A little background: I have each class of tank and have run Ops with all of them. I've been around since long before launch (beta). I thought I knew this answer with 100% certainty until recently. I started having some doubt.

 

My question is about Guard. I have always put it on DPS, the one that I thought would be the most likely to pull aggro off of my tank. I have never put it on a healer because I was always told that heals aren't affected by the aggro reduction of Guard. The only benefit a healer would get is the damage reduction, where DPS would generate less threat from attacks and get the damage reduction.

 

So am I wrong, or are most of the tanks I end up with nowadays wrong?

 

Thanks.

There is no 100% answer to this.

In general, in regards to threat, healers don't need guard, that's true. But they are affected by the threat reduction as well as everyone else. The reason most people say they don't need it is, that healing produces very low amounts of threat(~0.45 threat per healpoint, so a 1k heal would produce 450 threat) whereas for dps threat equals their damage done, if they don't have a guard or use aggro dump abilitys.

 

And here's the big BUT: In an optimal setting, where both dps deal the same amount of damage, it doesn't matter who you guard. Because if you guard one dps, then the other will rip aggro, since you only have one guard for two dps(or 2 guards for 4 dps in 8m raids or in the extreme, 2 guards for 10 dps in a 16m raid). What this means is that you should be able to hold threat without a guard on anyone(learn how to use taunt rotations effectively) and put guard where it is used best for damage reduction. So on a squishy healer or dps, rather than the one who pulls the biggest numbers.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Torvai

The reason I asked is that when I play a dps, or even healer, I see a lot of newer tanks putting guard on the healer. If I'm healing, and get guarded, I'll usually ask the tank to put it on a dps and usually suggest the one with the least amount of defensive abilities, or one that I know should be putting out higher damage than the other.

 

For instance: I'll guard an annihilation marauder over a vengeance jugg because the marauder "should" be pulling a higher threat based on damage and they have less defensive abilities than a jugg. But I've seen other tanks still put guard on healers in cases like this.

 

I've tested guard with the Black Talon bonus Droid, where he knocks the tank back and shoots his beam at the next highest threat. I've done it many times and it's never targeted the healer. It's always attacked the dps that is not guarded.

I'm not the best tank and I don't tank that often since my shadow is a DPS first, but think of this. If your raid eat a cleave, the amount of damage will be far more important that the 5% damage reduction the heal takes. And as a DPS, I now I get rip aggro a lot of time in the opener (Infi opener is quite brutal with 2 14-16k back to back Force Breach) so guarding a DPS is a wise idea.

I've tanked all the ops on all 3 tank types. The answers above are correct - guard is a situational issue. A great example I like to use is the Bulo fight - I tend to guard healers on there, not because of agro issues, but because adds tend to come out and focus them. If I can buy a couple extra seconds where the healers are taking less damage from the adds while I'm headed over to agro them, it makes the healers complain less and makes the encounter go more smoothly.

 

Guard to me is situational. Normally I don't guard unless the encounter calls for it, or the mechanics demand it. When the Juggy AOE taunt did not work in Underlurker HM I would guard. I don't guard on most of the DF/DP encounters. YMMV.

Personally, I usually try to judge which DPS would have their ego injured the most by not getting the guard, and go from there. :-P

 

But seriously, it is situational. I default to putting it on the DPS with the most opening burst, since the first 1.8 seconds of a pull are the most tenuous (since they all come pre-taunt). On some fights though, there are times where a DPS will have more sustained uptime on a target than I will – usually because I'm tanking multiple targets for a long period of time. In those cases, I have to think about who does the most sustain and if I'll be able to use a taunt to correct the situation (in which case I might just allow them to pull for a split second and grab it back, leveraging their threat generation and leaving them unguarded).

 

Another thing you have to think about is range. DPS who are within melee range of a target will do more threat than those standing at range, and this isn't always decided by "melee" vs "ranged" role. Ranged DPS on Stormcaller, for example, will stand within the melee hitbox and are thus subject to the lower threat threshold.

 

One final thing to think about is burst timing for bosses where you can't taunt fluff as aggressively. Firebrand and Stormcaller are one good example, and Thrasher is another (though Thrasher's DPS check is a bad joke now, so it's not like you can't just ask them to slow down if you feel lazy). Both bosses cannot be triple taunted in the opener, so what you need to think about is where in terms of each DPS's rotation you will have taunts and where you will not, and how that lines up with the ebb and flow of their burst. The most frequent culprit here is Virulence Snipers, who have very delayed (but very high) opening burst that doesn't line up well with the other classes. Sometimes you have to worry more about them than the earlier bursters, just because of timing.

 

Guarding a healer is not necessarily the wrong choice either. Sometimes it just makes wonky threat mechanics a bit easier, like on NiM TfB phase 2 (where your natural threat is 75% debuffed but their healing is not), or HM Bulo (to help with initial adds agro spike), or NiM Kephess (AoE threat affects the walker's single target attacks, though it isn't the deciding factor). Sometimes you just want the extra damage reduction and you're confident that you have threat well in hand (e.g. NiM Tyrans, NiM Draxus, NiM Dread Guard, NiM Cartel Warlords).

 

In general, deciding where to put your guard (and when to swap it, as is sometimes required) is one of the finer points of tanking. As with all "fine points of tanking" in this game, the impact is relatively small (it's not going to convert a wipe into a kill), but it does help.

Have been healing since 1.x and the healer is never is direct competition with the tanks agro (well, the little dps we toss out isn't much threat. At that, we have our own defensive cooldowns to help with survival with the most important one being our agro dump. Timing this for when adds spawn is helpful.

 

If a group is not grabing adds before they inundate the healer the guard may bode well but other than that the guard on a healer is of little purpose. Even then, the healer can place themselves/move to make it easier for the tank to grab the adds.

 

More experienced healers probably use their agro drops regularly. However, in pug groups I rarely see healers cleans and those same healers probably do not use their agro dump.

Appreciate the replies.

 

Looks like I'll continue on the way I've always been doing it.

I play all three roles regularly. My 2c is:

 

As a tank, the teammate I guard is invariably in flux. Quickly looking at the group when I get into an instance, I decide who will possibly grab agro and/or who is the squishiest and I guard them. However, I have enough situational awareness to appreciate if/when that choice needs to be reexamined.

 

As a healer, I NEVER ask for guard at the start, but I also NEVER suggest to the tank whom to guard at first either. If I notice that a DPS is pulling agro a lot, I will advise the tank to switch the guard, but I will not demand it.

 

As a DPS, looking at the group make up I might ask for guard right away (especially if I am the highest level character in the group), but I do not go nuts if I do not get it. If I am consistently pulling agro, I will ask for guard, but again won't go nuts if I do not get it; being in that situation just means I have to slow my DPS (cannot DPS if your dead).

 

I think my overall point is that (as with so many other aspects of grouping) communication is key. And I am talking about calm and rational communication along the lines of, "I'm sorry but I am pulling agro a lot, could I get your guard please," not "OM*G you F***ING LOSER S*** A** TANK! GUARD ME NAU!!!"

When reading the topic, I remembered the old time I was learning about SWTOR, MMO and tanking at the same time. I was told to put the guard on healer in flashpoints because I was unable to maintain aggro on the large mobs packs. And my DPS mates were unable to quick-kill the weak mobs... Adapt the strategy to the situation, including the players gameplay. Edited January 15, 2016 by nalkel

As many others have said, this is a tremendously situational issue. I too, have (at least) one of each tank class at max level. (My main is undoubtedly my guardian). When I'm doing FPs or pug ops, I tend to initially guard the highest geared melee dps. When we start fighting I monitor who is pulling aggro and swap guard accordingly. In guild ops situations, it's different since I generally know who will be giving me troubles and can guard them from the beginning.

Heals generate agro, although it's much less than DPS. That agro is increased if the target they are healing is being targeted. With multi target healing and hots, healers can generate a large amount of non-target specific threat. This means when an ad appears, if it's not hit or taunted by anyone else, there is a good chance it will go for a healer.

 

For instance, on my healer, I don't agro drop if I want to bring ads to a boss, like on titan 6 in snv. You'll also notice on KP, if you ever let a hunter killer bot spawn, they will run to the back of your group then hunt and kill your healer if they can

 

This means for all the trash in between and for most FPs, guarding a healer is not a bad idea at all. This is also why players that have tanked their way up in FPs might default to guarding a healer when they start Ops for the first time.

 

It's usually a pretty bad idea on the boss fight itself though. You've usually got a tank or DPS waiting for the ads and it's much more crucial to manage the big damage coming from the boss.

Edited July 18, 2016 by KevMeup

Heals generate agro, although it's much less than DPS. That agro is increased if the target they are healing is being targeted. With multi target healing and hots, healers can generate a large amount of non-target specific threat. This means when an ad appears, if it's not hit or taunted by anyone else, there is a good chance it will go for a healer.

 

For instance, on my healer, I don't agro drop if I want to bring ads to a boss, like on titan 6 in snv. You'll also notice on KP, if you ever let a hunter killer bot spawn, they will run to the back of your group then hunt and kill your healer if they can

 

This means for all the trash in between and for most FPs, guarding a healer is not a bad idea at all. This is also why players that have tanked their way up in FPs might default to guarding a healer when they start Ops for the first time.

 

It's usually a pretty bad idea on the boss fight itself though. You've usually got a tank or DPS waiting for the ads and it's much more crucial to manage the big damage coming from the boss.

 

KEV! ur playing again? we got to hook up for sum double op pvp goodness.

 

the only reason to put guard on a healer is that some healers are ignorant crybabies that will threaten to quit the group if they don't get it. any time i join a pug flashpoint, i automatically put the guard on the healer unless they ask me not to, because it is just not worth the hassle. with the way aggro works, putting guard on the healer does not help in any way, but there are just too many of them that don't understand that, and i have given up arguing the point. putting it on the dps would be the correct move, but honestly, i don't ever have a problem with aggro, that a high threat opener and proper use of taunts can't overcome. on the rare occasion i see a dps pull from me, i will switch my guard to that dps during the fight and leave it there to see if the healer complains. sometimes they do and others not.

KEV! ur playing again? we got to hook up for sum double op pvp goodness.

 

the only reason to put guard on a healer is that some healers are ignorant crybabies that will threaten to quit the group if they don't get it. any time i join a pug flashpoint, i automatically put the guard on the healer unless they ask me not to, because it is just not worth the hassle. with the way aggro works, putting guard on the healer does not help in any way, but there are just too many of them that don't understand that, and i have given up arguing the point. putting it on the dps would be the correct move, but honestly, i don't ever have a problem with aggro, that a high threat opener and proper use of taunts can't overcome. on the rare occasion i see a dps pull from me, i will switch my guard to that dps during the fight and leave it there to see if the healer complains. sometimes they do and others not.

 

Haha, yeah I'm back for at least a bit, would love some good pvp.

 

Yeah, even in FPs and trash, if you spend the extra effort to actually tank the adds its rare they'll go after the heals. Many tanks don't know it's possible to hold ads.

 

As a basic rule, for trash, hit everything you can as often as possible, then taunt only if you notice something pealing off you. Just one love tap from a flame sweep or wither will keep most ads from ever targeting a healer.