KINRAD Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 I got this mission on Tatooine to teach the militia how to fight. I had to keep 3 of them alive while taking down 18 sand people. They have maybe 2000 hit points each, and my healer only heals me, not them. After a couple of unsuccessful tries, I hit a rhythm and figured out how to keep most of the agro on me. I finished the mission with all of them alive (after 2 complete failures), and I learned something very valuable. I am a horrible tank. Most of my time is spent solo PVE. I can't play PVP because I am admittedly VERY slow to press buttons and figure out what to do next. I've read some guides, but they seem to mostly focus on getting a good 'rotation'. Is there a guide with basic tanking tactics for Shadows, maybe a video or two to show me what to do? I am level 32 now, and hesitant to group with folks because I think they will be expecting my tank to actually tank, and I'm not very good at it. Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murasakikitsune Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 Shadows are much better with fewer enemies, as we don't get an AoE taunt until about level 30 I believe. The closest there is until then is Force Breach with Combat Technique. Open with that and you'll get the enemies' attention, Force Wave to do some damage to them all once they've gathered to you, and while those are on cooldown, just focus on getting keeping up the DPS. That's about all you can do in the mean time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gustomucho Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 Honestly, tanking in this game is not easy. Lots of mobs are ranged so you have to tab-target or click-target and use ranged ability, which is worst for shadow (not so bad for vanguard) . On FP, I think they don't want the tank to keep aggro all the time on all the mobs, we go down too fast if we try to tank every mobs in every pulls. People in your group needs to know the kill order is : weak/normal - strong - elite - champion/boss. The tanking order is the opposite -boss/champion -elite -strong -normal/weak, CC priority should be the same as tanking. Having someone dispatch the weaklings you cannot aggro is very important, they will aggro the healer very fast so they need to go down. Juggling between elites/strong during pulls is what will make you a good tank, marking CC will also help you a lot. What you described is pretty much a unique encounter, do not think FP will go down like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qilue Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 Getting people to a. use CC b. not break them with aoe is like herding cats. Seriosuly, most players I've grouped with in heroics and flashpoints seem to mouthbreathers that only know how to spam one skill and it's usually aoe that breaks carefully set up CCs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sresk Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 teaching your dps to not spam aoe and break cc is the hardest thing to do as a tank. Once they've learned that your job is soooo much easier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordXalas Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 group pulls are more taxing on shadow/assassins since our Dark/Kinetic Ward drops like flies in heavy focused fire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jobalo Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 I can teach you how to dougie... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KINRAD Posted January 26, 2012 Author Share Posted January 26, 2012 REALLY stupid question... what kind of crowd control do I have as a Shadow? Here is what I know of: A 4 second stun A power that can keep a mob from attacking for a full 60 seconds (if applied from stealth before a fight starts). Force Pull (I assume I use that to grab a straggler running for the healer?) An interrupt that I am trying to get the hang of Two taunts (an AoE and a ST). I am only level 32 currently, am I missing anything as far as CC goes? (I also have three AoE attacks to generate multiple threats, so I guess those are technically crowd control too?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonianJedi Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 REALLY stupid question... what kind of crowd control do I have as a Shadow? Here is what I know of: A 4 second stun A power that can keep a mob from attacking for a full 60 seconds (if applied from stealth before a fight starts). Force Pull (I assume I use that to grab a straggler running for the healer?) An interrupt that I am trying to get the hang of Two taunts (an AoE and a ST). I am only level 32 currently, am I missing anything as far as CC goes? (I also have three AoE attacks to generate multiple threats, so I guess those are technically crowd control too?) I consider knockbacks as part of CC personally. So force wave fits in there. Also helps with repositioning mobs in some situations. Same can be said of Force Pull. (Keep in mind force pull is supposed to produce a lot of threat.) You technically have Force lift though it doesn't last very long. (Sages get this power to work for up to a minute at a time.) You should have force slow, though I don't remember what level you get that one at. You don't have Slow Time which will help you out considerably in AOE situations. (It reduces target's damage, slows them, and hits up to five enemies.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KINRAD Posted January 26, 2012 Author Share Posted January 26, 2012 You should have force slow, though I don't remember what level you get that one at. I forgot about that one. I can't seem to find a use for that one in solo play, is there any? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonianJedi Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 I forgot about that one. I can't seem to find a use for that one in solo play, is there any? Personally I haven't used it in a long time as I have Slow Time which does the same thing and a few more effects in one general cooldown. But the main use for an ability that slows your opponent's movement speed is usually kiting. As most of the shadow's abilities are instant, we have the potential to be very good at kiting. (If you can get past any agro issues that is.) I've taken to kiting a certain mob during one of the max level dailies simply because it has a stacking DoT that really starts to hurt if you don't kill him fast. Without kiting I can kill him with about 60% health remaining. (Not an issue, but I like to test myself on how little damage I can take from a mob. Call it survivability training. : p) Kiting that same mob it is lucky to do more than 10% damage to me by fight's end. So if you have an issue with a mob that can be slowed, you may want to try this method. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilirubin Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 I forgot about that one. I can't seem to find a use for that one in solo play, is there any? Its not meant for CC, its a DoT with a 5% debuff on a single target so useful in more drawn out battles (and for tagging assassins in PvP--the DoT keeps them from stealthing away). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilirubin Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 I can teach you how to dougie... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r58_bRZLeLw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordXalas Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 nobody uses mind maze here? i use all the time to cc an a target. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonianJedi Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 REALLY stupid question... what kind of crowd control do I have as a Shadow? Here is what I know of: A 4 second stun A power that can keep a mob from attacking for a full 60 seconds (if applied from stealth before a fight starts). Force Pull (I assume I use that to grab a straggler running for the healer?) An interrupt that I am trying to get the hang of Two taunts (an AoE and a ST). I am only level 32 currently, am I missing anything as far as CC goes? (I also have three AoE attacks to generate multiple threats, so I guess those are technically crowd control too?) KINRAD mentions Mind Maze in this post. (I almost missed it too.) This ability is very handy and is probably one of the best CC abilities we have as shadows. Force Slow and Slow Time are two different things. But I wasn't aware either applied a DoT. I knew both did damage and that both slowed a target. Slow Time applies a debuff to your enemy's damage. Did I just miss the part where they are taking damage over time as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elradrielas Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 (edited) I just did that quest and it's horrible. It gives you very little real tanking experience. 1. When you stealth, the NPC squadmates don't stealth, but they stick right on your tail. This means you can't get in close enough to Mind Maze. Forget about taking one of the packs with 2 strong targets. 2. You have no control over your squadmates so you can't tell them to focus fire or hold their fire until you have aggro. You may be a bad tank, who knows, but this quest is not how you should judge yourself. There are a bunch of tanking guides scattered throughout the forums. Like this: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=225827 Also, there are tons of threads in the Tanking subforum that will give you valuable nuggets of information. Here are just a couple: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=207303 http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=158378 http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=135143 Start running flashpoints and +4 heroics ... this is where you'll start to learn your tanking. Edited January 27, 2012 by Elradrielas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilirubin Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Did I just miss the part where they are taking damage over time as well? No apparently I miss read something, and have been misinterpreting the damage text. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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