Volxen
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Posts posted by Volxen
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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.
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What is the best tank combination for NiM (master mode) operations?
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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.
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Do you really want to suggest we should make tanks even more sturdy than they already are?
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.
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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?
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Why do we need either of these "fixes"?
I play on tEH and see little value in either change. Thanks but sorry neither fix healers or tank issues in PvP nor does it seem a real attempt to do so, seems more like pushing an unrelated agenda really.
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.
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There is zero --z e r o-- matchmaking in regular PVP. It just takes the groups in queue and smashes them into games and off you go.
There is no change bioware could make to PVP that would improve the overall reg pvp experience as much as some light matchmaking like splitting healers between each team one at a time with a limit of 2 per team (one in arenas).
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.
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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”.
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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”.
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Mr. Kanneg,
After Eric dropped the bomb on Seer Sages and Corruption Sorcerers here, there has been a somewhat-civilized conversation back and forth for nearly 40 pages at last count.
How I parse the thread is this:
The PvP community loves the change and the PvE community despises it.As a PvE Seer Sage, I absolutely, positively, without a doubt abhor the changes as laid out. Apparently, PvP is completely ruined by leaving the Seer and Corruption Advanced Classes as is. On the flip side of your planned decimation of my favorite class will see a Seer/Corruption in PvE become a horrid class to PvE with.
I welcome a challenge and will trudge on with my neutered Seer if, in the vein of accepting challenges, you and your team live-streaming either an 8M HM Explosive Conflict in maximum full 236 gear with at least 1 gimped Seer Sage or Corruption Sorcerer and/or 8M NiM Dread Palace in maximum full 242 gear, again with at least 1 hamstrung Seer Sage or Corruption Sorcerer as the healer. Ideally, afterwards, you would also make available the combat logs for each person on the team so that the Seer/Corruption community can either (a) whimper in our own personal pitty pools as we wish we were only half as good at playing our classes as your development team, or (b) shout from the rooftops that I TOLD YOU THAT YOU OVER-NUKED MY FAVORITE CLASS!!!
I have dropped the gauntlet sir, and await to test the mettle of the one who valiantly accepts the challenge.
PS: If you're still feeling generous, maybe the following week, live-stream a Seer Sage doing KotFE Chapter 1 on Veteran Mode, I'll even let you use a level 50 companion and the best gear that you can get from drops during both the KotFE and KotET stories.
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.
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Than you are not thinking hard enough.
Revan HM, Underlurker HM, Sword Squadron, Malaphar, Sparky, Bulo, Torque [one of the more obvious examples where mechanics are more punishing to melee than ranged], Ciphas, Heirad, and Kel'sara [phases where melee have to chase after targets, while avoiding stupid and if they get doom and have to run thru green circles], the Terror from Beyond fight [end boss, platforms phase vs irregularities and spit], Thrasher [firebug phases], to name only some.
Saying that melee are not more adversely effected than ranged by many raid mechanics with regard to not only uptime, but in a good amount of cases a greater preponderance to potentially taking more damage is no different than saying you have never heard the term "melee-unfriendly' used in association with this game.
ToS and Ravagers are a testament to the creation of the term. As shocking as it may seem, being in Arm's reach with some of the most powerful adversaries that anyone could face in this game really isn't the safest place in the world to be. Kooky, I know.
No one is saying that Melee should have massively more DPS than Ranged, they are saying that melee suffer more unavoidable downtime, aka forced downtime, than ranged do. How much more varies from very little, to quite abit more. The only melee DPS that doesn't suffer more downtime fighting Malaphar HM or Torque than a ranged DPS is the melee DPS lying on the floor. Even wherein they might not suffer blocks of downtime, mechanics can nonetheless force them have move around so much that it effects a properly flowing rotation. A mDPS going thru his rotation is not going to have the free flow that the ranged dps standing all the way in the back of the room that is not having to constantly dodge stupid will have. You would have to be blind not to see the difference the mechanics of Torque HM have on melee as opposed to ranged.
It's not every fight, it's not always just as bad as all the others, it's not always profound, but it very much does exist in varying amounts in different fights at different levels of difficulty.
Even wherein, lets say for example, that mechanics will force melee and ranged to move in equal proportions, if that movement requires a melee to move greater than 4' from their target, that movement will prevent them from attacking. Now, you can make the argument and rightly so, that while moving ranged can't use attacks that involves a cast, and that's a perfectly legitimate argument, it's true, if they are moving they cannot use their casted attacks, but that doesn't mean they can't attack, it means they can't use their casted attacks. They can still use other attacks, even if the best they can do would be to use their basic attack, some damage is better than no damage, and their are more than just basic attack that would be available to ranged even taking thier casted attacks out of the equation. So it's not only about mechanics that only effect melee, it's also applies to mechanics that effect ranged as well, leaving them in a greater position to maintain uptime while being effected by many mechanics that a melee would not be able to maintain effected by the same exact mechanics effecting ranged. On those instances, not even basic attack is available to melee.
Ranged should have lower DPS than melee. If their has been one meta that has shown that as clearly, I can't think of one that more clearly demonstrates this more than 5.0 with 3.0 coming in second.
Anyone who does not acknowledge that their are uptime differences between melee and ranged [whether or not those differences are minor or more substantial] I would urge them to play a melee spec and go PVP for a while. Nothing will cure them of such doubt than some WZs fighting mercs and snipers.
Ranged have 7.5 times the attack range that melee do. Snipers have 8.75 times the attack range that melee do.
That doesn't matter? That has no effect on things? That doesn't allow for more uptime and targets to be in range?
Does it really require anything more than common sense to see there is a difference here?
You can argue how severe or minor those differences are, but to say there are none is nothing short of a lie.
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.
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I think these changes are more likely to increase stalemates than lead to better PVP balance. IMO DCD tanking makes more sense in PVP, which focuses on burst mechanics instead of sustained output. Once DCDs are blown, bye-bye tank, as it should be. The better solution IMO would be to give PTs better DCDs so they perform consistent with juggs and sins.
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.
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I have to disagree with these proposals. As a tank main - dps happens in cycles (8-15 seconds for the fastest auto crit burst cycles), plan for that.
Use your DCDs accordingly, and watch for the opportune times to pop them and learn how others burst works. Stack HP. Learn how to DPS even though you are a tank. You can be infuriating too. With what you're talking about I would probably never die vs even 4 of the best dps on my server if I was healed.
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.
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I can't speak to the numbers, but in terms of the general idea, I think it's a great idea. Having tank specs doing more DPS than some DPS specs while still being as tough as a tank is utterly ridiculous, and totally defies trinity. They're not the only one of course, but, no tank spec should do even equal DPS to the worst DPS spec, it should be less.
Time to let tanks be tanks again and let them do what they do best. I'm sure there's a ton of people who regret not being to play their tank main in PVP due to lack of effectiveness in their chosen trade.
It's a real good idea.
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.
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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%.
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DPS Vanguard/Powertech: the saga of sadness will continue.
It looks like most of the planned class balance updates for 5.3 revolve around small changes to damage percentages and resource utilization. While these are certainly needed, especially for the Plasmatechs, they do little to address the underlying issue that plagues DPS vanguards in PvP: we have laughably little survivability.
It is true that we can be somewhat viable with a competent healer to keep us alive, but our paper-thin defenses mean that we are highly susceptible to focused burst in 4v4's (exploited brutally in ranked), and that we are unable to guard/take objectives because we lose 1v1s to every other class as long as they are being played by a similarly-geared, similarly-skilled player.
What this means is that our experience in PvP is largely limited to having to tag along with the main force of teammates in an 8v8 and slog through the wet-noodle fight that is the current tank/healer focused meta. What I would like to see is a viable DPS Vanguard class that can shake-up the status quo in a Warzone by taking the initiative to flip an objective by outplaying another class in a 1v1. We currently do not have this capability. A Vanguard can pop every offensive and defensive CD they have and still get countered by a less-skilled player whose class has more powerful cooldowns (jug/guardian are some of the worst offenders).
Maybe Bioware has a larger update to class balance planned, but all evidence is currently to the contrary. Until they make significant changes to the vanguard class, these small damage buffs will do little to make our class viable in PvP. I guess I was too optimistic that Bioware would take some risks with 5.3, but it appears that DPS Vanguard will remain a poor choice for the serious PvP player.
Responses to anticipated criticism:
1. You're just bad at PvP.
- It's true, I'm not the best, but I wouldn't consider myself bad either. I have played long enough to be in almost full 248 gear and am confident that I use my abilities close to their full potential. The last ~10-15% of improved performance I could squeeze out of my class wouldn't fix the underlying class issues.
2. I play Vanguard and I don't have this problem. Just play smarter.
- I would ask you how many hours you've played the class and under what conditions. Again, we're fine in operating inside the massive slugfest where healers can keep us alive. I'm talking about the corner case where we have to fight solo or with a partner at an objective. Additionally, I can stomp new PvP players like everyone else. Have you been noob-bashing or have you actually had to fight that stun-locking, self-healing, root/slowing, damage-cancelling, movement-boosting, stealth-bursting operative on an objective?
3. This sounds like the Commando/Merc debacle all over again.
- Simple changes to our existing DCDs would address our class' issues. We don't need the god-shield or heal bubble. We could get by with allowing adrenaline rush to heal you up to 75% with 2x the heal rate, plus a small buff to our shield's damage reduction. An added bonus of such changes is that they have minimal impact on the balance of PvE content because our DPS doesn't change.
Anyway, just my thoughts. It feels good to write this down - even if Bioware won't do anything about it.
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.
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A ~20% healing decrease (averaged based on usage) across all skills when hps output was not the biggest issue to begin with. This strategy overnerfs raw output while not properly address the problems with sorc/sage healing.
There are currently two major issues with sorc/sage healing compared to the other classes:
The first is that due to simple and overly-forgiving force management combined with over-utilization of 'smart' healing abilities, they're much easier to play at an effective level.
The other issue, which is what sees sorcs rising to the top particularly in ranked pvp, is the high mobility and lack of necessary hard casting due to most of the healing being loaded into instant and 'smart' abilities.
The proposed changes will have a severe negative impact healers at all skill levels. If it does knock sorcs and sages out of 'fotm' status, it'll only be because the healing output is so far behind the other classes.
Any metrics you have showing that sorcs have a significantly higher output than the other classes is due to the fact that target selection and resource management are a lot more forgiving than other classes which allows inexperienced players able to put up bigger numbers than their skill suggests.
With all of that being said, here is my counter-proposal with explanations for each item:
- Increase the cooldown of roaming mend by 5 seconds (15 to 20s)
- Reduce the base force regenerated by consuming darkness from 40 to 25
- Increase the force regenerated by consuming darkness by consuming 1 stack of force surge to 15 (up from 5)
(for the)DevNotes: The 5 second cooldown increase to roaming mend will increase the time between burst windows and force healers to think creatively both about what to do with the 3~ extra gcds between mends as well as think more carefully about it's usage as not to waste the potential. The end result is a 30% hps decrease for the ability and approximately a 4% hps decrease overall.
It's impossible to make roaming mend ineffective as a single target heal (unless you nerf it by more than 50% or prevent it from hitting a target more than once), but this strategy forces players to do more casting (particularly infusion in single target) between mends.
The changes to consuming darkness make resource management important. Overall force management will be tighter due to the decreased force regeneration of consuming darkness with force surge stacks (by 5). This will reduce sustained hps by a further 5% or so due to the added consumes needed to maintain force. In addition, the steep decrease in base the base regen of consuming darkness will make using it without force surge very costly in terms of healing downtime.
These adjustments address both the sustained and burst healing targets, but do so in a way that creates a noticeable skill progression for the class. The maximum healing will go down moderately while the average healing outputs will probably drop sharply to become more in line with other classes at relative experience levels.
Please just listen to this person Bioware.
- Increase the cooldown of roaming mend by 5 seconds (15 to 20s)
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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.
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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.
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They need to change it so that your guard and taunts are not as effective if you do not have full tank stats, otherwise you will have this skank nonsense for a while because trad. tanks are useless in pvp atm.
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.
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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.
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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?
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LOL.
Adding to the total health pool is vastly superior to redistributing damage. If you take away guard, you take away the only reason certain specs are able to do anything in yolo ranked.
Be glad we can't wear tank gear and skank anymore as a dps, now THAT was cheap. But skanking rn simply redistributes damage, nothing more.
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.
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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:
No, mercs aren’t the problem in solo ranked. The major problem with solo ranked is the fact that assassin/juggernaut/powertech DPS can guard. A team with one or two DPS who can guard has a massive advantage over a team with no DPS who can guard. As a pub player on the harbinger, a lot of the solo ranked matches I get thrown into consist of 3 DPS and 1 healer on each side. I often get placed into matches with compositions like 1 assassin DPS, 1 juggernaut DPS, 1 merc DPS, and 1 sorc healer vs 1 sentinel DPS, 1 commando DPS, 1 gunslinger DPS, and 1 sage healer. In such matches, both the merc DPS and the sorc healer will be guarded, so our team has to try and burst down both the assassin DPS and the juggernaut DPS before we can even begin to kill their healer. Whereas all of their DPS can immediately start focusing our healer, since we have no DPS capable of guarding. It's essentially a guaranteed win for the imps, unless they make a major mistake.The imps in solo ranked understand this all too well, which is why 99.99999% of solo ranked games consist of at least one assassin DPS or juggernaut DPS who guards (actually, in most of my solo ranked matches lately two of the three DPS on the imp side are usually assassin or juggernaut). I see far, far more assassins and juggernauts in solo ranked than I do mercs. Unfortunately the pubs on harbinger have not caught on to just how game changing guard is in solo ranked, so the majority of the matches I get thrown into are unbalanced, with the imps having 1-2 guards and our side having none. I still try to enjoy solo ranked as much as I can, but it would be 100000000X more enjoyable if they would lock guard to the tanking discipline.
Mercs may be stronger than they have ever been before, but the impact that they have on the outcome of solo ranked matches vastly pales in comparison to the impact that guard has on the outcome of solo ranked matches.
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.
Addressing Tank and Healer drought
in Combat Styles
Posted
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.