Dear Mr. Zoeller

[DarkDruidSS]

I'm not sure that anything really changed with 1.2 in how tanks work in pvp. I might have missed something... but as a TANK in pvp your role isn't to kill. It's to survive, taunt and peel people off nodes and healers. Pre-1.2 playing a defensive tank I did just that. Sure there are abilities that can bypass shields, but having a shield can give you that little bit of defense you need so that a healer has time to keep you up. Granted if you are being focused your going to die, but that is really how it should be in my opinion.

 

The problem that was created is that people started saying "Hey, you can be a tank and wear DPS gear and do just as good or better" and everyone believed them. Their DPS was slightly higher than a Defensive tank, but their survivability was also slightly lower for not having a shield or defensive stats. I mean people rolled tank with DPS gear for the added armor... well if you are worried about armor then you are obviously worried about the abilities that don't bypass armor.. so why wouldn't you have a shield? You don't get a HP boost from tank stance... it's an armor boost. You can use taunts in both stances.

 

So many people focus on killing here when that isn't all there is to PvP. Anyway, that's how I feel on it. From my experience tanks have always worked as intended in PvP.

Edited April 30, 2012 by DarkDruidSS

[Janyx-Nehalem]

As a Shadow, I have to say that there is NO incentive for me to use a shield and stack shield stats. I'll take gear if it has defense, but I never use a shield or shield stats.

 

The reason is this: If I stack high Willpower/Surge/Power/Expertise and combine it with the PvP 4 piece bonus for Shadows (+5% damage while Guard is active), I can absolutely MELT people. Project scaling with that much +% damage gets insane.

 

I'm not saying shields can't be used to good effect, but right now, as a Shadow, there is nothing compelling about switching out to defensive stats over offensive ones. Also, wearing a shield and stacking rating/absorption makes you easy pickings for Sorcs/Sages. One sorc will focus you in a group, bypass all your defensive stats, and kill you in 5-10 seconds. Better to go offensive and kill them first.

[Azrienov]

As a Shadow, I have to say that there is NO incentive for me to use a shield and stack shield stats. I'll take gear if it has defense, but I never use a shield or shield stats.

 

The reason is this: If I stack high Willpower/Surge/Power/Expertise and combine it with the PvP 4 piece bonus for Shadows (+5% damage while Guard is active), I can absolutely MELT people. Project scaling with that much +% damage gets insane.

 

I'm not saying shields can't be used to good effect, but right now, as a Shadow, there is nothing compelling about switching out to defensive stats over offensive ones. Also, wearing a shield and stacking rating/absorption makes you easy pickings for Sorcs/Sages. One sorc will focus you in a group, bypass all your defensive stats, and kill you in 5-10 seconds. Better to go offensive and kill them first.

 

That pretty much sums up the state of SWTOR's shields in pvp. PvE, great tool. PvP? A poor cousin to more powerful tools..

[Azrienov]

How many people actually use a shield on their tank(and what class is it)? Be honest and fess up.

 

I do, but only because the entire spec of Vanguard is based around shielding procs.

Edited May 1, 2012 by Azrienov

[Dmasterr]

How many people actually use a shield on their tank? Be honest and fess up.

 

I do, but only because the entire spec of Vanguard is based around shielding procs.

 

I do, it completely nullifies marauder and sniper crit chance over time, and then some. I have 50% shield and 50% absorb.

 

As a tank if you want to melt vs any dps for mediocre damage increase, you are welcomed to do so, i am sure the pugs of undergeared ppl will feel your wrath.

[Semitote]

I do, it completely nullifies marauder and sniper crit chance over time, and then some. I have 50% shield and 50% absorb.

 

As a tank if you want to melt vs any dps for mediocre damage increase, you are welcomed to do so, i am sure the pugs of undergeared ppl will feel your wrath.

 

Yeah I've found myself exceptionally survivable in full PvE gear w/ PvP weapon. I was expecting to be absolutely drilled running around with just 150 expertise, but it seems only Internal/Elemental classes are really drilling me.

[Varicite]

How many people actually use a shield on their tank? Be honest and fess up.

 

I do, but only because the entire spec of Vanguard is based around shielding procs.

 

Subscribing.

 

Also, I use a shield in PvP. 35% chance to shield attacks from the 23079-23-07 Marauders running around lately is good atm. I don't stack shield/absorb at all though.

 

I try to stack Defense as much as possible, while everything else is focused on DPS stats.

 

Works well for me. : )

[ssbi]

It's called rock paper scissors, and tanks shouldn't be an exception to that.

 

As for the trolling comment, the same was said when i made comments about how good operative dps is and how i "3"shot ppl in wz.; Two days later a vid is posted on the forums of a scoundrel "3" shotting ppl, so that shut them up.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=437193&highlight=lion

 

In your case don't hold your breath,while i am not the author of the video, i am not going to make a video to teach ppl how to play. But hey, maybe u get lucky like those guys, and someone posts a vid.

 

Ineed operative dps is so good ... especially with premade against randoms in recruit gear.

[Azrienov]

I do, it completely nullifies marauder and sniper crit chance over time, and then some. I have 50% shield and 50% absorb.

 

As a tank if you want to melt vs any dps for mediocre damage increase, you are welcomed to do so, i am sure the pugs of undergeared ppl will feel your wrath.

 

I face lethality snipers more than anything else, which bypass my shield. Marauder/Sentinels that attack me are just plain doing it wrong, even if I'm guarding a healer. They should work in tandem with elemental/tech damage hitting me while they keep the healer busy by interrupting and inflicting damage on the lower armor. While my taunt might stifle their flow of damage over 6 seconds, they still keep me from getting the heals I need to handle the guard damage and the tech damage coming in. That's how you kill a tank/healer combo.

[Larzi]

I am a tank speced vanguard lvl 50.

 

I use a shield offhand, and full tank BM gear with some war hero.

 

Expertise 1189

Shield Chance 52.somethingsomething%

HPs 22.5k

HPs after rakata medpac cooldown 24.8khps

 

I am a good ball runner and can play great defense on objectives, granted my highest hit is like 2633 dmg. I top lists quite frequently for medals earned.

 

I do not ee an issue with TTK or classes being OP, will relics and colldowns and such i can burst down most classes 1 v. 1

 

I think the defense is great in PvP.

[Azrienov]

I am a tank speced vanguard lvl 50.

 

I use a shield offhand, and full tank BM gear with some war hero.

 

Expertise 1189

Shield Chance 52.somethingsomething%

HPs 22.5k

HPs after rakata medpac cooldown 24.8khps

 

I am a good ball runner and can play great defense on objectives, granted my highest hit is like 2633 dmg. I top lists quite frequently for medals earned.

 

I do not ee an issue with TTK or classes being OP, will relics and colldowns and such i can burst down most classes 1 v. 1

 

I think the defense is great in PvP.

 

Not concerned with the damage output, but the rather poor implementation of the shield system.

 

When I played WAR, shields were hands down a must have. In a forward arc, they would block all damage when they successfully shielded any attack that was single target, non-DoT. You might cry "Well that's OP" but in reality, it forced players who wanted to kill tanks to play more intelligently. A tank's block didn't extend to his back, and that meant the ability to move around a tank to inflict the damage.

 

I'm not calling for anything like THAT. But I am pointing out that the system I mention creates an emphasis on player awareness. The current system favors off hand DPS items over shields unless you're specifically looking to get your hands on certain procurement effects from shielding.

[Azrienov]

It's called rock paper scissors, and tanks shouldn't be an exception to that.

 

As for the trolling comment, the same was said when i made comments about how good operative dps is and how i "3"shot ppl in wz.; Two days later a vid is posted on the forums of a scoundrel "3" shotting ppl, so that shut them up.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=437193&highlight=lion

 

In your case don't hold your breath,while i am not the author of the video, i am not going to make a video to teach ppl how to play. But hey, maybe u get lucky like those guys, and someone posts a vid.

 

I doubt any video you made would be worth anything anyway, so don't bother. Furthermore, I have a hard time believing you are a good PvP player with some of your opinions posted. You demonstrate a little ignorance of some of the basic concepts behind the way the game works. You might try logic over scorn, as generally people like you are the ones who think they're good because they play with good players.

[Zorion]

There seems to be one vital point the op miss about shields.

 

They are indeed very vital for a tank if he does his job/role.

 

When you put guard on someone, that dmg will always hit your shield.

Thus if your shieldabsorb is high that is good cause then you take less dmg of the dmg your taken for the guarded person.

 

From a pure 1vs1 situation you are however correct, most attacks mitigate or bypass shield altogheter.

Same with defense.

So what do you have as a tank then to make you woth something on the field you say?

Armor? -> nope most classes spec for something that will bypass that aswell(or most force/tech etc bypass it..)

So only thing you got going for you is endurance.

 

Endurande? -> well it woudlnt be too bad if it wasnt for the fact that there is virtually no difference on hp from a tank to random classes..

 

Have BW dropped the ball for tanks in pvp? yes very much so.

 

So unless you want to be a true teamplayer and guard someone those tank stats is useless for you.

 

Naturally I'm "painting alot darker picture than it is" to illustrate a point.

 

Defense should be buffed up more in general and it should either work as a resist or avoidance to all kinds of dmg.

Sadly if that was the case I'm thinking the tanks would be very op.

 

Key is teamplay, be a teamplayer bubble your healer and taunt.

Win more that way anyway, may not be as much fun, nor see as much big numbers, if that isnt your flavor, re-roll.

[Cempa]

who interrupts powershot

 

but yeah tanks are pretty useless in pvp atm im usaly just taunting my butt off as pyro and get nice defence points going and helps the healers

 

I do just add insult to injury as a Sorcerer, interrupt Powershot and watch as the BH gets excited and starts Tracer spam only to get slapped with a stun followed by a Whirlwind and another 2sec stun followed by a 6 sec lock out to Tracer while DoTs kill him and I pillar hump lol

[cerberias]

I do, it completely nullifies marauder and sniper crit chance over time, and then some. I have 50% shield and 50% absorb.

 

Psst, shield chance doesn't negate crit, it negates hits. If a crit is rolled it cannot be shielded/deflected.

 

Defence gear counters one spec of Sniper/GS (many high level don't even play that spec) and one spec of Maras/Sents which is also a rare spec to see. DPS gear increases your damage by a fair ********, in tank gear I hit for about 1k on attacks which regularly hit for 1.6k+ in dps gear, all for a small amount of mitigation loss against certain specs. On my guardian I have 51.5% base mitigation, including 20% elem/internal, I still play defensive but I actually give the people that I'm peeling some pressure damage to make them play defensive earlier and therefore play my role as a tank better. I can also burst for a good 5-6k in 3 GCD's on average - higher if I get lucky with crits.

 

Sure, you can play as a full tank, but you're just going to be one giant sponge, I can do that while actually pressuring people. I make people fear me with my damage, which isnt as high as a dps but certainly not low. This gives them the option of pursueing their target and dieing from me, playing defensive which negates them from the fight, or attacking me which is easily healed up due to high damage migitation/cooldowns/enough mobility to get away from them. Essentially - you can take a small amount more damage than me at the expense of presence in a fight.

 

A shield even at 50% chance 50% absorb still only gives 25% mitigation against white attacks. You're going to be using a hell of a lot of stats to get up to that level and almost every class has kinetic attacks which ignore your shield. Getting full tank stats of say 40% chance 40% absorb 25% defence, would give around 41% white damage mitigation, which I'd estimate against a good team is probably 30-40% of total damage maximum. So you're looking at an extra 20% damage mitigation compared to 60+% extra damage. I'll take the pressure. This isn't even looking at guard damage, which is converted to the tank as internal damage and therefore unmitigated..

Edited May 2, 2012 by cerberias

[Spartanik]

I'm not sure that anything really changed with 1.2 in how tanks work in pvp. I might have missed something... but as a TANK in pvp your role isn't to kill. It's to survive, taunt and peel people off nodes and healers. Pre-1.2 playing a defensive tank I did just that. Sure there are abilities that can bypass shields, but having a shield can give you that little bit of defense you need so that a healer has time to keep you up. Granted if you are being focused your going to die, but that is really how it should be in my opinion.

 

The problem that was created is that people started saying "Hey, you can be a tank and wear DPS gear and do just as good or better" and everyone believed them. Their DPS was slightly higher than a Defensive tank, but their survivability was also slightly lower for not having a shield or defensive stats. I mean people rolled tank with DPS gear for the added armor... well if you are worried about armor then you are obviously worried about the abilities that don't bypass armor.. so why wouldn't you have a shield? You don't get a HP boost from tank stance... it's an armor boost. You can use taunts in both stances.

 

So many people focus on killing here when that isn't all there is to PvP. Anyway, that's how I feel on it. From my experience tanks have always worked as intended in PvP.

I agree with this i have a tank assassin, and i do great, as i always did sufice to say with my assassin. And i use Tanking gear, full battlemaster. And from my experience i survive way longer then a dps. ( have a sentinel too in battlemaster gear). I think people just expect to kill faster in pvp, but that is why classes exist to have roles, I pop guard on a nearby player and use my taunts on enemy players and i know im playing my role for the most part off course. Warzones is more then mindless killing, its about objectives and helping you team as a whole.

Besides tanks win medals easy, only just by guarding a nearby player in a fight, for instance.

Edited May 2, 2012 by Spartanik

[Dmasterr]

Psst, shield chance doesn't negate crit, it negates hits. If a crit is rolled it cannot be shielded/deflected.

.

Of course it doesn't counter it directly, BUT :

 

If 40% of his attacks hit you for 200% damage and 50% of his attacks hit you for 50% damage and the added endurance, over time it basically cancels his crit chance.

 

Oh, and +defense stat is not worth it, since everybody is pigeonholed into choosing accuracy on their gear.

 

Also don't forget that tank cooldowns scale better with tank gear.

Edited May 2, 2012 by Dmasterr

[BambulaGTS]

Same old bull again?

 

Shielding and defense counters snipers in all specs (and yes, main attack from shared tree "Cull" is "ranged" and can be dodged and shielded) and 2 specs of marauders (excluding shared tree rage spec).

 

Shielding and defense are the only way to reduce of avoid completely pyrotech powertech railshot, which ignores 90 % armor, or carnage specced marauder attacks (see: ravage) under gore's 100 % armor penetration.

 

Shielding and defense counters a lot of powerfull attacks from various classes not mentioned above including: merc's unload (with proc from tracers) and merc's railshot (with buff from tracers), impale from dps juggs, ravage ability from all warrior classes etc etc.

 

And you, just read your crappy guides from players who no actually play anymore and give up tank stats on tank characters. You certainly will live much longer in DPS gear, LMAO.

[NoTomorrow]

yeah, and the Nr.1 Idiocy in this game is making Grav round a Tech Attack.

It looks like shields and defense were stats to counter heavily marksmanship snipers.

Edited May 2, 2012 by NoTomorrow

[damolawler]

My main was a defense guardian with war-leader gear, But I bacame rather fed up with hitting like a girl and yet I still seemed to be a squishy as any other class. As I upgraded my gear from Cent to Champ, I switched to the vindicator gear and was a bit happier with the incresed dps. I didn't seem any less squishy than before.

 

In the end I just re-specced to vigilance. Still squishy, but at least I can hit back... very hard.

Edited May 2, 2012 by damolawler

[ssbi]

Same old bull again?

 

Shielding and defense counters snipers in all specs (and yes, main attack from shared tree "Cull" is "ranged" and can be dodged and shielded) and 2 specs of marauders (excluding shared tree rage spec).

 

Shielding and defense are the only way to reduce of avoid completely pyrotech powertech railshot, which ignores 90 % armor, or carnage specced marauder attacks (see: ravage) under gore's 100 % armor penetration.

 

Shielding and defense counters a lot of powerfull attacks from various classes not mentioned above including: merc's unload (with proc from tracers) and merc's railshot (with buff from tracers), impale from dps juggs, ravage ability from all warrior classes etc etc.

 

And you, just read your crappy guides from players who no actually play anymore and give up tank stats on tank characters. You certainly will live much longer in DPS gear, LMAO.

 

Indeed, it's always a comparation between a recruit geared newbs and premade, the only map where tank ll get focused it's a huttball when he has a ball, but again decent premade vs decent premade won't even bother killing a ball carrier they gonna look for a passes to intercept and kill tanks with hazzards to get a ball back.

 

And indeed the tanks are primary target of any marauder sniper and powertech, ROFLMAO, when it comes to focus firing tanks are gonna be the last to get nuked, and when they are focused by decent bunch of players i doubt they gonna use white dmg to kill them right ?

[Dmasterr]

Indeed, it's always a comparation between a recruit geared newbs and premade, the only map where tank ll get focused it's a huttball when he has a ball, but again decent premade vs decent premade won't even bother killing a ball carrier they gonna look for a passes to intercept and kill tanks with hazzards to get a ball back.

 

And indeed the tanks are primary target of any marauder sniper and powertech, ROFLMAO, when it comes to focus firing tanks are gonna be the last to get nuked, and when they are focused by decent bunch of players i doubt they gonna use white dmg to kill them right ?

 

Good luck killing triple healer teams through guard and taunts. Let me know how that 20% dmg on healers through cross healing works out for you?

Edited May 2, 2012 by Dmasterr

[cerberias]

Good luck killing triple healer teams trough guard and taunts. Let me know how that 20% dmg on healers through cross healing works out for you?

 

Because you totally need tank gear to fill a tank role. I do your job except I actually do damage.

 

Same old bull again?

 

Shielding and defense counters snipers in all specs (and yes, main attack from shared tree "Cull" is "ranged" and can be dodged and shielded) and 2 specs of marauders (excluding shared tree rage spec).

 

Shielding and defense are the only way to reduce of avoid completely pyrotech powertech railshot, which ignores 90 % armor, or carnage specced marauder attacks (see: ravage) under gore's 100 % armor penetration.

 

Shielding and defense counters a lot of powerfull attacks from various classes not mentioned above including: merc's unload (with proc from tracers) and merc's railshot (with buff from tracers), impale from dps juggs, ravage ability from all warrior classes etc etc.

 

And you, just read your crappy guides from players who no actually play anymore and give up tank stats on tank characters. You certainly will live much longer in DPS gear, LMAO.

 

If cull gets defended, sure, thats great, if it gets shielded only the white damage portion gets mitigated, the internal damage does not. Its the same with Mara's/Sents and their dots, sure you might negate some of the white damage but the DoT is still going to be ticking on you for the full amount.

 

Either way, tanks rarely get focus fired, and guard damage can't be avoided by shields/defence. You're there to mitigate damage to other people and I, in my DPS gear, can do that exactly the same as you can in full tank gear - only difference is that I'm beating the **** out of the guy hitting my guarded target compared to you doing like half the damage.

[ssbi]

Good luck killing triple healer teams trough guard and taunts. Let me know how that 20% dmg on healers through cross healing works out for you?

 

Informative post, good luck killing triple healer teams troguh guard and taunts on what map, in which condition 1v4,2v4,3v4,8v4 ? Who the other guys in the team apart of that 3 heal 1 tank comp ? Whom they are facing ?

 

And yeah again i know that there is no such thing as vent, i know that there is no such thing as CC and ofcource there is never gonna be such thing as swaping targets and burst preparations.

 

Strange that this comes from the guy who have won the blizz tournaments, and proud of it. I thought there were simmilar comps as let's say Disc Priest Resto Druid Warrior... or no... but w/e.

[Dmasterr]

Informative post, good luck killing triple healer teams troguh guard and taunts on what map, in which condition 1v4,2v4,3v4,8v4 ? Who the other guys in the team apart of that 3 heal 1 tank comp ? Whom they are facing ?

 

And yeah again i know that there is no such thing as vent, i know that there is no such thing as CC and ofcource there is never gonna be such thing as swaping targets and burst preparations.

 

Strange that this comes from the guy who have won the blizz tournaments, and proud of it. I thought there were simmilar comps as let's say Disc Priest Resto Druid Warrior... or no... but w/e.

Want details because you can't see it yourself? fine i will list the most effective WZ where it can be done.

 

Hutball get ball first and defend it all game in your pit.

Voidstar group between doors.

 

go with 3 healers 2 tanks and 3 dps who can offheal /offtank. You can't kill the healers or tanks (if they wear tank gear).

 

However if the tanks are dumb enough to wear dps gear u can focus fire them down in bursts.

 

I let u chose all classes on both sides as long as the roles i stated can be fufilled.