Tank vs Heal

[vathelan]

I'm just wondering what is a more effective form of protection in PvP? Healing? Or tanking (taunting/guarding etc)? Assuming each is in the best respective specs.

[Dencre]

Depends on your play style really. I don't have an answer for this one. I have always enjoyed melee with a pocket healer.

[Khoraji]

Healing, by far.

 

But the nice thing about guard is, you can still DPS/CC while guarding, while if you heal, you are pretty much stuck healing.

[vathelan]

Healing, by far.

 

But the nice thing about guard is, you can still DPS/CC while guarding, while if you heal, you are pretty much stuck healing.

 

Would you say tanking is really effective if not more so than healing when the tank is skilled and has a pocket healer?

 

Summed up:

Is healing better alone, but a healer and a tank makes a beasty combination?

[Blasphemerr]

Healing, and it's not even close. Most new healers seem to roll operatives, but I still prefer sorcerers.

[sanchito]

I'm so much more effective as a healer if i'm paired with a tank, it's really the combo of the two that is very powerful imo

[Easpeak]

You don't really see very good tanks that actually apply guard, taunts and CC the way they should. Most think that putting a guard on you and DPSing down the person(s) attacking the healer is all there is to it. This is from a healers perspective.

[Talarchy]

Assasin, defense tree, dark charge and all survivor gear (22khp/7k armor) + defense relics do OK, not a huge DPS output, but you can take a hell of alot more damage in the time a healer needs to top themselves up, but if you are a good healer and specced right you dont get interrupted or have activation times, so it really all depends on whether you are there purely for the team or a bit of both... Id go assasin if you want melee and good survivability.

[Khoraji]

Would you say tanking is really effective if not more so than healing when the tank is skilled and has a pocket healer?

 

Summed up:

Is healing better alone, but a healer and a tank makes a beasty combination?

 

Healing is better alone for your teams survivability.

 

But a tank and a healer makes it much much better.

[Astarica]

When not in Huttball, 9 out of 10 times Guard is used in a way that hurts your team instead of help it.

 

A guarded healer is pretty much a marked healer. Unless you're confident the healer can avoid survive while being focused by 4+ people it really doesn't help as much as you think.

 

Ironically the best person to guard is probably a Marauder but they're very rarely guarded. A Tankasin is a good person to guard two, but two tanks could guard 2 Marauder instead and that'll generlaly be better than using up 2 tanks' worth of Guard to just Guard 1 guy.

[Aetou]

When not in Huttball, 9 out of 10 times Guard is used in a way that hurts your team instead of help it.

 

A guarded healer is pretty much a marked healer. Unless you're confident the healer can avoid survive while being focused by 4+ people it really doesn't help as much as you think.

 

Ironically the best person to guard is probably a Marauder but they're very rarely guarded. A Tankasin is a good person to guard two, but two tanks could guard 2 Marauder instead and that'll generlaly be better than using up 2 tanks' worth of Guard to just Guard 1 guy.

 

This is a joke. Any good healer will be marked the instant their name is spotted and then focused down for the whole game. Guard doesn't make me get focused, guard lets me survive being focused. Yes, keeping guard on a healer who isn't being attacked is bad but if your healer is being attacked... you should most definitely be guarding them.

 

As for the OP's question, if you could only have 1 in total, either a single tank or a single healer, take a single healer. While a tank makes a healer's job much easier, without a healer a tank can't really do their job at all. Sure, they can taunt still but so can dps while guard without heals is just spreading the damage onto a different character. It's a slight improvement, but really if you are the only tank and there are no healers on your team you should probably switch into a damage stance and just taunt like crazy.

 

As far as my credentials for making the judgement... I have a Conqueror Sawbones and a Battlemaster Guardian (plus also a L50 Shieldtech.) Its the combination of healer + tank that works really well, but healers add more defensively (while tanks add more control and damage in addition to their defensive function.)

[Rauthadog]

The 2 skill sets are more of a yin and yang thing, they compliment each other. But overall healing always has the larger influence on a given match. You can spam heals on anyone within a 30m range (I know a little oversimplified) but can only guard a target within 15m that isn't guarded and isn't guarding anyone, and taunts all have a CD. In guard's favor though, you can't stun or interrupt it. Guard is more difficult to manage is a group setting as sadly most players that can guard just "set it and forget it" and then run out of range.

[Astarica]

This is a joke. Any good healer will be marked the instant their name is spotted and then focused down for the whole game. Guard doesn't make me get focused, guard lets me survive being focused. Yes, keeping guard on a healer who isn't being attacked is bad but if your healer is being attacked... you should most definitely be guarding them.

 

As for the OP's question, if you could only have 1 in total, either a single tank or a single healer, take a single healer. While a tank makes a healer's job much easier, without a healer a tank can't really do their job at all. Sure, they can taunt still but so can dps while guard without heals is just spreading the damage onto a different character. It's a slight improvement, but really if you are the only tank and there are no healers on your team you should probably switch into a damage stance and just taunt like crazy.

 

As far as my credentials for making the judgement... I have a Conqueror Sawbones and a Battlemaster Guardian (plus also a L50 Shieldtech.) Its the combination of healer + tank that works really well, but healers add more defensively (while tanks add more control and damage in addition to their defensive function.)

 

It sounds like you're an Operative healer. You don't need Guard because your pillar humping skills keeps you alive while 4 guys are chasing you (which also prevents Guard from working half of the time due to a lack of LoS). I usually will guard an Operative anyway since it's risk-free but I expect you to hump a pillar to avoid the 4 guys chasing you and don't really expect to donate my HP except in the direst of situations. If you stand still for any extended period of time that offer is withdrawn. By the way, the moment someone gets you out of that pillar, you die while guarded just as fast as a guarded Sorc, which is somewhere around 5 seconds.

[ShadowOfVey]

You can save a lot of lives by using guard in conjunction with target of target.

 

When you see someone on your team being beat on by someone and near death, target the enemy, then in one smooth motion hit taunt, hit alt+t (target of target), hit guard (I have mine hotkeyed to alt+r, next to alt+t).

 

Taunt is off the GCD, target of target obviously is, and then guard. Can all be done as fast as you can hit the keys.

 

Not only will taunt + guard obviously increase your targets survivability, there's a good chance the person beating on them is resource starved since they probably took the person low on hps. They're probably hanging out near overheating, low on force, energy running down etc...pick a resource. They used it to hurt the person. People can take a lot longer than you think to finish someone off that's at 15% hps in this situation after you taunt and guard.

 

Meanwhile your injured teammate not only gets more lifetime to be hitting back, they have more breathing room to use some sort of defensive cooldown, use their medpac if it's off cooldown etc.

 

Do this often, watch your entire team's performance consistently improve, regardless of who you are playing with, pug or premade. Make it a habit. Someone hurt? Taunt, target of target, guard. Even if you were guarding a healer, drop it for a bit and save the person. You can put it back on the healer once things have played out.

Edited May 31, 2012 by ShadowOfVey

[Aetou]

It sounds like you're an Operative healer. You don't need Guard because your pillar humping skills keeps you alive while 4 guys are chasing you (which also prevents Guard from working half of the time due to a lack of LoS). I usually will guard an Operative anyway since it's risk-free but I expect you to hump a pillar to avoid the 4 guys chasing you and don't really expect to donate my HP except in the direst of situations. If you stand still for any extended period of time that offer is withdrawn. By the way, the moment someone gets you out of that pillar, you die while guarded just as fast as a guarded Sorc, which is somewhere around 5 seconds.

 

Having guard lets me benefit from, in effect, 4 stacks of SRMP plus twice over from KC (I'll always use it when both my tank and I will get hit, in addition to 1-2 dps.) That is an increase of perhaps 35-40% on the healing I can receive without Guard. While kiting and LOSing is of course part of the Scoundrel playstyle I think you're over estimating just how effective it is. I /will/ still be taking damage from those 4 guys and it will be more than I can heal indefinitely - at least if I also want to be able to heal the rest of the team too. I don't think I've ever been killed by a single DPS in 5 seconds, let alone when I have Guard (and double stacks ticking on us both, of course.) I mean, I have 30-something percent damage mitigation, 18k+ health and then also a 2k defence screen to blow too. What DPS can do 45k damage in 5 seconds (My health, doubled for guard, plus the shield and what I can heal in that time with my eyes closed)? Even in open ground being chased by two WH Pyrotechs I'm probably lasting longer than 6s. Throw in a taunt as well and.... yeah, I'm not dying in 6s unless I have 4+ strong players on me simultaneously and I get CCed.

 

Now, on my Guardian Scoundrels are a low priority for Guard but you should generally be focusing on keeping your best players alive. I'd rather guard a good Scoundrel than a bad Sage, because the good Scoundrel not dying will do far more for the team.

[Astarica]

Having guard lets me benefit from, in effect, 4 stacks of SRMP plus twice over from KC (I'll always use it when both my tank and I will get hit, in addition to 1-2 dps.) That is an increase of perhaps 35-40% on the healing I can receive without Guard. While kiting and LOSing is of course part of the Scoundrel playstyle I think you're over estimating just how effective it is. I /will/ still be taking damage from those 4 guys and it will be more than I can heal indefinitely - at least if I also want to be able to heal the rest of the team too. I don't think I've ever been killed by a single DPS in 5 seconds, let alone when I have Guard (and double stacks ticking on us both, of course.) I mean, I have 30-something percent damage mitigation, 18k+ health and then also a 2k defence screen to blow too. What DPS can do 45k damage in 5 seconds (My health, doubled for guard, plus the shield and what I can heal in that time with my eyes closed)? Even in open ground being chased by two WH Pyrotechs I'm probably lasting longer than 6s. Throw in a taunt as well and.... yeah, I'm not dying in 6s unless I have 4+ strong players on me simultaneously and I get CCed.

 

Now, on my Guardian Scoundrels are a low priority for Guard but you should generally be focusing on keeping your best players alive. I'd rather guard a good Scoundrel than a bad Sage, because the good Scoundrel not dying will do far more for the team.

 

Of course I'm not assuming only one DPS is on you. If you tell me there's only at most 1 DPS on a healer of course I will guard him every single time.

 

A rule of thumb I use is that for every top healer you have you should expect 3 DPS to be on him, because you need healer + tank + DPS to defeat 3 DPS, so you should expect to be attacked by 3 DPS.

 

Now for an Op 3 out of 4 heals you use cannot be interrupted, so this makes you a relatively safe target to Guard. I can be reasonably sure that outside of hard CCs, you'll get all your heals off the best you can even when pressured by 3 DPS, and plus you're very good at escaping nasty situations to begin with.

 

This is not the case for Sorc/Commando. 3 good DPS can trivially shut down every heal that matters for either classes. That means if I guarded either of them, there's a very good chance I will die for absolutely nothing because the healer will still have all his heals interrupted by 3 DPS working together. If a healer can't heal, there's no reason for me to protect him, and whether a non Op healer can get a heal off is really a function of the enemy skill, not yours, because 3 DPS sure have enough interrupts to stop every heal.

 

Now even with all that said and done sometimes I still guard healers because some guys are just that good, or if they're the only healer on your team you sort of have to take a chance there and hope the enemy isn't as good as you feared. But tank + heal isn't some kind of de facto auto win thing that you should do without question, at least for anyone who isn't an Op healer you should definitely think about the capability of that healer versus your enemies.