I am Korrack, Tank Ravager of the Sith Happens Guild on Mantle of the Force and, through this guide, I share my experience of the discipline Immortality in 3.2.1.
I would like to point out that this guide is intended for all types of player, from the simple beginner to the most advanced.
Summary :
- Introduction
- Vocabulary
- Disciplines, powers and uses
- General statistics
- The mechanisms of tanking
- Provocations
- Rotation
- Statistics and Equipment
- Conclusion
Introduction
The Ravager is equipped with heavy armor, a lightsaber and a shield, he fights in Soresu Form. He must learn to manage his 12 rage units to be effective.
Unlike his fellow Specialist and Assassin, he has no grappling hook or stealth. However, it has many powers of control.
Each tank (Assassin, Ravager or Specialist) has a protection bubble, which it can place on the DPS (or healer) having a high threat.
Vocabulary
There is so much to know ... I'm going to talk about useful tank vocabulary and some other words widely used in operations.
- Aggro : Threaten an enemy to attack you.
- Take aggro : Make enemies attack you.
- Animosity / Threat: It's a statistic hidden in digital form, it creates aggro. I will come back to this in a later point.
- Caps (Cork) : The course to be reached in a given statistic.
- CD : CoolDown, can indicate the cooldown of a power or a defensive power.
- Joke : Attract an ally or enemy close to you (do not use the grap on a Tank, especially in HM operation).
- Kitting / Kitte : Running with the enemy on his trail.
- Se packer : To regroup together.
- I respected : Change specialization.
- Rush : End an instance as quickly as possible.
- Stim : Stimulant contractions, item made by a Biochemist that grants you approximately 1% more defense and 2 health. Stim of bravery to take for tanks.
- Strats : Strategies to use on a boss.
- Stun or CC : Knock out an enemy to knock them out for 1 minute.
Disciplines, powers and uses
Talents of 3.0
- Enraged Assault : Reduces the cooldown of Aegis Onslaught by 3 seconds and increases the rage it generates by 2.
- Unique Saber Mastery : Increases the damage done by your weapon by 20% and grants a bonus based on active form:
- Soresu Form: Increases melee and ranged defense by 3%, as well as the animosity generated by Shock, Vicious Slash, Retaliation and Volleyball by 15%.
- Aegis assault : This power replaces the Fatal Onslaught, increases damage reduction by 3% for 20 seconds, generates 6 Rage.
Discipline
- Breach opening : Shock deals 75% more damage and costs 1 Rage point. Volley and Rampage critical strike chance increased by 30%.
- Earthquake : Targets affected by your Shock and Volley Punch become unstable. Melee and ranged accuracy of unstable targets is reduced by 5% for 45 seconds. Force Cry increases its damage by 40%.
- Invective : In Soresu form, Retaliation consumes 1 point of Rage. In addition, they are now out of the general cooldown.
- Rule of two : Armor rating increased by 15% and movement speed increased by 30% when the target you are guarding is attacked.
- Force Embrace : Force Strangulation no longer needs to be channeled. Full effect applied for 4 seconds. Force Choke has its damage and threat generation increased by 100%.
- revenge Parry, deflect, protect, or resist an attack at a 50% chance of granting revenge, reducing the rage consumption of your next Force Shout or Vicious Throw by 1 point. Cumulative 3 times.
- Dark blood : Increases Pain Tolerance duration by 10 seconds, and internal and elemental damage reduction by 5%.
- Energy consumption : Increases the critical strike chance of Shock by 20%. Aegis Assault increases shield absorption by 3%. Additionally, Aegis Onslaught increases its damage by 15%.
- Pillar of strength : Reduces the cooldown of Invincibility by 30 seconds, increases damage dealt by Backhand and Crushing Blow by 30%.
uses
The use points are common to the three Ravager disciplines. We will therefore put aside the PvP Uses and those for the DPS disciplines, and take the Uses to increase animosity, survival, etc.
- empowered
- mastery
- Heroic
- Bellicist : Reduces Force Charge delay by 1 second when being attacked. Effect available every 1.5 seconds. Useful during a bump to immediately "load" and start over a cycle.
- Force transition : Increases the damage of Volley of Blows by 25%. This increases the animosity of this useful multi-target power.
- Profit : Reduces the cooldown of Release by 30 seconds, which when triggered restores 10% of your health. Convenient to relieve the healer.
- Sound wall Our Mass Taunt increases animosity and protects party members within 15 yards from a small amount of damage for 10 seconds. Puts weak protection on party members, weak certainly but can still be useful.
- Galvanizing cry : Increases the movement speed of all allies by 50% within 8 yards. Useful to help party members get out of a damage area quickly (example: Blaster in Operation Ravager).
- Intimidating presence : Cooldown of Disruption canceled if using Force Charge. And most importantly: Saber Reflection generates a large amount of animosity on all enemies engaged within 30 yards. Increased animosity, mandatory!
- Exaltation : Reduces the cooldown of Enraged Defense by 30 seconds. To take, allows to help the healer to better concentrate on a DPS.
ou
- By power : Pain Tolerance increases your movement speed by 50% and makes you immune to movement affecting effects.
General statistics
Endurance
- Increases the amount of damage you can take before being defeated.
- This is our least important statistic. Indeed a tank can have 60 points of health, but have 000% of shield, the healer will not like.
Bouclier
- Increased chance to trigger shield.
- The shield must have a greater percentage than the absorption. A difference of 5% is tolerated.
Defense
- Increased chance of avoiding an impending attack.
Absorption
- Percentage of damage neutralized when an attack is absorbed by your shield.
Precision
- Chance that your attacks affect the target.
- Accuracy above 100% reduces the resistance of the target.
The mechanisms of tanking
To be a good Tank, you have to know your rotations, have good equipment but above all know how the threat works!
Animosity or threat, it is a hidden in-game table-based statistic called the "Threat Table". It increases the likelihood that an enemy will attack you. It is a numerical quantity.
The threat table, it indicates who is in combat and ranks the characters according to their current threat level, placing the one with the most threat at the top of the table. The enemies attack the player with the highest threat on this table.
Provocations
Taunt, or taunt, works as a threat multiplier. It multiplies your threat compared to the first on the threat table, the multiplication is 110% if you are less than 3 meters and 130% beyond 3 meters. You can therefore increase your threat by 20% depending on your placement.
Here is a comparison graph between two tanks over a 2 minute fight. Both generate 1 threat per second but the one in green uses its taunt every 000 seconds:
As we can see, the Tank that uses its taunt has multiplied its threat by 3,5 compared to the other Tank. Attention, in certain strategies, the Tanks must keep provocations for certain situations, this is an example!
Rotation
Buffs and debuffs
- Buff
- Debuff
The Ravager has defensive buffs. They increase its absorption, defense or even its damage reduction.
Aegis Assault:
- Aegis Assault: Damage reduction increased by an additional 3%.
- Energy consumption: absorption increased by 3%.
Reprisals:
- Blade Barricades: Increases Defense Index by 5%.
Force cry:
- Sonic Barrier: Absorbs an intermediate amount of damage.
You will understand, these buffs are to be put as soon as possible.
Only three powers of the Ravager initiate a debuff:
Choc - "Instability": melee precision and reduced distance.
Crushing blow - "Penalty": The damage inflicted by Force and Tech attacks is reduced.
Punch volley and Vicious Lunge - "Trauma": healing received is reduced by 20%.
Force Strangulation - "Force Strangulation": Regular kinetic damage.
Single and Multi-Target Cycles
I know that all my dear fellow Ravagers are not going to agree with me but, the cycle below seems to me the most opti for taking and keeping aggro.
- Single target
- Multi-target
Enrage (6 rage points)
Force Charge (+ 3 rage points)
Saber reflection
Crushing Blow (-3 rage points)
Backhand
Retaliation (-1 point of rage)
Shock (-1 rage point)
Provocation
Aegis Assault (+6 rage points)
pillage
Cri de Force (free with the "Revenge")
Threatening cry (+ "Sound barrier")
Crushing Blow (-3 rage points)
Retaliation (-1 point of rage)
Force Strangulation
Vicious slit
Provocation
Aegis assault
Choc
Cri de Force (free with the "Revenge")
Assault
For the intermediate cycle, a few rules must be applied:
- Use Backhand when available generates 8 threat. *
- Use Crushing blow and Reprisals generates 17 threat. *
- use Saber reflection during an incantation (because more useful) of a techno or Force attack. It generates a large amount of threat.
- Use Vicious throw when the target reaches 30% health.
- When Aegis assault, Reprisals are available, activate them to always have your defense, absorption and damage reduction buffs.
- use pillage around 6 threat. *
* these figures are based on an average of several fights
With this cycle, you should have no trouble picking up and keeping aggro (sometimes even picking up from the second tank).
Enrage
Force Charge (3 rage points)
Saber reflection
Crushing Blow (-3 rage points)
Retaliation (-1 point of rage)
Shock (-1 rage point)
Backhand
Threatening cry (+ "Sound barrier")
Aegis Assault (+6 rage points)
Volley of blows (-2 rage points)
pillage
Defensive powers
To protect ourselves well, we have our equipment but also our defensive powers (generally called CD - Cooldown). To do this, you need to know their effects:
- Saber reflection : I use it both as a defense power and as an attack power. It reflects Force and Techno damage back at the attacker and generates a large amount of animosity.
- Saber return : Reduces Force and Tech damage by 25% and increases Defense by 50%.
- Invincibility : It reduces all damage taken by 40% for 12 seconds.
- Tolerance to pain : It increases our life by 30% for 20 seconds. Additionally, it reduces internal and elemental damage by 5%. To be used when you feel that the healer is busy raising the DPS, after an affliction or a combat phase that has gone wrong for example.
- Enraged Defense : To be used to help the healer or as a panic-button. It grants 10 charges and each charge regenerates 2021 health. Usable if health is below 70%.
- Looseness : Purges disabling and movement-affecting effects. Furthermore, Profit restores 10% of your life.
With all this you are immortal ... or almost. Of course when I say "you have to know how to use them in such and such an attack", doing it is quite hard and it takes time to learn and coordinate our gameplay.
Types of damage
There are 2 types of damage: Internal / Elemental and Energetic / Kinetic.
- Energetics / Kinetics : This type of damage acts on defense or shield
- Internal / Elementary : Damage reduction only.
Statistics and Equipment
Precision : Currently it is 101%: 90% + 10% of Soresu form + 1% in companion buff.
Priority order : Absorption> Shield> Defense
Why defense last? Because the Defense, without improvements, arrives at 20 - 21%. If we add the buff Blade barricades, the defense increases to 25 - 26% which is quite acceptable.
Plus defense = absorption. Let me explain our 21-25% Defense is used to parry / dodge an attack. Our shield, meanwhile, has a 54% chance to pick up our absorption which absorbs 51% of damage.
Between having 25% chance to dodge 100% damage, and 54% to absorb 51% damage I prefer my second option.
If you are still not convinced: in our discipline, defense acquires a bonus of 5% in combat added to the base bonus of the Ravager which is 8% (therefore 13% of minimum Defense).
However, absorption has no base bonus and a 3% bonus in the disciplines. This reasoning led me to take the above order of priority.
I did tests with different proportions of improvements until I found a balance of the three statistics.
Below are the stats I'm targeting with equipment 198 "Revanite military leader" with improvement q. Statistics without stim. However the modification present on the belt (90 Defense) has been changed to 90 absorption.
- 1
- 2
Without improvements, and Type X implant
- Defense : 5% + 3% + defense index (959): 13% = 21%
- Bouclier : 5% + 19% + shield index (1200): 23% = 47%
- Absorption : 20 % + index d'absorption ( 945 ): 19,35 % = 39.35 %
With Improvement 186, and Implant type X
- Defense : 5% + 3% + defense index (959): 13% = 21%
- Bouclier : 5% + 19% + shield index (1512): 30% = 54%
- Absorption : 20 % + index d'absorption ( 1451 ): 31 % = 51 %
Caps targeted : 21% Defense / 54% Shield / 51% Absorb
With these caps in combat (buff activated, rotation respected, stim etc.) you should reach around 27% Defense 54% Shield 54% Absorption.
Absorption should not be greater than Shield, this is only useful if Shield is engaged. A difference of 5% is tolerated.
Equipment and set bonuses
The equipment entitled "Rempart Type 1" is the equipment without set bonus, purchasable with the distinctions it does not include any optimized parts. The "Bulwark Type 2" equipment can be obtained in Litigation Zones or Operations. This equipment has no optimized parts apart from sophistication.
Equipment with bonus from the "Military Leader" set can only be obtained in Normal or Hard Operation 60 as a token to be exchanged on the fleet. Don't miss it! It has optimized coins and a 6 coin bonus!
- Bonus 2 pieces : Crushing Blow increases damage reduction by 2% for 4 seconds.
- Bonus 4 pieces : Aegis Assault reduces the cooldown of Taunt and Menacing Shout by 2 seconds per activation.
- Bonus 6 pieces : Increases the duration of Blade Pivot by 1,5 seconds and the duration of invincibility by 3 seconds.
The set bonus is essential, the 2 piece is very interesting, the 4 piece allows us to have a peak of threat generation during our intro cycle, as for the 6 pieces practical to absorb large amounts of damage.
For loot in operations, I refer you to the Geofraynils guide https://gamesmanagers.com/98085-swtor-3-0-les-butins-doperations/
improvements
- (x6) Advanced Shield Upgrade 36 : Power +34 Shield Index +52
- (x8) Advanced absorption enhancement 36 : Potency +34 Absorption index +52
- Advanced Entrenchment Upgrade 36 : Power +34 Defense Index +52
Relics
- Fortuitous refuge : Impending attacks have a 30% chance to grant a Defense rating of 855 for 6 seconds.
- Shield Amplification : Absorption increased by 855 points for 6 seconds. Available every 20 seconds.
Conclusion
The Ravager Tank has, like its fellow Assassin and Specialist, its own style of play. It is characterized by its ability to keep aggro after pulling, however for the multi-target it is less good than its fellow Specialist.
Thank you for reading this block, I hope I have taught you something. I want to thank my guild for 3 years of in-game support and Rònin for the Ravager basics. I also thank Nekheb and Myrinia for teaching me a lot of things about the game, I wouldn't be where I am without having met them.
I am at your disposal for any questions or intelligent and thoughtful comments in comments.
sources:
- Vocabulary http://www.swtor.com/fr/community/showthread.php?t=461775
- Tanking mechanics https://gamesmanagers.com/97076-swtor-mecaniques-de-la-menace-et-de-laggro/
