Constructive Feedback on JKG

[chaosvoid]

I am very happy with what the Dev's have said in terms of understanding the current state of the JK and I have hope in the future that they will make generally good balance changes in upcoming patches. So here are some things that I have struggled with and some changes that I would personally like to see to make the class more playable and fun in general.

 

 

Force Sweep

 

Works great(talented) in many PvE scenarios, but as one gains levels mobs also seem to start spreading out more making this "AOE" more of a single target ability. Currently I also cannot use this ability in PvP on moving targets due to ability delay/lag(even when I am running directly beside an opponent, cast it, and it will still miss) -- this severely hurts my game experience in this area. Furthermore, when it does work in PvP, most of the time it fails to function as an AOE whereas most other classes have reliable AOE's(with larger areas of effect and easier to use mechanics) to aid their dps.

 

Thus I would love to see Force Sweep gain an area affect similar to that of most other AOE abilities(8 yards) so that it can be fully utilized for its proper function.

 

Survivability

 

One of the things that has bothered me most while playing the JK is its lack of reliable escape mechanisms, heals, and or shields in order to simply survive. On my server generally the JK's(that are not defense speced) are considered one of if not the squishiest classes, which i find highly ironic for a melee heavy armor class. I am glad the devs have implicated their awareness of this...

 

I would personally like to see something like moving the "Blade Barrier" talent in the defense tree down to t1 or t2 effectively allowing other trees an option to to gain some survivability and potentially making the leveling experience much smoother for up and coming JK's.

Edited January 19, 2012 by chaosvoid

[Wheresthemilk]

have you even played a gaurdian?

 

with the new buff, we can jump 90 yards with 4 key presses.

 

no escape ability? cmon.

 

30 yards jump in any direction to a enemy, gaurdian leap 30 yards to your healer, force push whoever is attacking healer, jump 30 yards at enemy.

 

oh yea, and gaurdian leap heals you for about 1.5-2k hp with gear.

 

Enure, saber ward? do these abilities no longer exist?

 

(this is coming from a pvp perspective, where we now dominate at higher tiers with the buff today)

 

I understand though that PVE wise we are weak, but buffing anything you are having issues with, especially making sweep 8 yards, would make us hands down the strongest class in the game. Which I am all for. I am just pointing out that these issues you are having are keeping us from being extremely op in pvp.

[Helig]

have you even played a gaurdian?

 

with the new buff, we can jump 90 yards with 4 key presses.

 

no escape ability? cmon.

 

30 yards jump in any direction to a enemy, gaurdian leap 30 yards to your healer, force push whoever is attacking healer, jump 30 yards at enemy.

 

oh yea, and gaurdian leap heals you for about 1.5-2k hp with gear.

 

Enure, saber ward? do these abilities no longer exist?

 

(this is coming from a pvp perspective, where we now dominate at higher tiers with the buff today)

 

I understand though that PVE wise we are weak, but buffing anything you are having issues with, especially making sweep 8 yards, would make us hands down the strongest class in the game. Which I am all for. I am just pointing out that these issues you are having are keeping us from being extremely op in pvp.

 

While I do agree about mobility (charge-push-charge is extremely situational, but very potent), our baseline defensive cooldowns aren't half as good as they may seem. Blade Ward offers only 25% reduction against the most-used damage types, since the overwhelming majority of high-damage attacks in PvP bypass Defense (and it doesn't even stop Int\Ele damage). Enure is only good to boost your PvP consumable+GLeap healing. Other than that, it still takes back the HP it gave you, potentially leaving you at 1 health.

 

My undergeared Annihilation Marauder actually feels tougher than my Guardian when he's specced for DPS. Defensive cooldowns, including Fury effects are just amazing.

[Wookiebeast]

I don't know about higher levels I hope it improves but in lower lvl like 12-13 the attack abilities are either on cool down or there is no force. Force generation sucks. I play a marauder and I can keep hitting my mob while the Guardian is sitting there waiting and not hitting. I have read about priority and how to build force but it is not working well enough. It is frustrating takes too long to kill and my droid does most of the work. Good thing I wear heavy armor.

 

Personally I don't see the attraction to slow in killing but then it is supposed to be a tank and not a dos monster - my bad - guess I reroll and be a sentinel

[Helig]

I don't know about higher levels I hope it improves but in lower lvl like 12-13 the attack abilities are either on cool down or there is no force. Force generation sucks. I play a marauder and I can keep hitting my mob while the Guardian is sitting there waiting and not hitting. I have read about priority and how to build force but it is not working well enough. It is frustrating takes too long to kill and my droid does most of the work. Good thing I wear heavy armor.

 

Personally I don't see the attraction to slow in killing but then it is supposed to be a tank and not a dos monster - my bad - guess I reroll and be a sentinel

 

Till 30-33, you mostly rely on your pre-AC skills to fight. Your real rotation unfolds only in late 40s.

 

Also, heavy armour means jack. Marauder is tougher than a DPS Guardian - I have an Annihilation one, as well, and I absolutely love his defensive cooldowns. I also found Marauder easier to level. Both classes are at their strongest only past 40+, but Marauder seems a lot smoother.

[EchoTwoOmega]

My guardian is 25 and feels significantly more sturdy post 1.1 than before it.

 

I under stand where your comming from with the whole escaping thing. I have a 50 Sorcerer and feel like I can just run though several groups of mobs withouth fear of death.

 

I can shield to prevent damage.

Stun a mob if need be.

AOE knockback mobs that get too close ( + snare with talents)

CC a mob for 1 min

Sprint 150% for 2 secs

Slow a mob.

and a few other tricks too.

 

Feels like you have a lot of active abilities that let you escape.

[daibasu]

the thing about dps guardian is that we don't have any good innate damage abilities.

all our damage comes from the skilltrees as opposed to let's say a sentinel.

 

that makes the guardian a late bloomer - but when we bloom prepare for some action.

 

i lvl'd my guard til mid 20s as defence specced. but for the sake of pvp and easier solo pve

changed to focus where i stayed until i hit 50. then i started fooling around with the trees.

 

as of now i run vigilance for pve and have to say the damage is amazing.

focus has a ton of burst and is the superior pvp spec imo but in pve the short cooldowns

of vigilance with the CD refresh of master strike and some crit/surge gear guarantee

a never ending series of 2.5-4.5k crits.

 

im running as dps for my ops group and judging from the infernal council (where every party

member has to kill a bossmob on his own in case you haven't been there yet) i am one of

if not the top dps (the other dps being sage,gunslinger,shadow,vanguard) - i take down the

73k HP mob several seconds before our dps sage.

 

best damage i have seen from my guard was a 2.5 - 2.5 - 4.5 master strike on normal

mode soa with power adrenal and crit/surge relic popped.

 

if you like the jedi guardian stick with it - you need to endure until the early 40s but after

that you will be rewarded. i guarantee.

[Helig]

the thing about dps guardian is that we don't have any good innate damage abilities.

all our damage comes from the skilltrees as opposed to let's say a sentinel.

 

<............>

 

if you like the jedi guardian stick with it - you need to endure until the early 40s but after

that you will be rewarded. i guarantee.

 

Having played other classes, I can only say that you'll be truly rewarded as a Defense\Vigilance Guardian only by the time you get some gear. That probably happens because we have a lot of passive, "flat" utility in our trees, and we need our stats to catch up to fully scale with all that. That said, the Focus bomb spec is pretty playable even without huge Strength, Power and Surge values. Relics help with that a lot.

 

If they fixed the scaling of Vigilance DoTs, and streamlined the Defense tree (namely, bringing our overtime mitigation closer to VGs, increasing threat output, rolling focus-saving talents into fewer talent points and more convenient mechanics - Courage is unimpressive in PvP, due to the vast majority of attacks ignoring shielding and avoidance), I'd be one happy Guardian.

[Guardianbuzz]

Having played a sentinel and a dps guardian in pvp I agree that the dps guardian is to squishy, more so than the sentinel(generally considered squishy). Enure? I find it pretty useless, would be decent if there was a self heal component. As it is you just die at the end of the duration, force camo is 100x better, especially if you're watchman or combat specs.

 

Basically the dps guardian has 1 useful survival cooldown with a 3 minute recharge on it, even that doesn't really do much against force/tech users. Might as well just paint a big sign on your back saying "Easy target".

[Helig]

Having played a sentinel and a dps guardian in pvp I agree that the dps guardian is to squishy, more so than the sentinel(generally considered squishy). Enure? I find it pretty useless, would be decent if there was a self heal component. As it is you just die at the end of the duration, force camo is 100x better, especially if you're watchman or combat specs.

 

Basically the dps guardian has 1 useful survival cooldown with a 3 minute recharge on it, even that doesn't really do much against force/tech users. Might as well just paint a big sign on your back saying "Easy target".

 

Well, Guardian survivability - even tank survivability in PvP, seems to be more tied to mobility. Guardian Leap is an excellent way of getting out of trouble. However, it's also situational, since you don't always have an ally where you need them (be it LoS, idiots running around like crazy, or whatever). The new Charge=>Push=>charge combo is good, also situational and a bit clumsy (3 GCDs is a long time).

 

I actually enjoy my Guardian tank in PvP, but I have to play it counter-intuitively to the class' purpose. Instead of going into melee, applying stuns and interrupts, I operate in the "medium threat zone", which is about 15-20 meters, applying taunts from range, dropping Guard on an ally that's being focusfired (and ccing attackers), interrupting objectives with saber throws, finishing stray wounded enemies (burst is significant, especially when I get to execute health range), dropping stunlocks\interrupts on stray healers, or AoE spammers and sometimes getting in the thick of it to drop a fear-bomb (helps securing objectives immensely, as well as mitigating incoming damage to the group), or to spam AoE to interrupt objectives under Warding Call - only to bail with Guardian Leap when things get hairy.

 

Works surprisingly well, I must say. I tend to get decent damage - around 100-150k on the average, depending on how intensive the fight was (that's probably because I don't spend as much time running from respawn points), a good amount of Protection - usually around 100k, a lot of Objective medals, and usually quite a bit of healing, due to popping PvP consumables under Enure and generously using my reusable medpaks.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Helig

[chaosvoid]

Till 30-33, you mostly rely on your pre-AC skills to fight. Your real rotation unfolds only in late 40s.

 

Also, heavy armour means jack. Marauder is tougher than a DPS Guardian - I have an Annihilation one, as well, and I absolutely love his defensive cooldowns. I also found Marauder easier to level. Both classes are at their strongest only past 40+, but Marauder seems a lot smoother.

 

Its not just the marauder that seems to have higher survivability but every other class... while JKG's are pretty much free and fast kills when not in defence spec.

 

Gaurdian dps, while perhaps one of the most complex, is fine(as noted by the devs) -- when our abilitys hit. But Force Sweep fails to hit half the time and when it does it usually doesnt work effectively as an AOE. In compairson on my Sorc or BH my aoe abilitys are ranged, have a higher aoe radius, and do about the same damage -- naturally its no wonder that the JKG almost never tops damage charts since they fail to pump out comparable damage in a group vs group setting.

[Helig]

Its not just the marauder that seems to have higher survivability but every other class... while JKG's are pretty much free and fast kills when not in defence spec.

 

Gaurdian dps, while perhaps one of the most complex, is fine(as noted by the devs) -- when our abilitys hit. But Force Sweep fails to hit half the time and when it does it usually doesnt work effectively as an AOE. In compairson on my Sorc or BH my aoe abilitys are ranged, have a higher aoe radius, and do about the same damage -- naturally its no wonder that the JKG almost never tops damage charts since they fail to pump out comparable damage in a group vs group setting.

 

Ballistic Dampers>heavy armour - I also play a Sniper, and I'm amazed by the amounts of damage I can take using those.

 

And, at least on PvP environment, objectively the only thing that makes a Guardian tank tougher than his DPS brethren is a 3-min, 10 second-long shield wall ability.

 

So there you have it. You're a hit and run support class. Get in, cause trouble, get out with Guardian Leap, wait for the next opportunity. It's like playing a Sniper, except you're the bullet (or a multi-kiloton nuclear charge, if you're Focus with a lot of Expertise), and are totally dependant on the presence of a team-mate to jump to for regaining a safe position.

[chaosvoid]

Ballistic Dampers>heavy armour - I also play a Sniper, and I'm amazed by the amounts of damage I can take using those.

 

And, at least on PvP environment, objectively the only thing that makes a Guardian tank tougher than his DPS brethren is a 3-min, 10 second-long shield wall ability.

 

So there you have it. You're a hit and run support class. Get in, cause trouble, get out with Guardian Leap, wait for the next opportunity. It's like playing a Sniper, except you're the bullet (or a multi-kiloton nuclear charge, if you're Focus with a lot of Expertise), and are totally dependant on the presence of a team-mate to jump to for regaining a safe position.

 

Im pretty sure sent also has that same ability(although slightly less effective). It feels like for pvp I am best served to be a walking support unit that cant really do anything greatly to affect the battle -- on my tank powertech(about same level as gaurdian) I do more dps than than when my knight is dps specced and have more survivability than when hes tanked speced... to top it all off 75% of my usefull attacks are ranged. Its just sad the diffrence between JKG and other classes in terms of dps, survivability, and general playability via fluid ability actions.

[Helig]

Im pretty sure sent also has that same ability(although slightly less effective). It feels like for pvp I am best served to be a walking support unit that cant really do anything greatly to affect the battle -- on my tank powertech(about same level as gaurdian) I do more dps than than when my knight is dps specced and have more survivability than when hes tanked speced... to top it all off 75% of my usefull attacks are ranged. Its just sad the diffrence between JKG and other classes in terms of dps, survivability, and general playability via fluid ability actions.

 

That's pretty much it. My Marauder has more - and better defensive cooldowns than my Guardian - even (arguably - Warding Call is pretty strong. But it's on 3 minutes) in *tank* spec. Undying Rage is so much better than Enure it's not even funny. I understand that comparing class abilities head to head is a thankless task, but sometimes, it's jaw-dropping. There's not a single Guardian ability that I'd want as a Marauder (well, aside Push, but I can live without it), but there are quite a few Marauder skills that I'd love to have as a Guardian.

 

BW said that they acknowledge the lack of the ability to soak damage for Guardians and Juggernauts in PvP, and "changes will be made if necessary". But so far, we got The Worst Defensive Cooldown In History down to 90 sec cooldown, as from 180. Yay.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Helig