So, I'm not 100% convinced that just changing FB to give a 4% DR buff is going to be sufficient to fix the spikiness. You're basically talking about dropping the post-mitigation Terminate from 32k to about 30k. That's still nearly an insta-gib, and no-where near the paltry 22k that Guardians/Vanguards have to eat (assuming the Guardians don't Saber Reflect it, which they can do reliably). I mean, a 4% DR buff rather than an accuracy debuff *helps*, but it's not going to be too significant.

It's significant enough that it prevents spikiness from being an absolute killer. The idea isn't to make Shadows as stable as Guardians or VGs. The idea is to bring Shadow spikiness down so that it's where it *should* be, if you're considering the tanks within a well balanced state. Dropping the big hit from 32.5k to 30.5k means that it's still going to be a big spike, but it's a *lot* less likely to be an insta-gib.

One thing that BioWare *could* consider is removing the defense buff from Shadow Sight and pushing up the proposed DR buff on FB by a bit more.

Conversely, they could just change Shadowsight to provide 15% additional armor while in Combat Technique (would probably require a rename of the talent), while shifting the 2% resistance chance somewhere else, like Mind Over Matter (always just remove it entirely, with the logic that Resilience largely renders the 2% redundant). Another ~1.5% DR would reduce the damage from Terminate to 29.5k, which is pretty tolerable. We're never going to get to the 22k the other tanks get, so you have to ask yourself where exactly "good enough" is. Personally, I think the Force Breach change alone is the point of "good enough".

One random idea that I had is a proc tied to damage taken within a short timeframe.

A simpler solution might just be to have a passive effect that provides a chunk of DR (20-30%) while you're below a certain level of hp (like, say, 10, 15, or 20%). Shadow average mitigation would go *way* up, but only when you're at the point where you're liable to die from the slightest blow.

Another not entirely *novel* idea would be to have a scaling multiplicative DR buff (so that its contribution is static rather than increasing) based upon your current hp while you are in Combat Technique (either apply it as a static benefit of Combat Technique or make/attach it to a talent). As your HP drops, you simply start taking less damage so that, if you survive a blow, you're not going to be taken down by a similar lucky blow soon after. City of Heroes used the exact same effect for the Super Reflexes defense powerset (think of a tank that only survives by the prolific use of Defense chance with no Shield or DR). It was discovered very quickly that SR players, while having appropriate average mitigation that was actually slightly higher than average, had explicitly sub-par actual survival (you know, like how Shadows are now) due to having grievous weakness to RNG. The sliding multiplicative DR did an excellent job of maintaining their spikiness while simultaneously dropping their susceptibility to bad RNG and spike damage to a reasonable level.

To be honest, talking about low level AoE threat seems really redundant... Guardian's only get Force Sweep until level 30. That's it. Meanwhile Vanguards are rocking Mortar Volley and Pulse Cannon from level 10.

Low level mitigation (which is largely armor until the mid to late 30s) is where a change from -5% accuracy to some degree of flat DR would be really helpful. Similarly if it helps reduce spikiness at endgame that's even better (and really the reason it is discussed here).

Personally I viewed Smoke Grenade/Riot Gas as a weak CD (a characteristic of Vanguard CDs) rather than an accuracy debuff despite its mean contribution being fairly similar to the flat 5% the other tanks provided.

To be honest, I don't see why you are so opposed to a change that may adjust the Shadow 'rotation' so long as it doesn't affect the core play style. Moving Force Breach up the priority chain makes sense to me and giving Shadows another proc feeds into their complex play style that most Shadow tanks love. Also, to be perfectly honest, it wouldn't really make it more complex, it would just result in another buff on the portrait. Much in the same way that Guardian Slash changes didn't make Guardian tanking more complicated despite the added proc.

Personally, when I look at the problem I don't try and find a quick stop gap fix. If you're going to change something look at completely redesigning it to fit what you actually want. I've always found Force Breach to be lacking beyond putting out that accuracy debuff since its threat generation is so low compared to the other options. I'd like to see it actually be more useful or at least a higher priority ability. This has the added benefit of reducing the threat gap between Shadows and the other 2 tanks if Shadows end up using FB more frequently and I think we can all agree that Shadow threat is much better than the others.

It does seem worth noting as well, that adjusting FB to give flat DR instead of negative accuracy is a straight buff for Shadows that run with Guardian co-tanks, which all 3 of us already agree is the best tanking combo. Would adjusting 3x HS TkT to give flat DR (say 1% per stack for 10 seconds or 10% per stack for 3s**) instead of self healing (or reduced self healing) be a palatable solution?

** Those are just vague figures for conceptual purposes not values I am actually suggesting be used.

To be honest, talking about low level AoE threat seems really redundant... Guardian's only get Force Sweep until level 30. That's it. Meanwhile Vanguards are rocking Mortar Volley and Pulse Cannon from level 10.

Force Sweep compared to Force Breach is a comparison that is *vastly* in favor of Guardians. Force Breach is utterly terrible, and we're talking about it *with* the 15% additional damage from Force Break. I've leveled all 3 tanks as tank specs and the Shadow and Sin were, by far, the worst at low levels, both due to terrible mitigation as well as utterly abysmal AoE threat generation.

Personally, when I look at the problem I don't try and find a quick stop gap fix.

Changing Force Breach to provide 4% DR instead of a 5% acc debuff isn't a stopgap. It's the most simple, elegant fix possible. It doesn't attempt to rebuild stuff that's already working perfectly fine. You're not attempting to fix Shadow tank spikiness, which is an explicit problem, with your suggested Force Breach changes. You're attempting to fix some perceived flaw in Force Breach itself, of which there is really no support beyond your own opinions.

Personally, I think Force Breach is working absolutely perfectly. I've got no problem with an ability being reserved purely for a debuff and AoE scenarios. There are already enough abilities in the Shadow rotation that it doesn't need to be messed with just because someone (and I think you're the only person I've ever talked with) has a problem with Force Breach not being up-to-snuff or interesting enough for you.

It also doesn't help that you're suggesting Force Breach be rebuilt only 2 months after it was already rebuilt. Force Breach was rebuilt for Shadow tanks because, on a 15 second CD, it was *completely worthless*. Now, it's a fundamental part of the AoE rotation. That was all that was needed to fix it within the confines of its use. It doesn't need to be changed. It's working perfectly fine.

It does seem worth noting as well, that adjusting FB to give flat DR instead of negative accuracy is a straight buff for Shadows that run with Guardian co-tanks, which all 3 of us already agree is the best tanking combo. Would adjusting 3x HS TkT to give flat DR (say 1% per stack for 10 seconds or 10% per stack for 3s**) instead of self healing (or reduced self healing) be a palatable solution?

Your suggestion ignores the fact that the reason why the proposal removes the accuracy debuff isn't just for lols. It's because there needs to be an explicit reduction in mitigation to make up for the proposed increase. Some amount of Defense, Shield, and/or Absorb needs to be removed to make up for the commensurate increase in damage reduction.

Unless you can find some other substantial source of variable damage mitigation that can be removed without angering Shadows throughout the game, the removal off the acc debuff to make up for any added DR is pretty much the only solution: any other source of sufficient variable mitigation you could remove is pretty much guaranteed to draw the ire of the Shadow tanking community, even if it *does* solve the problem.

I have to thank many of the contributors in this thread for taking the effort and time to brainstorm some excellent ideas. Please find below some info from my PTS thread where there is extensive proof that shadows really need to have a look at.

If anyone is disputing the OPs statement you need to look at these graphs.

 

Damage taken by our BiS shadow tank on writhing horror TFB 16man NiM

http://www.torparse.com/a/256936/43/0/Damage+Taken

 

Damage taken after he switched to his guardian tank

http://www.torparse.com/a/257101/23/0/Damage+Taken

 

The difference in total damage taken shows shadows take less total damage. However, the reason we switched to guardian is explained when you look at the shadows spike damage 10+ over 20K hits. The guardian has a few just over 15K, and the gear was nowhere near as good as his main shadow.

 

So anyone disputing this fact is making themselves look silly. It is doable with a shadow but far harder and susceptible to RNG.

Some numbers from the Shadow log :

01:07:46.118 359s Angry Spittle 25626 kinetic No The Writhing Horror

vs.

Guardian numbers :

23:00:56.793 1s Nasty Bite 17091 energy No The Writhing Horror

Changing Force Breach to provide 4% DR instead of a 5% acc debuff isn't a stopgap. It's the most simple, elegant fix possible. It doesn't attempt to rebuild stuff that's already working perfectly fine

As a tankasin that plays PVP, I am not sure to welcome this change. My purpose is mostly to prevent my healers from being melted by the opposing team, so the accuracy debuff is quite important to me.

It depends on how the DR would work once applied thought.

Don't get me wrong either, I don't do endgame PVE but I absolutely feel the spikyness in PVP as well, especially compared to my PT.

As a tankasin that plays PVP, I am not sure to welcome this change. My purpose is mostly to prevent my healers from being melted by the opposing team, so the accuracy debuff is quite important to me.

It depends on how the DR would work once applied thought.

 

Don't get me wrong either, I don't do endgame PVE but I absolutely feel the spikyness in PVP as well, especially compared to my PT.

The usefulness of a 5% accuracy debuff in PvP is really minimal. Gear tend to provide enough accuracy so that this debuff doesn't hinder even a second. The only time a 5% accuracy debuff bothered me was when I played a Sorcerer, because there was no accuracy on their gear.

Even against a DPS with lots of accuracy, reducing armour penetration is still valuable. Imagine, I can even bother a group of up to 5 sorcerers

Anyway, that's not really the point. If the DR we're talking about works for the tank only, then however minimal the impact is, I still loose a tool to help fulfill my mission in pvp : reduce incoming damage for the entire team

Even against a DPS with lots of accuracy, reducing armour penetration is still valuable.

Accuracy doesn't get transferred into arpen. It never has on live and likely never will. The only time it behaved as such was for a *very* short time in beta. When the game was released, some people read the tooltip about accuracy reducing defense as reducing armor when "defense" refers exclusively to "defense chance", i.e. miss chance.

There's a reason why redundant accuracy is considered redundant. It literally does *nothing* beyond making sure you have a 100% chance to hit, and, as previously mentioned, 5% accuracy isn't going to do much against that.

The other problem with moving FB up (or to a more 'necessary' position in the rotation) is that it's not intelligent. If something's CCd, FB will destroy that. Any solution that requires more frequent use of FB means we're going to potentially cause more problems with those situations.

Moving it up the priority chain has no effect on this. If you can't use FB currently (due to CC) you lose 5% effective defence. If it applies to another form of DR at the same overall contribution then there is no difference if you use it every 6-8 seconds or every 15 w.r.t. CC. Note that I also suggested making it a smart AoE. Compare it to Force Sweep which also applies an accuracy debuff, is player targeted and only 5m range. This is very simple to use around CCed mobs while FB is 10m range and hits up to 4 other mobs within 10m of the targeted mob, its basically unusable around CCed mobs.

Changing Force Breach to provide 4% DR instead of a 5% acc debuff isn't a stopgap. It's the most simple, elegant fix possible. It doesn't attempt to rebuild stuff that's already working perfectly fine. You're not attempting to fix Shadow tank spikiness, which is an explicit problem, with your suggested Force Breach changes. You're attempting to fix some perceived flaw in Force Breach itself, of which there is really no support beyond your own opinions.

Its certainly simple but it has more complicated repercussions. Shadows running with a Guardian lose nothing (the -5% accuracy is still there) and gain +4% DR. It also (IMO) feels shoe horned since its 4% whereas most other buffs, debuffs or talents work in 1%, 2% or 5%. If it was a 2 point talent that added 2% DR per point when using FB that would feel more elegant but making it a baseline property of FB (like it currently is) feels messy at 4%.

Your suggestion ignores the fact that the reason why the proposal removes the accuracy debuff isn't just for lols. It's because there needs to be an explicit reduction in mitigation to make up for the proposed increase. Some amount of Defense, Shield, and/or Absorb needs to be removed to make up for the commensurate increase in damage reduction.

 

Unless you can find some other substantial source of variable damage mitigation that can be removed without angering Shadows throughout the game, the removal off the acc debuff to make up for any added DR is pretty much the only solution: any other source of sufficient variable mitigation you could remove is pretty much guaranteed to draw the ire of the Shadow tanking community, even if it *does* solve the problem.

Every suggestion I've made involved trading RNG based DR for flat DR either on a permanent basis or as an active choice. You don't need to convince me that the change has to keep mean mitigation the same, I don't want a flat buff to Shadows. I like my Guardian tank and the balance between tanks where it is. I don't want to go back to the pre-2.0 situation where taking my Shadow to a raid was clearly better than bringing my Guardian in almost every way.

However, as I said above, changing the 5% accuracy debuff to a flat (and Shadow only) buff to DR is a straight reduction in damage taken for Shadows that run with a Guardian co-tank (almost universally agreed as the best combo) and a flat increase in damage taken for Vanguards that run with a Shadow co-tank. VGs are already the red headed step children, do you want to kick them while they're down? In a HM FP (or when comparing tanks in isolation) that is a non-issue but when you start looking at a raid environment those things need to be considered.

If you remove the -5% accuracy debuff in favor of a flat DR buff the -5% damage debuff should also be removed and Shadows should be given a unique debuff on Slow Time. Just off the top of my head:

- Friendly targets affected by your Slow Time receive X% more healing from all sources for Y seconds.

- Attacking a target affected by Slow Time causes you (read anyone) to heal for X% of the damage dealt.

- Targets affected by Slow Time gain -5% alacrity.

First 2 options suit Shadows and their self healing while still providing a unique benefit to the raid either through a source of 'self' healing for all tanks and DPS or increased healing received for the melee scrum. The 3rd option is interesting, it reduces the damage taken across the whole fight by slowing the swing timer (aka. slowing time) and gives the healers a little more reaction time. Of course, that only really works if bosses use a similar GCD mechanic to players. Depending on how the boss mechanics are coded it may have negligible effect on total damage taken (only slows the basic attack types) or if they are programmed as a chain (Styrak and TFB appear to be like this) it would reduce the damage taken by slowing the rate at which the chain is completed. Changing out both buffs would also allow you to bump that flat DR from the proposed FB change which also helps lower level Shadows.

Having 3 distinct tank debuffs may (although probably wont) also encourage 16 man raids to bring a 3rd tank/offtank. Presumably the setup would be a Shadow actively tanking with a Guardian or Vanguard co-tank, then either a Vanguard or Guardian DPS with the appropriate debuff specced. Further the debuffs suit the tanks:

- Vanguards are (atleast intended to be) the least spiky and they make their co-tank less spiky.

- Guardian are the defence tanks and they boost their co-tanks defence.

- Shadows are the mean mitigation/self healing tanks and they would boost their co-tanks healing, give them a degree of self healing or reduce their damage taken over time.

If you remove the -5% accuracy debuff in favor of a flat DR buff the -5% damage debuff should also be removed and Shadows should be given a unique debuff on Slow Time.

I actually spent some time thinking about this on my own. After reading yours, I couldn't really agree on any of them, mainly because they either disproportionately advantage DPS (free healing based on DPS or any kind of "heal on hit" is going to provide more or as much to DPS as it does to tanks and, since DPS take less damage, it'll disproportionately benefit them), don't affect all targets of the bosses attacks (increased healing on allies within the Slow Time area would only benefit a comparatively small number of allies and actually stands a pretty good chance of not affecting the tank at all, if they're 10m tanking or fighting a large model boss, where they're not standing within 4m of the model's center), or have a questionable effect (I'm not even sure NPCs are *affected* by alacrity or use a GCD such that an alac debuff would actually affect their outgoing damage).

The most workable solution, in my opinion (and it actually follows the theme you brought up, which was also something I came up with as I was thinking it through; great minds and whatnot), is to have Slow Time place a debuff on the target that whenever the target deals damage to a target, it heals the target for X amount (with an ICD of 4.5 seconds or so). This way, it would only affect allies on a per attack basis (like the -dam and -acc do) and would affect *all* targets (like the -dam and -acc do). It would also provide a specific tangible effect that fits in with how Shadows operate. Either that or have the debuff cause the target to provide a 5% healing received buff for ~3 seconds upon being hit, to allow it to scale better.

I actually spent some time thinking about this on my own. After reading yours, I couldn't really agree on any of them, mainly because they either disproportionately advantage DPS (free healing based on DPS or any kind of "heal on hit" is going to provide more or as much to DPS as it does to tanks and, since DPS take less damage, it'll disproportionately benefit them), don't affect all targets of the bosses attacks (increased healing on allies within the Slow Time area would only benefit a comparatively small number of allies and actually stands a pretty good chance of not affecting the tank at all, if they're 10m tanking or fighting a large model boss, where they're not standing within 4m of the model's center), or have a questionable effect (I'm not even sure NPCs are *affected* by alacrity or use a GCD such that an alac debuff would actually affect their outgoing damage).

 

The most workable solution, in my opinion (and it actually follows the theme you brought up, which was also something I came up with as I was thinking it through; great minds and whatnot), is to have Slow Time place a debuff on the target that whenever the target deals damage to a target, it heals the target for X amount (with an ICD of 4.5 seconds or so). This way, it would only affect allies on a per attack basis (like the -dam and -acc do) and would affect *all* targets (like the -dam and -acc do). It would also provide a specific tangible effect that fits in with how Shadows operate. Either that or have the debuff cause the target to provide a 5% healing received buff for ~3 seconds upon being hit, to allow it to scale better.

The alacrity debuff is really only applicable if bosses and mobs are subject to the same effect as players, that is, an increased GCD and cast time. If the attacks are programmed in a chain (a -> b -> a -> a -> c -> repeat) the net effect is essentially 5% less damage taken on the whole fight but if they are programmed as a priority string with variable CDs it won't have much of an effect on total damage. Heavy hitters will hit with the same frequency but there will be fewer 'basic' attacks in between. It was more a 'thinking outside the box' thing.

I had the exact same thought on the % of damage dealt as healing. I was thinking ballpark figure of 1% which would give the best DPS in the game 30 HPS and the average tank ~10 HPS. I thought about making it a % of threat generated which would even the field a lot more (20-25 HPS would be about average) but you'd have to discount taunt from that option, free arbitrarily large heal, off the GCD with a 15s CD? yes please

The healing increase buff on Slow Time I was thinking anything within the animation (which scaled with mob size) but after further though on the way the game deals with ranges, especially on larger mobs, I don't know how well it could be implemented. While the increased healing on being hit and small heal on damage taken are mechanically closer to ideal than my thoughts they just seem somewhat counter intuitive, I just can't see a 'real world' (or sci-fi or fantasy) analogue that would cause someone to heal me when they hit me. That said, there are other things that just don't make sense when compared to real world... like the entire tanking/threat concept.

Another option might be the reset of Battle Readiness and/or Deflection when we exit combat or enter stealth

I know you're talking about PvE tanking, but this would destroy PvP. I highly doubt this would be put into the game.

The alacrity debuff is really only applicable if bosses and mobs are subject to the same effect as players, that is, an increased GCD and cast time. If the attacks are programmed in a chain (a -> b -> a -> a -> c -> repeat) the net effect is essentially 5% less damage taken on the whole fight but if they are programmed as a priority string with variable CDs it won't have much of an effect on total damage. Heavy hitters will hit with the same frequency but there will be fewer 'basic' attacks in between. It was more a 'thinking outside the box' thing.

Hilariously, Slow Time was *originally* an alacrity debuff. It wasn't redesigned until somewhere in the 1.1 timeframe (just a bit before, I think). It did affect NPCs, which was nice, though obviously it didn't at the time change anything about instants (which is part of why it was redesigned).

Given the incredibly low swing timers on every boss except Tu'chuk, I really don't think an alacrity debuff would have a particularly noticeable impact on survivability. Most major swing timers are in the 0.5/sec range. An alacrity debuff drops this to 0.475/sec. While it's *technically* a DtPS improvement of 5%, it probably wouldn't be noticed as such. Rather, the fact that the hits come at a substantially higher magnitude (having lost the 5% DR debuff) would translate into higher shadow spikiness, defeating the purpose of the entire redesign.

One reason why this shouldn't be tied to Force Breach is situations where there are CC'd mobs mixed in with the rest - for example the Underworld Arms Traders in the S&V trash packs -- and if I do have to AE taunt, I really don't want to be taking even more spike damage that will chew up my remaining KW charges AND leave me without this proposed buff, either in Kitru's form or the stacking form proposed by Keyboardninja and Grallmate.

Well, in those selfsame situations right now, you'd doing it without the 5% acc debuff so there would be no change under the conditions you outline: you're not benefiting from the de/buff either way. At least with the changes we're recommending, you would benefit from the effect if you're using on targets that aren't CCd when you inevitably break the CC, along with the benefits of reduced spikiness: just pull the remaining enemies away from the CCd targets (which is what I'm always used to doing) and then let loose with the AoE.

A few ideas:

- Make each stack of harnessed shadows increase DR by 2%

- When accelerated project hits something, next attack is guaranteed to be shielded or could add a 6 sec boost to shield chance (10 - 20%)?

- every time an attack is defended, DR is increased by 1%, max of 5%.

- Procced shadow strike reduces damage of next incoming attack by 25%

It seems like making shadows less spiky involves a simple change of: increase DR by 10 -20% or increase absorb by a similar amount, or the complex methods of interweaving buffs and procs in the style that a skilled shadow tank will be able to utilise these buffs to provide a higher mitigation on select attacks.

An example could be:

When an accelerated project inflicts damage on a target affected by slow time and force breach it has a 30% chance to create an outer ring of kinetic ward that further increases shield chance for 20% over the next 6 attacks and provides the same kinetic bulwark effect of 1% increased absorb per shielded attack until the 6 charges are consumed. Can only be used while enemy is taunted.

The above example is not very good, and I think that stems from the fact that shadows have no short term debuffs to place on an enemy that can be utilised in order to allow a skilled player to maximise mitigation at their discretion. At the moment it's "an attack is coming that will cause my health pool grief if I don't shield or defend against it, pop deflection" whereas it should be "I see what you are doing there you sneaky boss person you, that attack is going to suck so I will perform this chain of abilities to make me take considerably less damage". But we don't actually have any debuffs that run out before they come off CD so any debuff related procs are just going off RNG as opposed to highly skilled playing. Maybe change force breach to a 6s debuff and create something like a Procced shadow strike on a force breach effected target gives an increase in some mitigation stat, or further decreases the enemies accuracy by a certain amount.

As you can probably tell, I am making all of this up as I go, so I'm not even sure if it is coherent. The ideas might be useful though

TBH I thought you were crazy when you said that high stat gear was BiS because I have always been under the assumption that High end gear with stat augs was the way to go. That way you get a healthy balance between health and mitigation, but I've noticed while getting my 72's I've been trading defense for Abs and health and it makes me feel real squishy. I might actually pick up the high stat mantra (maybe if i get around to regearing). But i do have to say that if i didn't have all this hp terminate would 1 shot me 100% of the time unless i had a CD running, and thrasher could probably 2-3 shot depending on unlucky rng with those 15k swipes.

I think having a skill like you said that turns giant hits into dots would be amazing, like any attack over Xk damage is turned into a dot. That shouldn't be hard to balance because you really aren't adding to their defensive ability, just making them a little smoother on the healing stage

Just tacking onto my last post, another thought occurred to me.

What if refreshing kinetic ward while you had the accelerated project buff up made the next 2 attacks deal 50% damage but the kinetic ward only had 5 stacks or so due to the other 10 being used to decrease the damage done? Something like that where you choose which is more applicable? Using the procs that you get combined with other abilities consumes those procs in a similar fashion to conveyance on sages.

how about fixing it from the Healer Side instead,

something like Trauma probe working only on unshielded Hits and gets stronger the bigger the hit has been. perhaps remove (tweak) the lockout time and Hp it heals for

Shouldn't that give some really nice synergy as well as giving Commandos something really unique without breaking the "I'm just doing my job" feeling they have now no fancy golden cycles no dust clouds and giggles nothing you'd ever notice until its gone that is.

Edit: and (accidentally) deal with the Shadow spikiness Problem as long as there's a Commando Heal

I wouldn't want a changed play style... again... on jet another shadow spec this time my main spec.

the changes to kinetic made it so that the spec performs best when played like one might expect from reading the ability&talent descriptions leave it exactly where it is!

changing the buff from Accuracy to DR would be nice but make the Guardian + Shadow combo even stronger

also would/should it work with two shadows and give a doubled benefit?

it would also decrease spikiness for everybody not just the shadow himself but I think most of us agree the others are just fine (I think so from a Scoundrel healers Perspective anyway)

how about translating 50% of our defence chance into DR it would mean that for us unlike everybody else Defence affects F/T as well as M/R you could perhaps even make it a baseline Consular Passive

After gearing my Juggernaut to 66/69 level armoring and mods I can say with absolute certainty that Assassin tanking is just ****.

I am tired of repair bills because of mobs of more than 3 killing me in 3 seconds, even with every cooldown and a stim popped.

My jugg can do things at a lower gear level than my sin still can and my sin has almost complete 72 level gear. I am retiring that toon until something is done.

- Make each stack of harnessed shadows increase DR by 2%

HS stacks are actively consumed in order to generate a substantial portion of our threat and maintain resource efficiency (just look at the comparative costs of everything else we use with the exception of TkT; we get terrible ratios of damage-to-resource because TkT is so friggin' efficient and amazing), not to mention how much it affects our total self healing. By doing this, you'd essentially be telling Shadows to *never* use TkT, which is a *terrible* idea.

- When accelerated project hits something, next attack is guaranteed to be shielded or could add a 6 sec boost to shield chance (10 - 20%)?

Boosting Shield chance, unless it's to 100%, won't reduce spikiness effectively because the problem isn't when Shadows *do* Shield an attack; the problem is when we *don't* (even if we had a 95% chance to dodge or shield an attack; with so little flat DR, in the given content design paradigm, spikiness would still be a problem thanks to the single big hits that go out; the big hits are simply coin flips of doom for Shadows). Doing it for only a single attack won't do it as well, since it would almost *assuredly* get eaten by a basic attack rather than the intended big attack.

- every time an attack is defended, DR is increased by 1%, max of 5%.

This *could* work, but the lack of player control over the effect is worrisome. For comparison, look at Power Screen for VGs: it procs off of Shield *or* Ion Cell proc. It would be better if this effect activated upon any defend or shield (since Shadows have massive Shield, it's kind of antithetical to ignore Shield chance for such an effect) as well as any Combat Technique proc (or critical hit with Project). Hell, you could tie it to any instance of a Shadow healing themselves (i.e. CT proc, HS TkT use, etc.). *That* would be both thematically appropriate (healing yourself makes you tougher) and mechanically interesting.

- Procced shadow strike reduces damage of next incoming attack by 25%

The same thing applies to this as applies to your idea for increased Shield chance on the next attack. Single attack effects like this wouldn't reliably fix the spikiness problem.

It seems like making shadows less spiky involves a simple change of: increase DR by 10 -20% or increase absorb by a similar amount

Increasing absorb is *not* going to make Shadow tanks less spiky. As I said before, the risk to Shadows isn't how *common* spikes are. It's their *magnitude*. Also, unless you're referencing increasing DR as a percentage of the current percentage mitigation (which is a strange way to reference it), 10-20% is *way* too much. Even then, the sweet spot is 4% DR or thereabouts. The 7% you indicate with your "increase by 20%" would be *way* too much.

When an accelerated project inflicts damage on a target affected by slow time and force breach it has a 30% chance to create an outer ring of kinetic ward that further increases shield chance for 20% over the next 6 attacks and provides the same kinetic bulwark effect of 1% increased absorb per shielded attack until the 6 charges are consumed. Can only be used while enemy is taunted.

That effect is almost ludicrously overcomplicated. First off, you're requiring 4 separate effects: taunt (which can't be maintained constantly and, in any fight with a tank swap, *shouldn't*), Particle Acceleration, Slow Time, *and* Force Breach (the last of which means that you'd have a hard time using this in any fight with CC). The requirement of the taunt is, by far, the most inane of all of those. The devs learned a lot from requiring the Sunder effect for Guardian Slash/Plasma Brand: it doesn't work out well, especially when you're trying to make it a fundamental aspect of the class (which is what you're trying to do here).

I'll mention it again here, providing partial Shield and Absorb increases *does not* reduce spikiness effectively. The only effective measures are either increases of Shield chance to 100% (such that you *can't* not Shield and thereby cause the worst case to just be a manageable Shield), increases to DR (such that, when you *do* take damage, you take less, so the worst case isn't as bad), or some kind of substantial absorb shield that can be used on a short CD that allows you to soak additional damage when you need to (self healing isn't so important as it being an absorb shield, since self healing is *after* the fact and absorb shields are before; the problem isn't generally recovering from spike damage; it's the spike damage or the couple attacks immediately after killing the Shadow tank).

But i do have to say that if i didn't have all this hp terminate would 1 shot me 100% of the time unless i had a CD running, and thrasher could probably 2-3 shot depending on unlucky rng with those 15k swipes.

This is the primary issue that I have. Guardians and VGs are entirely capable of just sitting around with whatever distribution they please (since, you know, a *massive* portion of their survivability derives from armor rating, which is a functionally static value) while tanking absolutely fine, and, in fact, often *better* than Shadow tanks because they're not susceptible to major spike damage causing them to die. The "defense" of being *forced* to stack HP to survive big attacks when Shadows are explicitly designed to *be* the mitigation tanks is just spitting in the fact of the players. A Shadow shouldn't be forced to have 50% more hp than a Guardian or VG should just because the fights are designed around being a VG or a Guardian and packing a *massive* amount of DR rather than stat based mitigation, especially when you look at the terrible conversion rate between Endurance and mitigation stats (losing 500 mitigation stats, fully a quarter of the absolute *top end* mitigation budget is going to net you 6180 hp while dropping your total mitigation by a substantial amount).

In all honesty, the example I gave was meant to be ridiculously over complicated and not actually a realistic model of what I expected to be implemented, but it was meant to highlight the fact that if we are "skill tanks" to require us to have "skill" that involves more than a bit of proc watching combined with resource watching. Placing a choice in the players hands that will directly influence their mitigation there and then (or at least in the near future) that requires some sort of a set up appeals to my notion of "skill". The whole spikiness of shadows is one thing, but if the solution implemented makes us boring to play, then it just seems to detract from the whole "skill tank" aspect. And by that I don't mean "look ma, I chose to use resilience on that attack" in terms of skill, more of a "I know this guy will hit me harder than usual in about 4-5 GCD's I am going to proactively do something about significantly reducing that damage without having to pop a cool down". This is off topic slightly I know, but I think that a kind of "high risk, high return" implementation upon shadow tanks ability to actively control their mitigation would be nice as opposed to what we have now. And kitru, I have no idea about numbers and how to calculate them, I am more arguing the ideas rather than values, but I am fairly certain that you picked up on that.

Except for one thing, the increased DR on harnessed shadows stacks, why not look at it as an added bonus? When you get a stack you get some added mitigation thrown in there, you still use your tkt, but scale the DR numbers so its less appealing to hang onto the stacks? Again arguing ideas not numbers

EDIT: Prepares for destruction