My two cents on Torque, whom I killed last night as the only melee in grp & top dps, with a top spec TK sage on the field as well. Double fire spawns, but it's on a timer that is easy to tell. I got used to it,avoiding all but a few first ticks. Shoots Lasers is completely my responsibility, and as it usually spawns near boss, constant stream of DoTs on boss is applied onto it, the turrets nearby ( as tanks prefer one side to avoid the stupid bug with the Fix4U) and Dangerous Fire Devices. Sheer amount of AOE damage aside, the DoT spread of Vİgilant Thrust / Vengeful Slam in that fight is NUMERO UNO. Ours is instant application, no waiting or explosion needed, possibly the BEST and most probably the only choice as a melee dps in that fight. In instants where I was boxed in by fires and devices, GUardian Leap to healers or our sage worked like a charm. While killing Shoots Lasers, turrets would lock on and whittle away my HP en masse. Reflect should be KEPT for that instant. It ALSO reflects the Lasers' big laser hit onto itself, effectively killing it most of the time. Pretty much spam the Challenging call. Damage reduced from that, according to one of my healers, was in the range of 100k total, which allowed them some breathing room as tanks were pummeled by Torque. Pair up with a TK sage if you can. AOE damage increase applied on an AOE skill ( TK wave) make them superb choices for the fight and they augment your direct AOE as well. Vigilant Thrust is one of the strongest instant AOEs in the game, and it shows. And learn to dance. I had an epic music track running in the background, coz hell, I danced like Fred Astaire in the goddamn kill run.

We want some, I personally use 180 total with some might augments to keep myself at a total of 24% total crit chance. Some go for higher, some go for lower. Have at least 100 rating in gear, anything more is personal preference.

I should've probably said that I meant this for mostly PvE. Oops. Oh well. Yes, in pvp, focus guards do have advantages over concentration sents. My two cents on the issue is the same as someone above me have posted. Less survivable burst spec vs. More survivable sustained spec. It leans to Vİgilance almost always on PvE, but on PvP, I'd say that's a playstyle choice. As for the original poster's observation, you have a simple reason of maybe not seeing any Focus/Rage players. Because Vigi/Veng is a clear choice for pvE, and since only a small percentage of the playerbase actually goes for competitive PvP, you don't see many focus players at endlevel, if any. It's not rocket science to figure that out. Oh, "spreading our ideologies"?? I wasn't aware that I was a socialist all this time and simply infecting people with my 'ideas.'

I'm certainly not afraid of anyone, and I'm at the limits of my class anyway, problem is nerfing the IO / AP is going to do justice on balancing ranged AND melee specs. Otherwise, all of the less-than-top-spec players will have to hear "reroll to merc / commando." As it is now, lots of gunslingers have given up / have been forced to give up their classes. Oh, and I'm fairly sure they are also going to nerf the hell out of Forcequake / Force Storm, before anyone thinks of pointing to TK / lightning casters as an example. IO is not the only problem on the board as it is. As it is OP now, we have visibly BAD specs on the field. Balance Sage anyone? Or you know, frigging shadows / assassins ( if there are ANY left, that is.) AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, fix the OH damage affecting certain skills that it shouldn't, it's not fun for Rep side commandos when mercs have an unfair advantage over them like that. It doesn't happen in established raid grps OR to powerful players. It happens to everyone else. It's a long way up for anyone starting the game fresh, and when those poor bastards get to endgame, they face PUGs and less qualitative raid grps around, NOT the sort we are used to. Empathy people, the top PvPers and top PvErs are just a small percentage in this game, the rest of people, which we look down on as 'casuals', 'noobs' and/or 'bad players' make up the %90 of playerbase. If you were a relatively new player and tried to join a raid grp / guild, first thing they want is a parse, and since you are, hypotheticaly, a new player, not as good as top spec. Then they tell you, "Go Merc / commando" coz IO / Assault is a fast ticket to high dps with only 4 buttons, and gunnery / arsenal is even simpler than that with some less deeps. Would you train for hours upon hours as a, say, sage or sentinel or scoundrel or slinger, just to be able to raid, or would you bow down to the peer pressure and reroll? For a new player and / or average player just looking for the people to raid with, choice is unfortunately always the latter.

I think KBN nailed it with all the info much better than anyone else in the world bar a math genius, so I'm no longer asking for a technical explanation from bioware. I just wanna know what were they smoking when they designed 3.0 IO, coz that must be some good stuff.

Here's a nugget of important info. Sentinels are NOT a requirement anymore. I see raid leaders taking ranged or vanguard / guardian over them because they already have a sage and a commando to pop two arguably equal cooldowns, and they want the utilities that come from other melee more. Only shadows are overlooked, but well, we all know those poor bastards are the literal bastard children of this game, so... Anyway, sentinels don't hold a monopoly anymore. If it's not a top class sentinel, you can always beat them in dps, survive longer and move faster. They have a cooldown that lets them cheese one or two mechanics, but that's it. Bioware succeeded in making sentinels A melee class, instead of THE melee class. They still have the best burst dps in combat spec, but overall dps is balanced. Best sustained is also in watchman, but that seriously lacks in burst, unlike Vigilance which can do both. They have strengths and drawbacks, still near the top but not a lock-in choice because of one cooldown they pop once per minute. Problem with playing a guardian/jugg in pve is that it requires effort. Training in it takes more time. Sure, core rotation is simple enough, but in real fights, the reflexes needed to pop correct cooldowns and best times to use DoT Spread varies, and that takes training. If you look a quick ticket into endgame content, go vanguard. Piss easy to play at limits, boring and somewhat survivable. If you go sentinel, you need to compete with a lot of others that has been playing it for a longer time. If you go scoundrel, well, that takes even more training than a guardian. If you go shadow... DON'T go shadow dps in PvE. Just don't. TL.DR: You need to commit wholly to guardian/jugg dps in pve endgame if you want to excel.

you guys do realize this is entirely pointless? Since, oh you know, Sentinel version of Focus / concentration / whatever it is called nowadays is, STILL, leagues ahead of the guardian version? You people are debating on a really......uh, moot point.

Problem is, no assassin also has best DPS numbers, dummy AND real fights, the best survivability (arguably even on par with a melee, guardian) and best mobility.

Sure switch out a tank with a jugg or a healer with a sorc, no one notice. You WOULD notice when you switch out those merc dpsers tho. No, this NEEDS to be explained by someone actually being paid by Bioware.

A big no on Unremitting becoming a utility. You really DON'T want tanks getting that. You really, really, really don't.

http://i.imgur.com/87S3Mzx.jpg "All classes are more balanced now." REALLY? Please, give some explanation on this.

I'm not since I'm not a Jugg Really tho, I was this close to getting it, and that one raid I don't join, Nikkos got it TL,DR; I missed Deposer As for the issue of MDPS being hard; Life is hardship. I'd not ride a car if I were afraid of metal, if you know what I mean. And my group is perfectly free to replace me if they can find someone who does all the **** I do in fights, DPS numbers included. Good luck with that though, as I said, perfect errand boy.

There is no "I WIN" in guardian. Try vanguard.

The Progenitor. I used to play in Laurelin in LotrO, and that was an RP server, so I sought out a similar experience at the time. Of course, I had not thought about how the playerbase of LotR franchise might have varied from SW at the time After server transfers opened, Progenitor became the lowest circle of hell in terms of player skill. So we all bailed outta there. Eheh, I wouldn't be so presumptious to call myself 'the best' Awesomest fo' sure! You are a worthy adversary as always mate Those who switched pre-emptively, if they were not a rare 'multi-main' type of player who has a knack for playing lots of classes at limits, were basically scared. Fear makes you weak. eheheheheh, last part sounds so awesome.

Vigilance gets powerful over time. It reaches its full potential only at lvl 55+. But out of all DPS specs in the game, it's the most powerful in terms of offtanking, amongst the top 3 in sheer survivability and also in top 3 in mobility. DPS wise, numbers are also very nice if you can master it. Focus is easier, but you will die easier. Simple as that. "Playing a guardian as anything other than tank feels wrong." You'd be surprised how natural it feels to DPS with it after a while, so much so that tanking feels wrong. The AC has very good DPSing options, a very natural rotation and flow, and looks freaking bad-a.s while doing it.

My comment on Zorz is pretty clear cut. Yay for them. But if you are NOT hardcore of the hardcore-est raiders who have the luxury of doing 5-6 raid nights a week, following their example is a BAD BAD BAD idea. They usually have 8 players of similar high end skill. Maybe 2-3 other guilds in the entire world has that luxury. Rest of us needs to deal with grps of varying skill level, and the truth of "You bring the player, not the class" argument holds. Keep in mind that even Zorz was born out of the cluster**** that was Hatred at the end, and that had consequences in its own. If you try to copy them, you WILL fail. Invariably, unsurmountably fail. Hence, stacking group comp is a really bad idea. Especially if you want top spec players to play other stuff. Note: It should be noted here that the writer of this post believes that stuff like world firsts or what not are simply useless prestige gimmicks that has no place in the life of anyone besides 50 to 100 people playing the game at any time. Here in Red Eclipse, certain players, like me, stomped out all notions of stacking group comp. We have lots of raiders and lots of raid grps, being the primary EU server, yet in spite of that, no sane raid leader asks for snipers/ sentinels / vanguards only. Hell, there are instances where a Guardian dps is specifically asked for. And I cringe at that too, since it's also wrong to assume having any Guardian will solve your problems. I'm just saying, at a certain point, you need to evaluate for yourself. That's what I did when I was in progenitor. I evaluated and I saw that, no amount of skill would get me what I want, because players around me mostly had lacking skills. Raid leaders were either incompetent or desperate as their options were very limited. Switching to Red Eclipse was the best decision I could make. Now I don't know how it plays out in US side, but I didn't know Covenant was in that bad a position. If your raid leaders and / or fellow raiders have THE GALL to ask someone of your caliber to switch mains for HM runs, maybe it's time to pack up and leave for greener pastures. Guardians are by no measure the bottom of the barrel anymore. We might not be doing the best dummy numbers, but sure as hell we are the best MDPSers one could ask in a pinch. Survival cooldowns to situational tools, mobility options to controlled burst rotations, a guardian dps char played to its limits is a scary hurdle for any other MDPSer to overcome. There is a reason why Vanguard / PTs trail in most fights in spite of their superior dummy numbers. That's exactly it. Servers are overflowing with Vang/ PTs because 1) They are piss easy to play. So easy that it takes 5 to 10 hours to master one. 2) The effort required to get the same dummy dps in guardian to vanguard is ridicilous. You need to spend 10x more time in guardian. 3) Hold The Line. Ridicilously powerful skill. 4) Rocket Launcher. Looks bad freaking a.s.s. 5) People mostly go for two sabers ( dunno why, single saber looks more awesome for me) if they play a jedi DPS. 6) You need to cultivate guardian DPSers over time, keep at it and never go for another FOTM class. On a vanguard, it's easy to pick it up after a few patches and play at max level again. So anyone who has a vanguard alt at max level is potentially a vanguard dps in HMs. I haven't seen a single person who can play their Guardian in HM / NiM progression tear as an alt char.

It's easy to top anyone but COmmando / mercs in real fights. And once you are doing things to make raids succeed, people know they only killed the boss because you sacrificed DPS and did your job well. Or maybe it's just me who crushes all other DPSers but commandos Srsly tho, we are in a better place than vanguards, almost always better than sentinels (poor guys have half the utility these days), and MILES ahead of shadows ( poor bastards.) There is simply not enough scoundrels to test your DPS against, but I know for a fact they get ****ed with all the outgoing damage on melees in new HMs. P.S.: I make a TK sage alt practically sing in alt runs, and if there are adds, FORCEQUAKE POWAAAA!! People still prefer me in my guardian. Coz they know a good guardian dps is a god unto normal men. "However, we will always struggle in group that stacks group comp to progress; not saying that's a bad thing. Been this way, for what seems like, forever. Sadly, Ive seen more of HM on my Sniper on 16m than my Guardian on 8m this tier." Sry mate, but you need to find more intelligent raid leaders. Or simply overpower them. That's what I do. When you straight out humiliate the supposed-best dpsers in a server, people are forced to accept the facts and bow to you. ZORZ killed certain bosses with 2 snipers 2 mercs. Yay, they got the killz, good for their shortsighted asses. If you don't care about getting world firsts, you don't need to deal with that stupid *** ****.

6pc for real fights.... Unfortunate truth is the upfront damage and recurring crit on OHS comes more in handy most of the time. As for dps in real fights, another unfortunate truth. Guardians are THE PERFECT ERRAND BOYS. Bombs on walkers, sure. Bulo barrels, first choice. Torque laser adds, splash the damage good and burst it down with MS. Sparky add on maintank, you are the offtaunter. So, kills are mostly owed to your performance but your numbers suffer greatly

That is all.

I think you guys properly killed him Don't think he's coming back.

Known bug with the dummy allowing an extra activation as it dies. If you are a trigger happy parser, odds are it happened to every one of us a bunch of times. Use exitcombat times. I find that marker really trustworthy.

Actually, I find focus more easy to come by, I use the combat focus less frequently. Resetting the MS does actually give you focus back, since Plasma Brand costs only 1 focus. ( 3 focus feedback, 1 focus back from Shien) That AOE is the hardest hitting instant AOE in the game, and it spreads DoTs as well. Crazy nice. Optimizing without stacks in ZenStrike is a bit off putting, but you get used to it quick. Opening with OHS in raids and dummy helps a lot. That Force Stasis is nice to have when all your other instants are gone and/or you are forced to stay more than 5m away due to a mechanic. All in all, we are a bit better. You'll like it after some training.

There's one reason lettered mod is worse. It's the endurance. Problem with lettered mods is that they don't give you the exact same amount of Might in exchange of the power you lose. Overall might + power count on the Unlettered is always higher, because lettered mods transfer some of the lost power to the endurance, not fully to might. So lettered is good to use when you doN't have better, but BiS requires Unlettered mods, pure and simple.

Used the 6p bonus for this record parse, with 23.97% crit and 72.14% surge. MH 192. The overall crit rating is 40% with freakishly nice crit ratings on MS last hit and OS. No misses. %99.88 acc. There is one FOrce push that shouldn't be there, misclick -_- Here is the link to screenshot. Godly Lucky Parse I don't think I'm gonna top this for a looooooooooooong time, I usually hit around 4.55-4.6 on average. It must be some sort of divine irony to give me best parse while rocking the 6p set bonus instead of 4p+2p. Edit: holy ****t dude 43% crit on your 4621 parse, that's crazy. I'd be knocking on hea....uh, 4.8's door if I had that

I used 6 acc. + 1 acc augment to get 99.88% accuracy with a mix of 198 192 acc pieces. Using 7 acc pieces are severely limiting imho. Also, isn't 300 crit a bit too much? I saw a 2.40+% with 133 rating, anything above that enters the DNR curve. Finally, I have 6 set bonus. 6p bonus is ****. Total ****. I'm running a 4p + old sentinel 2p bonus (MS dmg. increase) which yielded an average of 150 more dps. the 6p bonus parses were around 4.3-4.45 while the 4p+2p version pushed the boundaries of 4.7. Need ideas about alacrity. Using 6 acc + 3 surge pieces, I used 1 alacrity piece for the final free piece, but I'm not sure. Not entirely anyway. Any feedback on alacrity return and how it affects is welcome. Usin full Overkill augments. The discovery of the ability of replacing all the crit lost from losing all that STR by just 100 rating was a srs wake up call for me. I slotted 2 mods and 1 crit enhancements, sitting at a comfortable 23.16% crit with 185 rating, power at 2350 giving 540.5 bonus damage. Meanwhile, 3768 STR giving 753.7 bonus dmg. 14 pieces of STR gives 1.71 crit%, while losing out on 21,84 exxtra bonus damage. I mean, it looks like an even deal. Undecided on augs as well. Edit: Gear is 192 with a few 198 mods in between. MH is 192. I have no idea if I'm doing well for the gear, or doing bad, or average, or stellar. Srsly, can someone tell me if 4.5-4.6ish parse is good or bad for this gear, I've tried over 10 variations to max. dps already, but for all I know, I might have already far above any HM requirements... Though I gotta say, aside from an Assault commando sometimes pulling ridicilous 4.5s in some boss fights with crazy movement, I always take top spot in deeps, so I don't reckon its too bad. That being said, my rotation is %4-5 flawed because of old reflexes, still trying to iron those out. Edit2: I cannot believe you actually advise people against taking True Harmony. Force Speed on Enure is PRICELESS on almost all bosses, especially in HM. The twin walkers without Enure Speed would be a certifiable nightmare for me. Let's not kid ourselves, we ALL need the speed. FINAL edit: Am I the only top end guardian NOT having written a guide now?