JUGGS: Enraged Defense - love it or hate it?

[Comfterbilly]

My experience so far: it is a rage-eater - use enraged defense with any sort of frequency and your bar is empty - but there are solutions to this.

 

For me it dramatically changed my rotation unless I decide to use it much less than I have so far (still on the fence); back to the old tricks of always-throw-before-you-leap, but I feel like so far I'm focusing too much on rage builders and not enough on WZ objectives. I know I will come to some balance soon, but I would like to hear feedback from other juggs about how they've integrated this new skill.

 

Most of the feedback I'm sure will be about how useless Enraged Defense is, however I have not played enough with it to be quite sure of that. Thoughts?

[Eommer]

Im not good with names, lol, its the new skill right?

That skill is the most useless thing I've seen

 

the heals are too low and spend all your rage. for pvp is just ridiculous I cant believe that bioware design that crap to give jugg more survival.

 

imho, for pve is useless too...

[Comfterbilly]

Im not good with names, lol, its the new skill right?

That skill is the most useless thing I've seen

 

the heals are too low and spend all your rage. for pvp is just ridiculous I cant believe that bioware design that crap to give jugg more survival.

 

imho, for pve is useless too...

 

Yeah its the new one. I haven't noticed much by the way of heals yet, but have only had one day to try it.

[KaKiMi]

Healing rate should equal that to Dark Charge proccs... no question

[rymah]

The ability needs to consider stances when used, de-aggro on proc is horrible when you are the main tank in an operation or hardmode and soresu form is needed.

[Vid-szhite]

I just can't seem to find a use for it in anything but Huttball. I mean, sure, it's like having Marauder's DOT heals and Cloak of Pain all in one (if you're Vengeance, anyway), but it only lasts 10 seconds, and uses all of your Rage.

 

If the devs wanted to give us a Threat Dump ability, it should have no cost at all like everyone else's - or at most, no cost while getting hit. If the devs wanted to give tanks a new fast-recharging survivability cooldown, it not only sucks at helping you survive, it also drops your threat. Why does it need a rage cost? To dissuade tanks from using it? Tanks would never use it anyway! The ability to activate it while stunned is nice, but it's totally useless unless you're the ball carrier.

 

For all it costs, it barely does anything unless you're Vengeance, and even then it's not worth it at all.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Vid-szhite

[Powerrmongerr]

My number one "to do" list in 1.2 after buying the absorption daily comm relic was to vigorously test this in pve. I did so in the following circumstances:

 

1.)Group of four, the other three all columi geared, for all of the Correllia daily commendation series, including the heroic 4;

 

2.)Up to the second boss of Lost Island with the same group;

 

3.)Freeing the Fallen and Old Enemies on Belsavis with a random marauder who was in all rakata;

 

4.)Soloing Poisonous Strategy with a healer companion in a mixture of tionese and columi;

 

 

I was wearing tanking Rakata (with accuracy removed ... fracking terrible optimization).

 

 

I will admit that I did not enter testing with an open mind. I came in thinking that this ability looked absolutely terrible for tanking purposes. It looked like an utter rage sink and the threat reduction was counter productive. Here are my findings:

 

--The immortal tree has been pruned far more than I realized. In fact, with the heavy handed reduction and nerf to thrown gauntlets I could not come up with 31 skill points to spend ... I essentially put two points in the smash/force scream reducing ability (the name escapes me) that previously I considered unnecessary. Well, that provided all the rage I needed for the ability and then some.

 

--The heal presents a problem for aoe threat. It MUST be combined with a timely threatening scream. MUST. You need to consider them as a combo if you want to hold any kind of aoe threat. Basically, everything scatters to the four winds as soon as you use it.

 

--The heal presents almost NO problem for single target threat. This surprised me. With any single target, even rakata geared marauders couldn't rip aggro from me if I used the single target taunt at the same time and kept up what dps I could manage. I'm not srue how much it reduces threat, but between taunt and crushing blow I really didn't have any issues. This was a very pleasant surprise.

 

--Another pleasant surprise was just how beneficial the heal was. 45 seconds is relatively short when the ability lasts 10 seconds. Even better, it scales with gear (the more END you have, the more healing). It was the ONLY cooldown I needed while soloing poisonous strategy (I popped when I dropped below 50%). Timed with smash and threatening scream, no problems with aggro even though the jedi I wasn't attacking started to scurry off.

 

 

TL;DR: surprisingly robust healing, surprisingly doesn't present a rage problem if you spec properly and know your abilities, disappointingly does present the expected aoe threat problem, thankfullly does not present much of a single target threat problem. What I thought would be another useless juggernaut ability is instead a significant buff to the class if used intelligently.

 

**I find it interesting that the melee warrior has such a complicated set of abilities.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Powerrmongerr

[Noth]

 

--The heal presents almost NO problem for single target threat. This surprised me. With any single target, even rakata geared marauders couldn't rip aggro from me if I used the single target taunt at the same time and kept up what dps I could manage. I'm not srue how much it reduces threat, but between taunt and crushing blow I really didn't have any issues. This was a very pleasant surprise.

 

 

The reason the marauder doesn't rip aggro from you is that you've built up enough and then also used your taunt which forces the mob to attack you for 6 seconds.

 

I seriously have not found a good use for this outside of ball carrying in huttball. It constantly leaves you short on rage so you have to resort to free attacks or builders with an occasional damaging attack. A defensive cooldown should not cost this much.

[Varus_Praetor]

Enraged Defense just uses too much rage for the benefit it provides. None of my other defensive cooldowns have such a large negative attached to them, and most of them are actually provide more benefit as well.

 

If I don't have Enrage available, this really kills my DPS, which defeats the purpose as a Vengeance spec jug.

[Darth_Xzygy]

It is worth pointing out that the dead do zero dps...

 

Do not underestimate the usefulness of a threat drop.

[havok_bloodcraft]

have used it but it is bad. limited usefulness (threat dump that I only needed because they took huddle away) combined with high rage cost (4 really?). it isn't completely useless but for a defensive cooldown it has a bad cost/reward ratio if it costed 2 rage instead I would feel a little better but the fact is that it uses rage each time you get hit is rage cost enough (please remove one of those costs as 8 rage for a 12% heal and threat dump is not in line with any other ability).

[Vid-szhite]

It is worth pointing out that the dead do zero dps...

 

Do not underestimate the usefulness of a threat drop.

 

It's worth pointing out that a rageless Jugg also does 0 DPS. We also still have other, far better defense cooldowns to choose from if we get aggro. Jugg DPS still have Saber Ward + Endure Pain if we pull so much aggro that we're tanking the boss, which let's face it, Saber Ward is a beastly cooldown that gives the tank plenty of time to taunt it back, and as a Jugg, we get a few seconds of 100% defense with Saber Ward. Endure Pain is temp HP, but it gives the healer more time to save us.

 

It's also worth pointing out that if I have low rage to begin with, I still can't use Enraged Defense. This is likely to happen at a crucial moment, since... when do you need to drop your threat? After a huge burst. What do you need to use for a huge burst? Lots of rage-spending attacks.

 

It's ALSO worth pointing out that Threat Drop abilities that aren't 100% Aggro Wipes are useless if you already have aggro, since it won't dump enough to give aggro back to the tank, so you have to weave it into your rotation BEFORE you get aggro for the best results. Since ED is not an aggro wipe ("Moderate Amount"), we have to spam it on cooldown to get anything out of it, but since it costs 4 rage, it's useless unless we have full rage and no attacks to use... at which point we're already doing low DPS, because our options for attacks have been reduced to the Assaults and Vicious Slash, so we don't need to reduce our aggro further.

 

As a result of all its drawbacks, it is completely useless. It won't drop your aggro appreciably if you already have aggro, it won't save your life in a situation where you'd need to reduce that aggro rather than just take it on the chin with your heavy armor, and it can't fill the void of defense if Saber Ward + Endure Pain are on cooldown. It is literally only useful in Huttball when you are the ball carrier.

Edited April 14, 2012 by Vid-szhite

[Subparhero]

immortal spec tank here.

 

for me - completely. useless. ability. I get that its probably designed more for dps juggs. But as a tank it ***** my rage bar AND lowers my hate? No thanks.

 

There should be a high-tier ability in the Immortal tree that makes its ADD 1 rage and hate each time you're hit, instead of reducing rage & hate. (wouldnt be OP with the 4 rage cost)

Also, i think 3% is a bit low for the heal personally.

Edited April 14, 2012 by Subparhero

[Subparhero]

oh wow, first time i've had a post censored. Apparently you cant say "crapes" minus the "c"?

lol... thats not even a swear word!

oh well haha

Edited April 14, 2012 by Subparhero

[Geryboy]

The ability needs to consider stances when used, de-aggro on proc is horrible when you are the main tank in an operation or hardmode and soresu form is needed.

 

the aggro you loose isn't that big, as far as I got a feeling for it you would only loose it if a dps was very close to you and would be close to aggro. Using a high threat ability would make up for it I guess. If you have a taunt ready and your focus cd this ability is perfectly fine while being a main tank you just have to combine it with other cds to be perfectly safe.

[Geryboy]

immortal spec tank here.

 

for me - completely. useless. ability. I get that its probably designed more for dps juggs. But as a tank it ***** my rage bar AND lowers my hate? No thanks.

 

There should be a high-tier ability in the Immortal tree that makes its ADD 1 rage and hate each time you're hit, instead of reducing rage & hate. (wouldnt be OP with the 4 rage cost)

Also, i think 3% is a bit low for the heal personally.

 

you can get 3% every second for 10 sec, that is quite alot. Using it with your 6 focus cd and your taunt afterwards makes it valid.

[Tropheus]

Pvp player here,first 1 day i tried it after that even didnt put that skill to my hotbar.Heals are joke,useless aganist dmg and rage eater,cutting my dps badly.No reason to use it.Doing better without it.

[GorillaJ]

Completely worthless. I have no idea what made Bioware think this ability was good as is. The idea of a self-heal, and even a threat dump, is not a bad idea. But the implementation here is poor.

[Phaelgalis]

I use it in pvp when i get chain stunned along with the talent that grants you 4 rage when stunned and it works quite well. It's not really a skill you use when you duel someone but when you are incapacited and people try to zerg you, it gives the healer of your team more space to heal you. Sure i could use a lower cost, but in the end I find myself to activate it pretty often in a group pvp situation. In pve on the other hand it's pretty marginal. Edited April 14, 2012 by Phaelgalis

[Goretzu]

In PvE there are situational uses for it (more for threat drop than anything).

 

In PvP really it just has FAR too high a rage cost (or far too low a healing rate) to really be of any use at all (except maybe when stunned). If you use it in PvP you're almost certainly rage-starving yourself for a very low amount of HPS, and so it does very little to improve surviablity.

Edited April 14, 2012 by Goretzu

[zipsfan]

Soresu Rage Jugg here...haven't bothered to pay the 30k+ credits to train it yet....I just don't feel like I need something that costs so much to do so little healing in a fight. Pop saber ward-endure pain-medpac when you're around 40% and if I have a decent healer (or a sub-par opponent) I'm fine. I run with the assumption that threat isn't necessarily an issue in PvP (where I mostly use Soresu + Rage) so the threat reduction is moot.

 

Plus post 1.2 I have ZERO rage management issues as a Soresu Rage Jugg (somehow...), and I feel like this skill would give me issues with that.

 

Again, I haven't used it or even purchased it; therefore my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. But I would love to hear what others have to say about the utility of this skill, in both PvE and PvP.

 

P.S. I'm loving 1.2...

[IamVana]

Huttball and tank switching, all you need it for and all you should ever need it for.

[Aikagi]

I've been using it in PvP a bit, like when ball carrying. Will never use it in PvE though since it lowers threat, which is detrimental as a tank.

[SwordofSodan]

I added enraged defence to my list of crap bloat skills that already don't exsist on my hotbars. Edited April 14, 2012 by SwordofSodan

[Dee-Jay]

Enraged Defense just uses too much rage for the benefit it provides. None of my other defensive cooldowns have such a large negative attached to them, and most of them are actually provide more benefit as well.

 

If I don't have Enrage available, this really kills my DPS, which defeats the purpose as a Vengeance spec jug.

 

This sums it up pretty well.

 

Enraged Defense would be an OK skill if it weren't so ridiculously overpriced.

 

Endue Pain is arguably a better CD and has no cost attached to it whatsoever. Why must Enraged Defense consume 4 Rage +X. It's just stupid.

 

It also means you can't even use it as a survival cooldown most of the time because you lack Rage.