im lvl 40, i run pvp vigilence and i have no issues being top of damage charts in pvp. i rarely run with a healer and i also don't die very often. last night i went 48/1, 318k dmg without a healer in a match where my entire team was hovering around 8 deaths. So i feel pretty confident in saying vigilence's lack of burst damage is in no way a handicap as i feel very sufficient.

stop providing evidence and making sense, please.

speaking as a guardian (currently 37). So I've kept synthweaving max'd to level. the aim is to get to lvl 50, synth 400, and craft purple/epic synth-only gear and wear that. but then what? Outside of patches/expansions/add-ons, after that, what is the personal benefit to retaining synthweaving? Eventually i'd hope to find better gear than that via raiding. So what's the benefit to keeping synthweaving beyond lvl 50 after making teh synth-BoP lvl 50 gear? Would I be better served making the purple gear that is synth only and then exchange it for artifice or armorcraft so i can make orange armor upgrade at a higher level long term? Can't decide what the best post-50 skill is. I am glad i went synthweaving to level up with, but not sure of the post-50 benefit from it. Appreciate any opinions on the subject, been trying to decide.

lvl 36 guard. i have no issues topping damage charts in pvp without using aoe's using vigilence spec. fact is, i wont match dps necessarily, but because i live longer and feel i have a good set of CC abilities, my damage just keeps accumulating. i prefer vigilence cause i feel its more useful for leveling pve and pvp and grouping. i might consider focus at 50, but ill stick to vigilence for leveling. short answer- i feel above average damage as a guard/vig spec - plus my survivability i feel is significant, if played correctly.

=) put it this way... so far i've not had any measurable issues tanking. yes, other classes may have an easier time of it, but it doesn't mean we can't do a fine job of it either - and im dps spec without tanking issues. and i've not experienced the same trouble soloing others have either.

going dps for 10 levels wont kill you. you still have nearly the same tanking ability, and it will simply unlock more skills for you that help you in the mean time. 10-20 as dps will only make you progress until you can spec more heavily into defense. 10-20 doesnt take that long.

you still get hvy armor that mitigates more than other classes taunt works fine and you can indeed produce aggro it is not easy to round up a bunch of random gun shooters, but if your group is smart and helps you by not dropping massive aoe's teh whole fight, you can maintain aggro easy enough. it's also not unheard of to go dps spec for early levels until you unlock more of the defense tree, then switch to defense spec later on. crazy concept, i know.

not sure how many times it has to be said... just because guardian has a tank tree and can wear hvy armor does not mandate it can only tank and can't do dps. guardians do dps just fine. they arent designed to top the charts, but they seem very capable of doing so.,

this is my current. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500cMZIMMoM.1

as a pair, id say guardian pairs better with sage. i rarely get a healer, but when i do, its very uncommon for me to die unless specifically sacrificing for an objective. we just roll people the entire time.

im rarely outside top 3 dmg in pvp, so the OP overall theory is wrong. guardians do just fine in pvp. and jsut cause the class CAN tank doesnt mean they have no option but to tank. there are 3 trees for a reason.

hahaha, love that coming from a sith avatar.

that part always confuses me. i always end up top of the damage charts, without a healer. People always complaining such low dps, but i've not even had close to that kind of experience. this is ofcourse using a dps spec and not a tanking spec for pvp. from lvl 10 to 27, ive never had any issue at all outdamaging most everyone. so not really sure why others are having such difficulty. i don't feel im doing anything outstanding, just feel its the class itself.

another class being OP doesnt make your class broken. and my comments are more directed to people saying they cant do anything and the class is broken. guardian is simply not broken. the defense spec could probably use some love, but not everyone is defense spec. the class as a whole is ok, just hte defense tree needs some love (and maybe a new ability for aggro)

cant be overleveled in pvp... and ive kept my class quests yellow/orange, so not sure how that'd be underleveled. granted, personal experience with the class quest line is lvl 27 so far.

such insight. thanks for playing. honest attempt to hopefully help people not enjoying the game, met my sheer intelligence. thanks, have a good holiday.

i have no issues doing this. I hit a rough spot bteween 21-24, but that was it. if possible, i save force leap. I don't use it to open if i have a clean no-damage run into the sorc. I do damage, let them push me, then i use force leap. I use kick and force stasis as interrupts for healing or other dangerous abilities. I save and time push either for emergency interrupts or for when force leap refreshes and then i combo push+leap+master-strike. 1v1, i have no issues with any class except shadow/assassin - and even then, they typically drop fairly easily, but the really good ones are hard to beat. btw, healing spec bounty hunters take forever to kill, so make sure you time your abilities properly. if at all possible, save all your big-hitters for the end. if the BH waits until 30% to start healing, make sure you burn all your abilities to keep that from happening cause BH healers seem ridiculous at my current level (27)

not sure you can entirely ditch strike using defensive build. i am vigilence spec for leveling and shen form gives me so much focus, combined with other abilities/talents that i RARELY use strike. even then, it's typically on extremely long fights, such as world bosses.

So I've seen a lot of people very unhappy with the state of the class. I respectfully disagree, if anything, i feel we might be a bit OP on a very slight scale. That being said, I felt maybe I should share what I feel is important with those who are having issues and see if i couldn't make their experience more enjoyable. This guide/help is intended to help people struggling to level/pvp pre-30, and it may prove useful beyond that. As a side note, my experience is as a lvl 27 guardian, so i do not represent "end game" but i can say i've participated extremely heavily in both solo questing, pvping, and group playing tanking/dps. I am consistantly top 3 damage in pvp and feel i am reliable in pve as well (though no counters make that impossible to determine) Talents: Victory Rush - I rarely see people say good things about this ability, but to me, it's invaluable. At my current level, having focus is an after thought between stance and focus building abilities. I am able to only use 2 attacks - Sunder armor and slash. Victory rush combined with Improved sundering strike means that in 2 cycles, i've applied 16% armor reduction and can exclusively focus on using slash to apply more damage via attacks. (I sometimes ignore sunder armor on cloth targets, dependant on situation). This is my personal favorite talent for leveling early and I can not recommend it enough. Momentum - in pvp, having this as a free cost early in a fight is very valuable to me personally. It also helps in solo questing and grouping when closing a gap to an enemy between kills Single saber mastery - pretty basic, increase damage 6% and get unlock later for a new dps stance that also helps you build rage. Improved sundering strike - Not only does this let you put 16% armor reduction on an enemy in 2 sunder armor strikes, it then lets you stop using SA and allows you to focus on using slash and other abilities that cause more damage. just mix it in after that to allow focus regen (if you havent got other abilities that do that yet) Swelling winds / Perseverence - i only recommend these to fill the gap to get to tier3 abilities in vigilence. Having a shorter higher dmg sweep will be useful later, but wasn't the msot useful to me early on. Shien Form - This ability not only gives you 6% damage increase, but it also makes an absurd amount of focus regen. With this stance, I have to go out of my way to spend focus points or risk minimizing my damage. This allows me to ignore sunder armor after the armor reduction is applied and simply focus on damage abilities and situational abilities. I'm fairly close to being 50%+ rage most of the time because of this ability. (I bank some rage for situationals). This ability lets you "effectively" reduce the cost of all abilities by 1 focus. (disclaimer: you still need teh full focus cost to execute the ability, but since yuo get 1 focus back each time, it "effectively" reduces teh cost. Only the "down payment" is required.) Unremitting - one of my personal favorite abilities. This has saved me countless times in pvp. I love watching a sorcerer waste his time casting a spell while i crack his face in only to watch the spell mean nothing and waste his cooldown. If you pay attention to enemy spell casting and their abilities, they often waste more than 1 CC when the first one doesnt work. It's very cool going through 3 of their abilities and then having a CC break ability open when they finally get one. I've put down many players who focus on trying to CC when i cant be CC'd. Very cool ability for pvp. Gear: I can not stress enough how important it is to keep gear up to date. even small improvements seem to make a massive difference. Especially in PVP. I'm assuming the buff they give you to make you lvl 50 scales your stats with your gear, so effectively each stat you have increased should in theory make you scale higher. This effect will vary dependant on your level. I have a hunch/suspicion (untested) that it also takes item lvl into consideration, not just stats. CRAFTING: ok, the obvious choices are artifice and synthweaving I RECOMMEND SYNTHWEAVING MAIN - keep your gear up to date!!!!! synthweaving can upgrade feet, waist, head, chest, legs. It levels often and is on par with your current level. I can not say how awesome this profession is, especially since they made oranges far less common artifice - artifice used to be win when oranges were far more common, but since bioware made oranges less common, it's (imo) effectiveness DURING LEVELING is reduced. End game- I have a hunch that while synthweaving is superior while leveling, i feel artifice is going to be better long-term end game since it can affect so many different armor/weps. CRAFTING BOTH PROFESSIONS: my recommendation is to do BOTH professions. How can you do this? you can only have 1 crafting?!!??! simple.... roll an alt to lvl 10 and park him in republic fleet. Make money on this character by doing pvp or questing while you're crafting - or have a friend run your char through the story to get them to 2nd companion so you can do it faster, and here's why that's a good thing -> treasure hunting+slicing. recommendation: main - synthweaving / archaeology / underworld trading (note - UT is expensive, so spend most of your training in companion gifts to reduce the cost/time by half until needed for material) alt - artifice / treasure hunting / slicing here's why the alt is so cool.... TH and slicing both produce lockboxes for their faster skill ups. And you main has archaeology which is the primary skill used. So you can effectively get all the color/power/artifact crystals you want from your main and mail them, then turn around and just run dual skills during lockboxes in TH and SLICING. This will turn your alt into a cash cow between skill ups. This works best with the 2nd companion, obviously. Just use TH occasionally to get materials you need for crafting. Other than that, you have the 2 most profitable (immediate-credit) crew skills available on your alt who is used to gear your main. If you go both skills, you can easily stay max'd out on gear almost the entire time you're leveling, and in the end game, you're going to have a lot more flexibility in what armor you wear and you're going to be extremely self sufficient, and your guildmates will love you. ORANGE GEAR EXPLINATION FOR NEWBIES - so ever loot an orange item that is your level, but it has absolutely crappy armor or damage? ever try putting mods into them? the effect is staggering. The BASE armor/dmg on an orange item seems to be dependant on the LEVEL of the mods put in them, not based on the stats of the mods put in them. So if you get an armor with 100 base armor, but 4 open slots, you can then put in 4 mods/enhancements and suddenly that same piece of armor has 400 armor (making numbers up to show how significant the increase is). Having artifice lets yuo keep leveling the same piece of gear each time you can crafta new upgrade for it. The cool part is, synmthweaving makes some very cool orange armor, which you can completely stack if you also use artifice as a 2nd skill. When i hit dry spells between synthweaving armor making, i simply find an orange armor and buff it with mods and it fills the gap until synthweaving gets me a new upgrade. I do not proclaim myself a giant expert on this game or this class. But i can definitely say without hesitation that my experience is far different from the vocal members of this board. I've had no issues at all accomplishing all my goals in both pvp and pve. I can dps, i can tank, and i can annihilate in pvp (even without a healer). I hope this guide helps someone. by request, added my current build at 27 http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500cMZIMMoM.1

ive wondered this a lot. both with pve and pvp. honestly, i think it comes down to lack of gearing. im not sure people understand how important up-to-date gear is. even a small little bit makes a difference, especially in pvp. that being said, i've started to hit some rough spots with the class story at lvl 27. I was asked to defeat a tough enemy - took me a few attempts and changing my timing/approach, then the next quest i was asked to take down another enemy of which i had no shot at doing, even though the quest is yellow to me. I'm just going to go level some and return. i don't want to give away spoilers here, so i'll stop there. but short version is lvl 26/27 was the first encounter on jedi story i had issues with. i'll add i have no issues tanking or pvping. It's incredibly rare that i'm not top 3 in damage in pvp matches from lvl 10 all the way to lvl 27 now. And i have very few survivability issues. my main problem is being stun locked and only having 1 form of breaking CC. Other than that, the class seems exceptionally well balanced.

i should add, the reason their dps is near equal in pvp even though vigilence does more sustained dps is because inherently, you're going to do AOE damage as a focus crit splasher. this aoe damage should send you pretty high. i would imagine it'd be hard for vigilence to keep up with dmg charts during pvp, but im sure it can depending on the types of fights you're getting into and the scenario. if you're constantly jumping into 5 enemies, then obviously focus will do more splash damage. if you're soloing someone, then it depends on variables i cant calculate.

focus = mainly burst damage, yes. focus has perks to increase all force damage, and strike, and a stance. so it can be made to do a few things. it can increase stasis and push dmg by increasing your force damage (up to 30%) vigilence = more saber attacks. I would *assume* it would be the best dps against sustained opponents that last a while. I would imagine they'd be near equal in dmg for pvp, but, that being said, focus seems to do more useful damage in teh sense you can control when the damage happens and "burn" opponents down when you choose to. It's much easier to kill a healer when u can focus your effort and burn his HP at 40% than it is to sustain dps and kill him to 40% while he is trying to heal, for instance. also, it makes it easier to leap onto a low hp opponent and crit smash him dead, then move on and rinse/repeat. focus isn't utterly useless when sweep isnt active though - you can increase sunder strike/strike to do more damage and use that as a dps source while waiting for sweep to refresh.

"best leveling spec" will depend on current level. best spec at 15 is different than 25, is different than 40, is different than 50. depends on what is available to you at the time and how you're grinding. plus, you failed to actually link your build anywhere, you basically just said defense>all+kira

reason people burn sent first instead of guard: Sent wears MED armor, vang wears HVY - med armor easier to burn quickly in 2v1 people do not instantly know your spec, so its safer to assume the sent is DPS and you *might* be defense. defense typically takes longer to burn down and do less damage than a sent due to perks. so it's a safer assumption to kill the sent first. guard has a 5-20% chance to prevent 20% damage, sent does not. so easier to dps sent (physical). this is why people will typically burn a Sentinal before htey burn a guard in a 2v1 scenario.

easiest method (though will take time) will be to take up a crafting skill. artifice = slot enhancements synthweaving = armor for jedi i dont know how the armor scales/compares to later game items, but i know at lvl 18 i'm well ahead of loot/quest armor, a significant amount.