Greetings again TORWarriors. This weeks article will follow up on an important part of my interview with Elobi about Sith Warriors and tanking. Elobi identified AoE tanking as one of the weakpoints of the Immortal advanced class compared to the other tanking classes. So this week, here are four specific things you can do to take care of business when tanking multiple enemies.
One: Use the Abilities You Have
Some tanks may have trouble because they’re not using all of the abilities they have. Below are the six abilities you must get to know for AoE tanking.
Pick your poison
Smash – Even when tanking only one mob, you should use this ability whenever it’s available for the debuff. But when tanking multiple mobs, this ability is invaluable.
Sweeping Slash – I’m torn on this ability. In some situations it’s invaluable, but if your group is focusing on one or two mobs, you’ll never be able to out threat them using only Sweeping Slash. My favorite times to use this ability are on the pull to establish threat and when you’ve got a good threat lead on your initial target and want to start building threat on everything else.
Intimidating Roar – Your reset button. When things are going crazy you can press this for 6 seconds of calm, just time enough to get a bit more threat than the DPS.
Saber Throw – This isn’t an AoE ability but it has a great deal of value in its range. There’s always that one pesky mob that is out of range of all of your other AoE abilities. That’s when Saber Throw comes into play. Either on the pull or mid-fight, Saber Throw can get an enemy’s attention fast.
Taunt – Elobi spent some time talking about how important key bindings can be and keeping Taunt handy can be a lifesaver. No matter how careful you are, a careless DPS or a simple mis-click can cause a mob you previously had under control to go running towards a healer.
Threatening Scream – Some tanks are very quick to use this ability and some tanks will save it for an emergency. But with just a 45 second cooldown, it’s better to be safe than sorry. If you’re sure everything is in range, then let ‘er rip.
Two: Kill Order – Learn it, Live it, Love it
Red, White, and Blue: Because these colors don't run
The most effective way of controlling packs of enemies in the game is to establish and rigidly follow a set kill order. It’s easy for a tank to mark targets and it is (well, it should be) easy for DPS to follow the order. Done correctly and you’ll only have to worry about generating more threat than your healer on every enemy but the primary target. What often happens, especially in pugs, is your DPS will disregard the kill order either accidentally or just because they don’t care. Sometimes, it’s also because they spontaneously decide to use all of their most powerful AoE abilities, oftentimes all at once.
When this happens it’s like throwing a stick in the spokes of a moving bicycle and now you, the tank, must figure out a way to wrangle everything while the healer desperately tries to keep you and the DPS alive. (And then the offending DPS will say something like “learn to tank noob” while you outwardly rage and inwardly weep before swearing never to tank for pugs again. Yeah I’m totally not bitter.) To make things easier be sure to pick a color combination everyone knows like Red, White, and Blue or Green, Yellow, Red for a traffic signal so everyone isn’t trying to figure out which mob to attack next.
Kill Red, then Yellow, then Green and then we can go.
Three: Crowd Control (CC)
CC’ing a target is a very useful way of dealing with a multi mob pull. There is, of course, a downside. Using CC means that both you and the DPS must be very careful when tab-targeting and using AoE abilities as any damage caused will break the CC.
There are many classes that have access to some sort of CC. Some examples are:
Slice Droid – Imperial Agent
Disable Droid – Sith Marauder
Whirlwind – Sith Sorceror
Mind Trap – Sith Assassin
Sleep Dart – Operative
Concussion Missile – Mercenary
When using CC, it’s important to coordinate in very clear terms who is going to do what. You usually don’t get more than one bite at the apple – if the Sorc uses Whirlwind on the wrong target, all the others are going to be incoming. A mistake here can cause the whole thing to go sideways – and guess who gets to clean that up? Yeah, you, the tank.
Four: Let Others Handle the Light Work
I'll take one strong and the elite. DPS, you have to take the other strong.
I haven’t seen too many multi-mob pulls that have more than 2 or 3 elites or Boss level mobs. Those are the ones the tank really needs to worry about. Any DPS can take down a single strong enemy or a few standards and if you have one or two ranged mobs or adds that won’t be touched by your AoE abilities, let the DPS take care of them. DPS Immortals, Assassins, or Powertechs are especially suited for this job.
Other Techniques
I hope you’ve found these four strategies for making AoE tanking easier helpful. I use these techniques regularly, and they’ve stood the test of time. However, there are undoubtedly other tricks, techniques, and skills that my fellow Warriors out there use to make tanking easier and more effective. Do you have any tips or tricks you like to use? Do you prefer a certain strategy as a DPS or healer? Let us know in the comments – we want to hear from you!
Sith Warrior Tip of the Week
Don’t get discouraged. Tanking is an incredibly difficult and mostly thankless job. It’s easy for a DPS or healer to be impatient because their jobs are easy compared to a tank who has to…mark targets, decide who gets CC’d, make the pull, be sure not to break CC, keep threat on everyone you’re supposed to, use cooldowns when you need to, watch the health bars of your healers and DPS, watch your healer’s resources, watch the health of the mob you’re tanking, switch to the next mob in the order, position everything so your AoE abilities hit every enemy, stay out of the fire, and a hundred other things that the DPS and healer don’t have to worry about. If you find yourself getting frustrated with your group members, try to find friendly guildies to tank for, or just take a break. You are not alone, and all your tanking brethren out there experience all the same challenges you do.
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Great info thanks! This is also very helpful to me on my guardian.
Always play a tank, And this article is what i always think about while tanking lol
Good article and I love to see tanking info! I think there are a few warrior specific concepts you might consider adding.
1) Line of Site (los) pulls: I find that los pulls are very useful in this game due to the high amount of ranged mobs. Mobs are subject to the same line of sight rules as players, they cannot attack you if they can’t see you and will come running to you.
2) If the elite/strong mob is a melee mob, utilize saber throw for initial aggro and then force charge a group of ranged strong/elites. This way the melee will run to you and you’ll be in a good position to tank both the ranged and the melee.
3) Guard. The threat transfer on guard is incredibly helpful as you gain 25% of your guard targets aoe threat. Remember it drops off if you wipe.
4)Force Push. Useful for grouping ranged mobs. You can throw a strong/elite ranged mob towards another group. One of the biggest challenges for AOE tanking as a warrior is that everything is spread out. Once you group them together, it’s much less challenging. Also, force push resets your charge cooldown, which is helpful in bouncing from mob to mob.
5) Ranged Abilities. I know we mostly work up close and personal, but we do have a few ranged attacks which are useful for keeping threat of the healer. You will never be able to keep it off of a dps only using these abilities. Force Scream: 10m range and actually does some decent damage. Force Choke: Also 10m range. Saber Throw.
I know I’ll probably take heat for the force push comment, but if you learn how far the guy is gonna fly, its super useful. Just be careful you don’t put him into the next pack!
Generally liked the article, good write up overall, I only have one real issue with it, and it’s at the end in your Tip. To say tanks have a slew of things that healers and dps don’t have to worry about is a display of ignorance to the other classes.
I can put out an equivalent amount of things both healers and DPS have to worry about, and truly they’re either mirror images of a tank’s list of an opposite. Ex. A tank needs to worry about establishing amd maintaining threat, a healer and dps need to make sure they manage their threat output to avoid getting aggro. A tank needs to watch where they are standing, healers and dps need to do the same while maintaining life, while meeting enrage timers… and so on and so on and so on.
My recommendation on this article is to stick to the facts, and the helpful tips, and refrain from suggesting that healers and dps have an easy job… dps need to meet enrage timers if not met, a raid will wipe. A Healer needs to keep up a group’s life, to allow dps to meet enrage timers, to allow a tank to keep threat. Everyone has a job, we all have movement to worry about and we all have our responsibilities. Bear that in mind when writing up helpful articles.
Otherwise, great write up!
hi there frank,
i disagree with a few things written in your guide
threatening scream on a 45 second cool down can only come from a dodgy vengence/immortal tree where people claim to do a lot more damage but don’t go down the proper tanking tree to spend points on ‘thrown gauntlet’ and passing on ‘sonic barrier’– also, intimidating roar is nothing more than a bad designed snare with a lot more use when you’re fighting alone so you don’t run the risk of area-of-effect damage breaking your stun where you’re tanking
on the kill order pictures, you’ve marked a silver-mob to go down first, then the elite– on the second picture, you’ve marked the elite first– on the last bit of text, you suggest others handle the light work– the trash fights in this game are really well designed in a way dps can indeed take down a common mob by themselves– the correct order for killing no matter what your pull looks like it’s always ‘common > silver > elite’– you charge silver/elite mobs and let your dps go take care of commons– everybody has a bag of tricks to keep themselves alive and there’s a healer around
saber throw it’s a valuable ability that shouldn’t be used on pull– it’s the similar of a newbie death-knight pulling with death-grip: if you’re sure none of your mobs will run away, go ahead– if not, save your saber-throw to pull again the mob that just got pulled by healing-aggro or a reckless dps– and i’m talking about a silver/elite mob, because if it’s a common, let them deal with it– you wouldn’t have to ‘intercede’ (a skill you complete forgot and that can be a lifesaver for your healer)
you finish by mixing your hanger of tanking pick-up-groups with by belittling the roles of the healer and the damage dealers– they’re in the party like you and they all contribute with their 1/4 of the work to get the job done– just because you have to mark or you get to decide how the fight will go because you’re the damage soaker, doesn’t mean you have more responsibility than them– doesn’t mean they don’t know how to do their job!
if you’re mad about tanking pugs you can always do like i do: join a guild and do guild-only flash points– i, for once, refuse to type/mark when i’m playing– one hand on the nostromo, the other on the mouse and if my teammates are not in mumble, i won’t type for them who to attack
i’m really sorry to put it out blatantly but i don’t think you gave any insight into area-of-effect tanking
thank you for not doing pugs.
On thin not mentioned in the article is my motto when tanking “let the shitheads die” every few pugs you will come across a dps that insists on doing the initial pull, targeting different mobs and just generally being a pain. In such situations I tend to whisper the healer and tell them not to bother healing them, they will die. After they end up with all the mobs on them with me watching a few times the get the idea. They either shape up, leave or end up tanking the instance. Had so many people rage after I have done this too them but I honestly think it’s the only way they will learn.
I don’t even whisper the healer. I say it in party chat.
One last tip: if you find yourself getting frustrated, play a ranged alt for a while.
But in all seriousness, I also disagree with the derision of the dps and healers. Everyone has a role in the group, and just one person doing it wrong can screw the whole group, which conversely means that everyone has equal importance in the group. The point is, it’s a group effort.
That being said, between the tips you gave and some of those in the comments, I see a fairly strong Immortal tank guide. Having been a tank longer than SWTOR has been around, I suppose it all seems a little common sense to me, but for those who are just picking up the job, this can be helpful.
It’s like you were in vent this last weekend and heard me complaining. I’m use to tanking in WoW as a paladin and it is like easy mode compared to TOR. This game actually requires you to have skill at tanking, at least if you are a Jug tank. Thanks for the tips and also for the morale boost at the end!