Blocking is absolutely critical for survival as a tank in ESO. It may sound simple, but mastering the art of blocking can make the difference between life and death for you and your group. See more in the Blocking section.

Block casting is an essential skill for tanks in ESO, especially in Veteran content. It allows you to cast most of your abilities while maintaining your block, ensuring you stay protected even while using skills.

Key Points About Block Casting:

• Casting While Blocking: You can cast most abilities while holding the block button. Your character may appear to drop the block during the animation, but you are still blocking.
• Safety: Block casting is the safest option, significantly reducing the damage you take during combat.

Abilities Safe to Block Cast:

• Taunts
• Heals
• Crowd Control Abilities

Exceptions:

• Channel or Cast Time Abilities: Some abilities force you to drop block. These include abilities with a channel or cast time, such as:
  • Stone Giant
  • Dark Deal
  • Certain Scribing Skills

Buffing yourself is essential for managing damage and staying alive as a tank in ESO.

Key Buffs to Maintain:

• Major Resolve and Minor Armor/Resistance Buffs: These buffs provide significant resistances and reduce incoming damage. Always strive to keep these active.

Additional Buffs:

• Minor Protection: Slot Temporal Guard from the Psijic Order skill line to reduce incoming damage by 5%.
• Major Protection: Slot Revealing Flare to gain Major Protection, reducing incoming damage by 10%. These effects can also be gained from other sources.

Gear-Provided Buffs:

• Minor Aegis: Wearing trial gear provides this self-buff, reducing incoming damage.
• Unique Damage Reduction: Certain gear sets like Pearlescent Ward and Lucent Echoes offer unique damage reduction benefits.

Healing Buffs:

• Major/Minor Vitality: Increases healing received.
• Major/Minor Mending: Increases healing done. Utilize these to enhance your healing capabilities.

General Buffs:

• Any buffs that boost resistances, damage reduction, damage mitigation, incoming healing, or extra resources are invaluable for tanking.

Debuffing enemies is an effective way to reduce the damage they deal, thereby improving your survivability as a tank.

Key Debuffing Techniques:

• Frost Staff and Destructive Clench:
  • Taunt and Major Maim: Using Destructive Clench with a Frost Staff taunts the enemy and applies Major Maim, reducing their damage by 10%.
  • Chilled Effect: This skill also guarantees the Chilled effect, which applies Minor Maim, reducing the enemy’s damage by an additional 5%. Combined, this results in a total damage reduction of 15%.
• Major and Minor Cowardice:
  • Weapon and Spell Damage Reduction: These debuffs lower the enemy’s weapon and spell damage. The scribing system has made these debuffs more accessible, allowing you to reduce enemy damage output significantly.
• Infused Weapon with Weakening Glyph:
  • Damage Reduction: An Infused weapon with a Weakening glyph reduces the enemy’s damage. This debuff is often applied by a healer, but if it isn’t, use it on your one-handed weapon to ensure the enemy’s damage is minimized.

By effectively debuffing enemies, you can substantially reduce the damage they deal, making it easier to manage incoming damage and keep yourself and your group safe.

Building up your resistances is fundamental to reducing incoming damage and surviving as a tank in ESO. Here are the key points to remember:

Resistance Cap: The maximum benefit you can gain from resistances in PvE content is 33,100. Always aim to reach this cap to maximize your damage mitigation.

Importance: High resistances significantly reduce the amount of damage you take, making it easier to survive encounters, especially in challenging content.

Ways to Increase Resistances:

• Major and Minor Resolve: Utilize skills that provide these buffs to boost your resistances.
• Champion Points: Allocate points to Resistance-buffing nodes.
• Race and Gear: If you are still under the resistance cap, consider:
  • Using the Nord race for its resistance bonuses.
  • Equipping Reinforced gear to boost resistances.
  • Using a Defending One-Handed Weapon to increase resistances.

Self-healing is often necessary, especially in dungeon groups without a healer or with an inexperienced or dead healer. There are several methods to heal yourself as a tank:

1. Burst Healing

• Definition: Provides a large heal in a short amount of time, crucial for recovering from big hits.
• Example: Dragonknight’s Dragon Blood, which scales with your max health, making it more effective with higher health pools.
• Usage: Save for moments of high incoming damage. It’s expensive to recast frequently, so use it wisely.
• Boosting Effectiveness: Combine with healing buffs like Igneous Shield to enhance healing via Major Mending, making burst heals even more potent.
• Critical Heals: Burst heals can also critically heal, providing extra healing on top of the initial amount.

2. Healing over Time (HoT)

• Definition: Provides small, continuous heals over an extended period.
• Example: Dragonknight’s Cinder Storm offers sustained healing over 15 seconds.
• Usage: Ideal for mitigating small, regular damage. It helps sustain health without consuming too many resources.
• Additional Tools: Consider using the Engine Guardian Monster Set for extra healing over time.

3. Health Recovery

• Definition: A character stat that automatically restores health every 2 seconds.
• Sources:
  • Class passives and Heavy Armor passives.
  • Minor Fortitude and Potions providing Major Fortitude.
  • Bewitched Sugar Skulls food.
  • Strategic Reserve Champion Points.
• Effectiveness: Typically provides around 1k Health Recovery, equivalent to 500 healing per second. While not substantial for high health pools (e.g. 40k health), it adds up over long fights.

4. Damage Shields

• Definition: Shields absorb damage, protecting your health bar.
• Usage: Use damage shields to mitigate incoming damage, making them vital for survival.
• Example: Igneous Shield provides a strong damage shield that can drastically improve survivability.

General Tips for Effective Self-Healing:

• High Magicka Recovery: Ensure you have a high magicka recovery to sustain healing and other magicka-based skills.
• Combination of Healing Methods: Use a combination of burst healing, healing over time, and damage shields to cover different damage scenarios.
• Healing Buffs: Utilize buffs like Major and Minor Vitality (for increased healing received) and Major and Minor Mending (for increased healing done).

By incorporating these self-healing techniques and understanding when to use each method, you can significantly enhance your tank’s survivability in ESO.

Roll dodging is a crucial but often underused technique among new players. It can be expensive in terms of stamina, but its benefits for survival are significant.

How Roll Dodge Works:

• Evade Damage: When you roll dodge, you evade damage for the next 2 seconds from any attack that isn’t a locked-in channeled attack.
• Channeled Attacks: Certain attacks, such as Dark Barrage from Rakkhat in Maw of Lorkhaj or Nocturnal’s Favour from Z’Maja in Cloudrest, are fixed on you and cannot be avoided by roll dodging.

When to Use Roll Dodge:

• Majority of Attacks: Most attacks in the game are not locked onto you and can be evaded with a roll dodge.
• Critical Situations: Use roll dodge in critical situations, such as after taking a big hit or when overwhelmed, to evade damage and buy time to heal or escape.
• Instant Reaction: Develop the habit of instantly reacting with a roll dodge to evade damage for a few seconds, ensuring your survival.

By incorporating roll dodging into your defensive tactics, you can effectively avoid damage and improve your chances of survival in challenging encounters.