Hi VGs,

My main is a sawbones scoundrel, so I've come here to ask for some advice about spec'ing and augmenting my VG tank.

I have looked at the stickied thread for the pvp spec and will be implementing that when I get my gear sorted. But my question relating to pvp, is which augments to use? I was thinking Endurance over Power, but I know that some other people, especially people that want to tank, go for the Def rating over Power. Is there a concensus about which way a Vanguard should go? Avoid shield / absorb for pvp? HP has its upside, but generally requires a healer to be truely effective.

For PVE there is alot of information floating around. Some people suggest stacking HP as high as possible (there is a VG on my server with 29.x K HP). Is it true some boss fights do only yellow damage and therefore shield / absorb are useless? Is it worth building just for these boss fights or will it have a negative impact on the rest of my abilities? It seems most ppl are aiming for around 60% shield and absorb, with around 15-20% def. HP just seems to be a product of which gear u have then. Should I jsut continue to stack absorbtion through the Augment slots? Is there a CD on shielding abilities, or is it every attack has a chance?

Finally I was really hoping to get a link to some full tank spec tree and see exactly what people have been ignoring for the sake of extra def / endurance, or if they have at all.

At the moment my gear is really low (although I've bought rakata implants with dailies and BH Earpiece with comms), but I am confident I can gear him correctly, given my general experience with the game. I would however appreciate some help with the augments / tanking stats and spec tree as mentioned above.

Thanks VG community!

Not sure if you want to pvp but for pve you're going to want to go for 20/60/60 20 defense 60 shield 60 absorb. This is because a highger shiled will increase your dps and therefore threat due to stockstrike proc.

Those numbers are with fully itemized Black hole/ campaign when you're getting rakata or below it really doesn't matter

And it is generally accepted that health is nowhere near as good as mitigation when it comes to vanguards as we have some insanely smooth damage with our armor

For PVE there is alot of information floating around. Some people suggest stacking HP as high as possible (there is a VG on my server with 29.x K HP). Is it true some boss fights do only yellow damage and therefore shield / absorb are useless?

Yes, some fights do make shield/absorb useless. This is much more prevalent in TfB.

Is it worth building just for these boss fights or will it have a negative impact on the rest of my abilities?

You are definitively having a negative impact on the rest of your stats by building for endurance. Deciding how much of that impact you want to have is up to you.

Is there a CD on shielding abilities, or is it every attack has a chance?

Shielding, and defense as well, are always available, but can only occur on ranged/melee attacks.

Finally I was really hoping to get a link to some full tank spec tree and see exactly what people have been ignoring for the sake of extra def / endurance, or if they have at all.

Higher Damage/Threat Build:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801G0GrdoroGRZMsbZb.2

Higher Hp Build:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801G0GrdoroGRZMcbZ0c.2

really appreciate the advice.

Any tips on augmenting armour for pvp / pve?

I wont be reaching the likes of fully optimised BH / campaign gear for quite a while (possibly never tbh) but i can extract what i need from the advice so thanks

Yes, some fights do make shield/absorb useless. This is much more prevalent in TfB.

Actually, those fights are not. TfB's ratio of "damage that should be taken" (re: not standing in bad stuff and ignoring insta-gib and screw up mechanics) is actually lighter on the F/T front than EC, which was already easier on that front than KP or EV. There is no fight in TfB that has a boss that deals, in the vast majority (or even significant minority), F/T damage. Most of the bosses are, in fact, almost entirely M/R damage if you're actually doing it right. Writhing Horror's only real source of F/T damage is the spray that hits the raid when the tank isn't in melee. Dread Guard has the DoTs, which shouldn't stack up that high, the massive HM AoE damage mechanic, which is substantial but higher hp is less about tank survivability than healer output because it hits the entire ops group. Operative IX doesn't really have much except for the HM Disinfect mechanic, which is really just an "offtank required" mechanism. Kephess' only real source of F/T based damage are the electrical debuff, which shouldn't be on that long because you're supposed to cleanse it by running into the ground patch, and the nanites, which shouldn't really hit a tank and, if they do, are removed by using the given mechanics; beyond that, he just hits hard with M/R attacks. TfB p1's only source of F/T damage is the suicide larva (which you shouldn't take damage from) and the spit patches (which you shouldn't take damage from). TfB p2/3 will only have a lot of F/T damage if you're standing on one of the outer platforms; if you're on the inner platforms, it's all M/R damage with the exception of the irregularities and spit patches.

If you want to talk about some bosses that make Shield/Absorb useless, TfB really isn't a decent example. EC has a few, but only because said bosses are part of a 2 boss fight wherein one boss is pure M/R and the other is pure F/T (Z&T and twin tanks); shield/absorb is still quite useful unless you're using specific strats where tanks never swap to the M/R boss. Even then, you'll still require at least 1 tank in the group to have good shield/absorb for the M/R boss. Your best bet is to actually look at old content for boss fights where Shield/Absorb is useless: Soa renders pretty much all tank stats completely useless because all of the damage in his fight is F/T I/E: not even your armor counts. The only reason tanks exist for Soa is because they have taunts (and, honestly, you can do without a tank for Soa if you just have a DPS that can taunt). For KP, Jarg is pretty much entirely F/T I/E damage and, interestingly enough, still one of the highest damage bosses in the game even though he's pretty much entirely outgeared now. Beyond that, though, there aren't really any major bosses with massive preferences for F/T damage over M/R.

In the current tier of content, the old reasoning for stacking hp like crazy (lots of F/T damage) just doesn't really apply any more. The only reason you ever want to stack hp is if you've already stacked mitigation so much that the DR curve functionally reduces further mitigation contributions to negligibility, and, even then it's debatable as to whether you should actually need the higher hp since there aren't really any enemies that hit hard enough to justify more than 24k hp unless you're running 16 man Ops (wherein you'll want 27-28k hp to account for the higher damage spikes, which is still not all that much, considering grade 27 gear).

edit: This post is regarding how to augment.

For PvE most vanguards go full absorb rating because it gives more mitigation overall per point than shield rating. Most vanguards only get a little bit of defense because our defensive skill tree is built around rewarding us for successful shields.

Personally, I went with shield rating augments because I really like having the smooth damage for my healers that a high shield rating affords. It's less overall mitigation than absorb rating, but my healers can pretty reliably plan their heals based on who I'm tanking and I think the trade is worth it.