Rydarus' Vigilance Guardian Compedium.

[lordbadtamaru]

Hello.

 

For those looking to read my guide for the Vigilance Guardian, I have rewritten my guide for 2.6 and will continue maintaining it here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=715538

 

You may notice that the account is under GrandLordMenace. That is intentional. I am transferring all my forum activity from here on out to the account GrandLordMenace, as I will be unsubbing on this account and will no longer be active on it. Please direct all queries to GrandLordMenace, as that is the account with my main guardian etc.

Edited January 20, 2014 by lordbadtamaru

[lordbadtamaru]

Updated OP

[Riivan]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

THE SPEC

 

http://www.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/guardian/17/?build=020200000000000000000000000000000302302221200131212003200300010003200001000000000000000000000000&ver=20

 

Basic Vigilance Spec used by guardians with minor aberrations in that I take defiance. Most will take commanding awe but as a dps spec why have so much survivability in pve?

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

In every fight there is a lot of damage that is avoidable be it through positioning, dodging circles or whatever the case may be. However there are times when you're going to take unavoidable damage and lately it's more often than not. It wasn't too bad in EC NiM but TFB/SNV/DF/DP all have a good deal of unavoidable damage. Every bit of damage you take is taking a heal from one of the tanks who are often getting slammed or someone performing a task like tanking an add or whatever. It stands to reason that anything you can do to lessen the damage you take benefits the raid as a whole. I haven't noticed enough times when I'm stunned, slept or knocked down to warrant picking up that talent over the increased damage reduction and boost to Focused Defense.

[lordbadtamaru]

Meh, I respec for the situation, thats my main running around spec though.

[lordbadtamaru]

The help from the amount of flashpoint stuns and trash mob stuns is annoying and I like the extra focus.

[Riivan]

For Flashpoints I can see it. I just would put your spec as an alternative rather than the guide. Or at least make it not sound like Commanding Awe isn't worth it.

 

But if you're going to do serious progression raiding you want 2 in commanding awe. I won't go so far as to say it is a requirement, but you're putting yourself at a disadvantage if you don't take it. Just not enough ops mechanics that will trigger Defiance.

[Manweth]

Are you actively trying to gimp existing DPS guards?

 

Crit has no place in it, and since you made this guide ( It reads off more as a self praise ritual btw), I ran the calculations again according to the stat formulas here:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=615111

 

+142 crit, -172 power, +17 STR = -0.5% overall damage

+101 crit, -131 power, +17 STR = -0.4% overall damage

+62 crit, -62 power = -0.1% overall damage

+41 crit, -41 power = -0.98% overall damage

+39 crit, -69 power, +17 STR= -0.2% overall damage

 

Note: Crit bonuses from Mainstat included in calculations.

 

Summary: UNLESS crit changes significantly in its gains, it cannot, in a million years, compare to power.

 

ALSO: While some guardians do contemplate COmmanding Awe, you cannot not take it. Simply not.

 

Because you simply don't miss out on %4 dmg decrease over EVERYTHING.

 

EVERY. gosh darnED. THING. Reducted by %4. No sonny, you don't ever not take commanding awe. Plus, for those with a cursory common sense, that focused defense becomes incredibly powerful in phase changes with huge AOEs. You will exit phases with %50-60 hp while sents and shadows (if not using Resilience) will exit with %20-30 hp.

 

Commanding Awe. is. Awesome.

 

Edit note: I started out 2.0 itemization with 4p Vindicator bonus.

 

It didn't work. As soon as I switched to 2p vindi / 2p weaponmaster bonus, the damage jumped.

 

And I don't mean it lightly pranced. It made an NBA athlete jump. Yes, it's that powerful. Hell that's why we want that bonus moved to 4p vindicator and rob sentinels of that damage bonus.

Edited December 11, 2013 by Manweth

[lordbadtamaru]

I appreciate the criticism, I really do.

 

But I count crit as a multiplicitive buff. you cannot count crit and power simply as a tiny bit of crit and a tiny bit of power. You have to consider the ENTIRE stat pool.

 

And once you cross a certain amount of power, stacking a miniscule amount of crit really does make a difference in the grand scheme of things.

 

Whether we have reached that yet, I think so.

 

But even if its not yet, counting crit as a piece of crap for the rest of eternity, is stupid.

 

And Commanding Awe is great, it really is. But does it affect dps potential? No. The DPS potential is what we want to see from this guide, and the maximum amount of said potential.

[lordbadtamaru]

And where the hell do you get the idea i run with 4pc set bonus?

 

I run with 2pc 2pc. I love it. It works.

[lordbadtamaru]

And frankly, if they changed set bonuses, they better let us know. The *********** amount of time we spent prancing around in that bonus and switching to a new 4pc is ridiculous, especially if you finally got Dread forged on some pieces...

[Riivan]

And Commanding Awe is great, it really is. But does it affect dps potential? No. The DPS potential is what we want to see from this guide, and the maximum amount of said potential.

 

In a way it does. Your dps is 0 if you're dead

 

But you get such little dps gain during ops with Defiance. You're much better served picking up Commanding Awe and giving your healers a break or freeing up opportunities for you to offtank effectively.

[lordbadtamaru]

True .

 

Normally my healers don't need me to take it, but occasionally I do anyway. commanding awe = win for titan 6.

[Manweth]

First off: Defiance is not a DPS gain in my books. Not for me anyway, since I ne-eeeee-veeeer fall to using Strike. The ability to use the fillers perfectly aftter countless hours of mind numbing training has done that. And defiance, in that regard, mostly fills my focus bar if there are mechanics that activate it ( hence disabling fillers since I'd overfocus) and spenders are on cooldown. It's an uncontrollable buff when it comes into play, and it mostly doesn't come into play.

 

 

DPS is 0 if you are dead. This is common sense. Commanding Awe is not a simple survivability talent. It's what makes or breaks an "oh**** offfftaaaaaank tauuuunt!" moment.

 

NiMs are unforgiving, we know that. They don't allow one(1) mistake most of the times. And guess what, Murphy was a very clever guy, bbecause usually, things go wrong at exactly the wrong time. If that happens to a healer, you want a TK sage with no power management. If that happens to a tank, you want a Vigi with all def. cooldowns open.

 

HMs are kiddie c.r.a.p. as we know, and NiMs are where men are seperated from boys. An ideal, perfect NiM run is like a naughty fairytale with Emma Watson in leading role, it NEVER happens unless in your dreams. At a point where a tank screws up, or a healer getting an unfortunate mechanic ( healer getting doom three times in a row at Dread Guards anyone?) and you want a GRD with ****** cooldowns, and that commanding awe in its awesomeness.

 

It's as simple as that for me. Spec is designed to have SOME tools that other MDPS don't have, and discarding them for pure DPS is counter-productive in the long run. This ,for me, is an indisputable fact.

 

Here's another gem for you. If a fight is gonna turn out to be "turret mode", you take what? Defiance won't be activated, GTR STR is useless, and unremitting ( which I use %90 of timmes because with good timing, you have at least 3-4 GCDs when other MDPSers are CCed) is all but unnecessary.

 

See, at fights like that, there's usually a raidwide AOE online ( example: Operator IX) and that Commanding is what's gonna save you.

 

Respeccing according to fights is a good thing. But there's not a single fight yet that made me respec for Defiance instead of Commanding Awe. Commanding Awe is not for speculation when respeccing, the choice is ALWAYS between GTR STR, Defiance and Unremitting.

 

Edit note: The algorithm used for estimating a DPS with crit holds true %99.99 of real raids. You rarely get a crit average on a fight more than %1-2 beyond your stat crit percentage. In that manner, gimping yourself for an overall -%0.4-0.5 DPS is not advisable.

 

I also said power will rule UNLESS crit gets its juice back. UNLESS means if that happens, we will run calculations again.

Edited December 12, 2013 by Manweth

[lordbadtamaru]

Edited OP.

[lordbadtamaru]

I get your point on defiance vs commanding awe, and I edited the OP for that.

 

As for crit, frankly, the returns are fine. The only thing is the statpool isn't big enough for the dreamy 30 percent crit we used to have, without sacrificing power.

 

Sure, if you have 150 crit and you only have 500 power, dump it you *********** retard. But if you have more than 1500, stacking that 150 could help, since the crit value goes UP because Power is an additive buff, while Crit is multiplicitive. You can't keep on stacking power forever, even in the current game math, just as alacrity will EVENTUALLY be useful once we have enough surge and accuracy that having a slightly faster GCD could improve dps.

 

Sure, at the beginning adding 1 to 2 will be 3, but at what point does multiplying that 3 become better than just adding a 1? (Simplistic example, as it is far more complicated, but the gist is there.)

 

And saying crit has no use is ignorant. Pyro AND assault commandos already stack a decent amount of crit, some even close to 200-300. Several of the Jedi Shadows on the World Leaderboards ACTUALLY stack up to 300-400, can't remember the exact amount. (Two of the shadows are guildies, including the second. He also has only a 72 hilt >.>)

 

Game math isn't static, it changes, just stacking the same stats endlessly is foolish and misguided.

[SwordEmpire]

Awesome guide. Rolled my guardian a couple months prior to 1.2 and was vigilance for the longest time until shortly before 2.0 when I went to focus spec. not ashamed to say I was a bit jealous of the parses being put out by vigilance spec (mostly from trying to compete with noobi-wan on my server) and just switched back a couple of days ago. this guide has really helped me a lot. Any tips on focus management for longer fights? I can hold consistent numbers until about a minute and a half in but then it seems like my major resource gatherers are always on cooldown when I need them, and if I even try to fit slash in my rotation at all it stalls and I have to compensate with strike to get back on track (which doesn't help my numbers). idk, maybe I am just trying to put blade storm in too much. also, do you tend to have issues with phantom casting? I have noticed that over a long enough time it can really start to hurt your numbers.

[uriaces]

Now i am full 78, and i think that crit stat is very usefull. In fact, with the same critical rate on a dummy test , a full power will always be above because his hits will be more powerfull.

 

But there is a thing in full power : it's irregular !!!

 

I put some crit on my stuff to make a mor regular dps. Maybe taht my top dps will be under a full power ( maybe 20 less ...) but my AVERAGE dps is a way higher !

 

So i prefer to do a bit less damage but have a better average dps. When you are raiding you can't say" oh yes it was not a good try, sorry, maybe next week" , you must do a lot of dps everytime and with crit it is , for me, a way better than full power !

[SwordEmpire]

Now i am full 78, and i think that crit stat is very usefull. In fact, with the same critical rate on a dummy test , a full power will always be above because his hits will be more powerfull.

 

But there is a thing in full power : it's irregular !!!

 

I put some crit on my stuff to make a mor regular dps. Maybe taht my top dps will be under a full power ( maybe 20 less ...) but my AVERAGE dps is a way higher !

 

So i prefer to do a bit less damage but have a better average dps. When you are raiding you can't say" oh yes it was not a good try, sorry, maybe next week" , you must do a lot of dps everytime and with crit it is , for me, a way better than full power !

 

Its kind of the opposite. power is a constant boost to overall damage and heals. crit on the other hand is rng dependent (which is one of the problems with vigilance, being so heavily rng dependent) which means that power is going to offer a more consistent parse, but crit will give your dps a more extreme outlier.

[uriaces]

And i made many test, if you don't want to understand that.... Theory is great, practice is better. With crit i can made à 3.3k average dps on 20 dummy test, impossible with full power !

[lordbadtamaru]

How much crit are you stacking Uriaces?

 

And what is the percentage?

 

Can you give me a list of stat ratings, surge, crit, power, str, even willpower, the whole schbang.

 

Just wanna get some numbers.

 

And with a tiny bit of crit occasionally you get the amazing 34 percent crit parses that align once in a while as well

[lordbadtamaru]

I think I know why Kishek is saying power is irregular.

 

Technically, crit multiplies power, but it is a chance stat, so sometimes it will multiply more than others.

 

But there are times, where you get so lucky with crits with full power, that if you had stacked crit it would have gimped you.

 

But those parses are rare.

 

Its kinda like if you stacked no accuracy and all surge, most of the time your parses would suck hard, but in a 1 in a million parse you could have the best dps in the world (But on a less extreme level)

 

Kishek, if you have time time, can I haz a 1.5 million parse with crit and with power

 

It doesn't have to be groundbreaking, anything you nab from your log is completely fine.

 

Doesn't matter if its in english or not, I can probably just use common sense and add it all up.

Edited December 12, 2013 by lordbadtamaru

[Manweth]

Ever since this debate, I switched out 69 power for 69 crit, and it does return some better numbers.

 

And sometimes it returns worse numbers, not very stable with just one enhancement and 21.07% crit rating.

Edited December 13, 2013 by Manweth

[lordbadtamaru]

100-150 is perfect, just 69 i bet is negligible. You need just enough crit to have a noticeable effect on the frequency of crits without losing so much power you lose bonus damage.

 

Personally, i have 179, slight overkill but it doesn't matter THAT much.

 

23.5 percent crit percentage.

Edited December 13, 2013 by lordbadtamaru

[lordbadtamaru]

Sword Empire, the best exercise I do personally is learning how to dps WITHOUT slash on your quickbar.

 

A common mistake is using slash, and using slash when trying to dps on a dummy is a lot harder simply cause later on you risk losing resource.

 

You want to use the filler priority of Sundering Strike/combat Focus (Combat focus only if you are on time constraints) Saber Throw, Force Sweep/Dispatch (Keening procced and haven't used it already), Force Stasis FULL CHANNEL (The reasoning is that it does 3 ticks over 3 seconds, over 2 GCDs. Each GCD is 1.5 seconds. Putting 2 strikes together as a filler, is NOT as good as a full channel of force stasis, but if you do a Force Stasis Clip, you are losing DPS compared to using strike. You then have Strike/Force Push. Strike you use when you have 2 or more focus left to fill, force push if you have only one.

 

When you add Slash back into your rotation, if you have 1 focus left on your bar you have two options for filler. You can either slash and potentially screw up focus management later on, as you now have 3 empty focus and if you don't get a Master Strike proc you can have problems with Blade Storm displacement, but you cannot simply wait as you are doing no damage, and strike is a DPS loss. In this situation, you either fill it up with a sweep or dispatch, or stay the same with a force push. Force Push can hit for about 4k crit and because it is a force attack its odds of critting are reasonbly high. And at any rate, it is still better than a slash or strike.

 

All this slash and strike philosophy also applies on the dummy when your execute comes into play. You do NOT want to displace burns for dispatch.

 

On an actual boss, due to incoming damage and aoe, things can change. You will be slashing a LOT more. For a fights with Burn phases at 30 percent with raidwide aoe, our execute is fairly potent unlike the dummy.

 

If you have a tick of damage every second in a burn phase, we gain 2 focus from aoe damage, Visionary which triggers from attacks, and Narrowed Focus from aoe. The ICD on both is 6 seconds. This means you can technically dispatch on cooldown, as the Dispatch CD is ALSO 6 seconds.

 

Make sense?

Edited December 13, 2013 by lordbadtamaru

[Manweth]

On the contrary, I never slash on bosses, and NEVER ever do strikes on a real boss fight.

 

Because usually timing your MS and then taking a few steps back while throwing saber with a dispatch / saber throw will give you room for, waitforit, Force Leap.

 

Plus, phase changes, Raidwide AOEs generating focus, Force Push resetted extra leaps, guardian leaps to friends...

 

You can keep up all the burns, never miss an MS ( if you are careful and tactical) and still DPS while sentinels are trying to run after the boss coz they used it in their rotation

 

In a real fight, slash and strike is simplynon-existent.

 

Well, you do spam strike if boss is in an "immune" phase, llike with Calph and Raptus during crystal taking. Enter the DPS phase with full focus.

 

But you know what I mean. A real fight is where we shine a bit more, dummy execute phase is just stupid, but a real fight's execute, with all the extra focus and sometimes requiring movement (hence inhibiting MS usage to after-movement) execute becomes a bit more usable.

 

 

At the end of the day, it's the skill and knowledge of the fight that counts. Knowing when to do what, and what happens at phases. As always, "it's not the ride, it's the rider."

 

Must put that on my signature.