How outdated is my tank?

Swainburg · September 2016

Okay I still run 5 piece histbark, 2 piece bloodspawn or engine guardian depending on mood, and 5 piece footmans. I've been wearing this since I first hit V14. I've upgraded my footmans to CP 160, but I still feel outdated on my Dragonknight.

I do mainly group dungeons and I'm planning on running VDSA again.

What do most tanks now a days run?

WillhelmBlack · September 2016

Your gear is actually fine and will do any dungeons, it's just most groups ask for War Horn up 24/7 nowadays so they can post their DPS in chat. I'd keep your Bloodspawn on, swap your Hist Bark for Tava and run shuffle.

Swainburg · September 2016

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

Your gear is actually fine and will do any dungeons, it's just most groups ask for War Horn up 24/7 nowadays so they can post their DPS in chat. I'd keep your Bloodspawn on, swap your Hist Bark for Tava and run shuffle.

That's what I've heard lately, thanks, I'll give it a shot I guess. But footmans is still good?

Kippesnikke · September 2016

Wear tava combined with bloodspawn. keep your elude up at all times. as the 3rd set either use ebon or alkosh

WillhelmBlack · September 2016

Swainburg wrote: »

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

Your gear is actually fine and will do any dungeons, it's just most groups ask for War Horn up 24/7 nowadays so they can post their DPS in chat. I'd keep your Bloodspawn on, swap your Hist Bark for Tava and run shuffle.

That's what I've heard lately, thanks, I'll give it a shot I guess. But footmans is still good?

Yeah I upgraded mine to CP160 recently.

OrphanHelgen · September 2016

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

Your gear is actually fine and will do any dungeons, it's just most groups ask for War Horn up 24/7 nowadays so they can post their DPS in chat. I'd keep your Bloodspawn on, swap your Hist Bark for Tava and run shuffle.

I dont see why its a negative thing to post dps and share it. Its what makes this game gets its progression. Its not all about the dps himself, I post eventhough its crap, just to show the group how "we" performed. If the tank for some reason take the boss out of trap and standard (like suprisingly too many do), its a massive dps loss. Same if we dont have combat prayer or 1-2 warhorns. I can see almost 20k if not more dps difference depending on what group I am with, its insane.

MrTarkanian48 · September 2016

The trend seems to be 2pc. Bloodspawn, 5 Tavas (I use 3 body and 1H1S on both bars Tavas), and then one of the following Jewelry sets with 2 body pieces: Ebon, Alkosh, Dragon, Werewolf Hide.

I just completed my dragon set, as the rings are a commodity. Warhorn has a 213 ulti cost vs 250 w/o dragon. The horn is real.

I plan on slowly acquiring ebon, and further down the line Alkosh to have some variety to switch it up based on the group needs.

Footman's is still good, but it seems most people are moving away from armor master / footmans / Pariah as the mitigation provided is overkill, especially at 531 CP. On my Imperial DK with Harden Armor active im hitting 31k Spell resist, and 27k physical resist (helmet, shoulders reinforced, shield nirn, the rest infused/sturdy). Seems tanky enough for most fights and allows me to use my jewelry set to provide more group utility.

Swainburg · September 2016

MrTarkanian48 wrote: »

The trend seems to be 2pc. Bloodspawn, 5 Tavas (I use 3 body and 1H1S on both bars Tavas), and then one of the following Jewelry sets with 2 body pieces: Ebon, Alkosh, Dragon, Werewolf Hide.

I just completed my dragon set, as the rings are a commodity. Warhorn has a 213 ulti cost vs 250 w/o dragon. The horn is real.

I plan on slowly acquiring ebon, and further down the line Alkosh to have some variety to switch it up based on the group needs.

Footman's is still good, but it seems most people are moving away from armor master / footmans / Pariah as the mitigation provided is overkill, especially at 531 CP. On my Imperial DK with Harden Armor active im hitting 31k Spell resist, and 27k physical resist (helmet, shoulders reinforced, shield nirn, the rest infused/sturdy). Seems tanky enough for most fights and allows me to use my jewelry set to provide more group utility.

Nice cool tips thanks. Yeah im near the cap of mitigation buffed 30k ish. The utility seems to be the important stuff.

But then again yesterday I was tanking vet cradle of shadows with some terrible dps, I hardly got to pop my ultimates to help em out because it was always stolen. I guess one fight out of many isnt bad. For that fight i should probably just go engine guardian instead.

Autolycus · September 2016

Swainburg wrote: »

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

Your gear is actually fine and will do any dungeons, it's just most groups ask for War Horn up 24/7 nowadays so they can post their DPS in chat. I'd keep your Bloodspawn on, swap your Hist Bark for Tava and run shuffle.

That's what I've heard lately, thanks, I'll give it a shot I guess. But footmans is still good?

Footman is still an okay option, but on the high-end of tanking (for things like veteran trials, particularly hardmodes) it's generally agreed upon that better options are available. For example, Hist Bark will be a strong option for you as a DK tank during a hardmode boss, but running Tava + shuffle is more suitable for almost everything else. Endurance and Agility are common sets to use in place of Footman, even if using multiple 2/3 set bonuses instead of a single 5set bonus. Also (for non-hardmodes) the use of Bahraha's Curse (BC) is increasingly more popular. If you decide to use it instead of Footman, know that CP allocations that favor a magicka tank are more suitable. Max magicka and SD do not affect BC, but spell crit, crit damage, Blessed, Thauma, etc. do affect BC.

Generally speaking, sets that allow you to generate ultimate rapidly are the go-to for non-hardmode tank builds right now. Blood Spawn, Tava's, Akaviri Dragonguard, Potentates, and Werewolf Hide are the ideal ulti-regen sets.

For further insight:
Footman used to be 12% increased block mitigation, and since the formula for mitigation accounts for these variables being multiplicative [(block mit) x (resist mit) x (buff/debuff mit) x (racial mit)], the effective increase to overall mitigation was around 3%. Footman was reduced to 8% increased block mit, and when run through the formula it results in an effective increase of around 2% now. Tanks that are looking to optimize their setups for veteran & hardmode clears can usually justify using something else that affords better sustain, mitigation, etc. That being said, Footman by itself is a powerful set, and can be used in a variety of different builds outside the tanking meta. One such example is a light-armor heal/tank build, or a dps/tank hybrid, etc. These builds are typically reserved for veteran dungeons and normal trials.

Swainburg · September 2016

Autolycus wrote: »

Swainburg wrote: »

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

Your gear is actually fine and will do any dungeons, it's just most groups ask for War Horn up 24/7 nowadays so they can post their DPS in chat. I'd keep your Bloodspawn on, swap your Hist Bark for Tava and run shuffle.

That's what I've heard lately, thanks, I'll give it a shot I guess. But footmans is still good?

Footman is still an okay option, but on the high-end of tanking (for things like veteran trials, particularly hardmodes) it's generally agreed upon that better options are available. For example, Hist Bark will be a strong option for you as a DK tank during a hardmode boss, but running Tava + shuffle is more suitable for almost everything else. Endurance and Agility are common sets to use in place of Footman, even if using multiple 2/3 set bonuses instead of a single 5set bonus. Also (for non-hardmodes) the use of Bahraha's Curse (BC) is increasingly more popular. If you decide to use it instead of Footman, know that CP allocations that favor a magicka tank are more suitable. Max magicka and SD do not affect BC, but spell crit, crit damage, Blessed, Thauma, etc. do affect BC.

Generally speaking, sets that allow you to generate ultimate rapidly are the go-to for non-hardmode tank builds right now. Blood Spawn, Tava's, Akaviri Dragonguard, Potentates, and Werewolf Hide are the ideal ulti-regen sets.

For further insight:
Footman used to be 12% increased block mitigation, and since the formula for mitigation accounts for these variables being multiplicative [(block mit) x (resist mit) x (buff/debuff mit) x (racial mit)], the effective increase to overall mitigation was around 3%. Footman was reduced to 8% increased block mit, and when run through the formula it results in an effective increase of around 2% now. Tanks that are looking to optimize their setups for veteran & hardmode clears can usually justify using something else that affords better sustain, mitigation, etc. That being said, Footman by itself is a powerful set, and can be used in a variety of different builds outside the tanking meta. One such example is a light-armor heal/tank build, or a dps/tank hybrid, etc. These builds are typically reserved for veteran dungeons and normal trials.

Wow thanks for the response. To be clear, "BC" is block cost? And how is it affected by crit?

And if its not footman's, and assuming I have 5 piece Tava's and 2 piece monster helm, what is the best way to improve my mitigation or utility without footman's, or from what I hear its still a good option alongside tavas? (I sit at around 32k armor and spell resist buffed up). Also, should I use recovery drinks or possibly golden recipes for the recovery, because I use tri stat foods.

Sorry for all the questions, its just been since before wrothgar that I seriously tanked anything and I'm feeling rusty to say the least, and I wanna tank HM trials/dungeons again. Your response was helpful.

Thanks

Autolycus · September 2016

Swainburg wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

Swainburg wrote: »

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

Your gear is actually fine and will do any dungeons, it's just most groups ask for War Horn up 24/7 nowadays so they can post their DPS in chat. I'd keep your Bloodspawn on, swap your Hist Bark for Tava and run shuffle.

That's what I've heard lately, thanks, I'll give it a shot I guess. But footmans is still good?

Footman is still an okay option, but on the high-end of tanking (for things like veteran trials, particularly hardmodes) it's generally agreed upon that better options are available. For example, Hist Bark will be a strong option for you as a DK tank during a hardmode boss, but running Tava + shuffle is more suitable for almost everything else. Endurance and Agility are common sets to use in place of Footman, even if using multiple 2/3 set bonuses instead of a single 5set bonus. Also (for non-hardmodes) the use of Bahraha's Curse (BC) is increasingly more popular. If you decide to use it instead of Footman, know that CP allocations that favor a magicka tank are more suitable. Max magicka and SD do not affect BC, but spell crit, crit damage, Blessed, Thauma, etc. do affect BC.

Generally speaking, sets that allow you to generate ultimate rapidly are the go-to for non-hardmode tank builds right now. Blood Spawn, Tava's, Akaviri Dragonguard, Potentates, and Werewolf Hide are the ideal ulti-regen sets.

For further insight:
Footman used to be 12% increased block mitigation, and since the formula for mitigation accounts for these variables being multiplicative [(block mit) x (resist mit) x (buff/debuff mit) x (racial mit)], the effective increase to overall mitigation was around 3%. Footman was reduced to 8% increased block mit, and when run through the formula it results in an effective increase of around 2% now. Tanks that are looking to optimize their setups for veteran & hardmode clears can usually justify using something else that affords better sustain, mitigation, etc. That being said, Footman by itself is a powerful set, and can be used in a variety of different builds outside the tanking meta. One such example is a light-armor heal/tank build, or a dps/tank hybrid, etc. These builds are typically reserved for veteran dungeons and normal trials.

Wow thanks for the response. To be clear, "BC" is block cost? And how is it affected by crit?

And if its not footman's, and assuming I have 5 piece Tava's and 2 piece monster helm, what is the best way to improve my mitigation or utility without footman's, or from what I hear its still a good option alongside tavas? (I sit at around 32k armor and spell resist buffed up). Also, should I use recovery drinks or possibly golden recipes for the recovery, because I use tri stat foods.

Sorry for all the questions, its just been since before wrothgar that I seriously tanked anything and I'm feeling rusty to say the least, and I wanna tank HM trials/dungeons again. Your response was helpful.

Thanks

In this context, BC = Bahraha's Curse. The aoe proc it does will not get stronger if you stack magicka and spell damage, but it does scale with your crit chance, crit modifier, and any CP that boost magic damage, healing done, healing received, or damage over time. Basically, when you proc Bahraha's, if you have a high spell crit, the ticks from the proc will crit accordingly. When these ticks crit, it results in crit heals. If you have a high crit multiplier, then these heals are even stronger. Even stronger still is if you buff the base damage/healing of BC with Ele Expert and Thauma, Blessed, and Quick Recovery. Note that Bahraha's Curse is more viable for a NB tank than a DK, where most DK Tanks are stamina-based, and therefore won't be putting points into the same CP stars, nor will a DK have a high spell crit or crit modifier.

Footman is okay to use alongside Tava's. It's not like what you're doing now isn't viable - you can use your current setup in almost everything. It's when you start looking into vMoL and hardmodes that I would urge consideration for a rework.

If you have all of your passives in heavy armor, 1h&s, undaunted, class passives, racials, etc. (basically just a developed character) then you don't need a ton of resistances. Just having a full 5set of heavy armor and shield will put you close to where you need to be resistance-wise. Typically around 20k spell/physical unbuffed is comfortable. Once you add in Major Ward/Resolve (Razor Armor) and Blood Spawn procs (if you choose to use it), your resistances are at the hard cap, or very close.

When you reach this point, where your in-combat buffs are affording you ideal resistance levels, it makes more sense to go for increasing your max stats, especially as a DK (some passives scale from max stats, like Helping Hands). Since you can get reasonable mitigation values from just a 5set of heavy, having the right passives (and blocking, of course), it opens you up to do pretty much whatever you want. Right now it's common practice to use 3 agility and 2 Endurance, for the max stam and health.

Also, Hist Bark has been mentioned a few times, and it's currently one of the more beneficial sets to use as a DK tank for hardmodes and vMoL. The reason for this is that some fights aren't dps races, like the Warrior in hardmode HRC, so War Horns don't need to go out quite as often. This doesn't mean don't use war horn, it just means you can afford to generate a little less ultimate, and take a little more survivability. Hist Bark makes it so you don't have to run Shuffle, and this benefit is two-fold:
1. You don't need to manage your stamina around Shuffle, which is quite expensive.
2. You don't have to drop block or bar-swap to maintain Major Evasion.

These benefits are huge for a DK tank. I main a NB tank, and I get Major Evasion from Double Take, which costs magicka, and is therefore very easy for me to maintain without dropping block or spending my valuable stamina on Shuffle, so I keep Tava's. As a DK tank, this is a luxury of great benefit, but remember it's not absolutely necessary except for the most challenging content.

MrTarkanian48 · September 2016

@Swainburg : @Autolycus was using BC as an abbreviation for the Bahraha's Curse set.

As a DK Tank I would definitely recommend using tristat food over recovery drinks for multiple reasons:

1) DK's excel as tanks because of their unique resource management skill passives.

Helping Hands restores 5% stamina when you use Earthen Heart abilites. Mountain's Blessing also gives you 3 Ultimate when using Earthen Heart abilities. So ideally you should be using Igneous Shield every six seconds for the Ulti gain and 5% stamina bonus.

Battle Roar gives you a percentage of all stats back when Ultimates are used. On high cost Ultis like Aggressive Warhorn, you get 50% Mag, Stam, and Health Return.

Since all of these are percentage based, the larger your resource pool is, the larger the actual resource return. For example if you have 25K stam, and use Igneous Shield, you will restore 1250 stam. Now if you had 35K, you would restore 1750. Bigger Pool=Bigger Return.

2) A large stam pool will help you sustain block longer. Since stam regen is disabled while blocking, and as a tank you will be blocking often, the stamina regen bonus is more or less wasted. Most DK tanks ignore stam regen stats for the most part and focus on large stat pools and high magicka recovery to use Igneous Shield, Talons, Chains etc.

Using a set like Dragon or Werewolf Hide will increase your Utility and sustain. By getting more frequent Warhorns, you will also be constantly flooded with resources from Battle Roar. Use Heroic Slash, Light Attacks, Igneous Shield, Shuffle with Tavas, and even Invigorating Drain from Vampire skill line (if you want to) to keep your Ultimate generation high and you will have no sustain issues.

I would try and get mitigation where you can. Run a nirnhoned which will give you 3.5k resistance with CP passives. Defending sword on front boss bar. I use two pieces reinforced on my large body pieces. Get used to keeping Hardenend Armor up. Shoot for 25-30k resist when buffed, and it should be enough for 95%+ of content if you know mechanics.

I would not be as concerned with hitting the resistance caps. The goal should really be to have enough mitigation for the content you are doing, and once you have enough, structuring the rest of the build to have as much utility as possible. Most endgame tanks have several alternate sets, so they may run BS, Tavas, Dragon for 4 man groups, vet DSA, and Off tanking trials, but swap in Footmans when they are main tanking hard hitting vet trials bosses.

Vrathak · September 2016

You`re running DK so this doesn`t apply to you but in case you wanted to try a NB with 58.5kHP and 25-30k heals per seconds (HP will increase to 65k-66k next patch)

2x Bogdan Trueflame
5x Ebon (Change to Plague doctor after patch)
5x Bahraha`s Curse

It`s beast, if you have the right skills

Swainburg · September 2016

Vrathak wrote: »

You`re running DK so this doesn`t apply to you but in case you wanted to try a NB with 58.5kHP and 25-30k heals per seconds (HP will increase to 65k-66k next patch)

2x Bogdan Trueflame
5x Ebon (Change to Plague doctor after patch)
5x Bahraha`s Curse

It`s beast, if you have the right skills

lol but "just because we can do things doesn't mean we should".

If you can tank trials and bring awesome utility with it go right ahead. Fun idea.

Vrathak · September 2016

I can indeed tank trials with that build but my HPS drop to maybe 15k instead of 25k on boss fights cause I have to block more often

I can even take on vSO Manticore no healer if need be. Just need to focus lolll cause if I don't time my *** right I go down! like any tanks :P Gotta time your blocks and skills :P

But any 4 men content is a joke lol. I run me and 1 DPS friend 2 man any 4 men content. And for quicker runs I run me and 3 DPS on any 4 men content. Except maybe vDSA. I haven't tried going all out me as tank/heal with 3 DPS... It would certainly work with some of my friends but definitely wouldn't be able to pug it with 3 DPS

Swainburg · September 2016

MrTarkanian48 wrote: »

@Swainburg : @Autolycus was using BC as an abbreviation for the Bahraha's Curse set.

As a DK Tank I would definitely recommend using tristat food over recovery drinks for multiple reasons:

1) DK's excel as tanks because of their unique resource management skill passives.

Helping Hands restores 5% stamina when you use Earthen Heart abilites. Mountain's Blessing also gives you 3 Ultimate when using Earthen Heart abilities. So ideally you should be using Igneous Shield every six seconds for the Ulti gain and 5% stamina bonus.

Battle Roar gives you a percentage of all stats back when Ultimates are used. On high cost Ultis like Aggressive Warhorn, you get 50% Mag, Stam, and Health Return.

Since all of these are percentage based, the larger your resource pool is, the larger the actual resource return. For example if you have 25K stam, and use Igneous Shield, you will restore 1250 stam. Now if you had 35K, you would restore 1750. Bigger Pool=Bigger Return.

2) A large stam pool will help you sustain block longer. Since stam regen is disabled while blocking, and as a tank you will be blocking often, the stamina regen bonus is more or less wasted. Most DK tanks ignore stam regen stats for the most part and focus on large stat pools and high magicka recovery to use Igneous Shield, Talons, Chains etc.

Using a set like Dragon or Werewolf Hide will increase your Utility and sustain. By getting more frequent Warhorns, you will also be constantly flooded with resources from Battle Roar. Use Heroic Slash, Light Attacks, Igneous Shield, Shuffle with Tavas, and even Invigorating Drain from Vampire skill line (if you want to) to keep your Ultimate generation high and you will have no sustain issues.

I would try and get mitigation where you can. Run a nirnhoned which will give you 3.5k resistance with CP passives. Defending sword on front boss bar. I use two pieces reinforced on my large body pieces. Get used to keeping Hardenend Armor up. Shoot for 25-30k resist when buffed, and it should be enough for 95%+ of content if you know mechanics.

I would not be as concerned with hitting the resistance caps. The goal should really be to have enough mitigation for the content you are doing, and once you have enough, structuring the rest of the build to have as much utility as possible. Most endgame tanks have several alternate sets, so they may run BS, Tavas, Dragon for 4 man groups, vet DSA, and Off tanking trials, but swap in Footmans when they are main tanking hard hitting vet trials bosses.

Another awesome reply by the ESO community.

I was considering going Vamp for the passives, but I'm probably not going to do that until I stop being lazy.

I do agree any tank has enough mitigation, so I'll probably go do something like werewolf hide for ulti in place of footman's.

I feel like Tava's needs to be more resource handy for a tank. I'm definitely not dodgerolling when I need to keep a boss relatively still for my DPS. Tava's I need to dodge every 3 seconds, and there's still a chance I'm unable to dodge so many times. I've used hist bark the entire game and It's probably my favorite set but it's something I can also get from keeping up shuffle.

Would I get more reduced block cost NET Stamina from Hist bark, or more from Keeping up shuffle + Tavas? Keeping in mind that Tava's gets me more ulti for my battleroar... so many things to think about. I'll probably try to do some testing maybe.

I'm really just "thinking out loud" by now.

Head - Bloodspawn (med)
Shoulders - Bloodspawn (light)
Chest - Tava's or Hist bark
Arms - Tava's or Hist bark
Belt -
Legs - Tava's or Hist bark
Feet -
Neck -
Ring -
Ring -
2x Sword - Tava's or Hist bark
2x Board - Tava's or Hist bark

I like this set up, I guess I can swap Tava's for hist bark based on the nature of the content after I decide which nets me more stamina, or if I don't have enough stam recovery already.

I'll just keep all my sets around so I can swap in and out for content.

Right now I have 30k hp and stam with 15k magicka. Recoveries are low, but I mean I gotta hold up a shield so it's okay. I'm going to reallocate CP into reduce block cost, increased magicka recovery and more heals received.

Thanks your tips fully answered my questions.

Autolycus · September 2016

Swainburg wrote: »

MrTarkanian48 wrote: »

@Swainburg : @Autolycus was using BC as an abbreviation for the Bahraha's Curse set.

As a DK Tank I would definitely recommend using tristat food over recovery drinks for multiple reasons:

1) DK's excel as tanks because of their unique resource management skill passives.

Helping Hands restores 5% stamina when you use Earthen Heart abilites. Mountain's Blessing also gives you 3 Ultimate when using Earthen Heart abilities. So ideally you should be using Igneous Shield every six seconds for the Ulti gain and 5% stamina bonus.

Battle Roar gives you a percentage of all stats back when Ultimates are used. On high cost Ultis like Aggressive Warhorn, you get 50% Mag, Stam, and Health Return.

Since all of these are percentage based, the larger your resource pool is, the larger the actual resource return. For example if you have 25K stam, and use Igneous Shield, you will restore 1250 stam. Now if you had 35K, you would restore 1750. Bigger Pool=Bigger Return.

2) A large stam pool will help you sustain block longer. Since stam regen is disabled while blocking, and as a tank you will be blocking often, the stamina regen bonus is more or less wasted. Most DK tanks ignore stam regen stats for the most part and focus on large stat pools and high magicka recovery to use Igneous Shield, Talons, Chains etc.

Using a set like Dragon or Werewolf Hide will increase your Utility and sustain. By getting more frequent Warhorns, you will also be constantly flooded with resources from Battle Roar. Use Heroic Slash, Light Attacks, Igneous Shield, Shuffle with Tavas, and even Invigorating Drain from Vampire skill line (if you want to) to keep your Ultimate generation high and you will have no sustain issues.

I would try and get mitigation where you can. Run a nirnhoned which will give you 3.5k resistance with CP passives. Defending sword on front boss bar. I use two pieces reinforced on my large body pieces. Get used to keeping Hardenend Armor up. Shoot for 25-30k resist when buffed, and it should be enough for 95%+ of content if you know mechanics.

I would not be as concerned with hitting the resistance caps. The goal should really be to have enough mitigation for the content you are doing, and once you have enough, structuring the rest of the build to have as much utility as possible. Most endgame tanks have several alternate sets, so they may run BS, Tavas, Dragon for 4 man groups, vet DSA, and Off tanking trials, but swap in Footmans when they are main tanking hard hitting vet trials bosses.

Another awesome reply by the ESO community.

I was considering going Vamp for the passives, but I'm probably not going to do that until I stop being lazy.

I do agree any tank has enough mitigation, so I'll probably go do something like werewolf hide for ulti in place of footman's.

I feel like Tava's needs to be more resource handy for a tank. I'm definitely not dodgerolling when I need to keep a boss relatively still for my DPS. Tava's I need to dodge every 3 seconds, and there's still a chance I'm unable to dodge so many times. I've used hist bark the entire game and It's probably my favorite set but it's something I can also get from keeping up shuffle.

Would I get more reduced block cost NET Stamina from Hist bark, or more from Keeping up shuffle + Tavas? Keeping in mind that Tava's gets me more ulti for my battleroar... so many things to think about. I'll probably try to do some testing maybe.

I'm really just "thinking out loud" by now.

Head - Bloodspawn (med)
Shoulders - Bloodspawn (light)
Chest - Tava's or Hist bark
Arms - Tava's or Hist bark
Belt - WW hide
Legs - Tava's or Hist bark
Feet - WW hide
Neck - WW hide
Ring - WW hide
Ring - WW hide
2x Sword - Tava's or Hist bark
2x Board - Tava's or Hist bark

I like this set up, I guess I can swap Tava's for hist bark based on the nature of the content after I decide which nets me more stamina, or if I don't have enough stam recovery already.

I'll just keep all my sets around so I can swap in and out for content.

Right now I have 30k hp and stam with 15k magicka. Recoveries are low, but I mean I gotta hold up a shield so it's okay. I'm going to reallocate CP into reduce block cost, increased magicka recovery and more heals received.

Thanks your tips fully answered my questions.

In short, using Hist Bark over Tava's is a strategy best suited for the most challenging content, like the Warrior hardmode, or tanking the axes on AA hardmode, or vMoL. The idea here is that you want to refrain from dropping block unless you absolutely have to, because dropping block against one of these enemies has a high risk of getting 1-shot, even with resistances. Hist Bark enables you to dodge just because you're blocking; it's a high-convenience set.

It's completely right of you to question the net stamina concept. You'll get fewer ultimates with Hist Bark, but you'll also spend a lot less stamina by not having to cast Shuffle, which also means you lower the risk of getting hit while not blocking (particularly if your Shuffle requires a bar-swap). Bottom line, your use of stamina is more efficient with the Hist Bark setup, and your group utility is more pronounced with Tava's.

This is a perfect example of why high-end tanks have multiple sets. I have a build that uses one setup for everything except vMoL and hardmodes. Even when we do vet HRC or AA with the intent of doing hardmode, I wear my ulti-regen setup all the way up to the final boss, and switch for the final fight. Those fights have a higher demand for a tankier setup, the sacrifice we make to accommodate that demand is group utility.

Vamp is good utility for tanking, and the increased fire damage isn't really an issue with the kinds of mitigation we have in our tank builds. Often times the recovery is worth it, especially for stam DK tanks who still need a moderate magicka pool so that cycling for stam is possible. All in all, it looks like you're on the right track now, given your stats, gear selection, and what you've repeated back to us on the topic. I'm sure there are some adjustments to make still (we all have adjustments to make, it's an ongoing process), but it seems to me that the rest is practice and experience from this point.

Swainburg · September 2016

Autolycus wrote: »

Swainburg wrote: »

MrTarkanian48 wrote: »

@Swainburg : @Autolycus was using BC as an abbreviation for the Bahraha's Curse set.

As a DK Tank I would definitely recommend using tristat food over recovery drinks for multiple reasons:

1) DK's excel as tanks because of their unique resource management skill passives.

Helping Hands restores 5% stamina when you use Earthen Heart abilites. Mountain's Blessing also gives you 3 Ultimate when using Earthen Heart abilities. So ideally you should be using Igneous Shield every six seconds for the Ulti gain and 5% stamina bonus.

Battle Roar gives you a percentage of all stats back when Ultimates are used. On high cost Ultis like Aggressive Warhorn, you get 50% Mag, Stam, and Health Return.

Since all of these are percentage based, the larger your resource pool is, the larger the actual resource return. For example if you have 25K stam, and use Igneous Shield, you will restore 1250 stam. Now if you had 35K, you would restore 1750. Bigger Pool=Bigger Return.

2) A large stam pool will help you sustain block longer. Since stam regen is disabled while blocking, and as a tank you will be blocking often, the stamina regen bonus is more or less wasted. Most DK tanks ignore stam regen stats for the most part and focus on large stat pools and high magicka recovery to use Igneous Shield, Talons, Chains etc.

Using a set like Dragon or Werewolf Hide will increase your Utility and sustain. By getting more frequent Warhorns, you will also be constantly flooded with resources from Battle Roar. Use Heroic Slash, Light Attacks, Igneous Shield, Shuffle with Tavas, and even Invigorating Drain from Vampire skill line (if you want to) to keep your Ultimate generation high and you will have no sustain issues.

I would try and get mitigation where you can. Run a nirnhoned which will give you 3.5k resistance with CP passives. Defending sword on front boss bar. I use two pieces reinforced on my large body pieces. Get used to keeping Hardenend Armor up. Shoot for 25-30k resist when buffed, and it should be enough for 95%+ of content if you know mechanics.

I would not be as concerned with hitting the resistance caps. The goal should really be to have enough mitigation for the content you are doing, and once you have enough, structuring the rest of the build to have as much utility as possible. Most endgame tanks have several alternate sets, so they may run BS, Tavas, Dragon for 4 man groups, vet DSA, and Off tanking trials, but swap in Footmans when they are main tanking hard hitting vet trials bosses.

Another awesome reply by the ESO community.

I was considering going Vamp for the passives, but I'm probably not going to do that until I stop being lazy.

I do agree any tank has enough mitigation, so I'll probably go do something like werewolf hide for ulti in place of footman's.

I feel like Tava's needs to be more resource handy for a tank. I'm definitely not dodgerolling when I need to keep a boss relatively still for my DPS. Tava's I need to dodge every 3 seconds, and there's still a chance I'm unable to dodge so many times. I've used hist bark the entire game and It's probably my favorite set but it's something I can also get from keeping up shuffle.

Would I get more reduced block cost NET Stamina from Hist bark, or more from Keeping up shuffle + Tavas? Keeping in mind that Tava's gets me more ulti for my battleroar... so many things to think about. I'll probably try to do some testing maybe.

I'm really just "thinking out loud" by now.

Head - Bloodspawn (med)
Shoulders - Bloodspawn (light)
Chest - Tava's or Hist bark
Arms - Tava's or Hist bark
Belt - WW hide
Legs - Tava's or Hist bark
Feet - WW hide
Neck - WW hide
Ring - WW hide
Ring - WW hide
2x Sword - Tava's or Hist bark
2x Board - Tava's or Hist bark

I like this set up, I guess I can swap Tava's for hist bark based on the nature of the content after I decide which nets me more stamina, or if I don't have enough stam recovery already.

I'll just keep all my sets around so I can swap in and out for content.

Right now I have 30k hp and stam with 15k magicka. Recoveries are low, but I mean I gotta hold up a shield so it's okay. I'm going to reallocate CP into reduce block cost, increased magicka recovery and more heals received.

Thanks your tips fully answered my questions.

In short, using Hist Bark over Tava's is a strategy best suited for the most challenging content, like the Warrior hardmode, or tanking the axes on AA hardmode, or vMoL. The idea here is that you want to refrain from dropping block unless you absolutely have to, because dropping block against one of these enemies has a high risk of getting 1-shot, even with resistances. Hist Bark enables you to dodge just because you're blocking; it's a high-convenience set.

It's completely right of you to question the net stamina concept. You'll get fewer ultimates with Hist Bark, but you'll also spend a lot less stamina by not having to cast Shuffle, which also means you lower the risk of getting hit while not blocking (particularly if your Shuffle requires a bar-swap). Bottom line, your use of stamina is more efficient with the Hist Bark setup, and your group utility is more pronounced with Tava's.

This is a perfect example of why high-end tanks have multiple sets. I have a build that uses one setup for everything except vMoL and hardmodes. Even when we do vet HRC or AA with the intent of doing hardmode, I wear my ulti-regen setup all the way up to the final boss, and switch for the final fight. Those fights have a higher demand for a tankier setup, the sacrifice we make to accommodate that demand is group utility.

Vamp is good utility for tanking, and the increased fire damage isn't really an issue with the kinds of mitigation we have in our tank builds. Often times the recovery is worth it, especially for stam DK tanks who still need a moderate magicka pool so that cycling for stam is possible. All in all, it looks like you're on the right track now, given your stats, gear selection, and what you've repeated back to us on the topic. I'm sure there are some adjustments to make still (we all have adjustments to make, it's an ongoing process), but it seems to me that the rest is practice and experience from this point.

I've listened to everything you've said my friend, well put advice indeed. Now I just need to find time in my day to do this content, and some gold so someone can craft my crap for me. Any gold tips (just kidding).

I want to try vet trials, everyone seems to want to run normal though. Just tanked the warrior just fine, he's not hard, neither are 3 conjured battleaxes of AA... 5 maybe. 8 isn't happening... yet.

I'm also at only 311 CP

I'll work on that too before I do any vets or hardmodes.

Kippesnikke · September 2016

Autolycus wrote: »

Swainburg wrote: »

MrTarkanian48 wrote: »

@Swainburg : @Autolycus was using BC as an abbreviation for the Bahraha's Curse set.

As a DK Tank I would definitely recommend using tristat food over recovery drinks for multiple reasons:

1) DK's excel as tanks because of their unique resource management skill passives.

Helping Hands restores 5% stamina when you use Earthen Heart abilites. Mountain's Blessing also gives you 3 Ultimate when using Earthen Heart abilities. So ideally you should be using Igneous Shield every six seconds for the Ulti gain and 5% stamina bonus.

Battle Roar gives you a percentage of all stats back when Ultimates are used. On high cost Ultis like Aggressive Warhorn, you get 50% Mag, Stam, and Health Return.

Since all of these are percentage based, the larger your resource pool is, the larger the actual resource return. For example if you have 25K stam, and use Igneous Shield, you will restore 1250 stam. Now if you had 35K, you would restore 1750. Bigger Pool=Bigger Return.

2) A large stam pool will help you sustain block longer. Since stam regen is disabled while blocking, and as a tank you will be blocking often, the stamina regen bonus is more or less wasted. Most DK tanks ignore stam regen stats for the most part and focus on large stat pools and high magicka recovery to use Igneous Shield, Talons, Chains etc.

Using a set like Dragon or Werewolf Hide will increase your Utility and sustain. By getting more frequent Warhorns, you will also be constantly flooded with resources from Battle Roar. Use Heroic Slash, Light Attacks, Igneous Shield, Shuffle with Tavas, and even Invigorating Drain from Vampire skill line (if you want to) to keep your Ultimate generation high and you will have no sustain issues.

I would try and get mitigation where you can. Run a nirnhoned which will give you 3.5k resistance with CP passives. Defending sword on front boss bar. I use two pieces reinforced on my large body pieces. Get used to keeping Hardenend Armor up. Shoot for 25-30k resist when buffed, and it should be enough for 95%+ of content if you know mechanics.

I would not be as concerned with hitting the resistance caps. The goal should really be to have enough mitigation for the content you are doing, and once you have enough, structuring the rest of the build to have as much utility as possible. Most endgame tanks have several alternate sets, so they may run BS, Tavas, Dragon for 4 man groups, vet DSA, and Off tanking trials, but swap in Footmans when they are main tanking hard hitting vet trials bosses.

Another awesome reply by the ESO community.

I was considering going Vamp for the passives, but I'm probably not going to do that until I stop being lazy.

I do agree any tank has enough mitigation, so I'll probably go do something like werewolf hide for ulti in place of footman's.

I feel like Tava's needs to be more resource handy for a tank. I'm definitely not dodgerolling when I need to keep a boss relatively still for my DPS. Tava's I need to dodge every 3 seconds, and there's still a chance I'm unable to dodge so many times. I've used hist bark the entire game and It's probably my favorite set but it's something I can also get from keeping up shuffle.

Would I get more reduced block cost NET Stamina from Hist bark, or more from Keeping up shuffle + Tavas? Keeping in mind that Tava's gets me more ulti for my battleroar... so many things to think about. I'll probably try to do some testing maybe.

I'm really just "thinking out loud" by now.

Head - Bloodspawn (med)
Shoulders - Bloodspawn (light)
Chest - Tava's or Hist bark
Arms - Tava's or Hist bark
Belt - WW hide
Legs - Tava's or Hist bark
Feet - WW hide
Neck - WW hide
Ring - WW hide
Ring - WW hide
2x Sword - Tava's or Hist bark
2x Board - Tava's or Hist bark

I like this set up, I guess I can swap Tava's for hist bark based on the nature of the content after I decide which nets me more stamina, or if I don't have enough stam recovery already.

I'll just keep all my sets around so I can swap in and out for content.

Right now I have 30k hp and stam with 15k magicka. Recoveries are low, but I mean I gotta hold up a shield so it's okay. I'm going to reallocate CP into reduce block cost, increased magicka recovery and more heals received.

Thanks your tips fully answered my questions.

In short, using Hist Bark over Tava's is a strategy best suited for the most challenging content, like the Warrior hardmode, or tanking the axes on AA hardmode, or vMoL. The idea here is that you want to refrain from dropping block unless you absolutely have to, because dropping block against one of these enemies has a high risk of getting 1-shot, even with resistances. Hist Bark enables you to dodge just because you're blocking; it's a high-convenience set.

It's completely right of you to question the net stamina concept. You'll get fewer ultimates with Hist Bark, but you'll also spend a lot less stamina by not having to cast Shuffle, which also means you lower the risk of getting hit while not blocking (particularly if your Shuffle requires a bar-swap). Bottom line, your use of stamina is more efficient with the Hist Bark setup, and your group utility is more pronounced with Tava's.

This is a perfect example of why high-end tanks have multiple sets. I have a build that uses one setup for everything except vMoL and hardmodes. Even when we do vet HRC or AA with the intent of doing hardmode, I wear my ulti-regen setup all the way up to the final boss, and switch for the final fight. Those fights have a higher demand for a tankier setup, the sacrifice we make to accommodate that demand is group utility.

Vamp is good utility for tanking, and the increased fire damage isn't really an issue with the kinds of mitigation we have in our tank builds. Often times the recovery is worth it, especially for stam DK tanks who still need a moderate magicka pool so that cycling for stam is possible. All in all, it looks like you're on the right track now, given your stats, gear selection, and what you've repeated back to us on the topic. I'm sure there are some adjustments to make still (we all have adjustments to make, it's an ongoing process), but it seems to me that the rest is practice and experience from this point.

Swapping out tava for hist bark is not a good idea no matter wich trial. If u wear Tava u have to keep your elude up anyway wich does the same as the fifth bonus from hist bark. Tava gives u ultimate back way faster and thus u have more resource control (as dk) and survivability. stop wearing hist bark and footmen.

Autolycus · September 2016

Kippesnikke wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

Swainburg wrote: »

MrTarkanian48 wrote: »

@Swainburg : @Autolycus was using BC as an abbreviation for the Bahraha's Curse set.

As a DK Tank I would definitely recommend using tristat food over recovery drinks for multiple reasons:

1) DK's excel as tanks because of their unique resource management skill passives.

Helping Hands restores 5% stamina when you use Earthen Heart abilites. Mountain's Blessing also gives you 3 Ultimate when using Earthen Heart abilities. So ideally you should be using Igneous Shield every six seconds for the Ulti gain and 5% stamina bonus.

Battle Roar gives you a percentage of all stats back when Ultimates are used. On high cost Ultis like Aggressive Warhorn, you get 50% Mag, Stam, and Health Return.

Since all of these are percentage based, the larger your resource pool is, the larger the actual resource return. For example if you have 25K stam, and use Igneous Shield, you will restore 1250 stam. Now if you had 35K, you would restore 1750. Bigger Pool=Bigger Return.

2) A large stam pool will help you sustain block longer. Since stam regen is disabled while blocking, and as a tank you will be blocking often, the stamina regen bonus is more or less wasted. Most DK tanks ignore stam regen stats for the most part and focus on large stat pools and high magicka recovery to use Igneous Shield, Talons, Chains etc.

Using a set like Dragon or Werewolf Hide will increase your Utility and sustain. By getting more frequent Warhorns, you will also be constantly flooded with resources from Battle Roar. Use Heroic Slash, Light Attacks, Igneous Shield, Shuffle with Tavas, and even Invigorating Drain from Vampire skill line (if you want to) to keep your Ultimate generation high and you will have no sustain issues.

I would try and get mitigation where you can. Run a nirnhoned which will give you 3.5k resistance with CP passives. Defending sword on front boss bar. I use two pieces reinforced on my large body pieces. Get used to keeping Hardenend Armor up. Shoot for 25-30k resist when buffed, and it should be enough for 95%+ of content if you know mechanics.

I would not be as concerned with hitting the resistance caps. The goal should really be to have enough mitigation for the content you are doing, and once you have enough, structuring the rest of the build to have as much utility as possible. Most endgame tanks have several alternate sets, so they may run BS, Tavas, Dragon for 4 man groups, vet DSA, and Off tanking trials, but swap in Footmans when they are main tanking hard hitting vet trials bosses.

Another awesome reply by the ESO community.

I was considering going Vamp for the passives, but I'm probably not going to do that until I stop being lazy.

I do agree any tank has enough mitigation, so I'll probably go do something like werewolf hide for ulti in place of footman's.

I feel like Tava's needs to be more resource handy for a tank. I'm definitely not dodgerolling when I need to keep a boss relatively still for my DPS. Tava's I need to dodge every 3 seconds, and there's still a chance I'm unable to dodge so many times. I've used hist bark the entire game and It's probably my favorite set but it's something I can also get from keeping up shuffle.

Would I get more reduced block cost NET Stamina from Hist bark, or more from Keeping up shuffle + Tavas? Keeping in mind that Tava's gets me more ulti for my battleroar... so many things to think about. I'll probably try to do some testing maybe.

I'm really just "thinking out loud" by now.

Head - Bloodspawn (med)
Shoulders - Bloodspawn (light)
Chest - Tava's or Hist bark
Arms - Tava's or Hist bark
Belt - WW hide
Legs - Tava's or Hist bark
Feet - WW hide
Neck - WW hide
Ring - WW hide
Ring - WW hide
2x Sword - Tava's or Hist bark
2x Board - Tava's or Hist bark

I like this set up, I guess I can swap Tava's for hist bark based on the nature of the content after I decide which nets me more stamina, or if I don't have enough stam recovery already.

I'll just keep all my sets around so I can swap in and out for content.

Right now I have 30k hp and stam with 15k magicka. Recoveries are low, but I mean I gotta hold up a shield so it's okay. I'm going to reallocate CP into reduce block cost, increased magicka recovery and more heals received.

Thanks your tips fully answered my questions.

In short, using Hist Bark over Tava's is a strategy best suited for the most challenging content, like the Warrior hardmode, or tanking the axes on AA hardmode, or vMoL. The idea here is that you want to refrain from dropping block unless you absolutely have to, because dropping block against one of these enemies has a high risk of getting 1-shot, even with resistances. Hist Bark enables you to dodge just because you're blocking; it's a high-convenience set.

It's completely right of you to question the net stamina concept. You'll get fewer ultimates with Hist Bark, but you'll also spend a lot less stamina by not having to cast Shuffle, which also means you lower the risk of getting hit while not blocking (particularly if your Shuffle requires a bar-swap). Bottom line, your use of stamina is more efficient with the Hist Bark setup, and your group utility is more pronounced with Tava's.

This is a perfect example of why high-end tanks have multiple sets. I have a build that uses one setup for everything except vMoL and hardmodes. Even when we do vet HRC or AA with the intent of doing hardmode, I wear my ulti-regen setup all the way up to the final boss, and switch for the final fight. Those fights have a higher demand for a tankier setup, the sacrifice we make to accommodate that demand is group utility.

Vamp is good utility for tanking, and the increased fire damage isn't really an issue with the kinds of mitigation we have in our tank builds. Often times the recovery is worth it, especially for stam DK tanks who still need a moderate magicka pool so that cycling for stam is possible. All in all, it looks like you're on the right track now, given your stats, gear selection, and what you've repeated back to us on the topic. I'm sure there are some adjustments to make still (we all have adjustments to make, it's an ongoing process), but it seems to me that the rest is practice and experience from this point.

Swapping out tava for hist bark is not a good idea no matter wich trial. If u wear Tava u have to keep your elude up anyway wich does the same as the fifth bonus from hist bark. Tava gives u ultimate back way faster and thus u have more resource control (as dk) and survivability. stop wearing hist bark and footmen.

You don't say...

Try reading more of the thread. This recommendation is specifically for veteran hardmode bosses, not even for the full veteran trial. What you're saying has already been discussed at length in this thread, and if you'd read it, you'd realize I've already said all of that.