How are your tank setups?

phaneub17_ESO · May 2016

Tanking in ESO is kind of iffy compared to other MMO's I have ever played. There's none of the traditional threat/aggro modifier or ways to manage it, the only way in this game is either Taunt or be the first one to drop an AOE attack. After that it's whoever heals or does an AOE attack with more damage that gets all the attention. So I figure we post our setups of how we deal with tanking in ESO, whether its for casual gameplay or serious; my setups are casual as in I only do Normal Dungeons. I don't think I can handle the frustration of pugging Veteran dungeons via random group finder, at least as a tank anyway, healer or DPS is a different story.

My templar tank
Bar 1 - Explosive Charge(Mobility/AOE), Puncturing Sweep(Attack/AOE/Heal), Pierce Armor(Taunt), Repentance(Utility), Restoring Focus(Defense), and my Ultimate on this bar is Solar Disturbance.
Bar 2 - Structured Entropy(Attack), Reflective Light(Attack), Inner Rage(Taunt), Repentance(Utility), Purifying Ritual(Heal), the Ultimate on this bar is Aggressive Horn.

My nightblade tank still a work in progress
Bar 1 - Lotus Fan(Mobility/AOE), Refreshing Path(Attack/AOE/Mobility/Heal/Kitchen Sink), Pierce Armor(Taunt), Mirage(defense), Swallow Soul(Heal), and my Ultimate on this bar is Veil of Blades.
Bar 2 - Structured Entropy(Attack), Impale(Attack), Inner Rage(Taunt), Syphoning Attacks(Utility), Sap Essence(Attack/AOE/Heal), and the Ultimate on this bar is Aggressive Horn.

My first bars focus more on up close in melee range while keeping the packs together with AOE spam. My swap bars focus on single target ranged attacks and heals to keep me up in case I'm the only one left standing which has happened on occasion when people fail to move out of Red circles. Which Ultimate I tend to use depends on the group, if they're a high DPS party then Aggressive Horn is what I mostly use, but if they aren't or there's a lot of trash mobs with the boss I use the AOE Ultimate.

Haquor · May 2016

I used to run 5x footman, 5 histbark and 2 bloodspawn/engine. But now im running 5x armor master and 5x curse and engine guardian or bloodspawn.

All very similar setups as far as buffs and taunts go. All are stam based.

Stamplar

1: jabs, pierce armor, absorb magic, inner fire, vigor , solar prison
2: rune focus, heroic slash, absorb magic, caltrops, shuffle, empowered sweep

Dk

1: talons, pierce armor, absorb magic, inner fire, vigor/coagulating blood, standard of might
2: volatile armor, heroic slash, absorb magic/chains, shuffle, ferocious leap

Sorc

1: Boundless storm, pierce armor, absorb magic, heroic slash, bound armaments, flawless dawnbreaker
2: caltrops, inner fire, absorb magic, shuffle, bound armaments, absorption field

Nb

1: suprise attack, pierce armor, absorb magic, inner fire, vigor, soul harvest
2: siphoning attacks, heroic slash, absorb magic, caltrops, shuffle, veil of blades

mistermutiny89 · May 2016

My sap tank is AMAZING in PUG groups.

He's the one that gets me the most attention from randoms saying thanks and adding me after a run. This is because he off heals and does CONSTANT damage the entire fight.

He also draws more attention from enemy NPC's due to refreshing path... Being both an aoe and a heal, meaning that on trash mobs he doesn't need to taunt too often.

I have my front bar

Funnel Health, Pierce armour, Refreshing path, Sap Essence, Debilitate, Soul Harvest (ultimate gain like cray)

Back bar:

Impale, Inner Rage (?) magicka morph, Shades or Vigor or Proxy, Siphoning Attacks, Mirage, Aggressive Warhorn.

Funnel health can crit for 6k, and heals one other player per cast, you can block cast it, it's free, and gives ultimate from both the siphon passives and healing allies.

Pierce armour taunts and debuffs enemies, refreshing path does minor damage but commonly crit heals for 2-3k it's a reasonable gap closer or escape route too, sap essence is good to spam in trash mobs with siphoning attacks up, you don't even have to hold block during those fights in easier dungeons, just do your quaint 4K aoe damage and heals with light attack weaves. Debilitate does single target dot damage and let's you kite mobile bosses, wraiths and daedroths with ease, without killing them or losing mass amounts of stam (that gold key though).

Impale crits for 16k on bosses with war horn up, returns magicka on trash kills with assassination passives and can open an arcane well for you, it also block casts well, inner rage is a good opener on trash pulls for the synergy (if magicka is high, cast it until the red and yellow pop up on an enemy), Vigor is great for when your healer is .... Not a healer, proxy is great for dps, shades are great for minor maim and the extra health for being slotted, siphoning attacks for resources, mirage for dodge and extra resist... Warhorn for dps.

I use five twice born with thief and Atronach bonuses on average pledges and the two resistance mundus on tougher dungeons. Three healthy willpower and four song of Lamae.

Sap tanks are super easy and fun to play, they let you play like a dps, off heal and need no Tavas blessing because the ultimate regeneration is amazing already. They suffer from lack of cc's though.

AverageJo3Gam3r · May 2016

5pc black rose, 3 agility, 2 endurance, 2 bloodspawn is my current undaunted dungeon setup.

The key for tanks during trash pulls is mob control. Caltrops, talons, etc.

Silver_Strider · May 2016

Depends on if I'm Stamina or Magic and what content I'm doing.

Stamina
5pc Black Rose, 4 Night Mother's Embrace, 2 Blood Spawn, Maelstrom Mace

Magic
5pc Kagrenac's Hope, 3 Willpower, 2 Engine Guardian, 2 Seducer

For Trials
5pc Ebon, 5 Worm Cult/Hircine, 2 Blood Spawn.

sekou_trayvond · May 2016

I run two tanks, one is a traditional Nord DK. Relies on Armor Master and Hist Bark. Very tanky. Uses bow backup for ranged enemies. Works fine, but I'm tinkering on making a Tavas ultimate gen build for warhorning.

My other tank, Dunmer magplar that, thanks to a Gottbeard vid, has transitioned to a Blazing Shield, 51k health monster. Ebon Armory/Fasallas plus mismatched monster set, 2 endurance, 3 clever alchemist.

Does virtually nothing but shield, taunt, light and heavy attacks, rinse and repeat. Near unkillable in a group setting. Her only problem is range. No toon I've ever run has piqued more interest from randoms.

ninjaguyman · May 2016

on my NB tank:

bar 1:
refreshing path, pierce armor, sap, swallow soul, siphoning strikes, warhorn

bar 2
double take, inner fire, sap, impale, shadow image, veil of blades

NB's inherently lack a reliable CC( fear does not really count) and i cant use caltrops anymore without it proccing siphoning attacks so for gear i use

5x bahraha's curse(25% chance on all damage abilities to heal and 70% snare on enemies)
4xAlessia's bulwark( not sure if ill keep this, but gets me to 34k, 33.5k resistances as im a breton)
- I'd add say malubeth monster set and a 2 piece but I don't have that set in v16
3x willpower

double take, then open with refreshing path, taunt the big bads, sap and swallow soul while taunting any additional adds that start to follow the other group members with inner fire. Throw in shades when fighting bosses, impale to help in execute phase. warhorn whenever its ready, or veil if im low stamina or health.

The most annoying content I have to deal with as a NB are those that require you to keep X amount of monsters alive when killing the boss. Since all my heals involve damaging enemies I have to tone down how much I spam abilities so I don't accidentally kill them. Its not like i kill them fast, but they'd die over the course of the boss fight, which sometimes enrages group members as they'd want me to tank and keep all the monsters alive as they come out. To deal with this I try not to shoot swallow souls at the adds, but at the boss which the dps are dealing with nearby. refreshing path wont do that much damage to them, but those two hots alone wont keep me alive, especially if I have to drop block to heavy attack for stamina. spamming sap would usually be the answer, but thats what would usually end up killing them in an extended fight. I might swap out veil of blades for bolstering darkness as it wouldn't do damage, but veil is usually the go to choice since it helps contribute to the groups dps. But thats the traditional thought I would think. That might not still be the case however since aggressive warhorn is the new go to for a tank ultimate that would boost group dps.

Johngo0036 · May 2016

I have an orc stamina tank running 5 Pariah, 5 armour master and engine guardian,

Its amazing that the code for engine guardian is working as intended.... ooh you need stamina, here is some health......WTF!!

It never seems to give me what i want or need...lol.....

I am going to drop armour master for Tava's

MrTarkanian48 · May 2016

Johngo0036 wrote: »

I have an orc stamina tank running 5 Pariah, 5 armour master and engine guardian,

Its amazing that the code for engine guardian is working as intended.... ooh you need stamina, here is some health......WTF!!

It never seems to give me what i want or need...lol.....

I am going to drop armour master for Tava's

I currently dropped Engine Guardian due to this reason.

I am currently using a somewhat unique build on my imperial stam DK tank (at least I haven't seen others run it this way).5 Heavy, 2 Light, Reinforced Chest and Shield, Divines on all other pieces. It currently runs 5 piece armor master, 4 kagrenacs on the front boss bar. 4 piece Armor master, 5 pc kagrenacs on the back bar. I also bought 3 piece gold Transmutation jewelry for the 2x mag recovery. 2 mag recovery enchants, 1 reduced block cost. With atronach mundus my mag recovery is around 1900-2000 w/o potion active.

Bar 1: Unstoppable, Absorb Magic, Heroic Slash, Igneous Shield, Pierce Armor, Aggressive Warhorn

Bar 2: Coagulating Blood, Cinder Storm, Choking Talons, Unrelenting Grip, Inner Fire, Magma Shell

In boss fights I can proc armor master to hit the resist cap(well over cap in spell resist, not quite the cap in physical, but I am running all purple gear since I am reluctant to use the tempers with the upcoming changes in DB), and maintain ulti gen with Light Attack, Heroic Slash, and igneous shields. I can work in Igneous as well to maintain stamina.

In trash fights I drop cinder storm and chains in mobs, and can keep talons up 100% since I recover mag faster than I spend it with talons.

I use aggressive war horn when the situation is under control to buff the group, and Magma shell occasionally when I am getting pressured.

Also in the unfortunate instance where the rest of the team wipes I can use unstoppable for resist and CC immunity and/or magma shell then get on my back bar and get people off the deck quickly with the kagrenac rez speed bonus. Not a huge deal when you are running with a good group, but I have saved a lot of wipes this way, especially in pugs.

Still relatively new to tanking but this has worked well for me in most 4 man content. Have not tested in in trials or Prison. It does very little damage however, and I switch to DPS gear for some fights (planar inhibitor, engine guardian, etc.)

Kattemynte · May 2016

My templar magicka tank build (I went for more spell damage for more healing with jabs):
5 piece Kagrenac's Hope (magicka enchants on chest, helm and shield, health on everything else)
2 piece Engine Guardian
Main bar: Mace and Shield 2 piece Torug's Pact
Second bar: Sword + Sword 2 piece Torug's Pact
Rings and Necklace 3 piece Willpower Set with all Healthy and Spell Power Enchant (though thinking of making 1 or 2 magicka regen)
Mundus Stone: Atronach for magicka regen or Thief for spell crit (depends on dungeon/group)
Attributes: 39 Magicka, 25 Health
Main Bar Skills: 1- Pierce Armor 2- Inner Rage 3- Puncturing Sweeps 4- Blazing Shield 5- Channeled Focus; Ulti- Empowering Sweep
Secondary Bar: 1- Vampire's Bane 2- Flex: Purifying Ritual/Blazing Spear/Purifying Light 3- Flex: Puncturing Sweeps/Dark Flare 4- Radiant Oppression (as tank might take healing morph to help healer during burn phases) 5- Flex: Repentance/Structured Entropy; Ulti- Ice Comet/Solar Prism

Main Bar is primarily for tank and buffs and the secondary bar is for damage/situational fights. I almost never go as a dps class in mmo's because I am terrible at skill rotations and this set up allows for that. I usually cast Channeled Focus then Blazing Shield before a fight and then charge in and grab aggro of the most important mobs while spamming Puncturing Sweeps to help contain others (Planning on using Purifying/Extended Ritual once DB comes out for snare/damage and with my high spell power the DoT will be significant enough; would use Caltrops but not a PvPer). Refresh Channeled Focus and Blazing Shield as needed but honestly I usually just switch to my Second Bar and help dps mobs down. As I go make sure to taunt necessary mobs. I'll be honest and I usually do not block during these pulls, I do enough damage with Sweeps that I am almost always at full health. Also a very under-rated Ultimate Empowering Sweeps is very good on mob/trash pulls: Low Cost, 360 AoE fairly strong magic damage that then hits for less 3 more times AND reduces damage taken by 15% +4% for each enemy hit. This means if I happen to hit just 5 mobs I am taking 35% less damage along with my shield and sweeps for 10 seconds.

Bosses are kind of the same, however as I charge in I use Vampire's Bane and Structured Entropy to get spell crit and power then taunt the boss(es) and get them situated. If they like to stay on me I make my house (Channeled Focus and Ritual) and Sweep them down making sure to watch my Vampire's Bane and Entropy buffs are up. I only have 27k health so I tend not to use Blazing Shield often as it is only 6 seconds and 1 hit from a boss usually ends it.

With Tri-stat food I sit at 28k Magicka, 27.5K Health, 12k Stamina; Magicka Recovery at 1k (add 240 a second with Focus)
2.4k unbuffed Spell Damage
22% spell crit (buffed with vampires bane...only 32-ish% but is still pretty good)
30k Spell Reistance and 25k Physical Resistance (I do not have best in slot either so could be better but add 5k to both with Channeled Focus)

Each boss fight is different and my main goal is to keep aggro, once that is established then I focus on dps. Depending on the boss I pull and average of 8k DPS (range is 4k to 12k DPS)

This is very fun and I even use a light armor set of 5 for soloing to help increase my damage.