Experimental Builds

This is the tier list model (value × weight × uptime for every effect in the Boss setup) with two changes, applied to every build in the table, current ones included:

• Category weights follow the research order: 50% self-survival and sustain, 30% enemy debuffs, 20% group buffs. The tier list uses 50 / 30 / 20 with group buffs second.
• Every class line's passives and sustain tools count, for every build that runs the skill line. The values are below; buff passives (Elder Dragon, Shadow Barrier, Spear Wall) count as the buff they grant.
• Subclassed builds keep 92% of their overall score, as on the tier list, because they lose Class Mastery. Pure-class builds here keep it.
• Mobility (Major Expedition, pulls, gap closers) only breaks ties: every build here has a pull from Wield Soul.

On the tier list as it stands, Dragonknight leads with 89; nothing on this page changes it.

The Frost Aegis Sorcerer, Brood Shadow Nightblade and Frostrune Arcanist, and the current Tidebreaker Dragonknight bars, came from a bar optimiser rather than hand-picked swaps. It treats a bar as a set of effects and searches for the set worth the most, using the same effect values and uptimes as the comparison above, with three differences:

• Every effect costs a slot. The comparison credits every build with Revealing Flare, Resolving Vigor and the other universal skills for free; here they have to fit in the bar. Your fixed slots stay fixed (Goading Throw, Elemental Susceptibility, Elemental Blockade, Leashing Soul, Reviving Barrier), which leaves six skills, the back-bar Ultimate and Leashing Soul's affix to choose.
• A second source of the same buff adds little. Two sources combine as “up whenever either is up”, so a duplicate barely raises the score. Every pick also has to add at least 1 point on its own, which is how “no two skills doing the same job” is enforced. A heal over time and a damage shield count as jobs, so the first of each is worth a lot and a second almost nothing.
• Casts are limited. The six skills may take at most 0.3 casts a second, about what the current Dragonknight and Sorcerer bars use, so there's time left to taunt, block, bash and Heavy Attack.

It tries every pure class and every legal subclass (keep at least one own line, borrow up to two), 3,598 line combinations in all, and finds the exact best bar for each. Every passive of the chosen lines counts toward the line choice: always-on ones like Heart of Stone, ones that need a skill from the line on the bars like Flourish, and ones that grow with each skill slotted like Frozen Armor and Dark Vigor. Then it re-runs 200 times with every uptime, every effect's value and the category weights randomly varied, and counts how often each build comes out on top. A build that wins most re-runs doesn't depend on any one guess.

The pure Dragonknight comes out best overall in 69% of re-runs. Scores are out of 100 against the best any tank reaches in each category, on the optimiser's own scale, so they don't match the comparison table.

Class	Best lines	Six free skills · Ultimate	Score (range)	Wins in class
Dragonknight	Pure class Open build	Protect the Brood, Blood of the Elder Dragon, Earthshield Mantle, Revealing Flare, Ulfsild's (Intellect and Endurance), Heart of Flame · Standard of Might	81 (77–91)	83%
Sorcerer	Daedric Summoning · Draconic Power · Winter's Embrace Open build	Bound Aegis, Expansive Frost Cloak, Protect the Brood, Blood of the Elder Dragon, Revealing Flare, Ulfsild's (Intellect and Endurance) · Summon Charged Atronach	76 (73–85)	36%
Nightblade	Shadow · Draconic Power · Daedric Summoning Open build	Bound Aegis, Mirage, Protect the Brood, Blood of the Elder Dragon, Revealing Flare, Ulfsild's (Intellect and Endurance) · Summon Charged Atronach	75 (71–83)	39%
Templar	Restoring Light · Draconic Power · Daedric Summoning	Bound Aegis, Protect the Brood, Blood of the Elder Dragon, Channeled Focus, Revealing Flare, Ulfsild's (Intellect and Endurance) · Summon Charged Atronach	72 (68–80)	50%
Warden	Winter's Embrace · Draconic Power · Daedric Summoning Open build	Bound Aegis, Expansive Frost Cloak, Protect the Brood, Blood of the Elder Dragon, Revealing Flare, Ulfsild's (Intellect and Endurance) · Summon Charged Atronach	76 (73–85)	28%
Necromancer	Bone Tyrant · Draconic Power · Daedric Summoning	Bound Aegis, Agony Totem, Beckoning Armor, Blood of the Elder Dragon, Revealing Flare, Ulfsild's (Intellect and Endurance) · Summon Charged Atronach	73 (69–82)	26%
Arcanist	Soldier of Apocrypha · Draconic Power · Winter's Embrace Open build	Runeguard of Still Waters, Expansive Frost Cloak, Protect the Brood, Blood of the Elder Dragon, Revealing Flare, Ulfsild's (Intellect and Endurance) · Aggressive Horn	75 (72–83)	28%

Every row uses Leashing Soul with the Vitality affix. Range is the 10th to 90th percentile across the re-runs. Classes whose winner takes under half the re-runs have near-ties: their second and third builds score within a point or two.