[Guide] Endgame PvE tanking for all three classes

[Iwipe]

Hey everyone, recently some of my guildies helped me to write a bunch of class guides for the various specs and roles to help both new and veteran players in improving their PvE endgame experience. I finished formatting and uploading all of the tanking guides for the 6 advanced classes (3 per faction) and I thought I would share it for those looking for some guidance.

 

Empire

• Juggernaut
  
• Assassin
  
• Powertech
  

 

Republic

• Guardian
  
• Shadow
  
• Vanguard
  

 

What you will find here are

• Gearing & stats priority
  
• Tanking Strategy
  
• Defensive CDs explanation
  
• Group Buffs
  
• Ability/Defensive CD Priority
  
• Opening Threat Rotation
  
• How taunt functions
  
• Tips & Tricks
  
• Videos of some operation bosses (Empire only)
  

 

Hopefully you will find it useful and we welcome any feedback, suggestion, and criticism. Enjoy!

[THoK-Zeus]

Ok, hmm i will bring some criticism then for the assassin guide:

 

The main talent build is 37/5/4. Mainly, because a lot of unexpected things can happen and a raid can easily wipe because you were not fast enough at some point to tank something. I personally never take Thrashing Blades over Avoidance, cause the slight damage increase is normally just unimportant. Avoidance on the other Hand can have a really big Impact.

 

1.3

Thrash has a 51% Chance to proc Energize, Maul and Assassinate have a 30% Chance.

 

1.4

Defensive Cooldowns:

You forgot to add the armor adrenal (the rakata or exotech one), due to the larger armor bonuses assassins have they get a very large bonus out of this adrenal. (it's also not in the other tanking guides)

 

For the other cooldowns, Overcharge Saber is the best cooldown in the whole game, and Deflection is about as good as Saber Ward. Also you don't seem to know that Overcharge Saber provides a 25% increase in damage reduction and not a flat damage reduction.

 

Basically, Overcharge Saber provides more mitigation the better your gear is.

 

I've written a little comparision between Juggernaut and Assassin cooldowns at some point in the forums:

 

 

Just about Assassin to Juggernaut cooldowns, as i was lately putting a lot of effort in it to excactly compare them and their effects on the mitigation for both classes:

 

Overcharge Saber is strictly superior to Invincible. The damage reduction is excactly the same (as Invincible creates a new 40% scalar, while Overcharge Saber adds 25% to damage reduction), unless you have a merc healer, then Overcharge Saber will be even preventing more damage then Invincible.

 

Overcharge Saber also has a shorter cooldown and heals for about 8k (which is quite a lot). What few people actually recognized: The new 2.5 changes for assassin tanks increased the actual value of the damage reduction of Overcharge Saber (and the absorb adrenal) by a lot.

 

Assassins:Juggernauts 1:0

 

Comparing Deflection to Saber Ward. A 50% addition to defense ratings is more then 8 times stronger then a new 25% scalar to f/t attacks. Also the 2 additional seconds of Saber Ward giving 100% defense rating are not really important as both of the tank classes are already close to 90% defense rating with the cooldown for most of the m/r attacks in the game. In the end Saber Ward is slightly better (about 10-15%) but has also a longer cooldown (20%).

I would say they are about equal.

1,5:0,5

 

Saber Reflect vs Force Shroud (i put the aggro gain of Saber Reflect aside, it's not important for surviveability comparisions). Force Shroud has a shorter cooldown (about 20-25%) and can also be used to purge/prevent different dots (very nice on corruptor Zero for example. Both of the abilitys negate different attack types for a very short duration (5 seconds). Overall, I think it varies from fight to fight, on some fights Force Shroud will be better (especially with the new operations) on other fights Saber Reflect will be better. For this comparision additional Information from juggernaut/Guardian tanks would be helpful but i think (from a pure surviveability aspect) both of the defensive cooldowns are equal.

2:1

 

Endure Pain vs. multiple med pacs. Endure Pain gives you temporarily about 12 k health for 10 seconds every 90 seconds, the ability to reset your medpac (about 8k heal) every 90 seconds is pretty similar, although i will admit that you can also use your vanish for stealth rezzing or other stuff.

2,5:1,5

 

The exotech armor adrenal: The assassin tank gets a way larger actual buff from the adrenal then the juggernaut (as he gets a lot more Bonus armor from his stance/abilitys 150% to 76,5% if i am correct), but the juggernaut has more armor before the adrenal. That negates a little bit of the additional armor the assassin gets. So i would also call this a draw, mostly because this cooldown is not playing that big of a role.

3:2

 

In the end, i would say assassins have slightly better cooldowns then juggernauts.

 

But i also have to say that the difference in average damage taken, between assassin/juggernauts is not that big/close to non-existant (especially when counting in Force Scream). Juggernauts also have a little (just a Little) smoother incoming damage Profile.

 

The more and more i analyze and compare juggernauts to assassin tanks, the more similar they look to be for me on average. I don't really thought that bioware is good at balancing stuff, but in a weird weird way it seems to be a very good balance.

 

 

 

 

I suggest tanking SV NiM Styrak and let an assassin take the spines with Overcharge Saber, and then let a Juggernaut tank take the spines with Invincible. You will see a difference.

 

1.6

From the first ability priority it looks like you want to use discharge always over thrash (probably i just read that wrong).

 

There's no ability prioriy for assassin tanks for defensive cooldowns. According to the fight you should use the proper cooldown for the situation.

 

1.7

The Opening Threat Rotation is wrong.

Shock - Wither - Discharge - Thrash - Shock - 3HD Force Lightning, is superior as it provides your first Force Lightning faster and generates more threat, while maintaining the same surviveabiltiy.

 

1.9

You shouldn't let Phase Walk run out.

You can also click the Phase Walk debuff on yourself away at any point. Then you can instantly reapply it any time in this fight, you don't need to wait until it runs out.

 

 

My summary:

To be honest i don't get out much from this guide, it's mainly just rewriting the tooltips + adding KBN's numbers. Most of the Information that goes beyond that is unfortunately not correct (apart from the Force Cloak section + some of the tips and tricks).

 

As you state in your post, this is guide for pve endgame tanking, but proper explanations for tanking for pve endgame content (how to use cooldowns on different fights for example...) are completely missing.

Edited January 8, 2014 by THoK-Zeus

[Carlenux]

Ok, hmm i will bring some criticism then for the assassin guide:

 

The main talent build is 37/5/4. Mainly, because a lot of unexpected things can happen and a raid can easily wipe because you were not fast enough at some point to tank something. I personally never take Thrashing Blades over Avoidance, cause the slight damage increase is normally just unimportant. Avoidance on the other Hand can have a really big Impact.

 

1.3

Thrash has a 51% Chance to proc Energize, Maul and Assassinate have a 30% Chance.

 

1.4

Defensive Cooldowns:

You forgot to add the armor adrenal (the rakata or exotech one), due to the larger armor bonuses assassins have they get a very large bonus out of this adrenal. (it's also not in the other tanking guides)

 

For the other cooldowns, Overcharge Saber is the best cooldown in the whole game, and Deflection is about as good as Saber Ward. Also you don't seem to know that Overcharge Saber provides a 25% increase in damage reduction and not a flat damage reduction.

 

Basically, Overcharge Saber provides more mitigation the better your gear is.

 

I've written a little comparision between Juggernaut and Assassin cooldowns at some point in the forums:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I suggest tanking SV NiM Styrak and let an assassin take the spines with Overcharge Saber, and then let a Juggernaut tank take the spines with Invincible. You will see a difference.

 

1.6

From the first ability priority it looks like you want to use discharge always over thrash (probably i just read that wrong).

 

There's no ability prioriy for assassin tanks for defensive cooldowns. According to the fight you should use the proper cooldown for the situation.

 

1.7

The Opening Threat Rotation is wrong.

Shock - Wither - Discharge - Thrash - Shock - 3HD Force Lightning, is superior as it provides your first Force Lightning faster and generates more threat, while maintaining the same surviveabiltiy.

 

1.9

You shouldn't let Phase Walk run out.

You can also click the Phase Walk debuff on yourself away at any point. Then you can instantly reapply it any time in this fight, you don't need to wait until it runs out.

 

 

My summary:

To be honest i don't get out much from this guide, it's mainly just rewriting the tooltips + adding KBN's numbers. Most of the Information that goes beyond that is unfortunately not correct (apart from the Force Cloak section + some of the tips and tricks).

 

As you state in your post, this is guide for pve endgame tanking, but proper explanations for tanking for pve endgame content (how to use cooldowns on different fights for example...) are completely missing.

 

the main talent tree looks fine thx. also the thrash is true, but is really not necessary to know, just becaues it hits twice, after all you will be somehow spamming it, assassinate used on CD, and maul as well, you will rarely keep the count of GCD for a perfect electrocute set up, like a pyro merc would do for rail shot for example.

 

The adrenal is a good thing too.

 

overcharge saber is the best hard CD in the game as far as utility overall, not the best dmg reduction one, powertech base reduction make energy shield be more effective for it not to say it has longer duration.

also overcharge wont change with gear or rating, it is +25% on any given % with or without adrenal, it will of course do more dmg reduction the higher the armor.

 

as far as it being way better than invincible is not exactly true thanks to difference in dmg reduction, my ssin is not biS geared but he has 39% base (a lot of old armorings) so i would say BiS is probably close to the 41-42%? + 4% DP = 45% +25% = 70%.... juggernaut has close to 50%.

 

take 10k dmg - 70% = 3k hit.... 10k dmg - 50+ = 5k -40%= 3k hit... with 41% and 50% the numbers are exactly the same, yet jug has like 49 point something, and probably ssin has a bit more than 41% base, maybe up to 42-43%, this 2 extra % would increase the dmg reduced by a bit more, but not that much, 10k-71%= 2900 vs 3000 dmg taken... 20k dmg - 71% = 5.8k ... 20k-50% = 10k - 40% = 6K ... so the difference is rather small to say it is a big improvement (this of course if what i am doing with the calcs is right, there might be something more in depth calc i am missing there that would maybe demonstrate the difference is way higher or lower, would appreciate the fix if there is one) as far as the calc. i used to test it, the bigger difference is the 5 second duration, which i never said invincible is better:

 

Overcharge Saber is in general a very useful CD to have available. Although it has a relatively long cooldown, the on-demand and over-time healing it provides is an excellent benefit, and the flat damage reduction that it provides means that in many circumstances it’s actually a better cooldown than Deflection.

 

Invincible is overall your worst personal CD. It lasts for a decent amount of time, and the -40% damage taken buff is good thanks to the high base damage reduction you already have, however it’s only a poor cooldown because your others are so effective.

 

Energy Shield is a great flat damage reduction cooldown. As Energy Shield increases damage reduction by 25%, while other cooldowns like

Invincible (Juggernaut)reduce damage taken, there is a slight difference in the way these are calculated. By increasing damage reduction, the reduction takes place before damage is calculated, whereas reducing damage taken causes the calculation to take place after the damage has already been mitigated. This makes cooldowns such as Energy Shield, which give you increased damage reduction, more efficient at overall damage mitigation.

 

as u can see i added what u try to explain on energy shield, i might need to copy it over to overcharge to clarify it regardless of the lower difference in numbers.

 

for the discharge thrash thing:

Discharge is another high threat AoE ability, making it excellent for an AoE rotation, and is used in single target fights to build initial aggro and maintain a -5% Accuracy debuff on the boss. Once your initial threat has been gained, however, Discharge should only be used to maintain its debuff, as Thrash and Shock spams are more important for generating stacks of Harnessed Darkness and higher damage.

 

"discharge should only be used to maintain its debuff, as thrash and shock spams are more important.

 

for the styrak spines i dissagree, by the time we did it, ssins ddint have this base 4-6% more dmg reduction therefor overcharge saber was way worse than invincible... for this case saber ward had a better job, either fro mthe 25% force /tech or the high defense i dont rememebr which type of dmg it was.

 

the CDs are not listed as priority so there is no such thing as CD priority, they are just listed and explained. and tanks usually dont have a rotation either compared to dps, healer dont have one either, it is really relative to the fight situations mechanics number of mobs, so yeah we both agree on that.

 

the opening rotation you are compared with mine is not better, just by the fact that is the same, i did it assuming a shock proc, with wither on first GCD for the dmg reduction buff (usually tanking with jug), anyways, you are right, i should add an alternative opener without expecting a proc from the first thrash as it will like you said, give you shock 1 GCD ealier... i like doing wither first + shock + discharge (tooltip is wrong there) + thrash (50% chance of proc) + thrash (50% of proc) by this point either i have elctrocute or shock back, probably electrocute for 3HD reclkessness FL + Electrocute Shock for higher threat / dmg from the talent... but yeah your opener looks perfect beside that.

 

phase walk is a nice add thanks, i have not been able to tank much lately after the changes on the pahse walk or experimented with it so, i didnt know how it exactly worked after the remake.

 

unfortunately as far as i agree the info might not be perfect, i dont agree the fact that you say its not good, and copy of KBN numbers, because there are 13515132 comments in website arguing why actually we didnt use KBN numbers until we decided to add them as theorycrafting, i used my own numbers based on my experience using it, regardless if they are perfect or not, since thats what worked for me, so you cant say is a KBN copy. second rewriting tooltips and explaining is 90% of playing the game as far as knowledge, you can write or teach with a guide somehow to be good or make them go robot style with 100 different cases or situations to explain what to do on each like this was homework, there is not much more to do on this for a "class guide" as far as how the class works and most of the uility and explanation is there, u would be surprised how many people dont know this.

you probably didnt get much from this because it was obviously not targeted for you, seeing u are from DiLIH i would expect u to learn anything from this guide, neither i would expect probably to learn "much" like u said from a guide written by you, since being part of very good top guilds, we usually know our stuff almost perfect, and not every single piece of my mind and knowledge can go on a guide unfortunately :S, if i could or you could somehow transfer your skill and knowledge to other people, this would be a much more competitive end game .

 

as far as the last post, this is purely a class guide, unfortunately i wont go write, neither i was hired for writing 20+ boss fight situations for each phase, that is more of an operation guide, and its not my branch of work here, as far as i agree with you on that, i expressed the same feeling to dulfy about it maybe for newest ops guide, as a class guide can pretty much reach until some point but this has to be taken in practice, and practice is harder than theory, so having a guide where you get explained where are your best posibilities to be using certain stuff, what to do where to move for each class / role, would be unvaluable for the community, but again that was not what i was "hired" lets call it like that, for . our purpose is to make any player from the tank of terrible to good, a Great player capable of clearing nightmare content with this information, then if the great player want to become outstanding (like players from our guilds or any other outstanding player out there) there are more specified guides that need study, practice and a lot of time to work with if they want to be more than good and try to become the best.

 

anyways its nice having some feed back on tips from a good player in a good guild for discussion, even when u didnt get much from it, as you said and i wasnt expecting you too, your main concerns are stuff missing (adrenal), opener that i was aware but prefered to use proc one and should fix it, phase walk (i didnt know it exactly), and point of view (CD) not exactly anything substantially wrong that would need a fix .

[THoK-Zeus]

the main talent tree looks fine thx. also the thrash is true, but is really not necessary to know, just becaues it hits twice, after all you will be somehow spamming it, assassinate used on CD, and maul as well, you will rarely keep the count of GCD for a perfect electrocute set up, like a pyro merc would do for rail shot for example.

I just wanted to point that out, atleast for me it's something quite important.

 

The adrenal is a good thing too.

 

overcharge saber is the best hard CD in the game as far as utility overall, not the best dmg reduction one, powertech base reduction make energy shield be more effective for it not to say it has longer duration.

also overcharge wont change with gear or rating, it is +25% on any given % with or without adrenal, it will of course do more dmg reduction the higher the armor.

 

as far as it being way better than invincible is not exactly true thanks to difference in dmg reduction, my ssin is not biS geared but he has 39% base (a lot of old armorings) so i would say BiS is probably close to the 41-42%? + 4% DP = 45% +25% = 70%.... juggernaut has close to 50%.

 

take 10k dmg - 70% = 3k hit.... 10k dmg - 50+ = 5k -40%= 3k hit... with 41% and 50% the numbers are exactly the same, yet jug has like 49 point something, and probably ssin has a bit more than 41% base, maybe up to 42-43%, this 2 extra % would increase the dmg reduced by a bit more, but not that much, 10k-71%= 2900 vs 3000 dmg taken... 20k dmg - 71% = 5.8k ... 20k-50% = 10k - 40% = 6K ... so the difference is rather small to say it is a big improvement (this of course if what i am doing with the calcs is right, there might be something more in depth calc i am missing there that would maybe demonstrate the difference is way higher or lower, would appreciate the fix if there is one) as far as the calc. i used to test it, the bigger difference is the 5 second duration, which i never said invincible is better:

Technically Saber Ward, followed by Deflection and then Energy Shield provide the best damage reduction, but Overcharge Saber additionally heals for more then 8k health which more then makes up for very slightly less damage reduction .

 

Yes, but your calculations forgets that assassins get more damage from an unmitigated hit. Basically without cooldowns it's 44% vs 50%+ armor for unmitigated attacks. With cooldowns as you see, there's not a 6%+ difference anymore.

 

 

OT:

 

If you make all the calculations with kbn's numbers for df/dp hm with approbiate 78 gear for both tanks, etc... the damage mitigation Invincible and Overcharge Saber provide is more or less the same. (not to mention heals and a shorter cooldown

 

 

Overcharge Saber is in general a very useful CD to have available. Although it has a relatively long cooldown, the on-demand and over-time healing it provides is an excellent benefit, and the flat damage reduction that it provides means that in many circumstances it’s actually a better cooldown than Deflection.

 

Invincible is overall your worst personal CD. It lasts for a decent amount of time, and the -40% damage taken buff is good thanks to the high base damage reduction you already have, however it’s only a poor cooldown because your others are so effective.

 

Energy Shield is a great flat damage reduction cooldown. As Energy Shield increases damage reduction by 25%, while other cooldowns like

Invincible (Juggernaut)reduce damage taken, there is a slight difference in the way these are calculated. By increasing damage reduction, the reduction takes place before damage is calculated, whereas reducing damage taken causes the calculation to take place after the damage has already been mitigated. This makes cooldowns such as Energy Shield, which give you increased damage reduction, more efficient at overall damage mitigation.

Yes, increased damage reduction is better then damage reduction (that sounds weird i know ). Because of the 2.5 changes the defensive cooldowns of assassins got a quite substantial buff (in my opinion they now have the best cooldowns of all tanking classes).

 

 

as u can see i added what u try to explain on energy shield, i might need to copy it over to overcharge to clarify it regardless of the lower difference in numbers.

 

for the discharge thrash thing:

Discharge is another high threat AoE ability, making it excellent for an AoE rotation, and is used in single target fights to build initial aggro and maintain a -5% Accuracy debuff on the boss. Once your initial threat has been gained, however, Discharge should only be used to maintain its debuff, as Thrash and Shock spams are more important for generating stacks of Harnessed Darkness and higher damage.

 

"discharge should only be used to maintain its debuff, as thrash and shock spams are more important.

I didn't make any calculations for Powertech tanks cooldowns so far, but Energy Shield is also giving a 25% increase in damage reduction.

Discharge: Yes, i think i just misunderstood the guide there

 

 

for the styrak spines i dissagree, by the time we did it, ssins ddint have this base 4-6% more dmg reduction therefor overcharge saber was way worse than invincible... for this case saber ward had a better job, either fro mthe 25% force /tech or the high defense i dont rememebr which type of dmg it was.

Spines are doing m/r damage and give a i/e dot.

I couldn't think of any good example to test a lot of constant high incoming damage in raid setttings (atleast not in current hms), to see a difference between defensive cooldowns.

 

I see that it's probably difficult to test it there, because assassins got a substantial buff for i/e damage with 2.5 now.

 

the CDs are not listed as priority so there is no such thing as CD priority, they are just listed and explained. and tanks usually dont have a rotation either compared to dps, healer dont have one either, it is really relative to the fight situations mechanics number of mobs, so yeah we both agree on that.

For me that looked like a priority list .

 

 

the opening rotation you are compared with mine is not better, just by the fact that is the same, i did it assuming a shock proc, with wither on first GCD for the dmg reduction buff (usually tanking with jug), anyways, you are right, i should add an alternative opener without expecting a proc from the first thrash as it will like you said, give you shock 1 GCD ealier... i like doing wither first + shock + discharge (tooltip is wrong there) + thrash (50% chance of proc) + thrash (50% of proc) by this point either i have elctrocute or shock back, probably electrocute for 3HD reclkessness FL + Electrocute Shock for higher threat / dmg from the talent... but yeah your opener looks perfect beside that.

The main difference is, that when you don't get a proc from thrash, you will lose gcd for your first force lightning.

 

According to my experience you want to cast that first 3 HD Recklessness FL as fast as possible, so i proritize shock > wither and then the rest, so i am not depend on any procs in my Rotation and can get the maximum threat the first 10 seconds. Casting Discharge or Wither 1 gcd doesn't matter at the start of any fight (the healers will anyway dps ).

 

phase walk is a nice add thanks, i have not been able to tank much lately after the changes on the pahse walk or experimented with it so, i didnt know how it exactly worked after the remake.

 

unfortunately as far as i agree the info might not be perfect, i dont agree the fact that you say its not good, and copy of KBN numbers, because there are 13515132 comments in website arguing why actually we didnt use KBN numbers until we decided to add them as theorycrafting, i used my own numbers based on my experience using it, regardless if they are perfect or not, since thats what worked for me, so you cant say is a KBN copy. second rewriting tooltips and explaining is 90% of playing the game as far as knowledge, you can write or teach with a guide somehow to be good or make them go robot style with 100 different cases or situations to explain what to do on each like this was homework, there is not much more to do on this for a "class guide" as far as how the class works and most of the uility and explanation is there, u would be surprised how many people dont know this.

you probably didnt get much from this because it was obviously not targeted for you, seeing u are from DiLIH i would expect u to learn anything from this guide, neither i would expect probably to learn "much" like u said from a guide written by you, since being part of very good top guilds, we usually know our stuff almost perfect, and not every single piece of my mind and knowledge can go on a guide unfortunately :S, if i could or you could somehow transfer your skill and knowledge to other people, this would be a much more competitive end game .

Didn't read that discussion about KBN's numbers.

 

as far as the last post, this is purely a class guide, unfortunately i wont go write, neither i was hired for writing 20+ boss fight situations for each phase, that is more of an operation guide, and its not my branch of work here, as far as i agree with you on that, i expressed the same feeling to dulfy about it maybe for newest ops guide, as a class guide can pretty much reach until some point but this has to be taken in practice, and practice is harder than theory, so having a guide where you get explained where are your best posibilities to be using certain stuff, what to do where to move for each class / role, would be unvaluable for the community, but again that was not what i was "hired" lets call it like that, for . our purpose is to make any player from the tank of terrible to good, a Great player capable of clearing nightmare content with this information, then if the great player want to become outstanding (like players from our guilds or any other outstanding player out there) there are more specified guides that need study, practice and a lot of time to work with if they want to be more than good and try to become the best.

Well the threads name is Endgame PvE and dulfy states that "these guides are here to improve PvE endgame experience" and i based my judgement of this guide around that.

 

In my opinion the guide is a pure class guide, it describes all the abilities, Rotation, of the assassin tank..., but there's nothing about strategys for tanks (like using Force Shroud for Thundering Blast or so...) for the current endgame operations.

 

 

 

anyways its nice having some feed back on tips from a good player in a good guild for discussion, even when u didnt get much from it, as you said and i wasnt expecting you too, your main concerns are stuff missing (adrenal), opener that i was aware but prefered to use proc one and should fix it, phase walk (i didnt know it exactly), and point of view (CD) not exactly anything substantially wrong that would need a fix .

Edited January 9, 2014 by THoK-Zeus

[leto_cleon]

Hmm... I find myself disagreeing with the Guardian build.

 

In the Defence tree, I'd put 2 points in Battlefield Command instead of Guard and Thrust. The lower cooldown on force leap provides a lot more utility than a shorter CD riposte with Saber Ward. There was an old discussion about this in the Guardian forums.

 

In the Vigilance tree, I'd put 2 points in Perseverance and just 1 in Accuracy. The damage absorbed by Blade Barrier from Blade Storm scales with Strength (and Power for that matter). The extra 20% from the 4-set makes it even better.

[Marb]

While we are on the topic, is saber ward > invincible even on F/T damage? Is the saber ward F/T damage reduction of the same type as energy shield / overcharge saber or is it the same as invincible? Edited January 9, 2014 by Marb

[THoK-Zeus]

While we are on the topic, is saber ward > invincible even on F/T damage? Is the saber ward F/T damage reduction of the same type as energy shield / overcharge saber or is it the same as invincible?

 

No the Saber Ward f/t reduction is like Invincible. Therefore the 50% defense addition is something like 8 times more valuable then the 25% f/t reduction on average(the vast majority of damage in operations is defendable ).

Edited January 9, 2014 by THoK-Zeus

[Kawabonga]

the main talent tree looks fine thx. also the thrash is true, but is really not necessary to know, just becaues it hits twice, after all you will be somehow spamming it, assassinate used on CD, and maul as well, you will rarely keep the count of GCD for a perfect electrocute set up, like a pyro merc would do for rail shot for example.

...

the CDs are not listed as priority so there is no such thing as CD priority, they are just listed and explained. and tanks usually dont have a rotation either compared to dps, healer dont have one either, it is really relative to the fight situations mechanics number of mobs, so yeah we both agree on that.

...

the opening rotation you are compared with mine is not better, just by the fact that is the same, i did it assuming a shock proc, with wither on first GCD for the dmg reduction buff (usually tanking with jug), anyways, you are right, i should add an alternative opener without expecting a proc from the first thrash as it will like you said, give you shock 1 GCD ealier... i like doing wither first + shock + discharge (tooltip is wrong there) + thrash (50% chance of proc) + thrash (50% of proc) by this point either i have elctrocute or shock back, probably electrocute for 3HD reclkessness FL + Electrocute Shock for higher threat / dmg from the talent... but yeah your opener looks perfect beside that.

 

I'm pretty sure that in every fight a different talent build could be used. The one on the guide looks like one to be used on static bosses that don't stun. Fair enough, there's quite a few of them, but tanking wise i think the "main" tree should be purely tanky and have those points in avoidance and not thrashing blades. A minor boost to dps is fine, but overall avoidance is hands down a superior tanking ability.

 

The title in 1.6 clearly states defensive cooldowns priority, followed by a numbered list. I realize it's probably a formatting error, but it should be fixed anyway. We wouldn't want a newbie tank using force shroud while Nefra is pounding down on him

 

I'm just gonna assume that you're confusing electrocute with energize here.

Anyway, i have to agree with Thok on the rotation point. The rotation he described is superior. The 5% damage reduction being delayed of 1.5 seconds is trivial especially considering that quite a few bosses don't even hit during that time. The RNG dependance isn't. It's much easier to manage threat by starting off with shock.