Tanking in SWTOR

[Gottie4u]

Maybe will try it out. But, I want to be the guy that unloads hell on the boss. You know, the DPSer.

[Deleted]

Im rolling a Jugg tank for sure Maybe because the style reminds me of Darth Vadar.. And the whole 1 lightsaber only is really appealing to me!

[Deleted]

I will most likely end up tanking or healing ... the dps-roll was never my thing. But i still don't know what class ... bounty hunter seems REALLY cool. But the thought of having a Kolto-Rocket that i fire on allies ... thats really appealing too^^ ... i'll on dec.15

And keep in mind, that not everybody that rolls a juggernaut or a powertech (and especially an assassin) will tank ... the ac-polls don't show how many tanks there will be by a long shot.

[Deleted]

I'll try it but i'm a healing person.. so beware all EU tanks

[Deleted]

a few clues on trooper ranged tanking in here (along with dps and healer play)

http://www.republictrooper.com/2011/...th-the-troops/

[Teriz]

RT: We’ve spoken with some large guilds that are intending on running exclusively with Troopers. How viable would it be to attempt Flashpoints and Operations with only the Republic’s finest?

GZ: Absolutely possible. The screen might get a bit busy from all the gunfire, but other than that, there’s nothing that would prevent you from doing this. You’d obviously have to bring team members from both Advanced Classes (Vanguard and Commando) to cover all bases.

That's pretty sweet.

[jearle]

Range tanking isn't going to be as awesome and OP as some people are thinking. BH's are cool but they won't have an advantage over other tanks regarding boss mechanics such as moving out of an AoE or a cone effect.

I will be tanking at launch also, Sith Jugg will be my class of choice.

Will be interesting if there are difficult tank mechanics involved in the boss ecounters in operations. Tanking has become ridiculously easy in WoW.

[Gallahadd]

Aye, the problem then becomes WHAT mechanics can you put in? I've had this discussion a few times with friends and in the end we could only come up with a bunch of stuff that was basically dirivations of the current Tank Swap/Stacking Debuff/interupt mechanics.

As for Trooper only guilds: it's possible, same with Inquisitor only guilds, but the question is while viable, will it be optimal? You'll be missing out on alot of buff/debuffs by only taking one class.

[Pool of the Dead]

The only thing better then beating into a boss as a melee, Is a boss beating you, and you just grinning and beating him back as a tank.

LIKE A BOSS.

[Booniehat]

I actually hope tanking is somewhere between heroic and normal mode difficulty. I just have a bad feeling lots of kids are gonna roll force-wielder tanks and chainpull the entire dungeon.

Tanking needs to be somewhat difficult, but not too much. Although I am a min-maxer myself, who spends hours reading theorycraft, simming and so on, I don't like it when a game becomes solely focused on difficulty-by-numbers. It alienates the casual (caution: not the same as BAD) players, who sometimes are a driving force in playing the game.

Case in point would be my significant other, who, while not a bad player, got frustrated with the instakill, unintuitive mechanics introduced in Cata heroics. In many cases, heroics become some sort of a staged, deliberate crawl. "Stand here guys. I will taunt and LOS pull. Hex this. Sap that. Okay. Now move in a clockwise circle around the room as the fight progresses and avoid the purple stuff on the floor". It's not really difficult - it's just rehearsed.

With that said, I hope the dungeons are moderately challenging, and don't rely on memorizing the dungeon to get by.

[AetherMcLoud]

2 things that excite me most about tanking in SWTOR:

- Ranged tanking instead of melee tanking with some classes
- Being able to be a tank in pvp, being able to take damage for teammates, taunting opposing players, and getting points for taking damage instead of letting others do so.

I'm gonna be a Bounty Hunter tank, fuck yeah.

[Raeli]

- Ranged tanking instead of melee tanking with some classes

I really wish people would stop hyping this up, there are going to be a great many disappointed tanks when they find out that they're actually spending most of their time in Melee.

From my understanding, this is a more similar example:


Imagine as a Warrior, before you got Heroic Throw, you basically had to get right up into the face of enemies before you could do much to them. The Jedi Guardian etc. are quite like this - they have a ranged attack or two, but it's nearly all melee.

Now Imagine a Paladin tank of today. They can do judgement from afar, Avenger's Shield, Holy Wrath even has range, and two long ranged taunts, (and exorcism / hammer of wrath some times :P) it's not much more in the way of ranged attacks, but I think it demonstrates the point - Pallys have a fair few ranged attacks, and while you may occasionally use these at their maximum range, you may use them when opening or when you have a good chance (exorcism on pull), you still spend most of your time up close with the enemy.

From my understanding, Trooper tanking is going to be more closer to Paladin tanking in that sort of theme, rather than a Warrior who has to always be on top of the enemy.

Let me be clear - Troopers don't have just a handful of ranged attacks with a mostly melee repetoire, that's not what I'm saying, I'm simply drawing comparisons between the classes so that you might understand the play style better. They do have a lot of ranged attacks, but you most certainly won't be standing back with the healers, you'll be up close in the fight - This is something they mentioned specifically fairly recently in an interview.

So please don't get disappointed when you find out you have to spend most of your time in Melee range because of Arcane Explosion like AoE (As in AoE that comes out of your character as opposed to something like flame strike that you place far away).

[Gallahadd]

I agree, Raeli, I think they REALLY need to release official Talent tree so that people can see ALL the talented tank moves at short range, and most of the talents that they improve on are either short or medium. I think the Term 'Ranged Tank' was just to seperate them from the 'Melee Tank' which is SW/JK, and the 'Force Tank' which is SI/JC.

and Boonie I totally agree with you, I'd love if it the fights in Swtor, especially in Hc's and stuff were a bit less... choreographed. Add in a touch of randomness to the bosses, so it's more about reacting to what he's doing right now than thinking 'okay, he's at 50% and has just cast lolinstagib, I need to stand outside the purple ring, then taunt the add that spawns and kite him through the ring, to kill him while the dps stay on boss'

And for GOD sakes no frakkin multispawn fights(I'm looking at you Falric and Marwen in HoR, and to a lesser extent Queen Azshara in WoE) they're inforced difficulty, and are not fun by any means.

And yes I have just come from an hour on the PTR wiping on that slag of a boss due to epicly fail Dps

[Beazy]

<Snip> NDA

[Teriz]

I'm seeing trooper tanks firing shots at mid-range, and also doing a great deal of kiting. There's also no auto-attack, so how is that not different than tanking in WoW?

[Booniehat]

<Snip> NDA

I'm hoping thats from gameplay experience at a convention (don't get the thread locked due to NDA!).

Guys, youtube Taral V developer walkthrough. Very clear showing of how the Vanguard tanks. (IN YO' FACE!) Raeli has it right when he says the "ranged" in the ranged tank is quite arbitrary. The trooper might as well change his rifle to a shotgun. (actually... that actually sounds quite awesome :P)

I'm gonna go on a limb and say the trooper might very well be the easiest/best tank overall and shadows the hardest to heal. If mechanics are even vaguely similar to WoW, block tanks tend to be easier on healers than dodge tanks (think blockcapped Warrior vs spiky Death Knights).

[Ghosty]

I really wish people would stop hyping this up, there are going to be a great many disappointed tanks when they find out that they're actually spending most of their time in Melee.

BW has stated that ranged tanks will have to be closer and indeed move into melee with their targets to build maximum threat, since most of your high threat skills are close in skills. Though ranged tanks will have distinct advantages over the melee only tanks in certain situations, since as long as you are in the tanking "stance" your threat is increased by 50%, this means that if adds join the fight a ranged tank can quickly get aggro and start building threat much sooner than a melee tank that needs to move from target to target. It's just nice to see a different approach to tanking in a game other than the standard stand in the bosses' crotch melee tank.

I do agree that people need to realize that ranged tanks won't be standing 40 meters away tanking a boss and expect to hold on to aggro.

[Roose]

Aye, the problem then becomes WHAT mechanics can you put in? I've had this discussion a few times with friends and in the end we could only come up with a bunch of stuff that was basically dirivations of the current Tank Swap/Stacking Debuff/interupt mechanics.

As for Trooper only guilds: it's possible, same with Inquisitor only guilds, but the question is while viable, will it be optimal? You'll be missing out on alot of buff/debuffs by only taking one class.

It was never the mechanics alone that made tanking challenging. One of the most engaging part of tanking that they have all but nullified in WoW is threat management. In BC, tanks were not only judged on survival, but also threat. Fighting for threat was what made it fun for me as tank and as a DPS. It was not a perfect system, but much better than threat not mattering at all.

[blackblade]

It was never the mechanics alone that made tanking challenging. One of the most engaging part of tanking that they have all but nullified in WoW is threat management. In BC, tanks were not only judged on survival, but also threat. Fighting for threat was what made it fun for me as tank and as a DPS. It was not a perfect system, but much better than threat not mattering at all.

Not to turn this into a wow thread, but

As a warrior converted blood dk tank in wlk, I found that timing short cooldowns more engaging that BC's model of macro shield block to everything and hit shield wall when the healer yells OOM.

OT:

You get a pretty diverse spread of tanks
you got the sith Juggernaut/jedi guardian who has the charge to close gaps
you got the sith assassin/jedi shadow who has stealth and speed to close gaps
and you got the vanguard/powertech who has a grappling hook pull and ranged weapons to close distance (or keep distance)

How they pan out is probably yet to be seen, but overall, they all look promising.

[Roose]

As a warrior converted blood dk tank in wlk, I found that timing short cooldowns more engaging that BC's model of macro shield block to everything and hit shield wall when the healer yells OOM.

There were flaws in BC tanking, for sure, like thunderclap having a target limit. Many qol improvements came with 3.0. I just think they went too far. I have not enjoyed tanking since BC. It was more fun DPS tanking though as a frost DK in wrath heroics, because going in as a tank was just a snore. Cata heroics were fun the first time through, but then they started to turn into aoe fests too.

I want tanking to be a demanding role, but that also means that fewer people would be able to do it well. So, I hope they at least make hard mode scenarios challenging enough to require CC and focus fire, like they said they were gonna do in Cata. That would make tanking fun again in pve. So sick of aoe tanking.