R.I.P. Guardian Tanks!

[Pylos]

I would like to just say goodbye to the Guardian Tank before 1.3 . We lose nearly 10-12% of total damage output for abilities I could have lived without. Goodbye 200k damage in PVP and goodbye to being a semi-good damage/tank hybrid!

[Revan-the-knight]

Tanks arent supposed to do heaps of damage, besides they are fixing threat, so yay for us:cool:

[Pylos]

I understand that, but it was a nice thing to be able to tank as good as a vanguard, and hit half as good as a shadow!

[Pylos]

Heres my pre 1.3 build.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500RrGzudMdfzZcMRZ0M.1

[Tommot]

I'll still be tanking in 1.3 on my Jugg. I'm actually excited for the changes...

[Pylos]

Ill be happy that more people will consider guardian tanks for PvE. Thats for sure.

[KiranK]

Ill be happy that more people will consider guardian tanks for PvE. Thats for sure.

 

Why would they consider them for PvE. Damage is important not only to hold threat, but to contribute to beating the enrage timers. Why play a Guardian over a Vanguard now? Better AoE. Better AoE damage. Better single target damage. There won't be a reason to choose the Guardian at all, unless you go Hybrid Vig/Defense spec, which I suspect almost everyone will.

[Davfor]

Why would they consider them for PvE. Damage is important not only to hold threat, but to contribute to beating the enrage timers. Why play a Guardian over a Vanguard now? Better AoE. Better AoE damage. Better single target damage. There won't be a reason to choose the Guardian at all, unless you go Hybrid Vig/Defense spec, which I suspect almost everyone will.

 

^^ Got it right on the money.

 

This happened in WoW too with tanks. After a few months of the patch being live and the steady decline of the class being not wanted because the changes killed the class for raiding, people left the game or quit the class and tank shortages were even much worse.

 

Normal people look at or read problems from the past and then listen to see what happened, then don't REPEAT the same THING. I guess the devs don't look at the past mistakes. Good thing my Guardian is a alt. Looks like Vanguard will be the tank of the month. And to many people looking for groups and having a hard time finding tanks for Ops, I feel for you.

[Cybermeister]

The changes mostly affect defense tree - especially if you were specced 31 points to get guardian slash.

 

Whilst the changes are possibly useful or at least 'interesting' for PvE, they make the deep defense spec not really viable in PvP. The DPS we put out was already low and now it will be 10% or more lower (depending on gear / rotation / luck). Your threat level is meaningless in PvP... from PTS experience there is really no choice if you want to tank in PvP now than to go hybrid tank, with the majority of points in the Vigilance tree (up to OH slash & Commanding Awe)

 

Also just like to say nice job BW on wiping the threads discussing these changes from the PTS forum. Way to listen to your player base again.

[Glower]

 

also just like to say nice job bw on wiping the threads discussing these changes from the pts forum. Way to listen to your player base again.

 

 

lmao :d

Edited June 26, 2012 by Glower

[KiranK]

Bioware never listens to the PTS forums. They always say "please provide useful data and feedback", but that's always a formality. They'll ignore you regardless. We all, myself included, told them that nerfs to the Defense Guardian's damage would ruin it, because the Defense Guardian already put out the least DPS of all the tank classes. Did they listen? No. They simply ignored us an made the patch live anyways. Guess my tank Guardian is going hybrid. GJ Bioware at killing an entire spec.

[GarfieldJL]

Tanks arent supposed to do heaps of damage, besides they are fixing threat, so yay for us:cool:

 

You really haven't seen what a Shadow tank or an Assassin Tank can do, huh...

 

You can often mistake them for a dps, the damage I've seen tank shadows and assassin shadows do is rather ridiculous.

[arkitip]

You really haven't seen what a Shadow tank or an Assassin Tank can do, huh...

 

You can often mistake them for a dps, the damage I've seen tank shadows and assassin shadows do is rather ridiculous.

 

That's the damage you saw them doing in PVP running around geared for DPS and using a rotation specifically designed to maximize their damage and leave them force starved. No end-game tank shadow uses that rotation, and even if they did, given the changes to their armoring and self healing with 1.3 they certainly wouldn't now.

 

With these changes Shadows will need to maximize the amount of time they keep Telekinetic Throw on CD, and build up stacks of Harness Shadows as quickly as possible, which means no fishing for Particle Acceleration procs (which as I said, most end-game tank Shadows didn't do anyway). In essence, the defensive hit Shadows took this patch effectively hits them offensively too.

 

On top of that, Vanguards got the big damage portion of their tank tree toned down also. So yeah, all the tanking trees took an offensive hit this patch.

[KiranK]

That's the damage you saw them doing in PVP running around geared for DPS and using a rotation specifically designed to maximize their damage and leave them force starved. No end-game tank shadow uses that rotation, and even if they did, given the changes to their armoring and self healing with 1.3 they certainly wouldn't now.

 

With these changes Shadows will need to maximize the amount of time they keep Telekinetic Throw on CD, and build up stacks of Harness Shadows as quickly as possible, which means no fishing for Particle Acceleration procs (which as I said, most end-game tank Shadows didn't do anyway). In essence, the defensive hit Shadows took this patch effectively hits them offensively too.

 

On top of that, Vanguards got the big damage portion of their tank tree toned down also. So yeah, all the tanking trees took an offensive hit this patch.

 

They still do way more damage than Guardian tanks. Guardian tanks wear damage gear in PVP too since tank stats are more or less worthless. Shadow/Assassin tanks do mad damage and even Vanguards do decent. Guardians were always slightly low, but now we're even lower. Go hybrid spec to tank. Defense is so gimp now.

[Simbr]

Agreed nerfing what little damage they had, when the aim was to increase threat generation was dumb. Only going to lose them subs. RIP TOR maybe?! For Defense Guardians at least!

[Glower]

I can not kill anyone. Literally, no one!

Even finishing is very difficult to...

Guarding someone, then run and debuff enemies like a fool.

 

This is my NEW experience on 10-49 WZ (at 30 lvl)

[cpdm]

I would like to just say goodbye to the Guardian Tank before 1.3 . We lose nearly 10-12% of total damage output for abilities I could have lived without. Goodbye 200k damage in PVP and goodbye to being a semi-good damage/tank hybrid!

 

Tanks arent supposed to do heaps of damage, besides they are fixing threat, so yay for us:cool:

 

When did 200K damage in a WZ become heaps?

[JefferyClark]

When did 200K damage in a WZ become heaps?

 

Amen... and to even get that 200k before as a Guardian, you had to be almost perfect.

[Thornsbane]

Im 31/10 defense Guardian in full War Hero tanking gear.......its interesting.

 

Very hard to kill......if you have a healer. But then so is everybody. The problem is that if you dont have heals on you, you take time to be killed but you just arent doing enough damage to get the other player down. I mean, all their cooldowns will probably reset it takes so long. What use is survivability if you cant kill your enemy. You stun them as much as possible and hope for backup.

 

Also, even in group battle, you cant really support as enemy players will just ignore you, and a few 6 sec stuns every few minutes doesnt do much mitigation in the end.

 

That said, I often get max medals (for what thats worth) and definately feel like Im changing the course of the match.....but I just hit so weak now.

 

The spec is useless solo in PVP now except as a delay tactic, a wall the enemy needs to knock down before taking a point. Maybe that is as intended, but that is no fun to play.

 

Gonna give it another try tonight. Though there probably needs to be a +6% damage skill way up in the defense tree.

 

But as an above poster said, it has become just shielding and taunting like an idiot, with a few stuns thrown in.

[Stepheda]

BW really doesent know what to do. 1.2 they gave us dps, 1.3 they traded it for threat; Indirect nerf to defensive spec PVP guards. So far as that is concerned, your job in PVP is to keep your healer alive, when CCs, knocks, and MS are down you leap to their healers, making them essentially useless.

 

What sets us apart PvE wise from other tanks is our mitigation. Our HP pools are generally higher than everyone to exclude Vanguards, though we trade that for an extra mitigation CD. DPS wise we were already at the bottom of any competent raid, the nerf (or trade) to our dps is only adding insult to injury.

[Helig]

Guardian tank damage was never a "problem" in PvP, unlike Shadow tank damage. Why'd they nerf Guardian tank damage is beyond me.

 

Excellent patch for below average PvE tanks who couldn't tank multiple targets, and divine for awful tanks who didn't even have their rotation\priority worked out to hold a single target, though. A step towards WoW dumbification. Let's remove threat next time, yay.

[Drgneb]

A step towards WoW dumbification.

Oh god please no!! Just bump the damage back up BW and it might be playable again. But gods no dont let them add something like vegenance where all you do is sneeze on the mob and you have 4000% threat!

[Simbr]

Defense Guardian was in a very good place after 1.2, effective at tanking pvp with enough dps to be a factor and also very good at PvE tanking and solo play. Seemingly under powered to those without the patience to play it, but fantastic for those that did, which imo is what Jedi is all about.

 

Holding aggro was a challenge (which is what we want) but not an issue for any true tank out there, we had plenty of tools to manage any situation.

 

Why turn a fun versatile Spec into a boring PvE only Tank??!! Terrible idea are they copying SWG? lol

 

And no one can say 'Tanks don't do damage' I have a Powertech and a Sin and they do a plenty still in Tank spec.

[grallmate]

I loved tanking in my Guardian last week. So much so that I was trying to talk my guild into finding another healer so I could run my tank instead. I had no issues holding threat (without taunt boosting), even against full Rakata Sents while I was still in half Columi. In WZ I could keep someone alive through a good 15-20 seconds of focus fire and even kill a straggler that was around half HP. Soloing dailies was fine and I felt pretty invincible in PvE.

 

Enter 1.3. I logged in, assigned my 31/7/3 build and started off tanking a few FPs using my old rotation and some guildies. LI was fine, we were undergeared a bit but we went pretty well until the party leader had to bail for work. Cool, try out MP which I didn't have issues with before. Eat a few knockbacks and stuns and suddenly I lose aggro to a fully augmented Rakata geared Sage, all good I'll just taunt it back, build up some aggro on the group of mobs, eat another knockback run back in, eat a bigger knockback from the other mob and leap in then they all turn back to the sage. Cool, burn the single target taunt on one, GS, HS, FS* and MS on the other like I normally would to pull back aggro and it hasn't worked. Does cause a wipe or anything but just feels like my threat 'burst' has dropped.

 

Tanking bosses seemed fine but then I decided to try my dailies. So I zone to Black Hole, pick up the quests and go out to kill me some Torvix. Now that I'm running around on my own I feel like I'm hitting them with a wet noodle. Used to take about 20 seconds to kill a strong/normal pair without having to blow interrupts on the normal's heals. Even using the interrupts it's now taking a good 30-40 seconds for the pair.

 

GS seems to deal less threat as well. Used to hit for about 1.3-3.5k and about 3-5k threat. Now its putting out 1k-1.5k damage and about 2-3k threat. Thats terrible... I can now pull (much) more threat per second off a MS in Soresu than a GS. When I get home tonight I'm gonna play around with a hybrid build. GS just seems worthless atm.

[darh_halo]

Don't bother testing hybrid tank. I play hybrid, with full tank gear, and in 1.2 i still did decent damage and with excellent tanking, guarding, etc. Challenging aggro management in hard mode fps. I love the class in 1.2 !

 

But now 1.3 i hit like using wet noodle indeed. My dps droppped significantly !

I felt survivalibity is same with 1.2 not much different *shrugs*

Bio, you need to give us back our decent damage