I play allot of PVP with the same group of guildies so we have become quite familiar with what roles we play. Playing a Tank and guarding/sticking with my "dedicated healer" is absolutely awesome for defending objectives on Alderaan or voidstar for example. Generally you can hold off the attackers for a long time but if you get zerged by more then 4-6 at a time you have trouble. Especially if they focus on your healer and pull out the stuns. Having most of my skill points in Shield Specialist causes problems in Huttball on the other hand. Generally if i get passed the ball i will try and get rid of it as soon a possible because getting across the fire and walkways with only one skill to break a CC is a nightmare. Most often i find myself CC'd on the fire/slowed to a crawl and then knocked off in to the pit. One thing that always makes me chuckle tho is Harpooning an unsuspecting enemy in to the fire or acid. That never gets old. Even on Alderaan. If the enemy team has yours stuck at the spawn, take a couple of steps back from the edge and Harpoon thier healer up. Instakill FTW. So there are pro's and cons. If you have a group to PVP with being a tank is really good. At the end of the day if you can keep your healer alive you can keep your team alive. If i was PVP'ing solo on the other hand id consider putting more points in to other skill trees for DOT's and counter CC's like "Hold the Line".

Awesome! Thanx for clearing that up. So ive been trying to queeze some info out of my guildmates reguarding how the mitigations work, looking at the charater sheet. It might be showing how ignorant i am with this whole thing but i have absolutey no idea how armour rating i relavent to my stats. I was also hoping you could help me clarify how the mitigations work. Damage Reduction: (50%) If im hit with an attack for 100 points of Damage 50% of that is ignored. Defence Chance: (10%) 10% chance to competely avoid an attack. (if the attackers accuracy is 110%. it counters the defence chance?) Shield Chance: (35%) I have a 35% chance for my shield to be activated. Shield Absorbtion: (30%) If the shield is activated the remaining 50 damage is reduced by 30% leaving you 35 damage. Please let me know if i have this wrong.

Thank you very much for taking the time to put all this together. SWTOR is only the seccond MMO ive played (LOTRO being the first) and this is the first time ive played a tank properly. Being relatively new the mathematics behind the game and classes is allot for me to take in but it seems the only real way to become a "good tank". I read through your guide and am impressed with how well layed out and informative it is, allthough i only found one reference to "Proc". I think ive managed to figure out that Stock Strike causes a target to suffer from this effect but so far all i know is that if i clock the target with Stock Strike i can then hit it with High Inpact Bolt. If it is at all relavent could you add a short explanation of what a "Proc" actually is and how it relates to this class. Thank you very much and thumbs up

I hit lvl 50 on my vanguard a couple of days ago and now its feeling good after being a bit iffy in the earlier levels. Mainly ive had trouble putting out decent DPS even after trying a few different builds. Now im full on tank and have been playing quite allot of pvp with a couple of other players in my guild. Both are level 50 Consulars, one DPS spec and one Healing. Between the 3 of us we can own pretty much anything. If you put your guard on a good healer, stay with them and play your class well you can cope with ALLOT. A few times now myself and the healer have held off 4-6 enemies for minutes at a time. Even before i hit lvl50. If you work well together you are really hard to put down in pvp. Add the 300-400k damage per match from Consular 1 to the 300-400k Healing from Consular 2 to the vanguards protection and your on to a winner. I get top medals pretty much every game of PVP even if i lose tho 10 is my record so far. As for 1on1's in pvp you can pretty much take on anything as long as it doesnt self heal I quite often find that i cant put out enough DPS to counter the heals and have to drag the fight on untill my stun CD's finish. Either that or just give up/call in backup.