Ok I'm totally confused now, not about what it does and such, that much isn't too difficult to grasp.

Now, I never bothered much with parsers and stuff, but recently stumbled over ParSec and started using it for kicks

There is however one thing I don't understand, my Sin Tank (using Shield Offhand, not a Focus Offhand) has on the defense tab: Damage Reduction, Defense Chance, Shield Chance and Shield Absorption

My Sorc otoh, has only Damage Reduction and Defense Chance. I guess that is because an assassin can use both whereas a sorcerer can only use focus offhand. So far no problem.

The thing I don't understand is that in parses and on screen I never ever see my Sin Tank absorb anything, yet my Sorc is absorbing like crazy...both the flytexts fly over the screen and I regularly see it tick 100% on the parsec screen.

What's the deal? Does that mean I can forget about Absorption Rating on my assassin? If so, why then does it even show the value? And why does a sorc not show any absorption stat yet absorbs like super Kleenex?

The short answer is that Absorb rating, for your Assasin tank wearing a shield offhand, is absolutely important.

For a longer answer, there a ton of math in this thread that goes into details as to the relationship between Defense, Shield and Absorb, and how much of each will give you a good balance.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=616779

The Absorb fly text on your Sorc is probably coming from your Static Barrier, and has nothing to do with shielding attacks.

The thing I don't understand is that in parses and on screen I never ever see my Sin Tank absorb anything, yet my Sorc is absorbing like crazy...both the flytexts fly over the screen and I regularly see it tick 100% on the parsec screen.

If your Sin has not equipped a Shield, I don't know whether you will ever get the shield activation necessary for the absorption in your gear to activate. Could that be it?

On the other hand, if your Sorc has Static Barrier up, you'll see 100% absorption until you exhaust the SB's capacity (around 6,200 damage for the talent-enhanced bubbles of my geared Sorc healer). That applies to anyone else you bubble too, which is why bubbling the raid works well against bosses with predictable raid-wide AoE.

Hope that helps.

I don't think shielded (tank) attacks have any flytext associated with them. They just do reduced damage based on your absorption. It does show up in the logs though, and you can see a visual effect when you shield an attack.

The absorbed flytext refers to abilities that soak a certain amount of damage, such as the sorc bubble, the relics of reactive warding or the agent's shield probe.

It is a trick of the combat logger.

When your tank shields an attack, the incoming damage is reduced by whatever your absorb rating is. So if you have 40% absorb, shielded attacks will do 40% less damage. The combat log may not show which attacks are shielded or not, it will simply show some attacks doing less damage than others.

Some skills, such as a sorc's static barrier, or defense screen on a smuggler, absorb incoming damage up to a point. The attacks themselves still "deal" the same amount of damage to your character, but they are deducted from whatever is absorbing damage, rather than your health pool. In the combat log, the amount of damage dealt by the attack is 0 (technically whatever amount is left over after the absorbed damage), and a second number reports how much damage was absorbed.

Note that none of the skill-based absorbs have anything to do with your shield absorb rating. Shield absorb rating only affects the damage reduction for shielded attacks, which can only happen when you have a shield equipped in the first place.

The problem is overlapping terminology. In beta absorption was called "glance rating" this differentiated it from the health buffer mechanic referred to as an absorb shield. In simple terms:

1) The absorption stat refers to how much damage is mitigated on a shielded attack. The log file reports attacks that were shielded but does not report the amount that was shielded.

2) Absorb shields are temporary health buffers that soak up a certain amount of damage. These can be applied by sorc/sage barriers, the guardian/jugg blade barrier/barricade, the guardian/jugg aoe taunt buff and the reactive warding relic proc. These are a few of the ways you gain an absorb shield. These events are much clearer in the log since it reports how much damage was dealt and how much absorbed. Your absorption or shield ratings have no effect on these types of shields.

Parsec gives you some information on both scenarios. I have tried to explain things in parsec via tooltips so if you are wondering what something is try hovering over the label or column header.

The problem is overlapping terminology. In beta absorption was called "glance rating" this differentiated it from the health buffer mechanic referred to as an absorb shield. In simple terms:

Ah is that where that came from, I'd seen that before in earlier dumps of schematic listings but couldn't figure what it was for

1) The absorption stat refers to how much damage is mitigated on a shielded attack. The log file reports attacks that were shielded but does not report the amount that was shielded.

 

2) Absorb shields are temporary health buffers that soak up a certain amount of damage.

...

These are a few of the ways you gain an absorb shield. These events are much clearer in the log since it reports how much damage was dealt and how much absorbed. Your absorption or shield ratings have no effect on these types of shields.

Thanks, that explains it nicely, so one is from equipment (Shield in the case of my tank) and the other is the result from one or more abilities, which also explains why the attribute isn't even shown on classes that don't use a shield.

Parsec gives you some information on both scenarios. I have tried to explain things in parsec via tooltips so if you are wondering what something is try hovering over the label or column header.

Well, that explained why it stayed zero all the time before, guess that's what happens when you think you know what something is...never figured it wasn't related to the absorp rating on shields so never looked there. thanks for the heads up