15/18/8, The full range tank (Theory)

[wishihadaname]

So one of my biggest peaves about vanguards, and the only reason why I rolled a commando alt, is the fact that they have to be in melee range. It just doesn't make sense for me that a guy with no force powers and a rifle would want to go toe to toe with a sith lord wielding a pair of lightsabers. I've got my lvl 46 vanguard sitting on ice for now, but i've come up with an interesting build. If you hybridized all 3 specs and specifially picked out aoe, ranged, threat and tanking skills you can, at least it looks like, create a spec that should be just as effective at 30M as at point blank. Mind you the damage looks like it would suck in this case, but if you were going for pure ranged tank this could be interesting. What do you guys think of it?

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801bIbrzZhRGr0oMZMsb.2

[DenitharPurloin]

You cannot use any interrupts past 4 meters. I know it stinks and took some getting used-to but a Vanguard Tank is a melee DPS character in PvE.

 

Another issue that is a BIG ability for any tank is..you position things. Very difficult to control positioning of melee bosses from range.

 

Unfortunately, even though cool..your idea of tanking won't work well in every case. i am sure fine in some though.

[mrObtuse]

Actually, you don't really need to spec hard to have major range and a lot of positioning flexibility when line of sight is an option. To list the most important tools- sticky grenade, explosive round, full auto, taunt, aoe taunt, mortar volley, hold the line (I'm a fan of builds with 21+ in tactics) so you can run about and exploit range/kiting without having to park up close for too long. Not to mention harpoon & high impact blast.

 

The only range benefit you can even gain via skill points is the incendiary round. It's basically worthless.

 

As it stands in the game now all the tanking is, let's say normalized to close range so the saber wielding dudes aren't behind balance. They have a couple of nice tools that work from 30m but nowhere near what troopers bring to battle. Therefore the benefits of exploiting your range aren't extremely great but it's still very fun and maximizes your options when things get hairy, adds/accidental pulls, pathers, and general boss mechanics (SOA once went down during a half wipe for my team solely because I could position him effectively with hold the line and range taunt, I wasn't the tank but brought him through the last 2 shield clears in ion cell by exploiting range)

[Vaizrin]

Part of the reason troopers aren't ranged tanks is simply because melee mobs will always run into melee. It would be silly to have a full ranged tank that was based on range yet the vast majority of adds are in melee range.

 

Vanguard shield spec has a lot of great range threat, much more than any other class. Sometimes I get lazy and stop melee tanking because the mobs did before dps threat exceeds mine so I'll just spam ion pulse, hammer shot, and sticky grenade.