Hello from BC Canada

[abezverkhiy]

Study shield play. Order needs SnB tanks. And learn to guard all the time. Good luck.

[mekal]

best tip i can ever give for a new player

do NOT play with default ui it is extremely bad you know that already though since you played war

other than that take your time since its your first character on this server skill/classes have changed quite a bit since live

lastly do not ever listen to people who tell you dont pve the gear you can geat at level 32 beats level 40 pvp gear and requires no downtime waiting for pvp

[zulnam]

Welcome!

You picked a great class to main. Swordmaster (SM for short) is a tank by default, so always in demand, but also has very strong group abilities (Whispering Winds, group absorb). They also have a very fun to play two-hand spec, for when you get bored of SnB and want to do a bit of damage. Just know that in warbands you will always be asked to be with shield (2h SM really doesn't bring anything to a group).

For leveling, most people will recommend you do it either in RvR or in Scenarios. If you plan on tanking for starters I would recommend in RvR.
Don't worry if you are low level. You get bolstered in the rvr lakes, which means your stats go up (at lvl 16 you get stats of lvl 48, so not bad ). And as a tank you might even find room in an organised warband before lvl 40, if there are too few online.

Some general tips:
- SM has an Area of Effect punt (sends enemies back); you will be tempted to use it often. DO NOT. More often than not, what you are really doing is spreading an enemy blob, causing your AoE damage dealers to do less damage. Enemies blobbed together are easier to kill
- Always get the latest gear for your level and renown rank. This will help increase your bolstered stacks even higher. You can find the gear vendors in the War Quarters of Altdorf (South-West on map) but there are also a few at the top of every friendly keep
- Always put talismans in your gear (most gear has sockets for talis). For tanks, best talis are Wounds, then Toughness. If you don't have talis or money to buy some, ask people in /ad (advice) or /3 (general) chats. Most people are friendly with new players and will send you some. If you still can't find any PM me on the forums and I will send you some
- you can search for guilds that are recruiting by pressing G. Even when unguilded, you will see the Recruitment tab of all guilds that have at least 1 member online. You can sort ascending or descending by Name, Number of Online Players and Total Number of Players. Sorting by the 2nd option gives you an idea of the most active guilds in your timezone
-Around lvl 37-40, you can start the Tier 4 epic quests (long questlines that at the end reward the player with blue gear). These are usually very good and nice starter weapons for new characters. You can find a list of the epic quests as well as how to complete them on the game's Wiki. Pro-tip: don't pick any reward until you've finished them all and do dwarf quest last. This way you can see all the rewards (the reward links on the wiki for rewards don't work well) but also all quests except dwarf finish in Altdorf
- Also around that level you can farm Public Quests in T4 zones for the Ruin set. This is fairly easy to get and very good for a new tank
- If you like PvE and questing, all zones have epic quests that you can do and that also reward blue gear.
- As a tank, you have three core abilities that you must learn to master: Guard, Challenge and Hold The Line.

• Guard is very important. Your guarded group mate will mitigate 50% of their incoming damage, sending it to you instead. But only if you are within 30 feet of them. There are a few addons to make this much easier for you so look for the GuardPack addon (should be somewhere on the forums)

• Challenge is an aoe that reduces enemy damage for a few seconds. The only way they can get rid of it is by hitting you 3 times. As such the best challenges are when you are manoeuvring around a blob, so that you are also avoiding their damage. Try challenging from the sides. Try avoiding challenging when you're right in front of them. Don't worry, it takes getting used to.

• Hold the Line is the easiest to learn: everyone behind you will get a defense boost against ranged attacks, no matter if they are in your group or not. It's a channel ability that you can use while moving, useful for charging at the enemy and during sieges. Remember you need to be in front of people in order for them to receive the buff, so always HtL at the front of the fight.

[abezverkhiy]

• Guard is very important. Your guarded group mate will mitigate 50% of their incoming damage, sending it to you instead. But only if you are within 30 feet of them. There are a few addons to make this much easier for you so look for the GuardPack addon (should be somewhere on the forums)

Important to understand that the 50% part of damage that is being sent to you will NOT necessarily cause harm to you. It works like this:
- you guard someone
- they are being attacked for notional 1000 damage
- 500 goes to them
- remainder is sent to you
- you apply your chance to block, say it is 30%, if successful you get zero damage
- if block fails then second tier of defences applied - parry, say another 40%, again if successful - no damage
- if both avoidance stats fail then you take damage but this damage is mitigated by stat Toughness which is very important for tanks.

So in the end the amount of damage you get from guarding someone is always much less than that first part the guardee receives because they don't have such high avoidance and mitigation as you do.

Note that if you guard while NOT wearing shield you can't benefit from BLOCK and your guardee gets 75% while only 25% goes to you. In other words - you suck as a protector and everyone hates you.

If you have no shield then Hold The Line is not doable and everyone hates you again.

If you choose pve path then your renown rank progression will be slower and it will take longer to get advanced sets of gear. Although some best in slot items come from pve

[abezverkhiy]

And you are welcome to join Rescue Team, it is named for a reason and we are online 24/7