Shadow Top Three Answers

[MythicalKnight]

We agree that Shadow/Assassin tanks require less healing from outside sources over the entire course of an encounter and that they also take the most spike damage from certain high-damage attacks. We have verified both of these points mathematically and in practice, and we will be making changes to Shadow/Assassin tanks. These changes are currently slated to come in the 2.5 update and are, of course, subject to change. But we will walk you through the changes as they currently stand and explain the reasoning behind the changes.

 

Assassin

General

• Dark Charge no longer heals the Assassin, but now increases armor rating by 130% (up from 115%) and deals additional threat when it damages an enemy target.
  

 

Darkness

• 3 stacks of Harnessed Darkness no longer cause the Assassin to be healed when Force Lightning deals damage. Instead, it grants Dark Protection, which increases damage reduction by 1%. Dark Protection stacks up to 4 times and lasts 18 seconds.
  
• Swelling Shadows has been redesigned: It now increases the armor rating Dark Charge grants by an additional 20/40%.
  

 

 

As one of the few from Beyond assassin tanks I welcome these changes to armor rating to reduce spikiness as that was the most serious problem about our mitigation. However, I take issue with the reasoning behind such changes:

 

As you can see, we have removed a large portion of the Shadow/Assassin tank’s ability to self-heal and replaced it with damage mitigation – this is on purpose. We did this because a self-healing tank diminishes the role of actual healing classes in group situations.

 

I mean, really?? You take away the self healing on assassin tanks so that healers would feel more appreciated?? Believe me, I MORE than appreciate my healers for healing my spikey *** through TfB NiM. That said, in TfB NiM, self heals are practialy nothing compared to what the healers output and I find this reasoning behind the changes absolutely asinine. I'm at a loss for words to describe.... this. Don't get me wrong, I like the changes on paper; no real rotation changes, getting 3 stacks of HD is still going to be as easy as it always is, major armor buffs and all. But the reason for it.... just blows my mind.....

[Malaka_Blue]

A better solution would have to get rid of the combat technique self heals and add an extra 5% (or so) armor mitigation, while keeping the harnessed shadow heal. Problem solved, without destroying what makes the shadow unique and fun.

 

Well they are doing pretty close to what you asked. That extra 55% armor and 4% defense is an Estimated Damage Reduction increase of 5.244% over the current patch 2.4 setup. The part that you and *some* people are upset about is the loss of self healing. With a full Kell Dragon set up and optimal raid encounter a Shadow Tank could self heal for

422.29Hps=(3279.44/11.5+6148.95/120+360.11/5.25+360.11*3/120)*(1+.02)

and now it is

52.27Hps=(6148.95/120)*(1+.02)

 

Here is the visual comparison of heals require before and after 2.5 as currently planned.

 

http://i.imgur.com/kUnKi5l.png

 

But what you would be asking for is a flat out 5% increase to mitigation and the least effective self heal to be removed would actually have us taking 1987.72 damage taken/s with 343.14 Hps for a healing requirement of 1551.88. Your way would require nearly 300 less hps from our healers and taken nearly the same damage taken/s. I can see why that would be OP to some people.

[SleepyKing]

But what you would be asking for is a flat out 5% increase to mitigation and the least effective self heal to be removed would actually have us taking 1987.72 damage taken/s with 343.14 Hps for a healing requirement of 1551.88. Your way would require nearly 300 less hps from our healers and taken nearly the same damage taken/s. I can see why that would be OP to some people.

 

Obviously they would have to balance the numbers properly (the 5% figure was just thrown out there as an example). They could also reduce the efficacy of kinetic ward, for example, while buffing armor defense, which takes away the RNG factor in nightmare content while maintaining mean mitigation. The point is they could have worked with the numbers, rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater!

 

Ultimately, I don't doubt that the changes will increase shadow survivability in nightmare operations, but for me it means that shadows will be less fun, and fun is the reason I have stuck with my shadow as my main tank rather than use my guardian, even in HM and NiM ops. It will certainly be less fun for solo content as I mentioned

[Banza]

Here is the visual comparison of heals require before and after 2.5 as currently planned.

 

http://i.imgur.com/kUnKi5l.png

 

I'm not really good with numbers but doesn't this mean that with 2.5 we will be less spiky, but still more squishy then other tanks and require even more heals?

 

Thats great.

[senatorkn]

Well atleast some changes for tank ^_^ Madness still gonna be Sadness BUT now with uncleanseble dots (which still gonna be removed by many abilities) ... my days ... plz more buffs for Deception, forget about Madness! You playin gimped version of Madness Sorc? Who cares ... You are squishiest guy in game? Who cares ... You are happy to get 6k hit in wzs and not gettin it mostly? Who cares... Bcz soon your dots will not be cleanse by few abilities !!! So relax and hf

[Malaka_Blue]

I'm not really good with numbers but doesn't this mean that with 2.5 we will be less spiky, but still more squishy then other tanks and require even more heals?

 

Thats great.

 

Yeah but that damage taken per second doesn't include the 4% defense from the new Harnessed Shadows effect. I'm too lazy to redo it and upload a new image but the damage taken per second would come in around 1898.. Still not a huge change.

[Stavroz]

I don't like getting rid of almost every aspect of self-healing but I'll take it if it means I won't risk getting one-shot in 16 HM or put way too much pressure on healers in 8 NiM.

 

HOWEVER, what is the plan for Battle Readiness? It used to give us 100% Combat Technique procs for the duration but since Combat Technique is about to change to mean mitigation, shouldn't Battle Readiness add armor rating or damage reduction for the duration? Seems only logical.

 

R we playing the same class???

Battle readiness already is a 25% DMg reduction ability

 

As one of the few from Beyond assassin tanks I welcome these changes to armor rating to reduce spikiness as that was the most serious problem about our mitigation. However, I take issue with the reasoning behind such changes:

 

 

 

I mean, really?? You take away the self healing on assassin tanks so that healers would feel more appreciated?? Believe me, I MORE than appreciate my healers for healing my spikey *** through TfB NiM. That said, in TfB NiM, self heals are practialy nothing compared to what the healers output and I find this reasoning behind the changes absolutely asinine. I'm at a loss for words to describe.... this. Don't get me wrong, I like the changes on paper; no real rotation changes, getting 3 stacks of HD is still going to be as easy as it always is, major armor buffs and all. But the reason for it.... just blows my mind.....

 

This is what's wrong with a lot of posters they give us the buffs we have been asking for and ppl are still not happy.

I think some ppl just like to complain for the sake of complaining

[thejollygreenone]

We feel that, with Potent Shadows/Electric Ambush, Infiltration/Deception already has pretty good control over its burst. So we would prefer to give Infiltration/Deception more reliable sustain, rather than even more control over its burst. The damage increases for Shadow Strike/Maul and Clairvoyant Strike/Voltaic Slash mentioned in the answer to the previous question are already a step in this direction.

 

For the most part, the Low Slash -> Shadow Strike/Maul combo is not meant to be used rotationally in PvE – especially when a companion or another player is tanking for the Shadow/Assassin. We may consider increasing the chance to trigger Infiltration Tactics/Duplicity, but it might come at the cost of increasing the rate limit a bit. After the damage increases arrive in 2.5, we will keep our eye on Shadow/Assassin damage dealers to see if they need additional help to make them desirable group members for top-tier PvE content. If so, we will continue to improve them until they become viable contributors.

 

i'm glad so much thought has been put into the answers, but i'd like to point out a few things about the third question/answer that i disagree with or would like to clarify on.

 

concerning infiltrations control over its burst: i believe you (the dev team) misunderstood KBN's intent in bringing that up, i will clarify. KBN said that outside of our 90 second burst cooldown window we have no control over our burst. the response was that with potent shadows we have plenty of control over our burst. this is where things get mixed up, the 90 second burst cooldown window that KBN mentioned IS potent shadows, alongside battle readiness.

 

so, that statement made by the devs needs a little revising, because basically they answered "we have no control out of our 90 second burst window..." with "you have enough control with that 90 second window that you just said wasn't adequate." does anyone else find this a little off-putting?

 

next, i'd have to disagree with a lot that was said about low slash. low slash isn't supposed to be used rotationally in pve, that's understandable. however what is overlooked is the fact that low slash is virtually not used AT ALL, let alone rotationally. so while i can agree low slash wasn't intended to be used every time it's available, it should at least be an option to use to correct when infiltration tactics refuses to proc by itself.

 

lastly, i'd like to say that i'm a little concerned with the changes being purely a "throw increased damage at it" change. infiltration tactics being changed is a step in the right direction, but not the only % based mechanic for infiltration that needs to be looked at. the natural building of breaching shadows (e.g. outside project) is atrocious, i've had many occasions where project is the ONLY source of breaching shadows for over 20 seconds.

 

my point being that infiltration tactics has 30% proc chance and THAT's too low, shadow technique being 25% and is relied upon heavily is detrimental to the consistency of the spec. infiltration tactics and shadow technique are our two highest damage output abilities, and are both heavily afflicted by unfortunate RNG. if it's been recognized that infiltration tactics is too low at 30%, then shadow technique certainly is too low at 25%. this is the real problem with the normal dps output of infiltration.

 

furthermore, being a spec that deals damage in the opposite fashion of DoT, (every ability does only upfront or immediate damage) generally leads to downtime on bosses being incredibly crippling, and we are very ill-prepared to minimize that downtime. having no 30m damage ability (like saber throw), AND having a gap closer that doesn't have damage attached to it (force speed), causes us to further be punished for downtime on the boss and further adds an aspect of unreliability.

 

i guess my point to all this:

tldr; i'm a little skeptical that the way infiltration is to be changed is actually approaching the problems the class has. to play devil's advocate, the changes to "increase damage to voltaic slash and shadow strike" is a sign that it's not known by either community or dev team what the actual problem with infiltration is or how to fix it. while im glad some initiative is being taken, i think it's being approached the wrong way, and that the problems infiltration faces will still be painfully apparent after 2.5 drops.

 

hell, what do i know though? this is all speculative.

[THoK-Zeus]

Yeah but that damage taken per second doesn't include the 4% defense from the new Harnessed Shadows effect. I'm too lazy to redo it and upload a new image but the damage taken per second would come in around 1898.. Still not a huge change.

 

I don't know where to start. First awall damage taken numbers from your image are completely wrong (i don't know where you got them the average damage in tfb nim is about 500 dps lower, the previous value comparisions are 100% incorrect (just compare your values to dipstik, kbn...)...

 

Then 55% Armor + 4% dmg reduction (not 4% defense...) is 14,08 % dmg reduction (10,8% from additional 1709 armor (using dipstiks armor calculations) and 4% from 4% dmg reduction) and not your number. This (atleast with my calculations) is about/ a little less the number of self-healing a shadow is getting.

 

All in all this change shouldn't change much for 8 man content and its a very huge (and needed) buff for 16 man Content. But in the end it will (if my calculations aren't wrong) make sin tanks op.

 

With these changes sin tanks will have the lowest damage on average, (no spike damage), 5% healing buff.... and it completly changes the difference between all the tank classes. The exclusiveness of good self-healing was an integral part of playing a shadow and i will miss it.

 

On the other hand my tank will then be by far the best tank for 16 man operations (lowest damage and a 5% healing buff to atleast 4 healers!!).

[toyfanatic]

I am not as well versed on metrics or models as KBN but here are my thoughts. My overall reaction is enraged. Not be completely because of the removal of the self healing mechanic but because I feel we as (shadows ) are getting the short end of the stick again.

So they remove our self healing: Well our whole tanking metric was based on it. What now? Because our cooldowns offered us either temporary invulnerabilty or increased healing. Will battle readiness not give us a a instant heal anymore? Will they be fair and remove the self healing abilities from from vanguard and guardian? So that there is no self healing with any tank class? Many new questions arise from this reply from the Devs. The thing is what made us unique is now going to be taken completely from us. I admit I can't see why any one will play a shadow tank anymore after these changes. There will be no reason, we don't have heavy armor and with no self heals the increased temporary DR will be minimal in our survivability . Unless they expect us to stealth out to avoid from dying.

I should have seen this coming , we know the shadow has had more reworks than several other classes. It should have been seen as obvious. 2.0 came out and our new ability was not as cool as everyone else. Or how at 1.3 with the nerfing of armor rating and self heals several shadows quit being tanks. Now when 2.0 came out we got some of our self healing back, but lost a additional 20% in armor rating. And to see we loose all self healing is a big blow too me. Ironic that they put a self healing perk for shoulder rocket in the vanguard tree.

 

Balance: love it or hate it , it was our best tree for the longest time. Due to some of the changes in perks at 2.0 I think all DPS shadows went to infiltration. There is no excitement in balance but it was nice having few ranged attacks as a melee class. And the usefulness in raiding was so superior to sage in balance tree. I agree with the thoughts that it needs a bit of a buff to make it a better burst spec.

 

Infiltration: was truly given more thought than balance at its inception but still has less burst. It isn't sustained burst due to force requirements. Not to mention the old fact we were married to wa tching for skills to proc. I still think making spinning strike spammable due to a proc like dispatch is a better idea. Or have given infiltration not tanking the frontal backstab perk.

A Shadow is my prefferd toon. I really enjoyed being a tank and now with these current proposed changes to my favorite class. I personally think I am out. I can't see my self continuing to resub. I have played a shadow since beta and think that because of this recent idea I will leave SWTOR too. Good luck to all who stay.

 

A fellow Shadowtank

[Laforet]

Decent and well thought awnsers.

[AAAAzrael]

For me the tank answers mean that my unique class is going from slightly broken in the top end contenct to same as other tanks, but with not as good cooldowns. Also it makes no sense at all on the lore level - why robes on shadow give suddenly more armor???? I haven't played this game since beta like some, but I spent lots of hours in this game and even though I no have ALT's it was all around my shadow tank and progressing in this game as a tank. I don't know what will yet happen but if those changes go live as proposed I might go Kitru's way. I'd rather things stayed the way it was and I needed to find a group that accepts healers having harder task and myself needing faster reflexes on medpack/cooldown then removing uniqueness of the class. The issues that exist can be resolved without doing this and many such solutions were proposed here. I really urge combat team to rethink this.

[DaftVaduhhh]

Regarding new tanking stats, people who are using figures like 274% or 9 seconds to build 4 stacks for TK throw, please stop rushing to conclusion before fully grasping what was offered up.

 

It's gone from a 215% armor multiplier to 270% (which takes it to about 8000 in 69 gear) plus the 4% DR increase from the new TK ability, which comes from 3 stacks of Harnessed Shadows; TK throw ticks 4 times (thank you the clarification on this BW as I was given the impression it would take a while to build, and given the new information I would highly recommend lowering the buff duration).

 

Given that info, the changes in 69 gear are about 7-7.5% DR, and I'm going to assume that the 4% affects all damage types, not just those associated with armour.

 

Factor in the change to Phase Walk and you're looking mean damage taken roughly equally to mean healing received. So the skill elements become Phase Walk placement, Resilience usage (new animations help with this), and Kinetic Ward plus TK throw buff maintenance.

 

It's ironic how the suggestions I made in this thread, mainly the increase damage to VS and Less Heals for more mitigation is now actually being considered. Yet I received so much backlash for it. Thanks for the answers.

How many people who provided their own ideas had a go at the concepts? I personally had a problem with the level of some of the suggested utility and how far it all went.

 

The concepts themselves were solid, and not dissimilar to my own. If you're going to listen to every voice in the crowd, you will drive yourself mad. I get the instinct to be inclusive but at some point you need to back yourself and stop watching the scoreboard.

 

Not happy about SS/Maul getting a buff though; you can guarantee that they're going to haul that in very quickly after hearing people cry repeatedly.

[MythicalKnight]

This is what's wrong with a lot of posters they give us the buffs we have been asking for and ppl are still not happy.

I think some ppl just like to complain for the sake of complaining

 

I'm happy for the buffs, I'm not happy for the REASONS for the buffs. BioWare should have said, "We took away self heals and gave damage reduction instead because assassins are way too spikey." NOT "because healers are feeling under appreciated and under valued."

 

But that would mean that they admit that they screwed up class balance, Force forbid that....

[DarthSylar]

R we playing the same class???

Battle readiness already is a 25% DMg reduction ability

 

"Readies yourself with the Force, immediately restoring 15% of your max health, increasing the damage and healing dealt by all Techniques by 100%, and increasing the chance to trigger their effects by 35%. Lasts 15 seconds."

 

The Sith Inquisitor version is overload saber.

 

With the changes to Combat Technique, Shadows would get the 15% health, and that's it, since Combat Technique no longer heals or damages.

[Berjiz]

Did some quick calculations to see how much the incoming damage has to be for the 2.5 changes to equal healing needed with the current values. I used the defense, shield, absorb and amor values from my tank. It's in mostly optimized 72 with some 78 and 75. I am not sure if I have done everything correctly. Used dipsticks numbers for damage ratios and formula for post armour migation. I ignored kinetic bulwark completly.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhBlKb7ccqV0dENjenlmeHVSaS1yN216b0l3ajIzVlE#gid=0

 

What I got is that if the incoming damage is higher than about 6778 the 2.5 changes will need less healing.

[Alduinsm]

"Readies yourself with the Force, immediately restoring 15% of your max health, increasing the damage and healing dealt by all Techniques by 100%, and increasing the chance to trigger their effects by 35%. Lasts 15 seconds."

 

The Sith Inquisitor version is overload saber.

 

With the changes to Combat Technique, Shadows would get the 15% health, and that's it, since Combat Technique no longer heals or damages.

 

Do people not read the skill info they put points in the skill tree anymore?

Impact Control: ncreases your shield absorption by [2 / 4]%. In addition, when you activate Battle Readiness while Combat Technique is active, damage reduction is increased by [12.5 / 25]% for the duration.

 

http://www.torhead.com/ability/acdJj4U/impact-control

[DarthSylar]

Do people not read the skill info they put points in the skill tree anymore?

Impact Control: ncreases your shield absorption by [2 / 4]%. In addition, when you activate Battle Readiness while Combat Technique is active, damage reduction is increased by [12.5 / 25]% for the duration.

 

http://www.torhead.com/ability/acdJj4U/impact-control

 

I don't play a tank, and I'm an Inquisitor, so unless I have the skill tree in front of me, I get mixed up translating sith -> republic sometimes.

 

Even with that being said, the original question was regarding battle readiness the ability, not with the skill. For tanks, battle readiness use to give 15% healing and add a 35% proc chance with double the healing. With the proc being gone, the ability isn't as usefull

[DarthSylar]

double post

[Grumpftard]

For me the tank answers mean that my unique class is going from slightly broken in the top end content to same as other tanks, but with not as good cooldowns.

 

I'm seeing a lot of posts like this. I don't see how this kills the uniqueness. Unlike the other tanks, it is still a form of ACTIVE mitgation that we in essence still control. I can't even begin to count how many times I've gone to use TKT/FL and been interrupted by a knock back or stun. The 4% is not a guaranteed buff if you don't get a chance to stop and cast. Things like this will still have an impact on keeping the buffs up.(just as it did when trying to heal yourself) The way the class is played should not change. It's just instead of getting healed we just take less damage for doing the exact same thing we've always done. Personally I really like the new design, and after tanking DF HM tonight, I think it will fit in nicely to the scheme of things. The Dev's comments about doing it this way to help the healers....meh...after seeing some of the new content tonight, I can kinda see it.

[TheHarvester]

I'm happy for the buffs, I'm not happy for the REASONS for the buffs. BioWare should have said, "We took away self heals and gave damage reduction instead because assassins are way too spikey." NOT "because healers are feeling under appreciated and under valued."

 

But that would mean that they admit that they screwed up class balance, Force forbid that....

 

Really? Did you even read the dev response?

 

We agree that Shadow/Assassin tanks require less healing from outside sources over the entire course of an encounter and that they also take the most spike damage from certain high-damage attacks.

 

As a rule, tanks should take less damage than non-tanks, and while that was true for the Shadow/Assassin tank, it was not true to the extent that it should have been. If it were true to the extent that it should have been, then Shadow/Assassin tanks would not have taken an unreasonable amount of spike damage. A large portion of a Shadow/Assassin tank’s survivability came from their ability to self-heal. This actually made them considerably better than other tanks when spike damage was not present, and considerably worse when it was. If we had simply increased their ability to mitigate spike damage without reducing their overall survivability, they would have been light-years ahead of the other two tanks in the game, so in the end, their self-healing needed to go.

 

 

Read properly before you start your QQ. They very clearly state that they agree that Shadows aren't balanced. Their rationale for the mitigation buff at the expense of self-healing is very explicitly stated. And their comments about reducing healer effectiveness are also valid. Maybe stop and think for a minute.

 

But that would take away your opportunity to ***** at BW. Force forbid that...

[Doulo]

My favorite ops moment was when I was the last man standing on Titan at about 75k health to go. Everyone was encouraging me and cheering that my health was actually INCREASING as I fought the boss. I got him down to 9k before I died. But I felt very good with the level of skill that I demonstrated and the hope that I engendered in my team that we would triumph as I gained back lost health was enlivening.

 

Having thought through these changes for Kinetic Combat, it is clear that a moment like that will not happen again. However, I don't see self-healing as our unique niche. It was prominent, but what makes shadows good is the skill to survive. The changes for 2.5 don't appear to alter that concept very much. In fact, I think that it will likely increase the skill cap slightly. While this will narrow the gap considerably between poor and great shadows, I think that the skilled players will still outpace the poor shadows very noticeably.

 

Our survivability will still be very much skill based and using the correct cd's, maintaining DR stacks, and now 100% uptime on shadow's shelter are going to be significant factors that will sift the field.

 

It is a significant change, but we have been asking for a change for months now. The devs have listened, which was a complete shock to me, and are trying to maintain the skill threshold while eliminating the massive spikes. And doing this in a way that addresses both PVE and PVP concerns. I am excited to try this out and see how much of a difference it will make. I certainly won't be able to demoralize my enemies by having my health increase while they are channeling force lightning, but the fact that I won't have huge drops in health is going to make me a bear to kill.

[AAAAzrael]

I'm seeing a lot of posts like this. I don't see how this kills the uniqueness. Unlike the other tanks, it is still a form of ACTIVE mitgation that we in essence still control. I can't even begin to count how many times I've gone to use TKT/FL and been interrupted by a knock back or stun. The 4% is not a guaranteed buff if you don't get a chance to stop and cast. Things like this will still have an impact on keeping the buffs up.(just as it did when trying to heal yourself) The way the class is played should not change. It's just instead of getting healed we just take less damage for doing the exact same thing we've always done. Personally I really like the new design, and after tanking DF HM tonight, I think it will fit in nicely to the scheme of things. The Dev's comments about doing it this way to help the healers....meh...after seeing some of the new content tonight, I can kinda see it.

 

Where do I start...

 

1. We were only tanks that could actually do solo content pretty efficiently. If I have to do any solo stuff like story question my guardian I'm sick.

2. We handled all kinds of situations when there was no heals incoming for extended period of time in operations best eg. healer down, healer busy with some other crisis.

3. Didn't really need healing after tank swaps - when of tanking could heal ourselves. Eg. on TWH after Jelous male was dead healers could heal me to like 70-80% and leave it as I would heal myself.

4. The whole theme that Jedi consulars are healers (we heal others in storyline a few times even though we can't in-game) was preserved by tank and one of DPS trees having self-heals.

5. I don't agree on the skill requirement. As we function now it's extremely vital to time TkT very carefully not to get interrupted, sometimes it's super tricky. One of the things I was most proud off was when I managed to time TkT and force potency on NiM Dreadguards in such a way that I can get whole channel during lightning field on Heirad. Such things won't matter that much as it won't matter any more if you are full health or not when you channel it only if you manage to do it within the time window.

6. Someone mentioned extreme solo-ing like Titan-6 ad this was one the most 'heroic' things I have done in a computer game. Me and my co-tank (also a shadow then) DPSing HM Titan-6 for over 1 minute after everyone else died was incredible....

7. They increase the gap by which old L50 adrenal is better for shadow tanks. It already gives far more benefit to shadows but it will be even more. There is no justification for such imbalance.

 

 

This is yet another case of heavy-handed complete change instead of small incremental balancing. I think in all the 'shadow spikiness' threads almost everyone accepted the fact that shadows should be spikier then other tanks, because of the efficiency and utility they brought the issue was only to eliminate some insta-death situations that couldn't be helped by both tank-player and healers. Instead of fix we got our class's philosophy destroyed and now our robes for some reason provide incredible amounts of armour???

[Stavroz]

"Readies yourself with the Force, immediately restoring 15% of your max health, increasing the damage and healing dealt by all Techniques by 100%, and increasing the chance to trigger their effects by 35%. Lasts 15 seconds."

 

The Sith Inquisitor version is overload saber.

 

With the changes to Combat Technique, Shadows would get the 15% health, and that's it, since Combat Technique no longer heals or damages.

 

In the tank tree impact control additionally gives Battle readiness a 25%dmg reduction.

[DarthSpekulatius]

I like the Kinetic changes completely removing the selfheals is a bit much at once but I'm fine with it, more then fine.

about the people worried over loosing uniqueness I wouldn't worry we only loose the green numbers popping up the rest stays unchanged. Except that now our only permanently "active" Mitigation is:

Force Breach = 5% def shared

Slow Time = 5%DR shared

TKT = 4% DR self only

Kinetic ward = 20% Shield Chance + the Absorb proc

(correct me if i missed something)

so we are now less punished for an interrupted TKT in terms of our own mitigation but it'll still be the optimal rotation to maximize the TKT activations.

our Cooldowns stay mostly the same except for the small BR nerf, and an improvement to the Armor adrenal

we are still the most spiky tank class

only our ability to tank trivial incoming damage completly without Heals is removed, now healers will have to throw us a kolto cloud / hot once in a while uhuuu sky is falling.

 

There are a few things that already piss me off on behalf of my shadow in the new OP (we can't jump to interrupt and have a longer CD on our Interrupt then the other two tanks to name just one but that will have to be DD business I guess)

and most of what I've seen so far is just tank unfriendly in general and it could be worse. *shrug*

seriously I'm satisfied with the kinetic part lets wait for the PTS to criticize it.

 

to the second question :/

by default uncleanseable Dots are great for the numbersgame in PVP and worthless for PVE and they are "AOE"

I'm not a PVPer but I see two possibilities either it'll be like Smash just in completely uncounterable or almost worthless.

have us do something for the DOTs to be uncleanseable like direct damage attacks grant a debuff to the target that makes dots uncleanseable for the next 9sec.

no mention of force lift.

no mention of survivability concerns.

no mention of phase walk

 

even though the answers were delayed there was no mention of the two bugs that got pointed out to them in the bonus issues (at least get them on the known issues list with a mention that it could stay that way for some time, damnit the aimed shot animation Bug just got onto the list what's wrong with them?)

 

I won't comment on the infiltration part except that to me as an outsider it sounds like they again aimed very carefully at the issue only to shoot the Tree 3m next to it, that tree might fall on the issue and might well solve it.

I find their approach to solving Problems interesting.

 

and last: Double strike gets its damage increased I'm shouting Hosanna...

 

*/e goes and gets a cup of tea for the wait time.*

let them do their job and then come back here once we see more then rough figures.