Said I was staying off for a while and I meant it, but I had to give this update: Tried this on both my Assassin and my Juggernaut and it works BEAUTIFULLY. Have a friend who is trying it out on the PT for me. Have fun people, and keep pushing new ways to make your gear work for you.

You honestly have no idea how hard I am laughing right now. Because at the end of the day it has nothing to do with your viewpoint or my viewpoint. Both of our DtPS profiles are nearly identical on all fights. Our progression is also on the same level. The point of tanking is to manage agro and positioning in a fight, while staying alive. Gear is a factor yes, but many of the factors that determine whether or not you live have absolutely nothing to do with you. Teams are made of 8 or 16 player, and at the NiM level it requires all of them to be doing there job correctly to pass. If you as a tank are off on positioning - fail. If the dps do not have the numbers to beat the timer - fail. If the healers cannot counter-act the damage going out - fail. Also, you have to factor in what the other players are doing, if your other tank is a Jugg/PT their AoE taunt is going to increase mitigation, if you have a Marauder who is Predation-happy, also going to increase mitigation, if you have Sorcerer who is adept at Static Barrier timing, again increase in mitigation. If you have healers who know how to pre-cast before a big hit where their heals hit you immediately after damage - the EHPS just went up, if your dps are ballers that are on top of their game the fight as a whole is going to be shorter which makes everything easier from healing to DtPS of the raid. Tanking is meant to be done in pairs, because at the HM/NiM level 1 person is not meant to take all of the damage. If you have a co-tank that knows when to swap (on fights that do not have a built-in swap mechanic) it will also change the amount of damage you take. Also: when I run my PT I almost NEVER use Oil Slick for myself, I use it as a defensive cooldown for the OTHER tank, which will change his DtPS numbers. There are so many factors rolling during a fight that unless your algorithm can account for all 8 or 16 people, their rotations, and their positioning during a fight, your "Ideal Tank Stats" are in the same category as Mean Mitigation - just a theory. Don't try so hard to have people make a stat budget and then adjust their playstyle accordingly, let people play the way they know how and find the stats that work best for them. You run your numbers and they work for you, they also work for some other people. However, other people (myself included), did not have as much success with your numbers as they don't quite fit other playstyles. Heals and DPS is the same way, find your groove and get the stats that help you accomplish what needs to be done the way that you are doing it. There is no "Ideal" in the game, it isn't built that way. The point of progression raiding is to work as a team to down an objective, if the objective is being downed - who cares? If you are failing, then you need to go look at the parses and find out what was going wrong, whether it be heals, damage, or tanking that was messing up. I challenge you to ask every tank in the game that is at least 8/10 HM and see how many of them DON'T run either of our stat differentials. Guarantee you most of them started with a model they found somewhere (more than likely yours) and then adjusted the stats to what worked for them. Lastly - it's a video game. Meant to be fun? The concept of enjoyment. Granted, at the world progression level (#Zorz) there is an amount of sincerity required with how you approach fights, but I can say with most certainty that people on that level also have fun while pushing content, and themselves, while understanding that attaining top-level adeptness has very little to do with gear and deals mostly with knowledge of the class, it's abilities, and how to apply them to the situations that arise in the fights. ---To reiterate once more: Don't match your playstyle to a set of stats, find stats that fit your playstyle. This is Sevrahn, signing off from the tank forums (for now). See you in-game----

To the first: I will try my best to remember to use LS first when WB is up. To the second: true, but doesn't RS have to be somewhere in any Virulence rotation? Otherwise you run out of energy (unless you are stacking ridiculous amounts of Crit, in the which case I would challenge if you are reaching maximum DPS potential). I'm not on my PC at the moment, but when I get home I will see about adding the numbers up to see what the total DPS is. If you could give me an alternate rotation and base damage values to run the numbers with it would help tremendously (other wise I have to run it with 168 GREENS on).

As far as the disparity on our math I will tell you this much: mine assumes 100% mitigation for all of a boss's given "big hits". Lets take Walkers for an example, under the premise that we are using the no-swap method and I am on Walker 1. For every single Mega Blast there is a Sonic Barrier. And for every single window where Walker 2 switches to me there is a cooldown (i.e. Saber Reflect - Saber Ward - Saber Reflect - Invincible - Repeat). If the situation really hits the fan I still have Enraged Defense and Endure Pain for healing emergencies. I am unsure if you take this into account for your calculations, but my stat differentials are focused on mitigating the rest of the multiple, smaller hits in the fight as the big ones are already accounted for.

Interesting enough: you used the word "stochastic" which means - 'randomly determined; having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.' Yet you listed values that were precise to 4 decimal places. Also, you mention that your tank stats make you 0.135% more survivable, but I think we will both agree survival in a boss fight is not a % chance, it is a yes or no question - did you or did you not die? And the one thing that I won't agree with you on is your damage profiles, you can say with a certainty that a certain % of the attacks thrown out in a fight are M/R, E/K, or I/E; however each and every one of those attacks will have a roll to determine if it actually hits you followed by another roll to determine if it is a Critical or not. Making the total % of what type of damage goes out unpredictable. The attack types/%'s can be identical for 2 fights but the damage profiles will always vary. If you believe you can calculate mitigation to predict survivability that accurately in every fight, you need to have a long talk with RNGesus.

Hi, I would like to start with the fact that my main is a tank, and DPS is by no mean my strong suit. That being said, I have been playing around with my Sniper and trying out the "3 Cull Rotation" that is based on the extended DoT timer. In reading tooltips and adding up damage profiles I see that 2 Lethal Shots take the same time value but does more damage than Series of Shots. Given this I have been trying out a new rotation that actually uses 6 Culls before starting over and uses the Utility call Snap Shot a lot to get instant Lethal Shot. However, my gear on my Sniper is deplorable, so I would like to post this here and if anyone gets around to trying it before I gear up my Sniper I would love to know how it turned out for them. Lethal Shot – LS, Weakening Blast – WB Corrosive Dart – CD Corrosive Grenade – CG, Rifle Shot – RS Series of Shots – SS ***** The ~ Symbol refers to where I exit and re-enter cover ***** CD – CG ~ WB – Cull – LS – Takedown ~ LS – RS – Cull – Takedown ~ LS – RS – WB – Cull – CD – CG – Takedown ~ RS – Cull – LS – Takedown ~ LS – WB – Cull – Takedown ~ LS – SS – Cull – Takedown (Starts over with CD - CG ~ WB) Broken Down by Timers: CD – CG ~ WB – (16.5s on WB) Cull – (6s on Cull)(13.5s on WB) LS – (4.5s on Cull)(12s on WB) Takedown ~ (3s on Cull)(10.5s on WB) LS – (1.5s on Cull)(9s on WB) RS – (7.5s on WB) Cull – (6s on Cull)(4.5s on WB) Takedown ~ (4.5s on Cull)(3s on WB) LS – (3s on Cull)(1.5s on WB) RS – (1.5s on Cull) WB – (16.5s on WB) Cull – (6s on Cull)(13.5s on WB) CD – (4.5s on Cull)(12s on WB) CG – (3s on Cull)(10.5s on WB) Takedown ~ (1.5s on Cull)(9s on WB) RS – (7.5s on WB) Cull – (6s on Cull)(4.5s on WB) LS – (4.5s on Cull)(3s on WB) Takedown ~ (3s on Cull)(1.5s on WB) LS – (1.5s on Cull) WB – (16.5s on WB) Cull – (6s on Cull)(13.5s on WB) Takedown ~ (4.5s on Cull)(12s on WB) LS – (3s on Cull)(10.5s on WB) SS – (7.5s on WB) Cull – (6s on Cull)(4.5s on WB) Takedown – (4.5s on Cull)(3s on WB) (Starts over with CD - CG ~ WB) Total rotation includes: 6 Culls, 6 Takedowns, 6 Lethal Shots, 3 Weaking Blasts, 3 Rifle Shots, 1 Re-Application of DoTs, and 1 Series of Shots. Thanks for reading.

I was curious so I ran KBN's numbers through the formulas and compared them to my own. Now before anyone gets up in arms about this: I AM NOT SAYING MY NUMBERS ARE BETTER THAN HIS, I AM ALSO NOT SAYING ONE SHOULD CHOOSE MINE OVER HIS. I AM A STRONG ADVOCATE OF DO YOU OWN MATH, THIS IS JUST FOR COMPARISON. Juggernaut (KBN) [assumes full mitigation set-up, stat pool of 4003, so I ran his 4000-block numbers] Defense: 1544 = 28.5% Shield: 1208 = 44.32% Absorb: 1248 = 46.81% Juggernaut (Mean/Mitigation) [stat pool of 4003] Defense: 1094 = 25.08% (-3.42%) Shield: 1564 = 48.55% (+4.23%) Absorb: 1345 = 48.09% (+1.28%) Total % Difference = +2.09% Juggernaut (Mean/Split-Mod) [stat pool of 3895 (-108 stat)] Defense: 1094 = 25.08% (-3.42%) Shield: 1512 = 47.97% (+3.65%) Absorb: 1289 = 47.36% (+0.55%) Total % Difference = +0.78% Juggernaut (Mean/B-Mod) [stat pool of 3841 (-162 stat)] Defense: 1094 = 25.08% (-3.42%) Shield: 1512 = 47.97% (+3.65%) Absorb: 1235 = 46.63% (-0.73) Total % Difference = -0.5% Assassin (KBN) [assumes full mitigation set-up, stat pool of 4003, so I ran his 4000-block numbers] Defense: 875 = 26.13% Shield: 1484 = 58.65% Absorb: 1641 = 52.63% Assassin (Mean/Mitigation) [stat pool of 4003] Defense: 750 = 24.93% (-1.2%) Shield: 1304 = 56.52% (-2.13%) Absorb: 1949 = 55.78% (+3.15%) Total % Difference = -0.18% Assassin (Mean/Split-Mod) [stat pool of 3949 (-54 stat)] Defense: 750 = 24.93% (-1.2%) Shield: 1252 = 55.88% (-2.77%) Absorb: 1947 = 55.76% (+3.13) Total % Difference = -0.84% Assassin (Mean/B-Mod) [stat pool of 3859] Defense: 750 = 24.93% (-1.2%) Shield: 1200 = 55.22% (-3.43%) Absorb: 1909 = 55.4% (+2.77%) Total % Difference = -1.86% Powertech (KBN) [assumes full mitigation set-up, stat pool of 4003, so I ran his 4000-block numbers] Defense: 593 = 16.31% Shield: 1896 = 51.94% Absorb: 1511 = 50.14% Powertech (Mean/Mitigation) [stat pool of 4003] Defense: 1094 = 21.08% (+4.77%) Shield: 1616 = 50.11% (-1.83%) Absorb: 1293 = 51.41% (+1.27%) Total % Difference = +4.21% Powertech (Mean/Split-Mod) [stat pool of 3895 (-108 stat)] Defense: 1094 = 21.08% (+4.77%) Shield: 1616 = 50.11% (-1.83%) Absorb: 1185 = 49.94% (-0.2%) Total % Difference = +2.74% Powertech (Mean/B-Mod) [stat pool of 3841 (-162 stat)] Defense: 1094 = 21.08% (+4.77%) Shield: 1564 = 49.55% (-2.39%) Absorb: 1183 = 49.91% (-0.23%) Total % Difference = +2.15% **Stat percentages include Active Mitigation that one <!SHOULD!> have 100% uptime on**

This is just something I have been playing around with in the formulas (I have a lot of time for math in-between patients): - If you accept the premise of Mean Mitigation across all tanks you may wish to try this - Based on the fact that most PT's run low Defense I wished to see what you could get with similar stats on Assassin's and Juggernauts, this is what I found. Assassin (B-Mods, so health is at 57,478) Shield 1200 = 55.22% (Base Rating) Absorb – 2456 = 59.99% (All B-Mods, Enhancements, Augments, both Implants, and Ear) Defense – 185 = 18.5% (Just Stim/Relics - LOWEST YOU CAN POSSIBLY GO) **Again, as per Mean Mitigation Theorem, Assassin Absorb % should be 10% higher than PT/Jugg due to Lt Armor Going off of this and trying to match to Defense % on the other 2 while keeping Shield/Absorb relatively even I was able to make this: Juggernaut (B-Mods, so health is at 55,166.5) Shield – 1824 = 51.25 (12Augs) Absorb – 1580 = 50.94 (2 Augs + Implants + All B-Mods + 6 Enh) Defense – 437 = 18.58 (Ear+Relics+Stim+1Enh) Powertech (B-Mods, so health is at 55,166.5) Shield – 1720 = 51.2 (10 Augments) Absorb – 1297 = 51.46 (4 Augments + 8 B-Mods + Ear + Implants) Defense – 824 = 18.65 (Relics + Stim + All Enh + 1 B-Mod) I may try this out at some point just because the differentials still look solid, and factoring in that most of the defensive cooldown in the game either buff Defense or work against the attacks that can be defended anyway. Also interested to see how it works considering the B-Mod health pools would definitely help in I/E damage fights. If you do try this before I get around to it I would love to here how your experiences with it went.

UPDATE: After all the discussions that have been had on this forum I simply had to play around with my gear and run the operations to see how damage profiles change. The current configuration I am running is this (noticed a slight DtPS decrease actually, special thanks to justinplainview and Cidgarrillo for giving me different perspectives to consider). All values consider Split-Mod configuration and all I actually did was play with my augments. Juggernaut: 4 Shield Augments became 4 Absorb Defense 1094 = 25.08% Shield 1512 = 47.97% Absorb 1289 = 47.36% Powertech: 6 Defense Augment became 6 Absorb Defense 1094 - 21.08% Shield 1616 - 50.11% Absorb 1185 - 49.94% Assassin: 1 Shield Augment rest Absorb Defense 750 - 24.93% Shield 1252 - 55.88% Absorb 1947 - 55.76% I would also like to apologize for the slight in accuracies of the %'s in the OP. That was done with gear I had on and manipulating stats with Adrenals and Relics, so it was incredibly imprecise. The actual equations for what you will get out of a stat pool are: 30 * { 1 – [ 1 - ( 0.01 / 0.3 ) ]^[ ( DefenseRating / Level) / 1.2 ) ] } + Class Bonuses = Defense Chance 50 * { 1 – [ 1 - ( 0.01 / 0.5 ) ]^[ ( ShieldRating / Level) / 0.78 ] } + Class Bonuses = Shield Chance 50 * { 1 – [ 1 - ( 0.01 / 0.5 ) ]^[ ( AbsorbRating / Level ) / 0.65 ] } + Class Bonuses = Absorb Percentage where the values of Class Bonuses are defined as: Assassin - Defense = 16, Shield = 35, Absorb = 24 Juggernaut - Defense = 13, Shield = 24, Absorb = 23 Powertech - Defense = 9, Shield = 25, Absorb = 27 **Class Bonus values are calculated including the +5% Shield and +20% Absorb contained in your offhand and accounting for Active Mitigation stats that one <!SHOULD!> have 100% uptime on**

I completely Agree. I am sorry you feel that way. It was not my intent to offend, I was simply using a figure of speech - keeping in mind that other people are also reading the back and forth on this forum and some of them may have not read everything. I am truly appreciative of the time you spent reading and translating everything, most people on the internet just throw their 2cents in and call it good without understanding the topic beforehand. It means a lot that you spent the time and then responded in a manner and with information that I do have to think about and process. I never said my stats were "best." All if have stated as that they are different and achieve similar results to a system that is labeled "Ideal Tank Stats." The point was to get people thinking, to offer a new point of view and allow them to have another, viable alternative instead of having only one place to turn. My ULTIMATE goal was to show that within the confines of the game there are different ways to achieve the same numbers (ask DPS and Heals, their gear varies dramatically but they can still pull the same numbers in fight/on dummy if they do it correctly), and by so doing have them not follow any of the sets they find online, but rather use them as a reference and adjust to find what works best for them.

Interesting, I may have to drop some of my Shield augments and put them into Absorb and see if I have a difference. I may not go as low as you have to start, but as I mentioned to someone else, the line of where Shield beats Absorb is a delicate balance to be found. Also: Completely agree with what you said about Eventuality. My personal view on it is that maximizing your cooldown uptime in those damage windows is one of the keys to decreasing your over-all DtPS in any given fight.

Let me start by quoting the original premise: Whether it is that you do not believe it is viable or you simply do not like it because it is contrary to your play-style, I did warn that you would not agree with me. Starting with the getting each tank to the same % D S A not making sense, I am at a loss as the numbers show it is possible to do. I love the fact that each tank has different strengths, but I seem to see them in a different way than you do. The main point of the premise is with the clarifier of "cooldowns notwithstanding" - THAT is where I love my variety. There are things I can do with my Assassin that I absolutely could not accomplish on the other classes just because their cooldowns are different, same goes for the other 2. This does not mean that I support bringing a different tank to each fight (good God, think of the load time), it simply means I play each fight differently based on which class I am bringing to it. As far as your mention of healers, I will simply say this: had a friend pre-3.0 that had NOTHING but Crit/Surge on his Operative (with MS Augments obviously). and he successfully when 10/10 NiM. His play-style was incredibly unique and he was one of the spikiest Operative healers I knew, and, even though it did not play to the given "strengths" of the class he made it work, and did very well with it. That is one of the things I love about this game - especially post-3.0 - you can take any class and role and make it truly your own.

More or less, Juggernaut and Powertech have the same percentages as the have the same armor rating and similar Damage Reducation quotients. Assassin's have roughly 10% more Absorb because it evens out the fact they take more base damage (from E/K, they take the least I/E damage of any tank). I'm not sure the point you are trying to make about "what makes the gear different", as I completely agree that your stat differentials are going to vary based on the Class Bonuses. This is what has my Juggernaut at 1094 Defense Rating while my Assassin is at only 750 - because their passives give them different base percentages. This is actually untrue, if you run the damage equations through algorithms that account for DtPS, Hit-to-Hit damage profiles, and even total damage taken over a fight you see that when your Absorb % reaches a certain point you actually get more mitigation out of stacking Shield. It's a balance between how much you are absorbing vs. how often you are actually shielding. To a certain degree it is more beneficial to be shielding more often for less than it is to be shielding for more less often (to a certain degree). If you read through everything that we said to each other you will notice multiple times that we both mention that "optimal" is a point of view based on what you are gearing for. He and I go about what we do in a different way but we both accomplish the same goal - staying within average/acceptable DtPS profiles on fights and progressing through content. I will re-iterate what I said in my final response to him: the point of this post was not "choose my numbers over anyone else's", it was simply a breakdown of how I run my stats and the statement that it works. It also works FOR ME, the purpose was to show a different perspective that can provide similar levels of mitigation but in a different way so that people would (hopefully) discern that there are multiple ways to accomplish the same thing and find what works best for them based on their given class and play-style.

But truly the end point is this: we have both stated that "optimal" and "best" are points of view based on what you are gearing towards. The OP was never meant as a challenge to your math statistics, it was simply as statement of this is how my tanks are geared and it works. The reason I posted is that aside from your math most of the other posts containing specifics on how to gear tanks are very debatable, especially if you read the ones concerning Endurance stacking. SW:toR is a game played by people (gold-spammers don't count) and people will make their own decisions on how to gear regardless of what you are I say. The purpose was to provide a different perspective on how gear can be optimized (and after all we have discussed I use the term loosely). The end result of what works is always defined by the same thing: progression. If you are downing content, what you have need little changing (if any). If you are not downing content, then you need to look at if the reason is your own fault and seek ways to adjust your stats accordingly (if reasons had nothing to do with mechanical error). As you and I are both downing content in current tier and have NiM achievements from the previous tier I would put forth that neither of us is "wrong", we simply go about doing what we need to get done a different way. Whether or not people actually use the stat differentials I posted is entirely inconsequential to me, I am simply trying to provide an alternate way of thinking about the stats. The best I am hoping for from this is, no offense to either of us, that people will see that there is not one way to go about doing things, and (even more hopefully) that some of them may even do their own math to find what works best for them instead of just taking what we have stated and following it. Granted the math shows that some things are ridiculous (1k Crit Rating, for example), but within the bounds of "I am not squishy" different tanks are going to have stats that fluctuate based on their play-style. This is my final response to you personally, and I would like to thank you for the debate we have had. It is rare for me to actually be able to talk about these things this in-depth without people becoming dis-interested. I do hope in the future we may correspond on similarly thought-intensive topics.

Cooldowns notwithstanding. The game truly does not care which class of tank you bring to a fight. The only thing that matters is the damage and damage types going out versus the mitigation statistics that are trying to counter them. There is no "more out of stacking [any stat] intrinsically" on any tank. The stats you put in give you a raw percentage that is then added with flat percentages in your Discipline or the passives based on that class. The DR is exactly the same across each class. Defense Chance = 30 * { 1 – [ 1 - ( 0.01 / 0.3 ) ]^[ ( DefenseRating / 60) / 1.2 ) ] } Shield Chance = 50 * { 1 – [ 1 - ( 0.01 / 0.5 ) ]^[ ( ShieldRating / 60) / 0.78 ] } Absorb Percentage = 50 * { 1 – [ 1 - ( 0.01 / 0.5 ) ]^[ ( AbsorptionRating / 60 ) / 0.65 ] } *60 is the dividing factor in the exponent because it is current max level. Regardless of class plug in your number and you will get the percentage it is contributing. https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=305237C3C432AA!16387&authkey=!AI2-BT9u3wYi9sM&ithint=folder%2c I did screenshots to show that the values are identical coming off of your raw stat pool. (Shield is the exact same value, Absorb and Defense are off by 2 stat point but you can see the results are the same regardless of class) Next you have to look at what the classes offer: Powertech Discipline: Shield +2%, Dmg Red + 4%, Armor +15%, M/R Def +4% Cylinder: Armor +60%, Dmg Red +5%, Shield +15% Active Mitigation: Shield +3%, Absorb +3-28% Assassin Discipline: Armor +20%, Dmg Red +4%, M/R Def +6%, Absorb +4% Stance: Armor +130%, Shield +15%, I/E Dmg Red +10% Active Mitigation: Shield +15%, Absorb +1-8%, Dmg Red 1-4% Juggernaut Discipline: Armor +15%, Shield +4%, I/E Dmg Red – 5% Stance: Armor +60%, Dmg Red +6%, Shield +15%, Defense +3% Active Mitigation: Defense +5%, Dmg Red +3%, Absorb +3%, Sonic Barrier If you have the logs your self or look at someone else's you can find the damage profiles for each fight, and, based on your class's inherent buffs + the stat equations find the best way to get your stats where the need to be. You can do this on a fight-to-fight basis or you can take an average across all fights for a single gear set. The fact that the stat pool gives the same percentages and the class buffs are flat percentages means that if you find a percentage distribution that works for one tank, attaining the same percent levels on the other 2 can attain the exact same mitigation (to re-iterate: cooldowns notwithstanding). I also find it odd that you state PT's will always take more damage, considering in the screenshots you can see that their passive dmg red buffs are ahead of the Juggernaut in both respects, and ahead of the Assassin in terms of E/K damage. The reason I go high on shield with PT/Jugg is that at 1200 rating (base in 198's) the Assassin is already at 55.22 without doing anything. So, based on the premise I am trying to get as close as I can to that, but 50% takes a bit much to get to so I stop there and start putting points into other stats. Because my Juggernaut and PT put so much into Shield, their absorption suffers and they end up in the mid-40th percentile. Which is balanced by the fact that they simply take less damage than the Assassin would with the same percentage. Which balances around to Assassin's stacking Absorb (which they have been doing for a very long time). After balancing Shield/Absorb the mean Defense percentages I was achieving with the remaining stat pool was roughly 25%, roughly - I honestly don't know why you are so hung up on that number - after seeing this I balanced it a bit further to make the percentages a bit more exact (i.e. the 25% and 50% respectively), can you really blame me for liking even numbers? Granted, it may not be as *perfectly* mitigating as 25.42% and 49.06%, but we have already touched base on the differences changes that small make. That was the whole premise of Mean Mitigation. Because I have found that it *does* work (the only true exception to this is the Assassin's inherent +10% I/E damage reduction). The only variance in my damage profiles across my tanks is based on what cooldowns are good in which fights. Which is why I honestly prefer my Juggernaut, as they have at least one cooldown that works against every damage type.

See if this quoting stuff works out, never tried it with multiple parts before. Twenty-six or 24% have no objections, 25% does not mean 25.00000000000%. Current accuracy BiS is 760, but at the 198 level with 5 pieces and 3 augments you are sitting at 756 which is equal to 99.99%, which is effectually the same. Then you keep mentioning I need a "goal" in mind, 25% is a goal. If you go over or under it will have different effects, but as you are stating a couple percentage points is not earth-shattering. Plus, the percentages are listed to show how equal they can be, the stat budget is what truly matters. What if stat budget of 8k? - Really? That's your argument? Obviously with different stat pools comes different math. Because with different stat pools BW/EA are going to change the DR values (Crit is a perfect example of this). Why? Really? The first point I make is - You also fail to see the logic behind what is being shown. The point I am trying to make is that is it not about what tank you are currently playing, you should be able to achieve the same amount of survivability, before factoring in cooldowns, based on your stats alone. If you go through an entire tier of operations as an Assassin with your Defense rating in the 700's, Shield in the 1400's and Absorb in the 1700-1800's and your survivability is exactly where you want it you can then look at your percentages and try to achieve the same on the other classes, same goes for if you started on a Juggernaut or Powertech, although your stat distribution would be different based on specific DR's to that class (obvious difference is Assassin's have light armor and therefore take more base damage than the other 2, which is balanced by the fact they have roughly the same percentage difference higher in their Absorb rating). Or one could just say 'mean mitigation', it is simpler. And unless I am reading the rest of it wrong (based on your use of 'intrinsic bonuses' and 'better'), I completely disagree with you. Let's take the PT - in your discipline you have bonuses that give you 4% Absorb, 4% Defense. and 2% Shield. You also have Heat Screens, Heat Blast, and Shield Enhancers - these are all flat percentages and none of them care how much of that stat you currently have, they will give you only the flat percentage listed. Could I go up on Shield/Absorb on my PT? yeah, but I could also defend 5% more of the time (on applicable fights). Given the shear amount of up-time I have on Heat Blast's 25% buff I feel my points are better spent elsewhere. Juggernauts stacking Defense - ok, cool, you can hit 30% (ish) with your buffs, but your Shield/Absorb ratings are going to get you annihilated in fights that have very little to defend. Did you not also say - And yet now you are saying your numbers are the best possible numbers in the game to be strived for and achieved? And that the only better mitigation attainable would be if you made an error? Ok, then why does this post - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=790085 - by you 3 days ago list to the number the exact same stat differentials as this post - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=792434 - which quotes you from 2013? I fail to see how that is updated.

@KBN There was a lot in there so I will try to write my replies in the order you listed things. I think you're misunderstanding how my math works. I'm not optimizing for "minimum effect from diminishing returns"; I'm optimizing for "minimum damage taken". - To clarify, I am not doubting that is how you optimize your math, simply stating when I have geared characters according to it the DR comment is what I noticed. I have no problem with your numbers, and I started all my tanks off with them and then shifted stats to better suit how I perceived I was taking damage. For example, if you have a boss where the only non-internal/elemental damage force/tech (e.g. Soa is the classic example of this, but more recent close calls are Brontes and Corrupter Zero), then it doesn't matter what the diminishing returns on shield/absorb vs defense are, defense is still useless! My numbers consider the actual damage ratios in each boss fight and optimize for minimizing total damage taken, respecting tank-specific bonuses (e.g. Blade Barricade, Dark Ward, etc) and diminishing returns. - I'm going to couple this with your statement about "10 additional points". If I read this correctly you are stating that if the fight is Shield based it doesn't matter how far into the DR you are it is still better than putting points in Defense. I completely agree. As we all know different fights have different damage profiles. This can be solved by having different gear sets optimized to different fights and switch between them. This is something I prefer not to do. I have my Juggernaut in a place where I am confident his gear can handle any fight. The principle of "more Defense will help you in this fight than Shield" based on damage type is what I was referring to when I mentioned that I did not see and increase in mitigation by going higher than 25% Defense chance. It literally didn't matter either way. You then mention adjusting values by 10 points, and again I agree. A 10 point stat difference is negligible, but we are talking in the hundreds of points stat difference. Five hundred point in Shield vs. 500 points in any other stat will be a noticeable difference, whether good or bad. Tank mitigation is a relatively small component of a raid group's total competency (a decent healing pair will make bad itemization nearly irrelevant, and a bad healing pair will render good itemization insufficient). - I doubt anyone is going to argue that point. What I'm saying is that your definition of "optimal" is too shallow, and your raid results will be strictly better following a different gearing strategy. - This is where you have missed the original point entirely. I never said these numbers were "optimal", this thread was created based on a theory where you can attain the same mitigation numbers across all three classes. As most PT's in the game will tell you, they don't run high defense. I do and I don't have any problems with it, but the PT numbers listed are simply there to show you can achieve the same percentages (roughly) as the Juggernaut/Assassin. As far as your definition of "better" raid results, I have to disagree. My average DTPS is between 1200 and 1500 on most fights, never going about 1600 unless I am completely messing something up (obvious exceptions include Master/Blaster and I am sure Revan). During fights where I am just "on" for some reason my numbers go down to just above 1k and if you throw in a Sorc healer that knows what they are doing they can be even lower. Gearing by your numbers would, granted, provide different results, but I maintain that "better" is a point of view at this level of discussion. What my numbers are is optimally tuned with respect to a very quantifiable and measurable set of criteria, and this is ultimately what matters with tank gearing. - Last update on your numbers that I saw was posted in 2013. If you have updated numbers based on the new operations' damage profiles I would very much like to see them.

Very much aware. Current stat pool differential he is about 500 Defense rating higher than I am. However at 1094 I have a Defense Chance of 25%. Which on Defense-heavy fight has me deflecting/parrying 47-53% of incoming damage. I found that pushing the percentage higher resulted in a negligible difference in how much I actually defended in these fights (on both my Juggernaut and Assassin). However, putting those 500 points in Shield drastically reduced the amount of damage I take on Shield/Absorb fights. One could make the argument that my Shield is too high and that I need to put some into Absorb, but I like my 50% chance and 44% Absorb seems to be adequate for Juggernauts. Don't get me wrong, KBN has solid math, and his breakdown will no doubt give you the most bang for your buck in terms of raw percentages given the selected stat budget (meaning very little DR across all 3 stats), but that is not how operations bosses usually work. Each tank is different and therefore you will need to push into the DR on certain stats to achieve mean mitigation (the whole theory this is based on), otherwise you would need to be switching which tank you used based on the fight because they are tailored to different things. Juggernauts push in the Shield DR, Assassins go into Absorb, and my current PT configuration is pushing into Defense, but I will be re-assessing that after chatting with justinplainview (probably not going to drop all of it, but I may take it down a couple hundred points). P.S. I prefer to have 1 set that I can use in all fight situations, but if you are one to have different gear sets for different fights you wouldn't be looking at KBN's stats either.

It's not the size of the emoticon, it's how you use it.

Wait, you're not supposed to have Ephemeral Mending and Primeval Fatesealer as your relics for that fight?

You sir, I believe, have found the only current use for that relic in the game. Thank you.

I apologize for the confusion. To clarify: You are correct that you cannot shield Force/Tech Damage. However, a lot of people do not realize that many Force/Tech Abilities actually do Energy/Kinetic Damage, even though they are labeled as Force/Tech in the Abilities window. So if you are using Parsec or StarParse it will sometimes seem as if you can shield Force/Tech abilities since they are labeled as such (though if you look at the raw logs it will state Energy/Kinetic damage), this is what I was referring to when I mentioned not over-lapping your mitigation windows.

Seconded.

The one thing I would caution for Juggernauts is stat distribution. KeyBoardNinja (great man, LOVE what he does) has the Defense rating high in his differential build. While you may get the most % points for your stat value that way, we both know that is not how fights always work (i.e. the reason you don't run high Defense on your PT at the moment). Which is why I run 1094 putting it *perfectly* (point of view) at 25%. Since you don't have to augment Defense like you did previous tier you can put the points into Shield. Now, 1500 is where you start hitting really bad DR on Shield with Juggernauts, but I pushed mine to 1720 to achieve 50%. You may wish to run less than that, in which case more of your augments would be Absorb. If I remember correctly the completely balanced stat percentages were 25% Defense, 47% Shield and 47% Absorb. However, when I did the number crunching on Shield/Absorb ratios (algorithms used were DTPS, hit-to-hit basis, and total damage taken) it seemed that as long as your Absorb was above 40% you actually got more total mitigation out of stacking Shield. That being said 50% Shield 44% Absorb seems to be a better combo than both 47/47 or the attainable 53/40 (Aegis Assault included in those numbers).

First for PT's then for Juggs. Reason I did not feel the need to up Absorb on my PT is the fact that I have 100% uptime on the 3% buff (meaning after I pop Heat Blast I have 3 stacks back before the effect ends). In addition, my average time between when Heat Blast ends and it is re-applied is 2 globals, and the longest delay I have had was 3 (Firestorm was procced). So given the amount of time that 25% buff is up it felt the points could be spent elsewhere to even out my stats. Olmez's current stat pool gives him the equivalent of the Split-Mod configuration. He also runs Shield Amp/Fort Redoubt and I get bored sometimes so I make sure when a relic is procced or a cooldown is up that I do not use Force Scream until the effect has ended. Side Note: My Assassin is also Split-Mod and runs FR/RW.