Tuesday 19 February 2013

Defense

Here comes the promised post about defense stats breakdown. Below, I take every single defensive stat and describe all parts it consists of. It may feel obvious and descriptive - yes it is. Yet, it might be helpful to see what plays the role in composing our defense in its complexity.

All the stats below are based on the assumption Combat Technique is active and on this (more or less) BiS geared character sheet.

Damage Reduction

Armor Rating 6307
- provides 36.87% Kinetic/Energy Damage Reduction

Kinetic 40.87%
from Armor 36.87%
from Skills/Buffs 4.00%
* affected by: Jedi Resistance 2%, (4) Tier Set Bonus 2%
Energy 40.87%
from Armor 36.87%
from Skills/Buffs 4.00%
* affected by: Jedi Resistance 2%, (4) Tier Set Bonus 2%
Internal 23.00%
- from Skills/Buffs 23.00%
* affected by: Technique Mastery 9%, Force Valor 10%, Jedi Resistance 2%, (4) Tier Set Bonus 2%
Elemental 23.00%
from Skills/Buffs 23.00%
* affected by: Technique Mastery 9%, Force Valor 10%, Jedi Resistance 2%, (4) Tier Set Bonus 2%

Defense Chance 32.06%
Basic 10.00%
from Defense Rating (622) 16.06%
from Skills/Buffs 6.00%
affected by: Double-bladed Saber Defense 4%, Shadowsight 2%

Shield Chance 46.56% + 20% (Kinetic Ward 15%, (2) Tier Set Bonus 5%)
- from Shield Generator 5.00%
- from Shield Rating (600) 26.56%
- from Skills/Buffs 15.00%
affected by: Combat Technique

Shield Absorption 62.79%
- from Shield Generator 20.00%
- from Absorption Rating (666) 38.79%
- from Skills/Buffs 4.00%
affected by: Impact Control

This post serves as a summary and will be progressively updated to reflected all the changes time will bring.

* Note that the values of Defense Chance, Shield Chance and Shield Absorption do not have to be precisely the same. I am using this distribution based on my personal experience and preference. However, having roughly 30%/65%/60% should be the aim.

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Next post will be on the importance of self-healing in connection with the health pool.

Monday 18 February 2013

Xenoanalyst II as a Shadow? Yes please.

After idling a bit (thanks to school), I am back and today I will take a brief look at the 'Relics of the Gree' event boss Xenoanalyst II.

You can easily kill the boss in story mode while only having one tank. No Thermal Tolerance debuff -> no tank switch needed. Also, the adds that spawn do not hit hard and are easy to be tanked in one spot without any cooldown. In hard mode, two tanks are necessary to deal with the Thermal Tolerance debuff and Terentatek adds.

So who is the best tank to tank Xenoanalyst II? The answer is, of course, a Shadow! Resilience is once again the key ability. If you time it properly after getting the first stack of the Thermal Tolerance debuff, you will effectively resist 6 stacks out of 10 leaving you with only 4 stacks after the channel is finished. First, your healers don't need to 'omg-heal' you throughout the channel. Second, you *only* get 80% damage taken increased debuff which allows you to tank one of the Terentateks quite safely when it comes to the second add phase where four of those big dudes spawn. However, when Xeno drops below 20% and starts spamming his execution ability, it is probably best to vanish to drop aggro for some time. The stacks won't be gone and guess what the boss did after attacking our other tank? He turned to me and I went splat in one hit - 28k. I believe the execution targeting isn't arbitrary and respects the aggro table since it was first one tank, then me, then our highest dps, then another dps. I don't have any real evidence yet, but the execution seems to work as 'hit and wipe aggro' ability.

At the end of the day, this fight is pretty straightforward and requires no exceptional skills or gear. Well optimized Black Hole tier should be more than enough to take on this boss in hard mode. Having a Shadow tank just neutralizes the most lethal mechanic ;-)

Will post more regularly now, until then...