Ed Park, also known as Taugrim recently had the opportunity to interview Stephen Reid at NYCC and all credit to Ed as it was certainly one of the more interesting interviews with Stephen. At around the two minute mark the discussion moves onto The Old Republic's tanking ensemble, and each class' role as a tank... and that's where it happens;

"Sith Warrior you can be a Juggernaut, Jedi Knight can be a Guardian.... ummmm... the Inquisitor can be the Assassin which is like an Off Tank... ummm... the Consular can be a Shadow, which is an Off Tank..."

In the same video Mr Reid did attempt to make it clear that he doesn't play a tank, isn't too clued up on tanking mechanics, and to be fair, isn't one of the designers. Not that it mattered of course, by this point the damage was done. It wasn't long before multiple threads on the subject appeared over at swtor.com and it took the combined posting efforts of Mr Reid and the indomitable Georg Zoeller to crush the speculation:

Previous to their posts Georg had taken the time to reply to a few PMs, but thankfully they both decided to post officially and authoritatively on the subject. There are a few interesting points to pick out of Stephen's posts, particularly around his mention of the Assassin he played in the Eternity Vault, which he claimed was spec'd to be an off-tank. Now this seems a little off to me; he was using Wither, a talent at the top of the tanking tree that requires a full 31 point investment to reach, leaving at most 10 points to play with in other trees; this flies in the face of "to be an off-tank you intentionally spend your points into different trees". That said, it doesn't matter; SR isn't a tank and miss-spoke, which closes the matter completely...

... although not entirely if i'm honest. Let's be frank here; it's always the Assassins and Shadows, right? The tanking class with the most doubt in the community is the one Bioware regularly discuss with language that just further adds to the doubt. Not only in this video are the Force Tanks referred to as off-tanks several times, they're also yet again referred to as Avoidance Tanks while the others are described as being "the damage mitigation ones". It's this language that sticks. Even after SR and GZ posted to correct the interview, people were still posting about how it makes sense that it's an Off-tank, especially as it's an evasion tank.. etc.. etc.. etc. Ultimately these interviews, videos and news items hit a much wider audience than a single post on the forums ever will.

There is no doubt on this site that Assassins and Shadows can main tank, however reiterating this over-and-over on the swtor.com forums is becoming tedious; a situation indirectly created by the language and treatment Bioware have given Force Tanks in their marketing and interviews. A little public Force Tank love from Bioware's end would do wonders for the perception of this class.

Red Rancor have a great interview with Georg Zoeller on their site today. The first question out of the gate is one that many of us have wanted answering for some time;

So there it is; officially, from the mouth and mind of Zoeller, Assassins and Shadows are not Evasion tanks. This confirms a number of things we've stated on this site and over at the official forums, primarily this solidifies our belief that all tanks in TOR are mitigation tanks. Secondly that our tanking flavour involves a little higher avoidance, with self-healing smoothing out the slight differences in incoming damage.

This is hardly revolutionary news for those of you who visit this site as we've collectively known that Force Tanks are not Avoidance tanks in the traditional sense, however it's great to have clarification from the developers, and another card to play in the next inevitable swtor.com "Can Shadows tank?" thread.

... unless of course you want to post news... which I guess makes the lack of news into news of the bad variety. I'm rambling now.

So in lieu of Assassin and Shadow news I thought i'd take the opportunity to rollout a new feature to the site; you can now set your faction on the account settings page, which will automagically adjust the theme and content of this site to suit. Ability and Talent names will also automatically be translated for you; for example, Assassins and Shadows both have the same core mechanics as they are mirrors of each other. They both employ a mechanic of buffing their weapons to apply a limited time buff to their character to enable them to tank. The ability is identical to both factions, apart from the name. The name of that ability will be adjusted site-wide based on your faction setting.

This feature has been enabled across the site. Member created content such as comments and forum posts are also included; if you take part in a conversation thread created by a Shadow tank, and you're an Assassin tank you see will their post with Assassin terminology and naming... and visa versa, the owner of the thread will see Shadow ability names even if you reply using Assassin names and terminology.

Hopefully this will enable me to deliver content that is clean, without the need to constantly include descriptions and names for multiple classes, and more importantly will allow us to build a community around our core mechanics, without worrying too much about the terminology differences and the confusion it may bring.

This is a new, custom and uncommon feature; as a result there may be kinks. If you encounter any problems please do let me know.

Best,
Parthis.

Bioware's Wednesday Facebook update has delivered another Shadow image; and it screams ruthless assassin. Smoke, Fire and Corpses litter the background.

The Eternity Vault developer walkthrough provided some gems for budding Assassin and Shadow tanks out there. First up, and best of all, the specific details of Dark Charge are glimpsed;

Dark Charge

Very nice. The healing component feels fairly underwhelming; 31 HP every 1.5 seconds is a small amount of recovery for a tank with 12.5k health. That said the armor boost (150%) and threat generation boost (50%) are both very nice. The surprise, however, is the additional 20% increased shield chance, which when combined with Dark/Dark Ward gives our class an additional 35% chance to shield incoming damage. It's a little odd to see that it's a ranked spell, but I guess the ranks are there to increase the healing throughout the levelling process.

Discharge

Discharge has been mentioned on this site before (and can be found in the tanking guides section), but it's nice to see it in-game to confirm it's effects. It does indeed deal AoE damage, and perhaps more importantly the ability is confirmed to debuff the targets it hits, reducing their chance to hit by 5%.

Force Pull

Uses the force, Luke, to draw the target in, instantly pulling it to your location and generating a high amount of threat. Again, lovely to see it confirmed. The fact that it does not work against targets in cover was expected (and needed for PvP balance). The threat generation component is interesting; the ability does not state that it forces the enemy to attack you, just generates additional threat... so it's reasonable to assume that if the player being targeted by the enemy is still higher on it's threat list, even after the pull and the additional threat is applied, the enemy will continue to move away from you. The 45 second cooldown feels reasonable; neither excessively long nor spammable in PvP encounters.

Mind Control

It's our taunt. It forces the enemy to attack you for 6 seconds. A player target will deal 30% less damage when attacking players other than yourself; this is 20% lower than the previously expected 50%. The player PvP debuff also lasts 6 seconds; less than half the cooldown time.

Overcharge Saber

Provides a short-duration buff (15 seconds), scaling damage dealt by Lightening and Surging Charge by 100%, and more importantly for tanks, the healing component of Dark Charge by 300%. The two minute cooldown and low cost make it useful in PvE for those situations that need just a little more survival and self-healing.

Shock

Shock has a short cooldown with a relatively high Force cost. Through a talent in the talent tree called Induction (Assassin) and Particle Acceleration (Shadow) you have a 50% chance to reset the cooldown of Shock when attacking with Thrash and Lacerate (Shadow: Thrash and Lacerate). It can be used at range, which is particularly useful for picking up spawning enemies and trying to finish off a fleeing player in PvP (especially when combined with Lightening and it's movement slowing debuff). Shock will be particularly important for Assassin and Shadow tanks as it's damage and threat are increased through points spent in our talent tree.

Thrash

A single target attack that strikes the enemy twice, dealing good damage. Given it's cost it seems to be interchangeable with Lacerate, and provides solid single-target threat. Thrash/Thrash has a 50% chance to reset the cooldown of Shock (or Shock is you're playing a Shadow), thanks to a talent in the third tier of the tree called Induction (Assassin) or Particle Acceleration (Shadow).

Lacerate

Lacerate/Lacerate is an AoE attack, causing damage to all nearby targets. Given it's cost it seems to be interchangeable with Thrash/Thrash, and provides a nice AoE threat. Like Thrash, Lacerate has a 50% chance to reset the cooldown of Shock (or Shock is you're playing a Shadow), thanks to a talent in the third tier of the tree called Induction (Assassin) or Particle Acceleration (Shadow).

Bioware have posted a narrated Eternity Vault walkthrough, which has some great Assassin PoV gameplay.

Yet again, and rather frustratingly, the video presents the Juggernaut as the group's primary tank, and the Assassin as the group's secondary tank. Force Pull is 100% confirmed, as Dallas mentions it specially. Following the Force Pull the Assassin heads over to a pack of three enemy droids and starts pushing out some AoE threat with Wither. At around the 3:20 mark you'll see one of the droids being knocked to the ground, which i'm pretty sure is Spike (or Spike if you're playing a Shadow). Spiked targets take additional damage from all sources depending on how you spend your talent points.

Incoming damage looks to be fairly minimal, and there is a little healing taking place too, so there's nothing particularly tangible here to assess the Assassin's mitigation against multiple enemies. There are points in the encounter that show the Assassin taking the primary brunt of the boss' damage, and he deals with it well.

Once again it's video proving that not only can Assassins tank, they can tank well. What is a little disheartening is the language used. It's yet another video showing one of the heavy armor classes up front and designated as the main or primary tank... it's also the first time we've seen an Assassin in a Raid. In many ways it's this language that's leading the community to believe that Assassins are nothing more than Off Tanks, and Bioware aren't helping matters by continuing this trend. Words like "secondary" stick with people... especially the MMO crowd.

Take a peak at the 6 minute 20 second mark; the Assassin Force pulls a droid enemy into melee range. Very cool.

It's likely not escaped your notice but at the heart of Star wars there's a bit of a kerfuffle. We all have our part to play. Other MMOs have done a pretty poor job of making PvP accessible and fun to players who choose to embrace a tanking role. Sure, you were the flag carrier, but you never felt truly potent, like you had a chance of standing toe-to-toe against another player from the other faction. No siree, you're a glorified UPS man and make no mistake.

Only not in The Old Republic. You have a role to play, and it's a role that's recognised by the PvP system and one that is equally as important as dealing out the pain or pushing out the heals. Your role is simple: Be a tank. Soak damage, taunt, debuff and control. The Old Republic allows tanks to Guard another player to reduce the damage they take by 50% as long as you stay within range. You can taunt an enemy player to reduce the damage they deal by 50%, which can only be removed by the enemy player if they switch targets and start attacking you. You have your cooldowns, you have your mitigation, you have you avoidance.

Assassins and Shadows have another dimension though; control. The role of tanking in PvE often requires the player to masterfully control a changing situation. Co-ordinating crowd control, picking up multiple enemies, timing cooldowns, moving objectives and avoiding peril, maintaing threat and debuffs while staying alive are properties of a great tank... and they're also important aspects in player vs. player fights.

Stealth provides one opportunity unique to Assassin and Shadow tanks; being able to apply crowd control on the move, or sneak past multiple players to disrupt an attempt by an enemy player who is trying to gain control of a Gun Battery in Adleraan. Force Pull, on the other hand offers us the opportunity to rip the player from the Battery's command terminal from range. Wither/Wither is the perfect go-to ability when you see several enemies desperately trying to cap an objective. Spike/Spike is that wonderful short term stun you use just as enemy is going to drop or heal... and so. We're no longer second-class PvP citizens, and if that wasn't enough...

...Tanks are rewarded for being tanks. Damage mitigated through Guard and Taunts is tracked and summarised at the end of a Warzone, just like damage and healing done. It is now a first class metric at which to judge a tank's prowess on the field of battle, and is visible for all to see.

Given the tremendous control and shared-mitigation abilities that a tank can bring to the battle, and the numerous reports that healers cannot out-heal damage (ahem, Blizzard, take note) I imagine this will lead to a wonderful synergy between tanks and healers in Warzones; an existing relationship and bond that is so firmly cemented in PvE can now flourish in Warzones and PvP, too.

Also of interest...

Cynical Brit have upload some great Alderaan warzone footage from Gamescom 2011. If you jump to around the 9 minute 20 second mark you'll see Guard applied and in action.

Another wednesday brings another hype bombardment by Bioware in the form a the weekly Facebook screenshot... and this week it's a rather heroic shot of a Jedi Consular Shadow standing his ground amongst a scattering of dead Imperial soldiers.

Can we glean anything from this? No, not really. Double Bladed Saber: Check. Robes: Check. Overtones of defiance and power; Double-check.