I have yet to meet a good tank

[Jonah_Caine]

I've tanked as a Juggernaut for a while now and I do alright. What I've noticed is that as a tank I have far less control over how well the group is doing compared to what I was used to coming in from WoW. Even on my best day a flashpoint can be completely impossible if dps refuses to use cc/breaks existing cc.

 

Simply put, tanking is much more of a collective excersize in this game. Both healers and Dps must actively participate in cc and aggro management to a much higher degree than they might be used to, especially the dps, as doing damage is no longer their one and only concern.

[ogrebane]

Back to the original topic of the thread...

 

The reason why you see crap tanks most of the time is because they aren't tanks... they are bozo's who wanted to hold a lightsaber and have no idea what they are supposed to really be doing, as a Jedi Knight in a group.

 

Alot of JK's(juggs) didn't pick that class to be a tank, they picked it to be one of the Skywalkers, or Obi-Wan, etc...

[JarrenBlake]

Well doubt Obi Wan or Luke were Juggs..but I get your point. anyways what the folks hve been saying relates back to the original topic. They are saying that its no longer a Tank issue if the healer gets aggro. Its a group issue.

 

The expectation that the Tank is the defacto group lead is prevalent not just from WoW, but due to it being the quickest possible situation. The tank is going to the first one in anyways. Its better if he knows where he is going and what he is doing and then marks up quickly for others. However this is not mandated, alot of this stuff is new content for all, so if you have experience in a Flashpoint, do not assume that your tank does. Converse and figure out who needs to lead the group. I am leveling a healer and a tank currently, my healer sees most every flashpoint first, that way I know it when my tank goes in downthe road.

 

Also as a healer many times when I have been gettign hit I could CC a target off me, LoS for a sec, and either the Mobs picked another target or if the mobs moved then it got the attention of the group who would then pick the mob off me.

[Mikkeos]

Usually I play a sneaky backstabber, for a couple decades now.

 

But I always had a tank and a healer around too.

 

Usually it helped me playing my role as dps monster massively to play and understand those other aspects intimately.

In WoW it was mostly boring since TBC.

 

As a healer I occasionally hear: "Last time I remember being poisoned repeatedly. Did not happpen on this run. Probably lost in the patch ..."

 

I got a couple of healers tell my tank: "Did you forget to put guard on me?" and a bit later (whispered) "I dunno, but this works much more smoothly today. There must have been something in the patch making my healing more efficient."

 

 

I did not play a dps class seriously in this game, having way too much fun healing and tanking. But I certainly have met a couple of capable tanks and healers.

But there are quite a few lemons too.

[Matty-Wan]

OP, I am not a tank, I have no ax to grind I just stumbled upon this thread. I am just wondering though, have you ever even failed any one of the super easy instances in this game because of a tank who dosent make your grade?

 

I suspect this may be one of those back-door brags. Point out how bad everyone else is to highlight how great you are.

[unclekaula]

I'm a immortal spec tank and I dont have a problem pulling ALL the aggro when I leap, taunt a big target and AOE taunt everything else. Once you do a few pulls with your dps buddies and they know to take out the weak-standard-elite it goes pretty smooth. Get a click happy BH dps or grenading op and things can go sour pretty fast though. Edited January 22, 2012 by unclekaula

[vobra]

OP, I am not a tank, I have no ax to grind I just stumbled upon this thread. I am just wondering though, have you ever even failed any one of the super easy instances in this game because of a tank who dosent make your grade?

 

I suspect this may be one of those back-door brags. Point out how bad everyone else is to highlight how great you are.

 

The funny thing is I play a tank and ever instances I've failed to complete is either because of a lack of dps and we hit enrage (and no one waits to let me get agro i just use taunt alot) or healer not moving out of fire stuff.

[quadnut]

lol i los pull the room pop all cds watch the dps fail at cc lol the fail healer then die at the end of the fight like a champ. do some work u bad non tank classes Edited January 23, 2012 by quadnut

[Cheeseblaster]

I'm a immortal spec tank and I dont have a problem pulling ALL the aggro when I leap, taunt a big target and AOE taunt everything else. Once you do a few pulls with your dps buddies and they know to take out the weak-standard-elite it goes pretty smooth. Get a click happy BH dps or grenading op and things can go sour pretty fast though.

 

What he said.

 

I've been in a few flashpoints where the Jedi thinks he's a tank, is all hot to use his leap attack, and jumps in first only to get his a** handed to him by the boss. Healer has to focus on him so when I get the boss over to the side I'm hurtin cause the healer is still trying to save the DPS from the mob.

[Khoryphos]

Tanking is very much about situational awareness. People will need practice to develop this. There are things the group can do to make the tanks job easier to manage.

 

For example:

 

I will mark targets that I want CC'd and assign the order I want mobs to be focused down. Follow my instructions and we will prevail. If you don't I will probably be able to save you, but only once. Continue to deviate from the plan and you can have fun tanking whatever you pull.

[Matty-Wan]

 

I will mark targets that I want CC'd and assign the order I want mobs to be focused down. Follow my instructions and we will prevail (lol). If you don't I will probably be able to save you, but only once (lol). Continue to deviate from the plan and you can have fun tanking whatever you pull.

 

Somebody is a flaming megalomaniac.

[The_FeniX]

WoW tanks need to understand threat. They do not.

I remember in early cata having to sacrifice some mitigation (not as much as the average non-tank would believe) to get hit (primary) and exp (not as important) because taunts could miss and some DPS could get on a crit roll and get one-shot. I took a break from raiding (and WoW completely) only to come back 3-4 weeks later, after Bliz just increased threat gen by 400% (or something stupid) and made taunts always hit, and get crap from pretty much everyone because "HIT is for dps *******." Tanking theorycrafting completely changed and I had to spend a good chunk of money re-gemming, re-enchanting, and reforging. That was fine. Being given hell by worthless DPS doing 7k in raids was not. It wasn't "Hey man, tanking has changed a bit, you may want to rethink your build." It was "OMG worst. tank. evar!"

 

Which leads me to this:

One of the problems newer tanks face is that tanks, by accepting the leadership role, tend to make enemies because some people can't handle criticism. Telling DPS they're pulling too much threat or telling a healer to cleanse results in the one you're talking to flipping out more often than not

DPS and healers are more than willing to tell you everything they think you should know about tanking, but generally never think about why they're ripping threat or how they should change their play-style.

 

I can't tell you how many times fighting Putricide our resident "BIG DEEPS = 1337" rogue would open with his hardest hitting abilities, Purticide would turn around and blast him in the face. I got called.... some nasty things when I recommended he use "Tricks of the Trade." He claimed it was broken and that he didn't have room on his bar for it..... Everyone put up with him because he was always top DPS on recount. No one cared that you can't do high-DPS when you're dead.

 

I actually had an entire thread with 'old school' guidelines for tanks and had posted it on the Rift forums at one point. It was intended to be a set of 'rules' for people to follow when grouping that were both common sense and designed to make grouping more pleasant

Ugh, man Rift (the "IT'S NOT WOW" community it had) was bad. I had a number of pretty slick tanking builds and would constantly get crap like "This isn't WoW, you can't main a Soul, you need to spread it out." DPS would tell me Paladin wasn't good without Void Knight to deal with Casters (I did have this build, but never needed it). Except, most of the hard-modes were 90% melee, with like 1 caster mob you could pull in with the Warlord taunt. And for those caster bosses, I had a full VK build which made them trivial.

 

SWTORs issue is kind of tricky because of all the hardmode enrages. The DPS wants to get their damage out ASAP and keep it coming, leaving my threat behind in the dust many times. Single-target tanking is cake, but (for example) on the last boss of Taral V, it's so hard to get people to CC 2 droids, then burn one at a time (which goes really fast). Instead it's "Just AOE them all down or we'll hit the enrage!" Then they just melt the face off the DPS one by one.

Edited January 23, 2012 by The_FeniX

[Otar]

All i have to say is i took the last 3% of the first EV boss in hard mode by myself, with the guy enraged and everyone on the ops dead. People even lost the loot because they released thinking i was going to die too...

 

But you gotta come to Krayt Dragon to play with a good tank =)

[thecoffeecup]

OP, I am not a tank, I have no ax to grind I just stumbled upon this thread. I am just wondering though, have you ever even failed any one of the super easy instances in this game because of a tank who dosent make your grade?

 

I suspect this may be one of those back-door brags. Point out how bad everyone else is to highlight how great you are.

 

I have. It has nothing to do with bragging. I wish I could find better tanks or these days just find ANY tank.

 

In one case, the tank didn't even tank the boss in a bossfight. I don't know WHAT he was doing, but he wasn't anywhere near the boss and certainly wasn't range-tanking it.

[sanctified]

Somebody is a flaming megalomaniac.

 

Nah. That's just how Tanks are in pugs. You either get used to giving directions, or you fail.

[randprin]

i don't know if this came up already, but most of us who know tanking and are good at it (or at least, not bad at it) aren't doing pugs, we go with our friends and guild mates...

[DS_Romer]

Having never played an MMO before it was a struggle when I started to try tanking. But I read the Juggernaut guide in the Sith Warrior forum and that helped a lot.

 

Still, it was really bizarre people assuming I would be leading flashpoints and heroics. Most groups were cool about it though when I explained I was new to it all. I'd try and lead, but also get helped out with desician making when I was getting it wrong.

 

Anyway, from what I understand with my limited experience of tanking, it's really difficult for a Juggernaut to retain aggro on all the mobs with the best strategy being to CC some mobs and then stay on the elites and strongs whilst the DPS burns down the other stuff. Especially bosses, unless the ads are a real pain, I just stay on the boss whilst the DPS burns the ads down. Then again, my Juggernauts only like level 27-28.

[choboon]

1) Ask for a fully tank-tree specced tank.

 

2) Ask everyone else with a tank spec to turn off any aggro increasing abilities.

 

3) Have the DPS do their job and focus fire on the tank's target unless otherwise directed.

 

4) Success

 

Pretty much that, though 3) is to some point incorrect (subjective, i know)

Tanking in this game is a bit different to others, our tank usually only tanks Hard and Elite mobs, DDs just quickly get rid if the normal ones before then focusing the bigger stuff.

Sometimes one DD "helps" the tank and the other kills the normal stuff around.

 

Its to much hassle grabbing agro of everything, if something joins we cc it and the tank agroes it later.

 

I feel tanking in Swtor is more of a group job.

[Crixaliss]

It is interesting that everyone expects the tank to be the leader of the group, and probably this tends to drive down the number of people wanting to act as tank.

 

Our main group leader is currently a healer, making it quite nice for me to tank whilst following instructions, rather than having to lead things myself. In random groups I'll take on the leader role if I have to, but if someone else starts marking CC targets, etc early on, I'm more than happy to let them continue doing that throughout.

 

On the OP though, lots of bad tanks around? Can't say I've noticed.. probably because I'm the tank.

 

I think maybe if people come to the game without really realising what tanking actually requires (though would many people here have never played another MMO?), they could quite easily get the impression that a 'tank' could just mean the beefy one who goes in first, without knowing about having to draw aggro from multiple targets to yourself and make sure the rest of your group aren't getting pounded on. I think as the game evolves further, people will probably understand more about what is expected from them as a tank before trying to do it.

 

If your tank is 'bad' though, give HELPFUL advice. Don't be one of those people who says 'omg noob tank, im out <leave>', those people need to understand that not everyone is the MMO-imba-masterplayer that they clearly are, and some helpful advice can go down wonders.