Vanguard/Powertech Tank questions

[DonJuansen]

After leveling and gearing a Sorcerer I got a bit bored and wanted to try out a tank.

 

I am currently in i-level 61 gear, except for mainhand(mix 24/26) and offhand (BM supercommando).

Since I am a bit new to Vanguard/PT tanking, I have some questions for PvE and PvP. Hopefully you can help me out!

You can check my AMR here and i am 31/8/2 spec

 

 

In PvE i have succesfully tanked KP HM and EC SM and am looking forward to trying EC HM but i still have a few questions. I am not fully augmented yet, because I am unsure whether to go full END or a mix of endurance and mitgation:

1. Is my skill tree build the right one?

2. Which augmentations should I pick for my open slots? (using 6 END augments already, 8 open)

3. Is it necessary to get 2-piece or 4-piece Supercommando to tank EC HM?

4. Should i get other gear upgrades before going EC HM?

 

For PvP, I understand that alot of damage is tech or force damage. And there some people saying that tanks should not go for tanking gear in PvP, but should get DPS gear instead. Can I still be valuable in PuG PvP with a tank set or should i play tank in a dps set instead? Or just spec DPS for PvP because vanguard/PT tanks don't work well for it?

 

Thanks for the replies!

[Kitru]

1. Is my skill tree build the right one?

 

It's pretty close to the most popular spec except that I would take the 3rd point in Steely Resolve and the 2nd point in Static Surge rather than the 2 points in Brutal Impact. More Aim adds to the damage of all of your abilities and free Explosive Surges after Storming is actually pretty useful for your first 10 seconds of threat generation (you can generate more threat while consuming less ammo).

 

2. Which augmentations should I pick for my open slots? (using 6 END augments already, 8 open)

 

Depending on who you feel like asking, Endurance is either the most amazing tank stat evar or the most singularly worst tank stat evar. Personally, since I adhere to the logic of "taking less damage is better than being able to take more damage" and Force/Tech damage isn't nearly as common in EC+ content as it was in EV/KP, I think that Endurance is completely worthless and do everything in my power to minimize it, and prefer to focus on my tank stats. As such, I would recommend you go with Shield and/or Absorb augments (try to keep your ratings roughly equal); Defense augs are an option too, but some people prefer not to use them unless you're hitting the DR on your Shield/Abs really hard.

 

If you want to stack HP, I actually think it's better to use Aim augments since you still get a healthy stack of Endurance and the Aim provides more functional benefit to you than the Power that is attached to the Endurance augs.

 

3. Is it necessary to get 2-piece or 4-piece Supercommando to tank EC HM?

 

The 2 and 4 piece set bonuses for all tanks are simply amazing. If you don't have them already, I would get them immediately.

 

4. Should i get other gear upgrades before going EC HM?

 

Honestly, as it stands now, you're pretty well overgeared for EC HM. About the only thing that you'd get out of it is some additional mod tweaking options, the shells/armoring to get your set bonuses, and a 146 grade weapon. I'd be confident taking that gear into HM TfB when it comes out, honestly.

 

It's important to remember that HM EC was designed to be run in full Rak gear (i-level 140/mod rating 25). Everything except for your weapon is precisely that or better.

[DonJuansen]

Thanks for the extensive reply Kitru!

I thought I was ok for EC HM, but good to know i can give TfB HM a shot too - having spare BH comms helps gearing alts

 

I'll adjust my skill distribution to fit your suggestions, makes sense to swap them 2 points!

Concerning mitigation vs endurance, I did read some threads on it and it seems there are 2 (and a 3rd hybrid) paths to take. I decided to keep my 6 END augments for now and put Absorb/Shield augments on the rest. Also got 4-piece Supercommando bonus, since I had spare columi pieces in bank. So now my stats look like this:

 

Health: 24732

Armor rating: 8678

Damage Reduction: 53.55%

Defense Chance: 18.54 (394)

Shield Chance: 56.89% (683)

Absorb Chance: 56.94% (479)

 

Some more questions:

- Is my stat distribution close to optimal like this?

- Should I get Absorb & Shield RATING to the same level or did you mean the %?

- When do Defense, Absorb, Shield get hit by diminishing returns heavily enough to encourage taking the other tank stats?

 

And finally:

For PvP, I understand that alot of damage is tech or force damage. And there some people saying that tanks should not go for tanking gear in PvP, but should get DPS gear instead. Can I still be valuable in PuG PvP with a tank set or should i play tank in a dps set instead? Or just spec DPS for PvP because vanguard/PT tanks don't work well for it?

If any PvP focused Vanguard/PT Tank can help me with this question that would be awesome!

[Kitru]

- Is my stat distribution close to optimal like this?

- Should I get Absorb & Shield RATING to the same level or did you mean the %?

- When do Defense, Absorb, Shield get hit by diminishing returns heavily enough to encourage taking the other tank stats?

 

All of these 3 questions can be answered together. As a tank, you want to stack all of your tank stats roughly equally to offset diminishing returns. "Stacking together" refers specifically to rating, since that's how DR is applied (DR only applies to the contributions you get from rating). Being absolutely optimal requires that you use variable weighting for each of your stats that changes the more of each rating that you get (Higher Defense actually reduces the comparative value of Shield/Absorb because of how the 2 roll system works), but, honestly, the returns are not worth all of the additional effort, in my opinion. Since you can't really trade off Shield for Absorb or Defense outside of augment tweaking and Absorb is of higher comparative value than Defense for a VG tank, your stats look reasonably optimal.

[CitizenFry]

Yeah, your stats look pretty good to me, maybe a smidgen too heavy on Defense, but not by enough that I'd worry about regearing. If you have utterly absurd stacks of daily comms, you might consider whether the Campaign absorb proc relic would get you a little more survivability, but honestly with 1.4 right around the corner I would hold on to my comms for now. Edited September 25, 2012 by CitizenFry