Super Awesome write up!
Very thorough!
Thanks!

Admiral_Schneider wrote: »

TotallyNotVos wrote: »

That build will not work for vet trials.

Your health is far far too high. You can complete all content in the game with 30-35K health as the main tank. Your magicka and stam are both extremely low, you will not be able to sustain

Also if you don't run sword and shield on both bars you will surely die.

The meta trials main tank setup is 5 alkosh, 5 ebon, 2 bloodspawn. While the meta off tank setup is 5 alkosh, 5 powerful assault, 2 flex monster helm.

Summoning @woeler for anything I've missed as he's one of the best tanks in the game

@TotallyNotVos I thought about your feedback and talkes about it with someone from my guild who actually does vTrails.

To start with the energy management bases on heavy attacks. He made clear that I won't have the time to do full heavy attacks with my staff. It would take too much time. From here on everything snowballs my build into mistakes.

I just went to PVP to test this fact. I can't sustain under heavy stress like too much cc or attacks with too much impact.

Means the build is a fun build / starter build and I have to make thoughts about other non standard stuff, that got another base for energy management or doesn't require this kind of attention. This doesn't mean I will give up those sets. I will just try to make it viable in another way.

For sure, you dont need to be absolutely meta to clear vet trials. Keep trying until something works

@JamieAubrey corrected the Link. It should be aviable again.

Why...why do peeps insist on having +35k of health for tanks...more health doesn't equal to your skill or how well you'll tank, if your resistance is absolutely crap then youre going to have trouble, if you actually have good resistance then put some of those points into resources cause oh golly you need it

-Magica to keep yourself alive and start buffing your team and debuffing the enemy
-Stamina to obviously block and also some of those buffs and debuffs

You're going the right way, but id advise on raising those resources, that and I don't see that many buffs for the team, or lets say debuffs as well..a set that could do damage while doing your tank role would also help (Tremorscale, Thunderbug, Jolting, Twin sisters, etc.)

lol pvp is like running a neverending dungeon.

Restoration staff is bad on a tank, really bad. If you are caught on that bar when the boss charges, it will one shot you even if you block, because you will lack the mitigation passives from 1H+S. Tanks should have passive magicka regeneration from CP, mundus, gear. Also 15K stamina si way too low, especially if you plan on using immovable brute. That alone costs almost 1/3 of your pool and has to be refreshed every 15s. Ingenous shield only restores 5% from the helping hands passive. So you will have to spam that 6 times just to recover the cost of casting brute. Armor master is bad as tanking set. It only gives you health and resistance which is not that important, especially if your setup is over capped. 30K resistances and 30K health is enough for all content currently in the game. Going to the cap you only gain 1.7% more mitigation, because that's capped at 50%. Actually it makes no sense to go over 32K in any case, because any half competent healer will run combat prayer and that adds 1.5K spell and physical resistance. And if you actually wear full pirate skeleton you will make that healer's life miserable. The damage mitigation is worthless, compared to the huge heal debuff. Vampire Cloak set is useless for a tank, especially on a build that has so little magicka because the 3rd piece bonus is entirely wasted - you won't be damaging anything with 16K magicka anyway.

So what I see here is:
- wasted resistance and health
- expensive and useless skills slotted
- horrible resource management
- reduced group utility
- a nightmare to heal in intense fights, where a tank is really necesary
Almost an opposite of what a tank should be.

Target resource pool values should be:
~15K magicka | ~30K health | ~25K stamina
>1.5K magicka regeneration
~30K resistance

If you want to do a proper build you can use one of the following sets:
- Ebon Armory (dropped) - those 17K DDs would feel much better with 18K health and farming COH1/2 is way easier than BHH
- Tava's Favor (crafted) - if you already like running armor skills on your bar why not go for shuffle and gain ultimate regeneration on dodges on top of constant magicka and stamina regeneration
- Armor of the Seducer (crafted) - if you like being a magicka tank that's the way to go because the cost reduction and added regeneration are really necessary
- Willow's Path (crafted) - an often overlooked set, but very flexible. You can swap various regeneration bonuses around
- Bloodspawn (dropped) - there's really no better tanking set: increased resistance and ultimate regeneration on hit
- Lord Warden (dropped) - also procs on hits and grants the group increased magicka resistance
- Engine Guardian (dropped) - procs on ability activation, but the RNG is not that relaible but as DK receiving magicka instead of stamina is not that bad.
- Roar of Alkosh (dropped) - a decent set because it debuffs, but farming it can be tedious, because that trial is not a cakewalk even on normal mode.

@Asardes I don't really agree with you. I am playing this build for about 2 weeks. The feedback I got from the groups I walked with and from my main group is thet the build is really self running. You are pointing out weaknesses which are covered by some parts of this build.

Asardes wrote: »

So what I see here is:
- wasted resistance and health
- expensive and useless skills slotted
- horrible resource management
- reduced group utility
- a nightmare to heal in intense fights, where a tank is really necesary
Almost an opposite of what a tank should be.

1. Wasted resistance and health:
The soft cap is at 32k armor and magic resist. When I am at 1h+S i have the 35k, which is still 33.5k when reduced due cap. When I am at the restoration staff I have ~30k which doesn't get capped. There is no cap for health so far (or I just don't know).

2. Expensive and useless Skills slottet:
I totally don't agree with you at this point. The Armor Skill and Entrophy are for health and the armor master set. They scale this set pretty much. The 2 spots are nessessary. The Talons snare the enemys so that melees can't get to my group and reduce the output damage of all mobs by 8%. Igneous weapons... With that you can save 1 Skill slot at each group member. Coagulating Blood is my main self heal. It imrpoves with less health and my champion passives. Igneous Shield is a 20k Shield for me and 10k Shield for each member in 12m reach. Yes they are expensive but worth it.

3. Horrible resource management:
The resource management bases on heavy attacks. I need to do them to regain resources but I also deal about 200-400k damage each bossfight since I put a few points in Staff Expert. It works sof far (exept vTrails we already pointed that out).

4. Reduced Group utility:
Yes I am missing War Horn because I am not lv 5 in Alliance War but i marked it as replacement skill.

5. A nightmare to heal in intense fights:
They don't need to heal me because I am able to heal myself. I shield the most damage with Igneous Shield and the calculation for Shields insn't like the calculation on health. Armor is not calculated but armor pen isn't as well. That way I reduce damage DIRECTLY with Pirate Sekelton and Vampire Cloak. I get 38% reduced damage in total but 15% healing less. so if I sum this up there is still a 23% difference a healer doesn't need to heal. I don't get you in this point.

I don't have time left for now to continue.

Well as a tank, I can well and truly say that it is a wasted stats and selfish build that does nothing for your team. There are so many more useful sets with actual functions. I say again you have too much health and armor that doesn't factor in peripheral buffs. I can do so much more with half your health and 2/3 your resists.

Admiral_Schneider wrote: »

@Asardes I succeeded vDSA and it worked well. Ofc vDSA is a lot practise itself and I really can't understand how you should be able to sustain the last boss with a casual build.

@nordsavage Yes the sets and 6/12 Skills are just for my character. But since I run this build I say to my healers 2 Things:
1. Focus on the damage dealers, i am fine.
2. I won't need any support skills so look what the damage dealers need.

I think that's why my people like this tank build

If you want to i can upload a video, I just got a bad one with 30 pictures/second. I am still searching for a software I am statisfied with.

Video or not, I have seen these builds many times and they do not compete with real tank setups.

Blazing shield tank is not the best option for PvE. I've actually made the calculation and the

AzuraKin wrote: »

my tank right now is testing a build that has 45k health (dark elf yes not best race but at the time i made toon i figured i would do dk dps then figured i like dk tank better :P) and currently at 3400 health regen, still working out a few skills but have solid hopes onces skills all trained and i set up bar, i will be able to replace healer in 4 mans.

I assume you are trying a blazing shield build for your Templar. I've actually made some calculations for a 60K health build and the damage return from that shield are insignificant even when fighting hordes of trash mobs. It amounts to something like 4K DPS. You can just go as a full magicka templar with sword and board, in 5L/1M/1H and you could still have high resistance and high mitigation. Pick a set that gives you high regeneration, for example a 5 piece Armor of the Seducer and pair it with some dropped sets. Make a shield and sword from Alessia's Bullwark to add a bit more physical resistance and you can tank while spamming puncturing sweep. You won't die even with 17-18K health, and even heal in the mean time. And for high magicka pool builds harness magicka has higher mitigation than blazing shield.

I just have to remember that point where I stood in DSA with a restoration staff and didn't get 1-shot. Kappa.

@nordsavage okay I think I get your point now. All I did with this build was to seperate me from my group so they don'need to care for me. But if I'd start relying on my group I can get a Build that benefits my group more or even make combos with it.

Okay l will abadon this build for now and concentrate on the next one. After i got a special alliance war skill I can test it and share it again if I think it is worthy. This one ain't.

I will still try to avoid meta thoe. I hate builds that rely on stamina.

exactly, while i have not explored max health templar builds, i can tell you a properly balanced max health dk has some good team synergy, pve; 10-12k team shields, major sorcery/major brutality team buff, couple with troll king or heal monster set, can proc healing with several healing options that dont need restro staff. on top of that they can apply penetration for both magicka and physical, and minor maim. oh and they can survive selene's bear thing in vet selene's web (block 16-20k phys resist: only 42k damage plus 3k follow up.

I run an imperial health blazing shield tank in ove with no problems. I have 65k health with 2k mag regen. I use 5 piece HA plague dictor with 5pc green pact and malubeth as my monster set. My shield deals pretty decent damage return aswell.