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Fixing Shadow Tank Spikiness


Kitru

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how about fixing it from the Healer Side instead,

 

Unless *every* healer got this, it wouldn't solve the problem well. It would just mean that Shadows can *only* run with whichever healer has this effect. If you applied it to *all* healers, you would be reducing spike damage to *all* tanks (especially with your idea that it affect unshielded hits; realize, Shadows are more likely to Shield an attack than *any* other tank; the other tanks are more likely to have an unshielded hit go through, they just take less damage because they have ~50% mitigation when unshielded whereas Shadows have ~35%), which means that the content developers would just have to *increase* the spike damage to make it achieve its intended purpose (pressuring the heals and tank without having to resort to absurdly high average DPS).

 

You *can't* fix the problem on the healer end. It's a problem that *only* affects Shadows and, unless it is done to *all* healers, would force Shadows to run with a specific healer, who would just as effectively reduce spike damage to *all* tanks, turning what is already a laughable situation for Guards and VGs into a completely unnoticeable event.

 

changing the buff from Accuracy to DR would be nice but make the Guardian + Shadow combo even stronger

also would/should it work with two shadows and give a doubled benefit?

 

You're misreading the intended effect. Shadows *already* have a damage debuff, so adding one to Force Breach wouldn't stack. The idea is to remove the accuracy debuff that Force Breach applies to enemies hit by it and replace it with a damage resistance *buff* that applies to the Shadow whenever Force Breach is used. It's not talking about further debuffing enemies in the least. It's talking about swapping what is currently a debuff into an outright buff.

 

The *only* potential concern is the advantage in stacking a Guardian tank with a Shadow tank: it would preserve the current situation while simultaneously providing the Shadow with the 4% additional DR we're talking about, increasing average mitigation, which is not desirable. The question is whether the developers would *encourage* synergy of this type (as a Guardian + VG combination *already* does thanks to Guardians bringing the acc debuff that VGs are missing and VGs bringing the damage debuff that Guardians are missing) and whether the synergy should be expanded to provide Shadows with something unique (like having Shadows apply a debuff that causes any hit on a debuffed enemy to provide a small heal) so as to create a trinity between the tanks and outright encourage synergy on a greater scale.

 

how about translating 50% of our defence chance into DR

 

It would also be *massively* overpowered while turning us into little more than VG/Guardian copies and creating a paradigm where the *only* thing you want is Defense. As it stands, it's possible for a Shadow to get to 31.5% Defense chance if they stack Defense while completely ignoring Absorb (so you're still packing ~790 Shield chance). This would put Shadow flat DR at ~51% (which is exactly what VGs have), while our Shield chance would sit pretty at 55% and Defense at 31.5% (but only the baseline 24% Absorb value, which is almost a joke). That's almost hilariously similar to Guardians (50/26/41/35) and VGs (51/19/42/58), while also being *way* too powerful (Shadows would manage 70.1% total mitigation, Guardians 68.3%, and VGs 69.9% and that's *before* factoring Shadow self heals, which account for another 4-7% mitigation depending on incoming damage levels).

 

If you intended on it *reducing* Defense chance by half, it would be almost ludicrously *underpowered*: the loadout would be 51/16/55/20 which averages into 63.25% mitigation so that Shadows can, at *best*, under low incoming damage scenarios, achieve parity, while, in high incoming damage scenarios, be noticeably and substantially *worse*.

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And by that I don't mean "look ma, I chose to use resilience on that attack" in terms of skill, more of a "I know this guy will hit me harder than usual in about 4-5 GCD's I am going to proactively do something about significantly reducing that damage without having to pop a cool down".

 

The best idea that fits within this design paradigm is the addition of a CD that increases Shield chance to 100% (i.e. a Shield version of Resilience) for 3-5 seconds on a ~1 minute CD. Shadows would be rewarded for predicting incoming damage spikes while requiring appropriate timing and creating a construct that prevents massive burst damage but only under properly executed conditions.

 

Complex attack string modifications and reliance of multitudinous conditionals doesn't equate to skill tanking. It equates to a variant form of RNG: if you *just so happen* to arrive at *these specific conditions* at *just the right time*, you'll take care of the spikiness issue. Instead of placing the dice roll in the hands of the attack system, you're placing it in the hands of the clock.

 

Except for one thing, the increased DR on harnessed shadows stacks, why not look at it as an added bonus? When you get a stack you get some added mitigation thrown in there, you still use your tkt, but scale the DR numbers so its less appealing to hang onto the stacks?

 

The issue is that it rewards Shadows for *not* using something that they're explicitly *supposed* to use. A huge portion of Shadow threat is tied up in TkT use (the only thing that gets close is Project and you're using that twice as much), as well as Shadow resource management (compare the 52 Force over 2 GCDs that Project uses to generate the same threat as 30 Force over 2 GCDs; HSx3 TkT is a method by which Shadows are rewarded for using inefficient attacks by getting an efficient attack at the end).

 

If you adjust the numbers so that it *doesn't* encourage holding on to them, it doesn't serve the purpose of reducing spike damage. It's a bonus, but it doesn't actually fulfill the goal.

 

The *only* effect similar to this is Power Screen for VGs: it provides 3% additional Absorb and is consumed when you use Energy Blast. The reason why this design is *good* is because Energy Blast consumes the 3% Absorb to explicitly provide *substantially more* Absorb than Power Screen provides. Power Screen is explicitly designed to act as a consumed resource to be consumed to power Energy Blast.

 

In order to achieve similar results and achieve our purpose here, you would need to change the end effect of Harnessed Shadows (such that, instead of providing a self heal, it instead provided a DR buff) while simultaneously making sure that the duration on the provided buff is long enough that there isn't downtime (because, once again, you're creating a time frame where you're spiky as hell, switching the variability from the attack roll to time). You would *also* have to reexamine Shadow tank healing and make sure that you're not providing an overwhelming mitigation advantage to Shadows with the DR provided in exchange for the self healing. Mathematically, it's not complicated, but it would require a lot of redundant consultation of the spikiness formula to acceptably reduce spikiness while not impacting average mitigation.

 

As a side note, it would also do absolutely jack and **** for low level Shadows. One of the advantages of the Force Breach change is that leveling Shadow tanks aren't squishy as hell (which they are, since actual tank stats are almost nonexistent until your 30s so an overwhelming portion of your mitigation is derived from your armor rating and damage reduction; Shadows, who are almost entirely dependent upon tank stats, get screwed over by the lack of tank stats at low levels, especially since they don't even have appreciable self healing, which is nominally supposed to overcome this disadvantage, until their 30s).

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well you said it your self the other tanks don't shield as much as Shadows anyway so trauma Probe wouldn't reduce their Spikiness as much as Shadow Spikiness also if it's scaled with the damage you take after DR shadows would get a good chunk more and having another heal class (I think Scoundrel Hots are a strong tool against spikiness as well but that's up to debate if you don't think so replace another with any) heal Class able to reduce spikes is better then none.

 

about Force Breach from debuff to buff, then it wouldn't be raid wide any longer and make the shadow+VG combo less desirable.

and might be considered a nerf (would be one in PVP)

Edited by DarthSpekulatius
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I split this up because this was more in a brainstorm manner then anything else and I'm not exactly sure

from a gut reaction I would have said you wouldn't want to go pure Def due to diminishing returns but I am sure you can tweak it to make sure it is.

It would also be *massively* overpowered while turning us into little more than VG/Guardian copies and creating a paradigm where the *only* thing you want is Defense. As it stands, it's possible for a Shadow to get to 31.5% Defense chance if they stack Defense while completely ignoring Absorb (so you're still packing ~790 Shield chance). This would put Shadow flat DR at ~51% (which is exactly what VGs have), while our Shield chance would sit pretty at 55% and Defense at 31.5% (but only the baseline 24% Absorb value, which is almost a joke). That's almost hilariously similar to Guardians (50/26/41/35) and VGs (51/19/42/58), while also being *way* too powerful (Shadows would manage 70.1% total mitigation, Guardians 68.3%, and VGs 69.9% and that's *before* factoring Shadow self heals, which account for another 4-7% mitigation depending on incoming damage levels).

 

If you intended on it *reducing* Defense chance by half, it would be almost ludicrously *underpowered*: the loadout would be 51/16/55/20 which averages into 63.25% mitigation so that Shadows can, at *best*, under low incoming damage scenarios, achieve parity, while, in high incoming damage scenarios, be noticeably and substantially *worse*.

the 2nd part is true. but I'm more aiming for the Itemisation as it currently is.

it can't be underpowered because no one forces you to go all out Defence!

and you have to decide by yourself if you want the same spikiness but take substantially more damage then VGs+Guardians.

or have it the way it currently is but with the bosses miss less often but always hit for less as well

overall the same thing you proposed with the Force breach Buff just that it scales with Equipment the player can decide himself

I don't know BIS numbers im at (i'm nor sure about DR) 32/22/50/37 without the new augments in mostly 69 stuff and still working on getting more equip on my shadow

these would change to 43/11/50/37

it should give a better overall mitigation (1:1 def% to DR is much more effective and has no downside I can think of) so some more tweaking would be necessary but that's doable

edit: the downside would be less Force generation and faster vanishing of Kinetic ward stacks

Edited by DarthSpekulatius
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well you said it your self the other tanks don't shield as much as Shadows anyway so trauma Probe wouldn't reduce their Spikiness as much as Shadow Spikiness

 

You said *unshielded* attacks. By providing a burst heal when an attack isn't shielded, since the other tanks don't shield as often, they get the bigger heals more often. As such, they would be getting the bigger heals more often while simultaneously reducing their existing spikiness by, proportionately, more than Shadows. The problem isn't in the fact that it reduces spikiness (which it doesn't really, since healing isn't an effective counter to spikiness since spikiness most often kills by wailing on someone with a big attack rather than dropping them low and then finishing them off with little attacks; the little hits killing a tank *can* and *do* happen, but they're not in the majority). The problem is that it reduces spikiness for *all* tanks which means that, in order for spikiness to actually serve the intended purpose (putting direct pressure on tanks and healers), the spikes would need to hit *harder* so that they actually pressure Guardians and VGs.

 

also if it's scaled with the damage you take after DR shadows would get a good chunk more

 

Having it scale with incoming damage while simultaneously having it track what kind of attack it is *and* having it affected by relevant healing stats is creating *way* too many variables and programmatic convolution to justify what is, on its face, a bad idea. It *could* be done, but it wouldn't be as effective *or* as simple as what could be done in any number of other ways. It's a terrible idea, seriously.

 

and having another heal class (I think Scoundrel Hots are a strong tool against spikiness as well but that's up to debate if you don't think so replace another with any) heal Class able to reduce spikes is better then none.

 

Actually, Sages and Commandos are the only healers that are really effective at mitigating spikiness: they provide the armor buff, which actually increases DR. Scoundrels don't have that. Of course, the armor buff is so minute that it pretty much doesn't matter in the least so it's not a big deal.

 

Scoundrel HoTs do *not* mitigate spikiness. As previously mentioned, spikiness is being killed by single big hits. At best, a HoT is going to provide a small heal to *potentially* keep a tank up after a major spike hit to prevent death by follow up attacks. Of course, the actual size of the SRM isn't going to be big enough to make a major impact.

 

As I mentioned before, trying to fix the spikiness problem from the healer side without providing some mechanism to *all* healers just means that Shadow tanks (who are the only tanks with spikiness problems) would be *forced* to run with said healer. When the problem is with one specific tank, rather than changing one healer to make their life easier, it's both simpler, more effective, and more elegant to just fix the broken tank. If the devs *did* change a healer to "fix" a specific tank's problem, they would functionally *require* that specific healer to run with that specific tank, which is a *terrible* idea. It would just end up screwing Shadows out of content just as much as they are now (since, if the ops group doesn't have at least one of that specific healer, the Shadow isn't going to be viable, which means your effectiveness is predicated upon the presence of a specific class, which is just bad design).

 

about Force Breach from debuff to buff, then it wouldn't be raid wide any longer and make the shadow+VG combo less desirable.

 

It's actually already been brought up a *number* of times. I realize it's hard to read the walls of text, but you're bringing up something that has been discussed more than sufficiently while bringing up almost every conceivable angle of the problem (and whether it's actually a "problem" from the developer's standpoint).

 

and might be considered a nerf (would be one in PVP)

 

I *highly* doubt that anyone would consider it a nerf of any kind. First off, the 5% acc debuff isn't absolutely required: people run with double VG without issue, not to mention all of the fights where the tanks aren't on the same target and the problems don't exist. As to it being a nerf for those that *aren't* tanks, the acc debuff only affect M/R attacks and the only times that a DPS is going to get hit by an M/R attack by a mob that a tank is actively punching is if they're standing in cleave (which they shouldn't be). The big AoEs that bosses throw out are F/T attacks.

 

As to PvP, as much as it would be a nerf, it would be a buff: just because you can't reduce the accuracy of enemies *not* punching you, you're able to increase your mitigation against targets that you *haven't* been able to wail on (i.e. ranged attackers). In my opinion, it would actually be a rather substantial buff overall since the acc debuff is pretty much worthless against players thanks to the often redundant accuracy players can pack, not to mention that it specifically requires you constantly smash Force Breach whenever someone new enters combat. The proposed Force Breach change would make it so that you only have to use Force Breach when you explicitly need to go full AoE or when you need to refresh the buff (i.e. once every 15 seconds), rather than any and every time someone new joins the fray (or just gets in range finally). Having to use a subpar attack *less* often while being able to get the mitigation benefits for yourself regardless of range and timing translates into a net gain, in my opinion, even when you factor in the loss of the (often pointless) 5% acc debuff on people punching your allies rather than you.

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you have to decide by yourself if you want the same spikiness but take substantially more damage then VGs+Guardians.

or have it the way it currently is but with the bosses miss less often but always hit for less as well

 

Your poor grasp of math, grammar, and punctuation notwithstanding, I'm going to ignore the rather inane blather you spewed forth with most of that post since most of it only serves to demonstrate your lack of grasp of the subject rather than any capability to contribute to the discussion. *This* statement, however, is *absolutely* demonstrative of your terrible grasp of the situation: your "fix" is to provide a *passive* (remember, that's what you said, because you explicitly wanted Defense to do something different for Consulars than other classes) that causes Shadows to take substantially more than VGs and Guards in order to achieve *parity* with their level of spikiness.

 

Assuming you've changed your idea into either an elective talent or a toggle of some kind (which you seem to be suggesting by saying "choose between"), you're *still* not grasping how terrible of an idea that is: you're telling Shadows that they either choose to have terrible mitigation and acceptable spikiness or good mitigation and terrible spikiness. *Neither* of those is an acceptable option. Just because you're *creating* options doesn't mean that they're *good* options, especially when the math explicitly says you're screwed either way. It would be like putting the spikiness fix on Force Technique so that, in order to have an acceptable level of spikiness, you have to throw away *absolutely everything else you're built around*.

 

This doesn't even go into the fact that it's almost assured that the devs will *never* create a mechanism by which one stat does something different for one class/spec than any others. It would be like asking for Alacrity to provide Bonus Damage instead of cast speed reduction: assuming it's even seen as a *good idea* (highly unlikely), doing so would be both programmatically complex and mathematically complex since you're having to calculate the contributions of one stat in multiple ways while creating systems in game to specifically transfer stats from one place to another in a variable manner (since you're asking for it to be an explicit multiplier on the final total stat).

 

Elaborating on a bad idea doesn't suddenly make it good. It was a bad idea when I went out and actively shot it down before. Now you're just demonstrating how much *worse* of an idea it is.

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I'm sorry about Grammar and punctuation I do try my best but English isn't my native Language so all I can do is ask for a bit patience.

I'll try to simplify as much as possible

-5% Defence Chance

+5% Damage Reduction

 

my original 1/2 of defence chance was a bit over the top I guess, but 1/4 would keep it in reasonable areas

I'd like to have it scale with Tank-equipment.

can you say that's impossibly hard to Code without trying?

I can't that's why suggested it.

 

but even as Flat values I'd rather exchange my own mitigation, then lose Group mitigation.

even just the mitigation against M/T attacks I grant my Vanguard Co-Tank aswell as myself.

Edited by DarthSpekulatius
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The best idea that fits within this design paradigm is the addition of a CD that increases Shield chance to 100% (i.e. a Shield version of Resilience) for 3-5 seconds on a ~1 minute CD. Shadows would be rewarded for predicting incoming damage spikes while requiring appropriate timing and creating a construct that prevents massive burst damage but only under properly executed conditions.

 

Complex attack string modifications and reliance of multitudinous conditionals doesn't equate to skill tanking. It equates to a variant form of RNG: if you *just so happen* to arrive at *these specific conditions* at *just the right time*, you'll take care of the spikiness issue. Instead of placing the dice roll in the hands of the attack system, you're placing it in the hands of the clock.

 

What if the procs were guaranteed? Getting a proc that is similar to conveyance where it can be consumed via abilities to create a more optimum mitigation for a particular scenario? But the proc will be consumed and utilised through any viable ability sequence. Please tell if I am flogging a dead horse, as I don't want to waste time considering ideas that won't actually positively effect shadows.

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I feel FB is fine in how it is and that the taking big hits and turning them into a dot would be awesome for shadows and would help for the spikyness by just making the damage take longer to hit. It shouldn't bring up any balance issues because you're not actually taking any less damage then you would normally be taking. This ability could work on a damage threshold mechanic or it could work off of some charge system, like you built charges from just going about your rotation and those charges would help smooth out your spikes.
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Could steal from another MMO that had a Tank class with lower DR and higher defences and self heals, much like Shadow. It was basically a self buff you could apply, it had something like a 5-10min CD and when you popped it during that time if you passed below 5% HP (or maybe it was 10%) you where healed for 50% of your maximum Health. Basically an anti death mechanic. Not saying it should be exaclty like this but something similar perhaps.

 

If it never happed it ticked down for 5mins then you could re apply it at the end. I suppose you could chuck in a a little grace period of + x% DR for a very short duration to help stablize.

 

Anyway just throwing it out there, dosent really fix spikiness tho but could stop random deaths from huge hits.

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can you say that's impossibly hard to Code without trying?

I can't that's why suggested it.

 

I never said it's impossibly hard. I said that it's programmatically complex. There's a difference. The complexity means that, yes, they could do it, but it's an explicit obstacle which means that it's likely not going to happen because (1) development resources are limited and (2) there are simpler ways to accomplish what you're asking for. Simple solutions are *always* going to take priority over more complex ones, especially when there isn't a justifiable reason that scales with the importance of the complexity of the tank. You're asking for something that hasn't been done yet that messes around with existing systems in weird ways, which means that there likely isn't any baseline coding for it which *then* means that it would require coding a new integrated system for it. That means redirecting development resources (which are the absolute *primary* restriction on content and system development) away from *other* projects to create this *new* system which is of questionable value itself. You're also asking for more complex mitigation math to be done since you're causing Defense to interact with DR, which means further development resources that would need to be directed towards the problem.

 

Like I said, it's a bad idea. Your need to justify it doesn't stop it from continuing to be as such.

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What if the procs were guaranteed? Getting a proc that is similar to conveyance where it can be consumed via abilities to create a more optimum mitigation for a particular scenario? But the proc will be consumed and utilised through any viable ability sequence. Please tell if I am flogging a dead horse, as I don't want to waste time considering ideas that won't actually positively effect shadows.

 

You have set the gears in my brain to spinning, in a good way. Bringing up Sages, I went to thinking about Conveyance (i.e. a talent that causes one of your abilities to buff one of a list of later abilities in a different way for each) and then I remembered Resplendence (i.e. a talent that provides you with charges that can either be consumed individually or wholesale to augment one of two abilities), which I think is a much *better* model.

 

Imagine a talent that causes you to gain one stack of a buff whenever you get a Project crit (i.e. player controllable through the use of Particle Acceleration) that caps out at 3. You then have a new CD that consumes all of these stacks to provide either a burst of flat DR or increased Shield chance (more depending upon how many you have, scaling exponentially such that, for DR, it's something like 1/3/7% for 3 stacks max or 5/15/50% for Shield) for either 4-5 seconds or a certain number of attacks. Conversely, the CD could require max stacks to be used at all for a single effect. You would be creating a separate resource the can be consumed to accomplish burst mitigation. You could even add a talent that provides a bit of self healing whenever the consumable stacks drop off (whether by falling off naturally, getting clicked off, or using the CD).

 

The only issue I have with this is that it might make Shadows overcomplicated: we're already watching more de/buffs than anyone else in the game (Particle Acceleration, Force Breach, Harnessed Shadows, Kinetic Ward; Phase Walk/Shadow's Shelter could potentially count too, if it were fixed to actually be useful in PvE). Adding an extra resource/buff to watch for while also expecting Shadow tanks to continue fulfilling the normal tank duties might be a bit too much, especially for new players. This is the major paradoxes of skill tanks: you want them to be complex, but they can't be *so* complex that only people that *already* play them can learn how to play them. It's a sliding scale where the target is both vague (different people, from new to experienced, have different levels of minimum and maximum desired complexity coupled with the impact of that complexity upon effectiveness) and almost constantly moving (since it's virtually impossible to get a reliable gauge on what public perception of a quality like this is).

 

The only answer to the complexity question has to come from the devs. It's their job to decide what exactly the maximum level of acceptable complexity is. This addition might cause Shadow tanks to fall outside of that maximum level whereas it's just as possible that it's well within the margins of acceptability. It's something that we, as mere players, can't really know with any substantial degree of assurance.

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Could steal from another MMO that had a Tank class with lower DR and higher defences and self heals, much like Shadow. It was basically a self buff you could apply, it had something like a 5-10min CD and when you popped it during that time if you passed below 5% HP (or maybe it was 10%) you where healed for 50% of your maximum Health. Basically an anti death mechanic. Not saying it should be exaclty like this but something similar perhaps.

 

Basically, it's Trooper's Adrenaline Rush / Bounty Hunter's Kolto Overload.

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I would still like to discuss how moving Masked Assault into Tier 2 would affect things. I haven't seen any feedback, good or bad, since I mentioned it.

 

Well, if it's T2, you're essentially saying that Mental Fortitude/Expertise/Force Synergy/Celerity are not options while Shadow's Respite is absolutely required (regardless of how mediocre it really is; though it does provide some alpha strike protection if a Shadow starts combat from stealth). Mental Fortitude, Expertise, Celerity, and Force Synergy are only ever taken as part of the +3 in 36/3/4+3. Putting Masked Assault at T2 means that you're drawing talent points away from other sources. It also makes what is normally some level of arbitrary vacillation between specs based upon personal preference (something I enjoy since it gives a bit of customization while preserving effectiveness across all variations) now an absolute standard: 36/3/5+3 would become 36/6/4. How heavily you weigh this is entirely based upon your own opinion.

 

It is, however, a very reasonable idea: you're providing a short term multiplicative DR buff (which would effectively bump Shadow K/E DR from ~35% to ~51% for the duration), which satisfies both desired playstyle conditions by reducing spikiness and encouraging a level of complexity. It's also a good idea since it's an existing mechanism, so it would be a very easy change (barring finding space on T2, which could be done by bumping Shadowy Veil, or even Shadow's Mark, down to T1; it'd be interesting to see Shadow's Mark get brought down since it would allow Shadow tanks to choose between improved threat from Shadow Strike and faster cycling on their general utilities) since reordering talents isn't particularly complex.

 

There are a couple of problems, however.

 

The first is that the uptime on Masked Assault would affect mean mitigation more than is desirable: 10% potential uptime on 25% multiplicative DR is 2.5%. With the ~1350 pre-self healing incoming damage that a Shadow tank experiences (using dipstik's numbers), this means that, with 2.5% additional mitigation, Shadow incoming damage would be reduced to 1065. Shadows already have outstanding mean mitigation. Pushing it further down wouldn't likely be a good idea (though reducing self healing by ~50 to make up for it would be an acceptable compromise, imo).

 

The second is the secondary benefits of Masked Assault and Shadow's Respite: you're providing a *lot* more Force to Shadow tanks (an extra .49 force/sec using just Blackout) and removing any limitation of Force Cloak (i.e. the "no damage or healing for 10 seconds) while simultaneously encouraging its use more than already (as it stands, it's used to reset the medpac limitation and/or swap out gear; since it resets Blackout and provides Shadow's Respite, you're also encouraging its use as an explicit tank CD). Force Cloak is a threat drop and *complete* threat drop at that; anything that encourages tanks to use threat drops more often is something that I don't really agree with. Focused Defense for Guardians is already a bit too close to comfort for me.

 

Also, though it's not really a "problem" so much as a "concern", the developers have expressly stated that they don't want anything outside of the home talent tree to fundamentally alter the playstyle of a given spec (which is why Infiltration Tactics was moved to deep Infil, to prevent a T1 talent from changing how Balance played after that tree was "finished"). Putting Masked Assault on T2 and assuming Shadow tanks will take it (which is what we're doing here since it's not really a chance unless it's actually *used*) would operate counter to this edict. As such, on those grounds, it's not likely.

 

Assuming there is a way to overcome those problems (the second set is probably the hardest to justify and the final concern is definitely going to hinder it), it would be a perfect solution. Those problems and the developer concern are, however, going to be very hard to get around.

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Anyway just throwing it out there, dosent really fix spikiness tho but could stop random deaths from huge hits.

 

That's kind of the problem. We're looking to fix spikiness itself (which is why Shadows are annoying from both a tanking *and* a healing standpoint), not just those of immediately post-spike follow up deaths (which, as mentioned, is something of a minority). More self heals aren't really needed since they only address spikiness assuming you survive the big spike. Shadows already have *plenty* of self healing (honestly, more than I really would prefer since self healing *doesn't* scale whereas flat mitigation *does*).

 

The only way this would really work is if we stole *more* from WoW and created a passive that caused a certain amount of incoming damage to instead be applied to the Shadow as a DoT (for bonus points, make it so that it can be cleansed, but only by Resilience) so that the incoming damage is the same but is distributed over time allowing Shadows to actually apply their self healing against the big hit as it comes in rather than after the fact (which is where the problem lies). Assuming it's possible, you would also be able to apply self healing in a *proactive* manner to prevent death from big strikes rather than as it currently is, where self healing is applied to *recover* from attacks (which means that you have to survive the attack in the first place).

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how often to these burst abilities happen? im thinking putting masked assualt into the tanking tree, setting the cd of out of stealth blackout to 45s, set battle readiness to 1 min cd with increased heals received % for 10s

 

i think this will go along with shadows being a somewhat proactive tank, where we pop cds before the ability lands. i dont what those changes to turn shadows into cooldown rotation tanks. this is only to avoid pvpers being unhappy about the accuracy debuff turning into a dr.

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A few thoughts. First, adding a mitigation proc with a controllable mitigation effect doesn't do much to solve the issue of alpha strike damage unless it's being carried over from the previous fight (unless there was an out of combat generation mechanism).

Secondly, I know the thread is about reducing shadow spikiness, but are you looking at the right problem? Yes, spikiness makes a healer's life more difficult, but we also also do require less overall healing than other tank classes. The problem really comes in taking such large hits that there isn't enough time to recover. I like the idea of a self heal that procs when we hit a certain point, or to build upon that idea, an auto proc with an effect like enure. Give us a stack of health to buy the healers some time, but leave the total damage value the same.

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how often to these burst abilities happen?

 

It depends upon the fight in question. Operations Chief's Terminate happens about once every 35 seconds or so. Thrasher's happens about once every 30-45 seconds.

 

i dont what those changes to turn shadows into cooldown rotation tanks.

 

The problem is that what you're recommending is really what it ends up doing. Any kind of modification to CDs (whether it's making us use Battle Readiness more often or outright adding new CDs) would modify the Shadow tank paradigm such that, instead of having CDs for phases explicitly designed to force a tank to burn a CD, Shadows would be burning their CDs as part of their standard operation. The only way to *prevent* that is to increase the number of CDs such that some (like Resilience, Battle Readiness, and Deflection) are not expected to be used as part of mainstay tanking and reserved for explicit "tank gotta burn CDs" scenarios whereas the new ones are provided exclusively to be used as part of the mainstay and designed to mitigate spikes while having negligible effect upon mean mitigation.

 

I honestly think that the cries of the PvPers are *vastly* overstating the importance of the acc debuff. It only affects M/R attacks (which are a minority in PvP), and it's only 5% (which means that redundant accuracy is gonna render it pointless anyways). I honestly have to wonder how *anyone* could honestly think that a 5% M/R acc debuff is going to substantially impact their ability to keep a Guarded target alive. The only primarily M/R player damage constructs I can think of are Combat Sentinels (who have a lot of redundant accuracy naturally so the acc debuff means less to them) and Sharpshooter Gunslingers (who, once again, have a lot of redundant accuracy, especially when they turn on their burn CD). Most other DPS deal a majority of their damage through F/T means, so that 5% acc debuff is doing almost nothing for them.

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A few thoughts. First, adding a mitigation proc with a controllable mitigation effect doesn't do much to solve the issue of alpha strike damage unless it's being carried over from the previous fight (unless there was an out of combat generation mechanism).

 

Assuming you're referring to the idea of changing Force Breach from an acc debuff to a DR buff, if it keeps the same duration (which I would be recommending), you're talking about a 15 second buff that, honestly, you should be opening with in any situation where you face legitimate alpha strike risk (since alpha strikes are only dangerous when facing a large number of enemies). If the group is spread out, this change would actually mitigate it *more* since it's buffing yourself rather than debuffing your enemies, so, for pretty much all alpha strike scenarios, unless you refuse to open with the attack (which is a good idea even now since the 5% acc debuff is going to impact your survival more than the 5% damage debuff), it's a substantial net gain.

 

If you're referring to the constructs where you have to generate and then maintain stacks, I've already voiced that concern. Having to build up to suitable mitigation means that alpha strikes a major concern and, while alpha strikes are an explicitly trash based problem, they're still something that should be considered (hell, KW was finally changed from 8 to 15 charges pretty much based *exclusively* on the need for it to be useful against multiple enemies; you'll almost never actually burn through all 15 charges before KW recharges fighting a single target).

 

Secondly, I know the thread is about reducing shadow spikiness, but are you looking at the right problem? Yes, spikiness makes a healer's life more difficult, but we also also do require less overall healing than other tank classes. The problem really comes in taking such large hits that there isn't enough time to recover. I like the idea of a self heal that procs when we hit a certain point, or to build upon that idea, an auto proc with an effect like enure. Give us a stack of health to buy the healers some time, but leave the total damage value the same.

 

Actually, the problem, more often than not, isn't getting killed by followup. It's getting killed by a big burst of damage when you're below a certain level of health (KBN and I are working on a model to quantify this). If a Shadow is at 100% hp, none of the big bursty attacks in the game are going to kill them. However, unlike Guardians and VGs, who can be as low as ~62.5% of their max hp, a Shadow who is below ~83.05% hp is going to risk death based entirely upon RNG (all of this is assuming current BiS; at realistic levels of gearing, the values are close to 70% and 90%). The probability of a tank being below 83.05% is *substantially* more likely than a tank being at 62.5%, especially when said 83.05% tank has a substantial portion of their mitigation derived from comparatively bursty reactive measures (i.e. self healing is primarily accomplished directly or indirectly through HSx3 TkT, which provides more than two-thirds of our self heals over 3 seconds every 12 seconds). Shadows are functionally designed *not* to be at full health during any kind of appreciable tanking scenario since we're supposed to just heal ourselves back up from little hits.

 

Any kind of contingent heal when dropping below a certain level of health isn't going to mitigate spikiness appropriately. Shadows are *still* going to die to big hits simply because the hits are bigger and, by design, our HP is supposed to slip lower from max than the other tanks. The combination of these two fact means that Shadows are at most risk not from *followup* (which spike damage tends to do to the other tanks) but rather from the discrete burst event itself.

 

To alleviate the type of spikiness that afflicts Shadows, *preemptive* not *reactive* measures need to be instituted: generating some kind of absorb shield through a number of means, guaranteeing a successful Shield check, increasing DR, etc. It's *these* methods that will address Shadow tank spikiness, not just throwing more self healing at the problem, and, seriously, has anyone else looked at how bloody much we rely on our self healing? We take more damage than *any other tank* and the only reason we require less healing is because incoming damage rates are comparatively low and we've got self healing coming out of every orifice. I realize that self-healing is the Shadow schtick, but, honestly, isn't it time we realize that self healing is actually a *very* mediocre form of mitigation? It's reactive and it doesn't scale, and it's not like universality of application is particularly valuable since there are only 3 real categories of attacks and only the rarest (especially in PvE, but still definitely in PvP: a vast majority of damage in PvP is F/T K/E) is unmitigated by the other mitigation mechanisms. *Increasing* our reliance on self healing is just a recipe for terrible survivability.

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Thanks for the feedback, Kitru. Those things had crossed my mind as being concerns, too. As you said, tweaking the self heals is a fine way to balance the slightly over-tuned mitigation. In the case of the second problem, the Force regen, while I had considered it, I failed to recognize it as a problem. The reason is because as a Shadow Tank, I am pretty much never Force starved, so the implications of having too much regeneration are minimal given that it already has practically no affect on my game play.

 

Assuming the above is correct, the Devs (with all due respect) have a responsibility to find something to fix this problem. This is a simple hotfix type of fix and "we just don't want to" isn't going to make many people happy, and giving us access to Masked Assault is a better fix than simply giving us a talent that boosts our armor rating all of the time.

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As you said, tweaking the self heals is a fine way to balance the slightly over-tuned mitigation.

 

I think my next crusade after this one is going to be getting Shadows to move away from their massive reliance on self healing. Self healing is great as a bonus mechanism, but it's a *terrible* mechanism to build a class around. It's been learned *numerous* times in multiple games that self healing is one of the wonkiest mitigation mechanisms on the planet: it's either massively overpowered or it's entirely redundant and pointless. The Regeneration powerset in City of Heroes had *all* kinds of problems with balancing self healing (and self healing that consumed animation time, which was just *painfully* annoying), and, in WoW, even Death Knights, who were designed *as* self healing tanks, had to be shifted to an incoming damage dependent absorb shield model since the self healing just didn't balance correctly.

 

In the case of the second problem, the Force regen, while I had considered it, I failed to recognize it as a problem. The reason is because as a Shadow Tank, I am pretty much never Force starved, so the implications of having too much regeneration are minimal given that it already has practically no affect on my game play.

 

As it stands, *if you're tanking a boss that reliably allows you to defend/shield*, you'll almost never run out of Force because a lot of our current resource management is dependent upon DBSD. As soon as you fight a boss with a slow swing timer or a large number of F/T or I/E attacks (just remember Stormcaller), you're definitely going to be hurting for Force. There's a reason that, even though I replaced the old position of Saber Strike with Shadow Strike on my bar, I still have Saber Strike (albeit in a more out of the way location). Sometimes, no matter how you do it, you're *still* going to hurt for Force at some point.

 

Assuming the above is correct, the Devs (with all due respect) have a responsibility to find something to fix this problem. This is a simple hotfix type of fix and "we just don't want to" isn't going to make many people happy,

 

It's definitely a problem and I highly doubt that they haven't at least heard the rumblings of discontent amongst us Shadows. I know for a fact that Amber Green recognizes the issue. Whether the other devs do is up for debate. Hopefully, it'll get fixed soon. Supposedly, there's a fix in the works somewhere in the pipeline, but, until we actually see it in game or on the PTS, our only recourse is going to be continuing to make a fuss, doing math, and brainstorming.

 

giving us access to Masked Assault is a better fix than simply giving us a talent that boosts our armor rating all of the time.

 

I'm going to disagree with you here. While it's not as *interesting*, a change to increase passive DR is *definitely* a simpler and more generally effective fix than the Masked Assault idea. Just because it's "boring" doesn't mean that it isn't good. Simplicity is elegance, and elegance is *magnificent*. Seriously, one of the best compliments you can give a coder is to tell them that their code/solution is elegant.

 

The reason why I *still* support the idea that I started this thread with is *because* of the simplicity of it. It's programmatically simple, mathematically simple, conceptually simple, and simply effective. The only desirable quality it doesn't fulfill is entirely optional: complexity, which is antagonistic to the intended simplicity and elegance of it all.

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If you're referring to the constructs where you have to generate and then maintain stacks, I've already voiced that concern. Having to build up to suitable mitigation means that alpha strikes a major concern and, while alpha strikes are an explicitly trash based problem, they're still something that should be considered (hell, KW was finally changed from 8 to 15 charges pretty much based *exclusively* on the need for it to be useful against multiple enemies; you'll almost never actually burn through all 15 charges before KW recharges fighting a single target).

Yeah, I was referring the construct involving stack maintenance. Mostly another reason I didn't think it was a solution to the identified problems.

 

Actually, the problem, more often than not, isn't getting killed by followup. It's getting killed by a big burst of damage when you're below a certain level of health (KBN and I are working on a model to quantify this). If a Shadow is at 100% hp, none of the big bursty attacks in the game are going to kill them. However, unlike Guardians and VGs, who can be as low as ~62.5% of their max hp, a Shadow who is below ~83.05% hp is going to risk death based entirely upon RNG (all of this is assuming current BiS; at realistic levels of gearing, the values are close to 70% and 90%). The probability of a tank being below 83.05% is *substantially* more likely than a tank being at 62.5%, especially when said 83.05% tank has a substantial portion of their mitigation derived from comparatively bursty reactive measures (i.e. self healing is primarily accomplished directly or indirectly through HSx3 TkT, which provides more than two-thirds of our self heals over 3 seconds every 12 seconds). Shadows are functionally designed *not* to be at full health during any kind of appreciable tanking scenario since we're supposed to just heal ourselves back up from little hits.

 

Any kind of contingent heal when dropping below a certain level of health isn't going to mitigate spikiness appropriately. Shadows are *still* going to die to big hits simply because the hits are bigger and, by design, our HP is supposed to slip lower from max than the other tanks. The combination of these two fact means that Shadows are at most risk not from *followup* (which spike damage tends to do to the other tanks) but rather from the discrete burst event itself.

 

To alleviate the type of spikiness that afflicts Shadows, *preemptive* not *reactive* measures need to be instituted: generating some kind of absorb shield through a number of means, guaranteeing a successful Shield check, increasing DR, etc. It's *these* methods that will address Shadow tank spikiness, not just throwing more self healing at the problem, and, seriously, has anyone else looked at how bloody much we rely on our self healing? We take more damage than *any other tank* and the only reason we require less healing is because incoming damage rates are comparatively low and we've got self healing coming out of every orifice. I realize that self-healing is the Shadow schtick, but, honestly, isn't it time we realize that self healing is actually a *very* mediocre form of mitigation? It's reactive and it doesn't scale, and it's not like universality of application is particularly valuable since there are only 3 real categories of attacks and only the rarest (especially in PvE, but still definitely in PvP: a vast majority of damage in PvP is F/T K/E) is unmitigated by the other mitigation mechanisms. *Increasing* our reliance on self healing is just a recipe for terrible survivability.

 

In my mind I saw it coming into play any time your hp dropped below a certain point but it also preventing death. So, if you're at 50% and take a terminal hit, proc goes off in the interim, procs the cd and you're still alive, but in 5-10 seconds that hp is gone (kind of similar mechanistically to the dot bubble idea, but using less new code). I suspect the trick in the coding would be in interrupting the kill. Then again, I usually take a good second or two between running out of hp and actually being dead, so maybe they can utilize some of that delay time...:D

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Frankly, after reading/skimming through all of this, I keep coming back to the idea of a CD to guarantee shielding for a short period.

 

If we're supposed to be skill tanks first and foremost, it just further increases the skill ceiling. It does impact overall mitigation balance between tanks, but mainly, it allows an attentive and knowledgeable Shadow or Assassin to significantly reduce the odds on RNG-based death.

 

Except against massive spike attacks or multiple enemies, a short-duration guaranteed-shield CD is of mediocre value (too few opportunities to shield individual attacks), which prevents it from being *too* good. Plus, for trash packs with big alpha strikes, it adds a new skill ceiling moment: timing pre-pull Ward cast so a shielding CD can be used, burn all the charges to dissipate the alpha strike, and then re-used with minimal downtime to return to steady-state mitigation levels.

 

The "average" Shadow/Assassin benefits very little from such a CD, which keeps the "average" from deviating too far from an "average" player of another tanking AC. The very best players gain a comparatively larger benefit, but there's no real inherent problem with a skill tank providing demonstrably better results when played to the utmost.

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In my mind I saw it coming into play any time your hp dropped below a certain point but it also preventing death. So, if you're at 50% and take a terminal hit, proc goes off in the interim, procs the cd and you're still alive, but in 5-10 seconds that hp is gone (kind of similar mechanistically to the dot bubble idea, but using less new code). I suspect the trick in the coding would be in interrupting the kill. Then again, I usually take a good second or two between running out of hp and actually being dead, so maybe they can utilize some of that delay time...:D

 

A lot of it would depend on what exactly they did on the back end. Does hp ever go negative or is it simply "if damage > currentHp {status = dead}"? If it were implemented as such, it could either provide the full cushion starting at 0 (i.e. if it's 30% hp like Enure, when you would die, you instead pop back up with 30% of max hp) or it could be reduced by what would have been overkill (i.e. overkilled by 10k means you stay standing at 30% - 10k). Whichever one could be implemented depends upon the back end of recognizing death for a player. If it's the first case, there would have to be specific tags for attacks that don't allow it to go through so as to preserve instant-kill mechanisms, not to mention how it could be abused to cheese any number of other burst damage mechanics.

 

It would also create some very wonky performance in PvP: you're essentially giving Shadow tanks an explicit increase to their max hp that is on a separate CD. If it's on a low enough CD to actually affect change in spikiness in PvE, it would be also be so low that it would create some definite problems in PvP (tanks live longer and, even with the attrition model used, tanks are still gonna live for a nice long while and that death-insurance you're talking about is going to be pretty strong, especially in 1-on-1).

 

Honestly, it's not a particularly viable idea, in my mind. A burst of hp when you drop rather than activated when you need it is a bit overpowered. Part of being a skill tank is that you have to predict it yourself. Maybe if it was a temporary buff like Adrenaline Rush, but it would need to be on a short enough CD that it can actually be used to actually counter likely burst damage cycles (which tends towards the 30-40 second range generally). I just don't see the mechanism as envisioned fulfilling the balance requirements *and* the fundamental spikiness smoothing requirements. You're not so much smoothing out incoming damage (which, as mentioned time and time again, is the root of the problem) as trying to come up with a way for the sheer level of spikiness to not lead to kills every once in a while (which still leaves you at the mercy of the RNG; you just get a reprieve on the first one).

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