Swtor Jedi Shadow Kinetic Combat Tank Guide
This guide is aimed at PvE, especially end-game raiding, although some details (abilities and skill trees) may be of use to PvP as well. A pvp guide will be added soon.
Swtor Jedi Shadow Kinetic Combat Tank Guide – Table of Contents
[I. Skill Trees, Abilities and Rotation]
[I.a. Force and Focus]
[I.b. Skill Tree]
[I.c. Abilities]
[I.c.i. Tanking Abilities]
[I.c.ii. Situational Abilities]
[I.c.iii. Non-tanking Abilities]
[I.d. Ability Priority Order and Rotation]
[II. Stats, Gear, Consumables and Crew Skills]
[II.a. Stats]
[II.b. Gear]
[II.c. Consumables]
[II.d Crew skills]
[App. Credits]
Jedi Shadows rely on a mix of self-buffs, self-heals, melee attacks and short-range force effects to tank, and wield a Double-Bladed Lightsaber, and are primarily inspired by Darth Maul from Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace.
I. Swtor Jedi Shadow Kinetic Combat Tank Guide – Skill Trees, Abilities and Rotation
a) Jedi Shadow Kinetic Combat – Force and Focus
Whilst Shadows will use the Force, they do not use it as a resource in the same ways as Jedi Sages. Shadows use the Force in the form of Focus as their general resource, which functions very much like a WoW Rogue’s energy: Shadows will always have 100 maximum Focus (or 110 with Vigor) and will regenerate at a flat rate which cannot be improved by gear (but can be by up to 30% from One with the Force).
The base rate of Force regeneration for Jedi Consulars is 8/s. This means that a Kinetic Combat Shadow will typically regenerate at 10.4/s, with the +30% from One with the Force. This compares to 10 Energy per Second for WoW Rogues. For ease of calculation, this is 15.6 Focus every GCD. Additionally, every avoidance or shield will regenerate 2 force. With a base shield chance approaching 50% and avoidance of 16%, we can expect to regain at least 1 GCD’s worth of force every minute assuming 1 attack every 2 seconds, or closer to 2 force every second if under attack from many targets.
b) Jedi Shadow Kinetic Combat – Skill Tree
To my knowledge, the most up-to-date skill trees are located http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601.1
The primary skill tree used by tanking Shadows is the Kinetic Combat tree, with some skills within the Balance tree providing valuable benefits. For PvE Raiding, which this compendium primarily covers at present, I currently recommend a 31/0/10 build. There are some caveats for this build, however, as it assumed that:
The extra health from Mental Fortitude does not provide a noticeable benefit (see posts 107 onwards). This will be revised/reviewed depending on average incoming value, the difficulties of no crit immunity and threat issues.
The damage from Combat Technique over a fight is greatly less than the damage of Double Strike and Whirling Blow.
The difference between the extra procs gained from Rapid Recovery and the extra proc opportunities gained from Rapid Recovery lost to the proc interval is not significant to make Expertise superior to Rapid Recovery (see here for discussion – worth noting that as of the latest patch the increase in proc from 2%/4% to 7.5%/15% renders this an almost certainty).
If any of these are not true, some changes will be required. Mental Fortitude and/or Expertise are the best bets for alternatives.
Another build worth considering is a more hybrid build, 23/0/18). The trade-offs are:
31/0/10
Slow Time (+30% damage)
Telekinetic Throw +75% damage + self-heal
15% damage to Force Breach
+3% damage to Combat Technique
23/0/18
Force in Balance (-50% cost)
Free, instant Mind Crush on melee crit
+50% crit damage on Double Strike
Instant activation for Force Lift and 2 second stun on early break
Without more firm figures on damage/threat out-puts, we can tell by eye that 31/0/10 has more survivability than 23/0/18 against a single strong target (due to Slow Time, and to an extent due to Telekinetic Throw), but less against large amounts of trash (due to the drain from Force in Balance).
The 23/0/18 build front-loads the threat far more, with Force in Balance dealing a larger amount of threat than a single Force in Balance, and without needing to wait for several charges for Telekinetic Throw. However, threat against single-targets likewise is far less due to the lack of Telekinetic Throw.
The 23/0/18 build also has utility due to instant activation and stunning Force Lift, although this is obviously of little use against bosses.
From all this, it seems fair to say that the 23/0/18 build is most likely superior in Flashpoints and add-tanking (especially for picking them up), whilst 31/0/10 pulls ahead on single-targets and bosses in operations. However, as the -5% damage debuff from Slow Time does stack from multiple Shadows, having more than one 31/0/10 is attractive.
Finally, entries in the Infiltration tree should not be taken for reasons described in the Stealth ability, below, and additional selections in Balance under the ability descriptions of other abilities, below.
c) Jedi Shadow Kinetic Combat – Abilities
Below is a list of all Shadows abilities which will see frequent use during tanking. Those with only situational use or not used for tanking are at the end. Charges/Techniques other than Combat Technique will not be mentioned, as they are of no value whilst tanking.
c i.) Tanking Abilities
- Battle Readiness – With the T4 Kinetic Combat skill Impact Control, this heals the Shadow for 10% of their total health. The 2 minute cooldown means that it should be used very carefully.
- Combat Technique – Techniques function a lot like a stance or weapon imbue. Combat Technique gains an extra +20% armor from Stasis, an extra 3%/6%/9% damage from Expertise and an extra 7.5%/15% proc chance from Rapid Recovery.
- Deflection – Deflection provides a 50% increase to melee and ranged defence for 12s.
- Double Strike – This ability provides two quick hits from the melee weapon, with bonus damage. Additionally, the cost is reduced by the T2 Balance skill Psychokinesis, and its role when combined with Particle Acceleration makes it invaluable.
- Force Breach – Force Breaches are abilities which damage a target enemy, with damage and potential debuffs based on the Combat Technique used. With Kinetic Combat, it deals AoE damage and debuffs enemies for -5% hit c hance.
- Force Potency – This is potentially very useful for rapid threat generation right at the start of a fight, especially if pulling adds. It also increases the range of Telekinetic Throw to 30 ft., making it fantastic for initial pulls. This ability does not trigger the GCD, and currently causes all 4 ticks of Telekinetic Throw to crit.
- Force Pull – Naturally, this seems to be a Shadow tank’s pulling ability, and will be very good for picking up adds mid-fight. May be good mid-fight with no adds depending on force per threat and if the Shadow is away from the boss for any reason.
- Force Speed – Improves movement speed by 150% for 2 seconds. This is very useful for picking up adds, a teleporting boss, kiting, or the like.
- Guard – Whilst the benefits of this ability are fantastic, the range requirement of 15m means that it must be used carefully in most raid situations, quite probably on a high dps melee character. This ability should always be active on someone in your party/raid, as its benefits are enormous and there is no drawback.
- Kinetic Ward – This means that 10 Focus and free action should always be possible at the time of the final charge expiration, so do not use abilities which would cause a GCD during the time in which the final charge is likely to expire. Note that it has a cooldown of 12s and a duration of 20s, so it need not be cast every cooldown. A Shadow should prevent any attacks from occurring whilst Kinetic Ward is down, which may mean that against particularly hard and rapidly hitting enemies, Kinetic Ward should be refreshed even when a charge is still present. This ability does not trigger the GCD.
- Mass Mind Control – This ability functions as a taunt for 6s on all enemies within 15m.
- Mind Control – A 6s, single-target taunt which costs a mere 5 focus. When used against players, it instead applies a 30% damage debuff to them against all players other than the Mind Controlling Shadow for the duration.
- Mind Crush – The 2s Activation time renders it a liability when tanking for any purpose other than pulling if 31/0/10, but is a staple of the rotation if 23/0/18 whenever the proc is up.
- Project – This is a short-range ability with reasonable damage-dealing capabilities, which is massively buffed by various Shadow skills, providing -6 focus cost, 15% increase damage and threat and making it always crit.
- Resilience – The removal of hostile effects makes this fantastic for tanking, situationally. With good timing, it might even be of used during scripted attacks.
- Saber Strike – This ability is three quick, basic attacks dealing 100% weapon damage between the three, with no cooldown and no focus cost. It is the filler ability within the rotation/priority order, for when there is no force to use on a better ability.
- Slow Time – This ability provides high threat, both single- or multi-target, also providing an outgoing damage debuff on targets. Slow Time should be cast every 15 seconds at minimum, as well as at the beginning of any fight, in order to ensure maximum uptime of the outgoing damage debuff.
- Telekinetic Throw – With the recent addition of the Harnessed Shadows skill, Telekinetic Throw is potentially quite powerful, and it has been confirmed that it allows avoidance during the channel.
- Whirling Blow – Melee AoE attack, with a chance to proc Particle Acceleration. At a cost of 40 Focus, this will most likely be used only in AoE situations. It is reasonable to assume that Whirling Blow has a chance to proc Combat Technique’s healing effect on each hit against an enemy, as long as the proc interval is not triggered.
c ii.) Situational Abilities
- Force Lift – This is of little use during boss tanking, for tanking’s sake, but may be useful during the pull for adds/trash, or mid-tanking for adds in some scenarios.
- Force of Will – As an ability which frees the Shadow from CC once every 2 minutes, this is unlikely to be useful in most boss fights, but may still come in handy from time to time.
- Force Slow – Whilst potentially useful for slowing trash/adds, this is unlikely to be of much help against a boss.
- Force Stun – A CC ability with potential use in emergencies or add-pulls, but with limited use in a tanking rotation unless Nerve Wracking is viable.
- Force Wave – This ability may have some merit if overwhelmed, but will not be part of a standard rotation due to it pushing targets away, rendering further threat generation slowed.
- Mind Snap – Whilst useful for interrupting boss abilities with an activation time (if present), it’s not part of the normal tanking rotation.
- Spinning Kick – This skill has little tanking-specific merit, but it may be useful to provide temporary CC against a melee opponent, such as to reduce incoming damage. This skill will be re-evaluated if Nerve Wracking affects bosses. If Nerve Wracking is taken for whatever reason, it may be of great use when attempting to burn down high-health adds more quickly.
- Spinning Strike – This requires the target to have 30% or less health, which renders it only useful in such events. Whether this is effective in terms of threat per second remains to be seen.
c iii.) Non-tanking Abilities
- Blackout – This requires and boosts stealth, thus rendering it unsuitable for a tanking Shadow.
- Channel the Force – Restoring 2% of maximum health every 3 seconds for a minute is very useful, but the lack of Companions in Operations renders it only useful against world bosses and perhaps Flashpoints.
- Mind Maze – A very good CC, but being used only from stealth means that it is only useful for trash pulls, and not something used during actual tanking time.
- Shadow Strike – This attack can only be made from behind, thus rendering it unsuitable for a tank.
- Stealth – Unlike in other games, stealthed players are very easy to spot by bosses, even from behind. Stealth will have almost no value in boss situations for a tank.
- Unity – Whilst a very nice emergency ability, the lack of Companions in Operations renders it only useful against world bosses and perhaps Flashpoints.
d) Jedi Shadow Kinetic Combat – Ability Priority Order and Rotation
Due to the low total Focus amount, the Shadow rotation is based on a hierarchy of abilities which are off cooldown, have Focus available for its use and are required (see ability descriptions, above). It is assumed that Combat Technique will be kept up permanently. The only reason to drop Combat Technique will be to deliberately lose threat temporarily, such as during a tank swap, due to the threat boost of Combat Technique.
In order to keep proper (de)buffs up, Kinetic Ward should be used every 20 seconds or when there is only 1 charge left, Force Breach every 18 seconds and Slow Time every 15 seconds, at minimum. This is reflected in the priority orders, below. When opening, please note that Dark Ward should probably be used before a pull, and Force Pull or another ability then used to make the pull itself. Depending on the force cost and threat of Force Pull, it may be worth adding to the standard single target rotation if no adds are imminent.
If there is not enough Force to use an ability in the below priority orders at any point, use a Saber Strike (or Telekinetic Throw if there are 3 charges) in order to regenerate rather than moving to the next step. Care should also be taken that there will be available Force ready for steps 1-3, so that (de-)buffs are always up.
Single target priority order (31/0/10):
1. Kinetic Ward iff 2. Slow Time iff 5% damage debuff is not applied to target
3. Force Breach iff 5% accuracy debuff is not applied to target
4. Telekinetic Throw iff 3 charges up && < 98 Focus && < 89% health
5. Project iff Particle Acceleration is up
6. Double Strike
Single target priority (23/0/18):
1. Kinetic Ward iff 2. Force Breach iff 5% accuracy debuff is not applied to target
3. Project iff Particle Acceleration is up
4. Mind Crush iff DoT is down
5. Double Strike
Remember that both Slow Time and Force Breach have AoE components, so should be skipped if that would be problematic (e.g. breaking CC). If survivability is not a concern, steps 1-3 and the health requirement for step 4 may be skipped if 31/0/10 and steps 1-2 if 23/0/18.
Multi-target:
1. Kinetic Ward iffWillpower > Power > Surge Rating > Critical Rating > Force Power > Attack Power > Strength
For survivability, the deliberately poor scaling of stat stacking makes this difficult to determine with absolute certainity without further experimentation. We can establish, however, that Armor from modifications is of great use for Shadows due to the large +% gained from Combat Technique, Shadows having the lowest base DR of all tanks, and DR/armor providing superior damage smoothing (as established in other MMOs). Sadly, Armor no longer seems present on items as additional buffs.
Finally, Shield is also of great use for this purpose, as shielding as many attacks a possible will provide the smoothest incoming damage, as well as capitalising on the Shadow’s already high base shield chance. As all tanking gear comes with large amounts of Endurance by default, this suggests a rough stat priority order of the following until diminishing returns prevent it being viable:
Shield > Defense > Absorption
b) Jedi Shadow Kinetic Combat – Gear
Reserved for endgame gear lists. The stats weightings above are a guidance on what to look for in gear. This list is deliberately left slim at present due to the lack of reliable, non-travial information regarding gear at present.
Modifications
The useful Harnesses will be Force Wielder harnesses, such as:
Mastercraft Force Wielder Armoring 25 – +61 Endurance, +57 Willpower
The useful Augments/Modulators will be Absorb, Fortitude, Redoubt or Shield for survivability, and Accuracy and Resolve for threat. Examples are:
Advanced Absorb Augment 25 – +34 Absorption
Advanced Fortitude Augment 25 – +34 Endurance
Advanced Redoubt Augment 25 – +34 Defense
Advanced Shield Augment 25 – +34 Shield
Advanced Accuracy Augment 25 – +34 Accuracy
Advanced Resolve Augment 25 – +34 Willpower
The useful Power Crystals will be Indestructible crystals, such as:
Advanced Purple Indestructible Crystal – +41 Endurance
The useful Lightsaber Hilts will be Endurance and Force Wielder hilts, such as:
Mastercraft Force Wielder Hilt 25 – +61 Endurance, +57 Willpower
Mastercraft Resolve Hilt 25 – +49 Endurance, +68 Willpower
The useful Overlays will be Aptitude, Reinforced and Robust. Examples are:
Mastercraft Aptitude Mod 25 – +32 Endurance, +53 Willpower, +41 Power
Mastercraft Reinforced Mod 25 – +32 Endurance, +53 Willpower, +41 Defense
Mastercraft Robust Mod 25 – +32 Endurance, +53 Willpower, +41 Absorption
There are a lot of Supports which may be useful, with Endurance and varying amounts of Absorb, Accuracy, Defence, Shield and Willpower. List:
Astute, Bastion, Bulwark, Cognizant, Immunity, Intuition, Kinetic, Lucid, Protection, Steadfast, Sturdiness and Vigilant.
c) Jedi Shadow Kinetic Combat – Consumables
The consumables function similarly to other MMORPGs. There are Adrenals, which provide 15s buffs with a 180s cooldown), Stimulants, which provide a 120 minute buff and Medpacks, which restore health over 15s with a cooldown of 90s. Below are the suggested items for use by Shadow tanks.
The following 3 Rakata items are Bind on Pickup, meaning that you must be a Biochemist to use them:
Rakata Absorb Adrenal – Increases Armor by 1725 for 15 seconds. (Cooldown: 3 minutes)
Rakata Fortitude Stim – Increases Endurance by 136 and Defense by 56 for 120 minutes. Only one stimpack can be active at a time. This effect persists through defeat.
Rakata Medpack – Restores 5050 to 6175 health and an additional 2245 health over 15 seconds. (Cooldown: 90s)
These items are usable by anyone:
Exotech Absorb Adrenal – Increases Armor by 1675 for 15 seconds. (Cooldown: 3 minutes)
Exotech Fortitude Stim – Increases Endurance by 128 and Defense by 52 for 120 minutes. Only one stimpack can be active at a time. This effect persists through defeat.
Exotech Medpac – Restores 4875 to 5950 health and an additional 2165 health over 15 seconds. (Cooldown: 90s)
d) Jedi Shadow Kinetic Combat – Crew Skills
Bear in mind that at present, there is a confusing mess of Bind on Equip and Bind on Pickup items amongst craftables, so it is not clear which ones are specific to those who made it or can be given to anyone.
The the most useful Crew Skills known would immediately seem to be Archaeology and either Artifice or Synthweaving. As only one crafting profession may be chosen, the decision between Artifice and Sythweaving will be heavily influenced by the end-game suitability of these crafting skills.
If Artifice is chosen, Treasure Hunting provides high-end craft materials, with Underworld Trading being beneficial for Synthweaving.
The unique items for Artifce are the Rakata versions below, compared to the non-exclusive Columni versions below them:
Rakata Relic of the Shrouded Crusader – Use: Increases Shield Rating and Absorb Rating by 235 for 20 seconds.
Rakata Relic of Imperiling Serenity – Use: Increases Defense Rating by 380 for 20 seconds.
Columi Relic of the Shrouded Crusader – Use: Increases Shield Rating and Absorb Rating by 220 for 20 seconds.
Columi Relic of Imperiling Serenity – Use: Increases Defense Rating by 355 for 20 seconds.
The unique items for Synthweaving are more difficult to establish at this time.
Alternatively, Bioanalysis and Biochem will be useful for those wishing access to the more powerful adrenals, stims and medpacks, with Diplomacy functioning to gain high-end craft materials.
Finally, Cybertech may allow access to specific mods.
Alternatively, Bioanalysis and Biochem will be useful for those wishing access to the more powerful adrenals, stims and medpacks, with Diplomacy functioning to gain high-end craft materials. Swtor Jedi Shadow Kinetic Combat Tank Guide
Incoming search terms:
- Jedi Shadow
- jedi shadow tank
- swtor shadow tank
- swtor shadow tank build
- jedi shadow tank build
- jedi shadow tank spec
- swtor jedi shadow tank
- swtor shadow tank guide
- shadow tank swtor
- jedi shadow tank guide
