Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst
1
2
3
LastLast
  1. #21
    Would you mind comparing the 3 tanks please? I know that 'ability-wise' they are meant to be quite similar so that no tank really out weighs another, but I don't recall seeing healing effects built into the BH powertech tree like the Sith assassin seems to get. So in your time spent with all three, what else seemed to set them apart from one another?

  2. #22
    thank you for this post...

    I played a sith assassin due to the tanking/stealth/ranged abilities and i really enjoyed leveling to 17 this weekend. I was very concerned about aggro and aoe abilities whilst in flashpoints and you have laid those concerns to rest in your post!

    Right now the only thing preventing me from exiting WoW and ordering SWTOR immediately is my need to see what end-game play (pve + pvp) will be like. My main concern is pvp atm, probabaly due to unending imbalances on other games. (6 years of WoW)

    I did enjoy the storyline and I felt that need to get up and log on which i hadnt felt for years. Questing felt like it had a purpose as did the flashpoints...they were actually SUSPENSEFULL with the music and cutscenes!

    For being a Beta I felt performance was excellent and there were few bugs (mostly nodes) and rare crashes, it was a refreshing first impression. One thing is for sure, 4.3 better be epic as hell because Darkmoon Faire dailies isnt gonna keep me around very long after my beta last weekend.

    ---------- Post added 2011-11-29 at 11:17 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Cark View Post
    Whilst I can see where you are coming from in terms of NDA agreement, correct me if I'm wrong, but was it not lifted last Thursday prior to the stress test weekend? I'm pretty sure thats common knowledge and even if this matter is not true, then half of this forum from the past weekend needs to be closed. I think you should check your facts before you try and call someone out buddy. If you were unaware of the fact that the NDA was lifted prior to the stress test weekend then I apologise for any harshness that may have come about because of this post. However, before you go around stomping people, please please please, keep up to speed with gaming announcements!

    Yet another awesome guide and insight from Mr. Care! He should do this kind of thing as a living if you ask me. Can't wait to play with this great great tank on release, truly a fantastic player as well as a writer.
    I thought it was lifted also

  3. #23
    Deleted
    to mr. prestilence:

    i suggest you check before posting this kind of information. nda has been lifted completely. you can post any video you like. only things you are forbidden to talk about is the stuff from BETA FORUMS.

    to the OP: excellent overview. i've picked up shadow myself in the last beta and lvled her up to lvl21 in tankspec. while i enjoyed every second of it, i will still be going sorcerer on my inquisitor, but shadow (or assassin) will be pretty much high on my 'to do' list
    btw, i loved how mobs reacted to stealth. either being clueless and getting stabbed in the back or alarmed and looking around even when i was 5-6m away.
    this game is just brilliant!

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Karnalsyn View Post
    Would you mind comparing the 3 tanks please? I know that 'ability-wise' they are meant to be quite similar so that no tank really out weighs another, but I don't recall seeing healing effects built into the BH powertech tree like the Sith assassin seems to get. So in your time spent with all three, what else seemed to set them apart from one another?
    I've played two of the three now (Guardian and Assassin) to fairly high levels.

    Guardian:
    -Better pull mechanics
    -Better panic buttons
    -Starts becoming a better tank sooner (peaks at level 14 and you feel like you have your tools to tank by 16)
    -Easier to manage rotation and resource

    Shadow:
    -Better AoE threat
    -Comes in to tanking glory a little later but when you hit 20 it's pretty easy to see just how good this class is.
    -I see it as the better PvP tank.
    -Very powerful threat rotation that especially during single target encounters makes it very hard to lose the mob.

  5. #25
    Epic!
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,661
    Quote Originally Posted by Karnalsyn View Post
    Would you mind comparing the 3 tanks please? I know that 'ability-wise' they are meant to be quite similar so that no tank really out weighs another, but I don't recall seeing healing effects built into the BH powertech tree like the Sith assassin seems to get. So in your time spent with all three, what else seemed to set them apart from one another?
    Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to play the ranged tank; I have never personally liked playing ranged classes so I tested both the Melee tanks instead. If I did say something about them I could be wrong. I don't want to give you any information that might deter you from playing the class.

    From what I have seen, overall all three tanks are very similar when it comes to actually tanking and avoiding damage. Damage Reduction seems to be around equal levels. The main differences I think are that Assasins have more possible AOE capabilities than the others and the ranged tanks, well are ranged. ^^

    I honestly think it will come down to what you want to play when it comes to tanking. If you want to be a ranged tank, go be a ranged tank. If you want to wear a robe and use force abilities roll a Shadow and if you want to mash stuff in the face roll a Jedi Knight. ^^

  6. #26
    I played a tanking shadow consular during beta to lv 22 and tanked the esseless and hammer flashpoints and some 4man heroic quests. I agree with everything on this post so far as I got to experience it. Though my understanding is that the Jedi Guardian is a bit closer to the warrior style of tanking perhaps because the resource they use generates like rage does etc. However I haven't played a Jedi Guardian high enough to get into the tanking aspect. For me it was hard to make a comparison to wow classes, it didn't really seem to fit. The consular tanks like the consular, that's that.

    I will say that the tanking is challenging especially on lower levels when you only have a single aoe on a 15 sec cd (the knockback one is virtually unusable in pve imo) and a single target taunt also on cd. The mobs can come in packs as large as 6-7 so managing threat on all of them is a challenge to say the least. But this exactly was a part of the enjoyment in swtor-tanking. It wasn't just spamming an aoe move and dpsing away. A welcome change to tanks from wow I think. It wasn't so hard you couldn't manage, but it was hard enough you really had to focus. The perfect amount I think.

    I would personally prefer seeing target of target and having threatplates to ease some of the chaos you can get when you're getting used to the class, but these aren't gamebraking features. I would also very much prefer Kinetic Ward to be on a 30mins duration or something and only being used up when the charges are done, but that's because I'm used to playing an enhance shaman now and I'm fed up with refreshing those globules spinning around me. Overall, I was very satisfied with the tanking experience I got from the shadow consular and I will be rolling it as my main come launch. This guide will prove very helpful to all considering the class, I'm glad someone took the time to write one.
    Last edited by Ozires; 2011-11-29 at 05:48 PM.

    MainTankasin - Consular/Inquisitor Tanking

  7. #27
    Great post, thanks for taking time to put this together!

    When you were tanking, did it feel difficult to have more than a few mobs on you at a time, or were you "AoE Tanking" often in flashpoints? Was CC often necessary? I see that you likened it to Early BC in WoW, and I remember you really had to CC every single mob but the main target in order to be successful in most dungeons. I just want to get a feel for how I should expect tanking to be in general. Thanks again!

  8. #28
    for me it brought back my love for PVP, I pvpd mainly as a warrior and it seemed most balanced late TBC before Deathknights. I just love my pvp skills as a Duel wield jedi, its the most fun I've had since old Alterac Valley. I'm unsure of what endgame PVP will be like in SWTOR but I do hope they put some focus on it, making arena battles, weekend open tournaments, seasons, 40 VS 40 huge epic battles, maybe even some none instance battles like Jedi Invading a sith Capitol city.

    Oh yeah question, are there achieves in game? My experience is limited to weekend testing. I didn't see achievements will that be tracked? And will there be vanity items? Pets and mounts?

  9. #29
    Epic!
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,661
    Quote Originally Posted by Zeniff View Post
    Great post, thanks for taking time to put this together!

    When you were tanking, did it feel difficult to have more than a few mobs on you at a time, or were you "AoE Tanking" often in flashpoints? Was CC often necessary? I see that you likened it to Early BC in WoW, and I remember you really had to CC every single mob but the main target in order to be successful in most dungeons. I just want to get a feel for how I should expect tanking to be in general. Thanks again!
    Whilst going through grouped content the group I had we had some nice CC available. I could use an out of combat sap like ability from stealth, our Healing Sage could force lift a target, Commando could stun a target and our Jedi Sentinel could Electrocute Droids. All of which are usable in combat except for my sap like ability and they all last 60 seconds. You'll see in a group video I'll upload tomorrow where there's a pull where we don't use CC and another one where we CC everything except the target we're killing.

    It really depends on the pack though. You can have a boss with 2 elites, a boss with 1 elite, 2 sub-elites and 4 normal mobs or 4 elites by themselves. Depending on the pack you're going to pull and the control you have will depend on what you do. AoE tanking is possible but you do take a lot of damage if there's too many.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by carebear View Post
    I honestly think it will come down to what you want to play when it comes to tanking. If you want to be a ranged tank, go be a ranged tank. If you want to wear a robe and use force abilities roll a Shadow and if you want to mash stuff in the face roll a Jedi Knight. ^^

    I felt as a melee tank I was at a disadvantage compared to a ranged tank. Often bosses are ranged themselves, yet have abilities which require you to move away from the boss to avoid taking damage. Obviously if as a melee tank, I have to move out of melee range, I'm generating less threat and doing less damage than a comparable ranged tank, who doesn't have such issues. The other issue would be picking up adds, several encounters like to toss adds around, and a ranged tank would have a much easier time of picking up 4-5 adds that show up during a fight.

    It's very boss/encounter specific, but certain fights it seemed like you just don't want a melee tank, and I can't imagine it getting better at higher levels, as the encounters will get more difficult and have more mechanics which require damage avoidance/movement. This is from the perspective of a 24 Juggernaut, so I only did Flashpoints up to that level, several of which were quite obviously bugged.

    I found the tools given to a Jug were great for actual tanking, as in I have a taunt, good threat aura and cooldowns to survive, this is more of a tactical issue.

  11. #31
    One thing I wanted to add... I got a shadow tank to 25. The robot on your ship you get is a healer. And you can use it as a companion. I didn't find this out until yesterday and it would've made my entire weekend so much smoother to have a companion who could heal me while I was tanking. The only downside is you have to gear him up as you go but that shouldn't be too much trouble at all.

  12. #32
    Epic!
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,661
    Quote Originally Posted by Annoron View Post
    One thing I wanted to add... I got a shadow tank to 25. The robot on your ship you get is a healer. And you can use it as a companion. I didn't find this out until yesterday and it would've made my entire weekend so much smoother to have a companion who could heal me while I was tanking. The only downside is you have to gear him up as you go but that shouldn't be too much trouble at all.
    I got another companion that is geared for healing around level 22-23 from my class story; you can see him in the video in the original post. He's pretty cool!

  13. #33
    Thanks for the review, carebear - really reinforced my wavering decision to play Jedi Guardian Tank.

  14. #34
    Very nice write up.

    I'd like to see similar write ups for the other "tanking" type of classes. The JK/Sith Warrior seems pretty straight forward but I'm curious about the Trooper and BH's ability to tank.

  15. #35
    High Overlord nyoan's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    West Lafayette, Indiana
    Posts
    158
    Great post. Thanks for the breakdown
    Vidso, Vanguard Shield Specialist
    Evil meet my Rifle. RIFLE MEET EVIL!
    Founding member of Bantha Squad
    The Ebon Hawk server

  16. #36
    After years of lurking I actually created an account and will now do the unthinkable, post! As background I played WoW for about 6 years now, and I played EQ, Diablo II and some Planetside in between. My experience with Tanking has been both Paladin and Warrior tanking at Max level. I started pally tanking on in early BC, so I've seen what it is like to tank without the proper resources to do so. Of all the classes I was following, Trooper tanking appealed to me most. Ranged tanking? How very odd. So here's my run down of a Trooper Vanguard Tank.

    I got to lvl 24 after both of the Beta weekends. The character, was a Light Side, with some dark parts, female Vangaurd shield spec. As the OP pointed out leveling a tank in Old Republic is easy and not at all hard. Companions fill the gap for you nicely, so I don't feel like there should ever be a need for a Duel Spec system at least as far as tanking is concerned. All class tanking is a bit tough until lvl 16, around which you get your "taunt" and your first mitigation type ability. After wards you're pretty golden as far as aggro goes. The mechanics for the trooper tanking are the most interesting;
    #1 You are encouraged to enter melee occasionally, to use your stock strike to apply the debuff from Ion Cell.
    #2 Your interrupt, Riot Strike, is also a melee ability.
    #3 Smoke Grenade, one of your mitigation abilities, encourages being at ranged, though it works on characters who shoot regardless of range.
    With these three points in mind, often, you find yourself choosing to operate in mid range, about 15-20 yards from a boss so as to stay at a good enough range to be able to attack with those melee abilities. Especially Riot Strike, since most bosses even the ranged ones have "Channeled" moves. Now the advantage is, sometimes, I can maintain aggro, and remain at distance from ranged bosses that have AOE close ranged attacks, like the boss at the end of Hammer Station. This also makes dodging bad zones some what easier, as I can move myself around as opposed to the boss. If you have some else in the group, who knows how to interrupt well, which is always a rarity you can even ignore getting in close at all. Now, I think this is the way the class is meant to be played, since the devs put in a move at high levels that is essential a "charge" attack. Therefore, the Vanguard is meant to be more of a midranged skirmish tank than a long range tank. Keep in mind though, that there is no dead zone, so you can still do all your normal abilities regardless. With all this being said, the advantages of being a Trooper tank over the other classes seems to be in the option to have more mobility, as opposed to HAVING to be right on the boss. On the whole, I loved it and part of that was mainly because well, tanking with a blaster is awesome! I know this isn't the most well worded post but I thought I'd give it a shot and for any of you who played; I was Mizuki from Canderous Ordo.

  17. #37
    Epic!
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,661
    Quote Originally Posted by Doozerjun View Post
    Very nice write up.

    I'd like to see similar write ups for the other "tanking" type of classes. The JK/Sith Warrior seems pretty straight forward but I'm curious about the Trooper and BH's ability to tank.
    I would have liked to do similar write ups for the other tanking classes and go into more depth with them but I didn't get much play time unfortunately ):

  18. #38
    Love the details, great post.
    iMac
    2012-03-05 : The day SWTOR jumped the shark
    Mages are basically "warlocks for girls" - Kerrath

  19. #39
    Epic!
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,661
    Just letting you all know the original post has a few short videos in it to show tanking a little more. Nothing too great though unfortunately.

  20. #40
    NDA is lifted indeed, you have nothing to worry about.

    Edit: Great post by the way. I myself am thinking about going a Shadow, it just seems as if Consular is the most attractive Jedi archetype for me and the class seems much more utility based in PvP than the Knight. I'd also like to tank a little perhaps, so the Shadow is very attractive. This guide helps a little with some of my questions.
    Last edited by Atelniar; 2011-11-30 at 08:22 AM.
    There is common sense and ignorance. Choose one and accept the consequences.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •