Ok so I have finally reached the point where I'm beginning to get Rakata Gear in HM ops groups. Now after closely examining the gear my question is where is the shield rating ? I see no shield rating stat in any of the gear except the shield. Right now I have all Columi except for my 2 implants which are lvl 49 epic crafted tanking ones with Augs and my Tanking lvl 49 epic crafted shield also with Aug ( forgot the 2 Rakata Relics with Augs in both of them, and Rakata Ear ). Right now I have the 2 Rakata Implants and the shield waiting in my inventory, but to be honest Im worried that Im loosing to much defense and shield ratings when I switch them out. Plus the rest of the Rakata gear still has no shield rating. Am I to think shield isn't an important stat anymore cause when I look at my stats decreasing idk, I feel like I'm moving backwards. Also what is up with all the surge in this Rakata Gear ? As I understand surge is usless without a good amount of power or crit, both of which I have very little of ? I mean I do see an increase in endurance but am I to become just a soaking tank that eats damage based on HP amount, I also see that we get a bit of Absorption rating in the gear aswell but to my knowledge, don't shield and Absorption go hand and hand ? I don't feel this is really that great and to my understanding there should be a balance between Defense, Shield and Absorption, Please correct me if I'm wrong on this and lead me in the right direction. Sorry for the long essay just wanted to get my point across, Thank You in advance for any help... Edited March 7, 2012 by M_o_s_e_s

Your assuptions are absolutely correct. The gear is badly designed. BW would say "The juggernaut/guardian tanking gear has not the stats as intended." Also they did say something like that on the guild summit to the amount of accuracy on all the gear.

 

I personaly had to wait for enhacements with shield/defense or shield/absorption to drop in HM/NiM ops and replace them in rakata gear. Right now i am full rakata and I use ear, implants and hear to get accuracy to 100% an the rest of enahcements (the surge and accuracy ones) on boots, legs, chest and hands are replaced with shield/defense or shield/absorp ones. Works well that way, but as you pointed out the surge and even more accuracy are pointless. Especialy compared to the loss of shield rating.

Edited March 7, 2012 by monstertron

Thank you, I knew I wasn't going crazy, lol. I figure until I can find all the right enhancements from the HM Ops I guess I should just move the enhancements from the Columni gear over to the Rakata... Thanks for the confirmation

Your assuptions are absolutely correct. The gear is badly designed. BW would say "The juggernaut/guardian tanking gear has not the stats as intended." Also they did say something like that on the guild summit to the amount of accuracy on all the gear.

 

I think its a matter of a mistype myself. Someone referenced the wrong row/column in a database and intead of going for "Shield rating" it went for the cell right next to it "Surge".

 

Im also not that happy with the response they gave at the guild summit. It sounded more like a "Yeah we know its bad, but the set that comes with 1.2 wont be, so we're not gonna fix it you'll just have to follow the dangling carrot instead". Which isn't the solution I was hoping for in the slightest. Ive got my full rakata set and it annoys me to no end that I'm still using the columi I got out of hardmode flashpoint farming and normal mode ops.

To be fair, after a certain point, even if you do HM or nightmare ops, the tank really doesnt take much damage at all, to the point several tanks will swap out a few pieces for DPS pieces, just to make things go faster (or to compensate for bad DPS/avoid enrage, like on Bonetrasher).

 

So in many ways, having stuff like surge on tank gears is a good thing. There are MMOs where you want tanks to be brick walls that hit like a bug. This isn't one of them (doesn't change that rekata IS pretty poorly designed, but...)

To be fair, after a certain point, even if you do HM or nightmare ops, the tank really doesnt take much damage at all, to the point several tanks will swap out a few pieces for DPS pieces, just to make things go faster (or to compensate for bad DPS/avoid enrage, like on Bonetrasher).

 

So in many ways, having stuff like surge on tank gears is a good thing. There are MMOs where you want tanks to be brick walls that hit like a bug. This isn't one of them (doesn't change that rekata IS pretty poorly designed, but...)

 

 

The day that I can crit Force Stasis to lift a boss is the day that I will stack Crit/Surge. I understand why some of the stats exist as they are - some are errors, some are a deliberate attempt to have the classes closer together and balanced. What BW didn't realize is that people actually like roles. Square Enix learned this lesson in FF14 the hard way, and had to basically redesign the classes from the ground up for more variation between roles. Players like tanks to tank, healers to heal, DPS to dps. It is a shame that they aren't going to change the stuff that is already messed up, but at the same time I don't see it as an issue.

 

Personally, I like the idea that mix-n-match gives the best performance while having just top tier as-is gives you better than average, but not best. I just wish it was intentionally designed, and not an accident.

So in many ways, having stuff like surge on tank gears is a good thing. There are MMOs where you want tanks to be brick walls that hit like a bug. This isn't one of them (doesn't change that rekata IS pretty poorly designed, but...)

 

Surge is probably the worst stat you can have on it, though, save even more accuracy.

 

If you're running the straight def spec, your crit rate will be around 13%. Making those seven crits you do in a fight hit for 5% harder isn't going to effect anything. You'll get slightly more benefit out of it using the hybrid def/vig spec (~73% crit chance on Blade Storm), but my guess is power would be a lot better for threat.

 

I just swapped the surge enhancements out for better itemized columi-level ones.

I've just been gathering up the Shield/Absorption 58 enhancements from drops the last couple weeks, they seem to drop about 1 or so a week for me, last week I got 2 iirc.

 

Um... take the mods out of your columi and put them in your rakata for now, the hidden armorings will still give you more stats than wearing your columi.

Edited March 8, 2012 by ckoneful

Surge shouldn't be on tanking gear despite its appeal. Surge requires a crit. There's not a single crit stat on rakata gear (if I recall) and if you replace mods for it, you're only giving up some other tanking stat because I don't think there's a mod with both crit and def/shield/absorption on it. Edited March 8, 2012 by Taybul

To be fair, after a certain point, even if you do HM or nightmare ops, the tank really doesnt take much damage at all, to the point several tanks will swap out a few pieces for DPS pieces, just to make things go faster (or to compensate for bad DPS/avoid enrage, like on Bonetrasher).

 

So in many ways, having stuff like surge on tank gears is a good thing. There are MMOs where you want tanks to be brick walls that hit like a bug. This isn't one of them (doesn't change that rekata IS pretty poorly designed, but...)

 

I have a different point of view - on many fights at the right moment in full tank gear I can pop some def cooldown (like relic or armor pot) + sonic barrier and my healers can do dps for an amount of time - like orbital strike. Guess it can do more dmg than the difference between me having surge instead of shield.

 

This is a thing mostly overlooked by people I think. That since survive ability is not issue for you anymore - so you dont need that much healing anymore - you can instead of swapping spec/mods more to dps use your defensive cooldowns in proper moments so your healers can do dps.

 

Don't say it is the ultimate way and there is no other - just offering different approach.

Edited March 8, 2012 by monstertron

The day that I can crit Force Stasis to lift a boss is the day that I will stack Crit/Surge. I understand why some of the stats exist as they are - some are errors, some are a deliberate attempt to have the classes closer together and balanced. What BW didn't realize is that people actually like roles. Square Enix learned this lesson in FF14 the hard way, and had to basically redesign the classes from the ground up for more variation between roles. Players like tanks to tank, healers to heal, DPS to dps. It is a shame that they aren't going to change the stuff that is already messed up, but at the same time I don't see it as an issue.

 

Personally, I like the idea that mix-n-match gives the best performance while having just top tier as-is gives you better than average, but not best. I just wish it was intentionally designed, and not an accident.

 

That literally made me Laugh Out Loud.... I agree with that statement 100%

 

As for everyone in this post Ty for the responses. I was taking a look at the BM gear and seem to notice the same problem here, now I know it's a bit different but for anyone that does PvP, do you know if they have made the same mistake with some of the BM gear as well ? I mean I know defense doesn't play a major role in PvP but shield and absorption do, yet I still see the same surge rating in place where I believe should be shield.. Let me know what you guys think... Again Ty for the responses, a lot of good information in this thread and some great ideas on how we can correct the problem.