Darkness Tanking Compendium

[Makk]

Hi - I really want to take a crack at tanking and plan to respec to tank (currently madness dps at level 30).

 

It's been mentioned the hybrid spec isn't viable at end game. I was wondering, what are the issues with it?

 

Also, if I roll a tank, will that pretty much limit me to tanking or, if the group already has a tank, would I be able to (perhaps by switching gear?) fill a dps spot (recognizing dps will be lower than a dps spec character)?

 

Thanks

[IdBeMadToo]

This may be a pretty silly question but I do need to ask.

 

Currently I'm a darkness/madness hybrid rolling around with two sets of gear mail because the guil I am in needs me for dps in ops but I ultimately will be a tank when we get enough to run more then the one group. My question lies if I were to go 31/0/10 in my trees would I still be able to put out enough damage to be benificial in the raids just by switch from tank gear to crit/ surge gear? I obviously don't want to keep repeccing if I don't have to.

[theonepanda]

This may be a pretty silly question but I do need to ask.

 

Currently I'm a darkness/madness hybrid rolling around with two sets of gear mail because the guil I am in needs me for dps in ops but I ultimately will be a tank when we get enough to run more then the one group. My question lies if I were to go 31/0/10 in my trees would I still be able to put out enough damage to be benificial in the raids just by switch from tank gear to crit/ surge gear? I obviously don't want to keep repeccing if I don't have to.

 

No.

 

Darkness can only do good dps in dark charge, and that is not viable if you are in a raiding environment and not tanking.

 

You will have to respec if you want to dps. You lose Energize, and also wither is primarily for the debuff and less for the damage, so basically all you would do is thrash.

 

Thrash and thrash. It would make for the most boring dps ever, and also not very good to top it off.

 

You cannot do as good dps as a dps spec if you just regear. You won't do horrificly bad dps (esp if you go for the hybrid madness build), but it certainly won't help your raid in any way.

Edited January 18, 2012 by theonepanda

[IdBeMadToo]

So being hybrid darkness /madness with raze wouldn't do good dps with 35% base crit and 87% crit multiplier for raids?

[Enver]

So being hybrid darkness /madness with raze wouldn't do good dps with 35% base crit and 87% crit multiplier for raids?

 

I have been following this tread for some time now and have followed most of the advice. I have been tanking since level 20, and have been 50 for weeks now tanking HM flashpoints with full Darkness spec, and will say I'm just hanging on by a thread.

 

Know with that said, I’m still trying to get my gear to where is need to be and its getting better...I’m no longer getting one shooted when bosses go enraged. With all that said I will say my DPS doesn’t suck in fact I think it’s ok I’m still critting big and hitting almost as hard as I was when I had DPS gear on in my full Darkness build, now my shield procs a ton more and myself heal is even better.

[IdBeMadToo]

So you would say going 31/0/10 and throwing on crit /surge gear and doing lightning charge won't hinder dps all that much

[asmox]

should we still be spec'ing 2/2 swelling shadows with the internal cd of charge applying at 4.5 sec's?

 

also does the increased damage to dark charge talent also affect the healing recieved?

Edited January 18, 2012 by asmox

[Enver]

So you would say going 31/0/10 and throwing on crit /surge gear and doing lightning charge won't hinder dps all that much

 

As far as I have been able to tell. Dont get me wrong, I have basically gathered to sets of gear, one for solo/DPS and one strickly for Tanking. When I through on my DPS set I defently notice a difference in my melee hit, skock and lighting dmg, Although in my Tank gear my over all dmg is reduced, I'm still dealing decent dmg over all.

 

Here is my build http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200rsrskrskfsZZbM.1

[Davesurfer]

I believe your understanding will come in the OP's response to your question posted earlier in this thread. He said he made a mistake and missed the Immunity Enhancements in the list.

 

 

OK I totally missed that. My bad. And it was the post right after mine. Skimming FTL

Edited January 18, 2012 by Davesurfer

[Maestrodomus]

So I've got a few thoughts after tanking All the FP Hard modes except D7 and even a couple HM bosses in EV.

 

1) The defensive/shield ratings in the first post aren't all that practical because our end game itemization focuses heavily on Absorption rating and very little on defense or even shield rating. I have a full mix of Tionese, Columi, and Rakata gear but my percentages are something like 23/20/46 for Def/Sh/Ab and 23/40/46 with Dark Ward. Those ratings translate to to a ratio something like 1:2:2.5 with 20K health. It will be interesting to see if they lock the mods/enhancements on other classes end game armor such that we could grab heavy and medium pieces with better itemization for our abilities and pop them in our pieces.

 

2) Yesterday's buffs were awesome. They put 50/30 end/power on our relics, the self heal from Dark Charge is now killer, and Wither actually drops some hate these days in addition to snaring adds starting to stray towards the dps/heals.

 

3) I still have questions regarding our threat on hard mode bosses and the best order to hold it while saving taunts for oh **** moments.

 

Based on my observations it seems pretty important that you start the fight. This means that ******* bounty hunters and sorcerers need to stop using their mez, which starts the fight, before we mez and put the first attack out. I find it much harder to pull the mob back with a Shock or Wither if I don't hit it first; I almost always have to blow a taunt the first 5 secs if someone else makes the pull.

 

On the other hand, and opener of shock, wither, discharge, shock seems to lock up bosses without losing aggro unless they get a string of crits off the rip, and you can save taunts for ads. This is particularly important on something like the Droid Boss with the strong probe ads in the new FP.

 

Anyone else have thoughts on these issues?

Edited January 19, 2012 by Maestrodomus

[Amoreorignalname]

Removed my post, after reading some of the current updates they addressed some of the concerns I had. Great post man keep it up Edited January 19, 2012 by Amoreorignalname

[Cortie]

hello, could anyone help me abit? At the moment my spec is 31/0/10, I'm using mostly columi gear and I have a few tionese/pvp pieces aswell. My defense/shield/absorb is 23/27/40 right now and 23/47/40 with dark ward, I get 23/58/54 when using my rakata relic. Is there anything I'm doing wrong gear wise because i'm clearly not done gearing up but I've passed the cap on 2 of the 3 defense stats. So if anyone knows what I can do to make my gear better please reply.

[Maestrodomus]

Not much you can do with end game itemization right now. Just have to roll with it until we can transfer set bonuses and stuff like that with mods.

[Amoreorignalname]

Has anyone looked at the Columni Gear?

 

It is kind of ****** unless we are looking in the wrong direction.

 

It leaves you with a defense rating of 243. My current def rating is 402 and I have a 27.12% def.

 

Next it will leave you with a Shield Absorb of 245.

 

But it gives +0 shield rating throughout the entire set of Columni so with dark ward always up and the set bonus's from the armor you will have a shield rating of 31% and having high Absorb rate doesn't mean much if you don't have a decent shield rating.

 

Does anyone else feel like our raid gear is a rip off? Cause this is well below to 700 rating we are all trying to reach. Now of course we can alter our gear but something feels wrong about removing level 56 mods and enchacements for level 51 mods and ench's

 

Maybe I am missing something and I hope I am but my just regular level 50-51 gear seems better than this raid gear. I have tanked every HM in the game with relative ease with the gear I have. I am worried when I switch to raid gear is gonna make it worse

 

I am sure there will be some mix and matching of gear and stuff but right now I am a little upset by our raid gear.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Amoreorignalname

[theghostbear]

Any thoughts why I havent seen tanks with 2 points in Dark Embrace? Go stealth, pull from stealth and have 50% force regen to max out those hard hitting force hungry abilities for agro at the start of the fight?

[theonepanda]

Any thoughts why I havent seen tanks with 2 points in Dark Embrace? Go stealth, pull from stealth and have 50% force regen to max out those hard hitting force hungry abilities for agro at the start of the fight?

 

I believe force regen bonuses are additive on base regen.

 

Tanks already have 30% increased regen, you can certainly pick it up, it isn't something that is awful, but tanks have a base 10.4 f/s regen.

 

Adding another 50% is 14.4 f/s regen, which basically means you just cap out force (you will regen 21.6 force per GCD, almost what thrash uses) in the beginning, which you do anyway.

 

Furthermore 50% force for 6 seconds for what amounts to only once per encounter is only 24 increased force. That means swapping out one saber strike for one thrash, essentially. Not terribly important.

 

The previous problem was mainly that assassins open with wither and discharge, both of which don't hit terribly hard, but put up important tanking debuffs on the target.

 

EDIT: as for itemization, yes I know its bad. I haven't ran the numbers, but you may even be better off swapping out some of the epic mods (esp on tionese) with other classes' mods, or epic crafted 22's. I will have to do some more modeling, but my semester starts next week and I am busy working on the dps simulator.

Edited January 20, 2012 by theonepanda

[Maestrodomus]

Has anyone looked at the Columni Gear?

 

It is kind of ****** unless we are looking in the wrong direction.

 

It leaves you with a defense rating of 243. My current def rating is 402 and I have a 27.12% def.

 

Next it will leave you with a Shield Absorb of 245.

 

But it gives +0 shield rating throughout the entire set of Columni so with dark ward always up and the set bonus's from the armor you will have a shield rating of 31% and having high Absorb rate doesn't mean much if you don't have a decent shield rating.

 

Does anyone else feel like our raid gear is a rip off? Cause this is well below to 700 rating we are all trying to reach. Now of course we can alter our gear but something feels wrong about removing level 56 mods and enchacements for level 51 mods and ench's

 

Maybe I am missing something and I hope I am but my just regular level 50-51 gear seems better than this raid gear. I have tanked every HM in the game with relative ease with the gear I have. I am worried when I switch to raid gear is gonna make it worse

 

I am sure there will be some mix and matching of gear and stuff but right now I am a little upset by our raid gear.

 

That's exactly what I said 3 posts ago!

[Amoreorignalname]

Hmm that was my concern, well that is okay than I suppose I will stick with the plan I had, My defense will be 30% by the end of the week and at that point I will start moving towards shield rating and absorbastion rating. Really the only problem I see with the raid gear is no +shield rating if it didn't jib us on that it wouldn't be so bad.

 

EDIT: So from the looks of things if you use the earpiece/implants you get from dailies these will increase you're defense and shield rating, and you wont lose any accuracy/endurance in the process. So what I am thinking is when getting the raid gear, replacing the enchancments with Advanced Immunity 22's until you're accuracy looks like it may drop below 100% at which point start stacking Advanced Protection 22's in the enchancments until it appears you are safe, now once you exceed 30% defense perhaps it will be best to slot up a +shield rating, +absorb rating enchacment at a few times, as for the mods I am not sure how to go about those. Dunno if I should leave them as the ones they are or replace them with Advanced Reinforced from time to time to keep the defense up as those give about +27 def per mod. Doing all this will make it so you wont have as high as an absorb rating as the gear intends us too, but it will give us a higher shield rating and defense rating than the gear intends us to

Edited January 20, 2012 by Amoreorignalname

[ZyrenDelacroix]

Someone correct me if I'm missing something, but based on the BiS list, even if it can be improved, the numbers are wrong?

 

From my calculations that gear list should give you...

 

426 Defense Rating

559 Shield Rating

336 Absorption Rating

 

For a total of 1321 Rating.

[Davesurfer]

So what I am thinking is when getting the raid gear, replacing the enchancments with Advanced Immunity 22's until you're accuracy looks like it may drop below 100% at which point start stacking Advanced Protection 22's in the enchancments until it appears you are safe

 

How important do you feel accuracy of 100% is? I am running 94% and I am not having huge issues with threat. I do need a taunt here or there but none of my DPS are being killed. I just hate the thought of giving up mitigation for accuracy

[Whatbroke]

How important do you feel accuracy of 100% is? I am running 94% and I am not having huge issues with threat. I do need a taunt here or there but none of my DPS are being killed. I just hate the thought of giving up mitigation for accuracy

 

Honestly, I feel like I'm still having problems with mitigation.

 

I have 40.52% Damage Reduction reduction, 450 Defense Rating for a total of 26.77% Defense Chance, 423 Shield Rating for a total of 40.69% Shield Chance (not including the 20% gain from Dark Ward), and an *admittedly low* 272 Absorption rating which leaves me at 46.85% Shield Absorb. (this all includes the 4set bonus)

 

3 years of tanking end game content as a Death Knight (right up to this game) left me with a heightened awareness of my cooldowns and the knowledge that I need to master them in order to tank successfully.

 

That being said, I use... Dark Ward constantly, Force Shroud for big attacks, Deflection for emergencies, Overcharge Saber with a ton of Saber Strikes and Thrashes till the buff falls off, both my Rakata Defense and Rakata Shield Relics for big hits, my Rakata Absorb Adrenal with the Rakata Defense Relic to maximize utility, and the Rakata Medpac when I get low on Health... I use Spike and Electrocute whenever and on whatever I can, not to mention Unbreakable Will and Jolt when necessary... I have the group CC as much as possible which includes my Mind Trap.... I self-heal frequently with 3 charges of Harness Darkness and Force Lightning (sometimes with Recklessness for added kick)... and I use Wither as frequently as possible on the largest group I can find.

 

The result is that I still got my arse handed to me all day today in Hardmodes. Sure I'm missing 30 bloody Absorb points but that can't be the sole reason multiple healers of different classes seem to only barely hold me up as if they were oom, even if they weren't.

 

Either I'm missing something drastically game changing... or successfully holding aggro on all enemies (which I seem to do quite well) is not what Darkness Assassins are meant to do.

 

Either that, or I just have really bad luck with healers.

 

Point being... My experience is telling me that Aggro is the last thing I should be thinking about (stat wise) right now.

Edited January 22, 2012 by Whatbroke

[shadowsuko]

I don't know about you guys but Columi gear buffed up my defence to 26% from 21% and I only have 4/5 pieces and still raiding with a moddable (level 50 & 51 mods) main hand and tionese off hand. one of my relics is blue and my earpiece is a dps pvp one. The only thing I seen that dropped majorly is my absorption but I'm having no problems with hard modes. Hell I was even doing HM EV. multiple targets always are a problem as keeping aggro is a pain but no deaths on my raid/party members.

[Vesperr]

I try to trade defense for shield+absorb whenever I can. The more shield I have the more effective absorb becomes and vica versa but the more defense I have the less I get due to diminishing returns.

 

So far tionese/columi gear with only (due to implants and ears) 23.5% defense, 37.5% (w/o 20% DW) shield chance and 49% absobtion and almost 18k hp. I think its much better than if I had lots of defense and low absorbtion and shield rating.

[CaptainEvers]

Honestly, I feel like I'm still having problems with mitigation.

 

I have 40.52% Damage Reduction reduction, 450 Defense Rating for a total of 26.77% Defense Chance, 423 Shield Rating for a total of 40.69% Shield Chance (not including the 20% gain from Dark Ward), and an *admittedly low* 272 Absorption rating which leaves me at 46.85% Shield Absorb. (this all includes the 4set bonus)

 

3 years of tanking end game content as a Death Knight (right up to this game) left me with a heightened awareness of my cooldowns and the knowledge that I need to master them in order to tank successfully.

 

That being said, I use... Dark Ward constantly, Force Shroud for big attacks, Deflection for emergencies, Overcharge Saber with a ton of Saber Strikes and Thrashes till the buff falls off, both my Rakata Defense and Rakata Shield Relics for big hits, my Rakata Absorb Adrenal with the Rakata Defense Relic to maximize utility, and the Rakata Medpac when I get low on Health... I use Spike and Electrocute whenever and on whatever I can, not to mention Unbreakable Will and Jolt when necessary... I have the group CC as much as possible which includes my Mind Trap.... I self-heal frequently with 3 charges of Harness Darkness and Force Lightning (sometimes with Recklessness for added kick)... and I use Wither as frequently as possible on the largest group I can find.

 

The result is that I still got my arse handed to me all day today in Hardmodes. Sure I'm missing 30 bloody Absorb points but that can't be the sole reason multiple healers of different classes seem to only barely hold me up as if they were oom, even if they weren't.

 

Either I'm missing something drastically game changing... or successfully holding aggro on all enemies (which I seem to do quite well) is not what Darkness Assassins are meant to do.

 

Either that, or I just have really bad luck with healers.

 

Point being... My experience is telling me that Aggro is the last thing I should be thinking about (stat wise) right now.

 

It has to be your healers, if you are playing the job right, which you seem to be doing.. You've got about 69% damage reduction, and I've only got about 65%.. 4% doesnt seem like much, but the diminishing returns makes it so much more significant.. Point is, I ran Hard Mode EV this week, and tanked everything with NO issue.. I never died, never got under 50% health for more than a couple seconds.. My healer even admitted to DPSing 20% of the time.. There's such a big difference between a T1 and T2 geared player.. There's a bigger difference between skilled and unskilled players.. I wouldnt fret..

 

Just as an aside, whats your endurance? I know the guide here discounts endurance, but as your mitigation increases, your endurance can increase your total effective health tremendously.. Also, I tried moving your stats around, but I can't find more than a 2% increase to your TEH, and I'm not sure that's even possible with the current mods available..

[Maestrodomus]

Honestly, I feel like I'm still having problems with mitigation.

 

I have 40.52% Damage Reduction reduction, 450 Defense Rating for a total of 26.77% Defense Chance, 423 Shield Rating for a total of 40.69% Shield Chance (not including the 20% gain from Dark Ward), and an *admittedly low* 272 Absorption rating which leaves me at 46.85% Shield Absorb. (this all includes the 4set bonus)

 

3 years of tanking end game content as a Death Knight (right up to this game) left me with a heightened awareness of my cooldowns and the knowledge that I need to master them in order to tank successfully.

 

That being said, I use... Dark Ward constantly, Force Shroud for big attacks, Deflection for emergencies, Overcharge Saber with a ton of Saber Strikes and Thrashes till the buff falls off, both my Rakata Defense and Rakata Shield Relics for big hits, my Rakata Absorb Adrenal with the Rakata Defense Relic to maximize utility, and the Rakata Medpac when I get low on Health... I use Spike and Electrocute whenever and on whatever I can, not to mention Unbreakable Will and Jolt when necessary... I have the group CC as much as possible which includes my Mind Trap.... I self-heal frequently with 3 charges of Harness Darkness and Force Lightning (sometimes with Recklessness for added kick)... and I use Wither as frequently as possible on the largest group I can find.

 

The result is that I still got my arse handed to me all day today in Hardmodes. Sure I'm missing 30 bloody Absorb points but that can't be the sole reason multiple healers of different classes seem to only barely hold me up as if they were oom, even if they weren't.

 

Either I'm missing something drastically game changing... or successfully holding aggro on all enemies (which I seem to do quite well) is not what Darkness Assassins are meant to do.

 

Either that, or I just have really bad luck with healers.

 

Point being... My experience is telling me that Aggro is the last thing I should be thinking about (stat wise) right now.

 

Not to be an arse, but either you're not doing all that or you're not being healed at all. I don't have any problems in 4 person hard modes or EV 8 person hard mode.