Switching to PT Tank, Stats and Rotation?

[Coolrockski]

I am level 32 and mostly PVP. I had a lot of success damage-wise up to this point, but want to try the tank class. I have never tanked in a MMO before. My questions..

 

1. General play-style? Is it just get in the middle of sh** and taunt with protection on healer or high DPS?

 

2. Whats stats? I always went for gear with higher AIM than Endurance. Should I prioritize Endurance now? After that, which secondary stat?

 

3. Rotation. No idea. I am use to railshot spam off proc. I will miss the proc laugh..

 

thanks

[Cotlu-Hunlon]

I am level 32 and mostly PVP. I had a lot of success damage-wise up to this point, but want to try the tank class. I have never tanked in a MMO before. My questions..

 

1. General play-style? Is it just get in the middle of sh** and taunt with protection on healer or high DPS?

 

2. Whats stats? I always went for gear with higher AIM than Endurance. Should I prioritize Endurance now? After that, which secondary stat?

 

3. Rotation. No idea. I am use to railshot spam off proc. I will miss the proc laugh..

 

thanks

 

Good job on making the switch now in the 30s rather than endgame. The best way to learn a role, is to level as that role. As a tank it is especially important to do Heroics while levelling to learn group combat properly. Levelling with a healer companion will be beneficial also, because it will teach you how to deal with a group member that is putting out threat to all enemies. Learn how to keep a whole pack of trash off your healer comp and you're a lot of the way there. You mentioned levelling with PvP, well this is a different meta entirely and if you're only interested in tanking in pvp, none of this applies to you so don't bother reading on, though I hope you mean you want to tank in PvE too. Here we go

 

1.

In group content, keep as many enemies on you as possible, and stop any of them if possible from attacking anyone else. If there's a large group of, let's say, 3 golds, 2 silvers and 3 standards, it is better to keep the golds and silvers on you from the very start, and tell the damage dealers to kill the standards first because they will do very little damage overall if removed from the equation quickly. It is often necessary to say this in Group finder FPs as many random dps'ers will incorrectly jump straight onto the biggest mobs first as they like to get into their rotation Asap.

As a tank you have to marshal the dps sometimes and don't be afraid to be authoritative. A consular that keeps using their wave pushback on the group and knocking your neat circle of mobs out of your AoE (and everyone else's) needs to be told to stop doing that. You can let repeat offenders die to make them get the message, and if they ragequit the Fp, get another one, Dpsers are too replaceable to deal with annoying crap like that. Keep your guard on a nearby high performing melee dps usually. Guard only works if you are within 10m of your guarded target so most healers are too far away to make it useful, same goes for range dps.

 

To know how to tank effectively you need to know how 'threat' works and I'm assuming you don't since you have never tanked before. An easy way to explain threat I have used before is that enemies are American deer hunters that want your head hung up in their cabin. These hunters only want to kill you, the male deer, with the biggest antlers. As a tank you have to be the most desirable male deer with the biggest antlers. You can make your antlers bigger by doing damage and using inflatable antlers (taunts) that make your antlers seem 25% bigger than the current biggest male in your pack. Problem is, all the other males are growing their antlers too. Luckily in your Ion cell (deer steroids) your antlers grow 2x as fast as the other males when doing damage. The point of the analogy is, don't expect the enemy to stick to you with a few Rapid Shots just because you have decided to be the tank. It's a race with dps in your group to grow your antlers faster, especially at the beginning of a fight.

 

2.

Endurance > Aim is correct in armourings / mods.

For mods + enhancements, get Shield / Absorb / Defense. Ignore Accuracy + Crit + Power + Alacrity + Surge since they don't make you more survivable in any way. Supplies section on fleet is the only reliable way to get defensive mods while levelling, except for crafting them yourself

 

3.

I play Jugg tank myself so don't know much about PT. I would say though that you will have much more enjoyment figuring out for yourself how to play it on levelling planets than you would from carrying out moves in a strict order that someone said you should do on the forums.