/rant I'm kinda getting tired of my main getting benched for primary progression because Guardian dps is such a *********** joke. At least in 2.0 the difference between the lowest parsing spec and the highest parsing was small enough to allow us to clear content without being carried, and mobility was only an issue in 1 phase in 2 fights. 3.0 it was all mechanics and mobility issues that caused our dps to be terrible, but now with 4.0, we get to be the class with the worst mobility AND the worst damage by nearly 1000dps. ffs /endrant

Bump Rebuilding our team 2. See http://paramount-gaming.enjin.com/recruitment for more details.

Can y'all make it work based off of where your camera is facing not where your character is facing, its a little awkward at the moment.

Bump Still looking for an exceptional healer. See http://paramount-gaming.enjin.com/recruitment for more info.

We are currently looking for one outstanding healer. http://paramount-gaming.enjin.com/recruitment

Bump Still looking for players for an east coast time frame group. All roles considered http://paramount-gaming.enjin.com/recruitment for more info.

We are currently looking for one outstanding tank for our 9:30 pst Tuesday, Wednesday group.

Bump. Still looking for players for an east coast group.

No no, this is where I recruit people, not where people recruit me!

Paramount is recruiting exceptional players for 4.0. See http://paramount-gaming.enjin.com/recruitment for more information and requirements.

Isn't it kinda clear that people preferred they way most of the specs played before 3.0? Why not stir the pot a little rather than stick with what people dislike? I know its nitpicky but I liked the 2.4+ zen strike much more than the 3.0 one, and combat and watchman are both so gutted its not even funny. I'm not saying go back to the way it was, but don't just keep it all the same either.

Someone liked ICC.

I want to preface this by saying I'm a big fan of set bonuses that have cause small changes to the rotation like the current 4pc, and I feel stuff like small dmg or crit increases are a waste of a resource to make the gearing process fun to go through. I understand having rotation changes tied to set bonuses causes frustration while getting those pieces, but I like the feeling of accomplishment when you get those pieces and the rotation falls into place. With all that being said here are my suggestions for the set bonuses; 2 pc - Reduces minimum range of saber throw by 10m. 4 pc - Activating combat focus increases damage done by 20% for 12 seconds. 6 pc - Your burning purpose damage has a 8% chance to allow you to use riposte off the global cool-down and reduces I'ts focus cost by 1. The 2 pc makes the rotation work properly, the 4 pc adds needed burst to the rotation and the 6 pc is a fun way to add about a 3 or 4% dmg increase to the rotation. (I'm not familiar enough with 3.0 focus/rage to make that last suggestion work for the spec)

I've been away from the game awhile but having just gotten back into it I would like to share some thoughts on this whole "melee dps suck" thing that's been going on in 3.0. I think the "root" of the problem are the changes that were made to mobility and utility of range classes (and vanguards) for 3.0. More specifically, making slingers/snipers not so relent on cover and perfect resource management, mando/mercs being able to cast unload on the move and getting instant cast tracer missiles with their new ability, and sorc/sages being able to instant cast a huge amount of abilities has drastically changed the dynamic between a melee and ranged dps etc... Pre 3.0, ranged dps had very little in the way of instant cast abilities which made a wide range of mechanics punishing if cool-downs were not used to negate them. However, now that a ranged dps is almost as mobile Guardians without the drawback of melee range, why bring anything but ranged dps? Bioware shot themsleves in the foot when they modified raged to be easier to play in raids. tl;dr: They failed to design fights in a way that allowed melee and range to be as competitive as they should have been because of the changes to the way ranged plays, not flat dps output.

Great work on the guide guys ! I would like to say, numbers will *probably* be better with the 198 4 set and 186 sent 2 set because that 1 min icd is lame .

The way wow changed their talent trees was fundamentally different than the discipline system. Swtor took the specs (i.e. vigilance) as is and put the core game play and abilities into a discipline that you can choose. They then took the fluff out of all three skill trees and put it into the utilities section. This allowed bw to make some balance changes and core changes (vanguard dps) that are actually pretty nice. In contrast wow took most core abilities from all three specs and put them into the things that you choose for all specs and kept the fluff and game play (for the most part) locked to the spec you choose. As an example, I was pissed when I was allowed to use combustion (big firey explosion dot thing) as a frost mage. And to the point of, "Hardcore raiders don't like disciplines" I love the system; not only do I love the system, it doesn't matter if I didn't because bw stepped up and made some pretty friggen' fantastic ops that I'm happy to be putting time into because they are actually pretty entertaining unlike the last tier.

I wanna say this up front, I historically have always tanked on my Guardian as his main role. That being said, I have done my best to move away from tanking on him (all be it "my best" wasn't really enough ). My problem isn't really Guardian tanking specifically, however it is tanking mechanics in 2.0 ops that magnify problems that Guardians do have when it comes to tanking. Specifically the mechanics based around threat (i.e. kephass clones on brontes or the monsters on bestia). To me it seems like bioware decided to make things mechanically easy, but overly difficult in the threat department. This causes a HUGE problem for Jugs b/c our highest threat ability is on a minute long cd and is stupidly useful for other things. To compound the problem, we get a % chance to miss our other high threat moves and taunts can only be used sparingly at best because for some reason every boss needs to put stacks on a tank requiring us to use our single taunt practically on cd. http://imgur.com/gallery/AdiBPrO /endrant

Just wanna throw this clarification out. Auto-attack in wow is a style of attack that does not exist in SWTOR; if ya want something like it ask for a new ability that does not trigger the gcd, does a tiny amount of dmg, keeps casting regardless of being clicked, and does not generate any focus/rage (aka a waste of bar space).

I've gone into burn at just under 2900, vigi does fine for all those bursty bits before the fun starts .

Without, still need both relics and an ear aswell... (and i need to stop getting gear for my dps set when im tanking )

As long as we're putting up pictures why not throw this up as an update to my old parse http://s1383.photobucket.com/user/touchbag/media/Parse_zps9248229e.png.html

What is the point of 5 stacks, why not just say 50% crit? Is the point to increase crit on the next 5 abilities? [̶P̶u̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶s̶i̶n̶g̶l̶e̶ ̶s̶a̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶m̶a̶s̶t̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶a̶l̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶2̶ ̶t̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶c̶h̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶a̶n̶k̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶r̶u̶n̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶o̶c̶u̶s̶,̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶a̶d̶.̶]̶ edit: misread that sorry Lets keep the discussion on how to improve Guardian dps to one thread so ideas don't get missed .

Just some more words. Shien Form: Damage over time abilities have a % chance to allow the use of riposte without defending an ability and reduces its focus cost by 2. (I personally prefer some RNG in rotations, I'm weird) Stasis Mastery: changed to a baseline Guardian ability. (yeah that would be nice and op in pvp, but hey why not say it?) Force Rush: Consuming 2 stacks of force rush gives the Guardian 100% crit on the next # periodic damaging abilities. Focused Defense: Changed to; heals the guardian for a moderate amount over 5 seconds. 30-45 second cd. Vigilance: In addition to its current effect; activating Combat Focus grants the Guardian 100% armor pen for the next 6 seconds. Nothing too well thought out here, only some more ideas to talk about.

Probably should have noticed that before I posted (and I like the suggestion!)

Why not throw my 2 cents in here The issues have been well fleshed out here by guardians much better and more experienced than myself, and I have so far really liked the suggestions tossed out about Enure becoming an ocd, AoE dmg reduction, and having all three ticks of MS hit the same. Because of the current 3 types of dps in this game (AoE / high ramp up, high dps / low ramp up, low dps) Vigilance falls into its own category of, mid ramp up low/mid dps. That would be awesome if none ever got to respec, example: if a commando didn’t get to choose between gunny or and assault, but that’s not how things work. We either need to get more dps, or we need to swap between targets more effectively. If something like throwing riposte was thrown into the rotation, we would increase our single target, low ramp up dps. Now, if we wanted to buff our single target, high ramp up dps, putting something like Force Suppression stacks onto riposte or the first tick of MS would be awsome . Now, if a change to dps doesn’t happen, a change to uptime on bosses/adds has to happen. I’ve liked the suggestions to change MS ticks so they all hit the same, (and I think that would actually increase sustained dps a little too) but I don’t think it goes far enough. My suggestion would be remove the cool down of force leap. Uptime, end of story. TBH, if this change was made some fine toning would be required with possibly removing the root and/or minimum range to keep things fair with pvp, but something has to be done to allow guardians to compensate for having the lowest dps, with a generally punishing dps loss when you break your rotation.