I don't think there really is a tank or healer drought, at least not in master mode flashpoints. I play as a shadow tank and I queue for master mode hammer station only, and a lot of times the role in need is healer rather than tank. Earlier today I queued for MM HS as tank while the role in need was healer, and I waited at least 30 minutes with no pop before I gave up and left the queue. Which tells me that there are times where there are substantially more tanks in queue than healers, rather than there just being slightly more tanks, because if it was only a slight difference I wouldn't have waited 30 minutes with no pop as a tank. This was at 2:00 P.M. PST yesterday (Saturday) on the Satele Shan server, so a lot of people were on..... but not enough of them were queuing as healers for MM FP's. And yesterday at one point DPS (yes, DPS) was the role in need for MM FP's, although yesterday was the first time I saw that and it didn't take too long before the role in need switched back to one of the other roles. I don't play as a healer so I don't know the difference in wait times when queuing as a healer when healer is the role in need vs when tank is the role in need, but I can certainly tell you as a tank that the only time I can get instant or really fast pops is when the role in need is tank. When the role in need is healer, it can take substantially longer to get pops. The whole thing is a bit surprising to me, because a lot of people (most people?) grind master mode hammer station over and over again all throughout the day to gear up because it's the fastest way to grind gear. But admittedly me not getting a pop within 30 minutes while queuing for MM HS as a tank has only happened once so far. And because the FP is so easy and everyone knows the mechanics, I think most people are willing to queue for that particular HM FP as any role -- I don't think the traditional issues that might keep people from wanting to queue as a tank or a healer (e.g. being blamed for something when it's not your fault, DPS not listening, being a tank/healer paired with a healer/tank that doesn't know their class/mechanics, etc.) really apply to MM HS, because issues/wipes are very rare to begin with in hammer station regardless of what role you play because everyone usually knows what to do.

Does gear matter at all on Gods of the Machine (GOTM) story mode? Specifically, I am wondering if the bolster in GOTM story mode works the same way as it does for the older ops in story mode (where you can literally wear ANY random gear with zero problems as long as everyone follows mechanics). Can I wear random greens/blues into this GOTM SM and be perfectly fine like I would be in the other SM ops, or do I need a certain level of gear for this op? If so, what level of gear should I have at a minimum for GOTM SM? I don't know if this makes a difference in the answer, but I will also point out that I am a tank.

What is the best tank combination for NiM (master mode) operations?

Our raid team is encountering a bug on the mission "Temple of Sacrifice" for the boss "Underlurker". The cross appears to be rendering differently for different members of our team, which is preventing us from being able to progress on this boss. For example, even if I am in my portion of the cross correctly, I am times appear to be outside of my cross to other members in the group. Or conversely, sometimes other people in the group appear to be outside of the cross to me, but on their screen they are inside of the cross. Please look into this issue with Underlurker as it is preventing our raid team from being able to defeat this boss and continue with the rest of the operation.

Tanks without healing support aren't all that sturdy, especially PowerTech tanks which have much less survivability than arsenal mercenaries. This is because too much of tank survivability is tied to DCD's rather than tanking stats.

Prior to 5.3 I had been using the standard priority-based rotation for gunnery commando from the Dulfy guide: http://dulfy.net/2017/05/10/swtor-5-2-gunnery-commando-pve-guide-by-damian/ My question is, with all of the DPS nerfs gunnery commando received in 5.3, has anything changed? In particular: 1. Has the optimal opener changed from what is listed in the Dulfy guide? If so, what is the new optimal opener? 2. Has the optimal priority-based rotation changed from what is listed in the Dulfy guide? If so, what is the new optimal priority-based rotation?

The only issue with tanks and healers in PVP is when one team is stacked with tanks and healers, and the other team isn't stacked with healers and tanks. This has been an issue in unranked warzones literally since day one. And it's a major issue with unranked warzones precisely because there is no matchmaking at all. The fix would be implementing a matchmaking system where, say, both teams can have at most 2 tanks and 2 healers, and the difference between the number of tanks and healers on both teams cannot be more than 1. But in order to still maintain fast queue times, we need to have everyone in the same queue, hence my two suggestions in my previous post. None of the healers (or tanks for that matter) individually are overpowered in PVP. In fact, sage/sorc healers are actually quite underpowered in both PVE and PVP because the 5.3 nerfs went way too far. And as for tanks, they have always been in the awkward state of doing much more damage than they should, and also having much less survivability than they should. This is primarily because tank stats (defense, shield, absorb) do not work properly in PVP and need to be revamped for PVP so that pure mitigation based tanks are viable.

Changes Bioware could easily make (if they wanted to): 1. Make all group content in the game cross-faction (warzones, uprising, flashpoints, operations, GSF, etc). Meaning everything would be like Odessen. 2. Merge all of the servers so we have just a few mega servers (one mega server for U.S., one mega server for UK etc). If Bioware would do the above, they could easily implement matchmaking in regular warzones without slowing down queues to a halt. Plus it would finally end the issue of one faction always dominating the other faction in PVP, which has always been one of the largest issues with PVP since the launch of this game.

Our guild Torch (Republic) is looking for tanks and DPS for a new morning HM/NiM progression raiding team. Here are the details: Meeting times: 9:00 A.M. PST – noon PST (server time) Meeting days: TBD based on what works for everyone in the group. This team will meet twice a week at the times listed above, and will raid for a total of six hours every week. This team will start off doing HM Ops, and will move into NiM OPs once everyone on the team is geared up. Previous raiding experience is not required as long as you have a willingness to learn. If you are a tank or DPS that is interested in joining this new raiding team, please get in touch with me either (1) through PM on these forums, (2) by emailing me at volexswtor at gmail dot com, or (3) by contacting me in-game on my main “Volex”, or on one of my alts “Volxer”, “Voltexes”, or “Volxen”.

Our guild Torch (Republic) is looking for tanks and DPS for a new morning HM/NiM progression raiding team. Here are the details: Meeting times: 9:00 A.M. PST – noon PST (server time) Meeting days: TBD based on what works for everyone in the group. This team will meet twice a week at the times listed above, and will raid for a total of six hours every week. This team will start off doing HM Ops, and will move into NiM OPs once everyone on the team is geared up. Previous raiding experience is not required as long as you have a willingness to learn. If you are a tank or DPS that is interested in joining this new raiding team, please get in touch with me either (1) through PM on these forums, (2) by emailing me at volexswtor at gmail dot com, or (3) by contacting me in-game on my main “Volex”, or on one of my alts “Volxer”, “Voltexes”, or “Volxen”.

There are plenty of PVPers (myself included) that are adamantly opposed to the sage/sorc healing nerfs that are coming. As a progression raider and a PVPer, I think these nerfs will be absolutely devastating to both aspects of the game. I think the nerfs will lead to a shortage of healers in both the PVE/raiding and PVP communities. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the PVP community that think they should be able to kill everyone instantly, which is why they are celebrating these nerfs. The PVP community has always been very divided on this issue. There are those that believe that only DPS, burst, and focus fire should matter in warzones. And there are those that believe that each role in the trinity (tank, healer, and DPS) should be equally viable in warzones. Unfortunately the former group got what they wanted with the 5.3 nerfs.

These are all excellent points, but I do think giving melee sustained 10% more DPS than ranged burst is too much of a discrepancy between the DPS specs. Giving melee sustained 5% more DPS than ranged burst seems fair, but 10% is too much.

I agree that PT tanks need better DCD's, but that's not only because of PVP, but also because of PVE/raids as well (even in PVE/raids PT tanks do not perform as well as the other tanks for this reason). But I completely disagree that tank survivability should only come down to DCD's. That's like saying a DPS's DPS should all come down to offensive cooldowns, and DPS stats on gear should make absolutely no difference in the damage that you output.

You can't balance tanks around DCD's; mitigation stats need to play a pivotal role in tank survivability. This is also why powertech tanks are so far behind juggernaut tanks and assassin tanks in the survivability department -- because they lack the very powerful set of DCD's that those two classes have. Powertech tanks are designed such that they have the highest passive mitigation of the three tanks, but they also have the least number of DCD's (and energy shield is really the only good DCD PT tanks have for PVP, the others are quite lackluster). And since mitigation stats are essentially meaningless in PVP, this is exactly why powertech tank survivability is a joke in PVP. I agree that you should have to use DCD's to maximize your effectiveness, regardless of what role you are playing. But mitigation stats need to play a significant role in tank survivability, just as DPS stats play a significant role in the damage that you are able to output as a DPS spec. And I definitely disagree that these changes would make tanks "almost impossible" to kill. Harder to kill, yes, but certainly possible. After all, you can only get your defense, shield, and absorb so high. In fact the 30%/50%/50% that I used as an example in my original post is close to a realistic amount of defense/shield/absorb that you can have, depending on how exactly you allocate your stats. And it's also important to keep in mind that "pure" tanks in full mitigation gear hit like a wet noodle, so it would be balanced around the idea that tanks should have very high survivability and very low damage output. In other words, tanks would actually be tanks.

The way I see it, and what my changes attempt to address, is that the issues with "tanking" in PVP are really two-sided. On the one hand, a tank that goes full-mitigation gear does not really have any more survivability than a tank in DPS gear. That's not a minor problem, it's a huge glaring issue, because it doesn't allow tanks to actually be tanks (i.e. very high survivability, very low damage output). This is because with the way things currently work, in PVP the only two stats that consistently help you to survive are damage resistance (DR) and endurance. So for example, a lone tank that isn't being healed and is being focused by 3-4 DPS will last maybe, at most, a couple GCD's longer than a lone DPS being focused in the same situation would. That shouldn't be the case, but it is, because mitigation stats don't work properly at all in PVP. And even if you max out on endurance, you only have roughly about 15k more health than most DPS do. So in short, there is no way to make a true tank that can take a beating and absorb lots of damage in PVP in this game. And this leads to the other issue with tanking in PVP. Because it's not actually possible to play a real tank in PVP, what people do instead is spec tank and then wear DPS gear. Some max out on endurance and then put everything else into DPS stats, and some just go full out on DPS stats and don't even prioritize endurance. The survivability of "DPS tanks" or skank tanks in and of itself isn't the problem. The problem is that they are able to do almost as much damage as a DPS spec, and they are simultaneously just as effective at keeping a guarded healer alive, because again they have just as much survivability as a "pure" tank with mitigation stats. In fact they probably actually have a greater chance of surviving compared to a "pure" tank, because a skank tank can potentially dish out enough DPS to kill their "regular" DPS opponent. The problem really with skank tanks is that they have access to the exact same 30% damage redirection on taunt, the exact same 50% damage redirection on guard, they do almost as much damage as a DPS, and they have a bit more survivability than a DPS because of the boosts to damage resistance (DR) that you get just for choosing the tank discipline. And since mitigation stats give basically 0 benefit in PVP, this is the mess we have had for years. TLDR: The issues with tanking in PVP are 1) tank survivability is much lower than it should be (due to mitigation stats not working properly) and 2) tank damage is much higher than it should be (due to wearing DPS gear). The suggestions I made in my original post attempt to fix both issues simultaneously.

1. Make defense and shield/absorb work against ALL damage (kinetic, energy, internal, and elemental). Simply put, if your defense rating is at 30%, your shield rating is at 50%, and your absorption rating is at 50%, then you will defend (i.e. avoid) 30% of ALL incoming attacks. Of the 70% of attacks that you don’t defend, you will shield 50% of those attacks, and when you do shield such an attack you absorb 50% of the damage. 2. Make defense and shield/absorb work against critical hits and autocrits. A shielded critical hit would still do more damage to a tank than a shielded normal hit would for any given ability. 3. Give us more options in terms of how we allocate our mitigation stats. In particular, make mods with shield or absorb instead of defense. Likewise, make enhancements where you can stack shield and absorb together instead of defense. This was actually possible prior to 4.0. It would be nice to have these kinds of options with augments and stims as well. 4. Lock the guard ability to the tanking disciplines. (DPS powertechs/assassins/juggernauts should still be able to taunt though) 5. In PVP, change the base damage reduction of taunt to 15% (down from 30%), and the base damage redirection of guard to 25% (down from 50%). Make it to where you have to wear full tank gear with mitigation stats to bring the damage reduction of taunt up to 30% and the damage redirection of guard up to 50%. Note that I am not saying that you should have to have maxed out 248 gear to get up to the 30%/50%. The only requirement should be that each piece of gear is tank gear with mitigation stats. Bolster can make up the difference to get up to 30%/50%.

Sadly, it's not just the DPS specs that need help -- it's the entire vanguard class. Vanguard tank is literally one of the squishiest classes in PVP -- it's even more squishy than gunnery commando.

Please just listen to this person Bioware.

I think these nerfs will at least be toned down, because if these nerfs go live it will be disastrous for both PVE and PVP. In PVE, even highly skilled teams may struggle to kill NiM OPS bosses. And in PVP, everything will be reduced down to a DPS burst fest where healers and tanks are irrelevant, and all that matters is burst and focus fire. Tanks that aren't being healed already die WAY too fast to burst in PVP (because mitigation stats don't work properly in PVP and need to be fixed/revamped -- but that's a discussion for another topic). The only thing that has allowed tanks to actually make a difference and be relevant in PVP frankly is sorc heals. So these massive nerfs to sorc healers are also indirectly massive nerfs to tanks as well. My prediction is that this will completely ruin the trinity in PVP, and eventually no one will bother to a play a healer or a tank (no point in playing a tank if there are no healers) because matches will always be decided based on which team has the most burst. The lack of healers will give premades an even larger advantage over pugs than they already have, and eventually there will be less people queueing for warzones and thus longer que times. And ironically enough, even though sorc healers are currently the best healers in PVP, operative healers are apparently going to be hit by an even bigger nerf hammer than sorc healers at some point (maybe in 5.4). Bioware has made it clear that they "balance" classes based solely on DPS/HPS/DTPS numbers, and operatives have the highest HPS numbers. So we know it's coming, it's just a matter of when.

I think these nerfs will at least be toned down, because if these nerfs go live it will be disastrous for both PVE and PVP. In PVE, even highly skilled teams may struggle to kill NiM OPS bosses. And in PVP, everything will be reduced down to a DPS burst fest where healers and tanks are irrelevant, and all that matters is burst and focus fire. Tanks that aren't being healed already die WAY too fast to burst in PVP (because mitigation stats don't work properly in PVP and need to be revamped -- but that's a discussion for another topic). The only thing that has allowed tanks to actually make a difference and be relevant in PVP frankly is sage heals. So these massive nerfs to sage healers are also indirectly massive nerfs to tanks as well. My prediction is that this will completely ruin the trinity in PVP, and eventually no one will bother to a play a healer or a tank (no point in playing a tank if there are no healers) because matches will always be decided based on which team has the most burst. The lack of healers will give premades an even larger advantage over pugs than they already have, and eventually there will be less people queueing for warzones. Compared to just one year ago, all of the servers -- even the harbinger -- now have light server status except for a few hours during prime time in the evening. A year ago the Harbinger used to have standard server status most of the time. And it's clear from the responses in this thread that many players from both the PVE and PVP communities are very upset with the direction of these nerfs and the overall impact they will have on the game. History has shown what happens to the population when large segments of it are displeased with the direction the game is going in. Bioware really needs to keep in mind the impact of these kinds of nerfs, because it affects far more than just the people who play sage healers. It affects everyone doing group content, PVE and PVP alike. I really hope Bioware understands that actually listening to the player base is far more important than just trying to achieve a certain DPS/HPS/DTPS value for each class.

They need to make tank stats work in PVP the same way they work in PVE. Meaning that defense/shield/absorb need to be as useful/critical in PVP as they are in PVE. At the same time, the guard ability can be locked to the tanking tree so DPS assassins/juggernauts/powertechs can no longer guard people. Then we can have traditional tanks in PVP (very high survivability, very low damage output) instead of the current "DPS tanks" meta (which you can't blame people for doing as it's the only way to play a tank effectively with the current state of the game). Of course, people can still go tank spec with DPS gear if they want to sacrifice survivability for more damage. But the point is a "pure" tank with defense/shield/absorb gear should be MUCH harder to take down than a tank wearing DPS gear (even with high endurance), and likewise said "pure" tank should also do MUCH less damage than the tank wearing DPS gear. A lot of us PVP tanks would love to have the option to play a "pure" mitigation based tank in PVP that hits like a wet noodle but can survive for a long time (even without a healer), but it's currently not a viable option.

What is the optimal way to gear a tank in PVP? Is it to max out on endurance (through 14x fortitude augments, etc), and then once endurance is maxed out make the rest of your gear DPS gear? Should all three mitigation stats - defense, shield, and absorb - be completely ignored altogether in PVP? If it makes any difference, I am asking about this specifically for a vanguard (powertech) tank. My gear for HM progression raiding is heavy on shield and absorb (shield in particular), and I am wondering mainly if this is going to hold me back in PVP as a tank. Currently I only play regular warzones, not ranked, if that makes any difference.

Are Powertech tanks viable in NiM (master mode) operations? My understanding is that with the 5.0 changes, Assassin tanks are a fair bit ahead of the other two tanks in terms of damage mitigation and overall survivability. Is it viable to run one Powertech tank / one Assassin tank for NiM (master mode) operations, or is it much better to run two Assassin tanks? And another question: Are Powertech tanks in general much harder for healers to keep up compared to Assassin tanks, due to the lack of DCD’s Powertech tanks have compared to Assassin tanks?

As I explained, skank tanks completely change the meta in solo ranked, as it forces you to deal with them before you can deal with the healer. You are not going to burst down a good healer (especially a sorc healer) being guarded by a good assassin or juggernaut skank tank. It wouldn't be half as bad if every match the same number of skank tanks on both sides, but that often isn't the case, and such a restriction on matchmaking would slow down pops in any case. Which is why the only sensible and fair solution is to just lock guard to the tanking discipline. If you want to play a tank and guard people, then you need to queue up as a tank. Just as you need to queue up as a healer if you want to heal people. "Skank healing" has never been a thing in this game, and skank tanking shouldn't be either. Anyone who wants serious and competitive matches in solo ranked should understand that matches with one side having guard and the other side not having guard are inherently unfair and imbalanced.

DPS tanks, or "skank tanks" as some like to call them, have single-handedly broken solo ranked. Specifically, imbalanced matches are created when one side has DPS capable of guarding, and the other side doesn't (a common occurrence). As I elaborated in another thread: Giving guard to DPS is analogous to giving a healer's big healing abilities to DPS specs. Would it be fair for DPS mercs to have progressive scan or kolto missle, or DPS sorcs to have roaming mend or innervate? No, of course it wouldn't be. In the same manner, DPS specs should never have had access to guard in the first place. The fix, of course, is simple: just lock guard to the tanking discipline. People have literally been saying this for years, hopefully Bioware will finally take notice and fix solo ranked.