What's good (crafted) armor for tanking? Tanking stat/build tips appreciated

mattgproctorb14_ESO · July 2016

Recently I had some luck with tanking as a sorc tank, and I wanted to maybe give it a bit more of a serious try. So I was wondering what sort of set I would want to go for as a tank, and as a magicka tank in particular? Other tank tips would be appreciated too, such as should I invest CP into health regen, or is reduced magicka cost/increases magicka regen a better bet? How important is health? Should I invest all my stat points in health? Half? What enchants should I use? What weapon trait should I pick? I have a crafter ready to make a tanking set, but even for a lower quality maybe blue or purple set I still don't wanna waste materials and find out later I should have done it different.

kylewwefan · July 2016

Armor Master. It may be over the top for a DK, but works well on my NB. Footmans, 2 piece and jewelry. Lord warden monster set is very good. Purple food.

Silver_Strider · July 2016

As far as crafted sets go, I will always go for Histbark or Tava's.
Histbark if I'm magic so to save my stamina as much as possible
Tava's for trial tanking as warhorn is to important not to have up.

Forestd16b14_ESO · July 2016

Hist bark is nice but me persoanlly 4 pc of armor master and 3 pc of song of the laeme with 3 pc of morihus. Gives roughly 28-30k resistance so you can use impen or sturdy as your traits.

Barlthump · July 2016

Try black rose, it's a hidden gem of a set that not much people know about.

CreepyPahuska · July 2016

mattgproctorb14_ESO wrote: »

Recently I had some luck with tanking as a sorc tank, and I wanted to maybe give it a bit more of a serious try. So I was wondering what sort of set I would want to go for as a tank, and as a magicka tank in particular? Other tank tips would be appreciated too, such as should I invest CP into health regen, or is reduced magicka cost/increases magicka regen a better bet? How important is health? Should I invest all my stat points in health? Half? What enchants should I use? What weapon trait should I pick? I have a crafter ready to make a tanking set, but even for a lower quality maybe blue or purple set I still don't wanna waste materials and find out later I should have done it different.

The keywords here are sorc tank and magicka tank. I will assume that you tank with absorb shields like Hardened Ward & Harness Magicka.
Magicka sorc tank don't block a lot, only to avoid CC attacks. Thus, using sets like Hist Bark & Footman would be a huge mistake. Tanking with a magicka sorc is nothing like tanking with a stamina DK.
It is also important to note that the damages absorbed by your shields aren't reduced by your armor rating. Having a good physical/spell resistance is still important for when the damages go through your shields (it will happen), so Armor Master can be a good set (since it will proc on harness magicka). Spectre's eye is nice too, but the 5th trait is a bit disapointing.
Avoid sets like Lord Warden & Imperium. Those kind of sets only procs when you HP bar gets damaged directly. Since sorcerers absorb most damages before they reach their HP, these sets are (unfortunately) useless.

Don't invest on health regen, it's kinda useless. You should go for reduced cost/mag. recovery since you're going to spam your shields a lot.
Health is important, but not as important as Magicka. With 30k Magicka and 75-100 points into Bastion (CP), you should have a decent shield (try to reach ~30k shield with Harness Magicka & Hardened Ward combined). 27k HP is enough, try not to go lower though. As for stamina, you still need to block from time to time, but don't invest in max stam & recovery. Using purple foods will give you enough stam. Try to play with SnB and a restoration staff, this way you can weave heavy attacks to recover ressources. Magicka Recovery is still important though, try to get 1300+

Autolycus · July 2016

Armor Master is very counter-productive for magicka sorc tanks.

Your key stats here should be Max Magicka and enough regen to keep your shields up. Everything else should be invested into sets that boost your group, because no matter what class you're tanking on, the role of tanking in ESO is still support. Therefore, your #1 gear option is still Tava's Favor, as with any other tank (noting that you should be using Major Evasion). What you pair with it is up to you, but Blood Spawn is highly encouraged for additional ultimate (especially with Sorcs getting 15% reduction to ult costs). Your other set(s) are up to you at this point. You could run Worm Cult, Alkosh, Ebon, or settle for a mix-match of Willpower and a 2set for magicka.

Note also that, as long as you have a shield active, your physical and spell resistances mean absolutely nothing. Once the shield drops, these stats matter again. If you can sustain shields indefinitely, you can pay little to no heed at all to your resistances. This does alleviate the need for evasion, though.