Posted this in general. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6139196#post6139196

Vanguard Nerf?

Ion Cell now reduces all damage dealt by 5% while active. Why?

So now as a Vanguard Tank my total damage output is reduced by 5%.

Anyone have any idea why they decided to make this change? It's not like we were putting out huge damage numbers.

At the very least, if they're going to reduce our DPS (and therefore part of our threat generation) they could bump Ion cell's threat generation bonus by another 10%.

I'm going to go ahead and blame PvP for this nerf. It's the most logical conclusion I can come to.

Still doesn't make sense tho.

Uhm are you sure it wasn't always there? Cause that's the same for shadow tanks. Tank stance reduces dps.

[edit: to clarify, it did that to shadow tanks before 2.0]

Well, the issue now-a-days in mmos is that all balances are based around pvp, not sure why they would focus around the most boring and predictable aspect of a mmo, but that's just my thoughts on it.

Sure,pvp is predictable... every fight are different,every ennemies are differents WZs mechanics are differents and even if you get the same WZ over and over, there is more than one strategy to win. Open world pvp(yes it exist in SWTOR) happen suddently with no warning.

pve, you go inside an instanced area to fight the same mobs over and over using the same rotation reaching the same bosses to fight them with the same mechanic/strategy and using your defensive CDs at the same time. If you are in a raid guild you are always with the same people to kill the same mobs.

Also, the mobs are always using the same ''rotation'' the adds are spawning at the same moment,ALWAYS.

But hey! PvP is more predictable than pve right?

Using your ''broken?'' logic, doing the same thing with the same people over and over again is less boring and less predictable than doing different things with differents people.

Uhm are you sure it wasn't always there? Cause that's the same for shadow tanks. Tank stance reduces dps.

 

[edit: to clarify, it did that to shadow tanks before 2.0]

It was not there before, it's in the patch notes.

Plus I checked on my low level shadow tank. Combat Technique says it reduces "melee bonus damage by 5%." According to that, force attacks still do full damage, and only the bonus damage of your melee attacks is affected.

The description for Ion Cell (and the Powertech counterpart) says they reduce ALL damage by 5%. That's a much bigger hit than the one Combat Technique gives.

I'm going to go ahead and blame PvP for this nerf. It's the most logical conclusion I can come to.

Still doesn't make sense tho.

Blame PvP?!? How?!? I can go weeks without seeing another van or PT in a wz that's using tank cell

Van tanks if anything need a PvP buff

Didn't you know BWs grand plan was to nerf VG and all of its specs in to the ground to the point of making us useless in 2.0

Reroll.

Quit the game.

Stop giving these *****s money

They screwed us.

Move Mains.

VGs are dead.

Didn't you know BWs grand plan was to nerf VG and all of its specs in to the ground to the point of making us useless in 2.0

Reroll.

Quit the game.

Stop giving these *****s money

They screwed us.

Move Mains.

VGs are dead.

You really need to start toning it down mfourcustom. It's getting tiring reading your tirades.

actually he is right except for the pyro tree of VG. VG shield and tactics trees are pretty lacking. in 2.0 they gave us a very well needed buff to the Shield tree however tactics got nerfed if anything which doesnt make sense. As far as hybrids go u still didnt do crazy damage if u where in tank stance. Also our defences compaired to other classes DPS is definately unbalanced.

In pvp you hardly see any tanks because we arent able to stay alive long enough to do our job effectively (which is absorb damage and protect our team in any way possible, also to annoy the **** out of the healers and casters) however we are only slightly more tanky than the dps if you factor in how much damage all the classes do.

if you blow every CD you have then ya u have about 10 seconds that u can stand a decent amount of damage however they have to stand in your riot gas which they can just run out of it they have somewhat of a brain and if they are force users then riot gas is just an annoying snare which can be countered very easily with their force run thats on a 8 or 15 second CD where our riot gas is a 1 min cd (which is justified) however they force run CD imo needs to be much longer. its is a get out of jail free card that u have up at least every 15 seconds.

and again the damage with any spec in Ion Cell was pretty minimal at best. you could stack yourself to have more damage exept that makes u sacrifice about half (if not more) of your defenses so really hybrids arent that great in the first place for the VG tank (however everything has a situation that it can be somewhat useful).

in 2.0 they gave us a very well needed buff to the Shield tree

No, they didn't. It sounds like a buff, it looks like a buff but still, they nerfed the shield vg. The new skills/effects don't compensate the damage nerf, the pve set bonus nerf (the hell we're gonna do with 2% def, the 2% damage reduction was actually needed), the power screen nerf (25% on the stat points provide less absorption than the previous 8%) just to cite a few...

No, they didn't. It sounds like a buff, it looks like a buff but still, they nerfed the shield vg. The new skills/effects don't compensate the damage nerf, the pve set bonus nerf (the hell we're gonna do with 2% def, the 2% damage reduction was actually needed), the power screen nerf (25% on the stat points provide less absorption than the previous 8%) just to cite a few...

there are some changes they made that have been a regression however the overall did improve... especially with riot gas. however we do need some more attention i defiantly agree with that

It didn't improve, the VG/PT tank is just broken and useless atm PVE wise.

- When loaded, Ion Cell doesn't increase threat at all. To compare, DPS VG/PT abilities generate as much threat as ours.

- When activated using stockstrike, the Ion Cell is supposed to generate a "high amount of threat". Between 1 and 600 threat isn't a HIGH amount (in 1.7 it could generate more than 64k).

- The Ion Cell dot last shorter than before.

- Explosive Surge and Shoulder Cannon generate as much threat as the DPS VG/PT Explosive Surge and Shoulder Cannon while we got a skill (Guard Cannon) supposed to INCREASE the threat generated by these abilities.

Wanna check yourself, search for my logs on torparse or have a look at yours.

There are just so many problems we could write a book...

Yeah, ran my first level 55 HM FP last night, and I barely feel like a tank. Stuff is tearing through me incredibly fast.

I'm in full Black Hole/Campaign, with 2 Basic gear pieces now. All my augments are for increasing Shield chance.

At level 50 I had ~50% shield chance and ~50% absorb rate, as my base numbers.

I'm currently at ~35% shield chance and ~39% absorb rate.

In the level 55 HM:

I find myself popping my defensive cooldowns on fights with 2 elites. Elite turrert in Mandalorian Raiders hit me for 4K each, and with them being in pairs, that's 8K damage per global cooldown. No healer can heal through that without me using my cooldowns.

My healer buddy is amazed at how quickly my health just disappears.

Before 2.0, Tionese was the recommended gear for lvl50 HM-FPs. A full team in mostly Tionese (rest undergeared) Would find the FP challenging, but not to crazy. As long as no one was stupid, you'd be fine.

Now in 2.0, in Full BH, we can't get through the new lvl 55 HM-FP without numerous deaths, even while being super careful and slow going.

The STRESS my healer buddy and I experienced from last night's Mandalorian Raiders run has completely put us off of the new 55 HM-FPs. We won't be running these again anytime soon.

I'm pretty vocal about the nerfs to PT/VG DPS, but I gotta look at these talk about PT/VG tanking being terrible now and I just think "...uh, what?"

Tanking on my PT is amazing. I love it. I hate the spike damage my Sin tank takes, so my PT has become my go-to tank now that the DPS is been nerfed.

If you can't get through a 55 HM in Black Hole gear, then I really don't know what to say. I've tanked them all on my PT tank, and he holds his own. You need to CC elites though if there are more than two, but that goes for all tank classes right now cause our gear rating is low. I very rarely pop my shield, even against bosses.

If the threat generation from Ion Cell isn't working as intended, well yeah, I want to see that fixed...but I am having no issue holding threat.

I strongly suggest you start reading more about the changes to stats for tanks. Absorb is worthless right now, especially for PT/VG tanks. Priority for us right now is Defense >>> Shield >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> absorb.

The Elite Turrets in Mandalorian Raiders cannot be CCd. Otherwise we would have done that.

And in the fight with 4 bosses, 3 of them now have a buff making them immune to CC that "break on damage." Meaning you have to take damage from all 4 of them at once.

And I stack a LOT of Shield, and I'm only at ~35% Shield Chance.

My Defense was ALWAYS low before and it was never a problem.

Before 2.0 I used to raid with less than 10% defense, but I had over 50% Shield and Absorb, and I did just fine.

The Elite Turrets in Mandalorian Raiders cannot be CCd. Otherwise we would have done that.

 

And in the fight with 4 bosses, 3 of them now have a buff making them immune to CC that "break on damage." Meaning you have to take damage from all 4 of them at once.

 

And I stack a LOT of Shield, and I'm only at ~35% Shield Chance.

 

My Defense was ALWAYS low before and it was never a problem.

Before 2.0 I used to raid with less than 10% defense, but I had over 50% Shield and Absorb, and I did just fine.

When I said "Elite", I wasn't just solely referring to the turrets in the Mando FP. I know they can't be CC'd, they are a pain in the *** for any and all tanks right now.

As far as PT/VG stats, with the new stat returns and the type of damage you take more, you can't stack absorb. You have to dump it. What worked in the past does not work now. Start dropping your absorb for defense and favor defense over shield.

I second def>shield>abso, but it still doesn't sound right with the VG/PT... maybe I need more time.

If the threat generation from Ion Cell isn't working as intended, well yeah, I want to see that fixed...but I am having no issue holding threat.

Don't have much trouble either, but I'm pretty sure there is a bug with the Ion Cell atm.

Yeah and the bosses are even easier in hard mode, but still... there is a bug with the ion cell.

I believe you are correct. There were times when I used Rocket Punch, and Ion Cell would not proc. Now I understand that there are new "Resist" mechanics from bosses, but Ion Cell should still be placed on the boss, but the damage could be resisted.

I second def>shield>abso, but it still doesn't sound right with the VG/PT... maybe I need more time.

 

Don't have much trouble either, but I'm pretty sure there is a bug with the Ion Cell atm.

I think it sucks that the "Shield Specialist" tree doesn't turn Vanguard Tanks into much of shield specialists anymore.

*sigh* If they're really pushing the way the numbers work so that "def>shield>absob," then the way each tank type's defenses work are becoming much closer to each other. Less differentiation between the tanks is probably easier on the Devs, but seems to be less fun for the players in my opinion.

Posted this in general. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6139196#post6139196

 

Vanguard Nerf?

Ion Cell now reduces all damage dealt by 5% while active. Why?

 

So now as a Vanguard Tank my total damage output is reduced by 5%.

 

Anyone have any idea why they decided to make this change? It's not like we were putting out huge damage numbers.

 

At the very least, if they're going to reduce our DPS (and therefore part of our threat generation) they could bump Ion cell's threat generation bonus by another 10%.

What are you talking about, that has been there since day one with the Ion Cell, if you pay attention to it before you would've seen it, but most don't go Tank so barely notice. We generate 100% threat, taking 60% more damage for longer survival with a small damage reduction of 5%. Just work with your skill trees.