Well, not necessarily CC - there's still only one stun on a 1-minute cooldown, but everything else is more viable on a Vanguard, except for the absolutely awesome 40% damage reduction tanking cooldown Guardians get.
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Star Wars: The Old Republic |OT| EA: "Let's blow this thing and go home!"
- Thread starter Emitan
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Well, not necessarily CC - there's still only one stun on a 1-minute cooldown, but everything else is more viable on a Vanguard, except for the absolutely awesome 40% damage reduction tanking cooldown Guardians get.
Is there a reason that, by level 25+, players who roll as tanks seem incapable of holding aggro on more than a single mob? Is this a playerbase issue?
I'm a healer and constantly pull aggro from just healing. I don't seem to have this issue in FPs (I'm level 32), but mostly in the planetary Heroic missions.
When I'm lucky at least one DPS class is paying attention and notices I'm getting spanked, but the tank sticks to his one mob, rarely attempting to grab other aggro.
This obviously isn't every tank in the game, but it seems to be most of the ones I end up grouping with.
Have people become spoiled by tank classes in other MMOs with their numerous AOE taunts that they don't have the skill/experience/ability to change targets (tab) and build up aggro?
I'm a healer and constantly pull aggro from just healing. I don't seem to have this issue in FPs (I'm level 32), but mostly in the planetary Heroic missions.
When I'm lucky at least one DPS class is paying attention and notices I'm getting spanked, but the tank sticks to his one mob, rarely attempting to grab other aggro.
This obviously isn't every tank in the game, but it seems to be most of the ones I end up grouping with.
Have people become spoiled by tank classes in other MMOs with their numerous AOE taunts that they don't have the skill/experience/ability to change targets (tab) and build up aggro?
This is pretty much the issue. While juggernauts/guardians have better survivability, I really don't think it makes up for the lesser damage/threat. They're definitely going to be the main tanks, honestly, that's probably the only place they'll shine. When it comes to normal tanking in 4 man flash points, I'd argue the other two class will have an easier time than we would have doing the same thing.That's the thing - you can't just "tag" mobs because the aggro mod is 150% (compare that to the absolutely HILARIOUS 500% in WoW... 300% was fine, but 500% is just ridiculous).
What I've found out through talking to people here and also tanking a FP or two is that you only ever have to tank elites (gold star or up). It's simple - normal and silver enemies will die so horribly quickly and output pitiful damage that it's just not worth it to spend time trying to tank them.
What I do now is mark the elites for kill order, instruct my group to ALWAYS kill normals, then silver, THEN switch to elites, in the specific marked kill order. With proper players and teamwork, this works wonderfully. Also, obviously, *always* Guard the healer - healing aggro is at 50% of amount healed (although I don't know if overhealing causes aggro) and with guard it drops down to pitiful levels.
I will say, though, that Guardians, while being very hard to kill in PvP and in FPs, have absolutely horrible AOE abilities (Sweep is good but the CD is WAAAAAAY too long, not to mention it's the only way to apply that specific debuff, so if adds come into the fight, well, too bad, AoE taunt comes in way late and the AoE slash is weird because it targets 5 random enemies if there are more than 5 mobs) so it makes tanking trash a bit more annoying. As an aside, with my Vanguard, at 25 now I have 3 AoE abilities (2 of which are absolutely insane) - Sticky Grenade which does very high damage (very useful when there's 2-3 elites as it builds aggro on multiple mobs very quickly and is also very high single-target dps), Pulse Cannon that does an absurd amount of damage (but can be interrupted) and Explosive Surge, which applies the damage debuff while doing AoE with NO COOLDOWN. Add to that a much simpler priority rotation (High Impact Bolt > StockStrike > Sticky Grenade > Ion Pulse = Explosive Surge > Hammer Shot = Energy Blast if low on Ammo) and it makes tanking much easier. Sure, their survivability might be a tiny bit lower, but in general it's offset by making tanking much easier.
I liked my Guardian, but god my Trooper is so much more fun to play with.
If it's a juggernaut or guardian, then it'll be a bit of class failure and a bit of player failure. As we've discussed earlier, we don't get some abilities until much later. Like AoE taunt is 30. Can't comment on assassin/shadow. Vanguards and Powertechs shouldn't have much problems though.
Thing is us Juggernauts do have an AOE taunt lol. I think like the majority of games most people are just bad.
(also maybe Juggs need a buff too)
BattleMonkey
Member
A group should never be pulling more than one mob. That right there sets up flags of "doing it wrong"
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
So.. Level 50 Jedi Knights - I have a question:
I'm level 47 now and a friend of mine told me I should be gearing up T7 for "something" - I can't really find anything concrete about that, except another friend confirmed it and said that "if you solve a puzzle, you'll get a full set of armor for your droid anyway, so don't worry about it too much".
When does this 'puzzle' happen? I don't care much for being spoiled (since it's already happened) I just want to make sure I don't miss it and end up kicking myself.
When does this 'puzzle' happen? I don't care much for being spoiled (since it's already happened) I just want to make sure I don't miss it and end up kicking myself.
SWTOR barely has any 1 mob fights. Almost every fight, even outside of flashpoints, is against groups.
Gunmonkey36
Member
He means that the group should be CCing the rest of the mobs.
BattleMonkey
Member
It's easy to control the pulls the way things are spread out, and with proper cc in a group fights are very easy to tank generally.
There are a few cardinal rules of tanking in TOR that differ greatly from other MMOs.
1- Always Guard the healer
2- Always set a kill order
3- Always ignore tanking normals and silvers
3a- DPS should ALWAYS focus on killing normals and silvers ASAP then switch to golds
4- CC the furthest gold mobs in a group as much as possible (so that tanking AoE won't break CC)
5- DPS should be fully aware of what they are doing and be careful not to break CC or not focusing on the right mob.
Once those rules are observed, you will have a grand time
That's the problem though - a lot of people (including me) are too used to WoW-style tanking where every mob in a group is an equal elite and you need to tank them all. Normals and silvers fall so incredibly quickly that it's not worth spending even one second tanking them.No, THAT is doing it wrong in TOR. You can easily fight groups, even multiple elites in flashpoints. A lot of times you have too.
Juggernaut/Guardian threat isn't bad it's just like everything in the Warrior/Guardian classes: requires an extraordinarily complex rage management scheme. It's very easy to understand why average players or new players would have a difficult time functioning. The only spec that has true rage problems is the Carnage marauder (Annihilation is perfectly fine with absurdly rigid priorities). The reason the class gets the most complaints is because -none- of the specs have an easy mode 4/5 button rotation available; you need to have 10-15 hotkeys memorized and used for every single Warrior spec if you want to build your rage properly. Additionaly, unlike say a sorc or a merc, the drop off from managing your rage properly to not is massive. Since you don't -start- with your resource if you aren't maximizing it you'll be spending too much of your time using basic builder and doing bad damage.
Juggernaut/Guardian tanks suffer only really in one area: AOE tanking. Fortunately in dungeons most pulls (Like I and others have mentioned before) consist of a mix of mobs most of whom can be left untanked. In a single target situation I have no problems outthreating my entire group with no one guarded. In early levels before you get more of your attacks/rage management options you may find it advantageous to guard the higher dps classes (Mercs/Commandos and Sorcs/Sages are the worst offenders). You will never out aoe threat a BH tank and that's ok because they don't have our selection of defensive cooldowns either.
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EDIT:
You need the defense tree to tank properly. You won't generate enough rage in Soresu form to function if you don't get the talents in your tanking tree. On the bright side for the first 10-15 levels the tanking tree is the best leveling tree because of how much rage efficiency it has in the lower half. In fact if I were leveling as DPS I'd probably still want 2 points in the talent that gives your juggernaut/guardian specific rage builder one additional rage; it's really that important.
The AoE taunt has a 45 second cooldown and a 15 meter range.
Also, taunts only guarantee the mob attacks you for the 6 seconds but threat generation does not stop during those 6 seconds. So, if you taunt the mob off the healer and do nothing else then at the end of the 6 seconds it will just go back to attacking the healer.
BattleMonkey
Member
Actually you usually dont have to with the a group with enough CC. Many encounters work well with just a few pulls and rest being held. Only 1 or 2 pulls you have to aggro is very manageable for any tank. Most cases where you have large amounts of enemies to deal with often have trash non elites in the mix that can be mostly ignored as they will fall to dps and aoe attacks quickly.
krameriffic
Member
If you've played any significant amount of public team-based multiplayer games, I'm pretty sure this is the conclusion you would reach.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
This should pretty much be on the front page haha.There are a few cardinal rules of tanking in TOR that differ greatly from other MMOs.
1- Always Guard the healer
2- Always set a kill order
3- Always ignore tanking normals and silvers
3a- DPS should ALWAYS focus on killing normals and silvers ASAP then switch to golds
4- CC the furthest gold mobs in a group as much as possible (so that tanking AoE won't break CC)
5- DPS should be fully aware of what they are doing and be careful not to break CC or not focusing on the right mob.
Once those rules are observed, you will have a grand time
My friend tanks with a jug and has no trouble keeping hate off my heals, and that's not even using guard on me. *we use it on our strongest melee dps so they can go all out nonstop I dont like having to be close enough for guard to tick in, although I do get it for some bosses*
Hgh Level Trooper players, have a quick question. Is there any armor that looks similar to this?
I thought I saw some pants that were like it (red and white) but cannot seem to find the rest.
Or if someone could point me to a SWTOR site that maybe has some of the more popular armor's shown. I looked at torhead.com and that was not much help
I thought I saw some pants that were like it (red and white) but cannot seem to find the rest.
Or if someone could point me to a SWTOR site that maybe has some of the more popular armor's shown. I looked at torhead.com and that was not much help
In a few groups we've had only 2 CCers and groups of 5 mobs.
I think on Tatooine there are some Heroics with groups of 6 mobs (maybe only 5). But even with 3 CCers that leaves 2 loose.
Regardless a tank should be able to hold 2 mobs no problem.
On a side note, have any other Operatives had issues with group members double CCing your already sapped target? I had a Sorc that would constantly CC a mob I had already CC'd, even after pointing it out to him...
BattleMonkey
Member
You need to alternate between your taunt and your aoe taunt to maximize their benefit. With guard up on your healer any pulls they pull off of you are generally easy to snatch back and you simply have to smack around that one who peeled off to keep it on you. The healers also really and hopefully invested points into their threat reduction talents.
With CC involved most fights are quite manageable outside of the few occurances where they have multiple adds as part of an enounter.
Most flashpoint mobs are about 3-4 enemies on average, people having a hard time managing this.... really?
As long as the group is within same levels, then yea a tank should have zero problem holding 2
I don't guard healers either. DPS are generally a better choice as they are far more likely to actually pull aggro on the dangerous enemies. Healer threat is very low; it's only at very low levels when I've found any benefit to guarding the healer in a FP.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
Yeah, I don't know about other classes, but sorcs are sitting on a passive -15% threat from the start, plus the shield doesn't cause agro or hardly any at all. So starting fight threat should never be an issue.
There are a few heroics with a couple 5 elite pulls I've found. Those are some of the most fun fights in the game; they really aren't as challenging as you might expect because all of them that I recall are bunched up well enough to make enemy control fairly easy and by the time you encounter them you have a nice toolbox to use.
BattleMonkey
Member
Thats a good idea, should try it. Usually guard the healer but see more often that DPS are the ones causing mobs to peel off the tank. Unlike healers, the dps generally have no threat reduction in their builds and at higher levels their damage gets ludicrous.
From a Jedi Guardian perspective (and I'm only level 14 right now, so I haven't tried it), can't they pull their AoE taunt then follow up with Force Sweep to confirm aggro in that six seconds? Force sweep hits all enemies around you.
Obviously a bad idea if there's a stunned enemy near them that they're trying to keep stunned.
Obviously a bad idea if there's a stunned enemy near them that they're trying to keep stunned.
BattleMonkey
Member
You want the color scheme or you mean the general aesthetics of the mark 2 clones? For the most part the high level troopers look more like Republic Commandos if anything with much more bulk. Some of the lower and mid level armor sets are more slimmer trooper look.
Yea it works decently though damage on it is not so high so some of the dps can still out threat you. Your Soresu form up you need to basically really switch targets alot to keep your aggro going enough, but you should not be dealing with too many mobs in the first place. Most flashpoints are managable but it seems that heroic areas have larger more mixed group compositions in comparison.
Interfectum
Member
approaching 40... is the 200k speeder 2 upgrade worth it?
I am meaning Color scheme (red and white or red and something else)
I just bought and no not really. I'm 99% sure it's only a 10% speed upgrade, and the level 50 one is another 10% boost. Considering it costs like 225k total for the level 40 ones, not worth it.
Also I just did a pretty big class quest, not sure if it was the end of Act 2 but it had a pretty major boss fight. (level ~40 sith inquisitor spoiler)
thanadon's apprentice was beating the shit out of my assassin even with me using Jolt and a buffed up Khem Val. Took me 3 tries before this ghost buff appeared and I took care of him rather easily. I think it was bugged and that buff wasn't there the first few times.
I'm not 100% sure that the "confirm" mechanic exists here. Does it? I had assumed it did, but I've never tested for it so I don't know for sure. IE: is taunt threat permanent if you hit the mob during taunt? I assume it will stick, but I haven't played my guardian in a while.
Also, Scoundrel is so awesome. I'm in love with this class. Just finished balmorra, level 38. I'm still down on the game's many, terrible flaws. I still think Rift is a better game. But I'm really enjoying Scoundrel about as much as I liked chloromancer. I'm 100% healing right now, and I mostly duo with my fiance who is a sage. We do all the heroics together and let our companions tank. It's a blast.
Also, even healing specced I do OK damage. I don't feel totally useless. I just enjoy the abilities, and I wish there was dual spec so I could swap into a damage role every so often. They'd really need to improve the UI though, to make that viable.
Scoundrels/Operatives: what do you guys do about having so many abilities? Do you use all 4 bars? Which abilities do you remove from your bars and just not use? At 38, all 3 of my bars are completely full. The only things I could remove would be quick travel, class buff, tendon blast since I don't pvp right now. I have no idea where I'm going to put new abilities as I learn them.
You completely missed my point though. I understand that, I really do. I'm a level 50 juggernaut and I've tanked HMs, and will probably tank in raids when my guild starts doing them this week. I really do understand that we can tank fine, I keep aggro fine on 1 or 2 mobs and we can cc the rest. However, for normal flashpoints, there isn't much point in choosing a juggernaut over a powertech at the moment. Because the only thing we shine at is main tanking big bosses which hit hard, and in most flashpoints, there isn't that many of those.
In other news. The champion bags and the RNG is just retarded. I have now got ANOTHER duplicate implant. Thanks Bioware.
Gunmonkey36
Member
I've been rather silent on the issue but at this point I'm just a bit fed up.
This games end game gear progression makes 0 sense. It is significantly easier to get pvp gear than pve gear.
It's to the point that there is no reason to even do pve b/c you can get practically equal and significantly better gear from simply queing up and suffering through many games of Huttball.
Also crafting professions are useless.
They seriously just didn't have enough time I guess to make sure end game was appropriately tuned. It is in a sorry state.
This games end game gear progression makes 0 sense. It is significantly easier to get pvp gear than pve gear.
It's to the point that there is no reason to even do pve b/c you can get practically equal and significantly better gear from simply queing up and suffering through many games of Huttball.
Also crafting professions are useless.
They seriously just didn't have enough time I guess to make sure end game was appropriately tuned. It is in a sorry state.
The puzzle is in the main chamber in the temple you go to during the mission. There are pillars surrounding a area with lines on the ground. To solve to puzzle you make the imperial symbol and the chest that opens up might be glitched and you may have to leave the planet and return to get it to open.
I recommend bringing a friend. I'd did it solo but that mission is fucking unbalanced and it's bullshit your stuck with T7 and no healer. The end is pretty awesome though.
I recommend bringing a friend. I'd did it solo but that mission is fucking unbalanced and it's bullshit your stuck with T7 and no healer. The end is pretty awesome though.
There are a few cardinal rules of tanking in TOR that differ greatly from other MMOs.
1- Always Guard the healer
2- Always set a kill order
3- Always ignore tanking normals and silvers
3a- DPS should ALWAYS focus on killing normals and silvers ASAP then switch to golds
4- CC the furthest gold mobs in a group as much as possible (so that tanking AoE won't break CC)
5- DPS should be fully aware of what they are doing and be careful not to break CC or not focusing on the right mob.
Once those rules are observed, you will have a grand time
Man, I was just doing heroics yesterday, and even when I mark the CC target and tell the group not to break the CC, they break it. In fact, that's the first mob they want to kill.
Some players are just too stupid.
Evil Benius
Member
Honestly I might be in the minority, but I would have been happy if this game did not have a typical MMO endgame. I would have liked to see a combination of adding new story content and leveraging on the diversity between unique class stories. I am quite happy to get to the end and then roll another class while waiting for new stuff to be added. This is coming from someone that used to raid their ass off in other MMOs.
krameriffic
Member
lol
It also can take more damage so you don't get knocked off by like 1 bloody shot.
Yes. You get knocked off your bike far less often, which is fantastic. Oh, and you can easily catch/get away from those without the level 40 bike in world pvp. I wasn't sure of the value of it until I chased down some sorc and smashed his face in. Well worth 200k.
Why do people use this argument ever? "There isn't much point because so and so is better at this one thing than me and not bad enough at the thing I'm really good at for people to care so no one will pick me for their team". It's absurd. If you -do not suck- you will get endless groups and if you suck you will have trouble getting groups.
I don't even understand why someone who claims to understand all of this is really even concerned about another class. You can't have all the tools; you're clearly knowledgeable enough that you could have researched and known beforehand that Juggernauts would struggle in aoe situations. If you chose your class based on theme/fun factor than what someone else can do shouldn't even register.
And you can keep aggro on more than 1 or 2 mobs. If it's an aoe pull and you're level 50 you can certainly manage to hold aggro on a group long enough for the silver/normals to die (IE: the length of your aoe taunt) and keep aggro on the 2-4 elites with a kill rotation and non-fail players.
No matter what fixes they make I can't see them giving Warriors good aoe; it's pretty clear that was meant to be the major weakness in the class from the beginning as even the aoe spec is underwhelming.
Gunmonkey36
Member
I wouldn't mind something different. But they didn't do that. They did the traditional but messed it up. Maybe that will change in the future, but current end game makes little sense.
Also I can't level an alt not through the same content again.
I have a near perfect memory, and I just can't listen to things that seem as if I just listened to them yesterday.
This is one of my main reasons I cancelled. My brother has been max level for a few days, and he's been looking at gear. When he realized that the PVP gear was easier to get and better than PVE items, he cancelled his sub. It's like having battleground gear in WoW being better than heroic gear.
Not that they can't turn it around, but it's decisions like these that make it abundantly clear that this is Bioware's first MMO.
Gunmonkey36
Member
Mhm my guild of friends and I all cancelled our subs.
Every one of us hopes they can turn it around.
Hopefully things will be better by patch 1.3 or so.
This game is dooooooomed!
JetBlackPanda
Member
its unsettling to hear the issues with the end game. I am only level 15 and I am having a blast! I will sub as long as I am still having fun.
I hope Bioware can add new planets and flash points and stuff as we go along becuase that is what I love the most.
I hope Bioware can add new planets and flash points and stuff as we go along becuase that is what I love the most.
I know. Doing Heroics I usually end up with good groups who listen to me, but that might be because I'm a fucking hardass when I tank.
I have no qualms about either leaving a group that goes bad or telling someone to man up and learn to play.
End game issues are normal with any new MMO, I saw people on my server who were lvl 50 in under 72 hours from when the game launched.
I was more discouraged when some of my guildies with a few PUG killed the first 4 bosses in Eternity vault on their first time there (they were still playing when I logged last night so I do not know how it ends)..that tells me the raid content is not properly adjusted at all. Outside of the most hardcore guild, content like that should be taking weeks.
I left WOW when they made raid content doable by anyone and it's looking like SWTOR is doing the same.
My main is at 46 now, but am not in a rush to hit 50 and give them time to fix some of the many issues plaguing this game. Still enjoying it
Yes, and easily remedied. Every MMO undergoes lots of polishing and redesign and fixes. For example, level 50 pvp brackets.
I'm beginning to suspect I'm the only player who has absolutely no interest whatsoever in PvP.
Why do PvE? Because it's fun as an end unto itself?