Since tanks are wearing dps gear now due to the fact shield and absorption is completely useless in pvp, it's hard to say if this will be fixed or not...if at all!

It's not entirely useless. All of the mods/enhancements stack a ton of endurance, so more endurance will keep you alive longer in pvp. Furthermore, if you're fighting a marksmanship sniper/carnage mara/deception sin (mostly), stacking a ton of defense/shield will help you to avoid a lot of the melee/ranged attacks or at least shield/absorb what you don't avoid. So it has some benefit.

Of course, if you're going up against an operative/sorc/etc classes that use exclusively force/tech attacks, the shield/absorb/defense won't do anything, but your armor rating will reduce the amount of damage you take and the extra endurance will keep you alive longer to take more hits.

I have a ton of endurance on my jugg tank, helps me stay alive a lot longer, I do very little damage, but I stay alive longer, so definitely useful in huttball.

It's not entirely useless. All of the mods/enhancements stack a ton of endurance, so more endurance will keep you alive longer in pvp. Furthermore, if you're fighting a marksmanship sniper/carnage mara/deception sin (mostly), stacking a ton of defense/shield will help you to avoid a lot of the melee/ranged attacks or at least shield/absorb what you don't avoid. So it has some benefit.

 

Of course, if you're going up against an operative/sorc/etc classes that use exclusively force/tech attacks, the shield/absorb/defense won't do anything, but your armor rating will reduce the amount of damage you take and the extra endurance will keep you alive longer to take more hits.

 

I have a ton of endurance on my jugg tank, helps me stay alive a lot longer, I do very little damage, but I stay alive longer, so definitely useful in huttball.

I just think it's sad that tanks have to resort to using dps gear now because survival gear doesn't really help against force/tech damage, at least dps gear gives them something to rely on, but like I said in my previous post above it would be great if tanks had an ability to push off force/tech damage or at least have a chance to since it takes so much out of us.

Quote: Originally Posted by JP_Legatus

The shield and absorb works great for snipers and all non sorc classes have at least some white damage

Correction : It just works against Snipers, not at all against Sorcerers, and works a bit against some non-Sorc classes (Juggernaut - Marauder - some Mercenaries), and is near useless against the other ones (Powertech - Operatives).

Yes thank you for restating what I said while also saying you are correcting me, I'll let you get away with that.

Oh wait, no I won't

And I don't really know jack about DPS operatives but I'm assuming their DPS spec relies on white damage. Powertech has some white damage too I think, isn't rail shot white damage?

Quote: Originally Posted by JP_Legatus

The shield and absorb works great for snipers and all non sorc classes have at least some white damage

 

 

 

Yes thank you for restating what I said while also saying you are correcting me, I'll let you get away with that.

Oh wait, no I won't

 

And I don't really know jack about DPS operatives but I'm assuming their DPS spec relies on white damage. Powertech has some white damage too I think, isn't rail shot white damage?

Operatives were originally tank killers, then our armor pen got nerfed. Our basic attack is our only white dmg and it is irrelevant. Pts get in trouble when railshot starts missing and getting blocked though

And I will get away with correcting you:p.

Quote: Originally Posted by JP_Legatus

And I don't really know jack about DPS operatives but I'm assuming their DPS spec relies on white damage. Powertech has some white damage too I think, isn't rail shot white damage?

Operatives in DPS spec with either concealment (almost exclusively tech damage unless you run out of energy) or lethality (mostly tech damage) are somewhat independent of white damage.

Concealment can however be mitigated a lot by armor.

Since tanks are wearing dps gear now due to the fact shield and absorption is completely useless in pvp, it's hard to say if this will be fixed or not...if at all!

*yawn* again? Everyone beside sorc/dps op does white dmg that hurts.

Big white hits:

Assasin maul, execute

jugger execute, ravage , (impale)

maro execute, ravage, (blade rush)

PT railshot

Merc railshot / full auto

Sniper nearly everything if specced into MM, execute

While shield/absorp is not as good as defense chance, which offers 100% mitigation against the same dmg type, nor endurance, which is the best tanking stat pvp-wise, it is still usefull.

Tanksin wear dps gear because they want to dps and not tank. They just exploit poor design choices by BW.

so am i getting this right?

we are only talking about white dmg, because yellow (tech/force) always hits

as stated, its an rpg, so we roll the dice, right?

1st roll: acc - deff

e.g. worst case - best case (guard/jugg)

90/91%(standard acc) - (33,xx% + 3%[riposte]) - 5%[debuff from smash/sweep] = 49/50% chance to hit me with:

execute, leap(which is nice to evade in huttball -> root), ravage, HiB, RS, maul, full auto, ... etc

if i pop my shield the deff goes even higher (100% in best case)

if he does not hit - well no dmg

if it hits

we roll a second time

crit versus shield with crit being dominant

crit can push shield off the table

e.g. 40% shield versus 80% crit chance results in 80% crit chance and 20% shield chance and 0% normal hit

well what are the odds

the dmg is adjusted accordingly with surge or if shielded with absorp and after that it goes through the armor rating

(if theres no crit or no shield then there will be just normal dmg)

with armor rating being the only tool to reduce yellow dmg (except several self buffs)

but do not expect them be comulative

e.g. invincible (40% dmg reduce), shield (25%) and if specced the self heal (15%) wont give u 80% dmg reduce

correct me pls if im wrong, happy to learn ^_^

pro pvp-tanking ftw!

edit says sry for that bad english its not my primary language - but i think ull get

so am i getting this right?

we are only talking about white dmg, because yellow (tech/force) always hits

 

as stated, its an rpg, so we roll the dice, right?

1st roll: acc - deff

e.g. worst case - best case (guard/jugg)

 

90/91%(standard acc) - (33,xx% + 3%[riposte]) - 5%[debuff from smash/sweep] = 49/50% chance to hit me with:

execute, leap(which is nice to evade in huttball -> root), ravage, HiB, RS, maul, full auto, ... etc

if i pop my shield the deff goes even higher (100% in best case)

 

if he does not hit - well no dmg

 

if it hits

 

we roll a second time

crit versus shield with crit being dominant

crit can push shield off the table

 

e.g. 40% shield versus 80% crit chance results in 80% crit chance and 20% shield chance and 0% normal hit

well what are the odds

the dmg is adjusted accordingly with surge or if shielded with absorp and after that it goes through the armor rating

(if theres no crit or no shield then there will be just normal dmg)

 

with armor rating being the only tool to reduce yellow dmg (except several self buffs)

but do not expect them be comulative

e.g. invincible (40% dmg reduce), shield (25%) and if specced the self heal (15%) wont give u 80% dmg reduce

 

correct me pls if im wrong, happy to learn ^_^

 

pro pvp-tanking ftw!

 

edit says sry for that bad english its not my primary language - but i think ull get

Bro what are those "80 %" crit chances you are talking about?

1. Laze target - snipe has 100 % crit chance once per minute.

2. impale and shatter has chance to increase crit chance of vicious throw + 60 %.

3. Usual PT crit 30 % + 15 % set bonus on rail + 25 % explosive fules once in 2 minutes.

That's all? pffff ...

e.g. 40% shield versus 80% crit chance results in 80% crit chance and 20% shield chance and 0% normal hit

well what are the odds

the dmg is adjusted accordingly with surge or if shielded with absorp and after that it goes through the armor rating

(if theres no crit or no shield then there will be just normal dmg)

Besides the fact that 80% crit chance (unless some specific abilities) are a bit over the top, it is even worse:

Let's stay with 40% shield chance and 40% crit chance (more reasonable values). Crit happens regardless of shielded or non shielded attacks. Then you have 40% chance to crit. On the remaining 60% you have 40% chance to shield the attack. That is 40% * 60% = 24% shield chance and 36% normal hit.

with armor rating being the only tool to reduce yellow dmg (except several self buffs)

but do not expect them be comulative

e.g. invincible (40% dmg reduce), shield (25%) and if specced the self heal (15%) wont give u 80% dmg reduce

If the effects can apply all the time you would have 40% damage reduce and then of the remaining damage another 25% (25% *60% = 15%) so a sum of 55% now and of the remaining 45% you heal 15% (45% * 15% = 6.75%) so you're effective mitigation would be 40% + 15% + 6.75% = 62.75%.

Besides the fact that 80% crit chance (unless some specific abilities) are a bit over the top, it is even worse:

 

Let's stay with 40% shield chance and 40% crit chance (more reasonable values). Crit happens regardless of shielded or non shielded attacks. Then you have 40% chance to crit. On the remaining 60% you have 40% chance to shield the attack. That is 40% * 60% = 24% shield chance and 36% normal hit.

 

 

 

If the effects can apply all the time you would have 40% damage reduce and then of the remaining damage another 25% (25% *60% = 15%) so a sum of 55% now and of the remaining 45% you heal 15% (45% * 15% = 6.75%) so you're effective mitigation would be 40% + 15% + 6.75% = 62.75%.

With your logic there should be 3 rolls

1. Hit - Miss

2. Crit - Else

3. If else Normal - Shield

But it just simplier

1. Hit - Miss

2.

Simple table

100 sided dice

1-40 crit

41-59 normal

60-100 shield

Here is the bigger problem honestly the Tank role and being a support/cc just needs to be made more attractive to play. even healing in pvp is more popular then tanking. My suggestion would be to treat the tank as a walking buff/debuff class that becomes a focus priority similar to healers. Leave the damage output in their gear abysmal and make their very existence a threat. Making the taunt damage debuff last longer and maybe adding more features to make guard more interesting or increasing the effectiveness of allies nearby. Bunch of ways you could make it more interesting but still rely on team mates to get kills. Right now your basically an added health bar for a healer and some damage mitigation. While i do admit sucking up damage from smash into a taunt can be seriously effective it doesn't seem to last long enough to be useful.

btw this is just some general ideas I didn't really work out the logistics of this.

Read this:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=213530

That explains to you exactly how tanking stats work in this game, both for PvE and PvP.

Thank you, Taugrim.

Original article is linked in the above post.

Edit: This section is from Georg Zoeller.

First is a hit roll, accuracy versus defense, and if the attacker misses then no damage occurs. If the attacker rolled poorly enough to miss even discounting the target’s defense then a “Miss” result occurs. If he misses because of the defense then the result varies based on the attack type, the cover state of the target, and the target’s equipped weapons. All the possible results – Dodge, Parry, Deflect, Resist, Cover – are mathematically the same, but they can trigger different effects and are visualized in different ways.

 

If the attacker hits, then a second roll is made with the crit chance of the attacker versus the shield chance of the target. If a Crit or a Shield occurs then the damage is adjusted up or down (based on Surge/Absorb), and then it goes through to the armor and damage resistance. A critical can never be shielded, and an attacker with a high enough crit chance can push the target’s shield chance off the table. It shouldn’t be possible to get your passive crit chance high enough to start pushing off the target’s shield chance, but there are short-duration buffs that push these chances high enough to come into conflict.

Yes thank you for restating what I said while also saying you are correcting me, I'll let you get away with that.

Oh wait, no I won't

 

And I don't really know jack about DPS operatives but I'm assuming their DPS spec relies on white damage. Powertech has some white damage too I think, isn't rail shot white damage?

It was a correction.

You said it works great against Snipers, but it just makes tanks on par with them. This just works.

Tanking stats do not give even a slight statistical advantage against a Marksmanship Sniper who is the only spec dealing near to 100% of their damage through weapon abilities. It's all about luck in RNG.

If you consider their other specs (Engineering and Fatality) you can't say anymore that they're on par, as a part of their DPS is tech, Snipers get a slight upper hand with these specs.

The word "great" was too much because in the best situation, Tanks do not even get a statistical advantage.

And so, stats works just a bit against Jugg/Merc/Mara depending on the spec, as they are all less depedent of weapon damage than snipers.

And yes, defensive stats are near useless against Operatives and Powertechs.

As the two posters following you stated, Operatives do not use weapon damage unless they can't do anything else, and Powertechs only use RailShot as weapon damage ability, an so, most of the half of their damage output comes from Flameburst, Flamethrower, Rocket Punch, Thermal Detonator, Immolate, Retractable Blade and/or other Tech abilities depending on the spec. When your gear doesn't let you be on par for more the half of the overall DPS, you can as well gear yourself with something else.

*yawn* again? Everyone beside sorc/dps op does white dmg that hurts.

Big white hits:

Assasin maul, execute

jugger execute, ravage , (impale)

maro execute, ravage, (blade rush)

PT railshot

Merc railshot / full auto

Sniper nearly everything if specced into MM, execute

 

While shield/absorp is not as good as defense chance, which offers 100% mitigation against the same dmg type, nor endurance, which is the best tanking stat pvp-wise, it is still usefull.

Tanksin wear dps gear because they want to dps and not tank. They just exploit poor design choices by BW.

So basically what your saying tanks that are wearing dps gear is an exploit design flaw from bioware? interesting

So basically what your saying tanks that are wearing dps gear is an exploit design flaw from bioware? interesting

In the case of Shadows and Assassins, he's partially right that there's a flaw. A Tank wearing DPS gear can work, but shouldn't work so well that it's said to be better than full-Tank. In this case, a part of the problem lies in the lack of effectiveness of Tank's stats, and the other part comes from the fact that the spec offers a pretty good synergy with DPS gear.

It was a correction.

 

You said it works great against Snipers, but it just makes tanks on par with them. This just works.

Tanking stats do not give even a slight statistical advantage against a Marksmanship Sniper who is the only spec dealing near to 100% of their damage through weapon abilities. It's all about luck in RNG.

If you consider their other specs (Engineering and Fatality) you can't say anymore that they're on par, as a part of their DPS is tech, Snipers get a slight upper hand with these specs.

The word "great" was too much because in the best situation, Tanks do not even get a statistical advantage.

 

And so, stats works just a bit against Jugg/Merc/Mara depending on the spec, as they are all less depedent of weapon damage than snipers.

 

And yes, defensive stats are near useless against Operatives and Powertechs.

As the two posters following you stated, Operatives do not use weapon damage unless they can't do anything else, and Powertechs only use RailShot as weapon damage ability, an so, most of the half of their damage output comes from Flameburst, Flamethrower, Rocket Punch, Thermal Detonator, Immolate, Retractable Blade and/or other Tech abilities depending on the spec. When your gear doesn't let you be on par for more the half of the overall DPS, you can as well gear yourself with something else.

I'll agree with your assessment of other specs, but that's exactly what I said: All non-sorc classes have some form of white damage occasionally. Rail shot is a pretty big part of the 2 button rotation powertechs use, so I'd say it's pretty significant there.

And you are WAY wrong about snipers. Snipers who don't use marksmanship? Those even exist? That's like saying I can beat smash with deception...logically true, but you'll almost never see a deception sin in rateds.

The snipers who are inevitably in marksmanship will get their damage reduced by an average of 22.5% from shield/absorb on top of the 30% flat defense roll, and that's before defensive cooldowns using a non-min/max set. If you think reducing damage by roughly 50% while only losing 1/4th of your damage (my sins MH damage goes from 1250-906) after switching to tank gear and endurance stim isn't a big deal, you're not doing your math right. I can face tank snipers with nothing but my lightning spam regen.

The same goes for carnage maras and a few other random specs here and there.

Yes, most of the damage in this game is force and tech. But snipers are useless against a tank, and that's what's up. You haven't corrected anything.

Ok. I guess the fact that a developer stated such does not matter...apparently you know more than he does. And for your information critical hits cannot be shielded (from developer)...also saber attacks do weapon damage and there is no saber attack in game that can be shielded.

This is a 10-4. Guards/Juggs are beasts because saber attacks can be defended.

I am now confused. These seem to be saying contradictory things. Also where did a developer every say saber attacks couldn't be shielded? Pretty sure all the white damage saber attacks can be shielded just fine.

Shielding chance has nothing to do with chance to defend (dodge) an attack. I believe the dodge chance rolls first..then shield chance.

I would be hard pressed to find a developer quote that said saber attacks cannot be shielded. I looked for it but could not find it. I was always curious about it because I noticed saber attacks often hitting me for full damage in war zones and my shields never going off (big orange bubble). So I tested it against a Sentinel spamming non-special saber attacks. 10 minutes of saber spamming...shield never went off...but I could dodge some attacks even with a defense of 10%. I welcome you to test it yourself.

Shielding chance has nothing to do with chance to defend (dodge) an attack. I believe the dodge chance rolls first..then shield chance.

Yes. Let's say your accuracy is 90% and my defense is 25% (pretty realistic when I'm full-on tanking). You'll have a 65% chance to hit me with melee/ranged attacks. Let's think of it like a pie chart. There's a 10% slice where you miss, a 25% slice where I dodge, and a 65% slice where you hit. The dice roll is like throwing a random dart at the pie chart.

Let's say your attack succeeds. Now your crit is "rolled against" my shield. New pie chart. 40% of that pie chart is my shield chance. 35% (or whatever) is your crit chance, and the remaining 25% is a normal hit. Another dart throw.

The "problem" arises when your crit chance is very high. For example, I can get a temporary buff to crit chance from Overhead Slash that might put my chance to crit on Dispatch at 90%. Now the pie is a big slice of crit and a skinny slice of shielded normal hit.

I would be hard pressed to find a developer quote that said saber attacks cannot be shielded. I looked for it but could not find it. I was always curious about it because I noticed saber attacks often hitting me for full damage in war zones and my shields never going off (big orange bubble). So I tested it against a Sentinel spamming non-special saber attacks. 10 minutes of saber spamming...shield never went off...but I could dodge some attacks even with a defense of 10%. I welcome you to test it yourself.

That is very strange. Are you sure the graphic just wasn't rendering? Did you check logs? Sorry to ask, but sure you were in the right stance and using generator?

In the case of Shadows and Assassins, he's partially right that there's a flaw. A Tank wearing DPS gear can work, but shouldn't work so well that it's said to be better than full-Tank. In this case, a part of the problem lies in the lack of effectiveness of Tank's stats, and the other part comes from the fact that the spec offers a pretty good synergy with DPS gear.

Most of the problem lies within force/tech damage as a tank I feel completely helpless unless I got a healer by my side, I just think it would be handy if there was a chance to push off force/tech damage just like how Yoda, Mace and Obi Wan demonstrated in the prequels by using Force Deflection or Absorb also didn't Satele Shan use these abilities against Malgus in the Hope trailer? Something we force user tanks could use

Made a suggestion of it here

That is very strange. Are you sure the graphic just wasn't rendering? Did you check logs? Sorry to ask, but sure you were in the right stance and using generator?

My shield chance was 50% during the test I did not check logs, as far as I know there is no bug I have never seen my shield go off during a saber attack. I'm pretty sure they are not shield-able...go try it!

Since tanks are wearing dps gear now due to the fact shield and absorption is completely useless in pvp, it's hard to say if this will be fixed or not...if at all!

Hey guys guess what:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=580312

Why? Because people run tank spec in DPS gear and play as if they were DPS and then complain that they do not feel like a tank.

If you actually played like a tank in tank gear.you would notice a drastic increase in survivability over DPS gear. Survival gear is not useless, its these complaining players that would rather whine than learn something that are useless.