A question about Tanking Modifications

[Deathstalker_]

I'm probably being stupid about this, but I won't know for sure unless I ask. While I understand the usefulness of Endurance-heavy Primary modifications (Armorings, Hilts, and Barrels), the fact is that Threat is based off of damage; the more damage you do, the more Threat you generate. I would therefore think that using Primary-heavy modifications would result in better damage (and therefore more threat) than Endurance-heavy ones. Now, I'm confining this exclusively to the Primary modifications because, as far as I'm aware, they only ever have the Primary stat and Endurance; there's no secondary stat to screw up. To my eyes, using a Might Hilt on a Guardian/Juggernaut (for example), in conjunction with the standard Endurance-heavy Mod and defensive Enhancement, would result in better damage (and therefore better Threat), and all you'd lose is some health. Is this viable at end-game, or has the theorycrafting community already considered and discarded it?

[KeyboardNinja]

It's a subject of heated debate. Or rather, it has been. In general, I tend to think that HP does have value in giving healers a burst cushion to work with. This is particularly noticeable on some fights, like the Dread Masters, where you're getting bursted while the healers are being forced to look away for a few GCDs.

 

I find my threat and damage to be more than adequate. With the appropriate opener, there is no real danger of losing agro. I can tank the TfB NiM tentacles against two DPS parsing over a 3.5k without having either of them guarded and without losing agro even once. Normally I try not to cut things so close, but the point is that the potential is there. This is with high endurance armorings and hilt.

[Deathstalker_]

That makes sense. It was a thought that had occurred to me because of a thread I took part in back when I was playing Dragon Age: Origins. People were trying to decide which was better: an Avoidance Tank, or a Tank with lots of Endurance. Someone came along and stated that, while both allowed the character to survive, they didn't necessarily make him a Tank, as every point you put into the appropriate stat was a point that wasn't put into their damage-dealing stat. The result was a character who could survive, but wasn't able to generate and keep threat because they'd paid no attention to their damage output. The Old Republic doesn't have the same issue with stats, but it's something I've kept in mind ever since I heard it, and was curious about how it played out here.

[Elyx]

technically, endurance is important, but not as important as mitigation stats. in this game, they all work in a balance. a mitigation heavy tank with poor health will take less damage overall, but will be more in danger of heavy hits taking them down too fast for the healer to keep up. an endurance heavy tank will suffer the same, but from a different perspective. he will seem to have a ton of health, but the lower mitigation stats will cause him to take more damage, and eat that health up fast.

 

many other players in other MMO's have coined the phrase "effective health" to describe the interaction between actual health and mitigation stats. I don't see it too much here in the forums, but overall you still have to balance all of them out.

 

and as stated above, the only time you should be worrying about threat is when your losing it more often then you should. And unfortunately, I can guarantee that as gear levels rise in comparison to skill thresholds (which is usually later in the meta game cycle like we currently are), threat is more of an issue. then when expansions come out, and the gear cycle resets (you level up again, skills get more powerful, etc), and threat is a non issue...until gear levels rise too high once again.

 

Short and skinny: at this stage in the game, you wont' be able to stack enough offensive stats to keep up threat with raw "damage" without sacrificing critical mitigation stats to do so. this would directly undermine the second part of your job...surviving the mobs once you have threat. and our taunts are not zero sum...they build a threat advantage ahead of whoever is highest on that mob, so in themselves they are an effective threat tool. So that's essentially why we don't worry about threat as much...and when we do, we look more at rotation, or class balance, or simply asking our DPS to lay of for a few seconds longer on the pull.

[lokiwalker]

Short and skinny: at this stage in the game, you wont' be able to stack enough offensive stats to keep up threat with raw "damage" without sacrificing critical mitigation stats to do so. this would directly undermine the second part of your job...surviving the mobs once you have threat. and our taunts are not zero sum...they build a threat advantage ahead of whoever is highest on that mob, so in themselves they are an effective threat tool. So that's essentially why we don't worry about threat as much...and when we do, we look more at rotation, or class balance, or simply asking our DPS to lay of for a few seconds longer on the pull.

 

This I believe is important, Taunts do need to be used. In other games a taunt was more of an OHcrap button, whereas in SWTOR it is more a part of building (gaining) threat.

 

To your original question you should make sure all your mitigation stats are at the proper levels and then balance your endurance Str to make sure that you have enough HPs.

 

Keep in mind that when leveling all this goes out the window and you can get away with a lot of +str mods and a little less endurance.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=616779

 

Check out the link for proper stat distribution.

Edited December 10, 2013 by lokiwalker
Added link