Tank Armor Sets Combo question

TankHealz2015 · August 2016

Lizardman-DragonKnight-Tank-V16

Wondering about this build if anyone has already tried it- is it fantastic? epic fail? something else?

If you have tried this... was is effective for PvP or PvE or both?

5 pc Permafrost (2 heavy and 3 jewelry) = when damage shield is up grant myself 885 health recovery
5 pc Brand of Imperium (5 heavy) = 6% chance when I take damage grant myself AND allies 12k+ damage shield for 8 seconds

bar 1 = sword & shield
bar 2 = sword & shield (or flexi to other fun weapon for solo or PvP)

Damage shield options include:
igneous shield
bone armor (undaunted line)
hardened charge (opposite of the invasion morph in sword & shield line)
magma shell (ult)
regenerating barrier (ult)
Weapon enchantments

Jewelry enchantments = I normally run reduce cost/regen enchantments, but with Lizardman perhaps reduce potion cooldown?

Thoughts?

ThePaleItalian · August 2016

To be honest. If you like it and its working for you and you can tank Vet Dungs and Trials, then go for it. There are so many builds, don't get caught up in "best" There are way to many opinions out there and if you keep trying them all, all you will do is frustrate yourself.

I run 5 piece Hist Bark, 3 piece endurance and Engine guardian, I love it, it works fine and I can tank anything.

I would say Warhorn is great. I use Magma armor as well and others will tell you Standard.

Get Vigor, best heal you can get for Stam.

TankHealz2015 · August 2016

So, nobody has even sampled this armor set or combo?

Brrrofski · August 2016

You don't need those kind of buffs really.

It's more about resource management and ultimate gain in all honesty.

code65536 · August 2016

4p Permafrost (3p jewelry and shield), 5p Imperium, Maelstrom sword, and 2p Engine is what I use on my stam DK when I need to gear-swap to tanking.

It's a poor on-the-budget setup that I pieced together from dropped gear that I had sitting around. My stam DK isn't my main tanking character (a mag DK is better for tanking), so I just wanted a cheap set of gear that I could have her swap into for pledges or other simple tanking tasks.

It's perfectly fine for easy content like 4-man dungeons. But I would not even consider using this for a vet-mode trial.

The 2-4p bonus on Permafrost is pretty useful for a tank--all three are stats that are very useful for tanking.
The 5p bonus is pretty much worthless because health recovery in this game is pretty much useless. Recovery ticks every 2s. 800 health recovery is basically like getting 400 HPS. In contrast, when I'm self-healing on my mag DK tank with Embers spam, I can easily hit 4K HPS. More in a fully-buffed situation: to relieve a little stress from the healer, I spam my self-heals when the Warrior is doing his channel in vHRC, and I was able to pull 6K HPS self-heals with Embers during that.
Imperium is sub-par compared to Ebon. Yes, it's a big shield, but the duration is fairly short, and, most importantly, it's a random, unreliable proc. It's not a bad set, per se, and I use on my alt tanks because I got many pieces of it while farming for SPC. But in all the months that I've used Imperium, I have never run into a situation where I thought, "Wow, that shield just saved us!" A set like Ebon, which provides a reliable, consistent health buff, is much better for group defenses than Imperium.
Tanking in ESO is about supporting the group. For difficult endgame content like vet trials, most tanks wear Blood Spawn (more ulti gen means more Aggressive War Horn casts from the tank--and ultis restore resources, so it's indirectly good for resource management, too), Tava's Favor (for the same reason), and Ebon (for the group defensive buff). Other sets to consider are Werewolf Hide (dropped medium set; use 3p jewelry 2p medium so that you can fit in 5p heavy--very good ulti gen) and Alkosh (dropped medium set; use 3p jewelry 2p medium; excellent enemy debuff).

Again, Permafrost and Imperium aren't bad sets. They are competent sets, and I do use them for simple tanking on alts. But you could (and should) do much better for the more serious content.

TankHealz2015 · August 2016

@code65536,

Fantastic and thorough response.
Thank you for breaking it down for me.

Thank you!

Travy_2Hype · August 2016

For my DK Tank (which is Stamina based)

I use:
Blood Spawn Monster Set - Ult Regen
Tara's Favor (5 Trait Set) - Adds max Health, Stamina Recovery, Magicka Recovery, and Ult Regen
[4-5 Pieces] Knightmare Set - Adds physical resistance, max Health, weapon damage, and reduces enemy damage by 15%

I run 1H/Shield and Bow. When I use 1H and Shield my Knightmare Set utilizes all 5 piece bonus.
However, I mostly use Knightmare Set in conjuncture with Tava's Favor because I already had the Knightmare Set and didn't feel like searching for anything else, but it does me well.

AverageJo3Gam3r · August 2016

Tanking is fairly easy--it's just a resource management game and it's fairly boring. To be the most "powerful" tank, aka, one that helps their group the most, run bloodspawn, tavas, and potentates for maximum warhorns.

Travy_2Hype · August 2016

AverageJo3Gam3r wrote: »

Tanking is fairly easy--it's just a resource management game and it's fairly boring. To be the most "powerful" tank, aka, one that helps their group the most, run bloodspawn, tavas, and potentates for maximum warhorns.

Blood Spawn and Tavas is relatively easy to acquire. Potentates, not so much...

DKsUnite · August 2016

Travy_2Hype wrote: »

AverageJo3Gam3r wrote: »

Tanking is fairly easy--it's just a resource management game and it's fairly boring. To be the most "powerful" tank, aka, one that helps their group the most, run bloodspawn, tavas, and potentates for maximum warhorns.

Blood Spawn and Tavas is relatively easy to acquire. Potentates, not so much...

potentates is like 5k per piece from the guild store lol

paulsimonps · August 2016

I run 5 Alkosh 5 Hist Bark and 2 Engine guardian. I know that the current meta is 5 alkosh 5 tavas and 2 bloodspawn. But I like my resource management with my set up and the team I am in can still pull of a warhorn every 15-20s which is really good. And hey I completed veteran maw with that set up so can't be to bad.

TankHealz2015 · August 2016

Yeah, I have the Tavas/Blood Spawn/Bahara's tank set. I'm just always looking for new innovative build combos.

Hey what about this set:

Alkatosh Blessing: HA 5pc while blocking 33% chance to blind your attacker for 5 seconds (occur once every 10 sec)

This set only goes up to level 50, but combined with Hist Bark or Shuffle or some other set ... could be quite interesting.

I read that it does not work on Dungeon Bosses though... not sure about PvP. Still, for Vet dungeons/trials with lots of adds...

Thoughts? What would you combine it with?

paulsimonps · August 2016

TankHealz2015 wrote: »

Yeah, I have the Tavas/Blood Spawn/Bahara's tank set. I'm just always looking for new innovative build combos.

Hey what about this set:

Alkatosh Blessing: HA 5pc while blocking 33% chance to blind your attacker for 5 seconds (occur once every 10 sec)

This set only goes up to level 50, but combined with Hist Bark or Shuffle or some other set ... could be quite interesting.

I read that it does not work on Dungeon Bosses though... not sure about PvP. Still, for Vet dungeons/trials with lots of adds...

Thoughts? What would you combine it with?

In PvP sure, in a one on one situation. Problem is it only effects 1 target at a time and has a cooldown of 10s. So not really all that useful when they made it not work on PvE bosses. But in all honesty either revamp the set or remove it.

TankHealz2015 · August 2016

Good points.

Woeler · August 2016

Travy_2Hype wrote: »

AverageJo3Gam3r wrote: »

Tanking is fairly easy--it's just a resource management game and it's fairly boring. To be the most "powerful" tank, aka, one that helps their group the most, run bloodspawn, tavas, and potentates for maximum warhorns.

Blood Spawn and Tavas is relatively easy to acquire. Potentates, not so much...

Don't even run potentates. Run Alkosh.

DRXHarbinger · August 2016

TankHealz2015 wrote: »

Yeah, I have the Tavas/Blood Spawn/Bahara's tank set. I'm just always looking for new innovative build combos.

Hey what about this set:

Alkatosh Blessing: HA 5pc while blocking 33% chance to blind your attacker for 5 seconds (occur once every 10 sec)

This set only goes up to level 50, but combined with Hist Bark or Shuffle or some other set ... could be quite interesting.

I read that it does not work on Dungeon Bosses though... not sure about PvP. Still, for Vet dungeons/trials with lots of adds...

Thoughts? What would you combine it with?

Akatosh blessing got nerfed hard. It doesn't work on most bosses and pretty much nothing in trials. People almost did vMoL with it and posted a video of it. ZOS saw it and nerfed it.

Oompuh · August 2016

Tava's and Blood Spawn are the main sets you want the third set can be interchanged for sets like: Ebon, Alkosh, Potentates, Akaviri Dragonguard, Eternal Yokeda, Footman, etc. A good tank is tanky enough to not get 1 banged and can blow warhorns quickly for maximize group DPS

TankHealz2015 · August 2016

I'm gonna see which third set I can gather up faster:

Akavari Dragonguard - now drops v16 in trials. I always liked this set. If I can get the right pieces probably my preferred.

Glory Defender - after using a light attack gives a 9-10% chance to dodge - drops in Maelstrom Arena, which... I don't like so much cause A) random

requires certain builds to be successful c) i'm only able to do it on normal mode

I just bought a bunch of Alkatosh... but it seems it is not worth th trouble anymore... oh well.

Alkosh - use synergy and send shock wave out to enemy - sounds awesome, but drops in trials and kinda hard to get the full set.... love to pair it with Thunderous Plate sometime for "Tesla Power Build".

code65536 · August 2016

Glorious Defender is such a bad set.

First, when tanking endgame content such as vet trials, there are very few opportunities where you can drop block and work in a light attack. Permablocking is the name of the game if you're doing something like tanking the axes in vAA. For easier content, such opportunities exist more, but things hit like a wet noodle there anyway.

Second, just use Evasion (medium armor skill) or Blur (Nightblade skill) to get a 20% dodge chance for 20+ seconds. Not a paltry 9% chance to dodge just a single attack after you land a light attack, but a 20% chance to dodge any number of attacks that happen within the entire duration of the skill.

It is a good as a source of Auric Tusks from decon, though...

TankHealz2015 · August 2016

@code65536

Ok, thanks for the feedback.

Currently I am actually running TAVA'S + Blood Spawn monster helm set + Potentates weapon set

But, I keep getting other sets as loot and wondering ...which ones would be cool to experiment with or mix and match....

Some of them sound good at first glance, but ...

Dubhliam · August 2016

Try Alteration if you have some spare AP to spend on boxes, it can be found in Cropsford I think.
I am using it on my mag DK and am having a blast.

TankHealz2015 · August 2016

"Alteration" ? What is this? I don't understand.

I have plenty of AP, saving up to get over 1 million (again).

About some other sets though.... could somebody chime in about some of the sets that drop in the Trials?

Specificlly the Vicious Ophidian and Yokeda armor sets?

Ophidian 3pc = +5% dmg in dungeons
Yokeda 3pc = -5% dmg from dungeon monsters

What type of builds are using these sets?

Could be interesting for a tank perhaps?
TAVA's + 4pc Yokeda (head+shoulder+ 2 rings) + Potentates (S+SH+necklace)

Just wondering... (yes, I am currently running the tank meta), but it is fun to know what other different builds also work well...

Dubhliam · August 2016

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/284148/alteration-mastery-bugged#latest
.eJwFwdENhCAMANBdGIBCaRDdhiBBc0oJrfHjcrvfe1_zzMts5lAdsgHspxSeuxXlmVu1jbldNY9TbOEbsmoux127CqALRCsuwRFSTCkSoMfkPHmKbo0hYEJ4-qfz2-3ozfz-BU0izg.yB9RBTWukfRkJBVpWE2oEG3VR2w.png

.eJwFwdENhCAMANBdGIBCaRDdhiBBc0oJrfHjcrvfe1_zzMts5lAdsgHspxSeuxXlmVu1jbldNY9TbOEbsmoux127CqALRCsuwRFSTCkSoMfkPHmKbo0hYEJ4-qfz2-3ozfz-BU0izg.yB9RBTWukfRkJBVpWE2oEG3VR2w.png

It unfortunately does not reduce block cost, although I thought it would when I bought it.
If it did, it would definitely be BIS for mag DK tanks along with Tava.
However, even without the block cost reduction I am having a blast with it.

EDIT: it is LA unfortunately, so you have to slot it in weapons and jewelry. I have a mace, a sword and the sash to complete it.

MrTarkanian48 · August 2016

TankHealz2015 wrote: »

"Alteration" ? What is this? I don't understand.

I have plenty of AP, saving up to get over 1 million (again).

About some other sets though.... could somebody chime in about some of the sets that drop in the Trials?

Specificlly the Vicious Ophidian and Yokeda armor sets?

Ophidian 3pc = +5% dmg in dungeons
Yokeda 3pc = -5% dmg from dungeon monsters

What type of builds are using these sets?

Could be interesting for a tank perhaps?
TAVA's + 4pc Yokeda (head+shoulder+ 2 rings) + Potentates (S+SH+necklace)

Just wondering... (yes, I am currently running the tank meta), but it is fun to know what other different builds also work well...

The meta right now is group support (Buff Allies/Debuff Boss). Mainly boosting your groups DPS with as many Aggressive Warhorns as possible. Agg warhorn is an enormous benefit to your group, and IMO should be your number one priority. Also debuffing the boss with Crusher enchant, Pierce Armor and Alkosh if you go that route.

The meta right now seems to be 2pc Bloodspawn (added ult gen), 5pc Tavas on body running shuffle (Added Ult Gen), and then one of the following 5 pc. (3pc Jewelry, 2pc 1H1S): Ebon (Group Health Buff), Alkosh (Armor Debuff which stacks with other debuffs such as Major fracture, Night mothers gaze, etc.), Akaviri Dragonguard (15% reduced Ult cost reduction), or Werewolf Hide (5 Ult whenever hit with a 5 second cooldown).

The nice thing about an Ult gen DK tank, is that DKs get a flood of resources for using high cost Ultimates like Warhorn. This means that as you are providing the strongest group buff in the game, you are also helping yourself sustain with all the resource return that comes along with it.

Ebon and Alkosh are great. The only drawback is if you run in a trials group with another tank wearing the same set, the buffs to not stack. Its the same as two dps wearing Night Mothers Gaze, as the buffs don't stack your benefit to the group is counterfeited.

Akaviri Dragonguard and Werewolf are also good options as they help you provide more horns. I am unsure which is superior to the other as I have not seen a head to head comparison.

Obtaining most of these sets involves a gring and RNG headaches, or are very expensive at the moment (which is my current situation). But they are worth it.

You want to be tanky enough that you do not get one shot in boss fights, but not go overboard on mitigation to the point that you are not providing group utility. The last CP change makes it easier for tanks to stack CP in Elemental Defender and Hardy. This makes it possible to take more damage without necessarily being at the resistance cap of 33,150.

Sure you can put on Engine Guardian, Armor Master, and Footmans and be unkillable. But you will not be as much of an asset to the group as someone who can still survive/sustain and at the same time help the group succeed.

As to the sets you've mentioned:

Vicious Ophidian is arguably a best in slot set for a DPS build. If you get it, definitely hang onto it if you have or plan on building a stamina based DPS character. However, you should not run this on a tank. If you don't plan on ever having a stam dps, you can trade/sell them (especially divines body pieces or jewelry pieces) to your group members for alot of gold.

Eternal Yokeda is kind of counterproductive. To get the 5pc bonus you need to die, which is something you want to avoid. Combined with the 10 minute cooldown I think there are better options.

When you look at new sets, I would evaluate them by thinking "what does this do for the group, and how does it compare to other options?" Avoid sets that do damage. The small amount of dps you add to the group with these sets is a drop in the bucket to what you can provide by getting a few more warhorns in to boost your dedicated damage builds. Also if the set helps you with your own personal sustain, ask whether you absolutely need it to survive or if you can survive with a more group oriented set.

code65536 · August 2016

MrTarkanian48 wrote: »

Akaviri Dragonguard and Werewolf are also good options as they help you provide more horns. I am unsure which is superior to the other as I have not seen a head to head comparison.

A War Horn costs 250, so Akaviri Dragonguard reduces the cost by 37.

Werewolf Hide is essentially a 1 Ult/s buff.

A War Horn typically takes much longer than 37s to charge up, so WH is better. Also, you'll get the full amount of resources back with Battle Roar if you use WH, whereas AD's reduced ult cost would correspondingly reduce your resource return.

TankHealz2015 · August 2016

Wow, awesome thorough responses!

Thanks a million!!!

ryanborror · August 2016

code65536 wrote: »

MrTarkanian48 wrote: »

Akaviri Dragonguard and Werewolf are also good options as they help you provide more horns. I am unsure which is superior to the other as I have not seen a head to head comparison.

A War Horn costs 250, so Akaviri Dragonguard reduces the cost by 37.

Werewolf Hide is essentially a 1 Ult/s buff.

A War Horn typically takes much longer than 37s to charge up, so WH is better. Also, you'll get the full amount of resources back with Battle Roar if you use WH, whereas AD's reduced ult cost would correspondingly reduce your resource return.

Isn't werewolf hide medium though and has damage bonuses?

Pepper8Jack · August 2016

TankHealz2015 wrote: »

I'm gonna see which third set I can gather up faster:

Akavari Dragonguard - now drops v16 in trials. I always liked this set. If I can get the right pieces probably my preferred.

Glory Defender - after using a light attack gives a 9-10% chance to dodge - drops in Maelstrom Arena, which... I don't like so much cause A) random requires certain builds to be successful c) i'm only able to do it on normal mode

I just bought a bunch of Alkatosh... but it seems it is not worth th trouble anymore... oh well.

Alkosh - use synergy and send shock wave out to enemy - sounds awesome, but drops in trials and kinda hard to get the full set.... love to pair it with Thunderous Plate sometime for "Tesla Power Build".

I run glorious defender for my second third set because I already had the jewelry, and it's actually pretty solid. The dodge chance stacks with evasion as well so I generate ultimate VERY quickly with this setup

code65536 · August 2016

ryanborror wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

MrTarkanian48 wrote: »

Akaviri Dragonguard and Werewolf are also good options as they help you provide more horns. I am unsure which is superior to the other as I have not seen a head to head comparison.

A War Horn costs 250, so Akaviri Dragonguard reduces the cost by 37.

Werewolf Hide is essentially a 1 Ult/s buff.

A War Horn typically takes much longer than 37s to charge up, so WH is better. Also, you'll get the full amount of resources back with Battle Roar if you use WH, whereas AD's reduced ult cost would correspondingly reduce your resource return.

Isn't werewolf hide medium though and has damage bonuses?

So is Alkosh. I run with 3p Alkosh jewelry. 1p Alkosh armor, and an Alkosh shield on one bar and Alkosh 1H on the other. So I still have 5-1-1 when I am in my Tava/Alkosh setup.

Pepper8Jack wrote: »

TankHealz2015 wrote: »

I'm gonna see which third set I can gather up faster:

Akavari Dragonguard - now drops v16 in trials. I always liked this set. If I can get the right pieces probably my preferred.

Glory Defender - after using a light attack gives a 9-10% chance to dodge - drops in Maelstrom Arena, which... I don't like so much cause A) random requires certain builds to be successful c) i'm only able to do it on normal mode

I just bought a bunch of Alkatosh... but it seems it is not worth th trouble anymore... oh well.

Alkosh - use synergy and send shock wave out to enemy - sounds awesome, but drops in trials and kinda hard to get the full set.... love to pair it with Thunderous Plate sometime for "Tesla Power Build".

I run glorious defender for my second third set because I already had the jewelry, and it's actually pretty solid. The dodge chance stacks with evasion as well so I generate ultimate VERY quickly with this setup

Maybe in a dungeon. But dropping block to light attack is something you want to do very sparingly--if at all--in a vet trial.