The Shield Tech/Shield Spec Compendium

[Mesrith]

Please note that much of this is subjective. Without a combat log in SWTOR, this game is simply lacking the tools currently needed to reach concrete the conclusions that many of us are used to getting from WoW guides. Most of this information is based on our current understanding of ability co-efficients, tooltips which are sometimes inaccurate, and anecdotal feedback from in-game experience. This is also a community effort, and the information is gleaned from months of research and experience by the various members of the Sith Warrior community.


I. Class Summary
II. Terminology
III. Specs
IV. Heat
V. Abilities
VI. Stats
VII. Gear
VIII. Crew Skills
IX. The WoW Tank's Guide to SWTOR Tanking
X. Credits and Additional Resources


I. Class Summary
Bounty Hunters and Troopers are, in my opinion, the most well-rounded and versatile tanking class in the game. We are the only tanks that have both a grip/pull ability and a charge ability. We have the highest passive mitigation in the game, though we have the lowest average avoidance. What this means is that while we get hit more often than other tanks, we take considerably less damage when we do get hit, meaning smoother overall damage and fewer heart-attacks for our healers.

While we're the only class in the game that tanks using blasters, we are not the "ranged tanks" that were spoken of before launch. While we don't suffer at range as much as the other tanks, the core of our class is built around close-range damage and shielding attacks for cooldown and heat venting procs, which requires us to be in melee range more often than not. Trying to kite bosses around also wreaks havoc on your group in most cases.

II. Terminology
Most of this will cover things from a Shield Tech perspective. Simply mouse over the ability name in the ability section to find the Trooper mirror.

The Terminology Mirror Guide is outdated in some places, but you can find the ability's mirror by using the Sith Warrior DB as well.

• DR: Damage Reduction. This is a flat reduction in the amount of damage you take.
• Avoidance: Chance to dodge (we don't parry) or for the boss to miss you. This comes from Defense rating or effects, or from Accuracy debuffs on the target.
• Mitigation: How much damage is mitigated, but not avoided completely. This is a combination of your damage reduction from talents, buffs, and armor, and how much damage is reduced by shielding attacks.
• Aggro: Decides who the boss, or any creature, is currently attacking. Usually the person with the highest threat. Per the Mechanics thread, Aggro theft occurs at 110%/1.1x top threat in melee at 130%/1.3x top threat in ranged.
• Threat: A number accrued on each creature that determines how much of a threat they consider you to be, possibly leading to having aggro and thus being attacked. In general, damaging abilities generate one threat per damage, while healing abilities generate 0.5 threat per point of healing. While in tanking stance, we generate 1.5 threat per damage.
• Main Tank: The person primarily responsible for keeping aggro on creatures, usually bosses, to prevent them from attacking other party members. Focuses on survivability while also generating as much threat as possible.
• Off Tank: Usually helps tank while clearing packs of trash mobs, and tanks part of boss fights that require a second tank. So far in 8-man raids, the Off-Tank is needed to be a very versatile player that can survive heavy attacks when tanking, but also contribute more DPS than a normal tank on single-tank fights where the enrage timer might be tight. This may require a hybrid spec and multiple gear sets.
  

III. Specs
31/8/2 is the current consensus spec for tanking Operations. There was some discussion about how much threat Prototype Cylinders actually adds, but any threat is better than no threat at all, and the other options aren't compelling. Moving two points from Intimidation to Rail Loaders is also under discussion.

The Shield Tech tree mostly fills itself. The only talents that aren't very useful for a PvE tank are No Escape, Neural Overload, and Jet Speed. Rail Loaders isn't bad but the only place to really pull two points from is Intimidation. In Advanced Prototype, you pick up some damage increasing talents in the bottom tier and grab Power Armor for 2% DR in the second tier. Prototype Cylinders is a minor damage increase. In Pyrotech, you may assume that Integrated Cardio Package is a must, but 3% Endurance is a minor amount of health for the talent point investment, while Iron Fist is a flat 8% damage increase to your main damaging ability.

21/X/18 is a secondary option that provides a significant boost to damage and threat at the cost of some survivability. It is highly dependent on random chance, but when everything is clicking you pump out a lot of extra damage and have nearly unlimited heat. If you are an off-tank in a 8-man guild, a hybrid spec like this may be a good choice until duel-spec comes along. Ability priority for this spec differs from the standard tanking spec, with keeping Incendiary Missile up and using Rail Shot on cooldown being the highest priorities. Switch to Combustible Gas Cylinder for extra damage when not tanking.

If you are leveling a new character and intend to tank at endgame, I recommend leveling with some version of Shield Tech rather than using a DPS build and switching later. Creatures still die rather quickly if using a DPS companion such as Gault, and you'll appreciate the experience you gain about your spec while leveling up. Jump into some flashpoints along the way and get used to the tanking style, which varies greatly from previous MMOs where you could be expected to group up every creature while your groups mowed them down with area of effect spells.

IV. Heat
Heat regenerates at different rates based on how much you currently have. The goal is to stay as close to 0 heat as possible, but definitely under 40 heat. Our abilities build X amount of heat, and we vent it over time as shown in the following table. We also have a few heat management abilities (Thermal Sensor Override, Heat Blast, Vent Heat) and we can passively vent heat when shielding attacks with the Shield Vents talent. Energy works in reverse, but is the same concept.

Current Heat Level	Dissipation per second
0-40	5
40-80	3
80-100	2

Current Ammo Level	Regeneration per second
8-12	0.60
2-7	0.36
0-2	0.24

V. Abilities
This section will cover the common abilities used in the standard 31/8/2 spec. While a priority system with this many abilities may seem complicated on paper, it flows smoothly with experience and an organized action-bar layout. Resist the urge to simplify this class into a static rotation, especially ones recommended elsewhere that use Rapid Shots every other attack. The goal is not to remain at zero heat; it is to remain at low heat while generating as much threat as possible. A static rotation simplifies your gameplay at the cost of your output.

Ion Gas Cylinder - The main tanking cylinder or cell, also called our "stance" as a holdover from previous games. Aside from all of the effects listed on the tooltip, it also enables the use of Rail Shot and gains bonus damage from talents.

Single Target Priority

[1]Rocket Punch - Our main threat ability, it gains 8% damage, 30% crit chance, and 30% crit damage from talents. Cooldown can be reset when shielding an attack.
[2]Rail Shot- Requires the target to be incapacitated or have a damage-over-time affect on target. Ion Gas/Cell satisfies the second requirement, allowing you to use Rail Shot on cooldown most of the time. Ignores 60% of armor with talents, and gains an optional 6% damage if you take Rail Loaders.
[3]Explosive Dart- Despite also stunning Weak/Standard creatures and doing damage to 3 other enemies, the single-target damage of Explosive Dart makes it worth using on single targets as well. Very useful when pulling groups of creatures to stun one and damage the others, but be careful to not break CC.
[4]Heat Blast - A bit of a wild card, Heat Blast does less damage than the other three, but should be your top priority any time your are over ~15 heat.

[5a]Flame Burst - Your primary "filler" option, use it when the other four abilities are on cooldown if you are under 10 heat, or when you have damage cooldowns up and Vent Heat ready. Does ~200 more damage than Rapid Shots with current gear. Also applies a 4% DR debuff to the target.
[5b]Rapid Shots - Our secondary filler, to be used when the main abilities are on cooldown and you are over 10 heat. While Rapid Shots has no heat cost, it's damage is considerably worse than all other options.

Situational Single Target Abilities

[1]Death From Above- Our hardest hitting ability, even on a single target. It has a long cooldown and cannot be used in point-blank range. Can be used to hit bosses with large hitboxes while you are tanking them, or used while a boss is stationary (Annihilation droid Missile Salvo, Soa phase 3).
[2]Unload- High damage, but suffers from spell pushback, losing damage and channeling time when being hit. Also prone to being interrupted by stuns, knockbacks, and required movement.
[3]Flame Thrower - High damage to even a single target, but high heat cost. Not affected by spell pushback but still prone to being interrupted by stuns, knockbacks, and required movement. Use with Thermal Sensor Override with damage cooldowns up, or when at low heat and it's unlikely to be cancelled.

As you gain experience with various encounters you'll get a good feel for when you can use these abilities on a single target. Note that using channeled abilities has an additional drawback in regards to Flame Shield. If Flame Shield refreshes the cooldown on Rocket Punch while you are channeling, you either lose damage from not casting Rocket Punch, or you lose damage from cancelling the channel to cast Rocket Punch.

Area of Effect (AoE)

[1]Death From Above - Our best AoE ability, but on a 60s cooldown.
[2]Explosive Dart - Does high damage to four targets. Use this on cooldown, being mindful of any CC'd creatures.
[3]Flame Thrower - Hits unlimited targets in a frontal, 10m range cone. Great ability that sometimes requires some positional setup using Carbonize or other stuns.
[4]Flame Sweep - Moderate damage with a high heat cost and 5 target limit.
[5]Missile Blast - One of your earliest abilities, it's also one of your worst. It's high heat cost and very low "splash" damage to additional targets means that you'll rarely use it other than as a knockback on susceptible creatures.

Each of these abilities has something about it that prevents you from using it in every situation, whether it be a cooldown or group positioning requirement. While the above priority list is best-case scenario for AoE groups, you'll spend most of your time keeping Explosive Dart on cooldown while using single-target abilities on rotating targets and using Flame Sweep when your heat will allow, in a frantic attempt to keep groups from killing your raid members that do much more AoE damage and threat than most tanks currently do.

Survivability Cooldowns

• Energy Shield - Reduces damage taken by 25% for 12 seconds, or 15 with 4pc Rakata set bonus, with a 120s cooldown.
• Oil Slick - Reduces the accuracy of all nearby targets by 20% for 18 seconds, or 20 with 4pc Rakata set bonus, with a 60s cooldown. Not only does it affect multiple targets, but since it's a target debuff you can use it to assist another tank if you aren't currently tanking the boss. Note that while it does place a black oil slick graphic on the ground, the debuff stays on affected targets even if you move them away from it.
• Kolto Overload - Heals you for 15% of your maximum health over 10 seconds, with a 120s cooldown.
  
  As you gain familiarity with encounters you'll gain an understanding of when to use your defensive cooldowns, including any on-use tanking relics or adrenals. For many fights it's best to rotate them as they come off of cooldown, in order to lower your overall incoming damage over the duration of the fight. For some encounters, such as Foreman Crusher, you'll want to save your cooldowns for periods of heavy spike damage. The relatively short cooldowns on our defensive abilities allow us to be flexible with them.
  

Threat/Damage Cooldowns

• Explosive Fuel - Increases your crit chance by 25% for 15 seconds, on a 120s cooldown. Very useful at the start of a fight or during vulnerability phases, especially when paired with a surge relic and/or adrenal.
• Thermal Sensor Override - Eliminates the heat cost of your next ability, on a 120s cooldown.
• Vent Heat - Vents 50 heat over 3 seconds, on a 120s cooldown.
  
  Thermal Sensor Override and Vent Heat look like reactionary abilities in case you overheat, but you'll rarely need to use them as such. They both work as damage increasing cooldowns, allowing you to squeeze extra damage out of your resource without crippling your regeneration rate. Use them both on cooldown for steady fights, or hold them in reserve for vulnerability phases.
  

Taunts

• Neural Dart - Forces the target to attack you for six seconds, as well as matching your threat to that of the person with aggro.
• Sonic Missile - AoE taunt. Works the same as Neural Dart, but against the target and other nearby enemies. This works in a radius around the target, not the player. Can be used as a backup single-target taunt when needed, but has a long cooldown.
  

Crowd Control

• Carbonize - The 2.5 second duration on a 45 second cooldown may sound underwhelming, but this is actually a powerful ability in practice. Carbonize is great for freezing a group of up to 5 targets in place while you adjust your positioning for Flame Thrower, and also works as a mass interrupt on any vulnerable creatures in range.
• Electro Dart - Typical 1-minute stun cooldown, but with a 4 second duration and 30m range.
  
  Note that Explosive Dart and Unload, both mentioned above, also provide stuns on Weak and Standard creatures. Missile Blast and Death From Above do the same with knockbacks. While we don't have any long-term CC like other classes, we have a good variety of short-term control to go with our excellent mobility.
  

Mobility

• Jet Charge - Very powerful ability. Jet Charge combines a charge with an interrupt, a root effect, and moderate damage on a short cooldown. Can't be used against targets in cover.
• Grapple- Grapple not only pulls the target to you, but it counts as yet another interrupt, and applies "a high amount of threat" to the target regardless of whether they actually move. It also does not break crowd control abilities and can be used as free threat against a boss if your main abilities are on cooldown and you're outside of 10m range. Can't be used against targets in cover.
  

VI. Stats
Very detailed information can be found in the Formula List thread if you're so inclined.

• Endurance - Increases your health pool, or how much damage you can take before dying.
• Aim - Our main stat for increasing damage and threat, it affects all of our abilities.
• Cunning - Increases tech damage and tech crit, but by very little. You don't want any Cunning on your gear, but getting all of the Cunning datacrons will provide a slight boost to damage.
• Armor - Increases our damage reduction on Kinetic and Energy attacks.
• Defense - Increases our chance to dodge, and therefore completely avoid, damage from attacks.
• Shield - Increases our chance to shield an attack, mitigating it based on our absorption. Also helps us vent our heat and refresh the cooldown on Rocket Punch through talents.
• Absorb - Increases how much damage is mitigated when we shield an attack.
• Accuracy - Increases our ability to defeat a creature's defenses. The consensus on this has changed a couple of times, but recent testing seems to indicate that additional Accuracy from gear is mostly worthless for Powertechs.
• Surge - Increases the critical hit multiplier.
• Crit - Increases the chance to gain a critical hit.
• Power - Increases the damage of our abilities.
• Alacrity - Mostly worthless for us, it affects casting time but not the global cooldown.
  

But which defensive stats should I stack?

Short and Easy Answer: At average Columi gear levels for Hard Mode Ops and higher, the stat priority is:

Absorption > Defense > Shield

Longer, Better Answer: All of this varies a lot based on your current gear. Since this game uses a two-roll system, Defense is rolled before Shield/Absorb. While Defense offers a chance to completely avoid all damage from an attack, it also lowers the value of Shield and Absorb. If you dodge an attack, it can't be shielded, and you lose an opportunity for Flame Shield and Shield Vents. On the other hand, we tend to have such high Shield chance that Defense is still more valuable than stacking yet more Shield. The more Shield you have, the better Absorption is, and vice versa.

If you want actual stat weights for your current gear level, there are a couple of tools available to assist you in making your choices.

Tanking Stat Spreadsheet - Easy to use spreadsheet with directions by community member LagunaD.

Here's a great chart explaining diminishing returns, created by Sithwarrior.com moderator Kor.


VII. Gear
There is no real need for a "Best in Slot" list at this point in the game. There are few real gearing options, with anything labeled "Rakata Supercommando's X" most likely being best in slot. Your only real choices will involve using your own stat weights to customize your gear with your preferred mods. Having said that, there are a few points of discussion at this time:

-The Rakata-level blasters are currently item level 126 instead of the 140 that they're supposed to be, making Columi-level 136 blasters the best available unless you really want that minor damage increase from the 140-level Battlemaster's PvP blaster. Bioware has said this will be fixed in an upcoming patch. This does not currently affect the Rakata Supercommando's Shield Generator, however.
-Relics are still under discussion. Popular relics include:

• Matrix Cube M7-Y3 - All passive stats. Good all-around trinket, easy to obtain.
• On-Use Shield/Absorb - There are three levels of this trinket, as well as the following trinkets.
• On-Use Defense
• On-Use Crit/Surge
• On-Use Power
• Endurance with passive damage proc - There are 4 of these from Karagga's Palace. Each does a different type of damage, and I'll provide links when I find a working one that shows the proc correctly.
  

The on-use and passive damage trinkets can be viable options if you're otherwise comfortable with your survivability and want to use a damage/threat trinket.

Consumables work the same way. If you want a survivability adrenal, use Hyper-Battle Absorb Adrenal, which is a 7-8% damage reduction increase from the extra armor. If you want a damage/threat adrenal, your choices are Surge, Power, or Crit. Due to the already-high crit chance of talented Rocket Punch and the 25% crit to all abilities from Explosive Fuel, I personally prefer the surge adrenal.

VIII. Crew Skills
Want the quick and dirty version of this? Use Biochem. While other crewskills can be useful, none of them provide you with any best-in-slot items that can't be obtained through other means. The only difference is that you can get them a bit earlier, and you can add an augment slot through a successful critical craft. Biochem not only gives you the same benefit with their implants, but you also gain superior versions of consumables that are also reusable. If you really want to min/max your character, you can currently level the other professions, gain the critical crafting benefits from them, and then drop them to level Biochem since Bioware didn't add profession requirements to the crafted versions of items, other than the Biochem consumables.

The perks of Biochem include:

• Rakata Medpac - Reusable medpac that also works as a "last stand" health boost cooldown.
• Rakata Fortitude Stim - Reusable Stim that is 32 Endurance and 13 Defense rating better than what can be obtained with general stims.
• Rakata Absorb Adrenal - Reusable Adrenal that is 225 Armor rating better than the standard absorb adrenal. If you choose to use a damage adrenal for threat, such as the Rakata Force Adrenal, you gain an additional 115 rating.
  

There's an entire Crew Skill Compendium available if you don't like my summary.

IX. The WoW Tank's Guide to SWTOR Tanking
This section was inevitable, and you know it.

• This game uses a two-roll system. For a detailed explanation, vist the Mechanics Thread.
• You cannot become crit immune, but you also cannot be hit with "crushing blows".
• You do not need to face the boss at all times, as Avoidance and Shielding is not positional in SWTOR. For this same reason, your DPS will not get you "parry-gibbed" if they're not behind the boss.
• Channeling an ability does not prevent avoidance, although it still has drawbacks as mentioned in the Abilities section.
• Remember "stance dancing" and needing Fear Ward to prevent losing aggro while feared? Bioware didn't remove that concept as WoW later did, so if you are stunned or knocked down (as you frequently will be), creatures will begin attacking the non-stunned group members with the next highest threat.
• Forget about AoE tanking every pull in the game. Focus on keeping the Champion, Elite, and Strong mobs under control with tanking and CC, while allowing your DPS to blow up the Standard and Weak mobs while you build threat on the others.
  

X. Credits and Additional Resources
Thanks to SithWarrior.com for providing a home for all the fine information on this website, and thanks to the community members that have contributed to it, especially the Shield Tech discussion. I've tried to give credit where due, but here are links to original articles where much of this information was pulled from. Check them out if you need more information on a topic than was provided in this thread.

SW:TOR Mechanics - The Basics - Alratan
Tanking Stat Spreadsheet - LagunaD
SWTOR Formula List - Freehugs
Buff/Debuff Mechanics - Sennin
Softcaps Discussion - Gorlaugh
Damage Reduction - Masterkiller
Crew Skills Compendium - bluekieran
T1 Ops Loot Discussion - dulfy

[Luchidor]

Great post! Sticky!!

[Kaedis]

Aaaaaand STUCK.

That said, that chart was my creation, not Elobi's.

[Poksu]

I'm probably missing something, but the dr chart shows that surge caps at 50%...?

[Mesrith]

(01-29-2012 04:00 PM)Kor Wrote:  Aaaaaand STUCK.

That said, that chart was my creation, not Elobi's.

Thanks, fixed.

[LadyRepublic]

If I may suggest - if this is going to be the main theorycrafting thread for tanking, I think it's really important to include the Trooper terminology as well as the BH, rather than just saying,

Mesrith Wrote:Most of this will cover things from a Shield Tech perspective. Not only is it the version I play, but the SWTOR population seems to be heavily Imperial anyway.

For one - I think the last thing we need is to stir up in TOR - especially this early in the game's lifespan - is the old "Horde is better than Alliance" debate that plagued WoW for years, and for two it will help credibility overall in terms of representing this tanking community, rather than just BHs. It's also worth pointing out that BioWare has not released any official numbers on who plays what anyway, so at this point faction balance is purely speculation. (While my hunch is also that Empire is more widely played than Republic - I'd still hesitate writing only for that faction. And yes, in case my name wasn't the obvious clue, I am a Republic player.)

I've spent the last month working on a Trooper/BH tanking guide for this site (though not sure its status now that this post went live) and forcing myself to learn all the mirror terminology for both ACs - so if you need help translating, I can help with that. But I really do think it's important that the community makes the effort to learn and write up the abilities for both ACs, rather than just writing for one half - no matter how much the numbers skew towards one or the other. If this is our official guide, then the burden is on us, as writers, to provide the readers with the appropriate terminology for both ACs - not on the players reading the column to have to learn all the mirror terminology for their faction in order to be able to use this information.

Otherwise, looks like a decent start. If you don't mind me adding some specifics:

- At least as a Trooper, we can in fact suffer pushback from using Pulse Cannon (BH's Flame Thrower). Both are channeled, and both can hit pushback effects. I still include PC/FT in my rotation because I think the benefits outweigh the risk for that ability, but I've definitely experienced pushback on this firsthand.

- I actually would use Oil Slick in a regular rotation, and not just as a survivability CD. No reason not to include it when it's up, help make the healers' jobs easier even if for only 18 seconds. Plus, it helps your DPS as well, so win-win.

- I know it's probably a "duh" thing, but I don't see the taunts covered anywhere? Probably worth mentioning that there are two, and opportunities to use them.

- Positioning for FT/PC should also be discussed, as it can be fairly important in encounters. Again, possibly a "duh" thing, but I prefer to write for all levels and let folks skip what they don't need.

- Stats section IMO still needs a lot of work. There are multiple places in the existing forums where folks discuss the DR of various stats and the order in which you should stack them - easy enough to track down that information and fill in more details about exactly what stats do what and the ratio in which they work together.

- Finally, I suspect you already know this from what you wrote, but Crew Skills is pretty thin, and with the incoming Biochem nerfs it's not quite as obviously the "must-take" crew skill it was at launch. In particular, it probably merits discussion of cybertech's ability to craft mods and use cyber-only grenades, in addition to biochem (though as with biochem, this is also subject to an incoming nerf). My understanding in both cases is that amount healed/damage dealt is being reduced and CD is being increased, but I don't know the exact details yet.

Let me know how much of that makes sense or if any of it isn't helpful - good luck.

/salute

[Mesrith]

(01-30-2012 01:36 AM)LadyRepublic Wrote:  If I may suggest - if this is going to be the main theorycrafting thread for tanking, I think it's really important to include the Trooper terminology as well as the BH

I'll be adding mouse-over links to the SW-DB abilities which include the mirror version in the name. This should take care of that problem without dragging out the thread by including a separate mirror list or writing two names for every ability in every spot. While we're on the topic though, the mirror list that's stickied in this forum is out of date is several spots. If you feel like creating a new version to replace it, we could use one.

Quote:- At least as a Trooper, we can in fact suffer pushback from using Pulse Cannon (BH's Flame Thrower). Both are channeled, and both can hit pushback effects. I still include PC/FT in my rotation because I think the benefits outweigh the risk for that ability, but I've definitely experienced pushback on this firsthand.

Flame Thrower does not suffer pushback. I went to Belsavis just now and got beat on for 10 minutes by packs of mobs to make sure nothing has changed, but I still suffer pushback on Unload and not on Flamethrower. I also did not suffer pushback on Death From Above, but the sample size is obviously much smaller due to the cooldown and I'm usually not being hit when I use it during Ops. The lack of pushback on Flamethrower has been confirmed by other players in the discussion thread. While it's possible that there's a disconnect and that Pulse Cannon suffers pushback while Flamethrower does not, I'd need more confirmation from other Troopers before saying that's true.

Quote:- I actually would use Oil Slick in a regular rotation, and not just as a survivability CD. No reason not to include it when it's up, help make the healers' jobs easier even if for only 18 seconds. Plus, it helps your DPS as well, so win-win.

I stand by my statement that addresses this. While using Oil Slick (or any survivability cooldowns for that matter) on cooldown lowers your overall damage taken for the entire fight, there are some cases where you don't want to use it on cooldown. For fights like Foreman Crusher, there's no need to hit Oil Slick every time it comes up, since you can simply wait 30 seconds and use it for a Frenzy, where such a cooldown is much more useful. This goes for any fight with periods of predictable spike damage.

I'm not sure what you mean by "it helps your DPS as well".

Quote:- Stats section IMO still needs a lot of work. There are multiple places in the existing forums where folks discuss the DR of various stats and the order in which you should stack them - easy enough to track down that information and fill in more details about exactly what stats do what and the ratio in which they work together.

It doesn't get any easier than having the DR chart displayed in front of you, or having a link to a very easy to use spreadsheet that will allow people to set their own stat weights. I'd rather give links to self-help than distribute information that won't be correct for every gear level.

Quote:Finally, I suspect you already know this from what you wrote, but Crew Skills is pretty thin, and with the incoming Biochem nerfs it's not quite as obviously the "must-take" crew skill it was at launch. In particular, it probably merits discussion of cybertech's ability to craft mods and use cyber-only grenades, in addition to biochem (though as with biochem, this is also subject to an incoming nerf). My understanding in both cases is that amount healed/damage dealt is being reduced and CD is being increased, but I don't know the exact details yet.

I'm not aware of any incoming nerfs to Biochem. The nerfs have already happened, and Biochem is still the best profession in the game for high-end PvE. There is no crafted gear that is better than what is more easily obtainable through loot drops or commendations. As already mentioned, you can even take the benefits of other professions, such as crafting your Rakata Supercommando's Belt and Bracers with an augment slot, and then drop the other professions for Biochem and have the best of multiple worlds. Bioware needs to take a look at the crafting situation.

EDIT: I just updated that section to include why Biochem is still much better, hope that clears it up.

If any tanks out there are actually having success using Cybertech bombs then I'll add a mention about it.

[Cosmic Osmo]

Edit: nevermind, Mesrith covered it.

[frmorrison]

(01-30-2012 01:36 AM)LadyRepublic Wrote:  It's also worth pointing out that BioWare has not released any official numbers on who plays what anyway, so at this point faction balance is purely speculation.

- Finally, I suspect you already know this from what you wrote, but Crew Skills is pretty thin, and with the incoming Biochem nerfs it's not quite as obviously the "must-take" crew skill it was at launch. In particular, it probably merits discussion of cybertech's ability to craft mods and use cyber-only grenades, in addition to biochem (though as with biochem, this is also subject to an incoming nerf). My understanding in both cases is that amount healed/damage dealt is being reduced and CD is being increased, but I don't know the exact details yet.

The proof that Empire outnumbers (overall, there are most likely servers with more Republic than Empire) if that many PvP matches are Huttball for Empire.

Biochem actually got buffed for tanking now you get 15% Health for 15 seconds, that is better to me than another 2000 of healing

[Kugala]

Although not useful on bosses themselves, Carbonize/Neural Surge is incredibly effective on both trash and adds during a boss fight. Follow that up with an AoE taunt and you can pretty easily keep a group of adds on you long enough for DPS to drop them without any real effort.

A note on Energy Shield: The 25% mitigation is additive. So if you're already at ~50% mitigation, plus 10% from a Mercenary/Commando healer, you can jump from 60% to 85%. Even during an enrage this turns incoming damage into a joke.

For the trinkets there's also a passive proc for +Absorb:
http://knotor.com/items/649299
And the Elemental DPS Trinket:
http://knotor.com/items/649294