You also want to search ideal statting for a tank. (assuming you go defense) Dipstik and KBN's threads are great threads that tell EXACTLY how many of each stat to stack depending on how much your current gear level is (not in percentage but in actual rating points). Here is KBN's: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=616779 As for threat understanding, here is my understanding of it, not quite exact though. Don't know guardian tanking well, just shadow . In general, 1 point of healing generates a half point of threat. 1 point of damage generates a full point of threat. Tanks have a Tank stance, which multiplies threat generated by two. for a tank, 1 point of healing is 1 point of threat, and one point of damage is two points of threat. In addition, you have the taunt, which forces a target to attack you, and multiplies the existing threat on the target by a small amount (I believe it adds 30 percent of the person at the top of the threat table). With that in mind, as a tank you don't want to taunt until as late as possible, the earlier you taunt, the less bang for the buck you get. 30 percent of 1 threat is useless, so don't taunt at the beginning! Most beginner tanks or inexperienced tanks often expect their dps to "throttle." Unless there is a massive gear difference (even then proper spacing of taunts will help you keep threat after the first 20 seconds or so), it is impossible to lose threat to a dps unless you are A: doing something wrong, B: you had a long string of misses and resists (Don't stack accuracy. bad.), or C: the boss has a threat drop mechanic. My basic understanding of the guardian opener priority system, is to basically keep EVERYTHING on cooldown. When opening, you can either saber throw then leap (you risk losing threat early imho), or just leap, then sweep (sweep generates a lot more threat than sundering strike) then Guardian slash once the armor debuff is up, Riposte, blade storm for the bubble, with a single taunt either in the riposte or blade storm. Riposte should be practically spammed on cooldown. Blade Storm should be always up for the shield. After blade storm, hilt strike (also on cooldown). Master Strike then AOE taunt if close to losing threat, then Sundering Strike for focus rebuild, with Force Stasis after coupled with slashes. The more experienced guardians can help

well i think its near impossible for it to proc at exactly every 9 seconds. The best i've ever seen is a 13 second from a friend who got REALLY lucky.

Manweth, when rep season comes, I hope to *********** god you are class rep. They deserve every bit of **** you will give them. And Bioware's metrics, are ****. All of their class balance metrics, are ****. They most likely have a script to run the so called 100 percent optimal rotation complete with perfect rng, which is flawed. Plus, with decent metrics, they would have predicted the hybrid spec sniper and slinger, which they didn't. The only valuable recorded metrics, are the PVE dps leaderboards world wide and the respective server leaderboards, and the PVP ranked boards, since regs are, frankly, the story mode ops of the PVP world. The metrics are near irrelevant, even if they existed in abundance.

Everything but the highest gear can be craftable, but you have to reverse engineer the stuff to craft it. You won't be able to "find" the schematics. By the time you craft it, you will have the gear. Vigilance is viable but not competitive. Defense/Tank is a decent tank, but tanking isn't a low pressure endeavor in an OP. if you in essence can't handle high pressure situations and micromanaging situations, this isn't for you.

Hey, nice guide! Quick question: I really need an english BIS parse for watchman to analyze for a guildie who is having problems tackling the spec. I'm having trouble discerning the amounts of hits sentinel abilities have in watchman, IE how many hits from mainhand and offhand the merciless slash has, and other good ****, to calculate how much an attack is used and how often it is used. Any help would be appreciated.

Meh Manweth, analyze some of the leaderboard parses. Fixing RNG helps but not everything is fixed. A 15 second proc rate on master strike is relatively perfect. Thats almost proccing every time. With that kind of luck Guardians are still pretty low. We do need other buffs. If we change the nature of Zen Strike, we need to have focus returned to us elsewhere, as the four focus from proc is invaluable. Like I said, even if we have a stable proc rate of 15 seconds between every Master Strike, we still need 100 or so dps to breach 3.6k, let alone catch up with other classes. RNG fix isn't everything. Not quite.

Thran, the war has begun. -brandishes Cyan bladed Lightsaber-

I just wish we kept that *********** autocrit dispatch.

I as a Vig don't WANT to be OP. I don't want to be the next assault commando or the next hybrid slinger. I just want to be competitive. I want to walk into an op, and know that I am not potentially the first one to go because on leaderboard X and Y, Vigilance Guardians are the crappiest DPS spec in the game. Nor do I want little timmy here, a shadow, to take the blow as well. Because god knows both of us are only doing some 3.5 on the LB while every other mofo is doing 3.6-4k. Because the amount of parsing I do just to get to 3.2k is ridonkerous. I can only get a decent parse about once every 3 weeks, simply because the pain of having to grind the way up with the greatest RNG and crits is insane. And the amount of parses where you sustain 3.4 for the first 750k health of the dummy with AMAZING procs then slowly dip down to 3.1 by the end. That is annoyance. Knowing that I can't do anything within my skill to fix it, it was just a random, flawed proc.

Yes they did. But remember, 16man places LESS responsibility on the individual. There are so many other DPS in group. Guardians are "viable." But they aren't competitive. In a big dps pool, they are takeable. But in a teeny tiny 4 man dps pool, they kinda look like low man on the totem pole and could be the last choice in the entire thing, just like shadows and vanguards. I'd like to see who used a DPS guardian in an unnerfed Dread Guard 8man group. None. Nor a Shadow. (unless there was a wildberry...) And for those complaining about scrapper mobility (feel ya there), Vigilance Guardians have a similar problem. You see, 25 percent of the damage of a Vigilance guardian is a melee channel. This melee channel is a melee channel, meaning you have to A: get close to use it, B: stay within range, and C: do this for a whole 3 seconds when the boss could potentially leap away. This melee channel is highly RNG dependant. Depending on luck, you could get it every 15 seconds, or once every 30-45 seconds, depending on luck. This is because proccing it runs on two abilities at timers of 9-12 seconds, each with a 30 percent chance. You have 2 chances to get it every 12 seconds. For a 15 second per proc gap, you would need it to proc nearly every single time. In a long fight by any circumstance, that is VERY unlikely. In addition, most parses ON the world leaderboards have this proc rate or slightly less, in addition to an amazing crit rate. And guess what? They are STILL one of the worst dpsers in game for PVE with this amazing and unlikely luck! Imagine when we get those 30 second natural cooldowns SEVERAL TIMES IN A ROW! DPS falls. Rapidly. As for PVP, the Vigilance Guardian, and several other Dot classes, do not do much damage in arenas. Burst is king in PVP, and its showing. Dot classes have no abilities to counter said healers, so unless they are given burst and change the ENTIRE identity of classes, they are stuck in the bottom of the totem pole. My suggestion? Give dots healing reduction. Reduce incoming heals with dots. Maybe a bit overpowered, but with proper tuning, could reproduce the effects of burst WITHOUT changing the identity of a class in PVE. In addition more melee classes need aoe DR. Seriously. Smash is underpowered in PVE and somewhat OP in PVP. If more classes had AOE DR, smashing would be basically getting a nerf in PVP and be untouched in PVE. In PVE, they should be getting something more in single target damage, albeit not before Vigilance. The spec itself is far too close to Vig in single target output at least for guardian, and FAR more stable. Many guardians who can sustain 3.1k in focus have been switching it as the "chance" to get 3.2k in vig isn't a fair trade off to inconsistent DPS. Guardian Tanks need SOME threat help. They need to have an opener of threat for saber throw, in order to hold threat properly. Right now, if a DPS gets lucky with a crit on their gap closer, they can take threat from the get go, unless the tank asks for a ridiculous multiple GCD wait before charging, potentially reducing dps by a large amount. Precasted flybys are AWESOME yo.

The good'ol who cares about pve attitude. Hate to break it to you, but for us PVErs, which are just as if not MORE common than you PVPers, Nightmare Operations are OUR ranked. How would YOU like it if your class was barred from ranked due to the fact that it cannot breach mathematical barriers required by ranked reliably and consistently? You'd be forced to reroll! Well thats how Guardians, Shadows, and Vanguards feel. Stuck in the filthy pooper, on the deathgrip between viable and useless, and unlike PVP, PVE has mathematical hard barriers, you can have dumb enemies in PVP. You don't get that in PVE. The boss won't randomly have a heart attack and decide that he needs to go to the bathroom and explode.

They have said they are done with class stories. They came out with Makeb. They came out with Oricon. They will come with Kaut Drive Yards. This isn't really a single player game. Its not as simple as MOAR CLASS STOWWY WAHAHAHAAHHAHA.

See, this is EXACTLY what I am talking about. You force your OWN personal philosophy on OTHERS in a GAME for crying out loud. I propose we all ban this knucklehead for making RP as a whole look bad. This is pathetically ludicrous. My characters like Jedi robes, but I don't go into a cantina and stab every stripbar looking character on the planet because they are INGAME for a *********** reason. Just because there is a knife impaled in a wall doesn't mean you throw yourself on it, then blame the guy who put the knife there. Thats just stupid.

Bioware we may have had our differences in the past over a variety of issues (waiting on those guardian dps buffs ) but this is still a great game. Best of luck smashing inside those derptrolling ****faces. Cheers!

They have had plenty of endgame raids and content. They are RELIABLY releasing content with new levels of difficulty and EVEN a new planet with a carebear story and an operation.

I bet the staff is mostly asleep tbh. They did fix it quite timely. Servers are now back.

Great group of people for RP and they have their fair share of good players. Rapid kicks *** yo. If you looking for a casual group of players for RP and overall fun stuffs, this is the place!

They are interfering with a company's product and are forcing denial of service. Its messed up. Its PRACTICALLY stealing. They should be found and stabbed with a courtesy LOL smasher irl. They can go **** themselves.

Most of those rely on spammable abilities. And aug set up power? Who uses POWER in an aug setup on a guardian? 0_o

Yep. This has done nothing to EA but has ****ed off the customers. I am royally pissed.

This is ********. Survivability means near JACK SQUAT in pve. in PVP, it has minor applications, and Guardians themselves don't have high survivability in PVP. Saying classes with heavy armor and tanking abilities shouldn't have great dps is like saying classes with off heals should do worse dps. Its illogical. Unless the heal to full argument is now valid? 0_o

Almost to number 3....

Yahhh this sucks.

Please tell me they aren't releasing a new patch on accident like last time...

Holy cow mass server wide disconnect!