Skank Tank or Shank Tank imbalance

[Sargrith]

Your example only really works with shadows.....

 

But that's besides the point.

 

If you bring the defenses of the Guardian and Vangard dps builds to the same level as the Merc, Sniper, Op, Mara......

 

You would end up with a better skank because your defenses would be at least as good and your dps better. Completely removing the value of any tank. And that isn't even bringing the dps to their levels. And you have to balance them with the other dps. Skank build aside. All the Skank build does is move the defenses at the cost of some dps and that is being declared an issue. In a balanced game the skank wouldn't exist because a dps in this current setting would be better at it.

 

But this game is broken on basic levels. Healing is overcharged right now with healers being too good at healing, tanks are too weak at everything, many dps are way too strong defensively and the dps each can reach is all over the place and not at all balanced.

 

I think in the end its healing and defenses that need to be addressed. You cut back on the defenses, and I mean by a lot, that non-tanks have and give tank stats real value and the skank tank issue will go away.

Edited August 17, 2017 by Sargrith

[Severith]

Not sure if serious.

 

A skank tank without cooldowns is far from as easy to kill as a DPS because of passives.

Literally.. a Darkness Sin has twice the armor of a DPS one. And that isn't going on cooldown.

 

I could name dozens of examples of this but I'm writing on the clock here.

 

As of the cooldowns being inferior to a Sniper or Merc.. that depends if you look at it for personal survivability or if you look at it them being pretend tanks and those cooldowns aiding how much they actually soak for others.

 

Lastly.. nobody sensible here is arguing these specs outdps actual DPS.

But they shouldn't even get halfway close. And that is the problem.

 

 

We aren't comparing skank tanks to Snipers or Mercs here. Those are another demon entirely.

However, that doesn't mean it's not wrong to be able to soak nearly as much damage as a proper tank and be anywhere north of 70% a DPS' worth.

 

The meta is the problem, and the meta is skank.

 

Wow. Lets unpack this, cause it's pretty off the wall.

 

You're talking about armor. In pvp. Wow. Anyone with half a brain knows armor doesn't do much in pvp at all, for the same exact reasons shield/defense isn't effective. Armor doesn't do anything against the majority of attacks. It's not even in the equations vs force or tech attacks. Against dps that actually does damage affected by armor, the majority of dps has abilities that bypass or reduce it.

 

So no, you're completely wrong about armor making it harder to kill someone. It really doesn't matter, unless you're playing against someone who is only using white damage attacks. This is not an mmo where armor matters in pvp. By comparison, ESO has armor that actually provides"spell resistance" in an equal amount. Until swtor does the same, your point is invalid in a majority of pvp situations.

 

Go ahead and name the "dozens of examples". Seriously. Lets take a look.

 

Secondly, my post agrees that the ability "guard" needs to be scaled off of defensive stats. Not sure why you'd even mention that, except to try and blur the point being made. As for intercede and taunts, you'll just have to live with the fact that classes with tank specs in them are going to have some integral group utility. The fact is the defensive cooldowns of skank tanks are no where near that of the actual op classes, mercs and snipers.

 

Skank tank's don't do all that well vs single target. They do okay, but it's not great. If at the end of a wz they're on top of the damage charts it's only because of cleaves. Cleaves are preventable if the other team spreads out. It's a learn to play issue. It's a lot like veng jugs dot spread. Sure, you used to see veng jugs at the top of the charts all the time, but a) they never had any kills and b) they only got that damage because the enemy team was stupid and clustered.

 

There's no such thing as a "proper tank" in pvp. It's because defensive stats, including armor, are next to worthless in pvp. Anyone rolling in tank gear for a match is hurting their team. You comparing what a skank tank can soak vs a "proper tank" is downright stupid, because just like a "proper tank", a skank tank can't do anything against force attacks, tech attacks, or armor piercing abilities. So of course they're the same in that department. That's called logic. It also stands to reason that if defensive stats were made viable in pvp, a "proper tank" would actually be soaking up far more damage in pvp than their skank tank counterpart.

 

Why are you comparing a completely broken playstyle with a viable playstyle, and insisting that the viable playstyle be as bad as the broken one?

[KendraP]

Your example only really works with shadows.....

 

But that's besides the point.

 

If you bring the defenses of the Guardian and Vangard dps builds to the same level as the Merc, Sniper, Op, Mara......

 

You would end up with a better skank because your defenses would be at least as good and your dps better. Completely removing the value of any tank. And that isn't even bringing the dps to their levels. And you have to balance them with the other dps. Skank build aside. All the Skank build does is move the defenses at the cost of some dps and that is being declared an issue. In a balanced game the skank wouldn't exist because a dps in this current setting would be better at it.

 

But this game is broken on basic levels. Healing is overcharged right now with healers being too good at healing, tanks are too weak at everything, many dps are way too strong defensively and the dps each can reach is all over the place and not at all balanced.

 

I think in the end its healing and defenses that need to be addressed. You cut back on the defenses, and I mean by a lot, that non-tanks have and give tank stats real value and the skank tank issue will go away.

 

To me, the dps spec of a tank capable class SHOULD be as survivable as a mando, slinger, sent, scoundrel, etc. like why should a heavy armor, sword slinging class be LESS survivable than ones that just pew pew away from range or were intended to be a glass cannon, or have stealth.

 

Do note that I mentioned earlier that I think part of the outcry over skanking is because there are so few deaths in pvp in general. Unfortunately I happen to main guardians, whose dps spec is like the 2nd or 3rd squishiest in the game, and there's a pretty large gap there

Edited August 17, 2017 by KendraP

[-BlackDragon-]

So I hear the granked meta is 3 tanks and a healer, nothing broken about that

[Elusive_Thing]

So I hear the granked meta is 3 tanks and a healer, nothing broken about that

Well... it isn't.

[Evolixe]

Wow. Lets unpack this, cause it's pretty off the wall.

 

You're talking about armor. In pvp. Wow. Anyone with half a brain knows armor doesn't do much in pvp at all, for the same exact reasons shield/defense isn't effective. Armor doesn't do anything against the majority of attacks. It's not even in the equations vs force or tech attacks. Against dps that actually does damage affected by armor, the majority of dps has abilities that bypass or reduce it.

 

You what mate, do you even play this game?

 

This isn't WoW. Yellow damage doesn't mean its not affected by armor. Everything is affected by armor.

Everything with the sole exception of INTERNAL damage elements.

 

Maybe you should do your homework before you start commenting and pretend-correcting people.

 

As of the examples:

 

Assassin:

+150% Armor from stance

+4% Damage Reduction

+4% Melee and Ranged Defense

+2% Defense

+2% Endurance

+4% Damage Reduction from Depredating Volts.

 

Jugg:

+60% Armor from stance

+15% armor from Guard

+6% Damage Reduction from stance

+5% Elemental and INTERNAL Damage Reduction

+3% Melee/Ranged Defense

+5% Defense on Retaliation use

 

And a bunch of shield things, that don't do anything granted you don't use a shield.

 

Red = Active, but not a cooldown. Can be kept up indefinitely.

Don't argue *********** semantics on this one. It's there and good players will keep it up most of the time.

 

 

I mean I could list PT as well.. but honestly mate maybe you should just leave now.

 

 

P.S.

You remember that time Assassin tanks were nearly unkillable in early 5.0?

Yeah.. that was Armor. Stance was being applied twice.

 

Which meant that Sintanks had 16k armor and basically passively had 75% Damage Reduction.

Edited August 17, 2017 by Evolixe

[Caeliuxrules]

I like to use the past to show what tanking was before bolster and when you used to have to gear in organized pvp.

 

Link:

 

In this video you will watch a tank named Justbodies be a meat shield and try to keep his teamates alive with guard swap, taunts, mitigation. A tanks job back then was real and games was won on dps focus, great games of attrition and skill to win in 8 man ranked.

 

Skip ahead to now, tanks can't do this in the current because of scaling problems, dps being over tuned, and and fixes to defense to classes like pt and jug. Sin ATM does better in tank gear than the other 2, but system is still broken for it to be as viable as skank.

 

If a meta is tank dps, and reason why is because tanks are not good enough to be viable being the spec cause of lack of balance, then ladies and gents we have a balance problem.

 

Again, bioware knows about this, and has over a year and still we have no fix.

 

This is a no brainier fix...

Edited August 17, 2017 by Caeliuxrules

[Arlanon]

My understanding is that the root of the issue lies with the way Bioware calculates hits.

 

To my knowledge, the first roll of an attack determines if the attack is a Crit, Miss, or a Normal Hit. If it is a Normal Hit, a second roll is performed to see if the Normal Hit is Shielded.

 

IMO, they got Crit and Shield backwards in that equation. The first roll should be Shield, Miss, or Normal Hit. If the attack is a Normal Hit, then the second roll should be performed to see if the Normal Hit is a Crit.

 

Unfortunately, adjusting this equation now would imbalance every PvE fight in the entire game. So not going to happen.

 

Let's take an example PvP fight. Let's suppose the Attacker has:

40% Crit.

 

Let's suppose the Tank has:

20% Defense.

40% Shield.

40% Absorb.

 

So the Attacker comes in with 1,000,000 damage towards the Tank. Let's break this down.

 

The first Attack Roll determines Crit, Miss, or Normal Attack. 40% Crit, 20% Miss, and 40% Normal Hit. So of that 1,000,000 incoming damage:

 

40% Normal Hit. So of that 1,000,000 incoming damage, 40% of it is eligible to be Shielded, which is 400,000.

 

40% Shield. So of that 400,000 incoming damage, 40% of it is Shielded, which is 160,000.

 

40% Absorb. So of that 160,000 incoming damage, 40% of it is Absorbed, which is 64,000.

 

So the bottom line here:

 

With the Attacker having 40% Crit, and the Tank having 20% Defense, 40% Shield, and 40% Absorb, out of 1,000,000 incoming damage, the Tank's Shield mitigated 64,000 damage.

 

That is virtually worthless. Biovar plz

Edited August 17, 2017 by Arlanon

[yellow_]

bolster has literally no impact on the game when everyone in the match has gear

 

bolster

has

no

impact

when

everyone

has

gear

[Caeliuxrules]

My understanding is that the root of the issue lies with the way Bioware calculates hits.

 

To my knowledge, the first roll of an attack determines if the attack is a Crit, Miss, or a Normal Hit. If it is a Normal Hit, a second roll is performed to see if the Normal Hit is Shielded.

 

IMO, they got Crit and Shield backwards in that equation. The first roll should be Shield, Miss, or Normal Hit. If the attack is a Normal Hit, then the second roll should be performed to see if the Normal Hit is a Crit.

 

Unfortunately, adjusting this equation now would imbalance every PvE fight in the entire game. So not going to happen.

 

Let's take an example PvP fight. Let's suppose the Attacker has:

40% Crit.

 

Let's suppose the Tank has:

20% Defense.

40% Shield.

40% Absorb.

 

So the Attacker comes in with 1,000,000 damage towards the Tank. Let's break this down.

 

The first Attack Roll determines Crit, Miss, or Normal Attack. 40% Crit, 20% Miss, and 40% Normal Hit. So of that 1,000,000 incoming damage: 40% of it is eligible to be Shielded, which is 400,000.

 

40% Shield. So of that 400,000 incoming damage, 40% of it is Shielded, which is 160,000.

 

40% Absorb. So of that 160,000 incoming damage, 40% of it is Absorbed, which is 64,000.

 

So the bottom line here:

 

With the Attacker having 40% Crit, and the Tank having 20% Defense, 40% Shield, and 40% Absorb, out of 1,000,000 incoming damage, the Tank's Shield mitigated 64,000 damage.

 

That is virtually worthless. Biovar plz

 

Nice post mate, if your math is right that isn't good..

 

Jesus..

[Caeliuxrules]

bolster has literally no impact on the game when everyone in the match has gear

 

bolster

has

no

impact

when

everyone

has

gear

 

Bolster is a broken system and never scaled right.

 

I assume rebalancing tanks in this era with bolster going to be a pain in *** for combat team because of defensive rating equaled into high stamina which tanks need.

 

The balancing act with bolster to provide viable tanks in tank gear with bolster without making them op I believe is why they haven't got a clue how to work that out yet.

 

One wrong miscalculated fix for tanks, we could see unkillable tanks.

 

Catch my drift ?

[yellow_]

bolster gives some free stat to your toons with no gear and that is it

 

it does literally nothing in games where everyone is geared. not literally in the way 15 year girls use that word. actually literally nothing

 

bolster has absolutely nothing to do with tank balance

[Wimbleton]

Bolster is a broken system and never scaled right.

 

I assume rebalancing tanks in this era with bolster going to be a pain in *** for combat team because of defensive rating equaled into high stamina which tanks need.

 

The balancing act with bolster to provide viable tanks in tank gear with bolster without making them op I believe is why they haven't got a clue how to work that out yet.

 

One wrong miscalculated fix for tanks, we could see unkillable tanks.

 

Catch my drift ?

 

Once you pass gear level 238, which effectively means you're in all 242, its as if bolster doesnt even exist. The bolster machine completely ignores and passes by your character as you load in.

 

So theres absolutely no way for there to be a balancing act with bolster because their is no bolster.

 

Subsequently, one cannot catch your drift because there is no drift.

[Evolixe]

bolster gives some free stat to your toons with no gear and that is it

 

it does literally nothing in games where everyone is geared. not literally in the way 15 year girls use that word. actually literally nothing

 

bolster has absolutely nothing to do with tank balance

 

 

 

Honestly dude, I don't understand what's so hard to grasp about this..

Edited August 17, 2017 by Evolixe

[Caeliuxrules]

bolster gives some free stat to your toons with no gear and that is it

 

it does literally nothing in games where everyone is geared. not literally in the way 15 year girls use that word. actually literally nothing

 

bolster has absolutely nothing to do with tank balance

 

I know what bolster does, and it's not a solid working system. Your talking to someone from 2010 here.

 

I know bolster scaling for tanks isn't the problem, the problem is bioware hasn't scaled tanks for pvp added into what bolster does.

 

There is mitigation problems, there is actually tanking fixes that need addressed to scale what dps is doing in this era.

 

Again, the combat team KNOWS that tank needs fixed, bolstering tanks and making them viable is going to be a slippery slope to not over do it like they always do.

 

Shield for tanks needs balanced where tanks actually get absorb and shield rating from using it, you shouldn't have to pop all CDs to stay alive on a tank, you should be able to absorb no crit by % and be a meat shield unless focus dps has wore you down, or let's say your healer dies.

 

This is how it USED to be before bolster, where gear was how viable you was = into your skill level as well.

[Caeliuxrules]

Once you pass gear level 238, which effectively means you're in all 242, its as if bolster doesnt even exist. The bolster machine completely ignores and passes by your character as you load in.

 

So theres absolutely no way for there to be a balancing act with bolster because their is no bolster.

 

Subsequently, one cannot catch your drift because there is no drift.

 

Has it been confirmed 242 scales right? Even so doesn't that mean your broken being scaled till 242 lmao..

[Evolixe]

Has it been confirmed 242 scales right? Even so doesn't that mean your broken being scaled till 242 lmao..

 

It doesn't matter at that stage because then you're still undergeared.

 

For the last time, Bolster gives you stats based on the gear you have equipped. It doesn't just pull stats out of thin air.

[yellow_]

It doesn't matter at that stage because then you're still undergeared.

 

For the last time, Bolster gives you stats based on the gear you have equipped. It doesn't just pull stats out of thin air.

in addition to that, it exclusively gives mitigation stats to anyone in tank spec

 

bolster, when it's giving undergeared tanks some stats, isn't giving them the DPS stats that make this board froth at the mouth

Edited August 17, 2017 by yellow_

[Caeliuxrules]

It doesn't matter at that stage because then you're still undergeared.

 

For the last time, Bolster gives you stats based on the gear you have equipped. It doesn't just pull stats out of thin air.

 

I know man. Let me ask you since I feel you understand and it's really a yes or no.

 

Do you think the scaling of tanks due to bolster till 242 is a broken system with account that absorb rating and shield rating is not viable in 5.3?

[Caeliuxrules]

in addition to that, it exclusively gives mitigation stats to anyone in tank spec

 

bolster, when it's giving undergeared tanks some stats, isn't giving them the DPS stats that make this board froth at the mouth

 

Tanks in tank gear shouldn't be worried about dps stats though, unless everyone wants their cake and eat it too. I mean sure be nice to have some dps, but that isn't what a tank should worry about least in my opinion.

[Evolixe]

I know man. Let me ask you since I feel you understand and it's really a yes or no.

 

Do you think the scaling of tanks due to bolster till 242 is a broken system with account that absorb rating and shield rating is not viable in 5.3?

 

It has nothing to do with bolster. It's those stats themselves that are an issue.

Bolster is completely innocent in the matter.

[Evolixe]

Tanks in tank gear shouldn't be worried about dps stats though, unless everyone wants their cake and eat it too. I mean sure be nice to have some dps, but that isn't what a tank should worry about least in my opinion.

 

This is the the whole point I've been trying to make for 3 pages now.

 

But I don't blame people for doing something if it works.

I blame the game for making it possible and not making the proper stats worthwhile enough.

[Caeliuxrules]

It has nothing to do with bolster. It's those stats themselves that are an issue.

Bolster is completely innocent in the matter.

 

So scaling in your opinion isn't bolster but is a scaling to what exactly? If I am wrong and scaling has nothing to do with bolster, which I am OK being wrong then what exactly is the fix.

 

I mean I brought up reasoning on mitigation problems vs dps in this era, but as someone like myself who played tank religiously when 8 man ranked was in this game, there is a real problem.

 

So if I am wrong about stat bolster being not the problem, then is it the definition of absorb and defense rating not being scaled right?

[Foambreaker]

Around the 2nd or 3rd xpac for WoW there was a push to make tanks viable in PvP.

 

It failed for the same reason this is fail: players do not attack tanks if the tanks are harmless and if the tanks are not harmless then they are OP.

 

I remember having hella fun with my undead warrior. Had like 2 stuns, 3 interrupts (one with silence) and could do DPS.

 

I could take a healer apart in like 10 seconds

[Ooha]

6:6:6 Edited July 24, 2018 by Ooha