PvP Tank Basics: Using Guard Effectively

PvP Tank Basics is a series of articles in which I'll examine the baseline PvP tank abilities and discuss strategies for maximizing their effectiveness. I will keep these articles up to date, so that they can be referenced at any time by new PvP tanks. Today, we're looking at Guard.

Guard is a frequently misunderstood ability. While keeping it on a healer is a prudent strategy, it doesn't do anything for someone who isn't taking damage in PvP. Guard will almost always be your main source of Protection on the scoreboard at the end of a warzone if you are a dedicated PvP tank. It also allows your healers more time to react to incoming focus fire. Used appropriately and with healer support, it can turn the tide.

This means that the most effective way to use guard is to make sure that it is always redirecting damage to you. The only way to ensure this is to swap it as different members of your team are selected as targets. Do not be afraid to switch your Guard to someone new. The only possible exception to this is if you are the ball carrier in Huttball and do not wish to risk taking more damage.

Any advanced class with access to a tanking skill tree will learn Guard at level 14. From Torhead:

Guard

Instant
Range: 30 m

While active, the guarded player takes 5% less damage and generates 25% less threat. In addition, so long as you remain within 15 meters of the guarded player, 50% of all incoming damage from enemy players is transferred back to you. Requires Soresu Form.

Regardless of your advanced class, Guard always requires that you use the "Defensive Stance"  for your advanced class (Soresu Form for Juggernauts and Guardians) in order to be able to use it; if you switch stances it will immediately be removed. There was talk in Beta that Guard let your guarded target use your damage reduction. This has since been proven to be false, however they do still get the flat 5% damage reduction bonus while guarded.

The most important thing to remember about Guard is that you must be within 15 meters of your Guarded target in order to intercept 50% of their incoming damage. If you overextend, you may be responsible for the guarded player's demise, especially in a heavy-pressure situation.


Guard Priority

Guard does a good job of making healing easier to handle for your team's healers. But who should you be guarding at any given point in time? My priority is as follows:

1. If one of my healers is being attacked, I put my guard on them until they are no longer in danger. This aspect of using Guard is often a judgement call. Look around for Ranged DPS that may still be focusing on your healer before you leave them alone. If possible, ask your healer if they are okay (voice communication is helpful here).

2. With my healer no longer in danger, I look at the health of those around me as I move into the thick of the fight. If I see someone is being focus-fired, I use guard on them immediately and, if available, Intercede to them or Force Charge to an enemy nearby so that they will be getting the benefit of my Guard as soon as possible (other ACs can substitute their own gap closers here). Very often, the enemy's focus fire target is a melee DPS on your team who has made themselves a threat by antagonizing the enemy's healers. If possible, call the enemy's focus fire target to your healers (again, voice communication helps) in case they are not yet aware of it.

3. While guarding the focus fire target, I continue to monitor our healer's health as I help support the DPS. Setting your healer as your focus target helps make this a lot easier. You need to enable this in Preferences and the keystroke is Alt+F by default. Your healer should also communicate with you, if possible, in the event that they are being attacked. That way, you know to go back to help them.


The Psychology of Guard


A lot of the time, DPS will continue to attack a guarded healer, either not noticing or not caring that they are doing only 50% of their normal damage to the healer. As a tank, this is what you want them to do. Even if your healer is only able to keep you and themselves alive, they are likely occupying the time of 3+ enemies who are not attacking other people on your team, and you are able to utilize your taunts to further decrease the damage. In other words, you are buying time for the rest of your team to kill them.

However, smart DPS will usually do one of three things to counter this:

1. They will switch to you, attempting to burn you down while the healer recovers from recent pressure. Since they are attacking you, you're taking full damage from their attacks and your taunts are useless. The exact threat this poses to you depends on the type of classes attacking you, but it's not usually a good situation. Here's where you use your defensive cooldowns. If possible, throw out stuns on your attackers to let your healer respond to the target switch. Keep your guard on your healer for the moment, in case they choose to switch back.

2. They will switch to another member of your team. This scenario is actually more favourable for you than the first one. Intercede to that target, swap your Guard to them, and utilize taunts and/or stuns to make the enemy's team difficult. Keep your eye on your healer; they may switch back once they realize you're responding to their pressure. Use this opportunity to throw out snares on the enemy in case they decide to switch back to your healer.

3. They will attempt to separate you from your healer. Not much you can do here besides use your gap closer to get back as soon as possible. This is possibly the worst scenario for you, depending on your healer's status when you get separated and on how much damage is being thrown at your healer in your absence.


We stand on guard for thee


Having read these tips, get out there and start supporting your allies on the field with Guard! It is, without a doubt, the most powerful ability tanks have in PvP to protect their allies. Using it well is the first step on your PvP tank journey. As always, any feedback is appreciated.

Burek's PvP Tanking Guides, #1: Threatening Scream (AoE Taunt)

I am proud to announce the public release of my first PvP Tanking Guide, which focuses on Threatening Scream. This guide should be useful to all Advanced Classes that can tank, though, since they all have a similar ability, even if they aren't tanking-focused.

The guide aims to help players make more efficient use of their AoE taunt. It uses freeze-frame explanations and play-by-play commentary to help viewers understand the decisions made in the video. I recommend viewing the video in 1080p or 720p in full screen mode for the best viewing experience.

I hope you enjoy it, and that some part of it is useful to you!

I am happy to accept honest feedback regarding the video, and will help to integrate your comments into future videos. Coincidentally, I haven't decided 100% on the topic of my next video, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'm happy to accept those, too.

I've been somewhat absent from this blog recently as I've been working on this video. Now that I have the basics of producing a video like this down it should be somewhat faster to produce them in the future, and I should be more on top of my posts here at the blog.

I'd like to thank everyone who provided feedback on the original cut. I made some changes as a result, and overall I'm pleased with the final product.

May all your screams be threatening!

Hard Mode Flashpoint Guide: Black Talon

I've decided to kick off my coverage of level 50 content with an exploration of Black Talon's Hard Mode, primarily through a Juggernaut's point of view. Before I begin though, a couple general notes to bear in mind about Hard Mode Flashpoints:

• Enemies do a lot more damage. I normally will allow my DPS to attack normal mobs without tanking them if the pull is too spread apart, but even these can do some damage. Watch your party's health, and be sure to maintain control of all Strong or Elite enemies in a pull.
• Interrupts are key. A lot of enemies have powerful abilities that need to be interrupted. Without these abilities they are much easier to handle. Interrupt what you can! Remember, you can also use Force Choke, Backhand and Force Push to interrupt casts on most Strong and Elite enemies. Don't be afraid to politely ask other party members to start interrupting as well.
• Prioritize targets. I normally have my DPS kill all Normal or Weak enemies, followed by Strong and then Elite enemies. If there are any healer-type enemies, these should die first. 

The good news is that Black Talon's Hard Mode is mostly a breeze, so while these tips may not be strictly needed for it, they are relevant to later flashpoints and they will foster good habits.

Hard Mode: The Black Talon

Probably the best hard mode flashpoint to start with, the Black Talon can be completed by new level 50 characters in the gear they have equipped.

Before I go into bosses, I just want to mention that the first pull (against the Imperial Lieutenant and his soldiers) can actually do quite a bit of damage, so have your cooldowns ready. There's no other significantly difficult trash in the instance, so I'll address the bosses.

GXR-5 Sabotage Droid:

This guy is pretty easy. You'll fight him if your group chooses to kill the captain. If your group doesn't kill the captain, the other boss is easy - just have the tank pick everyone up, kill the medic first, and profit.

As for GXR-5: Interrupt Full Auto whenever he starts channeling it, as he will do increased damage to you for the duration. He summons probe droids which explode, so be sure to stay away from them. They will attempt to follow you, so briefly kiting away from the boss and leaping back is not a terrible strategy. If you have ranged DPS, they should make short work of the probes. GXR-5 does have an enrage timer, but you should have no problems beating it.

GXR-5 drops a random Artifact-quality belt.

Commander Ghulil:

Again, fairly simple. Interrupt every Plasma Probe he casts, as these will spawn AoE fire probes. Ghulil doesn't have any other notable abilities. He does hit somewhat harder than GXR-5, though. 

Ghulil drops a random Artifact-quality leg slot item.

GXR-7 Command Droid: 

In my opinion, this is the hardest boss in the instance. He is also an optional boss, meaning that you don't necessarily have to do him. I recommend you do, though, as he still drops loot.

He has two abilities which should be interrupted: Power Blast and Power Punch. He does significant damage to the main tank, and if these are not interrupted, it will make things worse. Make sure you keep your cooldowns available in case the healer falls behind. Don't be afraid to ask your party to help out on interrupts.

GXR-7 drops a random Artifact-quality ear slot item.

Yadira Ban:

Probably the second-hardest in the instance. She does an easily avoidable gimmick attack, but she does damage to the party and has an aggressive enrage timer.

She uses Force Charge to attack other party members. There's nothing you can do to stop it, but she will come back to you if you have aggro. She'll pull everyone to her and begin casting Cyclone Nova - walk away from her until she casts it, then leap back into the fray. If you are hit by Cyclone Nova, you will probably be instantly killed.

Yadira Ban drops a random Artifact-quality bracer token. She also drops one Biometric Crystal Alloy, which is used for crafting powerful items.

Stay tuned for more Hard Mode Flashpoint coverage, and commentary regarding upcoming patch notes. 

The Juggernaut so far...

Today is an update about my Juggernaut's progress! I'm level 31, and I've so far tanked every flashpoint I've had access to. The difficulty on the flashpoints has so far been rather tame, but I have gone up against a few challenging encounters. I've mostly been running these with my spouse, who is playing a Sith Sorcerer, and a good friend who is playing a Sith Assassin. We've been pugging healers and so far we've had good luck. With that in mind, I've drawn some conclusions about Flashpoint tanking, and Juggernaut tanks generally:

• Flashpoint tanking requires more concentration than in some other games. In the most recent Flashpoints I've run (Cademimu and Mandalorian Raiders), there were a lot of enemies (and some bosses) that drop threat completely at certain points, and need to be picked back up immediately. Stay on your guard!
• Sometimes, you need to prioritize. Most groups won't be marking kill targets for trash, so you'll need to watch your group's damage dealers and grab targets accordingly. Make sure you always grab all the strong/elite enemies. Sometimes your enemies will be very spread out over a large area. If a random normal enemy is firing a blaster at someone, don't panic. Grab it only if you can be sure you won't lose aggro on a stronger enemy, preferably using an ability with some range like Force Scream, Force Push, Force Choke. Your Taunt is on a 15 second cooldown, so you need to use it only when appropriate.
• Juggernauts are active tanks. My point here is that you can prevent a lot of damage with a Juggernaut by using the right ability at the right time. Smash and Force Scream will stun normal enemies, preventing them from attacking you. Force Choke can be used to prevent damage from a Strong (and sometimes Elite) enemy with the added benefit of granting you rage and doing some damage. Retaliation, once improved via Blade Barricade, grants you extra defense, and should be used on cooldown.
• Juggernauts have powerful survival cooldowns. Make sure your cooldowns are somewhere accessible, because you'll want them handy. Juggernauts get Endure Pain, Saber Ward and Invincible. Which one you will use at a given time depends on the situation. I'll write a more in-depth article on cooldown use a little later on.
• Initial Juggernaut Area Threat is lacking. You will receive Threatening Scream (AoE Taunt) at level 30, and Sweeping Slash at level 32, but before these, all you will have is Smash. Just do your best, and as I said above, prioritize your targets.

I hope these initial thoughts help you when deciding if a Juggernaut is the tank for you. I've had a blast so far, and look forward to seeing our performance in Operations, as well as in Warzones. Have some thoughts on the Juggernaut tank that you'd like to share? Feel free to start a discussion or ask a question in the comments.

SWTOR Tanking Basics

Since my Juggernaut is starting to feel more like a tank now that I've hit level 20 (more to come on that tomorrow), I decided it might be time to take a closer look at the secondary tanking stats and how they affect tanking. Please note, I've omitted Strength, Willpower, and Aim as these depend on the class of the tank in question.

• Endurance: Increases health by 10 per point. Every 5 points also increases health regeneration out of combat by 1% (though this doesn't really matter as you can just use your out of combat heal).
• Defense: Increases your chance to parry or deflect attacks. We can call this avoidance, as it means you stop the attack completely by avoiding it.
• Shield: Increases your chance to prevent some damage with your personal shield generator. Unlike defense where you avoid the attack, your shield usually only absorbs part of an attack. We can call this mitigation, as it reduces the amount of incoming damage.
• Absorption: Increases the amount of damage that you prevent when your shield activates. Again, this is part of your mitigation.
• Armor: Decreases damage you take from kinetic and energy damage. Does not reduce internal or elemental damage.

As noted above, I'll be updating on my Juggernaut's progress tomorrow.

For the Empire!