f13.net

Anyone else going this route? I always play a tank in MMOs so this was my first choice. Finally starting to get some tank skills at level 14 (Defensive Stance, a threat debuff for a groupmate, a defensive CD) but still no taunt yet so holding aggro is...fun. Building sunder stacks is about my only option, but I assume it gets better.

I'm going this way at least for now, I can't actually hold aggro off of T7 yet.  :why_so_serious:

I'm sure that will change once I actually get any abilities oriented towards tanking.

I'm guessing T7 is your pet? I don't really have that problem with Vette (mine), because I open with force jump then hit my aoe. Whatever she targets she generally finishes off before aggro becomes a problem.

Edit: Hit post before finishing sentence.

Yeah, Vette is a DPS pet, T7 is a tank. The order you get your different "role" companions can change the leveling experience pretty significantly.

T7 should have a DPS stance ... eventually. Sooner rather than later, anyway, I think Corso had his by the time I was 14 or so, but I wasn't really paying attention, because I actually want him to have aggro.

*deathgrip*

<stab>



That's another thing to check, make sure your derp companions aren't turning shit back on while your back is turned.  :oh_i_see:

I am going the Jedi tank route but I am only level 5 so far    :grin:

At 16 I think I got my first true Taunt, and the Guard stance - which is going to be huge, because Vette currently way out DPS's me.

At 12 - 14 it was typically Force Jump in, Smash to stun everything, and then kill what I can quickly - becuase the moment they came out of stun, they were all bee lining for the Twi'lek with the blasters.

Corso's just derpy in general. He always turns harpoon on, and then randomly turns tank stance off.

I'm up to level 28ish now, and aggro is still a bit iffy at times. I think this may be largely due to not always being on the bleeding edge of gear, I figure it should stabilize at 50. I also don't have a ton of ways to generate AE threat yet - pretty much just Force Sweep and crafted grenades, the AE snare doesn't seem to cause much threat -  I'm hoping that changes.

Only had issues with threat bouncing when asshats decide to not beat on the mob I am beating on. This is why I tend to focus on the strongest mob in the group and anything going after the person keeping me from eating floor. DPS want to beat on the other mobs, fine by me, but I know when I die, I won't be alone. That said, force jump allows me to get to a target, sunder, then scream before anyone else gets in range...save for the snipers and sorcs/mercs - but they know better. I haven't had an issue with keeping at least the focus mob on me so far @20. Tertiary mobs are the bitch, esp if a player goes all AoE like with DFA. There is really no way of me grabbing the herd after that volley - so I pick the biggest bitch in the group and pull it away and let the AoE moron deal. My powertech on the PvP server is a god damn AoE tank though. No losing threat if you DFA then torch the group. Thank god for Mako.  :awesome_for_real:

I'm playing a Guardian and it feels like vanilla WoW warrior. Not really liking the solo gameplay up to Coruscant because the companions steal the show on both aggro and dps fronts, leaving my supposedly mighty Jedi flailing about ineffectively. I think I need to use the medic droid.

I find I take a ton of damage even though I'm a juggernaut with heavy armour and a shield generator.  Not sure what I'm doing wrong, I upgraded everything I have to heavy armor, most of it is blue, purple or orange with blue mods.  It's not like I'm new to games or mmos, I usually have a very good idea what to do.  Boards seem to indicate we're a little weak at my level range (17) and that once I get interrupts to stop enemy casting things get better.

It's gotten somewhat better since I realized this game is different than most every other one I've played in that's important to kill the mass of weak enemies first, and leave the strongest for last.  Complete opposite of what I've been trained to do.

Bear in mind that quite a few mobs have armour reduction abilities, and plenty of of things seem to completely ignore armour (dots are bad for this). The interrupt makes one hell of a lot of difference, as you quickly learn what channeled/casting effects hurt the most and can be safely stopped. I've learned to quickly interrupt gas grenades, flamethrowers, ambush/snipe etc.

Interrupting is definitely critical. I haven't seen anyone else using theirs so far.

As I just mentioned in the n00b Q thread to Rattran, I keep interrupts on a special key, because there's as crucial to tanking as taunts.

Yeah I've had interrupts mapped to F in pretty much every game for years.

I think I might try a different class, got the jugg up to 26 and while I really like the story the class itself feels weak.  I haven't played any other classes that high so I don't know if they are all like this.  I finish far too many even level fights with a lieutenant below 40% health, I feel like that just shouldn't happen for a heavy armor tank class.  I've only died a few times but I have to work my ass off while fighting, I don't personally find that enjoyable.  And when I do die it is usually during the class questline which really upsets me.  I guess it's easier if I use Quinn because he heals but I don't want that little twerp following me around.

Does anyone have much experience with the other classes, I mainly want to know if all classes are like this or if some other class easily tears stuff up without working up a sweat?

I'm currently mostly playing  a Jug (lvl 25). It was easier in the early levels as it completely destroyed everything (force charge + smash = dead mobs). It seems to get harder now as I too finish all fights at around 50% health and need to regen after every pull.

It's not as bad as Sith Assassin though, with that guy (lvl 24) I occasionally die to normal pulls because there's nothing he can do expect kill stuff faster than they kill him. Regen after every pull. That was the main reason I switched to Jugg because he felt more powerful, but it might have been just the early levels.

Mercenary (BH, lvl 24) has been the most powerful class I've played so for. Self-healing ranged tank that does mad DPS. No problems with anything playing him. The healing pet keeps me full health basically all the time.

Haven't tried agents yet, so no idea about them.

My vanguard (tank-spec) trooper was the same way. Destroying stuff until the mid-20s... then mobs became tougher and downtime ahoy! As a tank spec you must use your healing companion past that point at all times, unless you like to suffer.

e: BHs have an advantage over most other classes as they get their healing companion right off the bat. Most other classes need to wait until finishing the first 'real' planet for that.

Juggernauts get a good amount of stuns (don't remember off hand if all of them are specific to immortal spec), which helps reduce damage taken a bit.  Force Choke, Backhand, Force push etc..., all help mitigate damage by preventing attacks.  You can also get an energy shield that procs off Force Scream that helps reduce some damage.  With my healing companion out I can usually finish off fights with full health or close too it.  With a dps companion, I need to rest up a bit after each fight but make up for it with shorter fights.

I would add that Juggs (Immortal spec) also need to rotate their damage mitigation cooldowns (Saberward, Endure Pain, Invincible) and make good use of talented on CD Riposte (talented for reduced rage and to add a 6% mitigation buff on use). Doing so is fun and rewarding, knowing that if you do it wrong you'll get torn up - but do it right and you'll be a mushroom-cloud laying motherfucker finishing the fight at 90% health.   :heart:

Immortal Juggs have some pretty good mitigation but to get the most out of it you have to be attentive and use the right CD at the right time. In this respect it is for me the most challenging class to do well with, but therefore the most rewarding. I like my Sorcerer but tire of the static PvE play (send in Khem + nuke/CC/heal and rarely move), then switch to my Jugg Immortal and get a completely different play experience that is far more mobile and tactical...

So, I hit 50. Now I have to try to figure out how to cull my bars down to something manageable. Any thoughts on which abilities a tank can safely do away with? I have my eye on the 2 strong-and-lesser opponents ones to start with, but they're still mighty useful when soloing.

I would love to see some screenshots of how people set up their hotbars/hotkeys. I seem to have a hard time finding enough room for all the abilities - and I'm only level 24-25 or something.

I enjoyed the last final fuck you I got at level 50 when they gave me One Last Button. (Admittedly it is a pretty cool one - Guardian Leap).

On my BH, the subset of stuff that doesn't work on gold+ and only partially works on silvers is on a short list of getting dumped. My bar finally filled at 46, but I can offload a couple things.

Seems like a lot more stuff on Jugg that doesn't work on Gold/Silver than there was on Merc. Electro Dart/DFA/Fusion missile were great damage, with a bonus of knockdown/stun against trash, the Jugg stuff seems meh damage without the secondary effects.

Something to help survivability for DPS specced Juggs on the way apparently (which is perhaps my biggest gripe with the class):


http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1435443#edit1435443

Jedi Knight / Guardian here (so the mirrored class), and I have:

Left Toolbar - melee attacks (starting with the 3 that generate focus, continuing with single target DPS, then the AoE's, then the channeled damage moves).  Left Toolbar is mapped to the G1-G12 keys on my G510 programmable keyboard.  Mouse has movement keys bound to it to complement this.

Right Toolbar - force jump, force push, then the defensive powerups, then the focus powerup and trinkets (also the Rest-after-combat power, the unstun clicky, and the buff others power).  Right Toolbar is mapped to the numpad key; I have to move my hand off the mouse to activate the stuff but since it's mostly oh shit buttons I can do that without affecting my movement.  If I need to move while doing it, I have WASD to move with while my right hand is on the numpad.

Center (Top) Toolbar - Taunts and Guard-Other mapped to 1-3, a bunch of medpacks on 0-+ that can also be activated with the numpad /*-, and the stances at 9,8,7.  4,5,6 currently free (at level 33).

Center Bottom Toolbar - Rez and RezPet, then (currently empty) spots 5-0 can be activated with G13-G18 on the left side, and then I have the fleet pass and teleport home abilities.  I don't use the pet bar, but it would override this center bottom toolbar if I used it.

The overall idea is that I'm meleeing with my left hand on the programmed G1-G18 keys, and moving with my right hand / mouse.  Ohshit buttons are on the numpad, easy to jump to without looking, and taunts are 1-3 also easy to jump to.  Focus key is ~, self key is Tab.

If you move with the mouse, how do you strafe?

(http://treebarkjacket.com/wp-admin/images/donald.jpg)

Normally it would be using the turn buttons on the keyboard (W and D in the default set up) to strafe - you hit them while holding the right mouse button. I assume totally crazy people like ajax must have strafing mapped onto mouse buttons somehow. That's going too far for me.

I have a Logitech MX something or other mouse, it's got 2 buttons, wheel, and two thumb buttons.  Thumb buttons are forward and back, turning is the default way it's done in the game (hold down right button and move the mouse), and the wheel has the ability to be moved (clicked) left and right, in addition to its wheel functions, so those are my left/right strafes.

I'm not that good at it, but it's useable.  Didn't use this setup in WoW, this is the first time I'm using it.

Just got to Alderaan as DPS Guardian, level 32. Every pull there is a real risk of death and afterwards I have to regenerate health for 10-15 seconds. The mobs are level 28, four levels below me. Time to respec or reroll?

You're definitely doing something wrong, but hard to say what. Your (or maybe your companion's) gear may be woeful, or it could be a spec issue I guess. I'd lean towards a gear issue. Having to use your healy rest thing isn't abnormal for playing without a healer, but almost dying on every pull indicates something is wrong. Mobs 4 levels lower than you should have a hard time even hitting you much.

EDIT: I totally read past the part where you said you're DPS. I don't really have any experience with that spec. That said the level difference should still be helping you a lot more than it sounds like it is.

DPS Jugg/Guard are in a bad place right now, but they're getting buffed in the patch (tomorrow). I play mine mostly as tank, and I have a healer companion, so I don't really have trouble with most mobs. You could try respeccing, or just wait until tomorrow to see if the buffs are substantial.

Definitely waiting until tomorrow for the patch. Judging by the official forums Alderaan is the point where current dps guardians get fucked. Which makes sense, since Tatooine was significantly easier, against mobs of the same level.

I'm a guardian DPS and though I usually have a gunslinger pal, I just did a bunch of stuff solo at level 30 & 31 the tail end of Alderaan (my class missions, mainly), and didn't really see these problems.  The End of Chapter One guy was pretty horrendous, but I finally got him on try #6 or so.

My companion is T7 specced out for DPS (Aim in preference to Endurance), in dps stance (sniper? whatever it's called) and with all his tank abilities turned off.  If I am in trouble, I then hit T7's little taunty button and he gets me some breathing room.  If HE starts dying I can taunt back, and this worked pretty well on gold star guys when necessary.  

I'm cybertech so all my mods and T7's robot parts are nice and updated, so my gear is probably pretty good overall.

You're using Blade Storm, right?  I just promoted that to an easier-to-hit key once I saw how much damage it was doing.  Also, I haven't had Overhead Slash that long, but that also has been working out well.  You have to be pretty on the ball with interrupts vs. bossy type guys, but with Fake Force Choke and Force Push and Kick you can usually get most of them.

If your problem is with packs of loser dudes, though, I dunno.  I just force leap in, space whirlwind them, and then T7s grenade would come in and most would be near dying or dead.  So if that's the problem, it must be gear or some imbalanced goofy Alderaan special enemies (not sure how the Alderaan-class quests compare to the Alderaan-planet quests).

I do have to medidate after ever pull, though, usually ending up around half health or so.

I can manage normal enemies, it just takes regening after every fight. Oh fuck moments start to happen when silvers enter the fray, esp. if I miss an interrupt. It'd be all fine and dandy if the gameplay was supposed to be that challenging, but it's clearly not. I think I have ok gear, I have the best stuff I could find doing all of Tatooine (except some of the group quests since my friend decided to sleep the whole evening). I'm using Kira as my companion so she could be an issue, as she as only a few items better than green. But even so, why on earth should gear matter that much, especially when I'm 4 levels higher? Doesn't for any other class. And yes, I'm using all the good abilities constantly because without them I'd just die messily.

 

Too bad SWTOR doesn't have an armory thing yet, that would help a lot for troubleshooting other people's issues.

Yeah I've only used Kira on occasion and her gear is waaay behind my robot friend so I don't know how her DPS compares to T7 unfortunately.  If only there were some sort of way to log the damage one does in combat or something.

I can't imagine it would be much worse, though, especially since she's SUPPOSED to be dps.

I play my Guardian as a tank, with the mixed Vigilance / Defense build (http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500f0GMzZhRr0M.1) (Unremitting is just too good).  I rely on Kira to do DPS, and have managed to keep her in up-to-level greens cheaply from the AH, so she does decent DPS.  I definitely noticed the few times she was bugged by the environment and disappeared from the fight.

Alderaan was harder than previous planets but I managed, by blowing all my cooldowns whenever they cycled - silver mobs would take me down to 60%, and elites down to 5%.  I had to make sure I had decent medpacks with me (from the NPC vendors), and popping a Str stim also helped a lot with the boss fights (ultimately, it's a DPS race).

Balmorra also was suddenly harder, mainly due to the fact that the NPC's there each have a tiny pushback on their first attack, and it takes 2-3 seconds for all of them to get it out of their system when they crowd you.  Once I figured I had to delay the Force Sweep AoE until they were done (it gets interrupted as an instant, you know - it's so stupid), things got much much better.

Kira does very good single target dps if she's geared, in my experience at least. Sgt. Pointy Head who you get later is more of an AE specialist. T7 is pretty badly miscast as a dpser since you have to turn off like 6 of his abilities.

Well, with the talent-improved Force Sweep (for extra damage) and Kira's one AoE ability that she uses pretty early in the fight, the minions are dead within a couple seconds.  I just have to improve my rotation for taking down the remaining boss; I have a tendency to just flail about with any ability that isn't on cooldown, rather than an actual rotation.

Alderaan is where I found I just couldn't take how little survivability we had, but not as bad as you are saying.  I play jugg and at that level we have a healer, you basically have to use your healer from Alderaan on or you will almost die to lieutenant fights and have to heal up a lot afterwards, as you describe.  Do guardians have a healer by Alderaan?

We shouldn't take so much damage being a heavy armor off-spec tank class, it's absurd.  As posted they know of the problem and are looking into fixing it.

Also, be sure to have all of your interupts available and use them whenever you see your target with the "blue bar of death".

I'm in my low 40's now and find that everything is okay again.  The game is most definitely not tuned for the levels yet, some are just badly done, the high 20's to low 30's included.

Guardians get their healer at the end of Balmorra, which is the first planet in Chapter 2, so no, no healer for Guardians on Alderaan. Assuming I'm remembering the order of everything correctly that is.

No healer on Alderaan would suck ass.

Heal companion + custom gear with mods that require your current level to use is my best advice.

You are remembering correctly.

Alderaan seems special, in the sense there's a very hard hitting walking tripod kind of droid in the enemy ranks (using mostly tech abilities so the interrupts become crucial)  If the fights are done the usual "take trash out first then deal with the stronger guy" way it has enough time to deal so much damage it can settle the fight in its favour.

Weird. My Juggernaut danced through Alderaan with no trouble at all. I was about 3 levels overleveled for it and all of my points are in the Immortal tree so that may have been the difference.  In any case me and Vette handled everything just fine and I didn't need to drag my healer along even once.

Level difference could be it. At 3+ levels there's some heavy damage dealt/incoming adjustments happening behind the curtain if i understand it right.

I've just recently slogged my way painfully to 50 (and Ilum) as a DPS Jugg, and I'm about ready to reroll (I have a few alts on the burner anyway). I have very high hopes for the patch!

The class quests were like pulling teeth, and the jump in difficulty in mobs on Ilum has made even normal quests far too painful.

Edit: Have any DPS Juggs here actually managed to solo 'First Strike' on Ilum?

Particularly, the:

Even as a tank spec Ilum was rough out the gates at 50, I think that ends up being a matter of needing to gear up.

Yeah, two Corellia / Ilum strongs were extremely rough on my vanguard as well. Even worse were the two healer strongs at the end of the trooper storyline... with no CC or burst abilities to speak of. Ugh.

I haven't looked into this properly, but yesterday I found out that my friend's Smuggler has 20% damage prevention due to his medium armor, while the Guardian's heavy gives me about 23%, unless I put on the tank aura. That would go a long way explaining why dps guardians are so squishy.

Yeah, my Jugg has 26% in Shien (DPS) form, and 42% in Soresu (tanking) form.

Pretty much every class quest after 40, it was (sigh) switch back to Soresu, bring out Quinn, and hope for the best as a really badly specced focus-starved tank. The DPS side has major survivability issues, but compounding that, many of the SW class quests in particular have clearly been designed with tanks in mind.

Ha, according to official forums, these are the Guardian changes for 1.1:


Enure: This ability’s cooldown has been reduced to 1.5 minutes.
Force Push: Now finishes the cooldown on Force Leap.

I'm underwhelmed.

Jedi Guardian, and for me Force Push is like the only interrupt that works.  The little stun-kick that we get does nothing (not even damage) vs. non-regulars, and the Force Stasis/Choke doesn't actually interrupt elites.  Looks like I pretty much have to take all the defense talents available AND make sure I get +parry instead of just end/str on every piece of gear that's moddable.  Sucks.

On the other hand, specced Vigilance/Defense I'm definitely not focus-starved.  I'm swimming in focus, actually, and have to remind myself to hit all the high-damage focus-eating abilities on the boss to up my DPS.

Did you pick up any of the focus cost reductions from Defense? That might explain it. I have no problems (focus-wise) in Soresu as DPS spec vs multiple mobs, or quick attacking bosses, but seem starved against slow single heavy-hitters. In Shien I have more focus than I know what to do with, but I'm as squishy as a wet paper bag.

On the interrupts, I have both a Guardian (mid 30s) and a Jugg (50), and can confirm that the standard interrupt does work on strongs, elites and champs on both (as does stasis/choke on everything up to elite, and some champs). The two problems I have noticed is that the Jugg interrupt appears to fire off much quicker than the Guardian one (probably due to length of animations), and the interrupt on stasis/choke appears to occur somewhere in the middle of the animation rather than at the start. Only worth using on long casts, and in high latency situations, the enemy seems to continue damaging me even when I have him dangling in mid-air by the throat.

Well, hearing your issues with the DPS approach makes me feel a little better about going pure tank tree on my Jugg, Jak.

Doing Alderaan rght now, about 31, fighting 28s-30s. Vette is pure DPS, usually in area effect stance. Generally, I've found it pretty easy. I stay in tank form, damage reduction is around 42% with 24% shield. Yes, I do have to heal post fights, but I've only really died when I jumped in to a group of 3+ silvers without paying attention.

I have gone out of my way recently to up my gear. Bought the best orange weapons I can off vendors (lev 28 mods). I think Vette has two greens and I have one (an implant).

The changes are minor, but nice. Endure Pain is essentially my only "heal", so dropping the timer helps. The Force Leap cooldown change was needed, because I'd never use Force Push, since I started the fight Leaping in, and Leap wouldn't reach cooldown before the fight ended. Force Push without a Leap to follow it up is rather useless, especially against ranged opponents.

DPS wise it is very important to buy the very best lightsabre or hilt mod you can, the difference in actual dps is huge, the stats might only go up a little but the key thing to look at is the min-max damage the weapon has.  I was struggling on tattooine until I found a lightsabre on the weapons vendor that was easily a 33% damage increase.  Spend as much money as it takes if you find an appropriate purple hilt mod.

Yeah, all of those things work on everything up to and including elites, and even work on the occasional champion if it is an outside world one. The actual kick interrupt interrupts dungeon bosses when there's an ability that's actually flagged to be interrupt-able, too - there are just a lot of non-interrupt-able powers on bosses.

With no real way of telling if the ability can be interrupted or not without blowing your interrupt CD to find out :oh_i_see: (Yet another thing WoW solved a while ago).

Any other Juggernauts getting roflstomped after the update? Level 41, the same mobs I breezed through last night on Belsavis are now making me use all my cooldowns and health packs just to squeak through. And no, no social armor, stripped and re-equipped just in case.

Social armour bug is fixed in any case (not that it helps to explain this particular issue)

Noticed no major change for me - still getting roflstomped to about the same extent.  :grin:

On an unrelated note - I played a game of Huttball in the new 50 only bracket... I've a sneaking suspicion that people are going to be crying about JK/SWs in that Warzone soon.

We had a lot of Sith Warriors on our team. All with force leap and intercede. Hilarity (and a rather uneven score) ensued.  :awesome_for_real:

To the tanky guys, how are you managing with threat? Keeping it? Fighting for it? Getting it easy?

Ingmar and I are trying to solve a mystery, we have virtually identical gear and 'skill', but my Trooper mops the floor with his Guardian in terms of threat. I can pretty much take it at will, just through regular rotation on my part.

Yeah it is pretty bizarre. I've basically been playing this class for over a decade in various forms when you get down to it, so I'm pretty sure I'm not doing anything completely wrong.

I've only done open world grouping  (mostly heroic 4s) and other than spamming my aoe threat and my targeted threat on peel offs, nothing I do seems to work. Damage does sfa, though throwing guard on the DPS sorc against the Hadra guys worked wonders, though I still had to keep the aoe shout threat whenever it came up and use the direct, but only on stuff that ran at her.

Our AE threat is terrible, yes - the thing we're trying to figure out is why his single target threat is outstripping mine so much.

In other news, my One Big Request is that they reduce our core buttons by one - either have sundering strike replace strike, or (probably better) make guardian slash replace slash.

I don't play a Jug but I can comment on the threat.  Its horrible.  I consistently run hard modes with both a jug and a BH tank. The BH tank never loses agro. I don't have to hold back at all.  With the jug I'm constantly spamming my agro dump each time its up. When he first engages a boss I have to let the Jug get a threat lead before I start getting into my full rotation.  (I play a Sorc)

I'd like to think both my buddies have about equal skill in games. Each of them I've been playing with since EQ, so tanking and agro isn't a new idea to either of them. 

Amusing part, the BH tank actually had a 50 jug as his main and said it was absolutely horrible to tank with.  Too many abilities that were too situational and the threat was lack luster.  So he rerolled and is now playing the BH tank as his main. The BH has far worse gear than the Jug too. So I don't think that is the issue.

I'm some what worried whats going to happen when we start raids.

That seems in line with my own experiences as a Trooper. I have no issues holding threat outside of the group going full retard and doing really stupid shit. Like, every person picks their own gold elite to attack in random directions across the room kind of stupid.

Otherwise I'm going to hold with a pretty loose rotation, not much stress on my part at all. Single target, AE, not really a big deal.


I haven't done any hardmodes yet, but from normal heroic 4s and dungeons and stuff, seems to be good.




I'm starting to wonder if Jugg/Guardian threat stance is broken somehow?

Heroic Moment: Call on the Force.

Has there ever been a more useless "ultimate" skill? The heal doesn't even save you from the autoattacks of a single silver mob.

It's quite useful when leveling, at least -- i'd typically use it during the storyline fights against bosses and such (especially when i don't bring the healer with me) and it seems to make difference between close fight and an easy one. Only couple times when it didn't settle things in my favour was against one gold + two silvers, and a fight against a champion mob.

These ticks effectively add to a medpack worth of heal. Should be used early, though, as a way to keep your hp bar full. Not by the time you find yourself half dead.

Not to mention it resets the CD on saber ward, which can be very useful... on a tough fight you can use SW, then when it runs out pop this skill and use SW again.

Since you have to have your companion out to use it, it's specifically put in for soloing harder stuff (or duoing, I suppose).  Every class gets a similar skill.  Plus it starts up Dramatic Music, so there's that too.

Yea it's basically a skill that your supposed to use for your class story quests.

The Trooper one resets the cooldown on Cryo Grenade (our 4 sec stun) on top of the little healing bonus it gives, which can mean 8 seconds of a big gold not fighting back.

They almost all reset your stun cooldown. Except agent which for some reason resets adrenalin probe.

I find it is worth at least an extra level against champions. Not just because of the healing, but also a second stun in the first minute extends the number of consecutive interrupts you can manage at the start of a fight - probably worth a bit over ten more seconds of no casting.

Interrupt rotation on my assassin:

Low Slash
Jolt
Electrocute
Immediately channel the force
Low Slash
Jolt
<You run out of cooldown interrupts here without Channel the force>
Electrocute
Jolt
Low Slash
<NPC has a few seconds now when it can cast>

The Juggernaut 20m CD resets Saber Ward, our defensive avoidance ability.

Hmm, well that sucks I guess. I'd have thought you'd want it on force choke or something.

I *wish* it reset my BH avoidance talent.  Instead it resets electrocute which most Champs seem to be immune to.

Nah, Saber Ward is a good survival talent.

This. Stuns aren't useful on the things I'd need a 20m CD for.

Yup, Saber Ward gives a 2 sec invuln followed by 8 secs of 40% reduction. That combo has bailed me out of a few Solo Boss fights. Need to remember to use it early though, nothing worse than going to use it and then realizing your sidekick already dropped.

Anyone playing a dps Guardian?

Hang on, your stuns don't work on everything?

At least on inquisitor, anything where the primary purpose is a stun works on everything. Things like shock which have stun as an additional effect don't work, but mind trap, electrocute, low slash, are 100%.

Can't imagine what you would use a stun on if not champions/elites.

Stuns have never worked on bosses... at least not that I am aware.

I'm rolling a sith warrior next and can't decide between jugg and marauder, how good is this class in pvp as dps?  getting an extra 3 medals guaranteed per round is pushing me towards juggs atm.

I've never played a Juggernaut, so I can't comment on them.  Marauders are hellishly fun to play though.

I love my Juggernaut but I'm tank specced. I'm an unstoppable ball carrier in Huttball though.

I got 6 medals as a L30 Marauder last night without trying.  If Juggs have the same problem as BH tanks, getting the damage ones will be a bitch so you should be at a wash, yes?

My BH tank has zero problems raking in both damage and tanking medals.  You don't give up any damage by going dps and the taunts make the protection medals a breeze.

It is actually really great if you're the tank spec. If you're the dps spec I'm not sure it is all that exciting.

And yeah, stuns on any class don't work on actual Boss bosses in dungeons, and sometimes other things (one of the random miniboss champions in the Belsavis Heroic 4 for example.)

At least if it's stun immune it says so on a little buff the monster has.

Ok, let me try again from another angle.

DPS Guardian or Sentinel? Vigilance or Focus?

Two is better than one.

:drillf:

I'm concerned about the extra layer of BS the Zen mechanic introduces. Leaning toward Guardian dps because of that and I can play more or less similar to my Juggernaut so I don't have to re-learn my character once a week.

You're probably in for a buff down the road either way.

You can't play similar to your Juggernaut (obviously).  Need to bring the T7 droid to tank for you, instead of Kira for DPS, and you need to kill shit fast before your tank dies due to no heals.  The droid doesn't interrupt damage spikes like your Juggernaut would, though of course you can use your stuns etc. to help it out.  Not sure how Doc works out as a companion.

I tried Vigilance a while ago, and I sorely missed Soresu.  Of course, I had Guardian mods rather than Might on my gear, and hadn't outfitted my droid tank all that well.  But, I didn't feel like a burst/crit machine; it was more like a meh machine.  The rotation is different; you unload focus to do damage more than while in Soresu.  Kira seemed to surpass me at DPS pretty effortlessly, so I figured why work harder for the same outcome of mobs dead and quests progressed.

Sorry, this duder is for Nerd Night. He'd be tough outside that, but for now he'll have a full group setup and just be straight dps, with maybe an option to offtank/pull aggro off the sage.

Having now gotten a Trooper up to 10, I can already see the difference in tanking tactics vs the Jugg, just on area effects alone. At 10, the trooper has a regular shot AoE, a delayed AoE, a channeled Cone, and a channeled AoE.

Juggernaught up to 30 gets one AoE that does damage, on a 15 sec cooldown. At 32 I think, they get a melee attack that hits an arc.

The Regular Shot AE (explosive round) isn't used past like, level 10 mind you, but yes, Trooper AE is not lacking at all. It's pretty awesome in fact. You'll get a PBAE too around level 30ish.  :grin:


Explosive Round basically scales for shit, costs way too much ammo and the AE portion becomes a joke very very quickly. I'm not sure there is any spec that actually uses it past the first 10 levels.




But yea, it's no contest between a Jugg and a Trooper in terms of AE threat.

That skill mirrors perfectly  :oh_i_see:

I used it once last night just because. There's really no place to use it that doesn't have something better. Like you say, it doesn't scale and the AE component has got to be a decimal placement error.

I honestly believe it exists JUST for the first 10 levels, so BH/Troopers have something to spend resources on until they get their AC dependent resource dump attack.  :why_so_serious:

What is it for BHs ? I feel like I missed a skill.

edit: oh wait. that rocket thingy ?

Yea, it should be called missile blast I think?

Yep, Missile Blast. Useless Blast, more like it amirite?

I use it plenty in pvp to stop group caps.

Even though I still think Call on the Force is a pos, I'm happy about the new patch. Turns out that ability lag was a huge part of my bad performance, and now I feel much more confident going into fights.

A *lot* of it has cleared up, yeah.  I still get situations where my interrupt refuses to fire off even though it's not on cooldown, but other than that the patch seems to have fixed a lot of the ability lag problems.

When my companion dies I sometimes use it while kiting.

I think Mako died once. Shieldtech is awesome.  :drill:

Except that one instance on Voss. F that guy.

Been a bit tougher with the Jugg, I ran Saving Face (2+ on Kaas) at level 18, I think it's level 14? Vette went down and I had a sliver left at the end of the last wave against the champ mob. Like Vette's DPS a lot, but in the end slow and steady Mako let me take on stuff a lot more reliably.

Then I watched two solo lvl 13 sorcerers independently roll through the area as I left.  :oh_i_see:

Ccing and picking groups apart especially in that area is how to beat the game. I started my sage as a flat healer and ran Iresso into every group to tank and just kept him standing. Very slow and he died a lot from spike dmg. Switched out to balance tree spec and use Nadia. Force Lift on three in the group and focus fire the one nadia is beating on while DoTing the last mob, if there is one, just flows so much better. Then pick off the cc'd group one by one. Now that your companion's AoE shit can be turned off and remain off, shit is so much easier.

See where you talked about being the sorcerer mirror?

Well I've been tanking on my JK for a while now at 50 and there are a few things I learned so far:

1 - The defense tree is mostly shit - They need to completely retool that thing. The main problem is that it doesn't enhance your abilities very well and their are more passive and direct bonuses to taking items in the vigilance tree. The top tier talents on both are completely underwhelming. Guardian slash has a massive cooldown that's way too long, and plasma brand is a situational ability with another stupid cooldown. The reality is that as a JK tank you're better off as a hybrid spec 14/27/0 with no top tier talents in any tree.

2 - Gear needs to be mixed because aggro is bad - Stacking the defense and absorbtion gear will keep you alive, but at the cost of your aggro generation, more than the Vanguard by far. You need to have a few pieces with high level strength on them so you can hold mobs. Talenting your whirlwind so it's free focus on every cooldown and upping overhead slash with more strength seems to help my holding power. Still, you're playing a priority game with most large pulls. CC is important because your overall AOE tanking abilities are mostly involving whirlwinds, cyclone slash, and leaping around like a lemur.

3 - If you're not with a group that understands their limits, you will fail - This class CANNOT save a group from itself. It's not the warrior of old where it's a rock wall and dps can slowly burn even in bad gear, or you can taunt constantly to deal with issues. Scoundrels for example, will make your life a nightmare (even guarded) if they blow their wads right off the bat. The fact that taunt is on a double digit cooldown is to me a ridiculous joke. That would be the first thing I would fix. Taunt should be 5s, max. Too much depends on your being able to deal with those threats quickly. Also, having an interrupt on a long cooldown is also stupid.

I'll admit I don't have much experience with tanking, and I've gone for the mixed vigilance/defense build based on website theorycrafting, and I'm not 50, but what you're saying seems to coincide with what I've experienced thus far.  Defense is shit, but you need to go into it high enough to get the reduced cooldown on the AoE taunt, because the seconds you gain make a HUGE difference.  It's not a matter of using the AoE taunt and the regular taunt as needed, it's a matter of using them every time they're available, and trying to keep aggro for the 30+ seconds in-between.  It doesn't seem possible to gain threat by using the 110% and 130% mechanic; if you want threat you have to taunt, cause the DPS you put out is shit.

I guess that would make it less useful for tanking, but as a DPS spec, plasma brand (or Jugg's 'Shatter') is absolutely bread and butter. Pretty good in PvP too due to the damage type.

Well yeah, it works fine in a rotation. Tanking is anything but in this game. It's mostly just a reactionary set of abilities followed by a lot of "oh fuck" jumping about.

Interrupt is on an 8 second cooldown, I'd hardly call that long.

When a boss does several abilities over time, or the same ability twice in 5 seconds? It's long. When you know it's coming and can't do shit about it because it's on cooldown? Long. When all your other interrupts are tied to stuns or incapacitations? LONG.

That interrupt doesn't fucking interrupt for me.  I spammed it, cast bars kept on going.  Been told (by y'all) that bosses have uninterruptible abilities.  Seems like every one of them is so.

Some do, some don't. The frustrating thing is that you often don't know which.

Example - The Ironfist boss of the Esseles hard mode has a head shot cast and a missle barrage cast. The head shot absolutely has to be interrupted or you're dead. Bad news, it's cast every 6s and you only have a 10s timer, meaning you have to trade off with someone else to catch all of them. In addition, he does an uninterruptable missile shot which you can't do shit about except absorb it and move on with your life.

And yet is the same as the Vanguard/Powertech's and faster than the Shadow/Assassin's.  Maybe some other people in the group should be interrupting as well, since every single class gets one except for Commandos/Mercs.

Ding Ding!  :grin:




If you really want to get fancy you have shit like charge to interrupt too.

I'm well aware other people can interrupt guys.

That brings back the fun of yelling at each other over vent about interrupt rotations. Taken to it's height I remember this being a nightmare on the Reliquary of Souls in Black Temple.

Well the fix to that is to turn on chat bubbles and make a macro that says "<x> is interrupting <w> You're up next!"


Oh wait..

And suddenly fun gets shot in the face.

I gave up on trying to figure out JK tanking. It just blows. I've respecced four ways now, and I have full columi/epic gear, nothing holds aggro.

I've read that all those abilities that say "generates extra threat" actually don't. They used too in a previous beta build, when those abilities didn't actually do any damage, but now that they do damage, it's just their damage multiplied by the tank stance modifier.

If that is true, THAT would explain a lot.  :why_so_serious:



Like for comparison, my Vanguard doesn't have any wording like that my attacks, so I just naturally go to my highest DPS ones for TPS too.

I'm pretty sure JKs just need about a 10% threat boost across the board and they'd work fine.

If that is true, it sort of confirms my belief that this team has no idea WTF they are doing. I like the game, but I'm coming up short when all these mechanical issues, server and hardmode bugs, and weird tooltips with no feedback keep getting in the way.

We have so many tanks that I just switched to vigilance or whatever for now, my dps output seems to be fine as a dpser. I'll go back to tank spec when my smuggler hits 50.

My Shadow has a couple of abilities with the "generates extra threat" and they seem to work since Nadia can't pull aggro off me even though she does more straight-up damage.  It's hard to tell for sure without some kind of threat meter, though.

The only JK ability with that text I can think of is the stun.

Yeah, the only vanguard ability with "high threat" is harpoon... and that's not really something you use on mobs you're tanking.

Vanguard tanking is mostly fine (though I hate having to respec to a 31/x/y build for pve tanking), my only issue was getting aggro on large groups of zerg (normal/silver) enemies at range. That is, until I discovered the wonders of "hammer shot nearest silver, duck behind cover, count to x (x depends on the distance of the enemy group from the LOS point), fire Mortar Volley on doorway, profit"  :awesome_for_real: