Replies: 7
With Dark Brotherhood coming and the changes to tanking passives (Namely the Loss of Bracing and the switch of Block Cost Reduction to the Shadow) I’ve been messing around with various tank sets in an effort to figure out what I could do to tank 4-man content and have a good time while doing so.
Now, yeah, I know that the Leet DPS will tell you that you don’t even need a tank, but it’s easy to find bad damage dealers and even easier to just feel like doing the random pledge now and again as a tank for a change of pace, so with that in mind I decided to keep my tank role on my Imperial.
The idea was to maximize the return I’m getting from the buffed Constitution bonus and utilize a little bit of that Wrath passive. All the while keeping that traditional tank feel of Heavy Armor, Sword and Shield and blocking when it’s appropriate.
Note: I suck at putting in photos, I will do so when I figure it out and make it look better, but I tried to keep it ordered in such a way that you can see what I’m doing without all the frills of adding in photos.
So for the time being here’s what I’m using.
Race: Imperial.
Arguably any race can go here, believe it or not the Argonian is brilliant what with being able to drink a welfare Magicka Pot and still get health and stamina back.
Attributes: Magicka 20/ Health 14/ Stamina 30.
I take a page from @TotterTates and assign my attributes a lot more evenly, especially with this gear set up. As an Imperial getting myself to 29k HP was easy.
Mundus: The Mage
I chose the Mage because the Imperial lacks a bonus to Magicka and I wanted to have close to 20k with it. This isn’t essential to the build but it definitely helps when I need to chain a lot of things in.
Champion Points: Ok so I have my CP spread out pretty predictably at the moment, this will change when I start moving points over after The Steed loses Block Cost Reduction.
Steed: 75pts (74 in Block Cost, 1 in Spell Shield)
Lady: 75pts. Here I have these split up 25, 25, 25, but I admit this isn’t ideal. Right now this is just how I have it until I decide what I want more focus on.
Lord: 17pts. Quick Recovery. I like increasing the heals I receive.
Tower: 82pts. Here I went with the 42pts in Warlord and 40pts in Magician, I like to have the reduced cost in both, but gave that little “oomph” to the Warlord since I have to keep Taunt and Heroic Slash up at all times.
Lover: 75pts. 40 in Mooncalf and 35 in Arcanist. Because we have no regen while blocking, having a decent Stamina Recovery when we can drop our guard is extremely important to me. I like having a somewhat healthy Magicka recovery too, this way a Tri-Pot is boosting both and keeping us alive when we need them.
Shadow: 10pts. I put them in tumbling, sometimes I need to roll dodge past some adds to taunt a more important tiered npc.
Ritual: 167pts. We do a lot of physical damage and I like having the option to swap out some of my heavy armor in some fights with 5pcs of Hundigs and DW weapons so I’ve maxed this out 100pts into Mighty and split the rest up between Thaumaturge and Precise Strikes. This might not be optimal, but for the time being it’s where I’m at. I’ve strongly considered taking some points out and putting them into other trees, but I think this is better since the Tank leans towards Stamina/Physical anyways.
Gear: 7 Heavy/or 5-1-1.
I wanted to max out Constitution, I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of Resistances, I sacrifice a few points in reduction and some health because I’m not 5-1-1, but being Imperial and having strong enchantments makes up for it in my mind. I’ve tanked Everything except trials at this point and don’t notice enough of a difference to feel that 5-1-1 is as important to my build.
5 Pieces of Armor of the Black Rose. Black Rose is going to be fantastic in the Dark Brotherhood even if it’s nerfed down to 30% increase. The Con passive received a strong boost and Black Rose increases that a bit further (at the time of this typing it’s 40%). It took me a while to get 5 wearable pieces, but at this time I’ve managed to get everything either Divines or Infused except the Chest, which remains Reinforced. My intention is to have 3pc Divines and 2pc Infused when all is said in done so I’ll list it as such.
Curiass of the Black Rose: Infused/Prismatic Enchant
Greaves of the Black Rose: Infused/Prismatic Enchant
Bracers of the Black Rose: Divines: Stamina Enchant
Sabatons of the Black Rose: Divines: Stamina Enchant
Girdle of the Black Rose: Divines: Stamina Enchant
2 Pieces of Bloodspawn. I consider Bloodspawn to be nigh unto essential for the Dragonknight PvE Tank. Our most powerful passive is Battle Roar and Bloodspawn is a major boon to us in relying on that during any major encounter. While many players want to use these pieces as part of their 5-1-1 set up. I went with 2 heavy instead for the reasons I mentioned above.
Helmet of the Bloodspawn: Infused/Primsatic Enchant
Shoulder of the Bloodspawn: Divines/Magicka Enchant
Jewelry: Baharah’s Curse. This set is far more underrated than I think it should be. the bonuses to your stats as well as the final piece bonus more than make up for the crappy 4 piece trait, the sigil that can spawn is capable of doing some damage and with Wrath should increase somewhat. Unfortunately there are no purple or gold jewelry pieces that I have found so I’ve had to make do with Blue, but c’est la vie, no?
Necklace of Baharah’s Curse: Healthy/Potion Cooldown Enchant
Ring of Baharah’s Curse: Robust/Shielding Enchant (reduces Block and Bash costs)
Ring of Baharah’s Curse: Robust/Shielding Enchant
Weapons: 1 Hand and Shield of Baharah’s Curse. This finishes out the 5pcs of the set to grant us that 20% chance at creating a Sigil that damages the enemy and heals us some. The weapons and Shields can be improved and enchanted as needed which boosts the overall average bonuses of the set.
2x Mace of Baharah’s Curse: Defending/Absorb Stamina
2x Shield of Baharah’s Curse: Infused/Prismatic Enchant
Tri Stat Potions, Tri Stat Food.
Currently for Skills I am using a familiar set up to anyone who’s tanked before.
Bar 1: Pierce Armor/Volatile Armor/Choking Talons/Coagulating Blood/Defensive Posture Ultimate: Standard of Might/Aggressive Warhorn
Bar 2: Structured Entropy/Chains(Flex)/Inner Rage/Igneous Shields/Heroic Slash Ultimate: Magma Shell.
The idea behind the build was to create something that could easily tank any of the 4-man dungeons that are currently out. I have used this set up in every single dungeon the game has, done them all as pledges (including hardmodes) and planned it around the upcoming changes of Dark Brotherhood. I believe that Black Rose and Baharah’s Curse do the job nicely (Ok I admit, especially with the nerf to the only challenging dungeons in the game). While I am not always at Resistance Caps (Bloodspawn pushes me above them, but it is not always active) I am always able to stay alive and keep Taunt on the most important targets as well as reliably call on Ultimate’s far more often in a fight than other players. I haven’t tried it yet, but I am confident that I could do trials in this set up after Dark Brotherhood drops.
Constitution with the Bonus from Black Rose is returning nearly 700 Stamina and Magicka on Live and much more on the PTS.
Wrath boosts the effects of Baharah’s Curse and makes it so that our crappy light and heavy attacks aren’t always so crappy (helps with some of the damage skills too).
Thanks guys, feedback and comments are welcome.