Shieldtech

[barnjourno]

So this is the build I'm using(or at least working toward) is this good for ops and pvp or just a pfennig build

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301G0GrdorogzZMcbZ0c.1

[Agooz]

So this is the build I'm using(or at least working toward) is this good for ops and pvp or just a pfennig build

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301G0GrdorogzZMcbZ0c.1

 

- Integrated Cardio Package is a complete waste of 3 points. At 20k health, you're looking at 600hp. A boss in Ops will hit you for 2-4k easily.

 

Other than that, it is a decent PvE spec, but not really for PvP. For PvP you want to take less defensive talents (which dont really make much of a difference in pvp), and replace with Neural Overload, No Escape, Jet speed. It is not crucial to go 31points for PvP, but it is just a matter of playstyle. PvP tanks are designed for group play. If you are going to pvp solo most of the time, I suggest a dps spec.

[barnjourno]

Okay thanks for the info!

[Prolyfic]

^^ Spot on, this is almost the build I use, except with the changes suggested by Agooz

 

Even with the pvp changes, this build is excellent @ HM tanking w/ the gear. That's the BEST thing about this spec, it works wonderfully for both PVE tanking AND PVP tanking without respeccing

 

The movement speed/immob talents from the shieldtech tree are invaluable in pvp. Your role in pvp is like a big mobile tarpit, controlling the center of the current battlefield then moving on when its dominated to the center of the next one.

 

With 5 different player-affecting stuns, immobs, and interrupts, Shieldtech can run severe interference in addition to its AOE accuracy debuff, damage contribution, and standard tank guard/taunt/aoe taunt. Working in synergy with all this CC is the mobility options to charge toward an enemy + yank an enemy toward you (building massive player agro), along with slows on your target and movement speed buffs on you - It has the most flexible mobility of all tanks and some of the greatest enemy player control of all classes.

 

forgoing the movement speed buffs and immobilize is to neglect a key component in the Shieldtech's pvp synergy and devalues the rest of what we offer when not fully leveraged.

Edited April 9, 2012 by Prolyfic

[Sookster]

Shieldtech is my favorite to pvp with (seems to fit my playstyle the most) as 31/8/2, it's fast paced and with dps gear you can rip people apart. I get mixed results using a shield and using a generator, it mostly depends on what classes you're facing, if it's a bunch of LS wielders shield will work and you can get vent procs and rocket punch procs, but if it's operative/scounderal or commandos, you may just as well use a generator for more damage output.

 

I will grapple people off ball carriers, tanks away from guarded targets, or away from the Voidstar doors, AOE taunt, jet charge spammers and interrupt them repeatedly. I do enough to piss people off that they want to chase me around the warzone map and kill me everytime they see me over and over and I know I've accomplished something.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Sookster

[Prolyfic]

I can't suggest suggest a generator with this build. It's not so much about how high your dmg is, but about how slowly it takes ppl to kill you. You will get the kills if you do the tanking and survive. when properly played this build at 50 will almost always end up in the top end of kills. It may not get the most dbs but it helps the team get them much more than another dps would.

 

but ya drawing player agro is very important too

Edited April 10, 2012 by Prolyfic

[Soubal]

- Integrated Cardio Package is a complete waste of 3 points. At 20k health, you're looking at 600hp. A boss in Ops will hit you for 2-4k easily.

 

I'm still new to PT, so I'm not raising this to suggest that line of thought is wrong, but as a curiosity...

 

* ICP gives 3% extra health for 3 points, and you say it's 'a complete waste'.

* That build also has 2 points in power armor, which reduces all damage taken by 2%

* Same goes for Ion Screen - 2 points for 2% damage reduction..

 

Each of those talents effectively does the same thing per point, surely? So.. why is one a 'complete waste', while the others don't warrant a comment?

 

Less damage incoming means less damage to heal, so I can see that overall mitigation has that benefit over raw hitpoints, but otherwise there's really very little difference, surely? Is that difference alone worth writing a larger hitpoint pool off entirely?

[Karandor]

I'm still new to PT, so I'm not raising this to suggest that line of thought is wrong, but as a curiosity...

 

* ICP gives 3% extra health for 3 points, and you say it's 'a complete waste'.

* That build also has 2 points in power armor, which reduces all damage taken by 2%

* Same goes for Ion Screen - 2 points for 2% damage reduction..

 

Each of those talents effectively does the same thing per point, surely? So.. why is one a 'complete waste', while the others don't warrant a comment?

 

Less damage incoming means less damage to heal, so I can see that overall mitigation has that benefit over raw hitpoints, but otherwise there's really very little difference, surely? Is that difference alone worth writing a larger hitpoint pool off entirely?

 

The 2% damage reduction is actually more than 2% because you already have 45-48% from armor. It will actually reduce incoming damage by almost twice that amount since you're taking 50% of the full damage instead of 52% a decrease of 2/52X100= 3.8%.

 

Seeing that the 2% DR is more than 3% HP AND it is more useful when being healed and it only costs 2 points instead of 3 you can see why it is better.

[Zaracen]

I've respecced to have the three parts in ICG and my health pool barely changed. If 3% of your health is the game changer for you then you may need to rework your strategy a bit.

[Agooz]

I'm still new to PT, so I'm not raising this to suggest that line of thought is wrong, but as a curiosity...

 

* ICP gives 3% extra health for 3 points, and you say it's 'a complete waste'.

* That build also has 2 points in power armor, which reduces all damage taken by 2%

* Same goes for Ion Screen - 2 points for 2% damage reduction..

 

Each of those talents effectively does the same thing per point, surely? So.. why is one a 'complete waste', while the others don't warrant a comment?

 

Less damage incoming means less damage to heal, so I can see that overall mitigation has that benefit over raw hitpoints, but otherwise there's really very little difference, surely? Is that difference alone worth writing a larger hitpoint pool off entirely?

 

You're a tank, meaning you need to focus on avoiding and/or "mitigating" damage. If you are comparing % of mitigation to % of hp boost, then you have alot to understand about tanking stats. I am not being condescending, you really need to look up guides on PT tanking or swtor tanking in general to understand stats, and how they affect your performance.

 

Think about it for a second and lets talk extremes for the sake of making the point clear. HP boost is a finite pool, its benefit ends when that pool ends. Unlike HP, mitigation is a benefit that is constantly working for you. Lets assume that instead of the 3% Health, it is a talent that gives you 10% health. So on your 20k tank, you get an additional 2k. You jump a boss with your 22k and get hit once for 2k. That health boost benefit has ended right there (more or less).

Now lets assume that instead of the 10% health, you chose a talent that mitigates damage for 10%. You're now back with your original 20k health and jump a boss and you get hit once for 1.8k (because 10% of the damage, or 200hp, was mitigated). Now assume you fight this boss for 5 minutes straight, getting hit every 2-3 sec for 1.8k. By the end of the fight, that 10% mitigation has benefited you 20k-30k worth of health. That's more than 10x better than 10% health talent.

 

So yes 1% damage mitigation is by far alot better than 1% bonus to your health. As a tank you just need to get a decent size health pool to give your healer the chance to keep you alive.

Edited April 11, 2012 by Agooz

[Soubal]

The 2% damage reduction is actually more than 2% because you already have 45-48% from armor. It will actually reduce incoming damage by almost twice that amount since you're taking 50% of the full damage instead of 52% a decrease of 2/52X100= 3.8%.

 

So.. does that DR just get added to a global 'slush fund' of DR? what you're saying is that that 45-48% gets raised to 47-50%?

 

So a 2000 point hit would be dropped to (assuming 45% armor base) 1100 without, 1060 with.

 

If you have 20k HP, that's 5.5% of your HP without, 5.3% with.

with a 2% bonus to HP, you're at 20.4k - so those numbers become 5.39% without, 5.2% with..

 

So it's not _as_ effective, granted.. but that 5.3% - 5.2% of each hit is still (0.1/52*100) 1.9% difference.

 

 

So unless my math is way off - it's less effective overall, yup... around half as big a return. Not as big a return for sure, but it still seems useful. If you're struggling to hold agro, then OK, I can understand that's probably one you could sacrifice for more DPS somewhere, but otherwise - where would those points be better spent for a tank?

 

 

 

 

I guess.. yes, I fully appreciate that a bigger HP pool is less valuable than taking less damage. But ok, save those 3 points from ICP. Where do they get spent instead?

 

Pretty much all of the guides around list endurance as 'first and foremost' when it comes to tanking. Endurance = HP pool. If mitigation is SO much more important (and I'm not trying to suggest it is or isn't), then why are those other attributes given second-class status?

Edited April 11, 2012 by Soubal

[OlosBC]

If you had 50% damage reduction before the talent, you get 52% damage reduction after. It doesn't suffer from diminishing returns.

 

So, assuming a 1000 pt hit, that brings it from 500 to 480, which is actually a 4% delta in the amount of damage taken.

 

In full rakata gear as a PT, you end up with just a tad more than that on damage reduction(with the talent), so the simplified numbers are pretty close to the reality.

 

 

 

If you really really want, you can drop the rocket punch talent and the cylinders talent for the increased health, but the rocket punch increase especially is actually very good.

[Agooz]

I guess.. yes, I fully appreciate that a bigger HP pool is less valuable than taking less damage. But ok, save those 3 points from ICP. Where do they get spent instead?

 

 

Well it depends. If you are using this spec purely for PvE, then definitely 8% more on RP and 3% on FB is better than the 3% to health.

 

If you want to use it for PvP as well, then you have alot more options.

[Morticoccus]

The point is that hp+ only scales with the max hp you have, and generally stands alone. Damage mitigation stacks with any other source of damage mitigation you currently have on you, and affects the incoming damage.

 

Say that you have 20k health for simplicity's sake, and a 50% boost to health for a total of 30k.

 

You also have a dedicated healer since you are a tank, and he's working to keep you alive.

 

Now this boss hits you in the face with a series of attacks for 20k damage, with the health boost you are down to 10k health, and the healer will have to heal you back up to 30k to top you off which costs him resources.

 

If we review that exchange with 50% damage reduction instead, every attack the boss his you with will be cut in half.

 

Again, for simplicity's sake let's say he hits you with one single attack for 20k.

 

Without your health boost you only have 20k, sounds bad, right? However the damage reduction will take the damage down to only 10k, ending you in the same position as above, *but* allowing the healer to only use half as much resources to heal you back up, allowing him to keep you alive for longer.

 

And this is not even an accurate measurement, as normally that 50% reduction will cut ALL incoming damage in half, which means that enemies/bosses doing a series of attacks will lose even more DPS against you.

[Fredcat]

Shieldtech actually kicks azz in PVP. You vent heat like crazy and will pretty much never overheat allowing you to spam more attacks. You also have a ton of interrupts.

 

My advice to you is just try it out and decide for yourself if it fits your play style. Respecs are cheap as long as you don't do it constantly.

[Sookster]

For pvp with dps gear (and generator or shield if it has good stats and augment slot):

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301GRGM0RbRgzZMsMZb.1

 

for pve with tank gear:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301GoGrborogzZMsbZb.1

 

Pretty much what I'll use when and if dual spec comes.

Edited April 11, 2012 by Sookster

[OlosBC]

For pvp with dps gear (and generator or shield if it has good stats and augment slot):

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301GRGM0RbRgzZMsMZb.1

 

for pve with tank gear:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301GoGrborogzZMsbZb.1

 

Pretty much what I'll use when and if dual spec comes.

 

 

Pretty solid, though I do like having oil slick over the snare in pve.