No one is disputing this. Why even bother stating it? The gain for +shield is only outdone point for point by absorb, which any tank can get to 44% without even trying. If your DW/KW gets eaten, then you have taken less damage during that period, regardless of how fast it comes back up, you have taken 8 hits that have been shielded. IF in the case that you take 16 hits and shield 8 of them, DW/KW does nothing to the other 8 hits, you will either defend them or need a decently high shield rating to shield them as well. DW/KW does absolutely nothing if you don't lose a charge. Keeping it up longer simply means you take you either parry more damage or you take more damage without shielding. Which is why my initial premise is to use a +def trinket to parry more attacks. Works wonders and I have no problems when doing so. A higher shield rating simply gives you more damage shielding regardless of whether KW/DW is up or down, if you want to smooth out your damage and you've already hit the pre-requisite dimret numbers, then adding more shielding is the way to go. EDR is just a number and means effectively nothing unless you are actively striving to maintain it. I've given you options to up your EDR and you effectively say that it wouldn't do so. It does and will continue to do so, there's no disputing it - adding more shield rating when you are at dimret cap for def/absorb will give you a better EDR.

Now take this logic and follow it back to the point in which the conversation started. So you have 35% base shield. Much better than having 22-24%, makes a huge difference. Quoted from The Tanking Primer by Gankstah Avoidance: Ranged Deflection & Melee Parry SI: (Base 10%) + (Premonition 2%) + (Lightning Reflexes 4%) = 16% or 21% w/Discharge SW: (Base 5%) + (Guard Stance 6%) + (Blade Barricade 6%) = 17% or 22% w/Smash BH: (Base 5%) = 5% That is to stay we get 16% more base avoidance than PT's. I'm not arguing against what you have said about PT's because its all correct, but you left out this very important piece of the puzzle. Defense is worth twice as much DR as shield/absorb. Overall the numbers show a mean mitigation difference of 3% with KW/DW included. They do not account for self healing or shorter CD's on defensive abilities like Resilience and Deflection. They do not account for the MASSIVE DR bonus we get from armor scaling on using an Absorb adrenal. They do not account for the seconds we can shave off combat time through stuns. IF you want to look at the incomplete numbers and say we are behind because of KW/DW but wish to assume the mindset that there is absolutely nothing that we as a class can do to overcome the falloff, then you've already convinced yourself that there is a necessity for change and you will stubbornly fall prey to the idea that you have to single tank large pulls in Karagga's (you don't), or that these are even hard pulls in the first place (only the trash between the droid puzzle and Karagga is hard, and that's only hard the first time through it). So the entirety of this thread can be summed up thus: Does it suck when KW/DW falls off before its CD is up? YES. Does it matter in any situation worth giving a damn about? NO. Can I do anything to keep this from happening or to keep my character from dying during these situations? ABSOLUTELY. Are we on par with PTs and Juggs? NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE.

That's the thing you don't understand, even before diminishing returns the cost of defense is higher per stat point. LagunaD over at sithwarrior.com produced this chart which accurately shows the relationships and will make having this conversation much easier: http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/47/statscalingdr.png Given you example of 1000 points of shield and 1000 points of defense you would be looking at returns of approximately 21% defense and 35% shield rating. Not 27% defense and 49% shield. So your numbers would be 7900 dmg with 1000 defense 8250 dmg with 1000 shield and 50% absorb. And you will notice that those number still work in favor of your argument, because those numbers still fail to reach the parameters I am discussing at the point of diminishing returns. Exactly, however, you can't look at things in a vacuum, because the relationship between efficient stat point usage and what your def/shield/absorb are at right now determine how good any one of those stats is in comparison to the rest. As I said before to get the most efficient use of stat points and thus the best mitigation without factoring in KW/DW you should be aiming for 22-23% def > 44% absorb > 44% shield before KW/DW. No one is saying stack +shield before anything else, I'm saying if you are at those values for def and absorb, you shouldn't try to push them farther because you are wasting stat points to do so. That's what initially got us onto this discussion in the first place, but people are trying to pick apart pieces of the argument without being able to understand the whole of it. Different class is different, all the math that has been done to say that PTs are better are done without considering self healing of a sin/shadow. Until we can accurately see what the average mitigation provided by our self healing is over time, then we can not accurately say we are better/worse than PTs. We are different and have weaknesses and strengths in different situations. Just be glad you don't have to hit Retaliation every 6 seconds for 6% defense.

No I read it quite thoroughly And understood it completely. You don't understand diminishing returns. Your number are assuming a linear distribution but it's an inverse exponential relationship. It's not a small variance, it's a larger variance. It costs many more stay points to hit 27 defense than to hit 25. Defense is the primary attribute you should stack to 23% FIRST, stacking absorption before defense is stupid, because absorb is useless without shield. Again what stat you should be stacking is dependent on what your stats are currently at. The stacking rule I gave is the single best way to stack your stats, regardless of what you think you read. Are you even looking at the right class forum? Procing DW is what you want to happen. If you aren't procing it then you aren't shielding and are taking more damage. You aren't sacrificing **** because if you follow the stat stacking rule then you are getting the most efficient use of you stat points and that gives the best overall damage reduction. Sigh try again. Again you dont understand the BIG picture and you don't understand how insipid the entire idea of changing an ability because of something so small and insignificant is.

Incorrect. Your stats deal with diminishing returns on stat point allotment as I have mentioned in just about every post I've made. Anything past 25% +def is subject to diminishing returns (ie. you need more stat points to gain 1 % of +def). The same applies to +shield and +absorb, but they start diminshing at around 45% each. Of course, this I have also mentioned, the ratio of shield/absorb to defense is approximately 2:1 Not so otherworldly, base ops gear will give you at least 45% if not more. No you don't because both of these stats suffer diminishing returns after 45% for shield and 25% for defense, therefore since your numbers assume a linear relationship instead of an inverse exponential one, there are patently false and prove nothing. Again the problem is you aren't understanding the diminishing returns on secondary tanking stats and you aren't taking into account the information I have already provided. 1. If you already have 22-23% +defense and you regularly use Fort Stims (which you should) then you are already at the +defense cap and each point more you spend on defense gets you less in return. 2. At that point absorb and shield are more efficient and better stat point allotments, given that our HM FP and normal modes ops gear is loaded with absorb its quite easy to hit 44% absorb. Which leaves your shield rating to efficient slot points into. 3. If you keep your shield rating low because you believe the 15-20% DW/KW charge is helping you more, and decide to stack defense you are in essence making yourself an avoidance tank (ie. a tank that can avoid much damage but when they do take damage or get an unlucky string of hits takes a ton of damage). Avoidance tanking is what causes spiky damage to be taken and this is the hardest type of damage for healers to heal through). You want to avoid becoming an avoidance tank. 4. In order to best smooth damage out and avoid spikes you want to try to achieve a 1:2 ratio of defense to shield+absorb (ie. 22 def and 44 shield/absorb) BEFORE considering KW/DW. KW/DW is a risk/reward mechanism, it is not subject to our stat diminishing returns because its an activation, if it was not an activation and was simply a toggle for 15% shield it would be overpowered and Shadows would simply be the best tanks. The risk is that it falls off the reward is a ton of shield rating that isn't subject to diminishing returns. Pure silliness, your absorb rating means nothing without a decent shield rating. You don't and can't absorb anything unless you shield it. Pushing your absorb high while neglecting your shield is a fools errand. Again if you are pushing absorb into the 50's you are doing it wrong, suffering diminishing returns on your stat point investment and you are taking more damage than necessary. Wrong, the correct solution is: defense (til 22-23%) -> absorption til 44% -> shield til 44%. Considering in not even close to full Columi and I have 23 def, 44 absorb and 32 shield, I would continue to try my hardest to slot MORE shield to smooth damage out in EVERY situation. I will make every effort I can to get that extra 12% shield because once I have that I am essentially BETTER than a powertech because I will shield 15-20% more in all but straight AOE mass pull encounters, of which there are 0 that make any difference. You haven't solved anything, and you didn't understand the problem. See above, its risk versus reward, if they make it passive than we have 15% more shield rating than the other two tanks, and they will need to adjust those tanks to make us less overpowered. 15% shield is HUGE. We are already amazing tanks. He can break the 50% cap on shield if they want to waste stat points. They are still subject to dimishing returns and while they actually have a reason to want to (shielding vents heat proc), it is still a large waste of stat points to do so and those points are still better off being spent elsewhere. Go read the PT/VG forums you will see this written constantly. Because as mentioned if it wasn't active we wouldn't get 15%. Its risk versus reward. Not sure how you aren't understanding this. Again this is looking at such a small microcosm of Shadow tanking that its irrelevant, KW/DW is an unbelievable buff, you want to change it because RIGHT NOW you are having trouble tanking 3 adds which lasts what 20 seconds? Go tank a boss that lasts over 6 minutes. Learn to play within the class instead of whining about trivial ****.

You're right they need +def mods!! OMG We need +shield mods at the end of the day we are all trying to max out the same thing. 25% Def, 45% shield / absorb. Thing is we start pretty close to the def cap and have poor base shielding because of DW/KW. PT's have crap for +def and need to stack that so that they can avoid as much damage as we do. The issue is you aren't understanding is that different classes are different. They get high passive shield, we get high passive defense and decent passive shield + another ability to give us high shielding. There are tradeoffs, strengths and weaknesses inherent to each and every class and you have to build your character to overcome those deficiencies. That does not make our abilities wrong or problematic. You also aren't thinking long term here. We get a 20% shield, that means we can hit 65% shielding without any diminishing returns on stat points. No other tank can do that, but you want it to change because of some infinitesimally small issue that a few people are encountering and can easily circumvent. If they change it to something stupid like 5% passive then you've essentially got the class nerfed because of some idiotic diatribe about tanking AOE ******** some unknown small percentage worse than Powertechs, when you do simply have the tools at hand to do as well, but consider this to be detrimental because another tank *might* not have to use their CD/adrenal/trinket at the same time. GUESS WHAT - there are MANY times where you will not have to use your CD/Adrenal/Trinket at a certain point and another class will. Its absolutely short-sighted and you should really start considering the other options, because quite honestly Shadows/Sins are in a pretty good position now and in the future. You simply aren't thinking.

Pay attention, diminishing returns for shield and absorb happen at 45% and cap at 50%. That's for ALL classes. Powertechs have obscenely high shield and thus its a waste of stat points to try and get it higher, but they only get base defense and thus they NEED to stack defense. For Shadows we have low +shield and if you were actually looking at what we get per point of +shield its obscene in comparsion to +def. Go look up the shadow tanking thread on sithwarrior.com and look at how the stats cap. I can tell you from practical observation that at around 24% +shield, 39 shield rating equalled a 2% or greater gain in +shield.

This is quite honestly one of the silliest things written. Think about what you write before you write it, its simply that silly. You want your Dark Ward to be used! Not losing a charge means you took the full damage of the hit. Keeping a charge effectively means you are taking more damage. Shield Rating still applies while Dark Ward is down so of course you would want a high Shield Rating even without Dark Ward. Absorb is absolutely useless unless you shield. Defense is already stacked so high that you are effectively wasting stat points due to diminishing returns. If you keep stacking defense you essentially become a stat point wasting avoidance tank and if you've played any previous MMO's we all know how well that turned out. Shield rating is still effective without Dark Ward. Having a higher shield chance means you are taking less damage PERIOD.

You can test this easily, duel another shadow and pop FP+Project in an Upheaval build. Have your duelling partner disappear once you have casted Project but before it lands. Do you still have your FP charges? Yes you do.

Yes this is the only way that it works reliably and you get the most out of the effect, however there are times where you want pure burst and you can/would use FP to help with that as a tank. But what exactly does force critical apply to? I see a much large amount of criticals on DS, Saber Strike, Slow Time and Force Breach when its up and it seems that only Project and TK Throw eat the charges. So I usually try to keep my FP charges up for the longest period of time. Again this may be purely anecdotal, but I do notice a larger number of criticals with FP up. I'll do some real testing when I'm on next. Of course.

I'm pretty sure they don't, in fact I can just look at the talents and tell, I don't have to play all three classes. Its getting through to me fine. We have a mechanism where they don't, we also get a ton of base avoidance that they do not. They have to stack +def, we don't, BUT WE STILL ARE. This is as much the problem as KW/DW falloff. We need to stack some +shield, they have to stack +def, different yes. But that doesn't imply imbalance. You are saying we aren't balanced in AOE fights alone. I am saying its a slight imbalance and overall its a very small part of tanking in this game. A slight imbalance in a very small part of the game, that you can overcome by learning your class. If all three tanking classes were the same this game would be stupidly boring. As I keep saying every class has its advantages and its weaknesses. Just because you have spotted a weakness in our class (something we've know since early in beta), does not forgo the fact that our class can still be balanced around this detriment. In other words, just because you say its imbalanced does not make it so.

Mirror classes are on opposing sides, both factions have three tank classes, each with its own advantage and weakness. The repercussion being that in AoE fights Shadows take slightly more damage? Poorly played Jugg/Guardians perhaps. Others have pointed out they actually do much more AoE damage than shadow/sins can. Leaving YOU with 24% shield chance. Many of us have already noticed this and done the smart thing and stacked some +shield to great success. Are you sure? Basically you see people complaining and assume that its a majority. Its not.

Actually the real numbers are quite easy to generate. Combat logging just makes it easier to parse the numbers, but the numbers are there, on your screen. Try writing them down. I guess the rest of the math that people have generated for this game is just misinformation due to the lack of a combat log as well? As I said in my tank gear, my chain shock proc hits for ~620 base, that's 100 less than the 720 dmg that the arpen will give you on a 18k health target. If I was wearing Stalker gear my Chain shock would hit harder, thus 2 hits or less from Chain Shock and you've already surpassed the damage you would cause with 9% arpen. These aren't arbitraty and anecdotal numbers, I actually took the time to do the math and check it in game to see if it sussed out. However in another thread we actually figured out that a 2/31/8 chain shock build where you don't get the extra 6% VS dmg and instead take 6% arpen was in fact better damage overall.

Easier != better.

What makes you think other tanks aren't doing the same? Trust me the other tanks take almost equivalent amounts of damage as us, its within a couple of percent. The problem is people are relying on avoidance, in a game with a 2 roll system, avoidance is simply the first roll. You can reduce damage kinetic/energy damage by another 45% on that second roll, but you have to understand how to gear for it.

I understand your passion for getting KW/DW fixed, but you are really focusing on such a small part of the problem without understanding that gearing plays a large part in amplifying this problem into something that makes Shadow tanks take spiky damage in AOE situations. Efficient use of stat points makes the KW/DW problem much smaller than it appears at basic gearing levels. If you can gear properly, KW/DW fallof isn't all that relevant.

Hmmm? try popping an absorb adrenal and looking at the character sheet on your sin/shadow.

If you actually understood what I was saying. Understand +def caps at 30%, diminishing returns start at less than 25%, that means you are spending MORE stat points to get LESS. Understand +shield and +absorb cap at 50%, diminishing returns are at 45% or lower. DW/KW adds a flat 20% regardless of diminishing returns. At 50 in some normal mode ops/hm fp's you stats will look something like 22-23% def 22-24% shield 40-44% absorb That means you are close to your +def cap, and with a Fort stim, you are at your +def cap. In fact you are hitting diminishing returns with your Fort Stim, so you can actually lose some +def to use your stat point distribution efficiently. Those extra points should go directly to +shield of which you are 22-24% away from capping. This is the only way to smooth damage intake regardless of KW/DW falloff, your +shield has to be higher, and guess what, since its so low you get a massive amount of +shield per point spent! Approx. 20+ shield equals another 1%. TL : DR If you are pushing +def higher than 23-24% then you aren't efficiently using your stat points. Your +shield is too low, you need to boost it. If you want to smooth damage, you need to understand how to best allot your stat points, mindlessly stacking +def is a fools errand and will only make you take spiky dmg more often.

The second boss is Jarg and Sorno, are you attempting to single tank them? I usually tank Jarg, no problem keeping DW/KW up on that fight.

It's buggy. I've had it not eat the second charge, and no, you don't always get a second crit out of the deal, especially when tanking. It needs to be consistent, as for the definition given in the descriptions. Upheaval isn't a direct force attack, we aren't pressing an Upheaval button. Its a huge loss of burst damage to have your 20 second long 60% crit chance ruined by a single Upheaval, we need to be able to use that ability for the duration, not have it eaten up by a single Project. Not using Project as a tank is a huge DPS and threat loss, right now the only feasible way to use Force Potency to its potential is to use it when you have a 3 stack HS and then TK Throw, then you literally have to ignore Project for the next 15.5 seconds and use it on the last GCD available for Force Potency. To generate a full stack of HS takes on average 21-30 seconds, ignoring PA procs for 15.5 seconds means I've missed generating over half a full HS stack. A full HS stack is not only a tanks hardest hitting ability, but its also a decent heal (for me its anywhere from 2.3k to 3k health depending on if I pop my Rakata medpac or not). I digress however, Upheaval should not eat or Force Potency charges.

Don't be so sure you can get rid of those stats, each piece has base stats that cannot be removed.

Force Crystals? Electronic Shields? Not sure what rock you have been hiding under but to a Jedi, the force is something natural, its the very essence of life itself. It is an understanding of nature and how it surrounds us. Rocks = nature/life/force. Which is pretty much on theme for SWTOR and Star Wars in general.

The problem with this idea is that at that point its really just pressing a button every 12 seconds. There's no risk involved. Once you are just pressing a button every 12 seconds for the sake of simply pressing that button with risk or reward, then you might as well just not have a button at all. Its adding complexity without risk and thus without reward. Its simply not exciting and that's why devices like this idea have all but been removed from MMO gaming.

False assumption, tank threat for Shadows is not weak in the least. Not if you understand how to use your force and you play with an organized group. Tank threat in SWTOR is not the sticky glue that it is in WoW. It is however quite substantial and quite easy to maintain. Taunt spam is unnecessary, even in a END stacking build and the only time taunts are used are when the bosses detaunt you and you must regain threat, usually after a knockback or other related mechanism (Jarg & Sorno getting carbonized, Annihilator knockback etc. etc.) See above, irrelevant, and yes you can tank swap we do this on a few fights. Doesn't happen in WoW either. The issue is that WoW has been around for several generations of gamer and has 3-4 tiers of end game for any single expansion. As players burn out from the top end of the game (which happens quite quickly because really once you have the best gear there isn't much else to do) you don't have the ability to replace them with somewhat decently geared players quick enough to continue to gear on the content you are running. Thus they instituted commendations to buy lower tier gear. The same system exists here, you can use HM FP commendations to buy Tionese gear and then run Ops to get Columi and HM Ops for Rakata. Its exactly the same system as WoW with the exception of crafting and dailies in which you can get the current top tier gear, they don't do this in WoW. In WoW you are given the ability to get the last tier of gear, not the current tier through commendations. So if you are facing current content then you will never be overgeared, however you will be overgeared for past content, which is what they want. They want you to see the content, whether you faceroll through it or actually compete in it, they still want you to see it. That's the point of that system, and its the point of the system in SWTOR as well. Normal mode Ops are faceroll and any PUG with half a brain can steamroll most of the fights. BW wants you to at least see the content, even if you aren't coordinated enough to beat it at the highest level. This was a pretty early lesson learned in MMO history.

So I asked where you pulled this 22% number and are telling me that your base shield chance is 24%? Did you mean 22%? Or did you mean 24% originally? Might want to try raising that 24% up, defense caps at 30% and starts hitting diminishing returns around 23%. Shield/Absorb cap at 50% and hit diminishing returns around 45%. Since we have such a high base defense, we don't need to concentrate on +def as hard as you might think, however most sin/shadow tanks still do. Thus we take spiky damage when our shields are down. What we want to do is smooth that damage down, on the two roll system you want to get the most efficient use of your stat points. Thus if you are at 22% +def or 44% +shield/absorb, then you should concentrate your stat point allotment elsewhere to help smooth your damage. Assuming you are at 22% +def or higher: If you are serious about tanking you use a Fort Stim (provides 43 defense, Rakata Fort Stim is 56), you can't get any other secondary tanking stat from a stim. You want to use that to your advantage, if you are at 22% +def or higher then you can swap out that 43 +def because you are going to hit diminishing returns if you don't. Those 43 stat points are equivalent to another 2% shield chance. Go get your Rakata implants from dailies. That's 4% shield chance right there. If you have really high absorb you may want to bring that number down and add some +shield. Mod your gear as you see fit, but the reality is you really do need more +shield. 24% is just not enough to tank effectively. Currently with stim I'm sitting at 25% def 32% shield 44% absorb I'm still working on my second Rakata implant so those number will change shortly to: 24.5% def 34% shield 44% absorb As I've mentioned elsewhere, yes DW/KW falling off rapidly is a problem. A problem with many possible developer side solutions. But we are looking past the end of our nose here if we don't understand how we can make sin/shadow tanking better right now.