Ok, finally my first vent/rage/qq post!

 

I must not know how to play tank or the game is designed in such a way I am not following it correctly. Okay, well to start I mainly play tank character because I love being in the frontlines of the fight. However, I noticed I cannot defeat an equally geared DPS at any given moment.

 

Example: All my tanks are in tank gear so I can last long and give guards and throw taunts and take all the hits etc. With a healer, I am pretty good in surviving, without one I have somewhat of a chance of surviving. What baffles me is when it comes down to 1v1 at those critical moments.

 

I always start the warzone gaurding nodes, pylons etc. and almost always, when I call incoming no one comes to my aid or they show up too late. In which case, I am forced to fight the incoming attack. It seems my weak damage makes sense since I am a tank I should not be strong as well okay got that. But the DPS attackers are strong enough to burn me down so fast I need to pop defensive cooldowns and eventually fall.

 

I inspected them, they have same gear as me so I assumed that this would mean the damage would balance out and he would hit me moderately, but that's not the case. I play all 3 tanks and was wondering if any pure tank pvp professionals out there can give me some tips on how to survive DPS 1v1 guarding a node or are we just not supposed to engage in a fight?

 

And if that is so, then is it true what they say, the better zone guarders are stealth DPS aka Concealment and Hatred?

Edited July 15, 2015 by PrincessNuri

You are a support class and not a DPS. You obviously knows this, but you role is not really to kill anyone nor should anyone expect you to. Taunts, guards, CC, peel and be annoying as F*** is you goal. Keep your healer alive first and foremost. Then yourself. Then anyone else who needs a guard swab.

 

At least that is my take on tanking.

 

As for node guarding, well, you shouldn't really but I know it can be needed when no one else is willing. When you get attacked as a node guard, try to run in circles and avoid them. Delay for as long as possible.

can you kill bad players? sometimes pops out a good sin or op and that's trouble, but most of the times who pops is a below average player who cannot really manage mid brawl or an inexperienced one who came from midbies and is used to facerolling guards. how do you do in those cases? or you just seem to loose every time?

Actually, Lundorff said it correctly. I am not meant to guard nodes, just stay with the pack and spam the taunt/guard combo. Assassin tanks are not made for guard noding. Or all tanks as it seems. We just leave that to the best which are Concealment Operatives. Edited July 15, 2015 by PrincessNuri

Well, if you are an assassin node guard, I would try to stall as much as possible rather than win a fight and wait for your (slow) teammates to eventually show up. Set phase walk, mezz the target twice, engage, disengage with phase walk, engage again, disengage with combat stealth, double mezz again. You can stall for a very long time.

 

It's possible that you call 1 inc and your teammates think "eh, an assassin should be able to handle just the one."

 

In general, I would rather see tanks and heals in the thick of the action rather than guarding a node. I know how it is, though - most people don't want to node guard, to the extent where if you don't do it, it gets left unguarded.

First thing to figure out, what is your expertise rating in warzones? Are you wearing PvE gear, or PvP gear, or a mix?

I disagree that assassin/shadow tanks are not meant to guard nodes. It may or may not be the most effective use of one depending on your team makup, but shadow tanks (which is my main) are actually good as node guards. As teclado said, we have a TON of options for delaying a cap, even with multiple enemies popping out of stealth.

 

And in my opinion the job of the node guard is to delay, even in a 1 v 1 situation. No matter what class you have, you just never know if that one person that is headed your way is better than you and is about to kick your butt. I may win 99 out of 100 duels, but the guy I'm fighting might have won 100 out of 100. If you call Inc and no one on your team comes to help and you lose the node after a fight, that's on your team, not you. In my opinion, of course.

 

Also, the original poster typed something about having to use defensive CDs. It's my understanding and experience that that is how it's supposed to be for assassin tanks. We don't have much for passive mitigation. It's all active stuff from our DCs.

Maybe you just have weird gear, maybe bad utilities, maybe u have bad luck with your teammates, maybe full tank is just not for you... And 1vs1, IMO you should kite them around and scream in the chat.

 

Actually, Lundorff said it correctly. I am not meant to guard nodes, just stay with the pack and spam the taunt/guard combo. Assassin tanks are not made for guard noding. Or all tanks as it seems. We just leave that to the best which are Concealment Operatives.

 

IMO PT tanks is the best node guardian (sadly, not in novare coast), yeah sin tanks are very good too but if see a pt tank with 4 rockets you need to think twice to even try it as stealther. Jugg tank... well yeah not so much.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Glower

IMO PT tanks is the best node guardian (sadly, not in novare coast)

If you stand on top of the node with shoulder cannon, they can't LoS you. So, PT is still good for that. I'm assuming that you are referring to the LoS issue making it such that you can't hit the target with shoulder cannon while sapped.

A tank can guard for sure, but their abilities are clearly intended for support (taunt and guard).

A tank can guard for sure, but their abilities are clearly intended for support (taunt and guard).

 

True. On the other hand, I don't think anyone's abilities are intended for guarding. (Just about?) every class could potentially be better utilizing their abilities elsewhere, which is part of the reason no one likes to guard probably.

 

I must not know how to play tank or the game is designed in such a way I am not following it correctly. Okay, well to start I mainly play tank character because I love being in the frontlines of the fight. However, I noticed I cannot defeat an equally geared DPS at any given moment.

 

To elaborate on the "tank roll" in PvP though... this is all "in my humble opinion" of course. If anyone disagrees I'd love to read it because that can only make me better.

 

But a tank's roll is not to have awesome survivability, such that they can slowly wear down a DPS. I think it's the "support" role, like Lundorff typed above. Our role is to help everyone else survive so THEY can kill off the DPS. A tank, IMO, has a trinity of primary things they can do. Taunt. Guard. Cc. Two of those three do not help the tank at all.

 

You taunt to reduce the DSP of an enemy, but that doesn't do squat if they attack you. It only helps if they attack somone else. You won't survive a wit longer by using your taunt on the enemy(ies) that are attacking you.

 

You guard to spead out the DPS of an enemy between you and another team mate. Thus giving your healer some relief from the pressure of healing through "burst" or even just to give your own burst time to take down an enemy while at the same time leaving BOTH of you alive, albeit with 1/2 health each. But, again, you can't guard yourself, so this does nothing to help you survive any longer.

 

The final thing, Cc, of course can help you survive longer, and kill things. I use it to try to survive longer if I'm solo guarding a node under attack and waiting for help to arrive. But otherwise, I still use it to try to help someone else survive, or help someone else kill something, or help stop a person trying to interrupt a cap. Personally, in theory at least (don't always practice what I preach ), my last use of Cc would be to try to help me kill things up on the front lines.

 

As such, I usually am NOT in the front lines trying to take on the enemy DPS directly. In fact, I'm not usually in the front-lines at all, except to accomplish mass-taunts in most cases - or to try to be in guard range of some DPS under threat. But I usually start out in back, and try to peel/taunt anyone that comes for the back-line healers and ranged (who I'm also guard swapping on). If the healers can heal, then they'll be keeping the front line people up. If no one is coming for the healers (or we don't have any), then I'll move to where the mob is to be able to try to guard & peel for the DPS on the team, because they don't have any support otherwise.

 

At least that's the theory. As we all know, no plan survives meeting your own team. So what usually happens is that I end up solo guarding the off node and don't do any "tank" stuff anyway.

Actually, Lundorff said it correctly. I am not meant to guard nodes, just stay with the pack and spam the taunt/guard combo. Assassin tanks are not made for guard noding. Or all tanks as it seems. We just leave that to the best which are Concealment Operatives.

 

Assassin tank is actually the best node guard, especially if there is another tank already in the game. Back when ranked was 8v8 and people developed real strategies for these warzones, it was solely an assassin tank's duty to node guard -- they are the best at it.

 

Any tank will be good at node guarding if they are an extra tank and not needed, but if 8v8 ranked was back, no doubt a sin tank would again be king.