Shadow as tank

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Jimer Lins
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Shadow as tank

Post by Jimer Lins » Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:16 pm

I'm building up as a Jedi Shadow and just going with the defense tree for now. Since Shadows are less durable than pure tanks, what's the best way to run a Shadow as a tank?
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Re: Shadow as tank

Post by Blackferne » Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:30 pm

Jimer Lins wrote:I'm building up as a Jedi Shadow and just going with the defense tree for now. Since Shadows are less durable than pure tanks, what's the best way to run a Shadow as a tank?
Well the issue with evasion tanking in general is that it goes like this. Let's say over the course of a fight a boss does 100 points of damage over 10 hits. Each hit is unmitigated 10 points of damage. So the mitigation/absorbtion model that troopers and I think knights are built towards is that we will be hit more often, but of each hit we take maybe 5 points of damage after armor mitigation and shielding. You will take much more on each hit that lands. So for easy math let's say you take 10 points of damage. Now if I take 10 hits and each is 5 I've taken a total of 50 points of damage but it is very predictable and very easy to heal because small efficient heals constantly coming is usually all it takes. You might have 50% evasion so you on average will take the same 50 points of damage but your hits will be very spikey. This make healers nervous because they always fear you will get 2 big hits back to back. So while we take the same overall damage you are perceived to be squishier. In WoW the approaches that seemed to work best were to stack endurance and stats and abilities that would improve avoidance. So in this game I think that would be defense. You want to have way more hit points than a similarly geared trooper tank. This gives you a nice cushion for the bad string off of the rng on evasion. And work on pushing that evasion up to diminish the likely hood of a bad string of hits.

Also be a lot more insistent on using CC.
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Re: Shadow as tank

Post by Blackferne » Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:35 pm

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Re: Shadow as tank

Post by Jimer Lins » Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:45 pm

Thanks, Joun. :)
A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn. - Edmund Blackadder

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Re: Shadow as tank

Post by njessi » Thu Jan 12, 2012 8:07 pm

So those stupid sithies seem to have their shit together (but Joun's link is better).

http://swtor-tanking.com/?p=291

Honestly, a lot of the pre-launch sites out there are still sporting beta info and have abysmally lame following launch.
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Re: Shadow as tank

Post by Furiel » Thu Jan 12, 2012 8:52 pm

Everything Joun said is very true, which makes certain talent points a must.

One intersting thing I'm noticing though looking through the talent trees is that there are ALOT of abilities that increase a shadow's armor rating, which makes them less squishy. The problem is that it then takes ALOT of talent points to be effective.

Like Stasis is a 20% armor increase, but the earliest you can get it is with your 21st talent point.

2 points in Shadowsight gives you 2% more defense, but you can't get that until points 11 and 12.

Then you've got talents like Shadowy Veil which gives a 30% armor increase and Jedi Resistance which is a 2% damage decrease, but those are in other trees, so to take those that slows you from getting things like Stasis.

So ultimately to be a really good shadow tank you basically need to be in your 40s so you can get all the proper talents, unlike Vanguards and Guardians who have the heavy armor as soon as they pick their AC, which gives them some advantage while leveling, but who knows how that works out at end game. As someone who also is going to have a shadow tank I'm curious to see if it's one of those things where they will get a bad rap due to the limitations during the leveling process but will end up being as good or better at cap, or if avoidance tanking will again take a back seat because the mechanics just don't work.
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DPS - Furiel: Commando, T'ony: Slinger, Kessilee: VG, Ziraava: Sent
Tank - Montae: Shadow, Gaen: Guardian
Heals - Kam'ryn: Sage, Sabran: Soundrel

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Re: Shadow as tank

Post by Blackferne » Thu Jan 12, 2012 9:07 pm

Well it might also be true that it gets a bad rap based on the types of healers they are paired with. Though not completely analogous Disc Priests did better with DK tanks than holy simply because of the design of the healing strategy. A trooper with a smuggler healer will be a great combo because smugglers are all about hots and troopers are mitigation machines so take some damage heal some damage. I could see a smuggler healer easily saying that shadow tanks are not viable because it would be damn near impossible to heal them since they are either at 100% health or 20% and rarely in between.
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Re: Shadow as tank

Post by Jimer Lins » Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:55 pm

This is a great discussion, and will make me consider how I play a bit. I've been playing around with figuring out how to use slows/CCs and which moves I can use while kiting- project, then a slow or stun, followed by a backup and Force Boost or whatever that thing is called, then the rock shower- essentially keeping them at range and only engaging toe to toe if I have to.

I have a feeling Shadows who kite will be far more effective vs melee mobs, whereas other tanks will be more effective vs ranged.

Also, I've just been spending my talent points from bottom up in Defense- I'm not even looking at the other trees yet, since I know Il'l be maxing out defense. I only take stuff out of order if it's truly useful *right now*, but otherwise just take it and wait for the next level.
A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn. - Edmund Blackadder

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Re: Shadow as tank

Post by Furiel » Fri Jan 13, 2012 3:59 pm

Well, you could argue taking Jedi Resistance immediately would be worth it. 2% less damage taken is 2% less damage taken. That may not sound like much but it adds up really fast.
They say when you go on a quest for vengence to dig two graves. They underestimate me.

The Plush Family:
DPS - Furiel: Commando, T'ony: Slinger, Kessilee: VG, Ziraava: Sent
Tank - Montae: Shadow, Gaen: Guardian
Heals - Kam'ryn: Sage, Sabran: Soundrel

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