Juggernaut Tank -- Not Viable?

[ruminate]

I have a powertech lvl 18 and jugg lvl 15 atm and gotta say my Jugg feels way tankier....

 

My powertech is shield spec and my tanking isnt anywere good as Juggs... on the other hand I can aoe agro pretty well.

 

Biggest issues with BH tank is lack of snap agro if a dps manages to pull it off me I dont have any tools to get it back atm...

 

That and my mitigation is much lower than my juggs... my jug is sitting on 45% damage reduction at lvl 15. My BH at 18 only has 32% and it makes a difference....

 

What exactly do you mean "snap aggro"? All tanks gain taunt at level 16.

 

And how is your mitigation lower than your Jugg? Both wear heavy armor, both gain a 60% armor bonus, and both gain another 5% damage mitigation. Powertechs have another 16% armor bonus and another 4% damage mitigation from talents.

 

And is your Jugg in full set of level 15 epic purples? Because in a mix of level 50 blues and hard mode epics, my Jugg only has 44% damage mitigation.

 

....I can't tell if you're serious.

Edited December 29, 2011 by ruminate

[Casaad]

I love my Juggernaut tank. Only level 29 atm, though. I enjoy both PVP and PVE, tanking and DPS with him. I've been running with guildies as much as I can. I've noticed a few things about holding agro on groups:

 

ONE: Our Sith Assassin kept pulling agro and he didnt know why. We finally realized it was because he was DPSing with his tanking stance on. Once turned off, he almost never pulled agro.

 

TWO: Our BH Merc kept pulling agro at the start of a fight. He would do Death From Above (DFA) after I charged in and AOEd. But, he was activating DFA before I actually did the AOE. He figured that because DFA takes a few seconds to actually hit the target, that he was timing it after my AOE. However, we noticed that the mobs would turn and agro the moment he activated DFA, instead of after he flew up into the air and the actual rockets hit the ground. Kind of a silly mechanic to have the mobs agro before the attack actual hits the mobs, but that's what happens, so we learn to deal with it. Now he waits for me to hit my AOE before activating his DFA. Have had no problems ever since.

 

In pugs, you can see how both of these things can cause issues. Wrong stance and AOE attacks too early. I just mention these both at the start of a pug and have had much less issues pugging as well.

 

I'm looking forward to learning more about my Juggy as I continue to level. I love it!

Edited December 29, 2011 by Casaad

[vanderin]

Do NOT CHANGE the JUGG. Our Damage is fine...our tanking ability is fine...it is the mass perception of people thanks to WOW that makes them feel Juggs are not up to par.

 

Learn your rotations....group with people that know their class and do not open a fight with AOE's. Maximize your defensive augments and the Jugg will shine. Yes it is more difficult to tank AOE then the counter parts...but who wants to play easy mode all the time...

[Wildfae]

I love my Juggernaut tank. Only level 29 atm, though. I enjoy both PVP and PVE, tanking and DPS with him. I've been running with guildies as much as I can. I've noticed a few things about holding agro on groups:

 

ONE: Our Sith Assassin kept pulling agro and he didnt know why. We finally realized it was because he was DPSing with his tanking stance on. Once turned off, he almost never pulled agro.

 

TWO: Our BH Merc kept pulling agro at the start of a fight. He would do Death From Above (DFA) after I charged in and AOEd. But, he was activating DFA before I actually did the AOE. He figured that because DFA takes a few seconds to actually hit the target, that he was timing it after my AOE. However, we noticed that the mobs would turn and agro the moment he activated DFA, instead of after he flew up into the air and the actual rockets hit the ground. Kind of a silly mechanic to have the mobs agro before the attack actual hits the mobs, but that's what happens, so we learn to deal with it. Now he waits for me to hit my AOE before activating his DFA. Have had no problems ever since.

 

In pugs, you can see how both of these things can cause issues. Wrong stance and AOE attacks too early. I just mention these both at the start of a pug and have had much less issues pugging as well.

 

I'm looking forward to learning more about my Juggy as I continue to level. I love it!

 

^this. Pugs are giving Juggs a bad reputation because they dont understand the other classes. And Juggs whine because they dont understand their own class, nevermind be expected to tell your team how to play theirs. Give it another month and once people start understanding not only their own class but the other classes, pugs will run more smoothly. I mean most of us are leveling our first toon. How can you even begin to judge whether you are over or under powered compared to other tanks, unless you have played the other toons. There just isn't enough experience out there to make any rash changes.

[solduios]

What exactly do you mean "snap aggro"? All tanks gain taunt at level 16.

 

And how is your mitigation lower than your Jugg? Both wear heavy armor, both gain a 60% armor bonus, and both gain another 5% damage mitigation. Powertechs have another 16% armor bonus and another 4% damage mitigation from talents.

 

And is your Jugg in full set of level 15 epic purples? Because in a mix of level 50 blues and hard mode epics, my Jugg only has 44% damage mitigation.

 

....I can't tell if you're serious.

 

I am serious he is in mostly blues with like 2 purples i think my BH is in all blues at 18... BTW maybe I have taunt on my BH but I dont think so yet mostly I dont need do to solid agro up front with death from above. I know at 22 they get the cable pull deal and that gives big threat not sure what else they get for snap agro.

[Banivisa]

Yes buff me please I'm gimped. I've tanked every FP so far and I'm still soloing Heroic 4's @ lvl 40. I need a buff really really bad.

 

What's funny in all seriousness I think we'll actually get one to.

 

It's you the players that are gimped not the class, gear properly, use your cc and there is no issue.

[Lakshri]

Groups won't buy "I'm tankier" thing, complicated CC and dps order elaboration from their Jugg. They'll just take BH and herp-derp AOE

yep this is that problem

its not that we are not viable - yes we are (but levelling is pain)

but people will always choose what is easier to play with ...

ignorants player does not know or want to use CC or wait for pulls they will always compare you to sin or powertech and will never want to group with you

 

same with end game content progress for example if I remember correctly ? at start of wotlk

most ppl used DK as tank not because others were not viable (we used war I think) but because it was more easier to take down content with DKs.

 

And till dmg meters come I still don't now If we are even viable DPS

 

I never tried but most people here said we are not yes we can do dmg

but people are saying that its not even comparable with other classes and I am not interested in BG results when full PVP geared jugg or marauder is owning freshly dinged lvl 10....

[Joxerthemighty]

i'm a lvl36 jugg

 

a few tips:

tell your group kill order should be from trash->hero

use LoS to gather ranged mobs (one of the biggest problems as a melee tank)

when only fighting trash, for the most part the unranked mobs do little damage and get burned down quickly, keep in mind that everyone in the party has just as much HP as you do as the tank, focus on building threat on the stronger targets while the easy ones are being cleared, as the higher the rank the more time to kill and higher chance of losing threat.

 

 

that said, being melee is a huge handicap. i remember running cademimu and being knocked around like a ping pong ball when fighting the groups of 2 elite turrets. for the most part in MMOs CC isn't a concern in PVE, but in this game there is a fair amount, and being melee is a pain in the *** to recover from. it'd be amazing if we had some sort of vacuum ability to suck in all the ranged mobs we fight.

[Nekronus]

I just wish Force Push was Force Pull so we could get a mob to us rather than push them away.

 

I'm somewhat disappoint that some of our best looking abilities are particularly useless. Saber Throw would have made a great high threat "Chain Lightning" to aggro nearby mobs.

 

And again I would just like to see the amount of abilities be streamline a bit more, such as allowing Sundering Assault to completely replace the regular Assault.

[MrFong]

So... what I've read of the mathcraft indicates that Troopers/BHs have the highest survivability in that they have overall long-run mitigation roughly equivalent to Guardians/Juggs and Shadows/Assassins, but with less spiky health bars.

 

Playing a Trooper/BH is also a lot less tedious than playing one of the Force tanks, with specific regard to the Guards/Juggs. You don't have to smack one mob, run over to smack another, and so on, and so forth. You just drop Mortar/DFA if it's off CD, plus Explosive Surge/Flame Sweep and in some cases Pulse Cannon/Flamethrower, and you can tag ranged mobs with High Impact Bolt/Rail Shot and Sticky Grenade/Explosive Dart when necessary.

 

Having both a charge -and- a pull in addition to all of the extra ranged abilities and ranged basic attacks is just rubbing salt in the wounds of the poor Force-using tanks. Tsk.

 

Fat lot of good all that extra single-target threat is going to do you when other classes can do enough to hold aggro on bosses without the headache of having to worry about kill order on trash. A lot of people have been hoodwinked by pseudo-elitist comments about trash "not mattering", but it does. The faster you can get rid of trash groups, the faster you can finish your run of whatever you're up to.

[Morkatog]

People will sure hate me for this, but I will not do any pugs with a juggernaut tank until this issue gets adressed. The threat juggernauts build is really rediculous compared to other classes, especially in AoE situations. Whenever any adds spawn in any bossfight, chances are you're going to get a rediculously hard time.

 

- Lvl 50 Sorc Healer

[corakil]

I was MT for a raiding guild during The Burning Crusade in Wow. AoE threat was an issue that involved a lot of thunderclap and tab sundering, but it was in no way unmanageable. It did lead me to playing with only guild members tho because pugging was unbearable.

 

 

I could hold a group of trash and a boss as long as I had several seconds before the DPS unloaded and typically if they did pull aggro I'd let em eat it till they died then taunt the mob off my healer. I figured a hefty repair bill was the price you paid for being retarded. After several runs most of my DPS'ers fell in line and figured out how to play their class when they had a warrior tank.

 

 

I'm only level 12 Jugg now so what I'm gathering from this forum is that its a lot similar to WoW during the BC expansion?

[Bringwar]

I'm playing Star Wars, I want a freaking Light-Saber. If I wanted to shoot guns, there are a hell of a lot of other games I could play. That dropped me down to the Force tanks, Assassin, or Juggernaut. One wears light armor, the other heavy armor. There wasn't even a decision to be made after I read that. Stupid things like that is why I want to tank as a Heavy Armor wearing, Light-Saber wielding beast. There's just a lore'y feeling of strength you get from that, that suppresses the fact that there are better tanks out there. Better how though, better AoE threat gen? This is a brand new friggin game, and a mmo at that. Things change all the time. My pally tank in WoW doesn't need to use a spell-power weapon and put salv up on every person in the group anymore. Juggernauts ARE the tanks of this game imo, and with the fact that changes happen, for the good and for the bad, I'm spending my time on playing a class that makes me happy with the game, not the class that makes people happy with me. I have AoE threat issues, sure, but I work through it with my group, and most of the time I can make it work without any problems. So all you clothie and gun slingin tanks can have your name in the spotlight, I'll be here waiting for my turn.

[blakerocks]

What I don't understand is that nobody has said anything about the story. I got this game for the story of it - without the story it's just WoW with lightsabers and blaster rifles. I really enjoy the story of my Sith Juggernaut at this point in time (Level 17 on Balmorra). And even with the near-exact-same play styles I am about to start a Jedi Guardian just because of the story. If a class is bad at tanking don't ever delete it or stop playing it. BioWare will fix the problem and Juggernaut will be viable again. Then other classes will get nerfed because they realize how over-powered they were, and then others buffed again. It WILL happen eventually, and classes will be bad back and forth whether it be for one week or two years, all classes will be good and balanced. Just enjoy the story

[pauledangerously]

The difference is huge from 10-20 to 30-40 you get a lot of tanking abilities and your aoe improves.

[lotj]

The difference is huge from 10-20 to 30-40 you get a lot of tanking abilities and your aoe improves.

 

For AoE tanking, you add a spammable 4 focus swipe attack that does a "normal" amount of threat. This is in addition to the ~15s aoe ability they all got pretty early on. That's it for AoE tanking for juggs/guards.

 

They also only have one "high" threat ability. It's single target and on a 1m cd. Everything else goes under the usual 1.5x threat:damage multiplier, which means they have to sustain about two-thirds of the top dps' output to hold threat. That's one of the bigger problems they have, too.

 

The ability bloat is another one. The "full" single-target threat rotation has some ungodly 11 abilities (12 if you count the <20% ability), plus 2 situational threat abilities that really have no reason to be distinct abilities (one only usable against stunned, one only usable against slowed). Throw in the 2 taunts, 4 defensive cd's, 2 interrupts (counting push here), 2 charges (friendly/enemy), 1 aoe slow that's needed because the aoe threat sucks, and you're looking at 23 total "core" abilities to play about half as effectively as other tanking classes with less than half that many buttons.

 

Now, I actually like that complexity, but with no pay-off it just seems like wasted effort.

 

Outside of general threat-suckage, the other biggest gripe I have is how little difference (visually) there is between abilities unavailable because they're on cd, and abilities unavailable because I don't have the focus. Given that distinction very much dictates the next button press (and I have to be watching the combat, not my hotbar), this should be blatantly obvious with just a glance -- not have to watch it for part of a second to see if there's a slightly dark gradient moving down the ability icon.

 

Oh, and for people claiming the other players will adapt -- they adapt by not running with juggs/guards. As a dps/healer, if you have two tanking classes that generally work fine and are fun to play with and one that's a mess or straight pita, you're just not going to group with that last one.

[Zeppz]

I've done plenty of tanking in my experience from previous MMO's, Juggernaut is by far the clunkiest and least threat producing tank i've every played. I don't mind tabbing through different mobs to generate real aggro, but it does get old when you see a Powertech pull and hold aggro reliably with little to no effort. This kinda reminds me of WoW TBC where warriors where pretty terrible at snap aoe threat compared to the others yet made it up by having better mitigation on single target. Here the mitigation doesn't even apply :x. Edited January 1, 2012 by Zeppz

[Muckbeast]

There are so many unnecessary abilities that need better overlap, that it adds to the already existing problems and flaws in the class.

 

Sundering Assault should either have no cooldown at all, or should lose its cooldown somewhere early-ish in the immortal tree. Having to use two rage builders is a terrible waste of bar space and an annoyance.

 

Sweeping Slash should be PBAoE, not a horrible tiny melee cone. How many more MMOs have to come out where devs make sucky melee cones and everyone hates them. A 10-15m range PBAoE would be a huge boon.

 

Either Sweeping Slash or Smash should be made high threat, or made high threat along with another talent, or both.

 

Chilling Scream should generate more threat and have some kind of defensive debuff added along with the slow.

 

WE NEED FORCE PULL. This one is almost non-negotiable. With the prevalence of ranged mobs that you can't get grouped up for our scant few AoEs, we need force pull to help get groups more clustered. We need this desperately.

[Bustaperizm]

Pages 5 and 6 are full of win. There is nothing wrong with jugg threat. As we lvl our rage is near limitless. That's where our superior threat is coming from. With a lot of absorb and Dr procs. If you're running a lower lvl instance with a trooper/bh tank. Make sure the idiot takes off his threat buff. That prob has a lot to do with the aggro pulling you see.

 

I've had zero issues keeping aggro. Don't let people scare you. And don't let low lvl, inexperienced tanks in a week old game make you think that juggs/gaurdians are the end all be all tank of this game.....thus far.

 

I like my shadow tanky alt.

[Shaojack]

Just hit 30 on my jugg tank. I was having a blast early on, had some really awesome groups. Now I am struggling a bit. I tab target and use aoe off CD.

 

I read the entire thread and half the posts are "WAH something about warcraft and L2P"

 

Well, I am trying to learn to play =D Thanks for the advice, never thought I would have to learn how to play, +1 for you.

 

I feel it is not just the Juggernaut though, I feel the other tanks having the ability to hold aoe threat people get use to just AOE smashing everything which is kind of more fun and less time consuming. Two biggest offenders I have for threat pulling are Mercs and Sorcs. They will open with an aoe, then I spend a lot effort trying to regain agro, sometimes Ill regain one and lose another.

 

Now wait, I know whats next "well thats ur groups L2p issue, find a new group noob."

Right, so to remedy this we talk and set up marks for cc and kill order, which makes it less painful, however still gets really harry.

 

I plan on taking my jugg to 50 for the story at least, however I feel the Jugg could use some tweaking in the aoe department. At 30 I just got an AOE taunt which helped a ton for those moments where **** just goes everywhere, but my experience has been mixed thus far. Earlier I was very successful, now I am feeling a little under par with it.

 

Anyone currently with a 50 jugg tank that could post their thoughts on tanking later would be awesome. Thank you.

[Merihim]

Im a Level 30 Jugger now.

 

 

I have no issue holding aggro on multi mobs.

 

Tell your party to stop being stupid and spamming Aoe skills after you use Smash once...

 

 

Mark Targets to tell them what to kill first.

 

Last night i was doing 5 gold pulls with a 3 person group.

 

2x CC'd, i tanked 3 with zero issues.

 

 

This isnt wow, you cant just spam aoe damage right after the tank charges in...

 

 

I didnt even have AoE taunt Trained yet either....

 

This. Use a kill order, it's needed for a Juggernaut to tank. Tanking 1 is not a issue, 2 or 3 is doable. As long as your team kills the one you marked to be killed. And not aoe'ing the crap out of the mobs.

[genesiser]

To help us out they need to just us more high threat moves.

 

Or at least put on the tool tip which moves are high threat.

 

For example, I was leveling an alt with my friend and we were using his pet for tanking. When looking at his pet's toolbar you see like 4 moves that say it has high threat.

 

When I look at the jk/jugg skills only one of them says it's a high threat move which is that 1 min cd one you get in the middle of the tree. However yesterday someone told me that blade storm/force scream have an added threat modifier. I tested it out and it was true.

 

So maybe they just need to fix the tool tips and show which moves are high threat. Perhaps there are some high threat moves that we have but we just don't know about it.

[Ryzard]

I'm a 31 Jugg, and fortunately I have little aggro problems, aside when you need to tank 2 melee mobs and 3 ranged mobs, then it gets fishy.

 

My problem is that i'm dying while doing quests, not when going to dungeons. I'm leveling a Jugg since lvl 10, and my god I'm frustrated. Strong and above mobs cut through me like through paper, and help me god if mobs stack sunder armor, then i'm as good as dead. It's not right that i have to use my tank CD just to kill some quest mobs. I just died doing Jaesa's ship quest with 1 strong and 1 elite mob, Quinn was with me, but he wasn't able to keep me alive long enough.

 

Am I the only one with these survivability issues and i'm doing something wrong, or there are others?

[GeoPirate]

I have mostly been laughing as I read through this thread, and I have to say that most of you need to get off the forums and go level up. The only real issue is that many of the core Jugg tanking abilities you don't get until much later, so leveling up it's like playing with half a toolbox. Seriously when you get to 50 you'll feel overpowered after being sort of gimped leveling up. Juggs used to have force pull, but it was simply too overpowered for pvp, you will be destroying people!

 

IF you do get to 50 and you're still having issues, it's probably because your spec is messed up or you simply aren't using enough abilitites, you should be using 25+ abilities regularly while tanking. THIS ISN'T WoW, most of the tanks on that game used 5-6 abilities regularly and facerolled to victory, you actually have to pay attention if you want to tank as a Jugg. I hope everyone gets the hang of it and gets to enjoy Jugg tanking as I have!

[FissionEnt]

Honestly im a 42 jugg....tanking is very difficult - but viable. Its just boring playing one...u can't handle that much dmg w/o your cd's and u deal laughable dmg on anything above weak enemies.

Thats my only issue...the class is boring, not sure excactly what it is...but its hella-boring to play