I am coming back to the game from a long break. I have a lvl 50 sorc and am interested in leveling a new toon. I have the itch to level since I have been away. I have 2 chars a PT at lvl 18 and an assassin at lvl 22.

 

I have played both back and forth and know I am not high enough on either to make an opinion. My question is which do you guys have more fun playing. I am leaning towards the powertech for the diffrent story and different set of companions. but that isn't enough to make me go Powertech.

 

I have read the boards and and truly at a crosswinds. I don't think I have it in me to level both. My main focus will be PVE with some close buddies.

I prefer my assassin since it's a more active tank. You're constantly doing stuff, refreshing dark ward at the right time, placing your AOEs on the right places, self healing, using CDs at the right times (assassins have enough and on short CDs to use them pre-emptively rather than just as a "oh ****" card) etc. The powertech on the other hand is a pretty passive tank, you have your mitigation stats and they're pretty much static except for popping heat blast as soon as it's off CD.

I prefer my assassin since it's a more active tank. You're constantly doing stuff, refreshing dark ward at the right time, placing your AOEs on the right places, self healing, using CDs at the right times (assassins have enough and on short CDs to use them pre-emptively rather than just as a "oh ****" card) etc. The powertech on the other hand is a pretty passive tank, you have your mitigation stats and they're pretty much static except for popping heat blast as soon as it's off CD.

 

That's just completely wrong. Maybe you're not typing out the complete works of shakespeare every pull, but your description of PT tanking shows me clearly you've never played one.

 

To answer OP's question, Powertech for me. I love my PT and since few people play one it's easy to gear up.

That's just completely wrong. Maybe you're not typing out the complete works of shakespeare every pull, but your description of PT tanking shows me clearly you've never played one.

 

Your implied description of assassin tanking shows me very clearly that you've never played one.

 

I *have* played all three tanks. PowerTech is by far the most passive. Basically, the only thing you have to worry about is using Flame Burst to build stacks, and then using Heat Blast to dump those stacks on cooldown. Load your Shoulder Cannon on cooldown for the tiny heal it provides. Done. You have no appreciable defensive cooldowns, and no other active mitigation measures. You're just…tanking stuff.

 

The PowerTech tank damage rotation isn't even that interesting. Flame Burst, Heat Blast, Rocket Punch, Rail Shot, Rapid Shots. Flame Sweep and Flame Thrower situationally. There's just not that much to do. This is nice in some ways since you can concentrate on positioning and mechanics, but it's pretty boring as far as classes go.

 

Assassin tanking is like a dizzying whirlwind of crazy compared to PowerTech tanking. For one thing, your mitigation depends on not one, but *two* active mechanisms. Dark Ward needs to be kept up, but you can't just spam it on CD since the counter-proc is vital to your optimum survivability, so you have to be super-aware of the timing of the damage you're taking and mitigation. I end up spending a fair amount of time staring at my buff bar. If that weren't enough, assassins are heavily dependent on their big self-heal, which is a 3-stack proc'd Force Lightning. It is very important for optimum assassin tanking to build these stacks as fast as possible, so the damage rotation is a critical survivability component.

 

The Assassin damage rotation has a really insane number of abilities compared to the other tanks. Wither, Discharge, Shock, Force Lightning, Saber Strike, Thrash, Assassinate and Maul. (all of those are used as part of the steady-state rotation) Then you have the situational Lacerate and the added environmental complexity of keeping Phase Walk in a serviceable location. Assassin tanking involves a staggering three procs, one execute, one active buff and a counter-proc. It's very challenging to maintain.

 

On top of that, assassins have by far the most powerful situational utility cooldowns in the game. Assassin defensive CDs aren't as good as Juggernaut CDs in terms of an enrage situation, but they are far better overall in terms of utility application (since their cooldowns are very short). Dark Shroud is almost OP when applied correctly (and it can be applied usually once every 30-40 seconds). Deflection is like a Saber Ward with a shorter cooldown, and Overcharge Saber is essentially the same as the PowerTech shield, but with a significant added heal component. A significant aspect of high-level assassin tanking is using and abusing these cooldowns, each of which has a specific weakness and strength, requiring careful planning.

 

There really isn't any question: Assassin tanking has a far, far higher skill floor (and skill ceiling) than PowerTech tanking.

Edited April 22, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

The answer would be whatever you think it's more fun to you.

People say that sins are better but I disagree, each tank has their strong and weak point and each is better for a specific situation, it's true that if you look at it quick pt's are pretty much static mitigation and very easy to perform (aka requires less skill than sins and juggs) but when you learn how to skillfully play a pt it becomes much much better and on par with other tanks.

PT's have great stuns, not only a single target stun but also and AoE stun that won't break on dmg which is really awesome for large groups when you want to AoE, also they are awesome on large groups due to a large amount of AoE abilities with high threat (and you don't need to move the enemies screwing AoE positioning like most sins do) and oil slick which substantially increases survivability with a relatively low cd timer.

Also being "kind of" a ranged tank is awesome for situations where you need to kite mobs (theres a particular boss in S&V where you will have to do this for example) because you will still be able to keep threat and also do a reasonable amount of dmg from far away.

The fact that the AoE taunt is a missile that affects the area around the mob instead of something that affects the area around you is much better for strategy purposes and to fix sloppyness (healers or rdps aggroing another group midfight far away from the tanks, you throw an AoE taunt with no need for moving to the area, and you can also throw a powerfull AoE from far away to generate threat).

They are the only tanks with a leap AND a pull, not to mention now we can have some increased speed and be immune to movement impairing thanks to the hydraulic overrides, which negates several mechanics that could kill groups on bosses and groups, and if needed you can even spec into the speed boost after leaps.

The changes to the cds (kolto overload and oil slick) made our survivability much much better now, our best cd used to be energy shield but now kolto overload can give you pretty much invincibility for some time (a big hit will still kill you and it requires planning and timing on use) which was something really lacking for pts before 2.0 since juggs had an invincibility and sins could just shroud powerfull attacks. Not to mention we now have self heals with shoulder cannon and it can be used while stunned/cc'd. If you play it right pts can have the most dmg output of all tanks too which makes it a good option on fights with tight enrage timers or where the tank needs to kill something on his own (terror from beyond, operator IX, dog boss on mando raiders and so on), some people in my guild actually say I'm a "tank dps".

I could go on and ond on with the advantages of playing a pt but I think you got the idea, obviously I'm defending pt's because people usually overlook their usefulness, I could name just as many advantages on other tanks classes over pt's, what I'm trying to say here is: Powertechs are just as good as the other tanks, better on some situations, worse on others, so just choose whatever tank you like playing and master his play style, my guild actually has 2 rosters, one on empire and one on republic, and I play a pt on empire and a shadow on republic, both are my favorite tank classes in the game, I've cleared every content on both classes except for the hm ops on 2.0 which I'm still working on.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Yngow

That's just completely wrong. Maybe you're not typing out the complete works of shakespeare every pull, but your description of PT tanking shows me clearly you've never played one.

 

To answer OP's question, Powertech for me. I love my PT and since few people play one it's easy to gear up.

 

Yeah, I've just cleared the entire endgame on its hardest difficulty with it, and it was only my main and main spec for ~10 of the 12 months I've played this game. I've never played it at all.

 

Ever since I got my sin up to a decent level, it's been my favorite tank, but since the PT was always better geared it still ended up with needing to bring him instead for raids, which ofc in turn got him even better geared and kinda painted me into a corner, so I have plenty of experience with it despite not liking it.

I don't play an Assassin but I do tank on a Juggernaut and a Powertech. There's definitely not a whole lot to manage on a Powertech; you keep your Heat Blast on CD when you can, and you have a few defensive CDs that are pretty straightforward. It's not mindless, but a lot of that is the simple fact that tanking of any sort isn't really ever mindless.

 

That said, the overall value of a Powertech tank is still very comparable to the other two no matter what content you're doing, so really you need to ask yourself which play style you enjoy more.

Dark Ward needs to be kept up, but you can't just spam it on CD since the counter-proc is vital to your optimum survivability, so you have to be super-aware of the timing of the damage you're taking and mitigation.

 

Can you elaborate on this? I'm guessing that you mean in certain circumstances you would rather get the benefit of a full or partial stack of dark bulwark rather than refreshing your dark ward. Can you give an example of when you would purposefully leave dark ward on cooldown rather than refreshing it? I know it makes sense to do so, but I'd like to hear some concrete examples to help round out my understanding. Thanks.

I have played all pre 2.0 but only sin/shadow after 2.0 dropped. What I originally liked about it was simple aoe threat, good cooldowns, ghetto res ability, plus it reminded me somewhat of my pally tank which I did for many years.

 

That being said the juggernuat/guardian was my least favorite in terms of generating threat, it had great CDs but terrible threat since all your main moves require you to be within 4m and hard to time/place aoe threat generators.

 

Now the Powertech/Vanguard had easy to build threat and rotation. slightly better ranged tanking options over the sin/shadow, very high armor and shield ratings. But terrible cooldowns.

 

my 2 cents would be to roll a sin/shadow but it fits my play style best. Ultimately choose something you enjoy. BW makes all tanks viable for the most part. Each having their weaknesses and strengths

Can you elaborate on this? I'm guessing that you mean in certain circumstances you would rather get the benefit of a full or partial stack of dark bulwark rather than refreshing your dark ward. Can you give an example of when you would purposefully leave dark ward on cooldown rather than refreshing it? I know it makes sense to do so, but I'd like to hear some concrete examples to help round out my understanding. Thanks.

 

He means if you refreshed it on CD there would still be about 5 seconds of the old dark ward up and potentially 8 stacks of increased adsorb rating, 8 stacks = 8% sbsorb rating. So rather then mindless spamming it on CD like you could before you want to wait till the last second to refresh it to maximize the amount of time you have the extra defensive stats

Edited April 22, 2013 by sithheroes

He means if you refreshed it on CD there would still be about 5 seconds of the old dark ward up and potentially 8 stacks of increased adsorb rating, 8 stacks = 8% sbsorb rating. So rather then mindless spamming it on CD like you could before you want to wait till the last second to refresh it to maximize the amount of time you have the extra defensive stats

 

Okay, I misunderstood then. I thought he was talking about occasions where DW stacks were gone, it came off cooldown, but he waited to refresh because he didn't want to lose the bulwark stacks.

It's funny how sin tanks went from the easiest to pick up to arguably the hardest. Took me a good few days on the pts to get it down.

Powertechs have always been the easiest to play tank. Sins the more complicated, though pre-2.0 less so than now.

 

If you want a tank where you feel like you got more going on and your more active in the fight than just standing around holding threat I would go with the Assassin tank. If you are looking for an easier tank to start off with on a lower learning curve then go with the PT. Both are good tanks, both have their weaknesses and strengths, Neither is better than the other.

 

I've raiding on both and I prefer my Sin over my PT.