Copy from a thread on the Guardian forums: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=906429 I've been talking some with Rydarus about Guardian issues. I was going to make a post about this, but might as well talk about them here, as it mostly has to do with arena survivability. Here's a combination of our ideas: For PVP survivability, I feel that with other classes receiving incredibly strong anti-focus tools, we're falling behind. Focused Defense can be bursted through quite easily, reflect is a shorter duration and more limited when compared to Commando reflect or Sentinel pacify, and Guardians have no reset like Sentinel or Shadow's stealth out. Commando and Sentinels have 3 effective anti-focus DCDs with 2 of them on a short CD. Guardians have 2 which are less effective and on longer CDs. My DCD suggestions are the following: Reflect - Lower the cooldown of reflect to 45s and make it baseline 5s. Replace that part of the utility point to make reflect have another secondary effect. Rydarus suggested adding another root break effect, but we have plenty already. I'd suggest maybe allow it to reflect single target melee damage as well. Guardian Leap - Allow guardian leap to purge roots and slows by default, and allow either vigilance or focus to avoid all damage and effects during the guardian leap (similar to ops roll and blade blitz). I'd like this for both DPS specs, but it would be too OP for tanks. Rydarus didn't like this suggestion. He wants the old 8% HP returned on Guardian Leap back. While I do miss the heal, I believe my suggestion would help more for anti-focus usage. It would allow you to avoid burst damage. Rydarus' suggestion would help more for dealing with sustained damage. Focused Defense - To bring this defensive more in-line with other anti-focus DCDs, DPS specs should get a 40% damage redction buff for 6-10s if 10 stacks of Focused Defense are consumed. As for your ideas Zodius, I like my reflect idea more. It allows reflect to retain its power as an anti-focus tool having a 5s duration, but still on a shorter CD than what we have currently. However, I would rather see your idea be implemented than have nothing happen at all. In its current form, reflect is relatively weak and needs a change. However, I'm not a fan of your suggested Enure change. I like how Enure interacts with medpacs, and is fairly unique in general. Your suggestion would problem by OP for tanks, too. I would suggest that both DPS specs get access to the 15% damage reduction that Vigilance enjoys current. I would also suggest that it be increased to 20%.

I've been talking some with Rydarus about Guardian issues. I was going to make a post about this, but might as well talk about them here, as it mostly has to do with arena survivability. Here's a combination of our ideas: For PVP survivability, I feel that with other classes receiving incredibly strong anti-focus tools, we're falling behind. Focused Defense can be bursted through quite easily, reflect is a shorter duration and more limited when compared to Commando reflect or Sentinel pacify, and Guardians have no reset like Sentinel or Shadow's stealth out. Commando and Sentinels have 3 effective anti-focus DCDs with 2 of them on a short CD. Guardians have 2 which are less effective and on longer CDs. My DCD suggestions are the following: Reflect - Lower the cooldown of reflect to 45s and make it baseline 5s. Replace that part of the utility point to make reflect have another secondary effect. Rydarus suggested adding another root break effect, but we have plenty already. I'd suggest maybe allow it to reflect single target melee damage as well. Guardian Leap - Allow guardian leap to purge roots and slows by default, and allow either vigilance or focus to avoid all damage and effects during the guardian leap (similar to ops roll and blade blitz). I'd like this for both DPS specs, but it would be too OP for tanks. Rydarus didn't like this suggestion. He wants the old 8% HP returned on Guardian Leap back. While I do miss the heal, I believe my suggestion would help more for anti-focus usage. It would allow you to avoid burst damage. Rydarus' suggestion would help more for dealing with sustained damage. Focused Defense - To bring this defensive more in-line with other anti-focus DCDs, DPS specs should get a 40% damage redction buff for 6-10s if 10 stacks of Focused Defense are consumed. As for your ideas Zodius, I like my reflect idea more. It allows reflect to retain its power as an anti-focus tool having a 5s duration, but still on a shorter CD than what we have currently. However, I would rather see your idea be implemented than have nothing happen at all. In its current form, reflect is relatively weak and needs a change. However, I'm not a fan of your suggested Enure change. I like how Enure interacts with medpacs, and is fairly unique in general. Your suggestion would problem by OP for tanks, too. I would suggest that both DPS specs get access to the 15% damage reduction that Vigilance enjoys current. I would also suggest that it be increased to 20%.

Granted, I haven't been back long, but I have been surviving fairly well in yolos. I use my short CD DCDs first, and especially use mad dash to dodge burst and LOS range while singling out any melee. I usually can win 1v1s vs maras. If I can't, I can kite them pretty well with ravage and saber throw roots. I save longer DCDs for when I can't LOS, kite, or single people out. However, I do understand the problems with merc. They have 3 heal to fulls, a reflect, aoe knockback, and net. How'd that all go through?

I have 0 mobility problems as Veng by having all the root break and rooting abilities. What helps in arenas the most though is the mad dash root break and CD reduction. That utility has saved my *** from focus fire more than anything else.

This has been the cycle of ranked since the day 8v8 ranked was a thing.

If a DPS is guarding, they're going to be extra squishy. Just blow them up. This is why DPS guard is rarely used in solo ranked.

As you may have seen, I've returned to check out the changes. I don't know exactly how long I'll be back, but I'm enjoying it overall so far. Below are my initial thoughts. Let me know via PM if you want more details or assistance on the PVP portion of the guide. Utilities in regs and yolos so far: http://dulfy.net/2014/10/13/swtor-disciplines-calculator-swtor_miner/?link=dGEBAAFGAwABGgIDCwwQDhMU I might switch out through peace for second wind or pulse for yolos. My initial thoughts in PVP is that we're very strong in regs, but are suffering from being perceived as very weak in ranked. However, my experience in solo ranked so far (only one night, but I learned a lot in that time) is that we're not as weak as initial perceptions, but are still slightly weaker than where we should be. A lot of people are citing mobility issues, but I haven't had any problems with that. Using the blade blitz and combat focus root breaks in addition to having saber throw root and freezing force speed boost has allowed me to rarely miss more than 1 GCD due to being rooted or knocked back. Speaking of blade blitz, it feels like it is the key to surviving getting bursted when you're the focus target it allows you to predict and avoid the initial burst and LOS range. Against maras, I let them jump on me, slow/mez them, and blade blitz either to our focus target or behind our team if I need to LOS more. I can follow up with saber throw root afterwards if I have an opportunity. I'll also use blade barrage root to kite melee with blade storm, whirling blade, and saber throw. Against ranged (read, mercs lol), I'll blade blitz to LOS during their initial burst or reflect and walk to LOS. After that, I'm fairly free to get on our focus target, but stay close to LOS in case I get netted. I play around shield with push, root and los, hard stun, or a combination of these. I try to do the same with reflect, but if we're hard focusing the merc I'll dot up a near by target and vigilant thrust, then freezing force to avoid taking damage.

With a higher occurance of arsenal mercs, shield stats are actually valuable. They don't have a lot of I/E damage and less auto crit. Yes, most mercs have roughly 40% crit, but you'd be surprised how much having good shields helps you survive. Also, keep in mind that you can dodge/shield guard damage. It just doesn't communicate that via the UI very well.

I'm back for now checking out the changes. While having a utility point that makes it so I have a 8m AOE that slows enemies, boosts me speed, and does a ton of damage is admittedly great in PVP, I have to agree that it feels off to be prioritizing it so often in my damage rotation. At the same time, Blade Barrage is more and more being used more for it's rooting properties than its damage. When/If they nerf Freezing Force's damage, they really need to buff Blade Barrage in some way. While I would like it to return to being a hard hitting burst attack, thematically it might make more sense to have it apply another dot.

It was a change made in 3.0 specifically to taunts. Taunts have a base chance to miss based on accuracy.

I tried lower accuracy. It was horrible. I was noticably missing far more leaps, ohs, conc slice, ms, etc. Even on targets without dcds up. Plus the return on surge goes down drastically after 72%. Also, conc slice does almost as much damage as focused burst over the course of a fight if you don't miss with it. Additionally, most of Focus' fillers are whit damage. As for crit, 0 rating works fine, but 1 crit mod does too. There's a lot of attacks that aren't auto crit, including a lot of conc slices outside the 1 min lockout on the auto crit.

I doubt that. All Guardians have a passive 20% extra damage with melee attacks from Single Saber Mastery. That makes up for not having an off-hand hit.

Both specs rely heavily on white damage, even Focus. So, I would never run anything less than 94% accuracy. I personally run 95% accuracy, one crit mod, strength augments, and the rest in power/surge. These stats work very well for both specs. Also, on the topic of augments, both work well. Power augments provides slightly higher burst potential while strength augments provides slightly higher consistent crits.

Vigilance is better at 1v1s than Focus due to Unremitting, Commanding Awe, and better target control. I do a fair amount of 1v1s, and I haven't lost against Focus as Vigilance yet. I also kill shadows, ops, and sorcs easier a Vigilance as well. The burst is nice, but is easier to shut down, and survivability is still noticably lower than Vigilance. In ranked, both work fine. In group ranked I play both, depending on group. Focus for just all out burst, Vigilance for good burst and group pressure in between burst windows.

Actually, the only other dot spread that is rotational is virulence sniper. The real problem with Madness and Hatred dot spread lies in the combination of advatages those specs have in ease of spreading. DF being rotational is definitely one of them. Here's all the reasons: Spread ability is rotational Spread ability is range Spread ability is instant (merc spread is cast or off a grenade) Spread ability is ground targetable Spread ability has 8m radius (combined with ground targeting allows utilizing full 16m diameter) Spread dots are two hard hitting (for dots), long lasting dots.

Vigilance and Focus are never going to get even close to 1 mil prot. Immortal can.

Crit rating and main stat have completely separate diminishing returns. So, running main stat augments doesn't affect crit DR at all. Secondly, crit rating DR doesn't see any heavy downturn until 300 crit rating. However, PVP stat budgets don't support going that high for Vigilance, but 150-200 crit rating is fine. I prefer a little lower for better burst chance, but 150-200 works just as well for overall numbers. Third, Vigilance relies heavily on white damage attacks. 94% accuracy is mostly fine, but I really notice misses on OHS, MS, Leap, Dispatch, etc. Plus the fact that the soft cap diminishing returns on Surge starts around 70% or so doesn't really persuade me to run low accuracy.

Coming from a team ranked perspective, the only specs that I've seen that are too strong right now are Madness and Hatred. Their dot spread mechanic has massive advantages compared to other classes, that allows for huge amounts of group pressure. I haven't seen any other specs get close to being able to pull the DPS numbers that Madness and Hatred can. Most other specs are fine. However, all sniper, mara, ops (dps), and merc (dps) specs need help to work in a ranked environment. Mostly in the survivability department. Some need better burst windows (carnage and concealment). All maras need extra mobility that doesn't cost them a stack of Fury.

Here's what I consider to be required for Vigilance in PVP: Debilitation - No brainer. Battlefield Command - Force Leap is your main gap closer and source of Unremitting. Shorter CD means better uptime, better survivability, eating less CC, and getting kited less often. Pulse - Force Stasis is now a hard stun, so having 15s lower CD on it is amazing for various reasons. Purifying Sweep - Guardian DPS is the only role that can provide AOE sunder. Considering that Vigilant Thrust should be used a lot in PVP, this utility makes a lot of sense. Plus it makes target switching a breeze. Highly recommended utilities: Gather Strength - Very good DPS boost to Overhead Slash and Dispatch in PVP. Especially considering all the slows and roots being thrown around. Second Wind - If you're queuing without a healer and you're getting bad teams a lot, this can help more than Gather Strength. However, I queue in premades more than not, and never spam my CC break on CD anyways. So, I use Gather Strength most of the time. Jedi Warden - Short CD on Force Push is great for Vigilance. Great for offensive, defensive, and utility use. The free slow is also quite nice situationally. Notice that I don't mention a seventh. That's because most of the heroic tier is great, and from here pretty much any of them are useful. A lot of it comes down to play style. Personally, my seventh utility is True Harmony. I really wished this utility also removed roots and slows, but I've found it very useful for chasing down ranged targets that are trying to hide behind their team or kite. Especially vs snipers, who live and die based on how well they can control a target.

I don't take the root talent and just pair it with Force Exhaustion. A lot of people try to get away from it because they aren't rooted, but don't realize that they can't due to the progressive slow on Exhaustion. It's actually really good extra burst when done properly. Master Strike can still hit very hard. With all crits, I've done over 20k with it, on occasion. As for the stun issue, I would rather have them use the stun on Master Strike than during a Focused Burst > Concentrated Slice window. Also, it most certainly is a DPS increase to use rotationally, even considering the CD reductions. I pretty much only PVP as well, and use Master Strike a lot when I play Focus.

Master Strike is a rotational ability as Focus. It's used every other rotation window. However, it's obviously not as big of a deal as in Vengeance. In PVP, you can hold off using it a bit, but it most certainly is a DPS gain over Bladestorm or Riposte (your other fillers.) And yeah, neither DPS spec ever uses Slash rotationally.

Except for the small detail of tanks in dps gear still won't match properly played dps specs. And if they actively guard, they melt like butter with any decent amount of pressure. I've already done 2k as focus, 2.5k as Vigilance, and I think I could push 3k with the right conditions. I haven't seen tanks get close to that.

From everything I've seen so far, all 3 tanks work well. However, some tanks work better with certain comps.

You need at least 94% as jugg dps. I recommend 95%. Both dps disciplines have heavy hitting melee attacks. Additionally, if you miss a force charge, the enemy isn't rooted.

Only if you get out of combat. While that can be fun in games where you're jumping from one target, getting a quick kill, and jumping to the next, you're usually winning those kind of games. I would rather have utilities that help me more in those hard, pitched battles. Additionally, Force leap already has a low cd, and Combat Focus rotationally has a 18 secondish cd as Focus.