Tanks: That which will kill SWTOR PVP.

Here we have a classic example of "I'm right and everybody else is wrong"

You mean typical WZ players: 3-4 sorcs, 3-4 mercs 0-1 something different

What he said.

Sadly, its true. The vast majority of people who post on this forum havn't made it past level 40, or are just now hitting 50 and are still in their quest gear with green mods and really don't have a clue.

Then you have a few people who play on servers that have zero competitive premade teams that run with competent tank/healer pairs.

None of these people really understand the problem, and are probably best served removing themselves from the debate.

Others (including tanks and healers that run these precise hypothetical scenarios day in and day out) understand the problem and have even admitted it.

Perhaps its not guard thats the problem. Perhaps its rampant AoE CC. Either way, there is a problem, and it will need to be fixed before it spirals out of control.

Again, i'm talking about actual premade scenarios. The group I describe would rip that group a new one several times over.

If its that much of an issue (which I don’t believe it is. I applaud the way tanks are implemented in this game), instead of nerfs, I would suggest additions.

Increase the effectiveness of healing inhibitors. Marauders get 20% for a limited time. I would suggest this becomes a debuff for 6 seconds that continues to stack and refresh each time the target takes damage. This will allow the DPS to outpace focus healing “eventually” (even from 3 healers on one target) when the stack is high enough.

Perhaps stunning a tank breaks the guard effect for the duration of the CC.

Positive action trumps negative

I believe personally that a stacking/refreshing healing debuff would be excessive. Healing debuffs are really never any fun because then they become 100% required for any group. At the moment, this would give Marauders and Sentinels a spot in every group, bar none.

The idea that stuns/cc would remove guard from the target is perhaps one of the better ones i've seen suggested, or even a reduction in the range guard is effective for. As it stands, separating them is terribly difficult and even if you do manage to, at least 2/3 of the tanks are mobile enough to charge right back in, with the third being relatively capable of speeding his way back.

Personally, i'd just drop Guard to a 30% reduction, provide at least one more class with a 20% healing debuff, and reduce the amount of AoE CC in the game (and I also believe resolve values for KB's, AoE CC should be tweaked a bit. They should be something you use smartly not that can be driven on back to back to back to back just because you can).

Those changes would go a long way to helping the situation without making tanks utterly useless.

Oh look out guys Bioware put a complexity into pvp! I'm sorry, but i feel like you have played to much wow to accept other game designers views. In this game tanks have a roll, healers have a roll and dps have a roll (ranged and mele). If you think one roll is better than the other, play it. You will quickly find out, much like I did after years of playing WAR and WoW, that complaining about the class besides you own is really easy and since I was to lazy to even see what you play or read any post except half the first one you put I am just assuming that you don't play a tank. So play whatever class you are as best you can and realize that no game where there is a complexity in pvp besides targeting healers is going to be perfectly balanced. If you don't like it just re-roll. <3 BTW i play a sentinel and I don;t see anything wrong with the random 20k hp tanks i have to fight.

Perfect tanks, perfect healers, perfect interrupts and perfect aoe and dots = theorycraft madness. Anyway pyrotechs chew through tanks and if anything focus the healer, the extra hp (aka tank) will die anyway (aoe and dots help here).

Sigh.

Yet another player who solo queues for warzones and encounters other people who solo queue for warzones and believes its legitimate PVP.

For the record, I have played nearly every MMO under the sun and only rarely have I encountered a problem that promises to be this large in any other. World of Warcraft isn't even where the largest portion of my time has been spent. This is akin to how ridiculous healer channelers or dwarf priests were in early shadowbane, all while everyone screamed nerf confessors and were too blind to see the real problems.

AoE Detaunt + Guard on a warrior priest in Warhammer (though tanks were not NEARLY as beefy in Warhammer). Fortunately for them, the Bright Wizard/Sorc nerf cries were harder because of the nature of fortresses and that they were the "visible" problem.

As mentioned before, unkillable groups in GW, Rift.

Guard is not a new concept, and nearly every game that has implemented it has screwed it up initially and nerfed it at some point. SWTOR will be no exception, I assure you.

The amount of complete ignorance in this thread is beyond amusing, I tip my hat to you all for that one.

The fact of that matter, as stated multiple times, is that a GOOD well-geared tank who is somewhat intelligent, and understands the use of his abilities, will consistently change how a battleground progresses. Specifically when paired with a healer of equal gear and intelligence. You can sit in your chair and scream with all the angst that your tiny manhands can type about how wrong this is, but you are wrong. You haven't been in this scenario or you and your friend are too terrible to know how to play the game, but the fact remains that at a competitive level it complete ruins the balance of the game, and instead creates a stalement of entirely un-fun proportions.

I have no problem spouting how great my Scoundrel is geared and that, even with my Battlemaster premade, it is impossible to kill a guarded healer/tank combo of equal gear. It creates said stalemate and we all sit around stacking the damage and healing meters with no one going anywhere. However, the real issue, as stated wonderfully by Seraj, is the fact that damage is scaling worse than durability. Expertise is such a flawed stat, yet it will never get changed.

To be honest, I would just love to see some sort of healing debuff implemented. The fact that is doesn't exist, outside of the Marauder/Sent 20%, is absolutely ridiculous. It truly makes me wonder if the PvP Devs even know what they are doing, but that is a thought for another day.

tl;dr - Tank/Healer combo is rock, everyone else is scissors, healing debuff that doesnt exist is paper.