How to tank?

Hotel6 · August 2018

Been a dd most of the days in this game and now i want to try tanking a bit. Basically i have an imperial(How far the gap is between imperial and argonain?) with ebon+dragon + monster set that gives resistance (forgot the name) .
I have 2 question:
1.What part in my gear should I upgrade?
2.How do u actually tank? do i just hold block? do i keep a rotation? do i need to taunt all mobs except boss in a raid for example?

Dosuul · August 2018

Hope this gives you an idea: https://woeler.eu/tanking-eso-beginners-guide/

In general: Taunt, Taunt, Taunt -> Don't die

VaranisArano · August 2018

Trials tanking is a little different, so I'll speak to tanking in dungeons, which is where I presume you'll want to start as a tank.

1. Ebon is a solid tanking set for all levels of content. Its not essential in dungeons, but its hard to go wrong with it. I typically pair it with a monster helm that does damage for easier dungeons or one that gives my resistances for harder dungeons.

2. So you want to tank...

Step 1: Taunt the Boss and priority adds. Crowd Control everything else.
Your taunts are all single target, so its not feasible to taunt everything (unless you are using the Swarm Mother set). You need to save you taunt for important targets. Priority adds are miniboss adds and adds that can one-shot a DD or healer like those using two-handers.

Everything else you need to Crowd Control. You can get aggro on a mob for a brief time by being the first to hit them, but that will wear off in a bit. I start with an AOE, preferable one with a slow (Caltrops works if you've got nothing else) that slows the mob and bunches them up for the DPS to mow down. If you've got DK chains or Fighters Guild Silver Leash, that's handle for pulling in the mobs that want to hang back.

Step 2: Stay Alive
So now you've got the boss' attention and all the mobs. Don't die. Yeah, your healer will help you a lot with this and so will choosing your gear. In most dungeons, you don't need to permablock. I make sure I block the heavy attacks from the boss and adds. Otherwise, I'm adding my DPS and making sure I'm using my self healing while maintaining those CCs and taunts. As you get more comfortable with tanking, you'll learn what you don't have to block, what you have to block, and what you must block or die. Same thing with the boss AOEs.

Step 3: Control the Fight
The tank is responsible for blocking, interrupting, and positioning the boss attacks. While every final boss has at least one attack that ignores the tank and some bosses are untauntable, most bosses have attacks that need to be blocked, interrupted, or can be positioned so that the tank takes the hit and not the group. Furthermore the tank has to keep the boss more or less in the same spot whenever possible. DDs get a lot of DPS from their ground-based AOEs like Wall of Elements and Endless Hail, so if the tank is kiting the boss when that isn't necessary, the DDs will have a big DPS loss.

I usually pull the boss where I want them and stand with the boss in between me and the group. This has two benefits. One, any big heavy attack the boss has is targeted at me and not at the group. Two, when the boss goes to attack a group member, there's a telegraph for the attack since the boss has to turn around first. From there, its the usual block, bash, interrupt, damage, CC, and self-heal that I always do.

Hope that helps! Its always good to see players who want to tank.

mocap · August 2018

also here is a very nice and informative thread:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/377221/tanking-university/p1

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

Trials tanking is a little different, so I'll speak to tanking in dungeons, which is where I presume you'll want to start as a tank.

1. Ebon is a solid tanking set for all levels of content. Its not essential in dungeons, but its hard to go wrong with it. I typically pair it with a monster helm that does damage for easier dungeons or one that gives my resistances for harder dungeons.

2. So you want to tank...

Step 1: Taunt the Boss and priority adds. Crowd Control everything else.
Your taunts are all single target, so its not feasible to taunt everything (unless you are using the Swarm Mother set). You need to save you taunt for important targets. Priority adds are miniboss adds and adds that can one-shot a DD or healer like those using two-handers.

Everything else you need to Crowd Control. You can get aggro on a mob for a brief time by being the first to hit them, but that will wear off in a bit. I start with an AOE, preferable one with a slow (Caltrops works if you've got nothing else) that slows the mob and bunches them up for the DPS to mow down. If you've got DK chains or Fighters Guild Silver Leash, that's handle for pulling in the mobs that want to hang back.

Step 2: Stay Alive
So now you've got the boss' attention and all the mobs. Don't die. Yeah, your healer will help you a lot with this and so will choosing your gear. In most dungeons, you don't need to permablock. I make sure I block the heavy attacks from the boss and adds. Otherwise, I'm adding my DPS and making sure I'm using my self healing while maintaining those CCs and taunts. As you get more comfortable with tanking, you'll learn what you don't have to block, what you have to block, and what you must block or die. Same thing with the boss AOEs.

Step 3: Control the Fight
The tank is responsible for blocking, interrupting, and positioning the boss attacks. While every final boss has at least one attack that ignores the tank and some bosses are untauntable, most bosses have attacks that need to be blocked, interrupted, or can be positioned so that the tank takes the hit and not the group. Furthermore the tank has to keep the boss more or less in the same spot whenever possible. DDs get a lot of DPS from their ground-based AOEs like Wall of Elements and Endless Hail, so if the tank is kiting the boss when that isn't necessary, the DDs will have a big DPS loss.

I usually pull the boss where I want them and stand with the boss in between me and the group. This has two benefits. One, any big heavy attack the boss has is targeted at me and not at the group. Two, when the boss goes to attack a group member, there's a telegraph for the attack since the boss has to turn around first. From there, its the usual block, bash, interrupt, damage, CC, and self-heal that I always do.

Hope that helps! Its always good to see players who want to tank.

Some good advice. Tanking is definitely more than taunting and night dying, but that is certainly the foundation. Think of yourself as the General on the battlefield. You want to control the fight.

In trash/AOE, you goal is to try to get everything into as tight of a group as possible. Look at the main AOE from magic, Blockade, and the main from stam, Hail. If you can get mobs into an area about that size, things will melt. Taunt the heavy hitters, and round up and CC (chains, talons, LOS) the rest.

For bosses, do your best to keep the boss still AND facing away from your group. There are four things you are trying to do other than not die. First keep it taunted. Pierce Armor or Inner fire does this. Second, reduce the targets resistances. This starts with Major Breech and Fracture (only from pierce armor, not inner fire) but there are lots of other ways to add to this, alkosh, torugs pact, but at the beginning it really is about your Crusher enchant on your main weapon. Practically speaking, you need to light/heavy attack to keep a good uptime on this. You cant do this if all you do is hold block. Third, make the boss not hit so hard, (i.e. Minor Maim from heroic slash). People often skip over this last part.

Most of these are easily done with a Sword and Board, which is one reason why you see a lot of quirky builds struggle that might otherwise pass the smell test. Just an example: I was with a 2H tank in a low CP tempest Island group over the weekend (leveling a second account). He couldnt figure out why people were dying even though he had the boss taunted with inner fire on the final boss (that boss is a total pug killer). Well, he wasnt doing anything for minor maim, and the un-tauntable attacks were just enough to one shot his squishy low CP DPS. The fight was also taking a long time because the boss was not debuffed from pierce armor (Major Breech and Fracture). One DPS left group yelling about low CP, but that wasnt the issue (tank was like CP 600). Picked up another DPS from my guild that had shadowrend (minor maim), I slotted Elemental drain (major breech), and we cleared first try because the attacks were no longer one shots and the fight took way less time.

Lastly, you want to buff your group in any way possible. Warhorn is the obvious place to start, but there are also sets that help here as well. Some have you sacrifice a fair amount of tankiness, so make sure you have the "not dying" part down before you go to squishy.