Tanking in SWTOR - your experiences!

[Booniehat]

Hey guys, as an unlucky red-zoner who hasn't gotten his beta invite yet, I'd like to hear from you guys how tanking works in swtor.

I'm especially interested in the Trooper Vanguard, and Jedi Shadow (or their mirror classes if that's what you played).

Tell me whether it's

hard, needs lots of tactics, whether boss fights have gimmicks you must memorize to do well.

Whether leveling is slower (even with a companion) than a DPSer

how many people were tanks in beta, was it quite a lot

How difficult it was to get dungeon groups...

and any nuggets of info for a poor beta-starved outsider :P

If you wish, you can use rift and/or wow as a base comparison to how fights and tanking is like. But please keep it friendly, not a game vs game flamefest.

[Shamburger]

I'd actually like to know the answers to a few of these questions as well.
I was playing a Tankasin during my weekend beta but I only got to 14 and apparently you don't get any of your actual tank abilities until the 15-25's.

[Booniehat]

NDA, dont forget. There wont be anyone telling you something.

And they dont want tanking to be hard as they mentioned.

Dude. NDA is like, so 5 minutes ago.

I actually meant that semi-literally. It was just lifted a couple hours ago :P

[Renos!]

I tanked the first Flashpoint / Dungeon on Republic side last weekend, and it was a breeze to say the least.

None of the mobs were elite. In fact, I was capable of soloing all of the instance except for the bosses.

Oh, we also didn't have a healer..

As a Trooper tank, I had no taunt or high threat abilities. I did however, have a good amount of hit points and the ability to really open up hard on the bosses which kept them aggro'd on me pretty much the whole time.

[Trollsbane]

I dont feel like writing a novel, as i'm prone to do when talking about my experiences in this game, so I'll keep it short.

Bounty Hunter Powertech:

Precurser: I was a druid tank in WoW and an avid PvPer on my hunter.


PvE:

Leveling was great. I might kill slower than a dps, but I had less downtime due to not losing most of my HP every fight. Also the companions work wonders for the leveling. (This is the same for leveling healers btw)

I never had a problem finding a group.

I never had a problem with aggro (that I couldn't fix anyway... DPS do rip agrro a lot, and that means you need to stay on your toes). Multiple mobs made it challenging and fun. 2 ranged taunts and grappling hook to pull strays running for the healer or ranged, and jetcharge for backup. It's not as faceroll as what WoW had been. I actually had to think and move, changind targets VERY often in order to hold threat. That to me was amazingly rad. Especially at later levels when things actually became tough.


PvP:

Absolutely LOVED PvP tanking. Putting shields on others and using my taunts to decrease dmg done to other players was awesome. I could run with a ball carrier and help him just as much as I could just take it myself. A well played tank running the ball in Huttball is damn near unstoppable. The other team really needs to focus.

In Alderaan, I was notorious for charging a node full of enemies all by myslef, and luring them off the node so a teammate could ninja it. I could take big beating and keep them occupied for a good long while.

Overall, the tanks in this game are great fun. The playstyle is not as generic as it may seem, especially compared to other games, and a lot of personality and playstyle can shine through. I played my tank totally different than most people I saw playing. It worked great for me.

[Gallahadd]

ooh Trollsbane, you always know exactly what to say

I'll be playing a Tankasin, but I'm guessing they play along the same lines, and AMG sounds fun, I've been tanking in WoW since Vanilla, and I have to say I'm bbboorreedd as hell with Current WoW tanking. Thankfully it sounds like Swtor will be just what I need, I liked back in TBC when you had to FIGHT for threat, while still thinking about CC, positioning, Survivability etc.

Glad to hear PvP is fun as a tank as well, I always felt a bit... pointless in PvP as a Prot Pally (although I used to love Bear tankin in TBC I remember one time this rogue spent the whole of a AB match just trying to kill me, never managed it ) but it seems like I'll be 'tanking' huttball come launch.