Assassin and Shadow tanking overview.

Overview

Tankasins and Shadows (from this point on referred to as Force Tanks) are stealth-capable classes. You'll tank with a Double-bladed Lightsaber, and wear robes with low base armor. Armor will be increased through active buffs and abilities, although it is expected we'll have a little less overall armor when compared to the heavy armor classes (Troopers, Bounty Hunters, Sith Juggernauts and Jedi Guardians). To compensate for our lower overall mitigation we'll dodge deflect and shield a little more. This has lead to some concerns amongst the swtor.com community as "Avoidance" tanks are often shunned in favour of mitigation tanks, and are seen as spiky and unpredictable in other MMOs. To be clear; nothing we've seen makes the Assassin an avoidance tank; in fact the complete opposite has been observed; increased armor, healing taken and shield chance make for a formidable mitigation tank.

Combat System.

We're a melee class. We'll be up close and personal with fast-hitting strikes. The Force Tank combat system is based around a resource called Force. Force is a regenerative resource, replenishing over time. Force Tanks will have a maximum of 100 Force (or 110 if you choose to spec into the DPS tree to pick up a tier 3 talent that increases your maximum Force by 10, which is unlikely). Unmodified Force will regenerate at 8 per second (8/s). Force Tanks gain a passive ability that adds an additional 3/s Force and there are also two talents that further improve our Force regeneration; the first is a Tier 1 talent called Lightening Reflexes that provides 2% Force every time we dodge or deflect an attack, which can only occur once every second; so at best, assuming we dodge/deflect at least once a second it's an additional 2/s Force - on very slow hitting bosses, or encounters that deal entirely in attacks that can't be avoided/AoE attacks this is unreliable regeneration. In the fourth tier of our respective tanking trees there is a talent called Blood of Sith that improves our Force regeneration by 30% (3 ranks; 10% per rank), which increases our base regeneration to 14.3/second.

Force Tanks Charge (Charge is an Assassin term; Shadows apply Techniques) their weapons to provide personal (30 minute duration) buffs, such as increased damage, threat and armor. Using Discharge while Dark Charge is active will apply damage and a debuff to your enemies. Dark Charge is the Force Tanks' tanking weapon buff which provides an additional 150% armor, an additional 20% chance to shield and 50% threat generation while active, helping close the armor and mitigation gap. The Shield chance increase is particularly interesting; combined with Dark Ward's additional 15% we should have a 35% chance to shield an attack. Shielded hits lower incoming damage by 20%, which can be improved by an additional 4% by our T4 talent Hollow. Dark Change includes a healing component, which can only be triggered every 1.5 seconds. There is still some speculation of the exact amount of healing provided by this proc; it is suspected it may actually be 150%-200% of the damage dealt, however tooltips from the Eternity Vault walkthrough show fixed amounts that are notably less than 200% of damage done. Discharging Dark Charge lowers the hit chance of up to 5 nearby enemies by 5%, which indirectly adds to our avoidance (insofar as it increases our chance not to get hit).

DischargeInstant, 15m Range20 Force12 second cooldownUnleashes your current saber charge upon the target, applying an effect based on your current charge. Only usable with a charged saber. Requires a Double-bladed Lightsaber.

Dark Charge: Strikes up to 5 nearby enemies, dealing damage and decreasing the targets accuracy by 5% for the next 18 seconds.

Given the short cooldown and duration of Discharge's debuff it is reasonable to assume that we'll be using the Discharge mechanic frequently. Rotating threat-generating abilities, Discharge cycles and maintaining short-term mitigation buffs (see below) seems to be the core of our tanking mechanics.

Mitigating Incoming Damage

All tanks in The Old Republic can equip a Shield Generator, which has a chance of reducing (mitigating) incoming damage by 20%. Dark Ward increases the chance your Shield Generator will absorb incoming damage by 15% for 20 seconds, with a 12 second cooldown. Dark Charge grants an additional 20% shield chance, giving us a typical 35% chance to lower the damage of an incoming attack. On activation it adds a stack of 8 Ward buffs to your character. Each successfully shielded attack reduces the number of Wards in the stack - once the stack hits 0 the increased shield chance is removed.

Force Tankshave a 31 point talent called Wither, an AoE ability that causes kinetic damage against a maximum of 5 enemies. Wither also debuffs the targets it hits causing them to deal 5% less damage, which in turn should be considered as in-direct mitigation. Wither has a 7.5 second cooldown, and the debuff has a 15 second duration, making it more than rotatable. It seems like our go to ability for AoE tanking and threat generation, and you'll likely use it every cooldown. In single-target encounters you'll only need to use it often enough to maintain the 15 second -5% damage debuff. It's unclear at this point whether AoE attacks such as Wither avoid CC'd targets.

Dark WardInstant10 Force12 second cooldownDoes not break stealth.Surrounds you in a Dark Ward with 8 charges that increases your shield chance by 15% for 20 seconds. Each time you successfully shield the Dark Ward loses 1 charge.

Self-healing

As mentioned above it is believed that Dark Charge includes a healing component. Dark Charge grants a 50% chance to heal you for 31 (unmodified) and can only occur once every 1.5 seconds.

Dark ChargeInstant, 7 Ranks50 Force1.5 second cooldownCharges your lightsaber with energy, giving your attacks a 50% chance to drain life force from the target, dealing 31 internal damage and healing you for 31. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds.

Increase your armor rating by 150%, all threat generated by 50%, and reduces melee bonus damage by 5%. Dark Charge additionally increases shield chance by 20%. Requires a double-bladed lightsaber. Does not break stealth.

Overcharge Saber provides a short duration buff to the healing component of Dark Charge; useful for situations that require a little more survival and excessive healer pressure.

Overcharge SaberInstant10 Force2 minute cooldownOvercharges your current saver charge for 15 seconds, increase the damage dealt by Lightning and Surging Charge by 100% and the healing done by Dark Charge by 300%.

Force Tanks have an ability called Saber Charge, an on demand ability with an effect that varies by the active Charge/Technique. With Dark Charge active Saber Charge heals you for 10% of your health [UNCONFIRMED by Bioware].

Piecing it all together

Maintaining our buffs will be key to managing and smoothing the incoming damage. Dark Ward has a short cooldown, and in a one-on-one fight (such as a boss encounter) it's likely that a stack of 8 Wards will not be used up entirely before the cooldown completes and you can reapply. This is, of course, an educated assumption, however it's reasonable to assume that with high dodge and deflection taking 8 direct, shielded hits in the space of 12 seconds is rare. With Dark Ward up we'll want to be sure that Dark Charge is active, while Discharging often enough to maintain the mob debuff. Using Wither often enough to maintain the -5% damage debuff is also important; the frequency at which you use Wither depends entirely on the number of enemies you're tanking, just be sure the debuff doesn't drop.

The steady trickle of self-healing from Dark Charge and the on-demand healing of Saber Charge seem like a strong combination.

In many ways the Force Tanks are starting to feel a little like a combination of Death Knights and early Protection Paladins in World of Warcraft; Dark Charge feels like a Seal, Discharge feels like a Judgement, Dark Ward feels like Holy Shield and the side-benefit of Dark Charge feels like Seal of Light... I, personally, am more than happy with this. I used to adore paladin tanking (Vanilla and TBC).