BW is forcing tanks to use accuracy?

[Darth_Wicked]

Yes it was. Remember the patch that made it so taunts wouldn't miss anymore regardless of accuracy? The time before that patch I certainly remember stacking enough accuracy to make sure taunts would always work.

 

Fairly sure you're the only one who ever did that.

 

I had three LV50 Tanks on the Red Eclipse before 2.0 was released and people would NEED on some Rakata drops, if only for the Enhancement said piece provided, in order to boost their damage mitigation stats and avoid or / discard Accuracy like the Black Death.

[Tsillah]

Fairly sure you're the only one who ever did that.

 

I had three LV50 Tanks on the Red Eclipse before 2.0 was released and people would NEED on some Rakata drops, if only for the Enhancement said piece provided, in order to boost their damage mitigation stats and avoid or / discard Accuracy like the Black Death.

 

I am quite sure I wasn't the only one because I was told to do so by other tanks, also on TRE. But I do remember there being two schools of thought on it as well. I guess it just depended on who you played with.

[Kingsbount]

I am quite sure I wasn't the only one because I was told to do so by other tanks, also on TRE. But I do remember there being two schools of thought on it as well. I guess it just depended on who you played with.

 

This could only depend on tank class.

Becouse im seriously doubt that sin tank would stack accuracy instead of shield or absorb.

[Darth_Wicked]

This could only depend on tank class.

Becouse im seriously doubt that sin tank would stack accuracy instead of shield or absorb.

 

I still see people stacking Fortitude augments so perhaps I missed it... Maybe some obscure Cult-like Guild practiced such obscenity.

Edited June 15, 2014 by Darth_Wicked

[Terro_Fett]

Fairly sure you're the only one who ever did that.

 

I had three LV50 Tanks on the Red Eclipse before 2.0 was released and people would NEED on some Rakata drops, if only for the Enhancement said piece provided, in order to boost their damage mitigation stats and avoid or / discard Accuracy like the Black Death.

Having been a Nightmare tank all through lvl 50 and 55 content (pre-55 Warstalker), a bit of accuracy wasn't terrible at one time. People forget how steep the DR on defensive stats were by the time you were in full aug'd 63s. You could run some accuracy and not really feel it. Kephess specifically was a fight where snap agro was very important and a badly timed "miss" would royally screw your entire attempt.

Edited June 16, 2014 by Terro_Fett

[Tsillah]

This could only depend on tank class.

Becouse im seriously doubt that sin tank would stack accuracy instead of shield or absorb.

 

Well, it's a discussion by itself, but with diminishing returns as they were, there was the simply point of questioning whether or not missing some of your skills made a big enough impact or not.

 

Darth Wicked is being a bit silly here with his idea of stacking endurance augments which is an entire different catergory, but the point is valid that at some point missing some vital interrupts or taunts could also has an effect on how much damage you would receive at that point. Of course it's harder to measure but when a spike kills you because your interrupt failed, you might feel differently about focussing purely on damage mitigation. Even now that taunts do not fail, which of course does make a big difference in the discussion, I am not someone who believes statistics without question marks. Statistics always were and still are dangerous as there are more variables in life that might need consideration.

 

Now, in the current set up I don't stack any accuracy either and though I don't tank a whole lot, I've also not experienced any major issues because of not stacking accuracy.

 

The OP apparently does notice this in his playstyle and then the question becomes, will it be worth for him to trade a little bit of diminished return stat points into a good amount of accuracy? I am not willing to say no just because of a mathematical calculation. If mathematical calculations were 100% reliable there would not be so many product recalls and improved products. The same goes for coding a game as the patches here have proven, unexpected things can happen outside of your calculations.

 

And then there is one more thing. I personally choose to believe that accuracy isn't needed for my juggernaut and sin tanks, but to my great amazement I've cleared SM and HM content with my healer with tanks in the team that have less than ideal stat itemization. Some even that stacked endurance as Darth Wicked mentioned. So how the hell is it possible that those ops groups succeed, even though they are not perfectly itemized?

 

Could it be that even though the calculations themselves have merit, the reality is that itemization in SWTOR isn't quite as essential as people want to believe? I do have to wonder but then again I am not a hardcore player who tries to clear NiM content the day it comes out and I am a healer more than a tank and so far the biggest problems come from tactics issues and not gearing.

[Tsillah]

Having been a Nightmare tank all through lvl 50 and 55 content (pre-55 Warstalker), a bit of accuracy wasn't terrible at one time. People forget how steep the DR on defensive stats were by the time you were in full aug'd 61s. You could run some accuracy and not really feel it. Kephess specifically was a fight where snap agro was very important and a badly timed "miss" would royally screw your entire attempt.

 

Aye, that is exactly what I was talking about. Thanks for that.

[Duskrequim]

I still see people stacking Fortitude augments so perhaps I missed it... Maybe some obscure Cult-like Guild practiced such obscenity.

 

 

I still dont see why people who stack endurance stat get so much slack... If done properlly.. you can use Advanced Weighted Mod 34b and Advanced Vigilant Enhancement 34 and with those and Fortitude Augments you get 15%def and Absorb 39.35% and Shield at 39.24%.... So technically you are not horrible at stats.. You are very close to what most people would want you at. With the higher level 36 versions of the same augments you jump up to 16% defense and same absorb and 40.45% shield... I just wonder.. if doing it this way and having 52k health or 55k if you have the 36's would not be better than having higher shield/absorb but less health...

 

From what I see I would love someone who can get the augments to test it out... go with these augments and see if they are worse then having Aborb/shield stacked for a Vanguard.. and if the 42%shield 43%aborb makes up for loss of 5K in health. From what I see in number crunching the 4% increases to shield and absorb do not seem to be enough of a jump.... but I suck at math and sometimes the number crunching confuses me.

[Subach]

Wait a minute...interrupts can miss?

[Docmal]

Yes it was. Remember the patch that made it so taunts wouldn't miss anymore regardless of accuracy? The time before that patch I certainly remember stacking enough accuracy to make sure taunts would always work.

 

Im done arguing with you because you do not read replies. If you actually read my response you would see that i do remember the patch that made taunts miss. It was in the 2.0 beta. Before 2.0 all force and tech attacks could not miss therefore taunts and interrupts could not miss before 2.0. Stacking accuracy was a worse practice before 2.0 since it only affected white damage. It remains a stupid practice today.

[Sybriah]

you must be a new player.

 

Accuracy was an important stat for tanks till the last level cap raise I guess. Since then, the occasional miss is considered an acceptable loss compared to the gained secondary stats in defence/shield/absorb.

 

.

 

No, no it wasn't.

[Levram]

Here is the developer's response on the matter, from June 11th:

Hey folks!

 

I spoke with the combat team regarding this, and this is working as designed. Accuracy affects anything you attempt to do to a hostile target whether damage is being done or not. The only exceptions to this rule are abilities that taunt, which cannot be resisted per their tooltips.

 

-tait

 

And as far as I've experienced, there are currently only two boss fights in the entire game where a tank missing an interrupt or other ability is an almost guaranteed wipe.

• Nightmare Scum & Villainy - Styrack's Box 'o Death needs to be knocked back or stunned
  
• Nightmare Dread Fortress (with Nightmare Power) - Draxus' Corruptors need their Mass Afflication casts interrupted
  

 

Even with the Draxus encounter, our tanks never were required to interrupt anything. The healer's each had one interrupt they were responsible for in the fight and they each popped an accuracy adrenal beforehand. They never missed.

 

So, to my knowledge, there is one encounter, nightmare Styrak, where tank accuracy is a serious concern. I would hardly consider that to be a major problem with the game.

Edited June 16, 2014 by Levram

[TalantM]

Yeah, tanks, at least in pve, don't need or want accuracy. You want the companion buff, and you can afford to have a point or 2 in an accuracy boosting talent in the tree, but that's it. None on gear, ever. TBH it's the dps job to get interrupts in raids, tanks get it as backup if the dps dies or is late or it isn't ready yet or something, but the dps cycle interrupts to make sure the thing that must be interrupted is interrupted. Inital aggro can be a problem with an unlucky miss or a series of lucky crits on the part of a dps yes, but I haven't had an issue with any consistently and My main is a guardian tank and our threat gen is the lowest of the tanks. Keep in mind that tank stance doubles the threat you generate and then specific moves have multipliers on top of that. In most fights, against a single boss, because of mechanics and such, the dps probably isn't breaking 3k by very much, that means that if you are capable of like 1200 dps (for the record, my vanguard in 162's can do 920) then people pulling off you shouldn't be a huge issue. What actually causes problems is sin tanks pulling off of the other tank before they're supposed to and getting the raid cleaved.

All gear for every class has to be itemised to be best in slot, that's just how the game works. It's similar to how lots of games work actually, but instead of a variable power drop (like in borderlands, where 1 gun can have hundreds of possible stat combinations) it's fixed and you itemise out the undesirable stuff.

[slafko]

you must be a new player.

Accuracy was an important stat for tanks till the last level cap raise I guess.

 

Accuracy was never an important stat. In the days when 50 was max level, we tanks were using Black Hole (61) and Dread Guard (63) gear. All accuracy, alacrity and crit stuff had to be removed and replaced with regular tanking stats.

[Kingsbount]

Here is the developer's response on the matter, from June 11th:

 

 

And as far as I've experienced, there are currently only two boss fights in the entire game where a tank missing an interrupt or other ability is an almost guaranteed wipe.

• Nightmare Scum & Villainy - Styrack's Box 'o Death needs to be knocked back or stunned
  
• Nightmare Dread Fortress (with Nightmare Power) - Draxus' Corruptors need their Mass Afflication casts interrupted
  

 

Even with the Draxus encounter, our tanks never were required to interrupt anything. The healer's each had one interrupt they were responsible for in the fight and they each popped an accuracy adrenal beforehand. They never missed.

 

So, to my knowledge, there is one encounter, nightmare Styrak, where tank accuracy is a serious concern. I would hardly consider that to be a major problem with the game.

 

I have to disagree with this.

Yes, at first it may not look like a major problem.

But when it started to happen SO OFTEN... It just can't be "working as intended".

 

I'v already described some incidents when utility missed.

But its just a FEW examples.

And im sure that other players encounter this problem much more frequently after last patches.

I don't know what battle team thinking. Personally i think this is big pile of you know what.

Utility just CANNOT be affected by accuracy. Its breaking game.

What next? Healers will need to stack accuracy for heals? I remind you - sorcerers pull NOT MISS.

Is it utility - yes. Is it have chances to miss - no.

Then why the hell tanks pull or push or SCC have to miss, huh?

Mechanics are the SAME.

[Darth_Wicked]

I have to disagree with this.

Yes, at first it may not look like a major problem.

But when it started to happen SO OFTEN... It just can't be "working as intended".

 

I'v already described some incidents when utility missed.

But its just a FEW examples.

And im sure that other players encounter this problem much more frequently after last patches.

I don't know what battle team thinking. Personally i think this is big pile of you know what.

Utility just CANNOT be affected by accuracy. Its breaking game.

What next? Healers will need to stack accuracy for heals? I remind you - sorcerers pull NOT MISS.

Is it utility - yes. Is it have chances to miss - no.

Then why the hell tanks pull or push or SCC have to miss, huh?

Mechanics are the SAME.

 

They may miss because they're Accuracy bound, whether you're a Tank, Healer or DPS. As I mentioned earlier though, I don't think Interrupt should be included in that mix.

[lpope]

I still dont see why people who stack endurance stat get so much slack... If done properlly.. you can use Advanced Weighted Mod 34b and Advanced Vigilant Enhancement 34 and with those and Fortitude Augments you get 15%def and Absorb 39.35% and Shield at 39.24%.... So technically you are not horrible at stats.. You are very close to what most people would want you at. With the higher level 36 versions of the same augments you jump up to 16% defense and same absorb and 40.45% shield... I just wonder.. if doing it this way and having 52k health or 55k if you have the 36's would not be better than having higher shield/absorb but less health...

 

From what I see I would love someone who can get the augments to test it out... go with these augments and see if they are worse then having Aborb/shield stacked for a Vanguard.. and if the 42%shield 43%aborb makes up for loss of 5K in health. From what I see in number crunching the 4% increases to shield and absorb do not seem to be enough of a jump.... but I suck at math and sometimes the number crunching confuses me.

 

No number crunching really needs to be done. If you do HM / NiM, you ALWAYS take mitigation over endurance for PvE unless you have no other choice and then only so long it takes you got get a low endurance / high mitigation piece.

 

The reason is that in a vacuum, endurance and mitigation probably result in roughly the same TTK. But for any content where tanks are actually needed, you are running with other people. If you favor endurance vs mitigation, you'll end up taking more damage and lost health is replenished by your healers which do have limited resources. So if you have 45k health with lower endurance vs a 40k health with higher endurance, you can pretty much expect your healer to have to throw out another heal to you every 10 GCDs or so to compensate for the lower mitigation. Now that is a GCD that could have been used to heal a dps, regen resources or throw out dps. Not a big deal in SM, but in HM / NiM with tight enrage timers or high healing requirements, it can make a huge difference.

 

High endurance tanks are a plague that need to be eradicated. All they do is make their healers work harder.

 

As to the original topic, I also think that interrupts should not be affected by accuracy - they should act like taunts do. It's not the end of the world as it is today, but it is an annoyance for healers and tanks who don't stack a ton of accuracy.

 

The really annoying part about missing an interrupt or a mezz is that you don't get any on screen text that it was resisted since they don't do damage. Nor does it say resisted in the combat logs. By all rights, it really does look like the phantom GCD bug unless you know the internal mechanics of the game.

Edited June 16, 2014 by lpope

[BuriDogshin]

But for any content where tanks are actually needed, you are running with other people. If you favor endurance vs mitigation, you'll end up taking more damage and lost health is replenished by your healers which do have limited resources.

Or to put it another way: in any fight that needs a tank, the vast majority of the tank's HPs come from healers, not gear. Check the combat logs for"healing received" and its obvious.

 

Mitigation acts as a multiplier on HP: 50% mitigation is like having double the HP.

Mitigation performs this multiplication on both the tank's gear-based HP and the healer-based HP.

Adding Endurance, on the other hand, only increases that tiny fraction of the total HP that came from the gear.

 

Clearly, a tank needs a good bit of Endurance-based HP to handle spikes in damage and healer derps.

But taking too much Endurance and thereby reducing that mitigation multiplier on all that healer-based HP is likely non-optimal.

[Rafaman]

Really, folks.

This problem was already discussed in a few threads, but i still don't see any response or actions from BW.

And then im started to think about it in a different course.

As you know tanking gear have some absolutely useless stats. Like alacrity and accuracy.

Not to mention crit ratings (yeah i saw it).

Also you all know that community was already tryed to force BW to fix this crap.

 

So... What if BW decided not to fix their mistakes, but force tanks to use this crappy gear?

 

Seriously - how interrupts can miss? HOW?

Same thing happens with force pull and push.

Damn, even stealth stun can miss when you play as shadow or sin tanks!

 

Hmm... the only time I have ever seen interrupts miss is if you are trying to interrupt a mob 4 levels higher than you. That however has nothing to do with the ability and everything to do with your level.

 

If you are 3 levels low, higher level content is doable with just a few misses. 4 you start to see your attacks including interrupts miss consistently. At 5 levels low you can forget about it. Your chances of hitting the mob with anything are very low.

 

So my question is what level were the mobs you were dealing with and what level were you?

[Kingsbount]

Hmm... the only time I have ever seen interrupts miss is if you are trying to interrupt a mob 4 levels higher than you. That however has nothing to do with the ability and everything to do with your level.

 

If you are 3 levels low, higher level content is doable with just a few misses. 4 you start to see your attacks including interrupts miss consistently. At 5 levels low you can forget about it. Your chances of hitting the mob with anything are very low.

 

So my question is what level were the mobs you were dealing with and what level were you?

 

I missed with interrupt on my 55 sin tank during HM False emperor. When Malgus start channel Unlimited power (hits about 35k) you must interrupt it or it will cause wipe. Well unless you are overgear its damage.

My taunt was "resisted" and it cost of a healer and dps.

Second DPS and i survived only becouse we was really overgeared for this FP.

It wasn't lag or anything else.

So... Yes. Interrupts CAN be resisted. Or whatever BW called "working as intended".

 

Heh, just realized, folks... My interrupt was resisted by opponent that 5 levels below me...

But... Nah... BW said its fine... Right?

[Flixx]

This is unfortunately why you don't see a lot of tanks in this game. I would gladly spec tank for a flashpoint/ops/warzone if I had the gear to do it. I simply do not have the time to Min/Max and augment 4 sets of gear. I have time and credits for 1 complete min/max augmented set that I can use for healing or damage. Recently I had more time for OPS and I'm slowly making my PvE set but again it's not going to be a tank set and the only reason I'm making it is for OPS and I'm sure someone will cry that I'm wearing PvP armor in an Operation. I see a lot of MMO's do this and it's horrible. There should be levels of gear throughout the leveling process with nothing more then an armor/endurance/main stat increase. All other spec dependent stats like accuracy/defense/power etc. should be tied to a stance. You would simply turn in comms for upgradable modules for increased armor/endurance/main-stat. I know this will never happen in this game but I figured I'd try to give a way to help while criticizing.

[BuriDogshin]

This is unfortunately why you don't see a lot of tanks in this game. I would gladly spec tank for a flashpoint/ops/warzone if I had the gear to do it. I simply do not have the time to Min/Max and augment 4 sets of gear. I have time and credits for 1 complete min/max augmented set that I can use for healing or damage.

 

Well first, min/max healing and DPS take different gear with different stats, including different set bonus pieces. I make do with just swapping four pieces on my Sorc to go from Heal to DPS, and it's not optimal at all, but at least I have my Accuracy where it needs to be in the DPS config and my alacrity where I want it on the Heal config, and since it is mainly 180-level gear, it is usually adequate for SM and HM ops. Point is, if you are using the same gear for heals and for DPS, you are not min/maxed at all.

 

Second, why would you need four sets of gear to outfit a tank? One will do if you just want to tank.

 

The need for role-specific gear is not unique to tanks, although it is a bit more stark a difference than between heals and DPS.

[Tsillah]

Im done arguing with you because you do not read replies. If you actually read my response you would see that i do remember the patch that made taunts miss. It was in the 2.0 beta. Before 2.0 all force and tech attacks could not miss therefore taunts and interrupts could not miss before 2.0. Stacking accuracy was a worse practice before 2.0 since it only affected white damage. It remains a stupid practice today.

 

I wouldn't call one exchange an argument but hey perhaps you are not a very patient person. There are a few different discussions going on here so perhaps there was a miscommunication but I merely reminded you of that patch as it was clear to me that before that patch there was a bigger point in stacking accuracy than now as it affected taunts at that time.

 

The second part of your post is incorrect in my view. Accuracy also affects interrupt chances of hitting and it used to also affects taunts and it also raises tech and force accuracy. All in all it was/is useful for more than just white damage as you yourself already say here since you agree that taunts had a miss chance before 2.0 So why contradict yourself? Still not saying it's the best idea but it's also not correct that it only affects white damage.

 

Before 2.0 there were two schools of thought. One said to completely ignore accuracy as the miss on taunts and interrupts was less of a loss than the loss in defensive stats. Another school said that actually stacking enough accuracy so that interrupts and taunts, specifically against bosses was better than putting everything in defensive stats as there were some key mechanics in boss fights where you wouldn't want to miss a taunt or interrupt. It is hard to compare the two since it would depend on the boss fights how useful that would be.

 

The biggest discussion came here because I though people would be familiar with both schools of thought and apparently that's not the case. I can assure you though that I have heard both from various tanks on my server and saw valid arguments for both versions. Some people here however are such believers in their statistics that they are religious about it and any idea that's different is automatically seen as bad or evil.

 

All I can say about that is that even though there are some really bad examples of poor tank gearing, there was someone called Albert Einstein who said that not knowledge but imagination is a sign of intelligence, so I find these zealous statistics defenders suspect. I am not saying they are wrong, I just question their unwavering belief in statistics, but I do that in general, not just in SWTOR.

 

The statistics do show the most efficient way of dividing your secondary stats. I agree with that and these statistics can help in gearing properly. I just don't see them as holy writ. I will add to that, that I currently do NOT stack any accuracy on either of my tanks. People seem to miss that point. However, I am still open minded to the idea of using accuracy because there is perhaps some merit to the general idea. It doesn't mean I am convinced suddenly about stacking accuracy, it does mean however that I am open to looking into it.

 

I mean for most content, maybe not NiM, but the rest, will it really be a problem if a juggernaut has a couple of percent less in shield and absorb to raise accuracy? I don't think so. So why apply NiM requirements on lower tier content? I don't see this blind hatred against it. It just makes no sense. It may be slightly less efficient but certainly not a raid killer by any means, again except maybe in NiM content currently. So people are overreacting a bit to the idea of stacking a little accuracy, but that is of course your right to do. I just don't get it cause these people will never play NiM until the next level cap raise has arrived.

[kirorx]

Alot of the tank gear with accuracy comes from vendors, so.....you should be trying to get some drops. If your buying 180 gear and not playing NIMs then you could just buy 180 gloves and keep the armor with the set bonus from drops with 169

[Flixx]

Well first, min/max healing and DPS take different gear with different stats, including different set bonus pieces. I make do with just swapping four pieces on my Sorc to go from Heal to DPS, and it's not optimal at all, but at least I have my Accuracy where it needs to be in the DPS config and my alacrity where I want it on the Heal config, and since it is mainly 180-level gear, it is usually adequate for SM and HM ops. Point is, if you are using the same gear for heals and for DPS, you are not min/maxed at all.

 

Second, why would you need four sets of gear to outfit a tank? One will do if you just want to tank.

 

The need for role-specific gear is not unique to tanks, although it is a bit more stark a difference than between heals and DPS.

I agree that swapping from damage to heals in 1 set of gear isn't optimized but you can do it. Also like you said swapping a couple of pieces if you want just for the 2/4 point bonus can be done as a healer or damage. You can not do this as a vanguard if you decide you need a tank for a HM flashpoint and all you have is damage gear.

My point is if you want to be and Optimized min/max damage/tank or damage/heals you need 2 different sets of gear and that's just for PVE. You will need another 2 sets for PVP (that's 4 sets total). This is if you want to be Min/max. Good luck being effective in a Warzone with accuracy/alacrity instead of power/surge. That's what you get from Bioware pvp gear vendors.

Edited June 16, 2014 by Flixx
Grammar