Shieldtech Defence rating or Sheild rating for Raiding

[IRANAJ]

Now i have been playing this game for a while and now that im 50 i dont know weather i

 

should be stacking shield rating defense rating or absorption rating, what do u guys think

 

because i have been stacking defense

[Tenacity]

As a powertech, you should be aiming for Shield Rating -> Absorption Rating -> Defense Rating, in that order.

 

Defense rating is the least useful stat for us as tanks, whereas it's the most useful stat for juggernaut tanks. We have a number of talents that rely on shielding, so getting your shield chance up as high as possible is your primary goal. Shielding also provides much greater damage mitigation in the long run than defense rating will, and is much more reliable.

 

With minimal raid gear, I'm currently sitting at 50%~ damage reduction from armor, 17.5k health, 46% shield chance, and 45% shield absorption, with around 11% defense chance. My goal for the moment is 50% shield chance / 50% shield absorption, which would end up putting me at an actual damage mitigation of around 80%.

[IRANAJ]

Thank for the info i have to change my gear set up

[Nokkers]

I thought it was: Absorption > defense > shield ?

 

At least that's I read from http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=123306

[Redlol-Might]

It's actually Defense > Shield > Absorb, this is due to the way that each statistic begins it's respective DR curve. Shield/Absorb hit diminishing returns considerably earlier than defense does simply because we get so much of those two stats.

 

Edit: You should note that the spreadsheet linked above is solid, but not quite polished yet. You should also run it yourself before you take any conclusions from it as the numbers will differ greatly based on your own gear. I personally have noticed some discrepancies in the numbers in a few locations, overall though the spreadsheet is an excellent tool which can help guide your gearing process. Note the word 'guide' used in the previous sentence, the spreadsheet will not do your work for you.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Redlol-Might

[Nokkers]

Ah thanks for the correction. I'll keep that in mind while gearing up.

[Kyryck]

It's actually Defense > Shield > Absorb, this is due to the way that each statistic begins it's respective DR curve. Shield/Absorb hit diminishing returns considerably earlier than defense does simply because we get so much of those two stats.

 

Edit: You should note that the spreadsheet linked above is solid, but not quite polished yet. You should also run it yourself before you take any conclusions from it as the numbers will differ greatly based on your own gear. I personally have noticed some discrepancies in the numbers in a few locations, overall though the spreadsheet is an excellent tool which can help guide your gearing process. Note the word 'guide' used in the previous sentence, the spreadsheet will not do your work for you.

 

Really. You've noticed some 'discrepancies' in it? Have you posted what those are? That's probably something you should do if you're going to tell people that the numbers aren't solid.

[FrostyDroid]

1) Defence is useless for powertechs.

 

2) When choosing between shield chance and shield absorb, you should always choose the one that is lowest. For example, if you have 1 30% chance to absorb 20%, then your average mitigation is 6%. If you add 10% to shield chance, giving you 40/20, your am becomes 8%. If you add 10% to absorb, giving you 30/30 your am is 9%. If you start with 20/30 its the other way around.

 

i.e. try and make shield chance and shield absorb equal.

[Usarina]

1) Defence is useless for powertechs.

 

 

Why?

 

That's a pretty sweeping statement.

[FrostyDroid]

Why?

 

That's a pretty sweeping statement.

 

It's hyperbolic.

 

It would be more fair to say "not very good if you can get anything else".

[Usarina]

Ok...

 

"Based on what statistical evidence?" would have been a better question than "Why?"

 

If Defence Rating adds only to Armor, I can see that Shield Rating is better, but there must come a point where diminishing returns renders the extra points in Shield Rating insignificant and Defence is then better.

 

Do we know where the soft caps are for the secondary stats? Are there (m)any Bosses with more than 10% Avoidance?

 

General consensus seems to be Accuracy, Crit, Surge, Power, upto the soft caps, in that order. Now we need to know where Shield Rating, Shield Absorbtion and Defence Rating fit into that formula.

[Rawksoss]

There's gotta be a spreadsheet out there or some sort of guide to show max percentages we want like in wow. At some point there was no point of stacking def/blook/parry it just became useless becuase of DR to have more then that value. I'm sure none of those 3 stats are useless especically as you start to reach that magic number of each where they then becuase pointless to stack more.

[Tenacity]

Defense rating does not add to armor, it increases your chance to dodge melee and ranged attacks.

 

Here's the deal:

We have two talents that function on shielding an attack...

1) Shield Vents: 50% chance on shielding an attack to vent 8 heat.

2) Flame Shield: 50% chance on sheilding an attack to reset the cooldown on rocket punch.

 

Defense rolls (dodging) take place before shield rolls, so even if you have a very high shield chance, the higher your defense chance is the less likely you are to shield an attack, meaning those talents wont activate.

 

Beyond that, we gain more bonus to sheild chance and shield absorption via talents than any other tanking class (barring our mirror, vanguards). We gain a passive +12% shield chance and +6% absorption via talents. Assassins can get +4% absorption, and a temporary (8 hit) +15% shield chance. Juggernauts get +4% shield chance, no bonuses to absorption. This means that we are able to get higher passive shield chance and absorption before diminishing returns, because diminishing returns are only based on rating sfrom gear and not from bonuses you gain via talents.

 

 

For AoE tanking, especially, our focus on shield chance and absorption is key - when you're surrounded by 8 enemies smashing you to bits while you spam flame sweep, you're going to want shield vents to proc as often as possible. Every attack you shield does half damage, and you can get more overall damage mitigation via shielding than you can via defense (dodging).

 

 

As far as I'm concerned, the goal is to aim for 50% shield chance and 50% absorption, and then focus everything else on health, armor, and defense rating.

[Usarina]

Defense rating does not add to armor, it increases your chance to dodge melee and ranged attacks.

 

Here's the deal:

We have two talents that function on shielding an attack...

1) Shield Vents: 50% chance on shielding an attack to vent 8 heat.

2) Flame Shield: 50% chance on sheilding an attack to reset the cooldown on rocket punch.

<snip>

 

So Defence Rating is the chance that an attack misses completely. Depending on the relationship between chance to get missed and amount of Rating, I'd call that far from useless. Keep in mind that Shielding is not automatic, we're talking about a chance to Shield (I've seen 80% mentioned as a good benchmark) and a chance to proc.

 

If you're tanking multiple trash mobs it makes little difference either way. You will survive the encounter.

 

It changes dramatically once you are tanking serious bosses. I don't want to get hit for 10k to give my Shield a chance to proc. I'd much rather that 10k missed me completely. Without knowing the exact relationships between 10 points of Defence and it's percentage Avoidance and also 10 points of Shield and it's percentage Activation chance at every value along their diminishing return curves, we can't do anything except make educated guesses about which is better.

 

We don't need an optimum build to level to 50, or even for normal mode Flashpoints. Anything vaguely sensible will do.

 

If we want to go beyond that, then shaving the percentages where-ever we can becomes important. Number-Crunching+Theorycrafting>Instinct+Gut-Feeling.

[Turel]

For AoE tanking, especially, our focus on shield chance and absorption is key - when you're surrounded by 8 enemies smashing you to bits while you spam flame sweep, you're going to want shield vents to proc as often as possible. Every attack you shield does half damage, and you can get more overall damage mitigation via shielding than you can via defense (dodging).

 

Well the difference there is going to be negligible since the vents can only proc a max of once every 6 seconds.

 

The proc abilities we have are nice but they're not directly tied to further mitigation. A little extra help with heat management is cool but, -8 every 6 seconds (at best) isn't doing much of anything in terms of tanking.

 

I'd much prefer if one of our procs refreshed the cooldown on Oil Slick.

[Pavement]

Its a bit lengthy but if your interested in a good read with supporting numbers I'd honestly take a look in the Powertech forums here:

 

MorningMusume's Powertech/Vanguard Spreadsheet:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=123306

Edited January 24, 2012 by Pavement

[Usarina]

Its a bit lengthy but if your interested in a good read with supporting numbers I'd honestly take a look in the Powertech forums here:

 

MorningMusume's Powertech/Vanguard Spreadsheet:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=123306

 

Damn.

 

That's exactly the kind of info I was looking for.

 

For those that like the short version, the conclusions from that thread are:

 

Absorb Rating > Defense > Shield Rating > Armor

 

and

 

Surge > Aim > Power > Cunning > Tech Power > Crit > Accuracy

 

A few suprises there, but it looks like solid data.

 

Thanks for the link.

[DarrkLore]

Defense rating does not add to armor, it increases your chance to dodge melee and ranged attacks.

 

Here's the deal:

We have two talents that function on shielding an attack...

1) Shield Vents: 50% chance on shielding an attack to vent 8 heat.

2) Flame Shield: 50% chance on sheilding an attack to reset the cooldown on rocket punch.

 

Defense rolls (dodging) take place before shield rolls, so even if you have a very high shield chance, the higher your defense chance is the less likely you are to shield an attack, meaning those talents wont activate.

 

Beyond that, we gain more bonus to sheild chance and shield absorption via talents than any other tanking class (barring our mirror, vanguards). We gain a passive +12% shield chance and +6% absorption via talents. Assassins can get +4% absorption, and a temporary (8 hit) +15% shield chance. Juggernauts get +4% shield chance, no bonuses to absorption. This means that we are able to get higher passive shield chance and absorption before diminishing returns, because diminishing returns are only based on rating sfrom gear and not from bonuses you gain via talents.

 

 

For AoE tanking, especially, our focus on shield chance and absorption is key - when you're surrounded by 8 enemies smashing you to bits while you spam flame sweep, you're going to want shield vents to proc as often as possible. Every attack you shield does half damage, and you can get more overall damage mitigation via shielding than you can via defense (dodging).

 

 

As far as I'm concerned, the goal is to aim for 50% shield chance and 50% absorption, and then focus everything else on health, armor, and defense rating.

 

This is a great explanation I found it very helpful. Thank you sir