Tradeoff with Defense Rating / Shield Rating / Absorption Rating

[Rolfson]

I'll keep this short and direct, no need to go too deep. As I'm gearing up (right about 16k health unbuffed), I keep running into more and more absorption rating mods with otherwise great stats. Right now I have 4 lvl 56 mods in my gear that are for absorption rating, putting me at 20% defense chancs, 29% shield chance (33 if I go tank spec and talent that in) and 30% absorption.

Long story short, I feel that I should be stacking shield rating much more than absorption rating for the time being, but is there really a set tradeoff between the two? Only reason I got rid of my shield rating mods for the absorption was gaining ~600 health in the process, which seemed to outweigh the other secondary stats. Thoughts?

[Elobi]

(12-26-2011 09:15 PM)Rolfson Wrote:  I'll keep this short and direct, no need to go too deep. As I'm gearing up (right about 16k health unbuffed), I keep running into more and more absorption rating mods with otherwise great stats. Right now I have 4 lvl 56 mods in my gear that are for absorption rating, putting me at 20% defense chancs, 29% shield chance (33 if I go tank spec and talent that in) and 30% absorption.

Long story short, I feel that I should be stacking shield rating much more than absorption rating for the time being, but is there really a set tradeoff between the two? Only reason I got rid of my shield rating mods for the absorption was gaining ~600 health in the process, which seemed to outweigh the other secondary stats. Thoughts?

Keep your absorption mods, and spec your shield chance and your somewhat at the 1:1 ratio that shield /absorp needs to be at .. But avoid getting more absorption rating for now, and go for defense and shield.

Furthermore I suggest you take a look at the Diminishing returns table and stat weight section in the Immortal | Defense Compendium in this forum (SW | JK ). - Then we can continue the discussion.

[Oberyn]

I haven't looked too much into the theorycrafting yet, but I would keep all that you can in your bank. With defense not counting toward crit immunity, I think that we will need to stack shield rating along with it in order to push crits off the table. One we get to uncrittable, we can start stacking absorbtion to make our shield more effective.

This is coming from someone not yet 50, mind you.

[Darthwhathwhat]

If i understand the formulas in the sticky correctly,

defence, shield rating and shield absorb as well as damage reduction by armor should be at 1:1:1:1 because they are multiplicative.

However according to the diminishing return formulas taken from this post: http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-SWTOR-formula-list

wouldnt the priority then be Shield absorb > shield rating > defence?

as for example 34 rating would be more beneficial investing into shield absorbtion when beeing at a 1:1:1:1 ratio.

Or do i miss something here?

[Turbopuschel]

(01-04-2012 06:26 PM)Oberyn Wrote:  I haven't looked too much into the theorycrafting yet, but I would keep all that you can in your bank. With defense not counting toward crit immunity, I think that we will need to stack shield rating along with it in order to push crits off the table. One we get to uncrittable, we can start stacking absorbtion to make our shield more effective.

I don't think it is possible to become uncrittable by shield chance as crits take precedence over shields: http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-SW-...84#pid5584

[Kaedis]

Quote:I don't think it is possible to become uncrittable by shield chance as crits take precedence over shields

Even if this weren't the case, DR on shield rating should still make this impossible.

Quote:If i understand the formulas in the sticky correctly,

defence, shield rating and shield absorb as well as damage reduction by armor should be at 1:1:1:1 because they are multiplicative.

However according to the diminishing return formulas taken from this post: http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-SWTOR-formula-list

wouldnt the priority then be Shield absorb > shield rating > defence?

as for example 34 rating would be more beneficial investing into shield absorbtion when beeing at a 1:1:1:1 ratio.

Or do i miss something here?

They aren't necessarily 1:1 because of variable rate of return. The benefit of X rating of any type is dependent both on the current amount of that rating, as well as the current values of the other stats (since Defense decreases the value of shield and vice versa, while shield increases the value of absorb and vice versa). It's a rather complex dynamic.

[Rolfson]

I've done a bit more research since the original post so I can respond a little bit to the concerns thus far, but correct me if I'm wrong here. When referring to diminishing return (DR) rates, I'm coming from this http://i39.tinypic.com/iqlov4.png chart.

Ideally, you'd have defense around ~26-27% and a shield/absorption rating as close to 40% as possible. These ratings are all attainable on their own, but getting all three to those levels is rather difficult. Without going into too much of the theory right here, average survivability benefits the most from having a 1:1 ratio of shield/absorption in terms of percent values. However, absorption has a much smaller diminishing returns rate than shield rating, making one point of absorption worth 'more' when it comes to average survivability. Defense has the worst DR rate of any of the values, though, making it much more difficult to stack up.

Now Defense in terms of average survivability is a difficult beast because it's completely dependent on your shield/absorption rating how much 'better' defense is. Let's do a little (incredibly oversimplified) math here to show the point:

Say you're tanking an encounter where with 0% in all stats, you take 100 hits of 100 damage. With 25% shield rating and 40% absorption, you will shield on 25 hits 40 damage each time, leaving you with 1000 damage shielded. This is a 10% overall damage reduction. With 25% defense, you will block/parry 25 of the hits, mitigating a total of 2500 damage. Similarly, 40% shield and 25% absorption will mitigate 40 hits of 25 damage, a total of 1000 damage too. For the best mitigation you want to have a 1:1 ratio as that nets the largest total damage reduction. In this case, and (seemingly) in most others, your defense effectiveness is

(defense chance) / (shield chance * absorption chance)

giving you .25 / (.4*.25) = 2.5. However as you up your shield and absorption chance, your defense effectiveness drops. So there's no easy answer to my original question. Now, because defense is pretty much soft capped around 26-27% depending on how you mod/augment your gear, your defense effectiveness starts trailing off fairly quickly as it's quite easy to get shield/absorption up to around 40% each which would lower your defense effectiveness to 1.5625.

In the end, 1% defense still far surpasses 1% shield and 1% absorption. It's impossible to say how much health each percent is 'worth' in terms of endurance because it all depends on the encounters and the nature of the hits you're taking.

Edit: the reason I kept saying average survivability is that this only works out over a large number of hits. If you stack defense rating you may have the same 'average' survivability, but you'll be taking much spikier damage due to the lack of shield. Similarly, stacking shield will reduce the average damage/hit you take (take as in not avoid) but you'll be hit for much more damage overall

[Darthwhathwhat]

(01-05-2012 11:03 AM)Rolfson Wrote:  I've done a bit more research since the original post so I can respond a little bit to the concerns thus far, but correct me if I'm wrong here. When referring to diminishing return (DR) rates, I'm coming from this http://i39.tinypic.com/iqlov4.png chart.

Ideally, you'd have defense around ~26-27% and a shield/absorption rating as close to 40% as possible. These ratings are all attainable on their own, but getting all three to those levels is rather difficult. Without going into too much of the theory right here, average survivability benefits the most from having a 1:1 ratio of shield/absorption in terms of percent values. However, absorption has a much smaller diminishing returns rate than shield rating, making one point of absorption worth 'more' when it comes to average survivability. Defense has the worst DR rate of any of the values, though, making it much more difficult to stack up.

Now Defense in terms of average survivability is a difficult beast because it's completely dependent on your shield/absorption rating how much 'better' defense is. Let's do a little (incredibly oversimplified) math here to show the point:

Say you're tanking an encounter where with 0% in all stats, you take 100 hits of 100 damage. With 25% shield rating and 40% absorption, you will shield on 25 hits 40 damage each time, leaving you with 1000 damage shielded. This is a 10% overall damage reduction. With 25% defense, you will block/parry 25 of the hits, mitigating a total of 2500 damage. Similarly, 40% shield and 25% absorption will mitigate 40 hits of 25 damage, a total of 1000 damage too. For the best mitigation you want to have a 1:1 ratio as that nets the largest total damage reduction. In this case, and (seemingly) in most others, your defense effectiveness is

(defense chance) / (shield chance * absorption chance)

giving you .25 / (.4*.25) = 2.5. However as you up your shield and absorption chance, your defense effectiveness drops. So there's no easy answer to my original question. Now, because defense is pretty much soft capped around 26-27% depending on how you mod/augment your gear, your defense effectiveness starts trailing off fairly quickly as it's quite easy to get shield/absorption up to around 40% each which would lower your defense effectiveness to 1.5625.

In the end, 1% defense still far surpasses 1% shield and 1% absorption. It's impossible to say how much health each percent is 'worth' in terms of endurance because it all depends on the encounters and the nature of the hits you're taking.

Edit: the reason I kept saying average survivability is that this only works out over a large number of hits. If you stack defense rating you may have the same 'average' survivability, but you'll be taking much spikier damage due to the lack of shield. Similarly, stacking shield will reduce the average damage/hit you take (take as in not avoid) but you'll be hit for much more damage overall

You are right, i didnt take into account, that IF you put points in "Shielding" stats you need to put them in both stats. While you only need to boost defence to gain the full benefit (with reduced DR).

does it make sense to calculate at what defence rating, 1 rating point is better spend in "shielding" (meaning a perfect 1:1 distribution there)
Doing this for all defence % from 25% to 30% should give then a nice table where you can see the according shield stats.

[Darthwhathwhat]

I made a chart how rating points should be distributed, starting with the equippment proposed in this forum.

You can download the sheet here: http://ul.to/1q1u34wm
or as attachement.

Whats interesting to see ist, that the proposed 1142 rating points are nearly optimal distributed with this setup. (only 0,5% difference)

Then you can see after getting this gear, that the next 173 rating points should be all put into shield absorb.

After that point (1315 total rating), points can be distributed as shown.

Can somebody verify if this is correct?

[Nevarien]

(01-05-2012 06:56 PM)Darthwhathwhat Wrote:  I made a chart how rating points should be distributed, starting with the equippment proposed in this forum.

You can download the sheet here: http://ul.to/1q1u34wm
or as attachement.

Whats interesting to see ist, that the proposed 1142 rating points are nearly optimal distributed with this setup. (only 0,5% difference)

Then you can see after getting this gear, that the next 173 rating points should be all put into shield absorb.

After that point (1315 total rating), points can be distributed as shown.

Can somebody verify if this is correct?

Hey There. I am new to the site and have found the information here very useful. In your post you mention the gear list outlined in this forum. But unfortunately I am yet to find what you are referring to. There is one in the compendium but that is a crafted list and as I am aware the crafting gear is no where near as good as what can be gotten through PVP and Hard Modes.

If you could post a link or point me in the direction of the gear listing for the stats you mention above that would be awesome.

Cheers,
Nev