Vanguard build critique

[Chazcon]

I'm a 55 vanguard, long experience tanking, I'm about to pull the trigger on $5MM in mods to build this: http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/51316739-deee-4003-aedc-d83fd0356448

 

I wanted your take on this if you are an experienced SWTOR tank, especially Vanguards. Thank you.

 

I typically build a 'mitigation tank', I'm a fan of high avoidance/resist/mitigations with lower health pool as trade off, not a big fan of the 'big 'ol bag of health' builds which I believe are a false road for tanking, borne out by my experience over time.

 

Notes on this build and what I was thinking:

a) all crafted gear at this time - will create a base build to expand on

b) max Endurance (Commando armorings)

c) max Defense stat

d) max Shield stat

e) trade out above to get Ranged Accuracy to 100%

 

Quick stats are (some rounded):

Ranged / Tech

Dam (Pri) - 1080-1331 / 1080-1331

Bonus Dam - 577 / 992

Accuracy - 100 / 110

Crit Chance - 12.95 / 13.44

Crit Multiplier - 51 / 51

 

Defense

Health - 35,038

Defense - 23.02

Shield - 28.81

Absorb - 27.23

 

My intention is to build this with all crafted gear and then get into higher level content to gradually flesh it out with dropped mods.

 

Some questions / thoughts:

1) 35,083 health seems excessive. Trade out all Commando armorings for Reflex to trade health for DPS? In most MMO games my build is purely defensive, I typically do very little DPS and am not looking to increase it for DPS sake alone, but only if it will increase my aggro capabilities. However dymanics here are a little different, what is your take on this?

2) Cap on Defense is 50% yet I can only achieve less than half of that (with all crafted gear).

3) Shield and Absorb caps are 70% and again it seems I (we) can only achieve a small proportion of that.

4) Balance is the most important thing when looking at a total build, what do you think of the balance between my DPS, health, defense, shield and absorb? Raising shield or absorb would mean trading off defense. Do you think that is appropriate?

5) How important is having 100% Ranged accuracy, we get a 10% boost to tech accuracy which is where many of our Vanguard skills lie. Is less than 100% ranged accuracy acceptable with 100% minimum tech accuracy? Because accuracy could be traded off for defense, shield or absorb.

 

Thank you for any comments, they are much appreciated!

[Chazcon]

Edited to remove these bad links, will post further down. Edited November 23, 2013 by Chazcon

[KeyboardNinja]

Thoughts in no particular order…

 

Accuracy is not useless for a tank, but it is so low priority as to be nearly useless, especially since you have to sacrifice shield rating to get it. Don't stack any. This is problem number 1 with your proposed AMR build.

 

Assuming you put all that accuracy rating back into defensive stats where it belongs and you get a pair of tanking relics (more on this in a second), your ideal itemization is going to be the following:

 

• Defense rating = 910
  
• Shield rating = 845
  
• Absorb rating = 512
  

 

On that subject, try to get used to thinking about itemization in terms of ratings rather than percentages. Percentages are highly deceptive. Beware anyone who claims that "x% is the cap for y stat". They probably don't understand what they're talking about. Diminishing Returns are in terms of ratings, not percentages (except for Expertise). Thus, character sheet percentages tell you very little.

 

For all your tank min-maxing needs, see this post! http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=616779

 

Relics… You have a DPS relic and an activated shield relic. Neither relic is best in slot for you. Pick up the Reactive Warding and the Fortunate Redoubt relics. The Fortunate Redoubt is worth about 150 more defense rating, which is really nice. You can get the Arkanian versions of these just by doing SM DF and DP.

 

You have a power crystal in your main hand. Swap that for endurance.

 

On that subject, I think it's worth keeping the Commando Armorings. Endurance isn't worthless. There are some serious spikes in the new content, and endurance provides a nice bubble. Don't sacrifice mitigation to pick up endurance, but also don't sacrifice endurance to pick up DPS.

 

You have all 31A mods. That's…awful. Don't use any mods with letters on them. You want exclusively "31" mods, no A or B.

 

You have a couple pieces with 72 Immunity enhancements. These are unobtainable in game. The best-in-slot enhancements at the 31 grade are Bastion (for defense) and Bulwark (for absorb).

 

Regarding your builds… they appear to be identical? Could you link skill trees directly please?

Edited November 23, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

[Chazcon]

KBN - thank you very much for taking the time to respond. Great information. Thanks most of all for teaching a man to fish

 

Following your advice and the stats budget info on your thread, I put this revised build together:

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/4b883b5c-f522-499c-9758-9827c9fbdf97

 

The skill tree is listed there as well. My stat budget (ratings) for defense/shield/absorb is 2085 and I split this into 842 819 424.

Edited November 23, 2013 by Chazcon

[Kuciwalker]

On that subject, try to get used to thinking about itemization in terms of ratings rather than percentages.

 

THIS. It is so frustrating having people ask itemization questions and talk about it in terms of "oh I hear I should have a 20% crit" or whatever.

[cxten]

KBN - thank you very much for taking the time to respond. Great information. Thanks most of all for teaching a man to fish

 

Following your advice and the stats budget info on your thread, I put this revised build together:

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/4b883b5c-f522-499c-9758-9827c9fbdf97

 

The skill tree is listed there as well. My stat budget (ratings) for defense/shield/absorb is 2085 and I split this into 842 819 424.

 

I may be a bit late to help, but you still have accuracy in your implants. Good implants can be tough to come by. Try these crafted ones: "Veracity Experimental Response Implant" (link). They're very high mitigation, but low endurance and main stat. Due to the super high mitigation, they're arguably better than anything below kell dragon (though I wouldn't fault you for swapping them out for underworld or verpine mk-2 if you get those).

[SithTyre]

Thoughts in no particular order…

 

You have a power crystal in your main hand. Swap that for endurance.

 

 

I ran endurance crystals for a loooong time, I am at the point now where both my crystals are hawkeye, the power ones, for the added power. 820 hps or 82 power? 820 hps seems meager and the tradeoff seems worth it. I will also switch to reflex barrel, the tradeoffs in HPs are minimal but the +to dps I like. Maybe its preference, but I have seen many higher end guild tanks (NiM SnV & TFB cleared) using the same-power crystals and main stat favored armorings (as long you still have the set bonus).

[Chazcon]

I may be a bit late to help, but you still have accuracy in your implants. Good implants can be tough to come by. Try these crafted ones: "Veracity Experimental Response Implant" (link). They're very high mitigation, but low endurance and main stat. Due to the super high mitigation, they're arguably better than anything below kell dragon (though I wouldn't fault you for swapping them out for underworld or verpine mk-2 if you get those).

 

Thank you very much, I used to run Veracity earpiece and implants, not sure how I got away from those. I will run the numbers tonight.

[TheSupaCoopa]

Duran'del Here:

 

VGs don't need very much defense. I personally keep it at ~17%. We're called "shield specialist" for a reason.