You win, I give up on my Juggernaut.

***Preface: I am in a guild of strong PvPers that have been together over multiple games and played well as a group. I personally have been doing PvP in MMOs since DAoC and very much enjoyed the tank playstyle in what has been pretty much every game I've played up to SWTOR. My ability to play the class really isn't in question here - what is in question is the fact that the numbers and skills make no sense.***

You win Bioware.

I'm ready to give up on my Juggernaut. The class seems like it should be good, right up until you get into any sort of PvP situation with it.

We get heavy armor. Seems awesome right? Then you realize it doesn't actually mitigate damage from the majority of skills, or mitigates only part of it and you're still taking elemental or internal damage.

We're a tank class, so we should have more health than other classes right? Nope, not even if you make an effort to get more, because everyone can mod their gear to have the exact same mods you do and apparently DPS classes like marauders/sentinels should have more base HP to compensate for their lower potential armor. Except the armor doesn't actually mitigate most of the damage that kills you.

Next, we come to base class cooldowns. We get Endure Pain, which seems like it should be good, but in reality just lets you live another 10 seconds maybe, 15 if you spec all the way up Immortal. At the end you will, 95% of the time, have a DoT on you and die to the tick immediately following the expiration of Endure Pain. I have this happen even when I have a pocket healer in PvP because suddenly I lose 30% of my health and then take a DoT tick while he's channeling a heal.

Saber Ward is actually a halfway decent cooldown. The problem is it's on a 3 minute timer. This is the ability we get in place of a 4 second stun that the other base classes get. Said stun has a 1 minute cooldown and can be decreased to 50 seconds for every other class. I have no way to reduce the cooldown on Saber Ward, which I can already use only 1/3 as often as the equivalent abilities given to other classes. Also, this ability is available to marauders so they get another defensive cooldown.

Force Push is supposed to be our equivalent to Grapple and Force Pull, except it's on a longer cooldown and 50% or more of the time, the client has different positions than the server and you end up pushing your target in a completely different direction other than the one you intended, whereas Grapple and Force Pull you just have to deal with the possibility of bouncing someone off the ceiling. Only really relevant in a few places in Huttball.

You can spec Immortal and get Invincible, except that has the same problem Saber Ward does - the cooldown is way, way too long for PvP especially considering the abilities other classes get. In turn, you get to try and play in Soresu with terrible rage generation and damage output (which I did for the first 67 Valor ranks). Because tanking in this game is entirely cooldown dependent for PvP, you can tank for about 22 seconds (Invincible followed by Saber Ward) while tank specced. During that time, the best you can put out pitiful damage that can be healed through by an DPS specced heal capable class, which I don't really have a problem with, except the other tank specs don't have this issue. Powertechs get a 25% reduction for 12 seconds every 2 minutes. Assassins get immunity to tech and Force powers for 5 seconds (if specced into it) and a 12% self heal every 20 seconds that does silly amounts of damage while slowing the target.

I finally gave up and specced Rage about a week ago, and the damage is actually making it possible for me to kill opponents and feel like I'm actually contributing to my team instead of just making us lose slower in bad matches. I'm enjoying this while I have the option to do so, before 1.2 is released. Once 1.2 comes out, marauders will be better smash monkeys than juggernauts because of Quick Recovery and the multitude of defensive cooldowns that make them more difficult to kill than a juggernaut.

I don't want to reroll. I shouldn't have to drop a character I've worked hard on since release because Zoeller seems to think that defensive stats do something in PvP and that class balance is somehow best served by making juggernauts inferior to marauders in almost every shape form or fashion in the DPS arena, and inferior to powertechs and assassins in the PvP tanking arena.

If the 1.2 changes go through as posted, there's a pretty good chance I'm just going to be done. My subscription is cancelled as of right now.

Some of the best tanks I know are Juggies.

I guess you ain't doing it right.

Thankfully this game does not seem to be balanced 1 vs all other classes. I like the paper, scissors, rock approach to balance.

When people are going to understand (and accept) that you cannot truly balance PvP in MMO's based on toon being a specific class.

PS: It is pretty much an exercise in futility, until every class has the same toolset. Which is making them all 1 class =D.

Solution: Roll 1 toon of each Class/AC and use the FotM one.

You aren't doing it right, then.

This really doesn't have anything to do with the post. I can out play a lot of people too, that doesn't make the class balanced - it just means I'm better at the game than the people I just beat. The fact that it's doable with what is, effectively, a broken class, does not change the base premise.


What is the scissors to the juggernaut's rock?

Plus I honestly don't care about 1v1 - I care about group combat, and in a group situation there is nothing a juggernaut can do that one of the other tanks can't do just as well while either putting out more damage or having better survivability.

I don't want everyone to have the same exact toolset. I would like the class I elected to play to have an actual tanking toolset and something unique and worthwhile that the other classes in this roll do not have. This does not currently exist.

Quick recovery is gone in 1.2 for marauders... so that's at least one less topic for you to qq about.

Also you can

LEAP
INTERCEDE
FORCE PUSH

You're the only class in the game that gets two leaps..if you can't pvp effectivly with that then go back to magic the gathering or something.

Not according to the patch notes on the PTS forum. As it is I already had to level a character to 10 on the PTS to find out what they actually changes the values to on Heavy Handed (yay 7% damage nerf on the one meaningful AoE we get and a nerf to a 1 minute cooldown ability on top of it).

If you'd bothered to read the post, I pointed out the issue with Force Push as a concept vs. implementation but obviously you were too lazy. Leap is available to tank specced powertechs, and they still retain the ability to Grapple. Intercede is the one ability that Juggernauts get that isn't immediately or overridden by another class, except it does nothing to address the survivability issues that juggernauts have themselves.

Dog <-> Tail logic:

"something unique and worthwhile" -> that "something unique and worthwhile" make the other class being a better choice to PvP with.

If they change "your" class in an attempt to balance PvP, it will affect the people that choose the other ones, and possibly making your class FotM for PvPing.

And round, round, round we go.

My point stand:

You can't balance a PvP in a MMO's based on toon having different toolset. Either adapt, re-roll 1 of each or accept it.