If you want to do the legwork yourself, this is an updated version of the LagunaD tanking spreadsheet for which he had the (still correct) diminishing returns calculations set up. It gives you the value of each stat based on your current budget and current DR rate of each. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqqlFggS3U48dFRqTW5YM0tLYy0ycnhteGt0LXhXU0E#gid=0 Does not account for activated/proc relics.

It seems odd but it speaks for itself. THe much better question is why aren't tanking on one of the lower platforms where saberward will make you dodge 85% of the atacks entirely? Phasic Spittle (ranged attack) is a tech/foce attack which cannot be shielded or dodged; Monsterous Swipe (lowest platforms) is a melee attack that can be dodged/shielded. You're taking more than twice the amount of damage necessary and probably 5 times the amount when you have saber ward up and are on the wrong platforms. I think in this case being execution > rotation.

You can also get the boss out of position or get people cleaved faster than any other tank.

Dear fellow mercs, please remember your healing surge gets an extra 15%. Therefore crit is more valuable than you think and tech crit needs to be over 40% with buffs. I don't have a hard rating number for you unfortunately.

The main thing to remember with stat balancing a merc/commando healer is that your healing surge is actually around 90% or more (75% stats +15% in the healing tree which is not listed in tech crit multiplier) so crit is important as hell and if you're not using it you're doing it wrong. Tech crit should be above 40% to properly balance.

They are mandatory for any class, any spec for "chart topping damage." Surge to 75% and crit varies, but you will never top any chart without them.

Tanking spreadsheet = File>copy https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqqlFggS3U48dFRqTW5YM0tLYy0ycnhteGt0LXhXU0E Balance your stats.

For 16m man ops and above stacking end to 29-30k-ish is the way to go. This is because you take, say 1.5x damage of 8 man but have 2x the heals so being able give healers time to get an extra heal off is more likely to save you than def or shield. Also, the largest hits you take are not dodgeable or shieldable (TFB's scream, Kephess' Mortars, Dreadtooth's Rock Toss). For 8m you can/should go mitigation or I would argue, compromise between the 2 (most easily by switching to the high end mods and Dread Guard relics).

I do not. I'm a jugg and I wish that calculation were accurate. Again, all I can say is the logs do not support this. Always less than 1k. I don't need the right answer to tell you yours is wrong. Marb is right. I left the stats in there a demonstration of how the gear change works. The sheet does not make suggestions. It only calculates the current value of the stat in relation to each and their own diminishing returns curve. The stat weights are on a constantly sliding scale such that changing one affects the values of the others. That's what makes it useful. If you want to use a relic that cannot be quantified in the stats, then I would switch it out as best you can and then rebalance your stats with switching augments/mods/enhancements. First for these numbers, smaller is always better. Second, I didn't make that part, but Squish is really the same as Total Mitigation which I did make specifically because I preferred it that way. Squish is the average % of the boss's total (ranged/melee) damage that you take after mitigation. Total Mitigation is the average percent of the damage that is stopped by your mitigation. The others are more complicated... Sigma-squish is the typical consistency of how your health drops (steady vs. inconsistent). High defense and/or low armor both tend to make this go up whereas high shield/absorb and/or armor make this go down because you shield more attacks than you dodge and armor (for the purposes of this) catches everything so the damage level you take is more consistent. Healers prefer slow, predictable levels of health loss. Spikey-ness is really a measure of armor so there's really no control over it in SWTOR currently. It compares how much damage reduction is from dodge/deflect compared to armor. Squish is an overall survivability view whereas Sigma-squish and Spikey-ness focus on situational survivability and how to negate RNG issues (i.e. keeping health loss steady rather than "spikey"). Assassin tanks will always be the highest in spikiness because you have less armor. However your self-healing, which is not accounted for here, negates a lot of this. For this reason do not compare your Spikey-ness or Sigma-squish to non-Assassin tanks. It is fairly safe to compare Squishiness/Total Mitigation across classes but self-healing (and jugg sonic barrier) does affect this as well (and cannot be accounted for).

I think he covered that in the next to last sentence if you read the post. Also take the sonic barrier calculation as you will, but I've never seen it break 1k in logs.

Generally true, but I decided to test Sonic/Blade Barrier a week or so ago and took off half my gear entirely and it took the absorption down from ~950 to ~850 and most of this would have been the set bonus loss so the amount gained by strength is still negligible if any. The amount absorbed still seems at least relatively static, and I would like to see some actual proof of the supposed formula that uses force healing (or for that matter an log in which a single barrier absorbed more than ~1000).

Normally, maybe. Most of Juggs' damage comes from abilities with 90% accuracy (rage builder) and we have crap for threat right now to begin with so if you miss with these your threat will suck. Please go back to your Sin/PT and speak only for your tank class.

Sounds like you just get bored and try to find stuff to do... How is that hard to master? lol

Just for the sake of any jugg/guardians reading this, remember that patch that "fixed" our AoE threat? Well, it completely broke our single target and now (for both specs) our highest damaging ability throughout a fight is a dodge-able one (sundering assault/strike) so you should use some accuracy if your dps is any good. 5-8% or so seems to do it and you can get 3% of this from the vengeance/vigilance tree.

I had a similar idea recently and updated the old LagunaD spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqqlFggS3U48dFRqTW5YM0tLYy0ycnhteGt0LXhXU0E If you're still interested in keeping your app updated, your defense value for juggs should be 22% (instead of 14%) when you include the Quake (5%) accuracy debuff and Retaliation buff (3%) which are maintained throughout a fight. Without these jugg tanks no doubt seem silly in comparison. For those interested, you can also copy the spreadsheet and change it to your class and stats by clicking File>Make Copy.

I think TorParse does offer numbers on damage shielded though i can't vouch for their accuracy. It's online viewing only through the site but it has pretty comprehensive breakdowns.

Don't you know that only snipers and warriors can be immune to interrupts while channeling/casting? Yes, there needs to be some compromise for mercs/commandos and snipers need a nerf of some kind with all the leg shots, knockbacks and not being able to leap to them. That's literally rock, paper, scissors'ing my jugg.

Sonic barrier is max of around 110 hps in hybrid (1000/9s). You're forgetting also that 10% of your internal resistance comes from the Inquis/Consular buff which everyone would have in nearly any pve content. I would also include mitigation stats in the calculation of survivability rather than simply taking your hps divided by damage taken. Either way the point isn't that your hps are insignificant mitigation, it's that the differences between the hps across the tanks classes are relatively insignificant, especially for hybrid juggs vs assassins. The percent of mitigation (and therefore survivability) of hps varies depending on how much damage you are taking as well whereas mitigation stats are relatively constant percentages except when force/tech attacks increase dramatically which is typically rare. So your hps might be slightly better on the Dread Council with the DoTs but that 91 points of defense would be better on Operator or Terror as you are taking nearly twice as much damage and hps don't scale with damage unlike pure mitigation. Also I can absolutely count mini CDs as active mitigation if they're the sort of thing that is used consistently more than once per fight. Only true emergency CDs should not be counted. All of this is not to say that this spreadsheet is a perfect comparison of tanks but it's a damn fine tool to use as long as you keep in mind these class mechanics. To pretend that it's useless for comparing is truly naive.

For those that begin using this sheet, I'd really appreciate it if you share your sheet (and progression) as well for general comparisons.

While I understand your point, I think you're seriously overestimating its significance. I agree that it does not account for all mitigation. It does not account for differences in elemental/internal resistances (3-4% variances) which are not significant enough to be considered for most fights (Jarg is a good exception). It also does not account for self heals or Sonic Barrier. Sonic Barrier = 75-100 HPS (depending on normal/hybrid spec) which picks up maybe 8% of damage taken during normal-high damage boss phases. The best numbers I can find for assassins points to less than 200 HPS including everything (overcharg saber etc). So call it 150-180 depending on endurance stacking. Even if you assume that assassins mitigate roughly equal damage (compared to a hybrid jugg I have my doubts), that's about 13% of their damage taken. I mitigate ~75% of ranged/melee damage (from the spreadsheet and logs). As a matter of total mitigation that takes me to ~77% and you to ~78% and I'm not factoring in Endure Pain which is up to 90 HPS but probably more like 40 since it's used more as an emergency mini-CD. If you wanted to compare to a Powertech, obviously it's more of an issue, but if they pop Kolto Overload fairly regularly they're pushing 50-70 HPS. So the point is that Assassin magical self heals are just not all that special. The differences between classes are not what you seem to think. This makes the spreadsheet a highly valid method of comparing tanks even across classes.

To those who want to compare stats between their setups or other tanks, here's an updated version of the original LagunaD sheet with Effective Health. It also has a section to compare gear changes. It's one of few ways to compare tank classes with some actual uniformity. I streamlined it for ease of use and updated class stats for 1.4. I think I have all the stats correct for PT/Sin tanks. If anyone can confirm them, that'd be awesome. Obviously, feel free to report any other issues as well. The sheet has the standard LagunaD Squish, SigmaSquish and Spikiness metrics, as well as Effective Health calculation to compare endurance stacking somewhat. I also added a roll-by-roll calculation of Total Mitigation (a restatement of Squishiness really). File > Copy to make your own if you find it useful. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqqlFggS3U48dFRqTW5YM0tLYy0ycnhteGt0LXhXU0E

For the real min/maxers, here's an updated version of the original LagunaD sheet with Effective Health. It's one of few ways to compare tank classes with some actual uniformity. I streamlined it for ease of use and updated class stats for 1.4. I think I have all the stats correct for PT/Sin tanks. If anyone can confirm them, that'd be awesome. Obviously, feel free to report any other issues as well. The sheet has the standard LagunaD Squish, SigmaSquish and Spikiness metrics, as well as Effective Health calculation to compare endurance stacking somewhat. I also added a roll-by-roll calculation of Total Mitigation (a restatement of Squishiness really). File > Copy to make your own if you find it useful. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqqlFggS3U48dFRqTW5YM0tLYy0ycnhteGt0LXhXU0E

If you're hybrid you can at least drop the shield by 4%. Personally, I go for balancing the stats rather than the 50/50 idea which is for Kephess only imo. Buffed and stimmed, I'm around 27/45/45 with shield amplifier and clicky shield/absorb relics (not included in the numbers). No complaints from healers in TFB HM who have healed plenty of other tanks, and I single tank Kephess as a hybrid with mostly just light CDs (clicky relic, enraged defense) without needing to switch off til his second phase usually.

First off jugg single target threat is still a little busted particularly thanks to the Guardian Slash "Improvement" and we have to compensate with stats and taunts a lot more than the other classes. Hoewever, if he's at 30/50/50 (out of combat) mitigation then he's stacking too much mitigation period. Most likeoy he's doing this by using War Hero +shield/defense relics which are not as good as rakata/campaign because they don't have any dps secondary stats (i.e. 50+ power for all tank pve relics). That expertise isn't helping him any. I'm in hybrid spec (doesn't change stat priorities) but if I had the defense spec bonus i would be at 28/47/45 or so and stand up just as well as PTs and Sins in EC/TFB HM. Our defense bonus in combat (8%) is probably the largest of any tank class (assassin 15% shield divided by 50% absorb = 7.5%) so he doesn't need to be stacking that high anyway. I would still suggest he try a hybrid build, ideally: 18/23/0. Every defense guardian besides one (who has more dps stats than me) who I play with will consistently produces less threat than me.

You can stop the debate. While it is stupid, Hybrid is better for tanking end-game content. Important Hybrid Pros: --EXTRA 4% dmg reduction to energy kinetic and equal reduction for internal/elemental (due to the loss of 4% internal resistance in Defense tree but regained in the 4% dmg reduction to all damage. --CD reduction of Blade Storm (more blade barriers) --An extra emergency CD with the threat dump. It can be risky but since the ability lasts 10s and taunts last 6s each, you can keep threat if you're careful. More importantly it's great to have a 45s CD equivalent or better than Warding Call when tanking enemies not being attacked by dps (Kephess before the walker dies or Ciphas/Kel'Sara etc.). Usually I pop it and use combat focus (since you bleed rage to heal) and taunts. Important Defense Pros: --4% shield CHANCE (inferior to 4% dmg reduction) --2 unchanneled stuns --Better focus generation which is not needed if you can manage a rotation --Better burst threat Both are viable but hybrid is better for Ops. In the updated LagunaD sheet, a fellow jugg tank with more than 100 mitigation point budget than me but with the defense build had worse squish/sigmasquish/spikiness than me. And we were both optimized equally/correctly. To whoever was talking about guardian leap heal with the pvp set, the CD is 20s not 15 so that's ~2k 20s with a dps/threat/position loss vs a ~1k every 9s (with CD red) for Blade Storm/Barrier with a dps/threat increase. Also to whoever said Blade Barrier formula had changed to ~2k-ish, I'm not sure this is correct anymore. Another jugg tank with me using a parser that measures Absorb dmg was still getting the flat ~1k consistently with some parser that keeps track of that (I just use Mox). But I did not test it myself. Either way I think that would be on par with the Shadow's self heals (now) and the Vanguard's boss damage dealt reduction.