Understanding the Avoidance and Mitigation Mechanics for Tanks in PVP

[taugrimtaugrim]

http://taugrim.com/2012/01/19/understanding-swtors-avoidance-and-mitigation-mechanics-for-tanks-in-pvp/

 

Copy of the article from my blog is provided below.

 

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This article describes the Avoidance and Mitigation mechanics for SWTOR and their implications for tanks in PVP.

 

Avoidance and Mitigation in SWTOR

 

To quickly define terms:

• Avoidance: not being hit
  
• Mitigation: reducing damage taken when hit
  

There are 3 categories of Avoidance as captured in the Defence Chance tooltip:

• Melee Dodge: base of 5%, boosted by Defense Rating, talents, and buffs
  
• Ranged Dodge: base of 5%, boosted by Defense Rating, talents, and buffs
  
• Resistance: base of 0%. This is against “spells” (Force and Tech attacks) and is boosted by talents and buffs
  

Mitigation comes from multiple sources:

• Expertise: stat that provides mitigation against all damage types
  
• Armor: mitigation against 2 of the 4 damage types: Energy and Kinetic. Keep in mind that for attacks that deal “weapon damage”, to understand whether Armor factors in, you have to check the damage type of the weapon itself. E.g. blasters and rifles deal Energy damage
  
• Talents that provide flat damage reduction
  
• Shield Chance / Shield Absorption: provided when you have a Shield offhand equipped and successfully Shield an attack that hit. The amount of damage mitigated (absorbed) is based on the offhand (e.g. 20%), your Absorption Rating, and talents in the tanking tree. SWTOR’s Shield functions similarly to WoW’s Block or RIFT’s Block mechanic. The main difference is that in SWTOR you don’t have to keep oppponents in your frontal facing to Shield
  
• “Bubbles“: mitigation against all damage types
  

The 2-Roll System

 

SWTOR leverages a 2-roll system for determining the outcome of an opponent’s attack as explained by BioWare’s Georg Zoeller (references: 1 2), bold emphasis mine:

 

First is a hit roll, accuracy versus defense, and if the attacker misses then no damage occurs. If the attacker rolled poorly enough to miss even discounting the target’s defense then a “Miss” result occurs. If he misses because of the defense then the result varies based on the attack type, the cover state of the target, and the target’s equipped weapons. All the possible results – Dodge, Parry, Deflect, Resist, Cover – are mathematically the same, but they can trigger different effects and are visualized in different ways.

 

If the attacker hits, then a second roll is made with the crit chance of the attacker versus the shield chance of the target. If a Crit or a Shield occurs then the damage is adjusted up or down (based on Surge/Absorb), and then it goes through to the armor and damage resistance. A critical can never be shielded, and an attacker with a high enough crit chance can push the target’s shield chance off the table. It shouldn’t be possible to get your passive crit chance high enough to start pushing off the target’s shield chance, but there are short-duration buffs that push these chances high enough to come into conflict.

 

Avoidance and Shielding

 

The important thing to understand are which types of attacks are Avoidable and Shieldable and which are not.

 

There are 4 attack types: Force, Melee, Ranged, and Tech.

 

The attack types are separate from the 4 damage types: Elemental, Energy, Internal, and Kinetic.

 

Melee and Ranged attacks are Avoidable and Shieldable, whereas Force and Tech attacks are not. This is consistent with other games such as WoW and RIFT, where “spell” attacks are not dodgeable / parryable and not blockable.

 

Implications for Tanks in PVP

 

A critical consideration for SWTOR is that all classes have either Force or Tech attacks. You can see the attack type by looking at the Abilities tab for a given character and looking at the right-hand column. Therefore, an implication is that you may not get as much mileage out of your Avoidance and Shield-related talents as you might expect. E.g.

• Stun-based abilities across all Advanced Classes are classified as either Force or Tech attacks, so the target’s defensive capability doesn’t come into play
  
• I play Bounty Hunter and Trooper and most of my key abilities are classified as Tech
  

 

Keep in mind per Georg’s post that the attacker’s Crit Chance can push Shield Chance off the table. There are a lot of buffs (e.g. talent-based, from Relic, etc) that boost Crit Chance, and the implication is that when you most need to Shield heavy incoming damage, your Shield Chance may be reduced significantly or completely.

 

Another implication is that the talents for boosting mitigation may be stronger than we might have expected. In particular, this explains why in my experience Guardians and Juggernauts tanks take the longest time-to-kill: they have multiple bubble mechanics in their tank tree, including Invincible (Warding Call) and Sonic Barrier (Blade Barrier), and these excellent abilities provide mitigation against all damage types.

 

I shared some of the thoughts in this article on a thread for my Guide to Powertech Mechanics and PVP a week ago, and some 50 Powertechs including chainsawsamurai tested and confirmed that the Avoidance and Shield-related talents do not work against Force and Tech attacks.

 

When I run as a tank-spec’d Vanguard, I will likely use a DPS PVP set based on the game mechanics and avoid (no pun intended) the talents related to Melee Defense, Ranged Defense, and Shield Chance, unless they provide some additional benefit (e.g. the Ammo-regen effect from Shield Cycler).

 

This is not to say that you shouldn’t take the talents and tank PVP gear. If you want to max out your survivability, invest in them. It’s just important to understand what benefit you get out of them and the mechanics.

 

Acknowledgements

 

Huge thanks to Kjollborn, who helped me to realize that the attack type not the damage type is what is factored into Melee Defense, Ranged Defense, and Shield Chance.

 

Thanks to Lightweight, a 50 Combat Medic Commando in my guild, for helping me with testing.

Edited January 19, 2012 by taugrimtaugrim

[taugrimtaugrim]

nallard posted a question on my blog that is worth sharing here:

If you spec as a tank you are automatically sacrificing dps for survivability and protection. Is what you’re saying essentially that it’s an uneven trade at this point (for certain tanks, anyway)?

 

Here is my response:

We have to look at this on a class-by-class basis.

 

There are very good reasons to spec in the tank tree for Juggernaut / Guardian, including:

1. you get multiple CCs and your channeled stun becomes instant

2. you get two mitigation bubbles against any damage type

 

For Powertech / Vanguard, a lot of people invest 21 points to get the Charge ability.

 

For Assassin / Shadow, a lot of people invest 21 points to get the pull ability.

 

For all 3 AC mirrors, you have to be in the tank stance to use the Guard ability, and the tank trees buff the tank stance.

 

So there are good reasons to spec into the tank tree, but for the PT / VG and AS / SH Advanced Classes, it’s generally not IMO for survivability reasons – you spec into tank tree for the utility.

[Stonewall_Jack]

I agree the personal tanking you do is weak in PvP. If you team up with a healer and guard the healer you become strong as your shield will proc and finally you can use rocketpunch multiple times.

 

Since I get everything double (random yay) I am collecting a tank and dps pvp set, the tank is great for doing raids/FP when your main focus is getting gear trough pvp.

 

The biggest issue I have with not tanking in PvP is that fact I am not dropping heat or my rocketpunch doesn't reset. A shieldtech does not only lose its tanking ability, but also loses a fair amount of its DPS, which btw is RNG. To notice how annoying RNG can be I was killing those big white beasts on hoth (level 46 / 47) as a shieldtech at 43/44. It works and yields a good 3 to 4k experience. However one fight would be close or very hard and others would be a breeze and it all had to do with how often my shield went off.

 

I was not happy to find out that the difference between killing a mob or dieing would be so big. I am sure in hardmode flahspoints this is a serious issue.

 

I can't imagine playing without jetcharge and having heatblast in a a rotation does help (could use 2 more heat diss.).

 

I am a lvl50 shieldtech with an almost full champion supercommando set (3 pieces missing) and 1/2 a dps set. Openworld PvP Ilum means you take the DPS set, when you got a healer buddy in warzones the tank set works in PvP, if not go DPS (tech set because of the rocketpunch!)

 

You will find out that a dps being healed hurts like hell compared to you being healed. Simply because the dps takes away the healed stuff far easier than you can. The only way to bring down dps + heal is to focus the healer (if both parties are equal in skill). The guard and agro darts for protection on your own healer will make you win this fight. If you focus down the dps dude you will be wiped in an instant. DPS will melt away those healed HPs and you will never get enough dps out to take the dps down (dps ST << heal).