Jedi Guardian Changes - Game Update 2.5

[Keleus]

I have A LOT to say to all of this but atm I am quite very tired and it is past 3am where I live, so I will return when I can and finish dusting this off.

[Hornakkan]

One of the larger barriers to Guards being brought is the fact that compared to a sent we take far more damage. Survivability is as large of an issue as DPS for Guards.

 

IMHO the larger barrier is our lack of burst dmg + raid wide utility compared to a Sent : we build our DPS over long time compared to them and the latest Operations contain fast kill phases

[Riivan]

Your DPS is 0 if you're dead. And admittedly with the sent changes it'd be easier to get groups with just a straight DPS change. Fact is that my Sent shouldn't be taking less dmg than my guard on these fights. We might as well be wearing light armor with how easy it is to bring us down.

[Alec_Fortescue]

IMHO the larger barrier is our lack of burst dmg + raid wide utility compared to a Sent : we build our DPS over long time compared to them and the latest Operations contain fast kill phases

 

How about they're both equally large issues?

 

PvP damage is kinda okay, especially with root. But what is it good for if you die within seconds because of little mobility (no cc breakers/immunity in the middle of combat) and having significantly less defensive abilities than other classes?

 

It's seriously not okay with sentinels getting smashed for 3k-4k with their long-lasting and quickly refreshing rebuke + talent. Talent should be high in the Combat tree or given to Jugs. Most of Sent's survival abilities are just like if they were stolen from jugs

Edited December 2, 2013 by Alec_Fortescue

[Hornakkan]

Your DPS is 0 if you're dead. And admittedly with the sent changes it'd be easier to get groups with just a straight DPS change. Fact is that my Sent shouldn't be taking less dmg than my guard on these fights. We might as well be wearing light armor with how easy it is to bring us down.

 

If you're in dead in PvE then you're doing something wrong. But I guess you're speaking about PvP as Alec_Fortescue did while I'm talking about PvE : that's why we can't find a way to understand each other's arguments

[Riivan]

If you're in dead in PvE then you're doing something wrong. But I guess you're speaking about PvP as Alec_Fortescue did while I'm talking about PvE : that's why we can't find a way to understand each other's arguments

 

I'm talking about both PvE and PvP.

 

There's also no place for changing the tone of this discussion from helpful collaboration to argumentative. If you feel the need to snark, go elsewhere.

 

If you're dead in PvE sure, you probably did something wrong, someone else did something wrong to tax your healers, the ops bosses glitched again or RNG was just not your friend. However a lot of these fights have unavoidable damage components and it'd be nice if we had something to use against a bit of it. A change to Focused Defense would help considerably since it's a nice buff to our mitigation and if changed wouldn't eat up all our focus on use.

 

Two biggest complaints I hear about Guards in terms of progression raid spots (SM and HM get out, cake walks) is less than desirable DPS and squishy.

[Alec_Fortescue]

If you're in dead in PvE then you're doing something wrong. But I guess you're speaking about PvP as Alec_Fortescue did while I'm talking about PvE : that's why we can't find a way to understand each other's arguments

 

Survivability doesn't really matter in PvE unless you're a tank. Defensive cooldowns shouldn't be even used unless someone screws up.

 

Damage-wise they are just viable. They reach minimum required but they are just not competitive. What you'll get with a hard work, many other dps specs will do easily.

Edited December 2, 2013 by Alec_Fortescue

[Creslan]

Survivability doesn't really matter in PvE unless you're a tank. Defensive cooldowns shouldn't be even used unless someone screws up.

 

Damage-wise they are just viable. They reach minimum required but they are just not competitive. What you'll get with a hard work, many other dps specs will do easily.

 

Cycling cooldowns as a DPS is essential in a Hard mode DF/DP operation, not only for your survival but to ease the burden on the healers. This may not be noticed on classes that have AOE damage reductions in their trees.

 

Remove the cost of Focused Defense and remove the heal component. Increase the duration to 15 secs and allow the 15% damage reduction for not only vigilance but focus specs, this would not only fix our agro dump, but the need for any other damage reduction abilities in either tree.

 

Now with the above change, a guardian would have essentially have 4% more DR(15FD +5 from the difference between heavy and medium armor +4 from vigilance tree) than a sentinel (20 rebuke)while in vigilance on single target attacks, the sentinel would have 26% more DR than the guardian on AOE attacks.

[Hornakkan]

Two biggest complaints I hear about Guards in terms of progression raid spots (SM and HM get out, cake walks) is less than desirable DPS and squishy.

 

If this is really true (and I doubt it is), the Devs won't give us the two of this for sure : we'll get a variant of the "You can heal to full" to avoid one of these two changes.

 

 

As Alec stated and I agree with him : survivability doesn't matter for PvE, our defensiv CD are enough and only the cost of Focused Defense should be fixed.

 

Everything else should be focused on our RNG problem : the DPS is the way Devs must look at for Vig Guards

 

 

 

Edit : I think I have to add that this is MY OWN vision of the class I'm playing since beta. I can be wrong but this what I think

Edited December 2, 2013 by Hornakkan

[Riivan]

I'm just curious what content you all have cleared that defensive cooldowns are an unnecessary thing? I'm not trying to be a dick here, but there are plenty of instances where a defensive cooldown is necessary or at the very least incredibly helpful outside of someone making a mistake. NiM Kephess in TFB comes to mind.

 

I want our DPS fixed first and foremost. If we have at least that then you can forgive the damage taken.

 

But I also want us to feel like we actually have heavy armor on. I agree with Creslan about the Focused Defense change (I like the heal but it can go). We wouldn't need much else. Maybe an minimal AoE dmg reduction or a little extra boost to our DR.

[paowee]

PVP: My question is.. if Vigilance/Vengeance doesn't get an appealing enough buff.. what is going to stop everyone from just speccing Rage/Focus (again)? Don't people want to fight other Warrior/Kinght specs in PVP other than Smash? Edited December 2, 2013 by paowee

[ArenCordial]

PVP: My question is.. if Vigilance/Vengeance doesn't get an appealing enough buff.. what is going to stop everyone from just speccing Rage/Focus (again)?

 

Nothing really. Frankly I suspect you'll see a nerf to Focus/Rage before you see a buff that would make Vigilance/Vengeance appealing enough to take over the Focus/Rage in its current state.

[UndyingHadyn]

Nothing really. Frankly I suspect you'll see a nerf to Focus/Rage before you see a buff that would make Vigilance/Vengeance appealing enough to take over the Focus/Rage in its current state.

 

 

 

Ah, but there's the rub!

 

I remember landing 14k+ ravages on people before specced as Vengeance. That's with one power relic, after a charge, in an arena.

 

'Tis a pity don't you think?

[Prewoz]

I'm glad we get the ravage root, but I feel like they should have added it to an existing skill instead of adding a new one. Now we have to lose 2 points from somewhere else to spec into the root. (Mainly going to lose force crit bonus, but still). Haven't got to play the new spec yet. Has anyone had a chance to use the new ravage root for vigilance? How does it feel overall?

[SenatorPalpaTANG]

I'm glad we get the ravage root, but I feel like they should have added it to an existing skill instead of adding a new one. Now we have to lose 2 points from somewhere else to spec into the root. (Mainly going to lose force crit bonus, but still).

Yeah the Vigilance tree was already bloated.

 

IMO they should trim some of the fat by getting rid of the "Vigilance" talent and making the 9/12s CDs on Overhead slash and Plasma Brand baseline. As it stands, that talent is a must have for the spec to even function properly so we have no choice but to spend 3 points there. And with its position in the tree, you pick it up before you can even spec for Overhead slash... so what's the point in even making it "optional?" That's a large point sink that could be put to better use.

 

I'd also like to see the DoT talent for Blade Storm (Burning Blade) fused with the one on Overhead slash (Burning Purpose). The DoT damage from both of these skills is largely fluff (especially Burning Blade), and only really used to proc Keening or as trash debuffs to hopefully protect more important DoTs/effects from being dispelled, so why are we charged 4 talent points for them?

 

IMO add the DoT from Burning Blade onto the Burning Purpose Talent and leave it as 2/2. Boom, Vigilance is lean and streamlined again.

 

Also I'd really like to see the duration on Gather Strength at least doubled and have the number of stacks reduced (IE 3 stacks of 7% dmg boost, etc). Something to make that skill less cumbersome.

Edited December 4, 2013 by SenatorPalpaTANG

[Manweth]

I care NOTHING for Vigilance GRDs in PvP. I generally don't do PvP. I also hate Focus Guardians because their commitment to being jerks to everyone ensured our collective doom at 2.0 changes. Now Even if I did, I'd tell you that root fixes nothing. Moving on...

 

Vigilance PvE: Listen and listen well.

 

Survivability in PvE regards the player more than the spec. I've seen hybrid vanguards falling down in 5 seconds, and yet shadows living through the same thing. While it's a gross simplification, this holds mostly true. Cooldown wise, Vigilance has excellent surviviability, eclipsing almost everyone IF YOU KNOW HOW TO CYCLE YOUR COOLDOWNS.

 

Hell, I even offtank bestia and such at Dread Council when need be, and the go-to guy when a tank falls is always the GRD DPS. Never the shadow, never the vanguard. It's alwayss the Guardian DPS that takes the boss for those panic moments. Survivability is fine. Not overpowered, or not underpowered. Just frigging fine.

 

Crucial point: DPS => Thank you a LOT bioware. Thanks to your insecurity about your gunslinger and sentinel alts, you nerfed Focus, and in the haste of nerfing it, you took Shien's damage away from Guardian with 2.0. Good job shortsighted friends of mine. Not only that, the already crude RNG became downright capricious. Even the best of us gets very mediocre numbers if RNG turns around and shows us its backside.

 

And now you buffed Shadows.. They needed it. Badly. And now they are mathematically in line with TK sages and commandos. Kudos. You FINALLY got it right on that front.

 

.... But you forgot. You forgot, that the iconic class of this whole damn genre is Jedi Guardian. We never asked for an OP rotation or DPS. We wanted a fair chance. You took that away each patch by giving more and more to others.

 

And now slingers are entirely uncontrollable. They are outdpsing EVERY single spec by at least 400. They are banging down the doors of 4.1k DPS, and pretty soon they'll break that barrier as well.

 

The sentinels who never had any Armor Reduction now gets armor red. at dummy, and the return is......*shivers*

 

Put simply, we are now, on average numbers, the worst DPS class in game. Ponder this for a moment.

 

Jedi Guardian. The single AC which is most recognizable, and easily the most played in this game.

 

The worst.

 

This, beyond anything else, is a HUGE marketing mistake.

 

What puzzles me is that Bioware Austin has ( or at least had) some guys from Bioware Mythic. For the love of god, ask them how a single class balance issue KILLED an entire MMO. Just ask. Not to say that SWTOR will die coz of this, because it won't really, but come on! This is a SERIOUS matter.

 

Well, at least more serious than that hideous Ewok you peddled onto masses and passed it along as "new content."

 

I mean really?! An ewok!

 

 

............To conclude this rant, many ppeople presented a lot of good ideas, and most of hem were not that cumbeersome. Just fix the gosh darn RNG and / or buff some DPS. NOT that hard.

 

Also, my Defense Guardian friend wanted me to say thanks. He thanks you because the moment shadows got their new shiny buffs ( and thus returned to pre 2.0 GODTANK status), his raid team outright booted his *** out.

 

Great job. Just amazing.

 

On the other hand, space is cool, so I'll stick around that when I'm not making sentinels doubt the length of their genital organs' size.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Manweth

[Riivan]

Rant away if you must, but we've been trying to keep this at least relatively rant free. We're not shadows post 2.0

 

Survivability in PvE is the player for sure, but you need the tools to use. At the moment we sort of have those, though one negatively impacts our DPS. We are better than quite a few out there and if they adjust Focused Defense we'll be solid. We just don't have a lot of tools otherwise to mitigate all the unavoidable damage.

 

Stepping in to tank a HM boss is one thing. Doing that in nightmare is a whole other thing.

 

Also if they booted your friend that's unfortunate. Guard tanks are in a pretty great place. They could do with a little increase to their base DR, but aside from that we have a great suite of CDs.

 

Also Treek is a galactic treasure you take that back! Haha.

[Alec_Fortescue]

Ravage root is actually giving you a good bit of fighting chance. Sorcs/Operative healers can't los you that easily anymore in games like Voidstar with pillars around you. It also prevents assassins from running behind you to land a backstab, which normally is super hard to defend against with the hero engine and lag everyone has.

[SenatorPalpaTANG]

Ravage root is actually giving you a good bit of fighting chance. Sorcs/Operative healers can't los you that easily anymore in games like Voidstar with pillars around you. It also prevents assassins from running behind you to land a backstab, which normally is super hard to defend against with the hero engine and lag everyone has.

 

Yeah, I'm actually liking it more than I thought I would. It's made a noticable difference in my damage output too since I can go right into MS when it procs (as I would in PvE) rather than having to refresh freezing force then try to get in position before unloading. The spec feels a lot smoother.

 

Other than the bloat and the poor state of Gather Strength, Vigi feels pretty solid right now.

[Alec_Fortescue]

With the root, 1 mil dmg in full voidstar wz (i just xferred my almost bis gear (no relics/earpieces etc tho) with 1800 expertise is attainable quite easily.

[NuRhoPhi]

Regarding vigilance:

you get +12% melee dmg. However, Focus gets +3+dmg, and +9% after smash, +15% surge bonus and +30% Armor pen. In addition to that, +7.5 crit to a spam focus sink and the execute.

Whose 'leap', whose zealous strike should hit the hardest? IMO vigilance..

Also: by how much should dps be increased? Not enormously much.

 

My view: in the focus tree, on the first row the 'momentum' talent should be switched with one from the second row that is actually usefull for other specs. Second wind can be considered, but the 7.5% crit talent is welcome too.

 

In vigilance: the damage from blade sweeps burning effect should be increased. Perhaps increase the duration to 9s to start.

Adding a root to sundering throw would have been a nice move.. oh well. How about a snare? Focus gets snares aplenty, combat sentinel gets roots, would it hurt to have an occasional snare (not maintainable), so you don't have to use 'freezing force' to snare?

 

Zen strike: begone random proc change. Overhead slash, Blade sweep and plasma brand now reduce the active cooldown of Masterstrike by X seconds. Let's say 2-4-6. Then you do a masterstrike, overhead slash, blade sweep and plasma brand. Combined, cd of masterstrike is reduced a pretty impressive 18 seconds. Overpowered? 1.5-3-4.5. 3*4.5= 13.5 seconds cd reduction. Or, don't include blade sweep, keep at 2-4-6 and you're looking at reducing cd by 12 seconds with one application of Overhead slash and Plasma brand. Since you're using overhead slash and plasma brand pretty much anyhow, the above is approx. equivalent to reducing cd of masterstrike passively to 18s. It is better because of applying overhead slash more than once still.

Vigilance is essentially the guardians dps ticket for operations. It better be friggin reliable at delivering damage then..

 

Sundering throw additionally reduces the minimum range of saber throw by 2.5-5m, and the maximum range too. (35m range). Sundering throw snares the target for 20-40% for 9 seconds.

 

Preparation: removed. Replaced with 'no respite': 2 points talent. Increases dmg by abilities that generate focus by 5-10%, and increases theirs and plasma brands direct dmg crit chance by 5-10%. This is to give more 'pressure' dmg. +10% more dmg to zealous strike ain't gonna make anyone cry methinks.

 

Narrowed focus increases the range of your leap by 5? m, in addition to current effect.

 

Gather strength: when your movement is impaired, the active cd of leap and guardian leap is reduced by 0.5-1s. In addition to current.

[Manweth]

I don't want to sound so burnt out and jarred but...

 

PvP ...................*turns away and walks*

 

Now the reality of root is that it may fix somethings in pvp, as we stated over 32956942323 times, it does nothing for pve. Nothing. At all. And I seriously can't see how you pvp dudes even spare points for that talent.....Anywhoo.

 

While we are not post 2.0 shadows, we are now solidly in last place. And it's last place in a race where DPS numbers of specs are spread out, not concentrated.

 

Whatever semantics we may argue on, numbers don't lie. We need a boost.

[Hell_Kaiser_Fett]

Regarding vigilance:

you get +12% melee dmg. However, Focus gets +3+dmg, and +9% after smash, +15% surge bonus and +30% Armor pen. In addition to that, +7.5 crit to a spam focus sink and the execute.

Whose 'leap', whose zealous strike should hit the hardest? IMO vigilance..

Also: by how much should dps be increased? Not enormously much.

 

My view: in the focus tree, on the first row the 'momentum' talent should be switched with one from the second row that is actually usefull for other specs. Second wind can be considered, but the 7.5% crit talent is welcome too.

 

In vigilance: the damage from blade sweeps burning effect should be increased. Perhaps increase the duration to 9s to start.

Adding a root to sundering throw would have been a nice move.. oh well. How about a snare? Focus gets snares aplenty, combat sentinel gets roots, would it hurt to have an occasional snare (not maintainable), so you don't have to use 'freezing force' to snare?

 

Zen strike: begone random proc change. Overhead slash, Blade sweep and plasma brand now reduce the active cooldown of Masterstrike by X seconds. Let's say 2-4-6. Then you do a masterstrike, overhead slash, blade sweep and plasma brand. Combined, cd of masterstrike is reduced a pretty impressive 18 seconds. Overpowered? 1.5-3-4.5. 3*4.5= 13.5 seconds cd reduction. Or, don't include blade sweep, keep at 2-4-6 and you're looking at reducing cd by 12 seconds with one application of Overhead slash and Plasma brand. Since you're using overhead slash and plasma brand pretty much anyhow, the above is approx. equivalent to reducing cd of masterstrike passively to 18s. It is better because of applying overhead slash more than once still.

Vigilance is essentially the guardians dps ticket for operations. It better be friggin reliable at delivering damage then..

 

Sundering throw additionally reduces the minimum range of saber throw by 2.5-5m, and the maximum range too. (35m range). Sundering throw snares the target for 20-40% for 9 seconds.

 

Preparation: removed. Replaced with 'no respite': 2 points talent. Increases dmg by abilities that generate focus by 5-10%, and increases theirs and plasma brands direct dmg crit chance by 5-10%. This is to give more 'pressure' dmg. +10% more dmg to zealous strike ain't gonna make anyone cry methinks.

 

Narrowed focus increases the range of your leap by 5? m, in addition to current effect.

 

Gather strength: when your movement is impaired, the active cd of leap and guardian leap is reduced by 0.5-1s. In addition to current.

 

I like some of the ideas you have, mainly increasing our direct damage to help raise our dps. However, what "sounds good" and what "the devs think is good" seem to be two very different things.

[ArenCordial]

I just opened a thread to elect a backup rep in case Andrew is gone so we aren't left scrambling last minute to elect a rep and compose questions. If you guys want to nominate someone check it out.

[NuRhoPhi]

Thanks Hell_Kaiser_Fett

 

Something to keep in mind: the devs have more or less stated that they want to look at the crit rating curve again.

Also, since this is an MMO, it is reasonably to assume that further gear will come in the future. How does such future look for vigilance?

 

Not good at all.

Because vigilance has no surge talents, it is a spec that inherently, for 'sustained dps', that is, on average high dps, should not be speccing much into crit rating (At_the_moment). IF vigilance should ever be in a very good spot, it should in fact be now, now that crit rating is not very valuable, and thus in a sense specs with lots of +30 crit dmg less effective.

Let us compare with pyro mercenary: they get +30% crit dmg to their incendiary missile, their thermal detonator, railshot, power shot and the cell DoT.

If crit rating becomes more important, the gap that vigilance has with pyro merc will logically increase further: pyro merc will often benefit from the +30%crit dmg, it is a spec without auto-crit.

Another example would be sorcerer dps: lightning gets an autocrit, but it also gets +50%crit dmg to two other regulary used abilites. Madness gets +30% crit dmg to several non-crit abilities: its bleeds and death field. Again, improving crit rate would benefit these specs. (madness additionaly would get more self-healing as a bonus)

 

Another issue, that further increases the problem: crit is a % increase, power is a linear increase.

Well, if crit is no good for us (or not as good as for certain other classes), we simply pick alacrity instead when the gear gets so high that moar poawer is not as interesting anymore, right? Oh.. right.

Since alacrity does not increase 'resource generation' like for most other classes, that one is also not interesting for vigilance (or guardian/sentinel).

Again, if ever there was a time for vigilance to shine, it would be now.

With future gear, or a future change to crit rating, the need for changes would simply increase.

 

-> Request to keep this in mind when making changes to vigilance, crit rating, or introducing new gear.

Vigilance wise, if the solution is to simply give some surge bonus, possible candidates are plasma brand, our dots (seriously..), and again I'd say all our focus builders, potentially blade sweep.

 

Vigilance wise, tbh I'm not a fan of 'allows your execute to be used at any health level' (for any spec). That is such a cop-out, and it devalues the 'below 30%' phase of the fight. How about increasing proc rate, reducing lockout, and having it enable 'riposte' at -1 focus cost? Riposte would then increase our dot dmg, and increase our melee crit chance or something, maybe reduce cd of saber throw..

This would reduce burst above the 30% health level, but gives room to improves sustained dps.

 

Coming back to alacrity:

options are: -alacrity now also affects the cooldown and proc rate of abilities for guardians. (sentinel is tricky: if combat sentinel uses masterstrike during 'zen', does masterstrike have a cd reduced? etc)

-Alacrity speeds up abilities more for guardians and sentinels than other classes. Combat sentinel 'zen' produces less alacrity bonus to compensate, so 'zen' masterstrike channels as fast as currently.

 

 

Role wise: focus sentinel vs focus guardian: whom has better AoE?

Focus sentinel gets 'double saber throw'. I'm also not sure for cyclone slash: focus sent can get +36% ofhand dps, wether +6% strength is equal or better or.. for avg dmg.

-> Focus sentinel has higher AoE dps than guardian focus, thanks to double saber throw alone. (I think so at least)

At the moment, focus is not really an operation spec, but is that really even acceptable? All specs should have some role or capability for both pve and pvp.

Since focus sentinel has higher AoE dps, what does focus guardian have to compensate? (don't tell me survivability with heavy armor.. I'd say taunts are also compensated by focus sentinel defensive cooldown suite)

Lastly, Focus sentinel takes less dmg from elemental dmg, improving focus sentinel vs say vanguard compared to guardian.