Shield Tech Spec

[bbrooks]

Hey guys,

 

Little background on me, I've been playing since beta alternating between my sin DPS and PT tank as my raid toons. Currently 4/4 NiM EC on my PT and 3/4 on my sin in our alt runs. I consider myself to be pretty decent at the PT tank, but i had a question. Recently I got into a bit of an argument with a fellow PT tank from a rival guild on my server about the best spec for current operation tanking. Pretty much the argument was between grabbing 2 points of flame surge and one wasted point in neural overload in his spec, or instead dropping all three points and going 3/3 in steely resolve. I tend to think of the gained single target threat to be more useful than 2 free weak aoe's for current content boss tanking. I can see the benefit for trash or for HM fp's and stuff like that, but I cant really think of a situation in a boss encounter where i am in dire need of two free flamesweeps. Just wanted to see if anyone had any reason it would be better to use his spec, or if the general consensus is to go steely resolve.

 

Thanks in Advance

[steave]

...what kind of spec are you running already?

This should be the standard (with the last 3 points going either to iron fist+prototype cylinders or integrated cardio package). You obviously want to get to the top of the tree for heat blast so you need all 31 points in there, and the only talent that's not already taken that would provide any benefit in PVE is rail loaders for the increased threat...but steely resolve will help your threat much more.

 

It shouldn't be a case of steely resolve VS flame surge - you should have both.

 

As for when it's actually needed, it helps a lot with keeping aggro on the trenchutters in EC NiM, and it's nice in other places as well if used properly - even against single targets you can use it for heat management, it will do more damage than your rapid shots. Basically, the advantage of taking it is small, but there's nothing else useful to put those points in.

[bbrooks]

...what kind of spec are you running already?

This should be the standard (with the last 3 points going either to iron fist+prototype cylinders or integrated cardio package). You obviously want to get to the top of the tree for heat blast so you need all 31 points in there, and the only talent that's not already taken that would provide any benefit in PVE is rail loaders for the increased threat...but steely resolve will help your threat much more.

 

It shouldn't be a case of steely resolve VS flame surge - you should have both.

 

As for when it's actually needed, it helps a lot with keeping aggro on the trenchutters in EC NiM, and it's nice in other places as well if used properly - even against single targets you can use it for heat management, it will do more damage than your rapid shots. Basically, the advantage of taking it is small, but there's nothing else useful to put those points in.

 

There is no reason not to get rail loaders, increased threat on your highest threat move is nothing to scoff at. In that situation there is no way i can see taking flame surge over it. Even with only 6% more damage itll still help. The spec I currently run is http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301GMGrdorohRZMsbZb.2. Either way you look at it it seems like steely resolve is almost a must, which is what I was looking at figuring out. Thanks for the reply

[steave]

There is no reason not to get rail loaders, increased threat on your highest threat move is nothing to scoff at. In that situation there is no way i can see taking flame surge over it. Even with only 6% more damage itll still help. The spec I currently run is http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301GMGrdorohRZMsbZb.2. Either way you look at it it seems like steely resolve is almost a must, which is what I was looking at figuring out. Thanks for the reply

 

It's not your highest threat move though - that would be DFA/Rocket punch. First of all, RS has a 9% chance to miss on bosses due to defense (assuming you have the accuracy boost from legacy and itemized all your accuracy away) and secondly it's reduced by armor - it does have a 60% armor penetration, but it will still be reduced.

 

With my current gear (BiS using the 27B mods) my RS does an average of 1600 base (well, technically 1599.5, but let's round it off), including the 9% chance to miss that's 1456 damage minus the targets armor. Increasing that by 6% will only add 87 damage on a 15 second cooldown, or 5.8/second - add in threat boost and that's 11.6 threat/second, or 174 extra threat during your opener.

On the other hand, RpS do an average of 820 damage with a 18% chance to miss for 672 average damage minus armor reduction (and RpS doesn't have any kind of armor penetration) - some testing on the dummy seem to indicate about 35% reduction from that bringing it down to 437 damage while flame sweep does 718, an extra 282 - and you get 2 of them for a total of 564, or an extra 1128 threat. Granted, you only get that once, but it would take 164 seconds for the extra railshot damage to catch up, and by then you have so much threat already due to taunts that threat is no problem what so ever.

Basically, even against single targets, getting 2 free flame sweeps instead of 2 RpS will do more damage and produce more threat and if there's multiple targets you get to both build threat on up to 5 of them and apply your damage done debuff to multiple targets.

 

 

But yeah, I do agree that SR is a must.

Edited January 17, 2013 by steave

[Yashmata]

There is no reason not to get rail loaders, increased threat on your highest threat move is nothing to scoff at. In that situation there is no way i can see taking flame surge over it. Even with only 6% more damage itll still help. The spec I currently run is http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301GMGrdorohRZMsbZb.2. Either way you look at it it seems like steely resolve is almost a must, which is what I was looking at figuring out. Thanks for the reply

 

I run this spec too. Works well for me