Elder Scrolls Online: The Best Classes and Races for a Tank

The Elder Scrolls Online world is full of surprises and certainly worth every second spent playing it. The world of Tamriel is beautiful, dangerous and immersive all at once, and exploring it in this RPG game gives a certain thrill that is hard for other games of the same genre to compare with. You can play any part of the storyline when you wish in the Elder Scrolls Online, which means jumping around to your favorite parts of the story is entirely possible and even slightly encouraged – by us, at least. Play what you want, and don’t listen to the haters who say otherwise!

There are plenty of different reasons for you to build your character towards a certain specialization in the Elder Scrolls Online. Sometimes choosing a certain class or race depends on how you like to game, and other times its based on what you want to do in your current playthrough. In this guide we take a look at the best classes and races to pick in the Elder Scrolls Online if you want to be a tanky character who can take a lot of hits.

Related: How to Complete Trial of Bravery in Elder Scrolls Online (ESO)

How Do You Become a Tank in the Elder Scrolls Online?

To become a tanky character in the Elder Scrolls Online, it is first important to modify your starting attributes and characteristics in order to be best optimized towards having high health and resistance (survivability), especially in battle. Therefore, it is important that players take a close look at all of the available options before choosing a certain race or class, even the ones listed here, so that they can pick their favorites from the get-go.

Which Classes are the Best for Tanking?

Dragonknight

The absolute best choice for being a tank in the Elder Scrolls Online is the Dragonknight (DK) class, which is also arguably the easiest class to play in the game. With strong survivability due to their green blood, as well as decent area of effect abilities, the DK class is perfect for tanking damage in the game. It also has a leash in its tool kit and has strong passives to sustain its health and be a superb tank. Here are some of the DK’s skills.

• Earthen Heart – This skill will reflect incoming damage, increase its mitigation and also debuff and demobilize any hostiles, which makes it great for a tank build.
• Draconic Power – Using this skill will buff both the armor and resistance of the caster while stealing health and returning damage to enemies. Another great tank skill to have handy!

Warden

Another great choice for a class is the Warden, which is also a great choice to tank a lot of damage in a fight. Wardens can use frost spells and summon animals to support them, and they can also increase the physical and spell resistance of themselves and their allies by using the Frost Cloak ability. These are a couple of the Wardens skills that make it a great tank.

• Emerald Moss – This skill will boost your healing abilities by giving you a 12% healing power and will also reduce the cost of some skills to use, including Green Balance and others.
• Healing Seeds – This skill can help the Warden in battle by giving you another bonus of 2% in terms of healing, which can help you to stay alive longer.
• Winter’s Embrace – This ability grants Major Resolve, and increases the resistance from physical and spell attacks for all of your allies as well as the caster themself.

Which Races are the Best for Tanking?

Nord

Nord is the best choice to pick when considering a race to use for a tank character. This is because Nords receive a lot of resistance and also have a great regeneration time on their ultimate, which is important for winning in battle. They are a strong choice for beginners as well, because they offer a gentle learning curve and Nords do not suffer as much from their mistakes in combat as other races. By increasing your resistance in battle, you will be able to stay alive for far longer and take reduced damage from many different sources, which makes the Nord race superb for being a tank.

Imperial

Imperial is another strong race if your goal is to be a powerful tank in the Elder Scrolls Online, mainly due to its cost reduction ability which can make skills a lot cheaper to use. It also offers you sustain when you deal damage, and whenever you can cause direct damage you will earn more sustain which can be super helpful to staying alive as a tank. Imperial is able to survive a lot of damage due to earning this sustain, and can therefore contribute a lot more to the fight due to this skill. Make sure that you watch your health though, just in case you need to take a quick health break from the battle!

However, one of the most important things to remember about choosing a race when you want to be a tank is that this matters far less than picking the right class. Therefore, if you don’t like the options we gave above you do not need to spend too much thought on them and can simply pick your favorite!

Be sure to check out Gamer Journalist on Facebook so that you don’t miss out on the latest gaming news. If you want to read more content on the Elder Scrolls Online, check out the quickest way to Mournhold and also the best public dungeons to farm gold and items.