Its not cool, just stop.

 

Most tanks that i find in pugs these days are endurance stacked sins or juggs with 10% defense and 40k health :/

 

Why do people think that this is good..

Pfft, I'm proud of my 45k health.

 

It's much cooler to see 4k to a stat, than my boring 47% absorb, 50% shield chance with Dark Ward, and 18% defense chance

Pfft, I'm proud of my 45k health.

 

It's much cooler to see 4k to a stat, than my boring 47% absorb, 50% shield chance with Dark Ward, and 18% defense chance

 

:'(

 

/5chars

Its not cool, just stop.

 

Most tanks that i find in pugs these days are endurance stacked sins or juggs with 10% defense and 40k health :/

 

Why do people think that this is good..

 

I agree that this is silly and a bit frustrating. Some reasons and further annoyances:

 

1) In most pugs, there's the assumption that the tank with higher HP is the main tank, and whether a tank is viable in a story mode pug (not a place that really matters, but still) is based on some sense of their number of HP.

 

2) Many players just have comm gear on, which has been high endurance junk. We are, however, now at the point where oriconian gear has enhancements that have more mitigation (by 1 point!) on them than the purple 66's you can craft, and hence have more mitigation than anything below underworld token gear. Still, tanks using all 69 or 72 comm enhancements are doing it wrong.

 

3) Many tanks (and even dps/healers) now don't have or want the arkanian armoring set bonus for some reason, despite it being better than 78 armorings and vastly better than 72 armorings. It's now crazily easy to obtain tokens because people shun them like the plague now that even elite comms give "higher level" gear. I think this is related to (1).

 

4) Many people don't know about the veracity ears and implants (which are only surpassed in total mitigation by the dread forged ones) and instead have some random terrible high endurance ears and implants.

 

5) There are damage spikes, which necessitates a certain level of HP (and more for sins currently, who also get a modest boost to their self healing from it). Still, this is really relevant only for newly minted tanks, and most go overboard by taking all comm enhancements instead of a mix if this is the concern, which just makes them take tons of damage in addition to spikes.

/signed

 

Just say no to endurance augments.

I have one question for every single one of you in this thread. Do you even tank?

 

At this point in the game, with horrible returns on Defense above 20% and massive hits in NiM raids, endurance stacking is half of the gearing game. Let me show you my tank.

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/972cee25-902d-4e95-a6ee-c9d441e63a39

 

If that doesn't show up correctly, just search for Rycanda on the shadowlands. If you look, his defense is sitting at 21.98 though it shows at 19.98 right now. The site isn't showing up my set bonus for some weird reason. Also, as a vanguard tank, I constantly have a buff to my absorption rating. If anything, my Shield rating needs to be dropped, but as it stands, this allows me to live through the current HM content. And you know what else? I have 49k hit points, which means I'm going to be living for quite a long time. Is my gear perfect? Not yet, but soon, I'll be full 78s and at that point, I'll be sitting over 50k health. It's the only way to go for vanguard tanks. And yes, I have tanked through the new HM content.

I have one question for every single one of you in this thread. Do you even tank?

 

At this point in the game, with horrible returns on Defense above 20% and massive hits in NiM raids, endurance stacking is half of the gearing game. Let me show you my tank.

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/972cee25-902d-4e95-a6ee-c9d441e63a39

 

If that doesn't show up correctly, just search for Rycanda on the shadowlands. If you look, his defense is sitting at 21.98 though it shows at 19.98 right now. The site isn't showing up my set bonus for some weird reason. Also, as a vanguard tank, I constantly have a buff to my absorption rating. If anything, my Shield rating needs to be dropped, but as it stands, this allows me to live through the current HM content. And you know what else? I have 49k hit points, which means I'm going to be living for quite a long time. Is my gear perfect? Not yet, but soon, I'll be full 78s and at that point, I'll be sitting over 50k health. It's the only way to go for vanguard tanks. And yes, I have tanked through the new HM content.

 

Have you ever tanked all the nim bosses with that gear, with 250 Absorption rating?!

 

You can get away with much in hm raids, but you wanna tell us that the only way for vanguards is to stack hp?! Hit points are giving you nothing to reduce incoming damage! You are like a dps with a lot of health basically.

Pfft, I'm proud of my 45k health.

 

It's much cooler to see 4k to a stat, than my boring 47% absorb, 50% shield chance with Dark Ward, and 18% defense chance

 

you only have a 50% shield chance with your dark ward up ?

 

My shadow tank has 41k hp and 39% shield chance with out kinetic ward (dark ward for you assassin tanks) and 59% with it up

I have one question for every single one of you in this thread. Do you even tank?

 

I highly suggest that you take less endurance. As a vanguard/powertech tank who already needs the most amount of healing (by a small margin) you're worsening your situation by trading average mitigation for endurance.

Hardmodes let you get away with a lot (and that's a good thing since it encourages more to try them!) but now you're overgearing an operation so you can get away with a lot.

 

Oh and to the OP, 43-45k health is normal for tanks in 78 gear even without high endurance and endurance augments. Mitigation 78 will get you above 44k health (although I get 3% as an assassin so for other tanks it can be 43k). On the other hand I've seen dps with over 40k health please stop whomever you are.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Panzerfire

Have you ever tanked all the nim bosses with that gear, with 250 Absorption rating?!

 

You can get away with much in hm raids, but you wanna tell us that the only way for vanguards is to stack hp?! Hit points are giving you nothing to reduce incoming damage! You are like a dps with a lot of health basically.

 

This. My PT in 69/72s is sitting at 19.5/40/34 with ~37k HP stimmed. I've also tanked all the new content in HM without issue. Now if I had 78s like you and went for mitigation instead of a fat health pool, I'd be tanking NiM anything and knocking it out of the park.

 

I have a guild friend that has his tank geared like yours, he's at ~46k, and when we are in parsec together I *always* take at least 10-20% less damage overall than him.

So cute. I never said I took less heals, did I? I've tanked a few of the NiM bosses and got my gearing advice from another VG tank who has tanked all the NiM content and we gear very similarly. And if any of you guys noticed, I haven't even stacked endurance to the nth degree on my tank currently. He has in 3 of his redoubt augs, which I change out for absorb or fortitude when the fight calls for it. I don't have multiple sets, just different augs sitting in my inventory. But as it stands, I have been having no trouble at all with my gearing and I don't expect it to change any time soon.

This. My PT in 69/72s is sitting at 19.5/40/34 with ~37k HP stimmed. I've also tanked all the new content in HM without issue. Now if I had 78s like you and went for mitigation instead of a fat health pool, I'd be tanking NiM anything and knocking it out of the park.

 

I have a guild friend that has his tank geared like yours, he's at ~46k, and when we are in parsec together I *always* take at least 10-20% less damage overall than him.

 

An interesting experiment would be to look at heals received rather than damage taken. This helps to take into account healer's perception of the damage that the tank is taking.

 

We tried this in my guild comparing fights such as TFB Dread Guard (roughly even damage split between the tanks), and Operator IX's yellow phase (swapping tank roles each run). Unfortunately we were working with a small sample size, so we couldn't come up with anything useful. My gut impression was that the mitigation tank received less healing during moderate-damage phases and essentially the same healing as the endurance tank during heavy-damage phases.

So cute. I never said I took less heals, did I? I've tanked a few of the NiM bosses and got my gearing advice from another VG tank who has tanked all the NiM content and we gear very similarly. And if any of you guys noticed, I haven't even stacked endurance to the nth degree on my tank currently. He has in 3 of his redoubt augs, which I change out for absorb or fortitude when the fight calls for it. I don't have multiple sets, just different augs sitting in my inventory. But as it stands, I have been having no trouble at all with my gearing and I don't expect it to change any time soon.

 

You didn't stack endurance? You have b mods, comm enhancements and fortitude augments. Can you please explain, why you favor a build that reduces less damage, over a build that reduces more of the incoming damage?

 

A health buffer does not make sense for a pt (that's my opinion). There's currently no attack in the game that is killing a pt so quickly that more health would have any advantage for that tank. So far i've not seen anyone calling powertechs a spiky tank.

 

@thasensei: Probably they received the same healing because both healers were both times just spam healing the tank during the heavy damage phase, regardless of actual damage taken.

I also noticed that healing received depends a lot on the healer combination. With merc healers i normally dont have much healer overhealing on me.

Edited October 29, 2013 by THoK-Zeus

I have one question for every single one of you in this thread. Do you even tank?

 

Yes. Extensively. In all content, including the new HMs and NiMs.

 

At this point in the game, with horrible returns on Defense above 20% and massive hits in NiM raids, endurance stacking is half of the gearing game.

 

Those massive hits get even more massive if you're endurance stacking. Additionally, you're simply wrong about the DR on defense. Read some of the math on this subject. Unless you're talking about defense from rating, which is of course subject to steep DR above 20%, but remember that most of character sheet defense chance is from buffs and talents, not from rating.

 

It's important to remember, also, that we are no where near the end of the stat budget in terms of ratings. We're still roughly at the equivalent of pre-2.0 Rakata gear in terms of stat budgets and diminishing returns. Claiming that defense is behaving poorly at "this point in the game" is simply incorrect. We have a lot of gear tiers to go before diminishing returns start being a significant factor.

 

So basically, you have an incorrect perception on what the stats do with respect to diminishing returns, and you have a very myopic view of the effect endurance has on your damage profile.

I've read the returns and the math that you have done, KBN. I'm not questioning that nor your knowledge in tanking. I am simply tired of people complaining about endurance stacking tanks. And yes, I was referring to defense rating. I have healed tanks on both sides of the spectrum. Mitigation tanks I've healed and endurance tanks I have healed. Neither is harder than the other, in my opinion, but I have been raid healing in this game for quite a long time, so I can understand the healer's perspective. I used to hate healing Endurance tanks until I refocused how I healed and have had no problem with that ever since. My assassin is a mitigation tank, as is my juggernaut, though my assassin is 20/39/40 and my jugg is still nowhere near geared effectively nor is he augmented. I'm not refuting the numbers, but I'm saying is that my VG tank has not been a hindrance in our raids. I still live, as does the raid, so that's a win in my view.

I've read the returns and the math that you have done, KBN. I'm not questioning that nor your knowledge in tanking. I am simply tired of people complaining about endurance stacking tanks. And yes, I was referring to defense rating. I have healed tanks on both sides of the spectrum. Mitigation tanks I've healed and endurance tanks I have healed. Neither is harder than the other, in my opinion, but I have been raid healing in this game for quite a long time, so I can understand the healer's perspective. I used to hate healing Endurance tanks until I refocused how I healed and have had no problem with that ever since. My assassin is a mitigation tank, as is my juggernaut, though my assassin is 20/39/40 and my jugg is still nowhere near geared effectively nor is he augmented. I'm not refuting the numbers, but I'm saying is that my VG tank has not been a hindrance in our raids. I still live, as does the raid, so that's a win in my view.

 

Something that I think is worth keeping in mind for these sorts of arguments is the threshold of viability for tanking in TOR is actually quite low. If you're a skilled tank that knows the content, you're pretty much going to be healable. Maybe you'll take more damage than another tank with a different gear strategy, but your damage profile should be within the bounds of what is possible for a healer to handle. The only counter-example to this assertion that I have ever found was Nightmare Kephess pre-2.0, where a healer (who was prominent on the forums) PMed me about how he felt really depressed because he simply couldn't keep his tanks alive during the final phase of the fight. As it turned out, his tanks had only as much defense rating as their stim provided. The day after they reitemized to be closer to computed ideals, their group went in and one-shot the fight.

 

The example is somewhat exceptional in two ways. First, stat budgets were proportionally much higher in NiM EC pre-2.0, as proportional to stat half values (i.e. the maximum stat budget possible with pre-2.0 game math). This meant that a gross itemization failure was more noticeable pre-2.0 than it is now. Second, Nightmare Kephess hit proportionally harder than any boss in the current game by a wide margin. I don't know of any boss which, under correct execution and steady-state operation, can take a tank down from 100% to 10% in a single hit. Kephess could do that (actually, he had one ability which could hit for over 30k on a maxed shadow tank with an 0.2% probability, which is to say, an auto-kill for a mitigation tank).

 

So, statting and itemization are more forgiving now than they were just pre-2.0, and certainly more forgiving than they will be as our current iteration of game math reaches its end of life (somewhere in the high 90s of mod levels). I guess it's important to clarify that I don't think an endurance tank is categorically non-viable in current content, I just think that it's pushing the healers harder than it needs to.

I don't know of any boss which, under correct execution and steady-state operation, can take a tank down from 100% to 10% in a single hit.

 

In the Dread Council on 16HM Bestia's force push (27k) and force charge (13k) hit for 90%, it's survivable but there is a chance that you eat a thundering blast (10k) during the combo which will kill you. The same for Calphayus doing crystal projections (20k) followed by melee attacks (3 x 7k) for 41k plus again, the potential thundering blast. Of course, since it was the first try on 16 there could've been faults with mechanics and positioning.

 

These are not single hits but Bestia's within 1.8 seconds and Calphayus within 0.7 seconds. Unfortunately that is assassin tank spike damage and not an indication that endurance would on average benefit tanks more.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Panzerfire

In the Dread Council on 16HM Bestia's force push (27k) and force charge (13k) hit for 90%, it's survivable but there is a chance that you eat a thundering blast (10k) during the combo which will kill you. The same for Calphayus doing crystal projections (20k) followed by melee attacks (3 x 7k) for 41k plus again, the potential thundering blast. Of course, since it was the first try on 16 there could've been faults with mechanics and positioning.

 

These are not single hits but Bestia's within 1.8 seconds and Calphayus within 0.7 seconds. Unfortunately that is assassin tank spike damage and not an indication that endurance would on average benefit tanks more.

 

You can actually position against the lights by the entrance walkway and avoid the Force Charge bit of that combo. You still get pushed (which hurts a lot) but you don't take the rest of it. I will say that Calphayus if he gets buffed by Bestia is going to hit unbelievably hard. His backstab hit me for just over 40k in 8 man when we made a mistake and momentarily brought the bosses together (slight tank swap snafu).

You can actually position against the lights by the entrance walkway and avoid the Force Charge bit of that combo. You still get pushed (which hurts a lot) but you don't take the rest of it. I will say that Calphayus if he gets buffed by Bestia is going to hit unbelievably hard. His backstab hit me for just over 40k in 8 man when we made a mistake and momentarily brought the bosses together (slight tank swap snafu).

 

I have experienced getting pushed "through" the lights at the entrance and prefer tanking Bestia in the middle area to give healers more room to move for cleanses and heals on 8 man. On 16 it seems like 3 tanks is the way to go with possibly off-taunts for Bestia to let her drop her stacks. Got hit by a 30k Crystal Projection from Calphayus when buffed by Bestia but I'll count that as a mechanic fault. I've seen Bestia being tanked on the far corner of the platform where she jumps down.

Its not cool, just stop.

Most tanks that i find in pugs these days are endurance stacked sins or juggs with 10% defense and 40k health :/

Why do people think that this is good..

 

Why do people think other people want to waste too much time, energy and effort to get FotMBiS when most of the content is facerollable in commendations gear? Not everyone is as anal about having every single mod as you are. The sooner you accept it, the less QQ threads you'll make.

I blame the 78 comm gear.

There were tanks before 2.4 that stacked endurance through crap enhancements, but I didnt see that many. But now we're feasting with ultimate comms and the tanking gear, which is awful, skyrockets your health and you look like awesome and stuff. I imagine that's hard to pass up.

I would not mind much if someone has high endurance because of the new ultimate commendations gear, but there are still way too many people who actually go with all endurance augments and that is just horrible.

 

And there is a huge difference between not caring to make sure if you are bis geared or not and deliberately choosing the worse option. Endurance augmenting is a case of the latter.

Let me chime in as a healer.

 

I would like to state that your gearing should also depend on your healers.

 

Whenever we dual scoundrel heal 8m HMs or NM I see that health on the tanks goes on a rollercoaster ride. Instant heals can fill up a tank in no time, but I cannot babysit tanks the whole time as I am busy hotting the group. So I prefer beefy tanks with high mitigation. I have no means as a scoundrel to buff the tanks defense and few time to spare for tank healing.

 

On the other hand, if you have sage/commando healers which have the supercharged Kolto buff/Advanced Medical Probe and force armor on the one hand and Kolto Bomb and Salvation on the other, you might want to have spongier tanks with high endurance as your casted big heals tend to take a long time but are very effective and you have a lot of time to heal tanks due to quick and effective group healing.

Edited October 30, 2013 by atschai

As per usual the sane thing to do is simulate (askmrrobot), communicate with your healers and to use your own common sense over declaring mitigation or EH the "rule".

 

Bosses in this tier are the spikiest I've seen in swtor thus far. Some circumstances, particularly for assassins lend themselves to having a big pool to soak. If only to give your healers one extra GCD to top you up. I imagine in NiM this will only become more so.

 

It's worth mentioning you can just trim the top of your mitigation (the most expensive in terms of rating) for a substantial hp pool boost. The tanks doing this have not been terribly harder to heal in my experience, they get "crushed" a bit less though so on average it's less stressful on my side of things. Particularly since we have no sage to provide pseudo larger hp pools via force armor.

 

In short

Trading 30% defensive stats for 999999999 hp is bad

Trading 2-4% defensive stats for 12k hp is wholly understandable and a workable option this tier. Next tier it will likely be mandatory.

Edited October 30, 2013 by CaptainApop

Have you ever tanked all the nim bosses with that gear, with 250 Absorption rating?!

 

You can get away with much in hm raids, but you wanna tell us that the only way for vanguards is to stack hp?! Hit points are giving you nothing to reduce incoming damage! You are like a dps with a lot of health basically.

 

Random fact: Almost all Ops Bosses use AoE damage.

Vanguards have a passive ability "Into the Fray" which does a 2.5% max health self heal on taking AoE damage per GCD.

 

Its why in SM I can do raptus's tanking challenge, use nothing, and come out with more health than I entered.

 

So at 50k health, a vanguard effectively has 1250 extra damage reduction from a bosses hit.

 

So lets say the 2 options are 40k health, 26/42/44 def/shield/absorb or 50k health with 20/40/40 def/shield/absorb

 

add in the power screen/energy blast buffs and it becomes 40k/26/42/62 vs 50k/20/40/58

 

the question is when will 250dps of extra mitigation be more than 6% defense + 2/4 shield/absorb chance?

 

for reference, Option A (26/42/44) gives ~70% mitigation (includes armor) from a bosses hit that can be dodged, 73% after power screen, while Option B gives ~66% mitigation, ~69% after power screen

 

So the question is: When does 4% of a bosses initial hit do more than 250 damage? When a boss is hitting for over 6.3k.

 

So basically, in SM and HM, more health on a vanguard is probably more optimal. Though NiM and Oricon HMs more mitigation is more optimal. (guess work, I could be wrong. Though my 40k/20/40/40 vanguard with 48% armor reduction takes 2.5k hits from brontes in SM unshielded, which by this math the second one would be more optimal than the first.

 

Edit:

 

However, testing with AskMrRobot goes to show you can only reach 22/43/40 as a vanguard, so... yeah.

Edited October 30, 2013 by TACeMossie