Is Kinetic Shadow any good in pvp? Arena and war zones? Reason i ask: the Shadow play style fits me so while but, i really love being tanky. That being said, I would appreciate your opinions on this.

Kinetic Combat Shadow is like, one of the *******st PvP classes in the game, if you want Durability with a Shadow in PvP, play Balance.

Kinetic shadow is good in huttball in my experience. Just because if you start getting ganged on you can Force Slow and also your Force Speed lets you purge slows which people will use a lot on you. You can guard a healer and if they stick by you and heal you then neither of you will die probably. Also they are good in that door-bombing map because...well they're just hard to kill. So it's hard to lay a bomb with them around, especially if they have at least one healer.

 

Problem with kinetic shadow is that you do basically no damage aside from PA+project and harnessed shadows+TKT. Your double strike is crap, everything damage wise is pretty crap. Basically you are decently tanky, have good shield chance, nice absorb, and you have Force Pull/Force Slow and...well that's it. Compare that to Jedi Guardians who can do all that, and STILL do good damage due to their abilities and have great utility with targeted jump skills which let them leap up to higher level platforms and such, something that Force Speed can't do.

 

Also you can't really 1v1 anything that uses internal damage on you (it'll just rip you apart lol). Anyone who DOESN'T use internal damage will just focus other people other on your team if they are smart.

 

So yeah if you wanna be an annoying mother****er in huttball go Kinetic Shadow, but if you want to do massive DPS and idk, actually KILL people, it's better to go Infiltration or Balance.

 

And if you want the trifecta of DPS, tankiness, and utility, roll a Guardian/Juggernaut.

 

Note that this is just for PVP, and just my opinion. I think Kinetic Shadows are great tanks in PVE.

Edited June 30, 2014 by FinalArbiter

Kinetic shadow is good in huttball in my experience. Just because if you start getting ganged on you can Force Slow and also your Force Speed lets you purge slows which people will use a lot on you. You can guard a healer and if they stick by you and heal you then neither of you will die probably. Also they are good in that door-bombing map because...well they're just hard to kill. So it's hard to lay a bomb with them around, especially if they have at least one healer.

 

Problem with kinetic shadow is that you do basically no damage aside from PA+project and harnessed shadows+TKT. Your double strike is crap, everything damage wise is pretty crap. Basically you are decently tanky, have good shield chance, nice absorb, and you have Force Pull/Force Slow and...well that's it. Compare that to Jedi Guardians who can do all that, and STILL do good damage due to their abilities and have great utility with targeted jump skills which let them leap up to higher level platforms and such, something that Force Speed can't do.

 

Also you can't really 1v1 anything that uses internal damage on you (it'll just rip you apart lol). Anyone who DOESN'T use internal damage will just focus other people other on your team if they are smart.

 

So yeah if you wanna be an annoying mother****er in huttball go Kinetic Shadow, but if you want to do massive DPS and idk, actually KILL people, it's better to go Infiltration or Balance.

 

And if you want the trifecta of DPS, tankiness, and utility, roll a Guardian/Juggernaut.

 

Note that this is just for PVP, and just my opinion. I think Kinetic Shadows are great tanks in PVE.

 

You're really not all that tanky as a Kinetic Combat Shadow. Critical hits ignore your high shield chance and Force/Tech moves ignore your defense chance, and so you lose your two biggest mitigation mechanics on a large portion of the damage you eat in PvP. Also, Shadow tanks typically do more damage than Guardian tanks in the same situation, not least because Slow Time and Force Breach are AoE moves. You also have passable burst, even by dps standards, in a potency Telekinetic Throw at three stacks of Harnessed Shadows, followed up by a Potency Particle Accelerated Project. Guardian Slash has a 12 second cooldown, Blade Storm and Sweep aren't amazing and Master Strike both has a 30 second cooldown and will get interrupted half way through, if not sooner.

 

As for utility, yes, Guardians have better utility. However, saying that anyone using internal damage will just shred a Kinetic Combat Shadow is pretty ignorant, since Shadow tanks have literally the best defenses against internal and elemental damage. Just because it ignores armor, shield and defense doesn't mean they automatically destroy you. Especially in a 1 v 1 situation, if you can't keep your Shadow Protection stacks up (which is a huge boon against internal damage), the skill gap is pretty large, and you probably would have lost anyway.

You're really not all that tanky as a Kinetic Combat Shadow. Critical hits ignore your high shield chance and Force/Tech moves ignore your defense chance, and so you lose your two biggest mitigation mechanics on a large portion of the damage you eat in PvP. Also, Shadow tanks typically do more damage than Guardian tanks in the same situation, not least because Slow Time and Force Breach are AoE moves. You also have passable burst, even by dps standards, in a potency Telekinetic Throw at three stacks of Harnessed Shadows, followed up by a Potency Particle Accelerated Project. Guardian Slash has a 12 second cooldown, Blade Storm and Sweep aren't amazing and Master Strike both has a 30 second cooldown and will get interrupted half way through, if not sooner.

 

As for utility, yes, Guardians have better utility. However, saying that anyone using internal damage will just shred a Kinetic Combat Shadow is pretty ignorant, since Shadow tanks have literally the best defenses against internal and elemental damage. Just because it ignores armor, shield and defense doesn't mean they automatically destroy you. Especially in a 1 v 1 situation, if you can't keep your Shadow Protection stacks up (which is a huge boon against internal damage), the skill gap is pretty large, and you probably would have lost anyway.

 

You are on a pve server why is any pvp oriented person listening to you... We also world pvp which is a totally different animal . You seem to know about mechanics but seem clueless to the human element and spontaneity of pvp and not too mention cc. that makes stacks harder than it need be to get the full potential from so please stop throwing around the L2P card that you seem very liberal at throwing around in other post. You help keep us mediocre and have no qualms doing so consistently.

You are on a pve server why is any pvp oriented person listening to you... We also world pvp which is a totally different animal . You seem to know about mechanics but seem clueless to the human element and spontaneity of pvp and not too mention cc. that makes stacks harder than it need be to get the full potential from so please stop throwing around the L2P card that you seem very liberal at throwing around in other post. You help keep us mediocre and have no qualms doing so consistently.

 

Keeping your stacks up *is* trivial in a 1v1 situation unless they whitebar you specifically with the intent of denying you stacks, which they can do exactly once (resulting in about 9 seconds of downtime). Honestly, if someone whitebars me just to counter shadow protection, I generally know the duel is won. SP isn't a valuable enough mechanic to necessitate that drastic of a response and that significant of a trade off.

 

As for the rest, I do agree that shadows are the worst of the PvP tanks, but they are hardly as bad as most make them out to be. Very powerful, short CD defensive cooldowns (shorter than Guardians and just as powerful), resilience resilience resilience, and a very high shield chance (far superior to a guardian's low shield and high defense) makes them a seriously durable class in the right hands. It is pretty easy to screw a shadow up though. Shadows are the most dependent of all of the classes on understanding the specs that they are facing and how to counter them. I mean, everyone needs that information, but shadows waffle between godlike and nonexistent survivability based on how accurately they respond to incoming damage.

 

Stealth gives shadow tanks a unique and irreplaceable position in 8v8. There is no better node guard in the game. None. We are also the only class in the game which can directly hard-counter a sap cap, which is a massive advantage on AH.

 

Regarding damage, most of Kinetic's damage is tied up in harnessed shadows, which sucks, but you do have some other tools which can be very powerful. Spinning Strike is the cheapest melee execute in the game and also the hardest hitting execute period. It's short cooldown makes it very spammable and the fact that it procs both Project and Shadow Strike means you can set up a very powerful burst combo when you need it. As long as I time my stun appropriately, I can usually burst down a player that last 15-20% in three globals (the duration of the stun), which isn't something either of the other tanks can do quite as well.

 

In any case, the other tanks are better in PvP, but if you really like the shadow, you can make it work and you will be very viable. It will just require a lot more effort for the same results.

You are on a pve server why is any pvp oriented person listening to you... We also world pvp which is a totally different animal . You seem to know about mechanics but seem clueless to the human element and spontaneity of pvp and not too mention cc. that makes stacks harder than it need be to get the full potential from so please stop throwing around the L2P card that you seem very liberal at throwing around in other post. You help keep us mediocre and have no qualms doing so consistently.

 

Mostly because I give advice to make up for shortcomings and explain how the mechanics work, rather than asking for largely unnecessary buffs. I "seem clueless" because I disagree with you, not because I actually am clueless. I've done some tanking in PvP both before and after the 2.4 changes, in both unranked warzones and duels (and still duel as a tank), and I just happen to not share your opinions of the class. With a little luck (and a little knowledge of how the procs work), it's pretty easy to drop quite a bit of damage as a Shadow tank. Being on a PvE server in no ways makes me inadequate at PvP, just as being on a PvP server makes people no better at PvP.

You're really not all that tanky as a Kinetic Combat Shadow. Critical hits ignore your high shield chance and Force/Tech moves ignore your defense chance, and so you lose your two biggest mitigation mechanics on a large portion of the damage you eat in PvP. Also, Shadow tanks typically do more damage than Guardian tanks in the same situation, not least because Slow Time and Force Breach are AoE moves. You also have passable burst, even by dps standards, in a potency Telekinetic Throw at three stacks of Harnessed Shadows, followed up by a Potency Particle Accelerated Project. Guardian Slash has a 12 second cooldown, Blade Storm and Sweep aren't amazing and Master Strike both has a 30 second cooldown and will get interrupted half way through, if not sooner.

 

As for utility, yes, Guardians have better utility. However, saying that anyone using internal damage will just shred a Kinetic Combat Shadow is pretty ignorant, since Shadow tanks have literally the best defenses against internal and elemental damage. Just because it ignores armor, shield and defense doesn't mean they automatically destroy you. Especially in a 1 v 1 situation, if you can't keep your Shadow Protection stacks up (which is a huge boon against internal damage), the skill gap is pretty large, and you probably would have lost anyway.

 

I understand that Shadows/sins have the best internal/elemental damage protection, but I still think they get melted by Pyrotechs and Powertechs using the middle tree, whatever that is. So if you face someone with a spec that shoots right through your armor, defense, and possibly shield rating (core example: Pyrotechs or their mirror class+spec), you will probably just die, because your DPS is nothing special compared to their massive DPS and their armor makes them tanky enough to resist literally all your attacks because it's all kinetic damage... That's the point I meant to make.

 

I'm not saying Kinetic shadows are useless, they are really good (primarly through their annoyance factor and utility, not their damage, which is pretty crap) in objective-based PVP, which is pretty much what all PVP except arenas is. It's just compared to Guard/Jugg or Powertech/Vanguard they don't really hold a candle anymore. Pretty much the only thing they have over those two classes is stealth, which is not that useful if you're trying to sneak cap an objective (in which case, if you succeed, your opponents are likely inexperienced players...). Stealth is only useful for sneak-GUARDing objectives and also zerg-bursting people in Arenas. If you make a Shadow for PVP, it's generally better to go Infiltration to be a 1v1 god or Balance to be deceptively strong.

 

Someone made a point earlier that due to their stealth (and other tools like phase walk+resilience+mind maze), they make the best node guardians in the game. I tend to agree. But then you have to remember that any spec can do that...not just kinetic.

 

These days the primary reason to go Kinetic is to guard teammates and taunt enemies. Also force pulling people into fire traps in huttball and slowing 5 people at once is pretty awesome....In terms of actual tankiness and DPS though, they are fairly underwhelming.

Edited July 1, 2014 by FinalArbiter

I went on the BH forums after watching 3 BH just destroy 5 -55 pubs on tat over and over so I thought I'd go see what the attitude was on their forum first post was about how their survivability sucks and they get tunneled in arenas. I was beside my self at disbelief and at this rate they will probably get more tanky and hit harder. Some will say we do not need a dps boost while other PURE tanks are pumping out way more burst while having more consistent Def cooldowns . Aelanis will say we are fine( damage wise) but when you are being slowed ,stunned to no end and aoe taking you out of stealth your 10m abilities that hit like I threw a bucket of water at them I understand it ramps up but this game is about burst not to mention getting into melee range to do the one decent melee move that depends if you can hit them with lesser melee abilities first . On a side note force pull needs a root since that's our closer or slowtime needs to slow them more and needs to hit harder along with the rest of our abilities .

I recently switched from Infiltration to Kinetic Combat.

 

Obviously there is a big DPS hit, but I am pretty tanky. However, as a Powertech tank I feel slightly more tanky due to better defensive CDs (I'm at lvl 27 with this class now by the way). AND I still have nice DPS as a Powertech. Now don't get me wrong, I can still defeat people 1 vs 1 as a shadow tank, but the fights are kind of drawn out slugfests so in most cases it stops being 1vs1 because someone else will show up. Where as infiltration I can win fairly quickly (and give those operatives a taste of their own medicine ). I also found tank shadow to be one of the only melee class were I can consistently go toe to toe with a good sniper (including Marksman).

 

I'd like a little more DPS. Not a whole lot, but a little more to be in line with Powertechs and Juggernauts. Or just some better defensive CDs.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Dayshadow

I recently switched from Infiltration to Kinetic Combat.

 

Obviously there is a big DPS hit, but I am pretty tanky. However, as a Powertech tank I feel slightly more tanky due to better defensive CDs (I'm at lvl 27 with this class now by the way). AND I still have nice DPS as a Powertech. Now don't get me wrong, I can still defeat people 1 vs 1 as a shadow tank, but the fights are kind of drawn out slugfests so in most cases it stops being 1vs1 because someone else will show up. Where as infiltration I can win fairly quickly (and give those operatives a taste of their own medicine ). I also found tank shadow to be one of the only melee class were I can consistently go toe to toe with a good sniper (including Marksman).

 

I'd like a little more DPS. Not a whole lot, but a little more to be in line with Powertechs and Juggernauts. Or just some better defensive CDs.

 

You really need to get to the top of the tree and get slow time before damage output gets good on a shadow tank. Funny thing is I can consistently get near the top of the DPS charts with a full kinetic build if I use DPS gear (with a shield of course), while having a shield and all those defensive cooldowns still leaves me substantially more survivable than a pure DPS build. Only thing I sacrifice is burst really.

You really need to get to the top of the tree and get slow time before damage output gets good on a shadow tank. Funny thing is I can consistently get near the top of the DPS charts with a full kinetic build if I use DPS gear (with a shield of course), while having a shield and all those defensive cooldowns still leaves me substantially more survivable than a pure DPS build. Only thing I sacrifice is burst really.

 

Wait you consider Slow Time as good DPS in PVP? What game are you playing?

You really need to get to the top of the tree and get slow time before damage output gets good on a shadow tank. Funny thing is I can consistently get near the top of the DPS charts with a full kinetic build if I use DPS gear (with a shield of course), while having a shield and all those defensive cooldowns still leaves me substantially more survivable than a pure DPS build. Only thing I sacrifice is burst really.

 

near to dps shadow? Who are these noobs? lol.

Wait you consider Slow Time as good DPS in PVP? What game are you playing?

 

Just skip arenas With some warzones like NC or VS it is "must have". Slow time works perfectly there because enemies are standing close.