I'm the Juggernaut, bitch! (SW Jugg/JK Guardian)

[Ingmar]

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.

[Rendakor]

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.

[jakonovski]

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.

[proudft]

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.

[jakonovski]

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.

 

[Ingmar]

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

[proudft]

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.

[ajax34i]

I play my Guardian as a tank, with the mixed Vigilance / Defense build (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.

[Ingmar]

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.

[ajax34i]

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.

[Miasma]

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.

[Ingmar]

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.

[Miasma]

No healer on Alderaan would suck ass.

[luckton]

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

[Sjofn]

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.

You are remembering correctly.

[tmp]

Alderaan is where I found I just couldn't take how little survivability we had, but not as bad as you are saying.

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.

[Reg]

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.

[tmp]

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.

[Jherad]

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:

[Ingmar]

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.

[Zetor]

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.

[jakonovski]

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.

[Jherad]

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.

[jakonovski]

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.

[ajax34i]

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.

[Jherad]

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.

[Bunk]

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.

[Miasma]

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.

[Ingmar]

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.

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.

[Rendakor]

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

[rattran]

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.

[tmp]

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)

[Jherad]

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.

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

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. 

[Fordel]

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.

[Ingmar]

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.