So here is the eternal problem.

Some say that tanks do not need accuracy, some say that they need the 100%. I personally am going the first way now, tanking successfully Denova HM. However, I noticed that my performance is different depending on what DPS guys are in the group. If we go with two sents, one gunslinger and one commando, I had totally no problem to hold aggro all the time. But, when our sents were replaced by another two gunslingers, I started to lose aggro to one of them (rarely, but still, I lost it). Guildies told me that it is because of my no accuracy approach, causing the trigger happy gunslinger hitting all his attacks generate so huge aggro that one miss from my side can send Zorn straight to him.

I am now considering building a bit towards accuracy. I have no accuracy on my gear right now, all accu enhancements stacked in bank and replaced by ones with shield/absorb/defense. My question is, should I get my accuracy by:

1) getting back my accuracy enhancements and mods?

2) or keeping defensive mods while getting myself accuracy augments?

The first one would just lower my defensive stats a bit, while the second would lower my defensive stats a bit, plus reduce my power (I am not entirely sure I need it anyways, guess it boosts my force attacks which is nice) and give me some bonus endurance (one can never have enough endurance, but I don't really feel like I need it - 24k hp).

So, which way do you think I should try to build my accuracy?

(I am not entirely sure I need it anyways, guess it boosts my force attacks which is nice)

That power on your tank augs actually provides you with more threat than the accuracy you're looking into. Power increases the damage of all of your attacks, not just your Force attacks. Accuracy only benefits your basic attacks and marginally at best.

If you're having threat problems, you're better off tweaking your playstyle as opposed to reducing your mitigation to get accuracy in an attempt to bolster your threat. Assuming you're using a proper rotation (Throw>Leap>Sweep>Sunder>Guardian Slash>Blade Storm is my normal opening volley) and still losing threat, use your Taunts to generate snap threat. As long as you're not using it right before you need to tank swap (and you should never need to tank swap in the first 15 seconds of a fight), it'll provide you with a bit of threat (not that much since you don't really have that much threat to start off with) and a 6 second aggro cushion to get ahead of the GSs that apparently don't know how to use their threat drops. Even if you need to use both (you really shouldn't unless you're just massively outgeared by the DPS), the AoE taunt is almost never explicitly required by fight mechanics so you can use that when the first taunt wears off (which buys you another 6 seconds and *should* provide you with all the threat needed to maintain aggro for the remainder of the fight).

As Ktiru stated, you don't need accuracy (although it does affect close to 50% of your threat in a fight). Threat on a Guardian is more about rotation and build. I use the Hybrid build and I can hold threat on pretty much everyone I've run with, including AoE threat. I find it to be about 100 TPS and 150 DPS higher than a pure Defence build (on top of its better survivability). You should also consider Guarding that 'Slinger next time. In PvE, Guard is first and foremost a threat management tool.

On a side note: if your other tank isn't a Guardian you should consider swapping bosses with them. Starting on Zorn means you lose out on Riposte, which is a solid ~300-400 TPS while other tanks only lose out on a bit of resource regen.

EDIT:

Just to clarify, accuracy actually affects the following abilities:

- Strike

- Sundering Strike

- Slash

- Dispatch

- Master Strike

- Cyclone Slash

- Saber Throw

- Force Leap

Aside from Strike they all have 100% base accuracy but bosses have a defence chance in the realm of 8%, making your effective accuracy closer to 92%. Throughout a fight, Sundering Strike is one of your highest average threat generators (usually vying with Blade Storm) while Master Strike is one of your best burst threat abilities.

Ultimately though, getting DPS stats to boost threat should be the last option on the list for tanks. Build, Gear and Rotation play a much larger role, as do Guard and threat drops. If everything else is as good as you can get it and that DPS is still pulling off you sometimes, I'd grab a bit of accuracy to reduce RNG in your threat but grabbing power is also viable. It'd be worth looking at your logs and seeing if you missed a couple of abilities in the time before that 'Slinger pulled threat.

Well I am not that much deep in the game to check my logs and do parsing with every new item mod I get, so I am just talking from my practice...

I am hybrid, so I do not have pommel strike as a big threat bump once per minute, but I use overhead slash as much on cooldown as I can. And afaik, accuracy counts for this one. If I miss it once, I miss pretty huge aggro gain, and 4 focus bars, meaning that I can't always immediately follow up with a blade storm hit. It really feels like every missed hit hurts twice as much with hybrid build, because of the worse focus gain.

On the other hand it is true that the part where I lost aggro was really the beginning of the fight, and if our Zorn turns to the group of ranged people and makes a step or two, they get his debuff, they can get hit by some of his front AoEs, and they can all die like flies. I often forget to guard (sigh), and I always forget to blame DPS for stealing my aggro at the beginning of the fight, I need to remember to yell a bit on our trigger happy gunslingers before the fight starts.

Both of you guys somehow said that the accuracy is not needed that much. I wonder, will the guys saying that I need 100% accuracy come? Or are you two right?

On a side note: if your other tank isn't a Guardian you should consider swapping bosses with them. Starting on Zorn means you lose out on Riposte, which is a solid ~300-400 TPS while other tanks only lose out on a bit of resource regen.

Actually, the only class that just misses out of resource regen is Shadows. VGs lose out on resource regen as well as Stockstrike recharging (normally on a 9 sec CD, but it gets brought down to 4.5 if you're tanking and shielding). The bigger issue is that Guardians have substantially worse resource maintenance without the additional cost reduction coming from Courage, which is probably the most substantial tank mitigation-based resource mechanism between the 3 tanks: Courage amounts to 3-6 Focus "gained" every 9-12 seconds, Shield Cycler generates 1 ammo every ~9 seconds (50% chance on shield w/ 6 sec ICD), and Elusiveness/DBSD generates 4/6 every 3 seconds.

It's always been one of those weird things about Guardians compared to the other tanks: they're *way* more reliant on being M/R attacked than the other tanks to be resource stable, coupled with requiring those same conditions to have functional DPS and threat generation (which it still perturbs me that they manage worse threat *and* damage than both VGs and Shadows). It's just another reason why I think that Guardians really need to be rebuilt. They just don't function as well as the other tanks.

Kirtu and I may disagree at times on certain things but he's one of the few people around (KeyboardNinja being another) that I'd take seriously on these forums. We're both saying the same thing although our reasoning is slightly different the result is the same: don't take accuracy.

Since you're already using the Hybrid build, play around with this opener:

Throw -> Leap -> Sunder -> Blade Storm -> Force Sweep -> Sunder -> Stasis -> OHS -> Sunder -> Blade Storm -> Master Strike -> (AoE taunt) -> Sunder

After that go into the priority rotation and pop Combat Focus when something is coming off CD but you don't have enough Focus to use it immediately. The advantage of this rotation is its mostly Force attacks early on and it maximizes survivability and Focus (aside from MS, but I like the threat boost there rather than Strike -> Sunder -> Master Strike).

Also, given you are using Hybrid and in a group with 3 'Slinger. If you have Purifying Sweeps, drop it for something else. They can do 5 stacks in 1 GCD so you don't need to worry about getting more Sunder on there faster.

always roll with a shadow tank with u , and u never have to worie about threat

nah accuracy is not some thing guardian tank's need , just work on your rotation i am happy to talk to u thurther on this matter if u contact me in private message i will happily bring u on mumble and explain why its not worth it .....

Since you're already using the Hybrid build, play around with this opener:

Throw -> Leap -> Sunder -> Blade Storm -> Force Sweep -> Sunder -> Stasis -> OHS -> Sunder -> Blade Storm -> Master Strike -> (AoE taunt) -> Sunder

After that go into the priority rotation and pop Combat Focus when something is coming off CD but you don't have enough Focus to use it immediately. The advantage of this rotation is its mostly Force attacks early on and it maximizes survivability and Focus (aside from MS, but I like the threat boost there rather than Strike -> Sunder -> Master Strike).

Well I start Throw > Leap > Sunder > OHS > Blade Storm > Sunder > Sweep > other stuff. Doing this usually gives me so damn aggro that I can keep it even if I take a break in a fight to scratch my leg. Somehow I learned to manage without ever using taunt (and not losing aggro), with exception of tank swaps and situations where sh*t hit the fan and half the op is being wiped out. Lately I even manage AoE threat by switching targets and leaping over battlefield like a madwoman, which makes me feel really proud (might be a faceroll for pros, but I am a weak casual ), but it is different kind of story and does not belong here.

But of course it also depends on DPS, if they give me two or more GCD's to build my aggro (not counting the Throw and Leap). Obviously the one slinger does not do that, as I don't have any trouble with the other two, and the one we talk about is not better geared than them.

It's just another reason why I think that Guardians really need to be rebuilt. They just don't function as well as the other tanks.

I actually feel great with my Guardian tank. Way better than my Vanguard or Shadow, I like how we can actually choose between two viable builds, and most of the time I feel like it is appreciated that I am a guardian and not something else. I don't really know your reasons to not like Guardians, but with my hybrid adventure I fell in love of the playstyle where I actually feel like I am beating a crap out of my enemy instead of just keeping threat and defending myself. I did not get this feel with other tanks, and not even with regular Guardian tanky tree. I don't even remember having procs to look for, just cooldowns to beat some more crap. It is like tanking with a DPS (I just only don't deal that much damage, but I look like I do )

If they would rebuild Guardians into just a third regular tank, I would have trouble to check all of them again to see which is the most bada*s to roll that one. Though, I never say no to change, new build anventure could sure be fun.

always roll with a shadow tank with u , and u never have to worie about threat

nah accuracy is not some thing guardian tank's need , just work on your rotation i am happy to talk to u thurther on this matter if u contact me in private message i will happily bring u on mumble and explain why its not worth it .....

Feel free to PM me with your reasoning if you don't wish to post it on the forums.

I actually feel great with my Guardian tank. Way better than my Vanguard or Shadow, I like how we can actually choose between two viable builds, and most of the time I feel like it is appreciated that I am a guardian and not something else. I don't really know your reasons to not like Guardians, but with my hybrid adventure I fell in love of the playstyle where I actually feel like I am beating a crap out of my enemy instead of just keeping threat and defending myself. I did not get this feel with other tanks, and not even with regular Guardian tanky tree. I don't even remember having procs to look for, just cooldowns to beat some more crap. It is like tanking with a DPS (I just only don't deal that much damage, but I look like I do )

I've got one of each of the three tank specs and I play all 3 of them all the time in all tiers of content (in fact, I just finished running a Taral V on my Shadow Shadow, LI on Guardian, and then SM EV and Hm LI on my VG before posting this). Guardians have the lowest DPS, the lowest TPS, and, by far, the least cohesive attack priority or attack string of all of the tanks. You have a 4.5 sec CD basic attack which *should*, sensibly, be the cycle all of the other attacks are built around except they're not: GS is on a 15 sec CD, Blade Storm (unless you go hybrid) is on a 12 sec CD, and Force Sweep is on either a 15 sec CD (for hybrid) or a 12 sec CD (for full Defense; feasibly you could take only 1 pt in it to bring it down to 13.5 for an even division into the 4.5 cycle; at that point, you'd still wanna take the second point for the extra damage but the CD reduction is kinda wasted). It gets even worse when you realize that, unlike VGs and Shadows, which get slightly worse when they're not actively tanking, Guardians get *way* worse when they're not being attacked. A Guardian dummy parse is going to be completely inaccurate because of the requirement to be attacked for half of the mechanics involved.

If they would rebuild Guardians into just a third regular tank, I would have trouble to check all of them again to see which is the most bada*s to roll that one. Though, I never say no to change, new build anventure could sure be fun.

My rebuild wouldn't really be designed to make them play exactly the same as the other tanks. My rebuild, if it were exactly the way I wanted it to be, would try to preserve the current elements of play while turning them into a cohesive and well thought out playstyle: fixing CDs to be in line with the 4.5 sec Sundering Strike cycle, improving performance when not being directly attacked, removing the Focus generation debuff from Soresu so that the defense tree doesn't have to focus so heavily on overcoming that. Optimally, I'd like to see the 31 pt talent turned into some kinda of improved Riposte that, while it doesn't *require* getting attacked, gets better when you have been attacked.

The rebuild, in my mind, would focus more on fixing Soresu form and the tree with minor tweaks to CDs and costs on existing abilities to fit better within the cycle, not to mention a well deserved DPS and TPS upgrade so that Guardians aren't substantially behind Shadows and VGs in both respects.

I've got one of each of the three tank specs and I play all 3 of them all the time in all tiers of content (in fact, I just finished running a Taral V on my Shadow Shadow, LI on Guardian, and then SM EV and Hm LI on my VG before posting this). Guardians have the lowest DPS, the lowest TPS, and, by far, the least cohesive attack priority or attack string of all of the tanks. You have a 4.5 sec CD basic attack which *should*, sensibly, be the cycle all of the other attacks are built around except they're not: GS is on a 15 sec CD, Blade Storm (unless you go hybrid) is on a 12 sec CD, and Force Sweep is on either a 15 sec CD (for hybrid) or a 12 sec CD (for full Defense; feasibly you could take only 1 pt in it to bring it down to 13.5 for an even division into the 4.5 cycle; at that point, you'd still wanna take the second point for the extra damage but the CD reduction is kinda wasted). It gets even worse when you realize that, unlike VGs and Shadows, which get slightly worse when they're not actively tanking, Guardians get *way* worse when they're not being attacked. A Guardian dummy parse is going to be completely inaccurate because of the requirement to be attacked for half of the mechanics involved.

Someone just geniunely having fun with the class? Can't have that. Better bash them in the face with mechanics and math and so forth so they stop having fun and realize how poor the class they play actually is.

Guardian is the same to Juggernaut. Accuracy comes from gear and in the early raids you were required to have as close to 110% cause the bosses had a 10% buff to their armor. Now you pretty much have to have close to 100% cause of rage/force and the ability to retain threat. If the guardian is like Juggernaut then we do have a threat issue at times. Power Tech and Assassins have a better threat table. make sure your DEF is 25% and your shield/absorb is 50%. I have also seen tanks stack END/Power on augs....this isn't WOW use shield/pwr or absorb/pwr for your augs.

But do watch on dread guard gear cause most gear doesn't have Accur and you may either have mods/enhan. made or get some dps gear pcs and swap in and out.

I've actually got a question about my Guardian, I've mostly got him min maxed in a mix of 61's and 63's. I go with the high mitigation defense mods and high mitigation shield/absorb enh's along with shield/absorb earpiece/implants. I also use 1 War Hero defense relic and 1 absorb proc relic.

Now for the question, would it be worth it to trade 2 or 3 shield/absorb enh's for 2 or 3 accuracy/absorb enh's, and make up the missing shield with a War Hero shield relic instead of the absorb proc relic? Or are you shooting yourself in the foot at that point when you could just get a War Hero power relic and generate better threat than the accuracy would make up for?

I guess my reasoning is, since threat is only important at the beginning of a fight anyways when it comes to the threat generated from your attacks, the extra accuracy would help make sure you don't get a couple of unlucky misses in a row (I play the hybrid which is decent for threat although hurts more when you miss because of lack of Focus). So even though the power relic would equal more threat over the course of a fight, the assumption is that if I hit on all of my attacks without it, I'd hold threat either way, but the accuracy helps to avoid those crappy RNG situations.

Of course, either way I'm sacrificing mitigation, so I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Someone just geniunely having fun with the class? Can't have that. Better bash them in the face with mechanics and math and so forth so they stop having fun and realize how poor the class they play actually is.

I'm curious where exactly you interpreted "omg, stop having fun!" from my description of the general poor design of the class as a whole, nor do I think that there is really any reason to stop playing the class either. You can enjoy playing a Guardian tank as it stands now, but it doesn't change the fact that there are pretty well defined issues in the real lack of a defined playstyle for Guardian tanks. It's one of the reasons why Guardians are considered to be the hardest to become proficient with, which isn't what I would really describe as a "good thing", especially since said baseline proficiency doesn't really reward you for doing all of that work. They're not a class/spec that plays like a class/spec designed from the ground up: there are too many pieces that simply don't fit with one another to accept that. As such, Guardian tanks play more like a patchwork design that, while it works, doesn't necessarily work as efficiently or as effectively as it could, and should (considering what the other tanks are capable of from a damage and threat perspective), were it rebuilt with a cohesive design in mind.

There is a *vast* difference between "the class/spec has some problems that really should be addressed" and "this class/spec is terrible and you should feel terrible for playing it and enjoying it" (which, if I did say that, would be a bit hypocritical since I both play it and enjoy it). Just because I criticize something and provide numbers to support that criticism doesn't mean that I'm a "stop having fun guy". The only time I behave like that is when there is someone playing in a noticeably sub-optimal way because that's how they have fun with the class and that person's inability to contribute effectively (because they can't seem to combine "fun" and "effective" or seem to think they're mutually exclusive concepts) is causing problems with our ability to succeed (like the DPS wearing tank gear in an SM EV I just did that couldn't manage to kill his Infernal Council member before the event reset even though he was in full BH). At that point, it becomes a question of "your fun" v. "everyone else's fun", wherein I have no problem being the ***-hole that tells you to stop having fun and start being effective because wiping on the simplest content in the game isn't in most people's definition of "fun".

Keep in mind, I don't think that the changes I want to make would render the class largely unplayable for people that currently enjoy the class. I doubt many people would mind if they got more threat and damage, their abilities we're recharging and then sitting there unused for 2-3 GCDs because the CD doesn't sync with the actual application of said abilities, and they were not longer the only class of *any* kind that had a stance that applies a weakening effect without being justifiably more powerful (the focus generation capability is identical to what the DPS stances provide, the increase to threat and DR is offset by the lack of direct damage contribution or resource generation that the other stances provide, and, yet, somehow, Soresu Form is the only stance in the game with an appreciable negative side effect; Combat Technique for Shadows is the only other stance with a negative side effect, but -5% melee bonus damage is something altogether different than 1 less Focus on all Focus generating abilities, especially since Shadow tanks only get about 5-7% of their threat and damage from melee attacks).

There are a *lot* of really weird, poorly designed, poorly implemented things involved in Guardian tanking. Those should be addressed, and I don't see why exactly that would make them less fun to play (nor provide a reason why anyone should feel inclined to not play the class as it stands since, once you've learned to deal with said weirdness of design and implementation, it's effective, even if it's not optimal).

I actually agree a bit with Kitru there. Of course it is strange that having to run a hybrid to get some damage. I remember that being a regular defense guardian was fine, but I really felt the lack of my damage. Hybrid got that fixed a bit, for a price of harder focus maintenance. And the difference is so big that it was my respec what made my guild kill Zorn and Toth HM for the first time, or Kephess in TfB. (well, yeah, our progress is not as far as yours, these two were really achievements for us)

So, it makes sense that the class is wrongly designed, because some player designed hybrid build should not be as good as the game's original tanking build, with some tradeoffs. I don't remember any real hybrid possibilities for other tanks, you always had to go to the top of your tanky tree to be a good tank.

But still, honestly, I hope they would not rebuild the Guardians so much that they would kill hybrids, because again, I SO love looking like I beat crap out of my enemy. (and secondly, I can switch into Shien and DPS gear to turn into somehow decent DPS and really beat them down)

(like the DPS wearing tank gear in an SM EV I just did that couldn't manage to kill his Infernal Council member before the event reset even though he was in full BH)

Seriously?

The raw amount of Strength one gets from Black Hole tank gear should be enough to steamroll an Infernal Council member on story mode. Was he just spamming Strike or what? Or did he play a 13/16/12 spec?

The raw amount of Strength one gets from Black Hole tank gear should be enough to steamroll an Infernal Council member on story mode. Was he just spamming Strike or what? Or did he play a 13/16/12 spec?

It was an Assault Commando (least I think he was Assault since he was using Plasma Cell) who bottomed out his Ammo bar. I'm not even sure what he was burning said ammo on. Whenever he finally got his kill, it actually took him longer than a recruit geared Guard DPS. The only person he ended up beating was a recruit geared Commando heals who didn't have Charged Bolts on his bar and did the entire thing with Hammer Shot.

When I asked him why he was wearing tank gear as a Commando, since he didn't even *have* a tank spec, he responded with a question of "well what do you want me to wear?" as if it was the only thing available to him. He obviously hadn't gotten through any content that actually dropped Black Hole gear so that just confused me even more.

(and you should never need to tank swap in the first 15 seconds of a fight).

This is generally correct unless you are tanking the Dog in Nightmare Pilgrim. When he spawns he will usually place a debuff one whoever is tanking him that makes you take a lot more damage

This is generally correct unless you are tanking the Dog in Nightmare Pilgrim. When he spawns he will usually place a debuff one whoever is tanking him that makes you take a lot more damage

That tank swap is different to other tank swaps in that you don't need to save your taunt for it. That fight has more of a "rotating offtank" feel than a true tank swap. Even when a tank swap is required (ie: one of the Dog tanks gets Bloodmark), there is sufficient time for taunt to come off CD between the warning for a tank swap and the swap being required.

In terms of fights that require a true tank swap (ie both tanks swapping bosses they are actively tanking) none of them occur within the first 15 seconds.

But still, honestly, I hope they would not rebuild the Guardians so much that they would kill hybrids, because again, I SO love looking like I beat crap out of my enemy. (and secondly, I can switch into Shien and DPS gear to turn into somehow decent DPS and really beat them down)

I agree with this 100%. More build options for DPS, Tanking, and Healing is the way to go. If you need a cookie cutter approach to any of those, a game gets a lot more boring fast. I'm still new to all this in ToR, but the MMO I came from did allow for a lot of flexibility in builds and I hope they keep some of this here as they fix the real issues.

I am confused what abilities benefit from accuracy.

There is now melee accuracy and Force accuracy.

Can someone list out the abilities that benefit from melee accuracy being 100%?

I am confused what abilities benefit from accuracy.

There is now melee accuracy and Force accuracy.

 

Can someone list out the abilities that benefit from melee accuracy being 100%?

Anything that is white damage. Off the top of my head...

Strike

Sundering Strike

Slash

Guardian Slash

Overhead Slash

Cyclone Slash

Master Strke

Saber Throw

(Riposte is white damage, but the tooltip states it is guaranteed to hit)

As you can see, that's quite a few abilities that are regularly used by Guardian tanks. Even then, Shield as a stat is far more useful for a tank than Accuracy, but you can see why Accuracy is more important for a Guardian tank than the other 2 tanks, unfortunately. One of the nice advantages to the Hybrid build many use is it forces you to take 3 points in the Accuracy talent to move up the tree.