Oh and I'm a imperial DK

5 pc Trinimac, 5 pc Armor Master, 2 pc Engine Guardian; regen build.

5pc armor master, 2 pc night silence, 3pc endurance jew (robus) and 2pc engine guard or scourge mostr sets

timmayyyboy wrote: »

For a NB magic tank?

For a nb magicka tank and a real endgame (which hopefully coming) i also would prefer something like this:

TotterTates wrote: »

I use 5pc Footman, 5pc Armor Master, 2pc Engine Guardian / Bloodspawn.

for the content now my opinion 5x heavy Kagrenac's Hope or magnus, 3x willpower and 4x seducer (1x sword board and 1x duel wield)
is a good choice and you help group with your sap damage and healing on duel wield bar...

I'm a stamina dk tank and have no problems at all with any content. I use 5x hist bark, 3x endurance, 2x agility and 2x engine guardian. I also use mostly prismatic glyphs.

The_Saint wrote: »

timmayyyboy wrote: »

For a NB magic tank?

For a nb magicka tank and a real endgame (which hopefully coming) i also would prefer something like this:

TotterTates wrote: »

I use 5pc Footman, 5pc Armor Master, 2pc Engine Guardian / Bloodspawn.

for the content now my opinion 5x heavy Kagrenac's Hope or magnus, 3x willpower and 4x seducer (1x sword board and 1x duel wield)
is a good choice and you help group with your sap damage and healing on duel wield bar...

I would argue against Footman set at endgame, as it only ends up actually mitigating 2-3% of damage once your resists are at or near cap (33.1k). Getting very high resists (with buffs up) is easy to do using Armor Master, so something else would probably serve you better than Footman. Also as a NB, there's no point to Engine Guardian since we rarely run out of resources anyways thanks to Siphoning Attacks. Blood Spawn would also be only so-so when used in conjunction with Armor Master because it would needlessly put you well over resist caps; PvE mobs don't have any sort of armor/spell penetration, so there's no benefit to stacking resists beyond 33.1k.

I run 5 leaching , 3 footmans and 4 bulwark on my nb tank and 5 imperial 3 footmans 4 hist on my dk ni issues on either - just prefer less boaring sets than full hist or footmans

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

TotterTates wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

The_Saint wrote: »

timmayyyboy wrote: »

For a NB magic tank?

For a nb magicka tank and a real endgame (which hopefully coming) i also would prefer something like this:

TotterTates wrote: »

I use 5pc Footman, 5pc Armor Master, 2pc Engine Guardian / Bloodspawn.

for the content now my opinion 5x heavy Kagrenac's Hope or magnus, 3x willpower and 4x seducer (1x sword board and 1x duel wield)
is a good choice and you help group with your sap damage and healing on duel wield bar...

I would argue against Footman set at endgame, as it only ends up actually mitigating 2-3% of damage once your resists are at or near cap (33.1k). Getting very high resists (with buffs up) is easy to do using Armor Master, so something else would probably serve you better than Footman. Also as a NB, there's no point to Engine Guardian since we hard run out of resources anyways thanks to Siphoning Attacks. Blood Spawn would also be only so-so when used in conjunction with Armor Master because it would needlessly put you well over resist caps; PvE mobs don't have any sort of armor/spell penetration, so there's no benefit to stacking resists beyond 33.1k.

This is a very common misconception and unfortunately is flat out wrong (pve mobs not having penetration). While they may only have base values, many use skills that apply major/minor fracture/breach.

As far as mitigation percentages, you can find the full set of calculations somewhere in my build post above.

-edit-

Found it here: Mitigation Calculations

That is a good point about mobs debuffing resistances from their abilities. Again though, that varies by encounter and may or may not always be useful (though hopefully with the new Trial coming out we will see more interesting mechanics/abilities). Is there a list available about which bosses throw out Major debuffs?

I had not seen your mitigation testing, and was going off of the results this person found, which show diminished returns when stacking multiple mitigation bonuses (including blocking+Footman's). I realize the values for block and resist mitigation are different, but was trying to point out that in practice Footman might not always do as much as the tooltip indicates. Based on your understanding and testing, what accounts for the differences in your testing?

I don't really have the time right now to review his post in depth right now (I will later), but there are a number of things that could be throwing off his numbers. The post is quite old. Many of the ways that damage and buffs work have changed. He also may not have taken class passives into account. I'll have to go over the math later.

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

The_Saint wrote: »

timmayyyboy wrote: »

For a NB magic tank?

For a nb magicka tank and a real endgame (which hopefully coming) i also would prefer something like this:

TotterTates wrote: »

I use 5pc Footman, 5pc Armor Master, 2pc Engine Guardian / Bloodspawn.

for the content now my opinion 5x heavy Kagrenac's Hope or magnus, 3x willpower and 4x seducer (1x sword board and 1x duel wield)
is a good choice and you help group with your sap damage and healing on duel wield bar...

I would argue against Footman set at endgame, as it only ends up actually mitigating 2-3% of damage once your resists are at or near cap (33.1k). Getting very high resists (with buffs up) is easy to do using Armor Master, so something else would probably serve you better than Footman. Also as a NB, there's no point to Engine Guardian since we rarely run out of resources anyways thanks to Siphoning Attacks. Blood Spawn would also be only so-so when used in conjunction with Armor Master because it would needlessly put you well over resist caps; PvE mobs don't have any sort of armor/spell penetration, so there's no benefit to stacking resists beyond 33.1k.

2-3% more dmg mitigated its like 10-20% less dmg recived = more effective health. Nothing is so efective as footman for mitigate damage. The only problem is we don't really have any content that requires that amount of mitigation other than ophidian sanctum, and even there i've seen a templar tank tanking the mantikora with ravager jewelry (in 1.6) so...

At the end depends in how you like to play and the group you play with. I tank with my magicka DK with footman + hist bark + engine guardian and mostly permablock and I do well in the new dungeons (havent tanked trials in ages tho, but there you have all synergies you can ask for). For me armor master is too expensive in resources (stamina) to bother to keep it up all the time and slots in my bar. I hist bark and permablock hehe.

I see armor master more a set for tank in medium (or light in combination with bloodspawn or other buff) for a more dps aproach of tanking, specially for a stamina based build where you have a ton of cost reduction for shufle (in my opinion the best skill to combo with armor master). As heavy is overkill.

caperon wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

The_Saint wrote: »

timmayyyboy wrote: »

For a NB magic tank?

For a nb magicka tank and a real endgame (which hopefully coming) i also would prefer something like this:

TotterTates wrote: »

I use 5pc Footman, 5pc Armor Master, 2pc Engine Guardian / Bloodspawn.

for the content now my opinion 5x heavy Kagrenac's Hope or magnus, 3x willpower and 4x seducer (1x sword board and 1x duel wield)
is a good choice and you help group with your sap damage and healing on duel wield bar...

I would argue against Footman set at endgame, as it only ends up actually mitigating 2-3% of damage once your resists are at or near cap (33.1k). Getting very high resists (with buffs up) is easy to do using Armor Master, so something else would probably serve you better than Footman. Also as a NB, there's no point to Engine Guardian since we rarely run out of resources anyways thanks to Siphoning Attacks. Blood Spawn would also be only so-so when used in conjunction with Armor Master because it would needlessly put you well over resist caps; PvE mobs don't have any sort of armor/spell penetration, so there's no benefit to stacking resists beyond 33.1k.

2-3% more dmg mitigated its like 10-20% less dmg recived = more effective health. Nothing is so efective as footman for mitigate damage. The only problem is we don't really have any content that requires that amount of mitigation other than ophidian sanctum, and even there i've seen a templar tank tanking the mantikora with ravager jewelry (in 1.6) so...

At the end depends in how you like to play and the group you play with. I tank with my magicka DK with footman + hist bark + engine guardian and mostly permablock and I do well in the new dungeons (havent tanked trials in ages tho, but there you have all synergies you can ask for). For me armor master is too expensive in resources (stamina) to bother to keep it up all the time and slots in my bar. I hist bark and permablock hehe.

I see armor master more a set for tank in medium (or light in combination with bloodspawn or other buff) for a more dps aproach of tanking, specially for a stamina based build where you have a ton of cost reduction for shufle (in my opinion the best skill to combo with armor master). As heavy is overkill.

I'm not sure I follow your thinking there with those percentages. You're right in that it still decreases the amount of damage you take even if there are diminishing returns (but only by ~3%, not 10-20%) -- the issue is if that smaller percent is still worth he 5 gear slots the set takes up.

It is indeed a problem that there currently isn't any truly challenging tanking content that helps us better understand the true consequences of some bonuses/builds. Group composition is also important, and is why I chose to build the way I did. Since I normally run with pick-up groups in 4-man dungeons, I can't always count on having a good healer so I just decided to become my own healer (also run resto staff on off-bar) by using Juggernaut+Malubeth and speccing more into Magicka/Spell Damage and +healing received.

dancing.in.the.webeb17_ESO wrote: »

has anyone tried black rose for sap tank and always block build? I'm leveling sap tank (now at vr8) resto/1h&sh with 4 mara's gift + 4(5)magnus. And I have enought magika regen to keep siphoning atacks up while spamming sap essence, and it keeps my stamina for almost permanet block. This is leveling build so focused tanking with high DPS.

Black Rose is an interesting set for sure. But currently even after its double nerf, for NBs Siphoning Attacks (with Caltrops, Sap Essence, and/or Twisting Path) still provides better resource return than Black Rose itself.

Autolycus wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

The_Saint wrote: »

timmayyyboy wrote: »

For a NB magic tank?

For a nb magicka tank and a real endgame (which hopefully coming) i also would prefer something like this:

TotterTates wrote: »

I use 5pc Footman, 5pc Armor Master, 2pc Engine Guardian / Bloodspawn.

for the content now my opinion 5x heavy Kagrenac's Hope or magnus, 3x willpower and 4x seducer (1x sword board and 1x duel wield)
is a good choice and you help group with your sap damage and healing on duel wield bar...

I would argue against Footman set at endgame, as it only ends up actually mitigating 2-3% of damage once your resists are at or near cap (33.1k). Getting very high resists (with buffs up) is easy to do using Armor Master, so something else would probably serve you better than Footman. Also as a NB, there's no point to Engine Guardian since we rarely run out of resources anyways thanks to Siphoning Attacks. Blood Spawn would also be only so-so when used in conjunction with Armor Master because it would needlessly put you well over resist caps; PvE mobs don't have any sort of armor/spell penetration, so there's no benefit to stacking resists beyond 33.1k.

That's why you keep footman and run a 5set of leeching as a NB tank. Superior heals + damage and plays very nicely on dps/tank hybrid setups for pvp as well.

I would love to run Leaching set, but can't stand the insane farming grind to get it (not to mention I really don't like Daedric style motifs).

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

I'm not sure I follow your thinking there with those percentages. You're right in that it still decreases the amount of damage you take even if there are diminishing returns (but only by ~3%, not 10-20%) -- the issue is if that smaller percent is still worth he 5 gear slots the set takes up.

From the Tottertates link:

Using 5 Piece Armor Master, 5 Piece Footman, 2 Piece Bloodspawn
Mitigation (Activated + Blocking) 88%

Using 5 Piece Armor Master, 3 Piece Endurance, 2 Piece Agility, 2 Piece Lord Warden
Mitigation (Activated + Blocking) 85%

The 1st setting rercives 12 dmg each 100 and the second 15, so it recives 3 more damage = 25% more dmg recived second setting when you compare it to 1st. In terms of efetcive hp, footman gives you 10-25% more efective hp. That 2-3% increase in mitigation is a big deal because represents a big chunk of the dmg you are finally reciving.

Let's imagine an extreme case. Let's say you achieve 99% mitigation without footman and 100% with it. That tiny 1% would mean you recive 100% less dmg (form 1 to 0) giving you infinnite efective hp. That's of course not possible, but shows in a better way to understand dmg recived as efective hp that is at the end what really matters if you'd want to be the ultimate tank (something i repeat is not really needed).

Nothing in this game has the mitigation that Footman can give you, specially having jewelry, since there isn't that many options for tanking that have jewelry. The combo footman + hist bark is still really strong as long as you can permablock. I can do it with my DK with engine guardian and im pretty sure that a nightblade with siphoning can still do it. Maybe for a templar without corpses or a sorcerer tank would be a diferent story.

TotterTates wrote: »

I use 5pc Footman, 5pc Armor Master, 2pc Engine Guardian / Bloodspawn.

You can look at my build here: The Bastion

I run Totter's build. I literally only tanked three vet dungeons before my guild threw me into tanking SO HM. My first time tanking a trial and had zero problems with the hardest hitting content using this OP build.

eliisra wrote: »

Also, there's sadly no VR16 content right now where you need stuff like Footman/Histbark or any other pure tank oriented sets. You're better of using a set that boost recovery, sustain and dmg. Running around with over 30k health, capped mits while permablocking, is just overkill.

Agreed. The more experienced the tank, and the higher the CP, the less likely it is that said tank will need to aim for caps and permablock capability. For this reason, my guild has all but eliminated tanking for anything "easy" like pledges. We usually have a tank/healer hybrid and 3 dps, or just have the healer put on a taunt for boss fights only. Heck, two days ago we took 4 dps into Spindleclutch and had no issues. Content is too easy right now to necessitate super tanks.

It varies from class to class and build to build, but generally speaking I would say that running either footman or hist (or I suppose whatever single tanking set is your preference) and another set that allows some damage or resource management, is preferable in most cases. Even whilst tanking the mantikora, warrior, serpent, mage, kena, warden, anything in IC, or virtually any trash in any of the aforementioned instances, I don't tank at caps and half my gear is for dps or resources.

Lastly, and this is highly subjective and I fully understand that many will disagree, I've found armor master to be overkill for every one of my builds. It's an awesome set, but running full heavy eliminates the need for it. However, one of my friends runs a templar heal/tank with a few light pieces and the rest heavy, and it works quite well for keeping him at caps, while still having the ability to use light armor for resource management. Just have Harness Magicka, Elude, or Immovable on your bar and you get the 5% max health, and using any of them will put you at or near the hard caps for armor / spell resist, even with a few light pieces.