If going for all crafted then 5 piece Histbark is pretty much a must.

After that there are two options really... Regen or Resistances.

Given the 6 trait limit... Either Alessias Bulwark / Whitestrakes 4 piece for health/armor

Or Willows path 4 piece for resource regen.

Jewellery wise I'd suggest Magicka Furnace if you can find a V1 or V2 version in guild stores for cheap... that's armor & max magicka.

Which you go for depends on the player... if it was me, I'd go for Willows for the regen. As a tank your resources are your life. You'll already have quite high armor/spell resistances from the armor & skills.... what most people lack is regen.

Traits: You can only use defending on the swords, it's not available on shields. So yes... use it on the swords definitely. For the shields and all armor go for reinforced.

Do 5 Whitestrake and 4 Deathwind.

The role of a tank is to taunt and absorb damage. The shield that procs will act like additional health, and also gives a very visual warning when HP is low. There is no way for a tank to regen enough to make a difference and healing is a healers role, so go for straight HP in the Deathwind as the backup.

You will never hear a group complain they died because the tank did not have enough regen but you will hear that the tank died due to lack of HP to heal or take a crit hit.

This combo will add 3x max HP, 1x each HP regen, armor, and spell resist.

mgharris wrote: »

Do 5 Whitestrake and 4 Deathwind.

The role of a tank is to taunt and absorb damage. The shield that procs will act like additional health, and also gives a very visual warning when HP is low. There is no way for a tank to regen enough to make a difference and healing is a healers role, so go for straight HP in the Deathwind as the backup.

You will never hear a group complain they died because the tank did not have enough regen but you will hear that the tank died due to lack of HP to heal or take a crit hit.

This combo will add 3x max HP, 1x each HP regen, armor, and spell resist.

Ummm..... I think you have missed something here...

We're not talking health regen... I agree that's of very limited use.

We are talking active resource regen... stam & magicka.

And without this... you WILL be dead! Doesn't matter how much health you have.... running out of resources is what gets a tank killed... If you have enough magicka you can heal/shield/taunt/Rez... stay alive basically. Run out... you're dead!

And THAT is why regen is absolutely crucial... resource management is the number 1 2 & 3 priority of tanks at the minute.

Also... healing is not just a healers role. Again... if a tank has no way to heal... they too will be dead as a dodo! If the healer goes down, misses something, gets stunned... whatever... a tank has to heal! & they need regen for that!

Set wise... Histbark all the way. Basically 20% damage mitigation... and with it 20% reduced stam cost from blocking. At V2 there is nothing better.

I'm sorry... but following this advice of resource regen doesn't matter, and only a healer should heal is going to make for a very bad (& dead) tank by the time you get to the hard stuff.

paulsimonps wrote: »

What nerfs? hist got a buff with the change of the buff system not a nerf. And when it comes to tanking sets with low traits needed or just in general its hard to beat hist bark. I would go with infused on large pieces and diviens on small to up your resources and then defending on sword.

The recent stamina nerf's that I even had to change my dps DK's build because of.

I found conflicting info and various different tool tip images for Hist Bark when trying to research it which is why I made the thread.

Ja50nX wrote: »

@Flaminir The client is very happy with his crafted gear. I havnt even made glyphs for him yet & he reckons its 10 times better than what he was using.
Thank You.

Excellent!

The game needs more tanks... especially happy ones!