I’m playing deception at the moment in ranked and regs. I’m thinking of giving a whirl to a full tank spec with dps gear and a shield. Is it currently viable for regs and ranked in terms of damage and survivability ?

Eh, if you have a choice, go with tank Vanguard or tank Guardian. Kinetic shadow depends a lot on shielding and shielding does not mitigate damage from Force/Tech attacks (which is a huge portion of the attacks used in pvp). Yeah you get increased armor, but a lot of popular DPS specs in 2.8 use a lot of internal/elemental damage, so don't expect to be invincible by any means. You're slow to take down, but not impossible.

 

In terms of raw DPS and survivability, Balance Shadow performs better than Kinetic in both categories when played correctly.

 

The only plausible reason to play Kinetic over Balance is Force Pull, Slow Time, and Guard...but guess what...tank Vanguard and tank Guardian can do the same thing or similar, and also do almost everything else better. The only thing you give up when using those classes instead, is your Stealth and Force Cloak...but if you're playing a tank spec you're not going to be using those much anyways considering your job is to draw attention and go in first.

Edited July 29, 2014 by FinalArbiter

Shouldn't the healers be drawing attention? #justSayin

It really comes down to preference I prefer shadow tank versus Vanguard or guardian tank stealth and phase walk is really helpful when used correctly.

 

To answer your question: Yes. If played decently