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Guardian Defense Talent Tree - Please Read


TeaSeeOh

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There's nothing wrong with putting DR talents high in a DPS tree for PVP reasons. The problem is when they are more attractive than the top-tier tanking talents, and can be exchanged for such.

 

Given that Knights aren't in a great state when it comes to PVP at the moment, it seems likely that they crammed in last-minute PVP buffs to that tree and didn't see the potential PVE consequences. Wouldn't be the first time.

 

This can be fixed by a simple restructuring of the trees. They don't even need to change the talents. They just need to change where they are. Of course, while they're at it, they might give us a little buff. :)

 

The Vigilance tree makes a lot of sense if you look at it from a "this is intended to be the PVP tree" perspective.

Edited by theothersteve
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Actually since bleeds can be cleansed, immortal/vengence doesn't seem to be epicness toward pvp. The lower tiered talents such as immune to CC after force leap and increased damage when slowed are superb, I find it lack luster. That being said, I in general look down upon bleed based classes.

 

The comment that knights, and subsequently juggernauts, are bad pvp wise is an opinion, as there is not more evidence that is it bad versus evidence that it is not. I find that juggernaut is my most favorite class pvp wise.

 

In any case this is another thing for the devs to look at, whether or not they do anything about it, we shall have to see.

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Not to be a douche but so what? As you said its just your opinion. I know people whose opinion is that hybrids should be viable. This seems to be one of those hybrid vs. not hybrid specs. The possibly best thing to do at this time is to wait and see how swtor evolves, whether is pro hybrid, not pro hybrid or indifferent. All in all its the developers opinion that matters.

 

The problem comes down to roles -- if you play tank, there is an expectation about what you give up to do so, and the shield tree actually brings this to reality: you are tough, but have little to no damage. This is pretty much the cliched understanding of the tank role from MMO to MMO --now, you can say "BUT TOR IS DIFFERENT!" and you'd have a point, right up until we look at the tank roles of consulars and troopers. Fully spec'd in their tanking roles they can still do fairly exceptional damage -- for us, we trade very minor tanking stats in a tree that develops very poorly (shield) for a DPS tree that costs us very little in terms of actual defense (vig) and allows us to tank "fine".

 

Now, if this IS by design, to your point, then why are JKs and SWs the only ones beheld to this custom ruleset? Because it doesn't impact shades/assasins, BH/vanguards at all. If it's not by design, then obviously the shield tree needs a bit of tweeking.

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Will Sith jugg and jedi knight are about the end of my knowledge of the tanking classes so i can't argue there. I agree with your points, and am interested in what becomes of these class trees later on. Lets hope our constant replies have kept this thread on the top page long enough for the devs to see it :p.
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Really it seems to me the main flaw is that we rely almost exclusively on the soresu buff our threat to generate and maintain aggro. Other than that we basically have hilt strike, or taunts (which are taunts not real aggro).

 

So basically threat generation comes down to DPS thus the strong DPS talents in Vigilance make them far more effective tanks due to superior aggro generation while the defensive talents in Defense are almost all low enough that you can get them and get the cream of the crop from vigilance. On the other hand the Defense tree at the top is largely devoted to threat generation but this is not high threat moves but rather high damage moves though still lower damage than Vigilance.

 

Protector really should be in defense. It is what makes it better to go vigilance than defense for PvE tanking. Switch that over to the defense tree and make guardian strike worthwhile (IE better threat generation than Overhead slash) and the tree would be pretty much fine.

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The problem is that you can also tank "fine" as a shield/vig hybrid in soresu -- and that shouldn't, imo, be a viable option for a HM main tank (and it currently is)

I've been giving it some thought, and I don't think it's a problem.

 

What you have now is two very different but equally viable ways to tank. And that doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. Yeah, it does seem weird, but there are people like me who like the Vigilance skills and choose them while tanking, and others who go full Defense because they can't live without skills at the top of that tree. Both seem to be pretty solid specs for tanking. So you have variety, you have choice, and I don't think that's so bad.

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I've been giving it some thought, and I don't think it's a problem.

 

What you have now is two very different but equally viable ways to tank. And that doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. Yeah, it does seem weird, but there are people like me who like the Vigilance skills and choose them while tanking, and others who go full Defense because they can't live without skills at the top of that tree. Both seem to be pretty solid specs for tanking. So you have variety, you have choice, and I don't think that's so bad.

 

There is almost no difference. A guardian tank is basically defined by soresu I'd say.

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I've been giving it some thought, and I don't think it's a problem.

 

What you have now is two very different but equally viable ways to tank. And that doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. Yeah, it does seem weird, but there are people like me who like the Vigilance skills and choose them while tanking, and others who go full Defense because they can't live without skills at the top of that tree. Both seem to be pretty solid specs for tanking. So you have variety, you have choice, and I don't think that's so bad.

 

It is bad IMHO. While I don't want TOR to be like every other MMO out there, and am thankful it isn't, one thing has to remain constant. Roles. Roles clearly define who you are, and the Guardian trees are severely messed up in this regard. I have tanked endgame content in EQ from Vanilla through Solteris. In WoW from Vanilla through Deathwing.

 

With that said here my thoughts:

 

I have not specced into Vigilance for a hybrid tanking role, and stayed Defense the entire leveling and now HM FP, Ops phases. As a Defense specced tank, I should trade my dps for survivability in both PvE and PvP content. I should be insanely hard to kill in PvP but hit like a wet noodle. Conversely, I should have threat abilities for PvE that isnt based on damage, but more like Hilt strike with threat modifiers attached. Taunt should never be used as part of a rotation.

 

Protection and Commanding Awe should be moved to the Defense tree, and some other talents created or moved accordingly to make up for those in an increasing damage dept.

 

Focus generation seems ok, but I find myself as I am getting geared, I generate less focus due to higher mitigation. Hopefully we won't reach a void area here in scaling.

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The main issue I have is that we "do" hit like a wet noodle while the other clases that can tank give up very little in terms of dps and threat generation.

It really is quite sad :(

 

As for unremitting and a few other tallents in the Vigilance tree, it would be nice if they where either moved or placed lower in the tree making them obtainable to those that spec fully into the defence tree.

However that would probbly cause a load of other ballance issues.

Edited by Venares
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Hi guys,

 

There are many different subjects discussed in this thread and I would like to take the opportunity to give you some information on the topics at hand.

 

First off, we currently have no indication that any class needs a huge buff. Class balance is defined by the interaction between classes and changes we make to one class will, inevitably, move the balance towards or from other classes. Our data and testing currently indicates that the Juggernaut and Guardian AC could use some buffing up in two areas where we see them underperforming against our expectations.

 

Here are some of the things we're planning to roll out in the short term specifically regarding Sith Warriors and Jedi Knights :

 

  • Mobility/Anti Kiting (PvP) – We agree with the sentiment voiced by the community that some Guardians and Juggernauts have to work harder than other classes to stay within effective combat range, putting them at a disadvantage. We intend to address this in an upcoming patch where, as a first step, Force Push will clear the cooldown of Force Leap, granting for more reliable in combat pursuit capabilities to the Advanced Class. Further changes will be made if necessary.
     
  • DPS spec survivability (PvP and PvE) – The DPS specs on Guardian and Juggernaut are performing to our expectations when it comes to the ability to create damage, especially of the burst variety. However their survivability is lagging behind our expectations, especially in the later game, and we are going to start addressing that particular issue in an upcoming patch.

Our attention to the class obviously won't stop here. Balancing MMOs is a never ending endeavor and we're in for the long haul. For example, we are certainly aware that the Marauder and Sentinel are very gameplay intensive classes with some of the most complex rotations in the game. While we are currently looking at quality of life and usability improvements to increase the class' playability without compromising the unique aspects of the class, we don't have anything specific to announce just yet. We do however anticipate that some of the combat responsiveness improvements (AKA 'ability delay' - more on that here) being worked on by our engineering team will specifically aid both Marauder and Sentinel.

 

In regards to PvE balance, any place in the game where our data shows significant issues with the balance tuning for one or more classes or specs are of course also being looked at.

 

For example, Jedi Knights will be pleased to hear that we are working on tuning the final mission in their class chain to provide a better, more fun and more reliably solvable challenge (see a post from another member of my team here). Currently a large percentage of players bring a friend to solve this mission, which, while social and often more fun, is not in line with our stated goal of allowing players to progress solo through their class arc if they desire to do so. We're also looking at some companions with a critical eye to improve their viability for certain role/companion combinations.

 

I would also like to give you some general understanding about approach to class balancing and how you can aid us with your feedback:

 

  • Now that we're out of the first few weeks of launch madness, you will see class and combat balance issues addressed with increased frequency. Larger scale gameplay changes and features are more likely to coincide with major content releases, but smaller scale changes and improvements can be expected to become part of our regular update schedule.
     
  • Statements that we hate a specific class or faction, or that we intentionally underbalance certain classes to make it less popular are conspiracy theory territory. We have nothing to gain from such an approach – we want players to pick the class and faction they want to play and have confidence that they are able to perform their chosen role in the game. Anything that comes in the way of that goal is considered a balance issue for us.
     
  • We make our balancing decisions based on a combination of internal and external testing and metrics. We don't make decisions based on who is the loudest on the forums. Community feedback is valuable in bringing issues to our attention and even to highlight possible solutions, which means that well written, constructive posts are the most effective way to communicate your wishes and feedback to us, rather than petitions and calls to nerf specific classes.
     
  • Please understand that balance issues during the leveling process are different than issues at level 50 and are handled in different ways. If you feel your class has issues during your journey to 50, especially communicate the level range and area of the game where you are experiencing issues to aid our investigations. Player versus Player situations in during the leveling process are not always balanced at every level (a mathematical impossibility), but we are always willing to investigate.
     
  • Just because we haven't mentioned the specific issue close to your heart in a post (such as the one above) doesn't mean we are unaware of it or that we don't want to address it. It would be impractical for us to comment on all investigations currently in the pipeline. That said, we definitely want to take a more open approach in regards to upcoming class changes.

 

Finally, I'd like to acknowledge, again, that we do understand that there is a desire for players to get more detailed information what happens to their character in combat. We agree with those requests and are working on various ways to, optionally, get more detailed data on your combat performance.

 

Thanks for your feedback!

 

-- Georg

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1435443#edit1435443

 

Apparently they at least know there's a problem with the class. Here's to hoping they actually address tanking as well, guys.

Edited by TeaSeeOh
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DPS spec survivability (PvP and PvE) – The DPS specs on Guardian and Juggernaut are performing to our expectations when it comes to the ability to create damage, especially of the burst variety. However their survivability is lagging behind our expectations, especially in the later game, and we are going to start addressing that particular issue in an upcoming patch.

 

They still don't have it right. DPS spec should have lower survivability. Defense specced should be insanely hard to kill.

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Exactly.

If I want to go pew pew pew and kill people I have to pay the price for that. And of course the price is I am much easier to kill.

Now if I want to be a hard as nails pain in the butt I also have to accept that I will probbly hit like the perverbial wet noodle and not kill many people BUT I should be crazy hard to kill.

As the current system stands at the moment as a tank speced Guardian I sure hit like a wet noodle but I also die in less than 10 seconds.

 

Unfortunatly is been the same tripe in every MMO I've ever played.

Ranged always trumps melee.

 

It really shouldnt be that way.

Wheres the trade off.

If im at range im taking massive ammounts of damage and will probbly be half dead before I even get my first hit in.

Conversly as melee you "should" tear that ranged guy appart once you get into range but you dont.

Melee clases should be scary, you should NOT want one in you face.

As it stands now most other classes could probbly just stand there and happy dance around us and still kill us.

 

P.S. Sorry for going OT :p

Edited by Venares
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I'm slightly concerned that the Force Push -> Force Leap reset change will only further muddle this issue.

 

More Force Leaps = More Unremitting.

 

And just more confusion.

 

This is a good point, and one thing that concerns me is that Force Push has limited use in PvP situations as well. It builds enemy resolve which would be better spent on Hilt Strike, Force Stasis, or Awe. That change won't help at all vs. kiting when the enemy has a full resolve meter.

 

It feels like they're buffing Vigilance in a way, rather than addressing any real concern with Defense/Immortal.

Edited by TeaSeeOh
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Ok, after reading through 4 pages of people at lost why Vigilance and Defense are the way they are. First, let me start with Vigilance:

 

First of all, this spec assumes you to be in Shien form, otherwise, you are garbage. Now with the assumption of Shien form, here are my explanation:

 

Unremitting: The reason why this is in the DPS tree is because you will need this as a DPS when you are soloing. Even with the hypes about Heavy Armor, your rating will only be about 20-22% AT BEST. This talent is there so that you don't get one-shotted by mobs as soon as you jump in. Also for a Guardian Tank, 20% reduction for 4 seconds after a Force Leap. Ask yourselves this then: How many times do you actually get to use Force Leap more than once in Boss fight?

 

Sure, Guardian Leap to your range dps/healer and Leap back but you will endangering your heal/range dps to boss frontal cone damage which all later end-game bosses have.

 

Effluence vs. Courage: Again, this is there so that DPS Guardians can manage their Focus more smoothly. You see, a Guardian Tank will stack something on their gear called Defense Rating which in turn increase their chance to Parry/deflect/dodge incoming damage, hence Courage make more sense to a Guardian tank if they are specced properly.

 

Blade Barrier vs Protector: Protector itself is very gimicky. 4% more endurance but Guardian Leap effect to me sounds more like a PvP/Solo-questing talent. Blade Barrier works very well together with Courage. As for the absorption of Blade Barrier, it is more respectable than OP makes it out to be. Half the time my Blade Barrier wears off by itself rather than broken by damage.

 

Guardian Slash vs Plasma Brand: In term of damage output, Plasma Brand wins hands down. But their fundamental roles are different. The purpose of Guardian Slash is to set up quick 5 stack Sunder so that the tank's subsequent attacks hit harder, which in turn generates more threat.

 

-------

 

Now on to Defense: Let me get this straight so everyone understands. Guardians are Avoidance tanks who excels at single target threat generation. What that means is a Guardian's true strength comes from NOT taking damage at all rather than soaking up damage. As Guardian tank you want to stack your Defense Rating through the roof.

 

Currently 2.7 Def Rating= 1% at level 50 (before diminishing return) and the hard cap of Def Rating is at 30%. Our talents from Guard Stance, Soresu form and Blade Barricade proc DO NOT contribute to the 30%. Achieving Defense hard cap is IMPOSSIBLE with the current gears.

 

Those Guardian tanks who claims they are squishy as a jellyfish should take a serious look at their gears. Heck, sometimes with Blade Barricade up, I use by Defense rating Relic and run to a new group of mobs in FP just to show off my deflects.

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Unremitting: The reason why this is in the DPS tree is because you will need this as a DPS when you are soloing. Even with the hypes about Heavy Armor, your rating will only be about 20-22% AT BEST. This talent is there so that you don't get one-shotted by mobs as soon as you jump in. Also for a Guardian Tank, 20% reduction for 4 seconds after a Force Leap. Ask yourselves this then: How many times do you actually get to use Force Leap more than once in Boss fight?

 

Sure, Guardian Leap to your range dps/healer and Leap back but you will endangering your heal/range dps to boss frontal cone damage which all later end-game bosses have.

Only for 3 seconds max, that's not that much of a risk.

 

What I love about Unremitting isn't the damage reduction (though that's great) it's the immunity to controlling effects. There are SO MANY TIMES that I'll leap into a fight and get stunned or knocked down right away. It seems like that's how a lot of enemy AI works; incapacitate the player as soon as they get into range. It got to the point where it became a joke for me. Unremitting eliminates that completely.

 

Effluence vs. Courage: Again, this is there so that DPS Guardians can manage their Focus more smoothly. You see, a Guardian Tank will stack something on their gear called Defense Rating which in turn increase their chance to Parry/deflect/dodge incoming damage, hence Courage make more sense to a Guardian tank if they are specced properly.

If they fixed Courage so that stacks aren't used up by Blade Storm while Momentum is active, then I'd feel more favorable toward it. As it is, though, it has terrible synergy. Remember you must have at least one point of Momentum to get past Tier 1 of Defense. So you're wasting points one way or the other.

 

Blade Barrier vs Protector: Protector itself is very gimicky. 4% more endurance but Guardian Leap effect to me sounds more like a PvP/Solo-questing talent. Blade Barrier works very well together with Courage. As for the absorption of Blade Barrier, it is more respectable than OP makes it out to be. Half the time my Blade Barrier wears off by itself rather than broken by damage.

I'll believe it when I see it, so far it looks like Blade Barrier doesn't stand up to a boss attack. You seem to have a personal dislike against Guardian Leap, which is fine, but others seem to be able to make it work.

 

Now on to Defense: Let me get this straight so everyone understands. Guardians are Avoidance tanks who excels at single target threat generation. What that means is a Guardian's true strength comes from NOT taking damage at all rather than soaking up damage. As Guardian tank you want to stack your Defense Rating through the roof.

Some people have trouble understanding this, but it's true. The only way that Guardians excel, stat-wise, is in Defense, even against Shadows we are slightly better. Even though Shadows wear light armor, their overall damage mitigation is better than us thanks to their Force powers.

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The trees are mostly fine. You have to realize that each one is excpecting you to be in a specified form. Defense = Soresu, Focus = Shi Cho, and Vigilance is whatever the hell the 3rd form is called (cant recall off the top of my head).

 

All 3 trees buff force sweep which is the Guardians main damage ability.

 

Stasis Mastery is freacking awesome sauce for utility since you no longer have to channel stasis and can do something else at the same time as they are stunned. If they moved it lower in a tree or put it in another tree it would way over power the focus tree (Singularity) it is high enough up to balance this out.

 

If you think you can tank well in Shi Cho then you haven't really been tanking :) Soresu is required because of the increased threat generation, guard, and 40% reduction in damage off the top. Combine that with warding call which stacks another 40% damage reduction for 10 seconds and you are a beast. There are abilities that are useless (Blade Barricade, Blade Storm) but that just means you have some extra points to get the lower level talents in the other trees that buff force sweep :)

 

Also like someone else mentioned it is about damage avoidance mostly and then after that damage reduction. Once combat logs become available it would be nice to see how much damage was reduced... You know like the ammount you saved at the end of a reciept for being a club member :)

 

Also if you plan to be in soresu form and spec Focus or Vigilance you are throwing away points as a lot of the lower level abilities expect you to be in shi-cho to do anything. A hybrid tank is going to be in Shi-cho and thus sacrafice a lot of damage reduction and guard.

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The trees are mostly fine. You have to realize that each one is excpecting you to be in a specified form. Defense = Soresu, Focus = Shi Cho, and Vigilance is whatever the hell the 3rd form is called (cant recall off the top of my head).

 

All 3 trees buff force sweep which is the Guardians main damage ability.

 

Stasis Mastery is freacking awesome sauce for utility since you no longer have to channel stasis and can do something else at the same time as they are stunned. If they moved it lower in a tree or put it in another tree it would way over power the focus tree (Singularity) it is high enough up to balance this out.

 

If you think you can tank well in Shi Cho then you haven't really been tanking :) Soresu is required because of the increased threat generation, guard, and 40% reduction in damage off the top. Combine that with warding call which stacks another 40% damage reduction for 10 seconds and you are a beast. There are abilities that are useless (Blade Barricade, Blade Storm) but that just means you have some extra points to get the lower level talents in the other trees that buff force sweep :)

 

Also like someone else mentioned it is about damage avoidance mostly and then after that damage reduction. Once combat logs become available it would be nice to see how much damage was reduced... You know like the ammount you saved at the end of a reciept for being a club member :)

 

Also if you plan to be in soresu form and spec Focus or Vigilance you are throwing away points as a lot of the lower level abilities expect you to be in shi-cho to do anything. A hybrid tank is going to be in Shi-cho and thus sacrafice a lot of damage reduction and guard.

 

Going midway up Vigilance for Unremitting, Protector, and Overhead Slash, and using Soresu is pretty much as effective for tanking as going 31/10 because of how seriously powerful those talents are in a tanking setting.

 

You actually haven't experimented at all have you?

Edited by Felaed
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You can't just take out all the defensive talents from Vigilance. Even with them, a DPS Guardian is still more squishy than most Sentinels with all their cooldowns and defensive talents.

 

The answer is to buff the Defense spec. Shield Specialization for example should be 5/10%, not 2/4%. Blade Barrier should scale with your hitpoints (10% would be a start), Force Clap should lower the CD of Force Leap by 2.5/5 seconds and so on.

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You can't just take out all the defensive talents from Vigilance. Even with them, a DPS Guardian is still more squishy than most Sentinels with all their cooldowns and defensive talents.

 

The answer is to buff the Defense spec. Shield Specialization for example should be 5/10%, not 2/4%. Blade Barrier should scale with your hitpoints (10% would be a start), Force Clap should lower the CD of Force Leap by 2.5/5 seconds and so on.

 

That is true, and isn't.

 

The defensive talents in the Vigilance tree are MUCH more geared toward PvP and Main tanking (Unremitting granting immunity to the ever present "YOU GOT IN MELEE RANGE, HAVE A STUN" boss mechanic, Protector's Endurance being % based and therefore granting a larger bonus to those who tend to stack Endurance, as well as the damage reduction on Protector) than they are towards PvE DPS.

 

A good answer is to fix various mechanical imbalances (Shield/Defense working on attacks that are non-"weapon damage" based), and to pretty much reverse the priority in both trees.

 

Put a little more offense in the bottom of the Defense tree, while moving the improved Soresu/Riposte higher in the tree, and allow Defense specced Guards to pick up Unremitting (almost a required PvE tanking talent, and most of the reason for this confusion) and preferably Protector as well.

 

Every other tank has an available %Endurance bonus in an offtree or main tree while going 31 deep.

 

The fact that Guardians don't is rather odd.

Edited by Felaed
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Also if you plan to be in soresu form and spec Focus or Vigilance you are throwing away points as a lot of the lower level abilities expect you to be in shi-cho to do anything. A hybrid tank is going to be in Shi-cho and thus sacrafice a lot of damage reduction and guard.

That's not true. There are only 3 skills in the entire Vigilance tree that are wasted if you are in Soresu Form: Single Saber Mastery, Shien Form, and Narrowed Focus (all of which are in a single chain of skills). And none of those skills are required to advance up the tree, unlike Defense for example that requires you to take points in either Lunge or Guard Stance to get beyond the 2nd tier, neither of which work in any form outside of Soresu.

 

The same can be said for the Focus tree, only 3 skills require you to be in Shii-Cho to get their benefits: Zephyr, Visionary, and Shii-Cho Mastery. And you don't need any of those to go to the top of the tree either. Though it does seem like a waste to go through the Focus tree without Zephyr and Shii-Cho since knocking 3s off the CD of every single Force skill is pretty powerful and synergizes well with the rest of the tree.

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I agree with this. The trees hardly make sense for the JG and I have gone too a hybrid Defense/Vigilance Guardian. I'm able to do a bit more damage than a full spec defense Guardian but I also can't stand as long as full defense guardian. Either way i wont be able to get to the last tiers of any of the trees.

 

I find Overhead slash more valuable than Guardian slash and if you look further up in the tiers of the vigilance tree, it has some better defense talents than the defense tree! They do need to fix the trees, it would make building a build more organized and less stressful. A lot of the talents are useless right now.

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So because defense is the tank tree vigilance can't have defensive talents to help tem have some survivability? This is the dumbest nonsense i ever heard. I am guardian tank and i am very happy with him. Good luck making a vigilance tank....

 

Vigilance is a dps spec and yes they do need some surviveability. You are just being greedy wanting everything good in one tree.

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