First phase Bestia is only hard first ~4 seconds, because RNG. If both monsters spawn from same portal it's ez mode, if from different, you need to grab one with Pull and other with taunt, while positioning yourself in such a manner that they get to you at the same time. Then you just rotate cooldowns on synched pulverize, which required snipper in 4.0 (was possible without ofc, but healers would freak out), now piss easy with Speed. You are gimping yourself by not synching pulves. This is one anomaly of an encounter where you want to get spikes as tank -- because it's so easy to use cd to counter spike to a max of half your hp, and then healers have 12s to top you off.

You can start with learning to read tooltips. One for alacrity in your character spreadsheet describes it's effects, and it's really obvious that alacrity %% is literally equal to raw dps gain compared to same stats with 0 alacrity (except for buff uptimes which boost it's value even more).

Now imagine how richer community would be should KBN use something people actually use, and not Mathematica Anyway, every single tanking methodic used by different theorycrafters in past was flawed in it's own way (some -- in many ways at the same time), KBN's was probably best at what it was. Issue with it was that it solved problem nobody ever should care about. If your goal is minimizing DTPS period you are crippling yourself, plain and simple. Absorb is a fluff stat, it affects magnitude of shielding which is irrelevant like all the damn time. Unless you're a jugg (who are not tanks in 5.0) you have enough absorb out of the box and from 700-1000 points you'll dump into it just because dr are nonexistent and it's a bannable offense not to get tons of %% for relatively few points. Majority of your stat pool should always go into shield, 2-2.5k seems reasonable. If you shield attack, all is good and nobody gonna notice if it was 40 or 50 %. If you don't, it's bad but w/e; but when you get a streak of 2+ unlucky shield rolls it's a spike (on any class) and you won't die (because rip 5.0 tuning) but you will really piss your healers off because they have to babysit you instead of doing something more important, like tunnel dpsing boss (because rip 5.0 tuning). tl;dr: don't cry over faulty tank theorycrafting, it was fun in itself, to study discuss etc. but not actually use results of it. From that PoV nothing changed really, you just get a chance to make your own (faulty) model for people to praise/critique/ignore/w/e. nb: one thing actually worth spending time on is research for best slots to put dps pieces/mods in (power mods, dps relics, dps set for assassins etc).

You shielded 77.77% of all attacks, which is obvious if you look at all numbers and not just shield %% which tells absolute and not relative number. No, seriously, how are you going to have your overall shield %% over 50%, if 51% of attacks didn't even hit you? Can't shield missed/defended attacks, yo.

Madness sorcs can do over that by spamming Force Lightning w/out cooldowns/adrenal/dots. Tanks can do about that just by doing rotation. RIP.

No tank in their right mind does solo content in tank gear if he has a choice. Tank spec with crit/power/ala gear == relaxed hazardless cruise through anything solo, with decent damage and great protection, with dps companion. Some don't like it though and they go full dps spec && gear. For healers it's even worse, so it's almost always beneficial to go dps spec (gear can remain same, however). What happens if changes proposed are implemented? Tanks and healers, should they want to queue for group content, are crippled in their solo endeavours, limited to turtle speed, extremely dissatisfying and depressing. Having to change spec and/or gear for undefined amount of time just to queue is a burden, especially since respeccing in swtor is so horrible. And no, we can't wait those 5 minutes for pop -- specifically because there's no guarantee. Ever had to sit in queue for random HM FP for half an hour in a group of tank+healer+dps? I did. Multiple times. Not fun at all. Y'know what would be even worse? Having to not do anything during that time, or do it in "proper" spec && gear which is unbearable. Overall, change with result only in reduced amount of players interested in queueing as tank/healer, worsening the problem. Also, some of you dunderheads refer other games, so guess what, they do not have any checks in place even with crossserver. WoW? Multispec is comfy as ****, you can queue as whatever your class allows, no check for gear (not that you can really check it in wow), no check for spec in any group finder content. Wildstar -- has assault/support gear separation and guess what, not checked by system, as well as spec. Both games have cross server (and, in case of Wildstar, cross faction) so queue times aren't a problem at all. So quit crying over something that is realistically impossible to fix. There are issues with group finder, but not with role stuff. Tank not being a tank really isn't worse than tank in tank gear that has no idea what he is doing, or healer just spamming dark heal once per 5 seconds and ******* in between, or pt dps that spams rapid shots from 30m range. Any possible "fix" for the system will either make queues even worse, or at best will just prohibit entering instance, meaning that it will save you repair funds for 1st trash pack wipe but will take as much time. Actually helpful advice 1: get tank/healer friends or become one. Actually helpful advice 2: learn how to tank via your companion (you'll be surprised how better they are than 95% of tanks in the game). Actually helpful advice 3: getting into instance is already cool, even if you have to kick tank, it means replacement is more likely && fast than getting fresh group (and you don't have to stay inside instance while waiting).

Despite common misconception, EV is not a flashpoint, and therefore can't be reliably completed with 4 player group by a vast majority of players. ...you were doing it with 4, right? Right?..

Except gearing strat there was suboptimal even in 4.0. Shield stacking is the way to go, period.

This is a huge misconception, with similar gearing sins have same defense as juggernauts with difference being in decimals (time averaging ravage's 6%, of course). Sins are shield and defense and dcd oriented, whereas juggs are armour, defense and dcd oriented. Extra defense is helpful for current sin meta, to save some dark ward stacks.

Game needs for difference between max power/crit and max mitigation builds to be more than 10% damage taken. Make defense reflect damage back at players (but not NPCs), make successful shield restore hp*, tune coefficients on all tank-unique skills so dps gain from extra power/mastery is minimal, and remove critical attacks as tank**. * -- best would be to make shield work on crits, but due to the way it works now (on same roll with crit) it is most likely too much work, adding extra effect when shielding ought to be simpler. ** -- most blunt solution would be for tank "stance" (or passive, or w/e is the way they are applying buffs from discipline) to reduce critical multiplier by 50%, but make critical attacks generate more threat. That would also require to bump up all coefficients on all abilities so tank dps isn't irrelevant.

0 defensive stats, max hp in every slot, 2:1 crit to alacrity. Yeah, bolster is weird.

Reactive Warding is garbage if you have sorc/sage healer(s) (bubbles cancel each other), otherwise very strong. Shrouded Crusader is BiS mitigation one basically, as it was in 4.x. Good synergy with Recklessness. Shield Amplification to replace RW when you have sorc/sage heals. Fortunate Redoubt is only good as a slot for an augment, literally anything else is better. Focused Retribution/Serendipitous Assalt are good because extra damage and hp. Those are probably best option overall because tiny bit of extra mitigation is redundant in current meta, while damage is always useful.

Explosive dart by itself was garbage skill only used because of 30m range and sometimes to stun/knockdown standard enemies. No damage, no threat, no procs. Slug is useful for loosely spread mobs, or are <10 meters away from you and you for some reason don't want to come close to them (that will be... umm... Master Mode Draxus and... umm.. Veteran Mode Draxus and... umm.. yup, only those). It's utility starts there. It also ends there. Flame sweep does more damage, same cost, has no cooldown, better animation.

Literally unplayable. Should be 25, but I guess stance bug also affects cost. GG Bioware.

Right now assassins are higher Even after fix they might be better, due to force speed utility. Previously one of FS uses was to swiftly leave dangerous areas. Now after using FS there's no need to leave even if you are in epicenter of nuclear explosion. Best argument for PTs is minimal amount of defensives to pop and off gcd skills in general. Arguments against: facing enemy might be annoying with now instant firestorm, unpredictable rocket punch procs. Another argument pro: most skils (except rocket punch with it's ****** procs) are 10m range so can slack a lot with positioning. And yet another one on top: with +25% damage on flame sweep utility it becomes better than flame burst on single target which means that aoe and single target rotations are pretty much same.

Shield, guard and reflect continue to work. Last one is funny. Guess guardians/juggs use mind tricks to force enemies to shoot at their lightsabers

Never implied high defense benefits ward more. Quite the opposite, actually: even 25% defense is sufficient in most cases for saber ward to deflect virtually everything. Shellshock is what they used PTSD back in the day. They are mathematically better than going in without anything in corresponding slots, though, I'll give them that.

I guess overkill wasn't implemented and wasn't deemed worthy time spent now, so they went with easy way. Mercs also reflect melee ST attacks. Yet, cap is not unreasonable, it's not supposed to be a kamikaze skill after all.

Just so that mechanic doesn't get overlooked... like in all proper RPGs, in SWTOR player's defense chance doesn't work while they are incapacitated. In other words, that sniper aimed shot of which you'll gonna get deflect for so much enjoyment? Won't happen if he maims you before. All the defense -- innate 5/10%, defense from passives, defense from gear, even frigging 100% from blade turning -- is ignored. Accuracy still works, meaning below 100% has a chance to miss (nigh all bosses have below 100%), sin/jugg 5% debuffs work, and some "external" cooldowns do (oil slick, obfuscate and such). Probably most apparent example is in PvE: Brontes burn phase. No matter what class and discipline you are, tank or dps, and what cooldowns you used (aside from oil slick), on average you'll have exact same %% of deflected FnF, which is affected solely by Brontes' accuracy with sin/jugg debuff on top of it.

If your defense is 25% on char screen, saber ward pushes you to 100%. Because like 95% of mobs and bosses in the game have 75% melee/ranged accuracy. To OP: aim for even shield and absorb percentage if you want to take less damage; aim for higher shield (twice as much shield rating compared to absorb rating) if you want to be less spiky. Ignore defense altogether, don't even look at that number, as long as you don't use dps pieces (aside from relics) your defense will be good enough. Defense augments and Fortunate Redoubt relic are BiS way to cause shellshock for those 3.5 individuals remaining in the game that know how mitigation works on all levels.

Shock is now only 10 force. Even on dummy, when you don't get force from shields/resists/deflects, you only need saber strike like once per minute tops. It's pretty serious dps boost. My gear is mostly 230, and with tank relics my dummy dps is about 3.5k. Now take dps relics, remember that <It's Lit> (I suppose those the guys you were watching?) cleared everything, got 240 schematics out of it and have tons of 240 gear due to it. So 4k is pretty much baseline number, and you should be doing 3..6k depending on how much uptime on boss you have and how much aoe you can do and if there's anything to reflect (there are actually good uses for it aside from sorry-darling-I-oneshotted-boss).

Due to the way reflect works, under OS+FS (assuming fixed stance) 100k hp sin can reflect about 830k damage (from oneshot). That's smth like 1.5 minute worth of good dps contribution in raid scenario. IMO mechanic should be changed so reflect applies after taking damage if assassin survives the hit, and reflected should be a function of actual damage he takes (say, 200%, reflecting 100% is just too low for legendary). Guess same with operatives. Eh, I wanted assassins to get stagger-like mechanic, or bad lack protection for shielding, instead of cheezy op utilities. Guess tomorrow we'll see utility nerfed to oblivion leaving no use for it whatsoever instead of thoughtful tuning.

Yeah, also got schematic from WH. Not clear if they will be needed this expansion, though.

Now make dps burn blaster to 23% before second ion cutter

Are your guildies bioware? Because it's only Bioware to proclaim any bug an "exploit". Feelings of individual players are utterly irrelevant. There are multiple bugs with utilities currently, it's pointless to even discuss any repercussions for "exploiting" because there can't be any. Should they ban all deception && darkness sins for "exploiting" double stance (since only workaround currently is respeccing after changing instance which is unfortunately impossible to do in wz)? Should all sins go hatred just because of it (and spec into autocrit utility, because we are totally getting banned since proc happens without utility)? Should we ban juggs for using chilling scream utility? With all their lack of common sense, bioware never banned people for doing "generic" stuff, picking "bugged" skills and whatnot. A history of bans is all about "don't clone things" and "don't re-vendor stuff" and "don't break invisible walls". If your class/spec/utilities is broken but you still play it, pvp ***** will rage at you, but ultimately there's nothing wrong in it. If your class/spec/utilities are broken in a "good" way, white knights may spit on you, but, ultimately, there's nothing wrong in it. Eh, I hope limiting yourself with imaginary rules at least makes you feel better about yourself.