The Shield Tech/Shield Spec Compendium

[Neokarasu]

(01-29-2012 10:10 PM)Poksu Wrote:  I'm probably missing something, but the dr chart shows that surge caps at 50%...?

It does.

Crit damage has a base 50 + Surge.

Quote:- I know it's probably a "duh" thing, but I don't see the taunts covered anywhere? Probably worth mentioning that there are two, and opportunities to use them.

I also agree on adding something about AOE taunt. The Sonic Missile thing (I forget the name) is an AOE taunt that is centered around the target instead of the caster. This is very different from the Assassin's/Jugg's AOE taunt and makes it pretty unique (with its pluses and minuses of course).

Quote:- Stats section IMO still needs a lot of work. There are multiple places in the existing forums where folks discuss the DR of various stats and the order in which you should stack them - easy enough to track down that information and fill in more details about exactly what stats do what and the ratio in which they work together.

Gain on gear is highly dependent on what you already have. It's not as simple as "stack this until X".
That said, I will probably update my EDR spreadsheet to include PT stuff since my PT finally hit 50.

[Mesrith]

I'll be adding sections on taunts and CC soon. I've been spending most of the day putting my money where my mouth is and finally dropped Armormech/Scavenging for Biochem/Bioanalysis.

[KayGBee]

I'm not sure I fully understand the chart in regards to stats, so I am just going to ask. What is the concensus in relaton to accuracy? As a DPS we shoot for 329 accuracy to bring us to 100%. There has been discussion that as a tank we also need to get 329 accuracy to assist with threat management by not having misses.

Is accuracy to the soft cap something we want to achieve with defense/shield/absorb coming secondary?

[LagunaD]

(01-31-2012 01:45 PM)KayGBee Wrote:  I'm not sure I fully understand the chart in regards to stats, so I am just going to ask. What is the concensus in relaton to accuracy? As a DPS we shoot for 329 accuracy to bring us to 100%. There has been discussion that as a tank we also need to get 329 accuracy to assist with threat management by not having misses.

Is accuracy to the soft cap something we want to achieve with defense/shield/absorb coming secondary?

Tech attacks, which constitute the vast majority of Vanguard/Powertech threat, have 100% base Accuracy, and there is no evidence that NPCs have Tech resistance that would make Accuracy over 100% beneficial.

[Kypsta]

Our tiered gear has a decent amount of accuracy on it, enough to get near the cap if not over it, so I don't think we need to go out of our way to stack it. I made no effort to place accuracy higher than anything else, but by now when I've made it to 19.2k health and decent numbers on mitigation stats, my accuracy is at about 310, which is pretty close to the cap. I would certainly place more survivability or higher damage output over making 1% more of my Rapid Shots hit at this point.

[sirmacallot]

Awesome Mesrith mucho cudos!

[Luchidor]

Quote:- Stats section IMO still needs a lot of work. There are multiple places in the existing forums where folks discuss the DR of various stats and the order in which you should stack them - easy enough to track down that information and fill in more details about exactly what stats do what and the ratio in which they work together.

I agree completely. There aren't many PT guides out and I've seen 3 separate ones, each prioritizing for a different defensive stat. After spec, stat allocation is THE most asked question and it deserves a thorough explanation (especially since I don't fully understand it).

On a tangent, I found spreadsheets. It seems to me that spreadsheets ignore which stat is most useful, assumes they are all equally useful, and guides you to allocate your budget of stats to minimize diminishing returns. Is that correct?

Ive found 2 spreadsheets which provide nearly identical figures.
1. http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Tan...eet-online
2. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=123306

[LagunaD]

(02-01-2012 05:45 PM)Luchidor Wrote:  

Quote:- Stats section IMO still needs a lot of work. There are multiple places in the existing forums where folks discuss the DR of various stats and the order in which you should stack them - easy enough to track down that information and fill in more details about exactly what stats do what and the ratio in which they work together.

I agree completely. There aren't many PT guides out and I've seen 3 separate ones, each prioritizing for a different defensive stat. After spec, stat allocation is THE most asked question and it deserves a thorough explanation (especially since I don't fully understand it).

On a tangent, I found spreadsheets. It seems to me that spreadsheets ignore which stat is most useful, assumes they are all equally useful, and guides you to allocate your budget of stats to minimize diminishing returns. Is that correct?

Ive found 2 spreadsheets which provide nearly identical figures.
1. http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Tan...eet-online
2. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=123306

Well, anyone who asks "which is better: defense rating, shield rating or absorb rating?" is asking an uninformed and somewhat stupid question.

Spreadsheet #1, which I wrote, tells you what stats you want to minimize your damage taken. It does not "assume they are equally useful," it assumes what you care about is minimizing your incoming damage.

It does ignore effects that don't reduce incoming damage, but might be worth considering, like energy/heat regen due to shield procs. That sort of trade-off depends on the rate of incoming attacks, and there is no way a spreadsheet can quantify the usefulness of energy regen vs. incoming damage in an objective way.

But the point is that the value of a given stat (how effective it will be in reducing your incoming damage) depends heavily on what stats you already have. There are two ways to approach the question.

The first, which I would call the "incremental approach" is to put your current stats into the spreadsheet, and look at the stat weights. If the stat weights for all stats where you have non-zero rating points are equal, you are optimal. Otherwise, you should reduce the stat with the lowest weight, and add an equal or greater amount of the stat with the highest weight. This will bring the stat weights closer to being equal. Lather, rinse, repeat, until all the weights are equal and you are optimal.

The second approach is to start from scratch. You need a copy of Excel for this, because the online spreadsheet won't do non-linear minimization. You set up the Solver in Excel to minimize the cell with your incoming damage factor ("Squishiness"), while keeping the total number of rating points fixed. It will crunch for a second or two, and then show you the optimal distribution of stat points, given the stat budget you have. But this optimal stat distribution cannot be scaled to very different stat budgets, which is why it's impossible to give a single universal set of stat weights which is optimal for any level of gearing.

Personally, I think the incremental approach is best. You can do it while levelling, and then while farming gear, and you will be very close to optimal at all times if you use the stat weights as a guide in your decisions, because they will always tell you what the best (and worst) stat to add is at any given moment.

The "start from scratch" approach can be helpful in showing you how far from optimal you are (and how much you stand to gain by further optimization), but as a practical matter, I don't think people typically replace all their gear/mods at one time, so any changes to their stats *will* be incremental.

[Gorlough]

I completely agree with Laguna, that there's no BiS equipment to go for. Sure, there is an optimal distribution of stats, when it comes to reduce incoming damage to a minimum, which is easiest to find by iteration. But on the other hand, there's a lot of situational stuff, that has to be considered too.
For once, there's threat generation, which is also a top priority of tanking.

TOR does this about the same way as AoC did this: damage modified by stance is your main agro builder, taunts are more of a tool to get the mobs attention. So if you want to tank successfully, it's not all about damage mitigation. You have to raise damage as well. The amount of stats you can give up from mitigation towards damage output is again dependant on how good your healers are. The better the healers, the more defensive capabilities can be reduced and the more damage supporting stats can be slotted.

Then again, there's also the question of debuffs, group buildup for optimal buffs - the list goes on.
Out of this reason, I created my combat simulator spreadsheet, to be able to tinker around with those factors and see the impact on a virtual boss fight.

[Mesrith]

I'll expand the stat section to explain it better, but I honestly don't think it will help. I think there's a section of the gaming population that expects "the math wizards" to tell them what to do, regardless of the situation. Our defensive stats have a complicated relationship that doesn't lend itself to static "stack this, then this, then this" explanations. Even if it did, there is very little use to this information due to lack of gearing options. Regardless of which mods they contain, you want to have Rakata Supercommando gear in every slot possible. From there, you only have three gearing choices, all of which can only be done through switching mods from surplus gear, because there is no alternative non-set gear.

[1]Try to stack Absorption, which is paired with Accuracy on enhancements, probably leading to a wasted surplus of Accuracy;
[2]Stack Defense/Shield enhancements by replacing Accuracy/Absorb ones;
[3]Remove defensive stats in favor of threat ones.

I didn't forget Mods, but the secondary stat swing from switching out the middle Mods are minor since they are mostly primary stats.

The third choice is probably the best, and is something I'll be experimenting with. I havn't reached Foreman Crusher on Nightmare yet, but the ability to use things like Obfuscate against bosses seems to make Frenzy mechanics trivial for now.