Shadow tanking: How viable?

[Kyuubil]

I believe HP is roughly equal for all three tanks, though it should be noted that other classes aren't far behind on HP either, I've seen more than a few other level 50's with 14k+ HP who aren't tanks.

 

Also something else to keep in mind, just because we're only a little behind Guardians on mitigation, doesn't make it alright. They think they are weak too, the comparison should always be to the best and so far that is the Vanguard. In Beta there was plenty of talk about Vanguard being the best tank in the game for endgame, not just because of the mitigation but because a ranged tank can avoid things like knockbacks, etc that are point blank.

 

I might roll a Vanguard to see how they are now that I've got to 50 with my Shadow. I also believe this whole issue has come about because originally we were just a DPS class and they added tank to us, unlike the other two which were always planned to be tank classes. They are simply more refined than us

 

I have in fact noticed that in SOME cases it's easier to avoid boss mechanics (hammer station is one), BH only needs to be in melee for rocket punch, so you can easily weave in/out rocket punch, dart on your way out, flame burst, flamethrowe, run in, rocket punch, etc.

 

Though, they only have a 10m range on most of their atacks, so you can't get TOO far from melee if you want agro.

 

That said, I actually prefer "Dodge" tanks, and am thinking my frustration with my shadow may just be that i'm woefully undergeared because I was saving for my speeder.. going to go blow some money nad update some equip and see what happens.. if it doesn't get better, guess i'll just stick with bounty hunting for a living. XD

 

That said, my initial post wasn't "can we do it" it was more "will people WANT us to do it."

 

I used rift as a comparison for a reason.

 

in rift you had 3 tanks.

 

Warrior tanks, variety of souls, only ~1-2% behind other tanks in most mitigations, lower avoidance, higher block, due to having 4 tanking "Trees", they had a lot of utility/other goodies mixed in

 

Rogue tanks -- wore leather, got a crappy armor buff, but were based on partial absorb shield (effectively 35% of the damage on each blow was shaved off, was like a permenant block) -- Against physical, they were weak, lower armor, and warriors shielded ~60% of the time for ~50% of the damage -- but against magic, which couldn't be blocked, they were king. Also lots of teleports gave them unique advantages on some boss mechanics

 

Cleric tanks: Wore chain, had pitiful magic resist (~18% at release, compared to the ~50% rogue and warrior tanks had), but ~30% dodge/parry, coupled with the highest "natural" armor rating (some warrior specs could get higher, but only some) -- and the ability to block like a warrior made them physical damage kings.

 

.. Most guilds (until the recent content which was designed with mechanics for all 3), used warrior tanks exclusively, one or two bosses in the first two raid dungeons were better with a RS because they had more defensive cooldowns and dealt with magic -- but overall, warriors main tanked everything, they were just more.. reliable.

 

My worry was that shadow was going to fall into the same ballpark as the other two tanks, and people would groan when they got a shadow tank like they did when they got a justicar tank, because they knew the run was going to be bumpy.

 

Also, what you said about our tanking tree being a secondary thought is tree,but.. if that were the case.. why are guardians so terrible? Seriously, the forums are alight with how much they struggle, and everyone i've ever grouped with dropped faster than my shadow, who should have half the armor.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Kyuubil

[Kyuubil]

So as a followup to my above post.. wasn't my gear, in mostly blues from early nar shaddaa, shadow is 22, armoring in my robe is 20 -- it's not optimal, but not so bad that it should be.. that bad. (28.71% mitigation)

 

Keeping kinetic ward up, using force breach as available, I went against two level 21 silver's in the red light district, Bleeder Organ Slicer and a Parts Pusher, normal rotation, force speed in, force breach, shadow strike (till my highest damaging attack at this level, and you get a free one since mobs are slow to turn when you force speed in), rotation of DS DS -> project on proc, reapplying kinetic shield as needed, hitting force breach as it comes up, interrupting the organ slicer's heal.

 

Qyzen was dead before the slicer was half dead, I managed to kill the slicer -as- the pusher killed me.

 

.. I shouldn't be at full wipe status from.. two -1 silvers =/ Maybe i'm just bad, maybe it's just a bad level.. but when Isee how smooth my bh is comparatively.. it just wipes my desire to play my shadow.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Kyuubil

[darkov]

So as a followup to my above post.. wasn't my gear, in mostly blues from early nar shaddaa, shadow is 22, armoring in my robe is 20 -- it's not optimal, but not so bad that it should be.. that bad. (28.71% mitigation)

 

Keeping kinetic ward up, using force breach as available, I went against two level 21 silver's in the red light district, Bleeder Organ Slicer and a Parts Pusher, normal rotation, force speed in, force breach, shadow strike (till my highest damaging attack at this level, and you get a free one since mobs are slow to turn when you force speed in), rotation of DS DS -> project on proc, reapplying kinetic shield as needed, hitting force breach as it comes up, interrupting the organ slicer's heal.

 

Qyzen was dead before the slicer was half dead, I managed to kill the slicer -as- the pusher killed me.

 

.. I shouldn't be at full wipe status from.. two -1 silvers =/ Maybe i'm just bad, maybe it's just a bad level.. but when Isee how smooth my bh is comparatively.. it just wipes my desire to play my shadow.

 

If you're using Qyzen, why are you being hit? Concentrate on Force Technique until you get Tharan, put out the damage, burn them down.

[minervasunrider]

Also something else to keep in mind, just because we're only a little behind Guardians on mitigation, doesn't make it alright. They think they are weak too, the comparison should always be to the best and so far that is the Vanguard. In Beta there was plenty of talk about Vanguard being the best tank in the game for endgame, not just because of the mitigation but because a ranged tank can avoid things like knockbacks, etc that are point blank.

 

If this is accurate, then I suspect a nerf to Vanguards/Powertechs is more likely than a buff to Shadows/Sins/Guards/Juggs, unfortunately. I will end up playing both a Vanguard and Shadow tank - on the fence about how I will play my JK but that will be the last Rep class I roll - and I just want both of them to be viable and have a different playstyle (for variety's sake). What I don't want is for them to bump up Shadow's armor just because we feel it's weak, and then end up having to nerf something else and in the process make us too similar to other tanks. I like being different.

[aladik]

So as a followup to my above post.. wasn't my gear, in mostly blues from early nar shaddaa, shadow is 22, armoring in my robe is 20 -- it's not optimal, but not so bad that it should be.. that bad. (28.71% mitigation)

 

Keeping kinetic ward up, using force breach as available, I went against two level 21 silver's in the red light district, Bleeder Organ Slicer and a Parts Pusher, normal rotation, force speed in, force breach, shadow strike (till my highest damaging attack at this level, and you get a free one since mobs are slow to turn when you force speed in), rotation of DS DS -> project on proc, reapplying kinetic shield as needed, hitting force breach as it comes up, interrupting the organ slicer's heal.

 

Qyzen was dead before the slicer was half dead, I managed to kill the slicer -as- the pusher killed me.

 

.. I shouldn't be at full wipe status from.. two -1 silvers =/ Maybe i'm just bad, maybe it's just a bad level.. but when Isee how smooth my bh is comparatively.. it just wipes my desire to play my shadow.

 

Something is definitely wrong with your/Qyzen's gear, or you didn't have Qyzen in tank mode, or your strategy was off. Even without Kinetic Ward you should be able to take on two even level silvers without issue. I would think Kinetic Ward would dramatically improve your chances. Were you and Qyzen focusing on the same enemy? Don't use Shadow Strike! I realize you only used it at the beginning, so its not that big of a deal, but its definitely not a worthwhile attack unless you have some Inf talents. Force wave/force stun can give you a few seconds of breathing room while burning down the first enemy. Lift too, though I rarely actually use it.

 

For example, the most trouble I have had is with a full group of 4 silvers. Two elites are about equivalent in terms of where I am when the battle is over (low health, Qyzen down). Granted, I have made some lucky galactic trade purchases, so I'm exceptionally well geared for my level, but still, 2 silvers alone should be cake.

[Kitru]

If this is accurate, then I suspect a nerf to Vanguards/Powertechs

 

I'm pretty sure about this as well. VGs/PTs have amazing survivability, the most stable survivability, and the best damage (they generate the same or better threat compared to either of the other tanks while having not a single "high threat" ability; in order to do so, they've *got* to have outright better damage).

 

My guess would be that the developers wanted to make the "least popular" classes (according to early access polls) more powerful than their competitors to get more people to play the given classes. It seems to have worked to some extent because there is a lot more even class distribution that I've seen than the polls I've seen should indicate. Hopefully, within the next big patch, they even out the performance of the various classes so that the performance level isn't quite so glaring.

[oddmyth]

.. I shouldn't be at full wipe status from.. two -1 silvers =/ Maybe i'm just bad, maybe it's just a bad level.. but when Isee how smooth my bh is comparatively.. it just wipes my desire to play my shadow.

 

Sap the healer, kill the dps. Everyone is given tools at different parts of the game to achieve the same thing. The BH can't sap a target, you can, use it to your advantage. Be sure to turn Qyzen's AOE's and taunts off, unless you are using him to tank, he will die because of his ability to peel aggro off of you.

 

Two silvers aren't a problem to beat at any level in this game. Unless you are deciding not to use your class abilities to do so.

[minervasunrider]

I'm pretty sure about this as well. VGs/PTs have amazing survivability, the most stable survivability, and the best damage (they generate the same or better threat compared to either of the other tanks while having not a single "high threat" ability; in order to do so, they've *got* to have outright better damage).

 

My own suspicion was that we Shadows may do better single target DPS but VGs/PTs own us on AoE (mortar volley, pulse cannon, etc. versus force breach and slow time which are more debuffs than anything, and whirling blow which is meh). But I guess we'll have to wait for combat logs to figure that one out.

 

EDIT: And this would sort of fit, given that asking a Shadow to AoE tank would be silly given what that would do to our Kinetic Ward; VGs/PTs consistent mitigation makes them fill that role much more nicely.

Edited January 1, 2012 by minervasunrider

[Kitru]

My own suspicion was that we Shadows may do better single target DPS but VGs/PTs own us on AoE (mortar volley, pulse cannon, etc. versus force breach and slow time which are more debuffs than anything, and whirling blow which is meh). But I guess we'll have to wait for combat logs to figure that one out.

 

I can understand this conceptualization to some extent but the fact that VGs maintain sufficient ST threat to keep targets off of allies without *any* high threat mechanisms seems to me to indicate that they've still got the DPS in the bag for all scenarios.

 

For Shadows, our best ST threat generator is PA + Project, which has 15% additional threat generation. I'd venture to say it's easily 33-50% of our *damage* on a big single target. It's just *that* significant. Factor in Slow Time as well (probably 5%), and that means that, assuming an even amount of threat generated (or even a generous 10% superior threat generation), VGs are going to deal roughly 10% more damage than us overall for the same threat equivalence. The fact that VGs aren't handicapped by a lack of "high threat" abilities is pretty indicative, in my opinion, of them having *noticeably* superior damage capabilities.

[darkov]

I've not grouped with a VG tank, but I don't think we're lacking in agro control, my threat whether single or grouped is more than sufficient, thanks to Project, Force Breach and Slow Time. The couple of times I've grouped with Guardians I've had no issues pulling agro from them because I neglected to turn off Combat Technique

[Kyuubil]

I can understand this conceptualization to some extent but the fact that VGs maintain sufficient ST threat to keep targets off of allies without *any* high threat mechanisms seems to me to indicate that they've still got the DPS in the bag for all scenarios.

 

For Shadows, our best ST threat generator is PA + Project, which has 15% additional threat generation. I'd venture to say it's easily 33-50% of our *damage* on a big single target. It's just *that* significant. Factor in Slow Time as well (probably 5%), and that means that, assuming an even amount of threat generated (or even a generous 10% superior threat generation), VGs are going to deal roughly 10% more damage than us overall for the same threat equivalence. The fact that VGs aren't handicapped by a lack of "high threat" abilities is pretty indicative, in my opinion, of them having *noticeably* superior damage capabilities.

 

Oh, no, I can go further than just theorycraft here, can provide solid proof on this, I have both.

 

Level 21 BH, my flamethrower hits for 195-210/tick, crits for ~270. 10 meter cone, no target cap, ticks 4 times.

level 24 shadow -- Tk throw hits for `140 a tick, crits for 230.

 

level 21 Bh my rocket punch hits for 320, my rail gun hits for 340, crits are always in the low 500's/high 400's.

24 Shadow -- projecth its for ~380, crits for mid-500's.

 

Project has higher -singular- hits,but.. the BH can hold up that cycle almost indefinitely with a little luck shielding to vent heat, and shielding in a few levels will reset rocket punches cooldown, while project has a high, fairly prohibitive cost, that ends in it being used far less than it's up

[Jedikillar]

That's because shadow's and assassins are meant to be avoidance tanks, you don't rely on armor for damage mitigation, you just completely dodge the attack (if you've ever played wow think death knight tanking).

 

I played a DK tank as my main in wotlk and in what little cata I found and i didnt consider myself an avoidance tank...I considered myself a tank whos primary attack healed me for nearly half my hp and gave me an absorb that wasnt bad, while in cata it got to critting 40k+ easily. I guess this is kind of about how op bloods are in cata, but anyways...

 

Having been a blood tank for quite a while, which swtor tank would you say is closest(not replica ofc.) to them. Im thinking maybe *** tank cus of all the self healing.

[Kitru]

Having been a blood tank for quite a while, which swtor tank would you say is closest(not replica ofc.) to them. Im thinking maybe *** tank cus of all the self healing.

 

Shadow/Assassin Tanks are probably the closest to DK tanks: we are the only tank with appreciable self heals, and it is a very skill oriented class: player skill concerning your ability to build up through procs (pretty similar, imo, to how you had to play with Runes as a DK) is important and you have CDs that are very specific to their purpose (Resilience only applies to Tech/Force, Deflection only applies to melee/ranged) which means you have to be able to react quickly as well as know what kind of damage is incoming.

[Rejectoo]

This.

 

If anyone has ever played or heard of someone else playing a Riftstalker tank in Rift, then you have a feel for what the Shadow tanking is like.

 

Shadows are probably the most difficult tanking class to play. So if your friend says something about Shadows not being very good, chances are your friend was playing them wrong (no offense).

 

I had a Rift Stalker tank in Rift and yes those tanks did pretty good but it was lots of abilities and dependent on those to survive has well has maintaining high dps to keep aggro.

 

You are right in the comparison and I find the play styles very close. Maybe since I could not be a bard that is why I choice Shadow to be main tank for me.

 

The other thing to note too is we can get some major HPs also if geared right.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Rejectoo

[Dragma]

I'm a well geared shadow tank and it's not as much about avoidance as you might expectto be honest (yes I know we are considered the "avoidance tank" but this purely isn't the case) . Defenses are comparable to that of a knight. We get better ratios for stacking defense than a knight so yes, we can have higher pure avoidance but our gear end game puts us on absorb.

 

the knight tank I work with on heroic ev 8 and 16 and I make a great combo. But in all honesty I expect a nerf coming to shadow tanks because right now I believe we are the best overall tank. A knight has better CD's to take a big single hit or something of that nature but overall, I get hit less and I don't get hit for much more. (about 7% more if neither of us absorb) BUT if we both proc shield I'm actually taking less because our gear is heavily stacked to absorb.

 

Also, important to note that not all shield hits absorb one of our kinetic wards. there is some rng that says ok this was absorbed by the natural shield % and this was from the kinetic, so you shouldn't have a problem keeping that up constantly on boss fights.

 

one thing i'm going to try is jacking the mods from the knight gear that have +shield and +def and putting them in my gear in place of +accuracy and +absorb. I'll report back on that but my suspecion is that since a shield hit doesn't always absorb a kinetic ward it will be really OP.

 

 

logic on this. More pure avoidance from getting hit. then when we do get hit the natural shield % could get as high as 35% maybe more, then add kinetic ward with the 2 set bonus 55%+ shield = you won't get hit for crap.

 

I think it will stack out to be roughly 27% of the time you flat out won't get hit then over 50% of the time you do get hit you will take an absorb around 44% vs a knight with sub 20% avoidance maybe 20% if really well geared 50% natural dmg reduction (vs shadows roughly 42%) with our shield chance being way higher and our absorb being better.

 

bottom line shadow tanking is super viable. and what's crazy enough I can hold agro on single target bosses no problem (no our dps does not suck as we don't hit enrage timers on heroic EV 8man) One other important note on this threat talk. shadow tanks allow for dps to go balls out right away, not so much the case for knights as they cant nuke off the bat like a shadow.

[Kitru]

But in all honesty I expect a nerf coming to shadow tanks because right now I believe we are the best overall tank.

 

I'm gonna have to *vehemently* disagree with you there. Having dealt with a substantial number of VG tanks, I can tell you that Shadows are, if anything, in the middle ground. VG tanks have superior AoE threat, steadier mitigation, better damage, and better mobility (because they can remain largely effective from 30m away while we're only marginally better than useless from in the 4-10m range and useless outside of it).

 

From what I've seen, Guards and Shadows are roughly on par. Shadows have a higher skill cap, and, when well played and geared intelligently, turn out to be better tanks. Any superiority in performance can generally be attributed to this attribute of Shadow tanking: if you're a good Shadow tank, you're awesome; if you're a bad one, you're dead. Guardian tanks have a much simpler and less forgiving playstyle that moderates their performance across skill levels. If both you and your Guardian friend are skilled players, it makes sense that you seem better.

[Dragma]

I'm gonna have to *vehemently* disagree with you there. Having dealt with a substantial number of VG tanks, I can tell you that Shadows are, if anything, in the middle ground. VG tanks have superior AoE threat, steadier mitigation, better damage, and better mobility (because they can remain largely effective from 30m away while we're only marginally better than useless from in the 4-10m range and useless outside of it).

 

From what I've seen, Guards and Shadows are roughly on par. Shadows have a higher skill cap, and, when well played and geared intelligently, turn out to be better tanks. Any superiority in performance can generally be attributed to this attribute of Shadow tanking: if you're a good Shadow tank, you're awesome; if you're a bad one, you're dead. Guardian tanks have a much simpler and less forgiving playstyle that moderates their performance across skill levels. If both you and your Guardian friend are skilled players, it makes sense that you seem better.

 

 

Interesting take on VG. I haven't seen an "intelligent" and geared VG yet. Shadows get screwed threat until they are geared. having 113% accuracy on specials makes threat a non-issue for me especially with having aoe "high threat" moves. I am skeptical they VG is better but an interesting take. What are their defenses like?

[Kitru]

Interesting take on VG. I haven't seen an "intelligent" and geared VG yet. Shadows get screwed threat until they are geared. having 113% accuracy on specials makes threat a non-issue for me especially with having aoe "high threat" moves.

 

113% accuracy with Force attacks is largely redundant. Any accuracy you get more appropriately benefits your melee attacks (re: Whirling Blow, Spinning Strike, and, the biggest one, Double Strike). Because Force attacks have a default 100% chance to hit, the fact that we have so much Accuracy Rating on our tanking gear really makes me think that the devs just put the same generic tanking stats on all tanking gear, regardless of how important they are to the given class (which would explain why our tank gear has so much acc and absorb on it even though those are probably the 2 *least* valuable stats for Shadow Tanks for threat and mitigation, respectively).

 

Also, the only "high threat" attack we have is Slow Time which has laughable damage. The real threat machine we've got is Project, with Bombardment's 15% threat improvement: Project is the single biggest damage dealer we've got and we use it *a lot*.

 

In general, threat should be a non-issue unless you're in a group with another tank or someone that noticeably out-gears you.

 

I am skeptical they VG is better but an interesting take. What are their defenses like?

 

VGs have substantially higher outright damage reduction (their tank stance and talents gives them 76% more armor than their already heavy armor, giving them the most damage reduction from armor outright and they get a further 9% reduction in all damage taken as a static benefit from talents and stance) along with superior absorption (6% bonus from talents compared to our 4%). With Kinetic Ward up, we have a *marginally* better shield chance (~3%), but, since it is charge based, as soon as the charges run out, it drops down to being substantially worse (~12%). In addition, VGs have both a charge/interrupt *and* a pull, both of which are, when spec'd, on shorter CDs than either of our similar mechanisms (base CD on Storm is 15 secs compared to our talented 20 sec Force Speed and Harpoon is generally talented down to 35 secs compared to our Force Pull, which is on a 45 sec CD).

 

The only areas that Shadows have an advantage over VGs are Defense chance (ours starts out 5% higher and we get a 5% accuracy debuff with Force Breach) and in Cooldowns (VGs have a minor self heal on a 3 min CD compared to ours that heals slightly more and is frontloaded on a 2 min CD, a 25% global damage reduction for 12 secs on a 2 min CD and a 20% melee/ranged accuracy debuff for 18 seconds every 60 compared to Resilience (full immunity to Tech/Foce for 5 secs every 45) and Deflection (50% better Defense for 12 secs every 2 minutes (amounts to 66% melee/ranged mitigation for the duration))). Assuming the player is intelligent and skilled, Shadows have the best CDs outright (short CDs and excellent benefits).

 

Honestly, the higher defense chance and better CDs don't really offset the massive advantages in damage, outright mitigation, predictable mitigation, and utility that VGs have. The damage mitigation averages out to VGs taking roughly 3% less damage (~54% mitigation compared to our ~51% mitigation), which, when you factor in that they also have the least variability in mitigation (we use Defense chance a lot more than they do), it makes them the easiest to heal. Further, the fact that they have the best utility (pull *and* change) as well as ranged viability (they're the only tanks capable of *ranged* tanking), they really do outclass Shadows and Guardians pretty much entirely.

 

The other tank in my guild is a VG, so I've had plenty of chance to compare myself to him with similar gear and tools. VGs have better tools, slightly better (but noticeable) mitigation, better damage (they maintain the same threat without using a *single* high threat ability or ability with a greater threat multiplier than that provided by their stance), *way* better AoE (Mortar Volley, Sticky Grenade, Explosive Surge, and Pulse Cannon compared to Slow Time, Force Breach, and Whirling Blow), and have way more capacity for functional mobility.

 

The only possible reason I can see for VGs so thoroughly outclassing Guards and Shadows (which are roughly on par) is that the developers wanted to make Troopers (which were getting polled at the lowest interest amongst classes) substantially better at launch so that they could offset the inevitable crowds that went straight to the glowstick brigade. Assuming this is true, the developers should nerf the VGs down or buff Guards and Shadows up to equivalence within the first couple major patches, but it's a big assumption to make. I dearly hope the developers didn't simply *design* Troopers to be the universally better tank.

[Sterrius]

Dont forget the self heal from harnessed shadows and from the combat technique

 

At end game its around 2000 HP healed plus a 3-4k dmg, and its not hard at all to get 3 charges.

 

At worst case scenario you get 3 charges every 18s. (Double strike dont working and forcing you to wait all the 6s cooldown).

 

If you give the extra protection the vanguard have to the shadow plus the self heal we have we will become close to invencible.

 

The self heal in theory is enough to make up for any big hits that pass our defense and shield.

Edited January 5, 2012 by Sterrius

[Kitru]

At worst case scenario you get 3 charges every 18s. (Double strike dont working and forcing you to wait all the 6s cooldown).

 

That's not really an intelligent way to play it, considering the cost of Project. It's better to simply wait for PA procs unless your HS stacks are about to fall off and you *really* need to. In general, the most sustainable Force consumption use paradigm calls for using Harnessed Shadows once every 30-35 secs or so.