Update: I have temporarily removed the gear discussion and more in-depth breakdown because I no longer think some of those things. I will update this post with those later.

This is a tank build. I have used it to tank all content.

4/4 AA

3/3 HRC

4/4 SO

10/10 Vet DSA

6/6 Crow's Wood

This is a maximum mitigation heavy armor build. No weird stuff here. (Okay, maybe some weird stuff). And opinions, LOTS of opinions.

The main focus of this build is mitigation, boost DPS and party survivablity. The faster things die the less time you are in tough situations. Templars do not have the same damage mitigation as dragonknights but we have more support abilities and we should use them to our advantage. Now that we have something we can all agree on let's get divisive and get to the opinions!

Race:

Imperial

Attributes:

62 Health

Food:

Use blue v10 magicka and stamina drinks.

Mundus:

Mage.

Armor distribution:

5 heavy, 1 medium, 1 light

Stats:

25k physical/spell resistance is sufficient for all content in game. If you do not have very many champion points you may need to have a reinforced or nirnhoned item to prevent grief. 28k health is enough. 30k is safer. Stamina doesn't matter if you're using a drink and have all shield-play enchants. Stack magicka.

No pvp buffs or drink except lycanthropy which everyone should have.

Champion points:

Get your stamina under control. Block expertise and warlord are your best friends.

Once that's been handled pick up spell absorption from the Lady by putting a healthy amount of points into thick skinned. You will be grateful when you face the Mantikora.

If your stamina is no longer an issue begin focusing on reducing your magicka cost and increasing your magicka regen. Synergizer is a good goal.

Your mage points should be spent in boosting your damage or helping your off spec.. Spell precision and perfect strike are both good goals depending on your emphasis. Riposte is an interesting avenue I have not explored but intend to.

Experiment!

Armor:

Head: Heavy infused Bloodspawn helm

Heavy infused Bloodspawn helm Shoulders: Light or medium divines Bloodspawn shoulders

Light or medium divines Bloodspawn shoulders Chest: Heavy infused Hist Bark chest

Heavy infused Hist Bark chest Hands: Heavy divines Footman gloves

Heavy divines Footman gloves Waist: Light or medium Hist Bark belt or heavy exploration Footman girdle

Light or medium Hist Bark belt or heavy exploration Footman girdle Legs: Heavy infused Hist Bark legs

Heavy infused Hist Bark legs Feet: Light or medium Hist Bark shoes or heavy exploration Footman sabatons

Light or medium Hist Bark shoes or heavy exploration Footman sabatons Necklace: Footman necklace

Footman necklace Ring 1: Footman ring

Footman ring Ring 2: Footman ring

Footman ring Main hand: Defending or infused Hist Bark sword

Defending or infused Hist Bark sword Off hand: Infused Hist Bark shield

Once you have at least 28-30k health stack magicka. Jewelry enchants should be all yellow quality shield-play enchants. Do not go cheap.

Skills:

This is very generic.

Caltrops, heroic slash, breath of life can be interchanged and swapped out as needed.

Breath of life can move to bar 1 with empowering sweep to maintain the aedric spear block passive.

Bone shield can be put in instead of caltrops for bosses.

Blazing spear can be put in for stamina DPS synergy.

Any dawn's wrath ability can be slotted for increased ultimate regen.

Experiment more!

Things to do:

If you're pulling trash throw caltrops into pack you are pulling. It will give you initial aggro on everything. If you don't have caltrops blazing spear works as well.

For boss fights make sure the boss always has Pierce Armor on. It increases the damage they take and the less time he is up the less likely you are to die.

Keep Heroic Slash on all the time to keep generating ultimate. I like to weave a light attack into heroic slash to have both heroism buffs on me all the time. This lets you spam more Warhorns which lets DPS maintain their DPS high which is what you're supposed to facilitate.

Keep Channeled Focus up all the time especially on high damage fights like Mantikora or Conjured Axes in AA HM.

Make sure you watch weapon swaps. Try to swap weapons right after an attack or right before a heavy attack to keep your offbar buffs up. If you didn't see the boss start the heavy attack wait until after to swap. The first beat when they start charging is the safest time.

Spam Blazing Shield and Bone Shield as necessary to keep your damage curve smooth for your healers.

A well-timed Breath of Life immediately after a stomp during Mantikora or a bad Serpent poison phase can catch someone from dying. Excess magicka is wasted magicka.

Retaunt after about 5 seconds on things that are still going to be alive. You will never overtaunt and you won't lose aggro.

Circle of Protection can be nice but it does lower your party's DPS temporarily so use it carefully if you're light on DPS.

Words

I probably forgot something and something is probably wrong. I tried to make it not ugly and probably made a formatting bomb. Sorry!

Please direct all your anger and corrections to the comments below, my PM box or my in-game mail.