Hybrid vs full Immortal for a fresh 50 running HM flashpoints?

[OcTwenty]

Hi lads ive recently hit 50 and currently my gear is full epic mods/armour.enhance ect from daily tockens/illium daily quest ect. what im wondering is, will i handle Hm flash points better as full immortal or one of the hybrid builds? looking for some experienced jugs to clear this up for me.

thanks lads.

[Craxim]

Hi lads ive recently hit 50 and currently my gear is full epic mods/armour.enhance ect from daily tockens/illium daily quest ect. what im wondering is, will i handle Hm flash points better as full immortal or one of the hybrid builds? looking for some experienced jugs to clear this up for me.

thanks lads.

 

Full Immortal. 1.3 is coming soon, you need to get used to full Immortal. You'll also take less damage in full Immortal. The hybrid was only an early attempt to solve aggro issues, most of which are gone now and the rest of which will be gone in 1.3.

[Crimson_Paladin]

I've done fine running HM flashpoints as a hybrid tank. With the upcoming nerf to Crushing Blow, I'm not seeing any reason to switch back once threat is fixed.

[Craxim]

I've done fine running HM flashpoints as a hybrid tank. With the upcoming nerf to Crushing Blow, I'm not seeing any reason to switch back once threat is fixed.

 

HM FP is one thing, HM Denova and soon NMM Denova is completely different. The damage you take as a hybrid spec is ridiculous, and going hybrid is an unwise choice overall.

[Crimson_Paladin]

How does one take more damage as a Hybrid? If we're talking purely about defense, an Immortal/Vengeance hybrid loses only a 4% additional shield chance and 5 extra seconds of Endure Pain, yet gains 4% white damage DR, an extra 15% DR when Enraged Defense is activated, Unstoppable (admittedly more useful in PvP than PvE, but still handy at times), and a reduced cooldown on Force Scream.

 

From what I've read, this is in fact something that some people seem to be upset about, that one can be an effective tank by putting most of their skill tree points in a DPS tree.

Edited June 23, 2012 by Crimson_Paladin

[Sookster]

Honeslty you shouldn't even have a hybrid spec going into HM and operations, especially if you're going to be the MAIN tank.

[Crispious]

Immortal/Vengeance hybrid currently offers more threat and (except in very few situations) more survivability.

 

Just read the talents. It's pretty clear.

 

It may change with 1.3, but right now hybrid is superior.

Edited June 23, 2012 by Crispious

[Craxim]

Immortal/Vengeance hybrid currently offers more threat and (except in very few situations) more survivability.

 

Just read the talents. It's pretty clear.

 

It may change with 1.3, but right now hybrid is superior.

 

I disagree. Please be more specific. More threat is pointless, anyone who knows how taunts work does not have a single target aggro problem in full Immortal. How does it offer more survivability? Please, elaborate on this for me.

[Crimson_Paladin]

Immortal offers many excellent talents that improve survivability. The problem is, most of them are on the lower-to-mid part of the tree. Many of the higher up talents, such as Thrown Gauntlet, Revenge, and Sweeping Fury, do not particularly improve survivability, although some do make it much easier to maintain rage in Soresu. Vengeance also offers a number of survivability-improving talents, such as Deafening Defense (which I'm surprised is on a DPS branch rather than the tanking branch, given how solid a tanking talent it is), Vengeance (works good with Sonic Barrier on Immortal tree), and Unstoppable (great for enemies that like to use CC or pushback).

 

That said, the comments I've been reading suggest that properly played, Juggernaut Immortal is quite adequate in endgame PvE.

[Crispious]

By going hybrid, from a survivability standpoint only, you give up 4% shield chance, 4% elemental and internal damage reduction, and five seconds on Endure Pain.

 

The shield chance and elemental and internal DR are easily answered by the all the time 4% DR you get from Deafening Defense. The 15% DR CD you get from Deafening Defense answers the lost five seconds on Endure Pain. On top, as an added bonus, you get four seconds of 20% DR every time you charge. In trash fights and quite a few boss fights, I use charge whenever it's cooled down, making this talent quite powerful.

 

Plus, I don't have to taunt because I actually hold threat...

[Craxim]

By going hybrid, from a survivability standpoint only, you give up 4% shield chance, 4% elemental and internal damage reduction, and five seconds on Endure Pain.

 

The shield chance and elemental and internal DR are easily answered by the all the time 4% DR you get from Deafening Defense. The 15% DR CD you get from Deafening Defense answers the lost five seconds on Endure Pain. On top, as an added bonus, you get four seconds of 20% DR every time you charge. In trash fights and quite a few boss fights, I use charge whenever it's cooled down, making this talent quite powerful.

 

Plus, I don't have to taunt because I actually hold threat...

 

I hold threat quite fine as well. Whether I do it by straight DPS or taunting is not the point. You have more DPS in hybrid, which is not neccessary as a tank. I've cleared every single boss on every single difficulty in the game, and I have no clue which fight you are talking about where you could possibly leap off CD. The very thought of that notion is ridiculous to me. You force yourself in hybrid to Sundering much more often to get rage and to also keep your armor debuff up. Sundering is not a very high damaging ability. You lose Crushing Blow, which even with the nerf still does a significant amount of damage. I will be able this Tuesday to give you an exact number for total damage done and DPS for all 4 HM EC bosses on 16 man, and I assure you, it won't be that far off from your hybrid's damage. The Immortal spec, when played correctly, can put damage numbers just fine. The problem is that the majority of the people playing it don't know how to. I have played the hybrid spec. In 1.0, it was the better spec, but I was asked personally by my healers to respec Immortal because I was taking more damage than necessary. Our raid has more than enough DPS coming from our actual DPS, the people who's role it is to do it, the damage increase of hybrid is not necessary for any raid that has DPS playing their class correctly.

[Crispious]

Perhaps you didn't read the title of the thread or the OP, but I think it's important that you grasp we are discussing HM FP's and not Ops. In Ops, the hybrid spec loses a bit of its attractiveness due to mobility being less utilized, but in FP's force charge can and should be utilized very often. We don't have a whole lot of AoE threat. Jumping around from mob to mob helps with that tremendously.

 

I'm not stating that the extra damage is necessary, but it sure is nice. Rage issues are a bit more troublesome with the hybrid spec, but if played correctly it should not make much of a difference.

 

Another big plus to the hybrid spec is that it doubles as a PvP spec much better than straight Immortal does. Y'know, if that's your thing.

 

Simply put, I'm quite willing to trade a bit of rage efficiency for more survivability. I was always finding myself wasteing rage in straight Immortal anyway. If you were taking more damage in the hybrid spec, simple numbers will tell you that you weren't doing something correctly because the hybrid has more damage reduction. My healers have all praised me for being easier to heal.

 

Perhaps the spec just didn't fit your playstyle. I think that's the best advice that can be given in this thread anyhow: Try both. See which one fits your needs better.

[Craxim]

Perhaps the spec just didn't fit your playstyle. I think that's the best advice that can be given in this thread anyhow: Try both. See which one fits your needs better.

 

I can agree with this. But HM FP's or HM Ops, in my opinion it doesn't make sense to suggest something that is less appealing later on, it just gets them used to something that (on Tuesday) will be pointless. And it does not have better damage reduction, the damage reduction comes from Force Chrage, which you shouldn't be doing on any raid boss off CD, and from Enraged Defense, which lowers threat (why would you want or need that) and spends rage (which you're already having an issue generating) to heal you (which you wouldn't need if you have the passive increases of Immortal and good healers). The only point I see to the hybrid spec is to make up for the rest of the raids failure, if your DPS and heals don't fail, the hybrid spec is pointless.

[Crispious]

The 4% passive damage reduction is more effective than the damage reduction lost by not continuing up the Immortal tree. The damage reduction charge offers is just icing on the cake when it can be utilized. Even without being able to use it throughout the whole fight, the extra 20% DR for the first four seconds of any fight is quite useful.

 

In the rare case that Enraged Defense even needs to be utilized for the 15% DR, using it with a taunt fixes the threat drop quite easily.

 

You do bring up a good point, though. I often run with at least partial PUGs and the ability to pick up others' potential slack definitely has a hand in my preference for this spec.

[Craxim]

The 4% passive damage reduction is more effective than the damage reduction lost by not continuing up the Immortal tree. The damage reduction charge offers is just icing on the cake when it can be utilized. Even without being able to use it throughout the whole fight, the extra 20% DR for the first four seconds of any fight is quite useful.

 

In the rare case that Enraged Defense even needs to be utilized for the 15% DR, using it with a taunt fixes the threat drop quite easily.

 

You do bring up a good point, though. I often run with at least partial PUGs and the ability to pick up others' potential slack definitely has a hand in my preference for this spec.

 

4% damage reduction is good. But 4% shield chance and 4% internal and elemental damage reduction throughout an entire fight, especially long fights like Kephiss, will in the end add up to the same or more than 4% damage reduction and 4 seconds of Force Charge reduction. Sure, you can taunt when using Enraged Defense, but all that really makes it is another cooldown, which we already have plenty of. Endure Pain is the least significant of them all, but at times of being wrecked, using it in pair with an armor adrenal and/or a use defense relic will make having the 15% of Enraged Defense not worth going all the way up a hybrid spec for it. Saber Ward and Invincible are both better than the 15% of Enraged Defense, and if you need more than both of those used consecutively or concurrently, then your raid is doing something wrong. I can see the desire to want to fix PUG's mistakes, the difference between you and I is that you are willing to respec to play with them, I am unwilling to play with them at all. That, however, is neither right nor wrong on either of us, and is just a personal choice. With the changes to Juggs in 1.3 coming this Tuesday, I would say that, if any exists, the perks to a hybrid spec on a endgame/hardcore level will be breathing their last breath come 2 days from now.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Craxim

[Crispious]

Keep in mind the 4% DR and 15% CD come from the same talent. We go up the tree for the DR, not the CD. In my opinion the 15% CD and the five second boost to Endure Pain are both nearly worthless.

 

The hybrid spec may, in fact, go off the wayside with 1.3. I was not aware that 1.3 is coming so soon, though.

 

I personally hope the hybrid is still viable. I really like the spec. It fits me well.

[Craxim]

Keep in mind the 4% DR and 15% CD come from the same talent. We go up the tree for the DR, not the CD. In my opinion the 15% CD and the five second boost to Endure Pain are both nearly worthless.

 

The hybrid spec may, in fact, go off the wayside with 1.3. I was not aware that 1.3 is coming so soon, though.

 

I personally hope the hybrid is still viable. I really like the spec. It fits me well.

 

To each, his own. My suggestion to anyone reading this on the fence, try Immortal first. The AoE changes are going to require certain Immortal talents (including Crushing Blow) to be effective. My personal opinion is that to tank, you should use the tanking tree. It's just a shame our tanking tree is so unbelievably cookie-cutter.