2.0 PVE Shadow tank builds.

[yllesius]

Everybody has gone quiet since once again, theory based on assumptions from PTS without any hard evidence became irrelevant. The reality is different and calculations are yet to be done.

 

To tell you from the 7-day experience though, threat is NOT an issue and if it is for anyone, they are doing something wrong. So talents such as Expertise, Shadow Wrap or Force Synergy are waste of points.

 

I'm currently sitting at 37k hp stimmed while trying to min/max my gear without dropping Endurance too much (it seems to have certainly higher value than pre 2.0 because of current DR).

 

I'm eagerly waiting for *Kitru* to give some explanation why to pick threat boosting talents instead of Mental Fortitude given that he was praising the healing relic pre 2.0.

[Moonheart_S]

+1 Yllesus.

Threat has never been an issue, and damage is not our role in PvE. I think damage talents are a waste for Shadow Tanks in 2.0 as it was before.

[Frog_brains]

I don't know about you guys but i've been having a lot of success with 41/3/2.

 

i left shadowsight empty (the rest of the tree is full), and put 3 points into upheaval, and 2 points into jedi resistance.

 

I was also thinking of pulling the points out of upheaval and moving them to force synergy or into psychokenisis.

[KeyboardNinja]

I'm eagerly waiting for *Kitru* to give some explanation why to pick threat boosting talents instead of Mental Fortitude given that he was praising the healing relic pre 2.0.

 

I'm not Kitru, but I'll try to fill in…

 

I take *both* the threat boosting talents and Mental Fortitude. Specifically, 39/3/4. In PvP, I give up Shadow Shelter in favor of Martial Prowress and one point in Expertise.

 

The reasoning is as follows. First, Mental Fortitude is an important talent due to the self-heal mechanic. Skipping that talent is basically giving up on mitigation, as well as the additional HP buffer. If you don't take that talent, you're missing out on something which directly improves your ability to take and manage damage. Don't do that.

 

Applied Force and Shadow Wrap are obviously interesting. I take these primarily because I have four points leftover and no compelling survivability talents to pick up. Celerity is highly overrated in PvE, and none of the real goodies in Balance or Infiltration are reachable from a 36 point Kinetic build. Simply put: damage is important. Threat has never been an issue for shadows. I mean, it will eventually be tighter than it is now simply due to gear scaling for damage dealers, but even then, it won't be a real problem. The more important question is the DPS contribution. There is a reason that tanks do damage to the boss, rather than simply holding agro with high threat non-damaging abilities. Tanks are factored into enrage timer calculations (particularly for tight enrages). You should be able to pull your weight as a tank, and while you won't do as much damage as a DPS, you should still try to maximize your output as a secondary priority to improving your survivability.

 

None of this is idle theorizing either. I've tanked SM S&V several times now, and we've even done HM TfB post-2.0. I'm very happy with the 39/3/4 build, and I wouldn't allocate my points any other way.

[Omophorus]

I'm not Kitru, but I'll try to fill in…

 

I take *both* the threat boosting talents and Mental Fortitude. Specifically, 39/3/4. In PvP, I give up Shadow Shelter in favor of Martial Prowress and one point in Expertise.

 

The reasoning is as follows. First, Mental Fortitude is an important talent due to the self-heal mechanic. Skipping that talent is basically giving up on mitigation, as well as the additional HP buffer. If you don't take that talent, you're missing out on something which directly improves your ability to take and manage damage. Don't do that.

 

Applied Force and Shadow Wrap are obviously interesting. I take these primarily because I have four points leftover and no compelling survivability talents to pick up. Celerity is highly overrated in PvE, and none of the real goodies in Balance or Infiltration are reachable from a 36 point Kinetic build. Simply put: damage is important. Threat has never been an issue for shadows. I mean, it will eventually be tighter than it is now simply due to gear scaling for damage dealers, but even then, it won't be a real problem. The more important question is the DPS contribution. There is a reason that tanks do damage to the boss, rather than simply holding agro with high threat non-damaging abilities. Tanks are factored into enrage timer calculations (particularly for tight enrages). You should be able to pull your weight as a tank, and while you won't do as much damage as a DPS, you should still try to maximize your output as a secondary priority to improving your survivability.

 

None of this is idle theorizing either. I've tanked SM S&V several times now, and we've even done HM TfB post-2.0. I'm very happy with the 39/3/4 build, and I wouldn't allocate my points any other way.

 

I'll chime in on this with a slightly broader viewpoint.

 

For boss tanking, and Operations in general, 39/3/4 is the only way to go. Hands down, no questions asked.

 

For day-in-day-out stuff like dailies/weeklies, Flashpoints, etc. I think you gain significant quality of life from Martial Prowess and Celerity, which is worth sacrificing Mental Fortitude for. Neither MP or Celerity is useful in the slightest whilst tanking bosses (or even a lot of trash pulls in Ops, for that matter), but are insanely convenient the rest of the time. Just for mobility's sake, I get an insane amount of use out of Speed > Rocket Boost > Speed to cover ground when a speeder is unavailable.

 

Luckily, the field respec unlock is inexpensive and it doesn't take much time to refill the talent trees, especially once a couple of specs have become habit.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Omophorus

[Naldash]

Regarding the 39/3/4 build. Totally works. However I don't believe there is any need for psychokinesis anymore. I used to have 2 points in it and no matter what I tried I could not drain my force out unless I chained whirling blow:rolleyes:

 

I would suggest taking Martial Prowess only because I get lots of use out of it as a quality of life power as an extra interrupt or a knock down as the situation dictates. Plus hey it does damage on top of those things.

[KeyboardNinja]

Regarding the 39/3/4 build. Totally works. However I don't believe there is any need for psychokinesis anymore. I used to have 2 points in it and no matter what I tried I could not drain my force out unless I chained whirling blow:rolleyes:

 

I would suggest taking Martial Prowess only because I get lots of use out of it as a quality of life power as an extra interrupt or a knock down as the situation dictates. Plus hey it does damage on top of those things.

 

Without Psychokinesis, the rotation is significantly Force negative except in the face of extremely rapid f/t + m/r swing timers (which are quite rare). Psychokinesis is essential to maintain a Force neutral rotation while getting the self heal at ideal frequency in the face of an *average* swing timer rate. There are already bosses (e.g. Thrasher) where shield/defense procs aren't sufficiently rapid to maintain Force. Things would be significantly worse if we didn't have the cost reduction.

[Moonheart_S]

Having tested both with and without, I'll say there is a significient lost of tanking efficiency without.

 

I don't like the 39/3/4 presented because it takes Shadow Wrap.

 

I'm not convainced at all by this talent for a pve tank.

Shadow Wrap don't bring anything to tanking. It use more force, only to do more damage, and have lower chances to reset Project than DS, and thus to shorten the time to the next Telekinetic Throw.

That's perhaps good for pvp "tanks" in dps gear, that's not, imho, for pve tanks that need all their force invested into survival.

 

If we want to do more damage with the extra points, I'll take 2 points in Expertise or Force Synergy instead, since it raise damage without taking anything from the healing cycle.

 

My two cents.

[KeyboardNinja]

I don't like the 39/3/4 presented because it takes Shadow Wrap.

 

I'm not convainced at all by this talent for a pve tank.

Shadow Wrap don't bring anything to tanking. It use more force, only to do more damage, and have lower chances to reset Project than DS, and thus to shorten the time to the next Telekinetic Throw.

That's perhaps good for pvp "tanks" in dps gear, that's not, imho, for pve tanks that need all their force invested into survival.

 

PvP kinetic shadows don't wear DPS gear anymore. If they are, they're being silly. The loss of the armor buff makes mitigation mandatory for anything approaching tanking in PvP, and the destruction of the kinetic hybrids eliminates any real possibility of an "annoyance DPS" role filled from that tree. PvP kinetic shadows wear tank gear and fill a tank spot, which is a nice turnaround.

 

As for PvE, I've done the formal analysis. Using Shadow Strike does reduce the proc rate on Project (and thus TkT), but the net effect is literally within the bounds of rounding error (less than 2 tenths of a second on average). It uses more Force, but the analysis accounted for that and indicates that this isn't a problem. So you trade a miniscule (by any definition) delay in your self-heal for a significantly higher damage attack. That seems more than fair.

 

I'll say it again: tanks do damage. Tanks *need* to do damage. You cannot simply hold agro by /dancing with the boss, and there's a reason that tanking mechanics (in this game) don't work that way. You need to help your group burn the boss down as fast as possible, and building additional threat is a nice bonus package. So, saying that "Shadow Wrap doesn't help tanking" is like saying that having more than zero main stat doesn't help tanking.

Edited April 18, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

[Moonheart_S]

PvP kinetic shadows don't wear DPS gear anymore. If they are, they're being silly. The loss of the armor buff makes mitigation mandatory for anything approaching tanking in PvP, and the destruction of the kinetic hybrids eliminates any real possibility of an "annoyance DPS" role filled from that tree. PvP kinetic shadows wear tank gear and fill a tank spot, which is a nice turnaround.

 

People who use DPS gear with kinetic spec don't care about tanking, or annoyance or anything like that.

They just want to damage while being slightly less squishy.

 

As for PvE, I've done the formal analysis. Using Shadow Strike does reduce the proc rate on Project (and thus TkT), but the net effect is literally within the bounds of rounding error (less than 2 tenths of a second on average).

 

Speaking in second means nothing. What is important if the HPS you bring to relieve pressure from the healers.

 

I'll say it again: tanks do damage. Tanks *need* to do damage. You cannot simply hold agro by /dancing with the boss, and there's a reason that tanking mechanics (in this game) don't work that way.

 

And we'll say it again: Shadows tank keep aggro with a hand tied in the back, so this is not even remotly an issue and Shadow Wrap don't bring anything more to this.

 

You need to help your group burn the boss down as fast as possible, and building additional threat is a nice bonus package. So, saying that "Shadow Wrap doesn't help tanking" is like saying that having more than zero main stat doesn't help tanking.

 

No, that's not the same. Those two assertions are not equivalent. That's not because you don't need more of something that you don't need it anymore at all

We have more than enough aggro power. And in a competent group, with have far than enough DPS to burn any boss within time.

 

We don't need more. We don't need Shadow Wrap. At all.

You can take it because you like it.... but we don't need it.

[KeyboardNinja]

Speaking in second means nothing. What is important if the HPS you bring to relieve pressure from the healers.

 

Very well. I'll speak in percentages. Using Shadow Strike on proc lowers your HPS from TkT by 0.2/12 = 1.6%. TkT is 74% of overall self-healing. Thus, the self-heal is reduced by 1.1%. I can live with that, especially since the self-heal varies by a dramatically wider margin depending on fight mechanics.

 

And we'll say it again: Shadows tank keep aggro with a hand tied in the back, so this is not even remotly an issue and Shadow Wrap don't bring anything more to this.

 

I wasn't saying shadows have threat issues or need help in that department. What I'm saying is that tanks need to do DPS at their maximum potential attainable without sacrificing control, survivability or threat. Shadow Wrap sacrifices none of those things and achieves higher DPS. Thus, you take the talent in the ideal build.

 

No, you don't *need* it. By that token, I also don't *need* Harnessed Shadows. After all, a competent healer is going to be able to keep me up without a problem, even without that talent. More importantly, you can make the same argument with even more validity about any other talent you take with those points. Martial Prowess? You don't need that. There aren't any fights in current top-tier PvE where Spinning Kick is useful. Celerity? The shorter CD on stun break and sprint also doesn't really assist in any appreciable way. If you take that talent, you're grabbing it because you *like* it, but the difference between Celerity and Shadow Wrap is the former only makes you feel good, while the latter actually helps the raid's damage output.

[JasonNH]

For day-in-day-out stuff like dailies/weeklies, Flashpoints, etc. I think you gain significant quality of life from Martial Prowess and Celerity, which is worth sacrificing Mental Fortitude for. Neither MP or Celerity is useful in the slightest whilst tanking bosses (or even a lot of trash pulls in Ops, for that matter), but are insanely convenient the rest of the time. Just for mobility's sake, I get an insane amount of use out of Speed > Rocket Boost > Speed to cover ground when a speeder is unavailable.

 

Luckily, the field respec unlock is inexpensive and it doesn't take much time to refill the talent trees, especially once a couple of specs have become habit.

 

This is my conclusion as well. I use spinning kick so much outside of operations and really missed the quality of life treat. Plus I just enjoy doing it. I ended up putting it back in and will only respec for the toughest boss fights in operations that require doing so. It came in awfully handy during HM Mandalorian Raiders last night when fighting the Republic Boarding Party too.

Edited April 18, 2013 by JasonNH

[Omophorus]

This is my conclusion as well. I use spinning kick so much outside of operations and really missed the quality of life treat. Plus I just enjoy doing it. I ended up putting it back in and will only respec for the toughest boss fights in operations that require doing so. It came in awfully handy during HM Mandalorian Raiders last night when fighting the Republic Boarding Party too.

 

Just my perspective, but I'd respec to 39/3/4 the moment I set foot into an Operation and not even think about switching back until after the last boss is dead.

 

Nothing that Martial Prowess or Celerity brings to the table is noteworthy in a group of 8 or larger. Both talents gain in value as your group size goes down (and are at their absolute best when your party size is 1).

 

Put simply, if the extra stun from Spinning Kick, the shorter CD on your interrupt (on any 55 content), or shorter Force Speed CD are impactful, there are fundamental issues in your group that should be addressed first.

[yllesius]

Very well. I'll speak in percentages. Using Shadow Strike on proc lowers your HPS from TkT by 0.2/12 = 1.6%. TkT is 74% of overall self-healing. Thus, the self-heal is reduced by 1.1%. I can live with that, especially since the self-heal varies by a dramatically wider margin depending on fight mechanics.

 

Okay, so now self-healing is not 'that' important and small percentage can be sacrificed. I will quote that once the discussion about the impact of healing relic (25 hps the last time) comes up again.

 

Shadow Wrap sacrifices none of those things and achieves higher DPS.

 

I want to see numbers on a boss fight with the significant dps increase using Shadow Wrap. Until that point, this statement doesn't mean much to me.

 

Celerity? The shorter CD on stun break and sprint also doesn't really assist in any appreciable way.

 

So for instance on Titan, you're an offtank and are supposed to gather adds. I can spend more time dpsing the boss, then rush to them with Force Speed. When they die or are handled enough, I have FS back in 15 rather than 20 seconds so can get to the boss quicker and dps him again. Is that not appreciable? There are many other occasions like this one where the lower cd helps you cut some travel time - but of course, that's not included in number crunching and thus treated as a 'waste'.

 

Again, want to see the appreciable dps increase using Shadow Wrap/Strike.

 

Put simply, if the extra stun from Spinning Kick, the shorter CD on your interrupt (on any 55 content), or shorter Force Speed CD are impactful, there are fundamental issues in your group that should be addressed first.

 

The exact same answer applies to the impactful dps increase achieved with Shadow Wrap: There are fundamental issues in your group with the dps

Edited April 19, 2013 by yllesius
additional info

[KeyboardNinja]

Okay, so now self-healing is not 'that' important and small percentage can be sacrificed. I will quote that once the discussion about the impact of healing relic (25 hps the last time) comes up again.

 

1.1% of the self-heal is less than 2 HPS. In any case, your comparison is spurious and naive, since I actually have the numbers proving that the self-heal reduction from Shadow Wrap has a negligible impact on survivability. The healing relic doesn't have a *huge* impact on survivability, but it has a much larger impact than the other relics (which is what you must measure against).

 

I want to see numbers on a boss fight with the significant dps increase using Shadow Wrap. Until that point, this statement doesn't mean much to me.

 

*sigh*

 

DoubleStrike[MH_, Bonus_] := ((1 - 0.505) * MH + 0.074 * 2685 + 0.74 * Bonus) * 2 * 1.06

ShadowStrike[MH_, Bonus_] := (1 + 0.58) * MH + 0.236 * 2685 + 2.37 * Bonus

 

The exact ratio of damage increase depends on your Main Hand damage and your bonus damage, but it seems clear that Shadow Strike does about 50% more damage than Double Strike for realistic coefficients (Plot3D[ ShadowStrike[x, y] / DoubleStrike[x, y], {x, 1200, 1600}, {y, 1200, 2000}]). Shadow Strike is used (on average) 70% as frequently as Double Strike. Thus, replacing a Double Strike with a proc'd Shadow Strike increases the damage from that component of your rotation by 35%. It's hard to say exactly what this translates into in terms of DPS without more extensive analysis, but it's certainly going to be noticeable.

 

So for instance on Titan, you're an offtank and are supposed to gather adds. I can spend more time dpsing the boss, then rush to them with Force Speed. When they die or are handled enough, I have FS back in 15 rather than 20 seconds so can get to the boss quicker and dps him again. Is that not appreciable?

 

The adds take a while to group up. You can literally saunter over to the healers and round them up without sprinting, then sprint back to the boss. If you're using sprint to round them up and return to the boss, you will need the CD to be less than 15 seconds. Thus, a 5 second reduction makes no difference in this case.

 

There are many other occasions like this one where the lower cd helps you cut some travel time - but of course, that's not included in number crunching and thus treated as a 'waste'.

 

Citation? I still can't point to any such instances.

 

The exact same answer applies to the impactful dps increase achieved with Shadow Wrap: There are fundamental issues in your group with the dps

 

I'm not saying that Shadow Wrap is the difference between hitting the enrage and not hitting the enrage. However, it *is* going to be a measurable difference in boss TTK over a long boss fight. Let's say for the sake of argument that Double Strike makes up 17% of your overall DPS when not using Shadow Strike (which seems about right). At an overall DPS of 1.1k, Double Strike contributes 187 DPS. Thus, adding in Shadow Strike would improve the DS+SS contribution by 65 DPS. Assuming the fight lasts for 6 minutes, that's 23.4k HP, which 2.65 seconds of boss uptime assuming four DPS pulling 2.2k average DPS during an execute phase. Bosses do roughly 1k DPS post-mitigation these days, which means that Shadow Strike saves the healers 2650 HP of healing over the course of the fight, which is 7.36 HPS. Note that 7.36 HPS is more than three and a half times the self-heal loss from using Shadow Strike vs Double Strike.

 

Damage is important for many reasons. Don't just shrug it off.

Edited April 19, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

[ML_DoubleTap]

Fun read in this thread...I do have one question/point though.

 

Is there a reason in the 39/4/3 build posted you take Rapid Recovery over Expertise?

 

Using the numbers of Kitru from a few pages back the formula for how often CT procs is 4.5 + 1.5 * ((1 / x) / .65) where x is the number of attacks per GCD. There was disagreement on what x should be, but lets assume 1.8...

 

Keeping the two points in RR we get a proc every 5.78s. The dmg value he posted was 317 which divided by 5.78s is 54.84 DPS.

 

Now, if we take those two points and put them in Expertise our attacks per GCD is figured with 4.5 + 1.5 * ((1 / x) / .5). Same as before but a 50% chance rather than 65%. So our proc rate is every 6.17s and DPS is 51.38. Now tack on the extra 12% damage from the two points we took out of RR and put into Expertise and it's 57.55 DPS.

 

I may have done something wrong, but it doesn' seem like RR is worth it. Granted it's only about 3 DPS, but its still better.

[KeyboardNinja]

I may have done something wrong, but it doesn' seem like RR is worth it. Granted it's only about 3 DPS, but its still better.

 

You're losing about 3 DPS going with Rapid Recovery, but you pick up a more significant amount of healing. I don't remember the HPS off-hand, but it's quite a bit more than you lose from using Shadow Strike.

[yllesius]

1.1% of the self-heal is less than 2 HPS. In any case, your comparison is spurious and naive, since I actually have the numbers proving that the self-heal reduction from Shadow Wrap has a negligible impact on survivability. The healing relic doesn't have a *huge* impact on survivability, but it has a much larger impact than the other relics (which is what you must measure against).

 

And once again, I disagree. Your healers will never feel the impact of self-healing relic, will never heal you less -> the relic is a waste of mitigation. Numbers won't tell you, healers will.

 

*sigh*

 

DoubleStrike[MH_, Bonus_] := ((1 - 0.505) * MH + 0.074 * 2685 + 0.74 * Bonus) * 2 * 1.06

ShadowStrike[MH_, Bonus_] := (1 + 0.58) * MH + 0.236 * 2685 + 2.37 * Bonus

 

The exact ratio of damage increase depends on your Main Hand damage and your bonus damage, but it seems clear that Shadow Strike does about 50% more damage than Double Strike for realistic coefficients (Plot3D[ ShadowStrike[x, y] / DoubleStrike[x, y], {x, 1200, 1600}, {y, 1200, 2000}]). Shadow Strike is used (on average) 70% as frequently as Double Strike. Thus, replacing a Double Strike with a proc'd Shadow Strike increases the damage from that component of your rotation by 35%. It's hard to say exactly what this translates into in terms of DPS without more extensive analysis, but it's certainly going to be noticeable.

 

Could I, for once, see any real log? All I get, all the time, is just patterns and graphs. Again, no real numbers, just theory.

 

Don't get me wrong, I admire your dedication to number analyzing - it is very helpful in general. But it's not always just average numbers (which I believe you do realize).

Damage is important for many reasons. Don't just shrug it off.

 

I don't. Show me the boss fight log of Shadow Wrap contributing significantly and I will accept all the love you are giving it. Not until then though.

Edited April 20, 2013 by yllesius
quoting

[ML_DoubleTap]

You're losing about 3 DPS going with Rapid Recovery, but you pick up a more significant amount of healing. I don't remember the HPS off-hand, but it's quite a bit more than you lose from using Shadow Strike.

 

Ah, yeah that makes sense. I forgot about the added healing portion. Probably adds 7-10hps I'd guess without calculating anything. I figured I was missing something.

[eventidephoenix]

Keyboardninja, I'm just wondering, are you running the stat distribution for Shadow tanks of a ratio of about 1:1.2:0.8 for Def:Shield:Abs?

 

My intuition when I first heard that all damage is now shieldable but not all damage is dodge-able, was that it's a good idea to stack all on shield and absorb =\ (edit: If you only intend to run one set of armor)

Edited April 22, 2013 by eventidephoenix

[KeyboardNinja]

And once again, I disagree. Your healers will never feel the impact of self-healing relic, will never heal you less -> the relic is a waste of mitigation. Numbers won't tell you, healers will.

 

Healers have told me. The good ones are aware of my self-heal and use it to their advantage (one of the best I ever ran with said he knew the timing on the internal CD and planned his heals accordingly). This "exploitation of the self-heal" is apparent in logs in the fact that my self-heal almost never over-healed when I was with those healers. When I originally slotted in my healing relic, back in the Campaign days, I specifically surveyed my healers and got their thoughts. They universally preferred the healing relic, which is fairly appropriate, given that it provides dramatically higher survivability than any of the mitigation relics.

 

The only fights where I have swapped my healing relic for a non-healing relic are fights with absurd burst damage (basically, Nightmare Kephess). In that case, I took an activated shield relic to pair with my PvP defense relic. For anything else, I stick with the healing relic.

 

Could I, for once, see any real log? All I get, all the time, is just patterns and graphs. Again, no real numbers, just theory.

 

Don't get me wrong, I admire your dedication to number analyzing - it is very helpful in general. But it's not always just average numbers (which I believe you do realize).

 

At the end of the day, theory crafting is the only invariant baseline that we can throw on these things. Bosses have mechanics which change the playing field, and so numbers from one boss aren't relevant in another boss. Also, killing the boss comes ahead of perfect play, and thus optimal performance ceilings cannot be measured on bosses.

 

With all that said, have a log: http://www.torparse.com/a/185781/3/0/Damage+Dealt Shadow Strike was used exclusively on proc, and it did almost 50 DPS (which is very close to what I predicted it to be). Note that Dash'roode is an absurdly movement-heavy fight in addition to having a good deal of AoE tanking, which suggests that the benefit would be even higher in a more normal fight. All of the math I gave re Shadow Strike still applies.

 

Take the talent. It's really good.

Edited April 22, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

[KeyboardNinja]

Keyboardninja, I'm just wondering, are you running the stat distribution for Shadow tanks of a ratio of about 1:1.2:0.8 for Def:Shield:Abs?

 

My intuition when I first heard that all damage is now shieldable but not all damage is dodge-able, was that it's a good idea to stack all on shield and absorb =\ (edit: If you only intend to run one set of armor)

 

The exact distribution varies a lot as your stat budget changes. You can't just stick with a static ratio, unfortunately. See this thread for details: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=616779

 

As a general, broad-brush assertion, get your defense to around 25% (with Shadow Sight) and then focus primarily on absorb. Shield will take care of itself (don't augment for it). Take the high-endurance mods (B variants) as a shadow/assassin tank. Your relics should be the proc defense and the proc heal. This paragraph's gearing advice is inaccurate, but *somewhat* close to where things are. The thread I linked has the precise values that you should be shooting for at all gear levels.

Edited April 22, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

[yllesius]

Healers have told me. The good ones are aware of my self-heal and use it to their advantage (one of the best I ever ran with said he knew the timing on the internal CD and planned his heals accordingly). This "exploitation of the self-heal" is apparent in logs in the fact that my self-heal almost never over-healed when I was with those healers. When I originally slotted in my healing relic, back in the Campaign days, I specifically surveyed my healers and got their thoughts. They universally preferred the healing relic, which is fairly appropriate, given that it provides dramatically higher survivability than any of the mitigation relics.

 

So after all, it would come down to the way healers are performing, healing.

 

Take the talent. It's really good.

 

Will try it then and see the results.

[eventidephoenix]

The exact distribution varies a lot as your stat budget changes. You can't just stick with a static ratio, unfortunately. See this thread for details: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=616779

 

As a general, broad-brush assertion, get your defense to around 25% (with Shadow Sight) and then focus primarily on absorb. Shield will take care of itself (don't augment for it). Take the high-endurance mods (B variants) as a shadow/assassin tank. Your relics should be the proc defense and the proc heal. This paragraph's gearing advice is inaccurate, but *somewhat* close to where things are. The thread I linked has the precise values that you should be shooting for at all gear levels.

 

Thanks a lot for your tips across all the threads! I tried the build and I quite like it.

 

I thought now though that stacking Endurance will be a bad idea though. is that necessarily true? Since now everything can be shielded, enhancements also are heavy on endurance, our best bet will be to augment for absorption and focus on nothing but more mitigation?

 

My main is a Sage Healer to be honest, and NO shadow tank I know has quite the philosophy that you have (things like using the heal proc relic, and using endurance) and hence I cannot get a feel of how they are like. My main raid for hard content have both Guardians. For easy content it's really quite hard to tell how it works out. I went full HP but the moment 2.0 hit, I feel very very squishy. My tank only got to 55 and previously I was BiS-ed to full maximum attainable endurance with a healing proc relic, but that doesn't seem to be working out very well anymore

Edited April 23, 2013 by eventidephoenix

[KeyboardNinja]

Thanks a lot for your tips across all the threads! I tried the build and I quite like it.

 

I thought now though that stacking Endurance will be a bad idea though. is that necessarily true? Since now everything can be shielded, enhancements also are heavy on endurance, our best bet will be to augment for absorption and focus on nothing but more mitigation?

 

My main is a Sage Healer to be honest, and NO shadow tank I know has quite the philosophy that you have (things like using the heal proc relic, and using endurance) and hence I cannot get a feel of how they are like. My main raid for hard content have both Guardians. For easy content it's really quite hard to tell how it works out. I went full HP but the moment 2.0 hit, I feel very very squishy. My tank only got to 55 and previously I was BiS-ed to full maximum attainable endurance with a healing proc relic, but that doesn't seem to be working out very well anymore

 

So, stacking exclusively endurance at the expense of mitigation was never a particularly great idea. Sure, you could push your HP up to around 32k as a level 50 shadow tank pre-2.0, but your survivability was terrible because you never mitigated anything. You made your healers work a LOT harder in terms of total output, and in exchange simply gave them a deeper cushion for spike damage. Only one boss pre-2.0 did any significant spike damage (Nightmare Kephess); all other content was a contest of sustainability in healing, and even NiM Kephess was pretty hard to heal if you didn't achieve a certain level of efficiency.

 

With that said, trading some mitigation for endurance was (and remains) a good strategy for shadows IF (and only if) it is done via mods (not enhancements or augments). Basically, the mod itemization allows you to trade mitigation for endurance at a rate of roughly 1-to-2, which is a pretty awesome trade where shadows are concerned. The self-heal is a very significant component of our survivability, and while the effect of endurance on the self-heal is still point-for-point worse than mitigation stats, endurance is going to far outweigh mitigation when you can trade up at a better than 1-to-1 ratio.

 

As for the healing relic, people tend to under-estimate its value because they over-estimate the value of mitigation. We look at percentages and get all misty eyed about just how much damage we could discard if the boss were hitting for 10k per second. We look at the flytext when Kephess wallops us for 18k at a swipe and feel justified in our conclusion. The truth of it is that no boss hits anywhere close to 10k per second, even in the new content. Bosses in HM S&V and HM TfB (post-2.0) hit for around 2.6k - 2.8k per second in tank damage, which means that our mitigation really isn't mitigating all that much. Surprising as it may seem, the healing relic gives back *far* more hitpoints than any of the mitigation relics at the damage levels currently in the game.

Edited April 23, 2013 by KeyboardNinja