Immortal Juggernaut Threat - Terrible and Scaling Even Worse

[jearle]

Posted this on official forums if anyone here is experiencing this please go post so this can be addressed, it is just downright stupid at this point.

When I hit 50 it wasn't so bad, I could keep up with the basic geared DPS or fresh 50 undergeared DPS.

Now when all my DPS are in almost full Columi or higher it is becoming ridiculously difficult to hold threat.

I am running in mostly full Columi or equivalent gear.
Spec is the cookie cutter 31 / 10 / 0
My accuracy is ~ 110%

I have played a tank in every MMO since EQ, and multiple tank classes in some of them. I know about tanking and love the role.
Never have I had such a terrible experience with threat.

I realize that we are not suppose to be great at AoE tanking, I can accept that as long as single target threat would not be an issue.

I figured this was a known issue and would be addressed, however I am not seeing anything coming down the pipeline to address this issue.

I don't want abilities to do more damage and effect PvP, I simply want proper threat modifiers, possibly tied to talents to make tanking on a Jugg viable threat wise. With tight enrage timers being pretty much the mainstay difference between difficulty modes, it doesn't help to tell my DPS to wait 10 seconds to DPS.

It baffles me that this has not been addressed yet. There has to be a large population of Jugg tanks out there experiencing this.

I have not read a dev post on this issue, if anyone has a link to one, I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

[obdigore]

Hmmm it was a pain for me when I hit 50 to hold off some of the semi-geared people I was in HM's with, but as I have gotten more gear I'm not really seeing a lot of single target threat issues, if I get a couple seconds head start as you noted.

I think a good solution would be to add a +threat modifier while in Sorensu from on... I forget the name of it. The ability that adds 2 rage and stacks the -Armor debuff...

AoE threat is a complete joke, I have to spam AoE taunt on CD to have a chance at tanking anything beyond one target.

[crazymack]

Stupid question probably but are your dps hitting their threat drop abilities within the first 10 secs?
I know sith sorc has one. Unfortunately I don't know how much threat is dropped (mine seems to only drop a small margin).
I want to make it clear that I'm not suggesting something that will screw you guys over for the rest of the fight.
Hope this helps.

[roberto429n]

You're absolutely right about immortal spec threat -- it's awful. That's why a lot of Jugg tanks are using a 14/27/0 spec. Even though BW calls the Vengeance tree a (damage) tree, IIRC both the Immortal and the Vengeance trees were designated as tanking trees in beta, and if you look at a lot of the Vengeance talents, it shows.

Hit up the Jugg forum on the SWTOR site and you'll be able to read more about this and what people are saying.

[Viertel]

Stupid question probably but are your dps hitting their threat drop abilities within the first 10 secs?
I know sith sorc has one. Unfortunately I don't know how much threat is dropped (mine seems to only drop a small margin).
I want to make it clear that I'm not suggesting something that will screw you guys over for the rest of the fight.
Hope this helps.

Threat drop is 25%; this is universal.

Using it early on helps but not as much as say halfway throughout the fight.

[Vrachara]

The real question is, are other tanks doing better than you? Because if it's "wait 10 seconds to DPS" (if you don't have a threat drop) by game design, that's by no means a bad thing, just something WoW stupidly got people used to ignoring when it made threat irrelevant.

Also, wait 10 seconds to DPS is not a threat issue, a threat issue is when your DPS are doing more threat than you (which is also fine as long as they have ways to manage it, it should take two to tango), which you're not saying is the case.

Threat drop is 25%; this is universal.

What exactly is universal? Assassins have a Force Cloak (Vanish), blows all the threat away (I would assume)

[BeingRepressed]

Tank threat sucks across the board; Juggs aren't alone. Tank damage doesn't scale fast enough to keep up with DPS, and thus the threat modifier isn't high enough for a tank to actually hold more than 1 mob when everybody in the raid is geared and knows how to play.

[openair]

What exactly is universal? Assassins have a Force Cloak (Vanish), blows all the threat away (I would assume)

He ment universal between the pure threat drops (Cloud, Distraction, Chaff). Combat drops (vanish) do more then just drop threat.

[PhearMark]

Tank threat doesn't suck, it's just much more of a thing you need to manage. Everyone seems too used to this idea of WoW's threat where you no longer need to worry about threat, but I prefer this system immensely. So far it is very easy to spot good and bad dps by the ones that give tanks some leeway on initial hits to build up threat, and ones that kill in the correct order.

Basically, tanking in SWTOR boils down to: tank champs > golds > silvers > norms and make sure your dps are properly using their threat decreasing abilities when appropriate and attacking the correct things. You can't just run in and have both dps attacking other equal level targets as the tank and expect to be fine in this game, everyone has to do their job and do it well or the run will be tough and long. And I, for one, like that system much more than facerolling through content.

[obdigore]

Tank threat doesn't suck, it's just much more of a thing you need to manage. Everyone seems too used to this idea of WoW's threat where you no longer need to worry about threat, but I prefer this system immensely. So far it is very easy to spot good and bad dps by the ones that give tanks some leeway on initial hits to build up threat, and ones that kill in the correct order.

Basically, tanking in SWTOR boils down to: tank champs > golds > silvers > norms and make sure your dps are properly using their threat decreasing abilities when appropriate and attacking the correct things. You can't just run in and have both dps attacking other equal level targets as the tank and expect to be fine in this game, everyone has to do their job and do it well or the run will be tough and long. And I, for one, like that system much more than facerolling through content.

I was under the impression that this thread was much more focused on Jugg Single-Target (Boss) Threat. Anyone doing Ops should know how to handle HM's and/or multi-group pulls.

[Deleted]

As a Vanguard my tanking tree holds even less damage (and thus less threat) than the guardian (jugg) tanking tree. If I get lucky with crits I can keep a mob on me against geared dps, but if I dont... all the taunts in the world aint gonna help me. AoE threat is so-so, I'm guessing better than a guardian. But we have less defensive cooldowns, so it evens out.

Depending on the fight, if I can start out with my big hitter (mortar volley) the dps can go balls-to-the-wall on the mobs, as they wont be pulling aggro for the first 15-20 seconds, but if I cant... well 10 seconds waiting time is in order.

[Bearshield]

I leveled a Jedi Guardian up to 50 and she's been sitting there unplayed for a couple weeks now. The damage feels ridiculously low and aoe threat is atrocious. I almost stopped leveling the character several times after frustrating flashpoint experiences but I figured it would get better at 50. Well it didn't. Single-target is fine, but a bit more aoe threat would be fantastic. Especially when I can group with my husband's Vanguard and he pulls the mobs out of my aoe with his aoe as if I wasn't doing anything at all.

On the other hand, our mitigation is amazing.

[Maes]

Threat is fine, prioritize your attacks better and guard the highest threat generator, if theres multiple high threat makers share the guard around. after the first 30 seconds i don't even think about threat anymore since its a non issue after that.

[Bearshield]

Tank threat doesn't suck, it's just much more of a thing you need to manage. Everyone seems too used to this idea of WoW's threat where you no longer need to worry about threat, but I prefer this system immensely. So far it is very easy to spot good and bad dps by the ones that give tanks some leeway on initial hits to build up threat, and ones that kill in the correct order.

Basically, tanking in SWTOR boils down to: tank champs > golds > silvers > norms and make sure your dps are properly using their threat decreasing abilities when appropriate and attacking the correct things. You can't just run in and have both dps attacking other equal level targets as the tank and expect to be fine in this game, everyone has to do their job and do it well or the run will be tough and long. And I, for one, like that system much more than facerolling through content.

The problem with this statement is it assumes you group with intelligent dps, which on average, you wont.

[gualdhar]

Playing as a DPS shadow I can do enough damage to make a tank's life miserable, so I can tell good tanks from bad pretty easily, mostly based on when I have to Force Cloak (three minute timer on it sucks). I've had Guardian tanks that can hold threat easily, and I've had Guardian tanks where even guarding me wasn't enough to keep the boss off me. Gear is part of the issue (I'm not the best equipped person around, but I have a few Columi pieces, and not everyone doing HMs does) but skill is a lot of it too.

You seem to be on top of things, so a lot of the noob advice probably doesn't apply. Shadow tanks get a couple major skills and abilities with threat modifiers, and I'm surprised Guardians only get the one. I'm not sure if BW should re-examine the issue though - I like good tanks, but I'd rather tanking didn't become faceroll like it can be in other games. Since TOR uses the easy mitigation / hard threat generation model for tanking, I'm not sure exactly what they can (or should) do to improve the issue.

[Deleted]

in wow vanilla / BC, a good team was made of a tank, a healer and three dps who all had to work together to make it happen.

DPS had to either wait for the sunder stacks or use aggro dumps in order to help the tank manage multiple mobs, the tank had to tab through targets and prioritize his abilities, and the tank and healer had to sometimes line of sight in order to delay the mob that were aggroed or move them to places. DPS would also help with cc, slowing or even kiting mobs that could not be cc-ed while the rest of the team dealt with the other mobs.

I distinctly remember the pull of two super mobs in slave pens (in BC) that could not be cc-ed, and these mobs were hitting like a truck so a freshly geared tank could barely mitigate one but not two of them. For several instances we had our mage kite one to the beginning of the instance while the healer was oom-ing herself keeping me alive while the other two dps had to go all out in a dps race before the mage ran out of room (they could not be slowed either...) and had to run out of the instance, sending the mob back at us. And the long "corridor of death" of shattered halls with pull of 5, 6 and 7 mobs, some with special abilities... Fun times!

It was a time when going into a five man dungeon was an adventure. It was a raid night with 5 people.

Granted I'm not 50 yet and I've yet to tank heroic flashpoints, but the few normal I've done remind me of that time when dps and tank (and healers too) had to work together to manage aggro. As Vrachara wrote above, you've got to be two to tango. And when it's done well, it's beautiful.

[Metapaws]

I have seen what you're saying about threat as I play a Guardian Defense. I'm not sure that other tanking classes aren't having the same issues because the current raid comps only require one tank for all encounters.

Honestly though, I think they designed threat to act this way and I'm enjoying it. On most OPS encounters I've tanked so far, I have had threat problems maybe at the start, but never again after that.

I feel that you need to rely on your taunts more as a tank in this game than in WoW.

[HemmerN]

All the classes get a threat dump on a 45 sec cd, make them use it

[obdigore]

I have seen what you're saying about threat as I play a Guardian Defense. I'm not sure that other tanking classes aren't having the same issues because the current raid comps only require one tank for all encounters.

Honestly though, I think they designed threat to act this way and I'm enjoying it. On most OPS encounters I've tanked so far, I have had threat problems maybe at the start, but never again after that.

I feel that you need to rely on your taunts more as a tank in this game than in WoW.

My biggest problem is the lack of Target of Target. Take SoA for instance. P1 after his shield comes down he puts the water/acid on random people, and he turns to cast it. I don't know if he is turning to punch one of my melee in the face or going after the ranged behind him, so I taunt. He does this 2-3 times, and at the beginning of the fight, I don't know if I have solid aggro on him or not (probably not).

If they don't want to add a threat meter, it might be nice just to get something like TidyPlates ThreatPlates, where if you are in a tanking spec the names/bars are red if you have aggro, yellow if someone is close to pulling off, and green if you don't have aggro, and the other way if you are in a non tanking spec?

Some sort of visual indication would be nice. Same with first boss in EV, when he does the mortars he turns and you really can't assume near the beginning of the fight that he isn't turning to punch someone in the face.

[Deleted]

As long as i get ~5 sec for getting aggro (Raidbosses!) i as good as never lose it, as long as i am able to keep my attacks rolling @ the maintarget. If i have to catch adds or anything like that, it is of course impossible to keep aggro - But thats the way it shoud work .. thats the way you get every DD to change target.

Finaly a game where tanking is more then stacking survivability with talents and stats. I enjoy it!