XxRasXx Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Recently rolled a knight and decided to go guardian this time, got a sentinel to 45 and got tired of feeling so squishy. Wasnt sure i would like being a tank but i've also been playing a shadow, tank spec, and loved it so figured a guardian would be fun, and it is so far, only 21 as of now though. My biggest problem with the class, and from reading around the forums i dont think im alone in this, is the way the gear looks. Not a fan of any of the heavy armor orange gear. Ive read around the forums that some people just get some medium orange gear and keep it up with mods and its not really a big difference. I've done this, but can't help but feel like im gimping myself and any groups i join. Is this just me or does it really make a big difference to use heavy over medium? Just the chest slot too, definetly wearing heavy for everything else. I've also been kind of lost on what form to use. While im leveling i'm trying to go up the vig tree and then jump to the defense tree (far left one, don't recall the name). As of now i've got a few points in the defense tree for sundering strike stacking one extra focus and for 99% chance of making...saber something (sorry, name escapes me right now, the ranged attack you get early on) cost no focus. Thats it for defense, rest is going into vig until overhead slash i think it's called, heard that was a good attack for adding dps. But the forms, which should i be running the majority of the time? Should i even put points towards getting the third form from vig tree? And should i change my priority to the leveling the defense tree first and then vig? Gues that's pretty much it. Loving guardians so far, just hate the way it looks lol. But yeah, thanks in advance for any help and feel free to throw some free tips my way about guardians. Also, purely pve, not very interested in pvp at all as of now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndantePhist Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 got a sentinel to 45 and got tired of feeling so squishy. Guardians are more squishier than sentinels... I have no idea why you would roll a class squishier than a sentinel if the reason you hated sentinels is due to their squishiness A fully specced defense guardian is just marginally more survivable than a sentinel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XxRasXx Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 Wow, well that's surprising. Why would they be the tanks and sentinels be pure dps then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndantePhist Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Wow, well that's surprising. Why would they be the tanks and sentinels be pure dps then? Guardians tank survivability is better than sentinels over longer periods of time, however sentinels have better ways of surviving huge bursts of incoming damage over shorter periods of time. Also once sentinels get geared and are specced watchmen, they can self heal ridiculous amounts of damage... seen sentinels self heal 150k+ healing in warzones before. However this can only be pulled off if you are very geared (high crit) and are very skilled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XxRasXx Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 Yeah im watchmen spec on my 45 sent and those self heals were nice at first, but after awhile i dont know i still felt to squishy. After playing a shadow tank there's no way i could go back to feeling as squishy as my sent, or even squishier for that matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndantePhist Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Yeah im watchmen spec on my 45 sent and those self heals were nice at first, but after awhile i dont know i still felt to squishy. After playing a shadow tank there's no way i could go back to feeling as squishy as my sent, or even squishier for that matter. You want good survivability and dps? Go shield spec vanguard. Spec tank and gear dps as a vanguard, and own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XxRasXx Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 Meh, its star wars, have to go with a jedi lol. Thanks for the suggestion though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndantePhist Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Meh, its star wars, have to go with a jedi lol. Thanks for the suggestion though DONT fall for the lightsaber trap... Just don't I convinced a friend to reroll 45 marauder to vanguard. at first he was like "NO! I WANT LIGHTSABERS!" But once he got his Vanguard to 50, he's like "God damn I was dumb... no idea why I was so obsessed with lightsabers..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parthenon Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 (edited) Recently rolled a knight and decided to go guardian this time, got a sentinel to 45 and got tired of feeling so squishy. Wasnt sure i would like being a tank but i've also been playing a shadow, tank spec, and loved it so figured a guardian would be fun, and it is so far, only 21 as of now though. My biggest problem with the class, and from reading around the forums i dont think im alone in this, is the way the gear looks. Not a fan of any of the heavy armor orange gear. Ive read around the forums that some people just get some medium orange gear and keep it up with mods and its not really a big difference. I've done this, but can't help but feel like im gimping myself and any groups i join. Is this just me or does it really make a big difference to use heavy over medium? Just the chest slot too, definetly wearing heavy for everything else. I've also been kind of lost on what form to use. While im leveling i'm trying to go up the vig tree and then jump to the defense tree (far left one, don't recall the name). As of now i've got a few points in the defense tree for sundering strike stacking one extra focus and for 99% chance of making...saber something (sorry, name escapes me right now, the ranged attack you get early on) cost no focus. Thats it for defense, rest is going into vig until overhead slash i think it's called, heard that was a good attack for adding dps. But the forms, which should i be running the majority of the time? Should i even put points towards getting the third form from vig tree? And should i change my priority to the leveling the defense tree first and then vig? I've pretty much solely played my Guardian tank since the game launched, and even after he hit 50 I find it hard to play alts. So, yeah, first of all, good choice! I'm sure others would disagree, but I'm loving the class. I have off-tanked a few Hard Modes next to another, more experienced and more geared Guardian tank and feel the class is perfectly capable of performing that role, as well as having done quite a bit of PvP. Have yet to run any Ops though. Anyway, as far as the look goes, I would try and stick with something that you like (or can put up with) that's Heavy Armor. I feel like going Medium would be too much of a sacrifice to your survivability. A few suggestions for good looking heavy guardian armor: the level 40 PvP armor, [blank] of Inexorable Defense, looks great. It can be obtained from the vendor on the fleet or the PvP item vendor in the Jedi Knight training room on Coruscant. There are also a few nice trooper armors (I'm thinking the Elite Vanguard Armor, I think it's called, from a vendor on Corellia). Just take out the +Aim, trooper mods and install guardian, +endurance/strength mods. Going up the Vig tree then hopping to defense is a worthy goal. I leveled my Guardian to 50 going full defense and I never had any survivability problems, whether in Heroics or FPs or whatever. However, I was a little underwhelmed by the slow soloing at 50, so I switched to the infamous 14/27/0 build and haven't looked back. Well, I did try a full DPS Vig build, but I missed Warding Call too much. Thisn is my current build, which doesn't stray too far from the common 14/27 builds at all: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500cMG0uZhGrMMhdzMM.1 As to the forms, there are two ways to go if you're planning on being Vig/Def. You can go with Soresu form if you want to be a little tougher, but at the expense of less Focus generation. I play in Soresu, and by playing smart and using Generators/Spenders in the right places, I don't really have any problems outside of PvP. Occasionally in WZs I'll have someone below 20% and go to hit Dispatch and I won't have the 3 focus for it, which can be a major bummer since that small amount of lag time can give them a chance to heal up or be healed up. The other option is Shien Form, which you have to obtain from the Vig tree itself, and is bent towards pure DPS. I haven't tried this form, so I can't comment on its performance. The two Defense talents you mentioned having are indeed the way to go early in that tree, imo. I like the accuracy debuff to Force Sweep talent a lot, especially as a tank, but the usefulness of free Blade Storms and an extra Focus stack from Sundering Strike, which will pretty much just replace your original focus building attack, was too good to pass up. After that, I would focus on the Riposte talents, the "+6% defense" talent and spends one more point to get you warding call. The rest should be in Vigilance, if you are indeed trying to fulfill the DPS/Off-Tank role. One thing should be mentioned though: Vanguards are going to perform as main tanks better than you. It's a fact with how the game works right now and it's just our lot in life, atm. I feel it's a horrible design problem that needs to be fixed, but hey, whatever. I'll deal with it for now. I just think BW went too far trying to make non-Force Using classes seem as powerful as Jedi/Sith and ended up making them clearly more powerful. However, that doesn't mean you won't be of use. If you play a Guardian tank right, it's great fun and very effective. And I truly do think 14/27 builds can work as main tanks as well as off tanks. You just have to now when to use Force/Guardian Leaps, manage cooldowns, and now when Enure is most needed. It takes a lot of focus (pun!), but I think it can be done. Lastly, I'm not sure what the other poster means by Guardians only being marginally more survivable than Sentinels exactly, but I have to say I disagree. Could you elaborate on how a Sentinel can withstand burst damage better than a Guardian? As it stands right now, if I know a burst is coming in, I hit Enure, which increases my Max HP by 6kish HP immediately. The burst comes in, that extra bag of HP soaks it up, and I'm usually doing just fine when Enure fades. Or a quick Absorb Adrenal and Saber Ward will do the trick. Or just Warding Call by itself. Sorry if this is TL;DR, OP, but I hope it helps! Edited February 29, 2012 by Parthenon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
camarius Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 the above poster got the jist of it... if you were looking for a in depth guide to tanking and such the link in my signature will help you... good luck..... protip... get trooper heavy armor and switch out the mods... nothing confuses people more than a lightsaber weilding trooper lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parthenon Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 protip... get trooper heavy armor and switch out the mods... nothing confuses people more than a lightsaber weilding trooper lol Haha, yeah, I did that recently and had a good laugh...and thought it was pretty awesome. I just wish I could get some Trooper armor that doesn't have the lunchbox on the back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PegasusHoplite Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 I was trying to figure out survivability between Guardians and Sentinels. Sentinels have a pretty strong cooldown in Rebuke. Assuming that you're being attacked for the full 30 seconds, that's the same amount of damage mitigation as if a Guardian with Soresu and two points talented into Commanding Awe were being attacked for a full 60 seconds (the cooldown for Rebuke). So far, seemed balanced. Then the Sentinels get self-heals. With Zen, I was estimating that Sentinels get 18% heals maybe once every 30-45 seconds? For the Guardians to be more survivable, their damage mitigation must eventually outweigh the Sentinel's self-heal. But I don't know how to calculate that. Has anyone determined if the Guardians have enough damage mitigation or avoidance to outweigh the Sentinel's self-heal? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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