Currently running a mix of various sets mostly for looks because im vain. Working on a new set up though.

5x spectre's eye. I considered hist bark but the addition to magicka is beneficial for me as a DK stam tank since most DK skills use magicka, the 5 piece bonus will be up all the time when its off cooldown and has an added bonus of a cool effect. I dont perma block anyway.

4x Warrior's fury. Partly for looks and partly for added offensive power. I'd use 5x but the 5 piece doesnt work in pve, will use 5x in pvp though.

3x Agility. More offensive power and lots of stamina. If warrior's fury ever gets changed to work in pve i'll go with a 2x agility or switch it out for a 2x of another set.

Seducer

paulsimonps wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

Why are we limiting this to vr16 sets only? Footman is hands-down the best tanking set in the game imo, even at vr14 stats.

Hahahaha NO! With the severe diminishing return on damage mitigation Footman is not as useful as you think. There are just to many passive sources for mitigation already and now that they added pure physical damage to the CP its even easier. Getting to around 80-85% total mitigation is super easy and using a footman on top of that would only bump it up around 3-4% if even that which is not worthy of a 5p bonus.

Or, you can just use footman and sink pretty much everything else into damage. There is no one set that out-mitigates footman just by putting the gear on. That's what this thread is about, right? Which tanking set is the *best*?

You could use 2 pieces of vr13 footman gear, the rest jewelry, and make 5 other pieces of gear plus weapons that would make a bigger difference in your ability to heal/dps as a tank than any other single tanking set would allow for. In virtually every other scenario, you have to do something in addition to just wearing a "tank" set in order to make up for that mitigation. Footman is the only set that can pretty much make a tank build by itself.

You can easily do a cost-benefit analysis in your head for these sets. Armor Master requires you to have a specific skill on your bar to make it work. So you have 5 gear pieces + 1 skill that you have to "give up" to use it, and unless that skill is active, the mitigation on AM is inferior to Footman. Hist Bark requires 5 gear pieces, all just to do something you can accomplish with a single skill. The other 4 set bonuses on HB are fine, except for health recovery (which is all but completely useless for pve), but they can easily be obtained in a variety of other places either in gear or through skills. Neither of these allows for the same level of mitigation as Footman while still allowing for the highest level of flexibility, and thus higher damage or healing potential.

But hey, I'm not arguing the viability or usefulness of those sets, because I know as well as any other tank does that they have their place. The question posed here is still which is best, and Footman is by far the best set by itself for tanking. Once you start throwing other factors into the equation, you're not asking that question anymore, but rather which *build* is the best.

Some of the best tanks I know in this game are using Footman still. I wouldn't be so quick to presume I'm uneducated on the topic; I've been tanking in ESO for two years and I assure you I've tried everything on that list in a variety of settings, ranging from pvp to pve, and from tank/heal to tank/dps.

The majority of votes on this thread are for Armor Master (which is overkill for mitigation, unless it's used on a light or medium armor set) and Hist Bark (which can easily be made obsolete by slotting a single skill). Both of those sets are great tanking sets. But neither of them comes in jewelry and neither of them by themselves provides for the same level of mitigation as Footman does.

TL;DR - Nuh uh, footman 'n stuff.