Attribute Points for DK Tank

chiftie

So I was reading alcasthq's guide to DK tanking (see here), and here's what it says about attribute points.

You have to make sure to have a bit more Stamina than Magicka. Because of the Synergies you pick up give you back whatever stat is higher. You can change this to your liking, if you do not need that much health, get more stamina.

10 Magicka, 54 Health

Is it just me or does that advice seem contradictory? Can anyone provide any recommendations that make sense?

Vevvev

Not really when you start delving deeper into the build he has itself. Like for example I tank with 64 points in magicka so I can cast Unrelenting Grip and Inner fire very often, but where all my stamina comes from is food, enchantments, and sets. Attribute points can be used to round out a build, or work as the foundation for one.

WrathOfInnos

Right, it’s total resource pool size that determines which it restored by orb and shard synergies. Attribute points are just one small contributor to total resource pools.

Hotdog_23

Easiest way for me is to first remove all attribute points. Create my build first then add attribute points in last so I can adjust my resources to where I want them.

Be safe and have fun

UntilValhalla13

What I always do, is put on whatever gear that I'm going to be tanking in, as well as the specific food that I'll use, and adjust the stats from there. I try to get my health to around 39-40k health as a base, and my other resources wind up around somewhere near 18-19k mag/20-21k stam. I don't remember the exact numbers.

kojou

Some gear gives Max Stamina (e.g. Alkosh), so you will end up with a bit more stamina before applying attributes. He probably had a bit more headroom with his magicka pool being a lot less than his stamina pool and put some points there.

I generally put Tri Stat glyphs on all of my tank's gear, eat my food, then see where I end up with my max stats. I then add attributes to health until I have as much health as I think I need and then put stamina and magicka evenly keeping Stamina just a little higher. Different armor sets will make you end up with different levels of stats.

In general I think it is a personal preference thing as to how evenly distributed your stats are, but I agree with his philosophy of keeping Stamina a little higher.

thadjarvis

None of the skills listed scale by mag or stam to an important degree. Pierce, Slash and Wall scale but generally that's not important. DK's also tend not to use a mag healing skill or rely on vigor (eg templar). So, with those skills your mag/stam pool size does not matter at all.

However, you are a DK and Engulfing flames does scale with mag. The build is for dungeons not just trials. You will want to use it in dungeons if you have mags and no magDK. So, you want your mag pool as high as possible.

If you don't care about min/maxing engulfing you can simply dump all points into health for ally Igneous shield size, your own survival skills (igneous, GDB) scale off max health, and more max health just makes you tankier.

Note if you pick a race with Mag and no stam (Elf, breton, lizard) you will likely need points in stam as normal builds have higher stam pools. If it's a trial tank consider attribute points while wearing worms.

kojou

thadjarvis wrote: »

None of the skills listed scale by mag or stam to an important degree. Pierce, Slash and Wall scale but generally that's not important. DK's also tend not to use a mag healing skill or rely on vigor (eg templar). So, with those skills your mag/stam pool size does not matter at all.

However, you are a DK and Engulfing flames does scale with mag. The build is for dungeons not just trials. You will want to use it in dungeons if you have mags and no magDK. So, you want your mag pool as high as possible.

If you don't care about min/maxing engulfing you can simply dump all points into health for ally Igneous shield size, your own survival skills (igneous, GDB) scale off max health, and more max health just makes you tankier.

Note if you pick a race with Mag and no stam (Elf, breton, lizard) you will likely need points in stam as normal builds have higher stam pools. If it's a trial tank consider attribute points while wearing worms.

For me it is all about resource management on a tank.

You want enough health to not get one-shot in the content you are running, and then you want enough of a magicka and stamina pool that you can chain, talons, etc all that is needed. Balance helps a lot with keeping your magicka pool up, but also you want a large enough pool so that you can make the most out of the Battle Roar. If it isn't big enough then you will end up "clipping" some of the magicka and stamina that you get back from it.

I personally like having about 40K health and about 20K magicka and stamina pools with stamina being just a little higher.

Having 1% more engulfing with the tiny amount more magicka I can allocate is not worth it IMO. If a group wants the full engulfing bonus then someone should roll a magicka DK damage dealer.

BXR_Lonestar

My DK tank runs Yolo tank set from NSS + Ebon and I have 40 Points in health, 24 points in stamina, none in magika. He's an Argonian and his final stats are 42K hp/18k Magika/21k Stamina. I don't even have full gold armor.

42K HP may seem like too much for some people running tanks, but I like to leave my stats static if I can so I don't have to adjust when I change armor sets. When I flip to something else other than Ebon, my HP drops down to around 35-36K, which IMO is the minimum amount of HP a tank should have for tanking difficult content. Some can get by with 30-32K HP, but I prefer not to tread on thin margins.

thadjarvis

@kojou makes sense. Though getting close to ~20k is more or less built in unless you avoid it.

With no infused pieces, no mag/stam on jewels (say swift jewels), all points in health, prismatics, no race passives, in Yoln/alksoh 5/1/1 you get 19k mag and 20k stam.

Triune jewels and big three infused bumps those up 2k. Warhorn also bumps them up 2k (I think that counts for Battle Roar).

ke.sardenb14_ESO

I tank on my redguard with all points into stamina for years not. So long as you have 35k health you should be fine. I typically run the lord stone, blue max heal/mag food, and the mage guild armor buff for mag sustain. My sets vary depending on my group composition. My build may not be the meta, but ive tanked most of the veteran content with little issues.

El_Borracho

As others have said, food and sets have a lot to do with it. I set up my skill points in a similar fashion, but more into magic as I find that the resource that is harder to sustain. If you are primarily tanking dungeons, check out the Crimson Twilight set out of Castle Thorn. A phenomenal set in my opinion for dungeons for health and damage.

idk

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Right, it’s total resource pool size that determines which it restored by orb and shard synergies. Attribute points are just one small contributor to total resource pools.

This. There are stats in set bonus such as Ebon that add health as well as the enchantments to our armor and shield. Then add in food.

At that health is our main resource as a tank. Sustain of the other resources is more important.

MirandaSharp

This is a sword and shield build. You need stamina to do pretty much all tank functions. Block, roll-dodge, bash etc.
The destro staff back bar is a utility and not really part of tanking.

So I agree with alcast here, you need more stamina than magicka and that's because of heavy attack resource gain. Heavy attacks give the resource back with highest attribute. So you should have at least a bit more stamina than magicka to make sure you get stamina for tanking tasks.

zvavi

MirandaSharp wrote: »

Heavy attacks give the resource back with highest attribute. So you should have at least a bit more stamina than magicka to make sure you get stamina for tanking tasks.

Plain wrong. Heavy attacks give back resources according to the weapon, not your highest resource. The reason you want more stam than mag is because then orbs/shards give back stamina.