Fixing Shadow Tank Spikiness

[IronmanSS]

I'm finding the whole gearing argument pretty funny - but it's mostly because people don't know why Shadows are spiky and they don't want to look at the crazy in-depth math formulas proving it. So I'm going to make it very simple:

 

Let's say a "properly geared" Shadow has 20% Defense, 50% Shield, and 50% absorb (these #'s aren't "right" but will work much easier to show what's up). So - simplifying this quite a bit - 1/5 times they take 0 damage - 2/5 times they take 50% damage (shielded) - and 2/5 times they take 100% damage (unshielded). The 2 of 5 (40%) unshielded 100% damage events are what's likely to lead to Shadow death. This is because a Shadow has much less "Armor Rating" compared to VGs and Guardians and "Armor" is the only mitigation by which the 2/5 100% hits are reduced. So Shadows take these unmitigated hits "Harder" than VGs or Guardians - hence the relative "spikiness". (Note: Relative overall damage taken here is roughly: 60%)

 

Now for the sake of argument - let's give Shadows a "ridiculous" Stat budget and max Shield/Absorb instead of Defense. So 0% Defense, 60% shield and 100% absorb!!! Now (again simplified) they take 3/5 hits at 0 damage (shielded w. 100% absorb) - and 2/5 hits at 100% damage (unshielded). This Shadow is JUST AS LIKELY TO DIE as the previous one since the chance of Unshielded events is 2/5 (40%) just like the previous Shadow with normal gearing - despite giving them an "unattainable" Absorb budget. The relative overall damage taken with "redonkulous" stats is 40% - but that 40% is the 2 "full" unmitigated hits. THIS is the "spikiness" that cannot currently be prevented even with "off the charts" mitigation stats.

 

Even if you gave the Shadow 40% Defense, 66% Shield , and 100% absorb - there is still a 1/5 chance of an Unshielded hit - and 2 of those back to back can kill the Shadow tank. See the issue? Despite RIDICULOUS stat budgets - they can still get creamed based on RNG. Chances of getting 2 back to back at 1/5 is 1/25 - which is going to happen several times over during an ops boss fight. The "real" chance of taking a full hit is much closer to 2/5 - which makes it even more likely in reality.

 

TLDR: The ONLY stats that will decrease Shadow's spikiness are ARMOR RATING or Straight DR. Since there's no way to itemize for more, you can shift the other mitigation numbers all you like within the currently available stat budgets (even add Infinite Absorb) and STILL get RNG "2-shot" Shadow Tank death. Yes, you can stack Endurance to avoid 2-shot death, but that will just make your overall mitigation much worse than VGs and Guardians - PLUS you STILL get to be the "Spikiest" anyhow. Good job BW class balance team... I mean guy.

Edited July 10, 2013 by IronmanSS

[Alduinsm]

I'm finding the whole gearing argument pretty funny - but it's mostly because people don't know why Shadows are spiky and they don't want to look at the crazy in-depth math formulas proving it. So I'm going to make it very simple:

 

Let's say a "properly geared" Shadow has 20% Defense, 50% Shield, and 50% absorb (these #'s aren't "right" but will work much easier to show what's up). So - simplifying this quite a bit - 1/5 times they take 0 damage - 2/5 times they take 50% damage (shielded) - and 2/5 times they take 100% damage (unshielded). The 2 of 5 (40%) unshielded 100% damage events are what's likely to lead to Shadow death. This is because a Shadow has much less "Armor Rating" compared to VGs and Guardians and "Armor" is the only mitigation by which the 2/5 100% hits are reduced. So Shadows take these unmitigated hits "Harder" than VGs or Guardians - hence the relative "spikiness". (Note: Relative overall damage taken here is roughly: 60%)

 

Now for the sake of argument - let's give Shadows a "ridiculous" Stat budget and max Shield/Absorb instead of Defense. So 0% Defense, 60% shield and 100% absorb!!! Now (again simplified) they take 3/5 hits at 0 damage (shielded w. 100% absorb) - and 2/5 hits at 100% damage (unshielded). This Shadow is JUST AS LIKELY TO DIE as the previous one since the chance of Unshielded events is 2/5 (40%) just like the previous Shadow with normal gearing - despite giving them an "unattainable" Absorb budget. The relative overall damage taken with "redonkulous" stats is 40% - but that 40% is the 2 "full" unmitigated hits. THIS is the "spikiness" that cannot currently be prevented even with "off the charts" mitigation stats.

 

Even if you gave the Shadow 40% Defense, 66% Shield , and 100% absorb - there is still a 1/5 chance of an Unshielded hit - and 2 of those back to back can kill the Shadow tank. See the issue? Despite RIDICULOUS stat budgets - they can still get creamed based on RNG. Chances of getting 2 back to back at 1/5 is 1/25 - which is going to happen several times over during an ops boss fight. The "real" chance of taking a full hit is much closer to 2/5 - which makes it even more likely in reality.

 

TLDR: The ONLY stats that will decrease Shadow's spikiness are ARMOR RATING or Straight DR. Since there's no way to itemize for more, you can shift the other mitigation numbers all you like within the currently available stat budgets (even add Infinite Absorb) and STILL get RNG "2-shot" Shadow Tank death. Yes, you can stack Endurance to avoid 2-shot death, but that will just make your overall mitigation much worse than VGs and Guardians - PLUS you STILL get to be the "Spikiest" anyhow. Good job BW class balance team... I mean guy.

 

Win .

[Songwhistle]

ditto IronmanSS - couldn't have put it better myself. thats a *HINT* towards bioware employees to actually read his post for it is as close to smart and actual/correct as it gets.

[tXHereticXt]

I'd like to get my 20% armor from Spike/Spinning kick's trait skill back

[Kynesis]

Just on a side note, Blizz have been dealing with this issue since the very first Druids began tanking many years ago - as avoidance tanks, more recently and to a slightly lesser extent with Blood Knights and even less so, Monks. All three of those tanks rely heavily on avoidance and are prone to dying unexpectedly (and with no recourse other than a battle rez).

 

(I have no knowledge of Rift but I presume they face a similar dilemma with their avoidance tanks, if they have any).

 

Point being, unexpected sudden deaths are inherent to avoidance tanks and Blizz with all their resources and years of intense development have not been able to resolve the issue by juggling stats. It's necessary to deal with the actual issue itself.

 

Better imho to accept that corner cases will come up, are unavoidable and undesirable and therefore effectively 'reroll' them, for example by using a mechanic like *Cheat Death

 

 

 

*

An attack that would otherwise be fatal will instead reduce you to no less than 10% of your maximum health, and damage taken will be reduced by 80% for 3 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per 90 seconds.

[Kitru]

Just on a side note, Blizz have been dealing with this issue since the very first Druids began tanking many years ago - as avoidance tanks, more recently and to a slightly lesser extent with Blood Knights and even less so, Monks. All three of those tanks rely heavily on avoidance and are prone to dying unexpectedly (and with no recourse other than a battle rez).

 

Actually, none of those tanks are really prone to RNG death. While they don't have shields, both bear druids and blood DKs generated stat and incoming damage scaling absorb shields that they regularly reapplied with their attacks. It actually smoothed their incoming damage profiles a lot (especially druids since theirs proc'd on any crit, which any self respecting bear druid had *tons* of). For monks, Stagger pretty much stops burst in its tracks since a progressively larger portion of any damage they take is delayed over the next 6 secs (I believe it's 6 sec). It makes them almost impossible to burst down because heals get to arrive while the damage is coming in piecemeal.

 

Blizzard actually took care of the RNG tank thing a while ago by creating those mechanisms.

[MeisterBabylon]

This just triggered a thought. Doesnt Sagesorcs have a bubble mechanic in their healing? Maybe it would be in flavor for when a Shadowsin takes a hit that goes for more than 20% HP it automatically procs a bubble that reduces incoming damage by X%, and breaks after absorbing Y amounts?

 

And maybe a non-cheesed version of the Cheat Death mechanic that rogues have, having blows that would have otherwise killed a shadowsin instead reduce it to Z% of HP.

[Kitru]

Doesnt Sagesorcs have a bubble mechanic in their healing?

 

They've got a bubble that they cast, but no heal that creates a bubble conditionally. Afaik, the only proc bubble in the game is the Guardian one that procs on Blade Storm use. I'm not even sure there is any in-game precedence for an ability that activates right before an attack that would drop you to below a certain threshold resolves (the closest you could get is the new Adrenaline Rush but that activates *after* you drop below) or when hit by an attack of a sufficiently large size.

[helpmewin]

So i think "the changes" will not come in 2.3, maybe in 2.4 but i doubt of this, if this situation been with guardians hot fix would be very soon like it was when they reduced AOE smash from 5m to 3m. So "shadow tank" will wait this fix at least 3-4 month and this is a minimum. So i decided do not to hope. And i think further discussion is no reason. I decided to wait "Black Desert" with this only bioware's fast fixes. If they've got good balance team mb this fix will be sooner and not one man who do this balance. This man need with his assistant to do 2.4 patch and he don't have any time to fix this.

Bioware maintains its reputation - fix every 6-8 month.

P.S. Very funny to hear from guys that buffing shadow will make him unbalanced. Very funny. All so used that shadow is **** that buffing up to the level giardians/vanguards perceived as unbalance. All thinking about mysterious balance when heard about shadow buff.

Edited July 11, 2013 by helpmewin

[Leafy_Bug]

Fuyri, Suckafish Assassin gets one shot by Terminate from Operations Chief. This is in 8 man nim and not 16. While the first time he dies he did not use any cooldowns, the second time he says and I quote' I cannot survive this'. 30 days left of the sub ... I am out. This is not the way you do class balance by completely wrecking one tank and admitting in public that you buff the one you play. Gratz Jesse, keep up the good work . Enjoy your Guardian also please find ways to buff it more and completely eliminate the Kinetic Tree, k bai thx!

 

The whole class representative is fluff at best and does not score points. Two patches have been released since we explained that shadow tanks are not going to be viable in hardcore progression raids. It took forum spam and me getting a warning/suspension to get their attention. Now they are asking for reps to do what? Tell us that resilience has 200% resistance but the 5% on bosses is greater than 200? BioWare math is 5% > 200%.

 

 

BioWare's track record clearly shows they do not care about class balance and if they do changes it takes them a year to fix them. I do not recall every seeing a company lying so much to their customers. Austin Peckenbaugh said that if the Shadow has issues, they will act accordingly. Where is Austin now and why has he waited 2 months without doing anything? I understand, Shadow dps is 300 short form most classes because spinning strike does not work on the dummy . This is the guy who does class balance ... I am sorry but I am reached the end of the road with the lies, deceit and spit in our faces.

Edited July 11, 2013 by Leafy_Bug

[tXHereticXt]

So i think "the changes" will not come in 2.3, maybe in 2.4 but i doubt of this, if this situation been with guardians hot fix would be very soon like it was when they reduced AOE smash from 5m to 3m.

 

Lets not lower ourselves with antics like this. I'm not one to claim a dev company favors one class over the other, keep in mind how for months at one point the Shadow/Sin were preferred because a Jugg/Guard just couldn't hold agro without cycling their taunts. While I think we could be waiting for some time, I don't think it's a matter of discrimination and I think people should steer away from falling into those tropes. Be a positive example - be understanding. If this issue were present on Jugg/Guards I'd be just as hard pressed to see it fixed.

[leto_cleon]

TLDR: The ONLY stats that will decrease Shadow's spikiness are ARMOR RATING or Straight DR.

 

Hmmm so what happens if say Shadow's Shelter is buffed to "Increases all healing received by 1%. In addition, deploying Phase Walk also deploys Shadow's Shelter, increasing the healing done by those within 5 meters of the Phase Walk by 2.5%. While Shadow's shelter is active, activating Deflection or Resilience grants inner stalwart which increases damage reduction by X/X*2% for the duration of the activated ability. Only usable in Combat Technique."?

Edited July 12, 2013 by leto_cleon

[Kynesis]

With respect, I was tempted to go into great detail on this but I really don't have to, the facts and numbers are available.

Despite their efforts Kitru, they've not solved the issue.

 

I should cite those sources if I were to participate more fully in the discussion but I really don't feel it's worth my time delving into them. I honestly don't believe we'll see any substantive changes on this front or issues of utility, dps etc.

They'll rebalance things from time to time of course, but that's still just nudging things around the periphery.

[nagatamen]

Hmmm so what happens if say Shadow's Shelter is buffed to "Increases all healing received by 1%. In addition, deploying Phase Walk also deploys Shadow's Shelter, increasing the healing done by those within 5 meters of the Phase Walk by 2.5%. While Shadow's shelter is active, activating Deflection or Resilience grants inner stalwart which increases damage reduction by X/X*2% for the duration of the activated ability. Only usable in Combat Technique."?

 

I'm just going with my gut feeling on this one, but I think that would reduce the "uniqueness" of each individual cooldown and have us rolling through them regardless of whether or not it's the right time to use it or not. But I don't know the math behind that.

[IronmanSS]

Hmmm so what happens if say Shadow's Shelter is buffed to "Increases all healing received by 1%. In addition, deploying Phase Walk also deploys Shadow's Shelter, increasing the healing done by those within 5 meters of the Phase Walk by 2.5%. While Shadow's shelter is active, activating Deflection or Resilience grants inner stalwart which increases damage reduction by X/X*2% for the duration of the activated ability. Only usable in Combat Technique."?

 

That would pretty much only save your bacon during your cooldowns (Resilience, 5 secs - Deflection 12 secs) which are currently used to basically achieve the same effect. In your proposed scenario, you're still playing the roulette wheel outside of those 17 seconds every 2 minutes. Less time praying to the RNG gods isn't good enough, we want Tank survival to be dependent on the skill of the drivers (tanks/healers).

 

My fix would be changing KB stacks from Absorb bonus to an Armor or DR bonus. I'd also make it so that all KB stacks remain whenever KW is refreshed on the tank. It would take away a little of the high-end "play" in managing KB stacks and trying to keep 'em maxed by holding onto KW as long as you can, but in return you'd get a more stable Shadow Tank, who is still punished badly for bad play (allowing KW to fall off). You'd have to give something up here, since this would push overall mitigation even higher - so I'd probably go with less Self Healing since it's only effective some of the time. It's useless when you're topped off and also doesn't work very well when you're "floor tanking". It's beneficial only if you stay under 100%, which is exactly where healers know they cannot leave a Shadow. So losing this perk would not be bad in order to pick up more Armor or straight DR which is Always effective.

Edited July 12, 2013 by IronmanSS

[helpmewin]

Hmmm so what happens if say Shadow's Shelter is buffed to "Increases all healing received by 1%. In addition, deploying Phase Walk also deploys Shadow's Shelter, increasing the healing done by those within 5 meters of the Phase Walk by 2.5%. While Shadow's shelter is active, activating Deflection or Resilience grants inner stalwart which increases damage reduction by X/X*2% for the duration of the activated ability. Only usable in Combat Technique."?

 

Omg. He need DR, DR not anything lesser not on X sec. Not increase armor rating but increase DR like others have. And with this buff shadow tank will be playable.

 

Lets not lower ourselves with antics like this. I'm not one to claim a dev company favors one class over the other, keep in mind how for months at one point the Shadow/Sin were preferred because a Jugg/Guard just couldn't hold agro without cycling their taunts. While I think we could be waiting for some time, I don't think it's a matter of discrimination and I think people should steer away from falling into those tropes. Be a positive example - be understanding. If this issue were present on Jugg/Guards I'd be just as hard pressed to see it fixed.

 

I agree, some time....not 3-4 month. Surprised me the most that experienced peoples can't close content with shadow's tanks and this is not the reason to do hot fix for bioware. I think like a PvP player and i said that shadows are the worst tanks most of the benefit is node guarder and nothing more. This is really sadly, i can't tanking as tank in the broadest sense of that word. When guarded by me healer and me get smashed tank get 150% smash DMG. For shadow its 8000+4000=12k for vanguard its 5500+2750=8.25k difference 3.75K and its from 1 smash. Shadow's shelter no need in RWZ matches cause if healer standing in 1 side he is dead. Shadow's shelter gives 2% all healing received in operatives PvP healing that means if healer healing someone for 8K shadow will be healed for 8160. Funny.

What is worst die from bosses or have lower than other threat generation?

Edited July 12, 2013 by helpmewin

[leto_cleon]

That would pretty much only save your bacon during your cooldowns (Resilience, 5 secs - Deflection 12 secs) which are currently used to basically achieve the same effect. In your proposed scenario, you're still playing the roulette wheel outside of those 17 seconds every 2 minutes. Less time praying to the RNG gods isn't good enough, we want Tank survival to be dependent on the skill of the drivers (tanks/healers).

 

I was thinking of also adding Battle Readiness to the list, but the overall effect might approach OPness

 

My fix would be changing KB stacks from Absorb bonus to an Armor or DR bonus.

 

Hmm... why not leave the absorb bonus, but add a DR bonus to unshielded attacks?

 

Kinetic Bulwark: Consuming a charge of Kinetic Ward increases shield absorption by [0.5 / 1]%. Stacks up to 8 times. Your unshielded damage reduction also increases by X/X*2%. This effect lasts for 20 seconds or until Kinetic Ward is reactivated.

[xnightshadex]

I have another idea of how the developers can fix this (without changing the mechanics of self healing).

 

Let's look at the Nerf to armor in detail with respect to patch levels. Y1 will be pre 1.6 armor, Y2 will be pre 2.0 (post 1.6) armor, and Y3 will be 2.0 armor. X is the base armor value (which is the only thing I have to compare level 50 and level 55 characters assuming armor has scaled relative to level cap; if this assumption is false and armor has scaled better than expected, it means Juggs and PTs are far superior to Assassins; if this assumption is false and armor has scaled worse than expected, this means Juggs and PTs were nerfed, just not nearly as hard as Assassins).

 

Y = (1 + DC + HoD) * X

Y1 = (1 + .5 + .2) * X
Y1 = 1.7 * X

Y2 = (1 + .1 + .2) * X
Y2 = 1.3 * X

Y3 = (1 + .15 + 0) * X
Y3 = 1.15 * X

Let D(a, b) be the delta function with respect to 'a' as a ratio:

 

D(a,b) = ((b - a) / a)

 

Thus, we see the following nerf details:

 

D(Y1, Y2) = (1.3 * X - 1.7 * X) / (1.7 * X)
D(Y1, Y2) = (-0.4 * X) / (1.7 * X)
D(Y1, Y2) = -0.2352941176470588

So, in 1.6, Assassin armor was nerfed by 23.529% in additional to self heals.

 

Let's look at 2.0 relative to 1.7.

 

D(Y2, Y3) = (1.15 * X - 1.3 * X)  /  (1.3 * X)
D(Y2, Y3) = (-0.15 * X) / (1.3 * X)
D(Y2, Y3) = 0.1153846153846154

So, relative to 1.7, we saw an 11.538% decrease in armor.

 

And, if you really want to see how far we have fallen:

 

D(Y1, Y3) = (1.15 * X - 1.7 * X) / (1.7 * X)
D(Y1, Y3) = (-.55 * X) / (1.7 * X)
D(Y1, Y3) = 0.3235294117647059

So, since the release of 1.6, Assassin's have lost 32.353% of their armor and some percent of self heals (I don't have the hard numbers of the heal changes; if you provide them I'll do a similar calc for heals).

 

Well, how should it be fixed?

 

Instinctively, the PVE player will say restore the 150% armor value of dark charge. However, this will encourage the very behavior that landed Assassin's in the "nerf the ever living **** out of them" mindset; using Dark Charge as a PVP DPS.

 

We are better off from Dark Charge in 2.0 than we were in 1.7 (granted, our mean mitigation was much higher as our mitigation stat pool buffed us far more relative to content and level than the pool does now at 55; this is true of all tank classes). However, we lost the buff from Hand of Darkness and our self heals are still weak.

 

Here is what I propose:

 

Let's restore harnessed darkness heals per tick back to pre-1.6 levels (or somewhere between 2.0 and 1.6, a slight buff to what we have now is an improvement and Assassin's Shelter might make up the difference). I don't have the hard numbers so I'm just doing some hand waving here.

 

For the armor, leave the Dark Charge at 115%. Better than 1.6, but without the broken PVP implications.

 

There are two talents that can be modified to fix the armor problem and they are Hand of Darkness and Assassin's Shelter. Both are the second to last tier of talents, which should discourage DPS focused Asassins from going so far up the tanking tree in the hopes they can be a hard to kill DPS. Either will work; Assassin's that don't rely on Spike in PVE will prefer the latter, while those that rely it during trash probably don't care. I personally would like to see it back on Hand of Darkness for nostalgia, but I would take either.

 

Talents would do the following (sorry, I found it easier to express this in Perl than English):

 

my $talentBonus = ($talentName eq 'Hand of Darkness') ? $totalBonus : $totalBonus / 2; 

my $displayString = "Additionally, ${talentName} will grant ${talentBonus}% armor while the Assassin is in Dark Charge."

 

The question becomes, what is the ideal $totalBonus?

 

To achieve pre-1.6 levels, $totalBonus would need to be a whopping 55 (remember, this is a percent). To achieve 1.7 levels, $totalBonus would need to be 15.

 

Given the reduction in mean mitigation relative to pre-2.0 in 2.0, I believe the 1.7 value is far too low, though admittedly pre-1.6 levels might be too much.

 

So, without the ability to run simulations like KBN at the moment, I am going to guess that the ideal value of $totalBonus should be 35, giving Dark Charge a total armor bonus of 150%.

 

If someone wants to do the math and figure out the right value relative to mean mitigation to assure equal survivability to a Jugg, I won't stop you.

Edited July 12, 2013 by xnightshadex
Clarification

[Kitru]

Instinctively, the PVE player will say restore the 150% armor value of dark charge. However, this will encourage the very behavior that landed Assassin's in the "nerf the ever living **** out of them" mindset; using Dark Charge as a PVP DPS.

 

Raw KC DPS was actually reduced by a fair amount in 2.0 thanks to the changes to Bombardment. As it stands, a *vast* majority of DPS is actually based upon HSx3 TkT, which Project only really serves to generate stacks for rather than generate a crapton of damage on its own (the 30% damage got turned into a 30% cost reduction). On top of that, a *huge* amount of Shadow resource management is dependent upon mitigation stats, thanks to Elusiveness and DBSD. If you don't *have* those mit stats, you're going to be hurting for Force.

 

As such, even if DR *were* shored up, the whole "tank in DPS clothing" wouldn't be any more viable for Shadows than it already is for VGs and Guardians (especially Guardians *now* who have amazing CDs *and* huge K/E DR *and* awesome utility, none of which are contingent upon mitigation stats).

 

Let's restore harnessed darkness heals per tick back to pre-1.6 levels (or somewhere between 2.0 and 1.6, a slight buff to what we have now is an improvement and Assassin's Shelter might make up the difference). I don't have the hard numbers so I'm just doing some hand waving here.

 

Seriously, hells no. Shadows already rely on self-healing *too much*. 25% of our total mitigation is derived from self healing and that's *after* all of the nerfs we've had to it. Self-healing is, honestly, the worst form of mitigation: it doesn't scale with incoming damage at all (meaning that, to prevent it from being too good at low incoming DPS, it has to suck horribly at *high* DPS), does absolutely *nothing* for spike damage (which is what melts Shadows at the moment since mean mitigation doesn't mean *anything* and, in the short term, Shadow self heals mean nothing compared to actual healers), and is *reactive* (so it doesn't prevent you from dying but rather helps you recover *if* you survive the hit).

 

Anyone that recommends buffing Shadow self healing hasn't looked at the actual numbers, and you readily admit it. If you actually start looking into it, you'll realize that the problem with Shadows isn't "we need more healing". It's that we need *less* self healing and *more* of other forms of mitigation.

 

So, without the ability to run simulations like KBN at the moment, I am going to guess that the ideal value of $totalBonus should be 35, giving Dark Charge a total armor bonus of 150%.

 

If someone wants to do the math and figure out the right value relative to mean mitigation to assure equal survivability to a Jugg, I won't stop you.

 

We already did it months back in this very thread (seriously, I realize the thread is long but, damn, it's like *no one* reads even the first couple of pages where we went over this). It's 4-5% K/E DR or 35% armor rating.

 

Of course, the thing to realize is that simply buffing Shadows can't be done. Our mean mitigation is *already* the best. Buffing *anything* about it just makes our mean mitigation stronger, which isn't something I think the devs will actually want to do. This means that, in order to prevent this, we'll need to sacrifice something that *isn't* good for our spikiness in a sufficient quantity to leave our mean mitigation alone.

 

For this, there are 2 possible solutions: reducing self healing to roughly 60% of what it currently is or decreasing Defense (which have already been gone over several times in this thread, with math to explain it all).

 

For the self-healing reduction, the easiest way to accomplish that would be to get rid of the mediocre and unnoticeable self heal on Combat Technique completely (it doesn't even scale with gear and contributes less to HPS than overheal takes out of it) while reducing the heal per tick of Harnessed Shadows TkT from 2.0% to 1.5%.

 

For the Defense reduction, all that's needed is a 5% reduction in our functional Defense chance, which can be accomplished by tacking a 5% Defense debuff onto Combat Technique (which is why the common recommendation for the 35% armor increase is to put it right onto CT itself to justify the loss of mitigation at low levels) or removing the acc debuff from Force Breach (where you replace the acc debuff with a DR or armor buff for the Shadow using it that lasts the same duration).

 

Once again, all of this has been gone over time and time again. Nothing you've said here is new and most of what you're talking about is old news. I *really* wish people had to read threads before they could start posting in them because it's getting tiring constantly having to rehash this stuff with new people every time...

[dipstik]

maybe you should update the OP?

[WheresMyWhisky]

I also watched the suckafish assassin get one shotted twice by terminate which in a perverse way I think is a good thing because there is now a boss we basically can't tank even on 8 man so it should surely now become a priority to fix us as we are not much of a tank anymore if there is content we cannot do.

 

If anyone wants to suggest that we can gear around this they can go ****************

 

There has been a very lively discussion on how to fix us so hopefully that should give them some ideas

 

Nice to see you are staying Kitru

[xnightshadex]

Kitru,

 

I did read the entire thread, and as I have stated in this thread I think further nerfing heals is not the right answer. The healing as a mitigation strategy helps differentiate shadows/assassins as a class from their Jugg and PT counterparts.

 

I also don't think you understand the "calculate this if you want" point (and I probably did not explain myself clearly), so I'll try this again.

 

My entire post was comparing Assassins to themselves. I don't want my Assassin to play like a Jugg in terms of damage or mitigation. What I want to know is how much armor should be returned to us so that Assassin tanks are in line in 2.0 relative to pre-1.6 (or post 1.6, depending on your thinking) assassins with respect to Jugg performance. So, if the damage reduction for Juggs went up 10% and mean mitigation went down 10%, then I would expect a similar balance for Assassins.

 

The way I see it is our raw DR capabilities have been significantly reduced as well as our mean mitigation (look at your D/S/A percentages in full 72s relative to 61s or 63s at 50 in pre-2.0 content and our self heals). My Jugg counterpart seems tougher, by comparison (it could be his awesome cooldowns) post 2.0. I never felt inferior to a Jugg looking at parses before 2.0 or that I was hurting my progression 8m team by bringing an Assassin the table.

 

That being said, I do wonder why you hate self heals as a mitigation strategy so much, Kitru. Lightning scales with gear (same as a healer's healing output which is not affected by damage dealt by an enemy). Dark Change heals can be amazing (if they are implemented as I have suggested) and scale with incoming damage.

 

I might be biased, I was a Blood DK tank in Wrath before Blood was the dedicated tanking tree (I ran in Frost stance, with the defensive talents from Frost and Unholy, and every buff to self healing possible in the Blood tree). I was spikey as all hell, but with healers who understood my build, I only needed TLC when I was rocked really really hard in a single hit. My healers understood that my health bar in that instant did not represent what my health was about to be in the next GCD, because a good amount of health was coming back (Death Strike, rune tap, etc). Even with the Death Strike nerf, it still worked. When I rolled my Shadow (my first toon, pre-launch) and later my Assassin (my main), the tanking style felt a lot like what my Blood DK tank was before the tree changes at the end of Wrath; less raw damage stopping power with a reliance on high mitigation (avoidance) and self heals to make up for it. For those who hate WoW, sorry for the parallel, but needed an example of what I was trying to get at. I personally used to enjoy my Shadow and my Assassin tanks more than I enjoyed my DK tank in Wrath (and is still my favorite advanced class).

 

What you propose makes self healing irrelevant. This is not good for the shadow/assassin class at all. I don't want to play a light armor Jugg whose differentiation is based solely on mitigation calculated by a RNG (and even with KW, you are only tweaking the probabilities, you guarantee nothing). I want to play a tank class that requires me to actively maintain its survival (and allows me to control the mitigation to some extent). Pushing for more DR and sacrificing self healing simply makes the Assassin a slightly different flavor of the other two tanking classes. Instead of heavy armor we have flat DR that is slightly less than a Jugg or PT overall, and make up for it by a slightly better mean mitigation profile (which only matters if the RNG rolls in your favor). I don't enjoy luck tanking.

 

Fixing the way self heals work (See my post about changing Lightning and Dark Charge to make them more viable as a mitigation strategy; I will link them below) and slightly restoring what was honestly too big a nerf to our armor bonus maintains the class' feel without making it a sub-par Jugg. It will be a tank that is better in some situations than others, just like it used to be before 2.0.

 

I encourage you to consider my alternatives:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=6517038&postcount=295

http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=6519667&postcount=314

 

Both of those are posts I made in the thread, with 314 expanding on 295. I encourage you to read them and consider the implications as they make self-healing (at least DC) scale with damage.

 

If we move away from self-healing, we are taking away the one aspect of our mitigation we can control directly (and doesn't depend on RNG to work). That leaves us in a limbo where we are weak Juggs that depend more on RNG than a Jugg.

[Kitru]

I don't want my Assassin to play like a Jugg in terms of damage or mitigation.

 

This is where you're completing misunderstanding *everything* that we're talking about.

 

Nowhere am I saying that Shadows should get changed so that they play like Guardian tanks. Hell, my recommendations still put our passive mitigation well *below* what Guardians or VGs get (~40% compared to ~50%). The reductions in self healing still leave it as a *major* portion of our total mitigation: 15% rather than 25% of total mitigation. If you're not using your self heals, you'll have *worse* performance than a Guardian or VG, which is the exact thing that *should* happen.

 

The fact that self healing has been placed on a pedestal and revered as something that should *never* be reduced any more because it's the "Shadow tank gimmick" is a flawed construct. You could reduce Shadow self healing to one-third of its current performance and it would *still* be the Shadow gimmick because Shadows are the only ones with appreciable self-heals. One of the *major* problems with Shadows is that we rely *too heavily* on self heals. Any increase to those self heals will be a net *reduction* in our functionality rather than any kind of improvement because it simply *compounds* upon our existing spikiness to make us even *more* vulnerable.

 

The changes I recommend to make it so that it is not *as* major of a portion of our total mitigation because *healing is a terrible form of mitigation to rely upon heavily* but is *still* a major component. Even early Wrath Blood DKs weren't in the same state as Shadows are now. Yes, they had self healing but they still had pretty much identical armor reduction as the other tanks. They were spiky but their worse case was no worse than the other tanks' (and, yes, I played a DK tank back then too so I'm familiar with all of this). The issue with Shadows is that our *worst case* is so much worse than the other tanks and the justification for this is that we have self heals to rely on. The problem is that, relying so heavily on self-heals is a reason to *not* have as extreme of a worse case.

 

That being said, I do wonder why you hate self heals as a mitigation strategy so much, Kitru. Lightning scales with gear (same as a healer's healing output which is not affected by damage dealt by an enemy). Dark Change heals can be amazing (if they are implemented as I have suggested) and scale with incoming damage.

 

First off, I do not *hate* self heals as a mitigation mechanism. I hate the *overreliance* upon self healing as a mitigation mechanism. Self-healing is *awesome* and I *love* it, but it presents *massive* problems with balance and effectiveness when you rely on it to excess, especially when the fundamental mitigation goal isn't to accentuate the immortality curve but rather to countermand attrition. It gets even *worse* when you start having to deal with spikiness and external healing, because self healing does nothing for the former (since self healing only works when you *survive* the blow, and only when you survive long enough to actually get some appreciable heals in) and means next to nothing in the face of the latter (a Shadow puts out ~300 hp/sec; a healer is capable of *more* than 300 hp/sec than it's already capable of).

 

Rather than "hating" self healing, I am simply *aware* of its limitations and problems. You misconstrue this knowledge and desire to see the current self-healing capabilities of Shadows brought in line so that it's actually *aware* of these limitations and problems as "hate" when it's really just knowing more about it. Seriously, I've dealt with systems that had to balance out everything across all three major axes of survivability (RNG mitigation, static mitigation, and damage recovery) with survivability constructs existing at numerous permutations within there. WoW *never* got particularly diverse along those axes, specifically because, when they *did*, problems occurred. All WoW tanks are, from a survivability perspective, just variations upon Warriors: Druids and DKs simply trade a shield for the ability to create an absorb shield; monks trade a shield for their stagger effect; Paladins are pretty much exactly like Warriors from a fundamental survivability perspective with a slight shift in incoming damage profile (more stable, lower mean). Trying to bring in assumptions of tank balance based upon perceptions of equivalence of tanks between games is fundamentally flawed *because* Shadows are so much more different from Guardians and VGs than DKs are, or ever *have* been, from Warriors.

 

Furthermore, healer output *does* scale with incoming damage, though the scaling is based upon a combination of gear and ability use rather than explicitly based upon gearing. When a boss hits hard, a healer heals more because it's required. A Shadow tank will *always* heal the same amount regardless of the incoming damage, unless there are major and explicit changes to the way Shadows generate their self healing. On top of that, the scaling of Shadow self heals is *terrible* compared to anything else. It scales *exclusively* based upon max hp, which scales *slower* than damage or healing capability by a *large* amount, not to mention the fact that the conversion rate on the gear itself is completely horrible (1.1 endurance for a point of mitigation rating when, in reality, it takes ~2.5 endurance to actually get to the equivalence of a point of mitigation rating). Endurance and hit points *do* scale up, but *not* to the same extent as damage/healing capability.

 

Concerning CT's heal, you're predicating the importance of it upon the *massive* changes you're recommending for them. Even then, chances are that it *still* wouldn't do anything for Shadow spikiness because, no matter what you do, it's *still* self healing. You're also making the assumption that the developers would want to put in more effort for a methodolgy that could accomplish more by doing less. You're seeking a more complicated solution to a problem that can easily be resolved directly and simply while *still* preserving the uniqueness of the AC and playstyle.

 

As it stands, *without* major revisions to how Shadow self-heals operate (and, yes, it's *major* revisions), Shadow self-heals are actually a *detriment* to the AC because it inflates our theoretical performance while simultaneously diminishing in value as content progresses. Even then, *if* they were changed, they would still do next to nothing to actually affect our spikiness. Since we're talking about reducing *spikiness*, discussions about *improving* self healing are completely tangential and ignorant of the truth of the subject.

 

I encourage you to consider my alternatives:

 

I *have* considered your "alternatives" and, every time, I've described, *in detail*, why the ideas are bad, whether because they require too much work for what would be an otherwise simple fix, are simply exaggerating our existing weaknesses rather than addressing the extreme weakness that we're actually trying to address, or because you're treating self-healing as if it were some kind of sacred cow rather than actually looking at it from an analytical perspective while reacting as if *any* reduction to self healing is somehow attacking the very *foundation* of Shadow tanking (which is, honestly, more accurately described as Def/Shield/Abs because of our intense reliance upon those tank stats; it's not like Shadow tanks simply don't exist until they get Harnessed Shadows and then only start working *because* they have Harnessed Shadows).

 

Hell, you actually *admitted* that the only reasonable solution is increasing armor rating (which is what we've been saying all this time). You also admit that you have no clue how self-healing should be tweaked other than "well, we need more". If you don't know how much or even the *existing* contribution of self-healing, how can you actually make an educated suggestion as to what to *do* with it? Saying that it should be better while admitting that you don't actually know enough about it to really say anything is simply telling the reader to ignore your previous assertion because you don't have the expertise to make an informed decision.

 

My suggestion has *always* been tackled from the end perspective (and, yes, comparing Shadows to their current performance; I'm looking at current mean mitigation and keeping it the same while reducing spikiness to place where RNG death *isn't* something that happens regularly; if you can't see that, you're being oblivious): decreasing spikiness while keeping mean mitigation the same. In the very first post, that was my explicit remark. The Shadow current over-reliance upon self-healing (and, yes, it is over-reliance because it's fully *25%* of our total mitigation) simply represents a place where spikiness can be addressed on both ends (by shoring up static mitigation and reducing reactive mitigation) while preserving the current level of mean mitigation. 15% of total mitigation based upon self-healing is *still* a crapton (in fact, it's actually more than Wrath era-Blood DKs managed; a vast majority of their mitigation stemmed from armor and defense/parry; the only reason that the self-healing got played up as a big deal was because it was a comparatively unique aspect of the class/spec), but it an *acceptable* crapton.

[dipstik]

i would like to hold onto the stance heal proc if possible, just for the relic trigger. if we do end up with a DR buff on ourselves and not a debuff on the boss, a raid heal (based on our stance) might make up for that loss in utility.

 

i do think it is unavoidable to decrease out selfheals to allow us to increase our DR without being overpowered in temrs of mean post heals mitigation

Edited July 12, 2013 by dipstik

[MasterGladius]

i would like to hold onto the stance heal proc if possible, just for the relic trigger. if we do end up with a DR buff on ourselves and not a debuff on the boss, a raid heal (based on our stance) might make up for that loss in utility.

 

i do think it is unavoidable to decrease out selfheals to allow us to increase our DR without being overpowered in temrs of mean post heals mitigation

 

I second this. In my opinion, self heals are unreliable due to stuns, knockbacks, and interrupts. Mitigation for the win. Self heals should be a pretty minor part of our 'mitigation.' Especially in light of the fact that you can't heal if you are dead.