This guide should serve as a starting point for PVP tanking with all classes. It should answer the question of “How do I get my protection numbers up?” and should pair well with existing and awesome class specific guides.

Sef’s Shield Tech PvP Tanking Guide

Zabuza's PvP tanking encyclopedia

How to PVP as a Jedi Guardian in defense spec.

Why good healers HATE bad tanks:

In pug WZ groups, many aspiring tanks will ask who the healer is, and once they find out they will put a guard on them and then just go DPS until they die. Since the effective PVP guard range for damage reduction is only 15m, this means a good healer will be in the back and out of guard range 90% of the match. The guard they are now wearing only serves to point out to the other team that they are a healer and also prevents a good tank from being able to guard them.

Don’t be that “tank”.

How Guard works:

If you are within 15m of your guarded target when that target takes damage 50% of it is directed to you. Your own damage mitigation is then applied to the 50% you take. You receive protection numbers for the full 50%.

If you are farther than 15m of your guarded target, your target takes all 100% of that damage and they get a blue debuff that reminds them that you left them high and dry. You don’t receive any protection numbers for this, since you were such a jerk.

How Taunts work:

When you taunt someone in PVP, for 6 seconds any damage they inflict on someone else (other than you) is reduced by 30%. You receive protection numbers for the 30% of damage.

What is a tanks “Job” in a WZ?:

Everyone’s job is to win. The most effective way you can do that as a tank is to keep as many of your group members alive as possible, starting with the highest priority. Numbers don’t make a win, but they are a big part of the equation. Learn how to get your numbers now and then they’ll happen automatically as you focus on the game and objectives later.

What numbers am I looking for?:

Protection is the only number for you that matters. Ignore dps. Some other numbers that are valuable to understand how the game went is to see who got the most heals and hover over deaths to see how much damage you and your healers took. If no one took 300k damage, your protection numbers are going to be pretty low. Someone has to take damage for you to protect it. Also, if your healer took 600k damage and you only protected for 100k, maybe you were out of place.

What are my priorities for guarding?:

As you keep an eye on your leaderboards you’ll start seeing whos contributing the most. Keep an eye out for people that do 3x what the rest do. A good healer will, a good dps will and now you will as a tank. Healers are usually your highest priorities, they will often take the most damage and without heals your team will wither and die. So make sure they are covered first.

Team up with a good healer:

If you can que up with a good healer, they will give you first priorities on heals and often work on staying within your range since they know that guard is from you. You’ll have a hard time reaching your full guard potential without this magical relationship.

Warzone Tips:

At the start of a match, select your favorite healer (or highest priority guard target) and press Alt-F to focus target him. This lets you see their health, buffs, debuffs and adds an icon/circle on them that only you can see. This will help you keep an eye on them and find them in the mess. They probably have not been marked yet, so I wouldn’t recommend putting a guard on them until you see them take damage. If you like having a guard out, toss it on a rauder or something, they always get in trouble.

For the initial charge, you’ve usually got a little time before they focus target to cause some havoc. As a jug on novare jump in, toss any squishy down the hill and you can often hold their whole team down the hill for a while. This wins most lowbie matches of equal skill. As other classes, you can get in there, get some stuns as a PT, or push their whole team into the open as a sin. They often open up with some high damage attacks so it’s a great time to use your AOE taunts. Your first charge often lets you mark heals as well and start shutting them down or interrupting.

By this time, someone’s in trouble, move to the back to guard your healer, or if you’re lucky enough and they didn’t focus them, guard the people taking damage. I use F for my guard hotkey and click the ops frames, Control-tab selects friendlies also. Swap guard targets as others take damage but make sure you move within 15m range, or you both get nothing.

Keep your taunts going. Single taunt as often as possible. Be sure if you’re stunning to wait till the stun wears off before using your taunt, it only last 6 seconds. Look for any groups you can for your AOE taunt.

Use you’re interrupts. I map mine to E. Interrupt any skills you see channeling within range. If you know the class you can be more choosy of what you’re interrupting. Combine with your stuns or pushbacks and you can shut down a healer for a while and help dps take them down. Just watch your guard range!

Keep your stuns going. A stun at the right moment can mean life or death for a healer or anyone really. Timing is everything here.

If you can move people, move them! If you’re a jug, have fun and throw people around any time it’s on cooldown. Get a healer out of range or a dps off your healer. I’ve tossed enemies into their own pit 7 times in a huttball before, so much fun. As an assassin, push someone off their edge every chance you get, or just use as an AOE interrupt. If you have a grapple/pull bring their healer into the center of your dps. Keep them out of the back if you can. In huttball, save your pulls to prevent a score, the fire trick is cool, but only if it prevents a score.

In huttball, you can guard from under a ramp. This is especially useful as an assassin since you might not be able to jump to them. If you have the ball, make sure you’re not guarding anyone. Even if it’s your pocket healer, it’s not worth taking extra damage and preventing being guarded yourself.

Learn your cooldowns and use them appropriately.

Interface:

I make the ops frames larger, increase the text and health bar size, so it’s easy to tell whos within 30m. I also make the buffs and debuffs a little larger so I can see them. I moved the Focus Target down under my ops frames so it’s easier for my to see and click. Spend some time in the interface editor and setting up your quick bars. It’s worth it.

Awareness:

As a good WZ tank, your job is the be aware of everything thats happening around you, where the damage is being taken and to be able to respond quickly. This takes practice and time. That focus target trick helps a lot for my healer. The more you play with the same people, you learn their style and where to find them. Play with your camera angle. Use any tricks you want if it helps while learning, I’ve put target markers on my own team or mapped G to /follow just to point me in the right direction when I’m lost.

Gear:

See the class specific guides. In general I enjoy high endurance shield/absorb.

Consumables:

Make sure you’re using a fortitude stim. Keep well stocked on WZ Medpac (now 50k per stack) and Wz Adrenals. Use them often. With 38k health the Medpac heals for 11k.

Final Notes:

I’m grateful for all the current guides out there and the super helpful tanks on the boards. Please add any notes or comments. I’ll update as needed.

Awesome. Great tips.

+ gj

YES OH GOD YES!

Misuse of guard is my biggest pet peeve. Don't guard and run! Don't guard while running (the ball)!