Glance rating?Follow

I was looking at loot on Torhead and some of the items for tankassins have glance rating on them, like this. What the heck is glance rating?

Also, is there a way to link Torhead items like you can do with Wowhead items where you can mouse over the link and the item shows up?

Well hell, a lot of the pieces I was looking at had glance rating. I guess I'll just assume they replaced it 1 for 1 with shield chance.

And why the hell does tank gear have so much damn accuracy on it?

The rotation I use doesn't have Thrash in it at all. I'm at the point where I'm going to move it to a side bar to make room for a skill I may actually have to use at some point.

I do use approximately 4-5 Saber Strikes every 15 seconds, which I believe is the only thing in my rotation affected by Accuracy. The rest is Wither, Shock, Force Lightning, and Discharge.

Well, Sith Warrior now claims the priority list with the best theoretical dps doesn't contain thrash. But they use a hybrid spec, and it isn't clear if it has been updated for 1.2

They're also saying that Accuracy, followed by Surge, are the top two threat stats (though Accuracy only up to the cap, and you'll have over that).

Thrash is a force hog. I can do a Thrash-less rotation and create more threat and I only have to use Saber Strike as filler when Wither and Shock are both on CD. I rarely ever have to use Saber Strike to regen force.

The sithwarrior.com tankassin thread has been updated for 1.2 and the Thrash-less rotation is for a 31/0/10 spec and it works great. I can also vary it up a little too depending on whether I am fighting a single target or a group to either get more Withers or more Shocks.

Basically I keep Wither, Shock, and Discharge on CD as much as possible instead of just using Wither and Discharge to keep the debuff up. And yes, this is a tanking rotation with the 31/0/10 spec I alluded to above. Rememebr, not only does Wither proc a Harnessed Darkness stack, it also does as much damage as a non-crit Shock and it can hit multiple targets in an AOE situation. This way I also get to use Force Lightning more often which means more DPS/threat and more effective health from the 12% healing a fully channeled Foce Lightning gives.

Edited, May 3rd 2012 9:09am by Bigdaddyjug

Oh, another thing. I bought the entire Recruit Survivor's set last night. HP went up 1500, defense stayed the same, shield and absorption went up a good bit, and my DPS went up. I also now won't be dead weight in any WZ I join.

I use thrash in pvp because getting a chain shock proc on an energized shock with Recklessness up is @#%^ing money.

Edited, May 3rd 2012 12:00pm by Spoonless

If Shock/Project weren't so expensive, or if the skill made a procced one free, it might be great.

But Double Strike/Thrash do pretty pathetic damage and cost a ton of force. Seriously, with the appropriate talents DS costs 23 Force.

Slow Time costs 30, Force Breach costs 20, Ward costs 10, Saber Strike is free (and doesn't really do that much less damage), Telekinetic Throw costs 30, Spinning Strike costs 25, Whirling Blow costs 40 (but hits 5 targets instead of 1), Project costs 39.

Double Strike's an expensive ability that doesn't do good damage. 30% chance to Project sooner doesn't really matter, because the force cost of Project is too prohibitive to be using it on CD. It's fairly low on your priority list--even builds that take Particle Acceleration/Energize don't use the ability without it (meaning, the free attack is higher on the list than Project, which you only use when forced to move/go out of range). So you'd only actually be Projecting to force a crit.

That's just not a good deal. You're using an ability you wouldn't have used otherwise, to force a crit on an ability that you wouldn't use otherwise, which could have crit anyway because you probably have a fairly good crit chance. It's just not a good trade off, period.

Add in the fact that it's going to contribute to you being force starved, so you can't use your awesome abilities on CD (or closer to it), and you're definitely not going to be performing to the best of your ability.

Well, it's been under a month since combat logs were made available. The guide on the o-boards makes sense from a purely logical standpoint, when approaching the talent trees without mathematical data, just not in practice.

And it may well be the case that the energize rotation puts out better theoretical dps (particularly with high surge). But you can put out sufficient threat without relying on the RNG, and without having to worry about force starvation, so it just makes sense to default to the "safer" priority listing. Why risk when it might not have any reward? It's one thing to do that as a dps, it's quite another to do it as a tank (or healer).

You won't have "high" surge at any point in PVE since Survivor's gear has very little of it. In PVP, the only way you'll have "high" surge is if you're wearing Stalker's gear instead of Survivor's gear. However, it really doesn't matter in PVP because you don't have a true rotation unless you find another tank dumb enough to stand there and slug it out with you.

In PVE, Saber Strike will be a small enough portion of your DPS that capping accuracy won't be a big deal. SS is just a filler for when Wither and Shock are both on cooldown. You will use at most 4 or 5 per 15 GCDs.

I'm looking at my DS vs. my Saber Strike on my Shadow, and I'm finding it hard to believe you wouldn't want to mix in even 1-2 DS's/Thrash's per 20 GCD's or so. I mean, my Shadow has 331 high end damage on Saber Strike, assuming all three hits land for max damage, while DS comes in at 257x2 at the high end, with a chance to reset/buff Project, again assuming all hits land. Being two hits means you spend 12.5 force (untalented) per hit for two 30% chances to proc Particle Acceleration (or Energize, for Sin's). Given that you can free up more force for attacks thanks to the no-cost interrupt change in 1.2, it would seem to me that utilizing PA and Energize would be something that is at least worthwhile for more than just maintaining aggro on a nearby mob that's slightly out of range.

But I guess if the parses are showing it's useless then it's useless. Hate to see that though. Which generally means that there's a design change coming down the pipe in some way.

Apparently the cutting of Thrash from your rotation/priority is fairly recent (1.2). The recommended build still looks like it's picking up Energize, but Assassinate is still in your rotation so using Shock with an Energize proc after Assassinate shouldn't be too bad. Either that, or their recommended spec isn't updated.

Anyway, I have to look at things I guess. I don't really PvE tank, and Energized Shocks seem worth it in PvP since you tend to use your mid-ranged abilities fairly often. But that's just the eyeball test.

Well, it could be unintended. They've only recently implemented combat logs, and you're never going to test things in-house better than live servers will. Perhaps we'll see a boost to Thrash/Shock or a reduction in Thrash cost or something along those lines, but at the moment the numbers are showing it to not be worth it.

The talent is still useful for PVP tank specs, as Spoon has pointed out. Project is far more valuable to them than to PVE tanks, and the ability to stack it with their other buff for Burst makes it even better.

What it comes down to, I think, is that not every skill can be useful for every spec. For one, it's not fun to manage 15 attacks. That's a chore. For another, if the only difference between specs is what attacks they use more often, then things get less interesting.

Project has a clear place for PVE tanks, still. It just isn't a big part of their tank n' spank priority list. It's still extremely useful for when you need to move, attack a ranged target, kite, etc. It's great for picking up quick threat on an add.

And, honestly, that should be enough. When you think about the tank concept, they need to be focusing on maximum lightsaber mobility. They shouldn't be stopping in the middle of the fray to throw a big object. It should be a technique saved for opportune moments, primarily when your blade isn't needed for deflection. Double Strike can be rationalized in a similar way. A shadow/assassin tank has focused on using the force to bolster their defenses, and reduce the enemy's ability to penetrate them. It's not surprising that they wouldn't be focused on using their force reserves simply to bolster their lightsaber attacks--its not their focus, and it weakens their ability to defend.

To firmly ground it in lore terms, you can think of it this way:

Combat tanks have taken the Niman form they specialized in as Padawans and refined it to become something more of a Soresu variant. It specializes in deflecting lightsaber attacks and blaster bolts, and demands the user keep active control over their force, to regulate it for the sake of longevity. It has more room for force techniques than Soresu normally offers, but a much lower opportunity for lightsaber attacks. It requires the Jedi to keep their lightsaber close to their center, and constantly in motion. The double blade is great for deflecting blaster fire, but it makes counter-attacking very difficult, as the whole body must turn to do so. Therefore, Shadows generally focus on using the force to bolster their defenses, but have little to no room for anything but very practical, precision strikes. They make up for this weakness by utilizing efficient techniques like Force Slow and Force Pull to fill the gap in their style.

Infiltration Shadows have adapted their Niman style closer to Juyo (like Darth Maul)--they put heavy emphasis on movement, particularly in wide arcs, in order to throw off their opponents. It involves fast, strong strikes and targeted area swings. Double Strike is perfect for this early on--it's fast and hard. Eventually, they learn to make it better--Double Strike "becomes" Clairvoyent Strike, essentially a Double Strike that throws an enemy off guard, opening their defenses to project. They've, at that point, mastered the fast, double technique--they aren't going to revert back to a more basic style.

Balance are the true Niman users--they use a very creative style that mixes Force attacks with Lightsaber ones. They don't learn complex lightsaber techniques, nor do they focus on using it to breach enemy defenses--they mix hard-hitting lightsaber attacks and control the battle field by manipulating it with the force. It is more than enough for their needs, because they have other ways to open up an enemy--they're less dependent on controlling range or keeping their enemies on the defensive.

So, really, it makes perfect sense. As Combat Shadows focus more and more on refining their defensive style, they use the force for attacks less and less. As Infiltration refines their aggressive style, they learn to actually use the concept of a strong, two-hit attack to breach enemy defenses. And for Balance shadows, Double Strike is more than sufficient, since they don't have the time to invest in learning the kind of techniques that would require studying a whole new Lightsaber form.

Well, Shock still has a place on the tank priority list, according to MMO-Mechanics (SW). I think it's just the whole Thrash to proc Energize thing that's by the wayside. I still like Energize in PvP and I'm not sure what you'd replace it with for PvE, but I would probably still keep it for incidental procs from Assassinate.

Honestly it would make more sense as something you could get with 10 points, to go with a Madness spec.

Edited, May 4th 2012 10:38am by Spoonless

Read some posts on the O-boards about Immortals going deep Vengeance to get 4% damage reduction.

Yeah, that's why it's being debated and crunched.

Some are also saying that Sonic Barrier (dunno what the Jedi version is called) is practically useless, which further supports the Vengeance build. The debate right now is centered around testing it some more. It was previously believed that Sonic Barrier was absorbing a four-digit amount and that it scaled. Tests conducted with and without armor seem to indicate that it does not scale and that it absorbs half the amount they thought it did.

From what I've read, the average seems to be around 800 damage absorbed per barrier. With Force Scream's 12-second cooldown, that's an effective ~66 health per second this ability restores, which, according to raiders (I don't know what they're calling the TOR equivalents), isn't worth two skill points.

Then there's the whole discussion about the 4% shield chance. Someone ran the numbers on that skill and while I don't remember the result, I know it was less than a single digit damage reduction it provided. We're talking decimal values here.

Interesting discussions, but a part of me wish they'd never enabled combat logs. I mean, I strive to deliver the best results when I play, but I have to ask myself... did we need to know this? So what if Vengeance proves to deliver a slight advantage in terms of survivability? So what if Thrash as a Tanksin isn't supposed to be used?

Couldn't we enjoy the game before we knew all this?

Oh yeah, one of the strongest pvp and pve builds for a Jugg that wants to tank is more or less this as it provides good damage, better base survivability from talents than deep Immortal (4% to all damage vs 4% to internal/elemental) and enough control options that you're able to spoil very effectively in pvp while also putting out decent damage. Impale hits almost as hard as Crushing Blow does normally, but with the added bonus of hugely buffing VT and Scream. Meanwhile, you get Force Grip, Invincible, and enough buffs to Soresu that you can hold threat just fine against a single target, Taunt or no.

Really, the only reason to go deep Immortal is for the control and backloaded damage you get from a buffed Crushing Blow. Which has long been a criticism of deep Immortal and Defense, along with the relative uselessness of tank stats in pvp. Going deep tank as a Jugg or Guardian really focuses you narrowly, and the benefits you gain, while nice, have a hard time standing up to what you get by going deeper into Vengeance/Vigilance.

Whether or not that's what it's supposed to do remains to be seen, but it's not all it is doing. Right now, to take aggro when at range (which is actually such a big radius that you have to be inside most mobs to be considered in melee range), you need to do 130% of the tank's threat.

But, right now, the tank can increase his threat by 30% every 15 seconds (plus 30% every 45 seconds).

Before 1.2, deep Immortal was more attractive than it was now (though it had the same issues, and hybrids definitely existed). 4% shield chance was significant because of the high DR on the shield stat (or so I understand). 1.2 brought higher shield chances, which led to a decreased value on the shield chance talent.