Need Tanking Advice

[Flygar]

I just hit level 29 and have been levelling as Infiltration. I love Infil, but wanted to give Kinetic Combat and tanking a go. Rather than jump into flashpoints, I tried tanking a 4-person heroic quest on Tatooine. Things didn't go well on our first couple of pulls and the healer made the comment that they couldn't keep me alive. Granted, the pull had 5 elites and 2 strongs, and no one CC'ed their targets besides me, but that's another story.

 

I'm trying to figure out where I can improve. I know I could be a bit smoother on my rotation, but I also wondered if my gear was lacking. Could all you successful Shadow tanks take a look at my numbers?

 

HP: 5813

Armor Rating: 2458

Dmg Reduction: 27.14%

Defense Chance: 16.63%

Shield Chance: 20.00%

Shield Absorption: 24.00%

Endurance: 480

Willpower: 441

Edited January 1, 2012 by Flygar

[minervasunrider]

I just hit level 29 and have been levelling as Infiltration. I love Infil, but wanted to give Kinetic Combat and tanking a go. Rather than jump into flashpoints, I tried tanking a 4-person heroic quest on Tatooine. Things didn't go well on our first couple of pulls and the healer made the comment that they couldn't keep me alive. Granted, the pull had 5 elites and 2 strongs, and no one CC'ed their targets besides me, but that's another story.

 

I'm trying to figure out where I can improve. I know I could be a bit smoother on my rotation, but I also wondered if my gear was lacking. Could all you successful Shadow tanks take a look at my numbers?

 

HP: 5813

Armor Rating: 2458

Dmg Reduction: 27.14%

Defense Chance: 16.63%

Shield Chance: 20.00%

Shield Absorption: 24.00%

Endurance: 480

Willpower: 441

 

The pull shouldn't be 5 elites and 2 strongs without CCs. That is fail regardless of who/what is tanking. With a 4 person party, if you *have* to pull 5 elites at once, at least 3 of them should be CCd for the first 60 seconds of the fight. (And fail DPS needs to learn not to damage them while CCd.)

 

As far as your gear goes: how many levels under your level is your armoring? Similarly, how many levels under your level is your lightsaber hilt? If all this is at or close to your level, greens or blues should be fine for grouping while leveling; your numbers aren't a problem.

 

General rule of thumb for me is to keep gear fairly up to date with my level. Epics shouldn't be necessary.

[Kitru]

I tried tanking a 4-person heroic quest on Tatooine. Things didn't go well on our first couple of pulls and the healer made the comment that they couldn't keep me alive.

 

That first pull is hell for *anyone* though the lack of CC definitely made it substantially worse. The Heroic gets much easier (and "normal") after that first pull, but the only real consideration I can give you is the same as the previous poster: there should have been more CC.

 

Also, if you're trying to tank in an Infil spec with just Combat Technique keeping you harder to kill, don't expect a lot. Tiers 3 and 4 are the biggest threat and survivability gains in all of the Kinetic Combat Tree so, if you want to tank, I recommend you respec and then try it out.

[Flygar]

Thanks Minerva. I've got moddable robes, lower robes, and helm. The armoring bit in those are within a couple of levels. A few pieces are pretty low (gloves are lvl 15, etc). I'll see about replacing those and give it another shot.

[Flygar]

Also, if you're trying to tank in an Infil spec with just Combat Technique keeping you harder to kill, don't expect a lot. Tiers 3 and 4 are the biggest threat and survivability gains in all of the Kinetic Combat Tree so, if you want to tank, I recommend you respec and then try it out.

 

Thanks Kitru. I did respec, definitely didn't try it as Infiltration.

[darkov]

Five elites is crazy, at most you should be looking to pull three mobs, nothing more and make sure that the kill order is weak to hard. Normal and Strong mobs may not have much health but they can hit as hard as Elite or Champions.

 

When I'm tanking a Heroic or Flashpoint I always, without fail, CC one of the mobs on the pull, whether we need to or not, just to keep everyone in the habit and one less mob hitting me just makes things easier for everyone. It doesn't cost much to CC, make sure everyone does it.

[Darkodium]

I just hit level 29 and have been levelling as Infiltration. I love Infil, but wanted to give Kinetic Combat and tanking a go. Rather than jump into flashpoints, I tried tanking a 4-person heroic quest on Tatooine. Things didn't go well on our first couple of pulls and the healer made the comment that they couldn't keep me alive. Granted, the pull had 5 elites and 2 strongs, and no one CC'ed their targets besides me, but that's another story.

 

I'm trying to figure out where I can improve. I know I could be a bit smoother on my rotation, but I also wondered if my gear was lacking. Could all you successful Shadow tanks take a look at my numbers?

 

HP: 5813

Armor Rating: 2458

Dmg Reduction: 27.14%

Defense Chance: 16.63%

Shield Chance: 20.00%

Shield Absorption: 24.00%

Endurance: 480

Willpower: 441

 

Well I think your gear could use work. I tank as Infiltration (its best for leveling) and am lvl 30:

 

HP: 7940

Armor Rating: 3479

Dmg Reduction: 33.84%

Defense Chance: 11.09%

Shield Chance: 20.00%

Shield Absorption: 26.30%

Endurance: 687

Willpower: 554

 

Endurance is most important. Did the Cademimu earier with Tharen companion, a JK and a non healer smug (who were 28 and 26 respectively) and it went smooth because we CC'd and had proper target priority. So if your group is messing about, you'll have to step up and tell them whats what. Without you they are stuck so kick any whining dpsers.

[Bangard]

While I am a lower level than you (Not by much, however), I have been leveling as a Kinetic Shadow, with the ambition to tank endgame operations. While tanking 5 elites and 2 strongs is pretty much suicide, I would like to ask what your personal priorities are. I personally believe the level of opposition you were up against was the main issue. But even so, as someone new to the spec, it wouldn't hurt to make sure you're doing everything you possibly can to keep damage off you while keeping threat.

 

Are you using Kinetic Ward pretty much on cooldown? Believe me, I felt a lot squishier at 20 when I got that skill, and quite often I find myself taking very minimal damage even in Flashpoints and 4 person quests. As well as this, make sure your Force Breach is up. It's a 5%... Something reduction. Can't quite remember, but it's either damage or accuracy. Either way it helps... And use your guard! Biggest tip I really think I can give you. It transfers 50% of the damage the guarded is taking to you. I play with my cousin, a sentinel, and guard him. If I feel I will be putting the healer at risk of being unable to heal me, I let him off-tank a couple of the lower class mobs. I'm still taking damage, yes, but it's lowered and spread. The biggest hitters are still hitting me, but I'm normally not in any real danger that I may have been if I took on the lower mobs as well. Also, you have a 5 second stun. Use it, it's essentially a damage reduction cooldown. Not massive, but it -will- ease the pressure a little.

 

Lastly, I wouldn't worry too much about making sure you're doing as much damage as possible. If you're holding threat, you're fine. I like to be able to force breach and kinetic ward on cooldown, which sometimes may not be possible if, say, you were using Shadow Strike (I think it's called, the backstab ability... Dunno why you'd use it anyway, but you get the point).

 

Now I'm not telling you how to play the game. Everything I've written here is solely from my experience in game. Others may be more reliable and tell you something else, but again - I wasn't sure what you were doing. Thinking my advice might not go amiss, I decided to write this up for you. You were probably doing this anyway. And if you were, I personally don't see why you wouldn't be able to tank anything level appropriate. But honestly, 5 elites and 2 strongs is just not a good idea xD.

 

I hope something I've said has helped you.

 

Have fun. May the force be with you.

 

Jedi Bangard Innit

[Kitru]

Endurance is most important.

 

Not really. Any halfway decent healer is going to keep you well above the threshold by which Endurance variability has any substantial effect upon your survivability. The more important difference was likely in playstyle (hefty use of CC is going to make you substantially tougher than moderately better gear) as well as gear (since, even without Kinetic Talents, you were apparently more defensively capable than he was at a similar level).

 

As to Infiltration being the best leveling spec, I'd debate that. While I went straight through as Kinetic without a single problem (Kinetic + Tharan = lawl), I met a *large* number of other Shadows that found Infiltration to be very difficult to level as once they got beyond their 30s. With its hefty focus on ST damage and little in the way of augmented survivability, Infiltration has a much harder time with the almost ever-present elites that start being spread throughout zones at higher levels. Most of the Shadows that I met found Balance to be a much easier PvE leveling spec and Kinetic to simply be the easiest and fastest of all (thanks to the excellent damage of TOR tanks and the ability to solo almost anything without much risk). Many of the Shadows that I saw as Infiltration actually respec'd to Kinetic or Balance around level 40 specifically because of the given leveling woes. Infiltration was only really considered to be "good" if PvP was a major concern while leveling (and, oftentimes, those that stuck with Infil listed PvP as the only reason they *hadn't* respec'd).

[Darkodium]

Well are you saying willpower is better than endurance? So tanks should get the greater willpower than endurance gear? I do like to solo and challenge myself and i've taken some shady hits from some bosses and I just can't afford to rely on RNG to avoid them.

 

As for spec thing well I am tempted to try Balance to be honest. Kinetic to me I'm not sure at the moment. I do plan tank at 50 as kinetic and might try it once I'm high enough to get the Telekinetic throw healing skill.

[Flygar]

Thanks everyone for the input. I suspected then (and what most of you have said confirms) that the group was the biggest issue. I really just wanted to do due diligence and make sure I'm doing all I can do. Honestly once the group started CC'ing their targets, I thought it was going well. It wasn't until a DPS left the group due to our Sentinel Force Jumping into a second group and wiping us, then the group leader (healer) asking in general for a Tank, that I really started to question myself.

 

To address the questions, I get the rotation (Kinetic Ward pretty much on cooldown, Force Breach on CD, etc), and after some practice I've gotten smoother with it, so I'm not making as many mistakes (like letting KW drop off). I've also upgraded my gear a bit, and things are going a little better. I'm going to keep going with it, and maybe see if Tharan can keep me alive in some Heroic 2's

[Kitru]

Well are you saying willpower is better than endurance? So tanks should get the greater willpower than endurance gear?

 

When I have the option to, yes, I slot for my gear for more Willpower than Endurance. If you've got a healer, Endurance doesn't make you appreciably tougher: it doesn't reduce incoming damage. All it does is increase the window in which you can survive before receiving a heal. If you plan on running with a healer (re: Tharan or in any sane FP or Op group), Endurance doesn't provide appreciable benefits to your survival since, at that point, it only provides a cushion to prevent you from being killed in a single attack.

 

This does not mean that you should be wearing DPS gear. It means that, on your tank gear wherein you've got mitigation stats (Defense, Shield, Absorb) as high as possible, you should prefer higher Willpower to higher Endurance. In essence, you should want Resolve Hilt and Armoring instead of Force Wielding Hilt and Armoring.

 

Similarly, you should also prioritize your mitigation stats higher than Endurance. What *this* means is that, when selecting Enhancements and Mods, you should choose [/url=http://www.torhead.com/item/6KJJQzo]Immunity[/url] over Bastion because Immunity prioritizes the more useful Defense over the less useful Endurance stat. Your hit points will end up being lower than the uninitiated would like, but you will take less damage, meaning your functional hit points (re: how much damage you can take over the course of a fight) will be higher, making you substantially harder to kill and require fewer heals over the course of a fight.

[Enduretwentytwo]

When I have the option to, yes, I slot for my gear for more Willpower than Endurance. If you've got a healer, Endurance doesn't make you appreciably tougher: it doesn't reduce incoming damage. All it does is increase the window in which you can survive before receiving a heal. If you plan on running with a healer (re: Tharan or in any sane FP or Op group), Endurance doesn't provide appreciable benefits to your survival since, at that point, it only provides a cushion to prevent you from being killed in a single attack.

 

By your same logic wouldn't willpower be equally worthless, if you are not having problems holding aggro. I'd much rather have a cushion of 2-3 seconds on heals (especially with how many times I've seen healers get CC), then an extra 1k damage when my threat is already fine.

 

On a separate note, does anyone have recommendations for using combat technique - force breach in large groups of mobs where crowd control is being used. Using the breach gives good AOE threat and 5% accuracy reduction, but the radius for the breach is pretty large and often breaks CC.

[Kitru]

By your same logic wouldn't willpower be equally worthless, if you are not having problems holding aggro. I'd much rather have a cushion of 2-3 seconds on heals (especially with how many times I've seen healers get CC), then an extra 1k damage when my threat is already fine.

 

Not really. The first thing is that the 2-3 second cushion you refer to is actually close to half a second in reality, and the second is that more Willpower means more damage which means faster kills. Tank damage in TOR is quite respectable and bolstering that means more, imo, than giving your healer a miniscule amount of additional reaction time that isn't even guaranteed to occur.

 

On a separate note, does anyone have recommendations for using combat technique - force breach in large groups of mobs where crowd control is being used. Using the breach gives good AOE threat and 5% accuracy reduction, but the radius for the breach is pretty large and often breaks CC.

 

My general method for using FB in the middle of a big group is to pull a majority of the big group away from the CC. Ensure that most of the CC are on ranged mobs or casters and are generally clumped together to one side. When you start the fight, aggro the lot of them, position your group well away from any CC, and yank the any remaining ranged enemies into the melee clump that you've created with Force Pull. You can then use Slow Time and Force Breach with abandon without risking breaking CC.

[minervasunrider]

Tank damage in TOR is quite respectable and bolstering that means more, imo, than giving your healer a miniscule amount of additional reaction time that isn't even guaranteed to occur.

 

^^^This... While my Shadow's only at lvl 34 (2 week playing hiatus - but I'm back tomorrow!) I have been quite impressed with tank damage output in this game; this is the tanking style I like most, i.e. maximizing DPS to maximize threat and help out the group. So I expect that as far as gear goes I will be prioritizing damage mitigation followed by damage output, with health points treated as a "good enough" resource.

 

My philosophy is: past a certain point, health pool no longer helps out your group (assuming it is competent). Damage output never stops helping out your group. My suspicion is that, given the amount of flexibility with gear stats and the way the class is designed, it is impossible to have too little health at endgame with reasonable gear, so we don't have to worry about it.

[Hint-of-Insanity]

When I'm tanking a Heroic or Flashpoint I always, without fail, CC one of the mobs on the pull, whether we need to or not, just to keep everyone in the habit and one less mob hitting me just makes things easier for everyone. It doesn't cost much to CC, make sure everyone does it.

 

 

I will CC elites and champions, but if the group is only made up of strong and weak mobs i find it more of a hassle since if you can not pull the mobs away from the cc target it costs you your force breach which is extra aggro and mitigation.

[artilleryshell]

yeah. five elites will break off your head and slurp down your delicious, sweet force filling, leaving your meat-bag body laying on the side like the crust of bread, since its not the tasty part.

 

 

I felt this pain alot in beta, having been trained to mindlessly charge forth in *that other game*

 

You'll want to apply cc liberally, just adding my voice the the chorus. There's nothing wrong with your build if 5 elites eat you. They're supposed to eat you.

[JeremyDale]

^^^This... While my Shadow's only at lvl 34 (2 week playing hiatus - but I'm back tomorrow!) I have been quite impressed with tank damage output in this game; this is the tanking style I like most, i.e. maximizing DPS to maximize threat and help out the group. So I expect that as far as gear goes I will be prioritizing damage mitigation followed by damage output, with health points treated as a "good enough" resource.

.

 

OK first just let me say this is one reason a lot of Shadow Tanks are getting a bum rap right now, because of people who play like this. I'm a healer, and just let me say this is a very poor way to design your tank, and I would advice other Jedi Shadows NOT to play like this person.

 

First - she is looking at endurance all wrong. Increasing your HP as a tank does a lot more than simply giving you a cushion to take a few extra hits. That's just not how it works.

 

Tanks have mitigation stats and use shields, so increasing your HP is very effective because it widens your over-all window of survival - thus giving you more time and chances to deflect and absorb attacks. So in reality if you are adding like 3k to your health it's the same as adding 9k for other classes, because Tanks have greater mitigation stats and can therefore stretch their health out far longer than others. So the logic behind this post is missing the point and cleary doesn't understand the concept of tanking.

 

Tanks should NEVER EVER favor damage over more health and mitigation. It is counter-productive, and doesn't play on their strengths - instead favoring a weakness.

 

Also, with the way healing is designed on this game - I can tell you from experience as a Jedi Healer that a greater health bar makes things far easier on me than having a tank who does a little more damage, which is almost useless and doesn't help me at all.

 

You can't just spam bomb heals on this game, because if you do you do you will run out force far too quickly and having a tank who deals 10% more damage because he/she decided to stack willpower instead of encdurance isn't going to change this. In fact, it's just goign to make it worse because I will have to throw out my big-expensive heal more often because the tank will be nearer to death quicker than other tanks who smartly increase their health bars.

 

Healing on this game as a Sage revolves aroung stringing together your weaker heals for added effects which reduces force cost and only relying on your large heals for emergencies. This compliments very well tanks who increase their HP bars and surviviality to the highest possible level because it gives my weaker heals more room to work in. A tank with lower HP will need larger heals more quickly than a tank with higher hp, and therfore they become more of a burden on my force.

 

So as a healer I can tell you straight up this person's logic is all wrong, and I would always choose a tank who stacks endurance rather willpower any day of the week.

Edited January 3, 2012 by JeremyDale

[Kitru]

First - she is looking at endurance all wrong. Increasing your HP as a tank does a lot more than simply giving you a cushion to take a few extra hits. That's just not how it works.

 

Actually, she's looking at it in the entirely proper manner. Additional hit points in no way cause heals to become bigger or damage to decrease. They simply sit there and look pretty and let you survive for longer without a heal. Assuming your healer is actually *doing their job*, an additional 2-3k hit points are going to have no effect upon your survivability because, assuming the healer is doing their job, you're not going to drop below 2-3k hit points.

 

The only time additional hit points have *any* effect upon your survivability is when you are receiving no heals. If you have an 18k hit points compared to 16k hit points, you could survive for roughly 2-3 seconds longer without needing a heal. Of course, you would still need to receive the *exact same amount of healing* as the 16k hit point tank, since those additional hit point have no bearing upon how much damage you take or how much you get healed for.

 

So as a healer I can tell you straight up this person's logic is all wrong, and I would always choose a tank who stacks endurance rather willpower any day of the week.

 

All you can say as a healer is that you *prefer* tanks that stack Endurance rather than Willpower because they can let you be lazier. With a competent healer, stacking Endurance is essentially redundant since the only hit point that matters is the very last one (wanna test this? ask yourself which hit points actually changes your state in any way: the only one that does so is the very last one because it's the only one that decides whether you're living or dead). You're still going to have to heal both tanks the *same exact amount*. The Endurance tank is simply going to make you feel better about yourself when he never drops below 60% hp as opposed to never dropping below 50% hp. As far as your actual heals are concerned and the survival effectiveness of the tanks in question, the two tanks are functionally identical, regardless of how many hit points they may have. If anything, the Willpower tank is going to require less heals because an additional 5% damage from a tank means that a 5 minute fight is going to be finished 15 second earlier (and adds are going to die faster and threat will be much less of an issue, too).

Edited January 3, 2012 by Kitru

[JeremyDale]

Actually, she's looking at it in the entirely proper manner. Additional hit points in no way cause heals to become bigger or damage to decrease. They simply sit there and look pretty and let you survive for longer without a heal. Assuming your healer is actually *doing their job*, an additional 2-3k hit points are going to have no effect upon your survivability because, assuming the healer is doing their job, you're not going to drop below 2-3k hit points.

 

The only time additional hit points have *any* effect upon your survivability is when you are receiving no heals. If you have an 18k hit points compared to 16k hit points, you could survive for roughly 2-3 seconds longer without needing a heal. Of course, you would still need to receive the *exact same amount of healing* as the 16k hit point tank, since those additional hit point have no bearing upon how much damage you take or how much you get healed for.).

 

Nope. You are just wrong, and I already explained why so I'm not going to repeat myself. Higher health pools do a lot more than just look pretty, and any person who thinks this way has no business playing as a tank.

Edited January 3, 2012 by JeremyDale

[Arbegla]

Nope. You are just wrong, and I already explained why so I'm not going to repeat myself. Higher health pools do a lot more than just look pretty, and any person who thinks this way has no business playing as a tank.

 

It really depends on how much mitigation you already have. Its about that simple. The more mitigation you have, the less hit points you need to maintain the same lifespan. They are an inverse to each other.

 

Assume 1000DPS over 5 minutes (so a total of 300,000 damage)

 

If you have 100% DR to K/E/I/E, but only have 100 hit points, will you ever die?

 

If you have 0% DR to K/E/I/E, but have 300,100 hit points, will you ever die?

 

So more hps only help you out if you low mitigation numbers. Granted, at base, a shadow tank has about 36% innate DR, so any hit points is probably best, but in the argument of willpower vs endurance, it really comes down to which will make the fight easier. Will killing the mobs quicker make the fight easier, or will being able to take more hits make the life easier? For everyone involved in the fight, be them DPS, healers, and you (the tank)

Edited January 3, 2012 by Arbegla

[JeremyDale]

All you can say as a healer is that you *prefer* tanks that stack Endurance rather than Willpower because they can let you be lazier. With a competent healer, stacking Endurance is essentially redundant since the only hit point that matters is the very last one (wanna test this? ask yourself which hit points actually changes your state in any way: the only one that does so is the very last one because it's the only one that decides whether you're living or dead). You're still going to have to heal both tanks the *same exact amount*. The Endurance tank is simply going to make you feel better about yourself when he never drops below 60% hp as opposed to never dropping below 50% hp. As far as your actual heals are concerned and the survival effectiveness of the tanks in question, the two tanks are functionally identical, regardless of how many hit points they may have. If anything, the Willpower tank is going to require less heals because an additional 5% damage from a tank means that a 5 minute fight is going to be finished 15 second earlier (and adds are going to die faster and threat will be much less of an issue, too).

 

You don't understand how healing works, that is your problem.

 

You just don't spam hard hitting heals and therefore all a tank needs is enough hp to live through a couple of hits and everything will just be fine.

 

Healing as a Sage on this game relies heavily on stringing together weaker heals to conserve force. The longer a Sage can keep this technique up the longer he can make his/her force lasts. So when a tank increases the length they can survive on their own without big heals it is increases dramatically how long a Sage can make his force lasts. So basically when a tank increases his endurance it is the same as increasing a sage's force bar.

 

It has nothing to do with being lazy. It has to do with the fact you are just wrong and dont' undertand how tanking or healing works in the long-term.

Edited January 3, 2012 by JeremyDale

[Kitru]

You don't understand how healing works, that is your problem.

 

I've got a commando healer and, I assure you, I understand how healing works in TOR (if you think Sages have heal interaction and resource drain, I highly suggest you look at them). I can also tell you that, even with Willpower stacked, I have never had a problem tanking any instance I've come across, including the hard modes. I've talked to healers that have healed for hp inflated tanks and it's no harder to heal me than it is to heal them. The red bar bounces around a bit more but that's due entirely to cutting the redundancies from the build (and, oftentimes, getting more mitigation out of them; many enhancements actually sacrifice Endurance for additional Shield or Defense, and I use those to make sure I take even less damage).

 

More hit points don't make tanks more survivable: they make bad healers more comfortable. A good healer wouldn't even blink.

[JeremyDale]

I've got a commando healer and, I assure you, I understand how healing works in TOR (if you think Sages have heal interaction and resource drain, I highly suggest you look at them). I can also tell you that, even with Willpower stacked, I have never had a problem tanking any instance I've come across, including the hard modes. I've talked to healers that have healed for hp inflated tanks and it's no harder to heal me than it is to heal them. The red bar bounces around a bit more but that's due entirely to cutting the redundancies from the build (and, oftentimes, getting more mitigation out of them; many enhancements actually sacrifice Endurance for additional Shield or Defense, and I use those to make sure I take even less damage).

 

More hit points don't make tanks more survivable: they make bad healers more comfortable. A good healer wouldn't even blink.

 

I'm not going to argue this anymore with you. I've explained why you are wrong in detail.

 

If you want to neglect your endurance for willpower go ahead. Play your Shadow like you want - but just know the ones who favor their endurance over willpower are going to be better tanks than you. They will live longer, require less healing, and put less strain on the group.

 

I'm done here, and hopefully have given other Shadows looking to increase their potential as tanks a healer's perspective on how to do so. Endurance > Willpower for Shadow tanks. Period.

[Kitru]

They will live longer, require less healing, and put less strain on the group.

 

I'm *really* curious where exactly you're getting this from because, as I have stated *repeatedly* Endurance does not magically decrease your need to receive heals. If a tank with 18k hp and a tank with 16k hp both take 12k damage, they'll both need 12k in healing. It's not as if somehow, magically, having 6k health remaining rather than 4k health remaining causes any heals on the target to become more powerful/efficient/what have you.

 

People that make the claim that tanks need to stack Endurance before anything else fall into the trap of operating under the assumptions that previous games operated under. In TOR, HP value are actually pretty high and roughly equal across the various roles (a well geared DPS has 16-17k health; an End stacking tank will manage 20k). The comparative benefits of gaining additional health are marginal *at best* and the only impact they have on survivability is in extending the period of time, by an *exceptionally* small amount, considering incoming damage rates and relative HP values, that no healer is realistically going to notice.

 

The only "benefit" of focusing on Endurance over Willpower lies in *perception*. People perceive high hit point tanks as taking less damage because each point comprises a comparatively smaller portion of their maximum hit points. Healers like this because it makes healing seem manageable. Tanks like this because it makes them feel like they're taking less damage. DPS likes this because if the tank and the healer are happy, they're happy. In *reality* however, a massive trove of hit points provides no real benefit beyond the psychological, and, if your healer is actually *aware* of what is going on rather than blindly adhering to outdated notions of tank capability, you will actually do *better* stacking additional mitigation stats and Willpower rather than making your pool of hit points larger.