[How's this hybrid tanking build for PvE/PvP 18/23/0 vs a Defensive Build]

Do you think this will have a bigger impact PvE wise or PvP wise? Or do you think it will benefit me overall?

 

I was mostly talking about PVE. The 4% total damage reduction from commanding awe just one tier up from where you are is just far too much to overlook....especially when you are only giving up a 33% reduction in cd to an aoe taunt and a free bladestorm after force leap. The lowered CD on challenging call is nice for pvp, but is it worth losing 4% damage mitigation?

 

The only way moving points from blade barrier into guard stance will hurt you is if you are planning on spending a significant amount of time out of Soresu form. Please tell me you aren't planning to do that.

[Who has tried both the vig/def hybrid tank build AND straight def tank build?]

Last time I checked bonuses that give you 4% mitigation to all damage are ALWAYS better than those that only give you 4% to one type of damage.

 

The hybrid spec definitely comes out ahead. 4% more endurance from protector and 4% flat damage reduction from commanding awe far outweigh anything you are losing from the 31/10/0 spec. Even if I don't leapfrog around constantly and just occasionally use my leap abilities to get the damage reduction I will still be more survivable as a hybrid.

 

I won't waste time debunking the sithwarrior analysis because lotj did such a fine job of it already.

[How's this hybrid tanking build for PvE/PvP 18/23/0 vs a Defensive Build]

I would lose the 2 points in Command and 2 points from Momentum and instead take Force Rush and Commanding Awe. You would gain 4% flat damage mitigation and the extra threat from all of those Blade Storm crits will help as well.

 

I would also move a point from blade barricade into Guard Stance. A 2% bonus to defense while in Soresu is better than a 2% bonus to defense for 6 seconds after a riposte because you will presumably be in Soresu all the time while tanking.

[Who has tried both the vig/def hybrid tank build AND straight def tank build?]

Uhh ok, no one is debating that as a tank you need to be in soresu... I understand that the more damage you do, the more threat you generate, but what I am pointing out is that if you have 2 golds and 3 silvers beating on you with a group of trash mobs without those seemingly pointless defensive buffs, your survivability as a tank goes way down

 

You aren't listening to his argument and you don't really seem to understand anything about the skill trees.

 

The only abilities you give up in a hybrid build that affect your ability to mitigate damage are blade barrier (which mitigates only a tiny amount of damage), Inner peace (which gives a 4% reduction to ONLY internal and elemental damage), and maybe shield specialization (which only increases your chance to shield by 4% and thus mitigates less than 2% of your total damage).

 

If you use those sacrifices to take commanding awe you get a flat 4% reduction to ALL DAMAGE. That alone is possibly more mitigation than you lose from all 3 of those defensive tree skills you aren't taking COMBINED. You can also take unremitting and protector which when combined increase your endurance by 4% and give you 20% mitigation each for a total of 10 out of every 20 seconds.

 

Just use math and look at those trade offs. A pure defensive tree build is more squishy than a hybrid build. That isn't really even an opinion....that's just math. 4% flat mitigation and 4% more endurance is going to make a hybrid more survivable than a pure defensive spec with those 3 abilities I listed above and it isn't close.

 

So mitigation is clearly better in a hybrid build, the only question then is which build gives better threat generation.

 

With the exception of the high threat generated by hilt strike your threat generated has EVERYTHING to do with how much damage you are doing. They are more than merely "distantly related." Soresu gives you extra threat, but that is merely a multiplication of how much damage you do. If we are both in Soresu and I outdamage you then I will have aggro and you will not. If a hybrid build can do more dps then the defensive build it will generate more threat (unless the difference can be made up entirely by the high threat of hilt strike and its 1 minute cd).

 

I don't even see a solid argument for a pure defensive spec. The hybrid just seems clearly better in every single respect to me.

[Tank spec idea/motivations/questions]

You do miss hiltstrike (extra interrupt).. which sux a bit =/

 

If hilt strike had a cd of 30 seconds or so I would be more concerned about losing it. Putting a 1 minute cd on an ability like that (high threat ability that must be talented for) seems completely insane to me.

 

Good points, all of them, but.... I still think Momentum is worth it.

 

Let's do some math. Blade Storm is important to this build, so let's assume you will be hitting it on CD, every 9s. You can get 2 sunders in in the same amount of time (4.5s CD), so you would gain 2 extra focus with Victory Rush, but you are spending 4 for every Blade Storm, so the net result is -2.

 

Or to use actual focus gained and lost every 9s ignoring other attacks and forms:

With Victory Rush: 2xSunder (+2 each), 1xBlade Storm (-4) = 0 focus gained

With Momentum: 2xSunder (+1 each), 1xBlade Storm (-0) = 2 focus gained

 

Focus gain is slower, but if you use Blade Storm early in your rotation the focus keeps building instead of dropping suddenly. If you prioritise another attack over Blade Storm, then it makes sense to rather take Victory Rush. So in that sense it becomes a personal playstyle thing again. It also depends on your other focus gain options (Defiance, default Strike, etc) and which other abilities you prioritise and spec talents for (Riposte with Lunge for example).

 

One problem with your math here. Momentum doesn't give me a free Blade Storm every 9 seconds. It only gives me a free blade storm after a force leap. Assuming I am using guardian leap/force leap every time they both are down from CD to get the damage reduction (Guardian Leap has a 20 second cd)....that means I get a free blade storm once every 20-25 seconds (because we have to account for the fact that my blade storm cd may not hit at exactly the right moment every time).

 

How does the focus math work when I am only gaining 4 focus every 25 seconds or so from Momentum? How much extra focus is Victory Rush giving me in that same period of time? I think momentum is vastly inferior after actually discussing it.

[Tank spec idea/motivations/questions]

It just feels like I have so little ability to generate focus if I don't take victory rush. I'm not sure the free blade storms are going to balance out the focus I would be losing. Even if they do, I would rather have focus to spend on any ability than a free credit for a specific ability. It's like returning something at a store....cash is more valuable than store credit.

 

The reason I kept Pacification instead of Blade Barrier is for badly needed help holding multi target threat. Force sweep I will be using on cd in multi target situations and this combined with other talents I have taken that improve it will hopefully help a lot. The extra damage to cyclone slashes follows the same thinking. Damage mitigation I have a plenty in this build....multi target threat abilities....not so much.

 

I don't love gather strength. I mostly just think the dot from burning blade hits like a wet noodle.

[Tank spec idea/motivations/questions]

Why would you bother to come into a thread and say something like that? If you don't want to talk about it then don't click the thread.

 

I don't know anyone else's tank spec. I posted what looks right to me and asked the community what they think. That seems fairly appropriate. If you don't think so then ****.

[Tank spec idea/motivations/questions]

I am about to respec for pve tanking and here is the spec I plan to use. I will try to explain why I made some of the choices I made, but I am open to criticism and suggestions.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500dMGczZhGr0rhdzMM.1

 

I went further into the Vigilance tree than the defense tree, but I don't consider this a hybrid build. I honestly think it is superior for tanking for a few reasons. If I had gone higher up the defense tree I would lose significant advantages from the vigilance tree that far outweigh what I would gain in defense.

 

For example, by going up a single tier in defense I exchange 4% TOTAL damage reduction for 4% shield chance. That isn't a good trade at all. I would vastly prefer 4% less damage overall than 4% chance to resist a little damage.

 

In general, by choosing this build over a build that puts 41 points into defense I gain overhead slash as an alternative to guardian slash (which when I talent overhead slash to reduce its cooldown that will actually be a threat gainer and I doubt I will ever need the extra sunder effects from guardian slash). I gain a 100% chance to increase my blade storm and dispatch crits (more threat) after an overhead slash rather than a 50% chance of a focus cost reduction on blade storm after parrying/deflecting/shielding. I gain 4% total health and the ability to use guardian leap/force leap to give myself huge damage reductions for a few seconds every 20 seconds or so instead of a tiny amount of damage absorption after a blade storm.

 

I don't see how I could justify exchanging any of that for a 1 minute cd high threat ability, an extra 5 seconds duration for enure, and a reduced cd on challenging call.

 

Anybody disagree with me here? Anyone think the top 4 tiers of defense are really necessary for a tanking build when there is so much to gain from taking the 3-6 tiers in vigilance?

[Suggestions for multi-target tanking?]

I don't love the tanking role. I never have. Even when I am playing a class where it is easy. I am just doing it temporarily while others in my guild that plan to do the tanking level up. I would much rather do dps.

[Suggestions for multi-target tanking?]

So I just hit 50 and will be needing to respec for tanking. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for holding threat on multiple targets at once. I feel like Guardians don't have many tools in this department. I have Force Sweep and Cyclone slash (although the latter hits like a wet noodle).

[Too many skills, or am I doing it wrong?]

I am someone who has chuckled a bit about the people whining incessantly about how weak guardians are and how impossible our quests are. They are definitely challenging and you have to remember things like interrupts, but that is a good thing as it makes you a better player.

 

This criticism, however, is dead on. Our abilities are bloated. Strike is only necessary because of a totally unnecessary cooldown on sundering strike. Why have different situational abilities for stunning and movement impairing effects? Why even have situational abilities that only work on the very weakest mobs in the game? There are other examples too.

 

We have far too many abilities that are just barely useful enough for us to need access to them on our bars. That is pretty poor design in my opinion.

[What is the problem?]

The whole point of what I am saying is that I don't think it has been any special amount of work to get anything done with quests and that is the primary thing I've seen people ************ about. I saw one guy on this forum say that every silver mob he fights leaves him with only a sliver of health and every gold that isn't a class quest mob is invincible to him. I simply haven't had that experience at all. I am finding myself a hair away from being able to solo heroic quests. I very nearly soloed Falling Stars on Taris as a level 18. I got all the way to the very last skull guy, but he was just a tiny bit too much for me...if I had timed my cooldowns better I would have had him.

 

I am not outlevelling any of my class quests, but if I were any more powerful I could solo what the game is explicitly calling group content. That seems like the perfect level of challenge to me. I can conquer anything that the game doesn't explicitly tell me I shouldn't be able to conquer without aid.

 

I haven't played another class, but whining that you can't defeat the enemies isn't a matter of comparison with another class. Either you are beating them or you are not. As Yoda might say, "Do or do not. There is no try."

[What is the problem?]

Why all of the QQ about Jedi guardians being so difficult to play in the story? I have been playing my guardian (at level 21 now) and I just haven't had problems. The only thing I can't solo is group content like heroic quests. I can't figure out if all of these people are whining because they are bads and they die all the time or because they expect to walk into a heroic quest and just crush everything all by themselves.

 

What is the source of all of this whining?