Generator or Shield?

[durhame]

So I'm looking at both. They are empty and the generator has 51 force damage and the shield 34. But the shield has a passive 5% shield chance and 20% absorb. I run vigi and focus in pvp depends on what I feel like that day.

Reason I am asking this is to find out if the loss of the 16 force damage worth swapping to a shield. even if it is only 5% shield chance, 20% shield rating? Thanks for the help.

[Kitru]

You should only use a shield if you fulfilling 3 very important attributes: you are using a tank spec, you are in your tank stance, and you are using tank gear (tank gear as defined by gear with lots of shield rating on it, which means you're not gonna find it til your 30s). If you are missing even one of these, shields are functionally worthless because they are so dependent on Shield Chance and Absorption Value.

 

A "raw" shield (no stats, no talents, no buffs) will provide you with only 1% mitigation to melee/ranged attacks. In PvP, this means you're pretty much seeing nothing, especially since shields do nothing to Force/Tech attacks, which are the primary source of player damage. As such, if you're running Vigi or Focus, you should just use a Generator: the gains in survivability are virtually nonexistent while the decrease in offensive capability will be readily apparent.