Plague Doctors vs Hatchling's Shell (PvE Tanks)

Ir0nB34r

So now that Mirkmire is going to be making shields carry the users resistances, I have started to ponder the effectiveness of Hatchling's Shell over the normal go-to health tank set, Plague Doctor. So since shields have resistances now, they will essentially serve as temporary HP for the player.

Plague Doctor, with all Legendary, gives you a little over 6k health. It also provides a 4% bonus to healing taken.

Hatchling's Shell gives extra resistances, extra health, and a damage shield equal to 20% of your max health. A tank with 45k health will get a 9k health damage shield. This shield can also be stacked with other shields, AND if depleted will automatically replenish in 15 seconds.

So for pure health tanks, starting after Mirkmire, I think Hatchling Shell would do so much better than Plague Doctor. What are your guy's thoughts?

Mystrius_Archaion

I'm going to find better use for my Whitestrake's Retribution set which gives a 10k shield at legendary for 8 seconds whenever my health drops to 30% of max and can happen every 15 seconds also, regardless of health level so I can afford to not be quite as stacked for health. It's more reactive to the big hits also, so long as they don't kill me it gives me the ability to come back.
(Edit: FYI, it triggers when you drop to below 30%, not on a second hit that drops you more after so it does work well.)

This is a nice patch.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

The sheild can be wiped out in 1 second and not come back for 14 more seconds. Health can be right back up. Also any health based skills will be amped by PD. And the resistance is worthless most builds too. Also most tanks have between 30-40k, can't imagine getting to 45k without 2 sets that have multiple health bonuses in the 2-4 of the sets and certainly not with alkosh.

Mystrius_Archaion

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

The sheild can be wiped out in 1 second and not come back for 14 more seconds. Health can be right back up. Also any health based skills will be amped by PD. And the resistance is worthless most builds too. Also most tanks have between 30-40k, can't imagine getting to 45k without 2 sets that have multiple health bonuses in the 2-4 of the sets and certainly not with alkosh.

Resistance is worthless??!!
You didn't read the patch notes then. Shields now benefit from resistance so they are suddenly twice as good as they once were. Also, the shield from Whitestrake's Retribution didn't disappear that fast anyway before, especially in PVE, so it will be decent.

And FYI, these shields are "effective health" since they are now exactly the same as the same value of health because of the resistances they benefit from and being affected by critical hits. A 10k shield is 10k health now. That's far from bad.

Yes, it's not quite as simple as being healed to full when you lose that health, but these shields are not meant to be needed 100% of the time, just to keep you from hitting zero.

TiZzA93

make a nb tank 70k hp max resists and spam bone shield XD

mague

Ir0nB34r wrote: »

Hatchling's Shell gives extra resistances, extra health, and a damage shield equal to 20% of your max health. A tank with 45k health will get a 9k health damage shield. This shield can also be stacked with other shields, AND if depleted will automatically replenish in 15 seconds.

So for pure health tanks, starting after Mirkmire, I think Hatchling Shell would do so much better than Plague Doctor. What are your guy's thoughts?

The "problem" with Hatchling's shell is that its on 15s and then off for 15s and then back to on for 15s. Overland i am having a lot of fun with the blue ball but on harder content the 15 on/off is not reliable.

If you are a 9-trait crafter or know one, then try 5 Armor Master + Immovable skill and 5 Order of Diagna for 2000HP and 12% healing taken. Since we now are able to make own jewelry you can put health on the Armor Master Jewels. Since one set ist crafted you can make belt light and arms medium for the Undaunted buff.

If Armor Master is not doable, then try Fortified Brass. Brass and Diagna is currently my most solid build on the warden

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

The sheild can be wiped out in 1 second and not come back for 14 more seconds. Health can be right back up. Also any health based skills will be amped by PD. And the resistance is worthless most builds too. Also most tanks have between 30-40k, can't imagine getting to 45k without 2 sets that have multiple health bonuses in the 2-4 of the sets and certainly not with alkosh.

Resistance is worthless??!!
You didn't read the patch notes then. Shields now benefit from resistance so they are suddenly twice as good as they once were. Also, the shield from Whitestrake's Retribution didn't disappear that fast anyway before, especially in PVE, so it will be decent.

And FYI, these shields are "effective health" since they are now exactly the same as the same value of health because of the resistances they benefit from and being affected by critical hits. A 10k shield is 10k health now. That's far from bad.

Yes, it's not quite as simple as being healed to full when you lose that health, but these shields are not meant to be needed 100% of the time, just to keep you from hitting zero.

I say resistance is worthless because it doesn't do any but raise your resistance. Sithax health, you become tankier and your health percentage based heals/shields become stronger. Now that means your polar wind heals other people for more and your igneous/fragmented shields are higher. For the other classes, you could argue since you are taking less damage, that is like having more healing from the percentage based heals/shields but I like to build with helping my team out the most. That means no selfish sets. My dk wears the typical lord warden/ebon/alkosh(I have sunderflame if there is not enough synergys to have alkosh up) but my warden wears sentinel of rkugams/livewire/sanctuary (if the healer has it on, I wear ebon here too, tried brands of the imperiam but the uptime is so low, it just was not worth it. ). You can survive all fights in the game with around 30-40k health and 25-30k resists, with the major buffs up.

profundidob16_ESO

You pair this set with the imperium set and run around with shields almost permanently

TankHealz2015

I just tested a similar build on PTS recently.

Dark Elf, Magika, DK
40 magika, 20 health, normal CP distribution, no mundus
Solo, PvE Craglorn group areas

Iceheart Monster set + Hatchling Shell + Permafrost + tri stat food

I posted results in PTS forums: felt invincible

WrathOfInnos

I don’t think shields benefit from blocking, so they are effectively worth about half of the equivalent health.

code65536

LOL, hate to burst your bubbles, but none of these shield sets are going to be worth it.

As a tank, your biggest, most important source of mitigation is your BLOCK, and shields do not benefit from block mitigation.

Here's a test that I did on the PTS. My tank is wearing its general PvE tanking gear (Ebon/Alkosh/Earthgore) with 29K spell resist with Major Ward up. I'm dueling a testing partner who hits me with Funnel Health, and here are what the non-crit hits look like:

• Damage with no shield and no block: 1038 to health
• Damage with a shield: 1038 absorbed by shield (as expected, shield damage is now equal to health damage)
• Damage with a shield while blocking: 1038 absorbed by shield
• Damage with no shield while blocking: 291 to health
• Damage naked: 1427 (with mitigation from just my CP and Scaled Armor class passive; Major Ward was not up)

So first, block mitigation does not apply to shields.

Second, getting all that resistance by putting on my tank armor and activating my Major Ward buff only reduced the damage by 27% compared to taking the hit while naked (but I still had CP). When you hear experienced tanks tell you that resistance numbers aren't that important and that you don't need to worry about hitting the resist cap, this is why.

Third, activating block reduced the damage taken by 72% compared to taking the hit while armored but not blocking, but it only works on damage that hits your health...

So, again: Blocking is by far your most important mitigator, and it does not affect shields. Frankly, resistance on shields is very much overrated. Even with mitigation, the effectiveness of that shield is only a small fraction of the effectiveness of actual health if you are blocking. If you are doing content where blocking isn't important (e.g., any of the base game dungeons), then it doesn't matter what gear you use because the damage is so inconsequential that there's absolutely no reason for you to run such defensive sets. If you are doing content where the damage is high enough to warrant looking at defensive sets in the first place, then the damage is also high enough that blocking is not optional, and you'll find that your shield will be woefully inadequate.

TL;DR: If you want to go defensive/selfish in content where defensive/selfish sets are warranted, then sets that give you health or that restore health are far better than any set that gives you a shield.

TheNightflame

on the other hand, imperium becomes more useful for your group now! but a lot of trials nowadays are just infrequent big hits, but anywhere where you'll take many damage ticks, it'll be even more helpful!

Mystrius_Archaion

code65536 wrote: »

LOL, hate to burst your bubbles, but none of these shield sets are going to be worth it.

As a tank, your biggest, most important source of mitigation is your BLOCK, and shields do not benefit from block mitigation.

And they've been trying to kill perma-blocking for a long time, getting closer every patch.
Don't count on block.

Also, if you are a tank then you shouldn't need to block every little hit, just the big ones that will take your health very low or one-shot you. If that were not the case then even the little shots that the bosses are guaranteed to randomly nail other squishier group members with would one-shot them every time also so the fights would all be impossible and broken because almost every boss does damage to other targets in the group despite taunt.

Perma-blocking is an option, but not required and only works on stamina tanks and not magicka, which, FYI, the developers do design with that in mind and want to work which is why frost staff taunts with the passive for that.

UrQuan

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

LOL, hate to burst your bubbles, but none of these shield sets are going to be worth it.

As a tank, your biggest, most important source of mitigation is your BLOCK, and shields do not benefit from block mitigation.

And they've been trying to kill perma-blocking for a long time, getting closer every patch.
Don't count on block.

Also, if you are a tank then you shouldn't need to block every little hit, just the big ones that will take your health very low or one-shot you. If that were not the case then even the little shots that the bosses are guaranteed to randomly nail other squishier group members with would one-shot them every time also so the fights would all be impossible and broken because almost every boss does damage to other targets in the group despite taunt.

Perma-blocking is an option, but not required and only works on stamina tanks and not magicka, which, FYI, the developers do design with that in mind and want to work which is why frost staff taunts with the passive for that.

Whether you perma-block or not (personally I don't except for a few fights where it's needed, and ones where I'm still learning when it's safe to not be blocking - I tend to run more magicka-heavy than stamina-heavy), @code65536 is right that your block is still your most important source of mitigation, and he's right that you're better off looking at other things than making sure your resistance is at cap.

Your resistance should be high as a tank, personally I usually aim for it to be around 28-30K with buffs up, but trying to squeeze in that extra bit to hit cap isn't going to make significant difference. If your resistance is already in that range, and you're planning to use lots of shields, then you'd be better off buffing the stat that your shields scale off rather than trying to hit resistance cap.

Mystrius_Archaion

UrQuan wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

LOL, hate to burst your bubbles, but none of these shield sets are going to be worth it.

As a tank, your biggest, most important source of mitigation is your BLOCK, and shields do not benefit from block mitigation.

And they've been trying to kill perma-blocking for a long time, getting closer every patch.
Don't count on block.

Also, if you are a tank then you shouldn't need to block every little hit, just the big ones that will take your health very low or one-shot you. If that were not the case then even the little shots that the bosses are guaranteed to randomly nail other squishier group members with would one-shot them every time also so the fights would all be impossible and broken because almost every boss does damage to other targets in the group despite taunt.

Perma-blocking is an option, but not required and only works on stamina tanks and not magicka, which, FYI, the developers do design with that in mind and want to work which is why frost staff taunts with the passive for that.

Whether you perma-block or not (personally I don't except for a few fights where it's needed, and ones where I'm still learning when it's safe to not be blocking - I tend to run more magicka-heavy than stamina-heavy), @code65536 is right that your block is still your most important source of mitigation, and he's right that you're better off looking at other things than making sure your resistance is at cap.

Your resistance should be high as a tank, personally I usually aim for it to be around 28-30K with buffs up, but trying to squeeze in that extra bit to hit cap isn't going to make significant difference. If your resistance is already in that range, and you're planning to use lots of shields, then you'd be better off buffing the stat that your shields scale off rather than trying to hit resistance cap.

I wasn't talking about maximizing resistance, but it's definitely better to have more resistance with a shield if it isn't sacrificing more shield value.

Perma-blocking also won't work forever. You regain zero stamina while blocking. You have to stop just to get more back.
So, I just pay attention to the developer-coded queues for when to block. They give us "active combat tips" and fairly obvious wind-up animations and red areas from the bosses. I don't have to block anything else because of self-healing or the healer in the group taking care of it. I can use my resources to help the group and actually use a cast time ability that may be worth it because I am not blocking 100% of the time.

If you have to perma-block, blocking "the little hits", then you have crap defenses and crap healers in your group let alone your own self heals. Yes, you do. There is no other reason why when they make it impossible to regain stamina when blocking and they try to design to get rid of perma-blocking; you must be doing something wrong.


But this whole patch is to make shields more valuable to tanks, which it has, and to make it much riskier and less beneficial for DPS to "play tank" with a damage shield, which it has. They need to focus on their dps and let the tank and healer do their jobs while absolutely everybody tries to stay out of red and blocks big unavoidable hits.

UrQuan

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

LOL, hate to burst your bubbles, but none of these shield sets are going to be worth it.

As a tank, your biggest, most important source of mitigation is your BLOCK, and shields do not benefit from block mitigation.

And they've been trying to kill perma-blocking for a long time, getting closer every patch.
Don't count on block.

Also, if you are a tank then you shouldn't need to block every little hit, just the big ones that will take your health very low or one-shot you. If that were not the case then even the little shots that the bosses are guaranteed to randomly nail other squishier group members with would one-shot them every time also so the fights would all be impossible and broken because almost every boss does damage to other targets in the group despite taunt.

Perma-blocking is an option, but not required and only works on stamina tanks and not magicka, which, FYI, the developers do design with that in mind and want to work which is why frost staff taunts with the passive for that.

Whether you perma-block or not (personally I don't except for a few fights where it's needed, and ones where I'm still learning when it's safe to not be blocking - I tend to run more magicka-heavy than stamina-heavy), @code65536 is right that your block is still your most important source of mitigation, and he's right that you're better off looking at other things than making sure your resistance is at cap.

Your resistance should be high as a tank, personally I usually aim for it to be around 28-30K with buffs up, but trying to squeeze in that extra bit to hit cap isn't going to make significant difference. If your resistance is already in that range, and you're planning to use lots of shields, then you'd be better off buffing the stat that your shields scale off rather than trying to hit resistance cap.

I wasn't talking about maximizing resistance, but it's definitely better to have more resistance with a shield if it isn't sacrificing more shield value.

Perma-blocking also won't work forever. You regain zero stamina while blocking. You have to stop just to get more back.
So, I just pay attention to the developer-coded queues for when to block. They give us "active combat tips" and fairly obvious wind-up animations and red areas from the bosses. I don't have to block anything else because of self-healing or the healer in the group taking care of it. I can use my resources to help the group and actually use a cast time ability that may be worth it because I am not blocking 100% of the time.

If you have to perma-block, blocking "the little hits", then you have crap defenses and crap healers in your group let alone your own self heals. Yes, you do. There is no other reason why when they make it impossible to regain stamina when blocking and they try to design to get rid of perma-blocking; you must be doing something wrong.


But this whole patch is to make shields more valuable to tanks, which it has, and to make it much riskier and less beneficial for DPS to "play tank" with a damage shield, which it has. They need to focus on their dps and let the tank and healer do their jobs while absolutely everybody tries to stay out of red and blocks big unavoidable hits.

There are other ways to get stamina back (like block-casting Obsidian Shield or using ults for a DK, popping orbs or shards, using pots, etc) without dropping block, and there are some fights that require perma-blocking (like the axes in vAA - good luck with dropping block when you've got a few of them swinging at you constantly). With block cost reduction and the right build that's totally manageable - even for magicka tanks like me.

Like I said, though, whether you perma-block or not (and again, like I said, I don't perma-block outside of a few fights), your block is still your most important source of mitigation, and shields don't get the benefit of that, so it's not really worth trying to maximize your resistance for the purposes of increasing the mitigation on your shields. And that also means that the shield sets aren't really going to suddenly become better options for a tank than they are currently, because shields on a tank are only going to last marginally longer than they do currently.

If you want to take advantage of the increased resistance on shields and you have access to a damage shield which scales off health (which you certainly should), then you're better off with a set that increases your health, because that will increase the size of the shield from your ability, while also increasing your health pool for when the shield is destroyed and your blocking can come into play.

Tannus15

Brands of Imperium

(2 items) Adds 14-1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 14-1206 Maximum Health
(4 items) Adds 4% Healing Taken
(5 items) When you take damage, you have a 10% chance to grant you and your allies within 8 meters a damage shield that absorbs 140-12040 damage for 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds.

significantly better than any other tanking shield set in the game because it also grants the shield to the melee dps.

UrQuan

Tannus15 wrote: »

Brands of Imperium

(2 items) Adds 14-1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 14-1206 Maximum Health
(4 items) Adds 4% Healing Taken
(5 items) When you take damage, you have a 10% chance to grant you and your allies within 8 meters a damage shield that absorbs 140-12040 damage for 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds.

significantly better than any other tanking shield set in the game because it also grants the shield to the melee dps.

Agreed on the bold for sure, it's already a useful tanking set depending on the circumstances. Has anyone tested on PTS to see if the shield granted by this set to others (like those melee DPS) benefits from the tank's resistance values, or if it gains the resistance values of the characters (like those melee DPS) receiving it? I assume it's the latter, but if it's the former, then that increases this set's usefulness more.

code65536

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

LOL, hate to burst your bubbles, but none of these shield sets are going to be worth it.

As a tank, your biggest, most important source of mitigation is your BLOCK, and shields do not benefit from block mitigation.

And they've been trying to kill perma-blocking for a long time, getting closer every patch.
Don't count on block.

Also, if you are a tank then you shouldn't need to block every little hit, just the big ones that will take your health very low or one-shot you. If that were not the case then even the little shots that the bosses are guaranteed to randomly nail other squishier group members with would one-shot them every time also so the fights would all be impossible and broken because almost every boss does damage to other targets in the group despite taunt.

Perma-blocking is an option, but not required and only works on stamina tanks and not magicka, which, FYI, the developers do design with that in mind and want to work which is why frost staff taunts with the passive for that.

Whether you perma-block or not (personally I don't except for a few fights where it's needed, and ones where I'm still learning when it's safe to not be blocking - I tend to run more magicka-heavy than stamina-heavy), @code65536 is right that your block is still your most important source of mitigation, and he's right that you're better off looking at other things than making sure your resistance is at cap.

Your resistance should be high as a tank, personally I usually aim for it to be around 28-30K with buffs up, but trying to squeeze in that extra bit to hit cap isn't going to make significant difference. If your resistance is already in that range, and you're planning to use lots of shields, then you'd be better off buffing the stat that your shields scale off rather than trying to hit resistance cap.

I wasn't talking about maximizing resistance, but it's definitely better to have more resistance with a shield if it isn't sacrificing more shield value.

Perma-blocking also won't work forever. You regain zero stamina while blocking. You have to stop just to get more back.
So, I just pay attention to the developer-coded queues for when to block. They give us "active combat tips" and fairly obvious wind-up animations and red areas from the bosses. I don't have to block anything else because of self-healing or the healer in the group taking care of it. I can use my resources to help the group and actually use a cast time ability that may be worth it because I am not blocking 100% of the time.

If you have to perma-block, blocking "the little hits", then you have crap defenses and crap healers in your group let alone your own self heals. Yes, you do. There is no other reason why when they make it impossible to regain stamina when blocking and they try to design to get rid of perma-blocking; you must be doing something wrong.


But this whole patch is to make shields more valuable to tanks, which it has, and to make it much riskier and less beneficial for DPS to "play tank" with a damage shield, which it has. They need to focus on their dps and let the tank and healer do their jobs while absolutely everybody tries to stay out of red and blocks big unavoidable hits.

Who said anything about perma-blocking? There are few fights that require perma-blocking (e.g., vAA axes, but they don't drain that much stamina) and in many situations there are opportunities to drop block and get stamina back with heavy attacks.

Whether or not someone permablocks is irrelevant: for the attacks that matter, blocking is your most important mitigator. Whether or not you block the inconsequential hits or whether or not you keep block up when you're not taking hits is irrelevant.

Why would someone even consider a defensive set in the first place? The only reason to even consider a defensive set like Plague or Whitestrake or whatever is if there is going to be a lot of strong incoming damage. And that means that there will be big must-block hits that you will take. Like an Olms swipe whose base damage value is over 100K and absolutely must be blocked. And if you are looking to better survive multiple hits of that kind of damage, having extra health will help you more than having a shield.

code65536

Tannus15 wrote: »

Brands of Imperium

(2 items) Adds 14-1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 14-1206 Maximum Health
(4 items) Adds 4% Healing Taken
(5 items) When you take damage, you have a 10% chance to grant you and your allies within 8 meters a damage shield that absorbs 140-12040 damage for 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds.

significantly better than any other tanking shield set in the game because it also grants the shield to the melee dps.

It's still a bad set. I ran Imperium as my main tanking set for a while years ago, back when there were few tank sets available, back when most people wore Footbark (Footman and Hist Bark), back when Ebon and Alkosh were not available as options.

Imperium was disappointing. The 8 meter range is very low and your ranged DDs will not benefit from it and even melee DDs will sometimes be out of range. Consider the common scenario where the tank is facing the boss away from the group. Which means the melee DDs will be a few meters behind the boss (melee abilities have a 5-7 meter range), the tank will be a few meters in front of the boss, and the boss itself will occupy a few meters of space. Well, in that kind of formation, it's really easy for even melee DDs to be outside of that pathetic 8m range.

The proc chance is low, too. If you had a lot of trash beating up on you, it would come up reliably, but in boss fights, the damage comes in slowly enough that you definitely feel that low proc chance. And worst of all, you have no control over the proc--it would very often come up when it's not needed and not be there when it could've made a difference. If you want to give shields to your group, giving them a Bone Shield synergy would be far more effective than this junk set. Back in those days, Imperium seemed good only because the few options available were even worse--it was and still is a bad set.

Tannus15

@code65536 I disagree personally. I find it procs often. It has the same radius as lord warden, so if you're wearing both sets the dps tend to gravitate into my big blue circle of love.
Even if it only procs on you however it's still a strong survival set.

I know it doesn't help the ranged damage, but they have shields of their own (or at least used to) and aren't right up in the bosses face.
Certainly it's not the best for all content, but it's still solid for a lot. The craglorn trials for example, especially if it's an inexperienced group.

On a side note it's also hilarious in PvP when a ganker jumps out at you from stealth and it procs.

Tannus15

Is hist-bark worth considering again for selfish tanking?

code65536

Tannus15 wrote: »

Is hist-bark worth considering again for selfish tanking?

If you're dealing with a lot of AoE damage, sure.

Sparr0w

I've survived every fight in the game (bar vAS+x and vHoF) on a NB tank with 33k hp, 27k resistances running ebon/alkosh/1pc warden/1pc shadowrend.

Extra health/mitigation really isn't needed unless you or your group are really lacking...

LiquidPony

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

LOL, hate to burst your bubbles, but none of these shield sets are going to be worth it.

As a tank, your biggest, most important source of mitigation is your BLOCK, and shields do not benefit from block mitigation.

And they've been trying to kill perma-blocking for a long time, getting closer every patch.
Don't count on block.

Also, if you are a tank then you shouldn't need to block every little hit, just the big ones that will take your health very low or one-shot you. If that were not the case then even the little shots that the bosses are guaranteed to randomly nail other squishier group members with would one-shot them every time also so the fights would all be impossible and broken because almost every boss does damage to other targets in the group despite taunt.

Perma-blocking is an option, but not required and only works on stamina tanks and not magicka, which, FYI, the developers do design with that in mind and want to work which is why frost staff taunts with the passive for that.

Whether you perma-block or not (personally I don't except for a few fights where it's needed, and ones where I'm still learning when it's safe to not be blocking - I tend to run more magicka-heavy than stamina-heavy), @code65536 is right that your block is still your most important source of mitigation, and he's right that you're better off looking at other things than making sure your resistance is at cap.

Your resistance should be high as a tank, personally I usually aim for it to be around 28-30K with buffs up, but trying to squeeze in that extra bit to hit cap isn't going to make significant difference. If your resistance is already in that range, and you're planning to use lots of shields, then you'd be better off buffing the stat that your shields scale off rather than trying to hit resistance cap.

I wasn't talking about maximizing resistance, but it's definitely better to have more resistance with a shield if it isn't sacrificing more shield value.

Perma-blocking also won't work forever. You regain zero stamina while blocking. You have to stop just to get more back.
So, I just pay attention to the developer-coded queues for when to block. They give us "active combat tips" and fairly obvious wind-up animations and red areas from the bosses. I don't have to block anything else because of self-healing or the healer in the group taking care of it. I can use my resources to help the group and actually use a cast time ability that may be worth it because I am not blocking 100% of the time.

If you have to perma-block, blocking "the little hits", then you have crap defenses and crap healers in your group let alone your own self heals. Yes, you do. There is no other reason why when they make it impossible to regain stamina when blocking and they try to design to get rid of perma-blocking; you must be doing something wrong.


But this whole patch is to make shields more valuable to tanks, which it has, and to make it much riskier and less beneficial for DPS to "play tank" with a damage shield, which it has. They need to focus on their dps and let the tank and healer do their jobs while absolutely everybody tries to stay out of red and blocks big unavoidable hits.

No one said anything about "perma-blocking".

This, specifically, is an odd thing to say in the context of this topic:

If you have to perma-block, blocking "the little hits", then you have crap defenses and crap healers in your group let alone your own self heals. Yes, you do.

If you have to wear Plague Doctor or are searching for a set that grants big damage shields, then you have crap defenses and crap healers in your group let alone your own self heals. Yes, you do.

Same thing applies.

profundidob16_ESO

code65536 wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

Brands of Imperium

(2 items) Adds 14-1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 14-1206 Maximum Health
(4 items) Adds 4% Healing Taken
(5 items) When you take damage, you have a 10% chance to grant you and your allies within 8 meters a damage shield that absorbs 140-12040 damage for 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds.

significantly better than any other tanking shield set in the game because it also grants the shield to the melee dps.

It's still a bad set. I ran Imperium as my main tanking set for a while years ago, back when there were few tank sets available, back when most people wore Footbark (Footman and Hist Bark), back when Ebon and Alkosh were not available as options.

Imperium was disappointing. The 8 meter range is very low and your ranged DDs will not benefit from it and even melee DDs will sometimes be out of range. Consider the common scenario where the tank is facing the boss away from the group. Which means the melee DDs will be a few meters behind the boss (melee abilities have a 5-7 meter range), the tank will be a few meters in front of the boss, and the boss itself will occupy a few meters of space. Well, in that kind of formation, it's really easy for even melee DDs to be outside of that pathetic 8m range.

The proc chance is low, too. If you had a lot of trash beating up on you, it would come up reliably, but in boss fights, the damage comes in slowly enough that you definitely feel that low proc chance. And worst of all, you have no control over the proc--it would very often come up when it's not needed and not be there when it could've made a difference. If you want to give shields to your group, giving them a Bone Shield synergy would be far more effective than this junk set. Back in those days, Imperium seemed good only because the few options available were even worse--it was and still is a bad set.

have to agree here. The range alone turns it into a joke. If it had the same range as ebon THAT would change things. And the rng makes it not proccing in most scenarios and typically when you need it.

When we think about the bigger picture and when the intention is to shield your group alot and with more control instead of rng you would be alot more effective by equipping heavy seducers set instead of imperium and cast igneous shield whenever YOU want it to trigger.

UrQuan

Sparr0w wrote: »

I've survived every fight in the game (bar vAS+x and vHoF) on a NB tank with 33k hp, 27k resistances running ebon/alkosh/1pc warden/1pc shadowrend.

Extra health/mitigation really isn't needed unless you or your group are really lacking...

1 piece warden, 1 piece shadowrend? Interesting... I'm guessing you're doing that because you want Shadowrend's magicka regen but the 2-piece bonus isn't helpful for tanking. How do you find that compared to using a more standard tanking-oriented 2-piece monster set? Pretty much all of my tanking experience is on DKs, Templars, and Wardens, so I don't really know the ins and outs of NB tanking.

Volckodav

As a pve tank I am often tempting by the same things as you guys, but after test I always coming back to my main setup:
All sturdy, footman and plague doctor. bloodspawn or engine gardian, depends.
reduce cost block enchant, dk argonian, I can block everything forever and doing the job everywhere, trials, DLC vet HM etc..

I love theory craft and test A LOT of tank set, but this combo works for me the best where a tank is really needed in hard content.
elsewhere honestly full group DD doing better , tank is an option.

idk

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

The sheild can be wiped out in 1 second and not come back for 14 more seconds. Health can be right back up.

This sums it up. Same with Whitesnake.

JPcrazysquirrel3

Honestly, the current Murkmire plans just make me want to unsub, stop playing ESO, and go play one of the many rpgs I have in my library.
After 4 and a half ish years, I think I'm starting to reach my limit.

OrphanHelgen

Warrior-Poet