drfirewater Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 I don't know how many of you have been attempting NiM raids or new raids on HM using your assassin tanks but for a long time they where the best tank and now they are not even viable for a large population of well geared players. Our raid group has been doing NiM TFB and new content on HM and have basically stopped using assassin tanks in guild runs quite some time ago because they take too much damage in comparison to other tank types. This is what puts Jugs and Powertechs above them (currently use one of each dispite the fact that our jug is more experienced as a tank on his assassin). The question is HOW do we improve upon the Assassin tank without OVERPOWERING it making it by far the best again but still making a tank a tank so it can do its job in an equal standing to its competitors. Right now the biggest difference is damage reduction. Assassin tanks buffs are focused entirely on Absorb which would give you the impression that they should be able to take a hit .. but truth be told they can't. Because there damage reduction is so much lower due to light armor vs heavy armor when they DO take a hit its twice as hard as any other tank making it twice as hard to heal them as any other tank which in raids developed to have high damage output like HM and NiM raids is a death sentence for the entire party. So the question is how do you battle this? If you change there armor type to heavy and give them same damage reduction will that do it? prolly not enough but it would be a step in the right direction. The rotation for an assassin tank used to be its saving grace ... self heals that acted like a buffer to the fact that they take more damage but that was nerfed so now it no longer is an effective tool for balancing the way it is. I propose this .... 1) Change harnessed darkness into a 4 part tree enhancement .... granting (2% 3% 4% 5%) of health back per tick of force lighting WHEN used during third stack. 2) Increase Dark Wards effects to 35% and to balance change its CD to 25 seconds What these will do is allow assassins to play to there strengths ... light self healing which in conjunction with healer will balance out the difference in Damage reduction and with the increase from 15% to 35% with a 5 second interval between dark ward activations will allow assassin tanks to do what they are designed to do and don't ... which is absorb damage more frequently. So for 5 seconds between dark ward activations (plus time for tank to click which in poor tanks will be longer then in good ones) they will be taking more damage then any other tank .. but will make up for it with a small amount of self healing and when dark ward is active they will be absorbing large amounts of the damage inbound at a round 75% shield chance (which is still a 25% chance to take more damage then any other tank for those who think my plan is OP) to use absorb. I believe these changes will balance out with Jugs ability to reflect damage and the better CDs on both jugs and PTs as well as there drastically better Damage reduction. But I would say that if the math works out too much in favor of assassins i would simply then say lower the CDs on Jug and PT defensive buffs by a few seconds to balance it out. In the long run that will make for better balancing then nerfing Jugs and PTs to balance out assassins. NOW FOR COMMENTERS Please i look forward to long discussions and friendly debate on this topic ... but before you start jumping to saying something is OP .... rather think of how you would balance against it. You think the healing i suggest is too high ... well what would the Jugs or PTs need to balance that out ... show some math or explain how it balances out like i have above. Keep in mind the entire reason assassin tanks are not used these days is because of the high amounts of damage they take which is the opposite of what a tank is suppost to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THoK-Zeus Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 (edited) I am an assassin tank, clearing all nim and hm content. In our raid group it's the Juggernauts which have way more problems with the content. Assassin tank take the lowest damage on average (about ~8% less damage then juggs), but have the highest variance in damage. There are already multiple threads about this topic, including a response from BW with changes for 2.5. Your proposed changes will simply make sin tanks very very Op! Here are references for current migation, spikiness and gearing for all tank classes: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=686677 Edited October 12, 2013 by THoK-Zeus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drfirewater Posted October 12, 2013 Author Share Posted October 12, 2013 I am an assassin tank, clearing all nim and hm content. In our raid group it's the Juggernauts which have way more problems with the content. Assassin tank take the lowest damage on average (about ~8% less damage then juggs), but have the highest variance in damage. There are already multiple threads about this topic, including a response from BW with changes for 2.5. Your proposed changes will simply make sin tanks very very Op! Here are references for current migation, spikiness and gearing for all tank classes: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=686677 went through it briefly and didn't see anything about changes in 2.5 and the numbers are so blanketed that its hard to tell what they say .. but i know from experience that our healers cannot keep the assassin tanks up but they have no problem with jug and PT .... wish i understood that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THoK-Zeus Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 went through it briefly and didn't see anything about changes in 2.5 and the numbers are so blanketed that its hard to tell what they say .. but i know from experience that our healers cannot keep the assassin tanks up but they have no problem with jug and PT .... wish i understood that Changes in 2.5: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6801908#post6801908 I know from experience that our healers don't have problems to keep me up . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drfirewater Posted October 12, 2013 Author Share Posted October 12, 2013 (edited) TY for the link ... It just makes no sense to me the healing end .... we have good enough healers to get us through the content .. so it makes no sense that they cant heal through assassin but can through jug and some how the spike damage assassins take isn't as bad as the permanent damage reduction jugs and PTS get? i hate playing a PT just cause i don't like the play style (have one and have gear for both dps and tanking so stick with dps cause its more fun rotation) ... used to love my assassin but gave up on gearing him after our guilds main tank (who was an assassin) got forced to play his jug because the healers couldn't keep up with the damage he was taking during spikes. (sorc op combo healers .... its possible it would be easier with two op healers to keep assassin tank up ... but sorc heals circle is still kinda needed for us as group damage still happens from time to time in the new raids especially) Edited October 12, 2013 by drfirewater Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THoK-Zeus Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 TY for the link ... It just makes no sense to me the healing end .... we have good enough healers to get us through the content .. so it makes no sense that they cant heal through assassin but can through jug and some how the spike damage assassins take isn't as bad as the permanent damage reduction jugs and PTS get? i hate playing a PT just cause i don't like the play style (have one and have gear for both dps and tanking so stick with dps cause its more fun rotation) ... used to love my assassin but gave up on gearing him after our guilds main tank (who was an assassin) got forced to play his jug because the healers couldn't keep up with the damage he was taking during spikes. (sorc op combo healers .... its possible it would be easier with two op healers to keep assassin tank up ... but sorc heals circle is still kinda needed for us as group damage still happens from time to time in the new raids especially) To be honest with you: I was able to find grave mistakes in every recent log i saw on the forums from assassin tanks claiming they just died because of their class (tank standing in red circle from demolist while tanking thrasher and then claiming he died through a "spike" and stuff like that....) (apart from 16 man nim). I suspects its more a player, then a class issue. There are also guilds who cleared nim content with 2 Shadows. There are some bosses who are harder to tank as a sin tank (raptus, kephess..) and there are bosses who are easier to tank as a sin tank (dread guards, Tyrans....) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmjarec Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 How about just making them worth playing at all. Im sure im not in the only guilds that take sins as a last resort filler for anything. Every class has better dps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsiero Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 They should just make all classes do the exact same thing with no variation. Still won't stop the whinging though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brat-a-tat- Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 How about just making them worth playing at all. Im sure im not in the only guilds that take sins as a last resort filler for anything. Every class has better dps this is a tanking thread fyi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafaman Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 Changes in 2.5: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6801908#post6801908 I know from experience that our healers don't have problems to keep me up . Heh. I'm really looking forward to it. I love my Shadow Tank. I don't have any issues currently. But an increase in the armor rating will even things out. Woooot!!! Further I read an overall increase in damage for the Shadow dps. So... swapping roles and gear will not be an issue anymore making shadows even more versatile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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