Tanking advice for dungeons/sorcerer?

theslynx

Hello. Any advice would be appreciated.

Never really done dungeons before, and not looking to do DLC vet content. Recently started a low level Sorcerer Tank (Heavy Armour, 1HS). High health, moderate Stam, slightly less Magicka. Been running Heroic Slash - Pierce Armour - Clannfear - Restraining Prison - Boundless Storm while I unlock more.

Dungeons have been surprisingly easy so far, but in my last attempt, two veteran players were critical. One said I was doing boss work well, but suggested more AoE to start fights. The other simply said I wasn't holding threat well.

The theory of the build is something like this: Initiate with Boundless Storm, followed by Prison to glue enemies in place for a few seconds. Rush in, apply Pierce Armour, Heroic Slash as relevant, hit mobs with the AoE from Lightning Form, hopefully concuss them. Do a bunch of blocking, heavy and light attacks, reapply my openers, taunts when necessary. Focus on boss first, adds second. Clannfear hopefully picks up aggro of an add/trash mob and is a source of self-heals. Try to keep the enemy mostly still, rotating around the boss where possible.

So far, all my dungeons have been painless clears, and the DPS/healers haven't had to deal with boss aggro outside of abilities that preclude taunting (e.g. Pellingare's teleports to random targets). I was pretty satisfied with the build thus far until those criticisms. So... how important is better AoE for a tank? Is there a clear gap in the theory here I should be addressing?

Thanks for reading.

Raraaku

Tank's main job is to hold boss/aggro in place for DPS can do their jobs, so it sounds like you're doing fine. I don't have much experience on Sorcerer, but you could probably replace heroic slash with liquid lightning. It's a nice AoE skill that's relatively cheap and contributes somewhat to overall DPS.

As long as you are able to hold aggro/bosses and not die, then you're doing pretty well. Also sounds like you understand that you need to keep bosses/mobs confined for DPS; so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

In my mind a Tank has 2/3 primary tasks:

1. Don't Die
2. Hold boss/mobs in place.
3. Crowd Control (kinda goes with #2, but still)

Secondary tasks (in my mind) include:

1. Buffing (quite a few useful buffs for tanks are AoE and thus helps others)
2. AoE DPS

#2 is why you'll see a lot of healer's run a destro back bar for Elemental Drain and Elemental Blockade. DPS, to me, is pretty low on my list of priorities while tanking.

Luckily there are skills that combine CC with DoT, so you can achieve both.

Waffennacht

theslynx wrote: »

So far, all my dungeons have been painless clears, and the DPS/healers haven't had to deal with boss aggro outside of abilities that preclude taunting

Only thing that matters for what you are doing.

You're doing very well

Edit: quite frankly, the dps doesn't know Jack. Wanna be frank? For what you're doing, they, as dps, should be able to solo it

raj72616a

block heavy attacks
interrupt channeled attacks
encase to immobilize group of trash

after you get used to it, prepare a set of backup medium armor gear (TFS Hunding or stuff like that) and a backbar bow, in order to carry low dps group. Critical Surge + Hurricane is insane amount of self healing, and Dark Deal gives you cheat-like stamina sustain. you will have lots of spare resources to stack Rearming Trap, Endless Hail, Poison Injection and ACid Spray etc in between your Pierce Armor and Heroic Slash. you don't need to do a dps rotation, no spamming Flurry or Steel Tornado, just stacking DoT can do ~20k dps on boss and make pugging vCOA2 possible.

theslynx

Hm. Thanks for the replies, all. I'll keep working at it.

DoobZ69

I tank on stamsorc.

Restraining prison (encase morph) I find is really essential for sorc tanking. Stops and snares groups of enemies. heals you. Buffs magicka crit for grp.

Critical surge heals you when u crit. lightning storm hits all enemies around u every second with each being a potential crit. Great combo to have.

Inner fire from dauntless skill line for a ranged taunt, essential.

Suppression field for an ulti is recommended in dungeons. Adds dps to trash and boss fights. Stuns trash. Heals on cast. I found it more useful than absorbtion field which is very situational.

Recommended:
have a taunt on each bar.
Shielded assault for tanky gap closer
Defensive stance for block buff and spell protection. I prefer it over absorb magic because it guarantees 0 damage taken as well as adds dps.

You dont need to aoe unless u go in to tank+dps. Keep boss and enemies taunted and the dps should do the killing, thats what They are there for. If they expect u to dps they dont understand your role.
Best tanking is not getting hit so u can snare enemies with prison, range taunt and kite.
Other advice once you transition to trials but by then youll know what you need.
Good luck.

AcadianPaladin

When one of your dps suggested 'more AoE to start fights', I suspect they weren't looking for you to contribute heavy dps but, rather, a nice ranged AoE ability can help you draw initial soft aggro and help pull trash to you. You mention Lightning Form for AoE but it has small radius and is centered on you - just the opposite of what you want. You are looking for a big radius AoE that you can toss out 20 - 28m to get foes' attention/soft aggro.

I run a DK tank and both a stam and magsorc so bear in mind I'm cobbling together thoughts and do not have experience as a sorc tank. It seems that Lightning Flood might be something of interest. You can toss it out 28M, it has a moderate radius (6M) and, being a sorc skill, is independent of your weaponry so you can run anything you want on your back bar (to include dual s&b).

Another such skill that would also be independent of your weaponry is Caltrops - nice range and radius to initially grab the soft aggro of numerous foes.

I have seen some tanks use frost blockade to do this job but it has less range and requires a destro staff on back bar.

theslynx

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

When one of your dps suggested 'more AoE to start fights', I suspect they weren't looking for you to contribute heavy dps but, rather, a nice ranged AoE ability can help you draw initial soft aggro and help pull trash to you. You mention Lightning Form for AoE but it has small radius and is centered on you - just the opposite of what you want. You are looking for a big radius AoE that you can toss out 20 - 28m to get foes' attention/soft aggro.

Understood. This is sort of how I interpreted it, too (and at least one of the guys who criticised was affable and obviously wanted to be helpful, so I don't want to make it seem like all critics are toxic or anything).

I'm just curious how important that actually is in the long run on non-DLC content. Allies seem to get irked if I don't immediately tank the biggest threats, reduce enemy damage, increase damage output, CC, toss out AoE and provide group utility via synergies, and have plenty of resources left for staying alive, all within the first few seconds. Right now the opening stage of the fight with an AoE is basically dumping three to six abilities in about four or five seconds, which means almost immediate resource depletion and no room for error if something goes amiss.

From reading advice about tanking basics, I think I'm mostly doing all the essential stuff people suggest and extra where possible, but there's still criticism. I guess I want to know how seriously to take that criticism and how much I should be addressing it. Is opening with one or two of those components missing a sign of poor tanking, or of outsize expectations?

And for the record, Lightning Form was less for ranged AoE as for zapping the enemies within the 18m range of Encase/Restraining Prison that's holding the mobs at the start. (Storm helps me move faster and boosts defences, so that goes on first.) My hope is my teammates will have an AoE or two on the CCed mobs, so they'll be half dead by the time they're getting free so having to bar swap for AoE will be unimportant in a lot of engagements.

jypcy

Yeah, hard to say whether the criticism was valid without seeing you play with the group that criticized you, but it sounds like you’re doing alright. I’d pay most attention to repeated lines of criticism rather than isolated incidents, even if those isolated incidents come from high cp players. Also, I don’t think you need to worry about playing a different role/build just off of some criticism. Use it to learn and improve with that character (as it seems you’re doing with this post) instead of taking it as a sign you can’t do that role. Sorc tanks are fun to play and totally viable. Next patch should get even better for them.

But I would advise against the advice above that a tank needs to kite and not get hit. Unless you build specifically for that purpose (which the vast majority of tanking builds will not), you want to hunker down in a pile of adds so that they all stay there in your group’s AOEs. It sounds like the criticism you got was high level stuff that doing well separates decent tanks from good tanks. If you’re kiting adds and they’re constantly moving out of AOEs, that’s where you’ll get truly angry dps who criticize you for not even decent tank performance.