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Thursday, December 1, 2011

SWTOR: Sith Juggernaut PvP - Huttball

On the last day of the beta weekend, I decided to give PvP a whirl. I decided to stick with my tank spec particularly because of one talent - Intimidation. This allowed Chilling Scream to be cast without any rage cost. While Chilling Scream is governed by the global cooldown, it does not have a cooldown of it's own. And having a free, almost spammable AoE snare is incredibly valuable. Sadly, I wasn't able to get high enough level to get other great abilities for PvP, but I figured I'd still give it a go.



Huttball is actually a great warzone for a Sith Juggernaut or Jedi Guardian. While PvP is always about killing other people, control is far more powerful in a game like Huttball. Killing opponents would actually make things harder as they spawn behind the goal line.

In this particular game, I decided to play very aggressively and see if I can draw the attention of multiple players. My first skirmish did just that and 4-5 opposing players decided to beat on me. A deficit of half their team locked in a useless battle. It did take them 24s to kill me which was more than enough time for the ball carrier to score by the time I respawned. I decided to use this strategy a lot as my opponents did not seem to really care about the objectives and decided to farm kills (or they gave up early). I did make a mistake at one point when I created a 3-1 deficit created in favour of the opponents when I decided to take on a smuggler. Not that I didn't appreciate the healing or the extra shooter, but it was an unnecessary fight.

One of the better abilities of a Juggernaut at this level is Guard and Taunt. These make Juggernauts and Guardians excellent bodyguards for ball carriers and healers and actually makes tanking useful in PvP. I have to hand it to Bioware that they decided to make all specs useful for PvP and it made the game significantly more fun.

Other highlights of the match:
  • A 3-1 situation where I was able to take one trooper down before I died
  • Force Scream is a really powerful finisher ability. It should be able to deal far more damage than seen in the vid if I was able to gear up more
  • Force Charge is a ton of fun
  • The Juggernaut's resilience is shown very well on that last goal. Taking focus fire and having one healer, I was able to slowly make my way to the goal line. Also, charging through fire is fun, if dangerous (my health went down to almost 30%)
  • Another show of durability of the class is when I decided to run through the poison hazard. Took some damage but it was not significant and allowed me to save my charge in case other opponents don't take their attention from the ball carrier.
In any case, I have now cemented my decision to make the Sith Juggernaut as my main class. While I was sad to not have the time to level and get more abilities, I welcome the challenge of learning how to use a higher level tank in PvP.

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