Testing Results (completed):
Level 26. 6 Empathy, 1 Revive, 6 Force Shield, 6 Protect, 6 Transferrence. 20% Dodge. 293 Armor.
Testing methodology: Find a single mob I can survive by spamming Empathy (and/or potions) in various Numa zones, and let it whack on me with Force Shield alone, Protect alone, and both in combination. Watch the incoming damage numbers. Average them in my head. Write down here.
First things first, re IBNobody's assertion that Force Shield does NOT act like a typical "absorb shield" in nearly every other MMO. As far as I can tell, my results confirm his assertion. Your Force Shield does NOT seem to absorb ANY incoming damage. None. You can clearly see this with a weenie mob hitting on you, such as the first set of dogs in Numa OL. You can see that force shield lasting through 3-6 hits from a dog, and not reducing or changing the incoming red/orange hit numbers in any way compared to no Force Shield at all, aside from an expected 2-point per hit decrease from the +120 armor that FS gives you. You can watch your health bar go down with every single incoming hit.
So, it is clear that 6 FS is NOT an absorb shield for 75 points. ALL that FS does is: A) give you +120 armor for as long as it lasts, and B) gives you +2 m/s regen while you still see the bubble around you.
Numa Outer Limits:
First set of dogs. No buffs: 26 per hit. FS only: 24 per hit, lasted 3 hits on average. Protect only: 25 per hit. FS+Protect: 23 per hit while the FS lasted.
Numa Uncharted Ruins:
(thanks to my KoC guildmates who patiently helped me clear mobs and leave some single stragglers to beat on me!)
Whip-flower things. No buffs: 44 per hit, plus constant 2-per-tick DOT. FS only: hard to say because it would only ever last for 2 hits. Usually only 1. Protect only: 43 per hit, plus constant 2-per-tick DOT. FS+Protect: essentially the same as Protect only, because FS is gone in two hits. Overall, what I could see of FS it was indeed mitigating only 1 additional point of damage per hit, at best.
Dogs. No buffs: 30 per hit, plus 2-per-tick DOT about half the time. Low 23. High 38. FS only: hard to say because it would only ever last for 1 or 2 hits. Usually only 1. Protect only: 29 per hit, plus 2-per-tick DOT about half the time. Low 23. High 37. FS+Protect: essentially the same as Protect only. As for the flowers, what I could see of FS was that at best it was mitigating only 1 additional point of damage per hit.
Note: I spent the most time letting that dog in Uncharted Ruins chew on me. Like 10 minutes, with and without my buffs, really looking for whether there was any possible evidence of more misses, more blocks, fewer applications of DOT, fewer instances of criticals, fewer instances of max hits, etc. The result? Nope. All these two buffs do is a simple, straight-up armor buff (in terms of mitigation). There is no "hidden" buff that affects crits or max damage or DOTs.
My Conclusions:
Beyond any shadow of personal doubt, and based on empirical testing with no bias to prove one outcome or the other, I can attest to the fact that Protection AND FS are completely worthless investments of skills points at the moment, with the way that armor currently works and scales. Really, there's no point at all to these two skills, especially after IBNobody did the math to convince me that even if you pop FS at strategic times to run its full 30 seconds for the +2m/s regen, it's still not a worthwhile skill point investment. (look further up in this thread for those details)
I am convinced and respec-ing right now to have 0 in Force Shield, 1 in Protection, 1 in Revive, 6 in Empathy, 6 in Transferrence, at least 1 in Pain, and I haven't decided on the rest yet. Why have 1 point in Protection? For placebo effect if I end up in a PUG group that doesn't know me and know that I'm a damn good healer. Too many people think if they don't see that squared circle under their feet, the healer isn't doing their job.
I guess I should add a bit about why even 1-2 points of extra armor mitigation are "worthless". Yes, if a mob is aggroed on YOU, you might have as many as 6-8 weenies chewing on you. That's works out to AT MOST 12-16 points of damage per tick that Protection is effectively mitigating for you. Now consider that:
A) Not every member of the party receives this onslaught during an alpha spike. Only the tank does (or should, lol). And that tank has his own huge set of mitigation skills to absorb alpha spike. My tank runs with 6 Vigor and 6 Increased Mass and I laugh at UC mob alpha spikes. And with even 3 in Kinetic Reservoir, I pretty much never need to drink a power pot. (I used to run with 6 Kinetic, but that seemed like overkill for my total power burn.)
B) Have you seen how much 6 Empathy ticks for? 60 healing per tick. Have you seen how much a well-timed Transferrence ticks for? A ton. That's what. With all the raw healing output from just ONE healer in your Guardian Run, plus a good tank's native mitigation for spikes, that dinky 12-16 points of mitigation from Protection means bupkes. Nada. Squat. Zip. Zero. It's just insignificant. Trust me: I've been sole healer in many guardian runs and I have no problem keeping the team alive and healthy. I haven't run with Protection for a long time (but I had been using 4 Force Shield for the regen that I thought was better than it really was).
C) Between the healer(s)' AOE from Tranferrence, your own AOE as the tank, the AOE from at least 1 operative, etc. You HAVE seen how quickly a huge mob even in Uncharted Ruins can be decimated, right? We're talking half the mob dead within the first two seconds of the alpha strike. I've seen this time and again. So between the fast AOE killspam and the two major healing ticks working in your favor plus your own commando's resiliance with Vigor and Increased Mass, again, what is this paltry 12-16 of mitigation from Protection mean in the face of all that?
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