DK tank build help

flawless4812 · August 2015

So as the title says I'm VR14 and I'm reskilling restatin etc to build a tank for VDSA as well as trials and I Google and read in forums that hist bark along with footman set is the best but a fellow guild of mine mentioned alesso set being good with the physical resistance so high

I'm doing VDSA and trials to get better end game gear but my thinking is I have 3 footman rings nd necklace I also have a footman shield nd boots to make a 5 set I can run that with my hist bark for the rest of my armour and I wanted to throw in a 2 piece helmet nd shoulders the crypt of hearts set since I alrdy own it heavy on my armour I run half stamina half health nd my runs nd neck have reduce the cost of stamina abilities since I always seem to run out while blocking. My character sheet reads 30k health 29k physical nd about 25k spell resistance( I have a nirnhoned sword coming once I finish the research to boost this up)

I'm wondering if this is a smart way to build my tank until I get trial gear because I have never read people building a tank this way
any help is greatly appreciated as iam new to this (I'm mainly looking for reasons why not to run it)

JaJaLuka · August 2015

You're actually pretty close, but much of the rest/refining of this could depend on your race plus (having run a tank for most of my time in game now) I also recommend changing gear depending on your group.
For example, some healers may not use shards (for stam management) or may run the wrong morph for a healer (which will cut your magica regen down), so dropping Hist Bark for something like Willow's Path can work (not saying it's the best, but it does work for higher regen while still having relatively high health), though you are more squishy and you need to learn different methods of survival/stam management. If you're having trouble with stam management specifically, look into the Potentates set (PvP set) plus either Engine Guardian or Blood Spawn. It just depends on where you need the gear to support you that will determine what you focus on building.
Generally however, Footmans, Hist Bark and Engine Guardian is sufficient, though experiment a bit and consider your style of tanking before committing to this layout.

flawless4812 · August 2015

Sry for not being more clear kinda wrote that post in a hurry
I'm a woodelf I'm also a werewolf so I have both increasing my stamina regeneration but I hear after the next patch I can expect to get both of those increases nerfed

I do have the blood spawn shoulders all I would need is the helmet
I extremely really want to avoid engine guarding because of the fact everyone has it nd it's annoying seeing 90% of the game wearing the same thing..... I do own it though just in the light armour form so I'll hold onto it incase

But I also have all the recipes nd could use a regeneration nd not a max stamina nd health consumable

I'll deffinately look into the willows path nd prolly end up a with a couple different sets since like you said some healers run different things I'll need to be able to work with them nd not against them

What is your take on magicka I was half stamina half magicka in attributes nd 40 in health but was told to get rid of the huge magicka pool I have since I only need it for green blood nd inner fire taunt

Brrrofski · August 2015

I honestly think running a 5 piece hist bark is more important than any other armor you'll wear.

Dodging 1/5 hits is huge. Take no damage and use no stamina 1 in every 5 hits is ridiculous.

I swapped to it from whitestrake at about vet 9 and I couldn't believe I wasn't using it sooner.

I'm planning on running that, 2 piece engine guardian set and my weapons as magnus. Use this for trials and dungeons.

Swap out the hist bark for seducer in pvp then.

Just need those engine guardian sets piece first

Brrrofski · August 2015

flawless4812 wrote: »

Sry for not being more clear kinda wrote that post in a hurry
I'm a woodelf I'm also a werewolf so I have both increasing my stamina regeneration but I hear after the next patch I can expect to get both of those increases nerfed

I do have the blood spawn shoulders all I would need is the helmet
I extremely really want to avoid engine guarding because of the fact everyone has it nd it's annoying seeing 90% of the game wearing the same thing..... I do own it though just in the light armour form so I'll hold onto it incase

But I also have all the recipes nd could use a regeneration nd not a max stamina nd health consumable

I'll deffinately look into the willows path nd prolly end up a with a couple different sets since like you said some healers run different things I'll need to be able to work with them nd not against them

What is your take on magicka I was half stamina half magicka in attributes nd 40 in health but was told to get rid of the huge magicka pool I have since I only need it for green blood nd inner fire taunt

I have a 2:1:1 ratio give or take a few point in health, magica, stamina.

You need a magica pool. Green dragon's blood, igneous shield (obsidian shield morph) and dragon fire scales (reflective scale morph) are on my tanking bar and in constant use. Dragon blood is obvious. Obsidian shield gives me and people close enough to me a shield. Reflective scale not only stops incoming damage but send it back to the dealer (morphed to 20% extra). As a DK, you are missing out if you don't have them on a tanking bar. Igneous shield is also handy for the passives in earthen heart. Restoring stamina and ultimate can be lifesaving as a tank. Also, talons, whichever morph is a great tanking tool. It's not only crowd control but and instant 4/5 enemy aggro. Gives a nice synergy for someone to hit so mobs are damaged before than can do a thing to anyone.

Talking of ultimate, magma shell (magma armor morph) is amazing. Struggling for resources to stay alive, hit it. Capped damage to 3% of max health is insane. especially good if your healer is down. Lost count how many times someone is down, bang this on and can res my healer/dps carefree. Especially handy when getting gold keys where you need to heal through scenarios (not use the husk, not turn the poison off).

Winterpsy · August 2015

Combining footman's with either Whitestrake or Histbark.

My setup is like this:

1st Setup 2nd setup
Neck: Footm's Footm's
Ring 1 Footm's Footm's
Ring 2 Footm's Footm's
Boots Footm's Footm's
Pants Footm's Footm's
Belt Whitestrake's Whitestrake's
Chest Whitestrake's Whitestrake's
Arm Whitestrake's Hist Bark
Shoulder Hist Bark Hist Bark
Helmet Whitestrake's Hist Bark
Hand1 Hist Bark Hist Bark
Hand2 Whitestrake's Hist Bark

1st setup is for tank / dps role switch --> Shield on one bar, two hander on the other. Off-Dps switching will still benefit from Whitestrake's bonus bubble
2st setup is for harcdore tanking shield & sword in both hands.

As for regen problems and about future update, I guess I will use more magicka recovery stuff and damage bubbles.

caperon · August 2015

I have 3 setups:

Full tank:
5 footman + 5 hist bark + 2 engine guardian with block cost reduction and regen drinks from my days doing trials. I was at the moment 42 life, 20 stamina. With this setup you dont have resources problems and with defending/reinforced/nirnhoned traits + bufs you cap resistances or very close. This setup can tank all the content.

Yokeda:
5 footman + 4 hist bark + 3 eternal yokeda. I have it jus because i have the droped pieces and was fun not die sometimes but i think is worse than the standard. +healing helps in the manticore tho.

Magnus
Right now, after all the power we get from champion points (260+ in my case) i changed to a magicka build (31/31) and I use:
5 magnus (heavy reinf) + healer (jewelry) + 2 torug + 2 skoria. Magicka cost reduction on jewelry.

This setup is very fun as let you spam all the cool abilities DK have. I pull 7-8k single target dps (need to improve, make the gear gold...) and currently is enought for the daily content and normal arena (havnt tested on vDSA, but probably will work, depends on the other group members).

Im pretty sure this setup will be destroyed with the new patch, there goes my fun and interactive way of playing the game.

Darlgon · August 2015

Just a note.

Are any of the commenters taking into account the class/game changes on Monday? Like three days away? Because a lot of these builds will probably fell very nerfed.

caperon · August 2015

Darlgon wrote: »

Just a note.

Are any of the commenters taking into account the class/game changes on Monday? Like three days away? Because a lot of these builds will probably fell very nerfed.

I am, but currently noone has a real setup for tanking after IC patch, and footman + hist + bark + engine i think that will be still decent, it maxes out (or very close, depending on CP allocation) resistances (for all the moments you wont be blocking/out of stamina), it has a vay to replenish resources (engine), the changes will make change some skills in the bar and put more pressure on healer/dps since dont think we will be able to control agro as wel as now and we will be eating a lot more damage if we want to regenerate stamina.

Steel_Brightblade · August 2015

I'm looking at the changes the other way, to counter not regenerating stamina while blocking I am going to go magics heavy not stamina so I can spam igneous shield for constant stamina Regen and use low cost ultimates for Regen of all other stats via the passives.. Nice thing is, so far thisseems to be working fine before changes too

caperon · August 2015

Steel_Brightblade wrote: »

I'm looking at the changes the other way, to counter not regenerating stamina while blocking I am going to go magics heavy not stamina so I can spam igneous shield for constant stamina Regen and use low cost ultimates for Regen of all other stats via the passives.. Nice thing is, so far thisseems to be working fine before changes too

I plan to test this route too, problem i see is if you want good mitigation you need to go heavy and with heavy you can't really spam magicka habilities unless you gear with magicka sets that wont have tanking bonuses. Armor master set and lord's warden (2 pieces) maybe can make some kind of 5 light + 2 heavy is possible to work.

Another thing to think about is that earthen hearth pasive scale with max stamina and batle roar will scale for each resource, so maybe we will need some serious max stamina to get meaningfull amounts of stamina back. About this, the new 3 stats enchants look very promising, maybe tanks will be the most benefited from this enchants.

Steel_Brightblade · August 2015

Unfortunately as I'm on xbox one I don't have access to pts or any useful numbers but have to work more on guesstimate. The way I'm looking at it stamina or magic should balance out, high stamina pool means more stamina per cast, high magic pool means smaller increase but more casts. May take some detailed testing once its all live to find that sweet spot that balances them out just right. I'm low champion points but putting them in magic Regen and reduce magic cost rather than stamina help, obviously also in r educe block costs .

Brrrofski · August 2015

You do want to put some into stamina regen too though. Some dungeons I'm indirect need of stamina because I'm blocking so many hits.

Also, we'll no longer regen stamina whilst blocking with the next update, so getting as high regen as possible between blocks is going to be incredibly important