Yeah I never understood why they changed this. PPA is the most important passive for the spec, and it doesn't make sense to get it so late.

So..... There are no grade 9 gathering nodes?

Are there any grade 9 nodes for Bio? I looked up and Bioengineered Fungus is suppose to be "grade 9" but only yields grade 7 components.

You have a CD that allows you to take 99% less damage for 6 seconds with the correct utility taken. What are you complaining about? You are in medium armor stop charging the front lines -- you're not a tank. You have also have another CD on a stupid low cooldown that gives you a flat 20% damage reduction and can last awhile when you take damage. Don't initiate fights when you're up against 4 Gunslingers or 20 million sorc/sages because you will probably get beat down. Know your strengths, know your weaknesses.

I rarely see any flagged for PvP. Yavin 4 probably being the best spot for it. Even on Shadowlands I get into numerous encounters there.

They are tough we know, this game has balance issues. We know.

How much crit are we talking? 10 power, 5 crit?

What are my stats? I'm thinking I need tons of power because I will be landing guaranteed critical frequently with Felling Blow proc.

I myself are curious on not a rotation but stat priority.

I see a lot of "easy-mode" for Veng/Vigil builds but in my experience that class doesn't even do that much damage until you get full gear and have tons of alacrity. Sure the CDs make it more forgiving but damn, the DoT damage is mediocre compared to other DoT classes like Watchman/Annhi and the shared spec in the Sage-Sorc /Shadow-Sin spec. I know this because I play them both. Not only that but Veng/Vigil doesn't have a lot of built in burst -- really the best opportunity I have for guaranteed decent burst is procing a crit of Blade Storm and then using my Vindicator bonus and following with a crit of Overhead Slash (I do this by Plasma Brand > Vigilant Thrust > Blade Storm > Overhead Slash. It sucks when I do that though because I often waste my dot spreading window just to gain that burst.). And I can only do that once per minute. I don't think it's easy to just straight up kill people with impunity with a Veng/Vigil build. It requires a lot of planning and position to execute properly. I don't see many Focus/Rage builds but I see them having way more potential in shredding single targets to pieces with the burst.

Fortitude Augments? You will toss your defensive mods and enhancements, at least to my knowledge. That's just how the pvp tanking meta is right now. Plus the tanking mechanics pretty much don't scale very well in PvP so it's just a bunch of wasted stats. Might as well just stack as much HP as you can and rely on your CDs for your "tankiness" and take as much power and crit as you can so you're not completely worthless pvp.

I feel like DPS balance is pretty decent. All DPS classes, at least in my opinion square off pretty evenly. Last time I played before I quit was late 2012, and DPS balance was horrible. Compared to then I think it's pretty decent. My biggest concern is the healing balance. Especially with sage/sorcs. Having so much HP, powerful cooldowns and heals just heal for way to much. I been in way too many warzones where people could dish 2m+ damage and not die a single time because heals just bomb them to full life. I myself have been in warzones where I will deal tons of damage and only walk away with 2-3 kills, because of heals. Heals are just too damn strong right now. Kill Times are so ridiculously slow because of them, there is more healing output than damage output which is very bad in PvP.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CaeVzBuHvb4yVsAVQuIhTU-lH0QuQ4GPhUIM0x0Qj1o/htmlview?sle=true# Not exactly sure what kind of stats to go for PvP, but this chart is for end game PvE gear. I would think, Alacrity would be one of your more important stats. Will reduce your CDs, speed up channel times but most importantly it will increase the rate of which your dots will tick which means more dps. I would assume that having about 7-8% Alacrity, 105% accuracy and the rest into critical would be good stats to go for but I could wrong. But I with you, have asked the same questions there aren't many Watchman PvP guides -- so one could only experiment.

They kind of are tanks still, just with lots of HP. The tanking and mitigation mechanics just doesn't work very well in PvP so it's just a bunch of wasted stats IMO.

Force Bubble.

If you don't want to PvP or worry about open world PvP why join a PvP server anyway... Join a PvE server and toggle your flag off. Bioware needs to stop holding peoples hand who get stressed out over PvP, join a PvE server if you don't want to worry about betting wrecked in open world. Simple as that. If these changes go through then there will be no such thing as a PvP server and they will be all PvE. I originally played in a PvP server at launch and recently came back and joined a PvE server because of the better population, I primary just do warzones for my PvP fix. Open world PvP just simply isn't to be had -- I maybe had 5-6 encounters in all the time Im played over 5 different characters. Open world PvP is what the "PvP" servers are all about. The population in those servers is already low enough -- don't run the rest of them out. Bioware seriously needs to start treating PvPers a lot better than they have been over the years. EDIT -- Unless they just merge all the servers, I see this is a horrible idea being able to toggle that flag on a PvP server.

In order to achieve 40% do you need datacrons and legacy buffs?

Which are the stat priorities for watchman spec? Do I go full crit, or do a crit to alacrity ratio? Just curious how Watchman/Annihilation specs gear up for pvp I really can't find anything but PvE guides on them.

Do you play any melee classes? I play exclusively melee classes and I don't see why you are complaining that we Guardians have "4" root breakers when you're nit-picking at utilities. No DPS Guardian is going to spec and get all their root breaking utilities because it would destroy their DPS potential too much. Smh. I take Unremitting which gives me 4 seconds to movement impairing affects AFTER I leap to someone. Cut Lose allows me to break movement impairing affects once every 45 seconds and my Resolute which is on a 1m30s cool down from my utility passive. If I took ALL my utility to be a defensive root breaker I would not be leaping nearly as often, I would not be able to immobile people with Blade Dance, I would not have my Gather Strength stacks from movement impairing affects and since their is so many of them can greatly boost damage output, and my interrupt would not reset on after a leap which could potentially could lead to a powerful channeled attack or heal from my enemy. I can't even begin to emphasis on how often melee classes can get focused, bombarded with CC abilities and can only negate a few of them and get wrecked 30ms away before I can close a gap because I'm STUCK. Even in 1 v 1 I find myself breaking my CC breakers often just to glue to someone. Snipers/Gunslingers we can't even leap to if they're in cover plus they have stuns and knock backs which gives them plenty of time to dish out tons of damage before we even get a chance to get glued to them. I just don't see what you are complaining about. Yeah this game has some balance issues in PvP, but the issue your complaining about ain't one of them.

I love your responses.... I guess I'll check tomorrow.

Do you need to shoot for 110%, 105%, or just leave it flat at 100%? I haven't found a golden rule or standard for it and I've read numerous guides and talked to numerous people and everyone seems to be at a toss up on the issue. Two of the hardest hitting abilities are white damage which are subject to defense chance and what have you... Really the only class I would need to worry about defensing against my attacks are tanks right? And since tanks in PvP usually dump tanking mods for damage mods and endurance augs -- that leaves them with 5% defense chance along with everyone else... So should I shoot for 105% accuracy to bypass the 5% defense chance and guarantee my hit, or go for 110%? Or just leave it at 100% and throw in a few more critical enhancements? I only be back into the game a month, I quit in 2012 and back then the must have was 110% accuracy.

I would say that Huttball accounts for about 30-40% of the WZs I queue for. Personally I really only like to play Coast, Alderaan, and Hypergate. Void Star is OK but the doors are too close together, and if the defending team has competent healers it's a nearly insurmountable effort to DPS through and keep them dead long enough or CC'ed long enough to plant a bomb. Hate Huttball. Sorcs/Sages premades can beat an opposing team in 3-4 minutes.

Okay so basically.... Repubs in Shadowlands just can't PvP.... Lol. I played since the game came out but quit in late 2012 because of the state of PvP. I mean it was frustrating then but on Vulkar Highway I felt that both sides were fairly even as far as PvP competency the game was just unbalanced. 4 years later though.... Competency seems a bit worse and PvP I feel like is even more unbalanced. Especially with the huge buffs to HP and that it takes 4+ people to kill some of these healers and it's a scary thought to see someone heal through 4 people and go from 20% to 80% in a matter of seconds. In 2012 it was Sentinels and Marauders who were the over powered indestructible disappearing gods of destruction but now I feel like all the DPS classes are on par with one another but healers man.... Healers are ridiculously strong. It's two different worlds to be able to heal through focused damage on a operation, 1 healer should not be able to survive or heal through an onslaught of focused pvp damage it's just unacceptable. No PvP game is truly balanced and perfect but I guess I am just a tad disappointed that bioware hasn't changed or really brought balance to PvP in 4 years. Tons of other content but the PvP still suffers. I guess that's why PvP servers are sparsely populated even after server merges. My old PvP characters are on prophecy of five and very few people play there.

So you're telling me the game puts solo queued players with group queued players? I've only been back for a month but that is one thing I did not know and frankly, that is a poor match making mechanic. And is as good as throwing sheep to wolves. I assume that unless I see a lot of people within the same guild on the same team, that they are not as active communicating and working as team because I 85% of the time don't get that luxury in solo queue and because of that I can only assume the same for the opposing team.

I will admit that I have seen several players at once focus fire a single sorc or sage and the bubbles, invulnerability and the strength of the heals + the huge amounts of health we all have now anyway and they are exceedingly difficult to kill. Meanwhile most other classes get melted quickly. I know every game has balance issues in PvP, but it's been like 5 years now so come on bioware....