When you can't ignore tanks in Cyrodiil

joshisanonymous · April 8

Normally, I just walk away from those unkillable tank builds. However, yesterday, there was one who found himself inside the walls of a keep we controlled after pushing his side out and rebuilding a wall. His side was still outside sieging and we were inside counter-sieging, so he spent his time walking around setting our siege on fire, completely and utterly ignoring anyone who attacked him because no one could put a dent in him. All we could do was follow him around putting out whatever siege fires he started. It was the epitome of troll gameplay.

We needed him to die, but there was no apparent option to make that happen. So, what are y'all's tips for this sort of situation when you can't ignore a tank but can't kill them either? Is there still a strategy for eventually killing them? Is there a way to troll them back? Or are you just stuck with a completely broken gameplay situation?

Kickimanjaro · April 8

Debuff them with stuff like defile (the scribing skill wield soul can inflict Major Defile for 10s and can be combined with disease damage for chance at also adding Minor Defile), Snake in the Stars, Jerall Mountains Warchief, and then just apply constant damage. Knight Slayer can be fun, too (especially if you're with friends who are also running it, because then you can start to layer 8% of max health as oblivion damage on a single target).

If debuffs and defile don't work, you may have to combine those with an immobilize and negate.

Sometimes, a well-timed Star Venom/Negate is enough, though.

El_Borracho · April 8

You need a negate, then a medium sized group can burn the tank down

YandereGirlfriend · April 8

DOTs, Negates, and siege are your best friends here.

While Block is wickedly OP and will make all of your Direct Damage hit like a wet noodle, tanks cannot block DOTs and will eat much more of the damage every tick. So load them up with DOTs. Get a Meatbag and Scattershot siege on them, preferably many. Follow them with it, never let them get a break.

Also, many ticks of Direct Damage will toll their Block Cost and drain their resources much faster than fewer ticks of Direct Damage. You can toll this 4x per second and exert maximum stress on their resources. So doing things like rapidly Bashing will be more effective than saving up for an ultimate, etc. A tank that is out of resources is a dead tank.

joshisanonymous · April 9

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

DOTs, Negates, and siege are your best friends here.

While Block is wickedly OP and will make all of your Direct Damage hit like a wet noodle, tanks cannot block DOTs and will eat much more of the damage every tick. So load them up with DOTs. Get a Meatbag and Scattershot siege on them, preferably many. Follow them with it, never let them get a break.

Also, many ticks of Direct Damage will toll their Block Cost and drain their resources much faster than fewer ticks of Direct Damage. You can toll this 4x per second and exert maximum stress on their resources. So doing things like rapidly Bashing will be more effective than saving up for an ultimate, etc. A tank that is out of resources is a dead tank.

Interesting. I was under the impression that the initial application of a DoT could be blocked, but even that's not blockable? Also, does that mean that things like stamina draining poisons can be applied through block?

Vulkunne · April 9

That's a bad situation to be in because if the Tank can also do damage then he can just sit there and also kill all your low health folks on the wall or around the door. If it were me, I'd first put some thought into shooting him over the wall and out of the keep. CC, blast 'em. If you can't do that, then the only strategy that has worked consistently is to keep CCing and attacking relentlessly. If you don't CC the Tank, you're wasting time trying.

Necrotech_Master · April 10

joshisanonymous wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

DOTs, Negates, and siege are your best friends here.

While Block is wickedly OP and will make all of your Direct Damage hit like a wet noodle, tanks cannot block DOTs and will eat much more of the damage every tick. So load them up with DOTs. Get a Meatbag and Scattershot siege on them, preferably many. Follow them with it, never let them get a break.

Also, many ticks of Direct Damage will toll their Block Cost and drain their resources much faster than fewer ticks of Direct Damage. You can toll this 4x per second and exert maximum stress on their resources. So doing things like rapidly Bashing will be more effective than saving up for an ultimate, etc. A tank that is out of resources is a dead tank.

Interesting. I was under the impression that the initial application of a DoT could be blocked, but even that's not blockable? Also, does that mean that things like stamina draining poisons can be applied through block?

the initial application can have block affect the dmg if its a direct component

an example is poison injection

it has 2 parts: one instant direct dmg portion, and one dot dmg portion

the direct dmg portion can be blocked and the dmg reduced, but the dot dmg portion cannot be blocked and will deal full dmg (minus other resists like armor, mitigations, battle spirit, etc)

thats what posters mean by "blocked" blocked doesnt mean the effect doesnt happen, blocking just reduces the dmg taken, the only way to fully "block" the effect entirely would be to dodge