Help Picking the Best Trooper Advanced Class

[ForceFusionz]

So I'm having a moral issue deciding which Trooper Advanced Class that I should choose. Trooper is my favorite class, so I don't want to make a choice I will regret.

 

My arguments are that, personally, I like to tank. That was the spec I always went down in World of Warcraft, so naturally, I am thinking about going Vanguard, but I don't really see that many Vanguards in-game, so one half of me thought that they weren't that desirable, but the other half thought that I would get more playtime and recognition as tank. But after running some Flashpoints, it seemed to me that a tank wasn't really needed, especially a Vanguard tank. Plus, looking at the all the good Vanguard tanking guides (which there are very few) it looked like, if I went down the recommended skill trees, I wouldn't be of that much use outside of Flashpoints and Operations. I feel like in taking out regular mobs for quests and in PvPing, being I focus on shields, I wouldn't be that effective as a Vanguard Tank. I would feel limited to what I can do. Somewhat useless.

 

With Commando, however, I would feel like I could more done faster, but I wouldn't have that well of survivability. Yes, I know I can go down the healing tree, but I have never been a good healer, plus being a big B-A looking, heavy cannon wielding Trooper, being a healer wouldn't be on the top of my mind. I have played a Commando before, and I could get stuff done, if I got the right rotation, otherwise I would die a good bit. (Hence the previous stated "not good at healing") Plus I feel like in Flashpoints and Operations, most tanks will be Jedi, not Trooper, so I would be more effective in DPSing than I would tanking. I feel like I would have more fun with the DPS Commando, using the heavy weapons and really damaging abilities, but I have always had fun as a tank. I just don't how good a tank the Vanguard is compared to other melee classes and if he's as fun as I believe the Commando to be.

 

So if you guys could help me with some personal experiences and/or opinions, or if you have some videos discussing the matter (I haven't been able to find any), that would be great. I hope to hear some good and helpful responses!

 

Thanks for your help.

[Smuglebunny]

To be a far away damage dealer go commando, to pick a target from afar and grav round it down, have a move that blasts people off catwalks commando.

 

If you want to tank Vanguard, they have some decent long range too, but no knockback and you do far greater damage close up, If you want to harpoon people and DPS them down then Vanguard.

 

Basically you have to decide if you want to be outside the fight, or inside the fight. They can both put out serious damage if played right.

 

I have both and I prefer the Vanguard but both have their uses.

[JaborAnDubhar]

Vanguard tanking is great, both in Ops / Flashpoints and in solo questing. Running dailys I go the safe way, picking Elara (Heal) as a companion. It's just fun to pull 2-3 Groups of standard / weak mobs + 1-2 strongs and not having trouble at all, because you rarely drop below 90% life. The funny part is, that vanguard tanks have pretty good damage; free and faster channeled Impulse-Cannon plus Stock-Strike (both with the ability to used more often through cooldown resets), 2 free Explosive Surges after jumping an enemy, etc.

Plus you have all the great AOEs all troopers have: Mortar Volley and Sticky Grenade both are great to wipe out trash groups.

On the tanking part: Vanguards are very smooth tanks. My vanguard (mostly 78 equip, one implant 72, relics 72 and 75, barrel 72) is at 21% defense, 43% shield-chance and 40% shield-absorb and 41200 life with stim. With your skilled abilities (Energy Blast and Power Screen) you get 25% / 3 % shield-absorb in fight, so you are propably at 65% shield-absorb the most time. Aggro-managment is fine, kiting abilities are great, but where the vanguard really shines is in standing at the boss and taking damage.

Guardians may have better and more defensive cooldowns, but as a vanguard, you just are not dependant on defensive cooldowns so often.

In an operation group you also have to consider, that vanguards have great synergy with the other tanks:

You lower the damage of every enemy hit by Ion Pulse and Explosive Surge by 5% for 10 seconds and your Riot Gas reduces the accuracy of every enemy standing in it by 30%, so you can help the other tank, even if you don't have aggro at the time.

My raiding group runs a Guardian and a Vanguard, recently clearing Dread Fortress HM and Dread Palace HM. We experimented with Guardian/Guardian and Guardian/Shadow, but we stayed on Guardian/Vanguard.

 

 

P.S.: I'm German, so excuse any weird or wrong spelling and grammar, please.

[ForceFusionz]

Vanguard tanking is great, both in Ops / Flashpoints and in solo questing. Running dailys I go the safe way, picking Elara (Heal) as a companion. It's just fun to pull 2-3 Groups of standard / weak mobs + 1-2 strongs and not having trouble at all, because you rarely drop below 90% life. The funny part is, that vanguard tanks have pretty good damage; free and faster channeled Impulse-Cannon plus Stock-Strike (both with the ability to used more often through cooldown resets), 2 free Explosive Surges after jumping an enemy, etc.

Plus you have all the great AOEs all troopers have: Mortar Volley and Sticky Grenade both are great to wipe out trash groups.

On the tanking part: Vanguards are very smooth tanks. My vanguard (mostly 78 equip, one implant 72, relics 72 and 75, barrel 72) is at 21% defense, 43% shield-chance and 40% shield-absorb and 41200 life with stim. With your skilled abilities (Energy Blast and Power Screen) you get 25% / 3 % shield-absorb in fight, so you are propably at 65% shield-absorb the most time. Aggro-managment is fine, kiting abilities are great, but where the vanguard really shines is in standing at the boss and taking damage.

Guardians may have better and more defensive cooldowns, but as a vanguard, you just are not dependant on defensive cooldowns so often.

In an operation group you also have to consider, that vanguards have great synergy with the other tanks:

You lower the damage of every enemy hit by Ion Pulse and Explosive Surge by 5% for 10 seconds and your Riot Gas reduces the accuracy of every enemy standing in it by 30%, so you can help the other tank, even if you don't have aggro at the time.

My raiding group runs a Guardian and a Vanguard, recently clearing Dread Fortress HM and Dread Palace HM. We experimented with Guardian/Guardian and Guardian/Shadow, but we stayed on Guardian/Vanguard.

 

 

P.S.: I'm German, so excuse any weird or wrong spelling and grammar, please.

 

You really seem to know your stuff! And you sound like you are very good at Tanking. So what skill tree do you mainly focus on, like, what are your skill tree specs, main and secondary(s)? I'm guessing Shields, but what attributes seem beneficial to you? And do you have any info on how well Vanguards are in PvP?

Edited November 29, 2013 by ForceFusionz

[JaborAnDubhar]

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMGrdoroMdRRZrsZb.3

 

Some may argue taking 2% of endurance instead of 6% elemental crit, but I think, that this is not a good deal, since most of your attacks are elemental (Ion Pulse, Energy Blast, Explosive Surge, Pulse Cannon). Tank damage is very underestimated, since 2 tanks roughly do the same amount as 1 mediocre DD.

 

Rotation is fairly simple: Stock Strike, High Impact Bolt, Energy Blast and Pulse Cannon on Cooldown, just take care of a thew things:

 

1. Use Energy Blast between 2 GCDs.

2. If you have 3 stacks of Power Screen, use Energy Blast immediatly. Don't use Stock Strike, gain the third stack of Power Screen and use High Impact Bolt, UNLESS Energy Blast has more than 1,5 seconds CD.

 

(As a vanguard tank, it is helpful to activate the cooldown grafics in the game menu, giving you exact numbers to your cooldowns)

 

3. Always try to keep your Static Field up, so use Ion Pulse at least once per 10 seconds.

4. Use Hammer Shots! It's your free standard attack, it's one of the best standard attacks in game and it's a efficient filler attack. Since it hits three times, it's a good way to trigger your next Pulse Engine, too (giving you a free and super-fast channeled Pulse Cannon).

5. Use Shoulder Cannon! It's a great ability, doing damage, a lot of aggro AND it's healing you! Combine it with Battle Focus at the start of a boss fight to maximize your aggro.

6. Use your taunts! At the moment, it's possible sentinels and gunslingers are outdamaging your aggro-rotation pretty easy, so start a fight with your rotation of choice, use Single Taunt, use your rotation another 6 seconds, use AOE Taunt, use your rotation another 6 seconds, kindly remember your DDs to use their aggro reduce and you should be fine. If you are loosing aggro behind this point, just use your Single Taunt another time (and blame your DDs for being s.cumbacks... ).

 

So, you may have noticed my advice is operation/flashpoint- based. Reason is, I don't PvP with my tank.^^ From my experiance I can say, that vanguards are annoying PvP-tanks. Lot's of slows, pull and immunity to knockback and snares. Must be fun, so maybe I should play Huttball with my tank....

 

Edit: Attributes, right: Defensive Rating should be around 21% (with set bonusses), this is your first priority. Shield is not on the same gear-slot, so it automaticly inreases as you are getting better gear and you may want a few shield augments. Absorb is your last priority, since you are getting lots of it (Energy Blast, Power Screen), so you are bumping it after you reached that 21% defense.

Important: Don't use Mainstat/Endurance augments! Use Shield/AP, Absorb/AP or Defense/AP. Sadly there are no (Tank stat)/Endurance augments, but AP is fine, it's bumping your damage/aggro.

 

Hope this helps you a bit...

Edited November 30, 2013 by JaborAnDubhar