Elden Ring - STRONGEST Tanking Build

Hello and welcome back to a new Elden Ring

build video. Today I'll be showing you how

to make a very defensive tanking build

which mainly focuses on blocking with a

shield, doing counterattacks, and being

able to absorb huge amounts of damage. So

if you're sick and tired of being

one-shotted by bosses and powerful enemies

and you want more of a purely defensive

build, then maybe this playstyle will be

good for you. As for the allocation of

character points, you can see that I've

mainly focused on putting them into

strength, endurance, and vigor. So as a

tanking damage sponge kind of character,

obviously we need a lot of vigor, and I've

decided that having around 1,400 or 1,500

HP is more than enough HP. Yes, I could

have put more points into vigor and gone

up to 2,000 HP and have a massive health

bar, but I really feel like it's not very

necessary to have so much HP. Even with

1,400 HP, you can survive quite a lot of

attacks from a boss or a high-level enemy

and still survive. In order to get my HP

up to 2,000, I would have to sacrifice a

lot of strength and a lot of damage

dealing capability. And even though we're

a tank here, we still need to be able to

do some damage back to them. And having

not many points in strength would just

mean that fights go on forever. So I like

to have strength at around 50, at least

50, nearly 60. And then I just put the

rest into endurance so we can carry heavy

gear and heavy weapons and also have a

nice amount of stamina to play around

with. As for the talismans, we're going

for the curved sword talisman, which as

enhances guard counters, and Greatshield

Talisman, which boosts your guarding

ability. Blue Feathered Branch Sword is

good. It raises defense when your HP is

low, and it's actually pretty nice because

when your HP is low, then it reduces

incoming damage by about 30%, which can be

quite a lifesaver. And finally, we have

Dragoncrest Shield Talisman, which vastly

boosts physical damage negation. Now, if

you're going up against the boss or

enemies that mainly focus on magic

attacks, you can swap this out for the

Spell Drake Talisman. Which basically just

boosts magical damage negation. And if

you're going up against a fire enemy that

does fire attacks, then you can choose the

Flame Drake Talisman, which boosts fire

damage negation. So really, it just

depends what kind of enemy you're going up

against. If you're really stuck on a boss,

then you might want to pick and choose

what kind of talisman goes best against

them. As for the fighting style, we're

going to be having our shield up most of

the time with Barricade Shield activated.

Barricade Shield is really good because

you don't lose any stamina when you're

blocking. So you could just block forever

if you've got enough focus points so you

can keep enabling the skill when it's run

out. It's just a bit annoying because

Barricade Shield doesn't really last very

long and it's not really very obvious when

it wears off. So up against multiple

enemies, our defensive capabilities are

quite impressive. We just have to make

sure that Barricade Shield is up.

However, we're not invincible and

sometimes we can be unlucky and get hit

from the side somehow. As you can see,

we're taking quite a beating here and this

is where the Blue-Feathered Branch Sword

Talisman is quite useful because it

reduces damage taken by about 30% when

your HP is low. I'm pretty sure without

that Talisman I would have died just now.

It also helps have a pretty big health bar

because sometimes in Elden Ring you can be

very unlucky in some cases and take a lot

of damage when you weren't really

expecting to. And it's times like this I'm

glad I'm not playing a glass cannon kind

of playstyle. You could switch out the

sword for a bigger sword, or maybe a spear

or polearm or some kind of halberd I quite

like the colossal swords because they have

quite a good range and a nice sweeping arc

and they do massive damage when you do a

counterattack. Even against really large

enemies that do these really big wind-up

power attacks, you can block those as well

and you'll do like a backwards roll but

you won't take any damage. Or maybe you'll

take just a tiny bit of damage but not

much. It's really nice when you go up

against these really big enemies and you

don't really have to worry about rolling

or dodging. You can just stand there with

your shield up take anything that they

throw at you. But sometimes some enemies,

they do really powerful attacks that can't

be blocked. For example, this giant hand

thing, it kept hitting me even when I had

barricade shield up and I was trying to

block. It still managed to damage nearly

half of my health. And as for armor, I

like the veteran's armor sets. Basically,

you want to choose your heaviest armor

that gives you highest defense and highest

amount of poise so you don't get knocked

around when you're trying to attack too

much. I got it from some boss. He's called

Commander Niall. He's in Castle Sol on the

rooftop. Took me quite a long time to

defeat that boss, but when you do, you get

his armor set. And I've also got this

other armor set called Lionel's Armor.

It's slightly better than Veteran's Armor

when it comes to defensive capabilities.

The problem is it looks really weird. It

looks kind of stupid. It makes you look

really fat and chunky. So if you don't

mind looking this way, then you could go

for this as well. I found this armor set

in the Leyndell capital somewhere in a

house, and yeah, it looks kind of weird.

It's the weirdest armor set I've ever seen

in the game so far. You can match it with

a black shield to make it fit in a bit

more, maybe. As you can see, I've got

quite a large variety of shields to choose

from. Could also use the twin blade sword

from Radahn the boss, which matches the

armor set quite well. Or you could use

this colossal shield, which is absolutely

ridiculous. Look at this thing, it shoots

fire out from the front. It's called

Visage Shield, and the guard boost on this

thing is insane. Even without Barricade

Shield, the damage negation is absolutely

amazing on this shield. It's really good,

and the amount of stamina you lose from

blocking, it's very small compared to what

it would be if you use a smaller shield.

I would say with this shield you probably

don't even need barricade shield ability.

And you can use this flame attack, which

is pretty cool, but you do run out of

stamina really fast when you use it. And

then you can just have the shield back up,

do some counter-attacking, and watch this

guy step backwards off the edge.

Great AI, great AI. Sometimes it does make

me laugh. The blocking capability of this

Visage Shield is just insane. Look at this

boss. Beast Clergyman who does purely

physical damage, and he's just relentless.

He keeps spamming all of these combos.

You barely get any window of opportunity

to attack him back, and I don't even have

barricade shield on, and I'm just blocking

everything he throws at me, barely taking

any stamina damage. And look at my stamina

recharging whilst I have my shield up.

I'm pretty much invincible against this

kind of boss. It's, it's very amazing.

And I tried fighting this boss before as

more of a damage steering, dodging kind of

character, and I kept getting 2-shot

killed all the time. But now that I have

this tanking build and this shield and

this armor, I'm finding this boss battle

to be really easy. There's quite a lot of

boss encounters in this game where it's

just a lot easier to be a defensive tank

and just block all of their attacks

instead of trying to dodge out of the way,

which I guess is more— takes more skill.

Unfortunately, the second phase for this

boss is still pretty difficult because He

does a lot of magical damage, and the

shield and the blocking doesn't really do

much against the magic damage. I guess

when you come up against bosses like this

that does huge magic damage, it really

shows the flaws of this kind of tanking

build. So I tried doing the boss again.

This time I tried switching talismans

before the second phase— well, as the

second phase started to begin, which was

pretty difficult and stressful. I switched

to the magic negation talisman And I also

tried to use the Magic Fortification

incantation, which was very risky,

de-equipping, unequipping my shield during

the fight to try and get the Magical

Fortification spell on. Somehow I managed

to survive and get the shield back on,

but at that point I had taken too much

damage and I kind of ran out of potions.

And yeah, the Magical Negation gear did

reduce the damage a little bit, but this

Maliketh boss, he just does too much

damage that gets through even your shield,

which makes the whole blocking playstyle

not to be very effective against this

enemy. So yeah, as with everything in this

game, there are pros and cons to certain

playstyles and different kinds of builds.

There's weaknesses and strengths that you

can find in every aspect of the game,

which is what makes it so fun to play in

my opinion. So thanks for watching my tank

build. Hope it was nice.