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how hard is tanking? (coming from warcraft)


duffy

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Hello,

 

I am new to the game but I played wow from vanilla to lich king. I did not raid tank but did heroics (prot warrior).

 

I burned out from wow partly because of dps in pugs and I just did not like dealing with them. The people here seem nicer so I was debating on giving it a try but a quick question.

 

 

I am leaning towards the jedi guardian tank spec. How difficult are the rotations? I dont want ez mode but at this point i dont want to do a lot of work for a game (that is why I was leaning dps).

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All of the tanks can be used to clear the hardest content available. And all of the advanced classes that have tank specs also have DPS specs, but the gear and rotations between specs are very different.

 

In my opinion, Vanguard/Powertech tanks have better natural mitigation, but limited defensive cooldowns; Guardians/Juggernauts have the best suite of cooldowns, but naturally favor avoidance (Defense) rather than mitigation; and Shadows/Assassins land somewhere in the middle, but have a fairly high skill cap compared to the others.

 

I would strongly recommend that you level a DPS toon first (and without XP boosts), simply to learn the game systems. Then, roll a new character and level them as a tank from day one. This will take longer than just leveling one toon as DPS and respec at the end, but it lends itself much better to the learning process.

 

Many find that the leveling experience and story-telling in this game warrant several alts. I certainly do, and every new toon improves my overall understanding and appreciation of the game.

 

As far as a comparison of tanking, I will leave that to others. But, from my experience, the rules for aggro and fluff taunting are a little different in SWTOR, than most other MMO's.

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If you have the time I'd recommend leveling a healer first, raiding on it, then leveling a tank. Healing people will teach you when in this game a player is likely to not have aggro on something. That way when you level your tank and raid on it, you'll at least be aware of the problem.

 

As I understand it, in WoW you can get aggro on massive packs of enemies and from thereon there's just one 'tank button' that you press repeatedly. SWTOR is very different from my vision of WoW tanking. In general you pull 1 pack at a time, build aggro on each enemy, and then move on to the next pack. Presuming you have aggro on everything in one SWTOR pack and that you have gear and/or cooldowns, you definitely can move on to the next pack.

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I would strongly recommend that you level a DPS toon first (and without XP boosts), simply to learn the game systems. Then, roll a new character and level them as a tank from day one. This will take longer than just leveling one toon as DPS and respec at the end, but it lends itself much better to the learning process.

 

Not sure I agree with this. My first character was a tank (Jedi Guardian), and I had never really tanked in any MMO before. IMO the companion system is GREAT training for tanking; get a companion put him/her/it into a DPS stance and keep the mobs on you instead of your companion. Just an alternative.

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Not sure I agree with this. My first character was a tank (Jedi Guardian), and I had never really tanked in any MMO before. IMO the companion system is GREAT training for tanking; get a companion put him/her/it into a DPS stance and keep the mobs on you instead of your companion. Just an alternative.

I agree 100%.

 

Leveling as a tank with a dps companion can encourage you to pay more attention to your surroundings (to see who is attacking your companion), and to manage aggro, and to use your defensive skills (since you're taking more damage). I leveled my first tank (Shadow) this way, and it helped me quite a bit.

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I mostly raid with dps but also have tanked all HM content and healed all SM and most HM.

 

Some people are naturally really aware of everything around them, and they read all tooltips and devour information on everything tanking. If you're this person, tanking will be a breeze and a blast for you at all stages. A couple people in my guild come to mind when I say this and truly they're like meant to be tanks. Though they enjoy dps and the lack of responsibility it brings in certain situations as well. If you're me, who is maybe a bit more lazy in terms of raid awareness and reading tooltips (I just want a guide to tell me the "right" way to do things) then I'd suggest that you learn as a dps like I did. I got to learn more about how tanks worked and mechanics and threat before I ever played a tank so that when I first hit 55 on my tank I could legacy sets over and tank all SM operations already knowing what I was doing.

 

If you're speaking strictly of leveling and aren't worried about eldergame then my advice would be pretty much moot. In terms of leveling, play what you want or what feels right, you can always switch dps/tanking. The same is true to a lesser extent in endgame where gear sets are completely different!

 

Welcome to swtor, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

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Mechanics as tank: Most bosses in the operations here are simple to tank. However there are still hard ones who will test your multitasking. For example: Nefra or XRR-3 are just a "grab agro, watch the boss" type of boss; Brontes or Raptus require tank swap, adds, position mechanics and cooldown usage.

 

Agro and rotation as tank: The 3 classes are different, people usually find shadow/assasin easier as agro-generator.

Its more or less easy to get agro if the DPS know what they are doing (DerPS gona derp) However in hard content (or nim) where the DPeS will really hit with all they have, generate enough agro as tank is challenge with the 3 tanks clases.

 

Rewarding play as tank: As any other MMO.

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Hello,

 

I am new to the game but I played wow from vanilla to lich king. I did not raid tank but did heroics (prot warrior).

 

I burned out from wow partly because of dps in pugs and I just did not like dealing with them. The people here seem nicer so I was debating on giving it a try but a quick question.

 

 

I am leaning towards the jedi guardian tank spec. How difficult are the rotations? I dont want ez mode but at this point i dont want to do a lot of work for a game (that is why I was leaning dps).

 

It isn't difficult at all. Since you're a protection warrior vet, I recommend rolling either a Jedi guardian or a Sith Juggernaut as your tank: The play mechanics are virtually identical. A high mobility meat shield that can bounce around the battlefield, armed with a cooldown for any situation you can imagine. AOE threat is back-loaded until level 30 when you get sweeping slash and challenging call, but it's still a fun class.

Edited by sanctified
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For someone who has never tanked before I found times where tanking was very difficult and exhausting. As a perfectionist, I put double the time in learning to make sure I give my raid nothing but 110%. Good tanks in this game are not differentiated by how hard a class is to play but by seeing the big picture the whole time.

 

 

If you do not have good awareness and take fast decision, you will find tanking very difficult in the beginning. You claim you have MMO experience so for you this should be a matter of getting used to the game and how your new character works. Also, what are your expectations?

 

 

If i were to share mine, you would realize that if I lose aggro even for a global cooldown I will sit down and peruse my log to see what happened. Oftentimes this is outside of my control due to accuracy based rolls, however, when this roll is not to blame, I need to learn to play a bit better. You can rest assured I will actually do better next time as I cannot accept to lose aggro not even for a global.

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He knows how to tank guys, he's not asking about player qualities needed for the role, he's just asking how his skill from WoW would translate to SWTOR. The answer is that the two games have a tanking system that's virtually identical. Assassin/Shadow = WOTLK era Blood Death knight, Powertech/vanguard = burning Crusades era Prot Paladin, and Warrior/Juggernaut = Cataclysm era Prot Warrior.

 

They all have good AOE and single target threat, the Guardian is slightly behind on single target damage for players without a quick rotation, the Shadow is the king of threat with lower mitigation for players without a quick rotation, and the powertech sets things on fire and wonders why everyone else is always complaining.

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He knows how to tank guys, he's not asking about player qualities needed for the role, he's just asking how his skill from WoW would translate to SWTOR. The answer is that the two games have a tanking system that's virtually identical. Assassin/Shadow = WOTLK era Blood Death knight, Powertech/vanguard = burning Crusades era Prot Paladin, and Warrior/Juggernaut = Cataclysm era Prot Warrior.

 

They all have good AOE and single target threat, the Guardian is slightly behind on single target damage for players without a quick rotation, the Shadow is the king of threat with lower mitigation for players without a quick rotation, and the powertech sets things on fire and wonders why everyone else is always complaining.

 

 

thanks! and thank you to all who helped!

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  • 2 weeks later...
the powertech sets things on fire and wonders why everyone else is always complaining.

 

Sounds like pt is your favourite class.

In my 6 year experience in progress raiding in Wow in a more known guild and my 2 years experience in semi-progress raiding in Tor i've experienced 1 major difference when it comes to tanking:

 

The difference to Wow is that tanking requires far more effort than in wow.

 

#1 Tank tps in comparison to dps are nearly even in Swtor. You need to use Taunt in order to keep aggro. Taunt also works different than in Wow. Taunt will set you on par with the person highest in threat +20%. Meaning taunt is a permanent aggroboost and not only a timed mechanism

 

#2 Theorycrafting is more detailled here on swtor when it comes to tanking. There are different bosses and not all your defstats mitgate as good as the other. There are bosses which dmg can only be reduced by shield+absorb but defense is nearly useless. Other bosses require a high defense. There are lists who show which tankstats you should have for which boss.

 

#3 Tanks require a very good knowledge about the bossfight. They have the highest responsibility which often leads to the fact that they become raidleaders. Besides they have to position the boss correctly, use their def cd's wisely.

 

#4 Tanking is more complex because most tanks have useability skills or beneficial skills. For example the masstaunt of the juggernaut adds a shield that absorbs dmg on everyone in reach. But there are also skills like phasewalk. This one allows the assasin to teleport to the location where the phasewalk was placed. This allows the assasin to partially avoid bossmechanics or are even required is some bossfights. There are a lot more skills that you have to keep in mind when tanking. When i tanked in wow it was only rotation ( 1.2.3) sometimes a tankswap, some movement and thats it. Tor requires you to do more than that.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Sounds like pt is your favourite class.

In my 6 year experience in progress raiding in Wow in a more known guild and my 2 years experience in semi-progress raiding in Tor i've experienced 1 major difference when it comes to tanking:

 

The difference to Wow is that tanking requires far more effort than in wow.

 

#1 Tank tps in comparison to dps are nearly even in Swtor. You need to use Taunt in order to keep aggro. Taunt also works different than in Wow. Taunt will set you on par with the person highest in threat +20%. Meaning taunt is a permanent aggroboost and not only a timed mechanism

 

#2 Theorycrafting is more detailled here on swtor when it comes to tanking. There are different bosses and not all your defstats mitgate as good as the other. There are bosses which dmg can only be reduced by shield+absorb but defense is nearly useless. Other bosses require a high defense. There are lists who show which tankstats you should have for which boss.

 

#3 Tanks require a very good knowledge about the bossfight. They have the highest responsibility which often leads to the fact that they become raidleaders. Besides they have to position the boss correctly, use their def cd's wisely.

 

#4 Tanking is more complex because most tanks have useability skills or beneficial skills. For example the masstaunt of the juggernaut adds a shield that absorbs dmg on everyone in reach. But there are also skills like phasewalk. This one allows the assasin to teleport to the location where the phasewalk was placed. This allows the assasin to partially avoid bossmechanics or are even required is some bossfights. There are a lot more skills that you have to keep in mind when tanking. When i tanked in wow it was only rotation ( 1.2.3) sometimes a tankswap, some movement and thats it. Tor requires you to do more than that.

 

Yes. SWTOR tanking I do believe is more complicated, but not necessarily because of the mechanics, but the quality and skill level of the OPS themselves I believe are just higher. Regardless, all tank classes are viable in this game. It really comes down to your personal preference on play style, everyone has their preferences. Level however you would like, your companions make it so you can use any class and spec to level in, including healing!

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Yes. SWTOR tanking I do believe is more complicated, but not necessarily because of the mechanics, but the quality and skill level of the OPS themselves I believe are just higher. Regardless, all tank classes are viable in this game. It really comes down to your personal preference on play style, everyone has their preferences. Level however you would like, your companions make it so you can use any class and spec to level in, including healing!

 

Ops are jokes, Pve isn't difficult at all, tanking here is a pain because of people who don't care about the group, don't care about CC, there is plenty of Mara/Sentinel tank, Sage/Sorcerer as well who run into everything on the road that's all^^

My guardian remind me of my War prot, you can tank everything if you have a good group. if not , enjoy the bill

 

Wow was far more difficult during BC, Swtor is like Wow Mop nothing more or less

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Well i was comparing endgame pve. For swtor that means Palace Nm. Ofc flashpoint sm operation or hm operations are not hard which is what they where designed for. Even Fortress Nm isn't hard since the nm buff was removed.

 

For Palace Nm there are about 5 guilds that cleared it so far although Palace is out for a month. Yeah swtor is easy...

 

Maras + Sorcerers cant tank in Nm opperations.

 

You seem to compare tactical + Hm flashpoints + Sm ops with the endcontent of Wow.

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Well i was comparing endgame pve. For swtor that means Palace Nm. Ofc flashpoint sm operation or hm operations are not hard which is what they where designed for. Even Fortress Nm isn't hard since the nm buff was removed.

 

For Palace Nm there are about 5 guilds that cleared it so far although Palace is out for a month. Yeah swtor is easy...

 

Maras + Sorcerers cant tank in Nm opperations.

 

You seem to compare tactical + Hm flashpoints + Sm ops with the endcontent of Wow.

 

yes my bad, in Wow and Swtor as well, when it come to endgame, people need to be focus, and play by the book :), but untill then it's a mess :)

i will tank in the Palace i hope and see if it's more difficult than Vashj or Illidan even the Blood council and Lk, just few ex.

 

but for sure i won't answer anymore to a post when i wake up :D

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another thing : the op didnt ask which of the games was harder but how hard tanking is swtor is compared to Wow. And here the answer is pretty clear to me. Tanking in swtor is for me harder than it was in wow. No matter what bosses of Wow you write here tanking in Wow is very easy. I remember going afk on several hm raidbosses during the fight because i had enough aggro for the rest of the bossfight. In addition in Wow there are only a few bossfights where tanks need movement, awareness and perfect defstat allocation.

 

Bestia already is harder than Vashij, but you dont need to deactivate pillars^^

 

The other bossfights in Palace are only average. Council although has again a higher difficulty.

Edited by Methoxa
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Well i was comparing endgame pve. For swtor that means Palace Nm. Ofc flashpoint sm operation or hm operations are not hard which is what they where designed for. Even Fortress Nm isn't hard since the nm buff was removed.

 

For Palace Nm there are about 5 guilds that cleared it so far although Palace is out for a month. Yeah swtor is easy...

Actually, it is.

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It's pretty stupid to compare your current progress raids to old farm status raids.

 

"I remember tanking raids in WoW totally AFK"... I bet you didn't tank Vashj afk the first few times, nor Illidan. Not to speak of Ragnarros before they taught him not to reset to full health every 5 minutes ^^

 

/edit: Hands up all that remember the first 5 attempts on the first boss in Blackwing Lair. Now that was a hilarious raid night...

Edited by jardars
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It's pretty stupid to compare your current progress raids to old farm status raids.

 

"I remember tanking raids in WoW totally AFK"... I bet you didn't tank Vashj afk the first few times, nor Illidan. Not to speak of Ragnarros before they taught him not to reset to full health every 5 minutes ^^

/edit: Hands up all that remember the first 5 attempts on the first boss in Blackwing Lair. Now that was a hilarious raid night...

 

that was my point, when i've answered, i'm sure nightmare mod are challenging, like was black temple, or SSC before the nerf, if somebody remember The Shattered Halls Heroic during BC...compare with Ops hardmod mouhahahaha

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mmmmh I remember C'thun pre nerf. But still in Wow fights dps and healers have to do most stuff than tanks. Mostly tanks only stand at the boss and do their rotation, while dps/healers need to avoid things and make sure that mechanics are realised. Like the fight @ Firelands at that boss who had to be steered with dps. Hard fight but not for tanks^^.

 

In swtor Tanks mostly make sure mechanics are realised. For example Soa last phase, Kephess@Asation,

 

That means in swtor you cant really go afk in a bossfight as a tank because you need to do more than just spam your rotation. Only boss i went afk was Nefra Hm. But in the Nm version of this fight you cant go afk because else either your cotank gets too many debuffs or you die because you didnt stand in group for nightmare twin strike.

Edited by Methoxa
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Actually, it is.

 

it might be easy, but its definitely more challenging than tanking as it currently exists in WoW. you know, in comparison.

in part because of the way trash pulls are set up, in part because you don't have those handy dandy threat plates to tell you which mob is about to run away from you, or indicators on ops frames to tell who who is pulling threat other than you. threat generation itself is not as high as it is in WoW

 

you generally have to pay attention when taking, but you have to pay more attention when tanking in TOR then in WOW.

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