As a Vigilance Guardian with ~900 Expertise, I find that Shien Form results in a premature early death and waiting by Respawn doors. Some things, I have noticed about 1.2 PvP: Kills happen quicker, great! but now its about DPS class that can maximize their dmg as quickly as possible to kill their targets while popping their defensive Cooldowns but even with Focused Defense adding some resilience, the simple fact is that it burns through your Focus so fast that you aren't really damaging your target at all and thus not really making you any "better". Saber Ward still proves to be a useless ability in my opinion, it has an effect just not one worthy of a 2min CD and a GCD. So I DPS in Soresu Form and that greatly increases my stay in a fight but if I dont get the Saber Throw and/or the Charge, my Focus Generation is abysmal slow and not really beneficial to the team other than the control utility I had with Taunts, Awe and Guard. When I do get the jump on someone, my dmg is fine, a bit slower than other DPS class but thats normal as I am DPSing in Tank Stance but its a little silly to depends on Tank Stance as a DPS specc in PvP to be relevant and beneficial to the team. As it stands using a Shield Generator yields no real advantage in PvP so why the Focus Gen penalty? The other Tank Classes don't seem to suffer that penalty to their Resource/Dmg throughput? On an additional note, why is Guardian Slash on a 15sec CD? It should be at the minimum on a 9sec CD,,,, Either by Talents or straight fix or even by reducing the CD with each usage of Sundering Slash and Guardian Slash. What does the community think?

I am going to try this build: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500RrGzkzZfMrorhzzMZ0M.1 and only use Shien when I am fighting low DPS (healers 1v1s)

I used to be Focus like you until I took 1.2 to the knee. Enough for the terrible jokes, in lieu of this giant messing with Focus, I have decided to try a PvP specc less about burst but more about survability and substained DPS: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500RrG0dzMZfzrMrhzzM.1 After playing for a day with it, I have to say that I like it a lot, I have a lot less burst but I average 200k Dmg a game with an insane amount of survability, I can guard a squishy DPS without a healer and we can take on easily 3 to 4 people. Myself, I have no problem fighting anyone 1v1 except for Hybrid Healing Operatives and Healing Sorcerers. I simply have no burst to eat through their heals. So much so that I fought single handed a Healing Sorc over a Alderaan Civil War Node for 3 minutes (Got to use statsis 3 times). He would drop be to 50% and I would pop Focused Defense and basically go back to 75-80% Life and he would never dip below 75%. I think our Defense Tree or Vigilance needs a talent that makes one of our ability cause a Healing Debuff but thats just because I have no burst watsoever which could also be due to the fact that my gear is towards Focus and thus less Crit Rating, with a bit a higher crit I think the specc would function much better dmg wise. Right now suvability wise, its pretty ridiculous Notes: _ Fight in DPS gear with Sorensu Form. _ Focused Defense While stun is great (Espacially with 4 Focus with Stunned) _ Popping Focused Defense and Warding Call = 55% Dmg Reduction, (I get to 95% to Kinetic and Energy, 65% to Internal and Elemental) Followed by Saber Ward after Ability fade if I need. _ 1 Focus Cost Riposte is quite nice. Any advice on itemization other than getting more crit rating? Should I try to use a Shield Generator? Should I try to get some Defense Rating?

I think there is a lot of potential in a Gut + Assault Specc, due mostly from the fact that while you lost a bit of front burst, you gain a lot of a sustained DPS. In 1.2 with Shockstrike being Free and having an internal cooldown on Ionic Accelerator, I believe that Gut will be a great addition to the rotation. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#8010MZMsr0oZfGMbdhhMc.1

Good Point, I will definitely use the snare more often that would make sense. I feel like this is the same issue with Scoundrel/Operative and their Dirty Kick/Stun which basically Scoundrel gets rooted while the Operative doesnt when he uses it. When I watch Jugg videos using theirs they don't seem to be rooted for their animation.

Good Morning everyone, has anyone been wondering if there will be a fix in the foreseeable future about the Range of Force Sweep. In PvP i am often literally on top of my target while he moves away from me and me chasing on top of him, activate Force Sweep and bam no dmg because apparently he managed to run out of the 5m range. Is this due to the animation rooting us in place on the server?

I liked the video, but I feel the message isn't quite right. It should be about how "Vigiliance is cool but where is my burst?" Thank god JK and SK have so many ways to interrupt casters, at least thats some decent utility but when I see DoT ticking for less than a 100 Dmg per tick at 50 with that kind of Gear, I kinda cringe.

I am leveling up my Guardian for a PvP Duo Team with my friend who is playing a Watchman Sentinel. The point of the dynamic is that I offer him a lot more staying power with Guard up while he does his thing and I rack up the Force Sweep Bomb and drop it when his dots start taking people down low and also to be an agile ball carrying duo for Huttball. The point is for him to do all the Single Target DPS while I bring some timed burst and AOE while still keeping Soresu and Guard up. Here is the specc I had in mind: (Focus) But I am very interested in trying a similar build but for Vigilance. What are your opinions? I do not like that I have to avoid all the Shii-Cho talents in Focus because I need Soresu to Guard and which forces me to pick up Slash talents which I feel are just wasted.

Firstly while I find your point semi-intellectually stimulating, I still find it missing some huge details. Firstly your point is only valid if the population different on each server approaches a 2:1 Empire to Republic Ratio (1.75:1 is the threshold) A) On a server with more Sith than Republic you will notice Sith players playing against a lot more Sith in Huttball resulting in their own Faction screwing themselves out PvP gear progression. Abstractly you can assume (if you think that you have a 2:1 Empire to Rep Ratio) that for every 3 games the Empire Plays, 2 of which will be against Empire and 1 against Republic by pure normal statistic. This will result into a large portion of the Empire player base to have a slower experience in attaining PvP progression. B) A subsequent effect is that while this Empire Pool is not delimited, it will intermingle within its own mirror match ups and against the Republic, resulting in at least a sizeable portion of each Warzone for Empire to consist of undergeared PvP players, overall dragging down the effectiveness of the Faction in limited player matches. C) The Republic on such servers will enjoy higher rate of gear progression overall than their Empire Counterpart in Warzones and suffer on Ilum where numbers are not being capped. Where numbers outweigh the overall effectiveness of the match. While you can bemoan Faction imbalances in numbers, I can statistically bemoan the overall effectiveness reduction of the larger Faction. Remember those posted Statistic BW did of which Faction was winning more WZ? Well don't forget to the OP original point, that at least 1/3rd of those Empire Wins were against ... well their own Faction.

This official answer doesn't really explain the insane load times and the spike in transfer rates over the internet at certain points of loading a zone. In fact this official answer would tell me that Loading times should go faster since we are using a lower Texture resolution than possible as they optimize their system for 99% majority of computer specs. Look I have an i7 - GTx 560ti and 16gigs of Ram and the game never makes my Cpu temp go higher than 45degree Celsius, yet I see huge loading times and lower than "High" textures rendered all the time in game. Now officially this wont stop me for playing as I played Everquest in much of the modern MMO times (And that game's graphic engine is OLD). But it would be nice to know that I have the option to run the game in a mode that would make my Computer choke on itself.

My Bounty Hunter (as I recall): "Going somewhere Jedi?" *shoots him in the hip and falls off ledge into lava* That was the Lightside result ahahah.

I like my "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Missile" animation but I would agree that it would be better if Fusion and Tracer were changed. Ever better would be if they gave Tracer missile like the Sweeping Blaster motion Animation with with a Fusion Missile Activation animation in both arms that zeroes in on the target. As in the Arms move like Sweeping Blaster and in the forearms are the missile getting ready to fire like Fusion Missile.

Are really not worth the top 2 tier skills? I feel +15% from Crit Heals is good, just not worth 5 skills points at the top of the tree. Emergency Scan while looking like an "Oh S&&$ Button!" really doesn't seem to heal enough to warrant a 21 sec CD and top place in the tree. I do think Kolto Shell and Proactive Medicine are great but beyond those skills, I am not quite sure if putting more points in Arsenal wouldn't be better spent.

The whole mechanic of maintaining Heat instead of just watching your mana bar being siphonned off is such a fresh mechanic for healing. I was so bored of MMO healing when resource management was so passive instead of action-nary on part of the healer. Thanks Bioware! You get 1 Favor, just one.