Just how bad is it?

[Skurkanas]

I am playing a healer, and just finished another frustrating Operation with a Juggernaut MT.

Basically whenever the Tank is a Juggernaut, the fight seems to get considerably harder - no matter wether it's an Operation or HM Flashpoint.

Pretty much all appear to have huge issues tanking groups, some even have issues tanking single mobs.

 

I don't mean to come across ignorant or condescending (If anything, right now I'm just tired and frustrated:rolleyes:). I have little knowledge of the tanking mechanics in this game, but I've seen too much Juggs having huge problems with fights that Powertechs and Assassins seem to sleepwalk through, that I can't help but wonder what's wrong.

 

I have a hard time believing that all the Juggernauts on my server are utter noobs, so if it is indeed the class itself, I'd like a quick overview of the key issues and, where possible, how a group can adapt to it.

[Nagamaru]

You just answered your own question you are either ignorant or your tanks on your server suck. Every tank class can do well in all HM's or Operations.

[Aqueden]

Its not bad at all I'm full columi gear done every hm already ten times and mt ev and palace. I have had no problem holding aggro ever. Most jugg tanks have no idea on right rotation on their skills. I find the jugg tanking to be to easy actually yeah its not aoe spam fest but they generate huge amounts of threat on single targets

[JoyProtocol]

It's not that bad. I've had three unrelated flashpoints where the tank as a powertech, and the dps was a juggernaught/marauder. I healed as an Op. The tanks were clueless - using autoattacks for the most part - and the mara/jugg ended up being the real tank for the whole thing. It worked out really well.

[Beziel]

It's not that bad. I've had three unrelated flashpoints where the tank as a powertech, and the dps was a juggernaught/marauder. I healed as an Op. The tanks were clueless - using autoattacks for the most part - and the mara/jugg ended up being the real tank for the whole thing. It worked out really well.

 

Auto attack?! You mean the spamming of the basic attack right?

[Beziel]

@OP:

I'm not 50 yet, only still lvling my JK (mirror class o'course) and I do find it somewhat more demanding; requiring a bit more thoughts and concentration to keep mobs on me (most especially multiple mobs) than on my assassin (which i cakewalk with).

[Thraka]

To be honest, I do think there is something wrong with Juggs. At level 37, I am really struggling to manage groups. Single target, I have no problems, and a few adds is fine, too, but with 5+ and many mobs being positioned oddly and unpullable because they are ranged, I really start to struggle. Worse, in a lot of instances, they drop new packs in on you that make it very difficult to plan how to handle them before the fight, and I get overwhelmed trying to track so many targets while also trying to manage rage generation, sunders, and cooldowns. I move to gather adds and find I am outside range for any AOE to hit the main target, and I lose aggro. I run back and get it, and the tiny bit I have generated on the newcomers is not enough to hold off threat from the healer.

 

A lot of guys here claim Juggs are just fine, and I can only chalk that up to them being significantly better than me, or simply having a playstyle or mindset more amenable to what is needed. I don't think it is because I just suck, in that I have tanked in other games and not run into what feels like a limit on my ability to focus like I do with my Jugg. When I fail in other games, I am usually well aware I screwed up. With my Jugg, I often feel like I never had a chance to succeed.

 

What's frustrating is that I really like playing my Jugg. I dig the complexity up to the point where I lose control of things. My problem is that I feel as if far too many encounters are simply tilted against me, with too many adds too far apart to catch in my AOE's, too many ranged attackers that can't be pulled unless you LOS them, etc. I can totally see how, if I were a ranged tank, things would be much easier.

 

As it is now, I think the real problem with Juggs is that they require more focus and parallel processing than the average player can muster, for no more benefit. If I had one wish for the Jugg class, it would be to talent away the cooldown on Sunder Assault and make it spammable. If they are worried about it being too easy to stack sunders, they could replace the talent that lets you put 2 stacks and it would be much the same, only it would eliminate one corner of the triangle of focus that is needed to play well. If rage generation was one button instead of two with a cooldown on Sundering, it could be used to good effect as a reliable tool for picking up strays by tab targeting, and generate rage to allow a followup AOE.

 

We also have no way to gather groups of ranged attackers that I know of, and I often find myself in a situation where I am running back and forth between packs, wasting valuable time. At best, we can force push one guy, and even that is tricky.

 

Maybe it gets better at higher levels, but as I see more and more distinct abilities pile up on my hotkeys, more cooldowns to track and interleave, and more dungeons seemingly designed to make life really tough for me, I begin to feel I made a mistake getting attached to my Jugg. Whether it is the class or just my playstyle or ability, I am finding it very difficult and thankless to tank as a Jugg.

[AllanGand]

With groups they will definitely have problems holding aggro, because we have only 2 aoes, and one of them does 2/3 damage of our single target skill for the same amount of rage.

 

I have tanked nightmare mode OPS as a jug, and there's nothing wrong with single target threat. If your tanks are not able to hold single target threat, then they're doing it wrong.

 

A couple of pieces of advice would be to tell them to use their single target taunt and aoe taunt to get initial aggro. (the way taunts work in this game, make it so while the effect is present on the mob only you build threat towards it). Tip no. 2 would be to put guard your top dps AND NOT THE HEALER (in pve, guard is a tool that is used to reduce threat only, too many people think that it transfers 50% of damage to the tank in pve as well).

 

 

That's about everything I can say, without knowing what spec they're using. Right now there's 2 popular tanking specs. 1 that goes fully into the tanking tree, and a hybrid between tanking and dps tree.

[Cassp]

Heres another hurpen durpen thread, filled with pro juggs who think it's all good just because they managed to simply complete the hardmode dungeons. Well for one the op isn't here to argue whether juggs can do simply hardmodes, hurrr... he is here wondering what the deal is with juggs in comparison to an assassin or PT. Well, it is commonly known that we are do far less, threat, aoe and single target, no matter how many people say " OOoooOoooOOoOooOO i do such aaaaaamaaaazing single target threat with my terrible dps that i will never kill anything on nightmare with" and "OOOOOOOooOoOOooooOoooOOoo i've tanked all the hardmodes HEHEHEHEHEHEHEH" it does not make us better or even on par with the lol 3 buttons and do twice as much damage which btw is converted directly into threat as they also have 60% increased threat stances (obviously).

 

I seriously can't take 90% of all juggs on these forums seriously.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Cassp

[bliapis]

The juggernaut tank has a nice ability called sweeping strikes. It can maintain aggro on groups of elites + strongs or normals without issue. Even if a dps steals aggro from a strong, its of little issue since those are tank-able from any dps and healable damage.

[Cassp]

The juggernaut tank has a nice ability called sweeping strikes. It can maintain aggro on groups of elites + strongs or normals without issue. Even if a dps steals aggro from a strong, its of little issue since those are tank-able from any dps and healable damage.

 

Lol this guy just said sweeping strike holds aggro, he's funny.

[Onostoolan]

Heres another hurpen durpen thread, filled with pro juggs who think it's all good just because they managed to simply complete the hardmode dungeons. Well for one the op isn't here to argue whether juggs can do simply hardmodes, hurrr... he is here wondering what the deal is with juggs in comparison to an assassin or PT. Well, it is commonly known that we are do far less, threat, aoe and single target, no matter how many people say " OOoooOoooOOoOooOO i do such aaaaaamaaaazing single target threat with my terrible dps that i will never kill anything on nightmare with" and "OOOOOOOooOoOOooooOoooOOoo i've tanked all the hardmodes HEHEHEHEHEHEHEH" it does not make us better or even on par with the lol 3 buttons and do twice as much damage which btw is converted directly into threat as they also have 60% increased threat stances (obviously).

 

I seriously can't take 90% of all juggs on these forums seriously.

 

LOL...rage-post?!

 

I personally am on the fence at the mo..not exactly the most experienced tank..I'm still working on HM's..I haven't done any Ops yet. SO I'm not the expert.

 

However..I've tanked a fair bit so far... not had any massive issues with single target - lost agro once or twice, but nothing that a quick taunt won't fix. AOE of course is a different issue...I keep reading that this game isn't designed for me to grab Agro from every single thing... but then I read that Assassins and Bounty Hunter tanks are able to do exactly that.

 

My problem is that I don't have a huge amount of time... levelling another tank would be quite a task. So I can't really test the theory myself.

 

I can't work out how much people are just talking cr4p on here about how good they are... or if its actually true.

 

So..my question. Has anyone levelled a Jugg AND a Powertech or Sin up to 50 and used them both (or all three) to tank? ...I'd really like an honest appraisal.

 

Personally I hate not being about to AOE well... bugs me (having done a lot of tanking in the past in another un-namable MMO..and suffered endless AOE issues)... I know TOR isn't identical... but if I'm going to tank - I'd like to actually tank lol... not chase things around on my screen.

 

Cheers

[LordConnery]

My guildies and I do awesome in heroics. I'm obviously not an assassin tank.

 

I think you should look into how you're approaching the fights. Do you CC any of the targets? Are the targets marked and with a kill order? Are the DPS following your tanks targets and not fighting their own?

 

There are a lot of things that can be done to make the fight easier if you approach the fight correctly.

[Thrawninioub]

I am playing a healer, and just finished another frustrating Operation with a Juggernaut MT.

Basically whenever the Tank is a Juggernaut, the fight seems to get considerably harder - no matter wether it's an Operation or HM Flashpoint.

Pretty much all appear to have huge issues tanking groups, some even have issues tanking single mobs.

 

I don't mean to come across ignorant or condescending (If anything, right now I'm just tired and frustrated:rolleyes:). I have little knowledge of the tanking mechanics in this game, but I've seen too much Juggs having huge problems with fights that Powertechs and Assassins seem to sleepwalk through, that I can't help but wonder what's wrong.

 

I have a hard time believing that all the Juggernauts on my server are utter noobs, so if it is indeed the class itself, I'd like a quick overview of the key issues and, where possible, how a group can adapt to it.

 

We suck at group aggro. That's a fact.

 

We're the best at tanking boss. Problem is : if there is a difference of stuff between the DPs and the tanks (and there will be because of their ****ed up loot table, BH DPS will be full T3 when you don't have one), then you will probably have a little aggro problem.

 

Otherwise, jugg is ther easier to heal on big damage input by one healer.

[maschovy]

You just answered your own question you are either ignorant or your tanks on your server suck. Every tank class can do well in all HM's or Operations.

 

Yes. I'm sure that's it. If the jugg class, sucks, it's the healer's fault and you're stupid! Either that or, by some astonishing coincidence, there isn't a single jugg tank on your server that has a clue what they are doing.

 

You jugg fan boys just mystify me. Your class is broken (compared to the other options available). There is at least half a dozen threads per day on this very forum that verify this, yet you consistently proclaim that the class is not broken, it's just that you are the only one awesome enough to play it well. Rubbish.

 

First, I think Juggs need more utility/ranged type skills. Since there is so much ranged damage in this game, they need more ranged skills to effectively compete. Why are there no force skills where you grab nearby trees and rocks and chunks of concrete or whatever and hurl them at groups of enemies (ranged AoE, like DFA for PTs)?. Force scream should have it's range increased to at least 20m. 30 would be better. Or maybe better, make FS a conal AE and implement a new 30m ranged dps ability. Finally, they need a force pull ability. Better yet, have force choke do that, maybe via talent, and choke at the same time, that'd be awesome. Or heck, come up with complete new stuff. Whatever. My point is that there is a lot of stationary mobs and ranged dps in this game. Hoofing it from one mob to another, hacking and slashing one at a time, just doesn't cut it.

 

Second and I think this is the main reason why PTs are so much better at holding threat, rage sucks, compared to heat at least. The difference is that with heat, I can burst out some damage when I need it. Yeah, my heat will skyrocket, hopefully I can dump some heat. If not, hopefully (and normally) the emergency is over before I'm heatlocked. Post emergency, I just have to rapid shot / heat dump my way back down to normal heat levels. I don't do much damage just rapid shotting away, but at least I had the damage when I needed it. In this fashion, I'm actually borrowing future damage to use during emergencies when I really needed it. It's a really cool, intuitive concept that works extremely well.

 

Spending rage results in a cruel compromise. I can either hack and slash my way up to max rage, and then use very little of it, keeping myself topped off just in case an emergency occurs and I need it or I can use it as soon as I get it, and risk finding myself out of rage when I need it. In the first instance, I'm doing less damage than I could be, having trouble holding aggro and I'm ending battles at high levels of rage that could have been converted into damage. Or, like a good tank, I saved it in case I needed it, and now it's just bleeding away post battle as lost dps / threat. In the second instance, the use it as you get it strat, my dps numbers are nice and high and it's easier to hold aggro but I don't have any saved up rage for when the crappola hits the fan and my group wipes because I can't whip out some burst damage to pull our butts out of the fire. It's a silly compromise that no tank should have to make. Threat now and keep the battle field orderly or threat later, when I might really need it? A PT doesn't have to make this choice, Juggs shouldn't have to either.

Edited February 9, 2012 by maschovy

[Roboviking]

I play a 50 jugg tank in almost full columni. I've mainly only done HM FPs, just beat false emperor hard mode last night. I've not played with the other tank classes much but I've seen them in action. Although it took a while to get a feel for tanking after the 30s it can be done, and done well. However, it feels like we have to work a lot harder to effectively tank than others do.

 

Long story short, yes we work, but it takes more effort.

 

With the way pulls are set up in this game, you really do need to use CC available to your group and also not freak out when you don't have EVERYTHING focused on you. To a degree non-elite mobs are meant to be burned down and you will lose threat on the actually dangerous mobs if you try to chase after all of them. Once I got over the mindset that absolutely everything had to be on me as the tank, our group has had no problem. You can always intercede, jump back to a mob, or taunt off if the other group members are having problems.

 

Jugg tanks are not "fine" but they CAN work in any situation. Just a little help from BW to bring them up to speed with the other tank classes would be nice.

[strikeviperMKII]

Just have one thing to say about Jugg tanks.

 

For Force attacks:

 

Jugg> PT> Assassin

 

Why? PT and Tank-a-sins rely on shielding for damage mitigation. Force attacks cannot be shielded.

 

Hence a Jugg tank is the best for SOA.

[Vid-szhite]

While that's true that force attacks can't be shielded or parried, Powertechs actually get the most out of Armor Rating in their talents (one increases Armor Rating by 16%, the other reduces damage taken by 2%) to make up for the fact that they're not going to be deflecting anything. Our defensive stats are actually a very even mix of Shields, Parry/Deflect, and Armor.

 

Powertechs are the best tank against Soa unless you factor in cooldowns.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Vid-szhite

[thorizdin]

Powertechs are the best tank against Soa unless you factor in cooldowns.

 

Which means what? I could say Jugs are the best AoE threat tanks if none of the other tanks can use their AoE attacks

[Cassp]

Which means what? I could say Jugs are the best AoE threat tanks if none of the other tanks can use their AoE attacks

 

No you couldn't, juggs do least single target threat, common misconception, mainly from idiot juggs.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Cassp

[thorizdin]

Did you read either what I wrote or the post I responded to?

[Cassp]

Did you read either what I wrote or the post I responded to?

 

He explained the other half, why should i have to reiterate.

[thorizdin]

You should if your response is nonsensical. The point he made was X > than Y if Z is true, but Z is false in this case. What idiot doesn't use cooldowns when tanking Soa?

[Wraeththu]

So..my question. Has anyone levelled a Jugg AND a Powertech or Sin up to 50 and used them both (or all three) to tank? ...I'd really like an honest appraisal.

 

Jugg and Sin. Not in nightmares yet.

 

Jug with either 31/10/0 or 14/27/0. Sin with the only darkness build

 

Wearing equivalent gear and no buffs beyond the tank stance and adding in the combat buffs (like blade baricade), (tested when I was using all oranges with epic mods in them), the jugg is statistically slightly tougher. AC is comparable (.8% bonus to the jugg). Jugg's DR is higher for Kinetic/Energy by 2.5%. Ignoring the clickies except dark ward, the stats are otherwise similar, except for a increase in shield change while DW is up for the assassin of about 7%.

 

So, the assassin is slightly squishier. You notice it a little, but not a huge amount. The "OH SH#T" buttons don't feel as super, but the 5 secs of force shroud is pretty awesome for cleansing things off, and the cooldown is a lot shorter than Invincible or Blade Ward.

 

Tanking through trash and group things is CONSIDERABLY more enjoyable with the sin. You have a CC, and force pull. You don't need to plan out how you're going to force push/charge people around. Wither does great damage, can be cast at range, and includes a threat component, unlike smash. I've regularly had shock and chain shot crit (due to energize, it's common) for 3200 and 1600 respectively. Adding in the threat component, and it really becomes a one-stop go to.

 

You can also tank at 10m without a huge hardship, so you can stand outside whirlwinds and the like and still be fine. In fact, as long as DPS isn't going crazy, you can actually kite tank some mobs with shock, wither and discharge. You'll take a threat penalty for doing it, and Assassinate requires melee range, unlike vicious throw. Of course, you can also use it at 30% instead of 20%, and it does more damage... so, clearly again win for the sin.

 

Force usage vs Rage takes some getting used too. The jugg feels more like wave, where you build up then dump, then build up, etc. The assassin is about keeping your energy in the sweet spot of never getting low and never hitting max.

 

 

So, there's advantages and disadvantages. That said, I'm generally frustrated with the jugg. In straight tanking situations you can sort of see the give and tank between the two, but outside of it the jugg fails at everything vs the assassin. Soloing is considerably worse. PvP is worse (would be even more so if Force Cloak actually worked right). I stick with the jugg because nobody else in my guild will play one, and I figure that eventually they'll do something about it. But it's a rare day when I don't scream some obcenity at it. And any farming or soloing or helping of guildies, I use the assassin, as it's just 5x better outside of the op/fp, due to self-healing, stealth, CC, etc.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Wraeththu

[United]

I don't know why you think its easier. I've been told its easier to heal me rather then the other 2 tanking classes.