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Good idea/ Bad idea for guardian?


EFSoupy

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So I finished leveling my guardian for tanking purposes (RIP Chapulin, may a shadow fix come soon). Being woefully undergeared (largely 58 from planetary comms), I'm still coming across some issues with survival and some with threat. One trick I've been trying lately is popping focused defense followed closely by a taunt (aoe for trash). I guess the question is, I know the threat loss is bad but is it going to be prohibitive as I get further along? It's not something I would ever consider using without a taunt, but I'm curious if even with the taunt if it's just a bad idea. Thoughts?
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I'm curious if even with the taunt if it's just a bad idea. Thoughts?

 

Focused Defense on a Guardian tank is only good a few *extreme* circumstances (and, even then, is going to have *very* negligible effect) for multiple reasons: it chews through your Focus, barely heals you, and drops your threat crazy fast, all of which are bad things for a tank. While it's a good thing to keep in your back pocket, it's not something that will come up often, nor is it something that you'll want to *do* often or will save you except when you need just a *tiny* push to barely scrape by.

 

If you are going to do it, I would wait until the target swaps and *then* taunt (it'll buy you a bit of time for the Taunt to keep aggro) and try to only do it when you have your AoE taunt as well (so that you can at least *try* to get threat back after it finishes. Focused Defense on a tank is pretty much threat suicide. Unless you've got an offtank that can pick it up or are going to keep a taunt for the second it falls off, you're not going to have a good time with it.

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Thanks for the input. I'm not sure what the scalar multiplier is for threat drop, but after a quick Back of the Envelope calculation (arbitrarily used 0.9 for multiplier, for some reason my head is telling me that's the number), yeah, even burning both taunts I would still end up relying on the forced aggro of the taunt to keep something on me. I guess I'll just have to get decent gear or a healer that isn't in the same boat. Thanks again.
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(arbitrarily used 0.9 for multiplier, for some reason my head is telling me that's the number)

 

The threat drops are 20% reductions in total threat, Focused Defense included. This means that, with the full 10 ticks (which means eating up 14 Focus to do so), you're getting 30% max hp over 10 seconds at the cost of only having 10.74% of your threat left over at the end.

 

Anyone that tells you that Focused Defense is an amazing tool for Guardian tanks has *no idea* what they're talking about. It demolishes your threat and your resources to provide you with a slow trickle of additional hp (3% per hit).

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So I finished leveling my guardian for tanking purposes (RIP Chapulin, may a shadow fix come soon). Being woefully undergeared (largely 58 from planetary comms), I'm still coming across some issues with survival and some with threat. One trick I've been trying lately is popping focused defense followed closely by a taunt (aoe for trash). I guess the question is, I know the threat loss is bad but is it going to be prohibitive as I get further along? It's not something I would ever consider using without a taunt, but I'm curious if even with the taunt if it's just a bad idea. Thoughts?

 

Since you are relatively new to playing a Guardian, don't bother with using Focused Defense most of the time. It takes a lot of practice to get used to using and is not worth it except in certain situations. Beyond those situations like listed below, you'd only want it use it as a last ditch measure if your team just need a little more time to finish a boss off and you have both your taunts up.

 

The optimal times to use require the following:

 

1) Plenty of Rage/Focus (you really want Combat Focus up as well)

2) No need to hold aggro (or both taunts are available)

3) Take consistent DoT-style damage

 

These conditions are available in many fights like the following:

 

1) HM/NiM EC - Zorn and Toth's red circle phases

2) HM/NiM EC - Kephess's Savage Wounding DoT

3) HM/NiM TFB - Dread Guard's Lightning Field

4) SM/HM/NiM TFB - Kephess the Undying's final phase

5) SM/HM S & V - Dash'roode's "Lost" mechanic (only if you happen to get lost twice)

6) SM/HM S & V - Titan 6 final phase

7) SM/HM S & V - Styrak's AoE Lightning (only when off-tanking at the time)

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No, don't use Focused defense, even if you taunt. You have a big risk of loosing aggro even if you taunt just after it.

 

It is not just a threat drop but one of the most powerful threat drops in the game that lowers your threat not just once, but up to 11 times.

 

In addition to initial 20% threat loss, if you somehow manage to keep aggro through that and you keep taking damage, it will continue to lower your threat up to 10 more times during the next 10 seconds and focus starve you in the process.

 

http://www.torhead.com/ability/ftfGZgI/focused-defense

Edited by Eternalnight
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There is only one situation where I use focused defense on my Guardian. Cartel Warlords I tank Tu’chuk (the hairy one) and my raid team leaves him for last. The period after the third boss goes down and before Tu'chuk goes down he does heavy damage. I spend this time cycling through my cooldowns. After all my other cooldowns (including relic are used) I use focused defense and warn the other tank that I will soon lose agro. He stands by and when Tu'chuk changes target he taunts (basically a delayed tank swap). Other than that I avoid focused defense. It would be much nicer if there was a skill in the defense tree to remove the threat drop from it so it would be a usable cooldown.
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I primarily use Focused Defense to teach overzealous damage dealers a lesson on trash pulls.

 

It's not nice, I know, but it's hilarious. Just make sure you pop Challenging Call before the healers get munched. It's not their fault that some people have mind-shattering cases of attention deficit disorder.

 

In before the serious business raiders get up in my grill about this.

 

I know a thing or two about motivation, and nothing sparks motivation like letting them feel the sting of failure on their own bodies. I use it all the time when I'm teaching. "Don't play with the matchsticks; you'll burn yourself, and it's going to hurt like hell" has no meaning to 12-year-olds... until they burn themselves on the matchsticks and realize it does, in fact, hurt like hell. That's when their brains put two and two together.

 

"Don't pop all your AOE crap the moment I leap in" makes no sense to the average PUG damage dealer. Hell, most non-PUG damage dealers don't know what it means, either. Until they pop all their AOE crap the moment I leap in and instantly get vaporized. That's when one of two things happen:

 

1. Their brains begin a-tickin' and they connect the dots between "opening up too fast and too big" and "being smacked square in the taco by everything in range".

 

2. They blame me for losing aggro.

 

While you did in fact help things along, you can always claim you didn't. How many damage dealers have time to pay attention to your buffs while also facerolling their keyboard? It's hard enough to get them to move out of fire - do they even know what your Focused Defense buff icon looks like? I don't think so.

 

"I tried to hold aggro - I even used my AOE taunt - but you opened up with too much AOE damage."

 

Ultimately, they won't get into a fight with you, because once they stop being window-lickers every pull, it turns out they've never done a smoother and faster run than when you were the tank.

 

Good times.

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That is needlessly adversarial. You should be working as a constructive teammate, within a constructive team.

 

Tell that to the trigger-happy damage dealers who are risking a wipe every trash pull because they want to gogogogo!

 

It's not like I do this randomly for giggles; like I said: I do it to teach them a lesson, which usually means I've exhausted all other possible ways to make them understand that what they're doing is hurting the team.

 

Tanking can be stressful enough without having to compensate for overeager damage dealers.

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Are you putting any pauses between pulls? Are you waiting only as long as it takes for the healer to get in position and be at full resources?

 

Otherwise you will be moving too slowly for most groups. Part of your job as a tank in Flashpoints is to set to rhythm and pace of the run. If your DPS is pulling consistently, it is because you're not pulling quickly enough.

 

Flashpoints are dull when you've done them hundreds of times, and people, in order to enjoy them better, typically like to do them as quickly as possible. In one part so it's over sooner, and also for a bit of a challenge.

Edited by KurtDunn
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Does each tick reduce threat? I thought it was the activation, not the entire ability. All other threat drops are instant.

 

It does both.

 

The initial activation of the ability immediately lowers your threat by a moderate amount (which if it is the same as most other threat dumps is is -20%).

After that each "tic" lowers your threat some more by small amount (-5%?) up to 10 times.

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Tell that to the trigger-happy damage dealers who are risking a wipe every trash pull because they want to gogogogo!

 

It's not like I do this randomly for giggles; like I said: I do it to teach them a lesson, which usually means I've exhausted all other possible ways to make them understand that what they're doing is hurting the team.

 

Tanking can be stressful enough without having to compensate for overeager damage dealers.

 

I have some really ADD damage dealers in my raid group, to the point where we don't even CC things except in the EC trenches (it doesn't help that two of our three DPS are AoE dependent specs). I take it as a challenge. Granted, if they pull early and go nuts before I'm ready, I'll probably just let them die, but in general, I try pretty hard to manage every pull even with the DPS force sweeping and orbital striking everything in sight. Makes tanking more interesting. :-)

Edited by KeyboardNinja
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