Why no tank spec?

[Pingonaut]

Not saying I'd play a tank Sentinel, but why can Sentinels not tank? Dual wielding lightsabers is most often used as a defensive tool, rather than offense.

[Trixite]

Because we are a pure DPS class.

[Smuglebunny]

Kinda hard to tank in med armor without the damage mitigation moves that a shadow/assasin has... thats why.

 

Plus that would make us very overpowered. Since we have such good defensive cooldowns already.

[gunte]

We CAN tank. Im not saying were anywhere close to a real tank class but ive tanked HMs with my Sentinel (watchman). We have the best defensive cooldowns in the game, only problem is trying to aggro large groups lol

[Pingonaut]

Because we are a pure DPS class.

 

That's what I'm saying. Lore-wise, dual-lightsabers were usually defensive, so why is Sentinel a pure dps class?

[DoctorSeven]

That's what I'm saying. Lore-wise, dual-lightsabers were usually defensive, so why is Sentinel a pure dps class?

We can spike tank better than any other class in the game for 6 seconds.

[JohnAntilles]

That's what I'm saying. Lore-wise, dual-lightsabers were usually defensive, so why is Sentinel a pure dps class?

 

I'm not sure where your getting this, but this is just not true from a lore perspective.

 

There we're some Jedi Masters and Knights that used two lightsabers defensively, I will give you that, but they we're far and above the minority of the total practitioners.

 

Picking up a second Lightsaber was almost always a choice made to maximize ones offensive potential, due to the fact that you could face a single blade wielder, lock up his one saber, and then just gut him or strike him down with your free one. A Jedi who was extremely proficient at inner ring defense could defend against it, but it was still an uphill battle, no matter how good you we're.

[thepilk]

Theres a few problems with a tank spec.

 

For one, tanking isnt just in the skill tree.. the abilities gained as you level from the trainer also have to support tanking. When you look at the Guadian's skillset, even if he goes for a DPS build his specials still have a little bit of tank/support flavor to them regardless. Sentinel's toolset of specials is based on agressive DPS and "burst" defense (short duration on demand cooldowns) so to be able to tank the whole arrangment would have to be tinkered with. At the end of the day we'd just be re-flavored Guardians.

 

On top of that, if you look at all the other classes and ACs, no class has multiple ACs with the same support function (heal or dps)

 

Commandos can heal, Vanguards can tank

Sages can heal, Assassins can tank

Scoundrels heal, Gungslingers pure DPS

Guardians Tank, Sentinels pure DPS

 

DPS is the only repeated function in any class's ACs so itd toss the structure into a odd lopsided structure too.

[Pingonaut]

I'm not sure where your getting this, but this is just not true from a lore perspective.

 

There we're some Jedi Masters and Knights that used two lightsabers defensively, I will give you that, but they we're far and above the minority of the total practitioners.

 

Picking up a second Lightsaber was almost always a choice made to maximize ones offensive potential, due to the fact that you could face a single blade wielder, lock up his one saber, and then just gut him or strike him down with your free one. A Jedi who was extremely proficient at inner ring defense could defend against it, but it was still an uphill battle, no matter how good you we're.

 

"A typical maneuver was to continually attack with one blade while relying on the other for defensive coverage, ensuring that the duelist could keep up his guard even as he attacked. However, it was common that both blades be used for offensive purposes, keeping up a continuous wave-front assault."

It was common for both, -Wookieepedia.

 

And I suppose I understand that it relies not only on the spec but the skills. Still kind of stinks. :3

[Temeluchus]

"A typical maneuver was to continually attack with one blade while relying on the other for defensive coverage, ensuring that the duelist could keep up his guard even as he attacked. However, it was common that both blades be used for offensive purposes, keeping up a continuous wave-front assault."

It was common for both, -Wookieepedia.

 

And I suppose I understand that it relies not only on the spec but the skills. Still kind of stinks. :3

 

"Dual-blade fighters, whether classical Niman duelists or individuals applying the Jar'Kai tactic, were able to maintain a strong offense, as the speed of attack that two blades allowed would overwhelm most opponents."-Wookieepedia on Jar'kai/Niman

[StJohnLimbo]

Dual wielding lightsabers is most often used as a defensive tool, rather than offense.

 

Says who??? Go reroll Guardian.

[SteveGarbage]

The main reason why you can't main tank as a Sentinel is that you don't have the right tools.

 

1) No heavy armor. You'll take more damage than a Vanguard/Guardian or a Shadow who has the increased armor value from his tree.

 

2) No shield. Shield offers a chance to absorb additional damage and Sentinel's can't equip one.

 

3) Most importantly - no threat generation. Sentinels have ZERO skills that draw threat. So you can boost as much defense/absorb you want into your stats to try to tank, but the problem is if an enemy wants to turn on a high DPS character or healer, you have no way to turn it away instantly.

 

It's true that Sentinels have great defensive skills in Riposte, Guarded by the Force, Saber Ward, Force Camoflague, Pacify and Awe. But since you can't draw or hold threat, you'll never be able to tank. The only way to draw threat is to be the highest DPS guy on the field, but any other tank with a taunt will pull from you and even healers draw enemy ire even with you smacking away.

 

I wish Sentinels had ONE threat-generating move. It would be immensely useful. But we're straight up DPS so, oh well.

[Nueshaks]

Our threat generation is in our DPS output. Our MT has to constantly throw guard on me because if I am going full throttle I will pull boss aggro like.....a boss. So honestly...no need for a big high threat attack; we do enough as it is if you are good.

 

As far as tanking goes. I am our guilds last line of defense if the tank and off tank go down. We (My guild) are 4/4 on EC and cleared all other content on nightmare. That 5 seconds of guarded by the force has saved us from wiping more times thatn I can remember. I pop it...blast all my other CDs and full rotation to get aggro on boss..this gives the healers enough time to get the main tank up at which time I force fade, drop threat and give it back to the tank.

 

For 5 seconds Sentinels are the best tanks in the game.

Edited April 17, 2012 by Nueshaks

[SteveGarbage]

Our threat generation is in our DPS output. Our MT has to constantly throw guard on me because if I am going full throttle I will pull boss aggro like.....a boss. So honestly...no need for a big high threat attack; we do enough as it is if you are good.

 

Sentinel's definitely have enough DPS to pull aggro, but it's hard to do so reliably. The biggest hole is that if you need to draw threat RIGHT NOW, that's hard to do. If your healer is getting pounded, you don't have one skill to drop.

 

But I definitely agree that for a short period of time, Sentinel can handle just about anything with GBtF and other defensive skills.

 

I recall tackling a Heroic 4 with just two other sentinels on Belsalvis and on the final Champion boss it was a beautiful mix of all three of us trading threat through camouflage and popping CDs and Zen to keep each other alive. Great stuff.

[MayorOfAngrytown]

Not saying I'd play a tank Sentinel, but why can Sentinels not tank? Dual wielding lightsabers is most often used as a defensive tool, rather than offense.

 

Meh. "Can't" doesn't quite fit what you are asking. If your quesiton is "Why don't Sents have a Tank Tree?" then the answer is, "Because that's what Guardians are for."

 

People, please stop trying to take away our melee deeps class and turn it into something else.