Except the main function of this skill is not an AOE, and it's AOE function has been described by BW as a "smart AOE." I wouldn't say hitting something keeping you alive is very smart.

My guild has determined that because of the new AOE nature of Crushing Blow, it will do damage to the Shield Generators during the Defensive Systems phase of the Firebrand and Stormcaller fight. I just wanted to give everyone a heads up and hopefully make this known so that BioWare can set the Shield Generators as "Crowd Controlled".

I think Immortal is perceived as a liability compared to other tanks. Their lower threat, especially AOE threat makes DPS classes rather group with the other tanks. I feel like Immortal is good as long as DPS knows that they need to watch their threat. This does not often work in PUG groups. I feel like it needs another Rage consuming skill to use during long fights when you end up with more Rage than you can really use.

Does anyone have some numbers on how much the shield absorbs now that it scales with gear ? I'm assuming it scales specifically with Force Power. But maybe it scales with something else ?

I would rather get Quake maxed out than get Thrown Gauntlet. And take the 2 in Ravager and put in Dreadnaught and Accuracy. Other than that, that's what I always use. As far as gearing, at level 50 you'll want to get around 20% defense chance and then start stacking as much Shield Rating and Absorb as possible. At higher gear levels (Rakata+) I try and keep my defense chance around 23% and my health around 21k then as much shield and absorb as possible. Keep in mind Shield and Absorb make each other more valuable as the increase, so you'll want to try and keep them about even in percentage if you can. Shield Rating being a bit higher is ok if you have the Rakata proc on shield trinket. I tend to avoid Accuracy like the plague as a tank and I have no problems with boss threat against DPS doing 1.2k. A lot of this info holds true for leveling up as well, except probably the Defense chance and of course the health. I went up the Immortal try first then Vengeance then Rage.

Dreshdae Cantina US PVE http://www.dreshdaecantina.com

The only reason I say Defense to 25-30 then stack shield and absorb, is that at around 30% the diminishing returns on Defense make it not worth it. The diminishing returns on shield rating and absorb are at a much higher % value.

Agree, but just a link to it would be easier...

For Tanking, which I'm assuming is what you are asking about, you will always want the armoring with higher Endurance over those with Higher Strength. For the other mods, you will want to get Defense, Shield Rating, and Absorb Rating. You will want to get your Defense to about 25-30% unbuffed then focus on Shield and Absorb. Absorb scales high very quickly so a little goes a long way. Just remember that Shield Rating and Absorb Rating rely on each other, one makes the other better, so you want to stack them at about the same rate. At level 50 you will want to get some Accuracy, though that is still being debated since we don't really know the Defense rating on bosses. You don't need Crit or Surge as a tank. Power is ok and helps generate more consistent threat, but I wouldn't sacrifice a lot of Defense stats for it.

That's not really accurate, since there are different types of enemies with different damage, health, defenses, etc. The easiest test I've found is to pick someone and have the DPS duel them, without the person fighting back, and time each person to see how long they take to defeat them. Aside from that, I have heard of people using the Nar Shaddah world boss for DPS tests I think.

I've never had a ran into an Enrage timer in HM FP on my Vengeance Jugg while running with random PUGs. I have Tionese/Columni gear. My Force Scream crits for about 2.7k and is a guaranteed crit with the Impale/Shatter buff up. Vengeance Juggs don't have massive spike damage. We have several skills that deal medium amounts of damage and apply a DOT that we rotate through. This means that we are very good damage on long boss fights if played correctly, but we are not great at PvP. That is where Rage spec comes in. As Vengeance, I have actually out burst damaged a Rakata geared Assassin DPS from the top raiding guild on my server on the boss in Boarding Party with the two healers. Immortal = PvE Tank/PvP surviveability Vengeance = PvE DPS Rage = PvP DPS

It helps if one healer is almost solo healing it though

(For Normal) 2 Clickers at least. 1 can be a healer if the other can solo heal from the bottom. The other is ranged DPS. Keep the fire debuff on him as much as possible. Fast tower stacking and debuffing is key. Knock away any droids you can instead of killing them. 2 Tanks switching off because of armor debuff. Jugg/Guard is nice because they can jump out when you hit the fire button. (fire does damage your party) Hard Mode is a little different because only the right tower gives the fire debuff. The middle kills droids and takes away one buff. The left takes away all his buffs and makes him not able to get any more for a few seconds.

So looking at the patch notes it looks like Master Looter is fixed for Hard Mode/Nightmare Operations ? Can anyone confirm this ? I know before a lot of people weren't getting all of the items to drop if they had Master Looter mode on.

Why does it matter what sold ? The item goes off the market, and you get your money, what else is needed ? You said your not using spreadsheets, so you're obviously not being too concerned about "stats" of what sold and what didn't and at what price.

Shhhhhhhhhh

The complaint is that Crafters have to also be Raiders in order to be better Crafters. They want the two groups of people to be able to be mutually exclusive if they so wish.

Also something to keep in mind. For me as a Jugg, I purposefully do not tank every target. If I tried to I would end up tanking none of them. The regular and Strong targets can often be burned down by DPS allowing the tank to establish threat on the Elites. There is no longer CC targets and Tank targets. There are now CC targets, Burn targets, and Tank targets. At least for Juggernaut tanking.

Basically Vicous Slash is to other Rage using skills as Assault is to Sundering Assault. Its a backup if you can't use your other options. It is good to use if everything is on cooldown and you have lots of rage, but it does less damage per Rage than other skills and has no defensive component like Force Scream, Retaliation, Force Smash, etc.

Usually the only time I feel rage starved is on single target bosses. When everyone is pew pewing the same target I have trouble generating enough rage to keep my threat high enough.

Right, that makes me think it is chance on hit to crit. Meaning the first roll crit chance IS NOT looked at, just accuracy vs. defense. On the second roll, if there is a HIT, then crit rating is looked at vs. shield rating. So that implies that crit rating is a chance on HIT to crit, making Defense useless in becoming crit immune. BUT it can make you take LESS crits because you get hit less often, then the shield rating can take over to decrease your chance further. At least that's how I understand it.

Something else to thing about too, and maybe this has already been answered. Is crit rating the chance of an ATTACK to crit or of a HIT to crit ? If it is chance of ATTACK than defense will decrease crit chance because less are landing. I think its more likely chance of HIT though. Which mean Defense will have no effect on your chance to be crit.

Sweeping Fury, next to last tier talent. My problem is that Enrage isn't always ready when I need it. The other bonus of the above mentioned Sweeping Fury doesn't really help because I avoid using Vicious Slash for other more powerful/efficient skills. Force Choke doesn't work on bosses, and for Saber Throw to work you have to run out of range, which is harder since Force Push doesn't work on bosses either.

It's every 3 seconds with the talent in the tank tree. And it makes a big difference in threat if you are fighting a boss with a 2-3 second swing timer and you avoid several attacks in a row. A shielded attack cannot be a crit and a crit cannot be shielded. So shield chance is the only stat that will effect crit immunity. Now whether or not we can ever actually reach that point I have not seen. It may be required to offload some of that responsibility to the RNG component of Defense.

I have started stacking Shield Rating and Absorb with my unbuffed Defense at around 18%. The reason for this is because our reduced rage cost talent procs on shielding as well as avoidance, but our rage generating from our tank stance only procs when you are hit. So you don't want your Defense so high that you wont be hit once every 3 seconds from a boss. Also shield rating has the side effect of making you crit immune at some point, though I've yet to see if that is actually possible with current gear. This set up makes you get hit more often, but take less damage over time and have maximum amount of Rage generation to increase your threat. Something else to keep in mind too is Accuracy, since interrupts can miss, and you aren't generating threat if you miss your attacks.