How many are giving up on Shadow tanks?

[Leafy_Bug]

I agree that shadows need to get a look at in regards to their spikyness.

 

I strongly disagree with that translating to jugg tanking nerfs.

 

That's where the selfishness comes in.

 

I need to ask, why do you need a buff and to nerf another class? Isn't a buff and fix to assassin tanks enough? It's coming off very arrogant.

 

I play all three tanking classes, like everyone else in this game apparently.

 

 

I myself have never asked for nerfs amongst tanks. I do not consider taking from one class and giving to another class balancing. In my opinion, guardians are in a very good spot at the moment and they are the tank to go too when the **** hits the fan. When a guardian pulls the room and pops all his cooldowns at 50K hp with enure he will be a god which is great nothing against that. Sadly when a shadow does that, there is a change he will take a lot of damage.

[Stormskimmer]

Pardon me for asking, but I was wondering something slightly related to this topic. At what point can a BiS shadow or assassin be one shot, assuming the defensive cooldowns cannot be used?

 

For example, if the Nightmare mode Operations Chief does 60k damage (before mitigation) with Terminate, would an assassin with Overcharge Saber on cooldown (possibly because it was used on the last Terminate) be able to survive if defense and shield chance both fail?

[TridusSWTOR]

I myself have never asked for nerfs amongst tanks. I do not consider taking from one class and giving to another class balancing. In my opinion, guardians are in a very good spot at the moment and they are the tank to go too when the **** hits the fan. When a guardian pulls the room and pops all his cooldowns at 50K hp with enure he will be a god which is great nothing against that. Sadly when a shadow does that, there is a change he will take a lot of damage.

 

I totally agree. I am in the same boat as other groups, I have done 16M or NiM with double assassins(Either tanking or just DPS watching). I won't say it's easier or harder since they are good at what they do. The thing is, even as a DPS watching, I can notice that the amount of damage assassins are taking right now is broken.

 

I guess the whole jugg nerfs thing was in regards to kitru. I agree with his changes to help fix assassins but I will never agree to nerfing another class. Yea so if bioware is reading this, Sin tanks shouldn't have to flip a coin on life or death when it comes to trash or a big hit on a boss. Not at the expense of another class though.

[Kitru]

I strongly disagree with that translating to jugg tanking nerfs.

 

That's where the selfishness comes in.

 

The reason why people bring up Guardian nerfs is because, right now, Guardians do *everything* as good as better than the other tanks with the sole exception of mean mitigation, which Shadows do best but it doesn't really mean anything since Shadows spike so *ridiculously hard*. Guardians are simple as hell to play, they've got the best cooldown suite, arguably the best utility (especially in Ops where Guardianship becomes *disgustingly good*), the smoothest incoming damage profile, and excellent mean mitigation. There isn't a category where Guardians could even *remotely* be considered bad.

 

Those were the *exact* reasons that Shadows continually got nerfed pre-2.0, except that Shadows at least had the "their CDs take some intelligence to use and you have to actually pay attention to their buffs" factor to account for. It's not a question of selfishness. It's a question of fundamental balance: when one specific class is super easy to play and yet the absolute best at pretty much *everything*, it's not balanced.

[hobbesmaster]

Ok. So what should Bioware do?

[Leafy_Bug]

Ok. So what should Bioware do?

 

There have been many suggestions that are not game breaking :

 

1. Change force breach to grant damage reduction.

2. Change kinetic bullwark so it reduces spikiness.

3. Take out the self heals from combat technique and increase the armour and damage reduction.

 

 

Just a few suggestions. This question is directed at kitru and KBN. There are moments, when a shadow tank, has 8 stacks of kinetic bullwark and kinetic ward stacks up as well. I myself find this on my shadow, not very often, but when this happens, the damage i take seems to be very low. 67% shield chance with 53% absorb is not bad. When the 8 stacks of bullwark show up and my shield chance drops to 37% I find this of little help as I get hit like a truck. Is this a placebo effect or there is something here where the combination of high shield chance and 8 stacks of kinetic bullwark can help the shadow reduce its spikiness?

Edited June 18, 2013 by Leafy_Bug

[TridusSWTOR]

The reason why people bring up Guardian nerfs is because, right now, Guardians do *everything* as good as better than the other tanks with the sole exception of mean mitigation, which Shadows do best but it doesn't really mean anything since Shadows spike so *ridiculously hard*. Guardians are simple as hell to play, they've got the best cooldown suite, arguably the best utility (especially in Ops where Guardianship becomes *disgustingly good*), the smoothest incoming damage profile, and excellent mean mitigation. There isn't a category where Guardians could even *remotely* be considered bad.

 

Those were the *exact* reasons that Shadows continually got nerfed pre-2.0, except that Shadows at least had the "their CDs take some intelligence to use and you have to actually pay attention to their buffs" factor to account for. It's not a question of selfishness. It's a question of fundamental balance: when one specific class is super easy to play and yet the absolute best at pretty much *everything*, it's not balanced.

 

Ah yes, but a class being "easy" can be judged on personal preference. I agree after 2.0 Jugg tanking isn't hard at all but neither is assassin. Before pre 2.0? Playing a hybrid was much harder than a sin tank.

 

Right now though, both tanks are easy to play when it comes to rotation. When you see people bring up the word "skill" there are two definitions going around. You are labeling for potential skill ceiling while others are bringing up threat generation/rotation. Neither is wrong or right, while the devs agree with your definition of skill, it can't be the law of the land. Otherwise there would be no need for forums or any type of discussion. So first and foremost, you have to embrace that a dev doesn't own the word "skill" and can be used to mean two different things. That's how come you are getting some backlash, it comes off arrogant.

 

What I'm saying is, you should focus solely on fixing the spikyness that assassin tanks have to deal with. That's the major problem, asking for a nerf on juggs is coming from a longing of the "good ol' days" whether you want to admit it or not, it's the truth. Even with all the nerfs pre 2.0 for sins, out of the 15 guilds I raided with, 12 of them only accepted double sins for the best outcome. The others only had juggs/PT's because they looked "cool".

[Kitru]

What I'm saying is, you should focus solely on fixing the spikyness that assassin tanks have to deal with. That's the major problem, asking for a nerf on juggs is coming from a longing of the "good ol' days" whether you want to admit it or not, it's the truth. Even with all the nerfs pre 2.0 for sins, out of the 15 guilds I raided with, 12 of them only accepted double sins for the best outcome. The others only had juggs/PT's because they looked "cool".

 

The "good ol' days" of pre-2.0 were amazing because the tanks were actually balanced *exquisitely well*. Shadows had heavily variable incoming damage and, to top out, required the most knowledge and skill, VGs were almost ludicrously simple, and Guardians were an *exceptionally* well set up compromise tank. The *only* thing that needed to be tweaked was Guardian threat. 2.0 completely screwed up that *amazing* balance. What I want to see again is *that* level of balance. The skill tank topped out in performance when in the hands of a skilled player but not so much that there wasn't any reason to not bring one of the other tanks (Guardians were the compromise tank and VGs were almost insanely stable compared to Guards and *especially* Shadows so they were amazing for any kind of spike event).

 

While I admit that I'm upset that Shadows are no longer the kings of the tanks, the *reason* I'm upset is less that I play a Shadow and more that Shadows have an *explicit reason* from a design/balance standpoint to be the best tanks whereas Guardians don't have any decent reason *especially* with the changes that came along with 2.0 to their attack priority/rotation. The only way that they're even *remotely* difficult is that they have more buttons to actively click than Vanguards (they're pretty much tied with Shadows thanks to the inclusion of Shadow Strike).

 

As to those guilds that only ran double Shad/Sin, I seriously have to wonder why. I *always* preferred the Shad/Guard combo: it provided more versatility and covered the weaknesses of the Shadow and the Guardian exceptionally well.

[hobbesmaster]

There have been many suggestions that are not game breaking :

1. Change force breach to grant damage reduction.

2. Change kinetic bullwark so it reduces spikiness.

3. Take out the self heals from combat technique and increase the armour and damage reduction.

 

Sure, but lets get numbers are run the math on various balancing possibilities. You want discharge/force breach to grant damage resistance or a wither/slow time like buff as well? The current 5% accuracy debuff is supposed to help reduce damage but again, RNG.

 

I suggested an auto absorb mechanic for kinetic bulwark earlier in this thread, are there other ideas?

 

Changing combat technique isn't necessarily a bad idea. Flat 10% DR or something more?

 

There are a ton of threads running numbers on how unfair everything is currently to shadows, lets try and run some numbers and find solutions that are balanced without being overpowered.

[Kitru]

There are a ton of threads running numbers on how unfair everything is currently to shadows, lets try and run some numbers and find solutions that are balanced without being overpowered.

 

The math on the suggested solutions has been gone over a number of times here. Pretty sure it's what Leafy is intending to reference when suggesting those ideas (since those are some of the major ideas we suggested and mathed in said thread).

[Vaidinah]

That's still a flawed analogy. DPS VGs were stupidly easy to play an took no skill whatsoever. They had the barest resource management required and just used stuff on CD otherwise. Dirty fighting, in general (so it wasn't just unique to Operatives), only required the resource discipline until you got into good enough gear to have reliable crits with your DoTs, wherein the resource management became *way* easier. You still had to watch your resources, but it wasn't *all* that bad. It was more of gear dependency issue forcing resource management than the actual *spec* forcing it.

 

It's not a flawed analogy when everything I said was true. Operatives in general and especially Concealment Operatives were very unforgiving. If you made any significant mistakes, you'd screw over your energy gain and thus drop your DPS like a rock. Like pre-2.0 hybrid Guardians, screwing up your rotation would not only hinder your ability to do damage (and thus gain threat), but it would also lower your survivability. Again, unforgiving unlike Shadows where you could screw up badly on a regular basis and still be fine because your force would recover regardless how much you messed up.

 

You're acting as if the *only* difficulty in playing a tank is in the rotation and resource management. If that were true, I'd agree with you. Shadows have a very easy resource management and attack construct, once you've learned it. Of course, the exact same was true for hybrid Guardians so... not really a valid argument?

 

Nope, never stated anything to that effect. Handling resource generation is one very important aspect of playing any class, but it's only one of many factors. Resource generation was completely brainless for a Shadow (and still is) while Guardians had an unforgiving and thoughtful one. I literally taught people who had never tanked as an Assassin before their entire rotation and when how to use their cooldowns in less than 15 seconds. They had no problems holding aggro (without taunt spamming), did above average damage, and had no trouble surviving. This is because knowing how to tank as an Assassin is based off a small number of easily memorizable facts.

 

There is absolutely no way anyone can teach any new tank how to play a hybrid Juggernaught tank to perform to that degree of effectiveness without a great deal of practice and explanation. When it comes to actually playing optimally or near so, I could count on one hand the number of hybrid Juggernaughts I had ever seen on my server. But when it came to Assassins, there were dozens because it was simply much easier.

 

Tanking difficulty isn't dependent upon rotation and resource management since, unless you're completely obtuse, threat generation in TOR is a *stupidly* simple part of the game. You can taunt spam and never have any kind of threat problems. If you define "skill" as "maintaining threat", tanks require no skill whatsoever. You just taunt spam and you're done.

 

Good luck trying relying on taunt spam if you continually fail in using your skills properly as a hybrid Juggernaught because by the time your aggro reaches a level where you can't be pulled off of, your DPS are dead if not the rest of your team.

 

Tanking difficulty, insofar as anyone discussing Shadows as "skill tanks" is concerned, references the impact of personal skill and knowledge upon survivability. Guardians, even pre-2.0, required very little in the way of knowledge or skill in order to be as survivable as possible. Their CDs are general in application and their spikiness is something that you *never* have to worry about while all of their mitigation is proactive. Shadows have to deal with high spikiness, reactive mitigation, and specific CDs. Battle Readiness, even with the changes is one of the weaker CDs thanks to Shadows having terrible baseline damage reduction. The only thing that makes it nice is the self heal aspect. Shadows have, comparatively, weaker CDs that are only justified in being effective thanks to their potency. If you misuse one, you get nothing out of it. If you misuse a CD as a Guardian or a VG, you get... pretty much what you would have gotten otherwise. They work in all situations. As mentioned before, skill and knowledge to use the abilities properly.

 

This is why you have no business discussing Guardian tanking. Describing Guardian CDs as being general in nature as if that actually matters to a significant extent and stating that spikiness is something you *never* have to worry about.

 

For the former, using any defensive cooldown on a Guardian at the wrong time is a big mistake. Using Enraged Defense at the wrong time could destroy your resource generation for a long while and wipe your entire raid. There were dire consequences to making mistakes as a hybrid Juggernaught pre-2.0 while Shadows were the safe choice because they had more leeway to screw up and still be very effective.

 

Based on your logic, if Bioware buffed Force Shroud into giving a 25% boost to defense, Shadows/Assassins cooldowns would be as "equally effective" as Saber Ward and thus take no skill. Of course, this is completely ridiculous.

 

For the latter, Guardians and Vanguards even do just randomly explode from bad RNG. I've seen it many times and there is little you can do about as any tank class in the new Nightmare content. The fact that it happens slightly more often as a Shadow is an acceptable trade-off for the overall less healing required for Shadow/Assassins.

 

I find it amusing that you feel the need to cast aspersions on my knowledge of how to play a Guardian tank effective without actually having *any* real argument to indicate that *exactly* what I've been saying about Guardians has *ever* been wrong. You brought up *ridiculously* superficial aspects of Guardian tanking (Guardian Leap! Wow, that'll be useful in like 2 fights and it'll have such little effect no one will notice it! Amazing effect of skill there!) as "skill" aspects while having nothing to say on the topic of "herp derp surviving is easy!". Bring up some points where I've actually been *wrong* and you'll actually have a case for saying that I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

I'm waiting for you say something *right* about Guardians because you've been wrong about virtually everything you mentioned about what Guardians are actually like. Just because you like to make up absurd and unsupported assertions about "equally effective" Guardian cooldowns, Guardians never having to worry about dying to RNG spikes, and other such blatantly wrong arguments doesn't mean anyone with a brain is going to follow along with you. Get a clue how the class actually plays because your ignorance and spreading of misinformation at this point is detrimental to anyone who is new to tanking.

 

You're making the mistake of assuming that a *single* event proves the general case. Shadows are RNG tanks. It's entirely possible for a Shadow to get lucky (it's just not *likely*). Rather than stating that "hey, it's possible!", you need to look at the actual average performance of the class. Even running top tier content, most guilds recognize and admit that Shadows are *stupidly* risky and unreliable. There were clears of NiM EC with Operative DPS. Just because they *can* be part of a group that clears the hardest content in the game doesn't mean that the class is balanced. The specific case doesn't disprove the general case: a single datapoint is not something you *ever* want to base a conclusion off of (unless your conclusion is "this is impossible", which no one has claimed). Apparently, you never learned basic statistics.

 

I made no such assumption. I just gave 2 examples that fit perfectly into the discussion. Your example of Operatives clearing NIM EC is poor in comparison because that happened far after the content was on farm while mine used two guilds, one of whom got the World First on what is considered to be hardest content this game has ever had (at least for 8 man as 16 man NIM Tanks and Kephess in EC is similar). If you think these two guilds just *got lucky* with their Assassins, then you are wrong and should feel ashamed for trying to disrespect the massive amount of effort those guilds put into beating that encounter. Instead of trying to beat all these strawmen you've been making for yourself, you should pay attention to the actual arguments that I'm making.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Vaidinah

[Vaidinah]

I don't know the best solution to this but I could live with the attacks being broken up like they were pre 2.0 on Kephess where we could get very unlucky and one shotted by Kephess due to RnG on EC Nim but it was a very rare occurrence. I for one in no way want a return to the situation pre 1.3 where Shadows were so over powered t wasn't funny but its just no fun dying to bad RnG for me or the raid team.

 

Nobody enjoys dying to RNG, but to be perfectly honest, there are many instances where people are dying to high spikiness when I don't think it's just pure luck. If you are dying many times in an operation your team has on farm, then the problem is not just in the class itself. If you know your class well, then you probably need to talk to your healers about how to better keep you near full health and use Sorceror/Mercenary shields and armor buffs more effectively.

 

Fights like Thrasher, the Operations Chief, and NiM Writhing Horror are all bad for Assassins, but what about the other fights where they have an advantage? HM/NiM Dread Guards, Titan 6 (you can Force Shroud the Giant Grenade, but not Saber Reflect), Styrak are all times where they are great. Personally, I'm glad that tank balance is close to perfect. The only real issue I see is with the spikiness in general in the new 16 man NiM content.

[Ancaglon]

Fights like Thrasher, the Operations Chief, and NiM Writhing Horror are all bad for Assassins, but what about the other fights where they have an advantage? HM/NiM Dread Guards, Titan 6 (you can Force Shroud the Giant Grenade, but not Saber Reflect), Styrak are all times where they are great.

So for you, it would all be good if there were some fights that Guardians and Vanguards just died outright, regardless of abilities? Really?

[hobbesmaster]

The math on the suggested solutions has been gone over a number of times here. Pretty sure it's what Leafy is intending to reference when suggesting those ideas (since those are some of the major ideas we suggested and mathed in said thread).

 

Ah, thats what I get for only looking in the tanking and sin forums.

 

It's not a flawed analogy when everything I said was true. Operatives in general and especially Concealment Operatives were very unforgiving. If you made any significant mistakes, you'd screw over your energy gain and thus drop your DPS like a rock. Like pre-2.0 hybrid Guardians, screwing up your rotation would not only hinder your ability to do damage (and thus gain threat), but it would also lower your survivability. Again, unforgiving unlike Shadows where you could screw up badly on a regular basis and still be fine because your force would recover regardless how much you messed up.

 

Any other severely broken and since patched classes that were patched you'd like to compare against? Theres no argument that shadows are only a little broken, unlike operative dps which was completely broken and guardians which were somewhat broken (hence the use of hybrid specs which Bioware does not want to be viable).

[Kitru]

Like pre-2.0 hybrid Guardians, screwing up your rotation would not only hinder your ability to do damage (and thus gain threat), but it would also lower your survivability. Again, unforgiving unlike Shadows where you could screw up badly on a regular basis and still be fine because your force would recover regardless how much you messed up.

 

The only way that resources impacted hybrid Guardian survivability was in Blade Storm spamming and, guess what, that's *really* easy to do. For Guardians, their resources have *always* been pretty much exclusively attached to their threat generation and functionally detached from their mitigation.

 

I literally taught people who had never tanked as an Assassin before their entire rotation and when how to use their cooldowns in less than 15 seconds. They had no problems holding aggro (without taunt spamming), did above average damage, and had no trouble surviving. This is because knowing how to tank as an Assassin is based off a small number of easily memorizable facts.

 

You're making yet *another* inconsistent comparison. I've *never* stated that it's hard to play a Shadow on the average level. It's hard to play a Shadow at the *top* level. The point of calling Shadows the "skill tank" is the question of how much their skill actually impacts their survivability. For Shadows, it's a *helluva* lot more than it is for Guardians.

 

There is absolutely no way anyone can teach any new tank how to play a hybrid Juggernaught tank to perform to that degree of effectiveness without a great deal of practice and explanation. When it comes to actually playing optimally or near so, I could count on one hand the number of hybrid Juggernaughts I had ever seen on my server. But when it came to Assassins, there were dozens because it was simply much easier.

 

Any yet you neglect to recognize that the difference between an acceptable hybrid Guardian (i.e. doesn't run out of his resources) and a top tier hybrid Guardian was next to nothing. *That* is what prevents Guardians from *ever* having been called "skill tanks".

 

The amount of effort it requires to learn the basics of playing a class/spec has *nothing* to do with the amount of skill required to play said class *above and beyond* what the class normally performs at. For Guardians, all of the "skill" was in figuring out how to balance your resource consumption. There wasn't anything else to it.

 

Good luck trying relying on taunt spam if you continually fail in using your skills properly as a hybrid Juggernaught because by the time your aggro reaches a level where you can't be pulled off of, your DPS are dead if not the rest of your team.

 

It takes all of 15 seconds for your threat to become unassailable thanks to taunts. Even if your DPS are pulling off of you constantly for that first 15 seconds (assuming there isn't another tank for you to bounce Taunts off with and skyrocket your threat even higher), it's not like they couldn't just burn CDs to stay alive. Taunt renders the entire threat game in TOR a complete joke. The devs made that explicit choice to do so. It's "hard" for all of 15 seconds and then becomes something that is ignored outright for the rest of the fight.

 

For the former, using any defensive cooldown on a Guardian at the wrong time is a big mistake. Using Enraged Defense at the wrong time could destroy your resource generation for a long while and wipe your entire raid. There were dire consequences to making mistakes as a hybrid Juggernaught pre-2.0 while Shadows were the safe choice because they had more leeway to screw up and still be very effective.

 

The *only* case you can bring up is Focused Defense because, 1, it's not actually a tank CD (it's a threat drop with tangential benefits) and, 2, it will only screw up your group because it's not tank CD. Show me how using Saber Ward, Warding Call, or Enure when you meant to use a different CD would have screwed up the situation? They're all effective on all types of attacks. Focused Defense is the only thing you can bring up to support your case because it's not actually one of the powers that should be referenced *in* the case.

 

For the latter, Guardians and Vanguards even do just randomly explode from bad RNG.

 

Are you sure it was bad RNG or was it just a big hit combined with bad healing? When a Shadow gets hit with bad RNG, they're going to take 30% more damage from the same case than a Guardian or a VG would. The effects of bad RNG on a Guardian and a VG is *way* less than it is for a Shadow. A Shadow at full or near health can get randomly exploded by RNG. A Guardian or VG pretty much has to lounge around at half health for the same to occur. At that point, it's not RNG killing you. It's bad healers.

 

I'm waiting for you say something *right* about Guardians because you've been wrong about virtually everything you mentioned about what Guardians are actually like.

 

Explain to me how I've actually gotten something wrong.

 

You brought up Focused Defense as if it were an actual tank CD rather than a threat drop with some *incredibly weak* side effects that shouldn't even be *considered* for use nowadays (it was only even *remotely* useful back for a hybrid Guardian, and, even then, it was a *terrible* idea 99.9999% of the time) as your justification for my statement that Guardian CDs are general and forgiving. Try showing me how any of the *actual* tank CDs aren't ludicrously forgiving.

 

You brought up learning hybrid Guardian basics compared to Shadow tank basics as your justification for "Guardians require more skill" because you, apparently, can't understand that I've never talked about learning the basics. Guardians always *were* harder to grasp their basic design. I'm not contending that whatsoever. But, once you had those basics down, pretty much nothing you did had any appreciable impact on your survivability or effectiveness (this includes the often touted "learning to use Guardian Leap" and "how to use Focused Defense without screwing everything up" since no on is going to notice when you use those properly as opposed to just not using them at all). Hard to learn, easy to master. Shadows, on the other hand, were pretty easy to learn but required a *lot* more skill to master, and, once you got there, you were *incredible*. There's a reason there were loads of threads from Shadows that knew the basics (attack priority, KW maintenance) wondered why they weren't performing at the desired level and the only threads you got from Guardians were asking for the basics to be explained to them.

 

Guardian tanking *was* hard to learn (emphasis on "was" because it's laughably easy now), but, once you had learned the basics of it, there was no real difference between a competent Guardian and a skilled Guardian. Shadow tanking was easy to learn but there was *still more* you needed to learn to do before you could stop improving your performance. The difference between a competent Shadow and a skilled Shadow was something that *anyone* could see. *That* difference is what makes Shadows skill tanks.

 

"Skill" isn't just the "how does I play tank?" aspect. It's the "okay, I've learned how to play my tank; how much better can I get?". The fact that you can't seem to grasp this *very* simple concept is just exasperating.

 

Instead of trying to beat all these strawmen you've been making for yourself, you should pay attention to the actual arguments that I'm making.

 

Do you even know what a strawman argument *is*?

 

When I tell you to stop looking at a single case as if it proves the general case, I'm telling *you* to avoid the fallacy of distribution. You're claiming that because Shadows worked in *some* cases (which is funny because you accuse me of cherry picking data when the only piece of actual data you come up with is the 2 8m NiM DG kills in 8m, which don't have any major spikes and were less impacted by the performance of the Shadow tank than by the various *other* methods for glitching kill mechanics) so they're fine in overall. I'm not creating a strawman. I'm telling you to stop falling victim to a very simple logical fallacy.

 

I never claimed that content *couldn't* be done with Shadow tanks. I'll wait for you to actually go through everything I've ever said so that you can verify this. The issue isn't that it is *impossible* with Shadow tanks. It's that it is *disproportionately unlikely* to complete a piece of content with a Shadow tank rather than a Guardian or Vanguard based *entirely* upon the RNG based nature of their survivability. Once again, you're the one that creates the strawman by misinterpreting what I'm saying so that you can have a simpler argument to contradict.

 

Hell, you're the one creating the strawman when you bring up *Focused Defense* as a tank CD. Of *course* it's going to screw you over if you use it randomly. Hell, even if you used it *properly* when it was actually anything *close* to being a tank CD, it would still screw you over *and that's in the one-in-thousands chance that it might actually be appropriate to use*. As anything other than a threat drop, it was and is *utterly abysmal*, and, even then, it's a damned terrible threat drop (since it chews through resources like no one's business). Bringing up Focused Defense as a defense against my argument about the Guardian CD suite would be like me bringing up Whirling Blow in an argument about Shadow AoE threat/damage: just because Whirling Blow is friggin' terrible (I'll wait for you to compare it to Cyclone Slash and Explosive Surge; you done it? Did you actually look at the talent modifications? No? Okay, I'll wait for you to check those out. Finished? Now you see my point; Whirling Blow is *terrible* especially compared to Explosive Surge and Cyclone Slash) and should pretty much never see use doesn't mean that it has any appreciable impact on reality. Whirling Blow is pretty much entirely worthless, just like Focused Defense. Acting as if it *was* is creating a strawman.

 

I find it more than a bit hypocritical that you're accusing me of creating strawman arguments when you're the one that's been doing it with abandon. I also find it strange that you somehow inferred (incorrectly, I might add) that I think that the groups that completed NiM DG got lucky (of course, even *they* admit that they got lucky with their kills since the mechanics they used to cheese many of the effects and allowed them to maintain high uptime were unreliable and only worked some of the time) and, as such, think it wasn't due to their own skill and persistence. I recognize the fact that they utilized a lot of skill and persistence in completing it, which is to be lauded. Of course, I'm not deluded so as to believe that they didn't have more than a bit of luck helping them out to boot (which, once again, even they admitted they relied upon).

 

The point that I was actually *making* (that seems to have gone completely over your head) is that Shadows are a *liability*. Some progression groups will accept that liability (my guess is that it pretty much never has to do with composition and has more to do with the player behind the character not having an equally geared VG or Guardian to switch to). There are *substantially* more that are looking to get rid of that liability for an equally effective tank with *drastically* more reliability. When KBN and I refer to progression guilds talking about getting rid of their Shadow tanks, we're not just coming up with it out of our asses. Anyone that was on the PTS forums knows that the thread that KBN linked contained *numerous* progression guilds saying that they would be getting rid of their Shadow tanks for Guardian tanks since Shadows just aren't pulling their weight any more. These aren't just the average guild either. They're server first and world progression guilds. Bringing up the fact that the world first NiM DG kills used one Shadow tank a piece *on a fight without a hard tank spike* or massive burst mobility required (you know, the specific things that make Shadows liabilities for the entire raid rather than just a single fight) doesn't change anything.

[Kitru]

Ah, thats what I get for only looking in the tanking and sin forums.

 

In my experience, the Pub side of the TOR forums tends to be more productive and useful. There tends to be less outright complaining and more number crunchery/logic/help. Even if the amount of good stuff is the same, it tends to get drowned out by the bad stuff. I know that KBN and I both dwell almost exclusively on the role forums and the pub side of the class forums. I'm not sure about dipstik, but I think the same is true for him/her.

[TridusSWTOR]

While I admit that I'm upset that Shadows are no longer the kings of the tanks, the *reason* I'm upset is less that I play a Shadow and more that Shadows have an *explicit reason* from a design/balance standpoint to be the best tanks whereas Guardians don't have any decent reason *especially* with the changes that came along with 2.0 to their attack priority/rotation. The only way that they're even *remotely* difficult is that they have more buttons to actively click than Vanguards (they're pretty much tied with Shadows thanks to the inclusion of Shadow Strike).

 

As to those guilds that only ran double Shad/Sin, I seriously have to wonder why. I *always* preferred the Shad/Guard combo: it provided more versatility and covered the weaknesses of the Shadow and the Guardian exceptionally well.

 

Damn I wrote out this nice long post and it got deleted. Oh well I'm gonna sum it up.

 

Why did guilds prefer double sin tank combo? Because of the option to avoid mechanics. Being able to do that offered a lot of raid-wide help which I think ever raid leader would love...so why not ask for seconds? I agree that Jugg/sin combo is the best, but double sin just offered more not only for the raid as a whole but Sins pre 2.0 were perfectly viable tanks.

 

If assassin tanks weren't viable in pre 2.0, you would see the flat out ban of assassin tanks that you are seeing now from progression raid groups. Assassins do need a fix BUT not at the cost of nerfing another AC.

 

That's the major problem I had with you're post. I agree with the suggestions you and others made for fixing the class but I will never agree to nerfing jugg tanking. What is the point? The only motivation I see is being selfish. How would nerfing a jugg help an assassin tank with their current problem?

 

If you nerfed juggs now, you can read what I said before, raid leaders will jump at the chance to bring back the dominant double sin combo. If you just fixed assassin tank spikeyness and left juggs alone, you would at least let juggs still be an option.

[Kitru]

That's the major problem I had with you're post. I agree with the suggestions you and others made for fixing the class but I will never agree to nerfing jugg tanking. What is the point? The only motivation I see is being selfish. How would nerfing a jugg help an assassin tank with their current problem?

 

If you nerfed juggs now, you can read what I said before, raid leaders will jump at the chance to bring back the dominant double sin combo. If you just fixed assassin tank spikeyness and left juggs alone, you would at least let juggs still be an option.

 

The problem is that, even if you fixed Shadow tank spikiness, Guardians would *still* be better. Guardians have the same or better options for ignoring mechanics (Blade Turning + Saber Reflect), less spikiness (which is still going to be an issue; the spikiness fix is looking to bring spikiness in line, not eliminate it completely), and a number of fights (now) where they have distinct mechanical advantages (thanks to leaping).

 

The problem isn't that Guardians are good right now and that Shadows are bad. It's that Guardians are *way* too good right now because they're the best or tied for best in *all but one category*. No tank should be the best in *every* category, especially if they're an almost brainless tank to play. Even pre-2.0, Shadows were still spiky as hell, which was a distinct weakness. It was part and parcel of the *beautiful* state of balance that existed pre-2.0. The monumental buffs to Guardians completely upset that. In order to bring back said state of balance, the only options, really, are to nerf Guardians or buff both VGs and Shadows (and I mean buff Shadows moreso than just modifying their spikiness; CD balance would need to be addressed as well).

 

It's not just Shadows that are pointing out that Guardians are too good for the ease with which they can be played. I've met *tons* of Guardians that agree (though they don't want any nerfs happening to them because they *like* the fact that they're better than any other tank while being crazy easy to play).

Edited June 19, 2013 by Kitru

[TridusSWTOR]

Nobody enjoys dying to RNG, but to be perfectly honest, there are many instances where people are dying to high spikiness when I don't think it's just pure luck. If you are dying many times in an operation your team has on farm, then the problem is not just in the class itself. If you know your class well, then you probably need to talk to your healers about how to better keep you near full health and use Sorceror/Mercenary shields and armor buffs more effectively.

 

Fights like Thrasher, the Operations Chief, and NiM Writhing Horror are all bad for Assassins, but what about the other fights where they have an advantage? HM/NiM Dread Guards, Titan 6 (you can Force Shroud the Giant Grenade, but not Saber Reflect), Styrak are all times where they are great. Personally, I'm glad that tank balance is close to perfect. The only real issue I see is with the spikiness in general in the new 16 man NiM content.

 

I really don't know how you can say with a straight face that tank balance is close to perfect or that it ever was...because it wasn't.

 

Especially when guilds are banning the use of assassin tanks as progression options due to the amount of damage they take. Meanwhile PT tank CD's are still lackluster compared to the other two AC's. No, it isn't close to balanced.

 

The difference between pre 2.0 and our current situation? Guilds are actually demanding a flat out ban of a AC for their raids. If it's come to that, then things have gone terribly wrong. If you never healed a NiM TFB run, then I wouldn't blame the healers.

[Kitru]

The difference between pre 2.0 and our current situation?

 

The difference, right now, is that, pre-2.0, the tanks were balanced *beautifully* such that no one could complain, barring the need to revise Guardian threat. VGs were short a tank CD, but it wasn't a major concern since they were ludicrously stable; burst phases didn't always demand a CD burn for VGs (whereas they would for Guards and Shadows). In 2.0, tank balance is virtually nonexistent because one tank is next to worthless in a lot of content (Shadows), and another tank is explicitly best at pretty much everything (Guardians).

 

Before 2.0, tanks were balanced and no one complained with the exception of one minor, non-survivability based aspect of a single class.

 

In 2.0, tanks are not balanced whatsoever.

 

That's a *huge* difference.

[TridusSWTOR]

The problem is that, even if you fixed Shadow tank spikiness, Guardians would *still* be better. Guardians have the same or better options for ignoring mechanics (Blade Turning + Saber Reflect), less spikiness (which is still going to be an issue; the spikiness fix is looking to bring spikiness in line, not eliminate it completely), and a number of fights (now) where they have distinct mechanical advantages (thanks to leaping).

 

The problem isn't that Guardians are good right now and that Shadows are bad. It's that Guardians are *way* too good right now because they're the best or tied for best in *all but one category*. No tank should be the best in *every* category, especially if they're an almost brainless tank to play. Even pre-2.0, Shadows were still spiky as hell, which was a distinct weakness. It was part and parcel of the *beautiful* state of balance that existed pre-2.0. The monumental buffs to Guardians completely upset that. In order to bring back said state of balance, the only options, really, are to nerf Guardians or buff both VGs and Shadows (and I mean buff Shadows moreso than just modifying their spikiness; CD balance would need to be addressed as well).

 

It's not just Shadows that are pointing out that Guardians are too good for the ease with which they can be played. I've met *tons* of Guardians that agree (though they don't want any nerfs happening to them because they *like* the fact that they're better than any other tank while being crazy easy to play).

 

Then what's the point of bringing a guardian? They aren't viable options and it's less raid wide damage or burden for the entire group. You get two healing circles instead of one, two stealth rezzes instead of one. That's just what the assassin can do, I'm not even including the mechanics. I mean if you really want to compare who can avoid mechanics the most, assassin tanks win hands down. Do we really have to create a list for this?

 

Even the sentence you just used, I agree that PT's and assassins need a tank buff. Why does the assassin need *more* though? It's becoming biased at this point. I don't know how you're guardian friends think it's OP, since a lot of my jugg tank friends get this huge sigh of relief saying "Finally...".

 

There is absolutely no reason to nerf Juggernaut tanks, especially since before 2.0 they had to go through the DPS tree in order to tank. The thing is right now, people are just not used to having juggernauts as a viable tank option. The wrong way to respond to this is asking for nerfs.

 

Stick with buffing assassin tanks, because they need a fix. Their fix doesn't have to include other AC's, unless you're only goal is to make the double sin combo the best viable choice like it was pre 2.0.

[TridusSWTOR]

The difference, right now, is that, pre-2.0, the tanks were balanced *beautifully* such that no one could complain, barring the need to revise Guardian threat. VGs were short a tank CD, but it wasn't a major concern since they were ludicrously stable; burst phases didn't always demand a CD burn for VGs (whereas they would for Guards and Shadows). In 2.0, tank balance is virtually nonexistent because one tank is next to worthless in a lot of content (Shadows), and another tank is explicitly best at pretty much everything (Guardians).

 

Before 2.0, tanks were balanced and no one complained with the exception of one minor, non-survivability based aspect of a single class.

 

In 2.0, tanks are not balanced whatsoever.

 

That's a *huge* difference.

 

When could PT's and Jugg tanks avoid mechanic's in pre 2.0?

 

Longer CD's on the jugg defensive CD's, meant once you used it. You were done. Why bring them along when you get self-healing and shorter CD's from assassins? There was no logical benefit.

 

Now though, people are up in arms because Jugg tanks can avoid the damage on terminate. That's the major talking point a lot of people are using to nerf jugg tanks. It makes no sense, since I can say "Why can you avoid all the damage from titan 6's grenade as an assassin?".

 

You had me with buffing assassins but with each post, you are making me rethink about that. Since it seems the changes will go beyond just focusing on one class, which is unnecessary.

[Kitru]

Stick with buffing assassin tanks, because they need a fix. Their fix doesn't have to include other AC's, unless you're only goal is to make the double sin combo the best viable choice like it was pre 2.0.

 

Double Shadow isn't going to be the "best" loadout any more since Shadows aren't the only class that can cheese mechanics. Guardians, thanks to the holy carp amaze-tude of Saber Reflect (which I can assure you isn't going to get the nerf bat anywhere near it since the devs *love it*), can cheese a number of mechanics that Shadows can't and they pack a bunch of other useful capabilities on top of it (absorb shield with AoE taunt, Leap for instant return mechanics).

 

You're acting as if Guardians are so precariously designed that any change to them is going to render them completely pointless (which I don't even agree was true back in 2.0; if we judged tank balance by the presence of tanks in server and world first groups, VGs would be the tanks in need of buffs; just because some groups only used Shadows because of mechanics cheesing, if you look at the current tier of content, there is a lot of content that Shadows *can't* cheese but Guardians can). Saber Reflect and Guardianship are still going to be there no matter what other changes might come. Those 2 aspects of Guardian tanks *alone* will justify bringing them along, especially since it's not like the only spike hits in the game are F/T (or that they're particularly dangerous to anyone except for a Shadow) and big raid damage is *always* a concern (especially when you can pare down the damage every 45 seconds).

 

Guardians need to get brought down a bit because, right now, they're the only justifiable tank *at all*. The spikiness issue barring Shadows from getting into top tier ops runs is demonstrative of the *spikiness* problem but the fact that *Guardians* are pretty much the only ones filling those spots proves something else. Guardians are *insanely good* right now, even when compared to spikiness-fixed Shadows.

[Moradeth]

Double Shadow isn't going to be the "best" loadout any more since Shadows aren't the only class that can cheese mechanics. Guardians, thanks to the holy carp amaze-tude of Saber Reflect (which I can assure you isn't going to get the nerf bat anywhere near it since the devs *love it*), can cheese a number of mechanics that Shadows can't and they pack a bunch of other useful capabilities on top of it (absorb shield with AoE taunt, Leap for instant return mechanics).

 

Kitru, didn't you say that when you talked to the devs at the Cantina tour, thought that Saber Reflect was OP? They may love it, but if everyone is freaking out by it (which I feel like they are...) then why would we not expect to see a nerf? Nerfs tend to go overboard, which leads to...

 

You're acting as if Guardians are so precariously designed that any change to them is going to render them completely pointless (which I don't even agree was true back in 2.0; if we judged tank balance by the presence of tanks in server and world first groups, VGs would be the tanks in need of buffs; just because some groups only used Shadows because of mechanics cheesing, if you look at the current tier of content, there is a lot of content that Shadows *can't* cheese but Guardians can). Saber Reflect and Guardianship are still going to be there no matter what other changes might come. Those 2 aspects of Guardian tanks *alone* will justify bringing them along, especially since it's not like the only spike hits in the game are F/T (or that they're particularly dangerous to anyone except for a Shadow) and big raid damage is *always* a concern (especially when you can pare down the damage every 45 seconds).

 

Guardians need to get brought down a bit because, right now, they're the only justifiable tank *at all*. The spikiness issue barring Shadows from getting into top tier ops runs is demonstrative of the *spikiness* problem but the fact that *Guardians* are pretty much the only ones filling those spots proves something else. Guardians are *insanely good* right now, even when compared to spikiness-fixed Shadows.

 

I believe Tridus's concern is that by nerfing, it would probably tend to go far past the required reduction. I mean what would really be the balance with the new abilities? Guards/Juggs didn't really have a cheese mechanic before, much less the utility that a Shadow/Assassin brings to a raid. Pulls, healing circle/shelter, CC, and OT stealth res. Granted some may not seem like a big deal (CC in HM, woo?), but the healing circle should definitely be viable for offsetting the benefits of Guardianship.

 

I agree that spikiness needs to be addressed, but again major nerfs to other classes aren't really the way to go. If you have an idea how to nerf Guardians then please share. I think the only thing I saw was increasing cooldowns?

[TridusSWTOR]

Double Shadow isn't going to be the "best" loadout any more since Shadows aren't the only class that can cheese mechanics. Guardians, thanks to the holy carp amaze-tude of Saber Reflect (which I can assure you isn't going to get the nerf bat anywhere near it since the devs *love it*), can cheese a number of mechanics that Shadows can't and they pack a bunch of other useful capabilities on top of it (absorb shield with AoE taunt, Leap for instant return mechanics).

 

You're acting as if Guardians are so precariously designed that any change to them is going to render them completely pointless (which I don't even agree was true back in 2.0; if we judged tank balance by the presence of tanks in server and world first groups, VGs would be the tanks in need of buffs; just because some groups only used Shadows because of mechanics cheesing, if you look at the current tier of content, there is a lot of content that Shadows *can't* cheese but Guardians can). Saber Reflect and Guardianship are still going to be there no matter what other changes might come. Those 2 aspects of Guardian tanks *alone* will justify bringing them along, especially since it's not like the only spike hits in the game are F/T (or that they're particularly dangerous to anyone except for a Shadow) and big raid damage is *always* a concern (especially when you can pare down the damage every 45 seconds).

 

Guardians need to get brought down a bit because, right now, they're the only justifiable tank *at all*. The spikiness issue barring Shadows from getting into top tier ops runs is demonstrative of the *spikiness* problem but the fact that *Guardians* are pretty much the only ones filling those spots proves something else. Guardians are *insanely good* right now, even when compared to spikiness-fixed Shadows.

 

I don't understand the bolded part. If you talked about SnV HM:

Dashrode- Sin tanks can vanish if they get lost and the adds are no longer a concern. What can juggs do that offers something like that?

Titan 6- Sin tanks can render the grenade dot useless and they can get to their rock faster with force speed. Juggs?

Thrasher- Juggs and PT's are better at tanking the boss in this fight. So that's a point in their favor.

Operator Chief- Juggs can reflect terminate. Sin tanks take a lot of damage or one shotted.

Oolak- Puzzle can be reset by a sin tank if the group doesn't like it. Juggs?

Cartel warlords- Sin tanks can let their healing circle get full use since most of the fight is stationary, also they are the best kiting tanks for sunder. Juggs can tank Tu'chuck better, I guess?

DMS- It's easier for groups to place a sin healing circle to set a base for kiting the kel dragon. As far as that, tanks seem equal.

Writhing horror- Sin tanks can avoid adds completely, thus letting the entire group focusing on the jealous male and boss the whole fight. Juggs can leap faster to the boss?

 

Rest of TFB seems the same to me.

 

Offering these types of options are really important for any raid group. I don't know where you find that juggs can avoid or offer something on the scale of this. Like I said, fix the amount of damage assassin tanks are receiving, because it's broken. Nerfs for juggs? Unwarranted. It still baffles me that you consider a tank class(The ONLY tank class) that had to go through the DPS tree to become viable was balanced.

 

I enjoy the info you provide and such, mostly I agree with what you say but this nerf for juggs? It's biased, overreaching, and unnecessary.