Unkillable troll tank

robertlabrie · January 2023

12 people trying to bash a DK to death while it burns your siege and gets healed by DoTs isn't exactly a good time. Being one probably is a good time, anyone know what they're running? I'm assuming Maras Blight and some other set,

Giraffon · January 2023

Probably a lot of tank builds could do that. If you've got multiple siege in the area, hit him with that. That should back him up a bit.

MEBengalsFan2001 · January 2023

First off, abilities that applies debuff and DoT are your friend. Second so are stuns and knockback and light attacks; especially if your weapon enchants are fire and poison. Finally siege, especially flame ballista tend to help kill those annoying tank rather fast.

robertlabrie · January 2023

Sorry but no, needing 8 - 12 people to stand around bashing a guy isn't misapplication of skills it's just totally unbalanced nonsense.

SkaraMinoc · January 2023

A good permablock tank won't go down without Javelin and Cold Fire. For them to get cc immunity, permablock tanks either need Assassin's Guile + Unstoppable Poisons + Cutting Defense which has too high of an opportunity cost, or Immovable skill which means they're pinned down and susceptible to Cold Fire.

In general, Siege DoTs and knockback or knockdown (1s minimum cc) are their greatest weakness.

fred4 · January 2023

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

A good permablock tank won't go down without Javelin and Cold Fire. For them to get cc immunity, permablock tanks either need Assassin's Guile + Unstoppable Poisons + Cutting Defense which has too high of an opportunity cost, or Immovable skill which means they're pinned down and susceptible to Cold Fire.

In general, Siege DoTs and knockback or knockdown (1s minimum cc) are their greatest weakness

This. A troll tank is either about very low block cost (400 or less) or about Mist Form sustain. I guess they might wear Mara these days, but also things like Cyrodiil's Crest, Steadfast's Mettle, and so on. They may have some way of keeping Immovable up, such as using a frost staff for blocking or, these days, Stormweaver's Cavort. Alternatively they may have Cinder Storm cost down to zero or near zero so as to sustain blocking via the DK Helping Hands passive. Wearing Zoal with Slippery CP may be an option to counterstun everyone when you do get CCd and are at your most vulnerable.

I've dabbled in these kind of defensive measures, but I'm not an expert. I have a friend who has elevated troll tanking to a high art. I don't know exactly what he does, but from what I can tell it's not that easy to be really good at it. You have to have the foresight and experience to manage your sustain just right.

xFocused · January 2023

Negates are your best friend when fighting these trolls. Drop a negate and they always seem to fall shortly after

Lumenn · January 2023

xFocused wrote: »

Negates are your best friend when fighting these trolls. Drop a negate and they always seem to fall shortly after

This. I've also dabbled in troll tank builds and negate hurts. At the very least it'll make me back out of it.

Jaimeh · January 2023

Yes, I've seen tanks just stand there not taking any damage while burning a bunch of sieges, it's very hard to fight against, especially if you are on your own, and try to solo flag a keep for distraction, for example. I think that's the reasoning of the playstyle, that they are occupying the enemies and act as a buffer. If there's other people there that fight them, you can go and set a siege on them, usually siege damage helps, but better to try and move past (and recharge your ulti with a heavy attack

)

xFocused · January 2023

Lumenn wrote: »

xFocused wrote: »

Negates are your best friend when fighting these trolls. Drop a negate and they always seem to fall shortly after

This. I've also dabbled in troll tank builds and negate hurts. At the very least it'll make me back out of it.

For sure. I ran out of Sej last night to a group of EP trying to burn down a tank, dropped a Negate on him and his health went down significantly

Thecompton73 · January 2023

fred4 wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

A good permablock tank won't go down without Javelin and Cold Fire. For them to get cc immunity, permablock tanks either need Assassin's Guile + Unstoppable Poisons + Cutting Defense which has too high of an opportunity cost, or Immovable skill which means they're pinned down and susceptible to Cold Fire.

In general, Siege DoTs and knockback or knockdown (1s minimum cc) are their greatest weakness

This. A troll tank is either about very low block cost (400 or less) or about Mist Form sustain. I guess they might wear Mara these days, but also things like Cyrodiil's Crest, Steadfast's Mettle, and so on. They may have some way of keeping Immovable up, such as using a frost staff for blocking or, these days, Stormweaver's Cavort. Alternatively they may have Cinder Storm cost down to zero or near zero so as to sustain blocking via the DK Helping Hands passive. Wearing Zoal with Slippery CP may be an option to counterstun everyone when you do get CCd and are at your most vulnerable.

I've dabbled in these kind of defensive measures, but I'm not an expert. I have a friend who has elevated troll tanking to a high art. I don't know exactly what he does, but from what I can tell it's not that easy to be really good at it. You have to have the foresight and experience to manage your sustain just right.

From my attempts to build one of these types of characters I found block cost reduction is only a small part of being a troll tank. A tank that is holding up to 12-15 people hammering on them almost indefinitely needs to push the block mitigation to the cap while also getting close to the resist cap and/or getting raw damage % reduction, then somehow also be able to sustain at least 4K hps in hots to stay ahead of the cumulative total of so many people hitting them every second. They also have to be able to survive occasional stuns, instantly break free and recover however much health they got chunked for in the second they weren't blocking. The best I could ever do is to survive about 5 good players, I could never figure out the formula that allows some to tank 3x that.

maxjapank · January 2023

robertlabrie wrote: »

Sorry but no, needing 8 - 12 people to stand around bashing a guy isn't misapplication of skills it's just totally unbalanced nonsense.

It really is. Some will say to leave them alone and move on. But being able to move around and burn siege without dying is a bit over the top. I give props to the player. But block is a bit too powerful in pvp, and I think quite a few players will agree with that.

fred4 · January 2023

Thecompton73 wrote: »

A tank that is holding up to 12-15 people hammering on them almost indefinitely needs to push the block mitigation to the cap while also getting close to the resist cap.

Defensive Stance and being a DK are your friends at +10% each. These are not any 10%, they are additive with the basic block mitigation increase from 1H+S (20%) rather than multiplicative. In one particular test I did on DK, Defensive Stance added more like 28% to my existing block mitigation, which means it outperformed the +20% from Bracing Anchor CP (which is multiplicative). Incidentally this means the Footman set is also much better than it looks, e.g. if you wanted to go for pure block mitigation. I believe that set and the heavy armor bonus are the two other factors that stack additively.

I am a fan of medium armor. It may be the wrong choice for a troll tank, but I've personally always aimed to make rounded builds. Never got around to trying a pure troll tank. Medium gives you block cost and weapon cost reduction. You also knock down both stamina and magicka costs most effecively with Indeko cost reduction runes, e.g. to get Cinder Storm to near zero cost. A side effect of this is that Pierce Armor cost drops down to something like 800. Enter Master's 1H+S, both healing you and upping your resistances considerably, perhaps along with Bloodspawn procs. At a cost of 800 you can afford to use Puncture from time to time, even when you're mostly blocking. It's an approach I use in PvE and once took into PvP. If one were to use Stormweaver's and searching for the scant stamina heals that there are, this is the kind of thing I'd look at.

The best I could ever do is to survive about 5 good players, I could never figure out the formula that allows some to tank 3x that.

I'd say you can't, but you may against bad players. That's the elephant in the room. Even my friend admitted that he once got taken down by just two good players who dragged one of the IC Memorial bosses into the fight to help.

Aside from the things already mentioned, negates, siege, and so on, killing a tank requires sustained damage in my experience. This is something that PvPers don't necessarily have, because they build for burst and cannot sustain constant, PvE-like pressure. Outside of using siege you have to treat tanks like a PvE target. I used to run off meta builds (still do) that had sustain. Those can work where otherwise better PvP builds may fail. They work, because tank heals have issues. Sustaining heals and recovering your full health is typically not easy on a tank (I don't know how good Mara is for them, these days). I used Bloodthirst at the time. Flurry, Jabs and Force Shock hit the target multiple times per second. You can be charged the block cost every 1/4 of a second, I believe. Killing a tank by running down their stamina is something that only some builds are capable of, e.g. notably not the typical burst-oriented nightblade, but builds that use those particular skills.

Lazily firing in the general direction of a tank covered in a plume of other players won't work. The tank is likely LoSing at all times. That tree or box next to them is blocking much more damage than you think. You have to stay on top of them, making sure your attacks land and that you put them under constant pressure. When Surprise Attack / Concealed still had the stun, this was ideal as it would also stun them on cooldown.

Thecompton73 · January 2023

fred4 wrote: »

Thecompton73 wrote: »

A tank that is holding up to 12-15 people hammering on them almost indefinitely needs to push the block mitigation to the cap while also getting close to the resist cap.

Defensive Stance and being a DK are your friends at +10% each. These are not any 10%, they are additive with the basic block mitigation increase from 1H+S (20%) rather than multiplicative. In one particular test I did on DK, Defensive Stance added more like 28% to my existing block mitigation, which means it outperformed the +20% from Bracing Anchor CP (which is multiplicative). Incidentally this means the Footman set is also much better than it looks, e.g. if you wanted to go for pure block mitigation. I believe that set and the heavy armor bonus are the two other factors that stack additively.

I am a fan of medium armor. It may be the wrong choice for a troll tank, but I've personally always aimed to make rounded builds. Never got around to trying a pure troll tank. Medium gives you block cost and weapon cost reduction. You also knock down both stamina and magicka costs most effecively with Indeko cost reduction runes, e.g. to get Cinder Storm to near zero cost. A side effect of this is that Pierce Armor cost drops down to something like 800. Enter Master's 1H+S, both healing you and upping your resistances considerably, perhaps along with Bloodspawn procs. At a cost of 800 you can afford to use Puncture from time to time, even when you're mostly blocking. It's an approach I use in PvE and once took into PvP. If one were to use Stormweaver's and searching for the scant stamina heals that there are, this is the kind of thing I'd look at.

The best I could ever do is to survive about 5 good players, I could never figure out the formula that allows some to tank 3x that.

I'd say you can't, but you may against bad players. That's the elephant in the room. Even my friend admitted that he once got taken down by just two good players who dragged one of the IC Memorial bosses into the fight to help.

Aside from the things already mentioned, negates, siege, and so on, killing a tank requires sustained damage in my experience. This is something that PvPers don't necessarily have, because they build for burst and cannot sustain constant, PvE-like pressure. Outside of using siege you have to treat tanks like a PvE target. I used to run off meta builds (still do) that had sustain. Those can work where otherwise better PvP builds may fail. They work, because tank heals have issues. Sustaining heals and recovering your full health is typically not easy on a tank (I don't know how good Mara is for them, these days). I used Bloodthirst at the time. Flurry, Jabs and Force Shock hit the target multiple times per second. You can be charged the block cost every 1/4 of a second, I believe. Killing a tank by running down their stamina is something that only some builds are capable of, e.g. notably not the typical burst-oriented nightblade, but builds that use those particular skills.

Lazily firing in the general direction of a tank covered in a plume of other players won't work. The tank is likely LoSing at all times. That tree or box next to them is blocking much more damage than you think. You have to stay on top of them, making sure your attacks land and that you put them under constant pressure. When Surprise Attack / Concealed still had the stun, this was ideal as it would also stun them on cooldown.

After reading that I looked at your tagline and as expected you're on EP on PC NA. Unless there's someone I don't know of (because they're on AD and I've never attacked them) the best troll tank by far is on EP too so maybe you haven't witnessed them stand in place and sponge damage for 20 minutes while 15 people parse on them non-stop.
It's a pretty rare build as the only other person I ever saw that was that tanky played on the PS server. I've seen some other pretty tanky trolls but those two put the rest to shame.

fred4 · January 2023

In case some of what I said sounds contradictory, I think a mediocre tank may be killed by a single player with the right skills, e.g. pressure skills that also run down the tank's stamina. Skills like Jabs / Flurry and Rending Slashes also counter Corrosive Armor to some degree.

On the other hand, if a tank is so good they can tank multiple people, then they probably take enough hits that they are charged maximum block cost regardless, unless they are LoSing. This is where I think spammable damage skills that have a stun come in or are at least easy to use.

fred4 · January 2023

Thecompton73 wrote: »

After reading that I looked at your tagline and as expected you're on EP on PC NA. Unless there's someone I don't know of because they're on AD so I've never attacked them the best troll tank by far is on EP too so you probably haven't witnessed them stand in place and sponge damage for 20 minutes while 15 people parse on them non-stop. It's a pretty rare build as the only other person I ever saw that was that tanky played on the PS server. I've seen some other pretty tanky trolls but those two put the rest to shame.

I very rarely play on NA, so wouldn't have seen them.

Yeah, I don't know all that much, but am taking educated guesses. If there is some outstanding build, I don't know it. In my experience, like yours, it's quite easy holding off a limited number of tryhard players, say 2 in my case

. I might hold off more temporarily on my kind of builds, say until they decide to focus someone else. That's it. When I've tried outright tanking, it seemed to me that skill rotation and experience starts to factor in. Experience specific to tanking.

Elendir2am · January 2023

Troll tank is about block mitigation and block cost. Tank, who burning sieges cannot do so when blocking. You can easily kill them in this window, if you have some offensive power.

Thecompton73 · January 2023

@Aixy

You don't know me but from seeing you in game I know you're probably the best person to shed some light on how this is done, if you're willing to share some of your knowledge.

Ulvich · January 2023

Giraffon wrote: »

Probably a lot of tank builds could do that. If you've got multiple siege in the area, hit him with that. That should back him up a bit.

This...
Any good tank build (as well as the person controlling it) with the right support should be very hard to stop.

xFocused · January 2023

Elendir2am wrote: »

Troll tank is about block mitigation and block cost. Tank, who burning sieges cannot do so when blocking. You can easily kill them in this window, if you have some offensive power.

This sadly isn't true though. I've seen countless of these tanks burn siege with 5 or more players bashing them to interrupt them and they still burn it...that's a huge balance issue. You want to stand there and troll, fine but you shouldn't be allowed to burn countless siege WHILE being bashed. To those who say "just leave them and move on" well you can and can't, if they stay inside a keep and you leave, it just gets flagged again pulling a ton of your alliance back there, rinse & repeat

fred4 · January 2023

xFocused wrote: »

Elendir2am wrote: »

Troll tank is about block mitigation and block cost. Tank, who burning sieges cannot do so when blocking. You can easily kill them in this window, if you have some offensive power.

This sadly isn't true though. I've seen countless of these tanks burn siege with 5 or more players bashing them to interrupt them and they still burn it...that's a huge balance issue. You want to stand there and troll, fine but you shouldn't be allowed to burn countless siege WHILE being bashed. To those who say "just leave them and move on" well you can and can't, if they stay inside a keep and you leave, it just gets flagged again pulling a ton of your alliance back there, rinse & repeat

Well, I just ran into such a player. Templar. Couldn't be bashed. I don't know how that's possible. He was using both Mist Form and blocking at various times. I can only figure Stormweaver's gives people the freedom to spam Unstoppable every 6 seconds, but maybe that's not even it. I tried to look for the rings around feet, but it was hard to see. I also don't know whether that skill actually prevents you from being interrupted. Maybe it does. I'm also noticing how relatively cheap that skill is, these days, and I could have sworn it only lasted 5 seconds in the past. As to how much damage this guy could take while burning siege, I'm not sure, as the outpost opened up at the same time and others left him alone.

Turtle_Bot · January 2023

Having played these builds in the past, cost reduction, block mitigation, passive healing and some form of CC immunity/removal are key.

Negate is the biggest threat to these builds, especially when combined with CC, unfortunately sorc is not in a good spot right now so negate is not that common outside of guards.

when it comes to how many players they can tank, the max number of good players that any troll tank can reasonably expect to survive is about 4-5, less if those good players have some way to counter troll tanks, for tanking average players/pugs, troll tanks can easily tank full zergs (15-20+) for a long time, especially if those zergs don't know how to counter the tank (negate + CC + siege) and even more so if there's LoS available.

xFocused · January 2023

fred4 wrote: »

xFocused wrote: »

Elendir2am wrote: »

Troll tank is about block mitigation and block cost. Tank, who burning sieges cannot do so when blocking. You can easily kill them in this window, if you have some offensive power.

This sadly isn't true though. I've seen countless of these tanks burn siege with 5 or more players bashing them to interrupt them and they still burn it...that's a huge balance issue. You want to stand there and troll, fine but you shouldn't be allowed to burn countless siege WHILE being bashed. To those who say "just leave them and move on" well you can and can't, if they stay inside a keep and you leave, it just gets flagged again pulling a ton of your alliance back there, rinse & repeat

Well, I just ran into such a player. Templar. Couldn't be bashed. I don't know how that's possible. He was using both Mist Form and blocking at various times. I can only figure Stormweaver's gives people the freedom to spam Unstoppable every 6 seconds, but maybe that's not even it. I tried to look for the rings around feet, but it was hard to see. I also don't know whether that skill actually prevents you from being interrupted. Maybe it does. I'm also noticing how relatively cheap that skill is, these days, and I could have sworn it only lasted 5 seconds in the past. As to how much damage this guy could take while burning siege, I'm not sure, as the outpost opened up at the same time and others left him alone.

We ran into this last night. We were in a field fight and set down a camp. AD troll tank runs over and burns it after a few of us trying to bash to interrupt...and it just wouldn't let us. He was also using Mist form and I'm guessing Mara's Balm. It definitely needs to be looked at

Soraka · January 2023

Ran into the most tankiest tank I've seen outside of sej. I can't remember if he was AD or DC.
As for Aixy she usually says she's not so much tank, but has lots of healing.

robpr · January 2023

A lot of dots from a distance and perma block wont help them (dont try to melee or they will heal up with Draw Essence). Try to drain their mag so they cannot coag. Dots will also brute force through Corrosive/Magma as most people think Magma Armor gives 97% damage reduction, no it reduces any tick of damage to 3% of the health, so many instances will just go through.

PunkAben · January 2023

It is Zenimax's attempt to make a balanced game that is fun for everyone.
I think the problems are in a queue and with many millions of spaghetti code there is a lot that needs to be done first.
In my opinion, it is more important for Zinimax to keep its players busy than to make a game that keeps the paying customers and to make a transparent game that is easier to see through.
The near-unkillable players have been around for as long as I've played, some use inexpedient bugs in the game, some cheat, others find setups that make it possible.
All in all, in my opinion, it kills the good game, but it is not openly pursued.

Hesperax79 · January 2023

robpr wrote: »

A lot of dots from a distance and perma block wont help them

Lot of DOT's = lot of heal through Mara's Balm. Just wait till 6+ DOT, bar swap to backbared Mara and voila: +Xk HP burst heal.

hhk · February 2023

@fred4 . Must be a skilled dude you are talking about!

Tbh:

If you want to know what a troll tank is, the set called maras balm is not even in that setup at all. Right now there are three different categories left of troll tanks.

1. Perma Block
2. Mist-Form
3. LoS them all

The Perma Block formula is nothing I will share here. As I have had it as a hobby to build pvp tanks and it took me years to refine something like that. As Fred says. A good player can be equal to 15 players and again, the constant stream of high dmg is much more efficient than burst. (First and last hint). If you overcome that. You have solved it.

Mist Form
Yeah, I can share it as Mist-Form is getting super Nerfed next patch.

1. You need to be able to stay in Mistform for a very long time. No, not 3 min. We are taking like forever.

Cost reduction Mistform to the absolute maximum with infused rings. Go templar and use the rune that gives you Magicka while it is active.

How are you going to sustain while having 20 angry players bashing at you? Well, desert rose. That together with the low cost gives you forever sustain.

Now, we have solved to be in Mistform nonstop. How do we get healed and how to mitigate the dmg?

There is a set, it gives you a shield based on your max health every 15 seconds If I remember correctly. That together with the blood mist and you health yourself from the other players attacking you and on top if you play your cards right while crafting your build. You get a dmg shield of min 15k every 15 seconds and at the same time get healed...

I tried it in Vet Hel Ra, alone. Took all the trash from the start to the door where all these mini-bosses are. I had them all surround me and had endless sustain plus healed to 100% every second...

The third one is not about taking dmg. Rather about evading dmg nonstop...
That one will be the most important one in the upcoming patch as everything tanky has been super Nerfed since Morrowind.
So I am not going to share that project.

Summary; The strongest one of them is by far the Perma Block.

Necrotech_Master · February 2023

@hhk i think the set your thinking of is probably hatchling shell, as that used to grant a dmg shield every 15 sec, but it was changed at some point to give you a dmg shield when taking dmg (i dont remember the cooldown off hand, but its less than 15 sec)

i use that set on my 2nd acct toon to build a completely passive afk tank for pve purposes (leeching plate + hatchling shell is what i use for that toon, which can completely sit afk in a public dungeon mob and slowly kill everything with leeching plate without doing anything for example)

Thecompton73 · February 2023

hhk wrote: »

@fred4 . Must be a skilled dude you are talking about!

Tbh:

If you want to know what a troll tank is, the set called maras balm is not even in that setup at all. Right now there are three different categories left of troll tanks.

1. Perma Block
2. Mist-Form
3. LoS them all

The Perma Block formula is nothing I will share here. As I have had it as a hobby to build pvp tanks and it took me years to refine something like that. As Fred says. A good player can be equal to 15 players and again, the constant stream of high dmg is much more efficient than burst. (First and last hint). If you overcome that. You have solved it.

Mist Form
Yeah, I can share it as Mist-Form is getting super Nerfed next patch.

1. You need to be able to stay in Mistform for a very long time. No, not 3 min. We are taking like forever.

Cost reduction Mistform to the absolute maximum with infused rings. Go templar and use the rune that gives you Magicka while it is active.

How are you going to sustain while having 20 angry players bashing at you? Well, desert rose. That together with the low cost gives you forever sustain.

Now, we have solved to be in Mistform nonstop. How do we get healed and how to mitigate the dmg?

There is a set, it gives you a shield based on your max health every 15 seconds If I remember correctly. That together with the blood mist and you health yourself from the other players attacking you and on top if you play your cards right while crafting your build. You get a dmg shield of min 15k every 15 seconds and at the same time get healed...

I tried it in Vet Hel Ra, alone. Took all the trash from the start to the door where all these mini-bosses are. I had them all surround me and had endless sustain plus healed to 100% every second...

The third one is not about taking dmg. Rather about evading dmg nonstop...
That one will be the most important one in the upcoming patch as everything tanky has been super Nerfed since Morrowind.
So I am not going to share that project.

Summary; The strongest one of them is by far the Perma Block.

The best PvP tank build I ever put together was back before they cut health recovery with battle spirit and took health and stam recovery away in mist form. It was a combo of all three types. I could mist indefinitely, use LOS since I had freedom of movement, and I always had full stam to drop mist and hold block as long as needed to cast buffs before misting again. There were times I'd get 20+ people chasing me around rock formations for an hour. My favorite part of it was periodically using Turn evil to fear most or all of them at the same time, it was like a taunt that worked on players and it just looked hilarious to see 20 people cower at the same time. My stomach would hurt from laughing so much. It was a million times more fun and satisfying to play than standing in place holding block and casting buffs/heals, so of course it got destroyed.

Theignson · February 2023

I am not sure how they do it.

It used to be you could kill a tank by bashing them so they couldn't cast heals. But, the new breed of tank it doesn't work. They heal to full anyway, with 10 or more people attacking them and bash doesn't stop it.

As someone up above indicated, the super tank builds must be secret. They probably exploit some bugs, but who knows.

They are very annoying.

Since I've always been ep I have seen a lot of AD players doing super tank in the last year. But recently I saw an EP player who I never saw before. They grabbed the EP scroll at like BB and walked all the way back. They had the entire Tyr group on them and were untouched, plus dozens of players from both factions. I really wonder what they were running

I never really wanted to play super tank in Pvp (in PvE thats different) because you can''t harm a fly