ESO Tank Sets

As a tank in The Elder Scrolls Online, having a versatile range of gear sets is crucial to meet your group’s needs and your tanking requirements. Prioritize sets that provide significant benefits to your group, as enhancing ally performance and debuffing enemies is essential. The faster enemies fall, the less tanking you need to do. This guide covers all essential tank sets for various ESO content, ensuring you have the best equipment to support and protect your team effectively.

These sets are the most frequently used and beneficial for Tanking in ESO, providing significant group benefits. Each set is suitable for various content and circumstances.

  • Crimson Oath’s Rive – Used in all content where the group is under the penetration cap of 18200. Provides crucial penetration debuffs for the group.
  • Lucent Echoes – Easy-to-use Tank alternative to Elemental Catalyst. Provides increased critical damage and healing with no micromanagement.
  • Pearlescent Ward – Great for beginners and all content, typically used by Trial Main Tanks. Offers a 100% uptime damage buff with no micromanagement.
  • Powerful Assault – Used in dungeons, arenas, and by Off Tanks in Trials. Boosts group damage, essential for high DPS groups.
  • Saxhleel Champion – Mostly used by Necromancers and Trial Off Tanks. Provides Major Force when using an alternative Ultimate to Warhorn.
  • Turning Tide – Fantastic for dungeons and also good for Trial Main Tanks. Provides a reliable huge enemy debuff increasing group DPS.
  • Vestment of Olorime – Must-have for dungeons and arenas without a healer. Provides Major Courage increasing group Weapon and Spell Damage.

These sets are occasionally useful for Tanking and are often specific to the group composition, a particular boss fight, or a specific strategy.

  • Claw of Yolnahkriin – No longer one of the top sets since it can be replaced by one Arcanist using the Arcanist’s Domain skill, but still useful for Trials if your group doesn’t have any Arcanists.
  • Drake’s Rush – A fantastic dungeon set that provides group ultimate regeneration, leading to an approximate 8% DPS increase if used on cooldown.
  • Elf Bane – A niche set used by Dragonknight Tanks to increase the duration of Magma Shell, especially seen in Infinity Archive and on specific trial bosses when trying to skip mechanics.
  • Roar of Alkosh – Not a common Tank set nowadays but might be used by a Tank when playing as a hybrid DPS Tank in certain trials.
  • War Machine / Master Architect – Another set that is no longer as common for Tanks but is sometimes used during trial add pulls and on dungeon bosses.

These sets are all support sets that will have some niche use. You won’t often if at all ever be asked to use these sets but they can be useful to collect as you never know when they might be used, having all support sets available simply improves your ability to be versatile for any mechanics, tactics and future content.

  • Arkasis’s Genius -An Ultimate gaining set providing a burst of Ultimate rather than over time, useful for situations requiring rapid Ultimate gain, though it has high waste potential compared to Drake’s Rush.
  • Ebon Armory – No longer a valuable set but easy to obtain and maintain, providing a minor health buff to your group.
  • Elemental Catalyst – Previously used to buff Crit damage, now replaced by Lucent Echoes due to being easier to use.
  • Jorvuld’s Guidance – Increases the duration of major and minor buffs and damage shields, previously used in niche situations but now overshadowed by more useful Tank sets.
  • Pillager’s Profit – Rarely used by Tanks who need their Ultimate, but plausible for hybrid Off Tanks in niche situations.
  • The Worm’s Raiment – Provides sustain but is hard to fit into group compositions and less efficient compared to other sources.
  • Torug’s Pact – Probably the best crafted set for Tanks, a good starter set if lacking Tank gear.
  • Way of Martial Knowledge – Might be used by an Off Tank in trials if not fully Tanking, though it’s hard to use while Tanking.

These sets are occasionally listed but are typically not the most useful. They often appear due to outdated information or old builds, and it’s generally advised not to waste much time farming, upgrading, or enchanting this gear. While some might be useful for beginner or inexperienced Tanks, they can often hamper long-term progress and Tanking ability, and groups will not allow their use in content such as Trials.

  • Aegis of Galenwe – No longer useful as the buff enhances heavy attacks, which are infrequently used by damage dealers.
  • Akaviri Dragonguard – Decent for beginner Tanks but not recommended for long-term use, as crafted sets or Drake’s Rush for ultimate benefit are better options.
  • Armor of the Seducer – A great crafted set for absolute beginner Tanks but should only be used at the very start.
  • Armor of the Trainee – Worth collecting for its versatility with mythic items, providing the best value for a one-piece item and available in all three weights for resistance maximization.
  • Bani’s Torment – With Frost Clench gaining Major Maim and the ease of access to Major Vitality with Scribing, this set has become pretty useless, as it’s a whole 5-piece set now replaced by just two skills.
  • Battalion Defender – An auto-healing set with group healing potential, but generally not recommended as healing should come from healers or skills rather than a full 5-piece set.
  • Brands of Imperium – A group shielding set affecting only 6 people and hard to control when it procs, making it generally not very useful.
  • Crest of Cyrodiil – A decent beginner Tank set for a Trials Main Tank, though it’s quite expensive nowadays.
  • Dragon’s Defilement – Used to be useful for AoE Minor Breach, especially on Trial add pulls, but is now completely useless as this effect has been added to various skills instead.
  • Fortified Brass – A solid crafted set providing significant resistances, good for new players who lack Champion Points for reducing damage from enemies.
  • Frozen Watcher – Used to be needed for AoE Minor Brittle on add pulls, but now useless as this can be achieved with the skill Pulsar and multiple other methods.
  • Grave Guardian – Not a great set as there are better methods to provide group resistance buffs through skills and Monster Sets.
  • Hircine’s Veneer – No longer used due to the hybridisation changes.
  • Leeching Plate – Often seen in beginner builds and can be good for effortless Tanking, but it hinders long-term progression as you become too reliant on its automatic activation to keep you alive rather than casting a skill to shield or heal yourself, and it won’t be accepted by groups in later game content.
  • Plague Doctor – Commonly used but Ebon Armory is a better alternative as it offers the health boost along with a group buff.
  • Stone-Talker’s Oath – A group sustain set, but you gain more resources from the skill Necrotic Orb and the Symphony of Blades monster set.
  • The Morag Tong – Increases enemy damage from Poison and Disease, but no longer used.
  • Tormentor – No longer needed as Werewolf Tanks now have a Taunt and it no longer AoE Taunts.