The Ultimate PvE Tank Guide for Ashes of Creation

the Tank class stands as an unyielding bulwark against your enemies. These protectors are masters of battlefield control, specializing in drawing the ire of their foes and shielding their allies from harm. With a combination of taunts, crowd control abilities, and powerful defensive skills, Tanks are the linchpin of any successful adventuring party or raid. Their primary role is to absorb the brunt of enemy attacks, allowing damage dealers to unleash their full potential and healers to mend the wounded without fear. If you crave the thrill of standing in the face of overwhelming odds, safeguarding your companions, and dictating the flow of combat, then the Tank class is your calling.

This guide will cover everything that's important to maximizing your role as a Tank, including skills to prioritize, gear options, and much more

Strengths

• Strong single-target and AoE threat.
• Strong defensive options.
• Party-wide mitigation to protect allies.
• Self-sustaining skill options for self-healing.

Weaknesses

• Low sustained damage.
• Gear dependent for higher content.
• Lack of Mana sustain requires outside regen to reduce downtime.

Courage is the Tanks unique resource. In Ashes of Creation you can choose to spend your Courage to activiate powerful defensive abilities, crowd control your enemies, or deal strong area of attack damage. Courage is generated when you complete weapon attack comboes or take damage.

The Tanks role in PvE is to direct the damage from your enemies to yourself in order to allow your damage dealers to attack without fear. In order to minize damage to your party, the Tank's skill set includes stuns, single-target and area-of-effect trips and a grapple ability to pull in ranged enemies. As a Tank you will also be able to prevent damage to your allies with single-target and area-of-effect shielding and damage redirection. It is important for a tank react quickly on the battlefield in order to protect their allies from devastating attacks.

For a full list of all Tank abilities and passives visit the Tank Skill Glossary

The Tank class balances defensive gear with strength gear to maximize their effectiveness in battle. While there may be a place for full mitigation builds for select content, you'll have a much better time during solo and group play if you focus on items that increase your damage output as well as your defenses. Primary stats you will be looking for are Strength, Constitution, as well as any of the increases to Physical Power Rating, Critical Chance, Critical Damage and Penetration.

For example, you are better off getting a crafter to make an earring like Bone Earring and Halcyonite Ring instead of their defensive counterparts Emerald Earring and Malevolent Mound's Ring; the offensive stats will allow you to kill enemies much faster while also generating more threat to keep your allies safe. These level 10 accessories can be easily enchanted for a reasonable cost by simply buying an Apprentice Enchanting Scroll from an Apprentice Scribe Vendor in a node with an upgraded Laboratory, making them the ideal choice during early stages of the game. These items will also last well into the next tier so you can focus on more impactful higher level crafting of Weapons and Armor.

For weapons, a Tank is best suited by maintaining both a Mace and Shield set as well as a Greatsword as a melee weapon. You will utilize the Mace and Shield during high damage encounters and your Greatsword during easier mob farm and to contest named rares with a higher damage output. For a ranged weapon you will focus on a Longbow, such as the Crystalized Blood Longbow.

It is very important to maintain your gathering skills so you can obtain the materials needed in order to craft higher rarity versions of your weapons and Armor. At higher rarity, items will have higher base stats as well as unlock additional stats. For example, Crystalized Blood Longbow unlocks Dexterity and increases the minimum value of strength to 5 and at Epic Crystalized Blood Longbow unlocks Physical Critical Power Rating.

You will mostly be wearing Heavy Armor; there are some exceptional Medium armor pieces like Waterlogged Gloves which offer very desirable stats with a minimal loss to Armor. Polished Tin Belt is an easy to craft early item which you can enchant to +8 that will increase four of your base stats by +9 or more.

As a Tank you'll decide between offensive or defensive consumables depending on the situation.

• Rations – Restores 3% Health and 3% Mana over 20 seconds.
• Scroll of Strength – Increases Strength for 3 hours.You can only have one scroll buff active at a time.
• Scroll of Constitution – Increases Constitution for 3 hours You can only have one scroll buff active at a time.
• Fresh Salad – Provides additional physical power rating for 60 minutes.
• Health Potions – Heals for a set amount based on rank and rarity on a 2 minute cooldown

A recent list of Tank patch updates will be listed below. In order to keep the page condensed, only the most recent changes will be shown if the list exceeds a certain length.

• Jan 30th, 2025 – Vengeance
  • Damage increased from 90/100/110% to 120/130/150%.
  • Temporary health increased from 0.1/0.2/0.3% to 2/2/2%.
  • Removed Courage cost. Added a mana cost of 10 and an 8-second cooldown per charge.
  • Targeting has changed from AOE to single target.
  • No longer breaks combo progression, allowing it to be weaved between combos.
  • Successive combos cancel some post frames from each previous combo step.
  • Incoming hits now reduce the cooldown by 0.5 seconds, and blocked hits reduce the cooldown by 1 second.
  • Has a 1 second internal cooldown.
  • Temporary health duration increased from 10 seconds to 8 seconds.
  • Multiple temporary health stacks now properly expire.
  • Final combo attack now stuns the target for 3 seconds.
• Jan 30th, 2025 – Grit
  • Changed from a toggle ability to now have a 10-second duration which may be stacked up to two times.
  • Each activation now costs 40 Courage.
  • Each stack grants 10% physical mitigation.
  • removed the damage penalty and threat bonus.
  • No longer breaks combo progression.
  • The Supernatural Grit passive will now grant half of the physical mitigation as magical mitigation.
• Jan 30th, 2025 – Courageous (passive)
  • No longer provides passive mitigation.
• Jan 30th, 2025 – Inciting Strikes
  • Damage increased from 50% per hit to 75% per hit.
  • Now generates 3 Courage per hit per enemy hit, and up to 10 enemies per swing.
  • Threat multiplier reduced from 400% to 300%.
• Jan 30th, 2025 – Ground Pound
  • Cooldown reduced from 60 seconds to 20 seconds.
  • Courage cost increased from 33 to 50.
• Jan 30th, 2025 – Slam
  • Damage decreased from 200% to 175%.
  • Removed the mana cost and cooldown.
  • Each activation now costs 40 Courage.
  • Removed the Knockback passive.
• Jan 30th, 2025 – Absorption Field
  • Temporary health reduced from 20% to 15%.
• Jan 30th, 2025 – Iron Aura
  • Increased mitigation from 2% to 5%.
• Jan 30th, 2025 – Intercept
  • Temporary health increased from 8% to 10%.
  • No longer has an increased effect when cast on self.
• Jan 30th, 2025 – Fortify
  • No longer scales duration off Courage consumed.
• Jan 30th, 2025 – Indomitable Spirit
  • Max health and healing received has been reduced from 30% to 20%.