Fixing Shadow Tank Spikiness

[EFSoupy]

A lot of it would depend on what exactly they did on the back end. Does hp ever go negative or is it simply "if damage > currentHp {status = dead}"? If it were implemented as such, it could either provide the full cushion starting at 0 (i.e. if it's 30% hp like Enure, when you would die, you instead pop back up with 30% of max hp) or it could be reduced by what would have been overkill (i.e. overkilled by 10k means you stay standing at 30% - 10k). Whichever one could be implemented depends upon the back end of recognizing death for a player. If it's the first case, there would have to be specific tags for attacks that don't allow it to go through so as to preserve instant-kill mechanisms, not to mention how it could be abused to cheese any number of other burst damage mechanics.

 

It would also create some very wonky performance in PvP: you're essentially giving Shadow tanks an explicit increase to their max hp that is on a separate CD. If it's on a low enough CD to actually affect change in spikiness in PvE, it would be also be so low that it would create some definite problems in PvP (tanks live longer and, even with the attrition model used, tanks are still gonna live for a nice long while and that death-insurance you're talking about is going to be pretty strong, especially in 1-on-1).

 

Honestly, it's not a particularly viable idea, in my mind. A burst of hp when you drop rather than activated when you need it is a bit overpowered. Part of being a skill tank is that you have to predict it yourself. Maybe if it was a temporary buff like Adrenaline Rush, but it would need to be on a short enough CD that it can actually be used to actually counter likely burst damage cycles (which tends towards the 30-40 second range generally). I just don't see the mechanism as envisioned fulfilling the balance requirements *and* the fundamental spikiness smoothing requirements. You're not so much smoothing out incoming damage (which, as mentioned time and time again, is the root of the problem) as trying to come up with a way for the sheer level of spikiness to not lead to kills every once in a while (which still leaves you at the mercy of the RNG; you just get a reprieve on the first one).

 

I think the one place we fundamentally disagree is on the problem with damage spikes. I'm of the opinion that the problem isn't huge damage spikes, but that there is such a huge propensity for RNG based death. I think the solution is more one of finding a way reduce the occurrence of uncontrollable death.

That being said, I think you're right in that an extra life type mechanic may be a bad approach and would awful for PvP balance. And an on use ability wouldn't really be much of a solution either, it just wouldn't get the job done.

What about just tuning the base armor levels and self heals? I don't imagine it would be very hard to balance the two values.

[Kitru]

What about just tuning the base armor levels and self heals? I don't imagine it would be very hard to balance the two values.

 

This is kind of what I've been trying to do with the Force Breach change: swap RNG based mitigation mechanisms over to static contributors. I actually think that the best place to draw mitigation from (especially when you look at the general reticence some people have over the potential Force Breach change) would be to pull it out of our self heals.

 

Right now, they form a far larger portion of our total mitigation than I would honestly like. With 4500 incoming pre-mit DPS, we currently reduce it to ~1427 before our self heals get to act upon it. Our self heals are roughly ~330, which brings it down to ~1100. That's a *massive* vacillation attributable solely to self healing. The practical contributions of our self healing amount to ~25% of our total mitigation at that level of incoming damage, which is just *nuts*. For comparison's sake, Guardians manage ~1263 (closer to ~1110 when you factor in the absorb shield from Blade Barrier), and VG manage ~1204 under those selfsame conditions. Without our self heals, we're not just *worse* than the other tanks, we're *way* worse.. Even when you factor them in, we only marginally beat out Guardians (seriously, the more I look at the changes the devs did to Guardians in 2.0, the more I have to wonder what exactly the devs were smoking when they thought that 2.0 Guardian tanks were balanced) and, because they're not reliant on a flat value mitigation mechanism as much, when damage increases, they stay roughly the same whereas Shadows get worse.

 

Self healing should *not* account for as much as it currently is. Self healing is *nice*, but it's not something to build an entire tank around. At most, our self healing should account for 10-15% of total mitigation *at most* and just as the kicker to pushes Shadows from last place mitigation to first (which I guess is what Blade Barrier is *supposed* to do to a lesser extent for Guardians but it just outright pushes them from "good" to "best", since their passive mitigation is pretty much tied with VGs before you even factor in Blade Barrier).

 

It might sound bad, but it would be *way* better if our self heals were outright cut down to ~150-200 hp/sec and we received 7.5-10% more total mitigation (from a percentage of current mitigation). Relying self healing for so much (especially when the other tank options are almost explicitly based upon percentage mitigation and the content itself is designed with those set ups in mind) is just bad from a design standpoint.

[Altheran]

Self healing should *not* account for as much as it currently is. Self healing is *nice*, but it's not something to build an entire tank around. At most, our self healing should account for 10-15% of total mitigation *at most* and just as the kicker to pushes Shadows from last place mitigation to first (which I guess is what Blade Barrier is *supposed* to do to a lesser extent for Guardians but it just outright pushes them from "good" to "best", since their passive mitigation is pretty much tied with VGs before you even factor in Blade Barrier).

 

It might sound bad, but it would be *way* better if our self heals were outright cut down to ~150-200 hp/sec and we received 7.5-10% more total mitigation (from a percentage of current mitigation). Relying self healing for so much (especially when the other tank options are almost explicitly based upon percentage mitigation and the content itself is designed with those set ups in mind) is just bad from a design standpoint.

 

This has effects in PvP as well. If for a reason I'm CCed, or kited so I can't fight back, I become half a tank as my RNG defense can be easily ignored (especially defense chances), and if the opponent do some hits that can ignore all my RNG defense, or if by luck bypass them, I'm quite as resilient as an Infiltration Shadow or Vigilance Guardian, without any CD activated.

[Ancaglon]

The only way this would really work is if we stole *more* from WoW and created a passive that caused a certain amount of incoming damage to instead be applied to the Shadow as a DoT (for bonus points, make it so that it can be cleansed, but only by Resilience) so that the incoming damage is the same but is distributed over time allowing Shadows to actually apply their self healing against the big hit as it comes in rather than after the fact (which is where the problem lies). Assuming it's possible, you would also be able to apply self healing in a *proactive* manner to prevent death from big strikes rather than as it currently is, where self healing is applied to *recover* from attacks (which means that you have to survive the attack in the first place).

 

Ah, the Brewmaster approach -- certainly a valid comparison, in my view. Another approach would be allowing Combat Technique and other "overhealing" to build a damage shield that acts as "extra health" for the purpose of absorbing big hits -- if you use "initial" cooldowns at the start of the fight to survive the alpha strike effect, then you'll have a buffer against the later big hits, or, if you are "second tank" you can be building those up till it's your turn to "step up".

[Kitru]

Ah, the Brewmaster approach -- certainly a valid comparison, in my view. Another approach would be allowing Combat Technique and other "overhealing" to build a damage shield that acts as "extra health" for the purpose of absorbing big hits -- if you use "initial" cooldowns at the start of the fight to survive the alpha strike effect, then you'll have a buffer against the later big hits, or, if you are "second tank" you can be building those up till it's your turn to "step up".

 

The "overhealing into absorb shield" thing I originally considered (which is incredibly similar to the Death Knight tank shield since they get the shield based upon previous incoming damage with a minimum value otherwise) is problematic in that it's hard to use it in a preventative manner unless you're specifically changing your strat to have the Shadow tank sit back to build up the shield, which is kind of redundant since tank swaps tend to happen *after* spike damage, not immediately before. Also, Shadow self healing tends to be slow and steady, which makes generating absorb shields off of it relatively useless, since you're going to be generating *small* absorb shields that will just get eaten through very quickly. It would reduce incoming damage over time (in a more effective way than it currently does because, right now, any redundant healing a Shadow brings in to themself is wasted) but it wouldn't prevent spikiness effectively.

 

It would be great for wasted self healing of a Shadow to turn into an absorb shield, from the perspective of making sure that our already ludicrous amount of self healing is always applicable rather than only when you're sub-max hp, but, as a mechanism for reducing deaths from spikiness, it wouldn't do the job.

[Gnimish]

You have set the gears in my brain to spinning, in a good way. Bringing up Sages, I went to thinking about Conveyance (i.e. a talent that causes one of your abilities to buff one of a list of later abilities in a different way for each) and then I remembered Resplendence (i.e. a talent that provides you with charges that can either be consumed individually or wholesale to augment one of two abilities), which I think is a much *better* model.

 

Imagine a talent that causes you to gain one stack of a buff whenever you get a Project crit (i.e. player controllable through the use of Particle Acceleration) that caps out at 3. You then have a new CD that consumes all of these stacks to provide either a burst of flat DR or increased Shield chance (more depending upon how many you have, scaling exponentially such that, for DR, it's something like 1/3/7% for 3 stacks max or 5/15/50% for Shield) for either 4-5 seconds or a certain number of attacks. Conversely, the CD could require max stacks to be used at all for a single effect. You would be creating a separate resource the can be consumed to accomplish burst mitigation. You could even add a talent that provides a bit of self healing whenever the consumable stacks drop off (whether by falling off naturally, getting clicked off, or using the CD).

 

The only issue I have with this is that it might make Shadows overcomplicated: we're already watching more de/buffs than anyone else in the game (Particle Acceleration, Force Breach, Harnessed Shadows, Kinetic Ward; Phase Walk/Shadow's Shelter could potentially count too, if it were fixed to actually be useful in PvE). Adding an extra resource/buff to watch for while also expecting Shadow tanks to continue fulfilling the normal tank duties might be a bit too much, especially for new players. This is the major paradoxes of skill tanks: you want them to be complex, but they can't be *so* complex that only people that *already* play them can learn how to play them. It's a sliding scale where the target is both vague (different people, from new to experienced, have different levels of minimum and maximum desired complexity coupled with the impact of that complexity upon effectiveness) and almost constantly moving (since it's virtually impossible to get a reliable gauge on what public perception of a quality like this is).

 

The only answer to the complexity question has to come from the devs. It's their job to decide what exactly the maximum level of acceptable complexity is. This addition might cause Shadow tanks to fall outside of that maximum level whereas it's just as possible that it's well within the margins of acceptability. It's something that we, as mere players, can't really know with any substantial degree of assurance.

 

This i like. Maybe if you built 3 stacks at 2%/4%/6% Of dr. And if you tied it into battle readiness . For a extra 5/10/15% defense rating and reduced cd to 1min? Idk i am newish to tanking have been working on clearing Sv/tfb hm. But its almost to the point where i am almost embarrassed to take my shadow on guild runs. I've liked alot of ideas on this thread i think something like this though would be what i prefer. Well ill keep checking in looking for that rare magical yellow text.

[Kitru]

This i like. Maybe if you built 3 stacks at 2%/4%/6% Of dr. And if you tied it into battle readiness . For a extra 5/10/15% defense rating and reduced cd to 1min?

 

There's a reason I tied the non-full consumption values to pseudo-exponential growth: the idea is to encourage players to use the CD at full stacks rather than partial stacks. If that's off the table (probably for reason like the engine not liking looking at stacks as a whole rather than as individual effects), I'd rather just see it as a "can only use when you have 3 stacks" type effect. You *really* don't want to encourage people to use it with fewer stacks.

 

Also, Defense isn't going to be a helpful stat to reduce spikiness. Defense is RNG based mitigation, and our over reliance upon RNG based mitigation is what's gotten us into this state in the first place. The only truly effective mechanics are going to be guaranteed Shield chances (such that you remove the "random" from the RNG based mechanisms), direct increases to passive guaranteed mitigation (such that you directly reduce the worst case), or absorb shields/max hp increases (such that you can gain the extra cushion of hp to hedge your bets against the big hit killing you), which is why these are the mechanics that have been discussed. Pretty much everything else wouldn't be helpful.

 

Well ill keep checking in looking for that rare magical yellow text.

 

I wouldn't hold my breath. A vast majority of dev posts are either defending/clarifying existing or soon-to-be changes or responding to known and soon to be fixed bugs (and not even all of those). There hasn't been a single dev post that I can find that actually discusses balance or mechanical problems not specific to a single ability (and, even then, is defending a decision rather than actually looking for input). I've also never found a dev post that actually has anything to do with tanks (which may or may not have something to do with the pre-2.0 state of tanks being *exceptionally* well balanced so that there wasn't much to complain about) which makes me even more reluctant to expect a dev response of any kind.

 

While I like and respect the devs themselves, I've sort of lost my faith in their actual community interaction, at least as far as the class forums are concerned (especially as class balance itself is concerned). They only really respond when there's been a decision or action on their end that's already been made, not to mention the generally condescending tone taken when any kind of player math is brought up (i.e. "you're survivability math doesn't match ours; that's why you're wrong" because, you know, it's not like we're using math directly taken from the game or anything).

Edited June 7, 2013 by Kitru

[Ancaglon]

It would be great for wasted self healing of a Shadow to turn into an absorb shield, from the perspective of making sure that our already ludicrous amount of self healing is always applicable rather than only when you're sub-max hp, but, as a mechanism for reducing deaths from spikiness, it wouldn't do the job.

 

That's why I said "and other overhealing" -- as in, the overheals from the actual healers themselves could also be pumped into this buffer -- so it's like Shadow Tanks would have their own personal Force Barrier. An off-tank would be able to use the TKT heals to pump this up without any active work from the healers, but a main tank could have it "charged up" before they engage.

 

If this up-front damage absorption is considered too effective, it could instead go into providing the"below zero" buffer -- which as you already said, relies on the code behaving nicely.

[Kitru]

a main tank could have it "charged up" before they engage.

 

That would only serve to help out with alpha strikes, which are a *problem*, just not the biggest one. The problem is in the big spikes of damage, and, honestly, the issue with it would really be that we would just be inflating Shadow hp by a given amount for all intents and purposes. While "more hp" *would* solve the problem to some extent, it's not really the *best* solution since it still makes the RNG a big deal and it's not really going to solve the problem of the biggest hits just plowing straight through since those will generally wipe out Shadow tanks even with an extra 10-15% hp (which is the highest you can likely expect any overhealing shield to ever get).

[OmoveAbril]

Why not revert the Harnessed Shadow nerf of 1. whatever it was and make it heal 12% instead of the 8% it is current and make the stance heal scale with our healing power?

[Kitru]

Why not revert the Harnessed Shadow nerf of 1. whatever it was and make it heal 12% instead of the 8% it is current and make the stance heal scale with our healing power?

 

Since I've been reiterating this for a long while, more self healing is *not* the solution. Self healing is reactive mitigation. One of the two reasons Shadows have such a terrible time with spikiness is because we rely too much on reactive mitigation (i.e. self healing). The other reason is because we rely too heavily upon RNG based mitigation mechanisms.

 

You're also ignoring the fact that the goal is to *not* affect mean mitigation. Increasing self healing by such an impressive degree (HSx3 TkT accounts for ~75% of total self healing; your changes would increase self healing by ~40%).

 

I've actually spoke to the devs about CT's self heal being the only non-scaling damage/healing mechanism in the entire game (everything else either scales with an attribute or is percentage based). The response was that it was an oversight, though when or if ever the devs will get down to it is entirely unknowable. It took them 14 months to finally have the *damage* of the Shadow stances scale with Bonus Damage.

[Ancaglon]

The problem is in the big spikes of damage, and, honestly, the issue with it would really be that we would just be inflating Shadow hp by a given amount for all intents and purposes.

 

I beg to differ. The spikes would not matter if they didn't stand a good chance of killing the shadow outright -- so our position of "requires least external healing" would allow healers to catch up. If the overhealing shield doesn't work for this, it could be achieved by something like the Purgatory ability that Death Knight tanks can get: which is to say that unless that below-zero damage is healed within a certain short interval (I believe it's 3 seconds, i.e. 2 GCDs), then real death follows. If the Shadow is rendered unable to act themselves while in that state, it would be entirely reliant on having healers save them, which could act as an abuse-prevention balancing term, and not merely acting as effective HP -- and thus be far less subject to "we can't give shadows more than 10-15% effective HP". Indeed, a massive enrage-type hit (say 50k) would still effectively be a kill, because it's just not plausible to heal that much in 2 GCD -- so balance is not violated.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Ancaglon

[Kitru]

If the overhealing shield doesn't work for this

 

The issue is that it *wouldn't*. The purgatory thing would be interesting but, as we've both said, is predicated upon the code behaving nicely.

[Leafy_Bug]

My dear Shadow tanks,

 

 

For the first time since I started tanking with my shadow, more than 1 year ago, I am thinking of dropping the class completely. I have been an avid defender and have stuck by it no matter what but recent changes to the game simply place my shadow as a gimp for my raid. Do not get me wrong, it is not a matter of learn to play or gearing. I am BIS 72, I have finally received my last tokens. My inventory has 2 underworld main hands, 3 underworld pants, but have postponed handing in the un-assembled items. These tokens are more of way to bring my shadow closer to perfection and have the extra +2, +3 on shield and absorb to be spot on. I am a perfectionist and would i have spent millions before the patch to have the +2,+3 extra increase in my mitigation budget.

 

 

With the recent TFB 16M NiM issues, Thrasher 16M HM (which I have main tanked all the time and cleared), I do not see my shadow an asset anymore to my progression team. Consequently, I am thinking of gearing up my sentinel and doing damage instead. Those two main hands (challenger versions or vindicator) and pants will tune my sentinel to be perfect and BIS 72.

 

 

The dilema is here .... when I play my shadow I have this feeling that BioWare will do the right thing and reduce the spikiness in the next patch or patches, therefore I can get my +2,+3 extra mitigation stats to have it perfect. 2 minutes later I look at the track record and I realize that BioWare takes 1 year to change a class and I want to gear my sentinel instead.

 

 

I have a vanguard tank and hate it. I cannot get into it and do not enjoy tanking with it. I have tanked most content with it and its so boring!! My guardian is level 25 and I am already bored of it. What to do ... what to do ....

[SuperNobbs]

I'm kind of on the same page as Leafy here.

 

I love my tank. LOVE it. Finally finished the look i wanted, went all out with the stats (Mostly full 72's).

 

TFB HM/S&V HM, not TO much of a problem, but here's where its starting to annoy me.

 

Today, i was merely looking for a group for NiM TFB (Because why not?) and every group that were "Looking for a tank" Told me it wasn't my gear, or anything like that.

 

Its because i'm a Shadow, that they can't take me. Because they were convinced that by taking me their chances of success were hindered, not because of my gear, stats, ability to play, but purely based on the fact that i'm a Shadow Tank, and therefore more likely to die.

 

Bioware asked for feedback. There was an entire thread dedicated to this, and while Bioware were busy "Thanking all the guild for their feedback" the ACTUAL thread DEDICATED to the feedback for this issue was completely overlooked.

 

Now i'm sorry, i pay my subscription, i should be able to have access to the content. But due to the Dev's deciding that this clearly isn't important, Me and a few others i know of, are being left out purely based on problems that don't even stem from our ability to Tank.

 

Its not fair, and if the Dev's care as much as they "Say" they do, its about time they told us that and did something about it. Hell i posted all over their DEV thread in General just to say "Will this issue be sorted out. All i want is a yes or no, honestly thats fine". Even linked the thread in question (From the PTS forum), and it was still ignored.

 

I want to remain vigilant and HOPE that this is fixed soon. Because, as stated, its simply not fair.

Edited June 12, 2013 by SuperNobbs

[Kitru]

I want to remain vigilant and HOPE that this is fixed soon. Because, as stated, its simply not fair.

 

I was hoping that 2.2 would bring some Shadow tank fixes, but I wasn't really expecting it. This thread and the tools it produced came out too late in 2.2's development cycle to expect any kind of real changes since it would require Peckenpaugh to do a lot of math on his own to validate it (even if he's using the tools we've given him, since, apparently, they had nothing to quantify or analyze spikiness).

 

If we're going to get any changes, I expect them in 2.2.1, which comes out in 2 weeks, since it provides more than a month for Peckenpaugh to have played with and criticize our logic and the tools we gave him. If it doesn't happen by then, I don't expect a change at all, and, if that's true, I'm going to have to reevaluate whether I want to continue subscribing: my Shadow tank is my main and it's not fun being an RNG liability.

[MasterGladius]

The biggest thing I have against this whole thing is the disturbing idea that nobody among the devs and internal QA play tanking shadows. I wonder if they play a shadow at all. The shadow tank's spikiness isn't exactly a secret. If they are testing the 55 FPs and ops, it should have been painfully obvious.

[SuperNobbs]

I was hoping that 2.2 would bring some Shadow tank fixes, but I wasn't really expecting it. This thread and the tools it produced came out too late in 2.2's development cycle to expect any kind of real changes since it would require Peckenpaugh to do a lot of math on his own to validate it (even if he's using the tools we've given him, since, apparently, they had nothing to quantify or analyze spikiness).

 

If we're going to get any changes, I expect them in 2.2.1, which comes out in 2 weeks, since it provides more than a month for Peckenpaugh to have played with and criticize our logic and the tools we gave him. If it doesn't happen by then, I don't expect a change at all, and, if that's true, I'm going to have to reevaluate whether I want to continue subscribing: my Shadow tank is my main and it's not fun being an RNG liability.

 

If they literally just ignore the facts that are slapped in front of them then i just don't know what to say. We're not asking for them to make us OP, or "Better" than the other two tanks. We're just asking that our tanks are more "Tanky" and less "Spanky".

[grallmate]

The Brewmaster approach is pretty solid and has the added benefit of breaking a single big hit up into a number of smaller hits so shield has a higher chance to apply.

 

I just had 2 more ideas and I'll admit neither of them solve all the problems but anyway.

- Combat technique applies a stacking DR buff instead of self healing. Something like 1% DR per stack up to 5(?) stacks. Doesn't help with the alpha strike but takes a non-scaling, uncontrollable mitigation mechanism and turns it into scalable mitigation while also reducing spikiness. Unfortunately, like all ramp up and charge based suggestions, has no effect on the alpha strike.

- When you would be killed you instead lose all threat and return to your Phase Walk with 1 HP and Phase Walk goes on CD. This doesn't fix the spikiness but rather gives a 'safety'. It may be an issue in PvP (because Shadow tanks totally needed more escapes...). This would also require a slight reworking of Phase Walk, namely that when it times out it doesn't go on CD. It doesn't actually fix spikiness but rather stops bad RNG from just killing you outright. For your raid the effect is similar to death (you're off the threat table and can't grab the boss immediately) but you're still alive. Yes, its a horrible solution, I know.

[SuperNobbs]

The Brewmaster approach is pretty solid and has the added benefit of breaking a single big hit up into a number of smaller hits so shield has a higher chance to apply.

 

I just had 2 more ideas and I'll admit neither of them solve all the problems but anyway.

- Combat technique applies a stacking DR buff instead of self healing. Something like 1% DR per stack up to 5(?) stacks. Doesn't help with the alpha strike but takes a non-scaling, uncontrollable mitigation mechanism and turns it into scalable mitigation while also reducing spikiness. Unfortunately, like all ramp up and charge based suggestions, has no effect on the alpha strike.

- When you would be killed you instead lose all threat and return to your Phase Walk with 1 HP and Phase Walk goes on CD. This doesn't fix the spikiness but rather gives a 'safety'. It may be an issue in PvP (because Shadow tanks totally needed more escapes...). This would also require a slight reworking of Phase Walk, namely that when it times out it doesn't go on CD. It doesn't actually fix spikiness but rather stops bad RNG from just killing you outright. For your raid the effect is similar to death (you're off the threat table and can't grab the boss immediately) but you're still alive. Yes, its a horrible solution, I know.

 

I really like the first idea, DR would be a nice addition.

 

The second one, not so much haha.

[Kitru]

The Brewmaster approach is pretty solid and has the added benefit of breaking a single big hit up into a number of smaller hits so shield has a higher chance to apply.

 

Honestly, it's one of my favorite approaches but doing so would feel like TOR was just copying WoW. It's also, from a programmatic standpoint, quite possibly the most complicated solution, which means that it's less likely to happen especially if we're looking for a change that could be implemented by 2.2.1 (i.e. before Shadows are dropped almost entirely from progression runs).

 

- Combat technique applies a stacking DR buff instead of self healing. Something like 1% DR per stack up to 5(?) stacks. Doesn't help with the alpha strike but takes a non-scaling, uncontrollable mitigation mechanism and turns it into scalable mitigation while also reducing spikiness. Unfortunately, like all ramp up and charge based suggestions, has no effect on the alpha strike.

 

Honestly, I kind of like this idea because it reduces our self healing (which we need) while increasing our passive static mitigation (which we need). My only issue is that the amount of additional DR we'd get from dropping *just* the heal from CT wouldn't really be all that impressive: CT provides 59.7 hp/sec on its own and provides roughly 2.4 hp/sec from reducing the ICD on the healing proc relic (I'm pushing it from the ~22 that's generally assumed to ~24 seconds since TkT is on a 12 second use cycle and you can generally assume one proc per TkT, since it's a 95% chance of *not* getting a proc off of a TkT). That's all of 62.1 hp/sec (for comparison's sake, it's only 18.8% of total self healing). Off of that, the best we can hope for (based off of dipstik's numbers) is 2-3%. It's *just shy* of what we really need.

 

Of course, to top that off, we could reduce the self healing from HSx3 TkT by half and get a further increase of 5-6% DR while maintaining the same end mitigation. Conversely, if half as much healing is too much of a reduction, we could just reduce it by one-quarter and justify it being just 2-3%. So, we could get 5% K/E DR (likely just attached to the stance as a wholesale number) in exchange for swapping the 2% per tick from Hsx3 TkT to 1.5% and getting rid of all the healing from Combat Technique. It would end up reducing our self healing to an acceptable amount (only 17% of total mitigation), reducing spikiness to the desired amount (5% higher DR in exchange for a value that decreases mitigation such that average mitigation remains the same), and have the added benefit of not screwing with the current tank synergy (which was the only major problem with the Force Breach change).

 

The more I do the math for this idea, the more I like it. If it's decided that it's too much average mitigation for the amount of self healing, it *could* just be reduced further to 1% per tick from HSx3 TkT, which would increase average mitigation so that it's closer to the other tanks while accomplishing everything we really want.

[stephenalandavie]

Honestly, it's one of my favorite approaches but doing so would feel like TOR was just copying WoW. It's also, from a programmatic standpoint, quite possibly the most complicated solution, which means that it's less likely to happen especially if we're looking for a change that could be implemented by 2.2.1 (i.e. before Shadows are dropped almost entirely from progression runs).

 

 

 

Honestly, I kind of like this idea because it reduces our self healing (which we need) while increasing our passive static mitigation (which we need). My only issue is that the amount of additional DR we'd get from dropping *just* the heal from CT wouldn't really be all that impressive: CT provides 59.7 hp/sec on its own and provides roughly 2.4 hp/sec from reducing the ICD on the healing proc relic (I'm pushing it from the ~22 that's generally assumed to ~24 seconds since TkT is on a 12 second use cycle and you can generally assume one proc per TkT, since it's a 95% chance of *not* getting a proc off of a TkT). That's all of 62.1 hp/sec (for comparison's sake, it's only 18.8% of total self healing). Off of that, the best we can hope for (based off of dipstik's numbers) is 2-3%. It's *just shy* of what we really need.

 

Of course, to top that off, we could reduce the self healing from HSx3 TkT by half and get a further increase of 5-6% DR while maintaining the same end mitigation. Conversely, if half as much healing is too much of a reduction, we could just reduce it by one-quarter and justify it being just 2-3%. So, we could get 5% K/E DR (likely just attached to the stance as a wholesale number) in exchange for swapping the 2% per tick from Hsx3 TkT to 1.5% and getting rid of all the healing from Combat Technique. It would end up reducing our self healing to an acceptable amount (only 17% of total mitigation), reducing spikiness to the desired amount (5% higher DR in exchange for a value that decreases mitigation such that average mitigation remains the same), and have the added benefit of not screwing with the current tank synergy (which was the only major problem with the Force Breach change).

 

The more I do the math for this idea, the more I like it. If it's decided that it's too much average mitigation for the amount of self healing, it *could* just be reduced further to 1% per tick from HSx3 TkT, which would increase average mitigation so that it's closer to the other tanks while accomplishing everything we really want.

 

Wouldn't just revert the armor rating to how it was help with this?

[Kitru]

Wouldn't just revert the armor rating to how it was help with this?

 

The DR increase could be accomplished through armor or a passive increase to DR, it doesn't really matter. The important part would be removing/reducing the healing to justify it (which is what the math was focused around). 5% DR would be about 40% armor (slightly more than we had previously).

 

Reverting to the previous armor rating multiplier while reducing the healing as described (no more on CT and half as much from TkT) would reduce spikiness while bringing mean mitigation to slightly less than we are currently (swapping from self healing to a scaling mitigation mechanism would be a good thing, in my mind, even if it left our spikiness alone).

[grallmate]

Honestly, it's one of my favorite approaches but doing so would feel like TOR was just copying WoW. It's also, from a programmatic standpoint, quite possibly the most complicated solution, which means that it's less likely to happen especially if we're looking for a change that could be implemented by 2.2.1 (i.e. before Shadows are dropped almost entirely from progression runs).

 

Likewise. The brewmaster concept has always amused me. It is definitely more complex, simplest I can come up with has it only apply to K/E damage and treat any subsequent attacks as F/T K/E regardless of source. That way you either dodge the initial hit and take 0 damage, or get the DoT which allows you to shield each tick individually. Having it only apply to K/E also maintains the current I/E balance.

 

Honestly, I kind of like this idea because it reduces our self healing (which we need) while increasing our passive static mitigation (which we need). My only issue is that the amount of additional DR we'd get from dropping *just* the heal from CT wouldn't really be all that impressive: CT provides 59.7 hp/sec on its own and provides roughly 2.4 hp/sec from reducing the ICD on the healing proc relic (I'm pushing it from the ~22 that's generally assumed to ~24 seconds since TkT is on a 12 second use cycle and you can generally assume one proc per TkT, since it's a 95% chance of *not* getting a proc off of a TkT). That's all of 62.1 hp/sec (for comparison's sake, it's only 18.8% of total self healing). Off of that, the best we can hope for (based off of dipstik's numbers) is 2-3%. It's *just shy* of what we really need.

 

Of course, to top that off, we could reduce the self healing from HSx3 TkT by half and get a further increase of 5-6% DR while maintaining the same end mitigation. Conversely, if half as much healing is too much of a reduction, we could just reduce it by one-quarter and justify it being just 2-3%. So, we could get 5% K/E DR (likely just attached to the stance as a wholesale number) in exchange for swapping the 2% per tick from Hsx3 TkT to 1.5% and getting rid of all the healing from Combat Technique. It would end up reducing our self healing to an acceptable amount (only 17% of total mitigation), reducing spikiness to the desired amount (5% higher DR in exchange for a value that decreases mitigation such that average mitigation remains the same), and have the added benefit of not screwing with the current tank synergy (which was the only major problem with the Force Breach change).

 

The more I do the math for this idea, the more I like it. If it's decided that it's too much average mitigation for the amount of self healing, it *could* just be reduced further to 1% per tick from HSx3 TkT, which would increase average mitigation so that it's closer to the other tanks while accomplishing everything we really want.

 

I think reducing TkT healing to 1.5% per tick would be reasonable if needed to keep the balanced mean mitigation but dropping it to 1% per tick makes the whole thing seem kinda pointless. I mean you'd still use the same rotation for the maximum DPS/TPS but the healing would go from being a key goal to just being "nice". I may be the only one that feels that way but yeah.

 

Feel free to ignore this next part since I seem to suggest sweeping (and apparently unnecessary changes). It could be combined with changing Harnessed Shadows to give you 0.5% healing per tick of TkT per stack of HS. You could then look at raising the stack limit on HS to 4 (or even 5 or 6). That allows Shadows to have little self heals frequently or bigger ones but less frequently. Also would allow Shadows to be more mobile in high movement fights since they can use it at 3 stacks when they know a lot of movement is coming soon or build a 4th stack while moving then get a bigger heal once they've moved. Personally I like meaningful choices but that change would completely mess with the rotation dynamic and that might not be worth it.

[Kitru]

I think reducing TkT healing to 1.5% per tick would be reasonable if needed to keep the balanced mean mitigation but dropping it to 1% per tick makes the whole thing seem kinda pointless. I mean you'd still use the same rotation for the maximum DPS/TPS but the healing would go from being a key goal to just being "nice". I may be the only one that feels that way but yeah.

 

To me, that was kind of the point. As it stands, because we use TkT so often and it provides so much healing, it forces us to rely *way* too heavily on self healing rather than getting better static mitigation. 4% self healing every 12 seconds is still *a lot* (120 hp/sec, bumped up to ~150 hp/sec with the heal proc relic), it's just not so much that we have to take a massive hit to our scaling mitigation to make up for it. Plus, we'd still be encouraged to use it as much as possible since TkT is *stupendously amazing* threat generation.

 

Exchanging half of our self heals for 5% DR is an entirely appropriate exchange in my opinion. It seems a little extreme, but, honestly, I think it would turn out *way* better, since we're less reactive *and* less RNG based.

 

Feel free to ignore this next part since I seem to suggest sweeping (and apparently unnecessary changes). It could be combined with changing Harnessed Shadows to give you 0.5% healing per tick of TkT per stack of HS. You could then look at raising the stack limit on HS to 4 (or even 5 or 6).

 

The problem with this is that, since the damage increase would stack up as well, the best gain would still be from saving up to max stacks and then dumping it there. Rather than creating a meaningful exchange model, you're just changing the number of stacks that would be used to a higher value. This is one of the problems with trying to come up with some variant model for TkT: more stacks are pretty much always better so changes to it, unless they're sweeping changes that create a more complex interaction between the heal and damage variables (think Kinetic Ward and Kinetic Bulwark interaction such that you don't want to immediately use KW on CD, but you have to watch and pay attention), you're not going to create an appreciable choice in how it's used.

 

It actually might be interesting to see something in the way of a KW/KB interaction put together for Harnessed Shadows (i.e. +dam stacks are generated by critical hits; +heal stacks are generated by Project/Slow Time use; both stacks are capped at 3, such that, if you always wait for 3 stacks of one or the other, you're wasting proc generation but if you don't, you're losing some degree of effectiveness out of it).

 

Of course, this once again comes up against the point of development resources versus gain: it would require a degree of reworking of the spec as well as rebalancing of the given mechanics (to make sure it doesn't break anything) coupled with some (minor) programmatic manhandling all for the express purpose of creating some interesting but largely arbitrary complexity (creating a shifting/variable ratio between damage and healing for Shadow tanks). If we were discussing changes that should be made for the release of an expansion where at least a few specs are expected to see substantial revision and review of fundamental mechanics, it would be more applicable, but, as it stands now, where Shadows are largely in a functional and agreeable state outside of the single issue of spikiness (which this doesn't really address) and we're already past an expansion, it's more of just an interesting thought experiment.