You might wonder what are the best tank sets in ESO? In this article I will talk about some of the best tank sets in the game, basically a must have for every player that plans to tank in the Elder Scrolls Online! These sets here are most commonly used in the endgame of ESO, please make sure to read all the information so you do understand in what situations you need these sets!
Please keep in mind, this isn’t a list from best to worst, more important is that you do understand in what situations you need these sets, every group is different. It is always recommeded to talk to your group/raid leader and ask what setups he wants you to run, communication matters.
5-Piece Sets for Tanks in ESO
Below you can find a list of good sets that you can use on your tank builds in ESO.
Ebon Armory
Ebon Armory drops in the Crypt of Hearts 1 & 2 dungeon. One of the must have sets for every tank, for both 4 man and 12 man groups! Increases the health of your whole group by 1000. That might not sound like a lot but it can really make a difference reducing overall deaths. The set is easy to spot because it has an unique animation giving you 3 red orbs that float around you.
Battalion Defender
Battalion Defender drops in Cyrodiil from Rewards of the Worthy Boxes. This is a very powerful 4 man group set. The heal of the set can also be easily increased, up to a maximum of about 7900 like shown in the video here. That means you can easily push out 4000 healing every 1 second by simply holding block.
Turning Tide
Turning Tide is a heavy armor set that drops in the Shipwright’s Regret dungeon. This set applies Major Vulnerability to the enemy, which is one of the most powerful debuffs and is hard to get. The set gets even more powerful if you combine it with Nazaray, increasing the duration of Major Vulnerability even further.
Torug’s Pact
Torug’s Pact is a crafted set and requires 3 researched traits to craft it. Torug’s is usually combined with an Infused trait on the weapon, to increase the power of your enchantment value even further. To make it worth on a tank you have to run a two handed weapon on the backbar (Destro Staff), because that way you will maintain the full value of the enchantment (One-handed weapons have their enchantment effect cut in half).
Plague Doctor
Plague Doctor drops in the Deshaan Zone. This set is often used to boost the health of a tank by a huge margin. Sometimes it can be easier for a tank to survive if you boost the amount of health above 50-60k, with the right setup you can also still easily sustain. The set is also fairly easy to get as you can buy it from the guild stores, especially if you pick non best in slot traits.
Powerful Assault
Powerful Assault drops in the Imperial City Sewers, it can be obtained via the special boxes at the Imperial City Vendor. This is another medium set that is often used by a Tank to buff the groups spell or weapon damage. The set effect can be applied to yourself and 5 other group members, each of them get 307 weapon or spell damage.
Roar of Alkosh
Roar of Alkosh drops in the Maw of Lorkhaj Trial. This is a medium armor set that is most commonly used on a tank to debuff the boss. Don’t forget that the set scales off your damage, so if you are doing low damage the extra penetration you get is fairly low.
Akaviri Dragonguard
Akaviri Dragonguard drops in the Eastmarch Zone. The set gives you a 15% cost reduction on your ultimate which is very powerful if you plan to reduce high cost ultimates such as Aggressive Horn. The set is also fairly easy to get as you can buy it via the guild store, especially if you buy non best in slot traits. The nice thing about this set is that you can front or back bar it, that way you can run a more optimized setup and still get your cost reduction on the expensive ultimate.
Claw of Yolnahkriin
Claw of Yolnahkriin comes in two different versions, Claw of Yolnahkriin and Perfected Claw of Yolnahkriin. The perfect version adds one extra health bonus, but the five piece unique bonus is the same on both sets. This set is another nice option that you can use, especially since it gives Minor Courage, giving your group 215 spell and weapon damage and it stacks together with the Major Courage.
Beekeeper’s Gear
Beekeeper’s Gear drops in the Greenshade Zone. This is a very niche set, mostly used to push for a build specialized in really high health recovery.
Alessian Order
Alessian Order can be purchased in Cyrodiil from the Vlastarus Elite Gear Vendor. This is also a very niche set, slightly stronger than Beekeeper if you have enough resistances to push for really high health recovery like in the Solo Werewolf build for example. That way, even if you forget to use healing abilities, the health recovery will carry you for a while.
Eternal Warrior
Eternal Warrior drops in the the base game trials Hel Ra Citadel, Aetherian Archive, Sanctum Ophidia. This set is like failsafe, when you drop below 25% health you gain a huge health boost and on top of that you also get 100 ultimate points. The set can potentially lead to a crazy ultimate regen amount if you manage to proc the set on cooldown.
Brands of the Imperium
Brands of Imperium drops in the White Gold Tower. The set gives you and your group a pretty big shield for a short duration. The only downside to this is that it has a long cooldown. The set is often used in 4 man dungeons to protect allies from incoming damage. You can also one bar the set if you want.
Foolkinner’s Ward
Foolkiller’s Ward drops in The Cauldron dungeon. The set is nice in 4 player groups because it gives a shield to all of them plus extra sustain.
Drake’s Rush
Drake’s Rush drops in the Black Drake Villa. When you bash an enemy up to 4 players gain Major Heroism, increasing their ultimate regeneration by a lot. This is a great set fur dungeon group play.
Lunar Bastion
Lunar Bastion drops in the Maw of Lorkhaj Trial. When you activate a synergy, a big circle will spawn on the ground and apply small shields to your allies every two seconds. This can be a nice health bolster for the group.
Leeching Plate
Leeching Plate drops in the Imperial City Prison. When the set procs it places a poison field on the ground, the poison field heals you for the amount of damage it causes. This can be powerful, if several enemies get hit at the same time.
The Worm’s Raiment
The Worm’s Raiment drops in the Vaults of Madness dungeon. This set is often used in magicka based groups in 4 or 12 man groups and can be used on a tank. 145 magicka recovery doesn’t sound like a lot, but it can really make a difference. if you have a full magicka group I can definitely recommend this set, obviously if your group members have no sustain issues, then this set becomes kinda irrelevant.
The set also has a fairly unique animation, you can recognize it by the blue orbs floating around your character.
Hircine’s Veneer
Hircine’s Veneer drops in the Selene’s Web dungeon. This set functions the same as Worm’s Raiment set. It provides a 145 stamina recovery boost to the whole party. it is mostly used in stamina based trial groups. If your group has stamina sustain issues, then this set can definitely help!
The set also has a fairly unique animation, you can recognize it by the green orbs floating around your character.
Morag Tong
Morag Tong drops from Cyrodiil at the Bruma Elite Gear Vendor. This set can also be used on a tank to support poison and disease damage abilities from damage dealers. It is fairly easy to keep up as it only requires a direct damage ability to get it to proc.
Saxhleel Champion
the Saxhleel Champion comes in two versions, the Perfected Saxhleel Champion and the Saxhleel Champion. The perfected set has one additional Max Stamina bonus, other than that both are the same. This set can be useful with high cost ultimates. The set applies Major Force for the whole group, this buff usually often comes from Aggressive Warhorn.
Crimson Oath’s Rive
The Crimson Oath’s Rive set drops in the Dread Cellar dungeon which is part of the Waking Flame DLC. The set applies a debuff on the enemies that reduces their resistances by a lot. The set also has a big radius and is easy to apply. The debuff is unique and therefore stacks with other resistance debuffs.
Ability Altering Weapons for Tanks in ESO
Puncturing Remedy
Puncturing Remedy and Perfected Puncturing Remedy drop in the Dragonstar Arena. Every time you activate the Puncture skill (or its morphs) you will gain a huge heal and it will add the same amount it healed to your resistances for 5 seconds.
Monster Sets for Tanks in ESO
Below you can find a list of good Monster Sets that you can use for your tank builds in ESO.
Archdruid Devyric
Archdruid Devyric head drops in the Earthen Root Enclave dungeon and the shoulder comes from the Glirion undaunted chest. Similar to the Turning Tide set this set adds the powerful Major Vulnerability debuff to the enemy. It deals shock damage to the enemy and applies the debuff in a cone shaped AoE after you heavy attack an enemy.
Tremorscale
Tremorscale head drops in the Volenfell dungeon and the shoulder comes from the Glirion undaunted chest. This set adds an unique debuff to the enemy, reducing their physical resistance by 2395. This can be very powerful in a stamina focused group.
Lord Warden
Lord Warden head drops in the Imperial City Prison dungeon and the shoulder comes from the Urgarlag undaunted chest. The extra resistance from this set is very powerful and it can reduce damage taken for the group by a lot.
Bloodspawn
Bloodspawn head drops in the Spindleclutch II and the shoulder comes from the Maj undaunted chest. This is a good set as it increases ultimate regen and also increases your overall resistances almost permanently as long as you keep getting hit. It drops in a base game dungeon and is therefore fairly easy to get, think of it as a good starter set.
Mighty Chudan
Mighty Chudan head drops in the Ruins of Mazzatun dungeon and the shoulder comes from the Urgarlag undaunted chest. Most of the time tanks already have access to the Major resistance buffs, sometimes this can be good though, because it will save you resources and time because you won’t have to constantly reapply the resistance buffs. Then Chudan is the right set to pick, plus it also gives you an extra health bonus and the extra resistances.
Swarm Mother
Swarm Mother head drops from the Spindleclutch I dungeon and the shoulder comes from the Maj undaunted chest. This is more of a niche set if you do not have access to any ability that chains enemies. With this set you can automatically let enemies get pulled to you.
Earthgore
Earthgore helmet drops in the Bloodroot Forge dungeon and the shoulder comes from the Urgarlag undaunted chest. When an ally drops below 50% health and you heal him, a pool of blood will drop and heal for 30000 over 6 seconds. This set can function as sort of a “failsafe” proc, you just have to make sure that you have some sort of healing on your tank (Blood Altar) and then the Earthgore proc will proc automatically, even if you do not currently see the player. The proc only affects one player though, keep that in mind.
Nazaray
Nazaray head piece drops from the Shipwright’s Regret dungeon and the should can be obtained via the Urgarlag undaunted chest. The set can be used to extend the duration of Major and Minor debuffs on enemies. Especially useful at the start of a boss fight leading to more burst damage at the start. The tank can activate the set after all debuffs are on the enemy. Especially useful for things like Major Vulnerability, instead of 12 seconds you will have 37 seconds of the debuff, which will make a huge difference in group damage.
Mythic Sets for Tanks in ESO
Below you can find good Mythic Sets that you can use on your tank builds in ESO.
Bloodlord’s Embrace
Bloodlord’s Embrace is a Mythic set that can be obtained by collecting five different leads: Fanged Cuirass, Goblet Gorget, Hecatomb Tassets, Sanguine Doublet and Thirsting Girdle. Once you have collected all the leads the set will be automatically created in the highest quality. The Mythic set places a blood curse on the enemy. You apply the curse by bashing the enemy. When you block an attack from a cursed enemy you restore a big amount of magicka. The set is often used on builds that have a lot of support abilities that cost magicka.
Death Dealer’s Fete
Death Dealer’s Fete is a Mythic set that can be obtained by collecting five different leads: Carved Signet Base, Sturdy Silver Prongs, Warm Asymmetrical Ruby, Weighted Spiked Bridge and Wide Barbed Shank. Once you have collected all the leads the set will be automatically created in the highest quality. The Mythic set can be used to increase all your stats (health, magicka and stamina). The Mythic set is only useful if you move from fight to fight fast, because the bonuses drop if you are out of combat for too long.
Torc of Tonal Constancy
Torc of Tonal Constanty is a Mythic set that can be obtained by collecting five different leads: Torc Strand of Lore, Torc Strand of Power, Torc Strand of Sing, Torc Throat Guards and Torc Tonal Focus. Once you have collected all the leads the set will be automatically created in the highest quality. The Mythic set applies a big boost to your magicka or stamina recovery depending on which resource is lower. If you have below 50% stamina, then you will gain magicka recovery and if you are below 50% magicka you will gain stamina recovery. This Mythic set requires a lot of micro management on the resources and can therefore be very tricky to use.
