Shield changes will buff skank tanks

[RACATW]

As a distinguished veteran of the skank tank bandwagon and basket weaving union I sincerely believe skank tanks need to be punished by more than a slap on the wrist and a buff.

 

Critical chance being capped for tank specs at 20-33% is something I could get behind. Tank stances already came with a nerf to max damage vs dps specs in the past and should in the future.

[KendraP]

Shield and absorb are in direct competition with crit/alacrity on gear slots. Additionally, defense rating comes on shield/absorb enhancements and is still relatively useless. The changes should pit greater survival against greater damage, which is supposed to be what the complaint about tanks is, no?

 

What are you getting at, exactly?

Edited August 21, 2018 by KendraP

[RACATW]

Shield and absorb are in direct competition with crit/alacrity on gear slots. Additionally, defense rating comes on shield/absorb enhancements and is still relatively useless. The changes should pit greater survival against greater damage, which is supposed to be what the complaint about tanks is, no?

 

What are you getting at, exactly?

 

Buffing skank tanks won't improve the current situation, only encourage it. There needs to be a limiting factor which mitigates the total dps output of skanks in a similar way dps specs were once punished for switching to tank stances.]

 

Of all the skanks, only about 3 on my server are skilled tanks. The rest are skanking because it is a crutch. We need to hit them over the head with their crutch and wake them up when september ends instead of a slap on the wrist.

Edited August 21, 2018 by RACATW

[VaeVictis]

1) (Defense + Shield + Absorb) / SomeVariable = amount of damage mitigated by Guard and Taunts.

 

2) Change Defense in PvP to lower the critical chance of opposing players. This makes all Tank stats useful and gives a slight buff to Shield/Absorb since more attacks will be shieldable.

 

3) Cap Tank crit at 25% and surge at 50%.

 

Edit: none of these changes would affect PvE.

 

The Tanks that really want to Tank will stay as Tanks while the skankers looking for an edge will move on to Merc or whatever.

Edited August 21, 2018 by VaeVictis

[KendraP]

Buffing skank tanks won't improve the current situation, only encourage it. There needs to be a limiting factor which mitigates the total dps output of skanks in a similar way dps specs were once punished for switching to tank stances.]

 

Of all the skanks, only about 3 on my server are skilled tanks. The rest are skanking because it is a crutch. We need to hit them over the head with their crutch and wake them up when september ends instead of a slap on the wrist.

 

If a tank is gearing shield/absorb how is he a skank? If you understand this concept, how is making shield/absorb work in pvp buffing skanks, who use dps gear?

 

And yes most skanks are morons. You should be happy they dont know how to actually tank, because at this point, they are using a spot an actual tank could be using since matchmaking considers role. It was bad enough when they were wasting a space a good dps could use.

 

So again, are you just calling all pvp tanks skanks? Or is there no actual thought or point to this other than simple complaining?

[RACATW]

If a tank is gearing shield/absorb how is he a skank? If you understand this concept, how is making shield/absorb work in pvp buffing skanks, who use dps gear?

 

And yes most skanks are morons. You should be happy they dont know how to actually tank, because at this point, they are using a spot an actual tank could be using since matchmaking considers role. It was bad enough when they were wasting a space a good dps could use.

 

So again, are you just calling all pvp tanks skanks? Or is there no actual thought or point to this other than simple complaining?

 

That default 20% shield chance from being in tank spec and having a shield is delicious. Some skanks may incorrectly use a focus instead of a shield, but that's more of a L2P issue for them.

 

Hence the reason I advocate removing the crutch from them. Tank spec DR is already insane -- they don't need a buffed shield too if they eventually figure out shields are good for tank specs.

[KendraP]

That default 20% shield chance from being in tank spec and having a shield is delicious. Some skanks may incorrectly use a focus instead of a shield, but that's more of a L2P issue for them.

 

Hence the reason I advocate removing the crutch from them. Tank spec DR is already insane -- they don't need a buffed shield too if they eventually figure out shields are good for tank specs.

 

What does that have to do with the changes at all? In order to get a better shield chance tanks will have to drop crit/alac and thus kill their own damage.

 

The changes merely make tank gear do something, which to me is a necessary step before attempting to remove skanks, as the primary reason skanks (that are not idiots) run dpd gear in tank spec is because tank stats currently do nothing in pvp.

 

Once tank stats are productive to tank survival, im fine with the suggestions @Vae made regarding caps and using gear to rate guards and taunts. Nerfing tanks without changing how stats function in pvp merely hurts those of us who do choose to actually tank.

Edited August 21, 2018 by KendraP

[RACATW]

What does that have to do with the changes at all? In order to get a better shield chance tanks will have to drop crit/alac and thus kill their own damage.

 

The changes merely make tank gear do something, which to me is a necessary step before attempting to remove skanks, as the primary reason skanks (that are not idiots) run dpd gear in tank spec is because tank stats currently do nothing in pvp.

 

Once tank stats are productive to tank survival, im fine with the suggestions @Vae made regarding caps and using gear to rate guards and taunts. Nerfing tanks without changing how stats function in pvp merely hurts those of us who do choose to actually tank.

 

Skank (entirely dps gear) equipped with a shield will shield 1 out every 4 attacks. Rolling an attack against 20% absorb, alongside of 51% DR and 20-25% defense. (5% accuracy debuff, riposte, blade dance).

 

Power and crit for skanks stack the self heal of focused defense buffing its effect significantly which results in skanks having an advantage over tanks in hp -- but not necessarily mitigation. And remember they can take the utility to reduce damage while stunned by 30% as well. End result? With the shield buff and no defensive stats, they've got a buff due to the base stats they have to work with.

Edited August 21, 2018 by RACATW

[KendraP]

Skank (entirely dps gear) equipped with a shield will shield 1 out every 4 attacks. Rolling an attack against 20% absorb, alongside of 51% DR and 20-25% defense. (5% accuracy debuff, riposte, blade dance).

Sure, you're running tank spec. I run high endurance dps gear personally.

Power and crit for skanks stack the self heal of focused defense buffing its effect significantly which results in skanks having an advantage over tanks in hp -- but not necessarily mitigation. And remember they can take the utility to reduce damage while stunned by 30% as well. End result? With the shield buff and no defensive stats, they've got a buff due to the base stats they have to work with.

I already drop power for a greater endurance pool. If i remember right FD scales off bonus healing which i think is based on mastery and power. Its still a htf for a tank.

 

Sheer endurance wise, you can gear for hp either way. Mods: lethal b v warding b give you the same endurance (and even AFTER the changes lethal will be the way to go). Enhancement wise you can go high endurance as well, in both crit/alac and shield/absorb.

 

I still do not understand the last point. You must gear for either crit/alac OR shield/absorb (or i guess some mix). On any enhancement you have one of the 4, so they are in direct competetion. Any shield or absorb you add is dropping your alac or crit, and thus any mitigation you gain by doing so also drops your damage done.

 

The intent of the changes is to give actual tanks a reason to run tank gear, which sort of nerfs skanks (i.e. in theory at least actual tanks will be more survivable than skanks). Whether it plays out as intended is up in the air. Its BW so i expect a disaster personally.

[Seterade]

or you know... play a tank with tank gear in a trinity MMO. instead of a broken design flaw where bolster and passives carry you.

 

OH! and fun fact. skank tanks have existed since launch. its now..... 8 years later? working as intended™

Edited August 22, 2018 by Seterade

[KendraP]

or you know... play a tank with tank gear in a trinity MMO. instead of a broken design flaw where bolster and passives carry you.

 

I have played my tank with tank gear. I have played just about any combination of stats conceivable before deciding high endurance dps gear was optimal given the current state of def/shield/absorb.

 

As far as the potential changes: at best i will go back to my pve tank gear because shield/absorb block crits. At worst there is no change in the current state of pvp tanking.

 

What are you attempting to contribute to this discussion where someone is implying shield changes somehow buff skanks?

[RACATW]

I have played my tank with tank gear. I have played just about any combination of stats conceivable before deciding high endurance dps gear was optimal given the current state of def/shield/absorb.

 

As far as the potential changes: at best i will go back to my pve tank gear because shield/absorb block crits. At worst there is no change in the current state of pvp tanking.

 

What are you attempting to contribute to this discussion where someone is implying shield changes somehow buff skanks?

 

Yes endurance build is essentially more of a tank build than skank. Skank generally means you focus on power and crit to min-max damage and ignore mitigation which in pvp is partly dependent on your max hp due to how dps windows work for players.

 

Regardless, you can't possibly be arguing that the 24% base shield chance against ALL attacks even autocrits and 20% absorb will not result in a buff for skank tanks. They absolutely must be nerfed in some way to compensate for this massive buff, capping crit chance for tank stances would be a start.

Edited August 22, 2018 by RACATW

[KendraP]

Yes endurance build is essentially more of a tank build than skank. Skank generally means you focus on power and crit to min-max damage and ignore mitigation which in pvp is partly dependent on your max hp due to how dps windows work for players.

 

Regardless, you can't possibly be arguing that the 24% base shield chance against ALL attacks even autocrits and 20% absorb will not result in a buff for skank tanks. They absolutely must be nerfed in some way to compensate for this massive buff, capping crit chance for tank stances would be a start.

 

assuming the shielding changes actually have as much of an effect as intended that's fine with me. If the changes have as large an effect as intended, running skank will be less tanky than actual tanking anyway, so for actual tanking you would run tank gear.

[ultimarb]

assuming the shielding changes actually have as much of an effect as intended that's fine with me. If the changes have as large an effect as intended, running skank will be less tanky than actual tanking anyway, so for actual tanking you would run tank gear.

 

But NO good healer/skank or healer/fulltank combination needs a buff. A good healer will always have his/her skank and 2 dps on good health. That is the real problem of those upcoming changes...skanks will be buffed TOO. so what is the result?

 

A Group with 2 DPS and one Skank surviving due to Healer and doing 13k DPS together.

 

OR

 

A Group with 2 DPS and 1 Full Tank surviving doing 9-10k DPS.

 

So Full-Tanks will be even more obsolote then ever before when this changes will be going live.

[Rafiknoll]

Regardless, you can't possibly be arguing that the 24% base shield chance against ALL attacks even autocrits and 20% absorb will not result in a buff for skank tanks. They absolutely must be nerfed in some way to compensate for this massive buff, capping crit chance for tank stances would be a start.

 

A fine point to be honest. Maybe they should consider nerfing the passive shield and absorb and buffing the effectiveness of the respective stats so that the sum for tanks is the same (maybe with a slight change in min-maxing), but skanks end up with something ignorable.

 

And while at it, maybe also make armor somehow dependant on a tanky stat. PT tanks can get 50% DR for all non-I/E regardless of shield or any stat, that's kinda ridiculous. In fact I suggested some time ago that PVP trauma includes some kind of armor reduction so that the difference between skanks and DPS is reduced.

[Lhancelot]

 

Regardless, you can't possibly be arguing that the 24% base shield chance against ALL attacks even autocrits and 20% absorb will not result in a buff for skank tanks. They absolutely must be nerfed in some way to compensate for this massive buff, capping crit chance for tank stances would be a start.

 

That's my point. I am all for adding survivability to tanks, but skanks need their damage toned down if they are going to be given added survivability too. Something needs to be addressed here.

[Rafiknoll]

That's my point. I am all for adding survivability to tanks, but skanks need their damage toned down if they are going to be given added survivability too. Something needs to be addressed here.

 

That's the problem: tanks need damage and survivability buff and skanks need damage and survivability nerf. What we are gonna get is survivability buff for both, but at least they got it right and made it more effective for tanks this time (a step forward from the dmg nerf which hurt the tanks at least as much as it hurt the skanks, even though only skanks deserved it). This is why I am suggesting the alterations to how much are the defensives related to passives and how much to stats (in favor of the stats), so we gain the survivability nerf to skanks as well as the buff to tanks. And if skanks are hurt enough on that front, they will be obsolete, and we won't need to worry about their DMG output anymore, and the damage dealt to tanks' damage dealt can be undone. [i know the last sentence is written in an annoying way ]

[KendraP]

That's the problem: tanks need damage and survivability buff and skanks need damage and survivability nerf. What we are gonna get is survivability buff for both, but at least they got it right and made it more effective for tanks this time (a step forward from the dmg nerf which hurt the tanks at least as much as it hurt the skanks, even though only skanks deserved it). This is why I am suggesting the alterations to how much are the defensives related to passives and how much to stats (in favor of the stats), so we gain the survivability nerf to skanks as well as the buff to tanks. And if skanks are hurt enough on that front, they will be obsolete, and we won't need to worry about their DMG output anymore, and the damage dealt to tanks' damage dealt can be undone. [i know the last sentence is written in an annoying way ]

And this has been my point this entire thread.

 

Provided they make tank stats effective, they can do whatever they want to skanks as I won't be doing it any more.

[Seterade]

honestly the simplest coding they could do (lets be honest.. simple is all they can) just make defence rating work on yellow damage and increase tank stance debuff from 10% to 20% and increase threat generation by 10%. biowares mistake with their attempt at "nerfing" skanks was they tried to adjust select abilities, instead of just nerfing the tank stance.

 

and secondly they should do what I suggested to keith quite some time ago (we can all see how that went) that all tank DR passive should be based on equipted tank stats andall damage buff utilities should be dps stance exclusive with a tank DR alterative.

 

frankly I see this games pvp moving toward 3 dps 1 hlr make ups, which if bioware could get out their thinking caps and in still a match making that fits a hlr with 1 offh dps, 1 offt dps, and 1 pure dps this game would go a lot smoother. but more likely they will just remove guard from dps and keep tanks as the only reliable damage distrubition in pvp

Edited August 22, 2018 by Seterade

[Rafiknoll]

honestly the simplest coding they could do (lets be honest.. simple is all they can) just make defence rating work on yellow damage and increase tank stance debuff from 10% to 20% and increase threat generation by 10%. biowares mistake with their attempt at "nerfing" skanks was they tried to adjust select abilities, instead of just nerfing the tank stance.

 

Oh, I don't think you want tanks with 35% chance to resist all kinds of stuns roaming around an objective map. That is the one major flaw in this idea about def rating.

 

and secondly they should do what I suggested to keith quite some time ago (we can all see how that went) that all tank DR passive should be based on equipted tank stats andall damage buff utilities should be dps stance exclusive with a tank DR alterative.

 

Once they do implement what you said or what I said (both are survivability nerfs to skank in a way that doesn't harm tanks) there will be no use playing skanks and thus there will be no need to nerf their damage. Tanks have a low enough damage as is. In fact, once skanks are rendered useless, tanks can get their damage returned to its state prior to the nerf.

Note, by the way, that only tank DCDs should be affected by your idea, or else you will end up nerfing the survivability of sins juggs and PTs, and we all know they don't deserve it. That kinda limits the idea's effectiveness.

[Seterade]

yes, only tank dcds/tree passives.

 

 

my reason for believing what is needed for tanks to resist yellow dmg, is this. the only reason defence rating doesnt matter in pvp is because 90% of dmg is yellow. ask a sniper how much he enjoys when tanks "deflect" his hardstun. or a deception assassins low slash? these stuns/cc already suffer being nulled. if tanks did notmal tank dmg? I could swallow a few resisted yellow dmg. I know I have to eat my LS on sin or HS on sniper.

Edited August 22, 2018 by Seterade

[Rafiknoll]

my reason for believing what is needed for tanks to resist yellow dmg, is this. the only reason defence rating doesnt matter in pvp is because 90% of dmg is yellow. ask a sniper how much he enjoys when tanks "deflect" his hardstun. or a deception assassins low slash? these stuns/cc already suffer being nulled. if tanks did notmal tank dmg? I could swallow a few resisted yellow dmg. I know I have to eat my LS on sin or HS on sniper.

 

Sniper's stun is a tech ability (quite sure about that. Maybe you meant root?) and deception sins still have electrocute. The grand majority stunning, slowing, pushing and pulling abilities in this game are yellow. Believe me, it will be felt much harder than a missed low slash feels. I can see how an arena with yellow resistance can be fair. However, I can't see how a huttball match could work, or generally how godlike can tanks be in any kind of regs when they effortlessly resist a flashbang and ruin the perfect sap-cap. I am not outright saying it is unfair, but I think these outcomes should be considered. A good tank will be a far more deciding factor on the outcome of objective matches if he is quite likely to resist controls and break the currently sure-fire tactics.

3 days ago these little 2% resistance my sin tank has resisted a hardstun and allowed me to solo kill the merc who would otherwise solo kill me. Imagine how would my soloes look if it had 40% chance to happen, and to nullify all his damaging abilities too completely. It will be quite possible the final result will be tanks taking 10% of the damage DPS take with the combination of def, armor and shield, not to mention DCDs

[Seterade]

yes. according to the tooltip of sniper harstun it is "energy damage". when 5.0 seperated the operative and sniper range of the hardstun the flytext of sniper hard stun became "white". it does get defelcted by tanks, and you can test it yourself on your ship dummy. it is 100% white damage hardstun. its why snipers where able to hardstun through RA and hardstun assassins during shroud

 

I reported it as a bug at luanch. its appearently gone ignored for 2 years.. so working as intended

 

in response to your comment about 1v1ing a mercenary, if the mercenary wasnt new and you werent a skank tank the 1v1 would have been unlikely. however skank tanks are capable of winning 1v1 vs even mercs, which is why "tryhards" play skanks. (the #1 excuse all skank tanks tell themselves to sleep at night is they only did it so they could beat 5.0 mercs and snipers.)

 

in trinity theory a tank will last so long vs 2 players a dps and a healer will come help, but cant kill either of them. in trinity theory if you have a dps helping you and you are a tank you will keep the dps alive to kill both attacking dps. in theory. but your dps would be subpar at best, roughly 50% or less than your dps friend

Edited August 22, 2018 by Seterade

[Rafiknoll]

yes. according to the tooltip of sniper harstun it is "energy damage".

 

I am not 100% certain about whether is it actually white or yellow, but as a side note: don't mistake damage type with attack type. Force lightning deals energy damage, and it is definitely a force attack (yellow).

 

Attack types are Melee and Ranged for white and Force and Tech for yellow. Defense chance is separated for these types and def rating (the stat) boosts only the defense chance of M/R.

The attack type is written to the right when you open your abilities panel. It is not mentioned in the description of the ability.

 

Damage types are Kinetic and Energy versus Internal and Elemental. These are separated for damage reduction and shielding. Armor adds only to the damage reduction of K/E while I/E have a separate damage reduction mainly affected by passives and the inquisitor class buff. In addition, the shield can only function versus K/E attacks.

The damage type is mentioned in the description of the ability.

 

While all M/R attacks deal K/E damage, it doesn't mean all F/T attacks deal I/E damage. Some of them deal K/E damage as well.

Don't mix the two things.

Edited August 22, 2018 by Rafiknoll

[Seterade]

however the tooltip of the snipers hardstun has been wrong since 5.0 launch. its white ranged damage, and yes a tank can deflect/null it.

 

I'll hop on and get a log screenshot vs ship dummy

no need to post the tooltip, we all know how to use dulfy

Edited August 22, 2018 by Seterade