Do you feel like a tank?

[WarWidowX]

Powertech defense builds work very well with PvE, but when faced with PvP challenges I have come across factors that just don’t add up.

 

In order to remain a balanced class, a full tank spec Powertech gives up dps to be a meat shield for defensive measures. I agree with this and that is how it is.

 

But honestly I can’t seem to figure out the justification of defense verse offense.

 

My build right now is a modified version of Iron Fist based on more defense. I am at almost 19k health, 8k armor, 51% damage reduction, using a shield with 10%+ activation bonus, and 600+ expertise.

 

Now I know my dps for my build is sub par because I am a meat shield, but here are two examples verse an opponent in a warzone, both one on one encounters.

 

1. I spot a Smuggler and jet charge in for an attack. I hit my stun, prepare for attack, hit my crit bonus increase, and unleash my assault. My opponents health bar barely moves (I feel like I am attacking with a wet noodle sometimes) and I begin to back peddle for defensive measures, I carbonize to get some room, it wears off, I prepare for a second volley, and as I do so, I am torn apart in 4 or 5 hits by my opponent.

 

2. The second encounter, I am jumped by the Smuggler and lose about half my health bar, I carbonize to catch my bearings, pop my crit, and unload my counter strike. The Smuggler presses on, I hit stun, he shrugs it off, I pop shield for defense, he closes in, and I am melted in 3 to 4 hits.

 

Just to be clear, I am using those two encounters as an example and I am not stating anything about a class being OP or what ever. I am mainly trying to figure out how defense and offense works amongst opponents & abilities.

 

Some will say the Smuggler has more expertise or his build is built for heavy amounts of dps. I truly understand all of this, but like all class balance, high dps should equal low defense and high defense should equal low dps. But, when I unload with my assault and my opponent’s health bar barely moves and in return I am wasted in seconds, something is not right.

 

There are just some encounters where I second guess the word TANK. I almost feel like mitigation & defense are not working correctly for our class if I have to sacrifice dps for my build. Abilities that improve tanking for PvE should correctly work for PvP. Tanking is tanking, weather it is a creature npc or another player.

 

It is a bit frustrating to watch your health bar melt in seconds when you’re classified as a tank, wearing heavy armor with a shield. I would like to hear from my fellow Powertechs. Do you feel like a tank?

 

Hell, if you’re a Smuggler, I would like to hear from you too. It is always good to get a full round table talk about game mechanics.

 

Any advice would be great.

 

/salute

[exphryl]

The issue is Shielding works on such a small small amount of PvP Abilities. Most bypass it so "Tanks" still get ripped apart.

 

The trade off though is they get a little more group control and nice abilities like Jet charge to allow scores and match wins.

[Rocco_]

guard and capping objectives, that IS all i do and able to do to be honest, i came across a sentinel in a recent pvp and he lept towards me and all i could do was just watch my hp drop as im smashing my mediocre attacks, i too understand that im giving up DPS for my ability to take a smack to the face, but apparently i can take a smack to the face but i cant take kick to the ''no no's'' or a chop in the gut as they are ''different'' types of damage??? REALLY? im not asking that i be able to kill a DPS in a fight im asking that i be able to hold off an attacker for a little more then a healer could, i mean that what im built for...right?, just until say backup arrives or my healer can heal himself

 

i dont want to win, i want to survive

Edited March 2, 2012 by Rocco_

[Rykke]

Wear DPS gear, PvP tank gear does jack for survival and you're better off being a tanky DPS that still fulfills the tank role first while being able to dish out respectable damage. I have no problems surviving encounters without pocket heals in shield with eliminator's set. You might wanna look into the combat tech set.

[iMakesh]

I'm Parakeet spec with Eliminator gear and in the progress of swapping out mods for crit/surge or power/surge mods (mods which generally have lower endurance), so I'm definately quite squishy in PvP with barely 17k hp. Especially since I guard at all times, I die alot if I'm not in wz with a healer. Luckily I have great healers in my guild so I'm in the clear most of the times.

 

In 1v1 I'm quite squishy too ofc, but my damage combined with decent survivability makes up for it. My Sniper for example feels like 30% survivability 70% dmg, while my PT feels like 50% survivability 70% damage. So most 1v1 feels like a walkover.

[Tosteto]

I've actually encountered the same problem with Smugglers that are healers. I unload on them with a bunch of attacks, beginning with Jet Charge, and they still seem to be at full health, and barely take any damage. I run with a modified version of Carolina Parakeet I believe, and have level 49 Armormech armor, cause I'm working on getting a set of PVP armor, so I'm to lazy to invest in Orange.

 

I can barely make a dent in the Smugglers health, and when I try to Quell his healing, it still comes through. Maybe I'm not quick enough, but I still feel there's something not right. It really is frustraiting that I can barely do anything, except get a bonus from Guarding. I've had several good matches, heck, I had a 7-8 winning streak once, but just recently, it seems like I'm doing horrible.

 

Bad luck, or is there something not right going on?

[Eroex]

The problem is the PVP tank gear isnt itemized that well. It has DPS stats on it, if you want to be a tank, fix the gear.

 

I know PVE geared tanks that are near impossible to kill in PVP.

[oakamp]

I'm Parakeet spec with Eliminator gear and in the progress of swapping out mods for crit/surge or power/surge mods (mods which generally have lower endurance), so I'm definately quite squishy in PvP with barely 17k hp. Especially since I guard at all times, I die alot if I'm not in wz with a healer. Luckily I have great healers in my guild so I'm in the clear most of the times.

 

In 1v1 I'm quite squishy too ofc, but my damage combined with decent survivability makes up for it. My Sniper for example feels like 30% survivability 70% dmg, while my PT feels like 50% survivability 70% damage. So most 1v1 feels like a walkover.

 

we dont have great healers in guild,

only few lousy healers.

 

i am a full pyro,

we dont have any problem in 1v1,

 

but swtor ppl always think PT is a TANK,

especially in hutt ball,

they all like ask me to guard them,

pass ball to PT,

damx, pyro doesnt suit for carry a BALL.

[Vandewater]

we dont have great healers in guild,

only few lousy healers.

 

i am a full pyro,

we dont have any problem in 1v1,

 

but swtor ppl always think PT is a TANK,

especially in hutt ball,

they all like ask me to guard them,

pass ball to PT,

damx, pyro doesnt suit for carry a BALL.

 

This seems to be a problem with a lot of the different classes and their specs in this game. People typically just assume you are DPS/Tank depending on the class where you could be spec'd heals/dps/tank. It seems peoples brains don't always engage in PUGs.

[Jestunhi]

I've actually encountered the same problem with Smugglers that are healers. I unload on them with a bunch of attacks, beginning with Jet Charge, and they still seem to be at full health, and barely take any damage. I run with a modified version of Carolina Parakeet I believe, and have level 49 Armormech armor, cause I'm working on getting a set of PVP armor, so I'm to lazy to invest in Orange.

 

I can barely make a dent in the Smugglers health, and when I try to Quell his healing, it still comes through. Maybe I'm not quick enough, but I still feel there's something not right. It really is frustraiting that I can barely do anything, except get a bonus from Guarding. I've had several good matches, heck, I had a 7-8 winning streak once, but just recently, it seems like I'm doing horrible.

 

Bad luck, or is there something not right going on?

 

Gear.

 

Lvl 49 gear against BM gear isn't going to cut it no matter what your spec is. At least if it were orange you could put in a rating 140 armoring from ops / gtn and make it similar to Rakata gear but without the set bonus.

 

 

Note that not all tanking is surviving many opponents. It's keeping your team alive. It's guarding and taunting all the time.

 

Guard should pretty much always be on a near-by squishy (healer if poss, glass cannon DPS if not) and you have a single target & AoE taunt which reduces the damage that the targets do to anyone but yourself.

 

 

Until you have good gear don't worry so much about 1v1 performance, concentrate on helping your team get the win instead.

 

 

 

One final note - a healer who is busy keeping himself alive is not healing his team mates, regardless of whether you can put out enough DPS to kill him. As long as he's having to heal himself his usefulness to his allies drops considerably.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Jestunhi

[tkdlauri]

The problem is the PVP tank gear isnt itemized that well. It has DPS stats on it, if you want to be a tank, fix the gear.

 

I know PVE geared tanks that are near impossible to kill in PVP.

 

I agree but I read a quote that said they are going to itemize the pvp gear better now and change the excisting gear and new gear to better suit pvp.

[Tosteto]

Gear.

 

Lvl 49 gear against BM gear isn't going to cut it no matter what your spec is. At least if it were orange you could put in a rating 140 armoring from ops / gtn and make it similar to Rakata gear but without the set bonus.

 

 

Note that not all tanking is surviving many opponents. It's keeping your team alive. It's guarding and taunting all the time.

 

Guard should pretty much always be on a near-by squishy (healer if poss, glass cannon DPS if not) and you have a single target & AoE taunt which reduces the damage that the targets do to anyone but yourself.

 

 

Until you have good gear don't worry so much about 1v1 performance, concentrate on helping your team get the win instead.

 

 

 

One final note - a healer who is busy keeping himself alive is not healing his team mates, regardless of whether you can put out enough DPS to kill him. As long as he's having to heal himself his usefulness to his allies drops considerably.

 

What you say is very true. I do use the Guard ability on healers very often, but I've yet to get into the habit of using Tracer Missle. As armor goes, I guess should get around to replacing it if I want to do moderate in PVP.

 

Thanks for your input, it was very helpful!

[TheronFett]

Bad luck, or is there something not right going on?

 

I've been in wz with you before, and it's mostly your gear. CP is "meh" for PvP, meaning you'll do okay when supporting your team to help focus fire, but in 1vs1 (especially against healer types) you simply can't out DPS their heals with Carolina Parakeet. And definitely not without PvP gear.

[vincent-]

The issue is Shielding works on such a small small amount of PvP Abilities. Most bypass it so "Tanks" still get ripped apart.

 

The trade off though is they get a little more group control and nice abilities like Jet charge to allow scores and match wins.

 

See here is the problem with this statement how is a defensive class not doing so hot with defense consider that important when it comes to just pvp not warzones just pvp.

 

A tank should best any dps and a medic should always out last a tank but a dps going through tanks just seems silly and wrong.

[Tosteto]

I've been in wz with you before, and it's mostly your gear. CP is "meh" for PvP, meaning you'll do okay when supporting your team to help focus fire, but in 1vs1 (especially against healer types) you simply can't out DPS their heals with Carolina Parakeet. And definitely not without PvP gear.

 

Truth is I was trying out CP, before that, I ran with ST and AP and I actually did better with that set-up. Now that I've tried it out and gotten not so good results, I'm going to stick with my original set-up, so it's time that I go reset my skill tree. Thanks for your input!

[Umpire]

Stopped reading after "then I backpedal"

 

Shield COULD be fixed to work against more pvp attacks, but it's not so the play the game you're given. I run a parakeet spec with only 1% damage reduction and I wear rakata belt/bracers and use combat medic bm implants. I have 19K hp, 47% damage reduction and 432 expertise (i probably should use pvp belt/bracers). I feel plenty tanky. You certainly last longer than a DPS does, and the amount of protection I provide my teammates with is irreplaceable.

[KekoSplit]

http://i41.tinypic.com/znmnx4.jpg

 

You can feel tanky with the right gear and the right spec. I have full champion with 2 pieces of Rakata, I use a hp/def stim. The gear can still be improved with BM gear, but I can't get any more Rakata because my guild has stopped playing. My spec is 30/8/3.

 

In a pug vs pug game like in the SS above, it's very hard to stay alive for the duration of a whole match with no heals coming to you. The enemy team outhealed us 1.4 mil to 111k (12.6 to 1), and they still had no people with zero deaths, I was the only one on both teams and I was in the middle of it the whole time. And I even used guard when I could - but the people on my team really died A LOT. I received no direct heal in the whole game.

 

One of my relics is shield/absorb, I have an armor stim, rakata medpac which increases hp by 15% for some time, there is also the 20% damage reduction shield. I use all of them the whole time, also the AOE stun, and I stand near the consumable "medpac" in the corner near the door so I can use it in need (Voidstar wz if you don't want to look at the SS). And boy, there is a lot of need, I can tell you.

Just having 4-5k hp more then the rest of the players means a lot, and there are a lot of cooldowns to use.

 

The only bad thing is the extremely low dps. But you can't have it all. Although Jedi Guardians and Shadows apparently do have it all. Ah, well.