The Ultimate PvP 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 in out of position 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 raid.

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

In the event you were looking for the PvE-focused portion of the guide, it is linked below.

Strengths

• Strong CC abilities.
• AoE Shielding to protect allies.
• Moderate Single-Target burst to secure kills.
• Grapple to secure kills.

Weaknesses

• Low sustained damage.
• Not as tanky as you'd expect based on the class name!
• Limited mobility makes proper positioning very important.
• Large scale combat makes abilities like Grapple unreliable.

A Tank's primary role in PvP is to position themselves as a front-line threat, utilizing your Longbow to apply wounds while being prepared to Grapple enemies that move too close. Enemies that are caught in your Grapple can be tripped with Tremoring Strike which allows you a gauranteed critical strike on Pulverize while your team also attacks the target; in almost all cases this should secure an easy kill.

It is important to be aware of what your enemies are doing to maximize on any misplays. Tanks have several abilities that can punish enemies for their mistakes.

• A well timed Reflect can deal massive damage to a Ranger who tries to Snipe you and also trip them.
• Tomahawk will trip enemies if you can land this on their back.
• Ground Pound can be a very devastating AoE Trip when combined with Intimidating Aura or Shield Assault to apply Staggered to a group of enemies in front of you.
• Absorption Field, Intercept, Aegis and Fortify are all strong defensives that you can use to protect allies or increase your own mitigation to survive focused damage.

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 in the future, in the current Meta TTK is absurdly low and even a full mitigation tank folds over like paper to any geared Mage or Bard, you will focus on items that increase your damage output as well as your defenses.

Priority stats for Tanks include:

• Strength – Each point of Strength provides: 3 Physical Power Rating, 1 Physical Accuracy Rating, 1 Physical Penetration Rating.
• Constitution – Each point of Constitution provides 10 Max Health, 2 Armor, 1 Physical Critical Avoidance Rating.
• Physical Power Rating – Increase the amount of physical damage done.
• Critical Chance Rating – Increases your chance to land a critical hit.
• Critical Power Rating – Increases the multiplier applied to critical hits.
• Physical Penetration Rating – Ignores a portion of your target's armor.

In it's current state, gearing in Ashes has somewhat of a split into two "Phases". You have your Pre-Journeyman best in slot (best items before Journeyman crafting is unlocked on your server) and a Post-Journeyman best in slot (this would be considered actual BIS with what is available in the current state of the game). Apprentice (level 10) Enchanted items far outpace most, if not all of your Journeyman (level 20) options. For example Bloodied Bone Ring may be considered optimal at Journeyman; without a reliable way to craft Journeyman Enchanting Scrolls you are stuck at the base stats while Halcyonite Ring can safely be Enchanted to +8 at minimal cost which will get you 9 Strength or 27 Physical Power, 9 Physical Accuracy and 9 Physical Penetration.

A 2-Hand Sword is a Tank's best friend. Lumen Star or +8 Forsaken Blade are solid starting weapons Pre-Journeyman. Once available, you will be looking to craft The Emberblade. For a ranged weapon we recommend a Longbow like Crystalized Blood Longbow which you will upgrade to a Crystalized Blood Longbow once Journeyman crafting is available.

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. Once 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.
• Beef Steak Sandwich – Increase Physical Power Rating by 36 and Max Health by 121 (can be purchased from Apprentice Cookhouse).
• Apprentice Health Potion / Journeyman Health Potion – 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 – Courage (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%.