Discussion about the new trend in tanking gear sets.

The_Old_Goat · June 2017

In regards to the recent trend of big health pool tank builds utilizing Green Pact and Plague Doctor armor sets, I'm curious as to why a bigger health pool is advantageous over using 2 sets of resist tanking gear(Thunderbug and Warrior Poet for example). I'm aware that shields scale off of the tanks health but is there more to it than that? Hoping someone can explain this for me, thanks in advance.

pizzaow · June 2017

There is a resistance cap which most tanks hit (or come close to) without a resistance specific set. Most tanks seem pretty happy with ~30K buffed resistances.

The basic tank philosophy is that you want to have enough resources and resistances to be able to sustain and not die. As you start improving you'll find yourself with extra resources. At that point you trade your extra resistance/resources for group benefit sets. (i.e. Alkosh in the last patch, likely war machine in this patch).

Last patch having a large stamina pool was beneficial because echoing vigor was cheap, quite effective and a couple DK passives scaled off max stamina. Morrowind changed the passives to use a fixed value, and increased the cost of vigor, so it is less beneficial to invest in a high stamina pool. As you mentioned shields scale off health, so many tanks are taking points that were in stamina and putting those in health instead.

Sordidfairytale · June 2017

As a DK I get resources from my health pool, igneous shield, and heavy attacks between taunts and blocks. I'm max (or near max) resistance and at 50k health in Torugs and whatever other group gear is needed.