NERF : Guardian Tanks

[ArchangelLBC]

Resilience/shroud is far superior to saber reflect in every way. The devs have stated that it is the most powerful ability in the game and in the right hands they are very ever so right. Not only does it work on all force and tech attacks, it cleanses and has a lower cool down compared to saber reflect. Since saber reflect only works on "ranged single target attacks" there is no comparison. Off the top of my head I can easily think of numerous boss fights that shroud cheeses mechanics and saber reflect does not because the attack is an aoe or melee attack. Just to name a few...torborro's cast, kephess' jump, dread guards lighting cast, sunder's the end, thrasher's swipes, titan 6 HM huge grenade, Xeno's tolerance (prevents stacks)...etc. What is the big deal about saber reflect? It is mainly a threat mechanic and can not cheese big hits like shroud can.

 

Methinks you don't actually play a jugg. The only thing it doesn't reflect are melee hits and aoe damage. This does make it not as useful on some fights but incredibly useful on other fights, including on fights where resilience does nothing. Terminate is a pretty prime example, byt there are definitely others.

 

Additionally, as far as I can see, Saber reflect doesn't respect the magical 5% hit chance and so isn't prone to failure like resilience is.

[Dragonexadon]

Methinks you don't actually play a jugg. The only thing it doesn't reflect are melee hits and aoe damage. This does make it not as useful on some fights but incredibly useful on other fights, including on fights where resilience does nothing. Terminate is a pretty prime example, byt there are definitely others.

 

Additionally, as far as I can see, Saber reflect doesn't respect the magical 5% hit chance and so isn't prone to failure like resilience is.

 

Correct. Also Saber reflects tool tip is miss-leading. Or what we understand as melee. Saber reflect does not reflect white damage. For example a normal light-saber strike.

 

It will however reflect attacks that, even if they appear to be melee, have any force or tech damage. As an example on TFB first boss you will find that you can reflect the majority of attacks the tentacle performs. Despite them appearing to be "melee" in nature.

 

Edit: in short, saber reflect is freaking amazing.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Dragonexadon

[LoRdTyRANTz]

I don't play my shadow as often, but I believe they are both on a 60 second cool-down.

 

Shadow skill tree has an ability called elusiveness which lowers the cd of resilience. In fact all of shadow cd's are lower than guardians which makes shadow cd's superior.

[LoRdTyRANTz]

Methinks you don't actually play a jugg. The only thing it doesn't reflect are melee hits and aoe damage. This does make it not as useful on some fights but incredibly useful on other fights, including on fights where resilience does nothing. Terminate is a pretty prime example, byt there are definitely others.

 

Additionally, as far as I can see, Saber reflect doesn't respect the magical 5% hit chance and so isn't prone to failure like resilience is.

 

Yep I don not play a jugg much because my sin is better. Maybe it's just my play style. I have however played both tanks on the bosses I mentioned which shroud appears to be effective and saber ward does nothing. I see one boss that you mentioned where saber ward is far superior. However, since it's a cast and there is next to no damage following the cast, every properly geared sin tank with a good healer should be able to tank this boss without a tank swap.

[Berjiz]

Resilience/shroud is far superior to saber reflect in every way. The devs have stated that it is the most powerful ability in the game and in the right hands they are very ever so right. Not only does it work on all force and tech attacks, it cleanses and has a lower cool down compared to saber reflect. Since saber reflect only works on "ranged single target attacks" there is no comparison. Off the top of my head I can easily think of numerous boss fights that shroud cheeses mechanics and saber reflect does not because the attack is an aoe or melee attack. Just to name a few...torborro's cast, kephess' jump, dread guards lighting cast, sunder's the end, thrasher's swipes, titan 6 HM huge grenade, Xeno's tolerance (prevents stacks)...etc. What is the big deal about saber reflect? It is mainly a threat mechanic and can not cheese big hits like shroud can.

 

The difference in cooldown is short enough to vary rarely matter. You are also wrong about several of your examples. Titan 6 is weapon dmg in Nim and it doesn't work on Xeno anymore. There are also some cases were saber reflect works while force shroud doesn't like tfb scream.

 

And due to its implemenation it doesn't suffer from the 5% chance bug.

[leto_cleon]

Yes, mean mitigation, which has nothing to do with the current sin/shadow complaints. In fact, to correct the issue, many have suggested reducing sin/shadow mean mitigation so they're no longer king of the hill there.

 

Base mitigation is tricky to talk about due to the self-heal mechanics. PT > Jugg > Sin definitely, but sins have better self-heals than juggs who have better self-heals than PTs. This makes the balance fairly clearly Sin > Jugg > PT in terms of least healing required in HM content, but it skews things a bit in NiM switching to Sin > PT > Jugg on most bosses and PT > Sin > Jugg on some (like Thrasher).

 

So according to KBN,

Base mitigation w/o self heals: Vanguard > Guardian > Shadow

Base mitigation w/ self heals: Shadow > Guardian > Vanguard

 

Less healing required in HM Ops: Shadow > Guardian > Vanguard

Less healing required in NiM Ops: Shadow > Vanguard > Guardian (<6814 DTPS)

Less healing required in NiM Ops: Vanguard > Shadow > Guardian (>6814 DTPS, like Thrasher who is ~7800)

Less healing required in NiM Ops: Vanguard > Guardian > Shadow (>9564 DTPS, no such content, KBN doesn't mention Vanguards for this but I assume Vanguards are still better than Guardians)

 

 

Going back to the OP,

Nerf Guardian Tanks. In the current state of the game, they are a faceroll class where you get a significant advantage compared to other classes, especially Shadow. We have recently cleared SV HM with a 31k guardian duo without bonus set or any optimizations. Guardian cooldowns are too good at the moment and the way Jesse Sky is pushing content to favour them even more is ludicrous..

there are quite a number of areas where the Vanguards and Shadows are better than Guardians. It looks to me that looking at the Shadow-Vanguard balance is much more relevant. Many Shadow tanks don't understand Guardian tanking (and the issues we faced). Guardian tanks are not a "faceroll" class. If we were we would have the best cooldowns, have the highest mean mitigation, require the least healing and have the least trouble with spike damage. This simply isn't the case.

 

"NERF Guardians" doesn't make sense. Guardian tanking (and even Guardian tanking issues) according to Shadows is more often than not skewed.

[Marb]

Kephees could on shot any tank back in the day if taunt swaps were not done correctly.

 

I don't mean touch of the masters, I mean the lizzard lord himself personally evaporating dark ward stacks in two swings and laughing in his nightmare inducing voice as he proceeded to butcher the assassin through his light armor and lolselfheals. Was resolved by kiting a little bit when cooldowns were not up, but it was still hilarious that juggs and pts could pretty much face tank him with good heals.

 

I remember other raid groups with 2 sins having issues progressing on that fight, they worked around it in the end, but It was a lot simpler with a Jugg/PT co tank.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Marb

[LoRdTyRANTz]

The difference in cooldown is short enough to vary rarely matter. You are also wrong about several of your examples. Titan 6 is weapon dmg in Nim and it doesn't work on Xeno anymore. There are also some cases were saber reflect works while force shroud doesn't like tfb scream.

 

And due to its implemenation it doesn't suffer from the 5% chance bug.

 

I missed the part where I said Nim titan 6. Also, shroud does work on xeno. I know this because I just tanked him the last month when the event was active. So I now see 2 situations where saber reflect is better compared to my 5. hmmm The point is saber reflect will will never catch up to shroud. You could name 3 or 4 more fights where saber reflect is better and then I would name 10 more where shroud kicks it to the curb.

[Dragonexadon]

I don't mean touch of the masters, I mean the lizzard lord himself personally evaporating dark ward stacks in two swings and laughing in his nightmare inducing voice as he proceeded to butcher the assassin through his light armor and lolselfheals. Was resolved by kiting a little bit when cooldowns were not up, but it was still hilarious that juggs and pts could pretty much face tank him with good heals.

 

I remember other raid groups with 2 sins having issues progressing on that fight, they worked around it in the end, but It was a lot simpler with a Jugg/PT co tank.

 

I don't have the numbers to back it up but I clearly do not remember it this way. We cleared EC HM , back when there was no nightmare level 50, with a shadow and myself several times. Again at this point it is just he said she said...but we never had a problem with our Shadow tank on EC. Not any problem that other tanks were not experiencing.. This was also 8 man though. Not sure about 16 man as we never tried it.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Dragonexadon

[Berjiz]

I missed the part where I said Nim titan 6. Also, shroud does work on xeno. I know this because I just tanked him the last month when the event was active. So I now see 2 situations where saber reflect is better compared to my 5. hmmm The point is saber reflect will will never catch up to shroud. You could name 3 or 4 more fights where saber reflect is better and then I would name 10 more where shroud kicks it to the curb.

You won't take dmg from the laser but you get the stacks. Phase walk is what you want to use on xeno.

[wadecounty]

Yep.

 

I still wonder if they are going to nerf specific bosses though instead of direct class adjustments. Bioware seems to be in lust with their TTK models for tanks. This convinces me that tank survivability was so well balanced before 2.0 due to inflated gear stats and conservative boss damage. The exception being Nightmare Kephess the assassin killer.

 

Looks like you called it, 2.3.1 patch notes, they nerfed Terminate.

 

Updated the Operations Chief's "Terminate" ability to make the damage dealt through player shields more consistent.

[LoRdTyRANTz]

You won't take dmg from the laser but you get the stacks. Phase walk is what you want to use on xeno.

 

This is true for saber reflect however shroud will prevent stacks and damage. The only exception is the 5% hit chance given to all bosses.

[IronmanSS]

This is true for saber reflect however shroud will prevent stacks and damage. The only exception is the 5% hit chance given to all bosses.

 

Negative, it was changed recently to go thru Shroud to prevent Sin cheese. No more "resist", you take damage and stacks thru it. However, you can use PW to break the channel, LOS, or cloak out and taunt back to carry on just as before.

Edited August 21, 2013 by IronmanSS

[Ugolino]

Nerf Guardian Tanks.

 

Go juggle thermal detonators.

[ArchangelLBC]

Yep I don not play a jugg much because my sin is better. Maybe it's just my play style. I have however played both tanks on the bosses I mentioned which shroud appears to be effective and saber ward does nothing. I see one boss that you mentioned where saber ward is far superior. However, since it's a cast and there is next to no damage following the cast, every properly geared sin tank with a good healer should be able to tank this boss without a tank swap.

 

Let me know how that works for you in NiM when you don't have a cooldown up. The example was just that, an example. Not an exhaustive list.

 

Also as mentioned, any ST force/tech damage also gets reflected, which is a great boon in MANY fights (which is also why your The End example is inaccurate since I believe reflect works there).

 

You may like your sin more, but equally geared your guardian would be the better tank.

 

Also, seriously, WTH BW with that 5% Resil bug?

[Marb]

I don't have the numbers to back it up but I clearly do not remember it this way. We cleared EC HM , back when there was no nightmare level 50, with a shadow and myself several times. Again at this point it is just he said she said...but we never had a problem with our Shadow tank on EC. Not any problem that other tanks were not experiencing.. This was also 8 man though. Not sure about 16 man as we never tried it.

 

Definitely a thing in nightmare mode. For us it was evident in 8man so I can just assume it was worse in 16 but I can't say for sure.

 

And the nerf to terminate is just hilarious, behold the solution to all assassin tanks problems! That's right, it was just this one boss ability in the entire game, nothing else! We're fine--we're all fine here now. Thank you. How are you?

[Dragonexadon]

Definitely a thing in nightmare mode. For us it was evident in 8man so I can just assume it was worse in 16 but I can't say for sure.

 

Ah, my experience was back when it was level 50 HM and that was the hardest. took a break after that

[AAAAzrael]

Negative, it was changed recently to go thru Shroud to prevent Sin cheese. No more "resist", you take damage and stacks thru it. However, you can use PW to break the channel, LOS, or cloak out and taunt back to carry on just as before.

 

I tanked this 4 times over the 2 weeks it was available as L55 on my shadow, my guardian wasn't geared for HM yet and done only SM twice. On my shadow I managed to resillience, stealth, blackout, re-taunt either without any stacks/ or 1 stack (I was slow the first time we did it). The secret is I think to stealth out while ressielience is active so you don't get pulled back into combat. I think I could single tank it if DPS were really efficent on the adds.

[Berjiz]

I tanked this 4 times over the 2 weeks it was available as L55 on my shadow, my guardian wasn't geared for HM yet and done only SM twice. On my shadow I managed to resillience, stealth, blackout, re-taunt either without any stacks/ or 1 stack (I was slow the first time we did it). The secret is I think to stealth out while ressielience is active so you don't get pulled back into combat. I think I could single tank it if DPS were really efficent on the adds.

That worked due to cloak, not ressilience. There were lots of posts about this stuff during the gree event and I saw no one who claimed that resillience worked. I also tried it, didn't work and switched to los with phase walk.

[AAAAzrael]

If resilience wouldn't work you would be still in combat after force cloak.

 

Anyway that thing is easy. I feel bad for vanguard tanks in this fight as they more often then anything else just die.

[Berjiz]

If resilience wouldn't work you would be still in combat after force cloak.

 

Anyway that thing is easy. I feel bad for vanguard tanks in this fight as they more often then anything else just die.

I don't think so, dots brings you out not debuffs.

[AAAAzrael]

Well, why LOS tricks then if you can simply stealth out?

[LoRdTyRANTz]

If resilience wouldn't work you would be still in combat after force cloak.

 

Anyway that thing is easy. I feel bad for vanguard tanks in this fight as they more often then anything else just die.

 

Yea resilience works fine preventing stacks and damage. I do not know who trolled that it doesn't. You would likely see a patch note change for something like this just like we saw for titan 6 Nim. However, there was none. The only exception is that each stacks has a 1/20 chance to hit every sec. Regardless sin is still the best tank of the 3, in the right hands and gear. However, they are also the hardest to play and thus have a larger margin of error. Juggs are the worse tank of the 3 but the easiest to play. All in all the 3 tank classes are fairly balanced and the shadow/sin community is fussing because they are not overpowered. It's called balance, get use to it.

[MillionsKNives]

Yea resilience works fine preventing stacks and damage. I do not know who trolled that it doesn't. You would likely see a patch note change for something like this just like we saw for titan 6 Nim. However, there was none. The only exception is that each stacks has a 1/20 chance to hit every sec. Regardless sin is still the best tank of the 3, in the right hands and gear. However, they are also the hardest to play and thus have a larger margin of error. Juggs are the worse tank of the 3 but the easiest to play. All in all the 3 tank classes are fairly balanced and the shadow/sin community is fussing because they are not overpowered. It's called balance, get use to it.

 

You're kidding right?

[ArchangelLBC]

Yea resilience works fine preventing stacks and damage. I do not know who trolled that it doesn't. You would likely see a patch note change for something like this just like we saw for titan 6 Nim. However, there was none. The only exception is that each stacks has a 1/20 chance to hit every sec. Regardless sin is still the best tank of the 3, in the right hands and gear. However, they are also the hardest to play and thus have a larger margin of error. Juggs are the worse tank of the 3 but the easiest to play. All in all the 3 tank classes are fairly balanced and the shadow/sin community is fussing because they are not overpowered. It's called balance, get use to it.

 

As if the name wasn't a dead give away, I smell a troll.