Guardian or Shadow for tanking.

[Retro-]

Ok,

 

So I have done the sentinel on jedi side, and am looking to build a guardian or shadow, I could consider a vanguard if they are that "much" better, but would like to stick with the force using classes myself. So I am wondering, is the shadow/assassin that much better at tanking than the guard/jugg. Or can the warrior classes hold out tanking.

 

Any suggestions and insight will be welcomed.

[JefferyClark]

Right now, Shadow/Assassin are better tanks. Guardians are decent single-target tanks, but our "squishiness" and lack of HP hurts us.... Shadows on my server have way more HP than a Guardian in full tank gear, and that HP amounts to more durability than the little extra mitigation Guardians get.

[Jaypee]

My friend and I are MT/OT for our raid group and are similar geared, each of his defensive stats are substantially higher than mine. His HP is 2k higher as well as his overall damage. Add this with a ability that acts as 'god' mode and they are by far the best tank of the three. Edited April 19, 2012 by Jaypee

[FrostTrooper]

So if a Shadow is so much better than a Guardian, what role does a Guardian play in the game? I've got a lower level Guardian I just started, and I find this a bit worrisome.

[Valant]

Go Shadow, its not even close. Don;t even bother asking questions about a Guardian. No. Go Shadow, right now, before you ultimately regret the entire leveling and time wasting experience of rolling a sub-par class that has a higher skill cap and MANY more abilities you have to learn to use just to 'stay near' easier Face>Roll>Keyboard classes.

 

Go Shadow, don't look back.

[RDeanOU]

Guardian does a fine job tanking. Ignore the people who act like we are broken. There isn't a single piece of content in the game that we cannot tank.

 

Ultimately, Shadow is probably slightly stronger, but the difference isn't significant enough for you to base your decision on which class to play around it. Play the class that looks the most fun. You want a single saber or a double bladed one? That ought to be more of a determining factor than anything.

Edited April 20, 2012 by RDeanOU

[Retro-]

Im going to work on a guardian, I realize it might be harder but one thing I do like is that even in my guild there is only 1 guardian @ 50 and like 12 shadows @ 50 who have to fight for gear with the sages.

 

So I will see how it goes with him., Thanks for the feedback everyone.

[FrostTrooper]

Go Shadow, its not even close. Don;t even bother asking questions about a Guardian. No. Go Shadow, right now, before you ultimately regret the entire leveling and time wasting experience of rolling a sub-par class that has a higher skill cap and MANY more abilities you have to learn to use just to 'stay near' easier Face>Roll>Keyboard classes.

 

Go Shadow, don't look back.

 

So was this sarcasm or what? I'm confused here.

[sol_]

I'm a Guardian and slightly more geared than our shadow tank, our healers have a much harder time healing me and we always stick the shadow on the harder hitting bosses.

[Retro-]

I have my shadow at level 35 and my guardian is about lvl 19. I think im going to lvl up the shadow first and get him started on gearing and work on the guardian for the story and wait and see when they buff the guardian/juggernaut as it seems unlikely ( but possible..) that they would not look at tweaking the guardian/juggernaut to better tank in end game content.

[Sorwen]

Since 1.2 Guardian is broken. Guardian has always sucked for tanking groups(suck for aggro management), but now even solo Guardian has trouble with quite a few mobs that were not as difficult before. Edited April 20, 2012 by Sorwen

[clearsighted]

There seems to be some confusion in this thread.

 

There's nothing a Guardian can't do. That's true....

 

However, it's way way easier with a Shadow tank. There are many encounters in Hard Modes, that a well timed sleep can let you bypass, or dramatically easy the difficulty of a battle. You have more health (usually at least 2k) and way better resistances, while at the same time doing better damage. You are just as mobile as a Guardian, if not more so. Way better AoE.

 

This means, that provided you're bringing your A-game, you'll be able to clear content with DPS and Healers that are sub-par. This is a huge advantage.

 

A Guardian has to bring his A-game every time, or else rely on overgeared and highly skilled DPS and Healers to carry them through. A ****** Guardian is almost worthless in a hard mode. Whereas at least a ****** Shadow can be used for their CC and as a health sponge.

 

All a Guardian really has over a Shadow is Warding Call every 3 minutes, and in boss fights that least 4-5 minutes, 10 seconds of 40% less damage isn't that impressive.

[SWFTW]

Go Shadow, its not even close. Don;t even bother asking questions about a Guardian. No. Go Shadow, right now, before you ultimately regret the entire leveling and time wasting experience of rolling a sub-par class that has a higher skill cap and MANY more abilities you have to learn to use just to 'stay near' easier Face>Roll>Keyboard classes.

 

Go Shadow, don't look back.

 

*sigh*

 

And I assume you've played both classes to 50 and raided all content in full rakata right?

 

Spreading misinformation and calling Tankasins a faceroll class is what gets unwarranted nerfs. Please, learn the class first.

[RockysRevenge]

You want a single saber or a double bladed one? That ought to be more of a determining factor than anything.

 

This. I rolled both classes for this very reason. That being said, my shadow is a tank and my guardian is DPS. A DPS guardian is far tougher than a DPS shadow, but DPS shadows hit like a train. For tanking, shadows are the better AOE tanks, but guardians are the best tanks for single targets by far. Each has their use.

 

Remember, in PvE heavy armor mitigates a lot more damage than it does in PvP.

[IamVana]

I have a 50 Shadow, it was fun to play for a while, very easy as people say but I got bored and it didn't really feel challenging so rolled a Jugg just to see the variance. Though not 50 yet I can only compare the levelling experience and I have to say for the first 30 levels I was missing a lot of the Shadow tricks like stealth and putting an enemy to sleep but now I am enjoying the way the cooldowns work and the aoe taunt works fine so long as people give the tank a chance to gather, which is really where the only problems are for me. Also finding I am taking less damage but can't comment on how it is at 50. For PvP both are really fun, just depends on how you like to play, stealth/objective/damage dealer/guard, etc. Peoples comments in past about Guardian/Jugg are what put me off playing the class for so long but I'm enjoying it so far.

[RDeanOU]

Since 1.2 Guardian is broken. Guardian has always sucked for tanking groups(suck for aggro management), but now even solo Guardian has trouble with quite a few mobs that were not as difficult before.

 

What are you talking about? Our single target threat is far better after 1.2 because of the added threat modifier to Guardian Slash. I have no trouble on any single target in the game. AOE threat is difficult, but not a huge concern since this game isn't built around simultaneously holding threat on 5 or more targets for any length of time.

 

Perhaps you could elaborate on which single targets are suddenly more difficult because I really don't think this is accurate.

[Teioh_White]

It's hard to figure out where a Guard has much of an advantage in PvE over a Shadow right now. I myself don't have a shadow tank, just a Jugg and PT, and yes, I MT and DPS with the both in NM Ops and HM FP. In that duo, the PT does both roles much better, sadly.

 

One of our Sin dps has switched to tank with EC needing two decent tanks, and he really does do better than my Jugg. Shadow's have higher Shield, defense, Hp, and absorb than Juggs, and only have about 4% less DR, which they almost bridge the gap for with Wither.

 

And Force Shroud is a really awesome CD, letting them just say no to whatever the mobs big bad attack is, as most bosses give you enough time to pop that right before. And being on a 45 Sec recast, they can do it a good bit during the fight.

 

Also, they have a lot more force attacks than we do, meaning they can completely skimp on the Accuracy and notice a very low drop in damage, where a Guard has only Smash/Scream, and the rest are Acc dependent. The lack of a charge like the other two tanks makes somethings a bit more awkward, like tank swapping in 2nd EC fight, but it doesn't come up overly often.

[JefferyClark]

The lack of a charge like the other two tanks makes somethings a bit more awkward, like tank swapping in 2nd EC fight, but it doesn't come up overly often.

 

Yes, but don't forget force pull... and they also have stealth, which lets them get right to the boss to tank with... so yeah, swapping can be a little tricky, but can be done well enough if timed properly...

 

As I said, Shadows have it WAY easier than a Guardian. Guardians ALWAYS have to be perfect with their rotation, taunts, etc; otherwise you've just caused your healer to run out of force (OOM) trying to keep you and the rest of the team up. If Guardians aren't on their game, the group wipes... a mediocre Shadow tank can MT anything but NM Ops....

 

On top of all that... Shadow's tank tree is mostly stuff that helps you be a better tank... whereas the Guardian tank tree is more about getting focus generation back up to where it should be since the tank stance cuts focus generation in half, and w/o Soresu, you're as squishy as a class with light armor (if not more).

Edited April 20, 2012 by JefferyClark

[Teioh_White]

Oh, I agree with you. I was just trying to find some area where a guardian has advantage. Immortal is a pretty terrible tree, as I really don't notice a great deal of difference when tanking specced for dps, but wearing tank stuff. On my PT, I sure as heck feel it when I try to tank in Pyro spec.

[JefferyClark]

Oh, I agree with you. I was just trying to find some area where a guardian has advantage. Immortal is a pretty terrible tree, as I really don't notice a great deal of difference when tanking specced for dps, but wearing tank stuff. On my PT, I sure as heck feel it when I try to tank in Pyro spec.

 

PT trees were designed properly.... whereas the Guardian trees seem to have been the 1st thing they did and didn't get rechecked when they decided to change their thoughts on how to do the trees (or last thing they did and threw together without thinking). There is NO reason why being in Soresu should cut focus generation. None. Now, because of that, the entire freaking tree is built around getting focus generation back up, while all the others have their tank trees helping them with tanking abilities and passives.

 

It's kinda the same with our DPS trees... they're built around on getting damage back up to where it *should* be instead of giving us something "extra" like all the other DPS trees get. As it is, we take things in our tree because we HAVE to, not because "Ohh, that looks pretty useful for the way I play, I think I'll spend a talent point on it." Our best tree is Vig, because it is designed to offer some bonuses for that style of play... unfortunately, it still has a lot of "get dps back up" type talents in it too that you HAVE to take.

Edited April 22, 2012 by JefferyClark

[Rumplea]

There seems to be some confusion in this thread.

 

There's nothing a Guardian can't do. That's true....

 

However, it's way way easier with a Shadow tank. There are many encounters in Hard Modes, that a well timed sleep can let you bypass, or dramatically easy the difficulty of a battle. You have more health (usually at least 2k) and way better resistances, while at the same time doing better damage. You are just as mobile as a Guardian, if not more so. Way better AoE.

 

This means, that provided you're bringing your A-game, you'll be able to clear content with DPS and Healers that are sub-par. This is a huge advantage.

 

A Guardian has to bring his A-game every time, or else rely on overgeared and highly skilled DPS and Healers to carry them through. A ****** Guardian is almost worthless in a hard mode. Whereas at least a ****** Shadow can be used for their CC and as a health sponge.

 

All a Guardian really has over a Shadow is Warding Call every 3 minutes, and in boss fights that least 4-5 minutes, 10 seconds of 40% less damage isn't that impressive.

 

This. Also, tank shadows are ways above tank guardians in pvp.

[wadecounty]

Everything said in this thread is depressingly true, coming from someone who exclusively tanked for the first 4 months of the game.

 

PvP is especially frustrating for me... Shadow tanks can live longer (almost equal mitigation, superior defensive cd's, STEALTH), deal double the damage, and did I forget stealth? Also their self heal takes place while they do damage, while if you want a self heal as a Guardian you have to sacrifice all of your DPS.

 

The PvE stuff, some tweaks here and there can fix things, but the imbalance in PvP is ridiculous. Of course imo, tank assassin/shadow is by far the best class in PvP right now, give me 4 of those along with 2 healers and 2 DPS (preferrably Mara/Sent) and I guarantee you'll win any wz.

[naomicampuzano]

This. I rolled both classes for this very reason. That being said, my shadow is a tank and my guardian is DPS. A DPS guardian is far tougher than a DPS shadow, but DPS shadows hit like a train. For tanking, shadows are the better AOE tanks, but guardians are the best tanks for single targets by far. Each has their use.

 

Remember, in PvE heavy armor mitigates a lot more damage than it does in PvP.

 

Im rolling both classes too, and this was the answer i was looking for. Im going full pvp on them, but i noticed my guild only has one guardian, Mine! So i didnt know what to do. Ty!!

[Occultsaga]

the sad truth is that in pve a good guardian can work as well as a shadow tank, but in pvp shadows are kinda superior in dmg and survivability, i think this will last till the next path.

[TheLakers]

It's pretty much a joke that Shadows get a PULL when they already have force Sprint.

 

Bigger joke that their self-heal heals for ridiculous amounts when dealing damage, whereas Guardian's self-heal is only useful for droping aggro... which defeats the entire freaking purpose since you need to take damage for it to actually heal. Good one Georg.

 

The biggest joke is Shadows getting the best defensive cooldowns in teh game (this applies to PvP AND PvE) when they already have stealth, vanish, self-cleanse/heal and superior tanking stats across the board, save for armor -- armor is the least useful tanking statistic. Funny that.

 

Tank Shadows will out dps defense Guardians by a good amount.. which is crucial in HM EC with tight enrage timers. A tank Shadow wearing dps gear, will put MORE or similar damage to a VIGILANCE Guardian wearing DPS gear in Warzones. Laff.

 

Conclusion: Bioware has no idea how to balance classes.

Edited April 25, 2012 by TheLakers