Request: Basic tips on gearing at 55 Vanguard Tank

Hi all,

As I near 55, I would like to have some tips regarding gearing my vanguard tank for both pve and pvp. I play pvp mostly and have a full wallet of ranked comms saved up to get me started. I am also happy to pve tank when I am free and it is needed and would like to start building my gear for that as well.

I seldom do landscape pve, but I have a few million in credits for crafted gear if it is really needed.

Suggestions or links to reasonably up to date guides would be great.

Thanks!

The long and short of it is:

You want to go with + absorb, + shield, and you can use either fortitude, aim, or absorb augments (I use aim on my powertech). Defense is worthless, don't bother with it.

That's seriously it. for pvp, make sure you get the mods/enhancements with the highest endurance, absorb, and shield.

PvP tank is a thankless job, and not viable for soloing. Frankly it's not really viable for 4v4. For PvP I have, and always will, wear the eliminator tree of armor. The four piece buff is worth the two piece buff you don't get because you are the "wrong" class. If you go assault, crit is more critical than some other specs. You have to hit big and hit big often. I A.P. and then ion shot and hold a half a second or so and H.I. bolt when the A.P. blows. If those all crit, that is instantaneous 13k damage on an unguarded target. Plus I start unloading rockets into them at the same time. Poorly geared healers are dead in four GCDs. I wear the power ear, and two crit heavy implants. I use the power and elemental damage relics. Everything is augmented with aim. You want buffed crit no lower than 25% for a proper full assault build.

I've never run the tactics/shield hybrid. I have no idea how to run it. That is really the only other viable PvP spec.

PvP tank is a thankless job, and not viable for soloing. Frankly it's not really viable for 4v4. For PvP I have, and always will, wear the eliminator tree of armor. The four piece buff is worth the two piece buff you don't get because you are the "wrong" class. If you go assault, crit is more critical than some other specs. You have to hit big and hit big often. I A.P. and then ion shot and hold a half a second or so and H.I. bolt when the A.P. blows. If those all crit, that is instantaneous 13k damage on an unguarded target. Plus I start unloading rockets into them at the same time. Poorly geared healers are dead in four GCDs. I wear the power ear, and two crit heavy implants. I use the power and elemental damage relics. Everything is augmented with aim. You want buffed crit no lower than 25% for a proper full assault build.

I've never run the tactics/shield hybrid. I have no idea how to run it. That is really the only other viable PvP spec.

There is no tactics/shield hybrid. There never was. It was a pure tactics build wearing dps gear but running ion cell. That is no longer viable due to talent changes.

PVP tank is a lot of fun if you have a good/dedicated healer and you enjoy just making dps life a living hell. I played PT tank in both 8v8 ranked and 4v4 ranked, and enjoyed it

Aye, you have to have a real 4 man team, not an ad-hoc group. A proper tank is nice, but its not worth while to try to solo queue with one.

Not sure Pallos. I played pvp tank at level fifty (when that was end game) and tended to do well. With a healer, I can hold off an army. It is rough without a healer and I wish to god they still had respec in warzones. I've been having fun with it so far and certainly haven't felt like dead weight. But then, this has all been pug against pug. We'll see how it holds up in the big leagues.

PS when I started the game the FoM setup was this hybrid: http://taugrim.com/2012/01/27/iron-fist-...-vanguard/

Unfortunately it is no longer really viable.

For PvE tanking, talk to savos, six and other pro Vanguard Tanks, they will be able to give more accurate answers to things.

It really depend on what you want to do with it though.

This more hardcore content, this more will be asked for your gearing and skill though, so keep that thing in mind, for starters go with the easy stuff and become comfortable with your skills and purpose in groups.