I am always a healer, but I'm trying to branch out and do something different aka tank and dps. My damage class is a commando but I'm having some trouble deciding on my tank.

 

Now I know they are all equal, and to choose based on play style, but I don't know what play style will be best for me. I do know a few things. I am nervous about loosing agro. I don't want my healers to get that burden on them to heal themselves. But I also want to take enough damage so I can solo with a healing companion. I defiantly want a simple to medium difficulty rotation since I'm new to tanking. So for what I believe my play style to be and my wishes in a tank what one should I go with?

 

Thanks for the opinions in advance !!

I'ld say Vanguard/Powertech... They have less DCD than Gardian/Jugg so you have less cooldown to check and your mitigations is slightly higher. Shadow/Sin are kinda hard since they have two or three procs to keep track of from what I've heard.

Yes, go PT/Vanguard.

they are the easiest tank to manage.

Jugger/Guard has only very few abilities with >4m range and the assassin is more difficult because of the stacks you have to maintain.

 

Don't get me wrong, all of them are good and viable (the jugger leans a bit more on the OP side, because he got yet another def-cd), the BiS tank combination for the harder content is Jugg+Assa but it can be done with any combination.

The Shadow\sin tank is extremely ability dependent and missing reactivation of dark ward or some proc will kill you.

 

Jugg is much more easy then sin and good old trick of AOE taunt followed by Saber reflect will make you lol yourself to death. But as mostly melee you got very few option to deal with anything out of your 10 m range so you need to be pretty experienced player to be top notch jugg.

 

As said the PT is by far best tank for new players into tanking.

you get both Charge (jugg ) and pull (Sin), you get heavy armor and 2 targeted taunts!

The PT AOW taunt is actually a missile so you can target a group of mobs away from you insted of running into jumping into the middle of them before you taunt.

Then you got some epic defensive skills including Shoulder cannon which iirc heals you while u shot it and it's of GCD so you can mix it for OH CRAP moments.

Another good PT fact is that he uses heavy armor and he got some serious defensive skills,

you got on talent tree bonuses to: Mitigation, shields, HP, resists.

And most of them are on the lower rows so very fast to get. In fact PT Tanks are so easy! that when I leveled mine already on DK I was soloing heroic 4 with mako.

Another good thing about the PT is the fact he got some awesome dpsing options,

Free flamethrower, free 2 uses of flame sweep after you charge, Aoe effect to rail shot, most tanking specs got 8% bonus to rocket punch, death from above and many more!

Another issue is soloing capabilities, PT is suited for many soloing options where other classes might find it more difficult, Sin might be great for infiltrating but once it get one ability missed it screwed, the jugg can get some awesome rotation and very good aggro but once he get's it I've seen my augmented 72 jugg lose over 30k hp in 5 seconds with ALL proc up and all rotation active at some points.

over all got PT cause u get mako and we all love mako.

 

 

NOTE: The first character the author of this post had in swtor was pt tank.

PT or Van tank is a great place to start. Heavy armor, easy rotation, both a jump and a pull, even a move you can use while stunned, and about four different ways to interrupt.