How many are giving up on Shadow tanks?

[MillionsKNives]

I know that Assassins are in worse shape for NiM than HM, but my fully 69 geared tank was having trouble merely staying alive to the two champions on orange phase of Operator IX. I'd get burned down by a ton of damage in a flash, with my healers not being able to keep up. We didn't seem to have this problem at all when one of our Powertech tanks were doing this last week.

 

I pretty much felt like a huge liability for the ops last night dying a few times to those droids, so now I'm considering shelving my Assassin for my Juggernaut. I'm hoping to smooth out the damage a lot so that I don't go from full to dead in moments.

 

Though I could of course have been doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what. I went through my normal rotation (as best I can while being stunned most of the time) and kept dark ward up, plus used saber ward when both droids were up. But I was even dying a couple of times while only one of them were on me. It was me and a sniper attacking them while the other tank was channeling (sniper is the one in the middle).

Edited July 17, 2013 by MillionsKNives

[dipstik]

i would suggest putting one healer on big heals and the other on quick heals, make sure you have hots from both healers and are getting the aoe heal too.

 

that or reroll... sadly

[vVvCheese]

10 hours (roughly) of wiping to assassin spikiness (not all of them obviously, but plenty in there). Whee:

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/343038

[KeyboardNinja]

10 hours (roughly) of wiping to assassin spikiness (not all of them obviously, but plenty in there). Whee:

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/343038

 

Notable is that MoX's healers have been previously acknowledged as being the absolute cream of the crop in terms of dealing with assassin spikiness. I'm not challenging that assertion (I'm still fairly certain that it's true), but if *they* don't have enough skill to deal with this issue, who will?

Edited July 17, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

[vVvCheese]

Notable is that MoX's healers have been previously acknowledged as being the absolute cream of the crop in terms of dealing with assassin spikiness. I'm not challenging that assertion (I'm still fairly certain that it's true), but if *they* don't have enough skill to deal with this issue, who will?

 

To be fair, these runs weren't with the healers I've run with for a while, as one of them isn't raiding with us anymore, and the other wasn't around for some of this run, as this was from one of the runs of the super PUG, but it's bad. Like really omg bad. Bad to the point where it's become "let's get another tank and Ten play his mara".

 

Thrasher spikiness could be handled, but barely. I can't find the logs atm, but terminate on city boss (cleared by me dying repeatedly and being combat, then stealth res'd, and surviving 2 of the 6 or so), and the artillery droids on Olok (not cleared, couldn't figure out how to deal with it with only an hour or so of time to work on them) are just ridiculous. If I find those logs, I'll put them up, but I don't think "flurrys of 17k+ before shield/dodge" needs much explanation, and we all know terminate is a dice roll.

Edited July 17, 2013 by vVvCheese

[Vaidinah]

I know that Assassins are in worse shape for NiM than HM, but my fully 69 geared tank was having trouble merely staying alive to the two champions on orange phase of Operator IX. I'd get burned down by a ton of damage in a flash, with my healers not being able to keep up. We didn't seem to have this problem at all when one of our Powertech tanks were doing this last week.

 

I pretty much felt like a huge liability for the ops last night dying a few times to those droids, so now I'm considering shelving my Assassin for my Juggernaut. I'm hoping to smooth out the damage a lot so that I don't go from full to dead in moments.

 

Though I could of course have been doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what. I went through my normal rotation (as best I can while being stunned most of the time) and kept dark ward up, plus used saber ward when both droids were up. But I was even dying a couple of times while only one of them were on me. It was me and a sniper attacking them while the other tank was channeling (sniper is the one in the middle).

 

Based on your post, there are a couple big mistakes being made. You didn't explain when you used your cooldowns outside of a random Deflection that I'll assume since Assassins don't have Saber Ward.

 

The most important aspect of tanking the big droids (the Regulators) that stun you is to not get stunned. They have two ways to stun players and both are completely avoidable. In fact, an Assassin is excellent in this fight because Force Shroud allows you to completely ignore the stuns. If you do get stunned once, you can immediately remove it with your generic stun-break skill that every class gets.

 

Now then, the way the stuns work is that you get stunned and knocked back when the Regulators use the skill "End Line" and it does not get interrupted. The simple solution to this is to just interrupt it as it occurs roughly every 10 seconds. Since your interrupt cooldown is 12 seconds as opposed to the 8 that Juggernaughts and Powertech get, just ask one of the healers/DPS to get every other interrupt. I usually have mine take the very first interrupt. Everyone else in the middle should be focusing mostly on killing the first Regulator (including your healers) with some minor heals/HoTs.

 

The 2nd one will come out in roughly 15 seconds after the first (just look at your taunt's cooldown timer). This is important because you must get near where it spawns before it does otherwise you will get stunned again. This stun is related to how far you are away from the Regulators when they target you. From what I can determine, you need to be within 10 meters of the Regulator at all times in order to not get stunned. Once you've taunted that one, bring it slowly towards the middle so that your sniper can use Orbital without hitting the color orbs flying around the room and the 1st Regulator should be about to die or dead already. As you bring it back to the middle, use Force Shroud right before the Regulators are about to use "End Line" on you to avoid the stun and all the damage.

 

Once one Regulator is dead, you should be much better off and once your team finishes the cores, they should finish up the last Regulator before channeling for Purple. It is important to note that there is a 3rd way you can get stunned and that is by hitting a color orb flying around the room that is not your color. Just be careful with your AoE (Wither and Discharge) and try to keep the Regulators near the actual middle so they don't get hit by accident.

 

Lastly, make sure to use both Overcharge Saber and Deflection (once the other runs out) during this part of the fight. You will not need them again for over 2 minutes so don't worry about the cooldowns. The only piece of information you should know is that Regulators will sometimes put a green debuff on you called Trauma. This lowers the amount of healing you receive for a short time so just try to use Deflection instead of Overcharge Saber while it's on you.

Edited July 18, 2013 by Vaidinah

[MillionsKNives]

snip

 

That's some good information, thank you. I wasn't aware that the big stun is based on distance (though it makes sense now that you mention it). I'll make sure to put some of that advice to use next time we're in there.

[RLWalker]

Just wait for the snipers on Thrasher

 

*Shrug* 16-man Thrasher hits for 24k... on hard mode. Haven't got to him on nightmare yet. I'm sure it's something completely ridiculous.

 

Not going to post any more numbers. If the devs haven't seen them already their eyes are closed. I'm rapidly losing interest in the game. I don't have dps gear or another character to raid on, so for me it would be the end. Given the length of time it takes for anything in this game to be fixed it's not worth waiting (e.g. jugg tank threat, bubble stun, mercs in pvp, etc). I left WoW because tanks were always getting trucked and healers had infinite mana... hmm sounds familiar. I'm 100% certain everything can be cleared with an assassin, but what's the point?

[Leafy_Bug]

*Shrug* 16-man Thrasher hits for 24k... on hard mode. Haven't got to him on nightmare yet. I'm sure it's something completely ridiculous.

 

Not going to post any more numbers. If the devs haven't seen them already their eyes are closed. I'm rapidly losing interest in the game. I don't have dps gear or another character to raid on, so for me it would be the end. Given the length of time it takes for anything in this game to be fixed it's not worth waiting (e.g. jugg tank threat, bubble stun, mercs in pvp, etc). I left WoW because tanks were always getting trucked and healers had infinite mana... hmm sounds familiar. I'm 100% certain everything can be cleared with an assassin, but what's the point?

 

 

Thrasher will hit you for 27-30k+ sometimes and the cherry on top will be the adds that will butcher you until aggro is taken off you. So if you spike for 27-30k and then a sniper shoots you its good night my someone, goodnight. If you have three healers on you at all times you won't die.

[DarthSpekulatius]

Thrasher will hit you for 27-30k+ sometimes and the cherry on top will be the adds that will butcher you until aggro is taken off you. So if you spike for 27-30k and then a sniper shoots you its good night my someone, goodnight.

 

*tztztz* you should have stacked more endurance

and I know you haven't used your cooldowns properly.

I'm sure had you only replaced your phase-walk below the Healers shadow spikiness wouldn't have been a problem.

 

 

If you have three healers on you at all times you won't die.

typical to fault the Healers for everything

 

 

I'm sorry for making fun of it, but from time to time these things give me this HUGE grin

like inhaling that line about Resilience I can't get enough of it

 

[KeyboardNinja]

Now then, the way the stuns work is that you get stunned and knocked back when the Regulators use the skill "End Line" and it does not get interrupted. The simple solution to this is to just interrupt it as it occurs roughly every 10 seconds. Since your interrupt cooldown is 12 seconds as opposed to the 8 that Juggernaughts and Powertech get, just ask one of the healers/DPS to get every other interrupt. I usually have mine take the very first interrupt. Everyone else in the middle should be focusing mostly on killing the first Regulator (including your healers) with some minor heals/HoTs.

 

As far as I'm aware, End of Line doesn't really do that much damage. It's *annoying* to be sure, but it's not really a threat and it's not the ability that applies Trauma. The main damage that the Regulators do comes from an ability that looks a bit like a Juggernaut's Vicious Slash. Judging from a healer's perspective, that ability generally does 10-15k damage in HM, depending on the tank. It's not interruptable, and you can't avoid it except by running out of range (and getting stunned).

 

With that said, I do abuse the heck out of Shroud in the second phase when the adds come out to avoid getting knocked into the wrong colors.

Edited July 18, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

[mastirkal]

I haven't seen these problems from any boss so far. I'm running sin tank on NiM over on the shadowland and I seem to survive well. Though I do have to credit my merc healer slave/companion who only heals me unless I am taking no damage.

We've been doing WT by getting the juggy to take him off of me at 7 stacks and letting me stealth to avoid the adds.

 

DG are fine, we don't have problems with tank healing, dps just love to stand in **** to no end.

 

Operator is also a joke for tank damage, the big droids hit just as hard as HM, maybe 1-2k more and phase two damage is mostly just raid.

 

Dash is a joke in a tinfoil hat. First night we did him, took up 10 pulls to kill, then the next week, only two.

 

Titan 6 is also a joke for tank healing. It's all about raid damage. The huge grenade in 16 man NiM does LESS damage than 8 man HM. Though we can't just ignore it like we could in HM q-q.

 

Trasher will be interesting, My strategy is to not be on trasher at all.

Edited July 18, 2013 by mastirkal

[Leafy_Bug]

I haven't seen these problems from any boss so far. I'm running sin tank on NiM over on the shadowland and I seem to survive well. Though I do have to credit my merc healer slave/companion who only heals me unless I am taking no damage.

We've been doing WT by getting the juggy to take him off of me at 7 stacks and letting me stealth to avoid the adds.

 

DG are fine, we don't have problems with tank healing, dps just love to stand in **** to no end.

 

Operator is also a joke for tank damage, the big droids hit just as hard as HM, maybe 1-2k more and phase two damage is mostly just raid.

 

Dash is a joke in a tinfoil hat. First night we did him, took up 10 pulls to kill, then the next week, only two.

 

Titan 6 is also a joke for tank healing. It's all about raid damage. The huge grenade in 16 man NiM does LESS damage than 8 man HM. Though we can't just ignore it like we could in HM q-q.

 

Trasher will be interesting, My strategy is to not be on trasher at all.

 

 

You might as well not be in the raid then. Sorry to say but to strategize with a tank not to tank a boss is not a good thing

[DarthSpekulatius]

Titan 6 is also a joke for tank healing. It's all about raid damage. The huge grenade in 16 man NiM does LESS damage than 8 man HM. Though we can't just ignore it like we could in HM q-q.

 

thats what makes

 

In the following particular instances, it is not a bug:

 

In Nightmare Mode, Huge Grenade does in fact deal weapon damage (rather than the spell damage it deals in Story and Hard Modes). This was an intentional change for Nightmare Mode, done to make the encounter more challenging.

...

 

so hilarious

[mastirkal]

You might as well not be in the raid then. Sorry to say but to strategize with a tank not to tank a boss is not a good thing

 

adds?... I mean really, the boss is a one tank fight anyway. Adds are the priority of the other tank. Problem is adds are actually worse then the boss as far as outgoing damage goes on NiM as they attack randomly if not taunted.

 

thats what makes

 

 

 

so hilarious

 

Nah it's more challenging because sorcs get hit for 35k without a bubble on the second grenade which is almost always random.

Edited July 18, 2013 by mastirkal

[Kitru]

Nah it's more challenging because sorcs get hit for 35k without a bubble on the second grenade which is almost always random.

 

Force Barrier much? Only way a Sage should be worrying is if they get picked twice in a row. I'd be more worried about it dropping on a Shadow since their only recourse is Deflection, which means they've got a 50/50 chance of getting massive damage dumped right on their head.

[mastirkal]

Force Barrier much? Only way a Sage should be worrying is if they get picked twice in a row. I'd be more worried about it dropping on a Shadow since their only recourse is Deflection, which means they've got a 50/50 chance of getting massive damage dumped right on their head.

 

Even if they get picked twice, a bubble will get them through with 10-20% health and they can pop unnatural preservation. It's not usually a problem. They just need a quick heal before LoM start going out, but this is true for almost all dps.

 

I take every single one of the huge missiles as a sin tank and I'll get hit for 20-60% of my total HP based on cooldowns and/or exotech adrenals. It's doesn't hurt that much.

 

Wouldn't know for sin dps, I'm the only sin in our sixteen man team and I have higher DR and Overcharged saber.

 

Also deflection doesn't do anything. Maybe because of it being an AoE move instead of direct weapon damage.

Edited July 18, 2013 by mastirkal

[KeyboardNinja]

Force Barrier much? Only way a Sage should be worrying is if they get picked twice in a row. I'd be more worried about it dropping on a Shadow since their only recourse is Deflection, which means they've got a 50/50 chance of getting massive damage dumped right on their head.

 

It's not as bad as all that, actually. I'm not sure if Bioware fixed this because of our whining, or maybe they just discovered that shadows were dropping like flies on the PTS, but in any case…

 

In Nightmare Mode, an unshielded Huge Grenade hits a shadow tank for about 31k. However, that 31k is divided into 7 separate hits. This ameliorates the RNG factor tremendously. The odds of getting full damage are about ((1 - 0.27)(1 - 0.5))^7 = 0.086% And, since the full damage level is only 31k, it's actually survivable even in the case where RNG destroys you.

 

Now, that doesn't change the fact that Guardians can completely cheese this mechanic (at least once every-other grenade) with Blade Turning, and Smugglers can cheese it with Dodge, but it does mean that things aren't as bad as we had initially feared. Deflection is an appropriate way to address the mechanic when you're going into the explosion with low HP, but even just relying on your native shield+defense is likely to produce fairly decent results. Thus, ironically, Huge Grenade is easier to handle in Nightmare Mode than it is in Hard Mode (where it is a single massive hit).

[DarthSpekulatius]

Nah it's more challenging because sorcs get hit for 35k without a bubble on the second grenade which is almost always random.

 

the random grenade is still less challenging if it's weapon damage then if would be force/tech

random/nonrandom doesn't matter for the damage type and that's what his quote was about

Edited July 18, 2013 by DarthSpekulatius

[TheRampage]

So, when shadows were on top of food chain, both pve and pvp game is balanced, now it isnt anymore? Interesting

 

Tbh, I dont care, my main is vanguard, both pve and pvp he is the worst, pvp even more. And I'm not crying over it. You get used to it.

Edited July 18, 2013 by TheRampage

[mastirkal]

Deflection is an appropriate way to address the mechanic when you're going into the explosion with low HP, but even just relying on your native shield+defense is likely to produce fairly decent results. Thus, ironically, Huge Grenade is easier to handle in Nightmare Mode than it is in Hard Mode (where it is a single massive hit).

 

You got deflection to work with huge grenade NiM? It seems to do jack absolutely nothing for me.

[KeyboardNinja]

You got deflection to work with huge grenade NiM? It seems to do jack absolutely nothing for me.

 

Well, defense chance does work (check combat logs), and since deflection increases defense chance, I would assume that it had an effect. I can't rule out pure RNG though.

 

Because of the fact that Huge Grenade hits 7 times, it is highly likely that there will be at least one hit that isn't defended.

[mastirkal]

Well, defense chance does work (check combat logs), and since deflection increases defense chance, I would assume that it had an effect. I can't rule out pure RNG though.

 

Because of the fact that Huge Grenade hits 7 times, it is highly likely that there will be at least one hit that isn't defended.

 

Might also be that if one hits you, you don't have any defensive chances as the grenade does stun and knock you down. Though it still feels like I'm basically using nothing when the grenade hits for the attempts I tried to use it.

 

Or could be that the grenade knocks you down and then applies damage to you, thus putting your defense to 0% anyway.

Edited July 18, 2013 by mastirkal

[Kitru]

Or could be that the grenade knocks you down and then applies damage to you, thus putting your defense to 0% anyway.

 

Knockdown and stun mechanics don't reduce your defenses in any way and never have (no controlling effects do). Unless each attack of Huge Grenade applies a debuff if/when it hits that reduces your Defense, you would have your entire Defense for the entire thing (though it's also possible that it's got higher than average accuracy).

Edited July 18, 2013 by Kitru

[Myrielh]

Well, defense chance does work (check combat logs), and since deflection increases defense chance, I would assume that it had an effect. I can't rule out pure RNG though.

 

Because of the fact that Huge Grenade hits 7 times, it is highly likely that there will be at least one hit that isn't defended.

 

Did you verify that it works during the actual fight? Because, same as Mastrikal, deflection didn't seem to decrease damage taken at all. I went to help another group with my scoundrel today, and dodge had no visible effect either. Our guardian tank also says blade turning isn't working.

 

What does work extremely well is riot gas. Whenever it's applied, grenades hit for almost nothing.