As I said in the title I don't like tanking. It's not that I don't appreciate a good tank - I do. A good tank makes even easy dungeons go smoother by keeping bosses and adds contained in a tight circle so everyone can use their area targeted abilities like hail of arrows, elemental blockade, etc. and get the full effect out of them.
It's just that I find standing there holding aggro too simple and frankly, boring. I love playing heal/DPS hybrids because they are so much more active and reactive. I just feel more involved playing that.
So I decided to do a tank build that fits me better. It's still good at gathering and holding aggro but unlike the ESO meta S&B/S&B, heavy armored, health stacking, Dragonknight tanks, this one packs a punch.
Some disclaimers first:
- This is NOT a hard mode veteran trials tank. It's a 4-man normal or vet dungeon tank.
- It works best as an alt for a player that already has a lot of CP. Personally, I have max CP and the damage mitigation I get from CP passives helps a lot. I'm not really sure how well it would work for a no or low CP player since I haven't tried that.
Build:
- Race: Redguard is my preferred race for this but Imperial or Orc would also work well.
- Class: Sorcerer of the Stamina variety.
- Stats: 5:1 stamina to health ratio. No points in magicka.
- Armor: 5 medium + 2 heavy. Use the 2 heavy in 2 of the chest, legs or head slots for maximum protection.
- CP allocation: just my basic all around set-up as I described in this other thread: https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/468905/champion-points-and-what-to-do-with-them#latest
- Weapons: Dual Wield on one bar and 1HD + Shield on the other.
- Gear: I just mix and match drops as they come but you could easily craft any of dozens of perfectly suitable tanking/damage focused gear sets.
- Health: You should be aiming for something in the neighborhood of 27-30K.
- Mundus Stone: + Stamina (The Tower)
- Food: Blue +Health and +Stamina or purple + to all 3.
Early leveling skills:
DW weapon bar: Bloodthirst (self-healing morph of Flurry) BloodCraze (self-healing morph of twin slashes) Whirling Blades (stamina recovery morph of Whirlwind) Unstable Clanfear (large on-demand self heal) and Deadly Cloak (+ damage morph of Blade cloak that also mitigates 25% of damage taken from standing in red AOE)
1HD+S weapon bar: Critical Surge (stamina morph of surge that heals you a lot based on critical damage you do) Pierce Armor (morph of puncture: your basic 15s taunt that also reduces the enemies magicka and physical resistances) Heroic Slash (morph of Low Slash that reduces the damage the enemy does by 15% and increases your Ultimate generation) Unstable Clanfear (needed on both bars) Hurricane (Stamina Morph of lightning form for protection, good damage and + 10% movement speed)
The ultimate for both bars is the Greater Storm Atronach - good damage
Later on skills:
At some point you'll want to ditch the clanfear and replace it with Encase or one of its morphs for an AOE root for holding adds in place and some other form of on-demand self heal from PVP or Dark Deal for healing + stamina return.
If you get Caltrops from PVP, that can replace Whirling blades since it does better damage and slows all targets.
You have many Ultimate choices including the DW and 1HD+S ultimates once you unlock those as well as Warhorn and Barrier from PVP.
Priority rotation:
You want to always have Critical Surge, Hurricane and Deadly Cloak running. Everything else is situational: Whirling Blades for trash packs, Puncture for aggro, Bloodthirst and Blood Craze for single target DPS, etc.
I made up this tank build just to see if it was any good and found myself having a ton of fun with it. As a bonus your 4-man dungeon queues pop in under 5 seconds.
Enjoy and don't say I never gave you anything for Christmas
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED