Dear Bioware....from a Progression raider

[TACeMossie]

They do have a 30% speed boost, you just described the exact skill. Because you choose not to talent it means it doesn't exist?

 

Seriously off topic.

 

So remind me, what am I giving up to get said talent? Because im already 5 points shy of what I would like to have.

 

Heres what I use:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMGrdoroMdRRZbcZbc.3

Heres a variation others may use:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMGrdoroMdRRZbcMzZb.3

And another one:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMGrdoroMdRRZrc0zZb.3

And another one:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMGrdoroMdRRZrcMz.3

 

And so on.

 

In other words, we have to give up threat, boosts to our extremely limited defensive cooldowns, or actual defensive stats, if we want to pick up our speed boost from Storm

.

What do Guardians have to miss out on for Expeditious protector?

 

Well there is A: Guard and Thrust, slightly more threat while under saber ward due to more ripostes (which lets be honest, do you really need this?)

B: Battlefield Command, an alternative for mobility (superior to Expeditious Protector, but requires a hostile target)

or C: Jedi Warden, because Freezing Force is so amazing in PvE amirite? (also shorter cooldown on force push, but once again thats moar mobility!)

 

That is why Hold the Line is considered while Charge! isn't.

[Marb]

You're arguing that it should be considered guardian exclusive utility because vanguards have better options, but by your own example (battlefield command) guardians have better options as well?

 

Both guardians and vanguards have access to a 30% in combat movement speed increase via skills, that's all I'm saying. I only brought up the vanguard analogue because I don't consider expeditious protector to be a mobility solution exclusive to guardian tanks.

 

EDIT: I can't spell.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Marb

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

So remind me, what am I giving up to get said talent? Because im already 5 points shy of what I would like to have.

 

Heres what I use:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMGrdoroMdRRZbcZbc.3

Heres a variation others may use:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMGrdoroMdRRZbcMzZb.3

And another one:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMGrdoroMdRRZrc0zZb.3

And another one:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801GMGrdoroMdRRZrcMz.3

 

And so on.

 

In other words, we have to give up threat, boosts to our extremely limited defensive cooldowns, or actual defensive stats, if we want to pick up our speed boost from Storm

.

What do Guardians have to miss out on for Expeditious protector?

 

Well there is A: Guard and Thrust, slightly more threat while under saber ward due to more ripostes (which lets be honest, do you really need this?)

B: Battlefield Command, an alternative for mobility (superior to Expeditious Protector, but requires a hostile target)

or C: Jedi Warden, because Freezing Force is so amazing in PvE amirite? (also shorter cooldown on force push, but once again thats moar mobility!)

 

That is why Hold the Line is considered while Charge! isn't.

 

Tac, why in the flying hell are you using the Alacrity Buff from Battle Focus? that thing is so freeking useless... If you have good healers you shouldnt need the other part of that talent... This would work better and have Jet Speed/Charge! all you lose is 6% Rail Shot/HiB Damage.

 

Anyways, that was off topic. what is on topic is the raid utility of Vigilance/Vengeance. I think that mainly the raid utility isnt there because not many raids allow you to use your full toolkit of, Intercede and Off-tanking, though that may not be much i think it's something. If we were given say, a talent that did something like this

 

New Talent : Intercede has a 50%/100% chance to grant the buff to all targets within 8 meters of the target including you in addition reduce the cooldown of Intercede by 2.5/5 seconds and increase the duration of the Intercede buff by 1/2 seconds.

 

This would improve our Raid utility by allowing us to have more useful Intercede AND we can use it more often since the Intercede buff lasts 6 seconds with this talent we would have nice raid utility when we need it.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Kaos_KidSWTOR

[TACeMossie]

Tac, why in the flying hell are you using the Alacrity Buff from Battle Focus? that thing is so freeking useless... If you have good healers you shouldnt need the other part of that talent... This would work better and have Jet Speed/Charge! all you lose is 6% Rail Shot/HiB Damage.

 

Anyways, that was off topic. what is on topic is the raid utility of Vigilance/Vengeance. I think that mainly the raid utility isnt there because not many raids allow you to use your full toolkit of, Intercede and Off-tanking, though that may not be much i think it's something. If we were given say, a talent that did something like this

 

New Talent : Intercede has a 50%/100% chance to grant the buff to all targets within 8 meters of the target including you in addition reduce the cooldown of Intercede by 2.5/5 seconds and increase the duration of the Intercede buff by 1/2 seconds.

 

This would improve our Raid utility by allowing us to have more useful Intercede AND we can use it more often since the Intercede buff lasts 6 seconds with this talent we would have nice raid utility when we need it.

 

Because even the best healers have trouble healing a double pulverize on NiM Bestia, for example.

 

As for the other guy, Battlefield Command doesnt help without a target to leap to. And its mobility vs Mobility

[Marb]

Tac, all this other guy is saying is both guardian and vanguard tanks have access to an out of combat 30% movement speed increase via skills. You've demonstrated why you personally think charge! isn't worth putting points into, and that's fine but it doesn't specifically address my original point.

[Joran-Koon]

If you were talking about tank, expeditious protector increases speed by 30% when guarded target is attacked

 

Another mobility enhancement dependant on other people lol. Awesome in pvp

To protect your pocket healer though.

 

And to Vesev, glad to hear they're letting you make pulls. The dps you're doing is enough to make it through. I'm not sure what your role is but we had our Mara on tyrants for cautrize to reduce T-blasts AoE. Me and our sage would start on Caly and then he would break to raptus (slinger kiting) and I would be on bestia for phase 1&3. I found the trick is knowing how the tanks move Caly and bestia. The same movement everytime helps you to lock in a solid rotation on both of them. Unfortunately as 30-32% of our BiS rotation relies on standing perfectly still, it's not possible to outright destroy those phases. But that's ok as you don't have to. 1&3 are about control and I spent a good amount of time chilling in a sorc puddle healing, interceding to a weak target and throwing out an armor debuff to help keep control.

 

The problem though isn't that control. It's getting control after the chaos (ie. Brontes reach) that's made easier with crazy dps. Getting a full ravage in on that phase is tough and your team has to know that you won't be great there. That being said there a few things I do to help level me out. Without sacrificing my rotation, I do my best to have my master strike be the last thing I do coming into reaches. The next is plasma brand and by then it's usually time to move. Save your dispatch/VT proc if you can as well as saber throw. Any range is going to help you. If you find that you're starting to get cut off from her make sure your leap is up so that the moment you can get back in you do it. Force push before you get cut off from her if ya need to. I also had reposte key bound, if that thing lights up for any reason, make damn sure to use it, free damage. The real deal though is people CANNOT die to reach. Simple as that. That phase change is already hectic enough getting everything under control again without having to Brez someone.

 

Oh one thing we learned lol. The healers are the ones who call out to push into phase 4 burn. If they aren't ready you probably won't make it. It sucks to get that close and miss it cause of a premature push.

 

I really hope you get it man. GL:D who knows, maybe I could bring over a sorc and help out! lol

Edited September 6, 2014 by Joran-Koon

[Luckygunslinger]

I've been pulling council on my Guardian recently and the experience has been very up and down. Similar to Vesev I'm doing about 2.9 to a 3k in general with a 4K on Styrak. I must say the fight is rather challenging in the second phase as mobility is appearing to be key, especially with the reaches coming out, waiting and doing a full Master Strike is near guaranteed to mess up the Reach that appears in the later half of the channel and that -really- sucks for us. That being said we were getting Brontes down just barely when the Masters came down. My job has been follow Tyrans and slap him about then go back to Calphayus for the initial push. With the way we do Bestia, the movement of her is too unstable for me to reliably burn her so my best bet is to dummy parse Tyrans for the most part.

 

Guardian is fun in that fight and quite challenging but our weakest area of mobility nicks our heels in one of the most precise phases of the instance and it's a shame. It's obviously manageable but that crux is a pain in the tush. And to pretty much quote Vesev, pretty sure the addition of a BT in my pulls would have pushed farther but I'm splitting hairs.

 

Going back to earlier points anyways. Utility is an iffy area, we already bring the armor reduction and a lot of people are bringing double Sin or Sin/PT combos now and as such the utility we provide passively is widely accepted but it would be nice to have something recognized. One idea I thought was having the threat dump of Intercede removed upon leaping to a person with a tank stance on. How ever this would mean we would neglect our role as damage dealers to be surrogate tanks/healers what have you, applying a buff.

 

As for damage, I really, personally think a way to combat our DoT's is to give Shatter a stack. Make it stack twice, so it does double the DoT damage it does now when you focus on one target. Just from watching streams of Watchman Sentinel's, Overload Saber's 3 stacked DoT hits really damn hard upon critting and Shatter does a fair amount upon its crit too. But I feel like if it was better, the stack would reward us for being on a target longer.

 

As for anything else, I thought of the idea of turning Draining Scream into a similar debuff to Weakening Blast or Death Mark for some time now, how ever, the issue at present is the same one from launch. Classes eat each others stacks and this would mean a Vig Guardian would be a Watchman Sentinels wet dream if they can devour the Draining Scream stacks with their already pretty hard DoTs.

 

Our Set bonus is another issue entirely and as everyone said, the set bonus buff is so required by our rotation that it should just be in the tree since unlike other set bonuses which are passive buffs or reduced CD's, this literally changes our rotation which I feel should not be the case that an external buff should impact the class itself. 4-piece is also useless but we shouldn't talk about that because we all know what happens when Bioware are notified of Set Bonus pieces going unused or used by other classes/specs.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Luckygunslinger

[veSev]

Glad to hear I am in the ballpark. I believe we are attempting a timed run tonight and will have a Mara in there, so its a possibility of getting Deposer and DM tonight. I believe we did about an hour on two nights of Council last week; with the same iffy group comp. And sadly, we probably should have had it on our 1st night within 2-3 pulls had I not boxed myself in with the clock beam and reaches. Hopefully the bloodthirst tonight will push my dps into the consistent 4k-4.2k range for Styrak which will alleviate some of the dps strain on Brontes.

 

But yeah, phase 1 I think we have down without issue. However, it feels like I am getting Soa'd or pulled every few seconds, sometimes both which is a rather interesting animation lol, so that takes my decent 3.2-3.3k down to 3k or less pretty easily in phase 1. Personally, I was rather surprise that with only a few 16m pulls to my name and we were consistently reached phase 2 in 8m, but I think that is a testament to who I am grouped with rather than my skill. And beyond the first few attempts, I was avoiding reaches decently, but once you get outside the 4 meter area a few times your dps just takes a dramatic dive. As I said above, I think bloothirst will give the necessary push to get us into phase 3 and possibly down it in the first few tries. Would be sick to get Deposer and DM tonight, but I'll take Deposer.

 

Anyways, I like the conversation on mobility for tanks. And in Palace, I really don't see that issue arise as often simply because of the amount of raid AOE damage. This is speaking from a theoretical perspective, for I have only tanked HM DP up to Raptus. But, I know our tanks run the speed increases from their skill trees, Jugg and Assassin, and it helps tremendously. If BW continues with the raid AOE damage as a means to make the 6-7k HPS actually worth something than I kind of like the tanks speed boosts. But if they revert to say DF or most the previous fights that it is a worthless talent in the tank tree. Well not worthless, just not necessary. Would be nice to see a increase speed ability similar to HoL or Force Speed added. Not Force Speed itself, but something that will give us a push to get into range faster would be great.

[Joran-Koon]

Dude! If you get DM and Deposer tonight I'll be sooo jelly! Lol

 

Unfortunately my DM won't probably happen until after nerf and it will most likely be in a 16 man. It will be interesting to see the difference from 16 man now to post nerf. I hope it's similar with less "combo-ing" lol.

 

Back to mobility. The argument could be made that we get all our cool downs where the other tanks have increased mobility. As bioware has communicated, they want each role/class to bring something to the raid. So getting something as definite as force speed or HtL is most likely not gonna happen. And our current speed boost isn't absolutely awful but it I don't like how it depends on anyone/thing other than me. Maybe if you added the speed boost to another talent like force choke or something. As one of our ranged-ish moves it would help to throw it out, get a boost to where you need to go (cause your already at range) and you generate a little bit of focus for when you get to where ya need to go.

Now that would mean the survivability of us tanking in pvp would continue to skyrocket into the stratosphere lol so we need to find a decent (and fair) trade. Not sure what that should or could look like but at least I know it's necessary lol.

 

Anyways, in closing. I hope you guys get it. Is yolo running with you guys tonight Vesev? If so, are you streaming and what time. Might be able to cheer ya on as this might be one of your last good chances at Deposer. No pressure lol.

[Creslan]

I would like to see us take a page or 2 from the commando book, just like their demo round does 25% more damage on a target with their armor debuff from grav round on it, give us the same thing for plasma brand with our armor debuff on target.

 

so PB does 25% more damage with our armor debuff on target.

[veSev]

Dude! If you get DM and Deposer tonight I'll be sooo jelly! Lol

 

Well no Deposer for me man. I fully admit how horrible with reaches I am. Yesterday was better, but out of the 10ish pulls we did where we reached phase 2 over the past 2 nights I died to reaches 7 times. Thats just bad.....

 

I would like to see us take a page or 2 from the commando book, just like their demo round does 25% more damage on a target with their armor debuff from grav round on it, give us the same thing for plasma brand with our armor debuff on target.

 

so PB does 25% more damage with our armor debuff on target.

 

Anyways back to the conversation. I think that's a solid idea actually. Keeps the class as is, which I dig even with its struggles in mobility, but it gives us a boost needed to abilities. The question than becomes is that enough to make us viable? The answers no since 25% of the damage, if your talking only the initial damage and not the burn, still would put the initial damage to 3600-3875 and the DoT damage to 5700ish if you include that (this is BiS DM gear). While its better, I dont see it being enough to cover the lacking of the Overhead Slash and Blade Storm DoTs.

Edited September 8, 2014 by veSev

[TACeMossie]

Well no Deposer for me man. I fully admit how horrible with reaches I am. Yesterday was better, but out of the 10ish pulls we did where we reached phase 2 over the past 2 nights I died to reaches times. Thats just bad.....

 

 

 

Anyways back to the conversation. I think that's a solid idea actually. Keeps the class as is, which I dig even with its struggles in mobility, but it gives us a boost needed to abilities. The question than becomes is that enough to make us viable? The answers no since 25% of the damage, if your talking only the initial damage and not the burn, still would put the initial damage to 3600-3875 and the DoT damage to 5700ish if you include that (this is BiS DM gear). While its better, I dont see it being enough to cover the lacking of the Overhead Slash and Blade Storm DoTs.

 

You know what? Screw it. They should give a ludicrous buff to Plasma Brand.

Remember in 2.6 when they said they were giving a "slight buff" to plasma brand, and it was actually a slight buff of 1.6%?

 

At the same time, they promised a "slight buff" to Pyros DoTs (35% != slight), a "slight buff" to overload shot (17% != Slight Buff) and so on. So screw it. Plasma Brand should at least get a 15% damage boost.

[veSev]

You know what? Screw it. They should give a ludicrous buff to Plasma Brand.

Remember in 2.6 when they said they were giving a "slight buff" to plasma brand, and it was actually a slight buff of 1.6%?

 

At the same time, they promised a "slight buff" to Pyros DoTs (35% != slight), a "slight buff" to overload shot (17% != Slight Buff) and so on. So screw it. Plasma Brand should at least get a 15% damage boost.

 

At this point, I am just going to hold out til 3.0 and hope they make us viable. During their live stream Friday, I asked about Guardian DPS before 3.0 five times with no response. I would have been happy with a "not that I know of Vesev, but I'll ask the combat team", but instead they chose to avoid the difficult questions. 3.0 may make or break the Guardian DPS. If we don't see a significant buff to keep us in line with others, I imagine Guardian DPS wont be used in progression outside of those guilds that will stick with their group comp as to not exclude anyone. Not that this is a bad thing, but for myself I want server/world ranked clears; and if that's not a viable option after 3.0 I probably wont be playing that class anymore.

 

For those of you who run SM/HM content and dabble in NiM and are content, I am sure Guardian DPS will be more than capable of clearing said content. This will be especially true if they continue with the NiM Power format for raiding, which I feel is a good idea to expand the NiM raider ranks. But this doesn't help those of us who are interested in competing in the most difficult content the moment it is available which I know is the minority.

 

Anyways, I want to go back to the conversation about mobility for tanks. I think I understand the argument that you want a more controllable speed boost. Right now, the talent that grants a speed boost is dependent on the person your guarding taking damage, and for some fights this is something that is uncontrollable. So my question is, what could you alter to that talent to make it controlled by the player as apposed to RNG?

[TACeMossie]

At this point, I am just going to hold out til 3.0 and hope they make us viable. During their live stream Friday, I asked about Guardian DPS before 3.0 five times with no response. I would have been happy with a "not that I know of Vesev, but I'll ask the combat team", but instead they chose to avoid the difficult questions. 3.0 may make or break the Guardian DPS. If we don't see a significant buff to keep us in line with others, I imagine Guardian DPS wont be used in progression outside of those guilds that will stick with their group comp as to not exclude anyone. Not that this is a bad thing, but for myself I want server/world ranked clears; and if that's not a viable option after 3.0 I probably wont be playing that class anymore.

 

For those of you who run SM/HM content and dabble in NiM and are content, I am sure Guardian DPS will be more than capable of clearing said content. This will be especially true if they continue with the NiM Power format for raiding, which I feel is a good idea to expand the NiM raider ranks. But this doesn't help those of us who are interested in competing in the most difficult content the moment it is available which I know is the minority.

 

Anyways, I want to go back to the conversation about mobility for tanks. I think I understand the argument that you want a more controllable speed boost. Right now, the talent that grants a speed boost is dependent on the person your guarding taking damage, and for some fights this is something that is uncontrollable. So my question is, what could you alter to that talent to make it controlled by the player as apposed to RNG?

 

I think the best way would be to make it work sort of like Charge! works for vanguards, so if you take damage while you have the speed boost then it gets refreshed.

Either that, or adding the effect of Battlefield Command to Expeditious Protector. Or both.

[Luckygunslinger]

Tie the boost into Combat Focus/Enrage would also work. 45 CD for a 6 second 30% speed boost.

[Joran-Koon]

^ I actually like that idea better then my force stasis comment. The only thing is that then the ability would have two very different reasons for use and how can you be sure that 15 seconds after you pop it for a dps burst that you won't need the speed buff?

However, that would be in-line with the BW "give and take" methodology AND it wouldn't make us more op in pvp.

 

Well no Deposer for me man. I fully admit how horrible with reaches I am. Yesterday was better, but out of the 10ish pulls we did where we reached phase 2 over the past 2 nights I died to reaches 7 times. Thats just bad.....

You still have tonight man!

haha no but that sucks. I will admit i was the last on the team to wrap my head around the reaches but dead dps do no dps and so whenever it got crazy I went into survival mode and returned only when i knew it was absolutely safe to do so.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Joran-Koon

[veSev]

^ I actually like that idea better then my force stasis comment. The only thing is that then the ability would have two very different reasons for use and how can you be sure that 15 seconds after you pop it for a dps burst that you won't need the speed buff?

However, that would be in-line with the BW "give and take" methodology AND it wouldn't make us more op in pvp.

 

Believe we are talking solely for tanks. Dps I feel is fine speed wise. I mean Vigilance itself gives a 15% speed boost, so as far as movement we are fine, but the rotation and reliance on MS is what causes our mobility issues.

 

You still have tonight man!

haha no but that sucks. I will admit i was the last on the team to wrap my head around the reaches but dead dps do no dps and so whenever it got crazy I went into survival mode and returned only when i knew it was absolutely safe to do so.

 

Sadly no, I sat myself because it was just embarrassing and wasting 7 other peoples time. They downed it within 5-6 pulls after they swapped me for a sniper. I figure maybe next week I can at least down it by going full survival in that phase and let everyone else down it lol, but depends on how the DPS check has changed if at all. Whats funny is after I left, I was watching Yolo's stream and was looking at it thinking "***? how is his camera range so much farther than mine and I'm at 100%". I did some digging and found their is a way to alter your settings file to increase camera distance. Probably would have helped a lot in there...

[Joran-Koon]

Believe we are talking solely for tanks. Dps I feel is fine speed wise. I mean Vigilance itself gives a 15% speed boost, so as far as movement we are fine, but the rotation and reliance on MS is what causes our mobility issues.

Still if you change that it will affect dps unless you stance tie it.

 

Sadly no, I sat myself because it was just embarrassing and wasting 7 other peoples time. They downed it within 5-6 pulls after they swapped me for a sniper. I figure maybe next week I can at least down it by going full survival in that phase and let everyone else down it lol, but depends on how the DPS check has changed if at all. Whats funny is after I left, I was watching Yolo's stream and was looking at it thinking "***? how is his camera range so much farther than mine and I'm at 100%". I did some digging and found their is a way to alter your settings file to increase camera distance. Probably would have helped a lot in there...

Ya i've tried that and although it has it's pros it also has it's cons. I found normal 100% was good enough to see everything and close enough for the precision stepping you need. All personal preference though. If it works for ya great. something to try for next time for sure.

[Cydonian_Knight]

Well no Deposer for me man. I fully admit how horrible with reaches I am. Yesterday was better, but out of the 10ish pulls we did where we reached phase 2 over the past 2 nights I died to reaches 7 times. Thats just bad.....

 

Damn, sorry to hear that bud

We just about managed a kill tonight. Unfortunately I had off-tanking responsabilities on Bestia, so wasn't a "clean" kill. Still, happy we got it, but it was scrappy enough

Edited September 9, 2014 by Cydonian_Knight

[veSev]

Damn, sorry to hear that bud

We just about managed a kill tonight. Unfortunately I had off-tanking responsabilities on Bestia, so wasn't a "clean" kill. Still, happy we got it, but it was scrappy enough

 

So if I understand correctly, we have 2 Guard/Jugg DPS with Deposer? Congrats to you guys for sure. As much as I would have liked to have gotten it, I realize that it was my own fault that it didn't happen. Maybe next tier if they stick with this format I will be better suited for this. But hey brightside, I believe I got the top Guard/Jugg DPS for 4/5 DP atm unless you guys beat me and havent posted them here. I hit a 3500 on Bestia, 3400 on Tyrans, 2900 on Calphy and a garbage 1900 on Raptus. I just am waiting for him to update the sheet. If ya got parses, you guys should upload them.

 

Still if you change that it will affect dps unless you stance tie it.

Yeah, that is something you'd have to stance tie. I think if we gained that ability, focus we be a little to OP in PvP with its ability to close distances. Vigilance, we rely on CF to keep the rotation following well, so it wouldnt really benefit us as much.

Edited September 8, 2014 by veSev

[Cydonian_Knight]

So if I understand correctly, we have 2 Guard/Jugg DPS with Deposer? Congrats to you guys for sure. As much as I would have liked to have gotten it, I realize that it was my own fault that it didn't happen. Maybe next tier if they stick with this format I will be better suited for this. But hey brightside, I believe I got the top Guard/Jugg DPS for 4/5 DP atm unless you guys beat me and havent posted them here. I hit a 3500 on Bestia, 3400 on Tyrans, 2900 on Calphy and a garbage 1900 on Raptus. I just am waiting for him to update the sheet. If ya got parses, you guys should upload them. .

 

Those are some nice numbers!

Not sure if I can be arsed to go back and search through all my DP logs

I did an alright dummy parse the other night though, might submit that. Would have been awesome to win the MH, but wasn't to be.

 

As for the main topic in the thread, I actually think we are in a pretty solid place right now. We could use a slight boost in DPS (increasing burn damage by 30% from Keening would be my preference), and a little bit more utility and we'd be rock solid. There are some great ideas in this thread and I really hope Bioware are keeping an eye on us.

[Marb]

Anyways, I want to go back to the conversation about mobility for tanks. I think I understand the argument that you want a more controllable speed boost. Right now, the talent that grants a speed boost is dependent on the person your guarding taking damage, and for some fights this is something that is uncontrollable. So my question is, what could you alter to that talent to make it controlled by the player as apposed to RNG?

 

As Tac explained, expeditious protector is one choice among 2 (perhaps 3) that the guardian can choose to improve mobility. As long as the trend of AoE raid damage continues, a guarded target taking damage isn't an unreasonable requirement (and it works very well in PvP). A better expeditious protector wouldn't solve the problem of range inflexibility in PvE in relation to tanking, which has more to do with ranged threat generation than staying on target. Intercede is specialised and not as widely applicable as it could be, but it's satisfying when applied correctly and gets the job done, not to mention that knockbacks, roots and snares are primary counters to guardians in pvp.

 

I favour a revamp of saber throw because it keeps our range restrictions and weaknesses relevant in PvP, as it just builds off something we already have in our toolkit. If saber throw was changed into a low cooldown/low damage ability, perhaps triggering a similar cc proof target centric AoE like guardian slash, it could improve the quality of life for guard tanks remarkably. High threat/AoE for tanks and builds rage/no minimum range requirement for vigi etc. We would still be the most range limited of all the tanks, but our threat generation wouldn't be completely shutdown when separated from a target like it is now.

Edited September 9, 2014 by Marb

[veSev]

I favour a revamp of saber throw because it keeps our range restrictions and weaknesses relevant in PvP, as it just builds off something we already have in our toolkit. If saber throw was changed into a low cooldown/low damage ability, perhaps triggering a similar cc proof target centric AoE like guardian slash, it could improve the quality of life for guard tanks remarkably. High threat/AoE for tanks and builds rage/no minimum range requirement for vigi etc. We would still be the most range limited of all the tanks, but our threat generation wouldn't be completely shutdown when separated from a target like it is now.

 

Just spitballing here, but what if they make Saber Throw into the same animation at Twin Saber Throw is for Sentinels. And within the tank tree's expansion in 3.0, this becomes a major agro ability similar to Guardian Slash. I could picture this making Vigilance more multiple target friendly, giving another AOE ability to Focus, and a ranged threat generation to Defense. They could make the aggro it generates similar to Harpoon or Force Pull from other tanks. It wouldnt be much, but it would offer a better opener. TBH, I am unsure why we have the same ability twice between Dispatch and Saber Throw, and then give Sentinels an AOE Saber Throw. Makes little sense to me.

 

As for the main topic in the thread, I actually think we are in a pretty solid place right now. We could use a slight boost in DPS (increasing burn damage by 30% from Keening would be my preference), and a little bit more utility and we'd be rock solid. There are some great ideas in this thread and I really hope Bioware are keeping an eye on us.

 

Anyways, I felt the need to give a more accurate picture of our DPS as it is now with the current tier gear. I ran 9 parses tonight, and failed to break 4k even once. With my current AMR, I am settling between 3800-4k on average. I know a few in here have said "Guardians are in a good place" or something similar, but I want to give you the average picture not the one you see of my near 4100 parse on the DPS thread.

 

AMR: http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/466c0165-f5a0-437d-9078-f0848200b63a

Logs: http://www.torparse.com/a/751515

Parse 1: 3928

Parse 2: 3745

Parse 3: 3901

Parse 4: 3940

Parse 5: 3949

Parse 6: 3859

Parse 7: 3891

Parse 8: 3857

Parse 9: 3844

Mean DPS: 34914/9 = 3879.33

 

As you may notice in breaking down the logs, I started to fail my clips and generally slow down after the 5th parse. Late night parsing generates my best parses because of limited lag, but at the same time I am extremely tired lol. Anyways, I believe this makes the point when nearly 30% of the damage on every parse is generated from one ability that in situations where we have to move we are screwed. We need at the minimum a buff to DoT damage. As I mentioned before, we need either a general increase or to increase the BS and OS DoTs to the PB levels.

[Cydonian_Knight]

Anyways, I felt the need to give a more accurate picture of our DPS as it is now with the current tier gear. I ran 9 parses tonight, and failed to break 4k even once. With my current AMR, I am settling between 3800-4k on average. I know a few in here have said "Guardians are in a good place" or something similar, but I want to give you the average picture not the one you see of my near 4100 parse on the DPS thread.

 

Increasing the burn damage from Keening from 9% to 30% is a 150dps increase, which would put your top parse of 4100 at 4250. This would put us right up there with other mdps specs IMO. We have by far the best target switching so I don't think parsing a little lower on single target would be unfair. The reason I prefer over other buffs like 30% Blade Storm surge (which is also a 150dps increase) is that we are already OP in pvp, and that would only make things worse. I understand the point you were making in regards to not judging the spec by the tippy top parse, but we need to compare our best to other specs best.

 

Also I don't see how you can change our reliance on Master Strike without completely changing the spec. This is what make Vigilance/Vengeance challenging in fights and I'd rather not see them make big changes to it. I would however be in favour of making all 3 ticks equal. For the times you can't get the third tick, losing 50% of the damage is crazy.

[Marb]

Just spitballing here, but what if they make Saber Throw into the same animation at Twin Saber Throw is for Sentinels. And within the tank tree's expansion in 3.0, this becomes a major agro ability similar to Guardian Slash. I could picture this making Vigilance more multiple target friendly, giving another AOE ability to Focus, and a ranged threat generation to Defense. They could make the aggro it generates similar to Harpoon or Force Pull from other tanks. It wouldnt be much, but it would offer a better opener. TBH, I am unsure why we have the same ability twice between Dispatch and Saber Throw, and then give Sentinels an AOE Saber Throw. Makes little sense to me.

 

A conal saber throw would be another way to take it but less cc friendly for tanks (though honestly who cares). Building off that idea, it could be have a column of effect instead of a cone, and the cooldown of the ability is reduced per enemy hit (like the barbarian's ancient spear rune from pre RoS diablo 3). There's a lot of interesting ways it could be implemented, it's really just about changing saber throw from the clunky opportunistic rage generator into a more prominent ability in the guardians toolkit.

 

I would wager that saber throw was originally a jedi knight ability baseline and I *think* dispatch used to be a melee ability with a different animation. I remember early gameplay vids of black talon where the sith warrior was finishing off enemies with an ability called "impale". For one reason or another it ended up as a 10m ability, which would explain why the devs chose to change it to use the saber throw animation. So we now have 2 abilities that are essentially the same thing from a flavour perspective.