Vanguard/Shield spec

[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 14, 2011 by Aaoogaa

[Aaoogaa]

Reserved...(can delete the post in the general trooper forum if you would like mods)

[kistran]

Thanks for taking the time to put this together

[Vauun]

Thanks. Edited December 14, 2011 by Vauun

[icantbebigwill]

Maybe someone can help me out.

 

I'm currently playing a Vanguard, just about to hit level 15 and I feel terribly weak compared to just about everything I fight. I don't know if it's me just not having the class down yet or if vanguard is a late bloomer but I'm getting stomped repeatedly.

 

Any suggestions?

[Skolle]

Did you train both your trooper and vanguard skills? They're on different tabs at the trainer. I know that tripped me up on in my beta experience. I felt like I was doing something wrong; turns out it was something I didn't do.

[icantbebigwill]

Did you train both your trooper and vanguard skills? They're on different tabs at the trainer. I know that tripped me up on in my beta experience. I felt like I was doing something wrong; turns out it was something I didn't do.

 

I have actually.... I should have stated that this is related to PVP.

[airrazr]

vanguards have a lot of melee range skills so make sure you are using them for the most damage possible, also be sure you are trying to strafe behind your target, interrupting casts/etc

[jeanpierre]

aaoogaa could u link ur build plz?

[Aaoogaa]

Pretty standard tanking build.

 

Aaoogaa's beta build

[Aaoogaa]

Maybe someone can help me out.

 

I'm currently playing a Vanguard, just about to hit level 15 and I feel terribly weak compared to just about everything I fight. I don't know if it's me just not having the class down yet or if vanguard is a late bloomer but I'm getting stomped repeatedly.

 

Any suggestions?

 

At 15 you are going to lack the skills necessary. I didn't really enjoy Vanguard PVP until mid 30s. Very little tank oriented gear is avaliable before then. Trust me when I say it is worth the wait. The struggle will help you become a better player so when you gear comes in you will do well.

[boothek]

Why did you not max out Aim???

[Aaoogaa]

I wanted to have 31 points in shield spec and then get to powered armor in tactics for the DR. The aim just didn't fit what I wanted at that time. If I got to the point where I was main tanking for raids I would probably respec to it. At lower level it is meh, at higher levels it starts to make a difference...even more so for DPS that has higher aim stats on their level 50 gear. Nice thing about the skills system is that we can have variation and still feel effective. There really is no perfect spec at this time.

 

Edit - Could probably stick the points from heavy stock and blaster augs into aim and have better effect at level 50. Was just personal preference. I wanted stock strike to hit as hard as possible. Was able to get as high as 2.6k stock strike crits.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Aaoogaa

[Defari]

thanks for the guide, very helpful

 

Cheers, Brumak - Trooper Vanguard

[Evenflow]

Endurance seems to be a big stat for tank troopers but I saw you went with heavy stock/blaster augs over soldier's endurance. Did you feel the extra 3% of endurance wasn't worth while? Would the extra damage by your skills impact your tanking ability (I'm coming from a healer in other MMOs so more health is better from my point of view). Thank you for this guide. It's certainly helpful.

[shallowsky]

What kind of rotation are you using?