ESO Sorcerer Tank Guide

Table of Contents

ESO Sorcerer Tank Introduction

See more: Tank Class Overviews, Skills & Passives Information

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.

Power Stone
(Vital)
Ultimate cost reduction, great way to help us use our Ultimate/Warhorn more often and consistently.

Daedric Protection
(Optional)
A small boost to your Health Recovery is a slight help, Stamina recovery is mostly unnoticeable due to the low base Stamina Recovery and the fact that Tanks block a lot and wont get it anyway.

Expert Summoner
(Vital)
You’ll pretty much always have the Clannfear summoned since this is the Sorcerer Tank main heal so you’ll benefit from the 8% increased Health which in turn increases our Healing from the Clannfear with it scaling on Max Health.

Storm Calling

Overload
(Not Needed)

Mage’s Fury
(Not Needed)

Hurricane → Morph of Lightning Form
(Unnecessary)
This might be used as a DD/Tank Hybrid for doing extra damage.

Boundless Storm → Morph of Lightning Form
(Vital)
When using this you gain Major Resolve, you also get a speed boost with Major Expedition for 4 seconds and because it does Shock Damage there is a chance that you will concuss an enemy which can help to inflict Minor Vulnerability which will cause your DD’s to do more damage to those targets.

Liquid Lightning → Morph of Lightning Splash
(Vital)
You would want to use this as a Tank if you are not wearing Alkosh but someone in your group is, so you can provide an extra synergy to the Alkosh user. It also does Shock Damage so it has a chance to cause Concussion/Minor Vulnerability.

Surge
(Unnecessary)
Could be used in solo situation to provide some small incoming Heals over time and increase your Spell and Weapon damage which will increase your damage and healing also.

Streak → Morph of Bolt Escape
(Optional)
This morph could be useful for adds and 4-man content. You Streak through the target and will stun them if they are not a Boss or Elite target. You also inflict Shock Damage which can help with Concussion/Minor Vulnerability.

Ball of Lightning → Morph of Bolt Escape
(Situational)
This is the morph which is better for Boss fights. You become immune to snares and immobilisation. You also create a Ball of Lightning at the location you moved to which will absorb projectiles. Generally, this will absorb most projectiles even within a Trial environment and from bosses, but it won’t absorb projectiles based heavy attack.

Capacitor
(Vital)
10% Magicka Recovery, vital for Tanking.

Energized
(Optional)
Not a necessary passive it increases our damage. Worth having if you occasionally play solo content and you might as well use it to increase the damage you output. Increasing shock damage wont increase the chance/effect of things like concussion.

Amplitude
(Optional)
Increased damage against targets based on their health, again not super important but if you have the skill points it worth just having it and doing a little extra damage.

Expert Mage
(Optional)
Increased weapon and spell damage increases the healing we do so you should take this passive even though it will have very little impact.

ESO Sorcerer Tank Overview

Sorcerers (Sorcs) are a strong option for Tanking in The Elder Scrolls Online.

Sorcerers are pretty well built for Tanking. They have great self-healing, good sustain, nice self-buffs and mitigation and provide a couple of useful group buffs. Sorcerer Tanks are quite easy to play, the major downside is that if you have another Sorcerer in a group then everything you can offer a group is suddenly not useful and it’s extremely common to see Sorcerer damage dealers.

In optimised groups the Sorcerer Tank becomes more of an option when the Sorc is not a meta damage dealer, it opens the door to using one as a Tank. In 4-person content they are fine, but you get much more group benefit from using an Arcanist.

Self-healing as a Sorcerer Tank is one of the big strong points. The Clannfear is a huge heal that scales on Max Health so when you have a pet active your Max Health is increased and your heal is huge. Your self-healing can be buffed up even more for almost free when you combine it with Restraining Prison. This skill provides Major Vitality which increases healing received by 16% and when you use it and then self-heal, your Clannfear heal is buffed and heals for more. This even works on boss fights, as long as the prison hits something, even if it doesn’t immobilise it still provides the buff and then it restores Magicka because you didn’t immobilise but still gives you the Major Vitality. You also have a massive damage shield with Regenerative Ward which also provides a group buff so it’s extremely useful.

Sustain is good on a Sorcerer especially compared to all other Classes except a Dragonknight. You want to build with high Magicka Recovery and then you simply use Dark Deal to convert Magicka into Stamina, this also gives you consistent Stamina over time also. The downside to this skill is that it has a channel time so it will drop your block for a second when you use it, so you do have to time it.

Sorcerer Tanks are really in their element in add pulls and trials like Cloudrest and Asylum Sanctorium Off Tanking because they have skills such as Ball of Lightning and Boundless Storm which means they can move around extremely quickly.

Sorcs have the option of Bound Aegis as a panic button, it only lasts for 5 seconds but if you time it with hard hitting mechanics it makes it very easy to survive since it gives you 40% block mitigation which is guaranteed to get you to the 90% block mitigation cap and then you have the addition of the Minor Resolve and Minor Protection to add on top of that.

You have two unique Sorcerer buffs with Minor Prophecy and Crystal Weapon so you will want to use a Sorc in a trial group usually. With the Storm Atronach Ultimate giving a full group synergy of Major Berserk, it allows for up to two Sorc per group and gives a good damage buff for the group.

For 4-person content they are very simple and easy to play. They are pretty much the full package from a Tank perspective and useful if you are the only Sorcerer in a group.

ESO Sorcerer Tank Strengths, Weaknesses & Group Buffs

Strengths

  • Great self healing
  • Panic button to boost damage mitigation really high
  • Multiple group buffs for Magicka groups
  • Stamina groups able to reach pen cap easily with Sorc using Crystal Weapon
  • Very fast and able to manoeuvre quickly with the correct skills

Weaknesses

  • Easily replaceable within a group by using 1 other Sorcerer
  • No Magicka chain/pull ability
  • Sustain skill Dark Deal drops your block when casting

Group Buffs

ESO Sorcerer Tank Conclusion

Overall the Sorcerer Tank is strong, they are a solid Tank from a self healing, sustain and strength point of view, but the group buffs are somewhat lacking. In recent patches they have gained a lot more usefulness thanks to the changes to the Major Berserk synergy and Regenerative Ward. Crystal Weapon is rarely seen being used by a Tank due to it’s design being made to be used by a Damage Dealer.

Sorcerer Tanks are very easy and simple to play and they are very beginner friendly, and they can match most Tanks, it might be something we see more often after Necrom with the need for two Sorcerers in a group for the Major Berserk synergy.

ESO Sorcerer Tank Videos