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Let tanks do damage

  • KulkGin142
    KulkGin142
    Soul Shriven
    Not really into this idea of getting free damage just because...

    Tank damage is fine as it is.
    Difficult fights you'll need to build defensive enough to survive and for older content you can literally be a dd with taunt.

    There're plenty of tips that can boost a tank's damage.
    - Build more into frost damage when you have Winter skill line
    - Run maelstorm staffs when you can 1 bar sets
    - Have tanks runs scribing knifes
    - Adjust your build for pen and crit caps
    - Adjust CPs
    - Run thief mundus
    - ...

    Part of the fun of tanking, for me at least, is figuring out how much you can get "away with" :D
    Edited by KulkGin142 on March 30, 2026 1:50PM
  • imPDA
    imPDA
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    If you want to be a tank and deal damage at the same time, just change your build. There are very good groups with tank acting as support and semi-dd, increasing overall DPS significantly, and they tank not by pressing right button for all the time, but using clever tricks: negate, streak, dodge etc.

    You are asking something like "I want to be tanky af, but I also want to do burst damage with one button". Take into consideration PvP, where it will not work nicely at all. You already have Cyrodiil full of tanks, now imagine they will burst everyone with 50k oneshot damage :D
    Your Friendly Neighborhood PvP Enjoyer (prior to U48)
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    imPDA wrote: »
    If you want to be a tank and deal damage at the same time, just change your build. There are very good groups with tank acting as support and semi-dd, increasing overall DPS significantly, and they tank not by pressing right button for all the time, but using clever tricks: negate, streak, dodge etc.

    You are asking something like "I want to be tanky af, but I also want to do burst damage with one button". Take into consideration PvP, where it will not work nicely at all. You already have Cyrodiil full of tanks, now imagine they will burst everyone with 50k oneshot damage :D

    I don’t want this for PvP and I don’t want to be able to do anywhere close to dps damage, can you read my post before commenting please
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    KulkGin142 wrote: »
    Not really into this idea of getting free damage just because...

    Tank damage is fine as it is.
    Difficult fights you'll need to build defensive enough to survive and for older content you can literally be a dd with taunt.

    There're plenty of tips that can boost a tank's damage.
    - Build more into frost damage when you have Winter skill line
    - Run maelstorm staffs when you can 1 bar sets
    - Have tanks runs scribing knifes
    - Adjust your build for pen and crit caps
    - Adjust CPs
    - Run thief mundus
    - ...

    Part of the fun of tanking, for me at least, is figuring out how much you can get "away with" :D

    You can only do that with power crept content, I want them to go back and make all the older content harder

    I do trifectas, you don’t get to decide what you run, you run what the raid lead tells you to run

    How would you solve the lack of tanks issue? I hate the oh just spec into more damage why? I don’t want to change tanking, I just don’t think they need to be doing healer damage, eso has came up with this tanks doing 0 damage, it’s in no other game, what is a tank? Do they do no damage? No im pretty sure a tank is designed to do massive damage, maybe rename the role to wall instead because it’s misleading
  • GloatingSwine
    GloatingSwine
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    You know how you really promote tanking?

    You make a combat dummy for tanks.

    Imagine this: A combat dummy which can be set up to mimic the attacks of any boss in the game, so you can actually practice being hit by and managing all their attacks and mechanics in a non-live setting.

    Because DPS can learn and practice on test dummies, but tanks can only learn live and that means 3-11 other players are having to watch you do it.
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    You know how you really promote tanking?

    You make a combat dummy for tanks.

    Imagine this: A combat dummy which can be set up to mimic the attacks of any boss in the game, so you can actually practice being hit by and managing all their attacks and mechanics in a non-live setting.

    Because DPS can learn and practice on test dummies, but tanks can only learn live and that means 3-11 other players are having to watch you do it.

    I 100% agree, it would be great to be able to skip bosses in trials to be able to practice all the add pulls a bit and other bosses, maybe put in a simulation make the bosses health drain over time to try and replicate the fight and give you some healing and synergies over time, I think something like this would help a lot, tanking is so much harder than healing and dps, it’s usually the bottleneck in hard modes and trifectas, you are just waiting for the tanks to learn the trial
  • WuffyCerulei
    WuffyCerulei
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    I think one can build a tank that can do some more damage vs the usual tank build in ESO, but tanking in ESO is more a monster to tackle than in games like GW2 or even FF14. ESO's combat is much faster and needs a tank to usually be on top of that. GW2 is a faster than FF14 in combat, but even then, tanking isn't as much a mini-game as much as ESO's aggressive need for tanks. Not to mention a lot of bosses in dungeons and trials are DESIGNED to have a dedicated tank, or those bosses would be one-shotting DPS and healers in a heartbeat.
    "Buzz Lightyear toy isle shot" Stormcalling/Animal Companions/Assassination PVP build hater

    Bring Back Pure Class Build Power
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    I think one can build a tank that can do some more damage vs the usual tank build in ESO, but tanking in ESO is more a monster to tackle than in games like GW2 or even FF14. ESO's combat is much faster and needs a tank to usually be on top of that. GW2 is a faster than FF14 in combat, but even then, tanking isn't as much a mini-game as much as ESO's aggressive need for tanks. Not to mention a lot of bosses in dungeons and trials are DESIGNED to have a dedicated tank, or those bosses would be one-shotting DPS and healers in a heartbeat.

    Yeah I know, I don’t want to change tanking it’s more about the feeling and dopamine from seeing big numbers and feeling like you are doing something, my ideas don’t change tanking, and I think they need to rebalance the game anyway with all this power creep so if they do give tanks damage they can rebalance the game with this in mind and make it so they aren’t actually making the fights faster and easier than they initially intended, so it can have no downsides
  • Soarora
    Soarora
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    ImPoStier wrote: »
    Soarora wrote: »
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    Soarora wrote: »
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    M0ntie wrote: »
    I'd also add that if you look at the top scores on manyTrials they often have only 1 character showing as a tank role and 1 as a healer - so effectively the second "tank" is doing high dps.
    These are the top 3 for vKAhm:
    0pab656w5sh6.png

    I’m score pushing vlc rn on off tank I go dd on the mini boss
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    why would you play a full tank in a random queue when you dont know who your teaming with? especially if your going in on a normal

    if your just doing random normals, you definitely dont need a full tank for that, just heavy armor and thats about it

    in stuff like vets and HMs, you absolutely should not be focused on DPSing because then your going to miss a block and die and potentially cause a wipe

    so i still dont see why tanks need a dmg buff when you can easily build a tank for random normals that does 25k dps (and yes i tested that on my main who is a tank with just the herald of tome line for added dps and on the king boar jester quest i was doing 22-25k dps)

    I do trifectas I don’t do normal dungeons on tanks, in the hardest content you need all the mitigation and sustain you can get, and you need all the bar space, I’ve tanked on other MMOs and it feels better when the tank doesn’t hit like a noodle

    Wait, so if you’re already doing scorepush then why do you feel like you need more damage? Everything should be burning pretty fast. Have you tried dungeon sweat strats? If not, that might be what you’d find fun? I mean, pre-subclassing there was a video going around of SCP tri with essentially 3.5 dps. Post-subclassing I’d imagine true meta is full tank though (too many debuffs to apply to spec into damage) but with daggers (knife). Not that you’d really have time to do damage with how fast dungeon bosses get burnt to a crisp with sweat strats.

    Its not that I feel like I need the damage it’s more that I’ve tanked on other MMOs where I could do a bit of damage and it feels better when you aren’t doing 0, if I could do 50k there’s been times where it’s a wipe and the boss is on a million health imagine if the tank could clutch up and finish the boss I think that would be cool, them days are passed me but when I was going through all the hard modes there was a lot of them situations, they are type of moments that will get people addicted to tanking, but it’s not possible with 5k dps, I just want to see my number higher because it feels better

    It is a complaint I've seen before that tanks don't do enough damage to be interesting but really, ESO doesn't need to be like other MMOs. I have clutched situations like that before. Usually using my atronach on sorc tank but I've done it with plar beam too. Albeit, it wasn't a million health. At that point, I'd be clutch ressing haha.

    Yeah it doesn’t need it be like other MMOs, but is there a benefit for them doing no damage? Does it make the game better? Is there a good amount of tanks? If I queued as tank and I queued as a dps is my queues going to be the same? You can count on 1 hand the tanks that could join any random trifecta group and help them get the trifecta, pretty much every dd with all trifectas could do this but almost no tanks can why is this? I know a lot of good players that would be good tanks but why would they want to just sit there on the hardest most stressful role doing the same amount of damage as the healers? Seeing big healing numbers if you got rid of that I bet less people would play healers, and if they made tanks do more damage than a dps you would be struggling to find dds everyone would want to play tank, so I believe there’s a ratio here you can do to get more people playing tank by increasing their damage

    Anecdotally, I know a lot of tanks. I might know more tanks than I do people of other roles, it’s kind of a problem because we can’t all decide to tank lol. But people avoid queueing tank because PUG dps is not good enough for them and not wanting to deal with random people possibly not knowing what they’re doing. I will admit that giving the tank damage would help the queue, then, but also at this point I’m not sure I really care about the queue as my interests lie in people joining dungeon guilds. Regardless, I don’t really care about if tanks can do damage or not, I’d keep tanking either way.
    [PC/NA] Dungeoneer (Tank/DPS), Retired Trialist, and amateur Battlegrounder (DPS) with a passion for The Elder Scrolls lore.
  • Kalthea
    Kalthea
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    So, I mainly play tank a lot of the time since my friends all enjoy doing healer or dps roles. The setup I went for is quite simple, but effective. I run warbanner with DR and Flare from the Alliance War skill lines to have 15% passive DR. Sure, it lowers my tool bar options, but I can then focus on whatever else I want to slot in. My ultimates are Warhorn and Trees from Warden for clutch heals (it has one of the lowest ult requirements, so it's super nice). Run some drinks for resource replenishment because of banner, and just make sure to keep a taunt on both bars (I usually use crossbow from fighter's guild and undaunted taunt), and Pulsar also provides a solid trash clear option for your team since it reduces enemy HP for trash mobs.

    It's not direct damage, but Pulsar helps a ton with trash mobs, and banner and warhorn provide large boosts to your team that are beneficial to your team's overall DPS. You need to stop looking at the tank individually when it comes to damage output. Playing your role well and supporting your damage dealers is what builds up the group's overall DPS, and as I'm sure you've experienced, it is often a lagging behind DPS thar causes runs to feel slow, and never really the healer or Tank until a mechanic is involved.
    May your crops be sun-blessed, sweet soul.
  • JacobWasTaken
    JacobWasTaken
    Soul Shriven
    ImPoStier wrote: »

    You can only do that with power crept content, I want them to go back and make all the older content harder

    I do trifectas, you don’t get to decide what you run, you run what the raid lead tells you to run

    How would you solve the lack of tanks issue? I hate the oh just spec into more damage why? I don’t want to change tanking, I just don’t think they need to be doing healer damage, eso has came up with this tanks doing 0 damage, it’s in no other game, what is a tank? Do they do no damage? No im pretty sure a tank is designed to do massive damage, maybe rename the role to wall instead because it’s misleading

    Kulk has been the tank in my group for some time and we often discuss ways to get him to do more damage. If he can sustain/survive on a more damage oriented setup, why would we not take the free damage?

    He was doing close to 70k DPS on Oax as MT back when we were doing our Rockgrove prog. His damage was also high during our CR and AA WRs (that we lost immediately because we stink but whatever, we ball). You can definitely do damage in newer content, and finding the limit of damage and sustain is part of the fun of playing tank.

    Of course you still have to run what you've been told to run, but you can figure out ways to do that and also increase damage (like the mundus change/running the scribing knife/maelstrom weapons when you don't need to double bar both sets)
    pve enjoyer
  • Avran_Sylt
    Avran_Sylt
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    ImPoStier wrote: »
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    Not that it's a fix for the abilities available, but slot a Master's 2H for Brawling trash packs once you've gained aggro.

    You need to perma block in trash you won’t be able to sustain blocking on 2h and spamming cleave, you get stunned by minis, and minis 1 shot with heavy attacks, and there’s some minis that 1 shot with lights, and you use what the raid lead tells you to use you can’t just use a masters 2h, what are you talking about?

    Dungeon/normal pugging.

    You're talking about a tank doing damage in Vet Trials?

    Buddy, name of the game in coordinated groups is role specialization.

    Your utility, mob control, and debuff applications leveraged across all your allies deal more than a single players worth of damage by not needing them to slot those effects themselves and allow them to specialize on other skills.

    Your utility amplifies your DDS damage, it's a support role.

    If flashy numbers on your screen are the only solace on how you feel you're contributing, try DPS? But otherwise take into consideration what your utility is actually providing.

    Edit: Maybe ZoS could introduce a UI toggle that lets the pre-mitigation damage of a blocked attack be shown as a shadowed number behind the damage taken, so you can see how large the hit originally was.
    Edited by Avran_Sylt on March 30, 2026 4:41PM
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    Soarora wrote: »
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    Soarora wrote: »
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    Soarora wrote: »
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    M0ntie wrote: »
    I'd also add that if you look at the top scores on manyTrials they often have only 1 character showing as a tank role and 1 as a healer - so effectively the second "tank" is doing high dps.
    These are the top 3 for vKAhm:
    0pab656w5sh6.png

    I’m score pushing vlc rn on off tank I go dd on the mini boss
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    why would you play a full tank in a random queue when you dont know who your teaming with? especially if your going in on a normal

    if your just doing random normals, you definitely dont need a full tank for that, just heavy armor and thats about it

    in stuff like vets and HMs, you absolutely should not be focused on DPSing because then your going to miss a block and die and potentially cause a wipe

    so i still dont see why tanks need a dmg buff when you can easily build a tank for random normals that does 25k dps (and yes i tested that on my main who is a tank with just the herald of tome line for added dps and on the king boar jester quest i was doing 22-25k dps)

    I do trifectas I don’t do normal dungeons on tanks, in the hardest content you need all the mitigation and sustain you can get, and you need all the bar space, I’ve tanked on other MMOs and it feels better when the tank doesn’t hit like a noodle

    Wait, so if you’re already doing scorepush then why do you feel like you need more damage? Everything should be burning pretty fast. Have you tried dungeon sweat strats? If not, that might be what you’d find fun? I mean, pre-subclassing there was a video going around of SCP tri with essentially 3.5 dps. Post-subclassing I’d imagine true meta is full tank though (too many debuffs to apply to spec into damage) but with daggers (knife). Not that you’d really have time to do damage with how fast dungeon bosses get burnt to a crisp with sweat strats.

    Its not that I feel like I need the damage it’s more that I’ve tanked on other MMOs where I could do a bit of damage and it feels better when you aren’t doing 0, if I could do 50k there’s been times where it’s a wipe and the boss is on a million health imagine if the tank could clutch up and finish the boss I think that would be cool, them days are passed me but when I was going through all the hard modes there was a lot of them situations, they are type of moments that will get people addicted to tanking, but it’s not possible with 5k dps, I just want to see my number higher because it feels better

    It is a complaint I've seen before that tanks don't do enough damage to be interesting but really, ESO doesn't need to be like other MMOs. I have clutched situations like that before. Usually using my atronach on sorc tank but I've done it with plar beam too. Albeit, it wasn't a million health. At that point, I'd be clutch ressing haha.

    Yeah it doesn’t need it be like other MMOs, but is there a benefit for them doing no damage? Does it make the game better? Is there a good amount of tanks? If I queued as tank and I queued as a dps is my queues going to be the same? You can count on 1 hand the tanks that could join any random trifecta group and help them get the trifecta, pretty much every dd with all trifectas could do this but almost no tanks can why is this? I know a lot of good players that would be good tanks but why would they want to just sit there on the hardest most stressful role doing the same amount of damage as the healers? Seeing big healing numbers if you got rid of that I bet less people would play healers, and if they made tanks do more damage than a dps you would be struggling to find dds everyone would want to play tank, so I believe there’s a ratio here you can do to get more people playing tank by increasing their damage

    Anecdotally, I know a lot of tanks. I might know more tanks than I do people of other roles, it’s kind of a problem because we can’t all decide to tank lol. But people avoid queueing tank because PUG dps is not good enough for them and not wanting to deal with random people possibly not knowing what they’re doing. I will admit that giving the tank damage would help the queue, then, but also at this point I’m not sure I really care about the queue as my interests lie in people joining dungeon guilds. Regardless, I don’t really care about if tanks can do damage or not, I’d keep tanking either way.

    I’m the same I like tanking because it’s the hardest, but after experiencing the ability to do damage on other games I just can’t see it having more downsides than upsides across the board

    These are some ideas I had if you didn’t see it
    Empowered Bash every 20 seconds your bash does 200k damage that’s 10k dps
    Make wall do 10k dps
    Empowered taunt every 10 seconds your taunt does 200k damage that’s 20k dps
    And give tanks thorns reflect about 5k damage back to attackers I think this would make tanking way more fun and it would help queue times and you would just see more groups,

    I think they need to rebalance the game anyway dds are going to be doing 200k dps next patch I think, so they should go back and give everything more health and if they gave tanks damage at the same time they could balance the game with this in mind so the fights last roughly the length they originally intended
  • maryjane1412
    maryjane1412
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    Age of Conan had one of the best Tank Classing system iv seen in an MMO.

    Each is very unique and when built right it can actually dish some numbers.

    the issue in ESO isnt in the classing alone:

    * armor passives are so boring they leave no room for creativity in any way.
    * weapon passives same deal.

    i have only played 4 MMO's and i love ESO the most TBH because am a huge fan of Elder scroll , but the game lacks creativity.
  • El_Borracho
    El_Borracho
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    This is not Skyrim. The last thing this game needs after subclassing is tanks being able to put out DPS. Enough already
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    Not that it's a fix for the abilities available, but slot a Master's 2H for Brawling trash packs once you've gained aggro.

    You need to perma block in trash you won’t be able to sustain blocking on 2h and spamming cleave, you get stunned by minis, and minis 1 shot with heavy attacks, and there’s some minis that 1 shot with lights, and you use what the raid lead tells you to use you can’t just use a masters 2h, what are you talking about?

    Dungeon/normal pugging.

    You're talking about a tank doing damage in Vet Trials?

    Buddy, name of the game in coordinated groups is role specialization.

    Your utility, mob control, and debuff applications leveraged across all your allies deal more than a single players worth of damage by not needing them to slot those effects themselves and allow them to specialize on other skills.

    Your utility amplifies your DDS damage, it's a support role.

    If flashy numbers on your screen are the only solace on how you feel you're contributing, try DPS? But otherwise take into consideration what your utility is actually providing.

    Edit: Maybe ZoS could introduce a UI toggle that lets the pre-mitigation damage of a blocked attack be shown as a shadowed number behind the damage taken, so you can see how large the hit originally was.

    I am a dps I have done all trifectas on dps I think I’m the only person to hit 180k+ on console this patch

    There is a lack of tanks problem, I don’t want to increase power creep and I don’t want to change tanking you don’t need to keep explaining to me what tanks do on eso I’m well aware I know how important they are and what they bring, I just think giving damage would make it more appealing for people to play the role, there’s no down sides, 25% would still make them the lowest damaging tank on any game
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    This is not Skyrim. The last thing this game needs after subclassing is tanks being able to put out DPS. Enough already

    I’m not calling for more power creep I think the game needs rebalanced, everything needs more health, and if they gave tanks damage at the same time they could balance the game with this in mind and make the encounters last as long as they originally intended

  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    ImPoStier wrote: »

    You can only do that with power crept content, I want them to go back and make all the older content harder

    I do trifectas, you don’t get to decide what you run, you run what the raid lead tells you to run

    How would you solve the lack of tanks issue? I hate the oh just spec into more damage why? I don’t want to change tanking, I just don’t think they need to be doing healer damage, eso has came up with this tanks doing 0 damage, it’s in no other game, what is a tank? Do they do no damage? No im pretty sure a tank is designed to do massive damage, maybe rename the role to wall instead because it’s misleading

    Kulk has been the tank in my group for some time and we often discuss ways to get him to do more damage. If he can sustain/survive on a more damage oriented setup, why would we not take the free damage?

    He was doing close to 70k DPS on Oax as MT back when we were doing our Rockgrove prog. His damage was also high during our CR and AA WRs (that we lost immediately because we stink but whatever, we ball). You can definitely do damage in newer content, and finding the limit of damage and sustain is part of the fun of playing tank.

    Of course you still have to run what you've been told to run, but you can figure out ways to do that and also increase damage (like the mundus change/running the scribing knife/maelstrom weapons when you don't need to double bar both sets)

    I don’t think that should be possible, the hardest content should be hard, you should need to get every buff and all the mitigations you can to survive, that just means the fight is too easy for the mt and they need to make it harder, and if you build a tank normally you are gonna be doing like 5k to 10k dps
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    Kalthea wrote: »
    So, I mainly play tank a lot of the time since my friends all enjoy doing healer or dps roles. The setup I went for is quite simple, but effective. I run warbanner with DR and Flare from the Alliance War skill lines to have 15% passive DR. Sure, it lowers my tool bar options, but I can then focus on whatever else I want to slot in. My ultimates are Warhorn and Trees from Warden for clutch heals (it has one of the lowest ult requirements, so it's super nice). Run some drinks for resource replenishment because of banner, and just make sure to keep a taunt on both bars (I usually use crossbow from fighter's guild and undaunted taunt), and Pulsar also provides a solid trash clear option for your team since it reduces enemy HP for trash mobs.

    It's not direct damage, but Pulsar helps a ton with trash mobs, and banner and warhorn provide large boosts to your team that are beneficial to your team's overall DPS. You need to stop looking at the tank individually when it comes to damage output. Playing your role well and supporting your damage dealers is what builds up the group's overall DPS, and as I'm sure you've experienced, it is often a lagging behind DPS thar causes runs to feel slow, and never really the healer or Tank until a mechanic is involved.

    I understand how the game works, I’m just trying to solve a problem there’s a lack of tanks and almost 0 good tanks, the game would be better if there was 3x more tanks how do we get more tanks? Nobody wants to play tank, would giving them damage increase the number of tanks? Yes it would, okay how is that a bad thing? Power creep is all I can think of, they need to increase the health of everything anyway dds are gonna be hitting 200k+ next patch I think, so if they just increase the health of everything and give tanks damage at the same time it will just be the same if the fights last roughly the time they want them to last
  • Lord_Hev
    Lord_Hev
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    With the new DK refresh, pureclass Dragonknight is capable of dishing out dps as pure tank, while being able to reasonably sustain it.

    47k single target on vet Xoryn.(one support set, one dps set)

    aar1800bdavm.png

    36k vet Bahsei single target (one support set, one dps set)

    uzin4qym934k.png

    17k vet Taleria while holding Taleria single-target with two support sets.

    vlylttvv8mss.png


    I forgot to screenshot, but I've gotten over 60k single-target on vet Oax.(also very easily do-ble on hm)

    Not beginner friendly, but if you are an experienced enough tank to know all the fight's mechanics and boss' attack rotation, then you can totally pull off parse-tanking with pureclass DK. I have been having alot of fun with it, the dk refresh has been such a positive boon for tanking for me.
    Qaevir/Qaevira Av Morilye/Molag
    Tri-Faction @Lord_Hevnoraak ingame
    PC NA
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    Lord_Hev wrote: »
    With the new DK refresh, pureclass Dragonknight is capable of dishing out dps as pure tank, while being able to reasonably sustain it.

    47k single target on vet Xoryn.(one support set, one dps set)

    aar1800bdavm.png

    36k vet Bahsei single target (one support set, one dps set)

    uzin4qym934k.png

    17k vet Taleria while holding Taleria single-target with two support sets.

    vlylttvv8mss.png


    I forgot to screenshot, but I've gotten over 60k single-target on vet Oax.(also very easily do-ble on hm)

    Not beginner friendly, but if you are an experienced enough tank to know all the fight's mechanics and boss' attack rotation, then you can totally pull off parse-tanking with pureclass DK. I have been having alot of fun with it, the dk refresh has been such a positive boon for tanking for me.

    Again, I use what I’m told to use, I need every bar space for for buff skills, and I do trifectas, I know you can half dps when the content is easier, I don’t want the game to be easy, you are sacrificing a lot pure classing, if you just went on a normal build you would probably increase the group dps by 100k so you using that build you are probably making the group do - damage
    Edited by ImPoStier on March 30, 2026 6:55PM
  • Lord_Hev
    Lord_Hev
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    ImPoStier wrote: »
    Lord_Hev wrote: »
    With the new DK refresh, pureclass Dragonknight is capable of dishing out dps as pure tank, while being able to reasonably sustain it.

    47k single target on vet Xoryn.(one support set, one dps set)

    aar1800bdavm.png

    36k vet Bahsei single target (one support set, one dps set)

    uzin4qym934k.png

    17k vet Taleria while holding Taleria single-target with two support sets.

    vlylttvv8mss.png


    I forgot to screenshot, but I've gotten over 60k single-target on vet Oax.(also very easily do-ble on hm)

    Not beginner friendly, but if you are an experienced enough tank to know all the fight's mechanics and boss' attack rotation, then you can totally pull off parse-tanking with pureclass DK. I have been having alot of fun with it, the dk refresh has been such a positive boon for tanking for me.

    Again, I use what I’m told to use I need every bar space for for buff skills and I do trifectas, I know you can half dps when the content is easier, I don’t want the game to be easy

    Well, if you're advocating for tanks to do damage with no dps skills... then that simply isn't going to work. But you can 100% parse tank while still tanking properly with the new DK. I've tried it before and the dk refresh is what really made it possible.

    Not sure what you are trying to imply with the easy content comment. But in-case the context was lost, those cmx are in groupfinder pugs. Not smooth optimal deathless runs, in all those situations while doing almost 10% of the group damage as a tank, I was keeping myself alive and adapting to "things happening" as they tend to do in pug runs.
    Qaevir/Qaevira Av Morilye/Molag
    Tri-Faction @Lord_Hevnoraak ingame
    PC NA
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    Lord_Hev wrote: »
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    Lord_Hev wrote: »
    With the new DK refresh, pureclass Dragonknight is capable of dishing out dps as pure tank, while being able to reasonably sustain it.

    47k single target on vet Xoryn.(one support set, one dps set)

    aar1800bdavm.png

    36k vet Bahsei single target (one support set, one dps set)

    uzin4qym934k.png

    17k vet Taleria while holding Taleria single-target with two support sets.

    vlylttvv8mss.png


    I forgot to screenshot, but I've gotten over 60k single-target on vet Oax.(also very easily do-ble on hm)

    Not beginner friendly, but if you are an experienced enough tank to know all the fight's mechanics and boss' attack rotation, then you can totally pull off parse-tanking with pureclass DK. I have been having alot of fun with it, the dk refresh has been such a positive boon for tanking for me.

    Again, I use what I’m told to use I need every bar space for for buff skills and I do trifectas, I know you can half dps when the content is easier, I don’t want the game to be easy

    Well, if you're advocating for tanks to do damage with no dps skills... then that simply isn't going to work. But you can 100% parse tank while still tanking properly with the new DK. I've tried it before and the dk refresh is what really made it possible.

    Not sure what you are trying to imply with the easy content comment. But in-case the context was lost, those cmx are in groupfinder pugs. Not smooth optimal deathless runs, in all those situations while doing almost 10% of the group damage as a tank, I was keeping myself alive and adapting to "things happening" as they tend to do in pug runs.

    How would it not work I explained how it can work

    And normal vet is easy, if it’s possible to pug it it’s way too easy and the game shouldn’t be balanced around that type of easiness, so if something is only possible in the easiest content like why even talk about it? I can do normal dungeons without any gear that doesn’t help with the problem I’m trying to fix, it’s about the feeling, yeah you feel good doing damage on your build I want to feel that too and I think everyone will feel good doing that type of damage, but what you are saying isn’t a solution to the problem, I can’t do that in the hardest content I do trifectas, and I use what I’m told to use I don’t get to decide, and it’s not just about me it’s about just overall tanking in general would it make people want to tank being able to do a bit of damage? I think it would, the game would be better if there was more tanks and more good tanks, there’s almost no good tanks
  • Lord_Hev
    Lord_Hev
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    Lord_Hev wrote: »
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    Lord_Hev wrote: »
    With the new DK refresh, pureclass Dragonknight is capable of dishing out dps as pure tank, while being able to reasonably sustain it.

    47k single target on vet Xoryn.(one support set, one dps set)

    aar1800bdavm.png

    36k vet Bahsei single target (one support set, one dps set)

    uzin4qym934k.png

    17k vet Taleria while holding Taleria single-target with two support sets.

    vlylttvv8mss.png


    I forgot to screenshot, but I've gotten over 60k single-target on vet Oax.(also very easily do-ble on hm)

    Not beginner friendly, but if you are an experienced enough tank to know all the fight's mechanics and boss' attack rotation, then you can totally pull off parse-tanking with pureclass DK. I have been having alot of fun with it, the dk refresh has been such a positive boon for tanking for me.

    Again, I use what I’m told to use I need every bar space for for buff skills and I do trifectas, I know you can half dps when the content is easier, I don’t want the game to be easy

    Well, if you're advocating for tanks to do damage with no dps skills... then that simply isn't going to work. But you can 100% parse tank while still tanking properly with the new DK. I've tried it before and the dk refresh is what really made it possible.

    Not sure what you are trying to imply with the easy content comment. But in-case the context was lost, those cmx are in groupfinder pugs. Not smooth optimal deathless runs, in all those situations while doing almost 10% of the group damage as a tank, I was keeping myself alive and adapting to "things happening" as they tend to do in pug runs.

    How would it not work I explained how it can work

    And normal vet is easy, if it’s possible to pug it it’s way too easy and the game shouldn’t be balanced around that type of easiness, so if something is only possible in the easiest content like why even talk about it? I can do normal dungeons without any gear that doesn’t help with the problem I’m trying to fix, it’s about the feeling, yeah you feel good doing damage on your build I want to feel that too and I think everyone will feel good doing that type of damage, but what you are saying isn’t a solution to the problem, I can’t do that in the hardest content I do trifectas, and I use what I’m told to use I don’t get to decide, and it’s not just about me it’s about just overall tanking in general would it make people want to tank being able to do a bit of damage? I think it would, the game would be better if there was more tanks and more good tanks, there’s almost no good tanks

    I do agree that tanks should do damage. But making one or two "tank skills" do the amount you suggested would be a problem due to the pvp application. Though they could just do more of the "against monsters" separators. That would help incentivize and also be beginner friendly for new tanks.

    EDIT: Just re-read your post and saw the battle-spirit suggestion. I missed that before, apologies lol. But I think just a simple against monsters inclusion to those damage boosts on taunts and power bash would be an easy thing for zos to implement for tanking.
    Edited by Lord_Hev on March 30, 2026 7:53PM
    Qaevir/Qaevira Av Morilye/Molag
    Tri-Faction @Lord_Hevnoraak ingame
    PC NA
  • ceruulean
    ceruulean
    ✭✭✭✭
    I used to play a game called Dragon Nest. The tanks in that game could do about 80% of a dps's numbers, but when actually doing their job of aggro control and support buffs, it drops to 50% (think a bubble/stack system like arcanist crux, the resource for support and damage was the same, so you had to choose to either support or do damage). So if DPS did 180k, then the tank could do 90k-144k. We don't see tanks in ESO doing the same proportion of damage. The tank that does 40k dps is supporting dps who deal 200k damage.

    Also, playstyle and mechanically pressing buttons-wise, tanking in most MMOs is less punishing than DPS. Usually, the DPS roles are more punishing because 1 mistake causes a DPS to instantly die, whereas a tank can take 2 hits. It was easier to raid lead and do callouts as a Dragon Nest tank, because I could survive a mistake that would normally be fatal to a DPS who loses focus. But, Dragon Nest had better designed fights and focused more on single target boss encounters. The raid size was a lot smaller, 8 players like FFIV's raids. There's a lot of roll dodging and timing iframes, and if you died in hardmode, you were permanently dead for the instance, or had 1 revive a few months after raid release and the devs decide to make it more accessible.

    The flip side was that most dungeons could be completed without a tank, you just needed a tank or a healer, but not both. So even though there weren't a lot of tanks, there was less tank demand since they weren't mandatory. You only needed dedicated tanks for a raid. Although, a tank could contribute as a semi-dps in dungeons.

    In ESO, doing callouts as a tank is near impossible because of multiple threats of 1 shots, overlap of mechanics without natural breaks, and tons of add packs. The 12 man format and needing to coordinate with another tank adds a lot of overhead and introduces different challenges. Because of ESO's build freedom, people would rather specialize and pile the support buffs onto the same person because it's more efficient. The tank role is pretty taxing.

    Anyway, this is just to say that I preferred doing some dps as a tank, but it is what it is. If you are not tanking, you can spec into DPS easily and keep dps gear in the inventory. Realistically speaking, most players cannot tank-parse in hardmode ESO, and people are busy enough keeping a 12 man roster going. Since ESO dungeons don't have a revive limit, there is less accountability for DPS screwing up and it's up to the team to socially encourage clean, deathless gameplay. I do miss finishing a HM dungeon by solo carrying as a tank, lol, that is fun. It's kinda possible, but rare in ESO. ESO seems to have a firm "work together equally to defeat tough foes" design philosophy.
    Edited by ceruulean on March 30, 2026 9:45PM
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    ceruulean wrote: »
    I used to play a game called Dragon Nest. The tanks in that game could do about 80% of a dps's numbers, but when actually doing their job of aggro control and support buffs, it drops to 50% (think a bubble/stack system like arcanist crux, the resource for support and damage was the same, so you had to choose to either support or do damage). So if DPS did 180k, then the tank could do 90k-144k. We don't see tanks in ESO doing the same proportion of damage. The tank that does 40k dps is supporting dps who deal 200k damage.

    Also, playstyle and mechanically pressing buttons-wise, tanking in most MMOs is less punishing than DPS. Usually, the DPS roles are more punishing because 1 mistake causes a DPS to instantly die, whereas a tank can take 2 hits. It was easier to raid lead and do callouts as a Dragon Nest tank, because I could survive a mistake that would normally be fatal to a DPS who loses focus. But, Dragon Nest had better designed fights and focused more on single target boss encounters. The raid size was a lot smaller, 8 players like FFIV's raids. There's a lot of roll dodging and timing iframes, and if you died in hardmode, you were permanently dead for the instance, or had 1 revive a few months after raid release and the devs decide to make it more accessible.

    The flip side was that most dungeons could be completed without a tank, you just needed a tank or a healer, but not both. So even though there weren't a lot of tanks, there was less tank demand since they weren't mandatory. You only needed dedicated tanks for a raid. Although, a tank could contribute as a semi-dps in dungeons.

    In ESO, doing callouts as a tank is near impossible because of multiple threats of 1 shots, overlap of mechanics without natural breaks, and tons of add packs. The 12 man format and needing to coordinate with another tank adds a lot of overhead and introduces different challenges. Because of ESO's build freedom, people would rather specialize and pile the support buffs onto the same person because it's more efficient. The tank role is pretty taxing.

    Anyway, this is just to say that I preferred doing some dps as a tank, but it is what it is. If you are not tanking, you can spec into DPS easily and keep dps gear in the inventory. Realistically speaking, most players cannot tank-parse in hardmode ESO, and people are busy enough keeping a 12 man roster going. Since ESO dungeons don't have a revive limit, there is less accountability for DPS screwing up and it's up to the team to socially encourage clean, deathless gameplay. I do miss finishing a HM dungeon by solo carrying as a tank, lol, that is fun. It's kinda possible, but rare in ESO. ESO seems to have a firm "work together equally to defeat tough foes" design philosophy.

    My idea to give tanks damage and how to give it to them do you think it would make tanking less fun and make less people want to play tank or the opposite?
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    Lord_Hev wrote: »
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    Lord_Hev wrote: »
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    Lord_Hev wrote: »
    With the new DK refresh, pureclass Dragonknight is capable of dishing out dps as pure tank, while being able to reasonably sustain it.

    47k single target on vet Xoryn.(one support set, one dps set)

    aar1800bdavm.png

    36k vet Bahsei single target (one support set, one dps set)

    uzin4qym934k.png

    17k vet Taleria while holding Taleria single-target with two support sets.

    vlylttvv8mss.png


    I forgot to screenshot, but I've gotten over 60k single-target on vet Oax.(also very easily do-ble on hm)

    Not beginner friendly, but if you are an experienced enough tank to know all the fight's mechanics and boss' attack rotation, then you can totally pull off parse-tanking with pureclass DK. I have been having alot of fun with it, the dk refresh has been such a positive boon for tanking for me.

    Again, I use what I’m told to use I need every bar space for for buff skills and I do trifectas, I know you can half dps when the content is easier, I don’t want the game to be easy

    Well, if you're advocating for tanks to do damage with no dps skills... then that simply isn't going to work. But you can 100% parse tank while still tanking properly with the new DK. I've tried it before and the dk refresh is what really made it possible.

    Not sure what you are trying to imply with the easy content comment. But in-case the context was lost, those cmx are in groupfinder pugs. Not smooth optimal deathless runs, in all those situations while doing almost 10% of the group damage as a tank, I was keeping myself alive and adapting to "things happening" as they tend to do in pug runs.

    How would it not work I explained how it can work

    And normal vet is easy, if it’s possible to pug it it’s way too easy and the game shouldn’t be balanced around that type of easiness, so if something is only possible in the easiest content like why even talk about it? I can do normal dungeons without any gear that doesn’t help with the problem I’m trying to fix, it’s about the feeling, yeah you feel good doing damage on your build I want to feel that too and I think everyone will feel good doing that type of damage, but what you are saying isn’t a solution to the problem, I can’t do that in the hardest content I do trifectas, and I use what I’m told to use I don’t get to decide, and it’s not just about me it’s about just overall tanking in general would it make people want to tank being able to do a bit of damage? I think it would, the game would be better if there was more tanks and more good tanks, there’s almost no good tanks

    I do agree that tanks should do damage. But making one or two "tank skills" do the amount you suggested would be a problem due to the pvp application. Though they could just do more of the "against monsters" separators. That would help incentivize and also be beginner friendly for new tanks.

    EDIT: Just re-read your post and saw the battle-spirit suggestion. I missed that before, apologies lol. But I think just a simple against monsters inclusion to those damage boosts on taunts and power bash would be an easy thing for zos to implement for tanking.

    Yeah I agree it would be a big problem in PvP and that’s why tanks don’t do damage, it would be a pvp nightmare, but I think there’s ways to do it right and I think it can have a lot of benefits
  • ceruulean
    ceruulean
    ✭✭✭✭
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    My idea to give tanks damage and how to give it to them do you think it would make tanking less fun and make less people want to play tank or the opposite?

    Dealing more damage is more fun, but then gearing, dungeon, or trial design would have to be changed. And the lack of fun on tank role is because of the social pressure on top of the mechanics pressure. If the mechanic difficulty was lowered it would help (like how vOC HM punishes the group if tanks roll dodge the twins' heavy attack, this is goes against everything a player learns in this game, very bad and makes the HM trial very inaccessible. Heavy attacks currently just 1 shot tanks instead of doing 90% of your hp, so the tank skill wise essentially has to play better than the DPS instead of as an equal). But the social pressure would still be there to cause tank shortage.
    Edited by ceruulean on April 4, 2026 3:23AM
  • ImPoStier
    ImPoStier
    ceruulean wrote: »
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    My idea to give tanks damage and how to give it to them do you think it would make tanking less fun and make less people want to play tank or the opposite?

    Dealing more damage is more fun, but then gearing, dungeon, or trial design would have to be changed. And the lack of fun on tank role is because of the social pressure on top of the mechanics pressure. If the mechanic difficulty was lowered it would help (like how vOC HM punishes the group if tanks roll dodge the twins' heavy attack, this is goes against everything a player learns in this game, very bad and makes the HM trial very inaccessible. Heavy attacks currently just 1 shot tanks instead of doing 90% of your hp, so the tank skill wise essentially has to play better than the DPS instead of as an equal). But the social pressure would still be there to cause tank shortage.
    100%, tanking you need to be on point 100% of the time, if you miss your taunt the run is over, if you run out of stam the run is over, if you lose aggro the run is over, if you get stunned the run could be over, if you roll the wrong thing the run can be over, if you don’t spam your shield and heals at the right times the run is over, you can be a 65 year old woman who games on the weekend and get every trifecta in the game on healer, but on tank you almost need to be gifted at gaming, the skill gap requirements are insane, a dps could have the worst rotation ever but if they just stand where they are supposed to stand they can get all the trifectas
  • ceruulean
    ceruulean
    ✭✭✭✭
    ImPoStier wrote: »
    100%, tanking you need to be on point 100% of the time, if you miss your taunt the run is over, if you run out of stam the run is over, if you lose aggro the run is over, if you get stunned the run could be over, if you roll the wrong thing the run can be over, if you don’t spam your shield and heals at the right times the run is over, you can be a 65 year old woman who games on the weekend and get every trifecta in the game on healer, but on tank you almost need to be gifted at gaming, the skill gap requirements are insane, a dps could have the worst rotation ever but if they just stand where they are supposed to stand they can get all the trifectas

    Yep. The biggest difference between other MMOa and ESO is that tanks in other MMOs can play a little more sloppy. I mean, there was skill expression in having a good rotation while tanking big damage, but if I failed to block a heavy attack I would get chunked for 50-90% of my HP, but I would survive, recover and laugh it off as the healer panic heals. In ESO the tank just dies. It feels bad. What is even the point of playing a tank if I'm going to be punished like a squishy DPS? Lol.
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