in VET MODE PUGs
In the Elder Scrolls Online, there’s apparently always a chronic shortage of tank characters. I’m a pretty casual player and have preferred to deal damage, or even heal. But given the dearth of tanks, I recently decided to try my hand at some content that might actually require tanking, to try to step up my game a bit, and also, to see if a non-perfect tank build can do the job – because the characters tanking the content I’ll describe here can switch back to damage dealing at the press of a button. (I’m currently leveling up a full-blown tank as well, one random dungeon a day; but I’m not recording her stuff as it really wouldn’t be experimental enough for my tastes 😉
Below here I’m going to give some background, present my build(s) and log some of my early experiences. Then I plan to chronicle my further experiences in the form of blog posts.
1. Background
Tanks are scarce in ESO because most people would rather play another role. I’m no different in that respect. One of my reasons may be a bit different, though.
“HEY, WHY IS OUR TANK RUNNING AWAY?”
The thing is, my sense of direction is embarassingly poor. I can walk a hundred paces down a straight street and completely forget which direction I came from. You can probably imagine why this isn’t very helpful when tanking in an MMO. Tanks are supposed to lead the charge, plowing first into the enemy ranks to absorb the damage and grab aggro from hard-hitting foes. Now, this is kinda hard when you can’t remember which end of the room you came in and which way you’re supposed to exit to find the next line of mobs.
If the hardiest, most shielded and armored teammate is always running away from the fight, it really doesn’t send a good signal to the rest of the team. So, before the experiences described here, my main grouping character for most of the time playing the game has been a DD – a Dark Elf named Lilith Dren.
2. My (Off-)tank build(s)
THE DARK ELF DRAGONKNIGHT OFF-TANK
This was Lilith per September 2018. As you can see, she could pull about 36k DPS self-buffed on a 3 mil target dummy (you may have to open the image in a new tab for it to work these days). That’s a pretty decent damage setup, even if it’s nowhere near the 50-60k DPS that the top players can pull off. However, I’ve spent ridiculous amounts of time doing easy content as Lilith while playing the game on and off for years. I’ve collected a three-digit number of skill points and levelled up her tanking skills as well as the damage dealing ones, and I’ve collected some tanking equipment like the Plague Doctor, Ebon Armory and Bloodspawn sets. And although Lilith’s Champion Points are spent as per the typical DD, her class is Dragonknight, the decidedly most popular class for tanking. (Yes, I know Wardens are popular tanks too, but let’s not quibble). So next, let’s look at her tanking setup. Again, you may have to open the image in a new tab to get the gear and stats.
As you can hopefully see, even the gear could use some more investments; everything is purple quality, nothing gold; and I’m saving up crystals to change some of the traits. Everything I can’t change quickly with the Dressing Room addon is still set to DD specs for now.
Still, this isn’t Lilith’s absolutely first experience at tanking. I’ll admit – she has queued as tank for normal dungeons. Most of them don’t need a real tank, so having one is honestly just slowing the dungeon down because a proper tank can’t do much damage; and also, with the tanking setup described above, I can try my best to properly tank when the random queue drops DLC dungeons (which often do need someone built to withstand real damage as well as turn it away from the rest of the team). This journal will, however, chronicle my first experience as a tank in veteran content.
But before I go describing some of my dungeon experiences, I have another admission to make: I also have a second Stamina-based DD character – a Werewolf Sorceror called Red.
THE GENUINE FAKE TANK
This character wanted the Blood Moon set, which is best in slot for damage in werewolf form. That set drops in March of Sacrifices, a DLC dungeon. So on days where that dungeon was a daily pledge, I’d queue for it on normal with several alt characters to get the pledge key as well as a chance at the set pieces. Now, even on normal mode, the first boss in the dungeon is a bit of a tank check, since boss Ursus’ heavy attack will one shot DDs and healers even through shield+block. Without blocking it deals 50k+ damage, so even main tanks will die if they don’t block unless they have insane amounts of health. I tried tanking it with Lilith and had no issues so long as I kept my eye on Ursus; I could even help interrupt the other bosses. But after that, Red or my healer alt would wait for 15-20 minutes in queue to get into the dungeon – yet (half the time) only to watch the tank die to the Ursus boss a couple times before quitting the dungeon, and leaving the rest of the team in waiting in queue again to get a new tank. Presumably these “tanks” were players with non-tank builds who had queued for random normals and weren’t prepared for this dungeon. Maybe even Red could tank better than that? So I rummaged through my storage and found I had enough spare Plague Doctor pieces for another full set. I wasn’t able to combine it with a second 5-piece tanking set, but I had some monster helms to choose from and I had an Endurance set including 2 shields and swords. Red had never worn a shield before, so I didn’t have any passives, but I had the Undaunted ranged taunt already, and invested a single skill point in the shield taunt.
It also turned out I’d levelled some interesting skills that fit tanking well: Bound Armaments, which I’d levelled for its passive boosts to stamina and light attacks, is a skill you can activate to increase the damage you can block by 36% for 3 seconds. And the Unstable Clannfear is an unkillable pet that you can activate to heal for 35% of your max health – which becomes a neat sum with 35k health (and a lot stronger than the Dragonknight’s Green Dragon Blood, which heals for 33% of your missing health).
So I took Red solo to the first boss of March of Sacrifices to test her. She definitely hurt more from Ursus’ heavy hit than Lilith; I lost maybe 2/3 of my health even through block if I didn’t activate Armaments for the big hit. With Armaments though, I could hold my own until I ran out of stamina spent on Armaments, blocking and then Vigour to heal back the damage Red took. Next I queued for a group as a tank. I’ll admit, we wiped twice at first because I was trying to help the group interrupt the channeled abilities from both the other bosses, like I could with Lilith. So I told the group to try to interrupt and concentrated on just tying down Ursus, and they did well (kudos also to the healer who helped getting me back up after the heavy hits; still, once I had a group so I could avoid the annoying magicka-negating effect of the archer boss, I could use the Clannfear to heal me back up as well, at least until my relatively small magicka pool ran dry).
Sustaining remained the biggest issue because Sorcerors don’t regain resources when activating ultimates, yet this experience left me (over?)confident enough that I thought I might try Red’s tanking setup even in the simplest vet dungeons, which is what I’ll try to chronicle in following posts. But first, a word about using the Dungeon Finder.
“WHY TF U PUG DIS?”
Usually, communication and group cohesion is easier if you’re playing with friends or guild mates than picking up a random group (PUG). For me, I find the greatest difference is being able to use voice chat – it’s just worlds apart from having to use the keyboard to type in chat, which of course means you stop controlling your character in the meantime. But much as I prefer to run group content with guild mates when I can use voice chat, I often can’t use a mic when I have time to play because my family is in the next room – in particular, a sleeping kid that I don’t want to wake. And if I can’t use voice chat, even a guild run can become fraught with the communication difficulties that PUGs often face – if teammates have different ideas about how things should be done and you can’t talk about it without leaving your character standing frozen, frustration can mount just as quickly in a guild run as any PUG, with the added risk of that frustration lasting after the dungeon is over and spilling over into guild communications. And then there is the fact that tanks are the least played role, and can usually get a random group almost instantly, whereas friends and guild mates often aren’t available, at least not numerous enough to form a full team, which means you’ll be stuck with a partial PUG anyway. So when it works, the dungeon finder is an attractive tool to use for a player like me. And to reduce the risk of frustration, I always advise on following the 10 rules of PUG netiquette I suggested elsewhere on this site.
SPINDLEBOTCH I AND THE SCROLL OF INGLORIOUS SCATTERBRAINS
I thought I’d start my tanking off easy and Spindle 1 a pledge of the day. On Normal this is the first group dungeon faced by low level characters in the Daggerfall Covenant. I’ve soloed this with level 5 characters. So hHow much harder can it be on vet?
First I queued with Lilith, got a high CP group and felt entirely superfluous. They were blazing through the simple dungeon anyway and despite being a Stamina specced character, I was only partly able to keep ahead of them so I could turn the heavy hitters away from the group. It soon felt most of all like I was racing the other players. With the stupid result that when we got to the last boss, I was so in rushing-the-big-mobs mode that I forgot to activate the Hard Mode Scroll. (As did everyone else.) I realized my mistake, informed the group and we took a wipe just to re-set and activate the scroll for the extra Undaunted key. No problem. I taunted the boss, turned her 180 degrees away from the group, never dodge rolled a thing, but still, Lilith barely took any damage from the final boss’s attacks, even on Hard Mode. In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to what kind of Heals per second the max CP healer was serving me.Feeling silly but confident I queued with Red next and got a low CP group. I think they were all CP50-300, maybe one exception. Although it took a little bit longer to kill everything, again we pretty rushed through the dungeon and this time I remembered to read the Scroll of Glorious Battle.
Oops. Shouldn’t have done that this time.
I taunted the boss, turned her 180 degrees away from the group right into the staircase thing where I’d held her with Lilith. And watched the group starting to die, one by one. Sometimes they weren’t getting out of the red AoE. Mostly they just seemed to die off randomly – only later did I realize it was the Arachnophobia attack, which turns the screen white and which you kind of have to dodge roll from as a dps or healer. I try to resurrect the healer but the rez gets interrupted by incoming damage. What’s worse, it soon becomes apparent that unlike Lilith, my fake-ish tank Red doesn’t have enough mitigation to keep her alive for very long throughout the
white screen damage either, even with 35k health and Daedric Mail + block. After all, the only Sword and Board skill Red has is the taunt. Result: Wipe.
OK. No point in Hard Mode then. We respawn, leave the Scroll, engage again. I try to drag her further away from the group to give everybody room to get out of red.
Alas, same problem again.
Even though we’re not on Hard Mode anymore, the healer and DPS drop like flies. Maybe Red’s lack of Ebon Armor is being felt? As I’m trying to dodge roll to avoid taking damage I can’t mitigate enough of (and the dead healer can’t heal), I realize I’ve positioned myself badly as my dodge roll bumps into the staircase and I get trapped inside the red AoE and die again. This time one of the DPS survives me and soldiers on for a while longer before falling. Not sure if he got the white screen attack or one of those heavy attacks the tank is supposed to block, but it’s another wipe. And this time, I’m being the moron causing it.
Feeling more than a little embarrassed, I apologize, quit the group, and vow to only take Red to vet dungeons in her real role as damage dealer. My bank’s kinda full though, so let’s not remove her tanking gear yet.
Little do I know how glad I’ll soon be that I still have that stuff.
BLESSED CRUCIBLE : MY DAMAGE DEALER GOES TANKY AGAIN
Next day I can play, Blessed Crucible is a daily pledge – a dungeon Red hasn’t done yet. This time I’m queuing her as a DD though. Perhaps there may be time for a tank run with Lilith afterwards, but I want that skill point for my Werewolf Redguard first. A random player in zone approaches me to suggest we queue together so we can get a group faster. I accept and we get in pretty fast.
My random zone chat acquaintance seems to be in his CP 200s, yet suggests we kick the healer for being CP110, but I object that he deserves a chance and I don’t remember the dungeon being too hard for a low level character. The tank is high CP.
Red goes into werewolf form right from the start and presently embarks on a killing spree through the dungeon to try to stay in that form for as long as she can. She also does some 60-70% of the group’s damage and we blaze through everything until the last boss. Where the tank reads the scroll of Glorious Battle. Then the dying starts. And it’s not just the lowbies either.
Honestly, I’d forgotten how fast the lava eruptions on the last boss move in Hard Mode, and how much damage it does. And while a werewolf can do crazy damage when it can safely stay glued to an enemy’s backside, it has very little time to react to bad stuff spreading from said enemy. When that bad stuff is a one shot kill, well, a dead DPS does damage at all. So after the first wipe, I decide to stay in human form, where I can at least do some meager damage from range with my bow. I tell people to evade the lava and the healer to heal from range so there’s more time to react. Of course, I then fail to follow my own advice and Red dies, quickly followed by another wipe. At least the team is communicating… Third attempt and the other DD requests we give up on hard mode. That seems to give us lots more time to avoid the lava, but the healer, who at least does what I said, dies anyway having no idea what hit him (presumably the red ranged AoEs that are placed on the ground from time to time?) and we manage to wipe again.
By this time the tank has had enough (he probably wants 2 keys from hard mode anyway) and leaves the group. Despite this, the rest of the team shows some spirit. We all agree that we just need some more practice. Unfortunately we are now short a tank, yet I’m impatient for another try. So I offer to tank until we can get a new one and the group accepts. I slap on Red her tanking setup (that failed so miserably in Spindle I) but keep the Werewolf ultimate and proceed to taunt the boss. And I don’t know if it’s because we’re not on Hard Mode or that this final boss just doesn’t deal as much damage as the one in Spindle I, but I’m able to hold my own, with potions and some assistance from the healer – who now seems to have learnt something and is staying alive more. Slowly, we start to whittle the boss down with our one DPS, who is commendably able to kill off the intermittent adds (who need to die so we can break the boss’s shield ; though risky, I decided to draw the boss to them so it’s at least obvious where they are and they can be AoEd down).
And then suddenly, I look up and there’s a real tank in the fight. The replacement tank we queued for. I can only imagine his surprise getting into a dungeon and finding another sword and board player already taunting the boss. In the confusion, we overtaunt, and the boss goes on a rampage for 15 seconds. Somehow we get through that too and get the boss back under control.
Unfortunately, I’m still stuck in tank setup, doing maybe 3k damage. This is of course where I engage my Werewolf ultimate. I’m still in tank gear so my damage output is rather unconvincing, but it’s a lot better than it was a moment ago, when my skill bars were all about damage mitigation, healing and the like. At the same time, I’m now on tank health, which means I’m not getting one-shot anymore. With some blocking and healing, I can survive in the lava for at least a bit, and I can quickly position myself where I can keep melee attacking. So it takes a while, but finally we nail the bastard. Although we end up with only one key, I don’t think I ever before felt so happy just to see the final boss of Blessed Crucible go down and finally pick up the skill point for Red.
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