Tank stats in PVP

[Samurro]

I dunno, but am I the only one here thinking tank survivability is fine?

I mean all this could change when fighting only against 50s, but currently I feel like really hard to kill even without a healer.

 

So the real point of this topic is, are Defense Rating and Shield/Absorb Rating useless in PvP? No they are not, because they mitigated some kind of attacks!

 

Do they need to be buffed so tanks get even more damage resistant in PvP? I don't think so...

 

The conclusion that tanks could use offensive mods/gear in PvP is quite okay for me, but still you lose some kind of mitigation with reducing your defense stats.

[Cliche-Guevara]

I posted this in the other thread but I'll post it here too...

 

Ok I've read OPs post and went through my abilities to try and make sense of it all.

 

Here is how I understand things:

There are attacks classified as Melee/Ranged which trigger shields and their absorption as stated in the shield chance tool tip.

There are attacks classified as Force/Tech which do not trigger shields.

 

Each of these attacks has a specific damage type:

Kinetic/Energy which is mitigated by armor.

Internal/Elemental not mitigated by armor.

 

I went though my Powertech shield tech abilities and as best as I can tell. Most abilities ARE mitigated by something and those that aren't have a lower base damage than other abilities. Here are 3 examples based on numbers from my own toon:

 

1. Rocket Punch (Tech): Engages the jetpack, allowing you to strike the target with a heavy punch that deals 1222-1263 kinetic damage. This attack not trigger shield but it's damage would be mitigated by armor.
    
   
2. Unload (Ranged): Unloads your blaster into the target, dealing 577 - 703 weapon damage every second for 3 seconds which is up to 2,109 energy damage. Weak and standard enemies caught in the blaster fire are stunned for the duration. Fires both blasters if dual wielding. With this attack it has both a chance to trigger shields AND is mitigated by armor.
    
   
3. Flame Burst (Tech): Fires a burst of flame at the target that deals 681 - 749 elemental damage. This ability is not mitigated by shields OR armor.
   

 

Now here are my damage reduction and absorption stats Damage Reduction 50.97%, Shield Chance 40.99%, Absorption Rating 36.68%. Applying appropriate mitigation of someone like myself to the above abilities assuming max damage value:

 

1. Rocket Punch 1263-50.97% = 619 damage
    
   
2. Unload (2,109-50.97%)-18% = 848 damage assuming I absorb only 50% of time like OP does which case my real chance is even less. Also since this ability is channeled it is unlikely all 3 ticks will hit for max damage.
    
   
3. Flame Burst 749-9% = 681.59
   

 

Final Thoughts

Now I obviously haven't parsed through every skill in the game but which I saw from my own abilities was that my Tech attacks that do Elemental damage did a lower base damage as if they already built the mitigation into the ability itself. For example my Flame burst ability automatically does 41% less damage based on tool tips than my rocket punch does. Obviously all these numbers will change based on how you spec but ultimately I think it all evens out. Can someone else go through their own different class and see if this seems to be the case?

 

 

The math looks right to me, but in practice it works a tad differently.

 

- Rocket Punch has a 9 sec CD for 1263 Kinetic dmg (Affected by armor) and reduced to 619 after all reductions.

- Flame burst has no CD for 749 Elemental dmg (Not affected by armor) and was reduced to 681 after all reductions.

 

Even with talents to proc the CD resets on Rocket punch every 4.5 secs, which was 619 dmg / punch ==> 619 dmg for 4.5 sec CD (3 GCDs If you have 2/2 Flame shield and it procs on every opportunity) ==> 206dmg / GCD

 

Flame burst is 681 / Burst with a 1.5 sec CD (1 GCD)

 

Only reason to use Rocket punch over flame burst is if you have Flame Surge specced 2/2 for the 30% higher crit dmg or you need the Ion Gas Cylinder DoT from Ion Overload.

 

 

 

except flame burst and rocket punch are tech so no shield or defense

 

you kinda made our point. armor is good and mitigates a good amount of things. shields/defense mitigates very little. the dps gear has the same armor

 

 

 

basically the trade off is so tiny in survivability getting the tanking stats. if you have to trade off dps on your gear you should actually increase in survivability to more than just the few weak attacks

 

 

Shame because as a 18/2/21 Powertech both my mitigation with shield is garbage, along with my main ability to deal dmg because Rail Shot is a weapon dmg skill and is subject to all forms of mitigation.

[Ermo]

I dunno, but am I the only one here thinking tank survivability is fine?

I mean all this could change when fighting only against 50s, but currently I feel like really hard to kill even without a healer.

 

So the real point of this topic is, are Defense Rating and Shield/Absorb Rating useless in PvP? No they are not, because they mitigated some kind of attacks!

 

Do they need to be buffed so tanks get even more damage resistant in PvP? I don't think so...

 

The conclusion that tanks could use offensive mods/gear in PvP is quite okay for me, but still you lose some kind of mitigation with reducing your defense stats.

 

Do tanks feel harder due to their defence skills or due to their armour attributes?

 

The isssue here is about one (Shielding) of three types (Armor, Evade/parry, Shielding) of mitigation which only works against a minority of attacks in PvP. Why should any Tank use Tank gear in PvP if it does not help them longer?

 

In general:

Armor: Constantly reduces kinetic and energy damage (not internal or elemental)

Shield: % chance to reduce incoming damage by %, not able to shield crits

Defence: % chance to ignore damage, can be reduced by accuracy of enemy players

 

As you see the three types of defence have different purposes, and against all types there is a counter type. (Internal/Elemental damage skills, Crit rate, Accuracy) Two of them can be changed simply by using those attributes on your gear.

 

And a Tank spedning any item points in tanking attributes on the gear reduces his dmg output. A fair deal I would say.

Spending a lot points into tankings stats to find them almost useless in PvP is a joke.

 

Another point most people do not see is, that at least 2 tank classes (Trooper, JK) have talents that base on a shield proc. (Shadow I do know to lesss to say if they too) Those talents get wasted in PvP if they can't rely on the shield procs.

[Fairell]

i often face tanks that manage to be nearly indestructible even without healer. i dont know what happens if shield/absorb starts working on most attacks.

[Riulassher]

Spamming Ion Pulse/Flame Burst costs a lot of energy. Every second burst will drop its user into lower energy regen tier.

[chainsawsamurai]

i often face tanks that manage to be nearly indestructible even without healer. i dont know what happens if shield/absorb starts working on most attacks.

 

This has an awful lot more to do with defensive cooldowns and your attack type than anything else.

 

This game is designed to have a lot faster paced PvP than other MMOs. Maps are generally smaller and respawn points generally fairly close to the action. You can't mount up in PvP and it still always seems much faster getting to where I need to be.

 

Speaking as a Tank, I really don't think we want Tanks to have maximum defensive prowess to everything in the game. It would be absurd to take that long to kill anything in a game which seems to be designed around faster paced PvP and shorter travel distance on the playing fields.

 

What I think is more realistic (and better for the state of the game in general) is to reevaluate what abilities count as what type of attack. Shielding really shouldn't apply to every Tech attack, but it should probably apply to things like the Operative knife based attacks or Rocket Punch which should be reclassified to Melee. That is just an example but I'm sure you see where I'm going.

 

Failing that, we need our PvP gear and Tanking trees to be severely reevaluated so that they give a more tangible benefit while being beaten on by attacks which bypass shielding. Such as: Remove reliance on Shielding/Defending in the talent trees, Put more armor on the tank sets than DPS sets (Armor is still very useful in this game), even more HP, damage stats rather than Defense/Shield, etc.

[Aragiel]

of course we as tanks should not get that much defense to be able dominate small pvp maps just by help with some heals..

 

imagine how horrible would be huttball, with a camping tank who just can´t die.

 

but the main point is - we need our stat on gear and also tallents tree worth to be used..

[Vesperr]

Spamming Ion Pulse/Flame Burst costs a lot of energy. Every second burst will drop its user into lower energy regen tier.

 

My friend is a pyrotech and he eats tanks for breakfast and he likes them crispy. Pyrotech is clearly an anti-tank class (most of its damage is elemental) so its fine. What is not is that there are only 3 classes that rely heavily on non-tech skills - mara, jugg and sniper (not sure about all of snipers abilities but his snipe and few other attacks are deflectable thus can be shielded). It gives us a choice: waste mods/enchantments on def/shield/absorb to help us against those 3 classes or stack crit and surge which will help us against all 8 classes without losing much mitigation.

 

So shield is fine, it works, but its not worth it - base 20% shield chance in tank stance is more than enough to mitigate some damage and protect against some crits.

 

imagine how horrible would be huttball, with a camping tank who just can´t die.

 

It would be horrible but having almost useless shield isnt good either. I'm sure there's a solution.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Vesperr

[Avison]

imagine how horrible would be huttball, with a camping tank who just can´t die.

 

It can't be as bad as a bunch of sorcs shielding eachother and using the cc immunity from their sprint to chain the ball to the goal. Also, they can use pull to drag an ally to them.

 

There is actually a strategy where 3 sorcs can get the ball from the cradle to the end zone with complete cc immunity. Huttball is garbage.

[Mardur]

The main problem and complaint is NOT that we wanna be unstoppable killing machines with exceptional survivability and high dmg. NO, no serious player wants that.

 

The problem is that this is not what I was signed for when chose Powertech. When I read the shield descriptions it said "attack", it did not had a disclaimer, that oo and sorry, but this shield will be effective only agains few classes, against the rest its fubar, choose well!.

 

I rolled PT to be a TANK, accepting low-medium dmg in turn to be able to guard, dmg debuff, CC and be hard to kill pain in the *** target. (I was a S&B Chosen in WAR, a Blood DK tank in WoW). So I started to collect Supercommando items and specced to deep Shieldtech. Fortunately my luck with the bags were so bad that I took only few Supercommando items until I realized that it does not make me harder to kill than any other classes, or just slightly. When I saw, what the heck, this Sorc has same HP than me with similar Cent/Champ gear? What the heck, this healer Operative just tanked 3-4 ppl for a minute and I died similar level/geared 3-4 ppl in few second? And so on with many other observations. I am not "tankier" than any other class in similar gear, despite I am specced to be tankier.

 

Then I started to experiment, taking out Eliminator/CombatTech items and I realized that there is no use to specc deep ST, there is no use to stack def stats. Now I am sitting with deep Pyro with a mixed, suboptimal gear (as I could not exhanged some supercommando stuff yet) and still more effective in PvP, but not as good as Mercenaries. If I knew this I would choose Mercenary, same survivability but much higher dmg and burst capability.

 

If shielding stays as it is then Supercommando set should be redesigned to have higher armour, even higher HP and instead of the def stats some - significantly smaller than DPS sets - dmg stats (power for example).

 

OR make the shield possible to be triggered for all attack but in change put a 10- 15% dmg output penalty on Ion Cylinder (and similarly to the other tank ACs), then I can be tank with low-medium dmg and the Supercommando set will have value.

 

The current state is underthought and badly designed.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Mardur

[ltankhsd]

except flame burst and rocket punch are tech so no shield or defense

 

you kinda made our point. armor is good and mitigates a good ammount of things. shields/defence mitigates very little. the dps gear has the same armor

 

 

 

basically the trade off is so tiny in survivability getting the tanking stats. if you have to trade off dps on your gear you should actually increase in survivability to more than just the few weak attacks

 

Wrong wrong wrong. It's not about whether or not shields proc against them, it's about the amount of damage you take after all mitigation is calculated. As I posted, it all evens out in the end. Since I HAVE shields and HAVE more armor and HAVE more health than most classes plus my cooldowns I tank JUUUUST fine.

[ltankhsd]

The math looks right to me, but in practice it works a tad differently.

 

- Rocket Punch has a 9 sec CD for 1263 Kinetic dmg (Affected by armor) and reduced to 619 after all reductions.

- Flame burst has no CD for 749 Elemental dmg (Not affected by armor) and was reduced to 681 after all reductions.

 

Even with talents to proc the CD resets on Rocket punch every 4.5 secs, which was 619 dmg / punch ==> 619 dmg for 4.5 sec CD (3 GCDs If you have 2/2 Flame shield and it procs on every opportunity) ==> 206dmg / GCD

 

Flame burst is 681 / Burst with a 1.5 sec CD (1 GCD)

 

Only reason to use Rocket punch over flame burst is if you have Flame Surge specced 2/2 for the 30% higher crit dmg or you need the Ion Gas Cylinder DoT from Ion Overload.

 

 

 

 

 

My rocket punch is available a LOT, plus it crits for a heck of a lot more than my flame burst does. And it triggers the Ion Gass Cylinder DOT, has a 2s snare from the gas cylinder and allows me to follow up with rail shot. All flame burst does for me is lower the targets damage by a few percentage points.

[Lokth]

of course we as tanks should not get that much defense to be able dominate small pvp maps just by help with some heals..

 

Then whats the point of tanks? If we cant mitgate damage we are just some guy with a bit of extra health and some CDs. As a guardian I hit like a wet noodle, I may as well of chosen sentinal which has similar defensive capabilities and the ability to actually deal damage.

 

A tank should be able to stand around and eat damage if they are getting healed. As it is now Cons / Sorc have better survivability self healing then tanks do when getting healed, which should not be the case at all.

[Mardur]

Wrong wrong wrong. It's not about whether or not shields proc against them, it's about the amount of damage you take after all mitigation is calculated. As I posted, it all evens out in the end. Since I HAVE shields and HAVE more armor and HAVE more health than most classes plus my cooldowns I tank JUUUUST fine.

 

Yes, we have shields, but NO we don't have significantly more armor than other heavy armored dps classes. Classes having light/medium armor has many way to compensate it (like Madness sorc has the bubble/self-heal and with self-buff/talent has a great 25% internal/elemental mitigation PLUS the expertise which can mean 35-40%!, just an example).

And NO we have no significantly more HP, ok tank can have 19-20k but a Sorc can have 16-17K also (I have seen it), that ~3k difference is only ONE CRITCAL NOT SHIELDED ATTACK! A tank should have at least 1.5 times more HP than a light armored supposed-to-be glass-cannon class OR if the HPs are similar tank should have much higher mitigation/avoidance!

Edited January 12, 2012 by Mardur

[RachelAnne]

For me good pvp is where a tank is a tank, a healer a healer and DD´s do damage and support.

 

What this means is very simple.

 

A tank must last a lot longer even under burst, it should never be the case like it is now at Tor or at wow, that DD´s or Healer last longer.

 

DD´s should not attack the tanks, they should go for the healer and the tank´s job is to catch the damage, either by guard or taunt abilities.

 

I am a bit sad that wow had such a major impact on people and that there are so many who really think that tanks in pvp should die easily... Healers and DD are supposed to die, not the tank.

 

Tanks dont do much damage so they are not really a threat for the other team, because of this their job is to protect and this does not work right now, as you die way too fast for that job + taunt does not work.

 

 

I also doubt that a tank is going to decide a Huttball game if they balance that role a bit better. Tanks only support, you can still CC them or kill them - just not in 3 but maybe 10 seconds burst if he has no healer.

 

If you want to stop the tank, then you must go for the healer and not for the tank. This is something people dont seem to understand, if they are afraid of tank domination in pvp.

[Aragiel]

Then whats the point of tanks? If we cant mitgate damage we are just some guy with a bit of extra health and some CDs. As a guardian I hit like a wet noodle, I may as well of chosen sentinal which has similar defensive capabilities and the ability to actually deal damage.

 

A tank should be able to stand around and eat damage if they are getting healed. As it is now Cons / Sorc have better survivability self healing then tanks do when getting healed, which should not be the case at all.

 

 

i meant i dont want to be immortall like in other games where it was possible to hold on 6-7ppl for minutes..

that would destroy small WZ maps, for example one tank on each doors in Voidstar and you never go true..

 

im definitelly up for fix our shields.. but just dont go too much.. it still need to be balanced.. that was my point.

[ClarkwondooVal]

I hate the entire pvp system.

My sith assassin darkness (tank) at lvl41 is useless. I take damage like the other classes.

An healer could heal himself forever...everyone can do the same things, everyone has the same CCs... I don't know what I suggest to empower and balancing this stupid pvp system.

 

Furthermore, I see some input lag, I hope is only on my server. It's "really really terrible". How can we do pvp with this ridicolous lag?

When I cast "assassinate" or "maul", I see only the ANIMATION of that spell...but it doesn't hit the target...how could it be? :_O

[ltankhsd]

Yes, we have shields, but NO we don't have significantly more armor than other heavy armored dps classes. Classes having light/medium armor has many way to compensate it (like Madness sorc has the bubble/self-heal and with self-buff/talent has a great 25% internal/elemental mitigation PLUS the expertise which can mean 35-40%!, just an example).

And NO we have no significantly more HP, ok tank can have 19-20k but a Sorc can have 16-17K also (I have seen it), that ~3k difference is only ONE CRITCAL NOT SHIELDED ATTACK! A tank should have at least 1.5 times more HP than a light armored supposed-to-be glass-cannon class OR if the HPs are similar tank should have much higher mitigation/avoidance!

 

You are really reaching now. You give a value for HP common among tanks but then turn around an use a rare example for sorc HP to try and make an argument. That's what we call a straw man and hopefully people are smart enough not to buy into it. Also there are plenty of abilities out there that are affected by shields so it is not just your free lvl 1 ability therefore making us even more tankier than a sorc with their cooldowns (we have cooldowns too).

 

Until someone can show me that they have elemental/internal damage based abilities that are tech/force attacks that are spammable and have higher base damage than attacks that are mitigated in some way then this whole thread is making something out of nothing and it's appaling how many people bought it hook line and sinker without any critical thought of their own.

Edited January 12, 2012 by ltankhsd

[Mardur]

I am afraid that this will be not corrected at all as this game is a PvE game and changing the shielding mechanism may hurt the current design of operation encounters (I don't know, just afraid of it). If all FP/OPeration encounter were designed in mind of the current tank mechanisms, I don't think BW will change it even if they understand why it is bad in PvP.

 

If this is the case, the only way to remedy the situations remains to change the PvP Supercommando set to be more resilient by more HP and more armour and change the def stats to small amount of dmg stats, Power would be most reasonable.

[Flarenza]

Wrong wrong wrong. It's not about whether or not shields proc against them, it's about the amount of damage you take after all mitigation is calculated. As I posted, it all evens out in the end. Since I HAVE shields and HAVE more armor and HAVE more health than most classes plus my cooldowns I tank JUUUUST fine.

 

What you fail to realize also, is that the 'tank' cooldowns, are not just the tanks. With the Powertech, the cooldowns they have are Oil Slick, Energy Shield, and Kolto Overload... Only Oil Slick is strictly powertech, so the other two are available to the heal/dps side of mercs, as well as some other defensive cooldowns that are specifically theirs only. So no the cooldowns do no more for a tank and actually less for a tank than a dps.

[ltankhsd]

What you fail to realize also, is that the 'tank' cooldowns, are not just the tanks. With the Powertech, the cooldowns they have are Oil Slick, Energy Shield, and Kolto Overload... Only Oil Slick is strictly powertech, so the other two are available to the heal/dps side of mercs, as well as some other defensive cooldowns that are specifically theirs only. So no the cooldowns do no more for a tank and actually less for a tank than a dps.

 

And yet between higher armor, hit points, offhand shield focus and stats boosting defensive, shield rating and absorptions rating I see balance.

[Mardur]

You are really reaching now. You give a value for HP common among tanks but then turn around an use a rare example for sorc HP to try and make an argument. That's what we call a straw man and hopefully people are smart enough not to buy into it. Also there are plenty of abilities out there that are affected by shields so it is not just your free lvl 1 ability therefore making us even more tankier than a sorc with their cooldowns (we have cooldowns too).

 

Until someone can show me that they have elemental/internal damage based abilities that are tech/force attacks that are spammable and have higher base damage than attacks that are mitigated in some way then this whole thread is making something out of nothing and it's appaling how many people bought it hook line and sinker without any critical thought of their own.

 

16K HP Sorcerers are not rare - at least not on my server (Luka Sene) - at all. I have seen 2 tanks (both Juggs) with 19K HP, most of the others has lower.

Anyway, I don't want convince you, if you still don't understand what is the problem, you never will.

[ltankhsd]

if you still don't understand what is the problem, you never will.

 

 

Oh irony.

[RachelAnne]

Its always the same story, DD´s dont understand it - I hope BW does, else tanks are obsolete in this game, like at wow.

 

Maybe the way is to make a healer, at wow I could last with my druid forever - could cap flags like a tank should, could defend capture points how I wanted etc.

[Garbald]

And yet between higher armor, hit points, offhand shield focus and stats boosting defensive, shield rating and absorptions rating I see balance.

 

The thing is there is no higher armor, a tank guardian has the exact same value as a dps guardian .

What sets a tank apart from dps in swtor is the ability to use a shield, just look at all the tank trees, they all have shield increasing abilities, just look at the tank armor, they all have shield increasing stats.

 

Also armor is pretty near useless because virtually everyone has 50 to 100% armor ignore abilities, either through talents or because they simply use elemental attacks. but that is ot really important because armor isn´t really the stat that defines a tank in tor as I said...

 

Now what is the reason to use a shield or to spec a tree that increases shielding absorb or chance? There is none, you trade maybe 2% more survivability for 25%+++ dmg output.

 

Atm there is just no reason to spec the tank tree for pvp or to use the tank pvp equip.

 

Oh there are also defensive stats in the tank tree... sadly they are even more useless then shielding, every pvp equipment has so much accuracy and most abilities have a 100% chance to hit to begin with that defensive skills/stats (outside from cds) are useless... the only thing you can hope for with the stats and abilities is pretty much to bring the to hit chance down to 100% again ^^

Edited January 12, 2012 by Garbald