Adding HP Vs Adding Defense

The simplest consideration is this, I believe:

Sharding for hp only, ignoring other shards, will basically amplify your stronger defenses while not doing too much for the defenses you are lacking. This is the reason a lot of casters die quickly in a situation such as RB Delta (especially Wizards in Dragon's Breath), if they end up tanking a group of phys mobs. A handful of extra hp is not going to save you in that situation. Same thing for barb, or any melee class that does the "luring/pulling", if they have no magic defense. That handful of extra hp is still going to be zapped right away by a swarm of casting mobs.

An important factor is your overall play style. I suppose if a caster were to simply avoid all situations in which they may be physically attacked, then they would have no use for the physical defense. If a melee class simply avoids any situation they may be magically attacked, same principle applies. However, can one really feasibly do that, in this game? Maybe. I just wouldn't recommend ever trying to fill the role of a true "tank" in PvE, if you haven't balanced BOTH defenses accordingly, as in higher-level instances you will encounter a mix of attacks, not just simple situations.

With all that being said, most people appear to prefer hp shards because it is a simple value they can see and comprehend easily, whereas any other consideration would require them to blow the dust off the ol' gray matter and actually use it for once

I'm not saying that anyone who chooses to use them is "wrong"... only that maybe one should consider things more carefully themselves, before randomly giving in to the advice of others. If we all followed the "guides", there still wouldn't be any fist BMs, or any tank except a barb, etc. (yes, there do exist guides that state using a fist-build bm would be "noob" and "fail" and whatever else they're calling it these days).

SolomonSmash - Heavens Tear wrote: »

With all that being said, most people appear to prefer hp shards because it is a simple value they can see and comprehend easily, whereas any other consideration would require them to blow the dust off the ol' gray matter and actually use it for once

I'm not saying that anyone who chooses to use them is "wrong"... only that maybe one should consider things more carefully themselves, before randomly giving in to the advice of others. If we all followed the "guides", there still wouldn't be any fist BMs, or any tank except a barb, etc. (yes, there do exist guides that state using a fist-build bm would be "noob" and "fail" and whatever else they're calling it these days).

The reason I Choose to use hp shards vs p def shards is because of game experience and because i use pwcalc a lot. While extra def from p def shards is nice at low levels,at end game, you should be getting adequate p def from gears and/or self buffs. In pvp, if you don't have large hp pools your going to get destroyed my magic classes (I'm in r9 gear and i can still get hit for over 5k a shot from other magic classes unsparked, they're other r9 characters but still just scale down the gear to appropriate level and its the same thing) and bosses tend to use magic AoEs or hp % based AoEs, followed up by a magic AoE. Also when i have over 9k hp in just gear and putting immac hp shards still increase my hp by a larger % than putting in immac garnet shards would increase my p def by, there just no way i can go with the garnets.

All this being said JOSD >> any other shard...really wish i had them.