Ideal Tank Stats

[Aelanis]

Might depend on playstyle and tactic. Our tactic was to resolve the colour puzzle as fast as possible. Therefore rift dmg is lower than when you cheese the mechanic.

 

Colossal Monolith HM :

 

Bleeding - 454k - 54,1% Internal

Breaking the Rift - 191k - 22,7% Internal

Great Slam - 67,486 - 8% Kinetic

Bite Wounds -62,086 - 7,4% Kinetic

Swipe - 37,295 - 4,4% Kinetic

Destruction of all <Enrage ability> - 28,077 - 3,3% Kinetic

 

So its indeed a defense fight, there are no F/T attacks except for an attack called Terrible Shout. Which sometimes occur in my logs, no idea why it occurs. Maybe its the attack he does when the colour riddle has not been solved?

 

 

 

I/E is also reduced by 21% for Jug Tanks but i had less than 21% of defense during that fight even with retaliation buff.

 

Terrible Shout is the conal attack it does that leaves a dot on everyone caught in it. You shouldn't normally take it as a tank, but it happens from time to time, and sucks when it does.

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

So, for a Jugg Tank in 190 gear, what's the ideal distribution? It would be nice if like the old 2.0 distribution guide you could say what tier of gear each pool is (major tiers like 186, 190, 192, 198, etc.)

[Aelanis]

So, for a Jugg Tank in 190 gear, what's the ideal distribution? It would be nice if like the old 2.0 distribution guide you could say what tier of gear each pool is (major tiers like 186, 190, 192, 198, etc.)

 

190 is really a sub-tier. There aren't relics at that level, but it's fairly close to a 192 set using B mods, if you wanted something to go on. I'd imagine you're in the 3400-3500 range somewhere, but I don't know for sure.

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

190 is really a sub-tier. There aren't relics at that level, but it's fairly close to a 192 set using B mods, if you wanted something to go on. I'd imagine you're in the 3400-3500 range somewhere, but I don't know for sure.

 

Ok, thanks. I'm not 60 on the toon yet, but this helps to give a rough estimate for what my stats should be. Though, I still would like the ability to quickly glance at the spoiler for each Tank and see what stat budget is for what tier and also condensing the Spoiler Tag to just those key tiers.

[Hawk_IV]

I forgot to look at this chart in 3.0..... CRAP! I have already geared out my tanks. I have a lot of characters so i spread my time out A LOT. That said, i still want to be a useful tank(s) for my guild.

I have 5 tanks atm and a 6th coming up, so i have been just gearing them in a basic format.

This basic format I concluded to myself in 2.0 while looking at one of your defense charts showing the point of dimishing returns. So i geared out 5 tanks with this basic format. Tell me if I am doing something horribly wrong and if I need to re-gear all my tanks.

 

I have an average 3000 stat budget that is usually spent in around 1000 per mitigation stat (the 3 mit stats)

I try to reach 20% defense and then I try to put the rest into Shield/Absorb and balancing those two stats.

On my Shadows I stack Absorb because they get a lot of Shield from their Kinetic Ward. On my Vanguards I stack a lot of Shield because they get a lot of Absorb from Energy Blast. Once reaching to 20% defense on my Gaurdians I balance Shield/Absorb the rest of the way up.

I try to reach 50k health on all my tanks (though some are at 47k and such, but I'm getting there)

Edited May 29, 2015 by Hawk_IV

[CateranEnforcer]

Thanks for your work.

 

The thing I was noticing looking at the stats this time is the swing in defense needed is so big in these numbers that just using the average so you don't need 3 sets of gear doesn't seem as viable as in other patches. The need for defense goes from 100 to 200 on some fights and classes to 1000 to 1200 on others and then your average stat sheet has like 250. Average seemed to be closer in previous patches. Also walking into a fight with 1000 less defense then is optimum is big enough that your healers will have trouble overcoming it. It seems like this patch you really need to carry a couple pieces of extra defense gear for the high m/r fights. Am i making any sense? Do you feel the same way? Are you carrying extra gear this time?

 

Thanks again

 

I'm looking at creating a 2nd set of gear, and I'm wondering how important it will be to keep my armorings. As a guardian, I've struck a balance between my mid and high M/R values since they are very similar and looking to make a new set for my low M/R. As of yet, I only have one set of armorings for the set bonus, but it seems not to terribly vital for all fights. I'm most afraid of mechanics relying on a shorter taunt cooldown.

[Aelanis]

I'm looking at creating a 2nd set of gear, and I'm wondering how important it will be to keep my armorings. As a guardian, I've struck a balance between my mid and high M/R values since they are very similar and looking to make a new set for my low M/R. As of yet, I only have one set of armorings for the set bonus, but it seems not to terribly vital for all fights. I'm most afraid of mechanics relying on a shorter taunt cooldown.

 

No mechanics really "rely" on a lower taunt cooldown, per se, but you'll notice it and miss it when it's gone. One thing you can do to help is to make some extra pieces that don't have set bonuses to swap in and out, like your offhand, main hand, implants, and whatever piece doesn't have your set bonus. Main hand is a little harder, but implants are like candy, Biochems on my raid team have almost full bank tabs for RE purposes if we ever get to RE 198s.

 

All that said, if you're playing a Guardian and want to be competitive on fights like Master/Blaster, Coratanni, and Revan, you're going to need to get that low M/R set up and going, or you're going to take TONS of extra damage. Unless your raid team wants to literally gear up another tank for you, they're going to need to help you get those pieces. Which would make my entire first paragraph a moot point.

[KeyboardNinja]

No mechanics really "rely" on a lower taunt cooldown, per se, but you'll notice it and miss it when it's gone.

 

Revanite Commanders. Unless you simply don't swap during the soft enrage, you're going to need the shortened taunt CD. Believe me. I tried tanking it the other day on a tank who didn't have the 4pc, and I was like… uh, guys? :-) It's also super-useful on Coratanni, though not strictly required if you're able to really pump out the TPS.

Edited June 5, 2015 by KeyboardNinja

[Aelanis]

Revanite Commanders. Unless you simply don't swap during the soft enrage, you're going to need the shortened taunt CD. Believe me. I tried tanking it the other day on a tank who didn't have the 4pc, and I was like… uh, guys? :-) It's also super-useful on Coratanni, though not strictly required if you're able to really pump out the TPS.

 

Honestly, we have our Assassin taunt Sano just before he comes down to take the first kick, and he's dead shortly before/after the second, depending on how good of a night the DPS are having. So nope, we don't swap

[Iffyluse]

Is average profile good right now? Then gotta drop my Guardian from 1500 ish defense to 1189, this is gonna be interesting.

 

Thanks for crunching the numbers!

Edited June 7, 2015 by Iffyluse

[KeyboardNinja]

Honestly, we have our Assassin taunt Sano just before he comes down to take the first kick, and he's dead shortly before/after the second, depending on how good of a night the DPS are having. So nope, we don't swap

 

We kill Derron first, so usually we get two or three swaps. We've actually done Sano last quite a bit as well, which makes for… a lot more than three swaps. :-)

 

Incidentally, even if you shroud the kick, you still get ignored, so somewhere a DPS has to facetank Sano if not swapping.

[Aelanis]

We kill Derron first, so usually we get two or three swaps. We've actually done Sano last quite a bit as well, which makes for… a lot more than three swaps. :-)

 

Incidentally, even if you shroud the kick, you still get ignored, so somewhere a DPS has to facetank Sano if not swapping.

 

Let me clarify: we have our Assassin DPS taunt and take the first kick. We don't have an Assassin tank, as much as I sometimes wish we did. Since he basically drops and then kicks, the Assassin, after stun-breaking/shrouding the kick, gets to Maul to his heart's content.

[KeyboardNinja]

Let me clarify: we have our Assassin DPS taunt and take the first kick. We don't have an Assassin tank, as much as I sometimes wish we did. Since he basically drops and then kicks, the Assassin, after stun-breaking/shrouding the kick, gets to Maul to his heart's content.

 

Ah, that makes more sense! I wish I had a DPS with an off taunt for that bit. Without it, you have to ensure that your aoe taunt is available to start the soft enrage, which can be annoying.

[Aelanis]

Ah, that makes more sense! I wish I had a DPS with an off taunt for that bit. Without it, you have to ensure that your aoe taunt is available to start the soft enrage, which can be annoying.

 

I mostly think we developed that strategy while the tanks were gearing up still, back in SM, and since all of our groups have DPS that can taunt, we just stuck with it in HM. It requires slightly more healing than killing Deron first, and the damage the raid takes gets pretty sketchy if the DPS can't hack it, but neither of those things are usually problems for us, so it goes pretty smooth most of the time.

[OMGITSJAD]

Random quick question regarding Juggernaut stats in Coratanni. Unless you're tanking Pearl at the start, pretty much all the damage you're taking is m/r, disregarding internal/elemental damage from flame/corrosive. When you go into Ruggar, there's a lot more f/t damage, namely Jet Charge and the mines on the group that hit for 15-20k. However, a lot of this is avoidable or predictable(don't stand in mines at 10% HP and don't run away from ruggar/let him knock and charge to you too much/taunt him back from someone at 10% HP). The rest of Ruggar's damage is ranged or internal. Therefore, why would you say to only run 300 defense when we could still do good with stacked defense with all the shooting going on, especially during Coratanni(pearl has a hard hitting swoop but I am not worried about her damage during enrage the healers I have and I usually have plenty of cooldowns ready if I happen to get low)?

[Aelanis]

Random quick question regarding Juggernaut stats in Coratanni. Unless you're tanking Pearl at the start, pretty much all the damage you're taking is m/r, disregarding internal/elemental damage from flame/corrosive. When you go into Ruggar, there's a lot more f/t damage, namely Jet Charge and the mines on the group that hit for 15-20k. However, a lot of this is avoidable or predictable(don't stand in mines at 10% HP and don't run away from ruggar/let him knock and charge to you too much/taunt him back from someone at 10% HP). The rest of Ruggar's damage is ranged or internal. Therefore, why would you say to only run 300 defense when we could still do good with stacked defense with all the shooting going on, especially during Coratanni(pearl has a hard hitting swoop but I am not worried about her damage during enrage the healers I have and I usually have plenty of cooldowns ready if I happen to get low)?

 

Death Mouse explosions are Tech + K/E damage, and you can't simply ignore those, because they do hit rather hard. Jet Charge is a huge hit, and a significant amount of your damage taken, and while you shouldn't taunt Ruugar from far away at low health, that doesn't change that you can't defend the attack when you inevitably have to taunt him at range. On top of this, a very popular strategy for this fight is to have the tank not actively tanking Ruugar to clear up mines for the other tank/the melee so that the person tanking the boss can stay in one place with their back to a wall without worrying about the mines or extra Jet Charges after the Jet Boost. So yes, while you can ensure that you're at a good level of health to eat those attacks, you still have to take them, and gearing for Absorb is still the best way to reduce that damage.

 

In addition, part of the point of gearing for mitigation is to reduce the damage you take as much as possible. Assuming you'll just have cooldowns ready for when the huge hits are coming or that you'll have the hit points to take other big hits and using that as justification for not gearing against that damage is basically ignoring a very important principle of mean mitigation theory.

[OMGITSJAD]

Death Mouse explosions are Tech + K/E damage, and you can't simply ignore those, because they do hit rather hard. Jet Charge is a huge hit, and a significant amount of your damage taken, and while you shouldn't taunt Ruugar from far away at low health, that doesn't change that you can't defend the attack when you inevitably have to taunt him at range. On top of this, a very popular strategy for this fight is to have the tank not actively tanking Ruugar to clear up mines for the other tank/the melee so that the person tanking the boss can stay in one place with their back to a wall without worrying about the mines or extra Jet Charges after the Jet Boost. So yes, while you can ensure that you're at a good level of health to eat those attacks, you still have to take them, and gearing for Absorb is still the best way to reduce that damage.

 

I don't have to worry about mouse droids, no melee in my group.

 

Re-looking at my log, it seems like while tanking Cora, you would want a heavy defense set. Then while tanking Pearl, you'd want mixed. Then while tanking Ruggar, you'd want the heavy shield/absorb set. Bleh.

[Methoxa]

Cora does 35-40% of the damage that Ruugar does therefore you should focus your defstats more towards ruugar than Cora. However, the very reason for that is the poisened debuff of Ruugar. That attack is internal. Looking at the fight as a whole i would recommend a mixed set and not like some ppl suggest full absorb/shield.

 

My numbers :

 

Ruugar : 582k <51,5>

Cora : 343k <30,4>

Pearl 201k <17,8>

 

Poisened <Ruugar> Internal 301k <26,7>

Suppressive Fire <Cora> M/R+K/E 157k <13,9>

Ranged Attack <Cora> M/R+K/E 119k <10,5>

Land Mine <Ruugar> F/T+K/E 104k <9,2>

Pearl <Frenzied Onslaught> F/T+K/E 86k <7,7>

Pearl <Swoop> F/T+K/E 56k <5,0>

Pearl <Peck> M/R+K/E 45k <4,0>

Range Attack <Ruugar> M/R+K/E 37k <3,3>

Cull <Ruugar> M/R+K/E 32k <2,8>

 

The only reason you'd want absorb/shield is because of the land mines.

31,2 M/R+K/E

21,9 F/T+K/E

Dmg done of Cull is low for me because i use Saber Reflect.

 

However if your group does not lack Healing during the Cora phase you might be better off gearing towards Ruugar instead of Cora. But Ruugar deals less dmg than Cora if you ignore the poison debuff which is not affected by def/shield or absorb. Also does the Cora Phase last longer which means it is the major part in the fight. The question you can ask it " Why should i equip towards a phase of the bossfight which last 2min less than the first phase?" These thoughts are ofc independant of your raidgrp. If your raidgrp has an easy time in the cora phase but Ruugar phase is hard to heal, then ofc equip towards Ruugar. But seen globally it would be more use equipping towards Cora

Edited June 19, 2015 by Methoxa

[UberSamoyed]

Generalized question from someone building two tanks for Hm content. I'm more interested in a general building philosophy more than anything else since numbers will change as I progress.

 

This is my starting point:

 

Jugg/Tank

Set:192 6/7 w/ 198 deceiver armor/mods added in

Jewelry: 198 Deceiver Ear, all other 192 Resurrected

Mit budget: 1199/1223/1244

HP: 52113

 

PT/Tank

Set: 192 6/7 w/ 198 deceiver armor/mods added in

Jewelry: 198 Deceiver Ear, all other 192 Resurrected

Mit budget: 321/1795/1502

HP: 53046

 

As you can see, I've already started adding 198 Deceiver B-mods and ear for both. I don't really like the mit trade off for the implants due to the need to avoid defense rating. As I understand it, Resurrection gear is far more useful for Juggs due to the Strength added while stacking Deceiver B-mods benefits my PT more.

 

What I don't grasp is the proper framework to follow as you add Deceiver gear. Ideally, one would add set gear as they progress in Hm's. But, since I'm starting out Hm's on both, I'm curious as to the best gearing combination to start out of the gate. Or, does one really need to add deceiver mods once they have hit a sweet spot for mit stats? I started out with a 3700 mit budget on both before I started adding Deceiver gear. Now, I'm down in the 3600 range.

 

This leads to the obvious questions:

 

1. What is the initial sweet spot for both?

2. How much mit should you sacrifice for endurance before a margin of diminishing returns exists?

3. Which mit stat is ideal to sacrifice from for both?

 

 

I may be overthinking this. But, that's kinda the fun of being a tank. Any and all advice is welcome...especially from the Mitigation God.

Edited June 20, 2015 by UberSamoyed

[Gardimuer]

What I don't grasp is the proper framework to follow as you add Deceiver gear. Ideally, one would add set gear as they progress in Hm's. But, since I'm starting out Hm's on both, I'm curious as to the best gearing combination to start out of the gate. Or, does one really need to add deceiver mods once they have hit a sweet spot for mit stats? I started out with a 3700 mit budget on both before I started adding Deceiver gear. Now, I'm down in the 3600 range.

 

This leads to the obvious questions:

 

1. What is the initial sweet spot for both?

2. How much mit should you sacrifice for endurance before a margin of diminishing returns exists?

3. Which mit stat is ideal to sacrifice from for both?

 

 

I may be overthinking this. But, that's kinda the fun of being a tank. Any and all advice is welcome...especially from the Mitigation God.

 

The tradeoff between mitigation stats and endurance mainly revolves around the common huge spike damage in the HM boss fights. On bosses like Torque you may end up taking 20k+ unmitigatable damage in the course of a few seconds when things go wrong, so a larger HP pool is preferred to give healers time to react and bring you out of the danger zone. As a general guideline, you should aim for having at least 56.5k HP with a stim on. With HP levels above that you have more leeway to take mitigation instead of endurance if you so desire. I've heard that some tanks clearing HM Revan have 58k HP, but I'll let the more experienced tanks here weigh in on that.

 

Also, you want to make sure that the tradeoff when exchanging the stats is a good ratio. Here's a reference to show how much mitigation you get per point of endurance in various gear. (Loss:gain ratios are shown as Endurance:Mitigation)

 

 

 

Implants and Earpiece:

198 comm gear:

Endurance: 324

Shield:120

Mitigation stat: 124

 

198 token gear:

Endurance: 280

Shield: 120

Mitigation stat: 171

 

192 token gear:

Endurance: 208

Shield: 111

Mitigation stat: 156

 

Switching from 198 comm to 198 token is a 1:1 ratio (okay).

Switching from 198 comm to 192 token is a 2:1 ratio (bad).

 

 

Enhancements:

198 comm gear:

Endurance: 120

Shield: 113

Mitigation stat: 29

 

198 token gear:

Endurance: 72

Shield: 120

Mitigation stat: 81

 

192 token gear:

Endurance: 66

Shield: 111

Mitigation stat: 74

 

Switching from 198 comm to 198 token is a 4:5 ratio (good).

Switching from 198 comm to 192 token is a 1:1 ratio (okay).

 

Mods:

198 comm gear:

Endurance: 113

Mitigation stat: 72

 

198 token gear:

Endurance: 81

Mitigation stat: 90

 

192 token gear:

Endurance: 74

Mitigation stat: 82

 

Switching from 198 comm to 198 token is a 2:1 ratio (bad).

Switching from 198 comm to 192 token is a 4:1 ratio (terrible).

 

 

 

From this we see that:

 

Using 198 token Enhancements is always a good idea.

Using 198 token Mods is always a bad idea; use commendation Mods instead.

The difference between commendation and token Implant/Earpiece is smaller, so you can use token versions if you aren't having issues with getting spiked down.

 

For perspective, this is how much HP the different tank classes have in mixes of gear with stimm, etc.

 

Powertech and Juggernaut:

With some 192 token Enhancements/Armorings/Relic etc. but with commendation Ear, Implants and Mods: ~56,089

In all 198 token gear except for commendation Ear, Implants and Mods: 57,118

In all 198 token gear except for commendation Mods: 55,718

In full 198 token gear: 52,664

 

Assassin:

With some 192 token Enhancements/Armorings/Relic etc. but with commendation Ear, Implants and Mods: ~58,442

In all 198 token gear except for commendation Ear, Implants and Mods: 59,519

In all 198 token gear except for commendation Mods: 58,053

In full 198 token gear: 54,853

 

Excel spreadsheet for people who want to test HP level with different gear mixes: EnduranceCalculations

Edited June 21, 2015 by Gardimuer
info for Jugs and PTs

[Methoxa]

I've heard that some tanks clearing HM Revan have 58k HP, but I'll let the more experienced tanks here weigh in on that.

 

There are also Tanks who had 54.8k HP. But leaving Revan Hm aside and focussing on Jugg Tank :

 

First of all a Jugg Tank can be played differently from other Tankclasses. Having a big hp pool like Sins and PT is a common way to equip, but it is also possible to equip yourself with dd hilt, dd offhand armoring, and 1 setpiece dd Armoring to increase the absorb of your sonic barrier. You can even go further and exchance the 41 stamina crystals with 41 attackpower crystals. However i find the DR on the sonic barrier too strong in order to make more strength/ap viable enough but it will decrease your dtps. One thing to note is that the juggernaut is the Tank who receives the most dmg of Internal dmg sources if those are not reflectable. Examples are HK, Ruugar, Underlurker. Sins have a higher dmg reduction for internal dmg + the old setbonus. PTs have explosive fuel which give them 30% resist on internal attacks. It is your choice, i think both ways are viable. But i find it more important to give my healers more time before they need to heal me. Therefore i have more Hp. Sonic barrier is in my eyes not effective anymore to go with strength armorings/hilt and ap crystals. But it might be worth a try. Problem at this is, that your HP will lower drastically, youll be at 51k HP in full 198 which might make your squishy whenever sonic barrier is not up. Even though equipping for strength/ap will increase your shielding of sonic barrier by approx 300dmg, youll loose about 4k hp.

 

If you decide on going for more hp, only use 198 comm mods instead of tokens, never use comm enhancements or ear or implas. Your target defstats should be around 3700 - 3850. But this is only a personal reference. You opinion might differ. Furthermore you'd want to increase squishiness first and then spikieness. Squishiness can be reduced by hp and absorb and armor ofc. Increasing absorb to approx 44-46% without buffs will make it impossible for you to be squishy if you shield. Increasing spikyness means reducing the chance to be hit by a full blow. For M/R+K/E fights this means increasing defense chance and shieldchance. For F/T+K/E fights it means only increasing one's shield chance. Next you'd want to decrease dtps. Meaning changing equipment from boss to boss. For a F/T+K/E boss you'd want to increase absorb and lower defense. For a M/R+K/E fight you'd want to decrease absorb and shield but increase defense.

 

From a personal experience you are perfectly viable to tank with 54k hp even less is possible for most bosses. Also defstats are not too important for most bossfights. A good execution is mostly worth more than 50-100 defstats more.

 

1. What is the initial sweet spot for both?

 

Common believe is that 3843 defstats is a good way to equip yourself meaning wearing b-mods rest token gear.

 

3. Which mit stat is ideal to sacrifice from for both?

 

This depends on the bossfight. Some bosses need more defense heavy gear other bosses absorb/shield. Basically you cant sacrifice shield for endurance except if going for enhancements or ear or implas which would be a bad tradeoff. So you have to decide whether loosing some defense or absorb. But a little tip. The hard bosses tend to be absorb heavy.

 

Most of the things i wrote are just my personal opinion, keep in mind that there is no clear way on how to play a tank and how to equip it. In any case equipping yourself according to the dmg weights of a boss is the best way to help your healers. Decreasing squishiness or spikiness might help but also harm. Best way in my opinion is to try it out for yourself. Just experiment a little with your defstats. Like increasing shield to 54%. Ask your healers for feedback, look at your parse.

[UberSamoyed]

Thanks for the detailed response! I am in the midst of applying it and adjusting accordingly. Props!

[XisscVekno]

Squishiness can be reduced by hp and absorb and armor ofc. Increasing absorb to approx 44-46% without buffs will make it impossible for you to be squishy if you shield. Increasing spikyness means reducing the chance to be hit by a full blow.

 

I hate to chime in, but HP doesn't have anything to do with being squishy or not. You can have 40k or 100k if you don't have the mitigation then you are squishy.

 

Spikiness is only tied to the defense stat. Shield/absorb go hand in hand and reduce spikiness since they tend to even out the damage you take. Defense it's an all or nothing stat when it comes to damage. To put it in better terms we'll take the old WoW tanking stats/styles into account since almost everyone has played WoW and it closely resembles how this games tanking system works.

 

In WoW a Mitigation tank went after Armor, block, defense (only to push hit chances down and to push crushing blows off the table). To transfer those stats over to this game would be basically Armor, Shield, and absorb. The reason shield and absorb are tied together is because they affect how the other reacts. And with using the WoW example block rating was both block chance (Shield) and blocked amount (Absorb). These tanks also tended to run a little lower in health since they had a more stable and predictable DTPS for healers to deal with.

 

In WoW a Spiky tank or Evasion tank went after Armor, Defense, Dodge, Parry, and Health. The reason these tanks where spiky because you never knew when they where going to get hit really hard. They could go a long time with out taking very much damage or they could get hit hard a bunch of times in a row. So if we take what the stats where in WoW and translate them to this it's pretty much the same armor, defense, health. The reason why these tanks valued health more than their Mitigation counter parts was because of the fact you never knew when they where going to take big hits and how often. They where also harder to heal because of this.

 

And a Squishy tank in WoW was a tank that lacked enough stats to fit in either category. Which can apply to this game as well. like having a tank that has nothing but com gear for an example. They have 80k health, but no mitigation to make that 80k health worth it.

 

Now I'm not saying the WoW and SWTOR are exact copies of tanking systems, but they are very very close.

Edited July 2, 2015 by XisscVekno
Exlpain the difference between squishy, spiky, and mitigation.

[Methoxa]

Squishiness also resembles the factor how much damage a hit does compared to your HP. If you have 400k hp and get hit by 30k it is not squishy. But if you have 35k HP and get a 30k hit this is considered squishy. Squishiness basically is how suddenly and how strong your HP drops.

 

Spikyness on the other hand, determines how often you get a full hit. The more often you get hit by a full blow without shielding it the worse your spikyness is. For a bossfight which has M/R+K/E dmg income defense also plays a role in the calculation of spikyness as does shieldrating. Spikyness is not mitgation.

 

Spikiness is only tied to the defense stat. Shield/absorb go hand in hand and reduce spikiness since they tend to even out the damage you take. Defense it's an all or nothing stat when it comes to damage

 

Defense = avoidance

Shield = how often you mitgate an attack

Absorb = How strong you mitgate an attack

 

Defense + Shield = Mitgation

 

Avoidance can also be seen as an mitgation factor. The more mitgation i have the lesser the chance of a strong blow. If i avoid this attack or shield itmakes no difference for spikyness, but for squishiness

 

In WoW a Mitigation tank went after Armor, block, defense (only to push hit chances down and to push crushing blows off the table). To transfer those stats over to this game would be basically Armor, Shield, and absorb. The reason shield and absorb are tied together is because they affect how the other reacts. And with using the WoW example block rating was both block chance (Shield) and blocked amount (Absorb). These tanks also tended to run a little lower in health since they had a more stable and predictable DTPS for healers to deal with

 

Wow is something else because Tanks were able to achieve 100% mitgation, thus Dodge+Parry+Block = 101%. In Tor you can not thus you will eventually getting hit by a full blow, which can make you squishy. Furthermore there are Attacks that can not be avoided or shielded. In the new content this type of dmg was increased. Your only protection to buy your healers more ttl would be to increase your hp.

 

In WoW a Spiky tank or Evasion tank went after Armor, Defense, Dodge, Parry, and Health. The reason these tanks where spiky because you never knew when they where going to get hit really hard. They could go a long time with out taking very much damage or they could get hit hard a bunch of times in a row. So if we take what the stats where in WoW and translate them to this it's pretty much the same armor, defense, health. The reason why these tanks valued health more than their Mitigation counter parts was because of the fact you never knew when they where going to take big hits and how often. They where also harder to heal because of this.

 

First of all there is not something like an evasion tank in Tor. This has to do with the defstats being helpful for some of the dmg types. Defense only helps against M/R+K/E. So there would be no reason for evasion tanking a boss who does mainly F/T+K/E dmg. However as i stated earlier, in Tor you cant increase your mitgation to 100%+ which means basically every Tank in Tor is an evasion tank. The scenario you are describing however helps me to explain squishiness and spikieness better. You are saying that evasion tanks are harder to heal because you "never knew when they where going to get hit really hard". Those hard hits describe squishiness, and can be decreased. To decrease all squishiness armour, dmg reduction and health would be helpfull. To decrease squishiness on attacks you shielded absorb would be helpful + the others already mentioned. This is however only viable for M/R+K/E and F/T+K/E dmg. Thus if you are spiky in phase where F/T+I/E dmg occurs only hp and dmg reduction will help you. Next you are saying that they can "get hit hard a bunch of time". This is basically spikieness. It describes the chance of being hit hard. Question is when are hits hard? In a way all hits we don't defend or shield are hard. But most attacks consist of severall small attacks. Therefore the "unlucky" factor was partially removed. But there are still attacks that hit hard, i.e. Underlurker has an attack that hits for 25k if not shielded. To decrease spikieness one can increase defense for M/R+K/E fights or shield for M/R+K/E and F/T+K/E fights.

 

You are saying that shield and absorb are somehow linked together. From a tc perspective your words should be followed by numbers and formulas. It is true that if you equip for dtps minimization there is a certain ratio between shield and absorb. but tanking is more than dtps minimization. In Wow Tanks already knew about TTL and in Tor HP is even more valuable, as it is the only defense against F/T+I/E damage.

Edited July 3, 2015 by Methoxa

[XisscVekno]

I'm sorry, but Defense is not a mitigation stat. It's an avoidance stat. You are either hit for all or nothing. This is why it's considered a spiky stat and tanks that stack tons of Defense are spiky.

 

Mitigation refers to lessening the blow of an attack... IE, Shield + absorb, armor, and Damage reduction passives.

 

health only helps with unavoidable spike damage. For an example, if you have two tanks, one with proper stats and one with all health, the one with all health will be squishy. If you stack health on sorc to get to health numbers a proper itemized tank has.... that doesn't make the sorc less squishy, it makes him able to deal with spike damage. it's why in PVP health is more valuable than it is in PVE. PVP is all about burst and surviving that burst.

 

As far as shield and absorb goes, you don't need numbers to figure out that they both need each other. it's like stacking crit and ignoring surge. it makes crit less useful. If you have low to no absorb shielding an attack does little to nothing, if you have a ton of absorb but no shield absorb sits there doing nothing. This is why if you use WoW terminology for Shield and absorb it becomes block rating. Which is a mitigation stat/s.