Hello, fellow Powertechs.

I am planning to roll with the Shield Tech tree. Primarily I want to be able to tank, take a beating in PvP, and have Jet Charge. I was playing with the talent tree and noticed if I don't take the 31 point talent "Heat Blast", I can get Retractable Blade from the Adv. Prototype tree instead. I definitely see how Heat Blast could be useful if you are at risk of overheating, but being that Shield Techs are likely going to use close range attacks like Rocket Punch a lot, having another melee ability is appealing to me.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301hRhrdMrogZbsbMo.1

Side question: How heavily is "Shield Chance" going to play into tanking and damage absorption? I haven't played enough to where Shield Chance comes into play so I'm not sure how useful it is. If it isn't useful I could sacrifice the 5 points at the top of the tree into something like +3% endurance and two more into something else.

Completely open to suggestions, for the record I've only played as far as level 14 in beta. Thanks!

With retractable blade you can alway apply a dot for triggering rail shot.

i'll go for that, since you already dont have that many dots. + RB does internal dmg, thus bypassing Armor ^^

On your other question: i'll go for the shield chance, since damage mitigation is always better then x% more HP.

And with the "Shield" attribute you can further increase the chance to be shielded on attack

My Build will look this way: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301GoGrzMrogZMsr0o.1

I will use "Ion overload" to trigger a dot with Rocket punch so i can follow with rail shot. If Rocket punch misses i can quickli follow up with retractable blade for dot and rail shot ^^

my 2 cent ^^

PS: english is not my native language

I don't think it's wise to overlook Ion Overload and Supercharged Ion Gas.

You'll be using Rocket Punch on Cooldown (which is further reduced by the Flame Shield Talent), and those talents give additional bonus damage and most importantly a free DOT. The advantage of the DOT being you can use Rail Shot immediately after Rocket Punch.

The retactable blade instead of heat blast has been mentioned many times in builds. The blade does more damage and is an additional dot for Rail Shot whilst heat blast allows you to manage your heat better.

Ultimately it depends how good the Shield Vents talent is, as that'll be a significant source for heat reduction in PvE, but for PvP... who knows.

To answer your other question regarding shield chance, it's a vital for Bounty hunters. There are a few talents in our tree which provice great benefit on shielded attacks and I can see the %Chance getting very high.

Talents referenced in post besides the obvious:

Flame Shield

Increases the critical chance of Rocket Punch and Flame Sweep by [15 / 30]%. In addition, shielding an attack has a [25 / 50]% chance to finish the cooldown on Rocket Punch. This effect cannot occur more than once every 4.5 seconds

Shield Vents:

Increases shield chance by [1 / 2]%. In addition, shielding an attack has a [25 / 50]% chance to vent 8 heat. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds.

Hello, fellow Powertechs.

 

I am planning to roll with the Shield Tech tree. Primarily I want to be able to tank, take a beating in PvP, and have Jet Charge. I was playing with the talent tree and noticed if I don't take the 31 point talent "Heat Blast", I can get Retractable Blade from the Adv. Prototype tree instead. I definitely see how Heat Blast could be useful if you are at risk of overheating, but being that Shield Techs are likely going to use close range attacks like Rocket Punch a lot, having another melee ability is appealing to me.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#301hRhrdMrogZbsbMo.1

 

Side question: How heavily is "Shield Chance" going to play into tanking and damage absorption? I haven't played enough to where Shield Chance comes into play so I'm not sure how useful it is. If it isn't useful I could sacrifice the 5 points at the top of the tree into something like +3% endurance and two more into something else.

 

Completely open to suggestions, for the record I've only played as far as level 14 in beta. Thanks!

Why would you get Retractable Blade when you could get Heat Blast which has a longer range (6 meters more), does more damage (elemental instead of internal but both bypass armor), it vents 8 heat instead of building 16 heat (no brainer here), I think the cooldowns are the same but I can't remember can someone confirm that they are both 15 second cooldowns? Anyway if you have any evidence to prove me wrong please let me know because I could learn something from this as well if I am wrong. Thanks!

Why would you get Retractable Blade when you could get Heat Blast which has a longer range (6 meters more), does more damage (elemental instead of internal but both bypass armor), it vents 8 heat instead of building 16 heat (no brainer here), I think the cooldowns are the same but I can't remember can someone confirm that they are both 15 second cooldowns? Anyway if you have any evidence to prove me wrong please let me know because I could learn something from this as well if I am wrong. Thanks!

Retractable blade - Plunges a retractable blade into the target that deals 595 - 706 kinetic damage and causes the target to bleed for 784 internal damage over 15 seconds.

Heat blast - Discharges 8 heat into a fiery blast, dealing 702 - 813 elemental damage.

RB -> 1379 - 1490 dmg total (hit+dot)

HB -> 702 - 813 dmg

Yes, you are right. RB does generate heat instead of reducing it but you only use it if you miss with rocket punch for applying a dot so you can fire up your rail shot.

And applying a dot on your target prevents them from capping towers etc in warzones.

Since as a Powertech most of the time you will be in melee range, the shorter range is not that big an issue.

i personally think that both are viable abilities, but i like the RB more

my 2 cents

Cheers

My question how will the damage output be in sheild specc?? anyone that have tried it out? so... can u survive long enough to kill someone or shall u just be a damage soaker

As pure shieldtech I am not having trouble killing people. Once you get quell it becomes a different game for a PT. Using quell is the key to winning or losing your battles. Interrupting heals and main attacks CONSTANTLY is what kills people as shieldtech, not damage output. You can already survive longer than anyone else. If you want to just run around shooting flames, you will not kill anyone. As any class with healing WILL outheal you and DPS class will blow you away.

As pure shieldtech I am not having trouble killing people. Once you get quell it becomes a different game for a PT. Using quell is the key to winning or losing your battles. Interrupting heals and main attacks CONSTANTLY is what kills people as shieldtech, not damage output. You can already survive longer than anyone else. If you want to just run around shooting flames, you will not kill anyone. As any class with healing WILL outheal you and DPS class will blow you away.

So what you're saying is that shield techs are ok 1 on 1 versus keyboard-turning healers, but are bad against anything else. I know what I'm NOT speccing into for pvp!

In my experience, Heat Blast was crucial for managing heat as Shieldtech. I gave blade a try and felt that I was much less effective at maintaining DPS on hard or healed targets.

I've played it both ways, i've felt that the retractable blade is more of a long game attack as in yoru rotation becomes

grapple, rocket punch retract, quick quick, rail, quick retract, quick ,punch

its not as much burst but more dps. Agaisnt a healed target you can interupt their heal or stun them with electrodart before they heal. with otehrs its an attrition battle. you cna also go full burst and burn vent heat to take down a dps.

Retractable blade - Plunges a retractable blade into the target that deals 595 - 706 kinetic damage and causes the target to bleed for 784 internal damage over 15 seconds.

 

Heat blast - Discharges 8 heat into a fiery blast, dealing 702 - 813 elemental damage.

 

 

 

RB -> 1379 - 1490 dmg total (hit+dot)

HB -> 702 - 813 dmg

 

Yes, you are right. RB does generate heat instead of reducing it but you only use it if you miss with rocket punch for applying a dot so you can fire up your rail shot.

 

And applying a dot on your target prevents them from capping towers etc in warzones.

 

Since as a Powertech most of the time you will be in melee range, the shorter range is not that big an issue.

 

 

i personally think that both are viable abilities, but i like the RB more

 

 

my 2 cents

 

Cheers

1) Don't trust TORhead damage numbers... they have said themselves they are not accurate

2) The DoT effect when it comes to disrupting caps is a moot point. All powertech specs are able to do this.

3) The burst damage factor is in HB favour with the difference being elemental vs kinetic.. I've also yet to get that high and test whether its counted as a fire attack for those talents to effect it.

4) The sustained damage is also in HB favour simply due to the heat cost. For simplicity take a 15s duration in which Heat Blast and RB are both used twice. The difference in damage from the blades DoT is more than made up for and surpassed by the fact that for the same Heat Blast is 48 heat ahead which is 3 extra attacks (rocket punch, flame burst and rail shot all being 16 heat). 2x heat blast + 3x these >> RB + RB DoT + RB

5) In order to get retractable blade assuming you have the required 30 points in shieldtech for heat blast you are giving up iron fist. 8% more damage on shieldtechs hardest hitting attack is a hell of a lot to lose (it procs ion gas cylinder, it has huge increase to crit chance and crit damage and is constantly reset when you shield)