Sin Tank Changes in 2.5: What was Bioware thinking?

[Nethershadow]

So if I'm reading this right, then what you are suggesting is to pad the health bar to keep the spikes from killing you and give the healers more time to heal you up. I'm not sure that would actually fix it though. You would still be spiky...you would just take an extra hit maybe two before you die. I would think this would also increase the burden on the healers as well.

Hands down, I do believe we needed the buff to DR and armor. I agree it would have been nice to keep the self healing, but I understand it "might not have been feasible" from a programming or a balancing stand point, and try to keep some optimistic glimmer in the back of my mind that BW didn't just take the easy way out.

Regardless, however, I think the *way* they chose to fix it is acceptable since the amount of mitigation you get is dependent upon the players actions and not just how you stack the stats. It's still "active mitigation" and therefor keeps the uniqueness of the class.

 

Yes. Padding the health i think would be an acceptable way to do it, as well as follow the theme of the class already.

 

One of the threads i was reading but have no link for atm, showed the differences in tanking between the specs with the math for pve. They showed i believe it was about 10% difference in health / mitigation. So the Sin gets hit hard enough that it kills him, but say a Jugg/PT would be left with approx 10% health because of better mitigation. (All tanks are considered balanced out in overall mitigation, and self heals is part of a Sin's mitigation) Now the Sin would make back that 10% thru self heals but the direct damage spike causing death doesn't allow it because your dead.

 

So with a health cd / health buff it would allow the Sin to boost his health and survive at approx 10% but much of it will be lost after cd expires. Healz would still only need to use the same amount of heals they would on a Jugg/PT because you are still alive which allows you to also get your self heals as well. So there would be no added stress to healers at all other than making sure you get some heals before your cd runs out.

 

This isn't the only way they could adjust it, but imo rewriting the class mechanics is a drastic change that reduces the classes uniqueness, theme and playstyle, not to mention we all signed up for Sin from day 1, and self heals was a major part to how Darkness worked. We keep seeing how they over nerf one class and buff everything else always throw balance way out of whack, well they need to start using a better test method and some common sense in making buff / nerfs, as we could have been better balanced prior if they wouldn't have over nerfed us and have used smaller increments to test with until they are satisfied to where things are at. And they shouldn't be buffing and nerfing at the same time (in regards to say tank balance), pick one and increment it until it fits. (Jugg/PT were fair viable tanks got buffed, and Sins were great tanks got heavily nerfed).

 

I'm a programmer and i can't fathom why so many mmo games feel they have to always modify the numbers so much, not to mention nerfing the competition, which gives us huge imbalances and then they are no closer to balance than before. They even have PTR to show them results, but it's like they don't even check the ptr numbers to compare if it meets balance.

 

Homogenization means we might as well just have 3 generic classes called Tank, Healer, DPS.

[Hangslow]

what about this: Instead of getting rid of dark charge's self heal completely, work it into Overcharge saber. Instead of healing for a set amount like it currently does, make a talent that modifies its effect so it has a chance to heal for a percentage of our max health or allows Dark Charge to have the signature self heal. This could be worked into the new Harnessed Darkness changes, making it deep enough into the darkness tree so hybrids can't abuse it in pvp. And if someone elects to not get the talent (hybrids in pvp, for example) then the effect remains the same, healing the assassin for a set amount like it currently does. I think this would still give assassin tanks the unique feel with self heals on a CD without making them overpowered. Thoughts?

[paowee]

I'd rather take a tanky tank than a squishy one that can self-heal which isn't even noticeable in operations. That sustained healing is not worth anything when you get spiked for 90% of your health and then die (NiM Thrasher, NiM WH, HM Tyrans - Full 72 non BiS tank gear).

[Calvin_Mago]

Correct me if I'm wrong. Instead of sitting at 33% damage reduction as a full tank sins will be sporting around 48% damage reduction post patch (with the loss of heals). That's a pretty massive buff anyway you slice it. I kind of agree that they are simply creating the 1.0 situation all over again. Too tanky in pve, too much damage/tankiness in pvp. Regardless, they are clearly listening which is a positive thing.

 

I think darkness only gets 5% DR from more armor, and then 4% more from harness darkness.

[Prototypemind]

Some of the changes definitely suck. One of the enjoyable things about tanking was having interesting mechanics. Still, having aggro established with shock and wither, even aoe aggro for groups sure beats the silliness that is holding aggro with a Jugg. I definitely will continue running my Sin over my Jugg in most situations. Edited October 29, 2013 by Prototypemind

[Lekkarion]

As both a PVP tank (not a PVP Dps in tank stance) and a NiM Raid tank, I think this is going to help a lot for both. I'm not there to rack up damage in PvP, I guard doors/turrets and shield healers, taunt to reduce damage.

 

I'm a tank, I take it for the team in PVP or in Raids.

 

and the RNG of the spikey damage hurts me being a tank. And the RNG makes my self-heals less important. Maybe...maybe it saves me from one bad critical hit. But how is self healing 800+ a tick after I run my rotation counteracting hits of 10k+ on boss fights.

 

When shield works, it works great, when it doesn't work I'm hurting. If it doesn't work 2 times in a row, I'm probably dead.

[OlosBC]

I'm pretty sure my guild's sin tanks are thrilled by the proposed changes.

[RiChess]

These changes are why I'm actually playing my sin again. The self heals in their current form are just a straight up gimmick. Pretty much every boss in the game has KBs/CCs/movement phases that interrupts HDFL constantly, I know I barely used it. Not to mention I have a healer for a reason, why would I want to take more spike damage than any other tank so I can heal myself for ~1 tick of a kolto probe every little bit.

 

These changes are great, and I look forward to making my sin tank my main tank again for content harder than 55hms.

[Maudril]

Finally, people are speaking sense.

 

Selfheals are at this point a gimmick, its a paltry low amount.

 

Also, the magnitude of the armor rating buff is such that the assassin will not lose the health that he would otherwise heal with their gimmicky selfheals. As a matter of fact, the buffed armor rating and DR outweight our current selfheals, so this is a buff in every way possible.

[VoidSpectre]

Why does it have to be full spikey squishiness with self heals or great mitigation with none?

 

 

Why can't Sin tanks have near as good mitigation with some self heals to push it up? Balance it so mitigation+heals=full mitigation or even surpasses it but on an activated basis. Not just be lazy and get rid of heals entirely. Lazy development imo.

 

 

It's always so black and white with everyone. It would be cool if they can shade it a little grey for balance and for class uniqueness and buff DR and keep some self heals.

Edited October 30, 2013 by VoidSpectre

[Lekkarion]

It's not a problem just in SWTOR with self-healing tanks, almost every game that's gone that way has changed it because it doesn't work well.

[Vember]

It's not a problem just in SWTOR with self-healing tanks, almost every game that's gone that way has changed it because it doesn't work well.

 

Shadow Knight. In three different games. Works just fine.

 

The ' paltry self heals gimmick ' is that way by design....BW made them that way. Self healing tanks work just fine, when they're designed correctly, but apparently only Sony is capable of doing it.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Vember

[Prototypemind]

Shadow Knight. In three different games. Works just fine.

 

The ' paltry self heals gimmick ' is that way by design....BW made them that way. Self healing tanks work just fine, when they're designed correctly, but apparently only Sony is capable of doing it.

 

That does nothing for crits that hit for 95% of your total health pool when you have minimal DR. The new spec is much more effective for actually keeping you alive long enough to be healed.

[kirorx]

Did they change the dark ward animation from that weird Holocron thing? Honestly that has stopped me from playing my sin completely

[DarthMilhouse]

I'm looking forward to the changes, the self healing ability is basically useless. +800 hp every second doesn't heal ****. I don't understand why people think the loss of this ability will make the assassin less unique. We still have invisibility, phase walk, force pull, force speed and tank in light armor those are all pretty unique compared to the other tanks.

[Lekkarion]

Shadow Knight. In three different games. Works just fine.

 

The ' paltry self heals gimmick ' is that way by design....BW made them that way. Self healing tanks work just fine, when they're designed correctly, but apparently only Sony is capable of doing it.

 

Only played EQ1, rarely saw SK as main tank on any raids. I quit playing a little while after Planes of Power came out, but most SK's I saw were off-tanks for raids.

 

Additionally, if only Sony got it right, then most self-healing tanks becomes a borked mechanic that is usually broken. It doesn't help enough against the big hits, just like the evasion tanks, if you aren't hit, you're fine, but take a hit and you get killed.

[mastirkal]

I can't really complain. It's almost a 10% DR buff to mitigation with the armor boost 4 set bonus gear and four stacks of harnessing darkness. My sin is still unique enough without the self heals and I like that we'll be considered the rather powerful class once more. I've heard enough **** talk since 2.0 started.

 

I'm happy with the changes. *shrugs*

Edited November 20, 2013 by mastirkal

[-Zaros-]

I like the self heal I really hope they don't get rid of it or I will be pretty tempted to just tank in another class.

[wainot-keel]

I like the self heal I really hope they don't get rid of it or I will be pretty tempted to just tank in another class.

 

Or, likely, sin tanks will become FOTM and you will tempted to keep it....

[Vember]

Or, likely, sin tanks will become FOTM and you will tempted to keep it....

 

I doubt that. Sin tanks will be worse off in pvp with this change. Now, instead of self healing to mitigate yellow damage and auto crits, you'll have nothing but your armor rating, which is lower than the other two tanks, with less defensive cooldown capability than the other two tanks.

[Tamanous]

I doubt that. Sin tanks will be worse off in pvp with this change. Now, instead of self healing to mitigate yellow damage and auto crits, you'll have nothing but your armor rating, which is lower than the other two tanks, with less defensive cooldown capability than the other two tanks.

 

I believe they will be even stronger. The changes increase both armor and total flat damage mitigation. Mitigation always trumps healing. They will be easier to heal from a healer and those heals will have greater affect since incoming damage will be mitigated better.

 

Self-healing ONLY works in solo fighting. When focus fired only mitigation saves you. Guard will also be less of a detriment for the class if the shared damage is better mitigated.

 

I also like self-healing concepts but it sadly doesn't work in a game the emphasizes trinity is all areas including pvp. You do not heal ... your healer heals you.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Tamanous