A practical guide to PvE tanking!

[thrakkemarn]

I think you get a lot more value out of something like Rail Loaders. http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/Vanguard#8i6e6dek2k-c92-c

 

Personally I think the best spec is this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301GzGrd0roGRZMcdZb.2

 

So talents up for debate:

Hot Iron vs Prototype Cylinders - You will do WAY more damage with Flame Burst than that piddling DoT. This is easy to see with a simple parse.

 

Supercharged Ion Gas vs 1/2 Rail Loaders - Personally, I HATE the AoE on Rail Shot. It has the potential to cause trouble while adding an insignificant amount of damage. Trenchcutters under shield, shield generator on Firebrand/Stormcaller, aggroing adds in placing like Lost Island (stupid probe droids). This is 100% personal preference and won't make a significant impact either way.

 

Flame Surge vs 2/2 Rail Loaders - As said above, there are many many many many ways to get those free Flame Surges in. If you use it right it's a major boost, but it takes some retraining. I am still trying to retrain myself to use it. I forget a LOT. When I do it's ridiculous though.

[pure_laced]

Z&T: really? I don't leap on this fight AT ALL. I save myself a couple punches to the face during the running.

 

Explosive Surge does very, very low damage to single targets, only barely more than Hammer Shot, and definitely less than Ion Pulse. I think you're really only getting a benefit if you're hitting multiple targets with it, which you definitely aren't for Vorgath and hovertanks, and you probably aren't for Zorn + Toth. I think you get a lot more value out of something like Rail Loaders. http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/Vanguard#8i6e6dek2k-c92-c

 

Again, Free damage is > than Cost damage. You should be leaping to Z and T after leaps. if you position yourself correctly, taunt, leap, flame surge x 2, resume regular priorities. Currently our damage output is irrelevant since they changed talents, nerfed others, etc. They boosted threat straight across the board so we can now focus on maximizing our defensive stats. If you are finding you need to up your dps a little to beat enrage timers, then your DPS are severely lacking and need to get a clue.

[CitizenFry]

Warning: wall of text. scroll down for tl;dr

 

Offensive talents:

Steely Resolve (0-3): +3/6/9% Aim

Static Surge (0-2): +6/12% Explosive Surge damage, 1/2 free explosive surges

Supercharged Ion cell (0-1): High Impact Bolt triggers Ion Cell w/ splash

Ion Overload (0-2): Stockstrike triggers Ion Cell; adds DoT to Ion Cell

Intimidation (0-3): +2/4/6% elemental damage

Brutal Impact (0-2): +3/6% High Impact Bolt damage

 

Blaster Augs (0-1): +8% Ion Cell damage

Frontline Offense (0-2): +3/6% Ion Pulse damage

 

Heavy Stock (0-2): +4/8% Stockstrike damage

 

Recent HM Kephess fight:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/a5605814-05a8-4e30-b486-21894afd1503/player/4#d=0,f=36,b=1

 

IIRC, this fight was fairly normal, except that apparently I only used Explosive Surge one time, for one hit. Not quite sure how that happened, I usually use it at least a bit on the Trenchgutters. The one hit was a crit for 995 (on a Trenchgutter).

 

I'm going to assume that 3 points of Steely Resolve is correct. I don't have a great way to work out if this is correct or not, but I would think it HAS to be.

 

Heavy Stock: I (unintentionally) only had one point in HS for this parse.

42816 / 1.04 = 41169 damage I would have done without that point -> each point buys me 1647 damage in this fight

 

Frontline Offense: zero points for this parse

46321 * 0.03 = 1389 damage per talent point

 

Blaster Augs: 1 point for this parse. I assume this also applies to the DoT.

"primary" Ion Cell damage: 18751

DoT damage: 5302

Total damage: 24053

24053 / 1.08 = 22271. -> this talent point is worth 1782 damage (given Ion Overload. Some amount less than 1388 without Ion Overload)

 

Brutal Impact: 2 points for this parse

27040 / 1.06 = 25509 -> 1531 damage for 2 points -> 765.5 damage per point

 

Intimidation: 3 points for this parse

Ion Pulse damage: 46321

Energy Blast damage: 26963

Pulse Cannon damage: 24255

Ion Cell damage: 18751

Grenade burn damage*: 5867

Ion DoT damage: 5302

Explosive Surge damage: 995

 

Total elemental damage: 128454

128454 / 1.06 = 121183 -> 7270 damage for 3 points -> 2423 damage per point (some of this is splash damage)

 

Ion overload/Supercharged Ion Cell: less straightforward to quantify this damage. Parse shows 105 hits of Ion Cell, 31 Stockstrike hits, 73 DoT ticks(?), and 20 HIB hits; let's assign 31/105 of the Ion Cell damage to Ion overload, plus 85/105* of the DoT damage, minus the bonus from Blaster Augs.

Ion Cell damage: 18751 * 31/105 = 5536

DoT damage: 5302 * 85/105 = 4292

Total: 9828 / 1.08 = 9100 damage for these 2 points -> 4550 damage per point of Ion Overload

 

Supercharged Ion Cell gets 20/105 of Ion Cell damage, plus 20/105 of ion DoT damage.

Ion Cell: 18751 * 20/105 = 3571

ion DoT: 5302 * 20/105 = 1009

total: 4580 / 1.08 = 4240 -> SCI is worth 4240 damage per point. (note that a lot of this is splash damage on trash, though)

 

Static Surge: I got one hit of Explosive Surge, a crit, for 995. Two points of Static Surge would dial that up to 1114. My average Explosive Surge across the whole raid was 802 (52% crits). Realistically, I would probably use this at least once per Trenchgutter pack (6 mobs x 3 packs) = 18 hits. 14436 damage * 1.12 = 16168 damage. (1732 bonus damage from talent)

 

There's also the two free shots per leap. These are effectively upgrades to Hammer Shots I would be weaving in anyway. I think three leaps per fight is a realistic number for a single-target boss encounter, though it would vary a lot from fight to fight.

Hammer Shot: 85 uses, 595 hits, 36872 damage. 10% chance per hit to trigger Ion Cell, so we'll say it did 59 of the 105 Ion Cells (and corresponding DoTs).

Average Hammer Shot damage per use: (36872 + 18751*59/105 + 5302*59/105) / 85 = 592

Average Explosive Surge: 802 * 1.12 = 898

 

Damage gained by converting six Hammer Shots to six single-target Explosive Surges: 1836

 

For a "typical" three-leap boss fight, each point in Static Surge is gaining me 918 damage. For the Kephess fight in particular, I'm gaining about double the value (because I use Explosive Surge in non-free situations and get a ton of hits), so the per-talent point damage gain is more like 1784.

 

Value per talent point of offensive talents:

Steely Resolve: dunno. I hope it's a lot?

Static Surge: 918 (1784 for Kephess fight)

Supercharged Ion Cell: 4240 (most of which is splash damage. Realistically, probably ~2000)

Ion Overload: 4550

Intimidation: 2423

Brutal Impact: 765.5

 

Blaster Augs: 1782 (or < 1388. But come on, you're going to have Ion Overload.)

Frontline Offense: 1389

 

Heavy Stock: 1647

 

tl;dr. Tiers of offensive talents

 

Ion Overload >>> Intimidation > Supercharged Ion Cell > Static Surge (Kephess fight) = Blaster Augs > Heavy Stock > Frontline Offense > Static Surge (single-target fight) > Brutal Impact

 

OK, I withdraw my earlier statements, re: Static Surge being bad. Even for single-target fights, if you can get three leaps in (and the associated free Explosive Surges), Static Surge is better than Brutal Impact. Consider my hat eaten in that regard. I'm still right that Blaster Augs and Heavy Stock are both better than Frontline Offense, though.

Edited August 3, 2012 by CitizenFry

[CitizenFry]

Also, the above analysis is making me reassess my opinion on the value of Soldier's Endurance. Over the longest, hardest fight in the game, I'm getting a measly 5k damage out of Heavy Stock and Blaster Augs? That's, what, one second of uptime for my four DPSes in an 8-man raid? Half a second for the DPSes of a 16-man raid? That extra 600 hp is looking better... Edited August 3, 2012 by CitizenFry

[pure_laced]

Also, the above analysis is making me reassess my opinion on the value of Soldier's Endurance. Over the longest, hardest fight in the game, I'm getting a measly 5k damage out of Heavy Stock and Blaster Augs? That's, what, one second of uptime for my four DPSes in an 8-man raid? Half a second for the DPSes of a 16-man raid? That extra 600 hp is looking better...

 

Now since you finally agreed with me in pretty much all aspects, the only thing left for you to do is now come to the dark side. Reroll over here and then it will be just fine.....

 

8)

[CitizenFry]

Now since you finally agreed with me in pretty much all aspects, the only thing left for you to do is now come to the dark side. Reroll over here and then it will be just fine.....

 

8)

 

I still disagree with you about leaping to Zorn & Toth (I think receiving less damage is more important than dealing a little extra damage) but that's a discussion for a different thread (i.e. not a general tanking thread).

[Yogol]

Value per talent point of offensive talents:

Steely Resolve: dunno. I hope it's a lot?

Static Surge: 918 (1784 for Kephess fight)

Supercharged Ion Cell: 4240 (most of which is splash damage. Realistically, probably ~2000)

Ion Overload: 4550

Intimidation: 2423

Brutal Impact: 765.5

Blaster Augs: 1782 (or < 1388. But come on, you're going to have Ion Overload.)

Frontline Offense: 1389

Heavy Stock: 1647

 

Thanks for posting this. My conclusion: there is no offensive skill point that are worth anything. The best is Ion Overload for 4,550, but even that is trivial compared to the damage needed.

Edited August 5, 2012 by Yogol

[Yogol]

Recent HM Kephess fight:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/combatlog/a5605814-05a8-4e30-b486-21894afd1503/player/4#d=0,f=36,b=1

 

Did you notice the threat of Hammer Shot ?!?

 

It only did 36k damage but a whooping 408k threat... that's very odd, any reason why ?!?

[CitizenFry]

Did you notice the threat of Hammer Shot ?!?

 

It only did 36k damage but a whooping 408k threat... that's very odd, any reason why ?!?

 

Good question...I think that's a glitch in how threat from mechanics gets attributed. You'll notice that there's 339k Hammer Shot threat on Kephess specifically, the rest of the targets have more normal amounts of threat. I think this is due to the target-switching Kephess likes to do during/after his red-circle leaps.

[Yogol]

Good question...I think that's a glitch in how threat from mechanics gets attributed. You'll notice that there's 339k Hammer Shot threat on Kephess specifically, the rest of the targets have more normal amounts of threat. I think this is due to the target-switching Kephess likes to do during/after his red-circle leaps.

 

Possibly.

 

I checked my combat logs and in my battles (so, not against Kephess) threat of Hammer Shot is twice the damage, as it should be. So, unfortunatly, Hammer Shot doesn't give 40 times aggro

[oakamp]

why u keep post non-PT ability in PT forum, go back to ur side.

[thrakkemarn]

Yeah, I really don't think in the current tanking environment it makes ANY difference which spec you use as far as holding aggro goes. If you can't hold aggro after 1.3 you are doing something very very wrong lol.

 

It is interesting to see how much damage that aoe on rail shot does. I might have to give it another shot, but i'd be curious to know how much rocket punch + rail shot vs an extra flame sweep + rapid shots does on AoE. My guess is flame sweep wins.

 

why u keep post non-PT ability in PT forum, go back to ur side.

 

Well that's not really useful. How would you feel if someone said "Why do you keep using English, go back to your native language"? Think about it. If you don't get it, well ... I tried.

[CitizenFry]

It is interesting to see how much damage that aoe on rail shot does. I might have to give it another shot, but i'd be curious to know how much rocket punch + rail shot vs an extra flame sweep + rapid shots does on AoE. My guess is flame sweep wins.

 

The splash damage from rail shot is pretty small. Just from memory/watching flytext, the initial splash from the railshot does 200-300 damage, and each tick of the DoT is <100 damage. Compared to flame sweep which typically hits for 600+, it's really no contest as far as AOE damage/threat is concerned. The advantages of the railshot splash are that it's "smart" and that the primary target takes much more damage from rocketpunch+railshot vs flamesweep+rapidshots.

Edited August 6, 2012 by CitizenFry

[MrSchmo]

Thanks for this write up. Just started my 1st imp and love tanking and BH so it was a natural fit. I'll keep an eye on this thread as I grow.

[Rahuzeru]

Hello my fellow Powertech's, I had just hit 30 - almost 31 now - and was curios what my skill tree should look like at my lvl, going by the one explained by OP. Should I only have pts in shield tech? I only ask due to the fact I keep ending up tank for grps while Ive only been using pyrotech tree. Thanks for your time. P.S. --- Also how is this build for lvling up with Mako

-Rusty

Edited August 29, 2012 by Rahuzeru