Tanking 4-man in SWTOR seems utterly horrible?

[Aleksej89]

I have played a lot of RPGs over the past decade (or so), and in most of these i have chosen to perform the "Tank" role in PvE encounters.
So far i have leveled one Jedi Shadow to level 50, one Vanguard to level 40 and one Jedi Guardian to level 35 - and i have to admit that tanking 4man in SWTOR is the most horrible experience i ever had as a Tank.

However i am not making this thread to discuss which game has the best tanking; i got a few tank-related problems that i am hoping some of you can provide practical solutions for:

1. Maintaining aggro/threat on multiple spread out ranged mobs:

All 3 of my tanks simply lack the tools to maintain aggro on multiple mobs that are too far spread.
I tried pulling them around the corner (using line of sight) but, depending on the terrain, this is not always reliably available.
Compared to WoW where tanks do 500% more threat, in SWTOR tanks do only 50% more threat - meaning that my one or two AoE spells (with short cooldowns) are not enough to hold aggro against DPS classes who either do AoE/Cleave or are just not focusing my marked targets.
While each tank does have an AoE Taunt, it has a longish cooldown and it does not actually help in making aggro/threat - since my weak AoE spells can not make enough aggro/threat during that time.
If i start running to each of those spread mobs to get some threat on, the DPS will very quickly get aggro from the first/2nd target.
If the ranged mobs are all clustered up (quite rare) my AoE spells are usually not enough to hold aggro, while if the ranged mobs are spread - i am pretty much powerless to maintain all the aggro on all the mobs at once.
If i leave the main mob for even a bit (to hit the other spread ranged mobs) the DPS will pull aggro - and if i ignore the spread ranged mobs, they will kill the healer.

2. Marking mobs for order of killing or crowd control.

The icons for marking mobs in SWTOR are just as horrible as the ones in WoW.
The devs made icons like pistol, crosshair, sword, fire, shield and others that do not mean anything by themselves!
Instead of making marks like actual meaningful numbers (1,2,3...) or short abbreviations (like CC1, CC2) that are understandable and useful by themselves, the markings devs put are completely useless - every time i join a party i have to explain which mark means what, and then repeat it over and over again for every new or forgetful player that joins.
In short, absolutely horrible marking icons that make Tanking (or party leading) a complete nightmare.

3. Taking aggro back from a player when your Taunt is not available or not usable.

Every now and then i run into a situation where a party member has pulled aggro from me, and either my Taunt is not ready OR the mob is immune to Taunt.
In most cases, no matter what i do, my Tank simply can not make enough threat to pull the aggro of the DPS (who is refusing to stop DPSing that mob).
I do my hardest hitting spells, throw everything i got at the damn mob - and it is still hell bent on hitting that DPS.
Unlike, for example, WoW where i can do a Shield Slam or a Mangle and the mob would instantly turn to me, in SWTOR the toughest hitting spell my Tanks have does mediocre to low damage - which is nowhere near enough to pull aggro from the DPS, even with the measly 50% more threat Tanks make in SWTOR.

4. Complete lack of notification about which party members are close to pulling aggro, or are under attack.

First off, while my PC can run all the previous MMO/RPGs at high graphics, in SWTOR i am pretty much forced to set it to very low.
This means that the shiny/sparkly laser effects that most mobs make when they are firing guns or doing spells are almost invisible, or even not displayed.
And if there is some usual AoE damage going on, looking at the health bars of my party members will not be helpful in any way.
Also, as far as i know, there is no way to display the threat/aggro i am holding on each mob, or the threat/aggro of my teammates.
So, in short, i have pretty much no way of telling are some ranged mobs (out of the 4-10 i am tanking at once) attacking some other party members who are hiding behind me OR is there a mob who's attention i might be loosing cause of a teammate making a lot of threat.


While i do love SWTOR as far as the leveling/questing goes, right now playing as a Tank in 4man is an absolute horror show.
Even when i play with 3 of my IRL friends using voice chat, it is still mind numbingly annoying and irritating - and going with pugs is even worse.
Does anyone here have any practical/efficient solutions to the problems mentioned above?
Or should i just shelf the game until BW makes some additional improvements?
Thank you for reading and helping out

[Deleted]

Tanking is fun in this game. It means i have to push more than 3 buttons and then afk the rest of the fight, but in fact pay attention to what is happening around, and also have my group pay attention.

[obdigore]

You should only grab golds/bosses and anything else you can grab. DPS needs to burn the silvers down right away.

The Marks are fine, and much brighter than text over the enemies head. Just make it clear what the kill order is and stick to it through the run.

If you can't pull of DPS, they probably outgear you by quite a bit, although iirc Shadows have hte worst single target threat, then Vanguards, then Guardians, but if you are equally as geared as your DPS you should be able to outhreat them.

You have target of target. You can also look around. You can SEE where blaster bolts are going. You can tell when a mob is running up to someone other than you, and if you have it marked, you can tell which mob it is.

Threat isn't easy like WoW has become, so if that is where you are coming from you ARE going to feel a disconnect. Also remember that every dps has a threat-drop ability and should use it. And they should know when they have to use it as well.

[Deleted]

As previous poster said, don't expect all pack to be insta glued to you. some mobs will go on the DPS, just assure that they are the weaker ones and that the DPS burn them first. It's all a matter of communication and education. I've seen some of the tank try and run around to grab most of the mobs to get aggro on them all, but it is just inefficient as :

1/ by the time you run around all the mobs, the DPS should have burned down all the weak ones
2/ you lose significant aggro on the main target while doing that.

so just assure that the main threats are on you, and that your DPS are educated enough to focus the right target (or use the signs conveniently) and you should be fine.

[Conzar]

The icons for marking mobs in SWTOR are just as horrible as the ones in WoW.
The devs made icons like pistol, crosshair, sword, fire, shield and others that do not mean anything by themselves!

I really have to disagree with this. Our system runs like this:

Flame = Burn this guy down fast (stuck on Normal strength mobs or a healer). Don't tank.
Star = Second target (stuck on another Normal mob). Don't tank.
Sabre = Consular CC
Pistol = Smuggler CC (apply to a droid)
Shield = Tank this dude
Target = (Crosshair) Tank this other dude (rarely used).
Cog = we use this for Trooper CC.
Zap = Watch out for this guy on patrol, tank to pick him up if he gets involved (if he's worth tanking).

If we have strangers in the group, their questions are usually restricted to "What's happening to Target?" or "You want me to Force Lift sabre?"
Also all the colours are different, so you can refer to them by colour if you don't know the english (or other language your group is using) names for the icons.

My only beef with the system is that you can't keybind them (unless they fixed this in 1.2 - I really ought to check).

[Deleted]

I personally love the symbols too. I just say at the start of the instance real quick "flame is second focus, target is main focus, cog is trooper CC, saber is jedi CC and stuff"

(or whatever floats your boat) and it goes easily during the rest of the flashpoint.

It is also really awesome on PVP for focus targets (99% of the time healers, 1% of the time that random dude you know and you want to annoy).

[Cairhiin]

This isn't World of Warcraft, you are not supposed to tank everything. Your job is to tank the elites that aren't CCed. The other trash gets killed by DPS and does hardly any damage.

[h4rr0d]

Tanking is fun in this game. It means i have to push more than 3 buttons and then afk the rest of the fight, but in fact pay attention to what is happening around, and also have my group pay attention.

There's difference between fun difficult (warrior tank without CC in Halls of Reflection) and frustrating difficult (anything in SWTOR really).

OP: I agree with you 100%.

---------- Post added 2012-04-26 at 11:12 AM ----------

This isn't World of Warcraft, you are not supposed to tank everything. Your job is to tank the elites that aren't CCed. The other trash gets killed by DPS and does hardly any damage.

Yeah, and that's where I personally do have issues. I'm too used to the idea that if I can't keep everything glued on me I'm bad tank.

[Cairhiin]

There's difference between fun difficult (warrior tank without CC in Halls of Reflection) and frustrating difficult (anything in SWTOR really).

OP: I agree with you 100%.

---------- Post added 2012-04-26 at 11:12 AM ----------



Yeah, and that's where I personally do have issues. I'm too used to the idea that if I can't keep everything glued on me I'm bad tank.

But that is a matter of getting used to, and how it works. I personally don't mind it. It makes tanking take more skill than facerolling your AoE buttons. It also means instances require more coordination and take more skill to complete.

[Aleksej89]

While i do appreciate your replies, your answers are a bit (no offense) useless - seems most of you are accustomed to having your organized guild raids, which is not what this thread is about.

I do know that marks are bright, i am talking about them being meaningless and thus forcing me to explain it every frikkin time i enter a party or someone forgets the order. You folks mention that you have a "system" for marks that people in your organized group use - i am talking about 4man pugs with usually at least 1 player not knowing English, and 1 more player refusing to do anything properly. Writing all the rules over n over again seems like a hassle that can easily be avoided if we could also pick numbers instead of silly symbols.

By default, DPS specs will do more damage than Tank specs due to gear/skills/cooldowns. If we are on equal gear level, it is pretty much a "50-50" chance who will have higher aggro (if the mob is taunt immune), which is completely unacceptable when the mobs are strong and lethal. Unfortunately the Guard spell seems to be less than useful, with it's effects being barely noticeable.

I quite clearly wrote that, on very low graphics, the blaster bolts are almost invisible - combine that with the fact that there is a gazillion other spell/attack effects flying around, and you can understand why "watch the bolts" suggestion is useless. Target of a Target is good if you got one or two targets - when you got 5 or more, it simply does not help you determine how much aggro you are holding and who is in danger.

While i do agree DPS should use their defensive abilities, we have to be real about this - just like in WoW and many other MMOs, DPS players tend to be the least reliable ones, usually screwing up the most basic of things (lets stand in fire), so threat-dropping is very rare even when you ask them to do it.

And what about when the toughest ranged mobs are spread around, and the option of "LoSing" them is not available?
If i leave the main mob for even a bit (to hit the other spread ranged mobs) the DPS will pull aggro - and if i ignore the spread ranged mobs, they will kill the healer.

[soulcrusher]

tbh this is a L2P issue. ive a vanguard tank, a jug tank and am levelling an assassin tank. either you or youre group arent playing correctly.

[Deleted]

And what about when the toughest ranged mobs are spread around, and the option of "LoSing" them is not available?
If i leave the main mob for even a bit (to hit the other spread ranged mobs) the DPS will pull aggro - and if i ignore the spread ranged mobs, they will kill the healer.

You and your group use CC. And what i'm talking about isn't organized raid, i'm talking about PUG for FPs. It's just that it's not WoW, you gotta communicate with your mates, not just enter it, say hello, expect to pack all the mobs, rinse and repeat and do it again until the end of the FP where you say goodbye.

It takes 30 sec to say "hey dude can you mezz the droid on the left it's a bit far for me to take".

You're trying to get all the tools for everything alone in a group situation. This is what happens in Wow now, and makes it an uninteresting game imo. You have to interact with your group in TOR. Yes sometimes DPS are retarded. That's why i spoke of education earlier on.

[kalinah]

First of all, just because someone does not agree with you doesn't mean his/her answer is useless.

Second :
- use CC's.
- Build an order.
- Ask DPS to kill anything silver FIRST and then switch to the first target.

If your group have a brain and can actually listen to any of those 3 recommendations, then you'll be fine, and your tanking will be much much more easier.

[Armourboy]

I need to actually start trying to tank on my tank, the issues you bring up though OP is the reason i haven't ( my main is a healer so understand getting smacked there). Although it doesn't feel as bad as being a Warrior tank in heroic Shattered Halls during TBC its not far from that feeling sometimes.

[Fannyd]

The answer to pretty much all your questions is "communication"

[Deleted]

I think TC has just a misconception about tanking in TOR. Once again, i will repeat it. You won't get all the mobs on you by yourself on packs. It simply won't happen. If you want all the mobs to be glued to you all the time, then tanking in this game is just not for you.

Tanking in TOR favors prioritizing threats, communicating with your group for focus targets and crowd control. In this game, when a DPS dies, it is actually their fault generally (and on a personal note i think it is for the better). You seem to be paying too much attention to other peoples attitude and stupidity in groups. Just try to communicate to them about your actions, what you expect of them when you'll pull (for exemple i'll get the silver and gold ones, i'll let you burn the weak ones asap). It's a matter of them doing their job too for the good of the group, you can't expect to compensate for everyone's mistakes everytime (and once again i think it is for the better).


Good luck!

[Aleksej89]

The answer to pretty much all your questions is "communication"

While i do agree with your statement, this massive dependance on your teammate's IQ/English/cooperation is (more often than not) a very negative thing - as far as pugs go.

[Deleted]

While i do agree with your statement, this massive dependance on your teammate's IQ/English/cooperation is (more often than not) a very negative thing - as far as pugs go.

I could agree with that. You don't always get stellar groups. However, i personally have so much more fun in doing it the "CC/focus/communicate" way than the "hold on lolol aoe threat while you aoe dps rinse and repeat for 20 minutes" way. And people are more uneducated than really stupid. A lot come from the land of aoe heavy and instant snap aggro glue. They just need to readjust to the way it is in TOR (and how it used to be in games pre TBC, or even in old games like for exemple Everquest).

I mean, i don't wanna sound like an old geezer about tanking uphill battles in the snow and stuff, but when a DPS did break a CC in Everquest he was boohed for 30 minutes

Edit: at least in old everquest, don't know how things are now.

[shimargh]

Tanking is fun in this game. It means i have to push more than 3 buttons and then afk the rest of the fight, but in fact pay attention to what is happening around, and also have my group pay attention.

holy crab! thank you.
i was hoping for someone to say this. Good it was on the first reply : )

besides, in early wow we had to talk about the order everytime until it get to a "kind of" consensus...so nothing new.

ragarding your problem: this is not a jus tank/healer fight, your group has to do their job too, this is not just an "get the most dps" insane race.

[Fannyd]

While i do agree with your statement, this massive dependance on your teammate's IQ/English/cooperation is (more often than not) a very negative thing - as far as pugs go.

That's where our opinion differs. The success of your group should rely on those exact things, that's what MMOs are all about.