The Ultimate ESO Beginner Tank Guide
ESO Beginner Tank Guide Table of Contents
Introduction
Welcome to The Ultimate Tank Guide for The Elder Scrolls Online!
This ESO Beginner Tank Guide has been created for PvE Tanks, to help coach you on your way to becoming a successful Tank in The Elder Scrolls Online.
Tanking is a role that is in high demand but it’s a high pressure, difficult and stressful role to play. Before you get started with Tanking, please take a little time to have a read through this guide to hopefully give you an idea about what Tanking is all about in The Elder Scrolls Online.
You’ll discover a summary of everything you need to know, whether you are new to ESO or just new to Tanking, you should find all the basic information you need to start Tanking.
For a good starting build for a Tank, make sure you also check out our Beginner Tank Build.
If you have any questions please join us on The Tank Club Discord.
What is a Tank?
In the Elder Scrolls Online – A Tank is someone who is the heavily armoured shell of a group, the first one into battle and the front-line of combat to protect and defend everyone else against any threat.
A Tanks main job is to aggro and control enemy targets forcing them to attack you and ensure as little damage as possible is passed onto Damage Dealers and Healers. Once aggro is achieved the next task of the Tank is to position enemies safely where allies are as protected as possible to perform their respective roles. As a Tank it is vital to learn fights quickly and efficiently, know mechanics and tactics for each fight as you are the frontline and you will deal with mechanics more than most other roles in a group. Tanks in ESO, similar to the military vehicle, need a very strong defence and good battlefield manoeuvrability: You take a lot of damage as a Tank so the priority is to boost your Max Health and Resistances so you are able to deal with all incoming damage.
The biggest obstacles for a Tank are self-sustaining and survivability. Tanks usually aim for a high Magicka Recovery stat to help with in combat abilities. Stamina sustain can be difficult, when you block – you lose Stamina and Stamina cannot be regained through regeneration while holding Block. With good sustain, you’ll be able to heal yourself if needed and surviving becomes a lot easier, but experience is key to surviving and learning all areas of your class, race, role and each particular fight is vital.
Once you have mastered the basics of Tanking, you will be expected to support your group by setting up in a particular way. This is where you begin to help your group with certain buffs and gear sets, which increase the group damage output (or survivability and sustain) and also begin using further debuff skills and sets which increase the damage your enemy targets take. The reason why buffing and debuffing is important for the Tank is because you are always on the front-line and close to the enemy so it is far easier for a Tank to maintain certain buffs and debuff. Also, the more damage your group can do, the quicker fights will end which benefits everyone in a group especially a Tank who is having to balance sustain, fight management and more.
Choosing a Tank Class
The biggest factor in deciding your Tank Class always comes down to which Tank offers the most benefit to the group. So the reason why a Tank Class is more useful than another is not because of their inability to Tank content but more so the buffs and debuffs they have available that are useful to both the group and the Tank.
In terms of a Beginner Friendly Tank Class the Dragonknight is typically the easiest to play and one of the most useful.
They posses some of the best sustain and survivability in The Elder Scrolls Online while also providing useful buffs which not only makes the good for beginners but they are also one of the meta Tank Classes for the ESO Endgame.
Tank Race
Tank Race has always been a bit of a hot topic. You can actually Tank with any Race that you want because you don’t NEED to use the “best” Race to successfully Tank in The Elder Scrolls Online.
Race is much more important later when doing Hardmode Trial and Dungeon content but if you don’t have the intention of reaching that level of Tanking then there’s less need for using best Tank Race.
For more information check out the Tank Race Page.
1 Nord
Nords are the best choice for a Tank in the long term. You’ll benefit from the increased resistances and Ultimate gain. In the newer endgame content those Resistances are really helpful to combat the high damage over time you get in the newer dungeons and trials. It will also be helpful when playing at low Champion Points to boost mitigation.
- Reveler – Increases your experience gain with the Two Handed skill line by 15%. Increases the duration of any consumed drink by 15 minutes.
- Resist Frost – Increases your Max Health by 1000 and Frost Resistance by 4620.
- Stalwart – Increases your Max Stamina by 1500. When you take damage, you gain 5 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.
- Rugged – Increases your Physical and Spell Resistance by 2600.
2 Redguard
Redguard is a fantastic choice for beginner Tanks. Basically, as long as you cause damage to the enemy you will gain back Stamina which amounts to over 12k Stamina per minute. This makes Redguards a good race for Tanks who are blocking a lot and not great yet at managing Stamina resources.
- Wayfarer – Increases your experience gain with the One Hand and Shield skill line by 15%. Increases the duration of any eaten food by 15 minutes.
- Martial Training – Reduces the cost of your weapon abilities by 8%. Reduces the effectiveness of snares applied to you by 15%.
- Conditioning – Increases your Max Stamina by 2000.
- Adrenaline Rush – When you deal damage, you restore 1005 Stamina. This effect can occur once every 5 seconds.
Attributes
From level 1 to 50, each time you level up you gain Attribute Points.
At level 50 you will have 64 Attributes.
General stats to aim for as a beginner:
- Max Health: 38k+
- Max Stamina: 20k+
- Max Magicka: 18k+
There is no right or wrong way to set your attributes but as a beginner, you’ll want to try and achieve some base level stats to start off with.
To reach these stats you should make sure you have your gear on and it is enchanted, make sure your skills are slotted and passives input. Next you should distribute any Champion Points you might have and then finally you top everything off by inputting your Attributes.
Typically, it can be a good idea to use 64 points into Health and then utilise Stamina and Magicka glyphs on your gear to begin with.
Once you have obtained a good tank set you would invest in some Prismatic Defense (Tri-Stat) glyphs for your gear but to begin with this isn’t advised as they are expensive, but they are far superior for a Tank compared to using single stat Glyphs.
High Max Health is important because Tank based healing skills scale with Max Health meaning you’ll heal for more, the more Max Health you have and also any damage shields you use will also be larger. As a beginner Tank you also have more room for error the higher your health so consider this when applying your attributes. It’s as simple as the more health you have, the more you can receive damage before you die.
You need to be careful not to put all your eggs into one basket, however. Even if you have 60k Health, if you don’t have enough Magicka you won’t be able to heal and if you don’t have enough Stamina, you won’t be able to block, and you’ll still get 1-shot by bosses.
Max Stamina is also very important because you need Stamina to be able to block, so having more of it means you’ll be able to block and sustain for longer. You don’t regain Stamina back from Stamina regen while blocking. Rather than making your Max Stamina extremely high, you need to figure out how to sustain your Stamina, as sustaining is far more important that having a huge Stamina pool because it won’t matter how much Stamina you have if you can’t sustain it, you’ll always run out.
You also want your Stamina to be higher than your Magicka normally, because when you use a synergy such as an Orb or a Shard that gives you back resources, it will always give you the resource of whichever one has the highest max value.
Max Magicka holds some importance because the majority of your skills cost Magicka, your healing costs Magicka and so you need to be able to maintain your skills and healing if needed and not run out after 2-3 casts. You still gain Magicka while blocking, even with a back bar staff so long as you don’t use the Tri-Focus passives, so Magicka sustain is typically a bit easier than Stamina. You don’t need super high Max Magicka but somewhere around 18k means you should be able to sustain for a decent amount of time especially with your Magicka regen ticking every 2 seconds.
Mundus Stones
Mundus Stones are located all over the world of The Elder Scrolls Online and you can use one to give yourself some additional benefits. You may also find Mundus Stones at other players houses sometimes. It’s important that you collect a Mundus Stone as soon as you can because they are free benefits that will help your character.
For Tanking there is only one main option for Mundus Stone and a few secondary situational options.
The Atronach
Increased Magicka Recovery by 310
This is the most common Tank Mundus Stone and the most useful. Tanks use a lot of Magicka for pretty much everything, mainly self-healing and buffing skills. Having high Magicka Recovery is one of the most important things for a Tank since you can still gain Magicka while blocking.
The Steed
Increased Health Recovery by 238 & Movement Speed by 10%
This is more of a situational Mundus. The speed buff is helpful for certain fights that require a lot of movement. You also get Health Regen which can be stacked with other sources to give you automatic self-healing every 2 second. In some Trial situations this can be helpful in the right circumstances where The Atronach is not needed.
The Lady
Increased Resistances by 2744
This can be a decent Mundus Stone if you are in an incredibly high damage situation, and you are under the 33k resistance cap. This isn’t something that is often necessary and the additional sustain from The Atronach surpasses the usefulness of these extra resistances especially since you can stack resistances from other sources.
Food
For tanking, there are a couple of different good food options.
Firstly you have Tri-Stat food; food that increases your Max Health, Magicka and Stamina. From your levelling and daily login rewards you will get Crown Fortifying Meal which is usable from level 1 and is pretty useful while levelling and is generally always useful if you can’t afford other food.
If you want a slightly better food then there is Bewitched Sugar Skulls as it gives Tri-Stats but also Health Recovery, plus it will scale at lower levels. The recipe is pretty expensive and can only be obtained during the Halloween Event – the Witches Festival. The food is relatively cheap to buy and is the better option until you can obtain the recipe yourself.
For more sustain one of the best foods is Orzorga’s Red Frothgar. This is a great sustain food but you will have considerably less Max Magicka and Stamina which some people might struggle with. In return you’ll gain more Max Health but the addition of a huge amount of Magicka Recovery can be really nice.
There are other good options such as Orzorga’s Smoked Bear Haunch and the cheaper version of that Jewels of Misrule but these foods are better for experienced Tanks since they rely on reduced blocking to make the most from the Stamina Regen they provide.
Champion Points
Simply refer to the Tank Champion Point page on the website – we have all the progressive CP you need from 160 to 2000+ to get you setup for Tanking.
Having at least 1200 CP will provide you with a lot of benefits with increased stats, recoveries, defense and more all of which is greatly benefitial for Tanking.
Gear, Traits and Enchants
Gear comes in 3 weights: Heavy, Medium and Light.
As a Tank you should use 5 Heavy as a minimum, so you benefit from the increased resistances, health and sustain from the Heavy Armor passives. You can use any other pieces you like generally, using a 5/1/1 setup with 5 Heavy, 1 Medium and 1 Light piece is the most common, but you can use 7 Heavy, use 2 Medium or 2 Light pieces, each offers a different set of additional Bonuses, Penalties and Passives.
Setting up a Tank as a Beginner, the most vital trait is usually Sturdy this is simply because the more you block the more useful Sturdy is as a Trait. As you become more experienced and block less Sturdy loses some of it’s value, but any kind of Block Cost reduction in ESO also suffers greatly from Diminishing Returns which means the more you stack it up, the less value it returns to you.
Often it’s good to use Divines or Reinforced traits depending on your situation since a full set of Sturdy gear almost has the same block cost reduction as using 1 Infused/Bracing piece of jewellery. If you are levelling still, then you will need to use Training but if you are actively Tanking content then you will want more supportive traits on your gear.
Reinforced helps you reach the resistance cap, for the newest content especially that is useful but if you are already at or close to the resistance cap then this trait is effectively useless.
Divines will boost the strength of your mundus stone, this works especially well when combined with The Atronach to provide you will additional sustain. If you don’t require Sturdy or Reinforced then gaining the extra Magicka Recovery will just add to improving your sustain.
For Jewellery it’s up to you what you want to go with, but typically you will just use jewellery with whatever trait it drops in.
Using 3 Infused would be great for sustaining if you combine it with 3 Magicka Recovery, this is a good overall general setup for Tanking. You can also use 1 Bracing Enchant if needed and when you progress further, using Prismatic Cost Reduction is also very good.
3 Triune is decent for beginners as it increases your base stats really high which can be helpful early on. Swift jewellery is great for add pulls and areas where you have to run, but not so useful for boss fights.
Enchants on your jewellery should be either 3 Magicka Recovery or 1 Bracing and 2 Magicka recovery. It’s not worth using more than 1 Bracing and there are no other really useful Enchantments to use at this stage.
Resistances
Resistances are an important part of being a Tank in The Elder Scrolls Online to help mitigate and reduce the incoming damage you will receive from enemies.
The Resistance Cap is 33,000 so you should never go above that number of resistances as they provide no additional benefit at that point. 33k Resistances is 50% mitigation so each 660 resistances are 1% damage mitigation.
Resistances are split into Spell Resistance which mitigates magic attacks including Flame, Shock, Ice and Magic damage and Physical Resistance which mitigates physical attacks including Disease, Poison and Bleed damage. Collectively these are also known simply as “Armor”.
There is a common misconception with Resistances – many players overvalue the usefulness of Resistances.
The situations where Resistances play a high level of importance include for new players with little or no champion points, anyone not using 5 Heavy Armor, situations where you are not blocking but still taking damage and during fights with high damage especially Bleeds and Damage over Time attacks.
Resistances play into a whole damage mitigation calculation where they essentially come out of the equation right at the end which means they are only marginally impactful when you have a range of buffs and damage reductions from blocking, Champion Points, gear, skills and passives along with debuffs applied to the enemy.
As a general rule you should aim for 25k+ Resistances when buffed with Major Resolve when doing any base game content and old DLC content. When you are doing DLC Hardmode Trials and Dungeons then 30k+ is good and for the newest DLC content the 33k resistance cap is helpful for the many damage over time attacks you’ll deal with.
If you take a 100,000-damage hit from a boss and you have 75% Block Mitigation – blocking this attack would reduce this damage to 25k with no buffs, resistances or anything else under consideration. If you had 33k resistances this hit would become 12500 damage (this is 50% of 25k) but at 25k resistances this hit is still only 15525 damage. If you add in Champion Points, skills, passives, buffs and enemy debuffs, this number would be far less and you can also get up to 90% block mitigation.
Trying to stack resistances can mean you lose other benefits to your build so while it’s useful to have some resistances, don’t make too much effort trying to reach the resistance cap especially early in the game as its not needed. You’ll need to consider it a lot more later in the game when going into the newest content.
Sets
It is important to have as many sets from this list available to you as possible – Tanks need a wide range of flexibility on gear for self buffs, group buffs and general trial viability.
Beginner Sets
Ebon Armory – Easy to obtain, useful Beginner Tank set. Provides an extra 1k Health to your group, a nice safety set.
The Worm’s Raiment – Another great easy to obtain Beginner Tank set. Gives you and your group additional Magicka Recovery which is perfect for a new Tank.
Pangrit Denmother – An easy to obtain alternative to Claw of Yolnahkriin.
Torug’s Pact – Craftable group buff gear set.
Armor of the Seducer – Great beginner Tank set for sustain but offers no group utility.
Druid’s Braid – Decent craftable starter set for new Tanks who have no gear.
Virtually all of your strength as a Tank in The Elder Scrolls Online comes from your Champion Points, skills and passives and the fact that a large majority of the Tanky gear sets are extremely ineffective or underwhelming means Tanks are expected to use sets that offer some kind of group benefit.
Group content relies heavily on everyone working together as a unit, part of this process as a Tank is to assist by debuffing enemies and buffing your group member with your gear.
When you are attempting to Tank content for the very first time, you should absolutely use Tank gear you are comfortable with possibly something that will assist with sustain or survival so you can figure out what enemies you will be facing, positioning, mechanics, sustain and survivability. Once you have these things covered and you begin to gain experience and confidence in these situations, the self-benefitting sets become less useful.
As soon as it’s physically possible you should try and switch to the most used Tank sets that will give some great benefits to your group and it will give you the chance to assist your group with completing content easier and quicker.
All gear has strengths and weaknesses which you should consider when deciding on a set you would like to use. For example, Leeching Plate is a fine selfish gear set to use in fights that have many enemies, and it will auto heal you, when you get into a boss fight where it’s just your team vs 1 boss this set is completely useless as it relies on having multiple enemies to give you large incoming healing.
Yolnahkriin is the absolute best Tanking set in the game and will increase your groups DPS, it’s extremely easy to maintain and it provides the Tank with actual Tank based support also. There are a good number of useful sets that have automatic or easy to proc buffs and debuffs.
On your first few clears of content use whatever gear you are comfortable with then look to optimise your build.
You have to be aware of gear weights when you decide on a set you are going to use. For example, Powerful Assault is a very strong group buff set, but it’s also a Medium Armor set. What this means is that you need to use either the Weapons and Jewellery or the cheaper option is to not use the weapons but use 2 “small” body pieces such as the Waist and Hands and combine that with 5 Heavy Armor pieces.
The other thing to consider with gear is the effect they have. Some gear will only benefit Ligh Armor/Magicka Damage Dealers so it would be useless for a group with all Medium Armor users and vice versa, something like Worm Cult is only useful in a Magicka group.
Monster Sets
Monster sets are obtained by completing Veteran Dungeons and looting Monster Helmets.
Monster Shoulders are obtained by completing daily Undaunted Pledges and using the keys to open Undaunted Boxes sold by the Undaunted NPCs.
There are many useful Tank monster sets, each with its own useful situation.
The most useful monster set for beginners is Engine Guardian as it will give you great sustain. As a Dragonknight it’s even better. When you gain Health from this set you convert this into Magicka via the skill Balance. If you gain Magicka you convert this to Stamina with a Dragonknight via Helping Hands passive by spamming Igneous Shield/Cinder Storm or on a Sorcerer with Dark Deal. If you gain Stamina, then this is the resource you are mostly looking for to maintain blocking.
Other must have monster sets include – Encratis’s Behemoth, Nazaray, Tremorscale, Archdruid Devyric.
Types of Tanking
There are a few different “types” of Tank
The regular type of Tank is a Main Tank. This is basically anyone who is Tanking 4-Man content such as dungeons and arenas. In 12-Man trials you always have one Main Tank who is the predominant Tank who takes aggro of the main threat or boss.
In trials only you also get Off Tanks for most trials. The Off Tank is usually in a trial to assist the Main Tank and they usually taunt any additional enemies that appear with bosses, they help stack add pulls with the Main Tank and generally provide additional group support. There are some instances where the Main and Off Tank have to trade taunts of certain bosses and there are also some trials with multiple bosses and each Tank has a boss they must aggro.
Hybrid tanking is when you are able to Tank enemies comfortably but also perform some levels of damage. This type of Tank is mostly seen in overland content, questing, delves and that kind of stuff. Very experienced Tanks may also use this type of Tank as an Off Tank in trials with very little damage or mechanics, or in some dungeons where enemies are weak and you can get away with just taunting, chaining and doing damage.
Priorities and Responsibilities
As a Tank you play a very important role in all content. There are some absolute base expectations for a Tank but the priorities and expectation of a Tank progress much more as you develop in the role.
As a beginner the things you are looking for are more about you as an individual so sustaining, taunting, surviving. Once you are more experienced in more content, you’ll be expected to maintain more skills, proc gear sets and provide a wide range of buffs and debuffs.
Priorities
1. High Max Health (38k+)
2. High Resistances (25k Min – Max 33k)
3. High Magicka recovery
4. 5-7 Heavy Armor
Responsibilities
- Taunting and maintaining aggro of enemies.
- Buffing yourself.
- Sustaining resources.
- Avoiding damage where possible, self-healing and staying alive.
- Positioning, stacking, interrupting and crowd controlling enemies.
- Learning/knowing all fight mechanics and tactics.
- Debuffing the enemy.
- Buffing your group with gear sets and skills.
Taunting
Taunting is when you force an enemy to target and attack you, this is also known as having “Aggro” of the enemy.
This can be achieved by using certain skills that trigger a taunt on an enemy.
There is a lot more to taunting than you might think.
Taunting is the most important Tank responsibility so make sure you know all the details you need to know before getting started.
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Surviving
Tank survival is extremely important in every aspect of the game. A Tank that is not alive creates huge problems for any group.
Surviving can be a hard task when starting out as a Tank but there are a few things you can do to try and help with staying alive.
Once you have fought a boss or group of enemies a few times you will begin to notice patterns in their movement, abilities, damage and mechanics. Experience is the absolute key to Tanking.
When learning a fight for the first time having high resistances, high health and using gear you are comfortable in is advised because surviving is the main priority. Once you gain the experience and understand exactly what to do you can start working towards a more useful group orientated setup.
It’s always a good idea to read any guides, watch clips or ask for advice in The Tank Club Discord when approaching a new encounter and there are thousands of people who can give you tips and techniques on how to deal with specific mechanics and fights.
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Sustaining
Sustain on a Tank is one of the hardest parts of Tanking.
If you are unable to sustain, you are unable to block or do any of your Tank duties.
The golden rule to sustaining is “HEAVY AFTER A HEAVY” – You do a Heavy Attack immediately after receiving a Heavy Attack or dealing with a Heavy Mechanic from the enemy.
Sustain is the main thing that causes Tanks to die. It often goes unnoticed and might seem like more healing is needed or a mistake was made with a mechanic or heavy attack, however the majority of the time a Tank will die simply because they are not blocking because they ran out of Stamina or were unable to heal after taking a big hit due to burning out on Magicka resources.
For a very detailed breakdown of sustain please refer to my Sustain Presentation here ⇨
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Heavy After A Heavy
- Heavy Attacking is a MUST for sustain.
- The rule to timing your Heavy Attacks is Heavy After a Heavy.
- Always time your own Heavy Attack immediately after a Boss has Heavy Attacked you as they are extremely unlikely to do back-to-back Heavy Attacks.
- You should practice doing this for entire fights not just when you are out of resources.
- When Heavy Attacking you regain 2293 Stamina back as a base value with a One Hand and Shield
- Heavy Attacking with an Ice Staff restores 2425 Magicka.
- This is amplified by 4% per piece of Heavy Armor worn thanks to the Revitalize passive meaning you could restore 2935 Stamina in 7 Heavy Armor from a Heavy Attack.
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Basic Sustaining Overview
Heavy After a Heavy is the primary method for sustain but you can also try other things such as:
- Block LESS – The reason you struggle with Stamina sustain is due to blocking, so block less. It’s not quite as easy as this, you need to learn fights and know when it’s safe to not block but it also helps if you have a decent healer who is using some Area Healing Over Time on you. When you combine this with high resistances and damage mitigation it’s probably the most helpful way aside from Heavy Attacking.
- Use Potions – Use them as often as possible, even looted potions to give you both resources and recovery. Just make sure you are using some kind of potion.
- Use synergies – You NEED to have the Undaunted Command passive which means you will gain resources from every synergy used. At the very least you need to make sure you are always using Orb and Shard synergies as often as you can as they will give you a large boost of resources, but using any synergy will give you resources with the passive.
- Lower your Block Cost – Using Sturdy Gear, Bracing Enchants, slotting Defensive Stance, using Tireless Guardian CP and wearing some Medium Armor to reduce your Block Cost so you will use less Stamina for Blocking which overall makes it easier to sustain.
- Skills and Passives – There are many skills and passives that help with sustain, make sure to use these where possible. A comprehensive list of skills can be found on the Tank Skills pages.
- Don’t overcast abilities, let them run the majority of the duration before recasting.
- Increase Magicka Recovery – By doing this you will be able to sustain the majority of your abilities since Tanks cast mostly Magicka based skills. If you are a DK then you will be able to spam Igneous Shield or Cinder Storm to gain back Stamina which is crucial for sustain.
- Using your Ultimate (Dragonknight)
- Use sustain gear while you are learning so you can perform everything you need with lower risk of dying. Ideally opt for a sustain Monster Set rather than a full 5 piece of gear, that is the last resort option. Engine Guardian is the best sustain set in the game.
It’s important to remember that you need to time everything for optimal resource sustain. You should be heavy attacking throughout a fight not only when you are low on resources, get into the habit of heavy attacking every time there is an opportunity. Make sure you are timing synergies, it’s no good using an Orb resource synergy if you are full on resources and the same with Potions, wait at least until you have a little resource missing before using one so you can maximise the gains from them.
If you are on a DK you should never allow your Magicka to be full. You should always cast an Igneous Shield if you notice you Magicka is full and this will give you back Stamina via the Helping Hands passive. You do not want to be sitting on your Ultimate either, you should be using a Warhorn in group content and it’s important you cast this as often as you physically can as it will increase your groups DPS and it will give you all your resources back.
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Buffs and Debuffs
Buffing and Debuffing is one of the last but most vital and important responsibilities you’ll have as a Tank. Before you reach this stage, you need to be comfortable with the other aspects of Tanking such as maintaining Aggro, Positioning, Sustaining and Surviving.
If you are in a specific fight that you are comfortable with then you will start to find you have a lot more available time. With any “spare” time you have during a battle you should consider beginning to work some Buffs and Debuffs and this will be great for giving some useful boosts to your group and making you more and more valuable as a Tank.
- Major/Minor Breach:
There are ways to begin practicing buffing and debuffing early on in your Tanking development. As a very first priority you should be holding aggro of enemies and to do this you use Pierce Armor – one of the morphs of Puncture, this is your first Debuff as you will inflict Major and Minor Breach on the enemy causing them to lose 5948 + 2974 resistances.
By making the enemy lose those resistances they are now easier to kill. This skill needs to be recast every 15 seconds so that you can maintain both a taunt on the enemy to hold aggro on them, so they do not attack other group members and debuff them. It’s a good idea to cast 1-2 seconds early to make sure your taunt doesn’t run out so casting every 13-14 seconds is ideal. This is the very first debuff you need to focus on maintaining.
- Major Resolve:
Your first buff is going to be a self armor buff. For the DK it will be Hardened Armor (preferably you should use Balance) this is going to give you 5948 more resistances which means you will take less damage from any enemies attacking you. This is only useful up until 33,000 resistances – at that point you are at the cap and any extra resistances are useless. Once you are comfortably maintaining those 2 things you can start to factor in your next debuffs. - Minor Maim and Minor Heroism:
This is applied by using Heroic Slash. Any enemy you hit with this gets Minor Maim applied to them which reduces their damage by 5% and using this skill also gives you Minor Heroism which gives you Ultimate gain. A very strong skill since it will reduce the damage you are taking, and it’s a double effect skill with the Ultimate gain.
At this point we have 4 things we need to consider: Puncture every 15 seconds, Heroic Slash every 12 seconds, Hardened Armor/Major Resolve every 20 seconds. These are your 3 main early buffs/debuffs that you want to keep active as often as possible and you should practice doing, and try to sustain doing them as they are all very valuable buffs/debuffs.
- Crusher:
This is your first really proactive enemy debuff and it is a weapon enchantment.
You must put this enchant on an Ice Staff that is Infused to increase its strength and you should try to use a gold weapon and gold glyph on this as soon as you can.
The way you activate Crusher is by doing a weapon skill, light attack or heavy attack. Crusher lasts on an enemy for 4 seconds but, by using a Staff we can maintain placing Crusher on the enemy without it running out every 4 seconds. To do this we have to keep recasting Elemental Blockade every 15 seconds, you want to have this levelled up fully because that will increase the length of time the ability stays active.
All you need to do is recast your Blockade every 15 seconds directly pointing at the enemy you are focussing. You can only apply weapon enchants to 1 enemy at a time so you need to try to position yourself so that when you place a blockade that the enemy you want it to hit is standing at the very start of the blockade where your staff hits the ground, even if you move the debuff will apply to the enemy that is stood at the initial starting point of the Blockade. With a gold Infused/Crusher weapon you will remove another 2108 resistances from the enemy, and this will stack on top of the Major and Minor Breach that you’ve already removed with your taunt. This is a total of 11,030 resistances removed from the enemy and they have a total of 18,200.
As a general rule it’s a good idea to basically track your Taunt as mentioned in the taunt section. Each time you refresh the taunt also refresh your other buffs in a similar order every time and this will help you get into a routine of reapplying your buffs and debuffs
Taunt > Heroic Slash > Major Resolve > Blockade > Heavy after a Heavy (When Applicable)
There are many other things you may be required to maintain especially when you begin moving into group content and trials.
Buffs
Debuffs
There are many more buff and debuffs available, but these are the most commonly seen or used by a Tank.
You should always consider the duration of the buff/debuff and the ability used to apply them and try to work them either into a general “rotation” where you cast them at a similar time every time or if you are on PC you can use an addons to track various buffs and debuffs to maintain a good uptime.
Class Specific Buffs / Debuffs
Every class has their own specific buff / debuff that can be required for optimal group performance depending on your composition:
Pre-Buffing
When you are about to begin combat, you should always pre buff up with any abilities that will give you any benefit with the upcoming fight. The main pre-buff is Major Resolve, you cast this before initiating combat since without it any enemy will hit you once you start the fight and the hit will be a lot harder than it should be.
You can also precast Blood Altar if you use it, the range is huge, and it doesn’t need to be immediately next to a boss as long as it’s in the nearby area. Some fights have bosses that “spawn” into the area, when you get this type of boss you can place your Elemental Blockade ready for when the boss can be targeted or appears along with any other Area of Effect abilities you may be using.
Tanking Bosses
When it comes to Boss fights, it’s hard to provide a single effect way to Tank every boss because they all vary. Bosses are where you’ll discover most of the mechanics within each piece of content. You can adopt some general rules to bosses, but you need to quickly figure out the mechanics of each particular boss or read one of our content guides to find out more specific information on how to successfully Tank each boss.
The main focus for this is taunting the boss and re-taunting every 14~ seconds to hold aggro.
Positioning of bosses does vary depending on which dungeon or trial you are doing and what mechanics are involved. Generally, you should try to turn bosses away from your group and don’t move a boss that doesn’t need to be moved because your group lose damage when you unnecessarily move a boss.
An important part of Tanking bosses is to make sure you are able to sustain a prolonged blocking period. Heavy After a Heavy and following the sustain information in this guide is vital during boss encounters.
Always keep your eyes on a boss because they will often have interruptible attacks that you need to bash to prevent them from doing.
If you take a big hit or see the signal for a heavy attack you are always able to roll dodge and avoid taking any damage. It can also be a good idea to get into a habit of instantly roll dodging when you realise you have made a mistake or taking a huge hit and it prevent any follow up hits or attacks kill you while you make sure you are, or your healer are healing you back up to full.
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Tanking Add Pulls
There is a great method for doing virtually any add pull in The Elder Scrolls Online and it can be done with any Class of Tank too.
Using this method not only crowd controls enemies but it applies a huge amount of Area of Effect debuffs meaning your group do a lot of damage to the adds also.
Instigate combat at range so the enemies begin moving towards you.
Cast Razor Caltrops just in front of the enemies so they walk onto it and to snare them which slows down their movement speed.
Once the range enemies have stepped in closer Cast Power Slam to proc Void Bash which chains everything onto your Caltrops
Next cast Frost Blockade as this will cause an immobilisation if it is on the ground and an enemy stood inside the AoE becomes Chilled.
Finally cast Frost Pulsar x2 which has an increased chance to cause the Chilled effect which means the enemies become immobilised thanks to your Frost Blockade.
Why bother doing this method?
You can do it on every class of Tank.
Not only that but you provide a huge number of buffs and debuffs by doing it.
Razor Caltrops is a Snare reducing movement speed by 50% and causes AoE Major Breach. It can also proc Powerful Assault.
Frost Blockade procs your weapon enchant, provides a projectile damage shield to you and your group and immobilises Chilled enemies.
Power Slam procs Void Bash that not only chains, but it also applies Major Maim reducing the enemies damage by 10%. You can also proc any other “bash to proc” gearsets at the same time upon using this such as Turning Tide.
Frost Pulsar causes the Chilled effect with a triple chance as an AoE. The chilled effect applies AoE Minor Maim reducing enemies damage by 5% and AoE Minor Brittle increasing the amount of Critical Damage an enemy takes by 10% It also inflicts Minor Mangle reducing none-Elite enemies health by 10%. It provides you and nearby group members with Minor Protection giving you 5% reduced damage.
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Tank Testing
There are a few ways to test your Tanking capabilities.
A good way to practice keeping up your buffs is by travelling into the Asylum Sanctorum trial, Normal is fine but Veteran will give you more damage if you are trying to practice in a vet environment. Go all the way to the main boss Saint Olms and press the two buttons on the left and right to activate the AS+2. Make sure you bring along a friend who needs to stand behind you to kite the lightning pools that are spat in the air by Olms, if you don’t bring someone else, they will land on top of you. This method will allow you to deal with the boss and boss mechanics while also giving you the ability to try out maintaining your buffs and debuffs in an aggressive and realistic environment.
Testing your ability to sustain and survive can be achieved by running into any trial entrance that has a lot of adds and enemies, or something such as Blackrose Prison. Blackrose Prison overall is a good way to practice Tanking and it requires so many different aspects of Tanking and is a good challenge for Tanks.
In general, the only way to become truly good at Tanking is to understand the fundamentals of the role, learn content mechanics and just learn from your deaths and mistakes. Doing the content multiple times and gaining experience and understanding is how you become a good Tank.
Levelling
The very first thing you should do is try to find a few guilds to join. You are looking for social / PvE based guilds with 300+ members so that you can find some help with getting some crafted gear, have a good number of people you can press on to fast travel to them to unlock new zones and so you can use the chat to ask for any assistance with things in the game. You might also be lucky and find a guild that has a Trader that you can make use of.
There are basically 2 main ways for levelling up:
- Overland solo levelling and questing
- Dungeon levelling
Levelling Checklist
- Try to use some Training Gear as it will level you up much faster. Ask for help in a guild, zone chat or The Tank Club Discord.
- Pick up Mages Guild Skill Line
- Pick up Fighters Guild Skill Line
- Once you complete the Tutorial, to join the Fighters Guild and Mages Guild you must travel to a large city. You’ll find both Guild in each of these places:
- Vulkhel Guard (Auridon)
- Daggerfall (Glenumbra)
- Davon’s Watch (Stonefalls)
- Vivec City (Vvardenfell)
- Alinor (Summerset)
- Rimmen (Northern Elsweyr)
- Solitude (Western Skyrim)
- Leyawiin (Blackwood)
- Once you complete the Tutorial, to join the Fighters Guild and Mages Guild you must travel to a large city. You’ll find both Guild in each of these places:
- Pick up Undaunted Skill Line
- Once you complete the Tutorial, to join the Undaunted you need to find the tavern in either Stonefalls, Glenumbra or Auridon and speak to the Undaunted representative.
- Pick up Psijic Order Skill Line (Summerset DLC or ESO+ Only)
- Complete the Summerset main story until you reach Artaeum where you will be able to speak with Loremaster Celarus to join the guild.
- Level up Mount daily at the Stables (250 gold per day)
- Complete Cyrodiil Introduction at level 10 for Support and Assault Skill Lines (Level 10+)
- Complete your Group Finder: Random Daily Battleground (Level 10+)
- Complete your Group Finder: Random Daily Dungeon (Level 10+)
If you are Overland solo levelling it is a good idea to set up with 5 Light Armor, 1 Medium, 1 Heavy using a Destruction Staff – this is because levelling as a Tank is incredibly slow as you have low damage and high defence. Levelling this way includes doing Delves, Public Dungeons, Dolmens, Quests/Psijic Quests and more.
If you are levelling by doing Dungeons (Random Normal Dungeons) then you should set up with 5 Heavy Armor, 1 Medium, 1 Light using a One hand and Shield and at level 15 using a Destruction Staff on your second bar. Levelling this way is great for learning how to Tank on your class and you should use the group finder and search for Random Dungeons as you get bonus experience for doing this.
The best way to level up overall is to combine all of the above, completing your random daily dungeons and battleground, collecting skyshards and lorebooks and completing your Psijic Order quests. Before you even start levelling up you should collect all of your important skill lines which you will need later in the game and it’s much easier to level them up immediately rather than waiting until later. You need to travel to your Alliance Major city and go to the Mages Guild, the Fighters Guild and the local Tavern to meet the Undaunted, pick up the 3 skill lines by talking to the NPCs.
If you have the Summerset DLC or ESO+ you then want to go to Summerset and the town called Shimmerene, pick up and complete the first Main Story quest for this area until you can travel to Artaeum. Once you can get to Artaeum you can stop doing the main quest line and just pick up the Psijic Order to unlock the Psijic Order Skill Line. Once you have this you can start travelling around Tamriel doing the Psijic Order quests. When you are sent to a zone to close Psijic Portals, also pick up all Lorebooks in that zone, while you are doing that collect all of the Skyshards including the ones inside Delves and make sure you do any Dolmens that are active as they are a good exp boost. Levelling your skill lines at this point has a huge benefit and will help you to have a lot of options available for useful skills in the future.
Once you are level 10 it’s a good idea to travel into Cyrodiil and complete the introduction quest, this will unlock the Support and Assault skill lines and also unlock the Continuous Attack passive which is worth putting 1 point into so you can to travel around Tamriel on your mount much faster. There are some very useful PvP skills especially War Horn and Purge, and if you reach Support 9 you can use Barrier and Magicka Aid passive so you should try to do your random daily battlegrounds which are extremely easy at a lower level and just use them for farming some easy AP for those skill lines. You can also just go into Cyrodiil and try to join a group then follow them around the map to collect some reasonably easy AP but PvP can be difficult at lower levels and is not really advised.
You need to get Skill Lines levelled up so first of all kill something with a Destruction Staff to unlock the first Destruction Staff skill, you will need this later in the game. Equip a One Hand and Shield and kill something to unlock the first One Hand and Shield Skill this is the main skill line for Tanking. You then have 3 class skill lines; you need to get the first skill from each of those and put those on your active ability bar.
As a DK your 1st ability bar would look something like this:
You must level up with skills from each of these skill lines on your bar as it will also level the skill lines. When you reach a more useful skill for a Tank, switch to that instead. For a comprehensive list of useful Tank skills please check out the respective pages for each class:
Levelling Gear
While levelling you should always use 5/1/1 as mentioned earlier. Use crafted Training gear for levelling.
- Levelling as a Damage Dealer (5 Light & Destruction Staff): Armor of the Seducer & Magnus Gift
- Levelling as a Tank (5 Heavy & One Hand & Shield): Armor of the Seducer & Druid’s Braid
The levelling process continues up until Champion Point 160 and you should not try to buy, farm or upgrade gear too much until you reach CP160 since you will out level your gear, the gear cap is CP160 so you should wait until then to begin working on collecting the useful Tanking sets you’ll need.
Normal Dungeons
Normal Dungeons can be done any time after level 10. You should always try and do a random normal dungeon once daily (20-hour cooldown) while levelling as it gives you a nice boost to your experience gain, click on the Group Finder to do this. Dungeons are a great place to begin Tanking, they show you some basic mechanics and if you have reached Level 50 CP160 some of the dungeons will be very valuable for you to obtain Tank gear sets that you will need for future Tanking scenarios.
Normal dungeons are generally not very difficult at all. Some of the DLC Normal Dungeons can be a little more challenging as you may have to play some mechanics in those, but for the base game Dungeons you can virtually ignore all mechanics as even the things that are designed to 1 shot kill you don’t do so in normal non-DLC dungeons.
Doing back-to-back random Normal Dungeons is quite a good way to level up as a new Tank while also starting to gather the basic knowledge of Tanking, Taunting, Positioning and Sustaining.
When you reach level 45 you will receive mail from the Undaunted inviting you to the Undaunted Enclave, you should do this as soon as possible and complete the associated quest. Once you have done this, each day you will be able to go back to this area and pick up 3 daily pledge dungeon quests. These are extremely important as you get Undaunted XP from completing them which will level up the important Undaunted skill line and you will also earn Undaunted keys for completing pledges. These keys need to be saved until you reach 160 Champion Points, at which point you can then use the keys to buy Shoulder Monster Set pieces that will pair up with Helmets that can be earned from Veteran Dungeons to give you some really strong boost and buffs.
You should always try to use the group finder when doing dungeons even if it’s with a guild or organised group. The reason for this is that you get a good finder buff when you go into a dungeon using this and it will make your group stronger.
How to do Dungeons
Dungeons often have around 5 Bosses in total with a range of add packs in between.
As a Tank you often want to set up in a way where you will be able to deal with all of the challenges of a dungeon within your one build.
The most important thing firstly is crowd control. Dungeons have many add packs with multiple enemies and to begin with it can be a little overwhelming. The priority in this situation is you must taunt any melee enemies; these are the ones that usually run straight towards you holding melee weapons. Using an Ice Staff is a great way to initiate combat when you are dealing with an add pull in a dungeon, and the reason for this is you can initiate combat by using Frost Blockade, you can then run towards the enemies which are now running towards you and cast Frost Pulsar which will immobilise the enemies in place. This is a great method because the enemies become slower, it’s much easier for you to get taunt on them before they run off to attack your group. Once you have placed your Elemental Blockade you can then begin to think about your next move. For more control you can use a snare which reduces the enemy’s movement speed, do this by using abilities such as the DKs Cinder Storm and the PvP Assault skill Caltrops.
Next you should chain in any ranged enemies such as mages and archers who are shooting at you and/or your group at distance. You can use Unrelenting Grip as a Dragonknight and other classes have Silver Leash from the Fighters Guild available. You need to face your cursor in the middle of the screen directly at the ranged enemy until you see the enemy “glow” red around the edges, when this happens it means you have a proper target on them, then you use your Unrelenting Grip to pull them in. Later down the line you can do Vateshran Hollows Arena for the Void Bash set which can chain multiple enemies at the same time and pull them into you with 1 button.
The reason you want adds to be stacked is it makes it easier for damage dealers to kill enemies that are stacked together, it’s possible for them to use a wide range of Area of Effect damage abilities and can hit multiple enemies at the same time. Once you have all the enemies chained in you should try to keep the Frost Blockade on the ground and occasionally cast Pulsar to keep the enemies immobilised and stuck in place. Certain crowd control abilities sometimes won’t work on an enemy that has recently been chained/pulled in as they have CC (Crowd Control) Immunity.
For the majority of Boss fights, they are more or less just a turn and burn. Keep them taunted, turn them away so they have their back to the group and then it’s down to the damage dealers to just kill them. For the DLC dungeons, they will have mechanics that you may need to play. Individual Dungeon Guides are available in the Dungeon Guides section of the site.
If you need additional healing in dungeons, you can enter the fight with Blockade as we suggested above, then cast a heal over time, for the DK it would be Cinder Storm which will give you healing every 1 second, but this also snares enemies by 70% which is great. Only use Dragon Blood when your Health is below 50%, the healing you receive from casting this is inflated based on how much Health you have missing. On other classes you do the same since you’ll waste too many resources.
When it comes to Boss fights, the priority changes a little. The main focus for this is taunting the boss and retaunting every 14~ seconds to hold aggro. Positioning of bosses does vary depending on which dungeon you are doing and what mechanics are involved. An important part of Tanking bosses is to make sure you are able to sustain a prolonged blocking period. As a DK you have a few options, you cast a lot of Igneous Shield which will return Stamina if you have the Helping Hands passive. You use your Ultimate as much as possible, ideally this needs to be Aggressive Horn from the Assault skill line. This Ultimate will boost the damage of your group which in turn will end the fight faster. By using this Ultimate you also regain almost all of your resources due to the Battle Roar passive. Other ways to sustain Boss fights includes using any synergies you see and using the tried and trusted tactic of Heavy Attacking the Boss immediately after you have blocked a Heavy Attack/Mechanic from the Boss.
Dungeons to look out for
If you come across any of the following particular dungeons then you should be mindful of the useful Tank gear you can find in them if you are over CP160. The following dungeons contain some useful Tank sets that you should collect if possible;
Crypt of Hearts – Ebon Armory
Vaults of Madness – The Worm’s Raiment
Black Drake Villa (DLC) – Drake’s Rush
The Dread Cellar (DLC) – Crimson Oath’s Rive
Shipwright’s Regret (DLC) – Turning Tide
Graven Deep (DLC) – Pangrit Denmother
Lair of Maarselok (DLC) – Dragon’s Defilement
Dungeon Tanking Gear
There are a variety of options you can use for Normal Dungeons Tanking. Generally, you want to be using a 5-1-1 setup with 5 Heavy Armor. You need a 1 Hand and Shield, Decisive / Absorb Stamina is good and an Ice Staff with Infused / Crusher. For Jewelry use whatever trait the Jewelry is looted initially or if using crafted then use Infused/1 Bracing 2 Magicka Recovery.
This is just a few gear options but for normal dungeons the gear really isn’t super important, you can Tank these at more or less any level, in any combination of gear. These gear setups will mostly just help with your sustain so you can practice the Chains/Talons/Positioning/Healing.
Crafted
5x Torug’s Pact
Beginner
Progressive
When you are looking to build a great dungeon, Tank build you should follow the guide for this over at the Dungeon Tank Build page.
PvP and Battlegrounds
You really want to be levelling up your PvP skill lines when you can by doing a little bit of PvP or just your random daily battleground. Getting to Support 9 so you can use Barrier as a passive skill on your front bar with the Magicka Aid passive to give yourself 10% more Magicka Recovery is a very useful thing to have especially when you move into trials later.
PvP is also good for the End of Campaign rewards. Every 30 days the PvP campaigns reset, if you reach at least tier 1 rewards by gaining 25,000 Alliance Points you will get rewarded. One of those rewards is a gold Transmutation Geode and these are incredibly useful so that you can change the traits on your gear. You need to be able to change the traits on your gear because you could spend weeks grinding dungeons for gear in the correct trait or you can just get the gear and then use 50 Transmute Stones to switch the trait on it. Grinding gear is usually not as bad as trying to get the correct Monster Sets in the correct traits so most people save transmuting for Monster Sets, or for jewellery since jewellery can only be looted in 1 trait and if you want to optimise your jewellery then you need to transmute it.
Dragonstar Arena
At CP160 you could attempt to do Normal Dragonstar Arena which is located in the top left corner of Craglorn. This arena drops unique weapons/shields which work as a 2 pieces set that can give you a nice boost. Everything you have practiced so far with chaining, rooting and snaring enemies will be perfect for this arena, and it is a 4 person arena that is fairly simple to do even with minimal mechanics knowledge.
The main benefit to doing this is you would have the possibility of looting the Puncturing Remedy set which might be nice to have as you move into your first Veteran content as it will give you a heal every time you Taunt with Puncture and at this stage you won’t have a Monster Set so this would fill that gap in your gear set up.
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Vateshran Hollows Arena
If you want to complete dungeons with ridiculous ease, then you’ll want to attempt normal Vateshran Hollows for the Void Bash (Vateshran 1H & Shield) set. It’s simply the best thing to use for dungeon Tanking especially when you start getting into harder Veteran dungeons and need to be able to control a lot of enemies quickly. I would advise 600CP to complete this easily and you will also need to level up a few damage based skills.
This isn’t the easiest thing to do – it’s a solo arena and to complete it on Normal you’ll want about 10k DPS. This can easily be achieved even as a Tank by using some crafted gear and damage dealer skills. If you follow a build similar to my Accolade Dragonknight Tank Build which is a damage dealing Tank build you should easily be able to complete Normal, it will come down simply to the mechanics of the boss fights.
If you need any help understanding any of the boss fights don’t forget to ask in The Tank Club Discord.
The benefit of doing this arena is you’ll have the best in slot method of stacking adds with 1 single button and it’s useable on every Tank class. It’s also great for your sustain since you just use 1 skill to pull everything rather than recasting multiple chains to pull multiple enemies.
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When to progress
Once you have some experience inside dungeons on normal mode and you have practiced the above methods of controlling adds and dealing with bosses you can start thinking about Veteran progression. You must get some Champion Point level 160 gear and enchants at this stage before you progress so you can Tank at the most effective level.
Collecting your first buff set is a great idea by getting the Ebon Armory set from Crypt of Hearts on Normal. This set will give you a nice Health boost but also everyone in your group, it’s an easy set to gather. You should aim to get the body pieces Chest, Legs, Waist, Hands, Feet but keeping hold of any other pieces is worth saving for later.
If you are doing dungeons with Magicka damage dealers often then you could also get the Worm Raiment set from Vaults of Madness. This set needs to be used on the Weapons and Jewellery since it’s a Light Armor set. You could pick up the Hands and Waist also so you can mix the set into a 5 Heavy 2 Light setup. The Worm set is useful for Magicka damage dealers as it gives them more Magicka recovery which is also extremely useful as a Tank for sustaining resources for chaining, rooting and healing.
Take a look at the gear set reviews for Tanks on Best ESO Tank Sets 2022 – The Tank Club.
Veteran Dungeons
The main reason why you don’t want to do Veteran Dungeons pre 160CP is that you will be looting gear that is not max level gear and will be essentially useless once you reach 160CP. You also cannot use max level gear under 160CP so you will be dealing with much lower stats which just makes completing these dungeons much harder.
The difference between Normal Dungeons and Veteran Dungeons is that mechanics are more predominant in Veteran Mode. Veteran enemies have more health and also do more damage. You also have Veteran Hardmodes which are activated on the last boss of Veteran Dungeons and by completing these you will earn more Undaunted Keys if you are doing the daily Undaunted Pledges.
Veteran Hardmodes will require you to either do an extra task such as keep some enemies alive, or they will just increase the health and damage of the final boss. One of the main reasons for doing Veteran Dungeons is that they drop special Monster Helmets depending on which dungeon you do, and they are part of a 2-piece Monster Set which includes Shoulder Pieces that you need to buy with Undaunted Keys from the Undaunted Pledge givers.
It is a good idea to have possibly worked on getting some useful Tank gear via Normal Dungeons or Crafting before moving onto Veteran Dungeons. Gear does become a bigger priority moving into Veteran Dungeons and is a high priority in DLC Dungeons.
Base game dungeons are fairly simple and easy to do. Any dungeon that has two versions, the I version is usually a very good place to start. The II dungeons are usually a bit more difficult, especially the hardmodes. A dungeon that only has one version is generally pretty tricky to do and it’s a good idea to save those until you’ve completed some of the other Vet Dungeons first.
You cannot use the group finder to do DLC dungeons before 300CP and the reason for this is having lower CP usually causes considerable problems in these instances. These dungeons are more difficult and have a variety of mechanics in each one. If you are in an organised group, you can still do the DLC Vet dungeons, but you will have to travel in or walk through the door manually as the group finder won’t allow you to use it and you also won’t get the group finder buff meaning you’ll be even weaker than normal.
Dungeons to look out for
If you come across any of the following particular veteran dungeons then you should be mindful of the useful Tank monster sets you can find in them if you are over CP160. The following dungeons contain some useful Tank sets that you should collect if possible;
Spindleclutch II – Bloodspawn
Darkshade Caverns I – Sentinel of Rkugamz
Darkshade Caverns II – Engine Guardian
Volenfell – Tremorscale
Blessed Crucible – The Troll King
Depths of Malatar – The Troll King
Black Drake Villa (DLC) – Encratis’s Behemoth
Shipwright’s Regret (DLC) – Nazaray
Earthern Root Enclave (DLC) – Archdruid Devyric
Vet Dungeon Tanking Gear
If you are doing dungeons using the group finder, use any gear you are comfortable with. It’s likely you won’t get a healer sometimes so you should be prepared for that. I would advise you join 5 guilds at this point and try to find groups for dungeons in the guild chats, discords or wherever people communicate as you’ll have a much better success rate of clean and clear dungeons with a chance to really practice your role and not worry as much about what everyone else is doing and also doing wrong more often than not.
Here are some gear options you could use:
When to progress
Moving onto trials is a completely different ballgame. Trials are 12-person content, generally requiring organisation and specific gear and skills to achieve a group target. You can consider progressing onto normal Trials as early as 160CP. Dying and losing aggro of bosses inside a trial as the Tank will usually mean your whole group will die, so it’s a good idea to make sure you’ve got the fundamentals of Tanking and had some practice Tanking dungeons, dealing with multiple enemies, sustaining and surviving.
You should have a decent collection of both important Tank gear; monster sets and any optional Tank sets you like to use. Ensure you have at least Ebon Armory, The Worm’s Raiment, Crimson Oath’s Rive and one other set between Torug’s Pact/Turning Tide/Powerful Assault. For monster sets Engine Guardian, Bloodspawn, and Tremorscale. At this stage you should have no problems working on Normal Trials with the prospect of Veteran Trials in the future.
Most trials usually have two Tanks, this is a great way to begin understanding how trials work. At first you might go as the Off Tank. This is where your main objective is to support the Main Tank. You will need to communicate with the Main Tank before you start so you can understand what is expected from you, which enemies you will taunt and with enemies you won’t. As an Off Tank you are responsible for assisting your group and you will generally spend less time Tanking than the Main Tank. As an Off Tank, even in a new environment it is a good idea to try to use some helpful gear options that support your group because you won’t be doing as much tanking so it’s vital to provide as many buffs and debuffs as you can to help your group.
Normal Trials
Normal Trials are the extremely basic versions of the much more difficult Veteran Trials. The general idea is that these will give you an idea of the environment so you know what to expect, you will get to see some new and unique mechanics and you can begin to learn how to perform as part of a large 12-person group.
Your priority at this stage is to use the fundamentals you have learned already, apply those inside the trials. Going into normal trials blind with no knowledge would generally be fine apart from some of the later ones on the tier list getting a little more difficult due to mechanics that need to be understood and applied.This is your only real learning option other than reading trial guides or watching trial clips, so you should try to pick up as much information as you can while doing these trials.
The best route is to join guild runs rather than finding random runs as this way you’ll have the option to ask questions and gather feedback without a potential toxic environment. If you decide to do random trial runs you can do this usually by travelling to Craglorn and picking up runs by looking in the text chat. Random runs have the potential to be much more volatile and if you make a mistake you’ll be criticised more than helped since there is no real structure or leader in these kinds of runs, they are predominantly made purely for the reason to obtain gear. If you have gathered some trial experience with a guild and you know what you are doing then random runs would work fine.
Not all Trials require two Tanks but you should try to join one that does so you can get the general idea of how you split the workload of a trial with another Tank. If you make a mistake in a group with two Tanks there is less risk to the group.
Trials to look out for
If you come across any of the following particular trials then you should be mindful of the useful Tank gear sets you can find in them if you are over CP160. The following trials contain some vital Tank sets that you should collect as soon as possible;
Sunspire – Claw of Yolnahkriin
Maw of Lorkhaj – Roar of Alkosh
Dreadsail Reef – Pearlescent Ward
Rockgrove – Saxhleel Champion
Cloudrest – Vestment of Olorime
All of these sets are crucial for Tanking Veteran content aside from Olorime which is only typically used for Dungeon Tanking without a Healer. Alkosh is worth collecting but shouldn’t typically be used by Tanks nowadays but worth having. You will need these crucial sets if you want to eventually work on Veteran Trials, especially if you plan on getting into any sort of Trials team.
Normal Trials Tanking Gear
When you go into a Trial for the first time, use whatever gear you want. Play it safe, make sure you can sustain, make sure you have some healing and just learn the fights. Using safety sets is fine for your first few trials, you want something that will help you sustain and survive.
Off Tank
Main Tank
When to progress
There is a huge difference moving from Normal to Veteran when it comes to Trials. You should not try to progress onto Veteran Trials too quickly, you should have a lot of experience in Normal Dungeons and Trials, and you should have some good awareness and performances in Veteran DLC Dungeons. You might also at this stage have tried and completed Dragonstar Arena Veteran.
Having done all of these things you will have stress tested your ability to Tank. You really should not move into Veteran Trials if you don’t have some control over your resource management and the ability to survive even in difficult encounters and situations. You need to make sure you are able to taunt multiple targets quickly, hold aggro, control fights and as a minimum be able to maintain your own buffs. You should be somewhat capable of debuffing enemies and providing some group buffs.
Veteran Trial bosses hit extremely hard and you will spend a lot of time holding block and block casting abilities. You will have to know about mechanics before you go into Veteran Trials or you will be a complete hindrance to any group because you are in the most predominant role as a Tank. If you are dead, everyone dies. If you don’t have some idea of mechanics or what to expect it will be impossible for your group to complete anything.
ESO is supposed to be fun, so you really should look for guilds that offer trials to newcomers, help, advice and a relaxed environment where you can learn. There are many guilds like this that offer introduction runs and open trials for people to attend and learn from an experienced raid leader.
You also have the option of The Tank Club Discord which will provide you with any answers or support you need.
Veteran Trials
Veteran Trials are drastically different from Normal Trials. The bosses and layouts are exactly the same as on Normal, the biggest thing is that Normal Trial mechanics can be skipped and ignored but in Veteran this is not the case. In Veteran all the enemies have more health, hit considerably harder and there is very little room for error. Learning mechanics takes time and it is something you will need to work towards over a number of clears of the same Veteran Trial.
It is important to do your research before heading into a Veteran Trial. I would advise you to try and join some runs as the Off Tank initially so you can start to learn mechanics and it gives you a chance to monitor what the Main Tank is doing so you can attempt to apply that yourself when you switch roles. As the Off Tank you should focus on you Buffs and Debuff to assist your group, deal with whatever targets you are supposed to which should be discussed with the Main Tank before you start.
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The absolute starting point for a Tank is the Craglorn Trials vAA, vHRC and vSO. These trials are very easy compared to some of the others, but they also give you a decent challenge as a Beginner Tank and you learn some valuable lessons. vAA is a sustain trial, vHRC is a high damage trial and then vSO is about adds and teamwork with the other Tank.
For Veteran trials it is recommended that you use either all Sturdy gear to begin with as you’ll likely be blocking the majority of the time until you are completely comfortable with all boss fights and mechanics.
For your Weapons it’s essential to have an Ice Staff Infused/Crusher. You one hander is up to you.
Jewellery use whatever set it drops in, if you are crafting then use Infused.
If you are a Main Tank or solo Tank in some cases for some trials you should absolutely prioritise going into Trials with a gear setup that you have tried and tested, for any first encounter you should use selfish gear sets. “Selfish” gear sets mean things like The Worm’s Raiment, Engine Guardian and Puncturing Remedy (Masters 1H & Shield) which are all incredible Tank sets for anyone entering new content.
You need to be comfortable with your gear options and need to be able to sustain and survive, this is the major priority for your very first Main Tanking Vet Trial encounters in every trial. Just really pay attention to what sets you are using however, something like Leeching Plate is absolutely useless in a single boss fight and literally any other set would work better since you have only one enemy this isn’t going to give you any healing or sustain from Leeching, even Crest of Cyrodiil would be a superior set for this situation.
At this phase you really need to be looking at your gear and picking out anything that you can rely on to give you the support you need. You will be asked to use specific gear in pretty much every group, try to gain experience in your selfish sets if you need to, it would be logically better to use the buff sets from the very beginning so you can learn to Tank in those sets safely and not rely on the gear that you’ll eventually have to drop anyway. This really is up to you, just do whatever makes you most comfortable.
You cannot sustainably do trials like this for very long. When you are in a group you are attempting to work together as a unit to kill the bosses and clear the trials. As a minimum you should be trying to use Claw of Yolnahkriin as one of your sets. This is a very Tank orientated set, and it will give your group a damage buff just by taunting. You should try and work other vital Tank Sets such as Crimson Oath’s Rive, Turning Tide or Pearlescent Ward into your setup as soon as possible for Veteran Trials, you are on the front line and the only person who is always in a suitable range to maintain gear, buffs and debuffs on the enemy.
It is possible to do every single trial as the Main Tank in those sets. It may take some practice but you should be switching to this gear after 5 runs at the absolute most, you shouldn’t prolong the switch to the proper trials gear as you become reliant on it and unfortunately it’s not in the groups best interest for you to use selfish gear for a prolonged period of time and it’s likely you would be replaced for someone who is more open to assisting the group. The faster the group kill a boss, the less time you need to Tank, play mechanics, self-sustain and keep yourself alive so it makes a huge difference to you also to help your group.
If you have a problem with healing inside of a Veteran Trial, you need to consider a few factors. In a Trial you will always have 1-2 Healers. The Healers main job and function is to heal you and the group. You are NOT expected to burn out your resources healing yourself, that is not the function of a team. Your own self-healing is something that should generally be used when you’ve made a mistake and you have to react-heal yourself to fix a problem that you’ve caused.
If you are dying in general combat from normal damage, it’s could simply be a problem that the healer isn’t doing their job. You should be assisting your healers where physically possible, it’s not their job to babysit you and you just do whatever you like and they keep you alive, as a DK using regular Igneous Shields helps you and your group, casting Dragon Blood when you take a big hit, roll dodging big mechanics, putting down a Blood Altar or heal over time like Cinder Storm for some extra small but frequent heals.
Your other main option is to consider using Puncturing Remedy (Masters 1H & Shield) for the additional healing or Engine Guardian as both of these provide large amounts of healing and Engine Guardian will give you sustain also so you can heal yourself more.
For Veteran Trials you have a number of ways to help yourself. You need to eventually use whatever gear you are told to use but this doesn’t mean you are giving up everything. You can adjust any Champion Points, Gear Traits and Glyphs, Attributes, Mundus and things like this to assist you with your sustain and survival.
For dealing with high damage hits you need to look at your damage mitigation, you can increase your resistances and mitigation with various Champion Points such as Bulwark, Ironclad, Duelist’s Rebuff, Enduring Resolve, Unassailable, Fortified, Fortification, Bracing Anchor and Ward Master. You can slot skills to buff your mitigation such as Temporal Guard, Revealing Flare, Defensive Stance and Frost Clench.
One other thing to consider is your Monster Set. If you need sustain, you’re lacking healing or require more mitigation then use a 2-piece Monster Set to try and achieve the things you need first before you begin switching anything else. Monster Sets provide the lease group benefit so it’s an option to switch if needed rather than dropping a useful 5-piece gear set.
Another thing you can consider for Vet Trials is your Jewellery. Jewellery is a very strong equipment that you can adjust for each situation. If you lack stats you can use Triune Jewellery. If you need more sustain you can use Infused Jewellery and Potion Cooldown, Magicka Recovery or Prismatic Cost Reduction which will allow you to use potions more often, give you more recovery or reduce the cost of abilities.
Using an Infused/Bracing enchant will help reduce your block cost. It’s wise to collect as much jewellery as you can of sets such as Alkosh where you need to use this set most of the time, and you need different traits and enchants if you really want to make things easier for different trials.
In Veteran Trials, once you have gained experience and are able to manage mechanics you need to be providing as many buffs and debuffs as you can. It can be difficult to begin with to manage them but the main things you need to consider as a Main Tank DK is a specific set of things that are important and all other buffs/debuffs you can worry about once you have perfected the main ones.
- Taunt – Major/Minor Breach – Pierce Armor
- Major Resolve – Balance
- Minor Main/Minor Heroism – Heroic Slash
- Infused Crusher – Elemental Blockade
- Major Maim – Frost Clench
- Major Force – Aggressive Horn
These are the main things you need to focus on as a Tank in a Trial situation. Maintaining good uptime on these buffs and debuffs is part of the package of being a Tank.
Optimal Gear
Once you have cleared the trial a few times and have begun to understand the mechanics then you need to switch to group buffing sets, these are vital for your group.
Gear and skills will vary from Trial to Trial. Make sure to check out the trial pages for more information.
Off Tank
Main Tank
The End
Thank you for taking the time to read through this ESO Beginner Tank Guide.
Just remember that the Tank role is a difficult and pressured role to play. We all progress at a different speed, and you need to just develop as you gain experience and try your best. Play the game, play your class, learn the role and gain as much experience as you can.
Learning fights and mechanics will make things so much easier and you can only do this by getting many hours of experience and talking and playing alongside other Tanks.
Enjoy the game, as stressful as Tanking can be you need to have fun and Tanking can become very fun and enjoyable!
~ TC Lee