how tank should behave in pvp?

[DarthMagician]

This is the first mmo that I ever play as tank. And have to say it's pretty fun. Especially with taunt skill that will give opponent a debuff which will decrease their damage output by % unless they attack u. In any other mmo taunt is pretty much useless in pvp such as Aion and I laugh every time Templar taunt me in pvp XD bioware did great job right there.

 

Anyway back to topic what should tank do in pvp? I mean what's tanks priority role? For example in Alderaan at start should I as tank go guard nod? Or let one of the dps to guard nod? If I decided go with everyone to the mid and one dps guard nod what's my priority role on the field beside guarding healer or main dps and taunting. Should I keep opponent dps off our healer? Or should I go harass and interrupt opponent healer? My main is sin tank btw.

And is sith juggernaut good at dps in vengeance spec? I find my alt juggernaut tank spec helpless sometimes in pvp

 

 

Also I'm looking for a pvp focus guild on server ebon hawk hv vent >.>

 

Here's my other post about difference between sin tank and juggernaut tank any input would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7108635#post7108635

Edited January 12, 2014 by DarthMagician

[Athena-Nike]

^ is how they usually act

 

How they should? Easy way is to find a healer, guard them (and have them keep you healed) and go into the middle of the fray, not solo guarding usually. Keep taunting and aoe taunting, if the healer dies shift guard to another heals/dps and keep going. Tanks role is usually disruption, use stuns knockbacks and taunts to keep enemies off your node and your dps/heals. If your enemies are poorly organized or just bad they will attack you while your team caps and kills, if they aren't they will go for your healers so do what you can to be annoying

 

As a sin tank don't forget you can stealth stun and combat stealth to mess them up even more. Also with stealth you can be an effective capper if needed

Edited January 12, 2014 by Athena-Nike

[doodbro]

just find the first dude you see and duel him 1 v 1.

[HexDecimalUK]

THIS IS A TROLL POST, DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS MAN, HE IS LYING!!!!

 

doing any and all of that will make your own team try to kill you more than the other team will.

 

i think you do actually need accuracy but your a few things to your team, a damage sponge mainly but also a nerf bat, taunt high damage players as they attack key players on your team while slowing everyone else as much as possible, as a tank there is no end to the ways you can trip up the other team, for example one thing i love to do with my jug and new powertech is to use my AOE slows to prevent the other team from rotating nodes in choke points. you also have the responsibility of keeping people out of the healer's face, dont bother trying to guard hum though, as a frontliner you will be too far away just focus target him and when you see his health dropping, target his target and pull or jump or whatever you need to do but i normally gaurd marauders as il be staying close to them and they often get burnt. I could go on but i think you can draw your own conclusions, be a pain in the neck to the other team

[Banderal]

I typed this out for someone before, but I'll do it again here - others may disagree (and hopefully they'll say so), but this is what I've been working on. These are, IMO, in sort-of order of difficulty. But maybe it's just the order I find them difficult to implement.

 

Simplest tank - find a healer, stick your guard on them. Use your taunt and AOE taunt as much as possible. Attack anyone attacking your healer.

 

IMO, that's not a great tank, but it's still somewhat functional for PUGs.

 

Better tank - Do like above, but "guard swap". Now's the time to realize that the other team might not be attacking your healer. Watch for who's health is dropping, and swap your guard to them (and make sure you are in range). That's, again, sort of the easy way to do it. A little harder is trying to anticipate who's about to be hit, and swap your guard before they take that initial burst.

 

Even better - do like above, but learn to use your Cc, interrupts & taunts more effectively. Hopefully you were using your Cc with the above two "stages" to annoy whoever was attacking your healer, and give your team some breathing room. Now, however, try to be even smarter about it. Don't Cc randomly - be the one who Cc's to help your team cap. Pay attention to what the other team is casting, and interrupt stuff that matters. Don't taunt randomly (especially the single taunt) - taunt the enemy's big hitters. This is what I'm working on - I suck at interrupting effectively - but I think not very many people do this, because I can always tell when I face someone who does - I can suddenly not get anything off, and I die quick - which doesn't happen very often, but totally pisses me off when it does.

 

Best tank - forget you are a "tank". This sounds sort of "zen-ish" maybe, but I think here you stop thinking about "what should I be doing as a **TANK**", and instead just think about "what should I be doing" given the skills set that you have? On my shadow tank, for example, sometimes I'll be the guy running ahead to plant in voidstar while everyone else is Ccing - because I can, and the team I'm in is already handling the Cc'ing. Sometimes someone else is guarding *me* - because we survive better with that configuration, holding out against overwhelming odds until more help arrives (but I still taunt). I'm a hybrid, and can do 1/2 way decent damage. So if we already have all the guards covered, I'll try to focus more on DPS if we are short on that... but, again, still throwing out taunts. Always throw out taunts.

[HexDecimalUK]

I typed this out for someone before, but I'll do it again here - others may disagree (and hopefully they'll say so), but this is what I've been working on. These are, IMO, in sort-of order of difficulty. But maybe it's just the order I find them difficult to implement.

 

Simplest tank - find a healer, stick your guard on them. Use your taunt and AOE taunt as much as possible. Attack anyone attacking your healer.

 

IMO, that's not a great tank, but it's still somewhat functional for PUGs.

 

Better tank - Do like above, but "guard swap". Now's the time to realize that the other team might not be attacking your healer. Watch for who's health is dropping, and swap your guard to them (and make sure you are in range). That's, again, sort of the easy way to do it. A little harder is trying to anticipate who's about to be hit, and swap your guard before they take that initial burst.

 

Even better - do like above, but learn to use your Cc, interrupts & taunts more effectively. Hopefully you were using your Cc with the above two "stages" to annoy whoever was attacking your healer, and give your team some breathing room. Now, however, try to be even smarter about it. Don't Cc randomly - be the one who Cc's to help your team cap. Pay attention to what the other team is casting, and interrupt stuff that matters. Don't taunt randomly (especially the single taunt) - taunt the enemy's big hitters. This is what I'm working on - I suck at interrupting effectively - but I think not very many people do this, because I can always tell when I face someone who does - I can suddenly not get anything off, and I die quick - which doesn't happen very often, but totally pisses me off when it does.

 

Best tank - forget you are a "tank". This sounds sort of "zen-ish" maybe, but I think here you stop thinking about "what should I be doing as a **TANK**", and instead just think about "what should I be doing" given the skills set that you have? On my shadow tank, for example, sometimes I'll be the guy running ahead to plant in voidstar while everyone else is Ccing - because I can, and the team I'm in is already handling the Cc'ing. Sometimes someone else is guarding *me* - because we survive better with that configuration, holding out against overwhelming odds until more help arrives (but I still taunt). I'm a hybrid, and can do 1/2 way decent damage. So if we already have all the guards covered, I'll try to focus more on DPS if we are short on that... but, again, still throwing out taunts. Always throw out taunts.

 

For pugs i find its better to just ride their healer/best DPSer, and again guard the mara or jug next to you because guard only works if your in range which as a tank you wont be, i mean think about it, your healer is backline right? if he gets jumped at all you need to peel for him but otherwise he is safe and no doubt will run away most of the time anyway thus distance LOSing your guard whereas warriors and melee need that gaurd allot more because they're the ones getting hit the most, you soak up those hits (50%) and the healer has an easier time moving in to flash heal you instead of having to spread those heals out AS MUCH. make sense?

 

As for what you interrupt in general go for the casts that give procs and resets, such as powershot, kolto injection, force storm, ect that way they have wasted manner, time, and will often be left with nothing more to do other than wait out the lockout period. the ambition being that you go from seeing the cast bar on your own target to actually seeing the animation on the field and switching or even using knock backs or stuns to interrupt it.

 

EDIT: its also important to choose one player to guard, for me the most aggressive CQC dont try to switch guard for 2 reasons, firstly you wasting global cooldowns and time targeting, secondly doing this takes allot of attention away from your other responsibilities prevention is better than cure! a good tank will do more prevention of damage than he would trying to guard all his team mates against it. and again i cant stress this enough. HEALERS RUN BACK AT THE FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE GUARD WILL NOT REACH THEM just keep them in the corner of your screen on as a focus target and be ready to pull of leap and push and leap that assassin back into the middle of the fight where the DPS can mop him up while you get back to your own job of being a brick wall.

Edited January 13, 2014 by HexDecimalUK

[Pwnboy]

THIS IS A TROLL POST, DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS MAN, HE IS LYING!!!!

 

doing any and all of that will make your own team try to kill you more than the other team will.

 

Did you read his last sentence?

[SomeJagoff]

TL;DR,

 

THIS IS A TROLL POST, DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS MAN, HE IS LYING!!!!

 

doing any and all of that will make your own team try to kill you more than the other team will.

 

fixed that for you.

[Banderal]

For pugs i find its better to just ride their healer/best DPSer, and again guard the mara or jug next to you because guard only works if your in range which as a tank you wont be, i mean think about it, your healer is backline right? if he gets jumped at all you need to peel for him but otherwise he is safe and no doubt will run away most of the time anyway thus distance LOSing your guard whereas warriors and melee need that gaurd allot more because they're the ones getting hit the most, you soak up those hits (50%) and the healer has an easier time moving in to flash heal you instead of having to spread those heals out AS MUCH. make sense?

 

As for what you interrupt in general go for the casts that give procs and resets, such as powershot, kolto injection, force storm, ect that way they have wasted manner, time, and will often be left with nothing more to do other than wait out the lockout period. the ambition being that you go from seeing the cast bar on your own target to actually seeing the animation on the field and switching or even using knock backs or stuns to interrupt it.

 

EDIT: its also important to choose one player to guard, for me the most aggressive CQC dont try to switch guard for 2 reasons, firstly you wasting global cooldowns and time targeting, secondly doing this takes allot of attention away from your other responsibilities prevention is better than cure! a good tank will do more prevention of damage than he would trying to guard all his team mates against it. and again i cant stress this enough. HEALERS RUN BACK AT THE FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE GUARD WILL NOT REACH THEM just keep them in the corner of your screen on as a focus target and be ready to pull of leap and push and leap that assassin back into the middle of the fight where the DPS can mop him up while you get back to your own job of being a brick wall.

 

Hmm, this is very interesting. I'm glad you posted a different way of going at this then I did. Here I was thinking I understood what I was supposed to do, and you go and make me re-evaluate! Stupid useful (once-in-a-while) forums. (But thanks!)

[Ottoattack]

This is the first mmo that I ever play as tank. And have to say it's pretty fun. Especially with taunt skill that will give opponent a debuff which will decrease their damage output by % unless they attack u. In any other mmo taunt is pretty much useless in pvp such as Aion and I laugh every time Templar taunt me in pvp XD bioware did great job right there.

 

Anyway back to topic what should tank do in pvp? I mean what's tanks priority role? For example in Alderaan at start should I as tank go guard nod? Or let one of the dps to guard nod? If I decided go with everyone to the mid and one dps guard nod what's my priority role on the field beside guarding healer or main dps and taunting. Should I keep opponent dps off our healer? Or should I go harass and interrupt opponent healer? My main is sin tank btw.

And is sith juggernaut good at dps in vengeance spec? I find my alt juggernaut tank spec helpless sometimes in pvp

 

 

Also I'm looking for a pvp focus guild on server ebon hawk hv vent >.>

 

Here's my other post about difference between sin tank and juggernaut tank any input would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7108635#post7108635

 

Hello,

 

I assume you have a bit of back ground in PvE. In PvE mobs automatically atk the tank, because the tank is generating "agro." In PvP the exact opposite happens. Tanks deal least damage and take longest to die so they are last on enemies priority to atk list. Your goal as a tank is to suck as much damage as possible and protect allies. How can you do that?

 

1- Guard. As a tank you should ALWAYS guard someone in PvP. Always. Guard transfers 50% of the damage target receives to you. This allows you to protect high priority allies, which are typically healer and high priority dps. You can also switch your guard towards the ally getting focused. Do not be discouraged by dying. Just remember that your primary goal is to protect allies. The more damage you receive the more successful you are.

 

2- Taunts. Taunts reduce damage done by all enemies by 30% except if they atk you and lasts six secs. You have your single taunt on 15 sec CD and aoe taunt on 45 sec aoe. You should be using whenever they become available. The single target taunt you want to be selective in using it against high priority enemy dps.

 

3- Damage. Generally tanks deal around half the damage dps deal. You still want to maximize your dps output, thus use damage as much as possible. Most tank atks work on reducing enemies accuracy, damage output and slow them, which makes you prioity is enemy dps (melee especially) atking your healer or weaker dps allies. Example, Wither which assasin top darkness tree skill does aoe damage, reduce enemies damage output by 5% and slow them by 30%. It is perfect to be spammed on enemy dps.

 

4- Peeling. Protecting you allies does not only involve guard and taunts, it also involves using your CCs, slows and damage reducing abilities. You should always use CCs to slow out enemy dps. As I mentioned Wither above educe enemies damage output by 5% and slow them by 30%. Discharge reduce enemies accuracy by 5%. You should always try to use your damage tools, CCs and knock backs to protect your allies.

 

5- Guarding nodes. Assassin tanks are defiantly the best node guards due to stealth and survivbility, but that does not mean you should always by default do that. It depends more on the game and situation. A tank protecting healer at the highly contested node is far more valuable for the team than sitting at a controlled uncontested node doing nothing. This is more on situation basis which you learn from experience.

[Ridickilis]

I see most everything is covered for tanks so I'd just like to mention off tanks (dps specs in AC's that have a tank tree)

 

Taunts. Use them please.

 

This may sound selfish, well because it is , but if I'm the only person on the team in tank spec the other team will notice this. If you never use your taunts, and have a reputation on your server as that deception sin/vengeance jugg/etc who doesn't taunt, everytime I use mine it's going to get negated, Why? Because the other team knows I'm the only tank and the only one bothering to use a taunt and they'll swap targets to me whenever they see the debuff on their bar thereby negating any benefit of the taunt.

[Hei_Atzfel]

Taunts. Use them please.

 

This is probably the most important thing in this thread. Even if you're a DPS in a class that has taunts (jugg/sin/PT) you should be dropping your AoE taunt off cooldown during large fights, and your single target taunt should be used on good enemy DPS every chance you get.