Pvp tanks we are useless now right?

[Caelrie]

My experience is that Tanks in DPS gear (with their tanking stance active, and a Tank or Hybrid-Tank spec) do damage well over 90-95% of their DPS-spec/stance equivalent, while taking significantly less damage (due to armor/shield/direct mitigation from their stance) and having the ability to guard a healer. Honestly, if you actually use guard, it's hard to justify speccing a Tanking-capable class as anything other than a Tank (or Hybrid-Tank) for PvP.

 

The meter dummies say otherwise. It's more like 60-70%.

[xengist]

The fact is defensive stats are almost useless and its the hp that makes a difference. Considering WH hp is generally lower on the tank sets I think it should be removed or made useful. At the very least one shouldn't have to grind another set.

[dufox]

yea, i play tank/dps and i average 200k-250k damage in voidstars. i know 2 other guardians in my guild that are just as geared as me that play dps. they can easily put out over 400k-500k damage in voidstars.

[Kabaal]

Tank stats do need looked at especially now with the global damage boost through expertise but people need to get out of the pve mindset of tanks in this game, you're bodyguards ready to take a bullet not immortals.

[Masturomenos]

The fact is defensive stats are almost useless and its the hp that makes a difference. Considering WH hp is generally lower on the tank sets I think it should be removed or made useful. At the very least one shouldn't have to grind another set.

 

Dont usepve stats for pvp. The talents are what make tanks usefull not the pve stats. U want pvp gear and tank talents not pve gear and tank talents.

[TheronFett]

Assassin/Shadow have the most viable tanking PvP spec right now. Followed by Juggernaut/Guardian, and then Powertech/Vanguard. Reason being: # of effective cooldowns, ability to deal damage, and types of damage resisted. Assassin/Shadow tanks are consistently at the top of the medal list, and even if you can do the same, you can be almost certain that they out damage and out guard you. As mentioned in this thread by a few people already, Force/Internal/Elemental are the most likely attack types you'll see in PvP, and there's only 1 class that has any real form of defense against them.

 

I would argue that a PvP tank is most effective at guarding healers and throwing around taunts. You want to run high Defense on your gear in the hopes that attacks miss completely, since most PvPers forego Accuracy. High HP is also important. PvP "tanking" armor sets are nice in that most have a 5% damage increase while using Guard. But most mods should be replaced with DPS. In PvP at least, offense > defense.

 

It's kind of a Catch-22 with Defense, though. Most attacks in PvP have their own separate Accuracy rating, so you're fighting an uphill battle either way.

Edited April 22, 2012 by TheronFett

[xengist]

The problem is the dev's don't know how to do simple math. My expertise in full bm gear was say 22% dmg 18% dmg reduction and 12% healing. ( I think I am .3 off or so who cares..) I'll use these numbers in the formula below.

 

A player does ....full damage= (base dmg) x (1.22) and

 

a player mitigates.... dmg done to player= (full damage) x ((100%-base mitigation%) (100%-18%)).

 

On my assassin it pretty much means the dmg increase is equal to dmg decrease(while in defensive stance). Which you think would be fine but what the reality is that the dps classes gain more from expertise

 

-Higher damage increase due to stats scaling better because dmg stats effect all their abilities. (tank defense stats don't scale since many attacks bypass it completely(force/tech) and they get bypassed during stun(you don't parry/shield while stunned). Health is not scaling with war hero gear either... in many cases its lower than bm.

 

-Dps classes have higher base damage For example,. A tank doing 60% of the dmg of everyone else.. use that in the formula above. (0.6x1.22=73.2%... a 13.2% increase instead of 22% for dmg classes using my bm expertise numbers). 9% difference in favor of going full damage.

 

-Dps classes have lower mitigation so they benefit more from expertise. I mitigate 41% in dark charge. Since its multiplicative I would have around 51.6% mitigated after expertise(roughly 10.6% increase). A guy running around with 20% base mitigation would have about 34.4% dmg mitigated(they gain 14.4%!). Almost 4% in favor of the lower mitigation class.

 

I'd like to note that the mitigation gap closes meaning an assassin in tank stance at this point with these numbers would only have 17.2% mitigation more than one that doesn't. I think the real number is much closer since I have 24% base mitigation if I remember as madness spec.

 

-So I can choose to mitigate maybe an extra 15%(lets face it folks, if you playing anyone thats not dumb they start using force/tech attacks bypassing your parry/shield completely) or do almost double the dmg for that small bit of mitigation 15% or so depending on class... whoop tee doo.

[Calsidian]

Quick question, when you say to use DPS gear does that include a DPS offhand, or do you stick with the tanking offhand and go DPS with everything else?

 

Thanks.

[Ithril]

I think tanks are far from useless in PvP. My healers have expressed similar feelings. I honestly think that the changes in 1.2 actually made tanking more important, not less. You need to understand a few things to be a good PvP tank though:

 

1) You're not really a "tank." You're not. You're very slightly harder to kill than somebody else, which is offset by how much less damage you do than a dps. Think of yourself as an incredible damage sponge instead.

 

2) You have one primary value to a good team: guarding good healers. You give the healers a fighting chance. By guarding (and staying near) a healer, you make it near-impossible for a player (or several players) to kill a healer without them having a chance to respond. Here's what I mean by "good healer": They have to be able to keep themselves alive, and then other people alive as well, while guarded. This means they have to consistently remember to heal you, and treat your health like it's their own. Once you're dead, so are they. If you have good healer that can't be bursted down because you're there taunting and guarding, you'll have a tough team to beat. That said, don't be afraid to switch your guard. If the other team is not hitting your healer, switch your guard to protect whoever they are trying to focus.

 

3) If the healer is bad, it doesnt really help to guard them. Sorry, but it's true. If the healer you're guarding is one of those who doesn't heal well enough to keep others alive while healing themselves, it wont help to keep them alive. Also, if they just stand there and make no effort to kite or forget to heal you, you're not going to add much to the warzone, because keeping them alive for the extra few seconds it takes to drain your HPs before theirs, wont mean a thing.

 

4) Not all "protection" is created equal. Guard is awesome, but it's not as good as taunt. I know, it sounds backwards. We all know how easy it is to get insanely high protection numbers with guard, and we all know how much healers (or DPSers) love guard, but it's no taunt. Here's the difference: Guard damage still goes to you. Somebody still has to heal that, or people end up dead. Taunt actually prevents damage. Nobody has to heal damage that gets taunted away. But here's the lovely thing: you can taunt and guard! Don't be lazy and just sit there with guard on and pretend you're a DPSer...always use your taunts because they benefit your team in ways guard cant, plus they're free and off the GCD, so there is no excuse not to use them.

 

5) Have a good healer? Did I mention that already? It's sad, but honestly, there's just not that much benefit to being a tank if you dont have good healers in a group. When I solo queue, I'm much more succesful as a DPS spec, but when I queue with my good healer(s) in a tank spec, we win almost every game.

 

I just played quite possibly my favorite WZ ever. It was a very hard-fought heavy healing Alderan, where I got to do 350k damage (a lot of AEs, i dont really hit that hard), but protect my healers (and others) for 550k. At no point did I feel useless. Tanks have a role in PvP, you just have to work for it and you will rely on other players as well.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Ithril

[Gretha]

Yeah, the flaw of tanking gear is that a full geared dps has the

output to kill you and the healer you are guarding befor you two could kill him.

 

imho the best defence is to guard and then kill what ever dares to go for your healer.

guarding and......taking 3 attacks longer to die while beeing no threat at all ain't really a good tradeoff.

 

Tanking gear is more something for those that strike deep,

want to keep an melee dps alive while beeing out of range any friendly healer.

 

 

my 2 cent

[TheNegotiator]

There is no such thing as a tank in PvP because shielding/defense is virtually non-existent against most attack types. My Vanguard is tactics spec and wears combat tech armor and he can hit 200k damage with 30+ kills when I play smart.

 

Guard to me is over-rated unless you are playing on a pre-made team with great communication. Guard requires such close proximity that in pug's it's very hard to pull off. Save the tank spec for PvE.

 

If you're getting tons of points guarding it just means that your team is superior and you can afford to do it.