Bolstering Darkness Nightblade Tank

RiskyChalice863

This is just theorycrafting (I'm new enough to the game that I don't have the items to quite do this), but it seems to me that you could make an extremely tanky Nightblade by pumping up your ult recharge rate such that you can use Bolstering Darkness (60% protection) all the time.

So here's the basic outline of what I'm thinking (which is mostly a PvE build, I think). The idea is to stack as much damage resistance as possible. To do this, you will want to have Bolstering Darkness up basically 100% of the time. And you do that by pumping up ult regen. On top of this, you will provide a lot of debuffs to your enemies.

I don't think of this as a completely rigid build, so I won't give a complete rundown of everything, but here are some important elements:

Skills

- You run Bolstering Darkness, which not only gives you massive damage reduction, but redirects aggro towards you by allowing teammates to go invisible with a synergy.
- You run Soul Harvest to get 10 ult per kill.
- You go with Absorb Magic for some extra damage resistance.
- You go with Mirage to give you miss chance, which is great for a tank AND will proc ult gain from Tava's Favor, which will be great. This will also be your source of minor resolve and minor ward.
- You probably go with Surprise Attack mostly to have a cheap ability you can use to proc Shadow Barrier, in order to keep major resolve and major ward up permanently. You want all heavy armor in order to make keeping this up as easy as possible.
- You go with Leeching Strikes or Swallow Soul to give some sustain and to have a cheap ability to proc Transfer with.
- You go with either Heroic Slash or Carve to keep Minor Heroism up.

Beyond that, it's really up to you. I think Reaping Mark would be good as a debuff and massive self-heal. Dark Shades would be good to keep Minor Main on the enemies (which is a big help for tanking). Rally or Vigor would be nice as a self-heal. You could also run Forward Momentum to avoid snares and immobilizes. Sap Essence would help keep you up and also very efficiently draw group aggro for you. Mass Hysteria would be good for CC. And if you're having trouble drawing aggro, you could go with one of the Puncture morphs. You could also go with Heroic Slash for the minor heroism and use Brawler for the shields. Going dual wield for Blade Cloak could work if you're going up against AOE damage. There's a lot of options, and you can put plenty of different weapons on your back bar.

Important Passives

- You want to level up Dark Veil so that your Bolstering Darkness lasts as long as possible.
- You want Catalyst to get free ultimate charge from potions.
- You want all the One-Handed passive, to help with damage resistance and blocking.
- As noted above, you want Shadow Barrier.
- You also want Transfer for the extra ult charge.

Important Equipment

- You go with the Tava's Favor set, which will give you a bunch of ultimate anytime you dodge an attack or evade it through Mirage.
- You also go with Akaviri Dragonguard or maybe Blessing of Potantes set in order to lower the cost of Bolstering Darkness.
- You have a lot of sources of ultimate, so Decisive weapons could be good, though probably not necessary if you prefer something else.

The Result

Between all your sources of ult, you can basically keep Bolstering Darkness up virtually constantly.

This makes your damage resistance insane. You get 60% damage resistance from Bolstering Darkness. Let's assume 50% damage resistance from having 33,000 physical and spell resistance (you do have permanent major and minor resolve/ward, after all). You get 8% damage resistance from Absorb Magic when blocking. And you get 50% resistance from blocking and another 20% from the one-handed passive. The end result of that is that you will have 92.64% damage resistance. But that's not all. Assuming you're maiming your enemies with Shades and/or Heroic Slash, and you keep Mirage up, you actually are only going to be taking 5.32% of the damage that gets thrown at you. Of course, that's when you're blocking. But even if you don't block, you still will only take 14.45% of the damage thrown at you.

I don't think there's any build in the game that can stack this much damage resistance. And you still have a couple equipment slots open, as well as some skill slots that you can easily play around with to allow the build to do other things.

The_Brosteen

1. You would want to use warhorn over bolstering darkness on a tank in basically every scenario. Your emergency ult would be the healing morph of soul shred because its such a powerful heal. Or the 1h shield ult.
2. Shadow barrior would be better procd off of refreshing path. Your other hot would be soul strife, whatever morph gives you minor vitality.
3. Tanking on a nightblade is much less viable now. They used to be great off tanks because of the ult generation, you could get 2 warhorns for the dk tanks 1. Siphoning strikes changes as well as changes to shards and orbs made resource management on a nb tank more difficult as well.
4. Good theory crafting. Help bring the nb tank back!

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

The_Brosteen wrote: »

1. You would want to use warhorn over bolstering darkness on a tank in basically every scenario.

Basically all you need to read is this.

RiskyChalice863

The_Brosteen wrote: »

1. You would want to use warhorn over bolstering darkness on a tank in basically every scenario. Your emergency ult would be the healing morph of soul shred because its such a powerful heal. Or the 1h shield ult.
2. Shadow barrior would be better procd off of refreshing path. Your other hot would be soul strife, whatever morph gives you minor vitality.
3. Tanking on a nightblade is much less viable now. They used to be great off tanks because of the ult generation, you could get 2 warhorns for the dk tanks 1. Siphoning strikes changes as well as changes to shards and orbs made resource management on a nb tank more difficult as well.
4. Good theory crafting. Help bring the nb tank back!

I don't quite understand the logic behind Warhorn being so important. I'm not saying you're wrong; as I said in my original post, I'm relatively new to the game, and you're not the first person I've seen touting Warhorn. And it's undoubtedly a really good ability.

But I think you're underestimating the huge effect Bolstering Darkness has.

As far as I am aware, there are very few ways to get major protection in this game. And Bolstering Darkness is basically double major protection. It's a huge difference.

So, for instance, let's assume you had a tank with all the damage resistance I mentioned earlier (including Maim on the enemies, and Evasion), but no Bolstering Darkness or other form of major protection. Your tank would take 2.5 times more damage than the tank with Bolstering Darkness. And even if you managed to find some temporary source of major protection (maybe from Permafrost, for instance), you'd still take 1.75 times more damage during that time than the NB tank with Bolstering Darkness would.

So I understand that Warhorn is a fantastic buff for the team. But surely having your tank actually typically be 2.5 times harder to kill is competitive with that? Especially when the ultimate also gives massive boosts to your teammates as well (The synergy allows them to go invisible to refocus aggro on you, heals them up a massive amount, and makes them 70% faster, which all combines to basically save anyone in trouble. Meanwhile they'll have 30% damage resistance inside of the ultimate's radius)

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

It's a huge difference.

And it is hugely unnecessary. You just don't need that much mitigation. You don't even need to run the major buffs in 90% of the game. So you are left with buffing the dps and there is no better ultimate then warhorn.

RavenSworn

As much as I don't like it, @Lightspeedflashb14_ESO is right about it. Warhorn is hands down the best ultimate a tank could have.

However though, I don't agree it doesn't have any uses. It's just not as competitive as it was in trials. I do believe though in four man's, it work just as well. But i would not take bolstering. Veil is a much better morph as it gives the same bonus, slightly lesser reduction in damage taken but with a much better damage output.

RiskyChalice863

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

It's a huge difference.

And it is hugely unnecessary. You just don't need that much mitigation. You don't even need to run the major buffs in 90% of the game. So you are left with buffing the dps and there is no better ultimate then warhorn.

Perhaps. But, of course, it's that last 10% of actually difficult stuff that determines what is a good strategy and what isn't. But yeah, I get your point. However, having such massive damage mitigation on your tank can likely open your healer up to focus much more on DPS than would otherwise be possible, which would increase the team's DPS in its own way.

Koensol

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

It's a huge difference.

And it is hugely unnecessary. You just don't need that much mitigation. You don't even need to run the major buffs in 90% of the game. So you are left with buffing the dps and there is no better ultimate then warhorn.

Perhaps. But, of course, it's that last 10% of actually difficult stuff that determines what is a good strategy and what isn't. But yeah, I get your point. However, having such massive damage mitigation on your tank can likely open your healer up to focus much more on DPS than would otherwise be possible, which would increase the team's DPS in its own way.

Even in that last scenario, warhorn is better. Because it increases the dps even more. You really don't need that much mitigation as a tank. It is very easy not to die without it anf you are better of boosting dps. More dps makes everything in this game that much easier.

As far as bolstering darkness goes, there are only a couple niche spots where it is really viable. One of them being chaosball BG where you are the one holding the ball. It becomes insanely powerfull to yourself and your team in that situation.

Silver_Strider

The reason Bolstering Darkness falls flat is because the game is designed to be that any class can clear any content as any role. As such, they cannot design content that would require the mitigation that Bolstering grants as it wouldn't be fair to the other classes that lack a similar skill to match it. Mechanics are either designed to be survivable for all classes or a OHKO with no real middle ground that would allow BD to ever get a chance to shine.The only time Bolstering is ever useful is when you're trying to revive someone and need the extra mitigation to survive because the healer is either incompetent, dead, or is dealing with their own issues and can't keep you up.

Unless Warhorn is nerfed to a point of complete redundancy, there is never going to be any Ultimate ability that the group wants from their tank other than Warhorn, unless they're bad in which case, f*** them and use whatever else you have available.

Asardes

I actually run such a build, though not exactly specialized for the role, and bolstering darkness up time is pretty good, though it's not really ideal for the group, since the radius is small and there are few fights where people stack on the tank anyway to benefit from that.

Stats
Race: Khajiit
Mundus: Lord
Consumable: Blue Health+Stamina food
15 K Magicka | 35K Health | 27K stamina

Gear
5 Tava's Favor 5 Brands of Imperium 2 Swarm Mother 1L/1M/5H 4 Infused/4 Sturdy armor, infused weapons, prismatic defense enchants on armor, shield play enchants on jewels, crusher enchant front bar and weakening back bar weapon

Skills
Front bar: Pierce Armor | Heroic Slash | Absorb Magic | Swallow Soul | Bone Surge || Bolstering Darkness
Back bar: Inner Rage | Razor Caltrops | Resolving Vigor | Refreshing Path | Mirage || Aggressive Warhorn

- Swallow soul for the passives, as magicka dump for more ultimate generation
- Sometimes slot other skills instead of Razor Caltrops, for example Leeching Strikes
- Refreshing Path grabs aggro, activates Barrier passive and also gives mobility
- Mirage grants extra mitigation and procs Tava's

This build is not recommended for trials, but can do most veteran DLC HM dungeons

Amp151

Your build will work. I used to run a similar KB tank build.

I replaced bloodspawn for Swarm Mother's. Pulling adds into big groups makes stuff die way faster.

KB tanks will get the job done just not as easy as dk.

I agree with the rest, you don't really need bolstering unless your group is way underpowered.

They're fun to play just not optimal.

RiskyChalice863

Silver_Strider wrote: »

The reason Bolstering Darkness falls flat is because the game is designed to be that any class can clear any content as any role. As such, they cannot design content that would require the mitigation that Bolstering grants as it wouldn't be fair to the other classes that lack a similar skill to match it. Mechanics are either designed to be survivable for all classes or a OHKO with no real middle ground that would allow BD to ever get a chance to shine.The only time Bolstering is ever useful is when you're trying to revive someone and need the extra mitigation to survive because the healer is either incompetent, dead, or is dealing with their own issues and can't keep you up.

Unless Warhorn is nerfed to a point of complete redundancy, there is never going to be any Ultimate ability that the group wants from their tank other than Warhorn, unless they're bad in which case, f*** them and use whatever else you have available.

This makes some intuitive sense, but I wonder whether this build could actually tank things that you'd otherwise think of as OHKOs. After all, you do take 2.5 times more damage without Bolstering Darkness. I don't know what specific fights you're talking about, and if I did, I still wouldn't know the exact damage the enemy does, but I would bet there are situations that this build could tank that would be untankable OHKOs in any other scenario.

Lynx7386

The underlying problem is with how the game is fundamentally designed. Everything in eso is about damage. Your tanks and healers really only exist to keep the damage dealers alive and buff them so they can do even more damage.

Zenimax made everything so easy in this game that its actually made things harder just because nobody wants to play an oversimplified button masher. They keep pushing the trinity but they refuse to design content that actually requires it.

RavenSworn

But unfortunately one shot mechanics or even having mechanics in a dungeon stumps most groups, esp pugs.

And it certainly doesn't help when you can steamroll the normal dungeons with 3dps or even 4dps. New players trying out the dungeons don't have the 'right' mindset since their initial foray into the dungeons are basically just racing after the leader.

Then when they enter vet.. "how the devil do I do this dungeon?" case in point vet spindle 1. The last boss might just catch you unawares.

exiars10

Bolstering Darkness is fantastastic ability for solo Nightblade tank who wants to solo farm zone and group delves' (Craglorn) bosses and if you want to farm solo group dungeons. I plan to play like that except I still can't decide what gear to wear so it's on stand by...

Anyway, for skill:
1) Pierce Armor – Deep Slash – Lotus Fan – Sap Essence – Absorb Magic / Soul Harvest
2) Inner Rage – Mirage – Resolving Vigor – Patch of Darkness – Funnel Health or Swallow Soul / Aggresive Horn or Bolstering Darkness

Aggresive Horn is defenitely better when you play in group dungeons with others. For solo farming as explained above, almost always use Bolstering Darkness.

Lotus Fan is optional if you want to quickly draw aggro on youself and drop Sap Essence after teleport. Use Patch of Darkness and Mirage to get both Minor and Major Ward and Resolve.

Never use Suprise Attack as tank. Always use Pierce Armor. Repear's Mark is useless for tank as you already apply Major Fracture and Breach with Pierce Armor.

For gear there are many possible combos. It's pure personal preference.

aeowulf

Bolstering comes under the heading of 'it's not group support so isn't wanted'. These days the group want support skills from tanks, which is one of the bigger reasons why NB (tanks) are very under represented.

Change the mechanics to 'require tanks to tank and not support' and you'll see tanks tanking. Warhorn is such a required ultimate these days as it helps/supports 10 people. I would not be suprised to see it 'tweaked' at some point to try to bring a little flavour.

You also need to block (mostly to avoid being slapped down on your back) and NB have no 'tank friendly' stamina resource regen. Leeching takes 9 seconds to break even when you light attack, or 20 seconds for the most efficient return, and executioner requires a skill slot, a well timed cast, and something to die. Immovable could work, but it doesn't work for everything...

but yes, i've looked at trying similar, but no warhorn pretty much means no trial tanking these days. And we don't get chains/comparable without loosing a monster set.

RiskyChalice863

aeowulf wrote: »

Bolstering comes under the heading of 'it's not group support so isn't wanted'. These days the group want support skills from tanks, which is one of the bigger reasons why NB (tanks) are very under represented.

Change the mechanics to 'require tanks to tank and not support' and you'll see tanks tanking. Warhorn is such a required ultimate these days as it helps/supports 10 people. I would not be suprised to see it 'tweaked' at some point to try to bring a little flavour.

You also need to block (mostly to avoid being slapped down on your back) and NB have no 'tank friendly' stamina resource regen. Leeching takes 9 seconds to break even when you light attack, or 20 seconds for the most efficient return, and executioner requires a skill slot, a well timed cast, and something to die. Immovable could work, but it doesn't work for everything...

but yes, i've looked at trying similar, but no warhorn pretty much means no trial tanking these days. And we don't get chains/comparable without loosing a monster set.

This is a very insightful post (as have other peoples’ posts on this thread been). One thing I’m curious about is whether you think the build’s viability changes when doing dungeons as opposed to trials. As I see it, Warhorn is gets a lot of added value out of being in a trial, because it can actually support basically everyone. In other words, it buffs 10 people instead of 4. Other abilities don’t scale as much by size of the group. Bolstering Darkness could hypothetically scale that much since it could give the damage protection to everyone, but realistically there’s very little chance the group will be clumped up in such a small area in a trial. So realistically it’s doesnt really lose any utility in a trial, while Warhorn loses a lot. Do you think Warhorn is less necessary in 4-man groups?

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

aeowulf wrote: »

Bolstering comes under the heading of 'it's not group support so isn't wanted'. These days the group want support skills from tanks, which is one of the bigger reasons why NB (tanks) are very under represented.

Change the mechanics to 'require tanks to tank and not support' and you'll see tanks tanking. Warhorn is such a required ultimate these days as it helps/supports 10 people. I would not be suprised to see it 'tweaked' at some point to try to bring a little flavour.

You also need to block (mostly to avoid being slapped down on your back) and NB have no 'tank friendly' stamina resource regen. Leeching takes 9 seconds to break even when you light attack, or 20 seconds for the most efficient return, and executioner requires a skill slot, a well timed cast, and something to die. Immovable could work, but it doesn't work for everything...

but yes, i've looked at trying similar, but no warhorn pretty much means no trial tanking these days. And we don't get chains/comparable without loosing a monster set.

This is a very insightful post (as have other peoples’ posts on this thread been). One thing I’m curious about is whether you think the build’s viability changes when doing dungeons as opposed to trials. As I see it, Warhorn is gets a lot of added value out of being in a trial, because it can actually support basically everyone. In other words, it buffs 10 people instead of 4. Other abilities don’t scale as much by size of the group. Bolstering Darkness could hypothetically scale that much since it could give the damage protection to everyone, but realistically there’s very little chance the group will be clumped up in such a small area in a trial. So realistically it’s doesnt really lose any utility in a trial, while Warhorn loses a lot. Do you think Warhorn is less necessary in 4-man groups?

warhorn buffs 12 players, Bolstering Darkness major protection caps out at 6, including yourself like every other mass heal or secondary effect.

Lynx7386

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

aeowulf wrote: »

Bolstering comes under the heading of 'it's not group support so isn't wanted'. These days the group want support skills from tanks, which is one of the bigger reasons why NB (tanks) are very under represented.

Change the mechanics to 'require tanks to tank and not support' and you'll see tanks tanking. Warhorn is such a required ultimate these days as it helps/supports 10 people. I would not be suprised to see it 'tweaked' at some point to try to bring a little flavour.

You also need to block (mostly to avoid being slapped down on your back) and NB have no 'tank friendly' stamina resource regen. Leeching takes 9 seconds to break even when you light attack, or 20 seconds for the most efficient return, and executioner requires a skill slot, a well timed cast, and something to die. Immovable could work, but it doesn't work for everything...

but yes, i've looked at trying similar, but no warhorn pretty much means no trial tanking these days. And we don't get chains/comparable without loosing a monster set.

This is a very insightful post (as have other peoples’ posts on this thread been). One thing I’m curious about is whether you think the build’s viability changes when doing dungeons as opposed to trials. As I see it, Warhorn is gets a lot of added value out of being in a trial, because it can actually support basically everyone. In other words, it buffs 10 people instead of 4. Other abilities don’t scale as much by size of the group. Bolstering Darkness could hypothetically scale that much since it could give the damage protection to everyone, but realistically there’s very little chance the group will be clumped up in such a small area in a trial. So realistically it’s doesnt really lose any utility in a trial, while Warhorn loses a lot. Do you think Warhorn is less necessary in 4-man groups?

Warhorn isnt as necessary in 4 man groups, no, but at the same time in a 4 man group you dont really need to try and build around maximum damage mitigation either, so bolstering darkness is still pointless.

In a 4 man, you very rarely will take enough damage to need 60% reduction, so you're better off using veil of blades for added damage and threat control.

ccfeeling

ESO Tank requires stable defense , burst defense is good but cannot apply to all content ... you will understand one day ...espeically NB tank

Off > Def in ESO , a lot of nasty mechanics could be skipped if the group does high enough damages , that's why Warhorn is so important .
If you wanna build a ultimate build , you should use Warhorn instead of Bolstering Darkness , the other reason you should use Warhorn is about the group support , as a NB tank , you don't have well crowd control ability , you don't have mob pulling ability unless you run Swarm Mother , if you even don't use Warhorn ...actually you are just only a taunting machine...

You have mentioned a lot of usable skills above , Reaper's Mark , Mass Hysteria , Dark Shades , Resolving Vigor , TBH you won't use much atm , you must run out of resource quickly

You could run any setup in normal difficulty , if you wanna be a good tank in VET , you have to well know your resource status every sec , block is your friend , but block cost was patched...

Someone said tactical blocking and heavy attack get resource back , it's theoretic lol , take a look in youtube about the DLC HM , even meta tank still hold block at all,btw i am not sure can u find one NB tank tube...

Unlike other 2 classes, NB tank no ez mode.

aeowulf

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

aeowulf wrote: »

Bolstering comes under the heading of 'it's not group support so isn't wanted'. These days the group want support skills from tanks, which is one of the bigger reasons why NB (tanks) are very under represented.

Change the mechanics to 'require tanks to tank and not support' and you'll see tanks tanking. Warhorn is such a required ultimate these days as it helps/supports 10 people. I would not be suprised to see it 'tweaked' at some point to try to bring a little flavour.

You also need to block (mostly to avoid being slapped down on your back) and NB have no 'tank friendly' stamina resource regen. Leeching takes 9 seconds to break even when you light attack, or 20 seconds for the most efficient return, and executioner requires a skill slot, a well timed cast, and something to die. Immovable could work, but it doesn't work for everything...

but yes, i've looked at trying similar, but no warhorn pretty much means no trial tanking these days. And we don't get chains/comparable without loosing a monster set.

This is a very insightful post (as have other peoples’ posts on this thread been). One thing I’m curious about is whether you think the build’s viability changes when doing dungeons as opposed to trials. As I see it, Warhorn is gets a lot of added value out of being in a trial, because it can actually support basically everyone. In other words, it buffs 10 people instead of 4. Other abilities don’t scale as much by size of the group. Bolstering Darkness could hypothetically scale that much since it could give the damage protection to everyone, but realistically there’s very little chance the group will be clumped up in such a small area in a trial. So realistically it’s doesnt really lose any utility in a trial, while Warhorn loses a lot. Do you think Warhorn is less necessary in 4-man groups?

yes & no - situational. Warhorn is way less useful (around 20% as effective) in a 4 man compared to a 12, but that does not mean it still isn't good. That extra might allow your DPS to do enough damage to skip some mechanics. Then is the question of is there any content that <needs> major protection? No (seeing other classes don't have it...) There is also the minor issue of placing it. It lands you, not the thing you are fighting and whilst the radius is big, it will not 'cover' stamDPS if the boss is particularly large.

The NB tank has enough 'guts' to tank even without bolstering, it's just the extra stuff that puts them at a huge disadvantage. Your NB tank will be stuck at dungeons, at best. NB tank has no resource management (siphoning/executioner are not tank friendly), no crowd control (fear is quite the opposite actually) and limited group support (i'm sure there must be something?).

NB tanks are gone for the time being (ever seen one in finder?). A year after Morrowind the very passionate NB tank community has almost gone, and those remaining have not been able to theorycraft anything trial capable <yet>. There are tanky-enough builds but they are all very selfish, and groups don't want selfish. You standing there indefinately whilst everyone else is dead, is not fun for anyone... (been there, done that, probably why sap tanks got removed)

For the tougher 4 man, your best bet is probably to run an argonian heal/tank and take 3 'vMaelstrom happy' dps with you. (ie those that can keep themselves alive in the tougher places)

aeowulf

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

aeowulf wrote: »

Bolstering comes under the heading of 'it's not group support so isn't wanted'. These days the group want support skills from tanks, which is one of the bigger reasons why NB (tanks) are very under represented.

Change the mechanics to 'require tanks to tank and not support' and you'll see tanks tanking. Warhorn is such a required ultimate these days as it helps/supports 10 people. I would not be suprised to see it 'tweaked' at some point to try to bring a little flavour.

You also need to block (mostly to avoid being slapped down on your back) and NB have no 'tank friendly' stamina resource regen. Leeching takes 9 seconds to break even when you light attack, or 20 seconds for the most efficient return, and executioner requires a skill slot, a well timed cast, and something to die. Immovable could work, but it doesn't work for everything...

but yes, i've looked at trying similar, but no warhorn pretty much means no trial tanking these days. And we don't get chains/comparable without loosing a monster set.

This is a very insightful post (as have other peoples’ posts on this thread been). One thing I’m curious about is whether you think the build’s viability changes when doing dungeons as opposed to trials. As I see it, Warhorn is gets a lot of added value out of being in a trial, because it can actually support basically everyone. In other words, it buffs 10 people instead of 4. Other abilities don’t scale as much by size of the group. Bolstering Darkness could hypothetically scale that much since it could give the damage protection to everyone, but realistically there’s very little chance the group will be clumped up in such a small area in a trial. So realistically it’s doesnt really lose any utility in a trial, while Warhorn loses a lot. Do you think Warhorn is less necessary in 4-man groups?

yes & no - situational. Warhorn is way less useful (around 20% as effective) in a 4 man compared to a 12, but that does not mean it still isn't good. That extra might allow your DPS to do enough damage to skip some mechanics. Then is the question of is there any content that <needs> major protection? No (seeing other classes don't have it...) There is also the minor issue of placing it. It lands you, not the thing you are fighting and whilst the radius is big, it will not 'cover' stamDPS if the boss is particularly large.

The NB tank has enough 'guts' to tank even without bolstering, it's just the extra stuff that puts them at a huge disadvantage. Your NB tank will be stuck at dungeons, at best. NB tank has no resource management (siphoning/executioner are not tank friendly), no crowd control (fear is quite the opposite actually) and limited group support (i'm sure there must be something?).

NB tanks are gone for the time being (ever seen one in finder?). A year after Morrowind the very passionate NB tank community has almost gone, and those remaining have not been able to theorycraft anything trial capable <yet>. There are tanky-enough builds but they are all very selfish, and groups don't want selfish. You standing there indefinately whilst everyone else is dead, is not fun for anyone... (been there, done that, probably why sap tanks got removed)

For the tougher 4 man, your best bet is probably to run an argonian heal/tank and take 3 'vMaelstrom happy' dps with you. (ie those that can keep themselves alive in the tougher places)

aeowulf

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

aeowulf wrote: »

Bolstering comes under the heading of 'it's not group support so isn't wanted'. These days the group want support skills from tanks, which is one of the bigger reasons why NB (tanks) are very under represented.

Change the mechanics to 'require tanks to tank and not support' and you'll see tanks tanking. Warhorn is such a required ultimate these days as it helps/supports 10 people. I would not be suprised to see it 'tweaked' at some point to try to bring a little flavour.

You also need to block (mostly to avoid being slapped down on your back) and NB have no 'tank friendly' stamina resource regen. Leeching takes 9 seconds to break even when you light attack, or 20 seconds for the most efficient return, and executioner requires a skill slot, a well timed cast, and something to die. Immovable could work, but it doesn't work for everything...

but yes, i've looked at trying similar, but no warhorn pretty much means no trial tanking these days. And we don't get chains/comparable without loosing a monster set.

This is a very insightful post (as have other peoples’ posts on this thread been). One thing I’m curious about is whether you think the build’s viability changes when doing dungeons as opposed to trials. As I see it, Warhorn is gets a lot of added value out of being in a trial, because it can actually support basically everyone. In other words, it buffs 10 people instead of 4. Other abilities don’t scale as much by size of the group. Bolstering Darkness could hypothetically scale that much since it could give the damage protection to everyone, but realistically there’s very little chance the group will be clumped up in such a small area in a trial. So realistically it’s doesnt really lose any utility in a trial, while Warhorn loses a lot. Do you think Warhorn is less necessary in 4-man groups?

yes & no - situational. Warhorn is way less useful (around 20% as effective) in a 4 man compared to a 12, but that does not mean it still isn't good. That extra might allow your DPS to do enough damage to skip some mechanics. Then is the question of is there any content that <needs> major protection? No (seeing other classes don't have it...) There is also the minor issue of placing it. It lands you, not the thing you are fighting and whilst the radius is big, it will not 'cover' stamDPS if the boss is particularly large.

The NB tank has enough 'guts' to tank even without bolstering, it's just the extra stuff that puts them at a huge disadvantage. Your NB tank will be stuck at dungeons/content where dedicated roles are somewhat flexible. NB tank has no friendly resource management (siphoning/executioner are not tank friendly), no crowd control (fear is quite the opposite actually) and limited group support (i'm sure there must be something?).

NB tanks are gone for the time being (ever seen one in finder?). A year after Morrowind the very passionate NB tank community has almost gone, and those remaining have not been able to theorycraft anything trial capable <yet>. There are tanky-enough builds but they are all very selfish, and groups don't want selfish. You standing there indefinately whilst everyone else is dead, is not fun for anyone... (been there, done that, probably why sap tanks got removed)

For the tougher 4 man, your best bet is probably to run an argonian heal/tank and take 3 'vMaelstrom happy' dps with you. (ie those that can keep themselves alive in the tougher places)

crobarXIII

I still tank dungeons & normal trials on my nb tank. I use bahara's curse, torug's & swap monster sets around between swarm mother's, lord warden & malubeth. I've been thinking of trying out rkugamz & bogdan in place of malubeth. As for a form of cc I use volcanic rune, personally I would like to see the diameter of volcanic rune increased so that templar & nb tanks have better add control. Volcanic rune's current diameter is to small & I may have to use it 3 times on a large add pull just to get the same level of control as 1 dark talon on my dk or 1 gripping shards on my warden. Also, I still would like to see a magicka morph of bone shield.

aeowulf

crobarXIII wrote: »

I still tank dungeons & normal trials on my nb tank. I use bahara's curse, torug's & swap monster sets around between swarm mother's, lord warden & malubeth. I've been thinking of trying out rkugamz & bogdan in place of malubeth. As for a form of cc I use volcanic rune, personally I would like to see the diameter of volcanic rune increased so that templar & nb tanks have better add control. Volcanic rune's current diameter is to small & I may have to use it 3 times on a large add pull just to get the same level of control as 1 dark talon on my dk or 1 gripping shards on my warden. Also, I still would like to see a magicka morph of bone shield.

You have 900+cp = being exceptionally experienced. That goes a long way in ESO, a real long way. That opens doors for you which are not open to newer players, especially through gear & friendship. I'm also not saying you cannot physically take a NB into anything in a tank role, especially in easier content, but by doing so you are putting the other 3 or 11 folks at a disadvantage compared to if they took an equally skilled DK or warden. That disadvantage will equate to one or two set bonuses, so might be 'not wearing ebon & lord warden', for example.

Would love to see your changes, anything to help alternative tanks but they are non-class based changes. DK & warden tanks are in a good place, so changes to non-class based skills will assist/dilute those.

exeeter702

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

The_Brosteen wrote: »

1. You would want to use warhorn over bolstering darkness on a tank in basically every scenario. Your emergency ult would be the healing morph of soul shred because its such a powerful heal. Or the 1h shield ult.
2. Shadow barrior would be better procd off of refreshing path. Your other hot would be soul strife, whatever morph gives you minor vitality.
3. Tanking on a nightblade is much less viable now. They used to be great off tanks because of the ult generation, you could get 2 warhorns for the dk tanks 1. Siphoning strikes changes as well as changes to shards and orbs made resource management on a nb tank more difficult as well.
4. Good theory crafting. Help bring the nb tank back!

I don't quite understand the logic behind Warhorn being so important. I'm not saying you're wrong; as I said in my original post, I'm relatively new to the game, and you're not the first person I've seen touting Warhorn. And it's undoubtedly a really good ability.

But I think you're underestimating the huge effect Bolstering Darkness has.

As far as I am aware, there are very few ways to get major protection in this game. And Bolstering Darkness is basically double major protection. It's a huge difference.

So, for instance, let's assume you had a tank with all the damage resistance I mentioned earlier (including Maim on the enemies, and Evasion), but no Bolstering Darkness or other form of major protection. Your tank would take 2.5 times more damage than the tank with Bolstering Darkness. And even if you managed to find some temporary source of major protection (maybe from Permafrost, for instance), you'd still take 1.75 times more damage during that time than the NB tank with Bolstering Darkness would.

So I understand that Warhorn is a fantastic buff for the team. But surely having your tank actually typically be 2.5 times harder to kill is competitive with that? Especially when the ultimate also gives massive boosts to your teammates as well (The synergy allows them to go invisible to refocus aggro on you, heals them up a massive amount, and makes them 70% faster, which all combines to basically save anyone in trouble. Meanwhile they'll have 30% damage resistance inside of the ultimate's radius)

The mitigation is frankly overkill, its really as simple as that. Its an entirely selfish tank setup in a game where in group content you really want to bolster your dps and not be a burden to healers as a tank. There is no damage output in this game that would justify building everything around bolstering darkness uptime.

aeowulf

hmmm, I was thinking about this last night, maybe this skill is meant to be the NB 'solution' to perma block.

The only issue with perma block is it's so darn good, 50% damage redux and (more importantly) not getting knocked down.

Which leaves the only real issue being we'd not be able to use warhorn, which is petty much a requirement for tanks these days If anything the issue is probably around that skill being too good, which is only because DPS being too important for trial completion (reducing the number of times the group needs to go through mechanics = heightened chance of success)

Bottom line either way is taking NB tank = less group utility (warhorns/alkosh etc) = groups preferring them less

Asardes

The Bolstering Darkness mitigation is 60%, but it doesn't save you from knock backs and CCs inflicted by boss heavy attacks. Also it provides less overall mitigation than blocking, and some mechanics to require you to block in order to mitigate damage to other players ex. the volcanoes made by minotaurs in Bloodroot Forge, Zaan's flame channel in Scalecaller Peak. So besides an "oh crap!" skill and very limited situations where the group stacks really tightly ex. Mage execute phase in Aethernian Archive, Bolstering Darkness is a pretty useless skill for the group.

aeowulf

I was thinking about this AGAIN last night, was wondering if this skill/morph would be better if it was centred on the caster than on the ground. We have no class/skill based way of pulling mobs onto it, but we do have ways of fearing mobs off it and unlike refreshing path it's not exactly something you can cast often. Also it doesn't really fit with battlefield mobility which i guess is what ZoS are trying to do?

Then again, targetted on the caster could be less usefull for DPS who now stand in it... Swings & roundabouts I guess.

Maryal

RiskyChalice863 wrote: »

This is just theorycrafting (I'm new enough to the game that I don't have the items to quite do this), but it seems to me that you could make an extremely tanky Nightblade by pumping up your ult recharge rate such that you can use Bolstering Darkness (60% protection) all the time.

So here's the basic outline of what I'm thinking (which is mostly a PvE build, I think). The idea is to stack as much damage resistance as possible. To do this, you will want to have Bolstering Darkness up basically 100% of the time. And you do that by pumping up ult regen. On top of this, you will provide a lot of debuffs to your enemies.

I don't think of this as a completely rigid build, so I won't give a complete rundown of everything, but here are some important elements:

Skills

- You run Bolstering Darkness, which not only gives you massive damage reduction, but redirects aggro towards you by allowing teammates to go invisible with a synergy.
- You run Soul Harvest to get 10 ult per kill.
- You go with Absorb Magic for some extra damage resistance.
- You go with Mirage to give you miss chance, which is great for a tank AND will proc ult gain from Tava's Favor, which will be great. This will also be your source of minor resolve and minor ward.
- You probably go with Surprise Attack mostly to have a cheap ability you can use to proc Shadow Barrier, in order to keep major resolve and major ward up permanently. You want all heavy armor in order to make keeping this up as easy as possible.
- You go with Leeching Strikes or Swallow Soul to give some sustain and to have a cheap ability to proc Transfer with.
- You go with either Heroic Slash or Carve to keep Minor Heroism up.

Beyond that, it's really up to you. I think Reaping Mark would be good as a debuff and massive self-heal. Dark Shades would be good to keep Minor Main on the enemies (which is a big help for tanking). Rally or Vigor would be nice as a self-heal. You could also run Forward Momentum to avoid snares and immobilizes. Sap Essence would help keep you up and also very efficiently draw group aggro for you. Mass Hysteria would be good for CC. And if you're having trouble drawing aggro, you could go with one of the Puncture morphs. You could also go with Heroic Slash for the minor heroism and use Brawler for the shields. Going dual wield for Blade Cloak could work if you're going up against AOE damage. There's a lot of options, and you can put plenty of different weapons on your back bar.

Important Passives

- You want to level up Dark Veil so that your Bolstering Darkness lasts as long as possible.
- You want Catalyst to get free ultimate charge from potions.
- You want all the One-Handed passive, to help with damage resistance and blocking.
- As noted above, you want Shadow Barrier.
- You also want Transfer for the extra ult charge.

Important Equipment

- You go with the Tava's Favor set, which will give you a bunch of ultimate anytime you dodge an attack or evade it through Mirage.
- You also go with Akaviri Dragonguard or maybe Blessing of Potantes set in order to lower the cost of Bolstering Darkness.
- You have a lot of sources of ultimate, so Decisive weapons could be good, though probably not necessary if you prefer something else.

The Result

Between all your sources of ult, you can basically keep Bolstering Darkness up virtually constantly.

This makes your damage resistance insane. You get 60% damage resistance from Bolstering Darkness. Let's assume 50% damage resistance from having 33,000 physical and spell resistance (you do have permanent major and minor resolve/ward, after all). You get 8% damage resistance from Absorb Magic when blocking. And you get 50% resistance from blocking and another 20% from the one-handed passive. The end result of that is that you will have 92.64% damage resistance. But that's not all. Assuming you're maiming your enemies with Shades and/or Heroic Slash, and you keep Mirage up, you actually are only going to be taking 5.32% of the damage that gets thrown at you. Of course, that's when you're blocking. But even if you don't block, you still will only take 14.45% of the damage thrown at you.

I don't think there's any build in the game that can stack this much damage resistance. And you still have a couple equipment slots open, as well as some skill slots that you can easily play around with to allow the build to do other things.

Looks good in print, but meaningful combat, whether pve or pvp, is too chaotic and unpredictable for this to work as well as you think it will. That being said, bolstering darkness is an awesome ultimate ... one of my favorites. The best thing you can do for yourself is experiment with your build ideas ... put them together and try them out. Keep fine-tuning your build until it does what you want and you are happy with the results.