Hello fellow tanks.

I picked up SWToR again two months prior, when I grew bored of GW2. Since then, I leveled a Juggernaut and a Powertech to 55, and equipped them with pretty much optimised 69 gear (following KBNs great advice which saved me a ton of time). I am thinking about starting an assassin now, to have one of each tank available, but I am a little hesitant, because of the amount of active mitigation assassins have in their rotation (all those stacks and such).

I know from several theory crafting discussions that sins are seen at the best tanks atm and even KBN showed, that the other tanks are withing a small percentage of damage taken, I wondered if I would do better on a sin... It's pretty much the old problem of min-maxing, as I want to tank as good as possible, making raids and fps easier for others.

So the question is: How big is the difference between the tanks, not seen from a theory crafting point of few but merely from your experience. Please enligten me.

Hello fellow tanks.

 

I picked up SWToR again two months prior, when I grew bored of GW2. Since then, I leveled a Juggernaut and a Powertech to 55, and equipped them with pretty much optimised 69 gear (following KBNs great advice which saved me a ton of time). I am thinking about starting an assassin now, to have one of each tank available, but I am a little hesitant, because of the amount of active mitigation assassins have in their rotation (all those stacks and such).

 

I know from several theory crafting discussions that sins are seen at the best tanks atm and even KBN showed, that the other tanks are withing a small percentage of damage taken, I wondered if I would do better on a sin... It's pretty much the old problem of min-maxing, as I want to tank as good as possible, making raids and fps easier for others.

 

So the question is: How big is the difference between the tanks, not seen from a theory crafting point of few but merely from your experience. Please enligten me.

They're all fine to tank as is the easiest way to describe it. The only problem with sins is the perceived notion that they are the lesser tank from months of spiky damage post 2.0 I'm still a minority that believes we are by far the best offtanks in the game, loss of energy regen or not, and also an even choice for the main tanking role as the other tanks.

A bad sin tank is far more noticeable than a good sin tank. While bad play on the other two tanks can have leeway, playing poorly on a sin tank will have a much more dramatic effect. Sin tanks are also considered the "skill tank" but it's rubbish. It takes skill and coordination to play any of the three tanking roles, sins however do have the most active mitigation and you have to watch your bars more often than the other tanks to deal with optimizing your survivability.

You want to maintain dark ward at all times, but getting to seven stacks of dark ward means you have eight stacks of dark bulwark which increases your absorb by 8% from there you want to stay above one stack and refresh as soon as you think you might lose your dark ward either from it falling off or the mob taking it off of you. You also want to keep your dark protection up at four stacks, but to do so you need three stacks of harnessing darkness and the time that dark protection stays on you leaves you little time to vary in your rotation to keep it up. That alone is four things you have to micromanage on yourself while you also deal with the boss mob not including maximizing your threat and knowing when to blow certain cooldowns to trivialize mechanics, most new players struggle with it, but vets usually don't have issue.

The benefits of all of your micromanaging is an overall amazing tank. With your stacks of dark protection, bulwark, and ward at ideal stacks, using wither and discharge debuffs. Sin tanks in maximized gear have roughly 8% and 0%[3% with crushing blow] higher passive damage, but 8% and 2%[-3% with blade barricade] higher defense, 24% and 27% higher shield chance, and 20% [-2% with heatblast]/30% higher absorption rate than Powertechs and Juggy's in that order [First numbers being PT, second juggy]. Then we add cooldowns which are pretty much on par with juggy's and ahead of PTs by some amount.

Overall Sin tanks are fine, just like the other tanks. They are a bit more involved however.

From my experience ( which is bases on detailed parsec analyse) Sins are viable as offtanks and maintanks. Some guides try to tell you that sins should be offtanks in nm content. If player correctly ( explained in detail by Mastirkal) you can tank everything.

Although there might be situations where a sin tank drops lower than other tanks. Raptus for example can kill a sin tank in 2-3 seconds if healers are not aware and you dont have your def cd active. Other bosses in palace and fortress wont be a problem. In nm content you should be viable at every boss as the sin buff took a big effect especially at Kephess and TFB ( sins sometimes got one shotted). The only problematic boss in nm content could be the cartell warlords, Tu'chuk to be more specific. He does a good amount of dps on a tank ( about 2.5k) and you sometimes get random shotted by 2 other cartell warlords which increases your dtps to 3k dtps. As you have to kite Tu'chuk its also problematic to do your rotation and keep your stacks up. Nevertheless mostly a sin kites sunder so that its quiet unrealistic that a sin tanks tu'chuk ( If anyone has a video sin kiting tu'chuk nm i would like to have the link as i have never seen a sin doing it.)

Only 2 bosses where a sin wouldnt be the ideal tank makes him viable for endgame. The other 2 tanks are also viable.

Regarding the theorycrafting thing:

Atm sin has the best passive mitgation, then pt, then jugger hybrid, then jugger immortal. They dont calculate def cooldown into their calculation. Immortal jugger ( least passive mitgation) has the most def cd's+a little selfheal (enraged defense). Hybrid jugger ( 3. in passive mitgation) has 1 def cd increased (enraged defense 15 % less dmg) which also means aggro loss ( you have to do a tauntrotation) but he has more cooldown on the 2. strongest def cd ( Invincible) and a bad elemental/ internal dmg reduction ( immortal has 7% with crushing blow+dark blood, while hybrid has 4%). The 2. best tank in passive mitgation has 1 def cd which is not considered a ver good def cd ( powertech). Then #1 has 2 def cd's which are quite good + a little selfheal. Calculating def cd's into the mitgation calculation would change the picture. As i am no mathematical pro i am gonna leave that to others, only thing i can provide are parsec numbers.

Nefra 8Hm( defense favoured fight beneficial for juggers) : Sins : 1400 dtps Jugger : 1200dtps Pts: 1200dtps

Draxus 8Hm Bosstank ( Elemental heave fight) Sins: 1100 dtps Jugger :1140 dtps Pts : 1130 dtps

Grobthok 8Hm bosstank ( Kinect heavy fight) Sins : 1200 dtps Juggers 988 dtps Pts: 1180 dtps

Corruptor 8Hm bosstank : Sins : 1400dtps Juggers: 1400dtps Pts 1200dtps

Brontes : Sins 1300dtps Juggers 1300dtps Pts 1200 dtps

All tanks are bis and min-maxed . Dtps numbers are the average dtps recorded over 10 fights.

Could also provide palace hm numbers and nm content numbers but dtps numbers are that closely together that it wouldnt make a difference.

All tanks are viable although the roation of a sin is important and any mistake in the rotation could mean 5% more dmg taken. As some bosses require movement or include knockbacks+stuns your rotation can go wrong. Also at nm bosses movement is inlcuded in nearly every bossfight ( Withering, Kephess, Tfb, Trasher, Dresh, warlords) that can make it hard to follow your rotation correctly. Some other bosses have mechanics that can destroy your rotation as the bosses are not attackable for a period of time or they stun you ( Operator, Styrak endphase).

I consider the sin the hardest to master class because if you fail at your rotation it can mean a wipe. Juggers or pts are far easier as a bad rotation wouldnt mean more dmg income but less dps which can be negated as a tank.

queue lots of lames making lots of comments without talking about up close and personal putting the powertech's passive mitigation MUCH MUCH higher than any of the other tanks on most fights.

I'm a pretty big proponent of Powertechs/Vanguards, I read these forums pretty regularly, and I've never thought to myself "This person ignored Vanguard self-healing". Can you link any discussions where it was left out?

So the question is: How big is the difference between the tanks, not seen from a theory crafting point of few but merely from your experience. Please enligten me.

In my experience Assassins and Powertechs have pretty similar toolboxes for dealing with enemies; Powertechs have a few more options from 30m range and their defensive cooldowns, while analogous to those of Assasins, are usually double the duration and half the strength. Assassins have stronger threat.

Powertechs need to manage their heat, and balance between high threat/DPS (Flame Sweep, Flame burst, Flamethrower) and high mitigation (spamming rapid shots/Rocket punch/Rail shot) attacks; it's impossible to do both optimally.

Assassins have an optimal rotation that involves using their backstab with proc and not refreshing Dark Ward before necessary. The increased number of procs, coupled with their naturally lower armor rating, provides more opportunities for the mitigation machine to break down.

The Juggernaut, similar to the Assassin, has a cooldown to respond to every problem. That is where the similarities end. The Juggernaut has the worst AOE threat, worst single target threat, worst mobility, and their mitigation isn't spectacular.

I'd recommend not going Jugg. In my personal opinion, having a Powertech with steady DTPS beats having an Assassin with higher mean mitigation and/or more specific cooldowns.

The Juggernaut has the worst AOE threat, worst single target threat, worst mobility, and their mitigation isn't spectacular.

It's statements like these that really answer the OP's question. I would argue that in a lot of cases Juggs have AOE threat miles ahead of PT or Sin. Saber Reflect is up every time you take adds on NIM Thrasher and HM Corrupter 0, which means you'll hold aggro on those adds and have a better time surviving them. Same goes for mobility, I hate phase 1 of NIM Terror on my Jugg since I have no speed burst to escape adds, but if there are friendly or enemy targets to jump to in a fight I have the best mobility. Things like threat, mobility, utility, and even mitigation are highly situational.

The point being, all 3 tank classes are completely viable, and each brings a unique approach to mechanics.

All the tanks are viable. Full stop. It's very important to remember that the theory crafted models are designed to accentuate differences. That's not to say that they are exaggerated or inaccurate, but they're measuring on a scale which is very fine-grained and geometric. This means that changes which are very literally unnoticeable in-game show up as significant differences in the math. Again, the models are designed to do this!

In terms of defensive cooldowns, I would actually say that Assassin tanks have the best suite of cooldowns with the exception of Endure Pain, which is situationally better than the medpack reset. Overcharge Saber is mitigation-wise just as good as Invincible (the tooltips are very deceptive), and it has the added HoT and up-front heal. Deflection is worse than Saber Ward in that it lacks the F/T mitigation (which isn't as significant as it looks in the tooltip), but Force Shroud is quite a bit more broadly applicable than Saber Reflect and runs on a much shorter cooldown. Endure Pain is a really, really strong reactive cooldown, especially when paired with good healers. It's sort of an open question if Endure Pain is better or worse than the fact that Assassins can get three (or sometimes four) medpacks per fight.

All of the tanks have very good raid utility. Phase Walk is highly underrated and makes a surprisingly huge difference to the raid survivability. Juggs have a mass bubble heal in the form of their AoE taunt, as well as a targeted agro dump and armor buff, very good mobility in most situations and a plethora of control abilities. Powertechs have Hydraulic Overrides (massively underrated), Oil Slick (amazing for both cotank and raid), Harpoon, etc.

In general, take the tank that you want. The only caveat here is that you really should not take two Juggernauts, since then you lack the damage debuff provided by Assassins and Powertechs. Every other composition is viable (though double-Powertech is slightly weaker due to the lack of constant accuracy debuff).

(though double-Powertech is slightly weaker due to the lack of constant accuracy debuff).

Aaaaaand what about double powertech with rotating oil slicks?

Aaaaaand what about double powertech with rotating oil slicks?

It's not a constant debuff as combust [Passive] Flameburst, wither, discharge, or smash are.

Oil Slick is most definitely considered a cooldown. The reasoning behind this was explained and debated at length on the tanking stats thread.

If you take Oil Slick as a time-averaged buff, then yes, it is clearly better than the constant debuff from a Jugg or an Assassin (specifically, 7.5% vs 5%). However, there are a couple problems with this. Most notably, Oil Slick applies to both tanks! So, you can't just add 7.5% defense to a powertech's base stats, because we would have to do this for all of the tanks when considering them in combination with a powertech. Note that because of the way that debuffs override each other, a Jugg providing a constant accuracy debuff actually increases the value of Oil Slick.

Two powertechs can rotate Oil Slick to achieve a superior value to the constant accuracy debuff from a Jugg or Assassin (far superior), but that simply isn't something you do on most fights. Sometimes you get much more value out of Oil Slick by timing it to damage phases. Sometimes bosses are moving and you simply can't apply it. Sometimes M/R attacks are concentrated into long bursts which are too short to be covered by more than one Oil Slick, resulting in a long delay on the use timer (e.g. Corrupter Zero).

It's also worth noting that even double powertechs will sometimes have RNG-dependent downtime on their damage debuff. Assassins can keep it up 100%, since the debuff is now applied even through a resist.

Oil slick is a def cd. Pt has 2 of those. Juggers 4 (with ed). You should compare oil slick with the def cd's of the other classes bc oil slick is not a perma debuff. The only difference of oil slick is that it applies to the other tank as well ( if he is close). Thats why it was not calculated into the mitgation calculation. Otherwise you would have to implement all def cd's of all classes into the formula. Pre 2.7 mitgation + def cd will be sin-->jugger-->pt

Post 2.7 Jugger-->sin-->pt

When NiM DP / DF come out, for 16M, as always, Vangs and Guardians are going to be more viable than Shadows. You can compare cooldowns and swag as much as you want but when the Kephess 16 M NiM TFB scenario will repeat itself where I could only tank that boss from cooldown to cooldown and be two shot without any cooldown, we will need some KBN math threads to serve as tissues for how awesome Shadows are but they are misunderstood. We will all form a support group and comfort one another with our double bladed lightsabers and sexy white dyes!

Last night, my guild organized a 16M DP / DF with two of the best PVE progression guilds on TOFN, one of them being Not Good Enough. They brought 5 from their core progression group and one of them was their main tank who used to have a shadow and now is tanking on a guardian not even thinking of changing for DP/DF 16m NiM. Suffice it to say, we had no issues clearing the operation, it was faceroll with me main tanking as a shadow, what peaked our interest was the BAD RNG that allowed Bestia to spike me with a 26k force push, killing me in our first attempt. We got council down on the second try where I had no issues with spikes but the topic was quite interesting to debate with people who are already prepared for 16M DP/DF NiM.

2.7 does not bring anything to shadow tanks, developers do not test content on Shadow tanks, we will see how viable tanks are for the 16M NiM niche which some of us actually play. For everything else, every tank class in this game is overpowered.

When NiM DP / DF come out, for 16M, as always, Vangs and Guardians are going to be more viable than Shadows. You can compare cooldowns and swag as much as you want but when the Kephess 16 M NiM TFB scenario will repeat itself where I could only tank that boss from cooldown to cooldown and be two shot without any cooldown, we will need some KBN math threads to serve as tissues for how awesome Shadows are but they are misunderstood. We will all form a support group and comfort one another with our double bladed lightsabers and sexy white dyes!

Enough with the NiM Kephess already… You once linked logs which demonstrated what you were talking about. Once. When you did, we looked at them and found that over a third of your damage taken was literally avoidable. Not just cooldownable, but actively avoidable by simply positioning differently, using a different tanking strat, etc. I don't dispute that Kephess packed a wallop, and shadows were at a pronounced disadvantage on the fight, but citing your own experience of "living from cooldown to cooldown" is a bit deceptive.

There were shadow tanks who were tanking NiM Kephess at gear level. I was main tanking it. DiLiH, Suckafish and DnT all used assassin tanks in their progression race. I don't think there's any question that 16 man was (and is) a lot spikier than 8 man, but there were assassin tanks in there too. I believe Thok was running it in 16 man pre-2.5 with DiLiH.

We don't know what the new nightmare modes are going to look like. Maybe one of the tanks will stand out as being highly undesirable. Maybe not. Remember, shadows were the ones who stood out as highly desirable for NiM EC, which I think was a bit of a surprise to most armchair class pundits at the time. It's hard to say exactly what constraints NiM DP/DF will impose. I do know for a fact that tanking NiM Tyrans as a guardian is going to suck hardcore. On the other side of things, tanking Brontes as a hybrid shadow isn't even fair, since you take an order of magnitude less damage than any other tank.

If you have evidence that shadows are going to be problematic in the next tier, let's hear it. Otherwise, you're just spreading FUD based on a previous tier of content.

For the record, we didn't run 16 man nim sv and tfb pre 2.5 (cause we are mainly an 8 man guild ).

When we did run nightmare 16 man kephess this week, i felt less squishy then our juggernaut tank.

Last night, my guild organized a 16M DP / DF with two of the best PVE progression guilds on TOFN, one of them being Not Good Enough. They brought 5 from their core progression group and one of them was their main tank who used to have a shadow and now is tanking on a guardian not even thinking of changing for DP/DF 16m NiM. Suffice it to say, we had no issues clearing the operation, it was faceroll with me main tanking as a shadow, what peaked our interest was the BAD RNG that allowed Bestia to spike me with a 26k force push, killing me in our first attempt. We got council down on the second try where I had no issues with spikes but the topic was quite interesting to debate with people who are already prepared for 16M DP/DF NiM.

.

You didn't die to bad RNG; you died because your team wasn't prepared. Assuming your healers weren't overworked due to other players taking excessive damage, they and/or you screwed up. Force Push comes every 20 seconds with the 2nd one being stronger. As a tank, you should be kept above 30k health when Force Push is coming. If you are not, you and/or your healers are at fault.

For example, I tanked this fight in 16 man HM recently on my Vanguard and my guild has beaten this fight on 16 man HM dozens of times. Our team was playing casually on alts and my co-tank died to Force Push on a Vanguard on one attempt while I died to Crystal Projection from Calphayus on another one. Both of these skills did roughly 15-20k damage to the tanks and both come at completely predictable intervals. In both situations, the deaths were completely preventable, but still happened even when using the least spiky tanks available.

Did we get unlucky that we didn't shield our respective attacks? In the case of Vanguards, no, the chance of shielding is less than 50%. If we were playing Shadows, we'd be slightly unlucky since they have closer to 60% Shield chance with Kinetic Ward. Either way, the fault is not with the game; it was with our team. If your healers have to spend too much time healing other people because people are making mistakes, then all tanks can and at times will die to a burst of damage.

A simple analogy can be made with driving. Many people drive cars and use seat belts to protect themselves from being thrown in the unfortunate event of an accident. There are people who don't care about seat belts and don't use them because the chances are small of getting hurt. If such people get into an accident and get hurt/killed as a result of not having a seat belt on, they don't get to yell "BAD RNG" while flying through the air. You either come prepared (using your seat belt) or you face the potential consequences of your actions.

Now obviously, the severity of the consequences are very different and chances between the two situations don't line up perfectly, but you get the point.

I'd actually say run a juggernaut tank first. Why, it has no good ranged threat until level 51, and has poor threat generation overall. This is much more noticeable in leveling.

Why do the harder one in threat generation first? Because once you level it and learn it, you will be a damn master at it when you try a PT or Assassin tank. Holding threat will be second nature to you, leaving you free to learn the quirks of Assassin tank survivability and such, while threat generation on the class will be mindless.

Playing a jugtank forces you to really think about how to engage the mob, how to use your one AOE to great effect amont other things. It forces you to *really* think like a tank

Another recommendation for leveling a jugtank: Never use guardian armorings, and only use Tank Mods and enhancements when they have tank stats attached (Shield Rating, Absorb Rating, Defense Rating) and get a set of Cartel Hawkeye Crystals (+41 power). That way your threat generation is increased, but the way that threat is applied is mpore difficult than the other two.

Master pulling that line of droids before the Professor boss on Athiss as a Juggernaut for example, then marvel at how mindlessly easy it is to do as a Powertech or Assassin in comparison.

For endgame content, they are all viable, all different, and different difficulties associated with each one. Tank balance is actually *great* right now.