TamrielSaviour215 wrote: »Anyway, just jump into it. Tanking is fun, don't be scared, and the best way to learn to tank is to try it. Second, don't worry about farming for gear. One of the great things to come out of of the Clockwork City DLC is the Livewire set. It's easy to get and can be acquired very cheaply from guild traders. And it's a really nice well-rounded tanking set whose 5p is both supportive (AoE concussion) and selfish (procing heals on the tank). Combine that with Torug's Pact, which only requires 3 traits to craft, and anyone can jump into tanking with minimal initial investment. Of course, Livewire+Torug is neither meta nor competitive, but better setups will require a lot more time and effort to get, and as far as starter setups go, this is easily the best "bang for the buck".
Ya I am a loooooongggg way from getting to the endgame build. I just want something that I can get through in vet dungeons for now. Once I get the mechanics down, I will work on building different sets, but in all honesty, that is probably going to be a long time from now. This was good advice. I dont know anything about the Livewire set since I have been away for over 6 months so I will look into that this weekend. Is it crafted? I have a crafting toon that can do that stuff no problem.
RavenSworn wrote: »I run a couple of khajiit tanks so don't think race is a make or break for a character. The best tank options are nord, imperial, and argonian for various reasons, but whichever you prefer playing will work.
Tanking gear and ability setup varies pretty drastically depending on what content you're doing. A 4 man vet dungeon pledge tank will not be set up the same as vet trials pledge tank or a PvP tank.
The easiest class to tank on, and the one still preferred for pretty much all content, is dragon knight. That said, wardens are about equally capable but are a little different / more complex to play. The other 3 classes are all capable of dungeon tanking but have significant difficulties with trials. For a first time tank I would recommend sticking to a dk.
Your build will always have a good amount of "flex" spots - I.e. ability spots on your bar that change based on what particular thing you're doing. However there are a few key abilities you always want to have at your disposal:
1. Pierce armor, from the 1h/shield line. This is the single most important ability for any tank in the game. It applies two major debuff to the enemy, and taunts (forces them to attack you) for 15 seconds. Don't over use it though.
2. Heroic slash, from the 1h/shield line. I sometimes do without this, but the main benefit is that it weakens the enemy and causes you to generate ultimate very quickly. Dragon knights gain a huge amount of healtg, magicka, and stamina back whenever they use an ultimate, so you should be able to discern why this ability is nice to have.
3. Choking talons, from draconic power. This immediately immobilizes all enemies around you and makes them deal less damage. This game doesn't have an area or multi target taunt ability, so your job on big groups of enemies is to lock them down with talons so your group can kill them.
4. Unrelenting grip, from the ardent flame line. This ability yanks any enemy at long range to you, allowing you to turn a spread out group of enemies into a nice little immobilized cluster for your group to nuke.
Other important skills for a dk tank are hardened armor for major ward/resolve (often replaced by balance in trials builds for the same buffs at no cost), green dragon blood which is a huge self heal and boosts your stamina recovery and healing received, and standard of might as an ultimate which increases your damage dealt and reduces your damage taken.
My dk mainly tanks vet dungeons for pledges and runs this setup:
5x ebon armory (boosts health for the group)
5x seducer (reduces my magicka costs)
2x grothdar (monster set that deals aoe fire damage)
Front bar (1h/sh)
Pierce armor
Unrelenting grip
Choking talons
Green Dragon blood
Igneous shield
Magma shell
Back bar (fire staff)
Engulfing flames
Elemental blockade
Eruption
Hardened armor
Molten armaments
Standard of might
This build is meant to help a bit with damage and also be able to self heal through quite a bit, and is not optimized for trials, obviously.
You know, I would have told him to tank with a nb for a beginner since if you can learn how to tank with a nb, you can tank anything in the game lol.
But to op, this guy knows his stuff.
You're right, and I started tanking on a nightblade myself, but I didn't want him to just get frustrated with it and give up when he realizes they can't really handle trials =p
As far as knowing my stuff, I've got a lot of experience tanking on most classes (not much on templar, plenty on the others) but I'm not a min maxer and I don't do meta builds. 90% of my game time is spent in vet dungeons, not trials, and when I do tank trials its usually for helping new guild members learn the encounters.
My builds aren't acceptable for most endgame leaderboards pushing guilds, but that's fine for me since that isn't my primary focus in the game. I do enjoy making versatile tanks that can heal and dps well enough to make vet dungeon pledges a breeze, though.
I may have to try your approach with my DK. I am running a true hybrid stam/magic. Basically, bigger stam pool, but all magic regen. Can do bursty stam damage (which is good for PvP), and no sustain issues for either stam (with heavy attacks) or magic with the gear/enchants. Other thing I have going is much focus on ultimate generation. Use variously Warhorn, Standard, or Magma.
But flat out being magic, able to swap to DPS when solo or for more sustained PvP, seems appealing.
What is this? I’ve run a destro staff on my tank sinc I made him, and took nothing but loads of crap. Now a new tank is getting told to run one? Ive been waiting along time to hear this. Was starting to think There was no off meta tanks left anymore.
I run a dunmer DK in 5/5 pelinals/ trainee, endurance S&B on front bar, fire destro on back. I have 32k majicka, 33k health, just under 22k stamina, and when buffed 3k weapon and spell damage. Self heals are crazy, and the extra dps in dungeons is noticeable. I have successfully tanked a few vet trials with it, and even soloed a few vet dungeons just to see if I could.
The real fun though was that I ground myself numb to make 4 of these suits the first week Tamriel one dropped. There’s a sorc/ lightning staff, nightblade/ frost staff, and a Templar/ healing staff. Only got to see them altogether once before the massive trainee nerf, but man talk about some off meta fun. Made vet dungeons a breeze. Really see how well the classes could compliment each other.
Fun tank setup to run. Won’t get you into any trial guilds though. Lol