So I've been playing a Juggernaut tank for awhile. Doing mostly hard modes, but I've seen some raiding to. I'm basically Columi level gear across the board. I'm no stranger to any role in MMOs and typically excel in all of them.

 

But as time goes on I am beginning to absolutely loath tanking on my Juggernaught. It feels incomplete and imbalanced. If all I need to do is is stand there and take it in the face, the class works well. Fight after fight, boss after boss, flashpoint after flashpoint I tell myself "If I was a Bounty Hunter with range, this would probably be a lot easier."

 

I hate how everything seems to have a knockback on a short cooldown, I hate getting juggled around like a ragdoll while trying to trundle around the room and gather up adds. Being a melee in the End of Torvix mission in the Black Hole is a prime example. Every 5 freaking seconds you're getting knocked back by something. I have a very low damage and threat saber throw that won't keep aggro off a guarded healer long enough for the mob to get to me most of the time, and it has a 30 sec cooldown. I do not feel like I have adequate tools to effectively deal with the things being thrown at me. 5-8 ranged mobs, some with knockbacks and stuns is just tediously painful to tank. Sure I can get a little mobility with my charge or my friendly defensive leap, but getting around is only part of the problem.

 

The utter lack of any good way to deal with ranged adds is just horrible. Even playing through easier flashpoints with people who know it and overgear it, I always have to try and constantly tab through everything tossing attacks on them to maintain threat against AOE. Doing so basically completely stops any meaningful threat generation on elites or more than I need to control.

 

Dealing with melee adds is a cakewalk, but there are so many ranged adds, you have to be on 100% the whole time or people keep getting nailed and think you're a noob tank even though they should do better about attacking your target. In other MMOs, with some more effort I could always deal with over zealous DPS. I feel much less able to deal with it, and it just strains the healer even more so. Tanking SWTOR is more stressful, draining, and tedious than any other MMO I've ever played. Including dealing with clueless DPS in random cross server WoW dungeon groups.

 

My AOE threat is slow and fairly weak, has a bit of a cooldown and a very short range. The saber AOE strike is alright at times, but they both are next to useless on the hordes of ranged adds who seem to be invariably scattered all over the place. Threat generation seems inconsistent at times and it seems like I have to do even MORE damage to get something back than the damage to pulled it off in the first place.

 

My abilities aren't that interesting on top of being inadequate. My top level tanking ability is a slightly more powerful version of one of my basic attacks. The minimum range on saber throw makes no sense, since you have another low target HP sabre throw that can be used point blank. Combine that with a 30 sec timer and it's low damage and threat? Very inadequate tool for ranged threat which is it's only meaningful use. My tiny self heal, as a tank, *drops* threat when you need to get *hit* for it to function. And if you parry or dodge like a good tank, it doesn't seem to work either. So even if you pop it, taunt, and burst threat it doesn't always go off. The better your gear gets, the less chance you have of it doing anything. It seems completely counter intuitive.

 

 

I'm considering quitting SWTOR, and this is by far the biggest factor. It's not enjoyable to play my class. And I'm not going to tell everyone else to stuff it for a good while for me to level and gear another tank class because my current one feels incomplete.

have you read the 1.3 patchnotes???

You'll be glad to hear that the threat bonus on soresu form is being buffed from 150% to 200% and your ability to splash around AOE is also being buffed in the next couple of weeks.

 

I'm sure you've read it before but if you really take to heart the message that it is not necessary to tank every mob in a pack it gets a lot easier. Normal and weak mobs are not worth tanking, they die too fast and are passively CCed by so many of the DPSers' attacks anyway. Once you ignore them it's rare to fight more than three or four silver/gold mobs at a time.

 

Why are you guarding the healer? They already generate half the threat of a dps and this is further reduced for every enemy in play.

Some threat boosts. Sure, it will help but we're still stuck with the same inadequate tools. All those abilities are still extremely short range and dealing with scattered/ranged adds will be just about as cumbersome.

 

When the existing abilities are not serviceable for dealing with how flashpoints and such are designed due to cooldown and range issues, simply making them do more threat isn't going to help the core problem which is making it less tedious to have to stroll around all over the place keeping aggro on all the ranged adds. Combining that with a melee range interrupt, which you often need to stay on a boss to interrupt key abilities, it's completely counter intuitive to require you to run around and leave threat/damage/interrupt range on the boss so much.

 

It's not the proper way to deal with the problem. The class itself feels incomplete and inadequate for the task. After researching how the other tanks work, I am confident any of them are far superior in general, especially dealing with adds, to the Juggernaut/Guardian. Maybe not in cooldowns for eating nasty boss abilities, but that seems to be about it.

 

I'm not saying they can't be used, I get by, but it feels like handicapping yourself while decreasing the fun factor of playing. The key word for tanking as a Jugger - Tedious.

You'll be glad to hear that the threat bonus on soresu form is being buffed from 150% to 200% and your ability to splash around AOE is also being buffed in the next couple of weeks.

 

I'm sure you've read it before but if you really take to heart the message that it is not necessary to tank every mob in a pack it gets a lot easier. Normal and weak mobs are not worth tanking, they die too fast and are passively CCed by so many of the DPSers' attacks anyway. Once you ignore them it's rare to fight more than three or four silver/gold mobs at a time.

 

Why are you guarding the healer? They already generate half the threat of a dps and this is further reduced for every enemy in play.

 

Was an example, I didn't state that's what I always do. It was a way to illustrate how ineffectual the AOEs are. But I did use it last night. Was playing Lost Island and that horrible Sentinal Droid fight, the sniper adds would pop up and I'd nail them both with one of those purple reusable cybertech grenades, force choked one, and taunted sabre threw on the other one. Moments later they both went back on to the healer from pure heal aggro. My attacks took roughly half their HP. And leaving melee range of the boss to deal with them is just begging to get owned by his incinerate, especially while the DPS has to move away from the lightning field.

 

The extra threat will help, but it doesn't fully address the issue with how tiresome it is to run around and pick up adds all the time. When there are so many ranged adds that aren't grouped together, a higher threat AOE isn't all that useful since you might only hit one or two with it.

 

Sabre throw needs to have a shorter cooldown. 30 seconds is too long for how weak it is. I needs to cause more threat, possibly hit multiple targets (but ignores CC'ed unaggroed targets) and probably apply a stack of sunder armor.

 

A larger ranged AOE attack of some kind would be great. Point blank AOEs really aren't that useful since the difficulty is getting things together in the first place. Like the Force Wave attack attack from KOTOR, an AOE pushback/knockdown. The pushback would probably do more harm than good, but a knockdown or stun on weak only targets would work, while giving you a way to pick up scattered enemies who aren't getting nailed hard.

 

It's silly but a useful way to pick up adds that aren't being damaged is to BUFF the party. If they haven't been touched and don't have heal aggro yet, it'll attract them. Funny how a buff is at times the best add grabbing tool. When your party is aware of this, it's even more useful.

Edited June 22, 2012 by ShaneW

You don't have to tank those adds. I never do.

 

Either get one of your dps to wipe them out while you stay on the boss or get one of your dps to interrupt incinerate while you go kill them.

I agree, I ignore those adds. My Guardian doesn't have the tools to hold them and tank a boss as involved as LR-5. What I DO do is chuck out an AoE taunt when they start running towards the group to give them a few more seconds of free DPS on the adds which they should be AoEing down anyway.

 

I look at it this way, when I tank my job is to keep the heavy hitters off the rest of the group. I have no chance of holding a full group on me but if I can keep the strong and elites on me I'm doing great. If a weak or normal runs at a DPS and they can't handle it they are bad DPS. If one runs at the healer and the DPS and healer can't take care of it, I'll taunt it back or leap to it. Healers have KB, stuns, sprints, mezzes and plenty of other tools for dealing with stray weak and normal mobs so you don't need to worry so much.

 

If the healer or DPS pulls threat on several mobs you might have issues. But you do have tools for that like AoE taunt. They're just on longer CDs and you shouldn't be blowing them pointlessly.

Sounds to me that you are trying to tank every mob in every encounter. This game doesnt really work like that. The DPS can handle weak/normal mobs just fine. You concentrate on the strong mobs. I feel your pain about being tossed around like a rag doll. That simply is not fun to jump into an encounter get knocked back and knocked down. Its those first 10 seconds that count when getting aggro.... and its useually those first 10 seconds that you cant do jack because you are on your back.

I have found the best way to tank on my Jugg is to take the strong/elite/champion mobs in the group and leave all the "glass cannon" mobs to the DPS to burn while you hold the stronger mob. The DPS in your group should only hit your target once all the other weaker ones are down. I had a hard time dealing with this (especially in FP's such as Kaon) but with a healer that doesn't panic at the amount of initial damage going out and DPS that can quickly burn high damage, low health mobs I find Juggernaut tanking fun and challenging.

I agree, I ignore those adds. My Guardian doesn't have the tools to hold them and tank a boss as involved as LR-5. What I DO do is chuck out an AoE taunt when they start running towards the group to give them a few more seconds of free DPS on the adds which they should be AoEing down anyway.

 

To preface this: please believe me when I say I'm not trying to go off on you with some generic L2Pnewb! sort of rant or be a jerk about it, but...

 

Wait, what?

 

I worry about people seeing this and thinking that Guardians (or Juggs, they're people too) can't manage this, and I'm curious why you think that to be the case, or whether or not I'm simply misunderstanding your statement.

 

I've tanked LR-5 on my Guardian many times, I think I was still part Columi at first, and admittedly most of the time since I've been a little Rakata and a lot of Black Hole and some campaign, but overall that has largely served to increase my survivability, not really made it so that I'm some sort of aggro-spewing uber beast of a tank who instantly grabs and holds all threat and is completely immune to all forms of damage (although I tend to think that's the case at times, as I'm sure my healer would tell you).

 

You already said you're popping off your AOE taunt when the adds spawn, which is basically what I do once I see them in range. Generally speaking unless something else has gone amiss the adds die after a couple shots or an AOE from the DPS, so the six seconds that I'm sure they'll be attacking me even if I go afk right after is usually more than sufficient to make them die.

 

However, when I've run LI with newer people who probably have more of a life than I do and haven't run this particular fight a gazillion times and reflexively do whatever it is they're supposed to do at various phases of the fight they sometimes don't notice the adds (or are busy running in the opposite direction), or they'll sort of stack up on top of me after I AOE taunt. In the latter case, that can make them particularly difficult to see, what with the giant fire and lightning spewing deathbot eating my face.

 

I've never really had any particular problem in that scenario, and I'll just force sweep or cyclone slash them to death, usually doesn't take more than a couple.

 

After about the first 5-10 seconds of the fight, LR-5 isn't going anywhere I don't want him to unless I go afk or something, and the first 5-10 seconds are generally only dicey if I have particularly anxious DPS who can't wait for my force leap to the boss to interrupt his initial incinerate and force me to burn a taunt immediately after the leap.

 

Admittedly, this is a little trickier if you're running with melee DPS and are using the kite-around-the-room approach, although I usually find it easier to grab the adds quickly and decisively in that case since they're pretty much always within the range of my AOE taunt to snag them initially, and in more than a few cases, close enough for me to whack them with force sweep or cyclone slash quickly if my AOE taunt is off cooldown, which is usually enough to distract them long enough for the DPS and Healer not to have to worry about them overly much (aside from making them dead).

 

The biggest issue I have in the always-moving approach to the fight is that I just can't interrupt all the incinerates because I have to be moving when that needs to be done a lot of the time, if the rest of your party is all Commandos or Mercs, that'd be a bit of an issue, but I don't think that's ever happened. As long as one of the DPS know its their job to get incinerate and they don't miss it, not a big deal.

 

Now, if I just went off on that long tirade and all you really meant is that we don't have something like a force pull, or a ranged AOE to grab things that aren't already almost on top of us... well, yes, that's true. If you didn't have to worry about the aforementioned giant deathbot eating your face and staying put, you could use the usual jump-around-the-map tools of force leap and/or guardian leap, which obviously have limited utility in a boss fight (although I've been able to get away with a quick guardian leap and immediate force leap back to the boss in at least one case, wouldn't recommend it though, makes it easy for either a misstep or lag to make things go horribly wrong).

have you read the 1.3 patchnotes???

 

Juggs have 3 tools that work outside 10 meters.

 

1) Saberthrow: This shouldn't count as a tool because it does almost no threat at all. A healer can drop a BABY heal and out threat saberthrow.

 

2) Taunt: GREAT, but single target with a long cooldown.

 

3) Threatening scream: only 15m with a long cooldown.

 

Now, if there's no knockbacks, mezzes or stuns you STILL are going to have a heck of a time getting more than 2 or 3 mobs on you instead of the healer. When there's 6, spread over 50 or 60m, AND you're getting stunned, AND you're getting mezzed AND you get knocked back the INSTANT you charge, before you can even use a move - yes, jugg tanks SUCK.

 

I say this AS a jugg tank, AND as a healer. If I have an assassin or a bounty hunter tank, I know I mostly just have to focus the tank. If I have a jugg tank, I bubble him, bubble myself, hot myself, and stand right next to an LOS because I KNOW, that at least 1/2 of the mobs will start turreting at me.

I'm sure you've read it before but if you really take to heart the message that it is not necessary to tank every mob in a pack it gets a lot easier. Normal and weak mobs are not worth tanking, they die too fast and are passively CCed by so many of the DPSers' attacks anyway. Once you ignore them it's rare to fight more than three or four silver/gold mobs at a time.

 

 

As a healer let me say that you're wrong. A normal mob WILL hit me for 2k a shot. Now, if I'm doing NOTHING but healing myself, I can outheal that all day long. HOWEVER, it turns out that as a healer, generally I have to heal my tank or he dies pretty fast. So if I'm smashing heals into my tank, and I'm losing 2k (or 4k or 6k) every 2 seconds, I'm going to get into a lot of trouble really fast, and have to decide if I want to save the tank or myself.

As a healer let me say that you're wrong. A normal mob WILL hit me for 2k a shot. Now, if I'm doing NOTHING but healing myself, I can outheal that all day long. HOWEVER, it turns out that as a healer, generally I have to heal my tank or he dies pretty fast. So if I'm smashing heals into my tank, and I'm losing 2k (or 4k or 6k) every 2 seconds, I'm going to get into a lot of trouble really fast, and have to decide if I want to save the tank or myself.

 

What you've missed is that the DPS should be quickly killing normals. They should never be on the healer, but if they are, its the DPS who are not doing their job. They're suffering from Silver/Gold fever where they can't help but attack the biggest enemy. If they would just kill the normals the tank would have enough time to gather up the silver and gold mobs and get plenty of agro ready for them to go to town. Its not like the tank is going to kill all of them by his lonesome.

The only issue I've had is that in a HM with 2 mercs, the limited range on my interrupt is a *******.

To preface this: please believe me when I say I'm not trying to go off on you with some generic L2Pnewb! sort of rant or be a jerk about it, but...

 

Wait, what?

 

I worry about people seeing this and thinking that Guardians (or Juggs, they're people too) can't manage this, and I'm curious why you think that to be the case, or whether or not I'm simply misunderstanding your statement.

 

I've tanked LR-5 on my Guardian many times, I think I was still part Columi at first, and admittedly most of the time since I've been a little Rakata and a lot of Black Hole and some campaign, but overall that has largely served to increase my survivability, not really made it so that I'm some sort of aggro-spewing uber beast of a tank who instantly grabs and holds all threat and is completely immune to all forms of damage (although I tend to think that's the case at times, as I'm sure my healer would tell you).

 

You already said you're popping off your AOE taunt when the adds spawn, which is basically what I do once I see them in range. Generally speaking unless something else has gone amiss the adds die after a couple shots or an AOE from the DPS, so the six seconds that I'm sure they'll be attacking me even if I go afk right after is usually more than sufficient to make them die.

 

However, when I've run LI with newer people who probably have more of a life than I do and haven't run this particular fight a gazillion times and reflexively do whatever it is they're supposed to do at various phases of the fight they sometimes don't notice the adds (or are busy running in the opposite direction), or they'll sort of stack up on top of me after I AOE taunt. In the latter case, that can make them particularly difficult to see, what with the giant fire and lightning spewing deathbot eating my face.

 

I've never really had any particular problem in that scenario, and I'll just force sweep or cyclone slash them to death, usually doesn't take more than a couple.

 

After about the first 5-10 seconds of the fight, LR-5 isn't going anywhere I don't want him to unless I go afk or something, and the first 5-10 seconds are generally only dicey if I have particularly anxious DPS who can't wait for my force leap to the boss to interrupt his initial incinerate and force me to burn a taunt immediately after the leap.

 

Admittedly, this is a little trickier if you're running with melee DPS and are using the kite-around-the-room approach, although I usually find it easier to grab the adds quickly and decisively in that case since they're pretty much always within the range of my AOE taunt to snag them initially, and in more than a few cases, close enough for me to whack them with force sweep or cyclone slash quickly if my AOE taunt is off cooldown, which is usually enough to distract them long enough for the DPS and Healer not to have to worry about them overly much (aside from making them dead).

 

The biggest issue I have in the always-moving approach to the fight is that I just can't interrupt all the incinerates because I have to be moving when that needs to be done a lot of the time, if the rest of your party is all Commandos or Mercs, that'd be a bit of an issue, but I don't think that's ever happened. As long as one of the DPS know its their job to get incinerate and they don't miss it, not a big deal.

 

Now, if I just went off on that long tirade and all you really meant is that we don't have something like a force pull, or a ranged AOE to grab things that aren't already almost on top of us... well, yes, that's true. If you didn't have to worry about the aforementioned giant deathbot eating your face and staying put, you could use the usual jump-around-the-map tools of force leap and/or guardian leap, which obviously have limited utility in a boss fight (although I've been able to get away with a quick guardian leap and immediate force leap back to the boss in at least one case, wouldn't recommend it though, makes it easy for either a misstep or lag to make things go horribly wrong).

 

I think you missed my point. I didn't say we didn't have the tools to hold them all, I said we don't NEED to hold them all. I only taunt so that the adds run back towards me for a few seconds and aren't hitting my DPS. My DPS survive fine if I don't do this because most AoE's will passively stun the adds anyway but it helps my healer out. Anyway, if the mobs end up around me for a little bit, it means my DPS are also AoEing LR-5 which is a bonus.

 

With any adds I only ever put enough threat on them to keep them off my healer before I go back to the boss. After that its up to the DPS. Again, most AoE's have a passive stun to help them out. Lots of other attacks do too. If its a strong add I'll chuck a stun and maybe a taunt out too to keep them busy for a bit longer.

Now, if there's no knockbacks, mezzes or stuns you STILL are going to have a heck of a time getting more than 2 or 3 mobs on you instead of the healer. When there's 6, spread over 50 or 60m, AND you're getting stunned, AND you're getting mezzed AND you get knocked back the INSTANT you charge, before you can even use a move - yes, jugg tanks SUCK.

 

I like to tank in general but this game makes me kinda tired of it from time to time.

Tanks are thrown around like ragdolls. You spring/jump in or something and immediatly get knocked down/back, stunned etc and ofc loose aggro because you are not attacking and if there are many mobs your kinda screwed because area taunts cd's.

Bosses streaming out undefendable damage against which you're basically just the focal point to heal with no real possibility to do anything about or even gear up against.

Both Juggernauts and Assassins also have part of the mitigation tied to an almost set value meaning it is so stupid that both actually have higher mitigation in 8 man than in 16 man.

 

I think I would like tanking more if it felt like I was actually doing it and if the mechanic very not so stupid that anyone who passed elementary math could see that you cannot even have "targets" unless you are talking about PT mitigation which is the only tank that have a mitigation that scales.

 

- Give all tanking trees some abilities high up in the tree that reduce the tossing around effects.

- Make keeping aggro less reliant on taunts. Make attacks generate more aggro but increase cd on taunts.

- Make all attacks defendable in some way so it always matters if you place a tank or a dps infront of stuff.

- Remove almost fixed number self heals and shields. Rework those so they scale in percent with incomming damage instead and you will also completely remove the problem with people screaming: OP he can solo a h4, or nerf them because they kill everyone in pvp, all this while the pve raid tanks raise their eyebrows because they are equally right thinking eh? I'm not at all OP.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Dhariq

For Flashpoints they are by far the worst, but the most fun to play.