Can you Sents | Maras solo a skranker 1v1?

Used to be we could solo these guys, but now they can wear DPS Gear & USE THEIR DEFENSIVE COOL DOWNS to outlast us.

How is this suppose to be balanced?

Sents | Maras can't wear Tanking gear.

My understanding was they received a nerf in the last patch but they're still topping the leader boards at the end of a PVP match.

Further, on the fleet ppl call for skrankers for ops PVE (they have the DPS & the taunt)

Interested in feedback from the community regarding how to manage these Skrankers 1v1.

Also interested in what the devs are saying about this.

(Have you heard anything ?)

Cheers.

Can you Sents | Maras solo a skranker 1v1?

 

Used to be we could solo these guys, but now they can wear DPS Gear & USE THEIR DEFENSIVE COOL DOWNS to outlast us.

 

How is this suppose to be balanced?

 

Sents | Maras can't wear Tanking gear.

 

My understanding was they received a nerf in the last patch but they're still topping the leader boards at the end of a PVP match.

 

Further, on the fleet ppl call for skrankers for ops PVE (they have the DPS & the taunt)

 

Interested in feedback from the community regarding how to manage these Skrankers 1v1.

 

Also interested in what the devs are saying about this.

(Have you heard anything ?)

 

Cheers.

What is a "skranker"?

Are you talking about skank tanks?

Or saying sents are OP?

Assuming skank tanks:

1. Tank PTs had their dps gutted to the point where, despite thr increase to aggro generation, they still do less aggro. Guardians less so because WE DID LESS DAMAGE TO BEGIN WITH. Maybe if the tank is doing more damage than you:

A. You are dying more than the tank, thus he has more damage overall, since dps on wz boards is damage done / total time.

B. you were being focused as a threat to the enemy team and thus died too much to pull effective damage.

C. it is perfectly feasible that someone is simply a bad dps who cannot outdamage a tank.

I have little sympathy for the 1v1 comment. Tanking is a separate role. Using dps gear takes place on tanks because ACTUAL TANK GEAR IS USELESS IN PVP. Thus, we run the stats that do something for us. Do you think you should be anle to 1v1 a healer? (The answer is no, you shouldn't)

The nerf to tank damage merely proved that its a pointless and stupid thing to do at best, and counterproductive at worst.

What people are asking for on fleet for SM ops is not a skank. I ask for 1 tank and 1 dps with taunt because group finder requires 2 tanks when most sm ops can be accomplished efrectively with 1. If i could queue 5 sentinels i would. Unfortunately, gf says i meed 2 tanks, even for kp sm.

What we have heard from the devs is that "fixing' the tank gear issue (its working as intended, but sucks, thus the quotes) is am expansion level problem. Thus skanks will he around until the next expansion AT THE SOONEST.

Meanwhile mara is in a perfectly good position for pvp, and the top melee dps spec for pvp if you play concentration. Go enjoy rolling all the dps PTs, guardians, and sorcs you want.

Imo this post has an issue to begin with.

"I can't solo a skank anymore"

Well you shouldn't be able to in the first place. The point of a skank is that they are OP to begin with, because of the dps gear they use. If you wanna blame their existence, fine, everybody can agree that they shouldn't exist.

However, complaining because you can't kill them anymore is an indication of how Mara/Sent was stupidly powerfull before. Skanks were far more superior than most class until before and still are up to a certain limit. Sents were able to top that because of the pre-nerf Ruthless Aggressor, snipers can still top them if they are good enough... Because snipers are OP since 5.0 too, don't forget that.

Now that Mara have been tuned for the rest of the game, the only issues we're still having are skanks (who shouldn't exist in the first place) as well as snipers who could use a little tweak or two to be fine.

Don't get me wrong dude, but even by looking at the ranked leaderboard you can see there is an issue when Marauders dominate Ranked for two whole seasons. Afaik there is literally nobody who's been able to reach gold tier in S8 by playing a dps PT or a dps Sin. Marauder tho ? There is way too much for it to be somewhat of an achievement.

Can you Sents | Maras solo a skranker 1v1?

 

Used to be we could solo these guys, but now they can wear DPS Gear & USE THEIR DEFENSIVE COOL DOWNS to outlast us.

 

How is this suppose to be balanced?

 

Sents | Maras can't wear Tanking gear.

 

My understanding was they received a nerf in the last patch but they're still topping the leader boards at the end of a PVP match.

 

Further, on the fleet ppl call for skrankers for ops PVE (they have the DPS & the taunt)

 

Interested in feedback from the community regarding how to manage these Skrankers 1v1.

 

Also interested in what the devs are saying about this.

(Have you heard anything ?)

 

Cheers.

A marauder certainly has the potential to beat a Skank 1v1, Fury being your best bet for that job. Fury is very strong right now and is top teir. Assassin tanks are stealth classes at the same time and a stealth class with strong CCs vs. a non stealth class will always have an inate adavantage, which makes perfect sense 1v1. They can see you, you can't see them, they can disengage when they need to, you can't.

Generally speaking, possible to beat skanks? Of course, thats true of any class/spec combination. It's simply a question of how likely it is.

Skill is always telling, and the bigger the skill difference between the combatants the less the spec/class factors dictate to the outcome.

While tanks did recently recieve a nerf it was only to it's damage, and being that that's not their job as a tank, I don't see it as all that relivant in PVP [in PVE? Yes, much more so]. Even with the nerf to their damage, skank tanks are still doing boatloads more damage than a tank spec should be capable of.

Skanks are walking trinties. They have good DPS, tank like defenses as PVP goes [and protection], and they can heal a considerable amount, especially Juggs who got a buff and now have a second life.

Spec wise, Fury is the strongest. Anni and Carnage have been nerfed multiple times this meta [5.x] and it shows. Anni is still decent, but weaker than it has been and Carnage has been eviserated by nerf after nerf [most nerfed spec in the game through 5.x] and has even had it's play style change. Their DPS is deplorable. They literally have the worst DPS of any melee DPS spec in the game. A pure DPS class, no heals, no anti CC measures, worst dps. It is the 'purest' DPS spec in the game, literally it's all they can do, they should be the best ar it, but they are worst at it now. That isn't to say you can't make it work, every spec in the game is viable in the hands of someone who is skilled with the spec. In fact, I play Carnage [which I have been playing for the last 6 years]. You can make it work, but its still crap compared to other DPS specs and honestly, the only reason I think that I do okay with it is because I'm a one trick poney, its all I play. All one needs do is take an accounting of the number of Carnage Marauders they see running around at end game, it's its current state of suck is easy to see.

I would be better off switching to Fury like all the other FOTMers, but that's not me. Besides, someone has to remind people that Marauders still have three specs. I am the Carnage poster boy, so I endure =p - I have seen a few other Carnage marauders who do well, but it's very few. Simply put, Fury is better in every single way and has much higher DPS.

Don't even bother trying to join a Progression raid team as Carnage unless the team leader is a friend or someone you have sex with. No real progression raid team would take a Carnage marauder in their current state. If they do, that's not a team you want to be a part of as they don't take the progression seriously than. Carnage is nothing short of liability in it's current state, and you are literally talking about 600-700+ DPS difffence between Carnage and Fury. That tanks have had their DPS lowered as well, that only makes the situation worse. I was a HM/NiM progression raider up until 5.0, and it's why I am no longer one. There is simply no reason to take a Carnage mara over a Fury Mara, as Fury does everything better and not by a small margin.

There will always be 1%ers who make crap look like gold, but, unless you are one of them, people are going to wonder where that smell is coming from.

This is the current DPS rank chart of all the DPS specs, as up to date as we have [and it does update regularly] - http://parsely.io/parser/stats.

It isn't an issue of whether or not DPS specs do more DPS than skanks, they do [at least the should, skill can effect this of course], it's the comination of good DPS, very strong defenses, and heals and a ton of CC effects of course. The nerfs to tank have no lessoned the amount of skanks, it's increased the amount of skanks.

In PVE progression raiding [Hm/NiM] you shouldn't be seeing any skank tanks. They are subpar tanks in PVE and any progression team worth their salt will not have a skank tank tanking for them. If they do, that's another team you don't want to be a part of.

Skanks might not be the best DPS, the best Tank, the best healer, but, what sets them apart is that they are doing all three at the same time and that breaks trinity.

"Jack of all trades, master of none".

Marauders can be very strong, but they have an Achilles heel, they have no heals. They can't win battles of attrition and pretty much everyone they are fighting with have heals and that matters at times [like if you don't have a healer on your team]. Don't let anyone tell you differently or say that Marauders have godly DCDs, the DCDs are very good and they are also very fleeting and you are going to be spending like 65% of the time of your average legnth WZ without an active DCD due to uptime vs. cooldowns. With no heals to back them up thats a very serious liability at times. That's less the case in arenas because Arenas don't last as long and so cooldown times on DCDs is less of any issue.

Don't let anyone tell you that either Anni or Carnage is a better choice than Fury in doing any content in this game. Viable? Yes. Good? Sometimes. Can compete with Fury pound for pound? No chance. [all things being equal]. But, if you like a challenge and you like to try and push the envelope and you don't want to follow the rest of the herd, and you want to earn your keep, go Carnage or Annihilation like real men do[ =p]. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. A Lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of sheep.

If you are looking for balanced you couldn't have picked a worse place to look for it. 5.x is beyond repair. [Mercs, Snipers and Fury Marauders own this meta] Only 6.0 stands a chance of finding it again.

Hope this helps some. It's still a great game. Best of Luck to you.

P.S. Don't expect to get agreement on this subject, you won't. Skankers see it one way, Maras another. I may not love the skank tank situation in principle, but at least they are melee and all the limitations that come with it and that effects them as much as us and I would never advocate for any changes to a tank specs tanking skills [like limitations/nerfs to guard] because that would effect true tanks as much as skanks and that would not be fair. Skanks aren't the enemy in terms of balance currently, Mercs and Snipers are.

Imo this post has an issue to begin with.

 

"I can't solo a skank anymore"

 

Well you shouldn't be able to in the first place. The point of a skank is that they are OP to begin with, because of the dps gear they use. If you wanna blame their existence, fine, everybody can agree that they shouldn't exist.

 

However, complaining because you can't kill them anymore is an indication of how Mara/Sent was stupidly powerfull before. Skanks were far more superior than most class until before and still are up to a certain limit. Sents were able to top that because of the pre-nerf Ruthless Aggressor, snipers can still top them if they are good enough... Because snipers are OP since 5.0 too, don't forget that.

Now that Mara have been tuned for the rest of the game, the only issues we're still having are skanks (who shouldn't exist in the first place) as well as snipers who could use a little tweak or two to be fine.

 

Don't get me wrong dude, but even by looking at the ranked leaderboard you can see there is an issue when Marauders dominate Ranked for two whole seasons. Afaik there is literally nobody who's been able to reach gold tier in S8 by playing a dps PT or a dps Sin. Marauder tho ? There is way too much for it to be somewhat of an achievement.

You raise two very good points and I do agree with one of them.

1v1ing a tank, or a healer, shouldn't be easy for a DPS and really they shouldn't expect to. 1 DPS being a healer cannot be a sustainable situation for healers. They need to be able to withstand a DPS going nuts on them or they cannot do their jobs. And while I agree that it shouldn't be easy to beat a tank, a skank tank ostensibly shouldn't have as good as defense as a real tank. A real tank should be able to withstand a 1v1 with a DPS, but a skank tank shouldn't IMO.

Where I disagree with you [and this isn't a disgreement with 'you', merely the state of Ranked] is in looking at ranked for any other purpose than for proof of all the cheating, exploits, backfilling and wintrading. If ranked were a measure of skill, people wouldn't be cheating every three seconds. You don't find that in progression raiding because people who want to be "Elite" are not elite if they need to cheat in the first place. And let's face it, ranked is just an arena. Ranked is also the least played end game content and is only a very small percent of the overall player base. Ranks glory days are far behind it now thanks to all the e-pen. It's unfortunate was has become of Ranked, it really is, and I do feel bad for all those legitmate players who care for it but can't get a fair shake at it, and there plenty of legitmate players in Ranked, unfortunately there are also plenty of cheaters to null and void them.

Additionally, say Fury Mara, he might not know the difference.

1v1ing a tank, or a healer, shouldn't be easy for a DPS and really they shouldn't expect to. 1 DPS being a healer cannot be a sustainable situation for healers. They need to be able to withstand a DPS going nuts on them or they cannot do their jobs. And while I agree that it shouldn't be easy to beat a tank, a skank tank ostensibly shouldn't have as good as defense as a real tank. A real tank should be able to withstand a 1v1 with a DPS, but a skank tank shouldn't IMO.

The fundamental issue is: skanking is currently the optimal way to tank pvp. Outside of philosophy (not even theory) there is NO reason to run def/shield/absorb for pvp.

The devs themselves have admitted this, dismissing it as an "expansion level issue."

Hypothetically speaking: lets pretend for a moment that alac/crit/accuracy did not help you do more damage, but tanking stats did help your survival. How would you gear? At this point using the hypothetically useless stats would be pointless and sub-optimal.

This is where tanks stand: the gear we are supposed to use for pvp is next to pointless. Massive yellow damage burst crits will hit me regardless of how i gear, ergo i gear for high endurance and throw in dps stats rather than ones that don't help me.

Until they fix the gearing issue: A tank is more of a playstyle than gear. 99% of skanks are stupid morons who jumped onto the nonsensical "tank spec does more dps than vigi/other dps spec" bandwagon, just as 99% of fury maras are crappy FOTM rollers. I've shared my little "it takes 600k damage on average to kill me once" pic twice now.

Tldr: until they "fix" tank stats, a skank is a pvp tank. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yeah ok

I've read the posts & thank you all for taking the time to respond.

Thus far no one has really addressed the "how" mara | sent goes about winning a 1v1 against a skrank.

In fact the intimation based on the responses seems to be that you really can't or shouldn't be able to 1v1 a skraner.

Which brings up the question of game balance.

How is sent | mara considered a dps class when they can be out dps'ed by a Tank in dps gear?

Seems to me this becomes a question of poor game design.

When Tanks can step out of their roles to become the superior & more versatile class Sents | Maras become second tier.

Yeah ok

 

I've read the posts & thank you all for taking the time to respond.

 

Thus far no one has really addressed the "how" mara | sent goes about winning a 1v1 against a skrank.

 

In fact the intimation based on the responses seems to be that you really can't or shouldn't be able to 1v1 a skraner.

You can't 1v1 a healer, you shouldnt be able to 1v1 a tank. Simple enough.

Which brings up the question of game balance.

 

How is sent | mara considered a dps class when they can be out dps'ed by a Tank in dps gear?

I addressed this above.

Damage has no consideration of how much time you spend in combat, as computed by the board. My scoundrel healing buddy has done more damage than some people, doesnt make scoundrel healer dps op.

1. Maybe the tank was in combat the entire match and you were not, especially if the tank was in a mass aoe situation where cleaves could be used extensively.

2. Maybe you were doing enough damage to be a threat, and thus got focused to death a lot, thus hurting your damage.

3. Maybe the dps on your team is just bad and cant outdamage a tank.

Seems to me this becomes a question of poor game design.

 

When Tanks can step out of their roles to become the superior & more versatile class Sents | Maras become second tier.

I will lean to grims point and say this: anyone thinking a fury mara is second tier to a skank, cant play it well. The reason tanks run skanks is because tank gear does nothing to help survival in pvp.

And i will include my pic of the 3 mill damage taken again. Because it helps my point. I stayed alive under the focus i was eating far longer than any dps class could or should have.

Make tank gear help me and ill run it. In the meantime skanking is the optimal way to gear a pvp tank.

Note also that in this match i was having to focus on staying alive, and keeping my healer alive, so i hardly topped the damage board.

https://m.imgur.com/a/IkEl4u3

Can you Sents | Maras solo a skranker 1v1?

 

Used to be we could solo these guys, but now they can wear DPS Gear & USE THEIR DEFENSIVE COOL DOWNS to outlast us.

 

How is this suppose to be balanced?

 

Sents | Maras can't wear Tanking gear.

 

My understanding was they received a nerf in the last patch but they're still topping the leader boards at the end of a PVP match.

 

Further, on the fleet ppl call for skrankers for ops PVE (they have the DPS & the taunt)

 

Interested in feedback from the community regarding how to manage these Skrankers 1v1.

 

Also interested in what the devs are saying about this.

(Have you heard anything ?)

 

Cheers.

You will never beat a good skank on your mara, no matter what spec you are.... They will cut your damage into half and will always outlast you. They are tanks.. after all.

Jugg skank is your biggest nightmare at the moment because once he wears you down and starts using his heals, you are dead very soon.

The fundamental issue is: skanking is currently the optimal way to tank pvp. Outside of philosophy (not even theory) there is NO reason to run def/shield/absorb for pvp.

 

The devs themselves have admitted this, dismissing it as an "expansion level issue."

 

Hypothetically speaking: lets pretend for a moment that alac/crit/accuracy did not help you do more damage, but tanking stats did help your survival. How would you gear? At this point using the hypothetically useless stats would be pointless and sub-optimal.

 

This is where tanks stand: the gear we are supposed to use for pvp is next to pointless. Massive yellow damage burst crits will hit me regardless of how i gear, ergo i gear for high endurance and throw in dps stats rather than ones that don't help me.

 

Until they fix the gearing issue: A tank is more of a playstyle than gear. 99% of skanks are stupid morons who jumped onto the nonsensical "tank spec does more dps than vigi/other dps spec" bandwagon, just as 99% of fury maras are crappy FOTM rollers. I've shared my little "it takes 600k damage on average to kill me once" pic twice now.

 

Tldr: until they "fix" tank stats, a skank is a pvp tank. Nothing more, nothing less.

I know what you're saying bro, and If you remember back some months,perhaps you will recall me saying something to the effect "While I don't think skank tanking should be possible, I do understand why people do it and don't hold that against them as they would only be worse than they have to be".

That stance was based on things you said.

I do have one small issue though and even this is open to interpretation so I can't say I definitively think this but it is a leaning. I get that running more defense would only provide you with about a 4% increase to your defense chance while the same amount of stat pool put into power or mastery would grant you a higher yield in DPS with the same amount of points than it would grant you using them in defense.

This confuses me a little bit. I don't disagree with the numbers, its 4% or a much higher yeild in DPS and quite honestly I can never blame anyone for wanting higher DPS heh. The thing is though, we know that you can't sheild against yellow damage criticals, and so you have no choice but to eat that damage. At the same time, by not using that extra 4% to defense, this insures you will definitely be taking more white damage than you would have if you had that extra 4% defense in place. I know 4% isn't all that much, but when you consider the amount of times people attack you in PVP, that defense chance is rolled against every attack roll [more or less] so it would stand to reason than there would be times when that 4% difference would have made the difference and caused you to not take damage from an attack. This would be variable of course and in some WZs this difference might very small in others it might be more than you would idealy to see. Totally random of course. The thing is there is only way to know how much of a difference it would and does make and that would be using a parsing program in WZs, which function perfectly and are just as relative to PVP in terms of the information they provide as in PVE. There is nothing that takes place, defenses, attacks, CCs, passives, non attack abilities, etc that isn't monitored and included in a parse. It isn't just DPS, in fact, it's more non DPS information that it is DPS. Not only that, it will also tell you every ability anyone used against you. A combat log logs every single thing and can be read after as a play by play. This would tell you exactly how many attacks you could have avoided if you had that extra 4% and how much damage to the point you took because of it that could have been avoided.

Im pretty sure you were a HM/NiM progression raider in the past like me if memory serves so you probably know all this already.

I know [or rather if I remember hearing you correctly] that you are less concerned about white damage than yellow damage, and if that is in fact the case for a tank in PVP, there aren't many specs that do a majority of their damage as white damage. I can however tell you as a Carnage Marauder that almost all of the damage I do is white damage. There is only one attack that Carnage uses regularly [rotationaly/priority] as that is yellow damage and that is Devistating Blast which is it's hardest hitting attack. The majority of which will be critical hits if done correctly. Naturally you will have to eat all of that damage and that can go as high as 33K [well that's the highest I ever got it at any rate, perhaps other's have hit higher, 29-31k is the more normal damage range with BT.

DBs can also be followed up by 28K VTs and 30K Gores [those are high damage rolls not the norm], both of which are white damage, and Carnage has a filler [Massacre] attack that can crit as high as 16-17k [those being high damage rolls as well] but for a filler attack that ain't bad! Ravage you know about.

Playing Devil's advocate just for shzts and giggles, lets just for argument sake say that 4% came up and you are taking those VT and Gore hits in addition to the DB Crit damage. That's 91 K damage in three seconds. While as a tank you are capable of taking that amount of damage and mitigating part of it, that additional 58K white damage even mitigated I would think is still something that you would much rather prefer to avoid Even if that only bought you 5 extra seconds of life, that's 5 more seconds the healer has a guard on them and 5 more seconds that healer has to try and burst heal you or someone else. That's 5 extra seconds your group is not taking 30% more damage. [From Taunt] One extra player at the right time even for a rather short amount of time can make the difference sometimes.

I guess my point is this, you could be better as a tank potentially, you are knowingly not maximizing your survivability, for which your fellow team members are counting on you as a support class. Additionally all those added points put into a skank tanks DPS and they are not going to be tempted to use that much stat point investment?

Now if you tell me I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I defer to your expertise at tanking totally and without reservation. That's just how it strikes me some times and while I don't question your integrity, can you really be sure that other skank tanks are not giving into the temptation to use all that stat point investment in DPS even at the expense of their tanking duties? I'd have no problem believing that from you, but I can't say I'm as optimistic of the integrity of all other skank tanks.

One last point. I'm not sure on this, I could certainly be wrong, but I have always been under the impression that tanking stats in PVP are intentionally not on par as with PVE as in PVP you are facing other player characters who are on a similar power scale to yourself, whereas in PVE tanking a boss, a boss's level of power far exceeds anything a player could even remotely come close to. How could someone who was strong enough to withstand the full attention of Dread Master Brontes on NiM and shirk off the strongest blows repeatedly over the series 10 -15 minutes not completely overwhelm anything a player character could do with total ease and lack of concern? I don't see how it would be even remotely possible to pose any threat whatsoever to a tank who can defeat Dread Master Brontes on NiM, or am I not taking something into consideration here? [Which is certainly possible].

Interested to hear your thoughts pal and I expect all of my points to be spanked by you =p

I'll be honest, I'm really not all that that concerned with skank tanks at this point. They took a DPS nerf which is not nothing. [it's unfortunate however that true tanks had to eat as well though, I wasn't happy with that at all]. My only point of contention with them is the walking trinity thing but even that is "Jack of all trades, master of none" thingy. There are bigger fish to fry and they are all holding guns =p

Yeah ok

 

I've read the posts & thank you all for taking the time to respond.

 

Thus far no one has really addressed the "how" mara | sent goes about winning a 1v1 against a skrank.

 

In fact the intimation based on the responses seems to be that you really can't or shouldn't be able to 1v1 a skraner.

 

Which brings up the question of game balance.

 

How is sent | mara considered a dps class when they can be out dps'ed by a Tank in dps gear?

 

Seems to me this becomes a question of poor game design.

 

When Tanks can step out of their roles to become the superior & more versatile class Sents | Maras become second tier.

I did respond to your question, but to reiterate briefly -

A DPS can and should be able to outdps a skank tank. The only way a Skank can out DPS a Marauder would be if there are tight concentraitions of enemies close together that they can cleave and AOE on and thus fluff their numbers [although a Anni Mara should be able to out fluff them], if the skank tank is dieing less than the Marauder [which they absoutely should be doing,especially Jugg tanks now with their ED buff] and thus have greater amounts of uptime [you are seeing a lot more of this now with the Juggs], or lastly, the skank tank knows his class better than the Marauder or has more experience in PVP than them.

Single Target there is absolutely no reason a Marauder should not be outdpsing a skank tank other than suck. Experience and knowing one's spec and how to optimize one's personal DPS matter in the extreme and are enough of a reason alone to explain why it would go in favor of one of the other, let alone the other factors.

If you are looking for balance you have come to the wrong place. Balance in 5.x has gone from bad to worse and is totally broken. Even still Skill remains the most relative factor and can overcome imbalances where it is uneven between players. All things being equal, balance does not exist.

If you want to be at the top of the food chain in this game currently in PVP, play a Merc or a Sniper. As good as a Fury Marauder is, and they are, they are still not in as favorable position as a Merc or Sniper. This meta is all about Ranged, they hold the advantages. Some people will tell you that's not true, and all of those people are people who are playing Mercs and Snipers or both. They deny it because they want to keep their advantage.

Even still, that doesn't mean you can't do well. I play Carnage which is the worst melee DPS spec in the entire game and I can make it work fairly well, but that's only because of 6 years of experience playing nothing else, I am a one trick pony.

Looked at objectively, Fury is without question the strongest Mara spec going and by more than a little and that goes for both PVE as well as PVP.

I know what you're saying bro, and If you remember back some months,perhaps you will recall me saying something to the effect "While I don't think skank tanking should be possible, I do understand why people do it and don't hold that against them as they would only be worse than they have to be".

 

That stance was based on things you said.

 

I do have one small issue though and even this is open to interpretation so I can't say I definitively think this but it is a leaning. I get that running more defense would only provide you with about a 4% increase to your defense chance while the same amount of stat pool put into power or mastery would grant you a higher yield in DPS with the same amount of points than it would grant you using them in defense.

 

This confuses me a little bit. I don't disagree with the numbers, its 4% or a much higher yeild in DPS and quite honestly I can never blame anyone for wanting higher DPS heh. The thing is though, we know that you can't sheild against yellow damage criticals, and so you have no choice but to eat that damage. At the same time, by not using that extra 4% to defense, this insures you will definitely be taking more white damage than you would have if you had that extra 4% defense in place. I know 4% isn't all that much, but when you consider the amount of times people attack you in PVP, that defense chance is rolled against every attack roll [more or less] so it would stand to reason than there would be times when that 4% difference would have made the difference and caused you to not take damage from an attack. This would be variable of course and in some WZs this difference might very small in others it might be more than you would idealy to see. Totally random of course. The thing is there is only way to know how much of a difference it would and does make and that would be using a parsing program in WZs, which function perfectly and are just as relative to PVP in terms of the information they provide as in PVE. There is nothing that takes place, defenses, attacks, CCs, passives, non attack abilities, etc that isn't monitored and included in a parse. It isn't just DPS, in fact, it's more non DPS information that it is DPS. Not only that, it will also tell you every ability anyone used against you. A combat log logs every single thing and can be read after as a play by play. This would tell you exactly how many attacks you could have avoided if you had that extra 4% and how much damage to the point you took because of it that could have been avoided.

 

Im pretty sure you were a HM/NiM progression raider in the past like me if memory serves so you probably know all this already.

 

I know [or rather if I remember hearing you correctly] that you are less concerned about white damage than yellow damage, and if that is in fact the case for a tank in PVP, there aren't many specs that do a majority of their damage as white damage. I can however tell you as a Carnage Marauder that almost all of the damage I do is white damage. There is only one attack that Carnage uses regularly [rotationaly/priority] as that is yellow damage and that is Devistating Blast which is it's hardest hitting attack. The majority of which will be critical hits if done correctly. Naturally you will have to eat all of that damage and that can go as high as 33K [well that's the highest I ever got it at any rate, perhaps other's have hit higher, 29-31k is the more normal damage range with BT.

DBs can also be followed up by 28K VTs and 30K Gores [those are high damage rolls not the norm], both of which are white damage, and Carnage has a filler [Massacre] attack that can crit as high as 16-17k [those being high damage rolls as well] but for a filler attack that ain't bad! Ravage you know about.

 

Playing Devil's advocate just for shzts and giggles, lets just for argument sake say that 4% came up and you are taking those VT and Gore hits in addition to the DB Crit damage. That's 91 K damage in three seconds. While as a tank you are capable of taking that amount of damage and mitigating part of it, that additional 58K white damage even mitigated I would think is still something that you would much rather prefer to avoid Even if that only bought you 5 extra seconds of life, that's 5 more seconds the healer has a guard on them and 5 more seconds that healer has to try and burst heal you or someone else. That's 5 extra seconds your group is not taking 30% more damage. [From Taunt] One extra player at the right time even for a rather short amount of time can make the difference sometimes.

 

I guess my point is this, you could be better as a tank potentially, you are knowingly not maximizing your survivability, for which your fellow team members are counting on you as a support class. Additionally all those added points put into a skank tanks DPS and they are not going to be tempted to use that much stat point investment?

 

Now if you tell me I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I defer to your expertise at tanking totally and without reservation. That's just how it strikes me some times and while I don't question your integrity, can you really be sure that other skank tanks are not giving into the temptation to use all that stat point investment in DPS even at the expense of their tanking duties? I'd have no problem believing that from you, but I can't say I'm as optimistic of the integrity of all other skank tanks.

 

One last point. I'm not sure on this, I could certainly be wrong, but I have always been under the impression that tanking stats in PVP are intentionally not on par as with PVE as in PVP you are facing other player characters who are on a similar power scale to yourself, whereas in PVE tanking a boss, a boss's level of power far exceeds anything a player could even remotely come close to. How could someone who was strong enough to withstand the full attention of Dread Master Brontes on NiM and shirk off the strongest blows repeatedly over the series 10 -15 minutes not completely overwhelm anything a player character could do with total ease and lack of concern? I don't see how it would be even remotely possible to pose any threat whatsoever to a tank who can defeat Dread Master Brontes on NiM, or am I not taking something into consideration here? [Which is certainly possible].

 

Interested to hear your thoughts pal and I expect all of my points to be spanked by you =p

 

I'll be honest, I'm really not all that that concerned with skank tanks at this point. They took a DPS nerf which is not nothing. [it's unfortunate however that true tanks had to eat as well though, I wasn't happy with that at all]. My only point of contention with them is the walking trinity thing but even that is "Jack of all trades, master of none" thingy. There are bigger fish to fry and they are all holding guns =p

To be honest, using tank gear in PvP does work. Like, you'll take less "white damage" like you said, or just simply shield more (even tho it is difficult with the stupid high amount of crit nowadays) the only issue is that PvP isn't like PvE.

In PvE, apart from being able to withstand hits, you also have Threat Generation to take into account. Threat Generation doesn't happen in PvP. Players won't target you because you used taunt. In PvP tbh, the only thing that makes players react is damage taken.

Being super tanky can be good, but apart from taking a long time to kill, you don't have anything else for your team. As an example,even a healer can be more tanky in this situation. Because some can survive as good as a tank and they also bring in heals for your team. As a pure tank, besides taking hits you don't have anything, not even the damage. Some peoples will argue about cc, but every class has at least two of those, so even in that case a tank isn't that usefull. So in a sense, to be more usefull you do have to trade that defensive stat bonus for raw power. Otherwise you won't do anything. You'll just die from exhaustion against a simple Carnage Mara, because he didn't take any damage from your weak attacks. The fight can be "long" (and most of the time it isn't, because of the crit vs shield bullsh*t) but you'll always lose because you cannot apply any pressure to the enemy, which is super important to PvP in this game.

Another thing to note is that most "big hitters" in this game aren't white damage. Sure there are some class that have white damage as burst, but those aren't common. Even in PvE, most of the damage taken during burst phase is yellow damage, which makes the defense stat even more useless as it is. The default tank gear is full of it, but you certainly don't need that much. You'll be better spending those stats into endurance or power because those are as usefull as Defense, if not more usefull. And those stats aren't RNG. This is also why the optimal dps setup nowadays is the high alac build. Because alac isn't RNG like crit, making it more valuable on the long term. It also benefits more than Power or Mastery because of the attack speed, making Alacrity the top stat right now. But that's not the subject

I hope i've answered a part of your questions ^^