ESO Necromancer Tank Class Skills and Passives
Grave Lord
Bone Tyrant
Living Death
ESO Necromancer Tank Overview
Necromancer Tanks are quite an uncommon thing to see in The Elder Scrolls Online but have recently started to gain more popularity.
The main reason why they are quite uncommon, is because it’s a fairly new class that was introduced to the game 5 years after initial release. Necros in general, really excel in providing additional damage to their groups due to their powerful Colossus Ultimate and Empowering Grasp Skill.
Necros make excellent Off Tanks for trials and can be really useful for 4-man content if they are the only Necro in the group. Typically they are a little more difficult to play than some other classes but the benefits they provide within group content are well worth it.
Necros, especially on a support role provide a good range of group utility. The best thing about the Necro Tank is, even if you already have other Necros in a group, using a Necro Tank still has a valuable function within that group which is not the case for most other classes. When we look at Trials, you should always aim for 3 Necromancers in the group. If this is not the case, then this is also great time to consider a Necro Tank.
The initial benefit of using a Necro Tank is for the Colossus Ultimate. This increases the damage taken by enemies and is a valuable tool to help your group kill enemies quicker. You can also utilise the Necro for gaining Ultimate at a much faster rate than other classes and this means you can Colossus enemies more often. This is achieved by using Necro Skills that create corpses and then absorbing those corpses, along with the corpses from killed enemies to gain Ultimate with Necrotic Potency.
The second main reason for using a Necro Tank is the group buff of Empower that is provided via Empowering Grasp. This skill does the same thing as the Galenwe gear set but is 1 skill rather than a 5 piece gear set. This is what makes Necro Off Tanks so vital for a lot of Trial groups nowadays, as they can keep casting this skill at their group to buff all Light Attacks by 40% which can yield a group DPS increase of anywhere from 2-6% depending on how good they are at Light Attack Weaving.
A few other great things from they Necro include their ability to provide a number of group synergies, and Boneyard which provides a synergy is also an AoE Major Breach skill which is great for situations where you deal with a number of enemies. The Necro can also create their own synergy with Avid Boneyard which can be extremely useful if you are using Alkosh. Necros also have Agony Totem which can be a really nice multi-use skill where it fears enemies but also provides a synergy and applies AoE Minor Vulnerability.
Due to the Necro having access to AoE Shock Damage with Mystic Siphon this makes them really good at utilising full AoE Elemental Catalyst if needed which other Tank classes can’t do and with the frost damage from Boneyard this also makes them a bit better than most other classes at maintaining Minor Brittle if you are asked to maintain that.
The Necros self healing is not the best. Hungry Scythe is ok and scales off Max Health meaning the more Health you have the bigger heals you get. Its a reasonably strong heal which is even better the more enemies you hit with it. The major downside of this skill is you need to hit something for it to work, so sometimes it can be a real problem if you are in a fight that requires lots of movement as you may fall into situations where you cannot heal.
Necros can also use Spirit Guardian to gain some healing over time, which is nice but it can sometimes go and heal allies in your group as it is designed to heal whoever has the lowest health. The great thing is that it provides 200 extra Magicka Recovery via Necro passives and it also provides additional damage mitigation.
A few things to consider when choosing to play a Necro is that healing can be difficult as mentioned already if you are in situations away from enemies. Sustain can be a particular challenge as they are no skills that will give back resources while blocking. Crowd Control is not the best although better than some classes, combining Silver Leash and Agony Totem doesn’t work. If you chain an enemy they cannot be feared afterwards so it doesn’t work as well as the DKs chain and talons and using Beckoning Armor is very ineffective as it take too long.
Overall I believe the Necromancer Tank is a very strong option to consider using, especially as an Off Tank. If you are in a Trial group with less that 3 Necros they are extremely useful, but even if you have 3 already, they use a completely different skill set to a DD which means they offer a whole new function in group content. It requires a bit more effort to play a Necro and the playstyle is different to other classes but the benefits are worth it.
Strengths
- Damage increasing group buffs for both Magicka and Stamina group.
- Able to provide a self synergy for Alkosh.
- Good area of effect debuff skills.
- Reduces incoming damage by transferring some to the Spirit Guardian.
- Good Magicka sustain.
- Good option for Minor Brittle and Elemental Catalyst setups.
Weaknesses
- Can be difficult to self heal since you need to hit an enemy to burst heal yourself.
- No good Stamina sustain passives or abilities, Stamina sustain can be really difficult.
- Magicka sustain is good but skills are very Magicka heavy so you can easily start to have problems.
- Slow and uncontrollable class based pull/chain ability.
Group Buffs
- Major Vulnerability via Colossus Ultimate
- Empower (40% increase Light Attack damage) via Empowering Grasp
- Minor Vulnerability, group Minor Protection & group synergy via Agony Totem
- Group synergy and AoE Major Breach via Unnerving Boneyard