Endurance v. Willpower (Shadow Tanking)

[Arbegla]

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.

 

Let figure out if your 8hp/second is a viable estimate, as i know how you got that number, but i want to see if its actually viable.

 

4.3k incoming DPS via boss damage, 25% defense, 50% shield block for 30% absorb, 40% Innate kinetic/energy damage reduction via armor, and 21% innate Internal/Elemental damage reduction via buffs/talents.

 

with 16k hp, CT provides 38hp/second. TK Thrust provides 64hp/second, and BR provides 13.33hp/second, for a total of 115.33 hp/second healing base.

 

with 18k hp CT provides 38hp/second. TK Thrust provides 72hhp/second, and BR provides 15hp/second, for a total of 125hp/second healing base.

 

Now, a good safe assumption is 50/50 damage split on range/melee damage, and 75/25 split on Kinetic/energy:internal/elemental damage, so lets break down the 4300 DPS.

 

2150 melee/range damage

2150 * .75(defense chance) * .85(block chance) = 1370.63 damage after defense and block

 

1370.63 * .75(kinetic/energy) = 1027.97

1027.97 * .6(kinetic/energy resistance) = 616.78 total Kinetic/energy damage

1370.63 * .25(internal/elemental) = 342.66

342.66 * .79(internal/elemental resistance) = 270.70 total kinetic/energy damage

 

2150 Force/tech damage

2150 * .98(resistance chance) = 2107 after force/tech resistance

 

2107 * .75(kinetic/energy) = 1580.25

1580.25 * .6(kinetic/energy resistance) = 948.15 total kinetic/energy damage

2107 * .25(internal/elemental) = 526.75

526.75 * .79(internal/elemental resistance) = 416.13 total interal/elemental damage

 

Total damage after factoring in defense/innate resistance mitigation = 2251.76 DPS

 

So using the 16k hitpoints your time until death would be (16,000 / (2251.76 - 115.33)) or about 7.49 seconds.

 

Using 18k hit points, your time until death would be (18,000 / (2251.76 - 125)) or about 8.46 seconds.

 

Increasing your endurance by 200, adds nearly 1 whole second unto your lifespan after you factor in other mitigation values. .97 second increase in life span translates into a 11.4% increase in life expectancy.

 

Now, unless that 26.7DPS increase from 200 willpower is going to increase your overall DPS by 11.4% or lower the entire fights duration by 11.4% i really think the 200 endurance is the better bang for the buck, regardless if you think 'time until death' is a good metric, as adding nearly a full second to a healers reaction time is really the best option.

 

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.

 

Its actually closer to a full 10hp/second increase, vs 26.7DPS, but you have to think of it in percentages. You can see that 10hp/second amounts to nearly a 11.4% increase in lifespan, and unless your doing 234.21 or less DPS then the 26.7DPS increase isn't going to benefit you as much.

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.

 

If the boss has 1 million HP, and you increase your overall DPS by 26.7 it would depend entirely on how much DPS you did before. Assuming 1 million HP, and a fight duration of 5 minutes, that means that your party combined did 3,333.33DPS. adding 26.7DPS would be an .008%.

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.

 

While the difference would be extremely minor either way, looking at the amount of DPS 200 willpower gives you (26.7) vs the amount of mitigation 200 endurance gives you (10hp/second, and 11.4% increase on your lifespan) its pretty plain to see which is going to benefit you more in the long run.

[hidekix]

tanked 6/6 nightmare eternity vault as a jedi shadow.. and tank gear/stats is total irrelevant.. just take what u get... boss/mobs do not hit hard (flashpoint silver packs hit harder) and bossaggro is no problem either.. so i would suggest just take colummi stuff and do not care

[Arbegla]

tanked 6/6 nightmare eternity vault as a jedi shadow.. and tank gear/stats is total irrelevant.. just take what u get... boss/mobs do not hit hard (flashpoint silver packs hit harder) and bossaggro is no problem either.. so i would suggest just take colummi stuff and do not care

 

Do keep in mind that Eternity Vault is getting a pretty nice overhaul on the PTR, so just gearing up in vendor gear may not be the best option anymore.

[Dyinn]

I think you two (Arbegla and Kitru) are my favorite persons on this forums

 

It was fun read! Your both make so so strong arguments that I find myself confused on what should I take as the valid strategy.

 

I therefore decided that you are both right.

 

Sure... Kitru you are kinda math genius who knows his way around numbers and theorycrafitng of mmo. Your logic is implacable aswell. I do listen to you.. you know all. Still I have this feeling that you are forgetting that huge factor of the game - unpredictable circs, human error or just bad play. Well.. extra END was invented by devs all over the world because of this specific circumstances as it is allowing you to survive it longer. I don't think that the gear made up by dev with pure tanking stats (defense, shield,..) has all that extra END by pure coincidence.. even if you think that they dont know what they are doing as the game is new and stat balance is kinda starting from zero.

 

I'll illustrate example with that yours 50 and 35 gallon tank. If both tanks gets a hole in it.. which one will have higher chances to keep some juice in before a technician can fix that specific hole and refill it so it can reach designated destination?

 

I'll balance my endurance in a way so that I can survive any ****ups that WILL happen and therefore maximize the chance to kill the boss... cuz its my job to do so.

[Arbegla]

I'll illustrate example with that yours 50 and 35 gallon tank. If both tanks gets a hole in it.. which one will have higher chances to keep some juice in before a technician can fix that specific hole and refill it so it can reach designated destination?

 

I'll balance my endurance in a way so that I can survive any ****ups that WILL happen and therefore maximize the chance to kill the boss... cuz its my job to do so.

 

Which is exactly my point Especially when that extra willpower wont do very much to help you in the long run.

[Dracyula]

Which is exactly my point Especially when that extra willpower wont do very much to help you in the long run.

 

Is there a point where you would agree with adding WIL over endurance? What if a tank has 25k hitpoints currently, and all the bosses hit for the same amount that they do right now? What about 30k, 35k.....

 

At what point in your mind would you be adding endurance that will never be used?

 

Also in your previous post you said that in a 5 minute fight the group's dps would be 3,333.33 therefore making the 26.7 dps .008%. This is the same math that I used.

 

5 minutes is 300 seconds, so if you take 300 * .008 what do you get? 2.4 seconds...

 

D

[Arbegla]

Is there a point where you would agree with adding WIL over endurance? What if a tank has 25k hitpoints currently, and all the bosses hit for the same amount that they do right now? What about 30k, 35k.....

 

At what point in your mind would you be adding endurance that will never be used?

 

Also in your previous post you said that in a 5 minute fight the group's dps would be 3,333.33 therefore making the 26.7 dps .008%. This is the same math that I used.

 

5 minutes is 300 seconds, so if you take 300 * .008 what do you get? 2.4 seconds...

 

D

 

There is no point where you would EVER want to trade out endurance for willpower. Even if that endurance is 'redundant' your always just making your healers life easier.

 

Adding willpower will NEVER boost your DPS numbers by enough of a margin to make up for the added mitigation and durability adding endurance would add.

 

Unless you get to a point where your healer isn't required at all, which as Kitru already explained, just isn't possible, then there is no reason to stack willpower over endurance. Any increase in endurance is going to increase your lifespan (and time for your healers to react to you taking damage) at a much greater rate then increasing willpower would decrease the duration of the fight.

 

And while i understand the time duration is the same (between 2.4 seconds, and .008% decrease) its much easier to see the difference between .008% decrease in fight duration, and 11.4% increase in lifespan. Its much easier to see which is larger, and which is better to stack.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Arbegla

[Dracyula]

There is no point where you would EVER want to trade out endurance for willpower. Even if that endurance is 'redundant' your always just making your healers life easier.

 

Adding willpower will NEVER boost your DPS numbers by enough of a margin to make up for the added mitigation and durability adding endurance would add.

 

Unless you get to a point where your healer isn't required at all, which as Kitru already explained, just isn't possible, then there is no reason to stack willpower over endurance. Any increase in endurance is going to increase your lifespan (and time for your healers to react to you taking damage) at a much greater rate then increasing willpower would decrease the duration of the fight.

 

And while i understand the time duration is the same (between 2.4 seconds, and .008% decrease) its much easier to see the difference between .008% decrease in fight duration, and 11.4% increase in lifespan. Its much easier to see which is larger, and which is better to stack.

 

Although I understand your point, you logic is flawed. I attempted to give extremes so you could see the other side of the argument.

 

Let's say that at 15k hp your lifespan is 10 seconds without a healer, an 11.4% increase would give you 11.14 seconds until death (instead of 10). if the healer can heal your entire health bar in 6 seconds, they don't "need" the additional 5 seconds of lifespan that you provide (although it is nice to have a buffer).

 

Now, for example, lets say that a tank has 30k hp with a lifespan of 20 seconds (22.28 seconds with additional 200 END), but it still takes the healer 6 seconds to heal 15k health. Why add 2 extra seconds (20 to 22) when they already have an extra 14 seconds to sit around before they need to heal you?

 

I will go even more extreme, lets say you have 60k health and a lifespan of 40 seconds. The bosses do the same amount of damage, but now the healer has 30 seconds to stand around until you even get to 15k health (at which point they could just start healing you back up, as they can out heal the damage that is coming in).

 

In the last instance, you would still need a healer because a boss fight is going to last longer than your 40 second lifespan.

 

While we are at it, why don't we just create a group with all healers and a tanks, that will give us even more of a buffer if things go wrong.

 

Why do we even need dps in our groups if we have a better chance at survival without them.

 

My point is that there is a point when your odds of death are so slim that it is more efficient to add dps.

 

Kitru is saying that this is the case currently in endgame ops, I am not there currently so I cannot argue one point over the other, but there is a point when stacking WIL is greater than stacking END. I just don't know (from experience) if it exists since I haven't experienced end game content.

[Arbegla]

Although I understand your point, you logic is flawed. I attempted to give extremes so you could see the other side of the argument.

 

While i appreciate the extremes, the flip side to that is that Willpower isn't going to add enough to make up for the difference. Taking your same extremes, and applying the same 200 willpower = 26.7 DPS, adding 2000 willpower only adds 267DPS. Adding 2000 endurance adds 9.7 seconds to your lifespan (using the .97 seconds increase i showed earlier)

 

Using the same 3333.33DPS to kill a boss in 5 minutes, adding 267DPS amounts to a .08% increase in DPS. Adding 9.7 seconds to your lifespan, you've increased it by 56.4%. (also using the same increase i used earlier)

Let's say that at 15k hp your lifespan is 10 seconds without a healer, an 11.4% increase would give you 11.14 seconds until death (instead of 10). if the healer can heal your entire health bar in 6 seconds, they don't "need" the additional 5 seconds of lifespan that you provide (although it is nice to have a buffer).

 

Now, for example, lets say that a tank has 30k hp with a lifespan of 20 seconds (22.28 seconds with additional 200 END), but it still takes the healer 6 seconds to heal 15k health. Why add 2 extra seconds (20 to 22) when they already have an extra 14 seconds to sit around before they need to heal you?

 

I will go even more extreme, lets say you have 60k health and a lifespan of 40 seconds. The bosses do the same amount of damage, but now the healer has 30 seconds to stand around until you even get to 15k health (at which point they could just start healing you back up, as they can out heal the damage that is coming in).

 

In the last instance, you would still need a healer because a boss fight is going to last longer than your 40 second lifespan.

If your getting to the point where you don't need that extra healing very often, adding the extra seconds to your lifespan allows your healer to do more then just heal. This happens a lot in other games where older content gets put on 'farm'. Healers are basically 'off-healing' and DPSing when their heals aren't needed. This would increase overall DPS on the boss by MUCH higher then stacking willpower would increase the tanks DPS.

While we are at it, why don't we just create a group with all healers and a tanks, that will give us even more of a buffer if things go wrong.

 

Why do we even need dps in our groups if we have a better chance at survival without them.

 

My point is that there is a point when your odds of death are so slim that it is more efficient to add dps.

 

The better way to look at it, is why bring a healer if the tank is durable enough to not need it? We're not increasing the tanks DPS, we're increasing their durability, which limits the healers usefulness. DPS would still be useful, due to enrage timers and DPS would decrease the overall time of the fight by MUCH more then adding willpower to a tank would decrease it by.

Kitru is saying that this is the case currently in endgame ops, I am not there currently so I cannot argue one point over the other, but there is a point when stacking WIL is greater than stacking END. I just don't know (from experience) if it exists since I haven't experienced end game content.

 

Kitru's point is basically that once you have enough time for the healer to react, no matter how small, that it is good enough, and that you would get more bang for your buck by then stacking more willpower to increase your overall DPS (and TPS, threat per second) then you would by increasing your durability by adding more endurance.

 

My point is that the DPS increase is so minor that more endurance is always the better option. Regardless of how much time you have already, willpower won't decrease the fights duration enough to make a difference, and that adding more durability will allow your healer to contribute DPS to the fight, and that would be more of a gain then adding willpower would.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Arbegla

[Dracyula]

While i appreciate the extremes, the flip side to that is that Willpower isn't going to add enough to make up for the difference. Taking your same extremes, and applying the same 200 willpower = 26.7 DPS, adding 2000 willpower only adds 267DPS. Adding 2000 endurance adds 9.7 seconds to your lifespan (using the .97 seconds increase i showed earlier)

 

Using the same 3333.33DPS to kill a boss in 5 minutes, adding 267DPS amounts to a .08% increase in DPS. Adding 9.7 seconds to your lifespan, you've increased it by 56.4%. (also using the same increase i used earlier)

 

If your getting to the point where you don't need that extra healing very often, adding the extra seconds to your lifespan allows your healer to do more then just heal. This happens a lot in other games where older content gets put on 'farm'. Healers are basically 'off-healing' and DPSing when their heals aren't needed. This would increase overall DPS on the boss by MUCH higher then stacking willpower would increase the tanks DPS.

 

Your point here is misleading. When you mention 267 dps being a .08% increase, you are comparing it to the entire groups dps. I do not disagree with this method, but when you are talking about 56.4% increased lifespan, it does not mean your group will be able to last 56.4% longer throughout an entire boss fight. The tank will just last that much longer without heals (9.7 seconds).

 

As the incoming damage will be the same throughout the fight, this 9.7 seconds is only beneficial once. In essence, the healer will have an extra 9.7 seconds to take extra actions in an entire 5 minute fight.

 

With the added 267 dps, the boss will die 24 seconds sooner. This is 80,100 added damage.

 

We must compare apples to apples here. In your example of the healer doing dps, would the healer be able to add 80,100 damage in the extra 9.7 seconds they are given by the tank adding 2000 END?

 

D

[JSRB]

Kitru's point is basically that once you have enough time for the healer to react, no matter how small, that it is good enough, and that you would get more bang for your buck by then stacking more willpower to increase your overall DPS (and TPS, threat per second) then you would by increasing your durability by adding more endurance.

 

Nope, that's not his point.

 

In the spirit of theorycrafting, define X to be the minimum amount of HP needed for a healer to keep you alive 100% of the time in PvE Ops and FP fights. This value X takes in to account all variables of a combat encounter, including number of mobs, mob type, group composition, your specific Shadow tank build, reaction times, etc.

 

Kitru's point is basically that any HP above X is absolutely unnecessary since, assuming everybody in the group does their jobs correctly, you will always survive just fine with X HP. Therefore, instead of stacking Endurance to gain additional HP that has no statistical benefit, it is better to stack Willpower since it will provide some measure of benefit (in the form of +DPS and +threat generation).

 

This is sound reasoning, and there really is no arguing against it on its face. What is difficult to closely determine is the value of X, so I don't think it is unreasonable that many people just end up stacking Endurance anyway for ease and peace of mind. This does not change the fact that stacking Endurance instead of Willpower after attaining X HP is not "optimal."

[Joonbeams]

Nope, that's not his point.

 

In the spirit of theorycrafting, define X to be the minimum amount of HP needed for a healer to keep you alive 100% of the time in PvE Ops and FP fights. This value X takes in to account all variables of a combat encounter, including number of mobs, mob type, group composition, your specific Shadow tank build, reaction times, etc.

 

Kitru's point is basically that any HP above X is absolutely unnecessary since, assuming everybody in the group does their jobs correctly, you will always survive just fine with X HP. Therefore, instead of stacking Endurance to gain additional HP that has no statistical benefit, it is better to stack Willpower since it will provide some measure of benefit (in the form of +DPS and +threat generation).

 

This is sound reasoning, and there really is no arguing against it on its face. What is difficult to closely determine is the value of X, so I don't think it is unreasonable that many people just end up stacking Endurance anyway for ease and peace of mind. This does not change the fact that stacking Endurance instead of Willpower after attaining X HP is not "optimal."

 

This. I am a total noob to MMORPGs, reading this thread mostly to learn, and I've been TOTALLY entertained and fascinated by the two well-crafted arguments-it's like the Bohr/Einstein debates. I have no idea how any of this works in real play since I'm at very early leveling and have never done PvP, so for me this is pure theory. But one thing I do understand is math and the point above hits the nail on the head. Yes, "both are right" seems like a cop out, but the reason is in above quote. Until we know what "X" is (or if there is an 'X"), we can't really answer who is right. Kitru says is 18K I believe? Kitru's point seems to be one of "diminishing returns" after that and it's well taken assuming there is a tangible/agreeable value for "X". Argbela will be totally right until "X" is reached (if "X" is reachable). After that, it totally flips and Kitru's argument has no logical flaws that I can see. I've run all of these assumptions on both sides and I think the quote above is the only explanation for the continued debate and confusion. Am I missing something?

[Arbegla]

Nope, that's not his point.

 

In the spirit of theorycrafting, define X to be the minimum amount of HP needed for a healer to keep you alive 100% of the time in PvE Ops and FP fights. This value X takes in to account all variables of a combat encounter, including number of mobs, mob type, group composition, your specific Shadow tank build, reaction times, etc.

 

Kitru's point is basically that any HP above X is absolutely unnecessary since, assuming everybody in the group does their jobs correctly, you will always survive just fine with X HP. Therefore, instead of stacking Endurance to gain additional HP that has no statistical benefit, it is better to stack Willpower since it will provide some measure of benefit (in the form of +DPS and +threat generation).

 

This is sound reasoning, and there really is no arguing against it on its face. What is difficult to closely determine is the value of X, so I don't think it is unreasonable that many people just end up stacking Endurance anyway for ease and peace of mind. This does not change the fact that stacking Endurance instead of Willpower after attaining X HP is not "optimal."

 

The issue with that is it is 'assuming everyone does their job' meaning the healer is always healer, and DPS are always DPSing ,and the tank is always tanking. That is a pretty large assumption.

 

Also, 'optimal' wouldn't amount to a 26DPS increase. That is the numbers we're looking at here. we're not looking at a massive DPS increase. Once you hit X, you can always push X further by stacking more endurance, while stacking willpower provides a much smaller increase.

 

I will agree that willpower adds 'some' DPS, but its not enough to account for the extra mitigation that endurance provides for Shadow tanks. Shadow tanks are not the type to be constantly healed to full hp 100% of the time. This thought process actually goes against a good half of the shadow tanks mitigation values. And wastes resources that could be better spent on other things.

 

Forcing your healers to constantly keep you at 100% because you can't take a hit otherwise, whhich is what X basically means here, is that after X time frame, your healer puts you to full, or your healer can put you to full in X seconds, so why extend the time frame for a healer to put you at full beyond X, wasted resources that your healer should be using on other things, because a shadow tank can heal themselves from 88% to 100% every 30 seconds on their own. Without accounting for CT healing, or Battle Readiness.

 

So, this basically means that anything between 0 and 85% is a healers job, and anything between 85% and 100% is the shadow tanks job. Now, that gives you a 15% hit point lee way to play with. Why not make that amount larger, so that the healer doesn't have to worry as much, and could focus on other things, like DPS (if you don't need healing, the healer might as well deal some damage, and even a heal spec'ed healer can still deal some nice DPS, this is proved by the fact that healers can solo on their own)

 

 

Your point here is misleading. When you mention 267 dps being a .08% increase, you are comparing it to the entire groups dps. I do not disagree with this method, but when you are talking about 56.4% increased lifespan, it does not mean your group will be able to last 56.4% longer throughout an entire boss fight. The tank will just last that much longer without heals (9.7 seconds).

 

The group DPS is the only thing that matters in the long term fights. Individual break down of DPS doesn't matter as long as the boss dies. If a DPS did 80% of the damage, but the tank kept the bosses aggro the entire time, then it was a good fight. If you extend the tanks DPS by .08% then you've lowered the DPS's damage by .08%.

 

So my point isn't very misleading in the grand scheme of the fight. It doesn't matter who does the DPS, as long as the boss dies.

As the incoming damage will be the same throughout the fight, this 9.7 seconds is only beneficial once. In essence, the healer will have an extra 9.7 seconds to take extra actions in an entire 5 minute fight.

 

With the added 267 dps, the boss will die 24 seconds sooner. This is 80,100 added damage.

 

We must compare apples to apples here. In your example of the healer doing dps, would the healer be able to add 80,100 damage in the extra 9.7 seconds they are given by the tank adding 2000 END?

 

D

 

You can't think of it as a solid 9.7 second increase only once. Anytime the tank gets reduced down to enough to need to be healed, the timer resets. So, if the tank goes from 100% to 5% (leaving about 1 second left on his death clock) but is then healed back up to 100%, his clock is then reset, and the healer gets another 9.7 seconds to heal him within. Basically, if the healer shoots a heal over to the tank every 9.7 seconds the tank will never die.

 

Think of it as a rotation, every 9.7 seconds the healer sends 1 heal to the tank. Any other time (during those 9.7 seconds) the healer is DPSing the boss. Say a heal takes 2.5 seconds to cast, and can add 5 seconds to the 'life span' of the tank, then during the times he's not healing he can damage the tank for reference, look at this: 9.7 - 2.5 + 5 = 12.2 (first heal) - 2.5 + 5 = 14.7 (second heal) this builds up each time, giving the healer plenty of time to DPS in between.

 

And even without knowing what a heal spec'ed class could do for DPS, i'm pretty sure it'll be greater then .08% DPS that the tank would have by stacking willpower. That my argument in a nutshell.

[Joonbeams]

And even without knowing what a heal spec'ed class could do for DPS, i'm pretty sure it'll be greater then .08% DPS that the tank would have by stacking willpower. That my argument in a nutshell.

 

This is true. But, again, assuming (as Kitru does) that the healer is doing their main job of healing the tank, this still favors Kitru for any value above the theoretical 'X' value. Do you agree? That is because she (or he?) is arguing that above a certain HP, a decent healer can adequately keep a tank alive for as long as is necessary. And since you concede that there is a DPS gain from extra WILL, I think the point is that the gain, however small, is more valuable above 'X' than any additional gain from END above 'X'. Put another way, if the END benefit markedly falls off after 'X' (with the assumptions Kitru makes about people playing their roles), but there is even a modest increase in DPS from add'l WILL (as you concede) that theoretically doesn't fall off, then it makes sense to stack WILL above 'X'. That said, I think below 'X', your point is right. Or, if we take away Kitru's assumptions about roles. (And I think Kitru has conceded that basically).

[JSRB]

The issue with that is it is 'assuming everyone does their job' meaning the healer is always healer, and DPS are always DPSing ,and the tank is always tanking. That is a pretty large assumption.

 

Also, 'optimal' wouldn't amount to a 26DPS increase. That is the numbers we're looking at here. we're not looking at a massive DPS increase. Once you hit X, you can always push X further by stacking more endurance, while stacking willpower provides a much smaller increase.

 

I will agree that willpower adds 'some' DPS, but its not enough to account for the extra mitigation that endurance provides for Shadow tanks. Shadow tanks are not the type to be constantly healed to full hp 100% of the time. This thought process actually goes against a good half of the shadow tanks mitigation values. And wastes resources that could be better spent on other things.

 

Forcing your healers to constantly keep you at 100% because you can't take a hit otherwise, whhich is what X basically means here, is that after X time frame, your healer puts you to full, or your healer can put you to full in X seconds, so why extend the time frame for a healer to put you at full beyond X, wasted resources that your healer should be using on other things, because a shadow tank can heal themselves from 88% to 100% every 30 seconds on their own. Without accounting for CT healing, or Battle Readiness.

 

So, this basically means that anything between 0 and 85% is a healers job, and anything between 85% and 100% is the shadow tanks job. Now, that gives you a 15% hit point lee way to play with. Why not make that amount larger, so that the healer doesn't have to worry as much, and could focus on other things, like DPS (if you don't need healing, the healer might as well deal some damage, and even a heal spec'ed healer can still deal some nice DPS, this is proved by the fact that healers can solo on their own)

 

I think the main reason you are not understanding Kitru's point (and others who agree with him), is because you are overcomplicating things by throwing in arbitrary numbers and unnecessary concepts. Let's keep things simple.

 

Remember how the value X is defined. It is defined as the minimum amount of HP needed by the Shadow tank so that the healer can 100% of the time keep him alive in combat, given all the relevant variables are factored in to X. Assuming that you know what X is for some encounter, and you have that much HP, there is no way you can say more HP could be beneficial for that encounter. Think about it: you cannot get greater than 100%, so more HP does not improve the healer's chances of keeping you alive. Therefore, once you have X HP, it only makes sense to stack Wisdom, however slight the benefit.

 

Now, I fully understand that it is not possible to figure out what X is exactly, or even very closely (probably). But from what I have read here and on SithWarrior (they take this kind of theorycrafting pretty seriously), your general equipment gives you plenty of HP so that stacking additional +HP is unnecessary. Here is the tanking stat priority order they recommend:

 

For survivability, as all tanking gear comes with large amounts of Endurance by default, survivability is best gained with Absorption, Defence and Shield.

 

Then for DPS:

 

Accuracy (until +10%) > Willpower > Power > Surge Rating > Accuracy > Critical Rating > Strength

Edited January 10, 2012 by JSRB

[Arbegla]

I think the main reason you are not understanding Kitru's point (and others who agree with him), is because you are overcomplicating things by throwing in arbitrary numbers and unnecessary concepts. Let's keep things simple.

 

I think the main reason I'm having such an issue understanding Kitru isn't so much the math behind it, as I fully understand that which is basically that once you get a point (X) where the healer can keep you alive throughout the entire fight under averaged conditions, accounting for mechanics and such, then you don't need anymore endurance, its my previous experience in MMOs.

 

See, I come from City of Heroes first and foremost, with some experience in WoW.

 

I know from previous experience, that very few people have played CoH, and its concepts and game mechanics are much different then just about any other game on the market. See, there tanks can be designed to be self sufficient, and because of team size (8) you can't rely on greens numbers to keep everyone alive. Its just not possible. You focus more on becoming self sufficient and buffs/debuffs. 'Healers' are few and far between, and even the classes (or rather powersets) with the most healing powers are usually better off running a buff cycle, and then attacking then trying to keep everyone at 100%.

 

My experience from WoW is mainly in a DPS spot, where I've pulled upwards of 70% DPS on bosses (playing a mage in a small guild) and I've been able to pull threat off tanks, not due to my DPS numbers, but due to the tank not doing what they need to do to maintain threat and not being properly durable to handle the encounter. Now, while i understand that most of that is the fault of the player (and guild leader for assigning a crap tank to be our main tank) I feel that if the tank in question would've stopped stacking DPS gear (which he did, after he became uncrit-able) and would've focused more on mitigation gear (stamina, parry, dodge, etc) then my job as a DPS would've been easier.

 

Because of my past experience with both CoH and WoW, i have a very hard time understanding, or even grasping why a dedicated tank would even think twice about pursuing DPS gains if they can already handle the threat needed, and why they wouldn't focus on becoming self sufficient enough to allow their healers to become more like an off-healer, contributing more DPS.

 

While i did prove that 200 willpower would equate into a DPS gain, after you consider coefficients, i really do not feel that it is enough of a gain to even consider, especially as X is something that isn't quite known yet. I will concede in regards to stacking Accuracy, once the other mitigation stats are set, as hitting more often allows for better threat generation, but I do not feel that willpower will ever be greater then endurance for a tank, no matter if they hit X or not.

 

X in itself just assumes too much for my liking. I would much rather have X + Y (Y being any extra benefit that more endurance would give you) then X + Z (Z being any extra DPS increase willpower would give you) due to Y affecting mitigation, and from my previous experience Z just isn't really something to consider on a class designed to be durable. Tanks are meant to take the hits, not dish them out, and if threat is not an issue (which it shouldn't be, even with a lower willpower stat, assuming you follow the correct rotation, and don't have idiot DPS try to AoE everything down every chance they get) then you should only stack Y.

[Goonbandito]

ITT: boring pve discussion.

 

Shield, Defense and Absorb are next to useless for PvP. Endurance is the only worthwhile defensive stat for PvP tanking. Dump everything else into crit, surge or power.

[Dyinn]

Lets look at some facts that were established ITT:

 

• Optimal Endurance (or X) can't be defined as we dont know all the factors that can happen during the fight
  
• Willpower (or Z) of the tank won't have significat impact on lenght of the encounter
  
• However healer DPS can have better impact on the lenght of the encounter (not sure about that one.. lets get some math please)
  
• In this case lets give healer more room to manuver and establish more buffer in our survivebility.
  
• Threat isn't a problem in any case
  

 

If those facts are correct than its safe to asume that Endurance > Willpower for a Shadow tank.

[contrebasse]

Well, your first point translates to "you never have enough END", and your last is "you have the minimum WIL required" so for sure END is better with these assumptions.

But if you suppose that "you have the minimum END and WIL required", then WIL is better because more END does absolutely nothing.

 

You don't agree on the hypothesis here !

[Dracyula]

I will use the car analogy in an attempt to make my viewpoint easier to understand.

 

Let’s say that you have two cars heading from LA to New York. Car A has a 30 gallon tank, and car B has a 20 gallon tank (these are the shadow tanks).

 

Imagine that there is a portable fuel source that can add fuel to the gas tanks as they drive, and have the option to use 10% of resources to speed up the car (this is the healer).

 

Both cars get 20 miles to the gallon (equal shadow tank mitigation), so they both need to have fuel added at the same rate to keep moving without running out of gas (the tanks death).

 

The fuel source for car A has a 30 gallon leeway versus car B with a 20 gallon leeway (until an empty tank), so this allows fuel source A (healer) a slight malfunction in efficiency for a short period of time, or allows the fuel source A to serve another purpose, such as increasing the speed of the car (DPS), for example (until tank A reaches 20 gallons).

 

What you need to understand is once the fuel source has used its leeway; there is no getting it back without effort.

 

Sure, the fuel source can work extra hard (using 100% of its resources) to fill the gas tank back to 30 gallons, but it will take the same extra time and effort that was used when the tank dropped to 20 gallons, doing this creates no increase in efficiency, and puts both cars in the same boat they were in at the start (in this case, there is no benefit to having the extra 10 gallons in your tank).

 

The point is that once both gas tanks are at 20 gallons, the benefit of having an extra 10 gallons to start with is irrelevant.

 

It is also important to understand that both tanks require the same amount of fuel (healing) from the fuel source in order to get to the destination (dead boss). In other words, either way you go, the healer will spend the same amount of time healing since the amount they heal is determined by the damage that is coming in (not the tanks health pool).

 

*The shorter version: If a healer is doing something other than healing the tank because they have extra time, the healer will need to SPEND EXTRA TIME to get the tank back to full health. *Simple example: 10 seconds of activity other than healing the tank, then 6 seconds to heal him back to full is equal to 5 seconds of activity other than healing the tank, then 3 seconds to heal him back to full.

I hope this helps you understand why the extra time that is provided by more END is only applicable once.

 

I will state my case for WIL one last time.

With the math that you provided, 2000 WIL shortens a 5 minute boss fight by 24 seconds (assuming 1 mil health), while 2000 END gives your healer 10 extra seconds to work with spread across the entire fight.

Like I said before, 2000 WIL adds 80,100 damage (267 DPS * 300 Seconds).

If your healer can do 8k DPS in his/her added 10 seconds of off time the END would likely be better. Furthermore, if that time is needed for boss mechanics etc, END would also be better.

 

WIL adds more DPS than END, period. That being said, add as much END as needed to make your healer comfortable. If you are pugging healers, the more END you have, the better your chances will be with a bad healer.

[oddmyth]

Insipid car analogy.

 

Except that the car is going to encounter things that will otherwise misappropriate fuel, like dirt roads, traffic and a whole bunch of other ******** that basically can be brought back to the premise that statistically speaking you cannot plan for random occurrences and your best bet is to bring the most fuel you can, if you end up with more fuel at the end, HOORAY! If you don't BOOO!

 

Unless you are only running instances with the exact same group setup, who does the exact same thing every time, then no your analogy is flawed. As a tank/healer who ran with the exact same 4 people in that other game for years on end I can tell you even then, that no two instances we ever ran, ever went exactly the same way. It never happens. That's the joy of playing MMO's, they are about as statistically random as you can get.

 

*The shorter version: If a healer is doing something other than healing the tank because they have extra time, the healer will need to SPEND EXTRA TIME to get the tank back to full health. *Simple example: 10 seconds of activity other than healing the tank, then 6 seconds to heal him back to full is equal to 5 seconds of activity other than healing the tank, then 3 seconds to heal him back to full.

I hope this helps you understand why the extra time that is provided by more END is only applicable once.

 

Except that you forget there are periods of time that the tank isn't getting hit, either through some ability of their own or otherwise, believe it or not as a healer, there are many times you can dps. However this is a digression I could really care less about this, but your argument is still flawed.

 

I will state my case for WIL one last time.

With the math that you provided, 2000 WIL shortens a 5 minute boss fight by 24 seconds (assuming 1 mil health), while 2000 END gives your healer 10 extra seconds to work with spread across the entire fight.

 

But we aren't talking about 2000 WIL and we aren't talking about 2000 END, we are talking about much smaller amounts like 55-75 WIL and 55-75 END. Its literally the difference between the Mental Fortitude and Expertise talents in the Kinetic tree. Its that tiny. However when you blowout economies of scale to 2000 WIL or END and still compare it against a paltry sum of 1 MILLION hitpoints on a boss then yes, your convoluted argument actually looks like it *might* hold water. However we don't even get 2000 WIL ever and we do face bosses with 1 MILLION hitpoints already, so the economies of scale in your argument are vastly flawed.

 

Average WIL for a raid geared shadow tank will be in the range of approximately 800-1100. To have 2000 WIL points to play with instead of 55-75 your shadow tank would have to have a similar ratio. Meaning the ration 2000:75 is equal to x:1100, where x ends up equally an absurd number like 29,333 WIL to be taken in a similar ratio.

 

As I said before this is a ridiculous argument to even be having a discussion about, but the arguments have been getting so ludicrous that I had to take half an hour out of my lunch just to reply to this stupidity.

 

WIL adds more DPS than END, period. That being said, add as much END as needed to make your healer comfortable. If you are pugging healers, the more END you have, the better your chances will be with a bad healer.

 

The only thing you should have written is right here.

Edited January 10, 2012 by oddmyth

[Selestian]

ITT: boring pve discussion.

 

Shield, Defense and Absorb are next to useless for PvP. Endurance is the only worthwhile defensive stat for PvP tanking. Dump everything else into crit, surge or power.

 

Why are you even playing a tank in pvp then?

 

I do not pvp as a tank to dps, I PVP as a tank to hold objectives, guard team mates. If I wanted to be dps I'd spec inf and do as you suggested.

[Arbegla]

I will use the car analogy in an attempt to make my viewpoint easier to understand.

 

 

You forgetting about the fact that the 'car' themselves have a means to fill up their own gas tanks, say with a hybrid model system. If they travel under a certain mph, they don't spend any fuel at all (this is shadow tanks self healing) and the 30 gallon tank has a better hybrid system installs, thus allowing them to not need the portable fuel source as much as the 20 gallon tank.

 

Due to shadow tank self healing, being percentage base, and healers being a set amount, then the more hit points you have, the less you need the healer. i/e a bigger gas tanks refills itself at a faster rate then a small one, thus preventing the need to be refilled by an outside source.

 

And once you get to a certain point on self healing, you can eliminate the need for a healer entirely, which Kitru has pointed out is very possible to do for group 2 and group 4 quests. The thing to consider, is that group 4 quests are on par with flash points, so you can literally get to the point with your self healing where you can run without a healer in flash points.

 

Then all your looking at is operations, (raids) and as those also have a set incoming DPS (averaged out to about 4300DPS) you could also get to a point there where your healer is redundant. Granted, getting to that point would take an extremely large amount of endurance, and while we can play with large numbers in theorycrafting, the simple fact of the matter is we're comparing 100-200 willpower with 100-200 endurance. With those small numbers, we're not looking at enough of a gain in DPS (speed) to offset the fact that endurance provides a noticeable increase in life span (or to follow your analogy, increase in miles per gallon).

 

While operations may be at the point where healer can keep up, and keep up without much strain or stress on them there is no shame in giving them more time to react in the event things go south.

 

The healer has a lot more to worry about then just the tank, and if the tank is self sufficient enough to not need the healer as much as other tanks, then the healer can do other things in that time frame.

WIL adds more DPS than END, period. That being said, add as much END as needed to make your healer comfortable. If you are pugging healers, the more END you have, the better your chances will be with a bad healer.

 

I didn't quite quote the right part here, but on your question of weather the healer can heal 80,000 damage in 10 seconds, your forgetting quite a few things:

 

1) The timer gets reset, and then extended after every single heal.

2) The 80,000 damage is over the course of a 5 minute fight.

3) The healer only needs to match 80,000 damage over 5 minutes, while damaging on their 'down time' to overcome the increase in DPS that the tank would have

4) The above is less then 1% increase in DPS throughout the entire fight.

5) This is also considering the difference between 2,000 willpower and 2,000 endurance.

 

We're not talking about burst here. we're talking about a 1% damage increase overall. This basically means that over 300 seconds, in order to deal 80,000 damage the healer needs to do 266.67DPS. Which, as most healers stack the same (or similar) stats as DPS, it would be insanely easy for them to be able to do that much damage over the duration of the fight.

 

Depending on the healer in question, it may even be possible for them to do both, DPS and healing, and do them effectively.

 

Looking at a commando healer, they build 'charges' with each use of hammer shot (3 charges per) and build 6 charges with every medical prove. After 30 charges, they hit a cooldown that does quite a bit for them, increasing their heals, and their damage effectiveness for a short duration (Super charged cells) So, if the commando doesn't need to heal as much, they save resources (due to not having to use medical probe as much) and they still build charges (via hammer shot) which are then used to either build healing or DPS powers (Super Charged Cells)

 

I'm not familiar even with a sage to say either way, but the smuggler healer is in a similar boat. Both the DPS and healing classes stat DPS stats (forgoing accuracy for the healers at least) so being able to do more DPS then what willpower will provide is very easily accomplished.

 

Going back to your analogy, and adding in the other variable *self healing, and DPS increases via the healers* and you can see that a large gas tank would get to the distination faster then a smaller one, as the 'portable fuel source' can then act as a NO2 boost, thus increasing the speed of the car by a very large margin, while that same larger gas tank would be able to keep themselves 'topped off' enough to make the trip in the shorter time frame.

 

Looking at it another way, if a healer can heal enough of your HP to add more time to your lifespan then they take away from healing (i/e, spending 2.5 seconds to cast a heal that then adds 5 seconds) they are increasing their downtime each time they use a heal. Especially when you factor in that shadow tanks self healing scales with large hit points pools, allowing them to keep themselves up and active without the need of constant healer attention.

 

Shadow Tanks are not the type of tank you want to constantly top off, which i think is where the break down is happening on the argument. Those in favor of willpower are saying that once you get to a certain hp mark (X) that you don't need anymore hp because a healer can keep you at 100% hit points easily, and as willpower adds 'some' DPS you should stack that instead. Those in favor of more endurance, like me, are saying that a shadow shouldn't be put at 100% hit points to begin with, and to do so is a waste of both healer resources, and mitigation values the shadow tank has, thus once you get outta that thought process, you can see that having a higher hit point pool allows for better self healing, and thus improved mitigation, with the healer acting as a 'back up' in the event of massive mitigation failure.

[Dracyula]

This entire discussion is based upon theory. I do not question that with current gear options and boss mechanics that stacking END may be greater than WIL.

 

The only point I am trying to make is that in "theory" there is a point when END is redundant, or so minor, that adding WIL is more effective.

 

Yes a healer will have downtime during a fight where they can DPS, I am not saying that a healer wont be able to add 267 DPS during a fight. I am only saying that they will not be able to add 267 EXTRA DPS just because you added 2000 END, as it only gives them an extra 10 seconds for the entire fight. (The extra 10 seconds is added because of the extra health pool AND additional healing that the tank can do).

 

Once again this entire thread is based on theory (hence the large numbers being used), and in reality either way you go the difference it makes is extremely small.

 

The debate just keeps going in circles, so I will let it be. Anyone reading will have enough information to form their own opinions anyway.

 

EDIT: For those of you that didn't read the entire post, adding 200 END (a reasonable amount) will increase your healing from TT by 10 HP/Second. So in a 5 minute fight it adds a 3000 HP heal, thus allowing the healer to cast one less heal.

 

D

Edited January 10, 2012 by Dracyula

[Beastfury]

Amazing amount of walls of text here. I am usually good at reading this but this was over kill.

 

Wipes don't happen because everyone was flawless and you didn't have 50 will power. Wipes happen because people frak up. FACT. If you do every fight perfectly you are free to stack cunning for all that matters, you will more then likely down the boss anyway. Guess what protects you from frak ups? HP. Someone fraked up and didn't interrupt head shot? Well i have 19k hp now i can take it and live. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN interrupted but i wasn't, you want to die and blame dps or live kill the boss and blame dps after?

 

SOA fight (8 man) 1 healer is in trap 1 healer is getting bounced around, and you have to eat the pyramid that hits you for 10+k guess what will help you survive this situation?

 

This goes on. And i am not even touching overhealing issue on low hp tanks....

 

That said i'v seen more then 1 situation in wow where i was down to <100 hp as a tank in hardmode fights and that is with 200k hp pool, so ya that 1 extra sta gem made me live. Was i "SUPPOSE TO" drop that low? No healers didnt quite heal right, but it happend and i lived. I also a bunch of death where it was XXXX(overkill ~100) damn if only i have that 100 more hp...