Why the Vigilance Spec is awesome and how to make it work for you!

[AndantePhist]

Vigi/Def also has the extra % increase base mitigation, I'm also not denying that Shien has good damage potential, but offset it against the loss of Soresu and Guard and not having perhaps one of our more useful mitigation cooldowns and you'll see why the Hybrid is technically better than Shien full Vigil in a PvP situation (that cooldown can often be the difference between holding a point and losing a point)

 

Not forgetting how lacking the burns are, plasma brand is alright but the effect burns on blade storm and overhead slash are really lacking (I laughed when I tried the build and saw that they only do 50 damage per tick)

 

Again, this is why full Vigil is primarly a PvE build, focus isn't really an issue with leap, saber throw, stasis, combat focus and defiance as well as picking up free of cost sweep and snare while being able to bladestorm for free after leaping which will crit thanks to overhead slash.

 

I pretty sure focus spec is the superior build.

 

I'm pretty sure me pumping out 500k+ damage in very voidstar getting 50+ kills where most of the kills are their healers, WHILE getting 20k+ protection from well placed taunts has pretty much won my team and I 99% of all voidstars we ever stepped foot in.

 

One thing people need to realize, you only need to guard healers IF they are being targeted and focused down. There is no point in guarding healers if you obliterate the people attacking the healers in a few seconds.

 

Baddies try to fix the symptom.

 

Good players stomp out the cause.

[Ethias]

Focus is great in voidstar and good for burst but I have found the utility in Vigilance to be of greater worth, if only because 95% of all the games I play are Huttball (My server is probably the only server where there are so few Imp 50s queueing)

[Zarthorn]

I pretty sure focus spec is the superior build.

 

I'm pretty sure me pumping out 500k+ damage in very voidstar getting 50+ kills where most of the kills are their healers, WHILE getting 20k+ protection from well placed taunts has pretty much won my team and I 99% of all voidstars we ever stepped foot in.

 

One thing people need to realize, you only need to guard healers IF they are being targeted and focused down. There is no point in guarding healers if you obliterate the people attacking the healers in a few seconds.

 

Baddies try to fix the symptom.

 

Good players stomp out the cause.

 

Focus spec is only as good as the quality of players you are facing, not to mention the burst is soon to be nerfed since it has reliance on high amounts of surge.

 

You might get the sweep combo off on good players, once...after that, you'll be focused, CC'ed and generally priority cannon fodder.

 

Vigl/Def brings utility and constant dps to the fray, you might not shine as bright as a focus Guardian, but you have a much more consistent performance of being an absolute pain to kill and giving there healers one heck of a headache.

 

You can counter burst by breaking the chain, there is no counter in the game to utility and having an ace up your sleeve for every occassion.

[Ganimer]

I've been using a full defense / vig build all game so far. I'm level 50 and finding that my survivability is, of course, great. I get top protection in every game I play but my damage rarely breaks 6 figures. I enjoy PVE tanking and having that "unkillable" attitude in PVP paired with a good healer, however Guardian Slash is hard to fully utilize considering you need 5 stacks of sunder before its doing good damage.

 

I've been looking for a good mix, and the Vig / Def hybrid seems like a good call for me. I'd be interested in seeing some of the builds the supporters in this thread are using.

 

My prototype:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500cMhZhGRMrhddMRZb.1

[Qoaa]

I'm pretty much full vigilance

 

My spec - http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500cMZIuMRMhddhRZMM.1

 

I use soresu form and I tank the hard mode flashpoints just fine with guild

 

when I run pve dailies I use Doc and can switch to shien form to blast through mobs quicker.

 

But I have columi gear with the reduced timer on combat focus insta, and the skill that boosts the focus gain on sunder armor so it's my primary focus builder.

 

even with Soresu form I'm never really starved for focus with those 2 bonuses.

 

 

I love soresu+vig for tanking to be honest much more than defense line or focus line.

 

 

course everyone has personal preferences, but a soresu vig tank for guild and I can swap to shien if i want to fill a 'lesser' dps role is nice.

 

I use shield generator offhand for soresu tanking and armor mods are built around defense and high hits, atm buffed im around 18.5K hits but I can get a little higher when I get some aug slotted implants/earpiece

[DoctorWhorrible]

 

I'll keep plugging away, earning high amounts of medals and valor because I haven't forfeited Guard for some poor damage tradeoff thus making me generally more useful to my team in a...team game, you keep dreaming of getting the 5k destroyer medal and the 300k damage medal which will constantly slip from your grasp the minute you realise the whole enemy team has more than 6% expertise.

 

I must have missed somewhere that I can't switch stances by hitting a hotkey and start guarding/taunting when someone is in danger. I don't need a hybrid spec to play like a hybrid of tanking and damaging.

 

Obviously you've got your mind made up though. So if we're both finding success in our playing than what is the point in arguing? I have a blast and often top damage/protection/medals in a given game as I'm sure you do so . . . uhm CHeers to both of us?

[AndantePhist]

You might get the sweep combo off on good players, once...after that, you'll be focused, CC'ed and generally priority cannon fodder.

 

You can counter burst by breaking the chain, there is no counter in the game to utility and having an ace up your sleeve for every occassion.

 

That is if the player playing focus is bad.

 

We have many tools to counter being focus fired.

 

Stance dancing to soresu and back to focus stance works...

 

Intercede works...

 

Line of sighting works...

 

Having teammates tanks that aren't baddies that guard you when getting focused also works...

 

We also have cooldowns, well timed use of defensive cooldowns also works...

 

Also all the while the enemy team is trying to cc or kill the focus guardian, your friendly healers are free from harrassment and can spam heal you or themselves.

 

Basically all it comes down to is skill...

 

TLDR version:

 

Unskilled focus guardians are easy to shut down

 

Skilled focus guardians will make your life a living hell

[AndantePhist]

I must have missed somewhere that I can't switch stances by hitting a hotkey and start guarding/taunting when someone is in danger. I don't need a hybrid spec to play like a hybrid of tanking and damaging.

 

Obviously you've got your mind made up though. So if we're both finding success in our playing than what is the point in arguing? I have a blast and often top damage/protection/medals in a given game as I'm sure you do so . . . uhm CHeers to both of us?

 

Dude, the fact you can switch stance to soresu and guard someone on the fly, doesn't even cross the mind of lots of guardians in this forum...

 

thats how bad a lot of guardian players are...

[sac-]

Something tells me you are mistaking level/gear gap for overpoweredness.

 

Seriously do yourself a favor and try a similar build with Soresu you'll notice a huge difference to your survivability and very little difference to your damage....this is because:

 

-Shien only increases your force and elemental damage by 6% (run the math thats pretty damn low)

 

-Single Saber mastery only works on weapon damage... blade storm, plasma brand, force sweep, force push, force stasis and burning effects do NOT I repeat do NOT get increased in any way, shape or form from Single Saber mastery!.

 

Judging by your posts you sound like you haven't played the class very much at level 50, if at all....trust me you will die a LOT if you try to PvP in Shien form because you are a heck of a lot more squishy than Shi Cho or Soresu stance Guardians, this is why many make mention of how terrible Shien is and that it needs a buff to bring it up to par with other stances.

 

That's funny. 6% damage increase (plus refund) isn't a good thing but a 3/6% damage reduction is somehow FREAKING AWESOME?

 

Class is borderline op. Whatever, these forums are full o lackluster players. Sentinels have a 30 page thread about how they need buffs

 

^

Edited February 13, 2012 by sac-

[RodneyMcNeely]

So, which build is going to be better for 1v1 PvP - Defense, Vigilance, Focus, or a hybrid build?

 

I know we're not balanced around 1v1, but dueling happens to be my favorite MMO pasttime, so I thought I'd ask.

 

Thanks!

 

[bamsmacked]

That's funny. 6% damage increase (plus refund) isn't a good thing but a 3/6% damage reduction is somehow FREAKING AWESOME?

 

 

 

^

 

I don't get it either, 6% more damage is pretty damn good and the focus refund make it a great form to be in.

 

He claims he only gives you 50-100 more damage but my force sweep, and overhead slash gain several hundred more maximum and minimum damage.

 

But to each his own I guess. IF I was gonna go Hybrid I'd either be in Shii-Cho or Vigilance though.

 

I put together a pretty cool Vigilance/Focus build it was fun I did good damage but I just didn't like it.

 

So, which build is going to be better for 1v1 PvP - Defense, Vigilance, Focus, or a hybrid build?

 

I know we're not balanced around 1v1, but dueling happens to be my favorite MMO pasttime, so I thought I'd ask.

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

Probably Focus or Vigilance then... I'm not so sure how defense fairs 1 v 1 but I can tell you that I usually take out tanks with out a lot of trouble.

Edited February 13, 2012 by bamsmacked

[Naldaen]

That is if the player playing focus is bad.

 

We have many tools to counter being focus fired.

 

Stance dancing to soresu and back to focus stance works...

 

Intercede works...

 

Line of sighting works...

 

Having teammates tanks that aren't baddies that guard you when getting focused also works...

 

We also have cooldowns, well timed use of defensive cooldowns also works...

 

Also all the while the enemy team is trying to cc or kill the focus guardian, your friendly healers are free from harrassment and can spam heal you or themselves.

 

Basically all it comes down to is skill...

 

TLDR version:

 

Unskilled focus guardians are easy to shut down

 

Skilled focus guardians will make your life a living hell

 

Explain to me how relying on my team to guard, taunt, cc chain, and spam heal me increases my personal skill level.

[Smashbrother]

I've played both extensively, and focus is by far the better pvp spec. Burst damage is what kills people in pvp, and focus has the best burst and it's guaranteed.

[bamsmacked]

I've played both extensively, and focus is by far the better pvp spec. Burst damage is what kills people in pvp, and focus has the best burst and it's guaranteed.

 

You're right but I have a feeling once Vigilance, and the Sentinel trees are brought up to speed it won't be the case anymore, or when those future patches are released that you know have nerf Focus all over them.

[Zarthorn]

Explain to me how relying on my team to guard, taunt, cc chain, and spam heal me increases my personal skill level.

 

^ this.

 

If you are going Vigilance you are doing your team a disservice by not fufilling your tank role because your damage output does not match your loss of utility.

 

Focus can get away with not fufilling the tank role because they are fufilling a burst role and bring a fair bit of utility to boot, force exhaustion is an excellent soft CC for stopping those pesky Sorcs since it is classed as force damage and cannot be cleansed by the root/snare breaker effect on using force speed.

 

Guard is simply too good not to use, Warding call far outstrips plasma brand because it gives you a much needed second panic button.

 

There is nothing wrong with stance dancing, etc...but again you are harming your team more than helping them by not using one of the top mitigation skills in the game.

 

It reminds me of the arguement back in WAR with the KOTBs and the dps spec vs the tanking spec it took some people months to realise that the tanking spec was superior in every way to going 2h dps just because the utility alone could be a deciding factor, at least here we have a pretty damn viable dps spec that warrants going dps in focus...but vigiliance seriously does not warrant it at all, from a PvP point of view....especially when you realise all 3 dots (inc plasma brand) are cleansable.

Edited February 13, 2012 by Zarthorn

[Smashbrother]

You're right but I have a feeling once Vigilance, and the Sentinel trees are brought up to speed it won't be the case anymore, or when those future patches are released that you know have nerf Focus all over them.

 

Well we still get a straight up 30% from our talents. The surge nerf isn't going to affect that, and it's not going to kill focus spec since vigilance isn't getting any buffs yet.

[DoctorWhorrible]

^ this.

 

If you are going Vigilance you are doing your team a disservice by not fufilling your tank role because your damage output does not match your loss of utility.

 

Focus can get away with not fufilling the tank role because they are fufilling a burst role and bring a fair bit of utility to boot, force exhaustion is an excellent soft CC for stopping those pesky Sorcs since it is classed as force damage and cannot be cleansed by the root/snare breaker effect on using force speed.

 

Guard is simply too good not to use, Warding call far outstrips plasma brand because it gives you a much needed second panic button.

 

There is nothing wrong with stance dancing, etc...but again you are harming your team more than helping them by not using one of the top mitigation skills in the game.

 

It reminds me of the arguement back in WAR with the KOTBs and the dps spec vs the tanking spec it took some people months to realise that the tanking spec was superior in every way to going 2h dps just because the utility alone could be a deciding factor, at least here we have a pretty damn viable dps spec that warrants going dps in focus...but vigiliance seriously does not warrant it at all, from a PvP point of view....especially when you realise all 3 dots (inc plasma brand) are cleansable.

 

I'm still amazed that people are so blinded by the flashy numbers that focus puts out or think that the defense tree's talents are great for pvp.

 

Focus spec: GREAT when you don't have gear. GREAT against people with lower expertise than you. FANTASTIC when people aren't moving. Otherwise, it doesn't really hold up. Yes you will do 500k damage in Voidstar. . . And about 400k of that will have been healed almost instantly and be meaningless. It is just so brain-dead simple for your opponent to negate your force sweep in any 1v1 situation due to latency and the myriad of ways the attack bugs out and doesn't hit characters. I started having to run past the opponent I was chasing before I force sweep to guarantee it hit. The word on Focus spec is out and everyone knows exactly what it does and where the majority of its damage comes from and when they see you coming they will avoid your force sweep much more often than you will like.

 

Defense Spec: Yes, it is difficult to kill one of these guys with a healer. . . But who isn't? It's good for providing support, but really full defense spec is not nearly as good as a vigilance/def hybrid. So many of your defenses simply do not get activated in PvP because of the nature of player damage. Personally, I'm not at all convinced that a full defense spec is better or harder to kill than a Soresu Vigilance spec. The tri-fecta of Unremitting, Protector, and Commanding Awe are just straight up PvP survivability talents. They will provide you benefit any time you are under attack within a PvP environment. Sadly this cannot be said of most of the defenses that your defense tree bolsters.

 

Vigilance spec: You know that utility you talk about at the end of your post? Yeah, this is the tree that has it. I'll bring up the holy trinity of Guardian pvp again: Unremitting, Protector, and Commanding Awe. Other classes have these types of talents in their lower tiers so they can pick them up no matter what spec they choose (take a look at commandos ability to take 2 +endurance talents and a +healing received talent). Guardians, however, are sort of screwed by default by not having talent trees as good as the other ACs. They're not bad in a vacuum, but when compared to what some other classes can choose from they come up lacking. So, to a certain point, Vigilance is our default pvp spec. The damage is consistant, they are garunteed crits, dots to stop objective capping, the most pvp survivability talents,and the best damned execute ability in the game (unless they've popped a god cooldown and you hit dispatch they are dead).

 

Yeah, I ranted a lot there. Yeah, these are my opinions garnered from playing all specs of Guardian since the weekend betas (and people have more experience than that I know). Yeah, you will do much better with your favorite spec (you just simply will perform better doing something you enjoy).

 

Take my opinions for what they are: The opinions of a guy who has pvp'd constantly on a Guardian since early access and who has formed his own very strong opinions. Those being: If you want to be a damager, spec Focus until you get decent gear and then head to Vigilance and see if it works out for you as you will have much more utility and deal more meaningful damage rather than a ton of easily healed splash damage. If you want to provide support, consider a Def/Vigilance hybrid or a Soresu Vigilance build as a pure Defense build (and the war leader's gear also mind you) is full of mitigation that doesn't pan out in PvP (there are already many threads on why this is. It sucks, but it's true).

 

 

When it comes down to it: When you get geared give Vigilance a shot. It's got a ton of goodness that most people overlook in favor of big crits and the idea that the defense spec must be the best pvp tank spec.

[VoidJustice]

The DOT's have very little effect in Pvp in my opinion. I have a fairly viable Vig/Def Guardian that pvp's fine and I currently have none of the dot's spec't.

 

so... /shrug

 

also... as a vig/def guardian in 1-49 WZ I pick a target kill it... pick my next target kill it... pick another target kill it... then die (or almost kill it)... if Im solo and being focused...

 

I like that!

 

If Im not mindlessly deathmatching... then I will most likely be RACKING up the protection points and killing folks who attack teammates. Being a boss staying with the "winnarz" and keeping them "winning". I have a fairly high win to loss ration in Wz...

 

sometimes thou... jumping into the middle of the zerg and killing someone while most of their team try's to stop you in vain... is just fun enough to do for the halibut everyonce in a while... and it makes me all happysauce!

 

Im sure Focus is da bomb! lol! but.. Vig is fun also!

Edited February 13, 2012 by VoidJustice

[Sourceerror]

Focus bombers won't be getting 5k after the surge nerf, thus your point is moot, now read above look at the screen and note the fact you dodged the fact I mentioned you are geared vs fresh 50's which is the only difference.

 

You are so unbelievably wrong here.

[VertisReaper]

If there ever is 4v4 arenas, I would roll with 3 sages and I would want to be vigilance spec and that is all there is to it. Vigilance has all the tools to survive and prevent burst. Bioware bringing this game towards less burst and thats where vigilance shines as it delivers that steady pressure. Edited February 13, 2012 by VertisReaper

[Marqhill]

I'm very excited that there was a great deal of feedback to this particular thread. I've found in the past few weeks that there is a general lack of reasoned and thought provoking debate on this forum and it's good that we're able to discuss this in a fairly objective manner. Now that I've gotten some time to respond I'd like to make some clarification as well as debunking some of the common misconceptions about the Vigilance skill tree, Shien form and the differences between the Jedi Guardian saber forms in general.

 

I think we should start at the beginning. There's a lot of debate about which saber form is "best." To me this debate is like arguing about whether it's better to butter the top or the bottom of your toast. From a base stat line point of view the difference between the saber forms is an approximate total 12% differential spread between damage dealt or damage reduction. I know that the 60% armor increase seems to equate to a HUGE difference in defense but keep in mind that all your armor value does determine your damage reduction. Open up your character screen on your guardian/juggernaut and turn your Soresu form on and then turn it off and then look at your damage reduction. You should see an approximate 12% - 13% drop in damage reduction when you have it off. The difference between Shien and Shii-cho is much easier to differentiate. If you take single saber master, which you always should, then Shii-cho is a 9%(Single Saber Mastery + Shii-cho) increase in damage with 3% damage reduction where Shien is a 12% (single saber master + shien) damage bonus. So as far as stats are concerned it goes like this.

 

Soresu - 12% damage reduction

Shien - 12% damage

Shii-cho - 9% damage 3% damage reduction

 

Now that we have the stat portion of the disussion out of the way we can talk about the difference in abilities. I also want to include the topic of the "hybrid" spec while we're on this subject because I think that the skills acquired by a particular stance are directly relevant to the subject of hybrids and why I don't feel that they perform well. Each stance has it's own set of abilities that are reall specifically designed for a particular skill tree. Soresu gives you a %15 bonus to your shield chance as well as the ability to guard a team mate. The problem is that this comes at the cost of focus generation. This is BAD in any otner skill tree besides Defense. Defense has abilities that mitigate the focus generation deficit built into the Soresu form. Shii-cho doesn't have that and the Vigilance tree actually costs more focus than ANY of the trees to use its most important DPS abilities. Now I can understand switching to Soresu temporarily when doing the "stance dance." However, using the Vigilance skill tree in conjunction with Soresu form is a mistake in my opinion. Think of it this way. Shien generates focus from taking damage every 6 seconds just like Soresu but Shien also refunds 1 focus for every focus spending attack where as Soresu generates 1 less focus per focus generating attack. At that point you're using the highest focus cost skill tree and you're operating from a focus deficit of 2 focus per attack if you're using Soresu instead of Shien. That was my experience with this type of build. When I started using full vigilance I found myself with all the focus I need to keep pumping outbig hits constantly. Shii-cho is another one that was obviously designed for the Focus tree. There are abilities that you have to take to get to the next tier in the Focus tree that are specifically designed for Shii-cho. Also, while the Focus tree doesn't use as much focus as Vigilance, Shii-cho doesn't generate as much focus either. So you find yourself right back in the same situation you were before. You're not generating enough focus to effectively DPS but you don't have the defensive abilities from the Defense tree to be a proper tank. That's why I don't like hybrids. I'm completely ok with the Stance Dance but I think doing a hybrid build is never going to be as effective as putting 31 points into any given tree.

 

Now, back to Vigilance and Shien. I think that there is a common misconception of how the build is supposed to work and what exactly you're supposed to be doing with it. The damage over time abilities are nice, but they're not really the point. The ability to generate focus and keep throwing out 2000 point hits is also nice. But the real thing you need to focus on when using Shien/Vigilance is getting your target down below 20% health. If you get your target below 20% health they are DEAD. There are few surer guarantees of death than fighting a vigilance spec'ed guardian and letting yourself get to below 20% health. Every Jedi Knight has Dispatch. But so far as I know ours is the only one that has a 60% bonus to your critical hit chance. Force Rush is the most important vigilance ability. It forces you to spam Overhead Slash and Plasma Brand (which forces you to spam sundering strike) and when you use either of these abilties, which are your main dps and you should be using anyway, it gives a 60% bonus to your critical hit chance on Blade Storm and Dispatch. My Dispatch hits for 3 - 4000 damage. Which means if you're at 20% maximum health then you would have needed to have a maximum health of more than 15 - 20,000 in order to have the possibility of surviving my Dispatch. That's kind of a big deal. I've seen people survive dispatch from other guardians and I've actually survived more than a single dispatch from enemy players. NO ONE survives when I dispatch. A hilariously excellent example of how powerful the Vigilance Dispatch can be is a warzone yesterday night when I dispatched a guarded target for so much damage that it killed the target and the tank who was guarding him. They were both low on health but it was still pretty amazing.

 

Also, as it concerns gear and stats to gear for, I have been stacking Power as my primary offensive stat an it works out pretty well. The idea behind using Power over Surge is that my critical hit damage isn't as important as doing more consistently high damage always. Which power does for me. So I stack a lot of power on my gear where available. This is open for debate. I haven't tried getting huge amounts of surge but honestly power has been working so well for me that I don't really care to try anything else. I know that Surge is the stat to go with for Focus skill tree but Power seems to be the on for Vigilance. Let me know if anyone else has had a different experience.

 

Anyway, thanks for the responses.

[GarfieldJL]

Since most of your attacks from Vigil do weapon damage, no it isn't a waste.

 

The biggest problem with Vigil is Shien stance having given it some time I ended up going back to Vigil/Def because the damage increase is poor compared to the trade off loss of survivability.

 

The stance and the single saber mastery improvement equate to all of 50-100 damage extra, definately not worth it, Soresu and Shi-Cho are both miles ahead of it.

 

Shien stance isn't just there for damage, it is actually there for FOCUS Generation.

 

I can repeatedly use my stronger attacks thanks to shien's refund of force. Force sweep is a focus generator for me.

[DoctorWhorrible]

The DOT's have very little effect in Pvp in my opinion. I have a fairly viable Vig/Def Guardian that pvp's fine and I currently have none of the dot's spec't.

 

The dots are "icing on the cake" damage and objective interrupters. For damage the fact that Plasma Brand is 12 seconds is troublesome. For defending a node or stopping a cap it is magical. I've held overwhelming odds off a node in Civil War until reinforcements came just by rotating dots around on the attackers so that I could take the speeder back to the node while my dot interrupts their attempt to cap.

 

People focus too much on the dots not being great dots. Both Overhead Slash and Blade storm are hard hitters to begin with (I've had overhead slash crit for 4k+ in 3/4 champ gear). The dot it leaves is nice, but not the selling point of the spec at all. So it isn't worth looking at them as the reason to spec Vigilance.

[Imperial_Patriot]

Hey Guardian-Comrades! Im new to the forum as a poster, but I folloewed this hole discussio with a big deal of interest.

 

So, I´m lvl48 Def/Vig, and before 45 was def only guy. At lvl 45 I wanted to try something new, although I was very good as a Def Guardian in WZ, often placed at the 1st places and collecting a 8-10 medals. I used guard and taunts as often as I could, along with both def buffs and interrupts I was hard to bring down, could make decent damage to collect Assassin medal. After switching to Vig tree I stayed in Soresu. I noticed the increased damage output, but I was upset about my bad surviability. Now, I became a bit better with that combo spec, I can stay alive for much longer and diliver real hard damage. I like those crits

 

So, why I stay in Soresu?

 

Folks, its not only those 10-12% dmg mitigation. Soresu also gives you +15 shield rating AND 5% dmg mitigation of guarded ally. Its a hole of package of small buffs you get with it.

 

If someone attacks my guarded target, its a medal time for me! Taunt it and he delivers 95% less damage!!! And i can deliver real hard stuff on Imps heads.

 

The Trick is to guard a DD or a guardian and let him attack Imp zerg ahead of you. You leap afterwards and press that group-taunt-win-button, and voi-la, 35% imp-dmg goes into nirvana, 60% of the remaining 65% goes to you, and you get that def-medal rain

 

To sum it up, I wouldnt change the surviability of me and my allyies in Soresu form for some percents of extra dmg in Shiien or Shiicho.

 

May the Force be with you!

Edited February 13, 2012 by Imperial_Patriot

[Drakks]

Hey Guardian-Comrades! Im new to the forum as a poster, but I folloewed this hole discussio with a big deal of interest.

 

So, I´m lvl48 Def/Vig, and before 45 was def only guy. At lvl 45 I wanted to try something new, although I was very good as a Def Guardian in WZ, often placed at the 1st places and collecting a 8-10 medals. I used guard and taunts as often as I could, along with both def buffs and interrupts I was hard to bring down, could make decent damage to collect Assassin medal. After switching to Vig tree I stayed in Soresu. I noticed the increased damage output, but I was upset about my bad surviability. Now, I became a bit better with that combo spec, I can stay alive for much longer and diliver real hard damage. I like those crits

 

So, why I stay in Soresu?

 

Folks, its not only those 10-12% dmg mitigation. Soresu also gives you +15 shield rating AND 5% dmg mitigation of guarded ally. Its a hole of package of small buffs you get with it.

 

If someone attacks my guarded target, its a medal time for me! Taunt it and he delivers 95% less damage!!! And i can deliver real hard stuff on Imps heads.

 

The Trick is to guard a DD or a guardian and let him attack Imp zerg ahead of you. You leap afterwards and press that group-taunt-win-button, and voi-la, 35% imp-dmg goes into nirvana, 60% of the remaining 65% goes to you, and you get that def-medal rain

 

To sum it up, I wouldnt change the surviability of me and my allyies in Soresu form for some percents of extra dmg in Shiien or Shiicho.

 

May the Force be with you!

 

I can pull 4 protection medals running in Shien or Shii-cho. One well placed AE taunt will yield the 2k, 5k, and 10k medal.

 

Soresu is a novelty outside of being an actual tank, or running with a premade where you need to cover someone -- and the larger problem is that shielding is, more often than not, worthless in pvp. Its only triggered by white damage attacks, and according to some testing not triggered on crit. This means the vast majorty of damage you'll take in pvp will completely ignore the fact you have a shield equipped.