Vanguard: Tanking and You

[Mooby]

How important is Accuracy in a raiding scenario for a tanking Vanguard? Not done any raiding yet, but should be soon, and I'm not sure whether to prioritise Accuracy above defensive stats as I'm told raid mobs have defense, and missing an attack could prove costly in terms of threat generation.

 

Thanks for the original post by the way, and the replies so far, they have helped a lot.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Mooby

[Darguth]

I don't think hard numbers are known, but I've seen that 105% as the target for Accuracy. But I don't think it's known exactly what the max miss chance is.

[Darguth]

I'd like to post that up but I'd want to give credit to the original creator. If you can give me that detail it'd be great.

 

I honestly don't know the creator, and Search didn't help.

 

You could link to MorningMusume's well-constructed advanced stat guid for Vanguard/Powertech's though: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=123306

[DeadInkPen]

http://r2-db.com/guide/12/intro-to-vanguard-powertech-tanking

 

Nice to see that the OP basically copied his guide from this site. Maybe he should give them credit, instead of taking it for himself.

[Escaflownae]

The link is broken for me can you please repost is so I can see what your talking about?

 

I can assure you I designed the whole thing from scratch and on my guild's forum before actually posting to swtor forums. Information that was gained to form the guide was from experimenting with the skills and abilities personally along with researching with other various players in the game.

 

On top of that the original creation of the guide was way back in beta so I highly doubt anyone on a website post launch "created" anything similar to mine without it referencing from the beta forums.

 

Also, added note if the style is similar; I read a lot of guides and research different posts to try and find new ways of providing MY information in an approachable way instead of the typical TL;DR versions.

 

I continue to update this thread and if anyone has any valid inputs to it I welcome them and will add them and provide references if the source is valid and confirmed. For example I neglected to put a very nice speadsheet on the guide because I wasn't able to confirm the OP of that spreadsheet.

 

Rage less and get more facts next time. Thank you. I challenge you to actually read my content and the content of any other guide/review some will be the same.. some will be different however my guide will always be 100% my work with references to anyone that helps provide me with research or documentation. I will not provide information from another source without crediting the provider.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Escaflownae

[Michultradk]

http://r2-db.com/guide/12/intro-to-vanguard-powertech-tanking

 

Nice to see that the OP basically copied his guide from this site. Maybe he should give them credit, instead of taking it for himself.

 

I don't think this is true, the guide is obviously different.

 

 

Thanks OP, and keep it going please.

[sotacram]

Excellent guide. Thank you.

[Escaflownae]

Thanks all. I'm trying to provide information to common new player into tanking and/or the vanguard class.

 

I welcome to any information (credible) they want to add that's going to help add substance to the guide and provide needed information to the guide's demographic.

[Mayol]

I think you're giving Pulse Cannon a bum deal.

 

Remember it's elemental damage, so it's not mitigated as much by armor as our other aoe, and most builds also have +6% crit and +6% damage added in.

 

Although I haven't seen any figures to back it up, I would assume that elite and higher targets have higher armor values, so elemental attacks are even more valuable in terms of ammo/dps ratio.

 

Will be interested to see if you can find anything to suggest higher aggro on Explosive Surge. You need to spend NINE ammo to do similar damage with explosive surge to a pulse cannon blast. It would need a +200% threat bonus, which I very highly doubt, to compare ammo for ammo in generating threat.

 

That said, ES is very useful for applying the damage debuff, and sometimes the mobs just won't behave themselves and line up in a cone in front

 

Good guide though mate

[Escaflownae]

I'm one of those effected by the fps issues so I'm not really able to throughly test out ES and IP in decent dungeons like hardmode and ops. However, I have tried it on normal and strong targets and the results do add up to a higher moddifer per tick. That is to say that a single tick from IP is less threat than a single blast from ES.

 

I know my word won't let that argument settle so I'll provide a reference sheet once the combats logs come into place.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Escaflownae

[Mayol]

Ok another problem.

 

I've noticed that most tank builds (including my own) take Blaster Augs. After some playing around I'm fairly certain it's not what it's cracked up to be. Here's a copy pasta from what I posted in another thread about Ion Cell's current state:

 

=======

 

First off, Bioware have really screwed up their tooltips. First off, here's the Ion Cell tooltip:

 

Loads your rifle with an ion powercell, giving ranged attacks a 15% chance to deal

390 additional energy damage. Increases armor by 60%, decreases all damage taken by 5% and increases shield chance by 15%. While Ion Cell is active, threat generated is increased by 50%. Only one cell can be active at a time. Ion Jolts can only occur once every 1.5 seconds.

 

Firstly, it's a 15% chance to deal energy damage. Note at the end of this tooltip, it refers to this extra damage as Ion Jolt. So that's what I call it.

 

Now look at the tooltip for Ion Overload, the 2nd tier skill in the Shield Specialist tree:

 

Stockstrike now has a 100% chance to trigger your Ion Cell. In addition, when Ion Cell deals damage, it has a 100% chance to shock the target for 125 additional damage over 6 seconds.

 

From very simple expermentation it's blindingly obvious that all reference to Ion Cell is in fact reference to Ion Jolt. So all the skills referring to Ion Cell are in fact ONLY improving Ion Jolt.

 

In my Vanguard's case, Ion Jolts should be doing 572 damage, yet they do 153. It is broken. No mob has 75% damage reduction. Also, the damage variance is very low leading me to believe either mob armor is not reducing energy damage like it should, or Ion Jolt is doing elemental damage.

 

Ion Overload's DoT, in my tooltip, states it will do around 200 over 9 seconds. In reality it does 3 ticks of 89-92 damage, giving around 270 total. This fits pretty well as I have talents to increase damage by 25% and 8%. But again, if it is energy damage as it claims it should be getting reduced by armor and should not be doing 100%.

 

So yes, Ion JOLT is borked, and Bioware need to change the wording on an awful lot of tooltips and skills to reflect exactly what they improve.

 

=========

 

 

Taking this into account, I'm fairly certain Blaster Augs is ONLY increasing Ion Jolt (and its overload dot) by 8%. Which, in its current broken state, is not very much at all. Around 10dps with my current gear IF it procs every 1.5 seconds and the DoT is up 100%.

 

I'm thinking putting the point into Pulse Cannon cooldown reduction would be a point better spent until Ion Jolt/Ion Cell is fixed.

 

Or, if you're going Gut over EB, it'd be much better spent on the Gut/IP +3% damage bonus.

 

Thoughts?

Edited February 2, 2012 by Mayol

[Acke]

Again, awsome initative to post.

 

Been reading alot of the posts now and i totaly missed out Power Armour. Sounds way better then Soldiers Endurance i got now. Basically 100dmg reducted on 5k dmg inc. Compared to static +480HP (got 16k hp now).

This build (as posted before) looks PVE rock solid to me:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801G0GrdorogzZMsbZb.1

 

How ever, about the Gut talks.

I wont try that. I cant even emagine where the ads would be when i get to last one to Gutit.

 

Mortar Voley, Pulse Canon, Sonic Round does the job good enough at HM but that can ofc change to ads at larger "raids".

 

=)

[Escaflownae]

Ok another problem.

 

I've noticed that most tank builds (including my own) take Blaster Augs. After some playing around I'm fairly certain it's not what it's cracked up to be. Here's a copy pasta from what I posted in another thread about Ion Cell's current state:

 

=======

 

First off, Bioware have really screwed up their tooltips. First off, here's the Ion Cell tooltip:

 

 

 

Firstly, it's a 15% chance to deal energy damage. Note at the end of this tooltip, it refers to this extra damage as Ion Jolt. So that's what I call it.

 

Now look at the tooltip for Ion Overload, the 2nd tier skill in the Shield Specialist tree:

 

 

 

From very simple expermentation it's blindingly obvious that all reference to Ion Cell is in fact reference to Ion Jolt. So all the skills referring to Ion Cell are in fact ONLY improving Ion Jolt.

 

In my Vanguard's case, Ion Jolts should be doing 572 damage, yet they do 153. It is broken. No mob has 75% damage reduction. Also, the damage variance is very low leading me to believe either mob armor is not reducing energy damage like it should, or Ion Jolt is doing elemental damage.

 

Ion Overload's DoT, in my tooltip, states it will do around 200 over 9 seconds. In reality it does 3 ticks of 89-92 damage, giving around 270 total. This fits pretty well as I have talents to increase damage by 25% and 8%. But again, if it is energy damage as it claims it should be getting reduced by armor and should not be doing 100%.

 

So yes, Ion JOLT is borked, and Bioware need to change the wording on an awful lot of tooltips and skills to reflect exactly what they improve.

 

=========

 

 

Taking this into account, I'm fairly certain Blaster Augs is ONLY increasing Ion Jolt (and its overload dot) by 8%. Which, in its current broken state, is not very much at all. Around 10dps with my current gear IF it procs every 1.5 seconds and the DoT is up 100%.

 

I'm thinking putting the point into Pulse Cannon cooldown reduction would be a point better spent until Ion Jolt/Ion Cell is fixed.

 

Or, if you're going Gut over EB, it'd be much better spent on the Gut/IP +3% damage bonus.

 

Thoughts?

 

From my tests I've been noticing that the vanguards "threat" is horribly low. I can't switch to another target for more than a few seconds before someone pulls that last target off me. Thats after a full rotation.

 

They really need to add more threat mechanics to our class. I don't even care if it's just on one skill we are highly lacking in the threat department from my research.

[Escaflownae]

Again, awsome initative to post.

 

Been reading alot of the posts now and i totaly missed out Power Armour. Sounds way better then Soldiers Endurance i got now. Basically 100dmg reducted on 5k dmg inc. Compared to static +480HP (got 16k hp now).

This build (as posted before) looks PVE rock solid to me:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801G0GrdorogzZMsbZb.1

 

How ever, about the Gut talks.

I wont try that. I cant even emagine where the ads would be when i get to last one to Gutit.

 

Mortar Voley, Pulse Canon, Sonic Round does the job good enough at HM but that can ofc change to ads at larger "raids".

 

=)

 

Gut was mostly for holding threat on your focus and secondary focus targets and not and end fight mechanic anyway.

[tamagawa]

Hi all,

 

thanks for this excellent guide. It really helped my skills.

 

While some of you are already discussing high end mechanics let me ask some basic noob questions:

 

on riot strike you say

 

Riot Strike - this is not a damage move or a threat move... Please please understand spamming it will do nothing. It will not interrupt an instant cast spell even if you hit it at the right time. This is however a great interrupt skill.

 

I don't really get what you're saying here. What will riot strike do and when is it used ?

 

 

Cells aren't metioned in the guide, but Ionized Ignition is talented, which belongs to Plasma Cell. But what I understand from the Cell description is that Ion Cell is 'the' tanking Cell as it increases threat and shield etc.

Why do I talend on Plasma Cell?

 

Any hints appreciated.

 

Tama

[Escaflownae]

Hi all,

 

thanks for this excellent guide. It really helped my skills.

 

While some of you are already discussing high end mechanics let me ask some basic noob questions:

 

on riot strike you say

 

 

 

I don't really get what you're saying here. What will riot strike do and when is it used ?

 

What I'm saying here is I noticed a lot of vanguards trying to use riot strike as a threat move or in a standard rotation that wasn't in an attempt to interrupt a skill. This skill is an interrupt meaning that it's only purpose is to stop long cast spells\abilities from hitting you if interrupted in time.

 

Cells aren't metioned in the guide, but Ionized Ignition is talented, which belongs to Plasma Cell. But what I understand from the Cell description is that Ion Cell is 'the' tanking Cell as it increases threat and shield etc.

Why do I talend on Plasma Cell?

 

Any hints appreciated.

 

Tama

 

Plasma cell isn't what you want to use for tanking. There is at one point a mention that we can get a talent that benefits all cells ion, plasma, and the other one but that has more to do with just doing extra damage just tanking stats.

[pauldevries]

I saw a post that mentioned that the GUARD DOES NOT TAKE 50% OF DAMAGE IN PVE - ONLY PVP?????

 

REALLY? If so, how coudl they possibly define it as such - i assume 90% of players and all those who do not come on the forums would assume they are taking on 50% of the incoming damage on their healer when teh guard is on their healer....

[tobarstep]

I saw a post that mentioned that the GUARD DOES NOT TAKE 50% OF DAMAGE IN PVE - ONLY PVP?????

 

REALLY? If so, how coudl they possibly define it as such - i assume 90% of players and all those who do not come on the forums would assume they are taking on 50% of the incoming damage on their healer when teh guard is on their healer....

 

This would be more about reading tooltips carefully. The tooltip for guard clearly says it transfers damage from enemy players. Now, I know a lot of people (even experienced players) totally missed that for the longest time, but it is right there in the description. Such a damage transfer would be suicidal in most PvE boss fights anyway.

[Koganei]

I couldn't find this in the first page so sorry if this has already been asked or if it's just something obvious but I was wondering how important accuracy is as a Vanguard tank. Are our important skills (e.g. stockstrike, hib, etc) affected by the normal accuracy or by the special attack accuracy? Do we need 100% on the 'normal' accuracy for threat gen?

[GreenLantern]

I've tested Ion jolts as well...some mechanic involving it is broken for sure. Not sure why it's so underwhelming but it needs to be repaired. Also, blaster Augs/SS Damage shouldn't be taken over the Endurance talent post 50 anyway. Both are underwhelming compared to the exponential health increase of End. by % Edited February 19, 2012 by GreenLantern

[Riulassher]

This would be more about reading tooltips carefully. The tooltip for guard clearly says it transfers damage from enemy players. Now, I know a lot of people (even experienced players) totally missed that for the longest time, but it is right there in the description. Such a damage transfer would be suicidal in most PvE boss fights anyway.

 

Not really. It was working in PVE in WAR, which had the last iteration of Guard mechanic before SWTOR. It was very useful against the worst spikes of bosses, when tanks could crossguard each other and distribute the damage. That said, healing in WAR was a lot more focused on group heals than here.

 

I was also suprised when I discovered it didn't transfer damage in PVE. That was on level 35 or so

[Kaigen]

I've tested Ion jolts as well...some mechanic involving it is broken for sure. Not sure why it's so underwhelming but it needs to be repaired. Also, blaster Augs/SS Damage shouldn't be taken over the Endurance talent post 50 anyway. Both are underwhelming compared to the exponential health increase of End. by %

The endurance talent isn't exponential, it's a percentage increase. And what's underwhelming is the 500-600 extra hp I'd get for sinking 3 talent points into it at level 50 with endgame gear. That said, something is definitely up with Ion Jolts, so Blaster Augs is of questionable usefulness.

[RocNessMonster]

Pulse Cannon is a good filler while your waiting for other cooldowns to replenish. It cost 3 cells but under fast charge you gain 1-2 cells while it channels. This reduces the overall cost of the skill to 1 cell.

[GreenLantern]

I used the wrong term when i said exponential. what I meant to say was the endurance talent has increasing returns the more endurance you get. To say that 650 hp for 3 talent points is underwhelming is a gross underestimation of HP and the value of that much HP though. Experienced tanks would tell you that 650 hp is a huge boon at an extremely low cost. Edited February 28, 2012 by GreenLantern

[va_wanderer]

Relevant to this, from elsewhere.

 

The full thread can be found here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=341126

 

Basically:

 

Summary / TL;DR version:

- Cloud Mind and all other class threat dumps (except those below) drop threat by 25%.

- Extrication, Intercede, and Force Camo (and mirrors) set the target's threat to 0.

- You need 30% more than the tank's threat to pull aggro, even in melee range (unless you're really close to the target).

- Taunt generates either 10% or 30% of your current threat (depending on how close you are to the target, see above bullet), even if you are the mob's current aggro target.

- Applying buffs generates either zero or an extremely small amount of threat, even ones involved with healing like Static Barrier/Force Armor.

- Threat multipliers stack multiplicatively (ie. an attack that generates 50% additional threat, done by a tank that does another 50% additional threat, would generate 225% of damage as threat).

 

This makes Neural Jolt/Sonic Round interesting in that they're actually threat -generators- for a tank if he's already ahead of the game, especially if he can get outside 4m to fire them off- say on mobs that have channeled abilities.