Tanking

jzholloway · April 2016

http://wp.me/p7aRT7-5b

Let me know what ya'll think. Yes, its from a DK perspective, but a lot of it applies to anyone trying to tank. If you have any suggestions, additions or criticism, please let me know!

Liofa · April 2016

Hello ! I watched videos and read most of the article quickly .

First of all : Your resource management is a problem . You need to work on that .

Second : Recommending 7 Heavy piece is a bad advice for a DK . Since you can easily reach the cap , you don't need extra Resist values . Having more Max Stamina will increase your sustain due to Helping Hands passive .

Third : About City Of Ash . You can roll dodge the fireballs Ash Titan spitting . Rotating tactic is very nice , keep doing that . About your death in Skoria fight . When boss holds his head with his left hand , you should run immediately . It means he is going to put that flame thingy on the ground and every flame will hit you if you stand in the center of it and that is the reason you died . You can watch here how I tank it :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxc33cja0qg

Fourth : About Heavy Armor Focus . When you put 100 points into it . You get 5120 (?) Physical Resist which is %8 physical mitigation . If you take a look at Hardy , it will give you solid percentage of physical mitigation . If you put 20 points into Hardy it will give you %8 physical mitigation . This way you can save yourself 80 points . What I mean is , if you have 25k Resist and 80 points into Hardy , you will be more tankier than anyone with 0 Hardy and 33150 Resist .

Fifth : Make yourself more tankier instead of wasting resources on healing . There is a person called Healer . Let him do his thing .

Sixth : In trials , you won't be having any benefit from Stamina Recovery . I think spending points into Mooncalf is waste . Try to keep your stamina up with using Ultimates and Helping Hands .

Seventh : Reinforced trait . This is the most useless thing . You will reach Resist cap easily with buffs . Don't waste your materials on a reinforced item . I did that and I couldn't be more regretful . I am running Infused on big pieces and Divines on small pieces . Much more better .

Eighth : Weapon enchant . Damage shields in this game have no Resist value . They will take pure damage . If I am not wrong , when you enchant your sword with Kuta , you will get 900 something damage shield . 900 looks good on the first sight but if you consider the no Resist thing ... No . I recommend Stamina Absorb since seeing that you have same resource management issues . I am using that and I am telling you . These little things are the ones that makes your sustain go sky-high .

Other than these , you are more than good . You are holding aggro , keeping the boss in his place , supporting teammates . Hope you get better and better !

jzholloway · April 2016

@Liofa Thanks a lot!

Regarding the CP - still working on that (I wrote it up how I have it at the moment)

With vCoA - this was only my second time at the Ash Titan, first time versus Skoria - so my mechanics was a little shotty.

I agree 100% on the medium / heavy armor comments - right now, ironically, because of drops, my Blood Spawn shoulders are light (infused) - would prefer to have medium to keep up with the Undaunted passives.

Do you mind if I incorporate you comments into my post?

Liofa · April 2016

jzholloway wrote: »

@Liofa Thanks a lot!

Regarding the CP - still working on that (I wrote it up how I have it at the moment)

With vCoA - this was only my second time at the Ash Titan, first time versus Skoria - so my mechanics was a little shotty.

I agree 100% on the medium / heavy armor comments - right now, ironically, because of drops, my Blood Spawn shoulders are light (infused) - would prefer to have medium to keep up with the Undaunted passives.

Do you mind if I incorporate you comments into my post?

Go ahead ^^ If anything else I can help with , just ask ! Good luck !

code65536 · April 2016

I agree with the points Liofa made above and want to add a few more.

Tanking in ESO is about resources more than anything else. As an extreme example, look at the 2-hander bannermen in vMoL. They will debuff you with "Shattered Armor" which reduces your physical resistance to zero, which means the thing standing between you and death is having enough stam to keep blocking, and your resistance stat is totally irrelevant. With mitigation from resistance capped at a paltry 50%, I frankly don't pay much attention to my resistance numbers: blocking and CP spent in Hardy and Elemental Defender are much more important. I'm not saying that I agree with how ZOS designed this game--I'm just saying that this is the way it is.

This is why Reinforced is a bad trait for tanks: Use Infused and Divines. This is why Armor Master is a bad set for tanks: it does absolutely nothing to help with resources. This is why Hist Bar is considered a good set because each attack that's evaded is an attack that does not drain your stam to block. This is why I always go 5H / 1M / 1L with the Undaunted passives for my tank setup for that boost to my max resource pools instead of going 7H.

Personally, my current favorite tanking set for a DK is, by far, Blood Spawn + Tava's Favor. You'll need to cast Shuffle every 23 seconds for the Major Evasion, but it's well worth the cost since this combination gives you so much ulti generation. It means I can blow my War Horn over and over and over. Aside from the huge boost to DPS that this provides, more frequent ultimates also means more frequent resource returns from Battle Roar. Even when tanking the hectic mess that is vMoL, I usually don't run into resource problems because I can cast my ultimate so frequently.

(Though, again, that's advice for a DK because of Battle Roar. I do things differently on a nightblade.)

jzholloway · April 2016

@code65536 Thanks for the reply!

Personally, I do prefer HB - would you still consider running footman with it (and blood spawn)? I have been trying out a lot of different set combinations - it gets expensive at VR16! Normally I would run histbark, but I've been trying AM just to see how I like it.

Unfortunately, I haven't had an opportunity to run any of the trials - unless you count normal DSA - mainly because I don't know a lot of people who run trials, and a lot that do don't want to run new people through, have to explain, etc. with the 3-4 guys I do run dungeons with now on console, we have to rely on either info on the net for mechanics, or just figure it out ourselves.

Again, awesome feedback, I really appreciate it!

dodgehopper_ESO · April 2016

code65536 wrote: »

I agree with the points Liofa made above and want to add a few more.

Tanking in ESO is about resources more than anything else. As an extreme example, look at the 2-hander bannermen in vMoL. They will debuff you with "Shattered Armor" which reduces your physical resistance to zero, which means the thing standing between you and death is having enough stam to keep blocking, and your resistance stat is totally irrelevant. With mitigation from resistance capped at a paltry 50%, I frankly don't pay much attention to my resistance numbers: blocking and CP spent in Hardy and Elemental Defender are much more important. I'm not saying that I agree with how ZOS designed this game--I'm just saying that this is the way it is.

This is why Reinforced is a bad trait for tanks: Use Infused and Divines. This is why Armor Master is a bad set for tanks: it does absolutely nothing to help with resources. This is why Hist Bar is considered a good set because each attack that's evaded is an attack that does not drain your stam to block. This is why I always go 5H / 1M / 1L with the Undaunted passives for my tank setup for that boost to my max resource pools instead of going 7H.

Personally, my current favorite tanking set for a DK is, by far, Blood Spawn + Tava's Favor. You'll need to cast Shuffle every 23 seconds for the Major Evasion, but it's well worth the cost since this combination gives you so much ulti generation. It means I can blow my War Horn over and over and over. Aside from the huge boost to DPS that this provides, more frequent ultimates also means more frequent resource returns from Battle Roar. Even when tanking the hectic mess that is vMoL, I usually don't run into resource problems because I can cast my ultimate so frequently.

(Though, again, that's advice for a DK because of Battle Roar. I do things differently on a nightblade.)

Your points actually explain a lot of my problems with Tanking in ESO. Bravo.

jzholloway · April 2016

@Liofa I had a question about your 4th point - you mention not putting 100 points into HA focus - in the article I only put 17. I put the rest in Quick Recovery (30) and 60 each into Block Expertise and Spell Shield. Do you think taking the 17 out of HA an 3 out of QR would be the right way to go?

With Mooncalf - to be honest, i don't remember why I put points there

But you are right, and I am going to change it.

Currently, my gear is split between reinforced and divines - If I do end up giving Tava's a shot, I will prob make them all infused, maybe with a couple divines. One question that i cannot get answered - if i stay with Blood Spawn on Helmet and Shoulders, 5 piece Tava's Favor - should I keep Footman? The one thing that bothers me with Footman (not the VR13/14 thing) is that you get pieces with exploration, etc. just curious on your thoughts.

I also wanna tag @code65536 again.. again, I really appreciate all of the feed back!

Liofa · April 2016

jzholloway wrote: »

@Liofa I had a question about your 4th point - you mention not putting 100 points into HA focus - in the article I only put 17. I put the rest in Quick Recovery (30) and 60 each into Block Expertise and Spell Shield. Do you think taking the 17 out of HA an 3 out of QR would be the right way to go?

With Mooncalf - to be honest, i don't remember why I put points there But you are right, and I am going to change it.

Currently, my gear is split between reinforced and divines - If I do end up giving Tava's a shot, I will prob make them all infused, maybe with a couple divines. One question that i cannot get answered - if i stay with Blood Spawn on Helmet and Shoulders, 5 piece Tava's Favor - should I keep Footman? The one thing that bothers me with Footman (not the VR13/14 thing) is that you get pieces with exploration, etc. just curious on your thoughts.

I also wanna tag @code65536 again.. again, I really appreciate all of the feed back!

Absolutely . Take your points from HA and QR and give them to Hardy or Elemental Expert . As a Dragonknight , when you activate a Draconic Power ability , you get %12 bonus healing taken which is more than enough .

I am using Footman and I don't think there are any other set that gives more mitigation . If you choose necklace , rings , feet and gloves as Footman ( like I am using ) you only get 1 exploration trait ( feet ) .

Tava's Favor and Blood Spawn is good for keeping Warhorn up . Your resistances may be a bit lower than you expected but no worries . As long as you have good amount of points in Hardy , you are tanky enough .

jzholloway · April 2016

@Liofa thanks, I believe I am going to rework those and run tava's since I haven't really made anything legendary yet, no problem for me to run it and see how I like it.