Hey guys i am looking for some input on which class to roll for my main. I want to tank but i am not sure which class. Can anyone help me out here? i know guardian wear better armor but can a shadow tank just as good as him with light armor. Can they be as effective as a guardian in tanking or they are more of an off=tank.

Thank you for your response.

As far as I remember, the difference between a Guardian and a Shadow was about 50points worth of Armor. When deciding which class I wanted to play, it came down to: Lightsaber and cool heavy armor or Dualbladed Lightsaber and stealth.

Edit: Another thing. Do you like being able to jump around and get into the thick of things or prefer to do a little crowd control along with your Tanking? Crowd Control/Stuns would be in the Shadow line and Jumping in and concentrating everything on you is more along the lines of the Guardian.

Also, I'll put in that the Trooper's Ranged tanking is pretty boss, too.

As far as I remember, the difference between a Guardian and a Shadow was about 50points worth of Armor. When deciding which class I wanted to play, it came down to: Lightsaber and cool heavy armor or Dualbladed Lightsaber and stealth.

allright good stuff man. But yo if i wanted to go for a sam jackson (mace windu) type of build i need to be a jedi guardian right?

Sam Jackson style of lightsaber wielding? I THINK that is Jedi Sentinel.

but don't they use 2 lightsaber?

You are correct. I honestly can't remember who uses his combat style. Lets assume it is the Jedi Guardian's DPS tree because that's what I keep thinking it is.

allright man cool. Here i will refresh your memory incase you forgot the baddest jedi in the entire galaxy (he almost had the emperor beat but then got cheated ).

Regarding viability of Shadow vs Guardian:

It's true that Guardians wear heavy armor and Shadows wear light. However, Early on Shadows gain a skill (I believe Technique) which massively enhances their armor and should put it pretty much on par with Guardians. (Think of it as a tanking stance, kind of like Stances/Presences work for Warriors and DKs in WoW)

Overall Bioware has been quite open about their intentions that all advanced classes which spec purely for a certain role (ie go deep into the tree appropriate to that role and pick a sensible combination of talents) to be equally viable at the given role. So for example the idea would be that a DPS specced Shadow, Sentinel, Guardian and Sage to do equally viable DPS in a different way (But with the Sentinel having more options to spec DPS, so likely having more variety or flexibility). Similarly Guardians and Shadows should be equally viable, but play differently.

Overall at least on paper the way Bioware has indicated things, it should purely be a choice based on which style, aesthetics, lightsaber, etc. appeals more to you. Given other MMO's there will never be perfect balance, but the intention is that things are balanced between classes. (And I don't think there's enough known about classes, scaling and what not at 50 to figure out if one tank is more viable than the others) Since to me the Shadow style and concept appeals more, for me the choice ended up with Shadow.

As another note, during beta quite often the concept popped up that Shadows/Assassins would be avoidance tanks (so mitigate less, but avoid more, which generally leads to more bursty and random dmg intake, something healers often hate). This is also a misconception which I think got formed due to a comment by one of the devs, and might have gotten strengthened by the somewhat acrobatic nature of the Shadow. Reports from beta indicated however that overall mitigation and avoidance for the tank classes is roughly in the same ballpark and not radically different.

Not having stealth in MMO's makes me angry. So I picked shadow. This is mostly due to me liking to walk through areas without agro when I just want to explore without fighting. Plus I've always liked stealth gameplay in general (but also hate not being tanky)

However, from what I've seen/heard the difference is mainly in your preferred style. I played shadow in beta, and never felt that I was bad at tanking when I tried to tank, or that I was bad at dps when I tried to dps. Honestly, I think that most fights the main difference between the two classes is how you initiate: you use leap when you're a guardian, you sneak up behind and use a backstab if you're a shadow. whichever of these is most appealing to you, is probably the class you should pick.

Also, something that I believe hasn't been mentioned, don't forget to look into the story of each, and see which story you'd rather spend your time playing through. And, if you don't mind some spoilers, you could look at the companions/ship and see which of those you'd rather have. Or other ascetics like dual vs. single blade, light vs. heavy armor, etc. Again, how good of a tank you are is going to be up o how good you are at tanking, so choose based on which character you'd have the most fun with.

Finally, because this game does have a story, you can always roll a new character and not be bored while leveling it up.