Here's the problem, with the way the game is currently stamina is taken a poo, and trials only require 1 tank, so unless you recruited to a guild for the purpose of tanking it's unlikely. 4 mans will be your best friend though for tanking, especially when Dragon Star is released in update 4. I leveled up to v12 as a DK tank I tried hybrid of both, mainly stam, and mainly magic. I found that a magic based tank has more reign to utility over stam tanks, even more so since you can keep green dragon blood up almost 100% of the time, giving good stam regen if you need to block and increased healing received. overall I'd say a tank with the bigger mana pool wins it. I currently run a 5 piece heavy and 2 piece light for my tanking set. The light pieces being belt and gloves, where you don't lose as much armor as if you was to wear a light chest over heavy chest. You get good passives from both armor tree's and still keep soft cap for armor. If it's not enough you have razor armor to really push you over. Speccing attributes fully into health is effective, as well as health enchants on all heavy pieces and magic on light pieces. Use the standard trait setup, Divines on smaller pieces and infused on big (chest helm legs). You'll get the most out of your enchants and mundus stone this way. Now I'm not saying don't be a tank but I found myself being forced to go DPS, even though I planned on tanking when I made my DK. I've collected all the skyshards and currently have 4 sets of gear and can fill any roll. I see it best as If I'm needed to heal or tank I can, other wise I just DPS. The flavor of the month is light armor and D-staff but that's for any high output DPS, easily 1k+. I wouldn't worry too much about gear sets until 1.3 comes out in a week or so, EVERYTHING is getting an overhaul and I'm actually going to be needing to change all my gear around. My favorite build now is full medium armor with a 2 hander, stam based. I can pull 800+ with it, but compared to my staff build pulling 1k + every fight, no questions, it's a huge jump. I'm thinking with 1.3 stam builds will balance out more. To get a head start on what you might want to think about crafting or buying here's a link to the changed gear in update 3
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/118944/1-3-0-armor-and-weapon-sets/p1

P.S. If you are going to be very serious about PvE don't be a vampire. Too many mechanics in the game hurt with fire damage, that 50% increase shouldn't be taken lightly. WW is just bad, don't touch that unless you want an achievement for the dye. It will be buffed soon though.

Umm.. don't underestimate reflective scales. With any boss fight that is a caster this should be on your bar, gives good dmg output as well as completely negates any dmg you might take.

Sorry for rambling on, just a lot to talk about lol, any questions let me know. Cheers!

Hi there,
I'm DK Tank too and i've cleard Archive several Times. In my opinion DK is still the best Tank. One reason is Razor Armour (or the other Morph). If u have this in your Build than you get to Armour hardcap very easy, even if you got 2 pieces light Armour. Another reason are the Dragon Scales: for 3rd Archive Boss this Skill is pretty awesome. I have a Dps of 500+ only because of Spamming this Skill. And if I calculated right with the Sets from Update 3 you can get 3k+ life without using one Glyph or Bufffood + getting ~20% more Healing. So you can get more Stam and Magica.
The thing about Magica or Stamina Tank Build is a bit complicated. I'd say you should have both at the same Level because for example i have 4 Magica Skills and the Sword and Board Taunt cus You need the Stam for blocking. Also very usefull is the 2nd Skill from Magesguild witch gives you Health back + 5% more HP morph or maybe after Patch the other Morph cus you have enough HP.


PS: excuse my bad orthography, I'm german.

Siliconhobbit_ESO wrote: »

@moxiesauce‌

Thanks for the response and you definitely weren't rambling.

As for running different sets..I've considered it, but I can see that making 2-3 or even more full sets of epic or even legendary gear can get enormously expensive. Aside from the fact that having to either carry around multiple sets of gear or have them banked just seems so ineffective at the very least, inventory space wise.

I will say it is, and as for making all my gear legends I'm very happy I didn't they are currently all purple which is fairly cheap to do if you run delves, dungeons and trials often. For armor the difference between legend and purple is rather small for the cost. I only upgrade my weapons to legend and that has a huge impact on damage. I got full bag upgrade and an extra 11 from my speed horse level 50 55% speed which is fair and 11% for bags, Also leveling a horse for only bag space is great for farming. Using mules for trophies/costumes and stacks of mats I don't need immediately helps a ton with bank space.

You've chosen a decent class for tanking. I also play a DK tank and he is useful for trials, but often I have to switch to a DPS role I don't want to play.

Having said that, the current trials paradigm of 1 tank, 1-2 healers, and 9-10 DPS does NOT cut it for "play how you want" if you want to tank.

Unless future trials have a "tank check" just like the current trials have "DPS checks" (AA moreso than HRC) I'm fearful I won't be playing much because I won't get a chance to play much...