Vanguard tank taking too much damage

[Mechrophilia]

Why, in our hardmode EC runs, does our vanguard tank take about 30% more damage than our shadow tank? Its in almost all fights. from toth and zorn all the way to warlord kephess. Is this just a class imbalance issue plain and simple? Our vanguard tank is currently sitting at (unbuffed) 13% defense and over-50% in both shield and absorb.

[Kitru]

VGs have pretty much the same mitigation as Shadow tanks. VGs take less damage from Force/Tech powers (thanks to having higher DR, which is effective against Force/Tech which ignores the Shadow's higher Def/Shield/Absorb), so, if anything, unless the Shadow is blowing their CDs much more often or your strats are favoring one tank over the other, they should be taking the same amount of damage.

 

Assuming that the Shadow and VG are equally geared with the same gearing mentality (re: they're both mitigation tanks rather than Endurance tanks or vice versa since an Endurance tank is going to take more damage than a mitigation tank simply by virtue of survivability strategy), the only possible explanations for a substantial difference in damage taken are that the Shadow is burning CDs while the VG is not (VG should be using Smoke Screen as much as possible), the VG standing in bad stuff and/or tanking more of the high damage phases (Berserk phases on Toth are substantially higher damage than Zorn).

[KeyboardNinja]

A mitigation stacked, campaign-geared vanguard has a survivability of 69% on HM EC. The same gearing for a shadow yields a survivability of 92% (due to the value of the self-heal). If you negate the self-heal, the shadow will take 4.5% more damage than the vanguard (even assuming perfect cooldown usage). However, that same vanguard will require 33.3% more healing than the shadow, if your healers are allowing the self-heal to do its work (i.e. not topping off the shadow).

 

This is, not coincidentally, right in line with what you're seeing in the logs. In other words, it's part of the tank balance in this game. Vanguards require more healing over time to stay alive, but it's much easier to heal them as their mitigation is vastly less spiky (21.3% variation vs 50.1% for a shadow).

 

Before everyone gets their panties out of shape, it's important to put these numbers in perspective. 33.3% additional healing on hard mode Kephess is only 249 HPS. If your healers are decently geared and your raid isn't taking unnecessary damage, an extra 250 HPS split between two healers is nothing.

 

So, bottom line: is this an imbalance? It depends on who you ask. Most healers would agree that a vanguard is easier and less stressful to heal, especially in progression raiding. Efficiency is important too, but it takes a lot of skill on the part of the healer to take advantage of it. I personally wouldn't hesitate to take either tank into HM EC if geared, and I know my healers wouldn't have any complaints about either one.

Edited September 4, 2012 by KeyboardNinja

[Kitru]

A mitigation stacked, campaign-geared vanguard has a survivability of 69% on HM EC. The same gearing for a shadow yields a survivability of 92% (due to the value of the self-heal).

 

I have still yet to see *anything* that validates the *massive* contributions of Shadow self-healing that you reference all the time. Logic and all of the boss exclusive (re: discounting trash) parse numbers that I've seen demonstrate that, using realistic models of incoming damage and expected healing (re: you're not just standing there solo fighting a boss without expecting heals) the value on the self healing is largely negligible compared to incoming damage and healing from outside sources. The only time the value on the self-heal is *anything* approaching the massive amounts that are often indicated is in solo situations wherein you have no other sources of self healing (120 hp/sec doesn't mean much when you've got 2 healers with 2k hp/sec backing you up but it can mean a great deal when you've got nothing else).

 

Against m/r K/E damage, an optimally geared Shadow and an optimally geared VG are going to achieve virtually identical DR (VG would have 13% def, 55% shield w/ 60% absorb, and 55% DR which equates to ~76-77% mitigation; Shadow would have 30% def, 65% shield, and 60% absorb, and 40% DR equates to ~75% mitigation). The only appreciable differentiation in K/E damage taken (since I/E DR is within a percentage point of each other and low by default) is accomplished when taking Force/Tech damage, which favors VGs thanks to their higher K/E DR (barring, of course, m/r I/E attacks that are profoundly rare).

[KeyboardNinja]

I have still yet to see *anything* that validates the *massive* contributions of Shadow self-healing that you reference all the time.

 

Deja vu. Here's the evidence:

 

• PDF: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1679797/SWTOR/Defensive%20Stats.pdf
  
• Numbers: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1679797/SWTOR/Defensive%20Stats.numbers
  

 

It doesn't export well to Excel, which is why I didn't include that version. Note that the version I exported has only Explosive Conflict bosses enabled. Eternity Vault, Karagga's Palace and Nightmare Pilgrim are not considered.

 

Let's start with the value of the self-heal in HPS. You estimate this to be around 120 HPS, which roughly agrees with my numbers. Technically, the theoretical ideal self-heal value for a level 50 shadow with 2006 endurance and all stims and buffs is 36.9406 (CT) + 94.7662 (TKT) = 131.7068. I add 18.4885 HPS from my Campaign proc heal relic, bringing me to an ideal total of 150.1953 HPS. Pretty close to your number, especially once you remove the relic.

 

Just to nip an argument in the bud here… You cannot subtract overheal from a self-heal. Overheal on a self-heal is the fault of the healers, and should thus be subtracted from their effective healing. The reason for this is overheal on a self-heal comes from the healers healing *too much*. They gave the shadow HP that he would have earned back on his own. This is analogous to a healer overhealing on a traditional mitigation tank, where the healer is giving the tank HP that corresponds to damage they already mitigated. Healers should never top off a shadow/assassin tank. Thus, the self-heal is worth exactly 150 HPS with relic, no more or less.

 

Here's the trick: we want to determine the value of the self-heal in percentage terms so as to allow us to weigh it against the other forms of mitigation. This is tricky, because the only way to do this is to determine how much damage we're actually taking and calculate what percentage of that damage is "mitigated" by the self-heal. In order to do this, we need the pre-mitigation DPS of every boss, broken down by damage and attack type. This is data that I have (and have included in the spreadsheet I linked).

 

Methodology note… This DPS was determined by examining my own combat logs for these fights on their hardest difficulty modes, choosing fights that didn't include egregious mistakes on anyone's part. Every ability was examined in turn, and then the max hit was used for the post-mitigation value of that ability. Every ability was spot-checked to ensure that the max hit was not being influenced by something weird (e.g. enrage, stacking buffs, etc). Abilities that are avoidable damage under perfect play were discounted (e.g. Annihilator Droid's "Storm Protocol" ability). The damage type for that ability was determined, and then the pre-mitigation damage value figured by reversing the post-mitigation value through my static mitigation for that damage type at the time of the fight. Finally, the number of hits per ability used to divide the total time of the fight (in seconds), determining a swing timer for each ability. This information, in aggregate, gives us the total average DPS for the boss over the entire fight, broken down by attack/damage type.

 

This information is invaluable for theory-crafting tanks in this game. Without it, you're only looking at a small part of the picture. This information gives us (among other things) the ratio of attack damage types on a per-boss basis, which lets us consider more than just K/E mitigation. My weapon/kinetic mitigation is 73.3924%, but my overall mitigation is only 65.9038% (on HM EC). Blayze, a min-maxed Campaign geared vanguard on my server, has a weapon/kinetic mitigation of 76.8814%, but an overall mitigation of 68.8666%. This validates your (and everyone's) assumption that vanguards take less force/tech damage than shadows do (duh). However, it also neatly invalidates the widely-held belief that "most damage cannot be mitigated". In fact, 81.66% of damage in HM EC is weapon/kinetic.

 

Returning to the self-heal… We now have the pre-mitigation DPS for each boss, which allows us to figure our average post-mitigation DtPS based on our current stats. In my case, I have the following DtPS numbers:

 

• Toth & Zorn: 575 DPS
  
• Firebrand (no tank swaps): 428 DPS
  
• Kephess: 898 DPS
  

 

(quick note: when we do Kephess, my co-tank spends more time tanking him pre-60% than I do, since I have more effective tools to control the bombers)

 

Alright, so we have the post-mitigation DtPS. This (finally) allows us to determine the exact value of the self-heal in terms of mitigation percentage on a per-boss basis:

 

• Toth & Zorn: 26.10%
  
• Firebrand (no tank swaps): 35.06%
  
• Kephess: 16.73%
  

 

For lack of a better methodology, consider the arithmetic mean of these values. We arrive at a mitigation contribution of 25.97%. Add this to our static mitigation from earlier and we have the final survivability number: 91.8678%. This value is a direct reflection of how much healing I will require to stay alive, averaged across the entire instance.

 

Note that the mitigation-relative value of the self-heal goes down if I include Eternity Vault (NiM) and especially Karagga's Palace (NiM), since those bosses are (astoundingly) higher damage and have a higher percentage of DPS that is force/tech (e.g. Jarg, Soa, etc).

 

These values, btw, tally very closely to control combat logs I have of the same fights (not the ones I pulled the DPS values from). In fact, the predicted values are usually within about 5-10%, which is well within the margin of error stemming from RNG-based mitigation and large, infrequent hits (i.e. Kephess). I'm quite confident that my values are correct for every boss except for Nightmare Pilgrim, which either received a stealth nerf in 1.3, or we're just executing a LOT better than we used to. (either way, I take about 30% less damage than what I would expect on that fight)

 

To sum all of that up, I'm not arguing that the self-heal is any more than ~130 HPS. What I'm saying is that boss damage is far lower than most people believe, raising the relative value of the self-heal considerably.

[Kitru]

For lack of a better methodology, consider the arithmetic mean of these values. We arrive at a mitigation contribution of 25.97%. Add this to our static mitigation from earlier and we have the final survivability number: 91.8678%. This value is a direct reflection of how much healing I will require to stay alive, averaged across the entire instance.

 

Why are you adding the mitigation-via-self healing number to the mitigation number? The self healing isn't operating against the total sum of incoming damage. It's applying 25.97% mitigation against the damage that penetrates the static mitigation values from before. Adding your mitigation-via-self healing number to the static mitigation number is akin to adding shield and absorb mitigation directly to defense chance to determine mitigation without accounting for the fact that defense chance reduces the value of shield/absorb by virtue of the fact that defense takes precedence. If you treat mitigation-via-self healing properly, your mitigation number should read as ~74.76% (.659308 + (1-.659308) * .2597). It's higher than the passive mitigation for a VG (by about 6%), but not to the same extent as your ~92%. Your math is overinflating the value of the self-healing (which is what I've been saying for a while).

 

Also, I'd be curious to see to what extent your VG associate uses their CDs and what effect they would have on the numbers since it's not really factored in to most peoples calculations of mean mitigation. Reactive Shield and Adrenaline Rush can be treated pretty normally, but Smoke Screen breaks the rules a bit with its massive uptime and low CD that really encourages it to be used on CD as opposed to as an emergency button. In my experience playing both a VG tank and a Shadow tank (as well as tanking alongside a VG and a Shadow tank in guild runs on both of them) in HM EC, I haven't seen an appreciable difference in the amount needing to be healed in parses between the two, which would suggest that there is some, as of yet unaccounted for factor that is providing VGs with something to commensurately offset Shadow self-healing. Taking on 20% additional defense 33% of the time against roughly 80% of incoming attacks would have to have a substantial effect (even if you downgrade it to 30% to account for delay in use, it's going to increase assumed defense to 19%; those changes would increase mean mitigation to ~75% which would equate to what Shadows maintain).

 

(btw, I've seen you quote numbers, but I hadn't seen your methodology or references, which I have now; much thanks; that Force/Tech ratio info is *noice* and, I would have hope you'd have noticed from our previous discussions, I concur wholeheartedly that Force/Tech isn't nearly as common as was generally posited by myself and others; a lot of my experience with the ratios of Force/Tech to melee/ranged stemmed from the days of EV/KP wherein, as you state, there is substantially more Force/Tech being thrown about)

[KeyboardNinja]

Why are you adding the mitigation-via-self healing number to the mitigation number? The self healing isn't operating against the total sum of incoming damage. It's applying 25.97% mitigation against the damage that penetrates the static mitigation values from before. Adding your mitigation-via-self healing number to the static mitigation number is akin to adding shield and absorb mitigation directly to defense chance to determine mitigation without accounting for the fact that defense chance reduces the value of shield/absorb by virtue of the fact that defense takes precedence. If you treat mitigation-via-self healing properly, your mitigation number should read as ~74.76% (.659308 + (1-.659308) * .2597). It's higher than the passive mitigation for a VG (by about 6%), but not to the same extent as your ~92%. Your math is overinflating the value of the self-healing (which is what I've been saying for a while).

 

I thought about that, but additive survivability still made sense in that the value of the self-heal *is* intuitively increased by more mitigation. However…

 

Working through a quick example. The self-heal "mitigates" a static 130 DPS. Assuming a boss DPS of 1k and a static mitigation of 60%, we have post-mitigation DPS of 400. The self-heal reduces the final damage value to 270. In order for mitigation to achieve that value, you would need 73% mitigation, which is an added 13%. This is precisely (130 / 600) * (1 - 0.4).

 

So in other words, yes, my expression is wrong. I'll update my spreadsheet!

 

Also, I'd be curious to see to what extent your VG associate uses their CDs and what effect they would have on the numbers since it's not really factored in to most peoples calculations of mean mitigation. Reactive Shield and Adrenaline Rush can be treated pretty normally, but Smoke Screen breaks the rules a bit with its massive uptime and low CD that really encourages it to be used on CD as opposed to as an emergency button. In my experience playing both a VG tank and a Shadow tank (as well as tanking alongside a VG and a Shadow tank in guild runs on both of them) in HM EC, I haven't seen an appreciable difference in the amount needing to be healed in parses between the two, which would suggest that there is some, as of yet unaccounted for factor that is providing VGs with something to commensurately offset Shadow self-healing. Taking on 20% additional defense 33% of the time against roughly 80% of incoming attacks would have to have a substantial effect (even if you downgrade it to 30% to account for delay in use, it's going to increase assumed defense to 19%; those changes would increase mean mitigation to ~75% which would equate to what Shadows maintain).

 

Adjusting for uptime, Smoke Grenade has an accuracy debuff contribution of 6%. This is just a hair more than the accuracy debuff contribution of Force Breach. So, they're about even. I throw Slow Time and vanguard-damage-debuff (can't remember the name) into the same category, since they are also exactly the same value.

 

More significantly, in a min-maxed 16 man raid, you will have all three tank debuffs on the boss anyway, so I'm not sure they matter for purposes of tank comparison.

 

Cooldowns are a more interesting story. TBH, my numbers are cheated slightly by the fact that they come from my combat logs, and I use my cooldowns. This has certain effects, like Gift of the Masters only ticks once (if at all) when I tank Kephess. It also has other effects that are more easily accounted, like the fact that Foreman Crusher literally never lands a blow on me during a Frenzy (Deflection ftw). Unfortunately, this will tend to skew the accuracy of these numbers a bit toward shadow tanks, and less toward the other tank types.

 

Really, cooldown usage in general is something that I haven't quite determined how to factor into the model. The reason this is a problem stems from the fact that all of the boss DPS is measured as a smooth average. If you take my spreadsheet literally, all that a boss does is pour homogeneous DPS on me for 5 minutes, while my mitigation soaks a specific percentage of that DPS and my self-heal recovers another percentage. Cooldowns are (by definition) used for burst phases and (occasionally) to cover mistakes. There are no burst phases on a spreadsheet. Hence, no cooldowns.

 

I've thought about looking at modeling convergence periods between swing timers and projecting cooldowns onto those high points, but there's only so far I can go with desktop spreadsheet software. I would really need to break out R or another statistical sledgehammer to attempt that one, and I'm not sure it's worth the time. Then again, I do work for a company that builds analytics data warehousing tools, so maybe I'll do it as a case study someday…

 

In any case, I do agree that vanguards seem oddly behind in terms of overall survivability, even adjusting the self-heal value for shadows (and guardians) appropriately. I keep going back over the tree to try and figure out what I might be missing, but I'm just not seeing it. The debuffs are the same, the mitigation is superior, but not *that* superior. The cooldowns are vastly inferior, even if we could count them in a smoothed model. I just don't see it, really. It's like Vanguards were tuned deliberately low on the survivability scale, but given extremely low variation DtPS to compensate. :-S

 

(btw, I've seen you quote numbers, but I hadn't seen your methodology or references, which I have now; much thanks; that Force/Tech ratio info is *noice* and, I would have hope you'd have noticed from our previous discussions, I concur wholeheartedly that Force/Tech isn't nearly as common as was generally posited by myself and others; a lot of my experience with the ratios of Force/Tech to melee/ranged stemmed from the days of EV/KP wherein, as you state, there is substantially more Force/Tech being thrown about)

 

I explained the methodology in a post quite a while back. I wanted to reexplain in subsequent posts (to give my random claimed numbers context), but that generally would require hijacking the thread in question. :-) I appreciate the feedback on the self-heal mitigation value inclusion. The point to the spreadsheet is (and has always been) to act as a tool for myself and my co-tank to optimize our stats. The more accurate, the better!

[Kitru]

Adjusting for uptime, Smoke Grenade has an accuracy debuff contribution of 6%. This is just a hair more than the accuracy debuff contribution of Force Breach. So, they're about even. I throw Slow Time and vanguard-damage-debuff (can't remember the name) into the same category, since they are also exactly the same value.

 

While the tank debuffs don't stack, it's important to remember that Smoke Grenade is only similar to FB's devyff when you average it over time. Since the highest acc or dam debuff on the target takes precedence, if you assume that the target is going to have the permanent 5% dam/acc debuffs on him/her, for the 20 seconds per minute that Smoke Grenade is active, you'll benefit from 15% *more* defense than you would have otherwise. I recall someone stating in another tanking thread that the acc and damage debuffs are common enough, even within DPS and heal trees, that you should simply assume that the debuff is there whether your tank is capable of bringing it or not (since Guardians don't get the 5% dam redux and VGs don't get the 5% acc debuff). This makes even more sense within the confines of single target fights like Kephess where you've got 2 tanks on 1 target. When you're dealing with 2 discrete groups operating simultaneously (which is really the best way to describe Toth and Zorn and tanks) it doesn't matter as much (and it's also a situation wherein the self healing values are inflated because damage is split and therefore lower so that the flat self healing is proportionately higher).

 

In any case, I do agree that vanguards seem oddly behind in terms of overall survivability, even adjusting the self-heal value for shadows (and guardians) appropriately. I keep going back over the tree to try and figure out what I might be missing, but I'm just not seeing it. The debuffs are the same, the mitigation is superior, but not *that* superior.

 

The problem is that, as I've seen it, Vanguards only seem behind in survivability in theory. In practice, they're almost always pretty much *even* with every other tank when played properly. The parses I've seen and done support this. The only X factor really involved in Vanguards over the other tanks really is Smoke Grenade. It doesn't generate the appropriate numbers when analyzed, in a vacuum, against Force Breach and Sweeping Winds that occur in reality because, while it's similar, it's different enough that it can't simply be averaged arbitrarily without downplaying how differently it operates.

 

The cooldowns are vastly inferior, even if we could count them in a smoothed model. I just don't see it, really. It's like Vanguards were tuned deliberately low on the survivability scale, but given extremely low variation DtPS to compensate. :-S

 

Actually, I've always considered the VG CDs to be the best and the worst. While Shadows get the 2 CDs with *amazing* potency and great uptimes, they're terribly specific so they're prone to misuse (which means that a Shadow tank that knows how to use them can do some stuff that other tanks simply dream of). Guardians get CDs with *amazing* potency and great generality (meaning that any of them can really apply to any situation), they're on the longest CDs so you can't abuse them to the same extent as the Shadow CDs. VGs, meanwhile, get a single, very powerful, very general, CD with a great uptime (Reactive Shield), the worst of the self healing CDs (Adrenaline Rush), and a final CD with the greatest uptime of all but a marginal effect that makes it break even with passive capabilities of the other tanks (Smoke Screen).

 

Reactive Shield is, arguably, the best survivability CD in the game. It provides Damage Reduction to *all* damage types, which is simply fantastic, especially when you factor in that VGs already get the best DR of all tanks (it really amounts to a 55% reduction in K/E damage taken and 30% reduction in I/E damage taken). It's on a 2 min CD and lasts 12 seconds, which puts it on par with Deflection for its uptime ratio (which is the "good" uptime ratio). For its damage reduction contributions normalized for uptime, Reactive Shield really is the best tank CD in the game (technically, Rebuke is the outright best but no tanks get it; a similar claim could be made for Focused Defense w/ Commanding Awe since it heals *and* provides DR *and* has an uptime ratio better than Resilience, but it chews through Focus like no one's business so it's a bit different).

 

The problem with VG CDs is that, unless you look at Smoke Grenade as a CD (for which there is a decent line of reasoning as I stated before) as opposed to a replacement for the tank acc debuff, VGs are short a tank CD (Adrenaline Rush + Reactive Shield v. Battle Readiness + Resilience + Deflection v. Focused Defense + Warding Call + Enure + Saber Ward) which could be a substantial factor (assuming that tanks are assumed to be using their CDs in the most optimal way possible on a constant basis) in some of the anecdotal evidence of their numerical inadequacy (since, as I see it, the difference between a good tank and a great tank is how often and how effectively they use their CD) juxtaposed with contradictory anecdotal evidence and theory that vacillates between VGs being on par and being under par. I'd be curious to see what exactly would happen if the developers turned Smoke Grenade/Oil Slick into a more traditional CD (longer recharge and bigger effect that is a self buff rather than a debuff; this would be predicated on providing the 5% passive acc debuff through some other mechanism) or provided an additional CD of some kind. I would venture that, especially in PvP (not that I recall VG *tanks* being PvP powerhouses like I often hear concerning Shadows and Guardians), tank Vanguards would begin operating a bit more in line with expectations.

[KeyboardNinja]

While the tank debuffs don't stack, it's important to remember that Smoke Grenade is only similar to FB's devyff when you average it over time. Since the highest acc or dam debuff on the target takes precedence, if you assume that the target is going to have the permanent 5% dam/acc debuffs on him/her, for the 20 seconds per minute that Smoke Grenade is active, you'll benefit from 15% *more* defense than you would have otherwise. I recall someone stating in another tanking thread that the acc and damage debuffs are common enough, even within DPS and heal trees, that you should simply assume that the debuff is there whether your tank is capable of bringing it or not (since Guardians don't get the 5% dam redux and VGs don't get the 5% acc debuff).

 

That's a super-interesting thought, and something I hadn't considered before. Smoke Grenade is more valuable than Force Breach, precisely because Force Breach will also be on the target. I would argue that if you're doing that sort of cross-counting, you need to let it be symmetric and simultaneously enhance the value of Force Breach by its effect on Smoke Grenade. However, as I've said in the past, it doesn't matter, since you can expect all the raid debuffs to be on the target at most times. So, you still can't count Smoke Grenade as a positive for the Vanguard specifically since the Shadow benefits just as much when the Vanguard pops it.

 

This makes even more sense within the confines of single target fights like Kephess where you've got 2 tanks on 1 target. When you're dealing with 2 discrete groups operating simultaneously (which is really the best way to describe Toth and Zorn and tanks) it doesn't matter as much (and it's also a situation wherein the self healing values are inflated because damage is split and therefore lower so that the flat self healing is proportionately higher).

 

Since I'm pulling swing timers from my own combat logs (and not adding the swing timers from my co-tank's logs), this is already accounted for. The more interesting argument here is that my numbers are incomplete w.r.t. paired bosses where we don't tank swap. For example, Jarg and Sorno (we just heal through the debuff), or Firebrand and Stormcaller (we have a DPS taunt for IA). You can make a pretty strong case that my numbers are inaccurate on those bosses, but I think that only has a small effect on the net result.

 

The problem is that, as I've seen it, Vanguards only seem behind in survivability in theory. In practice, they're almost always pretty much *even* with every other tank when played properly. The parses I've seen and done support this. The only X factor really involved in Vanguards over the other tanks really is Smoke Grenade. It doesn't generate the appropriate numbers when analyzed, in a vacuum, against Force Breach and Sweeping Winds that occur in reality because, while it's similar, it's different enough that it can't simply be averaged arbitrarily without downplaying how differently it operates.

 

Once I corrected the self-heal mitigation value, I arrived at the following relative survivability values when considering the entire PvE endgame on its hardest modes:

 

• Shadows (well, me): 70.6339% (+/- 30.6799%)
  
• Guardians (my co-tank): 69.4477% (+/- 23.2477%)
  
• Vanguards (Blayze): 67.9954% (+/- 17.8659%)
  

 

That looks pretty balanced to me. If I just look at HM EC, the shadow does climb ahead to about 75%. However, even if we take that number, we only see a 7% additive difference between the two extremes (10% multiplicative). On Kephess, that would mean only 75 HPS more is required to keep the Vanguard alive than the Shadow. That's well within the bounds of RNG. Heck, an unlucky defense roll on just two of Kephess's big hits is enough to skew the healing 75 HPS averaged over the whole fight. 7% is certainly not enough that you would notice a difference as a tank, and it would be highly unusual for a healer to notice.

 

Reactive Shield is, arguably, the best survivability CD in the game. It provides Damage Reduction to *all* damage types, which is simply fantastic, especially when you factor in that VGs already get the best DR of all tanks (it really amounts to a 55% reduction in K/E damage taken and 30% reduction in I/E damage taken). It's on a 2 min CD and lasts 12 seconds, which puts it on par with Deflection for its uptime ratio (which is the "good" uptime ratio). For its damage reduction contributions normalized for uptime, Reactive Shield really is the best tank CD in the game (technically, Rebuke is the outright best but no tanks get it; a similar claim could be made for Focused Defense w/ Commanding Awe since it heals *and* provides DR *and* has an uptime ratio better than Resilience, but it chews through Focus like no one's business so it's a bit different).

 

I would love to get Rebuke as a tank. That would be just insanely nice. Annoying on bosses like Nightmare Pilgrim or Zorn, but still cool.

 

It sounds like you're arguing that the Reactive Shield is great because it's so easy to use correctly, despite the fact that it's the weakest of the cooldowns in terms damage reduced. I can sort of buy that argument, but as soon as we start having discussions like that, we get into the realm of "talent potentials" and "maximum ideal". As you said, a shadow who uses his cooldowns perfectly will achieve results *far* beyond what a Vanguard can do with his cooldowns. Similar for a Guardian. It requires a lot of skill to hit that ideal though. Maybe that's how it balances, I'm not sure.

 

I actually think that shadows in general fall into that category. I've seen some absolutely awful shadow tanks in my day. And, speaking as a healer now, they are not fun to have tanking for you. Shadows, in general, have the highest talent potential of any of the three tanks, but they require an *immense* amount of effort, thought and precision to hit that potential. I like that about the class, I really do, but perhaps it can be considered a downside.

 

I would venture that, especially in PvP (not that I recall VG *tanks* being PvP powerhouses like I often hear concerning Shadows and Guardians), tank Vanguards would begin operating a bit more in line with expectations.

 

Well, accuracy debuffs matter a lot less in PvP than they do in PvE, simply because the ratio of attacks *is* skewed in favor of force/tech except for very specific classes (Sharpshooter Gunslingers and Combat Sentinels). Still, as any sentinel who has used Pacify can tell you, they do make *some* difference. I agree it would be interesting to see Smoke Grenade modified in this way, and would add a nice element of skill to the class. It would also greatly increase their combat utility, making Vanguards the *perfect* off-tank (consider: Smoke Grenade would be a defensive CD that benefits *all* the tanks, not just yourself). Stack a Smoke Grenade with a Saber Ward or Deflection and you get 12 seconds of god mode against all weapon attacks. That's pretty cool.

Edited September 5, 2012 by KeyboardNinja

[Kitru]

I would argue that if you're doing that sort of cross-counting, you need to let it be symmetric and simultaneously enhance the value of Force Breach by its effect on Smoke Grenade.

 

The issue with this is that the accuracy debuffs are standard whereas Smoke Grenade is not. Force Breach's effect is standard and expected. Smoke Grenade's is not.

 

It sounds like you're arguing that the Reactive Shield is great because it's so easy to use correctly, despite the fact that it's the weakest of the cooldowns in terms damage reduced.

 

It's less "easy to use" and more "applicable to all situations". Generality (how many situations a CD is appropriate for) is a definitely balancing factor for a tank CD and Reactive Shield is the absolute best in terms of this (Saber Ward is the only other CD that covers the same breadth of situations and I rank it as being marginally worse because the m/r portion of it is Defense based rather than DR). Deflection is worthless against Zorn and Resilience is only worthwhile against Toth's red reticules; Reactive Shield is worthwhile for either of them. That's a factor that has to be included in the balance and utility of a CD. Reactive Shield is *predictable*, *universal*, and has a good uptime ratio. The combination of those factors makes it an amazing CD.

 

I actually think that shadows in general fall into that category. I've seen some absolutely awful shadow tanks in my day. And, speaking as a healer now, they are not fun to have tanking for you. Shadows, in general, have the highest talent potential of any of the three tanks, but they require an *immense* amount of effort, thought and precision to hit that potential. I like that about the class, I really do, but perhaps it can be considered a downside.

 

As I've seen it, tanks have 3 different talent levels: bad, good, and great. Good tanks are all pretty much the same effectiveness. Bad Vanguards are better than bad Shadows which are better than bad Guardians. Great Shadows are better than great Guardians which are better than great Vanguards. Vanguards requires the least skill to progress from bad to good but there isn't much difference between good and great (thanks to everything being pretty much static). Guardians require the *most* skill to progress from bad to good but and a moderate amount to progress from good to great. Shadows require a moderate amount of skill to progress from bad to good, and the most skill to progress from good to great. Pretty much, if you're a bad player, you'll do best with a Vanguard, if you're a good player, you'll do best with a Guardian or Shadow, but if you're a *great* player, you'll do best with a Shadow.

 

It would also greatly increase their combat utility, making Vanguards the *perfect* off-tank (consider: Smoke Grenade would be a defensive CD that benefits *all* the tanks, not just yourself). Stack a Smoke Grenade with a Saber Ward or Deflection and you get 12 seconds of god mode against all weapon attacks. That's pretty cool.

 

You can already do that actually. I do it on my VG whenever there is an single tank fight that I'm not needed to tank for (Annihilator, Gharj, Bonethrasher, Fabricator, Karagga, Colonel Vorgath, sometimes Kephess). Of course, VGs have, in my opinion, the worst offtank damage/threat generation because they rely on Shield Cycler to get Stockstrike twice as often (which is a massive portion of their DPS). Comically enough, Shadows make the best offtanks (thanks to getting the least out of being attacked). Guardians are only marginally better off (hybrids less worse off than pure Defense) than Vanguards.

[KeyboardNinja]

As I've seen it, tanks have 3 different talent levels: bad, good, and great. Good tanks are all pretty much the same effectiveness. Bad Vanguards are better than bad Shadows which are better than bad Guardians. Great Shadows are better than great Guardians which are better than great Vanguards. Vanguards requires the least skill to progress from bad to good but there isn't much difference between good and great (thanks to everything being pretty much static). Guardians require the *most* skill to progress from bad to good but and a moderate amount to progress from good to great. Shadows require a moderate amount of skill to progress from bad to good, and the most skill to progress from good to great. Pretty much, if you're a bad player, you'll do best with a Vanguard, if you're a good player, you'll do best with a Guardian or Shadow, but if you're a *great* player, you'll do best with a Shadow.

 

I basically agree with this. Though, it's worth noting that a bad Guardian will manifest itself in losing threat EVERYWHERE. A bad Shadow will manifest itself in death. Derping your rotation starves you of force, delaying your self-heal, interrupting your refresh of Kinetic Ward, forcing you to delay Slow Time or Force Breach, etc. Threat will be an issue as well, but not as significantly as with a Guardian.

 

Both are pretty bad though.