Magplar tank advice

Datolite · January 2018

I have been successfully and effectively running vet dungeons for a while now as a magplar tank. Not following any particular build, just a lot of heals, Troll King, Ebon and Pariah and knowing the mechanics. Eventually I want to try WGT and the dragon bones content, as well as trials one day, so I will need to get my build in order. More specifically, I'm looking for advice on gear. Any takers?

Narvuntien · January 2018

You accidentally double posted.

Firstly I am no expert, I have weird ideas that might not work.

I tried to "heal tank" but then morrowind sustain changes happened and its just not possible any more. So now I am a tank, with heals.

Neh Troll king is good in PVP but I don't really rate it in PVE.

The basic tank set up is Bloodspawn, Alkosh and Torags or Ebon.

But I feel like I want to push up my Mag regen as a Magplar tank. So I have this weird off meta set up stacking mag regen.

Akaviri dragongaurd (which is a good tank set), and, errr hmm, I use the Spectre eye crafted set.
It is a little embarrassing but I am a breton and all the other sets give me spell resistance (including torags that you should probably use if you aren't breton) when I really needed more physical resistance to hit the cap. With my skill spamming the 3 secs of dodge isn't that bad a 5 piece bonus. Then I use Shadowrend, fall monster set, gives minor main to enemies seems useful. You can also run 1 pc shadowrend 1 pc chokethorn.

So I have Dragongaurd, spectres eye, shadowrend.

But i think Dragongaurd, Torags, Shadowrend, Chokethorn. Might be better as long as you can get to the resistances cap. Without ebon you'll have to put more stat points into your health to reach something reasonable (35-37K).

With all this mag regen you can shield yourself for lots of temporary health whenever you need it. I have breath of life on my bar but I try not to use it, my main heal is the Extended Ritual.
The big issue with Templar tank is that you have no CC so I actually like to open the fight with volcanic rune, rather than shards which is bad now. Works quite well as long as some dumbarse dps doesn't run in and aggro everything then realise I don't have chains and they are screwed.

Datolite · January 2018

You mean Torug's Pact and Ebon? Why would you need weapon enchantment buff in trials? Legit wondering.

Thanks for the insight.

Asardes · January 2018

Templar is the worst class you can pick for PvE tank, since it doesn't have any skill that unconditionally restores stamina. More so on a magicka Templar that has a very small stamina pool. You can slot Repentance but that will only work if you have something to repent. And if you have any Stamina Templar DDs in the group you'll be fighting over corpses with them, since every corpse can only repented once, and the healing scales to your highest stats, which he probably has.

Shields, meaning Harness Magicka, since Blazing Shield scales to your health, so it will be much smaller, only really work if you are tanking trash. They won't help you at all against hard hitting bosses, since most of those attacks do much higher base damage and they also have an added CC/stun/knockdown. That value is >100K for some DLC dungeon bosses. Tanks can get away by blocking, if they have stamina for it. If you shield such an attack with ~15K harness, it will still amount to 85K, since shields are subtracted first. If you are resistance capped - maximum 50% mitigation at 33K resistance, so Pariah is useless since you can hit those numbers easily if wearing 5 pieces of heavy armor, and most of the resistance added by that set at low health will be wasted - and have CP invested in Hardy/Elemental Expert and Ironclad, you can get ~10-15% on top of that -
they go up to 25% but they are not additive to the mitigation given by armor. So you'll still eat >30K damage if not blocking. Which will most likely one shot you, since in more difficult fights like Velidreth in vCoS, you will also have DoTs, healing and even resistance debuffs on you, meaning you'll rarely be at full health. Unless you know the mechanics very well in those dungeons, you'll get rekt hard. And that's like a stroll in the park, compared to Earthgore in vBF, that splits into 3, each of the adds hitting with similar numbers within the space of 2-3 seconds. When tanking all 3 I gasp for resources even on a DK tank spamming ingenous shield - it doesn't really do much for me, but at least it restores stamina while blocking and shields other group members - and hitting Aggressive Horn every 45-50s - DKs also restore resources from ultimate use.

I still don't get it why people still want to tank on Templar post Morrowind. With the upcoming block cost increase due to formula change - shield play glyphs will be considered before sturdy and other % reductions - DK and Warden will become the only viable tanks for hard content. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/389032/pve-tanking-discussion-for-dragon-bones If you still want to try it though, I recommend using standard tank gear: Ebon Armory (more health for group - Crypt of Hearts), Akaviri Dragonguard (cheaper ultimates - overland Eastmarch), Swarm Mother (good monster set for classes that lack pull abilities - Spindleclutch 1), Torug's Pact (higher resistance debuff from crusher enchant - crafted), Hist Bark (really good for beginner tanks, effective 15% mitigation and bock cost reduction trough dodge chance - crafted). Ideally you should combo 5 Crafted 5 Dropped and a monster set.

Datolite · January 2018

Asardes wrote: »

Templar is the worst class you can pick for PvE tank, since it doesn't have any skill that unconditionally restores stamina. More so on a magicka Templar that has a very small stamina pool. You can slot Repentance but that will only work if you have something to repent. And if you have any Stamina Templar DDs in the group you'll be fighting over corpses with them, since every corpse can only repented once, and the healing scales to your highest stats, which he probably has.

Shields, meaning Harness Magicka, since Blazing Shield scales to your health, so it will be much smaller, only really work if you are tanking trash. They won't help you at all against hard hitting bosses, since most of those attacks do much higher base damage and they also have an added CC/stun/knockdown. That value is >100K for some DLC dungeon bosses. Tanks can get away by blocking, if they have stamina for it. If you shield such an attack with ~15K harness, it will still amount to 85K, since shields are subtracted first. If you are resistance capped - maximum 50% mitigation at 33K resistance, so Pariah is useless since you can hit those numbers easily if wearing 5 pieces of heavy armor, and most of the resistance added by that set at low health will be wasted - and have CP invested in Hardy/Elemental Expert and Ironclad, you can get ~10-15% on top of that -
they go up to 25% but they are not additive to the mitigation given by armor. So you'll still eat >30K damage if not blocking. Which will most likely one shot you, since in more difficult fights like Velidreth in vCoS, you will also have DoTs, healing and even resistance debuffs on you, meaning you'll rarely be at full health. Unless you know the mechanics very well in those dungeons, you'll get rekt hard. And that's like a stroll in the park, compared to Earthgore in vBF, that splits into 3, each of the adds hitting with similar numbers within the space of 2-3 seconds. When tanking all 3 I gasp for resources even on a DK tank spamming ingenous shield - it doesn't really do much for me, but at least it restores stamina while blocking and shields other group members - and hitting Aggressive Horn every 45-50s - DKs also restore resources from ultimate use.

I still don't get it why people still want to tank on Templar post Morrowind. With the upcoming block cost increase due to formula change - shield play glyphs will be considered before sturdy and other % reductions - DK and Warden will become the only viable tanks for hard content. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/389032/pve-tanking-discussion-for-dragon-bones If you still want to try it though, I recommend using standard tank gear: Ebon Armory (more health for group - Crypt of Hearts), Akaviri Dragonguard (cheaper ultimates - overland Eastmarch), Swarm Mother (good monster set for classes that lack pull abilities - Spindleclutch 1), Torug's Pact (higher resistance debuff from crusher enchant - crafted), Hist Bark (really good for beginner tanks, effective 15% mitigation and bock cost reduction trough dodge chance - crafted). Ideally you should combo 5 Crafted 5 Dropped and a monster set.

Maybe not all of us want to do the optimal thing, and just play our templars the way we want to.

As for your actual advice for gear, I am definitely looking into Dragonguard. I am fully aware that Pariah is unnecessary for PVE, it is my PvP set that I just happened to be using for dungeons. I will be replacing it with Dragonguard and already have Ebon.

Checkmath · January 2018

as templar tank i strongly recommend an ice staff on the backbar with the passives, that blocking costs magicka. using both, ice staff and sword and shield, you can change the ressource of your blocking whenever you want, especially if you are low on something. additionally you should use rune focus with the morph, which restores magicka, so you even get magicka back while blocking with the ice staff. generally you need to have a stamina pool a little higher than the magicka pool, so you get stamina back from synergies like shards. i would recommend ebony male set as the set you always have the 5 piece boni and something like akavir dragonguard, alkosh or torugs only complete on the sword and shield bar, so you can proc the effect. as monsterset i would recommend bloodspawn or lord warden. also using elemental blockade will be good, soince you snare enemies and apply minor maim pretty nicely to multiple targets in trash fights. other skills to use would be the snb taunt and the undaunted taunt, ele drain probably, blazing shield, ritual of retribution, other morph of repentance. breath of life could also do some nice healing.

SoLooney · January 2018

heres my advice. dont tank as a magplar

kvlou79 · January 2018

Yeah. Magplar tank prolly not good idea. I Templar tank vet dungeons just fine, so F the nay-sayers. Can’t recall stat allocation of top of my head, but I believe unbuffed im at 45k health, 22k Stam, 19k Mag. Imperial, all tri-glyphs. Since most skills use mag, and needing stam for blocking, I’d suggest shooting for these numbers. Radiant aura to grab the attention, ritual of retribution, start taunting. You honestly don’t need a heal, but ritual does have a hot built in. Have fun. Paladins FTW!!!

Swen_von_Walhallion · January 2018

well i play templar tank for long time, not exactly magplar, i call it sunplar bc basic skill is sunshield, its pretu funny and you have over 50khp + cca 20k shield or well you can get around 70k hp with green pact armor and all atributes in healt and sloted structured entropy ( in this case you have 70k hp + cca 30khp shield). Its rly funy play it only you need learn when to block and when just absorb hits by shield. Well at this moment its for me only temporary build before i get all items for my dram dung suport tankplar which give you crazy dmg reduction only for spaming Crescent Sweep and buffing dmg and dmg eduction for team. ( i jus onyl mising neck for this full setup)

Datolite · January 2018

No offense, but I can't see myself enjoying a health-based build. I need to be doing something, anything. That's why I like having a big magicka pool, so I can do a bit of damage, shield up, heal or otherwise buff my team. I just did vWGT on my older, squishier build last week and it went ok. Not great, but we finished HM and I didn't die too much. If I decide to do trials I will look into a more meta build. In the meantime I am going against the grain!

Asardes · January 2018

vWGT is actually a dungeon where you are better off without a properly specced tank, due to Planar Inhibitor, because you need to close the portals. I used to have huge issues there when I ran with run-of-the-mill tanks that had no ranged capability and pulled no DPS at all, failing to close the portals when they had the vision, and leading to hordes of adds. When I tank that dungeon I actually change to DPS setup there. With 110K+ group DPS you can burn it before it turns blue. None of the bosses in that dungeon hit that hard, and you can easily do it with 4 DDs, if one of them holds aggro and shields up - any magicka build can do that, especially a sorcerer. I once did vICP without a tank, but it was a pretty lousy run, with plenty of deaths and long as hell, around 30 minutes or so. It's pretty hard to pull damage as a Magicka Templar tank, since your main spammable is Puncturing Sweep. Being a channel it drops block, so you'll have to be careful with animation canceling some of the ticks when you are about to be hit. If you ping is high you will most certainly get rekt quite a few times.

raj72616a · January 2018

health tank can do a lot of things. shield dk and blazplar build for 2k+ magicka regen and does not run out of magicka. you can still heal a lot, taunt a lot, shield a lot.

anyway if you pug, optimal meta build might not be so great. since meta build does not take into consideration what sort of newbie healer and dd you might get, and do not prepare you to act as a backup healer and rezzer.