Looking for advice on support tank build for EA

Araneae6537 · November 2023

So I just did my first EA run with a guildie and it was both of our first times getting past Tho’at 2.0 and we made it all the way to getting slaughtered by 3.0!

I’m going to review mechs/advice for the Tho’at fights but also want to reconsider my build, and even what class I bring. Today I brought vampire necro with Crimson Oath/Crimson Twilight. I have many of the more meta sets up until Rockgrove, but I’m thinking those might not be most helpful for a duo and then do sets become increasingly less important as you acquire more visions? Or might some even synergize?

I’m supporting an Arcanist DPS and not a glass cannon build. Might warden be more helpful for the toughness and heals? Or would an NB provide a buff to help with damage along with some heals? Any advice/recommendations from the general to the specific is welcome!

Treeshka · November 2023

I would say go with a Dragonknight tank, because class has passives for %10 more block mitigation and 1650 more resistance. It also provides Minor Brutality which gives %10 more weapon damage. Newly changed passive also adds 258 Health Recovery based on how many Draconic Power ability you slot. Well also Magma Shell.

For the first six or seven Arcs you can go with full support tank. Preferably with Turning Tide and Vestment of Olorime set. So Monster can be Tremorscale to apply penetration. But this entirely depends on the Arcanist duo, since they can get 991 penetration per Herald of the Tome skill slotted. There is also one vision that provides %37 more penetration per stack.

These support sets will lose their effectiveness as your duo gets more and more power providing visions. They will of course keep buffing your duo but the difference will be less and less noticeable.

From seventh Arc and onwards you can probably drop these support sets and go with more selfish sets like Alessian, Plague Doctor and Green Pact. Maybe Imperium as well, it gives a bit of shield for you and your duo. There is also one vision that gives %45 more health recovery per stack, so Green Pact or Alessian can provide tons of passive healing through health recovery. You can also go with the new Dragonknight class set with Potentates to charge your Magma Shell quickly, but i have never tested it, so it might not worth it.

In my opinion current meta for tanky damage dealer setup is tied to Focused Effort vision, which gives you %500 more status effect damage and %12,5 more chance to apply status effects. So if your duo gets a few stacks of this vision you can start changing to more selfish sets. You can also proc Poison and Burning with Dragonknight tank. Since you can use Talons or Deep Breath for flame damage and Venomous Claw for poison.

kojou · November 2023

Until you pass the 2nd Arc you can wear whatever. Nothing is very difficult or has very much health. The 3rd Arc is when things start getting interesting because you probably have a decent number of visions that you can start building around and things start getting a bit harder to kill.

If you are just figuring things out you can't go wrong with Leeching Plate on your tank. It will keep you alive through most things and allow you to rez your partner should he/she need it.

On a DK, the Basalt set is good to keep the ult flowing in. I think it is the best ult gain rate for a 5 piece set. Blood Spawn or Baron Zaudrus would also be good for keeping your ult gain going. Then you could run Elf Bane if you are using Magma Shell to make it last 5 seconds longer. Which should give you really decent uptime on Magma Shell.

As mentioned above Focused Effort is by far the most powerful offensive buff, so anything that builds around it will make things die faster (charged weapon, etc).

Warden is really nice for a Tank/DPS hybrid. The Glacial Presence passive has a nice synergy with Focused Efforts and lets your really dial up the chilled procs.

I haven't tried any other classes in earnest in there yet, but I feel like DK and Warden will be the strongest until something gets re-balanced (i.e. nerfed to oblivion).

On a side note, if you want to simplify things Oakensoul is a great tool. It gives you a lot of buffs that you won't have to manage and you can just focus on staying alive and learning mechanics.

Soarora · November 2023

I think warden will be a good choice due to major resolve, healing, and minor toughness for both parties. I ran yoln/tt/tremor on sorc and got to arc 6 with a DK. The aforementioned olorime would be better than yoln. Only thing that really bothered me is I should have brought encratis to buff those fire visions/verses and the dk fire. But we started running into issues of lack of tankiness on the DPS so those warden buffs could’ve helped.

fred4 · November 2023

The top of the duo leaderboards is dominated by DKs (PC EU). Doesn't that tell you all you need to know? Magma Shell gives you a window to rez your partner that you probably can't match with any other class or ultimate. That said I find rezzing at higher arcs difficult on any build, because you get interrupted so much. Also the leaderboards are currently not showing necros and arcanists. Perhaps necro tanks are also doing well on account of their rezzing ultimate.

I'm not sure I would build around the status effect vision. It seems to be relatively rare. I've been to the end of arc 6 without seeing a single one. I do, however, see the enchant buffing vision quite often. This gradually turns your ice staff Elemental Blockade / Crusher enchant into a monster. Your DD will also get penetration visions. In other words, I would not wear Crimson Oath or any pen set. Devyric or Turning Tide IMO makes more sense, if it had to be one of those.

I've made it to the end of arc 6 twice with a friend who ran a "standard" DK tank build using Master's 1H+S, Pearlescent, Bloodspawn, and PA back bar. As others have said, it's probably after that point you might veer into more specialised Archive builds. Pearlescent may be a good bet in any case. Also, from doing quite a lot of vBRP, I settled on ultigen for DK as the best option for surviving that content while learning it, e.g. to generate Magma Shells. With Archive you're arguably always learning as you push further. These approaches are combined in a Tank Club build I looked up, which is using Drake's Rush, Pearlescent, Bloodlord's Embrace and Potentates on the back bar for 170 Magma Shell cost.

I personally like Master's 1H+S so much, my own spin is to currently not use Pearlescent (no room). I also think Basalt-Blooded is more of a PvP set. It's the ulti gen you really want. Drake's Rush doesn't have 100% uptime, but a two bar Basalt build won't have it either and Drake's gives Minor Heroism to your partner. I couldn't say which is better. My current build is this:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=581822

This is a decidely less tanky build than the Tank Club's, for now, in the way I use my CP and skill slots, e.g. it forgoes Minor Maim (Choking Talons), Major Protection (Revealing Flare), and so on. On the other hand I've built for high mag regen and some movement speed. Bloodlord's is theoretically high regen, but I wouldn't want to micro-manage it, so I went for the Torc and Frothgar. This necessitates ways of getting your mag and stam to a decent level, which I have done with CP, the mag enchant on the shield, and Inner Light on the back bar to match it. An unusual choice, perhaps, is Cauterize. This is assuming we're not running Igneous Weapons. I am trying Cauterize over Cinder Storm to facilitate movement and because it also gives crit for healing on the front bar.

Elf Bane is an option worth mentioning for prolonging Magma Shell to 18 seconds, but Potentates (cost reduction) offers almost the same uptime percentage. Bloodspawn is arguably stronger in PvP than in PvE, because of the low 6% proc chance, but it probably ramps up in the higher arcs.

I think a purge would come in very handy for some trash pulls in the later arcs where the DOTs start to hit hard. Whether that should be Efficient Purge, a purging set, or another class would do better, I don't know. Another option to support your DD might be the Guard skill, though I think Archive is more dynamic / movement based than trials, e.g. more like Blackrose Prison. I think you would tend to lose the link, especially in Thoat fights, but maybe that's a matter of practice.

Finally I think werewolf could be an interesting option for a tank to do some damage, either situationally in some fights, or to finish off a boss if the partner was dead. A werewolf in Pearlescent might just save the day.

Araneae6537 · November 2023

Thank you all so much for the advice!!!

I’m going to try DK next, based on the build kindly linked by @fred4 only I’m using Arkasis’s Genius jewelry and ice staff since I already had the jewelry with infused trait and faster potion cooldown. I think this should stack with Drake’s Rush but also have Leeching Plate as an option.

BXR_Lonestar · November 2023

Idk if this would be helpful, but I have one of my templars spec'd out to be a support tank for a 4 man dungeon group and I think he would work just fine in EA as well. I run Powerful Assault/crimson oath and Pearlescent ward and either Tremorscale or Magma Incarnate, and I have a resto staff back bar to provide the group with healing. I'm thinking he would be good for EA too.

code65536 · November 2023

I'm personally running 5pc Pearlescent Ward, 5pc Olorime (back bar), 2pc Void Bash (Vateshran 1H&S), 1pc Cryptcanon, and 1pc Magma Incarnate, and I do this on my main class, which is a NB. Warden would probably be a better choice (their main self-heal will also heal their partner), but I like playing on my main.

Now, one word of caution: This setup works very well for early and mid arcs. In my most recent run, we made it to arc 7 without any thread loss before we called it due to time constraints. I haven't done high arcs because I just don't have the time (or endurance) to sit for the long number of hours needed for that.

For the really early arcs (1-4), I ran a back-bar resto to give my partner radiating regen. The healing needed in early arcs is low, so I can cover that with radiating and allow them to run a damage-oriented mythic like Velothi. After arc 4, they need more healing, so they sacrifice Velothi for Pale Order and I since I no longer can heal them, I replace the resto with an ice staff and replace radiating regen with Pulsar (the Minor Mangle is useful when the enemy health levels start to get high).

Why Pearlescent? Because if my partner dies, that extra mitigation makes it easier and safer to rez and recover.
Why Olorime? Because it's a pretty strong buff and I need it on only one bar, freeing my front bar for Void Bash.
Why Void Bash? Because the quicker and tighter you can stack things up, the faster they die.
Why Cryptcanon? Because it's awesome. Imagine a boss fight where your partner drops a destro, you pop Cryptcanon, and then they immediately drop another destro while the first one is still running. Of course, running Cryptcanon means no magma spam, but hey, I'm not on a class with magma anyway.
Why 1pc Magma Incarnate? Because it has a pretty good 1pc bonus and I needed a 1pc set to fill in the spot left from using a mythic.

Now, if you were to push into the high arcs (9 or higher), you would probably need a DK with their cheesy magma spam. But I just don't like that kind of playstyle, and I'm having plenty of fun and success in the early and mid arcs without any magma spam.