Too squishy in flashpoints

[Elyxin]

You say "maxed out"...If you could give us your spec. There could be a talent or two you might have missed that could help.

Also.... It sounds from your OP that your experience with this is not that long. One thing about Shadow tanks is that they require a kind of "subtlety" to play. We are not brute force tanks or "meat shields". So when it comes to our survivability, it requires a very active play style. Like one person commented...CC can make a big difference. That's not to say that every pull you have to stop and CC as much as possible. I do the occasional drive by as I rush in and just CC one. It's usually enough to take the edge off the damage for the healer. Interrupts help a LOT....especially if you are very familiar with the mob being tanked and know WHICH ones to interrupt and which ones to eat. Rotating your CD's effectively. We have a lot of them. Controlling the pack movements. We have a CC, a stun, a sprint, stealth, a pull, an AIMABLE knock-back. All of which when used strategically can help control just how many of the "pack" are actually hitting you at one time. In Mando i had a problem with those damn dogs, until I started using LoS pulls to control their movement. Hell....on some 8-man runs, I have been known to stealth out mid fight to let the boss run half way across the room to the ranged, just to taunt him back before he gets there. The entire round trip....the healer is getting caught up because the boss is too busy derp'ing instead of hitting anybody (kids....don't try this at home).

 

The more you play, the more you'll develop a feel for the little In's & Out's of the class. It's the little things like these that make Shadows unique and a little tricky to get the hang of....and just sooooo much fun to play!

 

QFT. I tanked on my shadow with a Guard ally up through TfB pre-2.0 ( I also tank extensively on 2 Jugg's). shadows tanking was always high on threat, low on sustained mitigation. a boss was always easy pie, but on group pulls greater then 3-4 i watched my health go down faster then my checking account. We have always sucked at group pulls on evenly geared environments. one of the big issues (overall, not just shadow tanks), is that we have all been playing an overgeared game since 1.4....columi was handed out in the same instances that originally gave tionese. you basically walked into an overgeared situation for the last year.

 

now were all having to work in HM's that we are not geared up for. or if you are and are smart, your meeting the gear requirements. no one at this point exceeds them. give the game enough time to hand out a few higher tiers of gear and you'll feel invincible again. in the meantime you HAVE to use the skills that Bio designed to BE USED when your not over-gearing an instance....things like CC. Line of sight pulls, focus fire on targets...actually marking targets (lions, tigers and bear, ohmy! not marking...) these are the things we did back in the day when we actually had to WORK for our HM's. uphill. both directions in the snow....barefoot...rawr.

 

Believe it or not, there was a time in this games life when BT HM was actually a difficult run...and it was the "gear check" for the raids. By the time 2.0 hit it was a joke. I'd tank it on my jugg in DPS gear and DPS spec, and me and the guilds sorc would see who could hold aggro longer through sheer DPS. we'd run it with 3 people.

 

now? wouldn't dream of trying that in one of the new HM's. because were back to square one. that's what happens in expansions. reset of the gear grind, back to undeargeared situations.

[Banipal]

QFT. I tanked on my shadow with a Guard ally up through TfB pre-2.0 ( I also tank extensively on 2 Jugg's). shadows tanking was always high on threat, low on sustained mitigation. a boss was always easy pie, but on group pulls greater then 3-4 i watched my health go down faster then my checking account. We have always sucked at group pulls on evenly geared environments. one of the big issues (overall, not just shadow tanks), is that we have all been playing an overgeared game since 1.4....columi was handed out in the same instances that originally gave tionese. you basically walked into an overgeared situation for the last year.

 

now were all having to work in HM's that we are not geared up for. or if you are and are smart, your meeting the gear requirements. no one at this point exceeds them. give the game enough time to hand out a few higher tiers of gear and you'll feel invincible again. in the meantime you HAVE to use the skills that Bio designed to BE USED when your not over-gearing an instance....things like CC. Line of sight pulls, focus fire on targets...actually marking targets (lions, tigers and bear, ohmy! not marking...) these are the things we did back in the day when we actually had to WORK for our HM's. uphill. both directions in the snow....barefoot...rawr.

 

Believe it or not, there was a time in this games life when BT HM was actually a difficult run...and it was the "gear check" for the raids. By the time 2.0 hit it was a joke. I'd tank it on my jugg in DPS gear and DPS spec, and me and the guilds sorc would see who could hold aggro longer through sheer DPS. we'd run it with 3 people.

 

now? wouldn't dream of trying that in one of the new HM's. because were back to square one. that's what happens in expansions. reset of the gear grind, back to undeargeared situations.

 

This makes a lot more sense, i play a jugg tank and i don't see the same issue with mobs

[tXHereticXt]

Am i too undergeared? Even with with above info i gave about my gear + skill distribution.

 

I think it's subjective.

 

Unfortunate mistakes are always the result of a bad pull. That being said the Shadow/Sin tank is all about mitigating damage... not eating it. Squishy or not I could think of instances were I did pretty well. I'm sitting in 53 gear and did Mandalorian Raiders, beat all of it. Everybody was on their toes. Honestly 55 HMs seem much more forgiving than the originals when the game had first come out. I remember sucking hard on my jugg running through BT HM.

[Atramar]

I think it's subjective.

 

Unfortunate mistakes are always the result of a bad pull. That being said the Shadow/Sin tank is all about mitigating damage... not eating it. Squishy or not I could think of instances were I did pretty well. I'm sitting in 53 gear and did Mandalorian Raiders, beat all of it. Everybody was on their toes. Honestly 55 HMs seem much more forgiving than the originals when the game had first come out. I remember sucking hard on my jugg running through BT HM.

 

that could be due to juggs getting less nerfed tank stats then sins (jugg depends more on CD and armour, while sins more on their shield and def chance while having armour reduction lower then carnage mara), jugg has currently 4 def cooldowns (1 new) and can swap them around (I use reflect on every bigger pull, specially mentioned before Athiss on 5 droids) while my friend sin has to rely on dark ward and 2 def cooldowns (overcharge saber and deflection) and can't toss them around like they are free candy (I'm not complaining, I never had trouble healing 'new' HMs on my operative as i always keep my HoTs and start healing early-unless people start acting stupid)

but yeah, new HMs are more forgiving on enrage timers on boss fights, it's trash what's killing people

 

edit:I can have some names wrong, didn't had my coffee yet.

Edited April 30, 2013 by Atramar

[ML_DoubleTap]

Armor rating 5979

Damage Reduction 29.93%

Def chance 18.69

Shield Chance 28.23%

Shield Absorb 25.50%

 

Yeah, you must have some poor optimization going on. My stats:

Health: 28592

Armor rating 5730

Damage Reduction 33.04%

Def chance 19.56%

Shield Chance 32.55%

Shield Absorb 37.87%

 

You can see my armor level is a bit lower because I'm still in mostly Black Hole level gear(tier 61) but all of my other stats are better. I'd say you need to work on improving your mods/enhancements; I'd guess they're carrying some accuracy/alacrity.

[lironBD]

didn't read it all but sounds like bad healer.

I'm playing mostly healers and I get tanks from variety of classes even with ****** green gear. I proper healer will channel his abilities in right way to make sure you stay alive + if someone needs to die let it be one of the dps.

 

Also make sure u use your defensive CD abilities before you lose 50% of your health... when u see the moks taking away 30% of your health and they do some serious damage pop up all defensive CD, use interrupts, Use CC abilities.

 

Also make sure that all players focus on same target.

[Atramar]

you go L55 hms with tanks in green gear? I'm far from elitist, but a tank with more then 3 pieces of green gear on L 55 HM would get kicked so fast, it would make his head spin. blue, sure, but green?

gear up to atleast 58-61 on L 50 hms, as tanks and healers ques are so short, there is no excuse.

I can understand grade 66 and 69 blues, but not greens...

[ML_DoubleTap]

I had a group tell me I wasn't geared enough in optimized 61's with a few 66 purples:rolleyes:

[Ms_Sunlight]

I had a group tell me I wasn't geared enough in optimized 61's with a few 66 purples:rolleyes:

 

Ha! You'll always get idiots who'd rather blame someone else's play or gear than improve their own skills. It's why, when I pug as a tank, I can't help but feel a teeny bit suspicious whenever I join a FP half way through! (And yes, I know it's unfair but there have been a few times we get to the next pull and go, "oh, so that's why the last tank quit!")

 

OP: Your stats are skewed. You need less endurance, more shield and DEFINITELY a lot more absorb. Even an unmodified Campaign Survivor set bought with Classic Comms should be better optimised than that. Also be aware that it's a very different tanking style to Guardian or Vanguard, and a very different play style to Shadow DPS. My BF is an amazing tank on his Jugg but has struggled recently trying to convert a Sin to a tank. He knows the encounters, he knows how to tank and what to do, he knows how to play a Deception Sin but...

[Banipal]

Ok, an update for you guys, at the moment, all my armourings are 66, with 2 pieces of 69 gear, my mods are all defence based and my augments are all advanced absorbs 28's. My current stats are as follows

 

Health; 34,629

Armor Rating: 6089

Damage Reduction: 32.31%

Defence Chance: 18.83%

Shield Chance: 45.40% (with KW)

Shield Absorption: 36.88%

 

I've done a few HM FP's and i've definitely noticed a big difference. As i said, All my armourings are Force wielder 28 (purple) (i have 2 resolve 30), All my mods are Redoubt 28 (purple) and all my augments are absorb 28 (purple).

 

Have i focussed too much on one stat? Should i sacrifice Def for a higher Absorb? or push my shield up? Some people say stack endurance =/

[codycroft]

Don't stack endurance till absorb and shield, let alone def, is where you want it. Endurance isn't a secondary stat but sometimes it is.

 

I've only been recently working on my Shadow tank, and encounter similar problems to you. Those bonus boss's are horrible on me. Like most Shadow Tanks, getting aggro isn't hard, but those hard hitting AOE's tear me up. The new phase walk increases you're healing received by 2%. Also if you drop it right, healers standing next to it get a bump in healing output, though don't know how much. Our defensive CD's are pretty short so they get popped on CD on those nasty mob pulls too. And yes, I've gone back to marking targets and using the CC in the group, plus with a definite kill order.

[genesiser]

Most likely the problem isn't that you suck or your gear sucks, the problem is most likely the healer. Before people look at that statement and get mad, let me explain.

 

The reason so many tanks die often on trash fights is because lots of times, the enemies put some kind of dot on you and for some reason the game likes to have all of the enemies use them right off the bat. Many times you get 3-5 dots on you and as we all know, dots tick hard especially when they are stacked on you. Now the reason I say it's the healers fault is because most healers don't realize that and they see you HP spiking up and down quickly, and their first response is to just try to heal through it. The dots plus the attacks from enemies can easily make the tank die whether he's in 58 mods or 69 mods. For some reason people seem to think that the only time you need to cleanse is when you are fighting a boss, but all it takes is a quick cleanse and the fights become super easy to heal.

 

So basically, if you want to ensure you live even though you have a healer that doesn't cleanse, remember to use your resilience to cleanse the dots. Hopefully it'll be back up when you need it again.