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Shadow Tank matrix cube


haliy

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They haven't put one in. That's ok though, because you wouldn't want it anyway. The proc absorb relic is *fantastic* for shadows. Beyond that, the War Hero defense, activated defense and the proc heal relics are all excellent. Shadows get a lot more value from relics like the proc absorb than the other classes do (on account of our obscenely high shield chance), so it does even out nicely.
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They haven't put one in. That's ok though, because you wouldn't want it anyway. The proc absorb relic is *fantastic* for shadows. Beyond that, the War Hero defense, activated defense and the proc heal relics are all excellent. Shadows get a lot more value from relics like the proc absorb than the other classes do (on account of our obscenely high shield chance), so it does even out nicely.

 

 

Which one is the proc heal, is that the campaign of epheremal mending? I saw your post about relic priorities, but am not sure how the war hero defense fits in. Also not sure when I should be using proc heal vs activated defense.

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Which one is the proc heal, is that the campaign of epheremal mending? I saw your post about relic priorities, but am not sure how the war hero defense fits in. Also not sure when I should be using proc heal vs activated defense.

 

The proc heal *is* the relic of ephemeral mending. Here's the ideal relic priority:

 

  • Boss does steady physical attacks (e.g. Fabricator, TFB Tentacle, Operator IX): War Hero Defense
  • Boss does low damage with heavy physical spikes (e.g. Foreman Crusher, Kephess, Firebrand): Activated Defense
  • Boss does force/tech attacks, or uncertain (e.g. Soa, TFB 2nd phase, Stormcaller, T&Z): Campaign Ephemeral Mending

 

The defense relics have the potential to exceed the value of the proc heal relic, but they don't actually do it on most bosses. This is because very few bosses actually hit hard enough to bump the relic mitigation per second up to a point where it is competitive. Nightmare KP has the hardest hitting bosses in the game, but a disproportionate amount of the attacks are force/tech, and thus defense doesn't help. I do think that the war hero defense relic is unequivocally the best second-relic for Fabricator or the first phase of TFB, while the activate defense relic (used ideally) is the best second-relic for Foreman Crusher, Kephess, and a few other bosses.

 

I use the proc heal pretty much all the time as my second relic because it's a *really* good default. It's not ideal in some cases (and I'm slowly meandering my way to enough coms to snag the other relics), but it's not far off the mark in any case. Swapping gear on TFB is dicy anyway, and since the second phase has higher damage, if you have to pick one relic or the other, go with the heal.

 

This is all of course talking about the *second* relic slot. Your first relic slot should be the proc absorb, without question. That relic is so amazing, it's stupid.

Edited by KeyboardNinja
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Stormcaller, T&Z): Campaign Ephemeral Mending

 

I actually cite Twin Tanks and Toth and Zorn as fights where the activated relics are more useful: yes, Toth/Stormcaller is pure F/T I/E damage, but that's all that Zorn/Firebrand does. As such, by using the activated relic whenever you start tanking the K/E damage boss, you're able to leverage more survivability than you would out of either of the other relics.

 

The times that it's best to use the activated relics are those times when there are discrete phases wherein the amount of mitigatable incoming damage increase sharply. The EC tank swap fights count as this because damage vacillates between being entirely unmitigatable (and comparatively low) to being almost *entirely* mitigatable. The only times that this wouldn't be true would be for those few strats that *don't* tank swap on bosses intended to do so.

 

If you're a player that is used to getting absolutely everything out of your Shadow (re: abusing CDs for optimal effect), you're better off using the activated relics: you're essentially providing yourself with another attack type specific CD to leverage into superior survivability.

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I actually cite Twin Tanks and Toth and Zorn as fights where the activated relics are more useful: yes, Toth/Stormcaller is pure F/T I/E damage, but that's all that Zorn/Firebrand does. As such, by using the activated relic whenever you start tanking the K/E damage boss, you're able to leverage more survivability than you would out of either of the other relics.

 

I'll buy that. I think that, in a great number of fights, you can derive more value from the activated defense relic than the proc heal IF you're using it ideally. I don't have the numbers I would need to reason about that sort of relic distribution, unfortunately. All of the models for boss damage that I have on hand are statistically smoothed over time, which means that I have no way to talk about "burst" or "discrete" phases.

 

(btw: Zorn is the F/T I/E boss; Toth is the M/R K/E boss)

Edited by KeyboardNinja
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