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Welcome to ESO Bastian Hallix Tank Build! Companions, just like players come with class presets. Bastian is your typical Dragonknight, which is perfect for tanking! His class skill line has great self and group healing, crowd control effects and useful buffs. Pair this with outside skill lines from Sword and Shield and guilds and he’s an absolute monster at soaking up damage and protecting you the player. Pick Bastian up if you need help handling pressure and this battle buddy can keep enemies off of you! This build was able to complete Veteran Hard Mode dungeons with me and my companion and Veteran Dragonstar Arena with three players and one companion. It works, at some of the hardest content in the game and can work for you!
Bastian’s unique perk gives 30% chance for potions, looted from chests and monsters, to be improved by Bastian’s Insight. A very practical ability for your travels!
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Fantastic survivability and group utility | Weak class healing skills |
| Provides improved potions |
Video Guide
How to unlock Bastian and where do I find him? Bastian Hallix quest, “Competition and Contracts”.
You can find Bastian’s quest in the Blackwood zone. You’ll find him easily next to the Blueblood Wayshrine. Simply follow the road from the wayshrine to the Deepscorn Hollow cave, he is sitting on the ground and tight up to a pillar.
After you complete the quest you can find Bastian 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.
Companion 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.
Video
Bastian Hallix 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: Bastion has a sword & shield skill: Provoke, by default, this ability last 15 seconds, with a 16-second cooldown. If you put it in the first spot on his skill bar, the companion will activate it first, and immediately when it comes off cooldown, giving you consistent taunt on enemies. For the best results follow the skills listed here but also be knowledgeable about how it works. Now when you’ll make changes, you get the most out of the performance of the companion’s skills.
1. Provoke (Skill line: Companion Sword & Shield) – Melee taunt and perfect opener to go on cool down first.
2. Searing Weapons (Skill line: Companion Radiating Heart) – very useful buff that increases light and heavy attack damage
3. Ritual of Salvation (Skill line: Companion Fighters Guild) – Fighters Guild ability with 20% damage reduction for standing in rune
4. Drake’s Blood (Skill line: Draconic Armor) – burst heal and damage reduction by 20%
5. 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: Baneslayer (Skill line: Companion Blazing Might) – Insane damage to all enemies in front of the companion. Dealing extra damage when a player is damaging them.
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 Bastian 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, Bastian 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 Bastian’s 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 Bastian 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!
More ESO Articles, Guides and Builds
Thank you for reading the ESO Bastian Hallix Tank Build guide! Check out more companion builds and a comprehensive companion guide and video. Also, consider watching me on Twitch, feel free to ask me questions about my builds and games I play or check out my YouTube Channel.
