In The Elder Scrolls Online, a tank serves as the party’s bulwark, specializing in drawing enemy aggression and absorbing damage. Their primary mission involves leading engagements, redirecting foes’ attention to themselves, and minimizing harm to their more fragile teammates. This guide will delve into essential tanking principles, offering practical advice and insights to enhance your gameplay and make you a more effective team member.
The Role of a Tank
The tank is a cornerstone of any successful group in ESO. Their responsibilities extend beyond merely withstanding hits. They must consistently maintain enemy focus through taunts, strategically position adversaries for optimal group damage, apply weakening debuffs to targets, provide critical buffs to allies, and ensure their own continued survival against relentless assaults. Balancing these elements defines a truly effective tank.
Tank Armor
Optimizing your tank’s resilience begins with armor. Heavy armor offers the highest base defense and numerous passive bonuses, including inherent damage reduction, increased physical and spell resistance, improved health recovery, better resource regeneration, a boost to maximum health, and enhanced healing received. Incorporating at least one piece of light and medium armor can also activate the Undaunted passive, granting an additional 2% to Max Health, Magicka, and Stamina per armor type, for up to a 6% bonus. This flexibility can significantly boost overall stats.
Tank Weapons
Beginner tanks commonly utilize a Sword and Shield on one bar and an Ice Staff on the other. Understanding the distinct advantages of each setup is crucial for maximizing their utility in combat.
Sword and Board
The Sword and Shield combination offers substantial defensive benefits. It reduces the stamina cost of blocking, increases the damage blocked, and provides access to a fundamental taunt ability, Pierce Armor, which also applies a valuable debuff to enemies. This setup is ideal for direct, close-quarters combat and active mitigation.
Ice Staff
The Ice Staff provides unique magical tanking capabilities. It lessens block costs, enhances block effectiveness, and includes a ranged taunt skill, Frost Clench, that applies the Chilled status effect. With the Tri Focus passive, blocking costs Magicka instead of Stamina, offering crucial resource management flexibility for certain builds.
Tank Skills
ESO’s diverse skill system allows for extensive character customization. While choices can be overwhelming, certain skill categories are indispensable for any tank build. Effective tanking hinges on mastering these core abilities:
- Taunt: To control enemy aggression.
- Chains: For grouping smaller threats.
- Stuns/Snares: To immobilize or slow enemies.
- Self Heal: For personal sustain.
- Buff Focused Ultimates: To empower the entire team.
Taunt
Aggro management is central to tanking in ESO. For melee engagements, Puncture is an excellent choice, as it not only taunts but also debuffs. For targets at a distance, ranged options like Frost Clench or Inner Fire are indispensable for extending your reach and securing threat from afar.
Chains
Chaining abilities, such as Silver Leash, are vital for battlefield control. They enable tanks to pull isolated smaller enemies into a tight group with the primary target, consolidating threats and making them easier for damage dealers to eliminate efficiently with area-of-effect abilities.
Stuns and Snares
Crowd control is another critical tanking tool. Skills like Dark Talons, Caltrops, or Gripping Shards significantly slow or completely immobilize foes. This allows tanks to maintain order during combat, preventing enemies from reaching vulnerable teammates and controlling the flow of battle.
Self Heal
While healers are crucial, tanks must possess personal sustain. A dedicated self-healing skill like Resolving Vigor, Green Dragon Blood, or Hungry Scythe is a lifeline. It provides crucial resilience when direct healing isn’t immediately available, ensuring your survival in challenging moments and reducing pressure on your support.
Tank Ultimates
When choosing an Ultimate ability, tanks should prioritize those that provide group-wide benefits. Ultimates like Aggressive Horn boost the entire team’s damage output, offering valuable buffs that significantly enhance collective performance and contribute to faster, more efficient encounters.
Tank Taunt Skills
Securing enemy attention is fundamental for a tank. Here are the primary skills used for taunting targets:
- Pierce Armor: A melee Sword and Shield ability that not only taunts but also applies crucial debuffs.
- Frost Clench: A ranged Ice Staff skill, this taunts and inflicts the Chilled status effect.
- Inner Fire (and its morphs): Found in the Undaunted skill line, these are versatile ranged taunts.
Soft Taunt
Introduced in Update 37, “soft taunts” are situational abilities that also apply a taunt if the enemy is not currently targeted by another player. These enhance battlefield control:
- Silver Leash: A Fighter’s Guild skill that pulls enemies closer while also taunting.
- Fiery Grip (and morphs): A Dragonknight ability used to pull enemies into position.
- Beckoning Armor: A Necromancer skill that automatically pulls in distant enemies.
- Runic Jolt (and morphs): An Arcanist skill providing a potent ranged taunt.
Positioning
Beyond drawing aggro, effective enemy placement is a hallmark of a skilled tank. Always orient enemies to face away from your teammates, especially those with dangerous frontal cone or cleave attacks that could wipe out DPS or healers. Once properly positioned, minimize movement unless specific mechanics demand it. Excessive repositioning disrupts damage dealers’ area-of-effect skills and complicates healers’ support, hindering overall group efficiency. Strategic positioning is key to smooth encounters.
Dedicated Tanking
Unlike some other MMOs, ESO tanking emphasizes debuffing foes and buffing allies, rather than dealing damage. A dedicated tank, with specialized gear, skills, and Champion Points, significantly amplifies group damage far more effectively than a “flex” tank attempting to hybridize roles. While a flex tank’s personal damage will always pale in comparison to a pure damage dealer, a dedicated tank’s support empowers the entire team to achieve maximum offensive potential through strategic debuffs and buffs.
Trash Packs
Group content in ESO often features “trash packs” – numerous enemies that, while individually weak, can overwhelm non-tanks. Effective management is key:
- Initiate engagement with an AoE attack, unless a specific, dangerous enemy requires an immediate direct taunt.
- Utilize skills to slow, stun, immobilize, or snare multiple enemies.
- Chain any remaining scattered foes into the central group.
- Apply additional buffs to your team and debuffs to the consolidated enemies.
Remember, you don’t need to taunt every single enemy; the goal is to gather them for quick, centralized elimination.
Enemy Types
Understanding enemy behaviors is crucial for successful tanking, gained through experience or guides. A quick way to categorize foes is by whether they are melee or ranged. Melee enemies typically use close-range weapons or no weapons at all, like daggers or two-handers. Ranged enemies are identifiable by bows or staves. This distinction helps with stacking: ranged enemies often won’t move when only taunted from afar, making it ideal to snare them and then pull melee enemies on top of them for a tight, efficient stack.
Line of Sight
ESO’s combat environments are rich with interactive elements. Mastering “line of sight” (LoS) allows you to use these to your advantage. Enemies need a clear view to attack you. As a tank, you can intentionally provoke multiple foes, then position yourself behind environmental obstructions like crates or pillars. This forces enemies to physically reposition to maintain LoS, effectively pulling them together without relying solely on chains. This tactic is especially potent against immobile ranged attackers or large, unchainable creatures, optimizing enemy grouping for your team.
Set the Pace
Tanks naturally dictate the tempo of group encounters. While rushing ahead can frustrate, an overly slow pace is equally detrimental. It’s essential to maintain a reasonable speed between fights. Damage dealers often rely on timed buffs that expire during long breaks, making extensive pre-buffing by tanks unnecessary in most situations. Your role is to efficiently initiate pulls, ensuring a smooth, continuous flow of combat. This balance allows your group to maximize their efficiency and maintain consistent performance throughout the dungeon or trial.
Tracking Taunts
Managing multiple taunts on different enemies can be challenging. Here’s how to monitor your taunts, with and without add-ons.
Without Add-Ons
Without third-party tools, your taunt skill’s in-game timer is your best indicator. This timer reflects only your most recent taunt. To manage multiple targets, you’ll need to estimate. If you taunt three enemies sequentially, knowing each taunt lasts 15 seconds, you can refresh all three when the timer for your third (and thus most recent) taunt approaches its final 5 seconds. This deductive method requires careful timing.
With Add-Ons
Add-ons like Untaunted (by Solinur) significantly simplify taunt tracking. They display individual countdown bars for every enemy you’ve taunted. While this provides clear visual feedback, it can clutter your screen. Adjusting the add-on’s size and color settings is recommended to optimize its visibility and minimize interference with your combat interface.
Over Taunting
Over-taunting occurs when an enemy is taunted five times within a 15-second window by multiple players, making it immune to further taunts for 15 seconds and causing it to target non-tanks. This scenario is quite rare due to its specific triggers. It typically requires two or more players with taunts repeatedly hitting the same target. Since individual taunts last 15 seconds, frequent re-taunting by the same player is unnecessary and inefficient. Over-taunting usually only becomes a concern during specific multi-tank boss mechanics, where communication for tank swaps is crucial.
Common Buffs
Tanks are expected to provide key buffs to enhance group performance. Common contributions include Minor Courage, Major Force, and increases to Weapon and Spell Damage. These buffs are primarily sourced from specific gear sets or abilities. For example, Claw of Yolnahkriin grants Minor Courage, while the Aggressive Horn Ultimate provides Major Force. Sets like Pearlescent Ward or Powerful Assault can further amplify Weapon and Spell Damage. Experiment with various combinations to discover the most effective setup for your tank and group composition.
Common Debuffs
A tank’s toolkit includes applying crucial debuffs to enemies. Key debuffs often provided are Minor and Major Breach, Major Vulnerability, armor reduction, and Minor Brittle. These are typically applied through specific skills or gear. Puncture, a Sword and Shield ability, inflicts Major Breach. The gear set Turning Tide is excellent for applying Major Vulnerability. Tremorscale is a monster set commonly used for armor reduction. Lastly, an Ice Staff with Elemental Wall can consistently apply Minor Brittle, significantly boosting critical damage from your allies.
Distinguishing Attacks
A fundamental skill for new tanks in ESO is learning to differentiate between attacks that should be blocked, dodged, or simply endured. This mastery comes primarily through hands-on experience with various boss mechanics. However, understanding general attack patterns can provide a valuable head start in making these critical in-combat decisions.
Block If It Is Just a Channeled Attack
When an enemy initiates a channeled attack, watch for clear visual cues such as a distinctive wind-up animation or unique graphical effects. These signals indicate a powerful incoming hit. In most cases, maintaining a block during such an attack is the appropriate defensive response to mitigate the damage effectively.
Dodge If Channeled Attack + Extra
If a channeled attack not only displays visual cues but also creates an area-of-effect hazard beneath your feet or forces other positional adjustments, then a dodge roll becomes the better option. A precisely timed dodge can avoid both the direct hit and any subsequent ground damage, ensuring your survival and maintaining mobility.
Prioritize Blocking
Always consider blocking as your default defensive action. It generally consumes less Stamina than roll-dodging and helps maintain the boss’s position, which is vital for melee damage dealers. Blocking also offers a slight buffer for imperfect timing, making it a safer and more resource-efficient choice in many combat situations.
Stamina Regeneration
A critical point often overlooked by new tanks is that Stamina regeneration ceases entirely while blocking, regardless of food buffs or potions. This makes judicious use of heavy attacks with a Sword and Shield essential. Heavy attacks are your primary means of restoring Stamina, a resource vital for blocking, roll-dodging, and many key tanking skills. Mastering when to safely release block and land a heavy attack is fundamental for sustained resource management throughout challenging encounters.
Conclusion
Tanking in The Elder Scrolls Online is a rewarding and dynamic role that extends beyond simply absorbing damage. It involves strategic positioning, resource management, enemy control, and the critical provision of buffs and debuffs for your team’s success. Whether you’re a novice or an experienced player refining your skills, continuous learning and adaptation are key to mastering this pivotal role. Embrace experimentation, engage with the supportive ESO community, and communicate effectively with your group. By doing so, you’ll become an invaluable guardian, leading your allies through Tamriel’s many perils. Happy tanking!
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