What augments should i put on my shadow tank for pvp? I got full survival gear .. And what percent should i aim for def. absorb and shield ? i play whit 31/0/10

ty for help

Hi.

Were aiming at 30/60/50 deff/shield/absorb with kinetic ward up. So augments should be chosen accordingly. Im not on my PC, so cant check atm, but in full wh moded im roughly on 29.7/59.xx/54.xx with 1199 expertise 25098hp fully buffed with exo fortitude stim using just two def and two absorb augments. Rest is willpwr/endu one.

sadly, shield/absorb mods are useless for pvp as most player damage bypasses it (tech/force dmg),, it is good for pve tho.. i do hope they change this as it is the whole reason for being a tank and if we cant mitigate 85% of dmg type comming at us, then we arent really tanks.. all our mods for pvp gear contain the above mods yet they provide no help.. lame

im a shandow tank with full wh survivor gear and changed all my augments from shield/absorb to stacking endurance/willpower.. and i have left 2 with shield rating cause i pve with the gear to..

sadly, shield/absorb mods are useless for pvp as most player damage bypasses it (tech/force dmg),, it is good for pve tho....

Ignore this.

Shield and absorb has its use in PvP. Yes allot of hits that come in are force/tech hits but when you really think about it most classes rely on ranged/melee attacks. Let me explain.

PT/Vang - AP, IP, and burns all tech. however the bread and butter of their burst is High impact bolt. Trust me when I play my vang there is nothing worse than a shielded HiB. What should have been a killing blow, when shielded, then means player is still alive, gets healed and turns on me.. anoying as hell. Now for them to spam force attacks on you they will run out of ammo so fast they become useless, and AP does have quit a cd on it. Enough of a cd for you to break their back before they break yours.

GS/Sniper - cull, ambush, series of shots and takedown. All big hitters, all ranged attacks. Yes these classes also have tech damage but their biggests hits come from ranged. The ability to reduce most of their damage wins out any day.

Mara/sent - well we have the smash spec and yes its force, and yes it hurts. However apart from this pretty much all their other attacks are melee.

Guardian/jugg - same as above.

Shadows/sin - shadow strike, spinning strike, CS, DS all melee attacks again there is nothing worse than when that killing blow spinning strike gets shielded. Ok these clases also have hard hitting force attacks but their bread and butter stuff is all melee.

Sage/sorc - All force. shielding wont make any diff with this class at all. Period.

Commando/Merc - allot of tech attacks, but again some of their major attacks, Full auto, HiB can be shielded and tbh as we all know see these guys casting grav round interupt it and most (not all) will look at you with a stupid expression thinking "oh crap what now". I do kid but ya know what I mean. Assault specs for these classes are a bit diff but again they play to get HiB going and the ability to redcue that damage by 50%+ really does help.

So there we have it. most classes covered and of them all only 1 class that shielding wont make a lick of differance. Shield/absorb has its uses in PvP only thing I can suggest is play about with the numbers. Get a feel for where you need them to fit your playstyle. And dont forget the 2 piece PvE armors basically give you 5% extra shield chance when kinetic ward is up, may help you with how to use your aug slots.

sadly, shield/absorb mods are useless for pvp as most player damage bypasses it (tech/force dmg),, it is good for pve tho.. i do hope they change this as it is the whole reason for being a tank and if we cant mitigate 85% of dmg type comming at us, then we arent really tanks.. all our mods for pvp gear contain the above mods yet they provide no help.. lame

 

im a shandow tank with full wh survivor gear and changed all my augments from shield/absorb to stacking endurance/willpower.. and i have left 2 with shield rating cause i pve with the gear to..

Sorry but I tend to agree with this, the better players know not to waste their time against tanks with shieldable attacks, they unload everything we can't defend against and we get snapped.

Only way I've found to endure it is just more health and willpower

Sorry but I tend to agree with this, the better players know not to waste their time against tanks with shieldable attacks, they unload everything we can't defend against and we get snapped.

 

Only way I've found to endure it is just more health and willpower

Your reply a bit confused me. Good players dont attack you, cause youre able to shiled their attack, therefore you drop deffense shield and absorb to get more endurance and willpwr?

Thank you all for replying ..

Ok so i will put augments accordingly to get around 30/60/50 deff/shield/absorb with kinetic ward up..

PT/Vang

Shield actually means less against a PT/VG for one very simple reason: Battle Focus/Explosive Fuel. 25% extra crit chance means that, on top of the 30%+ crit chance they should be packing anyways, your shield chance is, at best, 45% because crit takes precedence over shield when hit is pushed off the probably table (50% shield + 30% crit chance = 50/30/20 shield/crit/hit split; 50% shield + 50% crit = 50/50/0 shield/crit/hit split; 60% shield + 50% crit = 50/50/0 shield/crit/hit split).

This actually follows suit with a lot of the other classes as well: fantastically high crit chances that put the sum of your shield chance and the target's crit chance over 100% reduce your shield chance with no cost to said crit chance. As such, stacking a lot of shield doesn't really do much for you since a lot of it is going to be made redundant by phenominally high crit chances.

GS/Sniper - cull, ambush, series of shots and takedown.

A lot of what you're referring to varies depending on the given spec. Both Sabo and DF deal a majority of their damage through Tech mechanisms (even if they're activated by using M/R attacks, the damage sources are still Tech).

Mara/sent

This only really applies to Combat/Carnage Marauders. Watchman uses a *lot* of Tech attacks and DoTs, both of which go straight through shield, not to mention that Watchman also uses a lot of internal damage so it goes through your armor as well.

Guardian/jugg

Only really applies to Focus spec (which, as said before, gets around your Shield by loading damage onto Sweep). Vigilance benefits from a combination of heavy hitting Force attacks (Blade Storm, Plasma Brand, Force Sweep) as well as virtually guaranteed crits (Dispatch with 60% +crit from Force Rush). The only attacks that you're going to benefit from shield from against a Vigi Guard are Strike (lol), Sundering Strike (lol), Master Strike, and Overhead Slash. Master Strike and Overhead Slash are definitely hard hitters, by, considering the sheer breadth of other hard hitting attacks that Vigi gets that get to ignore your Shield, I wouldn't say that Shield is especially useful against them. You only really get to use your Shield against Defense/Immortal specs.

Shadows/sin - shadow strike, spinning strike, CS, DS all melee attacks again there is nothing worse than when that killing blow spinning strike gets shielded. Ok these clases also have hard hitting force attacks but their bread and butter stuff is all melee.

I really have to wonder why you call out the melee attacks "bread and butter". CS and DS are, most definitely, not bread and butter for the damage they deal. They're bread and butter for the buffs they generate. Force Breach and Project are the major money makers for Infiltration's damage, and FiB + DoTs are what make Balance nasty, and the Kinetic hybrid relies on PAProject + FiB with the possibility of HSx3TkT for most of its damage, not to mention pure tank Shadows where more than 90% of their damage is going to come from Force attacks. CS and DS are used more on a per use basis, but they're nowhere near the "bread and butter" of the damage dealt, especially since all that they need to do to accomplish the primary goal of using them is hit (for Balance or Kinetic) or simply be used (for Inf). Pretty much the only thing that Shield are really going to be useful against, in terms of total damage shielded, is Shadow Strike, which is only really going to occur once every 10-12 seconds or so (unless they plan on dying because they ran completely out of Force within the first 2-3 attacks thanks to Shadow Strike spam).

So there we have it. most classes covered and of them all only 1 class that shielding wont make a lick of differance. Shield/absorb has its uses in PvP only thing I can suggest is play about with the numbers.

It's never been a question of "Shield/Absorb does nothing in PvP". The issue has always been that Shield/Absorb is of so little comparative use in PvP thanks to high player crit chances and the prevalence and loading of player damage on Force/Tech attacks that you're better off just stacking Endurance for survivability (since more hp will actually keep you alive better) and replacing Shield/Absorb with DPS stats (since PvP is a race to see who dies first in a game of attrition as opposed to an assumption of survival where the only real chance of death is sudden and definitive).

The only classes that Shield/Absorb does something *appreciable* against (re: more than just an arbitrary "yes, they have an attack that can be shielded, even if it doesn't actually constitute a majority of their damage dealt") are (discounting mirrors) Gunnery Commandos (b/c of Full Auto and HiB, though, honestly, Commandos in PvP are already a bit of lawl because they're turrets without any real benefits to make up for their lack of mobilty), Defense Guardians, Combat Sentinels, and Marks GSs. Pretty much every other spec is packing enough crit to make your shield chance redundant or loads enough damage into Force/Tech attacks that, while you're getting some returns out of Shield/Absorb, you're honestly getting less than you would out of just packing on more Endurance and DPS stats.

This has been on of the continual beefs that Tanks have had with PvP in TOR: Shield/Absorb, which is supposed to be the most important stat manipulable mechanic for tanks, has negligible benefit in PvP because there are *so many ways* to bypass it and those mechanisms are so prevalent amongst players that many tanks don't even see the point in them any more. It's the sad truth of PvP in TOR: tank stats are kinda worthless so it's better for tanks to just stack the hell out of Endurance and DPS stats.

OK, starting to understand, why Kitru love walls of text

While I agree, that first set of gear, which PVP tanky shadow with 31 or 23 points in kinetic should build, is sadly DPS, still tank gear has purposes. In last days im runing mostly kinetic/infi hybrid. In normals im usually staying in DPS gear. To guard and hit attacker of my guarded person by crited 5k+ shadow strike and 3.2k+ project pretty much changing mind of attacker from "ill kill you, healer" to "ok mb not, im running for my life".

On the other hand tank gear giving much more survivability and its not the difference of 4.5k hp between my tank and dps gear only. While lot of attacks are not shielded, any shielded reducing CD of Resilience. I guess all of us knows, what does it mean to have Resilience on CD, when we fighting Tech damage, DOTs and force attacks.

On the other hand tank gear giving much more survivability

This ..

Pure tanks in pvp are unappreciated ..

I guess it really depends on who you're playing.

In normals, its rare to get more than one or two people hitting the healer. So, whilst you're primary job is to keep the healer alive, the healer themselves has to split their healing across multiple targets. so, the quicker you can kill the person beating on the healer, the more time they have free to focus on everyone else. So, in normals, a tank wearing DPS gear is usually more effective because its not often they *need* all that defence.

I imagine in rateds the situation changes. Damage becomes more focused and so the ability to mitigate as much damage as possible, as well as have a nice health buffer, becomes more important.

@Kitru.

Ty For the reply to my post. I totally agree with what you are saying. Thing is my post was a response to the statement made by Wookubus that shield/absorb stats are worthless in PVP. I did this without wanting to go into the math and theory crafting side of the argument.

I would however like to ask you a few things. The examples you gave of increased crit. My question here is how often do all these classes have those buffs active, 15-20s or so. Most of them with a 1.5min + CD. So for the rest of the time that buff is on CD they wont use the attacks? OFC they will and that is when shield/absorb shines. Another thing you mention is that some classes can get to 100%+ crit chance on a melee or ranged attack. I would like to know which classes can achieve this tbh, there is one I can think of but that only applies to one of their abilities (I must admit some of my class knowledge is lacking so I would like to know this so I can have a bit of a better understanding). Thing is though even with all these number and chances they do still come down to a "chance" and if the RNG is with you or not. And I ask this of everyone reading this post. How anoying is it when you have to use a ranged/melee attack as a finisher and its shielded the tank is still alive and lol'ing at you. Theory and numbers are all good indicators of how things should work out, but in practice, most times it doesn't work out.

Also one thing I did mention was about the shadow using melee attacks as there bread and butter. Lets think about that if you don't mind.

Firstly the Infil its biggest hitting attack by far is shadow strike, melee. Next to those is force breach (12s CD talented) and project (6s cd). Now in between those attacks what are they using? That's right SS or CS, if not using snares stuns etc. Now on a damage per force basis CS doesn't look good, but I currently get 1.7k crits per hit. that's potentially 3.4k damage per CS. I tend to use this twice at times while waiting for FB and Project to come of CD. Thats a fair ammount of damage I have done if all things line up and they crit (never happens mind). Add to that Shadow strike and spinning strike, currently getting 7k+ crits with shadow usable every 9s or more if I have the spare force, and 5-6k crits with spinning. That's an awful lot of damage potential while waiting for FB and Project to finish their cd. Thats is why I said the bread and butter of shadows attacks. Also the fact that most of the logs I parse always show those melee attacks at the top of the list for damage done. For the tank, not so much uses apart from DS to get PA procs.

Anyways I seemed to have derailed the thread a bit here so back to shielding and absorb in PvP. As has been said it has it uses, however a decent player will use his abilities to bypass your shield and cause you problems. The way I look at it is that it is an extension of my HP. Allowing me to stay in the fight longer, protect my healer and my team longer and die less. Ya know the role of a tank. Leave DPS to DPS classes. They will always do it better than any tank, hybrid or dps geared.

The examples you gave of increased crit. My question here is how often do all these classes have those buffs active, 15-20s or so. Most of them with a 1.5min + CD. So for the rest of the time that buff is on CD they wont use the attacks? OFC they will and that is when shield/absorb shines.

Battle Focus lasts 15 seconds on a 2 min CD (12.5% uptime), but you're not really gonna have an uptime like that because we're talking PvP, where dying and running back to rejoin the fray or breaking combat and rejoining it later are time honored strategies, especially when you're doing it just to get a CD back up. There's a lot more downtime (optional and enforced) to allow for CD regeneration over the course of a fight, which is why survivability CDs are so friggin powerful in PvP (and one of the reasons why people hate Sent/Maras so much because, while they're nominally squishier than a Guardian, they've got an entire *stable* of amazing survivability CDs that, thanks to the short duration of most PvP fights, gives them tremendous advantages because of PvP's predilection towards downtime to provide monumental in-fight uptime).

Saying that an attribute shines when DPS is lightest is damning it by faint praise. If it were actually useful, it would be applicable when you really need to bolster your survivability the most (i.e. when crit rates are incredibly high).

Another thing you mention is that some classes can get to 100%+ crit chance on a melee or ranged attack.

Tactics VGs get guaranteed crits with HiB thanks to combat tactics and Vigilance Guardians get 60% bonus crit for Dispatch (and Blade Storm) out of Force Rush (combined with basic crit rate and class buffs, provides a ~95% chance to crit). Even so, "guaranteed crits" aren't the only situation you have to consider when dealing with crit pushing shield off of the table because players are entirely capable of getting 40-50% crit chances thanks to stats and buffs. At that point, at best, you're going to get 50-60% shield chance, which is ludicrously easy to get to if you've got KW.

On this topic, I'm actually curious if anyone has tried playing around with using the PvE Stalker set bonus in PvE (using the PvE shells with PvP armorings). The 2 piece might not be all that great (it's not like either Balance or Infiltration should be staying in combat consistently long enough to actually run out of Force if they're not being idiots), but 15% improved crit chance with CS and DS, especially for Balance (thanks to 50% additional crit damage out of DS), could do a lot of damage. You'd have the weigh the benefits against the additional charge and shorter CD on Force Potency, but it would be interesting to try out.

Firstly the Infil its biggest hitting attack by far is shadow strike, melee. Next to those is force breach (12s CD talented) and project (6s cd).

Shadow Strike is only the hardest hitting attack when Infiltration Tactics is up (functionally enforcing a 12 sec CD), you're not fighting an opponent in heavy armor, and you discount bonus damage from crits (though whether this matters depends a lot on your actual crit chance since melee attacks for Shadows should benefit from the 9% higher crit chance from Force Synergy, though Force Potency could be seen as a balancing Factor since it all but guarantees a crit with the Force attacks twice every 2 minutes, or thrice every 105 seconds with the 4 pc set bonus). Since Project and FB both benefit from 50% bonus damage from crits (and Project benefits from 30% additional damage thanks to CD stacks as well as the potential for 50% more base damage out of Upheaval and FB benefits from ~12-18% additional damage when used on CD thanks to Exit Strategy) whereas Shadow Strike only benefits from 30%, it's actually more appropriate to say that Shadow Strike hits roughly as hard as Force Breach, on the same CD (substantially lighter if used without that buff).

Now in between those attacks what are they using?

If we're measuring Shadow Strike against Force Breach, it's better to weigh CS against Project, specifically, each double use of CS against the single use of Project (though with CS stacks no longer being consumed by Project use, there's actually some case for using Project on CS regardless of whether you have Circling Shadows stacks, especially in burst damage scenarios; each use of CS only reduces the cost of Project by 11 Force, so, if you can actually find something to use that does more damage than CS for a similar cost, you're better off simply not using CS and using the other attack immediately and using Project on CD).

Now, concerning CS and Project's damage, CS is relatively simple. With both attacks per GCD factored in, CS is going to deal roughly 85% of the base damage that Project deals (ignoring crit contributions and Upheaval procs). Factor in the addtional 22.5% damage that Upheaval provides (brings it to 70%) and factor in crit contributions, remembering that melee attacks get 9% higher crit chance but Project gets 50% more crit damage, and the difference between the two arrives at CS dealing roughly 65% of the damage of Project. Double that such that CS gets twice the contribution and Project deals roughly 130% of the damage that Project deals, assuming you use 2 CSs for every 1 Project (which, in a burst DPS scenario, isn't really going to be guaranteed).

Now, furthermore, because we're talking about melee/ranged v. Force/Tech, it's important to remember that Saber Strike is sometimes goes to take precedence over other attacks. In general, because of how Infiltration plays, this should pretty much always be CS (everything else should be used on CD; CS, as the only attack without a CD, isn't really going to get much ground). As such, CS's contributions get brought comparatively lower since they're having to be averaged out with Saber Strike's.

Also, Shadow Technique should be factored in as a Force/Tech damage contributor (which, thanks to the number of attacks made per GCD on average, provides ~75-80 DPS), which weighs contributions further in favor of F/T (at top tier gear levels, that will approach 8-9% of total damage dealt).

So, factoring in Shadow Technique (assuming pure burst DPS), your used attacks comprise 91% of your total damage. Breaking that down roughly equally between M/R and F/T attacks (Shadow Strike and Force Breach roughly equate to each other on the same use table, CS and Project as well, factoring in SS reducing CS's effectiveness due to replacement, though this probably gives a little leeway to M/R for the purposes of burst DPS, especially since we're not counting Spinning Strike, but, once again, you get into CS replacement rather than outright addition), and you get ~46% M/R damage and 54% F/T. Even if you favor M/R even more thanks to the leeway previously provided, it's, at best, a break even between F/T and M/R.

At that point, with a break even between F/T and M/R, I still stand by my assertion that Shield isn't really effective against Infiltration Shadows. With ~50% of your damage completely ignoring Shield, you're getting pretty bad comparative returns.

For the tank, not so much uses apart from DS to get PA procs.

You're also discounting Balance as well as the Kinetic Hybrid, none of which get much out of their melee attacks. The only spec that can even make the remotest case for being heavily melee oriented is Infiltration and, even then, there's some question about it. So, unless you think that Infiltration is the *only* Shadow PvP spec, you're pretty wrong about melee being bread and butter for *all* Shadows.

The way I look at it is that it is an extension of my HP. Allowing me to stay in the fight longer, protect my healer and my team longer and die less. Ya know the role of a tank. Leave DPS to DPS classes. They will always do it better than any tank, hybrid or dps geared.

PvP is less about role specialization than PvE is. It's for this exact reason that hybrid specs work in PvP but are pretty much persona non grata in PvE. It's all about maximizing your DPS *and* survivability, which is why the Shadow hybrid tank spec that runs in pure DPS gear is so friggin' effective: it gets excellent DR with the amazing tank CDs that Shadows get (providing excellent survivability) and stacks DPS stats to make the Project autocrits and DS spamming hit like comparative trucks. Tank stats on gear just aren't an efficient use of itemization; they don't apply to enough of the incoming attacks and damage to do so.

GS/Sniper - cull, ambush, series of shots and takedown. All big hitters, all ranged attacks. Yes these classes also have tech damage but their biggests hits come from ranged. The ability to reduce most of their damage wins out any day.

My Lethality Sniper does a large percentage of their damage as tech. The damage text is yellow. You are incorrect.

PvP is less about role specialization than PvE is.

Hm,hm i don t know how u play wz .. but when i play whit my guild roles matters .. Dps are there to do damage nothing else as healers are there to heal .. Me as tank i carry the ball, i plant in voidstar i stay at nod distracting imps and trying to guard healer .. Can i do all that as some dps/tank hybrid maybe .. Would i be able to hold nod/door/ball vs 2-3 imps for just that extra 20 sec .. Nop ..

Im the one whit always highest objective ..