[Top 5] Elden Ring Best Erdtree Tank Builds

Updated:

14 Sep 2024

Can You Take a Hit? Well, Can Ya?

Elden Ring is a soulslike game, and we often hear it called, 'Dark Souls 4'. I'm definitely not against the title, although I like gothic Skyrim equally well, but that also means that when we load up the game we should expect to get murdered often by some of the hardest bosses that can be found in the video game world today. In fact we see bosses that can deliver hits hard enough to wipe out players in one hit even in the base game, I'm thinking about you Commander N'iall, Radahn, Malenia, and others.

The whole point of souls games is to be able to fight against some of the toughest enemies in the game, and even the Dark Souls 3 boss, the Nameless King, has trouble stacking up against some of the tougher new big bads out there. With all that said, the souls players are some of the most innovative players there are, and with that comes the return of the tank builds, made to take on even Malenia and Radahn, Consort of Miquella while giving back shocking amounts of damage. We also see plenty of new armor in the DLC, ranging from the Rakshasa and Dancer's sets, to the heavy armor of Solitude which is one of the heaviest and the toughest new armors in the game. With the new talismans that even boost defense when the player is overburdened. With all the new options, the options are open to make a build that can be touched, just not hurt; talk about thick skin.

Playing a Tank Build

Playing a tank isn't easy, and true to it being an open world RPG, we do see a lot of different ways to approach the tank builds. Some players are big on choosing the best armor and buffs for the build, while other players showcase their 99 Vigor builds which meet the max you can put into your stats. However they choose to go about it, there are plenty of methods for being able to take heavy hits.

Tanks aren't just about taking hits though. One of the biggest benefits to playing a tank is that they are better at being able to trade blows. In fact, we can find some of the strongest tank showcases in Elden Ring where players have intentionally taken hits from bosses like Rellana only to come back from near death and lay her low while ending the fight at full health. This comes from the ability to restore health, in much the same way we saw in Bloodborne, but also sitting at such a high poise that even the bosses can't knock the player from their feet.

Thanks to the Talisman of Lord's Bestowal and the Bull-Goat's Talisman we see the ability to boost our poise upwards of 89%, which is insane when you consider that some of the heaviest armors in the game offer us anywhere from 72-96 poise. When you consider that you really only need 51 Poise to be able to trade hits effectively, that means you just aren't moving.

Picking the Top 5 Tanks

Tanks are a pretty standard build that are structured around heavy armor and the ability to take blows while dishing them back just as hard, or harder. For the most part that makes most tanks a kind of heavy paladin, or a heavy sword and board type build that focuses on the use of heavy shields, spears, and weapons that make the build worth taking all those hits from the bosses. The Shadow of the Erdtree gave us a lot of great new gear for our tanks, and a few new consumables that just make it that much easier to crank the damage high, while taking as little as possible. Or in the case of the 99 Vigor build, just not caring if you take hits because the enemy always ends up going down first.

5. The Holy Tank

By the grace of god, let me tank him

What is The Holy Tank

Holy builds were an underwhelming build in the base game, since most of the bosses had some kind of resistance to the holy damage itself. This ended up putting those builds as a general underdog and players turned towards other ways to play instead. There's still a few niche holy builds, but Shadow of the Erdtree suddenly gave us a part of the game where holy damage was actually strong against enemies and the new bosses.

This gave us a huge rise to the holy builds again and we saw paladins and tanks get an upgrade. Part of this was thanks to the Devonia Devastator build by Fextralife, but we also saw some new aspects of the crucible talismans and armor that gave us a chance to really up the ante with a take on a tank version of an arcangel style build. The Crucible armor set has always been one of the highest buffs that we can use for the incantations and skills that it charges up.Honestly, the only reason this comes in at number five is because holy damage is still hit or miss outside the DLC. This is a build that can tank just about anything, but there is always going to be that problem, sadly.

Playing The Holy Tank Pros and Cons

This build is great in the DLC, because holy damage shreds bosses.
Holy damage tends to be on the weaker side of damage effects in the main game, so this build may struggle somewhat against bosses resistant or immune to holy damage
This build is excellent at trading blows and being adapted for other uses like paladin builds, since it effectively functions as a barbarian paladin hybrid.

Weapon Loadout

1. Black Steel Greathammer

Requirements: 25 Strength, 11 Dexterity, 17 Faith

The Black Steel Greathammer is one of the harder hitting new weapons in the DLC and it can be given a sacred affinity and an ash of war. It can also be enchanted with sacred enchantment incantations which give it an extra wallop and allow you to pick more versatile ashes of war. It also can be used for pairing with some gnarly crucible spell damage, which makes this one of the hardest hitting options that we have for this as a tank build.

2. Marika's Hammer

Requirements: 20 Strength, 12 Dexterity, 19 Faith

Marika's Hammer is just one of the best holy weapons in the game and it hits really hard. We use it for the sheer holy damage that it can inflict on top of the fact that it lets the player do a significant amount of damage.

3. Golden Greatshield

Requirements: 24 Strength

We chose the Golden Greatshield for the fact that it fits the theme, and it has no skill which means that you can always keep it on hand and not interfere with the special skills of the weapon in your primary hand. Of course that also means that it can be given an ash of war as well, which makes it all the more versatile for this build.

4. Spear with Holy Ash of War

Requirements: N/A

Spears are the best thing to pair with any large shield because we can guard and thrust at the same time. For this build we really want a spear that we can give a holy ash of war to, or we want something that we can give an Aspect of the Crucible ash of war to, particularly Aspect of the Crucible: Wings. This gives us range and the ability to fly across the battlefield quickly even if the player is over-burdened by a heavy equip load.

5. Erdtree Seal

Requirements: 40 Faith

Whenever it comes to holy builds, we can figure that we're going to crank the faith stat pretty high. Since we're doing just that in the Holy Tank, it never hurts to have the Erdtree seal which has the best incantation sorcery scaling in the game overall for seals.

Gear Loadout

Helms

Crucible Axe Helm- Increases Aspect of the Crucible Skills and Spells by 4%

Armor

Crucible Armor- Increases Aspect of the Crucible Skills and Spells by 4%

Gauntlets

Crucible Gauntlets- Increases Aspect of the Crucible Skills and Spells by 4%

Greaves

Crucible Greaves- Increases Aspect of the Crucible Skills and Spells by 4%

Extra Essentials

Talismans

Talisman of Lord's Bestowal- increases poise by 54% after drinking from a flask of tears.
Godfrey Icon-Enhances charged spells and skills by 15%
Shard of Alexander- Increases damage from skills by 15%
Verdigris Discus- Increases defense when the player is overburdened
Holy Scorpion Charm- Increases holy damage by 12% and damage received by 10%
Two-Headed Turtle Talisman- Increases stamina recovery by 22.2%

Spells

Black Flames Protection- Increases physical damage negation by 20% but reduces amount from hp flasks
Golden Vow- increases damage by 15% and damage negation by 10%
Barrier Spells- Grants protection from chosen form of damage.
Aspect of the Crucible: Thorns- Fires golden quills all about the caster
Aspect of the Crucible: Tail- Creates a large tail that sweeps the arena to knock back foes
Aspect of the Crucible: Horns- Forms a pair of giant horns on the shoulder for the player to charge forward

Stats

50-99 Vigor
30 Mind
35-40 Endurance
65-80 Strength
40-65 Dexterity
9-18 Intelligence
65-80 Faith
9-17 Arcane

4. Ultimate HP build

The HP is infinite, take your time

What is the Ultimate HP Build

The Ultimate HP build is a tank build that focuses on literally that, the ultimate HP. Originally that meant maxing out vigor and using some consumables for temporary buffs while relying on talismans like Erdtree's Favor and Crimson Amber talisman to round us out. Now those talismans got new upgrades in the DLC with an additional +3, and we get a helm that lets us increase our stamina, hp, and equip load, making tanks even more viable.

This is also the build with so much health that we can focus more on an aggressive playstyle instead of worrying on armor and other tanky problems, so we get to showcase a somewhat vampiric skill in the hand-to-hand ash of war category called lifesteal fist. Not only do we have an insane health bar, but we get to frustrate our enemies by stealing their HP to recover the damage that they dealt.

That all being said, the beauty of the 99 vigor build is that it allows the player to play almost any style that they want to try out. Keep in mind that every build on this list can very quickly benefit from 99 vigor, so this just makes it for a fun base at number 4.