A full absorb tank. I need help. I wasted my last 6 months :(

[Altheran]

How you hit 300,000 and call it normal I'm not sure.

 

It's not a normal protection output unless you run with a famous healer who can provide you and himself (thanks to your guard) immortality or something near of it while attracting ennemy focus fire.

 

BioWare is well aware that protecting numbers are lower than damaging and healing, that's why protection medals are set on way lower numbers (50 000 maximum)

[L-RANDLE]

Soooooo...you think that saber attacks can be shielded huh? Why don't you go try it...I have already...and it does not work. I'm talking about regular weapon damage saber attacks like zealous strike. I've tested it in duels and my shields would not come on at all...even when my shielding is at 45%...not a single proc. Saber attacks can however be dodged...but not shielded. So once again, the only good shield/absorb does in PvP is slow down snipers/gunslingers. Don't believe me go test it out yourself..

Maybe you should reread what I said. Shield/Absorb never came out of my mouth/fingaz. Need a play by play?

So you're a tank huh? You do realize that 80% of the attack types in PvP go right through your defense(!), shield and absorb right? Don't you mean you're just a hit point sponge for your healer? I laugh at you and your "full absorb".

Me: 80%? LOL, ok.. PvP Tanks should be geared to win the first dice roll. I'll just leave it at that..

Yeah I think it's about 80%. Only 1/8 classes (sniper or gunslinger) use ranged attacks almost exclusively, most classes use force or tech attack types. There is also rail shot/HIB which is white damage. Also factor in critical hits (25%-30% of all attacks) which cannot be shielded or defensed(!). I think 80% is about right when you factor everything in. Prove me wrong.

 

My Guardian has around 50/50 split between Force/Non-Force attacks, not 80%, and I should not even count hilt strike in that Force catergory(as its really used as a stun). I guess you can add us to your list. Also if I run some quick and dirty math on the alt AC for the Knight class, pretty sure they are skewed closer to 20/80, so add them too. BH/TR? eh? Don't know those classes very well, but I did see railshot is not a tech attack and those flaming bastards always using that. Shad/Sins mostly use melee for DPS, and most of it is avoidable. Torhead has great info on what attacks do what. Just select an attack and look at "effect details". That's better "proof" than your observations..

 

Now; there is MUCH more of an abundance of attacks that can be dodged/parried/deflected, whether melee or ranged (including crit hit for those same attacks) and since there is an abundance of players using those OP'd classes (we all know which ones they are) which use these types of attacks at this moment, 80% is BS. Sry dude, ur bias, and have not even looked at the majority of other classes.

 

Here is your answer:

Saber attacks can however be dodged.

 

There is only one, maybe two (DPS AC) force/tech heavy(over 50% of all attacks) classes in this game, and all the rest are able to be mitigated significantly by stacking to win the first roll. If there were a bunch of Sage/Sorc or Smuggs/Agents running around you might have a point, but this is not the case.

[Dartmoose]

It is rare. You need to give more info please.

 

I just played 6 WZ and the highest I saw was 120,000 and I only saw it once in all 6 matches. The second highest was 80,000 by me (I had to leave the healer a couple times to go rescue a turret since I'm fast).

 

Also neither of those (in pict) are my class. I'm a consular.

 

So again more info would be nice! Posting pictures is great but you need to back it up with strategy and gear or we might assume you just got lucky...really lucky.

 

When I have a good healer I max at about 125,000 average. Got 175,000 once. When I get the last couple pieces of my gear I might get 225,000 if I'm lucky. How you hit 300,000 and call it normal I'm not sure.

 

i never said i accomplished this regularly, what i meant was you don't need a really long civil war (winning a civil war with only 1 cap is like a 20+ minute fight) to hit 300+k. the trick is that you need a really good healer. there's only so much you can guard without being healed. Other than that, its using your taunts, guard and (for me) guardian leap really well. Also, you should disable people who are hard-targetting your healers (while it doesnt up your protection numbers, it helps keep your healers alive).

[TheNegotiator]

Maybe you should reread what I said. Shield/Absorb never came out of my mouth/fingaz. Need a play by play?

 

Me: 80%? LOL, ok.. PvP Tanks should be geared to win the first dice roll. I'll just leave it at that..

 

Here is your answer:

 

There is only one, maybe two (DPS AC) force/tech heavy(over 50% of all attacks) classes in this game, and all the rest are able to be mitigated significantly by stacking to win the first roll. If there were a bunch of Sage/Sorc or Smuggs/Agents running around you might have a point, but this is not the case.

 

That is fine. The original point of my post was in response to someone who was touting his "absorb build". Defense cannot get very high compared to shield stat so it's effectiveness if debatable, but I hope you agree that about 80% of the attack types in the game cannot be shielded/absorbed.

[NoaFlux]

That is fine. The original point of my post was in response to someone who was touting his "absorb build". Defense cannot get very high compared to shield stat so it's effectiveness if debatable, but I hope you agree that about 80% of the attack types in the game cannot be shielded/absorbed.

 

Maybe you can help me then. Are you saying that if I shield only these specific types of attacks I will be more effective? Do you know if it will increase my protection rating? It should right?

 

So what classes should I guard people from/go after then?

 

I have to look into this.

 

and thanks!

Edited August 29, 2012 by NoaFlux

[CBRGhostRider]

Maybe you can help me then. Are you saying that if I shield only these specific types of attacks I will be more effective? Do you know if it will increase my protection rating? It should right?

 

So what classes should I guard people from/go after then?

 

I have to look into this.

 

and thanks!

 

You want to increase your protection rating, put your guard on a healer (buddy), stay within 15 meters of him, and stick to him like glue. I cannot stress this enough. STICK. TO. YOUR. HEALER. Dont fall into the trap of being a wannabe dps. You arent a dps, you are a tank. Although your first goal is to keep an eye on objectives (like stopping a cap etc), your main goal should be to stick to and protect your healer. By all means, finish off low health people if your healer is safe, but healer is always priority over doing dps.

 

Some things I try to follow:

 

* Use taunt, aoe taunt, intercede on cooldown.

* If healer is safe, taunt the highest dps on the enemy team.

* If you have unstoppable like me, you can jump into a group of enemies, aoe taunt, then intercede back to your healer.

* Dont overlap taunts with cc, coz you are wasting your taunts.

* Make sure you arent taunting healers by mistake.

* Not all protection effects are shown on the scoreboard. If you aoe mezz the 4 dps, so your healer can get some breathing room and heal himself, it doesn't show up. If you push away that powertech, or choke that sniper, it doesn't show up on the scores. So only put so much faith in the scores.

 

Tanking is fun in pvp, even though it is somewhat broken with respect to stats. I have a war-hero geared PT pyro, and I don't even play him much anymore.... I went back to my first toon (my jugg tank) and I have been having a blast in pvp, even though he is mostly battlemaster gear.

 

Sadly though, as someone else mentioned, you need a good healer buddy to really shine in pvp tanking. Tanking in pvp isn't as rewarding solo, but when paired with a healer you can do miraculous things! Good luck.

 

Not as impressive as some other photos... but oh well... I'm still learning to be a better tank. This was from a recent voidstar. We lost at the first door, so it wasn't a full length match (as you can see in the background with 3m 20s on timer):

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk263/rocksjudas/public/Screenshot_2012-08-26_12_59_33_220137.jpg

Edited August 30, 2012 by CBRGhostRider

[Nightthunder]

a tank in tank gear does FAR FAR FAR worse in damage than a tank in dps gear but have the same survivability...which is utter bull, no one can effectively argue that fact. The game is broken in that area. The problem is tank in tank gear gives up almost all his damage to receive a negligible amount of tanking ability. A noob with a can of beer in one hand can effectively kill a tank with just spamming buttons, because a normal rotation will yield a great nember of attacks that the tank can't even defend against, making the purpose of tank stats on his armor utterly retarded

They should either.

 

1. Get rid of all PvP tank stated gear altogether

2. Boost all damage abilities coming off of that gear so a tank be on par with others that are not so gimped.

 

They should really just get rid of all the pvp tank armor all together, and not let people gimp themselves.

 

Yes, i chose tank armor route long ago too hoping and having faith that the devs would change this and make tanks in tank gear effective in thier role in pvp....but as time goes on i think they either don't care or have adopted a "working as intended" design descision about it.

 

In the end Tanks are the only role that when choosing battlemaster or war tanking gear for thier role/character, totally bork themselves...and thats not right by any stretch of the imagination.

 

I am just rolling on the floor how inaccurate your assumptions are.

I got 1 question, have you played RWZ with: jugg/guard as tank with dps gear, tank in tank gear, and both with hybrid?

 

Let me break it down, if your healer gets jumped by 3-4 good dps, who are coordinated and interrupt one after another, not at the same time will eventually drop the healer-tank... If they switch to you because they want to either separate you from your healer or pressure you to pop your CDs, they will see if you are a tank in dps gear or in tank gear, and the difference comes here... a tank in tank gear IS much harder to kill than in dps gear, and while you deal more damage in dps gear, you stand little to no chance against 3+ good dps once you pop your CDs because you cannot dodge/shield any white damage and that extra 10% dodge and 30% shield chance + absorb helps a tremendous amount.

Ive played both and mostly in Hybrid spec (16/25/0), and even as dps i managed 200k dmg with 309k protection on some of my best warzones, but on others where the opponent werent incompetent and used their brains and figured out that its easier to drop a tank in dps gear while 1-2 pressures the healer.

As tank i usually deal 150k dmg and 200k+ protection while surviving WAY more than tank in dps gear and that is a fact.... GOOD teams will ALWAYS keep an eye out on tanks in dps gear, because in the first pressuring phase they will pressure you until you waste most of your def CDs while the opponent dps switches back to the healer... in the 2nd phase when you got CDs and your def abilities wore off, they pressure you again, and it takes 2 decent CCs and interrupts on the healer to get you down.

 

Your only goal as tank is to survive, interrupt caps and make sure your healer can survive as well... your dmg is the last thing that you should focus on, and with 16/25 you can deal significant amount of damage and execute dps under 50% quite easily.

 

Peace

Edited August 30, 2012 by Nightthunder

[LenrocNewDawn]

You are not meant to negate some damage types because those damage types are meant to be tank killers.

 

I'm OK with force/tech attacks not being mitigated by shield/armor defenses and I find logical that tanks should find their nemesis in the classes that are heavy on those type of attacks. However I think that the defense rating (parry/dodge chance) should apply against such type of attacks. Such a mechanic would be logical and in concordance with the lore (Master Windu parrying Darth Sidious lightning anyone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu_XLDlDWLQ).

This way tanks will have their anti-class but would still be somewhat viable and not feel like they are playing naked when facing such a foe.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Edited: Actually an attack can only be a critical if it hits. So, for white attacks, defense rating rolls before critical chance rolls hence if a tank dodges/parries an attack that attack doesn't get the critical chance roll. Tested that by firing a charged burst with smugglers luck (100% critical chance) at an guardian with saber ward active with-in the 3 seconds of 100% range/melee defense (set bonus). The critical charged burst was deflected in every try. Also my tech attacks (yellow attacks) always hit, their damage may get absorbed by things like blade barrier or force armor but they always hit.

Edited August 30, 2012 by LenrocNewDawn

[TheNegotiator]

Maybe you can help me then. Are you saying that if I shield only these specific types of attacks I will be more effective? Do you know if it will increase my protection rating? It should right?

 

So what classes should I guard people from/go after then?

 

I have to look into this.

 

and thanks!

I just mean that the shield/absorb stats on your gear are relatively meaningless in PvP (because most attacks cannot be shielded). However, tank gear does have a lot of hit points and some extra defense too. Defense is good because it works against all regular weapon damage (like most saber strikes etc.). More hit points is of course always a good thing. Play however you like just understand that shielding/absorb stats don't help you survive.

[NoaFlux]

I am just rolling on the floor how inaccurate your assumptions are.

I got 1 question, have you played RWZ with: jugg/guard as tank with dps gear, tank in tank gear, and both with hybrid?

 

Let me break it down, if your healer gets jumped by 3-4 good dps, who are coordinated and interrupt one after another, not at the same time will eventually drop the healer-tank... If they switch to you because they want to either separate you from your healer or pressure you to pop your CDs, they will see if you are a tank in dps gear or in tank gear, and the difference comes here... a tank in tank gear IS much harder to kill than in dps gear, and while you deal more damage in dps gear, you stand little to no chance against 3+ good dps once you pop your CDs because you cannot dodge/shield any white damage and that extra 10% dodge and 30% shield chance + absorb helps a tremendous amount.

Ive played both and mostly in Hybrid spec (16/25/0), and even as dps i managed 200k dmg with 309k protection on some of my best warzones, but on others where the opponent werent incompetent and used their brains and figured out that its easier to drop a tank in dps gear while 1-2 pressures the healer.

As tank i usually deal 150k dmg and 200k+ protection while surviving WAY more than tank in dps gear and that is a fact.... GOOD teams will ALWAYS keep an eye out on tanks in dps gear, because in the first pressuring phase they will pressure you until you waste most of your def CDs while the opponent dps switches back to the healer... in the 2nd phase when you got CDs and your def abilities wore off, they pressure you again, and it takes 2 decent CCs and interrupts on the healer to get you down.

 

Your only goal as tank is to survive, interrupt caps and make sure your healer can survive as well... your dmg is the last thing that you should focus on, and with 16/25 you can deal significant amount of damage and execute dps under 50% quite easily.

 

Peace

 

I have to say that it's funny you are saying this because you can actually get high protection and damage. Some of us can't. I would love to get your numbers. How you do that I don't know. I have been doing all the right things (anything mentioned in this blog) and still can't get those numbers. Maybe once I'm fully geared I will...not sure.

 

I do great. I get number one a lot. I last a long time. I almost got 0 deaths against the strongest guild on our server today, but numbers like that? no. I still get made fun of very bad if I have a tough day cause my damage and protection is so low.

 

anyway thanks for the tips though. they are helpful. could you please explain this statement. I don't understand. u stand little to no chance against 3+ good dps once you pop your CDs because you cannot dodge/shield any white damage and that extra 10% dodge and 30% shield chance + absorb helps a tremendous amount.

 

extra 10% dodge? what and 30% shield?

Edited August 31, 2012 by NoaFlux

[NoaFlux]

You want to increase your protection rating, put your guard on a healer (buddy), stay within 15 meters of him, and stick to him like glue. I cannot stress this enough. STICK. TO. YOUR. HEALER. Dont fall into the trap of being a wannabe dps. You arent a dps, you are a tank. Although your first goal is to keep an eye on objectives (like stopping a cap etc), your main goal should be to stick to and protect your healer. By all means, finish off low health people if your healer is safe, but healer is always priority over doing dps.

 

Some things I try to follow:

 

* Use taunt, aoe taunt, intercede on cooldown.

* If healer is safe, taunt the highest dps on the enemy team.

* If you have unstoppable like me, you can jump into a group of enemies, aoe taunt, then intercede back to your healer.

* Dont overlap taunts with cc, coz you are wasting your taunts.

* Make sure you arent taunting healers by mistake.

* Not all protection effects are shown on the scoreboard. If you aoe mezz the 4 dps, so your healer can get some breathing room and heal himself, it doesn't show up. If you push away that powertech, or choke that sniper, it doesn't show up on the scores. So only put so much faith in the scores.

 

Tanking is fun in pvp, even though it is somewhat broken with respect to stats. I have a war-hero geared PT pyro, and I don't even play him much anymore.... I went back to my first toon (my jugg tank) and I have been having a blast in pvp, even though he is mostly battlemaster gear.

 

Sadly though, as someone else mentioned, you need a good healer buddy to really shine in pvp tanking. Tanking in pvp isn't as rewarding solo, but when paired with a healer you can do miraculous things! Good luck.

 

Not as impressive as some other photos... but oh well... I'm still learning to be a better tank. This was from a recent voidstar. We lost at the first door, so it wasn't a full length match (as you can see in the background with 3m 20s on timer):

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk263/rocksjudas/public/Screenshot_2012-08-26_12_59_33_220137.jpg

 

I agree, playing a tank is very fun in SWTOR. I play non stop (pvp).

 

I appreciate your help. I do all these things. I am aware of how protecting the healer helps. That's the only way I can get my protection past 60,000. With a good healer friend I can only get about 150,000 though. I am not full War Hero but very close.

 

Anyway part of the CONFUSION is that I have had a couple people on here tell me it makes no difference who you guard and that it's all the same, some people have said not to even waste your time on the healer on occasion. I started to believe them, if they are wrong that means that a tanks biggest fight is against time. When I look at my combat log it shows this. Dips in time are what prevents me from damage and protection. A healer lasts longer so I don't have to reguard and all those seconds in between (from regaurding) add more protection I guess. Not sure.

 

But thanks for the post! I have some questions about it!

 

1>) why do you say this. * Dont overlap taunts with cc, coz you are wasting your taunts." I use them a lot because at the end of the day my goal is to protect the healer, not get protection, and if I am getting cc'd over and over again (like some other posters said guilds might do), it gives the healer more time to heal and me more time to kill the enemy before the enemy cc's me. In addition the enemy takes more damage after I cc 6% to 9% more. Anyway so does this directly interfere with my protection? Or are you just saying that it prevents them from doing damage therefore takes away from my protection rating?

 

2>) You said, "Use taunt, aoe taunt, intercede on cooldown." I don't have intercede. I 'm a jedi shadow. I guess maybe the closest thing I have is Kinetic Ward. I'm still trying to understand how Kinetic Ward works 100%. I made about 3 posts a couple months ago and I still don't get it. Someone on the blogs here had me thinking maybe it protects me from damage a little, but I'm not sure. I'm a jedi shadow, I think that's part of the reason I'm a bit confused.

 

3>)*"Make sure you arent taunting healers by mistake" why is this? I never heard of this before.

Edited August 31, 2012 by NoaFlux

[CBRGhostRider]

Well technically you could guard anyone that needs it, and if your healer is safe, then by all means switch guard temporarily to the guy that is getting attacked. But make sure your healer has priority for your guard. Usually healers are focus fired anyway, so I rarely find the need to switch my guard onto someone else. But there are occasions when I do so. Also, healer+tank is such a powerful combo due to guard! Just make sure you stay within guard range.

 

1. I think you misunderstood what I meant. I meant that you should not overlap YOUR taunts with YOUR ccs. If you cc a dps that is on your healer, then he is doing no damage so your taunt will be wasted. Wait until his cc is over, then when he starts to attack your healer, you can taunt him.

 

2. Kinetic ward will increase your shield chance by 15% for 20 sec. It is cheap and only costs 10 force, so you can use it anytime the ward is about to expire. This won't give you protection points, but it will make you a bit harder to kill, since the chances that you shield are higher.

 

3. Taunt reduces the damage of the target unless he is attacking you. since healers aren't doing any damage taunt is wasted when you target it on a healer. sometimes in the heat of battle, you may tab target and hit taunt quickly, but just make sure you aren't taunting a healer.

[SajPl]

I'm sorry my guardian hit 50 last night. After my 3 warzones this morning in TANK recruit gear my observations are : I'm already hard to kill and did 212lk damage on a voidstar. Sure I had a huttball where I did 15k damage, thing is I was scoring scoring scoring up untill I scored the 6th. Edited August 31, 2012 by SajPl

[anstalt]

Poor game mechanics are what prevents tanks being able to mitigate all damage, and it comes down to threat generation.

 

We'll work off of two assumptions:

 

1) Tank survivability should come at a cost of damage output

2) Tanks should be able to mitigate everything.

 

So, lets say tanks can mitigate all attack types and all damage types. That makes them crazy survivable. In order for them to be balanced, this means that their damage *should* be pretty terrible.

 

However, in this game, the vast majority of a tank's threat is generated from damage. This means if tanks mitigated more attacks, their damage would have to be reduced. This would mean they'd never actually be able to tank anything, because their aggro would be too low.

 

Some theoretical napkin maths:

 

Sentinel does 1600dps, generating 1600threat per second

Tank guards sentinel, transfering 25% / 400 threat per second.

 

Tank therefore needs to generate 1200 threat per second.

Tank stance increases threat by 200%

 

Therefore, tank needs to do a minimum of 600dps to stay ahead of the sentinel in the threat table.

 

 

 

If you increased mitigation, then you'd need to lower DPS. This means either the tank will lose aggro, or Bioware increase threat multiplier. However, this then has an adverse effect on solo content as playing a tank solo would just plain suck. It also means that healing becomes more unbalanced: if a tank can mitigate sooo much stuff, then keeping a tank alive becomes trivially easy.

 

 

In short, changing the mitigation of tanks to include force / tech is just too complicated for the Bioware devs to manage. Either tanks would become too overpowered in PvP, too boring in solo PvE or too easy to heal in group content.

[UncleOst]

Actually I'm doing this. I will let you know if the defense helps. I will look in my combat log. I decided to just finish going all the way since I only have a couple more pieces to go, and I have almost all aug slots. I am equipping all def and power...after double checking at Mr. Robot.

 

Just a lil bump.

 

So how are ya makin out with that retaliation info dood?

 

Is retaliation always available and on cooldown?

 

Could you also post what yer defence rating is/was?

 

Thx.

[L-RANDLE]

Ok so here's my problem.

 

 

Please link us your skill tree as well..

 

I am Guardian tanking, but I have a Sage as well so I know some parts of your tree..

[Ghostuka]

Do not equate PVE stats with PVP stats.

 

That is my take in this game. This applies to skill trees, stats, rotations. And this applies to tanks too. Sure, absorb/shield rating looks tanky and it works greatly in the PVE environment. But in PVE, you have mobs with over million hp, mobs that just follow something called "threat" and survive for over several minutes while being beaten down by entire groups. For them, yes, all tanking stats are spot on.

 

But in PVP, fights last very short. Damage reductions and hps of everyone involved are relatively small. And everyone has defensive CDs to counter attacks/damage and there are different damage types that you can use more effectively against certain defenses. To top this off, fighting never stops in PVP. If you kill someone, chances are in the next 20 seconds they are back in full health and facing you again. In this environment, heal/dps/tank roles may depend on different rotations/builds than PVE.

 

For tanks, there are damage types that completely bypass your shield. There are damage types that even bypass your armor. So, yes, entirely investing into your shield/absorb won't be effective for PVP, even though it maybe a good idea for PVE. There are builds that almost exclusively use weapon (white) attacks, some use almost exclusively kinetic/energy/force attacks and there are few internal attacks.

 

In my opinion, in PVP the most important tanking stats are hp, armor rating and defensive CDs (aside from expertise), not necessarily in that order. While investing into shield/absorb will make you survive a bit more, I think investing a bit into damage contributes better than the shield rating, provided your skill tree build has a few damage dealing combos, while letting you tank. In PVP, tanking is mostly throwing taunts, dropping guard and using CCs. If you do these, and still deal some damage on the side, you are very valuable to your team. Because, we do not have a "threat" stat in PVP, and you won't be targeted if you are hitting like a little baby. They will instead pull you away from a node, CC you and slow you there and cap whatever the objective is. Your "threat" level in PVP is only measured in terms of heal and damage output you do.

 

I do not agree that shield should be applied to force/tech attacks and the like. With the defensive CDs added, tanks already can survive quite a bit and effectively "tank" or "defend" someone or a node. WZs are limited to 8-men teams on both sides, and they are based around objectives. Considering the people returning to fight very soon after death, I think tanks would be OPed if they could passively resist almost all the damage types. Even at this point, a healer and a tank can survive for quite a while when outnumbered. Just last week, in voidstar, me and a healer defended a door against 5 people for about 1 min. I know the duration of the time because I had the chance to throw my AOE taunt on them twice. At the end of the minute we were still alive and someone else came to help us, and our attackers just stopped bothering with the door we were defending. Another VS, me and an assassin defended a door against 4 people too. It started as 3 people attacking us, no healer, we kept calling for help, 4th attacker came soon and we are 4 vs 2. We still survived for another 20 seconds or so, while calling for help and noone coming. I died after a while, and screaming in ops chat in CAPS grabbed some people's attention.

 

So, PVP tanking is viable. You may or may not like the fact that some of the default tanking stats are not used against some of the damage types. But then again, weapon damage is the highest hitting damage type for most cases and it can be shielded/defended. Yellow damage types may not be shielded, but their damage is less than weapon damage in general (maybe except for smash, but that is a special case considering it requires building up to it and all). Plus, there are defensive CDs that deal with it exclusively. Internal damage is rare occurrence and its damage output is usually the lowest anyway.

 

While I would agree on Kwessa's suggestion that the top of the tanking tree could get some internal damage reduction, I don't think the current yellow damage should be included in the shielding.

[NoaFlux]

Poor game mechanics are what prevents tanks being able to mitigate all damage, and it comes down to threat generation.

 

We'll work off of two assumptions:

 

1) Tank survivability should come at a cost of damage output

2) Tanks should be able to mitigate everything.

 

So, lets say tanks can mitigate all attack types and all damage types. That makes them crazy survivable. In order for them to be balanced, this means that their damage *should* be pretty terrible.

 

However, in this game, the vast majority of a tank's threat is generated from damage. This means if tanks mitigated more attacks, their damage would have to be reduced. This would mean they'd never actually be able to tank anything, because their aggro would be too low.

 

Some theoretical napkin maths:

 

Sentinel does 1600dps, generating 1600threat per second

Tank guards sentinel, transfering 25% / 400 threat per second.

 

Tank therefore needs to generate 1200 threat per second.

Tank stance increases threat by 200%

 

Therefore, tank needs to do a minimum of 600dps to stay ahead of the sentinel in the threat table.

 

 

 

If you increased mitigation, then you'd need to lower DPS. This means either the tank will lose aggro, or Bioware increase threat multiplier. However, this then has an adverse effect on solo content as playing a tank solo would just plain suck. It also means that healing becomes more unbalanced: if a tank can mitigate sooo much stuff, then keeping a tank alive becomes trivially easy.

 

 

In short, changing the mitigation of tanks to include force / tech is just too complicated for the Bioware devs to manage. Either tanks would become too overpowered in PvP, too boring in solo PvE or too easy to heal in group content.

 

I understand most of this. The way I see it is the majority of people want to do damage. They don't want to be a real tank so BW helped them out by lowering their protection to make it more fair, prob is REAL tanks got nerfed simultaneously.

 

Isn't it an easy fix to just make survivor gear stronger? Damage based tank gear would stay the same...absorb based tank gear (survivor) would be the only thing that would change.

Edited September 3, 2012 by NoaFlux

[NoaFlux]

I'm sorry my guardian hit 50 last night. After my 3 warzones this morning in TANK recruit gear my observations are : I'm already hard to kill and did 212lk damage on a voidstar. Sure I had a huttball where I did 15k damage, thing is I was scoring scoring scoring up untill I scored the 6th.

 

I am a level 50 valor 75 tank who get's first place in medals very often. I have never, ever got over 200 damage, and I have never earned more than 180,000 protection.

 

I am in almost full warhero, survivor gear, and I am a Jedi Shadow.

 

I THINK THE BLOG HAS GONE A LITTLE OFF TRACK. THE POINT OF THIS BLOG IS MERELY THAT OTHER TANKS ARE GETTING MORE DAMAGE AND MORE PROTECTION THEN ME (about double), THEREFORE THE GEAR I WASTED MY HARD EARNED CREDITS ON IS MEANINGLESS AND HAS NO BENEFIT WHAT SO EVER. STAYING ALIVE IS APPARENTLY THE ONLY ADVANTAGE, BUT IF YOU ARE STRONG ENOUGH (do a lot of damage as a tank) YOU WILL STAY ALIVE TOO BECAUSE YOU CAN FINISH OFF OTHER OPPONENTS.

Edited September 3, 2012 by NoaFlux

[NoaFlux]

Just a lil bump.

 

So how are ya makin out with that retaliation info dood?

 

Is retaliation always available and on cooldown?

 

Could you also post what yer defence rating is/was?

 

Thx.

 

Working on it

[Ghostuka]

I THINK THE BLOG HAS GONE A LITTLE OFF TRACK. THE POINT OF THIS BLOG IS MERELY THAT OTHER TANKS ARE GETTING MORE DAMAGE AND MORE PROTECTION THEN ME (about double), THEREFORE THE GEAR I WASTED MY HARD EARNED CREDITS ON IS MEANINGLESS AND HAS NO BENEFIT WHAT SO EVER. STAYING ALIVE IS APPARENTLY THE ONLY ADVANTAGE, BUT IF YOU ARE STRONG ENOUGH (do a lot of damage as a tank) YOU WILL STAY ALIVE TOO BECAUSE YOU CAN FINISH OFF OTHER OPPONENTS.

 

I don't really keep track of it, but I used to see survivor geared shadow tanks when my playtimes were more inline with server's peak. Those tanks did contribute a good deal as well, though, their damage was a lot less than the dps geared assassin/shadows. So, don't count your gear useless yet. You can, however, start getting bm dps gear if you think that is more viable. You should be able to get it in around a week's time even with casual play.

[NoaFlux]

WOW. First off. I read the whole thing. It was written well. Second, I think I had an epiphany while reading this. I'll explain!!!!!!!!

 

I am a Jedi Shadow Tank wearing war hero pvp survivor gear (absorb/shield). I only play pvp.

 

Do not equate PVE stats with PVP stats.

 

That is my take in this game. This applies to skill trees, stats, rotations. And this applies to tanks too. Sure, absorb/shield rating looks tanky and it works greatly in the PVE environment. But in PVE, you have mobs with over million hp, mobs that just follow something called "threat" and survive for over several minutes while being beaten down by entire groups. For them, yes, all tanking stats are spot on.

 

O.K. so people keep bringing up threat. I only play PvP. So threat does nothing in PvP right?!!!

 

For tanks, there are damage types that completely bypass your shield. There are damage types that even bypass your armor. So, yes, entirely investing into your shield/absorb won't be effective for PVP, even though it maybe a good idea for PVE. There are builds that almost exclusively use weapon (white) attacks, some use almost exclusively kinetic/energy/force attacks and there are few internal attacks.

 

I didn't invent Absorb/Shield PvP gear. Bio Ware did. That is the whole point behind this post. I wear Absorb PvP gear because I thought it helped, and when I first started as a "noob" to mmo's and this game I was under the impression that absorb based gear was my class specific gear (unless u chose to use a focus) now I think it might not help at all, at least in PvP! Other tanks wear power based gear and get double the numbers of me. How can they get more protection when I have 3 extra absorb stats on every piece of clothing? Because killing enemies also creates survivability, that's why!! This is why Bio Ware needs to fix ONLY the gear for REAL TANKS. But I think I know why they didn't....

 

In my opinion, in PVP the most important tanking stats are hp, armor rating and defensive CDs (aside from expertise), not necessarily in that order. While investing into shield/absorb will make you survive a bit more, I think investing a bit into damage contributes better than the shield rating, provided your skill tree build has a few damage dealing combos, while letting you tank. In PVP, tanking is mostly throwing taunts, dropping guard and using CCs. If you do these, and still deal some damage on the side, you are very valuable to your team. Because, we do not have a "threat" stat in PVP, and you won't be targeted if you are hitting like a little baby. They will instead pull you away from a node, CC you and slow you there and cap whatever the objective is. Your "threat" level in PVP is only measured in terms of heal and damage output you do.

 

Again I didn't create the gear I use, Bio Ware did. It has no good use what so ever. It should have a UNIQUE advantage but it doesn't. So if everyone thinks it's worthless it needs to be removed from the game or fixed.

 

I do not agree that shield should be applied to force/tech attacks and the like. With the defensive CDs added, tanks already can survive quite a bit and effectively "tank" or "defend" someone or a node. WZs are limited to 8-men teams on both sides, and they are based around objectives. Considering the people returning to fight very soon after death, I think tanks would be OPed if they could passively resist almost all the damage types. Even at this point, a healer and a tank can survive for quite a while when outnumbered. Just last week, in voidstar, me and a healer defended a door against 5 people for about 1 min. I know the duration of the time because I had the chance to throw my AOE taunt on them twice. At the end of the minute we were still alive and someone else came to help us, and our attackers just stopped bothering with the door we were defending. Another VS, me and an assassin defended a door against 4 people too. It started as 3 people attacking us, no healer, we kept calling for help, 4th attacker came soon and we are 4 vs 2. We still survived for another 20 seconds or so, while calling for help and noone coming. I died after a while, and screaming in ops chat in CAPS grabbed some people's attention.

 

DUH DUNH DUH!! Ok here is my epiphany. But it's not without some new revelations.

 

1.) Being the last "two". THATS IT! Thats how you get high protection. I mean I already knew with a healer you could do this, but that is exactly why. When you are the last two, everyone will hit you. You will get all your protection numbers there! So now that I know this I can try to focus on making this happen more often, and hopefyully get my protetion up. Again I knew a healer helped...but this is why a healer should be gaurded and not other people (like some suggested) because if the healer/tank combo can last till the end they will "absorb" all that extra damage. That is how the numbers go up in protection. 8x2 will output way more protection than 2x2 or 4x2. Healer/tank combo is more important than guarding whoever is getting hit.

 

2.) A new revelation, but the same old problem; The thing is I don't always last that long, even with a healer. Because I can't kill anyone. To survive at least a little bit I need to kill people. I can't EVER win 1x1. I just started being able to kill people (rather then just finish them off). So we are back to the fact that a tank with power can KILL these people making his survivability longer in the end than the tank who uses "survivor" armor! So again this post is about that, even with my epiphany I am at the same conclusion. A balance of damage and armor can keep you alive longer then survivor gear, making you a true survivor, so you can guard your healer longer. That is the only way I can imagine these people get 300,000 protection of even 200,000. So eliminate the gear, and give me a refund Bio Ware.

 

While I would agree on Kwessa's suggestion that the top of the tanking tree could get some internal damage reduction, I don't think the current yellow damage should be included in the shielding.

 

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! For the millionth time people. This is how I got into this problem. THERE ARE THREE DIFFERENT KINDS OF TANKS. Changing the skill tree, effects ALL OF THEM. This is what keeps making everyone so imbalanced. ITS THE GEAR. THE GEAR is specific to EACH kind of tank.

 

Real tanks would only suffer AGAIN. From this or vice versa. It's the gear, not the skill tree!

Edited September 3, 2012 by NoaFlux

[NoaFlux]

After the Force Wave/ Overload nerf. I think the end is coming.

[Altheran]

After the Force Wave/ Overload nerf. I think the end is coming.

 

Absolutly not. The change is a good thing for Shadow/Assassin tanks because a knockback is something that has a low incidence/interest on a tank survival. Their knockback were something more dedicated to protect others because pushing people has a way higher incidence on others' survival, and now that the knockback will have a higher range and no "timer" before being released, tanks will be able to protect people even more efficiently.

[Crawelc]

Yeah wave needs the tooltip updated for 1.4 "this ability can not be used from stealth", you could potentially clear a whole damn node with this thing. Going to add a nice new twist to pvp I think. Way to go off topic btw, are the other 3 threads you threaten to quit in not good enough you had to necro this one from page 4?