Mitigation, the REAL problem. Also, operatives need a 2x dmg multiplier.

[Obie_Wan]

I wonder if broken mechanics like these are one of the reasons why BioWare doesn't give us a working combat log. Kind of makes you dread what else the community will discover over time.

[CommandoPower]

Bumping because this is ridiculous and needs to be acknowledged somehow.

[Gankstah]

If anything, try making a video on YouTube. Some people just can't read.

 

 

6 minute video of how neither Shield nor Defense affects yellow damage attacks. Only white. Here's the thread I originally posted.

 

With a 40%+ chance to shield and a 22%+ unbuffed chance to defend it's nigh mathematically impossible to have a string of attacks that long without any defense/shield. To put it in perspective, I have a better chance of being struck by lightning WHILE winning the lottery.

 

I had my buddy switch to "white damage" 1/2 way through the video to show that only white damage is being subjected to either Shield or Defense.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Gankstah

[Nicodareus]

This is a joke. I'm wondering how I didn't notice the lack of shield and dodge against pretty much every attack in the game, but it sure as hell makes a lot of sense now.

 

This topic, like a few have said, should be at 20+ pages. It is something so basic that I would never have even thought about it. I tested it as a Defensive Guardian with full champion gear in duels against both a gunslinger and a commando, and it is completely true. Grav rounds hit for full damage every single time, no shield. All of the gunslingers attacks aside from the bleed shot and the explosives (aka the entire sharpshooter tree) can be dodged, deflected and shielded against.

 

The Gunslinger is level 50 with near full pvp gear, the Commando is level 41 (obviously no PvP gear), and the Commando spamming grav round was keeping up with the Gunslinger. I just sat there against the Gunslinger unloading on me watching deflections and shield procs flying off. This explains why the Gunslinger and I do absolutely no damage to Powertechs and Juggernauts in PvP when we pair off, as we both have basic weapon damage attacks that they mitigate.

 

This also explains why Sorcs absolutely destroy me. My bonus stats do absolutely nothing against them. Saber Ward does nothing against them. I dont even get to reflect to use riposte, not that it matters as it just adds 6% defense which does nothing anyways.

 

This also explains why I just shrug off marauders. It explains why with Sorcerors, Bounty Hunters and Operatives being 3 of the most popular classes (as opposed to the Rep side with Sentinels and Guardians, who do crap basic weapon damage, being the most popular) we constantly get nuked.

 

So basically I do crap damage and can shrug off damage only slightly better than DPS classes (due to Soresu Armour increase). Awesome.

 

Bump for great justice!

 

I'm playing a hybrid Kinetic/Balance Shadow, and yeah I've noticed that my shield hardly does anything at all. I almost NEVER see the graphic that it absorbed something.

 

Fix this Bioware. What do you think this is? Age of Conan where stats did absolutely nothing at launch?

[alamaurie]

 

6 minute video of how neither Shield nor Defense affects yellow damage attacks. Only white. Here's the thread I originally posted.

 

With a 40%+ chance to shield and a 22%+ unbuffed chance to defend it's nigh mathematically impossible to have a string of attacks that long without any defense/shield. To put it in perspective, I have a better chance of being struck by lightning WHILE winning the lottery.

 

I had my buddy switch to "white damage" 1/2 way through the video to show that only white damage is being subjected to either Shield or Defense.

 

Thank you for this!

[tenehuini]

You seem to be missing point of PVP tanks in this game. It's not that YOU are unkillable. Tanks are supposed to reduce damage others are taking (I think we can agree there). In PVE this is usually done thru 'tanking' which consists of having mobs attack the tank instead of your friends. Since in PVP you play against live people, you can't really force them to attack you. Instead, you are given way how to take reduce damage others are taking - guard, taunt.

 

Ideally, a good PVP Huttball team would cosist off a ball carrier (someone with high mobility), a tank to reduce damage the ball carrier is taking (80% damage reduction from all attackers in 15m range for 6sec anyone?), and a healer to keep them both up. I really don't think the PVE tanking stats need to work in PVP. I believe the tanking gear available from PVP is there mostly for PVP players to be able to obtain at least some basic tanking gear while doing what they like the most. Doesn't really make sense there's expertise on it as well tho.

[flip_inghell]

I wonder if broken mechanics like these are one of the reasons why BioWare doesn't give us a working combat log. Kind of makes you dread what else the community will discover over time.

 

I was thinking the exact same thing.

[Eerazer]

i sent georg a message on google plus about the forum post and this video.. i hope he takes the time to read it, and moreover.. fix the issues.

[Pappus]

You guys start to get silly...

 

Tank stats are usefull against:

 

Assassin,Marauder,Juggernaut,Sniper

 

Not useful against:

Operative, Sorc, BH Merc.

 

If you want shield to proc on everything, then even the last 3 classes will start to get serious problems getting you down making you unkillable with any healer in your back.

 

This is not what tanking is about especially, when dps doesn't actually drop THAT hard compared to other games even fully tank specced. If you want to get your shield on attacks, then prepare to learn what really low dps means...

 

Juggernauts from EV come to mind

 

All the tanks are hard enough to clob down as it is. Once properly geared you will exceed 20k hp, then even operatives won't kill you before your heal arrives.

[Aragiel]

is there any information from Devs regarding this? i mean are they working on that? ignoring it? officially confirmed that it is as intended?

[Eerazer]

is there any information from Devs regarding this? i mean are they working on that? ignoring it? officially confirmed that it is as intended?

 

its too early for a reply, its a fairly new post. it usually takes them a little while to respond

[Nohoth]

Well....that explains alot! I can not believe they let this go live and did not fix it. Hope we get a word on this subject from the development team soon:mad:

[DaniWes]

Meh i agree with the OP. My main is a SI Sorc and while i love my main its just not that viable in PVP ATM. the Smuggler classes always 2 shoot me. i get knocked down and i never get up. its very disapointing but i just dont have fun PVPing with that toon ATM. I have re-rolled a BH and will mess with that class for a bit.

 

I dont like classes getting nerfed however, it messes with PVE but being 2 shot every time with champ gear on /sigh.

 

Sorc not viable in PVP? Did you play your character without armor and talents?

[nodq]

yeah gave up trying to tank stuff in pvp.. everything bar the basic free attack cannot be dodged/shielded it seems.

 

so defensive stats are useless in pvp basically (defence / shielding /absorb) - thats why CC and high damage classes are so rampant and appear OP. it also begs the question why they bothered putting these stats on any of the pvp gear? when 90% of the incomming damage bypasses any effect they contribute towards.

 

Its actually all my fault.. as this is the first time in 10 years of mmo gaming that i decided to actually play a tank class.. and its the only game that the tanks cant tank in pvp due to largely non existant mitigation.

 

Same here... was so happy when i heard that tanks are actually viable in swtor (in pvp) with good mechanics like taunt/guard etc. but i gave up my assassine tank with full pvp epic gear because

 

1. you can guard like a mofo in every WZ, have medalls like crazy and protection/guard such a high number, you never recieve a MVP vote ever... at least on my server.

 

2. You try to run around and protect your mates, you never get healed even by the healers... they may think tanks are worthless because they do no dmg? i dont know.

 

3. a *********** operative/scoundrel comes and kills 80% of my HP in first 5 seconds. a *********** trooper/BH kills me on range with spamming just one button and never moving 1mm...

 

4. you do actually no DMG themn, whats kinda normal as a tank. with tank gear + specc. but its not very rewarding if you are not playing every single WZ with a premade grp of friends.

 

 

im leveling a operative agent now, because im also little bit disappointed too, by the assassine class. actually... operative agent gives me what i epected fromt he assasine tbh.

[Dalnar]

You guys start to get silly...

 

Tank stats are usefull against:

 

Assassin,Marauder,Juggernaut,Sniper

 

Not useful against:

Operative, Sorc, BH Merc.

 

Considering most empire teams consists of sorc, bh and operative...its actually you who is silly....

[MelkorHero]

You guys start to get silly...

 

Tank stats are usefull against:

 

Assassin,Marauder,Juggernaut,Sniper

 

Not useful against:

Operative, Sorc, BH Merc.

 

If you want shield to proc on everything, then even the last 3 classes will start to get serious problems getting you down making you unkillable with any healer in your back.

 

This is not what tanking is about especially, when dps doesn't actually drop THAT hard compared to other games even fully tank specced. If you want to get your shield on attacks, then prepare to learn what really low dps means...

 

Juggernauts from EV come to mind

 

All the tanks are hard enough to clob down as it is. Once properly geared you will exceed 20k hp, then even operatives won't kill you before your heal arrives.

 

I'm sorry but I don't agree with you. The fact that a healer is behind you makes you unbalanced if the shield is up... isn't a valid excuse.

 

Anyone with a healer behind his back is hard to kill and sometime immortal when there's no focus.

 

But what's the point of a BG? A tank is hard to kill BECAUSE of a healer. So...? Kill the healer and deal with the tank later? I've never seen a game where the goal is to outdps the heals. This is noobish talk. The goal is to CC/kill the healer then kill the main valuable target.

[AGoldCrayon]

As a fully geared tank in pvp i have 17,000 health. Quite a bit. Envii can, and HAS, de-stealthed on me and punches through maybe 2/3's of my health within the first or second 4s stun used. If I break the first the second one is always at the ready because good players are good.

 

After the initial burst I pop my rakatan medpac, activate my ward, immortal, and occasionally pop my trinkets and more just to survive the damage from one character. There are 7 more attacking me in huttball. This is all unavoidable and unmitigatable damage even for what might be the best tank on Anchorhead. I can get by and get out but it requires way too many abilities on large cd's.

 

You can survive 8 people beating on you with only your CD's and consumables? It would seem intuitive that surviving such a thing with no outiside help smacks of imbalance, for your class though. >.>

[xXShagnastyXx]

Hopefully that title got your attention.

 

I've made a few threads here and there about numerical problems in how damage is handled and etc. I'd like to sum them up into one thread and have an intelligent discussion.

 

This is Ganondorf from Anchorhead. I'm working on the formulas for diminishing returns but I find, mathmatically, the problem is with mitigation. The fact being that pretty much all of the large burst abilities are more or less unmitigatable except through static barrier and hard mitigation.

 

I'm going to organize this thread into three parts. The first part is the mitigation issue. The second part is about how hard mitigation "stacks". The third part is a list of glitches and exploits and how to do them. The last part is here solely because they need to be fixed.

 

PART 1

 

Even with 50% mitigation through armor, 30/30 for shields, and 30% defence chance... I have 0% chance to mitigate any of the incoming damage except through hard mitigation through abilities like immortal, unstoppable, etc. This means that only a sorcs bubble or there party buff can absorb any of that damage (and a buff from my spec). Regardless I'll at max only be able to mitigate 20% of it. If I manage to have full resolve or Unleash and get my hard mitigation abilities off before I die... I can survive.

 

As a fully geared tank in pvp i have 17,000 health. Quite a bit. Envii can, and HAS, de-stealthed on me and punches through maybe 2/3's of my health within the first or second 4s stun used. If I break the first the second one is always at the ready because good players are good.

 

After the initial burst I pop my rakatan medpac, activate my ward, immortal, and occasionally pop my trinkets and more just to survive the damage from one character. There are 7 more attacking me in huttball. This is all unavoidable and unmitigatable damage even for what might be the best tank on Anchorhead. I can get by and get out but it requires way too many abilities on large cd's.

 

Now I hate comparing a 1v1 situation but this is a guaranteed screw in a 1v1 situation. One player can easily force a tank spec'd pvp player to pop all of his cd's and consumables just to survive while they pop'd there consumables. The advantage of the opener and the waste of my resources as a tank is inexcusable and silly. Silly I say!

 

In short the consumables are a problem (a small nerf after the mitigation issues are addressed) but if the damage that was hitting people was mitigatable then the numbers would fall in line. I think that's what needs to be addressed along with the scaling ratios of some stats.

 

 

PART 2

I'm a Juggernaut spec'd into unstoppable. I also have the ability Invincible. Invincible reduces all incomming damage by 40% for 10 seconds and untoppable is a spec that allows for cc immunity and 20% damage reduction after leaping. It appears that, depending on the abilities used, these are applied one after another. In this case Invincible reduces a 10,000 damage ability to a 6,000 damage ability then unstoppable reduces that damage to me taking 4800. Instead of reducing the damage by 6,000 it's reduces by 5,200. It seems like a small difference but it adds up with all the forms of mitigation such as shields and other abilities.

 

It compounds with the fact internal and elemental damage ignores armor.

 

PART 3

 

I'll list what I know and I've submitted bug tickets on the insanely broken stuff which I won't post.

 

If you have the ball while on your ledge you will die and the enemy team gets the ball and a kill. This means that the enemy team can camp your spawn and toss the ball to enemy players on the opposing teams ledge... and the ball will kill them and bounce back to your team.

 

This also means bounty hunters can pull the ball carrier up to there ledge as they try to cap to instantly kill the carrier and give your team the ball.

 

The turn in field for huttball is only about a jump distance off the ground. As well, so with any height if you "fly" or get knocked a small distance over the line it won't score.

 

Standing in the ball cradles deprives the enemy team of line of sight on you while you still have it. This means only people in the cradle can shoot you. Any melee class can tab target you, or target you any other way, and melee you as melee only checks if your facing your target and in range.

 

CLOSING

 

Thanks for reading. I intend to update this once I finish running numbers with my guild and friends. Also thanks to Envii on Anchorhead for being my greatest opposition in pvp, your the Link to my Ganondorf. <3

 

I'd like intelligent discourse on these topics and if possible a reasonable response from Bioware on their opinions and intended course of action. I love this game and Star Wars but there are glaring problems with the figures here that need to be addressed.

 

Bioware should hire (interview) this man immediately and put him on the Tank/Warrior team!

Edited January 11, 2012 by xXShagnastyXx

[Kupke]

This thread is begging for an official response. If this is currently a flaw in the game, it should be adressed or at least investigated.

 

If it's not, at least they could take people's worries away on the subject.

[Errthu]

You guys start to get silly...

 

Tank stats are usefull against:

 

Assassin,Marauder,Juggernaut,Sniper

 

Not useful against:

Operative, Sorc, BH Merc.

 

I think you didn't read the comments, it's NOT USEFUL AGAINST MARAUDERS/JUGGERNAUT because like 80% of them use rage spec in pvp.

 

Now i post it again:

 

It's NOT USEFUL against marauders/juggernauts.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Errthu

[Vlaid]

I'm sorry but I don't agree with you. The fact that a healer is behind you makes you unbalanced if the shield is up... isn't a valid excuse.

 

Anyone with a healer behind his back is hard to kill and sometime immortal when there's no focus.

 

But what's the point of a BG? A tank is hard to kill BECAUSE of a healer. So...? Kill the healer and deal with the tank later? I've never seen a game where the goal is to outdps the heals. This is noobish talk. The goal is to CC/kill the healer then kill the main valuable target.

 

Healers exist, you can't deny that.

 

You can also guard your healer to make them near unkillable with you taunting/interceding the DPS on your healer.

 

If tanks become so tanky that they can shield everything they would need to do even less damage, because they would honestly become immortal ball carriers and node holders. It would turn rated matches into a nightmare. Oh dang the tank got the ball? I guess we lose, game over in first posession GG.

 

On occasion I've seen a tank backed by a healer. I've tried switching to charged bolts on them when I have them fully debuffed with grav round, which is supposed to be higher damage. The damage I do with full auto and charged bolts to a tank is just *pitiful* because their shield works. It would take me about 3 full bars of ammo spamming charged bolts at full debuff, with no cc or interruption of casts on the tank to drop them.

 

If everything hit tanks so weakly, they would NEVER die.

[Eerazer]

Healers exist, you can't deny that.

 

You can also guard your healer to make them near unkillable with you taunting/interceding the DPS on your healer.

 

If tanks become so tanky that they can shield everything they would need to do even less

 

If everything hit tanks so weakly, they would NEVER die.

 

sorry but the way i see it it's not about that.. its about mitigation that says it exists, when it doesn't exist in pvp.

 

the shield doesn't proc on ability damage, the damage isn't reduced either. then... what good is it, why is it there?

 

why are we being sold something that isn't what we think it is... mitigation stats for tanks. or should i say, lying mitigation stats for tanks.

[Vlaid]

sorry but the way i see it it's not about that.. its about mitigation that says it exists, when it doesn't exist in pvp.

 

the shield doesn't proc on ability damage, the damage isn't reduced either. then... what good is it, why is it there?

 

why are we being sold something that isn't what we think it is... mitigation stats for tanks. or should i say, lying mitigation stats for tanks.

 

Because it's a way to keep PVE tank survivability from making PVP a joke. In truth we don't know why until they tell us why, but it seems fairly obvious it was done intentionally, not by accident.

 

If PVP tanks need more mitigation, fine, but enabling the shield on -all- attacks might be going a few steps too far.

[Kupke]

Balance comes afterwards, stats should work properly first imo. Besides, as i'm seeing it right now, most pvp healers are inquisitors/sages and their shields mitigate all kinds of damage?

[CHRISGG]

I think you didn't read the comments, it's NOT USEFUL AGAINST MARAUDERS/JUGGERNAUT because like 80% of them use rage spec in pvp.

 

Now i post it again:

 

It's NOT USEFUL against marauders/juggernauts.

 

What? So they use rage spec, so what? A lot of their damage is still weapon damage.