AOE and Vig Survival

[MimicUnleashed]

I'm really kind of sick and tired of the lack of AOE damage reduction Vig Guardians have. So much so I've considered giving up the character I love (despite the stupid hood) just because I can't live through AOE fights that aren't build around 1 big hit every so often. Regular heavy AOE (EC Zorn and Toth most specifically) kills me. No matter how many times I've seen them die I never live longer than the first 20% of their life bars. I'm a liability. My guild likes me, but after some serious tries into doing EC HM (and I die almost exactly at 91% every time) they're pretty much held the flag up that once it's on farm I can come back. Not because I can't do damage, but because I die.

 

I'm sorry, but I'm upset and if I seem mean spirited, then so be it. But when I can't live through the opening 10% of a boss consistantly with Rakatta/Black Hole gear all over me with augments, and even trying everything I know how to survive from changing priority to cooldown cycling to rotating my spec, then it's a fault I can't seem to fix. I've got the Sage shielding me every time they can, healing me MORE than the tank, leaving hots on me and even then I die from the stomping damage. I checked the combat log and it's hitting me for 7k a hit. And it's so speratic I can't pop a cooldown to really even the edges since Focus defense wont eat more than 1 hit before it fades, saber ward eats 1, and doesn't seem to be able to soak the next, Enure just tricks the healer into thinking they got time for another heal on the tank...

 

I even went so far as to track down some advice. No advice has surfaced worth a darn. I had one Guardian tank tell me that I had a 20% DR I could use every time. Force Leap. Which I have to run away to use, but God help me I've tried. I've guardian leaped the healer and charged back in, I've run away and waited for heals, I've tried everything I can try. I just keep dying. So unless there's some sort of item I should be wearing to give me DR, reduce their damage, or a place to stand to reduce my inbound: I call foul on class mechanics. I'm to the point I'm considering not playing this character anymore. The problem is I love this character and it's combat style, but it doesn't matter if I can't survive to do my job.

[grallmate]

I don't know whats cause all your issues but our Vig Guardian doesn't take much damage aside from the stomp. He does leap out if he gets below about 30% so the healers can bring him back up but it doesn't need to happen most runs.

 

All I can think of is that you're getting hit by his cleave as well. Make sure you aren't standing in front of the boss and you aren't inside his hit box. We also have our melee jump over to Zorn when Toth frenzies so they aren't eating extra damage. HP evens back up during the red circle phases usually. Although if you're dying at 91% then it isn't the frenzy that kills you. I also assume that it isn't a mechanics issues because the only mechanic in the first 10% is to keep them apart, and if they're too close you'd be having bigger issues than a DPS dying.

[MimicUnleashed]

I did check to see if he had a wonky hit-box. At first that was my concern. I'd stand back as far as I could at his heels and swing from there and make sure he was facing the tank. I've eaten a few cleaves when he'd get jostled, but that's not the issue in HM. The basic stomps are just pounding me so hard I can't live through it. I've lived to about 30% one time, but I had to vacate the area at 30% of my own HP and stand off to wait for healing before going in.

 

And don't get me started about trying to DPS the other guy. Fearful is fine in SM, but in HM I'm dead. I can never get out of the way even with a guardian leap to clear and 3% warning. I'll have fearful and my dots will kill me. It's just plain wrong.

[grallmate]

The only other thing I can think of is that perhaps you are under geared. All of Toth's attacks are kinetic/energy, so they are all mitigated by armor and (for tanks) shield.

 

With Zorn, I know I had to spec out of my DoTs (Hybrid Guardian tank) because they were just destroying me. However what I meant was just swap to Zorn when Toth frenzies and swap back as soon as the reticule turns purple. You shouldn't be getting fearful this way and you avoid taking the increased damage from frenzy.

 

Also, while smash hurts, even 7k should easily be healable. They aren't that frequent so the healers should have plenty of time to bring you up. The only things I can think of without seeing a video or combat log is that you're taking avoidable damage that my DPS don't, your healer isn't up to par, your healer isn't healing you, you or your healer are undergeared or some combination of the above.

[wadecounty]

 

Also, while smash hurts, even 7k should easily be healable. They aren't that frequent so the healers should have plenty of time to bring you up. The only things I can think of without seeing a video or combat log is that you're taking avoidable damage that my DPS don't, your healer isn't up to par, your healer isn't healing you, you or your healer are undergeared or some combination of the above.

 

This.

 

You or your healers are doing something wrong, this is not a Vigilance Guardian issue. Also, are you even bothering to use Focused Defense on this fight? It definitely makes a difference.

[MimicUnleashed]

This.

 

You or your healers are doing something wrong, this is not a Vigilance Guardian issue. Also, are you even bothering to use Focused Defense on this fight? It definitely makes a difference.

 

If I pop it it only stays active long enough to eat 1 stomp. The frequency between stomps is JUST enough that if I pop it to soak on it falls off before the next one. I think I popped it perfectly one time and it got to the second one, but it's not an actual damage reducer until I get low. The amount it heals to what I eat just makes it useful for the extra % DR

[wadecounty]

If I pop it it only stays active long enough to eat 1 stomp. The frequency between stomps is JUST enough that if I pop it to soak on it falls off before the next one. I think I popped it perfectly one time and it got to the second one, but it's not an actual damage reducer until I get low. The amount it heals to what I eat just makes it useful for the extra % DR

 

Sounds to me like your healers are slacking then.

 

I can tell you that with my guild, we have the DPS switch along with the tanks on every jump, this does 2 things, ensures that fearful doesn't kill anyone, and allows the melee to never be on Toth during berserk phases.

 

But yeah, if you're dying before the first jump your healers are not hard mode EC capable, that I can say for a fact.

[GarfieldJL]

Sounds to me like your healers are slacking then.

 

I can tell you that with my guild, we have the DPS switch along with the tanks on every jump, this does 2 things, ensures that fearful doesn't kill anyone, and allows the melee to never be on Toth during berserk phases.

 

But yeah, if you're dying before the first jump your healers are not hard mode EC capable, that I can say for a fact.

 

The OP does have a point about a Vig Guardian's weakness against certain attacks, it's why I actually have a lot of defensive upgrades to begin with.

 

While other people posting are right that the healers aren't doing a good enough job, that is besides the point, sentinels and shadows are better able to deal with these kinds of fights.

 

1. Sentinels and Shadows both have a self-heal option (shadows have to enter tank mode to use it)

2. Shadows have quite a few ranged attacks that Guardians do not.

 

Focused Defense is not a true self heal, it is a threat/focus dump, which severely curtails our ability to be effective in a fight.

[Karasuko]

The OP does have a point about a Vig Guardian's weakness against certain attacks, it's why I actually have a lot of defensive upgrades to begin with.

 

While other people posting are right that the healers aren't doing a good enough job, that is besides the point, sentinels and shadows are better able to deal with these kinds of fights.

 

1. Sentinels and Shadows both have a self-heal option (shadows have to enter tank mode to use it)

2. Shadows have quite a few ranged attacks that Guardians do not.

 

Focused Defense is not a true self heal, it is a threat/focus dump, which severely curtails our ability to be effective in a fight.

 

You are so wrong its really not funny.

1. I am not losing my entire force bar to heal 300hp every 2.5 secs then having to re-empty it to switch back. Factor in loss of damage from not being in shadow tech and yeah we're hitting enrage. Now factor in threat on top of that and its just a dumb dumb idea.

2. Our range on most of our attacks is..... 10 meters.I'm sure as hell not wasting Force potency to make my pathetic TK throw max ranged. Force stun is our only true ranged ability and at best it ticks once and procs relic and tech.

 

I get it you take alot of damage,fair cop its what melee do.But when you have a perfectly fine **** in guardian leap I feel zero sympathy.If your Gleaping and getting fearful? your healer is badly postioned and you wait for it..... CHOSE THE WRONG PERSON TO JUMP TOO.

 

Defensive upgrades? really? why are you wasting precious itemisation on them? Your job is to drop thigns hard and fast.If your healers cant keep you up well thats their fault not yours.

 

EDIT: re-read the OP's post. Sages have troubles on Z and T it seems.Swap your ehalers around and see if it makes a difference.I have zero issues healing this on my scoundrel as I can almost gurantee 6-7k healed every 10 secs.Also your dying at the leap mark? well thats just bad play on your part, 93% leap out of range and see if that makes a difference.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Karasuko

[Solar_Breeze]

Im not a warrior but on Toth and Zorn, Toth it seems will always stomp as the tanks are positioning after a jump.

 

So simple solution - When toth jumps away to zorn, run out and wait until after the stomp to jump back in.

[JamieM]

I have to echo Wade and Grall here. If you are dying at 90% then you are either undergeared (anything less than full Rakata with around 1800 HP buffed is likely going to be a problem unless you are being carried or are a very good player), you are running into avoidable damage or your healers are simply not doing their jobs properly.

 

In this instance I'm inclined to think it's the healers simply because most people know what the minimum reqs are by now for EC HM and it's really very hard to die from avoidable damage before the 90% mark on either Z or T.

 

Melee should be on Toth at the start and on the first switch you should be swapping over to Zorn, avoiding the damage by running out of range and only leaping to Zorn after he is taunted by the tank and is a safe distance from Toth. Also make sure you use Focused Defence and Saber Ward when needed to mitigate damage, as well as our mini temporary heal.

Edited August 28, 2012 by JamieM

[JamieM]

Focused Defense is not a true self heal, it is a threat/focus dump, which severely curtails our ability to be effective in a fight.

 

I agree that it's not really all that great, but it is better than dying.

[wadecounty]

I agree that it's not really all that great, but it is better than dying.

 

I'd also argue against the notion that it "severely curtails our ability to be effective in a fight", talk about a gross exaggeration if you're Vigilance (which you should be if you're DPSing in PvE). The Focus cost to activate it is equivalent to 1 Overhead Slash, and if it does actually heal you, meaning its eating up more Focus, a single Combat Focus will take care of that (a Vigilance Guardian hardly ever has a need for Combat Focus otherwise).

 

Not to mention, even though some choose not to spec into it, taking Commanding Awe ups your damage reduction to just under what a Shadow tank has (35% in BH gear), and turns Focused Defense into more of a defensive cooldown as well by adding 15% damage reduction, bringing you to 50% reduction with it active.

 

No, there is nothing wrong with Guardian survivability atm, I'd lean more towards the side that Sentinel/Marauder survivability is overpowered if anything.

[MimicUnleashed]

A ranged used fraps on our last attempt and cut out the fights where I was there and sent it to me. He told me to look it over and see if I was missing something. God bless him for it. It seems that despite our best efforts, and after much pausing, I was eating fearful because of the calls. To avoid the stomps I got moved to the other boss, which worked out fine for the most part. But the Sentinel in charge of calling out HP would call out and I'd leap the ranged. So I was technically 40 yards out from the boss at this point. But I was still getting fearful. Because until I was done with that landing animation, if the boss landed I still counted as getting it. Not just the leap, the animation. And sometimes it insta-killed me because of burns (that's a bug I'd read about that happens 1/20 times)

 

I did try again on stompy, and watched the hp bars. One of our tanks, despite being in more black hole than rakata, takes every hit to the kidneys somehow and he was getting healed like a champ. I'd go 2-3 stomps without a heal that wasn't from a golden doughnut or a medpack. So as it seems I've just not getting healed because one of the tanks is paper, and the caller is... well he's an idiot. When I approached him about it he gave me some flippant attitude about how if I can't survive in Denova I shouldn't go.

 

So yeah. Problem found, but not resolved.

[grallmate]

A ranged used fraps on our last attempt and cut out the fights where I was there and sent it to me. He told me to look it over and see if I was missing something. God bless him for it. It seems that despite our best efforts, and after much pausing, I was eating fearful because of the calls. To avoid the stomps I got moved to the other boss, which worked out fine for the most part. But the Sentinel in charge of calling out HP would call out and I'd leap the ranged. So I was technically 40 yards out from the boss at this point. But I was still getting fearful. Because until I was done with that landing animation, if the boss landed I still counted as getting it. Not just the leap, the animation. And sometimes it insta-killed me because of burns (that's a bug I'd read about that happens 1/20 times)

 

I did try again on stompy, and watched the hp bars. One of our tanks, despite being in more black hole than rakata, takes every hit to the kidneys somehow and he was getting healed like a champ. I'd go 2-3 stomps without a heal that wasn't from a golden doughnut or a medpack. So as it seems I've just not getting healed because one of the tanks is paper, and the caller is... well he's an idiot. When I approached him about it he gave me some flippant attitude about how if I can't survive in Denova I shouldn't go.

 

So yeah. Problem found, but not resolved.

 

Also worth noting that Fearful goes out when Zorn screams. This can be either before or after Toth leaps depending on abilities. Usually it happens just before, but it is REALLY important in this fight to be calling out HP % on both bosses at all times. Perhaps suggest that the Sent is lagging and you aren't getting the HP calls on time, then offer to make those calls yourself. Otherwise talk to the raid leader. It's really easy to kill yourself really quick if those HP % aren't being called.

 

With the tank taking a heap of damage, what kind of tank? VG or Guard shouldn't be taking too many big hits but a Shadow could definitely be eating some big ones every now and then, especially if they aren't keep Kinetic Ward up. Could be worth suggesting the tanks or healers swap over.

[MimicUnleashed]

Vig tank. We have 2 in the guild. One of them could headbutt Malgus into the Legacy of the Jedi era and maybe take 1/4th of his HP in damage. The other is almost as squishy as I am. I know he's Defense, I've seen his abilities, but he just can't take a hit even in his gear. So I dunno if he's just not taking the right points, and God forbid you ask him because he gets really defensive about it. I have a shadow tank who has tanked SM Denova and the difficulty for me caps and not snoring audibly on vent until you get past the tanks.

[GarfieldJL]

Vig tank. We have 2 in the guild. One of them could headbutt Malgus into the Legacy of the Jedi era and maybe take 1/4th of his HP in damage. The other is almost as squishy as I am. I know he's Defense, I've seen his abilities, but he just can't take a hit even in his gear. So I dunno if he's just not taking the right points, and God forbid you ask him because he gets really defensive about it. I have a shadow tank who has tanked SM Denova and the difficulty for me caps and not snoring audibly on vent until you get past the tanks.

 

Might be he doesn't have enough defense spec and shield spec. I'm not an actual tank so I don't bother with absorb, I've noticed that even in shien I do get some shielding, but I digress.

 

If Malgus is just tossing around generic white damage attacks, then shield generators are useful, otherwise shield generators are completely useless.

 

Defense actually can be rather useful, if you are lucky and have enough def to offset the boss's accuracy.

 

Shadow Tanks have a rather large advantage over Guardians in the fact Shadows have double the Defense of a Guardian to start with. Couple that with a self heal, and some damage mitigations built in, and you easily offset your armor deficiency.

 

Another thing, your guildmate being in the defense tree is a disaster right there, the tank tree is quite frankly mediocre at best.

 

Finally, you need to see if your guildmate is in sorseu form, if you are tanking, unless you have a significant level advantage, should be using sorseu at all times.

[Itchy_Bum]

A ranged used fraps on our last attempt and cut out the fights where I was there and sent it to me. He told me to look it over and see if I was missing something. God bless him for it. It seems that despite our best efforts, and after much pausing, I was eating fearful because of the calls. To avoid the stomps I got moved to the other boss, which worked out fine for the most part. But the Sentinel in charge of calling out HP would call out and I'd leap the ranged. So I was technically 40 yards out from the boss at this point. But I was still getting fearful. Because until I was done with that landing animation, if the boss landed I still counted as getting it. Not just the leap, the animation. And sometimes it insta-killed me because of burns (that's a bug I'd read about that happens 1/20 times)

 

I did try again on stompy, and watched the hp bars. One of our tanks, despite being in more black hole than rakata, takes every hit to the kidneys somehow and he was getting healed like a champ. I'd go 2-3 stomps without a heal that wasn't from a golden doughnut or a medpack. So as it seems I've just not getting healed because one of the tanks is paper, and the caller is... well he's an idiot. When I approached him about it he gave me some flippant attitude about how if I can't survive in Denova I shouldn't go.

 

So yeah. Problem found, but not resolved.

 

Ummm so from reading this you are attacking Zorn not Toth. To be honest I have not known a group that has melee on Zorn until the very end. When Toth enrages ZOrn will throw some little rocks at people as well, as well as the big rock with the yellow/purple circle. These need to be eaten by smoeone not in Toth's group as toth's group takes more damage...

 

If you are on Toth, Fearful is not an issue until you dps Zorn when he is at low % after Toth is dead.

 

I would suggest your raid leader look at bringing 2 ranged, 2 melee for that fight... we have had people bring alt for ranged dps on that fight and swap back to a melee for the other non-range sensitive fights.

[CitizenFry]

Did HM EC last night, first time taking my DPS Juggernaut in there (I have it on farm as a Vanguard tank). Had no problems getting killed. My group wasn't doing a great job of calling out health %s, so I was eating Toth's enraged stomps, rather than jumping out to the healer. Still wasn't an issue.

[GarfieldJL]

Did HM EC last night, first time taking my DPS Juggernaut in there (I have it on farm as a Vanguard tank). Had no problems getting killed. My group wasn't doing a great job of calling out health %s, so I was eating Toth's enraged stomps, rather than jumping out to the healer. Still wasn't an issue.

 

I've noticed EC is significantly easier at least in that stage if you have 3 ranged dps instead of 2. There are some vulnerability issues for Guardians and Juggernauts due to the fact we're a melee class that ranged classes can circumvent.

[Dalfurend]

Yeah, probably easiest if you are on Toth the entire time.

 

Also, something I haven't seen mentioned. Do you get that DoT cleansed?

 

You should also have a parser on hand, especially when you are running into problems. It will tell you what is damaging you. The most common one is MOX. You can find it if you search google, and it's fairly simple to set up.

[GarfieldJL]

Yeah, probably easiest if you are on Toth the entire time.

 

Also, something I haven't seen mentioned. Do you get that DoT cleansed?

 

You should also have a parser on hand, especially when you are running into problems. It will tell you what is damaging you. The most common one is MOX. You can find it if you search google, and it's fairly simple to set up.

 

Don't think that particular DoT can be cleansed, at least the healers swear up and down that they can't...

[grallmate]

Don't think that particular DoT can be cleansed, at least the healers swear up and down that they can't...

 

DoT is cleanseable, it just gets re-applied very quickly. Our healers tend to ignore the DoT and just cleanse the stacking debuff. Fearful on the other hand cannot be cleansed.

[Dalfurend]

I believe mental anguish is the DoT I am talking about. The one I am thinking about has to be cleansed, or you will die. I am talking about HM EC, on story the dot can be ignored.

 

And garfield, sir. From what I have seen, you may want to take some time and look up a couple things to learn, before you try and 'help' people. The thought is appreciated, but really, more harm than help, sir.

[GarfieldJL]

I believe mental anguish is the DoT I am talking about. The one I am thinking about has to be cleansed, or you will die. I am talking about HM EC, on story the dot can be ignored.

 

And garfield, sir. From what I have seen, you may want to take some time and look up a couple things to learn, before you try and 'help' people. The thought is appreciated, but really, more harm than help, sir.

 

EC hardmode is the one HM op that I haven't done, I know there are some differences in HM EC from story mode, and stand corrected on that particular DoT.