How are we doing as Tanks?

[Ajantix]

Been wanting to make a Powertech Tank for a while, as compared to the other tanks out there, how are we doing? Are we wanted as a tank over another class? Are we just as good? As we good in 5 man HM's as well as Operations? Just wanting some solid feedback before I make my decision.

[Tenacity]

I cant say if we're good in 5 man hardmodes or not, considering there's no such thing as a 5 man group in this game.

 

We are definitely good tanks, however. Compared to similarly geared Juggernaut tanks at 50, I tend to have around 1k less health and 10% less defense chance, but 20-25% higher shield chance and 25-30% higher absorption - which, in the end, gives me much higher damage mitigation than they have avaiable. Assassin tanks tend to beat us in both shield chance and defense chance but tend to have lower health and damage reduction values.

[maschovy]

Granted, I'm only 27th at the moment, but I have a built in group as both my wife and my son also play. Having a consistent group allows me the time needed to properly evaluate the PT's tanking abilities.

 

We have had very little problems thus far in FPs and have run every one of them up to our level many, many times. The three of us have slaughtered Mandalorian Raiders with me 26th BH PT ST spec, my wife, 25th Sith Inq Sorc, healer spec and my son, 26th Sith Inq Assas dps spec several times now. I keep Mako out for the extra healing and I am impressed at how easily it goes. We tried the same FP in our early 20s and did ok at first but then wiped several times on the 4 Jedi before giving up. We came back at 26th and we wiped once on the 4 Jedi, switched to a different strategy and mowed them down easily. Our strat was to take out the annoying knight first. She just needs to die quickly as she's very disruptive because she aggro wipes frequently, knocks back and does a pretty good amount of damage. We had the Assas mind control the Consular (good for 60 seconds, but can't be reused because it's only avail out of combat), had the Sorc CC the Trooper and keep him that way for the duration and burned down the Knight asap. After that knight dies, I grappled the Smuggler away from the CC'd Trooper so that the Assas and I could safely AoE him and the now un-CC'd consular. Neither of them do a whole lot of damage with just the Knight dead. We dps/AoE those two down to about a quarter life left. Then we start DPSing the trooper down. When we've got him down to a quarter we pop every cool down we've got and start AoEing the three of them like crazy. They all die at about the same time so you don't get a whole lot of frenzy action. That was the problem we ran into when we wiped the first time through. We killed them one by one and left the Smuggler for last. Even though he's the weakest of the 4, he frenzied after his 3 friends were dead and smoked me quick! Everything else in the MR FP was cake. The untauntable / unCC'able hounds that are grouped with the first boss are annoying and usually kill little Mako every time, but they don't have a huge amount of hps and can be burned down relatively quickly

 

As a tank, I had no problems whatsoever with damage mitigation or holding aggro and I don't even have RC or SM yet! Popping OS and ES always seems to help on the tougher battles. I like to pop them early to give my wife's sorc time to do some damage up front, mostly via dots, and then I have them available again on long fights when she might be low on mana. I actually started playing SWTOR as a Jugg, but hated it. Now that my PT is a little higher level, I understand why. Basically, the mobs in this game tend to be really spread out and tend to do a lot of knockbacks and jumping around. That requires either a very mobile tank or a ranged tank. The BH PT is blessed to be both. This is where I think people that play Juggs get so frustrated. Juggs just don't have the ability to ranged tank and they just aren't that mobile. Playing my Jugg, I feel like I spend most of my time chasing the mobs around in a frantic attempt to get them all close enough to use smash. Playing my PT is completely different. If I get knocked back, I can do ranged dps while running back, or better yet, grapple the mob to my new position. One of the most frustraing things that can happen to a tank is to be knocked back and slowed at the same time. Ironically, the devs seem to have taken a twisted pleasure in combining these two abilities at an alarming frequency. When this happens to me, I simply stay put and tank at range until the slow wears off rather than trying to make that long slow walk of shame back to the mob I'm supposed to be tanking. I can imagine how awesome life will be after SM and JC. With multiple mobs I use ranged dps / taunt / grapple to convince mobs at range to pay a little more attention to me and use my melee dps to convince mobs that are already hitting me to keep doing so. I do wish they'd remove the minimum range on grapple. It's annoying to have a mob just outside of melee range but too close for grapple. That seems to happen a lot and drastically reduces the functionality of this awesome ability. Plus it just doesn't make sense. I can hook onto you with a cable and pull you in from 10-30 yards away, but not at 5?

 

Anyhow, I know I'm pretty long here, but I just wanted to encourage peeps that are considering playing a BH tank. They are pretty damn awesome, have amazing functionality and are just a blast to play in general (pun intended). I'd like to see Juggs get some more ranged / mobile abilities. I like Juggs and think they should be just as good at tanking as BH PTs are. unfortunately, as things stand, they are sorely lacking.

[Vauleen]

We are an excellent tanking classes. It is very easy for us to hold and manage aggro. Plus we can take a pretty good beating.

[Vepyr]

My own personal findings:

 

Juggs = Single Target Threat Extrordinaire

BH = AoE Target Threat Extrordinaire

Sin = Middle of the road threat, not great at Single, not Great at AoE, but sufficient in both

 

Juggs seem to handle spike dmg better

BH seem to be more consistant, but struggle a bit with spike dmg due to less cooldowns

Sin, again the middle ground between the other two

 

I think we'll find Juggs to be the prime main tank in endgame, the BH's working as the crowd control/off tank and the Sins plugging into either role as needed.

 

Again, my own personal take so far, there are others who may disagree. As well I'd like to note there is no reason a BH can't main tank, skilled players will always find a way to make it work regardless of community perception.

[Tenacity]

My own personal findings:

 

Juggs = Single Target Threat Extrordinaire

BH = AoE Target Threat Extrordinaire

Sin = Middle of the road threat, not great at Single, not Great at AoE, but sufficient in both

 

Juggs seem to handle spike dmg better

BH seem to be more consistant, but struggle a bit with spike dmg due to less cooldowns

Sin, again the middle ground between the other two

 

I think we'll find Juggs to be the prime main tank in endgame, the BH's working as the crowd control/off tank and the Sins plugging into either role as needed.

 

Again, my own personal take so far, there are others who may disagree. As well I'd like to note there is no reason a BH can't main tank, skilled players will always find a way to make it work regardless of community perception.

 

Despite the juggernaut's lead in single-target threat, I still believe powertechs/vanguards make better endgame main tanks. Due to our exceptionally high shield chance and shield absorption rate, along with the higher damage mitigation we can achieve through talents, we have more reliable damage reduction than juggernauts/guardians - both of whom are heavily based on defense (i.e. dodge/deflect chance).

 

At the moment, I have (approximately) 18.6k health, 51% damage reduction from armor, 12% defense chance, 48% shield chance, and 47% shield absorption. One of our juggernauts has slightly better gear than I do, and he's at 20k health, 45% damage reduction from armor, 25% defense chance, 30-35% shield chance, and 30-35% shield absorbtion.

 

With those numbers, that puts me at approximately 85.5% damage reduction, while he's at around 80.25% damage reduction. If I had similar gear to what he's wearing at the moment, I'd be up an additional 5-10% damage reduction overall. Right now, juggernauts come out ahead in hitpoints and single target threat, but from what I've seen powertechs still have the highest damage reduction potential between the two.

 

That's also not counting the fact that I can get an extra 4% damage reduction via combust on flame burst / flame sweep, he has nothing similar.

[Shivus]

On the point of combust with damage reduction. It has such great synergy with our sonic missile/flame sweep/carbonize to set up large groups for AOE spam. 4% less damage coming off of 10 mobs over those few seconds is very noticeable.