Need an advice regarding tank's gear (update on results)

StormChaser3000

Hi all. I'm currently working on improving my DK tank and preparing it for running vet DLC dungeons and trials.

So far I've been running a rather fun build which included: 2 Lord Warden (monster set) + 5 Ebon + 5 thunderbug (don't laugh this one was for fun).
I'm able to tank all vet dungeons and normal dlcs in this setup without any issues at all. Sometimes I was even the last man standing and had to rez whole noob groups while keep fighting boss back.
However I don't think that I'm ready for vet DLCs with this set up. Once I ran vet FH in that gear and I could feel the damage pressure quite a lot. I decided not to go back until getting better gear.

And so while Lord Warden and Ebon seem to be ok I want to replace Thunderbug with something better for survival.

I'm considering between Plague Doctor and Cyrodiil Crest. First one looks good due to high health numbers, but the second one looks great because of health recovery while blocking which in theory should remove some pressure from a healer.

What do you think about those sets? Which one should I choose? or maybe there are better pre-trial gear alternatives?

Great thanks in advance.

Psyonico

Health regen is pretty pointless in PvE. I generally run plague doctor. Another option is Torug's which is nice because you don't n need to farm for specific pieces.

I have Hatchlings shell on one of my tanks. Nice but of extra survivability there.

Suddwrath

If you're looking for pre-trial gear options, a really effective setup is:

Monster set: 2 Bloodspawn
Set 1: Torug's Pact
Set 2: Akiviri Dragonguard

The only downside is that Dragonguard pieces can be very expensive, so if you would like a cheaper build but one that is still effective then run:
Set 1: Ebon
Set 2: Torug's Pact

The first combination will give you ult's more frequently which will boost your group's DPS and as a DK it will help with your sustain. Until you get your full Alkosh set, it's important to run Torug's Pact to debuff the the bosses which leads to higher DPS. And in some vet DLC dungeons, such as Falkreath Hold, it is essential that your group has the highest amount of DPS possible or you're going to be in for a very painful ride.

Edit:
There are also times where you should be greedy as a tank (such as in vet Moon Hunter Keep). In those instances, the best thing to do is:
Set 1: Ebon
Set 2: Plague Doctor

Suddwrath

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Royaji

Battalion Defender is a solid defensive set that can help a lot especially in groups with not-so-experienced healers. "MOAR HEALTH!" with Plague Doctor is of course always an option. Akaviri Dragonguard is for more experienced tanks but additional sustain can help you while being the least detrimental to your group.

MartiniDaniels

Plague doctor widens window for error, but in practice i really don't see difference between 50k hp or 40k hp. I mean if you are consistently falling for 30-35k HP cause dps cant kill adds you will die anyway.

Cyrodiil's crest is good for dungeons and really helps when healer is doing god knows what, but now there is new set similar to crest - battalion defender and it is amazing, since he heals you all the time through the melting damage like those behemoth ww shouts. And also it sometimes may save unlucky dps from wipe.

So I think combination of ebon+battalion defender+lord warden is good both for high survivability and for team utility. In trials alkosh is always a requirement but in normal ones usually nobody cares, so you'll have your time to farm alkosh.

Suddwrath

For most content though you won't need more than 35k health. When you're trying new content out for the first time you can wear greedy sets to give you more health, but as you become more familiar with the content you will be fine wearing just Alkosh + Torug's in 90% of the vet content (both dungeons and trials).

Oakmontowls_ESO

I've been going through the dlc dungeons wearing Ebon and alkosh/dragon depending on the group comp. I recently have tried switching from warden to earthgore for scale caller hm but I'm not sure if it is worth it. For the dlc dungeons, a lot of it is group comp and their dps.

StormChaser3000

Thanks everyone for the replies!

@Psyonico & @SaltySudd
Torug's looks to me more like semi-offensive set. Since I'm sure that initially I'll be doing a bunch of very dumb mistakes in DLC runs I think I should minimize my squishiness. Same goes about Akiviri Dragonguard.

@Royaji & @MartiniDaniels
Actually, I was thinking about Batallion Defender but for some reason decided that selfish Cyro crest will serve better. Now when you reminded me about those unlucky dps, maybe it's indeed better to prevent them from dying rather than later stand in the aoe circle under the shower of spells and rezzing them.

I guess for now I'll get two sets for testing: Plague Doctor and Batallion Defender. I'll test them with Ebon and Lord Warden and compare the feeling.

Then, after I learn the content better I'll try the suggested semi-offensive sets.

MartiniDaniels

Good ideas, good tanking for you and welcome to vet tank club

thedude33

Excellent ideas

StormChaser3000

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Good ideas, good tanking for you and welcome to vet tank club

Thank you xD
I'll contribute to the reduction of the deficit of tanks in the game

Oakmontowls_ESO

Honestly

StormChaser3000 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the replies!

@Psyonico & @SaltySudd
Torug's looks to me more like semi-offensive set. Since I'm sure that initially I'll be doing a bunch of very dumb mistakes in DLC runs I think I should minimize my squishiness. Same goes about Akiviri Dragonguard.

@Royaji & @MartiniDaniels
Actually, I was thinking about Batallion Defender but for some reason decided that selfish Cyro crest will serve better. Now when you reminded me about those unlucky dps, maybe it's indeed better to prevent them from dying rather than later stand in the aoe circle under the shower of spells and rezzing them.

I guess for now I'll get two sets for testing: Plague Doctor and Batallion Defender. I'll test them with Ebon and Lord Warden and compare the feeling.

Then, after I learn the content better I'll try the suggested semi-offensive sets.

Honestly mistakes in the newer dungeons mean death no matter how tanky you are.

codestripper

StormChaser3000 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the replies!

@Psyonico & @SaltySudd
Torug's looks to me more like semi-offensive set. Since I'm sure that initially I'll be doing a bunch of very dumb mistakes in DLC runs I think I should minimize my squishiness. Same goes about Akiviri Dragonguard.

@Royaji & @MartiniDaniels
Actually, I was thinking about Batallion Defender but for some reason decided that selfish Cyro crest will serve better. Now when you reminded me about those unlucky dps, maybe it's indeed better to prevent them from dying rather than later stand in the aoe circle under the shower of spells and rezzing them.

I guess for now I'll get two sets for testing: Plague Doctor and Batallion Defender. I'll test them with Ebon and Lord Warden and compare the feeling.

Then, after I learn the content better I'll try the suggested semi-offensive sets.

Dragon might not seem like a selfish set but trust me it is, that warhorn uptime tho...wooo. Even if you were to slot your wings ult the resource return is ridiculous

BejaProphet

Get your resistances maxed or dang close. Get your health up over 40k. And in the red tree spend your points only in ironclad, hardy, ele defender, and thick skinned. Iron clad being most important. Don’t waste co in healing received or bastion. But you might need to also boost physical resistance when wearing heavy armor.

Do all that and you are going to like your tankiness.

Icy_Waffles

Honestly using crest of Cyrodiil, bloodspawn, and an utility set,

Or

1 pc chokethorn, 1 pc shadowrend, with crest of Cyrodiil and fortified brass-

Makes tanking ridiculously easy and effective.

The crazy heals from crest of Cyrodiil shouldn’t be underestimated.

StormChaser3000

Icy_Waffles wrote: »

Honestly using crest of Cyrodiil, bloodspawn, and an utility set,

Or

1 pc chokethorn, 1 pc shadowrend, with crest of Cyrodiil and fortified brass-

Makes tanking ridiculously easy and effective.

The crazy heals from crest of Cyrodiil shouldn’t be underestimated.

Theoretically Crest of Cyrodiil should be better when you are being hit hard and rarely. Battalion Defender should be better when you are being hit often and not as hard.

I've already gotten Battalion Defender this evening. Gonna test it soon after some adjustments.

Kesstryl

You are not the only tank that runs Thunderbug. I use it as my tanky DPSish gear for soloing or PUGing normals. And yes, it is very fun! For harder stuff I swap it out with Plague Doctor. My other sets are Ebon and Chudan. Let us know how your tests go. I'm always interested in what I can do better.

Narvuntien

Bands of Imperium is also a good survivability and assisting allies set similar to ebon.

StormChaser3000

Okay, I tried Battalion Defender and Plague Doctor yesterday in vet (for now non dlc) dungeons.

Battalion Defender will go into a trash bin. @Kesstryl don't waste your gold on it.
If you have even medium good healer in the group you don't need that set. Also it doesn't really help to keep dps alive. If dps are potatoes who stand in aoe they will die anyway in any dungeon. If dps at least are not potatoes, then healer does their job more than ok.

Plague Doctor was incomparably better on the other hand. All that extra health you get helps to heal yourself more efficiently with % based self healing skills in case if healer "falls asleep".

So, yea, I'm going to mainly run Plague Doctor until I get trial gear. It's a great set.

@Narvuntien That's an interesting one. If I get enough patience to farm WGT I might give it a try.

StormChaser3000

So yesterday I finally tested my new setup (2 Lord Warden + 5 Ebon + 5 Plague Doctor) in veteran Bloodroot Forge.

It was not golded gear (all purple) and some pieces had wrong enchants but it worked quite well I'd say...as long as you follow mechanics. Green dragon blood was working really good on my DK thanks to the big health pool provided by Plague Doctor. It's really good for learning since it allows to miss a couple heavy hits (not headshot tho) and stay alive.

I had a bit tough time at the very last fight with Earthgore tho when its 3 clones were attacking me at the same time and I had to hold block almost all the time. Our healer was doing quite nice job by dropping synergies for me, but next time I should bring some stamina potions to sustain better.

Compared to my old experience in vet FH when I was in my thunderbug setup this run felt easier (even tho it still took 2 hours to be finished since most of the pug members were still getting used to the mechanics + unfortunately we had to change 2 healers before we got an expert). But the biggest difference was is that I actually liked this run. IDK, maybe mechanics was more interesting or maybe because there were awesome and patient people in my group. Great thanks to them again if they see this post.

Joxer61

https://www.xynodegaming.com/almost-immortal-warrior

But honestly sooo many sets to use and make work in so many different ways....never no "one way".

MartiniDaniels

OP, what is your CP level?

I got an impression that at top CP you receive so large mitigation that those heavy sets became irrelevant. I mean today i played both vBF and vFH with pugs while doing pledges with my new setup alkosh+power assault+lordwarden 5 medium/2heavy, bosmer, 34k HP.. and there was no single situation where I was in danger due to lack of HP or too many damage incoming and believe me everything was taunted, clawed and all buffs/debuffs provided so i was blocking mostly on heavy attacks. Yes we wiped several times on mechanics, but other then that, HA's from boss are like 10k after blocking and mob damage is easily outhealed by HoT from healer and vigor, which I spam for power assault proc.

And i remember when I was 400 CP all that damage incoming in any vet DLC looked crazy so i was just looking how to survive and keep taunt.

Thing that you told about battalion defender.. well, of course it's mostly for 3dd runs or situations where healer is busy saving himself and dps, like Fang lair or Moonhunter keep. Cause if your healer is actively healing you, there shouldn't be problem with survival at all.

StormChaser3000

@Joxer61 I agree, but at the same time everyone is looking for something that fits their style of play better. I chose that setup for now since it allows me to learn with comfort and a room for minor mistakes. Later, after I get more experience with mechanics I'll switch to something else

@MartiniDaniels I'm at 680 CP right now with 27k and 23k spell and physical resistance respectively (without Lord Warden proc buff).

For 3dd I heard people simply put Earthgore on tank + something to trigger it. With that crazy damage in FL or MHK I don't see how 2k heal per second per random person can help too much, especially since it's activated only by successful block.

MartiniDaniels

StormChaser3000 wrote: »

@Joxer61 I agree, but at the same time everyone is looking for something that fits their style of play better. I chose that setup for now since it allows me to learn with comfort and a room for minor mistakes. Later, after I get more experience with mechanics I'll switch to something else

@MartiniDaniels I'm at 680 CP right now with 27k and 23k spell and physical resistance respectively (without Lord Warden proc buff).

For 3dd I heard people simply put Earthgore on tank + something to trigger it. With that crazy damage in FL or MHK I don't see how 2k heal per second per random person can help too much, especially since it's activated only by successful block.

Hmm, that is pretty low resistances or it is without major ward/resolve?
About battalion - well, maybe to each their own, for me (i still keep it in dressing room for certain fights where you receive "melting" damage) it works like charm. I used plague doctor in the beginning but i simply don't know what to do with so much health.. i mean when you have so many health (ebon+plague doctor, it's 50k?) healer start slacking and when you fall down on HP with depleted magicka/potion on cooldown/ultimate not ready, it's gg. But when you are relatively low HP healer is always on his toes.
On the other hand with new CP changes plague doctor will be even more powerful, together with ebon it will be ~ 55-60k HP dependent on race. This will allow to take several hard hits in row without using GDB and then use it most effectively.

StormChaser3000

@MartiniDaniels Yes, that number is without any buffs, wards, etc. Also all equipment is purple and not golded (economy class version for now xD).

MartiniDaniels

StormChaser3000 wrote: »

@MartiniDaniels Yes, that number is without any buffs, wards, etc. Also all equipment is purple and not golded (economy class version for now xD).

Oh, not much point to gold it really only if extra tempers burn your bag