Dear Bioware, regarding Shield Tech...

[LordExozone]

So many misinformation in this thread, I wish people would only reply when they know what they are talking about.

 

Yes defence is terrible for pvp. Reason being, it only works against ranged and melee attacks and your oppositions accuracy also plays a role in there as well as a crit. Crits cannot be shielded or dodged so you are getting screwed on a few levels.

 

So say whoever was attacking you had 110% melee accuracy and you had 25% defence. The extra 10% accuracy they have over 100 bassically lowers your defence chance down to 15% and on top of that if they crit 30% of the time that additionally lowers the rolls your defence can do.

 

1. Defense is not terrible in PvP. It is less effective than DPS stats as indeed it only works vs melee and ranged attacks and not tech or force, but that still means it will work against roughly half the attacks that you receive. Even vs classes like powertechs where most damage is tech, the heavy hitters like railshot are affected. Compared to shield, defense is significantly more useful.

 

2. Crits can be defended against. You cannot shield a crit. It's a 2-roll system, first accuracy vs defense. If you defend an attack it cannot crit. Then if it hits you can either shield it, or it hits normally, or it crits, and crits take precedence over shield. (So when you have 50% shield chance but your enemy has 70% crit due to a buff, you will only shield 30% while 70% will be crits.)

 

What this effectively means, is that powertechs are much worse off than juggernauts. Juggernauts can get around 17% defense chance just by using Soresu form and various talents. Which means that with only some minor investment in defense mods they can get around 30% defense chance.

In addition, with most damage being melee, if juggernauts equip a shield generator (which equals around 2% extra migitation without any +shield/+absorb mods) they do not sacrifice much damage (only force scream and smash are reduced iirc)

 

The powertech's shieldtech tree by comparison has a very strong focus on increasing the shield and absorb chance. Shield is a terrible mechanic in PvP, much weaker than defense, and the powertech is forced to use a shield generator to benefit to the fullest from the talents. Since most of the powertech's attacks are tech, this significantly reduces an already low damage output.

 

If that wasn't bad enough, the juggernaut has access to all the main talents useful for PvP in the first 5 tiers of the Immortal tree, allowing them to pick up some key pvp talents from the Vengeance tree. Like Unstoppable (CC immunity after charge), Impale, Deafening Defense, and by sacrificing the instant force choke from the immortal tree, Savagery (which allows for burst superior to anything the shieldtech has to offer)

 

In addition to this, the hybrid juggernaut has much better utility (which do some people insist powertechs have better utility??) I'll list it:

 

1. AOE 6 second Mez on a 30 second cooldown

2. Free spammable AOE 50% snare.

3. Force Push, the best ability to save a teammate in the game.

4. The ability to leap to teammates.

5. The ability to charge and root foes.

6. Force Choke.

7. An AOE 5% accuracy debuff with a potential 100% uptime.

8. Melee taunts.

 

Shieldtechs have:

 

1. AOE 2.5 second stun on a 45 sec. cooldown. Inferior to a 6 second mez unless you are in a completely clueless team that AOE-blankets the area.

2. An unreliable single target snare.

3. A pull. Fantastic ability, but only incidentally useful at protecting teammates since you using it means you are way outside of guard range. And when you are in guard range, you generally don't want to pull dangerous foes closer to the healer you are guarding.

4. The ability to charge and root foes, so high up in the Shieldtech tree that you can't pick up any of the good Advanced Prototype talents.

5. A stun comparable to force choke.

6. An AOE 20% accuracy debuff with a potential 30% uptime.

7. The ability to destealth stealthclasses.

8. Ranged taunts.

 

Going over the list, powertechs only have 3 utility things going for them, the ranged taunts, stealthscan and the 20% accuracy debuff. Everything else is either on par (the normal stun vs choke and grapple vs push) or inferior (the AOE stun, the snare, the charge, etc.).

Juggernauts have everything better or on par, except for the accuracy debuff which is just rather poor.

 

Add to this the better personal survivability due to key talents such as Sonic Barrier (absorb-shield after force scream), Intercede (friendly leap) and Unstoppable (CC immunity after charge) and the better mobility (more frequent charges the friendly leap) and we can see quite clearly why juggernauts make far more viable pvp tanks than powertechs.

[vimm]

Tank Jug is weak compared to Assassin as well.

[stephenalandavie]

Tank Jug is weak compared to Assassin as well.

 

Biggest troll today

[JackNader]

Shield tech tanks are so far below the other 2 tanks it's kinda funny.

[Pysces]

To the guy who sent the massive, rational breakdown of the situation: Thanks for being the voice of reason, it was excellent.

[byteresistor]

... Could you please, please, make this viable for pvp again? Why should juggernauts and assassins get the best of both worlds (survivability, amazing dps, etc)? It just doesn't make sense and evidently unfair. Surely other power techs share this wish and concern as well?

A full tank jugg doesn't have amazing damage. They have decent damage if they go hybrid, but then again a shieldtech can also go hybrid and have slightly higher damage than a hybrid jugg. This amazing survability and damage myth only applies to sins.

Edited January 7, 2013 by byteresistor

[Pysces]

Yeah... No. All I've encountered from juggs were massive crits, them taking barely any damage, and when not critting, still hitting hard. Please, don't try to compare shield tech to jugg, it's just hardly a comparison.

[Zataos]

Man, I love my DPS Shield Tech, probably my favorite or 2nd favorite toon (behind full Madness Sorc), Full War Hero DPS (Power/Surge and a few Crit/Surge gear, He's really tough to bring down, has high mobility, super heat management, and I'll generally come in 2nd or 3rd in DPS (between 200k and 300k) in good rounds. It's definitely "sustained DPS" as opposed to the super high burst of Pyro but it all comes down to playstyle, which is very slimier to a DPS Tanksassin

[Sleprock]

Biggest troll today

 

Indeed, or this guy doesn't understand min/maxing lol

[byteresistor]

Yeah... No. All I've encountered from juggs were massive crits, them taking barely any damage, and when not critting, still hitting hard. Please, don't try to compare shield tech to jugg, it's just hardly a comparison.

You were the one who started the comparing, and I'm telling you are wrong.

[stephenalandavie]

You were the one who started the comparing, and I'm telling you are wrong.

 

Yes and for sins it is exactly that a myth,

[Pysces]

You were the one who started the comparing, and I'm telling you are wrong.

 

...You know what I meant. As in, they can't even compare to the jugg's vast deal of excessive performance in pvp. The pedestal is quite small for the mere Shield Tech when placed next to the Jugg's--Bottom line.