2.0 PVE Shadow tank builds.

[hillbilly]

has anyone come up with a build adding in the new points we get?

[JasonNH]

This is what I'm running for my first build on the PTS

 

36/6/4

 

I put 2 pts in rapid recovery, which I've never used before but figured it was less of a waste than Shadow Wrap. I tried to maximize mitigation, force recovery, and utility. I don't know if it would be better to take some damage buffs instead for threat generation, but since threat has rarely been an issue, I went with this.

[-Sirus-]

I plan on testing a few different builds tonight while testing accuracy changes. So far, I plan to do on build with low DS priority and one with a higher DS priority (including the new talent wrap). I'll link some builds here as well when I'm done.

[hillbilly]

ok here's what i've come up with. not sure how its gonna work. gonna test it out later tonight.

 

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/234/?build=020332201121023002120203100200100300000000000000000000000000000001220020000000000000000000000000&ver=20

[DaftVaduhhh]

Give this a whirl:

 

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/234/?build=022302201121023002120203020200100302000000000000000000000000000001220000000000000000000000000000&ver=20

[haksilence]

Give this a whirl:

 

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/234/?build=022302201121023002120203020200100302000000000000000000000000000001220000000000000000000000000000&ver=20

 

Hope this isn't a PvE build? No 3% boost to endurance? That's just foolish. Take those points out of applied force and force synergy and pick up the endurance. Endurance = more self heals which = more mitigation.

 

Try this one. This is gonna be the best possible build for shadow tanking assuming you don't have a threat problem (which you shouldn't)

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/234/?build=020332201121023002120203100200100300000000000000000000000000000001220020000000000000000000000000&ver=20

Edited February 26, 2013 by haksilence

[DaftVaduhhh]

Pure endurance talents are a waste of time, even for Shadows. If it came to give 5% endurance for 2 or 3 points, I'd start getting interested.

 

As it stands mental fortitude would provide 900-1000 HP and no more than 8 HPS in unaugmented Akranian gear. I'll take the threat, which delivers more for a build per talent point, including some additional HPS from the Combat Technique proc (the time between procs drops significantly).

 

If you want to take both and drop Shadow Wrap and Applied Force be my guest, but I personally think that given the need for Shelter Placement, maximising threat (without going stupid on it) is going to be a requirement to allow less pressure on the tank to replace the phase walk, assuming no tank swaps (there's plenty of two mob fights in ToR).

Edited February 26, 2013 by DaftVaduhhh

[RGMetal]

Hope this isn't a PvE build? No 3% boost to endurance? That's just foolish. Take those points out of applied force and force synergy and pick up the endurance. Endurance = more self heals which = more mitigation.

 

Try this one. This is gonna be the best possible build for shadow tanking assuming you don't have a threat problem (which you shouldn't)

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/234/?build=020332201121023002120203100200100300000000000000000000000000000001220020000000000000000000000000&ver=20

 

Why would you take "Focused Insight"?

[haksilence]

Pure endurance talents are a waste of time, even for Shadows. If it came to give 5% endurance for 2 or 3 points, I'd start getting interested.

 

As it stands mental fortitude would provide 900-1000 HP and no more than 8 HPS in unaugmented Akranian gear. I'll take the threat, which delivers more for a build per talent point, including some additional HPS from the Combat Technique proc (the time between procs drops significantly).

 

If you want to take both and drop Shadow Wrap and Applied Force be my guest, but I personally think that given the need for Shelter Placement, maximising threat (without going stupid on it) is going to be a requirement to allow less pressure on the tank to replace the phase walk, assuming no tank swaps (there's plenty of two mob fights in ToR).

 

extra threat is wasted on shadows since they already ahve the highest threat generation by a longshot. not taking the extra HP cushion and extra HPS is foolish and look at the spec again i do take the reduced proc time on combat technique. as far as TANKING goes and you know how to maintain your high threat rotation there is absolutely no reason to be taking points that boost damage. this is the best spec for survivability and mitigation.

 

also I do not take focused insight I dont know how that showed on the build? focused insight is 100% useless to shadow tanks.

 

here is the fixed spec http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/234/?build=020332201121023002120203100200100300000000000000000000000000000001220020000000000000000000000000&ver=20

Edited February 26, 2013 by haksilence

[RGMetal]

I was more than slightly confused, it's not like there are dots in a Kinetic build. LOL

[haksilence]

Yeah, lol one of these guys posted a spec with focussed insight

[meester]

Looking at these builds, people keep putting a point in Martial Prowess, which I don't get, (unless it gives you a particular skill). I don't ever use spinning kick, and as a tank, coming out of stealth isn't really a thing. Would it not be better to put it into Applied Force for the extra dmg, (since nothing else really stands out as being worthwhile dropping points into).

 

Something like -

 

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/234/?build=021332231121020002120203010200100300000000000000000000000000000001220020000000000000000000000000&ver=20

 

Or am i missing something?

Edited March 1, 2013 by meester

[-Sirus-]

Martial prowess is for mob tanking. Why would you not want to be able to interrupt/stun trash at will?

[Kitru]

This is what I expect to see as the "standard" 2.0 Shadow tanking build (assuming no major changes are implemented before going live, which is entirely possible considering it's PTS). Yes, I realize that I didn't spend 3 of those points, but I'll get to that later.

 

I didn't take Martial Prowess because, honestly, it's a PvP talent: pretty much everything I tank in PvE is immune to stuns and the talent no longer has the 20% additional armor rider, so it's not really all that useful. Applied Force and Shadow Wrap are must have thanks to the reduction in cost of Project and Slow Time coupled with the increased CD on Slow Time: it's now actually cost effective to generate PA stacks, not to mention that it's *also* almost required since we need the Project CD reset in order to maintain the same HS stack generation that we've gotten used to. Beyond that, it's still a case of Expertise is *terrible*.

 

As to the 3 points I haven't spent, you'll notice I didn't take either Mental Fortitude *or* Force Synergy. This is because I'm still having a livid debate with myself as to which is better. On live, as it stands, Force Synergy is, honestly, a terrible talent for Shadow tanks to take: 90% of our total threat and damage is F/T based and the remaining portion is made up by Saber Strike and *maybe* 1-2 DSs per minute. The only reason we even take it is to get up to Upheaval and Psychokinesis, which are both disgustingly good talents. However, in 2.0, with the shuffling of those talents, all of the low tier talents we could want are on the first tier. As such, unless Force Synergy is actually *useful* to us, there's no reason to take it.

 

This is further compounded by the eternal survivability v. threat/damage argument. The 3 points I held in reserve can either be spent on a minute increase to self healing (through 3% additional Endurance, which translates to anywhere between 1-1.5% increased self healing depending on how large Combat Technique's heal is) or a minute increase in total damage dealt. For Force Synergy's contribution, my best guess is that the 2.0 changes are going to shift our damage/threat ratio from a 90/10 split for Force-to-melee damage to something closer to 60/40 or 70/30 since we're not really *losing* all that much Force damage and are instead really just *gaining* more effective melee damage. As such, with a baseline ~22% crit rate and no surge stacked, Force Synergy represents all of a 4.1% increase to average melee damage dealt, which, using those previously indicated ratios, means either a 1.23-1.65% increase to total damage, neither of which is particularly stellar or even all that noticeable.

 

Essentially, neither is going to do all that much so I'm curious as to whether there's much of a point. The minute contributions of Force Synergy are also making me actually consider Expertise, which is a bit mind-boggling when you consider how worthless it's been for the entire lifespan of the game: if Force Synergy isn't needed to advance any more and the contributions are so low, Expertise might actually have a reasonable place, since it's possible it would add more damage than Force Synergy (though it would likely only do so early on in progression since, from what it looks like, CT is *still* a static value that doesn't scale with Willpower).

Edited March 2, 2013 by Kitru

[DaftVaduhhh]

Kitru, your build uses 47 talent points. The max is 46.

 

Additionally, do you actually see any benefit from Focused Insight? AFAIK it doesn't proc on TK throw.

 

Accelerated project will maintain the +9% to crit from Force Synergy, but it is definitely a toss up between that and Celerity.

 

Finally, you didn't take one with the force? Is this the right link?

Edited March 2, 2013 by DaftVaduhhh

[Kitru]

Is this the right link?

 

I linked the proper one but it looks like it got parsed into something weird. I fixed the link so that it's the one I actually refer to (it's still shy 3 points because I'm still not sure about Force Synergy, Mental Fortitude, and Expertise).

[DaftVaduhhh]

I linked the proper one but it looks like it got parsed into something weird. I fixed the link so that it's the one I actually refer to (it's still shy 3 points because I'm still not sure about Force Synergy, Mental Fortitude, and Expertise).

Was about to ask where all your common sense went.

 

Celerity is great to make Mind Snap a useful interrupt and 30s less on a stun breaker in Force of Will is of course welcome, but a huge crit buff like Synergy will make threat that much easier and I'm sure BW have designed Celerity to be a PvP talent, just one that's easier to access for Balance.

 

Mental Fortitude is getting closer to being worthwhile, but still not good enough IMO. Expertise is still ****house, even though they've doubled the damage buff.

Edited March 2, 2013 by DaftVaduhhh

[Kitru]

Celerity is great to make Mind Snap a useful interrupt and 30s less on a stun breaker in Force of Will is of course welcome, but a huge crit buff like Synergy will make threat that much easier and I'm sure BW have designed Celerity to be a PvP talent, just one that's easier to access for Balance.

 

Mental Fortitude is getting closer to being worthwhile, but still not good enough IMO. Expertise is still ****house, even though they've doubled the damage buff.

 

Celerity was one that I was considering, if only because having a 12 sec interrupt rather than an 8 gets *really* annoying on interrupt intensive fights. Even with it, we're still only getting down to 10 sec which, while it's better, isn't a *major* improvement in PvE.

 

Discussing Force Synergy, though, I think you forgot about how little that 9% melee crit actually amounts to. Before it was absolutely required because you had to spend those points to get to Psychokinesis and Upheaval. Now, not so much. Remember, that 9% crit only applies to *melee* attacks, and, as Shadow tanks, we're still *heavily* weighted towards Force damage. Like I said before, even if you increase the ratio of melee damage by threefold, it's still less than 2% increase in total DPS from all of that crit since we don't stack Surge at all. The newly doubled Expertise might well edge out Force Synergy (and my gut actually says that it's actually pretty likely), though, to verify, it'll require numbers I don't have access to at the moment.

 

Of course, I'm also pretty sure that the 3 points we're talking about are probably as valuable as the 2 floating points that we deal with in current tanking builds (the 2 points that go into either Mental Fortitude, Applied Force, or Nerve Wracking) insofar as they'll have almost negligible real impact.

[Grumpftard]

Of course, I'm also pretty sure that the 3 points we're talking about are probably as valuable as the 2 floating points that we deal with in current tanking builds (the 2 points that go into either Mental Fortitude, Applied Force, or Nerve Wracking) insofar as they'll have almost negligible real impact.

 

Yeah... Pretty much negligible is a good word. I've been bouncing the points around all day and nothing is really catching my fancy. So I think tomorrow I'm just gonna derp it and run with one point in each for the hell of it.

[halosavior]

(( Copied from my post on the Ebon Hawk Enjin Community website. ))

 

 

Shadow Tank PvE Build (37/5/4)

 

 

To whom it may concern,

 

Kinetic Combat (37)

 

• Everything up to the fourth tier is pretty much the same, barring a few technical changes to a few talents (ex. Kinetic Ward's increased CD in exchange for no Force cost).
   
  
• Fifth tier is the same, but with the addition of Kinetic Bulwark, which makes takes advantage of Kinetic Ward.
   
  
• Sixth tier is the same, but Force Break gets got an extra point because I had one point left over after all was said and done.
   
  
• Seventh tier got all of my points:
   
   
  
  I am uncertain how often I'll be using Phase Walk in PvE, but it never hurts to have increased healing. Theoretically, melee DPS would obviously benefit from this ability as well. Martial Prowess was a bit of a shock because it used to be a tier lower (as Stasis), and although the 20% increase in armor no longer exists, being able to use spinning kick is invaluable as a semi-interrupt. Finally, Shadow Warp got full points because I just want an excuse to use Shadow Strike (an ability to was almost exclusively used by Infiltration). Pending clarification on any changes made to Shadow Strike, these two points will probably find better use else where, as my main threat generating abilities are still Slow Time, Force Breach, Project, and Telekinetic Throw.... so far.

  
   
   
   
  

• Slow time. No brainer.

 

 

Infiltration (5)

 

• Full points in Upheaval, which was moved from the Balance tree. Who wouldn't want their rocks to hit harder?
   
  
• Full points in Celerity, which was originally in the second tier, thus unobtainable. Decreased CD on Mind Snap, Force Speed, and Force of Will is a huge benefit to my interrupts and mobility.

 

 

Balance (4)

 

• Full points in Jedi Resistance. Small increase in damage reduction, enough said.
   
  
• Full points in Psychokinesis, which was originally in the second tier. Small decrease in Force cost for a number of melee abilities and Project.

[Botho]

I wish they would spice up Rapid recovery and Expertise a bit there just pointless

 

50% vs 65% to apply effects is so weak, at 50% is practically guranteed already.

And increasing the dmg of Combat techniques dmg proc for tanks is even weaker.

 

I mean I know you dont have to take them but would be nice to have the incentive to want to take them and mix up the tree a bit. Not that im overflowing with ideas of what, but there must be something lol.

[Kitru]

I wish they would spice up Rapid recovery and Expertise a bit there just pointless

 

Back at release Rapid Recovery was *amazing* because CT had a 1.5 sec ICD, so the 15% increase proc chance actually had a not insignificant effect on your real proc rate. The increase to a 4.5 sec ICD drastically diminished the real value and the nerfs to CT's actual damage diminished it even more, but Rapid Recovery is still one of the better talent expenditures for tanks in the first few tiers.

 

2.0 is doubling the value of Expertise and removing the need to take feeder talents to get to the "required" talents in the other trees by putting those talents on the first tier. As such, I'm pretty confident that Expertise is actually going to be the best use of the final 3 points in a Shadow tank build.

 

Even so, until they finally make it so that Techniques finally start scaling with your stats (like *every other stance* in the game), anything that augments your Techniques is going to be pretty low value.

[DaftVaduhhh]

Shadow Tank PvE Build (37/5/4)

I'd drop spinning kick out of stealth, and definitely keep the two points in shadow wrap, it means you'll be getting higher threat in your rotation, and some fun procs from double strike (which you'll be using more because of the need for accuracy).

 

Would then drop the spare point into Force Synergy, but can see people avoiding Celerity entirely and going 3/3 in FS.

Edited March 5, 2013 by DaftVaduhhh

[Grumpftard]

I'd drop spinning kick out of stealth, and definitely keep the two points in shadow wrap, it means you'll be getting higher threat in your rotation, and some fun procs from double strike (which you'll be using more because of the need for accuracy).

 

Would then drop the spare point into Force Synergy, but can see people avoiding Celerity entirely and going 3/3 in FS.

 

Accuracy doesn't really factor in. We still don't need it. (unless I'm just misunderstanding your comment)

Edited March 6, 2013 by Grumpftard

[DaftVaduhhh]

Accuracy doesn't really factor in. We still don't need it. (unless I'm just misunderstanding your comment)

PvE mobs have a 10% chance to resist Force & Tech attacks, which if you read the tool tips, is combated by accuracy.

 

If a sage DPS needs accuracy, you need accuracy.