Best PVP tank and PVE tank unless it is the same?

[Vektarulz]

Thinking about leveling a tank, which one has best life span unless all 3 types are the same.

[Lhancelot]

Thinking about leveling a tank, which one has best life span unless all 3 types are the same.

 

In regs? 4v4s? Ranked? I mean you got to be specific for people to give a good answer.

[Vektarulz]

I just wanted to know which was had most resistance, the tankiest tank.

[LordTurin]

I just wanted to know which was had most resistance, the tankiest tank.

 

Vanguard/PT I guess? It has the most passive mitigation of the 3 tanks, so just doing your rotation without anything else will give you the most mitigation, and its also in heavy armor making it "tanky". But realistically speaking, all 3 do just fine in both pvp and pve.

[Lhancelot]

I just wanted to know which was had most resistance, the tankiest tank.

 

For PVP, basically it seems the common consensus is to gear the tank with health being the most important feature. Defensive stats are nearly useless in PVP. In regs all 3 tanks seem to be equally tanky when I fight them.

 

I am assuming you are talking about pure specced tanks too. Not skank-tanks.

 

To really get a better answer as to what tank is "tankiest" in PVP, you'll need someone that mains a tank and really knows it better than I do if you want detailed numbers etc.

 

I can give you my feedback regarding sin and PT tanks though from a pleb's perspective. PT for me is simpler, has more innate defensive qualities but less tricks like phasewalk, stealthing out of combat, etc.

 

That being said I honestly like the synergy on the PT better. And PT gets oil slick, that is a really fun ability to use.

 

As for juggs, I don't know in all honesty it seems all of them are running dps gears in tank stance so imo they are not true tanks.

 

In a nutshell all of the tanks are similar when it comes to surviving in PVP, play whichever one appeals to you the most.

 

Note: Juggs do have a heal to full ability, and in regs that probably gives them a little longer duration of up time if tunneled.

[Wimbleton]

Juggs are doing alot of dmg right now. That dmg is incredible effective tanking. PTs are the superior all around tank but in most cases in regs a Jugg will be more effective due to his ability to put out good dmg.

[Volxen]

This is also something I have been wondering about. With healers it's pretty clear cut -- sorcs are definitely the best healing class right now bar none. But with tanks, it doesn't seem so clear cut -- I've seen people make cases for why each of the three tanks are the best in PVP, from their perspective.

 

One thing I am curious about, though, is why are PT tanks more dominant than the other two tanks in ranked matches (both solo ranked and group ranked)? This is something I've noticed both from reviewing the season 6 leaderboards (for both solo ranked and group ranked) and from reading several different threads on these forums. In particular I found it interesting that PT tanks are significantly more common than jugg tanks (according to the leaderboards) in solo/group ranked, considering all of the DCD's at their disposal that PT tanks don't have. Can anyone from the ranked scene shed some light on why PT tanks are seemingly preferred over jugg tanks for ranked (and over sin tanks for that matter)?

[LordTurin]

This is also something I have been wondering about. With healers it's pretty clear cut -- sorcs are definitely the best healing class right now bar none. But with tanks, it doesn't seem so clear cut -- I've seen people make cases for why each of the three tanks are the best in PVP, from their perspective.

 

One thing I am curious about, though, is why are PT tanks more dominant than the other two tanks in ranked matches (both solo ranked and group ranked)? This is something I've noticed both from reviewing the season 6 leaderboards (for both solo ranked and group ranked) and from reading several different threads on these forums. In particular I found it interesting that PT tanks are significantly more common than jugg tanks (according to the leaderboards) in solo/group ranked, considering all of the DCD's at their disposal that PT tanks don't have. Can anyone from the ranked scene shed some light on why PT tanks are seemingly preferred over jugg tanks for ranked (and over sin tanks for that matter)?

 

Unless I'm missing something (which I could be for sure) the leader boards don't differentiate by role, so that is including dps in it. And as far as that is concerned, it makes sense as dps pts have insane burst which is great in arenas (that's why there are so many). Again, I could be missing some filter somewhere cause I didn't spend that long looking :-D

[kweassa]

The impression I get, is that guards/juggs nowadays are much more inclined towards the DPS role than what their predecessorts were doing around 3 years ago. Of course this whole 'skank' thing is nothing recent, and has been around since the beginning of the game, but compared to how the guards/juggs behaved back then, the modern day guards/juggs are much more aggressive in offense.

 

Now, I'm thinking it partly has to do with how the entire skill-tree system changed, where once, it was possible to cross-spec different disciplines. I had both a guard and a van back then, and I seem to recall that hybridizing between trees led much better efficiency for guard/jugg tanks, whereas the 'profit margin' for PT/Vans was much lower.

 

My guess is the strict and linear separation of spec trees sort of natually downbalanced the efficiency of guard/juggs, whereas the PT/Vans were relatively unscathed, hence reducing the performance gap in the purely 'tank' aspect between the two classes.

 

So to sum it up, the current guard/jugg tanks can be considered performing at lower efficiency than they used to 3 years ago, and their actions towards offense became much more aggressive -- whereas the 'classic' guard/juggs back then had generally bit higher performance limit, and were more inclined towards defensive and utilitarian actions in the same amount of time spent. In comparison PT/Vans didn't change much in this tanking aspect.

[Surbatu]

Jugs are best for guarding as they have best mitigation, so they are the best 'real' tanks. They have so much mitigation that people mostly just use dps gear.

 

One thing I am curious about, though, is why are PT tanks more dominant than the other two tanks in ranked matches (both solo ranked and group ranked)?

 

PTs are much much easier to play and get results. That's the only real reason. And as most decent pvpers have left long ago and pvp is full with casuals - people just use the easiest tank.

 

In the pvp where people can't focus, chain stun, position etc AND terrible matchmaker - you don't really need a tanky tank. Especially with sorc heals. And funny thing is how tanks are asking for even more defense. That's just so stupid and only shows that competitive pvp is dead.

[kweassa]

And funny thing is how tanks are asking for even more defense. That's just so stupid and only shows that competitive pvp is dead.

 

Correction: tanks aren't asking for more mitigation. They are asking for mitigation stats to shift away from active skills, and into tanking stats such as defense and shield -- for the purpose of differentiating a "real tank" from a "skank" -- as in, giving the due amount of tanking/survival to tank build players that gear up defensively, and NOT giving such amount of tanking ot those who have just dumped and traded tanking stats for DPS stats.

 

If the tanks that ask for defense to work properly in PvP can have their way, what would happen is that "real" tanks would be just as tanky as those we have now, except those real tanks aren't "skanks" and they have no way to deal as much damage as the current skanks. OTOH, skanks, would be able to deal as much damage as right now, except they won't even remotely be considered as tanky as real tanks, and would be situated somewhere between a sent/mar and a guard/jugg. Sent/mar would be high DPS with low survival, skank and DPS tanks would become medium DPS with medium survival, and real tanks would become pathetic DPS and very high survival .

 

That's, what tank enthusiasts are asking for. At least, the ones that have brains.

[Volxen]

Jugs are best for guarding as they have best mitigation, so they are the best 'real' tanks. They have so much mitigation that people mostly just use dps gear.

 

 

 

PTs are much much easier to play and get results. That's the only real reason. And as most decent pvpers have left long ago and pvp is full with casuals - people just use the easiest tank.

 

In the pvp where people can't focus, chain stun, position etc AND terrible matchmaker - you don't really need a tanky tank. Especially with sorc heals. And funny thing is how tanks are asking for even more defense. That's just so stupid and only shows that competitive pvp is dead.

 

What is it that makes PT tanks easier to play than the other two tanks?

[MasterFeign]

To add to the above. When I can do more dps and survive just as long (if not longer - depending on the circumstance) with dps gear in tank stance, then there's clearly something wrong. It's happened before with hybrid sin madness/darkness (and full darkness in dps gear builds), and I believe it also happened at one point with PTs as well.

 

The fix isn't to adjust DPS, as the devs have been doing, but adjusting how tanking actually works, especially when it correlates to healing as well. A guarded sorc healer could take forever to kill.

[Surbatu]

Correction: tanks aren't asking for more mitigation. They are asking for mitigation stats to shift away from active skills, and into tanking stats such as defense and shield -- for the purpose of differentiating a "real tank" from a "skank" -- as in, giving the due amount of tanking/survival to tank build players that gear up defensively, and NOT giving such amount of tanking ot those who have just dumped and traded tanking stats for DPS stats.

 

If the tanks that ask for defense to work properly in PvP can have their way, what would happen is that "real" tanks would be just as tanky as those we have now, except those real tanks aren't "skanks" and they have no way to deal as much damage as the current skanks. OTOH, skanks, would be able to deal as much damage as right now, except they won't even remotely be considered as tanky as real tanks, and would be situated somewhere between a sent/mar and a guard/jugg. Sent/mar would be high DPS with low survival, skank and DPS tanks would become medium DPS with medium survival, and real tanks would become pathetic DPS and very high survival .

 

That's, what tank enthusiasts are asking for. At least, the ones that have brains.

 

You do understand that you are basically asking to change the whole combat system including all pve and that it has absolutely zero percent to happen; or separate pvp from pve completely which is the same zero percent to happen, right?

 

just

-50% damage in tank stance

+50% thread generation

looks more realistic but not gonna happen too most likely (even this will need pve changes etc etc, too much work, we better do... NOTHING)

 

What is it that makes PT tanks easier to play than the other two tanks?

More range and less abilities to use.

[kweassa]

What is it that makes PT tanks easier to play than the other two tanks?

 

Range. The classic, "gun > knife" logic.

[kweassa]

You do understand that you are basically asking to change the whole combat system including all pve and that it has absolutely zero percent to happen; or separate pvp from pve completely which is the same zero percent to happen, right?

 

It's highly improbable that it would happen since countless tank experts and top-level players have been requesting that change since launch, back in 2011. When it doesn't change for 5 years, then it probably won't change for the next 5. So yeah, the probability would be close to 0%.

 

But 'change whole combat system'? Bloody unlikely. There are countless ways to implement it without forcing a game-wide change. For starters, a very simple insertion of a passive skill that allows such series of changes to simply apply to tank disciplines only --- and then, base the efficiency of some active skills and features on top of tanking stats. Probably would need multiple patches to finally tweak it right, but its quite possible and nothing out of ordinary or outrageous.

 

it is easy to implement and and absolutely no negative impact whatsoever to PvE. The only people who have anything to lose from this is those who use skanks themselves, or benefit from having many skanks in the team.

 

In every other way, its only for the better for everyone else.

[kweassa]

...but I digress.

 

Personally, despite some nerfs and balancing I feel the "higher performance margin" in terms of PvP tanking still goes to the guard/juggs as a whole. Huge number of active defensive skills, higher resistances, and an assortment of all kinds of utility give a very unique level of versatility to guard/juggs in PvP.

 

Ironically, this is less prevalent in ranked 4v4 matches, where the "skank+heals" meta largely depends on the tank to be a guard-bot to the healers, and at the same time serve the DPS-role. Perhaps this is why many people feel that the efficiency of guards/juggs have fallen a bit, since assuming the DPS-role (obviously) forces a lot more offensive action to the player. So it kinda seems like the skanks aren't doing as much defensive action as other tanks.

 

Hower, things are a bit more clear in an 8v8 situation, assuming both teams are at least average or above average level in skill, and have similar and balanced team composition consisted of adequate balance of heals, deals, and meatshields. In this scenario where a larger scale of combat ensues, I believe when a guard/jugg stops thinking about being a 'skank' and really puts his head to solely protecting ALL of the teammates in his team, then no other class comes close.

 

Two hard stuns, AoE stun, AoE slow(+team speed buff), single taunt, AoE taunt(+team shielding), 1 offensive gapcloser, 1 friendly gapcloser with +mitigation buff... a guard/jugg that's 'in the zone' to protect the team is just crazy. The amount of damage/kills is just pathetically low, but the amoung of actual 'assists' he gives to the team members to help survive the situation (which, of course is not recorded as a 'stat' except protection numbers) ... I don't think any other tank comes close.

 

....of course, it also means that the overall level of experience and practice required to maintain an effective tanking regime is that much higher than all other tank types. It's certainly not easy, that's for sure. There are like 20 active skills each class has in this game, and comparing how much of them I use how frequently, my Vanguard and my Shadow is a lot less busy and a lot more pleasant to manage than my guardian. When I'm tanking in PvP with a guardian, my left hand feel like arthritis after 5 minutes... Q... E... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.... ctrl+1, 2, 3, 4, 5... shift+1, 2, 3, 4, 5... alt+1, 2, 3, 4, 5... C.. V.. F... Z... X... R... and I still don't have enough hotkeys...

 

 

To me, an Arse/Shad tank feels more like a 'offensive/tactical semi-tank', and PT/Vans feel more like 'support/utility tank'... whilst guard/juggs feel like a pure-breed 'protector' type, classic tank.

Edited March 10, 2016 by kweassa

[Volxen]

...but I digress.

 

Personally, despite some nerfs and balancing I feel the "higher performance margin" in terms of PvP tanking still goes to the guard/juggs as a whole. Huge number of active defensive skills, higher resistances, and an assortment of all kinds of utility give a very unique level of versatility to guard/juggs in PvP.

 

Ironically, this is less prevalent in ranked 4v4 matches, where the "skank+heals" meta largely depends on the tank to be a guard-bot to the healers, and at the same time serve the DPS-role. Perhaps this is why many people feel that the efficiency of guards/juggs have fallen a bit, since assuming the DPS-role (obviously) forces a lot more offensive action to the player. So it kinda seems like the skanks aren't doing as much defensive action as other tanks.

 

Hower, things are a bit more clear in an 8v8 situation, assuming both teams are at least average or above average level in skill, and have similar and balanced team composition consisted of adequate balance of heals, deals, and meatshields. In this scenario where a larger scale of combat ensues, I believe when a guard/jugg stops thinking about being a 'skank' and really puts his head to solely protecting ALL of the teammates in his team, then no other class comes close.

 

Two hard stuns, AoE stun, AoE slow(+team speed buff), single taunt, AoE taunt(+team shielding), 1 offensive gapcloser, 1 friendly gapcloser with +mitigation buff... a guard/jugg that's 'in the zone' to protect the team is just crazy. The amount of damage/kills is just pathetically low, but the amoung of actual 'assists' he gives to the team members to help survive the situation (which, of course is not recorded as a 'stat' except protection numbers) ... I don't think any other tank comes close.

 

....of course, it also means that the overall level of experience and practice required to maintain an effective tanking regime is that much higher than all other tank types. It's certainly not easy, that's for sure. There are like 20 active skills each class has in this game, and comparing how much of them I use how frequently, my Vanguard and my Shadow is a lot less busy and a lot more pleasant to manage than my guardian. When I'm tanking in PvP with a guardian, my left hand feel like arthritis after 5 minutes... Q... E... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.... ctrl+1, 2, 3, 4, 5... shift+1, 2, 3, 4, 5... alt+1, 2, 3, 4, 5... C.. V.. F... Z... X... R... and I still don't have enough hotkeys...

 

 

To me, an Arse/Shad tank feels more like a 'offensive/tactical semi-tank', and PT/Vans feel more like 'support/utility tank'... whilst guard/juggs feel like a pure-breed 'protector' type, classic tank.

 

Thanks for going into more detail! I'm really trying to learn as much as I can about the three tanks, as I want to make a true protector type tank as you call it. Not a skank tank, but a true tank that protects everyone, gets very high protection numbers, and is extremely difficult to kill. I'm fine with hitting like a wet noodle, I just want to be a true tank. I was actually hoping to do that with a vanguard, but from your post it sounds like guardian is a far superior choice for being a true tank. My concern though is all of the keybindings it seems to require, and the fact that it's a true 4 meter melee class, which I'm not used to playing. My preference is to fulfill the role of "protector tank" as a vanguard, but I also don't want to be gimped in that role if the guardian is truly the better choice.

 

Do vanguard tanks simply not have as much survivability as guardian tanks? I know guardians are the king of DCD's, but I thought that was evened out by the fact that vanguards have more passive mitigation? Will I never be able to achieve the same level of tanking potential and survivability on a vanguard tank as a guardian tank? And finally, can vanguard tanks get as much HP as guardian tanks when endurance is stacked in your mods and augments?

 

I also play primarily in regs and prefer 8 vs 8, if that makes any difference.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Volxen

[starwarsfansix]

As a jugg tank with dps gear and all my cooldowns available, I once held the whole enemy team at Voidstar for a solid 10 seconds. That's more than enough time to plant a bomb ( which happened). I'm not boasting or anything, this is actually really unbalanced. Not to mention I'm in the top 5 highest dps in 90% of my matches. Anybody that can do 1 milion+ damage, half a million tanking and 300k healing should be prepared for the nerfbat, although I don't think Bio will nerf one tank spec to the ground and leave the other two alone.

[Tykhelituss]

The best fix for skank tanks, albeit the most complicated, is to adjust bolster in a way that it locks damage values for tanks. No matter what gear they choose to wear, they must have tank stats. A buff to DoT specs would also fix this, but that would make PvP really unbearable for most.

 

To answer the OP, any tank is fine for regular WZs. Juggernaut normally will be the best pure tank, Powertech is the easiest to learn, and Assassin revolves around utility.

[kweassa]

The best fix for skank tanks, albeit the most complicated, is to adjust bolster in a way that it locks damage values for tanks. No matter what gear they choose to wear, they must have tank stats. A buff to DoT specs would also fix this, but that would make PvP really unbearable for most.

 

To answer the OP, any tank is fine for regular WZs. Juggernaut normally will be the best pure tank, Powertech is the easiest to learn, and Assassin revolves around utility.

 

Why would they need to do that? That's such an unnatural and weird way to do it. The point of fixing skanks is not about reducing the ability to deal damage for the people who have actually invested in damage -- it's about reducing the ability to tank for the people who have not invested in tanking stats.

 

The main perceivable difference from Defense discipline/Soreus skank and a tank, is essentially one stat -- defense(abbreviated to 'D' hereafter, to avoid confusion). What's unique about jugg/guards, is that it actually has a much higher ratio of D in relation to shield as main factor of defenive tanking. The 'skank' problem applies to Arse/Shads and PT/Vans as well, but it is less prevalent because their main defensives are centered around shielding. Unlike D, shielding has a chance to apply to everything except crits so while critstuff bypasses it, it still is a much more stable form of defense than D.

 

Jugg/guards, OTOH, are initially centered around defense, which is obvious when you see how its mechanics are laid out in the skill tree. With proper investment into D and skill rotations, you can keep a stable chance to parry/deflect incoming attacks at around 40% -- this is a very powerful defensive stat as it allows you to not get damaged at all, and works actually well enough in PvE.... but the problem being here, as everyone knows, it's just useless against every major form of incoming damage which is not categorized melee or ranged.

 

This is why D, being the main difference between skanks and tanks, has very poor effect in PvP, and therefore doesn't really differentiate the tanking qualities of skanks and tanks. Instead, most of tanking in PvP come from passive resistances (no difference) and active skills (uses same skills).

 

......

 

Then logically speaking, its pretty simple to remedy the situation.

 

1. Change D, so this preliminary defense layer applies to all forms of incoming attacks -- not just melee/ranged

 

2. By itself, 1 will be too powerful as a form of defense, so simply fuse together the mitigation value of D with its chance to activate - for example, if someone's D gives him a 20% chance to parry/deflect, then he will be able to do so against all attacks -- and mitigate 20% of incoming damage. If someone has 40% D, then he will parry/evade incoming attacks at 40% chance to mitigate 40% of incoming damage.

 

3. As a tradeoff, the reliance on active skills have to go down -- for example:

 

■ Saber Ward: instead of "increasing defense chance by 50%, and giving +25% resistance against force/tech" , meaning +50% and +25% f/t resistance, it can be changed to "increasing defense chance at 100% of current value" -- meaning double the current defense chance. No extra resistances since D now already activates against f/t as well.

 

If this happens, compare a skank with maybe 10% defense chance, and a real tank build with 30% base defense chance. When SW is activated, the skank's defense will be increased to 20% chance to deflect/parry attacks and gain 20% mitigation, whereas for the tank it will be 60% chance to deflect/parry and gain 60% mitigation. The efficiency of the active skill becomes totally different.

 

The same line of changes can be applied to Warding Call and Sabre Reflect -- I'd suggest leaving Focused Defense and Enure alone, tho'.

 

4. Now, the balance is set. Since active defense skills will be more interlinked with the main tanking stat of D, using DPS modifications to a tanking discipline would result in as strong DPS as current, but greatly weakened defenses. (Almost meaningless, I'd say)

 

But then the changes to these defense CD skills will effect other jugg/guard disciplines such as Vigilance or Focus, so basically add in a slight compensation exclusive to those DPS disciplines, where a repeated self-buff can occur to increase resistances or D. For example, stuff like adding in something like a +20% defense chance buff for 8 seconds after Zealous leap, or a +20% resistances for 6 seconds after Force Leap... etc etc..

 

5. So what's the balance sheet after this whole ordeal?

 

■ In general jugg/guard tank builds will have more sustained tanking prowess than now

■ However, in terms of tanking extreme burst damage it will be a bit weaker

■ 'skank' builds have no real purpose, so just using a DPS discipline will better work if you want DPS

■ DPS disciplines will benefit from a slightly increased survivability overall and will be able to fight efficiently

 

There, everybody is happy, except the skanks. Solves all major problems. DPS disciplines for jugg/guards are considered weak because they are deemed glass cannons, whereas the current 'skanks' use tanking skills and resistances but still able to deal as much damage. So this not only solves the problem of skank-tank balance, but also skank-DPS jugg/guard balance as well.

 

Of course, if the way how D works changes it will also slightly effect PT/Vans and Arse/Shads as well, but the need to tweak these classes would a bit weaker, since they rely on shields. The same line of changes can be thought of, such as tweaking shield activation so that on crit, it's not totally bypassed but rather has reduced mitigation -- which would increase the tanking effciency of tank builds -- in which case, again, same line of tradeoffs and compensations to some powers.

 

 

 

 

But like said, people have been suggesting something like this for 5 years. It goes unnoticed and unanswered, so something like this won't probably ever happen.

Edited March 11, 2016 by kweassa

[BobaStyx]

TL;DR

 

[kweassa]

TL;DR

 

 

Kids these days.

[starwarsfansix]

....DPS disciplines for jugg/guards are considered weak because they are deemed glass cannons.....

I agree with pretty much everything you have suggested (don't see much reason to change saber ward tho, it has long cd, no utility to lower it's cd when taking damage like powertechs and mercs and it's not really that much of a gamechanger). But calling jugg dps weak is simply a lie. If you don't have a heal or two behind your back and you try to jump at 4 enemies at once, of course you'll go down fast. But 1 vs 1 few dps builds can beat a jugg.

 

This thing aside though, your suggestion on how to fix tanks in PvP is excellent. Right now, playing a tank with defensive stats in warzones is a waste. You will not have longer lifespan than a dps geared tank, you'll just have lower dps output than him.