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Hyperioxes

Best Subclass Tank Build for Every Class - ESO Guide

Tank Two Bar Subclass Dragonknight Warden Sorcerer Templar Nightblade Necromancer Arcanist
Up to date for: Update 51 - 6th October 2026
Last changed: Update 51 - 6th October 2026

Subclass Tank Build for ESO Update 51 is a PvE tank setup for every class, built around combining the strongest tank skill lines through subclassing. The default setup uses Winter’s Embrace, Siphoning, and Grave Lord, with alternate final combinations depending on the content and base class.

Subclassing lets one tank combine Major Resolve from Warden’s , Major Vulnerability from Necromancer’s , and sustain from Nightblade’s . No single pure class can combine all three of those tools on its own.

The build covers dungeons and trials in one guide. Each final setup has Regular, Dungeon Trash, Trial Trash, and Tanky sub-setups, with Veteran Hard Mode Dungeon and Veteran Trial proof in the Gameplay section. Dragonknight is the main exception to the default setup because Ardent Flame can replace Siphoning thanks to .

The video is from an older patch - the written guide below is more up to date.
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Skills

  • now costs 3240 Magicka instead of being free.

Necromancer

  • now costs 150 Ultimate instead of 175 and deals 12.5% more damage.

Dragonknight

  • now restores 12% of missing Magicka and Stamina instead of 15%, and its healing is reduced by 20%.
Article ESO Update 51 PTS Patch Notes & Changes ESO Update 51 PTS patch notes covering buff hybridization, class and weapon changes, Werewolf, item sets, Solo Dungeons, and undocumented changes.
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Subclassing

Best default Subclass Tank setup: Winter’s Embrace, Siphoning, and Grave Lord. This gives group Major Resolve from Expansive Frost Cloak, sustain from Siphoning Attacks, and Major Vulnerability from Glacial Colossus. Dragonknight is the main exception, because Ardent Flame can replace Siphoning through Heart of Flame.

Base Class

You can use this build with any base class.

(Almost) Always Use These Two

Winter's Embrace
Warden
Siphoning
Nightblade

These are beginner-friendly setups that always use Siphoning because trivializes sustain, and always use Winter's Embrace because of which grants your entire team Major Resolve (roughly 12% damage reduction), an extremely strong heal in , and passives which increase armor and block mitigation.

Ultimately, as long as you know what you're doing, you can make a valid build out of any combination of Skill Lines listed here. You can replace Siphoning if you don't need the sustain - either because the fight is easy enough or because you're a better player. You can even replace Winter's Embrace if the other Tank in your Trial is already using , or if somehow your entire team already provides Major Resolve for themselves through other means.

Dragonknight exception

Dragonknight exception

Dragonknight is an exception. Ardent Flame has which trivializes sustain just like , so it replaces Siphoning instead.

Remaining Skill Lines to Choose From

Grave Lord
Necromancer

One of the best skill lines for tanking because of , which applies Major Vulnerability. With some additional Ultimate generation you can keep up 100% uptime on Major Vulnerability with just that, which allows you to replace the Major Vulnerability item set - , with an Ultimate generation set like , which in turn boosts your other Ultimate sets like and even further.

Notable Skills

Notable Passives

None

Bone Tyrant
Necromancer

Good defensive Skill Line if you need more survivability, especially against DoTs. It also allows you to drain corpses for Ultimate through , which is especially good in fights with lots of adds.

Notable Skills

  • /

Notable Passives

Living Death
Necromancer

A Skill Line with lots of situationally good but niche abilities. allows your team to recover from anything as long as you survive, it's extremely good for PUGs and training runs (if you're the "teacher"). / is a purge that costs only Health and provides a unique 10% damage mitigation buff.

Notable Skills

  • /

Notable Passives

Restoring Light
Templar

Provides block mitigation, a lot of healing (especially if you can afford to stand still) and a purge ability for yourself and your team through .

Notable Skills

  • /

Notable Passives

Soldier of Apocrypha
Arcanist

Lots of good skills but most of its power is spread between different abilities which you won't have space to slot. is an extremely good defensive skill. The skill line also provides your entire group with Minor Evasion (10% less AoE damage taken) which can be pretty important in some fights.

Notable Skills

Notable Passives

Ardent Flame
Dragonknight

Provides both an extremely good sustain tool () and a good support Ultimate (). In this guide we pair Ardent Flame with Grave Lord instead of Siphoning (because solves sustain just like ) so we use instead, but is still good, especially for survivability.

Notable Skills

Notable Passives

Earthen Heart
Dragonknight

Most of the buffs it provides ( and ) are now extremely good DPS abilities, so it's much more efficient to have a DD use them. Still, it has access to which lets you bypass many mechanics.

Notable Skills

Notable Passives

Daedric Summoning
Sorcerer

A pretty good Ultimate () which grants your group Major Berserk, an extremely strong damage shield () and a block mitigation ability () which will put most builds at the block mitigation cap.

Notable Skills

  • /

Notable Passives

Green Balance
Warden

A decent skill line for 1 Tank 3 DD dungeon runs when your Damage Dealers need some additional healing.

Notable Skills

Notable Passives

Final Combinations

Example of a setup for each base class. These prioritize survivability and ease of play, so each of them has at least one skill line that trivializes sustain.

Winter's Embrace
Winter's Embrace
Warden
Siphoning
Siphoning
Nightblade
Grave Lord
Grave Lord
Necromancer
Usable by Warden Nightblade Necromancer
Winter's Embrace
Winter's Embrace
Warden
Siphoning
Siphoning
Nightblade
Daedric Summoning
Daedric Summoning
Sorcerer
Usable by Warden Nightblade Sorcerer
Winter's Embrace
Winter's Embrace
Warden
Siphoning
Siphoning
Nightblade
Restoring Light
Restoring Light
Templar
Usable by Warden Nightblade Templar
Winter's Embrace
Winter's Embrace
Warden
Siphoning
Siphoning
Nightblade
Soldier of Apocrypha
Soldier of Apocrypha
Arcanist
Usable by Warden Nightblade Arcanist
Winter's Embrace
Winter's Embrace
Warden
Grave Lord
Grave Lord
Necromancer
Ardent Flame
Ardent Flame
Dragonknight
Usable by Warden Necromancer Dragonknight
Guide ESO Subclassing Guide How to subclass in ESO: unlocking it, training slots and Class Mastery, plus every subclass build on the site for Solo, DPS, Tank and Healer.

Skill Setups

Base Setup

A base setup that uses only Winter's Embrace and Siphoning skill lines and which should be your starting point to which you'll later add skills from your 3rd skill line

Switching skills for trash packs isn't worth it unless you're using gear-swap addons, but switching skills for more difficult fights is something you should always do

Front Bar Back Bar
Slot 1: Shield ThrowTaunt / Sage's Remedy / Maim Slot 1: Expansive Frost CloakMorph of Frost Cloak
Slot 2: TrampleMagic / Thief's Swiftness / Heroism Slot 2: Wield SoulPull / Druid's Resurgence / Cowardice
Slot 3: Siphoning AttacksMorph of Siphoning Strikes Slot 3: Elemental SusceptibilityMorph of Weakness to Elements
Slot 4: Ulfsild's ContingencyDamage Shield / Gladiator's Tenacity / Resolve Slot 4: Elemental BlockadeMorph of Wall of Elements
Slot 5: Polar WindMorph of Arctic Wind Slot 5: Soul BurstDamage Shield / Anchorite's Potency / Courage
Ultimate: Temporal GuardMorph of Undo Ultimate: Reviving BarrierMorph of Barrier
InnerRageIcon

Why no Inner Rage in the Regular setup?

The synergy from taunt is extremely strong but because of the way it works it always turns out extremely weak in Group Finder runs. The way it works is, instead of granting the synergy to 11 people and disappearing once 3 people use it, it first selects 3 people and only those 3 people have the option to use the synergy at all. And if one of those 3 people don't use it, it will never pass onto the remaining players, no matter how many times you recast your . Which is why, 3 clueless players not pressing their synergy in a Group Finder run are enough to completely "clog" your . Which is why I decided to go with taunt as a default option.

Final Setups

A few examples of final setups you could end up with

Grave Lord Skill Setups

Default setup

Front Bar Back Bar
Slot 1: Shield ThrowTaunt / Sage's Remedy / Maim Slot 1: Expansive Frost CloakMorph of Frost Cloak
Slot 2: TrampleMagic / Thief's Swiftness / Heroism Slot 2: Wield SoulPull / Druid's Resurgence / Cowardice
Slot 3: Siphoning AttacksMorph of Siphoning Strikes Slot 3: Elemental SusceptibilityMorph of Weakness to Elements
Slot 4: Ulfsild's ContingencyDamage Shield / Gladiator's Tenacity / Resolve Slot 4: Elemental BlockadeMorph of Wall of Elements
Slot 5: Polar WindMorph of Arctic Wind Slot 5: Soul BurstDamage Shield / Anchorite's Potency / Courage
Ultimate: Temporal GuardMorph of Undo Ultimate: Glacial ColossusMorph of Frozen Colossus

Passives

The only passive you specifically have to skip is

Some trees are only needed when using situational skills, for example Support provides nothing without or

Class

Weapon

Armor

Guild

Alliance War

Racial

Craft

Class - Grave Lord (Necromancer)

Reusable Parts - Not Needed (Low Priority if combined with Living Death)

Death Knell - Low Priority

Dismember - Low Priority

Rapid Rot - Low Priority

Gear

These are the best general-use setups when you're playing with randoms or do not know your group comp. Coordinated groups can do better with more specialized setups.

Most support sets provide a similar group DPS increase. The most important thing is making sure your sets don't overlap with other Tank's and Healers' sets, though you can overlap sets which provide imperfect uptimes like or

Switching gear for trash packs isn't worth it unless you're using gear-swap addons

General-Use PUG Setups

These are the default setups once you have the gear for them. Trash setups are optional swaps for players using gear-swap addons.

If your group does not have an Arcanist using , use so the group still gets . In Dungeons, replace . In Trials, replace .

If you're not running Grave Lord, use instead of .

Gear Slot Set Weight/Type Trait Enchantment
HeadHead Medium /
ShouldersShoulders Light /
ChestChest Heavy
HandsHands Heavy /
BeltBelt Heavy /
LegsLegs Heavy
FeetBoots Heavy
NeckNecklace Jewelry /
RingRing Jewelry /
RingRing Jewelry /
MainhandFrontbar Main Hand Any 1-handed weapon
OffhandFrontbar Off Hand Shield /
MainhandBackbar Main Hand Ice Staff

Setup Notes

  • can replace when playing without a Healer
  • The Ultimate generation from lets you keep up 100% uptime on Major Vulnerability through . Applying to multiple targets will generate a lot of Ultimate from this set. Use on to proc it more

Progression Setups

Use these until you can move into the general-use PUG setups above.

Start with the Crafted (Beginner) setup if you only have access to crafted gear. Use the No Trial Gear setup once you can farm dungeon and monster sets but do not have trial gear yet.

Both progression setups work in Dungeons and Trials if that's all you have right now.

Starting setup if you only have access to crafted gear

Gear Slot Set Weight/Type Trait Enchantment
Head Head Medium /
Shoulders Shoulders Light /
Chest Chest Heavy
Hands Hands Heavy /
Belt Belt Heavy /
Legs Legs Heavy
Feet Boots Heavy
Neck Necklace Jewelry /
Ring Ring Jewelry /
Ring Ring Jewelry /
Mainhand Frontbar Main Hand Any 1-handed weapon
Offhand Frontbar Off Hand Shield /
Mainhand Backbar Main Hand Ice Staff

Explanation

  • You can use a mix of , and enchants instead of , because enchants are very expensive and this is temporary gear that you'll outgrow very fast

Additional Explanations

Alternative gear that can also be used and might be easier to obtain

It lists all useful gear, even sets that are already in the gear tables above

Crafted

All of these are tradable and can be bought from other players

Overland

All of these are tradable and can be bought from other players

PvP

All of these are tradable and can be bought from other players

Dungeons

Trials

Monster Sets

Body

  • and - both are very good options, which one is better depends on the specific encounter
  • - depending on your race and many other aspects you might be over the armor cap, in which case you can change pieces to /

Jewelry

  • and - is stronger whenever you have at least 2 different synergies available to you, which means that will be better in the vast majority of situations, but can be better when playing with randoms or if the specific encounter makes it really difficult for your teammates to provide you synergies
  • - extremely useful for trash packs

Weapons

  • - an option for the backbar Ice Staff for trash packs. It will cause to be almost guaranteed to proc Chilled status effect
  • - an option for the frontbar One Handed weapon when playing without a Healer. You can then combine it with the enchant to reduce enemies' Weapon and Spell Damage by 226

Body

  • enchants are very expensive so you can use a mix of , and enchants before you can afford them

Weapons

  • - an option for the frontbar One Handed weapon when playing without a Healer. You can then combine it with the trait to reduce enemies' Weapon and Spell Damage by 226
  • You can double-bar if you want to be able to provide Major Slayer also with your frontbar Ultimate
  • If you want to provide , you can replace your frontbar Sword and Shield with an Ice Staff. Use trait ( if you gave up Winter's Embrace) with a enchant. The frontbar Ice Staff should usually be , but you can also move your backbar set to frontbar and put on backbar. You can also frontbar when using
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Champion Points

Use these Champion Points as default for Boss and Trash fights respectively. Further below you'll find a list of all useful CPs with explanations on when to use them.

WarfareWarfare
6% Direct Damage Reduction
Reduces damage taken from direct damage attacks
6% ST Damage Reduction
Reduces damage taken from single target attacks
1900 Armor
Increases your armor while you have a shield or frost staff equipped
10% Single Target Healing
Boosts your and 's
If you're already at the armor cap
Replace with
Other mitigation options
(DoT Reduction), (AoE Reduction) - choose based on the type of damage you're taking
FitnessFitness
1400 Max Health
Great for survivability in fights without max HP based damage
1731 Armor
Can help you reach the armor cap if you're missing it in other parts of the build
90 of all recoveries
Sustain
20% Block Mitigation, -16% Movement Speed
Great for boss fights with constant direct blockable damage. Don't combine with as the combined movement speed penalties will reduce your movement speed to 0, which also prevents you from dodge rolling
If you're already at the armor cap
Replace with
Craft Craft
20% Movement Speed out of combat
Extremely useful utility
Quality of Life
Green Champion Points don't affect Combat, choose whatever Quality of Life you prefer

All Useful Champion Points

A full list of useful Champion Points with explanations on when to slot them.

  • - reduces damage taken from direct damage attacks by 6%
  • - reduces damage taken from damage over time attacks by 6%
  • - reduces damage taken from single target attacks by 6%
  • - reduces damage taken from area of effect attacks by 6%
  • - increases your armor while you have a shield or frost staff equipped
  • - increases your single target healing by 10%. Boosts your and 's

Race

Nord
Best for Tanking
Nord
Why Nord
Nord is by far the best race for tanking, due to the increased armor from and ulti generation from . You can complete any content on any race, you'll just have to work slightly harder with other races and adjust your build to compensate.
Rugged 2600 Armor
Stalwart 1500 Max Stamina, 0.5 Ultimate per second
Resist Frost 1000 Max Health, 4620 Frost Resistance

Mundus

  • Default

    310 Magicka Recovery(507 with 7 )
    The Atronach is the best Mundus for tanking. You won't be able to sustain your Magicka without it.
  • Armor Cap

    2744 Armor(4489 with 7 )
    Use if you're struggling to reach the armor cap (33,000). It increases your Armor by 2744, or 4489 with Divines trait on your armor pieces.

Attributes

Put all 64 points into Health. However, your Max Stamina must be higher than your Max Magicka, because the synergy restores your dominant resource and you want it to be Stamina. If you have passives (such as ) or item set bonuses that increase Max Magicka, put just enough points into Stamina to keep it higher than your Max Magicka, then put the rest into Health.

Health
64
Stamina
0
Magicka
0
All points into Health. Use this if your Max Stamina is already naturally higher than your Max Magicka
Health
≈45
Stamina
≈19
Magicka
0
Put just enough points into Stamina to make Max Stamina higher than Max Magicka, then put the rest into Health. The exact split depends on your gear and passives

Food

Use as your default. provides slightly higher stats but is expensive.

  • Default

    Max Health +3,927 Stamina Recovery +357 Magicka Recovery +357
    Provides slightly lower stats than but is significantly cheaper.
  • Expensive

    Max Health +4,312 Health Recovery +406 Stamina Recovery +369 Magicka Recovery +369
    The best food for tanking. Provides Max Health, Stamina Recovery and Magicka Recovery. Expensive.
  • Permablocking

    Max Health +5,395 Magicka Recovery +493
    Provides more Max Health and Magicka Recovery but no Stamina Recovery. Stamina Recovery doesn't work while blocking, so this can be a decent option if you're permablocking.
  • Specific Fights

    Max Health +4,620 Max Stamina +4,250 Max Magicka +4,250 Health Recovery +462
    Provides maximum resources instead of recoveries. Decent for fights where you need to block for a very long time during a specific period but the pressure is non-existent outside of it, so you can recuperate Stamina by heavy attacking freely - for example the 1st boss in Lucent Citadel or Roksa the Warped in Bal Sunnar.
  • Specific Fights

    Max Stamina +4,592 Magicka Recovery +459
    Provides only Max Stamina and Magicka Recovery with no Max Health. Useful when you want to reduce your Max Health during a specific phase of a fight - for example in Cloudrest you can eat it right as the execute phase starts, because Maximum Health becomes a detriment due to the Baneful Mark mechanic.

Potions

  • Default

    Restore Health Restore Stamina Restore Magicka
    Most of the time you should use Tri-Stat potions. They'll greatly improve your sustain.
    Craft with: Columbine Bugloss Mountain Flower
  • Situational

    Restore Magicka Restore Stamina
    Heroism potions can provide 100% uptime on which generates ultimate, but they're expensive.
    Craft with: Dragon Rheum Dragon's Blood Columbine

Gameplay

Exiled Redoubt
Dungeon
Lucent Citadel
Trial
Exiled Redoubt
Dungeon Veteran Hard Mode
Lucent Citadel
Trial Veteran
Grave Lord - Exiled Redoubt Veteran Hard Mode
Patch: Update 49
Grave Lord - Lucent Citadel Veteran
Patch: Update 49

Fashion

Outfit
Subclass Tank fashion screenshot
Slot Style Dyes
Head Bloodforge HelmBloodforge Helm
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Shoulders House Mornard PauldronsHouse Mornard Pauldrons
Thalmor Black
Chest House Mornard CuirassHouse Mornard Cuirass
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Hands House Mornard GauntletsHouse Mornard Gauntlets
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Wolf's Fur Brown
Belt Skingrad Vedette GirdleSkingrad Vedette Girdle
Empty
Legs House Mornard GreavesHouse Mornard Greaves
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Wolf's Fur Brown
Feet House Mornard SabatonsHouse Mornard Sabatons
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Frontbar Main Hand Trinimac SwordTrinimac Sword
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Frontbar Off Hand House Mornard ShieldHouse Mornard Shield
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Backbar Main Hand House Mornard StaffHouse Mornard Staff
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Thalmor Black
Subclass Tank fashion screenshot

FAQ

No. Subclass Tank is more flexible, since you can switch skill lines to bring whatever a specific fight needs. But in a good group, Pure Class Tank is always better.

The best default Subclass Tank setup uses Winter’s Embrace, Siphoning, and Grave Lord. Winter’s Embrace provides Expansive Frost Cloak and strong defensive tools, Siphoning provides sustain through Siphoning Attacks, and Grave Lord provides Glacial Colossus for Major Vulnerability. Dragonknight is the main exception and can replace Siphoning with Ardent Flame.

Nord is the best race for tanking in ESO. The racial passive grants 2600 armor which translates to roughly 7% damage reduction near armor cap, and gives you ultimate generation. You can complete any content on any race, but non-Nords will have to adjust their build to compensate - see the Race section for more details.

There is no specific number to aim for - your Health is a result of your gear, attributes, enchants and passives, not a target you build towards. That said, some fights in ESO have mechanics that scale with your Maximum Health, so you generally don't want to go above 45k Health unless a specific fight requires it.

Put all 64 points into Health. The only exception is if your Max Magicka ends up higher than your Max Stamina due to racials or item set bonuses - in that case, put just enough points into Stamina so it stays higher than Magicka, then put the rest into Health. See the Attributes section for details.

Builds ESO Tank Builds Tank builds for Veteran Trials and Veteran Hard Mode Dungeons, including 4-man arenas. Pure class, subclass, and starter setups. Tier list ESO Tank Class Tier List Every ESO tank class ranked for Update 51, best to worst for Dungeons, Trials, and beginner tanking. See the strongest tank class, with a build linked for each.


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