Kilokov Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Hey fellow troopers, Been starting to play more PvP recently (I'm currently level 49, shield tree and assault tree hybrid), and I've noticed a big problem: my character dies extremely quickly, usually to inquisitors of both kind, while unable to push out any meaningful damage in return. I recall one moment where a Sith Assassin was attacking me from the front and I somehow took 4900 damage (I think, that's what the big negative number above my head said), even with my Reactive Shield up, thus exploding. Does it get better after you get a full set of pvp gear with expertise? Should I be stacking shield absorption, shield chance, and armor rating? I've been mainly increasing my crit in order to push out any form of meaningful damage, since before that I was mainly defense specced but unable to do anything other than tickle lower leveled players, but perhaps I should be going on the defensive, so to speak? Any help would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CptArson Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Currently your Shield will only proc from "weapon damage". Elemental, Kinetic, hell most of the abilities will completely bypass your shield proc chance. This makes Shield Chance and Shield Absorption less than stellar stats in PvP. I believe there are also damage types that bypass Defense completely as well. Check the PvP forum for a full breakdown on the issues with these stats. Devs have yet to confirm is this is a bug or by design. From a survivability standpoint the best bang of the buck is currently Armor, Expertise, and Hitpoints. Many tanks are wearing the DPS version of the Centurions gear as the primary tank stats on the Supercommando gear seem to have very little effect. That said, you will not be as resilient in PvP as you are in PvE. Most PvE enemies deal "weapon damage" and are therefore subject to Shield Chance/Absorb. I feel your pain as my current Shield Van is wearing mostly Supercommando armor right now which provides very little benefit. In a PvP situation I would be more effective had I taken the DPS (Eliminators?) version of that armor. Strategy wise, a tank paired with a healer is extremely hard to kill. Guard the healer, make sure any enemies who are focused on your healer are taunted and you will wear them down eventually. Now, if the opponent has a healer as well it basically turns in to a tickle fight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ururururu Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 I'm still not 50 myself but I'd say it only gets better if you group up with your guildies... get on vent and talk. And yeah, shields suck.. I like the parakeet build though, guard still kicks ***... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallozzi Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Hey fellow troopers, I somehow took 4900 damage (I think, that's what the big negative number above my head said), even with my Reactive Shield up, thus exploding. Remember that there are buffs around the map that add expertise, and consumables that can give you quite a boost of damage for a dozen or so seconds. You wont consistently be hit for that much. Play smart, try to find a pocket healer and shield them, and you'll be unstoppable. Guarding + neural bolt = big gains in group pvp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aikitexan Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Keep playing and dont let the inquisitors get you down. They gank you b/c they respect vans in PvP. I'm a lvl 37 and regularly do btwn 100k and 200k dmg plus a good bit of protection. I'm speced as shield right now, but I'm starting to spread points to make it a hybrid of shield/assault. Once you hit 50 and get a bunch of PvP gear then it will be awesome. Also, if you feel you are dying to quick try having ion cell on and maybe respec. Best of luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aikitexan Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) Forgot to mention that I'm not the best van in pvp w/ dmg...I've seen much much higher I've also been in PvP since early pre-release, but I'm not the best person to ask about rotations or tactics....I just do stuff based on the situation from experience Again, best of luck Edited January 12, 2012 by aikitexan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mashien Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Check out this thread. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=2770 Lots of great information in it about the mechanics of Vanguard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilokov Posted January 13, 2012 Author Share Posted January 13, 2012 Currently your Shield will only proc from "weapon damage". Elemental, Kinetic, hell most of the abilities will completely bypass your shield proc chance. This makes Shield Chance and Shield Absorption less than stellar stats in PvP. I believe there are also damage types that bypass Defense completely as well. Check the PvP forum for a full breakdown on the issues with these stats. Devs have yet to confirm is this is a bug or by design. From a survivability standpoint the best bang of the buck is currently Armor, Expertise, and Hitpoints. Many tanks are wearing the DPS version of the Centurions gear as the primary tank stats on the Supercommando gear seem to have very little effect. That said, you will not be as resilient in PvP as you are in PvE. Most PvE enemies deal "weapon damage" and are therefore subject to Shield Chance/Absorb. I feel your pain as my current Shield Van is wearing mostly Supercommando armor right now which provides very little benefit. In a PvP situation I would be more effective had I taken the DPS (Eliminators?) version of that armor. Strategy wise, a tank paired with a healer is extremely hard to kill. Guard the healer, make sure any enemies who are focused on your healer are taunted and you will wear them down eventually. Now, if the opponent has a healer as well it basically turns in to a tickle fight. God, no wonder. Don't inquisitors do elemental damage too with their lightning? That would explain everything if it pierces through both my armor AND shield. And I guess during that match I was taking ridiculous amounts of damage because everyone was focus firing me, now that I think of it. I was the highest leveled person on my team at 49, the second highest being around 30. Guess they just be hatin'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pyrobot Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 1) quit hybrid speccing 2) quit hybrid speccing 3) quit hybrid speccing... Now let me know once you have that down. See, what people aren't noticing is currently there is NO TIERED PVP WHATSOEVER. What this means is that if you ever see a 50, you can beat he's decked out in pvp gear, which means if he's got any expertise stacking HE WILL HIT YOU LIKE A TRUCK. Now go pick 1 tree and stick with it, and just deal with the damage you're going to take until they put 50's in their own tier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramaos Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 (edited) When I PvP I play in my main spec which is Shield Specialist. I almost always come top, not on damage but on medals. The role I think I best fit is 'Tanking harasser'. I hapoon healers into our melee (feed them to the sharks) interrupt, guard our healers, taunt attackers, storm fleeing imps. Remeber if someone id attack a healer if you guard them that is 50% damage transfer to you and if you taunt (nural jolt) his attacker that is a further 30% damage reduction debuff if he attackes anyone but you for 6 seconds My mitigation is so high that when I am being attacked by players at first I don't notice the damage. Currently I have 50.5% damage reduction (+7.5% from expertise), about 13% defence, 40% shield chance and 35% shield absorb. If I pop both my shield and relic my defences rise to 75.5% damage reduction (+7.5% from expertise), about 13% defence, 45.5% shield chance and 50.5% shield absorb. and the punishment I can shrug off is insane. Also using Biochem stims and self buff I'm currently on 18,200 HP. Ok I don't hit that hard but I'll give you some perspective. I was jumped by an Assassin and a Juggernaut with companions on Ilum, I had Elara out. I killed the Juggernaut then took the Assassin down to about 20% the Juggernaut self ressed and I killed him again took the Assassin down to 10% then died. If I'd played a little smarter I could have done the Assassin too, practice make perfect We have so many tools at our disposal you can almost always do something to turn the fight in your favor. Use Smoke grenade if you have it (only a 1min CD AoE debuff). I understand that defence effects enemy chance to hit and smoke grenade decreases their accuracy by 20% for 18 seconds. So anyone effected by this debuff also has your defence to get through too . Accuracy also effects the defence mitigation of your target too I understand. So lowering their accuracy improves your damage reduction. The way I see it, it's not how fast you kill them it just that you kill them Edited January 13, 2012 by Ramaos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riulassher Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Once again... Weapon skills can proc shield, tech/force skills will avoid it. Both weapon skills and force/tech skills do one of four damage types. Energy/Kinetic damage types are mitigated by our armor. Internal/Elemental skills ignore armor mitigation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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