I have yet to meet a good tank

[Zambella]

I know you are out there, but for every good tank there are probably 20 "tanks" who do not understand the basics of tanking. And so far I have only met those other 20...

 

I am myself an experienced group and raid tank from WoW (from the start) and Rift. When I started SWTOR I decided that I was gonna roll a healer instead, have plenty experience with that too. But as any MMO veteran knows, playing a healer is a pain if the group does not have a decent tank.

 

I have ended up with so many tanks that pretty much play as if they were DPS, focusing on ONE target, which obviously means that the other mobs will be on the healer in seconds. It's still possible to survive this if the healer works her behind off healing herself, the tank, and other DPSers who end up tanking too. But the group lives -in spite- of the tank rather than -thanks- to the tank!

 

A tank needs to take on the group leadership. It's the tanks job to try to get the threat management, kill order and CCing to work. If the tank outlevels the content or just has elite skills and survivability he can go on and skip CC and kill orders, IF he will keep aggro of all the mobs and be quick to pick up any that breaks loose.

 

If the tank cannot do the above he needs to ask for CC, and he needs to assign a kill order (I am going to leave misbehaving DPSers out of this, I may go whine in their forums later )

 

But I have faith. Sooner or later I will meet a good tank or two who I will put on my friends list and treasure forever

Edited January 2, 2012 by Zambella

[Kernunno]

Next time: ask your tank what spec he uses. Since only 3 specs are actual tank specs that should give a fair hint. Most tanks use a dps spec and then suffer from bigger hits and aggro issues. It's not a problem at the lower levels but as you get higher it becomes a real issue.

 

Also: don't judge people on their skills before they made max level. Leveling in a learning curve. Give people a chance to learn to play.

[Sildrin]

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

[MalicantX]

Do tanks need to lead the group, assing all tasks and essentially take responsibility for everything that happens? No, they do not. That attitude ist what kills tanks, good and bad. Anyone can lead, assign targets, whatever, does not even need to be the same person. Tasks can be shared within a group, you don't need to look at the tank like he is some kind of nanny.

 

WoW tanks need to understand threat. They do not. Even if they played since the Dawn of Man, it is unlikely they understand what it means to not have a 500% threat boost. You can't switch targets willy-nilly and spread the love/hate. CC helps a lot, positioning is vital. Expecting tanks to manage that AND the rest of their own group is a little much, especially when they are not yet deep enough in their tanking tree.

 

As an Assassin tank i can tell you the game changed a lot around mid 30s and AoE became almost trivial with wither (yeah i know, i'm bad for going deep darkness, i prefer 5% dmg reduce to convinience). Before that it was really annoying.

 

And nothing you do matters if every dps chooses his own target. You cannot outthreat two people on different targets. It gets also really fun when the healer insists on getting guard while standing WAY outside its range.

 

In conlusion: tanking is not hard, but different. You cannot expect tanks to perform like you do in a game that hands you so much in regards of threat and positioning. Also don't expect tanks to lead. If they don't, do it yourself. If you don't know enough about the groups skills to do that DO NOT EXPECT THE TANK TO KNOW! Ask. Work with what you learn. Lead the group to success. You don't want that responsiblity? Do not come here to moan that others don't want to do that either.

Edited January 2, 2012 by MalicantX

[Eivon]

Do tanks need to lead the group, assing all tasks and essentially take responsibility for everything that happens? No, they do not. That attitude ist what kills tanks, good and bad. Anyone can lead, assign targets, whatever, does not even need to be the same person. Tasks can be shared within a group, you don't need to look at the tank like he is some kind of nanny.

 

I think the kind of mindset you describe, where people expect the tank to do all the marking, know every strat for every boss and instruct the party what to do etc is something that will never go away. At this point I feel it has been set in stone that it is "just how it works".

 

There is alot of pressure as a tank because of it. I know I sure feel it but it's also a nice feeling in that you only have yourself to blame. Have ran up to Maelstrom on my trooper and each instance I have checked walkthrough on youtube before hand simply because I right or wrong feel like its my responsibility.

In WoW for example when I briefly played a hunter to get a break from tanking I never checked up on content before hand. Expected the tank to know and tell. So in teh end I quess many of us tanks enforce and create this attitude ourselves.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Eivon

[shaneledford]

Also something to keep in mind. For me as a Jugg, I purposefully do not tank every target. If I tried to I would end up tanking none of them. The regular and Strong targets can often be burned down by DPS allowing the tank to establish threat on the Elites.

 

There is no longer CC targets and Tank targets. There are now CC targets, Burn targets, and Tank targets. At least for Juggernaut tanking.

[Powercord]

Also something to keep in mind. For me as a Jugg, I purposefully do not tank every target. If I tried to I would end up tanking none of them. The regular and Strong targets can often be burned down by DPS allowing the tank to establish threat on the Elites.

 

There is no longer CC targets and Tank targets. There are now CC targets, Burn targets, and Tank targets. At least for Juggernaut tanking.

 

I feel the same way while tanking however I make sure to grab the Strong and Elite mobs and let the normals be burned. I've seen some Strong mobs just destroy DPS if the healer isn't watching for it but this does seem like the way to go as a Jugg/Guard. I just make sure to let the healer/DPS know how I tank beforehand with a simple copy past of: "Hey guys! Just a heads-up, I'll tank All non normal mobs and just make sure to burn targets from ascending order. Normal->Strong->Elite->Boss to eliminate the most damage over all =)."

[thenewzero]

Also something to keep in mind. For me as a Jugg, I purposefully do not tank every target. If I tried to I would end up tanking none of them. The regular and Strong targets can often be burned down by DPS allowing the tank to establish threat on the Elites.

 

There is no longer CC targets and Tank targets. There are now CC targets, Burn targets, and Tank targets. At least for Juggernaut tanking.

 

Agreed on this. Until you get Sweeping Slash, you've only got one AoE attack on a 15 second cooldown that hits like a wet noodle compared to the steady AoE damage a DPS can put out. If you stray from the Strong / Elite targets to try and pick up the normals, you'll end up wasting a lot of potential threat just to hold onto an enemy that may not even reach the DPS before it dies.

 

I definitely think though that they should reduce the level that you receive Sweeping Slash at. It would even be nice for Juggernaut DPS as well, since it seems like every other class gets a spammable AoE before us (with the exception of Marauder).

[reillan]

I think the kind of mindset you describe, where people expect the tank to do all the marking, know every strat for every boss and instruct the party what to do etc is something that will never go away. At this point I feel it has been set in stone that it is "just how it works".

 

IMHO, that mindset comes from WoW, and I encountered it all the time there. I come from LotRO, and there it was simply "whoever knows the fight and wants to take responsibility for explaining it and marking stuff." I think tanks often get it because of AoE damaging threat skills - it's a lot easier to do your job as a tank when you know that you're not going to be waking up all the CCd targets. But I've led a couple of flashpoints and heroics as DPS and no one has had a problem with it.

[warkat]

This isn't WoW where a tank can run in thunderclap the ground one time and all the mobs are on him permentalty while you faceroll AE them down. Lot of mobs in this game have aggro dumps/range because they are meant to be CC'd. Edited January 2, 2012 by warkat

[artilleryshell]

Hi. My name's Artillery.

 

Now you've met a good tank.

 

 

 

Jokes aside, i have noticed that the way mob placement goes in heroics and fps can sometimes be antithetical to the standard aoe spam type deal, in my static group i have our melee dps guy focus fire the ranged non elites first, making it a hair easier to round up the truly dangerous enemies. That said, yes, there are some truly terrible tanks out there. I've joined fps and been asked to dps, in most cases i put up with that for about 5 minuets until the healer gets swarmed for the fifth time,t hen i toss on combat tech and start pulling myself, instructing the "tank" that i'm going to take over.

 

edit: i'm fully kenetic specced, but hey, there's that anti-shadow stigma out there. About half the people i've encountered don't know that shadows have a dedicated tank tree and smugglers have a dedicated heal tree...

Edited January 3, 2012 by artilleryshell

[Zambella]

Topic starter here, as I said in my first post this comes from a person who is a tank by heart, have been tanking for years. And tanking in vanilla WoW, before being overgeared, was not unlike what we have in SWTOR now. As a tank I always had the team use what CC we had, we even used a "main assist" which was not the tank, since the tank (me) was constantly tabbing to build threat on all targets. The main assist decided kill order and all party members followed his target, always. The one thing that seems to make SWTOR tanking slightly more challenging is the abundance of ranged mobs which means the tank needs to move around much, unless they have a "draw in" ability, or do LoS pulls.

 

About tanks leading or not. Of course the tank doesn't have to take the lead but it certainly is what works best. Since the tank is the person who needs to initiate the pulls, who needs to be most aware of where all the mobs are and what is happening in the fight. He needs to know and see when a CC breaks etc.

 

Having someone else than the tank setup targets and then tell the tank what to do can work, but it will slow things down and it will lead to misunderstandings. You can make do with just about any setup, but it is amazing how much tougher challenges you can beat when the group is well organized, has a plan and manages to execute according to it! I'm just a sucker for well organized groups and I will keep on dreaming

 

I actually did play with a decent (decent, not good. I only had constant aggro from one mob ) tank the other night. With some practice he may become my pocket tank!

[Kervee]

Like others have said, it's unrealistic to expect the tank to grab all the mobs in this game as it stands. Without assist macros or even target of target, it's uncommon that I find the DPS attacking in a proper order. Furthermore, setting marks isn't always possible with mobs that rain in after a pull. Threat is pretty tightly tuned, as well. I find aggro single target difficult to maintain from people that outgear me slightly, usually end up using taunt a couple times even on bosses without threat drops.

[Sireast]

Maybe it's just me, but as a healer I have been leading my groups. As a sage I just CC what ever attacks me or bubble stun if the group can't pick it up in time. I also tell them not to AOE just for the fact that there will be no understanding about CC once I know who's attacking what. I'm not at 50, but at 30 I have no trouble keeping DPS and Tanks up all at once.

 

As for who should lead I find it also best for the tank and/or healer to just for the fact that they need to be alive (most of the time) to stop a full party wipe. Also as a guild leader I also see that there's a lot of new people to the MMO scene, so you will have to teach them or let them learn over time. So can't be to upset to find a good tank.

[zacharySW]

Hi, I play a healer/DPS because I don't want any responsibility. I would like to just blindly follow and click on things with a bullseye on their heads. I really like this game because it doesn't have recount or healing meters so I can always blame the tank when things go wrong.

 

It is not the role of a tank to do all the work in an instance. It is the role of the tank to pull a mob out of CC and hit him, thats it.

 

The reason you find so many fail tanks is because you expect them to run everything and be responsible for everything.

 

Marking, CC, and pulling are not restricted to tanks. As a healer or DPS you need to man up, mark targets, and drop CC without being directed by the tank.

[Ashaari]

I also tanked through Vanilla WoW i.e. "the good old days" of MC,BWL and AQ20/40. I then tanked through the the end game of TBC and WotLK.

 

I agree tanking was harder in Vanilla, Tanks were expected to lead raid tactics, assign targets, prioritise etc. But dont forget why this was dumbed down for TBC and even more so for WotLK. A general shortage of tanks !

 

Adding tanking abilities to additional classes didnt solve the tank shortage issue, and, ultimately the tanking function was dumbed down for all dungeons except heroic end game raids.

 

This type of tanking is not fun when taken too seriously except for a few masochistic individuals - I have to say I am delighted to no longer be one of these, it seems the same applies to you OP, hence your switch to a healer.

 

So, as skilled ex-tanks who no longer accept this responsibility, I think we have to give up our rights to criticise the newcomers, for without them there will be no tanks at all.

[Thelgow]

I played a Sniper to 33 then opted to try tanking, so I got my Juggernaut to 34 last night.

I'm enjoying it so far. I'll admit, its mostly solo. Sometimes just group up for a heroic quest.

I get a little fear of performance anxiety ever since i tried tanking in wow and kept wiping.

Later I concluded my rl friends are all morons and even pugs I could get through with no deaths.

But yesterday I went to squeeze in a FP on sniper to use up my full rested bar.

First time doing Cademimu and the last boss, its just 1 guy, no adds.

Jigg tTank could not keep aggro. And im not saying i busted crazy moves.

60 solid secs of just running and default attack and him just chasing it...

I also broke one of my rules and the other dps was a sniper. I passed all rolls except last and of course lost it.

Damn fine black trench coat..

[Zambella]

Hi, I play a healer/DPS because I don't want any responsibility. I would like to just blindly follow and click on things with a bullseye on their heads. I really like this game because it doesn't have recount or healing meters so I can always blame the tank when things go wrong.

 

It is not the role of a tank to do all the work in an instance. It is the role of the tank to pull a mob out of CC and hit him, thats it.

 

The reason you find so many fail tanks is because you expect them to run everything and be responsible for everything.

 

Marking, CC, and pulling are not restricted to tanks. As a healer or DPS you need to man up, mark targets, and drop CC without being directed by the tank.

 

When I tank I do take all that responsibility, and I like doing it! We all get our kicks in different ways in MMOs, mine is excelling at what is the hardest to excel at. That is why I have always become the MT of all the different raiding groups and raiding guilds I have been in. Now as a healer I can't help comparing the tanking I see with all my own experience. I guess it may be unfair and I assume I will find likeminded at level 50.

 

As I said before groups can survive FPs with lacking tactics, lacking teamplay and lacking communication. With tanks who just "pull a mob out of CC and hit him". But a good group with a good tank who does take an overall responsibility for a pull can do so much more!

 

I probably will end up tanking in this game too

Edited January 3, 2012 by Zambella

[Sithtacular]

I'm an accomplished WoW tank (8/8 DS 10man) and specced Juggernaut in SWTOR. I'm only lvl 33 so far, but a few things I've noticed already that making tanking in SW fairly difficult (and reasons you need to cut the tank some slack)...

 

At my level I have ONE aoe threat move with a 15 second CD and only a 5 yd range.

 

I have no cleave-type attack.

 

Threat actually matters and a tank in SW doesn't produce threat like a WoW tank.

 

My one single target taunt is on a 9 second cooldown. My AOE taunt is on a several minute CD.

 

There is no established marking kill order yet. (In WoW everyone knows skull > X > moon)

 

There is no threat meter.

 

There is no way to see if I have aggro on everyone except by tabbing through all mobs. (Ie, no Tidy Plates: Threat Plates addon).

 

Add all these things up and tanking is way more difficult than DPS realize. There are many times things happen that are simply beyond my control. If a dps opens up in the first 2-3 seconds of the fight and if they don't attack my target, they're going to pull off me. Now I have dps on 2 different targets and can only taunt every 9 seconds.

 

This isn't WOTLK and this isn't Cataclysm where I can tank on my Paladin, Warrior, or Blood DK and it doesn't matter what dps do because I can hold everything. (Props to Ferals also, I just don't have one).

 

DPS are going to have to actually pay attention to what is going on and help their tank instead of working against him.

 

Either that or I can become a egotistical, abusive, entitled, troll of a tank that dps whine about...

[dragonfor]

Hi, I play a healer/DPS because I don't want any responsibility. I would like to just blindly follow and click on things with a bullseye on their heads. I really like this game because it doesn't have recount or healing meters so I can always blame the tank when things go wrong.

 

It is not the role of a tank to do all the work in an instance. It is the role of the tank to pull a mob out of CC and hit him, thats it.

 

The reason you find so many fail tanks is because you expect them to run everything and be responsible for everything.

 

Marking, CC, and pulling are not restricted to tanks. As a healer or DPS you need to man up, mark targets, and drop CC without being directed by the tank.

Hi, I've played a tank for 7+ years now in multiple MMO's, and I have to say....

No.

 

Why? Simple. Because I see absolutely no reason what-so-ever why I should let a DPS or healer direct how I'm going to hold the mobs that I need to hold onto. It just doesn't make sense. I grab / pull mobs in a way that makes it easier for me to control whats going on, which in the end makes things easier on the healer. DPS? They're a dime a dozen. I'm slowly collecting my friends list of good DPS, but it's hard to find the ones that haven't started their MMO experience with Cataclysm.

[LANITI]

I know it's kind of slow but what I do is I level all alts up together.

 

Then I know roughly what to expect of everyone as I level.

 

This will eliminate expectations from other games and offer a more reasonable judgement.

 

I think Tankers should know what everything is capable of, anyway, but all players will be still learning well past claiming maximum level.

 

Some games have been about several years and veteran players still fail at Tanking (this knowing from tanking it all myself rather than seeing) so in this game I expect some issues.

 

When, even as a healing role character (or should I say especially?) I am a bit fed up with the dynamics of a team or can't find one, I'll quite happily go solo some Heroic +2 mission myself. You'll never change the future of what you're likely to end up with in a PuG but as long as you bring it that's all that matters.

[Ricarus]

I've met one good tank, it was a trooper, he used AoE moves to have aggro on multiple targets and gripped ranged mobs in. Other tanks simple played as if they were DPS.

[dragonfor]

I'm an accomplished WoW tank (8/8 DS 10man) and specced Juggernaut in SWTOR. I'm only lvl 33 so far, but a few things I've noticed already that making tanking in SW fairly difficult (and reasons you need to cut the tank some slack)...

 

At my level I have ONE aoe threat move with a 15 second CD and only a 5 yd range.

 

I have no cleave-type attack.

 

Threat actually matters and a tank in SW doesn't produce threat like a WoW tank.

 

My one single target taunt is on a 9 second cooldown. My AOE taunt is on a several minute CD.

 

There is no established marking kill order yet. (In WoW everyone knows skull > X > moon)

 

There is no threat meter.

 

There is no way to see if I have aggro on everyone except by tabbing through all mobs. (Ie, no Tidy Plates: Threat Plates addon).

 

Add all these things up and tanking is way more difficult than DPS realize. There are many times things happen that are simply beyond my control. If a dps opens up in the first 2-3 seconds of the fight and if they don't attack my target, they're going to pull off me. Now I have dps on 2 different targets and can only taunt every 9 seconds.

 

This isn't WOTLK and this isn't Cataclysm where I can tank on my Paladin, Warrior, or Blood DK and it doesn't matter what dps do because I can hold everything. (Props to Ferals also, I just don't have one).

 

DPS are going to have to actually pay attention to what is going on and help their tank instead of working against him.

 

Either that or I can become a egotistical, abusive, entitled, troll of a tank that dps whine about...

1 and 2) You'll get sweeping slash in a couple of levels.

 

3) This isn't WoW, so don't compare the threat generation in WoW to the threat generation in SWToR. It's nice to actually have a challenge now, and makes you feel fantabulous when you do your job well.

 

4) Several minute CD? Horrible exaggeration. 1 min untalented, 45 second talented. That should be all you need if you're doing your job right.

 

5) You're the tank. You establish your kill order when you start the run.

 

6) Deal with it.

 

7) If you look around and see stuff that's attacking someone other than you, you don't have threat on it. Fix your tunnel vision.

 

8) if your DPS continues to do this, talk with your healer to ensure he dies. Alot.

[Daathen]

Also something to keep in mind. For me as a Jugg, I purposefully do not tank every target. If I tried to I would end up tanking none of them. The regular and Strong targets can often be burned down by DPS allowing the tank to establish threat on the Elites.

 

There is no longer CC targets and Tank targets. There are now CC targets, Burn targets, and Tank targets. At least for Juggernaut tanking.

 

I feel the same way while tanking however I make sure to grab the Strong and Elite mobs and let the normals be burned. I've seen some Strong mobs just destroy DPS if the healer isn't watching for it but this does seem like the way to go as a Jugg/Guard. I just make sure to let the healer/DPS know how I tank beforehand with a simple copy past of: "Hey guys! Just a heads-up, I'll tank All non normal mobs and just make sure to burn targets from ascending order. Normal->Strong->Elite->Boss to eliminate the most damage over all =)."

 

Both of these posts are spot on. My guild figured out quickly that Bioware designed the "trash mob" dynamic to be this way. I tank the Elites and/or strong mobs and either the a Shadow or a Sent tanks the normal and/or strong mobs (though just about anyone could tank them these two classes have good Def CDs, just in case).

 

This is another type of "AoE" damage mechanic in SWTOR. Much like the few bosses we've run into that have adds that are not tauntable. I think it's also meant to make good on the promise that everyone will feel part of the battle. The whole "we want combat to feel epic" thing that Bioware said they were going for.

[Caldus]

Topic starter here, as I said in my first post this comes from a person who is a tank by heart, have been tanking for years. And tanking in vanilla WoW, before being overgeared, was not unlike what we have in SWTOR now. As a tank I always had the team use what CC we had, we even used a "main assist" which was not the tank, since the tank (me) was constantly tabbing to build threat on all targets. The main assist decided kill order and all party members followed his target, always. The one thing that seems to make SWTOR tanking slightly more challenging is the abundance of ranged mobs which means the tank needs to move around much, unless they have a "draw in" ability, or do LoS pulls.

 

About tanks leading or not. Of course the tank doesn't have to take the lead but it certainly is what works best. Since the tank is the person who needs to initiate the pulls, who needs to be most aware of where all the mobs are and what is happening in the fight. He needs to know and see when a CC breaks etc.

 

Having someone else than the tank setup targets and then tell the tank what to do can work, but it will slow things down and it will lead to misunderstandings. You can make do with just about any setup, but it is amazing how much tougher challenges you can beat when the group is well organized, has a plan and manages to execute according to it! I'm just a sucker for well organized groups and I will keep on dreaming

 

I actually did play with a decent (decent, not good. I only had constant aggro from one mob ) tank the other night. With some practice he may become my pocket tank!

 

I think one of the big problems is that people doing what you're describing don't REALLY understand the basic roles and how they work. I doubt this will ever get read, but here is my proposed solution.

 

When you turn in your advanced class quest, you are presented with an optional, instanced side quest. This quest will, in effect, be a tutorial. You're given a squad of NPCs, you select a role, and you are required to fulfill that role to complete the quest. Survival of all the NPCs is mandatory for completion.

 

If you've selected to play as a tank, make the squad super squishy so you have to hold aggro.

 

As a dps make it necessary to focus fire, move out of an AoE ability, and use your cc ability (most classes have a short stun by level 10).

 

As a healer, make it necessary to heal and cc.

 

This could be accomplished in 1 pull and 1 boss, with 3 cut scenes, and 10 minutes, and offer maybe an orange pair of boots with 2 slots. That way it's not necessary to complete it, but new players will get a nice reward and have an incentive to learn their roles.

 

Cutscene 1: "You've chosen to tank. This is a big responsibility... You have to keep the attention of the enemy to protect your party... On this next pull you will need to move attack all of the enemies to get aggro, except the one that will be CC'd in the corner, don't break the CC."

 

Cutscene 2: "Pull this boss out of the big green fountain of healing by getting aggro and hiding behind a wall. Don't stand in his flame thrower ability."

 

Cutscene 3: "Good job, here's your phat lootz!"

 

I guess in my mind this would be an engaging way to require the player to learn the role rather than forcing him to seek third party information. With these two scenarios you teach the player 75% of their responsibility as a tank, and give them a tactical toolbox that will cover many of the scenarios they will face.