Yeah, yeah I know, nice pun on words for the title, but that’s sort of how I see tanking in Swtor going, and that makes me excited. Now, it really isn’t taking from behind the group, it’s what Bioware is calling Ranged Tanking. This isn’t your standard fantasy MMO where the tank is wielding swords and shields and charging that massive dragon because, well you know, swords have a reach issue. Not blasters folks and once you go blasters, you never go back.

So let’s get this out of the way first. This is the Star Wars Universe. At no time in any movie do you see anyone beyond Jedi popping out any type of sword and going at it. Even when Luke whips out the Lightsaber and goes full tilt on some Stormtroopers, you don’t seem those Troopers pack up the blasters and whip out a vibroblade so they can melee like a Jedi.

Blasters are a part of the Universe in the game. so to have this type of game play in the Swtor MMO, it makes me excited, especially after seeing the videos from PAX weekend.

Now, not all melee is gone as you can see that the mobs can get up close, especially the Captains pet, and there is still that old school feel for the melee fights. The thing is, the tanks aren’t sword carriers unless they are Jedi.

The other aspect of the game that goes hand in hand with the Ranged Tanking is the aggro swap off I saw. I noticed a couple of instances where the Trooper would end up in melee range and pop aggro over to the Jedi, who since he carries a Lightsaber, would start the melee fight and let the Trooper get some range again. once this happened, the Trooper then took over as ranged tank again and the Jedi went back to DPS.

There are so many aspects of this game that are starting to come out that once everything becomes known to the players of the game, there may be more that excites us beyond what we know so far.