Because good tanks use their magicka to buff the group.

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Because good tanks use their magicka to buff the group.

That makes perfect sense as long as the tank isn't dead from running low on stamina. So I take it the nerfs to blocking cooldowns, reduced stamina cost and class stamina maintenance can still be managed with regen or cost glyphs.

Weps wrote: »

There is no PvE nerf to blocking.

That's true as long as the tank is tactical with their blocking, but it was nerfed for noobs like me who are learning when to block. The devs reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

I have a magic tank with frost staff and shield on the other bar. For dragonknights it works great, though I haven't done any trials so I cant speak to that.

if your set up right you basically cannot run out even with no regen because you can switch between mana and stam on the fly and cast earthen heart abilities all day long with cost reduction glyphs.

in dungeons its awesome because you can use stonefist and fossilize to your hearts content

if you do go magic/hybrid tank for group content my favorite is vampire cloak, magicka furnace and chudan, Which works better than it sounds.

1. All the best group support skills tanks have cost magicka. Some good examples are DK talons, chains, and ign. shield. NB refreshing path, funnel health, and shades. Even optional group support skills like purge and orbs.

2. Frost staff causes you to lose an item set bonus, meaning less options for optimization. Perfect example, the generic beginner end-game tank build, 5 tevas/5 ebon/2 bloodspawn, you would have to choose to give up the 5 piece on one of those sets while you are on frost staff bar.

3. Frost staff makes you lose out of stats and an extra trait. By having SnB on both bars, you can get that extra reinforced/sturdy trait and also get an extra stat bonus. This stat bonus is irrelevant if you are losing it on bar swap to frost staff due to stat desync.

4. Frost staff has no viable method to quickly taunt and debuff multiple adds. You are forced to run inner fire to have a viable taunt. Also, while ele. drain is a useful skill, it only debuffs spell resistance and not physical resistance, meaning you need 3 skill slots to do what pierce armor from SnB line does.

The only time I run something other than duel SnB is on my magNB tank. I will run master resto on off-bar as this allow me to preform the roles of both tank and healer in pledges, meaning I can run the dungeons with 3 dps!

Kerioko wrote: »

1. All the best group support skills tanks have cost magicka. Some good examples are DK talons, chains, and ign. shield. NB refreshing path, funnel health, and shades. Even optional group support skills like purge and orbs.

2. Frost staff causes you to lose an item set bonus, meaning less options for optimization. Perfect example, the generic beginner end-game tank build, 5 tevas/5 ebon/2 bloodspawn, you would have to choose to give up the 5 piece on one of those sets while you are on frost staff bar.

3. Frost staff makes you lose out of stats and an extra trait. By having SnB on both bars, you can get that extra reinforced/sturdy trait and also get an extra stat bonus. This stat bonus is irrelevant if you are losing it on bar swap to frost staff due to stat desync.

4. Frost staff has no viable method to quickly taunt and debuff multiple adds. You are forced to run inner fire to have a viable taunt. Also, while ele. drain is a useful skill, it only debuffs spell resistance and not physical resistance, meaning you need 3 skill slots to do what pierce armor from SnB line does.

The only time I run something other than duel SnB is on my magNB tank. I will run master resto on off-bar as this allow me to preform the roles of both tank and healer in pledges, meaning I can run the dungeons with 3 dps!

Thanks for that response. I figured it had a lot to do with the lost set bonus and stat enchantment.

I was assuming elemental drain is going to be a big deal after Morrowind since it gives the DPS 400 magicka per second for 24 seconds, yet it does no damage and might feel like a waste of a slot for a DPS.

And yeah the staff heavy attack is ridiculously long on live, it's not much use for grabbing aggro on the fly, but I'd still use other skills for that part.

Because tanking with a stick is humiliating and disgusting.

Bladerunner1 wrote: »

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Because good tanks use their magicka to buff the group.

That makes perfect sense as long as the tank isn't dead from running low on stamina. So I take it the nerfs to blocking cooldowns, reduced stamina cost and class stamina maintenance can still be managed with regen or cost glyphs.

Weps wrote: »

There is no PvE nerf to blocking.

That's true as long as the tank is tactical with their blocking, but it was nerfed for noobs like me who are learning when to block. The devs reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Weps wrote: »

Bladerunner1 wrote: »

That's true as long as the tank is tactical with their blocking, but it was nerfed for noobs like me who are learning when to block. The devs reduced the cooldown for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.

Exactly.
Unless you are tanking ALL the mobs and the adds in the dungeons and the DPS you're running with have less DPS than you, you won't have no in game mechanic where you have to block every 0.25 seconds.

Please tell that to vAA HM where 4 axes hit you constantly or vMOL HM where rakkhat minigun ticks damage every 0.3 sec or in vHRC HM where Warriors Channeled Swipes deliver 60k+ damage in matter of few seconds.

Mage's axes in vAA do not attack in a synchronized fashion. The rate at which you block each axe will not necessary fall at standard intervals. What this means is that you may get hit by all the axes at the same time, or at completely odd intervals. The nature of their light vs. heavy attack mechanic means that their attack pattern will typically (if not always) be different at the end of the fight vs. the beginning. Tanks should plan accordingly; One should be able to sustain if being charged at quarter-second intervals, but one will not be charged every quarter-second. It varies due to the independent attack patterns of each axe.

Regarding managing the cost, there will be times where the tank is depleting stamina while blocking these axes at a faster rate than currently on live, and there will be times where there is barely or no noticeable difference. In large part, the changes to block cost do not have a major impact on the tank's ability to manage their stamina if the tank is already used to the fight. There are many situations in which managing these costs will be substantially more difficult, but for most situations in trials, it's not a huge change. The changes to block cost have the most dramatic effect on tanking vet dungeons and in Cyrodiil.

Edit: Someone mentioned Rhakkat's chaingun mechanic above; These changes will likely make managing stamina during this mechanic more difficult, as the chaingun has the potential to charge us for blocking more frequently than currently on live. However, it is not the only thing being blocked. There are meteors and adds that the main tank will be dealing with as well, and this occurs during the whole fight. Thus, tanking Rhakkat will be more difficult to manage overall anyway from these changes, not just the chaingun mechanic.