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Objective: Wanted to get a stam tank build out there for a baseline and testing, what with the changes to blocking stam regen and rolldodge, siphoning attacks and regen passives. The primary objective of this build is to create a viable stamina skill based tank for dungeons in PVE. I will offer skill bars, rotation/strategy and suggestions for optimal gear sets.
Also, to prevent the questions from coming later in the thread: you add all heavy armor, 1h/s, DW, undaunted and class passives; you add all non “full set” 5 piece light and medium armor passives.
CP: spend into heavy armor and block cost reduction; stamina cost reduction until 1-2% each upgrade, then switch to stamina regeneration; mighty/penetrating at least to 30 and then put some points in Bladed. red is for defense; green is for resource management; blue is for DPS. some variation is always fine, but stick to the goals of damage mitigation and sustain first, DPS second.
Mundus: Lover (spell resistance +1280); Lady (armor +1280); Lord (health +1280); Serpent (stamina regen +210)… these bonuses are before divines traits. Recommend using the Lover to get that spell resistance just a bit higher to approach cap, allowing for alternate gear choices and balanced approach to defensive tanking. Some bosses will hit you harder with physical; some will hit harder with spells… with this defensive approach to tanking you should be able to stand against any situation equally.
Bar1: DW trash/buff
-steel tornado/vigor/deadly cloak/relentless focus
-caltrops
-mirage
-surprise attack
-siphoning attacks/rending slashes
Ult: Soul Harvest
Bar2: 1h/s boss
-pierce armor
-twisting path
-heroic slash
-structured entropy
-siphoning attacks
Ult: Veil of Blades
Rotation: For boss encounters, buff; activate siphoning attacks; fire your free dagger immediately with cloak if using it to take advantage of a no-cost DPS increase and to engage boss. If the boss uses no AOE, slot vigor for offheal or relentless focus for DPS increase from bow. Lay down caltrops, swap to boss bar. Immediately taunt with pierce armor, then apply twisting path for shadow barrier and damage. Apply structured entropy for minor HOT + more DOT ticks for SA proc; follow with veil of blades when available. pierce/heroic slash light attack weaving… use structured entropy to empower when bow is available for extra damage. Keep barrier up with Path or surprise attack.
The biggest challenge with NB tanks is to balance survival with DPS; it is not as easy anymore to achieve significant DPS numbers after the IC patch due to the reduced defenses, nirn armor trait as well as dungeon mob scaling. Since stamina class skills have had a stamina cost reduction with this recent patch, by using Surprise Attack to activate Shadow Barrier buff, you get a very cheap armor/resist boost along with DPS increase. You should have the following buffs available to you with these two bars: major evasion, movement speed (twisting path), major/minor armor, major/minor resist, stamina regen, ultimate regen, AOE damage reduction and multiple AOE for siphoning attack procs. the build also provides maim debuff through heroic slash, reducing damage taken from target.
Obviously bleeding from rending slashes does not always work based on the type of creature, so alter build as needed on certain bosses.
Gear options:
-5 piece Willow’s Path (this adds a 30% regen to health, stamina and magicka… that is a huge bonus) + 3 piece Footmans jewelry + 2 piece Alessia’s Bulwark + 2 piece bloodspawn/lord warden/engine guardian
-4 Piece Alessia’s Bulwark, 3 piece Footman’s jewelry, 3 piece Whitestrakes, 2 piece engine guardian (3 armor, 1 resist, 3 health; should probably use Lover mundus to balance the armor/resist a bit)
-4 piece Song of Lamae, 3 piece Footman’s jewelry, 3 piece whitestrakes, 2 piece engine guardian (same as above but lose 1 armor, add 1 resist for more balanced approach… let’s you adjust your mundus differently to compensate)
-DW choices… precise mace + sharpened sword, nightmother’s gaze. this setup adds sufficient armor penetration, crit and damage bonus to most situations where you are spamming steel tornado for trash mob destruction. alternatives could be 2x defending maces for some defensive capability while still getting the sharpened penetration; 2x sharpened swords for a focus on flat damage increase; 2x sharpened axes to add a bleed DOT for more siphoning attacks proc; 2x precise maces (my choice).
-Jewelry comment: I still prefer footmans 3-piece for the armor bonus even though it comes only in v14; the rings are both Robust for more stamina and the neck is Healthy. If desired, and if you have achieved capped armor with other combinations of skills, buffs and set bonuses, you could use 3x v16 endurance with either robust or healthy, as needed based on race… this would improve sustain and DPS a bit more. at this time I recommend block cost reduction on all 3 jewelry pieces, but testing may indicate it is more effective with the amount of Siphoning Attacks procs for sustain to instead go with stamina cost reduction glyphs… this would ensure a virtually free surprise attack and very cheap activation of nearly all other slotted skills. With the change to blocking regen, stamina cost reduction may be the way to go in many cases.
To take advantage of the 6% increased attributes while optimizing armor/resistance values, I recommend going 5H, 1M hands, 1L belt. Crafted options should have nirnhoned on 2-3 heavy pieces (feet, legs, chest have the best armor/resistance values, so those should be heavy); monster helm/shoulders should both be heavy + reinforced; light belt and medium hands should both be divines. Shield should definitely be nirn since there is a significant 75-point CP passive that boosts that shield resistance bonus specifically. Using this spread of traits and set options should provide capped armor and resistance values at v16 (32,000); bloodspawn/lord warden would actually let you exceed armor/resistance caps in the event of the target using a debuff to lower those values; bloodspawn adds the Major Heroism ultimate generation ability as well, which can be pretty awesome for spamming veil.
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