ESO Dreadsail Reef Trial

Welcome to The Tank Club: ESO Dreadsail Reef Trial Guide for Tanks.

Welcome to The Tank Club: ESO Dreadsail Reef Trial Guide for Tanks.

Dreadsail Reef is a DLC 12-person trial located in High Isle. It was the eleventh trial that was introduced into The Elder Scrolls Online with the High Isle Chapter in June 2022.

In a similar fashion to the other recent trials, Dreadsail Reef has main 3 trial bosses, each with their own individual hardmode and there are 2 additional mini bosses. You also have a variety of adds and a number of different add pulls in between each boss.

This guide will focus on the Tank role and the mechanics and strategies for successfully completing this trial.

For more Tank advice please ask in the Tanking-Help channel on The Tank Club Discord.

Links

Contents

ESO Dreadsail Reef Trial Tank Builds

Main Tanks

This is the gear you might be asked to use for this trial as the Main Tank:

Double Frost Staves are frequently used in this trial – it’s common to see a front bar Frost Staff for maintaining Frost Clench and Major Maim/Minor Maim on cooldown. When using this you might also use a mythic item such as Bloodlord’s Embrace, Death Dealer’s Fete, or anything you like.

Off Tanks

This is the gear you might be asked to use for this trial as the Off Tank:

Off Tanks in Dreadsail Reef (most commonly Necromancers) have to be able to play as both a Main and Off Tank in this trial. This is due to Necro possessing very strong mitigation against Damage over Time and Bleeds.

ESO Dreadsail Reef Trial Tank Skills

In Dreadsail Reef you’ll be dealing with a lot of incoming damage, so it can be a good idea to make use of damage reduction skills providing you with Major and Minor Protection.

Frost Clench is a vital skill for this trial also, you want to maintain this as much as possible on bosses, and especially on last boss for the Major and Minor Maim, it will allow you to reduce the incoming damage for your entire group.

Race Against Time is a good skill to use for stages of this trial for the speed boost and snare removal

Useful Skills for this Trial:

ESO-Hub Skill iconESO-Hub Skill iconESO-Hub Skill iconESO-Hub Skill icon

General skill setup can be found here:

ESO Dreadsail Reef Trial Tank Guide

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Boss Basics

In a rush? This is what you need to know:

  1. Bosses are Turlassil (Ice/2H Sword) & Lylanar (Fire/2H Axe)
  2. Taunt the boss and turn it away from the group.
  3. Block all attacks – don’t roll dodge.
  4. Interrupt when the boss when it channels.
  5. Other Tank taunts all adds and brings them inside the aura.
  6. When being chased by 5x AoEs place them next to each other away from the group.
  7. Stay inside the aura.
  8. Tanks need to swap the boss when one Tank has fragility.

vDSR1 Tank Swap Lookout for these icons for the Tank Switch

Boss Mechanics & Tank Strategy

Light Attack – This looks like a weapon hit but it’s actually elemental attack, so the Fire boss is doing a fire light attack and via versa.

Interrupt – The boss will channel an attack on the whole group that can be interrupted. You can only interrupt the boss if the correct aura is over the boss. As a Tank you typically won’t take the Auras since they have a ramping damage associated with them and you’ll already be taking plenty of damage. If you have no aura or the wrong aura over the boss, it can’t be interrupted. You also take more damage from this attack if you are stood outside of the aura when it does the attack, but it should be interrupted anyway.

Heavy Attack – This has to be BLOCKED. If you roll dodge the boss becomes enraged meaning the boss will do a lot more damage. If you take the heavy attack unblocked, you receive a big debuff to your resistances and have a increased damage received debuff applied to you. Blocking the attack will apply a healing absorption and your healers need to heal you back to full health to remove it and they need to do this quickly because you also have a increased damage received debuff applied to you meaning you take increased damage.

Cleave – The boss does a cleave which sends out 3 AoEs in the direction the boss is looking.

5x AoEs – Occasionally the boss will apply a DoT to the Tank and start dropping AoEs under the Tank. When you are in the first phase of the fight in the middle of the room, the Tank should make a U shape around the