Except the observation matches the theory spot on. The theory is that once the healers TtR is equal to a tanks TtD (the TbM) then the healer is able to keep up with healing without draining their resources, but unable to do much else. Its matching almost exactly what Kitru has said. But, during those 5 extra seconds you have of TbM, your healer could be doing other things (namely DPSing) and thus boost your overall GROUP DPS by a large amount then having equal TtR and TbM, and having the tank pull more personal DPS. That is my main argument. That once you reach a point where your healer can keep you alive (whatever that point may be) you might as well increase your overall endurance, and thus increase that TbM so that your healer can do other things during that time. Yes, your healer will still have to spend the same ratio of time healing you, but they will also have time to do other things in between healing you. And the same could be said for DPS. If your constantly hitting enrage timers, then maybe its a problem of your DPS not pushing hard enough, and fixing that mistake will make more of a difference then stacking more willpower.

You obviously have never honestly theory crafted for a tank before. Because a TtD metric, is really the only thing that matters. You compare your TtD metric to a healers TtR (time to reaction) and thus you know how long you can survive by yourself. TtD is a measure of average survivability, which is your effective hit points, which is exactly what your mitigation and hit point pool has. All you have said is that healers will keep you at 100% hit points, so any amount of hit points you have won't matter because a healer will keep you at 100% hit points regardless. Which while it MAY be true in your inner circle of guild mates, its simply not true in the real game. Unless you want to top the 'over healing' charts, and waste resources, there is really no reason to keep a self healing tank at 100% hit points at all time. 80%? Sure, 70%? That would be ok too, and then whenever the tank gets to 100% hit points (via your over healing, or their self healing) you have time to DPS until they hit 70%. trying to play whack a mole with a tanks hit points isn't the best way to do things, and would clearly be a form of bad healing in and of itself.

So, in a good group, would it then be better to stack endurance, and thus allow your healer better time to DPS, which could amount to more DPS gain then what willpower would give you? For example, in Kitru's situation of limiting his grouping to only guild mates, if the healer is good enough to have a dual role, wouldn't it be better for Kitru to stack endurance so that his healer can DPS MORE then he would by increasing his willpower? In a bad group, I'd rather have more endurance myself, to give the healer plenty of time to catch up. And if they don't need that time, then they could DPS, as both a scoundrel and trooper have basic ranged attacks that would amount to more then 70DPS if used throughout a fight, and the sage could just throw a DoT or two on the boss in between healer. This is assuming they are both comfortable doing so, and they have the allotted time. It seems that either way, endurance would be the better bet, due to having the potential to increase DPS by a much larger value then willpower would via increasing the healers reaction time, and giving them time to DPS themselves.

This is hitting another one of my points that no one seems to want to even consider. What if the additional endurance you put on your tank, allows your healer to DPS more? Wouldn't you then have to compare your healers DPS increase (via your endurance stacking) to the personal DPS increase (via willpower stacking) to be able to accurately compare the different boosts? Adding 200 endurance to a tank with 16,000 hit points gives the healers almost a full second more time to react to incoming damage. If they don't need that extra time, then couldn't they DPS during it? If the tank is durable enough to handle the boss by himself for longer, and the healer is good enough to heal the tank from 1 - 100% faster, then wouldn't that give the healer more time to DPS? If you have a tank that stacked endurance and he is able to successfully survive against a boss for 10 seconds on his own, and you also have a healer that can heal that same tank from 1% hit points to full in 6 seconds, wouldn't that give the healer 4 seconds to DPS in between having to heal? As long as the healer was able to keep the tank alive either way, wouldn't you then have to compare the added DPS gain on the healer, vs the added DPS gain on the tank?

And here we go again. I've proved (as have others) that endurance DOES add something past the point where your healers can keep you alive. Yes, its not very much, its explained in great detail exactly what endurance will give you. Kitru flat out refused to break willpower down the same way i broke down endurance, and wanted to use his numbers (which 1) doesn't even follow the proper tank rotation and 2) are padded by PA and HS, which affect base damage as well) and then say 'Yeah, its DPS vs nothing, because my numbers show that endurance will give you next to nothing, when you compare them together. Except that just simply isn't true. The benefits either way are extremely minor, and because Kitru never PUGs, and runs with the same group of people time and time again, he has no real experience to back up his claim that stacking willpower will matter. In his, very limited, situation it seems like its working, but there are still far too many variables to work over. But no where at all does Kitru say where that point is, or even how to figure it out on paper. He's just saying 'Yea, take out all your endurance mods, swap them in for willpower mods, and try to tank stuff. If you win, then the willpower mods is the reason, if you lose, then you need more endurance.' This serious issue with that, is there are SO many other variables then just adding more DPS to a tank that could result in a win or a lose. If your DPS is using the incorrect rotation, or your using the incorrect rotation, then that would have a MUCH greater affect on the overall fight, then ~200 willpower would. Hard mode flashpoints, and even hard mode operations are tuned that way, as a means to basically allow ANYONE to see the content. But as it has already been brought up, Nightmare operations simply don't work that way. The highest tier of raiding is too difficult to be able to easily assume Willpower will fix all your issues (be them threat, or enrage timers) and the additional hit points (and mitigation) from self healing will benefit you far more. Especially when your healers are disabled. Using your extreme example, of a level 20 mob attacking a level 50 mob, and having more endurance and thus needing less mitigation, let me explain how wrong that example actually is. A NAKED sage would be able to tank a level 20 mob at level 50, because of the simple fact that the mob is 30 levels lower, and once you get to a certain point (i think its 5 levels difference) mobs just stop being able to hit you at all. Again, Kitru isn't saying where that point actually is, just that he hasn't hit it yet, in his limited circle of friends. He's numbers, and opinion is extremely biased due to the fact that he simply doesn't PUG. He doesn't group with anyone but his guild, and doesn't ever have to deal with the uncertainty of knowing if his healer can keep him alive. And he is crediting his success to his slotting of willpower, without considering the MANY different variables that are present in every single fight he does. I was using my WoW experience as a means to better explain why i feel DPS gear (and thus willpower) have no place on a tank, or at least no place where they need to be stacked up over survival gear (like endurance) The tank was squishy, the healer had a very hard time keeping the tank alive, and there were many times where the 'off-tank' had to take over on a simple tank and spank fight, because the main tank just dropped like a rock. I used Mirror image (masked my threat for 30 seconds) then invis (resets my threat to 0) and even Ice block (allows the tank time to taunt back the boss, and sets my DPS at 0, allowing him time to build threat) Multiple times throughout the encounter. The bottom line was this tank read in a guide that once you hit a certain mitigation point (being uncritable) that you stack as much DPS gear as possible, and that will allow you to hold threat on anything. The rest of the guide also said to make sure you follow your correct rotation, but the tank never did that. He just saw how to gear up, and expected to be able to just mash buttons and be able to hold threat. That is what i don't want to happen here. That people will come along, see that willpower > endurance, without knowing why, and just assume that willpower will fix all of their issues no matter how bad they are (be it threat, or enrage timers) and stop short of reading the clause that says 'As long as you follow this rotation.' Especially when the math supporting willpower doesn't even follow the rotation is needs to. The math doesn't support the rotation, yet that math shows willpower > endurance and thus entry level tanks will read it as 'Stack willpower and Just make sure your using X power Y% of the time, and you'll be golden' without understanding what that means. Kitru has already explained, time and time again, that threat is a non-issue for Shadow tanks. Even without taunt spam, threat just isn't a factor. So the only benefit to boosting willpower is a straight DPS increase (as the added threat wouldn't matter anyways). Now this could just be because in the circle that Kitru plays in, threat isn't an issue for HIM, and he feels that somehow adding 200 willpower is enough of a DPS boost to make or break boss encounters. The base modifiers are 50%, but a shadow tank uses at least 2 powers with higher threat modifiers (slow time has an extra 50% threat boost, and Project has 15% extra threat boost) so the overall threat modifier of a shadow tank is MUCH higher then just 50%. Especially when you consider that Project is being used ONLY with PA, so its going to crit for at least 150% damage every time it is used.

Eh, that experience (in BC, which then pushed into lich king) left a VERY bad taste in my mouth about tanks and stacking DPS stats. Yea, it was basically his lack of Rotation, but he defended it by saying 'After I become uncritable, I stacked DPS stats, so my DPS and thus threat should be higher regardless.' And while it came across as me basically 'DPSing until I pulled threat' it was literally 'I pulled threat by wanding' because the tank had absolutely no idea what he was doing, and used his DPS gear as a means to try to say he knew what was going on. Anyways, at the end of the day, the differences aren't enough of a big deal to make or break any raid encounter, so its entirely up to the player. The 10hp/second boost is a pretty accurate measurement, but the 70DPS increase just plain isn't due to the way it was figured out, so pick whichever you want to benefit.

With a built in 1.5x multiplier on tank stances, and multiple attacks that build even more threat (project, force pull, slow time) I'm not sure that Taunt spam will be the most effective way. Granted, until we have a threat monitoring system, or even a DPS monitoring system it might be hard to prove. This I will agree with you. Gear seems MUCH harder to obtain then in WoW (crafted gear for example, is extremely useless at higher levels, and its the easiest to obtain) so you're almost always under geared for the encounter, just because you need to run the encounter to get the gear to make you better at it. Wanna try hard more? You get to run it with daily gear, wanna try nightmare? You get to run it with hard mode gear (if your lucky enough to get the drops) WoW allowed you to build up emblems and merits and such off basic gear (dungeons and such) that allowed you to almost jump straight into the highest tier of raiding. SWTOR isn't to that point, and I really hope they never get to that point.

The gains either way for willpower or endurance basically boil down to what do you want to increase, survival or DPS, and then once you figure out which you want to improve, as long as you understand that it isn't much of an improvement either way, then its all player choice. That is what I'm mainly getting at. Its player choice. In most 'role' based games, its the tanks job to keep the healer alive (by holding threat, and being able to take a hit), its the healer job to keep the tank alive (by healing up damage that wouldn't be mitigated by the tank) and its the DPS job to kill the boss (by controlling their own threat, while also pushing themselves to meet enrage timers) So basically, the tank needs as much mitigation as possible in order to allow the healer plenty of time to react, the healer needs to understand their rotations and resource management enough so they don't go OOM or waste time on abilities that do nothing, and the DPS are expected to pull the heavy lifting on any damage done. Forcing a tank to try to pick up the slack of the DPS not just hurts the overall group dynamic by encouraging lazy DPSers (if the tank can do it, why do I need to push myself?) it is also encouraging the tank to have a dual role. Which while the tank is already doing some damage, to hold threat, letting them do more isn't entirely a bad thing, as long as your DPS is doing everything in their power to overcome the tank. When I used to play WoW, I played a fire mage. And on the raids I did, I made it a game to see just how far I could push my threat before the tank had to pull it off me. We had a tank that thought DPS gear, and stats were the best way to hold threat, and every single fight I proved him otherwise by requiring him to use taunt, and by pushing myself as far as I could, and he had a higher gear score then I did. As a DPS, I was unable to do my job correctly, which was to push myself to the limit of my gear and skill to beat enrage timers, because the tank thought his way was best, and our raid leader was naive enough to believe him. Thus after every encounter, regardless if we won or not, I got scolded for 'pulling threat' even though I was doing my job correctly, and the tank wasn't. I don't want a similar situation to happen here, where DPS is being told to 'scale back' because the tank stacked willpower over anything else, but doesn't know his rotation well enough to put any of that willpower to good use. Thus he is still unable to hold threat, and the healer is in a panic trying to cover up not just the tanks inability to hold the bosses attention, but also trying to keep the tank alive when he does have the attention of the boss, as the player in question really has no idea what to do, and just read on the forums that stacking willpower would fix any and all threat issues he's having. Stacking DPS stats for the sake of just stacking DPS stats is not a viable way to do things. On the flip side, stacking more hit points, just for the sake of stacking more hit points is also not a viable way to do things. But, if you understand exactly what kind of benefits your getting, and what you're giving up for them, then you can stack whatever you want. Figuring out your rotations, and what powers to use when, and how BEST to improve those powers to meet your overall goal (tanks need to hold threat and take a hit, healers need to keep up with incoming damage, and DPS need to beat enrage timers) is always better then mindlessly stacking stats because it looks good on paper. I've broken down endurance benefits every which way I could, and while we do have some understanding of what willpower will provide, its basically incomplete information. Until we know for sure exactly what kind of a benefit both stats provide, its all up to the player and how they want to stack the different stats.

What suspicions if i may ask?

The issue is that Shadow tanks aren't behind in AoE mitigation. We have some of the fastest cool downs (resilience at 45 seconds, deflection and BR at 2 minutes, compared to guards who have 3 minute cool downs) and because of our ability to self heal, we can take a few nice hits, and as long as they don't kill us we can recover nicely. Yes, KW doesn't last very long in AoE situations, but how many situations are there where you need to AoE tank for an extended amount of time? And how many mobs are you actually tanking, that could otherwise be burned down quickly with DPS. i/e normal/strong mobs can be burned down quickly without having much of a need to be tanked, while elite/champion mobs can be CC'ed and tanked. Sithwarrior.com has been saying the same things. If anything, Assassins and Shadows are middle ground on AoE threat generation (and if your issue, just use Whirling blow more, as long as it doesn't drain all your force) That is mainly my point, the things Kitru have been preaching have already been proved mistaken by people that are seriously doing the theory crafting, so this entire thread is about useless. Shadow tanks aren't any worse, both in theory, and in practice, then any other class.

The funny thing about this, is that Sithwarrior.com is saying the exact opposite. That ANY amount of endurance is worth it, due to the small amount of mitigation, and that quite simply DPSing is the DPSers job, not a tanks. And they have shown about the same math I have. They also use a time until death metric (which is basically Effective Hit points) and are more or less the best there is with theorycrafting right now. 1 second is long enough to use a med pack, or get a heal cast on you, or really have enough time to pop a defensive cool down, and thus keep you alive. Saying that 'its only 1 second, and thus it is useless.' isn't looking at the big picture. Again, Sithwarrior.com, the leading theory crafters for the entire SWTOR game (think Elitistjerks for WoW) have said about the same things that I have in regards to this overall argument.

Kitru put me on ignore, so that means he can't read my posts, and then call me an idiot for them.

While I agree that a solid start is best, you only need to build as much AoE threat that will keep the mobs off everyone else, so regardless of how much it is, as long as it's good enough, it doesn't matter. Yes, Force Sweep hits like a mack truck, but it only hits that hard, every 12 seconds at best. When you compare that to Whirling blow, being used 3 times over 12 seconds, Whirling Blow overcomes the increase in damage by a pretty large margin, even accounting for coefficient values being affected by bonus damage via talents. (1.35 base for force sweep, times 1.45 (bonus damage) = 1.9575 vs .71 Base for Whirling blow times 1.06 (bonus damage) times 3 (used 3 times in 12 seconds) = 2.2578) And, while Force Sweep is free (due to Courage) with your base 10.4 force/second regeneration, 3 Whirling Blows are free too, within the same 12 seconds. (10.4 * 12 = 124.8, so you actually gain 4.8 force without accounting for DBSD at all)

Because of Diminishing returns, you can't focus on 1 stat (say defense) and ignore everything else. Basically, once you approach 30% defense, any other defense you add is mostly wasted. It's 50% for Shield, and 50% for absorb, so you best bet would be to stack defense until your at about 25-27%, then work on shield until its about 40-45%, and work on absorb until it matches your shield. After that, focus on trying to increase all of them as much as you can, without stacking any set stat. I'm following my thought process for how to do a Shadow tank, so my numbers might be off (on how much to stack) but they can't do a whole lot different)

I'm still not sure why animation time is such a huge issue. You need to build up threat, so what does it matter how many powers it takes to do it? Gankstah's plots shows that a shadow tank could sustain at least 1 Whirling blow every 3 GCDs (3 GCDs = ~45 force, whirling is only 40 force) and still have force left over to do other things. Now you couldn't keep it up forever and a guardian may be able to, but a shadow doesn't have to reposition at all. Yes, you could simply step back (i/e hit the S key) and thus make much more use of of Cyclone Slash, but you are still limited by 5 targets, and if any of them move out of your cone of attack (i/e, right in front of you) then you have a much harder time actually hitting them. I know i was comparing force sweep to Whirling blow in a vacuum, and it's not entirely the best way to compare powers, but it is exactly how Kitru shows that Guardians > Shadows, and he did it by comparing the wrong powers together. Slow Time, Force Breach, and Cyclone Slash all of a target cap of 5. They can't hit anymore then that within their area of effects. Force Sweep and Whirling blow have no target cap, and while Force Sweep is limited to 12 seconds, Whirling Blow is limited by your force regeneration. It would look much better to compare the proper powers together, instead of comparing Force Sweep to Force Breach and slow time, and comparing Whirling Blow and Cyclone slash.

For PvP.. maybe.. but in PvE.. you want to use FA, HiB and demo round as much as possible, due to higher damage values, and less ammo usage (HiB costs 1 ammo, FA is almost ammo neutral, especially if it crits, and demo round hits like a mack truck)

Actually your 'use paradigms' are horribly wrong, as I've tried to explain to you time and time again. Here is the break down from a different thread.

See, neither one of you are accounting for base damage, which could be the reason why Force Sweep is showing so much more damage, but I full heartedly agree with Ruminate. If for no other reason, then Kitru is comparing the wrong powers, and assuming 'spam this button forever' situations. 1 Force Sweep in 12 seconds = Damage of Force sweep/12 = Total Force Sweep DPS 3 Whirling Blow in 12 seconds = (damage of whirling blow * 3)/12 = Total Whirling Blow DPS Just accounting for Coefficients, Whirling Blow does 30% more damage (and thus TPS) then Force Sweep. Same amount of force/focus uses (0 for Force Sweep due to Courage, 4.8 force GAIN off whirling blow, due to innate force recovery)

As a DPS? Willpower, hands down. If you were to spec tank (kinetic) then it really depends. Endurance until the healers stop freaking out trying to keep you alive, then willpower to season. Granted, as a tank i'd still stack endurnace, but that's just me, and i've already explained why.

Defense chance is your chance to not get hit by melee/range attacks at all (i/e, they miss completely) Shield is your chance to shield melee/range attacks. This means, after they pass your defense (i/e, they are going to hit you) they can then be shielded. Shield Absorption is how much damage you shield absorbs when you shield. So after an attack is going to hit you, and after you shield it, it is then reduced by your shield absorption. 3 attacks are being used against you, each deals 100 damage. First attack, your defense covers, you take 0 damage. Second attack, your defense fails, but your shield kicks in, you take 65 damage. Third attack, your defense fails, and your shield fails, you take 100 damage. Hope that clears things up for you.

Ya know, if you didn't have me on ignore you could very easily see just how wrong you really are. Shame at that though. Animation time MEANS NOTHING. Here is the thing Kitru, Force Sweep is used every 12 seconds, for free. But, besides a melee cone attack that may not even hit all the mobs you need to hold aggro on (due to them being behind you) that costs Focus (which needs to be built up, and popping cooldowns to build focus so an attack might work is just plain stupid) what else can a Guardian do to hold threat on AoE? Its basically Force Sweep - wait 12 seconds - Force Sweep again. And hoping that it is good enough. Really Kitru, spend more then 5 minute glancing over the first pages of either the Guardian forums, OR the Juggernaut forums and you'll see that AoE is a MAJOR issue for them. Because all they really have to use is Force Sweep/Smash. Shadows can spam Whirling blow 3 times in the 12 seconds that Guardians are waiting on Force Sweep, and build 30% more threat from 30% more damage doing it. That isn't accounting for ANYTHING else the Shadow may do (like Force Breach, or Slow time) PBAoE and TAoE (point blank, and targeted Area of Effect) abilities are INFINITELY better then Cones. Even if said cone hits 3 times are hard, the fact that you don't have to reposition very much for TAoE or PBAoE powers makes them far more useful.

I feel your comparing the wrong abilities together. See, Force Breach, Slow Time and Cyclone Slash all have a target cap of 5. And Cyclone Slash is melee CONE power, meaning it might not be possible to get all 5 targets (say, if some are behind you) Whirling Blow, and Force Sweep have no target cap, so they both could hit the same number of mobs, as long as they are around you. This throws your numbers off quite a bit, especially if you look at the actual base coefficient values, and then do the damage calculations correctly. Not all bonuses affect coefficient damage, and trying to shoe horn all your damage bonuses into a coefficient value either undervalues the bonuses themselves, or overestimates your end result. You need to find out for sure what talents boost what powers before you flat out say 'Yeah, its the difference between .75 and 1.0, and obviously the 1.0 is better.' Yes, Force Sweep hits like a mack truck, but it only hits that hard, every 12 seconds at best. When you compare that to Whirling blow, being used 3 times over 12 seconds, Whirling Blow overcomes the increase in damage by a pretty large margin, even accounting for your messed up cofficient values. (1.35 base for force sweep, times 1.45 (bonus damage) = 1.9575 vs .71 Base for Whirling blow times 1.06 (bonus damage) times 3 (used 3 times in 12 seconds) = 2.2578) And, while Force Sweep is free (due to Courage) with your base 10.4 force/second regeneration, 3 Whirling Blows are free too, within the same 12 seconds. (10.4 * 12 = 124.8, so you actually gain 4.8 force without accounting for DBSD at all) Please actually compare the proper powers to themselves before trying to say that the Guardian is out right better in every way.

Lets actually compare Guardian AoE to Shadow AoE for a second.. Guardian Force Sweep is a PBAoE(point blank Area of effect) on a 15 second cool down base, that has a 1.35 coefficient base, and costs 3 focus. Force Sweep is made better by Swelling Winds, Dust Storm, Pacification, and Courage Which when combined, increases is damage by 45%, lowers its cooldown by 3 seconds, allows it to apply an accuracy debuffs for 18 seconds, and become free after you triple stack Courage. Cyclone Slash is a Melee Cone (think Cleave) with no cool down, but also costs 3 Focus to use, which requires a build up time, and has a base coefficient of .88. It has a target cap of 5, and only affects mobs in front of you. Cyclone Slash is made better by Pacification, which increases its damage by 15%. Shadow Force Breach is a TAoE (targetted AoE, centered on the target of the ability) on a 15 second cooldown, for Combat Techinque (your tank stance) it has a base coefficent of .74, and also reduces the enemies Accuracy (thus increasing your defense) by 5%. The debuff last 18 seconds, and the ability costs 20 force to use and has a target cap of 5. Force Breach is made better by Force Break which increases its damage by 15%. Slow time is a TAoE on a 7.5 seconds cooldown, it costs 30 force, and has a 1.18 base coefficient. It also reduces incoming damage by 5% (thus increasing your overall Damage resistnace to all damage types) and slows the targets by 30%. The debuff lasts 15 seconds, and has a target cap of 5. Slow time is also made better by Force Break which increases its damage by 30%. Whirling Blow is a PBAoE with no cooldown, no target cap, and costs 40 force. It has a base coefficient of .71. Whirling Blow is made better by Applied Force which increases its damage by 6%. In conclusion, while the Guardian's attacks may hit harder, the Shadows hit more often (due to maintaining 2 AoEs at all times for their debuffs values if nothing else) and has a spammable AOE power that does more damage then Force Sweep when you consider a 3:1 ratio, which is accurate because Whirling Blow has no cooldown, and you should be able to use it 3 times (or even more) within the 12 seconds that Force Sweep is on cooldown. Also, while Whirling blow is expensive at 40 force, when the base force regeneration of 10.4, over a 12 second time frame, you are regenerating 124.8 force, so you can use 3 Whirling blows, and actually end up still gaining 4.8 force, without considering DBSD at all (which restores 2 force everytime you parry, deflect or shield an attack, every 1.5 seconds) So I'm not seeing how Shadow Tanks are having AOE damage, and thus threat, issues unless they just aren't using Whirling Blow at all.

Overall, Shadow tanks seem to have better single target DPS (and thus better threat generation) then vanguards and guardians (just due to higher burst potential, and just sheer damage values). For single target tanking, with Kinetic Ward up, Shadows have slightly higher Shield chances, which makes them very durable for single target tanking. Almost all of their self healing scales with max HP (only thing that doesn't is Combat Technique) which allows them to be able to take a hit, and the shortly heal it back up themselves. While the DR (damage resistance) numbers from armor are slightly lower, Shadows do have plenty of self healing to more then make up for it. Depending on who you ask, Shadows are either the worst AoE tanks ever, or on par with Guardian and Vanguards (I'd honestly rank Vanuguards the best at AoE tanking, Shadows second best, and Guardians worst, just based on sheer AoE damage in powers, and how often they can be used) Now because Shadow tanks rely on Kinetic Ward so much, their AoE tanking 'durability' is a little lacking, as your main 'cool down' to help you out isn't available as often as for single target tanking, but if you use your other cool downs as well, and kite a little, it isn't that big of a deal.

But threat isn't an issue. Stacking willpower over endurance comes down to a straight DPS vs effective hit points argument. Would that extra DPS be enough to matter? Would having a higher effective hit points matter? Which is better to fall back on, when you don't know for sure?