Please bear with my ignorance, I am asking these questions out of curiosity as I have a lowbie jugg that I am in the process of leveling up. My questions revolve around tanking mostly and what people call "skank tanking".

I realize the term refers to a tank that is not fully tank geared or specced who adapts into a tanking spec while in the match... What all do they switch? Is it a matter of simply changing stance to tank stance? Does that include changing the focus to a shield also?

Does one tree skank-tank better, I mean between Vengeance and Rage?

Another question I have is, when jugg tanks pick dps gears for PVP, are they also still using a shield, or do they keep their focus equipped for more damage while in tank stance?

To me it doesn't make much sense mixing stances with different sets of gears, but obviously people make these different combinations work. I am just hoping someone with firsthand knowledge can share some input on it.

As for dps, what is the major difference between Rage and Vengeance? I realize it used to be that vengeance had more mobility with the immunities to CC after leap, are there any major differences other than types of attacks? Does one have better burst, one better sustained?

I like playing dps on the jugg so far, and it's most fun pressuring the healers. I am curious what spec is best for that, not just harassing, but killing healers....?

Any input is appreciated. Thanks!

Skank tanking is any time you take the role of a tank when you aren't tank spec. Tank spec+DPS gear+shield is considered "normal" tanking.

In a 3DPS 1 healer match, a guardian can switch to tank stance to guard a healer, all but guaranteeing a win against equally skilled opponents. This can be done in the middle of a fight by switching stances, or by switching into a shield+tank gear in between rounds for additional "tank" effectiveness.

Vengeance is the sustained spec, and rage is the burst one. If you want to actually kill a healer (good luck against one who isn't brain dead) go rage. Wait until he's around 70% health and open up, good crits can kill him along with a force choke and an interrupt. Soloing a good healer is a non-starter for almost any class.

What qwop said pretty much.

If you really plan on doing that sort of thing on a regular basis though, I would recommend actually playing tank for a couple weeks before you think about stance dancing (I dislike "skank tank" haha). Most true tanks I see have issues with things like guard swapping, so I can't imagine a dps that just decides to do it once in a while doing it anywhere near what would make it viable.

I'm pretty sure vengeance is far superior to rage for this stance dancing, because rage requires shii-cho to get stacks for raging burst.

As always, I'll suggest that if you are a dps focus first on that, then when you are comfortable branch out to the support area. Learning too much at once will overwhelm most.

I feel like tanking now...

Guardian tanks are a mixed bag, true. Their damage is overall very weak. Shadow tanks can get a huge autocrit on their cascading debris, and VG tanks have massive cleave damage. Skank tanking is more viable as a guardian because it sacrifices a relatively low amount of survivability for much higher damage. Your assloads of DCDs can make you a tank for the length of a normal arena round.

Not sure if this is directed at me, but this is a little confusing.

"Skank tank" refers to a dps that goes into soresu and guards people, etc. So you gain survivability and guard for a loss of dps.

It's more viable on guardians because the swapping is instant, and we actively use abilities to get our focus back. Vengeance is best because no abilities are tied to the stance.

Not sure if this is directed at me, but this is a little confusing.

 

"Skank tank" refers to a dps that goes into soresu and guards people, etc. So you gain survivability and guard for a loss of dps.

 

It's more viable on guardians because the swapping is instant, and we actively use abilities to get our focus back. Vengeance is best because no abilities are tied to the stance.

I worded that poorly. I was referring to skank tanking as a substitute to normal tanking for yolo-queue.

OK thanks for the input, I might dabble with a jugg tank later right now I am am focused on a rage jugg. It's quite a bit of fun so far, I am sure when I hit 30 the fun will end pretty fast.

What about the tanking juggs that have dps pvp gears, I have seen people complain about that, is it really an issue, or just over-exaggeration on the players part? Is there any benefit to a tanking jugg using dps gears and not the tanking gear set?

OK thanks for the input, I might dabble with a jugg tank later right now I am am focused on a rage jugg. It's quite a bit of fun so far, I am sure when I hit 30 the fun will end pretty fast.

 

What about the tanking juggs that have dps pvp gears, I have seen people complain about that, is it really an issue, or just over-exaggeration on the players part? Is there any benefit to a tanking jugg using dps gears and not the tanking gear set?

There's a ton of burst and in terms of short term survivability it's very good but in terms of actual tankiness it sucks.

OK thanks for the input, I might dabble with a jugg tank later right now I am am focused on a rage jugg. It's quite a bit of fun so far, I am sure when I hit 30 the fun will end pretty fast.

 

What about the tanking juggs that have dps pvp gears, I have seen people complain about that, is it really an issue, or just over-exaggeration on the players part? Is there any benefit to a tanking jugg using dps gears and not the tanking gear set?

Over-exaggeration as none of those people have played a dps tank (Defense Jedi Guardian or Immortal Sith Juggernaut with dps gear) and ignore any post that says they are useless or not good. I'm currently playing a dps tank and he does very well in both PvE as well as PvP. I'm level 60 in Exhumed gear and my highest attack is 8k to 9k in damage when PvPing. I can also last a little longer than most Guardian/Juggernaut specs.

PvE wise, they can main tank almost any quest/mission, including operations.

There's a ton of burst and in terms of short term survivability it's very good but in terms of actual tankiness it sucks.

And this is what I am talking about when I say a lot of people have not tried the build. I have tanked everything, including hard mode. There is little difference between a full tank geared Defense Jedi Guardian and dps geared once in terms of PvE. In fact, when doing Revan related missions and Operations, no one noticed I was in dps gear until like halfway or near the end of the mission/operation.

I know someone who is tank spec who geared with 4pieces of tank gear to get the gear bonus, then 3 pieces of dps gear... The rest is a mix of gear between tank and dps... He's been using this in ranked quite successfully.

So I decided to regear my Lvl 57 tank Gaurdian to a mix of tank gear and dps... I am now in the top 2-3 every match in dps and my protection is nearly always equal with my dps... I am extremely hard to kill... The stats from the tank stance are so much better than the dps one, there is not point in me stance dancing

I do find it sad when I can top the DPS in a match and in some cases double the rest of the dps... But I put this down to better survivability as it usually takes 4 focusing me to put me down... But give me a healer and I am unstoppable... I did 1 mil DPS yesterday with 800k protection... Zero deaths to me or the healer... The other team wasn't bad either... Every DPS on their team did over 600k damage, with 2 doing over a Mil and their healer did 1.3mil healing

When I get to 60 I will test my bolstered pve gear before deciding which way to gear... But if it is similar at that lvl, I will do a build similar to my friend

Over-exaggeration as none of those people have played a dps tank (Defense Jedi Guardian or Immortal Sith Juggernaut with dps gear) and ignore any post that says they are useless or not good. I'm currently playing a dps tank and he does very well in both PvE as well as PvP. I'm level 60 in Exhumed gear and my highest attack is 8k to 9k in damage when PvPing. I can also last a little longer than most Guardian/Juggernaut specs.

 

.

How do you gear exactly for PVP?

How do you gear exactly for PVP?

Exhumed gear and I take out the armoring/mods/enhancements that increase my critical hit and surge rating. I have all war leader fear that increases skill activation and warding call duration. My critical is 26% and surge is around 76% to 78%. I still have more augments to put on as well as mods/enhancements to change out. I am trying to get 30% critical hit chance and possibly a 78% to 80% surge rating. My expertise rating 60% damage, 40% to 50% damage reduction, and 26% healing.

Prior to PvP, when doing PVE quest and missions, I would gear up using Mighty armoring then later Guardian armoring. I would invest in gear that increase power, critical hit chance, and surge. I heavily use defense skills like saber ward when tanking.

Exhumed gear and I take out the armoring/mods/enhancements that increase my critical hit and surge rating. I have all war leader fear that increases skill activation and warding call duration. My critical is 26% and surge is around 76% to 78%. I still have more augments to put on as well as mods/enhancements to change out. I am trying to get 30% critical hit chance and possibly a 78% to 80% surge rating. My expertise rating 60% damage, 40% to 50% damage reduction, and 26% healing.

 

Prior to PvP, when doing PVE quest and missions, I would gear up using Mighty armoring then later Guardian armoring. I would invest in gear that increase power, critical hit chance, and surge. I heavily use defense skills like saber ward when tanking.

What about the depreciating points in Surge when you hit 70%... The curve starts to flatline around 72%... Wouldn't it be better to add some alacrity and not remove too much defence/absorption/shield in place of Surge over 70%... Also Crit at 30% means you have much less power... Isn't 25-26% enough... The extra power would allow for bigger hits

I'm currently using 26% Crit and 69.8% Surge... My defence chance is 11%, shield is 31% and absorbtion is 27%... I've stacked a mix of Fortitude and Overkill Augments

What about the depreciating points in Surge when you hit 70%... The curve starts to flatline around 72%... Wouldn't it be better to add some alacrity and not remove too much defence/absorption/shield in place of Surge over 70%... Also Crit at 30% means you have much less power... Isn't 25-26% enough... The extra power would allow for bigger hits

I'm currently using 26% Crit and 69.8% Surge... My defence chance is 11%, shield is 31% and absorbtion is 27%... I've stacked a mix of Fortitude and Overkill Augments

1) How much do you when you critical hit in terms of damage? Your highest hit. My highest is 8k to 9k with no power.

2) Also I started off as a pure pvp defense tank guardian and it didn't do much for my character as he didn't live any longer than my current version.

3) Going by your suggestion I would be better off going full shield/absorption ALONG with critical/Surge than full Defence along critical/surge. (or a blend of both) The reason being is because I have more moves that increase absorption and shield as a Defense Spec than defence attribute. I would be better off reducing damage than avoiding it since Accuracy counters the defence attribute.

Exhumed gear and I take out the armoring/mods/enhancements that increase my critical hit and surge rating. I have all war leader fear that increases skill activation and warding call duration. My critical is 26% and surge is around 76% to 78%. I still have more augments to put on as well as mods/enhancements to change out. I am trying to get 30% critical hit chance and possibly a 78% to 80% surge rating. My expertise rating 60% damage, 40% to 50% damage reduction, and 26% healing.

 

Prior to PvP, when doing PVE quest and missions, I would gear up using Mighty armoring then later Guardian armoring. I would invest in gear that increase power, critical hit chance, and surge. I heavily use defense skills like saber ward when tanking.

I never raid pve stuffs, just curious do you think a tank jugg with dps gears solely from the pvp set would be as successful as what you do? Also, if you remove certain mods with crit/surge, does this mean you are not getting any set bonuses at all from the pvp gears/exhumed?

Lhance, out of curiousity, what role do you want to play your jugg/guardian?

I see a bunch of stuff about a dps tank, which may not be the worst idea, but you also mentioned that you wanted to actually kill healers, which makes me think that tanking is kind of a secondary thought to you.

Quite frankly dps geared tanks only really work if they are being carried by a healer or no one decides to attack you - which can happen because a lot of people don't show health text on health bars. That said, your overall damage / burst is not going to be what another dps at your same skill level will achieve.

If you want to play a support role in addition to damage, this class can do so in dps spec with friendly leaps, slows, stance changes w/ guard.

All in all, feel free to try what you want, but red lights should go off if someone is telling you that 30% crit is good, and are aiming for 78% surge >_<"

I never raid pve stuffs, just curious do you think a tank jugg with dps gears solely from the pvp set would be as successful as what you do? Also, if you remove certain mods with crit/surge, does this mean you are not getting any set bonuses at all from the pvp gears/exhumed?

1) Would I be successful in operations in PvP gear? No matter what gear you are wearing, PvP or PvE, you will get the same amount of armor protection. The only difference is the amount of attributes such as Strength, Endurance, etc. So you'll perform more or less the same. So long as you are main tank in any group, be it flashpoint, operation, etc. you will perform like any other tank. If they are multiple tanks and you grab aggro, your survivability drops. Best thing about being geared in dps is if you really need to change your character's spec to Vigilance/Vengeance or Focus/Rage, it isn't a problem because they use the same gear as you do.

2) It's painfully evident. I died really fast when fighting without expertise/pvp gear. However, I had to start somewhere. When you get all of your gear and face someone who doesn't, again, it becomes evident based on how fast they die, which is in 2 to 3 seconds.

The thing about a dps geared tank is that they have a lot of AOE damage as my character can do 5k-ish to 6k-ish damage using force sweep, 1k-ish to 3k-ish using Cyclone slash ability, and 8k-ish to 9k-ish when during Guardian Slash. The minimum damage is 14k-ish-15k-ish while your maximum damage is 19k-ish to 20k-ish. Again that's just AOES and in one session. Also my Master Strike did up to 9k-ish on minimum damage, but it is capable of doing up to 12k-ish to 13k-ish by itself.

Quite frankly dps geared tanks only really work if they are being carried by a healer or no one decides to attack you - which can happen because a lot of people don't show health text on health bars. That said, your overall damage / burst is not going to be what another dps at your same skill level will achieve.

This is true of ANY GUARDIAN/JUGGERNAUT. I have never seen a guardian/juggernaut with full health in the middle of battle. I have played as full defensive pvp geared tank before going dps geared tank. There is LITTLE difference in gameplay except that a defensive pvp geared tank damage out put is weaker than most and you mitigated damage slightly better than a dps geared tank. (or any other spec guardian/juggernaut.)

In fact, when it is evident you are a pure pvp geared tank people tend to ignore you for more squishy players. From your perceptive, you come to realize you do very little damage and you are not as invincible as people make this class out to be. An example being I ended getting focus fire in a 4 vs 4 match and died very quickly as I did with my dps tank. Despite using my defense skills, my shield/absorption attributes could only mitigate so much damage and you have no real defense against constant CCs. (One or two anti-CCs) Repeated slows and immobilization can limit where and how you move prevent you from saving your friends.

Finally no matter how you are geared, you will always be weak against stealth characters, especially in pairs.

If you want to play a support role in addition to damage, this class can do so in dps spec with friendly leaps, slows, stance changes w/ guard.

The only support skills are the force slow/haste and challenging call/protection wards utility skills. There is a guardian leap ability that reduces more damage, but you'll rarely use that unless you stick by your healers side in a cluster **** and it's hard to pay attention to your enemies, the health meter, and the map all at the same time.

All in all, feel free to try what you want, but red lights should go off if someone is telling you that 30% crit is good, and are aiming for 78% surge >_<"

Something is wrong when people bad mouth something they have never tried, which is painfully evident with your statement or think non-dps geared tank juggernaut don't need healers. People love to bad mouth stuff they have never seen or tried. Hell, I have post a video of a dps tank not long ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLtLk3zjQrA

Ad, I really hate having to go point by point with you.

If you are guarding people and likely taking aoe damage, a tank in proper gear will last a helluva a lot longer, and thus not have to rely on their healer nearly as much. Maybe you don't heal, but a tank jugg in dps gear is a lot harder to keep up, and at most points you are spending more time on the "tank" instead of the other dude that's being guarded.

As far as support goes, dps juggs have the same tools as tank juggs, though it may require some stance dancing at crucial times, but it does work if you are paying attention. It does take a little work to get used to paying attention to everything, but it'll come in time (keybinding makes it 1000x easier).

I have messed around with that a little, and it doesn't work well as I imagine you think your experience tells you. I can tell you that on my many toons I have messed around with crit and surge, along with the well know fact the diminishing returns kicks in hard at points well before 30% and 78%, making it a terrible idea to stack that much.

And that video... Oh that video... FIrst off, it's a midbie game which automatically disqualifies it from meaning anything positive. Secondly, his damage was crap for being level 58 in a midbie. Thirdly, his protection was godawful, but the damage on the other team was likely terrible because, well, midbies.

That sniper and healer clearly carried that game.

Ad, I really hate having to go point by point with you.

 

If you are guarding people and likely taking aoe damage, a tank in proper gear will last a helluva a lot longer, and thus not have to rely on their healer nearly as much. Maybe you don't heal, but a tank jugg in dps gear is a lot harder to keep up, and at most points you are spending more time on the "tank" instead of the other dude that's being guarded.

 

As far as support goes, dps juggs have the same tools as tank juggs, though it may require some stance dancing at crucial times, but it does work if you are paying attention. It does take a little work to get used to paying attention to everything, but it'll come in time (keybinding makes it 1000x easier).

 

I have messed around with that a little, and it doesn't work well as I imagine you think your experience tells you. I can tell you that on my many toons I have messed around with crit and surge, along with the well know fact the diminishing returns kicks in hard at points well before 30% and 78%, making it a terrible idea to stack that much.

 

And that video... Oh that video... FIrst off, it's a midbie game which automatically disqualifies it from meaning anything positive. Secondly, his damage was crap for being level 58 in a midbie. Thirdly, his protection was godawful, but the damage on the other team was likely terrible because, well, midbies.

 

That sniper and healer clearly carried that game.

1) I hate repeated myself. I started off as a pure PvP geared tank. You live slightly longer, but do crap damage. Most smart team will CC you why trashing the healer. Your only saving race is anti-CC skills and diminish returns. So long as that team knows how to route between immobilization and CCs that cause the bar to fill minimally, they can shut you down easy.

So what you'll have is a turtle who will live a long time, can't really move, and can't do damage. Again, this is what I started out as and I learned to do the same to other tanks later on.

2) healers have no problem healing anyone even dps geared tanks. DPS geared tanks have same tactics as pure defensive gear tanks and some of the same utilities. The only difference is longevity and damage. Pure defensive tank live long, but this only works on a personal level. If the group, especially in a cluster ****, is AOE'ed the pure tank cannot do anything about short of using challenging call utility. (The utility a dps geared tank can use.) both have same weakness and some same strategies, which is anyone the enemy. Except I can my opponent a lot faster than a regular tank. YES you will out last me, but it means dick when you are the man standing.

4) See score at the end of game which proves again you know jack ****! Also you are doing max damage at near end game. Finally diminish returns is effectiveness of attack, heal, or CC. If stack one of a kind you get don't get much out of it. If stack two or more you get more of it. I noted earlier that the minimum is 25% and max 30% with critical hit and 75% to 80% with surge. Once I switch out my mods/enhancement (putting me at 30% critical hit rating/80% surge rating), I will focus back on power.

5) 800k damage and 100k protection as well as 40ish kills during a even turret battle game with everyone in Exhumed gear. (Aka a perfect world scenario) While chasing down the healer, I end up either heavily damage her teammates or outright kill then with my AOEs. And you had tank trying to peel me off and attacking my healer, but it did little good because both the tank and healer were damaged in the process. (While slowing them) With the healer being kept busy, no one else was being healed and they began to drop.

6) BTW, sir, healer carry every team. A healers job is to make sure everyone stays alive. A healer who isn't focus on healing is a bad healer period. You act like a healer is a woman and it is something to be ashamed of. So saying a healer carried a team is no insult to the team he carried. If I am doing my job as a dps geared tank and the healer is doing his job and we win the game, *** is the problem?

7) Finally, I'll let you lie and pretend you know what's going outside of inc call and field of vision while fighting. I am not going to argue with kid a who pretends to have superpowers and trying to be counter active, but to each his own. We can all multi-task, but we have a human level performance and attention span.

Adproduction is the guy who wrote this travesty of a thread:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=778297

Removing the GCD... huehuehue.

1) I hate repeated myself. I started off as a pure PvP geared tank. You live slightly longer, but do crap damage. Most smart team will CC you why trashing the healer. Your only saving race is anti-CC skills and diminish returns. So long as that team knows how to route between immobilization and CCs that cause the bar to fill minimally, they can shut you down easy.

 

So what you'll have is a turtle who will live a long time, can't really move, and can't do damage. Again this is what I started out as. I learned to do the same to other tanks later on.

 

2) healers have no problem healing anyone even dps geared tanks. DPS geared tanks have same tactics as pure defensive gear tanks and some of the same utilities. The only difference is longevity and damage. Pure defensive tank live long, but this only works on a personal level. If the group, especially in a cluster ****, is AOE'ed the pure tank cannot do anything about short of using challenging call utility. (The utility a dps geared tank can use.) both have same weakness and some same strategies, which is anyone the enemy. Except I can my opponent a lot faster than a regular tank. YES you will out last me, but it means dick when you are the man standing.

 

4) See score at the end of game which proves again you know jack ****! Also you are doing max damage at near end game. Finally diminish returns is effectiveness of attack, heal, or CC. If stack one of a kind you get don't get much out of it. If stack two or more you get more of it. I noted earlier that the minimum is 25% and max 30% with critical hit and 75% to 80% with surge. Once I switch out my mods/enhancement (putting me at 30% critical hit rating/80% surge rating), I will focus back on power.

 

5) 800k damage and 100k protection as well as 40ish kills during a even turret battle game with everyone in Exhumed gear. (Aka a perfect world scenario) While chasing down the healer, I end up either heavily damage her teammates or outright kill then with my AOEs. And you had tank trying to peel me off and attacking my healer, but it did little good because both the tank and healer were damaged in the process. (While slowing them) With the healer being kept busy, no one else was being healed and they began to drop.

I can barely understand what you are trying to say...

1. The point of a tank is to live a long time.

2. Healers should not have to worry about the tanks health constantly because they have 10k less health and take way more damage. Clearly you have never healed.

3. Bruh. It goes 1 2 3 4 5.

4. I saw they score at the end of that midbie game in which the uber tank dps which was way higher level than everyone else (bolster favors high levels atm), did a third (not sure if you will understand this fraction) of the sniper's damage. As a tank he also did less protection than the other jugg who was in rage, while managing to keep his guard on single person the entire game - which also prevents that target from being guarded by another tank.

I have 0 idea what you are trying to say here, and you can't say you are gonna stack an ungodly amount of crit then say after you will focus on power. Bro, it's either one or the other.

5. Comes after 4, good job. Apparently you either linked the wrong video or i dunno. But getting 800k with 100k prot in a perfect game really isn't anything to ride home about...

Anyways, it's really up to the OP to figure out which way s/he wants to go.

If you want to see a real Jugg in action

Lhance, out of curiousity, what role do you want to play your jugg/guardian?

 

I see a bunch of stuff about a dps tank, which may not be the worst idea, but you also mentioned that you wanted to actually kill healers, which makes me think that tanking is kind of a secondary thought to you.

 

Quite frankly dps geared tanks only really work if they are being carried by a healer or no one decides to attack you - which can happen because a lot of people don't show health text on health bars. That said, your overall damage / burst is not going to be what another dps at your same skill level will achieve.

 

If you want to play a support role in addition to damage, this class can do so in dps spec with friendly leaps, slows, stance changes w/ guard.

 

All in all, feel free to try what you want, but red lights should go off if someone is telling you that 30% crit is good, and are aiming for 78% surge >_<"

Well, I just wanted information on it and to hear jugg/guardians opinions on it that are familiar with this aspect of the class. I got a 40 jugg that is rage pure dps atm. It's fun. I probably won't change from this. But, if I make a tank jugg later (I know I could change specs on the same toon - I just don't do that I like to keep one toon one spec) then I will understand how people do jugg tanks. Whether they are tanks using dps gears, or full on jugg tanks I was just curious how it all works right now.

Adproduction is the guy who wrote this travesty of a thread:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=778297

 

Removing the GCD... huehuehue.

OMG O_O

I'm done arguing with this guy.

OMG O_O

 

I'm done arguing with this guy.

So promise not to post anymore misinformation. That's fine.

If you want to see a real Jugg in action Clicky. Peels were not needed in this game, but if you check out this past broadcast of my stream, I actually peeled a bit for the healer. I could have done it better but #YOLO

Non-exhumed geared opponent, I can tell by the critical hit damage which I do too but higher.

5. Comes after 4, good job. Apparently you either linked the wrong video or i dunno. But getting 800k with 100k prot in a perfect game really isn't anything to ride home about...

I wasn't me, but a non guardian/juggernaut class. And hitting a million is something a guardian/juggernaut does not do unless in a non-perfect world scenario.

So promise not to post anymore misinformation. That's fine.

 

 

 

Non-exhumed geared opponent, I can tell by the critical hit damage which I do too but higher.

M8 when PTS comes up you can come duel me.