~~ GUARDIAN ANGEL ~~
Tanking build by Woeler



So let's talk about tanking first. There is a major difference between tanking a dungeon and tanking a trial. Dungeon bosses are forgiving, permit mistakes and give you time to recover. Trial bosses do not. Once you die either a lot of other people are going to die or you can start over with the boss fight.

Your goal is to survive and to support. You are there to make everyone else's life easier and to take all the major hits.


"As a tank I do X DPS"

People who say this I just want to strangle to death with their own mouse cable. You're not a tank, you're just a damage dealer with a taunt on your bar. You're not worried about the damage numbers others pull, you're just worried about your own. Wrong attitude. Especially in raids.
Let's say a supporting tank can give the average trial member an increase of 3k dps. That is 10x3k = 30k dps. You won't pull 30k dps in a trial with your "DD with a taunt" build.
Yes, of course the average Deltia player will think you're cool with your 13k dps while "tanking", but your group is not gaining shit.
So, now we know what a tank is. Great. Let's move on.

Play style

Tanking is a game of action-reaction. There is no rotations or any of that nonsense involved.

First of all, keep your two major buffs up: Hardened Armour and Coagulating Blood. Also make sure you have your taunt up, always. It is better to taunt twice or trice than to lose agro on a boss.

Secondly: move your ass. Movement is key to great tanking. Your positioning of the boss will determine the damage that the other group members can pull. Do not pull a boss out of standards, novas or veils. Make sure you do all the movement needed while the DD's can stand in one position.

Third: situational awareness. You are not busy with damage rotations, use that time to keep your eyes open. Analyse the situation, check the positions of other players and react accordingly.

An example: You are bombing a group of mobs in Sanctum Ophidia. You see that one troll is getting significantly less damage than the others and that this troll will not die before it will throw poison on one of your group members. You should notice this, move your ass over there, taunt that troll and get away as fast as possible. You get poison, but you saved the raid a wipe. THAT is the insight required to be a good tank. Be that guardian angel, better safe than sorry.


Attributes

[color=#0000FF]Magicka[/color]: 0
[color=#FF0000]Health[/color]: 0
[color=#00BF00]Stamina[/color]: 64 (all)
Goals: You want to get to 25k health
Food: [color=#8000BF]Purple[/color] V15 tri-stat food
Preferred race: Imperial (Yes, I run Khajiit, because I hate humanoids)


Gear

So, first of all you will be wearing 6 heavy and 1 medium. Why no light? Because it is a waste of armour. You want to have your belt in medium, because again that will make you lose less armour.

5x Hist Bark

Gives you armour, spell resistance and health recovery. Apart from the health recovery these bonuses are ideal. But the real reason we want this set is the 5-piece bonus, gain major evasion while blocking. What this basically means is that while blocking you have a 20% chance to dodge a hit. Meaning that 1 in 5 hits will not affect you in any way. This is a major gain as this will neither drain your health nor your stamina.

I can already hear you scream "But you can just use the medium armour skill!", yes you can. You can waste an entire skill slot and stamina every 20 seconds. I prefer the one where I simply gain the buff without doing anything specific.

2x Malubeth

Now this set is underrated. It will give you health as a 1 piece bonus, but the 2 piece bonus is really nice. A chance to summon a health stealing beam between you and the boss. Lovely, but what is more important is that while active this beam will increase your healing received by 30%, with another 10% from your dk passives and another 8% from coagulation blood and you see where this is going.

5x Footman

Another very nice set, but unfortunately v14. Again with spell resistance and armour, but also increasing your block mitigation by 12%. Really nice.

OR

4x Pariah & Master Sword

Now for the lucky ones who manage to get one armour piece in reinforced and the three jewelry pieces with stamina and or health this is the better option. Pariah has exactly the same bonuses on 2,3 and 4 piece as footman has, but it is v16. Now with that combination you could use the Master's Sword, the only sword useful for tanks because it heals you when you taunt.


Traits
Reinforced on all armour is preferred.

Enchants
Make sure you get to 25k health (with foodbuff) dump the rest in stamina.
On your jewellery you want 3x block cost reduction enchants.


Skills

Now, I never run with fixed bars. Never. I switch skills in some raids 3 or 4 times just to suit particular situations. I will just describe the tanking skills and the supporting skills here and you may pick whatever you find desirable in a particular fight.

Tanking skills

Inner rage: The magicka taunt from the undaunted tree. The other taunt is stamina and you need a little variety in your resources. This taunt is also ranged.
Pierce Armour: Your cheap melee taunt. Will also cause Major Breech on the boss, a nice debuff. This is your main taunt.
Defensive stance: Now this skill is only slotted for the passive. Reduces cost of block by 8 percent. Need I say more?
Hardened Armour: The DK's armour buff. Simply keep this up all the time and you will reach that armour cap.
Coagulating Blood: This is the other morph of Green Dragon Blood. Ever since the change that you do not regen stamina while blocking GDB has been useless. This morph gives you 8% extra healing received, plus an extra armour buff for 2 seconds. For tanks this morph is way, way better than GDB.
Heroic Slash: Gain one additional ultimate while this effect is running. You will gain ulti faster, which is nice as the DK has no ulti-cost reduction passives.
Magma Shell: Now this depends on your group. If your healer is a bit clumsy or if the group is a bit on the low side in general this ultimate can save your life. Basically 10 seconds god mode. I never use it, but I can see it come on handy for beginners.

Support skills

Extended chains: pull mobs towards the group, or in funny situations pull yourself towards a mob or boss. You will find out where this is useful.
Propelling Shield: Now this pvp skill is really nice to have in certain trash pulls. It extends the range of extended chains by 8 meters, making it much much easier for DK's to pull mobs towards the group.
Resolving Vigor: A heal on stamina that also heals allies. Nice to have, especially in AoE heavy fights.
Mystic Orb: the famous mana bubbles. Gives the one who uses the synergy magicka back. Nice in AoE heavy fights or if you have Kar Zuko in your group.
Anti-cavalry Caltrops: a huge AoE skill that lasts long and will give you the initial agro in large mob groups. It is expensive though! So be careful!
Ring of Preservation: A great AoE armour buff for the group. Use this in stacked fights with heavy damage. It is expensive, so be careful!
Dragon Fire Scales: A powerful reflect that can be useful in some fights, for example Varlariel in AA.
Retreating Manoeuvre: Speed buff, you have the stamina to cast this. Use it often. You can also use this to un-snare yourself.
Aggressive Horn: this is the ultimate of all ultimates. Gives your group 10% extra resource pools and 30% more crit damage for the first 10 seconds. this ultimate does indirectly more damage than any skill in the entire game. Use it wisely. A good tank ALWAYS has this ultimate slotted simply because it does not depend on your spell or weapon damage, but on that of the damage dealers, making the dps increase gained by all massive.


That's about it. Questions can be left here.