This is how I'm leveling
Welcome to another episode of Think Tank! Today I’m thinking about specs and leveling.
Every tank class in Star Wars: The Old Republic has three talent trees where they spend their talent points. One tree dedicated to Tanking (Shield Spec, Defense, or Kinetic), one is dedicated to damage dealing, and the other is the shared tree that is also available with some minor differences to the other Advanced Class as well, but generally buffs the damage dealing aspect of the class. One of the goals of this design was to allow Guardians, Vanguards, and Shadows to spec to fill the Damage Dealer role in a group if they so choose with the appropriate use of their points. This also gives a player the option of dedicating their talent points to the Damage Dealer tree while leveling, and then switching their talent points to the Tanking tree once they reach level 50.
Tanking Talents
In SW:TOR, the first time you change your talent points it is free. After that, each time you want to change your talents around, it costs progressively more credits. Players change between a PvP focused spec to a PvE one, or from a Tanking focused spec to a Damage one. After a while, it can really start to add up. This isn’t changing your Advance Class, only how you’ve spent your talents in the Advance Class you chose. Daniel Erickson, in the February 10th Q&A confirmed that BioWare currently has “no plans for switching advanced classes.” So once you start down the Vanguard, Guardian, or Shadow path forever will it dominate your destiny.
The disadvantage to leveling in the tanking tree is that you give up the talents in the Damage trees which cause you to kill mobs more slowly than damage focused players. I do many of my quests with a damage focused Shadow and he kills mobs much faster than I do in my Tank focused spec. Since much of time your time leveling is spent killing mobs, being able to kill them quickly can be a big advantage. Also, the faster the mob dies, the less time it has to do damage to you.
It is possible, even as late as the 40s to successfully tank with a damage spec. You may be missing some tools like the pull Shadows get from the Kinetic tree, or the Charge Vanguards get from the Shield Spec tree, but the biggest difference is that you will take more damage so it’s going to be a little tougher on the healer. Anytime you need a tank, its group content, so it’s more a matter of the total strength of the group. As long as the mobs die before you do, it’s a win.
Leveling as a Tank
So why in the world wouldn’t you level in your damage spec?
One of the reasons I chose to level as a Defense Guardian was that in order to respec, you have to go back to the fleet, perhaps with your Emergency Fleet Pass, if its up, and then go to the Skill Mentor and respec. Then you have to travel back to wherever you were. If I see a group looking for a tank for a Heroic[4] I want to be able to just jump right into that group and start tanking. This is less of a concern when you are mainly running flashpoints as they are all basically right there on the station any way, but by that point you are level 50, so we’re not really in a leveling discussion anymore.
The other reason I prefer to level in Tank spec is that all that time I spend doing quests gives me practice at playing my class. I have all the tools and tricks that I will have when I’m tanking and I can begin to work on having my rotations and cool downs become second nature. When I’m tanking a hardmode or Operation, I don’t want to be learning my rotation, I will need to be focused on mob positioning and reacting to the dynamics of each fight.
Thanks for the assist, Kira, and nice hat!
Getting Help from your Companion
SW:TOR also minimizes the weakness of leveling as a tank by providing companions who can help make up for some of the damage I’m not doing. Granted, it would be faster if both myself and my companion were both doing damage, but at least having my companion is an advantage over other games I’ve tanked in. One tip is to try to always have a presence buff available from drinks served at your nearby home of scum and villainy, also known as a cantina.
I’m curious, and want to throw out a question to my fellow tanks out there: if you have a tank, did you level your tank in their tanking tree, and would you advise players still coming up the ladder to level in their tanking tree or a damage tree? Leave a comment, below, and tell me how you’re leveling up!
Be interesting to see what you think, and be sure to check back next week, true believers, to see what this Tank is thinking about.
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Hello i am a Jk guardian and since the start i went up the defense tree. just as article states it helps when grinding and getting familiar with your rotations. i am the main tank on my guild and your guarenteed not to kiss anything which is also a plus. ill be honest it gets rough sometimes with companions but the presence buff does help. great article for those thinking about being a tank!
Always level my Tanking Spec as a Tank. I learn the ins and outs of my toon. I’m a monster. Nearly unstoppable. DPS may kill more mobs. But I stop alot less to regain health. Plus. I’m a PVPer on a PvP server. You ever try to gank a tank and find out he’s in full tank gear and tank spec?
As a professional Rogue and Agent from WoW and AO {respectfully} I hate trying to gank a Tank who’s in full Tank spec and gear. Takes forever to get him down.
As a Tank. I love the hapless fool who thought to try to actually gank me. I may be slower at killing. But I hit like a truck and I’m unstoppable.
After many years, I’ve finally decided to level on PvE server. I’m finding it much more relaxing.
However, back in my PvP server days in WoW, I leveled a Porcupine Paladin. Every hit on me did damage to the enemy. Rogues would literally kill themselves with Holy Shield procs and Retribution Aura. It was fun.
Til it got nerfed.
To the ground.
I’m leveling my Shadow tank pure tank specced. Like you point out, it works.really well for learnig the complex skill of tanking. I use a DPS companion. Thanks for the presence buff tip
I’ve been leveling my Assassin as a tank. I tend to run into large mobs and love the survivability. Especially when it comes to soloing elites. And with Khem Val helping with damage, I still move through things fast.
I’ve got a powertech, bh that i’m leveling as a tank. I tried the other 2 specs first and just didn’t care for it. Granted, I don’t do flashpoints, but I like taking on the yellow elites when i run into them and tanking spec has become useful in pvp for survival and getting those extra marks. It is a little slow killing things, but I found using damage gear with tank spec can help make up for that. Thanks for the cantina tip though.
I levelled a Juggernaut to 39 or so as Immortal. It definitely helped get all my keybinds memorised. However I found that if I brought a healing companion I was pretty hard to kill but things took a long time to die. If I brought a dps things obviously died quicker but I was having to stop and heal after most groups of mobs. It probably didn’t help that none of my companions were really up to date with their gear as i’d been switching around between them. I switched to Vengeance and found it much more fun to level with. I plan to switch my gear back over to tanking from Voss onwards so that I’m ready to go at max level (I actually started a new BH and levelled him to 50 before going back to my Juggernaut).
I am leveling my JK as tank spec. I do get a little bummed in PvP when it seems I get taken down so easily, sometimes it seems like I went down like I was in light armor. Later I realized it was four of them (had between 5 and 10 lvls on me in a pvp wz) and I absorbed almost twice the damage they did me I felt better.
Does anyone know what the gold ghosts are that appear during fights? See the kira assist image above.
I am leveling my Trooper Vanguard as a tank. It’s super fun, I can jump into any heroic or Flashpoint and do my tank stuff, and my DPS companion burn down the mobs.
And I get good at tanking
I’ve been leveling as a Defense Guardian on my main. It was a bit frustrating getting up to the 30s, but once you get your healer companion in the early 30s, you become invincible. Regardless of how long fights take, ending a major boss fight with 70% health left leaves a good feeling.
I leveled a Jugg to 50 as pure defense. But before mid-20′s didn’t actually feel like a tank. You don’t get much defensive help, nor do you even get a taunt for quite a while. Honestly, I felt like it was a waste to go up the defense tree probably until at least lvl 30, given when you get skills. It mostly just feels like you are gimping yourself, compared to a dps spec’d Jugg that kills things twice as fast, but takes 20% more damage….sorry 2x dps is way better than 20% less damage.
I’m leveling a Sith Assassin up a dps tree, because it’s so much faster to kill stuff (lvl 45 now). At 50 I may switch him to a proper tank, because I think that class is actually the better tanking class right now for the end game. (better at maintaining threat during multiple mob trash scenarios, for sure). None of the content has presented any problem, and I can tank anything I want to (heroics/flashpoints), just by switching stances. Without the tree help, I’m only missing 1 big defensive cooldown. Still have single target and aoe taunts, and 1 short term defensive cooldown. Seriously, the leveling content is just faceroll easy 98% of the time (Chapter 3 finishing class quest aside).
I leveled my inquisitor with a tank spec from the start, learning how to play it was a definite plus, but if I am going to level another class I will probably do it with a dps spec and simply respec around 50. That would mean that I have to gather gear for tanking when I close in on 50, but even that would probably be quicker as dps, at least enough to start tanking in flashpoints.