Powertech - Shield Tech 31 Point Talent is Terrible Anyone Agree?

[roccorossi]

The top of the shield tech tree has a Skill Called Heat Blast:

 

"Discharges 8 Heat for 500 dmg."

 

 

Sith Assassin (Tank Tree) 31 Talent:

 

"Causes 5 targets to wither under the weight of the force, dealing 502 - 609 kinetic dmg, decrease damage to all targets deal by 5% and slowing the movement speed by 30% High about of threat AOE"

 

 

 

So... The BH does not look very epic compared to the SI Tank... Whats up with that? I dont even think its worth a point ..

 

What yall think ?

[Nokkers]

Would be more useful if it increased threat but yea, I think it's somewhat useless.

[zMadcap]

I have to agree wholeheartedly that the lack luster talent needs to be a little more useful and or polished.I find myself fitting it into a rotation but its kinda useless and almost moot

[Kyryck]

Yes, it's an underwhelming talent at the moment when compared to other tanking trees and their abilities. It's not wretched and you certainly can't find a better spot to put the extra point that would accomplish more than putting it into heat blast. When you do the math it's not as god-awful as people make it out to be.

 

However, as I said, it's not that spectacular either, especially when compared against the top lines in other tanking trees. If it gave us 'a high amount of threat' or something, that would be a fine start to making the ability a bit more worthwhile.

[Qurons]

I agree this talent should given all BH for free as a normal skill

[FrostyDroid]

It really should have "generates high threat" then it would be quite acceptable for the top of the tank tree.

[hnetto]

Back in beta that was our tier 5 talent instead of tier 7 and end of the tree. As a tier 5 that you must go thru to get to the top of the tree its ok. As an end of the tree talent it's very lackluster.

 

The only reason i keep it is because it's a heat dump. However there is very little reason to do it. Most of the time i am at the low end of heat generation and if things are going all right i will hardly go above that without planning to do it.

 

If it also generated a ton of threat it would be a very nice tool for tanking.

[QiBao]

It's not sexy, but it's a very good talent. Calling it terrible is wrong. Any move that dumps heat is very useful when worked into a rotation. And comparing talent to talent isn't very useful; compare the entire package of talents and abilities.

[Gizzle]

It works..that is all I have to say on the subject..

[jaabber]

it's a great skill, it's just not very fancy

[Wycross]

Not fancy at all. Maybe add threat to it as some people have suggested. Alternatively, give it a chance to reduce the cooldown on our powered shields by a few seconds per proc. Or maybe reduce the cooldown on vent heat. Something that plays into our of our other abilities more.

[Fredcat]

Ya, it's a lame skill for 31 points, wouldn't be bad farther down the tree. Personally I've been thinkin of dumping it as heat is rarely an issue for me. I definitely expect Bioware to either buff it, change it completely, or lower it in the tree.

[Dirtybomb]

Just my observation, but it feels like an off-tank skill to me. A properly spec'd MT will get plenty of heat dump from Shield Vents. If you find yourself as an off-tank having to dps and not really getting beat on, Heat Blast would replace the dump you would get from Shield Vents. Not sure if this was BW's intent, but it seems to have worked out this way. If they added the "high threat" to Heat Blast, it wouldn't be effective in this way any more. Don't want to be pulling threat off the MT just to vent some heat.

 

So I guess it would depend on what role you find yourself playing most often.

[RamathRS]

Just my observation, but it feels like an off-tank skill to me. A properly spec'd MT will get plenty of heat dump from Shield Vents. If you find yourself as an off-tank having to dps and not really getting beat on, Heat Blast would replace the dump you would get from Shield Vents. Not sure if this was BW's intent, but it seems to have worked out this way. If they added the "high threat" to Heat Blast, it wouldn't be effective in this way any more. Don't want to be pulling threat off the MT just to vent some heat.

 

So I guess it would depend on what role you find yourself playing most often.

 

Possibly, but if you have 31 points in Shield spec, you should be the main tank.

[Caustica]

If its that bad, why not grab the 11pt talent in one of the other trees, retractable blade or Incindiary missile then?

 

Altho i dont understand how anyone saying that an ability that dissipates heat, and costs no heat is a bad ability, it would be a f*cking godsend to me.

[TimolEisley]

I dropped it out of my skill tree entirely. and I'm a shield tech.

[Doozzer]

it has some interesting uses, especially on-demand heat dumping to put the dissipation into another vent bracket.

 

very nice to use after an opening flame sweep, to knock the heat back down to zero after you eat the initial 25. lets you go right into a punch-rail while still staying low.

 

not fancy, but I'd keep it over going up the AP tree for retractable blade.

 

Not because I don't like retblade though, but because I don't want to give up the CC vent in pyro.

[Shivus]

It's useful when solo. But when tanking flashpoints I have enough wailing on me to discharge a great deal of heat through shield procs alone. It needs something to really set it apart. It would be nice if the damage and heat reduction scaled based on heat level rather than being a fixed number.

[BronzeKnight]

Ya all should take a loot at this thread. It has it's uses. I agree tho it should also generate high aggro.

[roccorossi]

Ya all should take a loot at this thread. It has it's uses. I agree tho it should also generate high aggro.

 

That is the exact build that I am using and it works great. But the Original Post is more geared towards "Heat Blast" itself

 

It most def has its uses and in sticky situations it is a nice HOLY **** button. I just think it needs a little more to beef it up .. Like AOE Threat or at least single target threat builder.

 

Anyone else think it just needs mroe in it?

[QiBao]

Just my observation, but it feels like an off-tank skill to me. A properly spec'd MT will get plenty of heat dump from Shield Vents. If you find yourself as an off-tank having to dps and not really getting beat on, Heat Blast would replace the dump you would get from Shield Vents. Not sure if this was BW's intent, but it seems to have worked out this way. If they added the "high threat" to Heat Blast, it wouldn't be effective in this way any more. Don't want to be pulling threat off the MT just to vent some heat.

 

So I guess it would depend on what role you find yourself playing most often.

 

Heat dump allows you to use other heat generating moves and, thus, more threat. It would be a nice OT talent. However, if you skip it without getting something else to increase your damage output (like a 21/2/18 build), you'll have threat issues.

[QiBao]

It most def has its uses and in sticky situations it is a nice HOLY **** button.

 

It should be used on CD unless you're at < 15 heat. Do not save it.

[Valkenheineken]

The issue I have with it is that with a 21/2/18 build, my rail shot also dumps 8 heat for twice the damage and much more often than once every 15 seconds. Considering that 2% shield per point talent is also pretty bad, I see very, very little reason to go beyond Jet Charge as a shieldtech when you can get mostly the same benefits from Heat Blast out of the pyro tree and deal much more damage on top of that.

 

I think the skill needs drastic improvements to justify having to dump 5 talent points to gain only 3ish% mitigation on only half of the attacks in the game to get to Heat Blast. I'm with the people calling for added threat/taunt, but I'd also add yet another effect onto it. It's already single target with a short range and low damage - it could stand to do something else even with the extra threat/taunt.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Valkenheineken

[MorningMusume]

With a 21/2/18 build you get hit by a 6.2% more on average. Is not a 3% of half the attacks. You also lose 2% damage reduction in favor of 2% defense. You can check on any spreadsheet.

 

Also the dps gain is not spectacular with 21/2/18 (around 5%), so is a matter of preferences. If the bottom tree of Pyro wasn't full of useless skills...

[Valkenheineken]

With a 21/2/18 build you get hit by a 6.2% more on average. Is not a 3% of half the attacks. You also lose 2% damage reduction in favor of 2% defense. You can check on any spreadsheet.

 

Also the dps gain is not spectacular with 21/2/18 (around 5%), so is a matter of preferences. If the bottom tree of Pyro wasn't full of useless skills...

 

Err... no. The math for empowered tech is simple. 10% extra shield chance * 26% absorption = .1 * .26 = .026 - 2.6% mitigation, only against shieldable attacks (melee and ranged - only half of the attacks in the game). That's 2.6%/5 = .52% mitigation per talent point, which is roughly half as effective as the 1% DR talents. It goes up a bit with absorption gear, but the adjustment in the math is easy enough.

 

The only other bit of mitigation that a plain ST picks up is the 2% DR from AP. That's really not relevant to this discussion though. We're talking about the top of the ST tree.

 

I'm starting to get a tad worried about the accuracy of your calculations. I know you really can't slap a number on the synergy between flame shield and prototype particle accelerator (although in my experience it generates a lot of extra DPS), but I really hope you didn't treat shield chance * absorpion rating as flat mitigation, because that's not at all how shielding works.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Valkenheineken