Alanarre's Invincible DK ShielDTank

Changelog

21 May 2017 - Updated gear, skills, and champion points for Morrowind

21 Feb 2017 - Updated skills and champion points for Homestead

5 Dec 2016 - Updated throughout to maximize group shields per second

Shield Tanking in Morrowind

Somehow, ZOS decided the Morrowind would be a great time to buff the strongest tanking build in the game and significantly nerf all of the others. There has never been a better time to be a shield tank.

• Helping Hands now restores significantly more stamina whenever you use Igneous Shield.
• Blocking is now 2x as expensive, so letting attacks hit your shield instead is more attractive.
• Minor Toughness from Warden heals / Warrior-Poet set increases max health by 10% for even bigger shields.
• Essentially all sustain mechanics now return flat values instead of percentage-based, so this build gets more resources than before.
• Champion points are now front-loaded, allowing for more mitigation before damage hits the shields.
• Healing potency was significantly nerfed (Blessed, Major Mending) but shielding stayed the same.
• Armor from item sets was significantly buffed, making it easier ever to hit armor cap with insanely high health.
• Resource sustain for DPS / Healers were significantly reduced, making group shields more attractive for survivability.
• ZOS has finally acknowledged the Igneous Shield bug (Igneous Shield removes shields cast by others ), if they fix it, this build will be even stronger.

Overview

Ok, this build isn't actually invincible (no cheat engine required), but it makes you feel invincible, and it can survive most one-shot mechanics with ease. The core idea here is to get 70-75k Max Health and then use shield abilities that scale off of your health. In particular, Igneous Shields can shield you for 30k per cast and shield the group for 13k, giving insane individual and group survivability. This is a build for No Death runs and extremely hard content, with modified versions that trade survivability for more group damage.

Strategy

Any build has a ton of trade-offs. To guide our decision in this build we'll focus on maximizing group damage shielded per second, by increasing Max Health for larger Igneous Shields, and Magicka Recovery / Magicka Cost Reduction for more shields per second.

Race

Best choice for Maximum Health is Imperial with +12% Max Health, honorable mentions for Nord (9% Max Health, 6% Damage Reduction), and Argonian (9% Max Health, 5% Healing Taken). Imperial gives the largest group shields, Nord gives more individual survivability, since the 6% damage reduction applies to your own shields, and Argonian makes life a little easier for your healers when you do take damage.

Attributes

Everything in Health

Mundus

The Atronach (more magicka recovery)

The Lord (more max health)

I generally run the Atronach, but if you have great group resources sustain and just don't need that extra recovery, you can run the Lord for larger shields.

Vampire / Werewolf

I like to run this as a vampire for extra magicka recovery, damage regeneration, and invigorating drain.

Gear

Maximum Group Shields

5x Plague Doctor (weapon / shield / armor / jewelry)

5x Ebon Armory (weapon /shield / armor / jewelry)

1x Max Health Undaunted Monster Set (shoulder)

1x Max Health Undaunted Monster Set (head)

Weapons should be Infused, Armor pieces should be Divines (more recovery with Atronach). If you can't get Divines, Infused is second best. If you're running the Lord, Infused is best in for large pieces (Head, Chest, Legs, Shield) and Divines for small pieces.

Max Health enchants on the armor, Magicka Recovery on the jewelry, Crusher enchant on the front weapon, Weakening enchant on the back weapon.

I use Ebon now instead of Green Pact because the 5-piece bonus for Green Pact boosts personal shields but does NOT boost group shields. The extra group health from Ebon is also nice.

If you do not have a Warden Healer in the group, you can consider Warrior-Poet instead of Ebon, but ideally you'll get the Minor Toughness buff from a Warden rather than giving up a 5-piece set.

I light light/medium for the head/shoulders to get the undaunted bonuses, but heavy works great too.

Moderate Group Shields, Moderate Group DPS

5x Ebon Armory (armor)

5x Alkosh (jewelry / weapons / shields)

2x Mighty Chudan (head / shoulder)

This variant is very popular for veteran trials as it provides higher group dps support while still providing a significant amount of survivability. You should expect to have 45-55k Max Health in this version and should focus on getting synergies to proc Alkosh as well as keeping shields up and building ultimate. Since the health for this version is lower and the shields are smaller, I like Mighty Chudan for the extra armor when the shields go down. If you really want to cast your own major armor buff on rotation (Balance or Hardened Armor), you can use 1x Mighty Chudan and 1x Pirate Skeleton instead.

Maximum Group DPS

5x Torug's Pact (armor)

5x Alkosh (jewelry / weapons / shields)

2x Mighty Chudan (head / shoulder)

If dying is not an issue, you can increase DPS even further by swapping out Ebon for Torug's Pact, giving that Infused Crushing enchant an extra ~500 penetration and allowing you to keep 100% uptime instead of 80%. Recommended only for content that your team is already clearing easily.

In this version, make sure you still have 5x heavy between the Torug's and Mighty Chudan pieces. Ideal would be a light sash, medium bracers, and heavy on everything else.

Champion Points (best guess before live patch, extremely subject to change)

Red Tree

Bastion - 72

Quick Recovery - 4

Heavy Armor Focus - 2

Elemental Defender - 15

Hardy - 15

Thick Skinned - 51

Ironclad - 51

Quick Recovery - 10

This distribution is a starting point, you can certainly shift champion points around to give better mitigation for the specific fight (more Elemental Defender for Maw of Lorkhaj, more Hardy for Sanctum Ophidia. Bastion will increase shield strength for yourself and everyone else against all types of damage, so that's priority. Thick Skinned and Ironclad now give more mitigation per point that Elemental Defender and Hardy, which is why I have them higher by default.

Green Tree

Tenacity - 75

Arcanist - 75

Shadow Ward - 28

Tumbling - 2

Warlord - 28

Bashing Focus - 2

Blue Tree

Blessed - 75

Elfborn - 13

(for Vengeance and Foresight perks and bigger self-heals)

Mighty - 75

Precise Strikes - 44

Piercing - 3

(for Last Stand perk)

Food / Potions

Orzorga's Red Frothgar for Max Health and Magicka Recovery, dropped Magicka and Stamina potions for most content, tri-pots for challenging content.

Stats

With everything optimized, you should have 70-75k Max Health, 10k Max Magicka, 10k Max Stamina, and 2k+ Magicka Recovery

Abilities

Main Bar

Pierce Armor - primary taunt, provides Major Fracture and Major Breach

Heroic Slash - generate ultimate, provides Minor Maim

Stalwart Guard - give a dps Minor Force and take 30% of their damage on your shields

Igneous Shield - main spam ability, shield yourself for 30k, shield the group for 13k

Structured Entropy - +8% Max Health

Magma Armor - shields the group for 125% of their Max Health.

Off-Bar

Inner Rage - range taunt / magicka taunt

Unrelenting Grip (keep enemies close) or Invigorating Drain (heal for 20% of missing health three times).

Stalwart Guard - give a dps Minor Force and take 30% of their damage on your shields

Spiked Bone Shield - shields you for 30k, returns damage to melee enemies, synergy shields group for 75% of Max Health

Structured Entropy - +8% Max Health

Aggressive Warhorn - boost group DPS, +10% Max Health

Strategy

This build is strange and awesome. You function as a healer without ever healing and you function as a tank but rarely block. Spam Igneous Shields every 3-6 seconds, keep taunts, light attack and use Heroic Slash for ult gen, use heavy attack as filler to refill stamina, use dropped magicka potions to refill magicka. Only block knockdown and CC effects, avoid blocking normal effects since it doesn't reduce damage to shields. Stay close to allies and have them stay close to you, Igneous only has a 15m range. When you are low on magicka and need a shield, swap bars and use Bone Shield. When you are low on stamina and need a taunt, swap bars and use Inner Rage.

Results

With this build, you can easily heal/tank veteran dungeons with pug dps and get no-death runs. I've run this through all of the hardest veteran dungeons and veteran DSA with great results, though for the DLC last bosses on hard mode and vDSA you really do need a healer as well. With this build you can stand in the red almost everywhere with no ill effects. Typical one-shot attacks like Selene's bear barely hurt you if you have a shield up.

Most fights in veteran trials are easy with this build. I have not yet tanked HRC Hard Mode, and I haven't main-tanked Rakkhat, but it's worked everywhere else. Tanking the axes in AA is quite difficult and requires careful stamina management with all of the blocks, but tanking the Atronachs on HM is a piece of cake. Off-tanking in Maw is amazing, on Rakkhat my shields absorb 50% of the total group damage, including for the main tank (after factoring in guard).

Some bosses have attacks that seem to scale based on your Max Health, such as Rakkhat, the Warrior, and the first boss in Hel Ra. Those are difficult fights for this build, but can be tanked if you are skilled and careful. Keep shields up, block the big hits, and run more passive mitigation (such as 2x Mighty Chudan).