Dark Protection - Please allow for reapplication regardless of resists

[Solar_Breeze]

It is very frustrating to be doing everything you can to maintain the stacks fine only to be thwarted by random resists. Unfortunately this is happening quite often - or perhaps I have been especially unlucky. I can't really remember but I thought the healing was always applied regardless of a resist?

[THoK-Zeus]

Healing was always applied, yes.

 

Resisted stacks just really play a role when you lose your stacks during the fight, so that's quite unimportant most of the times for operations. Even for pvp the 6% resist chance of a 1% damage reduction stack is not that much.

 

The only Boss it plays a role is Calphayus in the last Phase when he's invulernable. But there it's the same as powertechs heat blast i guess.

[Solar_Breeze]

You don't even need to tank Calphayus (last phase) until just before you place the first yellow circle but that's not really the point.

 

Its more just in general, if you have built it up and then save the lighting until you need to channel (just before stacks drop) then your first tick is resisted it sucks or if you have no stacks and are trying to build them.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Solar_Breeze

[THoK-Zeus]

You don't even need to tank Calphayus (last phase) until just before you place the first yellow circle but that's not really the point.

 

Phsst

 

Its more just in general, if you have built it up and then save the lighting until you need to channel (just before stacks drop) then your first tick is resisted it sucks or if you have no stacks and are trying to build them.

 

I wouldn't save the lightning until you need to channel. Use it when you have 3 stacks of HD, probably 1 gcd filler in my opinion.

Edited December 8, 2013 by THoK-Zeus

[Solar_Breeze]

The point is previously this wasn't the case. Regardless of what happened if you got the full cast of lightning off you received the full benefit. Now its random luck how many stacks you end up with after your lightning.

 

Whilst it will generally work out the class shouldn't be punished when it doesn't.

 

Also the waiting until it is needed to cast it is an example. Others where it would be a pain if a tick was resisted would include:

1) a phase change (depends on the fight)

2) an interrupt (includes knockback)

3) mob death

 

 

Edit - have seen the replies, I can't reply until weekend too busy with work for a write up

Edited December 11, 2013 by Solar_Breeze

[THoK-Zeus]

The point is previously this wasn't the case. Regardless of what happened if you got the full cast of lightning off you received the full benefit. Now its random luck how many stacks you end up with after your lightning.

 

Whilst it will generally work out the class shouldn't be punished when it doesn't.

 

Also the waiting until it is needed to cast it is an example. Others would include:

1) a phase change (depends on the fight)

2) an interrupt (includes knockback)

3) mob death

 

Previously it didn't make sense to cast Force Lightning when you were at full health (Obviously you had to cast it at some point). You just received the full benefit if Force Lightning actually healed you for over 3k. Now you don't receive the benefit if your stacks run out and you reapply them and you get resists (6% chance for each tick).

 

It's not random luck. If you refresh your stacks in time you will always have 4 stacks regardless of what you do. Using the most efficent rotation the whole fight is way more simple then using self healing correctly.

 

For Phase changes and longer downtimes we still have the possibilty of vanish. If it's good or not, previously we didnt have that. Also you can save 3 stacks Force Lightning for the next phase. If you apply Force Lightning without the stacks the following things may happen:

 

(actually i am not 100% sure if the resist Chance is 6% from 100% or 6% from 110%, if somebody knows that and possibly corrects me, that would be very nice, the following calculations are for 6 to 94% so values might improve)

 

0 stacks: 0,00126%

1 stack: 0,0812%

2 stacks: 1,91%

3 stacks: 19,93%

4 stacks: 78,07%

 

So on average a reapplied Force Lightning will generate 3,74% damage reduction.

 

It seems Bioware wanted to keep a part of that Problem, so that good rotation = more mitigation of damage.

 

Edit:

I add a short comparision between 2.4 and 2.5 for Transition phases:

2.4:

• No stacks of HD when you got into the Transition Phase -> 9 seconds until you can start with your first self heal, so 100% value after 12 seconds

 

• 3 stacks of HD when you get into the Transition Phase -> 100% value after the first two gcd (+ FL), so after 4,5-6 seconds (i assume the healers healed you up between the phases, cause thats normally the case for transistion Phase otherwise there would be Mobs you can attack (normally))

 

2.5:

• Vanish -> instant 100% value after 0 seconds

 

• 3 stacks of HD when you get into the Transition Phase -> 94% value after 3 seconds for 9-12 seconds

 

• 0 stacks of HD when you get into the Transition Phase -> 94% value after 12 seconds for 9-12 seconds

 

I don't really know a proper translation from time into value (i don't think there is one ), but i think 2.5 is roughly equal to 2.4 here.

 

Don't get me wrong, i think it would be very nice if they change it, but previously self healing had more flaws in my opinion.

Edited December 9, 2013 by THoK-Zeus

[KeyboardNinja]

Thok: defense and accuracy are considered additively and then the hit chance is rolled on the result. Resist is the same. So, it is 6% + 10% vs 110%, which is 94%. So, your math is correct.

[Ilith]

It's not random luck. If you refresh your stacks in time you will always have 4 stacks regardless of what you do.

 

I agree that self healing was worse than the current system, but telling people to "refresh in time" is as ridiculous as H2F... and for some of the same reasons, come to think of it.

 

1) In PVP, it just doesn't work.

2) In PVE, you now have almost zero margin of error for anything that happens in a fight. Need to react to a situation, someone dies or pulls threat, add spawns, whatever: you are SOL. And the situation goes from bad to worse at the worst possible time. Which of the other tanks suffer from this? I agree that played perfectly under perfect conditions, sin tanks are slightly better than juggs and still worse than PTs. But even when you play perfectly you don't always get perfect conditions. And that means less mitigation while still being spikier, with a merciless rotation that a lot of people have agreed isn't very fun.

[Gardimuer]

Previously it didn't make sense to cast Force Lightning when you were at full health (Obviously you had to cast it at some point). You just received the full benefit if Force Lightning actually healed you for over 3k. Now you don't receive the benefit if your stacks run out and you reapply them and you get resists (6% chance for each tick).

 

It's not random luck. If you refresh your stacks in time you will always have 4 stacks regardless of what you do. Using the most efficent rotation the whole fight is way more simple then using self healing correctly.

 

For Phase changes and longer downtimes we still have the possibilty of vanish. If it's good or not, previously we didnt have that. Also you can save 3 stacks Force Lightning for the next phase. If you apply Force Lightning without the stacks the following things may happen:

 

The "random luck" comes into play when a boss knocks you back while you are doing your rotation and you lose the 4 stacks before you can refresh with Force Lightning. ( This happens all the time unless you have the luck of the gods and know how to time every knockback perfectly.) Then when you finally get the chance to channel Force Lightning again you only get 2-3 stacks because some were resisted. So you quickly go through your whole rotation again and it's time to channel Force Lightning... but then you have to reposition, or there is a phase change, or you get interrupted for other reasons, etc. rinse and repeat.

 

So yes, Assassins are clearly skill based tanks, even more so than before, because now not only do you have to know your rotation, you also have to have a perfect grasp of the timer on a boss's knockback/phase change if you want to keep your stacks up for any significant portion of the fight.

 

As for using Force Shroud, maybe that is a good idea. Currently I am hesitant to do that when it could cause others in the group to take huge amounts of damage in the single instant that I lose agro. I also have the habit of saving stealth just so I can res a healer if the group happens to wipe.

 

Aside from that, I disagree with your statement that Force Lightning should be used only when the stacks are about to expire. Force Lightning with 3 stacks of Harnessed Darkness is actually one of the highest threat per second moves of an Assassin tank, so you're missing out on a lot of threat if you wait to use it.

Edited December 14, 2013 by Gardimuer

[THoK-Zeus]

The "random luck" comes into play when a boss knocks you back while you are doing your rotation and you lose the 4 stacks before you can refresh with Force Lightning. ( This happens all the time unless you have the luck of the gods and know how to time every knockback perfectly.) Then when you finally get the chance to channel Force Lightning again you only get 2-3 stacks because some were resisted. So you quickly go through your whole rotation again and it's time to channel Force Lightning... but then you have to reposition, or there is a phase change, or you get interrupted for other reasons, etc. rinse and repeat.

That was even more the case when we had self healing. It was way worse if you were interrupted during the cast bevor 2.5. Now you just need to get 1 single tick of force lightning up, to refresh your stacks, that's a huge improvement.

The scenario you describe was the same with self healing before, but no one seemed to bothered that they were not able to get every Force Lightning with a full 3 second channel every 12 seconds on the boss.

 

I have provided the maths about resistance. You get 94% of the value on average back.

If there are so many knockbacks on the tank that a normal Force Lightning Rotation is not possible at all (styrak, brontes last Phase), then a normal Force Lightning healing Rotation wasn't possible at all aswell.

 

Then the 2.5 changes are essentially reduced to +35% armor.

 

So yes, Assassins are clearly skill based tanks, even more so than before, because now not only do you have to know your rotation, you also have to have a perfect grasp of the timer on a boss's knockback/phase change if you want to keep your stacks up for any significant portion of the fight.

Actually we are less skilled based now. Simpler rotation, a visible timer for Force Lightning, a way easier way to get optimal mitigation, etc...

 

 

As for using Force Shroud, maybe that is a good idea. Currently I am hesitant to do that when it could cause others in the group to take huge amounts of damage in the single instant that I lose agro. I also have the habit of saving stealth just so I can res a healer if the group happens to wipe.

 

Aside from that, I disagree with your statement that Force Lightning should be used only when the stacks are about to expire. Force Lightning with 3 stacks of Harnessed Darkness is actually one of the highest threat per second moves of an Assassin tank, so you're missing out on a lot of threat if you wait to use it.

 

I think you mean vanish. You can instantly vanish + retaunt. Then you won't really lose aggro + you have the 4 stacks. Sometimes i did that before to refresh my medpac.

 

For the last part i don't know to which of my posts you are excactly refering to.

 

I guess you mean when i said that you should use a single global cooldown for something else for example discharge (after you got your 3rd stack of HD with shock), so that you can instantly use shock after you channeled your whole Force Lightning.

 

This "trick" won't delay your force lightnings at all (cause you will cast your next shock at the same time as with the other rotation), but it will give you more breathing room for your stacks, cause you can instantly apply 2 stacks of HD straight after you did cast Force Lightning. You will still cast excactly the same amounts of Force Lightnings with that "trick".

 

I am certainly not saying that you should wait for your Force Lightning and a tight force lightning Rotation is best for an assassin tank.

[Gardimuer]

Yes, I meant Force Cloak instead of Force Shroud. -headdesk- Sorry about that and for my other mistake regarding waiting to channel FL.

 

There are some specific situations when losing agro at the wrong moment, even if the tank taunts back immediately, could cause the group to take more damage. For instance, on the fight with Tyrans where losing agro, even for a second, causes him to teleport to a different square and he might immediately channel Thundering Blast which would prevent the tank from getting him back until he has finished. Or on the Styrak fight losing agro for a moment on the Kelldragon might cause it to drop the green spit pool under the DPS/healers... But then again, those fights both have tank swaps at the times when the main tank would be out of melee range and possibly need to Force Cloak for stacks, so it's not an issue.

 

I'd definitely like to see examples of Assassin tanks using Force Cloak to get the stacks in a fight, and which cases where it could actually be a reliable choice considering its cooldown timer.