Stats and Gear (Relic) Selection Assistance

[Paranitis]

So as of right now I am in full Columi and Rakata gear through use of commendations and HM FPs. I've done dailies a lot and have the Rakata ear piece and the two implants. I now have 200 more commendations and wanted to buy a relic, but now I am stuck with a decision to make.

 

I am a Vanguard Tank, so from what I've been able to piece together (since there is an alarming lack of information I've been able to find on us) we don't really need Power on anything. In fact none of the tanking set pieces have Power on them. But when it comes to the Relics from dailies, the ONLY tank-based Relics have Power and LESS Endurance than the DPS Relics have. And then the DPS Relics seem to all be the same except for a bonus on a different damage type.

 

So I was curious if I could be picking up a Relic with a useless stat for us like Power, and less Endurance on it just to get that CD ability attached, or should I pick up a higher Endurance DPS Relic and then try to figure out which one would benefit my damage type more?

 

My other Relic right now is the 3Y Matrix Cube, and I need all the Defense I can get since our tanking sets seem to be itemized around Absorption. But should I instead go for 2 DPS Relics from dailies, or what?

[Paranitis]

It has been hours and hours and while there've been many views, NOBODY knows the answer. Awesome.

[CitizenFry]

I haven't actually mathed this, but these are my thoughts.

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/gear/patch/1.2/accessory#n={campaign%20relic}

 

Choices for campaign relics:

+84 endurance

on use: +405 power for 20s

on use: +405 alacrity for 20s

on hit, 30% 184 internal, every 4.5s

on hit, 30% 184 elemental, every 4.5s

on hit, 30% 246 energy, every 4.5s

on hit, 30% 246 kinetic, every 4.5s

on heal, 50% 443 heal, every 20s

 

+57 endurance, +41 power

on use: +405 defense rating for 20s

on use: +255 shield+absorb rating for 20s

on shield, +405 absorb rating for 6s, every 20s

 

If you're a tank, I'm fairly confident that any of those last three is going to keep you alive longer than the HP from 27 points of endurance would. If 405 defense for 20s makes even one attack miss (and surely it will!), that has to be more damage avoided than you get from 27 endurance. Similar logic for the other two. The only time that ~270hp matters is if you're down to less than 1% of your hp...which probably doesn't happen very often.

 

More challenging questions are, whether that +41 power gives you more offense than one of the damage-on-hit relics, or which of the three defensive relics is best for you, or how you decide whether you have "enough" survivability on the rest of your gear to take an offensive relic rather than a defensive. I don't have a good answer to those questions.

Edited May 14, 2012 by CitizenFry