Tank Ability Bar Setup Advice

Marginis · February 2018

So I've been going through and theorycrafting a helluvalot for my nightblade tank. The build I'm looking at right now is a hybrid build, lots of recovery, and I want to have some utility in there. I'll have max resistances after minor and major ward and resolve, good crit resistance for when I venture into PVP, and I plan on having a good amount of utility for overland exploration (which basically amounts to cloak and rapid maneuver), although I plan on mainly using the build for PVP dungeons. We'll see about trials, but I doubt it because 1. nightblade tank and 2. so far it's very selfish, and to that end not as specialized as a trials tank normally should be. I've pretty much decided the weapons to run are going to be one-handed and shield, and frost staff.

So anyway, I'm trying to set up my front and back bars. I have the abilities I think will best give me the utility I want, but since I kinda worked this from scratch I feel like I might be missing something. I also want to check on a few specifics, and balance out things to make me as survivable as possible. Which is the endgame - die as little as humanly (or khajiitly) possible.

So, I know I want Pierce armor for a 1H+Shield taunt and major fracture and breach, Shielded Assault for a leap-to-target and a damage shield, and Mirage for the minor resolve and ward and dodge change. I want Retreating Maneuver and Dark Cloak for utility and just running around overworld without getting caught up in the adds, and I can use cloak as a defensive pull when s*** goes down (judge me all you want, I can retaunt easily and it's saved a team wipe more than once before). I plan on using Reviving Barrier and Pack Leader to alternate stamina and magicka regen boosts, since I regen both quite quickly already, and barrier works well with all my damage shield buffs and quick ult regeneration so it's up quite often. I then have Elemental Blockade for enchant procs and an AOE slow, plus to grab aggro at the start of fights.

My problem lies with that I only have four more slots but several extra abilities that would help. Spiked Boneshield doubles up on my damage shields, but I'm not sure if it's worth it compared to some other abilities. Same thing with Absorb Magic, except it buffs my blocking instead of giving me damage shields. I like Immovable Brute, but I don't know whether I could switch it with Refreshing Path, which gives me 13 seconds less on major resolve and ward, but gives healing, does AOE damage, and gives a small in-combat movement speed buff. Swallow Soul and Structured Entropy would both give me some healing besides just damage shields, and would help generally with getting healed by a group healer, and Ring of Preservation seems great with minor protection, but I'm not sure if that would stack with other damage resists.

Anyway, all advice welcome.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

First things first: you'll never find one ability setup or build that works for everything you want to do without changes or substitutions. There is absolutely no place on your bar for rapid maneuver or shadow cloak.

I've spent more time tanking on my nightblade than any other class, even since morrowinds siphoning nerf, but I don't claim to be an expert so take this as personal opinion/experience only:

You want to build towards high magicka recovery and balance out your magicka and stamina to some degree. Ideally you want your max stamina to be just slightly higher than your max magicka so that using resource synergies restores stamina for blocking. Other than blocking and taunting, all of your utility and strength comes from magicka based abilities, hence the moderately high mag pool and maxed magicka recovery. Stamina recovery is nearly useless as it gets turned off while blocking and for 2 seconds after letting your block down.

You dont need to run shielded assault at all. The damage shield is negligible and in most cases you really don't need a charge/gap closer. For those situations where you do need it, use lotus fan instead, it will seal aoe damage and uses magicka instead of the more precious stamina pool.

I recommend having am alternate set of gear for "when you venture into pvp", as impen does absolutely nothing in pve and you'll beginning yourself having that trait on your gear. Same deals with champion points.

When you want to do overland stuff, or pvp, you can slot them on your back bar.

I do not recommend barrier or pack leader. As a nightblade you should not be focusing at all on damage shields or the champion point passives to boost them, we have none available with class skills and as mentioned above there's no reason to run shielded assault. Werewolf provides no benefit unless active, and leaves you with no taunt or buffs while transformed. Its terrible in all ways, especially for tanks.

For ultimate choice, you want warhorn no questions asked for trials. In dungeons I tend to run veil of blades for the damage reduction boost and aoe damage. You can run soul harvest on your main bar to build ultimate faster and put the ultimate you're actually going to use on the back bar.

Ice staff isn't a bad choice for magicka nb since it lets you utilise magicka for blocking if your stam runs low and gives you a reliable aoe snare and root. That said, I tend to run resto staff back bar because it makes 3dps pledge runs much easier. I act as both a healer and tank in those cases. For trials though the ice staff is better.

As for armor sets, I usually run bahraha's curse and livewire or leeching plate for dungeons as they give a massive self healing and damage boost. For trials those get swapped for ebon and powerful assault or alkosh or other support sets to boost the team.

For monster set I run grothdar for easier dungeons to add damage and aoe aggro. For any serious content that gets swapped to either sentinel of rkugamz for stamina sustain or 1 chudan and 1 pirate skeleton for max resists.

My usual dungeon ability bar setup is

Front bar:
Pierce armor
Refreshing path
Sap essence or heroic slash
Mirage
Shadow image or structured entropy
Soul harvest or veil of blades

Back bar:
Funnel health
Healing springs or elemental blockade
Mutagen or crippling grasp
Siphon spirit or elemental drain
Impale or structured entropy
Lights champion or aggressive warhorn

Most of the "or x" options are based on whether I have a resto or ice staff on the back bar, and whether it's a dungeon, dlc dungeon, or trial.

idk · February 2018

The easiest way to respond to this thread is by providing Woeler's web site. https://woeler.eu

You'll see skill choices and I believe he mentions skills for flex spots as well. More information than you may wish to digest but this is probably the best tanking reference for the game.

Marginis · February 2018

Thanks. I'm just theorycrafting right now and seeing what can work and how, and I'd be using info gathered for multiple builds, but as far as this goes so far I'm trying to figure out the best way to balance out my stats...soooo basically I appreciate when y'all don't just leave it at "get gud, you just don't do this on tanks", because I like trying different things.

@Lynx7386 I appreciate the advice, primarily because while I've tanked for a while, I still lack endgame experience with top tier tank builds. A lot of what works and what you want to get rid of because you don't need it comes from experience, and that's a lot of what I'm looking for.

@idk I'lll check that link out. Knowing flex spots is useful.

Does anyone have any further info or help on specifics, like how much actual mitigation Ring of Preservation would actually achieve on this setup with all buffs up, or if the major ward and resolve from Refreshing Path has a substantial enough duration to replace Immovable Brute?

Lynx7386 · February 2018

The shadow barrier passive with 7 heavy lasts for around 11-12 seconds after casting a shadow spell (like refreshing path). Because path lasts 10 seconds, if you recast it perfectly you'll always have shadow barrier up. If you work in another shadow ability like shadow image, you can alternate them for easy 100% uptime even with only 5 heavy.

Ring of preservation gives exactly what it says, 8% reduced damage taken. This applies after all other damage mitigation values from what i can tell, however I don't usually run it because it is a massive stamina drain and you're better served by saving that stamina for blocking, taunting, etc

Tbh after the morrowind change to siphoning I was about ready to give up on nightblade tanking as I found sustaining block to be too difficult in trials, especially with the constant nerfs to block cost. However after trying out sentinel of rkugamz ive kept at it, because that monster set (which I only ever considered for a pure healer) works amazingly well for nightblade tanks needing a source of stamina sustain.

idk · February 2018

One thing about flex spots. On my back bar I keep my armor buff, ranged taunt which leave 3 slots for flex.

If in a dungeon I slot in those 3 spaces chains, talons and absorb magicka (do not spend much time on back bar so it is not as important there), normally.

In trials I sometimes need chains but rarely the other two and what I end up slotting depends on the fight. If I need to help with cleanses I would put efficient purge and for interrupts I would slot Deep Breath (HoF). These are just examples of what would go into flex spots. If I tried to name every single skill I have slotted I would certainly miss something.

Again, those happen to be my flex spots but some specific fight have me change much of my normal configuration. You will figure out how this all works for you.

Marginis · February 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

First things first: you'll never find one ability setup or build that works for everything you want to do without changes or substitutions. There is absolutely no place on your bar for rapid maneuver or shadow cloak.

I've spent more time tanking on my nightblade than any other class, even since morrowinds siphoning nerf, but I don't claim to be an expert so take this as personal opinion/experience only:

You want to build towards high magicka recovery and balance out your magicka and stamina to some degree. Ideally you want your max stamina to be just slightly higher than your max magicka so that using resource synergies restores stamina for blocking. Other than blocking and taunting, all of your utility and strength comes from magicka based abilities, hence the moderately high mag pool and maxed magicka recovery. Stamina recovery is nearly useless as it gets turned off while blocking and for 2 seconds after letting your block down.

You dont need to run shielded assault at all. The damage shield is negligible and in most cases you really don't need a charge/gap closer. For those situations where you do need it, use lotus fan instead, it will seal aoe damage and uses magicka instead of the more precious stamina pool.

I recommend having am alternate set of gear for "when you venture into pvp", as impen does absolutely nothing in pve and you'll beginning yourself having that trait on your gear. Same deals with champion points.

When you want to do overland stuff, or pvp, you can slot them on your back bar.

I do not recommend barrier or pack leader. As a nightblade you should not be focusing at all on damage shields or the champion point passives to boost them, we have none available with class skills and as mentioned above there's no reason to run shielded assault. Werewolf provides no benefit unless active, and leaves you with no taunt or buffs while transformed. Its terrible in all ways, especially for tanks.

For ultimate choice, you want warhorn no questions asked for trials. In dungeons I tend to run veil of blades for the damage reduction boost and aoe damage. You can run soul harvest on your main bar to build ultimate faster and put the ultimate you're actually going to use on the back bar.

Ice staff isn't a bad choice for magicka nb since it lets you utilise magicka for blocking if your stam runs low and gives you a reliable aoe snare and root. That said, I tend to run resto staff back bar because it makes 3dps pledge runs much easier. I act as both a healer and tank in those cases. For trials though the ice staff is better.

As for armor sets, I usually run bahraha's curse and livewire or leeching plate for dungeons as they give a massive self healing and damage boost. For trials those get swapped for ebon and powerful assault or alkosh or other support sets to boost the team.

For monster set I run grothdar for easier dungeons to add damage and aoe aggro. For any serious content that gets swapped to either sentinel of rkugamz for stamina sustain or 1 chudan and 1 pirate skeleton for max resists.

My usual dungeon ability bar setup is

Front bar:
Pierce armor
Refreshing path
Sap essence or heroic slash
Mirage
Shadow image or structured entropy
Soul harvest or veil of blades

Back bar:
Funnel health
Healing springs or elemental blockade
Mutagen or crippling grasp
Siphon spirit or elemental drain
Impale or structured entropy
Lights champion or aggressive warhorn

Most of the "or x" options are based on whether I have a resto or ice staff on the back bar, and whether it's a dungeon, dlc dungeon, or trial.

Wouldn't it be better to slot funnel health as swallow soul (for minor vitality) on front bar to help with tanking, and move sap essence to back since major sorcery helps your heals, and you already have an aoe with refreshing path?

Lynx7386 · February 2018

Marginis wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

First things first: you'll never find one ability setup or build that works for everything you want to do without changes or substitutions. There is absolutely no place on your bar for rapid maneuver or shadow cloak.

I've spent more time tanking on my nightblade than any other class, even since morrowinds siphoning nerf, but I don't claim to be an expert so take this as personal opinion/experience only:

You want to build towards high magicka recovery and balance out your magicka and stamina to some degree. Ideally you want your max stamina to be just slightly higher than your max magicka so that using resource synergies restores stamina for blocking. Other than blocking and taunting, all of your utility and strength comes from magicka based abilities, hence the moderately high mag pool and maxed magicka recovery. Stamina recovery is nearly useless as it gets turned off while blocking and for 2 seconds after letting your block down.

You dont need to run shielded assault at all. The damage shield is negligible and in most cases you really don't need a charge/gap closer. For those situations where you do need it, use lotus fan instead, it will seal aoe damage and uses magicka instead of the more precious stamina pool.

I recommend having am alternate set of gear for "when you venture into pvp", as impen does absolutely nothing in pve and you'll beginning yourself having that trait on your gear. Same deals with champion points.

When you want to do overland stuff, or pvp, you can slot them on your back bar.

I do not recommend barrier or pack leader. As a nightblade you should not be focusing at all on damage shields or the champion point passives to boost them, we have none available with class skills and as mentioned above there's no reason to run shielded assault. Werewolf provides no benefit unless active, and leaves you with no taunt or buffs while transformed. Its terrible in all ways, especially for tanks.

For ultimate choice, you want warhorn no questions asked for trials. In dungeons I tend to run veil of blades for the damage reduction boost and aoe damage. You can run soul harvest on your main bar to build ultimate faster and put the ultimate you're actually going to use on the back bar.

Ice staff isn't a bad choice for magicka nb since it lets you utilise magicka for blocking if your stam runs low and gives you a reliable aoe snare and root. That said, I tend to run resto staff back bar because it makes 3dps pledge runs much easier. I act as both a healer and tank in those cases. For trials though the ice staff is better.

As for armor sets, I usually run bahraha's curse and livewire or leeching plate for dungeons as they give a massive self healing and damage boost. For trials those get swapped for ebon and powerful assault or alkosh or other support sets to boost the team.

For monster set I run grothdar for easier dungeons to add damage and aoe aggro. For any serious content that gets swapped to either sentinel of rkugamz for stamina sustain or 1 chudan and 1 pirate skeleton for max resists.

My usual dungeon ability bar setup is

Front bar:
Pierce armor
Refreshing path
Sap essence or heroic slash
Mirage
Shadow image or structured entropy
Soul harvest or veil of blades

Back bar:
Funnel health
Healing springs or elemental blockade
Mutagen or crippling grasp
Siphon spirit or elemental drain
Impale or structured entropy
Lights champion or aggressive warhorn

Most of the "or x" options are based on whether I have a resto or ice staff on the back bar, and whether it's a dungeon, dlc dungeon, or trial.

Wouldn't it be better to slot funnel health as swallow soul (for minor vitality) on front bar to help with tanking, and move sap essence to back since major sorcery helps your heals, and you already have an aoe with refreshing path?

I prefer funnel for the group heals (as I mentioned I often run this setup in vet dungeons with 3 dps, no healer, so I cover both healing and tanking at the same time). Sap essence helps with aoe threat and also is an aoe heal, so in packs of enemies I can spam that after putting down path and keep most, if not all, enemies attacking me while I heal myself and my group.

The whole idea with a nightblade magicka tank is to heal and keep threat and soak up damage all at the same time so your other 3 group members can focus entirely on burning down the enemies.

Marginis · February 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Marginis wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

First things first: you'll never find one ability setup or build that works for everything you want to do without changes or substitutions. There is absolutely no place on your bar for rapid maneuver or shadow cloak.

I've spent more time tanking on my nightblade than any other class, even since morrowinds siphoning nerf, but I don't claim to be an expert so take this as personal opinion/experience only:

You want to build towards high magicka recovery and balance out your magicka and stamina to some degree. Ideally you want your max stamina to be just slightly higher than your max magicka so that using resource synergies restores stamina for blocking. Other than blocking and taunting, all of your utility and strength comes from magicka based abilities, hence the moderately high mag pool and maxed magicka recovery. Stamina recovery is nearly useless as it gets turned off while blocking and for 2 seconds after letting your block down.

You dont need to run shielded assault at all. The damage shield is negligible and in most cases you really don't need a charge/gap closer. For those situations where you do need it, use lotus fan instead, it will seal aoe damage and uses magicka instead of the more precious stamina pool.

I recommend having am alternate set of gear for "when you venture into pvp", as impen does absolutely nothing in pve and you'll beginning yourself having that trait on your gear. Same deals with champion points.

When you want to do overland stuff, or pvp, you can slot them on your back bar.

I do not recommend barrier or pack leader. As a nightblade you should not be focusing at all on damage shields or the champion point passives to boost them, we have none available with class skills and as mentioned above there's no reason to run shielded assault. Werewolf provides no benefit unless active, and leaves you with no taunt or buffs while transformed. Its terrible in all ways, especially for tanks.

For ultimate choice, you want warhorn no questions asked for trials. In dungeons I tend to run veil of blades for the damage reduction boost and aoe damage. You can run soul harvest on your main bar to build ultimate faster and put the ultimate you're actually going to use on the back bar.

Ice staff isn't a bad choice for magicka nb since it lets you utilise magicka for blocking if your stam runs low and gives you a reliable aoe snare and root. That said, I tend to run resto staff back bar because it makes 3dps pledge runs much easier. I act as both a healer and tank in those cases. For trials though the ice staff is better.

As for armor sets, I usually run bahraha's curse and livewire or leeching plate for dungeons as they give a massive self healing and damage boost. For trials those get swapped for ebon and powerful assault or alkosh or other support sets to boost the team.

For monster set I run grothdar for easier dungeons to add damage and aoe aggro. For any serious content that gets swapped to either sentinel of rkugamz for stamina sustain or 1 chudan and 1 pirate skeleton for max resists.

My usual dungeon ability bar setup is

Front bar:
Pierce armor
Refreshing path
Sap essence or heroic slash
Mirage
Shadow image or structured entropy
Soul harvest or veil of blades

Back bar:
Funnel health
Healing springs or elemental blockade
Mutagen or crippling grasp
Siphon spirit or elemental drain
Impale or structured entropy
Lights champion or aggressive warhorn

Most of the "or x" options are based on whether I have a resto or ice staff on the back bar, and whether it's a dungeon, dlc dungeon, or trial.

Wouldn't it be better to slot funnel health as swallow soul (for minor vitality) on front bar to help with tanking, and move sap essence to back since major sorcery helps your heals, and you already have an aoe with refreshing path?

I prefer funnel for the group heals (as I mentioned I often run this setup in vet dungeons with 3 dps, no healer, so I cover both healing and tanking at the same time). Sap essence helps with aoe threat and also is an aoe heal, so in packs of enemies I can spam that after putting down path and keep most, if not all, enemies attacking me while I heal myself and my group.

The whole idea with a nightblade magicka tank is to heal and keep threat and soak up damage all at the same time so your other 3 group members can focus entirely on burning down the enemies.

That's what my previous build was - tank off healer - but taking over as primary healer on harder vet dungeons caused more struggle than I'd like, so I'm looking more into tank focused builds. Sap essence would be amazing however were I to be looking at running more heals.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

I've healed all non dlc dungeons with that build using my tank gear (with gear swaps it would be more than easy enough to heal the dlc dungeons), and tanked all of them.

TankHealz2015 · February 2018

"First things first: you'll never find one ability setup or build that works for everything you want to do without changes or substitutions"

Agreed.

"You want to build towards high magicka recovery and balance out your magicka and stamina to some degree. Ideally you want your max stamina to be just slightly higher than your max magicka so that using resource synergies restores stamina for blocking. Other than blocking and taunting, all of your utility and strength comes from magicka based abilities, hence the moderately high mag pool and maxed magicka recovery. Stamina recovery is nearly useless as it gets turned off while blocking and for 2 seconds after letting your block down."

Agreed. Wow, I did not realize the stam recovery is still cancelled for 2 seconds after dropping block. Good to know.

"Ice staff isn't a bad choice for magicka nb since it lets you utilise magicka for blocking if your stam runs low and gives you a reliable aoe snare and root. That said, I tend to run resto staff back bar because it makes 3dps pledge runs much easier. I act as both a healer and tank in those cases. For trials though the ice staff is better."

I use Frost Staff on back bar for tanking and I love it. Exactly the reasons you stated.

Resto Staff on back bar?. I've been considering this. because Combat Prayer:

Combat_Prayer.png
Combat Prayer
(Morph)
Slam your staff down to activate its blessings, healing you and your allies in front of you for [x] Health.
Also grants Minor Berserk, Minor Resolve and Minor Ward, increasing you and your allies' damage done by 8% and Physical Resistance and Spell Resistance by [y] for 8 seconds.
Also grants Minor Berserk, increasing you and your allies' damage done.

I was thinking to slot that one skill in a flex spot and see how it works.
Please, anybody with experience using this, add a comment.

As for armor sets, I usually run bahraha's curse and livewire or leeching plate for dungeons as they give a massive self healing and damage boost. For trials those get swapped for ebon and powerful assault or alkosh or other support sets to boost the team.

Agreed. All awesome sets. I tend to run one self-preservation type set and one group support type set. Depending on content. Of the three you listed, Livewire is my favorite: easy to find a complete set in all the traits you want, great self healing, and frequent concussion proc (off balance). Love it.

Check this thread for ideas on how to boost damage/healing on these sets:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/370986/buffing-up-the-leeching-bahrahas-curse-build

For monster set I run grothdar for easier dungeons to add damage and aoe aggro. For any serious content that gets swapped to either sentinel of rkugamz for stamina sustain or 1 chudan and 1 pirate skeleton for max resists.

Agreed. Sentinel is very helpful. Sometimes, groupies are surprised to see the little spider with a stamina recovery AoE, but it is so very helpful. I carry 8- 10 monster helm sets at all times. Swap around according to the fight.

All great advice from:
Lynx7386 Lynx7386
✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭

above.