Tank Specs (What Makes them Different?)

[Kai-Del_Serromis]

I've played the game for quite some time and have completed operation content of various difficulties as a healer or dps, but lately I've really been wanting to get into tanking more often. I have a Guardian tank that I use when needed, but never really any of the others.

 

This isn't a question about which one is the best, but I want to know what each tank spec is good at over another, and how the gearing and playstyle changes from AC to AC.

 

I'm sure I could figure out the answer on my own, but the community will know nuances I won't off the bat.

Edited August 4, 2017 by Kai-Del_Serromis
Added words

[KendraP]

I am a guardian tank main myself, but I do have one of each tank at 70.

 

Guardians of course, are the cooldown tanks, since you have one I won't elaborate.

 

Vanguards are a bit weak in the DCD department and currentry take the most damage. They are still perfectly viable tanks, just slightly more squishy maybe than a shadow or guardian. I believe they still have the most passive mitigation.

 

Shadows require the most micromanagement. They are the best tanks in terms of damage taken.

 

Hope this helps and welcome to tanking

[LordTurin]

Guardians: The Defensive Cooldown tank. This tank has the most DCDs that allow them to respond to basically any situation by popping one and surviving. I've found that Guardians are particularly good when you take lots of damage at spaced out, regular intervals, so you can pop a cd and just keep going.

 

Vanguards: The high dps tank. Vanguards do the most most dps of the tank classes (even judicious use of saber reflect on a fight that gives a lot of bonus to that, I still do less on my guardian than the vanguard in our group). They are also supposed to have the highest passive mitigation (i.e. take the least damage from standing still doing nothing) but right now them and Guardians are tied for that.

 

Shadow tank: The great utility/rotational tank. Shadows have abilities that allow them to be a lot more flexible than the other tanks. Betwen things like resilience and force speed (60% dmg reduction every 15 seconds) they can ignore a lot of mechanics if played correctly, and their stealth out ability allows them to do even more interesting things. These tanks however require most heavily on keeping up their rotation on the boss for their mitigation, so if you mess up your rotation or have downtime, you will lose out on a lot of mitigation.

 

Hope this was helpful!

[Silko]

Sadly atm Powertech tanks are in a bad spot. They have the worst survivablity out of the three tanks. Most groups are now running Juggs and Sins because of this. The idea behind the tanks are:

 

Jugg/Guardian: Your big man with big stick tank. They have the most CDs out of the tanks and atm the best passive mitigation out of the 3. It use to suffer from lack of movement speed but thanks to utilities changes, that isn't much of an issue anymore. Where this tank falls short on is range and AOE. Jugg tank has 3 AOEs, a sweep, smash and Crushing Blow with Aegis Assault primer. Because almost all of this class' abilities are 4m, it has the hardest time with AOE group management. That said, in the hands of an experienced tank, you can overcome that. My personal opinion for the Jugg tank is to go more passive mitigation on this class and not stack so much health short of B mods however do what works best for you. Been maining a Jugg Tank since early private beta back in June of 2011. Fun class to play

 

Sin/Shadow Tank: Shadow/Sin tank is back from the dead. It honestly hasn't been this good since the days of EC/TFB being the progression back in pre 2.0. It has really good CDs, with the right utilities it can cheese a lot of bosses, has great range and group management as it's two main tanking abilities are both AOEs and 10m. Where this tank calls short on is spike dmg and it's harder to use do to it being the only tank of the 3 that has a simi forced rotation. Single target DPS isn't the greatest either. Sin Tanks have been able to overcome it's weakness to spike dmg by being able to stack massive amounts of health with Bmods and other unbalanced enhancements. It as of right now is almost a must have for a prog group. I for one am very happy they made this tank class viable again for serious progression.

 

PT/Vanguard: The idea behind this tank was to be a more jack of all trades/utility tank as it has the best movement speed out of the three tanks with both a charge and strong speed boost ability. It has some of the best AOE group management and can put out solid AOE and single target DPS. Sadly atm it's passive mitigation is dead last and it has poor cooldowns. BW tried to fix that by giving PT/Vanguard the ability to heal themselves with shoulder rocket but that was nerfed to the ground due to PvP. Sadly until BW gives PT/Vanguard a much needed buff, I wouldn't recommend this tank class to anyone if they want to get into a serious progression group.

 

Check out this thread for some gearing ideas and how the tanks stack against each other number wise:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=918622

Edited August 6, 2017 by Silko

[FerkWork]

Really Simple Version comparing defensive capacity:

 

A tank defensive capacity can be divided into 3 areas and which each one is good in 2 out of the 3 areas while having a weak area to do a different tank complement the weak spot thus encouraging diversity of play.

 

CDs: DCDs in both quantity and quality comparatively

 

Armor: Armor Rating and Damage Reduction in each category

 

Mitigation: Boosts to its mitigation from passives or rotationally.

 

Jugg: Great CDs, Great Armor, Poor Mitigation

 

Sin: Great CDs, Poor Armor, Great Mitigation

 

PT: Poor CDs, Great Armor, Great Mitigation

 

None of them are complicated to play, and all 3 can be fun and can kill any of the content in the game.

Edited August 6, 2017 by FerkWork