danielevitt Posted June 21, 2013 Share Posted June 21, 2013 Hello everyone! I just reached level 28, and I am a bit upset. Double xp weekend has started so it shouldn't take too long to level again. I hear we suck at raiding, and we are the worst tanks. People keep telling me this in game, and it kind of hurts. Please would love a suggestion on what class is great for tanking and can dps okay as well if I choose to respec from time to time. Thank you for your help, and for reading this! <3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitru Posted June 21, 2013 Share Posted June 21, 2013 (edited) Please would love a suggestion on what class is great for tanking and can dps okay as well if I choose to respec from time to time. Thank you for your help, and for reading this! <3 Right now, Shadow tanks are substantial liabilities when running end game group content. Keep in mind, I said *right now*. All of the hubbub that we Shadow tanks have been drumming up on the forums, supported by math, simulation, analysis, heuristics, and every other imaginable type of evidence you could come up with, means that it's *hopefully* a temporary condition. Until they hit ~20, they're terrible tanks as well (because we've got next to no DR and rely on def/shield/abs to tank effectively which no tank gets on gear until their mid-30s; Shadows start hitting their stride around 20 because of an awesome ability called Kinetic Ward). In the 20-54 range, Shadows are friggin' *amazing*. As to DPS, Infiltration is decent but not amazing and Balance has some pretty substantial problems. You'll be able to level fine respecing to Infil when you feel like DPSing, but you're not going to be wowing anyone. If you want a completely solid AC from both a DPS and tank standpoint (assuming you're not patient enough to wait under the indeterminate time sometime in the future they *fix* the spikiness issue and maybe buff DPS a bit), you'll want to go Guardian: Defense tanks are the outright *best* at the moment (such that it's pretty easy to argue that they're overpowered) and are also the easiest, Vigilance Guardians have *amazing* DPS, and Focus Guardians can demolish all kinds of stuff in PvP (while also being very easy to play!). Vanguards are excellent tanks, but their DPS specs currently leave more than a bit to be desired. Edited June 21, 2013 by Kitru Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielevitt Posted June 22, 2013 Author Share Posted June 22, 2013 Right now, Shadow tanks are substantial liabilities when running end game group content. Keep in mind, I said *right now*. All of the hubbub that we Shadow tanks have been drumming up on the forums, supported by math, simulation, analysis, heuristics, and every other imaginable type of evidence you could come up with, means that it's *hopefully* a temporary condition. Until they hit ~20, they're terrible tanks as well (because we've got next to no DR and rely on def/shield/abs to tank effectively which no tank gets on gear until their mid-30s; Shadows start hitting their stride around 20 because of an awesome ability called Kinetic Ward). In the 20-54 range, Shadows are friggin' *amazing*. As to DPS, Infiltration is decent but not amazing and Balance has some pretty substantial problems. You'll be able to level fine respecing to Infil when you feel like DPSing, but you're not going to be wowing anyone. If you want a completely solid AC from both a DPS and tank standpoint (assuming you're not patient enough to wait under the indeterminate time sometime in the future they *fix* the spikiness issue and maybe buff DPS a bit), you'll want to go Guardian: Defense tanks are the outright *best* at the moment (such that it's pretty easy to argue that they're overpowered) and are also the easiest, Vigilance Guardians have *amazing* DPS, and Focus Guardians can demolish all kinds of stuff in PvP (while also being very easy to play!). Vanguards are excellent tanks, but their DPS specs currently leave more than a bit to be desired. Thank you for your time, and your wise words. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reno_Tarshil Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 Personally, I've taken it as a personal challenge to play my Shadow Tank, to rise above people in my guild saying they're nerfed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaczuszka Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 well my assassin is quiet bad*** for tanking and has alot of health it just depends on ur tactics,gear,spec and your play style Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitru Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 has alot of health If you stack hp to avoid the pitfalls of RNG doom, you're screwing yourself over. The primary value of Shadows comes in the fact that we have *amazing* mean mitigation. By stacking your hp so high that you can actually avoid spike doom most of the time (it'll still happen if your healers slack off at all), you're dropping your mean mitigation below what a VG or Guardian is going to manage while having *less* spikiness (this is due to the terrible conversion rate between Endurance and Mitigation which reduces your mitigation by a lot more than you're gaining in hp whenever you swap between the two). Basically, if you're a Shadow, you're either taking less damage over time but your spikiness is absurd or you're taking more damage over time and you're *still* spikier (your incoming damage is actually spikier than it was before since your chance to mitigate is lower; it's simply lower from a percentage of total hp standpoint, so you're less likely to get insta-gibbed but you're harder to heal in every way). The playstyle argument isn't even valid because the spike mechanics that wipe out Shadows occur more often than a Shadow will have a CD up for it and, even if you're using Deflection, you *still* have a chance to get wiped out by it because Deflection just increases your Defense chance so bad RNG can still cause a spike hit to chew right through you. Basically, even if you play *perfectly*, you'll still have occasions where your survivability against a spike is dependent entirely upon RNG, which is bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spectreclees Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 Even though a poster said something similar I'll put it in simpler terms. Shadows have tons of mitigation but no real cooldown to lower damage on demand. That is a huge problem with the class, imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadowseve Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 I'm leveling a shadow atm and still enjoy it. I'm also leveling a jugg though and it's a crap load of fun as well. I would still level the toon just to see the story, which unlike others I'm enjoying. So imho level several characters. It's the nature of MMORPG's to have classes go from King to wimp and back through out the life of the game as the devs attempt to balance the classes. It's just part of the experience :-D. Keep that in mind before giving in on the shadow/assassin. There is some incredible theory-crafting going on and I'm sure the dev's will eventually notice it. It just may take a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EFSoupy Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 So there are certain situations where shadows really do shine and others where they fall very flat. A buddy and I have been running my commando healer alt with his shadow tank, we made it to the council fight in Mando Raiders before I had to use anything beyond hammershot (he went below 50% maybe twice) and there have also been fights where I can stop healing him altogether and we're both in mostly Black Market gear. Shadow do really well under certain conditions, under others (serious end game content), they come up fairly short. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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