The beauty of rage

[Plicitous]

I'll be shocked if Vigilance and Vengeance can out dps Focus and Rage now in warzones. Unless the enemy team is especially cooperative about grouping up I just can't see getting out dps'ed by a Vig/Veng. The extra mobility from Combat Focus combined with being able to use Dispatch on any target after leaping have completely solved the biggest issues the specs had. They have completely the changed the play style and made a clunky spec sing. It's not even close atm, Focus/Rage are clearly better . Better at killing, better are imposing their will on a match and as always, better at doing damage that's difficult to heal through. Edited October 26, 2015 by Plicitous

[GrandLordMenace]

I'll be shocked if Vigilance and Vengeance can out dps Focus and Rage now in warzones. Unless the enemy team is especially cooperative about grouping up I just can't see getting out dps'ed by a Vig/Veng. The extra mobility from Combat Focus combined with being able to use Dispatch on any target after leaping have completely solved the biggest issues the specs had. They have completely the changed the play style and made a clunky spec sing. It's not even close atm, Focus/Rage are clearly better . Better at killing, better are imposing their will on a match and as always, better at doing damage that's difficult to heal through.

 

You clearly have not met a good vengeance jugg ever.

[Dethla-Hadyn]

You clearly have not met a good vengeance jugg ever.

 

Lol, be nice.

 

 

Truth of the matter is that the enemy team will always be grouped up for good slams, sometimes more than others. You'll see some crazy numbers when there's healers present as well. From what I've seen, vengeance on average is higher overall damage because of this.

 

Once again, it boils down to playstyles, and people need to recognize the separations between the two specs.

 

Vengeance leaps first and spreads fear around with aoe spread, Rage's speciality is locking down and eliminating the skirmishers. Great fun either way.

 

Finally, the vulnerability of rage hasn't diminished. We still drop quicker than vengeance jugs do. That said, the mentality for playing either styles has to be acknowledged.

[Sevarn]

Lol, be nice.

 

 

Truth of the matter is that the enemy team will always be grouped up for good slams, sometimes more than others. You'll see some crazy numbers when there's healers present as well. From what I've seen, vengeance on average is higher overall damage because of this.

 

Once again, it boils down to playstyles, and people need to recognize the separations between the two specs.

 

Vengeance leaps first and spreads fear around with aoe spread, Rage's speciality is locking down and eliminating the skirmishers. Great fun either way.

 

Finally, the vulnerability of rage hasn't diminished. We still drop quicker than vengeance jugs do. That said, the mentality for playing either styles has to be acknowledged.

 

^I think this is the most important thing people need to understand about guardians\jugs. Vigilance and focus do not compete with each other for the same role (in PvP). They are completely different playstyles.

 

As vigilance you want to be in there first, stop the enemy team advancing, so that your team can push them back, very important in hypergates for example. Try doing that as focus and you'll end up stunlocked and dead.

 

On the other hand, focus has the killing power that vigilance lacks. You can 100% kill any player on 50% or below, and that's your job. It plays much like ap powertechs. Vigilance is there to top the damage meters, focus should be topping killing blows.

 

With that said, the above applies to reg wzs, for ranked this season, I think focus/rage will be the go to spec. It seems to be vastly outperforming Vigilance in killing power atm. Still a bit early to tell right now though.

[Mergodon]

I just started with Rage instead of Vengeance and I just wanted to ask if you any of you could tell me their rotation and when to use which ability?

[EAbovee]

You clearly have not met a good vengeance jugg ever.

 

Agreed. I mainly play focus but whenever I run as vigi, I have always topped the DPS charts with AoE numbers. It is a bit more rare to do this playing focus (for me anyways ). Same goes when I see some of the familiar faces who play vigi well on my server. Vigi/Veng is simply better suited for raw DPS output than Focus/Rage. So, in light of this, I have found a better stat by which to gauge myself when playing focus/rage: killing blows. It doesn't necessarily mean vigi is better than focus because they have moar numbahs, just means that's what the class is designed to do.

 

Still, PvP is so situational that it is almost criminal to base a players skill solely on the numbers they put up. Gotta see what the player does in different situations and judge them from their actions. I.E. if they are futilely derp DPSing the enemy healer with a guard for an entire match instead pushing said healer out of range of the guard or hard-swapping. You'll likely see better numbers doing the former, but the latter is far more valuable.

 

Sorry, that last paragraph is a bit soap-boxy. Sorry bout that.

[Dethla-Hadyn]

Agreed. I mainly play focus but whenever I run as vigi, I have always topped the DPS charts with AoE numbers. It is a bit more rare to do this playing focus (for me anyways ). Same goes when I see some of the familiar faces who play vigi well on my server. Vigi/Veng is simply better suited for raw DPS output than Focus/Rage. So, in light of this, I have found a better stat by which to gauge myself when playing focus/rage: killing blows. It doesn't necessarily mean vigi is better than focus because they have moar numbahs, just means that's what the class is designed to do.

 

Still, PvP is so situational that it is almost criminal to base a players skill solely on the numbers they put up. Gotta see what the player does in different situations and judge them from their actions. I.E. if they are futilely derp DPSing the enemy healer with a guard for an entire match instead pushing said healer out of range of the guard or hard-swapping. You'll likely see better numbers doing the former, but the latter is far more valuable.

 

Sorry, that last paragraph is a bit soap-boxy. Sorry bout that.

 

Don't be sorry haha, was an excellent post. You're right about the killing blows. I find my gear set up is catered to solo endeavours on a isolated target, that fact included with the obviousness of dot spread putting up huge numbers overall, confirms that killing blows for Rage are where it's at.

 

Also important to note, is that rage jugs are focused if not first, usually second, so the team needs to learn how to exploit Rage's strengths as well as its weaknesses. How do we do that? Well if you're a vengeance jug, lead the charge. Make sure to control the enemies in a group, not only for proper dot spread, but also to lock them down. By doing this you are buying a small amount of time for your rage jug to isolate and eliminate the targets that flee from you.

[EAbovee]

I just started with Rage instead of Vengeance and I just wanted to ask if you any of you could tell me their rotation and when to use which ability?

 

I'm not wholly familiar with the jugg names of the abilities so I will use the guardian names.

 

There is no strict rotation in PvP because the situation should determine what you use (which I'm sure most know, figure I'd say it anyway as a disclaimer).

 

Focused burst and force sweep is an auto crit after you use any of your leaps. Don't use them unless you have said auto-crit. Also, there is a buff named singularity which increases the damage focused burst and force sweep does. You'll gain the buff from using either combat focus or force exhaustion. Do what you can to have this buff up when using focused burst / force sweep because it consumes no focus and does an additional 15% dmg when the buff is up. It is also important to note that, since 4.0, using focused burst or force sweep gives you a 5% DR buff for six seconds, so it is to your benefit using these on CD.

 

Concentrated Slice auto-crit is tied to blade storm now instead of saber throw, so saber throw should be used situationally (especially if you are specced into the 3 second root). Even without the auto-crit buff provided once every minute by blade storm, concentrated slice crits fairly regularly due to the high amount of crit focus/rage should be stacking in their gear.

 

With all of this being said, I will give my own order of importance to the primary offensive abilities for focus (others may differ, this is my own list):

 

 

1. Focused Burst w/ singularity and auto-crit buffs
   
2. Blade Storm w/ buff to generate focus and if it will provide auto-crit to concentrated slice (this goes down the list if targets health is low)
   
3. Concentrated Slice
   
4. Dispatch when available (speccing into it's use after force leap is a god-send!)
   
5. Blade Dance (I always spec into the root it provides)
   
6. Blade Storm w/ buff to generate focus but no auto-crit buff
   
7. Sundering Strike
   
8. Riposte
   

 

I haven't included force exhaustion or zealous leap because they are either a) used to prep your focused burst or b) used situationally.

 

Important to note, if you find yourself using slash or strike, you are probably not using your abilities properly such as using blade storm when it will consume focus instead of generating it or using focused burst / force sweep without the singularity buff. I have never needed to use either of those abilities. Also, it's really up to the user if you want to use blade storm before or after your initial onslaught of focused burst and concentrated slice. Sometimes, using an additional GCD for blade storm won't be worth it if the targets health is low enough.

 

Hope this helps!

Edited October 26, 2015 by EAbovee

[Dethla-Hadyn]

Here's a pic of my gear set up as of late.

 

http://imgur.com/TCFUjwy

 

 

 

All I did was purchase the stock Exemplar, and leave two accuracy enhancements in. I swapped the other two with critical. The earpiece and implants are all Adept Critical. I've equipped a full set of Alacrity Augments. The value granted for having 14 Alacrity augments is 10.41%.

 

Of course the trade off is to equip all Mastery or Power Augments, that will increase your bonus damage quite a bit, and you will indeed reach 30k crits easily. I was hitting 25k-26k relic proc crits with un-augmented stock Exemplar. Additionally, Pooled Hatred assists these big numbers on an auto crit relic proc. I'm going to keep my accuracy values where they are as well.

 

My decision to use Alacrity Augments, is a personal stylistic choice at this point in time. I'm completely addicted to the finesse of the spec, and with full Alacrity augs, the speed achieved on the battlefield is beyond my powers of explanation. It's Very, Very Cool. So, jugs have a choice with augs. Hit like a freaking Peterbilt and increase bonus damage with these crit/surge stats^..... or become a speed demon corvette and use alacrity. The choice is yours.

 

 

Updated pic of stats. http://imgur.com/NOV8OOj

 

I decided to try a bit more critical, simply because the surge bonuses with Rage are so good. The diminishing returns hit soo damn hard tho. I dropped an Accuracy enhancement, because I missed a few times on the WZ dummy with 104.9% accuracy.

 

The alacrity level is still enough to allow nice "stacking".

 

Still not sure about full Mastery. I might examine what the increased bonus damage would do to autocrits. Speaking of which, I ran full critical augs, and the highest hit on the dummy was barely over 20k. Full alacrity top crits were 18-19k... So I'm not entirely convinced stacking full critical augs is the way to go.

[GrandLordMenace]

Updated pic of stats. http://imgur.com/NOV8OOj

 

I decided to try a bit more critical, simply because the surge bonuses with Rage are so good. The diminishing returns hit soo damn hard tho. I dropped an Accuracy enhancement, because I missed a few times on the WZ dummy with 104.9% accuracy.

 

The alacrity level is still enough to allow nice "stacking".

 

Still not sure about full Mastery. I might examine what the increased bonus damage would do to autocrits. Speaking of which, I ran full critical augs, and the highest hit on the dummy was barely over 20k. Full alacrity top crits were 18-19k... So I'm not entirely convinced stacking full critical augs is the way to go.

 

http://imgur.com/a/3Jpdg

 

Mastery is crap, if you want static damage overkill augs is the route, also crit nerfs your top end a bit, but you have a higher chance of developing lucky "critstrings" that are FAR scarier than one lucky crit.

[Dethla-Hadyn]

http://imgur.com/a/3Jpdg

 

Mastery is crap, if you want static damage overkill augs is the route, also crit nerfs your top end a bit, but you have a higher chance of developing lucky "critstrings" that are FAR scarier than one lucky crit.

 

Yeah per mastery augment, my crit went up like .16 percent, and furthermore has no effect on surge(which is tied into crit...ironic). So yeah I can see overkill being the best choice per point, not only for bigger bonus damage, but for self healing.

 

Oh, and you're absolutely right about the critstreaks.

[AchillesStark]

So i think it is possible to do a 26k slice. I hit 25k on a fully ranked geared shadow with a bunch of debuffs on him.

 

Why mastery augs is considered bad and how are you getting all those stats in pvp gear Rydarus?

From the looks of it, most are running power and alacrity augs with mostly crit enhance.

Im currently running full mastery augs with power/crit enhance. No alacrity though. Alacrity is only a gcd speed up in rage since you have no channeled abilities. Is it that important to get to 6+% in it?

 

edit: nvm, looks like Rydarus is in a PVE set, not pvp set.

Edited October 26, 2015 by AchillesStark

[Dethla-Hadyn]

So i think it is possible to do a 26k slice. Is it that important to get to 6+% in it?

 

 

Pooled Hatred can be lethal. Pray you get snared.

 

Is 6% alacrity worth it? Hmm. In my opinion having 5%-6% does provide the minor GCD speed increase to noticeable levels, and allows my last force crush tick to stack perfectly with a variety of attacks that I use to clip ravage with. Having any less is a complete waste of time, and you'd be better off to have none. That said, you won't be hitting as hard up-front, so Alacrity boils down to a playstyle decision and nothing more.

[Dethla-Hadyn]

To be continued...

 

Update: Rage.

 

Been doing ranked against alot of other classes. The spec is tons of fun to play, but holy hell, rage is really squishy. A trick I've found thus far is trying to isolate and to apply a few crits, or lockdown a single target enroute to my team. But there's a ton of escape mechanisms for most classes in the mix now, so it's crazy tough to accomplish this task at times.

 

It's preseason.

lmao.... For me? It's time to get back to the drawing board, and people need to keep queing up for fast pops.

 

Rage is a liability against aoe and dot-spread pressure big-time, so it's going to be a quest to find ways to isolate a target from the group and lock it down with/without focus fire. I'll let my imagination carve a few scenarios in the days to come, but for now against some of the best players in the world? ...geezuz It's going to take some work.

[Blodbad]

Can't say ive noticed much diffrence survivabilitywise on rage compared to the vengeance i used to play unless i switch to tankstance. Guess ill swap back and think about it more but it seems to me that its largely CD based and you pay a hefty price for it in lack of predictable burst......

 

The preassure DoT damage is mostly fluff for the scoreboard compared to actualy putting the hurt on the enemy healers....looks good but dosent realy make anyone flee.

 

I used to prefer veng but atm it feels like its neither that durable or that fearsome....

[Ahavery]

Cant seem to make quote work atm, but in response to the following:

 

"Yeah per mastery augment, my crit went up like .16 percent, and furthermore has no effect on surge(which is tied into crit...ironic). So yeah I can see overkill being the best choice per point, not only for bigger bonus damage, but for self healing. "

 

I think mastery does have an effect on surge, since crit chance is rolled into crit multiplier(surge) on autocrits (focused burst and concentrated slice). 0.16% per augment = roughly 2% additional crit chance at all times, and an additional 2% surge on autocrits. So I run mastery augments because they enhance all three: bonus damage, crit chance, and surge. In full ranked gear, 14 mastery augs, class buffs, and a mastery stim I sit at 1756 melee bonus dmg, with roughly 37% crit and 81% surge(includes 15% passive for the discipline). And I must say, I like the results so far in pvp. Regularly get 22k conc slices with two relic procs. As for self-healing, probably not much difference between mastery and overkill augs.

[Ahavery]

Oh, and just a little about me, lol.

 

I main a dps guardian on Bastion, Motorbreath. While certainly not the best, I consider myself at least one of the better dps guardians on the server. I rolled Vig in 3.x, and did decent with it. Played over 100 ranked matches, went just under .500 win pct. In a server-wide dueling tournament with 16 entries I advanced to the semi-finals, where I lost to the eventual champion Dacri, a balance sage. But I hear ya man, Focus seems a little stronger post 4.0 than Vig in pvp, and I am loving it!!! Not only the stronger, quicker burst, but also the superior mobility and now good sustained damage (ty, ty, ty dispatch! How I love your 15k crits!).

 

I just could not run Vig anymore because of the 6pc. set bonus change from saber throw to blade storm. Makes it so you cant use Overhead Slash until after leap+3-4 gcd's depending on how much focus you have, unless you do an unproc'ed blade storm, which is a huge dps loss. In essence BW back-loaded the burst of Vig and made it more of a true sustained damage class with dot spread and a lot of ramp-up time. Not very convenient for pvp, where I prefer more burst.

 

Yes, good players can stun-lock and burst you down without Vig's stun immunity and sturdiness, but a good focus guardian should pick his fights more carefully and use stuns pro-actively to prevent that from happening.

[Dalfurend]

I just could not run Vig anymore because of the 6pc. set bonus change from saber throw to blade storm. Makes it so you cant use Overhead Slash until after leap+3-4 gcd's depending on how much focus you have, unless you do an unproc'ed blade storm, which is a huge dps loss.

 

I played Rage a bit yesterday and the burst is really nice, and I plan on playing it a bit more this patch.

 

But just so you know, in Vig the thrust now builds stacks for Blade Storm, so you should use it to get stacks before the fighting begins, and can get the autocrit in the opener if you want. Also, since the bonus goes on it's internal CD as soon as you use Blade Storm, you will actually have two Overhead Slash autocrits closer together, and will have the same amount of autocrits for any given time.

[Dethla-Hadyn]

Cant seem to make quote work atm, but in response to the following:

 

"Yeah per mastery augment, my crit went up like .16 percent, and furthermore has no effect on surge(which is tied into crit...ironic). So yeah I can see overkill being the best choice per point, not only for bigger bonus damage, but for self healing. "

 

I think mastery does have an effect on surge, since crit chance is rolled into crit multiplier(surge) on autocrits (focused burst and concentrated slice). 0.16% per augment = roughly 2% additional crit chance at all times, and an additional 2% surge on autocrits. So I run mastery augments because they enhance all three: bonus damage, crit chance, and surge. In full ranked gear, 14 mastery augs, class buffs, and a mastery stim I sit at 1756 melee bonus dmg, with roughly 37% crit and 81% surge(includes 15% passive for the discipline). And I must say, I like the results so far in pvp. Regularly get 22k conc slices with two relic procs. As for self-healing, probably not much difference between mastery and overkill augs.

 

Man, those stats are niiice. To think stacking critical augs with diminishing returns, and missing out on bonus damage...yeah, it's definitely worth considering. I mean with my build, currently the highest I'll get on a dummy is 20k. So in essence, you'd be sitting at roughly 35% crit if you went power augs, and maybe see 22.5-23k crits instead. Thanks for the info.

[GrandLordMenace]

http://imgur.com/a/3Jpdg

 

See these two images, mastery doesn't affect multiplier, only crit chance. hence why mastery is absoluuuutely junk. Notice mastery goes down and crit chance goes down but multip doesn't.

[Dethla-Hadyn]

http://imgur.com/a/3Jpdg

 

See these two images, mastery doesn't affect multiplier, only crit chance. hence why mastery is absoluuuutely junk. Notice mastery goes down and crit chance goes down but multip doesn't.

 

That's what I originally thought, but thanks for clearing it up. Nonetheless using mastery augs will enable aprox 2%crit, in addition to bolstering bonus damage. The extent of which remains unknown at this point compared to full power. The extra crit doesn't hurt to have at all with dps jugs, so if a guy spent a few mil on mastery augs, it's not an utter waste. I mean the guy's getting 22k rotational slices^^, I'm sure he'll find a way to live with it.

[Dethla-Hadyn]

 

Yes, good players can stun-lock and burst you down without Vig's stun immunity and sturdiness, but a good focus guardian should pick his fights more carefully and use stuns pro-actively to prevent that from happening.

 

 

Great point. I plan on practising class duels and especially getting 2vs1 against me to practise techniques under focus fire. I had a far better night of ranked last night, not only with victories, but I had a few clutch moments of opportunity which I exploited perfectly to secure the win. Adrenaline filled good times!

 

I also tried an operation. I found my damage when swapping out expertise crystals was absolutely amazing. I'll have to swap another enhancement for accuracy as well, but man, rage was fun. One trick I was commented upon was my movement around the static bosses. I replied to the guy with my strat about how I utilize the enrage speed bonus for the speed buff and execute a 10m force attack while running away from the boss. I do this to reset the free vicious throw proc after force charge, and I don't lose any gcd's of damage application while getting back into leap range. Great fun.

[DirtyDiggler]

Jugs in ranked are still going to have the same problems as last season likely more so.

 

They will get focused and when they know your rage its going to come often because rage is so easy to lock.

 

And since your teammates will likely be FOTM sins + sorcs you are going to spend more of your time trying not to die before someone on the other team does.

[Dethla-Hadyn]

The following concepts and ideas are a result of playing a juggernaut since launch. I've always been an avid defender of the class and have enjoyed all aspects of juggernaut game play, even when the times were rough. I've never been top ranked in any season, but I do well. That said, I'd enjoy the opportunity to spar with the top ranked jugs/guards, so that I may perhaps learn new techniques and test myself against steep competition. I urge you all to share that same "always a student" mindset.

 

I'll touch on a few basic concepts that can not be overstated, then I'll talk about a few Rage dps "Combos".

 

 

Soresu

 

 

How many of you even have Soresu up on your quickbars?

 

I want to see all jugs/guards entering Soresu Form before accepting the Arena pop. Yes, this includes both Rage and Vengeance players. The reasons for entering an arena in Soresu are mainly the following:

 

• Confusion. The enemy team won't know what spec you are actually playing.
   
  
• You're in Soresu... The defensive capabilities are very good against incoming damage and it will force the enemy team to reconsider their attack focus strategies.
  

 

Let's take a look at what Soresu actually yields:

• 46.5% damage reduction.
  
• 16% extra reduction on internal/elemental damage
  
• 8% defense chance
  

 

When these passives are combined with your defensive cooldowns and adrenal, you are actually quite durable, and moderately capable of sustaining a substantial focus attempt, especially if equipped with a shield offhand(will elaborate later).

 

The goal is to switch to your chosen offensive form, when your intuition and round progression warrants it. Soresu form will decrease your damage output overall by 13%, so it has drawbacks that come with the superior survivability. It's an acceptable trade-off when you are able to switch saber forms safely. I highly encourage you all to enable keybinds now, that allow you to switch saber forms effortlessly in the ring. Practise this daily on your training dummy, and in sparring against other pvp'ers.

 

 

 

Taunts

 

 

Taunting always has been extremely important, but even more now in 4.0. Everyone has greater health pools, and *greater damage*. Think about that for a second. A taunt decreases a target's damage for 6 seconds, by 30%...that's huge considering the damage numbers flying around out there. For example, you could reduced a relic proc auto crit aimed at a friendly player by upwards on 8k to 9k, simply by taking the time to apply a single taunt. I have yet to meet another dps sin, jug or pt that has had superior protection values than mine in an arena, ever. I stand behind what I say, and I'm proud of those numbers win or lose. Be sure to keybind your taunts as well.

 

 

 

Rage Combos

 

Here are a few quick combos that I like to employ. For now I'll simply list a few, add more, and then elaborate their usage with updates. The goal here is to simply practice them individually until they are smooth and second nature. Then the next step is to start combining them, by selecting the right filler moves which in turn depend on relic procs. Properly identifying your relic procs and internal damage modifiers, has never been more important.

 

 

Rude Awakening

Force Charge -- Vicious Throw -- Force Scream (Avg 15-18k)

 

Snakebite

Force Crush -- Obliterate -- Raging Burst (Avg 22-29k)

 

Skullcrusher

Ravage "clipped at 2.7 seconds" -- Furious Strike (Avg 25-32k)

 

 

 

Updated with some new info to discuss and begin practising here in preseason.

[Sevarn]

Updated with some new info to discuss and begin practising here in preseason.

 

I like what you're doing, breaking down the rotation like that is actually very helpful and we have a lot of new jugs\guards atm that will find that invaluable.