Shield/absorb in PVP

[Herbertt]

I have looked in allot of posts trying to find why people say shield/absorbs are not great in pvp.

 

I understand that it only works on white dmg?

In pvp I see white dmg most of the times.

 

I have tried allot of specs, for weeks at a time and I keep going back to pretty much full tank spec apart from that last skill that seems useless.

 

 

I survive much more or is it all in my head?

 

I haven't tried wearing dps gear yet, I have heard about that, just trying to get my tank gear first because I do enjoy tanking with the vanguard.

My gear at the moment is mainly centurion + champ helm, weapon and both relics.

Edited March 20, 2012 by Herbertt

[Mozivicus]

You have pretty much the same survivability as a DPS as you do a shield spec. The difference is the amount of DPS you sacrifice as a tank/shield spec. So why give up DPS for the same amount of survivability?

[Pistols]

You have pretty much the same survivability as a DPS as you do a shield spec. The difference is the amount of DPS you sacrifice as a tank/shield spec. So why give up DPS for the same amount of survivability?

 

^ This.

 

I have all 3 sets of BM gear, each modified a bit differently (defense/offense/hybrid), and have tried all specs with each. The end result for me?

 

Full damage suit w/assault spec = better overall (for me).

 

I can still guard, take plenty of damage and hit well enough to be an asset to team based PvP. IMO the defensive armor is geared towards PvE, and not so much for PvP. Wish it were different, but everyone cries loud enough with guard already, and I can't fathom the amount of crying sounding off if defensive shields actually worked better for PvP attacks...the forums would just blow up.

 

My advice is to test this yourself, find a build/spec that works for you, and go with that.

[Hethroin]

Shields and Defense work better against a specific set of classes and specs.

 

These same classes and specs work extremely well against light armor targets with a low defense rate, these classes wreck them. When pitted against a high armor, high defense and shielded target the classes perform vastly inferior from a DPS standpoint.

 

It is my belief that this is done so that teams with a diverse set of DPS sources outperform those that stack the same class/spec simply based on its superior performance against low-armor non-shielded targets.

 

Also, generally speaking, the yellow damage attack that bypass defense and shields have a higher resource cost than the white damage weapon based attacks. Attackers often will find that DPSing a tank with all yellow damage causes them to become resource starved.

[Venrale]

Personally I find that running shield spec does inc my survivability but not enough to justify running it in pvp, the only times I run shield spec anymore is if im running in a premade with 2 dps,1 healer and myself and even then I run a hybrid build http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GRG0borRGZMsrbo.1. I am ussually pvping in a dps build tho, I use the Combat Tech armour, Eliminator weapon,implants,belt and bracers, Supercommando Earpeice and Offhand, I prefer the tactics line so I run high energy cells and if needed switch to Ion Cell to increase my survivability and throw guard on the healer or other ppl defending in the same area but thats ussually only to help our odds I get just about all my protection medals from spamming my taunts everytime they are up.. I imagine shield spec will become more usefull when Ranked WZs come out.

[taugrimtaugrim]

I have looked in allot of posts trying to find why people say shield/absorbs are not great in pvp.

 

I understand that it only works on white dmg?

In pvp I see white dmg most of the times.

 

I have tried allot of specs, for weeks at a time and I keep going back to pretty much full tank spec apart from that last skill that seems useless.

 

 

I survive much more or is it all in my head?

 

I haven't tried wearing dps gear yet, I have heard about that, just trying to get my tank gear first because I do enjoy tanking with the vanguard.

My gear at the moment is mainly centurion + champ helm, weapon and both relics.

 

Everything you need to know about the avoidance and mitigation (incl shield) mechanics for PVP is here:

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

Edited March 20, 2012 by taugrimtaugrim

[eMAeM]

Doesnt matter since you kill tanks through their guarded target Mostly sages/sorcs, so they go down as easy as 1,2,3.

[AnthSD]

I'm not at home, so this is a guess (correct me if I'm wrong), but you get roughly 10-20% damage mitigation through absorb(40% chance to reduce by 40% is 16% mitigation), but not on tech/force attacks, so stockstrike, hib would probably be mitigated, but dots, ion pulse, probably not. Not sure on each classification but I assume out of damage dealing abilities it is pretty split between the two groups. This is the same as armour protection though, since internal/elemental attacks (plasma cell dot, ion pulse) go past armour and physical/energy (ion cell dot, stockstrike) don't.

[AnthSD]

So I checked at lunch. 100% of vanguard attacks are tech. I checked some low level alts, smuggler charged shot, aimed shot, quick shot were ranged, everything else tech. Jedi consular melee attacks all melee, all ranged attacks force.

[Hethroin]

So I checked at lunch. 100% of vanguard attacks are tech. I checked some low level alts, smuggler charged shot, aimed shot, quick shot were ranged, everything else tech. Jedi consular melee attacks all melee, all ranged attacks force.

 

Correction.

 

HiB is a ranged attack. So is Full Auto.

[AnthSD]

Thanks, I was in a rush, but I was very surprised to see that stockstrike was tech. If anyone uses shields in pvp I think they'll find it will only help against the occasional high damage burst (ex: aimed shot, charged burst repeated) rather than consistantly against every class. 40% of 1 aimed shot could be 1000 damae prevented, so it is hardly useless.

[Sandzibar]

40% of 1 aimed shot could be 1000 damae prevented, so it is hardly useless.

 

unless its a crit of course...

 

crits go straight through shields. and everyone stacks crit for pvp.

[LeggoMyMuoio]

Well now I'm confused. I'm leveling with the Iron Fist hybrid spec and a couple talents in that build are shield specific (Shield Cycler for example). I'm only level 20 so far and haven't done a whole lot of reading about Vanguards yet so maybe I just don't fully understand the AC yet.

[Apoll]

unless its a crit of course...

 

crits go straight through shields. and everyone stacks crit for pvp.

 

A crit shot is determined AFTER the roll if your shot is going to hit.

Stacking crit only adds your chances to crit AFTER you pass the roll vs shield/defence.

 

+Crit has nothing to do with the shield/defense penetration rate.

[Hethroin]

A crit shot is determined AFTER the roll if your shot is going to hit.

Stacking crit only adds your chances to crit AFTER you pass the roll vs shield/defence.

 

+Crit has nothing to do with the shield/defense penetration rate.

 

100% wrong.

 

Shield/Crit calculation happens after defense/hit calculation. A crit can never be shielded because the crit, normal hit and shielded damage is calculated as one step. Think of shield chance as reverse crit, and absorption as reverse surge.

 

Crit's don't "go through" shields, getting a crit and getting shielded are mutually exclusive events per attack. However, a high enough crit rate will cut a sufficiently high shield rate.

 

With stims and 25% crit CD popped you might have a 70% crit chance on your assault vanguard's HiB (if he is wearing 4pc Eliminator). For the duration of the cooldown you are reducing all targets' shield chance down to 30%.

[sensiblepoast]

Thanks, I was in a rush, but I was very surprised to see that stockstrike was tech. If anyone uses shields in pvp I think they'll find it will only help against the occasional high damage burst (ex: aimed shot, charged burst repeated) rather than consistantly against every class. 40% of 1 aimed shot could be 1000 damae prevented, so it is hardly useless.

 

It is hardly useless but at the same time it is a quite hard sell for the dps tradeoff.

[bglodt]

You have pretty much the same survivability as a DPS as you do a shield spec. The difference is the amount of DPS you sacrifice as a tank/shield spec. So why give up DPS for the same amount of survivability?

 

I disagree with this comment. I AM NOT CALLING YOU A LIAR! I am respectfully disagreeing. I play both full assault and Iron fist (ADHD... I get bored.. what can i say). When i use the same set of gear (full BM combat tech) in both specs, I definately notice that i survive much longer in ion cell vs plasma cell. In fact despite the decrease in damage burst output, i still tend to do similar, though slightly less dps in iron fist spec, because i live longer, and have less deaths. Of course this is all anecdotal, as no logs as of yet. That said I do believe there is utility in using the shield specc, if thats how you want to play.

 

The question the OP asked about shield abosrb is a tricky one. Do I see the shield animation on my character when I pvp in ion cell? yes, but not often. Probably the survivability increase is a more a function of the armor increase bonus than the shield, but if your going to run in ion cell you might as well equip the shield offhand. Does it help then? yeah. A lot? probably not too much, but if you are going that route, any little bit helps. That said, I still wouldnt run in the full supercommando set.... you really do lose too much damage. the defense stats help but not much, and the endurance gain is probably not worth the dps loss... infact when i run full supercommando set i feel like i am smacking people with a wet noodle! I personally have found that the best set up is a combination of rakata and bm dps gear, no matter your spec, but this is old news. I will say this though, in defense of "defense", I swapped out a bunch of mods and dropped my accuracy quite a bit... and did notice that I started to see the rare "deflect" and "dodge(?)" so it does work... but most people have enough accuracy, unless they get retarded like me, that it makes high defense pretty much irrelevant.

 

Anyways my two cents. enjoy, and hope it helps.

[Pistols]

When i use the same set of gear (full BM combat tech) in both specs, I definately notice that i survive much longer in ion cell vs plasma cell. In fact despite the decrease in damage burst output, i still tend to do similar, though slightly less dps in iron fist spec, because i live longer, and have less deaths. Of course this is all anecdotal, as no logs as of yet. That said I do believe there is utility in using the shield specc, if thats how you want to play.

 

Understand, not everyone who runs the assault spec uses "plasma cell". I'm one of the few (I believe) who runs a variation of the popular Assault spec using Ion cell. I've modded my armor accordingly and I don't feel any less squishier than running a Shield spec with defensive mods/Ion cell. I can still absorb a high amount of damage on top of dishing out a fair amount. This allows me to switch cells once I have an understanding of our team make-up, as well as the Opfor., which gives me a bit more utility to work with. Of course, this is in regards to WZ PvP only, as I can't speak for PvE.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Pistols

[Tigerstarr]

^ This.

 

I have all 3 sets of BM gear, each modified a bit differently (defense/offense/hybrid), and have tried all specs with each. The end result for me?

 

Full damage suit w/assault spec = better overall (for me).

 

I can still guard, take plenty of damage and hit well enough to be an asset to team based PvP. IMO the defensive armor is geared towards PvE, and not so much for PvP. Wish it were different, but everyone cries loud enough with guard already, and I can't fathom the amount of crying sounding off if defensive shields actually worked better for PvP attacks...the forums would just blow up.

 

My advice is to test this yourself, find a build/spec that works for you, and go with that.

 

I like the idea of actually having the survivability of an actual pvp tank and to think that our shield could work almost as good as "bubble".

[Coramac]

I disagree with this comment. I AM NOT CALLING YOU A LIAR! I am respectfully disagreeing. I play both full assault and Iron fist (ADHD... I get bored.. what can i say). When i use the same set of gear (full BM combat tech) in both specs, I definately notice that i survive much longer in ion cell vs plasma cell. In fact despite the decrease in damage burst output, i still tend to do similar, though slightly less dps in iron fist spec, because i live longer, and have less deaths. Of course this is all anecdotal, as no logs as of yet. That said I do believe there is utility in using the shield specc, if thats how you want to play.

 

You are missing the point here, otherwise you wouldn't have brought up IF. Taugrim is very well aware of the limitations of Defense and Shields in PvP. His spec deliberately avoids them to the extent possible. It focuses on mitigation and utility. Mitigation works in PvP effectively. Defense / Shields do not.

 

We'll probably see a fair number of legitimate people running a full Shield build after 1.2, but no one competent will be running it in tank gear.

[me_unknown]

You have pretty much the same survivability as a DPS as you do a shield spec. The difference is the amount of DPS you sacrifice as a tank/shield spec. So why give up DPS for the same amount of survivability?

 

i disagree. though, i agree on omitting "shield". shielding does not help anything in pvp. but various talents in the tank tree + ion cell greatly improve your survivability over a pure dd specc without ion cell. and if done right you do not lose so much damage to not being worth in a 8vs8 warzone.

 

playing the pure dd specs i found myself performing fine and having much fun as long as i was only into 1on1 or 2on2. as soon as it got a bit more crowded (which for me happens 90% of the time) i die in 2s (3 or 4s if i have a personal healer), while as hybrid i often survive the whole battle.

 

but maybe its me that i am getting mostly focused.

 

edit: of course i am not suing tank equip with defense and such crap!

Edited March 29, 2012 by me_unknown

[Kazeshinix]

I have been gearing for shield/absorb and in PvP but I am also a biochemist which I saves my hide quite often. I'm geared in full BM/Columi/Rakata Gear with 53% DR 52% SC 43% SA 14% DC. I've got the PvE super commando 4set bonus. My dps in warzones is usually between 200-350k. I do have issues killing geared healers (Sorcerers and Operatives only), even with all the interupts we get. I don't really understand how a tank spec wouldn't help you survive in PvP but maybe its the biochem thats been saving me all along and not my defensive stats.

 

My spec http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801G0GrdorogzZMsbZb.1

 

My DC is definitely lower than I'd like, i've been swapping in and out some BM gear with DC (gets up to 20ish%) and dropping some SA to test which I like better but i'm still undecided.

 

Also noticed our War Hero Supercommando set has all shield and absorb it can't be completely useless can it? Any advice for me?

Edited April 3, 2012 by Kazeshinix

[Coramac]

I have been gearing for shield/absorb and in PvP but I am also a biochemist which I saves my hide quite often. I'm geared in full BM/Columi/Rakata Gear with 53% DR 52% SC 43% SA 14% DC. I've got the PvE super commando 4set bonus. My dps in warzones is usually between 200-350k. I do have issues killing geared healers (Sorcerers and Operatives only), even with all the interupts we get. I don't really understand how a tank spec wouldn't help you survive in PvP but maybe its the biochem thats been saving me all along and not my defensive stats.

 

My spec http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801G0GrdorogzZMsbZb.1

 

My DR is definitely lower than I'd like, i've been swapping in and out some BM gear with DR (gets up to 20ish%) and dropping some SA to test which I like better but i'm still undecided.

 

Also noticed our War Hero Supercommando set has all shield and absorb it can't be completely useless can it? Any advice for me?

 

Completely useless? No. Practically useless? Yes.

 

There are just way too many abilities that ignore Defense / Shielding for them us to weight them with any kind of significance. What's really saving you in PvP is that DR. That matters because while the attacks that fail to bypass Defense / Shielding are extremely common in PvP there are FAR fewer that ignore Armor Mitigation and nothing ignores straight damage reduction.

[Boul]

Hoping to not sidetrack thread here, so a personal message is fine.

 

1. Do all of the above critiques of defensive specced & geared Vanguards still apply the same in 1.2 onwards?

 

2. Is there a widely regarded "best" spec for being as tanky as possible in pvp, and using the rest into various utilities?

 

3. What is the best tank/meat shield class & spec in Pvp in the game?

 

Thanks

[wiggs]

Also curious as to the usefulness of the right side of the vanguard tree post 1.2