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Welcome to the ESO Azandar Al-Cybiades Tank build! Azandar Al-Cybiades is an older Redguard Arcanist, who becomes a little of a cross between a father figure and an eccentric professor mentor figure to the player character. Players will quickly discover that he has a hyper-focus on his endless pursuit of knowledge.
By Pixel | Updated for Necrom Chapter, U38 on June 3rd, 2023
Should you use Azandar Al-Cybiades Tank build?
Companions, just like players come with class presets. Azandar Al-Cybiades is an Arcanist and has a good amount of healing and survivability skills in his support and defence skill lines, which is perfect for tanking!
Companions are non-player characters who can aid you on your adventures throughout Tamriel. Once called to your side, these stalwart allies will assist you in combat. To unlock the Azandar companion you need to own the Necrom Chapters.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Powerful Offensive Buffs | No Unique light or heavy attack buff |
| High Durability | Lacks burst heal |
| Great utility |
How to unlock Azandar, and where do I find him? Azandar Al-Cybiades quest, “The Fateweaver Key”.
You can find Azandar in the Apocrypha zone, the entrance is tricky to find, but you can check our guide for more info. Once there, head to the Cipher’s Midden village, he’ll be waiting for you next to the bridge.
Follow the quest(around 20-30 min) he gives you. Upon completion, he’ll be added to your collection and available to summon at any time.
After you complete the quest, you can find Azandar and all unlocked companions in your collections menu. Press the default key “U” on your keyboard or go to the collections tab, pick Allies from the list and then Companions.
After you complete the quest you can find Azandar and all unlocked companions in your collections menu. Press the default key “U” on your keyboard or go to the collections tab, pick Allies from the list and then Companions.
Progression
Companions are similar to players and here are some areas of focus for you while working through optimizing your companion.
Obtain multiple gear sets: You’ll want flexible options once you hit the end game, even if you plan on leaving him as a tank. You can find gear by looting defeated enemies or in various chests and boxes, almost everywhere in the game. Or you can go to any town Armor and Fine Garments store and pick up companion gear, light, medium and heavy. I’d also go to woodworker and weapon smith and pick up sword and shield, and various staffs. Swap a gear or weapons and level skill lines, because you never know if you want to switch!
Combat Level: Start levelling up your companion. Companions level up similar to a player, by killing enemies and eventually reaching level 20 (currently max). So you can grind with your companion (grinding video click). The exception are guilds’ skill lines (Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Undaunted), to level them up you need to complete guilds’ daily quests. You can find them in Grahtwood (map click), Stormhaven (map click), and Deshaan (map click).
Focus on Guild Skill Lines: You’ll want to prioritise completing the guide-specific daily quests in order to unlock the most powerful skills in the game.
Gear: Now start collecting pieces of gear to optimize your tank. Two of the best traits for your companion are bolstered, reducing damage and Vigorous adding extra health.
Azandar Al-Cybiades and Player Best Build Combo
ESO companions are a great way to have a helper in battle, but they can also be easily killed. This build will increase their survivability and your questing or even dungeon experience.
The secret is a five-piece craftable set from the Necrom Chapter Telvanni Efficiency. This combination reduces the cooldown on companions’ abilities allowing them to heal, evade and defend easier.
Here are examples of how it’ll help your builds:
- Tank companions commonly use the Fighters Guild ability Ritual of Salvation to reduce damage by 20%. With this five-piece active, the duration of the ability along with the cooldown is 8 seconds so hypothetically nearly 100% uptime.
- Damage Dealers use the medium armor skill Vanish for survivability, providing a full healing every 36 seconds. With 50% less time, every 18 seconds, your companion will outlive nearly anything as a DPS.
- Healers rely on the Restoration staff abilities, which can be cast repeatedly along with the Haste skill. This turns your companion into a spam casting machine and huge heals per second.
To further augment this effect, you can combine the armor trait “quicken.” This armor trait at purple quality gives a 2.6% reduction on ability cooldowns per piece with 5.2% on both weapons. So the new cooldown for the Vanish skill becomes only 5.7 seconds! Everything the companion does becomes radically improved.
To further aid in this, Isobel has a buff to light and heavy attacks after using penetrating strikes. Bastion has a buff for light and heavy attacks as well. In fact, each companion has some aid and utility to provide, and the reduction in cooldown means nearly 100% uptime giving them much greater survivability and utility.
How to modify your build?
We suggest a modified heavy attack/oakensoul build. You will have high health, mitigation and damage with the recommended gear sets. You always equip 5 medium Telvanni’s on your body and use Sergent’s Mail for heavy attack damage along with the Empower buff from Oakensoul.
Azandar Al-Cybiades Tank build
Skills
Companion abilities work on a cooldown system unlike players and often have 16 seconds before the skill can be used again. Thus, placing a skill on the first spot, vs the last has a great impact on its frequency.
An example:
- Provoke (Skill line: Companion Sword & Shield) – Melee taunt and perfect opener to go on cool down first.
- Scathing Rime (Skill line: Companion Quill Knight) – ranged taunt that applies minor maim debuff and will only be used when enemy is not taunted.
- Ritual of Salvation (Skill line: Companion Fighters Guild) – Fighters Guild ability with 20% damage reduction for standing in rune
- Abor’s Augmented Ward (Skill line Quill Knight) – massive shield when health drops and damage retaliation.
- Crimson Font (Skill line: Companion Undaunted) – Heal over time for your companion and you, you can activate synergy and heal for 50% of your health.
- Ultimate: Vigorous Tentacular (Skill line: Companion Scholar of Apocrypha) – a high damage ultimate ability with a stun and a debuff giving major vulnerability increasing damage taken to enemies hit.
Gear
All heavy armor gear pieces give the best possible survivability. The Bolstered, reducing damage is a great trait, But your companions’ primary self burst heal is based on the percentage of max health. Thus, your companion will be able to heal to full with more max health. You can’t go wrong with either trait, but when we cleared Veteran Dragonstar Arena with Azandar as the tank, Vigorous was the answer.
| Vigorous | Bolstered |
| Increases Max Health by 1.8% | Reduces damage taken by 1.2% |
| Increases Max Health by 2.2% | Reduces damage taken by 1.5% |
| Increases Max Health by 2.6% | Reduces damage taken by 1.7% |
| Slot | Weight | Set | Trait |
| Head | Heavy | Companion’s Helm | Vigorous |
| Shoulders | Heavy | Companion’s Pauldrons | Vigorous |
| Chest | Heavy | Companion’s Cuirass | Vigorous |
| Legs | Heavy | Companion’s Greaves | Vigorous |
| Gloves | Heavy | Companion’s Gauntlets | Vigorous |
| Boots | Heavy | Companion’s Sabatons | Vigorous |
| Belt | Heavy | Companion’s Girdle | Vigorous |
| Weapon One | Sword | Companion’s Sword | Vigorous |
| Weapon Two | Shield | Companion’s Shield | Vigorous |
| Necklace | Companion’s Necklace | Vigorous | |
| Ring | Companion’s Ring | Vigorous | |
| Ring | Companion’s Ring | Vigorous |
Tank companion Tips and Tricks
Control: Just like commanding a pet, you’ll need to hit the default key “Y” and the left mouse to attack or the right mouse to return (no PC). Companions don’t know when to move out of bad AoE’s or mechanics. So you as the player must make this a priority.
Combat: You’ll want to target the priority mob, this could be a boss or a mini-boss or something that can one-shot players that are non-tanks. Remember just like players, companions have no AoE or multiple target taunts. If you start off by attacking, Azandar will have a hard time gaining aggro, especially if you constantly change targets. Command him to attack first if possible.
Targeting: Remember that if you fully charge an attack, not on Azandar target, he will swap. So who you’re attacking is just as important as how you start the fight.
Companions Synergy: Companions can provide synergies but not use them. That’s why the undaunted skill lines are so vital to prioritise and use.
Provide Off Healing: Every class or combat style has some type of off healing. Even a small bit of off healing will help Azandar survive allowing him not to have 4 slots on his bar loaded with self-healing. Trust me, slotting off healing ability is all you need to allow him to provide more utility.
Make companion your own! These tips can help you out but the end result is up to you. Experiment, try things outside of the box and meta ideas. You’ll be surprised at just how effective these things can be.
Thanks for reading our ESO Azandar Al-Cybiades Tank build!
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