Juggernaut Threat

[MorgonKara]

So I'm noticing that Juggernauts don't have great threat generation. I've been playing my Juggernaut main as Immortal spec since December and I do okay. However I have noticed that it's pretty easy to lose threat on MOBs in PvE if my taunts are on cooldown. The tanking stance supposedly increases threat, but I have noticed that DPS classes can pull MOBs off me pretty easy if I don't keep them taunted and it happens often. It's not a huge issue because the cooldown on taunt is pretty fast, but I'm just wondering if any Jug tanks have noticed the same thing. Sometimes I wonder if the stance threat really works, it's hard to imagine DPS doing enough damage to override a supposed 50% threat increase.

I mean if you're fighting bosses with enrage timers in Hardmodes you can't really ask the DPS to stop so the tank can build threat with some minor damage hits. If my Taunt is on cooldown they just have to take a few hits until it's back up again.

 

What's the cool down on taunt? 15 seconds and it works for 6? That's 9 seconds or about 6 GCDs that DPS can have aggro.

 

Any advice is welcome.

Edited February 20, 2012 by MorgonKara

[AngelousWang]

So I'm noticing that Juggernauts don't have great threat generation. I've been playing my Juggernaut main as Immortal spec since December and I do okay. However I have noticed that it's pretty easy to lose threat on MOBs in PvE if my taunts are on cooldown. The tanking stance supposedly increases threat, but I have noticed that DPS classes can pull MOBs off me pretty easy if I don't keep them taunted and it happens often. It's not a huge issue because the cooldown on taunt is pretty fast, but I'm just wondering if any Jug tanks have noticed the same thing. Sometimes I wonder if the stance threat really works, it's hard to imagine DPS doing enough damage to override a supposed 50% threat increase.

I mean if you're fighting bosses with enrage timers in Hardmodes you can't really ask the DPS to stop so the tank can build threat with some minor damage hits.

 

Any advice is welcome.

 

I take it you don't read the forums much.

 

Threat is indeed our main problem area/area of improvement needed. And you will find many topics on this in this forum and how people would recommend improving them.

 

Everything from increasing the threat on Soresu to making Force Scream a cone AOE.

[MorgonKara]

I take it you don't read the forums much.

 

Threat is indeed our main problem area/area of improvement needed. And you will find many topics on this in this forum and how people would recommend improving them.

 

Everything from increasing the threat on Soresu to making Force Scream a cone AOE.

 

well i didn't see any topics about it on the front page so i made this thread.

[Kenegdo]

So I'm noticing that Juggernauts don't have great threat generation. I've been playing my Juggernaut main as Immortal spec since December and I do okay. However I have noticed that it's pretty easy to lose threat on MOBs in PvE if my taunts are on cooldown. The tanking stance supposedly increases threat, but I have noticed that DPS classes can pull MOBs off me pretty easy if I don't keep them taunted and it happens often. It's not a huge issue because the cooldown on taunt is pretty fast, but I'm just wondering if any Jug tanks have noticed the same thing. Sometimes I wonder if the stance threat really works, it's hard to imagine DPS doing enough damage to override a supposed 50% threat increase.

I mean if you're fighting bosses with enrage timers in Hardmodes you can't really ask the DPS to stop so the tank can build threat with some minor damage hits. If my Taunt is on cooldown they just have to take a few hits until it's back up again.

 

What's the cool down on taunt? 15 seconds and it works for 6? That's 9 seconds or about 6 GCDs that DPS can have aggro.

 

Any advice is welcome.

 

Morgan, threat is one of our main difficulties at the moment. Most tanks know not to expect to do insane dps, however, since only 1 of our abilities does significantly increased threat (backhand) this leaves us in a difficult position.

 

First I will address single target threat:

 

This should be one place where juggs generally do alright. The key to keeping aggro on one target is the first 30 seconds. If you can keep a mob on you for that time you are pretty much guaranteed to hold him the entire time. This is because of how SWTOR's aggro tables work. In order for a ranged dps class to pull they have to have 1.3 times the threat as the tank, for a healer the coefficient is 1.5. Therefore, the longer a fight goes for the more difference in threat the ranged/healers will have to have to pull off you.

 

With that in mind....

 

Generally I would pull using Saber Throw - > Charge. Once I land I immediately throw up a Force Scream and Backhand. The purpose of this is to get a mob to 'stick' to me. No mobs (short of NM Ops) hit hard enough to 1 or 2 shot dps. Thus, I save my taunts for when dps actually pull aggro from me. The first time they do I taunt. How taunt works is it not only forces the target to attack me for 6 seconds it also permanently raises my threat to that of the highest person. After I taunt I usually try to land some decent dmg abilites to hold the mob. If I somehow lose them again quickly, I AoE taunt. Once the AoE taunt expires it is pretty much guaranteed my normal taunt will be up. Therefore, there really is no reason I can't hold a single mob for 30 seconds easily...thus creating a huge buffer that ranged/healing dps can not overcome due to SWTOR's threat mechanics.

 

Multiple Mob pulls....

 

This is much trickier as you will find numerous posts about our lack of AoE dmg/threat. For this I like to immediately do a Force Charge Pull. This way I am gathering up all the mobs farther away from the dps and able to start my dps sooner. I quickly drop a Smash and start Sweeping Strikes. Only when I see the AoE from dps classes dropping do I use my AoE taunt. While that taunt is active I quickly target the most powerful of the mobs and use backhand and other high threat abilities. This guarantees that I can tank all enemies for at least 10 seconds, and if I happen to lose any mobs they will be normal/strong and already down at least half health...easily killed by dps classes and not a priority to be tanked.

 

Hope this helps.

[Siegerjustiz]

Morgan, threat is one of our main difficulties at the moment. Most tanks know not to expect to do insane dps, however, since only 1 of our abilities does significantly increased threat (backhand) this leaves us in a difficult position.

 

First I will address single target threat:

 

This should be one place where juggs generally do alright. The key to keeping aggro on one target is the first 30 seconds. If you can keep a mob on you for that time you are pretty much guaranteed to hold him the entire time. This is because of how SWTOR's aggro tables work. In order for a ranged dps class to pull they have to have 1.3 times the threat as the tank, for a healer the coefficient is 1.5. Therefore, the longer a fight goes for the more difference in threat the ranged/healers will have to have to pull off you.

 

With that in mind....

 

Generally I would pull using Saber Throw - > Charge. Once I land I immediately throw up a Force Scream and Backhand. The purpose of this is to get a mob to 'stick' to me. No mobs (short of NM Ops) hit hard enough to 1 or 2 shot dps. Thus, I save my taunts for when dps actually pull aggro from me. The first time they do I taunt. How taunt works is it not only forces the target to attack me for 6 seconds it also permanently raises my threat to that of the highest person. After I taunt I usually try to land some decent dmg abilites to hold the mob. If I somehow lose them again quickly, I AoE taunt. Once the AoE taunt expires it is pretty much guaranteed my normal taunt will be up. Therefore, there really is no reason I can't hold a single mob for 30 seconds easily...thus creating a huge buffer that ranged/healing dps can not overcome due to SWTOR's threat mechanics.

 

Multiple Mob pulls....

 

This is much trickier as you will find numerous posts about our lack of AoE dmg/threat. For this I like to immediately do a Force Charge Pull. This way I am gathering up all the mobs farther away from the dps and able to start my dps sooner. I quickly drop a Smash and start Sweeping Strikes. Only when I see the AoE from dps classes dropping do I use my AoE taunt. While that taunt is active I quickly target the most powerful of the mobs and use backhand and other high threat abilities. This guarantees that I can tank all enemies for at least 10 seconds, and if I happen to lose any mobs they will be normal/strong and already down at least half health...easily killed by dps classes and not a priority to be tanked.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Yup, this is a pretty accurate description of how things go down. Nicely done.

[LegionofSith]

Last night i tanked KP and we couldnt get past the heavy fabrication droid, but the fights lasted a very long time which made me notice that the first 30 seconds of the fight were the hardest to hold aggro, after that it became much easier.

 

Now this is my first mmo and i wanted to tank right off the bat and im just now starting to really learn how to play my class to the full potential. i have another jugg tank in our guild who has been tanking for years and acted as a mentor to me. He always told me that if im using taunt ive already failed. And ive been trying to avoid taunt mass much as possible. And i seem to be doing fine now without it. If you want to get you tanking to its best dont use taunt, just start practicing in hm fps and over time you will get the hang of it and be better for it.

[Lord_Rezo]

I think Backhand should be a non-tank-specific skill and the tanks should have an AoE 10-meters with agro increased Force Pull (as they lack on PvE and PvP of messures to keep enemies near, everyone on PvP when see a tank just ignore him, he wont damage much [which by the way is stupid as he will probably have guard on the healer and will be receiving huge tons of damage, if someone switchs to him will be able to kill him, then the guard of the healer drops and the healers i dead also]).

 

Vengeance and Rage LACK of CC and having Backhand would allow us to use Ravage on PvP which would mean a nice amount of extra damage for balancing our damage. (the only necesary to keep us like the rest of classes which ALL got a 4 seconds stun).

 

On PvE wouldnt change much if we have Backhand or not, but would help Vengeance and Rage (which cant heal themselves as Marauders) to kill their own elites, i struggled a lot against the pre-ending boss (the one ending Corelia).

[FalcoLombardi]

Juggernaut's have great threat if you play 'em right. I know this from my experience as a Jedi Guardian doing the daily heroics with my friend who was a Shadow DPS, and occassionally had a Commando or a Sage come along. You have to play your skills right.

 

What I usually do is, Saberthrow the main target or a secondary target>Leap to main target>Hilt Strike>Stasis a different target from the main>Force Sweep>Blade Storm>Guardian Slash>Sundering Strike or something like that and go from there. Combat Focus is hit somewhere in there too

 

These are the names of the Jedi Knight skills, not fully aware of the Sith skills

[WhackedInferno]

Being on my 3rd MMO and Second one as a tank. I can honestly say that threat in general is a bit of an issue for Juggernauts. But it also depends on your current level and how up to date your gear is. If your using full Orange Gear like I am, I've found a balance of Tank/DPS mods helps to add a few extra seconds of keeping the DPS threat at bay. Also, ask them to use their threat dumps. I regularly team with an IA/Merc/Sorc and I have to regularly remind them to use there threat dumps. As for your level wish was not specified, I'm going to post from my own experience up to where I am at level 43. So far I've found that the 20s are the hardest for tanking simply cause we have yet to receive some of our better tanking tricks while our DPS friends have gained quite a few heavy hitting attacks. Once you get to 30+ is when life starts to get better. And I can honestly say the best way to learn how to become a very good tank is to run FP with DPS that you know personally and have them beat the tank into you. Have them just run wild and try to keep them from dying is the best practice you can have. But if you do that, have a safety net in case things go bad.

[thorizdin]

There is a trick (for all tanks) on managing threat. You have to understand how aggro works with taunts. When you taunt in PvE two things happen, one you are the "hard" target of the taunted mob for 6 seconds and it literally must target you and two you are moved to the top of the aggro list by a certain amount (currently estimated to be 30%). That means the best time to use taunt is just before you lose aggro when either DPS or healing has moved past you on that table.

 

That means in an optimum situation you will saber throw, leap, and then backhand (if Immortal spec) while your DPS trying to generate as much burst damage (and thus threat) as possible. As soon as you think your going to lose aggro (or if you're quick just as the boss starts turning away from you) you taunt. This puts you on top of the DPS who will have to slow down some because of heat or energy management reasons and go into sustained DPS mode. This is why after a minute or so it becomes easier to hold aggro and from the developer comments this is working as designed.

[Egotrip]

I Everything from increasing the threat on Soresu to making Force Scream a cone AOE.

 

Yes please!

 

Force scream damaging multiple enemies would be awesome in PVP!

Edited February 21, 2012 by Egotrip

[thorizdin]

Threat has no affect in PvP only direct taunts do anything.

[Xanxari]

Juggernaut's have great threat if you play 'em right. I know this from my experience as a Jedi Guardian doing the daily heroics with my friend who was a Shadow DPS, and occassionally had a Commando or a Sage come along. You have to play your skills right.

 

What I usually do is, Saberthrow the main target or a secondary target>Leap to main target>Hilt Strike>Stasis a different target from the main>Force Sweep>Blade Storm>Guardian Slash>Sundering Strike or something like that and go from there. Combat Focus is hit somewhere in there too

 

These are the names of the Jedi Knight skills, not fully aware of the Sith skills

 

and you are the reason BW havent fixed our problem you are talking hardmodes and not operations, try and maintain agro from a Trooper/merc in full Rakata gear.... or a jugger in full rakata gear there is no way you can keep up with them. 3 to 5k crit per GCD.... gl on that one, ohh ea we at jugger tanks get high surge and acc. on our gear but loose so much in defensive stats that A) we will die to bosses for we got hlaf the migitation we should have or B) we cant hold agro for we are swaping out our Surge and Acc. enhancement with defensive stats.....

 

im doing Operations and we are fine in nightmare on bosses, iv just told the dps to to spam all there threat dumps they have anytime they are off GCD, jugger/JK and Sorc/sage can help a tank when a players over agro.

 

 

main problem is the better the gear a DPS get the more threat he makes and the better gear a tank gets the better migitation the tanks gets but not as much threat as a DPS will and the this is the big problem we saw it early and its only getting worse. and BW does nothing to fix it they dont even say anything abourt it at all.

[Egotrip]

Threat has no affect in PvP only direct taunts do anything.

 

My response was pertianing to Force Scream gaining an aoe cone effect.

[thorizdin]

My response was pertianing to Force Scream gaining an aoe cone effect.

 

Yes, I know. You said:

 

 

Yes please, would be awesome in PVP!

 

The problem is that threat generated from attacks has no affect in PvP.

[thorizdin]

and you are the reason BW havent fixed our problem you are talking hardmodes and not operations, try and maintain agro from a Trooper/merc in full Rakata gear.... or a jugger in full rakata gear there is no way you can keep up with them. 3 to 5k crit per GCD.... gl on that one, ohh ea we at jugger tanks get high surge and acc. on our gear but loose so much in defensive stats that A) we will die to bosses for we got hlaf the migitation we should have or B) we cant hold agro for we are swaping out our Surge and Acc. enhancement with defensive stats.....

 

Strange, I do it every week in Operations and my DPS largely has me outgeared. (I don't have any tier 3 gear yet.)

[Egotrip]

Yes, I know. You said:

 

 

 

 

The problem is that threat generated from attacks has no affect in PvP.

 

.............speechless

 

oh wait ok I fixed my original reply for you, now can you make sense of it?

Edited February 21, 2012 by Egotrip

[thorizdin]

Yes, now that makes sense

[Grange]

I already have a post for this:

 

I have a post on the Gen Forum about Juggernaut threat and guardian threat. if you agree with me that Juggernauts/Guardians need a threat boost. Please look for my post, and bump it, or post your own input.

 

Under "General"

 

"Juggernaut/Guardian tanks Could use a buff"

 

is the title of the thread.

 

it seems the Dev's reply there and if we get enough posts they may even read it.

 

This could lead to some investigating and maybe even action.

 

this post was moved to the "classes" forum

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=307084

[Locustone]

Jugg threat = broken... I am full columi/rakata and an equally geared agent or merc always pulls threat. I end up putting guard on one just to lose aggro to the other. I recently tanked Karraga and i was litterally having to use every ability plus single target taunt and aoe taunt every cooldown and I was still losing threat when moving out of the fire. I like a challenge but this is ridiculous.

[Locustone]

There is a trick (for all tanks) on managing threat. You have to understand how aggro works with taunts. When you taunt in PvE two things happen, one you are the "hard" target of the taunted mob for 6 seconds and it literally must target you and two you are moved to the top of the aggro list by a certain amount (currently estimated to be 30%). That means the best time to use taunt is just before you lose aggro when either DPS or healing has moved past you on that table.

 

That means in an optimum situation you will saber throw, leap, and then backhand (if Immortal spec) while your DPS trying to generate as much burst damage (and thus threat) as possible. As soon as you think your going to lose aggro (or if you're quick just as the boss starts turning away from you) you taunt. This puts you on top of the DPS who will have to slow down some because of heat or energy management reasons and go into sustained DPS mode. This is why after a minute or so it becomes easier to hold aggro and from the developer comments this is working as designed.

 

This guy has obviously not tanked before in SWTOR... If we had a threat meter we could do what you are saying, otherwise it's just guess work. I think most people here understand how to use taunt. The problem is that once your taunts are on cooldown you have to deal with runaway mobs or ops bosses since other abilities do not generate enough threat.

 

I could care less for a damage buff as a tank, since my damage sucks anyway compared to real dps classes. The only thing we need is a boost to the threat abilities generate. If I am using all my abilities there should be no reason I should lose agro as a tank. Also, I don't want a one button aggro either.

Edited February 21, 2012 by Locustone

[BlueRabbit]

I agree with Juggs having a threat issue.. One easy fix i believe would help would be to cut the CD on taunt..

 

I am able to grab everything on an initial pull. I space out my Backhand, Threatning scream and try to save my taunt for any loose mobs..

 

What I notice is the beginning works fine, after I am forced to use my Taunt there are times a single atget runs loose and im waiting 5 sec to taunt him back. If the GCD on taunt was reduced I would be able to pull adds back without watching a CD timer..

 

Also mark targets so ur dps doesn't split up and start hitting differnet targets.. That causes the most threat issues at times..

[thorizdin]

This guy has obviously not tanked before in SWTOR... If we had a threat meter we could do what you are saying, otherwise it's just guess work. I think most people here understand how to use taunt. The problem is that once your taunts are on cooldown you have to deal with runaway mobs or ops bosses since other abilities do not generate enough threat.

 

Nope, never tanked in this game at all, I bought all this on GTN:

http://www.swtorprogress.com/characters/?id=801

 

You have two taunts, guard, and Intercede (you do know its a threat reducer on the target, right?). That's all you need to hold aggro way past any of the enrage timers. I don't know your build or your tactics, but I'm running a 31/10 and I don't have any issues even when I am undergeared compared to my DPS (as I will be tonight in EV & KP).

Edited February 21, 2012 by thorizdin

[MorgonKara]

Last night i tanked KP and we couldnt get past the heavy fabrication droid, but the fights lasted a very long time which made me notice that the first 30 seconds of the fight were the hardest to hold aggro, after that it became much easier.

 

Now this is my first mmo and i wanted to tank right off the bat and im just now starting to really learn how to play my class to the full potential. i have another jugg tank in our guild who has been tanking for years and acted as a mentor to me. He always told me that if im using taunt ive already failed. And ive been trying to avoid taunt mass much as possible. And i seem to be doing fine now without it. If you want to get you tanking to its best dont use taunt, just start practicing in hm fps and over time you will get the hang of it and be better for it.

 

Don't use taunt? I don't know about that, a tank isn't supposed to let the healer struggle to keep the DPS classes alive. Jugs are supposed to be tanks, if I hit a MOB it should turn to fight me, not continue munching on the DPS. The two taunts and backhand are the only way to pull threat, the stance threat does almost nothing as far as I can tell.

Edited February 21, 2012 by MorgonKara

[thorizdin]

Now this is my first mmo and i wanted to tank right off the bat and im just now starting to really learn how to play my class to the full potential. i have another jugg tank in our guild who has been tanking for years and acted as a mentor to me. He always told me that if im using taunt ive already failed. And ive been trying to avoid taunt mass much as possible. And i seem to be doing fine now without it. If you want to get you tanking to its best dont use taunt, just start practicing in hm fps and over time you will get the hang of it and be better for it.

 

Sorry, but this is nonsensical in SWTOR. I don't care how long your buddy has tanked in other games. You can't tank in SWTOR without using taunt without completely neutering your DPS.