Eternal Return: Best Tanks, Ranked

Key Takeaways

• Tanks in Eternal Return focus on disrupting enemies with unique abilities and high survivability.
• Low pick rates don’t diminish the impact of tanks like Elena and Lenox who excel in crowd control and true damage.
• Health regeneration, crowd control, and damage mitigation are key traits of top tanks like Eleven and Garnet in Eternal Return.

What makes a good tank in a MOBA? A tank’s job is to attract attention and attacks, commonly referred to as “drawing aggro”, while making sure they are alive long enough for the rest of their team to be able to achieve their class’ goals. Many people consider Tanks to be a leader of sorts since they are the ones to truly set the pace of an encounter. They sacrifice damage in exchange for a high health pool, and even those without a high health pool can get by with the help of a support unit.

Eternal Return is different when it’s compared to other popular MOBAs since it has more in common with games like Fortnite than it does with League of Legends. However, it is still a MOBA at its core, and the things that make tanks great in MOBAs are still very present in the best tanks of Eternal Return.

10 Whip Mai

Win Rate % – 14.76%

• TOP 3 % – 41.46%
• Pick Rate % – 0.80%

When discussing the best characters in a competitive game, it is important to understand how a character’s pick rate and win rate correlate with each other. Yes, Whip Mai is only picked less than 1% of the time, but when referring to the best characters in Eternal Return, there are only a few select characters that fit the description. In addition to that, all the tanks in this title have low pick rates. The better picks will have a much higher pick rate, relatively speaking, but the more people playing a certain character means there will be more players losing with them as well.

Those who dedicate the time to learning Mai have the advantage of game knowledge. Since she doesn’t pop up much in a match, many players might not know what she does. She’s a tank whose abilities scale with her defense stat and her skills have great synergies with each other, allowing her to increase her damage while also protecting her teammates with shields.

9 Axe Estelle

Win Rate % – 14.12%

• TOP 3 % – 40.88%
• Pick Rate % – 1.31%

Estelle’s tankiness comes from her health regeneration passive, whereas other tanks employ high defenses to mitigate damage. She opts instead to heal damage taken over time. Her second skill, “First Response”, allows her to reduce the movement speed of enemies. It’s good for tanks to be able to slow down advancing enemies, allowing their teammates to escape or provide more damage per second.

Estelle can disrupt foes and stay alive, but she also can pivot to more of a support role for her allies if she needs to.

8 Rapier Elena

Win Rate % – 12.66%

• TOP 3 % – 43.24%
• Pick Rate % – 1.37%

Elena has a unique approach to the tank role, as she is primarily used to annoy her opponents. Her skills damage targets while increasing her defensive stats. Elena also is able to reduce the cooldown of her skills as she hits her opponents with them, allowing her to wear them down over time with her survivability.

Her ultimate skill adds crowd control to her already frustrating kit allowing Elena players to ice skate all over her enemies before they can even think of counterplay.

7 Glove Alonso

Win Rate % – 14.03%

• TOP 3 % – 37.53%
• Pick Rate % – 1.37%

A good counter to tanks in MOBA games is crowd control. Alonso’s passive skill makes him immune to immobilization effects for a brief moment and refreshes over time. While also being immune to crowd control, Alonso employs crowd control to take charge of the front line in encounters.

His magnetic abilities are not only fun to use but can easily disrupt teams making him a target players definitely want to take out quickly. This plays right into the fantasy of a tank player and, despite the increased attention from enemies, Alonso also has health sustain built into his kit, making him a solid all around.

6 Whip Lenox

Win Rate % – 14.38%

• TOP 3 % – 40.31%
• Pick Rate % – 1.44%

Lenox is a tank that’s good against other tanks. Another good counter to tanks is true damage or damage that ignores a tank’s resistances, and Lenox has true damage built into her ultimate skill.

On top of her built-in true damage, Lenox also gets access to shields and crowd control, making her a force to be reckoned with no matter who she is facing. Throwing in the ability to pull enemies closer or push them away from allies makes her a top-tier pick.

5 Axe Markus

Win Rate % – 14.38%

• TOP 3 % – 40.31%
• Pick Rate % – 1.44%

Disruption is a common theme when looking at the best of the best when it comes to the tank class. Markus has a lot in common with other tanks. He’s good at crowd control and staying alive but he also does those things better than other tanks without straying too much from being a tank.

He’s even good with other tanks since his ultimate reduces the defense of enemies hit while slowing them as well. If Markus wants to engage, players will have to deal with him but unfortunately, he’s good in one-on-one situations as well.

4 Bat Darko

Win Rate % – 11.43%

• TOP 3 % – 37.48%
• Pick Rate % – 1.85%

Darko is interesting when compared to the other tanks in the game because of his passive which allows him to steal enemy resistances from them. Being tanky is one thing, but being able to be tanky while reducing the tankiness of other players is a great ability to have. The rest of Darko’s kit features the run-of-the-mill tank abilities, including slows and shielding.

However, the ability to steal 4% of an enemy’s defense for 4 seconds upon hitting them just makes him that much better than other tanks.

3 Hammer Eleven

Win Rate % – 14.94%

• TOP 3 % – 41.25%
• Pick Rate % – 1.87%

Eleven is similar to Estelle since they both use health regeneration as their main form of drawing attention. Eleven has both high HP and a continuous healing ability but what puts her over the edge is her ability to heal her allies.

Her true strength unlocks with her ultimate which provides so much healing that she’d be unstoppable without a proper counter. Of course, she does practically no damage so of course her survivability has to be really strong to make up for it.

2 Bat Garnet

Win Rate % – 13.45%

• TOP 3 % – 41.25%
• Pick Rate % – 1.87%

Garnet is a tank that gets stronger the more damage she takes. Tanks already want to be in the fray, taking as much damage as possible, so there’s no surprise that she’s top 2 in terms of tanks in Eternal Return. In a scenario where she is facing off against another tank, she should almost always win especially with her very strong ultimate skill, “Maiden’s Embrace”.

This skill deals damage upon landing and marks them for 6 seconds. If the target’s HP drops below 20% during this time, then the skill can be recast and the target is executed.

1 Hammer Magnus

Win Rate % – 11.97%

• TOP 3 % – 39.52%
• Pick Rate % – 2.10%

The best tanks when it comes to MOBA titles are the ones that can also do a ton of damage. Eternal Return is no different, as Magnus is able to tank a lot of damage while dishing it right back out to his enemies. Every time he is hit with basic attacks his resistances increase and this stacking mechanic increases faster every time he lands a skill on an enemy.

Magnus gives the player a lot of room for skill expression so a lot of players pick him bringing his win rate down, but a good Magnus can be spotted a mile away and a great Magnus shines as the best tank in Eternal Return.