It's been a while since I've written something designed to be a little thought-provoking and I've been meaning to comment on how Assassin and Powertech tanking compare so I think it's a good subject to pick to get back to writing those kinds of posts.
There's three tank classes in SWTOR. Juggernaut (Guardian) is the one of the three I've not played to 50, so I'm not going to say much on how it plays per se. It is considered to be the weakest of the three options--not to say it's a terrible tank but if you were to rank the aspects of tanking in SWTOR it would come in last place compared to the other two classes except maybe in terms of the defensive cooldowns available to the class. The other two tanking classes, Assassin (Shadow) and Powertech (Vanguard), I do have a reasonable amount of experience with though.
Say you're just getting into SWTOR and you've decided you really want to tank. So which class should you pick? I would tell you that I strongly recommend playing a Powertech or Vanguard. Why not Juggernaut? Well, primarily because of the reasons outlined above. Why not Assassin? Assassin is also an excellent choice for tanking--in fact I'd assert that if you consider tanking in terms of the attributes that make a tanking class good (threat generation, survivability, damage, cooldowns), Assassin is either on par with or not far behind Powertechs. What makes Assassins second to Powertechs in my opinion is that they are a lot more work to play.
Let's briefly go over the abilities you'll need to use on a regular basis for both classes:
Assassin
-Saber Strike - Obligatory no-cost filler move; use when you need to save Force for another ability.
-Thrash - Basic everything-else-is-on-cooldown filler; procs Energize.
-Wither - Nice AOE damage and threat and comes with a damage debuff whose duration is more forgiving than the debuff on Discharge, but alas it also feeds Withering Darkness thus necessitating that it too generally be used on cooldown.
-Discharge - Provides an accuracy debuff, but its duration is just barely longer than the cooldown on Discharge, necessitating that it be used on cooldown to max the debuff's uptime.
-Shock - Heavily boosted by Energize and Chain Shock and it feeds Harnessed Darkness, but it eats up a ton of force so it's best reserved for Energize procs.
-Force Lightning - Made essential by Harnessed Darkness, and thanks thereto it becomes an excellent survivability tool.
-Dark Ward - Contributes heavily to survivability, but it needs to be actively monitored for when its cooldown is up, the buff's duration, and the number of charges.
-Recklessness - You'll want to keep this on cooldown, especially since it's amazing when combined with talents that boost force damage abilities especially Energize and Chain Shock.
Powertech
-Rapid Shots - Obligatory no-cost filler move; it's barely less damage than Flame Burst so it's recommended that you use it unless you have less than 10 Heat.
-Flame Burst - Basic everything-else-is-on-cooldown filler; comes with a damage debuff if talented, but as outlined above it's barely more damage than Rapid Shots so it's best saved either for if the debuff needs refreshing or you're nearing 0 Heat.
-Rocket Punch - This ability is talented into amazing damage and guaranteed Ion Gas Cylinder procs (and thus even more amazing damage) wrapped in a neat little package--it even randomly finishes its cooldown on shield procs thanks to Flame Shield; keep this shit cooldown.
-Rail Shot - Another nice heavy-hitter; thanks to Ion Overload and the Ion Gas Cylinder procs from Rocket Punch the conditions required for its use will never be a problem.
-Explosive Dart - Yet another nifty (AOE) heavy-hitter.
-Heat Blast - Not great damage per se, but it's free and actually vents heat so it makes a nice heat control cooldown.
-Explosive Fuel - Powertech's level 50 ability, a great offensive cooldown that's freely available to tanks too.
That's 8 abilities Assassin has to juggle, all with their own interconnected procs on top of having to keep track of Dark Ward charges compared to Powertech's 7 fire-and-forget abilities and 100% passive defense.
Powertechs have an additional advantage in generating clutch AOE threat over both Juggernaut and Assassin--their AOE taunt is on-target, ie you pick a target and the AOE radius of the taunt is on that target (Assassin and Juggernaut AOE taunts are centered on self). Extremely handy. Both Assassin and Powertech have Death Grip style pulls, and, while neither represents a clear advantage (actually, Assassin may have it here), I personally like Jet Charge over Force Speed. Powertech's one clear relative weakness compared to the other tanks lies in its defensive cooldowns--a Powertech only has two cooldowns (granted one of them is amazing) that are on a minimum two minute cooldown (three defensive cooldowns, admittedly, if you include Oil Slick, however it requires and consumes a global cooldown). Strangely, despite the fact that Powertech has no abilities that have a "generates significant threat" tag on their tooltip, Powertechs have no trouble holding threat (owing presumably to their relatively nice damage output).
Given the proximity to the onset of 1.2, this discussion wouldn't be complete without considering the upcoming changes though, so let's give those a brief overview.
Well, actually, there's pretty much nothing to speak of for Assassin. Just an update to the tooltip and some not-relevant-to-tanking changes to the Madness tree.
Powertech
-Shield Tech
--Ablative Upgrades: the absorption amount gained from this skill has been slightly reduced.
---Nerf, depending on how much "slightly" is.
--Empowered Tech is now a 3-point skill.
---It's not readily clear if this is a buff or nerf; it is currently a 5-point talent that gives an extra passive 10% shield chance. If it gives the same shield chance at 3 points this is a handy little buff, but it's more likely, given Heat Screen's description (see further down), that this won't be the case.
--Heat Blast is no longer limited by the global cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by approximately 15%.
---This is a pretty rockin' buff to Heat Blast and further cements Heat Blast's role as a heat management cooldown. I suspect that this change was made to encourage taking it in PvP.
--Heat Screen is a new 2-point skill that causes Flame Burst and Heat Blast to build a stacking buff that increases shield absorption.
---Presumably this will be a new tier 6 talent to make up for the change to Empowered Tech. It's likewise not clear whether this talent will be meant as a buff, nerf, or to simply make up for the change to Empowered Tech.
--Oil Slick is no longer limited by the global cooldown.
---This will properly turn Oil Slick into a defensive cooldown.
-Advanced Prototype
--Charged Gauntlets now triggers from damage dealt such that the bleed caused by Retractable Blade can trigger the buff. It now has a visual effect.
--Kolto Vents has been replaced by Hamstring, which causes Retractable Blade to slow the target by 30% for 6 seconds.
--Prototype Flame Thrower now is granted a stack when Immolate is used. In addition, stacks make Flame Thrower immune to interrupt and at 5 stacks Flame Thrower will now slow the movement speed of targets by 70%.
---None of these changes are really relevant to tanking.
-Pyrotech (Powertech)
--Prototype Particle Accelerator now requires Combustible Gas Cylinder to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
---This is only relevant to tanking in that it's a pretty damning nerf to the Parakeet PvP build.
All considered, these are just changes--probably minor--to passive absorption. Additionally, taking Heat Blast and Oil Slick off the global cooldown are both positive changes. The bottom line is that 1.2 isn't going to do much to change my earlier recommendation. It's worth noting that 1.2 will bring some needed buffs to Juggernaut tanking though, but I'm not particularly qualified to comment on them at this time.
It's important to iterate that all three tanks are perfectly viable but to people such as myself who have a choice of tanks to use or for people who are just getting started and want to get into tanking, in my opinion Powertech/Vanguard is the clear winner.
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