DPS+Tank - Can PC tank through DPS?

Mouseattigan1 · January 2015

Hello folks, This is an idea I've been entertaining since launch, and I haven't seen hide nor tail about this concept in ESO. As an open air question, can you create a tank that generates threat through sheer DPS, AoE or single-target? It is important to note that I'm not looking for a squishy, "can't take more than two hits without dying" character. That would just make them a DPS. Ideally this DPS-Tank Hybrid would have as few taunt-like abilities as possible, and would be able to take or mitigate significant damage while dealing out significant damage. As an example, I'm trying to test a build with a nightblade wearing heavy armor using a destruction staff (primarily fire and ice). The only taunt she will take is the one from the undaunted tree. Ideally, because of the heavy armor she should be able to absorb plenty of damage while the destruction staff and its abilities should be able to slaughter everything around her. One limitation I can see with the above set is that it wouldn't work as well against single targets. Hence why the two weapons used are both destruction staffs. The fire staff is primarily AoE heavy, while Ice is mostly single-target. Since I have no high level characters, I'm uncertain how this will culminate. I am also open to other ideas for damage-heavy tank builds that others might have created. I also wanted to make this because I was tired of seeing "Dragon Knight Sword and Board" builds everywhere I looked. This game is amazing with its customization ability, and it seems people just forgot about DPS tanks. It is worth noting that my wife uses a sorcerer with sword and shield that is extremely single-target heavy. She invests practically nothing into stamina, and takes a more magic-focused build with the sword and shield utilizing its passives. She takes maybe one or two abilities from the sword and shield tree and is able to kill most anything within two seconds of combat. Prolonged battles are rarely a problem. Her build philosophy is "kill it. If it lives, kill it faster." Builds like this do exist. Why does no one talk about them?! ~ Mouse

DeLindsay · January 2015

The single problem you will face trying to be sturdy (Tanky) while also doing high threat via DPS is your resource pool. Without having full Light or Medium Armor (Magicka/Stamina DPS) you are going to burn through your resource pool faster than you can keep that DPS up. Blocking would also make Stamina based DPS a nearly impossible option as a Hybrid Tank since it consumes a large portion of your Stamina.

You mention NB as your test subject. The issue with that is NB isn't top DPS atm, so if there is a good DK in your group, there's no way you will be able to out threat him/her even if you are in a squishy pure-DPS gear/build. Another issue comes with Healing. As it sits right now, Healers can generate tremendous threat, more so than top DPS if things are going bad and the Healer is burning through Magicka to keep everyone alive. You will also have to utilize that resource pool for Tank CD's like Immovable, Ring of Preservation, Bone Shield, etc, further reducing the amount of resources you have to DPS with. In ESO right now most Bosses can 1-shot even a Tank if they don't Block/Dodge Roll certain attacks. And I'm referring to Tanks in 7/7 Heavy Armor (or 5/2 - H/L) sitting at or over 50% hard cap for Armor/Spell Resistance (with abilities).

When 1.6 hits and we have all these new passives in the Champion System, we might very well see Players in less-than-squishy builds that are somewhat hybrids but I seriously doubt a hybrid build would be capable of Tanking the harder end game stuff. However if you can create such a build, please inform us so maybe we can think further outside the box ourselves

Magdalina · January 2015

NB dps is actually perfectly fine right now, equal to or exceeding that of DK. Now tanky dps...you can and you should do dmg while tanking when it's possible, but having worse magicka management(and having to use it for selfheals and stuff) won't let you exceed a dps.

In short, you need s&b to tank, but you don't ALWAYS need it. I know plenty of tanks who enjoy tanking with resto staff for offheals/magicka management or pick up destro for some trash impulsing. Undaunted taunt is generally pretty awesome since you don't have to stand like right on top of your target to use it. Certain fights will still require you to go s&b and pure defense to mitigate all that damage, but overall there're options.

Edit: cell typing-.-

Mouseattigan1 · January 2015

Magdalina wrote: »

Hello Magdalina,

First, thank you for your response. It was very refreshing. Since my wife and I are always paired, I don't really worry about healing, much less self-healing, and I haven't run into magicka management issues so far, at all.

Second, I keep hearing that S&B are needed to tank... and frankly, I've poured over the abilities, and the heavy armor abilities, on ESO Calcs (I haven't played recently due to money issues, so maybe things have drastically changed and calculators aren't up to date) and I haven't seen anything that can't be supplemented with class abilities or from another skill line. The only thing that really seems useful from S&B is Puncture because then my PC would have a taunt earlier rather than later as well as a substantial debuff. But it doesn't seem to make a build any more or less superior to another in terms of tanking. Perhaps you can explain why S&B is needed?

~ Mouse

Morvul · January 2015

well, apart from the aggro skill (punkture), S&B also makes blocking more efficient: the passives in the S&B skill line increase the amount of damage mitigated by a block, as well as reduce the stamina cost of blocking.
Both of those effects are obviously highly beneficial to tanks.

Magdalina · January 2015

Mouseattigan1 wrote: »

Magdalina wrote: »

Hello Magdalina,

First, thank you for your response. It was very refreshing. Since my wife and I are always paired, I don't really worry about healing, much less self-healing, and I haven't run into magicka management issues so far, at all.

Second, I keep hearing that S&B are needed to tank... and frankly, I've poured over the abilities, and the heavy armor abilities, on ESO Calcs (I haven't played recently due to money issues, so maybe things have drastically changed and calculators aren't up to date) and I haven't seen anything that can't be supplemented with class abilities or from another skill line. The only thing that really seems useful from S&B is Puncture because then my PC would have a taunt earlier rather than later as well as a substantial debuff. But it doesn't seem to make a build any more or less superior to another in terms of tanking. Perhaps you can explain why S&B is needed?

~ Mouse

S&b is *needed* to tank in certain situations because of its passives. Taunt can be replaced with Undaunted one which is argueably better since ranged and all, but reduced block/breakfree cost, increased speed when blocking and whatever else that was(not online right now) can't.

It depends on the content you wanna do. I'm assuming you're talking about non vet zones right now, where even semi group content, like WB and dolmens, can rather easily be solo'd so you can basically run whatever build you want. Dungeons, especially vet dungeons, are a different story. Your job is to take danger away from the group - most of the times it just means hit instead of your squishy team members. If you can do damage while doing that, cool. Maybe you can also offheal, that's great. But you main job is to tank. Healer won't always be able to and shouldn't be focused on healing tank - good tank only needs an occasional heal here and there, great tank doesn't need heals at all(barring some unavoidable mechanics of course). There will be situations when healer is cc'd/dead/busy/too far/OOM and it's up to you to hold boss and support yourself. There will be bosses that hit for a TON of damage, 2-3k a hit if unblocked, maybe more(I don't tank so can't list exact numbers) in higher vet content. Then you just take your s&b out and go full defensive so you don't die, and the passives help immensely.

Dagoth_Rac · January 2015

Mouseattigan1 wrote: »

As an open air question, can you create a tank that generates threat through sheer DPS, AoE or single-target?

I don't believe there is anything like "threat" in this game. If an enemy is not actively taunted, their actions are unpredictable. They seem to go after healer a lot, but not all the time. Sometimes they will go after DPS. Sometimes they will keep beating on tank. I definitely wouldn't rely on high DPS as a way to draw enemies to me.

Mouseattigan1 wrote: »

It is worth noting that my wife uses a sorcerer with sword and shield that is extremely single-target heavy. She invests practically nothing into stamina, and takes a more magic-focused build with the sword and shield utilizing its passives. She takes maybe one or two abilities from the sword and shield tree and is able to kill most anything within two seconds of combat. Prolonged battles are rarely a problem. Her build philosophy is "kill it. If it lives, kill it faster."

Builds like this do exist. Why does no one talk about them?!

When people talk about Healer/Tank/DPS builds, they are talking about specialized roles for endgame group content. Sword and shield cannot kill anything in a Vet dungeon within two seconds. No one can kill anything in a Vet dungeon within 2 seconds. You are dealing with bosses that have 6 figure health pools, hit like a truck, and have complicated mechanics.

Wifeaggro13 · January 2015

Mouseattigan1 wrote: »

Hello folks, This is an idea I've been entertaining since launch, and I haven't seen hide nor tail about this concept in ESO. As an open air question, can you create a tank that generates threat through sheer DPS, AoE or single-target? It is important to note that I'm not looking for a squishy, "can't take more than two hits without dying" character. That would just make them a DPS. Ideally this DPS-Tank Hybrid would have as few taunt-like abilities as possible, and would be able to take or mitigate significant damage while dealing out significant damage. As an example, I'm trying to test a build with a nightblade wearing heavy armor using a destruction staff (primarily fire and ice). The only taunt she will take is the one from the undaunted tree. Ideally, because of the heavy armor she should be able to absorb plenty of damage while the destruction staff and its abilities should be able to slaughter everything around her. One limitation I can see with the above set is that it wouldn't work as well against single targets. Hence why the two weapons used are both destruction staffs. The fire staff is primarily AoE heavy, while Ice is mostly single-target. Since I have no high level characters, I'm uncertain how this will culminate. I am also open to other ideas for damage-heavy tank builds that others might have created. I also wanted to make this because I was tired of seeing "Dragon Knight Sword and Board" builds everywhere I looked. This game is amazing with its customization ability, and it seems people just forgot about DPS tanks. It is worth noting that my wife uses a sorcerer with sword and shield that is extremely single-target heavy. She invests practically nothing into stamina, and takes a more magic-focused build with the sword and shield utilizing its passives. She takes maybe one or two abilities from the sword and shield tree and is able to kill most anything within two seconds of combat. Prolonged battles are rarely a problem. Her build philosophy is "kill it. If it lives, kill it faster." Builds like this do exist. Why does no one talk about them?! ~ Mouse

Well there is no agro table in Eso other then ai targetting heals , or first to do damage. The taunt is a mechanic to pick up the threat of the boss.

Secondly there are no tanks really in eso just dps with a taunt and a sns second bar. Every vr dungeon can be tanked in light armor and staff currently . Most trial bosses in Aa and hel ra. Currently mybe few encounters it is worthy of the 10% physical damage reduction heavy gives you . Tanking mechanics in eso are very rudimentary . So dps your heart out through inner beast on your bar . This game has rwo roles Dps and heals . Unless your healer is un skilled then you might need to block with sns and wear some armor other then pajamas

Shinra · January 2015

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Secondly there are no tanks really in eso just dps with a taunt and a sns second bar. Every vr dungeon can be tanked in light armor and staff currently . Most trial bosses in Aa and hel ra. Currently mybe few encounters it is worthy of the 10% physical damage reduction heavy gives you . Tanking mechanics in eso are very rudimentary . So dps your heart out through inner beast on your bar . This game has rwo roles Dps and heals . Unless your healer is un skilled then you might need to block with sns and wear some armor other then pajamas

"no tanks really in eso"

Enter Sanctum. But let me warn you. You will probably need not only one, but two full tanks with heavy armor, sword and board and every defensive skill they can get.

And well, a "dps with a taunt"

will only make it harder for a healer than it has to be, specially in vet dungeons. Probably the easiest and best way for tanks in vet dungeons is full light armor with s&b, and stacking damage shields against every boss. You will probably get close to no damage at all. And well, second hand is a destro staff with some AoE bombing for mobs.

There are some special bosses for gold keys in vet dungeons, like darkshade -> that dwemer spider, where you can't tank at all (well, maybe a taunt and dragon wings help for mobs) or the boss in crypta of hearts where you will want to take heavy armor and full tanking skills to collect the ghosts.