It depends a little bit on spec. As a Vigilance Guardian you'll find very limited use for Slash, and of course there are attacks like Pommel Strike and Opportune Strike that are only useful on trash mobs. But honestly, almost everything else has its uses. As Pendrych rightly says, you need to learn to use Master Strike. In 1.2 it's been made devastating, ESPECIALLY for Vigilance Guardians. Leap+Stagger roots the target so they can't run away, Unremitting makes it so they can't CC or interrupt you, and Single Saber Mastery, Master Focus, and the PvP Vindicator set bonus all combine to give it tons of extra damage. It's a nasty opening. Obviously it's going to be up to you for what kind of Guardian you want to be. Pendrych's 2nd spec is a pretty decent hybrid, presumably it's designed for you to be in Soresu (Tank) stance most of the time though. I once ran something similar, but my guild needs me as DPS instead of a Tank so I've gone full Vigilance. This is my build, it's a compromise between PvP and PvE: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#5000MZfMrRMhddrRZGM.1 So long as you're wearing up-to-date stuff and it's meant for guardians (meaning it's heavy and gives a strength boost) you're fine under 50. Try not to waste time with shield and absorb if you aren't going to run in Soresu and use a shield. Once you hit 50, buy some recruit pieces and start grinding, it's pretty quick nowadays to get a couple of battlemaster pieces. I would pretty much recommend the Vindicator set regardless of what you want to do.

Just wanted to chime in to agree with those who say that the story starts slow (i.e. Act I) but ends up really good by the last third. Coincidentally, it's also when Knights really come into their own from an ability standpoint. I also agree that at times the Light vs. Dark decision is really not that clear-cut... I frequently wanted to go "Dark" even as a good guy character, though I didn't for gameplay reasons.

You linked to a 7/30/4 build, though I'm not sure what that 8th point could possibly be doing. My take is that if you're going to go so far into Vigilance, you might as well take Plasma Brand. I'd also say that Sundering Throw is a lot more useful than Burning Blade (especially in the PvE Vindicator set where you get to throw your saber as part of your rotation).

Maybe this is obvious, but is your guard on him? If he's stealing aggro over the guard, that's... crazy.

Remember that you can swap mods and enhancements out of the BM shells (have to keep using the shells to get the set bonus), so don't worry so much about optimizing the choice with your other pieces. Just select your pieces to replace your current worst piece of gear, and target set bonuses. I think if you've got Stasis Mastery the best bet is 2 Vindicator (8% self-heal on Guardian Leap) and 2 War Leader (for +1sec stasis). The best way to gear up is still running dailies... there are a lot of them now (Corellia, Ilum, Belsavis...). You'll be able to pick up mods and armorings quite quickly, and make money, which you can use to buy Recruit gear for PvP (until you've gotten enough comms to get BM). Running Story Mode Operations will also get you geared quite fast, but you obviously would need to find a group to run with.

I agree with that, if you can push them it's fine. But as the OP notes, when you can't it's not a good situation. It's made worse by the fact that you have to run up to them to do anything since they can't be leapt to in cover.

I don't think Profound Resolution is worth it, particularly for this build. I'd rather have the second point of Shield Spec., and then Pacification to give yourself a little bit of a DPS boost.

Frankly I think they made it too easy for fresh 50s to start competing with the full battlemaster types. The removal of the valor requirement for BM gear and the cash price for Recruit gear (which is champ equivalent and thus competitive with BM) makes it easy for players to jump in. I find it a little frustrating that I had to spend weeks grinding to put together my champ set only to have it removed from the game and replaced with a vendor-sold option.

Well, there are matters of personal preference to some degree, but the important thing is to get to Warding Call/Blade Barricade in Defense, and Commanding Awe/OHS in Vigilance. This is what I'm currently running, though it has a few sacrifices to PvP that you might want to skip (and, as I noted in the other thread, I am reconsidering Gather Strength). http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500RMG0uZfRr0rhdzMZ0M.1

I went to look at my tooltips again (last time I did this was months ago), and I'm actually not so sure anymore. Based on those, each Burning Blade does ~50% more damage than an individual proc of Gather Strength (when you cash it in on an Overhead Slash). You have to weigh DoT vs. burst, but even given Gather Strength's ability to stack (and that has definitely allowed me to hit a couple of HUGE shots), I'm thinking you end up doing a lot more Blade Storms over the course of a warzone than GS-buffed OHS's. So perhaps it is better to take the DoT, sad though it is.

My general stance is that anyone who goes past 20 points in Vigilance is making a mistake to pass on Commanding Awe. The DoTs just flat aren't good enough to overcome that damage reduction. In particular I don't see the appeal of Burning Blade at all, I'd much rather put those two points into Defiance and Gather Strength. I'm also of the opinion that the third point in Insight would be better than the second point of Master Focus. Maybe this? http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500MZfMrorhdkMZur0rz.1

I do as well. In my opinion it remains better than the 31 Def spec at tanking up through KP/EV HM, though I have not yet done the new content so I can't vouch for it there.

That's EXACTLY what it's about. Class uniqueness is indeed a good thing, and an interrupt ability is not at all equivalent to your laughable example of jumping. Lacking an interrupt does not make the class "broken," anymore than Knights/Warriors lacking a stun (OR a CC!) or Scoundrels/Ops lacking a knockback "breaks" them. If anything the point here is how Sorcs/Sages have too much utility (heal, CC, stun, AoE knockback, interrupt), rather than Commandos/Mercs having too little. I don't often begrudge people their complaints, but seriously, this is QQing.

It's my bad, I misread the OP and didn't realize we were only talking about PvP. In that case Solidified Force makes a lot of sense, and the heavy emphasis on Riposte means that Lunge/Blade Barricade isn't quite as potent as it is in PvE. Momentum also makes a lot more sense in PvP than PvE, but I disagree that Dust Storm is "close to useless." As Capuchin says, it's equivalent to 5% defense, but it's not just for you, it's for everybody that the people you hit are attacking. That's potentially quite a lot of misses/blocks/parries you're causing every time you use a force sweep, and for 18 seconds.

If you're doing solo PvE, why are you concerned about aggro? The mobs keep attacking Doc or something? If you're level 50 you could always just Guardian Leap him if you actually had an issue. I legitimately do not understand the problem.

The game has a variety of animation delays, which are pretty much inherent to the online system. I've never seen the phenomenon you mention where the enemy will start responding to the taunt, run back to hit again, and then return to you, but I have seen them complete their animations (and thus seem like they are "attacking" after the taunt) before turning to run towards you. Regardless, this is not a problem inherent to Guardians, and I don't think it has much to do with our difficulty in AoE tanking. That said, I agree with your general comment regarding taunts. They are free both in focus and GCDs, and the cooldowns are relatively short, so why not use them regularly? I routinely will leap in, do a challenging call to get everything to attack me, and then hit with a force Sweep and a cyclone slash or two. That is usually all you really need to keep the mobs attacking you long enough for your DPS to melt them. If something breaks away, you have your individual taunt in your back pocket. The only time there's a real issue with AoE is a group of several elites, which again is only a problem if your party doesn't do the requisite CCing and marking.

I recommend my own build as a tweak from the other two 14/27 ones posted in here: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500dMG0uZhGr0rhdzMM.1 It's similar to what Druzod posted, in that they get the most damage mitigation possible for a Guardian, but this build skips the crappy DoTs in Vigilance. Force Rush gives virtually automatic crits on Blade Storm and Dispatch, which is absolutely better DPS than Burning Purpose, and pretty much everything is more useful than the extra 100-200 damage from Burning Blade. Gather Strength procs a LOT in PvP especially, and that bonus damage makes for much better burst.

Some will tell you that it's a waste of time, I think it's about the composition of the other team. Tons of Sorcs and you're better off using a focus. If it's Warriors and Snipers, shields can be very useful.

I think it's vital to an MMO for better armor be distinguishable from lower-tier gear. It gives players something to aspire to, and the more advanced players a way to show off. Offering full customization, as they seem to be headed towards, means that people who want to look different from that "standard" are free to do so. That said, these attempts are simply poor. Over the course of thirty years there have been thousands of interpretations of Star Wars clothing in games, movies, comics, and fan art, and frankly nearly all of them look better than even the best of these 1.2 models. Generally speaking the consensus is clear: simpler is better, this gear does not mesh well with the Star Wars aesthetic, and equally importantly, with what NPCs in this game wear. As a simple suggestion, how about BEFORE all the work goes into actually modeling and producing these pieces (at which point obviously the developers are committed to the outcome), the concept art is made public for discussion/critique, or is perhaps even made available for a vote of some kind (even if purely advisory)? That would have nipped many of these designs in the bud, especially the most universally reviled (i.e., the Jedi Knight helmets).

Just to confirm, I have also done the testing and the threat reduction does not apply to the Guardian. Not that it really matters since Protector is gone in 1.2.

Yeah that is an interesting change, I'm still not sure it does enough damage to be worth using regularly though.

There are several. Dispatch from 30% instead of 20%, free Awe, free Kick, no interrupts for Master Strike, and stun added to Force Leap (which some call a nerf but whatever). Perhaps more importantly, several classes got nerfed bad by 1.2, which obviously raises our relative strength. Swelling Winds wasn't exactly "nerfed," it just got made a 2-point skill instead of 3. You just have to shift a point someplace else, you don't lose any effect on a per-point basis. There are other things that could be beneficial to you depending on your build; for example, single saber mastery applying to Soresu will be a nice improvement for tanking guardians.

I've tanked HM Ops in Vindicator gear (though I have some War Leader stuff like bracers/belt). As for your spec, it's going to be changed soon for 1.2 so I'm not sure it really matters... but until then, I'd recommend Blade Barricade over Pacification.

I disagree. While in PvP the self-reduction was handy, in tanking situations it was not practical to do it very often (boss cleaves, AoE grouping, etc.). I would use it, of course, but relatively rarely, and I question how much damage actually got mitigated since you're leaping away from the boss' attacks. The 4% endurance was a much more reliable benefit. To me, the survivability drop caused by the loss of that endurance and the occasional mitigation from Protector is not a dealbreaker if the threat generation advantage remains the same. I don't think I understand your last sentence. What got buffed about the defense spec, outside of Guardian Slash? Seems to me it got its damage reduced (by chopping Pacification), and lost the ability to taunt more frequently (Command). If I go 31 in defense, I will most likely take the third option. If I try a new hybrid, my guess is that I end up without Momentum. I'm just not sure solidified force is really

Hmm, well that changes things slightly I suppose. Maybe a 14/25/2 build? It's basically the same as the old hybrid, but with someplace else to throw the Accuracy points (Stagger), and no more Protector (so -4% Endurance... the Guardian Leap bonus was never that big a deal). The defense tree got a better Guardian Slash, but lost a lot of Pacification and Command's benefits. I don't know, from looking at it, I'm wondering if the 14/25/2 isn't still the way to go... comparatively the defense tree fares even worse from a damage perspective than it did before, and I'm just not sure that Blade Barrier or the stuns make up for it.