How can I help you?

[Stormfur]

So I play tank in PVP for the moment (dark knight). Don't worry, I'm working on leveling Warrior and will replace my DRK with that. But what can I do to help you do your best in PVP? Although I don't have the utility of Paladin or the RAW POWER of the Warrior, I still want to support my team as best as I can.

I *do* have a nice AOE bind and heavy, plus a physical vulnerability up debuff that I like to plant squarely on the DPS target. I'd just like to know how else I can help.

[Bartleby]

As a tank you generally don't have as much direct responsibilities as other roles, hence it is best if you can take on the responsibility of letting the team know whats happening. Here's some tips you can do as tank to help your team better coordinate:

*Use your purify on your teammates. You probably won't need this for yourself most of the time. If your healer is getting slept or stun locked, purify them. If your DPS isn't purifying off full swing for whatever reason (maybe they used theirs already or maybe they're just dumb) purify them. If the person getting focused just has a ton of debuffs on them, purify them. Generally speaking, you need your purify the least and purify is one of the most (if not THE most) potent abilities in PvP so make sure you're using it often to help your team.

*Let the party (read: DPS) know when you're marking someone with vulnerability up. A simple "Full Swing --> <t> <se.5>" or something similar can be a lot of help in making sure the DPS stick on that target.

*You should be prioritizing breaking boxes over any of the other DPS. If you aren't about to kill someone at <25%, you should be switching to adrenaline/attack boxes the moment they're up. Controlling these boxes is key to winning.

*Help your team by calling out things they might be missing due to tunnel vision. Your DPS will be worried about killing people, your healer will be worried about healing people, as tank you generally have less pressure on you so you should be calling out things like who should be taking next medal drop, when boxes are going to spawn (attack boxes spawn at 4:00 and 1:00 left, I don't remember Adren box pattern), when to pull back, etc.

*Do NOT waste stun DR on people, especially the focus target/healer. The DPS being able to stun people at the right time is crucial to being able to secure a kill. I'm not saying you should never stun people but just be smart about it... It's a good idea to stun/bind people that are focusing your teammates though. E.g. DO stun a tank that is stun locking your healer. DO stun a DPS that is going hard on one of your teammates. DO NOT randomly stun a healer when your teammates aren't bursting anyone down. DO NOT randomly stun enemy DPS that aren't bursting and may be the focus target in the next ~30 seconds. You can generally stun the enemy tank whenever you want (best to do it when they're harassing your DPS/healer).

*DO NOT JUST SIT ON THE HEALER. Please please please don't do this. Even Warriors shouldn't do this. All you are doing in this case is splitting damage, trust me, the Healer 90% of the time will not be bothered by you tickling them alone with your sword and you aren't going to be interrupting anything unless you're bursting on them (in which case you should be bursting on them WITH your other DPS at the same time). If your teammates are bursting someone else its not a bad idea to go and stun/bind/harass the healer but its also not a bad idea to add your burst to theirs. I can't count how many times I've seen people live with <10% of their HP which would've been a kill if people all would've been on the same target.

Other than that just try to use ALL of your abilities to their fullest potential. You also have an ability that reduces an enemies damage by 40% so make sure you stick that on someone when they pop their buffs and are about to burst. Try to bind healers/DPS behind walls so they can't do anything.

[Stormfur]

Thank you very much! Can you tell me if there's a list of all the important PVP macros? Like when boxes spawn and things that could help.

[Kai_Lee]

Also keep track of the match timer, know when to run if you are in the lead. Create a simple macro for that. When there is a lot of action going on and players are busy focusing on other things, you might need to be vocal about the match clock. Also learn what the buffs are needed for different dps job to either use your tank lb to prevent kill or your tank abilities to stop them.