cloudblade Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 I was scared that my tank would receive a crippling blow from patch 1.3, but he ended up losing ~3% damage reduction, much less than I had anticipated, so I'm going to continue him as my main tank (over my Vanguard). One thing that's been confusing me is the correct balance between Endurance, Absorb, Defense, Shield, and Accuracy. I've done my research on the forums, and have not found a conclusive way to gear my tank. The ranking of these stats that I've found the greatest number of people to agree on is: Absorb > Defense > Shield What cutoffs do you guys use? Should I get my defense to 25% and then work on Absorb only, while leaving Shield alone for the most part? How about for Augments? Now that 1.3 is out, should I be pumping my Endurance even higher, or work more on these 3 stats? Some people have also said Accuracy helps keep threat, while others have said it's essentially a trash stat. Should I get rid of all my Accuracy/Defense and Accuracy/Absorb enhancements for Shield/Def and Shield/Absorb? My raid group is on HM EC so I have access to all Rakata and Black Hole gear. Thanks for any input! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DWSmith Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I just hit 50..and was wondering that myself.You can get conflicting reports on so many posts that your head will spin arount like the chick on the Exorcist..I'm at work right now or I would check my Stats but I have exchanged Some of my defense for Absorb and I really dont know..I think i really like stacking a crap load of Defense so I can be like a boxer and Bob&Weave and not really get hit..Just my 2 cents Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geaghan Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Sure I'll have a go here. From my own experiences and from talking to one of the most geared shadow tanks on my server. Accuracy: We don't need it especially with the increases to threat in 1.3 and our main threat builders (Slow Time & Force Breach) being force attacks. Defense: Once your at 25% raising defense is not a priority but it can be raised to 28 - 30% if you have mods/enhancements left over. Shield: Raise to 40 - 45%, with kinetic ward this goes to 60 - 65% Absorb: 55 - 60% is your goal here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloudblade Posted June 27, 2012 Author Share Posted June 27, 2012 Thanks for those numbers! They were sort of what I had in my head. It'll probably be easier to hit them now that we have so many free augment slots. Will there be room leftover for Endurance augs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Feoktist Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 losing ~3% damage reduction, much less than I had anticipated A quick comment on this - my pre-1.3 expected damage from melee/ranged was 27,2%, now it's 29%. So the expected incoming damage went up 6.7% (this obviously doesn't affect force/tech/internal/elemental). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TangTsu Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/Thread-Sith-Assassin-Jedi-Shadow-Tanking-Compendium#IIa Scroll down to the chart. Its very helpful. My question is at what point to we stop stacking Sh/Abs/Def and start stacking End on our Augments? I've settled for ~1200 in combined stats and added 5 +18 End augments to bring my hp up to 26k when raid buffed. Not sure if this is optimum or not, but it seems to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLapp Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 I was scared that my tank would receive a crippling blow from patch 1.3, but he ended up losing ~3% damage reduction, much less than I had anticipated, so I'm going to continue him as my main tank (over my Vanguard). One thing that's been confusing me is the correct balance between Endurance, Absorb, Defense, Shield, and Accuracy. I've done my research on the forums, and have not found a conclusive way to gear my tank. The ranking of these stats that I've found the greatest number of people to agree on is: Absorb > Defense > Shield What cutoffs do you guys use? Should I get my defense to 25% and then work on Absorb only, while leaving Shield alone for the most part? How about for Augments? Now that 1.3 is out, should I be pumping my Endurance even higher, or work more on these 3 stats? Some people have also said Accuracy helps keep threat, while others have said it's essentially a trash stat. Should I get rid of all my Accuracy/Defense and Accuracy/Absorb enhancements for Shield/Def and Shield/Absorb? My raid group is on HM EC so I have access to all Rakata and Black Hole gear. Thanks for any input! I've actually been looking into this the past few days. I'm mostly rakata with a couple black hole pieces and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with everything. My guild isn't quite up to taking on HM EC but seems black hole comms are fairly easy to get that I can use those mods in my current gear. What I think I have figured out is: Accuracy: Avoid it. It is not needed. Your job is to survive. Missing a few hits here or there isn't going to be a big deal. (I think I currently only have it one piece and probably will replace it when I can). Shield: Don't go out of your way to get it, but to two black hole pieces to be ripping mods out are shield/def and shield/absorb with all black hole stuff you are going to end up with around 500 points in shield which will get you about where you want. Defense: Get it up to 25-28% but after that is not efficient. Absorb: Where you want to focus...try to get to 60% (which ends up being around 600 points). Endurance: IMO I wouldn't give up Def/Absorb for a 1-1 trade off (i.e. wouldn't use endurance augments). Higher than that I would be fine with it though. Which means I am going to mostly use black hole head item mods in my gear (Shield/Def with higher endurance than Shield/Absorb chest). I'm giving up 9 secondary stats for 22 endurance (and giving up some willpower which I don't particularly care about). Also keeping mod-able bracers/belt for similar reasons. Anyway, those are my thoughts on where I am going right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaulesDeape Posted June 29, 2012 Share Posted June 29, 2012 Finally a thread that is about positive options rather than negative. I too am a shadow tank and the main tank of my guild. We are in Denova HM working on the first boss. I have done a good bit of research and saw there are soft caps from reading the forums here. I found this from the forums here: Caps: Damage Reduction 75% Def 30% Shield Chance and absorb cap at 50% Is this still true? Assuming it is true, my thoughts are to max out the Shield and Absorb to 50% first with Augs as best i can. By this i mean absorb, because Kinetic Ward gets gets shield up to over 50% already. Def seems to automatically hover around 27%-30% with full Rakatta and 4 BH pieces. I believe the augs will offset the nerf and perhaps even over compensate in a positive manner. Thoughts? (ps i am not good on forums, so i didnt know how to link the data i referenced) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloudblade Posted June 29, 2012 Author Share Posted June 29, 2012 I think the caps you are referring to are just from the rating itself. Here is a nice thread I found discussing the cap: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=399329 So it still doesn't change our goals of having base 25-30% defense, 40-45% shield, and 55-60% absorb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaulesDeape Posted June 29, 2012 Share Posted June 29, 2012 Thank you for the link. I guess im asking if the max is 50% as a soft cap, is it worth it to try and boost up to 60-65% for absorb? and if that is possible, i would assume that would pretty much require all the augs to be absorb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anstalt Posted June 29, 2012 Share Posted June 29, 2012 That chart that was linked from mmo-mechanics is what I've tried to use. If you also look at the charts for diminishing returns, defence chance has the lowest DR i.e. its nearly linear. My feelings on the matter is that although defence gives a theoretical higher mitigation, it makes you take spikier damage so in my opinion it is better to have shield/absorb over defence. You get lower mitigation (barely) on paper but in reality the healers find it easier to heal you. So, yeh, like everyone else says, defence to 25%+ then put the rest in to absorb. You will naturally pick up lots of shield rating whilst grabbing def/abs so don't focus on it at all, it will come all by itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloudblade Posted June 29, 2012 Author Share Posted June 29, 2012 (edited) Nevermind, I found my answer! Edited June 30, 2012 by cloudblade Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloudblade Posted June 29, 2012 Author Share Posted June 29, 2012 Just to make it clear, I am strictly PvE, and would probably not even be able to PvP enough to afford that other relic. So I will probably just stick with the on proc Absorb relic in my second slot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarethRiker Posted June 30, 2012 Share Posted June 30, 2012 Great thread and much needed. I had read defense to 400 and then absorb over shield at a ratio. My question was on mods and whether at BH level it made sense to go with low endurance mods for higher absorb. Probably not given DR but thought I would check. Proc absorb relic and what second are you using? Matrix cube? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloudblade Posted June 30, 2012 Author Share Posted June 30, 2012 (edited) KeyboardNinja has an excellent post about which relics to use in this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=469710&highlight=augment%3B+tank proc absorb > proc heal > activated defense > activated shield/absorb I had a chance to talk with him in game though, and I am going to go with activated defense, which I believe is more helpful during boss "berserk" phases, like Toth and Foreman Crusher, for example. Edited June 30, 2012 by cloudblade Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Feoktist Posted July 4, 2012 Share Posted July 4, 2012 (edited) http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/Thread-Sith-Assassin-Jedi-Shadow-Tanking-Compendium#IIa Scroll down to the chart. Its very helpful. My question is at what point to we stop stacking Sh/Abs/Def and start stacking End on our Augments? I've settled for ~1200 in combined stats and added 5 +18 End augments to bring my hp up to 26k when raid buffed. Not sure if this is optimum or not, but it seems to work. I double-checked the name to see if I wrote this myself and forgot about it =) I based my numbers on the some guides and own experience, and arrived at a similar setup. Pre-1.3 I was 25k buffed stimmed, 25.0% defense, 45.5% shield (65.5% w/kinetic ward), 50.8% absorb + absorb relic. Armor set bonuses are must-have. Then I analyzed incoming damage from a few Denova HM runs and focused on defense and hp. Long story short: - considering the deflection buff, my overall defense chance against white attacks is 42.6% (nominal + 17.5%) - yellow attacks that can only miss or be resisted constitute 1/3 of the "raw" incoming damage but up to 60% of the actual damage that has to be healed So I took augments, shuffled gear a bit and got another +2.5% defense and +2k hp. That, again, is Denova HM - I don't PvP and have no clue what's applicable there. Edited July 4, 2012 by Feoktist Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindsting Posted July 4, 2012 Share Posted July 4, 2012 Currently I'm geared in optimized blackhole/campaign gear. Stats for myself (fully stimmedbuffed) Defensively I try and keep it in the middle. Damage Reduction: 40.03% Defense Chance: 26% (25.97) Shield chance: 45% without ward 65% w/ward Shield Absorption: 50% (49.xx) Now that is without any defense or absorb augments at all. I'm full endurance augmented at sit at 29.6k HP when using an Exotech stim and 29.4k using Rakata stim. Normally I would agree it would be better to give up some endurance for a higher absorb or defense chance but I've had no issue clearing through hardmode Denova with the current stats. Post 1.3 my self heal on telekinetic throw is sitting at 599 per tick and will easily surpass 600-650 with fully optimized campaign gear. My self heal coupled with the campaign passive proc relic ends up giving me a decent chunk of mitigation through tele throw. Other relic of course being passive shield relic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alkhattabi Posted July 5, 2012 Share Posted July 5, 2012 (edited) so i guess this is our goal ? correct me if am wrong http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/47207759-ef62-41c1-807f-97d7dd104852 full buffed but without stim Health 23187 Armor Rating 6178.1 Damage Reduction 38.39% Defense Chance 27.10% (375) Shield Chance 45.66% (570) w/ ward 65.66% Shield Absorption 59.68% (557) Edited July 5, 2012 by alkhattabi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilirubin Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 Bookmarking. I'm doing more PvE tanking than DPS right now, and am in fully augmented Rakata/BH (also placing BH mods in the Rakata to maintain the set bonuses). Our guild's main tank is a trooper and he's telling me that my augments should all be heavy end (the heaviest I can find are +18 end/+12 power)), but I am rocking a mix of those, the Will/End augments, and a couple power/abs. Pretty sure I am pushing up against some diminishing return/soft caps on some stats and am hoping to tweak my stats. Stats: Str 118 Pre 269 Aim 67 Cun 63 End 2257 Wil 1533 Accuracy 98.25% (melee) 108.25% (force) Crit 22.34% (melee) 21.4% (force) Crit mult 51% Health 25323 (raid buffed, no stim) Armour 5995 Dam red 39.69% Def 24.68% Shield 34.31% Absorb 48.96% Going to read the links in this thread next. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloudblade Posted July 15, 2012 Author Share Posted July 15, 2012 (edited) Hmm...if you are going full time tanking, I would use augments to hit your secondary stat goals first before you pump Endurance, and would advise against using offensive augments. 25% defense, 40% shield, 55% absorb would be the minimum I'd recommend. With those minimums, I have main tanked for my guild without any problems. (We are 4/4 HM EC) Edited July 15, 2012 by cloudblade Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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