Ice staff because of the ancient knowledge passive.

What you need is a 2h weapon that gives you a ground dot to apply the crusher enchant. Destro staves and bow fit in that category.

Then you also need defenses as a tank. Because of the aforementioned passive ice staves reduce the amount of damage you take while blocking, and reduce block cost.

Lightning staves are used by some because of the off-balance they provide, but that effect is exclusive and usually provided by healers, so unless your group specifically asks you to do it, and you have no problem timing your bar swaps when a heavy attack is incoming, do not use a lightning staff, because you might get 1-shot trying to tank with it.

Bows are used sometimes because they do not require you to be close to your target, you can apply crusher from a distance. And unlike lightning staves, bows do not give you any other advantage other than flexibility for targeting, so they are only ever used when you have to range tank (for example there is a tactic for vSS frost boss where you have to do that).

TL;DR: use ice staff unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise.

Donny_Vito wrote: »

Like others have said, Lightning Staff is useful if someone else is not using it. But if you already have a healer and/or DPS using lightning, then there is really no need for you to use it unless your sustain sucks that bad and you need the magicka.

To add to this: Healers (with charged trait) using the Lightning Staff is somewhat of a must now, or else your healer needs to get with the times. As a tank, you really need to use crusher enchantment (for maximum resistance debuff) so the lightning staff just isn't as useful to you to proc off balance compared to a healer who knows that is one of their main jobs.