My first thought off your first paragraph was playing a Shadow & Scoundrel as it's really fun to have two stealthies with one that can tank and one that can heal. My friend and I have leveled this duo a couple times and love it in both questing and PVP. I don't know if you want to play another Shadow though after reading on (it's not really clear). If your favorite WOW class is the DPS Warrior, I would probably suggest a Sentinel with your friend playing anything that heals (Commando is my personal favorite). If you want to play a Consular again, then have your friend roll a Guardian or Vanguard (again, I prefer Vanguard having leveled both to 49+). Your question is very vague (you love casters, but lean toward melee; you like to off tank, but excel at heals). It makes it extremely difficult not to say "You can roll anything, man!" You can roll anything, man! I'm currently leveling my Vanguard after a 8 month hiatus and am soloing level 52 elite/champion mobs with the healer companion on Makeeb without much effort. This game is really balanced for playing whatever you want, however you want. The only time it truly matters if for PVE content (Ops/Flashpoints) as you'll benefit from shorter queues by having a tank and/or healer. (suggestions all in Republic for consistency, feel free to swap for the appropriate mirror classes)

What do you enjoy about playing the Sith Warrior? How do you like to spend your time in the game (PVP, Questing, Flashpoints, etc.)? What role do you usually lean toward when playing online games (melee DPS, Ranged DPS, tanking, heals)? What do you hope to gain out of your next class? You could really choose anything with the information that you've provided. I love the Trooper (I have both variants at level 49+), but not everyone loves playing the way I do.

You are completely missing the point of the thread. Overall with the higher percentages of Shield and Absorb you have a much greater chance of reducing (SOME) damage with those stats on a per point basis. I would conject that at a similar number of points, the amount of mitigated damage with a focus on shield+absorb would rival that of the damage avoided by a focus on defense. As a result damage intake would be evened out and be less spiky. Most importantly (per the OP) as a jug/guard we would see our resource gain increase from Soresu Form. Avoiding damage completely would eliminate the opportunity to gain these Force Points entirely whereas a shielded attack would still produce a Force Point. With the new patch, has anyone found any data to support this theory?

As a Guardian/Juggernaut, you will be close enough to the other two tanks for the difference to be nil. Just as in wow, there were times where Warriors were the only choice, then Druids were OP, then Paladins were OP, then DK's were OP, then Warriors were back on top, and so on... Currently, there is a small difference between the three AC's, but not enough to make anyone advise you to reroll.

Off topic: There is a quote button just above and to the right of each post, so you don't have to use quotations or crazy colors. L2PHPBB

The values of Guard are so small in PVE that there isn't a valid reason to use it in a reactive manner. The threat reduction (which is arguably the primary function in PVE) needs to be active for a significant amount of time for it to hold weight. Deep in a fight, a tank should have enough threat with the Taunt mechanics that the 25% reduction from Guard is null because no one should pull aggro. Adds will not change this as their threat will remain constant. If your group is clustered together on a add-heavy fight, then I can see the value in placing Guard on a healer, but it isn't going to change enough to make it a requirement. The 5% Damage Reduction is far too small for it to use reactively. 5% less damage on a low-health player isn't going to save them from death 9 times out of ten. The argument has already been made that a healer healing someone through 100% of the damage is putting forth little more effort than healing 95% of that damage. As a healer I am certain that you rarely let your friends reach 4% or less health. 4% of the total health pool of 15,000 hp is 60 health. Few (if any) attacks deal less than that in a PVE group situation. Guard in PVP should almost always be used reactively with the 50% damage transfer. There is a large difference there, but this discussion was never about PVP application. If I am still missing the points that you want addressed, I recommend that you list your points in a straightforward manner. I have read and re-read this thread several times (I was the first respondant after all) and I feel that we have more than addressed your concerns in several points.

Kil-Gorbane, did you read my post? If not, I can paraphrase: What does it matter? In this situation a single attack of any kind will be enough for the tank to pick the mob. You are asking about initial threat (which is off the subject of this thread anyway) and what value is inherently created. Without any form of combat logs, it is incredibly difficult to do any theorycrafting with the regard to your question. As such, there is very little theorycrafting in existence. My point is stop worrying about the math behind something so miniscule and impossible to calculate until the release of combat logs in the next patch. For the time being, focus on how to play the game and react to mechanics than decontruct the mechanics. If nothing else, please take these two things from this discussion: 1. don't bring a new topic to an existing discussion, go create a new thread. 2. don't try to compare the behavior of mechanics by an NPC to players, these boards are for player tanking discussion. Not companion tanking discussion.

Your first problem is that you're applying your experience of an NPC tanking to the discussion of a REAL HUMAN BEING tanking. Any arguments you make to support your experiences and theories (in my book) are immediately nullified until you actually put them into practice with a player tank. Secondly, the initial threat values are also null. A good player (note: not your Kyzen Fess trash) will be able to pick up any added mob. Every instance in which NPC's add in the middle of a fight is predictable once a tank learns the fight. At which point, if that tank knows they are slow in acquiring threat from a mob, then they need to position themselves and/or the fight in such a way to allow more time to pick up the adds. A single AOE attack is usually adequate to bring the attacking adds to a location in which the tank can begin building threat through AOE taunts and other attacks. If your dps is running around like *******es while they have aggro, then it is not the tank's fault as there is no way to counter stupidity. A well timed stun/cc from a competent player will often give the tank the time needed to pick up the stray off the idiot screaming, "FIRE! FIRE!" Also, don't forget that this game is designed in such a way that many of the adds are weaker mobs (Weak, Normal or Strong) that can often be tanked by a dps or healer. They should be killed before your group moves on to the elites. If a tank has control of the elites, they may desire to pick up the Strongs, but they should not worry unless the mechanics of the fight require it.

Except Guard does not function if the guarded player is greater than 15m away. So, a healer that chooses the option to NOT move within 15m is literally completely wasting the Guard. A mDPS on the other hand will be within 15m of the tank 95% of the time without having to make a conscious effort.

It largely depends on what you are doing. Currently, most tanks are focused on offensive in PVP warzones. With certain types of damage bypassing all defenses, the idea is to hit as hard as you can before you're taken down. Even with high hp, most organized PVP groups will be focused on healers before dps and dps before tanks. In PVE, however, your offense is largely considered to be of as little importance at all. With the functionality of taunt snowballing your threat levels, you won't need to worry about the threat gained from Strength. TL;DR version: If you're going for PVP, you'll likely wish to focus more on Strength, but do not discount the importance of Endurance. If you're going for PVE, you can largely ignore Strength entirely and favor Endurance and other defensive stats.

While it is definitely true that kiting is a viable strategy for PT/Van, do not forget about the funky threat mechanics associated with distance. When more than 4-10m from a mob, there is a threat fog that lowers your actual threat until you get back within melee range. There's a threat thread that I'm trying to track down that spells it out and I'll post it here. While that's not to say kiting isn't viable once a tank has adequate threat, it is something to consider. Also, melee dps will HATE you for moving around a lot and it will cause them to do less damage, thus increasing the duration of the fight. In short, kiting is great for some circumstances, but in the majority of group PVE situations, it is ill-advised.

There have been many complaints/moans about the set gear for both PVE and PVP having an incorrect stat focus for many (if not every) classes.

Ya, sorry. I play Republic and made the typo. I've edited the OP to correct the statement to reflect Warriors as a whole. Obviously the question applies only to Guardians and Juggernauts.

I played a Vanguard (Republic PT) till about 27 as DPS spec and it was fun until that point. After that I switched to tank spec and the game was fun again. That said, I didn't get her to 50 as I switched back to my Guardian (Republic Jug) for my main. I find that I have more survivability and do 'decent' damage compared to other tanks.

It means that you will be able to create a new character of that race in ANY class. If you unlock the Chiss race for example, you will be able to create a Chiss Jedi Counselor.

I would rather be able to quest on Hoth 24/7 than have a night time cycle that causes my character to have to climb inside a smelly tauntaun while my companion builds me a shelter to survive in.

You Guard the healer in PVE? Putting Guard on a healer isn't usually too wise given they're often more than 15m from you and they generate significantly less threat. If for some reason you find yourself tanking on top of the healer (often a poor idea in itself) it's not a bad idea. Rarely should a healer be pulling aggro or taking enough hits from mobs to justify guarding them. If you lose aggro to a healer, hitting the mob with a taunt, stun or some form of CC will often be enough to get through the pull.

I've been thinking about the Defense stat and how it impacts the functionality of the Knight/Warrior tanks. One thing that I considered was if getting hit by attacks is a way to increase our resources. However, Defense increases our dodge/parry/etc. and from what I've seen it doesn't appear as though we gain resource in this circumstance. As a result, I've been more focused on driving my Shield/Absorption stats and lowering my Defense as much as I can. I'm certain that there are others that have given this some thought and I would like to see some people come in an tell me I'm wrong (or hopefully right!). What are your thoughts on defense?

Bioware stated at the guild summit that they know people want to be able to change their name, but their system is not currently set up in a way to allow for the change. I would imagine that they're working on it, but it's a low priority as few people will cancel subs because of their legacy name. I hate mine and am really looking forward to being able to change it.

I'll reread it. You might be right. We'll have a better understanding come 1.2 and combat logs.

Endurance.

My understanding from reading tooltips on the character sheet in game is that Accuracy in excess of 100% reduces the damage reduction gained by armor at a 1:1 ratio. Example: Target has 30% DR from armor. You have 110% accuracy. Your physical attacks are reduced by 20% against that target.

If you were playing another race (i.e. human), you would wish that there were fewer hoods in the game. I wish I had rolled Twi'lek. I either look like a female Jordi LaForge, or I'm a recovering chemo patient hiding my hairless scalp beneath a hood. +1 for wanting a hood toggle.

And Leonardo on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! That's what I was hearing.