Yeah not the worst they've ever posted. Wish they'd taken my advice months ago when they kept nerfing the DoTs to try and nerf the hybrid only to nerf the 36 trees themselves. Now that they realized to attach tree stances with certain abilities to prevent hybrids we're left with the scorched earth DoT nerfs they left. Oddly enough they are about to make the exact same mistake with merc/mandos but that's another conversation.

Anyway, unnerf some of the DoT damage to IR/IM and/or to plasma cell and problem solved. The idea to switch alacrity to crit is an excellent idea as well.

Tank suggestions

One thing I always thought tanks lacked in this game was a way to buff your groupmates themselves. The guardian/jugg has a small ability to do this with aoe taunt and guardianship/sonic wall. Actually would give some nice utility to tanks to give each one something similar to this for both pve and pvp. It wouldn't effect the tank thus not making them able to tank more in pve or pvp. But be able to mitigate some damage to the group in certain aspects. Maybe VG/PT deploys mini shields to group increasing his groupmates armor by a percent or value for 10 seconds. Shadows increase his groupmates awareness for 10 seconds increasing their defense by a percent/value. Guardians boost his teams morale increasing their healing received by a percent/value for 10 seconds.

Just spit balling these off top of my head. But would be cool to give a "buffing" component to tanks as well since this game doesn't really have a buffer type class really. Sort of hybridize, is that a word?, into the tank class a little.

About pt/vg tank, is this linked to spec?

I also wonder how these numbers are determined, given the floods of lolhybrids that have been around for quite some time.

We agree that Powertech/Vanguard sustained damage output currently lags a bit behind some of the better damage dealers in the game right now. We do not currently have any finalized plans to discuss in this regard, but in a future update, we are hoping to increase the sustained damage output of Pyrotech/Assault Specialist Powertechs/Vanguards, likely by giving a boost to the specialization’s periodic damage. Our end goal here is to provide Powertechs/Vanguards with a specialization that can provide competitive sustained damage to their operation groups.

Fair enough. More detail would have been nice, but we can live with this for now.

Although “hard crowd control” (stun and incapacitate effects) is a large component of playing a tank in PvP, we do not believe it is the only deciding factor. Certainly your example highlights that Powertechs/Vanguards have less crowd control over time than their tank counterparts, yet we do not believe this directly correlates to their overall power in PvP. In order to help express why we have this philosophy we want to show you the current win rates for all tank specializations. This data has been gathered over thousands of Warzone Arena matches since the launch of Game Update 2.6 in both solo and group ranked queue.

Powertech/Vanguard – 51.17%

Juggernaut/Guardian – 50.49%

Assassin/Shadow – 47.90%

If you look at the data you can see that the win rates of each tank are actually directly inverse to the amount of hard crowd control the class has. With this in mind we don’t necessarily believe that increasing or reducing a classes crowd control is the correct course of action to take at this time.

However, with that being said, we do have concerns about tanks in PvP. Players tend to feel that they are not as valuable as a pure DPS class or in some cases, even a hybrid tank/DPS. We are looking at ways to increase viability for all tanks in PvP. We don’t have specifics to announce at this moment but it is definitely something on our radar. In fact, this is definitely something we would love to see your feedback on. What could change, or be improved upon to increase desirability of pure tanks in PvP?

Solo ranked has zero correlation with competitive PvP. In fact, 90% of the solo arena games include people who are not wearing PvP gear, not augged or stimmed, and very frw people are even playing their class efficently. Any data collected from solo ranked is obsolete. Assassin/Shadow in particular has that largest number of casuals playing it, while it it the other way around for PT tanks and jugg in the middle. What is the percentages in competitive PvP (group ranked)? If they are the same, then we might agree that PT is okay or ahead. While it is good to present data, the data is not valid to derive any conclusions.

We generally agree that it does not feel right when things that are meant to make you better end up being more of a side-grade than an upgrade. For the Pyrotech/Assault Specialist, we can probably trade that 2% alacrity in Rapid Venting/Recharge for 2% ranged and tech critical chance in a future update.

For the Shield Tech/Specialist, we can probably reengineer it so that misses and resists will also trigger Shield Vents/Cycler and Hydraulic/Static Shield, but Heat/Power Screen already has another way to be triggered offensively in addition to triggering when an attack is shielded. So triggering Heat/Power Screen off of misses and resists might be taking this idea a bit too far – we will need to investigate it further before making a final call on that particular skill.

All of these changes could potentially come as early as the 2.8 update, but the community team will update you if that is not the case.

The 2% critic is awesome, but is probably too much. We do not want pyro to go to pre 2.0 era damage with the current survivability. It will become so OP and get nerfed the next patch. Accuracy maybe a better option here. It has no impact in PvP, and pyro surely does not need a buff there.

I also wonder how these numbers are determined, given the floods of lolhybrids that have been around for quite some time.

They said since 2.6 so the hybrid doesn't count for that.

Advanced Prototype is my second favorite spec in the game, but it's also one of the absolute worst in DPS - far behind Pyrotech - nothing for us?

The only thing that shield tech truly needs is better threat / damage. The other two tanks have extremely good threat generation, both of which are miles ahead of shield techs.

Immortal

Saber reflect - short cool down and reflected damage creates significant threat

Smash - High threat generation.

Sweeping slash - High threat generation

Bash - High threat generation

Intercede - single target threat dump

Assassin

Wither - high threat generation

Discharge - high threat generation

Autocrit Shock - High threat generation

Recklessness - crits for increased threat

Lacerate - spammable aoe filler.

Shield tech

Shoulder cannon - good threat generation but on a long cool down. Absolutely mandatory for opening on operations bosses. It has a healing mechanic attached to it which is wasted if your using it to hold threat in the opening pull.

Flame sweep - increased threat generation. Spamming it to hold aggro in raids will heat cap you stupid fast. It needs greater threat generation and its overall heat cost reduced to be more effective.

Ion gas discharge's shock effect - High threat generation and only only reliably procs on rocket punch.

I would like to see flame burst have increased threat generation.

So they admit PT/VG dps is low and they're hoping to improve one of the two dps specs in the future. Shouldn't they be planning to improve both specs if they admit that there's an issue? Also hoping implies making a change without really knowing what the effect will be but fingers crossed it's a positive one. I trust they know their game better than that.

Also on the tank in pvp question PT/VG win rate is best? Is this based on full tank spec or on stance since if it's stance then those numbers are skewed by the hybrid which was nerfed.

Changing alacrity boost for crit would be a positive. It's bad enough that stock gear has alacrity no need for it the pyro tree. Mercs can maybe use it but PTs have zero need for it.

Another set of lacklustre answers, imho. Only demonstrates that they really don't play/understand the game well enough to do their job well.

I suspect the team is spread too thin which maybe explains why recently with sage/sorc changes they used the PTS forum to have a dialog with the community about a specific change. Hopefully that experiment proves a success and future changes will follow that process for other classes. The players has a collective have many many thousands of hours of experience with the game which no developer could hope to match. A resource like that should be utilised not alienated.

What could change, or be improved upon to increase desirability of pure tanks in PvP?

My theories, broken out into a separate thread to avoid clutter: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7312702#post7312702

They said since 2.6 so the hybrid doesn't count for that.

Right, missed that detail. Thanks.

What could change, or be improved upon to increase desirability of pure tanks in PvP?

Honestly this is just something I remember from another MMO that I thought was extremely cool in PvP. It helped to give a pure tank control over the battlefield in PvP and keep opponents focused on himself.

The game Aion had a very unique AOE taunt system. Basically when cast 5 or 6 harpoons/grapples would shoot out around the tank and pull 5/6 enemies within "X" vicinity to himself. They would also suffer from slowed movement speed for 5 or 10 seconds. It made it very hard for people to simply ignore a pure tank on the battlefield because if left unchecked he could control the field of battle. It allowed the tank to break up the normal premade group assist trains you see out there today.

While I was not a fan of Aion I loved the way their tanks worked in PvP. Single target taunts would also force the target to attack the tank for 6 seconds before they could switch targets. Not sure if such a system would work in swtor and needless to say if implemented it should be at the top of the tank tree for balance purposes.

Pure tanks do zero damage and are often ignored completely. Borrowing from Aions tanking system would change that.

These answers were okay (certainly not the worst) but a bit disappointing. While the most lacking upfront, I think the answer to the first question was the best. They didn't whip out the old "well according to our metrics" response they usually do. I think this is progress in the form of more serious/sincere communication. That or they are just humouring us.

Second answer was okay but lacked explanation in the provided evidence. However, they commented on community suggestions and left it open for more community ideas so that's good. The third answer was the most disappointing to me as it translated to "instead of changing the alacrity stat to work better for all classes/specs we're just going to change the tree and avoid the larger problem." The suggestions and comments on the tanking tree were good.

Another set of lacklustre answers, imho. Only demonstrates that they really don't play/understand the game well enough to do their job well.

I think the main thing it demonstrates is that they are choosing their wording more carefully to prevent prodding the player base like they have in the past. The lack of details I believe is a side-effect of having to keep some things private to the team. You can hardly judge how good they are at their job by a few paragraphs on one of eight unique classes.

I also wonder how these numbers are determined, given the floods of lolhybrids that have been around for quite some time.

I assume they are looking at tanks that have the tank shield icon in group, meaning they have more points in the tank tree than anywhere else. Hybrid tanks usually have the DPS icon in group, since they have more points in the DPS tree. Also, as stated earlier, 2.6 has the hybrid nerf of the AP PT, so any 2.6 data collected from PTs will not skew the stats.

In order to help express why we have this philosophy we want to show you the current win rates for all tank specializations. This data has been gathered over thousands of Warzone Arena matches since the launch of Game Update 2.6 in both solo and group ranked queue.

 

Powertech/Vanguard – 51.17%

Juggernaut/Guardian – 50.49%

Assassin/Shadow – 47.90%

This is the right approach to answering class questions! Please continue to show us your hard data when you disagree with our perception of a class' performance. You can still show more data (solo and group win percent breakdowns), but I think everyone can agree that this is the right direction to go in for your answers.

What could change, or be improved upon to increase desirability of pure tanks in PvP?

Making crit damage (yellow damage) shieldable. I love my assassin tank, and I dislike playing deception (for playstyle reasons) and madness (for obvious DPS reasons, though I'd play this spec in a heartbeat if it was fixed). Currently, I've been playing tank spec with DPS gear, cause I feel that's the only way I can be viable, especially when guarding something.

This is the right approach to answering class questions! Please continue to show us your hard data when you disagree with our perception of a class' performance. You can still show more data (solo and group win percent breakdowns), but I think everyone can agree that this is the right direction to go in for your answers.

It is defiantly good they are telling us were they are collecting their data. And we know its wrong.. Solo que has no correlation of competitive PvP or how classes are performing what so ever. I hope that the balance changes for any class and/or spec are not even remotely based on solo que.

Making crit damage (yellow damage) shieldable. I love my assassin tank, and I dislike playing deception (for playstyle reasons) and madness (for obvious DPS reasons, though I'd play this spec in a heartbeat if it was fixed). Currently, I've been playing tank spec with DPS gear, cause I feel that's the only way I can be viable, especially when guarding something.

Non-crit damage is often yellow as well. Yellow is simply force/tech, which is often shieldable (anything that isn't internal/elemental). Making crit damage shieldable would help, but wouldn't be enough. Also, it would alter the balance of DPS classes oriented around auto-crit attacks.

Making crit damage (yellow damage) shieldable. I love my assassin tank, and I dislike playing deception (for playstyle reasons) and madness (for obvious DPS reasons, though I'd play this spec in a heartbeat if it was fixed). Currently, I've been playing tank spec with DPS gear, cause I feel that's the only way I can be viable, especially when guarding something.

Yellow damage is form Force/tech attacks not crits, force/tech damage is also shieldable and has been since 2.0:

Personal shield generators are now effective against all attacks that deal Energy and Kinetic Damage, rather than just direct weapon attacks.

Non-crit damage is often yellow as well. Yellow is simply force/tech, which is often shieldable (anything that isn't internal/elemental). Making crit damage shieldable would help, but wouldn't be enough. Also, it would alter the balance of DPS classes oriented around auto-crit attacks.

Ah interesting point.

It's interesting though, in many games, it would seem people always tend to gravitate towards classes or specs or attacks that have a larger chance to miss, but hit harder, and when faced against a class (etc) that is more defensive, it would seem that RNG favours the harder hitting more missing thing.

I'd certainly ponder internal tests that would take into account shielding crit damage.

The only thing that shield tech truly needs is better threat / damage. The other two tanks have extremely good threat generation, both of which are miles ahead of shield techs.

 

Immortal

 

Saber reflect - short cool down and reflected damage creates significant threat

Smash - High threat generation.

Sweeping slash - High threat generation

Bash - High threat generation

Intercede - single target threat dump

 

Assassin

 

Wither - high threat generation

Discharge - high threat generation

Autocrit Shock - High threat generation

Recklessness - crits for increased threat

Lacerate - spammable aoe filler.

 

Shield tech

 

Shoulder cannon - good threat generation but on a long cool down. Absolutely mandatory for opening on operations bosses. It has a healing mechanic attached to it which is wasted if your using it to hold threat in the opening pull.

Flame sweep - increased threat generation. Spamming it to hold aggro in raids will heat cap you stupid fast. It needs greater threat generation and its overall heat cost reduced to be more effective.

Ion gas discharge's shock effect - High threat generation and only only reliably procs on rocket punch.

 

I would like to see flame burst have increased threat generation.

Negative this area is more or less a waste of time for the devs to look at as there is not a dire disparity as you claim. Your list is mostly comparing apples to oranges, but you left out the most important threat options a powertech has to begin with ( Explosive fuel being one of them, also flame thrower is one of the most important threat abilities single target and aoe, rather than just spamming flame sweep (compare flame sweep to the aoe filler of the other classes like sweeping slash and lacerate- I don't see how you can consider lacerate "spammable" and flame sweep not [neither are really spammable]). Remember most of the damage is elemental (armor ignoring) so it has it's advantages and probably why there isn't a lot of "high threat" attached to abilities.

As for opening with shoulder cannon- you can look at the bright side as healing will give you extra threat. Except for bosses like nefra where the first attack doesn't happen until a few seconds after you pull (heh probably a good thing so you don't get one shotted if your co-tank doesn't land the exact second you do) most of it actually does become effective heals (not needed effective heals obviously because nobody's really taken damage at that point, but it does add up for your extra threat.) As for the survival part if you die before the next time shoulder cannon is available... meaning kolto overload and your energy shield didn't save you... shoulder cannon wasn't going to save you anyway.

I compared threat (on even grounds) between my powertech and my assassin tank on this thread here. It is hard to say which tank could possibly be ahead in threat, but despite what the conversation ended up being it was mostly to prove that there isn't a large difference between the two opening on a boss fight to where it's fair to say that if an Assassin can hold threat opening on a boss then so could a powertech.http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=724768&page=3

For tank dps it was discussed in this thread http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=724296&page=11 Where several people compared their dps on their tank (without any kind of dps gear stim etc) on nefra to see if there was a large difference between the dps of the three tanks. No serious disparity found once again.

In short damage and threat of a Powertech tank in PVE isn't what needs to be looked at further, other things like a force/tech cooldown may be argued, or changes for other specs of the class etc would be a more valuable use of everybody's time.

but in a future update, we are hoping to increase the sustained damage output of Pyrotech/Assault Specialist Powertechs/Vanguards, likely by giving a boost to the specialization’s periodic damage.

Maybe just revert the nerfs you did to the periodic damage?

Good answers overall though!

Hilarious.

I have all 3 tanks. I run all the PvE content. Its not apples to oranges at all. Tanking is a universal concept.

Operations mob pull -> Initiate attack then spam as much aoe as possible and offset with taunts and cc. Your goal is to hold as much of the adds as possible for as long as possible. Bad tanks can't hold threat worth ****.

Boss pull -> Initiate high single target threat attacks as DPS will always be popping their DPS cool downs immediately.

Assassins and Jugs have a much easier time holding threat in both single target and group situations. That isn't debatable.. its fact!

Flame sweep is inferior to lacerate and sweeping slash.

A) flame sweep = 25 heat cost. 2 free charges.. this gives you 3 - 4 before you have to start thinking about heat management.

B) Powertechs heat regeneration mechanic is not static. You must keep your heat in the 5 regeneration tier or your threat will suffer later on.

Assassins regenerate force at a very high rate compared to powertechs. They also have a reduction in force cost for lacerate. This makes lacerate spamable. Jugs are identical in this regard also. Sweeping slash is a lot cheaper than Powertechs flames sweep. It can be spammed and it generates really good threat to boot.

We agree that Powertech/Vanguard sustained damage output currently lags a bit behind some of the better damage dealers in the game right now. We do not currently have any finalized plans to discuss in this regard, but in a future update, we are hoping to increase the sustained damage output of Pyrotech/Assault Specialist Powertechs/Vanguards, likely by giving a boost to the specialization’s periodic damage. Our end goal here is to provide Powertechs/Vanguards with a specialization that can provide competitive sustained damage to their operation groups.

Why is only one of the two underpowered specs in question getting a PvE buff?

Although “hard crowd control” (stun and incapacitate effects) is a large component of playing a tank in PvP, we do not believe it is the only deciding factor. Certainly your example highlights that Powertechs/Vanguards have less crowd control over time than their tank counterparts, yet we do not believe this directly correlates to their overall power in PvP. In order to help express why we have this philosophy we want to show you the current win rates for all tank specializations. This data has been gathered over thousands of Warzone Arena matches since the launch of Game Update 2.6 in both solo and group ranked queue.

 

Powertech/Vanguard – 51.17%

Juggernaut/Guardian – 50.49%

Assassin/Shadow – 47.90%

 

If you look at the data you can see that the win rates of each tank are actually directly inverse to the amount of hard crowd control the class has. With this in mind we don’t necessarily believe that increasing or reducing a classes crowd control is the correct course of action to take at this time.

 

However, with that being said, we do have concerns about tanks in PvP. Players tend to feel that they are not as valuable as a pure DPS class or in some cases, even a hybrid tank/DPS. We are looking at ways to increase viability for all tanks in PvP. We don’t have specifics to announce at this moment but it is definitely something on our radar. In fact, this is definitely something we would love to see your feedback on. What could change, or be improved upon to increase desirability of pure tanks in PvP?

If given the data you have access to, there's a good chance I could prove those percent win differentials are statistically insignificant. Nothing wrong with citing metrics, but the fact that this post did also not go in-depth into the strengths and weaknesses of PT tanks in PvP compared to the other 2 tanks is troubling. PT tank is not awful, but there's not much reason to take it over the other 2 tanks. Yes you can do well with it, but if you're maximizing your arena comp... it'd be cool if there was more of a unique reason you might want a PT tank over something else.