Sith Juggernaut: Best Main Tank for raids?

[Ravothian]

I'm starting to see a lot of complaining that Sith Juggernauts do not have as much AOE tanking mechanics as other classes.

 

THINK PEOPLE. This class may not be designed to be the best at tanking large groups of adds. But who cares about trash? Sith Warriors are the BEST maintanks thus far.

 

Look at their single-target threat output: They have amazing burst threat and the ability to sustain it.

 

Look how much overall mitigation and avoidance they have. The other tanking classes are going to be taking WAY more damage than us.

 

Who cares if we can't tank groups? For a flashpoint bring someone who can offtank (sith assassin dps, powertech dps, sith marauder or jug dps) or an Imperial Agent to burst adds down. Simple enough.

 

The fact of the matter is: When it comes to raiding, Juggs are going to be the BEST main tank option available. Stop the QQ, use your brain and knowledge of MMO mechanics, and enjoy playing the strongest main tank class in the game.

[Noth]

Hate to tell you but the other classes don't actually have problems with single target threat. Thus they can tank it all. Having excess threat in one area does not make you a better tank when you fail at other parts of tanking.

[ururururu]

can you be more specific in why you believe a juggernaut takes less damage?

[Sun-Runner]

The relevant maths disagree with you.

[Ravothian]

1) Nobody has better single-target threat than Juggernauts. When you consider that as a raid mechanic, it is important because high-burst classes like the Imperial Agent and melee classes will be generating a lot of threat.

 

2) BH excells at Flashpoint tanking due to their insane amounts of AOE damage mechanics. However, seeing as how Flashpoint bosses do not last more than a couple of minutes, their slightly lower survivability and lower number of mitigation or reduction cooldowns does not become apparent. Assassin is the midrange. Not as much AOE threat as a BH, but not as much single-target threat as a Juggernaut.

 

3) Juggernauts have more mitigation through the following:

Force Scream Mini-Shield with Sonic Barrier Skill: Considering that at raid-level Tanking gear your defense chance will be rather high, you should be able to Force Scream for 1 rage on every cooldown, thus giving you a shield. Can also be timed with Damage-dealing mechanics to mitigate them as well.

 

Invincible, Endure Pain, and Saber Ward: All great defensive abilities for certain situations, all on long cooldowns. Don't pop two at once, pop them one at a time and space them out over a fight.

 

Guard Stance: 6% higher Defense vs. Melee and Ranged.

 

Blade Barrier: Retaliation now increases your defenses as well.

 

Dark Blood: +4% Internal and Elemental damage mitigation.

 

Compare the amount of activated defensive mechanics (not just your cooldowns, but skills that give defensive abilities to attacks) to any other class and you start to see that this class was designed for taking on single targets extraordinarily well. As in, Raiding. That's what Warriors are good for.

[ruminate]

1) Nobody has better single-target threat than Juggernauts. When you consider that as a raid mechanic, it is important because high-burst classes like the Imperial Agent and melee classes will be generating a lot of threat.

 

2) BH excells at Flashpoint tanking due to their insane amounts of AOE damage mechanics. However, seeing as how Flashpoint bosses do not last more than a couple of minutes, their slightly lower survivability and lower number of mitigation or reduction cooldowns does not become apparent. Assassin is the midrange. Not as much AOE threat as a BH, but not as much single-target threat as a Juggernaut.

 

3) Juggernauts have more mitigation through the following:

Force Scream Mini-Shield with Sonic Barrier Skill: Considering that at raid-level Tanking gear your defense chance will be rather high, you should be able to Force Scream for 1 rage on every cooldown, thus giving you a shield. Can also be timed with Damage-dealing mechanics to mitigate them as well.

 

Invincible, Endure Pain, and Saber Ward: All great defensive abilities for certain situations, all on long cooldowns. Don't pop two at once, pop them one at a time and space them out over a fight.

 

Guard Stance: 6% higher Defense vs. Melee and Ranged.

 

Blade Barrier: Retaliation now increases your defenses as well.

 

Dark Blood: +4% Internal and Elemental damage mitigation.

 

Compare the amount of activated defensive mechanics (not just your cooldowns, but skills that give defensive abilities to attacks) to any other class and you start to see that this class was designed for taking on single targets extraordinarily well. As in, Raiding. That's what Warriors are good for.

 

Jugg threat is tied to Jugg DPS, and its well known that Jugg DPS is the worst of all classes. For comparisons sake, the tank Assassin's weakest resource using move, Thrash, is as strong as our Vicious Strike.... and its SPAMMABLE.

 

Assassins have better AoE threat than Powertechs. Not sure how you're getting the idea that they're worse.

 

Assassin's base defense is 5% higher than Juggs before talents(10% vs. 5%). With talents, Juggs have 1% more defense than Assassins, but only if Blade Barrier is up. If its not up due to being incapacitated or other events, the Assassin will have higher defense.

 

Assassin has a 65% chance of healing themselves for half the amount of a Jugg's Sonic Barrier when they use Thrash.(1/4th the healing amount when they use another attack). Force Scream is on a 12s cooldown, BTW. Think about it.

 

Assassins have their own version of Saber Ward on a 2 minute cooldown.

They have an ability that makes them immune to an enemy's hardest hitting moves for 5 seconds, every 45 seconds.

 

Their internal/bleeding mitigation with Charge Mastery is 2% higher than a Jugg with Dark Blood.

 

Assassins can boost their rate of blocking by 15%.

Assassins have a talent that increases their total Endurance by 3%. They end up with higher max health than Juggs, albeit its a very minor difference.

Assassin mitigation is the same as a Juggs once they pick up Eye of the Storm.

 

Learn what other classes are capable of being forming your opinion, or else you end up sounding ignorant.

Edited December 27, 2011 by ruminate

[Lymain]

Assassin has a 65% chance of healing themselves for half the amount of a Jugg's Sonic Barrier when they use Thrash.(1/4th the healing amount when they use another attack).

 

Which skill/ability is that?

[ruminate]

^ Dark Charge with Swelling Shadows talent.

 

Oh, they also get an ability that quadruples the healing amount from Dark Charge for 15 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown. The ability also instantly heals them for 10% of their health. They can also heal themselves for 12% of their health roughly every 30 seconds with another talent.

Edited December 27, 2011 by ruminate

[Samous]

Any assassin taking the 3% to endurance is missing on points spent better places

 

And I do not recall darkcharge healing for 600 at max lvl

[Naselus]

Their internal/bleeding mitigation with Charge Mastery is 2% higher than a Jugg with Dark Blood.

 

Only if they're using Dark Charge, which means they lose 30% armour boost from Insulation.

 

Assassins can boost their rate of blocking by 15%.

 

Soresu form increases shield rate by 15% permanently. The Assassin talent only lasts 20 seconds.

 

Assassins have a talent that increases their total Endurance by 3%. They end up with higher max health than Juggs, albeit its a very minor difference.

 

If anyone spends 3 skill points on gaining about 500 health at level 50, they are a moron. Additionally, that extra health is unlikely to equal 2 hits worth of the Jugg's armour mitigation advantage.

 

Assassin mitigation is the same as a Juggs once they pick up Eye of the Storm.

 

A 20% boost to light armour =! a 60% boost to Heavy armour. In fact, a 20% boost to light armour =! unboosted medium armour. Even by cross-specing into Insulation, an assassin does not get the basic armour mitigation of a Jugg in Soresu form, ever; and they have to spend 3 skill points to get 50% armour boost with an active charge, while we get given a 60% boost as a basic ability. Plus, that also removes their elemental resistance, which you fail to mention is mutually-exclusive. Finally, the inherent 6% damage reduction from soresu form means a jugg can reduce incoming damage to about 40% if they fail to shield, while an unshielded assassin will reduce it to only 70% or so.

 

The assassin relies heavily on not getting hit, and needs it's self-healing ability to compensate for it. Combined with their superior panic buttons, that means healing a Jugg MT from heavy raid-level burst damage will be considerably easier than healing an assassin MT. I've played MMOs for ten years, and I've played genuinely broken classes, and the immoratl Jugg is not one of them.

[Noth]

Only if they're using Dark Charge, which means they lose 30% armour boost from Insulation.

 

Which is outweight greathly by the 150% they get from dark charge.

 

Soresu form increases shield rate by 15% permanently. The Assassin talent only lasts 20 seconds.

 

Dark charge does this too, then they also get the talent.

 

If anyone spends 3 skill points on gaining about 500 health at level 50, they are a moron. Additionally, that extra health is unlikely to equal 2 hits worth of the Jugg's armour mitigation advantage.

 

Actually the mitigation is so close thanks to dark charge and other talents, that the mitigation makes little difference.

 

 

A 20% boost to light armour =! a 60% boost to Heavy armour. In fact, a 20% boost to light armour =! unboosted medium armour. Even by cross-specing into Insulation, an assassin does not get the basic armour mitigation of a Jugg in Soresu form, ever; and they have to spend 3 skill points to get 50% armour boost with an active charge, while we get given a 60% boost as a basic ability. Plus, that also removes their elemental resistance, which you fail to mention is mutually-exclusive. Finally, the inherent 6% damage reduction from soresu form means a jugg can reduce incoming damage to about 40% if they fail to shield, while an unshielded assassin will reduce it to only 70% or so.

 

The assassin relies heavily on not getting hit, and needs it's self-healing ability to compensate for it. Combined with their superior panic buttons, that means healing a Jugg MT from heavy raid-level burst damage will be considerably easier than healing an assassin MT. I've played MMOs for ten years, and I've played genuinely broken classes, and the immoratl Jugg is not one of them.

 

20% boost to an already 150% boost is a nice bonus. Also shadows are mitigation tanks not evasion tanks. Juggs end up with more defense and thus evasion than shadows do.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Noth

[Wildfae]

All Sounds interesting. My question, who is having trouble tanking as a Jugg? I mean really? You grab An elite, taunt another elite and the group focuses the trash down. On boss fights, you have 1 target, the boss. If you are losing hate or your group is dying, then its because you pulled poorly, or someone is screwing up. Sith Juggs are not hard to play and serve the tanking role well.

[ururururu]

=!

do you say "equal not" in your mind?

 

lol nitpicking but cmn driving me crazy here!

[Icehammer_]

I have been playing a Juggernaut for about 2 weeks now and I really like the class. I noticed that some people were saying that they would have trouble tanking multiple mobs in Flashpoints which is partially true but not impossible.

 

Right now I am in the low 20's and cursing through Balmora. At 19 though I was running heroic 4 man Flashpoints and noticed that I was able to pick up 3 to 4 mobs at once by doing a few simple things.

 

(Not in any particular order)

 

1) Mark the main target.

- This allows the group to focus in on one target while your AOE's do some dmg to the other mobs.

 

2) Taunt the trash!

- When I had solid agro on the mob that the group was FF on I would change my target to build Agro on the next mob. I would also taunt the other mobs back onto me that had started to attack the group.

 

3) Guard!

- As a tank you have to be able to assess your group to figure out who in the group will naturally generate the most Threat, then Guard that person. Most often its going to be the healer but as in higher end content it could also be a DPS class.

 

4) Crowd Control!

- Know which classes/spec's have CC abilities and mark targets for them to CC. Once the mobs have been CC'ed slowly draw the mobs you are tanking back with LoS or distance (if mob is melee). You can also back far enough away to allow for room for your own AoE's to land on mobs without CC but leave CC'ed mobs unaffected.

 

Those are just some tanking basics though. Part of being a tank is figureing out your group quickly so that you can set the pace. You also have to watch the other players to make sure that you don't pull stuff while people aren't ready.

 

I used those tactics and was able to tank 3 to 4 mobs at once. I know that some of the other classes have an easier time of tanking several mobs but with a good group who is willing to listen and do their part you can tank an army!

[Rawrjulian]

ok if shadow assassin get 150% and 20% more armor which is additive from what i know on a lvl 50 rakata light chest armor you get 1231 armor and on heavy you get 1377.6 so a pissing war with armor jugs win

 

 

also will an assassin have the force needed to keep all the abilities up in a long fight? how easy will it be to balance defense and glancing rating? are there not more important stats for you? i only ask this last part because i just dont know to be honest and i only bring up the first two points because its the little something i can say

Edited December 30, 2011 by Rawrjulian

[MagicCondor]

Simple response to OP's argument and all others about what tank is best. Tanks are tanks and if you pull threat off intentionally from a tank then its your problem now. Learn2Raid.

[Rogue_Pants]

I remember back in the day that as a tank we would say that it was the healers job to keep the tank alive and the tanks job to keep agro off the healer. The dps looked after themselves. I will say this now though. It is much harder to win through with a bad tank than it is to win through with a bad dps. Besides, there was a bug in there on that pull and that's all I'm saying.

 

 

to OP, I love tanking with my jugg. I don't know how to compare it against ***'s and pt's as I have never rolled one but I know I can keep agro on a boss fight even with a PT trying to steal it. I also know that a well tuned group watching tanks marks going up on enemies, know what to cc and what to hit and when not to use aoe. Tanking in a jugg is fun. If it was too easy it would be dull. I have a buddy PT tank and a buddy *** tank. I have more experience so I am MT right now. This has nothing to do with which class is best at this stage, but I have no doubt that each tank class will face it's nightmare and its dream before we really start to see which is best at what. Right now, Jugg is not best at dealing with lots of trash droids as one of their best trash controlling tools doesn't effect them. I have no problem dealing with lots of trash "Other mobs" though as I can shock them all and then taunt them all and then stun them all for a long enough period to see the dps aoe destroy them all. When there are too many elites etc, I can always pick one up in a choke and ignore him whilst pinging one off against a wall or over the side of a platform asking for a cc where needed knowing he is out of range of the aoe. As long as I am thinking about what is going on and communicating with the group, Jugg tanking gets no complaints from me...

[FalcoLombardi]

I've never had a problem keeping aggro of 4 things when I do the daily heroics

[Rakhas]

I have a lvl 50 assassin and juggernaut tank in somewhat equal gear. The assassin does have less mitigation through armor, but the avoidance and abilities more than make up for it. Overall, I feel that the mitigation is fairly equal for them.

 

Ironically, the deciding factor for rolling the juggernaut was that I felt my assassin was TOO dependent on aoe abilities. If I were to want to cc everything around 1 mob and nuke it, the group would have to stop all aoe abilities, including whither (dmg debuff, high threat attack) discharge (some dmg, accuracy debuff) and, short of getting away from the mob and force gripping them out of the pack, there is no ability to bring them out. While a juggernaut has to tag everything in the group individually if he hopes to hold them, he has much more mobility, a single target knockback with which to move mobs, and the ability to maintain high threat on a single target without worrying about cced targets. Note that this is not a QQ about assassin design at all, just a difference from the way I want to play vs. the way the class plays.

 

As for the argument of trash, good dps burn them down before they really get to hurt anything, especially if you stun them with smash.

[singuin]

i know it's been said a lot and i don't like repeating stuff, but apparently it's necessary... The best one will be the one you're most comfortable will. when you really understand how your toon is supposed to be played you'll be a good tank/dps/healer... it would be illogical to expect all tanking clases to be just as proficient in all aspects... what would be the sense of having this many classes for that role...? so just enjoy the diversity...

[RungTowSki]

i know it's been said a lot and i don't like repeating stuff, but apparently it's necessary... The best one will be the one you're most comfortable will. when you really understand how your toon is supposed to be played you'll be a good tank/dps/healer... it would be illogical to expect all tanking clases to be just as proficient in all aspects... what would be the sense of having this many classes for that role...? so just enjoy the diversity...

 

Couldn't agree more

[thorizdin]

We've used all three of the tanking classes on the Imperial side and for Operations there is no measurable difference. We also "feel" that all three are interchangeable which backs up the direct measurables (time of raid, number of enrage timers, and number of deaths).

 

 

Frankly our DPS composition and healing composition has MUCH more impact than the tank class.

[singuin]

We've used all three of the tanking classes on the Imperial side and for Operations there is no measurable difference. We also "feel" that all three are interchangeable which backs up the direct measurables (time of raid, number of enrage timers, and number of deaths).

 

 

Frankly our DPS composition and healing composition has MUCH more impact than the tank class.

 

 

yea... but you dont have to go as far as calling us irrelevant... >< (jk)

[Diesl]

Jugg threat is tied to Jugg DPS, and its well known that Jugg DPS is the worst of all classes. For comparisons sake, the tank Assassin's weakest resource using move, Thrash, is as strong as our Vicious Strike.... and its SPAMMABLE.

 

Assassins have better AoE threat than Powertechs. Not sure how you're getting the idea that they're worse.

 

Assassin's base defense is 5% higher than Juggs before talents(10% vs. 5%). With talents, Juggs have 1% more defense than Assassins, but only if Blade Barrier is up. If its not up due to being incapacitated or other events, the Assassin will have higher defense.

 

Assassin has a 65% chance of healing themselves for half the amount of a Jugg's Sonic Barrier when they use Thrash.(1/4th the healing amount when they use another attack). Force Scream is on a 12s cooldown, BTW. Think about it.

 

Assassins have their own version of Saber Ward on a 2 minute cooldown.

They have an ability that makes them immune to an enemy's hardest hitting moves for 5 seconds, every 45 seconds.

 

Their internal/bleeding mitigation with Charge Mastery is 2% higher than a Jugg with Dark Blood.

 

Assassins can boost their rate of blocking by 15%.

Assassins have a talent that increases their total Endurance by 3%. They end up with higher max health than Juggs, albeit its a very minor difference.

Assassin mitigation is the same as a Juggs once they pick up Eye of the Storm.

 

Learn what other classes are capable of being forming your opinion, or else you end up sounding ignorant.

 

JUG DPS is best Melee DPS in game.

[Katahn]

JUG DPS is best Melee DPS in game.

 

And you felt the need to necro this thread why?