The benefits from having higher Strength by using Might Armorings is pretty negligible for mitigation without that old set bonus and it only contributes to your mitigation when you have the buff from Force Scream. I'd personally prefer to have a lot more HP to compensate for mistakes from myself or my healer (I have a tendency to make mistakes when tanking...) or when I take a big hit from spike damage. I didn't mean to imply that YOU take it religiously. I don't know you in-game, nor do I know what strategies you use for gearing your Juggernaut/Guardian. I was just making mention of the fact that many people take KBN's work as gospel, is all.

The reason why it was advised to use Might Armorings over Guardian Armorings was because of the set bonus in 2.X, which buffed the bubble gained from using Force Scream/Blade Storm. The bubble mitigates a moderate amount of damage proportional to your character's mainstat & power (which is why Might Armorings were favoured.) With 3.0 the buff was removed from the setbonus and in all cases Guardian Armorings are superior. With regard to stats, I think people take this 'average mitigation' theorycrafting by KBN a bit too religiously. It can be useful if you're engaged in hardcore ops progression, but it's often unnecessary IMO. It definitely gives you a good understanding of damage types dealt by bosses, which can be useful. For my gearing, I just use the very basic stat priority: Defense Chance > Shield Chance > Shield Absorption Hope that helps

Great post

I think that's a good change, in that Carnage should be more of a sustained-burst hybrid and Fury should be the most burst-y spec. I can recall many times where I had a lot more burst using Carnage over Fury.

Totally agree with this. The class is not overly difficult to play. I think with the changes brought about to the class in 3.0, Immortal Juggernauts got a decent boost to AoE threat. Crushing Blow in combination with the Aegis Assault buff and our Sweeping Slash attack both hit up to 8 targets, up from 4. Saber Reflect also helps a lot with generating threat on multiple targets. Yes, Powertechs and Assassins still perform better for AoE threat, but I think that's the beauty in playing the class -- it's challenging, but fun. I think the only issue I have is when targets are spread out, just the affects of being a purely melee class. I find Threatening Scream + Saber Reflect helps in these sort of situations.

100% agree with you man. I was trying to be sarcastic Immortal Juggernauts have been given the short end of the stick, as it were. I'm glad they implemented some increases to Absorption with Aegis Assault in 3.0, and I'm hoping they do something additional so that as a tanking class we're more on par with our rivals. Sick of seeing only Powertechs and Assassins in the hardcore progression groups

Have to disagree with the people bagging on the 4-piece set bonus. It's valuable. A set bonus increasing defense chance by a small amount would be amazing

For now, Alacrity isn't extremely beneficial for Rage Juggernauts or Fury Marauders. These specs benefit most from Critical Rating and Surge. Maybe further down the line when stat budgets are larger, Alacrity will have some use for these specs. Might be good to play around with it though. I really do suggest learning Accuracy and Surge enhancements, as these will benefit you the most. Get a mix of power and crit too, because you don't want to stack too much crit (around about 100-200 critical rating is best.)

Are you sure it performs better AoE? I've always found Carnage AoE to be utter *****.

I do think Rage is still pretty viable as a burst spec. Sure it's DPS output isn't as good as that of Carnage Marauders, but it's still pretty viable.

Depends on your playstyle and the situation really. Rage is a burst spec with huge damage output over a short period of time and Vengeance is a sustained spec suited for longer fights. You should also note that the damage output of a Vengeance Juggernaut's "Shatter" is Internal damage, so this can't be mitigated by tanks.

Yep, Juggernaut/Guardian tanks get a huge defense boost through the use of their cooldowns!

Melee/Ranged + Kinetic/Energy attacks can be defended and shielded Force/Tech + Kinetic/Energy attacks can be shielded, but not defended Both of the above attack+damage types are mitigated by armor. Force/Tech + Internal/Elemental attacks are neither defended nor shielded against, and cannot be mitigated by armor. The only stat that's useful against F/T + I/E is Endurance. At present no mobs deal Melee/Ranged + Internal/Elemental damage.

The Grey Helix Lightsaber is ******.

Glad some thorough disciplinary action will be taken against the exploiters. This bug really did screw up the game economy and PvE progression...

Great post, Oofalong! Will be testing this out during the weekend. Annihilation vs. Fury, which is your favourite spec to play?

Thanks for posting these man! Will really help with optimising for particular boss fights. @KBN How do you go about calculating the ideal stat distribution after you have the damage types worked out for each of the bosses? Is it a complicated calculation?

Might Augments for Rage spec — lots of surge passives, including a +15% increase Overkill Augments for Vengeance spec

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=791473 You're welcome.

The mods, Advanced Elusive Mod 36B and Advanced Resilient Mod 36B, are in the Yavin Bulwark's armor. Going back to enhancements, you may want to use the 178 ones until you get the 186 Immunity and Sturdiness enhancements crafted, as they have better defensive stats. Any loss in HP will be compensated for by the mods mentioned above, which are endurance heavy.

Good to hear that you're enjoying the game! Although the Yavin Bulwark armour is very poorly optimised and has too much endurance and too little defensive stats, I still think it's a good starting point, especially for Level 60 HM Flashpoints. It's almost 100% necessary that you buy 186 Immunity and Sturdiness enhancements, or get them crafted! In combination with the armorings and mods from the Yavin gear, you'll actually be more than ready for Ravagers and Temple of Sacrifice SM. Make sure you augment your gear too, it'll add on about 728 defensive stats to your stat budget! From there you can start accumulating Resurrected and Massassi gear Good luck!

Thanks for the clarification. I've always been under the opinion that mitigation > endurance in all situations. So would you recommend using B mods and Immunity/Sturdiness enhancements? Or have you found a different combination is better?

I hope for the sake of those who made a stand by not taking advantage of this horrendous bug, you come down hard on those people who exploited it...

With regard to the difference in stats between the Deceiver Pummeler's Chestpiece and the Revanite Vindicator's Chestpiece: Both pieces of armor have identical stats on their armorings, but the Revanite piece is obviously superior in that it contributes to your set bonus. Comparing mods, the Pummeler's chest has an Advanced Deft Mod 38A mod, which has +127 Strength, +90 Endurance, +52 Power. The Vindicator's chest has an unlettered Advanced Deft Mod 38, which has +106 Strength, +81 Endurance, +90 Power. The latter is superior, in that you lose 21 Strength and 9 Endurance in exchange for 38 more Power. Yes, Strength is probably the most sort after stat for a Juggernaut DPS, however the increase in Power outweighs the loss in Strength. Strength is good in that it contributes to BOTH your Primary Damage stat, as well as your Critical Chance. Power doesn't contribute to your Critical Chance, but it contributes slightly more to your Primary Damage than Strength does. TL;DR - Mod in Vindicator's Chestpiece is superior. With enhancements, the Pummeler's Chest has an Advanced Proficient Enhancement 38, which has +98 Endurance, +120 Accuracy and +52 Power. The Vindicator's chest has an Advanced Initiative Enhancement 38, which has +72 Endurance, +120 Accuracy and +81 Power. The latter is again superior, in that you lose 16 Endurance for 29 Power. Like I said before, Endurance is a useless stat for DPS and Healers. Most of the time the tanks are the ones taking damage, so there's no need for DPS or Healers to stack Endurance. The comparison between Strength and Power is a little more complicated, but I can tell you that the unlettered mod is much better than the A mod found in the Pummeler's chest. For the unlettered crit mod, Advanced Potent Mod 38A, you could argue that it's more optimal to use over the unlettered version, in that you get more Strength and less crit, so in some situations the A mod is better to use - this is only for crit though! With regard to Accuracy — I wouldn't suggest undercapping your accuracy if you're running a dot spec (ie Vengeance/Vigilance), as your DoTs have accuracy checks on them 3 times, so you can't afford to miss! Burst specs (ie Rage), on the other hand, are more forgiving and you can afford to have your Accuracy a bit below 100% (not too much though!). In comparing the earpieces, I strongly recommend going for the Revanite one. If this pushes your Crit and Surge a bit too high, then swap out some of your mods and/or enhancements to compensate. You obviously will not have a fully optimised set of gear if you just get every Revanite piece once. You'll need to constantly accrue gear and swap out mods and enhancements to get your stats where they need to be. But that's what makes the whole process fun, it's a process that requires a lot of thought and patience Hope this wasn't too confusing for you and you learnt a bit from it. Happy gearing

Revanite is optimised 1000x better than Deceiver. Deceiver is worse than Resurrected gear and even the craftable 186 mods and enhancements. You ask why? Revanite and Resurrected armours sacrifice Endurance, which is essentially useless for DPS and Healers, in favour of more secondary stat (Power or Crit). I also believe the Resurrected and Revanite mods, which are unlettered provide more mainstat. In using optimised item modifications, on top of the set bonuses from armourings, you will see a significant increase in your damage output