End-Game PvE Warden Main Tank Build by Liofa (Summerset)

Liofa

Hello everyone! Sorry for the late release of the build. I was testing it in other trials as well to see if there is any weakness to it. Was testing different CP, traits etc. At last, I could manage to get it where I want it to be. Hopefully you will like it! One thing to keep in mind. Engulfing Flames is a necessary buff. It boosts the damage of Magicka DDs by a ton. Only use this build if your DK off-tank is using Engulfing Flames or you have a mDK DPS in the group.

Note: This build is not for beginners. It is made for people who are looking to tank veteran HM trials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIHxWMuCLQk

ATTRIBUTES

Lord Mundus, Tri-Stat food and Armour buffs active.

GEAR

5 Ebon Armory: The classic 5 piece set that every tank in this game should have in their inventory. Grants a lot of Health to your allies.

Chest, Legs, Hands, Waist, Feet ( Sturdy/Heavy ): Tri-Stat Enchants

5 Roar of Alkosh: Hands down the best armor reduction set. Not only in single target fights but also extremely effective in trash fights.

x3 Jewelry (Triune) : Shield-Play Enchants
Sword (Infused/Front Bar): Crusher
Shield (Sturdy/Front Bar): Tri-Stat
Lightning Staff (Infused/Back Bar): Weakening

2 Lord Warden or Thurvokun: Lord Warden grants about 3.8k resistances to all allies in range. Thurvokun applies Minor Maim to all enemies in the area.

Head,Shoulder (Sturdy/Heavy): Tri-Stat Enchants

SKILLS

Sword and Shield Front Bar:

1- Pierce Armour: Main taunt skill. Applies Major Fracture and Major Breach.
2- Heroic Slash: Reliable source of Minor Maim on the target. Also grants Minor Heroism.
3- Deep Thoughts: Our main source of sustain. Grants Major Protection while channeling.
4- Bull Netch: Another sustain tool. Also restores 4 Ultimate every 8 seconds. Activates Flourish passive.
5- Budding Seeds: Amazing healing skill. Gives synergy to the other tank for better Alkosh uptime.
Ulti- Northern Storm: Major Protection for group and 8% Max Magicka.

Lightning Staff Back Bar:

1- Deceptive Predator: Our source of Major Expedition. Also activates the Flourish passive on back bar.
2- Inner Rage: Range taunt. This morph gives better chance of synergy, providing slightly higher Alkosh uptime when used.
3- Ice Fortress: AOE Major Resolve and Major Ward. Also gives Minor Protection to us, making us a bit tankier.
4- Flex Spot
5- Flex Spot
Ulti- Aggressive Horn: 10% Max Resources for everyone and 9.5 seconds of Major Force. Our main Ultimate.
Flex Spot Skills:

1- Living Trellis: Nice self healing skill. The reason we pick this one is, healers tend to use Minor Lifesteal because the healing from that scales with casters Spell Critical etc. making it much more effective on healers.
2- Lotus Blossom: Gives nice healing on light and heavy attacks. Also gives Major Prophecy, increasing our chance of critical healing.
3- Gripping Shards: AOE root.
4- Shimmering Shield: Makes you immortal against projectiles. When you absorb a projectile, grants Major Heroism.
5- Frozen Gate: Chains but with higher range, no need to aim directly at target and applies Major Maim. 3 of them can be laid on the ground and they will be activated immediately when enemy step on them.
6- Crushing Shock: Ranged interrupt. Amazing skill in almost all trials.
7- Elemental Blockade: Better Crusher uptime. Use before getting stunned or moving away from boss. Also applies Off Balance.
8- Energy Orb: Use when your DDs need more resource support. Also another synergy for your off tank to proc Alkosh.
9- Retreating Maneuver: Speed buff for speed runs.
10- Efficient Purge: Cleanses negative effects and DoTs from allies.

CHAMPION POINTS

Green: 40 Warlord, 29 Sprinter, 30 Tenacity, 51 Tumbling, 100 Shadow Ward

Blue: 100 Blessed, 100 Elfborn, 40 Thaumaturge, 10 Mighty

Physical Red: 81 Ironclad, 37 Thick Skinned, 37 Elemental Defender, 64 Hardy, 12 Heavy Armour Focus, 19 Quick Recovery

Spell Red: 81 Ironclad, 37 Thick Skinned, 64 Elemental Defender, 37 Hardy, 12 Spell Shield, 19 Quick Recovery

---

That's all! If you have any questions, suggestions etc. you can comment here, reach me in-game @LiofaTR (PC EU) or whisper me in Discord (Liofa#9437) I'll try to answer everything as soon as I can ^^ Hope you enjoy!

-Liofa

BejaProphet

Two questions, didn't have time to watch vid. Just reading the write up.

1. Is that mitigation with Lord warden active?

2. You didn't specify warhorn on back bar. Was that meant to be a given?

Liofa

BejaProphet wrote: »

Two questions, didn't have time to watch vid. Just reading the write up.

1. Is that mitigation with Lord warden active?

2. You didn't specify warhorn on back bar. Was that meant to be a given?

Hello!

1- The screenshot has Lord Warden equipped but not procced.

2- I actually forgot that ^^ Adding it now!

White wabbit

Yep love warden tanking, I run seducer instead if roar of alkosh as haven't run any trails, looking forward to summerset as on console, but build looks good

DarkAedin

Ty 4 update!

Liofa

White wabbit wrote: »

Yep love warden tanking, I run seducer instead if roar of alkosh as haven't run any trails, looking forward to summerset as on console, but build looks good

Thanks! Next patch, you can ditch Seducer completely thanks to Deep Thoughts ^^

Hamburglarjones

Great guide, really helpful

Joxer61

SO AWESOME!!! Thank you!!

ccfeeling

This guy is tanky, thx 4 sharing.

thomasfitzjohnub17_ESO

Thanks Liofa.

Think you'll make another build for DK this patch?

Loved your guide last patch for dragon bones.

Skullstachio

Just a couple of suggestions (& my own added "positive" commentary) to add @Liofa
(note: I included some of your sentences so you know which parts I am talking about, my commentary will be bolded & italicised simultaneously.)

5 Ebon Armory: The classic 5 piece set that every tank in this game should have in their inventory. Grants a lot of Health to your allies.

Ebon armory is a good set in my books, I even have 3 epic jewellery & 2 legendary armor pieces on console. but by my calculations, the only time players will see any real impact to their health is when it is coupled with the right passives, so really, the health buff numerically affects each player differently in the group based on their characters race, class, etc. ebon armory is the BiS for trials tank wise.

5 Roar of Alkosh: Hands down the best armor reduction set. Not only in single target fights but also extremely effective in trash fights.

that set is a keeper, but alternatively, you could also use Jorvuld's guidance to improve the duration of any & all major/minor buffs & damage shields by 40% to yourself & allies which can increase the duration of Major force from aggressive horn, thus allowing other trial-goers in the group to squeeze in more DPS (namely you would have to have 3 pieces of jewellery, a lightning stave and a sword & shield since it is a light set in your case.)

Chest, Legs, Hands, Waist, Feet ( Sturdy/Heavy ): Tri-Stat Enchants

Yeah, I'm gonna have to stop you there, Prismatic armor enchantments are a slight no-no on the shoulders, hands, waist and the feet. they are more notably effective on the shield, helmet, legs & chest as you put in, but figuratively & mathematically speaking, it is actually wiser to put Stamina/Magicka glyphs variably on the Shoulders, hands, waist and the feet based on the players particular race, in your case with your "imperial", you would only need one stamina glyph & three magicka glyphs because since imperials have a racial passive that increases max stamina along with their health, stamina glyphs will incrementally give more stamina with the passives, and moreover, because imperials have no racial passives that buff max magicka, having the three magicka glyphs can help offload the magicka setback slightly.
another thing, wouldn't it be better to have 5 heavy, 1 light & 1 medium to benefit from undaunted mettle which increases your max health, magicka & stamina by 2% for each type of armor equipped for a maximum of 6%


x3 Jewelry (Triune) : Shield-Play Enchants

Now here, I can tell you about a little trick I picked up. because the health magicka & stamina from Triune jewellery grants values equivalent to half a magicka/stamina & health glyph by themselves (477 + 477 = 954 Max Health equivalent to a health glyph & 434 + 434 = 868 equivalent to that of a magicka/stamina glyph.) you will only need two to provide benefits equal to having a piece of robust, healthy & arcane jewellery at the same time & that way, you can use something more useful on the third piece of jewellery such as Protective to add extra physical/spell resistance, or even infused to improve the effectiveness of the shield-play glyph on that particular piece.


2 Lord Warden or Thurvokun: Lord Warden grants about 3.8k resistances to all allies in range. Thurvokun applies Minor Maim to all enemies in the area.

You forgot about the bloodspawn monster set, bloodspawn is a must have for just about any trial not because of the added resistances when you get hit(which are useful) but because it also generates 14 ultimate which in turn, allows for quicker activation of Ultimates such as aggressive horn, making it beneficial for the team and not as selfish a monster set as some people make it out to be. it also has added stamina recovery to help recover stamina a bit more.

take your time reading this & ponder it a bit, you might be able to improve it further than you think.

Mister_DMC

@Liofa You're the best, keep it up

Liofa

thomasfitzjohnub17_ESO wrote: »

Thanks Liofa.

Think you'll make another build for DK this patch?

Loved your guide last patch for dragon bones.

I played a lot in PTS with my DK but if there is Engulfing Flames in the group already, I don't see a reason for picking DK over Warden so I decided to tank with it this patch. For DKs, just go literally same stuff and you should be fine ^^

Liofa

Alpha-Lupi wrote: »

5 Ebon Armory: The classic 5 piece set that every tank in this game should have in their inventory. Grants a lot of Health to your allies.

Ebon armory is a good set in my books, I even have 3 epic jewellery & 2 legendary armor pieces on console. but by my calculations, the only time players will see any real impact to their health is when it is coupled with the right passives, so really, the health buff numerically affects each player differently in the group based on their characters race, class, etc. ebon armory is the BiS for trials tank wise.

Yep. I already explained this in the video

Alpha-Lupi wrote: »

5 Roar of Alkosh: Hands down the best armor reduction set. Not only in single target fights but also extremely effective in trash fights.

that set is a keeper, but alternatively, you could also use Jorvuld's guidance to improve the duration of any & all major/minor buffs & damage shields by 40% to yourself & allies which can increase the duration of Major force from aggressive horn, thus allowing other trial-goers in the group to squeeze in more DPS (namely you would have to have 3 pieces of jewellery, a lightning stave and a sword & shield since it is a light set in your case.)

I've already tested pretty much all support sets. Nothing could come close to Alkosh. That's why it is there. Jorvulds was meh at best.

Alpha-Lupi wrote: »

Chest, Legs, Hands, Waist, Feet ( Sturdy/Heavy ): Tri-Stat Enchants

Yeah, I'm gonna have to stop you there, Prismatic armor enchantments are a slight no-no on the shoulders, hands, waist and the feet. they are more notably effective on the shield, helmet, legs & chest as you put in, but figuratively & mathematically speaking, it is actually wiser to put Stamina/Magicka glyphs variably on the Shoulders, hands, waist and the feet based on the players particular race, in your case with your "imperial", you would only need one stamina glyph & three magicka glyphs because since imperials have a racial passive that increases max stamina along with their health, stamina glyphs will incrementally give more stamina with the passives, and moreover, because imperials have no racial passives that buff max magicka, having the three magicka glyphs can help offload the magicka setback slightly.
another thing, wouldn't it be better to have 5 heavy, 1 light & 1 medium to benefit from undaunted mettle which increases your max health, magicka & stamina by 2% for each type of armor equipped for a maximum of 6%

It doesn't matter if I have a racial bonus to Health and/or Stamina. Tri-Stat glyphs always give highest stat pools in total. I like having more overall stats than one stat boosted a lot higher.

About Undaunted passive, only thing it gives me is 4% more resources (which is not a lot when my resources are only 20k) and some sustain from light and medium armour passives. What I trade is around 2k resistances. I don't have any sustain issues at all and really happy with my stat pool. As I said in the video, Warden Tanks are slightly less tanky than DKs and you will feel it in actual combat. I am not talking about self healing, more about mitigation. Getting rid of resistances makes it worse, even though it is a slight decrease.

Alpha-Lupi wrote: »

x3 Jewelry (Triune) : Shield-Play Enchants

Now here, I can tell you about a little trick I picked up. because the health magicka & stamina from Triune jewellery grants values equivalent to half a magicka/stamina & health glyph by themselves (477 + 477 = 954 Max Health equivalent to a health glyph & 434 + 434 = 868 equivalent to that of a magicka/stamina glyph.) you will only need two to provide benefits equal to having a piece of robust, healthy & arcane jewellery at the same time & that way, you can use something more useful on the third piece of jewellery such as Protective to add extra physical/spell resistance, or even infused to improve the effectiveness of the shield-play glyph on that particular piece.

As I said before while replying to your comment on 5/1/1, I don't have any sustain issues so don't need Infused for even more sustain. Protective is complete garbage for my build. If you look at the screenshot, my resists are about 3k away from the resistance cap without Lord Warden proc. I'll also get Minor Ward and Minor Resolve from Combat Prayer, making it even more useless. I tried everything, they turned out to be mostly useless and/or not needed. In this case, max stats it is.

Alpha-Lupi wrote: »

2 Lord Warden or Thurvokun: Lord Warden grants about 3.8k resistances to all allies in range. Thurvokun applies Minor Maim to all enemies in the area.

You forgot about the bloodspawn monster set, bloodspawn is a must have for just about any trial not because of the added resistances when you get hit(which are useful) but because it also generates 14 ultimate which in turn, allows for quicker activation of Ultimates such as aggressive horn, making it beneficial for the team and not as selfish a monster set as some people make it out to be. it also has added stamina recovery to help recover stamina a bit more.

I didn't list Blood Spawn on purpose. Playing tank for years now, I had that set equipped for most of my time. Here is my reason for not using it. I've had fights where it procced 5 times in a minute and I've had fights where it didn't proc once in 5 minutes. It just didn't. I never leave anything to chance, rather have something that I can rely on and is useful at all times.

When it comes to resistances of Blood Spawn, Lord Warden actually gives more. A lot more if we also calculate the uptime of Blood Spawn ^^

aeowulf

@Alpha-Lupi yeah, i'm going to have to stop you here:

Alpha-Lupi wrote: »

Chest, Legs, Hands, Waist, Feet ( Sturdy/Heavy ): Tri-Stat Enchants

Yeah, I'm gonna have to stop you there, Prismatic armor enchantments are a slight no-no on the shoulders, hands, waist and the feet. they are more notably effective on the shield, helmet, legs & chest as you put in, but figuratively & mathematically speaking, it is actually wiser to put Stamina/Magicka glyphs variably on the Shoulders, hands, waist and the feet based on the players particular race, in your case with your "imperial", you would only need one stamina glyph & three magicka glyphs because since imperials have a racial passive that increases max stamina along with their health, stamina glyphs will incrementally give more stamina with the passives, and moreover, because imperials have no racial passives that buff max magicka, having the three magicka glyphs can help offload the magicka setback slightly.
another thing, wouldn't it be better to have 5 heavy, 1 light & 1 medium to benefit from undaunted mettle which increases your max health, magicka & stamina by 2% for each type of armor equipped for a maximum of 6%

Firstly undaunted passive will not increase your max health swapping from 7H to 5/1/1. Heavy also has a health increasing passive. So you only gain 2% mag/stam, but loose out sustain. Decide which is the most important.

Secondly re the glyphs - no, your set up is not the most efficient (mathematically).

so for arguments sake, let's say a glyph on a small piece gives 200s or 200m or 100s/110h/100m

your advice grants 200s + 600m (3*200m)

utilising prismatic *could* give 200s + 220h +600m (2*100s/110h/100m + 2*200m)

But going one step further, it's more efficient again to use prismatic in all slots, and even out the weaker stats using character stat points should you desire it. So back to using prismatic in each slot

The only times you may want to use single stat glyphs as a tank is if you have a dps toon that wants to temporarily swap into gear to tank a vet pledge without visiting the shrine, and have all your points in mag or stam.

EDIT: just read liofa's reply, had it covered - should of finished the whole thread

Maura_Neysa

Liofa wrote: »

White wabbit wrote: »

Yep love warden tanking, I run seducer instead if roar of alkosh as haven't run any trails, looking forward to summerset as on console, but build looks good

Thanks! Next patch, you can ditch Seducer completely thanks to Deep Thoughts ^^

@White wabbit Run Torug's not Seducer until you get your Alkosh. Torug's is pretty widely regarded as 2nd BiS. If your sustain is really that bad, then pick up Desert Rose 2400 mag every 4 seconds when you take damage. This is my selfish setup. Off Tank Ozara, The Serpent, or Tanking Hiath I'll be in Desert Rose.
@Liofa Why in the world do you need more sustain than Netch & Nature's Gift. Those 2 give as much as DK Helping Hands/Battle Roar, and I still rarely ever need to HA for anything extra

Liofa

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

Why in the world do you need more sustain than Netch & Nature's Gift. Those 2 give as much as DK Helping Hands/Battle Roar, and I still rarely ever need to HA for anything extra

Deep Thoughts give almost 4k resources (not counting the healing) in total in one second while Nature's Gift gives 250 per second. So I ditched Nature's Gift and the skills that proc it except Budding Seeds which I use for different reasons. It makes me tankier thanks to Deliberation passive and gives me a free 5k shield on demand. That's why ^^

Don't worry. I tried Magicka Recovery build. It just made me depend on healing others for my own sustain and my stats were lower because I had to invest Magicka Recovery to sustain Green Balance skills. Every fight I was in, Deep Thoughts performed better than other ways of sustaining while making me a lot tankier.

mocap

you can ditch Seducer, Deep Thoughts, templar Shards, Orbs, Potions and Atronach mundus together, thanks to Heavy Attacks Online and 2H->2bonus update.

Heavy attack with Destro staff (Frost one is generaly better for tank for many reasons) restore like 3K magicka per attack. So base regen + 2 attacks and you get 8-9K magicka back in about 5 seconds.

Maura_Neysa

Liofa wrote: »

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

Why in the world do you need more sustain than Netch & Nature's Gift. Those 2 give as much as DK Helping Hands/Battle Roar, and I still rarely ever need to HA for anything extra

Deep Thoughts give almost 4k resources (not counting the healing) in total in one second while Nature's Gift gives 250 per second. So I ditched Nature's Gift and the skills that proc it except Budding Seeds which I use for different reasons. It makes me tankier thanks to Deliberation passive and gives me a free 5k shield on demand. That's why ^^

Don't worry. I tried Magicka Recovery build. It just made me depend on healing others for my own sustain and my stats were lower because I had to invest Magicka Recovery to sustain Green Balance skills. Every fight I was in, Deep Thoughts performed better than other ways of sustaining while making me a lot tankier.

Deep Thoughts gives both resources, but it never out paces HA. You will always be better off HA then Deep Thought. I am console so I haven't been able to compare the Major Protection vs unprotected HA, but at least on paper Deep Thoughts didn't look good

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

What are the odds on deep thoughts being nerfed eventually because it is so good?

Liofa

mocap wrote: »

you can ditch Seducer, Deep Thoughts, templar Shards, Orbs, Potions and Atronach mundus together, thanks to Heavy Attacks Online and 2H->2bonus update.

Heavy attack with Destro staff (Frost one is generaly better for tank for many reasons) restore like 3K magicka per attack. So base regen + 2 attacks and you get 8-9K magicka back in about 5 seconds.

Ye Deep Thoughts give around 10k Magicka AND Stamina in 5 seconds just for hovering and having Major Protection. Also heals a bit.

Maura_Neysa wrote: »

Deep Thoughts gives both resources, but it never out paces HA. You will always be better off HA then Deep Thought. I am console so I haven't been able to compare the Major Protection vs unprotected HA, but at least on paper Deep Thoughts didn't look good

It actually does because it gives both resources. HAs can only restore one depending on the choice of weapon. At first, I had the same approach to it because it would prevent me from moving and all that but it is just very good once you start using it properly.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

What are the odds on deep thoughts being nerfed eventually because it is so good?

I don't think it will get nerfed at all. You can't block while casting it and blocking gives more mitigation than Major Protection. Also prevents movement. There are really important downsides to Meditate so I believe it will stay as is.

NiclasFridholm

Alpha-Lupi wrote: »

Just a couple of suggestions (& my own added "positive" commentary) to add @Liofa
(note: I included some of your sentences so you know which parts I am talking about, my commentary will be bolded & italicised simultaneously.)

5 Ebon Armory: The classic 5 piece set that every tank in this game should have in their inventory. Grants a lot of Health to your allies.

Ebon armory is a good set in my books, I even have 3 epic jewellery & 2 legendary armor pieces on console. but by my calculations, the only time players will see any real impact to their health is when it is coupled with the right passives, so really, the health buff numerically affects each player differently in the group based on their characters race, class, etc. ebon armory is the BiS for trials tank wise.

5 Roar of Alkosh: Hands down the best armor reduction set. Not only in single target fights but also extremely effective in trash fights.

that set is a keeper, but alternatively, you could also use Jorvuld's guidance to improve the duration of any & all major/minor buffs & damage shields by 40% to yourself & allies which can increase the duration of Major force from aggressive horn, thus allowing other trial-goers in the group to squeeze in more DPS (namely you would have to have 3 pieces of jewellery, a lightning stave and a sword & shield since it is a light set in your case.)

Chest, Legs, Hands, Waist, Feet ( Sturdy/Heavy ): Tri-Stat Enchants

Yeah, I'm gonna have to stop you there, Prismatic armor enchantments are a slight no-no on the shoulders, hands, waist and the feet. they are more notably effective on the shield, helmet, legs & chest as you put in, but figuratively & mathematically speaking, it is actually wiser to put Stamina/Magicka glyphs variably on the Shoulders, hands, waist and the feet based on the players particular race, in your case with your "imperial", you would only need one stamina glyph & three magicka glyphs because since imperials have a racial passive that increases max stamina along with their health, stamina glyphs will incrementally give more stamina with the passives, and moreover, because imperials have no racial passives that buff max magicka, having the three magicka glyphs can help offload the magicka setback slightly.
another thing, wouldn't it be better to have 5 heavy, 1 light & 1 medium to benefit from undaunted mettle which increases your max health, magicka & stamina by 2% for each type of armor equipped for a maximum of 6%


x3 Jewelry (Triune) : Shield-Play Enchants

Now here, I can tell you about a little trick I picked up. because the health magicka & stamina from Triune jewellery grants values equivalent to half a magicka/stamina & health glyph by themselves (477 + 477 = 954 Max Health equivalent to a health glyph & 434 + 434 = 868 equivalent to that of a magicka/stamina glyph.) you will only need two to provide benefits equal to having a piece of robust, healthy & arcane jewellery at the same time & that way, you can use something more useful on the third piece of jewellery such as Protective to add extra physical/spell resistance, or even infused to improve the effectiveness of the shield-play glyph on that particular piece.


2 Lord Warden or Thurvokun: Lord Warden grants about 3.8k resistances to all allies in range. Thurvokun applies Minor Maim to all enemies in the area.

You forgot about the bloodspawn monster set, bloodspawn is a must have for just about any trial not because of the added resistances when you get hit(which are useful) but because it also generates 14 ultimate which in turn, allows for quicker activation of Ultimates such as aggressive horn, making it beneficial for the team and not as selfish a monster set as some people make it out to be. it also has added stamina recovery to help recover stamina a bit more.

take your time reading this & ponder it a bit, you might be able to improve it further than you think.

This is tank of the year material, very good points!

getemshauna

Damn, Liofa, this is really good stuff. Love it.

ajcorbell

10/10 Liofa

Asardes

Regarding what @Alpha-Lupi said about Undaunted Mettle you can gain 2% more resources by using 1 Ebon ring or necklace and Alkosh belt, but the 2% you gain on stamina and magicka, with the same HP (Heavy armor: Juggernaut passive) and negligible resistance loss, since belt has the lowest contribution. But for ~20K resource pools that 2% will be less than 400 overall, which is negligible. Since there's no % return on resource pool, this won't really help you much but if you want to totally min-max your resource pools that's something you can certainly do.

Bloodspawn ultimate gain is overrated: for a Warden that has a skill that can generate 18 ultimate every 8s whenever a projectile hits - Shimmering Shield - the 14 ultimate you may get from Bloodspawn will not be noticeable in your overall balance. Also the resistance buff applies only to you and it will certainly put you over the mitigation cap (33K), since you are probably at around ~28K already, meaning it's wasted. Also the 1p bonus will be entirely wasted since stamina recovery is stopped while blocking, and you don't have a high multiplier for that anyway. Lord Warden will be up most of the time, since it has a 50% proc rate, and also the resistances from the 1p will help. And the added AoE resistance buff helps melee DD if they are stacked close to you, and tanking is about maximizing group utility. Bloodspawn certainly has its uses, neamely making you very tanky in PvP when not wearing heavy armor since it will proc quite often when taking light damage from multiple sources, which is usually not the case in PvE trials, where you get hit less often, but much harder.

Ebon is not mandatory since it most trials having it on one tank suffices, but unfortunately ZoS has failed to produce any good tank sets over the last 2 years; if you think of it Alkosh was meant to be a DD set, so even that was unintended, and lately one intended tank set is making headway into DD territory thanks to jewelry re-traiting. You can certainly wear Torug instead of Ebon, but it only adds ~600 more penetration from Crusher enchant, compared to one from an infused weapon in any other set, while having no impact on up time. 600 penetration is at most 1% more damage, if the cap is not reached already; generally in a well organized group people assign their CP and mundus to be at the penetration cap anyway with the group buffs so it will be not really an issue. Another alternative is Dragon, which gives you a bit of magicka recovery and ultimate cost reduction. But overall Ebon is still the best, with so many players running Whichmother's Brew and sitting at 15K HP without it.

thomasfitzjohnub17_ESO

Liofa wrote: »

thomasfitzjohnub17_ESO wrote: »

Thanks Liofa.

Think you'll make another build for DK this patch?

Loved your guide last patch for dragon bones.

I played a lot in PTS with my DK but if there is Engulfing Flames in the group already, I don't see a reason for picking DK over Warden so I decided to tank with it this patch. For DKs, just go literally same stuff and you should be fine ^^

Thanks Liofa.

So for DKs, are you saying that you would go with the same build as your warden this patch, but with comparable DK skills replacing warden skills (similar CP, gear, traits, and enchants)? I guess DK also gets balance as well. I'm not sure if we should use mediate or balance as DK. Both seem very good.

I am curious how you would structure it based on your experience in PTS.

Another question on Galanwe set. Which trials do you think this set will be useful? It's interesting, but I can't see replacing alkosh/torugs (when off-tank wears ebon) or ebon/alkosh for any trial that I main tank.

Thanks again.



P.S Also I will just add that I don't have as much experience as Liofa tanking, but based on my own experience (vCraglorn, vMOL, vAS, cCR), I 100% agree that bloodspawn is useless for organized trial group. If your group is tracking warhorns correctly, you should never need it. Good sets for tanking are lord warden (most trials), thorvukan (trash fights), and earthgore (combined with blood alter. Useful for vAS and some other fights like mini-bosses in cloudrest).

Also agree that 7 heavy is better than 5/1/1. Undaunted does not contribute much to tank.

Liofa

thomasfitzjohnub17_ESO wrote: »

Thanks Liofa.

So for DKs, are you saying that you would go with the same build as your warden this patch, but with comparable DK skills replacing warden skills? I guess DK also gets balance as well. I'm not sure if we should use mediate or balance as DK. Both seem very good.

I am curious how you would structure it based on your experience in PTS.

Thanks again.

Definitely go with Balance. The difference is, Wardens Armour buff is AOE and amazing group support so you have to use it. That makes Balance useless. DK doesn't have that. So it makes more sense to use Balance for sustain+armour buffs all together with one skill. Also DK has more skills to use during combat constantly like Igneous Shield and Engulfing Flames while Warden has really long duration buffs that is not required to use very often. This gives DKs less time to use Meditate while Wardens can have 3-4 seconds of Meditate between each skill reliably. DKs will get like maybe 1-2 seconds of small Meditates at most.

Liofa

thomasfitzjohnub17_ESO wrote: »

Another question on Galanwe set. Which trials do you think this set will be useful? It's interesting, but I can't see replacing alkosh/torugs (when off-tank wears ebon) or ebon/alkosh for any trial that I main tank.

Galanwe is a really situational set. Best place to use it is while holding axes in AA. It will proc on cooldown, which is amazing. Empower is really good after the buff to light attack scaling. The set is strong indeed but can only be used in specific fights.

TheNightflame

@Liofa your warden tank is the first build to get me as excited as @FeaR Turbo 's immortal templar build from launch

WickidMexican

Do you have gameplay for how/when you use deep thoughts? Im slowly trying to get ready to start tanking trials. I havent seen the video yet, but if its there ill see it i guess.

Liofa

WickidMexican wrote: »

Do you have gameplay for how/when you use deep thoughts? Im slowly trying to get ready to start tanking trials. I havent seen the video yet, but if its there ill see it i guess.

Hello! Yes, I am trying to get some footage but not ready yet. Here is a tip though. Biggest drawback of Deep Thoughts is that it locks you in place. To minimize this, I use it for short periods of time but more often instead of meditating for long time once in a while. Basically every chance I get to use it, I use it for 1-2 seconds then go back to whatever it is I do. That's how Deep Thoughts is supposed to be used. Again, will try to get some footage but may take some time.