Two quick questions on Augments and Set Bonuses

[Hestis]

I have a lvl 55 Shield spec Vanguard tank. I don't do any PvP. Currently I just have the Tionese armorings, Cybertech 28 mods, and lvl 55 planetary comm enhancements in custom gear. I have two questions as I start to gear up a bit more (I have not done any kind of FPs or Ops with this character yet).

 

1) How much of a benefit are the set bonuses? I can craft the 28 armorings with my Cybertech, which would gain me over 1,000 hp, but at the cost of the set bonuses. So which route is my best bet here?

 

2) Which augments should I be using? Absorb? Fortitude? Defense? Combo?

 

Thanks for any help!

[Justcae]

I have a lvl 55 Shield spec Vanguard tank. I don't do any PvP. Currently I just have the Tionese armorings, Cybertech 28 mods, and lvl 55 planetary comm enhancements in custom gear. I have two questions as I start to gear up a bit more (I have not done any kind of FPs or Ops with this character yet).

 

1) How much of a benefit are the set bonuses? I can craft the 28 armorings with my Cybertech, which would gain me over 1,000 hp, but at the cost of the set bonuses. So which route is my best bet here?

 

2) Which augments should I be using? Absorb? Fortitude? Defense? Combo?

 

Thanks for any help!

 

Hey there Hestis,

 

When you first get to 55 and start wanting to do FP's you are going to notice your stats are in the crapper and you get hit in big volume bursts. But lets go about fixing those things as you seem to have already noticed.

 

1) Save your credits. Leave your 4 set pc alone. Feel free to upgrade your armorings Belt/bracer/OH, and one piece of main gear though. The 720 health you'd get from completely replacing your set bonus is not going to break or make you. That being said, if you are set on appearing as strong as you can possibly be go for it. I think it will make you weaker, but the content that you are doing won't really show it.

 

2) Get your defense up asap ~ 20% (700 rating). Most of the damage you are going to have incoming to you through flashpoints is melee/ranged. The fastest way to improve your mitigation initially is defense. The gear that drops for you will actually be defense orientated initially as well, so that just helps you out.

 

3) The biggest upgrades you can get right away are not the armoring or mods. Earpiece/implants get HUGELY buffed from old level 50 gear to your new level 55. Pick up a new set on the AH.

 

4) When you finally do start getting your new set pieces they do not stack, or fill in the gaps.

 

5) Never ever, ever, fortitude augment. Ever. Atleast for PvE. Use your augments to assist your mitigation. They'll end up changing from one type to another as you gear. Initially I was using mostly defense, followed by shield.

[Kitru]

1) How much of a benefit are the set bonuses? I can craft the 28 armorings with my Cybertech, which would gain me over 1,000 hp, but at the cost of the set bonuses. So which route is my best bet here?

 

The advantage of the higher level armorings isn't in the additional hit points. It's in the *much* higher armor rating and commensurate increase in your K/E damage reduction. If you're in Tionese, the set bonuses are *not* providing *nearly* as much as the higher level armoring you could be using. Were you in full 61/63s, it would be a different story (you'd want to keep the 61/63s until you got the 2 piece set bonus), but, as it stands, you should *really* get into the 28s as soon as possible.

 

2) Which augments should I be using? Absorb? Fortitude? Defense? Combo?

 

Never augment for Fortitude. Ever. You'll get all of the Endurance you need tangentially.

 

As to what you should aug for, it depends on the rest of your mitigation stats (Def, Shield, Abs). Check out either of these threads for the proper distribution. Keep in mind, the numbers used are for *ratings* not the listed percent. To find your ratings, on your character sheet, hover your mouse over the listed percent and a window will pop up breaking down what is contributing to your value; the rating should be listed there with the total rating in parentheses next to the contributing percentage.

[JMagee]

I have a lvl 55 Shield spec Vanguard tank. I don't do any PvP. Currently I just have the Tionese armorings, Cybertech 28 mods, and lvl 55 planetary comm enhancements in custom gear. I have two questions as I start to gear up a bit more (I have not done any kind of FPs or Ops with this character yet).

 

1) How much of a benefit are the set bonuses? I can craft the 28 armorings with my Cybertech, which would gain me over 1,000 hp, but at the cost of the set bonuses. So which route is my best bet here?

 

2) Which augments should I be using? Absorb? Fortitude? Defense? Combo?

 

Thanks for any help!

 

Well, before anyone can give you the best answer tailored to you personally, I think we need a bit more information for what you hope to pursue in end-game. But as a general explanation to your situation, I'll try to provide good insight.

 

The set bonuses on the supercommando set are pretty good. As I'm sure you know, the 2-piece increases uptime on reactive shield and riot gas, two important tanking abilities. The 4 set bonus of course increases defenses by 2%. So in question of equal level armorings, obviously the set bonus is better.

 

The level 28 armor schematics are sort of the bridge from pre-2.0 gear to post 2.0 gearing. If your tank was already in 61s/63s, I would forgo the 28 armorings completely, and focus on Black Market/Arkanian level set bonuses. But seeing that you're in tionese level (51s) armorings, the increased mitigation and HP from the 28 armormings will keep you alive longer than the set bonus.

 

As far as augments go, there are a lot of good resources around for calculating sweet-spots for tanking stats. I rarely tank on my VG, and am poorly qualified to offer specific numbers to shoot for, but in general you should use your augments to get shield/absorb/defense to those calculated ideal distributions.

 

All that being said...if I were you, my plan of attack would be as follows.

 

SM/HM EV+KP and SM EC Ops for 61/63 level armorings with set bonus. Perhaps craft a 28 Armoring or two to supplement a few slots you didn't get a drop for.

Once well geared in 61s/63s, ideally with set bonus, queue for 55HMs. As a tank there will be some growing pains, but the 55HMs are pretty well tuned for 61s/63s, especially now that a large portion of the people queuing with you have outgeared them.

After acquiring some Black Market (69s) from the HM FPs, as well as elite comms, beginning upgrading your 61/63 armorings to 69s. This is where I chose to lose my set bonus for increased DR and stats.

69 Armorings with the set bonus attached drop from lvl 55 SM ops (TFB + SaV) and Toborro's Courtyard. At this point you'll be ready to queue for those and start re-acquiring your set bonus with post 2.0 gear.

 

Hope that makes sense.

Edited July 18, 2013 by JMagee

[Justcae]

I don't know the change in armor of 4 pcs going from 51-69's. If it's less than 2% armor (arguably 3%'ish), he'll lose mitigation by switching the armorings.

 

Unfortunately I do not have any tionese armorings on anything to go back and check what he'd be at, regardless its going to be somewhere in that ballpark. Especially if he can have his pick of which armoring to change. If he can leave the head/legs/hands/feet and change his chest over to 69, he's going to see even less of a trade off from his flat 2% resist/defense. If he gets over that 3% change, otherwise, don't.

Edited July 18, 2013 by Justcae

[Kitru]

Unfortunately I do not have any tionese armorings on anything to go back and check what he'd be at, regardless its going to be somewhere in that ballpark.

 

It's important to remember that K/E DR is actually worth a fair deal *more* than an equal amount of Defense simply because VGs have so much *more* damage reduction than Defense and it's an additive percentage we're talking about here. Assuming 20% Defense and 50% K/E DR, 2% additional Defense is a 2.5% decrease in damage taken whereas 2% addition DR would be a 4% reduction in damage taken.

 

Even without doing the math, I can tell you that going from *any* pre-2.0 gear to grade 28s is better for you for VGs. As a Shadow (who gets less out of any point of armor rating than a VG does), the change from 63s to 69s was DR neutral (so you only swapped when you got the set bonuses since the 5% extra shield was more important). VGs would get proportionately *more*, even *with* the loss of the 2% Defense chance (the 2% Resist chance might as well not exist since it's so unlikely to actually *do* anything; it's a one-in-fifty chance of an attack missing).

 

The only class that has it as a question is the Shadow. For VGs and Guardians, it's a flat out "get the better armor rating".

[Hestis]

Thanks for the info! I realize it's hard without seeing my actual gear, but your responses gave me pretty much what I was looking for as a base to move forward.

[Brittaany_Banks]

Set bonuses are crucial for doing end game raiding. SM 55 Ops you can get away with having no set bonus but Hard Mode and beyond you better believe you're gonna need it. Trust me.

[Justcae]

It's important to remember that K/E DR is actually worth a fair deal *more* than an equal amount of Defense simply because VGs have so much *more* damage reduction than Defense and it's an additive percentage we're talking about here. Assuming 20% Defense and 50% K/E DR, 2% additional Defense is a 2.5% decrease in damage taken whereas 2% addition DR would be a 4% reduction in damage taken.

.

 

Before I start the Vanguard set bonus is not just 2% defense, it's 2% resist all basically. 2% Dodge + 2% Resist F/T. Its better than what you're saying even w/o the 2pc.

 

Beyond that it actually does work out to a 2% difference in armor mitigation. It basically works out to being basically even w/o the 2pc. And if there is any difference it is so minor as to be ignored. You will not see a difference. It becomes even less if you start getting your 72 armoring's in the off slots.

 

TLDR; You are going to be in the same spot tank wise regardless of what you do. The only question is how easy it is for you to get the 69 armorings. If they are hard, don't change it, if you are falling over them feel free.

[Kitru]

Before I start the Vanguard set bonus is not just 2% defense, it's 2% resist all basically. 2% Dodge + 2% Resist F/T. Its better than what you're saying even w/o the 2pc.

 

I actually *did* reference the contributions of the 2% Resist chance. It's such a *minute* chance, that it really doesn't matter. The only time that it would be "better" than an increase in K/E DR would be when dealing with I/E damage, wherein the fact that you're packing a 2% chance to avoid the damage completely doesn't really amount to much.

 

Consider a split whereing 50% of damage is M/R, 40% is F/T K/E, and 10% is I/E. 2% additional K/E DR (from 50%) would reduce incoming damage by 3.6% (.9 * (1-.48/.5)). 2% additional Defense and Resist chance (from 20% and 0%) would reduce incoming damage by 2.25% (.5 * (1-.78/.8) + .5 * (1- .98/1)).

 

The entire *point* I was making was that 2% Defense is worse than 2% additional DR by a *crapton* simply because we're dealing with additive percentage reductions in incoming damage. 2% DR means a *lot* when you've got 50% already, especially when you're comparing it to 2% onto 20% or 0%.

 

On *top* of this, DR is *static* mitigation whereas Defense is RNG mitigation. Static mitigation is the *best* kind of mitigation because it is *reliable* and never falters. You will *always* get contribution out of DR. Try this thought experiment on for size: imagine 2 tanks, one with 95% Defense chance and 0% DR and another with 0% Defense chance and 75% DR; a boss throws out an attack that deals 40k base damage (which is actually less than Terminate in SM S&V does); the first tank, even though it has five times the mean mitigation as the second, is going to die one out of every 20 times whereas the second is *never* going to die (assuming there's a healer there).

 

DR is the *best* kind of mitigation around, better than Defense, Shield, Absorb, or Resistance. There's a reason why the developers have gone out of their way to make sure that armor rating is a functionally static attribute: it's too damned good otherwise and it's the outright *best* thing for VGs and Guardians. The only reason Shadows clamber for the 4 pc set bonus is *because* it's 2% DR (which is also why there's a *damned* good argument for VGs and Guardians going with Shadow set armorings because, even *with* a wasted 2 piece set bonus, the 2% additional DR contributes more than their entire set bonus would otherwise).

 

Beyond that it actually does work out to a 2% difference in armor mitigation.

 

And, because it's 2% more damage reduction, that 2% is worth *much* more than 2% Defense/Resist. It's not a question of "they're both the same so it doesn't matter". The DR is *explicitly* more valuable. You would need to be getting 3.2% Defense to break even with 2% K/E DR. Even if you *do* care about the 2% resistance, it's such a *minute* contribution (a 2% *chance* to take no damage on 10% of incoming damage) that it would need to be doubled in size to provide the same benefit. You'll likely never even *notice* the 2% Resist chance, much less factor it in as anything approaching *reliable* (do you really want to count on an attribute that is only going to crop up in one out of every 50 "The End"s getting thrown at you?).

 

TLDR

 

TLDR: you can't do math. 2% DR is worth *way* more than 2% Defense. Dump the set bonus and get the higher armor rating: the set bonus does substantially less for you than the armor rating does.

Edited July 19, 2013 by Kitru

[Justcae]

tldr: Kitru, its amazing how over complicating you are making this situation. The guy is HEADING INTO 55 HM Flashpoints. The difference that he is going to see in his numbers between his set bonuses and two percent armor are NEGLIGIBLE.

 

I'm not arguing that 2% armor is going to be smoother than 2% resist all. I'm not even saying the resist is better. I'm saying that for the content in which he's gearing it SIMPLY is not going to matter. -At all-. The difference is so small as to be a non-factor When he does his SM 55 Ops he's going to get his 69 set pieces and the argument becomes null and void.

 

The OP can keep the set bonus, or change the armorings and he is -not- going to see any appreciable difference in his experience. Zero. Nada. Null.

Edited July 19, 2013 by Justcae