My experience as a PvP Tank

[Philosomanic]

A guildmate of mine hit lvl 50 yesterday, and she was really having a tough time. She was really frustrated with how easy she was to kill in mostly recruit gear. As a really good Scoundrel healer, she was targeted by seemingly every enemy player. I've been itching to try tank spec out for a while, so I thought this was a good time. I respecced to tank spec and focused on keeping her alive.

 

This was my setup. I mostly kept my DPS gear, but I replaced my recruit eliminator gear with recruit supercommando gear. I figured that dropping from BM Eliminator to Recruit Supercommando would barely help my defenses (less armor, less expertise), and would really hurt my damage.

 

 

The Good Times

After I got the hang of my new rotation, role, and skillset, I started to really enjoy being a PvP tank. The healer I was playing with did a great job. The two of us were insanely hard to kill, and we did tons of good for the team. There were several matches where my healer only died once the entire match, and I was preventing over 100k damage per match. Playing a tank with a good healer was a blast. And my guildie wasn't dying after casting her third heal, so she was having a great time too.

 

I really felt like I was making a huge difference to my team. I kept my healer alive, and she kept our team alive. As Assault, my contribution was much less team-based. I focused on isolating and taking down enemy support players. It was really fun, and I'm really good at it, but the element of teamwork was missing. I know I was filling an important role, but I was usually separated from my team. As a tank, I was much closer to my team and had much more interaction with them.

 

It was also nice getting recognized a bit more. When someone is being attacked by two enemies, and you Storm in, AoE stun, guard them, taunt the enemies, and the two of you win, they notice you. That means thanks and MVP votes, which are both great. I've enjoyed playing a support character in other games (I was a Captain in LOTRO), and I really enjoyed being more support-oriented in this one.

 

 

The Bad Times

Things were going great. After four or five matches, my guildmates had to go. I got to experience playing bad PUGs as a tank. I started out my first match by finding out who was healing, and guarding them. However, this healer completely ignored me. I died over and over struggling to keep them alive, and barely got any heals. I even let them know I was guarding them, and still got nothing. Rather than feeling like half of a dynamic duo of awesome, I felt like cannon fodder.

 

I thought this was just one bad player, so I kept going. A few of the healers were good at working with me, but most were not good at working with a tank. They'd run all over the map like a recently-beheaded chicken, and I wouldn't notice. I'd end up chasing after them desparately trying to keep them alive. Some healers were good, but a surprisingly large portion of them weren't able to work with a tank.

 

I also tried guarding key DPS players. My theory was that by guarding them, we should win any 2v2. He'd have the defenses of a tank, but still keep the huge DPS of a damage-dealer. This occasionally worked, but a lot of DPSers would see the blue shield and immediately charge into the fray. Without strong heals, this meant that both of us would die pretty quickly. Once again, I felt like cannon fodder. My role with bad players seemed to be to sacrifice my health pool in a futile attempt to keep them alive.

 

I really missed the solo capability of playing Assault. As an Assault Vanguard, it didn't matter how good or bad my team was. Good tanking and heals were helpful, but not required. I focused on eliminating enemy support, and that was something I can do solo. As a tank, my ability to solo was crippled. My DPS and especially burst were quite a bit lower, so taking down enemy support was out of the question. The best I could do was harass. I could win a 1v1 against most players, but it took much longer and wasn't as natural as Assault was.

 

I really missed the time-burst and range flexibility of Assault. Rather than being slightly weaker at 30m, I was crippled at range and had no choice but to close to melee. Sure, Storm makes that easy, but I really enjoyed being a semi-ranged player. I originally started my Vanguard because I wanted a melee/range hybrid. Assault's rotation and play style fits me perfectly, and feels natural and smooth. Even after I got used to it, Shield spec just felt clunky and inflexible.

 

 

 

In the end, I specced back to Assault. Playing a tank was fun, but I didn't like being reliant on a good team to have fun. As Assault, I need a good team to win but I can have fun on my own. Assault is more flexible and the rotation/style fits me better. Playing a tank was a nice experience, and I'll probably give it another try later, but I can really only enjoy tanking if I have guaranteed good teams with every match. Playing with a bad team was far more miserable than it was as an Assault Vanguard.

[ATango]

Welcome to the life of a PvP Tank. Tank is purely a support role. You keep the focus target alive the best you can irrespective of what class they are. Good Healers will spot your support immediately but the bad healers will just heal themselves, letting you die and then they die 5 secs later because they don't have guard anymore.

 

I've played dps these last 2 weeks and in all honesty it's not for me. I like support roles. I like storming into the fray and slowing down an enemy assault. I've played both tactics and assault and I loved seeing stuff die when I want them to. Easier with AS due to its burst potential. Tactics needs some more love to be on par with AS.

 

I'm back to PvP tank as of last night. I enjoyed the dps time but I like being a tank better. Support role is my thing. Debuffing enemies, saving friendlies, running the huttball, etc. is what I like. Was in a CW last night where a healer asked to be guarded and guess what, everyone including me was dps. That healer was focused down. We lost that game and that had me thinking, Enough testing, back to what you like to do.

[Philosomanic]

Yeah, I love playing support characters. In my first MMO, Lord of the Rings Online, I played a Captain. Captains are the ultimate support class. You're melee-centric and heavily armored, with decent DPS. However, you also have incredibly powerful buffs and decent healing, with some epic support cooldowns. Basically the whole point of a Captain is to rush over to a dying ally, hit them with enough healing to keep them alive, buff up their defenses, and then thrash the morons attacking them with your two-hand sword. It was a decent soloing class at best, but had insane support capability.

 

The difference I found between my Captain and a PvP tank in this game is how you play with bad players. As a Captain, I'd just hit the bad players with defensive buffs and let them be cannon fodder for the good ones. They'd get my AoE heals, but that's it. As a tank in this game, guarding a bad player causes you to die so much faster than you would if you just ignore them. Your ability to play a tank in a way that's fun and effective is heavily reliant on having a good team to protect. If you guard someone who runs into danger, you die. If you guard a healer who ignores you, you die. The type of player who charges into stuff that would kill you in 4s takes a few more seconds to die with you guarding them, and you die too.

 

 

One good change this has brought, though. I now lean heavily towards voting tanks MVP. Healers get a lot of recognition by doing their job. You see big shiny green numbers, and you know that Bob healed you. However, when Fred is tanking for you, you just mysteriously take less damage. If I see anyone with over 100k protection, they automatically get my MVP (unless someone managed to Rambo a node 3v1 and hold it solo for two minutes, or something equally epic). Now that I've experienced tanking, I'm going to be sure to thank the people who stick with it.

[Goldenboyy]

Playing a commando healer supports the team and another healer WAY better then you guarding someone as a tank doing no dps, even a commando healer does more dps Your tank spec vanguard only hinders wz's because you cant drop the deeps and you cant heal. Taunting? all vanguards can do this regardless of spec. Guard? All vanguards can do this regardless of spec. Leave tanking to pve where its VERY uslefull. Survivability? I duelled a full wh vanguard tank recently on my assault vanguard... it took me a matter of seconds to take him from full to death.

The only good tank in pvp is a shadow, you guys should consider a reroll if you really are serious about supporting ya group by being a tank.

[Philosomanic]

Playing a commando healer supports the team and another healer WAY better then you guarding someone as a tank doing no dps, even a commando healer does more dps Your tank spec vanguard only hinders wz's because you cant drop the deeps and you cant heal. Taunting? all vanguards can do this regardless of spec. Guard? All vanguards can do this regardless of spec. Leave tanking to pve where its VERY uslefull. Survivability? I duelled a full wh vanguard tank recently on my assault vanguard... it took me a matter of seconds to take him from full to death.

The only good tank in pvp is a shadow, you guys should consider a reroll if you really are serious about supporting ya group by being a tank.

 

You have no idea what you're talking about. Go away.

[ATango]

Playing a commando healer supports the team and another healer WAY better then you guarding someone as a tank doing no dps, even a commando healer does more dps Your tank spec vanguard only hinders wz's because you cant drop the deeps and you cant heal. Taunting? all vanguards can do this regardless of spec. Guard? All vanguards can do this regardless of spec. Leave tanking to pve where its VERY uslefull. Survivability? I duelled a full wh vanguard tank recently on my assault vanguard... it took me a matter of seconds to take him from full to death.

The only good tank in pvp is a shadow, you guys should consider a reroll if you really are serious about supporting ya group by being a tank.

 

Although I do agree that VG tanks are the weakest tanks in PvP right now due to the lack of defensive abilities, I will have to disagree that all specs can guard. Sure you can change the cell to Ion Cell to accomplish this but as the trees are built around using certain cells. AS uses plasma and Tactics uses HEC. There are some hybrid builds that use Ion Cell and a certain Tactics build that uses Ion Cell too but I've found that you get more out of the dps trees using the proper cells.

 

When I was testing dps specs as Tactics I fried a full BM geared VG Tank firing off Energy Blasts without losing a 1/3rd of my health. Doesn't make them bad. They're awesome ball runners in Huttball and almost all their abilities are tied to a root or slow. While playing dps I owe being alive to guard and vice versa as tank. Don't make game imbalances cloud your judgement of the capabilities and roles of other specs.

 

Edit: Also tech and force attacks bypass their armor and also shield chance and absorption are useless against 1/2 the classes. It's the reason I use dps gear when I'm a PvP tank. Mitigation mechanics don't help our tanks that much and that is the only reason they're not doing great.

Edited May 30, 2012 by ATango

[Citizen-Snips]

You have no idea what you're talking about. Go away.

 

technically it is true. i have heard of plenty of hybrids taking iron cell and being able to guard while dpsing

 

i dont think its the smart thing to do at all but it can be done therefore some people will do it.

[Philosomanic]

Playing a commando healer supports the team and another healer WAY better then you guarding someone as a tank doing no dps, even a commando healer does more dps Your tank spec vanguard only hinders wz's because you cant drop the deeps and you cant heal. Taunting? all vanguards can do this regardless of spec. Guard? All vanguards can do this regardless of spec. Leave tanking to pve where its VERY uslefull. Survivability? I duelled a full wh vanguard tank recently on my assault vanguard... it took me a matter of seconds to take him from full to death.

The only good tank in pvp is a shadow, you guys should consider a reroll if you really are serious about supporting ya group by being a tank.

 

Okay, I was too tired to deal with this last night, when I told you you don't know anything. I'm going to refute this a little more systematically now.

 

First off, only builds that are meant for Ion Cell can use guard. If an Assault Vanguard uses Ion Cell, their DPS will be crushed. That's a 300+ DoT every 2s that they lose, HiB reset gone, and their only source of ammo regen. I'd be willing to bet that a full tank spec can out-DPS an Assault Vanguard using Ion Cell.

 

Second, you shouldn't really expect a tank (or any support role) to beat a DPS. DPS are meant to be much stronger solo, making them the kings of 1v1s. However, a tank, a healer, and two DPS will destroy four DPS players. So just because you as DPS could take down a tank doesn't mean tanks are worthless. After all, when I'm playing Assault I can just melt Commando/Mercenary healers. That doesn't mean you're worthless; it just means that a support player without allies to support is weaker.

 

Third, tanking support is incredibly powerful, especially when combined with healing. Let's go through how it works:

 

Let's say an enemy does an attack that would deal 1,000 damage. This attack would hit a player with 25% armor (good average for a non-tank) for 750 damage. Now, let's throw a tank into the mix:

 

 

• The tank lowers the additional attack to 960 (static field), then to 672 (taunt).
  
• When that attack hits, it's split 50/50 between the tank and the target.
  
• The target takes 336. Their armor (with the 5% from guard) lowers that to 235 damage.
  
• The tank takes 336. Their armor (which we'll guess at 50%) lowers that to 168 damage.

 

So, rather than the focus target taking 750 damage like they should have, they only take 235 damage. That attack deals a total of 403 damage to the team, rather than the 750 it would have done. That's a 46% decrease in damage done. That is so much easier to heal. That makes a focus target nigh impossible to burst down. And if you're the healer and the guard is on you, you'll be able to keep your team alive rather than frantically spamming self-heals. A lone healer is easy prey. Ask any real healer, and they'll tell you that having a good tank makes them far better at their job.

Edited June 4, 2012 by Philosomanic

[Hethroin]

I found that tanking on the shadow/sin was much more appealing. Having an exist strategy when you discover that the DPS you are guarding is suicidal makes it playable.

 

Tanking, like healing, is a support role you can only perform as well as the people you are supporting.

[Goldenboyy]

Okay, I was too tired to deal with this last night, when I told you you don't know anything. I'm going to refute this a little more systematically now.

 

First off, only builds that are meant for Ion Cell can use guard. If an Assault Vanguard uses Ion Cell, their DPS will be crushed. That's a 300+ DoT every 2s that they lose, HiB reset gone, and their only source of ammo regen. I'd be willing to bet that a full tank spec can out-DPS an Assault Vanguard using Ion Cell.

 

Second, you shouldn't really expect a tank (or any support role) to beat a DPS. DPS are meant to be much stronger solo, making them the kings of 1v1s. However, a tank, a healer, and two DPS will destroy four DPS players. So just because you as DPS could take down a tank doesn't mean tanks are worthless. After all, when I'm playing Assault I can just melt Commando/Mercenary healers. That doesn't mean your worthless; it just means that a support player without allies to support is weaker.

 

Third, tanking support is incredibly powerful, especially when combined with healing. Let's go through how it works:

 

Let's say an enemy does an attack that would deal 1,000 damage. This attack would hit a player with 25% armor (good average for a non-tank) for 750 damage. Now, let's throw a tank into the mix:

 

 

• The tank lowers the additional attack to 960 (static field), then to 672 (taunt).
  
• When that attack hits, it's split 50/50 between the tank and the target.
  
• The target takes 336. Their armor (with the 5% from guard) lowers that to 235 damage.
  
• The tank takes 336. Their armor (which we'll guess at 50%) lowers that to 168 damage.

 

So, rather than the focus target taking 750 damage like they should have, they only take 235 damage. That attack deals a total of 403 damage to the team, rather than the 750 it would have done. That's a 46% decrease in damage done. That is so much easier to heal. That makes a focus target nigh impossible to burst down. And if you're the healer and the guard is on you, you'll be able to keep your team alive rather than frantically spamming self-heals. A lone healer is easy prey. Ask any real healer, and they'll tell you that having a good tank makes them far better at their job.

 

I know how guard works... im telling you now, your tank vanguard will be out dpsed by a commando healer, out healed by a commando healer, the commando healer will increase the group survivability 10fold compared to your tank vanguard. Why would you need a tank vanguard to assist the healer if you have a 2nd commando healer?

 

if you have vsed any good pvpers, you will see as soon as a healer is spotted that healer will be locked down from healing regardless of guard. So then what is your tank spec vanguard doing? Well its running around doing subpar dps (which costs alot of wz'd a win). What happens when a tank shadow is guarding a healer??? There still smashing out the dps.

[icegreentea]

If you want to pvp as a tank vanguard your best option is 25/14/2. Taugrim's iron fist spec. Use the combat tech dps gear and don't use a shield. Force and tech attacks can't be shielded. Having tons of shield and absorption will only prevent maybe 5-10% damage. If you instead use the dps gear your dps will more than double. You will also get 6 second interrupts, stealth scan that stuns and your grappling hook also stuns players. Storm also interrupts casting and doesn't fill their resolve bar. So with that spec you get good damage mitigation, tons of utility to stun enemy healers as well as doing the job of a tank by guarding your team's healer. I can consistently do 300k - 400K+ damage in voidstar with that spec and I'm not full war hero. My stock strike has a 75% to crit at all times and does around 3k - 4k per hit. My High Impact Bolt crits for 3k+ damage.

 

Storm -> Stock Strike -> High impact bolt is very good burst. If everything crits you can do 6-10k damage.

 

Key is to stack power. You don't need much crit due to gear bonus (+15% SS crit) and spec (+30% SS crit). You also don't need much accuracy because most of your attacks are tech base.

[Philosomanic]

I know how guard works...

 

No you don't. Assault and Tactics Vanguards are crippled if they're using Ion Cell, and without Ion Cell they can't use Guard. However, you clearly stated that "any vanguard regardless of spec can guard".

 

 

 

im telling you now, your tank vanguard will be out dpsed by a commando healer...

 

Okay, I'm not going to get into the argument of who could DPS better. It'd be pretty close. However, a tank who is doing their job should out-DPS a healer by a long-shot. A healer doing their job shouldn't be doing any damage at all. They should be constantly pumping out heals. Maybe you can throw out a hammer shot or two if your entire group is over 90%, but that's it. A tank's job is to guard, taunt, and debuff foremost. Guard is set-and-forget, taunts are free and off GCD, and debuffing actually involves attacking. I spend the rest of my time as a tank damaging the people who are hitting my healers. So in an actual warzone, any healer who does more damage than their tank is a horrible healer.

 

 

 

...out healed by a commando healer

 

Well, yeah, I hope so. Seeing as I have no healing skills whatsoever and healing is your only job. I might as well point out that I'll easily get more protection than you.

 

 

 

the commando healer will increase the group survivability 10fold compared to your tank vanguard.

 

While tanking, I average 100-150k protection per full match, and I'm still learning. Are you saying you're pulling well over a million heals in an average match? I'd like to see a screenshot of that.

 

 

 

Why would you need a tank vanguard to assist the healer if you have a 2nd commando healer?

 

Because tanks prevent spike kills, make healing focus-targets easier, and keep the healers alive. As an Assault Vanguard, my self-assigned role was taking down enemy support. I could harpoon and burst down an unguarded healer with ease. Even if you have multiple healers, a tank allows you to heal others. It only takes one good DPS to lock you into "self-heal or die" mode. With a good tank, that person will be doing 31% of the damage to you, and they'll be frequently rooted, pulled, and controlled to make it harder to hit you. This means you can spend far less time self-healing and more time helping your team. A healer who does nothing but heal themselves is worthless to the team.

 

 

 

if you have vsed any good pvpers, you will see as soon as a healer is spotted that healer will be locked down from healing regardless of guard.

 

Once again, 31%. That's less than a third of the damage. Add roots, pulls, and CC, and they're going to be far less effective at locking you down. Locking down and killing healers was my job before I started tanking, and I know how effective a good tank is.

 

 

 

So then what is your tank spec vanguard doing? Well its running around doing subpar dps (which costs alot of wz'd a win). What happens when a tank shadow is guarding a healer??? There still smashing out the dps.

 

I have a level 50 Shadow as well. It was my first character. The difference in overall effectiveness is nill. Shadow Tank DPS eats through force and is incredibly hard to sustain. My Vanguard only has to use an occasional Hammer Shot and I'm good. My Vanguard loses out on the coolness of stealth and the Shadow's self-healing, but gains a leap and far better DPS at 30m. Vanguards also have far better AoE damage and an AoE pull, although Shadows have better AoE debuffs.

 

The reason people think Shadows are better is because their defenses are largely reliant on self-healing. This makes them incredibly powerful when taking small amounts of damage; they can self-heal through it all. However, self-healing doesn't scale. So if they're taking damage from multiple characters, that self-healing is far weaker than a Vanguard/Guardian's higher passive defenses. But they're better at a 1v1.

Edited May 31, 2012 by Philosomanic

[TavaraCap]

Guys guys, we're all looking at this the wrong way!

 

Let him complain about our Vanguard Tanks. The more people that say it's too weak, the less likely it will get nerfed in the next update. Keep playing your assault spec, and us tanks can keep rolling in PvP

Edited May 31, 2012 by MattFrontino

[Philosomanic]

Guys guys, we're all looking at this the wrong way!

 

Let him complain about our Vanguard Tanks. The more people that say it's too weak, the less likely it will get nerfed in the next update. Keep playing your assault spec, and us tanks can keep rolling in PvP

 

Actually, I'm going back to tank spec. Once I swapped back to Assault, I realized the difference between them wasn't as big as I thought. Assault has more DPS, no one's arguing that. However, I think a large part of the difference was in using a shield generator and losing all the tech damage, and that my gear is far too accuracy-heavy. I'm going to be using a personal riff on the Iron Fist spec (21/17/1) that's designed for use with a power generator. I'm also going to be picking up Combat Tech gear and remodding what I have. Hopefully, the CT 4-set and more power-centric gear will make up a good part of that gap.

 

Even with the shield generator and a shield-heavy spec, I was surprised at the DPS difference. Assault had more, but it wasn't as much as I'd thought it would have. The only time I noticed huge differences was at 30m (but Storm fixes that) and compressed burst. I'm willing to give up compressed burst for the survivability and support/utility. Once you use Storm, it's hard to go back.

[flyersfan]

most were not good at working with a tank. They'd run all over the map like a recently-beheaded chicken, and I wouldn't notice. I'd end up chasing after them desparately trying to keep them alive. Some healers were good, but a surprisingly large portion of them weren't able to work with a tank.

 

I experience this problem a great deal. I usually end up just un-Guarding them or stalking them around the map. If I'm in a situation where he/she is the only healer, then we move around the map trying to sway the battle in our favour by taking a bunker or turret at a time and moving on to the next one.

 

On the whole, most healers aren't paying enough attention to who is doing the tanking. As with just about everything in this game, players aren't paying enough to the environment and are only focused on their own numbers. Healers are just looking for big healing numbers regardless of how they get them. I'd really like to see a lot more players take a more team-oriented approach to Warzones.

[-ThEoNe-]

I know how guard works... im telling you now, your tank vanguard will be out dpsed by a commando healer, out healed by a commando healer, the commando healer will increase the group survivability 10fold compared to your tank vanguard. Why would you need a tank vanguard to assist the healer if you have a 2nd commando healer?

 

if you have vsed any good pvpers, you will see as soon as a healer is spotted that healer will be locked down from healing regardless of guard. So then what is your tank spec vanguard doing? Well its running around doing subpar dps (which costs alot of wz'd a win). What happens when a tank shadow is guarding a healer??? There still smashing out the dps.

 

You have zero clue as to what you are even talking about, and your lack of knowledge in guard mechanics is blatantly obvious. Its not even worth replying to your completely baseless post, so im just going to drop a "troll somewhere else please" comment and let you be.