Could be wrong here, feel free to correct me..

[artilleryshell]

But it seems shadow tanks are suffering from a distinct lack of appreciation by the devs.

For example, a knight's saber ward does the same thing that deflection does, only it adds a 25% damage reduction on top of that.. oh,an d you get it several levels earlier.

 

Also, i can craft any shield EXCEPT for one with willpower stats up to and including my level.

 

 

These are minor issues, but if left unchecked, will be the deciding factor that marginalizes my class, and i'd hate for that to happen. I really love shadow tanking.

 

Now, i could be totally off base here, maybe i'm not noticing some huge advantage we have over troopers and knights that balances these issues... but i cant help shake this sinking feeling that this is wow vanilla paladin 2.0, despite Georg's assurances we'd be on par.

[Kitru]

But it seems shadow tanks are suffering from a distinct lack of appreciation by the devs.

For example, a knight's saber ward does the same thing that deflection does, only it adds a 25% damage reduction on top of that.. oh,an d you get it several levels earlier.

 

Saber Ward is on a 3 minute CD whereas Deflection is on a 2 minute CD. In addition, we get Force Technique, which tanks can increase to a 5 sec duration on a 45 sec CD.

 

Shadow tanks aren't suffering from any major deficits, aside from the lack of gear and poor ordering of available skills while leveling. If you have a problem with an ability to value, I suggest you actually look at everything involved in that particular power and compare holistically rather than honing in on a single value.

[Ellisande]

Saber Ward is on a 3 minute CD whereas Deflection is on a 2 minute CD. In addition, we get Force Technique, which tanks can increase to a 5 sec duration on a 45 sec CD.

 

Shadow tanks aren't suffering from any major deficits, aside from the lack of gear and poor ordering of available skills while leveling. If you have a problem with an ability to value, I suggest you actually look at everything involved in that particular power and compare holistically rather than honing in on a single value.

 

Unfortunately with your analysis it fails to take into account how tanking works. Unlike with DPS where average output is what matters, for a tank the most important thing is surviving situations that would kill no tanks. And surviving those situations can very easily depend on a single value of a single ability.

[Kitru]

Unfortunately with your analysis it fails to take into account how tanking works. Unlike with DPS where average output is what matters, for a tank the most important thing is surviving situations that would kill no tanks. And surviving those situations can very easily depend on a single value of a single ability.

 

The failure is not in my analysis. It is in your understanding of the underlying situation.

 

Saber Ward provides 50% defense and 25% resistance for 12 seconds on a 3 min CD. Deflection provides 50% defense on a 2 min CD (and we have higher base defense as well, so this means *even more*), and Resilience provides 100% immunity to Force/Tech on a 45 sec CD. Saber Ward is a one-stop shop for reducing incoming damage. Shadows have it split so we can either hit them both or save them for separate occasions, *and* they come substantially more often than for Knights. For burst, Saber Ward is *on par* with Deflection and *worse* than Resilience. If you want to talk about burst survival, Shadows have it amazing.

[Fairell]

you forget that knights get more defensive cooldowns and some heavy hitting strikes. what do you have as a shadow tank?

[shannynandriver]

I'm loving shadow tanking

We have several defensive cd's and yeah while we don't get them till a little later, we still do a good job of it.

Hang in there!

[Vyck]

you forget that knights get more defensive cooldowns and some heavy hitting strikes. what do you have as a shadow tank?

 

Shadow tanks have :

1) As shadow tank guides suggests we have highest DPS amon tanks

2) Some kind of self healing via Harnessed Shadows wich is part of our DPS rotation (Double, Strike (pray for Accelerated particles), Project (pray for Upheaval)...rinse and repeat until 3 stacks of Harnesses Shadows - > Telekenetic Throw).

3) We have Stealth wich is totaly rules! So we can choose our condition to start fight, we can easily avoid unwanted fights, and in really "oh sith!" situations we can "Force cloak" ourself - it's owr way out of combat situations we can't win

4) Mind Maze - is a cheap way to get -1 mob to tank in each pack.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Vyck

[Kitru]

you forget that knights get more defensive cooldowns and some heavy hitting strikes. what do you have as a shadow tank?

 

First off, no, they don't.

 

Warding Call, Saber Ward, Enure is *not* more than Resilience, Deflection, Battle Readiness. 3 CDs to compare to 3 CDs. If you add in Kinetic Ward, we actually have *more*. The Guardian CDs are not appreciably stronger than the Shadow CDs, but they *are* noticeably more generalized and on longer CDs. While a Guardian can burn a CD and not care what he's defending against, a Shadow has to pay attention, but, in exchange, gets to use said CDs *a lot* more often (and, in the case of Resilience, for *way* bigger benefit).

 

The "heavy hitting strikes" you refer to don't really hit all that hard when compared to what a Shadow can throw out, especially over a long period of time. Project is a friggin' *truck*, and we use it *all the time*. The "hard-hitting" abilities that Guardians get are on CDs that makes them substantially less useful than you think.

 

In addition, Shadows get the best internal and elemental damage resistance of tanks. Technique Mastery *on its own* provides as much resistance as Vanguards get and we get more on top of that.

[AlkalineKitten]

Not sure where I'd be without Kitru. <3

[Conkreet]

Not sure where I'd be without Kitru. <3

 

No kidding, I specced out of kinetic leveling about 10 levels ago because i was a nub and geared wrong for it. Read 3 of Kitru's posts in random threads and want to go back.

[Fairell]

First off, no, they don't.

 

Warding Call, Saber Ward, Enure is *not* more than Resilience, Deflection, Battle Readiness. 3 CDs to compare to 3 CDs. If you add in Kinetic Ward, we actually have *more*. The Guardian CDs are not appreciably stronger than the Shadow CDs, but they *are* noticeably more generalized and on longer CDs. While a Guardian can burn a CD and not care what he's defending against, a Shadow has to pay attention, but, in exchange, gets to use said CDs *a lot* more often (and, in the case of Resilience, for *way* bigger benefit).

 

The "heavy hitting strikes" you refer to don't really hit all that hard when compared to what a Shadow can throw out, especially over a long period of time. Project is a friggin' *truck*, and we use it *all the time*. The "hard-hitting" abilities that Guardians get are on CDs that makes them substantially less useful than you think.

 

In addition, Shadows get the best internal and elemental damage resistance of tanks. Technique Mastery *on its own* provides as much resistance as Vanguards get and we get more on top of that.

 

 

battle readiness is trash. it really is, perhaps not so much for a tank. but for an infiltrator...15 seconds double damage on shadow technique? which has 25% chance to be applied? with 2 secs GCD? the majority of the time it just runs out not doing anything useful.

 

shadow cds force you to gear for tanking. you cannot create something like force sweep/bladestorm focusing hybrids, throwing out 5-7k crits and still having flat dmg reduction and on demand heal with force of will. this is what im talking about. shadow lacks tools to mitigate spike dmg. knights always have heavy armor, we have to run combat stance, so it is either or.

[Bilirubin]

No kidding, I specced out of kinetic leveling about 10 levels ago because i was a nub and geared wrong for it. Read 3 of Kitru's posts in random threads and want to go back.

 

Heh. I'm leveling Kinetic and am wondering when I can be arsed to assign my balance points. Was thinking of going balance hybrid but might just wind up standard after all. BUT many levels to go before then.

 

Also more props to Kitru's generous knowledge sharing!

[Kitru]

15 seconds double damage on shadow technique? which has 25% chance to be applied? with 2 secs GCD? the majority of the time it just runs out not doing anything useful.

 

First off, it has a better than 25% chance of applying since it has a 25% chance to apply per attack made. This means that for attacks like Saber Strike (3 attacks), Double Strike (2 attacks), Clairvoyant Strike (2 attacks), and Project (45% chance for 2 attacks), it's actually substantially better (58%, 44%, 44%, and 35% respectively).

 

Secondly, the ICD is only 1.5 seconds, which largely means it can only happen once per attack (hence the higher proc rates on multi-attacks).

 

I will concur that it's not as awesome as some would hope, but it *does* provide a good deal of additional damage over the course of a fight, especially when paired with Situational Awareness to bring it down to the same CD as Force Potency (and adding roughly the same amount of damage as FP, considering the damage that Shadow Technique provides).

[lsarii]

Wow OP. Stop making threads. Shadows already do everything a knight does, but better, and in one spec, so stop whining.