Shield Tech 29/7/5 1. Spec percieved by other classes? PVE group- It's good. Nice steady mitigation and not hard to heal. I think the group feels very safe with a Shield Tech when we have to take on a lot of mobs at once but some might question the PT's ability to hold a powerful boss in a long fight due to our lack of more active cooldowns and our heat resource which is inferior to rage and force. PVE solo - It's a tank spec and damage is too low to effectively level. PVP - It's alright but subpar compared to pyro. Some healers love it. 2. My perception? PVE group - I love it. I don't have a problem holding threat and I can still deal a good amount of damage despite being a tank. I feel safe taking on multiple mobs because of my great mitigation. Long fights with bosses are not really an issue and I can manage my heat well. I think it comes down to skill and effective rotations. There really isn't a difference with the 3 tanks that's very large but I do like the fact I have a Jugg's leap and a Sin's pull bundled up into one and I like the fact I have good AOEs and range to control a situation bettter. PVE solo - It's not that bad. Damage is modest and with the right companion ( Torian or Gault) it's cake. True I can't one or two shot things like a pyro but it's not bad at all. I do miss my surge bonus to rocket punch. I PVE solo in my PvP gear since I have some crit and surge invested into those pieces. It's noticibly faster. PVP - I love Shield Tech pvp. I honestly think its just as effective , if not , more effective , than Pyro. Of course you're not going to do nearly as much damage but you have a lot more utility as a trade. I like rolling with a premade healer at least. I have a handful of select healers I run with and some good DPS. They absolutely love what I bring to the table. Keeping the healer up via guard and taunts keeps the rest of us up. My damage isn't so bad either. Ignore me long enough and I become a viable threat and you will get forced to either fight me or avoid me which means avoiding my healer. I'm also a great delayer. I can hold a door or node for a ridiculously long time till my team comes and cleans up the threat. The thing with Shield vs Pyro is that you must be more a team player and you just can't rambo anything although when I hit my dps CDs I CAN put out enough damage to take out a medium/light armored target solo.

You don't have guild members that want to level up with you? Are you dissatisfied with the toon you rolled? I'm on P5 and might be willing to socially level.

You guys will be happy to hear from an Assault Spec Vanguard that I am becoming a 'believer' in Vig spec Guardian DPS. It's no secret that Assault VGs are arguably at the top of the list in terms of all DPS specs but I was running a couple FPs and Ops with a Vig Guardian and I was absolutely impressed. He actually kept up with me in the parser! I was maintaining around 1600 while they were doing around 1400 to 1450! ( not counting AOEs). I believe if you have the right gear and know your rotations DPS with almost any class is viable. It was great damage and I proc'd my High Impact Bolt A LOT each time hitting for 6k ish and the Guardian still kept up! It almost makes me want to roll a Vig Guardian just to see if I can put up those numbers too.

Force? 1. Jugg/Guard 2. Sent/Mara 3. Shad/Sin 4. Sage/Sorc Non Force? 1. PT/Vang 2. Merc/Mando 3. Scoundrel/Op 4. Slinger/Sniper My vote goes : Force : Sent/Mara Non Force: Vang/PT

Greetings TL;DR I love both my VG and Sent. Both are AWESOME DPS . I think the Vanguard as a class is more useful and versitle but I could be wrong. Should I make him a full time tank ( cuz i also have the gear for that and he's good at it) and make my sentinel my main DPS or is Sent DPS still inferior to Vanguard DPS and should i go with a Shad for my main tank? I'm talking both PVE ( Mainly PVE) and pvp, I am talking more about PVE and which class between the Vanguard and Sentinel best fills a dps slot in a raid. I have a geared lvl 50 Vanguard and a 43 Sent that I'm currently building up. Since this is the Sent form I'll focus more on talking about the Sent. I run Watchman. I see no reason to run anything else , not even in PvP. On top of all the damage the utility is amazing. However I see my VG do tons of damage in the parser. More so than any *good* geared sent running with us. I play a very good sentinel and I think I excute my rotations with great precision but I am unsure if I could ever top my Vanguard's numbers even with equal gear. People say DPS Vanguards are very limited where its clearly obvious that a Sentinel can do A LOT of utility on top of being a main dps. I disagree about the Vanguard. Sentinels can aoe heal, speed+dmg buff, awesome emergency cooldowns and of course they can instant aggro dump which is something I wish my VG can do. However , Vanguards can attack from any range, tow mobs with harpoon ( very useful in some situations) , AOE like champs, and if need be , switch to Ion Cell ( Tank form) if the tank(s) are in trouble. I've literally 'held the line' ( no pun on the ability) while the tanks needed to back off and recover and assume control effectively saving the raid. Something I don't believe possible with my sent. I want to make my sent my 'other main' , basically have two mains. I've been gathering really nice tanking gear for my VG and might switch him to a full time real tank while my sent becomes my dps toon. Still , is it even worth doing if my VG will always have superior DPS and not soley rely on melee range? Should I just roll a shadow or something as a tank main?

Maybe I'm stupid but I looked around for this option and it doesn't appear that I can hotkey my target markers anywhere. This kinda sucks and slows things down.

Alright I respeced and put on my tanking gear. Here are my noob tank stats as of now : HP = 20760 Damage Reduction = 51.85% Armor Rating = 8098 Defense = 15.33% Shield = 39.50% Absorb = 34.85% ( 44.85% w/ PS) Actually these aren't as bad as I thought they would be. I guess its a good place to start. Clearly I need to invest more into my shield chance and absorb. Yeah it was tough putting my dps on the shelf but sacrifices must be made! For PVP I was thinking just going with my DPS set in this tank form. My expertise total is 1245 which is a significant amount of damage reduction as it is. Being able to pump out some PVP dps is good but I will eventually work towards the PVP supercommando sets as well.

TL;DR version : I have a DPS Vanguard , thinking of turning him into a tank but all my gear is DPS. I'm a very strong DPS as it is and worry about sacrificing that damage in exchange for a second tank in my guild ( We have only 1 tank as it stands). Do I roll another tank and keep my DPS vanguard or do I convert my vanguard?) Details below: I've been playing since release and I would like to try my hand at tanking. I respect the tank role because of the importance of leadership and a good tank deals with pressure well and ensures his group doesn't end up in a overwhelming situation. I think I can play this role well but I never really tanked before. I have a DPS Assault Spec Vanguard right now. As a DPS its simply amazing both in PVE and PVP. I fill the DPS role rather well but feel like I have less control of the overall scenario because I'm simply positioning myself where the tank dictates is the best for him and the healers. Sometimes I disagree with the stategy but being merely a DPS its not my call. Ops and FPs go smoothest when a decently geared tank knows what he's doing and leading us to a relatively easy ( but at times challenging) victory. But I really have my heart set on this tanking but I don't know how to approach it. Do I turn my current Vanguard into a tank? I have majority WH DPS ( Combat Tech) gear on him as far as PVP goes and a mixture of BH , Rakata , and Columi DPS gear on him. The closest PVE tank set I have is a full Supercommando Columi Set. Still , this set falls short of some of the base stats I get from my current gear and actually takes down every stat I have ( even endurance) except for raising some of my mitagation like shield and absorb. Should I 'start' tanking with my current gear and accumulate the equivilent / tanking gear over time ( i.e. tank easier FPs ) or should I sacrifice the majority of my stats for some mitigation right off the bat? In my current gear if I were to go 'tank' i.e. respec and slap on my ****** tionese shield generator ( lol) I would have roughly 53% DR , some 7-10% Def , 30-32% Shield, and 30% - 40% Absorb ( including power screen). I know I want double those numbers if I expect to do actually be a tank for challenging stuff. Oh and I'll be sitting at 19k-20k HP lol. Gotta start somewhere right? The biggest sacrifice here is losing the valuable DPS I bring to both PVP and PVE. PVP dps for an assault vanguard is already well known... Don't need to really harp on how good it is. In PvE I can sustain about 1400+ DPS according to parser if I'm really focused. If I just 'whatever' it its still like 1100-1200. But we only have one tank and a few DPS ( scoundrel and sent plus a slinger coming up) so I figure the second tank would be optimal and I'm the only 'tank capable' other class besides our MT and only Tank Guardian. Or I can keep my DPS Vanguard and roll another Vanguard or possibly a shadowtank just to change it up. I do believe the Vanguard style of tanking would fit me best based off of what I read here on the forums plus I know the classes abilities. What about PVP though? Am I essentially a Guard sponge with some AOEs or is there something more? I'm gonna be really uneasy with losing a lot of my damage but I'm willing to make the sacrifice and join the tank club:) I do not believe in hybrids much and prefer to go all out in a role. Thanks for reading this if you made it this far. Any input on what you guys would do would be much appreciated. Ty.

So should I re-roll a new vanguard or change my dps 50 into tank even tho I vested a lot into dPs with gear.

Tooltip for harpoon says it generates aggro. I was wondering if it even works as a taunt on boss fights even though u can't tow mOst bosses. I'll try it on my parser later. Was wondering if anyone knew off the top of their head.

I shouldve said u can't beat anyone 1v1 but u can Definatly hang. The damage now is just too poor. I play a dps vanguard and it's like playing two acs within an ac.

There is a practical reason to not use sticks and thats aim. Aim gives ranged bonus and not melee. I love my rifle

As a tank u can't really one on one anyone. Your job is to guard , disrupt , and stall. If ur in recruit ur still gonna get melted. But it's still better being a recruit tank than recruit dPs. As dps ur Damage is crap and ur suvivability is poor until way better gear. Dps VGs and PTs will always melt a tank but higher tier tank gear will make a difference still. Just throw all ur stuns at them and stall until someone comes to help deal with them. It's better still that they focus u instead of a healer or good dps.

As a tank u can't really one on one anyone. Your job is to guard , disrupt , and stall. If ur in recruit ur still gonna get melted. But it's still better being a recruit tank than recruit dPs. As dps ur Damage is crap and ur suvivability is poor until way better gear. Dps VGs and PTs will always melt a tank but higher tier tank gear will make a difference still. Just throw all ur stuns at them and stall until someone comes to help deal with them. It's better still that they focus u instead of a healer or good dps.

So does this mean shield/absorb can go to over 50% without diminish returns? I run dps Vg so tanking is new to me.

So I take a week break due to RL matters and I come back to find my server basically dead. I mean it was hanging by a thread before but now I think it just dropped. Ghost town should be the name. This really blows and I think I will cancel my sub. I put way too much work into my vanguard and I love playing it too to just re-roll from scratch because some inefficient developers couldn't have enough intuition to see that dozens of servers for a brand new game is only going to disseminate the population too much. So here I am with an awesome toon I love playing but with no one to play with or against. Its like I'm playing a single player MMO. I refuse to re-roll because why should I be penalized for bad planning on the devs' part. Then they complicate things with legacy , MAKE ANOTHER SERVER ( lol sorry had to laugh) , and then lollygag on this huge server issue. I am going to have to unsub even though I love this game. I wont put in the time again into a character just because the devs shot themselves in the foot when it came to taking care of all the current characters stranded on ghosttown servers.

Same thing I said except that I said it first and I said it better.

I think you're a bit confused. Force isn't a damage type , it is an 'attack type.' 4 types of attack , force-tech , and melee-ranged. Consider the first two 'magical' while the latter two are physical if you want something to compare it to. 4 types of damage are energy-kinetic , and elemental-internal. Force and Tech attacks cannot be avoided meaning they cant be dodged , parried , or shielded. Kinetic-Energy damage is mitigated by armor , Elemental-Internal is not. In otherwords the best kind of attack in the game is a Force or Tech attack that deals elemental or internal damage.

I personally received this same complaint from others due to my Vanguard "tank" criting people for over 3k and soloing 2 sentinels ( same faction hutball). Something you have to understand, we cannot have a 31/31/31 spec and we do give up survivability for going dps. It just so happens that a DPS speced Vanguard works *very well* but it is fairly squishy. Switching to an assault build from my tank build lowered my dmg mitiagation from 52% to 30% and my armor rating from 8300 to 4600. When I get hit it hurts and I go down just like any other DPS. When I am true tank specced the most I can hit is about 2.5k on a lucky crit. Otherwise most of my 'high' damage floats between 1k and 2k which is not impressive at all. Check to see if these 'Tanks' are truly running a tank build.

0/31/10 , that's my firecracker build ! ( See Vanguard forum) How's that working out for ya? I personally love it and it does offer more survival than a pure assult build.

I love specing assult ( pyro). It's so deadly and offers a nice bit of mobility. I think what most people see with assult is its burst potential without actually having to be in range of much danger. For example , I can Assult Plastique you from range , then incindiary round you , then high impact bolt you all for some pretty good burst. If at that point I decide to finish you off you're already at a big health disadvantage before really fighting me. Assault is a perfect spec for a player that likes to be mobile.

Thanks for the useful info guys. Sad thing is that some people here take things way to personally as if I am making QQ attack on their beloved class. lol. I didn't make any claims of fact just what I have observed and what seems to be the case which is why I asked for some input . I wasn't trying to ponificate a point. My observation has been the following : A : My CC moves , the couple I do have, generate a lot of resolve. Fine , no big deal. B : The CC that a Sin/Shad have have a couple more than me and I find my resolve bar slow to rise. The results appears that I have less resolve myself while generating a lot of resolve for my enemy. These have been mostly 1v1 fights as well. I actually do well against Sins/Shadows but I find them annoyingly difficult to take down , particularly when they are in tank form. I also find myself the recipiant of the most CC 'chains' than any other class I face. As far as armor rating I do know that combat technique gives enough of an armor bonus to make a tank shad/sin basically a heavy armor class. The armor bonus is more than that of Soresu or Ion Cell. But it evens out so I have no issue with that , a tank is supposed to be durable.

Totally missed the point didn't ya? This is no nerf call , I actually like the Sin/Shadow class a lot the more I see them play. They , in tank form , are very very good.

Alright but can someone address my point. Tank Sin/Shad CC doesn't seem to generate as much resolve as Troopers/BHs yet they have similar ( in some cases better) mitigation. Is this what was intended or? Btw , Can't you still spec into madness ( balance) , take 10 into Kinetic Combat an still turn on Combat Technique? Is this a popular build? Also the root isn't a huge issue , its not like it cripples me. As a VG I can still do damage rooted. My main point was addressing the amount of resolve generated by a Tank Sin/Shad in comparison to other tanks.