I'm in an almost identical mix of gear to you although a tiny bit below. BH Ear/Implant/Legs, Rakata everything else, still 1 columi weapon. I however, do significantly more DPS than that and do quite a few things different than you to achieve it. I use My Build for the extra alacrity, you can even go the whole way and take 9% alacrity and boost your APM from 28 to 32. I prefer 4% as its easier on my heat management and less RNG reliant (crit dependant) Your Crit, Surge and Accuracy are all pretty high although acceptable. You could reitemize quite easily to boost your numbers. Swap out an accuracy enhancement for power/surge, get as close to 100% accuracy as possible. Replace all surge augments with aim. Scales with Sorc buff and is superior. Get crit closer to 30% unbuffed by swapping out crit for power (either enhancements or mods) We no longer rely on crit for heat venting. You vent 8 heat every 6sec irrespective of cirt %. Ditch your relics and buy 2 x Campain relics of the boundless ages from the PVP vendor (11200 creds) You wont loose much surge with the enhancement changes making up for the augment losses. By adding aim augments you will get a little crit as well as almost as much power as an overkill augment. With the sorc buff you come out ahead. The PVP relics are seriously overpowered for PVE DPS. When comparing 97 power passive (lowest level PVP bought with 11200 credits) to the best possible PVE version (Warstalker Relic of boundless ages) 350 power for 30 secs, 2min CD, the base PVP model comes out ahead by 12.5% power over time and doesn't ever need to be activated. Get the BM version for 550 comms if you pvp, it's even better My stats completely unbuffed look more like this.. Aim 1971 Power 614 Accuracy 100.03% Crit 29.11% Surge 72.93% Rotation if its not a typo is part of your heat and DPS problems. Using that rotation can bring you over 40 heat by the time you hit your first HSM. Try Tracer x 3, HSM, Railshot, Unload, Tracer..... always use railshot on CD (you should have the 4pce bonus, if not you are gimping your DPS to the extreme) Use rapid shots before you go over 40 heat.. not after. Its a DPS gain in the long run as your diminished heat dissipation above 40 hurts you more. Using Thermal Sensor Override + Power Surge with a Fusion Missile is good for damage, but if you find yourself high on heat use it with unload to help claw some heat back over the channel time. I start a boss encounter with the rotation above and then go hell for leather with disregard for heat until I hit 75 heat. Then I pop vent heat and go back to the normal rotation making sure to stay under 40 for the next 1min50sec. I then ramp up again to 75 and blow vent heat on CD.. this way you can get an extra 200 heat usage over a 5min fight. Although MOX doesn't take downtime into account a 900DPS figure seems very low and strikes me as a heat management problem more than anything else. Reworking your gear to carry less accuracy, crit and more power will give another 100DPS but it wont help if you constantly overheat. Spend some time on the dummys at fleet working on staying below 40 and you should see a marked increase in the numbers you put out. For a better idea of constant DPS use SWmoniTOR as a parser. You're welcome.

Not necessarily. Sometimes bugs are a lot more complex to solve than we might think. Take the never-ending unload animation bug for example. It's been there since beta and is constantly complained about to the point where you would argue that if an easy fix was available, they would have implemented one by now. Ive played other MMOs where relatively simple damage coefficient bugs have taken months or even years to sort out because of the interaction between several pieces of script. Sometimes a bugs' effect is easy to spot but the cause can be very subtle. Just knowing that its on their radar and someone will be looking into it is a really good start.

Thank you so much. Showing the customer you're listening is 80% of the fix right there. It may sit there unfixed for a few more months, but at least we will know that you are aware of it and will fix it in the future.

Tested on my merc for an hour on 50 Ops dummy on fleet. Went up the tree as far as target tracking but didnt take it. Result: Max Unload Crit 1479 Took target tracking points and tested. Result: Max Unload 1496 That's not 30% and at 1% deviation it's what you'd expect over an hour of doing unload every 15 seconds. Surely one of the Devs can get on an account and test this themselves. The responses i've seen from BW on this issue have all been double talk about DR relating to armor. Please just come out and say "We tested IRL not a spreadsheet or looked at code, we see what every merc in the game can see when doing a real test, its a bug and not working as intended, we will endeavour to fix it"

Fixed.. that error has been there since beta.. I'm surprised no one ever picked it up. There will be no more changes/expansions/updates prior to 1.3. I would suggest that anyone who uses this resource regularly does a copy/paste prior to release. At the moment with the changes slated for our class, it looks as though I will not be renewing and therefore be unable to update the guide (nor want to). Thanks to all those who have provided feedback and support for my efforts to this point. It is much appreciated. I hope that those of you who are left after patch enjoy the game, and may the force be with you.

EDIT: Possible Changes in 1.3 have put all future edits/expansions/updates on hold.

I prefer straight Immortal. However a vengeance hybrid can yield good results if you are planning to offtank in Ops where you can switch back to a DPS set without a respec and do significant damage. That being said the specs you posted are very bad. The vengeance spec gives up Crushing Blow (15sec CD) for no replacement. Leaving only Backhand on a 45 second CD and your default abilities. Try either of these for hybrid vengeance http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#101hMGzuzMZfGMMMhzzM.1 http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#101hMGzuzMZcGMRMuzzM.1 The second allows you to switch to Shien Form and DPS when not needed to tank in OPs. You gain 4% defence at all times and lose 4% shield chance. Your force scream shield is up 33% more (its only an 800 value though). Smash becomes free. Crushing blow is replaced by Impale which is on the same CD and has approx the same damage (although it doesnt have a high threat modifier) Overall in tank setup you may find yourself with less rage through the loss of sweeping fury and doing slightly less threat as a result of this and the loss of Crushing Blow and Backhand. You will also take a few % more elemental damage. However in DPS setup in Shien Form you will do far greater DPS than you could in Immortal. Its a tradeoff. You'll have to try it to see if you like it. I didn't.... my spec is http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#101hMGzudrdfzZcGZ0M.1

The hybrid builds look quite interesting. I will use a couple of respecs and parse damage to see howe the threat generation compares to a pure immortal build. The build using reduced CD on Force scream to have much better uptime on the shield looks viable. Both builds look to work well in 8 and 16 where you can switch to a DPS set and put out much better numbers than the immortal build If anyone else has a build they favor, i would love to see it. ty

Update for 1.2 is now live. Changes to Talents Changes to builds Flashpoint guides added FAQ changes Crafting edits Lots of minor fixes Still more to come but it is now ready for use. If you have a build you would like to add, have any other suggestions , or see where changes are needed please PM me. Phoie

Hi everyone. Im updating my tanking guide http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=2688 and would like some feedback and contributions for the tanking builds section. Im running a 31/8/2 build atm but would like to see what others recommend. Please post your build with a link and a brief explanation of your choices if possible. Thank you.

Hi everyone. Im updating my tanking guide http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=2688 and would like some feedback and contributions for the tanking builds section. Im running a 31/8/2 build atm but would like to see what others recommend. Please post your build with a link and a brief explanation of your choices if possible. Thank you.

Now that 1.2 has gone live I will be updating the main post to reflect the changes to the SW soon. I am most interested in input on preferred talent builds for levelling, HM's, and OPs.. so if you would like to post your picks here i'll be sure to check them out and possibly add them to the guide ty. On a personal note, as an Aussie I will soon be taking advantage of the free transfers to get my main over to the Oceanic PVP server and am looking for a guild to call home. Send me a PM here on the forums if you would like to chat more.

This guide has been transferred to JK venacular with my consent and posted to their boards. One well informed reader has made a few observations about the contents and I will be changing some things here shortly. The guide was originally written during the beta phase and some of the stuff in here was from datamining at the time. Changes will appear in the positioning, taunting, buffs, stats, crafting. All the changes are relatively small and shouldnt change the overall look of the guide, only adding a little more clarity to some sections.

Great work Camarius. This guide was written with my consent so please don't try and flame the author for copying it. A lot of work went into its conversion to JK venacular, and the author will be maintaining it over time as new patches go live. Keep up the good work.

Just rolled out another update. IS now current for this build taking into account changes to Force Push etc. FAQs and Flashpoint guides are now complete. Also made some fixes i'll list here with quotes for those who alerted me to them. Thank you for letting me know, with a document this size it will never be perfect. Fixed, was that way in beta when originally written. Never noticed it was still in there. Ty for this, I got the info off a site. I will manually check all companion gift preferences myself and update soon. Ty, Ive been looking for this error for a while. Could never see it in the abilities section. Finally saw it in the talents section. Fixed

I had noted your previous post about the talent builds and checked the builds at that time. They are all working fine for me on a 3 browsers (IE,FF,Chrome) I just checked every link again and they are still working. Build 1 and 2 are similar in that they have the same amount of points in the immortal tree, however they are in different spots. Perhaps it is a problem with browser cookies etc as I cant seem to replicate it. If anyone else is experiencing this please let me know and i'll get back to you after trying to reproduce it a few more times.

Gankstah has asked me to post a quick note and let you all know that due to a forum bug he is currently unable to post. While he attempts to get a resolution from customer service he will still be viewing the forums and will be back with replies and edits to this thread soon. Thank you

Ive started adding flashpoint guides, I will soon add World Bosses to this. Tonight I will be adding a FAQ section that should help with some of the more common leveling questions. It also covers tips on AoE tanking etc. Layout will change to incorporate this new section. Stay tuned for an update later in the night. Its quite common, usually when I see my HP dropping quickly and predictably its because something made of FIRE is being channeled at me. Sorry its a typo. Gangstah changed his method from one version of the tanking primer to the next. Had to change a bunch of numbers but I guess I missed one. I will adjust the number accordingly. Update New FAQ section has been added. Will need a couple more passes for final spelling, grammar, flow but the meat of the section is all there.

Update Added video guide links to the first 4 flashpoints to section 8. Added crew gift preferences to section 3. Added high dps/lower mitigation leveling build to section 4. Upcoming Additions Adding a FAQ section on Jugg tanks Adding more video flashpoint guides Adding World Bosses Section Adding damage and minimum level to all SWJ abilities

There are a bunch of changes like this coming really soon. Im getting lots of feedback and have more contributors approaching me every day. The good folks at Torhead have provided some support so you can expect more in the abilities and talents sections soon. People have been sending me some great talent builds which will be added. Here's a brief list of some of the bigger additions on the way Adding companion gift preferences Base Damage for highest rank of SW abilities Minimum level to aquire each SW abiltiy Expansion of PVP section to include detailed strategies for SW tanks Links to guides for every flashpoint in the game More talent builds (including leveling specific examples)

It was mate. It got to 20,000 views and about 2 weeks on the front page first. These threads have to go through an approval process for a sticky and sometimes it can take time. I did however receive a PM from the Bioware community team asking me to save the thread prior to the wipe, so I think it will be re-pinned a lot quicker this time

Im considering it at the moment however I would prefer to stay in the tank tree as the practice during leveling helps cement your ability with the priority rotation later on. I may list an immortal build that goes as high on DPS by sacrificing damage reduction (This build was suggested by a contributor just prior to the forum wipe and is great for leveling early on as it is extremely Smash damage heavy)

My guide is now up and running here on SWTOR.com, both in the tank role forum and in the Juggernaut section. Flag it for a re-sticky if you want it to stay on the main The talent links are working but im still going on the rest of the links to other contributors. I will have a complete RC build update done soon.

[aname=9].[/aname] 8.0 Inside the Flashpoint 8.1 How ToR Flashpoints are Structured Flashpoints in ToR are structured in a similar way to the small group instances in other MMORPGs. The flashpoints in ToR are instanced multiplayer content involving high level difficulty NPCs and are accessible on Valkien Station at the Imperial Fleet. They are designed to be run in most cases with 4 players, however the first 2 (Black Talon and Hammer Station) have been tuned for as little as 2. While 4 players are advised you can often succeed at clearing a flashpoint with up to two companions. One of the things that sets ToR flashpoints apart from other MMOs is the composition of the trash packs within them. In ToR many of the packs will contain a variety of NPC difficulty types. Most pulls contain one to two Elite level mobs and an assortment of weak, standard, and strong. As a tank you will need to prioritize the order in which the NPCs are killed and also which mobs are important to maintain threat on. Generally speaking in a pull with 2 elites, 2 strongs, and 1 standard mob you will want to hold threat on the 2 elites at all times. The preferred order of kill will be Weak then Strongs then Elites. NPC abilities may influence both threat and kill targets eg. Those with CC likely to effect the healer would be a priority. The highest damage mobs should be kept on you regardless of type. Flashpoints award high level rewards such as armor, weapons, and mods. They provide good XP through their associated quests when leveling and help hone your tanking skills as you progress. They also help cement relationships with other players you may end up running with at endgame and are well worth the effort to complete. 8.2 Too Many Chiefs Prior to endgame and perhaps even during it you may often find yourself as a tank being responsible for the coordination and leadership of the flashpoints you run. As a tank at an early level you will find yourself receiving tells from other players asking if you would be interested in running a particular flashpoint, or being asked if you would like to team up to achieve harder quest objectives. Once inside you will often be required to lead the team through and will be expected to know what you are doing. The logical extension of this is that often you will be required to lead other party members and coordinate strategy. Don’t be phased by this and simply do your best to communicate with the team. Try to avoid saying stuff like “**** NOOB! I TOLD YOU NOT TO STAND THERE!!!” It doesn’t help anyone and it makes you look like a *****. 8.3 Setting the Scene One of the best ways to avoid disagreements within the group when running content is to be clear on your objectives and ground rules from the beginning. Things you will want to agree upon before starting a run may include. * Will all party members be available for the entire run? (It’s no use starting a 90 minute run if your DPS needs to go in 30 minutes) * Will we be completing bonus objectives? * Will the party members be selecting lightside or darkside options? (e.g do they want to kill or spare the captain?) * Does anyone want any particular pieces of loot (i.e. Will anyone else be rolling on tank loot, or does anyone else want the lightsaber that drops off the last boss) 8.4 Your Healer...Your Wingman Always keep the lines of communication open with your healer. Ask him questions throughout the run to let them know their opinion is needed/valid. “How much resource do you want before i make every pull?”, "How do you think the DPS are doing?”, "Am I taking too much damage? Would you like some CC?" If you are new to a flashpoint let the healer know at the beginning in whisper and ask them to send you a tell if they see any pulls done incorrectly. Healers will often notice a lot more than you simply due to standing at the back watching what everyone else is doing. Lastly ALWAYS thank a good healer for a job well done at the end of a run. The DPS stroke their own epeen enough already without needing praise from you 8.5 Flashpoint Guides Here is a series of links to video guides for the various flashpoints in TOR. These are not my work so please do not critique them in this thread. I have listed them in the order in which they are available and listed the recommended minimum level ranges. NOTE: Some of the guides are too long for my preference and I will be listing more succinct versions when they become available. I have not listed Hard Mode guides as this is a beginners guide to tanking. Black Talon Recommended Minimum Level 10-12 Need a shorter guide for this! Any suggestions PM me pls Hammer Station Recommended Minimum Level 16-19 Guide Video Link 4Min 14s Athiss Recommended Minimum Level 19-22 Guide Video Link 6Min 42s Mandalorian Raiders Recommended Minimum Level 24-26 Guide Video Link 6Min 6s Cademinu Recommended Minimum Level 26-28 Guide Video Link 8Min 30s Boarding Party Recommended Minimum Level 31-33 Foundry Recommended Minimum Level 34-36 Colicoid War Games Recommended Minimum Level 40-42 Red Reaper Recommended Minimum Level 44-46 Directive 7 Recommended Minimum Level 50 Guide Video Link 7Min 55s The Battle for Ilum Recommended Minimum Level 50 False Emperor Recommended Minimum Level 50 Kaon Under Siege Recommended Minimum Level 50 [jumpto=1]Back to Contents[/jumpto] [aname=10].[/aname] 9.0 Operations Tanking 9.1 Know Your Enemy Raid mobs have significantly more health and hit harder than regular flashpoint mobs. Trash pulls in raids can have many more mobs than flashpoints and the bosses can have quite interesting threat mechanics and abilities. For these reasons and others, when preparing to raid any instance for the first time prior research is of the utmost importance. Not only should you read the strategies posted on the guild forums and other prominent tanking websites, you should also endeavor to watch (where possible) video guides posted for the boss encounters. You may be required to explain the fight to the OT/DPS/Healers and video guides will assist you by showing you raid placement, the length of the various phases, and healing priority. A tank who doesn't know the fights in a raid can quickly cause a wipe and most likely will not remain in the raid group very long. 9.2 There's no I in Team Always work hard with your other tanks in raid to support each other. Tanking is not a competition with each other. If you are an OT and the MT only selects a target for themselves, pick another target and hold aggro on it while the raid burns the primary. Ask if they would like to give you an assist to mark the secondary. As an OT you should always be on the lookout for mobs that add to the pull or split from the pack to run towards dps and taunting them (except for the primary) The MT is concentrating on keeping his TPS above the best single target dps in the raid on the primary target and will not often pick up these adds in time to stop a dps from death. NEVER taunt off the MT unless asked to do so (having your taunt button spaced away from your primary tank rotation, whilst still within reach is advised) If you are given an assist, never run organizational functions unless asked. Allow the raid leaders to do their job. If the RL forgets an important part of any encounter always wait for them to finish explaining the fight before adding anything. Constant interjection during instructions to raid is not good raid etiquette. 9.3 Raid Lootz Loot systems and rules in raid are often not the same as in 4 mans. In almost any heroic raid a Master Looter system will be set (Not yet confirmed ingame). This is done to stop ninjas or misloots of high quality and rare items. If you are in a pug always ask at the beginning what the loot rules are so that misunderstandings and nerd rage can be avoided. If you don't like the pugs loot rules then leave in a nonchalant manner and no harm has been done. NOTE: You should always check with the guild leader/officers to determine what content can be pugged. Having yourself saved to a raid when the guild needs you is definitely not cool. If you are running with a guild, loot will often be distributed based on raid/guild needs rather than a simple all main sets roll system. As with pure pugs when you are participating in a raid made up mostly of members of a particular guild always ask about loot rules prior to commencement. Please Note: This section will be clarified when I have more first-hand information on endgame content. [jumpto=1]Back to Contents[/jumpto] [aname=11].[/aname] 10.0 PWNAGE Just because a tank is considered a primarily a PVE class doesn’t mean you can’t kick *** and take names in PVP. Tanks when properly geared and played can have great success in all forms of PVP, and fill some specialty PVP roles as good as or better than any other. When in PVP you will notice that some classes do far more damage to you than others. This is due to the type of damage they are putting out.There are four damage types in TOR. Kinetic, Energy, Internal and Elemental. There are three important things to note about damage types: Force powers and Tech powers, unless otherwise listed, are considered Kinetic damage. Armor increases DR to Kinetic and Energy damage only. Some skills/equipment/abilities increase specific types of damage (i.e. Dark Blood in the Immortal tree). What does this mean? This means that certain trees will have a DPS advantage vs. tanks. Trees with a high yield of Elemental and Internal damage which bypasses our high armor rating. Examples would be Lethality for Agents (Elemental), Madness for SI's (Internal) and Advanced Prototypes for BH's (combination of both). Credit to Gankstah for this info 10.1 Mano a Mano In one on one combat a tank must make use of all of their abilities to survive. Having a large health pool and high avoidance will not guarantee victory. The use of your CC is essential in order to burn down both DPS and Healing classes. One of the toughest matchups for tanks is when facing a healer. The best strategy to defeat a healer is to work their health down below 50% while building your resources up. Once they are below 50% immediately use CC to stun or prevent casting and use all of your highest damage abilities to burst DPS the healer down. The longer a fight with a healer continues the less your chances of winning get. No matter what class you are fighting, remember to make use of your defensive and offensive CDs. 10.2 The Tanks Role in Warzones Tanks can fulfill many important roles in warzones better than any other AC. Depending on the objectives of the warzone in which you are participating some of the tasks to which you are best suited are. • Damage Soak Assist. Your guard ability as well as your taunts allows you to soak up and reduce damage to other players on your team. You can transfer damage to yourself using guard as well as reduce the damage done to a team member using taunt. In ToR these are the tanks greatest PVP tools. • Holding a strategic point. A tank and healer can hold off strong zerging groups of opposition for long periods while help arrives. (No 1 priority is protecting the healer. Use CC and interrupts on those focusing on the healer) • Ball Running. Your high health and avoidance makes it easier for you to absorb the focused damage of large groups of republic scum • Baiting. When a strategic point needs to be taken from the enemy, run in (preferably with a healer in tow) and try to draw off as many enemies as possible. This allows your teammates to swarm in after you and capture the now less secure point. • DPS. Tanks in ToR can do a surprising amount of damage (some more than others). Don’t overextend yourself and fight within the group and you can often see yourself doing a decent chunk of a battlezones damage. Here is a excerpt from an interesting post by Tersidre on Sith Warriors in PVP. He describes the use of our defensive abilities in the PVP context. [jumpto=1]Back to Contents[/jumpto] [aname=18].[/aname] 11.0 Sith Warrior FAQs Which is the “best” tank class? In truth there is no overall “best” tank. Each of the 3 tank classes has their strengths and weaknesses. The Juggernaut is best at single target threat and avoidance, while the BH excels at AoE threat and shielding and the SI in the middle. What’s important is which style of play you prefer and to a lesser extent that classes story. If you are finding the lack of AoE threat on your Juggernaut to be a big issue there are steps you can take to help minimize this. See later question in the FAQs with regards to this issue. Is it better to level Immortal? If you wish to be at your maximum tanking potential during the leveling process then Immortal is where you will want to sink all your points. However, just because you want to end up a tank doesn’t mean you need to always be one. You may find the leveling process easier by going down the DPS Juggernaut path and switching at a later date. You may also choose to sink points into the other trees earlier that level 40 in order to boost your DPS while at a low level. Should I always use Soresu form during leveling? Almost always “Yes” if you are running an Immortal tree build. What you sacrifice in order to get the extra few % damage in other forms does not outweigh the benefits you receive from your tanking form as an Immortal tank. I can’t seem to hold threat on multiple NPCs, what am I doing wrong? The Juggernaut tank is the weakest of all 3 tanks when it comes to AoE threat. Some classes with high damage AoE attacks can regularly pull mobs off you during a pull. What the Jugg excels at is single target threat, which you can use to ensure that the most damaging mobs in every pull are firmly stuck to you. My strategies to help deal with threat during trash pulls is to • Take all 2 points in Decimate from level 10 to 12. 20% more damage to smash and a 3 second reduction to the cooldown will greatly increase your threat on packs prior to obtaining sweeping slash at 32. • Take Heavy Handed. Another 8% damage to both Smash and Sweeping slash. • Use target marking to help keep the dps focused on your primary target. As the great single target threat tanks we are, it will be very hard for any class to continually take threat on a target we have marked and are focusing on. • Prioritize your targets. E.G. If there are 4 NPCs in a pull (2 Elites and 2 Strongs) make sure that you are applying threat to the 2 elites with your single target abilities and taunt. If the 2 strong NPCs go astray don’t waste the time to try and pull them all back together on you. It is elite and champion difficulty NPCs that must be tanked, the strong, normal and weak NPCs are easily handled by DPS • Switch your threat target early. In a pull with 2 elite class NPCs, switch your target when the first is down to 10% HP. This allows you to gain a handy lead on the second NPC when all the DPS switch over a few seconds later. • Use CC and learn the range of your Smash. Mark one elite on the side of the pack as a CC target with lightning icon. Leap in to the far side of the pack, FS on the primary target, strafe out to beyond the range of smash on the CCed mob whilst still covering the other NPCs with it. • Save your taunt for priority NPCs. Don’t waste a taunt on a strong/normal NPC unless it is absolutely essential. Using a taunt on a strong NPC headed towards a BH DPS only to have an elite NPC make a B-line for the healer 3 seconds later is a daunting experience. Who should I use my guard ability on? When solo always put it on your companion unless you like sharing the threat and damage of NPCs around. When in a party use guard on the highest threat DPS. I start a run with it on the healer and watch to see which DPS (if any) are pulling threat. If one particular player is regularly taking aggro from NPCs then ensure that it is always applied to them. Which companion is best for a tank? There are 2 schools of thought on this and it all depends on personal preference. Option 1. DPS Companion. You get the extra damage to burn through targets very quickly but miss out on having a pocket healer. This option works very well if you have taken Biochem and have been crafting infinite use medipacks as you level. At level 24 the infinite use pack will heal half your health every 90 seconds helping make the loss of healing from your companion less noticeable. If you go the DPS companion route then pick whoevers personality appeals to you. Vette is very powerful early but some don’t like her attitude. If rolling darkside then Jaesa can be a blast to have around (Watching 2 Sith carve through a pack certainly looks heroic.) Option 2. Healing Companion. The healing you get from Quinn or RV2B is not insubstantial. The sacrifice for this is greatly decreased DPS. One good tactic is to set the Healing companion to DPS mode on their cast bar. This increases the cooldown on their healing abilities but brings their DPS up to close that of a pure DPS companion. Just as with the DPS option, take the companion whose personality appeals to you most. When will I start seeing tanking specific gear? In the mid 20’s you will start seeing gear with defense on it. This will happen sporadically at first but at around level 30 it becomes more common. Stats such as Shield absorb are seen a little later. Defense should be your primary concern as we have a relatively low shield % to begin with. Which crafting skill best complements a Juggernaut tank? Whichever you prefer. Biochem, Synthweaving, Artifice and Cybertech can all be rewarding. I will make special mention of Biochem and Cybertech with regards to leveling. Biochem enables you to make infinite use Meds,Adrenals and Stims. This is invaluable to the SW as we do not have our own in combat heal. The crafted meds heal a lot more than a regular and having a 50% heal every few pulls can speed things up a great deal. Cybertech is good for leveling and beyond due to the mods it allows you to create for armor and weapons. As armor with mod slots derives pretty much all of its power from the mods you can run with the same armor for 40 levels should you keep its mods regularly updated. Making your own mods allows you to keep your gear at the cutting edge throughout the leveling process. Why are people taking the quake talent? Provided you have less than 5 targets at a time and you are applying smash once every 15 seconds then 5% lowering of the accuracy on NPCs is the same as 5% avoidance. For 2 points this is a great talent both during leveling whist taking on large packs and during endgame when you have to deal with hard hitters. Is ravage a good skill? Early on Ravage is a good skill but as you gain more skills you will find yourself using it less and less. Ravage has 3 negatives. Firstly its channeled nature makes it easy for you to inadvertently interrupt by hitting another ability. Secondly, the first negative is compounded by the fact that most of Ravage’s damage is back ended and occurs in the last second. Thirdly, it just takes ages to use. At high levels when trying to keep up you Sunder stacks, FS shield, Smash debuff and Retaliation buff a 4.5 second lockout while you go through the ravage animation is a long time. Do I have to be a leader in flashpoints and raids? A tank does technically “lead” solely because they are the first to initiate every pull during a run. This however is as far as the tanks leadership needs to go. If you don’t want to organize a run, designate target, explain fights and tell people when they DIAF, then you don’t have to. You are paying to play, and playing to have fun. If leading drains the fun out of your run then just don’t do it. I was rejected from a group because of my class. Are Juggs underpowered? First off, no person should be prevented from joining a group because people don’t think their class is good enough. If this happens to you take some comfort in knowing you wouldn’t want to run with that type of person anyway. With regards to SW being underpowered, yes they are some ways while in others they are definitely not. Overall the class is well designed but may be due a little tweaking (especially during the leveling process)James Olhen has stated that the Juggernaut is likely to receive some attention in an upcoming patch but I wouldn’t hold out for some magical cure all if you have a particular problem with the class. I would say that every tank class has its advantages and disadvantages and the Jugg in its current state is certainly viable if played to its strengths. That being said, all tanks need to invest heavily in their associated tank tree before they can adequately reduce incoming damage. You will not feel particularly tankish until the late 20’s if not later. Some tank classes have the advantage of high AoE damage from an early level to help make threat on large packs easier to handle. Prior to level 32 the SW can be seen as an inferior tank by some due to their lackluster AoE threat. Due to rage mechanic we are not heavy front loaders. This can exacerbate the perceived threat problems of the class. All I can say is that if you love the playstyle of the Jugg tank then stick with it. At higher levels and especially in raids and heroic flashpoints where very hard hitting single target encounters are common, the Jugg tank is second to none. [jumpto=1]Back to Contents[/jumpto] [aname=12].[/aname] 12.0 Glossary AC- Advanced Class. Selected at level 10, allows the selection of talents pertaining to a particular class role or playstyle AoE- Area of Effect. Abilities that effect a large area or multiple targets. Aggro- Another term for threat. Avoidance- Avoidance is the negation of all damage from an individual attack via in game mechanics such as Parrying or Deflection. Buff- An ability that increases a Player or NPC statistics for a fixed period of time CC- Crowd Control. Removing the ability of NPCs to attack or move for a fixed time CD- Cooldown. The period of time before an ability or attack can be reactivated Clear- When a group or player successfully completes a flashpoint or encounter DR- Damage Resistance, This is the % that incoming damage is reduced by. If your DR is 50% and you are hit by a 100 dmg blast you only suffer 50 points of dmg. DR can also refer to Diminishing Returns (See next entry) DR- Diminishing Returns, In laymans terms this means that as you accumulate a high amount of a particular stat is effectiveness is decreased above a certain level. In ToR this only applies to secondary attributes such as Defense and Critical Chance. Endurance and Strength are exempt. DFR- Defense Rating, This is a stat found on tanking armor and directly effects your Parry/Deflection on a 10:1 scale. That is to say, for every 10 points of of DFR you gain 1% Parry/Deflection. Debuff-An ability that decreases a Player or NPC statistics for a fixed period of time DoT- Damage over Time. An ability that is applied to a player or NPC that does a set amount of damage over a fixed time period. DPS- Damage per second. Refers to either damage being done or the advanced classes of player that specialize in doing damage. Epeen- Slang for Electronic ego FF- Focused Fire. Concentrating all damage on a particular target. GUI- Graphical User Interface. What you interact with to control the game LoS- Line of Sight. Using a piece of the environment to break a player or NPCs line of sight to you Mob- Refers to an enemy non player character MT- Main Tank. The primary tank (You may also see this in chat channels when someone makes a miss-tell) NPC- Non Player Character OT- Off Tank. A secondary Tank Pug- Pick up group. A group of players assembled at random PVE- Player versus Environment PVP- Player versus Player RL- Raid Leader SW- Sith Warrior Threat- A measure of how much a NPC wants to attack you Toon- A players character TPS- Threat per Second Trash- NPCs within a flashpoint that are not bosses and easy to defeat Wipe- When all characters attempting an objective die Zerging- Rushing in or attacking with all available forces [jumpto=1]Back to Contents[/jumpto] [aname=13].[/aname] 12.0 Contributors If the contributors name is blue, please click on it to see their respective thread or guide. A big thanks goes out to Gankstah his thread covers a lot of the math behind the tanks. Quoted Tersidre on his PVP thoughts and experiences. Respect to the people at Sithwarrior.com for the numbers in tanking formulas. Special mention to Freehugs, Vilda, Xalkyrie, Talyn_Rahl, Astares, JDee, LagunaD, Takira and MercArcher for all their hard work on various figures contained throughout. Wikipedia quote in What is a Tank? section. Quoted SWTOR holonet in Warrior Basics section. 13.0 Update and Edit Log 11/23/11 Posted, let the flaming begin 11/24/11 Added Companion Section, Added Talents Section, modified What is a Tank?, General Typo/Grammar fix. 11/24/11 Complete reorganization of layout, color coded post, added contributors section for later use, more Typo and missing data fix. 11/25/11 Added Pommel Strike to Sith Warrior Abilites, Hints Added to 2 sections, Grammar fixes. 11/25/11 Edited Rotations to include Enrage, Added Jumpto links throughout post, Fixed error in contents section. 11/26/11 Title changed by mods, Added missing 2 talents, Added Tanking Formulas section, Updated contributors, Typo and Grammar fix. 11/27/11 Edited Builds in Rotations section, Added Quote on PVP to Warzone Section, Added several thread and jumpto links, Typo fixes made. 11/27/11 Added Warrior Basics and Crew Skills to section 3, Added Spoiler tags on companion section, Added more links throughout, Added to Glossary, Typo Fixes made. 11/28/11 Added data to Advanced Class section, Compacted Talents and Abilities Sections, Adjusted Mean Mitigation Calculation in Tanking Formulas, Minor wording and typo fixes. 11/29/11 to 12/04/11 Minor tweaks, spelling fixes 12/05/11 Updated Tanking Formulas section, Updated Target Designation section, consolidated links to all one site, Updated Contributors section, spelling error fixes 12/12/11 Updated to build 1.0.0 and reposted. 12/15/11 Updated Companions, Updated Builds in Rotations sections. 12/16/11 Added video guide links to Flashpoints section, Edit on Quick info, Edited P.S note. 12/26/11 Added FAQ section, edited contents, edited companion section. 12/27/11 Edited Quick info, Spelling and Grammar Fixes 02/07/12 Finished Flashpoint guide section, edited consumables section, edited abilities section for current build, edited target designation section. 04/19/12 Updated for 1.2, Flashpoint guides added, Talents updated, Builds Updated, Talent Tree update, FAQ update. Lots of minor changes. P.S. If you like the work that went into this guide, leave a comment or give the thread a rating. I'm always looking for more people outside of my guild to add as a friend here on the ToR website, or if you are playing on Master Dar'Nala PVP server, look me up there. I'm leveling another SW Jug and am always looking for people to run with . Phottek [jumpto=1]Back to Contents[/jumpto]

[aname=6].[/aname] 5.0 Before the pull So you’ve specced into the tanking tree, gotten some gear, rounded up some friends. Now it’s time to zone into the flashpoint and start takin names. Before the first pull and for the pulls following there are a few things that need to be taken care of. 5.1 Buffs First up you need to apply your tanking buffs such as guard and aura and take any consumables you have decided to use to increase your capability. Make sure that every class capable of applying a buff both to you and the rest of the party has done so and keep them up throughout the run. 5.2 Target Designation If required designate the focus fire order for the mobs to be killed if needed. At times the use of focused dps to burn down specific targets can drastically lower incoming damage (As discussed in section 6.3). Right click a selected NPCs portrait and select the marking you want to apply. You may need to inform the group via text or teamspeak/ventrillo as to which mobs are priority burns. If crowd control is desired throughout the run inform the group of the targets before the pull and designate those responsible for maintaining the CC. I like to tell all the party members at the start of a run what the kill order is and which symbol means CC. If macros make it into game I usually have this prepared /p Hi everyone, lets have a good run Bullseye is first target, Flame second, Saber Third. Lightning is for CC. I'll stop pulling if I see your resource get low heals. Lets buff up and start clearing when your all ready. NOTE: Don't mark more than you have to, it just slows runs down unnecessarily. If you can get away with 1 mark per pull then do it. I use "Lightning" for CC then mark "Bulls-eye" for FF, make the pull then mark another Bulls-eye as the first is about to die. At the end I change the Lighning target to Bulls-eye right as the second last mob is about to die. 5.3 Communication Finally, if required issue any warnings on possible mob abilities that could wipe the group prior to pulling. Just because you know that the red glowing stuff at the bosses feet is fire, doesn’t mean the DPS do Trash droids that self-destruct when defeated are a prime example of an ability that the others in the group should be made aware of. [jumpto=1]Back to Contents[/jumpto] [aname=7].[/aname] 6.0 Pulling Mobs It’s time to pull some mobs. A pull is the action of entering combat with previously neutral NPCs, accumulating threat on the NPC’s and positioning both them and yourself to best lower incoming damage. Pulling a single enemy is easy, just hit the NPC really hard and keep him in front of you while you and the DPS burn him down. When pulling groups of NPC’s with various abilities, there are several ways in which to pull them depending on the circumstances. 6.1 Straight Pulls Straight pulls are used for melee and mixed ranged/melee packs where it is safe to engage the NPCs without pulling extras. A diagram of the standard pulls for a melee tank is as shown below. For ranged tanks ignore the tank movement arrows and stand in place at maximum range and commence attacking. Straight Pull Image The chronology of the all melee straight pull is simple. 1. Stand outside max range and check the composition of the group of NPC’s. Make sure that they are not likely to call for help or flee in the direction of other packs of mobs, and that there are no patrolling packs of NPC’s that will add to the pull if you charge into the first pack. 2. If you are a melee tank, jump in or throw a ranged ability at the lead NPC. As a ranged tank simple begin using ranged abilities on the lead NPC or if the NPCs are closely grouped throw a ranged AoE ability. 3. Follow immediately with an AoE attack to ensure that the healer does not draw threat from the non-lead NPCs whilst healing you. 4. Ensure that you are positioned with all the NPC’s in front of you to increase your avoidance and lower incoming damage. 5. Continue to building threat on all targets, if you notice any of your group gain threat immediately taunt the NPC onto yourself and use your highest threat abilities to overtake your group members’ aggro before your taunt expires in six seconds. Mixed Pull Image The chronology of the mixed ranged/melee is similar with a little more complexity in the tank positioning required for melee tanks. 1. Stand outside max range and check the composition of the group of NPC’s. Make sure that they are not likely to call for help or flee in the direction of other packs of mobs, and that there are no patrolling packs of NPC’s that will add to the pull if you charge into the first pack. 2. If you are a melee tank, jump in or throw a ranged ability at the lead NPC. As a ranged tank simple begin using ranged abilities on the lead NPC or if the NPCs are closely grouped throw a ranged AoE ability. 3. As a melee tank if you have not used a range closing ability off CD, run towards the packs of NPCs and position yourself within melee range of the ranged NPCs. Position yourself behind the ranged mobs and turn 180 degrees in order to have all the melee and ranged mobs facing you. 4. Follow immediately with an AoE attack to ensure that the healer does not draw threat from the non-lead NPCs whilst healing you. 5. Continue to building threat on all targets, if you notice any of your group pull threat immediately taunt the NPC onto yourself and use your highest threat abilities to overtake your group members before your taunt expires in six seconds. 6.2 Line of Sight Pulling LoS pulls are a way of pulling which uses a piece of the environment to break the NPCs line of sight to you and force them to move toward you to engage. Line of sight pulls are used to engage packs of NPC’s where there is a danger of aggroing another group of enemies should you use a standard pull. The first way in which this occurs is if you are pulling NPCs that flee when at low health and may run into other packs of NPCs in the vicinity. Another common way of pulling a second group of mobs accidently is if you have a second pack of NPCs that are patrolling whose aggro radius will overlap the position you wish to engage the first. LoS pulls are performed in the same way whether you are a ranged or melee tank. They may be started either by yourself or by one of your party members using a ranged ability. If a party member is utilized to initiate the pull you will be required to aggro all the incoming mobs before they re-attain LoS with the party member. The party member method is used when you wish to position the NPCs prior to them reaching the object used to break LoS. A standard LoS pull is shown below. LOS Pull Image The chronology for a Tank initiated LoS pull is as follows. 1. Ascertain that a LoS pull is the preferred method of engaging the pack of NPCs. This can be done by identifying that there is a nearby patrolling pack of mobs that are likely to be aggroed during a standard pull, or that there is a high probability of extra NPCs being brought into the pull by the first group on mobs either fleeing or calling for help. 2. Position yourself beside an environmental obstacle that will act to break LoS with the NPCs, making sure you are outside of their aggro radius. 3. Attack any one of the mobs with a ranged ability and immediately strafe behind the obstacle. This will force the pack of NPCs to move to flank the obstacle in order to engage you. NOTE: Ranged mobs will move at a slower pace than melee and will arrive at your position at a later time. 4. Once the NPCs move around the obstacle to face you begin applying threat to them. If more than one enemy arrives at a time, commence by using AoE abilities to ensure the healer does not obtain threat. 5. Continue to building threat on all targets, if you notice any of your group pull threat immediately taunt the NPC onto yourself and use your highest threat abilities to overtake your group members before your taunt expires in six seconds. For a LoS pull initiated by a team member the sequence remains the same, the only difference being that it is the party member who moves behind the obstacle whilst you may remain in front at the position you wish to fight the pack. You then begin applying threat to the every NPCs as they reach you. Do not allow them to move past you to the obstacle as they will attack the party member that initiated the pull. 6.3 Crowd Control and Focused Fire The purpose of CC along with focused fire is to reduce the amount of incoming damage to yourself or the party by removing the ability of NPCs to attack your party members for a fixed time. Focused fire is the coordination of the party to concentrate their damage on a single target at a time. CC and focused fire are extremely effective at making harder level packs or mobs within them easier to handle. Let’s look at a common scenario both with and without CC and focused fire. You are in a 4 person flashpoint and about to pull 4 droids. Each droid has the same health does 100 damage per second and takes 1 minute for a single player to kill. 1. With no CC, and each of the 3 players dealing damage (Tank and 2 DPS) to different NPCs before finishing the final NPC together. Length of combat : 1 minute and 20 second. Damage Taken by tank: 26,000 Maximum damage per second taken by tank: 400 Time at maximum DPS taken by tank: 60 seconds 2. Using a 60 second duration CC, and each of the 3 players dealing damage to different NPCs before finishing the final NPC together. Length of combat:1 minute and 20 seconds Damage Taken by tank: 20,000 Maximum damage taken by tank: 300 Time at maximum DPS taken by tank: 60 seconds 3. Using a 60 second duration CC and all 3 players dealing damage focusing fire on the same target at all times. Length of combat: 1 minute and 20 seconds Damage Taken by tank: 14,000 Maximum damage per second taken by tank: 300 Time at maximum DPS taken by tank: 20 seconds As you can see the differences in damage taken and time at maximum incoming damage between the examples is huge. This example was actually on the low side of reduced damage and time at max incoming DPS. Often the advantages of CC and FF are even greater if you are using your CC on mobs that do higher damage than the surrounding NPCs. FF works best on NPCs that have high damage to health ratios, allowing you to deal with the largest threat very quickly. High damage/ High health mobs and those that use certain special abilities such as stuns are the best to CC. A common misconception with CC is that it slows down the running of a flashpoint. While it is true that CC does slow a pull if AoE abilities are used to damage whole packs, if single targets or limited cleave type abilities are used, the CC will not add to length of time required to complete a pull. Crowd control is usually coordinated by designating markings to place above the NPCs you wish to CC and informing the team member that each NPC marked with that symbol is to be CCed. You may wish to use Teamspeak/ventrillo or simply type your instructions on which mobs are to be controlled. Focused Fire is also usually coordinated using designated markings above the NPCs however it can be coordinated easily without the use of marking if you simply instruct your DPS party members to always attack your current target. 6.4 Positioning Whatever type of tactics you decide to use to pull packs of NPCs, positioning of yourself and the mobs you pull remains very important. Wherever possible always position yourself with any active mobs directly in front of you. NPCs at your back are likely to receive a lot less damage from yourself and therefore threat. Positioning yourself is often necessary to facilitate better damage by the DPS and lower damage to your party. Wherever possible turn the NPCs so that their backs are facing the DPS as this means less incoming damage to your party from NPC cone abilities such as flamethrowers. When confronted by NPCs that have knockback abilities, try to position yourself in front of the mobs with your back to a wall or other structure. Whenever CC is used make sure you position the other NPCs in the pull at a fair distance from the CCed mob. Most CC breaks upon the mob taking damage so you need to position the rest of the pull far enough away from the CCed mob so that AoE effects will not break the mob free. 6.5 Get over here! One of the tanks greatest tools is the taunt. There are two kinds of taunt in the MMO world, forced attack and threat equalization. Forced attack taunts literally force an NPC that is not currently targeting you to become the focus of your attacks for a fixed time frame. Forced attack taunts do not equalize your threat with that of its current target at the time you taunt it. With this in mind the correct way to taunt is as follows. Threat equalization taunts lift your threat level to that of the highest prior and often are combined with a forced attack component. 1. Spot other party members losing health rapidly as they attract threat from one of the NPC’s in the pull 2. Identify which NPC is targeting the party member (Should be pretty obvious, it’s usually the crazed mob charging at them or shooting blaster bolts at their head ) 3. Click on the NPC and activate your taunt button. 4. Starts hitting the NPC as soon as you can to have your threat overtake that of your party members before the taunt wears off. At present taunt has a 6 second effect with a 15 second CD, so you’ll want to hit a taunted mob hard for that six seconds. You don’t want a hard hitting mob whaling on your healer for 9 seconds if you have failed to put threat on the mob during the taunts duration [jumpto=1]Back to Contents[/jumpto] [aname=8].[/aname] 7.0 How to hone your skills There are many ways to increase your skills as a tank, both during the leveling process and when at max level. Making use of all of the following methods will make you a better tank and prepare you for the uncharted waters of progression tanking. 7.1 A Hero is born At the moment Bioware has not stated whether it will be possible to change your AC throughout the game. However they have stated that the tanking ACs will be able to operate as viable DPS should they wish to select all of the talents within the tree which increase their damage output. However my suggestion to anyone seriously considering being a fulltime tank at endgame to start early and go down the tanking talent path from level 10 onwards and participate in flashpoints regularly as you go. Whilst your personal DPS may suffer slightly leveling as a tank has several benefits some of which will offset this. * You learn to use your tanking abilities over time as they are unlocked and are not overwhelmed when trying to use them all at once if you were to switch to a tanking build at a higher level. * Running Flashpoints regularly will ensure that your toon is always in the best gear available for your level and help make up for any lost DPS * You will be extremely hard to defeat in open world PVP by equal level characters * You survivability against higher level mobs in heroic quests will be significantly higher than equal level DPS and Healers * You will be more easily able to find groups for flashpoints than DPS ACs limiting downtime 7.2 PVP Participating in PVP is one of the best ways to increase your tanking prowess. Unlike AI which is repetitive and predictable a human player will learn from their encounters with you and alter their strategies (See section 10.0-10.2 for more on tanks in PVP). Performing in PVP as a tank will help you to learn all of the best variations of your damage and defensive abilities as well as increase your skill in adapting to new situation when you are back in the PVE tanking sphere. 7.3 Practice makes perfect Practicing your different threat and defensive rotations will make you a better tank. The ability to perform your primary rotations without thought will enable you to focus more on your situational awareness and concentrate more on your surroundings. Rotation practice can be achieved in several ways. * Get a healing companion and find a high level mob. Fight till the healer is out of resources then run away until the NPC resets to its initial position (Rinse repeat) * Find a mob at a much lower level than you that can only be defeated with the help of a quest item and don’t use the item, bring a healing companion with you. (E.g. Rogue droid need to have a restraining bolt fitted before you can best him. Get the quest and item. Destroy the item. Whale on Droid to your heart’s content) * Practice targets. Located at Imperial Fleet and also on your ship with the appropriate legacy unlock, a practice target is simply a pretend NPC that has infinite HP that you can bang away on. [jumpto=1]Back to Contents[/jumpto]