Jedi Guardian Changes - Game Update 2.5

[lordbadtamaru]

For PVP reasons i agree with what some of the posters said above.

 

I think personally the zen strike proc should stay the EXACT same, with the EXACT same lockout, but change the proc to proc off of dots. Problemo solved.

 

I mean look at how consistent keening procs. It procs nearly on que at the 20 second mark.

[ArenCordial]

For PVP reasons i agree with what some of the posters said above.

 

I think personally the zen strike proc should stay the EXACT same, with the EXACT same lockout, but change the proc to proc off of dots. Problemo solved.

 

I mean look at how consistent keening procs. It procs nearly on que at the 20 second mark.

 

That's a pretty nice idea actually. Throw a 30% alacrity bonus on Master Strike and lengthen the weaker dots a bit and I'd be pretty happy with that. Having PB tick every second wouldn't be a bad idea either to help out.

Edited January 5, 2014 by ArenCordial

[GrandLordMenace]

deleted Edited January 5, 2014 by GrandLordMenace

[lordbadtamaru]

I think they have changes planned for us based on the jugg questions. They have expressed interest in lengthening the lockout, but if they do that, they have to make a few fundemental changes. For example, if they kept the exact same zen strike but increased the proc chance to 45 percent, and gave it a 15 second lockout, unless you fundementally screw your rotation by delaying burns, the ACTUAL lockout would be 24 seconds, because the overhead slash and plasma brand cooldowns don't align.

 

BUT, what I think they are planning, is to make it proc off of dots, and extend the lockout to either 12-15 seconds (remember even the best parses have a master strike around every 15 seconds.) With a dot proc system, the maximum amount it can be delayed is about 3 seconds, even keening NEVER misses its mark by more than 3 seconds in my testing. Go to the ops dummy and trigger overhead slash and plasma brand, and see how fast keening procs. Its insane.

 

Now, that being said, we need added dps elsewhere, including the execute. Granted, consistent procs mean we have more reliable focus management and can use more execute, which is great. I'd like to see Force Rush talent also reduce focus cost of blade storm by a teeny bit, maybe by 1 or two focus.

 

Remember, even with a master strike every 15 seconds, those with 78 hilts are still only doing about 3.5k dps-3.55. In order to be competitive with the sents and scoundrels and other classes, I'd like to see us around 3.7, maybe 3.65 as a stopgap.

 

As for range problems, I think that we should lose the root, and instead, make it so that channeling master strike is done at melee range, but once the channel is off, you cannot run away from it no matter how far you go (right now if you run past 10 meters you break the channel). If it was 30 meters, I would be fine. Either that, or give master strike an alacrity component, although that may be too much burst wise and give us another GCD to spend...

[ArenCordial]

As for range problems, I think that we should lose the root, and instead, make it so that channeling master strike is done at melee range, but once the channel is off, you cannot run away from it no matter how far you go (right now if you run past 10 meters you break the channel). If it was 30 meters, I would be fine. Either that, or give master strike an alacrity component, although that may be too much burst wise and give us another GCD to spend...

 

Personally I always saw the greater problem with MS being not that the third tick was avoidable (it still is even with the root) but rather even if you landed the third tick you were out of range to follow up. Extending the range won't do that much if your opponent has moved outside you 4m range which is why I've always favored the alacrity bonus, less time for someone to get distance on you, whether PvP or PvE.

Edited January 5, 2014 by ArenCordial

[Manweth]

Personally I always saw the greater problem with MS being not that the third tick was avoidable (it still is even with the root) but rather even if you landed the third tick you were out of range to follow up. Extending the range won't do that much if your opponent has moved outside you 4m range which is why I've always favored the alacrity bonus, less time for someone to get distance on you, whether PvP or PvE.

 

In pvp, MS is badly implemented as it is now, with all the during cast / after cast effects it has. Root does work that out, SOMEWHAT, since a clever dude can still stun you before 3rd tick / immediately after unremitting runs out.

 

Coz as we all know unremitting procs when you activate leap, not when you LAND from a leap. Equals 1.5 seconds loss. Anyway....

 

The problem with MS in pve is in its x-x-4x hit mentality, killing that 3rd tick because there is a damned red circle underneath you == Killing your DPS entirely. But if you doN't break it == You die, raid wipes.

 

I favor alacrity bonus idea for that, since any boss will laugh at the stupid pvp root and really, a faster MS with a FIXED RNG WHICH PROCS IT ON 15 seconds would work better in pve. And pvp, mostly.

[SenatorPalpaTANG]

So the 2.6 notes are up... and guardians get *drumroll*

 

NOTHING!

 

Nothing was done to slim down the bloated vigi tree. No changes to Zen Strike, hell they still haven't lowered the focus cost on FD like they said they would months ago.

 

It seems like they gave us the MS root and called it a day. I guess we'll have to wait until they make their rounds across all the other classes to get back to us.

[lordbadtamaru]

PATCH NOTES 2.7:

 

Guardians and Heavy armor have been removed from the game.

 

Jedi Sentinel has been renamed the Jedi Knight, and has been given a Tanking tree and Soresu form.

 

Jedi Shadows have been removed from the game. Jedi Sage have been given a Tanking Tree and the Double Bladed Lightsaber has been given to the Sage for the Tanking Tree.

[Riivan]

To be fair I wasn't expected Guards to get anything in 2.6. They stated they were going to make changes more slowly and they're certainly sticking to that. 2.7 we don't see anything or at least hear they're on their way then hell must be raised. Who knows maybe 3.0 they're planning on making another Guardian dps overhaul.

[lordbadtamaru]

Overhauls have been bad for us... jeeze.

[lordbadtamaru]

My personal ultamatum is that by Nightmare Dreads, if we don't get a fix, I am legacying to my sent. Period. Guardians shouldn't be forced to hold back their guild who has allowed them to raid as long as they did their best to pull through dps wise.

[Kain_Turinbar]

It seems to me the burn damage added to Overhead Slash and Bladestorm is laughable. If these were actually changed to be worthwhile would that be a simple fix for most of you?

 

It wouldn't change the randomness of zen slash/keening procs but it would increase DPS.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Kain_Turinbar

[lordbadtamaru]

It would be simple but RNG, execute, is way better. The burns are just there for procs and Im fine with that.

[ArenCordial]

My personal ultamatum is that by Nightmare Dreads, if we don't get a fix, I am legacying to my sent. Period. Guardians shouldn't be forced to hold back their guild who has allowed them to raid as long as they did their best to pull through dps wise.

 

To be totally honest here, Rydarus if that's your ultimatum I wouldn't bother waiting. You'd be safe legacying your gear today and make sure you're as comfortable with your Sent as can be for NiM DF/DP.

 

What else is anyone really expecting? Sure they can pad our dps numbers to make us look better parsing but there's so many poorly designed aspects surrounding Vigilance (being a melee turret to maximize dmg, Zen Strike RNG, poor execute, focus starvation thanks to RNG, talent bloat, etc) that the whole tree really could use a redesign and that's not going to happen in a 2.X patch. The spec needs an overhaul, a major one.

 

Increasing our proc rate to 45% as most of us have called for would help but its not going to change the fact that we'd still have the worst proc chances in the game. Its not going to change the fact that if you can't keep 2 feet planted you can't use your #1 ability. They could buff Dispatch but you're still going to be challenged during the execute to fit it in the rotation with your available focus if you're not getting ZS procs. Its not going to change the fact that melee, thanks to encounter design, always have to deal with a lot more damage and mechanics than ranged.

 

The spec has only really been addressed twice in 2 years. Once with the Zen Strike changes around 1.2/1.3, I forget which and then again when 2.0 dropped. We might see some slight tweaking prior to 3.0 if we are lucky, but does anyone think slight tweaking is all we need?

 

I know a lot of people have had their hopes since the rep process started that results would come quickly but to be frank I think pinning our hopes for buffs out of the Rep process is a little foolhardy and I don't have much faith in the process. Ultimately its the only avenue available to us however.

 

Personally I think on the next round of questions we shouldn't pick one aspect of the spec to focus on like before, but rather make a whole list off all the poor design problems Vigilance has and tell them that while they nailed the fun to play factor, mechanically the spec needs a sincere overhaul because of all these design flaws. What do they see that Vigilance gains to be worth all these trade offs and would they consider this in revisions?

Edited January 11, 2014 by ArenCordial

[lordbadtamaru]

TBH I never minded that the spec relied on a melee channel because it means we excell on certain bosses and aren't as optimal on others.

 

And 45 percent chance of proc i suspect won't fix the issue. The cooldowns on PB and overhead are too long. INSTEAD, we should be proccing it off of dots. Consistent, guaranteed procs. THATS what we need in Vig, a steady stream of damage. As Guardians we are fighting for the second dps slot. We need to have the DPS to be justified as THE second mdps in the slot, and be consistent about it.

[Riivan]

I've never liked Master Strike as the focus of the spec. It just pins too much of our damage output on one ability and an ability that isn't worth the time to use unless you land the last tick. Maybe if the damage was more evenly spread across the length of the ability. Anyway I liked it better when it was a nice to use rather than a must use.

 

Do we have talent bloat? It seems like we have about the same number of talents as my other toons. I haven't compared the total talent point costs though.

[olcraft]

TBH I never minded that the spec relied on a melee channel because it means we excell on certain bosses and aren't as optimal on others.

 

And 45 percent chance of proc i suspect won't fix the issue. The cooldowns on PB and overhead are too long. INSTEAD, we should be proccing it off of dots. Consistent, guaranteed procs. THATS what we need in Vig, a steady stream of damage. As Guardians we are fighting for the second dps slot. We need to have the DPS to be justified as THE second mdps in the slot, and be consistent about it.

 

Except that dot proccing can be easily cleansed. Then you are fu*ked. Master Strike is our main damage ability, if it gets shut down your damage will plummet to the ground. Instead, It would be better to make master strike proc chance incremental (33%-66%-100%) like someone suggested before. Making this spec relying on dots too much will ruin this spec in pvp just as Watchman spec is useless in ranked pvp. Unless Bioware is gonna give us dot protection like they did to lethality spec, this spec should stay away from relying too much on dots.

[Creslan]

With patches coming as slowly as they are I am stunned that more class balance changes aren't implemented more often. This is the only MMO that I've played in 14 years where they only address 1-2 classes at a time via patches and make the others watch and wait. Every patch should have class balance changes for ALL classes not just a few. The Devs needs to step up and address the issues and concerns of ALL the classes in a timely manner, 8, 16, 24 weeks is not timely.

 

2014 I was hoping for a better start from Bioware, especially with some of the major titles being released this year. I was hoping that they would step up and do what was needed on a timely manner for all the classes, I'm a little tired of the "wait and see" game.

[SenatorPalpaTANG]

With patches coming as slowly as they are I am stunned that more class balance changes aren't implemented more often. This is the only MMO that I've played in 14 years where they only address 1-2 classes at a time via patches and make the others watch and wait. Every patch should have class balance changes for ALL classes not just a few. The Devs needs to step up and address the issues and concerns of ALL the classes in a timely manner, 8, 16, 24 weeks is not timely.

Really.

 

I mean this was posted 4 months ago:

 

We agree that Enraged Defense/Focused Defense is a rather costly defensive cooldown. As you pointed out, using Enraged Defense/Focused Defense limits a Juggernaut’s/Guardian’s ability to deal damage, and we are not completely satisfied with this trade-off. We will be redesigning the way Enraged Defense/Focused Defense works at some point in the future, and while we are unable give exact details on this redesign at the moment, we can tell you that the new Enraged Defense/Focused Defense will no longer drain Rage/Focus while it is active. Our goal is to improve the usefulness of Enraged Defense/Focused Defense so that it does not prevent a Juggernaut/Guardian from putting out a typical amount of damage while it is active.

 

 

It sounded like a done deal to me. And yet here we are, watching it get passed over in another balancing patch.

 

Since it's not being touched in 2.6, it looks like we'll be waiting another 2 months at least before we see any changes. They admit the skill is too costly, state that they will be redesigning it, and then take 6 months (quite possibly more...) to implement any changes?

Edited January 11, 2014 by SenatorPalpaTANG

[lordbadtamaru]

I've never liked Master Strike as the focus of the spec. It just pins too much of our damage output on one ability and an ability that isn't worth the time to use unless you land the last tick. Maybe if the damage was more evenly spread across the length of the ability. Anyway I liked it better when it was a nice to use rather than a must use.

 

Do we have talent bloat? It seems like we have about the same number of talents as my other toons. I haven't compared the total talent point costs though.

 

We have 46 points to blow in vig tree. Its incredibly bloated. If you so desired you could spend every single point in the tree and not have any left in any other trees. That's bad. Ability bloat, several talents could be condensed. Most trees have a 40-44 talent tree. None have 46.

[Riivan]

We have 46 points to blow in vig tree. Its incredibly bloated. If you so desired you could spend every single point in the tree and not have any left in any other trees. That's bad. Ability bloat, several talents could be condensed. Most trees have a 40-44 talent tree. None have 46.

 

So it seems to me that if they just fold two talents together we're back in line. And we were in line until they added in the master strike root. I mean, I agree that some talents are weak, but let's be real here. We're not dealing with substantially more bloat than any other spec. We just had that dumb MS root tacked on.

 

As for DoTs. I think any class that has DoTs as their primary damage source should have some form of DoT protection for PvP. I would like to see stronger DoTs and less reliance on MS unless MS is fundamentally changed.

 

And likely the crew that is running this game now is a skeleton crew. Makes me sad, but look at all the assets being added to the game or the store. It's a lot of recolors, reskins, and cobbled together versions of stuff we already have.

[ArenCordial]

So it seems to me that if they just fold two talents together we're back in line. And we were in line until they added in the master strike root. I mean, I agree that some talents are weak, but let's be real here. We're not dealing with substantially more bloat than any other spec. We just had that dumb MS root tacked on.

 

As for DoTs. I think any class that has DoTs as their primary damage source should have some form of DoT protection for PvP. I would like to see stronger DoTs and less reliance on MS unless MS is fundamentally changed.

 

Substantially more no, but its starting to get out of line. Its more the fact that when we need an adjustment we got a new talent thrown at us.

 

For example with the root, that's something that could easily been tagged on to a previous talent. Its a somewhat worrisome precedent because I feel (and this may just be me here) that little to no thought was actually given to what the community was trying to communicate.

 

Like you said we have a lot of weak talents that aren't really doing anything. Some of these should be folded together and some outright eliminated to make room for talents that will actually be more of an aid.

Edited January 11, 2014 by ArenCordial

[Manweth]

I don't want a %30 proc chance. Neither 45. Neither 60..

 

 

GIVE ME A 10 second hard capped MS cooldown specific for Vİgilance.

 

At this point ( GUnslingers got yet another buff.) nothing else will save us.

 

I'm fine with being a Retri Pala rip-off, I'm okay with being a LotrO captain, hell I'm even okay with being a GW2 Two handed warrior......

 

I don't care if they make the spec into lolspec, I don't care if we have 4-button raidsetup....

 

I JUST WANT SOME DPS.

 

This is beyond ridicilous. I mean, if you are having so much trouble fixing us...

 

EITHER DELETE THE VIGILANCE TREE ENTIRELY.

 

Or.

 

Simply make us into 4.0k+ spec with almost every advantage, then you can bring the other specs inline with us.

 

I played Hunter in LotrO, Mage in WoW, a fencer back in SWG, Elementalists (both games) in GW....

 

I know RDPS better than I do MDPS anyway.

 

Make your position on Guardian DPS clear, so I can say "f.... this s...t" and move on to my sharpshooting facerolling gunslinger.

[ArenCordial]

I don't want a %30 proc chance. Neither 45. Neither 60..

 

 

GIVE ME A 10 second hard capped MS cooldown specific for Vİgilance.

 

At this point ( GUnslingers got yet another buff.) nothing else will save us.

 

I'm fine with being a Retri Pala rip-off, I'm okay with being a LotrO captain, hell I'm even okay with being a GW2 Two handed warrior......

 

I don't care if they make the spec into lolspec, I don't care if we have 4-button raidsetup....

 

I JUST WANT SOME DPS.

 

This is beyond ridicilous. I mean, if you are having so much trouble fixing us...

 

EITHER DELETE THE VIGILANCE TREE ENTIRELY.

 

Or.

 

Simply make us into 4.0k+ spec with almost every advantage, then you can bring the other specs inline with us.

 

I played Hunter in LotrO, Mage in WoW, a fencer back in SWG, Elementalists (both games) in GW....

 

I know RDPS better than I do MDPS anyway.

 

Make your position on Guardian DPS clear, so I can say "f.... this s...t" and move on to my sharpshooting facerolling gunslinger.

 

Right now Gunslingers got nerfed Manweth. Scoundrels got the buff, and if those changes go through they will be the next Pyro Merc.

[Manweth]

Right now Gunslingers got nerfed Manweth. Scoundrels got the buff, and if those changes go through they will be the next Pyro Merc.

 

Yea, apparently the Flyby damage reduction was 60%~, I was thinking that they had a shorter cooldown with a slightly less damage, hence buff.

 

I'm a bit happier knowing the Slingers can't spam that as a single target skill now.

 

It does nothing to improve our situation, but the cries of anguish they are wailing are very delicious to savor.

 

Oh well, little pleasures make up the cherry of life, don't they?