[BUILD] Magicka Sorcerer Tank [PvE]

CreepyPahuska · October 2016

Hello,
I've been playing my sorc tank for quite a while now, shared previous versions of my build several times on this forum, but all of them are almost completely obsolete (gear wise) now, with all the changes to the game that happened since, so I thought I'd share it here and hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do.
I've been through all the the 4men dungeons with this char, including DLC ones (did the Necrotic Hoarvor achievements prior to the heavy nerf on IC dungeons). I've been through vDSA CP160 too. I've only set foot in vet AA yet, and the older versions of HRC & SO, but I have no doubt that this character is ready for all them. It would probably simply needs some minor adjustments.

Stats and attributes (self-buffed) :

Gear :

I know... Tava & Dragonguard... it looks like some Meta s*** right ? I know, and it hurts me to say it, but I like it and it works well !

Monster Set : I consider that Swarm Mother is my main monster set, but it's important to have a Bloodspawn Head & Shoulder (+15 Ulti when hit with a 6sec cooldown) to switch to when necessary... or to switch to when Swarm Mother is unnecessary. Most of the time, especially in Dungeons & vDSA, I feel like I already have enough ultimate, so I get rid of Bloodspawn and switch to Swarm Mother (unless I have a DK with chains in my group willing to do the job). Being able to pull mobs and root them helps speeding things up. It's more comfortable for everyone. During raids, I'd mostly run with Bloodspawn and switch to swarm mother only when I know there will be grabable mobs.
Tava's Favor : This set is really great for building Ultimate, to pop more warhorns, negates or wichever ulti you like/need. Make sure you use the Medium Armor's skill to get Major Evasion though, otherwise this set is useless. The first bonus (+HP) is always good for a tank. The second bonus (+Stam Recovery) is kinda nice too, since you're not supposed to permablock with this build, and the third bonus (+Mag Recovery) is great since this build relies heavily on spamming Hardened Ward & Dark Deal.
Akaviri Dragonguard : This set reduces your ultimate costs by 15%. Paired with the Sorcerers' Power Stone passive, it reduces the warhorn's cost from 250 to 183. The other 3 bonuses are also nice. The magicka recovy for the same reasons as above, and Healing taken + Max HP can never be bad on a tank. It can be found in Eastmarch. The boss from stormcrag's crypt drops a named reinforced shield

Here is a gear alternative, wich is actually my previous equipement. It includes no Monster Helm and craftable sets or easily obtainable ones :

Stats and attributes (self-buffed) :

Gear :

The 4xSpectre's Eye can be replaced by 4xKagrenac.

2nd Bar weapon alternative : Restoration Staff - Endurance - Defending - Absorb Magicka : I use it in some very specific situations like final boss of vDSA (with a non-burst strat), Or the dungeons from the Hist DLC, where the final bosses drain your ressources. It allows me to recover magicka with heavy attacks.

Mundus Stone :
Atronach, Cause you never have enough magicka recovery !

Race : BRETON
The breton is a very good choice for this build. If you look at the passives :

Magicka Max +10% : More magicka, for a magicka tank... if makes sense, especially for a sorcerer, since Damage shields (hardened ward, etc...) scalent exclusively on max magicka
Spell Resistance + 3960 : 3960 represents 73 CP into spell shield, or two spell resistance set bonuses. In other words, I think it's quite big. Having this on a racial passive frees some CP or set bonuses that can be invested into something else.
Spell cost reduction 3% : It's not huge, but always good to take.

Skills :

Bar 1 :
Hardened Ward : The damage shield. This morph increases the size of the shield by 30% (note : CPs into Bastion are applied before the 30%, not at the same time). With my 30k Magicka and 75 points into Bastion, The size of that shield goes up to 17.5k; It still gets burned down quickly since damage mitigation from blocking & resistances isn't applied to shields. In my opinion, the other morph isn't worth it. 10% more magicka recovery isn't enough to make the difference, and it's certainly not worth 30% more shield. As for the increased duration, 6 seconds is already long enough for a tank. To me, if the shields lasts more than 6 seconds, it means that you didn't get hit and that you casted it for nothing, And anyway, with almost 2k Magicka recovery, spamming it more often isn't a big deal, and you always have your resistances and the ability to block if for any reason you can't cast your shield.
Ransack : This is the stamina taunt. The other morph removes the Elemental Drain (usually applied by the healer), it's a bit boring so this morph is probably the best.
Heroic Slash : This skills does two things. First it applies Minor Maim to the target, decreasing damages done by 15%. Second, it buffs you with Minor Heroism, allowing you to gain 1 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds. Try to maintain the Minor Heroism as much as possible.
Dark Deal : Personnally, I used to overlook this skill, but honnestly, now that I've tried it, I can say it's reeeaaally awesome. It heals for 8k and returns 4.8k stamina. Cast it three times and you're almost full of stamina, and here again, with 2k magicka recovery, spamming this isn't gonna burn your magicka. The only difficulty is that this skill has a 1 second cast time. 1 second during wich you can't block. It's important to learn how (and when) to use it, by casting a shield right before for example. Don't hesitate to interrupt it to block an attack.
Bound Aegis : Important for the 8% more magicka that will boost the damage shields, and 1300 resistances is always good to take. That's a step closer to the resist cap. However it's a toggle so it has to be on all your bars.
ULTI : Agressive Warhorn :This ultimate increases your group members' ressources pools by 10% and grants them 30% more Critical Damages. Your DDs will like it
OR
ULTI : Suppression field : This ultimate is simply awesome. A 12 seconds stun in a 8m radius, it's big. Put this on big packs of mobs, or on adds during a boss, like in vDSA for example. I still hesitate between the damaging morph and the healing one, I trully think that both are very good.
Bar 2 :
Restraining Prison : A very good CC skill. We don't have the DK's chain to pull mobs, but we still can prevent them from running away. Use it quickly after grabing a mob with Swarm Mother before he runs away !
Inner Fire : Range magicka taunt. Morphing it into Inner Rage will give this skill a better chance to proc the synergy that can be used by your group to regain ressources (undaunted passive : Undaunted Command). Myself, I prefer not to morph it, cause my usual healer is supporting our group's ressources well enough, and I don't want to cover other synergies with this one, but it's up to you.
Elude :This is the skill from the Medium Armor skill tree. It gives you Major Evasion, wich is necessary when you play with Tava's Favor. Try to keep this up all the time
Boundless Storm : Necessary for the resistances buff. Besides, The lightning DoT will proc the elemental drain, just like Liquid Lightning.
Bound Aegis : Because it's a toggle.
ULTI : Energy Overload : Cause tanking in overload is fun, and it grants access to a 3rd skill bar
Bar 3 (overload) :
Mage's Wrath : The sorcerer's execute skill.
Inner Fire : You must have taunt at all time, even in the third bar
Hardened Ward : Important to have this here too. We may be me on a DPS oriented bar, we remain tanks, and our priority is to resist.
Boundless Storm : Just to have access to the resistances buffs on the third bar.
Bound Aegis : Still because it's a toggle.

Other Useful skills :

Streak : The sorcerer's teleportation ability. Useful when you need more mobility. Slot it instead of Liquid lightning or Restraining prison
Harness Magicka : Another shield that can also return magicka. I use it sometimes instead of Dark Deal, or Restraining Prison to have a backup shield in the 2nd bar.
Defensive Stance : Increases the amount of damages you can block by 8% and reduces the cost of blocking by 8% while slotted. In other words, don't use it, just slot it. This morph or the other, it doesn't matter
Liquid Lightning : The other morph is just as good. It's useful to quickyl aggro packs of mobs. You can also put it at the bosses' feet if your healer uses elemental drain.
Surge (Power Surge/Critical Surge) : This can be useful in situations where you don't have a healer and you must manage your own health. From a pure tank perspective, the Critical Surge morph is better because of the increased healing, but since I also like to switch to magicka DD with this char, I used the Power Surge morph.

Champions Points :
RED :
Bastion : 75 Points, for 20% bigger shields
I've spent a few points into Heavy Armor Focus to avoid falling below 28k Physical Resistances, but most of the points are spread between Robust and Elemental Defender (both of them mitigates the damages before they reach your shield, wich helps your shields last longer). You can also put some points into Thick Skinned.
GREEN :
Magician : 51 points for the reduced spells costs
Arcanist : 61 points for the magicka recovery
Shadow Ward : Everything else here for the reduced block cost
BLUE :
This isn't very important. Just put your champions points as you would do for a Magicka DPS build, in case you want to have another set to switch to DD

Gameplay Video(s) :
Veteran Aetherian Archives : First run ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKt3eupvG8Q

Veteran Dragonstar Arena :

Veteran Dragonstar Arena - Arena 7 - The Circle of rituals :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JmPjhG2vIk

Veteran Dragonstar Arena - Arena 9 - I-don't-remember-the-exact-name-of-this-arena-lolz :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-12ok2vw_0o

To Do :

Make another build for a PvP sorcerer tank built around the Infernal Guardian monster set. (But PvP isn't my top 1 priority right now, far from it)
Drink a beer

Update Log :

11/02/2016 :
- Changed my gear to 2xSwarm Mother/Blood Spawn / 5x Tava / 5x Dragonguard. The older gear (Seducer/Spectre) is now just an alternative gear that is more accessible to new players. Also changed the skill bars accordingly.

serenity_painted · October 2016

Run a very similar build on my stam sorc, you need to get Swarm Mother. It's sooo good and hella fun for trash/anything with adds. It's not as good as chains ofc but it has the perk of working pretty much passively.

CreepyPahuska · October 2016

When you say similar, you're talking about the skills ?

I definitely plan on trying the swarm mother, I got a heavy divine head right now, wich isn't bad, but my shoulder piece kinda sucks (I still have 36 keys to use though). However, I'm pretty sure this won't become my go-to set. I'll probably use it in vCoS or in some arenas of vDSA if I don't have a Dk DD or Heal in the group, but it'll be pretty much it. Non-DK tanks have alternatives for pulling mobs, like breaking the line of sight.
I'm also a bit concerned about the efficiency with this build, cause you need to block to make it work, but I don't block that much. I overabuse the Hardened Ward to absorb everything I can and only block when it's absolutely necesserary.. but I guess I'll have to try and see for myself

serenity_painted · October 2016

Yes the skills, no shields and crit surge/hurricane, don't need Stance and focus on blasting warhorns so using the appropriate skills with tava's /dragon guard set up.

Yeah ofcourse you can do without it with line of sight and it's useless on bosses without adds, but for me it was a game changer. It's such a useful tool to make the most of the groups dps where line of sighting isn't an option(which is fairly often). I often have those moment where there's one or two ranged mobs outside of the mobs i clumped up where i just throw an inner fire on them, hold block for a second and i have all mobs in a neat little cluster. Like a poor man's chains.

It's also fantastic on bosses with important adds, just pull them to the boss and let the dps kill them with their splash damage so they can keep focusing on the boss.

I use dressing room and always carry them around so switching between that and Bloodspawn only takes a second.

ClockworkArc · October 2016

I can say that I found Iceheart to be lackluster in PvE but it really shines in PvP due to the crazy proc meta.

Swarm Mother defintely has potential. I haven't tried that. I'm currently using Lord Warden though.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · October 2016

Great write up but I have a couple things.

Inner Fire : Range magicka taunt. No need to morph it.

This is not true, the great chance for synergy is great, damage that you get resources back for is always good.

Ransack : This is the stamina taunt. The other morph removes the Elemental Drain (usually applied by the healer), it's a bit boring so this morph is probably the best.

I am pretty sure @Asayre has said this is not true. So it is better to run pierce armor.

Ir0nB34r · October 2016

I'm glad to see that sorcerer tanks are still viable. I have a lot of fun with mine.
Just getting back into the game after an 8 month break. Looks like I need to optimize it for the new updates. This guide will be a great reference for that!

RavenSworn · October 2016

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Great write up but I have a couple things.

Inner Fire : Range magicka taunt. No need to morph it.

This is not true, the great chance for synergy is great, damage that you get resources back for is always good.

Ransack : This is the stamina taunt. The other morph removes the Elemental Drain (usually applied by the healer), it's a bit boring so this morph is probably the best.

I am pretty sure @Asayre has said this is not true. So it is better to run pierce armor.

I can reconfirm this. Inner Rage will have increased chance for synergy which will help with proc-ing the passive for resource returns.

Pierce armour now deals breach and fracture which is a most welcome debut for both stamina and magicka dps. Ransack increases your resistance though but that will usually be covered by other abilities.

CreepyPahuska · October 2016

serenity_painted wrote: »

Yes the skills, no shields and crit surge/hurricane, don't need Stance and focus on blasting warhorns so using the appropriate skills with tava's /dragon guard set up.

Yeah ofcourse you can do without it with line of sight and it's useless on bosses without adds, but for me it was a game changer. It's such a useful tool to make the most of the groups dps where line of sighting isn't an option(which is fairly often). I often have those moment where there's one or two ranged mobs outside of the mobs i clumped up where i just throw an inner fire on them, hold block for a second and i have all mobs in a neat little cluster. Like a poor man's chains.

It's also fantastic on bosses with important adds, just pull them to the boss and let the dps kill them with their splash damage so they can keep focusing on the boss.

I use dressing room and always carry them around so switching between that and Bloodspawn only takes a second.

Thanks for mentioning crit surge, I totally forgotted about it. I only use it during Hiath the Battlemaster vDSA, when I have to tank the four bosses alone. The heal isn't big, but it's enough to save my life.

Right now, my focus is to make a new build to synergize more with my group for vDSA, wich include a NB Healer, and two stam DD, DK & Templar. For now, our DK is using the chains to pull the mobs into my negate. This is why I'm probably going for an ulti-oriented setup like yours. This is also why I want to try swarm mother, to find out if we're better off with me using it to pull the mobs into my own negates, freeing our DK from his chains job, or with me using Bloodspawn to be able to use the negate/war horn more often.

ClockworkArc wrote: »

I can say that I found Iceheart to be lackluster in PvE but it really shines in PvP due to the crazy proc meta.

Swarm Mother defintely has potential. I haven't tried that. I'm currently using Lord Warden though.

Yeah, I don't think that Iceheart is great in PvE, but I want to try. As for PvP, Infernal Guardian looks like a loooot of fun so I'll try this first

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Great write up but I have a couple things.

Inner Fire : Range magicka taunt. No need to morph it.

This is not true, the great chance for synergy is great, damage that you get resources back for is always good.

Well... first I always kinda fear that this may cover other usefull synergies. Second, I don't think that the damages are high enough to be worth breaking a DD's skill rotation for it. As for the ressource return from using a synergy... well I don't think that one more or one less synergy would make a big difference, but I'm used to play with a NB healer who's already very good at supporting ressources (Rkugamz + Master's Restoration staff + Elemental drain + ... ) so we generally don't have ressources issues.
I'll edit my guide to add more informations about this taunt, I agree it's a bit short

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Ransack : This is the stamina taunt. The other morph removes the Elemental Drain (usually applied by the healer), it's a bit boring so this morph is probably the best.

I am pretty sure @Asayre has said this is not true. So it is better to run pierce armor.

I don't know what Asayre said, but this is what we saw by ourselves. My healer was always going crazy with the Drain going off before time, some of our DDs noticed it as well (it doesn't seem to remove the drain all the time though). We recently realized that it was because of my taunt, and since I changed it, we have no more issues. And anyway, if your healer applies the Drain correctly, the Major Breach is always here, so using pierce armor won't add add it twice.

uniq_faznrb18_ESO wrote: »

Pierce armour now deals breach and fracture which is a most welcome debut for both stamina and magicka dps. Ransack increases your resistance though but that will usually be covered by other abilities.

In our case, the minor resolve is covered by Bound Aegis, so we could actually say than Ransack isn't useful, but at least it doesn't break the Drain (wich, as I said above, applies Major Breach, making the Pierce Armor morph just as useless).

Liofa · October 2016

Let me clear things about Ransack . It is not about removing the Drain or not . It is about usefulness . A sorcerer tank may not be running Bound Armaments which gives Minor Resist buffs but a healer should always be running Drain on the boss with 100% uptime which applies the Major Breach debuff anyways . Minor Resist buffs are applied with Combat Prayer which should be aimed at DDs so they can get the Minor Berserk buff . I have never seen a healer that uses Combat Prayer aiming the tank to give him Minor Resist buffs .

Trying the give the party a buff that is already there is just not useful . Tell your healer to use Elemental Drain . You don't even have to but just in case . Hope this explanation will help you .

CreepyPahuska · October 2016

Liofa wrote: »

a healer should always be running Drain on the boss with 100% uptime.

^ This

UPDATE : I added a video from yesterday's vDSA, in the circle of rituals. I think it's an interesting arena for a tank, cause there is a lot of block, interrupt, break free, adds management, etc... it's more than simply taunt & wait

Erock25 · October 2016

A quick question and then some comments about tanking in general and how you feel this build fits in to the tanking dynamic in vet dungeons.

Is all of your gear legendary? I run seven heavy and I'm sitting around 29k resists but my gear is purple for now.

I'm sure this build is fun but have you considered what it's bringing to the table for the group? Holding aggro is great and is really all you need, but tanks can be so much more. Your spec isn't an ultimate battery, it doesn't provide any healing, doesn't do much dps, and it's lacking on buffs and debuffs. May I suggest dropping Aegis, put on the healing pet and pick up resto and become your groups tank plus healer or drop aegis and pick up a destro and lay down some dps while tanking.

My stam sorc tank runs tava's and akaviri dragonguard (you should look into this set for your magicka build) so he's a ulti battery dropping warhorn with a 50% uptime while using dual wield bar to pull 12-15k solo dps (55% crit rate) and 30k+ aoe dps while being able to self heal myself and the group on a majority of encounters.

If you build your tank too tanky, you're wasting stats.

CreepyPahuska · October 2016

Erock25 wrote: »

A quick question and then some comments about tanking in general and how you feel this build fits in to the tanking dynamic in vet dungeons.

Is all of your gear legendary? I run seven heavy and I'm sitting around 29k resists but my gear is purple for now.

I'm sure this build is fun but have you considered what it's bringing to the table for the group? Holding aggro is great and is really all you need, but tanks can be so much more. Your spec isn't an ultimate battery, it doesn't provide any healing, doesn't do much dps, and it's lacking on buffs and debuffs. May I suggest dropping Aegis, put on the healing pet and pick up resto and become your groups tank plus healer or drop aegis and pick up a destro and lay down some dps while tanking.

My stam sorc tank runs tava's and akaviri dragonguard (you should look into this set for your magicka build) so he's a ulti battery dropping warhorn with a 50% uptime while using dual wield bar to pull 12-15k solo dps (55% crit rate) and 30k+ aoe dps while being able to self heal myself and the group on a majority of encounters.

If you build your tank too tanky, you're wasting stats.

No, my gear isn't all legendary. Some parts are but I can't remember wich ones, and can't log into the game right now to check it. I don't run 7 heavy anymore. I used to do it a while ago but now, with this build, I prefer to go 5,1,1 to get more ressources.

My spec isn't an ultimate battery, indeed. I don't think I need to write a guide on how to play the meta, there is already plenty of that, and to be honnest, you may call me a hipster but I think metas are boring as hell. I'm not saying it's bad though, actually if you've read my guide till the end you've seen that I'm preparing a Bloodspawn/Swarm mother, Tava & Dragonguard setup too. And in my third message, I said that :

Right now, my focus is to make a new build to synergize more with my group for vDSA, wich include a NB Healer, and two stam DD, DK & Templar [...] This is why I'm probably going for an ulti-oriented setup

There is absolutely no way I may drop Aegis, especially not to become a healer. I play most of the time (well... all the time) with @Shaiba, who's a great Nightblade healer (aswell as the 3 other classes too), so I don't need (nor want) to fill that role myself. As for DPS, I'm not interested into doing that on a sorcerer. If I wanted to be a DPS-Tank, I'd go for Nightblade (but that's just a personnal opinion/preference). If I ever need to do DPS with this build, I just use Energy Overload and Mage's Wrath. It helped me more than once to finish some bosses, but that's just a backup thing. Besides, dropping aegis would mean losing 8% magicka, thus decreasing the size of my shield. Considering that my build relies on hardened ward, it wouldn't make sense.

My main concern as a tank is not to be a burden for my healer. The less she has to focus on me, the more she can focus on the DDs and on her own DPS (cause as a nightblade healer she'll always pull more DPS than me as a sorcerer tank), and I have to be tanky enough to survive without a healer for an extended period of time (I have a few examples of that that I must upload on youtube). My secondary concern is crowd control. I don't want to heal or DD while tanking because the others members of my group can do that better than me. CC however, is a task best suited for me. The sorcerer has great tools to hold mobs in place, I think it would be a shame to not use them. When you start running hard content for no death/high scores, survivability prevails over brainless DPS burst, and being able to root/stun mobs and to remove red circles on the ground is a big step toward group survivability. I experienced that for the first time when my friends and I were farming the No Death Achievement of vICP, back when it was still a challenge, and I keep experiencing it today in vRoM, vCoS and last but not least : vDSA.

To conclude, I think the only way to waste stats as a tank is to be over the resistance cap, or to have spell/weapon damage and crit bonuses when you don't intend to heal/dps.

pull 12-15k solo dps (55% crit rate) and 30k+ aoe dps while being able to self heal myself and the group on a majority of encounters

That's a nice Tank-DPS performance, trully, but I'm a bit curious about one thing : what's the minority of encounters where you can't do that ?

Erock25 · October 2016

I've just been doing the pledges and random vets since I started with this spec and 95% of the time I'm DPSing hard while tanking. Basically all the version I's of dungeons and dungeons that do not have multiple versions are usually faceroll easy for me to tank. There are so many instances where you can easily stand in red and not worry about blocking while blood craze, bloodthirst, and crit surge are keeping my self healed to full. I keep quick cloak running and can really just stand in most red aoe - only getting out of it or blocking if it will CC me. Of course there are fights that are harder where this isn't possible and fights where I have to kite because of mechanics.

My major CC I bring to the table is I have a Dawn Breaker of Smiting up near constantly and of course I'm using swarm mother to pull in all the ranged adds. Dawn Breaking trash packs and Aggressive Warhorning boss mobs is the way to go.

I understand that some instances (especially DLC dungeons) require a bit more tank acting like a tank, but if you;re doing Fungal Grotto I Vet HM (or the other 90% of instances that are just as easy) with a tanky tank you're wasting time. Bust out that Lightning staff and DPS the trash packs down.

CreepyPahuska · October 2016

To be honnest, in my opinion all non-dlc dungeons are faceroll easy, and IC dungeons became close to a joke as well.
When a tank is really not needed I just switch to my DPS gear (master's staves, Ilambris & Julianos), and we run through them with 1 Healer and 2 or 3 DDs. When I need to tank those dungeons... well I don't feel like wasting mats to make a build specifically for vet pledges, I have other priorities.
The only real 4men challenging contents for me in the current state of the game, are farming SOTH dungeons achievements, and increasing our score in vDSA (currently sitting at rank 23... would have been much higher if I didn't screwed on the last boss by forgetting to slot Power Surge ><).

Autolycus · October 2016

Looks pretty solid! It's good to see more sorc tanks around. I didn't see the whole video, but from the part I watched it seems like your group has gotten crowd control and "herding" down to an art. You coordinate and synergize well with each other.

Personally, I'd play down the shields quite a bit (for trials, and I know you said you don't do them) by taking everything most out of Bastion and putting them into Hardy, Ele Defender, and Thick Skinned; Although since you are a Breton, I'd underweight Ele Defender in favor of the other two. I would still use Empowered Ward, and I know you mentioned you think Hardened is better, but the magicka recovery isn't really for you, but your group, and it does make a difference. I'd only use it situationally, however, instead of it being the core defense of the build.

I would also cater more to an ulti-regen build for trials, but for dungeons it's not really necessary (unless you get stuck with very low dps, perhaps in a pug). Adding Major Evasion to this build will enhance survivability and sustain to a point where, at least in my own opinion, you won't want to revert. I can fathom several different gear setups that I think would be viable to accommodate this, however my "favorite" idea for this would be 5 Tava + 2 Blood spawn + 5 Lich. It would also be very easy to give up Blood Spawn for something else since you clearly don't need the resistances, or you could keep Blood Spawn and play down your other sources of phys/spell resistance - my choice would be to reinvest all of your Heavy Armor Focus points into Hardy / Ele Def / Thick Skinned and let your procs and Major Ward/Resolve act as the buffer here. In my experience, CP points are better spent on pure damage reduction and Quick Recovery, reserving few (if any) points for other red stars.

Your bar setup looks great, I would only change one or two skills and only on an as-needed basis. Your bars will currently accommodate just about every situation. Ransack is an inferior taunt to Pierce Armor, as it does not replace the magicka-restoration component of Ele Drain. I would also play down your magicka recovery (you have more than enough) and supplement your block cost more to make your use of resources more efficient. Pierce Armor should be used over Inner Rage, even if you've already taunted with Inner Rage so as to apply Major Fracture/Breach, and it's less expensive too. Instead of sinking everything into reduced magicka cost and recovery, try putting some of those recovery points into reduced stamina cost as well, which will help with Pierce Armor and Shuffle, and Heroic Slash (which you should consider using for ulti regen).

One final thought is that Sorcs have a ton of self-healing potential. In most cases, Dark Deal is plenty to accommodate what little healing you may want to do (above and beyond your healer). There are, however, a number of ways to boost your healing while still maintaining the integrity (and identity) of your current build, though my suggestions here are rather unorthodox, and few are willing to give them a shot (because it goes against the meta). Bahraha's Curse could also have a very valuable place in your build. If ever you want to explore this as an option, I'd be happy to explain the implications of CP and mundus on using this set, and what stats will boost it (and which will not), as well as how to go about optimizing this self-healing without giving up survivability.

All in all, though, I think you've done an excellent job. I tend to get carried away with my own thoughts and suggestions and always end up writing this wall of text in an effort to help. It's definitely not because what you have is deserving of criticism - no, I think you've done a great job. You can take or leave any of these suggestions of course, but I'd be happy to elaborate if you're interested.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · October 2016

Here is the forum posts where @Asayre stated that he couldn't replicate the puncture/eledrain problem. I wonder if this is still true.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3191449#Comment_3191449

I stand by my comments that the tank really need to be running pierce. The tank is going to be taunting more then just one mob at a time and the healer can't put eleldrain on everything as the tank taunts. The extra 5k+ spell resist debuff is too big of a dps gain to not have on as many mobs as you can.

I also contend that the healer needs to be running eledrain. Mystic orbs give way more magic back and does damage that you get resources back from the undaunted passives (I have had dps tell me it hits for 25k{this was a stam dps as well, so they really ought to be hitting for more on a magic dps} and is aoe, so it is a non issue to stop their rotation. Best part is that orbs give magic back to everyone in the blast radius, meaning a tank could hit one and the dps that is close to the tank still get magic back as well.

Shaiba · October 2016

Hello

Not sure if it does remove the elemental drain effect (magicka back and major breach), but it removes the debuff icon. That's what the problem is. I don't know what Asayre said or not, it's not my main concern, Creepy and I tell you what WE experienced in game (and why we decided it will be better to change its morph). I apply the major breach debuff with it. We don't need the advantage of this taunt morph, why would we play with its disadvantage ? Ok with Lightspeed, if he doesn't play with a healer that applies it, Pierce is superior, but it's not the case, he said he plays with a healer that applies it. If someone play with a healer that don't use Ele drain (no matter the reasons), Pierce is great to have.

About orbs over Elemental Drain, why wouldn't you use both ? Specially when you have magicka DDs in group. When we play with magicka DD I add the orbs to my bar, when we don't have magicka DDs (like the setup we're using for vDSA), I only run Ele Drain. I let @CreepyPahuska tells you why he prefers Elemental Drain over Mystic Orbs (to sustain his ressources). About the DPS of the orbs, I asked one of the DPS we play with in vDSA, he said "I'll use it if you or the tank needs the mana back [we don't]. If you don't, i won't cut my rotation for it. It doesn't add enough DPS. If I cut my rotation for your orbs, its damage needs to be >30k, if it doesn't, it'll down my DPS. We don't use the orbs for a DPS gain, it's clearly not one." We were talking about the use of it in vDungeons and vDSA. In raids, I tend to think that a good healer will use the orbs anyway, and one of the healers must run Elemental Drain.

CreepyPahuska · October 2016

I just added a new video from vDSA's 9th arena. Things wen't a little bit out of control twice. It was kinda fun. The first time, our DD died in the crypt, so the healer + the 2nd DD had to go down and help him. The second time, the healer got grabbed into the crypt by a chain from a mob I failed to taunt. A DD went down with her to help but the other died in the surface.

Autolycus wrote: »

Looks pretty solid! It's good to see more sorc tanks around. I didn't see the whole video, but from the part I watched it seems like your group has gotten crowd control and "herding" down to an art. You coordinate and synergize well with each other.

Thanks ! I think we've done vDSA together like 4 or 5 times for now, so we still have a few things to improve, but I'm pretty happy with what we got. We also have a good stamina management from our healer's Rkugamz/Master gear and our Temp DD's repentance (wich is great considering that our DDs are both stamina), and the whole chain + root/stun thing from our DK DD and myself is really useful. It's also very satisfying to step out of the standard group setup (Dk Tank & Templar Heal).

Autolycus wrote: »

Personally, I'd play down the shields quite a bit (for trials, and I know you said you don't do them) by taking everything most out of Bastion and putting them into Hardy, Ele Defender, and Thick Skinned; Although since you are a Breton, I'd underweight Ele Defender in favor of the other two. I would still use Empowered Ward, and I know you mentioned you think Hardened is better, but the magicka recovery isn't really for you, but your group, and it does make a difference. I'd only use it situationally, however, instead of it being the core defense of the build.

I understand what you mean, but Hardened Ward is the core of my playstyle, and I want it to remain that way. Now if it doesn't work for vet trials, I'll adapt my build to fit this content as best as possible, but I need/want to see this for myself, to have a sort of benchmark to start with.
About Empowered Ward : from my own experience, when I play with @Shaiba as a healer, DDs never suffer from ressources issues since she's able to adapt her skill bars to add magicka management tools if necessary (stamina management is coming from her gear), so I'm certain that the magicka recovery bonus wouldn't do much more to help. However, if the healer(s) you play with can't do that as well, then yes, empowered ward might be a good option, but using that morph and removing points of bastion would reduce the shield's size by nearly half, and thus it couldn't not remain the core of the build, the gameplay would be different.
Besides, the 30% bonus from Hardened Ward will be useful to me all the time. However the magicka recovery bonus would only help when I play with magicka DDs.

Autolycus wrote: »

I would also cater more to an ulti-regen build for trials, but for dungeons it's not really necessary (unless you get stuck with very low dps, perhaps in a pug). Adding Major Evasion to this build will enhance survivability and sustain to a point where, at least in my own opinion, you won't want to revert. I can fathom several different gear setups that I think would be viable to accommodate this, however my "favorite" idea for this would be 5 Tava + 2 Blood spawn + 5 Lich. It would also be very easy to give up Blood Spawn for something else since you clearly don't need the resistances, or you could keep Blood Spawn and play down your other sources of phys/spell resistance - my choice would be to reinvest all of your Heavy Armor Focus points into Hardy / Ele Def / Thick Skinned and let your procs and Major Ward/Resolve act as the buffer here. In my experience, CP points are better spent on pure damage reduction and Quick Recovery, reserving few (if any) points for other red stars.

I think a ulti-regen build would be useful for vDSA as well to improve our group. Actually, I often felt like I could use more negates. When we fight bosses during the last wave of each arena for example, I have to choose wether to use the negate during the first spawn of adds or during the second. If I use it on the first wave, I usually don't have the time to rebuild enough ulti to use it again on the second wave. Also, when things start to get out of control (like here), being able to pull a negate earlier can help.
About Major Evasion, I tried it once. It's great. I'll definitely include it in my ulti build, since there is obviously no point in using Tava without Major Evasion.
Thanks for mentioning the Lich set. It could be a good alternative to Dragonguard, since sorcerers already have 15% of ulti cost reduction. I already have some pieces of the lich (2 rings if I remember well), I would need to find a belt and the weapons or shields (since it's a light set... I don't want 2 light pieces in my gear). As for the Bloodspawn, I would use it only for the ultimate regen, not the resistances. Resistances are very important for a tank build, and I don't want to rely on the "randomness" of the Bloodspawn's Proc for that.
About the CPs, I think I already have 50 points into Hardy and 50 others into Ele Def. I think I'm gonna leave just enough points into Heavy Armor Focus to remain above 30k Physical Resistance and drop the rest into Thick Skinned.

Autolycus wrote: »

Your bar setup looks great, I would only change one or two skills and only on an as-needed basis. Your bars will currently accommodate just about every situation. Ransack is an inferior taunt to Pierce Armor, as it does not replace the magicka-restoration component of Ele Drain. I would also play down your magicka recovery (you have more than enough) and supplement your block cost more to make your use of resources more efficient. Pierce Armor should be used over Inner Rage, even if you've already taunted with Inner Rage so as to apply Major Fracture/Breach, and it's less expensive too. Instead of sinking everything into reduced magicka cost and recovery, try putting some of those recovery points into reduced stamina cost as well, which will help with Pierce Armor and Shuffle, and Heroic Slash (which you should consider using for ulti regen).

@Shaiba already covered why I prefer Ransack over Pierce. If Major Breach is already here, using pierce wouldn't add it twice but it would break her buffs counter displays, which is really annoying for her.
About the uses of the different taunts : I know Inner Fire is expensive, but it's also a ranged taunt, and my magicka recovery covers the high cost. I prefer to use it over Ransack to taunt the most threatening mobs before they reach our DDs (or before our DDs reach them) . Only then do I apply Ransack (if the mobs are still alive ^^).
About reducing stamina costs, currently my stamina consumption is covered by Dark Deal (which may be tricky to use because of the cast time), which is itself covered by the Magicka Recovery. I don't have enough stamina abilities right now to justify investing into reduced stamina cost, but that may change with an ulti-oriented build (with the skill you mentioned). Besides, if I go for 5x Lich, I may indeed end up with way too much recovery, so I guess I could change some jewels enchants or some CP points.

Autolycus wrote: »

One final thought is that Sorcs have a ton of self-healing potential. In most cases, Dark Deal is plenty to accommodate what little healing you may want to do (above and beyond your healer). There are, however, a number of ways to boost your healing while still maintaining the integrity (and identity) of your current build, though my suggestions here are rather unorthodox, and few are willing to give them a shot (because it goes against the meta). Bahraha's Curse could also have a very valuable place in your build. If ever you want to explore this as an option, I'd be happy to explain the implications of CP and mundus on using this set, and what stats will boost it (and which will not), as well as how to go about optimizing this self-healing without giving up survivability.

I can totally imagine a sorcerer tank built around Bahraha's Curse set. I've seen this set in action, paired with the Leeching Plate on my girlfriend's Nightblade Tank. Not sure I'd enjoy it as much as this one but it's interesting. I'll let you know if I try it some day

Autolycus wrote: »

All in all, though, I think you've done an excellent job. I tend to get carried away with my own thoughts and suggestions and always end up writing this wall of text in an effort to help. It's definitely not because what you have is deserving of criticism - no, I think you've done a great job. You can take or leave any of these suggestions of course, but I'd be happy to elaborate if you're interested.

Thoughts and Suggestions are always welcome ! Whether I agree or choose to follow them or not is a different story, but it may still help me or other people reading them (which is the reason why I posted this here

). As for walls of text... don't worry, I'm used to it. @Shaiba is an expert

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Here is the forum posts where @Asayre stated that he couldn't replicate the puncture/eledrain problem. I wonder if this is still true.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3191449#Comment_3191449

I stand by my comments that the tank really need to be running pierce. The tank is going to be taunting more then just one mob at a time and the healer can't put eleldrain on everything as the tank taunts. The extra 5k+ spell resist debuff is too big of a dps gain to not have on as many mobs as you can.

I also contend that the healer needs to be running eledrain. Mystic orbs give way more magic back and does damage that you get resources back from the undaunted passives (I have had dps tell me it hits for 25k{this was a stam dps as well, so they really ought to be hitting for more on a magic dps} and is aoe, so it is a non issue to stop their rotation. Best part is that orbs give magic back to everyone in the blast radius, meaning a tank could hit one and the dps that is close to the tank still get magic back as well.

If the DDs are both stamina, I'm the only magicka user in the group, and my healer don't need to provide me more than one source of magicka, and I prefer eledrain over orb for a simple reason :
Orb is a synergy. Meaning that you can miss it. DDs, for example, would have to break their rotation to use it... if it's not covered by another synergy (like an inner fire morphed into rage for example). As a tank, I often miss it because I'm doing something else that is more important (interrupting, taunting, dark dealing, etc... everything a tank does). It also means that it has a cooldown.
Elemental Drain, on the other hand, is a guaranted constant proc that is 100% passive. The healer puts it on the boss/mobs and that's it. All I have to do is... well... nothing more than usual.
As for which one returns the most magicka... well it might be worth doing some maths, but I'm pretty sure eledrain beats the orb in a majority of situations. But that doesn't even matter anyway because to me, the practical aspect of Eledrain is, by far, superior to the Orb

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · October 2016

All valid points, though I do not agree with all of them. When I tank, I am a stam dk, which I am willing to bet most tanks are, so eledrain is worthless to me, orbs are much better, I get a ton of magic back, for igneous shields, and everyone around me does too. When I heal I have worm, which saves more magic then drain gives and I use orbs. I don't even need to switch any skills if both dps are stam either, I have the master resto, use repentance every three bodys I see drop and drop shards for dps , so there is a constant stream of stam going out.

So it really depends on your group comp and such.

Again, I want to say that it is a great write up. This is one of the things I love about the game, you can really make anything work.

Autolycus · October 2016

CreepyPahuska wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

Looks pretty solid! It's good to see more sorc tanks around. I didn't see the whole video, but from the part I watched it seems like your group has gotten crowd control and "herding" down to an art. You coordinate and synergize well with each other.

Thanks ! I think we've done vDSA together like 4 or 5 times for now, so we still have a few things to improve, but I'm pretty happy with what we got. We also have a good stamina management from our healer's Rkugamz/Master gear and our Temp DD's repentance (wich is great considering that our DDs are both stamina), and the whole chain + root/stun thing from our DK DD and myself is really useful. It's also very satisfying to step out of the standard group setup (Dk Tank & Templar Heal).

I agree wholeheartedly. We do this a lot in our vDSA and trial runs too, and we've found that what matters most is merely the presence of multiple classes and their respective buffs/debuffs. The role each person fills in the group doesn't really matter if the overall group makeup is one that caters to the variety of skills and passives each class can provide.

CreepyPahuska wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

Personally, I'd play down the shields quite a bit (for trials, and I know you said you don't do them) by taking everything most out of Bastion and putting them into Hardy, Ele Defender, and Thick Skinned; Although since you are a Breton, I'd underweight Ele Defender in favor of the other two. I would still use Empowered Ward, and I know you mentioned you think Hardened is better, but the magicka recovery isn't really for you, but your group, and it does make a difference. I'd only use it situationally, however, instead of it being the core defense of the build.

I understand what you mean, but Hardened Ward is the core of my playstyle, and I want it to remain that way. Now if it doesn't work for vet trials, I'll adapt my build to fit this content as best as possible, but I need/want to see this for myself, to have a sort of benchmark to start with.
About Empowered Ward : from my own experience, when I play with @Shaiba as a healer, DDs never suffer from ressources issues since she's able to adapt her skill bars to add magicka management tools if necessary (stamina management is coming from her gear), so I'm certain that the magicka recovery bonus wouldn't do much more to help. However, if the healer(s) you play with can't do that as well, then yes, empowered ward might be a good option, but using that morph and removing points of bastion would reduce the shield's size by nearly half, and thus it couldn't not remain the core of the build, the gameplay would be different.
Besides, the 30% bonus from Hardened Ward will be useful to me all the time. However the magicka recovery bonus would only help when I play with magicka DDs.

The bolded portion here is the real kicker, imho. I've always been an advocate for making your playstyle work, and it's for this reason that I play "unorthodox" builds personally. With that in mind, there's not a single argument I would make against you doing that. I am confident your playstyle can and will work in the hardest content too. Maybe it will take a couple of tries to work out the kinks, but that's not an issue.

CreepyPahuska wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

I would also cater more to an ulti-regen build for trials, but for dungeons it's not really necessary (unless you get stuck with very low dps, perhaps in a pug). Adding Major Evasion to this build will enhance survivability and sustain to a point where, at least in my own opinion, you won't want to revert. I can fathom several different gear setups that I think would be viable to accommodate this, however my "favorite" idea for this would be 5 Tava + 2 Blood spawn + 5 Lich. It would also be very easy to give up Blood Spawn for something else since you clearly don't need the resistances, or you could keep Blood Spawn and play down your other sources of phys/spell resistance - my choice would be to reinvest all of your Heavy Armor Focus points into Hardy / Ele Def / Thick Skinned and let your procs and Major Ward/Resolve act as the buffer here. In my experience, CP points are better spent on pure damage reduction and Quick Recovery, reserving few (if any) points for other red stars.

I think a ulti-regen build would be useful for vDSA as well to improve our group. Actually, I often felt like I could use more negates. When we fight bosses during the last wave of each arena for example, I have to choose wether to use the negate during the first spawn of adds or during the second. If I use it on the first wave, I usually don't have the time to rebuild enough ulti to use it again on the second wave. Also, when things start to get out of control (like here), being able to pull a negate earlier can help.
About Major Evasion, I tried it once. It's great. I'll definitely include it in my ulti build, since there is obviously no point in using Tava without Major Evasion.
Thanks for mentioning the Lich set. It could be a good alternative to Dragonguard, since sorcerers already have 15% of ulti cost reduction. I already have some pieces of the lich (2 rings if I remember well), I would need to find a belt and the weapons or shields (since it's a light set... I don't want 2 light pieces in my gear). As for the Bloodspawn, I would use it only for the ultimate regen, not the resistances. Resistances are very important for a tank build, and I don't want to rely on the "randomness" of the Bloodspawn's Proc for that.
About the CPs, I think I already have 50 points into Hardy and 50 others into Ele Def. I think I'm gonna leave just enough points into Heavy Armor Focus to remain above 30k Physical Resistance and drop the rest into Thick Skinned.

All very good points. I love Negate since it was buffed a couple patches ago. It's an amazing skill now, regardless of morph, and I think it has it's place in just about every context. As for Blood Spawn, I think you've made a completely fair point here too, although I'd suggest that the procs are a little more reliable than most people tend to think. I'm not claiming you can proc it on a whim anytime you want, but something to consider is that it can proc from virtually every form of damage you take - including AoE damage. For example, I use the lightning walls that Molag Kena spawns to build ult via Blood Spawn, in order to crank out 3-4 War Horns over the course of the entire fight.

I wouldn't change the CP from what you specified above unless you add Blood Spawn. If you add it, you'd be well over the hard caps for resistances (and resistances mean nothing if your Ward is active).

CreepyPahuska wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

Your bar setup looks great, I would only change one or two skills and only on an as-needed basis. Your bars will currently accommodate just about every situation. Ransack is an inferior taunt to Pierce Armor, as it does not replace the magicka-restoration component of Ele Drain. I would also play down your magicka recovery (you have more than enough) and supplement your block cost more to make your use of resources more efficient. Pierce Armor should be used over Inner Rage, even if you've already taunted with Inner Rage so as to apply Major Fracture/Breach, and it's less expensive too. Instead of sinking everything into reduced magicka cost and recovery, try putting some of those recovery points into reduced stamina cost as well, which will help with Pierce Armor and Shuffle, and Heroic Slash (which you should consider using for ulti regen).

@Shaiba already covered why I prefer Ransack over Pierce. If Major Breach is already here, using pierce wouldn't add it twice but it would break her buffs counter displays, which is really annoying for her.
About the uses of the different taunts : I know Inner Fire is expensive, but it's also a ranged taunt, and my magicka recovery covers the high cost. I prefer to use it over Ransack to taunt the most threatening mobs before they reach our DDs (or before our DDs reach them) . Only then do I apply Ransack (if the mobs are still alive ^^).
About reducing stamina costs, currently my stamina consumption is covered by Dark Deal (which may be tricky to use because of the cast time), which is itself covered by the Magicka Recovery. I don't have enough stamina abilities right now to justify investing into reduced stamina cost, but that may change with an ulti-oriented build (with the skill you mentioned). Besides, if I go for 5x Lich, I may indeed end up with way too much recovery, so I guess I could change some jewels enchants or some CP points.

Also very good points. I can't outright disagree with anything here. Truth be told, if you can justify it, then why not do it your way? At least you have a reason for it. And, for anything you tank where you don't have many (or any) stam dps, which is very common in vet dungeons, and growing in popularity for many trials, Major Fracture isn't necessary. I usually keep both active, but I don't have to. Seems to me like you're covering your bases and you're consciously aware of the nuances, and that's really all that matters. There would only be reason to change if it was something you hadn't considered and weren't accommodating.

CreepyPahuska wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

All in all, though, I think you've done an excellent job. I tend to get carried away with my own thoughts and suggestions and always end up writing this wall of text in an effort to help. It's definitely not because what you have is deserving of criticism - no, I think you've done a great job. You can take or leave any of these suggestions of course, but I'd be happy to elaborate if you're interested.

Thoughts and Suggestions are always welcome ! Whether I agree or choose to follow them or not is a different story, but it may still help me or other people reading them (which is the reason why I posted this here ). As for walls of text... don't worry, I'm used to it. @Shaiba is an expert

Lol, it's good to see my suggestions were well-received. If I haven't made it clear by now, I completely support you doing your own thing. Keep doing what you're doing! We need people like you to show the community that the meta isn't the only way to play.

CreepyPahuska · November 2016

[BUILD UPDATE]

I switched to Swarm Mother / Tava / Dragonguard. All I've lost is a bit of Magicka, reducing my shield to 17.5k (from 20k). The warhorn became really cheap with Dragonguard + Sorcerer's passive ulti cost reduction.
The Swarm Mother is really fun, but I always carry a Bloodspawn set and I use one or the other depending on the situation, group setup, etc...

I added a video from my first ever vet AA run. We did it with a templar/nightblade healer duo. I tried my new build there (and in vDSA), it was really fun.

Autolycus · November 2016

This build looks like a ton of fun @CreepyPahuska . Nice work!

darthsithis · November 2016

Love your build! I have a very different but quite successful mag sorc build as well. might post a thread, but it worked great for icp last night, and its all light armor(ish) based with weird skills .

5x lich, 5x warlock, maelstrom resto, maelstrom shield, maelstrom sword

-sword and board: dark deal (for stam), mines for snare and dps, hardened ward, heroic slash, streak (to get out of an "oh 5hit" moment)
::ult is barrier for regen, you should have 4k when the lich procs with barrier slotted:: never cast this...

-resto staff: healing ward, hardened ward, surge, boundless storm (the dps is a HoT with surge, and less squish + movement speed is very useful), inner fire
::overload for third bar::

-overload: execute, curse (works with maelstrom sword proc unless they changed it- used to technically be a DoT back in the day. If not, use shuffle), hardened ward, inner light, aegis

mobility and infiniwarding is key. warlock + lich and barrier and I never go under 1/3, and if i do, it fully refills. This also means infinite stam from dark deal.

cp is the usual mag, with red being hardy and elemental defender split, and the rest in bastion. This did work for icp and wgt. I dont think it would work in a trial or anything, but maybe when a second tank is needed for a fight (like the twins in maw) it could be handy, so you ca have a person switch to tank for one fight, then get the dps back.

I want to try your build when I get all the gear you mentioned though! Thanks for sharing!

Torpts · October 2017

I started following this build, It's probably outdated but its my first time tanking on ESO so im using it as a foundation to progress and learn from it. So far im loving it. Im tanking Vet dungeons extremely easy, for a beginner im satisfied.

Have you updated this build recently? If so id love to see the updates!