ESO Sorcerer Tank Guide
Table of Contents
ESO Sorcerer Tank Class Skills and Passives
Dark Magic
Negate Magic
(Unnecessary)
A good Ultimate to use until you get Warhorn. You wouldn’t usually have this slotted as it offers no passive benefits, but if you know a specific fight where you want to stop enemies from doing AoE abilities you could use it for that exact situation, one morph also does a heal and stun but overall, this is unnecessary compared with Warhorn since it doesn’t work on a lot of enemies.
Crystal Weapon → Morph of Crystal Shard
(Situational)
An important skill for groups who wear a lot of medium armor. You activate the ability and then do a Light Attack which will reduce the enemies Armor by 1000. This is important to consider if you are trying to help your group reach the 18200-penetration cap. This could be used by a Sorc Off Tank, but it’s a hard skill to use and maintain as it needs reactivating every 5 seconds so realistically it should be on a Sorcerer damage dealer if you have one in your group.
Restraining Prison → Morph of Encase
(Vital)
This is a way to immobilise enemies that are in front of you – this is mostly useful for 4-Man dungeons and arenas and a few limited trial situations. The main use for this skill is the Major Vitality. You actually gain the Major Vitality just by using the skill on a target, even if you cannot immobilise them such as bosses. So, in hard hitting fights you could use this on a Boss to gain the Major Vitality to increase your incoming healing plus it will also proc the group buff Minor Prophecy from the Exploitation passive. When you use this on a boss you also get Magicka back, so the skill is almost free.
Rune Prison
(Not Needed)
Dark Deal → Morph of Dark Exchange
(Vital)
You use this skill to trade Magicka for Health, Stamina and Stamina over time, a very good tool for sustaining as a Sorcerer Tank. This will drop your block however, so you really need to time the use of this when you are not taking a major mechanic or Heavy Attack. This is the skill that is usually used by a Tank to proc the Exploitation passive and provide the Minor Prophecy group buff.
Dark Conversion → Morph of Dark Exchange
(Optional)
This does the opposite of Dark Deal, so you trade Stamina for Health and Magicka. You will usually just use Dark Deal however there are some fights where you block a lot less and have time for Heavy Attacking so using this morph as a Heal/Magicka Sustain can be used, plus you need to have at least one Dark Magic skill available so it could be this if you don’t need the Stamina.
Daedric Mines
(Not Needed)
Unholy Knowledge
(Vital)
Good passive for Tanks, reducing all ability costs.
Blood Magic
(Unnecessary)
We generally don’t use any direct Dark Magic abilities so this passive isn’t that useful and we can heal with actual Healing abilities that are much stronger than relying on this passive.
Persistence
(Vital)
Since we are blocking pretty often as a Tank this is an amazing passive reducing the cost of our next abilities by 15% after we block.
Exploitation
(Vital)
This is the Sorcerer group buff and it’s an important buff to maintain for your group. It’s only useful for Magicka DD’s but its a strong buff adding approximately 2k DPS to each DD. You should cast a Dark Magic ability every 20 seconds, usually Prison if you are the Main Tank in a high damage trial or Dark Deal.
Daedric Summoning
Summon Storm Atronach
(Vital)
When using this you provide a full group synergy of Major Berserk which increases DPS by 10%. If you are wearing Saxhleel Champion you can provide the Major Berserk alongside Major Force. This skill was updated with Necrom to provide a full group synergy, this means that if you can cast this Ultimate every 20 seconds on the synergy cooldown, your group could benefit from a 50% uptime. This will most likely be maintained by a combination of two Sorcerers and one could be a Tank.
Summon Unstable Clannfear → Morph of Summon Unstable Familiar
(Vital)
This is the main Sorcerer Tank heal and it’s a really strong heal since it scales on Max Health, the more health you have the bigger the base heal will be. You need to have the pet summoned and then when you press on the pet again it will do its special ability which is the heal to you and the heal can also crit. You need to double bar the skill or your pet will unsummon. By having a pet, you gain access to more passives including even more Max Health.
Daedric Curse
(Not Needed)
Summon Winged Twilight
(Situational)
You don’t really need this skill often, but you could use it for the passives and for group healing assistance if you wanted to provide that.
Regenerative Ward → Morph of Conjured Ward
(Vital)
This skill offers the Minor Endurance and Minor Intellect buff to increase your groups recovery so worth using if it’s not being provided already. This shield also scales with Max Health so you can get a huge damage shield for yourself as well as a Tank.
Bound Aegis → Morph of Bound Armor
(Vital)
You would slot this initially for the 8% Max Magicka and Minor Resolve, and then the actual ability would typically be used for dealing with high damage or emergency situation. You gain 20 seconds of Minor Protection and then an additional 40% Block Mitigation for 5 seconds which reduces your incoming damage by a lot. One thing to understand is block mitigation only comes into effect when you are blocking and there is a hard cap of 90% on block mitigation, so you can have more than 90% but anything over that doesn’t do anything. Block mitigation is also different from regular mitigation. This makes a Sorc extremely Tanky in heavy single target fights.
Rebate
(Vital)
A nice sustain tool, you gain resources back when casting Daedric Summoning skills making them easier to sustain.