Once again, the OP:

 

That's my big tanking issue.

 

Guardian Tank Opening Threat/Saber Reflect Bug:

 

As of right now, it was assumed that Guardian Opening Tank threat was fine, and it would be, if Saber Reflect wasn't bugged. Below are the notes from a guildy of mine, LuckyGunslinger, on the bug:

 

 

 

 

 

The gist of the bug is, until the tank is hit, Saber Reflect does NOT generate any threat. Due to boss swingtimers, bosses usually won't hit the tank until a few GCDs later, enough time for a more frontloaded burst DPS to pull right off the tank. This is inexcusable, no other tank has this issue. Bioware either needs to fix the bug, or shift it to another ability, most likely saber throw, to allow for Guardians to have a high threat opening.

Yea I did see that, it's a good catch. It could be a bad tooltip on daunting presence: "..Generates a high amount of threat on all engaged enemies within 30m when activated." To me, engaged means you're on top of their threat table which leads into the next issue; the threat boost may be linked to the reflect portion of the effect (even if no damage is reflected). Considering the ability is called "Saber Reflect" that would be consistent with it's design, but we would need dev clarification on it.

I'd rather this issue be brought up under a more general question about burst threat for tanks though rather than assuming it's a bug and suggesting fixes.

Yea I did see that, it's a good catch. It could be a bad tooltip on daunting presence: "..Generates a high amount of threat on all engaged enemies within 30m when activated." To me, engaged means you're on top of their threat table which leads into the next issue; the threat boost may be linked to the reflect portion of the effect (even if no damage is reflected). Considering the ability is called "Saber Reflect" that would be consistent with it's design, but we would need dev clarification on it.

 

I'd rather this issue be brought up under a more general question about burst threat for tanks though rather than assuming it's a bug and suggesting fixes.

If you were correct in that engaged meant to be top of the Threat table to allow the threat to actually go through, that would mean that threat would still be applied when pulling a Dummy, Reflecting and seeing threat be applied. If you smack around a dummy, you'll still generate threat on it, but since a Dummy cannot in turn damage you, you won't see Daunting Presence generate the rough 8k threat. It's either a poorly worded tooltip or it's not working as intended.

To clarify you don't need to reflect anything for the threat to go through, you need to take damage, that's the stipulation for the threat. This means that It's only area of vast use is picking up add with AOE taunt and in turn using Reflect as a large boost once you take damage. When Reflects threat gen can actually applies, it's useless.

If you were correct in that engaged meant to be top of the Threat table to allow the threat to actually go through, that would mean that threat would still be applied when pulling a Dummy, Reflecting and seeing threat be applied. If you smack around a dummy, you'll still generate threat on it, but since a Dummy cannot in turn damage you, you won't see Daunting Presence generate the rough 8k threat. It's either a poorly worded tooltip or it's not working as intended.

 

To clarify you don't need to reflect anything for the threat to go through, you need to take damage, that's the stipulation for the threat. This means that It's only area of vast use is picking up add with AOE taunt and in turn using Reflect as a large boost once you take damage. When Reflects threat gen can actually applies, it's useless.

I think you just answered it yourself, the tooltip is partly correct (you need to be on top of the threat table), it just doesn't mention the part about needing to get attacked, instead it uses the vague word "engaged". My bet is that we're simply looking at a bad tooltip as opposed to a bug.

Even if the ability is working as intended (which I think it is), it gets the job done (getting extra snap threat on a boss pull with a taunt, or holding a large pack of adds after using the AoE taunt). My issue is how dependant we are on that 1min cooldown to make up for how terrible we are at doing anything outside of 5m of a bad guy.

Snap threat isn't a challenge exclusive to guardians, and the scaling of tank threat generation with gear in relation to dps (and the necessity of taunt bossing) is a problem with tanking in general.

Most of the AOE damage is avoidable anyways since you can intercede back and leap to the boss. The problem with veng/vig right now is pvp wise it has the best DCDs in game since most pvp damage is burst or dot damage and seeing as enraged defense has no rate limit it will heal for about 30k+ each time if used correctly. Also endure pain no longer gives the 15% reduction enraged defense does now. Me specifically I don't like the change since I got more healing before 2.8. However people in PVE are having troubles now since rate limit doesn't matter in PVE duration is key in PVE, what should have been done is keep the same duration, little smaller heals but add a rate limit. That would balance pvp and keep PVE fine since with a 30-40s duration your getting a good amount of the heals. It also makes it so the 15% reduction is worth it in the long run which it isn't as of now.

I'm not even talking about the avoidable damage, which is also AoE Force/Tech attacks. The vast majority of unavoidable damage DPS take in raid is still AoE Force/Tech attacks. Also, they changed Endure Pain to give it 15% damage reduction somewhat recently, but only for Vengeance. The talent is called Deafening Defense (on the 5th tier all the way to the right) in that tree. It used to be on Enraged Defense for all specs, but when Enraged Defense got changed to a new skill, they put it on Endure Pain.

Anyways, you are probably right about PvP, but Bioware does not seem to want to modify the skill for PvP even though it's clearly much better over there than it is in PvE.

Most of the AOE damage is avoidable anyways since you can intercede back and leap to the boss. The problem with veng/vig right now is pvp wise it has the best DCDs in game since most pvp damage is burst or dot damage and seeing as enraged defense has no rate limit it will heal for about 30k+ each time if used correctly. Also endure pain no longer gives the 15% reduction enraged defense does now. Me specifically I don't like the change since I got more healing before 2.8. However people in PVE are having troubles now since rate limit doesn't matter in PVE duration is key in PVE, what should have been done is keep the same duration, little smaller heals but add a rate limit. That would balance pvp and keep PVE fine since with a 30-40s duration your getting a good amount of the heals. It also makes it so the 15% reduction is worth it in the long run which it isn't as of now.

For gods sake. NO RATE LIMIT. It kills PVP because it's designed to counter focus fire. You would be making the ability almost like the pre buff version...