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Desire to See a New PT/VG tank Cooldown


ScytheEleven

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Let me clear some things up first:

 

1). Yes, Shadows are spike damage takers that will make your eyes pop. Should be fixed somehow, hopefully.

2). Yes, PT/VG's tank are the easiest tanks to play with the most basic of rotations. I do not deny that is part of their appeal.

3). Yes, not all the tanks should play identical to one another.

 

Ok, with all of that cleared up:

 

I really want to see PT/VG tanks get another cooldown to play around with. Saber Reflect and Force Shroud (don't know the pub side names) are, simply put, amazing. With the Jug's armor rating increased via skill tree and Crushing Blow, their damage profile is very similar to a PT/VG now. Not a bad thing by any means, but besides a shoulder cannon (which is cool, don't get me wrong), PT/VG's don't really have that one game-changing cool down.

 

I would love to see a one minute, 5-second lasting cooldown for the PT/VG tanks. Maybe something that increases their shield chance to 100% for five seconds, and boosts absorption to 75%.

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2). Yes, PT/VG's tank are the easiest tanks to play with the most basic of rotations. I do not deny that is part of their appeal.

 

Not actually all that true anymore. The Guardian changes made it so that the Guardian attack string has next to no real decision points. It can actually, very easily, just be considered an attack string rather than a priority. VGs at least have to deal with cooldown variability on 3 of their attacks (Stockstrike, Energy Blast, Pulse Cannon) and an, honestly, more complex resource model than Guardians do (as mentioned before, its an attack string that pretty much takes care of itself for neutrality).

 

Not a bad thing by any means, but besides a shoulder cannon (which is cool, don't get me wrong), PT/VG's don't really have that one game-changing cool down...

 

...I would love to see a one minute, 5-second lasting cooldown for the PT/VG tanks. Maybe something that increases their shield chance to 100% for five seconds, and boosts absorption to 75%.

 

Should Cannon is less a survivability CD than an interesting little pseudo-self healing mechanism.. I also think you're downplaying the incredible contribution of Reactive Shield considering the level of VG DR and the sheer stability of it.

 

Of course, I've always been a strong proponent of giving VGs another tank CD, but I don't think that adding a new ability or providing it with some kind of universal utility (like increasing Shield chance to 100%; increasing Absorb by any more than they can already spike to with Energy Blast would just be *insanely overpowered* since it already spikes them up to ~70%; with a 100% Shield chance, they'd take next to no damage from anything except the very rare I/E damage *without getting any Absorb increase*; buffing their Absorb to any extent you would expect from a tank CD would make them functionally immune to all damage for the duration). Saber Reflect and Resilience are allowed to be as powerful as they are *because* they can only be used on *very specific* effects.

 

As such, for the utility, I would restrict the effects of it *exclusively* to F/T attacks: VGs already do very well against M/R attacks and the big "cheesing" capabilities are based off of avoiding F/T attacks. Previously I would have argued that it should be global, but Guardians getting something that pretty much matches Resilience (and, in some cases, most definitely exceeds it) kind of put the kibosh on the idea that Resilience was supposed to be a unique capability of Shadows, so I'm now arguing that all tanks should have some kind of Resilience-like capability for mitigating/avoiding F/T attacks.

 

For what ability to put it as a rider on, there are 2 excellent options.

 

Hold the Line is, thematically, an excellent option but the low CD and high uptime on the baseline ability represent some problems. The only real way to account for it would be to reduce the effectiveness of the ability and limit the duration or charges to prevent it from being able to be applied to drastically more effects that either of the others uptime. The only reasonably balanced implementation I could think of was having HtL apply a buff that increases Resistance chance by 50% (the unreliability of it makes up for the fact that it can be used for pretty much *every* F/T spike that ever comes along) for 3 seconds (shorter duration than the full 6 seconds of HtL to balance out uptime; it's slightly higher which is acceptable with a short duration like that). It does kind of clash with the whole "VGs are crazy reliable tanks!", but that design kind of got tossed a bit out the window when they became more reliant on Riot Gas, Defense rating, and variable uptimes and CDs on their abilities.

 

Riot Gas is another potential option that has the advantage of having the perfect CD as well as having a natural extension in the talent tree (just put in a new talent linked to Riot Gas and just swap Ceramic Plating from a 2/4% talent to a straight up 4% talent). Of course, you still have to deal with the amazing uptime of Riot Gas, which means that they benefit can't really be tied to the duration itself. There are 2 possible implementations that I can think of, the first of which is activating Riot Gas provides you with a 3 second buff that increases your F/T Resistance by 100% (i.e. Riot Gas provides you with the baseline effect of Resilience). The second option would be that activating Riot Gas provides you with 1-2 charges of a buff that increases Resistance by 100%. The charges are lost when you mean any of 2 conditions: you leave the area affected by Riot Gas (this also means that it ends when the Riot Gas area fades away) or you successfully resist an F/T attack. Call the talent something like "Dispersal Gas" (i.e there's something in the gas that disperses F/T attacks, such that they fizzle harmlessly rather than hurting you). It might even be interesting if activating Riot Gas applied the same effect to *you and all allies* in the area of the Riot Gas when you activated it (though you'd likely have to limit the charges to 1 per person and reduce the effect to something like 75% F/T damage reduction rather than 100% Resistance; of course, 100% Resistance to allies as well would provide VGs with some very interesting utility and strategic value to ops that they're largely missing now).

 

My favorite implementation is the Riot Gas one, mainly because it's more balanced and easier to understand, not to mention that it the charge based avoidance provides a nice big window to avoid a 1-2 big F/T attack which plays to the VG "easy to use" status. I also like the idea that it could provide VGs with some very nice group survivability (Shadows get the stealth rez and, debateably, Shadow's Shelter; Guardians get Guardianship; this would give Guardians a nice "raid umbrella" CD for big F/T attacks).

Edited by Kitru
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I wouldn't turn down a new cooldown on my Powertech, just like I haven't complained about getting Saber Reflect on my Jugg. But, you're looking at the Powertech's suite of cooldowns and utility wrong. Saber Reflect and Force Shroud are primarily used for cheesing mechanics. Your counterpart for those as a Powertech tank is Hydraulic Overrides. Start looking to use that in clever places and you'll be suprised by what you can cheese.
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Your counterpart for those as a Powertech tank is Hydraulic Overrides. Start looking to use that in clever places and you'll be suprised by what you can cheese.

 

HtL only lets you avoid KB and physics effects. While it's useful to avoid forced movement sometimes, it's not really anywhere near the same level of cheesing that Saber Reflect and Resilience are capable of since those are about ignoring huge incoming damage spikes.

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HtL only lets you avoid KB and physics effects. While it's useful to avoid forced movement sometimes, it's not really anywhere near the same level of cheesing that Saber Reflect and Resilience are capable of since those are about ignoring huge incoming damage spikes.

 

I'm still looking for mechanics to cheese with it since I've only recently realized its potential. The two I have figured out so far are for NIM Kephess, popping it while dropping the second purple circle on the last phase (old content, but still mechanically hard and on still being worked on by many guilds). The mechanic that really made me realize the potential of Hydraulic Overrides/HTL was popping it right before Styrak did his Force Pull. No knockback, no threat drop, no tank swap needed.

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The mechanic that really made me realize the potential of Hydraulic Overrides/HTL was popping it right before Styrak did his Force Pull. No knockback, no threat drop, no tank swap needed.

 

That's not really all that valuable in my opinion. VGs have Storm so it's not like it would be a major concern for them anyway since they could just taunt and close the gap pretty much immediately. I can't really think of any movement mechanics that would really change anything major by cheesing them. HtL is *nice*, but I wouldn't say that it's really a game changer in any sense of the term.

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On powertech section forum some1 had the idea to give all PT's/VG's a passive energy rebounder skill and while it would be overpowered in the current state for shieldtechs - some kind of nerfed version might work quite well.

 

http://www.torhead.com/ability/4xbPTiS/energy-rebounder

 

maybe with a smaller chance of applying cd reduction (20, maybe 25% instead of 100%?) or make it that the effect occures every 6-9 seconds?

 

there definitely has to be a way to make it work :)

 

tho my personal favourite improvement would be a lower cooldown + 4rockets automatically loaded on shoulder cannon - this would make me more certain how to use it, most of the time i just keep it as an emergency heal mechanism and often end up not using it at all - which is such a waste

Edited by quirez
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well, oil slick is kinda like saber reflect... (60 sec cd)

reducing cd on shield/heal would also work

but yeah, some 2 cd minute shield +20% for 12 sec (it's a shield tech dammit) would be nice.

 

numbers can be different, so it won't be over powered compared to other tanks, math wizzards would figure it out.

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What's the cooldown on hydraulic overrides?

 

It's 30 seconds with a 6 second duration. Increasing the CD on it wouldn't really be viable since that would affect DPS VGs and Commando DPS as well. The fact that it's on such a short CD is the primary reason why I'm reluctant to give it any kind of reliable substantial mitigation mechanism, hence the whole 50% resistance idea with a single charge consumed upon a resist. It's unreliable, but made up for by having a really low CD such that it can easily be used against every potential spike.

 

For a longer CD, we really can only look towards Riot Gas. Of course, the same thing that happened to Battle Readiness could be applied to Battle Focus: turning a DPS CD into a tanking CD with a deep tanking talent. Instead of 4% alacrity (which is pretty much worthless), imagine if it applied 50/100% resist chance for the duration.

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While I agree that the fact that juggs and sins having the complete F/T avoidance is cool, I have never felt like those cool downs made a big enough difference to give them a huge advantage over my PT.

 

My PT has always felt crunchy and resilient enough to not need the avoidance to a couple hits from F/T damage that such a cool down might provide. (I'd add that my jugg since 2.0 almost feels almost as good now, but only if I'm using my rotations correctly, the scream/retaliation/crushing blow DR is really astounding)

 

I think Kitru's idea of changing Explosive fuel + alacrity to a + resist for 3 - 4 seconds, would be the best idea of all, if any change is even needed. (Sorry, I speak Empire)

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I think Kitru's idea of changing Explosive fuel + alacrity to a + resist for 3 - 4 seconds, would be the best idea of all, if any change is even needed. (Sorry, I speak Empire)

 

I actually think it would be interesting to have it behave as such for the entire duration, either that or have the Resistance fade as you keep resisting things (5 stacks of a buff, each providing 20% F/T resist; whenever you resist an attack, 1 stack is lost). 3 seconds every 2 minutes isn't particularly much nor is a similar uptime on the longer CD as useful, which is why I think the longer duration would be appropriate.

 

I do think that Battle Focus would be a more interesting additional CD than either Riot Gas or HtL, now that I've thought of it. It even makes sense thematically, as a tank would focus on dealing more damage as well as avoiding blows whereas a DPS is just going to focus on getting those shots in nasty spots.

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What's the cooldown on the self heal, 2 minutes?

 

How about, high in the tank skill tree, putting a modifying skill as follows:

 

1.)Cooldown shortened to 90 seconds

2.)Incoming damage reduced by 10%

3.)Defense, Resistance, Shield, and Absorb raised by 5%.

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What's the cooldown on the self heal, 2 minutes?

 

Adrenaline Rush is... weird. It's got a 3 min CD, but the buff it provides lasts 90 seconds and the actual *effect* is only triggered when you're sub-30%, not to mention that the CD only starts when the actual effect is triggered.

 

I really wouldn't attach anything new to Adrenaline Rush.

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Adrenaline Rush is... weird. It's got a 3 min CD, but the buff it provides lasts 90 seconds and the actual *effect* is only triggered when you're sub-30%, not to mention that the CD only starts when the actual effect is triggered.

 

I really wouldn't attach anything new to Adrenaline Rush.

 

This reminds me I haven't bothered playing my powertech tank since 2.0. I want to play him more, I really do ...

 

:(

 

Assassins have, since day one, had a 60 second timer mechanic-breaking, super utility CD in Force Shroud (the prime reason why every other tanking class was pure second rate until 2.0). Now Juggernauts have their own 60 second CD in Saber Reflect (superior to Force Shroud in some ways, inferior in others). Both last five seconds.

 

I just feel like powertechs need something similar. Maybe an entirely new ability. No more than a 60 second timer, lasts 5 seconds like the others. Something interesting! What about, 5 seconds of something like 33.33-50% damage reduction, but, the buff vanishes if you move from where you're standing?

Edited by Powerrmongerr
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Eh, I have always felt my powertech was superior to my jugg/sin, pre-2.0 regardless of the gimicky cool downs they had, my power tech was just always a smooth steady damage sponge, well rounded enough that I never felt I needed an "O-S" cool down. That persists through 2.0, except now my sin is my least favorite of all.

 

I guess all in all my opinion (if I might add it) powertechs are fine without such a cool down, but if anything is added it needs to be very slight or else the PT is gonna easily be ahead of other tanks.

 

As a side note, I have to say I really like the changes to Kolto Overload, that healing sub 30% will save your skin!

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I found my 3rd cd on adrenals and relics, you can have such ridiculously high mitigation numbers on pts that those things make you invincible, for example on cartel warlords if you leave sunder as the last he casts "the end" which usually one shots the tank even on sm, last time I did it on sm I used my shrouded crusader relic and energy shield and asked my sorc healer to give me a bubble, the result: Absorbed. Took no damage at all.

I realize it's not invincibility since I could lose that roll on the shielding but its good enough for now. I used to complain a lot about the cds for pts but the kolto overload gave me what I wanted (a real oh crap thing)

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I found my 3rd cd on adrenals and relics, you can have such ridiculously high mitigation numbers on pts that those things make you invincible.

 

Adrenals/relics are shared by all tank classes. That's not what this thread is pointing to which is an additional mechanic.

 

for example on cartel warlords if you leave sunder as the last he casts "the end" which usually one shots the tank even on sm, last time I did it on sm I used my shrouded crusader relic and energy shield and asked my sorc healer to give me a bubble, the result: Absorbed. Took no damage at all.

I realize it's not invincibility since I could lose that roll on the shielding but its good enough for now. I used to complain a lot about the cds for pts but the kolto overload gave me what I wanted (a real oh crap thing)

 

If you have a bubble on you and it absorbs any damage the combat text will show absorb even if the damage exceeds the amount the bubble would absorb. You can verify this by going back in your log and seeing the damage you actually took.

 

1) You had the 4 pc set bonus and had a 1/50 chance of resisting and thus took no damage.

 

2) You were on SM as stated above and it actually shouldn't kill you anyways. Between your bubble and whatever damage was inc vs inc heals you looked like you took little damage.

 

~~~

 

PT/VG currently has the least oh **** abilities and it shows in the new NiM modes especially. A F/T would be appreciated but any form of damage mitigation be it personal, or raid would go a long way.

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Riot Gas is another potential option that has the advantage of having the perfect CD as well as having a natural extension in the talent tree (just put in a new talent linked to Riot Gas and just swap Ceramic Plating from a 2/4% talent to a straight up 4% talent). Of course, you still have to deal with the amazing uptime of Riot Gas, which means that they benefit can't really be tied to the duration itself. There are 2 possible implementations that I can think of, the first of which is activating Riot Gas provides you with a 3 second buff that increases your F/T Resistance by 100% (i.e. Riot Gas provides you with the baseline effect of Resilience). The second option would be that activating Riot Gas provides you with 1-2 charges of a buff that increases Resistance by 100%. The charges are lost when you mean any of 2 conditions: you leave the area affected by Riot Gas (this also means that it ends when the Riot Gas area fades away) or you successfully resist an F/T attack. Call the talent something like "Dispersal Gas" (i.e there's something in the gas that disperses F/T attacks, such that they fizzle harmlessly rather than hurting you). It might even be interesting if activating Riot Gas applied the same effect to *you and all allies* in the area of the Riot Gas when you activated it (though you'd likely have to limit the charges to 1 per person and reduce the effect to something like 75% F/T damage reduction rather than 100% Resistance; of course, 100% Resistance to allies as well would provide VGs with some very interesting utility and strategic value to ops that they're largely missing now)..

 

Why not let riot gas give a debuff on all the enemies in its area for them to have -200% accuracy on the next two attacks, of any type? Would be much simplier to implement, and have some very interesting applications in PvP - where they are also currently 3rd rate tanks.

Edited by periphelion
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Why not let riot gas give a debuff on all the enemies in its area for them to have -200% accuracy on the next two attacks, of any type? Would be much simplier to implement, and have some very interesting applications in PvP - where they are also currently 3rd rate tanks.

 

The problem is that you could *really* abuse this for AoE attacks, and, if it's -200% accuracy to *all* attacks, you can *really* cheese a lot of stuff. I think the better option is to just provide the VG/PT with the buff at the time of activation that acts as the "ignore one/two F/T attacks" mechanic.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Adrenals/relics are shared by all tank classes. That's not what this thread is pointing to which is an additional mechanic.

 

 

 

If you have a bubble on you and it absorbs any damage the combat text will show absorb even if the damage exceeds the amount the bubble would absorb. You can verify this by going back in your log and seeing the damage you actually took.

 

1) You had the 4 pc set bonus and had a 1/50 chance of resisting and thus took no damage.

 

2) You were on SM as stated above and it actually shouldn't kill you anyways. Between your bubble and whatever damage was inc vs inc heals you looked like you took little damage.

 

~~~

 

PT/VG currently has the least oh **** abilities and it shows in the new NiM modes especially. A F/T would be appreciated but any form of damage mitigation be it personal, or raid would go a long way.

 

No, I know how the game works and yes, I absorbed the attack completely, I don't have a log (actually I do but don't feel like seaching all my logs to find which one it is) but its just simple math, if I get a peak ~72 absorb rating, then add dmg reduction, then add the sorc bubble (which is barely needed) and you'll see how it gets up to 100%, problem is shield chance only goes up to ~50% so half chance to fully absorb and half to get you *** kicked. And all that is not counting the adrenals.

 

My point is, adrenals and relics can have their effectiveness even higher in a pt because of stupid high mitigation and low spikiness so they can be better cds for them than they are for, say, shadows. Not saying they don't need another cd but I really don't think that they need a very powerful cd like saber reflect. You don't need to negate completely an attack type every 2mins to do content properly in a pt (hell, you probably don't even need it on juggs).

 

I sincerely would like to see a cd like oil slick that gives a nice but not incredible mitigation for a reasonable time and a nice uptime so we can improve mean mitigation instead of a new powerful oh crap skill, and if it was an oh crap skill it should be very short with a long cd (something with a 5 or 10 sec uptime and 2,5 mins for example)

Edited by Yngow
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I have no desire to see a new bursty powertech/vanguard cooldown. There already far too many "I win buttons" in this game: Resilience, Saber Reflect, Force Barrier, Guarded by the Force, Sentinel's Force Cloak. To give another class a 100% resist chance ability would certainly buff Vanguard tanks in PVP, but it's completely out of their design niche. That's the point of the Vanguard tank: it should have high passive mitigation, low on-demand mitigation.

 

In 2.0 Vanguards fell behind Guardians in passive mitigation (3% DR on Guardian Slash > +16% armor that Vanguards spec for, and they aren't differentiated enough in the shield/absorb department) and Guardians, for some reason, also got a hysterically good cooldown: 9k AOE threat, AND damage immunity against r/F/T, AND damage reflection toward enemies, AND it's on a 1 min cooldown.

 

So I identify two imbalances between Vanguards and Guardians: 1) DTPS profile for Guardians is approximately as steady as that of Vanguards 2) Guardian cooldowns are ridiculous, and the class has no weaknesses. I think the abundance of Guardian cooldowns is a Guardian design problem; it's not a Vanguard design problem.

 

My suggestions to remedy the Vanguardian imbalance are to 1) remove or stop giving out these "I win buttons". I understand that, despite what I want, Resilience and Saber Reflect are here to stay, and I'll deal with that. But for god's sake, don't give another 100% resist ability to a tank class. 2) buff Vanguard armor/shield/absorb, nerf Guardian armor at least. Ensure Vanguards are the steady DTPS class.

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I have no desire to see a new bursty powertech/vanguard cooldown. There already far too many "I win buttons" in this game: Resilience, Saber Reflect, Force Barrier, Guarded by the Force, Sentinel's Force Cloak. To give another class a 100% resist chance ability would certainly buff Vanguard tanks in PVP, but it's completely out of their design niche. That's the point of the Vanguard tank: it should have high passive mitigation, low on-demand mitigation.

 

In 2.0 Vanguards fell behind Guardians in passive mitigation (3% DR on Guardian Slash > +16% armor that Vanguards spec for, and they aren't differentiated enough in the shield/absorb department) and Guardians, for some reason, also got a hysterically good cooldown: 9k AOE threat, AND damage immunity against r/F/T, AND damage reflection toward enemies, AND it's on a 1 min cooldown.

 

So I identify two imbalances between Vanguards and Guardians: 1) DTPS profile for Guardians is approximately as steady as that of Vanguards 2) Guardian cooldowns are ridiculous, and the class has no weaknesses. I think the abundance of Guardian cooldowns is a Guardian design problem; it's not a Vanguard design problem.

 

My suggestions to remedy the Vanguardian imbalance are to 1) remove or stop giving out these "I win buttons". I understand that, despite what I want, Resilience and Saber Reflect are here to stay, and I'll deal with that. But for god's sake, don't give another 100% resist ability to a tank class. 2) buff Vanguard armor/shield/absorb, nerf Guardian armor at least. Ensure Vanguards are the steady DTPS class.

^Exactly my thoughts, I mean, I really think some classes should have those awesome cds but give to classes who needs it, shadows REALLY need it and bioware are screwing resilience a lot, the way I see shadows have a very low cd on resilience, so low that you can have it on every spiky situation in a boss fight, problem is from what kitru said to me the other day they are making some force/tech attacks become melee/ranged (huge grenade in titan 6 and scream on TFB HM) and this makes resilience worthless while at the same time does nothing for saber reflect, they can still reflect ranged so they become the only class that can negate several attacks when they actually don't need to do it since they have very good mitigation and other very good cds.

 

If you want juggs to be a class with awesome cds make their mean mitigation worse so you force them to actually need it, and if you want shadows to be spiky and very cd relying make their cds very good, whats happening right now is one class getting all the candies, another being kicked in the nuts over and over and a third class watching it all from the distance just sitting there, wanting more candies but not doing anything because they don't want to be kicked in the nuts

Edited by Yngow
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