How's Templar and Nightblade tanking after the patch?

Tasear · October 2018

Do you feel better? Do you like changes? What is working out? What is not working out?

Starlock · October 2018

On console, but as a whole, the changes for templar tanking look... eeeh. At best, a wash?

Spear Wall - definitely NOT a fan of these changes. The 15% block mitigation was great for tanking and changing this into a minor protection that requires spamming an ability is... well... simply garbage. No templar tank is going to have the resources to be spamming an aedric spear ability every three seconds.
Rune Focus - the resource recovery is nice, but as a whole, NOT a fan of these changes. The only gain (maybe) is stamina recovery. However, as a stamina tank, it was far better to have this ability cost magicka so that resource pool is actually used for something. We've also effectively lost minor protection. And we lost minor vitality. So yeah. Looks like it's gonna suck.
Empowering Sweep - not sure how this will play out. In most situations, I think the protection will be better, but it will loose out a bit when I'd activate it surrounded by tons of enemies.
Binding Javelin - this change mostly just makes me sad because the knockback was super fun. There are a few maps where I could punt mobs to their death with it, and that won't be a thing anymore.
Repentence - obviously, a good change, though to be honest, I rarely ran into situations where I was competing with other templars for those resources.

Basically, I anticipate his damage mitigation is going to drop significantly. He will no longer have minor protection, nor will he have the extra block mitigation from spear wall. This by itself would be significant, but it is made worse by also loosing minor vitality. His self heals are not great as it is, and this will exacerbate that problem. The steps forward that were taken in previous patch feel like they've backpedaled a bit, and it's apparent to me from the changes that they did not have templar tanking in mind when making them.

VaranisArano · October 2018

I was in the middle of leveling a MagBlade tank for the first time when the update hit, so take this level 36 inexperienced magblade tank with a grain of salt. I miss the damage on Refreshing Path. I was using that along with Ice Staff's Wall of Elements to deal with trash mobs while running random dungeons through the groupfinder. Now I have to decide between the extra self heal - hasn't really been necessary yet - and the damaging morph, which I would need to respec to test out. I don't even know enough about magblade tanking to know which is the preferred end-game morph for tanks.

Except for that, low level MagBlade tanking has been pretty fun. I'm running 1H&S and an ice staff. I crafted myself some Whitestrake's Retibution and I don't think I've seen it proc once, which is more than I can say when I first started tanking way back when on my MagDK.

Psyonico · October 2018

Haven't gotten to try out my nightblade tank yet. With the nerf to swallow soul and losing damage in refreshing path, and no more dodge chance, I don't have high hopes but am not going to shelve him just yet.

Raraaku · October 2018

Templar I like a lot of the changes so far, but I have not taken him out for a harder challenge just yet. I'm still leveling the NB tank but from what I have read from others; it seems as though they actually took a hit from this update.

RavenSworn · October 2018

I took my nb tank for a quick ride, albeit a normal dungeon (wanting an easy skull run). My nb tank runs Imperium with dragon guard and thurvokun for monster set. I run a pseudo sap argonian magnb tank, in the group I was in the melee dps really benefitted from the shields I put out for them through the proc.

Suffice to say though, on certain situations, it feels abit underwhelming. The changes made to path and strife made it useless to slot these in a tanking slot. Dark cloak is more than enough for the buff and heals. Ref path was nice but it felt useless in terms of expedition since the conal effect is small. Twisting path was slightly better and I personally feel twisting is the better morph now, refreshing is honestly a waste of time.

Strife... Well what can I say. The removal of minor vitality is huge imo. Strife has no place now for a sap tank. Offering might be a better choice, it pairs so well with dark cloak. You can get expedition with either rapids or double take (which helps you in mitigation as well) which just doesn't fly much with the new path; in which situation do you really need expedition in dungeons?

In the pts, I've tried using Ebon + champion of the hist (which is the new murkmire overland set), Imperium with hist champion and basically made it a Stam nb. IMHO, a two hander / dual wield off weapon might work well depending on your fights. Brawler procing enchantments and with the constant Heroism buff, I just keep on plugging shield wall. This is by far, the best set for an ult build, even for a mag build. The boost to stamina means you can always reset your stats to accomodate the loss of mag and use this set with dragon guard or even hist bark for extra cheese. A constantly up shield wall is just... Absurd.

Just some of my thoughts.

ccfeeling · October 2018

Try Vet Bloodforge HM and upload video for us please

Oathunbound · October 2018

To be honest I was skeptical/disappointed when passive dodge was being removed taking away my niche for my nb tank (he is DPS primary but I have tank sets and skills that I use and can tank everything but v trials). But after the update with the DW enchant bug fix I've found a new play style that I find more fun. Also did not like the change to the path skills but was able to just swap it to caltrops.

Basically my build is ebon/torag and lord warden with front bar snb and DW back bar. Snb has infused weakening enchant and back bar has infused crushing and absorb stam.

Skills
Snb peirce armor, caltrops, summon shade (the melee one with aoe maim spam), shadow cloak (the healing one forgot name for some reason), deep thoughts pijic skill, ult bolstering shadows

DW bar
Rending slashes/blood craze, silver leash, mirage, inner beast, syphioning strikes, ult aggressive war horn.

Maintaining crusher is insanely easy now and the bonus sustain from the extra glyph is nice on the Dw bar. Also I do notice the boost from syphioning strikes with the buff it got. Also able to do about 3k more DPS on average on my tank with this setup, nothing to write home about but more DPS is always a good thing to bring and I feel I did not have to sacrifice anything in survivability to obtain it.

Credit goes to @Liofa for making the observation for tanks running dw back bar for easy crusher uptime, I just threw together skills I thought would work well together and so far I like it alot

Silver_Strider · October 2018

Considering I was all over the PTS forums voicing my displeasure of these changes, it's pretty much a given I'm not happy with them

Refreshing Path is worthless now, the AoE reduction from Mirage doesn't really help much when you're at mitigation cap already and Swallow Soul has no use anymore either. WoE alone just isn't covering it for AoE aggro generation purposes that I'm going to have to swap to Twisting Path, so now my group utility is being cut just so I can perform my job. My sustain took a hit from the change to Major Evasion that I've had to drop my Minor Vulnerability poison for an Absorb Stamina Glyph on my front bar to help sustain myself; I'll probably have to drop my Staff entirely for a DW backbar with Absorb Stamina+Crushers to continue using poisons and sustain myself.

I haven't had a totally horrible time in vet dungeons, even vDLC dungeons, but vTrials just seem out of my reach right now and my guild just started training newbies for vet Trials too. It was hard enough holding 8+ axes (highest I've ever held was 10) in vAA before but now though, I can barely hold 7 before I'm cleaved to death. I've pretty much had to bring my DK tank out of retirement to do these training runs now and that's left me very disheartened to say the least.

I don't mind adapting but when it becomes a monumental task to do so, it becomes a lot less fun to play and that's exactly how I feel about these changes to NB Tanks, it's less fun to play.

ZeroXFF · October 2018

My magplar is now a DD. I was excited about the stam regen buff, but getting that skill would result in me having to change morphs when I switch roles, and so I went with the role that I can do better with that char... 40k DPS with just crafted and overland gear and an easy static rotation without pots are just too good to pass up for a tank build with the worst class for tanking in the game.

Any one of the following things might get me excited about tanking on a Templar again:
1. Balanced Warrior passive getting physical resistance... To, you know, actually be balanced... It would give much more flexibility with gear, because I would no longer have to spend 30+ CPs to hit physical resist cap or have to look for gear that has a single physical resist bonus (and considering that the other stat I'm looking for is mag regen, Magicka Furnace would no longer be the only thing I could wear if I don't invest CPs in physical resist).
2. Dual spec, because then I wouldn't be throwing away 30+ CPs on heavy armor focus when I'm in light armor.
3. The different <Weight> Armor Focus in CPs turned into a single star so that it's not wasted when I switch gear. They did it for spell resist, why not physical resist?

For my Nightblade this patch was basically a nerf to the DDs in my group, because I swapped out Tava's set for Plague Doctor, and can no longer dish out War Horns like candy. Though considering that this gear change also makes me tankier, I hardly noticed the difference. It still works well enough imo, certainly better than Templars who have no HP% heal and no class based (reliable) source of Minor Maim.

VaxtinTheWolf · October 2018

I don't actually play this game as much as I used to, only in small bursts. So far, The way I've handled these changes is by focusing more on my Stamina Templar Tank and Magicka Sorc Tank because with the way I play them, they seem to be less devastated when all things are considered. The NB Tank and NB healer really were my two preferred/favorite setups to play at any given time. However with the forced decisions between Damage or healing blind me from how far my eyes roll into the back of my head. I am more of a casual that usually just does basic Overland and Non-DLC Veteran Dungeon-Finder queue so a lot of my builds use simple or easy to obtain Sets, so if I don't already have it my options are limited.

The NB healer might be salvageable if I looked at it enough though but I just haven't so far to really say if I can continue to heal with it or not.

My NB Tank? Well, to start off, Strife is a *** joke. Lost Minor vitality on one morph, and if I wanted to finally change to 'supporting' the Team with more low group healing the damage will be half that it used to be, so its barely reaching a 2k damage tooltip with my setup now.

Refreshing Path.. No more damage, still in a small area so it didn't even get increased to match Twisting Path's Effective range.. 2 Seconds of lingering Major expedition/healing instead of 4, Just comparing it Templar's lingering effect of Minor mending when exiting their rune for 4 seconds. My Tank Can't spam Damage abilities, runs out of resources basically in an instant, and relied on the slow passive damage of Path and Dark Shade and sparring uses of Sap Essence to whittle down groups of enemies when solo. In a group with others It was nice to add AOE damage to enemies and Boss, while giving healing to nearby allies. Separating that into one or the other really makes me struggle considering using this skill instead of something else.

That's not to say about anything other problems with the build. I have to figure out a new gear Setup for my Argonian now that Tavas has next to no use for that passive Evasion playstyle since Evasion was changed to AOE damage reduction. I don't have an opinion of how useful that is or is not for a Tank. The resource management for my Tank is still a bit iffy for me and there is still a lack of a reasonable CC that can be used in a GROUP environment, so Fear effect is not acceptable because it causes enemies to run away. I'd like it if it caused enemies effected by Fear to cower in place, unable to move. Don't mention anything that requires DLC access to obtain either. I don't have it, and don't expect me to eagerly throw money at it just for a single skill. I'm in no rush, so If I want to play a particular DLC I'll get it on sale if I don't need my money for something else.

mocap · October 2018

i think it's just like before Buffmire update - viable, but hard as Molag's Balls )

Jeremy · October 2018

mocap wrote: »

i think it's just like before Buffmire update - viable, but hard as Molag's Balls )

Agreed.

I'm not seeing much difference. We can still get the job done. But if there's been any significant improvements to Templar tanking I haven't noticed it.

VaxtinTheWolf · October 2018

Despite my initial dislike of the changes that have been made, I've been tampering with my tank and one minor change I am considering is having Nightblade's Soul Siphoner passive increased to 4% from 3% at rank 2, a 1% increase. With the loss of passive Minor Vitality the only heal increase taken into account was Strife itself. By increasing outgoing healing overall just slightly, it might help in recovering some of that lost effect across any healing you output for yourself and allies instead of it previously being a more selfish passive.

I still believe that Path of Darkness and morphs should have it's lingering effect increased to 4 seconds after leaving the path, and that Refreshing Path, assuming it's damage will not be returned to us, should have it's effective cone increased to match Twisting Path. Making that change would allow anyone benefiting from it's effect to have a lot more space to move around in the event you have to preposition yourself and still continue to receive it's healing.

Joxer61 · October 2018

Just started a NB tank and am really enjoying it thus far. My only struggle is lack of cc, old habits from DK and Warden tanking...spoiled maybe? Trying Trapping Webs and maybe Time freeze or just use good ol caltrops? Dunno, still playing around with it but overall its fun.

raj72616a · October 2018

only tanked a few easy vet dungeons so far with stamplar tank.
am glad that sustain is no longer an issue.

jypcy · October 2018

Did vAS hm on one of my tankblades and vBRP on my tankplar yesterday. Tankblade didn’t feel particularly better or worse off from before the patch. Tankplar feels a whole lot better, although I did also revamp the build in anticipation of the changes so that could be a contributing factor.
Either way, both are working out as tanks.