Gimped Tankasins in 1.3

[Count Sacula]

So far the PTS patch notes look very troubling for tankasins. I understand the need to raise up Guardians and Jugs especially with their AOE threat but from the looks of the patch notes they are not only doing that but also smacking down tankasins.

Guardian
Due to changes to the Guardian skill trees, Guardians have had their skill points refunded.

The amount absorbed by Blade Barrier now scales properly based on character stats.

Soresu Form now generates 100% additional threat while active.

Defense
Dust Storm: Cyclone Slash now additionally applies this accuracy debuff to affected targets.

Blade Barricade: Riposte now increases melee and ranged defense by 1% per point and lasts 12 seconds.

Profound Resolution has been replaced by Purifying Sweep, which causes Force Sweep to apply 2 stacks of armor reduction per point to all affected targets.
The damage dealt by Hilt Strike has been reduced, but this ability no longer costs Focus to activate.

Guardian Slash has been slightly altered. The ability still applies 3 stacks of armor reduction. Damage dealt by this ability has been reduced, but when the target is affected by 5 stacks of armor reduction, Guardian Slash now deals damage to up to 2 nearby enemies, spreading 3 stacks of armor reduction to those enemies and knocking down Standard and Weak targets. It does not deal damage to sleeping, lifted, or incapacitated enemies, and continues to generate a high amount of additional threat.

Assassin
Maul now displays the correct error message if this ability is used while the player is not behind the target.

Dark Charge now generates 100% additional threat while active. The healing generated from this ability has been reduced by approximately 50%. Its armor bonus has been reduced to 115% (down from 150%).

Discharge (Dark Charge) now generates a high amount of threat.

Spike now costs 20 Force.

Overcharge Saber now increases the damage and healing dealt by all Charges by 100% for 15 seconds.

Darkness
Wither no longer damages a sleeping, lifted, or incapacitated enemy unless it is the primary target.
Harnessed Darkness: The healing generated by Force Lightning has been reduced to 8% total (down from 12%).

So we lose HALF of our self healing via Dark Charge and Lose about 1/4 of our total armor...But they raise our threat 100% Really???? We never had a problem with threat in the first place!

Not satisfied with two kicks in the nuts lets go for a Trifecta. Knock down our self healing from harnessed darkness which should be a main staple of our rotation with shock and wither feeding us our 3 stacks. In return we double the heal of our Overcharge Saber....which is on a 2 minute cool down.

Sorry but this shit is FAIL. Buff the weaker tanks or lower tankasins but don't do both.

Something else that annoys me is the fact that Dark Charge self healing does not scale with gear. So even in full rakata my self healing is the same as some fresh 50 in all greens.

[Cadika]

The more I'm reading this the more I'm trying to find the silver lining. Here's what I've got
Now when you have a mob cc'ed, you can still use wither without breaking the stunned one out. Very useful because it adds one of our most important moves back into the rotation to help us maintain threat
Spike costing less will mean able to manage force better and in pvp with the reduced cooldown makes it more useful
Bioware seems to be pushing absorb and shield as more important stats than defense.
Being able to aug even our relics now means I can stack defense and endurance(since camapign/war hero have less enduance in favor of other stats) and it makes up for the drop in armor rating from the new setup

[Count Sacula]

The more I'm reading this the more I'm trying to find the silver lining. Here's what I've got
Now when you have a mob cc'ed, you can still use wither without breaking the stunned one out. Very useful because it adds one of our most important moves back into the rotation to help us maintain threat
Spike costing less will mean able to manage force better and in pvp with the reduced cooldown makes it more useful
Bioware seems to be pushing absorb and shield as more important stats than defense.
Being able to aug even our relics now means I can stack defense and endurance(since camapign/war hero have less enduance in favor of other stats) and it makes up for the drop in armor rating from the new setup

Looks to me like they are balancing PVP tankasins using dps gear on the backs of PVE tanks. What is the point of shield/absorb tanking since we need Dark Ward up and it only has 8 charges? One trash pull wipes that out in seconds which in turn drops our shield 15%.

We don't use spike while tanking.

Stacking endurance seems a lot like WOTLK tanking....But our healers don't have unlimited mana pools like WOTLK.

[Jetsu]

Stacking endurance seems a lot like WOTLK tanking....But our healers don't have unlimited mana pools like WOTLK.

Yeah, stacking endurance in no way substitutes for avoidance or mitigation unless the self heals are based on health percentages. Anyone know if that's the case? I've not messed with tanking on my assassin yet.

[Count Sacula]

Yeah, stacking endurance in no way substitutes for avoidance or mitigation unless the self heals are based on health percentages. Anyone know if that's the case? I've not messed with tanking on my assassin yet.

The self healing from Dark Charge scales to level not gear or health. Which is being cut by 50%. When using force lightening during Harnessed Darkness heals you a % of your health which is being nerfed down from 12% to 8%.

[pfckennedy]

This definitely blows but I'm sure it will only last a patch. Thats how these buffs work.

[voggix]

I understand anyone who's main is a Shadow Tank is not happy about these nerfs, but let's be honest, a properly geared and played tanksassin has been the most overpowered class for some time. The combination of damage and survivability was way out of balance. The complaint I could see would be that BW nerfed survivability instead of addressing the excessive damage that should not be possible with a tank spec.

[Jetsu]

The self healing from Dark Charge scales to level not gear or health. Which is being cut by 50%. When using force lightening during Harnessed Darkness heals you a % of your health which is being nerfed down from 12% to 8%.

So endurance does give some limited "mitigation" in the way of increased Harnessed Darkness healing. Likely still not enough to make it worth stacking, as other stats would likely preserve healer resources more, but interesting to consider.

Also, Hollow causes overcharged saber to heal for 10% of your max health.

[godgundam1983]

I am dissatisfied. With this patch back to dpser with the shadow

[Count Sacula]

Here is a great post on the impact of the changes to PVE tankasins from LagunaD on those evil Official Forums that you all hate.
To me this is a significant nerf. They should have dropped our damage, armor or self healing...not 2 of the 3 and both happen to be to our survivability.

The shadow "survivability" nerf is terrible news for PvE shadow tanks, thanks to PvP whining.


If Shadows have a survival advantage over the other tanks in PvE, it is so small that nobody has actually noticed it. Nobody specifically looks for Shadow tanks vs. the others for EC, as would be expected if the gap were large enough to merit a hit of this size.


I ran the numbers carefully.


The current situation is that Shadow tanks get a 20% armor increase from the Stasis talent, and 155.8% from Combat Stance (the tooltip specifying +150% is wrong, or rounded downward; the actual bonus is 155.8%). These bonuses are additive.


A full-Rakata Shadow Tank currently has 285*4 (bracers, belt, boots, gloves) + 456*3 (helm, chest, legs) = 2508 base armor rating.


This is increased to 2508 * (2.558 + 0.200) = 6917 by Combat Technique and Stasis; this is the number you would see on your character sheet. This gives 39.04% Kinetic/Energy reduction, which is added to the 2% reduction from the Jedi Resistance talent, and the 2% bonus from the armor set. So a full Rakata Shadow tank currently mitigates 43.04% of Kinetic/Energy damage. Equivalently, all damage you do not avoid is multiplied by 0.5694.


After the nerf, your armor rating in the same gear will be 2508*(2.150 + 0.200) = 5894. (The bonus on the test server *is* +115%). This gives 35.31% Kinetic/Energy reduction, which (with the Jedi Resistance and set bonuses) translates to 39.31% Kinetic/Energy mitigation. So after the nerf, all damage you do not avoid is multiplied by 0.6069.


Because mitigation is multiplicative, the damage you will take after the nerf, compared to now, is:


damage multiplier = 0.6069/0.5694 = 1.066


In other words, regardless of other defensive stats (Defense, Shield, Absorb), a Rakata-geared Shadow tank will take 6.6% more Kinetic/Energy damage than they do currently. Every hit that lands for 1000 now will land for 1066 after the nerf.


In more practical terms, our Armor Rating is reduced by 6917 - 5894 = 1023. This armor reduction is almost as big as tanking without, say, a chestpiece equipped currently. It is much larger than tanking without, say, boots equipped currently. So it is essentially like losing the armor value from 1-2 pieces of gear.


Another way of quantifying the nerf in practical terms: go replace all your Rakata armor mods, including wrists and belt, with Level 50 blue crafted mods. You will then have about the same damage reduction you can expect after 1.3.


And in addition, our self-healing (which is frequently interrupted by knockback spam and/or the need to move or interrupt) will be reduced by ~40%...


The quote in post about "balance" changes says:


Quote:
Rather than hit armor or self-healing too hard, we’ve opted to adjust both by a much smaller amount.
A 6-7% increase in incoming damage, a 15% reduction in armor and a 40% reduction in healing is "much smaller" than...what? Forcing us to tank naked?


The balance of PvE tanks is currently very close; AoE threat being maybe one of the few areas where there is a noticeable imbalance, and that is being addressed by making threat essentially a non-issue for any class. To a very good approximation, none of the tank classes is currently preferred to any of the others; certainly not to the extent that, say, ranged DPS is favored over melee DPS.


It is really infuriating that we are being hammered as PvE tanks due to PvP whining.

[Zargs]

1 question.
Has ANYONE tested tanking on the PTS whit all the "nerfing"? It seems this is exakt like the healing before. Ppl got there pitchforks out and started walking to Austin.
Before yellin: "Nerfted to the ground" Go test it first. All I seen here is someone is reading the notes and make up there own mind how it works. Same as ppl did on the "Nerfing Healers to hell" and we all know that healing is harder but its fine. You just need to learn how to do it. Same here I think.

[Cadika]

See my previous post in this thread about silver lining.

[Cadika]

Btw, I wont stop playing my assassin because stealth, dbl saber and lightning is epic in one toon.
But, I will be the first to admit we tankassins have had two distinct advantages over the other two tanks. Stealth allowed us to get through heroics solo much easier than the other two and the healing made it esay to solo everything but hard modes and ops. "Nerfing" the healing will encourage teaming up and while we get hit, adding the LFG at the same time means we can call in the calvary now much easier

[godgundam1983]

IMO its no different then a Sorc having full war hero Aug there absorbtion. Is threw the roof along with a few other classes its not like a tank is looking for 1v1 all the time but its hard to kill a tank solo as it should be almost all the shadow/assassins. Pve and pvp abilities. Are to help the team not solo so I don't understand the nerf all the patches and they decide now they need to balance??? What about scents/ marauders?? Left untouched again they need a nerf

[Dakken]

IMO its no different then a Sorc having full war hero Aug there absorbtion. Is threw the roof along with a few other classes its not like a tank is looking for 1v1 all the time but its hard to kill a tank solo as it should be almost all the shadow/assassins. Pve and pvp abilities. Are to help the team not solo so I don't understand the nerf all the patches and they decide now they need to balance??? What about scents/ marauders?? Left untouched again they need a nerf

I honestly cannot read any of what you post, but what I managed to get was that you think Sents/Marauders need to be nerfed and Shadows/Assassins left alone.

I agree with the nerfs to the jerks wielding two blades, they need to be brought in line a bit. As for the Dual bladed fellows, you can thank that healing nerf on tanks in dps gear absolutely tearing up pvp. I don't really get the nerf to armor, its not really needed at all.

Also, tank stats are so very useless in PvP, it really doesn't work on much at all unless you're facing a sniper/gunslinger.