http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/vanguard/237/?build=023212122002012200120212021200000223100000000000000000000000000000030000000000000000000000000000&ver=20

Cant get a shorter link cause Torhead's builder is not 2.0 so using the SWTOR-Spy PTS builder. you will get a similar result using this build in 2.0 early access live.

Edit: Changed the build. got rid of Gut and Frontline offence for Solder's Endurance

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/vanguard/237/?build=023212122002012200120212021200000223100000000000000000000000000000030000000000000000000000000000&ver=20

 

Cant get a shorter link cause Torhead's builder is not 2.0 so using the SWTOR-Spy PTS builder. you will get a similar result using this build in 2.0 early access live.

 

Edit: Changed the build. got rid of Gut and Frontline offence for Solder's Endurance

1. Blaster Augs? Terrible for Shield Specialist Vanguards.

2. No Riot Gas? This ability is actually pretty damn good now, certainly worth the point.

3. No Energy Blast? Wow...With the way this ability works now, it's absolutely fantastic. The cooldown may read 15sec, but it's up usually within 9sec. Add in the +25% Absorb for 6sec and Energy Blast kicks all kinds of *** now.

4. Neural Overload...whatever floats your boat. Obviously you consider it a better use of a point than Riot Gas or Energy Blast.

5. Soldier's Endurance is a waste of 3 points for so little return. Yes, part of a tank's job is to make sure they can take a beating. The other part of the job is to make sure you're the one getting beat on, not the paper mache dps sentinel in your group. If you aren't putting out enough damage/threat to hold aggro, all the endurance buffs in the world won't do you any good. Put those points in Heavy Stock, please.

6. Overcharged Cell Capacitor is quite a bit better than Rebraced Armor as well, but at least RA provides more benefit than Soldier's Endurance.

7. This last one is just personal preference, but I've found the new Charge! talent to be more useful for positioning and crowd control than the Shrap Satchel. Slowing enemies is all well and good for 6 seconds, but having a +50% buff to in-combat speed the entire fight (lasts 4sec and refreshes when attacked. Which as a tank, should be always) has been much more beneficial, for myself at least.

In short. I recommend this build for Vanguard tanking

Plus 1 point to spend where ever you want.

Currently using something very similar to the above post.

Using: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMGrdoroMdRRZrc0zZb.3

Only changes.

1) Rebraced Armor for Charge!

- Preference of mitigation vs maneuverability.

2) [1/2] Tactical Tools

- Lets you double up Pulse Generator. (Activate Pulse Generator, Proc Pulse Engine w/Hammer Shot, Pulse Generator). Internal cooldown of [2/2] Pulse Engine is 18 seconds. With a cd of 16.5s after it gives you 1 gcd grace to do so without accidentally proccing Pulse Engine beforehand.

Edit) Definitely a PvE orientated build. I would consider taking some of the slows, and Charge! If I were pvp'ing Tank Spec.

Justcae is on the right track changing Zalek's spec, but I think Zalek is one of the tanks that likes to DPS. You have to remember, we are tanks, not DPS'ers. Our job is to hold aggro and take as less damage as possible. We don't need a ton of DPS to hold aggro. The DPS talents on the low end of these trees are useless to a tank as most of our threat comes from Ion Cell/Stockstrike and taunts.

Here's the spec you need to go:

PvE Tank Build

Here's why:

Specialist Tree:

No need for Brutal Impact (Again we are not DPSING here) - Instead go for Rebraced Armor. This talent Increases Survivability and further increases damage reduction, which is all about what we tanks are. 16% is to huge of an increase to ignore.

No need for Charge! - This is more of a PvP talent as this talent is to unreliable (as in it could wear off when you need it the most) to need it during normal trash mobs or boss fights. Instead put those into Shrap Satchel. Its a great tool to use on trash to keep things from running all over.

Tactics Tree:

Your Demolition talent choice befuddles me. 6% crit is not going to effect anything we do as a tank. These 2 points here are better used on Tactical tools to reduce the Cooldown on harpoon by 10 seconds. Harpoon is a great threat builder and should be one of your main tools as a tank. Even if the mob is pulled to you, like a big daddy boss mob for example, it builds high threat still. So why would we not want this on a shorter cooldown?

Assault Specialist Tree:

Again, your talent choice of Heavy Stock is for DPS. Yes Stock Strike is our main attack as it builds a high amount of threat with our Ion Overload talent, but when it crits, the amount of threat that extra damage builds is menial. Stock Strike builds threat by triggering Ion Cell, that trigger is what builds the threat. So therefore, we would benefit way more as a tank with Soldier's Endurance instead of the crit damage from Heavy Stock. More HP's = More Survivability no matter how you swing it.

I hope this helps a little bit and I don't mean to pick on you Zalek, but it just irks me when I hear a tank talk about how great their DPS is. Just hold the mobs on you and make sure noone is getting wacked on! lol.

Justcae is on the right track changing Zalek's spec, but I think Zalek is one of the tanks that likes to DPS. You have to remember, we are tanks, not DPS'ers. Our job is to hold aggro and take as less damage as possible. We don't need a ton of DPS to hold aggro. The DPS talents on the low end of these trees are useless to a tank as most of our threat comes from Ion Cell/Stockstrike and taunts.

 

Here's the spec you need to go:

 

PvE Tank Build

 

Here's why:

 

Specialist Tree:

No need for Brutal Impact (Again we are not DPSING here) - Instead go for Rebraced Armor. This talent Increases Survivability and further increases damage reduction, which is all about what we tanks are. 16% is to huge of an increase to ignore.

 

No need for Charge! - This is more of a PvP talent as this talent is to unreliable (as in it could wear off when you need it the most) to need it during normal trash mobs or boss fights. Instead put those into Shrap Satchel. Its a great tool to use on trash to keep things from running all over.

 

 

Tactics Tree:

Your Demolition talent choice befuddles me. 6% crit is not going to effect anything we do as a tank. These 2 points here are better used on Tactical tools to reduce the Cooldown on harpoon by 10 seconds. Harpoon is a great threat builder and should be one of your main tools as a tank. Even if the mob is pulled to you, like a big daddy boss mob for example, it builds high threat still. So why would we not want this on a shorter cooldown?

 

Assault Specialist Tree:

Again, your talent choice of Heavy Stock is for DPS. Yes Stock Strike is our main attack as it builds a high amount of threat with our Ion Overload talent, but when it crits, the amount of threat that extra damage builds is menial. Stock Strike builds threat by triggering Ion Cell, that trigger is what builds the threat. So therefore, we would benefit way more as a tank with Soldier's Endurance instead of the crit damage from Heavy Stock. More HP's = More Survivability no matter how you swing it.

 

 

I hope this helps a little bit and I don't mean to pick on you Zalek, but it just irks me when I hear a tank talk about how great their DPS is. Just hold the mobs on you and make sure noone is getting wacked on! lol.

Let me preface by clarifying that I don't really consider myself one of those, "LoL I can tank and DPS at the same time!" guys. I've tried a few times to roll a dps class/spec and can never make it past mid-game in any MMO I've played. I've always been more a fan of tanking or healing! Since I don't have enough free time to devote myself to a guild that raids regularly though, this spec serves me well in group finder FPs. Believe me, my choices are for the sole intention to make sure nobody else gets hit and to survive that fact.

In regards to Brutal Impact, HIB is a regular part of my rotation so I consider a 6% flat damage/threat increase to that attack pretty decent; coupled with the boost from Focused Impact it feels even more beneficial. Granted, it has a decently long cooldown and if I were in an endgame raiding guild, I would definitely consider replacing Brutal Impact with Rebraced Armor.

Charge!, as I stated before, is a personal preference over Shrap Satchel. Since I've taken it, I've found that it very rarely falls off during the course of a normal fight and it allows me to reposition myself or mobs more quickly should they be facing the wrong way or should they be straying away from my grouping and it has helped me escape boss AoE more reliably.

Demolition was more of a gut feeling, since I reasoned a majority of our attacks were elemental. I've since realized that only 2-3 attacks are elemental; Ion Pulse, Ion Cell and Pulse Cannon. With that knowledge, I've decided to split those 2 points into maxing out Frontline Offense (for the flat 6% increase to Ion Pulse, our bread and butter attack) and putting 1 point into Tactical Tools for the reasons Justcae (and yourself) mentioned. I was under the impression that Harpoon acted like a taunt, since it did no damage but if that isn't the case, it may be worth using more often than to snag runners or if my 2 other taunts are on CD (hopefully that doesn't happen, lol).

I believe you may be slightly misinformed about Heavy Stock. The benefit is a flat 8% increase to damage, not crit. This makes it quite a bit more useful, especially since it's our hardest hitting/highest threat ability and we can finish the cooldown with Static Shield.

Can't quite say that I -never- have taken Soldier's Endurance, but after I realized what it was actually giving me, I've never went back.

I understand the arguments for Soldier's Endurance. Since when is more HP a bad thing right? But it is not worth 3 points to me.

Any arguments for threat one way or the other are almost negligible as well. Anyone with any tanking experience in this game knows that you need splash threat at the start of any given fight (which both Heavy Stock, and Tactical Tools do). Afterwards it simply does not matter.

All comes down to personal preference. Slightly bigger health pool vs slightly more threat. To each their own, neither side will be incorrect.

Edit) On the subject of what Harpoon actually does. It applies basically 1 Stockstrike worth of threat to a mob. Whether it can pull or not the threat is applied. Very good for opening boss pulls.

PVP build:

Build 37/9/0.

Screenshot of UI.

PVP build:

 

Build 37/9/0.

Screenshot of UI.

That is exactly what my build is. As much as I would love to dps and take a beating, I decided that utility works out better. Still, its easy to pull off some damage in huttball with the pits. Not too shabby at carrying either.

Having the Vanguard Trooper tank as my first character on this game (now lvl 47) some of these builds have helped me understand the reason for why people pick the skills they do, my skills compared to these on here are a little off mostly because I was curious to what they did... I have Charge because I wanted to see my tank fly through the air haha I will change this once I have hit lvl 50...

I also have the scanner droid again just out of curiosity to what it does, helps me find sneaky smugglers in Duels but not very useful for PvE End runs...

all i need to find out now is the soft and hard cap of Shield absorb, Shield rating and Defence...

Anyone got any links to assist me with this? is it worth me sticking more into defence then absorb and rating?

Having the Vanguard Trooper tank as my first character on this game (now lvl 47) some of these builds have helped me understand the reason for why people pick the skills they do, my skills compared to these on here are a little off mostly because I was curious to what they did... I have Charge because I wanted to see my tank fly through the air haha I will change this once I have hit lvl 50...

 

I also have the scanner droid again just out of curiosity to what it does, helps me find sneaky smugglers in Duels but not very useful for PvE End runs...

 

all i need to find out now is the soft and hard cap of Shield absorb, Shield rating and Defence...

Anyone got any links to assist me with this? is it worth me sticking more into defence then absorb and rating?

Wait? You are getting rid of the gap closer? Tanks have to have a gap closer, so keep that. Every trooper gets stealth scan, spec'ing into the cooldown reduction is good for PvP tanks, not so much for PvE. As far as the hardcap goes, check out Keyboardninja's amazing work done here.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=616779

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMGrdoroMdRRZbsMZb.3

That is my build and I am puzzled why I see Vanguards take Demolition over Blaster Augs and Frontline Offense. I have reasons for taking these talents over the increase in crit chance. First of all, what good is a crit if it has no oomph behind it (Blaster Augs) and I use Ion Pulse (Frontline Offense) quite frequently due to the damage reduction debuff applied to the target. I never let this fall off. Blaster Augs puts our damage back to where it was pre 2.0 (without the Blaster Augs talent taken) and as tanks we have to generate agro as our first order of business, the second is surviving it. Having three points spent into those two talents allow for more damage being done without needing crits to hold agro. Using this build, I rarely have to taunt off even the rippiest of dps and when I do have to, it's because said dps precasted or had an amazing run of crits hitting all at once. That and there is no better tool to mess with Guardian tanks by pulling agro from them just by being a 'bit early' using just Hammer Shot. Not that I would ever do that....not in a million years.

You do realize that blaster augs only gives an additional 3k damage delt over fifteen minutes. That's barely 3 dps increase,

BA affects IC, IC is not the dot, IC is the first tick that procs ion overload not ion overload itself

BA is crap for everything there is no situation where 3 dps is going to mean anything. Better off taking any other talent

You do realize that blaster augs only gives an additional 3k damage delt over fifteen minutes. That's barely 3 dps increase,

 

BA affects IC, IC is not the dot, IC is the first tick that procs ion overload not ion overload itself

 

BA is crap for everything there is no situation where 3 dps is going to mean anything. Better off taking any other talent

I've been trying to make people understand this very thing on these forums for over 2 years now. It just wont sink in.

Just looking for some feedback here. I'm only level 22, but looking ahead I have mapped out a 36/7/0 +3 left. I see a lot of other builds listed here and elsewhere that takes a lot of the dps talents; are Brutal Impact, Overcharged Cell, Demolition and Heavy Stock "must haves" for a tank? Other than Static Shield, I'm not really sure what to do with the last three or perhaps just stick them in Soldier's Grit. Oh this is mostly for pvp.

Also, and I'm assuming yes, but may I feel free to remove Explosive Round from my hotbar? Doesn't look like that will be much use to me. Mortar Volley looks like another seemingly useless one for a tank, though I can see certain situations where that may be good to at least keep it around on the hotbar.

Also, Riot Gas FTW!!

You do realize that blaster augs only gives an additional 3k damage delt over fifteen minutes. That's barely 3 dps increase,

 

BA affects IC, IC is not the dot, IC is the first tick that procs ion overload not ion overload itself

 

BA is crap for everything there is no situation where 3 dps is going to mean anything. Better off taking any other talent

The way Blaster Augs reads to me is the stance Ion Cell now does 8% more damage, this should apply to everything from Hammer Shot to High Impact Bolt.. Is this not the case? With the damage rebalance done in 2.0 to Ion Cell, I thought that by taking Blaster Augs brought tanking Vanguards back to where they were pre 2.0 without the Blaster Augs talent. That one point if it is as worthless as you say it is, is it really better used for a 3% increase in elemental crit chance? I could see putting it into Tactical Tools, but not so much Demolitions.

Having the Vanguard Trooper tank as my first character on this game (now lvl 47) some of these builds have helped me understand the reason for why people pick the skills they do, my skills compared to these on here are a little off mostly because I was curious to what they did... I have Charge because I wanted to see my tank fly through the air haha I will change this once I have hit lvl 50...

 

I also have the scanner droid again just out of curiosity to what it does, helps me find sneaky smugglers in Duels but not very useful for PvE End runs...

 

all i need to find out now is the soft and hard cap of Shield absorb, Shield rating and Defence...

Anyone got any links to assist me with this? is it worth me sticking more into defence then absorb and rating?

you would never drop charge.

charge serves two purposes - a gap closer for a class reliant on abilities that have less than a 10m range - and two free explosive surges for crazy aoe threat and 5% reduction on incoming damage from all sources hit by the surge.

there are only a couple of optional talents in shield - the ones that are clearly pvp oriented (read: snares/roots) and whether or not you choose to increase the damage of HIB. if you don't feel the need for the endurance talent in the other trees, and since you ARE still levelling, you may as well put extra points into that one and the increase in elemental damage talents.

The way Blaster Augs reads to me is the stance Ion Cell now does 8% more damage, this should apply to everything from Hammer Shot to High Impact Bolt.. Is this not the case? With the damage rebalance done in 2.0 to Ion Cell, I thought that by taking Blaster Augs brought tanking Vanguards back to where they were pre 2.0 without the Blaster Augs talent. That one point if it is as worthless as you say it is, is it really better used for a 3% increase in elemental crit chance? I could see putting it into Tactical Tools, but not so much Demolitions.

this should be tested on a dummy. if what you say is true, then that talent needs to be reworked.

Before 2.0 I actually tried tanking hard mode flashpoints without Blaster Augs and failed at holding any kind of threat against groups of enemies. I can only speculate the reason for this is that the increased damage from the dot actually helps to hold threat. Back then I also switched targets to hit with Hammer Shot to trigger Ion Cell a lot, I also would sometimes run with Neural Overload, even in PvE.

I haven't looked at my parses and tried as many things as I did in the past before 2.0 but I now run two different builds for PvE. I run a flashpoint build, and I run an ops build.

I always skip Brutal Impact, and for some reason have always gone for Shrap Satchel. Personal choice mostly, Shrap Satchel is for helping with groups since debuffs generate some threat, and Brutal Impact will only really help you with a single target. I've tried running with Brutal impact though, it doesn't feel any different to be honest. It could skew your damage a little in favour of High Impact Bolt.

The reason I run two builds is that I find Tactical Tools' cooldown reduction on Harpoon helps a lot with grouping things together (also lots of impatient people won't wait the extra 10 seconds sometimes then you have to deal with a dps that wants to tank). I tend to open in 2 ways, I either use Storm and run up, or I walk up with Hold the Line and use Harpoon. What I do is dependent on the engagement because certain things are simply easier to deal with when you've harpooned them together. Others are simpler to storm up to.

I always go for Heavy Stock over Tactical Tools for ops because I want to have that extra damage to make sure I never lose threat to any of my hard hitting dps. I can generally hold off slightly better geared dps as long as I don't do anything stupid (I say generally because if for some freak reason they land 4 critical hits in a row you might be in trouble). The only reason I'd not take Heavy Stock is if I'm worried that I don't have enough health and I'm confident I can hold threat for the ops.

Always remember we as tanks have 2 jobs, to hold the threat and to survive. If things get a little scary throw down Riot Gas, and make sure your Shoulder Cannon is prepped to heal you for that 20% health that it can. Also if you're doing ops you should get in the habit of using Fortitude Stims they help a lot with health (main reason why I don't take Soldier's Endurance).

I also gear in a way that's a little different compared to others I've noticed. I don't run a click relic because I use an adrenal.

I always skip Brutal Impact

But HiB is such an important part of our rotation and threat generation. A non crit of it for me generates 4k threat easy.

But HiB is such an important part of our rotation and threat generation. A non crit of it for me generates 4k threat easy.

this is something I will admit, to be honest I believe (haven't really checked my parses) that Heavy Stock will yield better threat increases than Brutal Impact.

As I said it's a personal choice that in the past used to make sense, and now it doesn't really matter since it doesn't make a difference as far as I can feel. Admittedly I haven't checked my parses with it that much.

Before 2.0 I actually tried tanking hard mode flashpoints without Blaster Augs and failed at holding any kind of threat against groups of enemies. I can only speculate the reason for this is that the increased damage from the dot actually helps to hold threat. Back then I also switched targets to hit with Hammer Shot to trigger Ion Cell a lot, I also would sometimes run with Neural Overload, even in PvE.

 

BLASTER AUGS DOESN'T AFFECT THE DOT!

#$%$%

Ion cell: "Loads your rifle with an ion powercell, giving ranged attacks a 15% chance to deal X additional energy damage" Do you see anything about a Dot here?

Its not a Dot the Dot comes from the Ion Overload talent. Ion Overload is not in any way affected by blaster augs.

The only reason blaster augs is helping you hold threat is because you think it helps therefore you make what you see match what you want to see.

this is something I will admit, to be honest I believe (haven't really checked my parses) that Heavy Stock will yield better threat increases than Brutal Impact.

 

As I said it's a personal choice that in the past used to make sense, and now it doesn't really matter since it doesn't make a difference as far as I can feel. Admittedly I haven't checked my parses with it that much.

Heavy stock is more threat, because Shock strike is used far more frequiently due to the proc

BLASTER AUGS DOESN'T AFFECT THE DOT!

#$%$%

Ion cell: "Loads your rifle with an ion powercell, giving ranged attacks a 15% chance to deal X additional energy damage" Do you see anything about a Dot here?

 

Its not a Dot the Dot comes from the Ion Overload talent. Ion Overload is not in any way affected by blaster augs.

 

The only reason blaster augs is helping you hold threat is because you think it helps therefore you make what you see match what you want to see.

no, its' not what I think, I ran several flashpoints without blaster augs, because I put some thought into it and realized that blaster augs should be garbage. I tanked them the exact same way I normally would, and I ended up not being able to hold threat whenever it came to the group pulls.

I only changed 1 thing, I had taken that one point of out of blaster augs and put it into heavy stock, since I've always favoured heavy stock over brutal impact.

Based on that empirical experience I realized that lack of blaster augs at the time proved to be not optimal for the way i played. As I said "I can only speculate . . . " I didn't know the reason then, and I still don't really know the reason now.

Hi Guys! I'm Cae!

There are two ways that I can go about this post. The first being an absolute douche bag, and the second trying to help you out on some things that are really getting misrepresented on here. But let me get somethings out of the way first.

1. I want you to play your Vanguard however you feel you play the best. Regardless of math, logical arguments or any other thing. At the end of the day play your Vanguard in the way it makes you feel most functional. I honestly mean this.

2. When I say below that such and such is wrong I'm coming at it from a purely functional stand point based on effectiveness of the class and the talents that come with it. If you feel insulted in some way, don't bother it's not worth it. See point #1.

Now lets get on with the show shall we?

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801G0GrdorRMdRRZrc0zZb.3

Is the build that I have cleared all save some of the last NiM mode content with. Almost all of the build is general. With only a few things that I've felt aided me in Ops vs FP's as that's where my character is primarily used.

Shield Specialist

• There are 34 points in the Shield Specialist tree that are basically "must haves" for your basic tanking setup. See most of the previous builds linked to understand what they are.
  
• There are two points which are basically entirely fluff points. You can put them however you wish and the basic function of the class will not change.
  
• In the build I linked I have those two points in Charge (2/2) which allows me to do avoid boss damage on several fights in Operations. It is not needed in FP's overly instead i would put those two points in...
  
• Shrap Satchel which allows you to apply AoE snares to both NPC's and PC's depending on the content you enjoy. Snaring NPC's allows for easy AoE groups and should you lose something, it will slowly leave the pool of death. Snaring in PvP need not be explained.
  
• Brutal Impact is a bad tanking talent. 6% damage on a skill you get to use 4/min adds up to very little. Even on boss fights. It is more meant for DPS talented Vanguards to grab as a low tier damage increase on a skill which they may have a reset for (see: Assault). Use parsec, or torparse. Load your logs and see how much damage you do with HiB. Even using it on CD it accounts for 10% of my overal damage done on a fight. Taking this talent would give me a 0.6% DPS increase. It's about 1300 damage on a 2.5 minute fight.
  

Tactics

• The basic argument of most talent points happens in this tree where I think there are some large misunderstandings.
  
• Demolition (6% crit on ALL elemental attacks) is a larger DPS increase on JUST Ion Pulse (6% Damage for Ion Pulse), nevermind the extra damage on Pulse Cannon, Energy Blast, and Explosive Surge.
  
• Tacitcal Tools (1/2) allows you to double up on Pulse Cannon. It makes the cooldown of Pulse Cannon 16.5s vs the cooldown of Pulse Engine 18s. Allowing you to PC > HS > PC. And yes, Pulse Cannon even unprocced is one of your highest damaging abilities. Procced it is by far the highest damaging ability you have.
  
• Blaster Augs is a terrible talent. It only affects the initial hit of Ion Cell, the DoT is a different ability entirely. Check your own logs for confirmation. If i were to have had this talent specced in my last HM DF/DP run I would have seen a DPS adjustment of 4.5 DPS. That's not taking into consideration that to take Blaster Augs I would have to remove it from a better preforming DPS talent. Taking Blaster Augs results in a DPS loss for your Vanguard.
  

Assault

• Comes down between Heavy Stock and Soldiers Endurance. I prefer the extra damage/threat from Heavy Stock.
  
• Heavy Stock out preforms both Brutal Impact and Frontline Tactics. The two other similar talents.
  

Please let me reiterate this. Play your Vanguard however you so please but some of the talents that you may think are better than others is incorrect.

Have a nice day.