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Swtor Tank Guide

 

 

Swtor Tank guide: 1-Before the pull

So you’ve specced into the tanking tree, gotten some gear, rounded up some friends. Now it’s time to zone into the flashpoint and start takin names. Before the first pull and for the pulls following there are a few things that need to be taken care of.

Swtor Tank guide : 1.1 Buffs

First up you need to apply your tanking buffs such as guard and aura and take any consumables you have decided to use to increase your capability. Make sure that every class capable of applying a buff both to you and the rest of the party has done so and keep them up throughout the run.

Swtor Tank guide: 1.2 Target Designation

If required designate the focus fire order for the mobs to be killed if needed. At times the use of focused dps to burn down specific targets can drastically lower incoming damage (As discussed in section 6.3). Right click a selected NPCs portrait and select the marking you want to apply. You may need to inform the group via text or teamspeak/ventrillo as to which mobs are priority burns. If crowd control is desired throughout the run inform the group of the targets before the pull and designate those responsible for maintaining the CC. I like to tell all the party members at the start of a run what the kill order is and which symbol means CC.

If macros make it into game I usually have this prepared

/p Hi everyone, lets have a good run Bullseye is first target, Flame second, Saber Third. Lightning is for CC. I’ll stop pulling if I see your resource get low heals. Lets buff up and start clearing when your all ready.

NOTE: Don’t mark more than you have to, it just slows runs down unnecessarily. If you can get away with 1 mark per pull then do it. You can also keybind marking to speed things up. I use keybind mark “Lightning” for CC then keybind mark “Bulls-eye” for FF, make the pull then mark another Bulls-eye as the first is about to die. At the end I change the Lighning target to Bulls-eye right as the second last mob is about to die.

Swtor Tank guide: 1.3 Communication

Finally, if required issue any warnings on possible mob abilities that could wipe the group prior to pulling. Just because you know that the red glowing stuff at the bosses feet is fire, doesn’t mean the DPS do Trash droids that self-destruct when defeated are a prime example of an ability that the others in the group should be made aware of.
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Swtor Tank guide: 2-Pulling Mobs

It’s time to pull some mobs. A pull is the action of entering combat with previously neutral NPCs, accumulating threat on the NPC’s and positioning both them and yourself to best lower incoming damage. Pulling a single enemy is easy, just hit the NPC really hard and keep him in front of you while you and the DPS burn him down. When pulling groups of NPC’s with various abilities, there are several ways in which to pull them depending on the circumstances.

Swtor Tank guide: 2.1 Straight Pulls

Straight pulls are used for melee and mixed ranged/melee packs where it is safe to engage the NPCs without pulling extras. A diagram of the standard pulls for a melee tank is as shown below. For ranged tanks ignore the tank movement arrows and stand in place at maximum range and commence attacking.

Straight Pull Image :

The chronology of the all melee straight pull is simple.

1. Stand outside max range and check the composition of the group of NPC’s. Make sure that they are not likely to call for help or flee in the direction of other packs of mobs, and that there are no patrolling packs of NPC’s that will add to the pull if you charge into the first pack.

2. If you are a melee tank, jump in or throw a ranged ability at the lead NPC. As a ranged tank simple begin using ranged abilities on the lead NPC or if the NPCs are closely grouped throw a ranged AoE ability.

3. Follow immediately with an AoE attack to ensure that the healer does not draw threat from the non-lead NPCs whilst healing you.

4. Ensure that you are positioned with all the NPC’s in front of you to increase your avoidance and lower incoming damage.

5. Continue to building threat on all targets, if you notice any of your group gain threat immediately taunt the NPC onto yourself and use your highest threat abilities to overtake your group members’ aggro before your taunt expires in six seconds.

Mixed Pull Image :

The chronology of the mixed ranged/melee is similar with a little more complexity in the tank positioning required for melee tanks.

1. Stand outside max range and check the composition of the group of NPC’s. Make sure that they are not likely to call for help or flee in the direction of other packs of mobs, and that there are no patrolling packs of NPC’s that will add to the pull if you charge into the first pack.

2. If you are a melee tank, jump in or throw a ranged ability at the lead NPC. As a ranged tank simple begin using ranged abilities on the lead NPC or if the NPCs are closely grouped throw a ranged AoE ability.

3. As a melee tank if you have not used a range closing ability off CD, run towards the packs of NPCs and position yourself within melee range of the ranged NPCs. Position yourself behind the ranged mobs and turn 180 degrees in order to have all the melee and ranged mobs facing you.

4. Follow immediately with an AoE attack to ensure that the healer does not draw threat from the non-lead NPCs whilst healing you.

5. Continue to building threat on all targets, if you notice any of your group pull threat immediately taunt the NPC onto yourself and use your highest threat abilities to overtake your group members before your taunt expires in six seconds.

Swtor Tank guide: 6.2 Line of Sight Pulling

LoS pulls are a way of pulling which uses a piece of the environment to break the NPCs line of sight to you and force them to move toward you to engage. Line of sight pulls are used to engage packs of NPC’s where there is a danger of aggroing another group of enemies should you use a standard pull. The first way in which this occurs is if you are pulling NPCs that flee when at low health and may run into other packs of NPCs in the vicinity. Another common way of pulling a second group of mobs accidently is if you have a second pack of NPCs that are patrolling whose aggro radius will overlap the position you wish to engage the first.

LoS pulls are performed in the same way whether you are a ranged or melee tank. They may be started either by yourself or by one of your party members using a ranged ability. If a party member is utilized to initiate the pull you will be required to aggro all the incoming mobs before they re-attain LoS with the party member. The party member method is used when you wish to position the NPCs prior to them reaching the object used to break LoS. A standard LoS pull is shown below.

LOS Pull Image :

The chronology for a Tank initiated LoS pull is as follows.

1. Ascertain that a LoS pull is the preferred method of engaging the pack of NPCs. This can be done by identifying that there is a nearby patrolling pack of mobs that are likely to be aggroed during a standard pull, or that there is a high probability of extra NPCs being brought into the pull by the first group on mobs either fleeing or calling for help.

2. Position yourself beside an environmental obstacle that will act to break LoS with the NPCs, making sure you are outside of their aggro radius.

3. Attack any one of the mobs with a ranged ability and immediately strafe behind the obstacle. This will force the pack of NPCs to move to flank the obstacle in order to engage you. NOTE: Ranged mobs will move at a slower pace than melee and will arrive at your position at a later time.

4. Once the NPCs move around the obstacle to face you begin applying threat to them. If more than one enemy arrives at a time, commence by using AoE abilities to ensure the healer does not obtain threat.

5. Continue to building threat on all targets, if you notice any of your group pull threat immediately taunt the NPC onto yourself and use your highest threat abilities to overtake your group members before your taunt expires in six seconds.

For a LoS pull initiated by a team member the sequence remains the same, the only difference being that it is the party member who moves behind the obstacle whilst you may remain in front at the position you wish to fight the pack. You then begin applying threat to the every NPCs as they reach you. Do not allow them to move past you to the obstacle as they will attack the party member that initiated the pull.

Swtor Tank guide: 2.3 Crowd Control and Focused Fire

The purpose of CC along with focused fire is to reduce the amount of incoming damage to yourself or the party by removing the ability of NPCs to attack your party members for a fixed time. Focused fire is the coordination of the party to concentrate their damage on a single target at a time. CC and focused fire are extremely effective at making harder level packs or mobs within them easier to handle.

Let’s look at a common scenario both with and without CC and focused fire.

You are in a 4 person flashpoint and about to pull 4 droids. Each droid has the same health does 100 damage per second and takes 1 minute for a single player to kill.

1. With no CC, and each of the 3 players dealing damage (Tank and 2 DPS) to different NPCs before finishing the final NPC together.
Length of combat : 1 minute and 20 second.
Damage Taken by tank: 26,000
Maximum damage per second taken by tank: 400
Time at maximum DPS taken by tank: 60 seconds

2. Using a 60 second duration CC, and each of the 3 players dealing damage to different NPCs before finishing the final NPC together.
Length of combat:1 minute and 20 seconds
Damage Taken by tank: 20,000
Maximum damage taken by tank: 300
Time at maximum DPS taken by tank: 60 seconds

3. Using a 60 second duration CC and all 3 players dealing damage focusing fire on the same target at all times.
Length of combat: 1 minute and 20 seconds
Damage Taken by tank: 14,000
Maximum damage per second taken by tank: 300
Time at maximum DPS taken by tank: 20 seconds

As you can see the differences in damage taken and time at maximum incoming damage between the examples is huge. This example was actually on the low side of reduced damage and time at max incoming DPS. Often the advantages of CC and FF are even greater if you are using your CC on mobs that do higher damage than the surrounding NPCs. FF works best on NPCs that have high damage to health ratios, allowing you to deal with the largest threat very quickly. High damage/ High health mobs and those that use certain special abilities such as stuns are the best to CC.

A common misconception with CC is that it slows down the running of a flashpoint. While it is true that CC does slow a pull if AoE abilities are used to damage whole packs, if single targets or limited cleave type abilities are used, the CC will not add to length of time required to complete a pull. Crowd control is usually coordinated by designating markings to place above the NPCs you wish to CC and informing the team member that each NPC marked with that symbol is to be CCed. You may wish to use Teamspeak/ventrillo or simply type your instructions on which mobs are to be controlled.

Focused Fire is also usually coordinated using designated markings above the NPCs however it can be coordinated easily without the use of marking if you simply instruct your DPS party members to always attack your current target.

Swtor Tank guide: 2.4 Positioning

Whatever type of tactics you decide to use to pull packs of NPCs, positioning of yourself and the mobs you pull remains very important. Wherever possible always position yourself with any active mobs directly in front of you. Some types of tank avoidance such as dodge will not work if a mob is situated at your back and you will find yourself taking significantly higher damage over the course of a pull. NPCs at your back are also likely to receive a lot less damage from yourself and therefore threat.

Positioning yourself is often necessary to facilitate better damage by the DPS and lower damage to yourself. Wherever possible turn the NPCs so that their backs are facing the DPS as this means less avoidance of your parties’ damage by the mobs. When confronted by NPCs that have knockback abilities, try to position yourself in front of the mobs with your back to a wall or other structure.

Whenever CC is used make sure you position the other NPCs in the pull at a fair distance from the CCed mob. Most CC breaks upon the mob taking damage so you need to position the rest of the pull far enough away from the CCed mob so that AoE effects will not break the mob free.

Swtor Tank guide: 2.5 Get over here!

One of the tanks greatest tools is the taunt. There are two kinds of taunt in the MMO world, forced attack and threat equalization. Thus far only the forced attack taunt has been confirmed as being in SWTOR so we won’t discuss equalization taunts yet.
Forced attack taunts literally force an NPC that is not currently targeting you to become the focus of your attacks for a fixed time frame. Forced attack taunts do not equalize your threat with that of its current target at the time you taunt it. With this in mind the correct way to taunt is as follows.

1. Spot other party members frame go red as they attract threat from one of the NPC’s in the pull

2. Identify which NPC is targeting the party member (Should be pretty obvious, it’s usually the crazed mob charging at them or shooting blaster bolts at their head )

3. Click on the NPC and activate your taunt button.

4. Starts hitting the NPC as soon as you can to have your threat overtake that of your party members before the taunt wears off.

At present taunt has a 6 second effect with a 15 second CD, so you’ll want to hit a taunted mob hard for that six seconds. You don’t want a hard hitting mob whaling on your healer for 9 seconds if you have failed to put threat on the mob during the taunts duration.

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