I rolled a juggernaut from the start of the game. I was content with it. It wasn't an easy class to play and tanking is often a pain (I'm used to playing wow where a loose trash mob can 1-2 shot a dps)

 

I am what most people would call good geared. I have more Rakata gear than not. Augments in both my bracers and belt. and I'm still waiting for the last few drops I need. I have cleared nightmare mode and tanked everything (maybe skipped a flashpoint)

 

I currently have 20k hp unbuffed (~22k fully buffed), 47.12% damage reduction 24.23% Defense chance, 36.13% Shield Chance and 33.73% absorption.

 

We do have talented Retaliation which increases melee and ranged defenses by 6% but the kicker is Retaliation doesn't work on every fight (Soa f.ex.)

 

Recently I joined a new guild and I was browsing the other applications. I was dumbfounded when I looked at an assassin tanks application. He had shown a picture of his gear and stats where he had 24k hp (stimmed and BH buffed), 26% or so Defence chance, 42% shield chance and 42% absorption. This was without the self-buff Dark Ward (which with the set bonus gives him an effective 62% chance to shield attacks)

 

Even though he was in light armor his damage reduction was only 5% lower than mine. I thought something was wrong cause there is no way Assassins could have this much mitigation. I finally figured out where the difference was. He had 93% or so accuracy rating whereas I have a tiny bit over 100. My first conclusion was that this guy was clearly an idiot but I read further on and as it turns out Assassins don't need Accuracy for anything.

 

As a Juggernaut you need accuracy so that your Rage building attacks won't miss. This also helps you build more threat. As an assassin you have a different resource system not dependant on you hitting the boss.

 

On top of this Assassins have an AoE High threat attack (9s CD from what I recall) + AoE Taunt and from what I got from our conversation one more aoe attack.

 

Juggernauts have smash which is a 12s CD not high threat and then a sweeping slash which besides making so little threat it's impossible to keep aggro also has to be aimed in front of you making aoe tanking so frustrating that you're better off going afk to have a cry in a fetal position on your bed.

 

I havn't checked the numbers on powertechs but these guys have a huge advantage when it comes to positioning. I can't say for straight up mitigation.

 

On another note the itemization for rakata gear is messed up for juggernauts aswell. The Rakata chest has surge rating on it. I plan on switching enhancement once I get it but is it too much to ask that the endgame loot for a class/spec has the correct stats on it?

 

 

So to summarize what I'm trying to say with this post is that despite Juggernauts being the (from my perspective) harder to play tank class, they are also the weakest. This just doesn't seem right and those stats aren't something that skill can make up for.

A Jug was my first role too and I took it all the way up. The sad state of our AoE, compared to Pows and Sins, made me cry. Our butt ugly armor, looks like a transformer from a Michael Bay movie, made me scream. For laughs I tanked with a Pow once... I am now leveling a Pow.

Bump for awareness.

I don't really understand post like these. There is no content in the game that you can not tank yet you think you are underpowered.

I don't really understand post like these. There is no content in the game that you can not tank yet you think you are underpowered.

 

Its not that hard to understand. It is easier to tank content as one advanced class than another. Of course you might run into exceptions here and there but I doubt anyone is going to seriously claim that a Juggernaut's threat generation is as good as an equally well geared and "skilled" Powertech or Assassin specced as tanks. Especially when there are multiple silvers and or golds involved in the pull.

Your stats = your gear, which in this game you can mix and match. Also, you forgot to mention your cooldowns as a jugg are a ton better than an assassins and power techs.

Your stats = your gear, which in this game you can mix and match. Also, you forgot to mention your cooldowns as a jugg are a ton better than an assassins and power techs.

 

It is true you can mix and match but the way the classes works means that as a juggernaut you won't be able to keep threat production up without having accuracy enough to keep your resources up. Because the assassin resource system doesn't work the same way they can lose the offensive stats that juggernauts require and go full out mitigation. Using the example from my guild an equally (perhaps even slightly lower tiered) geared assassin will be able to take alot more punches. He has nearly 30% more shield chance (counting dark ward), no threat issues, better aoe tanking, and from what I could get from the conversation I had with the guy his cooldowns pretty much did the same thing. Just that a juggernaut has the 30% hp for a short while, which is irrelevant cause an assassin can have 30% more hp permanently.

 

I have mixed and matched and done my reading beforehand. I've tanked all endgame content but if you break the tank classes into pros and cons you can't possibly believe that juggernauts come out on top. Passive stats will in almost any situation be prefered over one you can activate for a short while.

 

Your argument for there not being an imbalance is pretty much that because for 10 seconds I can mitigate like a king, that compensates for a general lack of survivability (or perhaps the opposite them having too extreme amounts of it)

Its not that hard to understand. It is easier to tank content as one advanced class than another. Of course you might run into exceptions here and there but I doubt anyone is going to seriously claim that a Juggernaut's threat generation is as good as an equally well geared and "skilled" Powertech or Assassin specced as tanks. Especially when there are multiple silvers and or golds involved in the pull.

 

The primary concern for threat is only on AoE pulls (incase it didn't go through clearly in my first post) I have no issues whatsoever keeping threat on single targets (apart from Soa but thats cause that guy has more bugs than there are drops of water in the ocean)

 

Statwise the primary concern is the balance in what stats you can stack up. You need Accuracy as a juggernaut to keep your Rage up. You don't need it as an assassin as you can because of the different resource system. which frees up something like 300 points to put into pure mitigation.

 

My breakdown of the imbalance would be the fact that Juggernaut tanks need:

 

Accuracy, Defense, Armor, Shield, Absorption and Endurance

 

Where Assassins only need

 

Defense, Armor (they have a huge multiplier for this to compensate for being light armor), Shield, Absorption and Endurance

another one "why my class dont have, what other classes have"!!!

another one "why my class dont have, what other classes have"!!!

 

It's not quite that. It's more the fact that playing a juggernaut tank in endgame doesn't seem viable. I'm in the progress of rerolling to an operative healer cause of these imbalances.

Single-target threat is pretty good with Jug's but there are a lot of multi-mob pulls in this game and the Immortal spec Jug is ill equipped to manage them compared to the other two tank specs.

As a Guardian, I completely agree with the OP on the subject of AOE tanking. Our AOE taunt is pretty much useless except for pulling together melee trash mobs together to get AOE'd by DPS.

 

Once we use AOE taunt, we lose aggro right away because none of our AOE attacks generate enough threat. Quite frankly, if you try to switch targets among multiple mobs, our single-target attacks do not generate enough threat to pull aggro from a DPS. So that's not viable strategy either.

 

It's not a matter of being incapable of playing the class, but it really sucks to have to apologize to your group mate after every encounter because your class is lacking some fundamental abilities.

 

Also, you should have ability to recover if someone in you group makes a mistake (like hitting the CC or missing an interrupt). -- "No plan survives first contact with the enemy" -- If we are forced to leave our rotation, it becomes very difficult to get full aggro back. One mob is doable, more than one is nearly impossible.

It's not quite that. It's more the fact that playing a juggernaut tank in endgame doesn't seem viable. I'm in the progress of rerolling to an operative healer cause of these imbalances.

 

You're concerned about Juggs power level, so you're rolling Operative? /facepalm.

 

Assassins ARE NOT AOE TANKS. The misconceptions here are mind blowing. A Tankasin has 8 charges of Dark Ward every 12s which are consumed on being hit, That means if we AoE tank, we get railed. Ward gets consumed, and then we get gibbed. You cannot directly compare raw stats, the base mitigation of Tankasins is lower, and they do not have the same CDs that Juggs have.

 

Rage management is not the issue with Juggs - their issue is threat generation, however all Tanks can complete the content right now. The power difference between tanks is far, far smaller than the difference between healers or DPS, especially since no boss actually is designed to purely require tank cds.

You're concerned about Juggs power level, so you're rolling Operative? /facepalm.

 

Assassins ARE NOT AOE TANKS. The misconceptions here are mind blowing. A Tankasin has 8 charges of Dark Ward every 12s which are consumed on being hit, That means if we AoE tank, we get railed. Ward gets consumed, and then we get gibbed. You cannot directly compare raw stats, the base mitigation of Tankasins is lower, and they do not have the same CDs that Juggs have.

 

Rage management is not the issue with Juggs - their issue is threat generation, however all Tanks can complete the content right now. The power difference between tanks is far, far smaller than the difference between healers or DPS, especially since no boss actually is designed to purely require tank cds.

 

Even when you lose your 20% (assuming you aren't a complete noob and actually have the set bonus) the other assassin tanks in my guild still have way more mitigation (10% or so more shield chance and absorption)

 

Are you saying you can't hold threat on AoE pulls as an assassin? if a juggernaut has to tank 2 targets he will lose threat on one of them. Sure he can retaunt it. But then when we got to 3 theres not much to do cause of the AoE taunts long cooldown. The cooldowns you have as assassins aren't bad compared to ours. I compared a few days ago and ours have way longer cooldowns than yours making ours actual cooldowns. Yours are nearly spammable. With base mitigation I'm assuming you mean damage reduction. I give you that. It's a bit lower but still not low enough to justify you not needing to stat into accuracy like juggernauts do.

 

I don't think you read my thread thoroughly enough to understand what I'm actually saying though. Juggernaut tanks need accuracy because with out it we will miss our rage builders. Assassins don't face the same challenge. this means they're free to stack all of their secondary into pure mitigation. thats around 300 points more into defense rating or shield/absorp or even some endurance (which is not subject to diminishing returns)

I don't think you read my thread thoroughly enough to understand what I'm actually saying though. Juggernaut tanks need accuracy because with out it we will miss our rage builders. Assassins don't face the same challenge. this means they're free to stack all of their secondary into pure mitigation. thats around 300 points more into defense rating or shield/absorp or even some endurance (which is not subject to diminishing returns)

 

I read your thread, you're simply wrong.

 

Assassins need Accuracy because threat-generation is out-stripped by DPS generation. Your DPS in T3 gear, assuming they're not bad, will pull off an Assassin who drops all of their Accuracy. Threat does not work the way it does in WoW, you don't "build it" and that's it - DPS can pull off at any point, and they will once they are in half T3 gear or better, assuming they don't suck.

 

Juggernauts have higher quality Damage Reduction CDs than Assassins. If the raw stats on Assassins were not higher, they would literally get trucked as their HP being at a lower point prior to incoming burst means they're dead. They don't have the same option of shrugging off a big hit the way a Juggernaut can, and they're spending more time actively maintaining *basic mitigation*, let alone DR.

 

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Your "argument" is based on the notion that Assassins can somehow have 0 Accuracy and wind up with "bonus" mitigation that Juggs don't have. This is simply *completely wrong*. In fact, Juggs get *better CDs* that Assassins don't have, they maintain their full DR against multiple targets (whereas a large pack causes all charges to be consumed on an Assassin, causing them to get trucked), AND when you reach actual progression where Assassins and Juggs both need Accuracy to hold threat, the Assassin winds up behind on DR.

 

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No, the primary problem that Juggs face is that most people who chose Tank chose a Jugg, and the majority of players trying to tank in SWTOR don't understand how *vastly different* tanking is than it is in WoW. I've watched fail-Tank after fail-Tank do everything from rotate Taunts (really... wish I was joking, WoW has ruined tanks) to pull with a Taunt to pop CDs on white hits. It's ridiculous. It got so bad that my guild moved me from Heals Officer to Tank Officer and had me reroll (been power leveling - not fun) because that was our best hope of putting competence behind the Tank.

 

In fact, the primary reason I chose Assassin over Juggernaut was the gearing. We put Sorcerers into our Healing spots, which means we gear them last (we don't use Sorc DPS heavily, as it's not the best and it will get nerfed) as healing is a linear function. We didn't want to put the main Tank on the same token as our Marauders, who form the core of our Melee DPS and are used for their CDs.

 

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The Jugg issue with threat generation is somewhat over-stated, it's the most played Tank, and therefore people blame the class, which is only partially true, and simply forget that threat is not easy-mode in SWTOR

Edited February 24, 2012 by subrosian

It's not quite that. It's more the fact that playing a juggernaut tank in endgame doesn't seem viable. I'm in the progress of rerolling to an operative healer cause of these imbalances.

 

LOL, you will have the same issues there bud. Op healers are the juggernauts of the healing classes.

It's not quite that. It's more the fact that playing a juggernaut tank in endgame doesn't seem viable. I'm in the progress of rerolling to an operative healer cause of these imbalances.

 

"I'm tired of being the worst tanking class in the game, so I'm going to go play the worst healing class in the game as a change of pace"

 

 

Also, disagree with the first part. Juggernauts are largely viable end game. The content is doable, the larger problem is that Assassins are a bit better than them, and Powertechs entirely outclass you.

 

That's not excusing it as a problem, but there's a difference between overall and general viability, and as long as you're posting lines like that, the thread will be flooded with people saying "But I cleared the content, you're just terrible", even though that has nothing to do with the actual topic.

But I cleared the content, you're just terrible", even though that has nothing to do with the actual topic.

 

Except that hasn't been the argument.

 

His LITERAL ARGUMENT is that Juggernauts must take Accuracy, while Assassins can have 0 accuracy and therefore have more mitigation (i.e. are better). This is COMPLETELY INCORRECT, as Juggernauts have more mitigation than Assassins by a margin that cannot be corrected with gear, period (due to CDs and how the Assassin's active mitigation functions against adds).

 

To make it worse, the premise is wrong, as Assassins in Nightmare mode with heavily geared DPS absolutely need some amount of accuracy, as Threat Generation does not scale well with defensive stats. In order to maintain threat with geared DPS bursting, the Assassin will need to be hitting enough to keep the boss at least enough that they do not outstrip their taunts.

 

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There are some minor issues with Juggs, but the majority of tanking issues in the game come down to people trying to play SWTOR as though it's WoW, when Tanking functions completely differently.

 

No one is arguing "Juggs clear Nightmare therefore you're bad". The argument is "you're looking at stats on the character screen as though raw stats are comparable, therefore you are wrong".

Except that hasn't been the argument.

 

His LITERAL ARGUMENT is that Juggernauts must take Accuracy, while Assassins can have 0 accuracy and therefore have more mitigation (i.e. are better). This is COMPLETELY INCORRECT, as Juggernauts have more mitigation than Assassins by a margin that cannot be corrected with gear, period (due to CDs and how the Assassin's active mitigation functions against adds).

 

To make it worse, the premise is wrong, as Assassins in Nightmare mode with heavily geared DPS absolutely need some amount of accuracy, as Threat Generation does not scale well with defensive stats. In order to maintain threat with geared DPS bursting, the Assassin will need to be hitting enough to keep the boss at least enough that they do not outstrip their taunts.

 

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There are some minor issues with Juggs, but the majority of tanking issues in the game come down to people trying to play SWTOR as though it's WoW, when Tanking functions completely differently.

 

No one is arguing "Juggs clear Nightmare therefore you're bad". The argument is "you're looking at stats on the character screen as though raw stats are comparable, therefore you are wrong".

 

Actually you're the one whom is incorrect.

 

Sure your basic attack is screwed up when you don't have the accuracy builders, problem with your argument is that all your other attacks aren't all that dependent on your basic attack.

 

Skill attacks start with 100% accuracy

Basic attacks start with 90% accuracy -- unlike you, a Juggernaut and a Guardian Tank, both need to have accuracy because they need to use said attack in conjunction with sundering strike to build/maintain focus/rage.

 

Since you start off with a full force bar while he starts off having to build focus/rage, and maintain focus/rage his ability to hit the target and thus get focus/rage with his basic attack becomes critical.

 

You are trying to approach this as though the two classes operate under the same set of mechanics when they quite frankly do not operate the same way.

 

Jedi Guardian Tanks, and Juggernaut tanks both have to build focus (and they have a focus generation handicap), so they actually do need to invest more in accuracy than a shadow tank needs to.

For those saying that accuracy is needed to help maintain focus/rage have you forgotten that a Jugg ACTUALLY spec'd immortal gains that simply by being attacked? I really don't think the rage generation is the issue for them. I'd love it if they had an additional AOE taunt, but they don't really need it. As has been mentioned above, agro doesn't work the same way in TOR than it does in games like LOTRO or WoW. Assin tanks may have more ways to taunt or gain area aggro, but their survivability is NOT the same as was also mentioned above.

I actually think rage generation is part of the issue, due to fact we have, what, 12 skills in the Immortal tree dedicated to giving us more Rage? I don't see Sins and PT having so many abilites in a tanking tree dedicated to resource building.

 

And the fact we build rage as we get hit just sorta makes us even for the fact we don't passively build rage in between CD's.

Actually you're the one whom is incorrect.

 

If you run the numbers on the two sets of stats the OP posted, the Jugg takes less damage than the Assassin, on average. And that's with the Assassin most likely having a +2% resist bonus from a 4 piece set, definitely having extra defense from a fortitude stim, and the Jugg packing a lot of accuracy. Although, personally, I think the assassin in question is a bit silly, one of those overly focused on hp. He could have better avoidance/mitigation than he does.

 

Basically, the OP undervalues the impact of his higher resists. That armor gap means he takes about 10% less damage from kinetic and energy.

If you run the numbers on the two sets of stats the OP posted, the Jugg takes less damage than the Assassin, on average. And that's with the Assassin most likely having a +2% resist bonus from a 4 piece set, definitely having extra defense from a fortitude stim, and the Jugg packing a lot of accuracy. Although, personally, I think the assassin in question is a bit silly, one of those overly focused on hp. He could have better avoidance/mitigation than he does.

 

Basically, the OP undervalues the impact of his higher resists. That armor gap means he takes about 10% less damage from kinetic and energy.

 

Cept assassins can self heal and a Juggernaut as far as I know can't.

It's not quite that. It's more the fact that playing a juggernaut tank in endgame doesn't seem viable. I'm in the progress of rerolling to an operative healer cause of these imbalances.

 

Geeze, you must like pain. I look forward to seeing your future post about how much operative healers suck compared to sorcs and mercs.

Jedi Guardian Tanks, and Juggernaut tanks both have to build focus (and they have a focus generation handicap), so they actually do need to invest more in accuracy than a shadow tank needs to.

 

Unless you are terrible, you will build Rage just fine. Since Assassins MUST ALSO TAKE ACCURACY IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN THREAT your energy mechanic is largely irrelevant. The raw mitigation difference is HUGELY in favor of Juggs, which is what is most important.

 

No matter what, a Jugg will take less damage than an Assassin, which means they are the better tank for progression. In addition, they are built to scale threat generation based on the damage being taken, while Assassins LOSE DR AS THE NUMBER OF ATTACKS IN A GIVEN PERIOD INCREASES. I can't help if you lack the skill to manage rage... you are being handed DR like candy, which is the most important stat for a tank

 

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OH! I can predict what whine comes next: self heal. Our one long CD that heals for 10%, which is weak because it does not prevent the damage. Our other so called self-heal is RNG and does not heal for even 0.5% of our health, and does not scale properly, meaning we actually lose its non-utility as time goes on, whereas Juggs passive mitigation scales, causing your effective HP to increase dramatically with gear.

 

 

If people would stop trying to loltank like this is WOW and learn that tanking mechanics are quite different, they would have no problem playing Juggs in SWTOR.

Edited February 25, 2012 by subrosian