh uptime more than 50% even now, so I fear that with the upcoming change to synergy cooldown (increased from 20s to 30s) Alkosh will be most likely driven off from most groups.
In that case, Werewolf Hide set on main tank might be perfect option.

My guess is that most groups will run main tank with Bloodspawn/Akaviri Dragonguard/Werewolf Hide and off tank with Lord Warden/Akaviri Dragonguard/Ebon for the best possible Major Force uptime. Alkosh penetration can be easily replaced with more penetration CPs as we get +10 blue CPs next patch.

Rungar

you have to reconcile tanking according to the activity really. If you have access to strong healers you can do that support thing and that will work out in trials and such.

if your pugging vet dungeons where you don't know what youll get ( you might have to heal yourself lol) there are better options

since few people do trials and trials only require 1/12 tanks generally I find it pointless to always base all discussions on the trial tanking meta, which is not useful for vet dungeons or pvp.

the medium fortified brass is a great set for any stam player in pvp. The constitution passive is not that useful there. Its also great for normal and most vet dungeons where you might want to do some dmg in addition to tank

I always have multiple sets on me because in this game you need different things for different activities.

Merlin13KAGL

Rungar wrote: »

5x medium gets you great stam regen and reduction and even some weapon dmg. You lose the heavy armor passivies but not much of a loss really.

if the new gameplay next patch will be more active this is a great way to make the most of your stam resources. With the new block changes you can even go dual wield backbar and your block cost is still pretty low.


my old favorite was plague doctor/magicka furnace but the above works as well in a different way.

The weapon damage is all but useless on a tank, so that's a mediocre benefit at best.


The second part though?? 14% additional health, 25% additional resource return from heavy attacks, +2500 resist (above and beyond the medium to heavy conversion), 8% additional healing (including self heals and potions), and +378 stam and mag regen that work even through block?

Stam regen, cost reduction (like Pierce Armor is expensive) and some mobility (which is often unnecessary while tanking, since you're trying to keep things still) are the only benefits medium offers. While Brass gives you HA resists in MA setup, it's still hardly worth the conversion. It's even worse when you factor in that you have to have a full 5 pieces set just to get access to those limited MA passives.

Sure, Heroic Slash will crit more, bringing your 1k dps up to 1.5k...Unless you're planning on 'Sneak tanking,' MA simply cannot compare to HA. If it could, there would be considerably more heading that direction.

SmellyUnlimited

munster1404 wrote: »

Running 5 piece Shacklebreaker/Plague Doctor. With Domihaus shoulder and Scourge Harvester helm. My mindset from a solo player perspective is still fixated on stacking resources hence the Shacklebreaker and Domihaus pieces. I have seen most tanks running with 15K to 17K-ish resources. Honestly, that just won’t cut it for me. With Undaunted passives maxxed out, I would have around 41K health, 23K magicka and 28K stamina.

Rungar wrote: »

with 5x medium fortified brass and 2x chudan you can cap armor and if you combine that with plague doctor jewelry and weapons you can get around 40k health as well.

sadly if you a dk you end up with 35k spell resist, good for pvp though

combine this with two sheildplay enchants and a stam cost reduction and its a pretty good combo.


heavy armor is obsolete lol.

Peekachu99 wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

5 Fortified Brass will give you Armor cap, access to Shuffle and fantastic stamina Regen. Been playing around with that a bit lately.

Aka, nothing necessary for a tank. Might be useful for beginners but not for anyone with experience.

What a ridiculous statement. Fortified Brass, Leeching and Pirate Skeleton and you’re at cap, literally unkillable in PVE (and 3v1+ in PVP) without enough Stam to block for days. Experience means thinking outside the box, not only whatever the meta is atm.

Edit: also worth rementioning Shuffle and a cheap CC break and 15-20% dodge (depending on class, Wardens get 20).

Yea, but its overkill. You don't need it. We get enough mitigation from other sources. Meta is what it is for a reason, if it was necessary you would see more tanks use it. They are not. Support sets is what we want and are looking for in current meta, cause the game design is currently allowing us to do so. There is no benefit to making yourself super tanky once you have learned how to survive without it. Sure its a lot easier to survive with those types of sets but you lose out on giving tons of benefits to your team. In dungeons its mostly whatever you happen to be wearing will work, apart from some DLC dungeons, but for Trials not having support sets mean a lot more.

Lowered support makes it so that the team has more chance for failures, be it from lowered DPS or lowered Surviability. With that much more stuff happening that can kill someone other than the tanks lowering the possibility of their deaths is of great importance, and higher DPS is one of those ways, others is stuff like Ebon giving them higher HP or Plague Doctor if you are a DK giving them stronger shields.

Having things that only protects or heals you when its clearly possibly to survive well enough without them is just a waste.

Higher group DPS comes from Warhorn. Better support comes from Ebon. You can equip/ wear both of those while sitting comfortably at cap and having better mitigation and sustain with FB. You can even add werewolf hide and run a full medium tank—the 10% HP loss from HA can come from racial passives. That’s the perfect Warhorn-bot setup. Oh and you have dodge and capped resistances without needing to slot something. Again you have a spot for utility, not necessity.

You’re still not making sense or theorycrafting well other than: “it’s not meta, I don’t like it.”

Meta comes from experimentation, it does not come from mindlessly following the status quo.

Medium armor offers no benefits outside of perhaps Shuffle. Stamina regen? Useless. You don’t regen Stamina when blocking, and in the harder vet trials you are doing more blocking than not. The other medium armor stats aren’t helpful for a tank. Second, your losing out on much better gains on heavy attack, big hp boost, Constitution passive gains, and one of the big ones, Rapid Mending. How often do you actually think Tank’s roll dodge? In a purely end game PvE setting, and end game I mean vet trials and hm’s, you will almost NEVER see a tank roll dodging. But the current builds provide them more than enough resources to do it the few times you might have to do it.

Medium armor is not a persuasive argument at all. Medium armor is purely designed to enhance the damage and sustain of stamina damage dealers. Heavy armor the same for tanks (and hell, about 80% of PvP because it’s sorta broken right now).

TL DR - Medium Armor << Heavy Armor. Stamina regen and roll dodge efficiency offer nothing. You can get cap, or close enough to it, to ensure survival and still offer your team the best utility and best tanking surviability. Only time I switch to a selfish build is in VSO holding the other door during Lamia, or Axes in VAA (usually throw Hist Bark and Plague, or even Resilient Yokeda, occasionally Footman). No utility, but I’m out of range for it anyway.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

@Asardes fun fact, tenacity raises the base amount of resourses you get from heavy attacks, the number all other percentage based is multiplieded by.

RPGplayer13579

For my Tank I went with 2 sets.

1. Armor Master
2. Warrior-Poet

Asardes

RPGplayer13579 wrote: »

For my Tank I went with 2 sets.

1. Armor Master
2. Warrior-Poet

Both are pretty useless:

1. To get Armor Master resistance bonus you need to slot an armor ability on both bars, and you need to use that ability every 10s. Moreso if you swap bars after you use it the resistance buff is removed. The 5% health bonus is not that much since it's additive with others of the same type: Juggernaut, Undaunted Mettle, Structured Entropy, racial passives. With 5 pieces of heavy armor you are most likely already close to the resistance mitigation cap, which is 33K for 50% so the added resistance above that will be simply wasted. If, for some reason you want to tank in light or medium, Fortified Brass set with Structured Entropy slotted is actually a much better choice: almost exactly the same resistance and 3% more health, with no input on your side.

2. The buff given by Warrior Poet, Minor Toughness, is not unique to that set. Warden:Green Balance:Maturation passive gives the same buff. Also Warhorn gives it for 30s. And identical buffs don't stack. As tank you'll be able to use Warhorn every 45-50s to buff your allies anyway. If the healer in your group also uses it you will get 100% up time on Minor Toughness. In this case you are better off using Ebon Armory, Plague Doctor or Green Pact sets for more health. The former also buffs your allies health.

Valencer

Why would you slot sets that you simply don't need? You don't need capped resistances for most content and if you do you can just get there with CP + possibly putting on Chudan if Bloodspawn doesnt perform very well for said content (for instance, vAS).

You dont need to wear 5 pc sets that buff your resistances, you don't need sets that only buff your max health and for the most part you definitely don't need sets that buff your sustain as a DK tank. DK passives and heavy armour are enough to take care of your sustain. So just wear sets that help your group... it's that simple.

Lord_Eomer

This thread has overgrown and still unable to have compile list of best thank sets (as per thread title)

paulsimonps

Valencer wrote: »

Why would you slot sets that you simply don't need? You don't need capped resistances for most content and if you do you can just get there with CP + possibly putting on Chudan if Bloodspawn doesnt perform very well for said content (for instance, vAS).

You dont need to wear 5 pc sets that buff your resistances, you don't need sets that only buff your max health and for the most part you definitely don't need sets that buff your sustain as a DK tank. DK passives and heavy armour are enough to take care of your sustain. So just wear sets that help your group... it's that simple.

I agree with most of this but there are some very few instances where having Plague Doctor is very good to have. Like tanking Olms in veteran Asylum for example. Having a bit higher health on him does help a lot and most of the time the main tank is too far away from everyone anyway for Ebon to really be of use, its better on the off tank in that situation. But indeed Support sets are the go to for a reason.

Ragnarock41

Lyserus wrote: »

tank tops

with the words ''too sexy for my healer'' written on it.
Bonus points for playing an orc.

The_Lex

Valencer wrote: »

you don't need sets that only buff your max health and for the most part you definitely don't need sets that buff your sustain as a DK tank. DK passives and heavy armour are enough to take care of your sustain. So just wear sets that help your group... it's that simple.

So what are good numbers - S/H/M - to be shooting for to tank vet DLC dungeons, vDSA, and normal trials?

Nelson_Rebel

I think the fault lies with zenimax for not focusing on the tanking aspect when designing trials.


IMO it should be clear wether 1 or two tanks are needed for trials. And give tanks real sets that synergize well with other tank sets to achieve the desired support/self sustain aspect. Morrowind and the next patch have gutted not only everyone but also subsequent nerfs specific to tanks and DK's in general have been far to severe for content that is already difficult for the large majority of players to even complete

techprince

The_Patriarch wrote: »

Valencer wrote: »

you don't need sets that only buff your max health and for the most part you definitely don't need sets that buff your sustain as a DK tank. DK passives and heavy armour are enough to take care of your sustain. So just wear sets that help your group... it's that simple.

So what are good numbers - S/H/M - to be shooting for to tank vet DLC dungeons, vDSA, and normal trials?

I have 27.5K HP without Minor Toughness or Ebon. 19k stam, 14k mag with 1550-1700 mag recovery. You dont need more than 24-25k. You can squeeze in 2k more max magicka with changing attributes and using tri stat glyphs but i dont need it.

The_Lex

techprince wrote: »

The_Patriarch wrote: »

Valencer wrote: »

you don't need sets that only buff your max health and for the most part you definitely don't need sets that buff your sustain as a DK tank. DK passives and heavy armour are enough to take care of your sustain. So just wear sets that help your group... it's that simple.

So what are good numbers - S/H/M - to be shooting for to tank vet DLC dungeons, vDSA, and normal trials?

I have 27.5K HP without Minor Toughness or Ebon. 19k stam, 14k mag with 1550-1700 mag recovery. You dont need more than 24-25k.

Thanks! I'll probably start new thread on this. I don't want to hijack OP's thread.

kylewwefan

One set that almost never gets mentioned is specters eye, an 8 trait craftable that makes sense for a DK tank. Because they reach Spell resistance cap very easily but physical is resistance is lacking.

It gives health, Magic, physical resistance and major evasion for 3 seconds every 6 seconds you cast a spell. Sure there’s better dungeon gear, but the original topic was “best craft tank gear”

Something to do with master crafter anyways. Most I ever make are Julianos, NMG or Hundings. 8 or 9 trait sets are almost never asked for.

I’m terrible theory crafter sorry. I have been using tourgs, warrior poet and lord warden. It’s fine for any dungeon.

The real hidden gem for tanking is a skill all the way at the bottom of mages guild. Equilibrium. I know, it blows leveling mages guild, but the spell costs a little health to get back magic, and it gives Major Resistance buffs.

paulsimonps

kylewwefan wrote: »

One set that almost never gets mentioned is specters eye, an 8 trait craftable that makes sense for a DK tank. Because they reach Spell resistance cap very easily but physical is resistance is lacking.

It gives health, Magic, physical resistance and major evasion for 3 seconds every 6 seconds you cast a spell. Sure there’s better dungeon gear, but the original topic was “best craft tank gear”

Something to do with master crafter anyways. Most I ever make are Julianos, NMG or Hundings. 8 or 9 trait sets are almost never asked for.

I’m terrible theory crafter sorry. I have been using tourgs, warrior poet and lord warden. It’s fine for any dungeon.

The real hidden gem for tanking is a skill all the way at the bottom of mages guild. Equilibrium. I know, it blows leveling mages guild, but the spell costs a little health to get back magic, and it gives Major Resistance buffs.

Specter's Eye is probably undermined by Hist Bark. Higher up time on Major Evasion as long as you blocked a lot, however with next update then maybe it will pick up more. Though Specter's is still limited to the max up time of 50%. Their 2-4 pieces are similar, though the magicka from specters is indeed better than the health recovery of Hist Bark. Still though neither of those sets are really anything used by end game tanks of both 4 and 12 man content.

They give buffs not really needed for surviving in hard content, as we have seen for a long time now, support is what will pull ahead. So the widely discussed Torug's Pact pulls ahead of both, but even a set like Alessia's Bulwark will as well. Mitigating damage from mobs and bosses if they hit the tank with a melee attack, or well a chance at the very least, 15% per attack to reduce attacker's Weapon Damage by 10% for 5 seconds. And if you are wanting Physical Resistance than this set has 2 bonuses of that. But obviously offensive support will most likely trump defensive support.

josiahva

Peekachu99 wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

5 Fortified Brass will give you Armor cap, access to Shuffle and fantastic stamina Regen. Been playing around with that a bit lately.

Aka, nothing necessary for a tank. Might be useful for beginners but not for anyone with experience.

What a ridiculous statement. Fortified Brass, Leeching and Pirate Skeleton and you’re at cap, literally unkillable in PVE (and 3v1+ in PVP) without enough Stam to block for days. Experience means thinking outside the box, not only whatever the meta is atm.

Edit: also worth rementioning Shuffle and a cheap CC break and 15-20% dodge (depending on class, Wardens get 20).

Yea, but its overkill. You don't need it. We get enough mitigation from other sources. Meta is what it is for a reason, if it was necessary you would see more tanks use it. They are not. Support sets is what we want and are looking for in current meta, cause the game design is currently allowing us to do so. There is no benefit to making yourself super tanky once you have learned how to survive without it. Sure its a lot easier to survive with those types of sets but you lose out on giving tons of benefits to your team. In dungeons its mostly whatever you happen to be wearing will work, apart from some DLC dungeons, but for Trials not having support sets mean a lot more.

Lowered support makes it so that the team has more chance for failures, be it from lowered DPS or lowered Surviability. With that much more stuff happening that can kill someone other than the tanks lowering the possibility of their deaths is of great importance, and higher DPS is one of those ways, others is stuff like Ebon giving them higher HP or Plague Doctor if you are a DK giving them stronger shields.

Having things that only protects or heals you when its clearly possibly to survive well enough without them is just a waste.

Higher group DPS comes from Warhorn. Better support comes from Ebon. You can equip/ wear both of those while sitting comfortably at cap and having better mitigation and sustain with FB. You can even add werewolf hide and run a full medium tank—the 10% HP loss from HA can come from racial passives. That’s the perfect Warhorn-bot setup. Oh and you have dodge and capped resistances without needing to slot something. Again you have a spot for utility, not necessity.

You’re still not making sense or theorycrafting well other than: “it’s not meta, I don’t like it.”

Meta comes from experimentation, it does not come from mindlessly following the status quo.

Ebon gives every party member a whopping 1k health. An average DPS runs 17k health or so...Ebon ads just 5.8% more health to your average DPS. If your DPS is taking so much damage that 1k is keeping them alive, something is seriously wrong. I am sorry, I maintain that Ebon is a garbage set for support. You will get far more mileage from virtually ANY other set. Resource regeneration from say Willow's Path will lead to more igneous shields, more taunts, more debuffs, etc. A proc set like Imperium will lead to 14k damage shields a couple times per minute that will absorb far more damage than an extra 1k health. A set like Alkosh will increase DPS(or Powerful Assault), any and all are far more useful than an extra 5.8% health is. Dont believe me? Go into your PvP stats and tell me just how many times you have killed an enemy while under 5% health....THAT shows you just how useful Ebon is. Yes, people will swear by the set, but its always been garbage and always will be. The only exception is certain one-shot mechanics where it may actually make a difference...but those mechanics are better mitigated with group shields anyway(or player skill in avoiding them)

VaranisArano

josiahva wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

paulsimonps wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

5 Fortified Brass will give you Armor cap, access to Shuffle and fantastic stamina Regen. Been playing around with that a bit lately.

Aka, nothing necessary for a tank. Might be useful for beginners but not for anyone with experience.

What a ridiculous statement. Fortified Brass, Leeching and Pirate Skeleton and you’re at cap, literally unkillable in PVE (and 3v1+ in PVP) without enough Stam to block for days. Experience means thinking outside the box, not only whatever the meta is atm.

Edit: also worth rementioning Shuffle and a cheap CC break and 15-20% dodge (depending on class, Wardens get 20).

Yea, but its overkill. You don't need it. We get enough mitigation from other sources. Meta is what it is for a reason, if it was necessary you would see more tanks use it. They are not. Support sets is what we want and are looking for in current meta, cause the game design is currently allowing us to do so. There is no benefit to making yourself super tanky once you have learned how to survive without it. Sure its a lot easier to survive with those types of sets but you lose out on giving tons of benefits to your team. In dungeons its mostly whatever you happen to be wearing will work, apart from some DLC dungeons, but for Trials not having support sets mean a lot more.

Lowered support makes it so that the team has more chance for failures, be it from lowered DPS or lowered Surviability. With that much more stuff happening that can kill someone other than the tanks lowering the possibility of their deaths is of great importance, and higher DPS is one of those ways, others is stuff like Ebon giving them higher HP or Plague Doctor if you are a DK giving them stronger shields.

Having things that only protects or heals you when its clearly possibly to survive well enough without them is just a waste.

Higher group DPS comes from Warhorn. Better support comes from Ebon. You can equip/ wear both of those while sitting comfortably at cap and having better mitigation and sustain with FB. You can even add werewolf hide and run a full medium tank—the 10% HP loss from HA can come from racial passives. That’s the perfect Warhorn-bot setup. Oh and you have dodge and capped resistances without needing to slot something. Again you have a spot for utility, not necessity.

You’re still not making sense or theorycrafting well other than: “it’s not meta, I don’t like it.”

Meta comes from experimentation, it does not come from mindlessly following the status quo.

Ebon gives every party member a whopping 1k health. An average DPS runs 17k health or so...Ebon ads just 5.8% more health to your average DPS. If your DPS is taking so much damage that 1k is keeping them alive, something is seriously wrong. I am sorry, I maintain that Ebon is a garbage set for support. You will get far more mileage from virtually ANY other set. Resource regeneration from say Willow's Path will lead to more igneous shields, more taunts, more debuffs, etc. A proc set like Imperium will lead to 14k damage shields a couple times per minute that will absorb far more damage than an extra 1k health. A set like Alkosh will increase DPS(or Powerful Assault), any and all are far more useful than an extra 5.8% health is. Dont believe me? Go into your PvP stats and tell me just how many times you have killed an enemy while under 5% health....THAT shows you just how useful Ebon is. Yes, people will swear by the set, but its always been garbage and always will be. The only exception is certain one-shot mechanics where it may actually make a difference...but those mechanics are better mitigated with group shields anyway(or player skill in avoiding them)

If you want the sweet spot for DD health to be around 18k health, which is number I most often see on the forums so YMMV, its a heck of a lot cheaper for one tank to run that set and give everyone that extra 1k health than it is for every DD/healer in the group to wear enchantments or whatever it takes for them to get to that point. Ebon allows pure DPS builds to hit that health number without taking away part of their build.

Is it the best support set? No, nobody says that. Is there a reason that one trials tank usually wears it? Yeah. Its a utility support set.

xaraan

Gonna chime in here with not popular opinion, but the "more support > capped resistance" crowd usually comes from tanks playing with excellent teams. As that advice only applies to certain situations. Increasing pen with horrible dps does no good and increasing resistance or healing with players that can't deal with mechanics/red is also not going to help. So you have to know your team and be ready to adapt. You can even over dps certain mechanics in a few boss fights.

Any of us that have tanked a ton of different content with different players can tell you how easy a run is with a good team. You could virtually tank some runs naked if a team is that good. I've had vHM trial runs easier than some 4 man dungeon runs simply because of the team.

That being said, you should try and get a variety of gear. Alkosh isn't as needed as some make it out anymore - the uptime isn't as solid as people think, it's not a constant guaranteed pen, and the 2/3/4 piece bonuses to the armor are horrible for most tank builds. With diminishing returns for CP, DPS should have plenty of their own pen at this point to be at full pen when combined with crusher/pierce and other sets/bonuses they get. That being said, I still think you should try and get the set and have it handy, it can be useful for certain situations still. But don't let players lock you into it, especially with all the nerfs to tanking the last several patches, if you need a better set to help you at the start, you can always work it in later once you and your team have a run down.

Torug's is craftable, which fits your question and gives an almost constant boosted crusher uptime and has a couple decent stats in the 2/3/4 to help with your tank.

Running Ebon is ok, better in a trial where you are buffing a dozen people and not just four, but it's not craftable. (though much like Alkosh, it's not as great as some make it out) But, for you to take advantage of all your slots though, you'll want at least one drop set so you can get jewelry. Dragon is also a decent set if you are pushing for more ulti uptime. Imperium is a decent tanking set that offers some group support with shields and Lunar Bastion is ok in that same regard, but more situational IMO. Plus, once you get jewelry as part of a five piece, you free up two slots on the body to use either a monster/shoulder set or sword/board set in addition to the two five piece sets.

Some dropped sets you will only get from doing instanced dungeons and trials, but some you can buy in store if you want them asap - dragon drops from overland, it sells in guild stores, plague dr as well. Both a good start until you get more drops/options from dungeons/trials.

Personally, I think you should find a base set and then start building as you do different content and find drop sets that fit your play style. Every tank should have a torug set I think, Hist Bark is ok, I actually really like Seducer now that cost reduction is gone from CP (if you have a build that uses magicka a lot of course). So if you had a magic dependent tank build, Torug's/Seducer could be good until you start getting dropped gear. If you aren't magicka focused so much, then Torug's/Hist bark could be good until then.

Valencer

paulsimonps wrote: »

Valencer wrote: »

Why would you slot sets that you simply don't need? You don't need capped resistances for most content and if you do you can just get there with CP + possibly putting on Chudan if Bloodspawn doesnt perform very well for said content (for instance, vAS).

You dont need to wear 5 pc sets that buff your resistances, you don't need sets that only buff your max health and for the most part you definitely don't need sets that buff your sustain as a DK tank. DK passives and heavy armour are enough to take care of your sustain. So just wear sets that help your group... it's that simple.

I agree with most of this but there are some very few instances where having Plague Doctor is very good to have. Like tanking Olms in veteran Asylum for example. Having a bit higher health on him does help a lot and most of the time the main tank is too far away from everyone anyway for Ebon to really be of use, its better on the off tank in that situation. But indeed Support sets are the go to for a reason.

With any combination of 2 heavy sets youre at 47k-ish health. That's more than enough to make tanking Olms easy. Ive been running Dragonguard + Torug's in there as main tank and have 49k health with the ebon buff from the off-tank. Works perfectly fine and I basically never die unless I make a truly terrible mistake. Plague doctor isnt that valuable anymore since they nerfed Igneous shield and equilibrium, but I guess it could still be a good set for new tanks that are still getting used to content.

The_Patriarch wrote: »

Valencer wrote: »

you don't need sets that only buff your max health and for the most part you definitely don't need sets that buff your sustain as a DK tank. DK passives and heavy armour are enough to take care of your sustain. So just wear sets that help your group... it's that simple.

So what are good numbers - S/H/M - to be shooting for to tank vet DLC dungeons, vDSA, and normal trials?

I would say just stacking everything into health is the way to go since Morrowind. HoF, AS and the Horns of the Reach dungeons have some really hard hitting mechanics that basically force tanks to have high health and nothing that's useful for tanks scales off max magicka/stamina anymore. If youre going to be running a heavy set on the body and a medium set on jewelry (for instance, alkosh) you should be aiming for 40k-ish health. Obviously you can go much higher if you also use a heavy set on the jewelry, but it's usually not strictly necessary. Whatever magicka and stamina values you end up with after stacking health and using tri-stat food is probably good enough. Just remember orbs and shards restore your highest max stat of the 2 only so make sure you have slightly more stamina if you want the synergies to restore you stamina (or the other way around if you want magicka).

munster1404

I think with CP caps rising. DDs penetration and self sustain should improve to the point that the value of Torug's + crusher enchant will depreciate over time.

The_Lex

Valencer wrote: »

The_Patriarch wrote: »

Valencer wrote: »

you don't need sets that only buff your max health and for the most part you definitely don't need sets that buff your sustain as a DK tank. DK passives and heavy armour are enough to take care of your sustain. So just wear sets that help your group... it's that simple.

So what are good numbers - S/H/M - to be shooting for to tank vet DLC dungeons, vDSA, and normal trials?

I would say just stacking everything into health is the way to go since Morrowind. HoF, AS and the Horns of the Reach dungeons have some really hard hitting mechanics that basically force tanks to have high health and nothing that's useful for tanks scales off max magicka/stamina anymore. If youre going to be running a heavy set on the body and a medium set on jewelry (for instance, alkosh) you should be aiming for 40k-ish health. Obviously you can go much higher if you also use a heavy set on the jewelry, but it's usually not strictly necessary. Whatever magicka and stamina values you end up with after stacking health and using tri-stat food is probably good enough. Just remember orbs and shards restore your highest max stat of the 2 only so make sure you have slightly more stamina if you want the synergies to restore you stamina (or the other way around if you want magicka).

Thank you! This was helpful. I've only tanked vet 4 mans, but not vet DLC dungeons. I've seen a lot conflicting advice on the overall numbers to be shooing for. It almost feels like I'm doing something wrong if I decide to run PD, as some advice is dead-set against stacking health. Some builds run Balance, which I haven't even unlocked yet. Further, I've seen lots of tanks running around with Ebon which makes me wonder if I SHOULD be running Ebon. I've never had an issue with stamina but sometimes struggle with magicka - which could be the result of being a new tank.

Thanks again.

VaranisArano

The_Patriarch wrote: »

Valencer wrote: »

The_Patriarch wrote: »

Valencer wrote: »

you don't need sets that only buff your max health and for the most part you definitely don't need sets that buff your sustain as a DK tank. DK passives and heavy armour are enough to take care of your sustain. So just wear sets that help your group... it's that simple.

So what are good numbers - S/H/M - to be shooting for to tank vet DLC dungeons, vDSA, and normal trials?

I would say just stacking everything into health is the way to go since Morrowind. HoF, AS and the Horns of the Reach dungeons have some really hard hitting mechanics that basically force tanks to have high health and nothing that's useful for tanks scales off max magicka/stamina anymore. If youre going to be running a heavy set on the body and a medium set on jewelry (for instance, alkosh) you should be aiming for 40k-ish health. Obviously you can go much higher if you also use a heavy set on the jewelry, but it's usually not strictly necessary. Whatever magicka and stamina values you end up with after stacking health and using tri-stat food is probably good enough. Just remember orbs and shards restore your highest max stat of the 2 only so make sure you have slightly more stamina if you want the synergies to restore you stamina (or the other way around if you want magicka).

Thank you! This was helpful. I've only tanked vet 4 mans, but not vet DLC dungeons. I've seen a lot conflicting advice on the overall numbers to be shooing for. It almost feels like I'm doing something wrong if I decide to run PD, as some advice is dead-set against stacking health. Some builds run Balance, which I haven't even unlocked yet. Further, I've seen lots of tanks running around with Ebon which makes me wonder if I SHOULD be running Ebon. I've never had an issue with stamina but sometimes struggle with magicka - which could be the result of being a new tank.

Thanks again.

A lot of tanks run Ebon because its a good trials set. Its really at its best in trials or if you have a regular group that you run with who can then build around you having Ebon. If you are just running normal and Vet dungeons, Ebon is a nice bonus for your group but its not a necessity. Plague Doctor gives a similar amount of health as a dropped set. I run Ebon in dungeons because I've got a regular group with squishy DPS and the healer appreciates them having a little extra health, which is pretty situational.

One nice perk of Ebon is that its an obvious tank set. Someone shows up with glowy floating red balls, you know that person is a fairly serious tank. So if you are ever having issues with people being annoying, especially if you are leveling a tank with lower CP, running Ebon can be a nice way to visually signal "I know what I'm doing, guys."