Fixing Shadow Tank Spikiness

[Kitru]

You used to talk about using Power Crystals instead of Endurance.

 

I use Power crystals instead of Endurance crystals but that's a *really* minor tweak imo. The difference between using Resolve Armorings and Force Wielder Armorings is way bigger. Of course, if I *had* to swap to Endurance crystals after *everything else* getting swapped out of what I like, I'd probably follow suit with the crystals (thankfully, I have the Black-Purple Endurance schema *and* Power schema so I'm set regardless).

 

To be honest, changing it to an I/E attack just makes it much worse for Vanguards since Guardian and Shadow can (bugs permitting) ignore the attack anyway. I think a more effective option would be to turn it into a Series of Shots style attack with 4 hits (maybe with increased total damage) rather than 1 big hit but then you have to rethink the knockback, which is really just an annoyance rather than of actual benefit to the encounter IMO.

 

If you're looking for a spike like that, I/E damage is great for it since it affects all tanks, barring CDs, equally (Guardians have a slight advantage atm since they have 5% resistance chance and 23% I/E DR compared to 2% and 23% for Shadows and 2% and 21% for VGs, but those variations are *tiny*). 2 out of 3 tanks can already and would still be able to cheese it (VGs must feel so very left out) so I don't see how it's really a problem and it would ameliorate the hard spike that only affects Shadow disproportionately.

[grallmate]

I use Power crystals instead of Endurance crystals but that's a *really* minor tweak imo. The difference between using Resolve Armorings and Force Wielder Armorings is way bigger. Of course, if I *had* to swap to Endurance crystals after *everything else* getting swapped out of what I like, I'd probably follow suit with the crystals (thankfully, I have the Black-Purple Endurance schema *and* Power schema so I'm set regardless).

 

Across 2 its still 820 HP and now that the bonus is only on the armoring you only get to trade 4 Force Wielder for Resolve. Plus 1 if you do the hilt as well.

 

If you're looking for a spike like that, I/E damage is great for it since it affects all tanks, barring CDs, equally (Guardians have a slight advantage atm since they have 5% resistance chance and 23% I/E DR compared to 2% and 23% for Shadows and 2% and 21% for VGs, but those variations are *tiny*). 2 out of 3 tanks can already and would still be able to cheese it (VGs must feel so very left out) so I don't see how it's really a problem and it would ameliorate the hard spike that only affects Shadow disproportionately.

 

Once you factor in CDs though thats when you get the problem (both ways). Is the mechanic intended to have a CD burned or is it intended to just be a semi-predictable spike of damage. If its intended to be CD amenable VGs really lose out whereas if its intended to be a semi-predictable spike that isn't intended for a CD it should be in the 10-15k range, not the 25k+ range and somewhat more frequent. As it currently is, its CD amenable for Shadows and Guardians but Resilience bugs out sometimes and therein lies a lot of the problem since you can't reliably deal with the mechanic and the spike from not Resiliencing it is enough to kill you.

[Kitru]

Once you factor in CDs though thats when you get the problem (both ways). Is the mechanic intended to have a CD burned or is it intended to just be a semi-predictable spike of damage. If its intended to be CD amenable VGs really lose out whereas if its intended to be a semi-predictable spike that isn't intended for a CD it should be in the 10-15k range, not the 25k+ range and somewhat more frequent. As it currently is, its CD amenable for Shadows and Guardians but Resilience bugs out sometimes and therein lies a lot of the problem since you can't reliably deal with the mechanic and the spike from not Resiliencing it is enough to kill you.

 

My guess, considering how it hits Guards and VGs (the classes they actually tested the content with) for a nice chunk but not so much that it's going to cause healer panic, is that it was intended as a predictable spike of damage.

 

At 25k I/E damage, it'll do as much damage to every tank as it currently does to Guards and VGs, which is why I chose that number.

[tXHereticXt]

I wouldn't be comfortable with losing mitigation for DR, takes away the defining attributes that separates the Sin/Shadow from the rest.

 

Maybe Overcharge could last longer and boost heals of periodic DC/CT heal procs. I've always said, what bugged me about the nerf in 1.5 (I think, Lost Island just came out) is that they nerfed BOTH health and armor. If the mitigation stayed where it is now I could go for another 15-20% armor boost to DC/CT.

 

 

EDIT: I do like the idea of Discharge/Breach adding an additional DR, or hell raise the DR on Wither/SlowTime.

Edited May 26, 2013 by tXHereticXt

[Kitru]

still need a solution for going down so low in health though. maybe a free off GCD self heal like the sages have... or something that absorbs when a single ability's damage spikes over a certain amount...

 

Keep in mind, the 1k number I talked about was the *lowest* point for the entire fight. It probably only occurred once right when a healer was distracted (in my sim, it's represented by the healer not throwing out a heal on the tank due to the heal breaking over the overheal margin) *and* the hit getting in unmitigated. Dropping to 1k isn't all that bad, considering the size of that hit, imo, especially since the big problem I had was that, before, it was more than half deaths for Shadow tanks and not a single death for Guardians.

 

we are pretty close but going from 35k to 1k where a jugg goes from 32k to 5k is not balanced.

 

I was actually going for 36k for both. If the hp was supposed to be 32k (didn't catch that when I saw your BiS numbers), they'd both be brought down to 1-2k at lowest.

 

I do think some kind of additional CD would be very welcome, though not necessarily a self heal. I'd love a CD that, for a short time, increases Shield chance to 100% or provides an Absorb Shield similar to Defense Screen. Self heals are all well and good, but having *only* self heals just feels like we're turning into a one-trick pony.

 

that damage reduction bulwark sounds pretty interesting. need to see how broken that is, and family is in town. ttyl

 

It would actually be a lot weaker. At .5% DR instead of 1% Abs, it would average out to roughly 3% DR, topping out at 4%, but it wouldn't really solve the spikiness issue since you're having to build up to not being spiky and, in the process of building those charges, you're increases the chances of spike hits occurring.

 

I don't really see it as a viable solution since, 1, the value is too small on average over time, and, 2, there too much variance in the actual value such that you're just providing even more variable spikiness by reducing it for short periods and having it remain exactly as it was previously.

[Leafy_Bug]

Tanked thrasher tonight, with a brand new raid group in the guild. I kept him on me as much as I could, he gave me 1700 DPS. I am BIS KBN 2200 mitigation budget. Bumpy run, peeps are learning, shadow tank is fine .

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/251453

[grallmate]

It would actually be a lot weaker. At .5% DR instead of 1% Abs, it would average out to roughly 3% DR, topping out at 4%, but it wouldn't really solve the spikiness issue since you're having to build up to not being spiky and, in the process of building those charges, you're increases the chances of spike hits occurring.

 

I don't really see it as a viable solution since, 1, the value is too small on average over time, and, 2, there too much variance in the actual value such that you're just providing even more variable spikiness by reducing it for short periods and having it remain exactly as it was previously.

 

You don't increase the chance of spike its occurring at all, you just don't decrease it at 0 stacks of Kinetic Bulwark while at 8 stacks spikiness is decreased. At 8 stacks of KB with charges remaining on KW its a small mitigation loss but at 8 stacks with 0 charges of KW left its a flat out improvement over KB increasing Absorb. It definitely increases the delta in maximum spikiness between 0 and 8 charges of KB but reduces the delta between shielded and un-shielded hits.

 

It may even be worth looking at KW having a decaying return based on number of charges remaining and increasing the KB stack limit to 15. +1% shield per stack of KW + 5% for the set bonus and as you lose stacks gain up to +7.5% flat DR. I always found it odd that it was a flat buff until you ran out of charges.

 

It'd make survivability calculations a HELL of a lot harder overall though. You could even look at combining this change with changing the stack limit on both to 12 and giving KW a base +3% shield which gives +20% Shield at 12 charges down to +9% Shield + 5.5% DR and at 1 charge remaining and then to either +0%/+5%/+8% shield and +6% DR with 0 charges left.

 

Now that doesn't 'solve' the spikiness of Shadows but it does give them a way to work around single big hits which pretty much amounts to: don't refresh KW just before it happens.

[Kitru]

Now that doesn't 'solve' the spikiness of Shadows but it does give them a way to work around single big hits which pretty much amounts to: don't refresh KW just before it happens.

 

It essentially says that Shadows will either take *more* damage than the other tanks (add 3% DR and remove 20% Shield and 6% mitigation from the incoming damage calculations) while still being noticeably spikier or being even *spikier* while taking the lesser damage they're supposed to take. It's also not as if you can spontaneously wipe out your KW stacks to get KB stacks. There are some fights with spiky incoming damage where it's a friggin' *chore* to get the boss to start knocking off KW stacks since the rate of attack is so low.

 

It would be a reasonably viable idea were it not for the fact that you're still placing the ability to mitigate spikiness outside of the Shadow's explicit control. A Shadow tank doesn't get to control how or when their KW stacks are taken down. In fights where damage is actually really spiky (like Thrasher), sometimes the you'll have KW drop off with only 3-4 KB stacks up. If I could, say, right click and remove my KW stacks and get the full allotment of KB stacks *maybe* I would agree with the idea, but, without something like that, I just don't think it's a particularly good idea since you're just placing the control outside of a Shadow's reach while simultaneously still placing Shadows at a noticeable disadvantage (you know, either less damage taken than the other tanks, like it's supposed to be, and horribly spiky or slightly less spiky, but still *way* spikier than the other tanks, while taking more damage than any of the other tanks).

 

If you really wanted to allow Shadows to choose between "average mitigation" and "spikiness" while maintaining the intended balance construct (mitigation and spikiness are, largely, directly related), the only real option would be to add another ability that is mutually exclusive with KW that increases DR such that spikiness is lower than the other tanks (but not *too* low) while mitigation is lowered as well (but not *too* low). Even if you *did* do that, the absolute max would be 10% DR (where Shadows achieve parity with their current mitigation), but spikiness would *still* be worse than the other tanks, at which point it would just be a question of using *that* buff instead of KW at all times.

 

The problem is that Shadow tanks are disproportionately disadvantaged by their spikiness as it stands now. Yes, it can be worked around, but the advantages of being a Shadow are not, from a balance perspective, overcome by the specific disadvantages when dealing with the heavy spike damage that occurs so often in content now. The number of times that spike damage will wipe you out out of sheer random chance compared to the advantage gained by cheesing a few mechanics that the other tanks can already survive and/or deal with in the intended manner is drastically out of whack. Either the content gets fixed or Shadows do and fixing Shadows is *way* easier (or there's the third option where it just gets left alone and Shadows get left in the lurch for any fight with more than a modicum of spike damage which is an *amazing* option).

[grallmate]

(or there's the third option where it just gets left alone and Shadows get left in the lurch for any fight with more than a modicum of spike damage which is an *amazing* option).

 

To be perfectly honest and given the track record on other classes, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that is the option that's taken until at least 2.3 or 2.4. Possibly even 3.0.

 

W.r.t. my initial suggestion, I think you are confused. Compared to current all it involves is trading the Absorb for flat DR. In the times when you would currently have +20% shield, you would still have that. In the times when that has fallen off you would have 4% flat DR instead of 8% Absorb. In the intermediary time you would have +20% Shield and +4% DR instead of +20% shield and +8% Absorb. Yes the total damage taken is slightly higher but the difference is less than 1% and the goal of reducing spikiness from large discrete attacks as well as the initial goals of KB are more closely met.

 

I completely get the point about putting it outside the players control, so perhaps a short CD ability (say 30-60s?) that immediately consumes all remaining KW (and possible KB) stacks for a +X% boost to K/E DR for Y seconds. Gives Shadows the option to mitigate an upcoming spike by giving up a degree of constant survivability. It doesn't involve giving Shadows an extra CD or more net mitigation so it shouldn't require drastic rebalancing and it will reward skilled players while fitting in with the 'use and abuse' concept of Shadow CDs. As a ballpark I'd think +10-15% for 5 seconds but I wouldn't call those final or overly considered values.

 

Alternatively, the CD that was suggested to push Shield chance up to 100% for a short period would also work but IMO, should consume remaining KW stacks while doing do. That said, if you expand the domain to include PvP, the former (flat DR) option is better as Crit chance takes precedence over Shield.

 

As an aside, I think you are interchanging spikiness and spike potential far too often in your arguments. The 2 are different concepts and swapping absorb rating for a similar amount of flat mitigation (relative to expected shield values) will decrease spike potential. The effect it has on spikiness (as in a function of variance in damage taken) remains to be seen. Just to be clear, when I talk about spike potential it is purely a function of incoming discrete hits and base K/E DR. The potential for a single large spike of damage for example Operations Chief Takedown (your commonly referenced "Shadows are too spiky scenario"). Spikiness in terms of the potential for a series of unmitigated hits is a separate argument and the only solution there is to trade RNG based mitigation for non-RNG based mitigation.

 

I feel it is very important in this discussion to clearly highlight which aspect is being discussed as while confusion can be used to lend weight to an argument (mostly through lack of understanding on the part of others and making yourself sound smart [which I am often guilty of]) it doesn't actually provide a real benefit.

[Kitru]

W.r.t. my initial suggestion, I think you are confused. Compared to current all it involves is trading the Absorb for flat DR.

 

I understood your point here completely. My problem was that the goal of decreasing spikiness is to decrease variation in incoming damage profile. Having it vary based upon KB stacks means that, while spikiness used to be largely static and only spike potential really changed (i.e. KW is either up or down; increases in Absorption don't really affect spike potential or spikiness so much as average damage taken; as long as absorption is over a certain threshold of noticeable damage reduction which I would say is roughly 33%), having DR vary based upon KB stacks means that even your general spikiness varies heavily.

 

The point about choosing between either lower spikiness or lower mitigation was drawn from you comment that players could choose to not refresh their KW immediately to benefit from their KB stacks for longer, which is the explicit choice of either substantially more damage taken with lower spikiness with a substantially higher spike potential or higher mitigation with higher spikiness but lower spike potential, especially when the "lower spikiness" option takes you from "least healing required" well into "most healing required" territory (even including the DR increase) and still has you remain *substantially* spikier than the other tanks. Over time, averaged out, yes, it would decrease spikiness, but, on a stochastic level, the variation in incoming damage would be even more severe over time.

 

It *increases* variation in incoming damage when the goal is to *decrease* variation in incoming damage. Even if the end result is generally slightly lower spikiness, it's treating one symptom (big spikes in incoming damage cause a disproportionate number of deaths in Shadows compared to the other tanks) while ignoring the other major symptom (major variation in incoming damage forces healers to dump more healing into Shadows to prevent them from dying, above and beyond what is required for the other tanks, which is the exact *opposite* of what should be intended by having a class with comparatively higher mitigation justified by higher spikiness).

 

As a ballpark I'd think +10-15% for 5 seconds but I wouldn't call those final or overly considered values.

 

If it were done as such, I'd say that the CD would consume all KB and KW stacks and provide you with 1% DR (whether just K/E or both K/E and I/E) for each stack consumed. At worst, in high attack/sec scenarios, you would be given 8% DR for the time frame (enough to reduce spikiness while maintaining a similar mitigation profile). At best, in scenarios where you use the CD reasonably soon before KW has be used, you'd get 15%. In the middling situations (after shielding more than 8 attacks but fewer than 15), you managed anywhere between the two.

 

If the CD only lasted ~6 seconds, such that using it immediately *after* starting up KW, you end up with a period of higher incoming damage, it would create an interesting skill-centric playstyle where the use of it has to be weighed against the loss. Give it a 60 sec CD, and you'd be pretty well set. To make space for it in the spec, just make Harnessed Shadows a 1 point talent (I never really understood why it was a 2 point beyond just sucking up talent points) and add the new talent right above Kinetic Bulwark.

 

Alternatively, the CD that was suggested to push Shield chance up to 100% for a short period would also work but IMO, should consume remaining KW stacks while doing do. That said, if you expand the domain to include PvP, the former (flat DR) option is better as Crit chance takes precedence over Shield.

 

When I suggested the 100% Shield chance CD, I was assuming KW stacks would still be consumed. Another variation on the idea might be to have the CD itself not provide the increase to Shield chance but instead cause KW to provide 100% shield chance for the duration (so that you can't use it while KW is down and it only works for a limited number of attacks in the time frame).

 

As an aside, I think you are interchanging spikiness and spike potential far too often in your arguments.

 

[snip]

 

I feel it is very important in this discussion to clearly highlight which aspect is being discussed as while confusion can be used to lend weight to an argument (mostly through lack of understanding on the part of others and making yourself sound smart [which I am often guilty of]) it doesn't actually provide a real benefit.

 

I think I've been reasonably clear about indicating that the primary problem is spikiness itself. Spike potential hasn't really been a problem, beyond the adjustment from having ~30/65% defshield chance at best to now having ~25/55%. The problem has routinely been, in my experience, the spikiness itself. Spike potential is only a problem when it makes it impossible to reliably predict incoming damage (i.e. 50% Defense chance with no Shield chance; it's a coin flip between a lot of damage and no damage and the inevitable chain of lucky/unlucky coin flips are going to make healing annoying as hell). Spikiness, on the other hand, is a problem when it directly leads to deaths that should otherwise have been avoidable or do not occur for any other real reason (like on Operations Chief as a Shadow: Shadows are "coin flip between die/panic and barely noticed" where the other tanks just take it to the face and soldier on no matter what happens).

[grallmate]

I understood your point here completely. My problem was that the goal of decreasing spikiness is to decrease variation in incoming damage profile. Having it vary based upon KB stacks means that, while spikiness used to be largely static and only spike potential really changed (i.e. KW is either up or down; increases in Absorption don't really affect spike potential or spikiness so much as average damage taken; as long as absorption is over a certain threshold of noticeable damage reduction which I would say is roughly 33%), having DR vary based upon KB stacks means that even your general spikiness varies heavily.

 

My goal with that suggestion is to decrease spike potential, I tend to accept spikiness as a part of Shadow tanking and aside from the Operations Chief example you've brought up a few times, don't really view it as an issue. As has been mentioned, the only real option for reducing spikiness is to move away from RNG based mitigation (or push RNG based mitigation high enough, which were pretty good pre-2.0).

 

It *increases* variation in incoming damage when the goal is to *decrease* variation in incoming damage. Even if the end result is generally slightly lower spikiness, it's treating one symptom (big spikes in incoming damage cause a disproportionate number of deaths in Shadows compared to the other tanks) while ignoring the other major symptom (major variation in incoming damage forces healers to dump more healing into Shadows to prevent them from dying, above and beyond what is required for the other tanks, which is the exact *opposite* of what should be intended by having a class with comparatively higher mitigation justified by higher spikiness).

 

That is exactly what I was focusing on as mentioned above.

 

If it were done as such, I'd say that the CD would consume all KB and KW stacks and provide you with 1% DR (whether just K/E or both K/E and I/E) for each stack consumed. At worst, in high attack/sec scenarios, you would be given 8% DR for the time frame (enough to reduce spikiness while maintaining a similar mitigation profile). At best, in scenarios where you use the CD reasonably soon before KW has be used, you'd get 15%. In the middling situations (after shielding more than 8 attacks but fewer than 15), you managed anywhere between the two.

 

If the CD only lasted ~6 seconds, such that using it immediately *after* starting up KW, you end up with a period of higher incoming damage, it would create an interesting skill-centric playstyle where the use of it has to be weighed against the loss. Give it a 60 sec CD, and you'd be pretty well set. To make space for it in the spec, just make Harnessed Shadows a 1 point talent (I never really understood why it was a 2 point beyond just sucking up talent points) and add the new talent right above Kinetic Bulwark.

 

I played around with that idea for a little but for the base concept thought I'd keep it simple. Overall, I think this is one of the most elegant solutions to the problem. Gives the average Shadow the tools to survive damage spikes, gives the excellent Shadows a tool to use and abuse and makes bad Shadows worse.

 

I think I've been reasonably clear about indicating that the primary problem is spikiness itself. Spike potential hasn't really been a problem, beyond the adjustment from having ~30/65% defshield chance at best to now having ~25/55%. The problem has routinely been, in my experience, the spikiness itself. Spike potential is only a problem when it makes it impossible to reliably predict incoming damage (i.e. 50% Defense chance with no Shield chance; it's a coin flip between a lot of damage and no damage and the inevitable chain of lucky/unlucky coin flips are going to make healing annoying as hell). Spikiness, on the other hand, is a problem when it directly leads to deaths that should otherwise have been avoidable or do not occur for any other real reason (like on Operations Chief as a Shadow: Shadows are "coin flip between die/panic and barely noticed" where the other tanks just take it to the face and soldier on no matter what happens).

 

The issue with Ops Chief *IS* spike potential. The hit is in the 30k realm if it isn't shielded. To me, that isn't spikiness since it is a single discrete attack. Thrasher (or NiM Kephess) is conversely a spikiness issue since you vacillate between potentially dying with bad RNG and potentially taking no damage with exceptionally good RNG but average RNG will give you the expected amount. Of course, now thanks to the greatly reduced Defense and Shield chances armor goes from being the catchall 24% of the time to 34% of the time and that armor value is lower.

[Kitru]

I played around with that idea for a little but for the base concept thought I'd keep it simple. Overall, I think this is one of the most elegant solutions to the problem. Gives the average Shadow the tools to survive damage spikes, gives the excellent Shadows a tool to use and abuse and makes bad Shadows worse.

 

There have been *loads* of ideas in the thread about the different things that could be done. Some of them are balanced only qualitatively (new CDs, variable reduced CDs on existing CDs, and Absorb shield from self healing or overhealing) such that it would need to be played around with a bit but would provide a bit more elegance and complexity to the spec (which is one of the things we Shadows like about Shadow tanking). Some of them are balanced explicitly using math to find the optimal solution while changing as little as possible (the Force Breach swap from 5% acc debuff to 4% DR buff or the KB into DR change you suggested) and don't really modify the playstyle of Shadow tanking in the *least*.

 

My hope would be that the developers read this thread, recognize that it's a problem (which I think dipstik and I have done a pretty good job of proving with both math and via simulation), and then, at the very least, take these ideas into consideration. There are *loads* of them that could be implemented to cover any number of possible desired end solutions. Pretty much the only way I'll be unhappy is if they just do nothing about it.

 

The issue with Ops Chief *IS* spike potential. The hit is in the 30k realm if it isn't shielded. To me, that isn't spikiness since it is a single discrete attack. Thrasher (or NiM Kephess) is conversely a spikiness issue since you vacillate between potentially dying with bad RNG and potentially taking no damage with exceptionally good RNG but average RNG will give you the expected amount. Of course, now thanks to the greatly reduced Defense and Shield chances armor goes from being the catchall 24% of the time to 34% of the time and that armor value is lower.

 

Lol. I've been using spikiness to refer to the magnitude and impact spikes in incoming damage in the short term (i.e. what happens with Operations Chief or an unlucky Thrasher chain), and spike potential as the likelihood of a specific event of spikiness occurring (i.e. how often you get screwed by Operations Chief or how often you'll get mauled by Thrasher with a bad RNG string, in the sense the potential for it to happen rather the potential magnitude of a since spike event). I'm pretty sure we've gotten our terminology crossed. This is what happens when we don't set down a specific vocabulary right at the start. /shameOnTheLotOfUs

[LeeTone]

Just sharing a couple of parses (2250 stat budget). I haven't stepped into SnV HM yet but mostly smooth sailing in SM and TFB HM.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/248541

 

I had one terminate go through resilience in the Operations Chief parse but it got shielded.

[Leafy_Bug]

Just sharing a couple of parses (2250 stat budget). I haven't stepped into SnV HM yet but mostly smooth sailing in SM and TFB HM.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/248541

 

I had one terminate go through resilience in the Operations Chief parse but it got shielded.

 

 

I definitely need my coffee. I looked at the log, I compared to mine, http://www.torparse.com/a/251453 and i was like, why did I take so much damage compared to you? Then I read again, after a sip of coffee and I saw it was story mode on thrasher. .

 

 

I do not know why BioWare Keeps insisting on such a tank when clearly there are aspects, we the community, want to have changed. We do not ask for game breaking rebalancing but we do want to reduce the spikyness we have. I have said multiple times, BioWare should really stop this madness and bring the tanks closer when it comes to spiky damage.

[Panzerfire]

Some time ago I switched from a double 2-set bonus to the UW 4 set.

I traded 5% shield for 2% DR, which is about equal damage reduction. Would a similar talent work?

Right now I'm sitting at 56.70% shield chance, with about 50 less shield rating compared to the "BiS", 5% absorb will equal 2.835% DR, what about a talent reducing the base absorbtion (or shield chance) of our generators to increase armor rating or just flat damage reduction, while keeping average mitigation the same. Although this will get skewed if more gear rating is introduced, like the Kell Dragon tier.

 

A talent will give people the option whether they want to go for it or not, I realise that this might put people in trouble on deciding what to take or not, and you would need to couple it to something minor, like the 3% endurance bonus, which is one of the only things we can miss, along with the frontal Maul attack talent.

 

The easiest option remains to split high damage attacks into multiple hits, give Thrasher 5 hits of 5k, or 8 hits of 3k etc... Even if this makes dark ward run out as fast as on the TFB tentacles.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Panzerfire

[Kitru]

Would a similar talent work?

 

A talent that reduces one stat to increase another isn't likely to jive well. Even if it's expressly an improvement (the change would leave average mitigation the same while improving spikiness), it's still just really weird to have an talent that doesn't just strengthen you outright (pretty much every other talent in the game does).

 

As to it being "optional", it wouldn't really be. Like I said, it's expressly an upgrade talent since what it accomplishes is a net gain (same mitigation, lower spikiness) so anyone that *didn't* take it (and there would be *plenty* that wouldn't because it's counterintuitive to see lowering Absorb/Shield by a hefty amount to increase their DR by a small amount as a net gain) was hurting themself.

 

The best solution, honestly, is to just change Force Breach: remove the 5% accuracy debuff and replace it with a 4% DR buff. It keeps us at the same mitigation while bringing our spikiness to a sane level that's still worse than what the other tanks have (but not by so much that it's absolutely crippling).

[KeyboardNinja]

The best solution, honestly, is to just change Force Breach: remove the 5% accuracy debuff and replace it with a 4% DR buff. It keeps us at the same mitigation while bringing our spikiness to a sane level that's still worse than what the other tanks have (but not by so much that it's absolutely crippling).

 

I like the idea, overall, but it would need to be done carefully. As a general rule, straight DR debuffs do not stack (this is why the Watchmen Sentinel talent is far less compelling than it first appears). In order for Force Breach as a DR debuff to mean anything, it would need to stack with Slow Time. We know the engine has the ability to do this sort of thing, since there *are* debuffs which do stack, but it isn't very common.

[Kitru]

I like the idea, overall, but it would need to be done carefully. As a general rule, straight DR debuffs do not stack (this is why the Watchmen Sentinel talent is far less compelling than it first appears). In order for Force Breach as a DR debuff to mean anything, it would need to stack with Slow Time. We know the engine has the ability to do this sort of thing, since there *are* debuffs which do stack, but it isn't very common.

 

I'm not saying it should be a damage reduction debuff. I'm saying that it should be a 4% damage reduction buff to the Shadow tank upon using Force Breach. Essentially, instead of debuffing accuracy, it increases the Shadow tank's DR.

[KeyboardNinja]

I'm not saying it should be a damage reduction debuff. I'm saying that it should be a 4% damage reduction buff to the Shadow tank upon using Force Breach. Essentially, instead of debuffing accuracy, it increases the Shadow tank's DR.

 

Ah, that's definitely a lot better! It gives Shadows the same DR advantage that Guardians have (the Guardian Slash buff is dramatically better than the Slow Time debuff in every respect). One thing that could make things a bit more interesting is to make it a stacking DR buff (stacking off of Force Breach) with a 30 second duration. Thus, you'd use Force Breach a fair bit early in the fight and then only to maintain the debuff late. This has the side effect of slightly nerfing shadow burst threat, which is frankly OP at present, while also adding a bit of decision making potential to the shadow opener.

 

Another thing this does is fix the issue with Force Breach missing and failing to apply the accuracy debuff (which is still a problem with Slow Time).

Edited May 29, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

[Kitru]

One thing that could make things a bit more interesting is to make it a stacking DR buff (stacking off of Force Breach) with a 30 second duration.

 

The problem with this is that it still makes alpha strikes a major potential weakness of Shadows. It's already a big deal and would continue to be so, to a lesser degree, with a frontloaded DR buff, but requiring Force Breach to stack up a buff (likely 4 times, with 1% from each) would do next to nothing for it. It also seems needlessly complex, imo; the advantage of simply removing the acc debuff and replacing it with a simple DR buff is that it's programmatically simple and preserves the existing playstyle (so you don't have to reexamine everything).

 

Another thing this does is fix the issue with Force Breach missing and failing to apply the accuracy debuff (which is still a problem with Slow Time).

 

Honestly, I'm not really sure that's not just working as intended. Yes, the debuff can fall off, but I think the devs want it that way as a way to "encourage" tanks to stack Accuracy, even though, factoring in the potential loss of uptime, it's *really* not a major concern. I do think it would be apt to increase the duration of the ST debuff to 18 seconds though, since the CD got increased to 9 seconds (15 seconds meant that it was twice as long as the CD originally; 18 seconds would preserve that model). Either that or Slow Time (and similar tanking debuff effects) could just apply the debuff regardless of whether the attack hits or not.

[EFSoupy]

So, how well would a buff to mental fortitude solve the issue of spikiness? It sounds like the main issue isn't that we get hit with damage spikes, but that they're so large we can't survive. If mental fortitude provided a rather healthy endurance buff (double or triple what it is now), our self heal really doesn't go up *that* much but it would help reduce the problem with damage spikes (alpha strike damage would still be a problem, but healers would get a little more response time). I think it would need to include something to mitigate the advantage in PvP for balance's sake (I'm thinking expertise reduction with endurance buff to compensate for the higher HP), but it should make for a reasonable solution without greatly diminishing the fundamentals of shadow tanks, being higher overall mitigation but spikier.

[Kitru]

So, how well would a buff to mental fortitude solve the issue of spikiness? It sounds like the main issue isn't that we get hit with damage spikes, but that they're so large we can't survive.

 

That's like saying the problem isn't that you don't have a job, it's that you don't have enough money to pay your rent. The latter is a direct result of the former. Solving the latter won't prevent it from happening over and over again, not to mention that there are other problems attached to spikiness.

 

The math explicitly shows that Shadows are roughly 50% spikier than Guardians or VGs. My sims have shown that, even in BiS, the spikiness directly reduces the real effectiveness of a Shadow tank compared to a Guardian or a VG. Getting more hp wouldn't really solve the problem. It would make the lethal spikes occur less often (and, keep in mind, my sim assumes pretty damned perfect healing with no lag and instant calculation of optimal use), but it doesn't change the fact that the spikes will still be, purely based on RNG, a death sentence when none of the other tanks have to deal with that in the least.

 

Spikiness isn't just a problem in direct survivability of damage situations in short term situations. It's also a problem in the course of healing effectiveness: when healers can't make reliable judgments about how much healing is required of them over periods of time, either healing is wasted on overhealing or it's simply delayed and placed too late. Increasing hp by the ~2k you're suggesting would increase the window of reaction that is tolerable, but it still wouldn't fix the problem that Shadows are *way* harder to heal than either of the other tanks. When a Shadow is attacked, it's a coin flip between "holy crap, need a lot of healing" and "any healing you throw on me is wasted". When any other tank is attacked, it's largely just "gonna need a bit of healing either way".

[grallmate]

My biggest concerns with the change to Force Breach are that:

- You end up putting Guardians in a unique place where no other AC brings an accuracy debuff

- You change an enemy based AoE debuff into a play based proc or buff.

 

On the upside, it would make low level Shadow tanking noticeably easier.

 

I also like KBNs suggestion of a stacking buff and I'd suggest if the accuracy debuff is removed, also take away the damage debuff on Slow Time and have them both proc the stacking DR buff (3.5% per stack, 2 stacks or 2% per stack, 4 stacks) with a short enough duration (6s?) that both abilities have to be rotated to maintain 100% up time. It would also be nice to have FB useful for something more than AoE threat or maintaining the accuracy debuff.

 

It also makes the damage debuff unique to Vanguards (and Sentinels) and the accuracy debuff unique to Guardians which rewards using different tank types and helps differentiate the 3 slightly more. I think if a change were to be made to FB it would be a good time to look at a redesign of the whole ability. Either giving it a smart AoE or changing it to a single target harder hitting ability.

Edited May 31, 2013 by grallmate

[Kitru]

- You end up putting Guardians in a unique place where no other AC brings an accuracy debuff

 

If you want to get purely technical, I'm pretty sure Riot Gas doesn't stack with the 5% acc debuff, so VGs have something akin to it. Before the 2.0 buff, Smoke Grenade was explicitly balanced around being equivalent to the 5% acc debuff (it's substantially stronger now, but I think it also sees a lot less use because it's a targeted AoE and patch based rather than a debuff)

 

From a balance perspective, this was one of the things that could *possibly* make it not viable. Removing the acc debuff and replacing it with a straight DR buff would mean a flat out increase to average mitigation to anyone running with a Guardian tank. Solo, it would be almost entirely identical. The question would be what scenarios do the developers actually consider when looking at the buffs and debuffs brought by a class.

 

On the upside, it would make low level Shadow tanking noticeably easier.

 

This was one of the *big* things I liked about the FB change idea. Shadow tanking at low levels is *absolutely horrendous* because Shadows are more reliant on deep talents (Harnessed Shadows being the biggest) and tank stats than any other tanks, which means that, until their 30s, they're only marginally better than a DPS. It also goes hand-in-hand with the 6 sec CD on Force Breach that came with 2.0, which meant that low level Shadows could actually keep threat on more than 1-2 targets.

 

I also like KBNs suggestion of a stacking buff and I'd suggest if the accuracy debuff is removed, also take away the damage debuff on Slow Time and have them both proc the stacking DR buff (3.5% per stack, 2 stacks or 2% per stack, 4 stacks) with a short enough duration (6s?) that both abilities have to be rotated to maintain 100% up time. It would also be nice to have FB useful for something more than AoE threat or maintaining the accuracy debuff.

 

This idea *really* chafes with me, mainly because it screws up the already so well designed Shadow tank attack priority. A short duration like you suggest just means that FB is gonna have to be used on CD, functionally, because Slow Time is on a 9 sec timer. The entire idea of the buff stacking, as I have said, is largely counterproductive as well. Hell, Shadows already have a multiple stacking buffs they're watching, one of which is *already* tied to Slow Time use. Adding even more, especially when the point is adding needless complexity for new players and simply reordering the priority with no real effect on people that actually read it. In fact, all that it would do would be to turn what used to be distinct AoE and ST attack priorities into a single priority for all situations.

 

Part of the reason why the FB change is so nice is explicitly *because* it doesn't require massive reworking of the system. It doesn't need anything to be bounced around and reworked. It's just changing an acc debuff into a DR buff. Trying to create complexity within the system for no other reason than a desire for complexity rather than *actual* play quality is absolutely counterproductive.

 

Changes should be made for a reason. The change to FB makes sense because there is an explicit need to rework Shadow tank spikiness and it just so happens to be a *very* simple and effective way to do so. Trying to create a stacking buff and reworking Slow Time as well serves no purpose other than arbitrary desire for more stuff to be changed.

 

It also makes the damage debuff unique to Vanguards (and Sentinels) and the accuracy debuff unique to Guardians which rewards using different tank types and helps differentiate the 3 slightly more.

 

If VGs and Guardians both bring something useful to the other tank to the table, it wouldn't really make sense to not give Shadows something as well. You're talking about setting up a completely different design interaction between the tank classes. While I kind of support the idea on ideological grounds (anything that explicitly provides a mutually synergistic benefit between classes in the same role is a good idea to me), I think it's a bit too late in the design process to include it. At release, there was just the damage debuff (that Guardians didn't get) and the acc debuffs (Guardians and Shadows got it permanent; VGs got it as something of a spike).

 

To create a new triad relationship, you'd have to have some unique debuff benefit that Shadows provide, commensurate with the 2 aforementioned effects (even though the damage debuff itself is almost pitiful in comparison to the acc debuff) as well as come up with a compelling reason to reevaluate a system like this *after* a major patch that already rebuilt or revamped a number of fundamental mechanisms of the tank classes.

 

I think if a change were to be made to FB it would be a good time to look at a redesign of the whole ability. Either giving it a smart AoE or changing it to a single target harder hitting ability.

 

FB already got a complete redesign when 2.0 landed. FB isn't just a tank ability and the changes that occurred to it were remarkably substantial (variable CDs for different stances; major overhaul for Shadow Technique).

 

Of course, the ideas you're referencing there about aren't *massive* changes so much as optional considerations. I would be *rabidly* against it turning into a single target ability since it operates entirely *counter* to the reason that it was put on a 6 sec CD: Shadow tanking at low levels *sucked* because your only AoEs until Slow Time were Whirling Blow (at 26, and, even then, it Whirling Blows) and Force Breach (high threat but miserable damage adds up to mediocre threat at best; 15 second CD meant it was functionally worthless). As to making it a smart AoE, I'm not really sure I particularly support that idea since Slow Time is already a smart AoE; giving Shadows 2 excellent AoE abilities that are both smart AoEs would be pretty friggin' disgustingly good, especially when you consider that Guardians and VGs only get the 1 smart AoE (Guardian Slash and the HiB cleave).

 

The only thing that needs to be reworked is the explicit effect attached to Force Breach. Reworking the use paradigm on it or rebuilding the ability from scratch aren't needed, nor are they particularly justified. Shadows work *perfectly fine* with the exception of their spikiness, which would be solved very easily and very effectively by changing this one little thing. It's not a major change (hell, it's even *programmatically* simple), but it would improve effectiveness and quality of life for *all* Shadow tanks *massively* (as well as the helping the healers playing with Shadow tanks maintain their sanity and/or reduce their blood pressure). Trying to complicate what is effectively simple and simply effective, by both intent and luck, works against the goal we're pushing towards.

 

Though I am loath to use the acronym, I find it almost ludicrously appropriate for this situation: K.I.S.S. Keep it simple, stupid. (No offense intended; that's just what the acronym means in my experience).

Edited May 31, 2013 by Kitru

[KeyboardNinja]

So, I'm not 100% convinced that just changing FB to give a 4% DR buff is going to be sufficient to fix the spikiness. You're basically talking about dropping the post-mitigation Terminate from 32k to about 30k. That's still nearly an insta-gib, and no-where near the paltry 22k that Guardians/Vanguards have to eat (assuming the Guardians don't Saber Reflect it, which they can do reliably). I mean, a 4% DR buff rather than an accuracy debuff *helps*, but it's not going to be too significant.

 

One thing that BioWare *could* consider is removing the defense buff from Shadow Sight and pushing up the proposed DR buff on FB by a bit more. Still not great, but moving forward. It's a dangerous change though because it frees up two whole talent points. We could take Martial Prowess again (very useful for tanking the post-Thrasher trash in S&V) or just drop both points into Expertise for even MOAR damage in a tank that already does the most single-target damage by a wide margin. Really, this change would probably require some slight rejiggering of the talent tree to avoid making some of the optional Kinetic Talents available to everyone.

 

One random idea that I had is a proc tied to damage taken within a short timeframe. Taking damage would increase your DR by an amount proportional to the damage taken. Effect lasts for 3 seconds and does not stack. Thus, getting hit by Terminate wouldn't be the worst thing in the world so long as you have enough HP to survive the initial hit. After Terminate, you would have 3 seconds of nearly god-mode damage reduction, which gives the healers a bit of breathing room to pop you back up again. For obvious reasons, this would be a self-regulating proc, since the DR buff itself would reduce the amount of damage taken in the next 3 second interval, thus reducing the magnitude of the DR buff to come.

 

Unfortunately, in order to keep the mean balanced, a couple things would likely have to change. One obvious solution would be to remove our healing received buff, which basically counts towards our stochastic DR but doesn't aid in spike situations. That *might* be sufficient, but it's hard to say. We would probably also need to reduce the armor buff from CT *again*. I'd willingly make that trade though, since the static DR from CT doesn't "push back" in high spike situations, while this proc would (it would also become logarithmically more valuable on harder-hitting bosses, acting as a sort of consolation prize for a shadow's static self-heal).

 

This is obviously a fairly unique proc mechanic though. It wouldn't be as simple of a change as just adjusting Force Breach.