December 2019 - This guide is likely horrendously out of date, since I stopped actively playing around the release of the Agent System back in 2018. I would suggest checking the official SWL Forums[forums.funcom.com] for up to date information.
Patch 2.1.3 - Pulverise nerfed, added agnostic/wrist signet information, added Hallowed Cache items.
Patch 2.1.1 - Added Future-Tech Cache weapons, added Raid weapons and talismans, taunts are now hard taunts instead of soft taunts, recovery suffix buffed, Pulverise fixed to work correctly with extraordinary weapons.
Patch 2.1.0 - Removed CC resilience mechanic, gadgets no longer trigger GCD, Otherworldly Artifact now works.
8/11/2017 - Added Defense Rating soft cap information. Whether Evade Rating has a soft cap is still unknown.
Patch 2.0.3 - Added Infernal Cache weapons, added expected elite 5+ mechanics and dungeon drops.
Patch 2.0.2 - Guide creation.

Effective HP is directly influenced by 2 things: Health and Mitigation. Health is exactly as it sounds, the health of the tank and how much damage they can take. Mitigation expands that health by reducing the amount of damage that is dealt in various ways. In SWL, Tanks have access to the following forms of mitigation:

• Protection Rating - the main tanking stat which reduces most incoming damage. Note some damage may ignore this stat. This provides linear gains to Effective HP, but diminishing gains to Damage Reduction following the formula:
  
  Damage Reduction = (Protection Rating * 100) / (Protection Rating + 24538)
• Defense Rating - a glyph stat which reduces damage by 70% if the incoming attack is glanced. This scales linearly with a soft cap following the formulas:
  
  Glance Chance = Defense Rating / 101.67 until 4221 Defense Rating Glance Chance = Defense Rating / 683.00 above 4221 Defense Rating
• Evade Rating - a glyph stat which reduces damage by 100% if the incoming attack is evaded. This scales linearly with an assumed soft cap following the formula:
  
  Evade Chance = Evade Rating / 145 until ?4221? Evade Rating Evade Chance = Evade Rating / ? above ?4221? Evade Rating
• Flat reduction - provided by abilities. Works like protection rating by providing direct damage reduction. This is added multiplicatively to current damage reduction.
  
• Barrier - provided by abilities. damage taken is subtracted from the barrier before being subtracted from health. Reflect barriers will further reduce the damage by 50%.
  
• Debilitate - provided by abilities. a status effect on enemies which reduces damage by 20%.

The aggro mechanic.

• 1 point of damage generates 1 hate.
  
• 1 point of healing/barrier generates 0.5 hate. Overhealing generates no hate, but does add to the hate table. (Facepulling with a HoT on you will make the boss target the healer). Barriers will always generate hate on application.
  
• "High amount of hate" abilities generate 10x the normal hate.
  
• Aggro naturally switches at 110% hate.
  
• Taunt abilities do not modify the hate table, and only force the target to attack for the duration.

Generally speaking, face the boss away from the group. This deals with any sort of cleave mechanic and gives a small bit of time to react while the boss is turning aggro switches.

Do not stand in fire. Or filth. Or telegraphs. Basically don't stand in things that hurt. You'd think this is fairly obvious, but in SWL it's not always obvious that you are standing in something and that those constant ticks to your health are from that and not a DoT or the boss hitting you.

In general, tanks will be expected to interrupt while DPS will be expected to purge. However, due to high incoming damage in later content tanks may ask DPS to help with interrupting.

Casts with a purple cast bar cannot be interrupted by abilities, but may still be prevented by other mechanics such as line of sight (LOS) or range.

• For example, the Haugbui Jarl (first boss of Polaris) casts "Deep Calling" which places a pulsing ground AoE on the target. The cast itself cannot be interrupted, but if the boss cannot see the person he targeted with the cast when the cast finishes, the cast will not complete.
  
• The same boss also casts "Charged Hack" which will deal heavy damage to the target. This ability can be interrupted via normal means, but will also not complete if the target is out of melee range when the cast completes.

Casts bars which are not purple can be interrupted. Whether they should be leads to...

A tank MUST know the fight. There are many mechanics in SWL which will instantly kill the tank or the group if not properly dealt with, and because tanks are responsible for positioning, the bulk of the responsibility in dealing with these mechanics will fall to the tank.

Tank gearing should be composed of a full set of health talismans and a mix of hit, glance, and evade glyphs. Between glance and evade, assuming evade also has a soft cap glyphing glance up to the glance soft cap before glyphing evade will provide the most reliable mitigation.

Elite dungeons are the first content in SWL progression which requires roles. According to the developers, elite 1 is tuned to a character who has finished the story mission and has all superior (blue) items with 1 epic (purple) item.

1. Aim for at least 6k natural health and a full set of unglyphed superior (blue) tank talismans.
   
2. Glyphs are useful, but not necessary at this difficulty. Glyph priority is as follows:
   
   • 5% glance reduction from hit
     
   • Glance/Evade when affordable
     

Lairs are the next step in SWL progression after elite 1 in order to obtain signets. According to the developers, lairs are tuned to a character in full epic (purple) gear.

1. Aim for at least 9k natural health and a full set of superior (blue) glyphed epic (purple) talismans.
   
2. Glyphs are more important at this difficulty. Glyph priority is as follows:
   
   • 18% glance reduction from hit
     
   • Glance/Evade on everything else.
     
     • Stacking one glyph stat until the soft cap will have better defensive returns than splitting stats before the soft cap.

Regionals are the "final boss" of lairs. I don't believe there has been developer commentary on regional boss tuning, but from what I've seen it's tuned to a character in fully leveled epic (purple) gear.

1. Aim for at least 14k natural health and a full set of epic (purple) glyphed fully leveled epic (purple) talismans.
   
2. Glyphs are extremely important at this difficulty. Glyph priority is as follows:
   
   • Around 31% glance reduction from hit
     
   • Glance/Evade on everything else.
     
     • Stacking one glyph stat until the soft cap will have better defensive returns than splitting stats before the soft cap.

Starting from Elite 5 difficulty, dungeons reintroduce the old TSW nightmare mechanics as well as significantly scaling up the health and damage of bosses. I don't believe there has been developer commentary on elite 5 tuning, but from what I've seen it's tuned to a character in full mythic (yellow) gear.

1. Aim for at least 14k natural health and a full set of epic (purple) glyphed fully leveled epic (purple) talismans.
   
   • 450 Item Level roughly requires a fully leveled set of epic talismans/glyphs/signets in each slot at the minimum, with possibly 1 mythic to compensate for the lack of wrist signets.
     
2. Glyphs are extremely important at this difficulty. Glyph priority is as follows:
   
   • 22% glance reduction from hit
     
   • Glance/Evade on everything else.
     
     • Stacking one glyph stat until the soft cap will have better defensive returns than splitting stats before the soft cap.

Raids are 10 man content expected to follow the same scaling system as Elite Dungeons (with the same gear requirements), with Elite 5+ introducing old NM mechanics from TSW. Raid composition is generally designed to be:

• 2 Tanks
  
• 2 Healers
  
• 6 DPS

Although many groups will only use 1 healer in favor of an additional DPS.

Manhattan Exclusion Zone (NYR)
The first raid available in game is the Manhattan Exclusion Zone, generally abbreviated by players as NYR or less commonly as MEZ. NYR raids will generally be composed of:

• 2 Tanks
  
• 1-2 Healers
  
• 6-7 DPS, with at most 2 Melee DPS due to buff circle mechanics.

Flame-Wreathed weapons add about 5% damage mitigation on a 5 second cycle.
Anima-Touched weapons add a small amount of sustain and threat generation.

Hammer

• Orochi Motivator adds about 5% damage mitigation.
  
• Manticore Riot Suppressor generates more hate and rage while using a hammer defensive ability.
  
• The Tenderiser and Flanged Mallet generates more hate.
  
• Hell-Forged War Hammer generates extra rage.
  
• Pneumatic Maul grants an extra enraged Pulverise on critical hits, triggering the healing passive. Although it requires a critical hit, and is limited to once every 9 seconds. However I've been told that this does not trigger with Pulverise at the moment.

Chaos

• Sanity's Aphelion gives about 2.5% damage mitigation at 0 paradoxes.
  
• The Cause's Effect gives damage mitigation on Controlled Chaos procs and additional hate generation on evade.
  
• Otherworldly Artifact Increases paradox generation rate.
  
• Enigmatic Apparatus increases the effectiveness of enigmas.
  
• Sov-Tech Paradox Generator gives more chances to trigger the powerful Controlled Chaos effects.
  
• Incalculable Abacus gives about 10% damage mitigation with frequent paradox generation.

Shotgun

• The Redeemer gives the group beneficial effects, either healing or extra damage, whenever shells are reloaded
  
• Soviet TSAR-914 adds about 2% damage mitigation on emptying shells.
  
• Prototype-M402 adds about 3.5% damage mitigation when loading anima-infused shells.
  
• Bolstering Blaster generates additional hate when glanced.

In order of general usefulness:

• Efficiency will allow elite abilities to be used more frequently. Note that efficiency is much less effective when stacked with other CD reduction, reducing cooldown by around 4-5 seconds alone but only 2-3 seconds with a legendary cooldown signet.
  
• Alacrity increases movement speed allowing for better positioning.
  
• Energy increases energy generation allowing for more ability usage to generate more threat.
  
• Restoration heals for a small amount on each attack.
  
• Wardingadds a constant 1.8% Effective HP, or around 1% damage reduction at epic gear levels scaling down to 0.3% damage reduction at legendary gear levels.
  
• Recovery increases incoming healing.

Listed below are the best in slot tanking talismans currently available in the game. The benefit from an extraordinary item compared to its non-extraordinary counterpart is minimal, so in general, it is better to have a 3 pip normal talisman over a 2 pip extraordinary talisman.

Note that currently available drops are only dungeon drops - when raids release, we are likely to see much more powerful effects.

Head - Cosmic Pigment. This slots triggers on being hit 5 time in succession.

• Cosmic Pigment generates more hate, which is generally worth more when compared to the small amount of temporary mitigation that Pigment from Beyond or the small amount of healing that Mark of the Starspawn provides.

Finger - Recursive Circle. This slot triggers on purging or interrupting.

• Recursive Circle reduces all ability cooldowns by around 0.5 seconds when purging or interrupting an ability, which is much more powerful than the small amount of damage mitigation provided by Rurikid Knot or healing from Cold Metal.

Neck - Lycanthropic Essence. This slot only triggers when losing health while already below 50% health.

• Lycanthropic Essence generates additional threat and heals for 1.5% of maximum HP. This scales much better than the barrier from Medallion of Wadjet (which scales with Heal Power) or the small amount of temporary mitigation Fishbone Medallion provides.

Wrist - Bracer of Forgotten Horrors. This slot triggers on being hit by an exposed or debilitated enemy.

• Bracer of Forgotten Horrors essentially generates 1/3 of a basic attack worth of hate on every incoming attack. Hate generation is much more useful compared to the small chance to extend debilitate duration that Bracer of Horus provides.

Luck - Golden Coin. This slot triggers on evaded/glanced attacks.

• Golden Coin essentially generates 1 basic attack worth of hate on every glanced or evaded attack, which is generally worth more when compared to the small amount of temporary mitigation that Obsidian Flakes provides.

Waist - Black Sash/Grounding Line. This slot triggers when attacking an enemy that is facing you.

• I'm not sure sure how much hate Black Sash actually generates, but any additional hate generation is good. Grounding Line provides additional movement speed, which is valuable as a tank.

Occult - Whalebone Rune. This slot triggers when an enemy is defeated.

• Whalebone Rune gives a moderate amount of damage mitigation when an enemy is defeated. Although the healing from Alloy Heart can be useful, it can also easily be wasted from overhealing whereas the protection rating will always be of use.

Glyph stats greatly affect hatred generation and survivability. The 4 glyphs stats relevant for a Tank are:

• Accurate: Hit Rating, 50.85 gives 1% glance reduction
  
• Stalwart: Defense Rating, 101.67 gives 1% glance chance until 4221, 683 gives 1% glance chance after 4221.
  
• Elusive: Evade Chance, 145.00 gives 1% evade chance. Soft cap is unconfirmed, but assumed to be 4221.
  
• Fierce: Critical Rating, 157.50 gives 1% critical chance

Current known glance reduction caps are:

• 5% for Elite 1
  
• 18% for Lairs
  
• 22% for Elite 5
  
• Around 31% for Regionals Bosses

The ideal split at end game will be:

• 1 Accurate (hit) glyph - Glanced hits do 70% less damage (generating less hate) and do not cause their effects (such as interrupting).
  
• 3 Stalwart (defense) glyphs - Glanced hits do 70% less damage and do not cause their effects. The soft cap for Defense Rating is 4221, which is 3 legendary level 20 glyphs + full SP passives.
  
• 3 Elusive (evade) glyphs - Evaded hits deal no damage and cause no effects. There is presumably a soft cap for Evade Rating at 4221 but it has not been confirmed.
  
• 1 Fierce (critical) glyph - Given the tremendous drop in stat returns at soft cap, the extra critical rating to generate more energy is a better investment for the extra glyph slot.

Glyph placement does not affect the value of stats that are given, but do affect versatility for multiple roles. There are a few things to keep in mind:

• Weapon glyphs are only active while wielding that weapon. If hit is only on one weapon, the other weapon will have a higher glance chance.
  
• Critical Rating is a universal stat. All roles benefit from Critical Rating due to the energy generation on critical mechanic.
  
• Critical Power mostly benefits DPS and Healers. Tanks only gain a small hate generation increase due to low critical chance.
  
• Hit mostly benefits Tanks and DPS. Healers only gain benefit from Hit if they are Rifle healing or attempting to interrupt/purge.

Head - Per weapon, with a choice between cooldown reduction and increased output. Tanks will always want cooldown reduction. Weapon agnostic signets are highly viable here.
Neck/Finger - Per weapon. Should match the primary weapon. Weapon agnostic signets are viable when using two power abilities, but generally the weapon specialty signet will be better.
Wrist - Modifies Ultimate Ability (wings), with a choice between cooldown reduction and increased output. Cooldown reduction will be more useful for tanks, as the wing effects scale with combat/healing power, both of which tanks lack.
Luck - On crit effects, which don't happen very often as a tank so this slot is not too important. Tanks should choose between Cruel Delight/Thirst for more sustain, or Thorns/Sadism for more threat.
Waist - Modifies gadgets. Modifies gadgets. Tanks should choose between Time and Space Alteration or Biological Metamorphosis.
Occult - Modifies active dodge. Tanks should choose between Quickness, Contortion, and Acrobatics.

Gadget usage does not trigger and is not affected by the 1 second global cooldown. A full list of gadgets can be found here[docs.google.com].

Although highly dependent on gear, stats, and abilities, tanks are quite versatile in what they can do. Tank builds will generally follow the same format:

1. Hate generation basic attack
   
2. Hate generation primary power attack
   
3. Hate generation primary secondary attack/Elite
   
4. Defensive CD/Elite
   
5. Utility/Defensive CD/Elite
   
6. Utility/Defensive CD/Elite

Keep in mind that this is only a general template, and will change depending on the fight and group. I will highlight the styles I've personally used and provide an example build, and then list the notable key tanking abilities by type.

There are 3 styles of tanking that I've personally used in SWL:

• Mitigation Tank - Focused on reducing incoming damage as much as possible, relying on a healer to stay alive. Good for progression content. I usually run Hammer/Chaos[filthdb.com] or Hammer/Shotgun[filthdb.com] for this.
  
• Sustain Tank - Eliminate the healer role by bringing skills which will allow the tank to keep itself alive. However, since the tank can only heal itself, it doesn't work that great in content with groupwide damage. Good for farming content. I usually run Hammer/Chaos[filthdb.com] for this.
  
• Buff Tank - Sacrifices some survivability to bring additional damage to the team via buffs/debuffs such as Opening Shot, chaos enigmas, exposed, and ice beam+passive. Good for farming content or DPS races. I usually run Chaos/Shotgun[filthdb.com] for this.

AoE with increased hate generation - The hatred multipler is 10x, and the AoE basic attack does 0.5x the damage of the single target attacks, meaning AoE attacks still generate 5x the hate of a single target attack. The AoE basic attack is also usually enough to pick up and deal with adds that spawn.

Pulverise - Increases max health by 30%. The passive restores health when refreshing the max health buff.
Burning Wrath - The passive creates a ground AoE that hinders when enraged, great for add management.
Rocket Pod - The only ranged hate generator. The passive adds about 15% damage reduction when fully stacked.

Tough Skin - Gives armor and debilitates. The passive gives a barrier of 150% maximum health.
Twist Fate - Gives armor. The passive gives an effective barrier of 110%+ maximum health.

• In TSW, reflect barriers were unique in that they will straight up negate half of the damage by reflecting it regardless of how large the hit is compared to the barrier's size. So with a 20k hit after mitigation and a 5k reflect barrier, 10k will be reflected to the attacker, the 5k barrier will disappear, and 5k damage will be dealt to health. Whether this applies to SWL needs some additional testing.

Pain Suppression - Heals for a portion of incoming damage. The passive heals for more than the incoming damage amount, basically granting immortality to normal attacks as long as the attack does not instantly kill.

• It's important to understand how Pain Suppression works to use it correctly. The heal comes BEFORE the damage, meaning taking damage at full health will result in overhealing followed by health loss.
  
• Pain Suppression also does not work on most ground/persistent effects and some spells.

Rewind - Heals for any damage taken 3 seconds after activation. The passive changes this to a heal for damage taken in the 3 seconds before activation.
Glutton for Punishment - Gives armor, taunts, and makes attacks generate additional hate for it's duration. The passive heals on any glanced attack while the armor effect is active.

• The passive heal comes after the damage is dealt.
  
• The additional hate generation is somewhere in the range of 6%-12%.

Beatdown - Probably the best utility interrupt. The passive gives all players who attack the target energy if a cast was interrupted.
Evulsion - A ranged interrupt and taunt. The passive makes its effects affect an area around the target.
CQC - Another interrupt. The passive deals heavy damage in an area if a cast was interrupted.
Reconstituting Shells - A group heal. The passive adds about 15% damage reduction to the user and half of that to the user's group.
Enter the Fray, Glutton for Punishment, and Evulsion are force taunts. They will make the target attack you for their duration, but then the target will follow their hate table again.

Kneecapper - Interrupts, generates hate, and provides good consistent damage mitigation. The passive improves the damage mitigation effect.
Anomaly - Adds evade for it's duration, interrupts, and is great for paradox generation and add control.
Immutable - Grants temporary immortality, allowing some mechanics to be ignored, makes attacks generate additional hate, and heals for 40% of maximum health. The passive generates more paradoxes, but will not overflow.

• The additional hate generation is about 10%.

Raging Volcano is an AoE taunt and works very well for add management. The passive gives a buff which reduces incoming damage.

• The passive gives up to 20 stacks of a buff which reduces damage by 1% each stack and lasts for 10 seconds. Each time damage over 2% of maximum health is taken, 1 stack is lost.

Unstoppable Force is good for CC heavy fights. The passive makes it also reduce incoming damage.

• Die Hard adds about 20% damage reduction when close to dying
  
• Resonance Cascade is pretty much required for any chaos build
  
• Long Term Chaos increases the duration of your Chaotic Enigma group buffs.
  
• Paradoxial Restoration is a very strong heal for a chaos tank
  
• Riot Shield adds about 5% damage reduction with around 60% uptime

Tanking in dungeons usually involves positioning and mitigating sustained incoming damage. Interrupting key abilities is often the role of the tank in dungeons due to the comparatively moderate amounts of incoming damage.

For fight specific mechanics, refer to this guide[redd.it].

Tanking in lairs consists of many add fights and mitigating much higher incoming damage than in the lower Elites. Consider bringing 2 defensive CDs and taunts. Bosses have many unique mechanics, but in general tanks can expect to be dealing with adds and dodging telegraphed attacks.

For fight specific mechanics, Posid has started compiling tactics here[redd.it].

Tanking in raids generally consists of coordinating aggro swapping with a second tank.

For fight specific mechanics, Tipsui has a guide for NYR here[redd.it].

• Aspect of the Long-Toothed - Tanking is composed of mitigating very high amounts of incoming damage (~40k base damage). The tank will need to always have a defensive cooldown active or risk being one shot. Death from Hounded can be prevented by interrupting the boss as it walks to the targeted player, then having the targeted player move out of line of sight of Rundown.
  
• Aspect of the Many-Limbed - Tanking is composed of managing positioning. Although this boss does not move, she has a cleave with an infinite range approximately 180 degrees in front of her, and will need to be faced away from the raid. However, also directly behind her is a poison cloud which will instantly kill. Cast Web will root a random player and deal heavy damage but can be interrupted. Vile Birthing will need to be interrupted when she transitions between phases, during which she targets a random player to follow and must be lead into sunlight.
  
• Aspect of the Great Winged - Tanking is composed of mitigating high amounts of incoming damage (~40k base damage) as well as managing positioning. The tank will need to always have a defensive cooldown active or risk being one shot and position the boss so that the whirlwinds and filth which spawn will not kill the group as they try to damage the boss. The debuff Eye of the Storm indicates that you will be followed by a whirlwind. The black whirlwinds which spawn while he is on the ground can be killed, but the white ones that spawn while he is in the air cannot and must be kited.