Hello, I am originally a player from world of warcraft. I tanked as a Warrior mostly on that game, and i switched to tanking as a Paladin when it became viable. I enjoy the thought of sword-and-board style warriors protecting groups. When WoW decided to begin self-destroying itself during cataclysm, I began to lose hope in the game, and with MoP out, I quit altogether. The game became too simple. So i moved here. So what is my question? well... I have read many posts stating widely different views on tanks. I chose to play a guardian, because it best fit what my personal view of a "tank" should be, based on the base description on the character creation page. I have leveled to level 16, and I like to get a jump on learning how to do what I plan to do for my role in raiding before i get there, by practicing it while i level. The forums i have read have stated views from guardians being bad tanks to being great tanks, and others going from one side of the spectrum to the other on how complicated it is. As a side note I enjoy playing complicated classes, I view that if others view it as complicated, it either is too complicated for simple players to understand, or, that it actually is complicated, and all the more impressive to master. With all this said, this gives you a background to work with for my understanding of game mechanics. I am totally new to this game, so what I really want to know is detailed information about the following: How to generate/hold threat, and anything about any mechanics I should know about to keep the encounter beating on me, and not my squishy dps and healers. What should my spec focus on, because i have noticed some overlapping tendencies and I am not sure what to work on Which direction should my alternate advancements head, because right now i see many of the trees in the first tab having overlapping roles, strength increasing dps but then building more threat, same with some of the others A round-about idea of the general playstyle of the guardian class as a tank. I'm not concerned with whether or not the class does it best or not, or whether or not someone's opinion says otherwise. I simply want to learn the best ways to play the Guardian class as a tank. Its what I want to do. It just feels right. Its a "guardian" so it should "guard" not to be too literal or anything. Thanks in advance for the help, I greatly appreciate it.
I love playing my guard. is it the easiest tank class to play no. our dps is the worst bit of the class its the lowest of all tanks by a fair margin. as for stats its the same as most you want high mitigation, avoidance (most of your avoidance comes from block chance then parry) other stats are as normal get to 600ma good amount of reuse (reuse and ma will come more once u get to end game content and equipment) after that its cast speed etc while levelling I would more concentrate on what ups your dps more. then once u get to max level reset your aa's more for the tanking role or better still get a aa mirror so you can have one build as pure tank i.e. as defencive as you can get and one more towards dps. all tanking is about the same thing good reaction times to dealing with things as they happen and learning to anticipate what is going to happen and most important is positioning
so its more of a dance instead of a "do this and only this to win" style, i like it from the sounds of it. Thanks!
Hey, welcome to the game. I won't comment about AAs as I actually play your crazy cousin, the beserker rather than a guardian, but people like Atan, Estred and others who are less vocal on here will be able to help. AA setups at lower levels are often different to AAs at higher levels. Mainly because you can't spend them all till higher levels but also you, unfortunately, don't get to group often at lower levels, simply because the majority of the playerbase is at cap and you can actually level really quick if you try to. With that in mind, you will rarely have an issue with aggro 1-90 as you'll be on your own mostly! As such, the quicker your enemy dies the better, so putting your AA points in things that increase your dps is a good thing. At higher levels you may decide to sacrifice some of those for more hate gain or special abilities. You can reset your AAs pretty easily for free or minimal costs, so don't worry too much about it and experiment. Get the Threat Meter up on your UI. CTR-T I think but there may be an ALT in there too. This shows up when you're fighting how much the enemy is concentrating on you. 100 means they're concentrating on you, and you want it that way. The smaller number shows the closest someone else is to taking aggro. If it's in the 80s or 90s, it's getting close and you need to generate more aggro. Once that small number gets to 100, the enemies attention is no longer on you, and the big number shows your hate and it will be less than 100. You need to get it back to 100 to get aggro back. Concentrate on getting items with multiattack and critical chance. These have the greatest effect on your damage. You won't cap out either prior to 90 (crit chance technically doesn't cap but too much is worthless, but you won't get close to that until 90+) Be aware of your surroundings and your threat meter. That's the best tip I can give. It's all good you keeping one enemy on you but if you haven't realised another has aggroed your healer and he dies, you're probably next to die!
other thing I would say at low level is don't worry about using a shield. you should duel wield use something like the hc or mc assault axe's as the majority of your dps comes from your auto attack. you can always carry a shield in your bags if you do come across some hard mobs and swap it in and out as needed
Indeed, I keep a pair of gear-macro's to hot swap my shield or off-hand's mid combat. Using Dragoon's Reflexes if you find yourself in a group of really nasty enemies with Dual Wield can stop the damage while you switch too.
