Info on tanking set?

N0TPLAYER2 · February 2016

If we're planning on running vet dungeons with a dedicated group, with a healer, 2 dps and a fully fleshed tank, what would you guys reccomend?

I was going to mix and match whitestrakes retribution 5 piece and then a 3/4 Hist bark.

But then looking closer I saw that song of the Lamae 5 and a Alesia's 3/4 would be better.

Can anyone share their throughts?

Yes I know many say you don't need a tank, but my buddy wants to run a tank set since we have a solid group. So even if it's not what you would do, could you share info as to which you would think is better?

And we were also going to go infused health on large pieces, and stamina on the smaller pieces. Nirninhoned on the shield.

Any thoughts? Thanks guys!

UrQuan · February 2016

Personally I think Armour Master is the best crafted set in the game for tanks. Keep a different armour ability on each bar, and keep one of them up most of the time (I like to keep Shuffle active, which gives me the benefit I used to get with Hist Bark, except that I don't have to block for the benefit) and you'll get a nice boost in health and you should be able to get to the 50% damage mitigation hard cap thanks to your high resistance, assuming you've set your build up correctly.

Also, if you can get them, prismatic glyphs on everything is the best choice for a tank. Every tank will use some mix of magicka and stamina, even if they focus primarily on one, and they can always use health. With prismatic glyphs, the combined total of the stat bonuses you get is significantly higher. I wouldn't use prismatic for a DPS or a healer, but they're ideal for a tank.

Hope499 · February 2016

UrQuan wrote: »

Personally I think Armour Master is the best crafted set in the game for tanks. Keep a different armour ability on each bar, and keep one of them up most of the time (I like to keep Shuffle active, which gives me the benefit I used to get with Hist Bark, except that I don't have to block for the benefit) and you'll get a nice boost in health and you should be able to get to the 50% damage mitigation hard cap thanks to your high resistance, assuming you've set your build up correctly.

Also, if you can get them, prismatic glyphs on everything is the best choice for a tank. Every tank will use some mix of magicka and stamina, even if they focus primarily on one, and they can always use health. With prismatic glyphs, the combined total of the stat bonuses you get is significantly higher. I wouldn't use prismatic for a DPS or a healer, but they're ideal for a tank.

This

N0TPLAYER2 · February 2016

I am unable to craft armor master yet. any thoughts between the two sets I mentioned?

For endgame (v16 versions) we will craft what you suggested but this is for vet 3 level runs.

MaxwellC · February 2016

@N0TPLAYER2
I don't see why everyone jumps the armor master train as you have to sacrifice two skill slots for it's benefit.
If you're a DK then armor master is definitely not worth it as you've got the best ability (Hardened Armour).

I personally run 5 hist bark 2 orgnum scales (for more HP) 1 lord warden shoulder (more spell resist) and 3 set endurance for more HP and stamina regen 3 trait. With that setup I mitigate a lot of damage both physical and spell; actually I hit the hard cap/exceed for both easily when buffed.

You don't have to go orgnum scales if you have engine guardian as that's a resource machine that will aid you in blocking and regenerating health, I plan on scraping the orgnum scales for engine guardian when I get it at v16 too

Also if you or your buddy is a DK then 10k-15k magicka will be enough for using abilities to boost your health/recover it, you will just need to put a couple enchantments on your jewlery for magicka reduction.

N0TPLAYER2 · February 2016

He is a dk. Thanks for the info and replies

Merkabeh · February 2016

I use Whitestrake and Histbark currently 5/5 and 4/5...love that Whitestrake shield...saved my ass plenty of times...usually long enough to throw out leap or magma armor, which both have great defensive benefit...by the time those are done, healer should definitely have me back up to snuff.

That being said, I can't craft armor master yet, definitely want to give that a try.

Brrrofski · February 2016

I'm using 2 engine guardian, 4 whitestrakes and 3 Alessia. 3 endurance for jewellery.

I get resource from engine guardian and at the 50% mitigation.

hydrocynus · February 2016

I use armor master x5 engine guardian x2 willpower x3 endurance x2.

Still thinking of tinkering with this and trying 5x armor master 5x pariah 2x engine guardian. Will have to try and see.

Also for DK tank the seducer set is great for additional magicka use.

UrQuan · February 2016

MaxwellCrystal wrote: »

@N0TPLAYER2
I don't see why everyone jumps the armor master train as you have to sacrifice two skill slots for it's benefit.
If you're a DK then armor master is definitely not worth it as you've got the best ability (Hardened Armour).

I personally run 5 hist bark 2 orgnum scales (for more HP) 1 lord warden shoulder (more spell resist) and 3 set endurance for more HP and stamina regen 3 trait. With that setup I mitigate a lot of damage both physical and spell; actually I hit the hard cap/exceed for both easily when buffed.

You don't have to go orgnum scales if you have engine guardian as that's a resource machine that will aid you in blocking and regenerating health, I plan on scraping the orgnum scales for engine guardian when I get it at v16 too

Also if you or your buddy is a DK then 10k-15k magicka will be enough for using abilities to boost your health/recover it, you will just need to put a couple enchantments on your jewlery for magicka reduction.

It's not sacrificing two skill slots if you're making good use of those armour skills. For a DK you would want to slot Shuffle as one of them (which you keep active most of the time, thus giving you the major benefit of the Hist Bark set), and Harness Magicka as the other one (which is situational and won't get used nearly as often, but which is still highly useful in a lot of boss fights). You don't slot Unstoppable, as you're better off using Hardened Armour instead. If you're using those 2 armour skills and wearing armour master, your survivability is vastly increased over what it is with Hist Bark. Hist Bark used to be my go-to set. Armour Master makes my tanks much, much better.

Maddux · February 2016

For me, the best Combination for a Tank is still 5 Pieces Footmans and 5 Pieces Histbark.
- Armor Master forces you to waste 1 or 2 Skillslots, depending if you just want the Resistance or also want the extra Health. Slots you need if run Trials and have to support your Group with Speedbuff, Chains and other Stuff. You also waste Ressources for a Buff, Hist Bark gives you for free.
- Whitestrakes 5 Pieces Bonus looks nice but why you wanna wear a Setbonus that just helps sometimes if you can have a Setbonus that helps you everytime?
- Alessias just helps if you get hit by Meleeattacks and as a DK, you always have to keep up Heroic Slash for the extra Ultimate. There are 4 Skills you have to keep running 100% of the Time: the Taunt, your Armorbuff, a earthen Hearth Ability and Heroic Slash.

The other 2 Slots can be filled with Monstersets or other Combination. I have 3 different Setups actually:
- 1 Lord Warden and 1 (vDSA) Master Sword for more HP
- 2 Pieces Engine Guardian for the Ressources
- 2 Pieces Bloodspawn for faster Ultimate

And there are a lot more Sets you can use, depending on your Playstyle or Luck with RNG.

N0TPLAYER2 · February 2016

Thanks to everyone for their replies.

Kammakazi · February 2016

5x Armor Master

5x Footman

Ishammael · February 2016

BiS for DK tank is still 5pc footman, 5pc histbark, and either bloodspawn or engine guardian. Not much else really comes close.

Peel_Ya_Cap_517 · February 2016

@UrQuan

You're a DK? Doesn't Armour Master put your resistances over the cap? i.e., the set gives you TOO much resistence? I am asking because my DK tank is almost complete and I am debating what set to craft. I am leaning toward Whitestrake because I just love that safety bubble

Also, has anyone tried the Trial By Fire set for tanking? Just how much resistance is that 5000 elemental resistance? is that like an additional 20% resistance to that element?

Thanks for the help!

NBrookus · February 2016

If I were switching to stam, right now I'd probably go 5 piece Armor Master, 2 piece Engine Guardian, 5 piece Footman. If 9 trait Armor Master is out of reach, Hist Bark instead.

Of course, if you are just starting vet dungeons he doesn't have Engine Guardian yet, and Footman is hard to find anymore, especially the 3 jewelry pieces. I would start with planning a Hist Bark or Armor Master 5 piece build (using it for the sword and shields) then see where the weak spots are for his playstyle before choosing the rest.

UrQuan · February 2016

Peel_Ya_Cap_517 wrote: »

@UrQuan

You're a DK? Doesn't Armour Master put your resistances over the cap? i.e., the set gives you TOO much resistence? I am asking because my DK tank is almost complete and I am debating what set to craft. I am leaning toward Whitestrake because I just love that safety bubble

Also, has anyone tried the Trial By Fire set for tanking? Just how much resistance is that 5000 elemental resistance? is that like an additional 20% resistance to that element?

Thanks for the help!

I've got a DK tank and a Templar tank. If you go all heavy, then yeah you'll end up over the cap with Armour Master when you're using Hardened Armour (the same goes for a Templar using Channeled Ward) and an armour skill like Shuffle. But Armour Master lets you use 5 pieces of heavy, 1 piece of medium, and 1 piece of light (none of which you'll use Reinforced on - allowing you to have entirely Infused & Divines) and still hit the cap. That way you get your 5-piece heavy armour passives working, and you get the full effect of your Undaunted passives.

Because I happen to have a screenshot of it handy, here's what my Templar tank's stats look like with his tanking gear, Channeled Ward, and Shuffle active. A DK using Hardened Armour would look pretty much the same.

As you can see, the physical resistance is basically right at the cap, and the spell resistance is somewhat above the cap. And I've got fairly massive resource pools - 31K in health with only 4 attribute points put into health (and I wouldn't even have put 4 points into health except that I like having those 4 points there for a little extra survivability when I'm in my DPS setup or my healer setup).

SanTii.92 · February 2016

I'm gonna hijack this post a bit to ask my question if op doesn't mind

I'm a redguard stamblade full dps specd but I'm thinking on working on a tank setup without changing too much. I'd like to be able to tank most 4man vet dungeons comfortably while doing some decent dmge.
So my questions are about ideal gear, was thinking about a core of 5 armor master on medium; is it possible to hit the armor cap with it? Keeping in mind that I can't take away more than attributes from stamina, what should I use on the other slots?
And lastly how would my bars look like? Was thinking about shield and 2h or dw off bar.

UrQuan · February 2016

sAnn92 wrote: »

I'm gonna hijack this post a bit to ask my question if op doesn't mind
I'm a redguard stamblade full dps specd but I'm thinking on working on a tank setup without changing too much. I'd like to be able to tank most 4man vet dungeons comfortably while doing some decent dmge.
So my questions are about ideal gear, was thinking about a core of 5 armor master on medium; is it possible to hit the armor cap with it? Keeping in mind that I can't take away more than attributes from stamina, what should I use on the other slots?
And lastly how would my bars look like? Was thinking about shield and 2h or dw off bar.

Hmm, I've never tried to tank on a nightblade, so I can't really give you much advice on your bars and such. I'm pretty sure you can hit the resistance caps if you have a heavy reinforced chest piece and a heavy reinforced helmet or shoulders or legs, and medium for the other 5 pieces. You'd want to use Unstoppable as your armour ability, as otherwise as a nightblade you wouldn't be able to get Major Resolve and Major Ward (or at least, I can't think of how you would otherwise). Actually, now that I think about it, doesn't Mirage give you Minor Resolve and Minor Ward? If you keep Mirage and Unstoppable active, you could probably hit the resistance cap with 7 pieces of medium.

Forestd16b14_ESO · February 2016

Well me it's 5 pieces of whitestakes and 2 pieces of hist bark.

Side note IMO song of the lamia needs buffed up were the healing and damage effects are like 6000 just to make that 30 second cool down to make sense or decreases the cool down from 30 seconds to 10. Cause only like 3000 or 4000 healing and damage seems ok but to have a 30 second cool down just makes the set lack luster as a tank set.

Merkabeh · February 2016

Forestd16b14_ESO wrote: »

Well me it's 5 pieces of whitestakes and 2 pieces of hist bark.

Side note IMO song of the lamia needs buffed up were the healing and damage effects are like 6000 just to make that 30 second cool down to make sense or decreases the cool down from 30 seconds to 10. Cause only like 3000 or 4000 healing and damage seems ok but to have a 30 second cool down just makes the set lack luster as a tank set.

Especially compared to Whitestrake more powerful bubble...every 15 seconds.

yake82 · February 2016

Willow path + Lamae. Always Willows, the other pieces change.

Personally ive come to think that NB tanks are better than DKs

First you have Mirage, which gives 20% dodge and Minor ward/resolve for 26sec
Then you got Dark Vigor passive which give +3% hp each ability slotted. With Path, Shades and Veil that makes +9%
NBs gets their Major resolve/ward by casting Shadow ability and you use those 3 skills quite often.
Lastly the Shades inflict Minor Maim which is -15% dmg.

If you have 2-hander in offbar, (Carve for generating ultimate and Rally obviously), you have 2 HoTs , all wards/resolves, Major Dodge, and -15% boss dmg.
Its awesome.

TheValkyn · February 2016

yake82 wrote: »

Willow path + Lamae. Always Willows, the other pieces change.

Personally ive come to think that NB tanks are better than DKs

First you have Mirage, which gives 20% dodge and Minor ward/resolve for 26sec
Then you got Dark Vigor passive which give +3% hp each ability slotted. With Path, Shades and Veil that makes +9%
NBs gets their Major resolve/ward by casting Shadow ability and you use those 3 skills quite often.
Lastly the Shades inflict Minor Maim which is -15% dmg.

If you have 2-hander in offbar, (Carve for generating ultimate and Rally obviously), you have 2 HoTs , all wards/resolves, Major Dodge, and -15% boss dmg.
Its awesome.

Also, syphoning attacks will proc from paths (and others). Back before the Imperial City patch Nightblade sap tanks that used paths, caltrops and sap essence would have infinite resources and be near invincible.

M_TeK_9 · February 2016

I tank vPrison, vWGT, Sanctum, etc with

5pc Imperium, 3pc Resilient Yokeda, 2pc Skoria, 2pc Hist Bark (on both bars for sword and shield)

or

5pc Hist Bark, 5pc VR14 Footman and 2pc Malubeth Scourger's.

Armor master is redundant for me as it skyrockets my resistances way above cap. Also -

UrQuan wrote: »

Personally I think Armour Master is the best crafted set in the game for tanks. Keep a different armour ability on each bar, and keep one of them up most of the time (I like to keep Shuffle active, which gives me the benefit I used to get with Hist Bark, except that I don't have to block for the benefit) and you'll get a nice boost in health and you should be able to get to the 50% damage mitigation hard cap thanks to your high resistance, assuming you've set your build up correctly.

Also, if you can get them, prismatic glyphs on everything is the best choice for a tank. Every tank will use some mix of magicka and stamina, even if they focus primarily on one, and they can always use health. With prismatic glyphs, the combined total of the stat bonuses you get is significantly higher. I wouldn't use prismatic for a DPS or a healer, but they're ideal for a tank.

I use medium armor master in cyrodil and as long as the ability is triggered I just have to keep one armor ability on only one bar for the bonus'.

And I gotta add DK's > any class for tanking. Just remember tanking isn't all about being a dmg sponge. People can claim Templar or Noobblade all the want but a good tank controls the battlefield kind of like a game of chess and nothing can do that better than extended chains.

rob_ber · February 2016

Magtank here, using 5x Seducers, 5x Pariah, 2x Malubeth

Vildebill · February 2016

Here's a video Deltia did the other day when he compares Hist Bark with Armor Master:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDnlS3TriMs

Conclusion is that Armor Master is better but takes more resources and work to keep up.

Better in terms of more spell and physical resistance i forgot to add

laksikus · February 2016

Is any Sap tank here that uses Armor master?

Atm im still using the v15 hist bark i crafted shortly after IC, but now im coming near 9th trait heavy armor.
And i actually wondered if i should switch to armor master.

My problem is as NB: i get the Major Resolve and Ward from Shadow barrier, so immovable is out of question to use.
Harness Magicka, usefull in PVP while tanking as its a nice shield, but in PVE quite useless i think.

That brings me to Elusive, as NB i got Double take as mag alternative, better for me as i dont have a big stam pool, and i need it to block and caltrops, so ELusive is deffinetly not perfect for me, especially that i would need to cast it every 10s to get armor master buff.

So any sap tank here that can tell me what he is using?

hrothbern · February 2016

laksikus wrote: »

Is any Sap tank here that uses Armor master?

Atm im still using the v15 hist bark i crafted shortly after IC, but now im coming near 9th trait heavy armor.
And i actually wondered if i should switch to armor master.

My problem is as NB: i get the Major Resolve and Ward from Shadow barrier, so immovable is out of question to use.
Harness Magicka, usefull in PVP while tanking as its a nice shield, but in PVE quite useless i think.

That brings me to Elusive, as NB i got Double take as mag alternative, better for me as i dont have a big stam pool, and i need it to block and caltrops, so ELusive is deffinetly not perfect for me, especially that i would need to cast it every 10s to get armor master buff.

So any sap tank here that can tell me what he is using?

@laksikus ,

My NB Magicka Heavy Armor Sap Tank does not use Armor Master,
but I will try out to use it for a NB Stamina Medium Armor Tank build.

In the following thread, comment 36 from @Septimus_Magna sheds some light on this combi:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/224687/armor-master-and-why-youre-using-it-
i intend to use the same outfit

UrQuan · February 2016

M_TeK_9 wrote: »

I use medium armor master in cyrodil and as long as the ability is triggered I just have to keep one armor ability on only one bar for the bonus'.

If you do that then when you weapon swap you lose the 5% bonus to your health.

Septimus_Magna · February 2016

hrothbern wrote: »

laksikus wrote: »

Is any Sap tank here that uses Armor master?

Atm im still using the v15 hist bark i crafted shortly after IC, but now im coming near 9th trait heavy armor.
And i actually wondered if i should switch to armor master.

My problem is as NB: i get the Major Resolve and Ward from Shadow barrier, so immovable is out of question to use.
Harness Magicka, usefull in PVP while tanking as its a nice shield, but in PVE quite useless i think.

That brings me to Elusive, as NB i got Double take as mag alternative, better for me as i dont have a big stam pool, and i need it to block and caltrops, so ELusive is deffinetly not perfect for me, especially that i would need to cast it every 10s to get armor master buff.

So any sap tank here that can tell me what he is using?

@laksikus ,

My NB Magicka Heavy Armor Sap Tank does not use Armor Master,
but I will try out to use it for a NB Stamina Medium Armor Tank build.

In the following thread, comment 36 from @Septimus_Magna sheds some light on this combi:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/224687/armor-master-and-why-youre-using-it-
i intend to use the same outfit

Armor Master with 5x MA/2x HA allows you to cap armor+spell resist with Immovable for 10s.
To proc the Armor Master bonus with Immovable every 10s you need decent stamina sustain.
The best way to get this is to cast Caltrops and Siphon Attacks, without Caltrops sustain is a bit tricky.

Health sustain is pretty easy with Resolving Vigor and Rally.
And you can always cast a Veil of Blades when times get though.

Overall its a fun and active tanking setup, you cant sit behind your shield because you lack the 20% block cost reduction from 5x HA. You really need to block actively so you benefit from the increased stamina regen from the medium armor passives.

p.s. you dont need legendary gear to reach the resist cap which saves a lot of gold.

Resipsa131 · February 2016

@UrQuan
What should I take off my bars to fit both Shuffle and Annulment? Currently running Pierce Armor (Taunt, Major Breach/Major Fracture) Coagulated Dragon Blood, Igneous Shield, Absorb Magic, and Hardened Armor

Reverberating Bash (for the defile), Heroic Slash (Ultimate generation), Chains (to pulls adds for DPS), Inner Fire (Range Taunt), Choking talons.

Using Purple Drink for Regen My attributes are split between health and Stamina.