Unlocked Knight last week, finished Cryomancer and started putting points into Knight this week. Tried an HT tanking with Knight a day or two ago with maybe half of the effective tank talents and didn't really care much for it (switched back to Paladin after a not-really-tanking-related wipe on the last boss). Did an MSM earlier today with a few extra talents and abilities I didn't have before (most notably, Barrier II) and it went much smoother.
Barrier II is the real make-or-break-point. It was actually just recently nerfed but not to the point where Knight is inviable. The recent patch reworked Inspiration (previously, the diminished Willpower regeneration from Barrier is removed for 6 seconds after using an ability that consumes Willpower) to Counter-Grip (the bonus effect of Barrier II lasts 1 second longer and Lunge restores 2 extra Willpower). The important component of Barrier II (that's missing from regular
Barrier) is that it doubles the damage reduction (30% to 50-55%--depending on if the bonus takes Rockwall into account) for 4
seconds after using an ability that consumes Willpower. From what I understand, with the right talents you could maintain a very high uptime on the Barrier II bonus due to enough Willpower regeneration which is now a bit nerfed.
Frankly, between a competent support, judicious management of the Barrier II bonus and Tantrum/Resolute Defense, and Whiplash being an OP-as-fuck underdog ult for backup, you should have plenty of sustain to survive any fight a Paladin can.
Which is better? Eh, I dunno yet.
It's hard to peg either one into a role yet too. For example, Knight has much better AOE options but no AOE taunt. Paladin has a low-cooldown, on-demand emergency shield but Knight has constant damage reduction. Paladin and Knight can both get 4 and 3 seconds of invulnerability with a 16 and 15 second cooldowns respectively (with varying utility; Paladin can extend that invulnerability to allies, Knight can reflect a huge chunk of damage). Neither seems to have a particular advantage at tanking single targets.
I feel like Knight is much more safer at tanking, but I also feel like I have more control over what's going on as Paladin. So we'll have to see how things go as I finish up Knight and play around with it more.
Showing posts with label Tanking Discussion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tanking Discussion. Show all posts
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Skyforge Block stat - Is it worth it? & Tanking stat discussion & Recommended Chapels
Sitting here with my first spare okki tablet trying to decide where to drop a second superfluous chapel. The question on my mind is which tank stat is least valuable and thus most amenable to being replaced by an alternate chapel. But that decision's not super interesting with regards to this post, here we're gonna look at Block specifically.
It's hard to find information on how all the tank stats work, but Block is especially nebulous. At face value without doing any calculating, I actually assumed Block would be hella useful for tanking--it usually is in most MMOs and proc'd damage reduction is usually pretty high priority--so I was surprised to find a lot of people claiming that Block is worthless (tl;dr for below: it probably is indeed worthless).
But here's some theoretical math:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ttemNuGG8TlLqYEOLGcxK5PItUFaOroqWnnnNCkiPFQ/edit#gid=0
Edit: Should be fully viewable now and anyone should be able to edit the yellow boxes. Let me know if you have any trouble with it.
Here's what we know:
-Block "occasionally" reduces damage
-Decreases "incoming damage" by a "certain" percent of Stamina
Here's what we don't know:
-How often "occasionally" is; ie the proc rate
-What specific percent of Stamina is applied
Here's some assumptions I'm making:
-The stat value of Block refers to the % of stamina by which damage is reduced, and that this value is a flat number (ie when blocking occurs with 15% Block you're reducing damage by a 0.15*Stamina flat amount)
-There's no other sources of straight up damage reduction (ie incoming damage is not modified at all)
Here's the variables involved:
-Proc rate; I wrote in samples for varying proc rates from 10% to 100% in 10% intervals
-Incoming damage magnitude; it's obvious right off the bat that fewer, larger hits make Block less worthwhile and conversely it's better suited to more frequent, smaller hits (basically, means there's more chances for Block to proc)
---
Now I set out to write this about Block to get a better idea how much of an impact it might be having but I decided to just go ahead and try to look at Shield Power, Adaptation, and Endurance as well--since knowing how Block works doesn't mean much without comparing it to the others. Here's some notes based on these very rough calculations
-Shield Power: I'm assuming it modifies all incoming shields and not just personal sources
-Shield Power: Since the determinant of the usefulness of Shield Power is how many times a shield is applied, I modeled it as effective HP gained per minute--ie the shield being used as soon as the cooldown is available for Celestial Shield and Unstable Shield (including the Rain of Fire talent). Note that with Paladin talents, Celestial Shield cooldown can be reduced if the shield is destroyed, which makes the eHP/min potentially higher in practice. I don't have Alchemist unlocked to compare those shields unfortunately. Knight shields are smaller and less consistent so I didn't really take the time to throw those in for now.
-Block vs Shield Power: Block needs a very high proc rate even in high frequency/low damage situations in order for it to be better, point for point, than Shield Power
-Adaptation: "Incoming damage is temporarily reduced if you take consistent hits." Working assumption: Adaptation% damage reduction for subsequent hits beyond a short time period.
-Adaptation vs Block: At a constant proc rate (ie a situation where all incoming damage qualifies for Adaptation damage reduction), Adaptation seems to be comparable to Block at ~50% proc rate on a percent-by-percent basis
-Endurance: Assuming the % value is the damage reduction percent.
-Endurance vs Adaptation: On paper and in each stat's ideal situation, they appear to be the same value percent-by-percent, however one needs to consider that they are useful in opposite situations. It's also worth considering that you can get Endurance in larger chunks via chapels than Adaptation. Personally, I think it's more common to take larger amounts of damage, so I prefer Endurance when it's a choice between them.
-Nothing here takes healing into account, so there's probably some fudging there maybe.
AFAIK none of these stats are available from rings, so the real discussion here is chapel selection. Based on all of the above, here's what I would recommend:
Province: First choice > Second choice
Dawn Plateau: Endurance > Block
Kesalia: Shield Power
Symerlis: Shield Power > Block
Ithanos Archipelago: Shield Power
Hallaghi Valley: Endurance > Adaptation
Fjord Kangher: Shield Power > Block
Thyrthon Plain: Endurance
Damon Wasteland: Adaptation > Regeneration
*Shield Power reportedly caps (soft or hard?) at 25%, so you may or may not want to pick one Block chapel over a Shield Power when you start upgrading to purple chapels. I'm not aware of any other stat caps at this time.
Honestly, if you want to be prepared for all situations I'd recommend grabbing both first and second recommendations for each province to have maximum versatility (also, in the future we'll be able to activate multiple chapels in a province) but it's naturally up to you if you want to have DPS or support stats on backup first.
It's hard to find information on how all the tank stats work, but Block is especially nebulous. At face value without doing any calculating, I actually assumed Block would be hella useful for tanking--it usually is in most MMOs and proc'd damage reduction is usually pretty high priority--so I was surprised to find a lot of people claiming that Block is worthless (tl;dr for below: it probably is indeed worthless).
But here's some theoretical math:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ttemNuGG8TlLqYEOLGcxK5PItUFaOroqWnnnNCkiPFQ/edit#gid=0
Edit: Should be fully viewable now and anyone should be able to edit the yellow boxes. Let me know if you have any trouble with it.
Here's what we know:
-Block "occasionally" reduces damage
-Decreases "incoming damage" by a "certain" percent of Stamina
Here's what we don't know:
-How often "occasionally" is; ie the proc rate
-What specific percent of Stamina is applied
Here's some assumptions I'm making:
-The stat value of Block refers to the % of stamina by which damage is reduced, and that this value is a flat number (ie when blocking occurs with 15% Block you're reducing damage by a 0.15*Stamina flat amount)
-There's no other sources of straight up damage reduction (ie incoming damage is not modified at all)
Here's the variables involved:
-Proc rate; I wrote in samples for varying proc rates from 10% to 100% in 10% intervals
-Incoming damage magnitude; it's obvious right off the bat that fewer, larger hits make Block less worthwhile and conversely it's better suited to more frequent, smaller hits (basically, means there's more chances for Block to proc)
---
Now I set out to write this about Block to get a better idea how much of an impact it might be having but I decided to just go ahead and try to look at Shield Power, Adaptation, and Endurance as well--since knowing how Block works doesn't mean much without comparing it to the others. Here's some notes based on these very rough calculations
-Shield Power: I'm assuming it modifies all incoming shields and not just personal sources
-Shield Power: Since the determinant of the usefulness of Shield Power is how many times a shield is applied, I modeled it as effective HP gained per minute--ie the shield being used as soon as the cooldown is available for Celestial Shield and Unstable Shield (including the Rain of Fire talent). Note that with Paladin talents, Celestial Shield cooldown can be reduced if the shield is destroyed, which makes the eHP/min potentially higher in practice. I don't have Alchemist unlocked to compare those shields unfortunately. Knight shields are smaller and less consistent so I didn't really take the time to throw those in for now.
-Block vs Shield Power: Block needs a very high proc rate even in high frequency/low damage situations in order for it to be better, point for point, than Shield Power
-Adaptation: "Incoming damage is temporarily reduced if you take consistent hits." Working assumption: Adaptation% damage reduction for subsequent hits beyond a short time period.
-Adaptation vs Block: At a constant proc rate (ie a situation where all incoming damage qualifies for Adaptation damage reduction), Adaptation seems to be comparable to Block at ~50% proc rate on a percent-by-percent basis
-Endurance: Assuming the % value is the damage reduction percent.
-Endurance vs Adaptation: On paper and in each stat's ideal situation, they appear to be the same value percent-by-percent, however one needs to consider that they are useful in opposite situations. It's also worth considering that you can get Endurance in larger chunks via chapels than Adaptation. Personally, I think it's more common to take larger amounts of damage, so I prefer Endurance when it's a choice between them.
-Nothing here takes healing into account, so there's probably some fudging there maybe.
AFAIK none of these stats are available from rings, so the real discussion here is chapel selection. Based on all of the above, here's what I would recommend:
Province: First choice > Second choice
Dawn Plateau: Endurance > Block
Kesalia: Shield Power
Symerlis: Shield Power > Block
Ithanos Archipelago: Shield Power
Hallaghi Valley: Endurance > Adaptation
Fjord Kangher: Shield Power > Block
Thyrthon Plain: Endurance
Damon Wasteland: Adaptation > Regeneration
*Shield Power reportedly caps (soft or hard?) at 25%, so you may or may not want to pick one Block chapel over a Shield Power when you start upgrading to purple chapels. I'm not aware of any other stat caps at this time.
Honestly, if you want to be prepared for all situations I'd recommend grabbing both first and second recommendations for each province to have maximum versatility (also, in the future we'll be able to activate multiple chapels in a province) but it's naturally up to you if you want to have DPS or support stats on backup first.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Skyforgin' and Tankin'
Been playing a lot of Skyforge the past week. It's fun enough to fill my current MMO void while I'm still taking jaunts into Heroes of the Storm and Trove (since the Steam release I've had two separate groups of gaming buddies get into it).
Skyforge is a Russian MMO, and like a lot of foreign MMOs there is an awful lot that is either not explained very well period or not explained very well probably due to poor translations. And like a lot of second- or third-string MMOs the external resources for the game are really poor when they exist at all, so I'd like to do what I did with this blog way way back when I started it circa Guild Wars 2 and try to collect information and strategies until someone else picks up the torch with a bit more organization and competence.
I can begin by talking a little bit about tanking so far, since that what I have modest experience with in MMOs and have been doing mostly in Skyforge. I've only had access to Paladin so far. Threat is very easy to get and hold and you have plenty of tools to get it and hold it and get it back if you need to. As I get into the 4k+ prestige range though I'm starting to notice a lot of enemies--especially normal trash mobs--in normal+ level Adventures are tuned to completely squash you if you're not on the ball. And this isn't entirely in terms of fight mechanics; a modest size group of Swarm-type mobs can and will wreck your shit if you aren't popping regular shields and your group isn't fast enough with the damage.
It gets worse in Group Adventures where you start having to treat every trash pull like you're approaching a boss. Which is frustrating because the bosses, by contrast, are pretty well tuned for group play--for the most part. Not having regular healing can really make things frustrating. Maybe I'm doing things wrong or maybe I keep getting stuck with incompetent supports (I haven't played support enough to understand how viable or essential their role is, but I really should) but I switch off to DPS every so often to try to see how other tanks are behaving and I see the same kinds of issues.
One thing I've noticed that has helped, and have noticed other tanks catching on to, is that kiting enemies seems to be one of the safest ways to do things. For example, pretty much all issues I had handling the pre-boss mini-boss of Mare Sacro Monestary were resolved by getting threat on the boss, picking up adds whenever they spawned, and running in a big ring around the outside of the room while the group blasted everything. The gauntlet portion of the last boss of Daren Facility seems to virtually require a similar strategy. Threat is not difficult to manage so you don't need to be constantly poking enemies, and enemy pathing is kind of strange; enemies don't seem to want to pass through each other and, when swarming, will gather around you in a circle--which is frustrating on many levels but can be abused to limit the number of enemies attacking you at once. Also, ranged enemies seem to react very poorly to being LOS'd and may often sit there just staring at you from around the corner instead of attacking anyone.
This game very very desperately needs some way to mark targets; choosing which targets to kill first is a huge problem in this game. Good and bad parties in this game can be distinguished by something as simple as whether or not everyone has the same sense in picking targets.
Anyways, that's all for now. I'm going to do a writeup on MSM as soon as I've run it again to get accompanying screenshots.
Skyforge is a Russian MMO, and like a lot of foreign MMOs there is an awful lot that is either not explained very well period or not explained very well probably due to poor translations. And like a lot of second- or third-string MMOs the external resources for the game are really poor when they exist at all, so I'd like to do what I did with this blog way way back when I started it circa Guild Wars 2 and try to collect information and strategies until someone else picks up the torch with a bit more organization and competence.
I can begin by talking a little bit about tanking so far, since that what I have modest experience with in MMOs and have been doing mostly in Skyforge. I've only had access to Paladin so far. Threat is very easy to get and hold and you have plenty of tools to get it and hold it and get it back if you need to. As I get into the 4k+ prestige range though I'm starting to notice a lot of enemies--especially normal trash mobs--in normal+ level Adventures are tuned to completely squash you if you're not on the ball. And this isn't entirely in terms of fight mechanics; a modest size group of Swarm-type mobs can and will wreck your shit if you aren't popping regular shields and your group isn't fast enough with the damage.
It gets worse in Group Adventures where you start having to treat every trash pull like you're approaching a boss. Which is frustrating because the bosses, by contrast, are pretty well tuned for group play--for the most part. Not having regular healing can really make things frustrating. Maybe I'm doing things wrong or maybe I keep getting stuck with incompetent supports (I haven't played support enough to understand how viable or essential their role is, but I really should) but I switch off to DPS every so often to try to see how other tanks are behaving and I see the same kinds of issues.
One thing I've noticed that has helped, and have noticed other tanks catching on to, is that kiting enemies seems to be one of the safest ways to do things. For example, pretty much all issues I had handling the pre-boss mini-boss of Mare Sacro Monestary were resolved by getting threat on the boss, picking up adds whenever they spawned, and running in a big ring around the outside of the room while the group blasted everything. The gauntlet portion of the last boss of Daren Facility seems to virtually require a similar strategy. Threat is not difficult to manage so you don't need to be constantly poking enemies, and enemy pathing is kind of strange; enemies don't seem to want to pass through each other and, when swarming, will gather around you in a circle--which is frustrating on many levels but can be abused to limit the number of enemies attacking you at once. Also, ranged enemies seem to react very poorly to being LOS'd and may often sit there just staring at you from around the corner instead of attacking anyone.
This game very very desperately needs some way to mark targets; choosing which targets to kill first is a huge problem in this game. Good and bad parties in this game can be distinguished by something as simple as whether or not everyone has the same sense in picking targets.
Anyways, that's all for now. I'm going to do a writeup on MSM as soon as I've run it again to get accompanying screenshots.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Tanking Discussion: Comparing Assassin and Powertech Tanking in PvE
It's been a while since I've written something designed to be a little thought-provoking and I've been meaning to comment on how Assassin and Powertech tanking compare so I think it's a good subject to pick to get back to writing those kinds of posts.
There's three tank classes in SWTOR. Juggernaut (Guardian) is the one of the three I've not played to 50, so I'm not going to say much on how it plays per se. It is considered to be the weakest of the three options--not to say it's a terrible tank but if you were to rank the aspects of tanking in SWTOR it would come in last place compared to the other two classes except maybe in terms of the defensive cooldowns available to the class. The other two tanking classes, Assassin (Shadow) and Powertech (Vanguard), I do have a reasonable amount of experience with though.
Say you're just getting into SWTOR and you've decided you really want to tank. So which class should you pick? I would tell you that I strongly recommend playing a Powertech or Vanguard. Why not Juggernaut? Well, primarily because of the reasons outlined above. Why not Assassin? Assassin is also an excellent choice for tanking--in fact I'd assert that if you consider tanking in terms of the attributes that make a tanking class good (threat generation, survivability, damage, cooldowns), Assassin is either on par with or not far behind Powertechs. What makes Assassins second to Powertechs in my opinion is that they are a lot more work to play.
Let's briefly go over the abilities you'll need to use on a regular basis for both classes:
Assassin
-Saber Strike - Obligatory no-cost filler move; use when you need to save Force for another ability.
-Thrash - Basic everything-else-is-on-cooldown filler; procs Energize.
-Wither - Nice AOE damage and threat and comes with a damage debuff whose duration is more forgiving than the debuff on Discharge, but alas it also feeds Withering Darkness thus necessitating that it too generally be used on cooldown.
-Discharge - Provides an accuracy debuff, but its duration is just barely longer than the cooldown on Discharge, necessitating that it be used on cooldown to max the debuff's uptime.
-Shock - Heavily boosted by Energize and Chain Shock and it feeds Harnessed Darkness, but it eats up a ton of force so it's best reserved for Energize procs.
-Force Lightning - Made essential by Harnessed Darkness, and thanks thereto it becomes an excellent survivability tool.
-Dark Ward - Contributes heavily to survivability, but it needs to be actively monitored for when its cooldown is up, the buff's duration, and the number of charges.
-Recklessness - You'll want to keep this on cooldown, especially since it's amazing when combined with talents that boost force damage abilities especially Energize and Chain Shock.
Powertech
-Rapid Shots - Obligatory no-cost filler move; it's barely less damage than Flame Burst so it's recommended that you use it unless you have less than 10 Heat.
-Flame Burst - Basic everything-else-is-on-cooldown filler; comes with a damage debuff if talented, but as outlined above it's barely more damage than Rapid Shots so it's best saved either for if the debuff needs refreshing or you're nearing 0 Heat.
-Rocket Punch - This ability is talented into amazing damage and guaranteed Ion Gas Cylinder procs (and thus even more amazing damage) wrapped in a neat little package--it even randomly finishes its cooldown on shield procs thanks to Flame Shield; keep this shit cooldown.
-Rail Shot - Another nice heavy-hitter; thanks to Ion Overload and the Ion Gas Cylinder procs from Rocket Punch the conditions required for its use will never be a problem.
-Explosive Dart - Yet another nifty (AOE) heavy-hitter.
-Heat Blast - Not great damage per se, but it's free and actually vents heat so it makes a nice heat control cooldown.
-Explosive Fuel - Powertech's level 50 ability, a great offensive cooldown that's freely available to tanks too.
That's 8 abilities Assassin has to juggle, all with their own interconnected procs on top of having to keep track of Dark Ward charges compared to Powertech's 7 fire-and-forget abilities and 100% passive defense.
Powertechs have an additional advantage in generating clutch AOE threat over both Juggernaut and Assassin--their AOE taunt is on-target, ie you pick a target and the AOE radius of the taunt is on that target (Assassin and Juggernaut AOE taunts are centered on self). Extremely handy. Both Assassin and Powertech have Death Grip style pulls, and, while neither represents a clear advantage (actually, Assassin may have it here), I personally like Jet Charge over Force Speed. Powertech's one clear relative weakness compared to the other tanks lies in its defensive cooldowns--a Powertech only has two cooldowns (granted one of them is amazing) that are on a minimum two minute cooldown (three defensive cooldowns, admittedly, if you include Oil Slick, however it requires and consumes a global cooldown). Strangely, despite the fact that Powertech has no abilities that have a "generates significant threat" tag on their tooltip, Powertechs have no trouble holding threat (owing presumably to their relatively nice damage output).
Given the proximity to the onset of 1.2, this discussion wouldn't be complete without considering the upcoming changes though, so let's give those a brief overview.
Well, actually, there's pretty much nothing to speak of for Assassin. Just an update to the tooltip and some not-relevant-to-tanking changes to the Madness tree.
Powertech
-Shield Tech
--Ablative Upgrades: the absorption amount gained from this skill has been slightly reduced.
---Nerf, depending on how much "slightly" is.
--Empowered Tech is now a 3-point skill.
---It's not readily clear if this is a buff or nerf; it is currently a 5-point talent that gives an extra passive 10% shield chance. If it gives the same shield chance at 3 points this is a handy little buff, but it's more likely, given Heat Screen's description (see further down), that this won't be the case.
--Heat Blast is no longer limited by the global cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by approximately 15%.
---This is a pretty rockin' buff to Heat Blast and further cements Heat Blast's role as a heat management cooldown. I suspect that this change was made to encourage taking it in PvP.
--Heat Screen is a new 2-point skill that causes Flame Burst and Heat Blast to build a stacking buff that increases shield absorption.
---Presumably this will be a new tier 6 talent to make up for the change to Empowered Tech. It's likewise not clear whether this talent will be meant as a buff, nerf, or to simply make up for the change to Empowered Tech.
--Oil Slick is no longer limited by the global cooldown.
---This will properly turn Oil Slick into a defensive cooldown.
-Advanced Prototype
--Charged Gauntlets now triggers from damage dealt such that the bleed caused by Retractable Blade can trigger the buff. It now has a visual effect.
--Kolto Vents has been replaced by Hamstring, which causes Retractable Blade to slow the target by 30% for 6 seconds.
--Prototype Flame Thrower now is granted a stack when Immolate is used. In addition, stacks make Flame Thrower immune to interrupt and at 5 stacks Flame Thrower will now slow the movement speed of targets by 70%.
---None of these changes are really relevant to tanking.
-Pyrotech (Powertech)
--Prototype Particle Accelerator now requires Combustible Gas Cylinder to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
---This is only relevant to tanking in that it's a pretty damning nerf to the Parakeet PvP build.
All considered, these are just changes--probably minor--to passive absorption. Additionally, taking Heat Blast and Oil Slick off the global cooldown are both positive changes. The bottom line is that 1.2 isn't going to do much to change my earlier recommendation. It's worth noting that 1.2 will bring some needed buffs to Juggernaut tanking though, but I'm not particularly qualified to comment on them at this time.
It's important to iterate that all three tanks are perfectly viable but to people such as myself who have a choice of tanks to use or for people who are just getting started and want to get into tanking, in my opinion Powertech/Vanguard is the clear winner.
There's three tank classes in SWTOR. Juggernaut (Guardian) is the one of the three I've not played to 50, so I'm not going to say much on how it plays per se. It is considered to be the weakest of the three options--not to say it's a terrible tank but if you were to rank the aspects of tanking in SWTOR it would come in last place compared to the other two classes except maybe in terms of the defensive cooldowns available to the class. The other two tanking classes, Assassin (Shadow) and Powertech (Vanguard), I do have a reasonable amount of experience with though.
Say you're just getting into SWTOR and you've decided you really want to tank. So which class should you pick? I would tell you that I strongly recommend playing a Powertech or Vanguard. Why not Juggernaut? Well, primarily because of the reasons outlined above. Why not Assassin? Assassin is also an excellent choice for tanking--in fact I'd assert that if you consider tanking in terms of the attributes that make a tanking class good (threat generation, survivability, damage, cooldowns), Assassin is either on par with or not far behind Powertechs. What makes Assassins second to Powertechs in my opinion is that they are a lot more work to play.
Let's briefly go over the abilities you'll need to use on a regular basis for both classes:
Assassin
-Saber Strike - Obligatory no-cost filler move; use when you need to save Force for another ability.
-Thrash - Basic everything-else-is-on-cooldown filler; procs Energize.
-Wither - Nice AOE damage and threat and comes with a damage debuff whose duration is more forgiving than the debuff on Discharge, but alas it also feeds Withering Darkness thus necessitating that it too generally be used on cooldown.
-Discharge - Provides an accuracy debuff, but its duration is just barely longer than the cooldown on Discharge, necessitating that it be used on cooldown to max the debuff's uptime.
-Shock - Heavily boosted by Energize and Chain Shock and it feeds Harnessed Darkness, but it eats up a ton of force so it's best reserved for Energize procs.
-Force Lightning - Made essential by Harnessed Darkness, and thanks thereto it becomes an excellent survivability tool.
-Dark Ward - Contributes heavily to survivability, but it needs to be actively monitored for when its cooldown is up, the buff's duration, and the number of charges.
-Recklessness - You'll want to keep this on cooldown, especially since it's amazing when combined with talents that boost force damage abilities especially Energize and Chain Shock.
Powertech
-Rapid Shots - Obligatory no-cost filler move; it's barely less damage than Flame Burst so it's recommended that you use it unless you have less than 10 Heat.
-Flame Burst - Basic everything-else-is-on-cooldown filler; comes with a damage debuff if talented, but as outlined above it's barely more damage than Rapid Shots so it's best saved either for if the debuff needs refreshing or you're nearing 0 Heat.
-Rocket Punch - This ability is talented into amazing damage and guaranteed Ion Gas Cylinder procs (and thus even more amazing damage) wrapped in a neat little package--it even randomly finishes its cooldown on shield procs thanks to Flame Shield; keep this shit cooldown.
-Rail Shot - Another nice heavy-hitter; thanks to Ion Overload and the Ion Gas Cylinder procs from Rocket Punch the conditions required for its use will never be a problem.
-Explosive Dart - Yet another nifty (AOE) heavy-hitter.
-Heat Blast - Not great damage per se, but it's free and actually vents heat so it makes a nice heat control cooldown.
-Explosive Fuel - Powertech's level 50 ability, a great offensive cooldown that's freely available to tanks too.
That's 8 abilities Assassin has to juggle, all with their own interconnected procs on top of having to keep track of Dark Ward charges compared to Powertech's 7 fire-and-forget abilities and 100% passive defense.
Powertechs have an additional advantage in generating clutch AOE threat over both Juggernaut and Assassin--their AOE taunt is on-target, ie you pick a target and the AOE radius of the taunt is on that target (Assassin and Juggernaut AOE taunts are centered on self). Extremely handy. Both Assassin and Powertech have Death Grip style pulls, and, while neither represents a clear advantage (actually, Assassin may have it here), I personally like Jet Charge over Force Speed. Powertech's one clear relative weakness compared to the other tanks lies in its defensive cooldowns--a Powertech only has two cooldowns (granted one of them is amazing) that are on a minimum two minute cooldown (three defensive cooldowns, admittedly, if you include Oil Slick, however it requires and consumes a global cooldown). Strangely, despite the fact that Powertech has no abilities that have a "generates significant threat" tag on their tooltip, Powertechs have no trouble holding threat (owing presumably to their relatively nice damage output).
Given the proximity to the onset of 1.2, this discussion wouldn't be complete without considering the upcoming changes though, so let's give those a brief overview.
Well, actually, there's pretty much nothing to speak of for Assassin. Just an update to the tooltip and some not-relevant-to-tanking changes to the Madness tree.
Powertech
-Shield Tech
--Ablative Upgrades: the absorption amount gained from this skill has been slightly reduced.
---Nerf, depending on how much "slightly" is.
--Empowered Tech is now a 3-point skill.
---It's not readily clear if this is a buff or nerf; it is currently a 5-point talent that gives an extra passive 10% shield chance. If it gives the same shield chance at 3 points this is a handy little buff, but it's more likely, given Heat Screen's description (see further down), that this won't be the case.
--Heat Blast is no longer limited by the global cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by approximately 15%.
---This is a pretty rockin' buff to Heat Blast and further cements Heat Blast's role as a heat management cooldown. I suspect that this change was made to encourage taking it in PvP.
--Heat Screen is a new 2-point skill that causes Flame Burst and Heat Blast to build a stacking buff that increases shield absorption.
---Presumably this will be a new tier 6 talent to make up for the change to Empowered Tech. It's likewise not clear whether this talent will be meant as a buff, nerf, or to simply make up for the change to Empowered Tech.
--Oil Slick is no longer limited by the global cooldown.
---This will properly turn Oil Slick into a defensive cooldown.
-Advanced Prototype
--Charged Gauntlets now triggers from damage dealt such that the bleed caused by Retractable Blade can trigger the buff. It now has a visual effect.
--Kolto Vents has been replaced by Hamstring, which causes Retractable Blade to slow the target by 30% for 6 seconds.
--Prototype Flame Thrower now is granted a stack when Immolate is used. In addition, stacks make Flame Thrower immune to interrupt and at 5 stacks Flame Thrower will now slow the movement speed of targets by 70%.
---None of these changes are really relevant to tanking.
-Pyrotech (Powertech)
--Prototype Particle Accelerator now requires Combustible Gas Cylinder to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
---This is only relevant to tanking in that it's a pretty damning nerf to the Parakeet PvP build.
All considered, these are just changes--probably minor--to passive absorption. Additionally, taking Heat Blast and Oil Slick off the global cooldown are both positive changes. The bottom line is that 1.2 isn't going to do much to change my earlier recommendation. It's worth noting that 1.2 will bring some needed buffs to Juggernaut tanking though, but I'm not particularly qualified to comment on them at this time.
It's important to iterate that all three tanks are perfectly viable but to people such as myself who have a choice of tanks to use or for people who are just getting started and want to get into tanking, in my opinion Powertech/Vanguard is the clear winner.
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