Looking to settle on a tank (repub); what are their fundamentals?

[SleepyDM]

By fundamentals I mean things not likely to change in upcoming patches. So nothing like which one has the most dps, or any other things tied to numerical values. What are the enduring qualities, or the design goals behind each class? Talking about mechanics over flavor.

 

All 3 have their unique resource systems.

 

Vanguards have the most ranged options.

Shadows can stealth.

Guardians...dunno. Site says they're melee tanks, but afaik, every tank's rotation make them all melee, so I'm not sure how that's special.

 

That's all I could gather from my limited play experience. More info would be appreciated.

[dazednconfuzed]

Guardian is your traditional 'Warrior Tank'. He runs in, hits things, gathers aggro and keeps it.

 

Shadow is a 'Stealth Tank'. Great for getting into position before the attack, and has some reasonable CC-style abilities (not stuns and the like, more ways of gathering up the scattered mob so they are all hitting the Shadow, and are all close by).

 

Vanguard is the 'Ranged Tank', even though nearly all fo the tnaking abilities they use need to be less than 10m away from the target, some even closer. Out of all the tanks, this one is my favourite by far. Having ranged attacks opens up lots of new options that you just don't get with the others.

[slafko]

Guardian is your traditional 'Warrior Tank'. He runs in, hits things, gathers aggro and keeps it.

 

That hasn't been my experience. Guardians seem to lose aggro really fast and my sentinel ends up tanking five seconds into the fight.

[blarse]

That hasn't been my experience. Guardians seem to lose aggro really fast and my sentinel ends up tanking five seconds into the fight.

 

Then either it was a bad Guardian or you unleashed all your burst before he could build any aggro

[Bstr]

That hasn't been my experience. Guardians seem to lose aggro really fast and my sentinel ends up tanking five seconds into the fight.

 

If you are a Focus Sentinel, then all your damage is upfront and will steal the aggro. It can also happen to Combat Sentinels if their RNG hits perfectly in the beginning of the fight. Sentinels only need to get 110% threat of the tank to steal aggro, compared to 125% of most other DPS classes.

 

Guardians have trouble with getting aggro on more than one enemy due to a lack of ranged moves. The Shadow at least has Project, TK Throw, Force Pull, and Slow Time to get aggro from enemies and the Vanguard has almost all ranged attacks.

[slafko]

Guarded combat sentinel jumping in five seconds after the tank. I think that's more than reasonable. Guardian tanks should start throwing in their taunts into their rotation. Edited January 24, 2014 by slafko

[Bstr]

Guarded combat sentinel jumping in five seconds after the tank. I think that's more than reasonable. Guardian tanks should start throwing in their taunts into their rotation.

 

Most of the time, taunts should only be used when the tank loses aggro. Sounds like you had an undergeared tank that did not have enough attack power to build threat reasonably.

Edited January 28, 2014 by Bstr

[venomlash]

Back on topic, folks!

 

Conventional wisdom as I understand it:

 

The Guardian is the single-target tank. It's got the strongest defensive abilities (Saber Ward, Warding Call) but they've got very long cooldowns (~2.5 minutes). The Guardian excels at buffs and debuffs, keeping a standing 20% armor reduction on enemies (capable of applying it to 5 targets at once, which no other spec can do) along with a 5% melee/ranged accuracy debuff and optionally a 50% movement speed debuff; the Guardian also buffs all nearby allies with a substantial damage-absorbing shield every time his AoE taunt is used.

The Guardian's weaknesses are a lack of mobility and very few ranged options, along with subpar AoE attacks.

 

The Shadow is the multi-target tank. It has relatively weaker defensive abilities (Deflection, Resilience) with comparatively shorter cooldowns (~1-2 minutes). The Shadow does very well when entering a planned fight from stealth, able to CC one non-droid enemy (which no other tanking class can do) before starting the fight with full stacks of the major defensive buffs (Kinetic Ward, Shadow Protection) pre-built. The Shadow debuffs the accuracy, speed, and damage done by up to 5 enemies by 5, 30, and 5% respectively as a part of its regular rotation; no additional effort is generally needed to hold aggro against multiple enemies. As an additional bonus, the Shadow can place a circle on the ground that grants a 5% healing done bonus to all allies who stand in it.

The Shadow's weaknesses are a reliance on a channel (making it susceptible to stuns) to maintain key buffs, a tendency towards spiky damage that can stress healers, and a rotational reliance on RNG that can make life difficult.

 

The Vanguard is the ranged/gathering tank. Its defensive abilities (Riot Gas, Adrenaline Rush, Reactive Shield) are moderate in both potency and cooldown length. Where the Vanguard is unsurpassed is in its capacity to pick up enemies at range. Not only do most of its harder-hitting abilities (High Impact Bolt, Mortar Volley, Sticky Grenade) have a 30m range, its AoE taunt functions differently than the other tanking classes; rather than taunting all enemies within 15m, it taunts all enemies within a short distance (presumably 15m, not sure) of any targeted enemy within 30m. The Vanguard also has both a charge and a grapple, the only class to do so, can reveal stealthed enemies (good utility in PvP), and can, with good planning, continue to deal damage and self-heal even while stunned by using Shoulder Cannon. The Vanguard keeps a standing 5% damage done debuff on its targets and, rather than maintaining a 5% melee/ranged accuracy debuff as the other tanks do, puts a whopping 30% debuff (coupled with a 70% speed debuff) on all targets in an area with Riot Gas, an effect that is up for 1/4 of the time.

The Vanguard's weaknesses are an inability to negate and avoid predictable big hits (as the Guardian and Shadow can with Saber Reflect and Resilience respectively), a focus on mitigating white damage (Melee and Ranged attacks) that leaves it more vulnerable to yellow damage (Force and Tech attacks), and a less-forgiving resource-management system that regenerates more slowly when ammo is low.

 

There you have it. Bear in mind, the only tank I've personally played at high levels is the Shadow, so take my wall-of-text with a grain of salt.

Edited January 28, 2014 by venomlash

[Goare]

By fundamentals I mean things not likely to change in upcoming patches. So nothing like which one has the most dps, or any other things tied to numerical values. What are the enduring qualities, or the design goals behind each class? Talking about mechanics over flavor.

 

My opinion breakdown as follows, I have tanked HM ops with all three (er, 5 total given both sides...). All of them are viable in any situation, some situations are harder than others for various reasons, but all are viable. I recommend you pick up Vanguard. All of them tank best at melee range regardless of the many options Vanguard and Shadow have for threat at range.

 

Passive Mitigation (base defense, no clicking): Shadow > Vanguard > Guardian

Active Mitigation (active defense, click at right time): Guardian > Shadow > Vanguard

Resistance to Damage Spikes: Vanguard > Guardian > Shadow

ST Threat/Control: Shadow > Guardian > Vanguard

AOE Threat/Control: Vanguard > Shadow > Guardian

Utility: Shadow >>> Vanguard > Guardian

 

Keep in mind, they all can get the job done just fine.

 

If your goal is ease of use and being effective, I'd recommend Vanguard over the other two. Least active mitigation means less thinking to do in terms of cooldowns/utility, strong aoe threat makes tanking easier for unskilled groups (ie, dps who don't target properly) and gives you more active ways to display skill, high passive mitigation and lowest spikiness means you can do the mitigation part of your job pretty easily and focus more on agro.

 

If your goal is massive utility, Shadow's are insanely complex in terms of all the things they *can* do. Stealth, vanish, cc, teleport/heal bubble, totally ignore yellow damage, etc. That said, they're an easy to play hard to master class imo and get a bad rap for light armor -- shadows may have the best overall defense but when a big hit gets through its *very* noticeable.

 

Guardian's middle of the road between those two and I'd advocate for it the least (despite being my original main) simply because the *amazing* defensive cooldowns the guardian gets doesn't offset (in my mind) the aoe/utility perks of the other two. I'm also thinking in terms of life cycle (leveling, dailies, FP's) not just raids here - Guardians are arguably the "best" tanks simply by virtue of their numerous active defenses, but there's more to quality of life as a tank than just using clickies on hardmode raid bosses.

 

They're all good. I'd recommend Vanguard based on your post.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Goare

[slafko]

Most of the time, taunts should only be used when the tank loses aggro. Sounds like you had an undergeared tank that did not have enough attack power to build threat reasonably.

 

No, taunts are here so you don't lose aggro in the first place.

[Goare]

No, taunts are here so you don't lose aggro in the first place.

 

This. Taunt makes non-mechanic single-target tanking ridiculously easy in this game;

 

Taunt locks the target on you for six seconds *and* puts your threat at current top threat * modifier. Modifier is 1.1 under 4m and 1.3 over 4m (ie, taunting from beyond melee range actually generates more threat if you have the opportunity) and if the top threat is you, congratulations, you just boosted your threat. Generally speaking, if you don't need to worry about tank swaps or threat drops, you just taunt whenever its up. Burn aoe taunt too, its just skyrocketing your threat.

 

Case in point: Main tanked a TFB last night on my alt powertech with a 66 mainhand (blue) and 69 offhand, had no trouble keeping threat off 72+ geared dps other than initial burst. Typical start to a fight was something like rocket punch railshot *taunt* flamethrower missiles flameburst *aoetaunt* and then taunt again as soon as its up.

 

Keep in mind many hardmode fights have tank swap mechanics where you need to keep your taunt available and can't just burn it willy-nilly - but if you can, you should have no trouble keeping threat.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Goare

[Merouk]

Yeah, the Taunt mechanic in this game is different than WoW or other games. It doesn't just gain attention, it boosts your threat too. Must be used whenever it's available in this game, and it's part of rotations. You don't wait to lose a mob to use it, you just use it every time and they simply stay on you.

[Gobgrot]

Guarded combat sentinel jumping in five seconds after the tank. I think that's more than reasonable. Guardian tanks should start throwing in their taunts into their rotation.

 

The way a lot of mobs work a guardian tank gets stuned or knocked back before they can even do their 2nd attack, with fast pulls groups want resolute is always on cool down and rarely up when I need it (2 min cd). Ive hardly ever seen a dps that will wait that long before attacking. Most times when I pull Im immediately fighting for agro cause the dps wont wait. Do you honestly wait 5 seconds? Even a fast 5 count is only about 2 seconds. If so its something Ive never seen.

[KarathAnno]

A few points that have been overlooked on the Guardian.

 

Reflect is amazing. It is a wonderful tool to use at the start of a fight with most large groups to gain threat and reduce the damage you take. Also if you use your leaps and intercede you have really good mobility.

 

I have leveled all three tank classes to 55 but the Juggernaut (aka the guardian) is the only one I play end game. It's not that the other two are bad in any way but personally I enjoy the Jugg/Guardian play-style so much more. Leaping around the map and throwing enemies attacks back at them never gets old.

 

Having said that the stuns and knock-backs can be very frustrating as the Guardian/Jugg. You have the fewest tools to deal with them and are most dependent on being in melee range.

[Glorthox]

Seen trooper ( Vanguard ) tanks hold threat easier than any other tanking class.