This is too funny. I think I actually made the same exact post in the Guardian forum almost verbatim. The funny thing is that they forgot to mention that the Empowering Rage/Inner Focus ability also reduces the cool down of Enrage/Combat Focus by 20 seconds. So you'll be able to pop this ability every 20 seconds. It's not listed in the patch notes but it's there on the PTS. My 50 Guardian got copied over. This is totally a thing.

I said before that I'm not concerned about PvE. All the buffs are actually minor PvE buffs that actually round out the Focus skill tree in PvE encounters. However, these PvE balances are actually buffs that throw the balance of the two different DPS skill trees wildly out of balance in PvP. That's been my point the whole time. And I'm not neglecting that Sundering Strike isn't affected by the new changes. What I'm actually telling you is that both you and the patch notes are wrong about that. The actual ability on the PTS says that "All strike abilities" which includes Strike and Sundering Strike including a plethora of other abilities will reduce the cool down of Force Sweep by 1 second. So yeah, it DOES actually. The reason I tested these abilities in the black hole wasn't to test damage or anything like that but it was to test the basic mechanics. On average Force Sweep ends up being on an 8 second cool down in a regular rotaion, Combat Focus gets a 20 second cool down reduction in the Focus skill tree and the buff to Dispatch in Swift Slash significantly increases the number of critical hits that you see on Dispatch. All of this and I was ending pretty much every encounter with a full focus bar.

obviously not everyone will be switching to it. I'm just looking to see if some other people will be playing it just to add some variety to the game. I think there might be MAYBE 1 tactics vanguard at level 50 currently. Although I'm not sure I've seen him. There's like 30'ish assault vanguards. I would just like to see a few more out there because it's a fun and interesting spec. But there's plenty of people who will probably be looking to do the huge damage number so assault isn't going anywhere. I just figured i'd ask!

Actually currently you'd be surprised. Vigilance is actually quite good for it's utility, survivability and solid damage out put. It's actually not difficult to make someone eat all 3 hits of Master Strike in PvP and with the essentially auto-critical hit Dispatch you have a solid finisher with great single target damage. The CC immunity that you get after every Force Leap can be game winning at times and is very important to the overall spec. Currently one of the best way to beat individual targets is to bleed/burn them dry with your internal/elemental attacks. It's a solid PvP skill tree when you know what you're doing. But that's going completely out the window in 1.4. The damage just won't even be comparable after 1.4 goes live.

Point. I had not considered that. I think the situation is that the armor is reduced and THEN you penetrate 30% of what's left. So if that's what you're saying then you're correct. Armor reduction and armor penetration are not the same. HOWEVER, my point still stands. Focus is actually better at penetrating the targets armor regardless. the difference of the 30% armor penetration is still more damage that the Vigilance skill tree can't mathematically match in PvP. BTW, I'm only talking about PvP now PvE. I don't really do any PvE content. I'm really only concerned with PvP and the viability of Vigilance in PvP which has gone from being 100% Viable in the right hands to 0% Viable because you'd be crazy not to play Focus.

Unless they patched it since yesterday the armorings are not slot specific. I hope they don't change that when it goes live. That would upset me.

How is this any more "Abusive" than any other modification swapping? Oh BTW it doesn't have a set bonus. So if someone farmed warhero and battle master offhands to get a full set of armorings then they'd have the armorings but they'd get no set bonus.... so that would suck. So it actually seems intentional to me. Again with no set bonus there would be no value in farming offhand pieces for a full set of BM or War Hero gear. Also at least for Battle Master the offhand is actually one of the most expensive pieces. At that point why would you even farm that for a full set?

So I noticed that the Vindicator Focus and War Leader Shield now use Armorings, Crystals, Mods and enhancements now. This is actually awesome because it brings their stats more in line with classes like Gun Slingers and Sentinels who use fully modable offhand gear. It also seems to have the added benefit of giving you an armoring that isn't actually tied to you any particular type of gear. For example, the War Hero and battle master armorings always tied to the specific piece of gear they come from. Leg armorings must go in legs, head armorings must go in the head, glove armorings must go in the gloves so on and so forth. However, I looked at the offhand armoring and noticed that it doesn't have a specified location or armoring type. So I figured I'd try it out by taking the armoring out of my offhand and putting it into my bracers and it totally works. So basically this is going to allow you to build high level custom PvP bracers and belts without paying millions of credits on the galactic market or grinding PvE encounters to get high level armorings. I hope they don't change this because it will make gearing up a PvP character that much smoother. I was just doing some basic builds and you can actually use Battle Master level armorings and mods that will give you better stats than their War Hero counterparts. More Endurance, more Expertise and more of your Primary stat. Nothing wrong with that!

Tested out a few basic rotations by killing some mobs in the Blackhole. Just going through my regular Focus Spec rotation I was averaging about an 8 second cool down on Force Sweep but honestly it felt like less. With 4 stacks of singularity my force sweep was free and so was Blade Storm after a Leap so I was essentially getting through entire fights with a full Focus bar. Considering that Combat Focus now gives you 10 Focus and 4 stacks of Singularity you won't actually be using any focus until you've started your rotation over again without using your leap. Just so you know, here's something that they don't have listed on the PTS patch notes. Combat Focus actually has a 40 second cool down in the Focus skill tree. So now, Combat Focus will grant 10 stacks of Focus, 4 stacks of Singularity and it's on a 40 second cool down. Since Blade Storm is free after a leap and Force Sweep is free with 4 stacks of Singularity focus the Focus skill tree will be by far the easiest skill tree to manage focus in addition to doing the most sustained damage in the shortest amount of time. Shorter cool downs and better Focus generation = Better sustained DPS. Essentially the Focus Skill tree will have superior burst damage with better sustained DPS than the Vigilance Skill tree and arguably vastly superior focus management. The only 2 worthwhile abilities in the Vigilance skill tree at this point will be Commanding Awe and Unremmitting. Vigilance/Defense hybrids already get those. Full Vigilance DPS will be outclassed in every possible way come 1.4 in PvP. Also, some people are under the opinion that the 30% armor penetration is not that big of a deal. I would beg to differ on that matter. Considering that your armor penetration starts at a base of 30% and THEN you can start using Sundering Strike to continue to reduce that. After 2 hits from Sundering Strike a Focus Guardian will be ignoring 46% of the targets armor. That's actually kind of a big deal. I know that's only 10% higher than it currently is but that's still a huge deal in my opinion. This is the spec I will be running. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500MZcRMZGMRrzfRrcz.2 Keeping in mind that the skill tree stays the same but the abilities are changing. So nothing will be in a different place. It's essentially going to be for pure Damage. with Zephyrean Slash the abilities Strike, Sundering Strike, Slash, Blade Storm and Dispatch will reduce the cool down on Force Sweep. So that's a must take ability. I would also take Swift Slash for the extra Critical hit chance on Dispatch. With my current stats in my War Hero gear I'll have a 50% critical hit chance on Dispatch. Pulse has always been kind of useless anyway and Second Wind is a nice little perk but it's never been necessary. Then from there up it's all pretty standard stuff. It's all the same stuff just better. I'd put 8 points into the Vigilance skill tree to get Single Saber Mastery and Improved Sundering Strike on the bottom rows. 2 hits of Sundering Strike will apply 4 stacks of Sundering. That would give me that 46% armor penetration that I've been making such a big deal about and in relatively short order. I also put 2 points into the strength increase. More damage is more damage. I had a couple more points to play with because you don't need to take Victory Rush in the Defense skill tree anymore. You'll be swimming in Focus without it I guarantee you. The only thing I took from the Defense skill tree is Momentum. The free Blade Storm after Force Leap and Zealous Leap is too good to pass up. With the cool down reduction that you get on Zealous Leap from Zephyrean Slash you should be be able to always proc this ability anyway. I mean it makes sense right? Zealous Leap will be averaging an 8 second cool down and it only costs 3 focus. Blade Storm costs 4 focus but using an ability that costs 3 Focus and will almost ALWAYS be off cool down makes it free? Why the hell not?! Focus Spec is going to be ridiculously good. I'm sad to see Vigilance go because it's served me well but this is officially too good to pass up.

I currently have a Tactics Vanguard that I've been levelling for a while. I was originally levelling as Assault but I just got sick of the swarms of Assault Spec Vanguards that popped up in the past few months. They're just everywhere so I wanted to do something different. A lot of people underestimate Tactics just because Assault puts up such a high damage number at the end of every war zone and that's apparently all most people care about regardless of how useful you actually were during the war zone. In any case, Tactics has actually been extremely fun and very VERY useful in war zones and actually does some solid AoE and single target elemental/internal damage. In any case, who else is excited about the buffs for Tactics? After having studied the class and practiced with it for a bit I came to the conclusion that the bulk of the damage in this class comes from using Gut to snare you target and get the auto-critical hit proc on HIB, then spamming Ion PUlse to build stacks of Pulse Generator and then blast everyone with Pulse Cannon which is pure elemental damage. The buff to pulse generator is really going to smooth out the DPS rotation for Tactics in addition to getting a 10% damage buff on pulse generator. Now that Pulse Generator gives a 20% damage buff per stack and stacks 3 times that means it only takes 3 Ion Pulses to get the full bonus from Pulse Generator which is now 60% instead of 50%. I'm hoping to see a few more Tactics Vanguards like myself in PvP after this buff. Is anyone else excited about the changes?

GRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! WHYYYY?!!!! It's like they increased the Focus Generation of the skill tree and made everything free anyway! Who the heck is the balance team on this?! I mean, with a Focus Guardian I can pop combat focus, force leap in, use an automatic critical hit force sweep and then blade storm and still have a full focus bar at the end of it.... why is that a thing!?

Have you seen the buffs that the Focus skill tree is getting? I did. If you didn't here they are. I'd like to think that you can draw the same conclusions that I was able to. Basically the DPS in the Focus skill tree has been inexplicably buffed to levels that have made it MUCH more powerful than it was in 1.1 if I read everything correctly. I mean, with the ability to reduce the cool down of Force Sweep by just using your regular rotation, flat 30% armor penetration, the focus cost reduction of Force Sweep in addition to the the extra Focus Generation from using Combat Focus. You will basically be able to use Force Sweep for an automatic Critical hit every 8 seconds. Zealous Leap, which is actually overall a better ability than Overhead Slash, is going to be on a significantly shorter cool down as well because of the new buffs. With the extra 15% Critical hit chance and extra 6% damage that you get on Dispatch that means Dispatch will be doing as much damage in Focus Spec as it does in Vigilance and if you have the average 30% critical hit chance then you'll have a 45% flat critical hit chance on Dispatch without having to proc any abilities or do even the most remotely complicated rotation. Basically every other Dispatch is going to be a critical hit without going Deep Vigilance. So basically the only thing left to make the Vigilance skill tree special is Unremitting. Which is the ability that every Vigilance/Defense Hybrid class is going to have anyway. So where does that leave Vigilance as a worthwhile spec? Nowhere! That's where! I mean, Focus will be able to shorten the main DPS rotation to match the speed of Vigilance except they have better armor penetration and better AOE damage. Full Defense and Defense/Vigilance will be able to handle PvP tanking. Focus will do all the PvP damage in a shorter amount of time then you can ever ask for. At this point there's nothing special left about the Vigilance skill tree comparatively. Now I will say the way people have optimized their gear is going to have to change. Most Focus players dropped all accuracy and dropped all crit and just went pure power/surge. With the way that the Focus skill tree works now your melee abilities are going to hold greater importance than before. That means accuracy is going to be a stat that you'll want to have because Strike, Sundering Strike, Zealous Leap, Master Strike and Dispatch are all attacks that rely on accuracy. Critical hit chance is another stat that you're going to have to mix in because you while you do have a 100% crit chance on force sweep you still want to critically hit with the flurry of other attacks you'll be using during the course of your rotation. Basically the stat balance that the Vigilance Guardians currently strive to attain is what you'll want for Focus. That would look something like 1000+ primary damage, 30% critical hit chance, 75% surge 100% accuracy unbuffed. With a more balanced stat rotation Focus Guardians will be unstoppable killing machines that should inarguably rival the current assault Vanguard. Don't get me wrong I've been playing Vigilance since 1.1 when it actually was kind of underpowered. But with these ridiculous buffs to Focus I'd kind of be crazy not to play Focus instead.

I have a level 50 Guardian. I have fully optimized War Hero gear for Focus and Vigilance spec and Whoever it was who said that you can't get a 7k crit on a war hero geared player has no idea what he's talking about. When I'm in ranked/regular War Zone the first thing that I do is going Sorc/Sage hunting because usually that's going to be their healer. I saber throw and Leap at him which will usually do enough damage to weaken their defense bubble to next to nothing or break it completely if I crit. The next then I do my critical hit force sweep with 4 instant stacks of singularity that will hit the sorce for anywhere from 6-7k damage. So yeah, it's not just possible. It's pretty depressing to watch someones health disappear from 19k all the way down to 12k in a single hit. As far as the buffs were concerned I can see why they did it. The buffs are essentially designed to make Focus a little bit more viable for PvE encounters. Since Combat Focus will now generate more focus, your regular melee attacks will actually give you the possibility of reducing the cool down on Zealous Leap and Force Sweep you also get the extra 15% critical hit chance on Dispatch along with an extra 6% damage on Dispatch as well. Basically this has gives you a more consistent PvE rotation. It will make life easier for Focus Guardians who like to do PvP and PvE and want to have a smoother transition between the two. However, all of these changes are essentially making the skill tree significantly more powerful than it ever was. This is what's changing. So yeah, let me go through this bullet point by bullet point. Because all of this was 100% pure buff to Focus spec with no loss whatsoever. Zephyrean Slash - Basically with this new ability if you put 2 points into it then any regular melee ability will reduce the cool down of Force Sweep By 1 second. So basically if you spam Strike, sundering strike, blade storm and dispatch all the other random attacks that you use anyway you're going to reduce the cool down of Force Sweep to below in' pre 1.2 cool down of 9 seconds. I mean, you can perform Strike 4 times in 6 seconds with the 1.5 second global cool down. which means that if you're starting at a 12 and during the course of the next 6 seconds you reduce that cool down by 4 seconds leaving you with only 2 seconds left of the remaining of the original cool down. So basically you've reduced the cool down of Force Sweep from down to 8 seconds. I mean, I'm sure that you're not going to see people spamming Strike but I will absolutely use Use Blade Storm, and Sundering Strike and then maybe throw out Strike just once for some extra focus and an additional bit of cool down reduction. So now you're going to be sweeping more often than ever. I don't know why they added cool down reduction to Zealous Leap. You already have 2 abilities that will proc Felling Blow. I don't know why they needed to give this one extra CD reduction. But whatever, it's just another buff for some reason. Swift Slash - Swift Slash was the ability that gave an extra 15% critical hit chance to slash. Now it gives an extra 15% critical hit chance to Dispatch as well. So basically if you're running the average 30% critical hit chance then you're going to have a flat 45% critical hit chance on Dispatch. So basically Focus Guardians are getting a mini version of the buff that Vigilance Guardians get. Just a little something extra to take away the thing that made Vigilance Guardians special. Saber Strength - Now Dispatch gets an additional 6% damage buff in Focus spec. So now it actually does exactly as much damage in Focus Spec as it does in Vigilance. And it has a damn near 50% force critical hit chance. And you don't have to go through even the most mildly complex rotation. You just put the points in and you get it... awesome. Singularity - Now stacks of singularity will reduce the focus cost of Force Sweep. Why? I don't know, but when you have 4 stacks of your sweep bomb built up it will reduce the focus cost of Force Sweep by 50%. But it only costs 3 Focus!! Wait! What's 50% of 3?! Why do they even have this buff?! Inner Focus - Alright, here's another incredibly random buff that they're throwing in for no reason whatsoever. If I'm reading this right then when you have 2 points into Inner Focus you'll not only generate the original 6 Focus and 4 Stacks of Singularity but you'll also generate an additional 4 focus. Why?! Focus management really isn't that difficult in Focus Spec. I mean, you do have to make sure that you're balancing out generating focus and actually using it but it really wasn't an issue in 1.3 at all. So now they get a buff for something that was never a problem. It seems like they trying to take this spec from being already easy to play to now being brain dead. Shii-Cho Mastery: Now that brings us to the ultimate Eff-You to Vigilance Guardians. Shii-Cho Mastery now grants 30% armor penetration. This is up from 20%. So basically even if you get 5 stacks of Sundering on a target in Vigilance then you still won't be doing as much damage base as a Focus Guardian will be doing just by attacking without any stacks of sundering at all. Then on top of that the Focus Guardian can still sunder the targets armor, albeit more slowly. Basically, Focus Guardians and Focus Sentinels will be the new Assault Vanguard. Combat Sentinels will still be used for the OP team speed buff and Watchmen Sentinels still do excellent single target DPS. Vigilance Guardians at this point however are pretty much done for. Which is really upsetting to me because I enjoyed the playstyle and now I just have to sit back and watch it die in 1.4. With these inexplicable buffs there's seriously just no reason to play Vigilance any more come 1.4

If people refuse to group with a good vengeance juggernaut then they're just ignorant. I've got a pretty decent reputation on my server for putting out solid damage and performing well in PvP on my Viglance Guardian and I'm currently building a similar reputation with my Vengeance Jugg that I'm currently leveling. It's just a matter of taking the AC and proving what you can really do with it. You won't put up the big number at the end of a war zone that some classes put up but that doesn't mean that you aren't performing. Spamming damage is all well and good but actually knocking opponents out of a fight is just as important. Vigilance/Vengeance does this better than a great many classes. People used to try to get me to switch to Focus spec. But after they noticed that out of 40+ kills in most war zones I'll have 20+ killing blows people stopped arguing with me.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500MMZfrMRrhddGRZM.2 This is the build that I'm using. My build is tailored a little bit toward my gear because I have enougha accuracy on my gear to get me up to 98% and then I put 2 points in the skill to get me to exactly 100% which I find is quite sufficient for PvP war zones. I noticed that you don't actually have any of the Master Strike related skills in your build. To me personally that's actually kind of insane. At first I used to think that Master Strike was a waste of an ability in PvP but after having experimented with it it's actually one of the best abilities that a Vigilance Guardian has. Keeping in mind that you get a 12% buff to your melee damage and you can get an additional 8% specifically for Master Strike from the Master Focus skill it's something you should strongly consider throwing into your rotation in PvP. It costs no focus and does more damage than any other attack you have. A lot of people are turned off by the range of Master Strike but that's deceptive. It's a 4 meter range to activate but once activated your target isn't actually out of it's effect until they're more than 10 meters from you in any direction. I don't like playing without stagger because with Stagger you're more likely to hold your target in the range of Master Strike in order to get the last hit off. When you're fully war hero geared that last hit can hit a target for 4 - 6k damage on a critical hit. I've done it. Also, Zen Strike seems like a pure PvE ability but it absolutely isn't. It's a great ability. It not only resets Master Strike so that you can spam this ability that can do 8 - 10k damage if you get off every hit and get some key critical hits but it also passively generates focus. Even if Master Strike isn't on CD then it still has a 30% chance to proc zen strike and get a refund of 2 focus. So every time you use Overhead Slash or Plasma Brand in Shien form there's a 30% chance that Overhead Slash will only cost you 1 focus and Plasma Brand will only cost you 2 focus. I find the abilities indespensible. I go without Swelling Winds. I find that the increased damage and cool down of force sweep is unnecessary. I really only use Force Sweep to interrupt people who are capping a point and I'm working it out of my rotation more often than not. It's a good ability but the majority of my damage is coming from my single target abilities. I had experimented with Insight because of the increase to the force critical hit chance. Considering that all your DOT's are force attacks it's not a bad ability to use. I just choose not to use it now because I think that improved sundering does a little more for me currently. But it could really go either way. Anyway, I put up solid damage and maintain a kill to killing blow ratio of around 50% pretty regularly in war zones. So I t hink this works quite well for me.

If you need power/surge war hero mods and enhancements then you need to farm them from war hero gear. It takes a long time but it's worth it to optimize your stats. What spec do you run? If you run Rage then you need to swap out every bit of crit/accuracy for power/surge. If you're vengeance then you actually want crit/surge with some accuracy mixed in.

I'm pretty positive that the person who created this thread is a PvE'er but I still have to say this. Are you freakin' kidding me?! From a PvP perspective you do realize that if Shadow Tanks could leap then that would pretty much break the game for any class that is not a Shadow Tank. I mean, as a Guardian the big deal is that I have a leap and a push. You on the other hand have an AoE knockback, an offensive pull, you have a speed buff AND you can turn freaking invisible! A leap sounds all well and good for that one specific instance in your flashpoint/operation/whatever the heck you're doing but it would break the freakin' game!

I'd like to throw in my 2 cents here. I've had quite a great deal of experience with Vigilance and Focus Spec on my Guardian and I have fully optimized War Hero gear for both of them. I've played both specs in rated and unrated war zones and as far as I'm concerned it's apples and oranges really. Yes, they're both DPS specs but each spec has it's own uses and as a matter of fact they work amazingly well when you use them together. Let me clear up a few common misconceptions. 1) Force damage can't be defended, shielded or absorbed. While it is correct that the stat Defense doesn't work against Force attacks because of the way that Force attacks have a base 100% accuracy, shield is actually an entirely other defensive stat that works in conjunction with absorb. It works kind of the same way that crit/surge do. You have a certain percentage chance to proc your shield and when you do it absorbs a certain amount of the incoming damage. While I hear that shields don't work against critical hit damage Shields absolutely do work against Force attacks in general. So shields do still proc against force and tech attacks. So the difference between Melee and Force damage is defense. Which is also reasonably deceptive to say. As long as you have your accuracy at around 100% you really don't have to worry too much about defense as a stat. That's more than enough to overcome the 5% defense chance of most DPS classes and the 10% defense chance that sorcs/sages get base. Beyond that even in Vengeance/Vigilance you still have enough Force Attacks that also deal elemental damage that you can effectively deal with a tank class in a 1v1 situation. Basically any class that is actually stacking defense as a stat isn'ts going to be a significant threat to you anyway. 2) Shien form isn't worth it because I do just as much damage in Shii-Cho anyway... That is just plain untrue. With the changes to the Single Saber Mastery skill in the Vigilance/Vengeance tree the the bonus that you get depends on what form you're in. Being in Shien form gives you a 6% bonus to your Melee damage and Being in Shii-cho gives a 6% bonus to your Force damage. The interesting thing is that Shien form then gives you an additional 6% to all damage types on top of that. So basically what ends up happening is that your Force Damage ends up being the same (Not including the +30% Force Critical hit damage) but your melee damage is actually 12% higher in Shien form then in Shii-cho. That's kind of a big deal. Also, someone mentioned the +20% armor penetration that you get as standard in Rage spec. That's all well and good but that's essentially equal to 5 stacks of sundering. Usually if I'm in a fight with someone the first thing that happens is Saber Throw, Force Leap, and Sunder. With Improved Sundering and Sunder throw I've already got 4 stacks of sundering on my target as soon as the fight starts anyway. So my Targets armor will be reduced by 16% while I'm doing an additional 12% more melee damage. So yeah, A Vengeance Juggernaut WILL do more melee damage then a Focus Juggernaut. This is actually incredibly important when dealing with the ubiquitous and annoying Shadow "Tank" in DPS gear. When they pop their Resilience cool down I just keep swinging on them business as usual. A Rage player is relatively worse off. Also, someone had mentioned that Obliterate/Zealous Leap does more damage then Overhead Slash/Impale. My response to this is, So? Overhead Slash is on a 9 second cool down instead of a 15 second cool down. I can use mine more often. So throughout the course of a Impale will have done more for me than Obliterate for you. 3) Vengeance can't kill a healer. Blatantly untrue. As long as you have a sufficiently high critical hit chance (between 35 - 40% fully buffed) It's not uncommon for me to Crit with most of master strike, Crit with overhead Slash and then get my critical hit on Dispatch. Overhead Slash will do about 3 - 4k damage on a critical hit. Master Strike will do an additional 8 - 10,000 damage if it's a light or medium armored target and then Dispatch will hit from anywhere to 4 - 5k. More often than not I'll go through a full rotation of Impale, Force Scream, Plasma Brand, Push, Force Leap Master Strike and then dispatch. That generally gets rid of healers pretty reliably. However I will say that it's not always killing healers sometimes it's a matter of just putting pressure on healers so that they're forced to heal themselves instead of healing their team. Peels aren't as beat a deal to a Vengeance Jugg because as long as we're making good use of our Force Leap then we'll consistently proc Unstoppable which makes us harder to kill and then unable to be CC'ed. It's a different kind of pressure than a Rage player will put on a healer but it's still incredibly effective. 4) Shutting down Smash Bombs isn't a thing... Yeah, it's totally a thing. But not how you think. It's the same way you shut down any key player in a war zone. You mark them so that the team knows that's the person that you always need to kill. There's not really any type of ninja timing required to make sure that you interrupt the animation or any of that garbage. Just focus fire the crap out of a Rage bomber and kill him. It's pretty straight forward. I guarantee this has happened to you if you're playing a half compitent team. After the first 2 or 3 bombs that you do on their healers they immediately realize that they can't allow you to go on living and they do everything in their power to kill you every time you show your face. This isn't an inherent disadvantage of Rage spec itself but this reaction is significantly less likely to happen to you while you're in Vengeance. In Vengeance it's a lot easeir to fly under the radar. When you're a sweep bomber it's super obvious what you do. When people realize what you do then they're going to make sure it never happens again. Rage is a really good spec. I don't like it because it's significantly squishier than Vengeance and you're more susceptable to CC. Rage does more damage but so much of that damage is collateral damage that it kinda means that huge damage number that you have at the end of a war zone can be pretty meaningless unless that damage is applied properly and well timed. I like Vigilance/Vengeance because with single target DPS I'm always applying my damage exactly where I need it. So I prefer Vigilance/Vengeance but that doesn't make it "Better" it's just different. One of the biggest problems with people who play Vigilance is that they gear themselves incorrectly. At Least in my opinion they're geared incorrectly. A lot of people will gear for Power/Surge no matter what spec you go for but Vengeance is more dependent on Crit/Surge and with a little bit of accuracy for good measure rather than power. With Vengeance it's more important to have a good balance of stats. I think Crit is most important though. You need to have a Crit rating of 35- 40% fully buffed. I've noticed a huge increase in my performance since I started using Crit Surge on my gear. I don't hit as hard but I hit harder on average now. Just as importantly I'm getting critical hits on my dots so much more often that it's doing very solid amounts of damage over very short periods of time. It makes it easy to finish my main rotation and then pound out a Vicious Throw right as my DOTs bring the target from 30% to 29% health and finish them off quite efficiently. On the off chance that the target is still alive after a critical hit Vicious throw then the DOT's will usually finish them off also. It's just my personal preference. But anyone who says that Rage is the "obviously" superior PvP spec then they're clearly just not looking into the situation deep enough. On my Guardian I've murdered enough war hero geared Rage Juggernauts to know what a properly played Viglance/Vengeance spec'ed character can do.

Your light saber. That's the one that you want to get first.

So I've been fooling around with different stats and right now fully buffed I've got a 39.5% critical hit chance with 75% surge rating and 1250 expertise and 101% accuracy. It seems to be working out quite well. My Force Critical hit chance is still right around 48% with Insight from the focus skill tree and from having picked up the Will Power datacrons. My overall damage hasn't actually increased since the last time I modified my stats but I've found that this is a really effective mix between burst and sustained DPS for PvP. I get consistent critical hits for 4k with the occasional 5k critical hit. I don't know what my power rating is but I'm currently using both of the War Hero relics of Boundless Ages because in addition to giving a massive amount of power it also gives extra expertise. Anyway, my overall damage has stayed the same but my TTK has actually decreased. It seems to be a great way to go.

I don't like to switch stances outside of huttball. When I'm carrying the ball then I will switch to Soresu form. Beyond that I pretty much never switch stances. I've tried doing that a couple of times but honestly the difference for me is that you are harder to do damage to but you won't kill anything. Sometimes that can be helpful but honestly switching stances mid fight will leave you helpless without focus. Generally speaking I find it to be more helpful to do more damage then it is to increase your damage reduction. If it's a situation where you just need to survive longer then it's better just to use Focused Defense while in Shien form and make sure that you're using Awe to stun everyone if you're outnumbered. That will usually buy you enough time. Additionally if you're using your leaps at the appropriate time then it can heal you for quite a bit. Some people have had some success with switching stances. My personal opinion is that switching to Soresu form will give you an extra 17% damage reduction but switching killing your opponent is as good as 100% damage reduction. At that point, Shien form is better for my personal philosophy.

Ya know, I've found myself taking just enough accuracy to get to 100% accuracy and no more. Interestingly, I've actually been using the +3% accuracy talent. It's actually pretty awesome because it frees up other mod and enhancement slots to be used for things like crit/surge or power instead of loading up on more accuracy then is really necessary. I used to just think of this talent as being completely usless but now I like it because of the other stats you can get using this ability.

So yeah, it seems like at least one other Vigilance Guardian on the forum is starting to stack crit on all of his gear. I just wanted to let you know that it seems like stacking Crit/Surge is totally the way to go on your PvP gear. I'm not getting the big hits that I used to but I'm doing more damage overall in war zones as a result of stacking crit/surge. Fully buffed I'm currently rocking a 42.7% critical hit chance on my regular attacks and I've been experimenting with the +6% force critical hit chance from the focus tree. Factor in the Will datacrons I picked up here and there and I've got a force critical hit chance of 49.6% currently. The great thing about this is that the DOT's in Vigilance are force attacks. So with all the crit/surge I've been stacking then that means that damn near 50% of the time all my DOTs are doing an extra 79% damage. Considering it's all elemental it's kind of a huge deal. I recently broke 300k damage in the first round of a void star with this stat distribution. It's currently working amazingly well. I'm not hitting as big as I used to but I'm getting critical hits so often that my damage is constantly WAY above normal. I recommend you try it.

Absolutely true. The Tank Assasin is a two trick pony. They do decent damage but they're entirely dependent on people not entirely understanding how their defensive cool downs work. The purple bubble increases their defense chance to the point where you pretty much can't hit them with Melee or Ranged attacks and the white shield that they do makes it so that you can't hurt them with any Force attacks. The funny thing about both cool downs is that if you use the opposite type of attack then the defensive cool down is useless. As soon as they go white I usually unload on them with my full melee rotation. As soon as they use the purple bubble then I'll Force Push them or Stasis them until the cool down goes away. If they have both up then I'll just pop awe and wait to see which cool down wears out first. Once one of them wears out I just beat them to death with the opposite attack type they're defending against. Vigilance Guardians are VERY well equipped to deal with tank assasins.

Interestingly I've been doing something very different for my vigilance gearing. I've actually been gearing my Vigilance Guardian to stack Crit/Surge with mostly Advanced Might Mods for the increase in strength. My war hero Geared Vigilance Guardian has a 40% critical hit chance with the smuggler buff and a 78.5% surge rate. I don't hit as huge as I did when my stats were balanced out differently but my damage per war zone has gone up quite a bit due to how often I'm scoring critical hits on people. One of the things that a lot of people forget is that each tick of a DOT has it's own opportunity to critically hit. So 40% of the time my DOTs are doing just shy of 80% more damage. Which is great for focusing down a single target. I'm trying to see if I can't get to a natural 39% critical hit chance with my gear. That way with a smuggler buff I can have a 44% critical hit chance and I'm going to experiment with the 6% force critical hit buff in the Focus skill tree. That way all my Force abilities (Plasma Brand, Bladestorm, Force Push, Force Choke and all of my DOT's) will have a 50% critical hit chance, which could be pretty awesome.