Guardian Tank Wish-List

[Fordel]

3. Cooldowns 2 agree, 2 disagree

 

Problem: Cooldowns for our key threat producing abilities; Sundering Strike, Guardian Strike, and Force Sweep present an awkward rotation for tanking.

 

Solution: Modify a deep Defense skill (e.g. Cyclonic Sweeps) to passively reduce the cooldown of Force Sweep. Reduce the cooldown on Guardian Strike. Remove the cooldown from Sundering Strike and reduce it's damage to be equivalent with normal Strike.

 

 

The Whole Sundering Strike vs. Strike Strike, that's the core issues that is really breaking the flow of things in my mind. Tanking Guardians essentially have two competing 'one' buttons. Sundering Strike just needs to out right replace the default Strike Strike for Tanking Guardians (maybe all Guardians).

 

I don't think any of the other too-many-button issues can REALLY be addressed or even evaluated as long as Sundering Strike and Strike Strike exist as they do currently. The current setup is something that works on a target dummy, but becomes awkward and tedious in actual game-play. Guardians have more then enough situational attacks and cooldowns to keep things interesting, without the need for a 3 GCD rhythm tax.

 

I think I understand the INTENT of the current Strike Strike vs. Sundering Strike model. Where they didn't want Focus generation to be entirely one dimensional at the base level. Where if you didn't or couldn't access all the Guardians other Focus Initiators (leap, throw etc) you weren't just hitting 1111 till you built yourself back up.

 

It's just the current solution feels much worse. Where you have a constant nag to keep that <sunder><anythingelse><anythingelse><sunder> rhythm going, where each missed or delayed Sundering Strike window means your just a little bit worse off. I just don't find it at all desirable gameplay, not combined with everything else the Tanking Guardian throws at you.

 

 

TLDR: Remove Sundering Strikes cooldown and rebalance it's damage if required THEN work on everything else from that new point.

[Smashbrother]

Ya unremitting should be a baseline skill, but remove the 20% damage reduction or make it like 10%. The only skills I think should be combined are enure and focused defense, and opportune and w/e the other one is called that only works on mobs and not players.

 

Sundering strike most def needs it's cd removed. I also agree that there should be a force pull as a deep tank talent. Hilt strike needs to have a lower cd like 30 sec, and guardian slash needs to be 9 sec cd as well.

 

I pretty much agree with everything the OP says.

[Finnbor]

At 15k hp 4% endurance amounts to 600 hp. At 18k 4% amounts to 720. We don't need an endurance talent to make up 2k hp, we just need gear tweaking so we're 1300 or 1400 behind. But if the issue is with gear, then I'm inclined to believe we won't get it/don't need it.

 

Ye i have noticed the endurance difference in gear but i would think that giving the endurance as a passive or as a defence talent would be easier to fix than change all tanking gear. also 4% endurance isnt alot i know but having the cap be closer than 2k would be better than nothing. i think its around 80 more endurance at 2000 endurance what i currently have buffed. not sure how much it would actually be in total healt gained but it still would be better than nothing.

 

a) if it didn't have a focus cost and was spammable then it would do even less damage otherwise it would be broken

 

Ye maybe it would be better if they lowered the focus cost to 1 or 2.

b) Why is frontal cone damage on this list? You act as if that alone is some sort of failing. VG tanks also have an aoe attack with frontal cone damage. The fact that Cyclone slash does cone damage is not a big deal.

Well they have alot more aoes than we do and theyr 1 aoe ability that does frontal has better range and basicly having cyclone only doing frontal doesnt help when your using aoe taunt and the some of the mobs just move behind you and its kinda annoying to have to move and it lowers the aoe damage done to the mobs when you have to move. I know its not a big deal but it would be nice thing to have.

 

c) damage was recently buffed by 17% (+34% overall), but I see your point

 

Ye it still doesnt do enough threat or damage for you to hold aggron in aoe spam fest situations.

d) if it doesn't give enough threat then use it differently. jump in on the strongest guy there and have everyone focus fire on him. Add Cyclone Slash into an aoe rotation, and you can begin to grab aggro on the whole pull while you tank the main guy. If/when the dps nukes with aoes, if you don't have enough threat by then, then pop Challenging Call and continue doing what you were doing. Thats pretty much all you can do

 

Well usually what we do in the "old" raids is that we just move everything on small pile and spam aoes to get the mobs down fast as possible i know that maybe isnt the way you do it but thats what we have been doing and in those situations our aoe damage/threat isnt doing its job well.

5% is what they are shooting for. Ideally a 1% difference would be nice, but I'm too afraid they might mess it up. Besides, it takes more threat to pull something from range than it does from melee, so perhaps the damage is to account for the fact that many of their skills are ranged. Also, don't forget that BW stated that training dummies are still unreliable sources of data because they can't dodge/parry

Well i was talking about the new raid where we have been using raid wide parsers and in story and hm modes what i have noticed that we are behind Vangaurd around 3-4% and there is alot different mechanics that could count for the difference basicly you have to do some tank switches or kite the electric missiles etc and it could be because of those things. But 5% buff to our dps would be one way to close the cap.

 

Overpowered, skill would be overpowered

 

Why would it be overpowered? basicly we are the only tank without the ranged pull and there is only 1 area where guardian tank would be good in pvp and that is the ball carrier in huttball and theres easy way to counter guardian if you play well. Also having that force pull would help us when we dont have the ball. If you think its op then why does assasins/shadows have it too they have everything and stealth they are the most op tank in the game and giving guardians one of their abilityes isnt op.

 

If they did, I'm sure many people would still try to do hybrid anyway. I don't know why but for some reason some people seem to like the idea of trying to use hybrid over pure spec. I think it makes them feel unique in their builds, but honestly either way it's cookie cutter, they're just deceiving themselves. When I looked at the 1.2 patch notes I thought, "well, i guess the hybrid is dead". Then I got on the forums and I see "man, the hybrid is even better than before!!". I don't know how they came to that conclusion. It's like all of the arguments that they had before the patch that 1.2 fixed for the Defense build suddenly didn't exist and they flipped sides and started arguing from a different direction, but pretended like they stayed the same.

 

Ye i dont think that anything would kill the hybrid spec apart of maybe switching Warding call for guardian slash .

[Xanxari]

With a 31/8/2 build you will have zero problems with focus, zero problems with single target threat, and a much much easier time with multiple targets. Furthermore, your survivability will be completely FINE. After all, if you can go with the whole "don't worry guys we can just chain taunt" argument, then I suppose I can just say "don't worry guys we can just heal through it" argument. Which you CAN do. Coming from someone who leveled as a hybrid and later respecced after level 50, the pure Defense build is way better. It has much more synergy; everything with the hybrid just felt forced and stretched too thin, like I had to fight against the game to accomplish the same results as what I've been doing with Defense.

 

Even just doing a plain old heroic daily yesterday, a VG tank couldn't pull anything off me. Guardian threat is just fine these days, it's much better than it has been. But if we keep QQing, and eventually get what we want, then I'm afraid we'll end up OP or FotM, and then the nerf hammer comes. No thank you.

 

Oh and your third thing about Focused Defense? Not valid. Focused Defense is a threat dump and is meant to be used as such. The 15% boost in the dps tree is so you will survive long enough to shrug off all of your threat, and also to make the skill useful for pvp where threat doesn't matter. As a hybrid tank, you will not have enough focus to use it as some sort of heal or defensive cooldown, so stop trying to make a skill into something that it is not.

 

and im telling you we dont have any Threat problems in the Hybrid class at all, and i did't say you should stop DPS on the boss, i told you that after 2 min all the tanks can stop dps and just Chain Taunt, if you dont get that Taunt is the best Threat building skill we got you dont know how to Tank in Swtor, "THIS IS NOT WOW!!! get that into your little head will you!" and AoE roflmao.... you have 20% more damage to Force Sweep and Cyclone Slash and you think that will help you to hold the Threat and a Hybrid cant hold the Threat on the trash in EV or KB or EC all it takes is one DPS to go max out with AoE and we both lost control.

 

 

the DPS can if they want to pull Threat of the tank on the first 30 sec to 1min. and its like that in most MMO's so dont say you can from the first hit on a Boss maintain the Highest Threat on a boss not using Taunt, when the DPS goes max out on the boss, that is a lie plain and simple. or your DPS are just bad, or you might say good, for they know they will pull Threat of you and hold back there DPS the first 30 sec.

 

 

and dont tell me that Focused Defense is not a CD you cant use for it dumps Threat.....

 

3 min into a fight both your CDs are down or whatever if you used Taunt to build a huge Threat pool, just use Focused Defense, then Taunt a milisec after, pop Combat Focus if you are at 6 Focus or under and spam some Foucs builder, and only keep Blade storm and Riposer on CD. for 10 sec. and now you have 3 Really nice CDs as a tank. that is really hard to understand aint it?, ohh if you loose Agro after your Taunt goes off use AoE taunt and you got the boss again but you shouldt need it. and you can use it early in the fight you just need to Combine it with one or two Taunts.

 

 

Hybrid! > Deep Defence!

[Xanxari]

I've heard about that, and based on the info you linked, I'd say Taunt is definitely NOT working as intended...

 

I mean... they're saying that a tank is supposed to taunt off himself? ...really?

 

The tooltip suggests that Taunt is supposed to be a RE-active ability, not a PRO-active one. Furthermore, it clearly states that the effect expires after 6 sec. Based on the info you linked, that is not the case, and so I have to conclude that the current Taunt mechanic is (most likely) an exploit that the Devs have yet to correct.

 

yea i know, but if you are on a range boss and in hybrid spec. you just run out taunt charge in every 15 sec. and you get 30% more threat and a 4 sec 20% damage reduction combo, it insane and stupid how Taunt works, but if you look at 16 man Fights you most likely have 2 tanks and they swap Threat often and in doing so they build huge amount of Threat that way alone, and if you notice it you have a less likely chance to loos agro when there are Tank swaping.

 

to the Hybrid problem as many will call it, they need to give us the Unremitting, and Commanding Awe from the Vigilance tree, if they do that the Hybrid is dead well allmost dead there are the problem with 9 sec Blade storm and 12 sec Blade storm.

 

9 sec Blade Storm

Unremitting

Commanding Awe

 

those 3 are why we go Hybrid, they need to fix this, i dont mind how Taunt works, you need it in a Rotation and i love that Taunt aint a backup "ohh crap button" when the raid fails, but they should change the tool tip so every tank know how it works.

[Finnbor]

Taunt is working as intended and the new raid does have alot of tank switching in the first 2 bosses.

 

Focused defence doenst work in these tank switching bosses because after 2 ticks of the "heal" the other tank will steal the aggro and if your taunts are on cd you are causing a wipe.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Finnbor

[Zayse]

and im telling you we dont have any Threat problems in the Hybrid class at all, and i did't say you should stop DPS on the boss, i told you that after 2 min all the tanks can stop dps and just Chain Taunt, if you dont get that Taunt is the best Threat building skill we got you dont know how to Tank in Swtor, "THIS IS NOT WOW!!! get that into your little head will you!" and AoE roflmao.... you have 20% more damage to Force Sweep and Cyclone Slash and you think that will help you to hold the Threat and a Hybrid cant hold the Threat on the trash in EV or KB or EC all it takes is one DPS to go max out with AoE and we both lost control.

 

 

the DPS can if they want to pull Threat of the tank on the first 30 sec to 1min. and its like that in most MMO's so dont say you can from the first hit on a Boss maintain the Highest Threat on a boss not using Taunt, when the DPS goes max out on the boss, that is a lie plain and simple. or your DPS are just bad, or you might say good, for they know they will pull Threat of you and hold back there DPS the first 30 sec.

 

 

and dont tell me that Focused Defense is not a CD you cant use for it dumps Threat.....

 

3 min into a fight both your CDs are down or whatever if you used Taunt to build a huge Threat pool, just use Focused Defense, then Taunt a milisec after, pop Combat Focus if you are at 6 Focus or under and spam some Foucs builder, and only keep Blade storm and Riposer on CD. for 10 sec. and now you have 3 Really nice CDs as a tank. that is really hard to understand aint it?, ohh if you loose Agro after your Taunt goes off use AoE taunt and you got the boss again but you shouldt need it. and you can use it early in the fight you just need to Combine it with one or two Taunts.

 

 

Hybrid! > Deep Defence!

 

I think the funniest thing about this post is that I HAVE NEVER PLAYED WOW IN MY LIFE. LOL you are so used to trying to call people out for comparing this game to WoW that you just tried to call out a player who is comparing swtor to swtor and has actually never played wow!!

 

I've got news for you, you DO have threat issues if you depend on taunt to do your job for you. It's one thing to use it to regain lost control, but to have to rely on it to tank full on? Thats like admitting defeat. Super easy mode, and I refuse to tank that way, refuse to even try tanking that way to see if i works. I'd rather quit the game. And I've got news for you, if BioWare sees tanking turn into THAT, you can expect a nerf coming to taunt, and then where will you be with your broken tanking style?

 

BW has stated it wants pure builds. Hybrid WILL continue to keep getting nerfed, you might as well go deep defense now. It is perfectly viable, the best single target tank in the game. I can tank much better with it than I did with the hybrid, without having to rely on "chain taunting". The way I see it, Defense has no where to go but up.

 

Furthermore- you are relying on chain taunting to build all of your threat for you, then you are neglecting damage output. In a deep defense build you generally only need to use taunt if the boss drops aggro or maybe if the dps does some burst damage. But even then that dps should be guarded and it shouldn't be an issue. You on the other hand are saying you would run around taunting on every cooldown and building up focus so you can dump all of your resources with Focused Defense. If you rely on using skills other than crap that doesn't even do damage, then how are you going to avoid enrage timers? Right now I see absolutely no reason to bring you to my raid. No one needs tanks that have to "chain taunt" their way through boss encounters.

 

The hybrid doesn't bring anything significant to the table. Defense Tank > Vigilance Tank.

 

P.S. If you are going to misspell everything, at least be consistent. Defense is how the US spells it, Defence is how the UK spells it

[azelmkII]

Oh and your third thing about Focused Defense? Not valid. Focused Defense is a threat dump and is meant to be used as such. The 15% boost in the dps tree is so you will survive long enough to shrug off all of your threat, and also to make the skill useful for pvp where threat doesn't matter. As a hybrid tank, you will not have enough focus to use it as some sort of heal or defensive cooldown, so stop trying to make a skill into something that it is not.

For me, Focus Defense is my OH NO button, and it saved me several times. I know we already have Saber Ward & Warding Call & Unity but CDs are too long, and any damage reduction talent is welcome since defense tree doesn't offer many.

[Xanxari]

I think the funniest thing about this post is that I HAVE NEVER PLAYED WOW IN MY LIFE. LOL you are so used to trying to call people out for comparing this game to WoW that you just tried to call out a player who is comparing swtor to swtor and has actually never played wow!!

 

I've got news for you, you DO have threat issues if you depend on taunt to do your job for you. It's one thing to use it to regain lost control, but to have to rely on it to tank full on? Thats like admitting defeat. Super easy mode, and I refuse to tank that way, refuse to even try tanking that way to see if i works. I'd rather quit the game. And I've got news for you, if BioWare sees tanking turn into THAT, you can expect a nerf coming to taunt, and then where will you be with your broken tanking style?

 

BW has stated it wants pure builds. Hybrid WILL continue to keep getting nerfed, you might as well go deep defense now. It is perfectly viable, the best single target tank in the game. I can tank much better with it than I did with the hybrid, without having to rely on "chain taunting". The way I see it, Defense has no where to go but up.

 

Furthermore- you are relying on chain taunting to build all of your threat for you, then you are neglecting damage output. In a deep defense build you generally only need to use taunt if the boss drops aggro or maybe if the dps does some burst damage. But even then that dps should be guarded and it shouldn't be an issue. You on the other hand are saying you would run around taunting on every cooldown and building up focus so you can dump all of your resources with Focused Defense. If you rely on using skills other than crap that doesn't even do damage, then how are you going to avoid enrage timers? Right now I see absolutely no reason to bring you to my raid. No one needs tanks that have to "chain taunt" their way through boss encounters.

 

The hybrid doesn't bring anything significant to the table. Defense Tank > Vigilance Tank.

 

P.S. If you are going to misspell everything, at least be consistent. Defense is how the US spells it, Defence is how the UK spells it

 

 

ok you did't play WOW but you would rather quit the game then use Taunt to gain more Threat? Taunt is the best Threat Skill we got? what the hell is wrong with you? 30% more Threat then you allready have every time you use Taunt from Range or 10% more Threat everytime you use Taunt in Melee, and you dont want to USE AN ABILITY THAT GIVE YOU THAT MUCH THREAT!!! well im stunned you might as well Quit now then for they havent fixed it and wont fix it...

 

and i dont depend on Taunt i USE IT im not stupid to give up on that much Threat, and its of GCD so i dont waste any time using Taunt when im Building Focus and Spending Focus, and the fact you did't answer my Question, do you use Taunt in the first 30 sec to 1 min of a Boss fight? i think you do or another tank does and in doing so you are in my Boat so why not use it more often if you dont need it for Tank swaping?

 

 

and you call the Hybrid a worse tank then Deep Defense, i want to know what gave you that brainfart.... plz do share you awesome Skills with a noob like me will you? give me some stats some talent that makes Deep defense better then the Hybrid.

 

 

PS im sorry english is my 3rd language, but thx for correcting me!

[RDeanOU]

I think the funniest thing about this post is that I HAVE NEVER PLAYED WOW IN MY LIFE. LOL you are so used to trying to call people out for comparing this game to WoW that you just tried to call out a player who is comparing swtor to swtor and has actually never played wow!!

 

I've got news for you, you DO have threat issues if you depend on taunt to do your job for you. It's one thing to use it to regain lost control, but to have to rely on it to tank full on? Thats like admitting defeat. Super easy mode, and I refuse to tank that way, refuse to even try tanking that way to see if i works. I'd rather quit the game. And I've got news for you, if BioWare sees tanking turn into THAT, you can expect a nerf coming to taunt, and then where will you be with your broken tanking style?

 

BW has stated it wants pure builds. Hybrid WILL continue to keep getting nerfed, you might as well go deep defense now. It is perfectly viable, the best single target tank in the game. I can tank much better with it than I did with the hybrid, without having to rely on "chain taunting". The way I see it, Defense has no where to go but up.

 

Furthermore- you are relying on chain taunting to build all of your threat for you, then you are neglecting damage output. In a deep defense build you generally only need to use taunt if the boss drops aggro or maybe if the dps does some burst damage. But even then that dps should be guarded and it shouldn't be an issue. You on the other hand are saying you would run around taunting on every cooldown and building up focus so you can dump all of your resources with Focused Defense. If you rely on using skills other than crap that doesn't even do damage, then how are you going to avoid enrage timers? Right now I see absolutely no reason to bring you to my raid. No one needs tanks that have to "chain taunt" their way through boss encounters.

 

The hybrid doesn't bring anything significant to the table. Defense Tank > Vigilance Tank.

 

P.S. If you are going to misspell everything, at least be consistent. Defense is how the US spells it, Defence is how the UK spells it

 

I prefer the Defense build as well as I personally found the Hybrid lacking in Focus generation, but that said, chain taunting is the best strategy for generating threat. If you can get a 10%-30% threat boost every 15 seconds and you aren't taking advantage of that then you fail as a tank. You should be doing everything you can to generate threat. You should be using every tool at your disposal and taking advantage of the threat generation of taunt is just part of that. It's our best tool. Why on earth wouldn't you take advantage of it?

[Gren-Aluren]

I vouch that hybrid spec has no trouble holding aggro and I do not rely on taunts.

@Zayze: You know you can Taunt while using Focused Defense right?

Edited April 24, 2012 by Gren-Aluren

[Zayse]

ok you did't play WOW but you would rather quit the game then use Taunt to gain more Threat? Taunt is the best Threat Skill we got? what the hell is wrong with you? 30% more Threat then you allready have every time you use Taunt from Range or 10% more Threat everytime you use Taunt in Melee, and you dont want to USE AN ABILITY THAT GIVE YOU THAT MUCH THREAT!!! well im stunned you might as well Quit now then for they havent fixed it and wont fix it...

 

and i dont depend on Taunt i USE IT im not stupid to give up on that much Threat, and its of GCD so i dont waste any time using Taunt when im Building Focus and Spending Focus, and the fact you did't answer my Question, do you use Taunt in the first 30 sec to 1 min of a Boss fight? i think you do or another tank does and in doing so you are in my Boat so why not use it more often if you dont need it for Tank swaping?

 

 

and you call the Hybrid a worse tank then Deep Defense, i want to know what gave you that brainfart.... plz do share you awesome Skills with a noob like me will you? give me some stats some talent that makes Deep defense better then the Hybrid.

 

 

PS im sorry english is my 3rd language, but thx for correcting me!

 

I never said don't utilize taunt, I just said don't crutch yourself by relying on it so much. That just seems so boring. If you lose threat, taunt, if you have aggro, then whats the point? And besides, YOU are the one who said you would just back away from the fight and do nothing but taunt and build focus for focused defense. If you aren't spending focus so you can dump with focused defense then you aren't doing enough damage. This is all based on what YOU described as your method of tanking.

 

Also, I don't care if people misspell things because English isn't their first language, but I just find it odd when the misspellings are inconsistent. Either way a minor issue

 

 

I vouch that hybrid spec has no trouble holding aggro and I do not rely on taunts.

@Zayze: You know you can Taunt while using Focused Defense right?

 

Focused Defense is a TERRIBLE tanking skill. Can you use it and taunt? yes. Is it worth all the effort to make it work? No

Edited April 24, 2012 by Zayse

[RDeanOU]

I never said don't utilize taunt, I just said don't crutch yourself by relying on it so much. That just seems so boring. If you lose threat, taunt, if you have aggro, then whats the point? And besides, YOU are the one who said you would just back away from the fight and do nothing but taunt and build focus for focused defense. If you aren't spending focus so you can dump with focused defense then you aren't doing enough damage. This is all based on what YOU described as your method of tanking.

 

The point of taunting when you already have aggro is that you build an even bigger threat lead and make it impossible for anyone to pull aggro off of you. Why is that difficult to understand?

 

I don't back out of the fight to do it, but when I can taunt at range (after a knockback or when the mob randomly leaps around the room or whenever) I certainly take advantage of the opportunity to get a 30% boost to my threat.

[HikariLovesRyoko]

Ok let's stop the arguments about taunt already. We've strayed off topic, and no one benefits from turning this thread into a flame session.

 

Some agree that taunt is working as intended, others think that it's doesn't meet the expectation, or that the tooltip is misleading.

 

Whatever your personal opinion may be, let's remember taunt is exactly the same for every tanking class, and not an issue specific to Guardians/Juggernauts.

 

That said, any further arguments about this topic should be redirected to the Classes/Roles/Tanking forum.

Edited April 25, 2012 by HikariLovesRyoko

[Xanxari]

Ok let's stop the arguments about taunt already. We've strayed off topic, and no one benefits from turning this thread into a flame session.

 

Some agree that taunt is working as intended, others think that it's doesn't meet the expectation, or that the tooltip is misleading.

 

Whatever your personal opinion may be, let's remember taunt is exactly the same for every tanking class, and not an issue specific to Guardians/Juggernauts.

 

That said, any further arguments about this topic should be redirected to the Classes/Roles/Tanking forum.

 

yea im sorry, and back to topic, i would love for us to get some skill that reflect blaster fire back to range mobs, and they could do something here to help us with the AoE Threat we are short on, not to mention the visuals would make it even more cool to play tank!

 

give the tanking tree 9 sec. Blade Storm, Commanding Awe, Unremitting, and some kind of HP Buff.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Xanxari

[Invictos]

If they did, I'm sure many people would still try to do hybrid anyway. I don't know why but for some reason some people seem to like the idea of trying to use hybrid over pure spec. I think it makes them feel unique in their builds, but honestly either way it's cookie cutter, they're just deceiving themselves. When I looked at the 1.2 patch notes I thought, "well, i guess the hybrid is dead". Then I got on the forums and I see "man, the hybrid is even better than before!!". I don't know how they came to that conclusion. It's like all of the arguments that they had before the patch that 1.2 fixed for the Defense build suddenly didn't exist and they flipped sides and started arguing from a different direction, but pretended like they stayed the same.

 

Leaving aside the annoyingly persistent question about whether or not hybrids should be viable, the Guardian tank hybrid was improved in 1.2 -- or at least it became more stable, less reliant on a fringe playstyle (bunny hopping back and forth between friend and foe). A post 1.2 hybrid can refresh Blade Barrier 33% more often than a pure Defense build (9 seconds versus 12), and thanks to the associated talents in the Vigilance tree, the hybrid also deals more damage per use of Blade Storm.

 

Considering that Vigilance hybrids didn't even have access to Blade Barrier before 1.2, that's a pretty big deal. In one fell swoop, the hybrid not only got access to a Defense-spec specialty; the hybrid also became better at that specialty. And although Blade Barrier's shield is widely considered to be underwhelming in isolation, it's a damn nice perk for using one of your better attacks, and it's one of the few consistently available defenses that Guardians can use against exotic damage/attack types.

 

Vigilance hybrids also gained indirectly from incidental Focus-cost adjustments, the buff to Master Strike's damage, the buff to Dispatch, the buff to Single Saber Mastery, and (situationally) from the addition of Focus Defense (which is also stronger for Vigilance than it is for any other spec). At the same time, hybrids lost 4% Endurance and the mitigation from Guardian Leap. By contrast, Defense builds benefited from generalized improvements to the class, but there were very few substantive adjustments (good or bad) aimed specifically at pure Defense builds.

 

You can certainly argue that the Defense tree saw a higher net gain in patch 1.2, but it's a stretch to argue that hybrids are unequivocally worse off than they were before, or even that they're unequivocally worse than post-1.2 Defense builds.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Invictos

[ChaeTakbae]

We hybrids are alive and kicking, thank you...

 

Our reasons, I think, haven't changed... My reasons haven't changed.

 

1) Overhead Slash > Hilt Strike

2) Unremitting is a must

3) Free Force Sweep

4) Blade Storm on a 9 seconds cooldown (which properly played means 100% uptime of blade barrier)

5) We still get Warding Call

6) Guardian Slash still sucks

7) Commanding Awe >> Shield Specialization

[Zayse]

I can't argue against the hybrid without a specific build in mind. Too often people try and throw out all kinds of skills that you can't possibly fit in one build, so I'm going to need you to post one if you are going to argue for it

[ChaeTakbae]

I can't argue against the hybrid without a specific build in mind. Too often people try and throw out all kinds of skills that you can't possibly fit in one build, so I'm going to need you to post one if you are going to argue for it

 

OK.

 

Here is the latest one I am using. I change my build a lot, which has made me very poor, since I haven't yet found one that I like, but in all my builds I try to include the following points:

 

1) Effluence for free Force Sweep

2) Lunge for a 1 focus Riposte

3) Overhead Slash with Vigilance

4) Momentum and Victory Rush

5) Unremitting

6) Warding Call

7) Commanding Awe

 

 

This one has Blade Barrier instead of Swelling Winds... but I am not sure if it is worth it.

[Invictos]

I can't argue against the hybrid without a specific build in mind. Too often people try and throw out all kinds of skills that you can't possibly fit in one build, so I'm going to need you to post one if you are going to argue for it

 

For a PVE Tank? Could do something like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500hMGzu0MZcGrMMhzzMZ0z.1

 

It's not hard to see that both Blade Barrier and Overhead/Commanding Awe are possible now. Everything else flows from there.

[Xanxari]

I can't argue against the hybrid without a specific build in mind. Too often people try and throw out all kinds of skills that you can't possibly fit in one build, so I'm going to need you to post one if you are going to argue for it

 

okey here is the 18/23 build... Ondesvin

[RDeanOU]

When I tried to run the hybrid I found myself always hurting for focus. I don't have those problems as full Defense and I just generally feel more able to manage a rotation in full Defense than as a tank hybrid.

[Xanxari]

When I tried to run the hybrid I found myself always hurting for focus. I don't have those problems as full Defense and I just generally feel more able to manage a rotation in full Defense than as a tank hybrid.

 

well did you use the right hybrid build? many of the "so called Hybrid builds" out there are just plain wrong and it looks like most of them havent tryed there own crap builds out......

[ChaeTakbae]

When I tried to run the hybrid I found myself always hurting for focus. I don't have those problems as full Defense and I just generally feel more able to manage a rotation in full Defense than as a tank hybrid.

 

I can't argue in favor of the hybrid without a specific build in mind. Too often people try and throw out all kinds of WRONG skills that you can't possibly WORK in one build, so I'm going to need you to post one if you are going to argue against it.

[HikariLovesRyoko]

Blade Barrier/Sonic Barrier is a talent that deserves some exploration. I've seen a few threads about how it works, and there seems to be a lot of differing opinions about how well it scales (if at all).

 

- Some say it's static and absorbs somewhere between 800-1200 damage.

- Others say it scales with your max HP.

- Still other say it scales with your Force Power (i.e. Strength)

 

I won't bother linking threads because there's waaayyyy too many of them... but my question to this forum would be about how this talent ought to work... or are you all satisfied with it as is?