Kinetic: Stacking Defense vs. Absorption?

[Kitru]

Of what set?

 

The 1 of 5 that I have is Columi. The 4/5 of what would be set pieces (along with my weapon) I have is simply orange gear with optimally assigned craftable/daily enhancements and mods. Looking at the set pieces, I'm always continually disappointed at how the devs itemized the gear and look forward to the day that they finally just give us the mods to change as we see fit.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Kitru

[PhoenixMatrix]

Completely unbuffed, with columi or rekata in every slots (about 50/50 if you count the implants/ear which are easy to get), i end up at 43% damage reduction, 25% defense rating, 29% shield rating and 43% absorption, along with just a little bit under 21500~ hp

 

The main thing is that stuff tends to go DOWN as you get better gears (aside for the damage reduction, because if you just use crafted gears, you can have augment slots everywhere, and stick defense/shield rating mods everywhere. If i use the orange gears I was using originally with the daily mods, it would go way higher, but max hp goes down (max hp is extremely important now that you get 3x harnessed shadow all over the place, or if you have smuggler healers around), as well as defense.

 

You get a slight bonus if you're a synthweaver or something like that to get extra augment slots with rekata belt/bracers., or if you use biochem with a rekata stim and crafted/sloted columi implants (can you get recipes for rekata in nightmare mode?), and so on so it can be a little higher.

 

You can also get a fair bit better if you replace all the columi/rekata tier mods that give anything but shield/defense rating with those that do, but i dont think it can match having level 49 crafted gear with augment slots in every slot that can possibly have them.

 

Not that it matters. Even in hardmodes (including ops), I often feel like i should be using my PvP gears for the 4 piece set bonus, or my Stalker gears while tanking, because you barely ever need to get healed, and the only challenge for a tank, short of Soa, is keeping threat and helping avoid enrage timers. Making sure you have 100% accuracy and high damage is arguably more important, once you reach a certain minimum of damage mitigation (which isnt very much).

 

Case in point: once in hardmode EV, against Gharj, we had someone d/c at the beggining of the fight, so we decided to just exit area (our party setup wouldnt have allowed to make the enrage timer without one of our top damage dealers out). I tanked it waiting for everyone to exit area (took a while for them to react to the "order", too), and then exited myself, all the while never being healed, and i still had 10k hp left afterward, even though i was eating all the pounces.

 

With a few exception, straight damage mitigation isn't nearly as important to tanking as is our abilities to keep threat and our cooldowns to eat up big hits.

Edited February 16, 2012 by PhoenixMatrix

[Mackenzae]

My Shadow tank has 19k hp, 30% defense, 52% shield (with KW), and 35% absorb. Those numbers are entirely appropriate. If you actually knew what real numbers *looked* like, you might actually be able to contribute to the discussion.

 

Okay now that im actually in front of my character i'll give you some *real numbers*. First of all im in 4/5 columni with the 5 piece being on the same rating level. The earpiece and implants are all rakata. The belt is rakata, the bracers are rakata with an augment proc with a defense augment. Battlemaster survivors lightsaber. Basically the onlything not columni or rakata is the shield generator which is the tionese level.

 

My unbuffed stats are as follows -

HP - 21689

Armor - 6677 - 42.20% dmg reduction

Defense Rating - 389 - 27.43%

Shield Rating - 277 - 34.76%

Absorption Rating- 121 - 35.89%

 

Now i have changed 1 set of Accuracy/Absorption mod/ enhancement to get more defense but that is the real issue. If i change out all the mods/enhancements that have accuracy/absorption with defense/shield rating mods i could probably get my defense close to 30% and yes the itemization sucks on the gear currently. But i'll go one step further and say its not even the gear that has poor itemization and say that there are combination of secondary stats for mods and enhancements that don't even exist in the game that would make what people claim actually possible. But unless theres some magical mod or enhancement that is still lvl 24 or 25 that contains both defense and absorption its not possible to change out your mods with the best possible ones.

[oddmyth]

The main thing is that stuff tends to go DOWN as you get better gears (aside for the damage reduction, because if you just use crafted gears, you can have augment slots everywhere, and stick defense/shield rating mods everywhere.

 

How does it go down though? Look at your mods, for example level 22 (the ones you can buy/get from dailies) and level 25 steadfast enhancements (rakata level):

 

22 http://www.torhead.com/item/aF5ngCn/advanced-steadfast-enhancement-22

25 http://www.torhead.com/item/2lBkJDo/advanced-steadfast-enhancement-25

 

The difference between those is 10 END, 11 Shield, 5 Defence.

 

Then there are 6 slots for enhancements, even just looking at secondary stat point allotments its a difference of 96 stat points. Again that's between 22 and 25 level, which is only slightly better than 24 level which has 9 Shield and 4 defence totalling 80 stat point difference across 6 slots. This doesn't account for different stat point weightings but it's easily seen that you cannot have more secondary stat points with enhancements and mods alone.

 

Which makes me wonder about crafted gear and augments.

 

You can also get a fair bit better if you replace all the columi/rekata tier mods that give anything but shield/defense rating with those that do, but i dont think it can match having level 49 crafted gear with augment slots in every slot that can possibly have them.

 

Unfortunately your absorption goes down the tubes doing this. Love that accuracy on Rakata gear!

[JLapp]

How does it go down though? Look at your mods, for example level 22 (the ones you can buy/get from dailies) and level 25 steadfast enhancements (rakata level):

 

22 http://www.torhead.com/item/aF5ngCn/advanced-steadfast-enhancement-22

25 http://www.torhead.com/item/2lBkJDo/advanced-steadfast-enhancement-25

 

The difference between those is 10 END, 11 Shield, 5 Defence.

 

Then there are 6 slots for enhancements, even just looking at secondary stat point allotments its a difference of 96 stat points. Again that's between 22 and 25 level, which is only slightly better than 24 level which has 9 Shield and 4 defence totalling 80 stat point difference across 6 slots. This doesn't account for different stat point weightings but it's easily seen that you cannot have more secondary stat points with enhancements and mods alone.

 

The main decrease is probably going to be on the implants & earpiece. 49 crafted implants have about 36 more points of the secondary stats than the rakata ones but about 40 less endurance (and less willpower)...plus often times an augment slot.

 

Enhancements you can get crafted level 22 ones that have less endurance but higher secondary stats (18 end, 39/27 secondary) instead of the daily ones (30end, 39/15 secondary). The crafted ones have similar total secondary stats to columi enhancements (66 vs 67) but much less endurance (18 vs 38).

 

The secondary stats for the columi mods seem to be something similar. I think the mods I have been getting from the daily quest are 21end, 36will, 27secondary. Looks like the columi mods have the same secondary stat amount but much higher endurance and willpower.

[oddmyth]

The main decrease is probably going to be on the implants & earpiece. 49 crafted implants have about 36 more points of the secondary stats than the rakata ones but about 40 less endurance (and less willpower)...plus often times an augment slot.

 

Enhancements you can get crafted level 22 ones that have less endurance but higher secondary stats (18 end, 39/27 secondary) instead of the daily ones (30end, 39/15 secondary). The crafted ones have similar total secondary stats to columi enhancements (66 vs 67) but much less endurance (18 vs 38).

 

The secondary stats for the columi mods seem to be something similar. I think the mods I have been getting from the daily quest are 21end, 36will, 27secondary. Looks like the columi mods have the same secondary stat amount but much higher endurance and willpower.

 

 

Interesting. Still doesn't account for such a large discrepancy in stats for people in top tier gear and people without. 30% defense is relatively hard to hit regardless of gear leve.

[bennydag]

at the end of this thread, Still no one can say what are the Caps. I think we all agree that both are important and not only one. But Where is the min/Max?

 

How much Defense should u have minimum/maximum

How much Absorption should u have minium/maximum

 

I guess that is the only question that everyone whant's to know.

[BroadStreetBully]

People seem to need a quick refresher on the two roll system and how Defense and Absorb are important within the confines of it.

 

First off, in the two roll system, the only thing that matters is the attack type: Force/Tech or melee/ranged. Both attack types go through the same 2 checks (the "hit" check and the "type" check), but the attack type determines what values are used. Force/Tech attacks use defensive values that can only be affected by talents and abilities: resistance chance (for the first roll) and there isn't any possibility of shielding it: the first roll to hit uses the target's accuracy minus your resistance chance (which is, passively, at best 2% thanks to talents and it being unaffected by any gearing) and the second roll simply determines whether the attack is a crit or a hit (since it can't be shielded). It doesn't matter how well geared you are against a Force/Tech attack because it ignores any Defense, Shield, or Absorb rating that you might have by simply bypassing them. Melee/ranged attacks, on the other hand go against the full suite of your defensive attributes: you use your full Defense chance on the first roll against the target's accuracy and your shield chance in the type roll. Because of this, the entire discussion only applies to melee/ranged attacks.

 

Now, as to crit v. shield, the only time that crit pushes shield chance off of the second roll is when the combined total of the 2 is greater than 100%. If your shield chance is 65% and the attacker's crit chance is 35%, you simply have a 65/35/0 split, with the 0 representing normal hits. If your shield chance is 50% and the attacker's crit chance is 35%, you have a 50/25/15 split. If your shield chance is 65% and the attacker's crit chance is 100% (like say, from a proc), you have a 0/100/0 split. The only time when crit pushing shield off of the table matters is when you have exorbitantly high values of one or the other.

 

In PvE, you're never going to get to this point since we're not even sure if NPCs *can* crit and, if they do, the chance is so low that Shield would simply cap out at points *way* beyond the point of diminishing returns.

 

In PvP, since crit chance starts hitting diminishing returns around 35% (barring talents that augment the crit rate of specific attacks), this means that, against the minority of damage that is applied via melee/ranged attacks (Force/Tech is *way* more heavily loaded in the damage that players deal), the point where Shield chance is reliably pushed off by attacks (other than those talented to automatically crit) is similarly unattainable, though likely to be attainable at better gear ratios (~65%). The problem with PvP, however, is that, since Shield chance and Defense don't apply to a majority of the damage (delivered via Force/Tech attacks) you're facing, you're better off simply ignoring it and stacking offensive stats and Endurance. Debating the value of Shield v. Defense in the confines of PvP is a pointless argument since they're both comparatively worthless.

 

As to the Defense v. Absorption argument, since Defense and Shield (and therefore Absorption) are only important in PvE, it comes down to comparing their values ignorant of crit capabilities; therefore, the crit argument against Shield rating and Absorption are completely without grounds. Similarly, it doesn't matter where in the equation the reduction in damage is factored in: the value of each roll is entirely equal. That's simply how math works: .5 * .5 * .5 = .125; remove any of those numbers and the value doubles, whether it's the first, the middle, or the last one. The order of precedence has no impact upon the overall performance of the mitigation mechanism; if this were true, the most effective form of mitigation (damage reduction), would be of the least importance since it only applies at the very end.

 

Now, since those fallacies have been cleared out of the way, I can get down to the specifics of the case for Defense and Absorb. First off, it needs to be said that Defense chance has a flat contribution of reduced incoming damage while Shield and Absorb, since they interact with each other, have an exponential and related contribution: while Defense is useful on its own, having Shield or Absorb without the other is relatively pointless. When you understand this, you then need to realize that, without getting into the complexities of diminishing returns, Defense, Shield, and Absorption rating add to their given percentages (Defense chance, Shield chance, Absorption value) in a roughly 4:2:1 ratio, meaning that, for the same percent gains you would achieve from a given value of Absorption rating, it would require twice as many points of Shield rating and 4 times as many points of Defense rating. So, since Defense has a static contribution relative to the variable contribution of Shield and Absorb, we'll use that as the baseline: since a successful Defense chance reduces incoming damage to 0 (100% mitigation), we're going to assign Defense rating an effectiveness value of 25% (1 rating at 25% value for 100% mitigation) for the purposes of comparison. Shield and Absorb, since they're variable in their total contribution as determined by the Shield chance and Absorb value, have, instead a variable effectiveness value, meaning that their value compared to Defense chance depends entirely upon how much Shield and Absorb you have at the time. Going off of the most effective combination of Shield and Absorb (ignoring talents and other mechanisms), you achieve the same contribution from the sum of Shield and Absorb at 50% for the both of them (.5 shield chance for .5 absorb value = .25 mitigation) but at a better ratio of effectiveness (1 absorb and 2 shield to equate to 4 defense), meaning that you actually reach the point of equivalence, thanks to the effects of the relative efficiency of Defense compared to Absorb and Shield rating, at 37.5% for both (.5 * (3 / 4)), or, more accurately, when the produced mitigation value of your Shield chance (Shield * Absorb) is equal to 14% (.375^2). At this point, you will get the same mitigation contributions from adding 2 points to Shield and Absorb that you would get from adding 4 points of Defense.

 

The overall lesson of that wall of text is twofold: Shield and Absorb are more efficient than Defense from a pure itemization expenditure standpoint and Shield and Absorb become more valuable than Defense pretty quickly (with just talents, you've got a 35% shield chance and 24% absorb rating). It's also more important to look at your end percentage values (Defense chance, Shield chance, Absorb value) than it is to look at the ratings blindly: Shield and Absorb's relative values are determined by the end chance rather than by their ratings exclusively.

 

Bringing it all together, the fundamental conclusion about stat prioritization is relatively clear: you either stack Defense or you don't (depending upon personal preference) without completely ignoring it and you do your best to stack Absorb and Shield such that they achieve the highest percentage yield accounting for diminishing returns. To put it in plain words and without making you do a lot of math to find out what the DR values are, you want to stack as such: (Defense)>Absorb>Shield>(Defense); Defense goes either first or last depending almost entirely on personal preference, Absorb is either your best or second best stat since we get so much Shield chance from talents (35% Shield chance compared to 24% Absorb value) and Shield is either worst or second worst for the same reason why Absorb beats it out.

 

TL: DR

Lotsa math and logic to arrive out the following prioritization: (Defense)>Absorb>Shield>(Defense)

 

Kitru, you are slightly off here. You can defend against a force/tech attack, but you cannot shield it. You can see this when you are able to avoid a Force or tech attack. Attack type determines if you can shield/absorb or not. Melee/Ranged can be shielded and Force/tech cannot. Damage type affects how damage is resisted. Damage resistance works against kinetic/energy damage and internal and elemental damage are affected by a player's corresponding internal and elemental resistance values. It is also worth noting that damage resistance is based off of armor and not defense.

Edited February 21, 2012 by BroadStreetBully

[Kitru]

Kitru, you are slightly off here.

 

Reread the second paragraph of the quoted post. You're telling me I'm wrong and then stating exactly what I already said. Methinks you may have misread my glorious wall of text.

[Dyinn]

at the end of this thread, Still no one can say what are the Caps. I think we all agree that both are important and not only one. But Where is the min/Max?

 

How much Defense should u have minimum/maximum

How much Absorption should u have minium/maximum

 

I guess that is the only question that everyone whant's to know.

 

The ultimate answer is in the Assasin section of the forum written by theonepanda:

 

 

Mitigation

 

With Dark Ward up, Assassins have the following base mitigation with 0 rating.

16% Defense

35% Shield

24% Absorb

 

Mitigation in SWToR uses a 2 roll system. First defense is rolled against. If the attack passes, it then rolls against Shield.

 

Because of this, it is impossible to become "unhittable" (Full Combat Table Coverage) as is the case in WoW.

 

At level 50, stats are broken down in the following ways

Defense - Gives total Avoidance. Capped at 30%. Takes 27.5 rating to increase 1%.*

Shield - Chance of "blocking" a hit. Capped at 50%. Takes 16 rating to increase 1%.*

Absorb - Increases amount blocked. Capped at 50%. Takes 9 rating to increase 1%.*

 

*Before diminishing returns.

 

Caps are rating caps, meaning they exist independently of skill buffs.

 

Because of the 2 roll system, any increase in defense LOWERS the effectiveness of your shield, and vice versa.

 

However, diminishing returns makes us consider a spread of stats to stay viable.

 

Total mitigation is approximately the amount less damage you will take. You want this as high as possible.

 

Chance to hit is the the chance you will be hit by a full attack. You want this as low as possible

 

Below are the breakdowns based on your approximate total rating, maximizing mitigation.

300 Rating - 31.79% Mitigation. 200 Defense. 0 Shield. 100 Absorb. 50.34% Hit Chance.

400 Rating - 34.18% Mitigation. 300 Defense. 0 Shield. 100 Absorb. 48.57% Hit Chance.

500 Rating - 36.36% Mitigation. 350 Defense. 0 Shield. 150 Absorb. 47.77% Hit Chance.

600 Rating - 38.33% Mitigation. 400 Defense. 0 Shield. 200 Absorb. 47.01% Hit Chance.

700 Rating - 40.19% Mitigation. 400 Defense. 50 Shield. 250 Absorb. 44.80% Hit Chance.

800 Rating - 42.06% Mitigation. 350 Defense. 150 Shield. 300 Absorb. 41.43% Hit Chance.

900 Rating - 43.88% Mitigation. 350 Defense. 200 Shield. 350 Absorb. 39.57 Hit Chance.

1000 Rating - 45.65% Mitigation. 400 Defense. 250 Shield. 350 Absorb. 37.22 Hit Chance.

1100 Rating - 47.37% Mitigation. 400 Defense. 300 Shield. 400 Absorb. 35.61 Hit Chance.

1200 Rating - 49.01% Mitigation. 400 Defense. 350 Shield. 450 Absorb. 34.09 Hit Chance.

 

Stack defense and absorb until ~700 rating. Then start moving defense to shield and absorb.

[tXHereticXt]

Stack defense and absorb until ~700 rating. Then start moving defense to shield and absorb.

 

I'm still fairly new at Light Armor tweaking so I'm curious as to how you pull this off in process.

 

I hear 50/50 and wonder how you attain those ratings:

a) Five equipment pieces with absorb/shield and 5 with def

OR

b) Mod absorb/shield and Enhancement Def - or vice versa.

 

 

Just trying to figure out the sequence, what you mean by "moving defense to shield and aborb." etc.

[Zintair]

Currently sitting at with almost full rakata

 

21953 HP

42.84% Mitigation

27.86% Defense

35.24% Shield

32.87% Absorption

 

I don't have any Crit crafted stuff either and have been looking to lower my Shield and Build some absorb for when next content patch comes around.

[minervasunrider]

Quick tangential question:

 

After all this discussion about different secondary stat balances on crafted/daily/tier gear, is there a point to running dailies if I can get all the mods and enhancements I want from champion PvP commendations? My understanding is that those mods and enhancements are exactly the same as can be found in Columi gear. And that the secondaries on them are often better than the accuracy stats on Rakata enhancements.

 

Am I doing it wrong?

[HuorEarfalas]

So basically, am I right to picture Defense Rating is some sort of equivalent to Evasion provided you have Shield?

 

If so, can this negate Force/Tech attacks?

 

EDIT: Ah nvm, doesn't look like Defense will negate Force/Tech Attaks.

Edited February 22, 2012 by HuorEarfalas

[Xelestial_Dragon]

Not gonna lie. Too many walls of texts disagreeing with each other for me to actually have read this thread. Will just go find definitive info for most of it.

So basically, am I right to picture Defense Rating is some sort of equivalent to Evasion provided you have Shield?

 

If so, can this negate Force/Tech attacks?

 

EDIT: Ah nvm, doesn't look like Defense will negate Force/Tech Attaks.

 

If Force/Tech attacks hit 100% of the time, Defense can't negate that. Have to rely on other stats for that right?

 

Anyway, when I first started leveling my Shadow I asked my husband (a veteran tank from WoW) what to stack and he said "Defense because not getting hit > mitigating damage". I couldn't argue with that logic, so it's what I've been doing from 0-50 when possible. Absorption seems only useful for special attacks such as Force/Tech. I'm newish to tanking (well, in general, not in this game) so I wanna make sure I got that right.

Edited February 22, 2012 by Xelestial_Dragon

[Kitru]

Anyway, when I first started leveling my Shadow I asked my husband (a veteran tank from WoW) what to stack and he said "Defense because not getting hit > mitigating damage". I couldn't argue with that logic, so it's what I've been doing from 0-50 when possible. Absorption seems only useful for special attacks such as Force/Tech. I'm newish to tanking (well, in general, not in this game) so I wanna make sure I got that right.

 

Your husband has it wrong. Defense rating adds to damage mitigation at a slower rate than Absorption and Shield rating. As such, you cannot outright say that one is better than the other. The actual conclusions are such that, at low levels of Shield and Absorb (when the product of the two is below 14%), Defense is better. Above that breakpoint, Shield and Absorb are better, though, thanks to diminishing returns, you still want to stack all of them: the breakpoint simply changes your prioritization.

 

Absorption and Shield do nothing for Force/Tech attacks, just like Defense. None of the tank stats allow you to mitigate Force/Tech attacks, which is why those stats are worthless in PvP.

[Xelestial_Dragon]

Your husband has it wrong. Defense rating adds to damage mitigation at a slower rate than Absorption and Shield rating. As such, you cannot outright say that one is better than the other. The actual conclusions are such that, at low levels of Shield and Absorb (when the product of the two is below 14%), Defense is better. Above that breakpoint, Shield and Absorb are better, though, thanks to diminishing returns, you still want to stack all of them: the breakpoint simply changes your prioritization.

 

Absorption and Shield do nothing for Force/Tech attacks, just like Defense. None of the tank stats allow you to mitigate Force/Tech attacks, which is why those stats are worthless in PvP.

 

Well, his only experience was as a Feral Druid in WoW as we had not yet had any knowledge of this game or how it might work here, so back then the best thing for them to do was avoid getting hit according to the experts, at least as I understood it. That and stamina.

 

When the product of two is below 14%? That is such a low level the break point comes very early. Is it preference or is there a certain way to stack it after that? Like Shield > Absorb until you hit X rating or vice versa. I assumed because in Damage Reduction on the character sheet it talks about elemental resistance that there was a way to reduce the effectiveness of the aforementioned attack types.

[Kitru]

When the product of two is below 14%? That is such a low level the break point comes very early.

 

It's actually higher than you might think. Baseline, a Shadow has a 35% shield chance and 24% absorb: an 8.4% product. If your Shield and Absorb are equal, you reach the breakpoint at 37.5% in each. If they are different (which is likely), such as if your Shield chance were 50%, you would need 28% Absorb to be at the breakpoint. The breakpoint is early for Shadows since we have the best Shield chances amongst the tanks (thanks to the 15% from KW, 20% with the 2 piece set)

 

Is it preference or is there a certain way to stack it after that? Like Shield > Absorb until you hit X rating or vice versa.

 

There isn't really an explicit cap for tank stats in TOR (at least, not one that is low enough that it matters). The best advice is to stack Absorb>Shield>Defense after the breakpoint and Defense>Absorb>Shield before it. The reason for this is because we get so much more Shield than Absorb from talents (15% compared to 4%).

 

I assumed because in Damage Reduction on the character sheet it talks about elemental resistance that there was a way to reduce the effectiveness of the aforementioned attack types.

 

There are no stats that increase your damage reduction for internal/elemental damage nor are there any stats that increase you Force/Tech resistance chance. The only ways to modify these values are with abilities (Force Valor), talents (Shadowsight, Jedi Resistance), and set bonuses. It's pretty obvious when you hover over the individual values on your character sheet since the window actually itemizes each category of contribution.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Kitru

[tXHereticXt]

I'm still curious as to what you're looking at or adding when you try to balance the two. Where you stop building up one and then working on the other. Are you looking solely at percentage, which upon attaining a hit mark you just stop with those boosts and work on the second? If so, how is the best advice to go about that when it comes to enhancements and Mods on moddable equipment?

[Kitru]

I'm still curious as to what you're looking at or adding when you try to balance the two. Where you stop building up one and then working on the other. Are you looking solely at percentage, which upon attaining a hit mark you just stop with those boosts and work on the second? If so, how is the best advice to go about that when it comes to enhancements and Mods on moddable equipment?

 

For the easiest rule-of-thumb approach, look at the percentages that are listed on your character sheet, though don't go stacking a single attribute to the detriment of the others. If you want more precision than the rule-of-thumb, there are some rather good tools out there that will tell you explicitly what to aim for. The best that I've found is in this thread though the algorithm takes a while to run (meaning that it's not going to be a quick decision). In general, the differences in performance I've experienced between the rule-of-thumb and precision approach aren't that spectacular, especially since the game operates in discrete chunks of the attributes rather than the sliding scale that the tools and calculations in question would rely upon. On my own gear, since only the Enhancements are especially interchangeable (the Rakata and Columi pieces have accuracy focused mods on them, which are functionally worthless so I switch them out for crafted pure tank mods), I try to keep 4 of the 6 as Sturdiness (Absorb) and the remaining 2 as Immunity (Defense). A majority of my other gear has Defense on it, however, so are they roughly balanced out.

 

When choosing mods and enhancements, it's also important to keep in mind that there are no Mods with Shield rating on them (the tank mods have either End/Will/Def or End/Will/Abs) and that there are no pure tanking Enhs without Shield on them (the pure tank enhs have either End/Shield/Def or End/Shield/Abs) which will always have more Shield than Abs or Def. So, when prioritizing your enhancements, you're stuck with however much Shield you're going to get so it's simply a question of needing more Abs or Def, which can easily be adjudicated by looking at the prioritization order at the moment. For mods, since Shield doesn't matter, it's the same thing.