Jedi Shadow Tanking advice.

[Arbegla]

Are you sure? Because I can tell you for a fact that I have never seen Project, TK Throw, or Force Stun blocked or parried. The reason for this is because they are *Force powers* as opposed to melee or ranged powers. I have, on the other hand, seen melee attacks blocked and dodged, but never resisted. Force and Tech powers don't use the same defense rolls and don't allow for blocking. If you've ever wondered, just consider how easy it is to tank a melee/ranged enemy as opposed to a Force/Tech enemy: it's a world of difference *because your usual defenses do nothing*.

 

Using the example I used previously, Charged Bolt vs High impact bolt (charged being tech, HIB being ranged) I've seen Charged Bolt miss. And its easy to see when it misses on a trooper, because of the fact that so many powers use it to build procs. If I use the power, and the proc doesn't stack, then it missed.

 

 

Not really. Shadowsight provides you with a 2% chance to avoid any incoming damage. Calling itself "defense" doesn't really define itself appropriately since defense only applies to melee and ranged attacks whereas Shadowsight provides a 2% chance to avoid Force/Tech powers as well. "Defense", as it is generally applied by players, refers to the chance to completely avoid a melee or ranged attack. Force/Tech powers are unaffected by melee/ranged defense and rely upon Force/Tech defense. Just look under your Character's information; there will be a different percent for avoiding Tech/Force attacks that is *substantially* lower than your chance to avoid melee/ranged attacks.

 

I think we're looking at different powers here. because this is shadowsight, and it clearly says 'defense' and while it doesn't specify tech/force, like Double-bladed Saber Defense specifies Melee/Range. On the character sheet, I'm not seeing a difference between the defense types, the Defense window merely says Melee Parry, Ranged Deflect, Resistance, Resistance, with different percentages. I'm going to assume that the 2 resistance aspects are for tech/force powers, but I can't be sure. It could be due to my lower level (the alt I logged in was level 12, Shadow) and it may change with higher levels, but it doesn't specifically say force/tech defense any where yet.

 

Which is one of the big problems. Force/Tech *do not care about your melee/ranged defense*. They ignore it. Acting as if it did (which you do by removing it from the equation as if melee/ranged and Force/Tech both considered it equally) undervalues the contribution of Resilience by roughly 25% (25% dodge chance compared to 2% dodge is only 75% of the same incoming damage).

 

So.. your telling me that force/tech powers do not care about melee/range defense, and my equation reflects that (by not counting ANY defense at all, only innate resistance to damage types) and somehow my equation is wrong because of it? Either way the equation is the same. If I was counting defense in my equation I would need to factor in deflect/parry/miss chances as well, which would change the numbers completely. My equation is assuming 4,300 points of damage is hitting you every second. Nothing misses, nothing is deflected, nothing is parried.

 

It's not exactly hard to tell the difference. If it involves shooting at you with a standard weapon, that generally means it's a melee/ranged power. If it involves egregious use of the Force (Force Storm) or something on the same power scale (Orbital Bombardment), it's a Tech power. Not knowing doesn't mean you can drastically demean the value of a power, especially if it's not too hard to determine on an experimental basis (big angry attack coming? use Resilience! If it dealt damage to you, it's not a Force/Tech power and you don't want to use Resilience on it again).

 

The 'if it comes from a weapon' argument doesn't hold much water when you look at other classes. The Trooper uses a weapon for nearly all their attacks, but not all of them are ranged. Would Saber throw be a ranged, or force attack? Would Force Leap be Force or Ranged? Both 'use the force' to enable actions. Trial and Error testing, while great, isn't something that will help you out. I'm assuming 50% of the attacks are tech/force, 50% are melee/range. If you do use resilience, and find out the attack did no damage, then resilience doesn't help you at all. Thus it doesn't benefit you at all to decrease its cooldown.

 

It's not a question of "one or the other", but it's a bit asinine to act as if it had no benefits whatsoever. Whenever I'm tanking a large group of enemies that only use melee attacks but have a stacking debuff they put on me (like enemies that Poison, Burn, etc.), I'm not having to worry about a Force/Tech attack, but I *am* worried about that DoT on me. Since Resilience doesn't care about what kind of debuff is on me, I can purge all of those debuffs with relative ease and having that utility up on a 45 sec CD rather than a 60 sec CD is actually pretty useful when dealing with the given enemies.

 

Here's a better hypothetical: A boss uses a massive force storm attack every 45 seconds, and every 30 seconds does a series of attacks that load your character full of DoTs, and slows you down. If one attack is used, the other isn't, so they can't stack. Which would you use Resilience on? You can't manage both, even with the reduced cooldown.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Arbegla

[darkov]

First off, I would *never* take Endurance over any other stat available to me, much less any of my tanking stats. Additional hit points only serve to increase the amount of damage you can take without getting a heal. In a tanking sense, this generally equates to one-shot resistance, something that most tanks, even Shadow tanks, don't really have a problem with thanks to damage reduction, shield, and all of our other mitigation mechanisms.

 

Secondly, Willpower *should not* take precedence over mitigation stats. As a tank, it is your job to stay alive and to reduce the amount of damage you take to as little as possible (which is why you're a tank: to turn the otherwise unhealable quantities of damage into smaller, healable quantities on a single target). Stacking Willpower *before* mitigation stats is completely insane.

 

Third, I question the value of Shield and Absorb over Defense. I've listed my reasons in other threads and I've yet to see any appreciable math to contradict it: Defense rating simply decreases more damage per point than Shield or Absorb do. Honestly, it's up to personal preference, but I wouldn't give any priority list without explaining that there are other options out there that could be equally effective.

 

Fourth, and last, for threat stats, Crit rating is *not* the stat you want to stack, especially compared to Surge or Power. If anything, Crit is the *last* stat you want to stack since Project + PA, our primary threat power, has no need for threat since it's a guaranteed crit. Power and Surge, on the other hand, augment this readily, as well as everything else we do. Crit is the *lowest* priority of the threat stats.

 

A more accurate and *effective* list of priorities would be as follows:

 

(Defense>Shield>Absorb)*>Willpower>Endurance>(Surge>Power)*>Crit>Accuracy

 

* - indicates a group that can reordered as desired based upon personal preference with marginal impact

 

So, you are aware that not all stats are mutually exclusive?

 

Endurance and Willpower is on all Shadow gear, you can't avoid these stats and BioWare has decided that Endurance is the higher of the two on these items. Whether that is correct or not remains to be seen, but that is how it is when you make, pickup or purchase modifications for the Shadow. We don't have as much freedom over picking our stats as you seem to be implying.

 

Defense Rating and Shield Rating are mutually exclusive stats, there are very few pieces in the game that feature both stats, so you must make the choice which one you would take. Personally I prefer Shield Rating, as our Shield Chance starts out significantly higher than our Defense Chance I feel it is better to boost that stat to make it more reliable. My Shield Chance at 50 is 45%, which should be easy to get over 50% once I have some nice purple items. I'd rather, as a tank, have reliable mitigation than being dependent on luck, our Defense Rating is never going to be high enough to make us an avoidance tank.

 

Critical Rating is important, if Double Strike crits, we get the cooldown on Project to finish immediately, which lets us use it more often in our rotation. The more we use Project, the more we get Harnessed Shadows and healing from Telekinesis Throw. Damage is not important for me at all, so Surge and Power are the least important, I have no issues holding agro with the threat generated from Project, Force Breach and Slow Time.

 

Personal preference of course, but I'd rather work with our mechanics than try and change our mechanics.

 

This also assumes that you keep all your gear current, there should never be an item with more shield absorption but less endurance than a previous level item that has both those stats as well. Items scale pretty well in this game. It also assumes you have orange armor and are swapping out modifications, no one should ever be wearing green or blue armor after level 20.

Edited January 2, 2012 by darkov

[Kitru]

Using the example I used previously, Charged Bolt vs High impact bolt (charged being tech, HIB being ranged) I've seen Charged Bolt miss. And its easy to see when it misses on a trooper, because of the fact that so many powers use it to build procs. If I use the power, and the proc doesn't stack, then it missed.

 

Charged Bolts isn't a Tech power. It's a weapon power. The easiest way to tell is because it deals *weapon* damage. The other way would have been to see that you have a base 100% chance to hit with Tech powers *and it missed*, ergo it's a ranged power, not a Tech power.

 

Secondly, the damage type of a power alone is not the sole method of determining whether a power is Force/Tech or melee/ranged. The way the game is designed, it is possible for an attack to deal kinetic damage (nominally a "ranged/melee" damage type) *and* be a Force power; just look at Project.

 

The only reliable way is to look at the power in question *in play*.

 

I think we're looking at different powers here.

 

I think you have no clue what you're talking about. This is exactly what I'm referring to, and it's because you are on a low level character that you can't see the difference. If you were on a high enough level character, you would see that Shadowsight affects the "resistance" numbers as well, not just the "defense" numbers. DBLSD only affects the melee/ranged. Just because it says "defense" doesn't mean that it affects it in the way you assume it does.

 

It's because of this (and because of copious amounts of experience fighting Tech/Force mobs and having them rip through my defenses compared to weapon using mobs) that I can tell you that *defense does not apply*. If it did, I would be dodging Force lightning like it was nothing, as opposed to getting a rare resist in.

 

So.. your telling me that force/tech powers do not care about melee/range defense, and my equation reflects that (by not counting ANY defense at all, only innate resistance to damage types) and somehow my equation is wrong because of it?

 

By removing defense from the equation, you are treating defense as if it doesn't exist. By treating defense as if it doesn't exist, you're operating under the flawed assumption that any increase in mitigation thanks for Force/Tech powers is going to operate against a similar level of mitigation for both Tech/Force and melee/ranged. Since melee/ranged is reduced substantially more *before your equation even gets to the given values* thanks to a massive difference in melee/ranged defense and Force/Tech resistance, you diminish the impact of melee/ranged powers which makes Force/Tech damage reduction look paltry in comparison.

 

Example:

 

1000 incoming damage. 750 melee/ranged, 250 Force/Tech.

 

Assuming 50% block for 30% reduction, 25% dodge, and 2% resistance, the damage would come in as follows:

 

750 * .75 * (1 - (.5 * .3)) = 310 melee/ranged damage

250 * .98 = 245 Force/Tech damage

 

Take the sum of that incoming damage (555 damage) and apply the 50/50 K/E:I/E damage assumption you've got with 35% K/E and 21% I/E reduction.

 

277.5 * .65 = ~180 K/E damage

277.5 * .79 = ~219 I/E damage

 

The *major* difference between Force/Tech incoming damage and melee/ranged damage is *not* in which variety of damage resistance applies, which is all you really did. Since Tech/Force ignore defense and block and, instead, only cares about resistance (in the sense that you achieve full resistance and avoid the entire attack), a larger amount than it penetrates. By ignoring defense and block chance (the primary damage mitigators) and only paying attention to damage *reduction* you falsely deflate the contributions of Resilience specifically *because* it allow you to ignore damage that is, functionally, going to largely ignore any of your other resistances.

 

If you were really curious about how much Resilience really mitigates, you would look not at the *damage* types (since Resilience doesn't give a flying crap about what kind of damage it is) but instead at the *attack* types.

 

With the previous 1000 damage numbers, you would go from taking ~400 damage (555 * .72) to ~223 damage (310 * .72) while Resilience is active (assuming the damage is averaged and not discreetly lumped together like it is in actual play). This amounts to a ~45% reduction in incoming damage. Averaged for 5 seconds every 45 seconds, this amounts to 6.2% reduction in incoming damage over time. Averaged for 5 seconds every 60 seconds, this amounts to 4.6% reduction in incoming damage over time.

 

Extrapolate the 1.6% reduction in incoming damage difference over the course of a 5 minute fight (raid length) with 4300 incoming damage per second (your number) and this nets an additional 20640 health over the duration of the fight. Compared to the 350 additional hit points (and 1.75% better Kinetic self heals, which amount to about 125 health per second before the additional 1.75%, which equates to ~650 hit points for a total expected contribution of only 1000 additional hit points over the course of an entire raid boss fight), the additional usefulness of Resilience *vastly* outweighs the additional usefulness of 2% additional Endurance by a factor of *20*.

 

You've been mathed, sirrah. Yes, it's now a verb.

 

The 'if it comes from a weapon' argument doesn't hold much water when you look at other classes.

 

Because player classes are the only arbiters of whether an attack is Force/Tech or melee/ranged? I can tell you that you already have no idea how to differentiate the two since you assume that Charged Bolts is a Tech power when you've seen it operate as if it weren't one (re: it *missed* when you've got a 100% base hit chance).

 

First off, the "if it comes from a weapon" remark is a *rule of thumb*. I never intended it to be a defining factor. When attempting to determine whether an attack is Force/Tech or not, it's generally a decent starting point (similar, you could ask whether the attack could feasibly be deflected by a saber, but you would probably lay some claim about how you could deflect a thrown rock with a lightsaber and use it to say that Project is a ranged power).

 

Trial and Error testing, while great, isn't something that will help you out.

 

So you would rather use grossly inaccurate numbers as opposed to a single instance of experimentation for content you are knowingly going to repeat? Are you serious? If you don't know whether an attack is a Force/Tech power or a melee/ranged power, guess and then look at the relevant data immediately (since it's pretty obvious when using Resilience whether an attack is Force/Tech or melee/ranged) and *remember*.

 

I'm assuming 50% of the attacks are tech/force, 50% are melee/range. If you do use resilience, and find out the attack did no damage, then resilience doesn't help you at all. Thus it doesn't benefit you at all to decrease its cooldown.

 

First off, you're not assuming that there is a 50/50 split because you're not factoring in how heavily reduced melee/range is compared to Tech/Force. I already went and proved that.

 

Here's a better hypothetical: A boss uses a massive force storm attack every 45 seconds, and every 30 seconds does a series of attacks that load your character full of DoTs, and slows you down. If one attack is used, the other isn't, so they can't stack. Which would you use Resilience on? You can't manage both, even with the reduced cooldown.

 

So? As I said, the additional utility of Resilience isn't in the simultaneous use: it's in the additional options extended to it. If there is a boss fight wherein the boss doesn't use any especially egregious Tech/Force powers but has a lot of fun loading you down with DoTs and debuffs, the fact that Resilience removes those is going to be amazingly useful, as is getting it an additional 1-2 times per boss fight.

[Kitru]

So, you are aware that not all stats are mutually exclusive?

 

Yes, but there is enough exclusivity between stats that you should customize appropriately to get the most mitigation as possible.

 

Most people don't believe that Endurance and Defense are mutually exclusive. I know this to be true. Would you like to know how? Check out these two enhancements. The first has higher Endurance and lower Defense. The second has higher Defense and lower Endurance. Guess which I prefer to use? If you guessed Immunity (the second), you are correct because I prioritize Defense above Endurance.

 

We don't have as much freedom over picking our stats as you seem to be implying.

 

Not on unmoddable gear, but on moddable gear, we have a *great deal* of freedom in stat choice. For Armoring and Hilt we can choose Resolve instead of Force Wielder, because the extra Endurance isn't going to contribute while the extra Willpower will. For Mods, we can choose Reinforced 25 instead of 25A or 25B (25A prioritizes Willpower, 25B prioritizes Endurances, and 25 prioritizes Defense, which is the most valuable). It's like this across almost all pieces of moddable gear. There is a *vast* amount of customization that we can pick from for our gear. It's up to us to use that customization to be as effective as possible, rather than simply sitting there with what the default attributes are.

 

Critical Rating is important, if Double Strike crits, we get the cooldown on Project to finish immediately, which lets us use it more often in our rotation.

 

No, it does not. Crit rating has no effect on the Particle Acceleration proc. Particle Acceleration is a flat 50% chance per use of Double Strike. Crit rating has no bearing on whether it procs or not. I recommend you read the talent itself, so as to not make this same mistake again. Because nothing we have requires a critical hit to activate and, in fact, we have on talent that gives us a guaranteed critical hit on our most powerful attack, Crit rating is next to useless is next to useless. I recommend you educate yourself a bit further before attempting to correct me.

 

Personal preference of course, but I'd rather work with our mechanics than try and change our mechanics.

 

What you're not realizing is that I *am* working with our mechanics, I'm simply not working with them within the narrow-minded mode that you are. I'm operating under a holistic view of the class as a tank rather than a restricted view that adheres rigidly to a specific thought process. Since defense mitigates more than shield or absorb on a point for point basis, I would rather stack the stat that provides the most. Rather than only trusting in what gear gets by default, I would rather play with the mods so as to make myself as effective as possible, regardless of what the devs deigned to put into that gear by default.

 

You will notice that none of my recommendations imply that the mechanics of the Shadow are flawed in any way. I have not said that our shield chance is too low or we need extra hit points. Quite the contrary, I have simply indicated that the best way to work with our default mechanics and attributes is to go in a different path than many people's preconceived notions of tanking would indicate. Rather than trying to fight the wind to get upstream, I'm tacking against it so as to get there faster than people going a more obvious route.

[minervasunrider]

Check out these two enhancements. The first has higher Endurance and lower Defense. The second has higher Defense and lower Endurance. Guess which I prefer to use? If you guessed Immunity (the second), you are correct because I prioritize Defense above Endurance.

 

What is the "Glance" rating on these two items? Is this an old stat that was present during beta and is no longer in game?

[Kitru]

What is the "Glance" rating on these two items? Is this an old stat that was present during beta and is no longer in game?

 

Glance is simply the way TORhead writes out Shield Rating.

[Arbegla]

Charged Bolts isn't a Tech power. It's a weapon power. The easiest way to tell is because it deals *weapon* damage. The other way would have been to see that you have a base 100% chance to hit with Tech powers *and it missed*, ergo it's a ranged power, not a Tech power.

 

I stand corrected on Charged Bolts, Grav Round is a tech power (as per the Abilities window, which tells you if a power is active/passive, tech/ranged) and I've seen that miss as well. Which again, is easy to do because of the various procs and abilities that use Grav Round.

Secondly, the damage type of a power alone is not the sole method of determining whether a power is Force/Tech or melee/ranged. The way the game is designed, it is possible for an attack to deal kinetic damage (nominally a "ranged/melee" damage type) *and* be a Force power; just look at Project.

 

In your previous post you said that most of the tech/force powers are Internal/Elemental damage. My point was that it is really not that cut and dry. And most attacks (be them force/tech, or melee/range use the Kinetic/energy damage type, while few attacks are pure internal/elemental damage. And that most Internal/elemental damage types are added on as DoTs. That's my only argument in regards to damage types.

The only reliable way is to look at the power in question *in play*.

 

Actually, there is a MUCH easier way to look at things. Just open your abilities window, and look at the power itself. It'll either be passive (most talents, weapon/armor proficiencies etc) Active (heals, buffs, debuffs, etc) Tech/force (usually powers that aren't reliant on weapon damage, but may come from a weapon) and melee/range (powers that damage scale with weapon damage, but may not come from a weapon)

 

 

I think you have no clue what you're talking about. This is exactly what I'm referring to, and it's because you are on a low level character that you can't see the difference. If you were on a high enough level character, you would see that Shadowsight affects the "resistance" numbers as well, not just the "defense" numbers. DBLSD only affects the melee/ranged. Just because it says "defense" doesn't mean that it affects it in the way you assume it does.

 

Look, I'm just reading what the tooltips says. Shadowsight says Defense, so it provides Defense. Defense is also parry/deflect, the fact that Shadowsight provides 'resistance' to force/tech powers as well, is a bonus, but not one that I even considered in my equations.

It's because of this (and because of copious amounts of experience fighting Tech/Force mobs and having them rip through my defenses compared to weapon using mobs) that I can tell you that *defense does not apply*. If it did, I would be dodging Force lightning like it was nothing, as opposed to getting a rare resist in.

 

I think your not understanding my math. I didn't account for dodge/deflect/block/miss chance at all. I merely split the viability of resilience in half as a means to account for the fact that not all powers are tech/force. That's the only thing i considered in my equation, making everything basically equal. Your right in the fact that melee/range 'mitigation' would be even higher, due to the dodge/deflect/block/miss chance, but I didn't consider it because i wasn't working with my melee/range powers. I wasn't saying 'Well, Resilience only adds X amount, so its worthless, I said 'Resilience only adds X amount for the attacks it would help you defend against'

 

By removing defense from the equation, you are treating defense as if it doesn't exist. By treating defense as if it doesn't exist, you're operating under the flawed assumption that any increase in mitigation thanks for Force/Tech powers is going to operate against a similar level of mitigation for both Tech/Force and melee/ranged. Since melee/ranged is reduced substantially more *before your equation even gets to the given values* thanks to a massive difference in melee/ranged defense and Force/Tech resistance, you diminish the impact of melee/ranged powers which makes Force/Tech damage reduction look paltry in comparison.

 

From what your telling me, defense DOESN'T exist for force/tech powers. So doing exactly what you would do in order to figure out how much Resilience would benefit you.

Example:

 

1000 incoming damage. 750 melee/ranged, 250 Force/Tech.

 

Assuming 50% block for 30% reduction, 25% dodge, and 2% resistance, the damage would come in as follows:

 

750 * .75 * (1 - (.5 * .3)) = 310 melee/ranged damage

750 * .75 * (1 - (.15))

750 * .75 * .85 = 478.125

 

Hmm...

 

Lets see how you did that.

 

maybe?

 

750 * (.75 * .85)?

750 * .6375 = 478.125... Nope.

 

(750 * .75) * .85?

(562.5) * .85 = 478.125...Nope

 

How exactly did you get 310? Because your math isn't working very well to begin with. But anyways...

250 * .98 = 245 Force/Tech damage

 

Take the sum of that incoming damage (555 damage) and apply the 50/50 K/E:I/E damage assumption you've got with 35% K/E and 21% I/E reduction.

 

277.5 * .65 = ~180 K/E damage

277.5 * .79 = ~219 I/E damage

 

First off, i said 50/50 split on force/tech vs melee/range, and 75/25 K/E:I/E damage split with 40% K/E resistance, and 21% I/E reduction. So your not even using the numbers I did. Using my numbers, your looking at:

 

1000 incoming damage. 500 melee/ranged, 500 Force/Tech.

 

500 * .75 * (1 - (.5 * .3)) = 318.75

500 * .98 = 490

 

318.75 + 490 = 808.75 total damage. with the 75/25% split, your looking at

 

808.75 * .75 = 606.56 K/E damage

808.75 * .25 = 202.19 I/E damage

 

Now, applying the resistance values I uses (40% K/E resistance, 21% I/E resistance) and you have:

 

606.56 * .6 = 363.94 K/E damage

202.19 * .79 = 159.73 I/E damage

 

The *major* difference between Force/Tech incoming damage and melee/ranged damage is *not* in which variety of damage resistance applies, which is all you really did. Since Tech/Force ignore defense and block and, instead, only cares about resistance (in the sense that you achieve full resistance and avoid the entire attack), a larger amount than it penetrates. By ignoring defense and block chance (the primary damage mitigators) and only paying attention to damage *reduction* you falsely deflate the contributions of Resilience specifically *because* it allow you to ignore damage that is, functionally, going to largely ignore any of your other resistances.

 

If you were really curious about how much Resilience really mitigates, you would look not at the *damage* types (since Resilience doesn't give a flying crap about what kind of damage it is) but instead at the *attack* types.

 

This would only be true in a vacuum where you have 0 base resistance. I accounted for the fact that Resilience is only giving you enough resistance to meet that 100% cap. Anything above that 100% cap is wasted, so anything that resilience provides about 100% can not be counted as 'mitigation' because 100% is the cap. Which is why i accounted for damage types, and not attack types. If you have 40% resistance, and you add 100% resistance to it, how much resistance did you increase by? Hint, its not 100%. That's what my equation shows. The higher your base resistance is, via just innate resistance, the less resilience is going to protect, because of the 100% cap.

With the previous 1000 damage numbers, you would go from taking ~400 damage (555 * .72) to ~223 damage (310 * .72) while Resilience is active (assuming the damage is averaged and not discreetly lumped together like it is in actual play). This amounts to a ~45% reduction in incoming damage. Averaged for 5 seconds every 45 seconds, this amounts to 6.2% reduction in incoming damage over time. Averaged for 5 seconds every 60 seconds, this amounts to 4.6% reduction in incoming damage over time.

 

Well, first off your using the wrong numbers again, both in your actual math, and in the the way I used them. Lets first reuse your numbers, the correct values of them.

 

Force/tech would be 245, but range/melee would be 478.125. The total would be 723.125, before resistance is considered. As you can't have higher then 100% resistance, anything above 0% resistance has to be considered, and you have 40% K/E resistance, and 21% I/E resistance. When you consider resistance after you consider defense, you have a total incoming damage of force/tech powers of ((245*.75*.6)+(245*.25*.79)) or 158.64 force/tech damage, and ((478.125*.75*.6)+(478.125*.25*.79)) or 309.59 melee/range damage, a total of 468.23. So, with resilience active, you would have that damage reduced to 309.59, a 33.8% reduction. Averaged out to 5 second every 45 seconds, and your looking at 33.8 * 11.11% or about 3.76% reduction in incoming damage over time. Averaging it out to 5 seconds, every 45 seconds and your looking at 33.8 * 8.33% or about 2.82%. A difference of .94%. Blow that up into a 5 minute fight, with 4300 incoming damage (even though the numbers we've been using have been 1000 damage, which would skew the numbers much more using a different damage value from our original) and your looking at 12,126 hit points over 5 minutes. For reference, using 1000 damage, which is what we used to get the mitigation values in the first place, puts you at 2,820 hit points over 5 minutes, or about 9.4 hp/second, with a 75/25 split of both force/tech:melee/range and K/E:I/E damage.

 

My numbers show that force/tech would be 490, and melee/range would be 318.75. The total would be 808.75. With resilience active, that damage is reduced to 318.75, a 60.5% reduction. For 5 seconds every 45, your looking at 6.72% reduction. For 5 seconds, every 60, your looking at 5.04% reduction, a difference of 1.68% reduction. Blow that up into a 5 minute fight, with the 1000 incoming damage (which is what you should use, not the 4300 damage, as you started with 1000, not 4300) and you have a hit point difference of 4,800 over 5 minutes or about 16 hp/second, with a 50/50 split of force/tech:melee/range and 75/25 split of K/E:I/E.

 

Compared to the 350 additional hit points (and 1.75% better Kinetic self heals, which amount to about 125 health per second before the additional 1.75%, which equates to ~650 hit points for a total expected contribution of only 1000 additional hit points over the course of an entire raid boss fight), the additional usefulness of Resilience *vastly* outweighs the additional usefulness of 2% additional Endurance by a factor of *20*.

 

I'm again confused on how you got 125 hp/second before the 1.75% better heals, but if your increasing your healing by 125hp/second with the added hit points, then its far better then the mitigation, even by your own skewed math. In order to see exactly how much you'll extended your lifespan by, you have to open your eyes to the bigger picture, and take all values into consideration, which is not just defense, but then innate resistance, and healing adding to your hit point pool. If you ignore any aspect of that, in regards to the damage your taking, then you can't solidly say X is better then Y by Z%. You need to look at all the variables.

 

You've been mathed, sirrah. Yes, it's now a verb.

 

750 * .75 * (1 - (.5 * .3)) != 310 melee/ranged damage

 

Yea.. Whose been mathed?

 

Because player classes are the only arbiters of whether an attack is Force/Tech or melee/ranged? I can tell you that you already have no idea how to differentiate the two since you assume that Charged Bolts is a Tech power when you've seen it operate as if it weren't one (re: it *missed* when you've got a 100% base hit chance).

 

While I was mistaken with Charged Bolts, the easiest way to tell the difference is the 'color' of the damage it deals. White damage appears to be melee/range, Yellow damage appears to be tech/force. But if course I wouldn't know that because i have no idea how to differentiate the two.. Yea.. just like you mathed me.

 

So you would rather use grossly inaccurate numbers as opposed to a single instance of experimentation for content you are knowingly going to repeat? Are you serious? If you don't know whether an attack is a Force/Tech power or a melee/ranged power, guess and then look at the relevant data immediately (since it's pretty obvious when using Resilience whether an attack is Force/Tech or melee/ranged) and *remember*.

 

Again, even if you remember, if an attack isn't protected by Resilience then lowering its cooldown isn't going to help you very much at all now is it?

 

First off, you're not assuming that there is a 50/50 split because you're not factoring in how heavily reduced melee/range is compared to Tech/Force. I already went and proved that.

 

The only thing you proved is how you can pull numbers out of thin air, without anything backing them up. Please show your work exactly next time, so that we can at least be on the same page.

 

I'm still waiting for you to prove exactly and why tech/force powers are immune to defense completely, especially when the 'attack equation' is actually 2 equations. Hit/miss and shield/crit. If your telling me that Force/tech powers can't be dodge/deflected/blocked/missed, then they can only hit/crit? which goes completely against the attack mechanics of the entire game. Show me somewhere, besides word of mouth, where it specifically says Force/tech powers can not be blocked/dodged/parried/missed and then I'll believe you.

 

So? As I said, the additional utility of Resilience isn't in the simultaneous use: it's in the additional options extended to it. If there is a boss fight wherein the boss doesn't use any especially egregious Tech/Force powers but has a lot of fun loading you down with DoTs and debuffs, the fact that Resilience removes those is going to be amazingly useful, as is getting it an additional 1-2 times per boss fight.

 

While yes, i would agree with you, but a healer could remove those same DoTs and debuffs MUCH faster and easier then you could. You can remove everything every 45 seconds at most, or a healer could remove those debuffs/DoTs 2 at a time every 4.5 second. If you remove all those DoTs and debuffs, and they are reapplied almost instantly, then you haven't really helped yourself out any. You've prevented your healers from having to use their ability, but you've also wasted a cooldown on something minor.

 

Removing debuffs/DoTs and immunity to tech/force is a simultaneous thing. You can't pick one or the other, you get both, and if you need one or the other and you use it to remove debuffs, you can't use it to protect against tech/force powers, especially if those attacks are on different timers.

[Kitru]

Lets see how you did that.

 

That was actually an artifactual error of me including armor earlier in the calculation, thanks for catching that. I corrected for I/E but not for K/E damage.

 

The correct numbers, by my estimate, should be...

 

1000 incoming damage. 750 melee/ranged, 250 Force/Tech.

 

Assuming 50% block for 30% reduction, 25% dodge, and 2% resistance, the damage would come in as follows:

 

750 * .75 * (1 - (.5 * .3)) = ~478 melee/ranged damage

250 * .98 = 245 Force/Tech damage

 

Take the sum of that incoming damage (723 damage) and apply the 50/50 K/E:I/E damage assumption you've got with 35% K/E and 21% I/E reduction.

 

361.5 * .65 = ~235 K/E damage

361.5 * .79 = ~286 I/E damage

 

Mitigation comparison with and without Resilience would then be 344 (478 * .72) and 520 damage (723 * .72), respectively, for a total mitigation while active of 34%. Averaged for 5 seconds every 45 seconds this mitigation would provide 3.8% mitigation, and averaged for 5 seconds every 60 seconds would provide 2.8% mitigation.

 

To simplify the comparison a bit, let's look for how much damage over 300 seconds you would need to take in order to make the two benefits equivalent: if the real damage is higher than the given, then the additional benefits of a shorter CD Resilience provide more.

 

300x * .01 = 350 + 300 * (125 * .0175)

 

Some simple algebra later gets us...

 

x = 335.4, where x is the amount of DPS required for 2% additional Endurance to be equivalent to the mitigation contributions of 45 second Resilience as compared to 60 second Resilience. Since your assumed DPS is *loads* higher than that, it's pretty easy to say that the shorter CD Resilience wins out.

 

First off, i said 50/50 split on force/tech vs melee/range, and 75/25 K/E:I/E damage split with 40% K/E resistance, and 21% I/E reduction. So your not even using the numbers I did. Using my numbers, your looking at:

 

1000 incoming damage. 500 melee/ranged, 500 Force/Tech.

 

Those number just make my argument *stronger*. Increasing the amount of Force/Tech damage and decreasing the amount of I/E damage makes Resilience and *even better choice* because damage type is functionally pointless where Resilience is concerned: Resilience only cares about the Force/Tech or melee/ranged difference, not the damage types. Doubling the amount of damage that Resilience that ignores and reducing the amount of damage that it doesn't by 33% simply *improves* it's overall performance beyond that which has already been proven to be stronger.

 

This would only be true in a vacuum where you have 0 base resistance.

 

First off, I accounted for the 2% Resistance in *my* numbers. You seem to be confusing resistance with damage reduction. Resistance, as it applies to Force/Tech is identical to defense, as it applies to melee/ranged. Resilience does not increase your damage reduction to 100%; it increases your *resistance* to 100%, meaning that it is impossible for a Force/Tech power to hit you.

 

(even though the numbers we've been using have been 1000 damage, which would skew the numbers much more using a different damage value from our original)

 

We're talking about percentages. A percentage damage mitigation number is arrived at from a base quantity of 1000 incoming damage is going to be identical to the percent damage mitigation number arrived at from a base quantity of 3 billion: it's a percent of the incoming damage that is mitigated. The fact that I used 1000 base damage to determine the differences in percentage has no impact on whether that percentage is at all viable, which you would know if you understood high school arithmetic.

 

When I went from comparing *percentages* to comparing a listed quantity to a percentage, I went back to using your listed 4300 DPS as a point of comparison. You cannot legitimately compared 1% to 300. 1% of what? 1% of 3 billion is substantially more than 300, but 1% of 1000 is substantially less. It's because of this inability to compared a mitigation percentage to a flat gain in health that it I used your listed 4300 DPS rather than the 1000 I started with (which I simply used because 1000 is a nice, round number while 4300 isn't).

 

You are also misreading "1000 incoming damage". I never gave a time frame on those 1000 points of incoming damage because they don't matter. It wasn't 1000 DPS (which has a time frame); it was simply 1000 incoming damage. It doesn't matter how fast a certain quantity of damage arrives because it's going to be mitigated in entirely the same manner. Speed simply determines how quickly you are likely to die.

 

I'm again confused on how you got 125 hp/second before the 1.75% better heals

 

This is actually a pretty simple one.

 

Combat Technique provides 49 hp with a 65% chance of effect every attack once every GCD. Battle Readiness cranks this up to 197 hp for 15 seconds every 120 seconds (12.5% uptime). Assuming 1.75 attacks per second (Saber Strike is 3 attacks/GCD, Double Strike and TK Throw are 2/GCD, and Project is 1.45/GCD), this means that the chance for any individual GCD to proc Combat Technique is ~85%. (49 * .875 + 197 * .125)* .85 / 1.5 = 38 hp/sec from Combat Technique.

 

TK Throw provides a 12% heal roughly every 30 seconds. 12% of 20000 is 2400. 2400 / 30 = 80 hp/sec.

 

Combine CT with TK Throw and you get 118 hp/sec (considering I only did mental math to arrive at the 125 hp/sec number, I'm pretty happy with how close it actually is).

 

You need to look at all the variables.

 

You need to understand the equations and terminology first. You've repeatedly used flawed equations and misinterpreted basic mathematic concepts and arrived at a terrible answer. You're also accusing *me* of not looking at all of the variables when you were set to ignore the only one that Resilience actually affects (defense/resistance).

 

Yea.. Whose been mathed?

 

You found a single error in my math. I thank you for that. Of course, you then proceeded to do a bunch of terrible, erroneous math that, when done properly, actually makes my argument *better*, so I'm pretty sure I can still claim a victory here. You didn't math me, you mathed yourself.

 

Again, even if you remember, if an attack isn't protected by Resilience then lowering its cooldown isn't going to help you very much at all now is it?

 

Because making a cooldown available more often simply on the off chance that it won't be useful is a worse idea that stacking a *terribly* minute amount of hit points that you will never notice?

 

You're also apparently forgetting about the opposing argument: what if an ability a boss uses is on a 45 second cooldown? The reduction in Resilience's CD would be a make-or-break benefit.

 

The only thing you proved is how you can pull numbers out of thin air, without anything backing them up. Please show your work exactly next time, so that we can at least be on the same page.

 

If you pay attention, you'll notice I haven't pulled a single number out of the air (well, aside from the hp/sec number and that was pretty close, in all honesty, and based on an educated guess). I've made a single (1) mistake in my math that, when corrected, *improved my point*.

 

I'm still waiting for you to prove exactly and why tech/force powers are immune to defense completely, especially when the 'attack equation' is actually 2 equations.

 

If you do not understand how Tech/Force powers differ from melee/ranged powers, there's not much I can do to demonstrate to you how wrong you are. If you really want some evidence, try look at your character sheet under the Defense tab, specifically the Defense chance. You'll notice a separate set of number for Force/Tech as you will for melee/ranged.

 

Force/Tech powers *do* make the hit/miss check, but they use a *different set of numbers to determine whether they hit or not*. They do not use melee/ranged. They simply use "resistance", which does not mean a flat quantity by which they reduce incoming damage of the given types; it means a given chance to completely ignore the given attack *outright*, just like Defense does for melee/ranged.

 

It is not that Force/Tech do not make the hit/miss chance. It is that they use a *different number to determine whether they hit or miss compared to melee/ranged attacks*. I have been saying this *the entire time*. You have been either forgetting about or completely oblivious to this *the entire time*. It is the *crux* of what Resilience does for Shadows. You cannot make an arugment for or against Resilience without first understanding what exactly it does and how exactly it operates. You've been operating under a completely flawed understanding of the power (and, in fact, the entire attack schema overall). If you realized exactly what it did and how it operated, you would have understood this and realized how completely wrong your argument has been *from the beginning*.

 

While yes, i would agree with you, but a healer could remove those same DoTs and debuffs MUCH faster and easier then you could.

 

And they would be spending resources and GCDs to remove the effects when you could just as easily remove them yourself. Saying "the healer could do it" is a terrible argument to ignore a given capability of a power. You could just as easily use the same arugment as to why you should never use Battle Readiness because all it does it heal you; a healer can do that just as well, if not *better* than a Shadow can, so why bother?

 

Removing debuffs/DoTs and immunity to tech/force is a simultaneous thing. You can't pick one or the other, you get both, and if you need one or the other and you use it to remove debuffs, you can't use it to protect against tech/force powers, especially if those attacks are on different timers.

 

If there is a major tech power and debuffs in the same fight, it's a pretty safe bet that anyone intelligent would know not to use Resilience as a personal cleanse. The argument I was making (that you clearly didn't understand) was that the cleansing aspect of the power is a substantial benefit that allows it to be used in situations where a pure damage mitigation CD would otherwise be largely worthless. This makes it useful even in some situations where you wouldn't need a Force/Tech damage reduction power, which means it has additional utility outside of the damage mitigation role, which makes it better than you predict (which, if you actually do the math correctly, you'd realize that it's already better than 2% Endurance).

[Malanocte]

Without getting into spreadsheets and math, I do have a basic question about the nature of tanking in TOR: are we supposed to take lots of damage?

 

I've read the guides, and I follow the "right ways" to tank. Kinetic Ward is up as much as possible, Combat Technique, Force Break on cooldown, my gear is modded with up-to-date blues, Deflection as needed, yet my questing partner (Sawbones Scoundrel) has commented on how very much damage I take. It's not instagib spikedamage, but a constant, and somewhat rapid grinding away of my hitpoints that she's hard pressed to keep up with.

 

Is this normal, or am I doing something wrong?

[Kitru]

Is this normal, or am I doing something wrong?

 

It's normal. Mitigation values for TOR are substantially lower than the "norm" for MMOs meaning that tanks generally take more damage than people tend to expect if they are coming from elsewhere. Of course, heals are *also* substantially lower, especially burst healing capability, so healer have to work harder to recover if they start lagging behind.

[Arbegla]

Those number just make my argument *stronger*. Increasing the amount of Force/Tech damage and decreasing the amount of I/E damage makes Resilience and *even better choice* because damage type is functionally pointless where Resilience is concerned: Resilience only cares about the Force/Tech or melee/ranged difference, not the damage types. Doubling the amount of damage that Resilience that ignores and reducing the amount of damage that it doesn't by 33% simply *improves* it's overall performance beyond that which has already been proven to be stronger.

 

First off, I accounted for the 2% Resistance in *my* numbers. You seem to be confusing resistance with damage reduction. Resistance, as it applies to Force/Tech is identical to defense, as it applies to melee/ranged. Resilience does not increase your damage reduction to 100%; it increases your *resistance* to 100%, meaning that it is impossible for a Force/Tech power to hit you.

 

You need to understand the equations and terminology first. You've repeatedly used flawed equations and misinterpreted basic mathematic concepts and arrived at a terrible answer. You're also accusing *me* of not looking at all of the variables when you were set to ignore the only one that Resilience actually affects (defense/resistance).

 

If there is a major tech power and debuffs in the same fight, it's a pretty safe bet that anyone intelligent would know not to use Resilience as a personal cleanse. The argument I was making (that you clearly didn't understand) was that the cleansing aspect of the power is a substantial benefit that allows it to be used in situations where a pure damage mitigation CD would otherwise be largely worthless. This makes it useful even in some situations where you wouldn't need a Force/Tech damage reduction power, which means it has additional utility outside of the damage mitigation role, which makes it better than you predict (which, if you actually do the math correctly, you'd realize that it's already better than 2% Endurance)

 

In the case of resistance vs damage reduction vs defense, i think its basically all the same number. 'Resistance' to force/tech is basically defense, so any resistance you have lowers the damage of force/tech powers by roughly the 'resistance' amount. Any damage reduction you have after resistance is then applied (as force/tech powers have damage types, like every other power does) So, while resilience technically increases your 'defense' *and i mean 'resistance' there* to tech/force powers, without resilience, you have still damage reduction to said powers (in the form of K/E, and I/E reduction) so resilience is not a flat 100% reduction. Say, you have 100% damage reduction to K/E/I/E damage. Would resilience benefit you at all? That's is basically my point here. The fact you have K/E/I/E damage reduction makes Resilience benefit you less, as the damage you would've taken from those attacks are then reduced by your K/E/I/E innate resistance.

 

So, using that theory, lets look at what exactly Resilience is doing for us, compared to what more hp would do for us.

 

We've both agreed on 50% block chance, for 30% reduction, 25% defense (vs range/melee) and 2% resistance (vs tech/force) We've also agreed, mostly, on the innate resistance values of 40% K/E, and 21% I/E. And we seem to agree on the base hp being 20k.

 

Now, with 1% endurance boost, your hp total is 20175, and with 3% endurance boost your hp total is 20525. The uptime of Resilience with a 5 second duration, and 45 second cooldown is 11.11%. The uptime of Resilience with a 5 second duration, and 60 second cooldown is 8.33%. We've evenly split the damage between Force/tech and Range/melee at 50/50, and the damage 'type' is split 75% K/E, and 25% I/E.

 

CT provides 38hp/second. TK Thrust provides 80hp/second, and BR provides 16.67hp/second, for a total of 134.67 hp/second healing base.

 

1% endurance boosts the above numbers to 38hp/second for CT (unsure if endurance affects it, so i won't count it) 80.7hp/second for TK Thrust, and 16.81hp/second for BR, for a total of 135.51hp/second.

 

3% endurance boosts the above numbers to 38hp/second for CT, 82.1hp/second for TK Thrust, and 17.10hp/second BR, for a total of 137.2hp/second.

 

Now, lets look at what exactly resilience is doing for us, in regards to tech/force powers.

 

We have 1000 incoming damage. 50% of it is force/tech, 50% of it is range/melee. 75% of that damage is K/E, and 25% is I/E.

 

500 * .75(defense chance) * .85(shield chance) = 318.75 Range/melee

500 * .98(resistance) = 490 force/tech

 

Damage type break down for Range/melee

318.75 * .75 = 239.06 K/E damage

318.75 * .25 = 79.69 I/E damage

 

Damage type break down for Tech/Force

490 * .75 = 367.5 K/E damage

490 * .25 = 122.5 I/E damage

 

Damage reduction via armor/buffs for Range/Melee

239.06 K/E damage * .6 = 143.44 Incoming K/E damage

79.69 I/E damage * .79 = 58.22 Incoming I/E damage

 

Damage reduction via armor/buffs for Tech/Force

367.5 K/E damage * .6 = 220.5 Incoming K/E damage

122.5 I/E damage * .79 = 96.78 Incoming I/E damage

 

Total damage sustained before armor/buffs are considered: 808.75 total damage

Total damage sustained before armor/buffs are considered, but after Resilience is considered: 318.74

Total damage sustained after armor/buffs but before Resilience is considered: 518.94 Total damage

Total damage sustained after armor/buffs and after Resilience is considered: 201.66 Total damage

 

Percentage of damage armor/buffs are mitigating from total damage: 36%

 

Difference between Force/tech damage before Armor is considered, and after armor is considered: 172.72

Percentage of damage Armor/buffs are mitigating from force/tech powers: 35%

Percentage of damage Resilience is mitigating from Force/tech powers after armor is considered: 65%

 

So, Resilience is only giving you a 65% damage reduction, after you consider armor/buffs reducing the incoming damage. Using that 65%, let see how long your lifespan will be, with an incoming DPS of 4300.

 

36% total mitigation from all sources, with an 11.11% uptime of an additional 65% mitigation from force/tech powers. Force/tech powers are 50% of incoming damage, so you have (65% * (11.11%/2)) or a total of 3.61% mitigation value, for a grand total of 39.61% mitigation. With 1% endurance increase, you have 20175 hp, with 135.51hp/second self healing. Your time until death is (20175 / ((4300 * (1 - 39.61%) - 135.51)) or (20175 / (2596.77 - 135.51)) or (20175 / 2461.26) or about 8.20 seconds until death.

 

36% total mitigation from all sources, with an 8.33% uptime of an additional 65% mitigation from force/tech powers. Force/tech powers are 50% of incoming damage, so you have (65% * (8.33%/2)) or a total of 2.71% mitigation value, or a grand total of 38.71% mitigation. With 3% endurance increase, you have 20525 hp, with 137.2hp/second self healing. Your time until death is (20525 / ((4300 * (1 - 38.71%) - 137.2)) or (20525 / (2635.47 - 137.2)) or (20525 / 2498.27) or about 8.22 seconds until death.

 

Now, its not a huge increase, but i think i covered all the bases. Having innate damage reduction, via armor/buffs lowers the value of resilience because Force/tech powers still deal K/E/I/E damage. Regardless of if your hit, or not with them, they still deal damage types that you have innate resistance to, so you can not count the full 100% immunity before applying the innate resistance you already have.

 

And they would be spending resources and GCDs to remove the effects when you could just as easily remove them yourself. Saying "the healer could do it" is a terrible argument to ignore a given capability of a power. You could just as easily use the same arugment as to why you should never use Battle Readiness because all it does it heal you; a healer can do that just as well, if not *better* than a Shadow can, so why bother?

 

Self preservation. I'm all for using your personal cooldowns throughout a fight, but there is no shame in relying on a healer to do their job. If your healer is keeping you at 100% hps at all time, then yes, Battle Readiness is useless. The same could be said for Resilience being used as a self cleanse. If your healer is quick enough to notice, and control your level of debuffs and DoTs, then you only need to worry about using Resilience for the damage reduction (which is what it does) Also, if the debuffs/DoTs don't stack higher then 2, why use Resilience at all, when your healer can cleanse them much easier.

 

While healers do have limited resources, they aren't limited enough to prevent them from cleansing every once in awhile. In the event of massive debuff/DoT spikes (upwards of 3 all at once) then using Resilience, or any other self cleansing power, is probably your best bet, especially if you don't need to use it to negate incoming damage. If that is not happening, using a 45 second cooldown for a few debuffs wont do you very much good.

[Kitru]

I like how we can write such vicious commentary about each other and then, through math, come to a mutually satisfactory conclusion. It's so satisfying.

[Arbegla]

I like how we can write such vicious commentary about each other and then, through math, come to a mutually satisfactory conclusion. It's so satisfying.

 

I'll have to agree with you. Even with the vicious commentary, I am generally enjoying this back and forth we're having. I am however curious as to which part of my post we've come to a satisfactory conclusion on. I do understand that 3% endurance isn't amounting to very much of an overall increase on life (.02 seconds as per my calculations) but I feel that any extension of your lifespan is worthwhile, even such a small amount.

 

Would our argument be something we can set in stone, as to which build is best used to tank with for a shadow tank? That way, if the question arises again, we can clearly point others to our discussion and clear up any misconceptions very quickly and easily?

[genesiser]

Going back a few pages to the accuracy thing. I was under the impression that if you go over 100% accuracy it increases armor penetration.

[Arbegla]

Going back a few pages to the accuracy thing. I was under the impression that if you go over 100% accuracy it increases armor penetration.

 

Not entirely. Anything over 100% accuracy decreases the defense of the enemy by the amount over the 100%. And, base 100% accuracy only accounts for mobs of equal level.

 

Say a mob, your level has 10% defense. in order to hit them 100% of the time, you'll need 110% accuracy.

 

Another mob, equal level has 0% defense. In order to hit them 100% of the time, you'll need only 100% accuracy. Anything over, is basically wasted. At least to my understanding of Accuracy. Its not quite armor pen, its the opposite of defense.

[Kitru]

Would our argument be something we can set in stone, as to which build is best used to tank with for a shadow tank? That way, if the question arises again, we can clearly point others to our discussion and clear up any misconceptions very quickly and easily?

 

I think the answer depends upon what your metric of comparison is.

 

If it's estimated time til death assuming a specific amount of incoming damage and only internal heals (your method), your answer is probably the best. It best defines the "solo" experience since you're ignoring the contribution of heals. In a group setting, it represents the window of time that you're able to survive without getting any assistance from your healers; once you get healed back up to full, you reset the timer.

 

If it is simply amount of damage mitigated over time without respect for a "time-til-death", my answer makes the most sense. It best defines a "time averaged" approach because it operates under the assumption that you will continually be healed appreciable and that any window of time to be healed is sufficient. In a group setting, it best approaches the risk of healer resource entropy: since you mitigate more damage over time rather than survive a longer period of time without getting healed, you are allowing your healers to conserve more resources by healing you less.

 

Either way, it's a sufficiently close argument that the question of "best" is more appropriately determined by the fight (or raid) in question. If Force/Tech damage is a common concern and exists in discreet blocks of intense damage (as for most Force/Tech damage sources), the superior uptime on Resilience is likely the better path because being able to fully resist large amounts of incoming damage for short periods more often can buy you a lot of leeway. If it isn't (or simply isn't a common enough occurence), the Endurance would be more useful since it is a general tool of survival rather than a specialized one.

 

The only real answer is "if you like Resilience, Elusiveness is better; if you don't, Mental Fortitude".

Edited January 3, 2012 by Kitru

[Fende]

This thread was/is so constructive it almost brought me to tears. Bravo.

[Arbegla]

I think the answer depends upon what your metric of comparison is.

 

The only real answer is "if you like Resilience, Mind Over Matter is better; if you don't, Mental Fortitude".

 

I agree completely with you, and the way you described the different situations. My only concern is the talents that we're actually contesting. It isn't Mind Over Matter (which increases the duration of resilience) but Elusiveness, which decreases the cool down of Resilience.

 

Either build in question, would have Mind over Matter, but mine wouldn't include Elusiveness, where yours would.

[Kitru]

Either build in question, would have Mind over Matter, but mine wouldn't include Elusiveness, where yours would.

 

Ya, you're right. Confused the two talents for a sec. I'll edit it.

[Kitru]

This thread was/is so constructive it almost brought me to tears. Bravo.

 

My personal favorite part was the *massive walls of text*.

[Arbegla]

My personal favorite part was the *massive walls of text*.

 

Honestly, mine would be the 'I mathed you!' "No, you mathed yourself." 'Well, I'll math you still!'

 

I really am satisfied with the situation, and how we were able to break everything (including CT) down into exactly how they benefit a shadow tank. Hopefully someone will see this thread, or at least our explanations, and better understand what it means to be a shadow tank.

[Fende]

Honestly, mine would be the 'I mathed you!' "No, you mathed yourself." 'Well, I'll math you still!'

 

I really am satisfied with the situation, and how we were able to break everything (including CT) down into exactly how they benefit a shadow tank. Hopefully someone will see this thread, or at least our explanations, and better understand what it means to be a shadow tank.

 

The first post should be edited with a TLDR of the conclusions of the thread. Many people will see the giant wall of text and just stop.

 

Too bad neither of you have it.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Fende

[JabbaCG]

Until lvl 35 I've played as tank in EVERY Flashpoint, and I had no problems... and I'm infiltration spec. Enough said.

 

I'll see how it works on higher levels... but I assume that kinetic shouldn't have any problem tanking.

Edited January 3, 2012 by JabbaCG

[ungolf]

OK let me first say this is a great post and it has helped me alot. So from my understanding Tanking stats go as Defense, Shield Rating, Absorb Rating. I ran my first normal raid last night and got alot of gear. Now most of it has Absorb Rating on it. So based on This thread I would want to swap out Enhacemnts so that you get Shield Rating and Defense. I have a mix of Columi and energized gear. Looking at the enhancements They are numbered 23 and the best I can make atm is a purple 22 advanced Immunity. Now i also understand hp is not a top top priority so what I am trying to get it is it in my best interest to swap out the enhancements with absorb for the ones with shield and defense even thought they are a lower level.

[oddmyth]

OK let me first say this is a great post and it has helped me alot. So from my understanding Tanking stats go as Defense, Shield Rating, Absorb Rating. I ran my first normal raid last night and got alot of gear. Now most of it has Absorb Rating on it. So based on This thread I would want to swap out Enhacemnts so that you get Shield Rating and Defense. I have a mix of Columi and energized gear. Looking at the enhancements They are numbered 23 and the best I can make atm is a purple 22 advanced Immunity. Now i also understand hp is not a top top priority so what I am trying to get it is it in my best interest to swap out the enhancements with absorb for the ones with shield and defense even thought they are a lower level.

 

Ungolf,

 

Personally I wouldn't swap out higher level mods unless I was really lacking in +def.

If you are somewhere in the range of 24-25% or higher defense then you are in the right place and you should work on shield and absorb.

 

Ultimately if you are low on +def currently, swap them out for lower level ones, but I would simply take them out of the gear and pay the cost to keep the mod itself, that way you can swap it back in when you are flush with defense. The 23 mod certainly has a higher stat ilvl and it would be a shame to simply throw it away.