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Skanktanks


Llacertus

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So I've been thinking about skanktanks, and their current role in pvp. For anyone that doesn't know, a skanktank is a tank in dps/hybrid gear. I've played hundreds of matches as an immortal juggernaut as both a tank and a skanktank. I've talked with multiple skilled pvpers about tanking. I believe I now have a good grasp on the problem and how to fix it.

 

When talking about skanktanks as a balance issue, I'm referring to powertechs, and juggernauts. Skanktanking for assassins is not viable. Right now, Immortal skanktanks are more viable in pvp than full mitigation tanks. Skanktanks can do as much damage the average damage class, and they have several dcds that allow them to last longer. As a result, Immortal skanktanks often don't die in warzones, and end up having the largest damage numbers because they never had to wait out a respawn timer.

 

 

When it comes down to pure numbers, skanktanking displays a greater impact because the damage gained from using damage gear is greater than the amount of protection and survivability gained from using mitigation gear. Consider this civil war that quickly turned into a numbers farming fest. https://imgur.com/a/6LwbwD1 The skanktank in that match tripled the damage of the mitigation tank, while also scoring higher protection. Even if the protection was the same, the total numbers the tank generated would have been nearly half of what the tank generated. The issue here is that it is easier to put up larger damage numbers than larger protection values . This is the core of the problem, and I believe these changes would allow tanks to fully preform their role instead of existing as a mix between tank and dps.

 

1. Allow Guard's redirected damage to be based on the combined defense chance, shield chance, and absorption chance.

2. Increase the amount of damage Guard redirects when defensive stats are high and lower it when defensive stats are low. For example with 0 points in defensive stats, guard would only redirect 10% of damage, but with 12,000 points Guard would redirect 80% of damage. This would effectively discourage anyone with dps stats from guarding a healer in place of an actual tank.

3. Increase tank survivability in pvp by adding an expertise stat onto all tank gear pieces that buffs the effectiveness defense chance, shield chance, and absorption to a point that is reflective of the current damage meta.

4. Allow for Taunts to also be reflective of a tank's combined defensive stats.

 

These changes are designed to allow the damage loss that tanks would suffer to be less than the amount of protection gained from guarding and taunting.

Edited by Llacertus
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Many people have purposed guard scaling with tank stats before. It is the best fix to skank tanks.

 

What you didn't mention is that scaling guard would also fix offugarding as a dps which is another major issue.

 

It might be too complicated for Bioware to actually implement or divest resources in, however.

Edited by septru
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Skank jugg has only 1 additional defense cooldown which decrease dmg taken by 40%. It has 3 min cd. Pts dont have even that. Tank spec gets their armor increased by 60% and some minor passives like 5% dmg decrease etc etc, thats why they are sturder. You should talk to some more pvp pros who actually play this class.

 

If you gimp skanks, you will eliminate class completely from solo ranked pvp, as dps counterparts are first targets always and die as soon as focused.

 

Pls do your research again :)

 

P.S. for regs any spec works in competent hands.

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Skank jugg has only 1 additional defense cooldown which decrease dmg taken by 40%. It has 3 min cd. Pts dont have even that. Tank spec gets their armor increased by 60% and some minor passives like 5% dmg decrease etc etc, thats why they are sturder. You should talk to some more pvp pros who actually play this class.

 

I am confident that OP knows this.

 

If you gimp skanks, you will eliminate class completely from solo ranked pvp, as dps counterparts are first targets always and die as soon as focused.

 

Changing tanks into actual tanks would be a welcome change, and no it will certainly not make us queue DPS juggs any less.

 

 

Pls do your research again :)

 

Likewise :)

 

P.S. for regs any spec works in competent hands.

 

This, at least ,we can agree on.

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Skank jugg has only 1 additional defense cooldown which decrease dmg taken by 40%. It has 3 min cd. Pts dont have even that. Tank spec gets their armor increased by 60% and some minor passives like 5% dmg decrease etc etc, thats why they are sturder. You should talk to some more pvp pros who actually play this class.

 

You're forgetting that tanks also get a 20% shield + absorb chance if they use a shield, and if you take active defensive relics, you can boost your survivability by a lot without really affecting your damage too heavily. I've still hit plenty of 50k crushing blows using defensive relics. They really only suffer a 10% damage loss from going as a tank. Also invincible is on a 2 minute 30 second cooldown which is plenty for the extra defenses that you get from it. The most basic way to think about it is a 10% damage loss is less impactful than the sheer amount extra defenses that skanktanks get.

Edited by Llacertus
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I run around as tank spec occasionally because it can be fun, but lets be real, even though I'll get insane dps and the occasional big crit, I am by no means killing anything, especially if there's a healer around. Granted I'm unkillable as well, but there's no real burst power to be had. Sure in 1v1 I'd probably win, but I'd probably win in tank gear as well, that's why its a tank.

 

High dps can be deceptive at times. A lot of tanks high numbers are fluff damage.

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It's really something that tanks seem to be the most consistently overpowered role in overwatch's meta and are without doubt the most problematic role throughout swtor's pvp history (not necessarily the most op at all times, but the problem with skanktanking, etc.).

 

Tanking as a role just doesn't make sense in pvp, it's inherently a pve-based construct. At best, people say "tanks are meant to be annoying" - so I guess that's the solution. Defense, absorb and shield should not translate into survivability, but instead into intermittent chances to stutter, cause FPS issues, and rubberbanding on the enemy team's clients :rolleyes:

 

Based on the game's abysmal performance if 16 competent players are doing their rotation; along with Leap through the floor etc./jet boost not working, I'd say jugg and pt are about 50% of the way to being fixed already!

 

In all seriousness: You frame the problem of DPS gear giving too much DPS - but that's a red herring. the problem is prot gear isn't giving enough protection - so it needs to be buffed. Immensely. Of course at that point, you'll say, tanks are even *more* unkillable! The fundamental problem is that the tanking tree affords too much passive defense. If DPS gear is what makes a DPS do damage, and DPS gear is what makes a skanktank do damage, it's unfair that simply spec'ing tank makes someone so much tougher than a DPS. Tank gear needs to make a tank a tank. Nerf all defensive talents across the board. Goal is that a (mostly) naked tank and a (mostly) naked DPS are on equal footing. Today, a naked tank would win just due to passive defensives alone.

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It's really something that tanks seem to be the most consistently overpowered role in overwatch's meta and are without doubt the most problematic role throughout swtor's pvp history (not necessarily the most op at all times, but the problem with skanktanking, etc.).

 

Tanking as a role just doesn't make sense in pvp, it's inherently a pve-based construct. At best, people say "tanks are meant to be annoying" - so I guess that's the solution. Defense, absorb and shield should not translate into survivability, but instead into intermittent chances to stutter, cause FPS issues, and rubberbanding on the enemy team's clients :rolleyes:

 

Based on the game's abysmal performance if 16 competent players are doing their rotation; along with Leap through the floor etc./jet boost not working, I'd say jugg and pt are about 50% of the way to being fixed already!

 

In all seriousness: You frame the problem of DPS gear giving too much DPS - but that's a red herring. the problem is prot gear isn't giving enough protection - so it needs to be buffed. Immensely. Of course at that point, you'll say, tanks are even *more* unkillable! The fundamental problem is that the tanking tree affords too much passive defense. If DPS gear is what makes a DPS do damage, and DPS gear is what makes a skanktank do damage, it's unfair that simply spec'ing tank makes someone so much tougher than a DPS. Tank gear needs to make a tank a tank. Nerf all defensive talents across the board. Goal is that a (mostly) naked tank and a (mostly) naked DPS are on equal footing. Today, a naked tank would win just due to passive defensives alone.

 

On WAR the MMO, the tanking was well done imo. The tanks were so hard to kill, but they hit like wet noodles. They also possessed a ton of utlity, stuns, knockbacks, knockdowns, throws, etc. They had guard there, just like guard is on SWTOR. It was fun though, playing a tank really had a very defined role and it was fun being so tanky.

Edited by Lhancelot
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On WAR the MMO, the tanking was well done imo. The tanks were so hard to kill, but they hit like wet noodles. They also possessed a ton of utlity, stuns, knockbacks, knockdowns, throws, etc. They had guard there, just like guard is on SWTOR. It was fun though, playing a tank really had a very defined role and it was fun being so tanky.

 

That is exactly what I was envisioning, and that can only be a reality if DPS gear is made unavailable to today's tank spec's. Since artificially preventing DPS stats to apply to tankspec'd players feels really... 4.0ish and gross, it makes the most sense to nerf passive tanking talents while buffing the defensive stat curves. Ideally, pve tanks would see identical stats as they currently have, and pvp skanktanks would just be DPS players with less DPS and a *little* more survivability

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The fundamental problem is that the tanking tree affords too much passive defense. If DPS gear is what makes a DPS do damage, and DPS gear is what makes a skanktank do damage, it's unfair that simply spec'ing tank makes someone so much tougher than a DPS. Tank gear needs to make a tank a tank. Nerf all defensive talents across the board.

 

What if all tank talents were redesigned to where they gave guard additional benefits. There should be no damage buffs in a tank's skill tree, but that doesn't mean they cant get creative. Little things like making knockbacks only half as effective on tanks, or giving tanks additional ways to slow or hinder their opponent.

 

The benefit of these changes is it would allow dps and healers to have less utility and be more focused on damage. In my opinion, a single dps class probably shouldn't have a 5 second stun, a 2 second aoe stun, a 40 meter pull that transitions into a 1.5 second stun, a root on an 8 second cooldown, a number of slows, 3 very effective dcds, a stealth scan that gives allies 50% movement speed for 6 seconds, a 30 meter gap-closer with a root, taunts, move-impairing immunity + a 75% speedboost 10 of the 35 seconds in combat, and probably the best single-target burst of any dps class I've seen in warzones. I'm talking about powertechs btw.

 

If a lot of the slows, stuns, pulls, dcds, and immunities were removed from damage classes and given to tanks, there would be two very noticeable benefits. Firstly, tanks would serve a much more important role than before, and the skill cap and demand for tanks would be much higher. That role would be alot more specialized, and not an odd mix between dpsing and keeping your allies alive. Secondly, balancing damage classes would be much easier. There would be no need to worry about which class has better stuns, slows, and dcds since they would all have the absolute bare minimum. Range classes could have 1 dcd, and melee classes would have 2 dcds for purpose of surviving damage taken while being unable to reciprocate.

 

In addition to that, tank relics need to be redesigned so that they don't get 500 points in mastery that they don't need. That little part just doesn't make any sense to me because dps get 500 endurance in their relics.

Edited by Llacertus
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Skanks are fine....leave them alone. I actually like the fact that there is a pve/pvp version of the tank. Let you in on a little secret though, dps needs more fixing than u all. I don't know if my head can take much more beating of the desk!
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Skanks are fine....leave them alone. I actually like the fact that there is a pve/pvp version of the tank. Let you in on a little secret though, dps needs more fixing than u all. I don't know if my head can take much more beating of the desk!

 

I mostly am of this mind. I mean do whatever they want with tanks using dps gear after they fix the dps specs, I personally don't see the huge deal, as any time I've topped the damage board as a tank with any gear, its when I was being tank tunneled by 5 (bad) people ignoring my healer friend and simply cleaving them all. But if they want to remove dps gear from tanks im fine with it provided a couple of things:

 

1. Defense rating is well into diminishing returns using warding mods, even b ones. If im locked out of lethal b mods make def chance more useful.

 

2. If they nerf the damage, I do in fact expect a recompense in form of greater survivability. I dont want to be just the same as now, but less damage.

 

3. As you say, fix the dps specs of guardians, and dps specs of tank capable classes more generally. Guardians and dot spec shadows just get eliminated as it is. Burst shadows and dps VGs are in a better place (I say VGs because even though they're still squishy, its better than it was and their damage is basically insane). Focus has been a not as good concentration for a long time now, and anything focus can do that concentratiom can't, vigi does better, and vigi is still squishy as crap.

Edited by KendraP
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Many people have purposed guard scaling with tank stats before. It is the best fix to skank tanks.

 

What you didn't mention is that scaling guard would also fix offugarding as a dps which is another major issue.

 

It might be too complicated for Bioware to actually implement or divest resources in, however.

 

I mean I don't think it would too hard...just put Guard at a base 5% and scale it 1-to-1 with Shield Chance to a cap of 50%. Or even better scale it with Defense so Defense carries a little more weight in PvP.

 

Or simply hard cap Crit Chance, Crit Multiplier, and Bonus Damage when in Tank stance.

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  • 1 month later...

Im not 100% I understand what you mean altogether, its hard to determine anything from that image. If you were present in that match do you mean that its not fair that that the other tank/healer numbers were so much higher than yours (as a fully tank geared tank) or that they are outrageous because their damage is too crazy???

 

That looks to me like an endless match with no dps, and wouldnt a dps geared tank always outperform a full tank when there is no other dps around?

The "full tank" in that match, also out damaged opposing teams sniper and matcher the sins/shadows. What conclusion are you going to draw from that ?

 

On the tanking, lets take a hypothetical eutopian 4 v 4 Ranked match with Helaler/Tank/2Dps on each side, were each player mirrors one another exactly in both skill, combat awareness, understanding of mechanics and coordination. And the only difference is Tank gear. Full Tank team has a clear advantage, people make it seem like the tradeoff should be even. Full tank gives up (20-25%) overall "DPS" for seeming unfair (7-11%) Additional (Non crit Damage mitigation) and guard damage goes through mitigation. I may be off but to get your Actual PVP Mitigation you can do

PVP Shield = [+] (0, [-] (1 - Crit, Shield Chance))

 

(Crit * (1 + Surge) + Effective Shield * (1 - Absorb) + (1 - Crit - Effective Shield)) ÷ (Crit * (1 + Surge) - (1 - Crit))

 

might seem small, but what it practically means in my case is it gives me the chance to keep up better and the diminished pressure usually seems to lead naturally for better field awareness and coordination. Regardless of gear choice, the primary "role" a tank in these is not damage. 1st a tank is there to reduce/spread any burst damage produced by opposing team, 2nd is to control the battlefield and to set up your own teams burst windows, 3rd is in my opinion to coordinate teams ccs and interrupts, as well as force opponent mistakes, damage does matter, but is secondary. I think tanking is actually a place where i have seen the largest difference in players.

 

I play with my brother who is a fantastic tank, im often in shocked at how much of a difference it makes. He does sometimes use DPS gear when solo... either we way the difference is not so large that the better team doesn't still win, its about which slight benefit (bit more tank/ bit more noodle damage) is going to benefit the matchups more

 

He does great we have both crunched the numbers, and tested both. The difference is noticeable, and the closer the match is and longer it goes the clearer the advantage grows. In these matches, (It my also be due to the fact that he is really good, and i dont have as much time to play anymore, so it may be that better healers have a different experience)

 

Lol didnt mean to rant, its time for bed haha... just saw this and i couldnt believe that the conclusion drawn from this particular match/screen shots was "Too much OP damage" !

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There is nothing wrong with skank tanking. Skanking has been the best method of playing a Jugg in PvP for many years. Maybe since launch, but I can only verify by experience for 4.0 and onwards. But in the last several years, while Veng and Rage may have been more or less viable at times than they currently are, they were never as viable as skanking, and Immortal has literally no role in PvP as it currently stands as anything but a skank.

 

People need to get over it. In SWTOR, both historically and currently, Juggs are best played as skanks. It's simply a fact. It doesn't break the game, it doesn't make them an unstoppable broken class like Mercs in early 5.0, it simply makes them viable. Unlike the other options.

 

Take away skanking and you can say goodbye to Juggs in PvP.

 

And... there's nothing wrong with it in the first place. Let people gear like they want. Forcing people to play traditional trinity just because it tickles your inner MMO purist is not an option. One of the best things about MMOs with flexible gearing is you can be creative and get away from the traditional trinity crap, which ideally would have died decades ago but sadly still lingers in some games. Trying to force that on people is unwelcome.

Edited by stoopicus
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