I am coming back to SWTOR after a bit of a haitus. For background, i almost exclusively PVPed before i left, as well as finishing all 8 class stories. However, i didn't get at all into the PVE content.

I do have a background in PVEing - I was part of a heroic progression 10 main raiding group in WOW, as well as leading raid groups in everquest and everquest 2.

My first thought was to play a tank class because they would be valuable for a group, and i have a 55 guardian, 55 assassin and 50-something powertech that could all be "mained". However, given that i am guildless and all of my friends have left the game, it occurs to me that in almost any situation i join, there probably won't be a need for a tank.

So, my question is, what would be the role that groups would desire from an experienced MMOer that is fresh to the SWTOR PVE world? For what its worth, I have filled all 3 roles in raid settings, and have no real preference.... almost to a fault, because i can't seem to latch myself onto a class for endgame. Bad case of altitus

Like the others have stated, being a tank is probably your best bet.

In terms of the game population, everyone and their mother is a DPS. Tons of people swing lightsabers or shoot blasters, even if there's a very clear difference between good and bad DPS. Healers, if not scarce, are also a little bit more prevalent in this game than tanks.

All in all, here's how I see the game in terms of role population:

95% DPS

4% Healers

1% Tanks

Good tanks are hard to come by, especially ones who go about leading an ops group and are very good at running mechanics. Good luck finding a group, hope this helped!

95% DPS

4% Healers

1% Tanks

Sounds about right, good Tanks are hard to come by. GREAT tanks are even more rare.

Don't under estimate the value of a very very good DPS.

While the majority of players are DPS and it is that much harder to separate yourself from the pack a good DPS who knows to how maximise his utility, do his best to make the healers life easier and have good awareness/aggro management are just as valuable.

Great raid leaders and great tanks often go hand in hand, as a tank a lot of people will expect you to carry the group to free epics, lead and know the pace the group can handle as well as explain in detail how to do the fight to everyone who hasn't spent 5min on Dulfy. It's a big ask and one of the reasons (aside from the mistreatment a lot of tanks get) not many people tank.

Don't under estimate the value of a very very good DPS.

 

While the majority of players are DPS and it is that much harder to separate yourself from the pack a good DPS who knows to how maximise his utility, do his best to make the healers life easier and have good awareness/aggro management are just as valuable.

snip

Quality DPS are always in demand in end-game guilds.

if you are a tank they will invite you even if you don't know tactics..

Yeah, uh.. I wouldn't count on that most of the time. Unless they're really desperate. More likely they'll want you to know exactly what you're doing and also be overgeared, to make up for any deficiencies of the rest of the group.

I suppose it varies slightly from server to server, but it has been my experience that the role that's hardest to fill when starting a pug ops group is healers. It's not that they're harder to come by than tanks, just that there are more spots to fill (because nobody wants to run 8man). Also you don't really have a group until you have at least one tank...

So with relatively few well-geared and experienced tanks being able to fill all the spots, it can be hard for a newcomer to make a place for themselves. I wouldn't go advertising "noob tank looking for ops" in fleet and expecting to be showered in invitations, no.

The good thing about having a large collection of alts is that you can fill any role as needed. While maining one class makes it faster to gear them up, I find keeping your options open has benefits too. You're less likely to run into the weekly caps for commendations and you can run the same content more than once a week if you wish to. And if you really want to prioritize gearing up one character, you can use legacy gear to transfer mods to them, have your whole legacy working towards gearing up one single character.

Somebody who can listen to explanations and take well-intended advice will do well as a tank. I once talked a tank picked from the fleet through very fast run of S&V HM telling him exactly what to do at any given moment and he just did it. Very nice experience. He was so new he needed all the lore objects in the op. Also I do believe tanking is the easiest to learn on the gameplay level. If you understand how the aggro system works and learn your opener you're basically done, everything else is details. DPS requires a lot of practise to become really good and healing is an art that requires knowing both the fights and various classes and dangerous HP levels for particular moments, but also different "rotations" for different situations and everything else that a good DPS and tank needs to know. I find healing hardest to learn by far.

On the other hand if you wanna join a progression guild I find adverts for tank spots much more rare then DPS or healer, although you will see those as well. But if you just join any guild and tank whatever guild ops happen well and join some PUGs people will be swarming with offers soon - that was my experience when I started doing HM ops with various guilds who were short a tank for the evening.

Also tank population for FP's is so small it's just funny, even got offered credits for joining group finder

Don't under estimate the value of a very very good DPS.

 

While the majority of players are DPS and it is that much harder to separate yourself from the pack a good DPS who knows to how maximise his utility, do his best to make the healers life easier and have good awareness/aggro management are just as valuable.

No one questioned it, and I had hoped no one felt as such by my post.

But still, the reason below is why there are even more good DPS than good tanks

v

Great raid leaders and great tanks often go hand in hand, as a tank a lot of people will expect you to carry the group to free epics, lead and know the pace the group can handle as well as explain in detail how to do the fight to everyone who hasn't spent 5min on Dulfy. It's a big ask and one of the reasons (aside from the mistreatment a lot of tanks get) not many people tank.

While tanks may be in high demand as far as group finder goes, it seems opposite when it comes to raiding.

From my own observations and speaking to my peers, most people that tank are main tanks for life and have an ULTRA low turnover rate to the extent that they outlast the guild itself. So while the guild might need a token group finder daily HM tank, the raid tank slots are forever filled unless you're looking to start fresh with a new(er) guild.

That all said, being able to be the back up tank for situations where the MT/OT are unable to show up is invaluable. I can't recall the number of times that a raid night ground to a halt because of not having an experienced backup.

While tanks may be in high demand as far as group finder goes, it seems opposite when it comes to raiding.

 

From my own observations and speaking to my peers, most people that tank are main tanks for life and have an ULTRA low turnover rate to the extent that they outlast the guild itself. So while the guild might need a token group finder daily HM tank, the raid tank slots are forever filled unless you're looking to start fresh with a new(er) guild.

 

That all said, being able to be the back up tank for situations where the MT/OT are unable to show up is invaluable. I can't recall the number of times that a raid night ground to a halt because of not having an experienced backup.

This.

While I've participated on few guilds, I obvserved the same thing.

If the group is doing decent clearing stuff, the tanks will rarely rotate (usually only when they cannot assist to the raid for whatever RL reason). In this context is hard to have a good and experienced backup. Someone who gets benched on regular basis or cannot play the character/rol he wants, will leave sooner rather than later.

What the last two posters said, I seriously started to /facepalm at the earlier comments saying getting into PVE as a tank is the easiest. That may be true for Flashpoints/Group Finder, but as a progression raid leader for a 16-man guild it has been months since we've even considered recruting a new tank or healer, good DPS we're always on the lookout for.

It's really the raid comp to blame. 8 Man Comp has 2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dps.

16 Man Comp has 2/3 Tanks, 4 Healers, 9/10 DPS

There simply aren't a lot of tanks or healers needed in raid content (compared to the amount of DPS a raid needs)

this is the general phenomenon in swtor so far...

pug desires healers

hm guild desires good tanks

nim guild desires great dps

of course there is no such thing as hm or nim guild, therefore the demands actually change based on the content cycle

Tanks are rare on all levels of content. The turnover is less at the higher levels but as a new tank you should not be looking to be main tanking at high levels.

Tanking imo is very difficult and endgame raiding can be the most stressful on the tank. They have the least room for error and the most mechanics to deal with. The most communication is required from tanks as well for raid errors and issues. THe most difficult bosses will need Tanks to know their rotation to maximize tank dps as well to help but still have to keep track of danger to the raid.

Guilds are always up for recruiting new tanks that can work as fill ins when main tanks cant make it, or on off days when people want to raid on their Alts.

MY best advice though is to also quickly get a cheap DPS set, so you can first see some of the fights as a DPS and fill in on the easier content too. Then tanking is much easier.