Templar Tank PvE Build ESO – Divine Crusader

Build Written By: DoctorSarge – PS4 NA

Role: Tank

Patch: Scions of Ithelia

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Setup
   1. Gear
   2. Attributes
   3. Skills
   4. Vampire vs. Mortal
   5. Champion Points
   6. Other Important Info (Food, Mundus, Race, Potions, Passives)
3. Resource Management & Rotation
4. Contact Info
5. Update Log

Introduction

Welcome to the Divine Crusader PvE Templar tank build for The Elder Scrolls Online! This build is great for all kinds of content: vet dungeons, off-tank or main tank for normal trials, and main or off-tank for veteran trials.

Setup

Gear

Gear Explanation

• Magma Incarnate
  • Gives the same buff as Yolnahkriin at a good enough uptime that allows us to free up that 5 slot set.
• Turning Tide
  • Great source of Major Vulnerability and easy to use.
• Powerful Assault
  • A very powerful buff set that’s easy to use and gives you great stats as well.
• Master’s SnB
  • Powerful Assault can be one barred if you’re comfortable keeping it up that way, so this is basically just free healing.

Gear Explanation

• Crimson Oath’s Rive
  • With the changes to Alkosh, this will generally be better on a typical tank build if your group needs the penetration. 
  • This could be potentially not needed for several reasons, including but not limited to:
    • 1) A DPS is running Alkosh
    • 2) Your DPS are in mainly light armor
    • 3) You look at the penetration buffs that you can provide specifically as an Arcanist and determine those are enough for your group to reach the penetration cap
    • 4) You look at the other sets you or another person are wearing (such as Tremorscale) and determine those are enough for your group to reach the penetration cap
  • Please, please, PLEASE evaluate your group composition and needs beforehand and swap this out if needed.
• Archdruid Devyric 
  • Allows us to keep up 100% uptime on Major Vulnerability pretty easily when combined with Turning Tide.

Alternative Gear (Regular Sets)

• Saxhleel – Allows for a longer burst phase from warhorns as well as still giving offensive buffs when you use a defensive ultimate.
• Worm’s Raiment – Great if you have magicka DPS and/or healers that need help with sustain.
• Pearlescent Ward – Must have for non-top end trial groups. Either provides a decent weapon and spell damage buff if everything is going good or a massive damage debuff if everything *isn’t* going good. Could get pushed out for other debuff sets if your group is not dying at all or is very quick at recovering, but most groups will want this
• Claw of Yolnahkriin – Great source of Minor Courage if no arcanist support is present. Replace this set otherwise.

Alternative Gear (Monster Sets)

• Bloodspawn – Good for ultimate generation and for keeping resistances up.
• Symphony of Blades – Great set to help allies’ sustain if you swap in a skill that can heal others. Best used on a healer now that Blood Altar no longer procs it, but you can still use it as long as you can actively keep up other skills, such as Energy Orb.
• Stonekeeper – Amazing self-sustain. Really good in situations where you need to block a lot.
• Lady Thorn – Mainly used as a self-synergy for Alkosh. The Major Maim *can* be nice if you time it correctly, but the uptime on the debuff is very short and the cooldown for being affected by it is very long.
  
• Tremorscale – Potentially useful for medium armor-heavy groups due to the powerful penetration debuff it gives.
• Vykosa – Good set to use if you need to temporarily reduce the incoming damage of a boss, such as the breath in vSS or Olms jumping/sending out storms in vAS.
• Encratis’s Behemoth – Great set for magicka groups and easy to proc. Just throw on a flame skill or inferno staff.
  
• Nazaray – Good set if you can coordinate it with your group. Mainly used to extend the duration of Major Vulnerability.
• Engine Guardian – A little unreliable, but overall a good self-sustain set.

NOTE ON JEWELRY TRAITS: These are what work for me. You can play just fine with the default traits or with a different setup.

Beginner Gear

• Armor: Torug’s Pact
• Jewelry & Weapons (SnB/ice staff): Akaviri Dragonguard
• Monster set: Bloodspawn
• Traits
  • Armor: All Sturdy
  • Jewelry: Healthy
  • Weapons: Decisive front, infused back
• Enchants
  • Armor: Health big, stamina small
  • Jewelry: 1 shield-play, 2 mag recovery
  • Weapons: Absorb Stam front, Crusher back

Note about Gear Weight & Traits

Full heavy and sturdy will give you the best sustain and survivability, but 5-1-1 and infused on big pieces is fine as well. Well-fitted can also be nice depending on the fight.

Attributes

What your attribute distribution is going to look like is based on the race you choose. You should have at least 38k health, but no more than 45k health unless you’re in a fight that needs high health. After that, dump the rest into stamina and magicka (just make sure to have more stamina than magicka). I personally try for around 38-40k health depending on the setup and situation.

Skills

Main Bar – 1h/Shield

• Pierce Armor
• Heroic Slash
• Radiant Ward
• Repentance/Flex
• Honor The Dead
• Ultimate: Reviving Barrier

Back Bar – Ice Staff

• Elemental Blockade
• Inner Fire/Destructive Clench
• Restoring Focus
• Extended Ritual
• Silver Leash
• Ultimate: Aggressive Horn

Skill Explanations

• Pierce Armor
  • Our main taunt. With the nerf to Minor Protection and the buff to this skill and the debuffs it provides (just under 9k penetration!!), this is now a must have.
• Heroic Slash
  • Applies Minor Maim, reducing the target’s damage by 5%. Also grants you Minor Heroism, giving you 8 ultimate over 12 seconds. Try to keep this up 100% on priority targets.
• Radiant Ward
  • Our shield. Gives you a shield based on 30% of your health and increases by 9% for every enemy within 5 meters. That coupled with the 6 seconds of Minor Protection given to us on activation makes this a very powerful skill for reducing damage of big hits. 
• Repentance/Flex
  • Gives the Minor recovery buffs while slotted so nice if you need nothing else.
• Honor The Dead
  • Our main heal. It’s better than before with the CP changes and addition of base stats, although still not the greatest.
• Reviving Barrier
  • A good defensive ultimate, but it’s more of a flex spot. I mainly have it slotted for the Magicka Recovery and almost always use Warhorn. You can switch it out for Solar Disturbance for the AoE Major Maim.
• Inner Fire / Destructive Clench
  • Our range taunt options. I normally go with Clench for the Major Maim and Minor Brittle. In contrast, Inner Fire doesn’t provide anything super useful, but can also be used if not using an ice staff. Use what is right for you.
• Restoring Focus
  • Gives us Major Ward and Major Resolve as well as an extra 50% resistances than it already offers when standing on it and the equivalent of 480 stamina regen that also recovers while blocking. It is also extremely cheap. Also now heals us while inside it! Very important skill for defense and stamina management.
• Extended Ritual
  • Small heal every 2 seconds but we get Minor Mending while inside it. It’s also a self-purge and gives a synergy, so overall a great skill.
• Elemental Blockade
  • Used to keep up Crusher
• Silver Leash
  • The equivalent of Unrelenting Grip on a Dragonknight. Very important for stacking smaller adds.
• Aggressive Warhorn
  • Our main ultimate, and for good reason. It increases ally’s magicka and stamina pools by 10% for 30 seconds and gives Major Force for 10 seconds, which is a big DPS boost.

Other Good Skills

A list of other good skills to have to swap bars around.

• Reflective Light
  • A good skill to slow down adds. Can hit up to 3 at a time, so it’s perfect for situations like vFL.
• Extended Ritual
  • A cheaper self-purge that also gives an ally a synergy that purges themselves. The HoT is really small and inconsequential, but it can proc Earthgore on Allies so it isn’t completely wasted.
• Luminous Shard
  • Gives allies a sustain synergy, so it’s useful if there are no orbs or shards being given by the healer or if there isn’t a healer present. Can also proc Olorime, so it’s a potentially useful slot if you’re using that set.
• Absorb Missile
  • Decent in places like Rakkhat in vMoL if you need help healing through projectiles. The other morph is also good in places like vSS if you’re range tanking Lokkestiiz or as a passive slot, although it’s effective values from the passive slot bonuses don’t add up to much.
• Crushing Shock
  • A ranged interrupt. Very useful if there are things you have to interrupt but you or your group will be separated from the target.
• Race Against TIme
  • Major Expedition for 4 seconds and 2 seconds of snare immunity can be useful in niche situations.
• Overflowing Altar
  • Heals all allies attacking enemies in the radius and provides a great synergy if someone drops to low health. No longer procs sets such as Symphony though, so be weary if that’s what you want to use it for.
• Efficient Purge
  • An AoE purge that may be necessary to use over Extended ritual if you need it to affect everyone within its range. Very expensive so be careful while using it.
• Spell Symmetry
  • Good replacement for Deep Thoughts. See the explanation of the that skill for full details.
• Turn Evil
  • Great skill if you need a stun for adds. Also gives allies Minor Protection and Minor Endurance for standing in it, so it’s also beneficial to your group.
• Deep Thoughts
  • Can be slotted passively for another shield while blocking or used as a source of resource management if you’re in a situation where you can use it.
• Spell Symmetry
  • Alternative source of magicka management

Vampire vs. Mortal

Neither vampire nor werewolf is recommended for this build, as they do not give us any benefits that we need.

Champion Points

The list below showcases the order in which champion points should be acquired, the number of points you need to place into that perk and whether or not it needs to be slotted in the CP bar. The Warfare CP perks increase your damage and mitigation and are the most important, the Fitness tree has some miscellaneous sustain and defensive perks and the Craft tree has crafting and non-combat bonuses. The Craft CP points are entirely customizable to however you want, or you can follow the list below.

CHAMPION POINT SETUP
WARFARE (BLUE)

• Tireless Discipline (10)
• Quick Recovery (10)
• Preparation (20)
• Hardy (10)
• Elemental Aegis (10)
• Duelist’s Rebuff (50) (Slotted)
• Enduring Resolve (50) (Slotted)
• Unassailable (50) (Slotted)
• Ironclad (50) (Slotted)
• Hardy (10)
• Elemental Aegis (10)
• Tireless Discipline (10)
• Eldritch Insight (20)
• Quick Recovery (10)
• Blessed (20)
• Piercing (10)
• Flawless Ritual (40)
• Precision (20)
• Focused Mending (50) (Flex Slot)
• Preference past this point

FITNESS (RED)

• Boundless Vitality (50) (Slotted)
• Fortified (50) (Slotted)
• Rejuvenation (50) (Slotted)
• Sprinter (10)
• Hasty (8)
• Tireless Guardian (10)
• Fortification (30)
• Tireless Guardian (10)
• Hasty (8)
• Hero’s Vigor (20)
• Shield Master (10)
• Bastion (50) (Slotted)
• Tumbling (30)
• Defiance (20)
• Expert Evasion (50) (Flex Slot)
• Strategic Reserve (50) (Flex Slot)
• Tempered Soul (25)
• Spirit Mastery (50) (Flex Slot)
• Tempered Soul (25)
• Preference after this point

CRAFT (GREEN)

• Gilded Fingers (10)
• Fortune’s Favor (10)
• Wanderer (15)
• Steadfast Enchantment (50)
• Rationer (30) (Slotted)
• Steed’s Blessing (50) (Slotted)
• Professional Upkeep (50) (Slotted)
• Liquid Efficiency (75) (Slotted)
• Breakfall (50)
• Soul Reservoir (33)
• Gilded Fingers (40)
• Fortune’s Favor (40)
• Wanderer (60)
• Preference past this point

Other Important Info

Buff Food

Bewitched Sugar Skulls – a ton of stats in all 3 resources, which is just what we need

Mundus

Atronach – Significantly boosts our magicka recovery, making it even easier to manage. Can also use the Steed if you need speed.

Race

1. Nord is #1 for sure. Nice health + Stam stats, ultimate regeneration, and 2.6k resistances combined are amazing. Resistances aren’t exactly needed, but make hitting the cap easier and you don’t have to spend as many resources to get there.
2. Orc is great too. Again nice health + stamina stats, the Sprint passives are great, and a little passive healing. 
3. Imperials are good too. Highest health + stam and some sustain help. The stat difference between them and Nords are 1k health though, and the resistances and ult gen out match the sustain.
   
4. Argonian is ok. They have some extra healing and sustain help through their potion passive. Great for beginners but other races are better for higher skill players.

Potions

Essence of Health (Restore Stamina, Magicka and Health)
(Bugloss, Columbine and Mountain Flower)

Passives

• Class (all)
• One Hand and Shield (all)
• Destruction Staff (If using it)
  • All EXCEPT Tri-Focus
• Heavy Armor (all)
• Fighter’s Guild
  • Intimidating Presence
  • Slayer
  • Banish the Wicked
• Psijic Order (All)
• Mages Guild (If using Spell Symmetry)
  • All EXCEPT Might of the Guild
• Undaunted (All)
• Support
  • Magicka Aid
• Racial (All)

Resource Management & Rotation

Because it’s a tank build, there really isn’t a rotation. You’ll just want to make sure you keep up your buffs up, taunt on bosses and dangerous adds, and Elemental Blockade up and positioned correctly to proc Crusher on priority targets. Make sure to make good use of Radiant Ward for helping your damage mitigation and sustain through not having to heal as much. Also, you pretty well always use Warhorn. Barrier is there for the extra magicka recovery and is only used as an “Oh, shoot!” button.

Contact

If you have any questions about the build, join our discord server and ask @DoctorSarge about the build!

Update Log

1/12/2018 – Build created.
2/20/2018 – CP updated for dragon bones, jewelry glyph changed, gear table corrected
5/30/2018 – Build updated for Summerset (CP/Skills changed)
8/16/2018 – CP updated
10/24/2018 – CP, gear, and skills updated for murkmire
1/17/2019 – Writeup fleshed out with more descriptions and explanations, CP 300 setup updated
3/15/2019 – Build overhauled for wrathstone
5/22/2019 – Earthgore changed to Symphony of blades
8/15/2019 – No updates for scalebreaker
10/22/2019 – Build writeup cleaned up, no major changes made
2/24/2020 – no changes for harrowstorm
4/20/2020 – changing resolving to echoing vigor
6/1/2020 – removed vampire, changed monster set on dungeon gear and changed a 5 piece on the general trials setup
8/27/2020 – gear and CP updated
11/18/2020 – minor brittle discussion added, minor skill description changes
3/23/2021- build overhauled
6/10/2021 – mset changed, skills and cp changed
11/9/2021 – removed vamp
3/29/2022- changed description for Encratis
6/27/2022- alt sets changed
9/5/2022 – no changes for lost depths
11/13/2022- no changes
3/28/2023- no changes needed
7/5/2023- updated gear
8/31/2023- no updates for update 39
11/30/2023- no changes for update 40
3/28/2024 – updated skills and removed outdated info from the build