Quick Question: What to stack for vanguard tank?

[Lundorff]

Endurance or shield / absorb?

[Glower]

Why not both? But you will lose a lot of dps if you swap all mods to high endurance... I have one full tank with 54.6k hp (high endurance mods, full shield/absorb) and one with 50k hp (mid endurance mods and dps earnings/implants) ... and the difference in dps numbers is dramatic (50% or even more)!

 

Also my full tank is like a living fortress vs almost all classes.

 

So you just have to decide what do you want from your tank.

Edited July 28, 2015 by Glower

[Lundorff]

I would absolutely go full tank for this one. Is there a ratio for endurance / shield / absorb? Like 50% of every mod and augment should be endurance and the rest split between shield and absorb? Diminishing returns?

[Glower]

I don't know. I'm sure they are here... but i'm too lazy to find them for pvp, and i haven't seen them in same mode like for surge.

 

With purple end stim, without bolster I have :

hp 54658 (all hp and aim datacrons, purple end augs, max hp mods)

defense 11.09 (cant go any lower because of left side i think... lack of choices)

shield 36.75

absorb 40.06

and absorb and def relics (not sure if you can use 2 absorbs)

 

Maybe you will hit the caps with all cooldowns, but not in regular fight. And im ok with that.

 

Sometimes i can swap my left side to dps gear.

 

I think you can swap one crystal to endurance too, i did it before 3.0... but after 3.0, with all these HP pools? Meh

Edited July 28, 2015 by Glower

[Lundorff]

I thank you still. This does give me a sense of direction

[teclado]

This thread used to have some info regarding pvp tanking theory, but then the forums were changed a bit, the thread was lost and KBN had to redo it - the pvp section was never restored.

 

The theory for pvp though is that defense is not as useful since it is only good versus white damage (somebody correct me if wrong). Also, I think crits ignore shield. With those things in mind, I think it may be best to go with fortitude augments, stack shield and absorb with some defense. Of course, the absolute optimal stat distribution depends entirely on what is hitting you (white/yellow damage heavy, lots of auto-crits or not). Since the exhumed mods are relatively cheap now, you may want to experiment with different levels of shield/absorb/defense and see what seems to perform the best on average.

[Lalainnia]

Get a reactive warding relic instead of the def relic reactive warding cuts all damage done to you by 1625 w/e the tool tip is for 6 secs which is huge much better than def imo.

[mmmbuddah]

Damage mitigation > Endurance. Always

[Wainamoinen]

Damage mitigation > Endurance. Always

 

In PvE. Mitigation's less useful in PvP because less of the incoming damage is affected by it, so a big blob of endurance is the tanky way to go.

 

Not that I'm a tank - but that's what the tanks I say know, and what I know of the combat system backs them up.

 

Relics I don't know about, so it may be that this or that tank relic special effect is particularly useful.

Edited July 28, 2015 by Wainamoinen

[mmmbuddah]

In PvE. Mitigation's less useful in PvP because less of the incoming damage is affected by it, so a big blob of endurance is the tanky way to go.

 

Not that I'm a tank - but that's what the tanks I say know, and what I know of the combat system backs them up.

 

Relics I don't know about, so it may be that this or that tank relic special effect is particularly useful.

 

Some of my friends are trying tanking out, and have tried endurance and then did mitigation, and they said they stay alive a lot more with mitigation. I mean, what use is tons of health if you cant take the damage? So i mean, maybe a mix is in order, but just stacking endurance , that would be like a dps just stacking defense.

Edited July 28, 2015 by mmmbuddah

[Kabaal]

Some of my friends are trying tanking out, and have tried endurance and then did mitigation, and they said they stay alive a lot more with mitigation. I mean, what use is tons of health if you cant take the damage? So i mean, maybe a mix is in order, but just stacking endurance , that would be like a dps just stacking defense.

 

The Endurance stacking is for soaking up guard damage in PvP and no one only stacks it and ignores defensive stats, it's virtually impossible to do even if you tried.

[JestersRevenge]

Damage mitigation > Endurance. Always

 

No no no. Not with the current damage profile in PvP. There's arguments on both sides for PvE, but it's not applicable to PvP. Endurance (including augs), then shield, then absorb, no defense whatsoever, including relic. Go with straight damage reduction relic and the shield/absorb relic. In min/maxed rank gear I'm at 55k health and something like 36% shield, 38% absorb.

 

Edit: If Crinn pokes his head in here, do what he says.

Edited July 28, 2015 by JestersRevenge

[Glower]

Some of my friends are trying tanking out, and have tried endurance and then did mitigation, and they said they stay alive a lot more with mitigation. I mean, what use is tons of health if you cant take the damage? So i mean, maybe a mix is in order, but just stacking endurance , that would be like a dps just stacking defense.

 

For healing buffer so healer can calm down a bit and for the guard itself. Guard in PvP eats you alive most of the time. And guard in PvE is only for aggro...

Edited July 28, 2015 by Glower

[Wainamoinen]

Someone who knows better, please contradict me. Like I said, I'm not a career PvP tank:

 

SWTOR operates on a two-roll system.

First roll: do you hit? Misses may be deflect, dodge, parry, miss

Second roll, assuming a hit: what kind of hit? Crit, shield, or normal hit. Shielded hits are subject to absorb.

 

Defence: reduces opponent chance to hit.

Shield: increases chance to shield

Absorb: increases proportion of a shielded hit that's absorbed

 

Two factors make mitigation less effective in PvP:

Yellow attacks (Tech and Force) are around 70% of damage in PvP . They're not affected by defence and always hit (though may be resisted after hitting).

Autocrits - and very high crit cvalues - reduce the effectiveness of shield, because crits drive shield off the table. And so absorb is also reduced in effectiveness because it depends on attacks being first shielded.

 

These - and the fact you'll be soaking damage from guards - why you're better off going for Endurance to be a damage sponge.

 

Any of that not valid? I am fairly drunk.

Edited July 28, 2015 by Wainamoinen

[Zoom_VI]

Damage mitigation > Endurance. Always

 

Not inherently.

 

In PvP we only care about the Time To Kill (TTK) when it comes to measuring survivability. In SWTOR endurance point for point will give longer TTK than mitigation will, however this only applies if you have no incoming heals.

 

However with heals it gets interesting. Once a tank's post mitigation damage taken exceeds his HP value then endurance is no longer helping the tank and his health is completely the result of his healer rather than endurance. This is where the notion of mitigation > endurance comes from, and why a lot of healers like mitigation tanks.

 

But it's not so clear cut. Endurance does have value even with a healer, because a healer cannot always be healing the tank. Taking endurance and thus increasing maximum possible health means that a healer can "ignore" the tank for a longer period of time. The downside of this is that it takes more effort from the healer to bring the tank back up when the tank does eventually get low.

 

The general rule that I promote is that if you are fighting against a bunch of burst classes it's better to stack tons of endurance. If you are fighting "pressure" classes, which are classes who leverage sustained DPS to outpace your team's HPS, it's much better to use a high mitigation build.

 

For healing buffer so healer can calm down a bit and for the guard itself. Guard in PvP eats you alive most of the time. And guard in PvE is only for aggro...

As of 2.0 guard damage is affected by the tank's mitigation.

Edited July 28, 2015 by Zoom_VI

[DarthOvertone]

I have two tanks...a PT Tank and a Guardian. Both are now fully min/maxed. I've been testing the sweet spot out a lot for both, namely the sweet spot for Endurance, tanking secondary stats, and DPS. I've found that having more Endurance is better all around. Shield and Absorb secondary stats are nice and all, however, their efficacy really comes into question once you hit a certain range for stacking both stats. Right now I've settled on S/A 35% for each. My two tanks are each running with a health of 51K, although I'm testing 52K further on my Guardian.

 

I've found that being able to pressure opponents with DPS is more effective than just stacking shield and absorb to the hilt for survivability. Even if you gain an extra 1% Shield and 4% Absorb, it means nothing if you're just swinging a butter knife. Being able to pressure opponents, just that extra little bit, makes a huge difference. I'm pretty convinced that one doesn't need that extra less than 1% chance to absorb an extra 4% damage if the opponent is already dead. So I've added crit/power/surge to both builds after hitting the 35% point.

Edited July 28, 2015 by DarthOvertone

[Zoom_VI]

Yellow attacks (Tech and Force) are around 70% of damage in PvP . They're not affected by defence and always hit (though may be resisted after hitting).

 

Resist is the same as a "dodge" or "Parry." Resist is jut the nomenclature for defending a tech or force attack. Basically it's a miss. So no you can't resist after hitting because resist means it's didn't hit in the first place

[MiaowZedong]

Damage mitigation > Endurance. Always

 

This is true. However, in SWTOR PvP, there isn't very much mitigation, and what mitigation there is tends to be specific to a given opponent comp (e.g. defence against snipers, shield is less effective versus specs like Fury and Lightning that have rotational autocrits, etc).

Edited July 29, 2015 by MiaowZedong

[Zoom_VI]

This is true. However, in SWTOR PvP, there isn't very much mitigation, and what mitigation there is tends to be specific to a given opponent comp (e.g. defence against snipers, shield is less effective versus specs like Fury and Lightning that have rotational autocrits, etc).

 

See post 15. Mitigation ignoring effects are not as powerful as people think, since the majority of damage taken is mitigatable.

 

Last time I took a survey of the 60 bracket, I/E damage was barely 1/4th of my damage taken, and the raw crit rate of incoming attacks was around 23%, although accounting for offhand and secondary hit shenanigans that number is probably closer to 25% to 30%

[MiaowZedong]

See post 15. Mitigation ignoring effects are not as powerful as people think, since the majority of damage taken is mitigatable.

 

Last time I took a survey of the 60 bracket, I/E damage was barely 1/4th of my damage taken, and the raw crit rate of incoming attacks was around 23%, although accounting for offhand and secondary hit shenanigans that number is probably closer to 25% to 30%

 

Your post is a quality post. The problem though is still that over half all damage is going to be unmitigatible if you look at damage as a whole. A big flaw in your methodology is that besides the OH and secondary hits (like Lacerate's) you also have DoTs while autocrits tend to be big attacks that make up a disproportionate share of incoming damage. Against some specific comps it's definitely optimal to stack specific forms of mitigation but for a single set for all PvP it's a lot less attractive.

[foxmob]

does any of this matter for guard dmg? (serious question) you don't normally see a tank tunnel unless he's undergeared.

[Zoom_VI]

does any of this matter for guard dmg? (serious question) you don't normally see a tank tunnel unless he's undergeared.

 

 

As of 2.0 guard damage is affected by the tank's mitigation.

 

Does nobody read the thread before posting?

[foxmob]

depends on how interested in the topic I am. casual interest cuz nothing else is going on? meh. just last post and w/e's quoted.

[mmmbuddah]

Not inherently.

 

In PvP we only care about the Time To Kill (TTK) when it comes to measuring survivability. In SWTOR endurance point for point will give longer TTK than mitigation will, however this only applies if you have no incoming heals.

 

However with heals it gets interesting. Once a tank's post mitigation damage taken exceeds his HP value then endurance is no longer helping the tank and his health is completely the result of his healer rather than endurance. This is where the notion of mitigation > endurance comes from, and why a lot of healers like mitigation tanks.

 

But it's not so clear cut. Endurance does have value even with a healer, because a healer cannot always be healing the tank. Taking endurance and thus increasing maximum possible health means that a healer can "ignore" the tank for a longer period of time. The downside of this is that it takes more effort from the healer to bring the tank back up when the tank does eventually get low.

 

The general rule that I promote is that if you are fighting against a bunch of burst classes it's better to stack tons of endurance. If you are fighting "pressure" classes, which are classes who leverage sustained DPS to outpace your team's HPS, it's much better to use a high mitigation build.

 

 

As of 2.0 guard damage is affected by the tank's mitigation.

 

So in other words, do a combination of both. Because you can't exactly choose your enemy.

[Zoom_VI]

So in other words, do a combination of both. Because you can't exactly choose your enemy.

 

Wrong. It means have two sets of gear, b/c gear is cheap as dirt nowadays,,