Speaking of DTPS, shouldn't we consider only the DTPS during parts of the fight where tanks are taking damage? In Tyrans there is downtime after tank swaps. In Calphayus there is downtime after swaps and while waiting for portals to open, etc. In Raptus I couldn't tell what might be downtime due to how seemingly random the damage spikes were, so I didn't bother trying to calculate that. In Council the only downtime is the end of phase two when Brontes does her beam and I get my crystal. In Writhing Horror there was downtime after a tank swap when the Jealous Male was dead. In Op9 there is downtime while I channeled at my panel and for a short time after Black Obtuse. In Kephess there is downtime after tank swaps and between phases. Tyrans - 4347 Calphayus - 4602 Council - 2777 Writhing Horror - 5151 Operator IX - 4147 Kephess - 6423 I uploaded my logs to Parsely in case anyone wants to check them. Tyrans Calphayus + (end) Raptus 1st part & 2nd part Council Writhing Horror Operator IX Kephess the Undying

I've always followed the theorycrafter recommendation that the Reactive Warding relic provides the most mitigation over the course of a fight. However, recently I had a dispute with my raid lead over which tanking relics provide the best mitigation, so I decided to test the RW relic against a Shield Amplification relic in a full clear of NiM DP and a partial NiM TFB. Method: Results: The Shield Amplification Relic mitigated the most damage in five out of seven fights. My tentative conclusion is that the SA relic is better for Assassins for any fight with very little internal/elemental damage. Even if the SA relic is not the best, it is at least not as far behind as I had previously thought based on the theorycrafting. (Detailed results and calculations here: [spreadsheet]) Tyrans DTPS - 2857 % internal/elemental - 10.3% melee/ranged - 41.6% Fight length - 6:24 RW total mitigated - 19880 SA total mitigated - 25703 Calphayus DTPS - 2382 % internal/elemental - 14.5% melee/ranged - 70.6% Fight length - 8:38 RW total mitigated - 31240 SA total mitigated - 23475 Raptus DTPS - 1421 % internal/elemental - 2.9% melee/ranged -10.5% Fight length - 7:33 RW total mitigated - 11360 SA total mitigated - 17637 Council DTPS - 2636 % internal/elemental - 16.1% melee/ranged - 44.8% Fight length - 9:03 (I tanked Calphayus and Brontes.) RW total mitigated - 34080 SA total mitigated - 30897 Writhing Horror DTPS - 3288 % internal/elemental - 0.9% melee/ranged - 41.5% Fight length - 5:04 RW total mitigated - 14200 SA total mitigated - 23851 Operator IX DTPS - 1926 % internal/elemental - 0% melee/ranged - 69.8% Fight length - 8:31 RW total mitigated - 25560 SA total mitigated - 35116 Kephess the Undying DTPS - 2881 % internal/elemental - 1.9% melee/ranged - 7.8% Fight length - 4:31 RW total mitigated - 17040 SA total mitigated - 18271 Caveats: In some fights the average unmitigated attack damage was difficult to determine. For example, in the Calphayus fight there are 3 different attacks named "Strike" which each hit for different amounts. Also, some attacks did not hit me often enough to determine a reliable average (Rising Slash and Driving Thrust on Raptus, Leap Slam and Thundering Blast on Council.) I did not have perfect uptime on Dark Protection, the "Protected" healer buff, or the Survivor 2 piece set bonus. In some cases Overcharge Saber was active during the SA proc. I hope that taking the average unmitigated damage of each attack would correct for this. In some cases the SA relic proc occurred during the uptime of Deflection, and I therefore shielded less attacks than I would have otherwise. The effectiveness of the SA relic varies the most in fights with infrequent large hits (such as Raptus.) The RW relic would have won if I had shielded two less of the big hits in that fight . To be accurate, I would need to tank these bosses several times and record an average between fights.

Answer: tl;dr = More stat is better than less stat, even if you wind up with less absorb rating, so you should use the higher rating defense mods.

o.O Did you mean 186? I don't think the loss of armor rating in 146 would be worth 5% more shield chance.

The 220 crafted relics give less endurance than the 224 DPS token versions. (Ultimate Exarch vs 220 crafted) If we could trade Defense for shield or absorb that would be true. Since we can't, it's better to keep the Defense. More mitigation stat will always be better than no mitigation stat if you already have enough HP to survive spikes. Defense would only be bad if you were fighting a boss that didn't do any melee/ranged attacks. Currently there aren't any bosses like that, so having more Defense stat will always increase your mean mitigation.

When gearing for greater mean mitigation, Defense is more valuable. When gearing to survive spike damage, Endurance is more valuable. But even then, he should be careful that he isn't trading stats at a bad ratio. For the sake of conjecture, if he wanted to survive a 75k single hit he should be wearing as much 224 gear as he can. He could get 83,409 HP by wearing mostly 224s with 220 B mods and a DPS relic. (DPS relics have Endurance and are still a better trade ratio than the Enhancements.) If that isn't enough of a cushion for his healers, he could use an Earpiece and Implants from the vendor instead of token (i.e. Exarch Steadfast MK-4 vs Ultimate Exarch Bastion Device). Even that would be a better ratio than trading 220 with 224 Enhancements. With all 224 except for 220 B mods, 220 vendor Earpiece and Implant, and a DPS relic he would sit at 86,314 HP. I haven't tried NiM Raptus, but I imagine a 10k HP buffer should be enough with the possibility of tank swapping/popping a defensive cooldown to give the healers time to recoup. Regarding the Advanced Bulwark Enhancement 44, as far as I know that doesn't exist in-game. If it does exist, I'd like to know where to find it.

That wouldn't give any more shield/absorb stat, so its not really useful for stat rebalancing. Bulwark Sturdiness As you can see, he would lose 37 Defense and gain 32 Endurance per Enhancement. If he really needs to beef up his health pool to survive spike damage, he can get a better exchange of Defense for Endurance by using lettered mods (i.e. Advanced Warding Mod 43B) instead of unlettered (Advanced Warding Mod 43.)

For some reason BioWare likes to design NPCs that ignore cover protection. Another really bad case: the Rakghouls in the Rakghoul Tunnels will stun you regardless of Entrench/Hunker Down.

The discussion started on this page.

My raid group cleared HM Master & Blaster for the first time tonight, despite the bug. Once we got used to seeing the AoE pointing at us it was no big deal.

That, or all our Synthweavers/Armormechs no longer have any schematics to craft.

Never missed as a merc? Not even with your offhand? Something smells fishy here...

That would depend on whether you are gearing to survive spike damage or just to have higher average mitigation. In my opinion, the decrease in constant damage reduction from losing 2x224 armorings is not worth it. Wither comes off cooldown every 10 seconds, so assuming you use Wither on cooldown (not possible for the many bosses that involve kiting and tank swapping) you would only have that +4% damage reduction roughly a third of the time. You could try delaying Wither so you have the proc up for certain predictable spikes, but I wouldn't recommend it.

1) Suppressive Fire 2) Suppressive Fire 3) Suppressive Fire In all seriousness, the gameplay while leveling is so mind numbingly easy now that it really doesn't matter what abilities you use. You won't get most of the abilities that make an energy neutral rotation until rather late, so it's a moot point anyway.

What we really need is a separate Legacy-wide storage specifically for materials (ala Guild Wars 2's Material Storage system). This would free up the normal Legacy bank slots for more non-stacking items, such as legacy gear. And while they are at it they could change the useless companion "go sell junk" function into "go deposit all my materials."