I have a question: Why would a person not interested in PVP gear/PVPing join a warzone to get a mark on a daily to gain rewards to buy said PVP gear? Beyond this, if they were here yesterday, and you hate that they do not use PVP gear, what is wrong with them having more comms to spend on said gear? Although, spending on said gear seems silly, since they didn't like it yesterday and therefore shouldn't like it today anyway. BEYOND that, doesn't this benefit you? NOW when you are paired with them, you still get a mark on your daily, and can therefore get YOUR gear faster, or whatever it is you spend said comms on. I really see no degradation to you here. Now you've broken from the argument that players who hate or do not use gear had an Incentive based on comms and gear. Beyond that, another poster said it best with his quote on the comms math: As you can see, mathematically the players winning still get more. Again, I do not understand why this is an issue. You mentioned that players without expertise will now do nothing and allow the match to culminate in a loss. Please, what is the difference between being AFK and that? I would very much like to know. I suppose, unless you can bring a valid argument against my last comment, that you must be quiet now?

I'm not sure that's a great explanation for it? Multiple other double strikes in the log and all the saber strikes should, by that logic, list it multiple times. Only a few doubles trikes list a double proc. Since it was on the training dummy, I'll attempt to do a test on a fellow player in a duel later, but I think it does. That, and two green text alerts float on me. i will take a screeny next time i see it. Further, only double strike is doing it, while saber strike, which is described as three hits, and actually does hit three times, only ever procs once in the log. Why would it only bug on double strike some of the time?

Oh, and w.r.t. willpower and endurance augments... Endurance is overrated. It's more important for kinetic shadows than for the other tanking classes (because we need a bigger health pool to maximize our self heal), but it's not that great in the end. Once you're in the range of 23k HP, another 1k isn't going to make that much of a difference. Those stat points are better spent on mitigation. Willpower is also highly overrated for shadows in general (though I like to stack willpower for balance shadows). The reason is that so many of our attacks are melee. Willpower doesn't help there. It's still an important stat, and I'm glad I have a lot of it, but I wouldn't go out of my way to add more. Power and Surge are going to give you a better bang for your buck in terms of generating threat, and you will get a lot of added power just from stacking mitigation augments. Your post is very good but this is wrong.... read the ingame tooltip for willpower. It clearly says melee and force. Also our self heals are a major form of mitigation. In test parses i see a 25 hps boost purely from an endurance stim and trooper buff. So 1.5k health off 12 slots of 12 end each is a further 25 hps boost. Also, i did say i was at 25 percent defense, 38 percent shield, and 45 percent absorb in only columni. Both sets only add to that even more. I am just not seeing a benefit to the 18 tank 12 power augs...

So... Which augments are other Shadow Tanks using? Personally, i'm leaning to the Endurance/Willpower Augments purely because my defense chance is 25.5%, Shield is 37.5%, and Absorb is 45%, and I'm only in Columni gear at the moment, so the other sets should more then fill what remaining gap in tank stats before cap I have. That, and the extra willpower = threat, while the extra endurance = higher HPS from static % of max health self-healing. Thoughts? any other augments worth looking at?

Hi, my name is Saix on the Lord Adraas server. This is more for Bioware then anyone here. The combat technique proc is broken, in favor of players, but broken, when using double strike. Here is an example Time stamps to note: 17:22:38:766 ; 17:22:38:767 17:22:56:205; 17:22:56:790 17:23:28:673; 17:23:29:950 All of these are double strike proccing combat technique twice in less then two seconds. As the fastest possible is 3 seconds while combat readiness is on, these are obvious inconsistencies with what is supposed to occur. There are many more examples in that parse. Thought I should bring it to your attention

Hint: Damage taken is a number you can find by hovering your cursor over the deaths number for each player, same with largest hit, largest heal, DPS, HPS, etc over other numbers. However, as many have mentioned, these can sometimes be inflated =P.

I know this will be over the top, but here is some math on harnessed shadows overall benefits to your tanking as well, although it was formatted for the endurance willpower discussion so parts may not seem as relative. I have edited to not be as long and removed arguments to leave only the self-healing math as much as possible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Harnessed Shadow’s fantastic benefits: Assumed build is 31/0/10 or 33/0/8. (3 points in Mental Fortitude VS 3 points in Upheavel) First, I want to establish a healing rotation that is force positive. That is, you regenerate more force in the rotation then you actually use to do the rotation. This will be a purely healing rotation, or a rotation based purely on healing while tanking (thus we use Double Strike for chances at Particle Accelerations), to highlight the differences in an Endurance over Willpower build. Slow Time – ST Saber Strike – SS Double Strike – DS Project – P Telekinetic Throw – TT Force Regeneration base is 8.0 F/S; talented, this reaches 10.4 F/S fixed. We will not be adding in regeneration from Double-Bladed Saber Defense as it is not guaranteed. Therefore, every GCD you can regenerate 15.6 F/S The force cost of every skill I listed for your healing Rotation, therefore, is: (Negative is regenerated force, Positive is consumed force) ST – (30-15.6) or 14.4 SS – (0-15.6) or -15.6 DS – (23-15.6) or 7.4 P – (39-15.6) or 23.4 TT – ((30/1.5)-15.6) or -0.6 over 3 seconds. With this information, we can now build a rotation over one minute of a fight: ST at t=0, SS at t=1.5, DS at t=3.0, SS at t=4.5, P at t=6.0, SS at t=7.5, ST at t=9.0, SS at t=10.5, TT at t=12.0-13.5 That is the first set of the rotation, which ends at a used force of -3.4, or 3.4 over regenerated thus far in the fight. SS at t= 15.0, ST at t=16.5, SS at t=18.0, DS at t=19.5, SS at t=21.0, P at t=22.5, SS at t=24.0, ST at t = 25.5, SS at t=27.0, TT at t=28.5-30.0 That is the second set of the rotation, which ends at a used force of -38, or 38 over regenerated thus far in the fight. SS at t=31.5, ST at t=33, DS at t=34.5, SS at t=36.0, P at t=37.5, SS at t=39.0, ST at t=40.5, SS at t=42.0, TT at t=43.5-45.0 That is the third set of the rotation, which ends at a used force of -25.8, or 25.8 over regenerated thus far in the fight. SS at t=46.5, ST at t=48.0, SS at t=49.5, DS at t=51.0, SS at t=52.5, P at t=54.0, SS at t=55.5, ST at t=57.0, TT at t=58.5-60.0 That is the fourth set of the rotation, which ends at a used force of -29.2, or 29.2 over regenerated thus far in the fight. Notice, this accounts for Kinetic Wards cost, but unfortunately not Force Breach. Although unfortunate, we are aiming for most heals, so it will have to rest. However, since Force Breach adds another GCD of time, this means that in a real fight, only three heals are done. Then again, with the enhanced regeneration of Double-Bladed Saber Defense, it may or may not work out to not needing as many SS’s. Thus, we can heal 36%-48% off purely using TT. This also allows for Tank CD’s to be popped, as they are all off the GCD. As previously mentioned, Kinetic Ward’s cost is almost fully over regenerated every rotation, each of which last roughly 15 seconds. So, let’s have a theoretical made up then! First tank, he has stacked Endurance over Willpower, and has 22k Health. He will be referenced as 22k. Meanwhile, the Second tank has stacked Willpower over Endurance a bit, and has 18k health. He will be referenced as 18k Both use Battle Readiness off CD (I know, ***??!) This gives a 5% heal per minute, or 10% per two minutes. This also augments Combat Techniques healing during one minute. So what does Combat Techniques heal do at maximum? Well, in the minute that has the faster proc rate, it does ((15 / 3) * 425)+((45 / 4.5) * 425) = 6375 health healed maximum. In the minute without the faster proc rate, it does ((60 / 4.5) * 425). As 60/4.5 is 40/3, we will say it procs 13 times, with every third minute procing a 14th time. Thus, our adjusted number is: 5525. Therefore, per minute, Combat Technique heals 5950 health per minute on each tank. So, with TT and Battle Readiness added in, each tank heals: 41%-53% + 5950 per minute. The percentages of health healed passively by Combat’s MAX healing is therefore: 18k – 33.0556% 22k – 27.0455% Add this to the TT and Battle Readiness value, and we get: 18k – 74.0556%-86.0556% 22k – 68.0455%-80.0455% In straight numbers, this adds to: 18k – 13330-15490 per 60 seconds 22k – 15060-17610 per 60 seconds And, in HPS: 18k – 222.1667-258.1667 HPS 22k – 251-293.5 HPS If a boss does 750 DPS, the tanks then mitigate through self-heals: 18k – 29.6222%-34.4222% 22k – 33.4667%-39.1333% The difference in Mitigation is then: 3.8444%-4.7111% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So yeah, use those harnessed Shadows =P You gain a lot. Also, as others have stated, ALL avoidance's are 360 degrees and occur even during channels. **The reason I included Combat technique's Healing was that it is guaranteed a chance at procing every attack, then waiting 4.5 seconds to attempt again. Double-Bladed Saber Defense is not guaranteed every GCD, but rather have a dependence on the boss hitting every GCD to even have a chance at procing, and even then the %'s vary between tanks.**

OK. Let me begin by saying I am in full favor of people gearing how they please. Let me also add I successfully tank Eternity Vault and Karagga’s Palace weekly, and the occasional Hard Mode when my schedule allows. In regards to this debate, here is why I have chosen Endurance over Willpower: First, I want to establish a healing rotation that is force positive. That is, you regenerate more force in the rotation then you actually use to do the rotation. This will be a purely healing rotation, or a rotation based purely on healing while tanking(thus we use Double Strike for chances at Particle Accelerations), to highlight the differences in an Endurance over Willpower build. Slow Time – ST Saber Strike – SS Double Strike – DS Project – P Telekinetic Throw – TT Force Regeneration base is 8.0 F/S; talented, this reaches 10.4 F/S fixed. We will not be adding in regeneration from Double-Bladed Saber Defense as it is not guaranteed. Therefore, every GCD you can regenerate 15.6 F/S The force cost of every skill I listed for your healing Rotation, therefore, is: (Negative is regenerated force, Positive is consumed force) ST – (30-15.6) or 14.4 SS – (0-15.6) or -15.6 DS – (25-15.6) or 9.4. If talented for 2 less force cost, this then becomes (23-15.6) or 7.4 P – (45-15.6) or 29.4. If talented for 6 less force cost, this then becomes (39-15.6) or 23.4 TT – ((30/1.5)-15.6) or -0.6 over 3 seconds. With this information, we can now build a rotation over one minute of a fight: ST at t=0, SS at t=1.5, DS at t=3.0, SS at t=4.5, P at t=6.0, SS at t=7.5, ST at t=9.0, SS at t=10.5, TT at t=12.0-13.5 That is the first set of the rotation, which ends at a used force of -3.4, or 3.4 over regenerated thus far in the fight. SS at t= 15.0, ST at t=16.5, SS at t=18.0, DS at t=19.5, SS at t=21.0, P at t=22.5, SS at t=24.0, ST at t = 25.5, SS at t=27.0, TT at t=28.5-30.0 That is the second set of the rotation, which ends at a used force of -38, or 38 over regenerated thus far in the fight. SS at t=31.5, ST at t=33, DS at t=34.5, SS at t=36.0, P at t=37.5, SS at t=39.0, ST at t=40.5, SS at t=42.0, TT at t=43.5-45.0 That is the third set of the rotation, which ends at a used force of -25.8, or 25.8 over regenerated thus far in the fight. SS at t=46.5, ST at t=48.0, SS at t=49.5, DS at t=51.0, SS at t=52.5, P at t=54.0, SS at t=55.5, ST at t=57.0, TT at t=58.5-60.0 That is the fourth set of the rotation, which ends at a used force of -29.2, or 29.2 over regenerated thus far in the fight. Notice, this accounts for Kinetic Wards cost, but unfortunately not Force Breach. Although unfortunate, we are aiming for most heals, so it will have to rest. However, since Force Breach adds another GCD of time, this means that in a real fight, only three heals are done. Then again, with the enhanced regeneration of Double-Bladed Saber Defense, it may or may not work out to not needing as many SS’s. Thus, we can heal 36%-48% off purely using TT. This also allows for Tank CD’s to be popped, as they are all off the GCD. As previously mentioned, Kinetic Ward’s cost is over regenerated every rotation, each of which last roughly 15 seconds. So, let’s have a theoretical made up then! First tank, he has stacked Endurance over Willpower, and has 22k Health. He will be referenced as 22k. Second tank, he has stacked Willpower over Endurance a bit, and has 18k health. He will be referenced as 18k Both use Battle Readiness off CD (I know, ***??!) This gives a 5% heal per minute, or 10% per two minutes. This also augments Combat Techniques healing during one minute. So what does Combat Techniques heal do at maximum? Well, in the minute that has the faster proc rate, it does ((15 / 3) * 425)+((45 / 4.5) * 425) = 6375 health healed maximum. In the minute without the faster proc rate, it does ((60 / 4.5) * 425). As 60/4.5 is 40/3, we will say it procs 13 times, with every third minute procing a 14th time. Thus, our adjusted number is: 5525. Therefore, per minute, Combat Technique heals 5950 health per minute on each tank. So, with TT and Battle Readiness added in, each tank heals: 41%-53% + 5950 per minute. The percentages of health healed passively by Combat’s MAX healing is therefore: 18k – 33.0556% 22k – 27.0455% Add this to the TT and Battle Readiness value, and we get: 18k – 74.0556%-86.0556% 22k – 68.0455%-80.0455% In straight numbers, this adds to: 18k – 13330-15490 per 60 seconds 22k – 15060-17610 per 60 seconds And, in HPS: 18k – 222.1667-258.1667 HPS 22k – 251-293.5 HPS This increase in HPS of 28.8333-35.333 in favor of the 22k tank means that the endurance per minute on this rotation is between 0.0725 and 0.0875 per point of Endurance. If a boss does 750 DPS, the tanks then mitigate through self-heals: 18k – 29.6222%-34.4222% 22k – 33.4667%-39.1333% The difference in Mitigation is then: 3.8444%-4.7111% Let’s say that the 18k tank stacked 300 Willpower over the 400 Endurance and gained (300 * 0.2) 60 DPS more than the 22k tank. Let’s then declare a 1,000,000 health boss at 750 DPS vs a group of 1 tank, 5 DPS, and 2 healers. The 22k tank does 500 DPS, the 18k tank does 560 DPS, and the rest of the group does 3000 DPS. 5 minutes in, the enrage timer will hit. Is the boss dead? The DPS burned 900,000 of the health in the 300 seconds they had. The 18k tank burned through 168000 health in 300 seconds. The 22k tank burned through 150000 health in 300 seconds, meaning the boss died within the enrage timer. Now let’s add group benefits in! The difference in health, if we take the mitigation difference of 3.8444% and 4.7111%, was 7150-10600 after 300 seconds, or 23.8333-35.3333 DPS taken. This frees the healers for the 22k tank, who wear gear similar to DPS gear for healing (power, surge, crit) to deal 45 DPS each, or 90 DPS total, over the fight. Now the 22k tanks group does: Tank: 150,000 Damage Dealt DPS: 900,000 Damage Dealt Healers: 27,000 Total Damage: 1,077,000 And the 18k tanks group: Tank: 168,000 Damage Dealt DPS: 900,000 Damage Dealt Healers: 0 Damage Dealt Total Damage: 1,068,000 Damage Dealt Also, the Will > End, then Tank stat mods only have 9 more tank stat. That's 54 more of one stat, or a dispersal among all 3... That is a pittance if you were already at 450 without these better mods and the new mods flip outs with put you to 500-550. If you use the tank stat formulas quoted in the tanking primer, the dropoff of usefulness is around 550 for almost all stats, and it is difficult to get to that point on all three anyway. At any rate, 9 more defense/shield/absorption doesn’t add enough tank stats to give you a 3.8444%-4.7111% increase in mitigations as in comparison. They may decrease the difference, but if you are going for high mitigation the healing from the 22k still adds more. This is also a fairy-tale set, as crits and such will factor in, but the difference in mitigation persists anyway. Anyway, that’s my two cents, I’m sure someone will come by and tell me I did math wrong somewhere . Like I said, IDRC how you gear, but that’s why I choose Endurance over Willpower, because I feel it mitigates a bit better than a Willpower over Endurance build.

Heya, nice compilation of information. Might I suggest also adding links to Primer's from each class forum? That way people looking for info that only check here can get it? Also, regarding Expertise, you can farm level 34-48 items and scrap enhancments for expertise prior to 50... sure it is a stat loss, but if you are worried about that there are ways to mitigate it. Finally, while sub-50, make sure to grind 1000 mercs and 1000 warzone comms, as well as having a champion bag pre-bought, so that when you hit 50 you can instantly take 6 attempts at gear. All of this mitigates issues with gear discrepancies.

I love how noone read his post and noticed he was being facetious, did anyone catch the "Top of deaths (received)" comments?.... But hey, we all know you get your panties bunched up over anyone mentioning that skill, maybe the OP is at fault for that =P.

Uhm, i may have misjudged WHO taunt affects, but it is proven that BW added an aggro addition to our force taunts, in fact, if you force taunt after a dps takes and you both immediately stop any movements, the mob will be yours until you die. Test it out! It is really fun =)

OK, so I have a level 50 Shadow Tank, and my friend has a level 50 Guardian Tank. We were on Belsavis the other day testing survivability and threat gen to see where each class shines versus the other. I was winning the survivability due to self heals, and he was winning the threat gen due to guardian leap. In fact, when I built as much threat as I could and DPS'd the rancor to 60% health solo, he Guardian Leaped once and had aggro instantly. This got me to thinking, obviously he leached the threat it reduced from me, and by a significant amount. However, we then started doing a few of the heroics for dailies to see who can keep aggro more. I found that every time he Guardian leaped I'd lose aggro but then I'd force taunt and be back up. Since force taunt actually adds to our aggro pool in SWTOR, this means I'm literally earning threat off his leach. This means that every time he leaps and I taunt (20 second CD on leap and 15 second on ST taunt) I actually generate free aggro. This got me to thinking, how could we use this in HMs? Basically, I feel the scenario would go like this: a Guardian can Guardian leap the Main Tank and leach, then the Main Tank can Force Taunt and generate free aggro. The Main tank also gains a 20% damage reduction buff for 10 seconds every time. This means that the guardian can also leap DPS and steal lots of their threat, probably overtaking the tank, and the tank can force taunt to leach that as well. This can allow for the DPS to through-put more damage as their threat is systematically reduced and absorbed. Is this worth it? Does this sound useful? Or am I misunderstanding how the force taunt works? Thought I'd share what I found and see if it is even real =).

I would rather we didn't do this... LOTRO did this with radiance, and it sucked... people would lff and say "must have 80 radiance... hell, the dungeons even required it. The minute a stat like this appears the community only takes you if you have a certain amount. It always becomes a hard gate to conntent and a huge grind.

Actually, you did the math wrong I was unclear, admittedly, but per second the tics on TK increase at 3 HPS, which is what I meant. I agree that it is reduced in a minute long setting, but I meant for mitigating a hit in the moment. Further, since you HP pool is larger, you can take the hit easier, and since you can heal more of it solo, your healers can ignore you a bit more to aoe heal/interrupt/add dps themselves. Since healers don't need to gear differently then me to DPS, that is a much bigger win IMO.

Hi. Quick disclaimer, I am a 50 shadow 31/0/10 Kinetic Tank, so what I am about to say is situational to a 31/0/10 shadow. I agree that Endurance should >> Willpower, for one main reason: Harnessed Shadows. Telekinetic Throw bases it's healing off of 3% of max health. Endurance is a linear stat, that is, 1 endurance = 10 health, always. Telekinetic Throw also doesn't benefit from Bonus Healing as far as I have noticed, but even if it did, it would not over take endurance in amount of healing provided. Say you have a 15000 health Shadow using 3 Harnessed Shadows Telekinetic Throw. Each tic heals him at a 450 per tic rate. In a normal fight, he should be able to throw off 2 Telekinetic Heals per minute, roughly. Now take a 20000 health Shadow. Each tic heals him for 600 per tic. Say a Boss critically hits each, and their defenses are the same. Each takes 5000 damage. The 15000 Shadow can heal 1800 of that through a Telekinetic Throw, a 20000 Shadow can heal 2400 of that through a Telekinetic Throw. In effect, the 15000 can self mitigate 36%, while a 20000 Shadow can self mitigate 48%, of the same hit. The best part is, since Endurance is Linear, you can continually increase at a 3 HPS per 10 Endurance rate until you can't find anymore endurance to add. Willpower doesn't even come close to 3 healing bonus per 10 points. While the healing is a small add on in a minute long deal, in the moment it mitigates a very large chunk of the attack. As it also alleviates healers, the idea of looking at it in the moment becomes much more important then over a minute long section. In a fight, Endurance (for a 31/0/10 Shadow) becomes a pure mitigation stat, while Willpower slightly increases your DPS and threat. As a tank, I believe mitigation to be much more valuable then a bit more DPS, and I hold threat just fine at the moment. Of course, this is a case by case basis, but that is my look on the decision. TL;DR Endurance on a self-heal Telekinetic Throw is equivalent to a 3 HPS per 10 Endurance point boost on a Telekinetic Throw (in the moment), which increases a main form of mitigation for a Shadow Tank, self healing. Editted for clarity.