Tank Spec becoming less and less viable in PvP

[Libertine]

Now this is just a personal observation but with more and more people gearing up in champion sets I get the feeling that running any form of tank-spec is becoming completely useless in PvP.

 

EDIT: Im talking about 31/x/x spec here, so all the way up to heat blast.

 

Now we all know how Shielding and Armor are somewhat gimped in PvP so im not gonna go into that in detail.

 

Thing is, without a Pocket Healer at your back(eq. solo-queueing) tank spec just seems like a waste. When there were very little pvp-geared folk around you could still stand in the zerg and live for a little while but as of late I just die as fast as I do when running DPS spec(stats ~22k health, 50% damage reduction, 40% shield and absorb with ~540 expertise).

 

Now im not gonna argue that with a premade team Shieldspec still rocks and when I run with a premade i just stay alive forever but in PUGs i just get a feeling that its a total waste right now and im better off just going pyro or AP.

 

Yes, in theory theres some Shield/Pyro hybrids that are viable but i ran those for a couple of days and without doing any numbercrunching you sacrifice a lot of killing power just to get jet charge. I do love jet charge but it just seems to much off a trade-off.

 

So, whats your opinion ?

Edited January 30, 2012 by Libertine

[Gonaho]

PvE spec not being completely optimal for PvP play. News at eleven.

[Blackire]

@Gonaho - Obvious troll is obvious. Shut it if you're not being helpful.

 

@OP - Unfortunately with the current class talent setup and shielding design, there doesn't appear to be much to recommend going for a full pvp tank spec when you're trading off so much dps for a much smaller increase in survivability.

 

This has been up for much discussion on this forum before and until we get more flat mitigation talents or abilities, we're pretty much **** out of luck for defensive pvp tanking.

 

Push comes to shove, a Jugg simply lasts longer and tanks better then we do in pvp.

 

That being said, we look much better.

[ALDrinkwater]

personally i like the tank spec in pvp, you just gotta figure out whats right for you in terms of the talens ( yes, i know its expsensive) but i run a tank spec and its great, i get alot fo defense medals every game i play.

[Gonaho]

@Gonaho - Obvious troll is obvious. Shut it if you're not being helpful.

Do you even know what a "troll" means?

 

Really, PvP-centric ST builds work just fine. You pay the price in PvP for more PvE effectiveness by going 31pts in the tree.

 

However i do feel that the end of the ST-tree should see some love in the form of another talent in tier6 for more variety.

[Bravemonster]

@OP I would recommend looking at Taugrim's posts. I was thinking of just going a PVP tank spec until i looked at his blog site and his post on this forums. His Iron Fist spec is amazing.

 

I feel like a tank still and can dish out enough damage to remain competitive, while still being able to use guard on my allies.

 

I do feel they should change how shielding works, but until they do, this is as good as it gets.

[Ripgore]

I used to play PvP with my 31/xx/xx tank spec and here are my experiences in summary:

 

 

Before 50 >> Doing warzones while levelling up (i.e. before people hit 50 and got expertise gear) I was simply dominating most matches. I would win every 1v1 90% of the time unless I went against a sorc, which I would lose 90% of the time. This was due to not putting out enough damage fast enough and having poor burst outside of Rocket Punch. I controlled the battlefield and people learned to run when they saw me coming.

 

This potential capped when I had both my grapple and charge abilities, making me practically unstoppable. Perhaps, yes, even a bit overpowered - especially when I got my AoE stun in addition to Electro Dart. At lower levels I would literally ignore Assassins/Shadows and Guardians/Warriors of both ACs as they were wailing on me. I had enough time to kill their ally then casually turn around to stomp them into dust before losing even 30% of my health.

 

Fresh 50 >> When I hit 50 there were very few people with expertise gear. I would wipe the floor with lower levelled players for the same reasons as above. Fighting other fresh 50s was a mixed experience - I could definitely hold my own against most classes (again, sorcs dominated me) but I was already noticing that it was nowhere near as easy as before. I attribute this to the exponential growth in dps potential in some classes.

 

Put simply, certain ACs ramp up hugely when they acquire a certain ability or talent, either making them harder to kill or boosting their dps beyond a point I could match. I made an excellent ball carrier in Hutball, or point defender in Alderaan. Trying to kill a ball carrier was, however, becoming increasingly difficult despite the fact I had almost 100% uptime on them (i.e. was in melee range).

 

Currently >> Expertise made PvP very frustrating as a tank. Survivability went way down due to the fact defenses are completely or partially bypassed by many offensive abilities (armour penetration, elemental attacks ignoring armour, the generally lame shielding system). Offensive stats boost damage far more than defensive stats boost defences, and this is a problem that expertise isn't solving (it's debatable if it makes it worse, or has any effect whatsoever).

 

Backed by a healer I was unkillable but it simply wasn't enough to make me feel useful. I was a bit of a nuisance, I could whip around the battlefield (Jet Charge is amazing) and grapple opponents but I could rarely kill anything.

 

I was only useful when enemies were focusing on me and not my team/objectives which, as you probably all know, only lasts for a few minutes into a warzone. It doesn't take long for players to become aware which of their opponents are dangerous and which are just a waste of time to kill. Defending objectives became embarrassing as I could no longer put out enough damage to prevent an enemy from nuking my healer before turning on me.

 

 

I switched to pyro and never looked back. At the moment, literally the best defence is a strong offence.

 

EDIT: Altered the layout for improved readability.

EDIT2: Clarified that expertise isn't the devil

Edited January 30, 2012 by Ripgore

[Libertine]

I used to play PvP with my 31/xx/xx tank spec and here are my experiences in summary:

 

 

Before 50 >> Doing warzones while levelling up (i.e. before people hit 50 and got expertise gear) I was simply dominating most matches. I would win every 1v1 90% of the time unless I went against a sorc, which I would lose 90% of the time. This was due to not putting out enough damage fast enough and having poor burst outside of Rocket Punch. I controlled the battlefield and people learned to run when they saw me coming.

 

This potential capped when I had both my grapple and charge abilities, making me practically unstoppable. Perhaps, yes, even a bit overpowered - especially when I got my AoE stun in addition to Electro Dart. At lower levels I would literally ignore Assassins/Shadows and Guardians/Warriors of both ACs as they were wailing on me. I had enough time to kill their ally then casually turn around to stomp them into dust before losing even 30% of my health.

 

Fresh 50 >> When I hit 50 there were very few people with expertise gear. I would wipe the floor with lower levelled players for the same reasons as above. Fighting other fresh 50s was a mixed experience - I could definitely hold my own against most classes (again, sorcs dominated me) but I was already noticing that it was nowhere near as easy as before. I attribute this to the exponential growth in dps potential in some classes.

 

Put simply, certain ACs ramp up hugely when they acquire a certain ability or talent, either making them harder to kill or boosting their dps beyond a point I could match. I made an excellent ball carrier in Hutball, or point defender in Alderaan. Trying to kill a ball carrier was, however, becoming increasingly difficult despite the fact I had almost 100% uptime on them (i.e. was in melee range).

 

Currently >> Expertise made PvP very frustrating as a tank. Survivability went way down as expertise was boosting damage of abilities against which I had little or no defence. Backed by a healer I was unkillable but it simply wasn't enough to make me feel useful. I was a bit of a nuisance, I could whip around the battlefield (Jet Charge is amazing) and grapple opponents but I could rarely kill anything.

 

I was only useful when enemies were focusing on me and not my team/objectives which, as you probably all know, only lasts for a few minutes into a warzone. It doesn't take long for players to become aware which of their opponents are dangerous and which are just a waste of time to kill. Defending objectives became embarrassing as I could no longer put out enough damage to prevent an enemy from nuking my healer before turning on me.

 

 

I switched to pyro and never looked back. At the moment, literally the best defence is a strong offence.

 

EDIT: Altered the layout for improved readability.

 

exactly my sentiments.

 

i think the essence of it that outside of carrying the ball in huttball youre better off with 31pt DPS spec. you may lack survivability but you can output enough burst damage that it doesnt really matter.

Dont even wanna start talking about fighting healers in tank spec ... waste of time ... 15min. of me slowly dying...

[Umpire]

PvE spec not being completely optimal for PvP play. News at eleven.

 

that's all there is to see here

i'm full PVE gear with a few pieces of champ, and I still wind up doing fine as a tank in warzones; high damage and protection all day. I run 21/2/18 because there's no reason to take 10% shielding/heat blast in pvp tanking.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Umpire

[Umpire]

exactly my sentiments.

 

i think the essence of it that outside of carrying the ball in huttball youre better off with 31pt DPS spec. you may lack survivability but you can output enough burst damage that it doesnt really matter.

Dont even wanna start talking about fighting healers in tank spec ... waste of time ... 15min. of me slowly dying...

 

grapple

charge

quell

electro dart

carbonize

 

you shouldn't lose to healers

[Libertine]

grapple

charge

quell

electro dart

carbonize

 

you shouldn't lose to healers

 

yeah ... that works just great ...

 

jet charge

do some damage

smart healer casts his first heal(the smaller one)

interrupt > first heal is shut down

healer casts 2nd heal

electro dart

w00t his resolve bar just went full white and he can use cc-breaker and heal up nicely without you being able to do anything..

 

dont talk about stuff you have no clue about...

[Umpire]

yeah ... that works just great ...

 

jet charge

do some damage

smart healer casts his first heal(the smaller one)

interrupt > first heal is shut down

healer casts 2nd heal

electro dart

w00t his resolve bar just went full white and he can use cc-breaker and heal up nicely without you being able to do anything..

 

dont talk about stuff you have no clue about...

 

Interrupts don't respect the resolve bar

[Ripgore]

Interrupts don't respect the resolve bar

 

You know that interrupting a skill only prevents that one particular skill from being cast again, right? It's not a school lockout like WoW. Do you know how many healing skills a healer has?

 

Fight a *good* Sorc healer 1v1 and try and tell me with a straight face that it took less than 5+ minutes for someone to lose.

[Umpire]

I never said it wouldn't take a long time. I said it wasn't a 100% losing battle.

[Nightbird]

 

Currently >> Expertise made PvP very frustrating as a tank. Survivability went way down as expertise was boosting damage of abilities against which I had little or no defence.

 

Umm, you do realize that the damage boost of expertise is negated by your damage reduction right? I currently have 486 expertise and it provides me with 10% bonus damage to players, 10% bonus to damage reduction from players, and 10% bonus to healing received. Someone with less expertise is still going to do less damage with their force/tech abilities and someone with more will still only get maybe .1-2% boost.

 

Please stop acting like expertise is some huge boost that there is no counter for. Misinformation like that is what causes everyone to complain about it. If you have the same amount of expertise or more than the person attacking you, your expertise nullifies their damage boost. If they have more than you, it's a very slight boost to their damage.

 

With all that being said, I run a modified version of the Iron Fist spec and really enjoy it. My damage is a bit lower than it could be but not by a lot and I'm able tank everything other than maybe nightmare modes haven't tried them yet. When I run with my wife who is a healer we're both nearly unkillable and i'm still able to put out enough dps to kill people. The only healers that really trouble me are Sorc's with their absorb shields but since I skip most huttballs (SO SICK OF HUTTBALL!) now I rarely face them.

[Ripgore]

Umm, you do realize that the damage boost of expertise is negated by your damage reduction right? I currently have 486 expertise and it provides me with 10% bonus damage to players, 10% bonus to damage reduction from players, and 10% bonus to healing received. Someone with less expertise is still going to do less damage with their force/tech abilities and someone with more will still only get maybe .1-2% boost.

 

Please stop acting like expertise is some huge boost that there is no counter for. Misinformation like that is what causes everyone to complain about it. If you have the same amount of expertise or more than the person attacking you, your expertise nullifies their damage boost. If they have more than you, it's a very slight boost to their damage.

 

With all that being said, I run a modified version of the Iron Fist spec and really enjoy it. My damage is a bit lower than it could be but not by a lot and I'm able tank everything other than maybe nightmare modes haven't tried them yet. When I run with my wife who is a healer we're both nearly unkillable and i'm still able to put out enough dps to kill people. The only healers that really trouble me are Sorc's with their absorb shields but since I skip most huttballs (SO SICK OF HUTTBALL!) now I rarely face them.

 

Your lack of knowledge crippled your argument from the start. There are many attacks which completely or mostly bypass our defenses. Stack armour/defense as much as you like but it's completely worthless against elemental attacks, for example. Yes, expertise is cancelled out by expertise, BUT offensive stats on gear is NOT cancelled out or reduced significantly by defensive stats.

[Nightbird]

Your lack of knowledge crippled your argument from the start. There are many attacks which completely or mostly bypass our defenses. Stack armour/defense as much as you like but it's completely worthless against elemental attacks, for example. Yes, expertise is cancelled out by expertise, BUT offensive stats on gear is NOT cancelled out or reduced significantly by defensive stats.

 

I completely understand that shield/defense doesn't work on tech/force attacks and armor isn't nearly as useful as it could be. You claimed that expertise was causing your lack of survivability by boosting abilities that we have little defense against and I was simply correcting that misconception. Go back and look at the part I quoted from your original post. You claimed that it was expertise causing the extra damage, not the offensive stats. Had you said it was the offensive stats, then I wouldn't have disagreed with you. I don't like misinformation being passed around, because all it does is cause people to complain about something they don't understand.

[ducksmyth]

If anything tanks should be getting stronger as healing is the only stat that is scaling with +expertise. Guard is the ability that makes healing work past burst.

 

Your expertise on offense and defence is neutralised by your enemies, but the bonus to healing isnt so as healing gets better tanks to guard the healers get better.

[Ripgore]

I completely understand that shield/defense doesn't work on tech/force attacks and armor isn't nearly as useful as it could be. You claimed that expertise was causing your lack of survivability by boosting abilities that we have little defense against and I was simply correcting that misconception. Go back and look at the part I quoted from your original post. You claimed that it was expertise causing the extra damage, not the offensive stats. Had you said it was the offensive stats, then I wouldn't have disagreed with you. I don't like misinformation being passed around, because all it does is cause people to complain about something they don't understand.

 

OK I see what you're saying, we're both basically arguing the same point. I thought I had made it clear enough in my original statement (bolded the important bit):

 

Currently >> Expertise made PvP very frustrating as a tank. Survivability went way down as expertise was boosting damage of abilities against which I had little or no defence.

 

Actually, reading that again, it does seem like it can be interpreted in two ways. I'll edit my post to clarify that I meant it boosts specific damaging abilities that bypass defenses.

[MigSebes]

I am a 31pts ST and I roflstomp most of the time in PvP even when queued solo. You just need to learn to use your debuffs and cooldowns wisely as well as your CCs. Also don't forget about Relics, Adrenals and Medpacs, they make a huge difference. You don't need a pocket healer to get the other team extremely frustrated about you trust me.

[Rykke]

I agree with most people here seeing this as a PvE spec not being optimal in a PvP setting. I solo queue and run with a team all the time and while having a healer is night and day; I do not feel completely useless when queuing solo. The biggest problem with the current system is that it misguides you into gearing and specializing in a non-optimal way for PvP.

 

Since the defensive stats do close to nothing for us and Oil Slick not accounting for some damage types, those are points you should invest elsewhere as dropping from a 31 ST to 25/21 has little to no effect on our survivability as a whole. Our tankiness comes from our stances, damage reduction talents, and the debuff we place with Flame Burst/Sweep.

 

I actually think the current situation makes us pretty OP as a matter of fact. Because the top tier talents in Shield Tech wound up not doing much, we are able to spec for more DPS. I'm always among the top 3 for damage done on my team all while racking in an average of 50k+ protection without healers.

 

My current set up is the fabled 21/2/18 ST/Pyro sitting at 8.75% expertise. With relics/adrenals, 3.3-.5k Rail shot crits are not hard to reach and is ample damage to pressure healers with. Remember that even though you dropped a lot of points into Pyro with this build, you still do the tanking stuff first, the bonus DPS is just icing on top. While Juggies definitely have a better time surviving solo, they actually envy the amount of damage we can put out as a tank. If you just want to burn people, you have no business being in the Shield Tree to begin with.

 

PS: When solo-queuing and there are no heals, guard that DPS that you've seen do pretty well, not the idiots. CC/Pressure/Taunt for him and watch things die, my favorite classes to guard other than heals/carrier would be Marauders.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Rykke

[RuinationFEW]

I hope everyone else specs pyro so I'm the last ST pvping powertech. With essentially full battlemaster combat tech set and eliminator main hand I find that I live far longer and win far more fights as ST as opposed to either pyro or AP. Maybe it's just my playstyle but I love the ST tree, do I see huge damage totals at the end of a WZ? No, but when I put up 300k damage and 100k protection for my healer I feel like I've contributed much more at the end of the match. And 1v1 if I have all my cds I usually don't lose except to good Ops.

 

Maybe it's because I pvp more than the average person. Maybe it's because I've aquired almost a complete set of the top tier pvp gear faster than others. Maybe my server has a lot of bad players, whatever the case is I spec to what I enjoy. Could I do more damage with my gear set as Pyro, yes, would I win as many matches and 1v1s? No.

 

Also for the record skip as many of the shield boosting talents as you can and just pick up straight damage reduction %, yes this includes the first tier 3 pointer on flame burst and sweep.

[Rykke]

Did they fix the bug with 2pc Combat Tech? That was the set I originally was going with but after getting the 2pc and having it rendered useless, I started building an eliminator's set with a double drop. I would want the combat tech's set more though. Edited January 30, 2012 by Rykke

[Olvera]

Done wisely, and the other team will hate you in Voidstar and Civil War. Especially once you get flame sweep. Add carbonize with it and then the other team will be swearing your name. Seeing that most people will just blow their trinket to get free. Those attacks can pretty much lock down a position. Also due to your survivability, you will be able to hold your ground longer until your team comes back.

 

Powertechs are by far the best denial class. I spent many a match holding off the other team while my team rushed back to defend.

 

Rarely got any solo kills but would rather win than lose.

[Umpire]

Since the defensive stats do close to nothing for us and Oil Slick not accounting for some damage types, those are points you should invest elsewhere as dropping from a 31 ST to 25/21 has little to no effect on our survivability as a whole. Our tankiness comes from our stances, damage reduction talents, and the debuff we place with Flame Burst/Sweep.

 

and boom goes the dynamite.

All real survivability is found in the first 4 tiers of Shield tech. the 10% shield chance is very obviously PVE oriented, and the only reason you go up to the 5th tier is because that's where charge is.