At first I thought maybe he'd be a good switch-out for the Kira role, because he doesn't have to move around to deal with all the shooty mobs. But I haven't even tried him, because, you know, Doc.

I completely agree, although I think there should be a baseline multiplier increase for our heavy armor usage, to give all of us - but especially DPS Guardians - slightly higher mitigation. It doesn't "feel" like you're wearing heavy armor. Cyclone Slash is a real weak spot. A debuff would be cool, but I'd be fine if it just had a 25% higher threat rating.

Not to detract from OP's very good suggestion, but Opportune Strike, Pommel Strike, and Riposte seem to me to be excellent opportunities for threat-generators as well. Lorewise Soresu is designed around exploiting a weak point in the opponent's approach, and this would naturally be aggravating (which is itself part of the strategy of the form). So without making any changes to the gameplay or animations these abilities could be traited to generated threat, or simply say that in Soresu form they generate low-moderate additional threat. (I really prefer a ticking threat-over-time mechanic as a way to bolster Guardian, so that mobs that we aren't hitting right now are still gaining aggro toward us.) Of course we'd have to have these abilities NOT switched off for every elite - we'd need to be able to reliably use them.

As others have already said, your tanking gear will be all about mitigation and will be missing all the nice critical and surge bonuses. My son is playing a Focus Guardian right now and his stat priority is something like Strength > Critical > Power > Surge > Endurance. You end up stacking plenty of Endurance anyway, it's just not worth worry about. On the other hand, my Defense Guardian looks to Strength > Endurance > Defense > Power > Shield > Absorb. I know people will question where I put Strength and Power, but I have a lot more issues keeping threat than I do with sucking up damage. I need to hit hard. Anyway, you do end up with rather different kit.

I completely agree with you, and there are bad DPSers aplenty, but this doesn't account for boss fights with powerful adds (which you can't CC in advance and no time to mark out a kill order for them) and DPSers being able to pull single targets off us. Guardians just do not have enough threat generation to keep aggro away from high-damage DPSers unless those DPSers don't attack things until after the Guardian has spent 3 or 4 GCDs hitting them. If all tanks had to use that strategy, OK, it's the way the game plays. But it's only Guardians that need this handicap. The only conclusion is that Guardians don't generate enough threat. (We also don't have quite enough mitigation but that's another story.)

This is the correct answer. The fix will be to force people to slow down. Everything plays well when you don't spam-queue abilities. The test for this is simple, and I will try it next time I log in: set your ability queue down to a very low number (or zero if that works) and see if the problem persists.

Good point, this would need to be a Defense tree thing.

This is a really fantastic idea. All Guardians should have access to a passive blaster-reflection skill. However, I think the basic idea should be extended even further, so that every time a Guardian parries anything it procs low threat-over-time, so that you're more or less always ticking threat, but you have to use it or lose it. This also makes taunts work to recover threat and not just trump threat as they are now.

Get Exporatory Surgery for gaining Upper Hand. You can heal yourself before the fight even begins to get Pugnacity and two stacks of Upper Hand, and then launch your initial attack. Do some fighting, stun the target(s), run back, heal again for more Upper Hand, rinse and repeat.

And even in terms of damage and kills I usually rank in the top 50%, if not in the top 3. But yeah it's the protection points that you really have the opportunity to shine on.

Or just go straight Defense. You won't have any problems soloing.

I agree with the general concept - saddle the player with a detriment and then make them spend all their skill points getting back up to "normal" - is unfriendly. I'm not going to propose a grand solution to it. I think we're stuck with what we have. However, it would go a long way if the sprawl of focus-helping skills in the Defense tree could be consolidated somewhat. Maybe they could be replaced with threat-over-time skills or other kinds of procs after parrying or blocking. But let me counter all that by saying even at very low levels there is no focus-generation problem for Guardians. It is also untrue that Guardians need to "build up before using their attacks." I don't know why people say this unless they're looking at the class theoretically but haven't actually played it. In practice you unload large amounts of damage up front and then go into a build-up phase. Finally, my opinion on tank comparisons with Vanguards. (Strangely, for all their supposed greatness, I have seen no Shadow tanks yet.) I have pulled aggro from Vanguards, and not by using Taunt either. I have easily out-lasted Vanguards in dual-tank situations. In fact, I have out-lasted and out-aggroed Vanguards who were 3 levels higher than me. Having never played a Vanguard, I can only guess at why this is. Maybe they are more healer-dependent than Guardians. Maybe it's resource management, which is supposed to be quite punishing for a Vanguard if you don't do it right. Whatever it is, I can well imagine that those Vanguard players going "*** Guardians are OP."

Praven's AoE attack is vicious. You'll lose half your health. When he starts casting it, just walk away from him. After his attack is done, you're in a perfect spot for a Force Leap. Throw in some cooldowns and everything will work out fine.

This was the first time I'd seen this myself. I didn't get to open with a good Leap/BS combo, so I kinda came at him cold, but for some reason I could not burn him down.

These are excellent ideas. I'd also like to see Pommel Strike and Opportune Strike merged into something else, like automatically kicking in when you use Strike on targets that meet the conditions. I'd prefer Momentum to ramp up damage by less (like 4/6/8) but in addition its stun gets longer and applies to tougher mobs.

Yeah you can understand why they nerfed some of the Guardian's abilities (removing Force Pull, toning down Blade Barricade, etc). I'm only mid-level, specced Defense, and I consistently rank in the top spots. Guardians are absolutely brutal in PvP. I don't know about further nerfs though. Today I attacked a level 19 Agent who just stood there calmly healing through everything I could dish out. Then another agent stabbed me twice and killed me. Not bashing on Agents - just that there are other big fish in the sea. I've had plenty of trouble from Marauders too.

I think you will be OK in any tree, but stick to one and study it well. Play to your strengths. As Defense, I too solo 2-man heroics. I do this by being well geared all the time. Don't ignore PvP. When you're done with a planet, stick around and grind out some commendations to get the best mods for your kit (you are using at least an orange lightsaber, right?). Use the commendations to gear out your companion too. You won't get much XP from commendation-grinding, so you won't have to worry about overleveling. (If you really want to overlevel, space missions are there for you.)

Were you running with the tank companion as a Shadow? Are you using the tank companion with your Guardian? Normal mobs: Leap, Sweep, Blade Storm. That takes care of them. Both Leap and Blade Storm do tons of damage and keep normal mobs from doing anything, so you can't really take damage while you're burning them down. (Since you're talking about "tank" I assume you specced for the free Blade Storm and the 5% debuff on Sweep, right?) Important tips: 1. Hit Riposte every time. Every single time. You can't do damage if your attack is blocked, and Riposte can't be blocked. 2. Sunder the bejeezus out of things. If you're using Kira, she doesn't always pick targets so well. For example, if there are 4 normal mobs you're trying to take down and three are in a pack and one of them is standing off a ways waving his blaster around (as they do), Kira often jumps into the pack with you. That's not terribly helpful. Let her keep the lone wolf from shooting you instead. But you'll have to manually order her onto that target.

I'm not so sure. I've done some flashpoint tanking in this level bracket and it worked fine (at least "fine" as defined as we didn't wipe). Now I am not one of these "I've tanked raids in seven MMOs" people. I am strictly amateur-hour quality. I was always able to hold aggro on the main target. I did my best to taunt other mobs off the rest of the group, to apply Guard on whoever was drawing too much attention, and to apply as much Sunder as possible. This worked. I didn't feel responsible for keeping every normal mob occupied - just the elites - but obviously if the healer is getting mobbed you try to fix that. So I don't think it's really that bad if a screw-up like me can do it.

Yeah this is how you do it. Don't leap the sorcerer, he will just knock you back and pump you full of lightning. Just run up to him, wait for the knockback, and then do your leap. I am not high enough level yet to have most of the coolest tools, but I can reliably dish out lots of pain on squishies. I have a harder time versus higher level Juggernauts and Marauders.

Amen. In fact it's my understanding that PvP is what led to the presently nerfed status of Guardians. We were too sticky and too resilient - nobody could peel us off or kite us. So the nerfbat struck. Hopefully they realize this approach is stupid sooner rather than later.

I am so far entirely specced in Defense. I am always in the top 50% in PvP matches and often in the top 3 for damage dealt. I get kills and medals all the time.

I am so far entirely specced in Defense. I am always in the top 50% in PvP matches and often in the top 3 for damage dealt. I get kills and medals all the time.

Nice write-up. One thing that helped me was to actually map out abilities, focus pluses and minuses, and cooldowns and see what made sense in terms of stringing things together. You can hit very hard if you chain sensible skills. Another tip: Don't ignore Riposte. It's very very important. And another: Saber Ward is not "wimping out."

Totally agree. Not broken. Needs a bit of tweaking is all. There is a "knack" to Guardian gameplay. Appropriate gear is part of it, but I am not exceptionally geared and I top PvP charts too. (And I am specced totally Defense.) I compare Guardian style to musical rhythm - there is a beat you have to recognize and follow: the ebb and flow of Focus. If you're deaf to the rhythm the class probably feels clunky and ineffective.