Endurance v. Willpower (Shadow Tanking)

[DarthMarcin]

So, endurance or willpower?

[Tetrodotoxin]

So, endurance or willpower?

 

You want enough endurance to give your healer time to react and heal you up again. Any endurance after that only serves a purpose if your healer dies.

 

After that you want as much threat generation as possible as to allow your dpsers to do their job and for your group to beat the hardmode flashpoints before the boss enrage on you.

 

Secondary tank stats are always good though, as they add mitigation, not only time to live without heals. Remember to have a second gearset for pvp which is focused on offense, most player abilities ignore your defensive stats totally.

[Eranus]

Alright, I will try to summarize it without too many numbers, seeing that they make my eyes go fuzzy. Anyways, here comes the point.

For stats you should aim at endurance, defense, shield absorption, shield rating / chance, willpower.

Basicly you want enough hp to keep you alive, true enough. But on the other hand you have to balance it out with damage mitigation abilities. Which means defense / shield related stats, as you are worth squat, even at 20k+ hp if you take 12k dmg each hit because your defense is crap.

Willpower in my opinion is the tertiary stat that helps your damage and thus your aggro. Basicly try to keep it up, but don't sacrifice too much for it, otherwise things will go south.

Remember though: Your shield will not help you at all when it comes to elemental damage and the like. Which means for PvP that any class that circumvents the standard damage (kinetic) can turn into a nightmare depending on their gear, skill, your own gear + skill, cooldowns etc.

[ragamer]

First of all there a few misconceptions and concepts "inherited" from other MMOs that do not apply correctly to TOR Shadow Tanking.

 

"Endurance vs Willpower"

 

What you are asking is Survivality vs Threat generation. That's an option you have to choose yourself BUT, compared to other tanks, Shadows generate high basic threat anyways (Even if you are an old school tank and consider Taunt spam a silly way to tank)... If you were a Jedi Guardian, then the issue would be more problematic but with the "basic Willpower" you will get on Armoring/Hilts/Mods you will be more than set.

 

 

Why Endurance is a mitigation stat for Shadows?

 

Some ppl comes to this thread with some fancy theories they learned on other MMOs and forget to apply them to the game we are in:

 

"Harnessed Shadows" & "Impact Control" are 2 excellent Skills that DIRECTLY scale with Maximum Health... They will not save your *** by themselves BUT they will give you an edge over other tanks on the survivality department.

 

 

Shield Rating can be your enemy is the main problem that distinguishes Shadow Tanks from JG or VG. Let me ellaborate why.

 

The typical "advice" born from copy'n pasting what some ppl reads on other classes which is normally the Defense > Shield > Absorption rule applies in general but there are a lot of comments to add here from Shadow PoV:

 

- Shield and Absorption. The way they are implemented on ToR, have exactly the same effect on your average mitigation. The main difference is that a High shield tank looses HP in a steadier way than an Absorption tank that looses them on "chunks"... If your healers are the healbot type that do not adapt their cycles to the real condition of their tank then Shield Rating has precedence. But if you have competent healers there shouldn't be a difference.

 

- Diminishing Returns. As most posters highlight, on ToR, diminishing returns can be harsh... You can't avoid the Armor Rating one but you have to play smart with the Defense + Shield + Absorption. Here the "formulas" you have seen are usefull because allows you get the best mitigation with a certain total item allocation but... Are calculated for the wrong tank and copy'n pasted to Shadows.

 

- "Double-bladed Saber-Defense" vs "Kinetic Ward". Here is why most copy'n paste reassonings fail to apply to Shadow Tanks. Energy Balance is key on threat generation... Well here is were you have a conflict. You like to have more Shield than Absorption so DSD has higher chances to happen BUT... If your KW is triggered too often, you have to reaply on shorter cycles that will reduce not only the energy available for other things but that will also waste valuable GCDs while doing so. This usually happen when you tank multiple targets, or are attacked by a Single enemy with lots of procs or DoTs.

 

- Force/Tech Powers vs Ranged/Melee Attacks. At least versus players, the former ALWAYS come with an extra 10% Accuracy which in turn makes your defense always less usefull because anything over 100% reduces your defense chances. Meanwhile your Shield & Absorption is unnafected by this. Meaning that against "Powers Trigger Happy" enemies your shield becomes a more important layer of defense (As usually they also have a dramatic tendency to do elemental/internal damage which, ALSO, ignore armor).

 

 

So if you aren't bothered to check all the above reassoning and you have all the skills I mention on your build (Which probably is the case) go for something like:

 

- 3/2/2 regarding Defense/Shield/Absorption. On Enhancements. NEVER neglect Accuracy (You typically can get the ammount you need on the "basic" stats... BUT failing hits is something that shouldn't happen as a tank, specially on PvE).

 

- When you have the option (Armoring, Mod) go for Endurance over Willpower.

 

- Be sure you carry as much Augments as possible in your gear (Harder the deeper you go in the gear grind) because they are the ONLY slots allowing full control on your final operative stats so you can tweak them so your Shadow Tank is balanced towards the diminishing returns AND getting max advantage of your special skills that make you a different tank the JG, VG are.

 

 

EDIT: Obviously I'm a Rep player, but so far, the symetry with Imp Assassin is 100% name change, afaik.

 

EDIT2: Forgot about Accuracy warning.

Edited January 19, 2012 by ragamer

[Kitru]

What you are asking is Survivality vs Threat generation.

 

No, it's not. The first problem with this question is that it ignores the substantial contributions of tank DPS to a fight. Why is this important you ask? Well, 2 reasons.

 

The first is that enrage timers are *friggin' tight* in TOR. Pretty much every boss in HMs and OPs has an enrage timer and chances are *excellent* you will hit said enrage timer without everyone going crazy on damage *and* doing the fight properly. The additional damage you get from additional WP is not simply a threat generator, since, after the first 10 seconds of a fight, threat and threat reestablishment can only be appreciably affected by Taunt (since it sets your threat to 110% of the threat of whoever has the highest threat if the target is not already attacking you).

 

The second is that Endurance does not actually increase your survivability and by "increase your survivability" I mean that it will actually make you take less damage or avoid being 1 shot. The Willpower stacked gear has *more* than enough Endurance on it to keep you from being killed in a single attack, *especially* if you are stacking the tank stats properly like you should be. Loads of math in this thread has been done to point out exactly how worthless stacking Endurance beyond the point where your healer has a comfortable window to heal you is.

 

Why Endurance is a mitigation stat for Shadows?

 

Some ppl comes to this thread with some fancy theories they learned on other MMOs and forget to apply them to the game we are in:

 

The additional contributions of mitigation through healing provided by additional Endurance are so minor that it's functionally pointless to bring them up. The comparative advantages for stacking an additional 200 points of Willpower are roughly 10 hp/sec, meaning that each point of End only "mitigates" ~.05 hp/sec, which is so low that it's functionally pointless to bring it up.

 

The only *appreciable* benefits provided by Endurance are the direct increases to your health pool, which as I have stated repeatedly, have no effect upon your survivability beyond a certain point easily attained tangentially.

 

- "Double-bladed Saber-Defense" vs "Kinetic Ward".

 

That's not even a real concern. I have no idea why you even bring it up. Kinetic Ward should *always* be kept up because it costs a pittance (except in situations where all incoming damage ignores Shield Chance wherein it's pointless). DBSD provides slightly more than 1 Force/sec. Kinetic Ward costs 10 Force every 12 seconds *at most*. The resource benefits and costs of each are only appreciable over long periods of time and the cost of KW are vastly outweighed by the substantial damage reduction experienced.

 

- Force/Tech Powers vs Ranged/Melee Attacks.

 

First off, you're demonstrating a distinct lack of knowledge about the given mechanics of Force/Tech v. Ranged/Melee attacks. The only attacks that can be Shielded against (and thusly have Shield and Absorb rating provide *any* benefit) are Melee/Ranged attacks. Force/Tech attacks cannot be shielded against and use resistance chance rather than defense chance to determine whether they hit. In essence, the only attacks that tanks actually mitigate to any appreciable extent are Melee/Ranged attacks because everything else used ignores all of the tank stats and a vast majority of the talents that we get.

 

Of course, this is only really a concern in PvP since a vast majority of player attacks are Force/Tech. A scant few PvE fights deal a predominance of Force/Tech damage, but for those, as a tank, your job is more to keep aggro than it is to soak effectively (even though tanks *do* take less damage thanks to superior damage reduction, it's simply not to the same extent as that expected by the sum of your mitigation mechanisms).

 

- 3/2/2 regarding Defense/Shield/Absorption. On Enhancements. NEVER neglect Accuracy (You typically can get the ammount you need on the "basic" stats... BUT failing hits is something that shouldn't happen as a tank, specially on PvE).

 

First off, this information is functionally worthless since a 3:2:2 split only pays attention to ratings rather than actual mitigation percentages, which are what you actually want to look at to determine the most optimal mitigation. The best advice is to stack Shield and Absorb such that the end percentages are equal (which, for Shadows, means stacking way more Absorb than Shield for a good while) and stack as much Defense as you can get otherwise. Since Defense rating adds to the percentages at substantially worse rates and suffers from drastically worse DR, you should stack Defense heavily until you get to the point where your Shield Chance and Absorb Value get above 50% each (re: intro tier raid gear) at which point you should leave Defense largely alone and stack Absorb and Shield rating to achieve optimal mitigation.

 

Also, as a tank, especially a Shadow, you can pretty easily ignore Accuracy completely. Why? Well, first off, a vast majority of our damage and threat is provided by Force powers, which have a default 100% chance to hit. Secondly, all but one of our attacks that *do* have a 90% hit chance are *multiattacks*, meaning that the chances of missing completely (and not triggering the relevant procs, since that's really the important thing about our melee attacks) is actually 1% or lower, meaning that the advantages of gaining Accuracy are virtually nonexistent and the penalties to ignoring it are similarly nonexistent. If anything, you should be trying to *avoid* Accuracy rating such that you can stack more mitigation stats (defense, shield, absorption) since Acc rating uses the same itemization as those.

 

- When you have the option (Armoring, Mod) go for Endurance over Willpower.

 

This is what this entire thread is about and you're fundamentally wrong. The additional Endurance is *not* worth it since it has no appreciable impact on your survivability in situations with a healer. If you don't understand this, read the thread and correct yourself. The math is all there. Giving your healer an extra 2k to heal before you die is going to be *much* less useful than simply dealing more damage outright, especially since you get *more* than enough Endurance with *any* armoring/hilt. The "tank" armoring and hilts are largely worthless since Endurance is largely worthless whereas the "DPS" armoring and hilts provide the same armor value and damage while providing more than enough Endurance to be an effective tank while *also* providing you with more damage to beat those damned enrage timers.

[Ahrounmoon]

Why Endurance is a mitigation stat for Shadows?

 

Some ppl comes to this thread with some fancy theories they learned on other MMOs and forget to apply them to the game we are in:

 

"Harnessed Shadows" & "Impact Control" are 2 excellent Skills that DIRECTLY scale with Maximum Health... They will not save your *** by themselves BUT they will give you an edge over other tanks on the survivality department.

 

I'm going to nitpick, and I call it nitpicking because I think you know the difference, but the way this is worded is a bit misleading. You're not really mitigating the damage. You're recovering from it. Which is part of the entire tanking package, to be sure, but easily bypassed if those abilities are on cooldown or unable to be activated. It can also easily go to waste if the healers keeping you up don't allow for it. So for that reason self healing tends to be more of an afterthought.

 

It's also worth noting that Powertechs/Vanguards also have a self healing cooldown which scales off of max health. I could not find one for Guardians/Juggernauts.

[Ahrounmoon]

No, it's not. The first problem with this question is that it ignores the substantial contributions of tank DPS to a fight. Why is this important you ask? Well, 2 reasons.

 

The first is that enrage timers are *friggin' tight* in TOR. Pretty much every boss in HMs and OPs has an enrage timer and chances are *excellent* you will hit said enrage timer without everyone going crazy on damage *and* doing the fight properly. The additional damage you get from additional WP is not simply a threat generator, since, after the first 10 seconds of a fight, threat and threat reestablishment can only be appreciably affected by Taunt (since it sets your threat to 110% of the threat of whoever has the highest threat if the target is not already attacking you).

 

My question is almost moot given that from your position tank DPS actually matters, but would the tank that sacrifices the estimated 200 willpower for endurance begin to have threat problems or is the above statement saying that neither one should be having trouble given that they both otherwise know what they're doing?

 

Forgive me if it's been answered before, but I see people having trouble with threat rather often both in game and on the forums. It's sort of a "learning to walk before you can run" type question.

[Kitru]

would the tank that sacrifices the estimated 200 willpower for endurance begin to have threat problems or is the above statement saying that neither one should be having trouble given that they both otherwise know what they're doing?

 

Neither tank should be having appreciable threat problems with or without Willpower stacking, assuming they know what they're doing, their group knows what they are doing, and the tank is not hopelessly outgeared by the DPS. After the first 10-20 seconds of a fight (re: when threat levels are high enough that the 10% difference in threat takes longer than 15 seconds to generate), any tank should have no problems keeping threat with the available tools.

[Arbegla]

No, it's not. The first problem with this question is that it ignores the substantial contributions of tank DPS to a fight. Why is this important you ask? Well, 2 reasons.

 

The first is that enrage timers are *friggin' tight* in TOR. Pretty much every boss in HMs and OPs has an enrage timer and chances are *excellent* you will hit said enrage timer without everyone going crazy on damage *and* doing the fight properly. The additional damage you get from additional WP is not simply a threat generator, since, after the first 10 seconds of a fight, threat and threat reestablishment can only be appreciably affected by Taunt (since it sets your threat to 110% of the threat of whoever has the highest threat if the target is not already attacking you).

 

So what your saying is that because 'everyone is not going crazy on damage' that tanks should then pick up the slack via slotting willpower because enrage timers are something to actually worry about, and then you follow it up by saying that threat is a non issue (probably because everyone isn't going crazy on damage) and because of the way 'Taunt' works, you should basically always be able to handle any given threat amounts after the first 10 or so seconds of a fight.

 

I fail to see how a tank adding ~70DPS (your number I might add) is going to make up for DPS (the players playing the role of DPS) not doing their full part. If they are not going balls to the wall DPS then they are not doing their job properly, and trying to turn yourself into a DPS tank to make up for it isn't the best method to fix the problem. If you are actively hitting every single enrage timer on every single fight, then adding more willpower to your tank isn't suddenly going to make everything better. There are far more issues at hand then just 'adding more DPS to the tank' would be able to fix.

The second is that Endurance does not actually increase your survivability and by "increase your survivability" I mean that it will actually make you take less damage or avoid being 1 shot. The Willpower stacked gear has *more* than enough Endurance on it to keep you from being killed in a single attack, *especially* if you are stacking the tank stats properly like you should be. Loads of math in this thread has been done to point out exactly how worthless stacking Endurance beyond the point where your healer has a comfortable window to heal you is.

 

Aside from the increase in self healing, which I will agree that it is a minor amount (but it is still present, and is a straight decrease in incoming damage regardless of your other mitigation abilities) I will agree that endurance does not actually lower the amount of damage you are taking. It just allows you to take more damage. Your again saying that 'well, if your not killing in 1 shot, then you have enough hit points' where that isn't always the case. What your saying there is that once you have above 4300 hit points, as that is the amount of DPS a boss does, you don't need to stack anything but mitigation stats (defense, absorb, shield, etc) because you can survive for 1 hit.

 

The problem with that isn't just the fact that its flat out silly, its that you need to adjust for your healers reaction time. You are constantly assuming that the healer is giving upwards of 90% attention to a tank at all time, which is just simply not a correct assumption. At BEST a healer is giving 70% attention to the tank, as they have plenty of other people to worry about healing, and abilities to worry about. Assuming any higher then 70% skews your perspective on how raid mechanics themselves work and how group mechanics themselves work. This isn't just about a tank and a healer. This is about a tank, a healer, and some DPS.

 

The additional contributions of mitigation through healing provided by additional Endurance are so minor that it's functionally pointless to bring them up. The comparative advantages for stacking an additional 200 points of Willpower are roughly 10 hp/sec, meaning that each point of End only "mitigates" ~.05 hp/sec, which is so low that it's functionally pointless to bring it up.

 

The only *appreciable* benefits provided by Endurance are the direct increases to your health pool, which as I have stated repeatedly, have no effect upon your survivability beyond a certain point easily attained tangentially.

 

While you are correct in assuming that each each point of endurance only adds about .05hp/second mitigation, but that mitigation directly lowers your incoming DPS by the same amount. It isn't a percentage decrease, its a flat rate. 1:1. Any hp/second mitigation you have decreases your overall incoming by exactly how much hp/second mitigation you have. There is no DR on this decrease, so once you hit DR on defense, shield, and absorb, you might as well add more endurance, as it is your only other means to increase your overall mitigation.

 

That is of course assuming that willpower doesn't add more overall mitigation then what you would get from endurance. Currently, using your extremely skewed 70DPS increase numbers pulled from the math done previously, when considering your average mitigation values of 25% defense, 50% shield, and 30% absorb, willpower provides about 5x as much 'mitigation' as endurance would, assuming a boss with 1 million hit points, and a 5 minute enrage timer.

 

If you change any of those numbers (be it the pure mitigation numbers, or the length of the fight due to higher boss hit points, or just longer enrage timers) then endurance pushes ahead, because it directly lowers any incoming damage by the same amount every time.

 

We currently do not know what kind of a percentage increase you are looking at by picking willpower over endurance. You want to say that it is a 70DPS increase, but you refuse to break that down into a percentage, so it really means nothing overall. Percentage values are infinitely better then flat rate values, as they tell you exactly what kind of an increase you are looking at. Any min/max player in the world will tell you that, and only min/max players will care about this debate to begin with. Anyone else will just use whatever they want without regards for what it actually benefits.

 

Please stop assuming that endurance provides no form of mitigation at all once you hit the equilibrium of your healers reaction time to your time until death, as the extra mitigation more hit points then provides at that point is better healing, and allowing some breathing room for your healers to help cover 'oh excrement' moments.

 

That's not even a real concern. I have no idea why you even bring it up. Kinetic Ward should *always* be kept up because it costs a pittance (except in situations where all incoming damage ignores Shield Chance wherein it's pointless). DBSD provides slightly more than 1 Force/sec. Kinetic Ward costs 10 Force every 12 seconds *at most*. The resource benefits and costs of each are only appreciable over long periods of time and the cost of KW are vastly outweighed by the substantial damage reduction experienced.

 

In AOE aspects, due to the ICD of DBSD you will burn more force on Kinetic Ward then you will recover from DBSD. That i think is what he is saying here, is that DBSD, while nice basically just covers your overall cost of Kinetic Ward, and don't add a whole lot else to your overall force regeneration. I could be mistaken, what that is the way I understood what he said.

 

First off, this information is functionally worthless since a 3:2:2 split only pays attention to ratings rather than actual mitigation percentages, which are what you actually want to look at to determine the most optimal mitigation. The best advice is to stack Shield and Absorb such that the end percentages are equal (which, for Shadows, means stacking way more Absorb than Shield for a good while) and stack as much Defense as you can get otherwise. Since Defense rating adds to the percentages at substantially worse rates and suffers from drastically worse DR, you should stack Defense heavily until you get to the point where your Shield Chance and Absorb Value get above 50% each (re: intro tier raid gear) at which point you should leave Defense largely alone and stack Absorb and Shield rating to achieve optimal mitigation.

 

The 3:2:2 split is very similar to your split on how much defense/shield/absorb to slot, and you actually want to pay attention to the ratings, as long as you consider DR. Once you consider DR, then you would be correct (as you'd be paying attention to the mitigation percentages) but really, its just semantics, as long as you know that after X amount of rating (say, 500) you want to move onto the next stat, then your good either way.

 

Also, as a tank, especially a Shadow, you can pretty easily ignore Accuracy completely. Why? Well, first off, a vast majority of our damage and threat is provided by Force powers, which have a default 100% chance to hit. Secondly, all but one of our attacks that *do* have a 90% hit chance are *multiattacks*, meaning that the chances of missing completely (and not triggering the relevant procs, since that's really the important thing about our melee attacks) is actually 1% or lower, meaning that the advantages of gaining Accuracy are virtually nonexistent and the penalties to ignoring it are similarly nonexistent. If anything, you should be trying to *avoid* Accuracy rating such that you can stack more mitigation stats (defense, shield, absorption) since Acc rating uses the same itemization as those.

 

This shows you exactly how much you don't know about the mechanics of this game. Your force powers have a BASE accuracy of 100%. Against equal level enemies. News flash Kitru, Hard Mode flashpoints, and RAID enemies are NOT your level. This means that you really don't have 100% accuracy against them.

 

its been figured out that enemies have about a 5% built in defense(which works for force/tech powers as well) boost for every level they are above you, and they usually have 10% defense (again, works for both force/tech and melee/range powers) base. Meaning a boss that is 4 levels higher then you has a built in 30% defense to all your attacks, and if you have 100% accuracy base, you really only have 70%. This means that tanks will HAVE to slot Accuracy in order to be able to hit 100% of the time, and do full damage.

 

While Shadows have a lot of multi-hit attacks, they are all additive to each other. If you miss with 1 outta 3 of your 'multi-hit' attacks, your only doing 2/3rds the damage you could be doing. And if your only doing 2/3rds the damage you could be doing, your only building 2/3rds the threat. Which could be why tanks are noticing threat issues in higher end content. The mobs are out leveling them (in flash points, and operations) and thus their built in accuracy isn't good enough, and they aren't doing as much damage as they could.

 

While accuracy is slotted the same way as defense/shield/absorb, because of DR you can't just mindlessly stack defense/shield/absorb in all of your items, and you will no doubt have room left over somewhere to put in accuracy, which could help out MUCH more when your overall DPS and threat generation then stacking willpower would.

 

This is what this entire thread is about and you're fundamentally wrong. The additional Endurance is *not* worth it since it has no appreciable impact on your survivability in situations with a healer. If you don't understand this, read the thread and correct yourself. The math is all there. Giving your healer an extra 2k to heal before you die is going to be *much* less useful than simply dealing more damage outright, especially since you get *more* than enough Endurance with *any* armoring/hilt. The "tank" armoring and hilts are largely worthless since Endurance is largely worthless whereas the "DPS" armoring and hilts provide the same armor value and damage while providing more than enough Endurance to be an effective tank while *also* providing you with more damage to beat those damned enrage timers.

 

That additional DPS, again from your own skewed math, is roughly 70DPS. If your enrage timer is 5 minutes, and your boss has 1 million hp, then your COMBINED DPS has to be over 3333DPS. Adding an extra 70 to that number is increasing your overall (as in group DPS) by 2.1%. This means that it lowers the fights duration from 300 seconds, to 293.7 seconds, cutting 6.3 seconds off your overall time.

 

In the grand scheme of any raid encounter, 6.3 seconds is within the margin of error. If a DPS stood in the fire, and had to move then they just lost 6.3 seconds on their overall damage (due to having to move, or even dying and having to be battle rez'ed) 6.3 seconds isn't going to make or break very many raid encounters, and there are MUCH better ways to improve your overall group DPS then by stacking willpower on your tank.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Arbegla

[Arbegla]

Neither tank should be having appreciable threat problems with or without Willpower stacking, assuming they know what they're doing, their group knows what they are doing, and the tank is not hopelessly outgeared by the DPS. After the first 10-20 seconds of a fight (re: when threat levels are high enough that the 10% difference in threat takes longer than 15 seconds to generate), any tank should have no problems keeping threat with the available tools.

 

So that means that the only benefit you gain from stacking willpower is increasing the tank's overall DPS, as threat should be a non-issue. If your hitting enrage timers so often that you feel that increasing the tanks DPS will matter, then maybe you need to look at your DPS classes, and see what they are doing wrong.

 

Bioware would not build a game around forcing tanks to become 'DPS tanks' due to enrage timers. There has to be more going on in the fights, like your DPS not going all out crazy, or not knowing their proper rotations, or bursting down their resources, which gives a HUGE DPS spike early but isn't sustainable, thus lowering their overall DPS by a huge margin.

 

Remember Kitru, the game hasn't even been out a month yet. The issues your having now with enrage timers will be ironed out in probably another month or 2 once everyone gets up in higher levels, and more is figured out about proper DPS rotations, and cool downs.

[Zintair]

No, it's not. The first problem with this question is that it ignores the substantial contributions of tank DPS to a fight. Why is this important you ask? Well, 2 reasons.

 

The first is that enrage timers are *friggin' tight* in TOR. Pretty much every boss in HMs and OPs has an enrage timer and chances are *excellent* you will hit said enrage timer without everyone going crazy on damage *and* doing the fight properly. The additional damage you get from additional WP is not simply a threat generator, since, after the first 10 seconds of a fight, threat and threat reestablishment can only be appreciably affected by Taunt (since it sets your threat to 110% of the threat of whoever has the highest threat if the target is not already attacking you).

 

The second is that Endurance does not actually increase your survivability and by "increase your survivability" I mean that it will actually make you take less damage or avoid being 1 shot. The Willpower stacked gear has *more* than enough Endurance on it to keep you from being killed in a single attack, *especially* if you are stacking the tank stats properly like you should be. Loads of math in this thread has been done to point out exactly how worthless stacking Endurance beyond the point where your healer has a comfortable window to heal you is.

 

 

 

The additional contributions of mitigation through healing provided by additional Endurance are so minor that it's functionally pointless to bring them up. The comparative advantages for stacking an additional 200 points of Willpower are roughly 10 hp/sec, meaning that each point of End only "mitigates" ~.05 hp/sec, which is so low that it's functionally pointless to bring it up.

 

The only *appreciable* benefits provided by Endurance are the direct increases to your health pool, which as I have stated repeatedly, have no effect upon your survivability beyond a certain point easily attained tangentially.

 

 

 

That's not even a real concern. I have no idea why you even bring it up. Kinetic Ward should *always* be kept up because it costs a pittance (except in situations where all incoming damage ignores Shield Chance wherein it's pointless). DBSD provides slightly more than 1 Force/sec. Kinetic Ward costs 10 Force every 12 seconds *at most*. The resource benefits and costs of each are only appreciable over long periods of time and the cost of KW are vastly outweighed by the substantial damage reduction experienced.

 

 

 

First off, you're demonstrating a distinct lack of knowledge about the given mechanics of Force/Tech v. Ranged/Melee attacks. The only attacks that can be Shielded against (and thusly have Shield and Absorb rating provide *any* benefit) are Melee/Ranged attacks. Force/Tech attacks cannot be shielded against and use resistance chance rather than defense chance to determine whether they hit. In essence, the only attacks that tanks actually mitigate to any appreciable extent are Melee/Ranged attacks because everything else used ignores all of the tank stats and a vast majority of the talents that we get.

 

Of course, this is only really a concern in PvP since a vast majority of player attacks are Force/Tech. A scant few PvE fights deal a predominance of Force/Tech damage, but for those, as a tank, your job is more to keep aggro than it is to soak effectively (even though tanks *do* take less damage thanks to superior damage reduction, it's simply not to the same extent as that expected by the sum of your mitigation mechanisms).

 

 

 

First off, this information is functionally worthless since a 3:2:2 split only pays attention to ratings rather than actual mitigation percentages, which are what you actually want to look at to determine the most optimal mitigation. The best advice is to stack Shield and Absorb such that the end percentages are equal (which, for Shadows, means stacking way more Absorb than Shield for a good while) and stack as much Defense as you can get otherwise. Since Defense rating adds to the percentages at substantially worse rates and suffers from drastically worse DR, you should stack Defense heavily until you get to the point where your Shield Chance and Absorb Value get above 50% each (re: intro tier raid gear) at which point you should leave Defense largely alone and stack Absorb and Shield rating to achieve optimal mitigation.

 

Also, as a tank, especially a Shadow, you can pretty easily ignore Accuracy completely. Why? Well, first off, a vast majority of our damage and threat is provided by Force powers, which have a default 100% chance to hit. Secondly, all but one of our attacks that *do* have a 90% hit chance are *multiattacks*, meaning that the chances of missing completely (and not triggering the relevant procs, since that's really the important thing about our melee attacks) is actually 1% or lower, meaning that the advantages of gaining Accuracy are virtually nonexistent and the penalties to ignoring it are similarly nonexistent. If anything, you should be trying to *avoid* Accuracy rating such that you can stack more mitigation stats (defense, shield, absorption) since Acc rating uses the same itemization as those.

 

 

 

This is what this entire thread is about and you're fundamentally wrong. The additional Endurance is *not* worth it since it has no appreciable impact on your survivability in situations with a healer. If you don't understand this, read the thread and correct yourself. The math is all there. Giving your healer an extra 2k to heal before you die is going to be *much* less useful than simply dealing more damage outright, especially since you get *more* than enough Endurance with *any* armoring/hilt. The "tank" armoring and hilts are largely worthless since Endurance is largely worthless whereas the "DPS" armoring and hilts provide the same armor value and damage while providing more than enough Endurance to be an effective tank while *also* providing you with more damage to beat those damned enrage timers.

 

After doing 4/5 Nightmare Hutt Hospitality this mentality is going to give you problems.

 

If you can't break 18-19k HP some of the fights especially bosses 2 and 3 might be difficult.

 

The added DPS becomes insignificant compared to the added HP to take those rough moments.

 

My recommendation is 22k HP with a stim.

[Kitru]

My recommendation is 22k HP with a stim.

 

You're going have substantially more than 18-19k when you're geared to start doing Nightmare modes. The entire point is that you should place Willpower above Endurance only after you get the Endurance you need to handle the content in question. As you gear up, the amount of hp you're going to have is going to increase proportionately whether you stack Willpower or Endurance more. I'm geared to start punching hard modes (which presumably means that I shouldn't start nightmare modes til I'm a tier of gear higher), and I'm breaking 19k hp already. I'm pretty sure that by the time I (and the rest of my raid group) am in nightmare mode capable gear, I'll be well above the minimum hp threshold (even without stacking any Endurance at all).

[Arbegla]

You're going have substantially more than 18-19k when you're geared to start doing Nightmare modes. The entire point is that you should place Willpower above Endurance only after you get the Endurance you need to handle the content in question. As you gear up, the amount of hp you're going to have is going to increase proportionately whether you stack Willpower or Endurance more. I'm geared to start punching hard modes (which presumably means that I shouldn't start nightmare modes til I'm a tier of gear higher), and I'm breaking 19k hp already. I'm pretty sure that by the time I (and the rest of my raid group) am in nightmare mode capable gear, I'll be well above the minimum hp threshold (even without stacking any Endurance at all).

 

I'm not sure how you can say you will somehow gain 3,000 hit points, just on gear alone, when your already doing everything you can to replace any 'useless' endurance with willpower.

 

You've mentioned that you will pick ANY item that has more willpower on it then endurance, and even swap out mods on current gear to get more willpower, yet your somehow saying you'll just magically gain about 300 endurance off gear that you can't trade out...

 

Didn't someone say that in the highest tier gear you can currently get, your trading on average, 312 endurance for 343 willpower? There's your 3k hit points right there.

 

Granted, the stim itself adds anywhere between 104 and 136 endurance, depending on if you have biochem or not.

[Zintair]

You're going have substantially more than 18-19k when you're geared to start doing Nightmare modes. The entire point is that you should place Willpower above Endurance only after you get the Endurance you need to handle the content in question. As you gear up, the amount of hp you're going to have is going to increase proportionately whether you stack Willpower or Endurance more. I'm geared to start punching hard modes (which presumably means that I shouldn't start nightmare modes til I'm a tier of gear higher), and I'm breaking 19k hp already. I'm pretty sure that by the time I (and the rest of my raid group) am in nightmare mode capable gear, I'll be well above the minimum hp threshold (even without stacking any Endurance at all).

 

Fair enough, just trying to give people an idea of what to expect for end game raiding.

 

I know personally that we output a TON of DPS. So I just wan't people to have a more specific idea of what to look for.

 

Not everyone is going to want to read the wall of texts in this thread and a lot of them are just useless theory. Just making sure people have some hard info.

[Zintair]

I'm not sure how you can say you will somehow gain 3,000 hit points, just on gear alone, when your already doing everything you can to replace any 'useless' endurance with willpower.

 

You've mentioned that you will pick ANY item that has more willpower on it then endurance, and even swap out mods on current gear to get more willpower, yet your somehow saying you'll just magically gain about 300 endurance off gear that you can't trade out...

 

Didn't someone say that in the highest tier gear you can currently get, your trading on average, 312 endurance for 343 willpower? There's your 3k hit points right there.

 

Granted, the stim itself adds anywhere between 104 and 136 endurance, depending on if you have biochem or not.

 

Well if Kitru is just gearing for HARDMODE Operations then there is a much higher chance for him/her to gain a lot more Endurance based on the fact that you cannot choose Armoring on Columni pieces not to mention completeing the Dailies for 360 commendations nets you full Rakata Earpiece and Implants for a lot more HP.

 

The only piece of gear in the end that Kitru could REALLY ramp with Willpower would be the Lightsaber.

 

 

That's currently where I stand. A more DPS tailored Lightsaber and then Columni/136 Rating gear for Head/Chest/Hands/Bracers/Belt/Legs/Boots and then Rakata Implants and Ear Piece.

 

 

 

Here's a question Kitru. Which Relic is the best out of the Defensive Rakata ones. I currently use the Shield and Absorb because I thought it would have a lot less diminishing returns espcially when I get to around 54/54% ratios when used. The Defense only nets me an extra 5% Defense due to the diminishing returns. What you think? I know Power also suffers no diminishing returns as well.

[Kitru]

Well if Kitru is just gearing for HARDMODE Operations then there is a much higher chance for him/her to gain a lot more Endurance based on the fact that you cannot choose Armoring on Columni pieces not to mention completeing the Dailies for 360 commendations nets you full Rakata Earpiece and Implants for a lot more HP.

 

The point is that you're going to get another healthy portion of Endurance because *every* mod had Endurance on it and the increase from 51-52 grade modifications to ~56 grade modifications provides more than just a little bit. Since *every* piece is going to increase the Endurance, even if you preferentially stack Willpower rather than Endurance (as I do), you will still gain a *lot* of Endurance simply because it's still in very large quantities on everything. This is one of the reason why I don't see there being any reason to stack it: you *already* get loads of it from every imaginable source and those loads are more than enough. You don't need even more.

 

That's currently where I stand. A more DPS tailored Lightsaber and then Columni/136 Rating gear for Head/Chest/Hands/Bracers/Belt/Legs/Boots and then Rakata Implants and Ear Piece.

 

I've got tank gear for everything with Hilts and Armoring replaced with Resolve variants. Pure tank gear: Immunity and Sturdiness Enhancements; Reinforced and Robust Mods (standard variants preferably).

 

Here's a question Kitru. Which Relic is the best out of the Defensive Rakata ones.

 

I use both of the Defensive Rakata relics (now that they have stats on them). You can't activate them simultaneously (using one puts the other on a 30 sec CD), but you can still use them both repeatedly over the course of a raid fight and they are incredibly effective.

[ragamer]

First of all I will not get entangled on a Theorycrafter Ego discussion, it's still too soon on the game to go on things like that and without a Combat Log to inspect most of the "theories" are really pointless to prove with accuracy, so if you can't accept what some ppl claims, my answer is simple: "Test it yourself" or "ignore it".

 

The first is that enrage timers are *friggin' tight* in TOR. Pretty much every boss in HMs and OPs has an enrage timer and chances are *excellent* you will hit said enrage timer without everyone going crazy on damage *and* doing the fight properly

 

I cannot speak about OPs, still, but on general in TOR the Enrages DO NOT follow the "global timer" approach... They are not DPS checks, they are Burst DPS checks instead because all enrages I have met so far on both faction content are triggered by specific conditions (generally reaching a certain HP threshold)... So it's not a matter of DPSIng like mad during the whole encounter it's a matter of:

 

- Been sure that ALL DPSers have their CDs rdy at the moment the enrage condition happens (very easy to do).

 

- The tank has to have all survivality CDs rdy for that moment AND if possible, kite the enemy to neglect all kind of damage on him.

 

The most common "mistakes" (By common I mean the ones that most ppl have encountered) of this "WoW imported enrage" are:

 

- "Shadow Spawn" quest for Imps getting used to solo H2+ "suddenly" discover they need help... The Spawn enrages ALWAYS at 10% hp... So the trick is not dpsing like mad from the beggining... It's reserving your CDs for that last 10%.

 

- "Taral V HM" quite a popular instance and quite popular misunderstanding. The Boss ALWAYS enrages at around 25% hp. The challenge is that the team needs to BE SURE that it does happen right when he summons a wave of adds so they have time to focus fire on him while he is been incapacitated.

 

In BOTH cases you don't need spectacular DPS or that fraction you claim "it's important" that comes from the tank (In reality the best "extra" contribution comes from healers that have to trust the tank "panic buttons" and then switch from healing to DPSing), what you need is knowing the difference between DPS and Burst DPS (And, OFC, coordination).

 

 

The second is that Endurance does not actually increase your survivability and by "increase your survivability" I mean that it will actually make you take less damage or avoid being 1 shot.

 

Clearly our definitions of terms differ... Precissely the MAIN Stat to avoid been one shoted is precissely HP... Specially against attacks that do elemental/Internal damage. Defense + Shield + Absorption are just that, chance based, and an enemy just needs 1 lucky hit to kill the tank... A full HP bar is reliable and will be always there. So far I haven't found a "real one shot" scenario, but I'm sure, that at some point on an Op or a HM, something like this will be done as an "HP Pool Check" because it's a MMO classic.

 

We also differ on our deffinition of mitigation... Because you purely include "Damage reduction", meanwhile I perceive the whole team definition, so I prefer to work in terms of "Survivality" so I include the things a Tank do to delay as much as possible his ultimate demise. This is specially important to learn which of the 3 tanks is better suited for certain encounters. Ignoring Self-Healing effects is a mistake, as it's ignoring how they are linked to Endurance.

 

So doesn't matter how you try to reasson this... A Shadow Tank with high Endurance has better Survivality than ones that do not, because his self-healing is superior. IF the 2 skills I mentioned didn't scale with MAX Health then the standard reassoning about HP pools could apply (which does apply for JG and VG). We can entangle ourselves on percentual increasing discussions but... As I said on the 1st paragraph, I'm not interested in them for the reassons explained above.

 

 

Loads of math in this thread has been done to point out exactly how worthless stacking Endurance beyond the point where your healer has a comfortable window to heal you is.

 

And all of them are flawed because they do not take into account the diferential effect of the 2 skills I mention.

 

 

The only *appreciable* benefits provided by Endurance are the direct increases to your health pool, which as I have stated repeatedly, have no effect upon your survivability beyond a certain point easily attained tangentially.

 

I have survived with 10 hp as tank... If I wouldn't got that "non appreciable" source, I would have been dead. When you speak about absolutes, that's the problem, you can't deny my simple affirmation on WHO HAS the best survivality, plain and simple.

 

You can discuss about different situations... And we can go all the day long until we agree that an effective tank what it has to do is understanding which type of gear he has to carry and "dress for the specific combat" he has to beat...

 

...But the OP is not interested in that, as he hasn't asked for "What I should dress on for this or that combat?".

 

 

That's not even a real concern. I have no idea why you even bring it up. Kinetic Ward should *always* be kept up because it costs a pittance

 

Reading the passion you put on your reassonings I refuse to think you are serious about this...

 

...Are you saying that when you tank you simply spam KW on CD?!?!?! Without checking the rate at which is consumed?!?!?

 

Do not encroach yourself on your reassonings and PLEASE do a REAL experiment. It's not only the energy cost that's higher... It's the VALUABLE GCD you are wasting.

 

You are worried by the percentual difference of moving 200 Willpower on your DPS and...

 

...You are not concerned about loosing close to 1 energy per second and 1.5 seconds each 12, instead of trying to get as close to 0.5 energy per second and 1.5s each 20?!?!?

 

This game has a lot of "apparently simple" mechanics that in reality aren't.

 

That's why I bring KW into the equation... because it's something ANY Shadow tank feels immediatly. And when you theorycraft you immediatly realize that if you trade Shield rating towards Absorption, your average mitigation do not change, but you can control WHEN, on the average, you have to reapply KW...

 

...And it's very easy to understand for EVERYONE that, at the same average mitigation, the later you have to reapply KW the better.

 

 

First off, this information is functionally worthless since a 3:2:2 split only pays attention to ratings rather than actual mitigation percentages, which are what you actually want to look at to determine the most optimal mitigation.

 

Actual mitigations are irrelevant regarding diminishing returns, as ONLY the ratings coming from gear are affected by it. Any permanent additive[/b] bonus (or base) comes AFTER the diminishing return curve applies to the ratings. Do not confuse with Armor Rating proportional bonuses that, indeed, operate on the armor rating itself that later, indeed suffers from full diminishing returns (But even this is "bugged" as there are some weird interactions between "proportinal" negative modifiiers).

 

So when you want to have the best mitigation on a certain item allocation what you have to minimize is the diminishing return curve of ALL magnitudes involved...

 

...If you are speaking about Survivality, then you have to check which way to combine mitigations works better (and as such, indeed, you have to take into account each effective mitigation value). But then, sadly, you have to check the details of the fight at hand, that, by definition, invalidates any "generic recipe" you want to give.

 

Are we, again, using different definitions of terms?

[SkybladeDarkstar]

I'd just like to pop in and say that I am finding this information very helpful, and very interesting, so thank you all for the debate and various explanations in here.

 

I'm a Shadow Tank, but not yet up to endgame, as I've taken progression slowly (and still am). I've just hit 50, and am barely considering bouncing around with the major gear up focuses, so this information is great.

 

So, first question: Given that I am still at the prep point, before I head into flashpoints for serious gearups, which Matrix Cube should I go for (since they seemed to have forgotten a Willpower/Defense one)?

 

Second question: Is modifiable gear outfitted with Ilum mods going to be basically my best intro level gear out there, or is there a better source I'm missing?

[rakuenCallisto]

Guys let's take a break from the hate.

 

Let's talk about Jedi Shadow hats.

 

What the hell is up with those ugly things?

 

Are we bride's maids at a wedding or something what's goin on I don't even..

[Kitru]

I cannot speak about OPs, still, but on general in TOR the Enrages DO NOT follow the "global timer" approach...

 

You obviously haven't done any Hard Modes. Those are all explicitly timer based: Sith Entity, Vokk, Ironfist, Malgus' "Immunity" enrage; etc.: all are explicitly timer based.

 

Clearly our definitions of terms differ... Precissely the MAIN Stat to avoid been one shoted is precissely HP... Specially against attacks that do elemental/Internal damage. Defense + Shield + Absorption are just that, chance based, and an enemy just needs 1 lucky hit to kill the tank... A full HP bar is reliable and will be always there. So far I haven't found a "real one shot" scenario, but I'm sure, that at some point on an Op or a HM, something like this will be done as an "HP Pool Check" because it's a MMO classic.

 

You also don't realize that TOR isn't really an MMO classic. First off, most mechanics that would one-shot the tank (and aren't intended to be avoided by movement or other mechanics like interruption or LoS) are multi-attacks, meaning that the probability of getting the minimum reduction in incoming damage in order to survive is quite likely: the law of large numbers makes the DR actually valuable. Secondly, if there *were* outright Endurance checks, Shadows would be *drastically* sub par since we have ~15% lower damage reduction than VGs and ~10% lower DR than Guards *by design* for K/E damage. If we are, in any way, intended to be tanks with similar capabilities, Endurance check mechanics would need to *always* be internal/elemental damage in order to avoid the fact that Shadows have *noticeably* lower DR. The mechanics of the game don't support Endurance checks if the developers are even remotely cognizant of the differences in tank design.

 

We also differ on our deffinition of mitigation... Because you purely include "Damage reduction", meanwhile I perceive the whole team definition, so I prefer to work in terms of "Survivality" so I include the things a Tank do to delay as much as possible his ultimate demise. This is specially important to learn which of the 3 tanks is better suited for certain encounters. Ignoring Self-Healing effects is a mistake, as it's ignoring how they are linked to Endurance.

 

If you actually bothered to read this thread you'd realize exactly how little additional self healing is *gained* by stacking Endurance. While *technically* true, Endurance doesn't add *appreciable* amounts of self healing: ~10 hp/sec for 200 Endurance is *not* an appreciable quantity when we're talking about hp pools in approaching 20k and incoming damage in the 2k-4k/sec region. So, no, it's not going to be make any appreciable difference to ignore the Endurance self-healing contributions since they're so low as to be functionally nonexistent. Please educate yourself before attempting to refute me.

 

And all of them are flawed because they do not take into account the diferential effect of the 2 skills I mention.

 

Actually, they do. If you had read them, you would realize this.

 

I have survived with 10 hp as tank... If I wouldn't got that "non appreciable" source, I would have been dead. When you speak about absolutes, that's the problem, you can't deny my simple affirmation on WHO HAS the best survivality, plain and simple.

 

And how many times have you been killed in excess of the 2k-4k additional hit points that stacking Endurance would have netted you? When a tank dies, it is rarely a precision kill (meaning that the damage dealt is *just right* or only marginally over). In most cases, it is spectacular overkill. *Of course* stacking massive amounts of Endurance will progressively make you more survivable for the progressively more and more outlier occasions that you might *need* the additional hit points, but, as you stack more and more hit points, the occasions in question start becoming so rare as to functionally pointless. Why would I stack enough Endurance to handle a 1 in 100 chance wipe when I can get to 1 in 95 chance without stacking Endurance *at all*. The cost:benefit simply doesn't favor Endurance stacking.

 

Do not encroach yourself on your reassonings and PLEASE do a REAL experiment. It's not only the energy cost that's higher... It's the VALUABLE GCD you are wasting.

 

KW doesn't use up the GCD; it's actually completely off of the GCD. You don't know what you're talking about. Next question.

 

This game has a lot of "apparently simple" mechanics that in reality aren't.

 

Says the person that doesn't know elementary mechanics about the Shadow. Nice try. And, honestly, if you actually looked at the mechanics in question, you'd realize that BW has done an *amazing* job of creating an *incredibly* job of making an MMO with very simple and elegant math behind it. The problem that most people have is that, rather than simply *enjoying* the elegant simplicity of it, they attempt to complicate it. I appreciate the elegance of their design and laud them for it rather than applying my preconceived notions about what math an MMO "should" have and attempting to force TOR into following it.

 

Actual mitigations are irrelevant regarding diminishing returns, as ONLY the ratings coming from gear are affected by it.

 

I know this, but the DR rates create complex enough math that the only way of more accurately determining optimum rating allotment than the method that I have given (Shield chance = Absorb rating; Defense for all else) is to use a spreadsheet and, honestly, that's a bit onerous for most since they would just rather be able to look at their character and determine on the fly what they should be stacking. Insofar as the advice people *need* and *want*, I am correct in my advisement.

[Zintair]

I'd just like to pop in and say that I am finding this information very helpful, and very interesting, so thank you all for the debate and various explanations in here.

 

I'm a Shadow Tank, but not yet up to endgame, as I've taken progression slowly (and still am). I've just hit 50, and am barely considering bouncing around with the major gear up focuses, so this information is great.

 

So, first question: Given that I am still at the prep point, before I head into flashpoints for serious gearups, which Matrix Cube should I go for (since they seemed to have forgotten a Willpower/Defense one)?

 

Second question: Is modifiable gear outfitted with Ilum mods going to be basically my best intro level gear out there, or is there a better source I'm missing?

 

1) Your best bet if you are NOT Artifice is to get a PvP Relic for the one slot (either Defense or Shield/Absorb) and then collect all the Red Matrix shards for the End/Will/Crit Relic. Good passive stat bump.

 

2) Dailies on Belsavis and Ilum will get you Daily Commendations. You buy Armoring/Hilts with these as well as Implants and Earpieces. My recommendation is do the Dailies EVERYDAY and buy your Armorings first then your hilt. After that save up for the Implants and then buy the Earpiece last.

 

While you do these dailies the harder ones will give you Mods and Enhancements as quest rewards.

[Duvodiad]

Hi. Quick disclaimer, I am a 50 shadow 31/0/10 Kinetic Tank, so what I am about to say is situational to a 31/0/10 shadow.

 

I agree that Endurance should >> Willpower, for one main reason: Harnessed Shadows.

 

Telekinetic Throw bases it's healing off of 3% of max health. Endurance is a linear stat, that is, 1 endurance = 10 health, always. Telekinetic Throw also doesn't benefit from Bonus Healing as far as I have noticed, but even if it did, it would not over take endurance in amount of healing provided.

 

Say you have a 15000 health Shadow using 3 Harnessed Shadows Telekinetic Throw. Each tic heals him at a 450 per tic rate. In a normal fight, he should be able to throw off 2 Telekinetic Heals per minute, roughly.

 

Now take a 20000 health Shadow. Each tic heals him for 600 per tic.

 

Say a Boss critically hits each, and their defenses are the same. Each takes 5000 damage.

 

The 15000 Shadow can heal 1800 of that through a Telekinetic Throw, a 20000 Shadow can heal 2400 of that through a Telekinetic Throw. In effect, the 15000 can self mitigate 36%, while a 20000 Shadow can self mitigate 48%, of the same hit.

 

The best part is, since Endurance is Linear, you can continually increase at a 3 HPS per 10 Endurance rate until you can't find anymore endurance to add. Willpower doesn't even come close to 3 healing bonus per 10 points.

 

While the healing is a small add on in a minute long deal, in the moment it mitigates a very large chunk of the attack. As it also alleviates healers, the idea of looking at it in the moment becomes much more important then over a minute long section.

 

In a fight, Endurance (for a 31/0/10 Shadow) becomes a pure mitigation stat, while Willpower slightly increases your DPS and threat. As a tank, I believe mitigation to be much more valuable then a bit more DPS, and I hold threat just fine at the moment. Of course, this is a case by case basis, but that is my look on the decision.

 

TL;DR Endurance on a self-heal Telekinetic Throw is equivalent to a 3 HPS per 10 Endurance point boost on a Telekinetic Throw (in the moment), which increases a main form of mitigation for a Shadow Tank, self healing.

 

Editted for clarity.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Duvodiad

[Kitru]

I agree that Endurance should >> Willpower, for one main reason: Harnessed Shadows.

 

If you read the thread, you would realize exactly how little additional mitigation through healing the additional Endurance provides. Honestly, it's getting old repeating this.

 

Also, you did the math wrong. 10 Endurance doesn't translate to 3 hp/sec. At 24%/minute (2 TK Throws), 10 endurance (100 hp) would translate into 24 hit points every 60 seconds or .4 hp/sec (24 / 60).

 

Assuming 2k/sec of incoming damage from a boss, in order to have the effect of 1% mitigation (20 hp/sec), you would need to stack 500 Endurance (20 / .4 * 10); 1% is a *pittance* of functional mitigation *especially* compared to the opportunity costs invoked by stacking that 500 Endurance instead of the ~450 WP or tank stats (assuming a 1.1:1 conversion rate for the itemization) that you could be stacking otherwise (which would provide *loads* more benefit than the Endurance in question).

 

Seriously people, educate yourself before attempting to prove me wrong. If you don't, it only serves to have me *continually* reiterate exactly how pointless Endurance stacking is and have *legitimate* math to prove it. All of the information is pretty much in this thread and, at a minimum, within the last few pages. The conclusion has already been drawn, and the math is completely legitimate: stacking Endurance has no appreciable impact upon performance and Willpower *does*.

[Duvodiad]

If you read the thread, you would realize exactly how little additional mitigation through healing the additional Endurance provides. Honestly, it's getting old repeating this.

 

Also, you did the math wrong. 10 Endurance doesn't translate to 3 hp/sec. At 24%/minute (2 TK Throws), 10 endurance (100 hp) would translate into 24 hit points every 60 seconds or .4 hp/sec (24 / 60).

 

Assuming 2k/sec of incoming damage from a boss, in order to have the effect of 1% mitigation (20 hp/sec), you would need to stack 500 Endurance (20 / .4 * 10); 1% is a *pittance* of functional mitigation *especially* compared to the opportunity costs invoked by stacking that 500 Endurance instead of the ~450 WP or tank stats (assuming a 1.1:1 conversion rate for the itemization) that you could be stacking otherwise (which would provide *loads* more benefit than the Endurance in question).

 

Seriously people, educate yourself before attempting to prove me wrong. If you don't, it only serves to have me *continually* reiterate exactly how pointless Endurance stacking is and have *legitimate* math to prove it. All of the information is pretty much in this thread and, at a minimum, within the last few pages. The conclusion has already been drawn, and the math is completely legitimate: stacking Endurance has no appreciable impact upon performance and Willpower *does*.

 

Actually, you did the math wrong I was unclear, admittedly, but per second the tics on TK increase at 3 HPS, which is what I meant. I agree that it is reduced in a minute long setting, but I meant for mitigating a hit in the moment.

 

Further, since you HP pool is larger, you can take the hit easier, and since you can heal more of it solo, your healers can ignore you a bit more to aoe heal/interrupt/add dps themselves. Since healers don't need to gear differently then me to DPS, that is a much bigger win IMO.

[oddmyth]

Endurance on a self-heal Telekinetic Throw is equivalent to a 3 HPS per 10 Endurance point boost, which increases a main form of mitigation for a Shadow Tank, self healing.

 

The low end:

 

30 seconds to generate a fully harnessed TK throw.

2000 dps incoming from the boss.

 

60,000 dmg over 30 seconds from the boss. You heal 2,400.

 

Congratulations, you just healed 4% damage incoming as a 20k health Shadow.

Congratulations, you just healed 3% damage incoming as a 15k health Shadow.

 

The high end:

 

21 seconds to generate a fully harnessed TK throw.

2000 dps incoming from the boss.

 

42,000 dmg over 21 seconds from the boss. You heal 2,400 or 1800.

 

Congratulations, you just healed 5.7% damage incoming as a 20k health Shadow.

Congratulations, you just healed 4.2% damage incoming as a 15k health Shadow.

 

The average

 

On average you will heal 4.85% of the incoming damage every 25.5 seconds as a 20k shadow or 3.6% as a 15k Shadow. The sum total mitigation difference between the two of them being 1.25% average mitigation for 500 endurance.

 

Yes our self healing is a form of mitigation. Albeit an infinitesimally small amount of mitigation.