Trouble with threat when tanking as a JK Guardian.

[WraithofTerragon]

Hello everyone. I've been tanking for several weeks now as Jedi Knight Guardian. I've been playing MMO's as a tank for years now so I'm familiar with how things go. I cannot wrap my head around why my threat per second is so weak compared to the dps classes even when I put guard on one them. I'll pop my Hilt strike, guardian slash, Blade storm then sundering strike and still they pull off of me. It's ridiculous and I would like to know if anyone else is having problems tanking as a guardian. I've read up on tanking rotation and priority lists for my class and I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. My stats are appropriate for my gear. I am geared in epic tionese and columi gear. I also looked at the other tanking classes and notice they get higher threat generation moves on shorter cooldowns. In all honesty that seems to be a bit unfair, I know JK guardians get survival cooldowns but at least give us a tool to use more consistently then hilt strike. Maybe make it so when you are in soresu form one of your base moves like sundering strike or blade storm builds high amounts of threat. I'm not a developer so I'm not going to tell you guys at bioware how to do your jobs. I love the game and I am willing to keep pushing forward but I just want to know what is wrong with my class. Also please be respectful with any comments, inputs, or suggestions. I know my class and I know how to play.

[Faolon]

It's a common problem, don't worry, you're not alone.

 

If a DPSer knows what they're doing, they'll peel things off you quick. Guardian threat needs a bit of a boost atm, imo.

[WraithofTerragon]

Thank you for the kind reply. It's reassuring to know I'm not the only one.

[Wenzu]

It's a common problem, don't worry, you're not alone.

 

If a DPSer knows what they're doing, they'll peel things off you quick. Guardian threat needs a bit of a boost atm, imo.

 

Yep, you know its bad when you have a dream they fixed it. Its just sad cause I dont think it will get fixed anytime soon. To much going on in other places.

[Kurugi]

I just ran a heroic 2 quest with a Sage who had Qyzen in tank stance with taunt on auto cast. He tanked WAAAAAY better than I did.

 

Granted I'm pretty sure companion threat stance is +100% threat generation. Why it's only 50% for guardians I have no idea.

[camelism]

Hey there, am finding the same problem with tanking.

been level 50 for a week or 2 and changed my skill tree to tanking as it seemed more fun except when doing FPs i cant seem to keep the enemies focused on me.

i am a jedi guardian tank and was wondering which moves have threat/ high threat and any general routines of how to use them.

hope anyone can help thanks

Edited February 28, 2012 by camelism

[xxWargodxx]

Hey there, am finding the same problem with tanking.

been level 50 for a week or 2 and changed my skill tree to tanking as it seemed more fun except when doing FPs i cant seem to keep the enemies focused on me.

i am a jedi guardian tank and was wondering which moves have threat/ high threat and any general routines of how to use them.

hope anyone can help thanks

 

Sorry mate, there is no 'good' answer for you. The life of the JG tank is one of losing threat and there's not much you can do about it. I have a 50 JG tank and a 50 Vanguard tank, the Vanguard holds agro way better and just by looking at the numbers flash on the screen I can tell it's because he's doing more damage than my JG.

 

Soooo, unless/until Bioware pulls their heads out of their arses and fixes JG threat you're stuck.

[CecilTellyn]

I just ran a heroic 2 quest with a Sage who had Qyzen in tank stance with taunt on auto cast. He tanked WAAAAAY better than I did.

 

Granted I'm pretty sure companion threat stance is +100% threat generation. Why it's only 50% for guardians I have no idea.

 

Bold added. Agree 100%. I've noticed that with a companion on tank stance, even my taunts won't peel mobs off them. I didn't think that was possible.

 

Maybe it's just a bug but companions on tank stance seem to have the "takes aggro 100% of the time" skill.

[Abbigor]

Man, am I glad the class is bugged. Ok, that came out wrong, let me start again...

I was worried for a while that I simply sucked at playing a JG tank, but I see here that I'm not the only one with the problem.

 

Here are, what I belive to be some of the ways the Jedi Guardian can be fixed:

 

I may be wrong, but the only ability we have that clearly says in the tooltip: "Generates high amount of threat" is the Hilt Strike. And now look at it's cooldown, I'll give you a minute, go ahead, take a look. Yes, that minute I gave you, THAT'S THE FRIGGIN COOLDOWN!

Seriously, a one minute cooldown on our (what I belive is the) only *high aggro* attack?

If it's the only *high aggro* attack, it should be on like a 6 second cooldown, not TEN TIMES that much.

Here's a thought: why not make Sundering Strike do crazy threat while we are in the tanking form? Then you can throw the hilt strike out alltogether for all I care.

 

Let's continue, 15 sec cooldown might be a bit too long for a taunt, I don't want to be one of those guys that compares every damn MMO out there with *the game that shall not be named*, but still. It would be nice to take a bit off the top, let's say 10 seconds. Even that is longer then *some other games*.

 

The tanking form: I agree with you guys completely, giving companions double threat, but giving the people that are actualy supposed to tank bosses only half more then initial threat is idiotic.

 

The fact that we can't tank multiple opponents as well as some other classes, a Jedi Shadow/Sith Assasin comes to mind, is fine by me. I don't know from personal expirience, but *I hear* that Shadows/Assasins have problems standing up to hard hitting bosses. If that's the case, it's ok IMO. One is for stoping invading legions, the other for blocking missles with his face.

 

Now, out of the three issues I counted here: a high threat hit, the single target taunt and the extra threat generated while in the tanking form, I really belive that fixing only two of those would solve all of our problems. Hell, just give us double threat while in the tanking form like you do companions and we are golden.

 

Unfortunately ladies and gentlemen, my fellow tanks. I think we are talking at a wall here, because during the course of the past few months, BioWare and EA have shown us how much they care about what their customers think. Not at all. There are still bugs in the game that have been there since day one. There are other bugs that they have stated they fixed with patches and they haven't and I could go on for pages.

 

I'm afraid it will be a cold day on Tatooine before we see BW/EA do anything for us. So all I can say is: "Keep your chin up, and tell the DDs to burn their threat reducers when ever they are off cooldown".

[PhantomMalice]

Based on the observation from the OP's first post, the problem lies in the rotation. See, Guardian's threat generation depends heavily on weapon's damage and this fact is clearly reinforced by the fact that Guardians have the highest base damage value from their "signature moves". A Guardian also needs to understand types and nature of their damage in order to maximize damage dealt and threat generated. There are 2 types and nature which applies in this game:

 

Melee/Force

 

This is your "Accuracy" determinant. It determines the hit/miss chance from your Melee/Force on your character sheet. By default all characters have 90% base for melee 100% base for Force

 

Energy/Kinetic, Elemental/Internal

 

Energy/Kinetic nature damage determines what TYPE of damage done. Energy and Kinetic basically means the same.(getting slash by Lightsaber/shot by blast = energy; getting punched/kicked/clawed/slapped= Kinetic) Both Energy and Kinetic damage types are AFFECTED by armor.

 

Elemental/Internal is second TYPE of damage that can be done in this game and is by far the most devastating. There are NO DEFENSE against these types of damage except for talents and Consular buff. These damage are also NOT AFFECTED by armor, which is the reason why Sith Sorcs appears to be so over-powered.

 

With that said, a Guardian has to be smart about their damage management. Here is my typical pull on a raid boss along with explanations:

 

1. Saber Throw + Force Leap (Self explanatory; +6 Focus)

2. Sunder Strike (Your initial armor debuff; +8 focus by now)

3. Guardian Slash ( +4 focus by now)

- I chose to use GS here because the result is an immediate +3 stack of sunder armor, thus totaling up to 5 stacks in span of 2 GCD in melee contact.

- Since every single one of our attacks as a tank deals Kinetic damage type, therefore setting up 5 stacks sunders is essential to give our big hitters a much larger impact.

 

4. Bladestorm +Force Stasis (Spend your Momentum for Blade Barrier, stasis for extra damage and focus)

5. Hilt Strike (spend the focus you built up

- Here comes the devastating punch, damage is further enhanced from the 5 stacks of sunder

6. Force Sweep (By now you should have 3 stacks of Courage therefore this attack should be free)

7. Master Strike (Add more salt to the wound)

 

As you can see, I chose to use Guardian Slash early in order to enhance my subsequent attacks; and because I used Guardian Slash early by the time I finished Force Sweep, I can simply use Sunder Strike once to build focus (plus refreshing sunder armor stacks), then immediately launch a devastating 2.5k Guardian Slash on the target.

----------

 

IF above fails and DPS is still pulling aggro, switch your Lightsaber to a DPS-orientated one and/or use Might stim. But seriously, using my method I can hold threat against Rakata level dps (with Rakata level weapons) with my Tionese level weapon. The only ways my guild has ever found to pull threat off me is to remove me from the group, "accidentally" taunt or jumping ahead.

[Miraodus]

I just ran a heroic 2 quest with a Sage who had Qyzen in tank stance with taunt on auto cast. He tanked WAAAAAY better than I did.

 

Granted I'm pretty sure companion threat stance is +100% threat generation. Why it's only 50% for guardians I have no idea.

 

Tanking Companions have 100% threat generation so that they can actually hold threat off you. While I wasn't a part of Beta, I remember someone on these forums saying that tanking companions used to have much better dps than they do now and therefore only had a 50% threat increase while in tank stance. Bioware, pre-launch, decided to nerf tank companion DPS but gave them 100% threat generation to compensate for the dps loss.

 

I can totally understand your train of thought but know that if you take your tank companion's taunt off autofire and go in a straight up DPS/threat war, you will win EVERY time.

[Miraodus]

Elemental/Internal is second TYPE of damage that can be done in this game and is by far the most devastating. There are NO DEFENSE against these types of damage except for talents and Consular buff. These damage are also NOT AFFECTED by armor, which is the reason why Sith Sorcs appears to be so over-powered.

 

Just thought I'd clarify that a very strong portion of Sorc's damage is ENERGY and therefore is mitigated by armor.

 

The more common ENERGY abilities in a Sorc's arsenal are:

1) Lightning Strike

2) Force Lightning

3) Chain Lightning

 

They have 4 internal abilities but 2 are DoTs, 1 is the 31-point Lightning talent and the other is Death Field. The DoTs can be cleansed and easily absorbed/healed through....not many people take 31-point lightning for PvP. Death Field is the one to watch out for but it's on a 15-second cooldown.

 

So just to re-iterate, the 3 most common abilities sorcs use are ENERGY damage. No need to worry; nothing to see here.

[SillyStuff]

I have a 50 Guardian and have no problem holding single target aggro when I want to. You won't be able to hold multiple target aggro if dps is doing aoe attacks or if the dps are targeting different mobs. Its also very easy to lose the top rung on the aggro table if you don't keep hitting mobs; it takes about 3 hits for someone to move above you on the aggro table. It's the way threat is calculated by Bioware. Unlike other MMOs, the guardian needs to taunt a lot to stay on top of the aggro table, damage alone doesn't cut it. Even hilt strike doesn't produce enough threat to jump to the top, if it is even working properly.

[RydelFox]

This is your "Accuracy" determinant. It determines the hit/miss chance from your Melee/Force on your character sheet. By default all characters have 90% base for melee 100% base for Force

 

The 100% isn't only for Force, it's for Special attacks; attacks that deal yellow damage. In melee, if you cursor over your accuracy, you'll see 2 different numbers, since melee can be normal or special. Force only has 1 number since Force attacks are always yellow damage.

[PhantomMalice]

 

They have 4 internal abilities but 2 are DoTs, 1 is the 31-point Lightning talent and the other is Death Field. The DoTs can be cleansed and easily absorbed/healed through....not many people take 31-point lightning for PvP. Death Field is the one to watch out for but it's on a 15-second cooldown.

 

So just to re-iterate, the 3 most common abilities sorcs use are ENERGY damage. No need to worry; nothing to see here.

 

First of all, when I came to this thread I was under the impression that we are talking about PVE. Someone not taking 31-point lightning for PVE is... well... messed up in the head. In PVE mobs don't dispel DoTs and other effects off them and under very rare circumstances do they even heal themselves. So yes, with 4 attacks with the option to completely bypass Defense and armor, Sorcs are considered over-powered compared to those who doesn't get that option (I.E Combat Spec'ed Sentinels).

 

The 100% isn't only for Force, it's for Special attacks; attacks that deal yellow damage. In melee, if you cursor over your accuracy, you'll see 2 different numbers, since melee can be normal or special. Force only has 1 number since Force attacks are always yellow damage.

 

"Special Attacks" are Force attacks. Do not confuse what I am talking about here with actually animation in game. Here, I am talking about attacks that are labeled "Melee" or "Force" on the right-hand column with you press "P". Attacks like "Hilt Strike", "Pommel Strike" are considered Force attacks despite the fact that the animation is punching someone in the face. Force Leap is considered Melee attack despite the fact that it has the word "Force" as part of its name.

 

If you're still not convinced mouse over your "Melee Accuracy" again under your character sheet. Compare the "Special attack" with your "Force Accuracy". You will find that their values are exactly the same. Coincidence? I think not.

[RydelFox]

There is a difference between special attacks and melee attacks.

Dispatch, Saber Throw, Guardian Slash, Overhead Slash, and Master Strike are all Melee abilities, but are Special attacks, dealing yellow damage and having a baseline accuracy of 100%. These are not force attacks, they can be shielded against.

[PhantomMalice]

There is a difference between special attacks and melee attacks.

Dispatch, Saber Throw, Guardian Slash, Overhead Slash, and Master Strike are all Melee abilities, but are Special attacks, dealing yellow damage and having a baseline accuracy of 100%. These are not force attacks, they can be shielded against.

 

I must be really color blind or there is a huge display problem for you. I can assure you beyond all reasonable doubt that all the above skills you've listed are WHITE DAMAGE. This means when I use those skills the numbers that pops up appears as WHITE. Unless our idea of White and Yellow damage is different, I will have to say you are wrong about the damage types of attacks you've listed.

 

OK, suppose for the sake of argument, you are correct about Dispatch and Overhead Slash. How in the name of good conscience can you say Saber Throw, Guardian Slash and most ridiculous of all, Master Strike (lol?) are yellow damages?

[CapuchinSeven]

I must be really color blind or there is a huge display problem for you. I can assure you beyond all reasonable doubt that all the above skills you've listed are WHITE DAMAGE. This means when I use those skills the numbers that pops up appears as WHITE. Unless our idea of White and Yellow damage is different, I will have to say you are wrong about the damage types of attacks you've listed.

 

OK, suppose for the sake of argument, you are correct about Dispatch and Overhead Slash. How in the name of good conscience can you say Saber Throw, Guardian Slash and most ridiculous of all, Master Strike (lol?) are yellow damages?

 

You're right, outside of the DOTs they are white damage.

[RydelFox]

They are white? My apologies, then. I'm posting at work and was trying to get the attacks from memory. I will have to double-check the attacks from home in a few hours.

[Finleyville]

@PhantomMalice,

 

I would be very interested in seeing your final skill tree plz. Nice description of your boss rotation. It makes lots of sense.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Finleyville

[Melchiora]

At least for snipers, the thing to look at is not melee/force for accuracy, but basic/special. Feel free to test with another white damage attack. Pull in a friend, take off your accuracy gear, and see if you get any misses (not parry/dodge/block, but MISS). When I tested it on my IA with snipe (white damage attack, not the basic) 100 times I got a statistically very high confidence result that the miss chance was not the 6% I'd have had if snipe was considered a "basic" attack (wasn't 10% because my sniper rifle had some accuracy on it).

 

The ONLY attack which uses the basic 90% base is the basic "costs no resources (and gives a couple rage for sith warrior and jedi knight). This is regardless of whether the damage is white/yellow.

 

White damage can be dodge/parried and blocked.

Yellow damage cannot be blocked or dodged.

 

Kinetic and Energy damage is reduced by armor.

Internal and Elemental damage is not reduced by armor.

 

If it does "weapon" type damage it uses the damage type of your equipped weapon.

 

Seriously, go smack a friend with slash 100 times. Reduce your accuracy as much as you can (so basic is as much below 100% as you can get it). Report your results. Now, you'll need to use strike or something too, make sure that any misses you see are for the slash attack, not strike.

 

With my test on my sniper, I wound up with about a 0.3% chance that my no miss in 100 white damage attacks was simply due to random chance. It's not 99.9% certainty, but gosh, my brother was bored being a target dummy so 99.7% certainty will just have to do.