Quite a lot of good info in here. Just curious though, is Stamina the only way to go for actual PvE tanking builds?
And if so, what about a Sorc Stam Tank? I've heard that root is the single most important ability for tanks in PvE, because of no diminishing returns. And since Sorcs and DKs are the only folk lucky enough to have it, and we all know DKs can tank well... It might be fun to be a decent Sorc Tank.
Curragraigue wrote: »Stam DK
My stam DK was always intended to be a tank so it is probably the tankiest character I have. I have 50 points in health with the rest in stam. Mundus stone I use Tower for more stam. I use purple food for the boost to all three stats. I use health pots, while tripots would be better I tend to find that I don't really need them.
I use 5 piece heavy Armour Master with sturdy traits and 2 piece medium Bloodspawn with sturdy. I use 3 piece endurance jewellery with stam reduction cost. I use sword and board on both bars Oblivion's Foe set with sturdy on the shield and crushing on one weapon and boost weapon damage on the other.
For my bars I use
1) razor caltrops 2) resolving vigor 3) choking talons 4) invasion 5) eruption u) shifting standard
1) pierce armour 2) green dragon's blood 3) immovable brute 4) venomous claw 5) igneous shield u) magma she'll
The first bar is my trash bar and the second bar is my boss bar. While it is a waste I don't bother using immovable while fighting trash. With Bloodspawn, regular light attacks and mountain's blessing passives with earthen heart abilities regularly being used I have ultimate popping regularly.
When fighting trash I invasion in on the largest group of mobs preferably a healer. I will then talons, then caltrops and then eruption on the mobs. If I have standard up I will drop standard and then light attack and invasion on any mobs near the healer. If I have squishy DPS or they run away pulling mobs away I will swap bars and pierce to pull the mobs back in. Both caltrops and eruption are expensive so make sure to only reapply when you need them. Unfortunately eruption has a very small circle so choose your targets well. Save your stam for vigor, while you won't need it as often for a good group for a PUG you need to be a little more defensive and self reliant.
Boss I will usually invasion in then pierce, immovable brute and venomous claw. For your heal use igneous shield first then GDB so that you get the boost to your heal. Keep immovable up for the capped resistance. Like with the trash bar make sure to keep magicka spare for your heals particularly given that you will have a smaller pool as a stam DK. While it is important for both boss and trash fights I find resource management is more important for boss fights so just keep in mind the battle roar passive (probably my favourite passive in the game) drop standard or pop magma shell to get resources back.
Curragraigue wrote: »Stam DK
My stam DK was always intended to be a tank so it is probably the tankiest character I have. I have 50 points in health with the rest in stam. Mundus stone I use Tower for more stam. I use purple food for the boost to all three stats. I use health pots, while tripots would be better I tend to find that I don't really need them.
I use 5 piece heavy Armour Master with sturdy traits and 2 piece medium Bloodspawn with sturdy. I use 3 piece endurance jewellery with stam reduction cost. I use sword and board on both bars Oblivion's Foe set with sturdy on the shield and crushing on one weapon and boost weapon damage on the other.
For my bars I use
1) razor caltrops 2) resolving vigor 3) choking talons 4) invasion 5) eruption u) shifting standard
1) pierce armour 2) green dragon's blood 3) immovable brute 4) venomous claw 5) igneous shield u) magma she'll
The first bar is my trash bar and the second bar is my boss bar. While it is a waste I don't bother using immovable while fighting trash. With Bloodspawn, regular light attacks and mountain's blessing passives with earthen heart abilities regularly being used I have ultimate popping regularly.
When fighting trash I invasion in on the largest group of mobs preferably a healer. I will then talons, then caltrops and then eruption on the mobs. If I have standard up I will drop standard and then light attack and invasion on any mobs near the healer. If I have squishy DPS or they run away pulling mobs away I will swap bars and pierce to pull the mobs back in. Both caltrops and eruption are expensive so make sure to only reapply when you need them. Unfortunately eruption has a very small circle so choose your targets well. Save your stam for vigor, while you won't need it as often for a good group for a PUG you need to be a little more defensive and self reliant.
Boss I will usually invasion in then pierce, immovable brute and venomous claw. For your heal use igneous shield first then GDB so that you get the boost to your heal. Keep immovable up for the capped resistance. Like with the trash bar make sure to keep magicka spare for your heals particularly given that you will have a smaller pool as a stam DK. While it is important for both boss and trash fights I find resource management is more important for boss fights so just keep in mind the battle roar passive (probably my favourite passive in the game) drop standard or pop magma shell to get resources back.
you really dont need points into health as a tank or at most more then 10 if you low on cp. (this is based on my xp with a dk tank in which i put 14 points into health thinking i needed it and i now have 25k health (target health for tank) without food/drink. that said i wont respec those yet as i still havent decided to go more stam or more magicka focus or keep it split 50/50. also i am training skills ( i train all skills and both morphs regardless if i plan on using) so i generally keep 1 taunt on bar for tanking and rest of skills are skills in training so i dont use my heavy armor skill to push to 35k resists as well as many other skills, all i do is run into a mob and heavy attack, and taunt every thing i can. ( i have tanked easily over 12 adds without issue and rarely ever block) wether i am bad or good at tanking i dont know, but i know few players who have commented have appreciated how i tank.
Minute_Waltz wrote: »Nice work on the guides, one important thing that is missing here is group support, and this is the next step in tanking once you master the taunt/position/survival etc, similar to how as a healer once you can keep your group alive all the time along with resource support, you should then be looking at increasing your group's dps.
Whether its dungeons or trials, its always good to have tanks running warhorn and either armor debuff sets (alkosh), group support sets (ebon/worm/hircine), or ulti regen/reduction for more warhorn in fights (tava/dragon).
Curragraigue wrote: »Minute_Waltz wrote: »Nice work on the guides, one important thing that is missing here is group support, and this is the next step in tanking once you master the taunt/position/survival etc, similar to how as a healer once you can keep your group alive all the time along with resource support, you should then be looking at increasing your group's dps.
Whether its dungeons or trials, its always good to have tanks running warhorn and either armor debuff sets (alkosh), group support sets (ebon/worm/hircine), or ulti regen/reduction for more warhorn in fights (tava/dragon).
Good point. Although I'm still not sold on warhorn for group dungeons. Warhorn like Barrier is designed so that the ult cost is reflective of the number of allies it can be used on in PvP. The cost benefit goes down in my mind when you are using it to buff four people. I can see the value of warhorn for trials where you have a half raid but in that case I wouldn't limit it just to tanks I would get a few people running it so you can try and keep warhorn up all the time in boss fights.
Minute_Waltz wrote: »Curragraigue wrote: »Minute_Waltz wrote: »Nice work on the guides, one important thing that is missing here is group support, and this is the next step in tanking once you master the taunt/position/survival etc, similar to how as a healer once you can keep your group alive all the time along with resource support, you should then be looking at increasing your group's dps.
Whether its dungeons or trials, its always good to have tanks running warhorn and either armor debuff sets (alkosh), group support sets (ebon/worm/hircine), or ulti regen/reduction for more warhorn in fights (tava/dragon).
Good point. Although I'm still not sold on warhorn for group dungeons. Warhorn like Barrier is designed so that the ult cost is reflective of the number of allies it can be used on in PvP. The cost benefit goes down in my mind when you are using it to buff four people. I can see the value of warhorn for trials where you have a half raid but in that case I wouldn't limit it just to tanks I would get a few people running it so you can try and keep warhorn up all the time in boss fights.
Just wondering what kind of dps do you achieve on boss fights as a tank, and how much ulti (shifting standard for example) contribute to that? I can understand healer not using horns in dungeons as they can usually pull high dps and fight is short, but i feel a horn with tank would give better group dps overall.
Minute_Waltz wrote: »Nice work on the guides, one important thing that is missing here is group support, and this is the next step in tanking once you master the taunt/position/survival etc, similar to how as a healer once you can keep your group alive all the time along with resource support, you should then be looking at increasing your group's dps.
Whether its dungeons or trials, its always good to have tanks running warhorn and either armor debuff sets (alkosh), group support sets (ebon/worm/hircine), or ulti regen/reduction for more warhorn in fights (tava/dragon).
OP, why use immovable on a sap tank? Using shades/refreshing path gives you thay buff for 8 seconds anyway. Just reapply that and save stam.
Cool guide and good tips.
I love how their are so many ways of doing things relatively successfull.
Personally on my stamDK i have 0 attribute points into health and only my bloodspawn head piece has a max health glyph.
Everything else has stamina glyphs jewelry mag recovery. I guess i get my health from being imperial and ebon mostly.
I don't agree with you regarding warhorn, it's simply just awesome. I actually have it on both bars now to make sure i don't accidently waste my ultimate if my bars failed to swap or if i messed up myself.
I love tanking atm and still learning every day.
Curragraigue wrote: »Stam DK
My stam DK was always intended to be a tank so it is probably the tankiest character I have. I have 50 points in health with the rest in stam. Mundus stone I use Tower for more stam. I use purple food for the boost to all three stats. I use health pots, while tripots would be better I tend to find that I don't really need them.
I use 5 piece heavy Armour Master with sturdy traits and 2 piece medium Bloodspawn with sturdy. I use 3 piece endurance jewellery with stam reduction cost. I use sword and board on both bars Oblivion's Foe set with sturdy on the shield and crushing on one weapon and boost weapon damage on the other.
For my bars I use
1) razor caltrops 2) resolving vigor 3) choking talons 4) invasion 5) eruption u) shifting standard
1) pierce armour 2) green dragon's blood 3) immovable brute 4) venomous claw 5) igneous shield u) magma she'll
The first bar is my trash bar and the second bar is my boss bar. While it is a waste I don't bother using immovable while fighting trash. With Bloodspawn, regular light attacks and mountain's blessing passives with earthen heart abilities regularly being used I have ultimate popping regularly.
When fighting trash I invasion in on the largest group of mobs preferably a healer. I will then talons, then caltrops and then eruption on the mobs. If I have standard up I will drop standard and then light attack and invasion on any mobs near the healer. If I have squishy DPS or they run away pulling mobs away I will swap bars and pierce to pull the mobs back in. Both caltrops and eruption are expensive so make sure to only reapply when you need them. Unfortunately eruption has a very small circle so choose your targets well. Save your stam for vigor, while you won't need it as often for a good group for a PUG you need to be a little more defensive and self reliant.
Boss I will usually invasion in then pierce, immovable brute and venomous claw. For your heal use igneous shield first then GDB so that you get the boost to your heal. Keep immovable up for the capped resistance. Like with the trash bar make sure to keep magicka spare for your heals particularly given that you will have a smaller pool as a stam DK. While it is important for both boss and trash fights I find resource management is more important for boss fights so just keep in mind the battle roar passive (probably my favourite passive in the game) drop standard or pop magma shell to get resources back.
Curragraigue wrote: »Stam DK
My stam DK was always intended to be a tank so it is probably the tankiest character I have. I have 50 points in health with the rest in stam. Mundus stone I use Tower for more stam. I use purple food for the boost to all three stats. I use health pots, while tripots would be better I tend to find that I don't really need them.
I use 5 piece heavy Armour Master with sturdy traits and 2 piece medium Bloodspawn with sturdy. I use 3 piece endurance jewellery with stam reduction cost. I use sword and board on both bars Oblivion's Foe set with sturdy on the shield and crushing on one weapon and boost weapon damage on the other.
For my bars I use
1) razor caltrops 2) resolving vigor 3) choking talons 4) invasion 5) eruption u) shifting standard
1) pierce armour 2) green dragon's blood 3) immovable brute 4) venomous claw 5) igneous shield u) magma she'll
The first bar is my trash bar and the second bar is my boss bar. While it is a waste I don't bother using immovable while fighting trash. With Bloodspawn, regular light attacks and mountain's blessing passives with earthen heart abilities regularly being used I have ultimate popping regularly.
When fighting trash I invasion in on the largest group of mobs preferably a healer. I will then talons, then caltrops and then eruption on the mobs. If I have standard up I will drop standard and then light attack and invasion on any mobs near the healer. If I have squishy DPS or they run away pulling mobs away I will swap bars and pierce to pull the mobs back in. Both caltrops and eruption are expensive so make sure to only reapply when you need them. Unfortunately eruption has a very small circle so choose your targets well. Save your stam for vigor, while you won't need it as often for a good group for a PUG you need to be a little more defensive and self reliant.
Boss I will usually invasion in then pierce, immovable brute and venomous claw. For your heal use igneous shield first then GDB so that you get the boost to your heal. Keep immovable up for the capped resistance. Like with the trash bar make sure to keep magicka spare for your heals particularly given that you will have a smaller pool as a stam DK. While it is important for both boss and trash fights I find resource management is more important for boss fights so just keep in mind the battle roar passive (probably my favourite passive in the game) drop standard or pop magma shell to get resources back.
Hi, nice post men, just a couple of point from my point of view.
I see you put immovable brute, you can have the same buff from spike armor and keep the stamina since spike is magika, i would put shuffle as the armor skill for the bonus so you would get the armor+evasion combo, and proc more bloodspawn.
It seems overkill to put caltrops+eruption since one aoe+talons are perfectly fine to control the pulls, i would drop caltrops so a dps can apply that with more damage.
I think that you are not using an awesome skill like heroic slash in your bars, i would put that instead of venomous claw, since thats more of a dps skill, you will get more ultimate gen and a damage debuff on the boss with slash.
And talking about awesome skills, where is my chain!! haha thats or signature skill with a DK man, you have control of everything with chains, other clases dream to have something similar, invasion has no to much point as a tank, i would swap them.
Green Dragon Blood - stamina regen as a tank is not so sweet, you cant regen while blocking and in a hard pve situation you are gonna be blocking a lot, so...no stamina reg. thats why in general we focus on magika reg to spam igneous shield while blocking to get stamina back. i would change it for coagulating to get more heal.
Why oblivion foe - health regen its not such a nice stat, i think that as a DK you will get more from magika reg or more hp, i recomend 2 piece trasmutation.
Anyways, just some thougths.
Good luck bro.