Hey there, So yeah, about all the negative feedback and the lack of positive feedback. So part of the reason that you're probably seeing a lack of positive feedback is that people who want to give positive feedback are sick to death of people doing all the negative feedback. I posted the other day about how I'm actually a pretty big fan of some of the Juggernaut/Guardian changes for all skill trees and that I like the direction the changes are going in and then got absolutely dogpiled about how I shouldn't say anything positive. There's enough going on in my life that I don't feel like arguing with random people on the internet. For the 3 classes that I've tried out I like the direction the game is going. I tried saying that and it immediately turned into mud slinging. I'm not engaging in that kind of nonsense and I feel like there's a lot of other people who feel the same. So all you're going to see is negative comments because the toxicity of the community.

Alrighty.... So I'm somewhat reluctant to get involved in this discussion but as someone who has been playing the Guardian/Juggernaut since December of 2011 and seeing the current set of changes I have to say that I'm actually a big fan of the changes and I don't really understand the negativity. Looking at all of this I see that what they're trying to do is simplify the skill trees to make the game accessible to new players at the same time as allow players to continue to feel powerful by giving you passives that improve your main damage rotation. Essentially you sacrifice 2 active abilities at max level because you will be choosing 1 of 3 but this actually does a couple of really nice things. 1) It simplifies rotations for people who are newer to the game and returning players who haven't played in a very long time and aren't used to having so many abilities to manage and 2) it actually creates a significant amount of diversity in the builds that you'll see and how to deal with them. This creates much more complex interactions in terms of how you manage your team comp when putting together flash points and diversifies the choices that you'll be making in PVP match ups. These are good things. In regards to the Immortal and Vengeance ability trees specifically I can see a number of really excellent synergies going up each skill tree. The vengeance build is looking as dangerous as ever since it has gained a couple of new passives that increase the critical hit chance on the elemental burns and hasn't lost any of it's ability to spread these burns using AOE damage. Additionally the Immortal ability tree has several abilities that either increase the critical hit chance on the most important abilities or increasing the damage dealt to taunted targets with key abilities. Both of these seem awesome for PVP and PVE. I'm also glad to see that it seems that they aren't really doing much of anything to nerf or remove the build where you play the Immortal/Defense skill tree while building DPS gear. Anyway, I'm excited by this.

Hello, will we be getting a detailed explanation of Vigilance and Defense the same as Focus? I see the names of the new passives and utilities but I don't really have an idea of what they do.

Welcome back. I've been playing since launch myself and I took a couple months off before 3.0 came out. I'll tell you right now the Guardian/Juggernaut is, in my opinion, in a better place than the class has ever been. I've played all 3 classes and they all feel very different and very useful and the defense skill tree for Guardians is arguably the best pvp tank in the game. I currently bounce back and forth between doing Vengeance (Vigilance) and Immortal (Defense) and I do the tank skill tree in some modified pvp gear that gives me the tank set bonus but with DPS damage levels. I really like it. Definitely get back into it and start doing some PvP. I love it!

When I play focus I never use smash anymore unless I'm trying to stop a cap in an AOE. Frankly there are much better abilities. Focus on your single target damage and keep it moving. The single target burst is why you should be playing focus/rage anymore. If your don't adapt then you will die. That's really it.

It does get better. Once you're comfortable with the rotation and sufficiently geared you'll see a huge difference in your overall stats. Now I will say that I run my guardian tank in DPS gear except for my shield. I've been able to consistently hit with Guardian Slash for 9 - 11k damage and it is an AOE so at that point you can put out crazy amounts of damage while doing a great amount of protection. Recently banged out 760k damage and 350k protection in a war zone yesterday. Don't worry, it gets better.

Well there isn't much to work with here. I guess you're asking which skill tree is best for PVP. The answer to that question is any discipline. I have played all 3 disciplines and frankly I have had excellent experiences with all 3. The best all around discipline is vigilance. It has the easiest rotation and I have managed to maintain the highest level of DPS with that skill tree. On the other hand the focus Guardian does the most burst. Being able to hit someone for over 20k damage in 2 hits is solid any way you cut it. Now the defense Guardian is an amazing PvP tank. I would recommend it whether you're using FPS gear or tank gear. Just make sure that you have a shield if you're doing DPS gear. Anyway. I hope this helps.

This is excellent advice from an intelligent person. My stats are 95% accuracy, which is sufficient for PvP I have a 24% crit rating (29% w/ Smuggler Buff) 73% Surge (Anything over 70% is fine) and then I throw the rest into power (which ends up being quite a lot!) In a long warzone it's not difficult to do over 1 million damage. You just have to make sure that you mind your rotation. Make sure you use Vigilant Thrust/Vengeful Slam at every possible opportunity when a target is burning. It spreads your burns and I've seen it crit for 8k in an AOE. It's a top notch ability. Use it always. On the subject of Augments I recommend Strength. Strength not only increases your damage but it also increases your critical hit chance. The difference in power may make you get in bigger individual hits but the difference in crit can mean more damage in the long run.

Right now I'm specking into the ability that gives you a 10% heal and decreases your unstun ability by 30 Seconds. Then also putting a point in the immobilize for Master Strike/Ravage and the ability that decreases charge by 1 second every time you take damage. Those are key. On the next level up I'm putting a point into the ability that gives your taunt a defensive bubble for your whole team. It helps rack up those protection points. Then Another point into the ability that resets leap, saber throw and the rage generating ability. Lastly I put points into the ability that immobilizes your opponents on saber throw and another into the ability that gives you a 50% speed boost when you use Endure Pain. Keep in mind, this is a PvP build. If you're looking for PvE advice I might recommend someone else chime in.

Agreed. The Guardian has so many melee damage abilities that regardless of what discipline you're playing you'll want to get 95% accuracy for the DPS because of the fact that some of your biggest damage dealers are Melee damage.

Just my 2 cents but I actually kind of live the set bonuses from the new gear. +2% bonus damage for 15 seconds after using Sunder is good because it reduces your targets armor and increases your damage and gives focus. So you get a damage bonus for something you do all the time. The reductuon to the range of saber throw seems worthless but it ties directly into the third set bonus. The auto crit on each skill tree's hardest hitting ability is the bee's knes. Hitting for 10k with overhead slash and hitting for 12k with concentrated slice is a huge deal. I actually like to use the utility that puts a 3 second immobilize on Saber Throw. So I saber throw, leap then concentrated slice followed by focused burst. Well over 20k damage in very short order.

Also ravage is not all that great to use immediately after leap because of the fact that the PvP set bonus no longer gives +10% damage immediately after leap. So now I try to open with as many auto critical hits as possible.

Not really a huge Nerf. Rage/Focus doesn't use it very often and Vigilance has Keening so in Vigilance you mostly use it when it is free and the cool down has been reset.

Just looking at your list of changes vs my own person experiences with the new skill trees it seems to me that you are having trouble adjusting. I've had no issue achieving 1400 DPS with focus in PVP. You just have to adjust to the new reality that Focus is no longer an AOE Damage spec. It is now single target. Force sweep should only be used as an after though. Focused Burst and Concentrated Slice are your new primary damage dealing abilities. Concentrated slice reguarly does more damage than Focused Burst actually on a critical hit. I hit for 9 -11k on Focused Burst and I crit for 10 - 12k on Concentrated Slice. Concentrated Slice is an auto-crit after you use Saber Throw so that is the best way to open up. Cyclone Slash and Sweeping Slash are garbage abilities that should frankly just be taken off of your tool bar and never used. They both use too much focus and neither does nearly enough damage. Just a bit of advice for pvp. Practice with Vigilance and Focus. Practice makes perfect. I don't even have fully upgraded gear and was easily able to break a million damage in either skill tree but higher average DPS w/ Focus.

It is better to use Overhead Slash/Impale because when you have the 6 piece set bonus you open with saber throw then leap/charge then Overhead/impale will auto crit. It's a free 7 - 10k damage and then any damage you do after that will do an additional 5% damage. Also it sets your target on fire so when you do Vengeful Slam/Vigilant Thrust you'll set any other targets on fire as well and do your burn affects to everyone. So I do Saber Throw, Charge, Impale, Ravage, Vengeful Slam, Force Scream and Dispatch. Usually does a good job.

already did it with a group. But I didn't see the "resummon" button in the mission tracker. This is why you ask.

So this is my third time having to restart Blood Hunt. At the fight against the husband and wife mandalorians my support droid will often times be killed by fall damage from the knock backs caused from their attacks. However, unfortunately he doesn't respawn when I restart the Flashpoint and I end up having to start the entire flashpoint over again. Is there something I'm doing wrong here?

There is going to be a big adjustment period for people who played focus previously. It was previously an almost exclusively AOE Force damage. Now it is very much a dependent on Force and Melee damage and is almost exclusively single target. One suggestion that I would make is remove abilities from your bar that you know you don't need. Slash was the first thing to get removed from my bar. I currently do not have Slash on my tool bar and that has made the rotations a lot easier. I'm thinking about putting it back because currently it does increased damage with the Single Saber Mastery and Saber Strength buffs. I would have to replace Riposte because now that its off the global I'm thinking it is just not a worthwhile ability. But we shall see. As far as a clunky rotation is concerned you should get used to opening your rotation with concentrated slice. This ability does huge damage, especially on a crit, and when you reach level 59 it Beats Down your opponent for 5% additional damage. Then hit them immediately with a Focused Burst. After that you want to hit them with force exhaustion, sunder and then go into master strike (you should have the master strike immobilize talent for pvp) then focused burst should be cooled down and on the last hit of master strike hit them with another focused burst. Blade storm and dispatch should finish them off at that point. All in all I like the rotation. It will take some getting used to. It's just early.

Open up with saber throw to sunder your target before you leap in. Then leap in and use Overhead Slash. The burn affect from overhead slash will "beat down" your target and cause you to do an additional 5% damage. Then you root them with master strike. Master strike will be ignoring 20% of their armor from sundering and then an additional 5% damage from beat down. Then you hit them with plasma brand. Plasma brand will automatically reset master strike. Then you hit them with another super powered master strike. At which point, if your target isn't dead you can force push and rinse repeat... If you are at least level 57 then you should be able to sneak in a dispatch off of a keening proc. This is the vigilance rotation that you will do and your opponents will hate life.

Ah, missed it. Thought they removed it.

At a glance it appears to me that vigilance is the superior discipline. The over all ease of your rotation is incredibly simple in it's current state and if you use the right utilities you're going to be a damage dealing unstoppable beast. Focus is definitely good and I need to reserve my judgment until I hit level 60 and am fully geared. It seems to me that focus has switched to a single target force damage based discipline that is capable of doing huge amounts of damage in a very short period of time. However the space between those huge bursts of damage bursts is longer than vigilance that will be able to lay down a constant sustained barage of solid damage. I feel like this is the closest that the two skill trees have ever been to being equal but I feel like vigilance wins out. We shall see when I reach 60.

Reread the tool tip. It is only saber throw and force leap. It does not reset combat focus anymore.

You are correct. They took away the requirement that your smash damage only deals the damage multipliers vs your primary target. However, they've sorely reduced the damage multiplier. Guardians in general are more of a single target class. Focus is basically a Force based single target damage spec and Vigilance is more of a Melee based single target damage spec. I feel like there's a good case to be made that Vigilance is currently superior to Focus. However, I'm not at level 60 yet so I could be wrong. I won't be able to realistically hit 60 until next Tuesday so we'll see. But yeah, your thread is a little misleading.

So I've been more and more happy with the changes that have been happening with the Vengeance tree and this patch is truly top notch. I've actually been playing Vengeance (Vigilance) since 1.1 and I love it now that I'm finished gushing. How about that damage. I've actually been able to come out in the top damaged dealers in war zones in pretty much every warzone I've played today. I'm still fooling around with the overall best skill tree but I've actually been keen to add sundering throw. My rotation is to saber throw, charge, impale, ravage, shatter ravage dispatch. I like to do either impale or shatter before I do ravage because I'll have already built up a stack of rampage and I can do shatter simultaneously with the last hit of ravage to then immediately go into another ravage. It's pretty insane. I can take someone from full life to dead in very short order and the best part is that they can't get away from you (assuming you took overwhelm.) I've been doing war zones today where not only am I top damage but the next closest person after me was anywhere from 200 - 300,000 damage behind me. The skill tree is truly amazing right now.

Actually, with the buff that you get for PvP the Matrix Cube was best in slot up to 2.4. If you were DPS then you couldn't stack 2 of the relics of serendipitous assault for the double power bonus after they fixed that in a patch. And none of the other relics were really worth a damn honestly. The static main stat bonus that you would get from the Matrix cube was better and then the pvp buff would fill out your expertise anyway. There was really no reason not to use the Matrix Cube over a second relic of any type. Now there is a new Relic of Serendipitous assault and a new main stat relic so I'm going to look into using those because they may actually be superior but I'm definitely going to try both.