Ideas to reduce Juggernaut ability bloat

[tulisin]

Regardless of whether the juggernaut is strong or not, I think we can all agree that the class has an overabundance of *useful* abilities. While I'm never one to turn down tools, some of these abilities are incredibly situational, but come up often enough that they must be left within easy reach. I'd like to propose some suggestions to simplify the juggernaut ability set without compromising the class' capabilities or power.

 

1. Merge Pommel Strike and Savage Kick into one ability. These two abilities are highly situational and only intended to swiftly dispatch weak mobs that've already been detrimentally affected in some way. The new combined ability would have a 30 second cooldown (averaged between the two abilities) and work on all stunned, slowed, or disabled targets, doing the damage of pommel strike (the higher ability).

 

2. Make shatter a passive upgrade to impale. It is silly to give vengeance two abilities that basically do the same thing. A large initial strike followed by a DoT that makes your next vicious throw/force scream crit. Getting both ranks of shatter would reduce impale's cooldown to 9 seconds (current shatter CD) and add the shatter DoT. This would be an upgrade to impale's damage, justifiable due to the loss of the ability to use one after the other, and something that the single-target offensive spec should have access to anyways.

 

3. Obliterate should be made a passive that improves force charge, again decreasing its cooldown and increasing its damage.

 

4. Remove the cooldown from Sundering Assault. This tiny change makes sundering assault the juggernaut's default attack by completely replacing the standard assault.

 

5. Make vicious throw a passive upgrade to saber throw. This one is a little tricky, and would require a way for the ability to have a different cooldown depending on whether the enemy was >20 % or <20 % HP. Ideally, if the enemy was <20 % then saber throw would be usable at a closer range, do roughly 120 % damage, and come back up in 6 seconds. Again, a little bit of capability would be lost in that juggernauts couldn't quickly use one after the other, but on the plus side "vicious throw" would now generate rage as saber throw does.

 

6. Make retaliation a self-buff that triggers when you have a successful defense (max once every 6 seconds). Simply, it'd make the next attack hit for extra damage. On the downside, no more dropping retaliation for bonus damage during GCD, on the other hand it'd be rage-free and have much greater ease of use.

 

I'd like to hear more ideas for reducing the massive amount of things we can use in any given situation down to a reasonable and malleable toolset.

 

Something that'd be really neat is if abilities could be dynamic depending on target, so for instance if I had Force Jump/Intercede set to Q, it would execute whichever ability applied to my target at the time. The same could be used for Pommel Strike/Savage Kick, as well as Saber/Vicious Throw.

[Antipiety]

For the most part I'm pretty happy with all the useful skills we have. If you want to play a game that only requires 3-5 buttons go try rift or a game with like 6-10 go play wow, we are not the only class that to excel you need to monitor + 12 buttons.

 

Although one change i would like would be a talent that makes charge dmg AOE in the tank tree or low in the bottom tier pvp tree.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Antipiety

[DarthAstarol]

I also think that the level 40 Immortal ability (forget the name) should just do 8% of the target's current health(damage caps somewhere for Elites/Champions) when the target has 5 stacks of sundered. It can keep the CD, and that would certainly help DPS/Threat.

 

PVP shouldn't have too much effect because of the decent CD, and requirement to set up.

[omninull]

Shatter doesn't need to be merged, it just needs to be buffed to justify the 31 point spec. My rotation pretty much allows for me to be using, shatter, impale, force scream, and such as each one goes off cd. I don't like vicious slash using my rage, so that extra ability is nice.

Also, I wouldn't mind the amount of abilities we have, if it meant that pulling off great rotation made us utterly devastating. But this is not the case. Instead we have to pull off flawless rotation just to be on par. So if an ability of ours is resisted, or we make a mistake (and mistakes will always be made), we're in some deep trouble.

 

Having a complex class that requires better timing and a hefty rotation be more powerful than other classes would work, because of the chance of an inevitable mistake, or being caught while cds were active. We shouldn't have to be perfect just to be on par.

Edited January 15, 2012 by omninull

[Calgamer]

I like the idea of merging pommel strike and savage kick. I also like the idea of removing the CD off Sundering Assault and using that as our standard attack.

 

Combining the saber throws would be difficult though. Vicious throw is an execute, whereas the other is more of a ranged pull, in my opinion. They serve very different purposes.

 

And I'm okay with how retaliation works at the moment, so I don't mind that staying the same.

 

Overall, I don't find there to be too many surplus abilities. Savage kick is the only one I don't really use. In fact, I don't think I've ever used it.

[EchoTwoOmega]

For the most part I'm pretty happy with all the useful skills we have. If you want to play a game that only requires 3-5 buttons go try rift or a game with like 6-10 go play wow, we are not the only class that to excel you need to monitor + 12 buttons.

 

Although one change i would like would be a talent that makes charge dmg AOE in the tank tree or low in the bottom tier pvp tree.

 

 

The problem is its more than 12.

 

I agree with the original post that some consolidation of abilities would be quite bennificial to the class.

 

They are pretty good suggestions too, and will still leave plenty of abilities that need to be used.

[AJediKnight]

For the most part I'm pretty happy with all the useful skills we have. If you want to play a game that only requires 3-5 buttons go try rift or a game with like 6-10 go play wow, we are not the only class that to excel you need to monitor + 12 buttons.

 

Although one change i would like would be a talent that makes charge dmg AOE in the tank tree or low in the bottom tier pvp tree.

 

Nobody should be having to use the right/left bars for combat abilities in a modern MMO. If the useful skills for combat cannot be limited to what I can fit on a double bar, then whatever winds up on those side bars simply isn't going to get used.

 

This class -- but, really, most of the classes -- suffer from significant skill bloat, as the OP stated. It's nice to have attack variety, but I don't need my bars clogged up with nearly-identical, highly-situational attacks. Nobody is asking Bioware to dumb the game down to 3-5 abilties, merely to streamline classes so people aren't having to call upon 20+ different attacks in any given moment.

[Supportive]

Nobody should be having to use the right/left bars for combat abilities in a modern MMO. If the useful skills for combat cannot be limited to what I can fit on a double bar, then whatever winds up on those side bars simply isn't going to get used.

 

 

 

Wrong, for me anyway. I have a keybinding to ALL quickslots, even those on the side. Not that hard.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Supportive

[Drayzen]

WTB Macro so I can make Sundering STrike and Assault share the same button. I have 3 bars, because I keep my companion up for min maxing, and the Jugg bloat on immortal is stupid. I have no buttons left.

[steinsgate]

Like #1 and #4, LOVE #2. If they want to keep the sunder mechanic (God only knows why) they can make the bleed only trigger if there is a sunder present.

 

I disagree with #6, though. I mean, I have heroic throw and execute bound on my warrior in WoW, and those skills are basically direct parallels. One's an execute, one's a ranged throw. I really, really like the range on vicious throw.

 

For the most part I'm pretty happy with all the useful skills we have. If you want to play a game that only requires 3-5 buttons go try rift or a game with like 6-10 go play wow, we are not the only class that to excel you need to monitor + 12 buttons.

 

Although one change i would like would be a talent that makes charge dmg AOE in the tank tree or low in the bottom tier pvp tree.

 

Sure, some of them are useful. Then some are so ungodly situational that they're barely worth existing. I swear there are more "Only works on standard and weak mobs who are taller than 1 meter on Tuesdays when it's raining outside and your latency is between 60 and 70 and your lightsaber is green and force push is on cooldown and you're on Tatooine and etc. etc. etc." mechanics in the jugg trees than all the other classes put together.

Edited January 15, 2012 by steinsgate

[Groundshark]

I agree with most of the suggestions made here, but there are some balance issues I'm sure the devs would have to consider and also some tweaks that I think would be necessary to maintain balance and help simplify the class.

 

1. Merge Pommel Strike and Savage Kick into one ability. These two abilities are highly situational and only intended to swiftly dispatch weak mobs that've already been detrimentally affected in some way. The new combined ability would have a 30 second cooldown (averaged between the two abilities) and work on all stunned, slowed, or disabled targets, doing the damage of pommel strike (the higher ability).

 

Do this, and also make them useful outside of PvE engagements. I don't even have these damn things on my hotbar, ****, I don't even think I've trained them.

 

2. Make shatter a passive upgrade to impale. It is silly to give vengeance two abilities that basically do the same thing. A large initial strike followed by a DoT that makes your next vicious throw/force scream crit. Getting both ranks of shatter would reduce impale's cooldown to 9 seconds (current shatter CD) and add the shatter DoT. This would be an upgrade to impale's damage, justifiable due to the loss of the ability to use one after the other, and something that the single-target offensive spec should have access to anyways.

 

If Shatter were a passive to Impale, the passive boost would have to be significantly better than what Shatter is today in order to provide equal or greater value that Shatter provides. By adding Shatter we gain --

 

1) An additional rage dump for when other prioritized abilities are on CD

2) Another way to invoke Savagery

 

In order to more or less "equalize" this deficit if Shatter were to be made passive for Impale the "new" Shatter should, theoretically --

 

1) Lower the cooldown on Impale

2) Increase the crit % chance on Savagery from 60% to 100%

 

3. Obliterate should be made a passive that improves force charge, again decreasing its cooldown and increasing its damage.

 

This may prove difficult to merge in that Obliterate costs rage whereas Charge does not, but aside from that a good suggestion IMO.

 

4. Remove the cooldown from Sundering Assault. This tiny change makes sundering assault the juggernaut's default attack by completely replacing the standard assault.

 

I mentioned this in a response to Zoeller's post on the Classes forum about Juggernauts/Guardians. I honestly think this is a simple change which, if tuned properly, will extremely simplify the ability bloat in this class' rotation.

 

 

5. Make vicious throw a passive upgrade to saber throw. This one is a little tricky, and would require a way for the ability to have a different cooldown depending on whether the enemy was >20 % or <20 % HP. Ideally, if the enemy was <20 % then saber throw would be usable at a closer range, do roughly 120 % damage, and come back up in 6 seconds. Again, a little bit of capability would be lost in that juggernauts couldn't quickly use one after the other, but on the plus side "vicious throw" would now generate rage as saber throw does.

 

Again, as I pointed out with the Obliterate suggestion, this can be a tricky change as Saber Throw generates and Vicious Throw depletes. I'm not sure that changing VT to actually generate rage would be the answer, either as I'm not sure if that is balanced. I also mentioned this to Zoeller on the Classes forum -- I think the range should be increased for Vicious Throw. He mentioned they were looking into the mobility of the Warrior/Knight in PvP, and a range increase on this ability would certainly help increase our viability while being kited.

 

6. Make retaliation a self-buff that triggers when you have a successful defense (max once every 6 seconds). Simply, it'd make the next attack hit for extra damage. On the downside, no more dropping retaliation for bonus damage during GCD, on the other hand it'd be rage-free and have much greater ease of use.

 

This suggestion not 100% sound. Do not forget that Retaliation more or less nullifies the target's defense in that it can't be missed, parried or dodged, so simply increasing the next attack's damage would not suffice as the defense bypass would be OP for certain abilities up next in the player's rotation. However, perhaps if they made the next ability used ignore dodge/parry/defense (can't miss) WITHOUT increasing damage, then that would be incredibly useful. An issue of balance arises though when you consider that no rage would be deducted as it is today when Retaliation is used.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Groundshark

[archontrieste]

For the most part I'm pretty happy with all the useful skills we have. If you want to play a game that only requires 3-5 buttons go try rift or a game with like 6-10 go play wow, we are not the only class that to excel you need to monitor + 12 buttons.

 

Although one change i would like would be a talent that makes charge dmg AOE in the tank tree or low in the bottom tier pvp tree.

 

12? Try 26, and I'm only level 36. That's what I've got on my bars as far as skills I regularly use or skills I need to keep on my bar for situational purposes, not including relics, medpacks, speeder, stims, PvP items, hutball, et cetera. On top of that, we run on a priority system - more difficult to manage than simple rotations. The result is this class is harder to optimize for the same amount of oomph or less than those classes who can simply spam a few abilities on an endless cycle.

 

The real kicker though, and in my opinion the only reason why this is even a problem, is that a ton of our abilities are practically duplicates or are so obviously workable into other existing skills without upsetting balance that you wonder what BioWare was thinking. If we had 26+ abilities that all did drastically different stuff, the only problem I would have is not being able to sufficiently customize the UI.

Edited January 16, 2012 by archontrieste

[Ravenacht]

For the most part I'm pretty happy with all the useful skills we have. If you want to play a game that only requires 3-5 buttons go try rift or a game with like 6-10 go play wow, we are not the only class that to excel you need to monitor + 12 buttons.

 

Although one change i would like would be a talent that makes charge dmg AOE in the tank tree or low in the bottom tier pvp tree.

 

Well, on my WoW Warrior I have 50 key bindings for 54 skills and macros (including trinkets (relics) and potions (med kits)) so I have no problem with a large amount of skills.

 

The problem in SWToR is that you only have 2 (rather huge) bars with 12 slots at the bottom while my (custom build) WoW interface has has 4.5 ( ) bars with 12 slots.

 

For everything the default SWToR interface does right this is one major flaw and leads to problems with a large number of available skills (whether they are useful or not) because you can't keep track of all cooldowns when you have to move your eyes every 1.5 seconds across a 22" monitor from bottom to left to right and so on.

 

I don't think skill reduction or merging is necessary if Bioware adds a third or even fourth bar at the bottom (and reduce the size of slots).

 

Yes, you can swap bars but in my opinion this has two negative effects. The first one is that the muscle memory can be confused when you map 2 different skills to the same button. the second one is because you can't track the cooldowns on bars that are not visible.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Ravenacht

[tulisin]

 

If Shatter were a passive to Impale, the passive boost would have to be significantly better than what Shatter is today in order to provide equal or greater value that Shatter provides. By adding Shatter we gain --

 

1) An additional rage dump for when other prioritized abilities are on CD

2) Another way to invoke Savagery

 

 

You're right, I didn't consider that using both abilities increases the chance to trigger savagery. Still, I don't like how similar these two abilities are.

[DiLune]

The problem is its more than 12.

 

I agree with the original post that some consolidation of abilities would be quite bennificial to the class.

 

They are pretty good suggestions too, and will still leave plenty of abilities that need to be used.

 

When quickbar 1 has abilities you always use, quickbar 2 has abilities you usually use, but are on slightly longer CD's and quickbar 3 has abilities you occassionaly use but need to have available, you know there is a problem.

[PestisX]

TLDR; Add fall-through macroes. It'll let us save maybe 3 or 4 slots by combining duplicate priority based bloat abilities such as the ones you've mentioned. Edited January 16, 2012 by PestisX

[DiLune]

For everything the default SWToR interface does right this is one major flaw and leads to problems with a large number of available skills (whether they are useful or not) because you can't keep track of all cooldowns when you have to move your eyes every 1.5 seconds across a 22" monitor from bottom to left to right and so on.

 

Heads up CD/proc notifications would be nice. Its fun that my eyes glow when retaliate is up. But how often do I get to actually see my character (from the back or front) as much as I'm watching my bars?

[PestisX]

Heads up CD/proc notifications would be nice. Its fun that my eyes glow when retaliate is up. But how often do I get to actually see my character (from the back or front) as much as I'm watching my bars?

 

Hah, yea it's pretty bad when 75% of tanking a boss is really just a mini-game of cool-down whack a mole.

Edited January 16, 2012 by PestisX

[tulisin]

TLDR; Add fall-through macroes. It'll let us save maybe 3 or 4 slots by combining duplicate priority based bloat abilities such as the ones you've mentioned.

 

This. Yeah. I should be able to hit one button for "main attack" and if sundering isn't up it'll execute standard assault.

[Bangoskanko]

There is no ability bloat as a Juggernaut.

[PestisX]

There is no ability bloat as a Juggernaut.

 

These are not the droids you are looking for.

[DarthVindictus]

Regardless of whether the juggernaut is strong or not, I think we can all agree that the class has an overabundance of *useful* abilities. While I'm never one to turn down tools, some of these abilities are incredibly situational, but come up often enough that they must be left within easy reach. I'd like to propose some suggestions to simplify the juggernaut ability set without compromising the class' capabilities or power.

 

1. Merge Pommel Strike and Savage Kick into one ability. These two abilities are highly situational and only intended to swiftly dispatch weak mobs that've already been detrimentally affected in some way. The new combined ability would have a 30 second cooldown (averaged between the two abilities) and work on all stunned, slowed, or disabled targets, doing the damage of pommel strike (the higher ability).

 

2. Make shatter a passive upgrade to impale. It is silly to give vengeance two abilities that basically do the same thing. A large initial strike followed by a DoT that makes your next vicious throw/force scream crit. Getting both ranks of shatter would reduce impale's cooldown to 9 seconds (current shatter CD) and add the shatter DoT. This would be an upgrade to impale's damage, justifiable due to the loss of the ability to use one after the other, and something that the single-target offensive spec should have access to anyways.

 

3. Obliterate should be made a passive that improves force charge, again decreasing its cooldown and increasing its damage.

 

4. Remove the cooldown from Sundering Assault. This tiny change makes sundering assault the juggernaut's default attack by completely replacing the standard assault.

 

5. Make vicious throw a passive upgrade to saber throw. This one is a little tricky, and would require a way for the ability to have a different cooldown depending on whether the enemy was >20 % or <20 % HP. Ideally, if the enemy was <20 % then saber throw would be usable at a closer range, do roughly 120 % damage, and come back up in 6 seconds. Again, a little bit of capability would be lost in that juggernauts couldn't quickly use one after the other, but on the plus side "vicious throw" would now generate rage as saber throw does.

 

6. Make retaliation a self-buff that triggers when you have a successful defense (max once every 6 seconds). Simply, it'd make the next attack hit for extra damage. On the downside, no more dropping retaliation for bonus damage during GCD, on the other hand it'd be rage-free and have much greater ease of use.

 

I'd like to hear more ideas for reducing the massive amount of things we can use in any given situation down to a reasonable and malleable toolset.

 

Something that'd be really neat is if abilities could be dynamic depending on target, so for instance if I had Force Jump/Intercede set to Q, it would execute whichever ability applied to my target at the time. The same could be used for Pommel Strike/Savage Kick, as well as Saber/Vicious Throw.

 

All of these ideas are absolutely terrible. I'd jump ship on the class if they were implemented, here's why:

 

Savage Kick/Pommel Strike: I like having both skills, they have decent animations and have DIFFERENT conditions that I can use them under. As a vengeance Juggernaut I cannot often stun or incapacitate strongs, only weaks and normals. But I can snare and immobilize strongs. So I will often jump into a fight, targeting a strong, use savage kick on it (from the force charge immobilize), smash, switch targets to a normal, pommel strike (often killing the normal). You would not be able to do that under your idea.

 

Impale/Shatter: These are not quite the same, impale is a strong up front damage with weak DoT trailing off of it if you spec for it, and shatter is a weaker up front damage with a strong DoT trailing off of it. 2/3 of Shatter's damage is from the DoT. I use both skills almost back to back frequently, good burst damage (about 2500ish if both crit) and a nice double stacked DoT for about 2400 total at my level (43).

 

Obliterate: The point of obliterate is a second (albeit short range) force jump, to make it more difficult to kite. Reducing the cooldown of charge does not accomplish this. Say you charge a sage, you've used your cooldown, they force wave you 10m away, with your idea, you're SoL, you're waiting for force charge's cooldown. With Obliterate, you're right back on top of them, and now they don't have force wave.

 

Vicious Throw/Saber Throw: Terrible idea. Saber Throw is a rage generator, Vicious throw is a finishing move, they are nothing alike in function, only alike in animation.

 

Retalliation: Terrible idea #6, retalliation is useful as it is because it's off the GCD, allowing for an extra spike of damage/threat.

 

Sundering assault I would support, but then again, it's much stronger than normal assault and I don't think Bioware would go for it.

[bliapis]

As for pommel strike and kick i have to comment that in a situation of multiadds - which is the most usual, i charge/kick the furst, slam to stun and pommel the second.

 

If it gets combined then i loose 1 powerfull attack that i am doing in a very short window of each other.

[Zellviren]

I’m with the OP, and think some of his ideas are actually right on the money. Some highlights for me might be:

 

1) Merge Savage Kick and Vicious Throw into Pommel strike, then make it the sub-20% execution ability. Three situational attacks where only one is required is “bloat”, but I do understand the different conditions they are used under (particularly multi-mob pulls).

 

2) Have Sundering Assault as the main rage builder (thanks to deep Immortal talents), replacing Assault; probably via Sweeping Fury. Remove the extra Soresu proc in order to balance the rage gain, and this also becomes something of a net damage buff.

 

3) Many problems could be solved by a cast sequence macro; I look forward to when these make it into the game, as well as the restrictions being lifted for UI mods. I honestly think a lot of issues could be alleviated if the standard UI wasn’t so horribly fugly.

 

All of these ideas are absolutely terrible.

 

In YOUR opinion.

 

The OP is merely saying that he believes Juggernauts have too many skills to consider and how he would maybe remove what he thinks is bloat. You may not like the ideas, but that doesn’t make them terrible by default as others might find them appealing in order to clean their bars up a bit.

 

Please don’t show such determination to replicate a bad and hostile community from another game (at best), or be so laughably arrogant (at worst).

[DarthVindictus]

I’m with the OP, and think some of his ideas are actually right on the money. Some highlights for me might be:

 

1) Merge Savage Kick and Vicious Throw into Pommel strike, then make it the sub-20% execution ability. Three situational attacks where only one is required is “bloat”, but I do understand the different conditions they are used under (particularly multi-mob pulls).

 

2) Have Sundering Assault as the main rage builder (thanks to deep Immortal talents), replacing Assault; probably via Sweeping Fury. Remove the extra Soresu proc in order to balance the rage gain, and this also becomes something of a net damage buff.

 

3) Many problems could be solved by a cast sequence macro; I look forward to when these make it into the game, as well as the restrictions being lifted for UI mods. I honestly think a lot of issues could be alleviated if the standard UI wasn’t so horribly fugly.

 

 

 

In YOUR opinion.

 

The OP is merely saying that he believes Juggernauts have too many skills to consider and how he would maybe remove what he thinks is bloat. You may not like the ideas, but that doesn’t make them terrible by default as others might find them appealing in order to clean their bars up a bit.

 

Please don’t show such determination to replicate a bad and hostile community from another game (at best), or be so laughably arrogant (at worst).

 

 

 

You see bloat, I see abilities that we can currently use back to back, these combinations would effectively nerf our capabilities in combat.