I’ve been using this for a while now and absolutely love it. It has crazy sustain, great self-healing and pulls very good damage. If I need to pug, this is my choice. Mostly, no matter how bad the rest of the group is, I can pull us through most things. I’ve managed to solo valkyn skoria (pre nerf) from 40% health with no platforms left, solo last boss on vet banished cells (wasn’t for pledge so could kill deadroths), solo Bogdan from 25% health and another couple of dungeon bosses. I use to farm ICP and WGT without a healer as well. This build doesn’t need shards or repentance or outside heals. It does it all itself. Done all normal trials on it with no issue, not tried vet ones though. I’ve done DSA with it multiple times though, and that’s before I got it to where it is now. Also, I’ve recently done both Shadows Of The Hist dungeons with it.

Stats

Max Magica – 34941
Max Health – 28022
Max Stamina – 21096
Magica Recovery – 1522
Health Recovery – 417
Stamina Recovery – 591
Physical Resistance – 27509
Spell Resistance – 28235
Spell Damage – 2522
Spell Crit 32%

These are all on my main bar, which is where I spend all my time anyway. Spell damage is with major sorcery and the wrath passive kicked in.

Race

So I’m an imperial on mine. I like the big bonuses to health and stam pools. So a Dumner and Nord would work well too. Argonian could be ok as well with self healing and pots. I used to run this on a Redguard which works ok too. The stam regen is meh, but 10% stam is nice and adrenaline rush is still decent as I try to keep our crusher enchant up. It doubles up nice with siphoning strikes. Breton and Altmer have max magica, but I don’t think the magica sustain they give is really needed. But, any race will work. Some just won’t be very beneficial.

Gear sets

Head: Grothdarr – Heavy – Infused – Prismatic enchant

Shoulder: Grothdarr - Light – Sturdy – Prismatic enchant

Chest: Kagernacs – Heavy – Infused – Prismatic enchant

Hands: Kagernacs – Heavy – Divines – Prismatic Enchant

Waist: Baharas curse – Light – Divines – Magica enchant (guess I forgot to prismatic this…)

Legs: Kagernacs – Heavy – Infused – Prismatic enchant

Feet: Baharas curse – Heavy – Sturdy – Prismatic enchant

Sword: Kagernacs – Defending – Crusher enchant

Shield: Kagernacs – Reinforced – Prismatic enchant

Sword: Kagernacs – Defending – Crusher enchant

Shield: Kagernacs – Reinforced – Prismatic enchant

Neck: Baharas curse – Robust – Spell damage

Ring: Baharas curse – Arcance – Spell damage

Ring: Baharas curse – Arcance – Magica Recovery

I sometimes drop back bar S&B for a resto if there’s no healer and the group is really bad.

Atronach mundus stone and use tri stat food. Tri stat pots when needed.

Alternate set options

So I did run Engine Guardian for head and shoulder. I eventually learned how to sustain without out so tried Bloodspawn for more ult. Honestly don’t think it helped much, you gain so much as a NB it’s rather redundant anyway. I tried Nerien’eth to help with damage and my god it procs a lot. So I decided to keep it. Grothdrarr is amazing for aggro though. When that procs, the world wants to fight you. Could put Malaubeth or any two piece really. Even two different monster bits that give health if you feel you need it.

Baharas curse could be swapped with a couple of things. But I really like Baharas. The three resources it gives plus the added damage and healing. It works perfectly for a sap tank. Saying that, there are some others that could fit there. V16 Footmans is an option. Healer’s Habit too. Aspect of Mazzatun is something I want to try when I get all that set in the right traits. Ebon, Worm both could work too. Even swap the body pieces of Baharas with Kagernacs, then go 3 Willpower and 2 Endurance on the jewellery and weapons. Probably a few other good options. I use 5 heavy and 2 light. I have undaunted 9, but I would rather the sustain form 2 light than the 2% from one medium. Just my preference.

Skills

S&B1

Pierce Armor – Main taunt. Reduce physical and spell resist. Hit them with a crusher enchant too for further penetration.

Sap Essence – Major sorcery, AOE damage, healing and how we keep our stam with multiple adds on us. Also heals the group quite a lot with adds around. Our emergency heal (it’s like 2.5k with no adds) when we don’t run a resto.

Absorb Magica – It’s there for the slotted bonus mainly. Block more, reduce block cost. Can be handy sometimes (lord warden’s six shooter mechanic for instance)

Inner Light – It’s there for the 7% magica and added regen. As we’re in heavy, the extra crit is welcomed too. More damage means more healing.

Funnel health – Our main spammable on single target. Also an ok HoT for someone else in the group.

Ult: Veil of blades – Amazing skill. Damage reduction for all team members standing in it by 30%. Does a lot of damage. Extra health for slotting it (shadow passive). Group can hit a synergy for a big heal too.

S&B2

Inner Rage – Our ranged taunt. Also good for when we have low stam but a lot of magica.

Dark shades – Added dps. The reason we use this is for the minor main. Using this at the right time helps a bit in certain situations. Use before big boss hits

Refreshing path – Good dot, good healing, speed buff and our main way of increasing our resistances (shadow passive). Amazing skill.

Siphoning strikes – This is what enables a saptank. It’s the best skill in the game by far for me. I use it on any NB build pretty much. Gives back incredible resources. I can finish fights with full magica and stam bars sometimes. It’s crazy, it really is.

Mirage – 20% dodge chance which is nice. Also gives us minor resistances.

Ult: Shooting star / Soul Tether / Aggressive warhorn – There’s options here. Shooting star is great for mob pulls and you finish the fight with ult again. Soul tether is a good to start a pull, or for an emergency heal (never really need it though). Warhorn is the ideal one with a good group, but utility and damage from veil/shooting star is really good too.

With a resto back bar, I swap Refreshing Path to front bar instead of Absorb Magica, put Healing ward there then swap Shades for Combat Prayer and Mirage for Healing Springs.

Rotations

So this is a very active style of tanking. It’s a lot of bar swaps and reapplying buffs, but I like it.

Mob fights

Firstly, get mirage and siphoning strikes up. As we go into a group of adds, refreshing path for resistance buff and to pull adds. Hit sap essence a few times to grab rest of aggro. Taunt them with pierce armor, hitting a sap in between for healing and to proc siphoning. Keep path reapplied every 8 seconds for resistances as well as added damage and healing. Sap sap sap. Sometimes start a pull with shooting star before doing the above. Don’t forget you have inner fire for a ranged taunt. I see a lot of tanks running about trying to pierce armor everything and dragging adds around the room with them like it’s a Benny Hill sketch.. Keep adds in your group’s AOEs. Keep mirage and siphoning up all the time, especially the latter.

Boss fights

Again, mirage and siphoning strikes up. I usually get my shades up, refreshing path then light attack straight into pirce armor so we proc our crusher enchant and lower the resistance with pierce armor. Sap essence for major sorcery, then funnel health until we need to reapply a buff basically. Try to hit light attacks when you can to keep crusher enchant up. Inner fire any adds that appear, and then you swap funnel for sap. Keep mirage up, siphoning up, path every 8 seconds for major buffs. I keep my shades up like all the time for extra damage, but I recast them sooner than duration if the boss has a hard hit mechanic. Shades gives us minor maim for 4 seconds after casting. The crem guard in WGT for instance, before the do their fire crap, put a path down for healing and resistance and then right before the fire comes put down shades then back to funnel health. That gets us through them with no healer and never drop below 50% health. Summon shade is annoying because you can’t recast and end up teleporting so I changed to dark shades after a while and much prefer it. Path is what gets you around quick if need be (lord warden for instance).

Champion Points

Thief

Tower – 75 Magician

Lover – 75 Arcanist

Shadow – 27 Shadow Ward

Mage

Apprentice – 27 Blessed / 25 Elfborn / 95 Elemental Expert / 10 Spell Erosion

Ritual – 20 Thaumaturge

Warrior

Lady – 17 Thick Skinner / 65 Hardy / 65 Elemental Defender

Lord – 30 Quick Recovery

Obviously there’s flexibility and there’s probably some formula to get these set up even better. But this certainly work for me at the moment.

If you’ve never tanked, or only used a DK, give a saptank a try. It’s so much fun. It does lack chains and talons for group cc and add placement, but it has a lot of other benefits other tanks don’t. It’s quite crazy how much damage this actually puts out in all fairness. And I honestly can’t emphasise enough just how good the sustain is. As you can see from the stats alone, the damage is good too. I got so bored with DK tanking, tried this this and now I want to tank as often as possible.

I’ll be posting a PVP build for this soon so I’ll post it here when I get around to it.

Any questions, just ask.