Jedi Guardian Changes - Game Update 2.5

[Creslan]

I don't see the devs hesitation to modify zen strike and why if they do improve it, we should take a rate limit increase with it.

 

Commandos can reset Full Auto every 6 secs with a 45% on an ability that has no cooldown. Full Auto is also buffed by 25% while the affect is active, Full Auto also benefits form a 30% increase to its critical multiplier in the tree as well as a 33% increase to damage in the tree and 35% armor penetration from Cell.

 

Now compare that to the Guardian, our chance is 30% to reset Master Strike, on 2 ability's that have a 9 and 12 second cooldown, with a limit of 9 secs fully talented. Master Strike is not Directly buffed in the tree like full auto from either a direct damage buff or critical multiplier from zen strike. (while one could argue that shien stance/single saber mastery are the buff to MS, you can also argue that that is nulified by the 35% armor penetration from Armor Piercing Cell and Rotary Cannon Talent).

 

Looking at the above, how can the devs justify increasing the limit for Zen Strike if they increase the chance to 45%? I use the commando by example because their DPS theory best mimics our own.

 

Commando Gunnery DPS revolves around Full Auto, just like Guardian Vigilance DPS revolves around Master Strike. Master Strike is 22-25% of our dps, Full Auto is 25-30% of a Commandos dps. The outlying difference can only be explained by how our Zen Strike is inferior to their Curtain of Fire.

 

The above examples compare 2 middle dps trees, it is not meant to say one class is inferior or superior to the other, like to think the Guardian is superior, anyone can shoot a gun.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Creslan

[Riivan]

I also find it an uber-fail in design that we are forced to CLIP RAVAGE/MASTER STRIKE in order to get best results... What's the point of 3 second channel if all hits are applied within 2.6 seconds? They should shorten the channel because of this and let us use abilities after Ravage naturally ends (or gets interrupted by a third party) so we won't have to rely on clipping it. It is difficult as it is with all the lag and hero engine.

 

You're not clipping master strike it's a function of the latency you have with the server. Which is why some people find that 2.6 works and some find that 2.8 works. Cage the rage.

[Hornakkan]

How about taunts also applying a percentage of damage reduction to ourselves? Say a Taunt would give us full 30% but Challenging Call 15% reduction? A high-in-the-tree dps-only talent as it would be way over the top for tanks ^^

 

Guardian dpsers are easy to kill and are popular targets in arenas.

 

I also find it an uber-fail in design that we are forced to CLIP RAVAGE/MASTER STRIKE in order to get best results... What's the point of 3 second channel if all hits are applied within 2.6 seconds? They should shorten the channel because of this and let us use abilities after Ravage naturally ends (or gets interrupted by a third party) so we won't have to rely on clipping it. It is difficult as it is with all the lag and hero engine.

 

 

We don't need more Defensive Tools or we'll see the same kind of answers as Sage/Sorcerer when asking for more DPS : "No : you can full heal yourselves".

 

What we need is a DPS no more relying on RNG and only on the player's skill

[Creslan]

We don't need any more defensive abilities. We don't need heals. We don't need utility that revolves around those 2 skills. We don't need to become single saber Sents or a heavy armor support class.

 

We need a DPS increase. There have been pages and pages of ideas about what they could do. I feel they should keep it simple for the time being, leave the extensive tuning for the future. Here is a small list of things that would help our dps.

 

1.) Dot % damage increase

2.) 10-15% armor pen passive or 25-35% armor pen for next MS.

3.) Zen strike to 45%, keep the rate limit currently.

4.) Flat damage increase either from stance or skill bases increase.

5.) Offensive Guard, utility skill

6.) Focused Defense force cost removed

 

That is just a small sample of the ideas put forth by many people in this thread. I would be happy with any 2 from the list, 3 maybe (depending on which 3), but anymore than that would be asking for TOO much. I think that is what we as a community need to realize, if we go asking for 27 different things and each more outlandish than the next, we'll probably never get the attention we need from the devs.

Edited November 2, 2013 by Creslan

[Riivan]

You do realize that making us depend more on Master Strike procs for our dps and having an offensive utility skill is making us more like Sents right? On your list I like 1 and 6

 

Inc the initial dmg and/or dot dmg of Plasma Brand. Lengthening the dots on Blade Storm and Overhead Slash to increase our overall dmg without putting our burst over the top. I still like the idea of a defensive utility cd. It feels far more Guardian like than an offensive skill which Sents already possess. Normally I don't go in for lore arguments but they seem to resonate with some. Shien is a defensive minded stance developed from Soresu. It makes far more sense to have a more defensive utility. We could even split the difference and say that it limits dmg taken and reflects x% back momentarily.

 

I do agree with your last statement. What we should do is offer up no more than a dozen ideas rather than a list of demands or requests. Split it into like 3 categories: Utility Skill, DPS, and Survivability. Best 3 or 4 ideas for each.

[Alec_Fortescue]

We don't need more Defensive Tools or we'll see the same kind of answers as Sage/Sorcerer when asking for more DPS : "No : you can full heal yourselves".

 

What we need is a DPS no more relying on RNG and only on the player's skill

 

Yeah. 3 minute long cooldown and short-in-duration ability is great... Really. BIS PvP-geared jug gets smashed for no less than 7k if Saber Ward is not up :[

[Alec_Fortescue]

You're not clipping master strike it's a function of the latency you have with the server. Which is why some people find that 2.6 works and some find that 2.8 works. Cage the rage.

 

30ms, from what I heard about the location I can say that I live right beside the server. Good ms, fairly good connection and yet I am forced to clip.

 

Everyone has to clip ravage. It should be changed somehow.

Edited November 2, 2013 by Alec_Fortescue

[GregAlia]

You do realize that making us depend more on Master Strike procs for our dps and having an offensive utility skill is making us more like Sents right? On your list I like 1 and

 

Inc the initial dmg and/or dot dmg of Plasma Brand. Lengthening the dots on Blade Storm and Overhead Slash to increase our overall dmg without putting our burst over the top. I still like the idea of a defensive utility cd. It feels far more Guardian like than an offensive skill which Sents already possess. Normally I don't go in for lore arguments but they seem to resonate with some. Shien is a defensive minded stance developed from Soresu. It makes far more sense to have a more defensive utility. We could even split the difference and say that it limits dmg taken and reflects x% back momentarily.

 

I do agree with your last statement. What we should do is offer up no more than a dozen ideas rather than a list of demands or requests. Split it into like 3 categories: Utility Skill, DPS, and Survivability. Best 3 or 4 ideas for each.

 

An Offensive guard, though an offensive utility, makes us nothing like Sen especially because it isn't raid wide. It's a selective dps boost that could be put on struggling dps to help them keep up. It fits into our class very well since the mechanic already exists. Simply having utility doesn't make us Sent. Bleeds are not going to happen. If they were we would have seen it by now because it is an incredibly easy fix. Annihilation is the Warrior bleed tree. Maybe they will change there minds but I see no indications of that. Bioware seems hell bent on keeping our class built around master strike which is why those suggestions keep getting made to improve it. Personally I would love to see Armor pen, that way everything hits harder. I would also like to see our auto crit return to vicious throw. Add the Offensive guard and those are 3 minor things that would improve our class and change nothing of the mechanics or focus. Which in my opinion is what Bioware wants.

[Keleus]

After thinking about it for countless hours and even doing....Wait for it....Math *le gasp*, I have come to the conclusion, however temporary it is because lolInterwebz, That 3, maybe 4 changes to our class will make us top tier, booty kicking DPS'ers that people will be forced to choose carefully when picking/creating a raid.

 

1) 10% increase to Armor Penetration, passively on all attacks, as an added talent in place of and/or in addition to Narrowed Focus' current effect. Flavor-wise, I'll let someone else figure that out, I'm just a player, not the creator, yo. I also say only 10% because anything higher will be too much for PvP, especially with my next suggestion.

 

2) Zen Strikes! Up the chance to proc the ability to 45% for the current abilities capable of procing it. Also, when it does proc, make it so that MS ignores 20% of the target's armor during the duration of the move. In total, that's 30% of the armor ignored for our hardest hitting move and one of the best moves damage wise in the game. With our root being implemented, I'd say that's pretty baller.

 

3) Obviously, up the damage our DoTs do across the board, nothing too much though, like a 1-2% increase overall. Why? Because Keening will be upgraded from 9 to 12%, and anything past that is total overkill.

 

4) The controversial one here would be Guardian's Favor, and it's very iffy if it should be implemented ever let alone for patch 2.5. However, I feel it would be a good raid/party utility tool for us as a class, and in the future during another patch we could maybe even have a talent that for a short duration share the buff with the nearby Ops Group before going on a lengthy cooldown. But until then, I would advise we use only the top three here and let the Devs stew this idea to later implement it. After all it's not exactly easy work to create, balance, then throw in a skill into a game like this. WoW/Blizzard can't even do it properly and they're billionaires after all.

[ArenCordial]

An Offensive guard, though an offensive utility, makes us nothing like Sen especially because it isn't raid wide. It's a selective dps boost that could be put on struggling dps to help them keep up. It fits into our class very well since the mechanic already exists. Simply having utility doesn't make us Sent. Bleeds are not going to happen. If they were we would have seen it by now because it is an incredibly easy fix. Annihilation is the Warrior bleed tree. Maybe they will change there minds but I see no indications of that. Bioware seems hell bent on keeping our class built around master strike which is why those suggestions keep getting made to improve it. Personally I would love to see Armor pen, that way everything hits harder. I would also like to see our auto crit return to vicious throw. Add the Offensive guard and those are 3 minor things that would improve our class and change nothing of the mechanics or focus. Which in my opinion is what Bioware wants.

 

Its an interesting idea but the question is do you think BioWare's going to want something like this skewing a class' dps numbers? I could see some raiding guilds saying throw it on the Sent/Slinger because they output the most so as to maximize the benefit such an ability gives. If I was BioWare I'd be critical of an ability like that because unlike Inspiration, which effects everyone, this could really just lead to more QQing that certain classes are OP because its an unequal benefit.

Edited November 2, 2013 by ArenCordial

[Creslan]

You do realize that making us depend more on Master Strike procs for our dps and having an offensive utility skill is making us more like Sents right? On your list I like 1 and 6

 

Inc the initial dmg and/or dot dmg of Plasma Brand. Lengthening the dots on Blade Storm and Overhead Slash to increase our overall dmg without putting our burst over the top. I still like the idea of a defensive utility cd. It feels far more Guardian like than an offensive skill which Sents already possess. Normally I don't go in for lore arguments but they seem to resonate with some. Shien is a defensive minded stance developed from Soresu. It makes far more sense to have a more defensive utility. We could even split the difference and say that it limits dmg taken and reflects x% back momentarily.

 

I do agree with your last statement. What we should do is offer up no more than a dozen ideas rather than a list of demands or requests. Split it into like 3 categories: Utility Skill, DPS, and Survivability. Best 3 or 4 ideas for each.

 

We are already depending on Master Strike and its reset for a quarter of our damage. We should ask for ways to augment and make that damage more reliable. Dots aren't burst at 12secs, dots sustain damage. A burst dot (a contradiction in terms) would last 3-6 seconds and stack, like Overload Saber with Zen Active. Our dots help sustain our damage and proivde a small portion of our overall damage, the Blade Storm Dot is about 2-3% of our total damage, the OH dot is about 4-5%.

 

I wouldn't call Shien a defensive stance. "It was developed by practitioners of Soresu who felt that the defensively-minded form would unnecessarily extend time spent in combat by forcing its users to wait for an opportunity to strike rather than create their own openings. Shien was characterized by power attacks and defense immediately followed by a counter-strike, it was designed to use an opponents attacks against them, be it a blaster or melee weapon (wookipedia)". Just from that wording, I would call it an offensive stance, but if you want to get truly lore specific, we should be better at deflecting blaster bolts. Even the skill description in game calls it an offensive stance. We already have 4 defensive cooldowns in Vigilance, we don't need a 5th, not to mention the 20% damage reduction we get on leap, I think that is enough defense, we need to focus on the offensive now, powerful attacks.

 

Our most powerful attack is Master Strike and Vigilance is not doing enough to keep that damage from the RNG. Single Saber Mastery and Shien stance both augment our Melee damage output and leaves our force damage untouched stance wise. We should look for ways to increase white damage, we already have a "Force" based damage tree with Focus. The problem is. our damage in the tree does not take advantage of that, we are currently at about 55% melee and 45% force, this should be more like 60/65-40/35%. A 45% increase on Zen Strike would push us up 5% in the melee area (theory crafted from 5 min fights). Armor pen would do it too, but would need to be high in the tree and stance locked, or a buff after OH is used.

 

As for a 7k hit on smash from a marauder. That is relatively low damage taken from a DPS stand point, it could have been worse if you were in medium armor or even light armor. He also had 30% armor pen. Using the same tree you could be doing the same thing when his defensive abilities were down, fair is fair in my book. There are other out layers here too. Was he in full PVP gear? Were you? Did he have his 15% dmg increase going? Even then, that is only about a 20% hit, on an ability he won't be able to do again for at least 6 secs, respond in Kind.

Edited November 2, 2013 by Creslan

[Alec_Fortescue]

 

As for a 7k hit on smash from a marauder.

 

And Juggernaut. Equal gear. Not to mention assassin backstabbing you while you're stunlocked to see yourself with 30% of hp once you free up.

[Keleus]

You know, I can somehow surprisingly take on Shadows with little to no issues, same with other guardians and melee classes outside of operatives. Snipers and sorcs? Welp, I'll just lay here and drop my pants, it'd make it over faster. But enough about pvp, let's keep the main focus on PvE here, since that's where we need the most help imho.

[Hornakkan]

Yeah. 3 minute long cooldown and short-in-duration ability is great... Really. BIS PvP-geared jug gets smashed for no less than 7k if Saber Ward is not up :[

 

Dunno, never seen an Operation Boss in PvP gear

 

But again, I don't think that Defensive Abilities are the key to our DPS problem : we're not Off Tanks, we're DPS. Else we'll see the Nerf Chainsaw really Soon™ as Shadow did

[Riivan]

We didn't always depend on Master Strike and it can be that way again! haha. Increasing our white and dot damage on our other three abilities will do exactly what you want. It makes our damage more reliable by taking it away from a single proc'd ability that often gets clipped in an ops. My suggestions about the dots were specifically to limit the impact on our burst lest it become too great.

 

"Shien was characterized by power attacks and defense immediately followed by a counter-strike." I didn't say it was a defensive stance lore wise, I said defensive minded. We should get a boost to our reflect that maybe amplifies the damage somehow.

 

Maybe from a PvP aspect what we have for defensive cds is enough. In PvE notso much. There are only a few things that we get hit with that Saber Reflect works on. Enure while nice, since we have crappy defenses that extra health gets eaten up pretty quick. Saber Ward is solid and Focused Defense if the cost is removed will be solid. It's a dps loss to constantly run out and leap in anymore so there are only a few times here and there that you can benefit from the 20% damage reduction.

 

And yes our most powerful attack at the moment is Master Strike, I would like it to not be. The fights they're designing now require us to be mobile. Increase Zen Strike sure, go for it. Master Strike should be filler, when it procs it's a nice boost but only a slight boost. I doubt we'll see armor pen since that's in the Focus tree already.

[GregAlia]

Its an interesting idea but the question is do you think BioWare's going to want something like this skewing a class' dps numbers? I could see some raiding guilds saying throw it on the Sent/Slinger because they output the most so as to maximize the benefit such an ability gives. If I was BioWare I'd be critical of an ability like that because unlike Inspiration, which effects everyone, this could really just lead to more QQing that certain classes are OP because its an unequal benefit.

 

Your absolutely right I just love the Idea. I think it is such a cool idea. @riivan - I hope you don't think I dislike your Ideas about getting away from Master Strike. I would like to see our bleed increases or a rework to move us away from that. I just dont think it is something Bioware wants to do. Honestly before 2.0 i was perfectly content with Vengeance. I've said on many occassions i would love to see a boost to our bleeds and a ramp up of them below 30%.

[Riivan]

Your absolutely right I just love the Idea. I think it is such a cool idea. @riivan - I hope you don't think I dislike your Ideas about getting away from Master Strike. I would like to see our bleed increases or a rework to move us away from that. I just dont think it is something Bioware wants to do. Honestly before 2.0 i was perfectly content with Vengeance. I've said on many occassions i would love to see a boost to our bleeds and a ramp up of them below 30%.

 

No worries. And I think you're right about them not wanting to move us away from Master Strike. Just trying to offer a dissenting opinion in the hopes that we have a decent discussion on the topic. At least we've moved away from the alacrity buff utility skill

[demonicwarlord]

PLEASE increase our threat generation, I am sick of having to pad threat at the start of fights by taunting, else i run the risk of losing threat. On the pull i use pretty much every ability with obvious priorities (guardian slash, the high threat stun, master strike), including force stasis (it is talented so it is not a channel), force push etc. I don't see why threat should be such an annoying mechanic in boss fights where your dps and healers should not have to worry about a tank losing threat especially in new HM and NiM content.

[Keleus]

Wait we have Threat Issues? I legitimately had no idea of this. Perhaps your problem stems from bad DPS attacking way too soon thus pulling aggro onto them? Very possible issue.

[demonicwarlord]

Wait we have Threat Issues? I legitimately had no idea of this. Perhaps your problem stems from bad DPS attacking way too soon thus pulling aggro onto them? Very possible issue.

 

No it stems from having good dps, in progression you can't have dps sit there waiting for a tank to get enough threat to not lose aggro.

[Keleus]

No, no, more no. You're right with the fact that DPS can't wait forever, but a DPS that leaps in at the exact same moment or even earlier then a tank isn't a good DPS, it's a baddie that doesn't know no better. I'm sure there's a tank or two that will agree with me here.

[demonicwarlord]

No, no, more no. You're right with the fact that DPS can't wait forever, but a DPS that leaps in at the exact same moment or even earlier then a tank isn't a good DPS, it's a baddie that doesn't know no better. I'm sure there's a tank or two that will agree with me here.

 

SIgh......... They don't leap in before the tank they attack at the moment a tank pulls if you have never had threat issues the dps you run with are the baddies

[Keleus]

2800-3000 DPS. Yea, they're real baddies. Totally the worst. Like, dear god they suck so much- Are you serious dude? Are you trolling me? You gotta be trolling me, right? Like, it's that or you're really just bad at tanking.

 

EDIT* Another thing to factor in is do they outgear you by a large margin, and more so do they have a guard on them?

Edited November 3, 2013 by Keleus

[Riivan]

We don't have threat issues. Not anymore at least. You have to taunt boost, it's just the way it is. Every tank class does.

 

I have no trouble jumping in, doing 3 or 4 skills, taunting and then boost once or twice more and it is mine. You shouldn't be having threat issues. If you are and I don't mean this in the sarcastic way, but you really are doing it wrong. If you want to go over your opener I can try to help out.

[Keleus]

We don't have threat issues. Not anymore at least. You have to taunt boost, it's just the way it is. Every tank class does.

 

I have no trouble jumping in, doing 3 or 4 skills, taunting and then boost once or twice more and it is mine. You shouldn't be having threat issues. If you are and I don't mean this in the sarcastic way, but you really are doing it wrong. If you want to go over your opener I can try to help out.

 

^^^^Sometimes I don't even Taunt Boost, I just swing at stuff and know my Guard is working.