I was testing threat generation on the tanks I have at present ( on the ops boss dummy) without taunts. I was surprised at how low the initial threat numbers were for the Powertech tank especially for that version of the grapple at ~ 2600 threat. My Pyro tech has the 180 barrel, 180 offhand 4 piece set bonus through the arkanian mods 2 DF implants and a mix of 168/180 com gear (2350 total mitigation) for now.

The only ability that had more than 4k threat was the rail shot when it did not miss. The highest threat ability that I saw on any of the 3 tanks was the force pull on my shadow at ~8700 threat ( huge advantage for threat management to start the fight) My concern and question is how does a Vangaurd/Powertech deal with dps easily hitting 3.8 K sustained and higher spikes or even 3k plentiful capable dps (TC HM is one place I have run into this event) with out serious taunt fluffing on cd.

On my shadow that force pull makes life so much easier to start the fight, and the guardian just needs some time to get into the higher threat abilities like guardian slash after force sweep and hilt strike. I have tanked SM on TfB, SnV, DF and DP several times on that Pyrotech, but the threat I saw on parsec has me concerned now. Have done all the above SM ops on the other tanks also.

Is there something I am missing (I checked stances and cylinders and guides for openers) before parsing

I was testing threat generation on the tanks I have at present ( on the ops boss dummy) without taunts. I was surprised at how low the initial threat numbers were for the Powertech tank especially for that version of the grapple at ~ 2600 threat. My Pyro tech has the 180 barrel, 180 offhand 4 piece set bonus through the arkanian mods 2 DF implants and a mix of 168/180 com gear (2350 total mitigation) for now.

 

The only ability that had more than 4k threat was the rail shot when it did not miss. The highest threat ability that I saw on any of the 3 tanks was the force pull on my shadow at ~8700 threat ( huge advantage for threat management to start the fight) My concern and question is how does a Vangaurd/Powertech deal with dps easily hitting 3.8 K sustained and higher spikes or even 3k plentiful capable dps (TC HM is one place I have run into this event) with out serious taunt fluffing on cd.

 

On my shadow that force pull makes life so much easier to start the fight, and the guardian just needs some time to get into the higher threat abilities like guardian slash after force sweep and hilt strike. I have tanked SM on TfB, SnV, DF and DP several times on that Pyrotech, but the threat I saw on parsec has me concerned now. Have done all the above SM ops on the other tanks also.

 

Is there something I am missing (I checked stances and cylinders and guides for openers) before parsing

Yeah you're missing shoulder cannon. When you heal with it, its an extra [5% of your max HP] threat on top of your ~2k threat pre crits generated by it.

Try opening from 70% of your HP on the dummy (unequip and re-equip some gear) and you'll notice significantly more threat.

Open by going:

Battle Focus

Mortar Volley

Storm

[shoulder cannon spam]

Taunt

Pulse Cannon

Stockstrike

Explosive Surge

High Impact Bolt

Explosive Surge

AoE Taunt

Pulse Cannon

Hammer Shots

Stockstrike

Energy Blast

Note: Energy Blast is hugely delayed on a dummy because you cant shield attacks from something that doesnt attack.

Also, using taunts in the opener is nothing to be ashamed of. My guildies who tank have to taunt in their opener or lose threat to my 7k DPS opener, despite one of them being a shadow and the other being a guardian (saber reflect is as strong as force pull for threat, but requires taking damage from the target before it generates the threat)

From what I've heard, Harpoon generates fairly meh threat because it's available to DPS Vanguards, and the Devs wanted it to be a viable utility ability that could be used to pull an enemy without the risk of basically taunting them.

It would be nice if Ion Cell came with a bunch of extra threat for Harpoon, but ah well.

One note on threat from Shoulder Cannon self-heals:

Healing threat is based on effective heals, not base heals; that is, overhealing doesn't generate threat. (This is why Scoundrel/Operative healers can HoT up a 16man ops group and not immediately steal aggro on everything.) Make sure to hit Shoulder Cannon when you've actually taken damage, not when you're at full health. This isn't usually going to be a problem, though...

Tank in AP with Ion cell on with DPS gear for 7.8k sustained TPS

In all seriousness PT's/VG's only real "High threat" ability is Ion cell's DoT I think. Compared to Jugg's smash, pimp slap, crushing blow; and Assassin's wither, pull, and discharge. Their strength comes from them doing more DPS (I think they do more than Sin/shadows). As for starting threat, you pretty much have to spam shoulder cannon and use a taunt afterwards to keep aggro from PT's and carnage marauders.

so the key point is should cannon loaded and ready to use before the fight, then used once damaged. That is the only tricky part as healer normally have kept me healed fairly close so may have to extend out should cannon for best benefit.

So the grapple/harpoon was only doing ~ 2k threat is it even worth using unless on Bestia at the council then motar volley/death from above as she will be too close for Storm. just doing SM at present just hate to lose agro. It is my experiece that the Vangaurds/Powertech have by far the lowest damage of the 3 tank classes comparably geared, it is not close.

so the key point is should cannon loaded and ready to use before the fight, then used once damaged. That is the only tricky part as healer normally have kept me healed fairly close so may have to extend out should cannon for best benefit.

So the grapple/harpoon was only doing ~ 2k threat is it even worth using unless on Bestia at the council then motar volley/death from above as she will be too close for Storm. just doing SM at present just hate to lose agro. It is my experiece that the Vangaurds/Powertech have by far the lowest damage of the 3 tank classes comparably geared, it is not close.

Yeah grapple is sadly the best move to pull bestia off the throne with

One other thong to remember: The followup DoT from Ion Cell has a whopping 8x threat multiplier - so its doing upwards of 700 extra threat/second

One other thong to remember:

I like where this is going

I like where this is going

I blame this tablet's touch screen keyboard.

Oh to be at home and not at uni

So Bestia at the council fight is one of those the dps have to give the tank a little time to position and start since it is not the usual pull and the normal opener is changed. Will still have should cannon loaded of course, but storm and the 2 free surges will be absent. What is your advice on how to start that fight,

Turn on target of target in the UI

Get the raptus kiter to unload everything they have into bestia.

Upon them getting thrown across the room (or at least pulling aggro), you taunt, they threat drop, and they run off to raptus.

This assumes the raptus kiter is the strongest DPS. If the biggest aggro whore isnt the raptus kiter, then when you taunt or they get punted, they run off to tyrans.

Since taunt is multiplicative, you will be up to 30% higher on the threat table than the next guy, and everyone is now out of offensive cooldowns

Pull Bestia --> Rotation + masstaunt

When you get kicked singletaunt asap to your tanking position.

Best would be when Bestia kicks you to your tankingspot

Pt's can use hydraulic override

Sins can use phasewalk

Juggers can use intercede

Or just google for videos

Using phasewalk on bestia? Is that really needed on NiM?

I rather have more uptime on the 5% healing increase than a fast port back to tankspot. Ofc you can use if you are afraid of falling off the edge what in that case your position is wrong. I tend to use forcespeed after a knockback.

Anyways aggro wise I noticed vanguards/powertechs can be slightly harder than shadow/guardians. At least for the untrained one. Recently did a DP HM where I couldn't get into it. Making silly mistakes as storming in and spamming my 2 free explosive surges .....

Ohw one more thing if you watch videos. You can't resist the knockback anymore I think. They changed it when NiM came out. Please do correct me if I'm wrong.

Open by going:

Battle Focus

Mortar Volley

Storm

[shoulder cannon spam]

Taunt

Pulse Cannon

Stockstrike

Explosive Surge

High Impact Bolt

Explosive Surge

AoE Taunt

Pulse Cannon

Hammer Shots

Stockstrike

Energy Blast

Also please note to use shouldercannon WHILE doing other abilities since SC is off the global cooldown ;-)

Please don't encourage Vanguard tanks to use Mortar Volley, thank you.

Why not? It does excellent damage (and based on that, threat) up front. The math and testing was done by mgnmttrn a long time ago as to why this ability should be used up front. It quite simply is the best opener for a Vanguard. There are honestly very few bosses where you actually can open up with Mortar Volley (Grob'thok, Draxus, Corruptor Zero) but ideally you would. For most bosses, you'll simply use the rotation outlined by TACEmossie minus the Mortar Volley and push the taunts back a few GCDs.

Please don't encourage Vanguard tanks to use Mortar Volley, thank you.

Could you elaborate?

My ops tanking experience has been with my Assassin and my Shadow. My Vanguard tank is a new 55 and I've only done flashpoints on her so far.

I was under the impression that MV was a decent opener. What's bad about it?

Please don't encourage Vanguard tanks to use Mortar Volley, thank you.

Hey, unless your running Assault spec, Mortar Volley is a DPS increase (and as a tank, a threat increase)

Just its difficult to aim unless you have a free GCD, which is where pulse cannon comes in handy

What's bad about MV is that it's highly situational and very few tanks realise that.

Say you have a group of half dozen mobs. You open up with MV and go all Michael Bay on them only to find yourself jumped by two mobs a second later. Now you have to deal with two separate groups: the ones on you and the ones 20 meters away. It's better just to Storm in and 2x eSurge them to keep them balled up for DPS AoE attacks.

I know everyone likes big numbers flying on their screen, but the tank's job is to have mobs grouped up and busy with him.

Furthermore, encouraging MV use as opener only plays to the false notion that the Vanguard is a ranged tank. Most of VG tanks I've met that open with MV follow up with Full Auto, Sticky Grenade and just stand there at a distance spamming Hammer Shot while waiting for that APB to become available.

Why not? It does excellent damage (and based on that, threat) up front. The math and testing was done by mgnmttrn a long time ago as to why this ability should be used up front. It quite simply is the best opener for a Vanguard. There are honestly very few bosses where you actually can open up with Mortar Volley (Grob'thok, Draxus, Corruptor Zero) but ideally you would. For most bosses, you'll simply use the rotation outlined by TACEmossie minus the Mortar Volley and push the taunts back a few GCDs.

Grob'thok: Not needed. You'll be taunting that bastard on cooldown anyway.

Draxus: Pointless as he will just swoop out of there in 5 seconds.

Corruptor Zero: You're opening on adds, not the actual boss. Which is okay if the other tank has jumped in melee range and keeps them occupied.