Make Guardian Slash Produce Threat

[Leatham]

Otherwise JK aggro will suck. I envy Vanguards so much in their threat generation...

[FalmeseReb]

2/3 guardian trees are dps...

[teoita]

2/3 guardian trees are dps...

 

 

And guardian slash is in the tanking tree. No idea what your post is about.

 

On topic: yeah sounds reasonable. It would also be nice if, say, in Soresu form Cyclone Slash generated extra threat.

[FalmeseReb]

I misread your proposal as asking for the basic 3 focus attack slash to generate threat, forgot the 31pt tank skill was called guardian slash too...

[Jonlo]

I'm not having very many issues in the way of threat generation in any of the fights I do. Maybe I'm missing something?

 

If it's an AoE pack, I leap, sweep, cyclone slash, then single target attacks on any strong/elite I need to really hold. After the AoE starts, I just hit Command, and everything is usually dead except the clean up mobs.

 

Unless you consider taunting cheating or something.

[KurtDunn]

I'm not having very many issues in the way of threat generation in any of the fights I do. Maybe I'm missing something?

 

If it's an AoE pack, I leap, sweep, cyclone slash, then single target attacks on any strong/elite I need to really hold. After the AoE starts, I just hit Command, and everything is usually dead except the clean up mobs.

 

Unless you consider taunting cheating or something.

 

The AoE taunt should not be used on every cooldown. Other classes don't have to use the AoE taunt to gain and maintain aggro, but to my experience we have to. This leaves us at a loss when another group is pulled, or adds are summoned, or some other snap-threat is needed in an emergency.

[Leatham]

Guardian is supposed to be the ultimate tank, yet Vanguard can hold aggro better. Doesnt make sense if you ask me.

[Pryan_Shimrod]

I agree that the aggro generation is seriously lacking. Did Directive 7 with a Vigilance specced 47 Guardian, who kept pulling aggro off of me, *with guard up on him*.

That just should not happen, unless that guy was taunting, which he wasn't.

 

Also there're just too many packs that are not suitable for JK (or Shadow, for that matter) tanking. "commando" type mobs that bump, mez, stun you means there's no way to tank the pack (there're a few of these packs in H2s in Corellia's quests), 5 commando type mobs is just not tankable. Any mob that stuns you for up to 5 seconds at the start of the fight means your tanking is completely screwed, that just doesn't happen with a Vanguard. Or very spread out sets of ranged mobs with no way to LoS pull..

 

I'm all up for working a bit to keep the mobs on you, but this is a bit too frustrating.

[secfan]

Yeah, I totally agree with the OP that threat generation from Guardian attacks is an issue that needs to be addressed. I was complaining about this to my guildmates last night after our Hard Mode EV. Our Trooper tank, who is comparably geared, breezed through while I was scrambling around for aggro.

 

My experience tanking before this was on a Paladin in WOW. There is a self buff there called righteous fury that multiplies threat. I expected Soresu form to work basically the same way -- to generate sufficient additional threat that i could chain my main attacks and use the extra aggro ones to supplement. However, the threat multiplier seems too weak to accomplish what it needs to in this game and the hilt strike doesn't seem to even pull mobs back who've peeled off.

 

Taunting should be necessary, but I feel that the tanking mechanics for Guardian rely on taunt almost exclusively. I don't mind working for threat or even taunting when a gunslinger overdoes it, but having to taunt for every mob all the time takes some of the enjoyment away from the fight. I really want to feel like the mob is PO'ed at me because i'm hitting him in the face, not because i'm continually saying "hey - come here - don't forget me." I think the fact that a larger percentage of mobs in this game are ranged adds to this problem for Guardians.

[sotacram]

Guardian is supposed to be the ultimate tank, yet Vanguard can hold aggro better. Doesnt make sense if you ask me.

 

Where did you read that Guardians is supposed to be the ultimate tank?

 

If we are going according to SW lore, troopers out of the gate will be much stronger than a freshly minted Jedi (padawan).

 

Deflecting blaster bolts required an extensive amount of concentration while standing still. (Luke in ANH). When adding in movement and other factors an even higher level of mastery over the force is needed. (Windu/Kenobi AOTC)

 

In this way I appreciate what the Devs were POSSIBLY thinking when they created the JK Guardian. The learning curve is very large but rewarding in the end.

 

Do I wish threat generation could be better? Sure I always welcome good change.

 

I enjoy playing classes that have a higher than average difficulty. I was a BST on FFXI pre-leave patch.

[Smashbrother]

Ya I agree Guardians need a slight boost in threat generation. Bump soresu form up by 20% or so and I think it should be good.

[KiranK]

I wouldn't complain if both Guardian Slash and Cyclone Slash(talented with Pacification) had increased threat. That would make tanking so much smoother. No longer do I need to mash challenging call and taunt every time they're off CD.

[PatDay]

Where did you read that Guardians is supposed to be the ultimate tank?

 

I don't think BW ever said JKGs are meant to be the ultimate tank but I think it's implied by the gaming community simply from a game theory point of view.

 

JKGs have extremely limited AoE or ranged attacks. They can't self heal. They can't stealth. They have very little CC. They have arguably the weakest damage mitigation mechanic (shields stink) of any tank. And if you spec defense as a JKG, you'll have the least damage in game.

 

What's the upside? Why bother to play JKG at all if you're not the best tank? I'm playing one myself as my main and the only reason I continue to do so is out of pure stubbornness. But now in the mid-30s I have trouble keeping threat. I'm a pure defense spec tank and I'm constantly having to use taunts just to keep enemies on me (thank god for the AoE taunt). The only reason my group of friends does well with me as a tank is because their classes have tons of CC and can handle it when a mob splits off.

 

It feels like for the effort I put in as a player to tank as a JKG, I would make a far better Vangaurd.

[Faolon]

It feels like for the effort I put in as a player to tank as a JKG, I would make a far better Vangaurd.

 

If you want to be the best tank, yes, going Vanguard is probably the best idea.

[daggerdun]

If you want to be the best tank, yes, going Vanguard is probably the best idea.

 

Agreed... well mostly, shadow seems to be doing fine. If you played a paladin in wow, you need to look into shadow's Kinetic Combat tree. Just re-roll. Its what I did after hitting level 40 with this god awful class. Jedi Knight Guardian spec has almost too many flaws to collectively count. It starts with the long-winded tanking rotation that is, well annoying and cumbersome, that continues into the malfunctioning riposte (oops there's a big chunk of your avoidance and time/threat-gen lost trying to activate it), which leads into the focus-gen penalty you get for having your tank stance up (which is funny because shadow's get a buff to force regeneration), and lands some where in the range of the completely ineffective overall threat generation.

 

suggestions on how to fix this?

Here's my thoughts on the subject:

!.) fix riposte, everyone is sick of seeing there tank glitch out all the time.

 

2.) Focus generation, remove the -1 focus gen from builder attacks or reduce the cost of some of the other attacks in the tree by 1 point.

 

3.) Re-examine your cooldown strategy for this class! it seems woefully ridiculous for a tank to have to spam their Energy gain GCD and their aoe taunt on every single pull. That's bad game design.

 

4.) add a rebuke like ability to the class, and if you've never played rift here's how it worked: you target a mob at medium range a bit out of their aggro bubble, you pressed rebuke and the mobs were forced to run at you for 5 seconds. give it a 1min cd and BOOM you have jedi knight guardian tank pulling issues reduced in both stress and ranged issues.

[EdAraujo]

I don't think BW ever said JKGs are meant to be the ultimate tank but I think it's implied by the gaming community simply from a game theory point of view.

 

JKGs have extremely limited AoE or ranged attacks. They can't self heal. They can't stealth. They have very little CC. They have arguably the weakest damage mitigation mechanic (shields stink) of any tank. And if you spec defense as a JKG, you'll have the least damage in game.

 

What's the upside? Why bother to play JKG at all if you're not the best tank? I'm playing one myself as my main and the only reason I continue to do so is out of pure stubbornness. But now in the mid-30s I have trouble keeping threat. I'm a pure defense spec tank and I'm constantly having to use taunts just to keep enemies on me (thank god for the AoE taunt). The only reason my group of friends does well with me as a tank is because their classes have tons of CC and can handle it when a mob splits off.

 

It feels like for the effort I put in as a player to tank as a JKG, I would make a far better Vangaurd.

 

Out of pure stubbornness I played until 50 (and out of stubbornness I have 400 in Synth). Guardian aggro is awful, and usually I have to use my taunts every cd (which makes the damage output even worse), and use Awe and stuff like that to keep mobs close while my taunt is not available. For those who think that tanking as guardian will improve when you reach 50, you are dead wrong. To put it simple, I find myself using taunts quite often to keep mobs off my healer COMPANION, who is guarded and doesn't have any taunt activated! >_<'

 

Albeit these problems, I like playing JKG. As you just don't melt your foes, you really need to be focused to keep yourself alive.

Edited February 2, 2012 by EdAraujo

[Pelligea]

I have not posted much on this yet. Being a level 50 Guardian Tank I am seeing that as the groups I run with start to gear up, I am finding that I feel more broken with every run.

 

No I may have the wrong spec. Originally I went to the top of the Defense tree. But thought to myself there had to be another way, so I currently go a little ways into Vig. All the way to reach Effluence.

 

Having said that all tank classes have the same base "Stance" which adds the 50% to your damage on the threat. Now if I crit I may hit for 1700 which would give me 2550 on a virtual threat meter. But as I see other players gearing up I notice others which AOE crit for about 4k. So the theory about not needing to use your AOE taunt every pull cannot be true.

 

Also in my build I only see Hilt Strike as the only attack I have that generates more threat as a damage skill. And it is a single target attack on a 1 minute cooldown. In a brief scan of an alt, I see that a Sage Tank has about three. And that was just a quick look over. I really do not know about the Trooper Tank.

 

I also feel that the mitigation does not feel right to me. Both my "shield" type skills are on 3 minute cooldowns. Making it unable to be used for every pull. I would rather have something I could do to mitigate damage on a regular basis. I have the Unremitting kick in upon a Force Leap. But throwing mobs around to simply force leap mid fight should be one of those 'use only in odd situations' skills. Not something I do at some point in a lot or actually most pulls to gain some extra mitigation. Currently since there is a 3 minute cooldown on my shields I only use them as an "Oh No button". By the way I saw Sage Tank has a mitigation on a 12 second cooldown. Again not sure about Trooper. (I do have Blade Barrier when I use Blade Storm but it does not see to mitigate much for me)

 

Due to these things and the lack of any real range, I feel like the Guardian Tank is made to be only a single target Operation Tank. Just for a one boss target. Otherwise, holding multiple mobs on a regular basis at 50 in Hard Mode has escaped me. And yeah we have completed Hard Modes, but as a guardian tank I find we have way more wipes and trouble on trash mobs than on Boss Fights. Can that really be how Bioware wished it to be? I hope not.

 

I would love to be schooled in what I am doing wrong. I would be thrilled to suddenly "get it". But I am not sure I have not exhausted ways to figure it out myself.

 

What changes would I like to see. A few actually. The first three being simply to help groups know what to target. Make target icons able to be key bound. Please the clunky feel of right clicking a portrait to put a target marker just screams 1998 MMO to me. Second add party members target to the UI. It would help groups learn how to acquire tanks target much easier. And third for general improvements. Okay so you can set focus but add a keybinding for acquire focus' target. The swapping mechanic is good for Guardian Leap but not mid-fight for DPS to know which mob should be their main target.

 

Now for Guardian changes. Please nerf or do whatever it takes to make one of our shield be inline with the 12 second cooldown one Shadow Tanks have. Make it so we have some mitigation we can activate every fight without having to throw mobs around the room to get. (And this is only if you go higher than the second level of the Vig tree)

 

Second, add some extra threat generation to Force Sweep. The fact that another tank has at least three damage skills which add more threat and we only get one on a 1 minute cooldown really makes it difficult for people to want a Guardian tank.

 

Would love to know other peoples thoughts on this.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Pelligea

[Leatham]

Imho I actually had more succes with threat management in Damage spec while leveling than now in Defense spec. If you are grouped with for example well-geared Sage, its pretty much impossible to hold aggro by common means, unless you made them to wait several seconds (which is kinda unfortunate if you are going against boss with Enrage).

 

Just yesterday I went Eseless HM and on Iron Fist, it was either overaggro and make our healer cry OR care with aggro and have guaranteed boss enrage. Guardian Slash is last point in Defense tree. It should have high amount of threat generation just by logic itself.

[EdAraujo]

I think what would be cool is Saber Throw to hit more targets and have increased threat. Guardian Slash should have increased threat too. This way we have more threat generation on an opener and on a 'mostly used' skill. And we would have a small chance to pull back a group of mobs who where farther away or just came to the fight (besides AoE taunt).

[Leatham]

I think what would be cool is Saber Throw to hit more targets and have increased threat. Guardian Slash should have increased threat too. This way we have more threat generation on an opener and on a 'mostly used' skill. And we would have a small chance to pull back a group of mobs who where farther away or just came to the fight (besides AoE taunt).

 

 

This. Or just simple Sabre Throw to generate high amount of threat while in Soresu form. Guardian Slash should generate high amount of threat just by its use.

[Jonlo]

The AoE taunt should not be used on every cooldown. Other classes don't have to use the AoE taunt to gain and maintain aggro, but to my experience we have to. This leaves us at a loss when another group is pulled, or adds are summoned, or some other snap-threat is needed in an emergency.

 

So I shouldn't use my tanking abilities to tank, because other tanks do it differently?