Vanguard/Trooper/Info

[Aaoogaa]

Trooper Tanking overview from a 50 Vanguard

Please note I am not telling anyone how to spec or tank. I am just providing what I think is useful information. Some of you may know all of this, but for those that are looking for a fairly good source of information I hope this helps.

 

Vanguard

• Shield specialization (mitigation/tanking)

 

Resource (included for threat purposes and general information)

The trooper resource system is called ammo. A full allotment of ammo consists of 12 bars. Vanguard abilities range from 0 to 3 ammo to activate. Ammo regenerates over time (boosted with skills) or can be quickly regenerated via abilities. Ammo regeneration rate depends on how close the ammo bar is to being full. The rates currently assigned are 0-3 bars mean ammo regenerates at .24 bars per second (bps), from 3-8 bars mean ammo regenerates at .36 bps, 8 - 12 bars mean ammo regenerates at .6 bps. As you can see it is important to keep your bars near or above 8 to be able to maintain maximum sustained damage output for threat generation.

 

Ammo generation sources:

Skills/Abilities (there are more in the other trees but they depend on what secondary tree you take)

• Shield Cycler 0/2 25%/50% % chance to generate 1 ammo when an attack is shielded. Can only occur once ever 6 seconds. Works out to be about an additional .16 bps per at 2/2.

• Energy Blast 0/1 - Adds 1 ammo and deals damage. 15 second cooldown. (If used optimally should provide and extra .07 bps. (due to the ammo regen this ability is better than gut)

• Reload - 2 min cooldown restores 6 ammo.

 

Damage mitigation/avoidance sources

Heavy Armor

• Armor rating (mitigation) - Increases overall damage mitigation.

• Defense rating (avoidance) - Increases chance to dodge melee and ranged attacks. This statistic can be pushed down/off the chart by accuracy (more later on this).

• Shield rating (mitigation) - Increases the chance that the shield generator will proc and reduce incoming damage. This statistic can be pushed down/off the chart by critical rating (more later on this).

• Absorption rating (mitigation) - Reduces the amount of damage you receive with each shield generator proc.

 

Shield generator - Offhand item that provides a base 5% chance to proc and reduce any incoming damage by 20%. This generator requires Ion cell to be active to operate at the full effect of 20% proc chance and 20% absorption

 

Ion cell - AC buff that provides a +60% boost to armor rating, 5% base damage mitigation to all attacks, and allows shield generators to proc at full effect. Ion cell additionally increases threat generation by 50% and a 15% chance to cast ion jolt on ranged attacks causing additional damage/threat.

 

Relics - Variable stats that can boost defense, absorption, and shield ratings. Activated buffs that last ~ 20 seconds.

 

Skills

Tree - Shield specialization

• Static field 0/2 - Adds a 2%/4% damage debuff that last 15 seconds to target hit by ion pulse or explosive surge.

• Rebraced armor 0/2 - Adds +8% / +16% additional armor rating.

• Shield Cycler 0/2 - Adds +1% / +2% chance that shield generator will proc. Also has the chance to regenerate 1 ammo bar when an attack is shielded.

• Ion Shield 0/2 - Adds +1% / +2% base DR when ion cell is active.

• Ceramic Plating 0/2 - Adds +3% / +6% absorption %.

• Counter Attack 0/5 - Adds 2/4/6/8/10 % to shield generator chance to proc.

• Smoke Grenade - Adds a 20% accuracy debuff to all enemies within range when the ability is cast, lasts for 18 seconds.

 

Tree - Tactics (not listing abilities past 11 points in since I am assuming you will go 31 in shield specialization)

• Power Armor 0/2 - +1%/+2% damage reduction.

 

Tree - Assault specialist

• Soldier's Endurance 0/3 - +1/2/3 % endurance

 

Abilities

• Reactive shield - Mitigate 25% of all incoming damage for 12 seconds. Has a 2 min cooldown.

• Adrenaline rush - Restores 15% of max health over 10 seconds. Talented to a 2 min cooldown.

• Ion Pulse (when talented) - see talents

• Explosive surge - see talents

• Cryo Grenade - single target 4 second stun

• Neural Surge - Small area 2.5 second PBAOE stun.

 

History - I played a level 50 Vanguard for the better part of 4 builds. I didn't get a chance to tank everything but I feel that my actions in PVP and PVE give me a good feel for what the shield spec Vanguard is capable of achieving.

 

Skills discussion (Shield specialist)

Every skill listed here is a must have for shield specialist in PVP/PVE imo, except for Soldier's Endurance. There are more effective talents to pick up to increase threat/damage output.

 

Shield chance and Critical chance (mostly a PVP concern)

There are misconceptions about shield rating that I hope to clear up here. Shield rating does not reduce the chance to be critically hit. You can never shield a critical hit. The SWTOR system uses two checks for combat. The first check is a to hit check based on accuracy versus defense. The second check is a shield versus critical check. If the roll is a shielded attack then a 1x (normal hit) is reduced by the absorption % listed on your character sheet. If the check does not register a shielded attack then you will either have a normal hit or a crit. There is no second check to see if the attacks crit. How this works out: If you have a shield rating of 40% and your opponent has a critical rating of 30% over 100 hits (on average) you will shield 40 normal attacks at your absorption rating, you will be critically hit 30 times for 1.5x damage, and you will be hit for 30 normal attacks. If your shield rating is 50% then (on average) over 100 hits you will shield 50 normal attacks, be critically hit 30 times, and be hit for 20 normal attacks. At a 50% shield rating and 50% critical rating every attack that hits you will either be shielded or crit. If critical rating overlaps your shield rating then your shield rating will be reduced. Having shield rating reduced will be a very rare occurrence. This system was confirmed in a post and in a follow-up interview.

 

Accuracy versus Defense

When a players accuracy goes over 100% then the excess begins to push down defense. An accuracy of 105% is required to eliminate the average characters base 5% dodge/parry/block chance. We will have to wait to see what bosses defense ratings are but for tanking purposes anything over 105% accuracy is currently a waste in leveling or PVP (would need higher to overcome a tanks defense but our mitigation and a tanks lowered damage output makes this a non-concern for us.)

 

Ability usage

• Smoke grenade - Our lowest cooldown reactive ability. This should be the first ability used to maximize it's uptime in a fight. Note that this debuffs the targets in an area effect. It is great for tough group pulls and for PVP.

• Adrenaline rush - great for leveling and PVP. It will have minimal usage in boss fights. I hope they make it instant boost hp by 15% again but make it a heal. As of right now this ability isn't the best but better than nothing. This isn't going to save you when you are being hit for 4 or 5k.

• Static field - Should always be kept up on target(s). The 15 second uptime should make this easy to maintain.

• Stuns - Depending on the target they can be used to augment the time between our interrupt or for the oh crap moment of 100% mitigation so the healer can catch up.

• Relics - See your light/dark side vendor to pick these up. We get access to a defense and a shield/absorption relic and I would suggest using them.

 

Mitigation of damage to allies

Guard - First things first, guard only splits the damage taken by our guard target in PVP. It does not split it in PVE. It does provide a 5% DR to our guard target and a threat transfer. You will not see tanks guarding other tanks for PVE. Secondly, you cannot guard a target if someone is guarding you. We will not see cross guarding in PVP.

 

Neural jolt - PVE taunts the target to attack you for 6 seconds. PVP reduces the damage of the target by 30% if they are not attacking you. The 30 yard range on this ability means you can sit back at range and pop these off. The target can either turn and come after you or do less damage.

 

AE taunt (neural overload? sorry forgot the name) - Works the same at neural jolt in PVE and PVP...except it's an AE effect.

 

Smoke grenade - more avoidance than mitigation but I am including it here because it is another ability that can reduce the damage on allies. May see guilds utilizing multiple toons to keep this up to ease main tank damage throughout a fight.

 

That's about all the info I have for you. Everyone will have to figure out what rotations/skills/gear works with their playstyle. I hope this helps for anyone that didn't have a chance to play the Vanguard shield specialist during the last few weeks of beta.

Edited December 13, 2011 by Aaoogaa

[Aaoogaa]

Resereved

[kagezappa]

good stuff thx

[jeanpierre]

mister OPgreat post and im planning to go shield specialist for pvp

 

could u link ur spec plz there are way to many builds on these forums that i think are crap

 

my main goal for pvp is to suport my team,guard objectives and run ball in huttball

 

i play in guild teamplay so not solo queing pugs:)

[Validus_Bex]

This thread is awesome tyvm

[Ikthanos]

Great info. Thanks for this.

[Kromotor]

Great post. Looking forward to more info when it comes.

[neetoman]

Good stuff - thanks for sharing!

[Clucker]

Ive found that a rotation of keeping up the dmg reduc debuff, spamming hammer, keeping heavy impact bolt and stockstrike on CD is a pretty solid aggro rotation.

 

A lot of bosses have aggro switch so that taunt is nice.

 

If you lose aggro you can taunt, use sticky grenade to blow extra ammo. Mortar is beast for AoE, so is pulse.

[theblaznee]

Nice guide, there are definately some good tips..

 

As for rotation I keep it simple.. I simply go hammershot-ion pulse-hammershot

 

When stock is off cooldown I blow that, then hammershot

 

If HiB is ready I blow that instead of a hammershot.

 

If pulsecannon is up I blow that.

 

You MAY need now and then to do two hammershots in a row to keep your ammo in the high refresh, but it actually rarely happens when you have a hammershot between each ability and only do two ammocost abilities in a row now and then...

 

Oh and don't forget explosive surge.. Make sure you debuff the mobs with that all the time.. Fairly long effect, so should affect your rotation much. If you get surrounded by normal mobs, I just spam explosive surge and reload my ammo and keep going.. You finish them off fast.. And you won't need the reload anyway before it's off CD again

 

I also usually wait until after I have done my first HiB to get off smoke grenade.. I you pop it first thing, the eager dps will pull your mob.

 

I only make any sort of effort to tank elites or above in flashpoints and heroics.. Normals and strongs don't need tanking. Just keep an eye on your party healer and snag anything off him.

 

I don't use full auto, and I don't use Blitz.

 

I'm going for this build first - I'm only 40 now.. Not quite decided on Brutal Impact or Static Surge yet.. It'll take some trying out to see what nets the biggest benifit..

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801G0GrdorogZMsr0o.1

Edited December 26, 2011 by theblaznee

[Aaoogaa]

I found Vanguard is less about rotation and more about cooldowns and fillers. Thus they operate on a priority system over a rotation.

 

Priority after storm for me:

Stock strike

Ion pulse/refresh (for debuff)

HIB

Energy blast/Gut depending on spec

Sticky

Hammer shot

 

For groups:

 

Replace ion pulse with explosive surge.

Drop smoke grenade to minimize damage.

Add in Pulse cannon after HIB (still have to have max threat on kill target)

Sticky after pulse cannon so you don't knock those pesky normal mobs out of position.

 

 

If you are CCing it is very important to know your AE ranges or make sure CC is applied after your initial explosive surge at least. As a general rule if you break the CC you have to tank it, but if you wipe be prepared to accept your failure and apologize.

 

Vanguard have no threat issues and have the most tools for picking up adds during a fight.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Aaoogaa

[Sumpator]

Well this is how I usually do it...

 

When taking down 1st group (3 standard + 1 silver), I usually do this:

- Mortar Volley ( + Aric Jorgan's AoE spread fire)

- Sticky Granade (on silver one)

- Explosive Round (to keep melee enemies in AoE of Sticky granade)

- High Impact bolt

- Full Auto (on silver one)

- Then Storm / Harpoon and end the fight with melee skills...

 

It works fine at all lvls... and it takes about 20-25 secs to take down the whole group.

----------------------------

Only prob is, that mortar volley has a 1 min CD...

So the 2nd group you have to it another way:

- Cryo Granade (silver)

- Sticky granade (standard 1) + Aric Jorgans sniper shot (standard 1), or how its called

- Explosive Round (standard 2)

- High Impact Bolt (standard 2)

- Full auto (standard 3)

- Then Storm - Explosive surge - Ion Pulse

- Take down the silver as the last

 

+ EVERY time I do a group I use one of the survivability abilities (adrenialine rush, reactive shield, smoke granade, etc...) you got enough of them to cycle.

 

Of course this is not exactly how I do it.. It depends on the situation, but usually you end this in about 40 secs.

 

- Next group is again Mortar Volley ready

 

I like it, because its very variable and when you are trying to kill those groups asap, you realize, you use almost ALL of your skills!!

Shield Spec has low DPS output, but if you can live with that, you will definitely enjoy this class!

Best Republic's tank imho...

Edited January 1, 2012 by Sumpator

[Aaoogaa]

Bump for good info.

[Kaigen]

What's your opinion on the YYY Matrix Shard relic (52 Aim 60 End 18 Def, no activated ability) versus a relic that gives a large temporary buff to defensive stats?

[Guurzak]

Never pull with cryo grenade. You want to use cryo to interrupt and freeze an enemy who's actively DPSing, not one who's not even aggro yet. Using it to pull is a waste- put it second or third in your pull sequence after the wake-up shot if you really want to.