Jugg Tanks are Broken... Left in the dust

[Lymain]

P.S. I'm referring to Jugg as a tank in general. I agree that the immortal tree needs some help. >_<

 

Exactly. Hybrid is great, but 31-point Immortal is terrible.

Edited February 4, 2013 by Lymain

[RichT]

I don't know why you wouldn't take Crushing Blow though, it's one of our highest damage abilities, is a rage dump, and has a secondary effect on 5 sundered targets which is a nice aoe threat ability.

 

Yep, it's a solid ability. That one and Backhand both list "high amount of threat" on the tooltips...so anyone who skips taking it claiming it's garbage, and complains about threat...well....not sure what to say.

 

Some say it was nerfed, perhaps it was better before?

[Zuuf]

Yep, it's a solid ability. That one and Backhand both list "high amount of threat" on the tooltips...so anyone who skips taking it claiming it's garbage, and complains about threat...well....not sure what to say.

 

Some say it was nerfed, perhaps it was better before?

 

It's not that folks skip taking it, they no longer go that deep into the immortal tree. Allocating those points into Vengence or even the Rage tree give you more threat and more dps then continuing into the Immortal tree.

[sithgreyguard]

31/8/2 tank user with a few questions. wont i become more squishy if i go hybrid off tank? also isnt it harder to get shield and absorb to 50% ? how does a 31/8/2 compare to what is 16/22? Edited February 6, 2013 by sithgreyguard

[AgustusCaesar]

When you run a Hybrid Imm/Veng tree, YOU do Loose the 4% Shield Bonus, But you gain a 4% Damage redction, It will take your DR from about 48% (depending on gear ) to 52%.

 

Because of this i reduced my shield chance down to 48% insted of an even 50% for now.

You can get To thies numbers when you hit full BH gear (Augmented)

 

Also under Vneg you get a force Scream cooldown reduction.

Its is aviable every 9sec's now.

 

This combined with the sonnic barrierer fromthe imortal tree will give you an extra def cool down that will dermaticly increase your surrivability.

 

And ill add this to ,, NEVER GO WITH OUT YOUR WAR LEADER 4+ SET BONUS.

The added 20% to what the sonic barrier will abbosorb realy helps.

[lucianobck]

There are more DPS Juggs than TANKING Juggs by far.

The build is fine the problem are the noob players... Noob play with DPS Juggs, pros use tanks...

[Omophorus]

The build is fine the problem are the noob players... Noob play with DPS Juggs, pros use tanks...

 

This is a fairly ridiculous statement.

 

There are no shortage of "noobs" on any spec of any AC.

 

People, in general, are drawn to DPS because you get to kill things rather than keep people alive or take a beating.

 

It takes just as much of a "pro" player to be a good Juggy DPS as it does to be a good Juggy tank.

 

Maximizing DPS takes an incredible amount of precision execution, forethought (to properly manage resources several GCDs out), situational awareness, and knowledge of class + gearing.

 

Maximizing survival takes an incredible amount of precision execution, forethought (to properly manage resources to maintain threat and manage CDs to minimize damage taken), situational awareness, and knowledge of class + gearing.

 

It may be a fair statement that more bad players are drawn to DPS roles (because they're easier/flashier) but there is no direct link between role and skill level.

[WillLongstick]

Threads like this repeatedly shake my head. Fact, in HM TFB and NiM EC Jugg tanks have the all around best survivability. KeyboardNinja/Tam has combat logged this in other threads if you have doubts. Juggs also have the fantastic cooldowns, certainly far ahead of Powertechs, and arguably better than Assasins since every Jugg CD works against every damage type (though Force Shroud does break/bypass many mechanics). Sticking these CD's on shorter than 3 minute timers would make the class overly OP. Sins have no cooldowns the work against both weapon and force damage, PT's have only one cooldown that works against both and it's a weaker version of Invincible.

 

The usable return heals mentioned by the OP? I'll take and 11k instant heal over the PT's 4.5k over 10 seconds heal any day. Fun fact, when you hit Endure Pain you actually heal for 40% of your total health, and only have to return 30% of your total health, meaning you get 2-3k health for free.

 

You want utility? Nothing is better than picking a team mate and putting a 20% damage reduction buff for 6 seconds on them. I know the OP didn't gripe about this, but the repeated mention of Juggs lacking a pull is also baseless. Pull, Jump, Knockback; each tank AC gets a different set of 2 from that list.

 

In my opinion Juggs are the best tanks in the game. They have fantastic passive and active mitigation. They have good utility. What they lack though is single target and AOE threat. For AOE, it's a simple matter of having long CD or high resource AOE moves. For single target threat, well, having everything would make the class OP, and as a result PT's and Sins put out a lot more threat (tested, around 50% more). But then Sins have to work for their mitigation, and PT's have almost nothing in terms of active mitigation. OP has much love for Sin tanks, and as much as I appreciate all the utility and Force Shrouding of big hits my Sin co-tank has, the fact is, Sin tanks are an extreme liability on under 60% NiM Kephess. Not once before getting to that phase of Kephess have I seen my Sin co-tank, my Jugg tank, or my PT alt tank fall so far short of other tanking classes that a strategy had to be put in place specifically to accommodate a tank class.

 

There is something broken about Jugg tanks though. Everything I said above applies to standard 31 point Immortal Juggs. However, at the cost of stuns and AOE threat (which is already pointlessly abysmal) , the 18/23/0 Hybrid build far outperforms a 31 point Immortal build in survivability, and puts out 5% more threat.**

 

** Tested myself with the same gear set. The average threat for Hybrid in the first 15 seconds is 5-10% more than Immortals threat. The sample size on the test was small though, so by statistical significance it's more correct to say both builds put out the same threat.

[SithKoriandr]

As a DPS Juggernaut build, I can tell you why I went DPS over Tank, and I was willing to go Tank with my Juggernaut.

 

FORCE CHOKE! It's part of the DPS Rotation, and I want to make a lot of use out of Force Choke and Force Scream!

[OlosBC]

As a DPS Juggernaut build, I can tell you why I went DPS over Tank, and I was willing to go Tank with my Juggernaut.

 

FORCE CHOKE! It's part of the DPS Rotation, and I want to make a lot of use out of Force Choke and Force Scream!

 

Force choke is part of the tank rot, as they get it instant. Only rage uses choke for DPS in pve, and as sparingly as possible.

[hunterraaze]

This is how I know this isn't true, I'm decent at it. This is my first mmo ever, played 11 months as a "baddie" (keyboard turning, clicking abilities). I decided to test my self in the tanking department, wanted to try something besides DPS, and healing just didn't appeal to me. I did extensive research on which tank would be easiest, or best. Despite everything saying they were the worst, I gave the Juggernaut a shot. I'm full immortal, and have not only been having a blast, but have been decent at it. I'm not going to say I'm great, as I'm not, but not once, has my tanking caused a wipe. I've also never had anyone die. Now granted, I'm only level 44 so I haven't gotten into ops yet, and even though no one has died/wiped, I have had issues of loosing threat. If I'm able to do this, then they can't be that bad.

 

edit: did bad math, went 9 months as a baddie (got my g600 in Nov), and forgot about a hammer station run, where our healer left, and we were stuck using my 2vr8 as our healer, and he didn't have ANY gear, we died alot on the giant mining Droid.

Edited February 10, 2013 by hunterraaze

[SithKoriandr]

Force choke is part of the tank rot, as they get it instant. Only rage uses choke for DPS in pve, and as sparingly as possible.

 

*gasp* Wait what?

 

Before making my Sith Juggernaut, I went about looking at what spec to go with, I was pointed to Noxxic, and for PvE build specs, only the Rage Spec has Force Choke mentioned in it's rotation. And that was the skill I wanted to use as often as possible!

 

But what do you mean, tank rotation and they get it instantly? Is Noxxic wrong on the rotations? I know Rage Spec stops you from getting pushback on Force Choke.

[hunterraaze]

*gasp* Wait what?

 

Before making my Sith Juggernaut, I went about looking at what spec to go with, I was pointed to Noxxic, and for PvE build specs, only the Rage Spec has Force Choke mentioned in it's rotation. And that was the skill I wanted to use as often as possible!

 

But what do you mean, tank rotation and they get it instantly? Is Noxxic wrong on the rotations? I know Rage Spec stops you from getting pushback on Force Choke.

 

 

Instant, as in you don't have to channel it. You activate the force choke, put your not standing there choking, there still getting choked, but you can do what ever you want. Think of it like a stun, that last 3 seconds and dies sone damage over the duration.

[OlosBC]

Is Noxxic wrong on the rotations?

 

Yes. It is also wrong on specs and stat priorities. And since rotations, spec, and stat priority is all noxxic talks about, its wrong about just about everything. Don't direct people to noxxic, it's bad.

 

The more you know.

[Aieranda]

I agree with those in this thread talking about the survivability of the Jugg/Guardian tank in general. I've seen Jugg tanks survive amazing situations in PvE and carry some horrible PuG teams to victory because of their mitigation and deep bed of cool downs. Hybrid in particular at the moment is amazing.

 

Sin/Shadows are very good in utility indeed, but they have failings too, as others have mentioned (differentiated cool downs, weakest armor rating even when boosted, self-heal as a reliant mechanic for your mitigation). And of course the Powertech/Vanguard with its single cool down has survival limitations.

 

At the end of the day the tank has two primary roles:

1. Survive... in order to...

2. Manage threat/mobs/aggro of the encounters

 

The Juggs/Guardians are hands down the best at #1. All the best theory crafters around are in agreement on this. Powertechs/Vanguards have maybe the best passive mitigation, but their lack of cool downs for the many situations in end game raiding are a bigger con to their overall value then their awesome passive mitigation.

 

Moving on... My main issue when it comes to all this is the lack of class balancing work visible to us players in this game. It has slowed to a crawl in my view, as someone else here also said. I would be fine with more frequent SMALL changes to classes to move towards balancing any classes in the game, rather than the once every 6 months massive overhaul to many things at once technique.

 

Where ToR is at the moment in my view on balance is that some things are way outside where even the devs probably wanted them but executing any adjustments or tweaks, (or wholesale changes as they seem to do in this game) is taking a very long time. Pick your reason, it is what it is. Each class should have advantages over other classes (that's why we have DIFFERENT classes to start with), and it takes active work to smooth out problems, particularly those of the unforeseen variety.

 

As to this discussion...

Sins are great, but they have one huge flaw as you get into the highest content. Survivability. You can't effectively use all those awesome self heals until AFTER you've taken the damage and if the Sin can't mitigate the new mega-hits in Nightmare EC Kephess, as one example, then it is a liability to the team.

 

I agree threat management on the Jugg/Guardian is the most difficult to play, especially for AoE on groups of trash. Until the devs do something, ask your group to use their cc's. I know this isn't macho enough or whatever for some, but plain and simple truth is that the cc's are there. If you have trouble with anyone in your group on anything for any reason AND your group is not using them, then you SHOULD get your group to use them, at least a little.

 

There are few boss situations where AoE threat matters. The extra Trandoshans on Kephess? Maybe?

 

Here's another trick if AoE is the problem and your group is AoE burning trash... Have everyone collapse on your position. Stack all the heals and damage immediately around that spot. Then even if a baddie shifts attention to someone else, they are still taking the AoE burn and your friends are getting AoE heals, and you have time to maybe regain control of the situation without needing to run all over the place.

 

Remember, I advocate for small changes to lessen the pain of the costs that come with improvements and to minimize the chances to over-correct their issues with too large of a nerf bat (which the devs have done often in the past to many classes in this game). Also, improvements to one area usually come with a cost to another. Juggs getting better threat means something else will be set back somewhere. Are you willing to take a small hit to your armor, utility, hit points, or cool downs to get the threat that you want? If not, then I can tell you now that no fix the devs ever get around to implementing will end up pleasing you. Sorry. Possible costs if Juggs get better threat would likely be things such as putting an end to the hybrid build and other things a lot of people have grown to like.

 

In all, I would like to see a small bump to jugg/guardian threat, as long as it comes with a setback somewhere else (small amounts of both).

 

For the other tanks -

I'd like to see a small bump to armor mitigation of Sin/Shadows (I think they over corrected by slamming both armor AND self-heals so hard in a previous nerf; one will probably have to come back up for new content and the one that makes more sense is armor because you CANNOT self heal if you are already dead from the new mega-hits). My hunch is due to PvP complaints that never seem to end for Sin/Shadows, then the damage would be nerfed to offset this kind of change.

 

For Powertechs, I'd like to see a second cool down, again with some kind of setback elsewhere.

 

 

As others have said, I agree that it's likely we are not seeing a lot of balance work at the moment because devs are focused on the changes coming with level 55. I would not be surprised at all if the changes we see for Juggs make the hybrid not viable by changing up its tree's talent positioning combined with a new talent at the top of the defense tree that is clearly epic. The devs have crushed previous hybrid builds to dust, so just be prepared is all I'm saying. It may or may not actually go down that way at all.

[Omophorus]

I know groups that clear Kephess and have Warstalker that run with 2x Sin.

 

Obviously, it *can* mitigate the mega-hits from NiM Kephess.

 

It might not be as well-suited to the task as, say, Juggy or PT, but any tank can clear any content.

[AgustusCaesar]

I 100% Agree that Small Changes would be Much Better that 1 or 2 massave over haul of the Jugg.

 

But in the end Some attention is better than No attention at all.

 

Yes arguements can be made for Each class's Short comings. But The Bigest ,Most Glairing, Problem with juggs is aggro and threat Generation....

 

I have played Both the hybred tree for tanking and Immortal Tree , Trying to fine tune my rotation, and play style.

 

In the end , Even with the Added dammage and agro from the hybred, juggs are still coming up short.

 

I realy have all of my fingers and toes Crossed that in the expantion or mabe in 1.7 that some help will come.

 

If the DEV'S left every thing else alone and just bumped our aggro generation, I would be satisified.