Tanks and you

[Raille]

So figured I'd give a brief comparison of the 3 tanks and advantages and disadvantages, but a lot is changed up in the patch as far as specifics. This is just a gist of what each tank excels at and where they are weaker. Once I finish patching and get to test the actual abilities I'll update the info.

Engineer - Range tank, but in many situations that is meaningless. There are fights where the range makes it easier to avoid telegraphs while tanking, but for the most part you'll be standing toe to toe with most fights. The abilities in the engineers repertoire feel better suited to enhancing the other tanks at end game, but they are perfectly fine at tanking. Unsteady Miasma created a chance to miss buff on the target and the Repairbot and Recursive matrix heal shields and increase deflect chance on the group respectively. The big draw is the innate that in the patch gives 5seconds of 55% increased mitigation which can help your healer catch up or to eat a large hit when you know it's coming.

The largest weakness for engineer tanks is mobility. The patch has removed the movement speed debuff, but engineers don't have much in the way of closing gaps or escaping telegraphs. This can mean you will take more damage in a lot of situations and need to strategically use cool downs when unavoidable telegraphs are coming


Stalker - Medium armor tank that uses high mobility to avoid damage. This class works very much like it's described. There are multiple abilities to close or create gaps with a higher deflect chance than the other tanks resulting in a spiky tank experience. There are amps with high cool downs that help minimize the RNG chance of taking a bad crit, but until the current patch these were broken and made stalkers almost unkillable. What isn't mentioned is that the stalker works very much like a lifetap tank a la Blood Dk's from WOW. Nano darts return 100% damage as health, but only hit a single target. The nano field heals a percentage of damage back each pulse and then 100% when closing the field rather than letting it fade. Personally I find leveling in tank stance very effective for stalkers as you can maintain full health quite easily with those 2 abilities alone. They also have buffs and debuffs and can be used as support tanks like the engineer, but the main tanking abilities don't offer as much group support.

Survivability is the biggest weakness. The stalker's medium armor can get them blow up if you don't dodge a telegraph quite easily. While the maneuverability is good it also makes the healers job that much more difficult. It helps to have a good understanding with your healers so they know where you are about to be.

Warrior - Feels like what most people would recognize as a tank. There's a mixture of defensive cooldowns and maneuverability that make warriors very tanky. What needs to be seen from the most recent patch is threat generation. Warriors had major issues gaining and maintaining threat. It was more effective to tank in dps gear and hold threat through increased damage in previous patches. I only played this class to 20 so I don't have much experience with max level builds on it.

I'll update this as I can.

[Andrus]

I have to say with my experience in beta I have to agree with everything you have said. This is how I see things panning out in raids. Again this is total speculation on raids (which I am addicted to)...

Engineers will become the master of support/off/add tanks for raids both boss and trash. There ability to pick up many mobs along with supporting other tanks is amazing. I see them being able to main tank but also I wouldn't brush off that "range tank" idea either. I have seen in raids were mobs will have an aura around them and stay ranged, making engineer tanks an amazing option.

Stalker tanks I have seen have the survivability issues but their threat gen seems to be unreal. This may be due to the bugs with Warrior threat gen, but they seem solid. They do avoid many hits which can be nice but I do see a struggle where avoidance tanking is very good. For example I see them as a good main tank or "we need another tank for this trash / boss". They would be good tanks for trash packs that you must pull them all apart and focus single target. Stalker add, then engineer add, then warrior add for example

Warrior, I agree, is what you and many think it is. "Heavy armor, a ton of HP and shield, please punch me in the face" tank. Threat gen still seemed to be an issue, but they are fixing it in the right direction. Any of my tanking experience with my warrior was with keeping threat, not me dying.

But that is just what I am seeing... would be nice to get a bunch of people on and talk about how we think the various roles will play out. Raid set up, class pros and cons... all that good nerdy stuff!

[Jerbowa]

Thanks for the info, I was curious as to how the Engineer would fit in. I can't wait to try all three of them. It's likely I'll work from Stalker to Engineer to Warrior.

[Livnthedream]

Yeah as an Engineer my goal would be to dps first and be a tank as needed. Think of me as the fourthmeal of the tanking squad, just without the molten burning.

[Raille]

From what I've heard about the 20 man, 1-3 tanks will be required and I imagine each tank will have a chance to shine on a particular boss. I'm sure there are dps checks or personally I'd want a MT and one of each tank for support abilities for the beefiest set up possible. That could be part of the plan for 40 mans of course.