SW:ToR Tanking and the Assassin

I've encountered this question a lot, and what seems like an easy answer is actually a complicated series of concepts. I will list everything, in no particular order, that I believe makes a good tank. To some this may be common knowledge, but to an aspiring first-time tank it might be enlightening.

1. Gear - a good tank always needs to stay on top of their gear. Unlike dps (or to a lesser extent healers), a tank can't just slide by with mediocre gear. Our entire usefulness is defined by our ability to mitigate damage, and if you are hanging onto outdated items chances are the stats are far below what you should have. This only hurts your ability to tank and makes you take more damage than you might have with better gear.

2. Abilities - always read and understand what all of your abilities do. Don't gloss over something just because the first part of the description didn't seem to relate to tanking. I've noticed a lot of abilities that have secondary benefits such as short-term buffs or debuffs. This is particularly true when it comes to talents. The MOST important thing from this section, though, is to know what cooldowns you possess and when you should use them. This will be a learning process for sure and don't be afraid to experiment.

3. Talents - obviously as a tank you will want to primarily spec within your class's tank tree, but if you haven't noticed yet they tend to litter the tree with secondary dps- or pvp-related talents that may or may not prove useful. Knowing and understanding how these talents effect your abilities is extremely important. Some talents may seem like a "big deal" until you put them into context. A good example of this are the following: 3% increased endurance and 2% decreased damage taken. I call these icing talents. After the bulk of your points are invested into the important talents you will want to take these to give you that slight boost - the icing on the cake so to speak. Always skip the dps-related talents until you've gotten everything tank-related.

4. Situational Awareness - as a tank it's your job to control the fight and to keep your groupmates safe. You need to be able to keep one eye on the mobs and one eye on your party at all times. An easy way to help this is to set your zoom level to a much farther distance - being able to see more of the playing field never hurt anyone. Also always assume your dps will do something stupid like attack the wrong enemy and be prepared. Catching an enemy on its way to your healer before it smashes him in the face is probably a good idea. If your healer is running or concerned for their life, chances are his heals are going to himself and not you. Also realizing when more enemies spawn or when a cc'ed one breaks is incredibly important. Also along this vein is the age old question of: are you standing in the fire? Sure a tank has a ton of hp and can withstand a beating but that doesn't mean you should stress your healer by taking unneeded damage.

5. Preparedness - this encompasses a lot of things that are important such as consumables, strategies and group composition. If possible always try to find out about a fight ahead of time to know what you will be getting into. There are sites scattered across the net that are specifically geared towards boss strategies and tactics. Knowing these ahead of time will allow you to determine if you have what it takes to defeat the encounter.

6. Leadership Qualities - are you a leader type? Most groups tend to look to the tank to run the group. It's our job to set the pace and to control the flow of the fights. You should be comfortable with marking targets (knowing the fight helps here) for kill order and crowd control.

Now, what sets apart the truly amazing tanks from the good tanks is all of the above plus a supreme knowledge of the game and their class. These are the people that you will consider class experts and theorycrafters. They will be the ones that are constantly reading up on any changes to their class or evaluating additions like new armor drops, mods, buffs, etc. Even if you aren't one of the math-heads out there, being able to understand the how and why of something goes a long way. I will go over a good portion of the mechanics of the game in my next post titled 'Theorycraft Lite - a look at SW:ToR tanking'.