Easy Tank - Dragonknight PVE Tank Build

WELCOME TO EASY MODE!

  Most popular “tank” builds require you to have lowish HPs (about 10k more than a DPS role) alongside very high stamina so you can block for ages while trying to do backflips with awkward combinations of sets to be “effective”. This is not strictly a “tank” in the sense that the word means. This is a “support” role, with the ability to taunt and take SOME damage. Although they usually require additional help to take big hits (usually guarded by a squishier player depending on the content).

This has many excuses behind it but, the fact is people chose to squish down their health because they force their healers to ALSO not be a full “role” they are claiming to fill, and are instead playing “support” and/or “hybrid” role.

If you have a fully focused and designed tank + healer, it is easy peasy. But if you have Support + Support…that is an entirely different playing field.

With this in mind, for the healer, they put on sets that do not support their “healing” ability, rather just make the DPS do more damage.

Which is, of course, fine if you want to play that way, (yes I said it is “fine”, these are facts not digs) BUT their HEALING lacks tremendously, because they simply are not built for it. So their capability of that said role is reduced significantly so they can add something else instead (again FINE if you chose to play that way, I’m merely explaining).

Instead of just adding an “extra heal cast” or two to fill the health bar of the target they are helping, they force the “tanks” to go squishy so that they can get them to full faster (due to weaker heals filling less health per cast)… Also so inside some mechanics where 100% health is required fast, they can manage it because they are simply not built to heal well enough to do that vs a proper “TANKY” character but they CAN vs something small and risky.

This doesn’t mean you cannot heal big targets, a fully spec’d “healer” can do that all day long EASY, but some people choose not to play that way. Which again is fine, however, that will create a domino effect where sacrificing one role’s effectiveness to satisfy another with “everyone go squishier because the support did” strategy DOES open up for more opportunity to fail since you take more damage than you COULD handle had your prepared for more survival as a group, and you can find it hard to recover when things go wrong. And in this game things always do.

HOWEVER… Let’s just say two things:

1) That type of tank (squishy) is a SUPPORT role not strictly a TANK (which is your choice, of course, 100% OK if you like that kinda thing).

2) It’s not necessarily for EVERYONE…Some people like to be traditional TANKS. Big chunky aggro holding buffers with huge shields for their group! Rather than 100% relying on someone else to protect them, while they are the “protector” role? … This build is designed for THOSE “traditional” straight-up hard ass gorilla tanks 😉
If that is what you are looking for, keep reading.

Support doesn’t mean “just make people do more deeps” it could be “help the group stay alive”. In construction work, supports are used to keep the buildings up, right? Just saying…

I have played MMORPGs to an extreme level on countless games for over 20 years, believe me, I know what a “tank” is, vs someone holding aggro and playing a “support” role, they are two very different things.

Either is FINE depending on your playstyle, but understand the definitive difference between the two. Just because they both have a taunt, doesn’t mean they are the same when you say the word “tank”. Remember a taunt can be used by ANYONE in this game, it is not tied to a class. Just like any player can slap on a heal.

This game is designed and built on the foundation of CHOICE.

Almost ALL “tanking skills” are based on your maximum health, so it makes sense to stack it and be chunky to be a pure TANK if that is the goal you are trying to achieve.

This build is designed to be a simple and effective TANK…The “protector! The one that gets hit on PURPOSE and can stand up to it! Nothing more, nothing less.
You are beefy as hell, have PLENTY of resources, and high mag recovery to spam those group protecting skills for your group!

Our protective skills for the group AND our own abilities that benefit us in terms of damage shields and heals etc, SCALE (yes this is 100% accurate) off of our MAXIMUM HEALTH!

This means the more health, the more EFFECTIVE those skills are for us and/or our group.

If you are a DPS, you scale for high max resources that benefit your skills, to do more damage right? Well by that simple logic we also do the same, we take advantage of the high resource pool that benefits our skills for the purpose of our role. All of our skills that are not CC or taunt-based are boosted ONLY by maximum health.

So with that in mind, the only resource pool that needs to be boosted is our health. However the game is about balance too, so we must make sure we have a good amount of resources for other things.

Stamina is needed NOT for the strength of our skills but for the usage of them (costing stamina) and of course blocking! Blocking is also using stamina (with sword n board) so long as we can maintain it.
A good-sized stamina pool means we can block more often if necessary. Remember high recovery for blocking is ONLY useful if we are NOT blocking right now, and since we block a lot. It is pretty useless most of the time. However, we can recover EASILY between mechanics with a simple heavy attack. So resource usage and recovery are pretty chilled if you pay attention to the basics.

The magicka pool however is different. It is a common misconception that tanks (specifically Dragonknights) by default need a “big pool” you most definitely do not. If you have a large pool, you spam and run out, then you have nothing left…now what?

The magicka pool itself does NOT benefit the strength of the skills we utilize. Our heals and shields do NOT, I repeat do NOT, get stronger with high magicka. BUT, we do want to use them a LOT, and the heals + shields scale off of health. So how do we approach this in a problem-solving manner?

Simple. We have as much health as we can get to be able to push the effectiveness of the skills higher, and instead of having a large mag pool (which is not useful) we stack magicka RECOVERY!

 This now means that we have the high health for the strength and the high recovery for the faster-repeated use! This is a win-win all around.

Important: NO I am NOT, using “balance” from the mages guild. For a very simple reason (yes this makes sense)…
We stack high health to increase our health-based skills (heals and damage shields)…
IF we use balance, to gain back magicka per cast… the problem is not ONLY are we casting a skill to be able to cast a skill, which wastes extra time in emergencies…

But you are forcing your heals and damage shields to be 50% LESS effective for 4 seconds every time you cast the skill! That’s completely counterintuitive to the skills in the first place!

So, you spend all that time and energy making your health high to push the skills, then you NUKE their effectiveness by HALF just because you have to spam another slot wasting skill due to your inability to sustain /FACEPALM!

It’s a waste. High magic recovery alters all this mess you really don’t need to overcomplicate things with. By default, you will be able to recast the skills when you want and not have to flap about using skills that make your build less useful.

As a dps, would you spam a skill that HALVES your damage output for 4 seconds per cast? I didn’t think so…

The Dragon knight skill lines (specifically Earthen Heart and Draconic Power) actually focus on healing received and MAX health. Green Dragon Blood heals based on the % of “missing health”, meaning the more hps you have missing, the bigger the heal and this scales not just to low HP tanks but BIG ONES too.

The more health you have, the lower you can go and save resources over time, for that one-time huge heal, rather than panic spam because you are too squish and need a heal every 2 seconds. Which in turn gives more recovery to be used for shield spamming for the group’s survival/protection.

ALSO, Igneous Shield (and Bone Shield) are based on % of your max health (30% to be exact for bone shield depending on bastion champion points if you chose to alter them).

With the above in mind, it only makes sense that tanks SHOULD have high HPS.

BUT! you do need to block. Some experienced capable tanks can read the fight and survive on low stamina by managing their own resources with heavy attacks, potions, and timing their ultimate…others not so much and need the extra pool of stamina to hold that shield up for longer…

That is NORMALLY a problem, however with this build…PROBLEM SOLVED! Huge HP pool, great stam pool combined, and plenty of balancing resource gain to keep in the fight. Igneous feeds stam pool, and ultimate gives free block if in trouble!

 The plague doctor set focuses on giving us massive health, and the Death Wind set gives us huge forgiveness and survival by allowing us a quick break from pressure should you for any reason get overwhelmed in a crowd.

Not to mention Chudan gives us PERMANENT major resolve meaning that buff is NEVER down we DON’T need the skill slotted (freeing up a slot) and we are capped out resistance 100% of the time with zero effort.

What’s great too is that it requires ZERO trial loot to get the gear. Apart from the monster set, everything can be acquired via the market and ONE of the sets can even be crafted with the LOWEST crafting requirement in the game! 2 trait set 😉

This has been stress tested in many situations both in dungeons and trials and performs VERY well. 5+ axes in AA, no problem… the warrior in Hel Ra…no problem…vHOF and vCR?? ALSO no problem! And as for dragons? Well, they need to hit you harder if they are going to take you down! The list goes on, but the more aware of mechanics you are, the easier this gets. You won’t hear “tank down” and constantly have to be ressed, YOU are the protector and YOU keep OTHERS from dying, not the other way around.

This is a tank for all levels ESPECIALLY beginners! I ANY group content!

Just remember if you DO run low on stamina, HEAVY ATTACK! it gives you resources back. Be sure to block the big heavy attack stuff coming in at you, and use the gaps in the bosses’ attacks to take advantage of it and hit back!

You have so much health you can take a decent amount of damage with your guard down if you need to. Just don’t get stunned 😉

Things to remember:

• Igneous Shield is for you AND your group, the bigger your HPS the bigger the shield, keep that shield coming and spam it as much as you comfortably can, to protect you AND the group!

• Understand your earthen heart passives, every time you press igneous shields you get 990 stamina back, EVEN while blocking!!

• Bone surge stacks with igneous shield, use them both, and take a lot less damage but watch your resources!

• Block ulti is your “oh sh*t” button, it is cheap and ridiculously powerful! But Magma Shell protects your group! Chose which one to use when, wisely

• Advanced tip, IF you see a window of opportunity…do a heavy attack…heavy attack gives you stamina back, you don’t have to run out of resources. And of course, because you have loads of health, you can get away with it so long as you time it right between the bosses’ big hits.

• keep Green Dragon Blood active as much as possible, it Isn’t just a heal, it’s a buff too…which makes the heals you receive larger!

• Igneous Shield first, heal second! Remember igneous shield comes with major mending…25% increased healing DONE! So, hit igneous first, you get a 3-second buff, use that window to heal inside of. Dragon Blood can heal you to full from almost nothing if you apply your skills correctly.

• Taunt stuff, Hold it still, and protect your group! You are NOT a DPS in Maelstrom Arena, stop running around in circles, you are MEANT to be getting hit by stuff, it’s your job! 😉