Well the ones i just mentioned are different variations of power/surge mods and enhancements. For instance deft 30X is the one with High power and low str/end, which you could replace with 30BX, which has high end and low pwr/str. Discipline and efficient enhancements are also just variations in stat placements between endurance, power and surge. After a little fiddeling on mrrobot, i've found that discipline and BX nets you with about 6k more hp, at the cost of about 200 bonus force dmg/healing. Right of the bat that sounds to be a decent tradeoff, but them i don't really know how it would affect the spec as a whole.

Seeing as the numbers seem to point toward mitigation < endurance < power/surge, i'd be inclined to say a better mix would be power/surge itemization with a focus on endurance, no? So in case a defensive/agressive mix has any merit you could change out deft mod 30X with 30BX, and possibly also use Discipline or Efficient enhancements instead of Adept?

Well... *****, you actually came through! Awesome man, i've never spent much time scrolling through the forums, but whenever i've seen this topic, little math has accompanied the discussion, thanks! Definitely should try this out, and with a bit more open mind, should probably try not to be to biased towards dem hp numbars ^^

I'm gonna need some actual numbers and math behind a statement like that, before buying in to it. Not saying you're definitely wrong (nor demanding you provide such documentation), just saying i'm gonna take that with a grain of salt. From my experience, i found myself to be alot more durable when i switched out min/max power set with tank set, and would recommend others to try the same. All speculation and subjective thought on my part, no theorycrafting, nothing like that. Just my idea of how to play the game, either all out dps, or all out tank. Definitely most enjoyable way of playing it

Never really understood the debate regarding pvp tanking as a guardian, and wether or not to use tanking equipment. The way i see it, half measures will never be as good as going all out, either go for a dps spec with dps gear, or go tank spec with tank gear. Sure, some might say that the tank stats are only "marginally" better for tankiness, but the fact that you are in a tank spec allready means your damage will be sub par, so why not maximize towards your strong points?

Now, being a PvP player, this might not sound right to a lot of you, but i struggle with the idea that 10 seconds is too much of a nerf in PvE. The way i see it, if you can't get off your stacks within 10 seconds, then you didn't take enough damage to warrant the extra healing. And if you're left with stacks after the 10 seconds have passed, shouldn't your healer have had the time to pick him/herself up to maintain raid healing?

Never in the history of mankind has an analogy made more sense.

But what are the "caps" or points to reach? i notice reaching full accuracy puts me under 60% crit multiplier, so i don't see myself going for that. And how high should i push the crit?

I've been wondering what the stat priority for pvp vig guards would be. Do you go for full out power/surge like you would as focus, or do you really miss enough to make accuracy "viable"? Same goes for crit i guess, since the only guaranteed crit you get would be blade storm, and not the "main" abilities of the spec...

That's just plain wrong. If you're playing against a well coordinated team, they can end up getting you stunned, slowed and make sure you have no chance to interrupt the bridge cap, while if you had gone to the door where they had no attackers you would get through in time to interrupt, leading to them spending more time getting across the bridge. If you do get cc'd at your first door, they get the bridge, and they also manage to NOT kill people, they could just as well make it to the second door uncontested. Somehow, by your standards, that scenario is "better" than rushing from the door which isn't attacked, getting an interrupt early?

When did assault plastique deal aoe damage? genuinely wondering. i was a pyro (or whatever the equivalent is called) commando at patch 1.0 and it never did aoe damage at the time.

#NotANumberCruncher, but i feel that guardian really has some issues with hybridspeccing, whenever i've tried hybriding for *****s and giggles, i've felt so redicilously useless.

The way i see it, Operatives - Great healing output, with great survivability. Sorcs - Great healing output, with low survivability. Mercs - Low healing output, with great survivability. Never played any of these chars outside the normal warzone though, someone more experienced could probably clarify this more. All i'm absolutely sure of, is that on my operative with old Battlemaster gear and recruit items etc, i still manage to outheal my partisan geared merc.

Well you can't possibly have paid any attention to the discussion beforehand, i wasn't the one who said combat had a 15% lead on focus, i simply took a rough estimate of smash + exhaustion ticks + low end blade storm, wich nets out at *about* 12k or a bit more, the 15% some other guy here provided would suggest combat to sit arround 15k in a similar situation

Well i don't see how you could respond to my question in that manner, if you didn't actually realize that i was aswell talking about focus specced sents/guards. Was this supposed to be an attempt at redicule? And if those numbers are correct, i would say the trade-off is weighing *heavily* in the favor of your friendly neighbourhood Focus spec, seing as they would provide "comparable" single target output, while still potentially threatening 4 additional targets in their burst rotation.

If they are better, then by how much? Say you have combat spec with what ~15k (or a bit more?) burst rotation, and a focus spec with ~12k+ (this is simply of the top of my head, no evidence to back this up). Now take into regards that about half of that has the potential to damage up to 4 other targets at the same time, *in addition* to the 12k single target. If something along these lines are in the same ballpark that the current performance of these specs, then you would certainly 9 times out of 10 pick the focus, based solely on a damage point of view. Imagine you are setting up your RWZ group, you have covered all your tank and healing needs etc, and all you need is pure damage output, which class would you bring?

Hmm, not certain, a 3-4 GCD sequence? Edit: thumbs up for making my quote seam really poetic tho Edit 2: Ofcourse if any of these numbers are to have any real value, we will have to figure out how often the class can provide the burst "rotation"

Ah, no I actually have no documentation on this issue, but as far as experience goes, i have yet to find anyone who outbursts the focus spec. I'm not talking about sustained singletarget dps, which your dummy parses will show is in no way in favor for focus, but that's not what we're discussing here. But if you do manage to get some usefull numbers on who provides what burst damage that would be lovely.

Because if you can outperform single-target dps when it comes to burst, you diminish the usefullness of every class which is based arround single-target damage. Which means in terms of pure damage output the only class worth taking in a pvp group is the focus. (read: pure damage output, don't take any utility in consideration)

I don't think any class should have both AoE pressure and high burst. AoE should be sustained dps, not burst, burst should be single target. What i suggested earlier (in rough terms) were to rework cyclone slash into a secondary aoe abilty, so that you don't have the redicilous burst from smash, and making focus a AoE spec, not burst-aoe-utility-overalldamage spec.

Just to throw it out there, who can compete with focus on a dps level, and can reliably top damage as often as focus? I'm genuinely asking, because i find way too many defending a specc which is way OP in my opinion, and i really havent been playing rated for quite some time, but from all videos/scoreboard screenshots, streams etc. all i see is focus being at the top every single time. How come it's not OP that one specc has overall highest damage output, among the best burst/kill-potential, offers decent utility and at the same time being the only class which actually offers decent AoE pressure. I just don't understand how people can defend this specc saying it doesn't need some kind of adjustment/nerf, it's simply beyond me O.o Edit: Probably somewhat important to note that i have 0 experience or input concerning PvE, and speak only from a PvP point of view. (Still, with how broken focus is in PvP, I believe something has to be done, even if it affects PvE to some degree)

"stop trying to ruin my pubstomping with this redicilous OP spec!"

Well i kinda feel that what you describe here comes down to playstyle and individual interests, and wether or not guardian tanks are in a "good spot" or not is more based arround wether or not they are effective at their task. Saying they are not in a good spot, because you don't like to play them sounds wierd to me, but if that's what the other poster meant then sure, make it an issue that guardian tanks have been dumbed down to much.

Please elaborate, i read this as you saying guardians are in a bad spot because people avoid playing guardian tank in PvE, not because they are actually bad for the job.

you're one wierd *********** cookie dariann