3 Questions for PT. Lets DO IT!

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

Every class in every spec has the same issue. You don't have your best move until you are at the top of the tree. PT tank is no different....

 

But what i was thinking about is that Heat Screens are the PT's main defence (along with Heat Blast, but that's our top tier ability and it's staying there.) talent along with our dozens of passive defence talents. and while looking at the other 2 tanks, Sin and Jugg they get their main defencive abilities, Harnessed Darkness, Dark Ward, Dark Bulwark etc. and Blade Barricade, Sonic Barrier, Revenge, and Invincible, for Sin and Jugg respectively, relatively early. Harnessed Darkness is at ~35, Dark Ward is at level ~20, and Dark Bulwark is level ~30. For Juggernauts, Blade Barricade is ~20, Sonic Barrier is ~25, Revenge is ~25, and Invincible is ~20, I know that Crushing Blow is a great defencive ability, but it's not the turning point of the spec as it were.

 

Meanwhile PT's are stuck with Heat Screens at ~40, Hydraulic Shield at ~25, Shield Vents at ~20 and Guard Cannon at 51 (yes i count Guard Cannon as a defencive ability). Sure PT's have high raw Shield and Absorb, but still, we need our stuff like Heat Screen, our pivital ability at ~30 or ~35. mainly because Sins and Juggs have their main abilities like that, in the ~20 to ~35 range, we only have 2, Hydraulic Shield, and Shield Vents, and those arent even procs that buff our actual defencive capabilities! they just make us vent heat when we shield, and have a chance to reset the CD of Rocket Punch.

 

I'm not saying to move Heat Screen down to say ~20, but atleast move it from Tier 7 to Tier 6 and stick an ability like say something that makes Heat Screen increase something else inbetween Heat Screen and Heat Blast. Like say Shield % by 1% per Screen and maybe increase each Screen's Absorb to 2% per Screen? It isnt anything major, at 3 Screens you would have 6% Absorb and 3% Shield boost, which isnt too much to sniff at, but at the same time is helpful.

 

As for Deflective Plating, this talent kinda makes my head spin... Because none of the Procs for the VG/PT tank require defending an attack. So, why is this talent here? Is it just a troll talent that isnt useful for anything but to be filler? or is Defence actually helpful for VG/PT Tanks?

 

The same could be said for the Coolant talent, the 2% HP per second outside of the 35% range when you have KO/AR up is perfectly fine, not needed if you have good healers, but perfectly fine! It's the 5% Alacrity from EF/BF that has me spinning... Alacrity isnt nessisarily counterproductive to the VG/PT Tank, but it isnt relitively helpful either... I can think of atleast one class other than Knight/Warrior that Alacrity doesnt help, but that's off topic... What IS on topic though is, why does Coolant grant 5% alacrity with EF/BF? Is it another case of the Biotrolls? or is it something that is just pure filler? I rarely take the Coolant talent not because of the 5% alacrity, but because i prefer Jet Speed or Firestorm over it, Firestorm for PvP, and Jet Speed for PvE, trust me that 30% Movespeed in combat is oh so helpful, and when you realize that every time you get hit it refreshes, it's even more useful. It's like having Sprint, in combat.

 

As for Taunts, I keep running into mobs and bosses that even after a good taunt, even using BOTH taunts on it, it just refuses to keep aggro on me, i never run into this issue on my Sin Tank, and didnt have the problem with my Guardian when I played him as a tank. Is it an issue with PT/VG Taunts? Or is it an underlying issue with PT/VG Threat Gen? Or is it just bad playing? If it's bad playing, then I guess I need to play better!

 

In the end TL;DR for this wall of text, Some of the talents for VG/PT Tanks, seem out of place, and could be reworked to be better.

[EricMusco]

Hey folks!

 

Thank you for getting all of this together. I will pass these on to the Combat team now.

 

-eric

[Ottoattack]

Thanks Koozie for preparing the questions

[KeyboardNinja]

These are great questions, Koozie. Well chosen, well phrased and succinct.

[AAntan]

Thanks a lot for stepping up with the questions Koozie, a really good job.

[Luckeyduckey]

Looking forward to the answers. Again, thanks for stepping up Kooz.

[VarekRayth]

Thanks Koozie! you da man!

[davidmoffitt]

When i play my 55 Vanguard Tank in PvP i feel darn near invincible, but my damage output is pitiful. same with my level 40 Powertech Tank.

 

That's how I feel, PvPing with my PT (unranked, I kind of suck, ok no I really suck). I can survive forever, but barely plink away at anyone. I feel it's made me play as a "harasser" tank in WZs just trying to distract, annoy, direct, control - but while I do lack that "extra" cc/mez, I don't think that would fix PT tanking.

 

I do feel we're due for some adjustment in PvE (for DPS _and_ Tank roles). As stated, there's been nearly nothing changed since 2.0 and we're far behind DPS wise. Tanking wise, the defense-hurting-shield chance thing is frustrating, we have to gear SO differently (don't get me started about the damage type / numerical differences between HM or NiM DF and DP - I feel like I need two gear sets for the different ops).

[Brunner_Venda]

That's how I feel, PvPing with my PT (unranked, I kind of suck, ok no I really suck). I can survive forever, but barely plink away at anyone. I feel it's made me play as a "harasser" tank in WZs just trying to distract, annoy, direct, control - but while I do lack that "extra" cc/mez, I don't think that would fix PT tanking.

 

I do feel we're due for some adjustment in PvE (for DPS _and_ Tank roles). As stated, there's been nearly nothing changed since 2.0 and we're far behind DPS wise. Tanking wise, the defense-hurting-shield chance thing is frustrating, we have to gear SO differently (don't get me started about the damage type / numerical differences between HM or NiM DF and DP - I feel like I need two gear sets for the different ops).

 

The job of a tank has always been to intercept damage for the team before it lands.

 

If you had DPS damage on top of that, it would be insane.

 

I think our question is geared toward changing the spec so that tanks can do that job on par with juggs and sins.

[DarthBuckets]

As a PT tank in PVE and PVP, I am really appreciative of questions #2 and #3. Thanks!

[ScytheEleven]

high-five koozie

[TACeMossie]

Good job Koozie on getting these together for us!

 

As a PT tank in PVE and PVP, I am really appreciative of questions #2 and #3. Thanks!

 

dont tell anyone but I rewrote question 3 so that we could be certain that the devs were made aware of the alacrity problem on pyros as well

[Kooziejr]

NP guys! Hope the questions get some fair responses.

 

I think question 1 also addresses the previous damage nerfs to RB and IM for pvp players allbeit in a roundabout way. I hope these questions encompass what the majority of people wanted.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Kooziejr

[Vid-szhite]

In Pyro, this is the Prototype Particle Accelerator talent, which has a 6 second cooldown that is thrown off by the 2% alacrity gained in the Rapid Venting talent, which makes it proc less often than intended and throwing off DPS

 

Is this verified? I'm not noticing this at all. If I Railshot, then use 3 Flame Bursts right on GCD, I almost always seem to proc it on the third, and I have 2/2 in that talent. That's exactly the same number of GCDs it took before.

[TACeMossie]

Is this verified? I'm not noticing this at all. If I Railshot, then use 3 Flame Bursts right on GCD, I almost always seem to proc it on the third, and I have 2/2 in that talent. That's exactly the same number of GCDs it took before.

 

I tested this by putting 7 quick savant enhancement 28s in some crap gear I had lying around and hitting a dummy (I average 250 ping) and the GCDs stopped lining up, and it became 5gcds per proc instead of 4. I happily grab the talent normally though cause of my australian internet giving me enough lag to avoid problems with the talent though

 

Why did I do that? To test if alacrity could be actually useful on pyro (and to be honest I was hoping it would reduce normal cooldowns, which it doesn't). My conclusion is you need about 2450 alacrity (23% with boost) before it starts being of any benefit at all, and the loss from aim (augments), accuracy and surge to get that mean its definately a bad idea. Especially considering max alacrity in the next gear tier is 1468

Edited March 18, 2014 by TACeMossie

[Kooziejr]

Is this verified? I'm not noticing this at all. If I Railshot, then use 3 Flame Bursts right on GCD, I almost always seem to proc it on the third, and I have 2/2 in that talent. That's exactly the same number of GCDs it took before.

 

Verified from multiple posters asking the question. I personally did not check it - this question got put up >10 times so that is the question we posted.

[Vid-szhite]

I tested this by putting 7 quick savant enhancement 28s in some crap gear I had lying around and hitting a dummy (I average 250 ping) and the GCDs stopped lining up, and it became 5gcds per proc instead of 4. I happily grab the talent normally though cause of my australian internet giving me enough lag to avoid problems with the talent though

 

Why did I do that? To test if alacrity could be actually useful on pyro (and to be honest I was hoping it would reduce normal cooldowns, which it doesn't). My conclusion is you need about 2450 alacrity (23% with boost) before it starts being of any benefit at all, and the loss from aim (augments), accuracy and surge to get that mean its definately a bad idea. Especially considering max alacrity in the next gear tier is 1468

 

Yeah, but I'm talking about this talent alone. It doesn't seem to screw anything up.

[TACeMossie]

Yeah, but I'm talking about this talent alone. It doesn't seem to screw anything up.

 

This depends on a number of things. Another thing I noticed was despite the GCD being 1.5 seconds and my ability queue being set at 1 second, it took until 5% alacrity before I was actually hitting the GCDs due to my latency. Now if my latency was much smaller (e.g. 50 ping, like I used to have on Dalborra) then it was much closer to 1% alacrity for the GCDs to screw up. Which is why alacrity is screwing with people who have stable internet, as well as any future taking of alacrity for pyro PTs

[Vid-szhite]

This depends on a number of things. Another thing I noticed was despite the GCD being 1.5 seconds and my ability queue being set at 1 second, it took until 5% alacrity before I was actually hitting the GCDs due to my latency. Now if my latency was much smaller (e.g. 50 ping, like I used to have on Dalborra) then it was much closer to 1% alacrity for the GCDs to screw up. Which is why alacrity is screwing with people who have stable internet, as well as any future taking of alacrity for pyro PTs

 

That would make sense. I am a west coast player on an east coast server.

[davidmoffitt]

The job of a tank has always been to intercept damage for the team before it lands.

 

If you had DPS damage on top of that, it would be insane.

 

I think our question is geared toward changing the spec so that tanks can do that job on par with juggs and sins.

 

I think my post was slightly mis-understood, I'm not looking to put out 2.5K DPS while in tank stance, nothing even close, but I do feel that my PT puts out inadequate damage compared to other tank classes in PVP. This could very well be me "doing it wrong" but I've heard others complain of the same, that they feel invincible but can't hit a thing to save their lives. Sorry if it came across as otherwise, I think these 3 questions are fantastic and cannot wait for the answers (and hopefully some tweaks to the class - I'd love to learn to DPS on a PT/VG but had held off given how lackluster it was).

[Brunner_Venda]

I tested this by putting 7 quick savant enhancement 28s in some crap gear I had lying around and hitting a dummy (I average 250 ping) and the GCDs stopped lining up, and it became 5gcds per proc instead of 4. I happily grab the talent normally though cause of my australian internet giving me enough lag to avoid problems with the talent though

 

Why did I do that? To test if alacrity could be actually useful on pyro (and to be honest I was hoping it would reduce normal cooldowns, which it doesn't). My conclusion is you need about 2450 alacrity (23% with boost) before it starts being of any benefit at all, and the loss from aim (augments), accuracy and surge to get that mean its definately a bad idea. Especially considering max alacrity in the next gear tier is 1468

 

That sort of makes sense, given that PT isn't a casting class.

 

We have what, three channeled abilities, two of which aren't used in PVP for pyros.

[Luckeyduckey]

That sort of makes sense, given that PT isn't a casting class.

 

We have what, three channeled abilities, two of which aren't used in PVP for pyros.

 

Flamethrower is situational.

[Brunner_Venda]

I think my post was slightly mis-understood, I'm not looking to put out 2.5K DPS while in tank stance, nothing even close, but I do feel that my PT puts out inadequate damage compared to other tank classes in PVP. This could very well be me "doing it wrong" but I've heard others complain of the same, that they feel invincible but can't hit a thing to save their lives. Sorry if it came across as otherwise, I think these 3 questions are fantastic and cannot wait for the answers (and hopefully some tweaks to the class - I'd love to learn to DPS on a PT/VG but had held off given how lackluster it was).

 

Your damage is lower overall, but it should be because most of your damage is elemental type (fire ignores armor, can't be shielded, defended, etc). On top of that, a lot of that fire damage is AOE, since tanks can spam flame sweep, and you get flame engine procs for your flame thrower that let you dump an entire channel in one GCD (I hate when you guys hit me with that by the way, and always when I'm stuck in the oil slick!)

 

How much damage you do also depends on how much power you stack over endurance, so that's a conscious trade off you're making.

[Brunner_Venda]

Flamethrower is situational.

 

Exactly right, it's not a good offensive skill - more of a utility.

 

Last time I used it was to AOE a bunch of people spam capping in VoidStar.

[Luckeyduckey]

Exactly right, it's not a good offensive skill - more of a utility.

 

Last time I used it was to AOE a bunch of people spam capping in VoidStar.

 

It's actually decent for offense. Tie it with Thermal Sensory Override, and you can vent a lot of heat, and do some impressive AoE damage. It's the ability I always use TSO with, as you vent 10 heat over the duration, and it's pretty costly already. But yeah, also a decent utility ability for stopping caps.