Endurance v. Willpower (Shadow Tanking)

[Dracyula]

I agree with you. Inadvertently, I think we will end up stacking Endurance as well as defensive stats in our gear naturally. However, I think that we will also have opportunities to choose how we want to fill out other slots in our gear. Maybe this will be similar in nature to Wow, where we see the real tweaks in our Relics/Trinkets/Implants/Enchants and what not.

 

However, I don't see any "enchanting" style profession or modifications in the game as it stands, minus perhaps augments. Augment itemization may be where we start to see people itemization in some method they choose. Assuming that a player has 6 - 12 different "slots" with which to work, and they already have an acceptable HP level (My guess will be 12-14k HP for a tank.) and perhaps, 12-18% Defense/Shield/Absorb.

 

From that point, I suspect there are two camps of tanks: The EHP tanks, and the Endurance tanks. The EHP tanks usually are more math heavy players, and will hunt down items that grant damage reduction, avoidance and the like. These are typically the players that I think have a "better idea" of what it means to tank: Mitigation of damage. The other camp is the one I have issues with: The Stack-Endurance-Because-More-Health-Means-I-Take-More-Hits camp.

 

The issue with the "SEBMHMITMH" camp, is that they think they're doing the healers a favor, by giving them more "breathing room." This is a half-true statement. Yes, They are technically giving healers more space to work with, BUT, they are missing out on half their job: Reducing the overall damage they take in. If they reduce the damage they take, they simply don't need this "buffer." Secondly, they believe that this makes healers happy, to have more space to heal. This is actually a force/energy/mana sponge. This is just eating away at the healer's resource, because if they itemized differently, they would be able to turn a 4k damage attack into a 3.5k damage attack, which is 500 the healers don't EVER need to think about.

 

Every tank should stack mitigation over everything else, correct me if I am wrong, but I don't believe there is an option to stack END over a mitigation stat....I guess maybe with augments, in that case I completely agree, mitigation>END (and everything else).

[Duedroth]

i understand what you saying here and you right being able to do a bit more DPS is helpfull but not as helpfull as concintrating on your primary stats.

 

in WOW did you stack crit as your tank?

 

or to get even closer to the point of this thread did you stack STR as a Prot warrior?

 

the bosses in heroic flash points and raids hit hard trust me. and the only midigation mods/enhancments you can put in have higher endurance then willpower.

 

so those that stack willpower are either not doing the balsvis dailies cause those mods don;t allow you to have high willpower and defense/absorbe

 

or they are picking the high willpower low endurance 0 midigation mods.

 

IE the willpower endurace and crit mod. and if that is what they are doing i would never run with them.

 

Sorry, I actually never tanked end-game in WoW. Didn't get too deep into that game on any class.

 

My tanking came primarily from EQ2 and LOTRO.

 

In LOTRO, here's what I concentrated on for my Guardian:

 

Block/Parry/Evade (avoidance stats)

Mitigation

Vitality and Morale (hitpoints)

Might (strength)

 

In pretty much that order. So after I was satisfied with all else, I upped my Might (strength) stat to help me hit harder. That paid pretty large dividends for me, actually, because AoE tanking became much easier.

 

Again, haven't hit end-game here yet (only in 20s on 3 characters so far - Shadow, Gunslinger, Marauder). So the mechanics are different and could be different enough that it may not be comparable to my other tanking experience.

 

But I don't agree when people say that DPS does nothing for threat generation. Damage = Threat. Taunt = Threat. Healing = Threat. They all generate threat, they just do it differently and at different levels.

 

EDIT: I'll also point out that I was only nit-picking about damage's part in threat generation. I wasn't claiming that a tank should stack damage stats above the normal tank stats like mitigations, avoidances, hit points, etc. Just arguing with what someone said about damage not mattering for threat.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Duedroth

[madmilitia]

Sorry, I actually never tanked end-game in WoW. Didn't get too deep into that game on any class.

 

My tanking came primarily from EQ2 and LOTRO.

 

In LOTRO, here's what I concentrated on for my Guardian:

 

Block/Parry/Evade (avoidance stats)

Mitigation

Vitality and Morale (hitpoints)

Might (strength)

 

In pretty much that order. So after I was satisfied with all else, I upped my Might (strength) stat to help me hit harder. That paid pretty large dividends for me, actually, because AoE tanking became much easier.

 

Again, haven't hit end-game here yet (only in 20s on 3 characters so far - Shadow, Gunslinger, Marauder). So the mechanics are different and could be different enough that it may not be comparable to my other tanking experience.

 

But I don't agree when people say that DPS does nothing for threat generation. Damage = Threat. Taunt = Threat. Healing = Threat. They all generate threat, they just do it differently and at different levels.

 

EDIT: I'll also point out that I was only nit-picking about damage's part in threat generation. I wasn't claiming that a tank should stack damage stats above the normal tank stats like mitigations, avoidances, hit points, etc. Just arguing with what someone said about damage not mattering for threat.

 

you've got it right, i'll translate LOTRO into SWTOR

 

Block=shield/Parry=defense/Evade=absorb (avoidance stats)

Mitigation is all of the above

Vitality and Morale (hitpoints) =endurance

Might (strength) = Willpower

 

it's all the same in every game the mechanics and fundamental idea of an MMORPG are all the same tank is tank is tank.

[Psydils]

I'm not end-game in SWTOR yet, but I've tanked end-game in other MMOs. This is too much of an absolute statement, and I'd like to disagree with it.

 

DPS generates threat. If it didn't, you wouldn't have also stated that the minimum amount of threat is to let DPS go freely and at maximum capacity but still hold the mob.

 

Therefore, DPS is a consideration of the tank in terms of threat generation. It's usually the last consideration, but it's still there. Other threat generating mechanics are more important, but adding DPS to it makes it that much easier to maintain aggro, and does in fact help move content more quickly (if even just slightly).

 

I think we are talking semantics here but there are many "tanks" who want to "dps tank".

 

For tanks, generating adequate threat is what we're really concerned about and yes, threat generation is a function of DPS but our DPS numbers are neither really here-nor-there as long as our threat generation is adequate.

 

Once we've established that our threat generation is adequate, our priority needs to lean more favorably to survibability, especially in groups where the range of player skill, error rate, computer issues, etc. comes more and more into play.

 

So, yes, I do agree with you that DPS does play a part but a person playing a tank should not be focusing on "dps" outside of holding aggro. With more experience, better gear and an experienced tank, sure room is there to experiment but I wouldn't be advising new players to stack Willpower > Endurance...that's something more experienced tanks can dabble with as they feel more comfortable with encounters and the people they're playing with.

[Malanocte]

Psy, I'm not sure I agree. I can't empirically prove it without a combat parser, but I strongly suspect that tank damage in this game is significantly higher than usual for MMOs. This is based on gut feeling, completely anecdotal observation, and the fact that Combat Tech's threat multiplier is 1.5 (WoW Warrior's Def Stance is 2x threat). Combined with smaller groups/ops teams, and the tank's relative contribution to dps is higher as well.

 

I'm not endgame, and won't be for some time, if ever, so dismiss me as a noob if you like. However, I'm thinking that a group with full 33% fewer dps per team means squeezing out a bit more damage, survivability being covered, is in no way a bad thing.

 

That being said, though, I'm also certain that there are other surprises in store that none of us are ready for yet. I decided to slap around SD-0 on Coruscant for gits and shiggles with a guildmate the other day. Despite being 33, he was hitting me for a decent amount (roughly 4-7% of my hp per hit), so I suspect he scales rather than being a static level. Once I was down around 50%, he one-shotted me. Does he have a single, mega-stomp attack that he didn't use for the first 20 seconds, or does he have an Execute mechanic? I honestly don't know, but if it's the latter, it's certainly an argument for more End stacking.

[Kitru]

I can't empirically prove it without a combat parser, but I strongly suspect that tank damage in this game is significantly higher than usual for MMOs.

 

I'm gonna have to support you on this as well, though I have something *approaching* empirical evidence to back it up: when I was leveling on Belsavis, an Inf Shadow and I, both with healer companions, started our Consular quests at the same time (we were in the same party so we went into separate instances of the phase). He dealt with groups roughly 10-20% faster than I did. I'd estimate we're anywhere between 80-90% of DPS damage (which, iiirc, is something that Bioware stated in a development blog or developer comment at some point before TOR released).

 

It's not the most scientific observation (I wasn't counting the time or controlling all of the variables like player skill and/or gear), but it definitely gave me the feeling that tank damage is only marginally worse than that of people that spec DPS; it's a noticeable difference so you're not going to see tanks filling in for DPS spots, but it's enough that, if you ignore your damage, you're going to be inhibiting the group by a large amount.

 

I suspect he scales rather than being a static level.

 

When my guild killed him within the first week of release, the tank we had on him was 35 and never got hit a single time. The healers actually specifically mentioned that they never had to heal him. I'm not sure if he got changed in the intervening time frame, but I'm definitely sure that he doesn't scale (especially since a scaling world boss should be hitting you for *way* more than 4-7%)

 

Does he have a single, mega-stomp attack that he didn't use for the first 20 seconds, or does he have an Execute mechanic?

 

SD-0 has an ability that puts a debuff on 2 people that, when it fades after a few seconds, deals damage to everyone based on proximity (if you're on top of each other, it's a guaranteed gib pretty much no matter what). You likely died because either your buddy was dead (if you're the only one up, it just gibs you outright, iirc) or your buddy was standing too close to you (or moved too close to you).

 

The other possibility is that you hit the 8 min enrage timer and he just creamed you because of that.

[Malanocte]

I do have one request for the future debates on this topic, and I expect them to be legion: I'd really like it if we could tone down some of the ad hominem attacks. Outside of the numbercrunching threads, I really like the sense of community this game seems to be developing, so seeing accusations of idiocy, retardation, and noobishness being thrown around is somewhat disheartening.

 

It seems that we are all in agreement that there are certain minimum "floors" for both threat and hitpoints. We also seem to be in agreement that the threat floor can be reached with Resolve mods and the HP floor with Force User. What to do with the "extra" stats is our only real point of contention.

 

The stack WP camp says that more threat builds a cushion for DPS to cut loose and helps down a boss faster with more damage.

 

The stack End camp says it gives the healers a better cushion for when, to quote the vernacular, "fecal matter eventuates."

 

And then there's those of us who don't really know and plan to split the difference.

 

The thing is, none of these are wrong. You want a high threat ceiling because DPS can't always gauge their threat. You want more damage because not all the DPS have their rotations down or their gear maxed. And you want HP because the healers (and us as tanks) are not entirely comfortable with our abilities or cooldowns and our gear isn't maxed either.

 

We should be gearing in the way that, we individually feel, makes the most sense. As of now, we need to assume that things will go wrong. We'll mistime Deflection or Resilience. The Sentinel will accidentally Force Leap early. The healer will end up chain healing herself because the Focus interface bugged (I speak from experience).

 

We need to plan and gear for these things not because we are playing with, or are ourselves, idiots, *******, or noobs, but simply because, two weeks from launch, we are all simply still new.

[Wikiheretic]

Just chiming in as a healer, since we are getting brought up a lot.

 

While I obviously don't want a tank who keeps getting 2-shot all over the place, I'd much rather heal a tank with lower HP and high mit than the reverse. If you take little damage at a time, my heals can restore a greater percentage of your hp per cast, leaving me more flex time to worry about debuffs or other group members (AoE happens you know).

 

If you have a ton of health but not as much mit, I'm chaincasting to keep your giant health bar full as you lose swaths of it per attack, which means I run out of Force early and if something unexpected happens (an add, a critical hit on me or a dps or even you at this point), I'm absolutely screwed to do anything to help.

 

INB4 somebody takes a sentence completely out of context and claims healers want tanks with no hp.

[Dracyula]

Just chiming in as a healer, since we are getting brought up a lot.

 

While I obviously don't want a tank who keeps getting 2-shot all over the place, I'd much rather heal a tank with lower HP and high mit than the reverse. If you take little damage at a time, my heals can restore a greater percentage of your hp per cast, leaving me more flex time to worry about debuffs or other group members (AoE happens you know).

 

If you have a ton of health but not as much mit, I'm chaincasting to keep your giant health bar full as you lose swaths of it per attack, which means I run out of Force early and if something unexpected happens (an add, a critical hit on me or a dps or even you at this point), I'm absolutely screwed to do anything to help.

 

INB4 somebody takes a sentence completely out of context and claims healers want tanks with no hp.

 

I think we all agree with your point, the issue at hand is adding dps versus extra health.

[Arbegla]

To add my 2 cents into this debate, one has to consider just how much Willpower is going to benefit the Shadow tanks DPS. Willpower adds 1% crit per 140 points, and .2 damage per point, so 5 points = 1 damage.

 

Exactly how much that 1 damage will increase your overall DPS is up for debate, especially without damage meters to back things up. Even if your doing 80% of the DPS of a pure DPS spec'ed character your still not a DPS class, so adding a DPS stat when you already have threat under control (with 3 taunts (mind control, mass mind control, and force pull), plus Project, a shadow shouldnt have many threat issues, even without top tier gear)

 

The other thing to look at on endurance, is that it will benefit a Shadows self healing, thus provide a tangable benefit to thier overall mitigation. TK Thrust is a 12% heal. That 12% scales with max HP. Battle Readiness can be talented to provide a 10% heal, which also scales with your max HP. So adding more endurance is going to do more then just give a 'safety cushion' to your healers, its going to increase your overall mitigation as well, allowing you to soak not just more damage (via having a higher HP pool) but to regain more hitpoints back each time you self heal.

 

Healers heals aren't percentage based, so yes having a larger HP pool could cause issues for healers to keep you at 100%, but i feel 'good' shadow tanks shouldn't be healed up to 100%, and doing so will actually take away a good portion of their mitigation, as a lot of it is based on self healing. I feel that Good shadow tanks should hover between 80-100% HP, and if they dip below that then, and only then, should the healer top them off. With a 12% heal every 30 seconds, self healing procs that can be boosted to pretty nice numbers, and a 10% heal every 2 minutes that is a lot of self healing, nearly all of it is based on max hp, which higher endurance values would affect.

Edited January 7, 2012 by Arbegla

[JeremyDale]

I'm sorry but you are incorrect. Regardless of your health pool, the healer will have to heal the same amount. The healer heals damage that you take, so this is what determines how much healing they have to do, it's pretty simple.

 

In other words, in a five minute fight, if you take 95,000 damage, the healer would have to heal 95,000 damage. Your endurance has no effect on how much the healer needs to heal over the course of a fight.

 

No. I'm sorry but it is you who is incorrect. The only thing you are correct about is this is pretty simple stuff, and should be common sense.

 

Even if I abide by your example, and even if both tanks take 95,000 damage in 5 minutes - the tank with the higher HP pool (assuming both tanks have equal mitigation statistics) will require less healing due to the fact he/she can live longer before needing heals and dying. So the healer will not have to heal the tank with higher HP as often or as quickly as he does the tank with lower HP. Therefore having more HP actually DOES mean the healer will not have to heal you as much.

 

I have no idea why this is so hard for a lot of you tanks on here to understand. It's almost as if this is the first time you've ever been exposed to the concept of hit points and why they are good for tank classes.

 

It is boggling my mind seeing tanks say things like "Higher HP is just there to look pretty" and "Your endurance has no effect on how much the healer needs to heal over the course of a fight". These statements are very odd to say the least.

 

It's akin to making the argument that you won't have to refill a car with a small gas tank more than a car with a huge gas tank because they both use gas. It's a very weird and nonsensical argument that defies even elmentary-level logic.

Edited January 7, 2012 by JeremyDale

[Kitru]

The other thing to look at on endurance, is that it will benefit a Shadows self healing, thus provide a tangable benefit to thier overall mitigation.

 

Considering how little extra health you actually get from the listed self healing (in a raid context), it's functionally nonexistent. Shadow self heals provide so little at the moment that augmenting them by increasing your max hp doesn't really provide appreciable returns.

 

Consider the differences between 18k and 20k health over the course of a 4 minute fight. That's 8 TK Throws and 2 Battle Readinesses, for a total of 116% healing (8 * 12 + 2 * 10). For the two hp values, that's 20.88k and 23.2k hp, a difference of 2.32 k hp. Using your standard 4.3k incoming damage for a raid boss, that's .54 seconds of damage mitigated, or, if you want to look at the benefits over the entire duration of the fight, it's less than 10 additional hp/sec. It's so little you wouldn't even notice it, which pretty much means it *isn't* tangible (by the very definition of "tangible").

[Kitru]

No. I'm sorry but it is you who is incorrect. The only thing you are correct about is this is pretty simple stuff, and should be common sense.

 

Do you even understand what you're saying here? We've *repeatedly* provided you with clear, simple math that outright *proves* you're wrong. If simple math, listed examples, and, hell, Occam's Razor logic isn't "common sense" then I really have to wonder what *is*?

 

So the healer will not have to heal the tank with higher HP as often or as quickly as he does the tank with lower HP. Therefore having more HP actually DOES mean the healer will not have to heal you as much.

 

Let me be frank with you: you're true *in the very slightest sense*. If we assume that a tank will end a fight at 1 health (meaning he soaked up and survived all damage and took as few heals as *absolutely possible* leaving him with a single point when the boss dies), the tank with more hit points will have received fewer heals by virtue of having more hit points, but only the difference in hit points, so a tank with 20k hp compared to a tank with 18k will have taken 2k less healing. This is, mathematically, true.

 

In *practice* however, this is not true. No tank actually ends a fight with a single hit point. Even if they did, the observable difference from either a tank or a healer's perspective would be so minor that no one would notice the difference: with 4.3k incoming damage/sec, over the course of a 4 minute fight, a tank would take 1032k damage. That is 1,032,000 damage. The 2k difference in damage "taken" in the single instance in which your logic is applicable only amounts to .2% of incoming damage, which is less than most healers waste on incidental overhealing due to crits.

 

It's akin to making the argument that you won't have to refill a car with a small gas tank more than a car with a huge gas tank because they both use gas. It's a very weird and nonsensical argument that defies even elmentary-level logic.

 

Actually, it's exactly like that but you're completely misreading it (which is what I can only assume you've been doing this entire time because every other person that has taken part in this thread isn't a complete moron has realized it).

 

Imagine a 50 gallon gas tank and a 35 gallon gas tank. Both gas tanks are hooked up to engines that burn 5 gallons per minute. If there is no one there to refill the gas tanks, sure, the 50 gallon tank will last 10 minutes while the 35 gallon tank only lasts 7, but this isn't the case. There are a pair of attendants whose job is to watch over the gas tank and make sure it keeps running. They can refill the gas tanks at 5 gallons per minute. Assuming the attendants don't spend their time standing around and reading a book, both gas tanks will last exactly as long.

 

Basic logic follows suit with this: since both tanks burn fuel at the same rate, after the same period of time, they would have burn the exact same amount of fuel. This is an *irrefutable* mathematical fact. To leave the metaphor, it's is mathematically, logically, and in any other way that it can be asserted *impossible* to claim that a tank with more hit points takes less damage. Hit points do nothing to mitigate damage. They are simply the reserve from which damage withdraws: a 50 gallon tank will not burn fuel more efficiently than a 35 gallon tank.

 

The *only* and I repeat *only* way that one tank will require less refueling than the other is if is is *purposefully* allowed to not remain full, that is, in mathematical terms, the rate of refill is *less* than the rate of consumption. While, in the short term, this can generate some appreciable returns (the larger tank lasts 43% longer in the "no refill" scenario), in the long term (let's say an hour), the returns are largely unobservable: only 4.5% longer assuming both are allowed to run until they run out of fuel.

 

The *problem* with this assertion (the only one in which you are even *remotely* true) is that no decent healer in TOR or any other MMO would purposefully allow their tank to drop below max health for the entire duration of the fight to conserve resources. Even if you assume the healer stops healing the tank for a short period of time in order to gain greater efficiency, since the damage is coming at the same rate, *the amount of damage that has been dealt and therefore needs to be healed is exactly the same*.

 

If you want to make the claim that, through class mechanics, 2k additional hit points on a tank with 18k hit points will allow a healer to maintain a more efficient style of play, you're welcome to it, but, somehow, I *sincerely* doubt that, assuming 4.3k points of incoming damage per second, .46 seconds will make an appreciable difference in your efficiency, especially since you (and the other 1-3 healers you're grouped with) are already getting 4.2 seconds to work with: if you *really* need the additional .46 seconds in order to maintain your resources, I doubt you should be there in the first place.

 

Before you start making bogus claims about logic and other people's inability to understand it, I suggest you first review it yourself. Your own logical construct ignores the single most important factor (and the one that you, yourself, say you fulfill) in tank survivability during a raid encounter. We're the ones that have actually provided mathematical examples that are fundamentally unflawed. Every example you have provided is *grossly* flawed and, in order to draw anything *approaching* a conclusion such as your own, has to be viewed through *extreme* outlier situations. In anything approaching a "normal" situation, you've been fundamentally wrong on all counts, both logically and mathematically.

 

Here's a mathematical construct for you to follow:

 

There are 2 Tanks, 2 Healers, and 2 Enemies.

 

Tank 1 has 50k + 1 health.

Tank 2 has 10k + 1 health.

 

Healer 1 can restore 10k damage every 10 seconds.

Healer 2 can restore 2k damage every 2 seconds.

 

Enemy 1 deals 1k damage every second.

Enemy 2 deals 5k damage every 5 seconds.

 

No matter how you combine a tank, a healer, and an enemy, the tank will always end up taking the same amount of damage and the healer will always end up healing *the exact same amount*. Since the only variable that has *any* effect on the amount of damage healed or damage taken is *time*, it doesn't matter at all. As long as the enemy does not deal more damage than the tank has maximum hit points in a single interval, it doesn't matter how many hit points the tank may have. Having 5 *billion* hit points (a 10,000,000% increase) would have no effect upon how much damage he took and would only mean that, before needing healing would be increase by that same factor. Since the differences were referring to are *not* quantities that are better referred to in exponential form as opposed to standard decimal format, the gains are *not* appreciable.

 

Let me repeat this:

 

Additional hit points have no bearing on incoming damage and, since healing *should* be a function of incoming damage, additional hit points have no bearing on incoming heals *in real numbers*. Over a 5 second window, a tank might need less healing (and only if you're willing to allow your tank to sit there with less than max hit points), but, over a 5 minute fight *the amount of healing is completely unaffected*.

 

The only assumption we, as tanks, are operating under is that you, as a healer, are not a complete, bumbling idiot. If you can't realize that hit points have no real bearing upon incoming damage and that they are completely unrelated to the amount of healing needed to overcome said damage over the course of a long fight, I may have to concede that we will need more hit points, if only because the one assumption we're making has obviously been proven unsound.

[Arbegla]

Considering how little extra health you actually get from the listed self healing (in a raid context), it's functionally nonexistent. Shadow self heals provide so little at the moment that augmenting them by increasing your max hp doesn't really provide appreciable returns.

 

Consider the differences between 18k and 20k health over the course of a 4 minute fight. That's 8 TK Throws and 2 Battle Readinesses, for a total of 116% healing (8 * 12 + 2 * 10). For the two hp values, that's 20.88k and 23.2k hp, a difference of 2.32 k hp. Using your standard 4.3k incoming damage for a raid boss, that's .54 seconds of damage mitigated, or, if you want to look at the benefits over the entire duration of the fight, it's less than 10 additional hp/sec. It's so little you wouldn't even notice it, which pretty much means it *isn't* tangible (by the very definition of "tangible").

 

Using some more elaborate math, at least from the side of increasing HP in relative to mitigation, lets compare some knowns from our previous debate:

 

Armor/buffs prevents 36% of incoming damage, 5 different HP values, 16k, 18k, 20k, 22k and 24k. 20k seems to be about the average HPs of any given tank, so that our base. 16k would basically mean giving up all endurance bonuses for willpower, and 24k would basically mean giving up all willpower bonuses for endurance. Incoming damage is 4.3k, and TK thrust heals for 12%, BR heals for 10%.

 

Lets ignore any other variables, like CT procs, or the boosted affects BR gives to CT, as those aren't affected by endurance.

 

4300 * 36% = 1548 damage mitigated by armor, for a total incoming damage of 2752.

 

at 16k HP, TK thrust heals for 1920 health, or 32hp/second, and BR heals for 1600 health, or 26.67hp/second.

 

Your time until death is (16,000 / (2752 - 58.67)) or 5.94 seconds.

 

at 18k HP, TK thrust heals for 2160 health, or 36hp/second, and BR heals for 1800 health, or 30hp/second

 

Your time until death is (18,000 / (2752 - 66)) or 6.70 seconds

 

at 20k HP, TK trust heals for 2400 health, or 40hp/second, and BR heals for 2000 health, or 33.33hp/second

 

Your time until death is (20,000 / (2752 - 73.33)) or 7.46 seconds

 

at 22k HP, TK thrust heals for 2640 health, or 44hp/second, and BR heals for 2200 health, or 36.67hp/second

 

Your time until death is (22,000 / (2752 - 80.67)) or 8.24 seconds

 

at 24k HP, TK thrust heals for 2880 health, or 48hp/second, and BR heals for 2400 health, or 40hp/second

 

Your time until death is (24,000 / (2752 - 88)) or 9 seconds

 

So, with each increase of 200 endurance, your extending your lifespan by .76 seconds, which is any where between a 11.3% (the difference between 5.94 vs 6.7) to 8.44% (the difference between 8.24 and 9) increase in overall lifespan.

 

Would adding the same 200 willpower increase your overall DPS by 8.44% to 11.3%, thus shortening the fight by the same duration?

[Kitru]

So, with each increase of 200 endurance, your extending your lifespan by .76 seconds

 

First off, you're using the completely *wrong* time frames. Battle Readiness is used once every 2 minutes and TK Throw is used once every 30 seconds. This means that, instead of extending *every* heal requirement window by .76 seconds, they are increasing all of the windows *on average* by .76 seconds. Doing some probably only vaguely accurate late night mental math, with TK Throw, 4 out of 5 windows are unaffected and the 5th gets an additional .5 seconds and Battle Readiness provides no benefit to 19 out of 20 but provides an additional 3 seconds to the 20th.

 

The metric of comparison you're using is the entirely *wrong* metric to be using. You can't measure the effect of average healing gained over *very long periods of time* with a metric that uses only very short windows of reaction time as the quantification. The metric needs to match the meter. Since the meter is healing over very long periods of time (which is the only reasonably way to judge either Battle Readiness or TK Throw), the metric you need to use is survivability contribution over long periods of time, as I did.

 

By using the wrong metric, you've rendered any math or analysis largely pointless because any conclusions drawn aren't going to apply to the actual situation. Remember, we're talking about situations where the healers are going to be keeping the tanks at full health. The extended window simply represents the time frame that a healer gets to bring the tank back to full health. You can't extrapolate a given increase to that window into a raw increase to survivability: it's comparing pineapples to pomegranates.

 

The math I actually used compared the long term application of the abilities to the long term survivability benefits, applying the proper metric to the given meter so my point stil stands: assuming you have a healer, the heals generated by additional gains in Endurance are so small as to be negligible. The heals *themselves* are useful but using bolstering them as a reason to gain additional health is an exercise in futility.

 

Now, as to your question as to whether the increase in Willpower generates enough DPS increase to offset the abstract increase in survivability (ignoring the fact that you used the wrong metric), you're doing the math for that equivalence wrong as well. When reducing the time frame of a fight by a known percentage (re: 8% faster), it doesn't mean you're 8% more survivability: you divide by the inverse. In essence, rather than 8% faster kill speed reducing damage taken by 8%, it reduces damage taken by 8.7% (1/.92).

 

I stand by my math like I always do. Once you get to the point where you aren't going to be killed in the time it takes your healer to throw a heal on you, additional hit points are pointless, even factoring in the additional heals you get from having more hit points.

[Vermillion_oni]

Basically the more health the longer you'll servive but without dps you can't hold Agro, if you can't hold Agro your hp is moot, and your not going to be a tank and your not going to be dps. Maybe if they rework taunts hp will increase a group tanks role but at the moment dps and holding Agro is more important.

[Arbegla]

First off, you're using the completely *wrong* time frames. Battle Readiness is used once every 2 minutes and TK Throw is used once every 30 seconds. This means that, instead of extending *every* heal requirement window by .76 seconds, they are increasing all of the windows *on average* by .76 seconds. Doing some probably only vaguely accurate late night mental math, with TK Throw, 4 out of 5 windows are unaffected and the 5th gets an additional .5 seconds and Battle Readiness provides no benefit to 19 out of 20 but provides an additional 3 seconds to the 20th.

 

The metric of comparison you're using is the entirely *wrong* metric to be using. You can't measure the effect of average healing gained over *very long periods of time* with a metric that uses only very short windows of reaction time as the quantification. The metric needs to match the meter. Since the meter is healing over very long periods of time (which is the only reasonably way to judge either Battle Readiness or TK Throw), the metric you need to use is survivability contribution over long periods of time, as I did.

 

By using the wrong metric, you've rendered any math or analysis largely pointless because any conclusions drawn aren't going to apply to the actual situation. Remember, we're talking about situations where the healers are going to be keeping the tanks at full health. The extended window simply represents the time frame that a healer gets to bring the tank back to full health. You can't extrapolate a given increase to that window into a raw increase to survivability: it's comparing pineapples to pomegranates.

 

I used a time until death metric, by averaging out the healing gained by those powers over the time frame. Using those powers, with more hitpoints, means more healing, thus means more mitigation value for the heals in question. The only reason its such a small time frame is due to the large (4.3k) incoming DPS. Lower that DPS, and you'll increase that time frame.

The math I actually used compared the long term application of the abilities to the long term survivability benefits, applying the proper metric to the given meter so my point stil stands: assuming you have a healer, the heals generated by additional gains in Endurance are so small as to be negligible. The heals *themselves* are useful but using bolstering them as a reason to gain additional health is an exercise in futility.

 

In order for you to survive for 6.7 seconds with 16000 hp, you'll need to boost your mitigation by 19.5%. Or, you can simply increase your hp to 18000, a 11.11% increase in health and suddenly live just as long. That the metric I'm showing. If you'd like to explain how 'time until death' is an improper metric, please do, because your estimating that healers will be keeping Shadow tanks at 100% hp, 100% of the time, which just simply isn't possible, and is counter productive to Shadow tanks built in mitigation.

 

Saying that more endurance makes for lazy healing doesn't account for the fact that the healers job isn't to just keep the tank alive. They have an entire group to worry about, cleansing, healing, and keeping themselves up and active, plus resource management.

 

Taking your example of a tank with 16k hp, and a tank with 18k hp and both getting hit for 6k. Tank 1, can self heal back 9280 hit points every 2 minute (4 uses of TK Thrust, 1 BR), tank 2 can self heal back 10240 hit points every 2 minutes (again, 4 uses of TK thrust, 1 BR) an increase of 9.3%, with just an endurance increase of 11.11%. both tanks can shrug off that 6k damage without the need for a healer pretty easily.

 

Increase that damage to 10k, and tank 1 can't quite put themselves back to full, while tank 2 could. In that same 2 minute mark, Tank 1 would be at 15280 hit points, and tank 2 would be at 18k hit points (with 240 over healed) No healers required, and the tanks are able to keep themselves alive and active with high damage spikes. Higher the endurance, greater the heals, and unless the damage starts becoming percentile based then more endurance will be the way to go once you stack enough mitigation (via defense, block, and absorb) where your hitting DR. There are no diminishing returns on adding more hitpoints, and you can increase your overall time until death by a pretty large margin by just increasing your endurance.

Now, as to your question as to whether the increase in Willpower generates enough DPS increase to offset the abstract increase in survivability (ignoring the fact that you used the wrong metric), you're doing the math for that equivalence wrong as well. When reducing the time frame of a fight by a known percentage (re: 8% faster), it doesn't mean you're 8% more survivability: you divide by the inverse. In essence, rather than 8% faster kill speed reducing damage taken by 8%, it reduces damage taken by 8.7% (1/.92).

 

You didn't answer the question, Would adding 200 more willpower boost your DPS by enough to shorten to fight to make up for the increased survivability that 200 endurance would give you? 200 Willpower only adds 40 damage to your attacks (.2 damage per point) and 1.43% critical chance to your attacks. Would such a small increase in overall damage and critical offset the endurance increase?

I stand by my math like I always do. Once you get to the point where you aren't going to be killed in the time it takes your healer to throw a heal on you, additional hit points are pointless, even factoring in the additional heals you get from having more hit points.

 

Your not looking at the overall picture. You can't assuming healers will be able to keep you at 100%, you can't even assume that the tank will be the focus of the healer for 100% of the time. Healers could be mez'ed, healer could be healing DPS, heck, healers could be unlucky and get smacked around, requiring them to have to heal themselves and not the tank.

 

Your also not considering the self healing of the Shadow tank into the overall equation of mitigation. If you can heal yourself for 58% of your max Hitpoint every 2 minutes, and the mob your fighting can't knock you down to below 42% in those same 2 minutes, do you even need a healer? If you can stack enough endurance where you not just increase your overall 'pool' of hit points but also your self heals to the point where any outside healing would amount to over healing wouldn't that basically mean that your healer is redundant? Why wouldn't you try to aim for that goal, and instead try to increase your overall DPS which while it make shorten the fight, i highly doubt it will shorten it enough to offset the increase in durability you'd be giving up for it.

[Arbegla]

Basically the more health the longer you'll servive but without dps you can't hold Agro, if you can't hold Agro your hp is moot, and your not going to be a tank and your not going to be dps. Maybe if they rework taunts hp will increase a group tanks role but at the moment dps and holding Agro is more important.

 

The issue with this is your assuming that more willpower will suddenly fix any and all threat issues.

 

A tank is already building threat 50% faster then a DPS. A DPS needs to do 150% more damage then a tank to pull the mob off of the tank, and any given tank has at least 2 tanks, and at least 2 other abilities that build high threat. This means that for a Tanks threat building cycle, the tank is actually building threat even faster then 50%.

 

Project is uses literally every 10 seconds, which is a 100% crit chance, with 165% threat.

 

Force pull has the same 165% threat increase (due to being a higher threat power)

 

and then you have mind control, and mass mind control. If your losing threat on groups, with decent gear adding more willpower won't fix it, because it takes so much willpower to even matter (200 willpower = 40 more damage) Your better off yelling at your DPS to not AoE right away, give yourself time to build threat, and then let them unload. DPS for a tank is never important, but building threat is.

 

There are plenty other games out there without damage or threat meters, and tanks are able to hold aggro just fine, without stacking damage bonuses on top of their mitigation. If your having issues hold threat check your rotations, check your gear (for accuracy, if your not hitting, doesn't matter how much damage your dealing), and see exactly why threat is being pulled off you. Chances are, adding 40 more damage isn't going to solve it, if your missing every 4th attack, or the DPS is AoEing everything at the start of the fight, or your spamming double strike and bottoming out your force so you can't use Project when you need to. There are plenty of other factors to consider before you want to increase your damage by such a small amount.

[Kitru]

A tank is already building threat 50% faster then a DPS. A DPS needs to do 150% more damage then a tank to pull the mob off of the tank, and any given tank has at least 2 tanks, and at least 2 other abilities that build high threat. This means that for a Tanks threat building cycle, the tank is actually building threat even faster then 50%.

 

First off, a tank is only generating 50% additional threat per point of damage or healing dealt. A DPS should deal substantially more damage; I'd venture to guess roughly 33% more. So, tanks are really only generating about 13% more threat than DPS.

 

Force pull has the same 165% threat increase (due to being a higher threat power)

 

Since Force Pull doesn't deal damage, there's no way to determine exactly what the "high threat" modifier for it means since 1.5 * 0 is still 0. The "high threat" modifier likely equates to a specific amount of threat generated that is respectably high.

 

(200 willpower = 40 more damage)

 

That number is misleading since you're giving neither a time frame nor the proper term for what "40 more damage" actually is. You're also ignoring the crit benefits that WP also provides (which is a direct percentage increase to damage dealt.

 

So, for the first part, "40 more damage" refers specifically to your "bonus damage" attribute which is the quantity that directly adds damage to your weakest attack, namely Saber Strike. Ergo, "40 bonus damage" translates into 40 additional damage with your weakest attack: your more powerful attacks gain proportionately more from your bonus damage based on the amount of damage they deal compared to your basic attack, so, Double Strike, which deals roughly 1.6 times as much as much damage as Saber Strike, will gain roughly 1.6 the benefit of any bonus damage increases.

 

In essence, 200 additional Willpower for 40 additional bonus damage is going to be a *huge* increase to your end damage and threat output: I've been stacking Willpower pretty heavily and I only have 246 bonus melee damage. An additional 40 power would provide about 5% additional damage for me and a 5% increase in damage is *nothing* to laugh at.

 

There are plenty of other factors to consider before you want to increase your damage by such a small amount.

 

There is a lot more you need to learn about the game before you start making inaccurate assumptions about the contribution of various amounts of stats.

[Dracyula]

Taking your example of a tank with 16k hp, and a tank with 18k hp and both getting hit for 6k. Tank 1, can self heal back 9280 hit points every 2 minute (4 uses of TK Thrust, 1 BR), tank 2 can self heal back 10240 hit points every 2 minutes (again, 4 uses of TK thrust, 1 BR) an increase of 9.3%, with just an endurance increase of 11.11%. both tanks can shrug off that 6k damage without the need for a healer pretty easily.

 

You didn't answer the question, Would adding 200 more willpower boost your DPS by enough to shorten to fight to make up for the increased survivability that 200 endurance would give you? 200 Willpower only adds 40 damage to your attacks (.2 damage per point) and 1.43% critical chance to your attacks. Would such a small increase in overall damage and critical offset the endurance increase?

 

I am new to posting on forums so forgive me if the quote doesn't show up properly.

 

First, I will say that I am not saying you are wrong (you are making good, well thought out points), but I would like to further the discussion.

 

In your example with the tank having 16k vs 18k health, 200 END essentially adds 8 HPS (or mitigation if you will) with the additional 960 health over 120 seconds. In order to figure out how helpful this is we would need to know how much damage per second the tanks are taking. I am not near end game yet, but I would assume 8 HPS is negligible (especially compared to how much healers can heal), you can think of it like adding 8 HPS to your healers healing.

 

Now, assuming there isn't a flaw in my logic, in theory the 200 END does not really help. That being said, the ability to self heal for a large amount in a pivotal time in the fight can be very helpful. We must ask ourselves if the added amount is beneficial.

 

I question your numbers on how much willpower adds to dps. Does WIL do less if you are specced as a tank (I haven't looked much into the DPS trees). Also, does 200 WIL add 40 damage to every attack that you use? Logically, I would think that WIL makes all of your damage abilities more powerful based on a percentage, rather than adding a gross number to them.

 

We should keep in mind how much health the boss has in order to calculate the amount of mitigation added DPS will have. Yes, I said DPS adds mitigation. If a boss does 3000 DPS and an added 200 WIL helps kill the boss 10 seconds quicker, you could say that the additional WIL prevented 30,000 Damage.

 

Like I said previously I am not at end game, so I understand that my numbers may not be accurate, but try to understand my logic. If you can give specific numbers that are in the game, that would help with the discussion.

 

Once again, I am not saying you are right or wrong, as I am not sure about the mechanics or specific numbers end game. Just throwing out assumptions and theories.

 

Please be specific with your responses, I would like to understand this better myself.

 

Thanks,

 

D

[Kitru]

I used a time until death metric, by averaging out the healing gained by those powers over the time frame. Using those powers, with more hitpoints, means more healing, thus means more mitigation value for the heals in question. The only reason its such a small time frame is due to the large (4.3k) incoming DPS. Lower that DPS, and you'll increase that time frame.

 

The "time until death" metric is *specifically* useless *because* the only situations where tank survivability is an issue are those where DPS values are that high. If you want to compare survivability while soloing or doing 2 man heroics, go right ahead, but it won't be applicable to how group and FP content operates.

 

because your estimating that healers will be keeping Shadow tanks at 100% hp, 100% of the time, which just simply isn't possible, and is counter productive to Shadow tanks built in mitigation.

 

The only assumption I am making or that I have *ever* made is that the healers will not allow the tanks to drop down to hp values that are so low that the additional hit points afforded by Endurance stacks would actually matter. In the 16k v. 18k hp comparison, it means that a healer does not allow its tank to take 15k damage before throwing a heal. I'm pretty sure that is a *very* reasonable expectation *especially* since the tank is the primary healing target. It's not as if the tank is only getting healed every once in a while: 90% of heals should be on the tank, so it's a pretty logical assumption that the healer isn't going to let the tank drop to pretty much dead with any appreciable regularity.

 

Saying that more endurance makes for lazy healing doesn't account for the fact that the healers job isn't to just keep the tank alive. They have an entire group to worry about, cleansing, healing, and keeping themselves up and active, plus resource management.

 

Yes, because it's *so* intelligent to bring up the incredibly rare exceptions and completely ignore the *standard* performance. Healers are not spending anything remotely close to a substantial majority on ally heals or cleansing and resource management is part and parcel of playing a healer outright. The argument that you need more hit points so that you healer has a larger window not to pay attention to you is an outlier argument: no matter the situation, the healer will be paying almost exclusive attention to the tank.

 

both tanks can shrug off that 6k damage without the need for a healer pretty easily.

 

Yes, because any tank with 16k or 18k is going to have to worry so very much about taking less than half of their life *over a 2 minute period*. Amazing. Your grasp of concepts and situations is as amazing as ever. You constantly amaze me with you ability to completely misconstrue and misunderstand fundamental concepts or to extrapolate thought experiments and concept teaching mechanisms as if they were somehow intended to be applied to the real game.

 

Increase that damage to 10k, and tank 1 can't quite put themselves back to full, while tank 2 could.

 

Once again, you're *completely* ignoring the fact that healers are present. Way to go.

 

Higher the endurance, greater the heals

 

Once again, this is true, but you're completely misunderstanding the context of what "greater heals" implies. Consular self heals are *nothing* compared to the heals provided by a healer. If we were tanking *without* healers, yes, getting 10% more healing out of our self heals would *mean* something appreciable, but, as it stands, since our self healing is *less than a percent* of what an actually healer would be providing us with, 10% more of that 1% healing we're providing ourselves with the going to have no appreciable effect upon our survivability.

 

Your not looking at the overall picture.

 

The picture I am looking at is the only picture that matters. I am looking at how tanks and stats will operate within the venue of FPs and Ops. I don't give a crap about how well a tank can survive without a healer or in situations where damage is so low that you have to go AFK in order to actually die and no one else should because those aren't the situations that actually matter.

 

You can't assuming healers will be able to keep you at 100%, you can't even assume that the tank will be the focus of the healer for 100% of the time.

 

I'm not. As I have *repeatedly* stated, I'm operating under the logical assumption that a healer will not allow the tank to dip below the threshold of Endurance benefit; if you want, I can even put a number on it for you: 5000 hit points or 12000 damage taken. I am now going to operate under the assumption that your healer(s) will be healing you before you take 12000 damage or are reduced to 5000 hit points. Is that satisfactory or are you going to magically come up with some *obscene* outlier explanation as to why a healer (or team of healers) would allow a tank to take 16000 hit points or that a tank would routinely be reduced to 1000 hit points?

 

Honestly, your argument for healer performance has *no* logical foundation. You're either assuming the healer *doesn't* exist or that it spends so much of its time healing *other* people that, even though it is blatantly *not true*, a tank has to pretty much do all surviving on its lonesome. If you *honestly* believe* either of these, you have *no* practical experience at either tanking *or* healing, both of which I have done in multiple games and across multiple playstyle paradigms. I am making assumptions that are as close to reality as can reasonably be made. Your counterarguments to my assumptions are entirely unfounded and, even worse, blatantly ignorant of the *reason* the assumptions are being made *simply to provide some vague and undefinable reason that can't be accurately pinned down as to why Endurance is going to make you live longer when there is a healer watching you*.

 

Your also not considering the self healing of the Shadow tank into the overall equation of mitigation.

 

Have you *already* forgotten the math I did that calculated the actual benefit of the heals? You quoted me and provided some patently flawed analysis that I easily dismissed as worthless in my response.

 

If you can heal yourself for 58% of your max Hitpoint every 2 minutes, and the mob your fighting can't knock you down to below 42% in those same 2 minutes, do you even need a healer?

 

Let me reiterate: you're bringing up situations that have no bearing upon the debate. I am referring to situations where tanks are actually required and that gearing intelligently can make the difference between repair bills and phat loots. You are bringing up situations that can only be described as solo questing or fighting enemies that are *way* below your level.

 

Making the claim that Endurance makes you more survivable when you're questing because it takes 12 seconds more for an enemy that you should be killing within 5 seconds has no bearing upon a situation where, without heals, you'll be deal before the boss drops to 99% hp.

 

If you can stack enough endurance where you not just increase your overall 'pool' of hit points but also your self heals to the point where any outside healing would amount to over healing wouldn't that basically mean that your healer is redundant? Why wouldn't you try to aim for that goal

 

You want to know why you shouldn't aim for that goal? Because it's functionally impossible for the situations that I actually care about. Sure, you can do it for solo questing (I've already gotten there on my tank for the purposes of all of the daily H2s and H4s), but you're *never* going to get there for raids and group content.

 

You want to know why? Because the enemies you fight don't deal 100 DPS. The enemies I care about tanking deal 2000-4000 DPS (*after* mitigation). In order for the .175 hp/sec we generate to equal or exceed those amounts of incoming damage, you'd need 1,150,000 - 2,300,000 hit points. Sure, you can *aim* for that, but I can tell you right now, it's not gonna happen.

 

You are *continually* grasping for straws, attempting to find some vague logical construct that will allow you to hold onto the *very thoroughly debunked* idea that HP stacking is a good idea. Anyone with a basic understanding of mathematics and a reasonable observational skills has realized this by now. I can only hope you're still hanging on to this argument out of misplaced loyalty or stubbornness rather than an inability to realize how *stupid* you are making yourself look.

 

All of the math indicates that it's pointless to stack Endurance beyond a given point. Honestly, the given point seems to be about 18k hp at the moment. Continuing to argue to the contrary is neither constructive to the argument nor conducive to making the other tanks in this community better. Cut your losses, admit defeat, and give up any delusions you have of Endurance stacking being useful beyond being a laughably useless epeen measuring stick.

[Arbegla]

Let me just clarify here. Your basically saying that because hitting the 'healer is no longer needed' goals of mitigation is so far out there (due to boss mobs hitting so hard) that its not worthwhile, and thus after you hit a 'good enough' goal you should then aim for a DPS increase, as killing the mob faster will amount to more overall mitigation?

 

My counter argument isn't that your wrong per say, but that the level of DPS increase you would gain by stacking willpower over endurance is also next to meaningless. Willpower gives you .2 bonus damage per point, and 1% critical chance per 140 points. In order to add a meaningful amount of damage via willpower, you would need to stack quite a bit of it, my example being 200 willpower, which would equal 40 'bonus' damage, and 1.43% bonus crit.

 

Looking at your powers for a second, and breaking them down best you can, via torhead.com rip of the power specifics, you can see the various Coefficient of the powers:

 

Saber strike -> first hit, .33 Coefficient, second .66, third 1.00 total = 2.00 (so that 40 damage, equates to 80 damage increase on saber strike)

 

Double Strike -> first hit, .74 Coefficient, second hit also .74. Total = 1.48 (so that 40 damage equates to 59.2 damage increase on double strike)

 

Project -> For a shadow its 1.85, with a Upheaval proc Coefficient of .925. 45% chance of the Upheaval proc, so a combined Coefficient of 2.27. (so that 40 damage equates to 90.8 damage increase on Project)

 

Telekinetic Throw -> .79 Coefficient total, or .1975 coefficient per hit (4 hits). Assuming its not interrupted, that 40 damage equates to a 31.6 damage increase.

 

Force Breach -> .435 Coefficient, so 40 that 40 damage would equate to a 17.4 damage increase.

 

Slow Time -> .94 Coefficient, so that 40 damage would equate to a 37.6 damage increase.

 

Now, if you factor in the GCDs, and cast times, your looking at these numbers:

 

Saber strike being increased by 53.33DPS

 

Double Strike being increased by 39.47DPS

 

Project being increased by 60.53DPS

 

TK Thrust being increased by 10.53DPS

 

Force Breach being increased by 11.6DPS

 

Slow time being increased by 25.07DPS

 

Project gets the most gain, followed by saber strike, then double strike with slow time, force breach and TK thrust being the least amount of gains, due to GCD and low coefficient values.

 

Project is used every 10 seconds to help maintain force (and get the 100% crit chance) TK Thrust is used every 30 seconds (so your at 3 stacks of the proc, for maximum damage, and the self heal) Force Breach and Slow time are used every 15 seconds to maintain the debuff and Double strike and Saber Strike are used in between. Double is used to trigger Project procs, and saber is used to conserve force.

 

Using the above, you can assuming 20 GCDs in 30 seconds, 2 each for Force Breach and Slow time, 1 for TK Thrust, 3 for Project which leaves 12 GCDs for Double strike and Saber Strike. To maintain Force and trigger Projects, you'd need to use 8 Double Strikes, and 4 Saber strikes.

 

I'm not going to account for force use, and just assume the above is viable, plus I'm not going to count any GCDs or force used for Defensive cooldowns.

 

So, your combined DPS increase by increasing your willpower by 200, in pure damage, and accounting for the extra critical (which would just mean multiplying everything by .715% as critical is only 50% added damage) and you'll have an increase of ((((2 * 11.6) + (2 * 25.07) + (1 * 10.53) + (3 * 60.53) + (8 * 39.47) + (4 * 53.53)) / 30) * 1.00715). or about 26.70DPS increase

 

So adding 200 willpower, boosts your overall DPS by 26.7. You'd have to find out exactly what your DPS value is before the 200 willpower to figure out what kind of an increase your looking at but there ya go. 200 willpower = 26.7DPS.

 

Now, I've already shown the math on 200 endurance, and how it can boost your mitigation.

 

Would the increase in DPS (26.7) be enough to offset the increase in mitigation? (8.44% to 11.3%?) Until we know for sure what a Shadow's DPS numbers actually are, we may not ever know, but for kicks, lets see what your DPS should be for 26.7 to make the mitigation values. For 8.44% your looking at 316.35DPS, and for 11.3%, you would need 236.28DPS.

 

Pretty sure you'd be doing much more then 236.28DPS - 316.35DPS as a shadow tank, so how exactly would the 200 willpower benefit you more then the 200 endurance?

[Arbegla]

In your example with the tank having 16k vs 18k health, 200 END essentially adds 8 HPS (or mitigation if you will) with the additional 960 health over 120 seconds. In order to figure out how helpful this is we would need to know how much damage per second the tanks are taking. I am not near end game yet, but I would assume 8 HPS is negligible (especially compared to how much healers can heal), you can think of it like adding 8 HPS to your healers healing.

 

The thing your not considering, is that its 8hp/second on top of what you already have for mitigation (which is about 25% defense, 50% block, 30% absorb, 2% force/tech resistance, 40% K/I innate resistance, and 21% I/E innate resistance)

 

Once you realize that its not a straight 8hp/second boost, then you'll see how it can add up pretty quickly. I proved that already with the Mental Fortitude vs Elusiveness argument, that 2% more endurance is slightly better then a 15 second reduction on resilience, due to the increase hit point pool, and benefiting your self healing. If you'd like i can repost that math here and show you how i came to that, but the simple fact is, adding more health to your character will increase your mitigation (both via having a massive hit point pool and by benefiting your self healing) more then adding willpower would by decreasing the length of the fight.

 

Now, assuming there isn't a flaw in my logic, in theory the 200 END does not really help. That being said, the ability to self heal for a large amount in a pivotal time in the fight can be very helpful. We must ask ourselves if the added amount is beneficial.

 

I question your numbers on how much willpower adds to dps. Does WIL do less if you are specced as a tank (I haven't looked much into the DPS trees). Also, does 200 WIL add 40 damage to every attack that you use? Logically, I would think that WIL makes all of your damage abilities more powerful based on a percentage, rather than adding a gross number to them.

 

As per my previous post, running through an assuming 30 second rotation of our attacks, 200 willpower amounts to a 26.7 DPS increase. That's not a percentage increase, its a flat number. In order for the added DPS to overcome the percentage gained from endurance (as that a percentage number, not a flat out amount) you would need to be doing between 240 and 320 DPS. And i'm pretty sure, at level 50, with 100% accuracy against raid level mobs, you'd be doing more DPS then that, which makes the DPS increase very minor over all.

We should keep in mind how much health the boss has in order to calculate the amount of mitigation added DPS will have. Yes, I said DPS adds mitigation. If a boss does 3000 DPS and an added 200 WIL helps kill the boss 10 seconds quicker, you could say that the additional WIL prevented 30,000 Damage.

 

Yes, if the increase in DPS is enough to lower the fight by a significant amount, then it would be worth going for, but as I've shown by running through a assumed 30 second rotation, and DPS increase for add 200 willpower is literally next to nothing. Due to Coefficient values, a bonus damage amount of 40 doesn't translate into a solid 40 damage across all powers. Some benefit more, some benefit less (ironically enough, Saber Strike is almost gaining the most of it, as its a pure weapon + bonus damage power, Project only gains so much mainly due to the Upheaval proc adding a 45% for 50% more damage)

 

Now if someone else can show that Willpower is going to provide more then a 26.7DPS increase overall, and how exactly that will work (using the numbers we have now) then i'll concede my point entirely.

 

Please be specific with your responses, I would like to understand this better myself.

 

I hope that it was specific in my answer, at least enough to show you how 200 endurance > 200 willpower. Again, if you'd like i can copy and paste my math showing how a minor increase in hit points and self healing can amount to great times until death.

[Arbegla]

The "time until death" metric is *specifically* useless *because* the only situations where tank survivability is an issue are those where DPS values are that high. If you want to compare survivability while soloing or doing 2 man heroics, go right ahead, but it won't be applicable to how group and FP content operates.

 

So, the only situations where tank survivability is an issue are those where DPS values are that high, yet you go on to say that DPS values are not that high in flash point and raid content. Pretty sure its one or the other. And as a healer, and as a tank, I'd much rather have 10 seconds to react to incoming damage knowing my tank can survive that long by himself, then having 5 seconds to react to incoming damage.

 

The only assumption I am making or that I have *ever* made is that the healers will not allow the tanks to drop down to hp values that are so low that the additional hit points afforded by Endurance stacks would actually matter. In the 16k v. 18k hp comparison, it means that a healer does not allow its tank to take 15k damage before throwing a heal. I'm pretty sure that is a *very* reasonable expectation *especially* since the tank is the primary healing target. It's not as if the tank is only getting healed every once in a while: 90% of heals should be on the tank, so it's a pretty logical assumption that the healer isn't going to let the tank drop to pretty much dead with any appreciable regularity.

 

Your metric then isn't time until death (0 hit points) its time until 10% health, giving you enough time to actually save your tank. Your argument is then that extending that 'time until 10% health' metric is again useless because the healer should have enough time to react, regardless of how much time they actually have.

 

If one tank goes from 100% hp to 10% in 2 seconds, your healer has 2 seconds to respond. If a different tank goes from 100% hp to 10% hp in 4 seconds, your healer has 4 seconds to respond, or double the first tanks time. Is that more or less your argument?

 

Yes, because it's *so* intelligent to bring up the incredibly rare exceptions and completely ignore the *standard* performance. Healers are not spending anything remotely close to a substantial majority on ally heals or cleansing and resource management is part and parcel of playing a healer outright. The argument that you need more hit points so that you healer has a larger window not to pay attention to you is an outlier argument: no matter the situation, the healer will be paying almost exclusive attention to the tank.

 

In a flashpoint a healer has to worry about 4 different players (tank, 2 DPS, and themselves) if any of those 4 players go below your measurement of healing, then the healer has to react. If a massive AoE knocks the tank, and a melee DPS down to 20% hp, who do you heal first? The tank with innate resistance that could survive another 4 seconds by themselves, or the squishier melee DPS that can't survive one more hit? Its actually NOT that rare at all a situation. Things happen, and you only have so much time to react to them.

 

Can you honestly tell me that every single raid you've been on, in every different game you've played that every single time there was a tank, and a healer that the tank got over 90% of the incoming healing? Because I've never seen that. 70%? yes, majority? Definitely. 90%? No.

 

Yes, because any tank with 16k or 18k is going to have to worry so very much about taking less than half of their life *over a 2 minute period*. Amazing. Your grasp of concepts and situations is as amazing as ever. You constantly amaze me with you ability to completely misconstrue and misunderstand fundamental concepts or to extrapolate thought experiments and concept teaching mechanisms as if they were somehow intended to be applied to the real game.

 

I only used 2 minutes as a means of time to better show the incoming self healing. If a fight lasts 10 minutes, and the boss's DPS is 2,000, wouldn't it make sense for the tank to take advantage of his self healing abilities to make the healers life easier? Especially if slotting for willpower gives a very minor boost in DPS?

 

 

Once again, this is true, but you're completely misunderstanding the context of what "greater heals" implies. Consular self heals are *nothing* compared to the heals provided by a healer. If we were tanking *without* healers, yes, getting 10% more healing out of our self heals would *mean* something appreciable, but, as it stands, since our self healing is *less than a percent* of what an actually healer would be providing us with, 10% more of that 1% healing we're providing ourselves with the going to have no appreciable effect upon our survivability.

 

So, your saying that healers heal 1200% of a tanks hit points every 30 seconds (as 1% of 1200 is 12, and shadow tanks heal 12% every 30 seconds) meaning with 20k hp, your healer is doing 24,000,000 hit points over 30 seconds, or 400,000hp/second. I highly HIGHLY doubt those numbers to be correct.

 

Let me be frank with you. Healer's heals are not Percentile based. They heal a flat amount, and hope that flat amount is enough to overcome the incoming DPS. Shadow tanks self healing, ARE percentile based. It doesn't matter what your incoming DPS in, your able to heal yourself for 12% of your max hp every 30 seconds, and another 10% of your max HP every 2 minutes. And heck, you could push the 12% heal to every 18 seconds, granted you'd burn yourself out of force faster then anything else you do, but it is entirely possible.

 

The picture I am looking at is the only picture that matters. I am looking at how tanks and stats will operate within the venue of FPs and Ops. I don't give a crap about how well a tank can survive without a healer or in situations where damage is so low that you have to go AFK in order to actually die and no one else should because those aren't the situations that actually matter.

 

Trash mobs are in flashpoints and Ops. Resources are limited. Time is also limited. If your tank can clear 3 groups of trash without needing a single heal, then you've just boosted your time until completion by a very large amount. Or heck, what if the healer gets stunned? or knocked on his butt? Resilience gives you immunity to any force/tech powers for 5 seconds, what if the power you just become immune to was a massive force push? Everyone else is knocked 50+meters away, and your the only thing standing, the healer won't be able to get to you for 5 seconds. Do you survive?

 

You pop Force Speed to avoid a massive debuff, and run outta range of the healer. They will take 3 seconds to catch up to you. Do you survive?

 

The healer has an add on him that you missed, they will be unable to successfully get a heal off for 2 seconds. Do you survive?

 

The healer has been hit by a stun that lasts 8 seconds. Zero healing during that time. Do you survive?

 

I'm not. As I have *repeatedly* stated, I'm operating under the logical assumption that a healer will not allow the tank to dip below the threshold of Endurance benefit; if you want, I can even put a number on it for you: 5000 hit points or 12000 damage taken. I am now going to operate under the assumption that your healer(s) will be healing you before you take 12000 damage or are reduced to 5000 hit points. Is that satisfactory or are you going to magically come up with some *obscene* outlier explanation as to why a healer (or team of healers) would allow a tank to take 16000 hit points or that a tank would routinely be reduced to 1000 hit points?

 

Honestly, your argument for healer performance has *no* logical foundation. You're either assuming the healer *doesn't* exist or that it spends so much of its time healing *other* people that, even though it is blatantly *not true*, a tank has to pretty much do all surviving on its lonesome. If you *honestly* believe* either of these, you have *no* practical experience at either tanking *or* healing, both of which I have done in multiple games and across multiple playstyle paradigms. I am making assumptions that are as close to reality as can reasonably be made. Your counterarguments to my assumptions are entirely unfounded and, even worse, blatantly ignorant of the *reason* the assumptions are being made *simply to provide some vague and undefinable reason that can't be accurately pinned down as to why Endurance is going to make you live longer when there is a healer watching you*.

 

Exactly, your metric is a 'time until 10%' or something like that, giving the healers plenty of time to 'have your back' thus any number of hit points you have wont really matter as long as the healer has some time to react. I get that. What your not getting is that things happen that prevent the healer from being able to heal, and what happens when that occurs?

 

Have you *already* forgotten the math I did that calculated the actual benefit of the heals? You quoted me and provided some patently flawed analysis that I easily dismissed as worthless in my response.

 

Your math and my math don't line up, and they never really have. We seem to like to play with completely different numbers and then argue back and forth because the other is wrong. Look over my numbers and prove they are wrong, I used your numbers to come up with them. Your only taking half the equation into consideration (the amount heals between the different hit point pools) and not factoring in the other forms of mitigation you already have. I am.

 

 

 

You want to know why you shouldn't aim for that goal? Because it's functionally impossible for the situations that I actually care about. Sure, you can do it for solo questing (I've already gotten there on my tank for the purposes of all of the daily H2s and H4s), but you're *never* going to get there for raids and group content.

 

You want to know why? Because the enemies you fight don't deal 100 DPS. The enemies I care about tanking deal 2000-4000 DPS (*after* mitigation). In order for the .175 hp/sec we generate to equal or exceed those amounts of incoming damage, you'd need 1,150,000 - 2,300,000 hit points. Sure, you can *aim* for that, but I can tell you right now, it's not gonna happen.

 

I'm merely aiming for a goal where I'm giving my healers more time to react when things go south. Your basically saying 'na, its good enough' and not accounting for all the bad things that could happen throughout a fight.

You are *continually* grasping for straws, attempting to find some vague logical construct that will allow you to hold onto the *very thoroughly debunked* idea that HP stacking is a good idea. Anyone with a basic understanding of mathematics and a reasonable observational skills has realized this by now. I can only hope you're still hanging on to this argument out of misplaced loyalty or stubbornness rather than an inability to realize how *stupid* you are making yourself look.

 

All of the math indicates that it's pointless to stack Endurance beyond a given point. Honestly, the given point seems to be about 18k hp at the moment. Continuing to argue to the contrary is neither constructive to the argument nor conducive to making the other tanks in this community better. Cut your losses, admit defeat, and give up any delusions you have of Endurance stacking being useful beyond being a laughably useless epeen measuring stick.

 

Your math is showing that, not mine. We've had this go around before, with Mental Fortitude vs Elusiveness. After showing you to the numbers once, you went 'no your wrong' and then i finally showed them to you again using all the variable you picked, and you finally 'well, i guess you could be right.' I'm doing that same thing here. Show me variables, tell me what exactly your trying to do here, and I'll show you your wrong, just like I did last time.

 

You've obviously never played City of Heroes. There, tanks are self sufficient and able to basically wade into hordes of mobs without the 'green numbers of comfort' your pinning so hard after. I've played that game, and can tell you flat out there are times where a tank can stand toe to toe with the toughest mob in the room and live to talk about it. There are times where a healer is disabled, or busy, and when that happens the tank has to do everything they can to stay alive or the team will wipe over and over again.

 

You've obviously ignoring all the other mechanics in all the other games you've played just to try to tell me that any measure of time for the healer to react within, no matter how small, is good enough and any means to extend that time is ridiculous and dumbfounded.

 

So until you show me solid facts for your point, and not just 'well, i think the DPS increase will be better, and the survivability increase is meaningless' which I've showed YOU is actually the other way around, I'm pretty sure you just need to accept defeat.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Arbegla

[Dracyula]

The thing your not considering, is that its 8hp/second on top of what you already have for mitigation (which is about 25% defense, 50% block, 30% absorb, 2% force/tech resistance, 40% K/I innate resistance, and 21% I/E innate resistance)

 

Once you realize that its not a straight 8hp/second boost, then you'll see how it can add up pretty quickly. I proved that already with the Mental Fortitude vs Elusiveness argument, that 2% more endurance is slightly better then a 15 second reduction on resilience, due to the increase hit point pool, and benefiting your self healing. If you'd like i can repost that math here and show you how i came to that, but the simple fact is, adding more health to your character will increase your mitigation (both via having a massive hit point pool and by benefiting your self healing) more then adding willpower would by decreasing the length of the fight.

 

I fail to realize how our other forms of mitigation relate to the 8HPS provided by self heals. Weather you stack END or WIL, you will still have the other forms of mitigation that you mention. I understand that adding END gives you more than added self healing (like a larger margin for error if things go badly), but please explain how it is not just 8HPS for our self heals.

 

With the math that you use, it becomes a question of 8HPS versus 26.7DPS. If you have numbers for a specific bosses health and the average time it takes to kill it, we could come up with a more accurate answer by determining how much quicker it would die with the extra DPS (giving us how much damage was prevented), and comparing this to how much total healing we could do over the course of the fight.

 

For example if the boss has 1,000,000 health and the fight lasts 5 minutes, an added 26.7DPS would make the fight 2.4 seconds shorter.

 

8HPS over 5 minutes would be 2400 health, so in this case, does the boss do more than 2400 damage in 2.4 seconds?

 

If these numbers are close to actual numbers, it points out that either way you go, the difference is extremely minor.