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RE: Immortal | Defense Compendium | A Tank's Guide To The Galaxy - Blueraja - 01-10-2012 05:27 AM
(12-28-2011 01:29 AM)Panemtorvra Wrote: I don't notice that mobs that stun/incapacitate pull threat unless I'm in the first few seconds of a fight. If you have an issue with single target threat, I'd wonder about your rage management. I'd like to see more discussion here; I think it's been discussed only superficially so far and I expect to hear varied opinions. Sorry to derail the threat talk and head there, but rage management and threat go hand in hand. You should basically never use Assault. If you're using Assault, you're doing something wrong. On rage management:
1) I see our "rotation" as Sundering Assault --> 2 GCDs worth of something --> Sundering Assault for consistent rage generation. If I use 3 rage-consuming abilities between Sundering Assaults, I'll frequently not have enough rage in the next round to use anything, and I'll have to use Assault.
2) I use Enrage often, but not the moment it comes off CD, and not frequently to start a fight. It's off GCD and can be used in the middle of anything when you need it. I think there are a thousand justifiable ways to begin a fight, and I often use Enrage in my first or second cycle, but if I build 10 rage initially with Enrage, Force Charge, and getting hit, I'll want to use too many abilities before I use Sundering Assault, and I'll get behind. Plus, you can Saber Throw before Force Charge, thus beginning with 7, and keep Enrage for 6-10 seconds later when Saber Throw is off the table.
3) I try to separate your Force Screams from Smashes temporally to maximize the benefit from Revenge.
4) Force Choke ought to be used as freuqently as Enrage, and use Ravage as well. If you have 7-10 rage, heavy rage-consuming abilities are the way to go, but with less than that, use 1 consuming ability then Force Choke, and after another Sundering Assault you'll have quite a bit of rage. Ravage gets hated on on forums because you'd need to interrupt it for Retaliation or Disruption. You ought to have a good idea of when those are coming. Use Ravage when they're not coming.
5) Your first Sundering Assault ought to come rather early in the fight. This is what I worry about with using Enrage to begin. If you have 10 rage initially, you may be tempted to use it all, then use Sundering Assault. Don't. Use 1 rage-consuming ability, then SA. This is the difference between getting behind and staying ahead.
- Pan
OK, so I can't take credit for the information here, but I was able to transfer it to a somewhat sensible "rotation/priority order." The information that I found the most helpful/useful is what I Highlighted in red above. The below is what I have found to really help me keep aggro, and succesfully tank a few Heroic FPs.
Let me know what you think.
![[Image: juggtankingrotation.png]](http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/3821/juggtankingrotation.png)
RE: Immortal | Defense Compendium | A Tank's Guide To The Galaxy - Elobi - 01-10-2012 06:10 AM
(01-10-2012 05:22 AM)DarthxRage Wrote: I'm having a tough time figuring out how to gear myself for raid. Excluding whatever we can get with craft skill choice, are all our BiS pre-raid items available in heroics or do I need to be picking up some other items? Are any pvp items viable for early raiding even though they have expertise?
The hm's are really hard compared to the raids if you are used to WoW hc's..
So definetly go for the PvP pieces - If they are an upgrade; and you can extract the mods and use them in Tionese gear f.ex to keep the stat upgrade and loose the expertise.
That way you get Semi Columi gear
home made (I did this with my chest to grab the 4 set bonus as quick as possible)
RE: Immortal | Defense Compendium | A Tank's Guide To The Galaxy - theothersteve7 - 01-10-2012 06:20 AM
Nice to see someone working that out. I have a bad habit of using Force Scream / Smash back-to-back as the fight starts, and I need to stop that. Given the mechanics of Courage, it's important to space those out in your rotation as much as possible.
I'm also forgoing the use of Backhand early in my rotation. I'd rather open with Throw -> Charge -> Sunder -> Crushing Blow. That does nearly the same amount of threat, and gets 5 stacks instantly rather than "wasting" two stacks.
One way to model our long-term rotation may be to look at it from a one-minute perspective. In one minute, we can use:
13 - 14 Sunders (+26 to +28)
10 Riposte (-10)
4 Blade Storm (-16 to -4)
4 Sweep (-12 to -0)
4 Guardian Slash (-16)
1 Hilt Strike (-3)
1 Stasis (+3)
2 Master Strike [can be 2 GCDs]
1 Push / Saber Throw / Leap combo [3 GCDS, edges out a sunder] (+6)
1 Enrage (+6)
That's about 32 GCDs of forty accounted for, and ignoring Dispatch. Adding up the net focus of these abilities, I get +8 to -26, depending on Courage procs. Then we add another 30 focus for Soresu form, and we're at 4 to 38 focus per minute with 8 GCDs to burn it in.
8 uses of Slash per minute would put that at +6 to -28. If your courage stacks average 2.47, you will end up dead even. Any higher means surplus Focus, any lower means you hit Strike instead and gain 4 net Focus per hit. You can also extend the Master Strikes to use their full 2 GCDs, gaining 3 net focus each time you do so at what I believe to be a negligible loss of DPS (Slash damage minus half of Master Strike damage).
Of course, that's assuming a lot. A perfect rotation, no major cooldown conflicts, with no focus ever wasted, rapid courage stacks between every ability use, constant Soresu gains, and it's even assuming you can use the Force Push combo. Hitting Strike a few times won't gimp your threat nearly as much as missing GCDs will. On the other hand, if you get knocked back with any frequency, or change targets, the model breaks another way as you get a free saberthrow/leap and bonus focus. Eight slashes also cut the cooldown of Combat Focus by a nontrivial 24 seconds, which is roughly the equivalent of getting 3 more Focus for free.
I guess the conclusion of this post is that if you do your rotation right, you should be hitting Strike no more often than you hit, say, Master Strike. And ideally, never. Of course, a fight under ideal circumstances isn't really a fight at all.
RE: Immortal | Defense Compendium | A Tank's Guide To The Galaxy - DREGS - 01-10-2012 07:18 PM
Has anyone done legitimate theory-crafting in terms of MTing in a full (31 point) DPS spec? This question was brought about after a long debate with my guild powertechs, where they basically said, "Have you gone full DPS tank yet!? Everyone is doing it!" After doing my due diligence however all of the best theory-crafters and end-game raiders recommend a 31 point Immortal build.
The reason a DPS spec main tank would make sense is as follow: For all content my raid currently has on farm (5/5 EV, 1/1 KP Norm; 4/5 EV Hard) the healers report zero issue keeping me alive. So if I can retain much of my tankiness via gear, but add to the raid DPS substantially the raid will be better off.
Major downsides are:
Loss of Invincible, this hurts, but it's an "Oh Shit!" button and shouldn't be needed for farm content.
Loss of Backhand. Only true non-taunt threat increase.
Loss of passive and reactive defense and shield increases.
Major upsides are:
Increased DPS and thereby increased threat generation.
Increased raid DPS.
So please help talk me through this. Are my powertechs high? Is it something PT can get away with and Jugg cannot? Are my suspicions correct that this will only work for content on farm and not for progression, or would it be even more beneficial for progression as it would be like having an extra DPS!?
RE: Immortal | Defense Compendium | A Tank's Guide To The Galaxy - theothersteve7 - 01-11-2012 12:36 AM
If you are defeating bosses by doing something, you should keep doing it. All of the theorycraft in the world bows and breaks before actual in-game success. Once you're having difficulty, turn to theorycraft.
Are you in Soresu form? That strikes me as the biggest problem with tanking as DPS. You're not going to create enough threat without it, so I assume you are, but your DPS in Soresu can't be much higher than a proper tank spec would be.
RE: Immortal | Defense Compendium | A Tank's Guide To The Galaxy - theothersteve7 - 01-11-2012 03:54 AM
Hey guys, I just made an ass of myself on the general forums because I didn't know about this spec.
http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500dMG0dZIGMMMhzdMM.1
It... well... uh, I think it's strictly superior to our tanking spec. By a good margin. Has someone looked at this?
RE: Immortal | Defense Compendium | A Tank's Guide To The Galaxy - Phalanx - 01-11-2012 04:46 AM
(01-11-2012 03:54 AM)theothersteve7 Wrote: Hey guys, I just made an ass of myself on the general forums because I didn't know about this spec.
http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500dMG0dZIGMMMhzdMM.1
It... well... uh, I think it's strictly superior to our tanking spec. By a good margin. Has someone looked at this?
I think you are being serious. The points in Single saber mastery are wasted. I would rather put them in Defiance or Gather Strength.
Other than that, it appears to have some merit? I the Intercede -> Force Charge on cooldown seems impressive. That would be 40% DR every 30 seconds for 4 seconds and 20% for an additional 2. You would be jumping all over the place.
I like this one more.
http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#101dMG0dZhGRMrhzdMM.1
Still not sure if this is a joke. Please advise.
But I am not sure about this yet.
RE: Immortal | Defense Compendium | A Tank's Guide To The Galaxy - theothersteve7 - 01-11-2012 04:59 AM
No, I'm totally serious. I about dropped my lunch on the floor once I realized how the points were working out. They said that they've proven it to be superior threat, too.
The lower points don't matter that much, I was just trying to point out the general idea. This is... well, it's a little terrifying.
RE: Immortal | Defense Compendium | A Tank's Guide To The Galaxy - Phalanx - 01-11-2012 05:03 AM
Now that I know you are serious I will play. I am amazed that it doesn't get rage/focus starved. I wouldn't have thought that the free smashes would have overtaken revenge + Soresu Bonus.
The 4% defense > 4% shield change, but you loose your damage bubble too. puzzling.
Are they Intercede > Charging on cooldown and just loading up on the bleeds? Did they mention anything about a rotation?
RE: Immortal | Defense Compendium | A Tank's Guide To The Galaxy - Rolfson - 01-11-2012 05:08 AM
(01-11-2012 04:46 AM)Phalanx Wrote:(01-11-2012 03:54 AM)theothersteve7 Wrote: Hey guys, I just made an ass of myself on the general forums because I didn't know about this spec.
http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500dMG0dZIGMMMhzdMM.1
It... well... uh, I think it's strictly superior to our tanking spec. By a good margin. Has someone looked at this?
I think you are being serious. The points in Single saber mastery are wasted. I would rather put them in Defiance or Gather Strength.
Other than that, it appears to have some merit? I the Interceed -> Force Charge on cooldown seems impressive. That would be 60% DR every 30 seconds for 4 seconds and 20% for an additional 2. You would be jumping all over the place.
I like this one more.
http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#101dMG0dZhGRMrhzdMM.1
Still not sure if this is a joke. Please advise.
But I am not sure about this yet.
Having run both of those specs (hybrid and full tank) at level 50 in the same gear and tanked similar instances, I'll offer a little bit of my insight -
A quick comment though, why are there 3 points for shii-cho form? You should stay in soresu form the entire time, especially for tanking.
The biggest issue I had with the hybrid spec was the disabled rage generation caused from missing Sweeping Fury / Cyclonic Sweeps. Instead of getting 1 rage/2 seconds, you're now getting 1 rage/6 seconds. Burst threat is better with the hybrid, but it's more inconsistent and I had a decent bit of a harder time managing threat for extended periods of time. For most content now (I don't have numbers to support it, more just a feel) the additional mitigation from tank tree is not required for clearing, but it does make it a bit easier on healers and a smoother performance. However, crushing blow / guardian slash is the counter to impale / overhead slash as far as single target damage goes. Purely numerically, impale / overhead slash will provide more threat if you maintain soresu form. But you're also losing backhand / hilt strike, an ability that gives you an additional stun/interrupt and a high-threat opener for boss fights to overcome any burst crits your dps put out.
For clearing normal content, by all means run the hybrid. You can tank flashpoints just fine and you can solo even better. I leveled from 41-50 as hybrid spec and had no issues whatsoever. But for endgame, I'd absolutely go full defense.
I'll go back and respec to do this again, haven't done it in about two weeks so I may be off here. Any corrections are completely welcome as well as counter posts. End of story though, I found that going full immortal / defense spec provided better overall tanking ability especially on the defensive side. Unstoppable / unremitting is certainly a great ability to have, but it is more of a necessity if going hybrid given the loss of other defensive abilities gained in immortal / defense spec.