Jedi Guardian - Defense Tree - Tanking Feedback

[Alexi_son]

I've played a lvl 50 guardian now up through hardmodes and finished EV - working on Karaggas.

 

Full defense spec. (And for those of you who enjoy the hybrid spec and want to hop around the battlefield like a bunch of half-crazed jackrabbits - go for it. I don't feel I should be forced to pretend I'm a kangaroo to enjoy playing a Jedi Guardian, so I'm not interesting in debating hybrid vs. defense spec -- I prefer to make suggestions to improve the defense spec-line instead.)

 

 

These are just my opinions based on 12+ years as a tank across numerous MMOs.

 

In general, the Jedi Guardian is a fun class to play - conceptually.

 

 

As an overall game mechanic annoyance, I would like to streamline the button mashing some. I've spent more time playing RIFT than I'm free to discuss, and frankly I feel that Trion nailed it with their triage ability system. It did not automate things so one button press would play a whole rotation for a character, but it did help triage abilities to the point that I felt like as a tank I could pay attention to the fight, without playing whack-a-mole with (literally) 25 different ability buttons for tanking and defensive cool-downs. The whack-a-mole aspect really takes a lot of the enjoyment out of the game to me as a general opinion. Also, having the ability to designate things like @mouseover for specific abilities would be greatly beneficial to me as a tank for general target management.

 

Target of Target display would also be helpful.

 

 

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That said, some definite recommendations I would make to the Jedi Guardian would be as follows:

 

Change Soresu form to 80% threat generation.

 

Remove Freezing Force as an quickslot ability - put it as an effect that can be learned in the skill-tree as an attachment effect to Force Sweep or Cyclone Slash - I don't care which.

 

In place of Freezing Force as a trainable ability, add in a self-only damage-shield effect that generates additional threat. This could help (marginally) with dps, and also AoE threat generation - I think of it sort of like flypaper. It doesn't have to be a lot of damage, but the additional threat would go a long way towards helping hold onto packs of mobs.

 

Add a force/rage building AoE attack on around an 8s cooldown. One that also adds high threat would be preferred.

 

Reduce cooldown on hilt strike to 15 - 20 seconds. Remove stun component from it if you like. Add the stun component back in as a 1s/2s/3s option in the defense tree if you like.

 

Reduce cooldown on Guardian Slash to 10s.

 

Reduce cooldown on Saber throw to 20s - add either a high threat component or a brief stun, doesn't matter which.

 

Integrate Pommel Strike and Opportune Strike as a single attack against a target with any sort of negative modifier on him. Make the cooldown something like 20s is fine. (In place of the one you remove, feel free to add in that focus-generating AoE I mentioned earlier.)

 

The biggest one I see is a self-only castable damage-shield buff would be greatly useful and go a long way towards maintaining AoE threat on multiple mobs after our Challenging Call.

Edited March 2, 2012 by Alexi_son

[Fizen]

nice post, I'd like to see the taunt timer slightly reduced. Spamming between taunt and challenging call (ae taunt) leaves about a 15sec pause. Reducing the cooldown of ae taunt by 5 secs should be enough to add alot better agro control, since taunt only places you on the top of the list for a sec duration. As a full defense tank you dont do the damage to just stay there (no big issue) so taunts are a main issue.

[KahnyaGnorc]

The damage shield's visual could be the much-talked about "deflect blaster fire back on attacker."