Distract does not tell you much about it ,all it says is it prevents incoming damage for a short time, what i would like to know is 2 things. 1. How long is the short time? 2. How much damage does it prevent in that time?
Distract is a shield so it stays up until it is either broken or wears off on its own (~12 sec). How much damage it prevents is based on your Dominance and Restoration stats: Shield = Base Shield Multiplier * (112.5% Restoration + 150% Dominance) The Base Shield Multiplier for Distract is around 0.57 which is super low but all Controller shields have a low BSM. Link of all shield BSMs provided by ObsidianChill: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...dOmOmxi0Z1mE1x9guRPMKEWDw/edit#gid=2014755778
As Lorax said, Distract is very weak in damage absorption. It is more used for it's detaunt and CC immunity functions which make it a must have for me. If you're looking for damage absorption, Neural Neutralizer, Hard Light Shield (iconic) or Stealth (with improved stealth hand mod) are much better options.
The thing to note about distract is that its de-taunt only works if someone or something else is around. Or rather it works every time, but unless there's an attacking friendly npc or a pet or another player around you'll be right back getting attacked again in like a second.
Thanks for the replies, i also found it useless and switched it out for hard light shield, its much better.
Well its not completely useless. its just different. The main use of distract is the detaunt aspect of it, not the shielding it gives. As someone above said its useful if there are allied characters around you who can take the hits. Better to let the pet die and just re-summon it then for you to go down and restart the fight. Also helpful in group content as the detaunting is nice when you have to pick up the fallen tank, or anyone for that matter.
