Datolite wrote: »

joseayalac wrote: »

Any tank build uses a great deal of Magicka for tanking. All tanks must use all 3 resource pools.

What do you mean by Magicka? Light armor? It's not going to happen.

Edit: forgot to mention that with Wrathstone patch, Frost staff backbar with S&B frontbar seems like the new meta. Due to the changes to 1H weapon enchantments.

64 points

Ankaridan wrote: »

I have been a magicka tank since... forever. 64 points magicka. I have tanked all content, including vCR, and routinely farm DLC dungeons for motifs as a primary income source.

I only use an ice staff in some very specific fights, i.e. Thurvokuun, Zaan, vFH minotaur, etc. Outside of these fights I use a S+B with a lightning staff backbar (ele blockade, or also ele drain for some 3-dps runs)

I am a DK and primarily use 5 Heavy, 2 Light for dungeons, 7 heavy for trials. I use Witchmother's Brew as my food, Atronarch as my mundus, and I still burn through my magicka like a ******. I have all 3 jewels glyphed for block cost reduction, so it's pretty rare that my stamina ever gets below 50%, especially when Earthen Heart regens stamina (let alone ulti regens). I have so little stamina management issues that I am usually the one also hitting Rapids to take us to the next pack in dungeons. (I am not a patient person).

I love magicka tanking. Stamina tanking (the last time I tried was before stamina morphs were a thing) felt very passive to me, very hold-block-and-wait. I much prefer to have my enemies chained in, perma-Talon'd, Engulfing Flame'd, and Inhale'd to shreds.

First bar is Puncture, Inner Fire, Igneous Shields, Choking Talons, Draw Essence.
Second bar is Flex Skill, Ele Blockade, Efficient Purge, Coagulating Blood, Dragon Fire Scale.

Ultis vary between war horn, destro ulti, and magma shell, and occasionally Ferocious Leap for the lulz.

My gear set varies by group composition, and by dungeon: Ebon Armor, Brands of the Imperium, Twilight Remedy, Cyrodiil's Crest, Dragonguard, or Alkosh. I'm currently playing around with Frozen Watcher for the lulz-factor, and it entertains me, but it really doesn't have value long term.

Monster helms also vary by dungeon: Swarm Mother is my go-to, followed by the new Stonekeeper and Scourge Harvester. For specific fights / situations, I'll pull out Mighty Chudan, Lord Warden or Thurvokuun.

I tank with around 9.5k stamina. Based on gear, my HP varies from 28k (dungeons) to 40k (trials). My magicka also varies from ~30k to ~23k respectively.

xaraan wrote: »

I really hate the whole "Magicka Tank" or "Stamina Tank" question tbh.

This isn't dps. The reason you have one or the other in dps is b/c your damage, resources, etc. all come from one resource and the other is utility.

Tanks don't work like that. Both resources are used for both utility and blocking. And it would be foolish to try and completely lock yourself into one or the other.

Now, if you are talking about wanting to have an ice staff only tank, that's a different story.

If we look at how a typical tank might work, they use stam for blocking with sword/board and stam for a few skills, but try and use magicka for most skills and have a high magicka regen. They get stam back from shards (having a higher stam usually) and from heavy attacks.

So if you wanted to staff tank, you could try and just flip the script. Use magicka for blocking and maybe a skill that you couldn't replace and have higher magicka pool to get magicka back when using a shard/orb and do heavies when needed. Then have a higher stamina regen and try and use mostly stamina skills for utilities. But you'd still want a sword/board back bar to use punture, low slash. Could be good for a build that would rely on using silver leash a lot to manage mobs. That way if you burned through your stam you'd not be in a horrible place blocking wise since you'd use magicka to block with an ice staff.

Problems I've seen when looking at builds like this to try are:
You still want to use sword/board b/c of pierce armor and low slash. Using heavy attack from ice is too slow and using inner fire doesn't debuff target, so you are giving up a lot of pen. You still have to use certain skills on your staff to proc infused crusher now that they gimped that for sword/board. Which will add to magicka cost on top of block cost.

So in the end, I still say just looking at tanks like they could be a magicka or stamina based build isn't worthwhile. Look at them like a hybrid build. Whether you want to use sword/board both bars, staff both bars, or one of each, that is still the best approach. I actually like keeping my stam/mag so close that when I'm on my sword/board bar my stam is higher, when i swap to staff my magicka is higher, so I can choose which resource I'll get back from an orb/shard. It's also nice to just have the option of both type of bars IMO. Even if I'm made to use stam for mostly blocking and have high magicka regen, which means I don't want to block a lot with my staff, the option is there if stamina gets really tapped out.

Of course, all my concerns are more Hard Mode end game trials and new dungeons than just tanking pledges or a normal or old trial. Those you have a lot more leeway to give up power for whatever you feel like you want in a build to be fun or interesting.