Taugrim's "Iron Fist" 25/14/2 PVP Tank Spec [Video]

[taugrimtaugrim]

Quell is crtical particulary when fighting sages and comandos. Aginst 1st we need our graple/charge to stay on their faces, vs scond we need to save stun for when they pop their shield. I removed those points at some point when testing various version and those 2s actualy make a big difference vs those clases.

 

I totally agree.

 

There seem to be a lot of players on the SWTOR forums who are fixated on damage, but the ability to control an opponent is pretty powerful, coupled with solid damage.

[Sevvy]

I totally agree.

 

There seem to be a lot of players on the SWTOR forums who are fixated on damage, but the ability to control an opponent is pretty powerful, coupled with solid damage.

 

Eh, a lot of gamers are like that. Amazingly enough, those gamers are usually easy to beat, because they tunnel vision and only care about their damage output and nothing else. Meanwhile, I'm dropping their healers!

 

If the devs hurry up and fix the broken set bonus for Combat Tech, I'll try this build out. It looks like it would be a lot of fun, and help me keep my zerg of Sorcs alive longer. Maybe I will, anyway.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Sevvy

[Umpire]

I totally agree.

 

There seem to be a lot of players on the SWTOR forums who are fixated on damage, but the ability to control an opponent is pretty powerful, coupled with solid damage.

 

ouch bro

 

I don't have issues killing sages, maybe it's just me. We do have a couple ranged abilities ya know. explosive dart while closing in after a sprint/knockback makes for a nice burst with rocket punch. When your heat is high/waiting for cds and you need to rapid shot anyway, turn around and run away, charge them when they cast/your cds come up/heat comes down. it'll usually line up time wise.

 

ps have you done the math on serrated blades (15% more dot damage for RB) vs iron fist (8% more RP damage)? Iron fist is the obvious since RP is a huge damage source for the build but having a strong dot is always a good thing. I'm running something very close to your spec but 23/18 is thinkable.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Umpire

[mugen_dom]

Whats meant by breaks carnbonize? I run as a tank noramlly with the SC 4 piece set, cabonize works, as far as I can tell its not broken. Everything but the helmet and blaster now.

 

I think Im gonna try and gather up more of the combat tech set, I have the belt and earpiece now...as I finally started getting duplicate unassembled pieces.

[Umpire]

the piece set bonus that is supposed to extend the length of the carbonize stun actually makes it not stun at all

[Prunetracy]

Whats meant by breaks carnbonize? I run as a tank noramlly with the SC 4 piece set, cabonize works, as far as I can tell its not broken. Everything but the helmet and blaster now.

 

I think Im gonna try and gather up more of the combat tech set, I have the belt and earpiece now...as I finally started getting duplicate unassembled pieces.

 

Carbonize breaks if you have the Combat Tech 2 piece bonus. Supercommando works fine.

[Reichmar]

Hi Taugrim,

 

I follow your work. Great stuff!

 

More on topic. My powertech is my second toon. My main is an Immortal Jug, first 60 on The Fatman (if not, faction first, I know that I was competing a smuggler who got it the same night). My powertech is now 61. I've experimented with a variety of builds and find a hybrid build to be the most enjoyable for me. Myself and my guild will be running rated WZs. My jug will be used as my Huttball toon (for obvious reasons) while my PT will fill a tank role in the other two warzones. We will be making videos and possibly streaming.

 

At first, I wasn't convinced by your spec and your explanation. So, in the spirit of skepticism, I decided to try it myself....

 

I find it interesting. My primary concern was to have a DoT for Alderaan and Voidstar. The difficulty I find with playing my immortal on those maps is offset - albeit slightly - by my ability to intervene and the use of cybertech grenades. The CaroP build was enjoyable for this purpose because of my ability to use Incendiary Missle to DoT players from a distance, while still being in range of my defensive focus, i.e. the other door.

 

Retractable blade, while a laughable DPS ability, works well for this same purpose. I have to trade positioning and range for it, but the lower heat cost helps me to turn the other cheek a bit -- at least for now. If I start losing doors, I will likely rethink this.

 

The extra control with the CD reduction on Quell is enjoyable.

 

The overall DPS loss with this build over CaroP is -- lets be honest -- pretty decent. But with all that being said, I do like this build.

 

I've been playing it a lot the last two days trying to experiment with certain techniques on the three maps and I believe that it can be quite effective in Rated WZs. It remains to be seen, of course, as we aren't always blessed with the ability to fight/ fight with consistent groups of players that have more than a brain cell.

 

I'll be recording some footage in the next few weeks (grad school permitting), hit me up if you want to see it.

 

My toons:

 

Vereor -- Immortal

Reichmar -- Powertech

Edited February 3, 2012 by Reichmar

[mugen_dom]

the piece set bonus that is supposed to extend the length of the carbonize stun actually makes it not stun at all

 

WOW that is amazing, hope they fix that for you guys....really a bad deal alot of time to get the pieces for negative effect

[taugrimtaugrim]

ps have you done the math on serrated blades (15% more dot damage for RB) vs iron fist (8% more RP damage)? Iron fist is the obvious since RP is a huge damage source for the build but having a strong dot is always a good thing. I'm running something very close to your spec but 23/18 is thinkable.

 

Serrated Blades is a poor talent to get unless you plan to go up to the 21-pt talent in Adv Proto.

 

Why?

 

For 3 talent points you are buffing the DoT portion of one ability's damage by 15%. That's pretty craptastic, considering that the ability is not designed to be spammed on a single target.

[taugrimtaugrim]

I keep getting asked in Social Media about gear for this spec, so here's an update I posted yesterday:

UPDATE (2012/2/2): people have been asking about gear for this spec. Here's what you want to get:

• Supercommando Shield offhand: to leverage the free +15% Shield Chance buff you get from the tanking stance. While I don't believe the Shield Chance stat is worth stacking for PVP, the +15% benefit is worth leveraging
  
• Combat Tech 4-pc set: for the awesome +15% Crit Chance to Rocket Punch (Stockstrike). Alternatively, if you prefer the Supercommando set bonuses, you can go 4-pc Supercommando and swap out the mods for DPS ones
  
• Go for DPS stats for the remaining slots: this means Eliminator, Combat Tech, and in some cases Combat Medic. The priority for the stats is what I documented in the Stats and Gear section of my Powertech / Vanguard Guide
  

[taugrimtaugrim]

At first, I wasn't convinced by your spec and your explanation. So, in the spirit of skepticism, I decided to try it myself....

 

Thanks for having an open mind about trying it.

 

I find it interesting. My primary concern was to have a DoT for Alderaan and Voidstar. The difficulty I find with playing my immortal on those maps is offset - albeit slightly - by my ability to intervene and the use of cybertech grenades. The CaroP build was enjoyable for this purpose because of my ability to use Incendiary Missle to DoT players from a distance, while still being in range of my defensive focus, i.e. the other door.

 

Retractable blade, while a laughable DPS ability, works well for this same purpose. I have to trade positioning and range for it, but the lower heat cost helps me to turn the other cheek a bit -- at least for now. If I start losing doors, I will likely rethink this.

 

You hit the nail on the head. IM is a big part of what makes CP have excellent utility. The only downside with IM when you're having to apply it on multiple targets is the Heat cost.

 

As you said RB works well in terms of post-death node cap prevention.

 

The extra control with the CD reduction on Quell is enjoyable.

 

Agreed.

 

The overall DPS loss with this build over CaroP is -- lets be honest -- pretty decent. But with all that being said, I do like this build.

 

Understood.

 

This build is different from CP in that the durability is improved and there is better CC capability. I do miss IM but you can't have everything in a spec.

 

I'll be recording some footage in the next few weeks (grad school permitting), hit me up if you want to see it.

 

Would love to see footage.

 

If you post it to YouTube or DropBox/somewhere let me know.

[ZeusThunder]

This spec looks very interesting, but could you tell me how you manage heat? Do you just have to cycle rapid shots a lot?

[taugrimtaugrim]

This spec looks very interesting, but could you tell me how you manage heat? Do you just have to cycle rapid shots a lot?

 

We have the free-Heat ability cooldown and Vent Heat.

 

Aside from that, you want to not over-spam abilities and bury yourself in a Heat deficit, given the non-linear rate of venting heat.

 

Cycling in some Rapid Shots makes sense for sustained fighting.

[Umpire]

Serrated Blades is a poor talent to get unless you plan to go up to the 21-pt talent in Adv Proto.

 

Why?

 

For 3 talent points you are buffing the DoT portion of one ability's damage by 15%. That's pretty craptastic, considering that the ability is not designed to be spammed on a single target.

 

I don't get what you're saying; it's a dot, of course it's not meant to be spammed on a single target. Boosting the dot damage doesn't make it more attractive to spam it?

 

The dot increase is small, but it's consistent. You always want to have RB rolling on the target, right? So the dot will always get a boost, the talent is always used. The RP/FS crit bonus damage is ONLY on when you RP and further more ONLY when you crit with said RP (FS is kinda a bonus, no one actually FSs unless its to get dudes debuffed/stop capping.) Also, the dot component of RBlade is internal, so you don't have to worry about armor. Kind of a bonus point. So for 3 talent points you boost the unmitigated internal damage of your ability you roll on every single target by 15%, vs 2 talent points to boost the critical (~50) damage of an ability you use every ~5 seconds (also our highest damaging ability where most of our burst comes from, though).

 

I mean, in PVP burst is the way to go usually, but i'm curious about the numbers here. Sometimes when i'm fighting a tank all I can think about is how i would love a beefy unmitigated dot.

 

edit: I see you use the combat tech set with the rocket punch crit increase. If I was wearing that it'd probably be a no brainer, but I rock the supercommando set for the consistent 5% extra damage, working on swapping surge/dps mods in.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Umpire

[taugrimtaugrim]

I don't get what you're saying; it's a dot, of course it's not meant to be spammed on a single target. Boosting the dot damage doesn't make it more attractive to spam it?

 

If you believe investing 3 points to buff one part of the damage for 1 ability that you will be using once every 15 seconds for a single target, then by all means spec into i. I wouldn't, the ROI just isn't there.

 

It's 3 talent points to boost one part of the damage of a non-spammable ability by 15%. Let's compare this to a few other talents:

• Hot Iron: for 2 points, you get 6% more damage from Flame Burst and Retractable Blade. Keep in mind this is 6% to the direct-damage portion of RB and 6% to the DoT portion of RB
  
• Intimidation: for 3 points, you get 6% more damage for all Elemental attacks
  

I consider the ROI for the above talents to be good.

 

edit: I see you use the combat tech set with the rocket punch crit increase. If I was wearing that it'd probably be a no brainer, but I rock the supercommando set for the consistent 5% extra damage, working on swapping surge/dps mods in.

 

Yes, that's a solid approach too.

Edited February 3, 2012 by taugrimtaugrim

[Umpire]

If you believe investing 3 points to buff one part of the damage for 1 ability that you will be using once every 15 seconds for a single target, then by all means spec into i. I wouldn't, the ROI just isn't there.

 

You might be using RB once every 15 seconds but that's because it does it's damage over 15 seconds. Flame Surge is 2 points to have a CHANCE to buff the damage of an ability you use every 5ish seconds. So you could say that too.

 

By the way I'm not suggesting taking points out of ANYTHING except for Flame Surge for it. A lot of the points in this spec are concrete. Serrated blades is an awful talent compared to hot iron etc. Speccing into Flame Surge leaves you with 1 floater point. I'm suggesting taking the 2 out of Flame surge and moving them into SB and using the floater to finish it out. Both of them seem to have a low ROI, that's what i'm talking about. Which is slightly higher?

Edited February 3, 2012 by Umpire

[exphryl]

 

 

This build is different from CP in that the durability is improved and there is better CC capability. I do miss IM but you can't have everything in a spec.

 

I'll give you the "CC" (if you want to call what we have even CC...although you run a gear set that breaks one of our best CC's that helps with planting, disarming, stopping team from whaling on you while capping the ball. )

 

But Durability....disagree on that one.

[taugrimtaugrim]

You might be using RB once every 15 seconds but that's because it does it's damage over 15 seconds. Flame Surge is 2 points to have a CHANCE to buff the damage of an ability you use every 5ish seconds. So you could say that too.

 

By the way I'm not suggesting taking points out of ANYTHING except for Flame Surge for it. A lot of the points in this spec are concrete. Serrated blades is an awful talent compared to hot iron etc. Speccing into Flame Surge leaves you with 1 floater point. I'm suggesting taking the 2 out of Flame surge and moving them into SB and using the floater to finish it out. Both of them seem to have a low ROI, that's what i'm talking about. Which is slightly higher?

 

Even with a non-full set of Champion gear, I have a 72% Crit Chance with Rocket Punch.

 

So the Surge talent is leveraged for 72 out of every 100 RP uses, or even higher when you factor in other buffs such as our 25% Crit Chance buff and relics.

Edited February 3, 2012 by taugrimtaugrim

[taugrimtaugrim]

But Durability....disagree on that one.

 

CP usually doesn't take the 2% mitigation talent in the tanking tree, or if you do take it you are giving up useful points from another talent.

 

CP can't reach the second 2% mitigation talent which is in the middle tree.

 

As I've explained elsewhere, mitigation becomes more valuable the more you have it:

www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=2292181#edit2292181

Keep in mind that talents such as Power Armor are not affected by diminishing returns, and mitigation becomes more valuable the more you have.

 

Without points in the two 2% mitigation talents, my mitigation against Energy and Kinetic attacks is 45.5% from Armor and the tanking stance, so I suffer 54.5 points of damage out of every 100.

 

With Iron Fist, the mitigation increases to 49.5%, so I suffer 50.5 points of damage out of every 100.

 

Which means that a non-IF tank spec is going to take 7.9% (4 / 50.5) more damage than an IF build. The difference is significant and very noticeable in PVP.

 

By the same token, the damage that a non-IF spec takes from Elemental and Internal damage compared to an IF spec is > 4%.

 

I.e. non-IF in tank stance has 5% mitigation against those damage types, and IF has 9%. So 95 damage taken vs 91 damage taken, or an increase of 4.4%.

 

When you factor in the +10% mitigation buff from Sages (I think it's theirs), the gap between non-IF and IF tank specs widens to 4.9% (4 / 81).

 

And the above percentages again increase when you factor in the 4% damage debuff we apply to opponents with Ion Pulse and Explosive Surge.

[Umpire]

Even with a non-full set of Champion gear, I have a 72% Crit Chance with Rocket Punch.

 

So the Surge talent is leveraged for 72 out of every 100 RP uses, or even higher when you factor in the buff from IA/Smug and other buffs such as our 25% Crit Chance buff and relics.

 

damn you have 100% crit on RP with the set bonus then? The unmitigatable part of the RB dot really is what made me think harder than normal but if your RP crit is that high it's GG no contest. Even if I'm reading wrong and it's still at 72% it's still no contest I think, but I haven't run numbers.

 

I'll give you the "CC" (if you want to call what we have even CC...although you run a gear set that breaks one of our best CC's that helps with planting, disarming, stopping team from whaling on you while capping the ball. )

 

But Durability....disagree on that one.

 

http://www.torhead.com/ability/114NNBG/power-armor

 

Definitely better and more durable than the 2% melee/ranged defense you get from Infrared sensors.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Umpire

[taugrimtaugrim]

Even if I'm reading wrong and it's still at 72% it's still no contest I think

 

The Crit Chance buffs stack:

22% with my very average pre-Battlemaster gear

+5% from Smuggler/IA buff

+30% from talents

+15% from set piece bonus

 

If you watch the video I get a lot of RP crits. That's part of the synergy in the spec's mechanics.

Edited February 3, 2012 by taugrimtaugrim

[Umpire]

Ohhhhhhhhhhh I thought you were saying you didn't have a full set though. I know the bonuses are additive. I run the supercommando set so I lose 15% crit.

 

And yeah I get that the whole keystone of the build is RP, but that doesn't mean that it's the most optimal ;]. I'm pretty satisfied that Flame Surge > Serrated Blades for now, but I won't turn down if someone wants to go run parses

Edited February 3, 2012 by Umpire

[taugrimtaugrim]

Ohhhhhhhhhhh I thought you were saying you didn't have a full set though. I know the bonuses are additive. I run the supercommando set so I lose 15% crit.

 

I don't have a full Champ set. I'm at 9/14, with 3 Centurion pieces, 1 crit-crafted 49 epic earpiece, and level 40 boots mod'd up with Expertise and level 49 blue mods.

 

I've had 18 total drops from 56 Champ bags, with 9 unique drops and 9 duplicates.

 

It won't matter once I grind through the last 2 ranks to BM.

 

I'm pretty satisfied that Flame Surge > Serrated Blades for now, but I won't turn down if someone wants to go run parses

 

Yea we're all waiting for a Combat Log. Will make it much easier to determine the real not approximated value of talents.

[dathraz]

Well all i saw was a bad excuse for grip people in fire and some ninja kills.

could be done with any spec tbh.

[Boonah]

Hi Taugrim thanks for all your guides.

 

I'm playing as a powertech, as well, there is a shortage of tanks and i want to be popular. Anyway, i do pretty well in pvp, always getting 7-9 badges and am using the rocket punch spec.

 

However, I struggle with keybinds. Once I have 20 or so i start to struggle. I was wondering if there are any abilities you feel i could "do away with" abilities that are rarely used.

 

I've found that i rarely use "missile Blast" or "flame Burst" they seem to do small damage for the heat they generate.

 

What tips can you give me? what abilities do you rarely use?

 

Thanks again