Shadow Mitigation Or Endurance ?

[Kitru]

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/f6425e5d-74cb-4655-9cef-2dfe64652169

 

What do you guys think ?

 

You're a little heavy on Abs and a little light on Defense, especially considering you're using the Abs proc relic (it functionally behaves as "invisible" absorb). If you're using it, you actually want to keep your Defense and Absorb ratings roughly equal.

 

Also, you should probably tweak your spec. Expertise is a wasted point, and Applied Force is junk if you're using the DS-less rotation (which you should be; it gives you the best DPS, TPS, *and* survivability); just put those 3 into Mental Fortitude.

[ialyxxiieee]

You're a little heavy on Abs and a little light on Defense, especially considering you're using the Abs proc relic (it functionally behaves as "invisible" absorb). If you're using it, you actually want to keep your Defense and Absorb ratings roughly equal.

 

Also, you should probably tweak your spec. Expertise is a wasted point, and Applied Force is junk if you're using the DS-less rotation (which you should be; it gives you the best DPS, TPS, *and* survivability); just put those 3 into Mental Fortitude.

 

Ah An Excellent Tip. Suppose I could get away with those extra Hp points. Will Try and sort myself out some defence enhancements to drop some Absorb/

 

Alternatively i could swap out my absorb for a PVP Defence relic Either way i think getting defense to 28/-29% Would Be the biggest Improvement overall. !

 

Think I might as well Invest in some 27 Defense Enhancements while im at it !

Edited January 17, 2013 by ialyxxiieee

[ialyxxiieee]

Made Some changes

 

Sitting on 29% Defense though mod/enhancement swapping

55% Absorb since I decided to keep My proc Absorb relic. )

Gained the extra 3% Hp

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/1e368010-1967-4a88-a88b-b70a5e80aceb

 

See above for changes , it seems Mr robot reflects some stats inaccurate

Edited January 17, 2013 by ialyxxiieee

[slafko]

Indeed it does. For some reason, it lists my defense at 26% when it's at least 5% higher than that and jumps over 33% with two EWH relics.

[Rawrwafer]

Now i havent stacked my defense as high as 30+ but i prefer having higher defense than the theorycrafting suggests. im not on my character atm, but i think im somewhere around 28% def, 45/65 shield, and 55 absorb, somewhere around 25/26k hp. i used to have a bit higher mitigation and health but decided to drop some of each in favor of more dmg mods. my overall survivability seems to be about the same(no maths done, just from experience).

 

Im currently using the DG absorb proc relic, and i hate it. all the theorycrafted uptime on the relic just doesnt work in a real fight. in my opinion its only worthwhile on the tentacle phase of tfb. in 1 min it has a potential uptime of 18 seconds, it just doesnt happen, on top of that you then have to shield within those seconds, watching my shield buff most bosses just dont attack you fast enough to make it worth it. Im working on getting the dps proc relic to replace it.

 

back to the original topic, i dont think it much matters between stacking end, or mitigation. as long as your not running around with dps levels of health and youve stacked enough mitigation youll be just fine in all but nim ec.

[ckoneful]

Now i havent stacked my defense as high as 30+ but i prefer having higher defense than the theorycrafting suggests. im not on my character atm, but i think im somewhere around 28% def, 45/65 shield, and 55 absorb, somewhere around 25/26k hp. i used to have a bit higher mitigation and health but decided to drop some of each in favor of more dmg mods. my overall survivability seems to be about the same(no maths done, just from experience).

 

Im currently using the DG absorb proc relic, and i hate it. all the theorycrafted uptime on the relic just doesnt work in a real fight. in my opinion its only worthwhile on the tentacle phase of tfb. in 1 min it has a potential uptime of 18 seconds, it just doesnt happen, on top of that you then have to shield within those seconds, watching my shield buff most bosses just dont attack you fast enough to make it worth it. Im working on getting the dps proc relic to replace it.

 

back to the original topic, i dont think it much matters between stacking end, or mitigation. as long as your not running around with dps levels of health and youve stacked enough mitigation youll be just fine in all but nim ec.

 

I don't like the absorb proc relic either, the EWH Defense relic is better IMO but it's the only option for people who don't pvp.

[slafko]

I too prefer the EWH defense relics and spend most of my time running two of them.

[ckoneful]

I too prefer the EWH defense relics and spend most of my time running two of them.

 

Which is a waste... the healing DG relic is better supposedly and you're probably rocking wayyyy too much defense and spiking like mad like another poster in this thread. I feel bad for your healers.

[slafko]

Take note of the word supposedly in your first sentence. If you should feel bad about anything, it's your constant trying to come across as skilled. Don't concern yourself about my healers; they're not concerned about me.

[stephenalandavie]

I have a shadow and i have perfected my DPS Set i am just working on my tanking Set, Which Relics are best for Pvp, What stats are most important solely in that context??, I dont Do pve and i already have my DPS set so its just Tanking i am looking at.

[Rawrwafer]

I think a lot of people tend to underrate a 30+ chance to not get hit at all, but that's just my thinking

[ckoneful]

Take note of the word supposedly in your first sentence. If you should feel bad about anything, it's your constant trying to come across as skilled. Don't concern yourself about my healers; they're not concerned about me.

I haven't tested the DG Healing relic yet myself, hence the supposedly. But I DO trust Kitru when they say it is the best.

 

Also, what's so wrong with what I do/say about the Shadow Tank? Nothing in my guide is inherently wrong unless you just think your "observations" beat the math and things that I've done to get my information. Nothing I've said in this thread is wrong either.

 

I think a lot of people tend to underrate a 30+ chance to not get hit at all, but that's just my thinking

 

It's not underrating anything, it's math.

[Kitru]

I haven't tested the DG Healing relic yet myself, hence the supposedly. But I DO trust Kitru when they say it is the best.

 

It's the best because, as a Shadow tank, it's functionally a 10% or more increase to your total self healing (8% of ~25-27k every 15 seconds plus 247 hp every 6 seconds equates to roughly 200 hp/sec; 505 healing every 21 seconds equates to 24 hp/sec). Considering how much of your total mitigation is based off of your self healing (especially when you're talking about F/T heavy fights), that 10% increase to your self healing is a *massive* improvement to your survivability. Even in really high damage scenarios (1700 incoming DPS with 16m NiM Kephess, is 1.1% functional mitigation through healing; at best, the EWH passive relic *equals* it and that only applies to M/R attacks, not *absolutely everything*).

[stephenalandavie]

Can anybody give me advice for Tanking Pvp wise which relics and stats etc??

[slafko]

I haven't tested the DG Healing relic yet myself, hence the supposedly. But I DO trust Kitru when they say it is the best.

 

Considering how much nonsense they've managed to type so far, you'll have to excuse me for taking that with a grain of salt.

[Kitru]

Considering how much nonsense they've managed to type so far, you'll have to excuse me for taking that with a grain of salt.

 

What's the "nonsense" I've been typing? Please, elucidate me since all you've yet to actually come up with any actual examples thus far. Just saying "you're wrong" doesn't mean anything, especially when you can even provide any corrections or contradictory recommendations.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Kitru

[-Sirus-]

My main is a healer and I can attest that tanks who stack defense as their route to overall mitigation can be annoying to heal. You don't require more or less total healing, but you do cause more stress and overhealing than those who go for shield+abs or a mix. The source of that stress is that you end up taking damage in a very lumpy distribution instead of the smoother damage taken profile of someone with more shield+abs. This makes it harder to predict when you'll need healing and how much. This just comes down to defense based mitigation having higher variance than shield+abs. You will have instances where you defend far less than expected and instances where you defend far more than expected. Edited January 22, 2013 by -Sirus-
correctness

[ckoneful]

My main is a healer and I can attest that tanks who stack defense as their route to overall mitigation can be annoying to heal. You don't require more or less total healing, but you do cause more stress and overhealing than those who go for shield+abs or a mix. The source of that stress is that you end up taking damage in a very lumpy distribution instead of the smoother damage taken profile of someone with more shield+abs. This makes it harder to predict when you'll need healing and how much. This just comes down to defense based mitigation having higher variance than shield+abs. You will have instances where you defend far less than expected and instances where you defend far more than expected.

 

No, they'll end up taking more damage in the long run as well. Not just spikey.

 

What's the "nonsense" I've been typing? Please, elucidate me since all you've yet to actually come up with any actual examples thus far. Just saying "you're wrong" doesn't mean anything, especially when you can even provide any corrections or contradictory recommendations.

 

It isn't worth even acknowledging that guy, I'm just going to forum ignore him and be happy to never his posts again. He has no idea what he's talking about and just likes to say we're wrong.

[-Sirus-]

I do love the way you quote my entire post just to say no to one part.

 

But yes. You're going to take more damage ff your overall mitigation % is lower no matter how you got there. Stacking one mitigation stat to heavily at the expense of other mitigation stats will result in lower overall mitigation %.

 

Overall mitigation looks something like 1 - (1 - defense change)(1 - armor)(1 - shield * absorption)

 

What I was trying to say earlier was that if you arrive at the same overall mitigation value with a defense heavy approach, you're going to be spikier than a shield+abs approach.

Edited January 22, 2013 by -Sirus-
correctness

[ckoneful]

I do love the way you quote my entire post just to say no to one part.

 

But yes. You're going to take more damage ff your overall mitigation % is lower no matter how you got there. Stacking one mitigation stat to heavily at the expense of other mitigation stats will result in lower overall mitigation %.

 

Overall mitigation looks something like 1 - (1 - defense change)(1 - armor)(1 - shield(1 - absorption))

 

What I was trying to say earlier was that if you arrive at the same overall mitigation value with a defense heavy approach, you're going to be spikier than a shield+abs approach.

 

But our point is you can't end up with the same overall mitigation value by stacking defense over everything else. The math has been done...

 

You're going to end up taking more damage overall AND being spikier.

Edited January 22, 2013 by ckoneful

[slafko]

What's the "nonsense" I've been typing? Please, elucidate me since all you've yet to actually come up with any actual examples thus far. Just saying "you're wrong" doesn't mean anything, especially when you can even provide any corrections or contradictory recommendations.

 

If I recall correctly, and I do, I called you out immediately after you posted nonsense. If you want to refresh your memory, search my posts.

 

Since I'm not a math junky and actually pay attention during fights, I know how to balance my stats for different scenarios. Blindly sticking to someone's preaching just because they're loud enough is not my style. Basically, for someone who's able to think for himself, your walls of text and guides don't really mean much.

 

Stay cool.

[Kitru]

If I recall correctly, and I do, I called you out immediately after you posted nonsense. If you want to refresh your memory, search my posts.

 

You're "calling me out" was completely unsupported and highly inaccurate comparisons between tanking in TOR and tanking in a game that is *completely* different, wherein you're the *only* person I've seen that has made *any* kind of comparison as such and it was actually refuted by *multiple other people* that played the same game as you, not to mention simply handwaving away the whole "GW was built and designed for PvP rather than PvE but I played it for the PvE even though 99% of the rest of the game focused entirely on PvP and even the developers admitted that PvE was just there as a secondary aspect".

 

Not once have I actually seen you provide *data* or *reasoning* as to why any of the recommendations you've railed against are wrong. You simply say "nope, they're wrong". You're attempting to be correct *purely* through assertion, which is completely *laughable* when *everyone else* resorts to, at a minimum, anecdotal evidence (the people that everyone actually *respects* use math since it's both reliable and can be verified).

 

I actively encourage people to challenge and/or validate my recommendations and claims. However, if your entire methodology is "nope, you're wrong" without actually contributing anything, you're operating completely contradictory to the *purpose* of the forums, unless, of course, you view the forums exclusively as a form of vapid entertainment best accomplished through trolling people actually attempting to provide advice and enter in productive conversation.

 

TL: DR You can call me out if you want, but it doesn't mean anything unless you actually *support* your assertions, which you have *never* done. Don't act as if you've done anything I should even remotely care about (I didn't even recognize who you were or what your forum name was until I saw that you were the guy spouting off about how "omg, I is teh bestest tank bcuz I played GW wif no taunts!"; your name doesn't even register as *important* to me, but that's because I pay attention to intelligence, not bluster and belligerence)

[Rawrwafer]

and moving on...

 

I do like the fact that multiple people have done the maths for mitigation vs w/e vs w/e. in my opinion though, in order to be accurate with those numbers you would need to do them on a fight by fight basis. you cant compare a stormcaller/firebrand fight with a kephess fight and wind up with the same numbers, its not a one size fits all. (im not an advocate of having multiple sets for multiple bosses though, that's just too much for me). spiky damage on kephess is scary, tanks are a bit wimpy.

 

on a side note, I just don't see shielding happen often enough ingame to give it the kind of weight that the maths suggest. many of the bosses just don't hit fast enough, with shieldable attacks, I find myself constantly with 4+ stacks of KW when I go to refresh it, unless dealing with trash

[grallmate]

If I recall correctly, and I do, I called you out immediately after you posted nonsense. If you want to refresh your memory, search my posts.

 

Since I'm not a math junky and actually pay attention during fights, I know how to balance my stats for different scenarios. Blindly sticking to someone's preaching just because they're loud enough is not my style. Basically, for someone who's able to think for himself, your walls of text and guides don't really mean much.

 

Stay cool.

 

So basically, you eyeball your stats for everything rather than measuring and calculating what is optimal. Lemme know how that works out for you in the real world for something like engineering, building or architecture.

 

Ultimately, nothing in this game really pushes you to use one type of gearing over another and as such, most of these comparisons are piece vs piece or mitigation stacking vs HP stacking. Piece vs piece it is quite simple to highlight which is the best. Gearing methodologies are a little different but ultimately tend to boil down to: get enough HP to make your healer comfortable, then stack mitigation, properly balanced using any of the available tools.

 

On a final note: there are probably 2 active people on these forums that I take seriously: Kitru and KeyboardNinja. I may not always agree with them but they both back up what they say with numbers and they reason logically. There are a few others who have since stopped playing but unless they return, that isn't relevant.

[stephenalandavie]

I could do with advice on Pvp tanking