How many are giving up on Shadow tanks?

[KeyboardNinja]

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?

 

Awe. Saber Reflect. Stun Break. Guardian Leap. It's a non-issue.

 

Note that I don't even vanish on my shadow. I spiral around and knockback, followed by sprint. Problem solved.

 

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

 

I don't sprint to the rock. I sprint *back*. There's more than enough time to get to the rock by walking. Sprinting back is easily out-matched by leaping.

 

Also, Saber Reflect works on the grenade.

 

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

 

Shadows do some things better on this fight. Specifically, they're better on the wall if you're low on AoE DPS, since Shadow AoE DPS is fantastically good. Unfortunately, that's a double-edged sword, since they also get completely chewed up by the snipers.

 

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

 

Another point in the jugg favor. Shadows have...Deflection.

 

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

 

I've been clearing HM S&V since the first week. Haven't reset a single puzzle. Non-issue.

 

What *is* an issue is the fact that shadows get absolutely DESTROYED if they take more than one of the droids at a time. This problem is so severe that we strictly avoid AoE taunting in my group whenever a Frontliner is in the row, since a Frontliner + *anything* = death for a shadow (and we run double shadow tanks).

 

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?

 

Shadows can't really tank Tu'chuk in any serious capacity whatsoever since our Kinetic Ward evaporates. I average about 85% uptime if I'm not kiting Tu'chuk. Despite running double shadows, we don't use Phase Walk at all on this fight (though the Sunder take will use it as an escape on some strats).

 

If you kill Tu'chuk last, Juggs have it better due to the super CDs, reliable mitigation and lower spikiness during the soft enrage. If you kill Sunder last, Juggs have a slight edge since Saber Reflect does damage (and doesn't appear to suffer from the infamous Resilience bugs). Shadows can extend the Sunder-last strategy by cloaking though, which is a point in their favor. If you kill them all at once (which is what my group does), Shadows win for Sunder kiting while the DPS are whaling on it, but everything else is better done with a Jugg.

 

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.

 

The one fight where teleport is useful. Unfortunately, it's only useful to negate an advantage that the other two tanks have as a baseline (namely the instant gap closer out of the exhaustion zone). I'm fine with that as an element of skill though, so I'll leave it be.

 

Juggs win here too. Better defensive CDs for the final phase. Less spiky during the main phase allows the healers to DPS more reliably. Saber Reflect on Thundering Blast (vs Resilience) actually does damage to the boss, which imparts a non-trivial contribution to meeting the DPS check.

 

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?

 

Don't underestimate the leap. It is nice that sins can avoid the adds (which we've started doing in NiM, though we never did it in HM). The leap is huge though. Every time the boss burrows, my heart stops as I scramble to close with the boss. We never get more than one spit, but it's still a lot.

 

More importantly, Writhing Horror is an IMMENSELY spiky boss. I've watched my HP drop from 100% to 40% in a single hit, followed by a drop to below 10% on the next hit. That happened multiple times in the same fight. My cotank and I literally have scripted moments in our rotation through the room where we will use certain CDs. It's that insane. A Jugg or a PT would be able to just eat those hits, since they would do dramatically less damage.

 

Rest of TFB seems the same to me.

 

The best thing you can say for sins *today* is that they're the best tanks on Nightmare DG. Nightmare DG is an efficiency fight, and sins are the most efficient tanks to heal. There's not a lot of spike damage, so their main weakness isn't exposed. Resilience negates Lightning Field. Extremely high tank DPS assists in beating the enrage timer. Resilience negates the initial hit of Force Leach. Force Cloak allows medpack reset during Leach. Sprint allows positioning for add taunting during their spawn (ensuring that the AoE taunt catches all of them, which other tanks cannot guarantee).

 

There is no question in my mind that double shadow/assassin tanks are the best composition for Nightmare Dread Guard. Just as there is no question in my mind that it is the *worst* composition for every other fight.

 

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.

 

It's all part of rock-paper-scisers balance. Kitru and I would like the tanks to all have specific strengths and weaknesses that are complementary. We *want* shadows to be the spikiest tanks. We also want them to be the most efficient to heal. Right now, shadows are so spiky that they're almost impossible to heal as a practical matter, but their efficiency is only a hair ahead of a guardian (while both are vastly ahead of vanguards). There are two problems here: shadow spikiness and guardian efficiency. Guardian efficiency needs to be nerfed a bit if their mitigation is to remain in its current form (which is nearly as steady as a vanguard). Basically, we have the following situation:

 

• Shadow: (spiky, efficient, high damage, high utility, high skill)
  
• Guardian: (steady, efficient, high damage, high utility, low skill)
  
• Vanguard: (steady, inefficient, moderate damage, low utility, low skill)
  

 

Shadows aren't the only problem here. Guardians win in *every* category. Shadows require more player skill to achieve the same efficiency, utility and damage, but with vastly more severe spikiness. Guardians and Vanguards now require about the same amount of skill, but Guardians are far more efficient, just as steady and have much better utility.

 

Shadow spikiness needs to be improved, yes, and that's the issue that is currently causing wipes. Guardians need to be nerfed though. I would suggest that the best way to nerf them would be to reduce their efficiency slightly while slightly increasing their spikiness (probably by reducing the DR contribution of Guardian Slash) and slightly reduce their utility (preferably by reducing the mean effectiveness of their CDs, which is way out of proportion with the other two tanks).

Edited June 19, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

[Kitru]

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?

 

They can Guardian Leap to allies to get back faster. It's not a *major* benefit, but, then again, all Force Cloaking lets you do is avoid the stacking DoT (which you've got a shield for).

 

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

 

Don't take all that much damage from the Grenade, whereas Shadows would treat it in the same "holy ****, dead or alive based on RNG" factor that Terminate is. Just because Shadows can cheese a mechanic doesn't mean that it's a major problem for the *other* tanks. As to the rock moving, Guardian Leap and sidestep. Takes a bit more skill, but it's still a very mobile option.

 

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

 

The puzzle can be reset by anyone. Start combat and then have everyone hug the far end of the door. Combat will end and the fight resets, puzzle included.

 

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?

 

The healing circle is only up for 2 minutes and goes onto a 45 sec downtime whenever that 2 minutes ends (or you use it). It also requires a cast time in order to place it once again (and you have to be standing over said area for it to benefit). Unless you're running around like crazy and risking a lot with Sunder, a Shadow tank isn't going to be able to get much out of Shadow's Shelter on that fight (because they're too busy kiting).

 

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.

 

Once again, Shadow's Shelter is *nowhere* near as awesome as you seem to think it is. The required cast time and forced downtime prevent it from having more than a tangential gimmick utility.

 

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?

 

If you're doing NiM, Sin tanks are a *way* higher liability mainly because of the drastically increased damage on Angry Spittle (tank not being adjacent to boss) and the random transport location. For a Guardian or VG, they just leap and they're there (they don't even have to aim themselves). A Shadow has to find the boss and run there manually with Force Speed, adding 2-3 ticks of 7k raid damage to absolutely everyone.

 

The adds just get dusted by DPS as normal. Shadows avoiding the adds is a nice QoL thing, but it's not *nearly* as useful as avoiding the huge amount of extra raid damage.

 

Rest of TFB seems the same to me.

 

Kephess is still primarily F/T K/E attacks. Guardians take a good deal less from F/T K/E in a more reliable fashion than Shadows do, making them easier to heal. It's not a major concern, but it's still present. VGs explicitly take *way* less F/T K/E damage than either Shadows or Guardians so a VG is *way* better than either of the other tanks for that fight.

 

In NiM TfB, Resilience doesn't work on Scream, but Saber Reflect does.

 

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.

 

Mechanic cheesing is not the only scale by which tanks are measured. If you look at that Shadows are liabilities in a number of cases where Guardians can outright cheese the mechanic and it's not a risk to VGs. Shadow cheesing makes life a bit easier. It doesn't make the fight a joke (especially when you look at NiM Writhing Horror).

 

Even if Guardians had their damage taken increased, their (non-Saber Reflect) CDs reverted or tweaked to longer CDs, and had their damage profile adjusted to be spikier than VGs, they would still be able to cheese all of the same mechanics they already do while bringing back the balance that existed before. There should be a point to bring a VG rather than a Guardian for more than a single fight (I find it amusing that you seem to think that the only options for tanks should be Guardians and Shadows while saying that every tank should have a reason to be taken on progression runs) and the stuff Guardians are able to cheese shouldn't eclipse in usefulness the stuff that Shadows are able to cheese (or, at the very least, they should lose *something* to make up for it).

 

Like I said, fix the amount of damage assassin tanks are receiving, because it's broken.

 

Once again, spikiness is the problem that needs fixing for Shadows, not amount of damage taken in general. It's a semantic point since I'm guessing you *meant* spikiness, but your terminology isn't correct.

 

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.

 

First off, full Defense Guardians were only *slightly* inferior to hybrid Guardians. It's wasn't like they were *forced* into doing so. Those who went hybrid did so of their own volition in order to eke out a little bit more threat and a little bit more mitigation.

 

Secondly, your argument here is that because Guardians had a harder time *in the past* that, *now*, they should be stronger than anyone else? Guardians don't *deserve* to be the top tanks just because they suffered through bad design pre-RotHC. They were still perfectly acceptable tanks. The only problem they had was threat. *You're* the one being overreaching now because you're stating that you *deserve* to be the best tank because of how you behaved in the past (i.e. "Guardians suffered through pre-RotHC Guardian tanking so we should be paid, with interest, in how effective we are compared to the other tanks now!"). Balance only cares about your performance *now*. It doesn't give a **** about how you performed a year ago.

 

My argument is not based upon the idea that Shadows should be the best tanks outright. The design as a skill tank should mean that, if played extremely well, their effectiveness should, on average, top out the other tanks (that's just part of being a "skill tank").

 

My argument is a based upon a comparison of Guardian performance in *all categories* against Shadow and VG performance in those self same categories. Guardians are *friggin' amazing* at absolutely everything. The *only* place that they're not the outright *best* or tied for best is in mean mitigation, where they edge out VGs and are lower than Shadows (which, once again, doesn't really mean much since external healing requirements are balanced by the higher spikiness which requires more healing and attention).

 

Explain to me, from the context of *current balance* rather than compensation for past suffering, why Guardians should be allowed to perform *so friggin well* compared to the other tanks. It's not like they're hard to play. It's not like player skill has any major impact on their performance. It's not like you have to learn the encounters inside and out more than any of the other tanks because your CDs only work on distinct categories.

 

Please, explain to me how you can justify Guardian performance *now* without having to bring up the past as if it justifies it.

[Kitru]

I would suggest that the best way to nerf them would be to reduce their efficiency slightly while slightly increasing their spikiness (probably by reducing the DR contribution of Guardian Slash) and slightly reduce their utility (preferably by reducing the mean effectiveness of their CDs, which is way out of proportion with the other two tanks).

 

I find it amusing in that, while simulposting (I was writing mine up as KBN was posting), we both said that Guardians should get tweaked in the same way (spikiness increase in profile, increase in damage taken, increased CD on tank CDs).

[TridusSWTOR]

Awe. Saber Reflect. Stun Break. Guardian Leap. It's a non-issue.

 

Note that I don't even vanish on my shadow. I spiral around and knockback, followed by sprint. Problem solved.

 

You do all that but you can just hit one button instead. I just provided a more efficient way to do things.

 

I don't sprint to the rock. I sprint *back*. There's more than enough time to get to the rock by walking. Sprinting back is easily out-matched by leaping.

 

Also, Saber Reflect works on the grenade.

 

You'll have enough time to sprint to a rock and sprint to the boss. I had no idea saber reflect can remove all the damage on grenade, since my group never lets me take it. If it doesn't though, then assassins win in that fight. I never have to leap to the boss either on my jugg, since I always run to the rock where he lands, thus removing my chance to leap altogether.

 

Shadows do some things better on this fight. Specifically, they're better on the wall if you're low on AoE DPS, since Shadow AoE DPS is fantastically good. Unfortunately, that's a double-edged sword, since they also get completely chewed up by the snipers.

 

We agree on this fight.

 

Another point in the jugg favor. Shadows have...Deflection.

Again, we agree.

I've been clearing HM S&V since the first week. Haven't reset a single puzzle. Non-issue.

 

You're personal experiences cannot speak for others. Since that is what you are implying, you are wrong. I raided with plenty of raid groups that needed to reset the puzzle or used the option to do so. So how can a jugg avoid mechanics on this fight again? Please enlighten me.

What *is* an issue is the fact that shadows get absolutely DESTROYED if they take more than one of the droids at a time. This problem is so severe that we strictly avoid AoE taunting in my group whenever a Frontliner is in the row, since a Frontliner + *anything* = death for a shadow (and we run double shadow tanks).

 

I never had a problem tanking multiple targets on droids on my assassin. Non-issue? No because I don't speak for everyone else. So I agree shadows still need a fix. It is far easier to hold threat from ranged and kite as a assassin.

 

Shadows can't really tank Tu'chuk in any serious capacity whatsoever since our Kinetic Ward evaporates. I average about 85% uptime if I'm not kiting Tu'chuk. Despite running double shadows, we don't use Phase Walk at all on this fight (though the Sunder take will use it as an escape on some strats).

 

Why wouldn't you use healing circle to help out you're group is not using all the tools available to you. That is you're choice, but it hurts the rest of the raid as a consequence. Our sin tank handles Tu'chuk from start to 30% and then we have a tank swap. I don't know how you can say they can't take it in a serious capacity when that fight can be done with a sin tank. Sin tanks do still need a buff.

 

If you kill Tu'chuk last, Juggs have it better due to the super CDs, reliable mitigation and lower spikiness during the soft enrage. If you kill Sunder last, Juggs have a slight edge since Saber Reflect does damage (and doesn't appear to suffer from the infamous Resilience bugs). Shadows can extend the Sunder-last strategy by cloaking though, which is a point in their favor. If you kill them all at once (which is what my group does), Shadows win for Sunder kiting while the DPS are whaling on it, but everything else is better done with a Jugg.

 

I agree juggs have better CD's for that fight.

 

The one fight where teleport is useful. Unfortunately, it's only useful to negate an advantage that the other two tanks have as a baseline (namely the instant gap closer out of the exhaustion zone). I'm fine with that as an element of skill though, so I'll leave it be.

 

We only use the healing circle as a base and to help the healers. That fight is a DPS race through and through and well since assassin tanks do amazing DPS....

Juggs win here too. Better defensive CDs for the final phase. Less spiky during the main phase allows the healers to DPS more reliably. Saber Reflect on Thundering Blast (vs Resilience) actually does damage to the boss, which imparts a non-trivial contribution to meeting the DPS check.

 

Not sure how juggs win here. Since you can completly avoid a set of adds(all of them if you run double sin) and thus only have to worry about two targets throughout the fight. That makes huge amounts of breathing room for the healers to focus on tanks. So why would you choose healer DPS over actual DPS and consider that a win? Plus, healing circle, which you seem to never like to mention. Since most of that fight is stationary, healers can get some good benefits.

 

Don't underestimate the leap. It is nice that sins can avoid the adds (which we've started doing in NiM, though we never did it in HM). The leap is huge though. Every time the boss burrows, my heart stops as I scramble to close with the boss. We never get more than one spit, but it's still a lot.

 

I never once had trouble closing the gap on my sin tank, but that doesn't mean it's easier than a powertech/jugg leap. That's the only advantage they have during that fight though. They still gotta address the amount of damage sin tanks are taking right now. That's it.

 

More importantly, Writhing Horror is an IMMENSELY spiky boss. I've watched my HP drop from 100% to 40% in a single hit, followed by a drop to below 10% on the next hit. That happened multiple times in the same fight. My cotank and I literally have scripted moments in our rotation through the room where we will use certain CDs. It's that insane. A Jugg or a PT would be able to just eat those hits, since they would do dramatically less damage.

 

That's why I have been agreeing with a fix to that problem, since my first post. I don't know why you are telling me this?

 

The best thing you can say for sins *today* is that they're the best tanks on Nightmare DG. Nightmare DG is an efficiency fight, and sins are the most efficient tanks to heal. There's not a lot of spike damage, so their main weakness isn't exposed. Resilience negates Lightning Field. Extremely high tank DPS assists in beating the enrage timer. Resilience negates the initial hit of Force Leach. Force Cloak allows medpack reset during Leach. Sprint allows positioning for add taunting during their spawn (ensuring that the AoE taunt catches all of them, which other tanks cannot guarantee).

 

I never got to tank NIM DG's on my sin, only my jugg. So I can only judge from how my sin partner does. It seemed balanced between us. So I have no further input until my group gets further along with that encounter.

 

There is no question in my mind that double shadow/assassin tanks are the best composition for Nightmare Dread Guard. Just as there is no question in my mind that it is the *worst* composition for every other fight.

 

As it stands for assassins today? Yes I agree, they need a fix. Just remember they were the best option pre 2.0.

 

It's all part of rock-paper-scisers balance. Kitru and I would like the tanks to all have specific strengths and weaknesses that are complementary. We *want* shadows to be the spikiest tanks. We also want them to be the most efficient to heal. Right now, shadows are so spiky that they're almost impossible to heal as a practical matter, but their efficiency is only a hair ahead of a guardian (while both are vastly ahead of vanguards). There are two problems here: shadow spikiness and guardian efficiency. Guardian efficiency needs to be nerfed a bit if their mitigation is to remain in its current form (which is nearly as steady as a vanguard). Basically, we have the following situation:

 

I already listed the large amount of options assassin tanks already provide. Whether you choose to ignore it, that's you're choice. Assassins need a fix and since I can't claim my sin tank is my main, I'll leave it to posters like yourself and Kitru(and others of course) to come up with solutions.

But when you extend you're reach to another AC, you are pushing it. You are asking for entirely different thing then. Since a guardian nerf doesn't help the assassin tanks current problems. If it does, please show me. Please show me how nerfing jugg tanks will help reduce the damage assassin tanks. If you can't, then you are asking for nerfs based on the good ol' days. You know...when juggs needed to go DPS in order to tank.

 

You want little nerfs to a class? Look what happened to healer mercs in 1.2. Yea that's why I'm fighting you every chance I get when you scream nerfs to another AC.

 

• Shadow: (spiky, efficient, high damage, high utility, high skill)
  
• Guardian: (steady, efficient, high damage, high utility, low skill)
  
• Vanguard: (steady, inefficient, moderate damage, low utility, low skill)
  

Are you telling me juggs do more DPS than powertechs? I haven't leveled my vanguard to 55 yet, but his DPS was insane in pre 2.0. I agree though, powertech tanks need some big time love, just like assassins now.

 

Shadows aren't the only problem here. Guardians win in *every* category. Shadows require more player skill to achieve the same efficiency, utility and damage, but with vastly more severe spikiness. Guardians and Vanguards now require about the same amount of skill, but Guardians are far more efficient, just as steady and have much better utility.

 

Better Utility? No, I'm sorry. After all the things I listed that assassins can do, juggs can't even compare. This has to be coming from some personal hatred of saber reflect. If you can admit that at least, I can understand.

 

Shadow spikiness needs to be improved, yes, and that's the issue that is currently causing wipes. Guardians need to be nerfed though. I would suggest that the best way to nerf them would be to reduce their efficiency slightly while slightly increasing their spikiness (probably by reducing the DR contribution of Guardian Slash) and slightly reduce their utility (preferably by reducing the mean effectiveness of their CDs, which is way out of proportion with the other two tanks).

 

So you want juggs to take more damage and go back to the long CD times of jugg defensive CD's. So bascially what they were in pre 2.0.

Why bring a jugg tank if they are going to be on par of spikeyness with assassins? You know why double assassins worked so well in pre 2.0? Because healers could heal them just fine. Then powertechs and juggs weren't a viable option.

 

So when you ask for an assassin buff, that makes them a viable option. But it's not enough for you! So you nerf jugg tanking and well...why bring them along? Assassins already offer so much more, now that they can be healed through content, there is absolutely no reason to bring a juggernaut. I seriously don't understand why it's so hard for you guys to comprehend that.

 

Just as a end note, I do enjoy both of the info you provide as far as tanking and other such things but this nerf to juggs. It's wrong, through and through, it's based on selfish reasons alone.

[TridusSWTOR]

They can Guardian Leap to allies to get back faster. It's not a *major* benefit, but, then again, all Force Cloaking lets you do is avoid the stacking DoT (which you've got a shield for).

 

Looks like I gotta repeat myself all over again. This is fun. Anyways. You can avoid the adds entirely, that helps the whole raid. This picking and choosing you are doing is not really what I expected, but if you want to play it that way. That's fine.

 

Don't take all that much damage from the Grenade, whereas Shadows would treat it in the same "holy ****, dead or alive based on RNG" factor that Terminate is. Just because Shadows can cheese a mechanic doesn't mean that it's a major problem for the *other* tanks. As to the rock moving, Guardian Leap and sidestep. Takes a bit more skill, but it's still a very mobile option.

 

You avoid all damage and it's up for every grenade. Like I said to KBN, I move to the rock where he lands, therefore ruling out my "huge" leap advantage. Just because you can cheese something, means it shouldn't count now? Really, is that what it's come too?

 

The puzzle can be reset by anyone. Start combat and then have everyone hug the far end of the door. Combat will end and the fight resets, puzzle included.

 

I never knew that, good info to have. Still easier for an assassin to do it though.

 

The healing circle is only up for 2 minutes and goes onto a 45 sec downtime whenever that 2 minutes ends (or you use it). It also requires a cast time in order to place it once again (and you have to be standing over said area for it to benefit). Unless you're running around like crazy and risking a lot with Sunder, a Shadow tank isn't going to be able to get much out of Shadow's Shelter on that fight (because they're too busy kiting).

Oolak disappears, giving you time to cast it. Cartel warlods are pretty much stationary, even when kiting sunder you can create a large enough gap to easily plant one. Why are you and KBN so against using this ability? I'm really curious, do you heal these fights? If any healer says they don't want a boost to their healing, they are flat out lying to you.

 

Once again, Shadow's Shelter is *nowhere* near as awesome as you seem to think it is. The required cast time and forced downtime prevent it from having more than a tangential gimmick utility.

 

Read above.

 

If you're doing NiM, Sin tanks are a *way* higher liability mainly because of the drastically increased damage on Angry Spittle (tank not being adjacent to boss) and the random transport location. For a Guardian or VG, they just leap and they're there (they don't even have to aim themselves). A Shadow has to find the boss and run there manually with Force Speed, adding 2-3 ticks of 7k raid damage to absolutely everyone.

 

I agree, assassins need a fix in the amount of damage they take. That's funny, how I always agree with fixing shadows but you are so defensive toward me. For my assassin tank, a simple turn and force speed fixes that problem. It's not as big as you think, I only ever let 1 tick through on every burrow. It's easy to overcome, see what I did there?

The adds just get dusted by DPS as normal. Shadows avoiding the adds is a nice QoL thing, but it's not *nearly* as useful as avoiding the huge amount of extra raid damage.

So a sniper choosing between opening his orbital strike on a bunch of adds that do way more damage then they should or that could be used on the boss, come on. Plus you are avoiding damage by not having the adds in the first place! I don't get how you cannot see this. No damage from the guy in the circle means more heals for the tanks.

Kephess is still primarily F/T K/E attacks. Guardians take a good deal less from F/T K/E in a more reliable fashion than Shadows do, making them easier to heal. It's not a major concern, but it's still present. VGs explicitly take *way* less F/T K/E damage than either Shadows or Guardians so a VG is *way* better than either of the other tanks for that fight.

 

My assassin tank partner exploded during that fight. So they need help with that part, which I said many, many, many, many, many, many times before. Did I mention I support assassins getting a buff?

In NiM TfB, Resilience doesn't work on Scream, but Saber Reflect does.

 

Nice to know. Scream does do quite a bit of damage, hopefully they can fix that for assassins.

 

Mechanic cheesing is not the only scale by which tanks are measured. If you look at that Shadows are liabilities in a number of cases where Guardians can outright cheese the mechanic and it's not a risk to VGs. Shadow cheesing makes life a bit easier. It doesn't make the fight a joke (especially when you look at NiM Writhing Horror).

 

I don't know how you can say cheesing doesn't help the raid in a big way. Much less, using writhing horror as an example, since you can flat out remove an entire section of the fight that would provide unnecessary stress on the healers. Please, stop saying all these tools you guys have in you're arsenal are just for fluff, because that really isn't the case.

 

Even if Guardians had their damage taken increased, their (non-Saber Reflect) CDs reverted or tweaked to longer CDs, and had their damage profile adjusted to be spikier than VGs, they would still be able to cheese all of the same mechanics they already do while bringing back the balance that existed before. There should be a point to bring a VG rather than a Guardian for more than a single fight (I find it amusing that you seem to think that the only options for tanks should be Guardians and Shadows while saying that every tank should have a reason to be taken on progression runs) and the stuff Guardians are able to cheese shouldn't eclipse in usefulness the stuff that Shadows are able to cheese (or, at the very least, they should lose *something* to make up for it).

 

What balance did they even bring? NiM Kephess, force shroud could remove his dot. Thus allowing one tank healing for a good portion of the fight. A guardian taking more damage now is just an assassin with less tools and raid benefits. It's why a raid group prefers a marauder over a op DPS. I already stated PT's need love, but I'm glad you overlooked that.

 

The problem is, I'm willing to accept what happens in raid groups today. PT's are guardians were always interchangeable, while neither of those two could ever replace an assassin. That was pre 2.0.

As far as now? You already know what I want for assassin tanks. How does nerfing another AC help an assassin on thrasher? It's amusing to me how biased you are when it comes to actual tools your class is given and you dismiss them as "Well it's not that great..." when it really is.

 

 

Once again, spikiness is the problem that needs fixing for Shadows, not amount of damage taken in general. It's a semantic point since I'm guessing you *meant* spikiness, but your terminology isn't correct.

 

Yea my mistake on that. Hence why I said I'll leave it to you and other assassins to come up with solutions to help you guys out. Maybe if you bothered to read what I type, you would of seen that. I'm the bad guy here though, huh?

First off, full Defense Guardians were only *slightly* inferior to hybrid Guardians. It's wasn't like they were *forced* into doing so. Those who went hybrid did so of their own volition in order to eke out a little bit more threat and a little bit more mitigation.

 

If you weren't hybrid on a boss fight, you lost threat. End of the story. Immortal spec pre 2.0 was for trash tanking only. The mere fact that a hybrid spec offered more threat and better mitigation, means that they were in a sad state for a long time.

Secondly, your argument here is that because Guardians had a harder time *in the past* that, *now*, they should be stronger than anyone else? Guardians don't *deserve* to be the top tanks just because they suffered through bad design pre-RotHC. They were still perfectly acceptable tanks. The only problem they had was threat. *You're* the one being overreaching now because you're stating that you *deserve* to be the best tank because of how you behaved in the past (i.e. "Guardians suffered through pre-RotHC Guardian tanking so we should be paid, with interest, in how effective we are compared to the other tanks now!"). Balance only cares about your performance *now*. It doesn't give a **** about how you performed a year ago.

 

When did I ever say they belong on the top? Please quote me on that. Go back to all my post and I want to see where I typed "I want juggernaut tanks to be the top class.". Please go ahead, I look forward to this.

 

How were they acceptable tanks compared to assassins? Pre 2.0 You could avoid kephess dot, I guess that's a non-issue? You could force speed out of the purple circle, you could the purple circles more efficiently. I guess this will be dismissed as well. I'm sensing a pattern.

 

So if you are so set on the present, why can I provide examples of mechanic and QoL raid wide that assassin tanks offer that dwarf juggernauts? Meanwhile, I can accept that assassins need a look at.

 

My argument is not based upon the idea that Shadows should be the best tanks outright. The design as a skill tank should mean that, if played extremely well, their effectiveness should, on average, top out the other tanks (that's just part of being a "skill tank").

 

I already addressed this to you. Re-read my response if you want an answer.

 

My argument is a based upon a comparison of Guardian performance in *all categories* against Shadow and VG performance in those self same categories. Guardians are *friggin' amazing* at absolutely everything. The *only* place that they're not the outright *best* or tied for best is in mean mitigation, where they edge out VGs and are lower than Shadows (which, once again, doesn't really mean much since external healing requirements are balanced by the higher spikiness which requires more healing and attention).

 

They are finally a viable tanking option. That's the unbiased answer. After reading what you have been posting, I honestly don't think you are capable of providing an unbiased answer. Especially since you dismiss anything that challenges anything you say.

 

Explain to me, from the context of *current balance* rather than compensation for past suffering, why Guardians should be allowed to perform *so friggin well* compared to the other tanks. It's not like they're hard to play. It's not like player skill has any major impact on their performance. It's not like you have to learn the encounters inside and out more than any of the other tanks because your CDs only work on distinct categories.

 

Simple, because like another poster has said. Assassin tanks don't require huge amounts of skill to preform well. Tanking in this game is rather basic and easy. How can you say player skill doesn't have a major impact? It could mean raid-wide damage or a loss in threat.

 

Explain to me, why do you dismiss obvious advantages assassin tanks when it's a clear advantage?

 

Please, explain to me how you can justify Guardian performance *now* without having to bring up the past as if it justifies it.

I already explained this. They are a viable option for tanking now.

 

Explain to me this, why are you so content with not bringing up the past? It's obvious the reason why, but I'm wondering if you could actually admit it.

 

Explain to me this, How does nerfing a jugg tank help an assassin tank *currently* tank thrasher?

[Moradeth]

Not sure if that bold was a formating mistake or rage... one of em...

 

Quote:

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.

Once again, Shadow's Shelter is *nowhere* near as awesome as you seem to think it is. The required cast time and forced downtime prevent it from having more than a tangential gimmick utility.

 

I don't follow, why wouldn't you just recast it while DMS is casting Chained Manifestation? It takes him about 2-3 seconds to reappear and targetable anyway.

 

Shadow spikiness needs to be improved, yes, and that's the issue that is currently causing wipes. Guardians need to be nerfed though. I would suggest that the best way to nerf them would be to reduce their efficiency slightly while slightly increasing their spikiness (probably by reducing the DR contribution of Guardian Slash) and slightly reduce their utility (preferably by reducing the mean effectiveness of their CDs, which is way out of proportion with the other two tanks).

 

Took me awhile to realize you were talking about cooldown utility rather than raid utility. I feel like raid utility should also be considered, but what do I know. So what's your suggestion? Double the CD times so they really are "oh sh..." buttons? What about just increasing the effectiveness of Deflection? Give it the same reduction as Saber Ward.

[Moradeth]

I already explained this. They are a viable option for tanking now.

 

Explain to me this, why are you so content with not bringing up the past? It's obvious the reason why, but I'm wondering if you could actually admit it.

 

Explain to me this, How does nerfing a jugg tank help an assassin tank *currently* tank thrasher?

 

... Why must you quote walls of text? I know Kitru loves walls of text but this is ridiculous. Just quote with a link and snip the rest.

[TridusSWTOR]

Not sure if that bold was a formating mistake or rage... one of em...

 

 

 

I don't follow, why wouldn't you just recast it while DMS is casting Chained Manifestation? It takes him about 2-3 seconds to reappear and targetable anyway.

 

 

 

Took me awhile to realize you were talking about cooldown utility rather than raid utility. I feel like raid utility should also be considered, but what do I know. So what's your suggestion? Double the CD times so they really are "oh sh..." buttons? What about just increasing the effectiveness of Deflection? Give it the same reduction as Saber Ward.

 

It was to make it easier to read. Rage WOULD BE LIKE THIS!?!??!?!!!@!11111 or something like that.

[TridusSWTOR]

... Why must you quote walls of text? I know Kitru loves walls of text but this is ridiculous. Just quote with a link and snip the rest.

 

Makes it easier for me. If you want to edit it or something you are free too. Sorry that it bugs you though.

[Moradeth]

Makes it easier for me. If you want to edit it or something you are free too. Sorry that it bugs you though.

 

*shrug* whatever, it'll be gone to the next page in a couple of posts anyway

[Kitru]

Makes it easier for me. If you want to edit it or something you are free too. Sorry that it bugs you though.

 

We can't edit your posts. It also prevents your responses from being quoted since they're nested in the previous quote. In short, it's much harder to read, no easier to write yourself (surrounding your commentary with bold tags is no harder than surrounding said text with the end quote and begin quote tage), and prevents effective continuation of the discussion. It means you're more likely to get the last work in (since, honestly, nothing you said was valid enough to really justify further commentary, especially since you're apparently incapable of separating the concepts of "fixing Shadows" and "fixing balance between the tanks" so it's not like you're even paying attention to the discussion), but it wasn't through your points. It was because you just made it too annoying to continue the discussion.

 

In short, you're not worth continuing to talk to about this.

[WheresMyWhisky]

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.

 

Hmm out of context much? Did I say I wipe often on a raid we have on farm? Your reply is slightly disingenuous to say the least. My point was that on my shadow I can get wiped out far too often due to RnG than due to player skill and yes I do know how play my shadow and I have some really rather good healers in my guild but if you get a bad attack string from thrasher it really doesn't matter too much sometimes.

 

All the fights you list as a specific shadow strength I can complete on my guardian without any real effort the same cannot be said in reverse e.g thrasher is not an issue on my guardian but is a big issue on my shadow (KBN has answered this much more fully already so I shan't repeat what he has said) .

 

The tanks really aren't balanced at all at the moment I am not sure how you can suggest they are with a straight face. My guardian feels like my shadow did pre 1.3 compared to the other tanks, which is to say really a bit overpowered.Now given that they tested all the content with Guardians and no other tanks I look forward to the buffs for shadows and vanguards as I assume they are happy with the way Guardians are.

 

Although to be honest I would like to see a nerf to all tanks threat generation so we actually have to try to keep threat as its a complete joke at the moment. (It would also need a change to the way taunt works)

Edited June 20, 2013 by WheresMyWhisky

[Stormskimmer]

I already explained this. They are a viable option for tanking now.

 

Explain to me this, why are you so content with not bringing up the past? It's obvious the reason why, but I'm wondering if you could actually admit it.

 

Explain to me this, How does nerfing a jugg tank help an assassin tank *currently* tank thrasher?

 

You want to know why people are saying to nerf juggernauts? It is not because of assassins alone. Let me to try explain another way.

 

Forget assassins. Assassin tanks are dead in three weeks. No more assassin tanks.*

 

This leaves you with juggernauts and powertechs.

 

Tell me, what fights do you want a powertech over a juggernaut?

 

Now, consider, please. What advantages does a powertech have over a juggernaut? What advantages does a juggernaut have over a powertehc? How do these two lists compare to each other?

 

If you don't think those balance out, then we need to either improve powertechs, or weaken juggernauts. Kitru and KeyboardNinja are just stating what the devs are going to do, rather than what they might prefer happen.

 

*Assassin tank viability (or lack thereof) exaggerated for purposes of this example.

[TridusSWTOR]

We can't edit your posts. It also prevents your responses from being quoted since they're nested in the previous quote. In short, it's much harder to read, no easier to write yourself (surrounding your commentary with bold tags is no harder than surrounding said text with the end quote and begin quote tage), and prevents effective continuation of the discussion. It means you're more likely to get the last work in (since, honestly, nothing you said was valid enough to really justify further commentary, especially since you're apparently incapable of separating the concepts of "fixing Shadows" and "fixing balance between the tanks" so it's not like you're even paying attention to the discussion), but it wasn't through your points. It was because you just made it too annoying to continue the discussion.

 

In short, you're not worth continuing to talk to about this.

 

I accept you're concession then.

 

You can quote and edit people. So you can edit people's post if you wanted, not the original but an edit nonetheless.

Edited June 20, 2013 by TridusSWTOR

[TridusSWTOR]

You want to know why people are saying to nerf juggernauts? It is not because of assassins alone. Let me to try explain another way.

 

Forget assassins. Assassin tanks are dead in three weeks. No more assassin tanks.*

 

This leaves you with juggernauts and powertechs.

 

Tell me, what fights do you want a powertech over a juggernaut?

 

Now, consider, please. What advantages does a powertech have over a juggernaut? What advantages does a juggernaut have over a powertehc? How do these two lists compare to each other?

 

If you don't think those balance out, then we need to either improve powertechs, or weaken juggernauts. Kitru and KeyboardNinja are just stating what the devs are going to do, rather than what they might prefer happen.

 

*Assassin tank viability (or lack thereof) exaggerated for purposes of this example.

 

First off, thanks for the non-condescending tone and actually trying to have a discussion. That really put things in perspective though. The major concern I have is how far the devs will go wtih the nerf.

 

You see how in bad shape assassin tanks are now, what's going to stop that from happening from jugg tanks? Unless you are a dev, no real solid answer can be provided. All you can look on is the past decisions that were made on nerfs/buffs by classes. Which is why I'm baffled that people don't want to use that information.

[KeyboardNinja]

You want little nerfs to a class? Look what happened to healer mercs in 1.2. Yea that's why I'm fighting you every chance I get when you scream nerfs to another AC.

 

As someone who actually has a healer merc (well, commando), I feel perfectly qualified to state that you're way off base here. Merc healers *needed* a nerf. Badly. They were fairly well balanced post 1.2 (behind in the raid healing department, but otherwise extremely strong). They were unbelievably over-powered pre-1.2. They were far, far too efficient.

 

So you want juggs to take more damage and go back to the long CD times of jugg defensive CD's. So bascially what they were in pre 2.0.

 

Sort of. Pre-2.0, the problem with Guardians was never CD timers or survivability, but threat/damage. No one is claiming that guardian damage should be nerfed, but there is absolutely no reason that they should be categorically superior to all other tanks.

 

Kitru has said it before, but I'll say it again. Even if assassin/shadow spikiness is fixed, there will still be absolutely no reason to take a shadow/assassin instead of a guardian. Literally none. I main a shadow. I'm well aware of all the cheese and utility they bring. There is very little of consequence they offer that guardians do not, and guardians offer a lot of interesting things that shadows can't (e.g. negating Scream).

 

So when you ask for an assassin buff, that makes them a viable option. But it's not enough for you! So you nerf jugg tanking and well...why bring them along? Assassins already offer so much more, now that they can be healed through content, there is absolutely no reason to bring a juggernaut. I seriously don't understand why it's so hard for you guys to comprehend that.

 

We've presented our arguments. We comprehend you perfectly. What you seem to not comprehend is that guardians/juggernauts are very over-powered right now. We've laid out for you exactly why this is, and why fixing shadow spikiness will not solve this problem. You seem to be unwilling to believe the evidence.

 

Just as a end note, I do enjoy both of the info you provide as far as tanking and other such things but this nerf to juggs. It's wrong, through and through, it's based on selfish reasons alone.

 

My raid slot is assured regardless of guardian balance. My interest in seeing them nerfed is purely academic. I want SWTOR's class balance to be as tight as possible. The nerf suggestions are not wrong. They're based on math and detailed analysis.

[Kitru]

I accept you're concession then.

 

That's... not a concession. It's a realization that there's no point in continuing the discussion since you're apparently incapable of realizing what the discussion is about.

[Kitru]

My raid slot is assured regardless of guardian balance. My interest in seeing them nerfed is purely academic. I want SWTOR's class balance to be as tight as possible. The nerf suggestions are not wrong. They're based on math and detailed analysis.

 

One would assume that we would at least be given some credit for not being crazy selfish class powermongers since we both posited at multiple points in time, while playing Shadow tanks, that Shadow tanks were too strong and needed a nerf. If we recognized that our *own* class was overpowered and then *told people how and why*, I think it's fairly acceptable to claim that we're more interested in balance than we are in being the strongest possible.

 

Accusations that we're acting entirely out of self interest (when we have, you know, math and detailed analysis backing us up) when we've acted contradictory to self interest in the past seem more than a bit unfounded, especially when both of us admit, right up front, that we prefer Shadows to the other tanks but actively work to not let that cloud our judgment.

 

Unless the supposition that our judgment *cannot* be trusted when we've demonstrated more than most other people that we're not going to be biased towards any one class more than another, I'd say we're less likely than almost anyone else in game to be justifiably accused of active and malevolent bias. Of course, in that same sense, I would have to wonder how biased the people not wanting any kind of changes to *Guardians* happen to be since they're actively rebelling against the suggestion that they're overpowered.

 

The only Guardian who I would implicitly trust to act with as little bias as possible would be grallmate. If *he* gets involved in the debate talking about how Guardians aren't overpowered, I'll start bending my ear more than I already have. He deserves the additional attention because I've dealt with him enough to know that he doesn't let his class biases impact his opinions and thoughts when he's looking at inter-class balance. Of course, I doubt that grall would actually start making the claim that Guardians are at least a *little* OP at the moment (in fact, I'm pretty sure he's outright said that at some point). Pretty much any other Guardian who comes in screaming that they don't need a nerf is going to do very little to convince me otherwise since the math, analysis, and heuristics of both myself and other people I trust all support the same conclusion.

 

I trust math and analysis more than I trust effectively random people coming in to debate said math and analysis without actually understanding the fundamental *concepts* of balance *especially* when they accuse me of behaving entirely out of self interest when there's *loads* more evidence that I'm an exceptionally neutral arbiter of balance and their own defense of said current state of affairs *reeks* of entitlement and self interest.

[vVvCheese]

I skimmed this thread (12 pages, so excuse me if I missed it) but I have seen a lot of complaining about spikiness, and not a single damage profile posted with a parse. I currently tank one of MoX's progression raids, as a sin. We've switched to 16 from 8 (may or may not be permanent, but that's neither here nor there), and I am told, consistently, that I am the easiest tank to heal by far, that I never spike down to dangerous levels (except during phases where spikes are expected, 4 stack+ NiM Kel'sara, etc). All but one of our progression groups uses at least one, and in one case 2, assassin tanks, and every assassin is told that they are by far the easiest to heal. My damage profile is flatter than our Jugg's, and factoring in effective self healing, I am taking less damage. While I will not argue that the fact that assassins may be a bit spikier in heavy damage phases since self-heals are a gradual form of pseudo-mitigation which help only marginally when under heavy boss pressure, effective use of cooldowns easily handles every spike phase I've encountered. I suspect it has to do with the fact that "the math" (no offense to those who've done the calculations, they're mathematically sound and correct based on the assumptions they make) misses a LOT. This isn't the thread for that, but my gearing methodology seems to entirely prevent those enormous spikes to at least the same degree that every other tank prevents them. I'd really like to see these the parses where Assassins/Shadows get RNG'd to death and compare them, with my healers, to see where the issue actually lies. Maybe I'm crazy and my knowledge of the class is missing something that drastically changes incoming damage profiles, but I, my healers, the other tanks in my raids, etc all think that "assassins are spiky" is just...wrong.

 

tl;dr please post parses where you RNG'd to death so we can all see whether the issue lies in player skill (again, no offense intended), gear, or if the class is really just that damn spiky.

[Vaidinah]

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).

 

Operative DPS was not completely broken even pre-2.0 and I know this because I could parse around 1900 for over 5 minutes with half 61 gear and had no trouble with operations since I knew my class extremely well. While their top end damage was a little too far below the other top DPS classes (marauder + sniper), the biggest issue they faced was simply that they were very unforgiving. That was the simple biggest reason they almost completely died out back then.

 

Guardians/Juggernaughts, on the other hand, were completely broken. They were strictly inferior to the other tanks options and their limited utility made them a terrible choice for the vast majority of content. The current complaints about Assassins are a complete joke compared to the actual awfulness that was the Juggernaught tank. The only reason to bring a Juggernaught pre-2.0 was because you either had no other options.

[Leafy_Bug]

I skimmed this thread (12 pages, so excuse me if I missed it) but I have seen a lot of complaining about spikiness, and not a single damage profile posted with a parse. I currently tank one of MoX's progression raids, as a sin. We've switched to 16 from 8 (may or may not be permanent, but that's neither here nor there), and I am told, consistently, that I am the easiest tank to heal by far, that I never spike down to dangerous levels (except during phases where spikes are expected, 4 stack+ NiM Kel'sara, etc). All but one of our progression groups uses at least one, and in one case 2, assassin tanks, and every assassin is told that they are by far the easiest to heal. My damage profile is flatter than our Jugg's, and factoring in effective self healing, I am taking less damage. While I will not argue that the fact that assassins may be a bit spikier in heavy damage phases since self-heals are a gradual form of pseudo-mitigation which help only marginally when under heavy boss pressure, effective use of cooldowns easily handles every spike phase I've encountered. I suspect it has to do with the fact that "the math" (no offense to those who've done the calculations, they're mathematically sound and correct based on the assumptions they make) misses a LOT. This isn't the thread for that, but my gearing methodology seems to entirely prevent those enormous spikes to at least the same degree that every other tank prevents them. I'd really like to see these the parses where Assassins/Shadows get RNG'd to death and compare them, with my healers, to see where the issue actually lies. Maybe I'm crazy and my knowledge of the class is missing something that drastically changes incoming damage profiles, but I, my healers, the other tanks in my raids, etc all think that "assassins are spiky" is just...wrong.

 

tl;dr please post parses where you RNG'd to death so we can all see whether the issue lies in player skill (again, no offense intended), gear, or if the class is really just that damn spiky.

 

 

As you wish :

 

 

Operator IX, two hits in a row :

 

Fragment 13723 kinetic Source: Regulator

Fragment 13174 kinetic Source: Regulator

 

Kephess The Undying :

 

Dread Bomb 17377 kinetic

Dread Bomb 9232 kinetic

Power Punch 9155 kinetic

Wrist Laser 9154 energy

Wrist Laser 9153 energy

Wrist Laser 9152 energy

Power Punch 5775 kinetic

Power Punch 5771 kinetic

Wrist Laser 5115 energy

 

 

 

Thrasher:

 

Swipe 15201 kinetic

Swipe 8305 kinetic

Swipe 5147 kinetic

Swipe 14859 kinetic

Melee Attack 10097 kinetic

Melee Attack 7600 kinetic

 

 

23:13:28.817 Thrasher's Swipe glances I'risa for 7001 kinetic damage, causing 7001 threat.

23:13:28.818 Thrasher kills I'risa.

 

 

 

Look at the above hits and compare to a guardian and see how flatter they are. Also, why can a Guardian take two the end in row and break no sweat while the shadow can take 1, if resilience works, and have a big chance to get killed on the second? Why does a shadow get hit for 32k and a guardian for roughly 10k less?

Edited June 20, 2013 by Leafy_Bug

[Vaidinah]

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.

 

Threat generation and survivability are inextricably linked together as a Guardian. If you failed in your rotation, your damage or your survivability would suffer greatly because you actually need to build rage to use most of your skills. The same was not true of Shadows since they only needed to wait a few seconds to automatically recover from their mistakes.

 

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.

 

It's hard to play any class at an actual top level. For Shadows, it was much easier pre-2.0 than Guardians and currently, it is just significantly lower. That is not a statement made to insult Shadows. It's just a product of how much depth the Guardian class contains.

 

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.

 

All of your arguments about Guardians taking no skill for survivability are predicated on this unsupported and nonsensical idea that generality of use is somehow the most important aspect of a defensive cooldown taking skill. That has never been true. Generality of use is a very minor matter of importance and instead, the most important aspect of using cooldowns by any reasonable measure is *timing*.

 

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.

 

That is plenty of time to wipe a raid. For example, the Writhing Horror in HM TFB pre-2.0. Almost every tank team consisting of a Guardian any other tank class would use the non-Guardian to start the fight since losing aggro would typically cause an auto-wipe. The tentacles on the last boss of TFB as well would wipe almost half your team if your Guardian wasn't completely on the ball with their aggro building.

 

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.

 

Any cooldown that improves your survivability on a class that can tank is still a defensive cooldown. It is irrelevant where it is considered a "tank" CD or not.

 

As for an example, here's an easy one. Let's say one of your DPS and your co-tank died near the end of a fight and you now know that you will hit enrage on a particular boss. You estimate you need to survive about 20 seconds before you will die and so will the rest of your team. Before the end, there's a single phase about 30 seconds left before the enrage where you can be bursted and you have Saber Ward, Enure, and Warding Call all up. If you use Saber Ward on that phase before the enrage, you are a damn fool and your team has no longer any chance at winning. If use Warding Call, then you did okay and your team has a significantly lower chance, but if the RNG gods are with you, your team may still win.

 

If you know how to play a Guardian optimally, you used Enure and then prepared for the enrage. Right before the enrage hits, you use Warding Call for 100% defense for 3 seconds and then once it's about to go away, you use Warding Call with Focused Defense and pop your medpac whenever the time is right. You taunt immediately followed by your other taunt at 6 seconds and you have done everything possible with your defensive cooldowns to bring your team a victory.

 

The point of this example is that the 3 main defensive cooldowns for Guardians have tiers of effectiveness depending on the situation. Saber Ward is undeniably the best of these in almost every situation (the only one it would not if you are hit with only Force/Tech attacks). The 3 initial seconds of Blade Turning make a massive difference for healing and is the go-to skill for the toughest parts of each fight.

 

Warding Call sounds great, except that the damage reduced is multiplicative so it only ends up being an actual 30% damage reduction. It's a mediocre defensive CD. Enure is better overall than Warding Call not in effectiveness, but because it has a full minute CD less.

 

All of this is without going into Saber Reflect, which takes as much skill as Resilience defensively and has more depth due to the fact that it can be used as a threat generator and a means to provide your team with more damage. Saber Ward takes more skill than Deflection due to how Blade Turning works (you really want to make those 3 seconds of 100% defense count) and Enure/Warding Call is about the same as Overcharge Saber.

 

Focused Defense is similar to Force Cloak in terms of being useful as a tank cooldown, except that Focused Defense is far riskier and relies on good resource generation to be of any use. So Focused Defense wins out as taking more skill. I won't include Guardian Leap since it's not a defensive cooldown for yourself; it's just one more way than Shadows have to protect their team. I also won't include Dark Ward for Shadows since it's a strictly "use upon the buff disappearing" ability like Force Breach and doesn't take any significant skill worth discussing.

 

So in the end, Guardians have 3 skills that take more skill than the Shadow equivalents and 2 that are roughly the same. Thus, optimal Guardian tanking requires more skill than optimal Shadow tanking, even when only considering defensive cooldowns.

 

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.

 

You are making this bizarre assumption that my examples of the 8 man NiM TFB Dread guards kills are the only evidence I have that Shadows are fine. I never stated as such. There is also the fact that at least one of those guilds did every single boss in NiM TFB with an Assassin tank for World Firsts, but hey, I guess they just got lucky on all 5 fights, right?

 

Beyond that, there are *numerous* examples of guilds who have stated they use Shadow/Assassin tanks and are doing fine since 2.0, including the new Nightmare content in 8 man. The biggest complaints and the only valid ones I've seen involve the new NiM content on 16 man and I have seen every type of tank in that content go boom many times.

 

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.

 

No, you never did and I never claimed you did. Since you have time, you can go ahead and verify that I never claimed you claimed that. Your other claim that it is disproportionately unlikely for a Shadow tank to succeed, however, there is no actual proof this idea is true. Part of being a good tank is making use of your CDS to mitigate spiky situations and the same goes for healing. If all the players were playing perfectly every single time and it still happened far more often to solely Shadows, then you may have something, but nothing even close to that is provided. All you guys actually have is some anecdotal evidence from various people and theorycrafting and that's simply not good enough.

 

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.

 

Actually Focused Defense was quite useful in many situations, especially when it was paired with Enure. The optimal times to use required the following:

 

1) Plenty of Rage/Focus (you really want Combat Focus up as well)

2) No need to hold aggro (or had both taunts available)

3) Take consistent DoT-style damage

 

These conditions were available in many fights like the following:

 

1) HM/NiM EC - Zorn and Toth's red circle phases

2) HM/NiM EC - Kephess's Savage Wounding DoT

3) HM/NiM TFB - Dread Guard's Lightning Field

4) SM/HM/NiM TFB - Kephess the Undying's final phase

5) SM/HM S & V - Dash'roode's "Lost" mechanic (only if you happen to get lost twice)

6) SM/HM S & V - Titan 6 final phase

7) SM/HM S & V - Styrak's AoE Lightning (only when off-tanking at the time)

 

As for Whirling Blow, you should bring it up in any discussion involving AoE damage. Yes, it's an awful skill, but if you want to do AoE damage and Slow Time, it still has a valid if only very situational use. Ignoring skills just because they are only good in a small number of situations is ignoring how to play optimally.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Vaidinah

[Vaidinah]

Hmm out of context much? Did I say I wipe often on a raid we have on farm? Your reply is slightly disingenuous to say the least. My point was that on my shadow I can get wiped out far too often due to RnG than due to player skill and yes I do know how play my shadow and I have some really rather good healers in my guild but if you get a bad attack string from thrasher it really doesn't matter too much sometimes.

 

All the fights you list as a specific shadow strength I can complete on my guardian without any real effort the same cannot be said in reverse e.g thrasher is not an issue on my guardian but is a big issue on my shadow (KBN has answered this much more fully already so I shan't repeat what he has said) .

 

Although to be honest I would like to see a nerf to all tanks threat generation so we actually have to try to keep threat as its a complete joke at the moment. (It would also need a change to the way taunt works)

 

Well sorry, but it looks like I merged your post in my mind with someone else's that I remember saying they were wiping a lot on content they had on farm. Anyways, saying that you have no problems with your Guardian, but are having issues with your Shadow is just one piece of anecdotal evidence. There are others who don't have issues with Shadows on that fight. I know my team's Assassin and Vanguard tanks in 16 man almost never die anymore on that fight in HM, but there a significant learning curve before we got to that point.

[Kitru]

Guardians/Juggernaughts, on the other hand, were completely broken. They were strictly inferior to the other tanks options

 

Are you serious? The *only* problem they had was lower damage/threat generation. Explain to me how they were inferior in *any* sense other than that because I'm *damned* sure you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Kitru]

I never spike down to dangerous levels

 

I would be *really* curious to see what your gear set up is. I've yet to hear of *anyone* that regularly gets told they're easier to heal than a Guardian or a VG nor one that doesn't have to deal with the spikiness that most people agrees runs rampant.