Tank Sets

Swordbreaker

I'm putting together a Necromancer tank build, following Alcast's guide (https://alcasthq.com/eso-necromancer-tank-build-pve/), but i'm not totally happy with this build guide and wanna change some stuff, but wondering about a few different sets. I'd love some opinions on each of these sets from people who are more experienced with vet dungeons and trials than i am.

EBON ARMORY: https://eso-sets.com/set/ebon-armory
I see this set used in nearly every Tank build and i dont see why. It's 5-piece effect seems extremely lackluster, adding only 1000 health to each team mate. I dont feel like that's really enough to make a noticeable difference toward their survivability. I personally replace this set with Plague Doctor's, since it adds far more health to the person who needs it the most: the tank.

LEECHING PLATE: https://eso-sets.com/set/leeching-plate
This seems like a pretty decent set for adding a little bit of extra DPS to the group, but also provides quite a bit of healing for the tank, but i never see it used in any meta builds. Why?

BATTALION DEFENDER: https://eso-sets.com/set/battalion-defender
This seems really great for providing support heals to yourself and the entire team, since a tank is blocking so much of the time. But again, i never see it used in any meta builds? Why?

WARRIOR POET: https://eso-sets.com/set/warrior-poet
This one seems like a great combo with Plague doctor's, but i've never seen anyone even so much as mention it. I'm assuming that Minor/Major Toughness is added by the healer? If not, then why is this never used? It also adds another 4% healing received, which goes great with Ebon Armory or Plague Doctor's

Hazurko_RaShan

dragurs rest jewls and weapons should be used by tanks

Draugr's Rest
LEVEL 50 - CP 160
Type Dungeon
Set bonus
(2 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(3 items) Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
(4 items) Adds 4% Healing Done
(5 items) When you deal damage with a fully-charged Heavy Attack, you create a circle of consecrated ground that heals you and your allies within 5 meters for 11000 Health over 10 seconds. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.

Swordbreaker

Hazurko_RaShan wrote: »

dragurs rest jewls and weapons should be used by tanks

Draugr's Rest
LEVEL 50 - CP 160
Type Dungeon
Set bonus
(2 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(3 items) Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
(4 items) Adds 4% Healing Done
(5 items) When you deal damage with a fully-charged Heavy Attack, you create a circle of consecrated ground that heals you and your allies within 5 meters for 11000 Health over 10 seconds. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.

That's a decent set but that comes from a DLC dungeon that's not exactly easy. I'm trying to put together a build so i can start running those high-difficulty vet dungeons and vet trials. I want opinions specifically about the sets i listed. I know there's TONS of great tank sets.

bmnoble

Akaviri Dragonguard
LEVEL 50 - CP 160
Type Overland
Set bonus
(2 items) Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
(3 items) Adds 4% Healing Taken
(4 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(5 items) Reduces the cost of your Ultimate abilities by 15%.

Good bonuses for a tank and helps with Aggressive warhorn up time, pair with Bloodspawn. Expensive to buy on traders but you can get the traits you want. Takes time to farm in Eastmarch otherwise.

Leeching plate takes a bit of time to farm, you will want other tank sets before your try tanking this one, but its a solid set, but redundant when you have a good group healer.

Ebon Armory is a tank set you should have in your inventory helps keep DPS alive but make sure to get armor pieces, weapon swap is bugged the group loses the extra health each time you bar swap.

Battalion defender is cheap on guild stores, good healing support set but again less useful if you have a good healer.

Warrior poet and Plague doctor are good learning sets, they give you enough health to make up for mistakes. Out side of trials you will rarely need more than 30 - 40K of health on a tank when in dungeons.

Thunderbug's Carapace

LEVEL 50 CHAMPION 160

(2 items) Adds 2975 Physical Resistance
(3 items) Adds 2975 Spell Resistance
(4 items) Adds 129 Spell Damage
(5 items) When you take Physical Damage, you have a 50% chance to deal 6604 Shock Damage in a 5 meter radius around you. This effect can occur once every 3 seconds.

Is useful in PUG's with low group damage, pair with leeching plate to make up for a potentially bad healer and a monster set like Grothdar and you can help even a low damage group clear trash in dungeons with ease. Largely useless in trials though.


Bahraha's Curse

LEVEL 50 CHAMPION 160

(2 Items) Adds 1206 Max Health
(3 Items) Adds 1096 Max Magicka
(4 Items) Adds 1096 Max Stamina
(4 Items) Reduces your damage taken from environmental traps by 40%.
(5 Items) When you deal damage, you have a 25% chance to create desecrated ground for 5 seconds, which reduces the Movement Speed of enemies within by 70%, damages
them for 1057 Magic Damage every 1 second and heals you for 100% of the damage done.

Might be a good choice to pair with Leeching since Necro lack shields.

VaranisArano

Ebon Armory is excellent if you are playing with an organized group or if you are running trials. The purpose of Ebon Armory is that for the price of having a tank wear a suppprt set, your DDs can min-max their health to do more damage. Obviously the benefit is higher in trials because you are giving a total of 11k extra health.

If you are just PUGing it in dungeons, feel free to give Ebon Armory a miss. If you ever want to tank trials, its a set you want to have handy. Personally, I use it even in dungeons because its a nice buffer against squishy DDs, and I don't need Plague Doctor.


So to be blunt, all those other sets you listed are fine sets...but they arent the meta because the meta focuses on group effectiveness. So the meta favors sets that benefit the tank AND the group, like Ebom Armory and Torugs Pact (with the crusher enchant).

In dungeons, its totally fine to use sets that primarily benefit your tank. The alternate sets you listed, like Plague Doctor and Leeching fall into that category. With Leeching, its tempting to think "But I'm helping with damage, right?" Realistically, if the damage your tank does makes a difference, your DDs are not very good, which is why sets like Leeching are spectacular for PUGing but are not the meta, which assumes you have a capable group. Similarly, Battalion Defender sacrifices a 5 piece set in order to be an off healer - it can work, but its not the meta because the meta assumes you have a capable healer in group.

Warrior Poet can be iffy, because if no one is giving you minor toughness its great, but if you have a warden healer it might be useless compared to other sets.

In the end, you run what you want to run in dungeons. Gear sets that benefit your tank rather than supporting your group are perfectly fine. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to survive a PUG dungeon.

But if you want to do trials, you'll be wearing whatever the group wants, which is probably the meta.

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

Swordbreaker wrote: »

I'm putting together a Necromancer tank build, following Alcast's guide (https://alcasthq.com/eso-necromancer-tank-build-pve/), but i'm not totally happy with this build guide and wanna change some stuff, but wondering about a few different sets. I'd love some opinions on each of these sets from people who are more experienced with vet dungeons and trials than i am.

EBON ARMORY: https://eso-sets.com/set/ebon-armory
I see this set used in nearly every Tank build and i dont see why. It's 5-piece effect seems extremely lackluster, adding only 1000 health to each team mate. I dont feel like that's really enough to make a noticeable difference toward their survivability. I personally replace this set with Plague Doctor's, since it adds far more health to the person who needs it the most: the tank.

LEECHING PLATE: https://eso-sets.com/set/leeching-plate
This seems like a pretty decent set for adding a little bit of extra DPS to the group, but also provides quite a bit of healing for the tank, but i never see it used in any meta builds. Why?

BATTALION DEFENDER: https://eso-sets.com/set/battalion-defender
This seems really great for providing support heals to yourself and the entire team, since a tank is blocking so much of the time. But again, i never see it used in any meta builds? Why?

WARRIOR POET: https://eso-sets.com/set/warrior-poet
This one seems like a great combo with Plague doctor's, but i've never seen anyone even so much as mention it. I'm assuming that Minor/Major Toughness is added by the healer? If not, then why is this never used? It also adds another 4% healing received, which goes great with Ebon Armory or Plague Doctor's

Main set :
Ebon armour is a thing of the past imho. Since Wrathstone isn't needed, as now CP300+ DDs have at least 18000 hp with blue food. Khajiit hitting 20,000 almost. Before that point, Ebon was needed to boost hp over the 17000 threshold of people getting one shooted in vet dungeons. Yet nice to have shall you wish, easy to farm purple jewelry from vCOH1/2. You could always replace it with Plague Doctor and never think about it, not anyone would complain


Secondary Set.
Here you pick depending what you do. If you PUG like the significant majority take something that benefit you if you have survival issues, or the team.
So
a) Leeching plate is great set, and using it on the DK & Warden tanks for a long time with great success. Is also been used by Xynode on his builds, which finding great overall.

b) Imperium is one of my favourites for my Templar, and nothing to snort a 14,000 damage shield spam.

c) Draugr is kinda meh for supporting group, with just 5m radius, but great to sustain you. Consider it as the tanks Earthgore.

d) Dragonguard great for DKs who are replying on spamming their ultimate to gain resources.

e) Beekeeper is must have if you plan to do vet Cloudrest.

f) Yolnakhriin is another great support set. Imho one of the best if you do want to boost your group damage.

g) Knightmare set. I use it on my solo build Tanks/DD. The AOE range is pretty big, if you do damage with something like a bow/staff or Soul Splitting Trap.

And ofc you can craft things like Brass.
Take your pick

Monster set:
Lord Warden is good, ofc you can go 2 pieces from different sets to boost something and ofc course Thurvokun, but do not pair it with Knightmare because it gives the same bonus.

If you want to do solo stuff, doing damage in normal dungeons, just craft yourself Hunding Rage & Shacklebreaker/NMG (works great in normal dungeons with bow & Soul Splitting Trap), or use Leeching Plate/Knightmare as second set.

Take your pick.

At the end of the day your job as tank is to taunt, and soak up the damage.

Darkenarlol

Swordbreaker wrote: »

EBON ARMORY: https://eso-sets.com/set/ebon-armory
I see this set used in nearly every Tank build and i dont see why. It's 5-piece effect seems extremely lackluster, adding only 1000 health to each team mate. I dont feel like that's really enough to make a noticeable difference toward their survivability. I personally replace this set with Plague Doctor's, since it adds far more health to the person who needs it the most: the tank.

it is 1k hp in stats that dd in party can put into offensive stats (moar deeps)

btw if your dd have even 1 hp more than incoming damage number they'll still be alive

Swordbreaker wrote: »

LEECHING PLATE: https://eso-sets.com/set/leeching-plate
This seems like a pretty decent set for adding a little bit of extra DPS to the group, but also provides quite a bit of healing for the tank, but i never see it used in any meta builds. Why?

because if you can see group dps increase coming from your leeching plate

you should kick all your dd immediately


looks like you lack some endgame exp

which leads you to at least... questionable opinion

so it would be better just to copy *meta*

at least for now...

Swordbreaker

VaranisArano wrote: »

Ebon Armory is excellent if you are playing with an organized group or if you are running trials. The purpose of Ebon Armory is that for the price of having a tank wear a suppprt set, your DDs can min-max their health to do more damage. Obviously the benefit is higher in trials because you are giving a total of 11k extra health.

If you are just PUGing it in dungeons, feel free to give Ebon Armory a miss. If you ever want to tank trials, its a set you want to have handy. Personally, I use it even in dungeons because its a nice buffer against squishy DDs, and I don't need Plague Doctor.


So to be blunt, all those other sets you listed are fine sets...but they arent the meta because the meta focuses on group effectiveness. So the meta favors sets that benefit the tank AND the group, like Ebom Armory and Torugs Pact (with the crusher enchant).

In dungeons, its totally fine to use sets that primarily benefit your tank. The alternate sets you listed, like Plague Doctor and Leeching fall into that category. With Leeching, its tempting to think "But I'm helping with damage, right?" Realistically, if the damage your tank does makes a difference, your DDs are not very good, which is why sets like Leeching are spectacular for PUGing but are not the meta, which assumes you have a capable group. Similarly, Battalion Defender sacrifices a 5 piece set in order to be an off healer - it can work, but its not the meta because the meta assumes you have a capable healer in group.

Warrior Poet can be iffy, because if no one is giving you minor toughness its great, but if you have a warden healer it might be useless compared to other sets.

In the end, you run what you want to run in dungeons. Gear sets that benefit your tank rather than supporting your group are perfectly fine. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to survive a PUG dungeon.

But if you want to do trials, you'll be wearing whatever the group wants, which is probably the meta.

Thanks for the tips! I do have full Ebon Armory with Divines traits cuz i farmed it years ago just cuz it looked like Skyrim's Ebony (back before they released the Ebony Motif). So it's definitely a set i could use, i just never thought it sounded super great.

Had someone literally insult me for wanting to farm Leeching plate cuz they said it was awful, but i have a leeching plate + battalion defender combo on my DK tank that makes him extremely hard to kill due to passive healing.

I think i'm gonna run Plague Doctor + Battalion Defender on my necro tank while i try to decide what sets to use. There's so many great ones to choose from which is definitely nice.

idk

Below concerns tanking vet trials. For 4 man dungeons you can pretty much tank in anything as they do not offer much challenge. Then again, if you are running with a decent group the raid leader will likely ask you to wear certain sets.

Ebon Armor provides survival to your group. There is not another tank set that provide as much survival to everyone in the group. That is why every decent raid group has one tank run it and every tank interested in running with a decent group has a set.

Leeching plat is good for tanking the axes in AA. Beyond that it is just something that would be a fun set. Alkosh would increase the groups dps much more than Leeching plate if you are running a trial.

Battalion Defender - If you are running a 4 man without a healer, maybe. Certainly not for trials.

Warrior Poet - Two slots of resistance. I have not seen a build that was designed around resistance in several years. Way overkill for 4 man dungeons for sure and if you did not like Ebon I see no reason you would like this set.

Again, if you are tanking 4 man dungeons wear what you want and have fun with it. I tend to look at things from a trial perspective.

MartiniDaniels

You may do/wear whatever you want in a PUG dungeons, and in hardest dungeons tanky tank will have better chances with PUG group then support tank, cause he often can survive alone and res inconsistent pug group after wipe. Leeching plate is extremely good in those situations when group is overruned with adds.

But meta is about maxed out, optimized group setups and there tanky sets are suboptimal, because they buff only one person instead of 12. Try to see it other way - ebon +12k HP to group, youlnakrin +1290 base damage, alkosh +36000 penetration and so on.

3 best tanking sets are ebon, alkosh and youlnakrin. 3 other viable sets are torug's pact, powerful assault and akaviri dragonguard. Sometimes off-tank in trials keeps all adds on him far from the group and so can use selfish sets, cause he is too far and have less support from healers. So basically you can't just run same build of same sets everywhere, if you want to be a decent tank there will be 5+ sets in your backpack in different combinations with different abilities slotted to fit all the possible situations.

Alpheu5

I have 4 different setups depending entirely on the type of group I find myself running with.

Dragon/Alkosh - True endgame group with constant synergies and Warhorn chaining. Won't use in random dungeons unless it seems worth swapping to.

Ebon/Dragon - Default group setup for trials and dungeons.

Leeching/Ebon - If the healer isn't keeping up with incoming damage or if the DPS is taking too long during intense phases. It's especially useful when tanking vAA.

Ironblood/Leeching - "Just give me the damn controller, I'll beat the level for you."

Jeremy

Swordbreaker wrote: »

I'm putting together a Necromancer tank build, following Alcast's guide (https://alcasthq.com/eso-necromancer-tank-build-pve/), but i'm not totally happy with this build guide and wanna change some stuff, but wondering about a few different sets. I'd love some opinions on each of these sets from people who are more experienced with vet dungeons and trials than i am.

EBON ARMORY: https://eso-sets.com/set/ebon-armory
I see this set used in nearly every Tank build and i dont see why. It's 5-piece effect seems extremely lackluster, adding only 1000 health to each team mate. I dont feel like that's really enough to make a noticeable difference toward their survivability. I personally replace this set with Plague Doctor's, since it adds far more health to the person who needs it the most: the tank.

LEECHING PLATE: https://eso-sets.com/set/leeching-plate
This seems like a pretty decent set for adding a little bit of extra DPS to the group, but also provides quite a bit of healing for the tank, but i never see it used in any meta builds. Why?

BATTALION DEFENDER: https://eso-sets.com/set/battalion-defender
This seems really great for providing support heals to yourself and the entire team, since a tank is blocking so much of the time. But again, i never see it used in any meta builds? Why?

WARRIOR POET: https://eso-sets.com/set/warrior-poet
This one seems like a great combo with Plague doctor's, but i've never seen anyone even so much as mention it. I'm assuming that Minor/Major Toughness is added by the healer? If not, then why is this never used? It also adds another 4% healing received, which goes great with Ebon Armory or Plague Doctor's

Leeching Plate and Warrior Poet are both pretty good sets for tanking in Veteran Dungeons. Leeching in particular is very nice for oh ____ moments when the DPS is weak and you find yourself inundated with mobs. It can save your life.

Ebon Armory is mostly a raid/trial set I believe - since you get more used out of the health boost that way. Otherwise Plague Doctor is the better set if you want to boost your health. Never played with Battalion Defender so can't comment on that one.

Rexy18

A good setup for 3 DD dungeon runs is Olorime's (use bow backbar and proc with hail), Yolna (or Powerful Assault if you feel confident enough to use medium armour) or Alkosh (if constant synergies are available) and Symphony of Blades (proc with healing orb). Since Olorime's is useless on frontbar, you can even use Maelstrom SnB

Urzigurumash

I highly recommend Battalion Defender for vet pugging. One of its greatest strengths is an easy proc of any Healer monster set, but paired with Stonekeeper it's practically cruise control. It's probably BIS for 3 DD groups, but you'll never be upset you have it on, short of times when some combination of Alkosh / Powerful Assault / Claws is worth equipping.

Edit: BIS in 3 DD squads when the tank should be healing rather than augmenting damage. There are probably also 3 DD scenarios were pure selfish survivability is ideal. Depends on the group and the dungeon, I assume. BD is good for selfish survivability, but Crest of Cyrodiil is perhaps better, but of course neither do anything when you're disabled, and aren't much help with lots of AoE DoTs, like on some of the bosses in Scalecaller and Fang Lair.

oli.j.reillyb16_ESO

Jeremy wrote: »

Leeching Plate and Warrior Poet are both pretty good sets for tanking in Veteran Dungeons. Leeching in particular is very nice for oh ____ moments when the DPS is weak and you find yourself inundated with mobs. It can save your life.

Ebon Armory is mostly a raid/trial set I believe - since you get more used out of the health boost that way. Otherwise Plague Doctor is the better set if you want to boost your health. Never played with Battalion Defender so can't comment on that one.

There is literally nowhere in any PvE content whatsoever - where Warrior Poet is a useful set.

If you need to go that tanky there are sets which provide much more utility to everyone and not just you. Choosing WP over any of those is essentially saying I don’t need to run 2 5pc sets because I’d rather just be a useless meat popsicle.

Plague Doctor gets the exact same category - anywhere you think you want Plague - just wear Ebon or Dragon. You’ll be tanky and helpful as opposed to just there.

The sooner any fledgling tank gets over the idea that they only need to stack health to do their job - the better.

Hexvaldr

One useful way to summarize the tank's primary job is: to prevent one-shots, ie: hits that cannot be healed, mitigated, or survived by other group members. Tools such as ebon, dk shields, warden frost cloak, Lord Warden set, etc. all contribute to this goal by raising the threshold for one-shots. (This is the primary job, and of course there are other important parts, but I'm focusing on the main fundamental task here).

Some groups need the increase to survivability more than others, depending on the specific content. I tend to run ebon and yolnakriin on my warden tank because the extra 1k health per member compounds and is made even more effective by the the 5k+ resistances I give them with frost cloak, and with the additional resists from Lord Warden to those in close range. Meanwhile yolnakriin offers a boost to group offense. Often it's good to pair sets offering different types of utility.

If you're new to tanking something, there is nothing wrong with running sets that give you more personal margin for error while learning the content. Leeching is a great set for self-healing to take pressure off the healer or for fights where everyone is doing different things or spread out.

Hope some of this is useful!

ZOS_JesC

Greetings, we've removed a few nonconstructive and derailing comments. This is a friendly reminder to remain civil when posting. Thank you.

vgabor

Generally the gear you wear is depend on the difficulty of the content and your experience and skill level as tank.

For beginner tanks with less experience how to tank it's perfectly fine to go for selfish sets boosting your survivability. But as you get more experienced you will see what is enough to get away with and what is unnecessary in terms of selfish boosts, so gradually you scale down the selfish sets and start using more group buff sets instead to boost the overall group effectiveness.

Similarly for content there are week contents what you can tank even in dps gear and there are hard contents where you need proper tanking gear. Also it depends on what support you can expect from your teammates. An example are you keeping the attention of a boss only while the dds are mowing down it and the healer keep everyone healthy? Or you are required to grab a bunch of hard adds or minibosses and keep them entertained without any support while the rest of the team kills the main boss? The differences like this will require differences in how you tank, what skills and gear you use.

Major_Lag

Battalion Defender is great for PUGging dungeons, where there's always a decent chance that the healer might be fake. (also one or both of the DDs may also be fake, but that's another story )

For tanking PUGs you want to wear "selfish" tanking sets as a general rule, so that you can survive on your own even with 0 support from your group - no synergies, no heals.

Battalion Defender, Cyrodiil's Crest, Leeching Plate, Bahraha's Curse - all of those are some pretty solid options for tanking PUGs

But for endgame content - forget it, it ain't happening.
This kind of nonsense will get you insta booted from any vet/HM trial.

D0PAMINE

idk wrote: »

Below concerns tanking vet trials. For 4 man dungeons you can pretty much tank in anything as they do not offer much challenge. Then again, if you are running with a decent group the raid leader will likely ask you to wear certain sets.

Ebon Armor provides survival to your group. There is not another tank set that provide as much survival to everyone in the group. That is why every decent raid group has one tank run it and every tank interested in running with a decent group has a set.

Leeching plat is good for tanking the axes in AA. Beyond that it is just something that would be a fun set. Alkosh would increase the groups dps much more than Leeching plate if you are running a trial.

Battalion Defender - If you are running a 4 man without a healer, maybe. Certainly not for trials.

Warrior Poet - Two slots of resistance. I have not seen a build that was designed around resistance in several years. Way overkill for 4 man dungeons for sure and if you did not like Ebon I see no reason you would like this set.

Again, if you are tanking 4 man dungeons wear what you want and have fun with it. I tend to look at things from a trial perspective.

Yeah it depends. If its a for fun dungeon or trial. I never got to run Sunspire with my group for Yolna b/c of work, so we 6 maned it, and I ran Leeching, Ebon and Stonekeeper. Worked out nice as the run was for fun. I did vAA (not HM) axes with Ebon and Torug and didn't have issues, although im prone to dodge rolling off of that cliff like a scrub. That was my first vet trial.

Jagdkommando

ZOS_JesC wrote: »

Greetings, we've removed a few nonconstructive and derailing comments. This is a friendly reminder to remain civil when posting. Thank you.

are you a new employee??? i see you deleting too many comments from too many threads as they "non constructive" or "derailed". Instead of that PASS the message of players to those ppl who is responsible! Cuz after Wrathstone your game is falling apart. And pls dont say anything cuz you have announced racial passive changes AGAIN. To be honest, are you *** kidding entire community?!?!!? why you changing things without a purpose/without testing/OR WITHOUT LETTING YOUR COMMUNITY KNOW YOUR FUTURE PLANS?!?!?!!?!?

@ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_JessicaFolsom , @ZOS_MattFiror

Swordbreaker

Jagdkommando wrote: »

ZOS_JesC wrote: »

Greetings, we've removed a few nonconstructive and derailing comments. This is a friendly reminder to remain civil when posting. Thank you.

are you a new employee??? i see you deleting too many comments from too many threads as they "non constructive" or "derailed". Instead of that PASS the message of players to those ppl who is responsible! Cuz after Wrathstone your game is falling apart. And pls dont say anything cuz you have announced racial passive changes AGAIN. To be honest, are you *** kidding entire community?!?!!? why you changing things without a purpose/without testing/OR WITHOUT LETTING YOUR COMMUNITY KNOW YOUR FUTURE PLANS?!?!?!!?!?

@ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_JessicaFolsom , @ZOS_MattFiror

Idk about other posts this employee has deleted, but in this case he/she was in the right. There was a user who insulted me for starting this thread. I was trying to get more info on how to be a better tank and he started saying i was a selfish egotist (bafflingly ignorant based on the very nature of my question), so ZOS_JesC removed his comment and my response to that person.

essi2

Fortified Brass
LEVEL 50 - CP 160
Type Craftable
Set bonus
(2 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 2975 Physical Resistance
(4 items) Adds 2975 Spell Resistance
(5 items) Adds 5170 Spell Resistance, Adds 5170 Physical Resistance

^Assuming you are not resistance capped already.

Livewire
LEVEL 50 - CP 160
Type Overland
Set bonus
(2 items) Adds 4% Healing Taken
(3 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(4 items) Adds 4% Healing Taken
(5 items) When you take damage, you have a 25% chance to overload your circuits, applying Concussion to enemies within 8 meters of you and healing for 1000 Health for each enemy hit. This effect can occur once every 8 seconds.

Warrior-Poet
LEVEL 50 - CP 160
Type Overland
Set bonus
(2 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 2975 Spell Resistance
(4 items) Adds 2975 Physical Resistance
(5 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health, Gain Minor Toughness at all times, increasing your Maximum Health by 10%.

Sanctuary
LEVEL 50 - CP 160
Type Dungeon
Set bonus
(2 items) Adds 1206 Maximum Health
(3 items) Adds 4% Healing Taken
(4 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(5 items) Increases your healing received by 12% for you and up to 11 group members within 10 meters of you.

My main tank runs Fortified Brass / Livewire atm and doing well enough.

Not a fan of Ebon Armoury, it breeds weak DDs

Vicarra

The sets you wear depends entirely, 100%, on the content you're doing and the level of your experience. Lots of people will insist you absolutely must follow the meta, but this is unhelpful advice if you're not intending to tank vet trials. And if you are tanking vet trials, you have to wear what you're told, whether you like it or not, because it's not about how you want to play, it's about beating the content. A lot of that advice will also assume you're using a DK, because most people tank with DKs and they can't snap themselves out of the meta built around DKs.

So, since I also play a necro tank, I'm going to assume you're about doing dungeons, not with a set group where you can coordinate sets, and maybe building up to vet dungeons + HM + progressing to trials after that. I will especially be assuming you do a lot of pugs.

The necro has two primary strengths, as a tank (in my view) and they are overlooked by Alcast because he doesn't play tanks himself. The first is the fact that they get bonuses to HP, and their best tanking skills are resource agnostic or use health. The second is that their ultimates are really where they shine, without a doubt. I often have trouble deciding what ultis to use because they are just that good.

In dungeons, the colossus is hands down the best boost to group DPS. Far, far superior to warhorn, which is really for trials. When you combine that ulti with a well-placed boneyard for major breach+fracture (aoe), you can delete 10% or more of a boss HP just by yourself. If you coordinate your ultis so that the others in the group know it's coming, they can place theirs immediately after you put the colossus to get a massive boost to their damage output. So. In most dungeon groups, uptime on ultis is a good way to go - to that end, I recommend akaviri dragonguard, and keeping active use of necrotic potency to turn yourself into a battery. In vet/HM dungeons, having uptime on your mass rez is also insanely helpful in a tight spot, but it's very expensive. If you're offtanking, consider going vampire so you can spam drain for extra ulti gen.

For survivability, I would 100% recommend plague doctor over ebon any day of the week, and I will fight anyone who says ebon is better in a dungeon setting. Ebon is for trial off tanks, or even healers. If you're in anything less than a pro dungeon group, run plague doctor if you want the safety buffer. It gives you much better results from your necro skills that rely on health, and you'll get better shields from it as well. Ebon is trash for a necro tank, and the only time to use it is if your trial leader orders you to.

Personally, my choice is to run yolnahkriin in every situation, because it adds to the speed at which the group kills and - crucially - doesn't require them to be within a certain range of you, which if you're tanking something away from the group, means they still get the benefit of it, unlike some other "unselfish" sets. It's also super easy to farm, since nSS isn't hard to tank if you're comfortable in vet dungeons.

I also lean into the debuffing aspect of the necro tank quite hard. I run as my primary second set Dragons Defilement, since the minor breach and fracture stacks with major from your boneyard for additional kill speed. I also use Thurvokun as my monster set - this is a bit harder to farm on vet since it depends on the group you're in, but it's very quick to proc and reduces the damage you (and your group) take from enemies. Both of those debuff sets have a nice large radius as well, and in most dungeon groups, people don't have the CP to spare to put into spell/physical pen so the decreases help them a lot.

Saril_Durzam

Where are you tanking?

Normal dungeon? Vet dungeon? Vet HM dungeon? normal trial? Veteran trial?

Are you the only tank or you are offtank?

Gear will depend on situation. Selfish sets are used where you´re expecting a heavy load of damage and you need to stand, or where do you trust your healers (a pug, for example). Maximied tanking will come with utility sets, like Ebon, Alkosh, Akaviri, or Jorvulds (yeah, you can put it on jewels and weapons) and that works on coordinated groups for maximum effect. Your main goal is to bring attention of the mobs but your secondary goal is to help mates to their jobs (healing/DPSing).

Same could be said about monster sets.

For pug dungeoning (wild guess on your initial expectations) i´d go with a mixture of one selfish set and an utility one.

Calm_Fury

I'm loving using Leeching + Overwhelming + Stonekeep on my Necro tank.

With Boneyard and agony Totem it procs Overwhelming a lot which gives a bunch of mag sustain, and Leeching helps a lot of healing.

Not trial ready but for dungeons and specially for PUGs with non-optimized groups, this is the setup I've liked the most.

r34lian

My main tank is nord dk using plague doctor+ebon +lord warden with all attributes on stamina + full sturdy and tri stat food gives enough stats for supporting group defensively as well as myself.
1k hp from ebon armory makes difference from getting one shot or surviving
Heals from battalion defender pretty weak unless you spec for it
Your 1k extra dps from leeching won't provide any boost to your group there are dps role for that.

Frostystuff

Sorry to hi jack a thread

I have a dk tank I've only recently started using, it's running dragon/ebon/bloodspawn atm.
I was wondering though if i did stack health wouldn't that give some pretty juicy shields (from frag) to my group?
Wouldn't that count as group utility ?

daedalusAI

Vicarra wrote: »

For survivability, I would 100% recommend plague doctor over ebon any day of the week, and I will fight anyone who says ebon is better in a dungeon setting. Ebon is for trial off tanks, or even healers. If you're in anything less than a pro dungeon group, run plague doctor if you want the safety buffer. It gives you much better results from your necro skills that rely on health, and you'll get better shields from it as well. Ebon is trash for a necro tank, and the only time to use it is if your trial leader orders you to.

Just looking a the naked set bonuses: Plague Doctor offers 5,4k HP + 4% healing taken, Ebon Armory 3,4k HP + 4% healing taken, but additionally 1k HP for group member.

Do you actually believe 2k more HP on a tank is more valuable than an additional 1k HP on the whole group?

Jagdkommando

Swordbreaker wrote: »

Jagdkommando wrote: »

ZOS_JesC wrote: »

Greetings, we've removed a few nonconstructive and derailing comments. This is a friendly reminder to remain civil when posting. Thank you.

are you a new employee??? i see you deleting too many comments from too many threads as they "non constructive" or "derailed". Instead of that PASS the message of players to those ppl who is responsible! Cuz after Wrathstone your game is falling apart. And pls dont say anything cuz you have announced racial passive changes AGAIN. To be honest, are you *** kidding entire community?!?!!? why you changing things without a purpose/without testing/OR WITHOUT LETTING YOUR COMMUNITY KNOW YOUR FUTURE PLANS?!?!?!!?!?

@ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_JessicaFolsom , @ZOS_MattFiror

Idk about other posts this employee has deleted, but in this case he was in the right. There was a user who insulted me for starting this thread. I was trying to get more info on how to be a better tank and he started saying i was a selfish egotist (bafflingly ignorant based on the very nature of my question), so ZOS_JesC removed his comment and my response to that person.

but dont u agree that game at this point is in terrible state, both in performance and balance/class identity/last 6 months mega changes?

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

daedalusAI wrote: »

Vicarra wrote: »

For survivability, I would 100% recommend plague doctor over ebon any day of the week, and I will fight anyone who says ebon is better in a dungeon setting. Ebon is for trial off tanks, or even healers. If you're in anything less than a pro dungeon group, run plague doctor if you want the safety buffer. It gives you much better results from your necro skills that rely on health, and you'll get better shields from it as well. Ebon is trash for a necro tank, and the only time to use it is if your trial leader orders you to.

Just looking a the naked set bonuses: Plague Doctor offers 5,4k HP + 4% healing taken, Ebon Armory 3,4k HP + 4% healing taken, but additionally 1k HP for group member.

Do you actually believe 2k more HP on a tank is more valuable than an additional 1k HP on the whole group?

Ebon was must have before Wrathstone when Ebon was giving that extra health to tip over the "one shot" point (17500 hp) the DDs.
Ever since Wrathstone all DDs have over 18-19K health without Ebon. So something that gives damage reduction (eg Knightmare etc), or shields (Imperium) or damage (Yok) have more utility. Ofc all depends the tank and how he feels.