Tank Specs for All 4 Classes

Xariann

Hi All,

I was toying around with skill calculators as I was thinking of what build I would prefer playing as a tank.

I am not really looking for "what is best?" but I wanted to see if I could have some input to see how these can be improved.

First of all I made a spreadsheet (it's really just a collection of data, nothing fancy) that lists all the racials that can help tank wise. There is also a little table indicating which type of armor I would wear with what class.

In the spreadsheet I am taking for granted that they are all wearing at least 5 pieces of heavy armour. The question is whether to wear 2x light armor or 2x medium armor (I suppose I could do 1 of each.)

Here is the spreadsheet.

Why wear two pieces of either light or medium armor? To aid either with magika regen/spell resistance or stamina regen. Medium armour offers innate better physical protection, but light armor has spell resistance, although you have to slot points into that extra resistance.

Now, the specs. These are not complete specs for each skill point available in game but a guideline of what I want to achieve. I also picked Nord as a base race, but defer to the spreadsheet to see what could be best. I do think that Nord is one of the better tanking races.

The builds consist of a taunt, whether it be Puncture (Ransack morph is a no brainer for me) for 1h + shield, or Inner Fire (not sure here, maybe Inner Beast for morph) for all other weapons, 3 class skills, and Immovable from Heavy Armor. I have yet to decide whether I want the damage morph of Immovable or the duration morph. I think my favourite alternate weapon to 1h+shield is the 2 hander, due to the splash damage of Forceful and the lack of AOE taunts.

I ignored Defensive Posture for something that is more class specific, but it could be slotted instead of one of the class skills, with the risk that the classes will feel a little samey.

I tend to have Unstoppable on most, I think it's a very good skill, but it could be replaced if I so wished.

One of the 3 class skills is an AOE, the other 2 are the tank skills.

Where I could, I tried to go for extra damage so that I don't hit like a wuss. There is no threat stance, so damage might hopefully help.

I also opted for options that would help ME stay alive instead of the party. I don't know how important this is as I have no idea of the damage output exerted on the tank in instances, so I assumed it was greater, rather than lesser.

NOTE: Where you see random points spent somewhere totally unrelated, ignore it, I was just playing with things.

Dragonknight

Damage mitigation tank, Volatile Armour picked for extra AOE. It looks like a good spec for AOE tanking/damage.

Nightblade

Stays alive by leeching health. A bit thorn on Leeching Strikes: it is a nice regen skill, but it lowers my damage. That said I am dealing damage while leeching with Funnel Health, so I am probably not losing much in terms of damage dealt compared to the other three tanks. An alternative could be Dark Shades to reduce incoming damage and increase mine slightly (as the two shades are dealing damage), but I lose the regen. Or Defensive Posture from 1H+shield, but again, I want the builds to be as class centric as they can be.

Templar

I thought Templar was the most straight forward but actually I struggled with it more than the other two because there are so many choices. You can see I was undecided between Unstoppable and Honour the Dead. I think Templar might work better with 2H than 1H + Shield, at least with this spec, as it has the least offensive skills than the other two. None of its tanking skills has a damage "side effect", i.e., it has no leech that causes damage or armour that does AOE damage when activated.

Templar has a stamina recovery skill, so it's probably best to use it with Light armour to gain magika regen.

Sorcerer

It didn't interest me at first but when I looked into it properly I realised I shouldn't ignore this class. It would probably work best with 2 pieces of light armour due to the magika requirements.

I was undecided between Conjured Ward and Bound Aegis, I haven't tried them in combat and they both seem okay candidates for a tank build. Thundering presence increases your armor and spell resistance AND deals damage, what more can you ask? Crystal Blast deals AOE AND knocks down enemies, adding to the damage mitigation.

So here you have it, please do chip in with insights, it's why I posted it.

Nugeneration

Grab the fighters guild ult on your nightblade to offset leeching strikes. I'd also use the heavy armor passive and look into adding blur as well. Lotus blade for trash pulls and aoe fights too.

Personally I prefer soul swallow over health funnel and use entropy as well.

Xariann

I am using heavy armour on everything so the passives do get added up on all the specs. So that doesn't help the Nightblade damage over the other classes.

Figthers Guild Ult once morphed is quite a nice passive damage boost, thanks for the tip.

What do you suggest I drop for Lotus Fan?

Rosveen

I'm going to need a while to dig into it, but Funnel Health instead of Swallow Soul on a tank?

Btw, your dragonknight link doesn't work. It links to the nightblade build.

Xariann

That was a misclick, it's supposed to be Swallow Soul. I'll fix that and the Dragonknight link.

Nugeneration

Nightblade tanks just really lack aoe threat moves. I find I was more helpful (in beta) spamming lotus on trash for the 70% snare at least since I was probably going to lose aggro.

With that being said you get a bit of a trade off. I find them the best boss tanks. Buffering yourself with healing and adding in shades is very strong in boss fights when you incorporate abilities like blur and the heavy armor skill and constant sustain with leeching strikes. You should always have enough mana to activate any Stam or magic ability for the situation.

Xariann

Yeah I found I struggled with finding them. I was going for Refreshing path for the heal, however the slowing effect of the Blade Fan with the teleport seems fairly good for control. I don't think you are expected to tank all mobs in this game though.

Rhano

I don't see a point in playing a sorcerer tank.

They have no stamina management, no bonus to blocking like Templar and DK, no damage reduction and the class spells cost alot magicka, so you are forced to use light armor and will miss the blocking cost reduction from heavy armor. Is there anything they bring to the table that the other classes don't do better?

Koensol

Templars are AWSOME with AoE tanking and staying alive in AoE phases. Repentance. All I'm saying. God I love that skill.

Polaritie

Rhano wrote: »

I don't see a point in playing a sorcerer tank.

They have no stamina management, no bonus to blocking like Templar and DK, no damage reduction and the class spells cost alot magicka, so you are forced to use light armor and will miss the blocking cost reduction from heavy armor. Is there anything they bring to the table that the other classes don't do better?

Ball Lightning, AKA escape all the red circles and ignore ranged attacks for 6 seconds.

Honestly, Daedric Summoning and Storm Calling are just loaded with tank options - Bound Armor and Lightning Form give you defense through the roof, Conjured Ward for a shield, Ball Lightning is a ranged-negate.

I'm wondering if it would be better to use the Undaunted taunt for sorc tank despite how awesome Pierce Armor is since sorcerers have the best magicka management kit of any class (and admittedly poor stamina management... I've considered using medium instead of heavy, lycanthropy, anything to get more stamina regen flowing).

But honestly, Bound Aegis puts them so far over overcharged it's hilarious. That's before you factor in 100% lightning form uptime (not hard to do with just regen).

Also, to the OP - Crystal Shard should be morphed for Fragments, period. Instant cast dirt cheap nuke and knockdown... of course the caveat is that anything you care about single-target on can't be knocked down and groups you're better off using Dark Magic for... or just blowing to kingdom come (You can't tell me your build has no room for Lightning Splash)

Rhano

Why do you think that sorcerer has the best magicka management? I can only find dark exchange and that 3 second channel will be pretty dangerous while tanking. If you use light armor for that you will miss the cost reduction for blocking.

And the armor buffs are not that strong. Stamina for blocking and flat damage reduction are way better imho.

Aureli

The problem with a sorcerer tank is that it takes a lot longer to get into than other classes. You need to get a lot of heavy armor passives in to have the straight up survivability, you need to go into sword and board and get that built up.
Using magicka oriented rings and amulets gives a decent enough boost to regen and magicka management, enchanting a piece or two of your armor with stamina management, and the rest for health. Spec into magicka for the large base pool, boosting magicka regen.
Eat food for a bonus to stamina.
You also need to use a lot of magicka to get the damage mitigation, armor and spell resistances to be a main tank. You constantly have lightning form, conjured ward or other active mana drains up.

A lvl30 Sorcerer should have the passives in heavy armor, sword and board, and class skills, to be a decent tank. If you get all/mostly blue+ gear you can do better than decent.
Lightning form for AOE hate and defense boost, negate magic with suppression field or storm atronach with aoe, and encase.
A sorc tank is less about forcing enemies to hit only you, and take the beating while allies kill them, and more about suppressing enemy damage, boosting ally defenses, and keeping just one mob focused you. I don't think that it would be a viable main tank option for end game dungeons or raids, unless the gear, traits, enchantments and quality were all optimal.
I do think that a tank with this build would make the best off-tank possible. because there are aoe buffs, healing, aoe debilitations, and still enough survivability with gear/passives to handle a dungeon boss, albeit at the cost of most of your magicka pool.

I've been looking at building a sorc tank myself. So far at level11 I was already in the level17-23 area Deshan, and was running quests there just fine. Of course I was only taking on one or two mobs at a time.

steelers.kid11b14_ESO

What I have been doing with my sorc tank, who is level 21 now, is use my demons. Clanfear and Twilight are perfect for ganging up on multiple mobs at once. I maintain lightning form and try to use ransack on everyone that I'm tanking and use mage's wrath to finish them off. Doing well for myself so far I feel.
I would however like to adventure into the Dark Magic skills to see if i could improve cc.

Iaitoo

Got a question about aggro.
Sword and board has one aggo skill. If you go 2he, where does your aggro come from? As a healer, I have no problems pulling aggro away from dps 5 levels above me. Never really teamed with a tank. How will they keep aggro off me, when they have low dps? Are there hidden aggro builders? :P

Tuinslang

I love how you are taking all the classes, instead of the one's that are usually played as a tank, such as the Dragonknight.

For myself I am playing the Dragonknight in combination with the Red Guard's racial passives. Actually later on I would have rather chosen the Orc, because of the passive's being more on the health side, and I wanted to go all-in tank mode.

For the class skill line I went for Dragonic power, I will probably combine it with another class, but for now I am leaving it for just one skill line. I love Dragon leap btw.

Sorry for not really looking into your spread sheet, I will defenitely do so when I have more time. And will defenitely look at other people's answers.

Victus

For Sorcerer tanks I wonder if choosing a race such as redguard with racials helping with Stamina regen would help? Or perhaps too negligible to notice a big difference?

I myself am playing a redguard DK tank and hopefully the racials will help with being able to use the 1H+S abilities better.

yogarogue

forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/65715/dk-tanking-guide-an-offensive-approach#latest

Xariann

Iaitoo wrote: »

Got a question about aggro.
Sword and board has one aggo skill. If you go 2he, where does your aggro come from? As a healer, I have no problems pulling aggro away from dps 5 levels above me. Never really teamed with a tank. How will they keep aggro off me, when they have low dps? Are there hidden aggro builders? :P

You use Inner Fire from Undaunted skill line.

Xariann

Polaritie wrote: »

Also, to the OP - Crystal Shard should be morphed for Fragments, period. Instant cast dirt cheap nuke and knockdown... of course the caveat is that anything you care about single-target on can't be knocked down and groups you're better off using Dark Magic for... or just blowing to kingdom come (You can't tell me your build has no room for Lightning Splash)

The instant cast isn't the first time you cast it though, right?

Xariann

Koensol wrote: »

Templars are AWSOME with AoE tanking and staying alive in AoE phases. Repentance. All I'm saying. God I love that skill.

I do have Repentance in the spec I linked, but that's regen, not AOE. What AOE skills do you use and what tank skills do you use?

Iaitoo

So there are only a couple of skills that generate aggro? Tanking seems hard then. No point in playing "tank" and have all the migitation in the world, if the mobs prefer to hit someone else.

Xariann

yogarogue wrote: »

forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/65715/dk-tanking-guide-an-offensive-approach#latest

Interesting guide however he says he invests points in all 3 attributes. It's what I was doing then someone told me that you should invest everything in health because you can reach the caps with equipment. Apparently 1 point of health in your attributes gives you 50% extra health than 1 point of health in your equipment, whereas your magika and your stamina get the same from either source.

So you wind up with more health overall while you can reach the caps with equipment. I am not entirely sure what the caps are though so I am wondering how valid this is.

Xariann

Tuinslang wrote: »

I love how you are taking all the classes, instead of the one's that are usually played as a tank, such as the Dragonknight.

For myself I am playing the Dragonknight in combination with the Red Guard's racial passives. Actually later on I would have rather chosen the Orc, because of the passive's being more on the health side, and I wanted to go all-in tank mode.

For the class skill line I went for Dragonic power, I will probably combine it with another class, but for now I am leaving it for just one skill line. I love Dragon leap btw.

Sorry for not really looking into your spread sheet, I will defenitely do so when I have more time. And will defenitely look at other people's answers.

Thanks, I love theorycrafting and I want to do something that's fun and a bit different. How do you find DK?

steinernein

Rhano wrote: »

Why do you think that sorcerer has the best magicka management? I can only find dark exchange and that 3 second channel will be pretty dangerous while tanking. If you use light armor for that you will miss the cost reduction for blocking.

And the armor buffs are not that strong. Stamina for blocking and flat damage reduction are way better imho.

Here's a clue for you: FIFO.

yogarogue

Xariann wrote: »

yogarogue wrote: »

forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/65715/dk-tanking-guide-an-offensive-approach#latest

Interesting guide however he says he invests points in all 3 attributes. It's what I was doing then someone told me that you should invest everything in health because you can reach the caps with equipment. Apparently 1 point of health in your attributes gives you 50% extra health than 1 point of health in your equipment, whereas your magika and your stamina get the same from either source.

So you wind up with more health overall while you can reach the caps with equipment. I am not entirely sure what the caps are though so I am wondering how valid this is.

what you misunderstood about my guide is that bothh stamina and magicka indirectly effect your mitigation, control. and tanking dynamic, your health attribute is plainly passive... Health is a cop out, when investing in stamina and magicka you can directly influence your ability to tank.

Shaun98ca2

Stat point allocation is barely important due to soft caps and hard caps.

Reaching soft cap makes points further into a stat "worthless" that is till you can JUST reach the official hard cap then the points matter but still not as much as other stats due to soft cap to hard cap is I believe a 10% difference.

Polaritie

Xariann wrote: »

Polaritie wrote: »

Also, to the OP - Crystal Shard should be morphed for Fragments, period. Instant cast dirt cheap nuke and knockdown... of course the caveat is that anything you care about single-target on can't be knocked down and groups you're better off using Dark Magic for... or just blowing to kingdom come (You can't tell me your build has no room for Lightning Splash)

The instant cast isn't the first time you cast it though, right?

Anything that spends magicka can proc the instant cast. And the first cast to open a fight doesn't really need to be instant - the way I (and a lot of other people) use it is to cast other damage sources, then fire it off any time it procs for the cheap knockdown and damage spike.

Stautmeister

When i see your DK build i wonder if you actually tanked or are just theory crafting.
Way to much migitation, and way to much stamina abilities.
Ive tanked all dungeons up to 45 now and your gonna runna out of stamina. Your constantly blocking.

http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#czmHyyfXu38y1au8fXi48uEIK8uvZN8Gsb18fXuY8rrYM8uEAn8umHJ8uvZi8GsbX807068T7JNRMA6MrqAi6MrqAI6MrqAD6MrqAZ6crqLw8y7xNR3a6dR3r6zR3f6MfQE16MfQlr6MfQlu8E7GNzVW8l7JdzkA6bzky6Nzkt6MuvVB6MuvVD6MuvVJ6MuvVO8B7bdzRf837cNw338zk7pzvKVv6cvKVB6cvKVD8zR706

Bar 1 is for bosses, bar 2 to rush down adds.

1.
Ransack is a must, with it you overcharge armor, all the time.
Inner beast is a ranged taunt. Some bosses require it, must have.
Absorb magica can be replaced by razor armor depending on the fight, or even deep slash.
Green dragonblood is a self heal and should overcharge your health and stam regen. must have
Burning talons lets your control adds for 4 seconds. Must have

Bar 2 is about aoe control and helping nuking them down.

On both you want to have magma shell. The corrosive armor just doesnt at that much. Your dmg taken is already capped
Combined with the earthen heart passive this is your oh *** button, selfheal, reduced dmg taken. This can help you a lot when your out of stamina.

For pots, use stam or magicka potions. Personally i prefer magicka because it allows me to dragon regen.

My stats are 10-24-10. I got spell resist armor health and stamina regen overcharged and magicka regen near the cap. 1800 health with my food buff up.

Ive run in to relatively little trouble. Its very important however to kite stuff whenever possible. Especially bosses

Xariann

yogarogue wrote: »

Xariann wrote: »

yogarogue wrote: »

forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/65715/dk-tanking-guide-an-offensive-approach#latest

Interesting guide however he says he invests points in all 3 attributes. It's what I was doing then someone told me that you should invest everything in health because you can reach the caps with equipment. Apparently 1 point of health in your attributes gives you 50% extra health than 1 point of health in your equipment, whereas your magika and your stamina get the same from either source.

So you wind up with more health overall while you can reach the caps with equipment. I am not entirely sure what the caps are though so I am wondering how valid this is.

what you misunderstood about my guide is that bothh stamina and magicka indirectly effect your mitigation, control. and tanking dynamic, your health attribute is plainly passive... Health is a cop out, when investing in stamina and magicka you can directly influence your ability to tank.

I understand that perfectly. I'm just saying that putting points in stamina and magika is irrelevant if you are going to cap them with equipment.

Xariann

kstauthamerb16_ESO wrote: »

When i see your DK build i wonder if you actually tanked or are just theory crafting.
Way to much migitation, and way to much stamina abilities.
Ive tanked all dungeons up to 45 now and your gonna runna out of stamina. Your constantly blocking.

http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#czmHyyfXu38y1au8fXi48uEIK8uvZN8Gsb18fXuY8rrYM8uEAn8umHJ8uvZi8GsbX807068T7JNRMA6MrqAi6MrqAI6MrqAD6MrqAZ6crqLw8y7xNR3a6dR3r6zR3f6MfQE16MfQlr6MfQlu8E7GNzVW8l7JdzkA6bzky6Nzkt6MuvVB6MuvVD6MuvVJ6MuvVO8B7bdzRf837cNw338zk7pzvKVv6cvKVB6cvKVD8zR706

Bar 1 is for bosses, bar 2 to rush down adds.

1.
Ransack is a must, with it you overcharge armor, all the time.
Inner beast is a ranged taunt. Some bosses require it, must have.
Absorb magica can be replaced by razor armor depending on the fight, or even deep slash.
Green dragonblood is a self heal and should overcharge your health and stam regen. must have
Burning talons lets your control adds for 4 seconds. Must have

Bar 2 is about aoe control and helping nuking them down.

On both you want to have magma shell. The corrosive armor just doesnt at that much. Your dmg taken is already capped
Combined with the earthen heart passive this is your oh *** button, selfheal, reduced dmg taken. This can help you a lot when your out of stamina.

For pots, use stam or magicka potions. Personally i prefer magicka because it allows me to dragon regen.

My stats are 10-24-10. I got spell resist armor health and stamina regen overcharged and magicka regen near the cap. 1800 health with my food buff up.

Ive run in to relatively little trouble. Its very important however to kite stuff whenever possible. Especially bosses

Yes I am theorycrafting, it's why I asked input as I'm trying to decide what I'd like best

And on that note that's quite a nice build, but it's centred on 1H+shield I was womdering also about 2H alternatives. Do you think it won't be viable? You also use two taunts at once? I have 1 taunt, one for the 1h+shield, the other for 2H. You mention both but on one bar.

cjtignub17_ESO

I'll be brief. But the best tank class for PvE is easily the Sorc. This has been discussed time and time again in alpha but the majority will agree a properly played Sorc is the best tank class in game.

Build Tips:

U really don't need bound aegis, and the 10% nerf to max magicka sucks. Lightning form alone will soft cap armor and spell resis in 7/7 full light armor.

I'm VR3 and running around 2000+ magicka and 2900 HP both soft capped and all 3 of my regens (stamina/magicka/health) are soft capped. This is using food buffs and the emperor alliance +5 HP per level buff (i'm not emperor u get an HP buff if your in emps alliance).

Best armor = light armor

with full light armor, seducer set and breton passive and ring reduce magicka cost (and soft capped magicka regen) you will have an UNLIMITED magicka pool (add in destro staff passive that when u kill with destro staff u get 200 magicka back and other smaller return magicka passives).

Armor I use 3/3 seducer and 3/3 warlock set. Warlock set is amazing gives 700 magicka when I drop below 33% magicka every minute. Also I use magicka potions to keep up magicka.

Aggro managment:

Pretty easy actually. First of all I run with around 40+% crit rate from light armor passive, magelight, fire destro passive and precise weapon trait.

Second use the mundus that increases critical damage.

For adds and trash just hit critical surge and then drop a few elemental rings. They should do around 400-500 depending on ur weapon and max magicka. The clutch thing is that critical surge will heal u for 75% of damage done. so if theres 4 adds in addition to the boss and u crit on 2 of them for 500 thats 750 HP heal in that one second!
- Again with proper magicka set-up u can spam elemental ring almost non-stop for 750 heals per second and an insane amount of dmg per second. The dmg alone will cause u to hold aggro on the adds.

To lock in boss aggro use undaunted and make sure ur the first person to attack the boss. Given that you are doing dual threat (heals and dmg) its pretty ahrd to lose aggro.

Damage Mitigation:

Lightning form = crucial. This gives around 1500 spell resis and armor I believe at VR3 with 2000 magicka

Conjureed ward = 600 HP dmg shield

Annulment = 300-400 HP dmg shield + 50% less dmg taken, + restores magicka

Mutagen = I cast mutagen every 10-12 seconds when tanking


Use recount to track DPS/HPS, rough numbers are:
Single target DPS is around 400ish, HPS varies widely based on how many mobs you are tanking but it can easily be > 450 if you have a high enough crit rating.

Also remember bolt escape = immunity to ALL SPELLS for 6 seconds. Its sorta your oh *** button.

For ultimate I use Overload but u can mix it up. Some like the atronach for tanking since its an Aoe 3 sec stun + dmg and helps tank for u.

Enjoy tanking endgame VR dungeons.

Also remember that VR dungeons have a dmg check if you don't use a DPS tank ur going to find it rather difficult to hit that dmg check. You really need 3 members pushing > 300-350 dmg per second to do it. That will prob get even more hardcore in adventure zones coming in 2-3 weeks.