Medium Armour DK Imperial Tank Viable?

mistermutiny89 · August 2015

Hi all!

Apologies if this has been brought up recently; Google only had posts from last year and the search engine here showed nothing about it.

I also have no tanking experience but on the Xbox servers they are quite rare and I want to get into more group dungeons. The tanks I'm paired with never actually taunt.

Now with the perma blocking not being viable come next patch, stamina recovery will be more important than ever. Medium armour gives more stamina recovery and it also gives you options like extra elude effectiveness and stamina ability cost reduction (my favourite part about wearing medium armour).

I still want to stick to my dps roots however, having dual wield on one bar. This synergises with choking talons having my steel tornado do 15 per cent more damage to the mobs whilst immobilized and also reducing their damage by 15%. With dual wield I'll also be using blade cloak reducing aoe by 20%. I'll also have volatile armour up for the armour buff and extra healing received.

Magma armour will be my ultimate.

With all these buffs and debuffs is medium armour viable in late game vet dungeons?? Will I also required block glyphs? I want to put 40 into health and the rest into Stam (is that okay as well?).

Looking for very experienced tank advice only. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to builds!

Thanks in advance.

The_Boze · August 2015

This is just my own opinion from what i have read and watched on the PTS.

1. With the damage reduction. Shield reduction, and healing reduction fights are going to last much longer. With that said keeping your resources up is going to be crucial. so for example with you be a Dragon Knight i believe the passive is Battle Roar the one that gives you back resources for casting an ultimate is going to be your bread and butter.
2. The problem i for see with medium armor is not being able to hit the armor and spell resist cap of ~33k. if you can't hit that mark or atleast very close to it with buffs. You are are going to spending more resources trying to keep yourself alive than you are saving.

So in a much shorter response if you can get close to the armor and spell resist cap in medium armor which i don't think you can (not trying to be condescending just unsure.) then it is a very viable option, but im just not sure. I was just get the best medium armor you can and buff up to see where you are. Hope this helps.

mistermutiny89 · August 2015

@the_boze Thanks mate. Deltia's guide for tank dks finally dropped yesterday and he too was after that 33k armour. But I've heard that some boss attacks ignore player armour and spell resistance checks too? The best I can do is just test it myself. If I only have to pop two colagulating bloods every 30 seconds that's okay by me! If I'm having to spam anymore than that I'll go all heavy. I've also got to remember that thinking outside the box with builds generally gets you killed in this game haha.

Dagoth_Rac · August 2015

The_Boze wrote: »

1. With the damage reduction. Shield reduction, and healing reduction fights are going to last much longer.

That only applies in PvP, not PvE tanking. The original poster was asking about group dungeons. PvE tanking is being affected by PvP where stamina regen is being set to zero while blocking. That is being carried over to PvE, so tanks that do not have other ways of gaining stamina will be in trouble.

I do not think medium armor will help this much. It raises your regen, but that will not matter most of the time because 20% more of 0 regen is still zero. Same goes for things like Green Dragon Blood. Increases your stam regen by a percentage, but 1.2 x 0 is still zero. Whereas heavy armor will passively reduce stamina cost of blocking, which might be much more helpful in this new tanking world. You will last longer before running out of stamina.

I believe the Heavy armor skill that gives you back stamina when you are hit is also a flat amount, not a percentage based off your regen. It is not a huge amount of stamina and it has a cooldown, but that will still be more helpful than any buffs that multiple by zero and still leave you with zero regen.

The medium armor dodge chance is a skill that costs stamina. So while you will save stamina if you dodge an attack instead of block, you will be starting in a hole because you already spent stamina on casting the skill. And you can get the same dodge chance passively from Hist Bark, which will not stack with Evasion. I would think getting dodge chance for "free" all the time from Hist Bark would be better than getting it temporarily by spending precious stamina and a precious skill slot. Plus, you still need to hold block and have 0 stam regen because even with a 20% dodge chance, you cannot drop block. Getting one-shot 80% of the time instead of 100% of the time is not really an improvement. You are a tank, you need to get one-shot 0% of the time!

You also get bonus armor, health, and healing from Heavy Armor. Much more important than the crit chance, sneak cost, weapon damage, etc., from Medium. And things like the Reinforced and Nirnhoned trait will be buffing higher starting armor/spell resist values, giving your better bang for your buck from those traits.

I am guessing there will be some content you can tank in medium armor. But Trials, VDSA, the new VR16 dungeons in Imperial City ... you are probably still going to need heavy armor. If a hit in heavy armor takes away 95% of your health, that is fine. Your healer will top you off soon enough. If a hit in medium armor takes away 105% of your health, you are dead. Healer cannot help you at that point!

mistermutiny89 · August 2015

@Dagoth_Rac you're right. I need to commit to being a tank whole heartedly for this character and just wear the blasted heavy armour! I really don't want to though haha. Just hit vet on him today so it's time to Calcinium farm on my crafting character I guess!

mistermutiny89 · August 2015

Just an update... Wearing all heavy armour has completely broken the build in the way of resources, with only having 90 cp and Battle roar not working for stamina builds on console til the next update this guy is completely useless now. Back to medium armour it is!

The_Boze · August 2015

The reason I brought up the 50% reduction is because the two new dungeons are in IC and the damage, shield, and healing reduction will be attached to the battle spirit buff. There for if you are wanting to tank the new dungeons you need to take this into consideration. The way I see it is if I can tank the two new dungeons with all that reduction the rest of tanking will be much easier for me. Also I would take the coagulated blood morph for dragons blood since stamina recovery is not as prevalent.

Dagoth_Rac · August 2015

The_Boze wrote: »

The reason I brought up the 50% reduction is because the two new dungeons are in IC and the damage, shield, and healing reduction will be attached to the battle spirit buff. There for if you are wanting to tank the new dungeons you need to take this into consideration. The way I see it is if I can tank the two new dungeons with all that reduction the rest of tanking will be much easier for me. Also I would take the coagulated blood morph for dragons blood since stamina recovery is not as prevalent.

The new dungeons are part of the Imperial City DLC, but not PvP. There will be no Battle Spirit buff.

The_Boze · August 2015

I will see if i can find it again, but i read that since they were in cyrodil that the buff applied. Not sure I will try and confirm it. or if you have done them on the PTS you could save me the trouble lol.