Fixing Shadow Tank Spikiness

[DarthSpekulatius]

Ugggg... Reading this is making me want to roll another tank.. I love my shadow though..

 

it's only a problem if you can be killed by very few hit's, so play what you like shadows are fine for most content,

my numbers where more to visualize what it feels like sometimes, usually healer can compensate easy enough.

Edited July 5, 2013 by DarthSpekulatius

[ialyxxiieee]

I will Love my shadow tank to the end, No matter what

[Riivan]

Ugggg... Reading this is making me want to roll another tank.. I love my shadow though..

 

Keep playing it. Shadows/Assassins are just QQing.

[EFSoupy]

There's a quote I heard attributed to Einstein regarding modeling any situation "The model should be as simple as it can be, but no simpler".

Saying that "roll this many time and this many strings in a row = death" is too simple a model, sorry. You're oversimplifying the model, which means you don't have justification for what you're saying (don't worry,devs have been doing the same thing). And even according to your over simplified model, you're still slated to have uncontrollable tank death once every boss fight when using a shadow (and the claim of "use your cd" neglected that cd's are used to preemptively, not reactively). Other tanks don't have to deal with random deaths, so even the bad models still show that the system is broken.

[KeyboardNinja]

Keep playing it. Shadows/Assassins are just QQing.

 

When you add evidence to QQ, it becomes legitimate and serious. We have the math, the combat logs and the evidence. This isn't something you can just pooh pooh away as a L2P issue. Shadow/assassins are in a bad place right now. I'm still playing mine, but the class itself has literally caused numerous wipes on progression content. Last night alone, I can think of 7 specific pulls (out of 25) where we wiped *entirely* due to shadow spikiness (ie a different tank wouldn't have led to a wipe).

[Stormskimmer]

When you add evidence to QQ, it becomes legitimate and serious. We have the math, the combat logs and the evidence. This isn't something you can just pooh pooh away as a L2P issue. Shadow/assassins are in a bad place right now. I'm still playing mine, but the class itself has literally caused numerous wipes on progression content. Last night alone, I can think of 7 specific pulls (out of 25) where we wiped *entirely* due to shadow spikiness (ie a different tank wouldn't have led to a wipe).

 

Just a slight comment/correction on this.

 

When you add USEFUL and COMPREHENSIVE evidence to QQ. One or two parses showing a single shadow or assassin having problems doesn't mean much. Some random person saying "There's no problem. My guild clears X easily with shadow tanks" means less. Dozens of parses, from different guilds, with different group compositions, and using different tactics and methods of cheesing the mechanics, ALL showing the same issue, even in the cases where the tank is able to survive the fight, will show an issue is serious.

 

I'm pretty sure the people "QQing" over shadows HAVE collected enough evidence to show that there is an issue, but I think it's worth mentioning that quality and quantity are important, not just the existence of "evidence."

[Nursejenna]

When you add evidence to QQ, it becomes legitimate and serious. We have the math, the combat logs and the evidence. This isn't something you can just pooh pooh away as a L2P issue. Shadow/assassins are in a bad place right now. I'm still playing mine, but the class itself has literally caused numerous wipes on progression content. Last night alone, I can think of 7 specific pulls (out of 25) where we wiped *entirely* due to shadow spikiness (ie a different tank wouldn't have led to a wipe).

 

Math lacking common sense doesn't prove anything. I'm glad you can figure out with your charts and with pen and paper what should be going on, but can't actually get down any content. Yet the competent groups out there are the ones downing the content with shadow tanks. Side note from a healer: Shadow tanks are a joke to heal in the new content...always have been, probably always will be. Unless you are dealing with an incompetent one that cries about everything instead of just doing.

Maybe the wiping has nothing to do with the TERRIFYING spikiness you speak of (that I'm sure other tanks don't have to deal with in NiM content lol) but perhaps has to do with your competencies (but nvm, you have made it so on paper) or the competencies of your healers and their abilities to deal with that type of situation. NEVER!! it could NEVER be that!

Edited July 5, 2013 by Nursejenna

[Stormskimmer]

Math lacking common sense doesn't prove anything. I'm glad you can figure out with your charts and with pen and paper what should be going on, but can't actually get down any content. Yet the competent groups out there are the ones downing the content with shadow tanks. Side note from a healer: Shadow tanks are a joke to heal in the new content...always have been, probably always will be. Unless you are dealing with an incompetent one that cries about everything instead of just doing.

Maybe the wiping has nothing to do with the TERRIFYING spikiness you speak of (that I'm sure other tanks don't have to deal with in NiM content lol) but perhaps has to do with your competencies (but nvm, you have made it so on paper) or the competencies of your healers and their abilities to deal with that type of situation. NEVER!! it could NEVER be that!

 

This is a WONDERFUL demonstration of what I mentioned right above Nursejenna's post. Notice: No parses, no videos of a fight. Just a testimonial that "Shadow tanks are a joke to heal" and nothing more. Neither comprehensive nor useful, considering it is more insult than testimony.

 

NOT something that should be considered when analyzing whether there is a problem.

[Kitru]

Math lacking common sense doesn't prove anything.

 

Have you even *looked* at the math? I'm guessing you *haven't* (or at least you only looked at it long enough to have no idea what it was referring to) because elsewise you'd never have said this.

 

I'm glad you can figure out with your charts and with pen and paper what should be going on, but can't actually get down any content.

 

Actually, we math peoples *have* been downing content. The fact that people like you seem to think that we *can't* when we're simply pointing out the significant liability that Shadows are becoming and how that needs to be *fixed* has no correlation with "omg, we can't do anything*.

 

Yet the competent groups out there are the ones downing the content with shadow tanks.

 

And those same groups are the ones saying that Shadows have problems and need to be fixed and, until then, they're going to be phasing out their Shadow tanks for Guardians.

 

Side note from a healer: Shadow tanks are a joke to heal in the new content...always have been, probably always will be.

 

What level of content are you actually *running* and what level of gear are you referring to? The only way for a Shadow tank to actually avoid the spikiness problem is to be *constantly* topped off and have a redundantly large pool of hp (which has the side effect of decreasing mean mitigation so that the Shadow requires *more* outside healing while still having substantially higher spikiness than a Guardian or a VG). If you're actually tackling content in the gear that it was *designed* for, Shadows have some pretty explicit problems. If you're overgearing it, *of course* you're not going to see any problems because you're *overgearing it*.

 

Unless you are dealing with an incompetent one that cries about everything instead of just doing.

 

So it's the *Shadow's* fault when Terminate punches through Deflection and the Shadow dies because the healer let them fall to 80% hp? Or when Thrasher demolishes the Shadow tank with 30k damage in 1 GCD when they have no CDs remaining (and, yes, even if you use your CDs *perfectly*, the spikes come too quickly to always have a CD available)? The problem is that Shadows are dying for reasons *outside of their control* in situations where the other tanks don't have to worry whatsoever. Hell, the effects that are gibbing Shadows barely phase a Guardian or VG because, worst case, they take 60% of their max hp (and any healer that lets a tank drop that low is just *bad*).

 

Maybe the wiping has nothing to do with the TERRIFYING spikiness you speak of (that I'm sure other tanks don't have to deal with in NiM content lol)

 

Actually, they really don't. The worst case for a Shadow is 30% more damage than what a VG or Guardian has to deal with. If a Shadow is at 75% hp, for the same spike death to occur to a VG/Guardian, they would need to be at ~57% hp. Considering the *already* spiky nature of Shadows, which means that they're already more likely to be at lower hp levels than a VG or Guardian and it becomes readily apparent (you know, with that *common sense* you're talking about) that Shadows have to deal with much more intense spikes than Guardians or VGs. Yes, the same attacks are thrown at VGs and Guardians, but the *effects* of those attacks are *way* different between them.

 

but perhaps has to do with your competencies (but nvm, you have made it so on paper)

 

The people discussing this are the foremost Shadow players in the game. We're the ones that know the fights and the class better than pretty much anyone else and were clearing content like no tomorrow pre-2.0. Unless you want to claim that, all of the sudden, we became terrible players (when, you know, it's actually *all* of the same tools at our disposal), the skill argument doesn't make any sense. Hell, even those Shadows that have been clearing world firsts and punching end game content forever have been making these claims.

 

or the competencies of your healers and their abilities to deal with that type of situation. NEVER!! it could NEVER be that!

 

Yes, healer skill has a pretty substantial effect, but a tank class shouldn't require damned near *perfect* healers to avoid dying randomly. And, yes, I do mean *damned* perfect healers. The only people I've heard from that can legitimately claim that they have no problems are those healers who know the fights (rather than just walking around and throwing out green when necessary) so that they can predict incoming damage by pre-shielding and precasting. When the amount of healer skill is *world's* ahead of what the other tanks require to not just fall over dead, *it's a problem*. Yes, it's not a problem that is *impossible* to surmount (which is what you and apparently 99% of the naysayers seem to believe we're arguing), but it has a substantial and definite impact upon the total balance of the class.

 

Right now, Shadows bring almost nothing particularly useful to the table (mean mitigation means nothing any more because the only risky parts are spike damage phases, damage and threat have been normalized across all of the tanks, the Shadow CD suite has pretty much been rendered irrelevant by the new content apparently being designed *specifically* with Guardians in mind, stealth rezzing as a tank isn't particularly viable since, you know, the tank is *tanking*, Phase Walk is practically worthless thanks to the implementation) while requiring *way* more attention from healers or presenting themselves as a massive liability to the group. Shadows don't even have any particular benefits to *show* for being such a liability or required attention. Guardians manage better performance while requiring less attention *and* less skill, and VGs can manage pretty much everything Shadows can while not being major liabilities.

 

We're not just tackling this from a mathematical/theoretical perspective. We're bringing in actual *in-game* evidence with datapoints coming from numerous sources. Simply dismissing *anything* we're saying as if it's an l2play issue or non-issue is simply being obtuse. The evidence is there. Just because *you* can't see or understand it doesn't mean a damned thing (beyond the fact that you're apparently oblivious and/or ignorant).

 

I do find it amusing that Musco's post here has brought in a *lot* of people to this discussion who have no idea what they're talking about and are completely unaware of everything that *has* been discussed. Yes, this thread is page upon page so you may not want to read it, but *maybe*, just *maybe*, we've already gone over everything you've felt like bringing up and you're simply rehashing an argument that's already been demonstrated to be fundamentally flawed multiple times over already. Seriously, go through the effort to read the thread before you start posting ignorant vitriol and figure out who it is you're talking to.

 

L2p might be appropriate for *some* people, but it's not something liable to make sense for the people *everyone comes to for advice*. Hell, *I* got told to do more research by some random one time, and I'm the one that has *written* or collaborated on a lot of the stuff that people end up *finding* in their research. It's like an astronomy student telling Stephen Hawking that he needs to bone up on his astrophysics.

[helpmewin]

I think the simplest solution is just increase shadow tank DR on 5-7% and increase health bonus 3% from mental fortitude to 9%-12% and up this ability in upper tier. Edited July 5, 2013 by helpmewin

[Kitru]

I think the simplest solution is just increase shadow tank DR on 5-7% and increase health bonus 3% from mental fortitude to 9%-12% and up this ability in upper tier.

 

And what attributes are you going to drop to prevent mean mitigation from skyrocketing? This is the main problem when people begin suggesting buffs in the abstract: Shadows already have high mean mitigation and any buff that affects spikiness is *also* going to affect mean mitigation. As such, rather than simply buffing, what's required is modifying the mitigation profile that Shadows use.

 

This is why the most balanced simple solution is increasing armor by 35% or DR by 4-5% and either reducing self healing (remove heal from CT and reduce HS from 2.0% to 1.5%; this is my preferred solution) or reducing defense by 5% (either remove the acc debuff from Force Breach or have CT apply a 5% defense debuff while it's on). The increased DR smooths out the spikes but keeps Shadows spikier than the other tanks while the reduced defense or self healing maintains the current level of mean mitigation.

[Riivan]

L2p might be appropriate for *some* people, but it's not something liable to make sense for the people *everyone comes to for advice*. Hell, *I* got told to do more research by some random one time, and I'm the one that has *written* or collaborated on a lot of the stuff that people end up *finding* in their research. It's like an astronomy student telling Stephen Hawking that he needs to bone up on his astrophysics.

 

Great analogy, mainly because Stephen Hawking was proven wrong on more than one occasion.

 

You'd be far more effective if you could be succinct and not act like a pompous *******.

[Kitru]

You'd be far more effective if you could be succinct and not act like a pompous *******.

 

I *can* be succinct. I just choose not to because I value comprehensiveness more than conciseness.

 

And I'll stop being a pompous ******* when someone provides me with a legitimate reason to not act like one.

Edited July 5, 2013 by Kitru

[Riivan]

You're not being *comprehensive* you're being *grandiloquent* to take a page from your book. Do you need a reason to be decent? I didn't think that required more than the will to do so.

[Liwilliams]

I think you guys need to go a bit easier on Kitru. He has been an absolute help to this community.

 

For the most part, I think He's just had it. We've all been fed up before and we act a little more harshly than we would typically act, and that's the case here.

 

Unfortunately, when provided with thorough research and evaluation with suggested not-god-mode fixes, there was no response. It wasn't until someone acted rash enough to get a warning did Eric make a comment.

 

If anything, that just trains the community to act more rash than what they originally were acting like.

[WheresMyWhisky]

@Rivan and @NurseJenna

 

Since none of us apparently know what we are doing when playing a shadow tank in Nim TFB could you please post some links to parses for this so we can see where we all going wrong?

 

I for one would be very interested to look at them to see where I can improve my gameplay and I am sure all the other shadows would appreciate it too

Edited July 6, 2013 by WheresMyWhisky

[Akon-Or]

Meh. Easiest solution is probably to change Kinetic Bulwark from absorption to damage reduction.

[Kitru]

Unfortunately, when provided with thorough research and evaluation with suggested not-god-mode fixes, there was no response. It wasn't until someone acted rash enough to get a warning did Eric make a comment.

 

If anything, that just trains the community to act more rash than what they originally were acting like.

 

I *really* hope that this acts as something of an eye opener for the community team. They've explicitly said that they barely spend any time on the class forums because they don't have to moderate us heavily. Since they don't spend a lot of time here, they have almost no clue about what's actually going *on* in this community which means that they're incapable of doing the job they *say* they're supposed to be doing (acting as a go between betwixt the community and the devs).

 

It sounds a bit conceited, but, when I spoke to both Musco and Amber in real life and said "I'm Kitru" and they had no clue who the hell I was (Amber had a *vague* recollection of my name and that was it), I saw that as a pretty bad sign, especially since they specifically mentioned other forum goers who they knew, and said that they could mentinoed, right off the top of their heads, 10 or more of the major personalities for the *other* sections of the forums (PvP forums included). Pretty much *anyone* that spends some amount of time on the class forums knows who I am.

 

It was even *more* perturbing when I stated that the community team never posts on the class forums and Amber seemed slightly insulted because she had *just* posted there (it was a "you found a bug, we'll go about fixing it" post) even though she's only posted here *8 times* in the entire time frame of the game. When you post more in a single month on the other forums than you have in the *entire* lifespan of the game on *our* forum, you don't have a legitimate reason to play defensive when someone accuses you of never posting here (especially when said posts are never actually discussing anything and are instead *always* something along the lines of "we're investigating" more than a month after the community has debated it into oblivion).

 

Honestly, it's like the community team doesn't care, in the *least*, about the class forums. At best, they treat us like we're a mediocre extension of the bug report forum (since that's all they seem to comment on here). If they *did* care, they'd actually post here or know about the more heated and active discussions taking place (when I talked to Amber, she had *no* clue that spikiness was an issue even though the discussion had been going *strong* for more than a month and hadn't falled off the front page of *either* the Shadow or Tanking subforums). I could accept the fact that they weren't posting if they were simply not posting because some games are incredibly tight lipped about discussing balance concerns for fear of showing preferential treatment or agitating the community, but the fact that they weren't even *aware* of the stuff going on here was simply insulting, honestly.

 

They should just *admit* that they don't care about what goes on here because, honestly, *all* of the evidence proves it. Then, they should actually bring someone into the community team that actually *does* care about the class forums and is actually willing to pay attention and bring said discussions concerns to the devs attentions in a timely manner (rather than having to wait 3 months for the community team to finally realize that, hey, something's going on!). Hell, maybe they should just get a developer from the combat team to *specifically* act as the community go-between for the class forums that way we can at least be somewhat assured that the person we're interacting with understands the numbers/optimization stuff we're talking about and will get it to the developers within a reasonable time frame. I'd like to actually have *someone* on the payroll paying attention to this part of the forums.

[Kitru]

Meh. Easiest solution is probably to change Kinetic Bulwark from absorption to damage reduction.

 

Not really, since it all it would do would be to encourage Shadows to just not refresh KW. 8% DR is more valuable than 20% shield, not only because it's *stable*, but because it simply contributes *more*. If it were changed to do what you're wanting, you would only use KW to generate KB stacks as soon as they fell off (which means clicking KW once every 30 seconds or so), which pretty much renders the entire *point* of Kinetic Ward null and void. It's a *simple* change, but that doesn't mean it's a *good* one.

[Leafy_Bug]

Well Austin said that if the shadow tank is suffering it will be their highest priority to fix it. Where is that fix he promised? Surely now that we have their attention, they saw the numbers, the math, they are aware of our issues. We play a gimped tank who needs more support from the raid than any other in the game. We want a better balancing and a chance to survive the new content without being so dependent on the RNG. My guardian co-tank, who has had some luck in drops lately is now on a 2500 mitigation budget perfectly optimized. I do not even want to get into how easy raids have become now. We cleared SV HM with his tank and a brand new shadow tank who had 33k HP. We had one tank practically and an offtand for switches who got healed when he needed it.

 

 

This is the gap between tanks at the moment. One is so far ahead it is not even funny while the other trails to survive. I am not asking for nerfs, again I repeat, I want the guardian to stay good as it is now, but I also want my shadow to be viable for all content without bringing another level of difficulty when I main tank. I think there was a poster here who said something the developers should read :

 

 

My shadow can tank but the guardian is a tank.

 

 

 

It has become a custom in my raids that whenever I pull a boss with my shadow, especially in 16 man HM, a few people use the /mourn emote. We kid, we joke, but there is truth to this. Above I mentioned we brought a shadow tank who has never done SV HM and got some gear. I explained in ample detail what cooldowns he needs to use, when and how he will die. He died in places I died as well and I am BIS 72. The irony ...

[Akon-Or]

Not really, since it all it would do would be to encourage Shadows to just not refresh KW. 8% DR is more valuable than 20% shield, not only because it's *stable*, but because it simply contributes *more*. If it were changed to do what you're wanting, you would only use KW to generate KB stacks as soon as they fell off (which means clicking KW once every 30 seconds or so), which pretty much renders the entire *point* of Kinetic Ward null and void. It's a *simple* change, but that doesn't mean it's a *good* one.

 

Yeah. You would use KW to generate stacks of KB. It would smooth out incoming damage. You wouldn't have an annoyingly low 35%-40% Shield Rating with a 50%-53% Absorption rating, or three or four stacks of KB being wasted because you need the Shield Rating to mitigate damage from hard-hitting trash, or having to cancel your KB at seven stacks because you need to refresh your KW. And timed properly, you might not take as much damage from the big hits in HM and NiM Ops. Isn't that exactly what you want?

Edited July 6, 2013 by Akon-Or

[Kitru]

Isn't that exactly what you want?

 

No, because all it's doing is encouraging the Shadow to only ever use KW for KB stack generation. As long as you have KB stacks, you would never want to refresh KW, which renders the entire *point* of having KW redundant in the first place. KW is interesting because it requires you to pay attention and reactivate it at just the right time to get maximum effect because KB and KW are synergistic (Shield + Absorb). By turning KB into DR, all you're doing is turning KW into a resource that you're trying to burn through to get access to the max number of KB stacks.

 

You might as well just outright *remove* KW and replace it with 8% flat DR.

 

Like I said, it's a *simple* solution, but that doesn't mean it's an *effective* one.

[SomeJagoff]

I do find it amusing that Musco's post here has brought in a *lot* of people to this discussion who have no idea what they're talking about and are completely unaware of everything that *has* been discussed.

 

Pretty much. All the people who cried and demanded that a TANK class/spec have its survivability nerfed (instead of damage output), Repeatedly, exclusively due to pvp, saw the gold post and decided to chime in to make sure the class stays broken, simply because they don't know how to focus fire a shadow's pocket healer in pvp.

 

In any case, Kitru, you're spot on, it isn't impossible to clear content with this class (yet), but it's such a huge disadvantage compared to the other 2 tanks, there's really no point. It's pretty much like bringing a couple of shadow dps to your nightmare ops progression raid, pretty much no benefit and you're nerfing your group's dps by doing so.

 

It's like an astronomy student telling Stephen Hawking that he needs to bone up on his astrophysics.

 

lol

[kwestone]

Pretty much. All the people who cried and demanded that a TANK class/spec have its survivability nerfed (instead of damage output), Repeatedly, exclusively due to pvp, saw the gold post and decided to chime in to make sure the class stays broken, simply because they don't know how to focus fire a shadow's pocket healer in pvp.

 

In any case, Kitru, you're spot on, it isn't impossible to clear content with this class (yet), but it's such a huge disadvantage compared to the other 2 tanks, there's really no point. It's pretty much like bringing a couple of shadow dps to your nightmare ops progression raid, pretty much no benefit and you're nerfing your group's dps by doing so.

 

 

lol

 

Who cares. We have endured so many different ppl telling us to L2P... Being one of the first ppl on the test server to try the 2.0 changes. I was told that I was an idiot, I didn't know how to play my class, even KBN told me I was over-reacting to the madness nerf (btw, lots of ppl raiding with that one these days huh?) and the defense rating nerf.

 

There have been a few of us from jump, mainly end game PVE raiding tanks, that have said this from the get-go. We have endured a ton of trash talk and trolls. When assassins return (I probably should say if) to their pre-2.0 nerf debacle levels, there will be no more need for me to come here again, and I wont. Let these idiots talk their trash and cry endlessly about the console oriented pvp rage-quit fests.

 

Math does not lie.

[helpmewin]

Pretty much. All the people who cried and demanded that a TANK class/spec have its survivability nerfed (instead of damage output), Repeatedly, exclusively due to pvp, saw the gold post and decided to chime in to make sure the class stays broken, simply because they don't know how to focus fire a shadow's pocket healer in pvp.

 

In any case, Kitru, you're spot on, it isn't impossible to clear content with this class (yet), but it's such a huge disadvantage compared to the other 2 tanks, there's really no point. It's pretty much like bringing a couple of shadow dps to your nightmare ops progression raid, pretty much no benefit and you're nerfing your group's dps by doing so. And whatever you do it does not guarantee u will be useful for u'r team. Who tell me that he have very good DMG in rwz just a lier or troll. He have not bad DMG for tank and thats all and he paying the price for this not bad dmg his survive.

 

 

 

lol

 

In RWZ they have no point srsly. If u are keyboard ninja severals teams will take as tank but not as main tank, cause if shadow get focused while he guarding healer he is dead 100%. Why teams take shadow tank, but very few? Cause u can run around slowing somebody just trying to live and trying to intercept capping, and this if u keyboard ninja and have very big experience playing this class in this tree.

And whatever you do it does not guarantee u will be useful for u'r team. Who tell me that he have very good DMG in rwz just a lier or a troll. He have not bad DMG for tank and thats all, and he paying the price for this not bad dmg his survival, but this price disproportionately hight.

Edited July 6, 2013 by helpmewin