Stahli's Shield Specialist Guide to PvP

[xMaranathax]

Hello mateys,

 

This is my first guide, so please be patient and understanding. I hope to be able to cover the basics of VG/PT tanking for even the greenest of players. Let's Begin.

 

Legend:

Republic Names

Imperial Names

Name is Same on Both Factions

 

Discipline

This is a no brainer. If you want to tank, you will be choosing Shield Specialist/Shield Tech.

 

Utilities

Utilities are meant to provide customization for the player. These Utilities are what I recommend, depending on the queue you are in.

 

8v8 Warzones/Regs

Skillful

Battlefield Training / Pneumatic Boots - Increases movement speed by 15%.

Entangling Heat / Suppressive Tools - Tactical Surge, Ion Pulse, and Explosive Surge reduce the movement speed of affected targets by 50% for 6 seconds.

Muzzle Augs / Bracer Propellant - Increases the range of Ion Pulse and Tactical Surge by 5 meters and the radius of Explosive Surge by 2 meters.

 

Masterful

Defensive Measures / No Escape - Harpoon immobilizes the target for 3 seconds. In addition, the cooldown of Stealth Scan is reduced by 5 seconds, and any targets it reveals are immobilized for 3 seconds.

Sonic Rebounder - Sonic Round protects all friendly targets in its area of impact, excluding you, granting Sonic Rebounder, which reflects the next direct, single-target attack back at the attacker.

 

Heroic

Guard Cannon / Shield Cannon - Damaging a target with your Shoulder Cannon missiles heals you for 5% of your total health.

Emergency Stims / Automated Suit - Allows Adrenaline Rush to be activated while stunned and causes Adrenaline Rush to purge stun effects when activated.

 

Solo Ranked

Skillful

Entangling Heat / Suppressive Tools - Tactical Surge, Ion Pulse, and Explosive Surge reduce the movement speed of affected targets by 50% for 6 seconds.

Reflective Armor - When Into the Fray is triggered, it will also deal x-x elemental damage to the attacker if the attacker is within 10 meters.

Iron Will - Reduces the cooldown of Tenacity by 30 seconds and the cooldown of Hold the Line by 5 seconds.

 

Masterful

Sonic Rebounder - Sonic Round protects all friendly targets in its area of impact, excluding you, granting Sonic Rebounder, which reflects the next direct, single-target attack back at the attacker.

Containment Tactics / Prototype Electro Surge - Reduces the cooldown of Cryo Grenade by 10 seconds.

 

Heroic

Guard Cannon / Shield Cannon - Damaging a target with your Shoulder Cannon missiles heals you for 5% of your total health.

Paralytic Augs / Enhanced Paralytics - Increases the stun durations of Cryo Grenade and Neural Surge by 1 second each.

 

Team Ranked

Ultimately, your utilities should be based off your team. Depending on compositions, how comfortable your healer is, and teammate utilities, you should discuss which utilities would be most beneficial. Here is what I recommend:

 

Skillful

Entangling Heat / Suppressive Tools - Tactical Surge, Ion Pulse, and Explosive Surge reduce the movement speed of affected targets by 50% for 6 seconds.

Reflective Armor - When Into the Fray is triggered, it will also deal x-x elemental damage to the attacker if the attacker is within 10 meters.

Iron Will - Reduces the cooldown of Tenacity by 30 seconds and the cooldown of Hold the Line by 5 seconds.

 

Masterful

Sonic Rebounder - Sonic Round protects all friendly targets in its area of impact, excluding you, granting Sonic Rebounder, which reflects the next direct, single-target attack back at the attacker.

Containment Tactics / Prototype Electro Surge - Reduces the cooldown of Cryo Grenade by 10 seconds.

 

Heroic

Paralytic Augs / Enhanced Paralytics - Increases the stun durations of Cryo Grenade and Neural Surge by 1 second each.

Charge The Line / Overdrive - Hold the Line increases movement speed by an additional 45% while active.

 

Gear

Endurance is the most important stat for tanking in PvP, however unlike pre 3.0, we do not want to have the most we can get. I would say the minimum requirement for PvP tanking is 50,000 HP. The gear I run sets me at about 52.8k. Of course Armorings will stay for the setbonus. As a general rule of thumb, you will want 0 defense rating for VG/PT tanking. There are two different routes:

 

Endurance Heavy (For Those Interested)

As stated above, my first min/max was for the most HP I could take. In order to do this, you want 9 Advanced Weighted B-X mods, and 7 Advanced Vigilant Enhancements, along with 14 Fortitude Augments.

 

Aim Heavy Tank Gear

What I personally run is what I call the Aim Heavy gear. In this gear, I hardly have a game with less than 700 dps, and typically average about 900-1200 dps.

 

Replace all Advanced Deflecting A-X mods with Advanced Weighted A-X mods. Make sure you have 7 Advanced Vigilant Enhancements to get rid of the defense stat. With this gear set, you will want to run 14 Fortitude Augments.

 

In both cases, you will want the Relic of Reactive Warding and the Relic of Shield Amplification. Fortunate Redoubt may be used in arenas to replace Reactive Warding when facing high M/R damage profile.

 

Pros and Cons of Gear

Endurance is going to be the King Stat for PvP tanks due to the terrible mitigation results. It is still viable to be full endurance, however I personally prefer to have a bit more aim for just a bit more punch. The end difference in overall HP between the two is about 2,000 hp. If you want to spend the comms for the extra 2,000 hp, that's fine, but if I knew prior to purchasing the B-X mods, I never would have done so.

 

Situational Awareness

Tanking is not nearly as easy in PvP that it is in PvE. You must ALWAYS be keeping an eye on your team, the enemy team, buffs, debuffs, managing your own HP, swapping guard, etc etc. Here are a few tactics that I will share to help you out. As you play, you will learn your own special tactics. Also, do not think this is the end of this list.

 

Riot Gas / Oil Slick

Riot Gas / Oil Slick provides two debuffs to enemy players in its area of effect. The first is a 70% slow and then also a 30% M/R accuracy debuff. When your guarded target is being focused by 2 or more enemies, plant Riot Gas / Oil Slick at his/her feet to slow the enemy. This should allow your friendly enough time to escape. Also, Riot Gas / Oil Slick can be used during Ravages/Master Strikes to lower the accuracy and cause a dodge/parry.

 

One thing I personally love doing is throwing Riot Gas / Oil Slick on top of Snipers. I typically drop my Mortar Volley / Death From Above on the snipers location to push the sniper to roll. If they do roll, I run up and plant the Riot Gas / Oil Slick right on top of him. The sniper now either eats the 30% accuracy loss, or needs to stand to move, allowing charges to be made to the sniper.

 

Harpoon / Grapple

Typically I open with Harpoon / Grapple, but the more I continue to play, the more I realize this is more of a PvE thing. On the start of an arena, a target will have its escapes, DCDs, and everything else to get away from you. Instead, I save Harpoon / Grapple to pull targets away from my allies after the round has begun. For example, let's say my sage healer is kiting away from me and Force Speeds out of my guard range like they love to do. I could Storm / Jet Charge the enemy, but if its one dps and the rest of the enemy team is with me and my dps, I will pull instead. This gives the healer breathing room and keeps the enemies attention on the bulk of the fight. I will however get back into guard range, which is next.

 

Guard Range

You can activate your Guard on any friendly within 30m. The issue about the guard is that it only works within 15m. I personally will use a target marker for my own healer, typically Red Flame. The Red shows up great in the arenas, isn't typically used for enemy markers, and allows me to know where my healer is with a quick glance. You should get used to asking your healer first, because I imagine its annoying having a flame over your head.

 

Responsibility of the guarded target being in range of the guard belongs to the tank, however a tank and healer should practice together to adapt to each other. Since tanks don't get a notification about the guarded target leaving the range of the guard, we need to be especially aware of this. Any help from your guarded target should be encourage, as they receive a blue guarded buff icon as soon as they get out of range.

 

Taunts

Ideally, you will want to save your AoE taunt for more than one enemy, however, there may be times when its a good idea to get Sonic Rebounder on your allies to reflect that single target attack. I typically watch for the Gore buff on Carnage marauders and will AoE taunt instead of Neural Jolt/Neural Dart. This happens very rare, but can help kill off that pesky dps.

 

Team DCDs

We have several abilities that either buff our teammates, or debuff the enemy. The idea in this situation is never to have multiple "Team DCDs" active at one time. For instance, do not AoE Taunt, then Neural Surge / Carbonize on the very next GCD. This is a waste of the AoE taunt. Instead, think of rotating these abilites. I'm somewhat paranoid about this, and as such I have come to not AoE Taunt even when I have Riot Gas / Oil Slick deployed.

 

Target Markers

As a tank, you have a bit more time to see the battlefield about you. Keybind the target markers and set a priority. In arenas, I use Shield for the tank, Target for the healer, Saber for melee dps, and Blaster for ranged dps. If there are two ranged, I typically place Lightning on one and Blaster on the other. You will have to discuss this with your team, but target markers improve things quite a bit. As stated previously, I save a marker for my healer, just to make it easier on me.

 

Storm / Jet Charge

Storm / Jet Charge is very important to use because it grants 2 free Ion Pulses / Flame Pulses or Explosive Surges / Flame Sweep, and increases your movement speed. Be very careful not to get too far away from your guarded target, because it will be easy to keep you away. Also keep in mind that this will root the player, so you may use it to help melee dps on your team out as well.

 

Guard Swaps

The MOST important thing you can do as a tank in PvP is guard swap. Do not think that just because you have a healer means that you have to guard them at all times. Your Guard will reduce the damage taken by the target by 50%, and send it to you, which then rolls against your own defensive stats.

 

Battle Focus / Explosive Fuel

At level 48, we get Soldier's Grit / Coolant. When activated, Battle Focus / Explosive Fuel will raise our Defense Chance by 35% (Note: Tooltip currently says 40%, but stat is only increased by 35%. I have submitted Bug Report to BW in game). Battle Focus / Explosive Fuel raises not only M/R, but also gives 35% Force and Tech Resistance. (EDIT: Thanks to Torvai for the info about F/T!)

 

Paralytic Augs / Enhanced Paralytics

With the increased duration of Cyro Grenade / Electro Dart, the amount of resolve given to the enemy player is also increased. Even with an empty resolve bar, these abilities will fill their resolve, aka "white bar." Be very careful when using these abilities. Don't use Cyro Grenade / Electro Dart as a first resort to CC. Typically I save this for a target who has used their CC breaker without being white barred, typically being either tanks or healers that panic and break too early to heal or swap their guard.

 

 

Conclusion:

Remember to keep SWTOR a game and have fun. Don't let poor performance stop you from playing. Also, have an open mind and understand that every one has a different means to the same end. This guide serves not as a rule book, but as friendly suggestions to help those new to PvP tanking on the VG/PT.

 

Any and all comments, suggestions, and/or questions are welcomed, and I will do my best to reply in a timely manner.

 

Have fun and take care,

Stahli

Edited August 19, 2015 by xMaranathax

[xMaranathax]

Changelog

8/19/2015 - Updated information regarding Battle Focus. Added different Utility sections based on type of PvP. Updated Guard Range section. Changed Gear Section. Removed Mitigation set (tested it this morning and we gain 1% shield and about 5-7% absorb. Not even worth all the comms for as little as mitigation works.)

8/18/2015 - First Release

Edited August 19, 2015 by xMaranathax

[Diachi]

Who are you...?

[xMaranathax]

Who are you...?

 

My name is Stahli. I play on The Ebon Hawk. I've been playing VG/PT tank since pre 2.4. Before that, I mained a shadow tank, and toyed with Guardian Tanking. I consider myself a theorycrafter, and love to talk strats and tactics.

[Torvai]

Pretty nice. One thing though: Battle Focus increses general defense chance, not only M/R. So you get a 35% chance of evading all attacks, not only white damage, wich makes it an even better dcd.

[xMaranathax]

Pretty nice. One thing though: Battle Focus increses general defense chance, not only M/R. So you get a 35% chance of evading all attacks, not only white damage, wich makes it an even better dcd.

 

Defense only works against M/R.

[Torvai]

Defense only works against M/R.

 

The defense you get from gear, yes. But do a mouseover over the defense stat in your character sheet and you'll see defense against F/T. Then activate battle focus and look again

Edited August 19, 2015 by Torvai

[xMaranathax]

The defense you get from gear, yes. But do a mouseover over the defense stat in your character sheet and you'll see defense against F/T. Then activate battle focus and look again

 

Thanks for the info. This is why I enjoy writing these guides. I seem to always learn something in the process.

[TACeMossie]

Thanks for the info. This is why I enjoy writing these guides. I seem to always learn something in the process.

 

The easy way to tell when this is happening is actually reading the tooltip.

 

Defensives that only affect melee/ranged specifically state it.

 

e.g.

Deflection on a Shadow/Assassin:

 

"Increases your Ranged and Melee Defenses by 50% for 12 seconds. Requires a melee weapon"

 

Saber Ward on a Knight/Warrior:

 

"Raises a Lightsaber ward, increasing melee and ranged defenses by 50% and absorbing 25% of the damage taken from Force and Tech attacks. Lasts 12 seconds"

 

Dodge/Evasion on a Smuggler/Agent

 

"Increases your chance to dodge melee and ranged attacks by 200% for 3 seconds. Does not break stealth."

 

compared to:

 

Battle Focus/Explosive Fuel in tank discipline:

 

"Adrenaline Rush/Kolto Overload now heals you for 2% of your total health every second while above 40% of your maximum health. Additionally, Battle Focus/Explosive Fuel increases your defense chance by 40% while active."

 

Sonic Round/Sonic Missile in Tactics/AP

 

"Activating Sonic Round increases your defense chance by 30% for 6 seconds."

 

Diversion/Chaff Flare in Assault/IO

 

"Activating Diversion/Chaff Flare increases your defense chance by 35% for 6 seconds."

 

Covered Escape/Hightail it

 

"...While rolling, your chance to dodge attacks is increased by 100%"

 

All of the ones that don't mention melee/ranged are known to work on force/tech attacks.

[Torvai]

Thanks for the info. This is why I enjoy writing these guides. I seem to always learn something in the process.

 

We never stop learning

 

Just for reference: http://i.imgur.com/FjH8OPt.png

Left side is normal, right sie is with active battle focus.

 

Oh and no need to mention me. I'm nobody

Edited August 19, 2015 by Torvai

[Zoom_VI]

I'm going to disagree with the utilities.

 

Firstly taking the ten seconds off the CD of cyro grenade is fairly weak in all PvP gametypes. You never use Cyro grenade on CD and the benefits of making Cyro available 10 seconds earlier is hyper situational and really just not that great.

Torque Boosters is far more effective for the tank, since greater uptime on HTL means less time you can be subjected to being pushed or pulled out of guard range.

 

I'm also going to question why you suggest taking Overdrive for team 4s, but don't take it for regs. Nearly all of regs is spent either running somewhere (a node, a door, the huttball endzone) or running after someone. The value of Overdrive is immense in regs especially since it pushes the speed boost to where you get significant increase even when out of combat.

[Zoom_VI]

Pros and Cons of Gear

Endurance is going to be the King Stat for PvP tanks due to the terrible mitigation results. It is still viable to be full endurance, however I personally prefer to have a bit more aim for just a bit more punch. The end difference in overall HP between the two is about 2,000 hp. If you want to spend the comms for the extra 2,000 hp, that's fine, but if I knew prior to purchasing the B-X mods, I never would have done so.

 

Ok, time for some myth busting.

 

Firstly endurance is not the king stat, and I wish people would stop repeating that.

Endurance only has survivability gain in the short term. Once your damage taken has exceeded your max HP, all that endurance ceases to have value and your life is entirely the result of your healer. The only value of endurance in a healer situation is that it allows the healer to "ignore" the tank for a longer of period of time at the cost of it being much harder for the healer to recover the tank.

 

In arenas the most common strategy is a pressure strat, in a pressure strat your survivability comes down to your healer's HPS versus your team's DTPS, and anything that reduces your DTPS is going to be of direct benefit to your survivability. Even if half the incoming damage cannot be mitigated, the fact that the remain half can be in and of itself makes a mitigation build more desirable than a endurance build.

 

Now there is a argument for using DPS stats, on the basis of mitigation by killing the damage source faster, but that is another discussion.

[xMaranathax]

I'm still testing Utilities, and will probably update that section again.

 

Regarding Endurance vs Mitigation: In PvP, especially pressure comps, there is so much I/E damage that mitigation is worthless. Back when 3.0 first dropped, I tested Shield Augs and Advanced Weighted X Mods. I sat at about 46k HP, and my TTD (time til death) was much lower.

 

I've been parsing over here on TEH, and most matches I am taking well over 30% I/E damage. If you think thats worth sacrificing 8k for, have at it. I personally prefer the higher endurance vs higher mitigation. And we aren't considering the auto crits that EVERYONE now has from the set bonuses.

Edited August 19, 2015 by xMaranathax

[Zoom_VI]

Regarding Endurance vs Mitigation: In PvP, especially pressure comps, there is so much I/E damage that mitigation is worthless. Back when 3.0 first dropped, I tested Shield Augs and Advanced Weighted X Mods. I sat at about 46k HP, and my TTD (time til death) was much lower.

 

I've been parsing over here on TEH, and most matches I am taking well over 60% I/E damage. If you think thats worth sacrificing 8k for, have at it. I personally prefer the higher endurance vs higher mitigation. And we aren't considering the auto crits that EVERYONE now has from the set bonuses.

 

I'm not saying mitigation is good, I'm saying endurance is worthless in a pressure situation and mitigation therefore wins by default.

 

Also combat logs are deceptive because they only show post mitigation damage. You are taking so much I/E because the parser isn't showing you all the K/E that is getting mitigated. For instances if you ran those same parsers but with logs from a sage instead, you'd see a massive increase in the amount of K/E damage taken.

 

Also by "parsing" be careful, PvP unlike PvE varies match to match and damage taken ratios vary wildy. Realistically you want a program that can analyze a massive amount of combat logs from a large amount of matches. Unfortunately the only program I know of that actually does that is a program I used for my own ends.

[xMaranathax]

Noticed a typo in my response. LOL....60% I/E. oops.

[GillFF]

Whats a basic rotation

[Aetideus]

Whats a basic rotation

 

There is no basic rotation. The primary goal is to guard the focused player and adapt regarding the available cds.

In general, you try to inflict as much aoe as possible.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Aetideus

[mahoneygang]

Ok, time for some myth busting.

 

Firstly endurance is not the king stat, and I wish people would stop repeating that.

Endurance only has survivability gain in the short term. Once your damage taken has exceeded your max HP, all that endurance ceases to have value and your life is entirely the result of your healer. The only value of endurance in a healer situation is that it allows the healer to "ignore" the tank for a longer of period of time at the cost of it being much harder for the healer to recover the tank.

 

In arenas the most common strategy is a pressure strat, in a pressure strat your survivability comes down to your healer's HPS versus your team's DTPS, and anything that reduces your DTPS is going to be of direct benefit to your survivability. Even if half the incoming damage cannot be mitigated, the fact that the remain half can be in and of itself makes a mitigation build more desirable than a endurance build.

 

Now there is a argument for using DPS stats, on the basis of mitigation by killing the damage source faster, but that is another discussion.

 

Would you mind posting a gearing guide for optimal mitigation stats against pressure comps then, e.g which mods and enhancements, earpieces, and implants. it would be very helpful and might give me an edge against other pressure teams who have no clue about this

[Zoom_VI]

Would you mind posting a gearing guide for optimal mitigation stats against pressure comps then, e.g which mods and enhancements, earpieces, and implants. it would be very helpful and might give me an edge against other pressure teams who have no clue about this

 

To be quite honest, if you want the precise numbers of how much stat I'm not the person you want since all my "theorycraft" is done via informal arguments and logical reasoning rather than hard mathematical models. If you want exact numbers I suggest trying to talk Kwerty or Keyboardninja into modeling* it for you.

 

 

Now I can give you ballpark advice. Specifically you actually want two sets of mitigation gear. One that uses a moderate amount of defense and one that has zero defense. The zero defense set for if you encounter a Sorc or PT composition and the set with moderate defense for if you are against a Hatred/Virulence/etc comp.

 

Also while I'm a huge advocate of mitigation, I would NOT take this to the extreme. I'd still recommend using mostly endurance augments, with low endurance/high stat enhancements and mods. Or conversely if you have a lot of credits and don't want to grind the comms, a set with endurance high enhancements and mods, but with all mitigation augments.

 

*If you actually manage to talk someone into modeling this I have a slew of damage taken numbers that I've been collecting for the purpose that they might find useful.

Edited August 28, 2015 by Zoom_VI

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

The main thing about playing a Tank in PvP is to force whoever is attacking your allies to attack you. Make them so annoyed with you that they want to do nothing more than completely obliterate you. One of my favorite ways to do this is to use Grapple/Harpoon and yank them to me, STT them, and lay into them. Though, this was when it was 2.x. And I have yet to re-gear my PT tank. I'll probably start on that today actually, since my Mara is now in full Dark Reaver. I'll probably run a really odd set of gear (like Power Augments, Defence Mods, and Shield + Absorb Enhancements). I tend to say screw theorycrafting and run with what I feel is best, and if it doesn't work, try something new!

[mahoneygang]

To be quite honest, if you want the precise numbers of how much stat I'm not the person you want since all my "theorycraft" is done via informal arguments and logical reasoning rather than hard mathematical models. If you want exact numbers I suggest trying to talk Kwerty or Keyboardninja into modeling* it for you.

 

 

Now I can give you ballpark advice. Specifically you actually want two sets of mitigation gear. One that uses a moderate amount of defense and one that has zero defense. The zero defense set for if you encounter a Sorc or PT composition and the set with moderate defense for if you are against a Hatred/Virulence/etc comp.

 

Also while I'm a huge advocate of mitigation, I would NOT take this to the extreme. I'd still recommend using mostly endurance augments, with low endurance/high stat enhancements and mods. Or conversely if you have a lot of credits and don't want to grind the comms, a set with endurance high enhancements and mods, but with all mitigation augments.

 

*If you actually manage to talk someone into modeling this I have a slew of damage taken numbers that I've been collecting for the purpose that they might find useful.

 

I know you have already stated you aren't a theorycrafter using numbers, but would you have any recommendation based on your logic what amount of defense rating i should get?

[Zoom_VI]

I know you have already stated you aren't a theorycrafter using numbers, but would you have any recommendation based on your logic what amount of defense rating i should get?

 

Apologies I haven't been able to get in-game in awhile to check the numbers, but spitballing I would look at 5 mods or so. That's on the assumption that you have second all absorb set for dealing with dem all sorc teams.