Sentinel / Marauder 3.0 Changes Breakdown From a PvP Perspective

[Aluvi]

Greetings fellow players!

 

I am going to dissect the article posted today and give you my thoughts on the changes to Sent / Mara. For the full article, go here: http://www.swtor.com/blog/game-update-3.0-class-changes-sentinel-marauder

 

First off, Retaliation / Riposte is gone for our AC.

 

It is now only usable by Jugg / Guardian warriors. This is a blatant nerf. Call it a "simplification of the class" all you want BioWare, it's a nerf. An off the GCD instant ability that can crit for 3-5k, this was a useful skill for us, although only situationally useful. In Watchman / Annihilation, the only time this would be used is in PvP if you had excess rage and needed just a tiny bit more damage to kill someone asap. It is a poor use of your resources overall in this spec. For Combat / Carnage, using Retaliation / Riposte during a Gore window was absolutely justified, assuming you had enough Rage to cover your other ability usage (and you should, unless youre playing sloppy). For Rage / Focus, Retaliation / Riposte was a no brainer - use it when it's up basically, because that spec has an excess of Rage to use. So overall, yes, a flat nerf.

 

Crippling Throw has been removed from the game.

 

Another blatant nerf, and one that in my opinion was very uncalled for. Crippling throw did several things for our AC: It gave us a mid range ability to use when we are rooted or closing the gap on someone, or can't catch someone, assuming you were specced into the root on it from the Combat / Carnage tree. It's also something that you can do while you are rooted / snared / being kited and your Double Saber Throw / Force Scream are on cooldown. It also applied a nice healing debuff, so it was useful to use on your focus target in arenas, or on someone being healed regardless of whether or not you needed to root. The replacement for this is a "double tap" on Crippling Slash, which just flat out sucks unless they severely increase the damage on Crippling Slash, which if anything, I believe they are nerfing it. Having to waste TWO GCDs to root someone in Carnage? Uh, no thank you. No one is going to take this Discipline, and Rage already has baked in snares on Charge / Obliterate, while Watchman has them baked into their dots. Crippling Throw as carnage was one of those great perks to being Carnage, and now it is gone.

 

Passive Abilities that ALL Sentinels / Marauders get:

 

Enraged Slash: Vicious Slash, Sweeping Slash, Vicious Throw, Massacre, Annihilate, and Furious Strike refund 1 rage when used. In addition, Battering Assault beats down its target for 45 seconds. Beat Down targets take 5% more damage from melee attacks.

 

This is a replacement for our the talent of the same name that is in the first tier of the Watchman / Annihilation tree currently. This is good, because it is 100% required for every spec except Rage, and Rage benefits from it as well. We get a 5% melee dmg debuff applied to our target. Woopee. No, really, it's decent, but considering that the hardest hitting abilities (Smash / Raging Burst, Force Scream, Bleeds, etc) are not melee attacks it's a little bit bland. Still, nice buff to Ravage, Massacre, Vicious Throw, and other melee abilities.

 

Short Fuse: Increases the amount of Fury built by 2 when activating abilities that consume rage, and reduces the cooldown of Frenzy by 30 seconds.

 

The talent right beside Enraged Slash, again, 100% required for any spec, period, so good thing it is now baseline.

 

Rupture is now only available to Annihilation

 

Again, a nerf. While Rupture was not really a priority ability by any means, and I understand that BioWare is trying to simplify specs and remove "ability bloat", it was nice to have the option to use it on someone who might stealth out, and although I don't know if it was actually a dps gain to use it 1 GCD directly before a Gore window, it DID add burst to the Gore window, which is the defining reason we use Combat / Carnage in PvP. I'm going to wager that 99% of Sentinels / Marauders didn't even do this though. Still, it's taking away my options, and I don't like that. According to BioWare though: "fear not, for Carnage and Fury Marauders will make up for this resulting sustained damage loss with other new abilities that they have gained." Ok. I'll believe it when i see it.

 

Now, on to spec specifics.

 

Watchman / Annihilation

 

Juyo Form / Annihilator Stacks up 2x as fast

 

Good QoL change, although one wonders why they didn't just double the effect of the stacks, meh, programming might have been easier this way I guess. Either way, this is good for PvP because getting those stacked up in an "attack, die, repeat" cycle quickly is good.

 

Blood & Thunder Talent From WoW.. I mean... Smash Spreading Dots

 

So Annihilation now can spread dots to anyone that Smash hits, so long as at least one target in that Smash has the applied dots. This is very similar to how the new Death Field will work, and I like it, although I think that it's going to be very situational and you may have games where people simply don't stack up enough to really capitalize on it. Still, I like this a lot, and I think it adds a new dynamic to Watchman / Annihilation, plus they get a new dot to apply, which means jugging fury / rage / 3 dots / trying to position yourself for a smash. This will be a very high skill required spec. Applying dots and then Berserking + Smashing to spread them will be very sweet, although those 6 stacks of Berserk are going to be chewed through in one tick of your dots, which is going to make Berserk less of a DPS boost. I wish that only your primary targets dots used the Berserk Stacks, while the secondary still benefited from it, although that could create some insane healing. Speaking of which, Crit stacking might be more viable now, since the heals coming from the extra dots will be quite good.

 

Force Gash: Summons dark Force power to gash the target, causing it to bleed for internal damage over 15 seconds.

 

A nice long dot. Assuming it does damage comparable or higher than similar 15 second dots, this is probably quite good, and making sure that this is up before your smash to spread your dots will be very high priority.

 

Rupture No Longer Has a Cooldown

 

This is good, but really, did it NEED a cooldown in the first place? No, it did not. The damage it does is good, but not good enough that I would run around applying it to multiple people rather than using abilities like Annihilate etc. I'm glad that you can refresh it before smashing to make sure it is applied.. unless the smash applies dots with full time to other targets? We shall see. That will be an important clarification.

 

Carnage

 

Massacre / Sweeping Slash Rage Cost Reduction (1) During Berserk

 

This was how Berserk used to function for combat, and it was quite good, although the alacrity increase is better. Adding this will help out a lot with the Rage management issues that we have in Combat / Carnage spec. Good change.

 

All targets hit by Sweeping Slash trigger Ataru Form Attack

 

I see this as more of a PvE centered change, although it certainly isn't bad for PvP, I doubt anyone will be spamming Sweeping Slash just for Ataru procs. Certainly is nice for aoe in PvE though.

 

Force Vigor Is Now a Passive for Combat / Carnage

 

I have LONG felt that putting this talent into the Combat / Carnage tree was the way to go. Truthfully I wish it was just a Sentinel wide passive, but I'll take what I can get. It was not needed in Rage. This means that using Dual Saber Throw will now generate 2 Rage when used as Combat. Solid.

 

Devastating Blast

 

This is an ability replacement for Force Scream. It will do Kinetic damage, and it will do presumably more damage (probably a LOT more) when used within the Gore window. This is good news for the spec, as currently Force Scream which is the highest hitting GCD ability for Carnage / Combat, but it actually hits for less even when buffed and in a Gore window than Smash does without the Gore window.. and Smash is single target. Definitely looking forward to a harder hitting single target ability.

 

Gore Change

 

Gore no longer ignores the global cooldown, but as a result, it now deals much more damage and increases armor penetration for 6 seconds instead of just 4.5 seconds. These changes, combined with the changes to alacrity (which now reduces the global cooldown and the cooldown of most abilities), mean that Carnage Marauders can rather easily sneak an extra attack into every Gore window.

 

So, Gore is now on the GCD, which sucks, but it does more damage (good) and lasts for 6 seconds, meaning that we can still get in 3-4 GCDs, and possibly even 5-6 GCDs worth of abilities with the changes to alacrity that they are making. Overall it's probably a buff and simplifies the class, making the rotation easier to do. Considering how high the skill ceiling is for Combat / Carnage, that isn't a bad thing for the average joe player.

 

Fury (Rage)

 

Two new abilities for the far right tree of our AC:

 

Raging Burst: Blasts the enemy target with a powerful burst of Force energy, dealing kinetic damage.

 

"Fury skills that affect Smash now also affect Raging Burst, and this effectively causes Raging Burst to replace Smash in the Fury Marauder’s single target damage rotation. "

 

Single target, harder hitting smash basically. As far as I know, it does NOT share a cooldown with smash, and I'm not sure if it consumes the stacks that make Smash autocrit / damage increaesed. If it does not consume them, then this is really really good. If it does, then it's mediocre.

 

Furious Strike: Strikes the target for significant weapon damage. Attacks with both weapons if dual wielding.

Another good single target ability. Combined with Raging Burst, I think that Rage will primarly be a single target spec for Arenas now, and possibly even for regs. It all depends on if Raging Burst consumes the Shockwave / auto crit stacks.

 

Fury Marauders also gain a new passive ability that temporarily increases their defenses after using Furious Strike.

 

By how much? I'll take any boost to our defenses., but if it's 1 or 2% it will be rather underwhelming. I'd much rather see a "reduced damage taken while stunned" here.

 

Force Camoflage now removes cleansable effects.

 

This is great, as there's nothing that sucks more than to get out of a bad situation with your life only to die to dots, however I am assuming this won't work for Madness Inquisitor dots, which kind of sucks.

 

Overall

 

We got some nice buffs, but also some unneeded nerfs, and keep in mind that EVERYONE, even classes that currently top meters and own the meta 4v4 game (I'm looking at you madness sorcs/assassins) are also receiving large buffs. My thought is that Fury is going to be the new go to spec for PvP, for any spec. The burst potential in this spec is going to be crazy. An opening would look something like:

 

1. Channel Rage for 30 Fury stacks.

2. Berserk

3. Frenzy

4. Bloodthirst

5. Charge

6. Smash

7. Force Crush

8. Obliterate

9. Raging Burst (be sure you have 3 stacks before oblit - if you don't use a filler here first)

10. Ravage

11. Furious Strike

12. Vicious Throw if in range.

13. Vicious slash to fill until you have the fury to berserk, then start it over again on (2. Berserk) and repeat the rotation, minus the Frenzy / Bloodthirst.

 

This is all theoretical of course, but that is one hell of a long list of hard hitting abilities. I believe that this will out perform carnage for single target, and it has the added benefit of not having a gore window that you can be stunned during.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Aluvi

[DomiSotto]

Thank you for taking your tie to write this up. I am looking forward to reading it & any follow up discussion. As a typical bad Mara I need all help I can get!

[Aluvi]

Thank you for taking your tie to write this up. I am looking forward to reading it & any follow up discussion. As a typical bad Mara I need all help I can get!

 

NP! I had to do something while I wait 30 minutes in between queue times on Shadowlands

[XeniusX]

I wouldnt say that you're a average joe if you don't use retaliation or rupture, one can still be 95% of a marauder without it. but the removal of it, rupture and deadly throw are and should be considered a nerf to overall usefullness in pvp and for those selected few that know how to utilize them.

 

Not removing them from the game wouldn't hurt anyone, especially the average joe that only cares about the, lets say maybe 90 % of a class.

 

Oh and according to the devs from the stream every dot in the game are becoming uncleansable, so the camo cleanse would probably only cleanse snares and roots.

 

All the changes to Carnage have been nerfs as far as i can see. Maybe the other specs will do better but this is killing my resolve in believeing in this game.

[JouerTue]

the only things i'm afraid of on combat are: root removal, bad for pvp, dot removal, bad for pvp, PS on GCD, you already rarely place a full MS and the only burst 100% available before a stun/KB was charge+PS+blade storm+riposte which is probably gone forever. plus now instead of a root you'll really need a permatranscendence+slow, which is going to be easily removed by purges or even cleances

[Ramtar]

Looks like the devs want to make Sentinel/Marauder more MDPS with removing Crippling Throw/Deadly Throw (range) and rolling benefits into Leg Slash/Crippling Slash.

 

I'm holding judgement until I review the dev stream concerning class changes.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Ramtar

[Trogusaurus]

Unfortunate. Fewer utilities against ranged classes = more dying, losing CT is a big hit to our class all around. Perhaps the devs could remove Leg Slash and give Crippling its snare instead? It is "crippling", after all. Edited November 19, 2014 by Trogusaurus

[chosonman]

The crippling throw/leg slash nerf is going to hurt. It was by far one of the Combat/Carnage specs most powerful skills next to precision slash/gore. It's going to be a nightmare trying to keep up with kiters without it. Edited November 19, 2014 by chosonman

[Ryuku-sama]

Two thing you have wrong OP.

Raging Burst is just single target Smash. So you just use Raging Burst instead of Smash in single target.

Force Camo removes cleansable effects. In 3.0 no players DoTs are cleansable. So it will only remove movement imparing effects and debuffs.

[Vodrin]

Two thing you have wrong OP.

Raging Burst is just single target Smash. So you just use Raging Burst instead of Smash in single target.

Force Camo removes cleansable effects. In 3.0 no players DoTs are cleansable. So it will only remove movement imparing effects and debuffs.

 

Its a real shame that ED/FD is usable while stunned and force cammo is not. If it was force cammo would be a stun break. And I would have much preferred that they left Crippling throw in and removed leg slash. Extra ranged snare/root was nice for fighting kiters.

 

But OP is correct that Fury is going to be the new go to PvP spec. It's single target burst will be significantly better than carnage is currently with all kinds of tools to deal with kiting, and better base mitigation than carnage.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Vodrin

[Ashuranrx]

You left out that Gore no longer has cooldown reset or cooldown reduction, except with alacrity during Berserk. Gore got nerfed hard anyway you look at it.

[ElcorHamlet]

Clearly they should have just added the slow to crippling throw and removed leg slash from the game. A 12 second slow on a 12 second cd would have been perfect.

[DomiSotto]

I've been reading all the first impressions in some 3 or so threads that are developing, and my most burning question is, of course, if Fury is going to be significantly better than the other two, as to be worth switching to for an average player? (I do have a lowbie Sentinel, and that I planned to try to learn Combat on eventually, but I will work on Concentration instead then.)

 

I am a noob, so the only thing that I immediately thought was that without the Deadly Throw I will have even more problems to getting at people. I am already using Camo to get to the ranged, since the bitter experience quickly taught me that a Charge is not an opener despite what the guides would want you to believe, it is a thing to use after you are inevitably pushed back. On another hand, between the Dual Throw and Deadly Throw, I guess, they wanted to cut one out and emphasize the close range?

 

As an owner of an AnniMara, I am happy about the quicker buildup of the 30 stacks, no brainer, it’s good news. I like the Battering Assault getting a bit more to it, since I do use it often. Rupture without CD is cool too, so you don’t have to watch it so much, just go for it whenever you need it. The changes to Smash though, I am simply not sure how is it going to fit? I usually try really hard to avoid being in a place where there are many other opponents, circling the perimeter. Mara never strikes me as a charge into the thick of it kindda thing. So, I am guessing, the new abilities will drive a change to a play-style? Can a Mara actually last long enough to set it all up?

 

I am a very bad player, so I have a sort of a cowardly type of a Mara, so looking at it, I see a bit of a dissonance between the other changes and the Smash. I think I would have liked something more interesting to my Camo, rather than the spreading DoTs from an AoE, so that I can have more of feel of a character that picks his target, gets to it, hits hard and runs.

[ElcorHamlet]

I am a very bad player, so I have a sort of a cowardly type of a Mara, so looking at it, I see a bit of a dissonance between the other changes and the Smash. I think I would have liked something more interesting to my Camo, rather than the spreading DoTs from an AoE, so that I can have more of feel of a character that picks his target, gets to it, hits hard and runs.

 

In my experience, people who think they are good are usually bad, people who are really good think they are just average, and people who think they are bad might not be as bad as they think. So you might not be in such bad shape. The thing is, these class changes won't really matter except at the highest levels of play, because most people are really really bad at this game and even the very worst dps class (opertives) can do well in 55's if they are much better than their opponents.

[Unperson]

I've been reading all the first impressions in some 3 or so threads that are developing, and my most burning question is, of course, if Fury is going to be significantly better than the other two, as to be worth switching to for an average player? (I do have a lowbie Sentinel, and that I planned to try to learn Combat on eventually, but I will work on Concentration instead then.)

 

I am a noob, so the only thing that I immediately thought was that without the Deadly Throw I will have even more problems to getting at people. I am already using Camo to get to the ranged, since the bitter experience quickly taught me that a Charge is not an opener despite what the guides would want you to believe, it is a thing to use after you are inevitably pushed back. On another hand, between the Dual Throw and Deadly Throw, I guess, they wanted to cut one out and emphasize the close range?

 

As an owner of an AnniMara, I am happy about the quicker buildup of the 30 stacks, no brainer, it’s good news. I like the Battering Assault getting a bit more to it, since I do use it often. Rupture without CD is cool too, so you don’t have to watch it so much, just go for it whenever you need it. The changes to Smash though, I am simply not sure how is it going to fit? I usually try really hard to avoid being in a place where there are many other opponents, circling the perimeter. Mara never strikes me as a charge into the thick of it kindda thing. So, I am guessing, the new abilities will drive a change to a play-style? Can a Mara actually last long enough to set it all up?

 

I am a very bad player, so I have a sort of a cowardly type of a Mara, so looking at it, I see a bit of a dissonance between the other changes and the Smash. I think I would have liked something more interesting to my Camo, rather than the spreading DoTs from an AoE, so that I can have more of feel of a character that picks his target, gets to it, hits hard and runs.

 

Try and learn all 3 specs. I used to play only Carnage and Anni until I stumbled upon this awesome guide for Rage. Tried it, fell in love with it, and now it's the spec I run for dailies and sometimes PVP (depending on how careless I'm feeling). Rage is harder to shut down than Carnage and hardier too. It's also fairly easy to learn. Virtually no "setting up" that can be disrupted as it's next to impossible to prevent you from gaining Shockwave stacks and by the time you Ravage they should hopefully be out of CC/KB.

 

Don't be misled into thinking that in PVP Rage is intended to be played as an AoE spec with any degree of success -- as you have realized by now, the class just doesn't support it. The days of auto critting multiple opponents with Smash are over, but it's still great for picking off stragglers and keeping pressure on healers. Announced changes aren't going to change the core mechanics of the spec, they simply provide even better tools to deal damage to single targets.

 

I always mail 200k to each new alt I make to get the Field Respec perk. It's totally worth it, so I can learn all 3 specs as I level (this also makes leveling less tedious). Don't be afraid to try new things!

[DomiSotto]

Field respec will be wasted on me, lol. I lay out every toon's binds so their rotation flows well & is comfortable to reach and what goes together is bound together, and then try to commit it to muscle memory sort of like a musical tune, I Imagine.

 

But, I think, I will try Fury once 3.0 comes out, once people start giving the feedback & if it looks awesome.

 

Interesting times ahead, no doubt about it.

Edited November 20, 2014 by DomiSotto

[Ashuranrx]

1. Channel Rage for 30 Fury stacks.

2. Berserk

3. Frenzy

4. Bloodthirst

5. Charge

6. Smash

7. Force Crush

8. Obliterate

9. Raging Burst (be sure you have 3 stacks before oblit - if you don't use a filler here first)

10. Ravage

11. Furious Strike

12. Vicious Throw if in range.

13. Vicious slash to fill until you have the fury to berserk, then start it over again on (2. Berserk) and repeat the rotation, minus the Frenzy / Bloodthirst.

 

This is all theoretical of course, but that is one hell of a long list of hard hitting abilities. I believe that this will out perform carnage for single target, and it has the added benefit of not having a gore window that you can be stunned during.

 

You want to use Raging burst before Smash because Raging burst puts a Overwhelm debuff on the target, which will make it take more AoE damage from Smash.

[Ld-Siris]

As fury you won't be using vicious slash as fury strikes replaces it.

 

And the didn't remove the root for Carn deadly throw. They gave it to the Jugg's 30m saber throw. =/

Edited November 20, 2014 by Ld-Siris

[Ryuku-sama]

As fury you won't be using vicious slash as fury strikes replaces it.

 

And the didn't remove the root for Carn deadly throw. They gave it to the Jugg's 30m saber throw. =/

 

More or less. You will use Vicious one time every two nine sec rotation. The rotation you won't use Force Crush after Smash/Raging Burst. Furious has a CD.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Ryuku-sama

[Ld-Siris]

More or less. You will use Vicious one time every two nine sec rotation. The rotation you won't use Force Crush after Smash/Raging Burst. Furious has a CD.

 

So basically they wanted to do away with the boring aspect rage which was smash, vs, vs, vs, vs, smash rinse and repeat. And actually make it play more like the other two specs.

[Aluvi]

You left out that Gore no longer has cooldown reset or cooldown reduction, except with alacrity during Berserk. Gore got nerfed hard anyway you look at it.

 

Have you checked the base level skill to see if the CDR is just baked into it now? If it isn't, and we have a 15 second CD Gore with no way to reduce that .. and from what I can tell there isn't ... then the spec is truly going to be dead.

[Aluvi]

Two thing you have wrong OP.

Raging Burst is just single target Smash. So you just use Raging Burst instead of Smash in single target.

Force Camo removes cleansable effects. In 3.0 no players DoTs are cleansable. So it will only remove movement imparing effects and debuffs.

 

I haven't read or seen anywhere that RB replaces smash. Everything I have seen and everyone I have talked to have said that Smash and RB do not share a cooldown, which means that you CAN theoretically use it as I have stated, and it would be an insane amount of burst. Granted, you would probably end up with a Smash or RB that does not have Shockwave stacks or an auto crit buff, but that's the price you pay for the burst. If I'm wrong please correct me, but I think that saying that RB is "just a single target Smash" is an oversimplification of the skill.

 

Good to know about the cleansable effects. I haven't been able to actually play on the PTS, since, you know, BioWare doesn't want PvPers over there to actually test things for them.. just PvErs. So in effect, Force Camo will be the same as it is in Carnage, no better, no worse.

[Aluvi]

Unfortunate. Fewer utilities against ranged classes = more dying, losing CT is a big hit to our class all around. Perhaps the devs could remove Leg Slash and give Crippling its snare instead? It is "crippling", after all.

 

I'm worried that the current trend of "Star Wars: The Ranged Republic" is going to continue and in fact get worse in 3.0. There are very strong changes for most ranged classes that improve them significantly, while the melee seem to be trading their utilities that helped them deal with ranged classes for a few new or replacement abilities. I like how Fury is looking, but I wonder if it will be enough to deal with other classes getting buffed (primarily madness inquisitors and snipers of all colors).

 

I'm reserving my judgement though; we'll see what happens when 3.0 is out.

[Aluvi]

Clearly they should have just added the slow to crippling throw and removed leg slash from the game. A 12 second slow on a 12 second cd would have been perfect.

 

This. I could definitely get behind this. It's also a slight nerf in that we can't slow anyone / everything at will, but it would give us a really nice utility ability to basically use on cooldown for slow / snare. As it is, I can see that I'll be removing Crippling Slash from my bar and relying on my charge / oblit snares, or the snares from dots in annihilation.

[Aluvi]

I've been reading all the first impressions in some 3 or so threads that are developing, and my most burning question is, of course, if Fury is going to be significantly better than the other two, as to be worth switching to for an average player? (I do have a lowbie Sentinel, and that I planned to try to learn Combat on eventually, but I will work on Concentration instead then.)

 

I am a noob, so the only thing that I immediately thought was that without the Deadly Throw I will have even more problems to getting at people. I am already using Camo to get to the ranged, since the bitter experience quickly taught me that a Charge is not an opener despite what the guides would want you to believe, it is a thing to use after you are inevitably pushed back. On another hand, between the Dual Throw and Deadly Throw, I guess, they wanted to cut one out and emphasize the close range?

 

As an owner of an AnniMara, I am happy about the quicker buildup of the 30 stacks, no brainer, it’s good news. I like the Battering Assault getting a bit more to it, since I do use it often. Rupture without CD is cool too, so you don’t have to watch it so much, just go for it whenever you need it. The changes to Smash though, I am simply not sure how is it going to fit? I usually try really hard to avoid being in a place where there are many other opponents, circling the perimeter. Mara never strikes me as a charge into the thick of it kindda thing. So, I am guessing, the new abilities will drive a change to a play-style? Can a Mara actually last long enough to set it all up?

 

I am a very bad player, so I have a sort of a cowardly type of a Mara, so looking at it, I see a bit of a dissonance between the other changes and the Smash. I think I would have liked something more interesting to my Camo, rather than the spreading DoTs from an AoE, so that I can have more of feel of a character that picks his target, gets to it, hits hard and runs.

 

Marauders definitely ARE a "get in the middle of things" kind of class, but it requires good cooldown management, and a healer helps immensely. Pre nerf smash was a high risk / reward play style, and with a good healer, the risk of death is quite low. You had a Undying Rage for one damage stop on a 1.5 min cooldown, and force camo for a second damage stop on a 45s cooldown. Between those and your normal defensive cooldowns, it was very difficult to kill a mara in a warzone or arena setting. On top of that, Rage is much more sturdy then the other specs, receiving a flat buff to the damage reduction - it's really closer to being a heavy armor class than medium due to that. I think we're going to see a return to that in 3.0, however Smash will not be as OP as it once was.