Hello everyone! We have a large amount of changes on PTS that will rebuild PvE tanking in many aspects. In this thread, we'll talk where the current standart tank builds will move towards and how they'll be played. Of course Necromancer will have its own topic.

NEW SETS

Call of the Undertaker – Heavy
2 – Adds 4% Healing Taken
3 – Adds 1206 Maximum Health
4 – Adds 4% Healing Done
5 – Adds 1206 Maximum Health
5 – When you deal damage with a Light Attack, you apply Minor Lifesteal to your enemy for 8 seconds, healing you and your allies for 600 Health every 1 second when damaging them. This effect can occur once every 8 seconds.

Sadly not a great set. Not only it's not up for 100% uptime in a realistic scenario, it gets outperformed by certain abilities such as Overflowing Altar and Leeching Vines. Light Attack requirement is another problem with it.

Senche-raht’s Grit
2 – Adds 4% Healing Done
3 – Adds 1206 Maximum Health
4 – Adds 4% Healing Taken
5 – After being damaged by a damage over time ability, increase your Healing Received by 6% and your Physical and Spell Resistance by 2585 for 3 seconds.

Even though it's an amazing stat to have, due to already having an insane amount of healing going on, Healing Received is somewhat unnecessary. Resistances share the same fate, especially when we look at how easy it is to reach Resistance cap using CP/Nord etc.

Perfected Claw of Yolnakhriin – Tank
2 – Adds 1206 Maximum Health
3 – Gain Minor Aegis at all times, reducing your damage taken from Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters by 5%.
4 – Adds 1096 Maximum Stamina
5 – Adds 1206 Maximum Health
5 – When you taunt an enemy, you give yourself and 11 group members Minor Courage for 15 seconds, increasing your Weapon and Spell Damage by 129. This effect can occur once every 8 seconds.

Star of the new patch. Saviour of tanks after several years of same gear. No need to talk about anything really. Amazing stats, nice support, an actual tank set in heavy armour. We'll be talking about this set a lot more and why it changes so many things next patch, under Enchantments section. Just know that we will be running this set.

Leeching Plate – Heavy

4 – 1206 Maximum Health
5 – When you take damage, you have a 20% chance to summon a cloud of leeching poison under the assailant. The cloud deals 1200 Poison Damage in a 5 meter radius every 1 second for 5 seconds and heals you for 100% of the damage caused.

One of the first sets that comes to mind when tanks want to survive on their own. Got a decent buff, worth mentioning.

NEW ALCHEMY INGREDIENTS

Dragon's Blood and Dragons Bile can be obtained by defeating Dragons. Both of these new Alchemy reagents carry the new effect trait of Minor Heroism!

Being honest, this most likely will not change anything. Heroic Slash is such an amazing skill that provides 100% Minor Maim and Minor Heroism and procs your enchant. Only reason running this new potion would be not using Heroic Slash. Do we really want to do that? Not really.

GAMEPLAY

Choice of Weapon and Enchantments

Here is the big change we may see next patch. The new set (Claw) will be used on a Main Tank just like Alkosh. So the question is, who is going to use Torug's? Healer. We probably will see a setup where Main Tank Claw + Alkosh, Off Tank Ebon + Powerful Assault, Healer 1 Torug + Infallible Aether and Healer 2 uses Olorime + Worm/Hircine. Currently, healers are using sets like Jorvuld's that doesn't provide that much compared to other sets, meaning we don't really need to get rid of Torug's all together. We can just keep using it on Healer and let them take care of Crusher. This strat already being used by a small number of high end groups, especially when tank is using Morag Tong.

This also opens up many opportunities for tanks. Currently, we have to use a Bow or Frost/Shock Staff because Crusher doubles in value when used on a two handed weapon. Now that we don't need to have Crusher, we can use whichever weapon we want. Removal of Minor Berserk from Grim Focus increased the value of Combat Prayer, which can be used on a tank. Or you can use Dual Wield with Cloak for Major Evasion. Or Bow for DPS. Or 2H for huge shields while fighting trash packs. Or another SnB for tankiness and extra stats. Or just go with the classic Frost/Shock Staff for Snare/Off Balance. Anything you prefer even though some of them, especially Bow, look better compared to others.

Weapon Skills

Arrow Spray: Removed the Snare from this ability and its morphs, but increased their damage by approximately 27% and reduced the costs by approximately 13%.
Bombard (morph): This morph retains the Snare and Immobilize, but ensures that both apply to the enemy, rather than only Snaring enemies who were initially affected by the Immobilize. Duration of the Immobilize now lasts up to 4 seconds, up from 2.

Many tanks use Bombard due to not having an AOE Root in their class skill line so here is a nice buff for you. Big cost reduction and duration increase.

Wall of Frost: Reduced the snare potency of this ability and its morphs to 40% from 60%.

It's somewhat big nerf to players who don't have AOE Root and use Staves for AOE snare instead.

Light's Champion (morph): This ability no longer grants Major Protection. In adjustment to this morph, the duration of the Major Force granted will now increase by 1 second for each rank of the morph, going from a duration of 5 seconds to 8 seconds at Rank IV.

Not sure how effective this will be. Aggressive Horn is still an amazing ultimate with the increased stat pools but again, cannot say anything until we test it. I have my doubts that it will be good since the heal is smart will go to the lowest health ally, which might already have the Major Force.

CLASS BALANCE

DRAGONKNIGHT

DK Tanks are still at top with Engulfing Flames and Minor Brutality, benefitting both types of DDs with necessary and important buffs. They are extremely easy to play, tanky and have nice self heals.

Hardened Armor: The damage shield granted from this ability will no longer extend in duration as the ability ranks up, but rather will increase by 1.1% in size per rank.

A small buff.

Reflective Scale: Converted the reflect function into a 50% damage reduction from projectiles. This happened to all 3 versions of the ability.

So, here is a big change. Assuming that this works against projectiles from bosses, DK will be very tanky in certain fights such as Rakkhat and Z'Maja. Taking 50% less damage from certain boss heavy attacks (that are projectiles) can help by a ton in a progression group.

Ash Cloud: Increased healing of this ability by approximately 15%.
Cinder Storm (morph): Increased healing of this ability by approximately 4%.

Not sure if anyone uses this but this thing is kinda absurd in terms of healing. It is expensive but the healing is just too good. If you are in a stable boss fight where there isn't much movement, this skill can release so much pressure from your healer. We are looking at an even greater self healing skill next patch.

Magma Armor & morphs: Increased to 12 seconds from 10.8 seconds

Small buff.

Obsidian Shield & morphs: Increased to 8 seconds from 7.2 seconds

Note that this means Major Mending duration on Fragmented Shield is now 6 seconds instead of 5.4.

NIGHTBLADE

Nightblades got a huge survivability nerf but got a damage buff. The problem is that the damage buff they gained is Minor Vulnerability, which is something we already have from Infallible Aether. Not sure how it'll work but we'll see in the future.

Player abilities that fear targets will no longer cause them to flee in terror. Instead, they will now cower in terror, unable to move while feared.

Something NB Tanks wanted for so long. Even though it's a Hard CC, still something.

Teleport Strike: This ability and its morphs will no longer stun NPC enemies. Instead, targets affected by the initial damage will be afflicted with Minor Vulnerability for 8 seconds.

Here is the thing that makes people wonder if NB tank will be a viable choice. It's such an easy way to apply the debuff, can make healer run another set etc. The main problem is that Lotus Fan, even though it is an AOE morph, doesn't apply the debuff to all targets, only one. If that changes, NB Tank can be a lot better.

Mass Hysteria (morph): This morph no longer applies Minor Maim to the targets affected. Also increased the number of feared targets to 6 enemies from 2.

In addition to the fear change, Mass Hysteria will affect 6 targets, making it a lot better option as an AOE CC.

Dark Cloak: Adjusted how this ability operates. It will now heal the caster for 4.5% of their Max Health every 1 second, and duration can increase to a maximum of 8 seconds with other passives.

A lot of NB tanks are pissed about this change. They no longer have a burst heal that can keep them alive during short time burst attacks from bosses such as Thousand Cuts. Even though the total healing is higher compared to before, they lost their main survival tool. I believe there could be a better fix for this ability instead of making it useless for both PvE and PvP. Even Leeching Strikes heal is higher than a Dark Cloak tick on a 35k Health Tank build, which is pretty sad.

SORCERER

Sorcerers are still at the top in terms of sustain with Dark Deal and cost reduction passive after blocking. The cast time change makes it easier to use. They still lack the support though.

Removed the 200ms post global cooldown from cast time abilities.

This change mainly affected Sorcerer Tanks as they use Dark Deal for sustain. Dark Deal is pretty much the best sustain tool even though it's risky to use, nice change.

TEMPLAR

Templars got a nice buff to their already good sustain. With the PotL change, they'll have a lot more Stamina sustain compared to before.

Power of the Light: Duration of the Minor Fracture and Breach will last 9 seconds, up from 6 seconds at their final rank.

Templar tanks had the most stamina usage with Power of the Light. This change will help a lot and make the gameplay a lot easier by allowing an easier rotation.

WARDEN

Warden Tanks are still very strong with their Minor Toughness buff. I don't think you can get a better off tank than Warden, not current patch, not next patch. They are perfectly designed for the job.

Falcon’s Swiftness:
Reduced the cost of this ability and its morphs to 2700 from 3511 at base.
Major Expedition now lasts 6 seconds, up from 4 seconds. Note this ability is now considered a “rule breaker”, since it breaks the paradigm of Major Expedition lasting 4 seconds.

Wings got what they deserved. A nice buff. Huge cost reduction and 2 seconds longer Expedition.

Arctic Wind: Increased the Heal over Time from this ability and its morphs to 3% of your Max Health, up from 2%.

To be honest, I don't think this skill is worth using at all and this won't change it. It's just way too expensive.

NECROMANCER

Right, here is Necro. Let's talk about it a bit and theorycraft. The main strenght of Necro Tank is having insane Ultimate Regeneration using corpse play and using the Resurrection Ultimate to get your dead allies up instantly and preventing wipes. We can use this in our advantage in many progression groups, especially in new trial. Here is what I came up with, feel free to add/comment on it.

Before we go over abilities that you want to have on a Necro Tank, you need to know certain mechanics about corpse play. In order to create a corpse from an ability, the summon needs to die, expire or have at least half of its duration spent alive. That means, in order to create a corpse, you cannot just spam the summon. You have to wait 10 seconds if the summon has 20 seconds duration.

Grave Lord

Avid Boneyard: Allowing a synergy for yourself to keep Alkosh uptime at least 50% even when you get no synergies at all. Very unique ability in that regard.

Bone Tyrant

Hungry Scythe: Main healing ability. 6k non-crit heals against single target while having 10k+ crits. It shines during trash fights though. Every extra enemy you deal damage to, the heal will increase and this increase can stack up to 5 times. Fairly cheap too.

Summoner's Armour: This or the other morph, doesn't matter. If you choose Summoner's morph, your Magicka sustain will be significantly higher thanks to the 12% cost reduction on summons. This is our first corpse ability. The duration is 20 seconds so you need to refresh it every 10 seconds if you want to maximize your corpses.

Necrotic Potency: Without a doubt, the best skill Necro Tank has to offer. Every corpse grants 6 Ultimate and heals for a decent amount. Single cast can be used on multiple corpses, which makes the skill even better. This is our main Ultimate Regeneration tool. It also activates Corpse Consumption passive, granting 10 Ultimate every 16 seconds. You can use this on your dead allies too, keep that in mind. That will help you especially when you want to reanimate them but your Ultimate is not ready yet.

Remote Totem: This ability is basically Circle of Protection but better. You can cast it from 28 meters range, has slightly bigger radius and costs Magicka. The other morph is not that great since we already have reliable sources of Minor Vulnerability. It's more of a flex spot ability though as Minor Protection is not really something you want all the time, only when your team is taking serious damage.

Living Death

Reanimate: Each morph has its uses. I prefer to have Reanimate Blastbones as that means more corpses to regain my Ultimate after I use it. This ability is, in my opinion, the main strength of Necro Tank. Combined with huge Ultimate Regeneration, you can use this very often and keep your team going without wiping which makes Necro Tank really useful in progression groups.

Resistant Flesh: Here is a unique ability. We won't use this for healing. It's for applying Minor Defile on ourselves. That means we can use Purify synergy from our Templar Healers whenever we want, without having to rely on a mechanic to apply a debuff to us. This will increase our Alkosh uptime noticably. Just combining this and Avid Boneyard can get you close 100% uptime on Alkosh.

Intensive Mender: Other morph will make you very tanky but here is why this morph is better. Because duration is halved. It's not for the stronger heal. Because duration is lower, that means we can get more corpses out of it. 8 seconds duration opposed to 16 seconds means we can refresh this summon every 4 seconds and get a corpse everytime. Use those corpses with Necrotic Potency and you'll regenerate Ultimate really fast.

Mortal Coil: It's not a skill I would use but it's worth mentioning. It's the only ability you have to regain Stamina while blocking. You will need a corpse to keep it up obviously. Also a decent heal.

There are the most important skills you can use on a Necro Tank. Rest will be Weapon Skills like Pierce Armour, Heroic Slash etc. If you want an example, here are my skill bars:

Pierce Armour / Heroic Slash / Hungry Scythe / Intensive Mender / Necrotic Potency / Animate Blastbones
Avid Boneyard / Endless Hail / Inner Rage / Summoner's Armour / Resistant Flesh / Aggressive Horn

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That's all for this PvE Tanks on this patch really. I hope I could shed some light for you on new changes and how they'll affect PvE Tanking. Let me know if you have any questions regarding build/class etc. I'll try to answer as much as I can.

Liofa