I'm going to list and expand a bit on different parts of the tank role. You seem a bit new, especially since you didn't make any mention of CP, so some of what I say may be a bit more general to get you going in the right direction. Tanking more than any other role is very flexible and has a lot of personal preference for stuff like stats or skills. That being said, there is a meta like everything else and there are some skills and things which you need to have to perform your role.

• Attributes: Tanks generally have most of their points into health and balance between magicka and stamina enough to both be comfortable and ensure their stamina is higher than their magicka. Wardens benefit a lot from higher health, so a khajiit tank might split their attributes 50 health, 8 stamina and 6 magicka. Khajiit get even bonuses to all three attributes, but not as large as other races. As far as total resource stats a comfortable health range that lets you take some big hits is between 35k-42k and stamina/magicka between 16k and 21k. The main reason why you want your stamina greater than magicka is because when using synergies you'll get back your highest resource. Stamina is more difficult to recover than magicka and is the stat drained when you block as well.
  
• Role: Before getting into skills you want to know what a tank is supposed to do. In ESO a tank's main job is to control enemies, debuff enemies and buff allies. A tank's job is NOT to taunt everything they see, but to prioritize things that will definitely kill your squishy damage dealers or healers. Through gear sets or certain skills you will debuff enemies to make killing them quicker or prevent them from moving. Buffing allies usually means you boost their damage or defenses.
  
• Leveling: Since you are choosing to level as a tank you've actually got a bit harder time. While leveling from 1-50 you really should be leveling almost all your class skills (by rotating them in and our of your skills bars) unless you know exactly which ones you're not going to need. This can make tanking tougher because you may have several skills on your bars that aren't useful or simply will waste resources. I would recommend having 1 or 2 skills on your bars that are specifically there to level up while you're actively tanking. If you're turning in quests I would fill your active skill bar with all the skills that you'd like to get a big exp boost for.
  
• Skills: This is somewhat class dependent, but as a warden you will mostly be using class skills for your tanking abilities with a couple important weapon skills. As a newer tank it's good to have skills that fill these functions: increases your resistances/defenses (Frost Cloak), can lock down or help crowd control multiple enemies ( Impaling Shards morphed to Gripping Shards), can burst heal you (Polar Wind morphed from Arctic Wind because the heal scales from health), gives you back resources (Bull Netch), taunts enemies ( Inner Fire from Undaunted and Pierce Armor from S&S), a skill to "chain" or pull enemies toward you (Frozen Device morphed from Frozen Gate or Silver Leash morphed from the Fighter's Guild Silver Bolts) , a skill to apply Crusher enchantment (Elemental Blockade morphed from Wall of Elements). If you are eventually interested in Trials, everyone will tell you that Warhorn is the one you should be using all the time. I personally like to slot Permafrost (morphed from Sleet Storm) and Enchanted Forest (morphed from Secluded Grove) when I'm in dungeons because they both provide useful utilities. Enchanted Forest is a big heal for the whole group that is also very cheap to cast and gives you back ultimate if you heal someone with low health. Permafrost doesn't do a lot of damage, but it provides 30% damage resist for the group and slows enemies. It gives me a chance to taunt or reposition troublesome enemies and protects my allies if they get caught by big damage mechanics.
  
• Skills 2: A key part of being a tank is the ability to be flexible as well. While I listed off a lot of skills above, it still left a couple of blank slots for other skills. What other utility skills you use depends on the fight you're about to be in, what your group composition is, or how knowledgable of the mechanics you are. Some fights are easier when you can reflect spells or projectiles. Some fights are easier if you slot a skill that gives a damage shield and a synergy to the group. You may find yourself with 2-3 flexible skill slots that you can swap things around with.
  
• Gear: This has some personal variation like your skill choices do. Since you have less experience it may be better for you to use sets that don't directly benefit anyone other than yourself until you get the experience to change things around. A common newbie set is Plague Doctor because it gives you a BIG boost to your health and you can find it in treasure chests or in guild traders, so it's easy to acquire. Fortified Brass is a crafted set that gives you a big boost to your resistances which can especially be helpful if you are less than 400-500 CP. More experienced tanks will wear two sets that help the group. Ebon is the most common (it's the red floaty orbs) because it gives you extra health AND gives your whole group about 1100 extra health as well. A Trial set called Yolnakriin gives your whole group extra weapon and spell damage just from taunting an enemy. Some sets indirectly help the group because they allow you to use a skill more often, such as Akaviri Dragonguard. This set's main function is to reduce the cost of your ultimate abilities. This means more Warhorns, or more Permafrosts, or whatever because you'll be able to use it much sooner.
  
• Gear 2: Again, gear that you use is very flexible depending on the fight and how experienced you are as a tank. Some tanks choose to always use sets that only help themselves (like Plague Doctor) because they're most comfortable with it and it fits their needs. While you're still leveling I wouldn't worry about getting complete gear sets until you hit CP160 because you'll outlevel your current gear too quickly. Wear about 5 pieces of heavy armor, 1 piece medium weight and 1 piece light weight. You'll have less resistance than wearing 7 heavy pieces, but there is a skill in the Undaunted line that increases your health/magicka/stamina more for each weight of armor you wear. You can choose later if you want a full heavy configuration or not, but you want to give yourself options so you can potentially make use of some of the passive armor skills as well.

naturebased wrote: »

I made a warden as it seemed more interesting than dk and nord went well with the ice theme as well. After a few dungeons my main question is how do I go about handling mobs? I can either run in and pierce or use inner fire, but that only taunts one enemy and the rest of the mob will attack whoever. Would it make more sense to not bother taunting mobs and instead try to crowd control them by frozen devicing them and then use gripping shards to keep them in place, and hopefully it would make it easy for dps to burn them then? I have a friend who is a dk tank and doing dungeons with him is a breeze, he chains mobs very quickly and stacks them all around him so its very easy to aoe and kill them quick. Im sure I could achieve similarly with frozen devices.


Another Q, as a warden should i use expansive frost cloak to buff my allies with resistance as well, or use ice fortress to focus on myself? I do like that ice fortress lasts a bit longer.

Also, im not sure if my stats are alright. Im currently at 47 health and 17 stam and 0 mag. Should i have more mag if i am specifically interested in the winters embrace line?

Other than that, is there any tips you have for me to be an efficient tank as a nord warden?

Nord Warden tank is my favourite tank set up (I have DK and Necro as well).

Either slot Silver Leash morphed (fighters guild), or Frozen Device, and use these to pull in any ranged "mobs". Once I have taunted the main threat in the engagement, that is generally my next focus. (buffs/debuffs having already been applied). Another option as an alternative, or in addition, is to use the monster set Swarm Mother (it pulls ranged adds to you automatically).

Also, a good group will let the tank engage several seconds before they enter the fray, this allows passive taunting if you will, wherby all the enemy focus on the tank and engage them first, allowing the tank to better pool the enemy into a smaller area, without the need to taunt. Hope that makes sense.

As you move into vet and trial content, it simply wont be possible to taunt everything, so the idea is indeed to gather all the baddies in as small an area as possible. But often your focus will be tanking only the boss/larger dangerous adds and keeping the taunt up 100%. Personally, I like to taunt as much as I can, it helps the group, its challenging and fun. But you must maintain taunt on boss/big hitting adds, and must maintain your buffs/debuffs, thats the priorities. Oh, and stay alive lol.

I use expansive frost cloak, its one of the main reasons for a group to employ a Wardent tank (or healer), thats part of your job, to buff and debuff!

You may find everything you ask for - and even things you may not have asked for - here:

https://alcasthq.com/eso-tanking-beginner-guide/

About health, make sure you're in the 30k, and you should be fine for most content.
The others points can fit in stam or mag, where you feel you need more.

About stacking mobs... well, IMO you'd have an easier time with silver chain from Fighters guild.
(because you get stamina back from the netch, which can be used for both pulling, taunting, and blocking)