Shadow tanks... none of you guys?

[Nwahs]

Hey guys!

So I've been starting to realize that not many people know that Shadows can tank, which is really surprising as that information was pretty apparent when they released those Advanced Class tree pages where it showed the three talent trees of each advanced class

http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/advanced-classes

Click Consular and check out the Shadow.

I am even more surprised that A. we only have 10 Shadows signed up and B. none of you plan to be tanks.

Any reason for this? I have lately been thinking about possibly changing my main to a Shadow tank... I feel like I'm going to have to play both the Guardian and the Shadow to know which I will like more, find more fun, and which class story I'll enjoy more/relate to better.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

EDIT: After talking to Jtsolo who's in the beta, and getting some sense knocked into me by Astral and Travis, I will probably have a Shadow DPS/tank alt and not my main but I'm still interested to learn if we'll have any Shadow tanks!

[Jecs CI]

I'm considering it. Depends on how in-demand tanks will be in the guild and how useful they'll be in PvP.

[AstralProjection]

I'd imagine that with a healthy population of ranged tanks and Jedi Guardian tanks (check, we have that) Shadow tanks will more be a personal choice than a necessity.

This game seems like it will be easy to get a group going, and with our PVP focus, I'd bet at least for End Game, there will be a lot of folks who skip the tank builds.

I think there are a lot of people of the mindset that we have to see tanks tanking effectively in PVP to believe it, it's just so contraindicated by history in MMO's. For that reason, we probably have a lot of folks who would prefer to level faster with Shadow DPS, and feel safer stepping into a Warzone knowing they won't be "useless".

Now, I never think a tank is useless, but history tells us it takes real skill to make yourself a useful damage sponge in a PVP environment, because humans have that annoying habit of coming up with their own threat ratings for people : P

[Landscaper]

I am a tank...and I'm proud to be USELESS!

[Pinoyfury]

I will be rolling shadow melee dps, but if the need comes I will also be collecting gear if I absolutely have to tank. Or if the DPS market is over saturated where I can not find a group in less than an hour I will tank.

[Arkathos]

I do not feel shadow tanks are a necessity from a Guild Leader pov.


Our most recent poll put our stats at;

Tank (22/90)

Healer (21/90)

Melee DPS (21/90)

Ranged DPS (26/90)

From my position, these are really all that matter - not which class it is but which roll is being filled. If our "dps" switched over to tank Nwahs, we'd see those 10 shadow dps become 10 tanks, which would (worst case) look like this;

Tank (32/90)
Melee DPS (11/90)

And that's a pretty shitty statistic lol. I think if you want to Shadow Tank, go for it - but I think at this time, everything is working to fall into place as it should. The force guides it. *bow*

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[Pax Eternus]

So far unconfirmed reports put the jedi shadow tank as the best in game with highest health and highest avoidance.

As for tanking in PvP, if the assist ability available to tanks can redirect and mitigate 20% incoming damage, and given a 5000 hp health pool, given 500 possible healing in three seconds (burst probable balance), given 500 damage burst focused by three characters on the healer (1500 damage), 300 will be absorbed by the tank and 1200 will hit the healer.

Over a fifteen second fight, 1500 damage will be absorbed by the tank, 3600 damage will hit the healer, and the healer will be able to survive even if the healer is stunned the entire time. Otherwise the healer would be able to heal back 2500 health. In other words, It would take 5000/1600 = 3.125 x 15 seconds = 46.9 almost 47 seconds to focus down a healer with a tank assist without them using any cc or avoidance.

That means whoever is focused, as long as you have a quick tank to mitigate and a quick healer to focus target, the dps will have 47 seconds of free time to kill stuff.

This new tanking mechanic will add an increased level of depth to the focus-burst gameplay of PvP and will greatly increase fight times and survivability. Tanks also do comparable damage to dps as we've seen in videos, however, they do not have the same burst/bleed effects. The trade off may end up being close to a loss of 20%.

Now if tanks have 15%-20% lower dps, but 40% more survivability than other characters, and the ability to redirect incoming damage to other party members, I don't see how you could not have one on your team.

[Arkathos]

So far unconfirmed reports put the jedi shadow tank as the best in game with highest health and highest avoidance.

Very nice stats Zeeto. Can you provide the unconfirmed reports and link them here as I personally have not once heard that throughout my travels on the ToR forums.

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[AstralProjection]

Nice info, Zeeto! Your numbers make sense - but it would seem to me that is a calculable imbalance, and will get fixed before launch date.

Right now, Tank > DPS, if that's the current state of the test server, and it's in more ways than one. a 20% loss in DPS for 40% more survivability is a tradeoff most people will take, given the opportunity. Makes me wonder, once again, why they're so afraid of throwing bones to the Sentinels and Gunslingers : P Oh well, I'll still be speccing the same way, and like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if those numbers changed. Would be curious to hear the explanation if that is being considered "balanced" by BioWare.

[Palindora]

I've been considering switching to shadow tank since they announced it. Just haven't got enough to go on yet to see how it will play out at end game.

[Cloud Kanno]

I will not be tanking as a Jedi Shadow. I’ve planned on going the burst dps / stealth / crowd control build ever since I decided to play as a Shadow. This way, I can perform similar to a rouge from WoW.

[Pax Eternus]

Beta tester just announced that in last patch they nerfed tank dps pretty hard also you get points for the mitigation you do, not for the damage in pvp battles.

p.s. keeping beta tester name anonymous until he's out

[Nwahs]

Gaiutus wrote:

And that's a pretty shitty statistic lol. I think if you want to Shadow Tank, go for it - but I think at this time, everything is working to fall into place as it should. The force guides it. *bow*

Very true! The Force always guides the ebb and flow of our guild

I definitely wasnt' saying I hope all our Shadows become tanks, I was just surprised that out of 25 Consulars we hope to have at cap, none of them are tanks, but we haven't gotten much info on it yet, and Astral makes good points that pvp tanks are rare. Although I'm sure there will be content we'll want a Shadow tank or a Vanguard tank for certain bosses. Anyway, I plan to compete to be our guilds main tank /flex

The OP stats of the Consular tank will probably be balanced by launch, hopefully

[SonicBoomS]

sticking w/ healing Sage but a Jedi Shadow tank sounds pretty badass to me

[Bongi]

I haven't really decided yet