Some fresh questions from a fresh 50

Neiska

Hello forums,

I have a few questions if some vets have a moment to spare to educate a new player. I have a fresh 50 necromancer whom I have remade from Hp tank to magica to stamina, just to get a feel for all the different styles of play, and that led me to have a few questions.

Ideally if I could, I would like to have a hybrid necro who can tank well enough for 5 man content, but also who wouldn't be a complete slog to solo/quest with, as I end up playing solo more than I do in groups due to different playtimes with friends and guild mates. And a pure hitpoint build is somewhat painful to play solo, due to low damage. I would like to make her playable for both solo and for group play, but I am not sure how to go about that.

So as far as I can tell, there are 3 possible options?

1. Stamina tanking - Is this a thing? I have heard it mentioned, but google doesn't bring up any specific guides or how-to's.
2. Hybrids - is it possible for example, to have a 32 hitpoint/32 stamina split, for a sword and board necro who is "good enough" to tank most content, who also wouldn't be nearly as painful to play solo?
3. Or would it be a simple matter of swapping out say, a heavy armor gear set with defensive bonuses, for a set with offensive bonuses?
4. Lastly, would it be a combination of any of the above? Or something else I have not thought of yet.

If its important for context, my Necromancer is more or less a fresh 50 with very few CPs. (I think maybe 20?) I don't even have a full setup of "level 50 gear" yet. I'm not expecting full on DPS focus damage numbers, just enough to make soloing so painful, while being "tough enough" to tank.

So is this sort of thing possible, or am I just wishing?

Thanks bunches in advance

Nestor

You are going to need to swap gear at the very least to do what you want. You need to all or mostly in on Health to survive some boss hits. Also, a decent tank build usually, not always requires a balance of Stamina and Magic (for buff utilities and blocking). These things do not lend themselves to DPS for that role.

Now the health can be achieved with Sets. So you may not have to move Attributes around all that much. Not sure what the new CP system is going to do to help or hinder you here.

So, to answer your question, you can play a hybrid, but your gameplay performance will suffer in all roles.

Neiska

Thank you for your imput,

Every guide I have read so far for tanks said to dump all stat points into hitpoints though, which is why I assumed my damage was low. (Under the impression stam skill damage scales with stam, and magica with magica and so on.)

But if sets alone will give enough health to tank, what would be a good balance for stamina/magic? a 50/50 split, or something else?

notachik

I usually put 44 into a offensive stat and and 20 into health..I use a combo of gear ,enchants and mundus to adjust for whatever I need according to my role..with the next update things will be easier and different but use the time on your way to 160 to experiment and test

etchedpixels

Neiska wrote: »

Every guide I have read so far for tanks said to dump all stat points into hitpoints though, which is why I assumed my damage was low. (Under the impression stam skill damage scales with stam, and magica with magica and so on.)

But if sets alone will give enough health to tank, what would be a good balance for stamina/magic? a 50/50 split, or something else?

All in health gets you a tank that can't sustain without popping potions every cooldown and can't sustain support skills well. Sort of meta for some things, but not fun. The 80k+ health necro-tank is fun, but that's mostly because of all the hate you get in battlegrounds.

Every tank is a balance
- You need enough health that you can survive long enough for the healer to get you back up, and ideally the health regeneration for your role so you don't burden them
- You need theresistances/armour to avoid most of the damage anyway. Much of this comes from CP.
- You need enough stamina and/or magicka to maintain blocking
- You need enough resource regeneration to survive (but remember you don't regen that resource whilst holding block on it)

There are lots of ways to do it. You can build a templar tank with 64 magicka and craploads of shields for example.

I would say you need at least 20 in health, probably more if you don't have the CP or shields. The lower your base health the more health you need to get from sets (eg plague doctor). The more you depend on those sets the less support sets you wear. Equally the more you've got in stamina or magicka the more support via skills you have. What is best often depends upon the skills available, class and play style.

For the solo damage role you want a chunk in magicka or stamina, the additional skill points and skills for the relevant light or medium armour line, and probably some proc sets to do the damage for you. Magicka is often easier because a magicka oriented tank can also use that bigger magicka pool for heals and buffs better than stamina ones. Given the prevalance of fake healers being able to tank and group heal at once is sadly a definite win.

I suspect that if you want to get into "serious" end game stuff you'll end up creating another toon for it based upon whatever is allegedly meta and the group need anyway.

SpiritofESO

Fennwitty

Super high health is good in some vet situations. But you lose abilities, and rather than hitting skills your playstyle becomes lots of heavy attacks to regen and synergy use outside of taunt and pull.

Most attributes in either stam or magicka, some in health and some in the other attribute gives decent flexibility.

It's entirely possible to change your gear and food with a single character and go from between 20k hp and 40k hp without touching your attributes. I find ~35k hp is plenty for tanking almost anything.

That gives more resources for skills and such while in tank mode, and also gives more resources and damage when you go to damage mode.

There might be specific times you need to throw everything into health and defense to survive, but typically you just need enough hp to not get one-shot if you miss a block.

One time I needed to dodge roll so much on a specific fight I eventually limited myself to purely taunting, heavy attacks and occasional self heal. I gave up hp and put on some medium instead of heavy just to get more dodge rolls ;p

El_Borracho

If you are looking to ONLY tank group dungeons and DPS overland content, there is a way. Spec your tank hybrid out as a DPS with CP points. For skill points, do 40-50 into magicka and the remainder into health. You do not need to change these when you swap roles.

Level up the basic magicka DPS skills that you want to use and your tanking skills so you can just flip skills back and forth. You will need to change these, obviously, when you swap roles.

Run purple tri-stat food for tanking, like the Longfin Pasty with Melon Sauce, or Jugged Rabbit, or something similar. Blue food will not work for tanking.

Your base set will be Crimson Twilight, all body pieces. Your second tank set can be anything, but it should be all weapons/S&B and jewelry. Since your resistances are lower than a normal tank, I'd aim for something selfish, like Plague Doctor, Akaviri Drangonguard, Alessian Order (a great PVP werewolf set, too), or Brands of the Imperium. Plus, you will not have to craft jewelry and the sets are easily farmed or cheap through a guild trader. Bring the monster helm you want. Lord Warden and Mighty Chudan will probably be better given your lowered resistances, but Tremorscale will work too. Do the heavy, medium, light mix for the Undaunted passive.

Your backup damage set will be Infallible Aether, lightning staff and jewelry and a VMA staff for your back bar, and you'll be a heavy-attacking nuisance across Tamriel. Undaunted Infiltrator will not work as well as it does not provide the spell damage or crit. Monster set: Valkyn Skoria, Maw, or Zaan. Swap out the damage set with your second tank set when going to DPS overland.

You will be able to clear all overland solo content with ease and it will not take an eternity as it would if you were a dedicated tank. You should be able to tank most vet dungeons, and even some DLC dungeons. However, you will be ineffective in the vet dungeons that hit super hard as you are not a dedicated tank. Slot a burst self heal when tanking.

Hope it works for you. I thought it was pretty effective