Willow's Path vs. Tava's Favor

Marginis

Now now now, before everyone automatically goes "TAVA'S YOU IDIOT, DUH" let me explain.

I have a hybrid magicka and stamina tank build, built with both fast ult building and high recovery in mind. My setup allows me to utilize high recovery in all resources, unlike a lot of tank builds that mostly utilize heavy attacks for stamina and magicka restoration. Using magicka and stamina recovery stats for most of my magicka and stamina restoration means I need about as much of that as I can get. However, I do have a bit of synergy with some ultimate generation, and the closer I can get to 100% uptime the better (not that I ever really will, but still). So, I'm considering Willow's Path versus Tava's Favor for my main set, and I'm purely looking at the five piece bonus. I'm looking for all advice, as well as how much each set would actually benefit me, particularly how much ultimate generation I can actually expect from Tava's Favor, if anyone has tested for that.

Other things of note:

• Willow's Path is, as far as I'm aware, fixed, and so works with champion points and potions and food.
• My build lets me keep Mirage constantly up.
• I will be running mostly veteran dungeons, but I'm hoping to venture into trials too.
• My build is somewhat selfish - I'm not trying for 100% uptime on Warhorn or anything like that.

My build isn't strictly normal, so it doesn't behave like every other tank out there where Tava's is the obvious choice, so I'm open to all opinions, especially the ones that give me stats and numbers that I can use to make an educated decision on my own.

Illurian

I assume you are a Nightblade tank, seeing as you are considering Tava's.

In short, I wouldn't advise either set. You are looking to do group PvE content (vet dungeons and trials), so you should not be thinking about selfish builds as a tank. In trials, Ebon Armory is highly appreciated, alongside Torug's Pact or Alkosh.

If you do build a high ult regen build with bloodspawn and tava's, you should be keeping warhorn up as often as possible.

Brrrofski

I agree with the above.

Ebon is like the banker. Trials you need it. LFG groups it's really handy for those 12k health builds you'll get grouped with.

For trials your other set is gonna be torugs or alkosh. For dungeons, whatever you like. I run a warden tank so use seducer so I can heal the rest of the group a lot with polar wind (with guildies we can then add 3 dps and with randoms extra healing is nice). You could run pretty much anything else there though for 4 man. Both tavas and willows have their merits there I guess. Do you want more ult or more regen? That determines your choice.

Marginis

Does anyone know an approximation of how much ult Tava's would give me per second, or like how long on average it would take to get 100 ult from Tava's? If I were in, say, just a vet dungeon with Mirage constantly up?

SmellyUnlimited

Marginis wrote: »

Does anyone know an approximation of how much ult Tava's would give me per second, or like how long on average it would take to get 100 ult from Tava's? If I were in, say, just a vet dungeon with Mirage constantly up?

Well if it's JUST Tava's then the per second gain would be 3 (but that's if 100% dodge). I'm not sure how to calculate that; it's not truly 15% of the time, otherwise you'd gain 27 ult every 60 seconds (which would be bad). But since there's a chance for it to go off more than 15% of the time (based purely on RNG), then the range could be somewhere between 27 - 180. 180 if it goes off 100% of the time, 27 if truly only 15% of the time. My guess would be perhaps just the mean, so 76.5 ulti every minute.

Of course then you have your passive for activating a sipon ability, so 2 ulti every 4 seconds (or .5 ult/sec if you 100% of the time use this passive). Then 20 ultimate per potion siphoning passive (roughly 20 ult per minute if you have 3 in medicinal). Some NB tanks I know actually don't do medicinal passive so they can take potions for often (especially as an Argonian where you can just take trash pots and get a ton of resources back).

Lol, just to make things as confusing as possible (but with HUGE ulti gains either way) use Werewolf Hide/Tava's/Bloodspawn, Sap every 3 seconds, potion every CD, and use shooting star. I think you'll have unlimited ultimate lol.

SmellyUnlimited

Sheesh, all that and not even an Awesome!

Marginis

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

Sheesh, all that and not even an Awesome!

Thought about a pure ult build, got some ideas, but it was fairly impractical insofar as the ult gen benefit was very low for some sets, so was better off being replaced. That's party why I'm asking about Tava's - how good is the ult gen from the set bonus really? Is it better or worse than Akaviri Dragonguard for example, with -15% ult cost? See, I'm weighing that against how much 300 more recovery would help, and then I'll be comparing those results with a few other sets.

IZZEFlameLash

When I ran it on my mDK back when shuffle was not stuck with 5 pc requirements, it was pretty good. But it really shines when you are getting swarmed. At one point, I had my Standard of Might up almost instantly back up after dropping one. But for PvE purpose, you might be better off with Dragonguard.

SmellyUnlimited

IZZESparkling wrote: »

When I ran it on my mDK back when shuffle was not stuck with 5 pc requirements, it was pretty good. But it really shines when you are getting swarmed. At one point, I had my Standard of Might up almost instantly back up after dropping one. But for PvE purpose, you might be better off with Dragonguard.

That’s probably the best plan; Tava’s for big group fights (more opportunities for dodge to go off), and Dragonguard otherwise.

Nightblades have such great ulti generation already, that perhaps sets that seek to balance their class tanking weaknesses would be better. They don’t have reliable shielding, and have to attack to get resources back and to heal (as opposed to say a DK that can just recover via battle roar, or heal immediately via Green Dragon Blood).

Perhaps sets like Brands of the Imperium, Desert Rose, Resilient Yokeda (health return), etc. Willow’s Path could be included there as well, but the health regen is fairly useless since it probably would be worth it to run Vampire on a NB tank for the extra mitigation and regen. You can always run Troll King too and get the full benefit (even with Vampire!), and that monster set synergizes really well with all the sources of healing NB tanks have (funnel health, Sap, Refreshing Path)

RavenSworn

I use both Tava and dragon guard for my mag nb tank. It's a half breed of a sap tank so I get the thought behind it. With an Argonian, the ult basically generates itself almost every fight. Had it up thrice in last night's pledges falkreath within one boss fight. Granted I was using soul tether, but its a great way to crowd control packs.

I have to say though ebon and willow wasn't something in my mind, might try that out soon.