Hi, I just got back to the game after a decently long hiatus. I have toons that I would transfer on both republic and empire and am looking for a realm that has a lot of constant pvp (IE Fast queues and high playerbase). I'm currently looking at shadowlands but any direction would be greatly appreciated.

Sages do an absurd amount of damage and have very strong control. That being said, the skill cap for the class (learning to avoid and counter marauder/Powertech burst setups) is much higher than any other class in the game at the moment.

The damage nerf is still *very* significant from a PvE perspective. While the threat gain will be nice, it's still sad to see them moving forward with these changes without taking the feedback from the community into account.

I've played rage a few times in raids just to gauge it's effectiveness. It was actually my spec of choice for a short time in 1.0 for the surge scaling since we needed something with bursty dps to take down the 50k-200k health mind traps on Soa at the time (nobody in the world ever got the 200k mind traps, lol). While Rage *can* work in 1.2 for PvE DPS. (I was pulling ~1400-1600 DPS) you have to keep in mind that my tests in HM EC were with FULLY optimized gear with raid buffs and a stim (77% surge, 630 bonus damage, 102% white attack accuracy, 28% crit). With the same exact loadout as vengeance I can average 1700-1900 DPS (I've actually broken the 2k marker on kragga which is our best fight since he has horrible armor and we can go through the rotation with little to no movement to clip our ravages). The big issue for rage at the moment in PvE DPS is that for optimal rage efficiency you need to itemize for crit (for overpower to work) which sadly sacrifices too much power at this junction.

Keep in mind that this is without a rakata might stim, so my stats are even higher (~630 bonus damage and a little over 28 % crit). For PvP, I run 3 different specs. 7/32/2. this spec (when I'm lazy and don't feel like respeccing) and a slightly modified version of this spec where I drop a single point in Rampage and Sundering saber to pick up unyielding. I've been finding accuracy to be a VERY strong talent and losing it seems to hurt my damage more than losing pooled hatred. That being said, I love pooled hatred so it's often a toss up. I also tend not to max out Stagger and only tend to put one point at most into it, though that's very much a comfort zone thing. I've gotten to the point where I feel I can choreograph most, if not all of my opponents movements thus limiting the need for the extra time on the snare. That being said, it's not something I recommend doing until you're used to the delay and client/server lag.

Ok, good. We're in agreement

If you don't have gear, vengeance isn't for you yet. It's very much a spec that hinges upon having a decently high stat threshold that's optimized before taking it out for a spin. Rage, despite it's mechanical flaws, has a very nice floor to use with respect to how much optimization needs to be done. You *will* get more medals as rage in lower gear levels simply due to the fact that you will almost certainly get annihalator and potentially the healing medals. As far as mechanical play goes, don't think of it as a rotation. Think of your priorities. Here's a few general tips: - Savagery is your biggest launching points for damage. Always try to keep sunders up - Never scream immediately after a charge and get the shatter/impale off before you do so to maximize your opening burst. - Get used to the timing and positioning of ravage. - Use intercede liberally - Begin to think of creative uses for saber throw (this one is REALLY important imo, Saber throw is more than an opener, it can hit hard enough to be a finisher at times and get sunder stacks for swaps). - Get used to the flexibility of unstoppable - Master using Enraged Defense, this move WILL save your *** if you time it right.

Speak for yourself son >_>

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/a28f4cff-f107-479e-a4b0-3dcb4f2200af For those of you that were wondering about my gear/spec/mod loadout, here it is. I've found that losing the crit on malice, while irritating, is made up in part by battle cry since fights in EC require you to move around enough such that the gain from battle cry does help keep rage levels high (plus I'm just too used to the talent in PvP, so it's more a personal choice). There were a few things on this that were missing before (namely the 26 might armorings in the chest were might 25 armorings) but thankfully, the fatman has a very dilligent crafting crowd :3

Meh, that's what happens when you scan a text. That being said, letting your dots clip for ahit ny period of time is going to result in a net loss of DPS. Master Strike, while certainly strong, actually loses priority in the rotation when we hit 30% on a boss due to the fact that keeping up savagery becomes all the more important. In PvP I've found that the emphasis is far more centric on mobility and protection and while getting off a full ravage is unquestionably strong, it's not *as* important as you're making it out to be. We *can* afford to clip ravages in a PvP environment so long as we're prepared to follow up the lost damage. To me, I see it as less of a priority rotation in ability usage and more of a situational priority. In PvP sunder and plasma brand are the two best moves you can open with on any target EXCEPT a sage (since an impale will ALWAYS hit harder on them initially and make up for lost damage with shatter). OR if someone is low for a savagery-buffed vicious throw let by an imaple. Jumping into a ravage straight away is just grounds for that player to root and run or pop a cooldown. By letting damage sink in incrementally and then bursting out ravage it becomes MUCH harder for them to handle all the damage as there are at minimum four sources coming in (scream dot, shatter dot, impale dot and ravage). The internal damage and dots really add up, especially against heavily armored classes like PTs and non-sorc healers who can withstand much of the up front burst and mitigate master strike more easily than other classes. If you've gotten the charge off (which I hope) the rage from it and a subsequent sunder will let you get a good edge on most targets. TLDR: Master Strike and Ravage are certainly our strongest abilities in PvP, but stating they have unquestionable priority over all our other moves really makes it seem like you just want to tunnel damage rather than set up for it.

It's not your DoTs that melting a target.. Your DPS actually goes up using MS in place of PB, you should be only using PB to reset MS. The DoTs are just gravy, Master Strike is your staple, build your rotation around it and you'll find that Vig Guardian DPS is perfectly fine and in range of Sentinels. We don't need buffs to DPS because they buffed the crap out of our BEST attack in 1.2... That is NOT how DPS works in PvE in any way whatsoever. If you check ANY parses the dot on Shatter (plasma brand) is our second highest source of damage. It's critical that we keep our dots up on a target at all times (meaning cycling through shatter/impale/scream) as they really do add up.

Not nonsense at all. If you have fully optimized gear and stats it's quite the norm. I should add that my group has two other armor debuffs (from 2 arsenal mercs) which *will* hurt the overall damage in the patch, however, it only works out to be a 6-9% DPS loss and when you consider the static stat gain we will all get from additional augmented slots the losses should even out.

Nobody has said that the guardian is the BEST DPS class out there, merely that it's actually viable in both PvE and PvP contrary to the suggestions of several other posters in here.

If you look at schwarzwalds immortal DPS spec thread, he was hitting 400k/100k on the 1.2 PTS in battlemaster gear. It's very much possible to do so, if not easier than it was before.

Power has no DR. If you're below 1550 Str, go with the one with higher str, otherwise, the higher power one will always win out.