Skills and Gear

As requested by Mish in one of the comments, this post will take a look at the best possible skill distribution along with the current (patch 1.6) optimal gear focus. My opinion is based on my personal experience playing a Jedi Shadow tank so if you disagree or have some interesting insights, I'll be happy to hear it.

Here is the link to the skill tree and gear overview.

Ask Mr. Robot

I have some notes concerning the site calculations. First, the defense chance is not accurate because the 4% bonus from Double-bladed Saber Defense is not included in the calculation. Second, the final health pool (with the Exotech stim and Trooper buff) is below 26k while my Shadow in-game sits above 26k with even slightly worse gear than presented here.

Skill tree

The skill distribution is 34/0/7. There is obviously no reason to pick anything from the Infiltration skills. As for Kinetic Combat skills, there is no reason to miss any skill but Applied Force and Nerve Wracking. Those two are completely irrelevant to PvE and should be avoided. All the above mentioned is pretty much given, the only interesting question may arise with Balance skills. The very bottom row is again obvious, but what then? There are two points remaining and the decision lies between Upheaval and Psychokinesis. My personal choice is both points to Psychokinesis because it helps me better manage my Force and create a more consistent threat generating rotation, which is especially important in the beginning of the boss fight. Tanks in the end-game content face a difficult task doing enough spike threat in order to hold the boss while bloodthirsty dps go all out. And trust me, Shadows are still the best at this. I don't really see any reason to pick Upheaval over Psychokinesis, yet, some people prefer to do so.

I personally don't feel there is much that could be done differently, at least not skill-wise. Gear is a slightly different matter, but that was already covered in my previous post about Mitigation. As always, feel free to comment. Next post should be the already promised Defense stats breakdown, until then...