SWTOR 4.0 Vengeance Juggernaut PvP Guide byt Zetsuma.[toc]
Introduction to Vengeance Juggernaut
Vengeance Juggernauts are the most durable damage dealers in the Star Wars Universe. Their offence favors close range combat (4 m) and is geared towards burning away an enemy’s health bit by bit with a combination of lightsaber and force abilities. This specialization excels in large battles and with clever positioning and crowd controlling abilities the best Juggernauts will literally Slam their way to top damage.
If you enjoy leaping into the thick of things and dealing massive AoE damage, this is the class for you. Read on if you wish to take yourself to the next level
Ratings
- Single Target Dps: 6
- AoE Damage: 10
- Group Utility: 6
- Rotation Difficulty: 6
- RNG Dependant: Somewhat on a few abilities.
- Burst: 6
- Sub 30% Talent or Ability Buffs: No (Execute available before 30% and execute very marginal in increase of damage)
Gearing Overview
The Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion (4.0) introduced a huge change to the stats by rolling surge rating into critical rating and changing the formulae drastically, making critical chances of over 35% easily attainable. This change has greatly increased the value of this stat to the point that it is viable to stack crit over power (the mastery/strength stat is no longer viable for augments).
In the previous expansion, The Shadow of Revan (3.0), alacrity became another great stat to add to your gear as it decreases the GCD (global cooldown) and CD of many of your abilities. I had much success in stacking this stat. However, it becomes fairly useless if you ping is high, or your APM (actions per minute) is low.
As a result of all of this the way I have chosen to gear is to:
- Replace all but one Accuracy Enhancement (Initiative Enhancement 40X) from the stock gear with Critical Enhancements (Adept Enhancement 40X).
- Use the Critical version of the Earpiece and Implants (Adept Device and Package).
- Use 9 Alacrity Augments, with 5 Critical Augments.
- If you have high ping or low APM I suggest swapping those Alacrity Augments with Critical (Adept) Augments.
Your secondary stats should look like this:
- Critical Chance ~ 39%
- Critical Multiplyer ~ 69.5%
- Alacrity ~ 8%
Utilities
The Shadow of Revan Expansion (Patch 3.0), introduced two brand new systems: the Discipline system and the Utility system.
The Discipline System is a designed path for each class which grants you key abilities for that discipline, there are 3 disciplines to choose from for each Advanced Class – This guide is for Vengeance Juggernauts.
The Utilities System gives a player an opportunity to customize their character based on their playstyle. The Utility Tree is divided into three Tiers: Skillful, Masterful and Heroic. Tier one, Skillful, you need to spend a minimum of 3 points in order to open Tier 2, Masterful. From Tier 2, you need to spend 2 points in order to unlock Tier 3, Heroic, where you can then spend the final 2 points for a total of 7 Utility points. Now, you can spend all 7 points as you see fit. Meaning you can spend all 7 in the first 2 tiers or spend them evenly across all three Tiers. It comes down to what Utilities are needed to be competitive in your gaming environment.
For PvP there is a lot less wiggle room for utilities. The way I see it, as a dps your primary focus should be on talents that increase your own dps, whether by keeping yourself alive or by a flat damage increase. If you can manage to fit other things in great, but DPS should be your primary concern. The Knights of the Fallen Empire (Patch 4.0) added some new utilities and modified others.
The following are the Utilities that I recommend in a PvP environment. Due to the amount of crowd control in the game, these utilities are geared towards increasing your mobility – the lack of which was the downfall of the class in the previous expansion.
Note: * denotes essential utilities for the spec, ` denotes my personal choices
Skillful:
- *`Overwhelm: Ravage immobilizes the target for the duration of the ability.
- *`Unstoppable: Force Charge grants Unstoppable, granting immunity to movement-impairing effects and effects that push or pull you around for 4 seconds
- *`Warmonger: Getting attacked reduces the active cooldown of Force Charge by 1 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds.
- `Unshackling Rage: Activating Enrage purges movement-impairing effects and increases your movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds.
Masterful:
- *`Pooled Hatred: When your movement is impaired, you gain a 10% damage bonus to your next ability that consumes rage. This effect can stack up 5 times and lasts 15 seconds.
- Oppressor : Force Charge, Crushing Blow, Impale, Obliterate, Intercede, and Mad Dash grant oppressor, which makes your next Chilling Scream consume no Focus and activate with a 0.5 second global cooldown.
Heroic:
- *`Intimidating Presence : Force Charge finishes the cooldown on Disruption. In addition, Saber Reflect lasts 2 seconds longer, and while Soresu Form is active, generates a high amount of threat on all engaged enemies within 30 meters when activated.
- `Through Victory : Mad Dash can be used while immobilized and purges movement-impairing effects when activated.
- Through Power : Endure Pain increases your movement speed by 50% and grants immunity to movement-impairing effects while active.
Note: There may be a slight bit of wiggle room, and while I strongly suggest this build, I think it is important for everyone to experiment with different utilities and come to your own conclusions.
Abilities and Rotation
What you need to know beforehand
Before we begin to learn the rotation of the Vengeance rotation itself, you first have to commit to memory the various “Procs” that generate various outcomes and abilities in Vengeance.
Major Procs and Passive Effects:
Abilities:
Note: Alacrity will affect the cooldowns of these abilities.
Rotation
As a damage dealer, your primary objective is to kill as many enemies as you can. While this spec deals decent single target damage, Vengeance excels at applying group pressure and this guide is geared around the idea of “DoT Spreading” through Vengeful Slam. While there is not set rotation due to the dynamics of PvP here are a few notes on ability priority for PvP.
- I will start with what I think is the most important note: The goal of a dps role is to kill targets. While the spec should be played to maximize group pressure, if a target is low you should abandon the priority and use your big direct damage attacks to score the kill.
- Keep your DoTs up. Shatter, Impale, and Force Scream should always be on cooldown. This allows for ease of DoT spreading.
- The DoTspreading priority goes Shatter, Impale, then Force Scream. Optimally you want all the DoTs on every target, but it’s ABSOLUTELY vital you get the first, important for the second, and the third is icing on the cake. If you expect someone to move out of your DoTspreading range, dotspread NOW regardless of how many dots you have up. More targets = more damage, regardless of how many dots you have.
- Shatter in particular should be used off CD in 99% of situations no matter what. The only time you should use other abilities when it is off CD is when the target is low and you need heavy direct damage.
- Due to the changes to crit whereby abilities that have 100% crit chances get and added critical multiplyer, Force Scream should never be used with less than 2 stacks of Savagery.
- Do not use Vengeful Slam unless a target within the radius has the Shatter on them, and you can spread the DoTs. It is a really big waste of the ability.
- Vengeful Slam should also not be used in a single target rotation unless everything else is on CD. It is a pretty ability, but it’s damage pales in comparison to everything else.
- Ravage should used when all your dots are on cooldown and you have already spread DoTs, or there is no target to spread DoTs to.
- Burst : The only way to generate real burst in this spec is to pair the last tick on Ravage with a heavy hitter (Impale/Vicious Throw). Unfortunately it also relies on whether those abilities crit, which is based on chance.
Openers
Here are some common openers depending on the situation. You should default back to either of these if those abilities are all off CD.
Opener A (Multitarget):
Saber Throw – Force Charge – Enrage – Shatter – Impale – Force Scream – Vengeful Slam (IF > 2 targets)- Vicious Throw / Ravage
This is going to be our primary opener, remember this. That said there are a couple modifications that we can make to maximize our uptime/burst:
1) Ravage should always be used ahead of Vicious Throw provided you are in range and the target does not have a white-bar.
2) Vengeful Slam can shift upwards in the opener depending on if targets are moving. Remember, the goal is group pressure and spreading without all 3 dots is preferable to spreading to less targets as Shatter does significantly more DoT damage than the other two, and Vengeful Slam also hits for a decent amount itself.
3) In 4.0 the 6-piece gear bonus (the auto-crit on Impale) proc has changed from Saber Throw to Force Scream. As a result, in order to get the auto-crit in your opener you will have to swap the positions of Impale and Force Scream.
- In order to ensure you have 2 stacks of Force Rush you can use Vengeful Slam prior to engaging as it grants stacks as of 4.0
- You may opt not to use your auto-crit in this opener (especially against a healer). To get a kill against a healer you generally want to soften them up a little and get debuffs rolling before getting in your big burst. The Internal CD occurs after the bladestorm, not after you use the ability, which means there is no DPS loss by holding it.
4) You can substitute Sundering Assault with Enrage if Enrage is on CD or you want to hold your root-break / speed buff.
5) Due to the Focused Freedom utility Enrage in Vigilance should not be used mid leap. Ideally you will wait until you need the focus to use it to have a greater uptime on your speed increase.
Opener B (Single Target Control):
Saber Throw – Force Charge – Ravage – Enrage – Shatter – Impale – Force Scream – Vicious Throw / Ravage
This opener is for single target control and is designed to get a full Ravage in an Unstoppable + Brawn window with zero chance of it getting stunned or knockbacked (if you have the recommended alacrity). While Ravage has lost much of it’s damage, forcing your target to use a root break early on can be very useful. I rarely open in this manner. The same notes for the multitarget rotation apply here as well.
Defensive Cooldowns
This is the single most important part of any Juggernaut’s utility when it comes to PvP. As the saying goes, you do zero DPS if you’re dead. In general, you will have to learn when you need to use a CD or when to save it for a better time. In regs feel free to be a bit more liberal; in ranked you have to be a bit more certain. That being said, it is always better to pop your defensive cooldowns earlier rather than later. I never ever want to see a Juggernaut dead with DCDs available!
Team Play & Tips
Team Play
The Juggernaut has some great utilities to help teammates stay alive, and make opponents very annoyed.
Taunt: A must, it takes nothing for you to cycle your taunts off CD and it really helps to keep your teammates alive – make sure you are not taunting the enemy that is focusing you, you will lose it effectiveness.
Intercede: The damage reduction on teammates is huge, and can mitigate a lot of burst if timed correctly.
Stance Dancing (Soresu/Shien): This is one of the more difficult concepts to master, for if done poorly it can be disastrous for your team. Here are a few pointers in order to use this concept effectively in both regs and arenas.
- Never ever start a match in soresu form. It will completely gimp your dps.
- Only ever do it for a healer or a dps that you know is worth your health and loss of dmg
- Pay attention to health bars, if one is going down really quickly, pop in soresu, guard, then guardian leap. Congrats, your teammate is still alive.
- Depending on the situation and on the CD of your focus generating abilities, you should wait before popping back into shien and whooping ass – until then play like a tank and swap your guard when necessary, slow everything, cc what you can, etc.
- DO switch back, you are a dps, and that is what you should be doing. The ONLY time I will forgive staying in a soresu is in a ranked match where the enemy team’s healer has already died, and yours is still up.
Intimidating Roar: In venge/vigi this ability is a bit annoying to use, because your dots will likely break it the second you use it. That said, it is not a bad idea to use it before you start putting any damage out, or to interrupt critical heals/damage from the other team.
Force Push: Whether it is a healer or dps, if you see a chance pushing an enemy out of los is generally a good idea so long as your teammates aren’t on them. This is especially useful to push a tank or a healer out of guard range which presents an opportunity for a kill. Other fun things you can do with this ability include pushing people into acid and fire pits. You will eventually get used to the range that you targets are pushed, and from there you just need to make an imaginary straight line of you, your target, and whichever pit. GG.
Tips and Tricks:
- The DoT spread mechanic introduced in 3.0 has greatly increased to dps potential of the class in pvp, whereby maximizing the spread will considerably increase your dps. A lot of the old school “smashers” had to learn when to wait to smash to maximize aoe targets, and you should learn to do the same.
- Using your stun is also a great way to ensure spreading from classes which have root breaking / super speed abilities.
- This spec is pretty cool in that there is a good mix of force/melee attacks. Become aware of opponents defensive cooldowns and use the relevant attacks accordingly.
- For example, Evasion / Dodge from the Agent / Smuggler classes will make any melee ability miss, so once you see them use it, either stun them or use only force attacks (Retaliation will also be an option if it has already procc’d, but use it only after your force attacks are exhausted).
- Shadow/Sins resilience is another ability you should become familiar with. While it is up your force attacks will be resisted 100% of the time. This is the perfect time to go heavy melee with Impale and Ravage
- The defensive ability of a guardian/jugg is really great, but here are some other ways of keeping yourself up:
- Be aware of where you are: Because how how “tanky” this class is, I will often over extend…BY A LOT – gotta kill healers amirite. Not a problem though; when my defensive cooldowns are all gone I will Force Charge to an opponent, Intercede to a friendly healer then line of sight (LoS) the ranged dps. That allows me to travel 60 meters away at maximum from where you started, and potentially 90 meters away from your opponents in two global cooldowns (GCDs).
About the Author
Zetsuma, of Jedi Covenant from the guild Lethal Dose Fifty, has played a Guardian since launch and has made the top 10 Juggernauts in Seasons 4 and 5. In season 6 he took a break from Jugg and got both his Sorc Healer and Carnage Marauder to Tier 1, the highest on the server for both Advanced Classes. Season 6 also saw him get Tier 2 for all other ACs (excluding Jugg – which was not played). Going into Season 7, with the increased mobility of the class, he is ready to continue the Jugg life.
Rydarus, AKA “Alácrity.” is one of the more outspoken proponents of alacrity as a stat in 3.0, and 4.0 has only solidified his obsession with the stat. He’s perfected and tinkered his approach to Vig/Veng under the principles of DoT uptime, and hopes to spread the “proper” way to run Vigilance/Vengeance to other players.
I’d like to give special thanks to a couple other people who helped with this guide.
First Vesev, who really helped get my first guide written and formatted. Without him this guide would not be here.
Special shout out to fellow Lethal Dose Fifty Jugg, Gilgamesh, with whom all things Jugg have been discussed through and through.
129 replies on “SWTOR 4.0 Vengeance Juggernaut PvP Guide by Zetsuma”
This is a great guide man! Just a side note, I can’t seem to find the ‘reflectadex’ anywhere? Maybe I’m just blind.
Thanks! The reflectadex is coming soon!
I don’t understand how you can say that vengeance jugg has an AOE DPS of 10, while hatred sin has only 7.
In arena, with perfect conditions, and the other team fully packed with no tank, I was able to provide over 12k DPS with my sin, while I was just above 9k with jugg… (and approximately the same conditions)
Hey. I haven’t played much sin since 4.0, so I cannot speak for them. Vengeance does however put up solid AoE numbers. If you find yourself having more success on a Sin, then awesome! Honestly, I wish I could put up 12k dps in an arena. Highest hps I’ve heard of is just shy of 8k.
Well, we made dozen of games like this, at least 2 tests per discipline, just to compare AOE DPS on 4 targets of each class: http://imgur.com/k9yNe3C
Summary of the results, if some of u are interested ^^
12k+ : Serenity (King of AOE, apply ur 2 dots once, then just spam trash for 5mins :p)
10-12k: Balance, Saboteur
8-10k: Vigilance, Plasmatech, Kinetic Combat (!), Watchman
8k-: All the other specs
How are these numbers even relevant? Your numbers hold no weight in them. It simply could be that the data you have collected are faulty. Suppose you are the player who parsed all these numbers. It could just be that you’re better at Serenity than the other classes. Unless you’re the best at all these specs, these numbers don’t hold much.
For each specs, we made at least 2 or 3 rounds, and 2 arenas. So that’s between 4-6 games per spec. We never had more than 3-400 difference of DPS.
And I only parsed the 3 shadow and the 2 sorcs disciplines, which are the only one I perfectly master.
For the other specs, I just took some players which I know to have a really good mastery of their class.
However, I have to agree with u, those tests are not really relevant, but the give a good idea of AOE DPS ranking 😉
In season 6 he took a break from Jugg and got both his Sorc Healer and Carnage Marauder to Tier 1.
Can you please tell me about carnage mara stat I should have? I have these stats ATM. What should I change?
Thats with all 4 class buffs and anodyne mastery stim.
In this Expansion I have aimed for ~40% crit and 70% surge for most of my classes. Put in extra acc if the spec needs it, then the rest in alacrity. With the way stats have changed, I have found that dps difference is fairly small with the different stat builds. However, you always have to be careful about alacrity as it’s usefulness will be diminished if you have high ping, or low APM (Actions per minute).
Why do you recommend this utility ?
*`Unstoppable: Force Charge grants Unstoppable, granting immunity to movement-impairing effects and effects that push or pull you around for 4 seconds
Doesn’t Brawn give the same effect ? It feels a waste to use that utility when you get it for free.
In 3.2 they redid the original unstoppable passive that was native to Venge Juggs, and separated the stun immunity (Brawn) and knockback immunity (New Unstoppable). Without Unstoppable you are still vulnerable to knockbacks after the leap.
nice guides , keep them comming !
You may want to rethink Masterful choice. POOLED HATRED is broken and has Shatter dot tics waste the utility buff.
I’ll check this out. I’ve heard about it, but I haven’t noticed it myself.
They fixed it.
How, when?
Now who gave plasma swords to juggers? Some typos from republic scum 😛
Is the Traditional cornerstone of the Vengeance Juggernaut and deals a significant portion of your single target damage. Plasma Brand resets the cooldown on Blade Dance.
Used every 20 seconds after Keening is procced. It deals high kinetic weapon damage.
“9 Alacrity augments”. If this is your PVP guide, I don’t think you quite understand the sheer magnitude of how much those 3 words discredit this entire guide. Ask any top PVP player on Harbinger what they think of “Nine Alacrity Augments” for a Juggernaut in PVP.
8% alacrity……on a melee class….on a juggernaut……in PVP…….What in the world.
Alacrity parses higher for most DoT classes.
Whats up Zetsuma, Im running a fully min/max Rage Jugg on the Jedi Covenant as well. Obviously my spec is more burst oriented, but I was just wondering is the 1 Acc enhancement just preference or what is your rational behind it?
It’s really more of a personal preference kinda of thing, and since the stat budget is a bit bigger is doesn’t take much away elsewhere. Also, if you parse for a bit, it will come out higher with that extra acc, however that plays slightly differently in PvP, meaning you can probably get away without any.
I can’t think of a reason why you’re going for any bit of alacrity in pvp. This won’t get you any DPS gain since you’re not in a situation where you can easily go through whole rotations. You clearly don’t have the set-up time needed to make it worth, and I think it’s relevant for any DPS PvP spec.
thread on it
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=849980
I don’t understand taking unstoppable with brawn in the spec for free. This whole guide has so many bad suggestions omg.
Gonna just reshare this: In 3.2 they redid the original unstoppable passive that was native to Venge Juggs, and separated the stun immunity (Brawn) and knockback immunity (New Unstoppable). Without Unstoppable you are still vulnerable to knockbacks after the leap.
I have a few comments on some things you have either missed or I don’t understand.
1. you forgot that at the lvl 52 perk that juggs get “All area of effect damage is reduced by 60% for 15 seconds after threatening scream is activated” meaning that Jugg aggro dump move is, in fact, a defensive move.
2.Why not use the War Bringer with your current utility build. You have the utility to reduce force charge’s CD and wouldn’t having another Health free vicious throw would improve your damage?
3. I have never seen a single guide ever say to use shatter while ravage is off CD, what is the reasoning behind this?
4. The whole alacrity thing at 8% is just way over obsessed. Having more alacrity on a spec that hardly uses channels, and with the GCD hardly getting in the way, it just doesn’t make sense.
1. AoE abilities that deal any real direct damage are terribly hard to predict, so your taunt is better off used to reduce damage taken by teammates when you see enemy burst coming.
2. I’ve used warbringer and it feels terrible. The vicious throw from this utility DOES consume rage causing you to be rage starved and unable to apply and spread DoTs.
3. Ravage is poop. Venge should be played to do and much group damage by dot spread, and you need to have shatter on a target before you think of spreading.
4. Whether a class channels / casts / uses instant abilities makes 0 difference to the effectiveness of the stat. With such high crit rates I don’t see any reasons to pump even more into that stat, leaving alacrity as the next best thing. Secondary stat budgets have increased quite a bit.
This is almost as bad as Krea’s guide. Fck me. And I actually thought I would see a proper guide after all that Dulfy/Krea big talk about guides “getting checked”.
Alacrity augments. Honestly, people, please don’t follow these guides for your own good. Think with your head, read in your abilities, talk to actual known PvPers to get advice.
Curious, what would you run?
While it’s been a while for me, what’s cool is myself and Kre’a actually stream/ed on a regular basis so everyone can see how we play and how our setups work, and they do. This guide is meant as well, a guide. As one of the more successful Juggs this is how I play, but it is up to you reading it to have the final say in your own builds and hopefully be able to surpass what is covered in this guide. Best of luck!
The anti alacrity bigotry is ASTOUNDING.
Let me break it down for you walnuts cause unlike Zetsuma my “vocal filter” is nonexistent.
The benefit of alacrity on the surface is that it’s a flat % damage increase proportionate to skill and tempered by downtime, however as a stat it has a lot more depth than that.
To delve into the math a bit, Alacrity scales all cooldowns, ICDs and debuffs, but it DOES NOT SCALE several things. It does not scale buffs, only rotational buffs like the Destroyer proc. This means that your relic procs scale ICD wise, but the DURATION of the relic remains identical.
Relics are the most important thing regarding freak damage. Passive damage is insignificant when you’re going for +-200 power when you have things like relics that grant around 900 stat onproc. What alacrity does is that it increases the ratio of relic to non relic damage, NOTWITHSTANDING downtime.
Contrary to popular belief, alacrity is actually the only stat that still benefits you when you aren’t hitting something, as long as your cooldowns are still ticking. This means that as long as any one of your abilities is still ticking down cooldown wise, you will still gain a benefit from alacrity. This applies to any spec.
Where shit gets interesting is when you realize that this also means that if you’re properly leveraging your relics, relic uptime gets proportionately more prevalent providing downtime at the correct points and amounts.
(this wasn’t meant for zet obviously, but moreso to whoever he was replying to ^.^)
Haha, that pretty much sums it up.
For those of you who are on the ropes about alacrity as a stat, and want to better understand the gearing choices, feel free to drop a line here, or send me a PM on YT / Twitch.
Hope everyone is having a good time Jugging it up!
That’s great for pve, but in pvp its meaningless. TTK is too short and even at 10% alacrity you only get one additional gcd burst window every 4 minutes. Doesn’t hurt to grab 1 or 2 alacrity enhancements, especially for healers/balance sages to get augments as well, but generally its a wasted stat in pvp for the majority of the dps specs.
I still am having a hard time understanding your unwavering stance on Alacrity being “Pointless”. Faster is still faster, no matter how you cut the cake, even if it’s only minuscule. Also, every single mathematically based graph I have seen thus far in 4.0 showed Mastery augs being superior to Power augs for raw DPS gains, which are overshadowed by the raw DPS gains, gained with stacking crit with some alacrity instead. It might of “felt” better having pure power augs, but unless you prove everyone wrong that has posted every single Raid/WZ/Dummy PvE and PvP augment graph online, then I am just going to chalk that one up to a “Placebo effect”.
pve=/=pvp go back to pve where you belong, you obviously don’t get it.
What would I run? Def not alacrity augments on a fucking jug. I stopped reading there, just horrific.
“As one of the more successful Juggs”, oh come on now.
And you do use ravage in your rotation, it all depends on the scenario you are in.
With the changes in 4.0 you really shouldn’t be using ravage much in pvp anymore outside of rooting them if you pick up the utility which I’ve considered dropping, but its nice to have sometimes. Ravage got nerfed significantly and its better to just do shatter>impale>slam. You’ll do more damage with that than doing a single ravage that 90% of the time you never get a complete channel out of.
As a Juggernaut in PVP Power Augments. Simple as that. Wtf does a Juggernaut need with Alacrity? So he can Ravage 0.4 secs faster? Please give me the added 900 dps from the power augs over that noise. Same with crit, all hard hitters will auto-crit if you are don’t your rotation correct, making crit just as useless to a Jug as alacrity is.
Auto crits are also increased by your crit chance, so get your facts straight before having a go at people who spend the time to make guides for the community.
Crit isnt a waste with autocrit abilities. If you actually read into things, you would know that in 4.0, any abilities that auto crit, pool into crit stat for multiplier(old surge). No matter what DPS class you are playing, 30% crit MIN is still preferred. A jugg still needs Alacrity. Dot’s faster multi-target stuns, better target swapping, more opportunities overall. It’s not just about channeling a little bit faster, but having more skills at the ready for when you get interrupted/stunned or evaded and need to target swap on a pinch. 10-12% faster is 10-12% faster.
Well, other thing is that with alacrity your DoTs are ticking faster as well. So it is acctually good to burn down enemies faster. Jugg vs sniper fe is better with some alacrity. Just cause you can have chance to burn him down before he burns you with his ambushes
Glad I’m not the only one that read this and thought it was complete rubbish.
Can someone help me; what is the best dps for pve?
If you mean for Juggs, Vengeace was the preferred PvE spec last I checked. There is a link to Rydarus’ PvE guide in the about the authors section.
Thanks for the guide, now is there anything I can do to convince you to go easier on us Pubs on JC? 🙂
Haha, no promises. It is good to see people on Pub side making an effort to improve their game!
Apparently the SWTOR Devs and Dulfy both hate pub side….
Pubs do have it rough 🙁 While you wait for the Pub version feel free to use this link to better translate pub/imp abilities. I’ll try add more later if you would find it useful.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10fgbOIoinamP84a5Fe01V-NqPvSM09bIu0dOiweIU1c/edit?usp=sharing
Silly Zet and your alacrity augs 😉
Great guide.
How about using:
Accuracy: 137
Critical: 137×6 + 73×11 = 1625(vs your 1598)
Alacrity: 137×3 + 73×3 = 630(vs your 657)
This way i could place all alacrity on implants and ear, for easier swap between vengeance and rage. What do you guys think?
Here is a C/P from a post on SWTOR forums on the matter:
With the new changes to critical and the higher stat budgets the best choice for augmentation has drastically changed.
The result of this change is that all class will want to have tertiary stat augments NOT Mastery nor Power.
The reason for this is that tertiary stats represent multiplicative increases while Power and Mastery represent additive increases.
In the same vein, Eviscerating Crystals are actually stronger than Hawkeye crystals.
Conclusions:
1) Only Augment with Accuracy, Critical, and/or Alacrity (for all DPS and all healers)
2) Only Use Eviscerating crystals
(Full Optimal Stats Post Coming soon to new thread)
———————————————–
To show this, I will show the result of choosing different augments and crystals.
The following is an example for how to rationally decide what the optimal augment choices should be.
Note: This is only an example and this is not actually the methodology that I use to find the optimal stat distribution. In my optimal stats post (under construction), I test every combination of augments and enhancements to find the value that is closesest to the max level. That method allows me to find the max DPS without preconceptions.
Spoiler
For Comparison:
This is the actual optimal result:
Operative – Concealment || Scoundrel – Scrapper
220 Item Level (Exarch)
Optimal Gearing:
6474.14 DPS | 45.7 APM | 5158 Mastery | 2779 Power | 685 (5xAug) Accuracy | 1174 (4xAugs) (2xCrystals) Critical | 845 (5xAug) Alacrity
1745.2 Bonus Damage | 2521.7 Bonus Tech | 110.01% Accuracy | 37.50% Critical Chance | 67.05% Critical Bonus | 8.91% Alacrity
Mastery Augments and Hawkeye Crystals + 5 Accuracy Augments:
6406.71 DPS | 44.3 APM | 5847 (9xAug) Mastery | 2861 (2xCrystals) Power | 685 (5xAug) Accuracy | 800 Critical | 480 Alacrity
1918.9 Bonus Damage | 2686.4 Bonus Tech | 110.01% Accuracy | 34.55% Critical Chance | 63.19% Critical Bonus | 5.44% Alacrity
DPS loss of 67.43 (-1.04%) versus Optimal Stat Gearing
Power Augments and Hawkeye Crystals + 5 Accuracy Augments:
6404.20 DPS | 44.3 APM | 5158 Mastery | 3518 (9xAugs) (2xCrystals) Power | 685 (5xAug) Accuracy | 800 Critical | 480 Alacrity
1932.7 Bonus Damage | 2700.2 Bonus Tech | 110.01% Accuracy | 33.65% Critical Chance | 63.19% Critical Bonus | 5.44% Alacrity
DPS loss of 69.94 (-1.08%) versus Optimal Stat Gearing
Result: 100% of the time it is a DPS loss to ever use Power or Master Augments.
Use Tertiary Stat Augments for ALL classes.
This only applies to pve. In case you haven’t noticed this is a pvp guide.
You don’t say! Augmenting with Power or Mastery is a net DPS loss. The example I showed was just a quick C/P’d search. There are plenty of PvP focused augment guides that say the same thing.
Again….pve and pvp are very different.
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=846804
Please, help me. Im not very rich so I dont want to spend a lot of credits for useless augments. Can you tell me how much Acc % , Crit % , Crit Mult % do I need as Guardian Vigilance/ Jugg Vengeance for PvP? And what augments should I use more – mastery or power?
Acc 105% , Crit 40% , Crit Mult 70%. Is that ok? For DMG.
PS: Im not a big fan ot Alacrity
As far as I know no alacrity could even hurt so: Enhancements: (ear and implants counted in) 1 Accuracy/ 9 Critical
Augments: 2-3 alacrity augs
Rest Critical augs. (if you really don’t like alacrity go full critical augments or some kind of power/critical augs balance but exact numbers aren’t my cup of tea. Best way would be to test it but you would need to spend much credits on augments… Up to you 🙂
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Critical has a massive diminishing return, esp over 30%. 8-10% alacrity opens up a few more potential opportunities to get stuns off faster or to target swap better. I run 30% Crit, 9.5% Alacrity and the rest into Power.
As of 4.0 the new soft cap is 40% due to the changes to crit merging with surge.
Hmm, that’s not what most recent 4.0 crit graphs are showing, but okay.
Not sure what “graph” you’re looking at, but I’d assume its probably from a shit site like noxxic. The new soft cap is 40%. There’s a reason why raiders are using crit augments and crit crystals instead of power/mainstat now (please don’t use mastery augs….you’re an idiot if you do.)
How about accuracy? How high schould it be?
Pooled Hatred is stil broken. Could you help me bring that matter to bioware’s attention because they completely ignore it. Buff is being wasted by weak dots and it completely handicaps veng’s performance in pvp.
Have you tried Rage? Meta is all about burst and tbh, I find Rage to be the higher performing PvP spec to begin with. I’ve gone back and forth with both specs and quite honestly, I don’t see any reason to use Veng over Rage PvE or PvP.
I agree that in pvp Rage>Veng. But in pve there is pretty much no fight where you would take Rage over Veng. Much worse sustained. Burst is not really needed in pve. Plus the Obliterate is do annoying when it puts you inside of an AOE…
Huh? How is burst NOT needed in PvE? I agree that in long duration boss fights i.e. Raids, sustained is almost always preferred, but I wasn’t talking about raiding. When I meant PvE, I meant the PvE that most players partake in; Tactical Dungeons, Solo/Team Heroics and Story/side missions. Almost all of which consist primarily of quick out fights, where raw burst means finishing that much faster.
Rage is great for dailies, but please don’t bring it into raids. Its one of the lowest parsing specs.
I don’t raid in SWTOR. I find the majority of the SWTOR community far too incompetent to sink my teeth into it. Also between running a business and raising a family, I don’t have the time to dedicate to a raid party anymore.
For Story, Side missions, Solo/Team Heroics and PvP, I found Rage to be the more superior spec to use. Not saying Veng is trash, just find the more burst focused Rage to get things done a bit faster.
Well there you go, stick to your meaningless casual activities and leave the stuff that matters to people who know what they are talking about.
And here I thought this was a game, and ‘meaningless’ and ‘matters’ were subjective definitions.
Eh for pvp I don’t recommend crit augments….or alacrity for that matter. I tried your gear layout and compared to my all power augs I actually had a dps loss using crit/alacrity.
Was it a dummy parse, or WZ dps? And how much less were you parsing?
Both. My avg dps was 70-100 dps higher with power and I did about 30 matches with each set. My biggest hits stayed about in the same range but they were lower average with the crit/alacrity setup.
Maybe if they ever fix pooled hatred it might be different, but for now its definitely better with power augs imo, but honestly its like a 1% difference so if people already have full crit or crit/alacrity its not the end of the world.
Yeah. The difference either way is pretty small, though I had found alacrity to parse higher. That said, their are still advantages to having alacrity that go beyond the parse as well. At the end of the day it all works.
As I’ve said, I encourage everyone to mess around with builds (gearing and utilities) because this is only a guide.
I still rather have higher Alacrity, esp if target swapping. Just means I have abilities coming off CD/channeling faster, giving me more opportunities than slower harder hitting abilities, with less opportunity if interrupted/stunned/evaded. Sounds like you only did a dummy parse tbh. Power doesn’t effect the rate in which you can quickly lock down multiple targets with stuns like you can with high Alacrity (12-15%).
First off, going over 10% is dumb for both pve and pvp. You’re already way past the soft cap and wasting stats that could be used towards increasing your damage through either crit or more consistent non crit damage with power.
Second of all, even at the 10% soft cap you can at best get 1 extra GCD window every 4 minutes. Great for pve when you’re doing long boss fights. Not so great in pvp where the average TTK is pretty fast. The exception could be team arenas, but even if you reached the acid you’re still not benefiting much as you’re not going to kill anything. That 1 extra GCD isn’t going to make a difference if you’re damage is just tickling them.
Also….locking multiple targets with stuns with high alacrity? You realize juggs only have 1 hard stun right? The other is an aoe mez. The .5 seconds you shave off the GCD isn’t going to make much of a difference.
Please learn to read as well. I logged over 100 warzones to compare different sets. Power came out on top every time. Fights are too short for alacrity to mean anything and you lose damage with alacrity. Crit is random and gave some spikes here and there. Power is consistent. It raises the base damage of everything and will always be consistent.
I agree that alacrity is not really that beneficial in PvP, and while power is considered inferior to crit for augments, I do believe the numbers add up to 9 x Overkill + 5 x Critical augments.
I’m only 204 right now, so not min-maxed, but since the DPS PvP gear for Juggernauts doesn’t have any alacrity on it, I think my math is sound.
With 9 x Alacrity and 5 x Crit augments, I gained a 7% reduction to cooldowns at the cost of almost 4% crit chance. Impale and Vengeful Slam went from 9 seconds to 8.4 seconds. I’m not sure that’s worth it when you consider that crit is a two-for-one stat due to surge being rolled into it.
Now, Lackey ran the numbers on augments back in October, and his conclusion was, that crit/alacrity augments are superior to power/mastery augments. So, one would assume that stacking crit is the solution, but Kwerty ran the numbers on the crit rating algorithm back in October, too, and he came up with some pretty hefty diminishing returns, putting the optimal crit rating range between 1200 and 1500.
Now, some classes/specs depend heavily on crits, like Hatred Assassins, because their crits hit hard and heal them. Those classes are better off maxing out crit everywhere, because they get a three-for-one boost by doing it (crit chance, crit damage, survivability), but past 1500 crit rating, it appears that power augments win out.
It’d be interesting if someone could run the numbers, but in any case, we’re talking a minimal change in efficiency.
Sounds reasonable.Jugg has only 1 good aoe stun,and thats it,rest is just instant attacks.
A benefit to alacrity that isn’t covered so in depth here, is simply it allows for more chances to dotspread, IE it decreases reliance on any one GCD. With low alacrity, a singular successful dotspread, as well as a singular failed dotspread, matters more, while with higher alacrity, Slams are more frequent, and therefore screwing over one will be irrelevant.
As such, I tend to slam on cooldown in general unless I can predict an incoming target.
Regardless of gear though, Vengeance for both PVP and PVE hinges on the development of a muscle memory autopilot, the ability to just “perform” the spec at will, leaving your eyes and mind to focus on incoming scenarios and dangers and guiding you to act accordingly. Alacrity impacts this because the way players react to a target that’s attacking faster or slower differs significantly. The GCDs themselves line up asymmetrically with your target, so it’s much harder for them to preemptively stun.
Of course, that benefit is just semantics. At the end of the day, if you can fully commit to the rotation in such a way that thinking is no longer required, and that rotation is reasonably decent, you’re going to get good numbers if you have the situational awareness to modify what you’re doing for the situation at hand.
Again….at 10% alacrity you would only get 1 additional slam within a 4 minute window. That’s not exactly ideal in pvp where fights generally end within 30 seconds and if you’re in a fight for 4 minutes…well that one extra gcd window isn’t going to change anything. Your dots tick faster, but they are still weaker.
Alacrity is great for pve. Its completely meaningless in pvp, especially since veng dots are a joke. It would make a difference for balance sages, but veng juggs using any alacrity is typically a dps loss in pvp.
The rest of your mumbo jumbo is just that….Please refrain from saying rotation and pvp in the same line.
Looks like vengeance is arguably the new FOTM for pvp with PTs getting knocked down so bad 😀
Venge is def in a good place, but burst-wise I would actually say Rage is the best atm.
Fair point, i just love smash power 😛
how come there is no rage build/guide? does it suck in pvp?
Rage is great!
Do you intend on making a Rage guide at some point? I’d like to see your set-up fir the spec 🙂
Whereas vengeance focuses on AoE and small bleeds, Rage focus’ on having a ton of rage all the time, with set up extremely high burst windows. Raging Burst is the center of the discipline, and I believe will all the procs, it can be cast for no rage, is critical, does 5% more damage, and 15% more critical damage. Rage juggs are also hard to throw off due to Obliterate. Essentially, they have almost no AoE, but some amazing burst (i.e the opposite of Vengeance)
You said “If you have high ping or low APM I suggest swapping those Alacrity Augments with Critical (Adept) Augments.” So how many APM is Low?
I haven’t checked what specific APM, but it is something that you can tell yourself by asking a couple questions: Is there ANY delay in my GCDs? Am I always doing something? Can I stick to my target? TBH if you are not spamming an ability during your GCD, you will have lower APM.
Hi, I’m using the Guide for PVE is this ok ? I ask, it is my first melee Char. Or pls explain what I have to change or how have the stats look like. sorry for my english. 😉
This is absolutely not a PvE guide. It’s okayish for soloing, but if pve is your thing, I’d check out Rydarus’ guide.
Hi, thx. Where I can find the Guide ? I only can find Vigilance from Rydarus.
http://dulfy.net/2015/11/16/swtor-4-0-vigilance-guardian-pve-guide-by-rydarus/
Hi great guide but this is only for pvp got anything for pve or questing only guides???
when you say “high ping”, what’s the sort of number you are talking about?
I can’t really give you a specific number. If you feel like your abilities are on a slight but noticeable delay, you may wanna check it.
You forgot to mention what relics did you choose for this build?
All classes and specs – apart from tanks (maybe) – use the power and mastery relics. The only other option really is crit, and you get half the amount of crit from the relics, while on gear it’s a 1:1 ratio of crit to power/mastery.
Serendipitous Assault and Focused Retribution. Only relics any DPS should have.
Ur open combat tactic breaks set and veng spec bonuses and u stay in cd a lot of time. Shatter reset Ravage CDs and Impale after force scream have got 100% crit chance
wanted to bring to mod/author attention this guy http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8722449#post8722449 — he’s using exact numbers from guides on this site, and no credit is given whatsover.
Can you go through what abilities you dont use and why? I’d really like this to be a part of all the guides. Coming from other MMOs it seems like SWTOR has a lot of bloat in the abilities that dont even need to be bound for pvp(especially 4v4). Like for Mercs there are a couple abilities u never use in pvp because they are a dps loss compared to sticking with certain ones on CD/etc…
For instance i dont see any mention of Vicious Slash, Sweeping Slash, Retaliation, or Assault. Are VS and Retaliation a waste of Rage/GCD compared to the others in the rotation and you simply never use them? Is assault a waste of a priority KeyBind because the standard rotation doesn’t need that type of filler for rage generation? And so on.
Thanks
Pretty much, if the abilities aren’t mentioned it’s because they don’t bring enough to the table to be talked about. Vicious Slash and Assault should never be used, and sweeping slash and retaliation have limited uses in a pvp situtation.
Why unstoppable when you have brawn?
Unstoppable applies to slows, KBs, roots and other movement affects(such as the fake KB on series of shots that snipers sometimes take). Brawn affects stuns, and knockdowns(which is a PvE only mechanic I believe). Roots, slows and knock backs are often the first thing a ranged class will try against you, sometimes just because its how their rotation works, and brawn won’t help you with them. For instance, a madness sorc(a common target) will hit you with creeping terror, which won’t affect you for the leap because of unstoppable.
It used to be that Brawn was also unstoppable in essence, but that changed.
Won’t speak for the author, but I believe this is why he has both.
Yeah I tried it out and it really needs unstoppable.
mediocre single target and high aoe? I dont think whoever wrote this has ever played a vengeance jug.
I’m not sure if you’ve played a veng jugg tbh, compared to most other classes they do really low single target damage, and its dotspread+a hard hitting aoe that makes them shine.
Yeah the dude writing the guide is so bad at Jugg amgggggggg.
But yeah, venge isn’t topping any charts in pvp without dot spread, sorry. The thing with me, is that I play all the classes pretty well – just a fact at this point – and I know what most of those specs bring to the table. If I wanted single target that is also bursty, Rage is FAR better.
I’ve played with and against Zetsuma both on his Jugg and Guardian…he absolutely knows what he is doing.
I wouldn’t trust this guide for solo ranked. Maybe for unranked it could be viable IF only.
Seeing as I’ve done pretty aight on all my toons as far as ranked goes, I dunno. To each their own i guess?
So just out of curiosity… What would be the “rotation” ( rotation in quotes because in pvp there is no SET rotation that everyone should use ) so I could d omore danage than just after opener clicking whatever isnt on Cooldown.
Forget about the prev comment i get it now. Anyways what armoring and mods and hilts should i use and which set bonus pvp set should i use? All it shows is enhancements and augments
Zetsuma and Rydarus – it’s been a few months since you wrote this article. I’ve read Dulfy, SWTOR Community, talked to players, and it sounds that there are two camps for Juggernaut gearing. The commonality is to get Critical to 38-40%, then it’s a divide between Alacrity or Power. (I have also seen some players go full power.)
What are your thoughts? What do the numbers tell you?
So, TL:DR
I’m 100% all for alacrity and think that Power is simply a lazy person’s stat. The benefits of alacrity and the asymmetricality it provides against enemies is just obscene. Vengeance is a very “in your face and wreck” spec, and without alacrity, it makes you much easier to shut down and kite compared to a high alacrity build. 1v1 and in actual warzones, I wouldn’t run anything but 9% alacrity.
why the utility to become immune to movement-impeiring after force charge, when you have a talent that gives you exactly that as long as you’re in shien form?
you don’t have a talent that gives you immunity to movement impairment after force charge.
brawn gives you immunity to stuns, interrupts, knockdown, and incapacitate.
Used this guide to gear my jugg, much better result in ranked than my merc! I like it.
what would you use for relics?
Power/mainstat
some good advice here, have gotten 5 top dps/kills/fewest deaths in a row and really improved my ability to manage the various hotkeys (taunts, dcd especially)
thanks!
Is it just me or is there so many errors/contradictions in this guide that makes it impossible to read? Just came here because I wanted a Jug translation to Rydarus’ Vigilance Guardian PVE guide, which is great btw, but this one here is really hard to understand IMO.
Want examples?
“You can substitute Sundering Assault with Enrage if Enrage is on CD” how can I use enrage when enrage is on CD?
“Vengeful Slam … It is a pretty ability, but it’s damage pales in comparison to everything else and then 2 paragraphs down: “Vengeful Slam also hits for a decent amount itself.”
This kind of thing goes on and on…
pve stats?
I just wantex to point out that NOBODY has poonted out before: How is ot that in your talents/utilities list, you list 4 utilities as personal preference (with 3 essentials)?I don’t get how you can select 4 utilities and skillful, ONLY 1 in Masterful, anx 2 in Heroic. I meam, even the image is wrong. Is this a typo? If it is NOT a typo, then please explain how I can actually do this in-game. AFAIK, the game only unlocks the next utility tier AFTER one has spent the minimum utility points necessary to unlock it, e.g., 3 pts. On Skillful, 2 PTS. (not 1 pt as depicted in the image) in Masterful, and the remaining 2 in Heroic. Please clarify this, thanks!
Can there please be a rewrite for 5.1? Half of those abilities arent availible anymore and now with the new bolster level of 5.1 this guide is not very relivate.