Guardian 1.2 Notes

[Mrcookjr]

Guardian

Due to changes to the Guardian skill trees, Guardians have had their skill points refunded.

Added Forceclap, a new passive ability granted at level 10 that causes Force Leap to stun the target for 2 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 12 seconds.

Added Focused Defense, a new ability that allows the Guardian to spend Focus to lower threat. While active, one point of Focus is spent each time damage is taken to heal the Guardian for a small amount. This ability is usable while stunned and is not limited by the global cooldown.

 

Vigilance

Commanding Awe is now located in Tier 5 of the skill tree. It increases the Guardian's damage reduction while Focused Defense is active.

Single Saber Mastery is no longer restricted to certain stances.

Stagger is now located in Tier 1 of the Vigilance skill tree.

Sundering Throw is now located in Tier 6 of the Vigilance skill tree.

Zen Strike now generates 2 points of Focus when it is triggered.

 

Defense

Blade Barrier is now located in Tier 4 of the skill tree.

Blade Storm no longer consumes stacks of Courage while the Momentum buff is active.

Command no longer reduces the cooldown of Challenging Call and is now located in Tier 5 of the skill tree.

Dust Storm is now a 3-point skill that provides the same overall effect.

Guardian Slash now generates 50% additional threat.

Momentum is now a 2-point skill that provides the same overall effect.

Pacification is now a 1-point skill with a slightly reduced overall effect.

Shield Specialization is now located in Tier 5 of the skill tree.

Stasis Mastery is now located in Tier 4 of the skill tree.

 

Focus (Guardian)

Felling Blow is now a 3-point skill with the same overall effect. The effect now lasts 20 seconds (up from 15).

Force Exhaustion's cooldown has been reduced to 18 seconds. Its overall effect is unchanged.

Gravity now specifically affects Freezing Force and Force Exhaustion.

Inner Focus has been redesigned. It now requires 2 points in Singularity and causes Combat Focus to immediately grant 2 stacks of Singularity per point.

Master Focus now increases the damage of Master Strike instead of affecting Force Stasis.

Singularity's buff effects now last 20 seconds (up from 15).

Swelling Winds is now located in Tier 1 of the Focus skill tree. It increases the damage dealt by Force Sweep and Cyclone Slash and reduces the cooldown of Force Sweep.

Through Peace, a new 2-point skill located in Tier 6, has been added. It reduces the initial activation cost of Focused Defense by 1 Focus per point.

Unwavering Focus has been removed from the game.

Zealous Leap now immobilizes the target for 1 second.

Zephyr has been replaced by Zephyrean Slash, which allows Slash critical hits to have a chance to refund 2 points of Focus while the Guardian is in Shii-Cho Form

[Hawkecr]

So BW finally buries this already dead class.

 

Sad... 1.2 was the final hope. Oh well.

[Jonlo]

So BW finally buries this already dead class.

 

Sad... 1.2 was the final hope. Oh well.

 

How so?

[FalmeseReb]

So BW finally buries this already dead class.

 

Sad... 1.2 was the final hope. Oh well.

 

yeah... uhh focus got buffed?

[Argolisk]

Focused Defense - am I reading this right? Guardians finally get some sort of heal?

[Noth]

Focused Defense - am I reading this right? Guardians finally get some sort of heal?

 

Not really a heal, it basically just mitigates some damage by giving you a small heal when you take damage at the cost of focus. It will, in all likelihood be underwhelming.

[Troxi]

so they give all of us the 2 sec charge stun good and more ways to get off focus burst and thats it

[SirSparhawk]

Are you guys illiterate? Let me put in perspective a few things, 1 Master strike is getting buffed so more damage on that, more talent point options with swellign winds going into focus, so picture this. Force exhaust, run back and pop adrenal/relic, force leap, stun, Masterstrike during force exhaust. If you get crits thats atleast 50% of someones hp, 4.5-5k sweep after that and you have a dead or very close too dead imp, just dispatch and wipe hands off on their corpse.

 

 

P.S. Lets not forget how squishy focus guardians are, self heal that can be activated during a stun could mitigate alot of damage so be glad.

Edited March 17, 2012 by SirSparhawk

[Zarkaz]

Defiance + Focused Defense = Win, you get stun, you use heal

[SirSparhawk]

I wonder if those tools will make guardian on par with sentinels.

[Smashbrother]

Are you guys illiterate? Let me put in perspective a few things, 1 Master strike is getting buffed so more damage on that, more talent point options with swellign winds going into focus, so picture this. Force exhaust, run back and pop adrenal/relic, force leap, stun, Masterstrike during force exhaust. If you get crits thats atleast 50% of someones hp, 4.5-5k sweep after that and you have a dead or very close too dead imp, just dispatch and wipe hands off on their corpse.

 

 

P.S. Lets not forget how squishy focus guardians are, self heal that can be activated during a stun could mitigate alot of damage so be glad.

 

Master strike being uninterruptible is lols. Only baddy guardians sit through the whole 3 seconds of it. The good ones self interrupt it after the first two hits. It doing more damage is also not that great since it's essentially a self-root and that is bad for a melee class. The damage increase will also probably be small.

 

Our damage is completely fine, what we really needed was more survivability. Focused defense is underwhelming. The tiny baby heal isn't going to help our survivability, and it's not going to be spammable. What we need was a cd reduction on warding call and saber ward to 2 mins.

 

Also, the 2 sec stun on force leap is TERRIBLE. It will fill target's resolve bar half way, and it's only for 2 sec.

 

Zephyr also got hella nerfed. Slash is *********** terrible and I almost never use it. The 3 sec reduction to force abilities is FAR FAR better.

Edited March 17, 2012 by Smashbrother

[muradi]

Force Sweep is 12 sec cd now vs 9?

I think it is. And yes, lol, bad....

Sent has the same dmg in focus spec now with a better cd. Also the singularity buff from Combat focus, they get it from Zen which is always up now thanks to Valor ability being tier 1 now.

[Dee-Jay]

Force Sweep is 12 sec cd now vs 9?

I think it is. And yes, lol, bad....

Sent has the same dmg in focus spec now with a better cd. Also the singularity buff from Combat focus, they get it from Zen which is always up now thanks to Valor ability being tier 1 now.

 

Damn, didn't consider that.

 

That's obviously a pretty big nerf to an otherwise slight buff.

 

 

But I'll wait and see what happens to actual damage numbers. So far there's been very few changes to actual damage.

[CapuchinSeven]

Master strike being uninterruptible is lols. Only baddy guardians sit through the whole 3 seconds of it. The good ones self interrupt it after the first two hits. It doing more damage is also not that great since it's essentially a self-root and that is bad for a melee class. The damage increase will also probably be small.

 

Our damage is completely fine, what we really needed was more survivability. Focused defense is underwhelming. The tiny baby heal isn't going to help our survivability, and it's not going to be spammable. What we need was a cd reduction on warding call and saber ward to 2 mins.

 

Also, the 2 sec stun on force leap is TERRIBLE. It will fill target's resolve bar half way, and it's only for 2 sec.

 

Zephyr also got hella nerfed. Slash is *********** terrible and I almost never use it. The 3 sec reduction to force abilities is FAR FAR better.

 

Every time you post you dribble so much uniformed rubbish I have to swim to get to my laptop. The new stun is a low level ability, we have no idea if it offers a stun in PVP in the same way the sweeps stun offers no stun in PVP but will stun normal mobs in PVE. It's there to set PVE mobs up for a pommel strike and you have nothing to show that it will work in PVP other than whine.

 

You have no idea how much or useful Focused Defence will be, or how much the damage bonus to Master Strike will be, in fact your entire post is filled with "probably, *shrug* I dunno"

 

Smashbrother is coming, ready your facepalm!

[Ster-Ling]

Still too early to make a prediction, but I'm starting to think that without Zephyr, I won't want to run in Shii-Cho form anymore. In my estimation, Zephyr is the biggest incentive to run in Shii-Cho. Taking it away may gimp the stance vs. Shien and Soresu. (Which I guess is as it should be.)

 

Shii-Cho Mastery is good, and Visionary is worth the point, but without Zephyr, damage output in Shii-Cho looks like it's taking a substantial hit. 9 second cooldowns on Sweep and Blade Storm will become 12-second cooldowns.

 

So I'll be taking a long look at Soresu-form Focus builds. I think that may become my preferred DPS outlook in 1.2, since Shii-Cho will no longer enable 9-second Sweep cycles.

[Ster-Ling]

Also just noticed that Focus is losing Sundering Throw to the Vigilance tree.

 

Yeah, maybe ought to take a look at a pure Vigilance spec, too.

[Smashbrother]

Every time you post you dribble so much uniformed rubbish I have to swim to get to my laptop. The new stun is a low level ability, we have no idea if it offers a stun in PVP in the same way the sweeps stun offers no stun in PVP but will stun normal mobs in PVE. It's there to set PVE mobs up for a pommel strike and you have nothing to show that it will work in PVP other than whine.

 

You have no idea how much or useful Focused Defence will be, or how much the damage bonus to Master Strike will be, in fact your entire post is filled with "probably, *shrug* I dunno"

 

Smashbrother is coming, ready your facepalm!

 

Actually you also assumed the 2 sec stun works in pvp because you mention it in your post lol. Here is what you said. "Force exhaust, run back and pop adrenal/relic, force leap, stun, Masterstrike during force exhaust." Fail more?

 

The passive ability has the same name and does the exact same thing as the current talent, so it's not a stretch to say they will work the same. Since the current talent works on players, the passive will work on players as well most likely. Secondly, JKs get force sweep and blade storm waaaay before you get pommel strike, so your whole argument that the leap stun is to set up pommel strikes is stupid.

 

If the ability is indeed supposed to make leveling easier, it doesn't actually do that. A 2 stun on leap isn't going to make leveling easier by any means.

 

Oh and focused defense heals like about 5k hp using your entire focus bar. It's crap.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Paralassa

[CapuchinSeven]

Actually you also assumed the 2 sec stun works in pvp because you mention it in your post lol. Here is what you said. "Force exhaust, run back and pop adrenal/relic, force leap, stun, Masterstrike during force exhaust." Fail more?

 

Heeeeey Smashbrother. Go back, check the names on those two posts.

 

Fail more?

[Alexi_son]

My guess is he's typing from a phone. Likely an android.

[Smashbrother]

Heeeeey Smashbrother. Go back, check the names on those two posts.

 

Fail more?

 

That's my bad. It's 6AM where I'm at and I'm tired as ****. Still though, my points stand. 2 sec stun on leap is terrible, and new ability won't help survivability much. That combined with 12sec sweep and bladestorm (compared to 9s currently) makes me a sad panda. Let's not forget the aoe tanking nerf, and the weird talent relocations. Shield spec going up a tier? LOLOLOLWUT?!?!

Edited March 17, 2012 by Smashbrother

[Alexi_son]

I've read the notes, and I don't see a whole lot of logic behind what's being done to the class.

 

AoE taunt already sucked - now it will suck more.

 

As a tank, the last thing I want to do is reduce my threat - so focused defense is a complete and utter piece of trash in my opinion --- AND --- it adds yet another ability to keybind somewhere. If you look at it - Focused Defense is a small heal, that will heal us, WHEN WE TAKE DAMAGE, if we expend both focus AND threat. Warding Call and Saber Ward both already lower our damage taken by 40 or 50% for a few seconds - without losing threat or focus. Seems to me that damage prevented is just as good as healing it up after the fact. I guess we could in theory use focused defense along with one of the wards, but it still costs threat - and as a tank, that is already at a premium.

 

Maybe the new threat bonus on guardian slash will help offset that? Who knows.

 

As it stands now, on paper - it REALLY makes me question the development team, and makes me even more disheartened and disenfranchised with the game. Your mileage may vary, but that's how I feel about seeing the changes they have in store to "buff" - Jedi Guardians.

 

As best I can figure, we've spent the last 3 months, as a group, re-iterating over and over that our single target threat was ok, but we were desperately lacking in AoE threat. So what do they do? Toss us a "small" bone for single-target threat and nerf the hell out of our AoE threat/taunt generation by around 20-25%.

[Alexi_son]

I'm thinking focused defense may be a nice way for a dps guardian who finds himself pulling agro to use focused defense to dump threat and maybe get a little heal out of it to boot -- it may actually be useful in that circumstance.

 

... for dps guardians ... who do enough damage to pull agro off someone else actively tanking a mob.

[Veniras]

It is very very obvious that focused defense is a survival thing when you draw too much aggro.

Soloing (Defense) I sometimes draws so much aggro that Kira is at full health (because nobodo attacks her) while I'm close to dying even with enure, medpacs and warding call. Being in Soresu this also means that I have focus to spare as I'm being attacked all the time.

 

Focused defense will help me heal, dump aggro and let Kira take a few of the shots before I decide to be the aggro-monster again. Simple as that.

[Alexi_son]

So your point is it's an abilty to help solo? With someone other than Doc?

 

I solo lvl 50 champions already just fine with Doc as a companion. Maybe the focused defense is so we don't feel stuck to Doc all the time?

 

Regardless, I never had a bit of problem with solo leveling on a guardian , nor do I recall a great deal of gnashing of teeth regarding how hard it is to level solo (except for folks that did not want to use a healing companion) - so this is to fix a problem that really doesn't exist?

[Veniras]

No, my point is that is it a heal/survival thing for when we draw *too much* aggro. Which can happen. I like the idea of focused defense.