How is tanking in swtor ?

[Rakash]

How is tanking in swtor ? I have seen a couple of videos and in those videos the tank don`t hold aggro on all mobs. This seems kinda confusing to me so i am wondering how tanking works in swtor. Thanks

[Deleted]

It's hard. Compared to WoW:

500% threat vs 60% threat
Multiple short CD AoE skills vs 2 long CD aoe skills
Threat meter vs no threat meter

Compared to WoW, tanking is difficult.

[Deleted]

I dont get it, why does a futuristic game with lasersables, high tech guns and bloody robots need a healer and a tank?

[Lachezar]

Tanking is slightly more engaging due to sheer numbers of enemies on some pulls. Also, rotation is a key factor if you want to hold agro, waiting for your AoE to come off CD won't cut it.

I enjoyed the first 25 levels of it.

[TWBrien]

It's hard. Compared to WoW:

500% threat vs 60% threat
Multiple short CD AoE skills vs 2 long CD aoe skills
Threat meter vs no threat meter

Compared to WoW, tanking is difficult.

If the combat log records threat in any way, shape or form there'll be a threat meter sooner rather than later. Count on that.

[Biggsmack]

Tanking in swtor is very similar to tanking in wow you have threat, debuffs, damage reduction abilities, a rotation and taunts, but there are 5 types of mobs in swtor: boss elite, elite, strong, normal and weak mobs.

Boss elite mobs have a golden frame with some white in it.
Elite mobs have a golden frame.
Strong mobs have a silver frame.
Normal and weak mobs have no frame. Only discernible difference between normal and weak is the amount of health, as both are affected by the bonus effects of certain damage abilities.

As a tank you should try to hold aggro on as many mobs as possible, but if you have to choose to hold onto only a few it should be the stronger mobs of the pack. Dps players are usually told to start on the weaker mobs (being the least dangerous) and work their way up.

[Dedweight]

I dont get it, why does a futuristic game with lasersables, high tech guns and bloody robots need a healer and a tank?

Same reason Modern Warfare requires Medics and ballistic armor? I get it's a Fantasy game but not having a healer doesn't make much sense(lack of a tank sure but not a healer).

That said if you've ever tanked in WoW it's not much different in SW:TOR, the ideas the same and there are some hard-hitting/high-threat abilities that will likely make up the bulk of your rotation and defensive cooldowns that work similar to current WoW ones(Saberward is similar to Blood Shield and Savage Defense).

[Oerba Yun Fang]

I dont get it, why does a futuristic game with lasersables, high tech guns and bloody robots need a healer and a tank?

Because, at the end of the day, it's still an MMORPG.

[Moriarty]

Low-level tanking is a bit of an exercise in frustration from my run in Black Talon. There are a lot of spread out ranged enemies and DPS who charge in blindly and attack whatever they want (I guess lack of target-of-target contributes to this), and you don't have a taunt button. I haven't noticed any threat issues on single-target fights though.

[Trigg]

How is tanking in swtor ? I have seen a couple of videos and in those videos the tank don`t hold aggro on all mobs. This seems kinda confusing to me so i am wondering how tanking works in swtor. Thanks

This pretty much how it was in vanilla wow. It was great back then as people learnt pretty fast that if you don't attack the target the tank is currently targetting, you're gona pull one of his other mobs and most likely die. And guess what, people didn't qq about it, they faced it and changed their tactics and adapted, shame the same can't be said of most of the wow community these days. Hell back then the only feesable tank for high end raids at least was a warrior, and they had bugger all aoe threat except for cleave and thunderclap.

[Hexxidecimal]

If the combat log records threat in any way, shape or form there'll be a threat meter sooner rather than later. Count on that.

True enough, I am not really sure how quickly Bioware will allow the use of add ons. Hopefully this'll be something they will allow soon enough for the first mods to be created and implemented.

I dont get it, why does a futuristic game with lasersables, high tech guns and bloody robots need a healer and a tank?

For the same reason a fantasy game with magic and demons does? Strictly speaking no game "needs" a tank. Simply a design choice.

As far as difficulty tanking, it is much harder than WoW, the good news is that rely more heavily on off tanks to help out, so those marauders and Mercs aren't simply pretty pretty dps. A lot of encounters are comprised of smaller gold or silver mobs that just about any not super squishy class can off tank reasonably well.

Focus firing I think will be a far more important aspect in this game in raids. When I last played I found flashpoints to be relatively easy though.

[Lumocolor]

It's going to be a headache for good players who end up in a group with bad players. It's like WoW tanking pre WOTLK when people had to give a few seconds to the tank to get agro and build threat and then focus fire the tanks main target and not just hit whatever you want and spam AOE's like WoW has become in the last 4 or so years.

Yes, it's hard for a tank to get a hold of 3-4 mobs (especially when they are more spread out like in TOR and not all standing around a campfire like most multi mob pulls in WoW) and hold them all if people just shoot at anything they want, if people play like vanilla and burning crusade players then there really isn't a problem.

[SenatorLifestone]

If the combat log records threat in any way, shape or form there'll be a threat meter sooner rather than later. Count on that.

From what I've read they're going the route of no add-on support so unless you're running a third party program outside the game I'm not sure any type of add-on will actually be helpful. To say the very least running something like that in such a way that you're able to see both the game and a meter would be annoying if nothing else.

Back on topic I too enjoyed tanking and made it to level 32 before servers came down. It's a little more challenging, and hency normally more fun, but at the same time a little frustrating moving from WoW to SW:TOR for a tank. The ranged mobs in particular were interesting as they often would not move closer to you or your group and in many situations you could not easily reach them to gather threat on them. Of course the other side to that is that most ranged adds were not that deadly and dps could hold threat / kill the mob without danger.

[Hexxidecimal]

From what I've read they're going the route of no add-on support so unless you're running a third party program outside the game I'm not sure any type of add-on will actually be helpful. To say the very least running something like that in such a way that you're able to see both the game and a meter would be annoying if nothing else..

I need to find the source but it was stated that at release add on support will not be in, but they will be allowing add ons at some point.

EDIT: Ok after some extensive searching, I was a wrong. They have announced there will be no add on support at launch. Slyly excluding any mention of future add on support. Right now I would say likely not for a while. I really am ok with that though, I would rather them get the kinks out of their systems before letting others add there own kinks.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

I need to find the source but it was stated that at release add on support will not be in, but they will be allowing add ons at some point.

http://torwars.com/2011/05/03/biowar...tor-at-launch/

Doesn't necessarily say that they will be adding it, but doesn't say they won't, either.

[Biggsmack]

Low-level tanking is a bit of an exercise in frustration from my run in Black Talon. There are a lot of spread out ranged enemies and DPS who charge in blindly and attack whatever they want (I guess lack of target-of-target contributes to this), and you don't have a taunt button. I haven't noticed any threat issues on single-target fights though.

Trying to tank black talon is silly. You don't have the tools to be a tank or healer really. The flash point was originally designed to be done before you get your advanced class. Now its even easier since they adjusted it down to a 2 man. It's an introduction to flash points.

[Askyl]

There won't be addon support OR combat log when the game launches. So it will be pretty hard in the beginning. But both will come, according to BioWare.

[Bassnectar]

really different and the very similar in ways...not to sound negative but I dont like it at all compared to WoW tanking :/ feels very weird and just not right

[heyvid21]

Low-level tanking is a bit of an exercise in frustration from my run in Black Talon. There are a lot of spread out ranged enemies and DPS who charge in blindly and attack whatever they want (I guess lack of target-of-target contributes to this), and you don't have a taunt button. I haven't noticed any threat issues on single-target fights though.

There is no tanking Black Talon unless you bring a tanking companion. You have no tanking skills at level 10 even if you chose the tanking path as your AC. I don't think you get your first tanking skills until at least level 12. You don't get a taunt until level 14.

The first instance (Black Talon for Empire, and Esseles for Republic) is designed for no tanks and no healers being needed.

[Deleted]

If anything, when I was leveling my Jedi Guardian Tank, it felt like Vanilla WoW tanking, in that I needed time to build a little threat before having the dps unleash hell.

I do feel I had all the tools though, just need to make good use of them instead of spamming stuff blindly.