ParaNostram wrote: »

Sorc tanks hardly work, if at all. If your desire is to have faster queues by rerolling tank, please reconsider. Tank if that is what you want to do DPS if that is what you want to do.

This is very very misleading....

OP... if your aim is to tank 4 person pledges for a while then as long as you have the right gear you will be more than able to on a sorc.

@ParaNostram if you were talking about tanking vet trials then I'd have given similar advice, but 4 person content can be tanked effectively on any class as long as you have the right gear & setup.

I would even go as far as to say that if the OP does do some tanking for a while then it will make them a better player, understand more of the mechanics, and be able to adapt to more content in the future.

I have done just about every role on every class at some stage... and I have a dedicated stam sorc Tank/DPS hybrid that has tanked every 4 person content in the game without breaking a sweat, still buffing the group, and also pulling 15k+ dps... Sorc's do just fine.

OP... I'd go and have a quick look at the beginners tanking setup on @Woeler s site... https://woeler.eu/ He runs it opn a dk, but the principles behind the sets are the same.

For a sorc, make sure you run surge & hurricane for the armour buffs & self heals, other than that the standard tanking skills on the website.

If you do decide that you actually really enjoy tanking then consider levelling a DK... whilst Sorcs can tank 4man just fine, DK's are king of the hill for tanking, especially at endgame!

Brrrofski wrote: »

ParaNostram wrote: »

Sorc tanks hardly work, if at all. If your desire is to have faster queues by rerolling tank, please reconsider. Tank if that is what you want to do DPS if that is what you want to do.

People who claim something before trying it annoy me to no end.

Sorc tanks are fine for pledges. There's a steeper learning curve than say a DK or even NB, but they're still fine. You get ults for cheap, have a mob root, a great Stan sustain skill and good in class healing.

I use plague doctor, seducer, 1 chokethorn, 1 pirate skeleton.

You basically have to spam dark deal. They key is learning when to drop block to do so. Hence why I have plague doctor because I can eat a bit more damage when dark dealing if I get my timing wrong. Seducer allows me to spam dark deal, encase, clanfear/twilight if major healing is needed etc.

In large parts of the vet dungeon content you don't even have to block, that being said, to make it easier to sustain:

OP, go with full block cost reduction set up and full heavy and you are golden. Use your Roots often and you will do great. I would suggest swarm mother for quick and easy pledge runs, just range taunt the enemies and block and they will come flying right too you. Root the melees and range taunt the range mobs and it will all stack up nice and tight and then if you want you can drop Negate on them to stun them even more. Don't forget to use Lightning form too for AoE damage and resistance buff.

ParaNostram wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

ParaNostram wrote: »

Sorc tanks hardly work, if at all. If your desire is to have faster queues by rerolling tank, please reconsider. Tank if that is what you want to do DPS if that is what you want to do.

People who claim something before trying it annoy me to no end.

Sorc tanks are fine for pledges. There's a steeper learning curve than say a DK or even NB, but they're still fine. You get ults for cheap, have a mob root, a great Stan sustain skill and good in class healing.

I use plague doctor, seducer, 1 chokethorn, 1 pirate skeleton.

You basically have to spam dark deal. They key is learning when to drop block to do so. Hence why I have plague doctor because I can eat a bit more damage when dark dealing if I get my timing wrong. Seducer allows me to spam dark deal, encase, clanfear/twilight if major healing is needed etc.

I have tried it. There's just next to nothing in the sorc kit that lends itself to tanking. Seriously. Everything you get for tanking as a sorc you get from gear or nonclass skill lines. I've played everything under the sun, including magstam hybrid builds, and normally I would encourage people to do whatever they wanted to do but OP stated that they only want to tank to lower queues.

Also dark deal spamming won't work on anything remotely difficult.

They have a large AoE Root, and great access to Major and MINOR Ward and Resolve. Also its vet dungeons man, nothing is difficult enough to where you can't use dark deal. You can tank vet dungeons easily with a Sorc tank.

Dragon + Bloodspawn + Tava = easy peasy all rounded ulti spammer pve tank build

leem1988 wrote: »

I need help converting my mag sorc into a mag or stam tank for dungeons because I've heard tanks have faster queues, and I need to grind the Undaunted skill line. Any suggestions on what gear I should use? Thanks.

For dungeon? Just Ebon + something (Alkosh/Hist Bark/Powerful Assault/Werewolf Hide/Akaviri Dragonguard/Torug's Pact etc)

Front bar: Pierce Armour - Absorb Magic - Heroic Slash - Dark Deal - Vigor U: Spell Wall/Overload
Back bar: Crit Surge- Restraining Prison - Inner Fire - Shuffle - Hurricane U: Warhorn

Ez.

ParaNostram wrote: »

Sorc tanks hardly work, if at all. If your desire is to have faster queues by rerolling tank, please reconsider. Tank if that is what you want to do DPS if that is what you want to do.

Don't listen to him. Completely wrong.

To grind undaunted all you need is to normals and a sorcerer can tank those no problem.
I do undaunted pledges every single day with my sorcerer tank and we complete them easily.
Veterns however....I leave those for the my DK tank.

Hi OP,

I have played sorc tank for a quite a while, including vDSA and hm dlc dungeons. In my experience, a sorc tank lives by the combination of the 1-hand/shield ulti and dark deal. You cannot spam dark deal, because it is channelled and breaks block, and it is easy to get 1-shot while using it if you are not reinforced by the 1-hand/shield ulti.

The objective is to save your ultimate (only 85 cost) for when your stamina is low, hit it, then dark deal and/or heavy attack your way back to full stam over 7 seconds. Spam low slash in the mean time to keep up your minor heroism buff, and you can keep this combo going indefinitely. I believe this is the class-defining feature of a sorc tank, and renders it a STAMINA POWERHOUSE. When other tanks are begging for shards and orbs, you'll likely be doing just fine.

Because of this stamina recovery technique you won't need more than about 30k health, so you might consider going with something like Black Rose and Imperium. Monster-set-wise, I would switch between Swarm Mother for its makeshift chain effect and Blood Spawn for even more ulti depending on the situation. I usually don't bother with restraining prison (and with it wasting magicka you may need to dark deal) and focus on taunting priority targets and supporting the group with big echoing vigours with your 30k-ish stamina. Any group worth their salt can nuke a group of ads if you are taunting the right ones.

With this general approach, you will also be able to easily convert to an off-dd for those dungeons where bosses don't respond to taunts or mechanics require the tank and healer to deal damage.

I have a lot of fun with my mag sorc tank. She was my first and only tank so I'm not the most experienced with tanking in general, but I was able to run her through normal/vet dungeons fairly painlessly. I've played around with her skills and gear quite a bit and still haven't found a setup that I'm completely satisfied with. There are some sets though that seem to really synergize well with sorc passives and abilities.

Some of my favorites are:

Thunderbug- grants resistances and does aoe shock damage, which sorcs get a bonus to
Twilight's Embrace- increases healing received by 10%, which helps with your self healing from surge
Treasure Hunter- ups my crit % without slotting inner light, and crit is what my heals proc from
Alteration Mastery- reduces the cost of all skills which is great since I use both stam and mag skills
Spectre's Eye- as a magsorc I'm constantly using magicka spells, so the 15% dodge is up 50% of the time
Lord Warden monster set- for an extra boost of spell/physical resistance, it's pretty much always up
Engine Guardian monster set- helps a lot with resources
Infernal Guardian monster set- my new favorite, and it procs quite a bit since I use my shield so much

I've also looked at trying:

Hatchling's Shell- supposedly the shield from this set procs Infernal Guardian, but I haven't tested this out yet
Vampire Cloak- 8% less damage is always good
Julianos- so I don't hit like a wet noodle
Swarm Mother monster set- I hear this works great as a pull for those pesky ranged mobs

There are more good ones, like the sets suggested by other posters, and I've found a couple good sorc tank guides on here with great ideas. Oce downside to a sorc tank is that they don't offer much to the group in terms of buffs. Warhorn helps with that as do sets like Ebon. Just some ideas though.

ParaNostram wrote: »

Sorc tanks hardly work, if at all. If your desire is to have faster queues by rerolling tank, please reconsider. Tank if that is what you want to do DPS if that is what you want to do.

Not true at all! I can tank ANY vet dungeon in ESO on my mag sorc sitting at 52k mag.

hmsdragonfly wrote: »

leem1988 wrote: »

I need help converting my mag sorc into a mag or stam tank for dungeons because I've heard tanks have faster queues, and I need to grind the Undaunted skill line. Any suggestions on what gear I should use? Thanks.

For dungeon? Just Ebon + something (Alkosh/Hist Bark/Powerful Assault/Werewolf Hide/Akaviri Dragonguard/Torug's Pact etc)

Front bar: Pierce Armour - Absorb Magic - Heroic Slash - Dark Deal - Vigor U: Spell Wall/Overload
Back bar: Crit Surge- Restraining Prison - Inner Fire - Shuffle - Hurricane U: Warhorn

Ez.

Just this. I use all my magicka chars as a DD, healer and tank. It's just a question of gear and skill setup. There is almost no difference in efficiency concerning 4-man-stuff between the classes. A difference you will just notice in trials. As I have no chains like a DK I just use Swarm Mother at least for trash.

As a Sorc magicka tank I use as skills:

Boundless Storm, Pierce Armor, Heroic Slash, Absorb Magic, Bound Aegis, Agressive Warhorn
Dark Deal, Inner Fire, Restraining Prison, Balance, Bound Aegis, Absorption Field

You might replace Absorb Magic for Hardened Ward for bosses with hard hitting AoEs. With weapons in defending you might even replace Bound Aegis for something else, because nobody needs 30k+ resists for 4-man-vet-stuff. Surge as an example.

As gear I use:

Ebon Armory + Akaviri Dragonguard + Swarm Mother, all sturdy except shields, all prismatic. For bosses where you don't need to pull adds you might equip any other useful Undaunted set (Lord Warden, Engine Guardian, Blood Spawn etc.). Necklace enchanted with shieldplay, rings enchanted with magicka reg.

Without defending weapons (defending onehanders for Ebon or Akaviri are difficult or expensive to get) you will have 30k+, health, 28k resists selfbuffed, 29k magicka and 17k stamina as an Altmer at CP 630. With the 15% ultimate bonus of Akaviri and additional 15% ultimate bonus from Sorc's passives + Heroic Slash + and maybe even Bloodspawn and you are a true warhorn machine.

For the beginning you might just farm Ebon and get another crafted set like Hist Bark etc. To switch to tank is just a hot button push for Dressing Room. I don't even change my Mundus, I have enough ressources with prismatic glyphs, Dark Deal and Balance. If you wanne do it perfectly just get the Atronach or maybe the Tower instead of the Thief.

PS: Queues aren't just faster, they aren't existing when you go as a tank. Now you just need a healer who knows what support is and DDs who know how to do dps...

I use Ice Furnace, the Iceheart monster set, healthy willpower jewelry, and random frost+lightning staff on my dd sorc when I want faster queues. Obviously that setup is a joke, but so is the difficulty of most dungeons, it works for anything below vet dlc. I get decent AOE dps which helps with horrible random groups. Occasional use of pulsar is nice for trash fights, and the root skill makes up for not being able to taunt everything.