After tanking Maelstrom Prison, it's become even more apparent that either Shadow's AoE taunt needs its cool down lowered considerably or my AoEs need to get a significant boost to threat. If it's single target, I can keep them on me and kept the champion levels on me as best I could, but it takes literally one to two hits for my taunt to be broken and to have the others run after who ever.
It was an all PA group, so they were really good anyways and it didn't cause any significant problems (in fact we only wiped once due to not knowing the LASEREYE boss mechanics), but I can see a lot of groups wiping when you're faced with three champions that can't be CCed and are so easily broken from the taunt.
Powertech is trying awfully hard to make me forget the other characters I've rolled. I was underwhelmed with the flamethrower ability, so they gave me Flame Sweep. I was having enough fun already with Shuriyoken in PVP, and then they gave me grapple.
New favorite thing in PVP in the Alderaan Warzone (capture the 3 towers): Sneak behind a republic group that's making a push for the middle tower, grapple a healer from the back-line to myself and a friend or two, ruin his day.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
I kept hearing about how Guardians get an a second Leap, so I looked it up and it's our level 50 ability? Man that sucks
After tanking Maelstrom Prison, it's become even more apparent that either Shadow's AoE taunt needs its cool down lowered considerably or my AoEs need to get a significant boost to threat. If it's single target, I can keep them on me and kept the champion levels on me as best I could, but it takes literally one to two hits for my taunt to be broken and to have the others run after who ever.
I would be so happy if my assassin's starting AoE wasn't a knock back. If it was a knockdown it would be great. Then initial AoE threat would be solid. I'm still having a hard time reconciling what they had in mind when they designed tanking in this game.
I kept hearing about how Guardians get an a second Leap, so I looked it up and it's our level 50 ability? Man that sucks
Its a second leap with damage mit to save a group member. Fits with the class and makes sense its not really an offensive weapon. Our first leap refreshes fast enough as it is.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I kept hearing about how Guardians get an a second Leap, so I looked it up and it's our level 50 ability? Man that sucks
Its a second leap with damage mit to save a group member. Fits with the class and makes sense its not really an offensive weapon. Our first leap refreshes fast enough as it is.
Yes but I want to jump around like a crazy person, I can't for 23 more levels!
I kept hearing about how Guardians get an a second Leap, so I looked it up and it's our level 50 ability? Man that sucks
Its a second leap with damage mit to save a group member. Fits with the class and makes sense its not really an offensive weapon. Our first leap refreshes fast enough as it is.
Yes but I want to jump around like a crazy person, I can't for 23 more levels!
TOO BAD NEWB!!!
My moment of sadness was finding out that hilt strike doesn't work on elites+ and I'm kind of at a loss as to why. Its an on stun extra hit, why that doesn't work on tough mobs seems silly, if anything that should be the mobs it works on most.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
My moment of sadness was finding out that hilt strike doesn't work on elites+ and I'm kind of at a loss as to why. Its an on stun extra hit, why that doesn't work on tough mobs seems silly, if anything that should be the mobs it works on most.
Yeah, as Shadow I have a BOOT TO THE FACE spinkick that has equally silly restrictions.
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a Ferret360 Dunk from Half CourtRegistered Userregular
Did some heroics last night with a tank that's been gearing up with epic pvp gear, and he was having major threat issues. Both myself (Shadow) and our DPS commando had to throttle back considerably, even on fights where we were killing adds with the tank staying on the boss exclusively. It seems that your primary stat, which the tank pvp gear lacks, is exceptionally important for threat. Especially considering that there's no way for the DPS in your group to tell when they're about to pull. Almost every boss having some sort of aggro dump doesn't help the matter, either.
My moment of sadness was finding out that hilt strike doesn't work on elites+ and I'm kind of at a loss as to why. Its an on stun extra hit, why that doesn't work on tough mobs seems silly, if anything that should be the mobs it works on most.
Yeah, as Shadow I have a BOOT TO THE FACE spinkick that has equally silly restrictions.
I really have to wonder why they did that, I guess its meant to be a grey arrow killer, thats what I tend to use mine for.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Two things i would like to see done on the JK guardian and its sith counterpart.
A ranged disarm and passive ranged thorns. Would fit the theme and help with the ranged tanking problem.
A ranged disarm to force ranged targets go melee.
A passive ranged thorns to help with ranged tanking. They don't even need to change the deflect animation, it just needs to do minimal damage and some threat.
BTW the Courage Talent ( the one that gives you one focus discount per deflect on the AoE and ranged ability ) is bugged. It only works at the third stack and it is consumed when you use the free ranged attack after the leap.
EDIT:
Hilt strike ( defense talent ) works on elites, pommel strike doesn't.
I couldn't remember the name, but its the none talented on stun attack. Also I think one of my favorite animations for the guardian is cyclone slash, that kind of roundhouse saber attack looks bad ass. And now with combat focus basically at my beck and call I can use it everytime.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
The talented combat focus cool down reduction. I don't like it. My resource system comment was directed to that ability and talent.
What don't you like about it? Its a high end defensive talent that lets you grab good focus to start a pull, and then with hitting damaging abilities have it freed up later for more focus.
What's your problem with it?
And opportune strike works off a charge? SOB I was ignoring that strike entirely.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Yeah, That is the only way i use opportune strike. Other then that you can only combo it with freezing force.
Just don't use your blade storm before the opportune strike because it will clear the root.
So i Blade throw > force leap > opportune strike > blade storm > pummel and a strong target will be almost dead finishing with statis > master strike if needed.
EDIT: On combat focus.
You get force charge, saber throw, strike and then they restrict the focus gain of these abilities on soresu form and give you an ability that generates 6 focus ( half of your bar ) with a 1 min cool down that can be reduced ? What the hell ? Where is the logic in that ?
After you use it you have to spam strike/sunder 3 times per 1/2 focus each and all your other abilities plus the 31 point talent are 3/4 focus, so combat goes 3x basic attack > one ability > 3x basic attack > one ability. Or you're using abilities that have no focus cost chained together.
It has no flow and it feels weak as a recource design.
I wouldn't force push mobs into pits and stuff like that, had several bug on me and shoot from under the map. Couldn't kill them or do anything and they would follow me around everywhere.
No I don't toss mobs off of things either. But I do toss them away from me to again set up a light saber chuck and charge. This even works on elites so I can get more breathing room/extra free damage.
Its really cool with Kira also charging with me. Its one reason I really can't swap her out for another companion.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Yeah, i do that as well, it was just a word of caution.
I had to learn it the hard way when a bugged mob prevent me from completing my quests and was forced to kill myself and respawn at the medical center to reset it.
It can be quite aggravating when you just spent the last 30 mins killing mobs to reach the objective.
Yeah, i do that as well, it was just a word of caution.
I had to learn it the hard way when a bugged mob prevent me from completing my quests and was forced to kill myself and respawn at the medical center to reset it.
It can be quite aggravating when you just spent the last 30 mins killing mobs to reach the objective.
Yeah I lost a bonus quest boss a similar way, thankfully I was able to summon him again. Makes sense though mobs get stuck in the world, nothing the designers can really do when you have an interesting enviroment to play in.
I do wish that force throwing mobs into walls would cause extra damage, I mean that shit would hurt.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Would be nice indeed. I did threw a few into lava on Belsavis. Had one die on a rock with loot i couldn't get, it was only trash but still... gamer OCD.
Off topic: I would like to see a vendor with all the companion specific gear. You can only chose one piece per quest and i would like to gear them all with their specific gear.
Note: resource nodes have a new animation since patch.
EDIT: They could do half damage on push and half on end to simulate the kinetic damage on stuff.
I'm not sure if it is common knowledge but +hit after 100% reduces target defense. So that +hit talent may not go to waste once we get to the cap with gear.
I kept hearing about how Guardians get an a second Leap, so I looked it up and it's our level 50 ability? Man that sucks
Its a second leap with damage mit to save a group member. Fits with the class and makes sense its not really an offensive weapon. Our first leap refreshes fast enough as it is.
Yes but I want to jump around like a crazy person, I can't for 23 more levels!
FYI if you just really want leaps, Sentinels and Guards can spec into Zealous leap in the focus tree, though you definitely shouldn't spec that tree for anything but PvP or just levelling, since it's really just all about mobility and guaranteed crit force sweeps that hit really hard.
Pommel strike and opportune strike should be instantly thrown from your bars, never to be seen again. They don't even work on anything above a silver star, and only contextually. I'm full defense guardian spec at level 38, and I kill a silver in a few seconds anyway just using my actual cool abilities. Saber throw, force leap, blade storm, force sweep + riposte since it's not on GCD and they're dead. If not, master strike. I was so excited about pommel and opportune because I thought they were designed as powerful strikes to be used in pvp, but they're totally unusable on players. So very horrible.
PS Guardian tanking is fucking amazing, and only gets better. I'm an absolute monster in PvE with so much damn control it's ridiculous, plus saber throw and force leap, two of the coolest abilities. And in PvP i'm an unstoppable juggernaut.
so you dudes who have leveled your guardian, how did you guys spec through your 20s and 30s for maximum killing efficiency before Saber Throw and all that?
like i'm noticing my guardian pretty much goes down faster than a cheap hooker, so i'm assuming it's something to do with spec; will i see a huge difference between tank and 'damage' spec or is it just 'wait til you get your toys chump'
so you dudes who have leveled your guardian, how did you guys spec through your 20s and 30s for maximum killing efficiency before Saber Throw and all that?
like i'm noticing my guardian pretty much goes down faster than a cheap hooker, so i'm assuming it's something to do with spec; will i see a huge difference between tank and 'damage' spec or is it just 'wait til you get your toys chump'
Until you get to Balmorra and get your healing companion, JK fighting just involves wiping out a group, then popping down to use introspection for a few seconds. Maybe every couple fights. You can use T7 and let him tank for you, or you can just double down DPS with Kira, but either way, there's no healing unless you want to use your terrible C2 as a healer.
I'm not the right guy to ask, because I'm usually(not always) with my wife who is a healer, I'm a full defense Guardian, and we both run pure dps companions so questing is about as fast as it can possibly be. That being said, when I do class quests even without a healer out I am never at risk of dying. Some of it is tank toolset(non channeled stasis, hilt strike stun) and some of it is just making sure you're always interrupting attacks, using your highest priority attacks first, etc.
If you're levelling Vigilance though, you should be killing things so fast you don't run a risk of dying unless you get 2 packs or something.
so you dudes who have leveled your guardian, how did you guys spec through your 20s and 30s for maximum killing efficiency before Saber Throw and all that?
like i'm noticing my guardian pretty much goes down faster than a cheap hooker, so i'm assuming it's something to do with spec; will i see a huge difference between tank and 'damage' spec or is it just 'wait til you get your toys chump'
Its like that for every guardian. Till you get your healing companion you will have to just rest after each group and use medpacks as much as possible. The funny thing is, that after you get it, things don't improve. It will only slow down your pace. Sure you don't lose hp but it will take you 15mins to kill a class quest boss and 5 mins to kill an elite or a group of normals.
I use Kira, rest and change to Doc when its an elite or a boss. But i prefer to keep the pace of my game up.
so you dudes who have leveled your guardian, how did you guys spec through your 20s and 30s for maximum killing efficiency before Saber Throw and all that?
like i'm noticing my guardian pretty much goes down faster than a cheap hooker, so i'm assuming it's something to do with spec; will i see a huge difference between tank and 'damage' spec or is it just 'wait til you get your toys chump'
Its like that for every guardian. Till you get your healing companion you will have to just rest after each group and use medpacks as much as possible. The funny thing is, that after you get it, things don't improve. It will only slow down your pace. Sure you don't lose hp but it will take you 15mins to kill a class quest boss.
No way. Every single class story boss up until this point has been an utter cakewalk for me, and even though I have the healer now I don't use him. I'm tank spec, and I roll Kira for DPS at all times. If it's one of the end planet class bosses, you pop saber ward, then your 20 minute ability, then saber ward again when it wears off. That alone would probably be enough, but if you really want to make it easy you just actually use your abilities that keep the boss from doing a single point of damage. Force stasis, force push, hilt strike(if you're defense), and make sure you interrupt casts. None of these fights has taken any amount of time either.
I don't think I've ended a class story boss at less than 90% health yet.
Now what you said about resting after groups for a few seconds is true for a solo guard pre healer companion, but if you're DPS you should never be going slow. My defense guard and Kira together kill any group of standards in 3 GCDs or less, and if there's a silver, maybe 4 or 5. She has AoEs, I have AoEs, it's just about using the right abilities.
It has no flow and it feels weak as a recource design.
Don't know what level you are, but Focus has a fine flow for defense guardians once you're fully specced into the tree. You get 6 focus to begin every fight, you get 1 focus every 3 seconds as long as you're being hit, you get 2 every time you sundering. Then half the time storm and sweep don't even have their full cost. Oh, and also stasis grants 3 focus and isn't channeled for us so it should be hit every CD even on bosses for the damage/focus. I'm level 38, and in Flashpoints it's actually hard for me to dump it fast enough to not get focus capped, and that's without using combat focus. I only ever even hit combat focus if one of my major focus dumps(Hilt strike, blade storm, force sweep) are off CD and I don't have enough to use them.
One thing that actually helped me is to pretty much stop using slash unless every ability that costs focus and has a CD is used. With the talents we take, force sweep hits harder even on a single target than slash(and has the accuracy debuff), and obviously blade storm and hilt strike are higher priority than slash because their damage is far better and storm gives you the absorb. It'll be even better at 40 when I get Guardian slash to replace slash on my bars, because Guardian spends focus so I won't run into the problem of capping out that I mentioned before.
After tanking Maelstrom Prison, it's become even more apparent that either Shadow's AoE taunt needs its cool down lowered considerably or my AoEs need to get a significant boost to threat. If it's single target, I can keep them on me and kept the champion levels on me as best I could, but it takes literally one to two hits for my taunt to be broken and to have the others run after who ever.
It was an all PA group, so they were really good anyways and it didn't cause any significant problems (in fact we only wiped once due to not knowing the LASEREYE boss mechanics), but I can see a lot of groups wiping when you're faced with three champions that can't be CCed and are so easily broken from the taunt.
Isn't your AoE basically spammable? I know you have regen to worry about, but if you're spamming it and people are still pulling, maybe it does need a threat boost. I force sweep and then I can spam cyclone slash on my guard, but I still have to build focus before I can do the cyclone slashes so it's not unlimited, but I have no AoE issues at all.
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cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
Found a bit of a bandaid to my initial AoE threat issues as a 20's SI. Funny enough its the same solution I used for pulling on a vanilla WoW Pally, before they had any ranged. The answer is grenades. Cheap and effective AoE damage. Tried it in a heroic last night and it worked pretty well.
Obviously, this probably won't matter once I hit 30, but it seemed to fill in the 20's AoE gap that I found since using Overload in a group situation just pisses most people off.
It has no flow and it feels weak as a recource design.
Don't know what level you are, but Focus has a fine flow for defense guardians once you're fully specced into the tree. You get 6 focus to begin every fight, you get 1 focus every 3 seconds as long as you're being hit, you get 2 every time you sundering. Then half the time storm and sweep don't even have their full cost. Oh, and also stasis grants 3 focus and isn't channeled for us so it should be hit every CD even on bosses for the damage/focus. I'm level 38, and in Flashpoints it's actually hard for me to dump it fast enough to not get focus capped, and that's without using combat focus. I only ever even hit combat focus if one of my major focus dumps(Hilt strike, blade storm, force sweep) are off CD and I don't have enough to use them.
One thing that actually helped me is to pretty much stop using slash unless every ability that costs focus and has a CD is used. With the talents we take, force sweep hits harder even on a single target than slash(and has the accuracy debuff), and obviously blade storm and hilt strike are higher priority than slash because their damage is far better and storm gives you the absorb. It'll be even better at 40 when I get Guardian slash to replace slash on my bars, because Guardian spends focus so I won't run into the problem of capping out that I mentioned before.
That talent is bugged. It only works if you all have the 3 stacks.
Do you really think that using Combat Focus is fine ? Soresu form cuts the focus gain of all the abilities and then they slap a 6 focus instant to solve that ? Really ? Whats the point in the abilities even giving focus ?
You get 1 focus every 3 seconds, if you take damage, else you don't. Being in combat or being attacked and taking damage are different things. Again they just cut the focus abilities gain in half and then add such talent ?
Half my skills cost no focus and the other half costs twice as much focus then that that focus generating abilities give. Its weak and pointless. Its like they stopped mid design because there was no more time to do anything else.
It gets even worse at 50. My keyboard is getting worn out of so much Strike spam. The 3 focus from Statis don't even cover the 4 from guardian slash.
I see a resource system that gets barely any use, because either you use abilities that cost no focus at all or you have to spend 3 GCDs to do one ability. I bet they could take the focus bar away and nobody would notice the difference.
I do agree that Force Sweep is pretty much one of the best abilities we have, i like Dispatch as well.
Anyway, that is my personal take on it. To each his own.
I can't confirm the bug you're mentioning, because I've had times where I was able to use blade storm when I only had 2 focus(and not right after a leap) which would imply that you're wrong about that, but I'm not going to try to say definitively.
Yes, I think combat focus is fine. It's off the GCD, it has a short CD which is also dynamic and gets lowered when you AoE(which is when you need the most focus) The reason Soresu cuts your gain from strikes is that a tank spec Guardian in PvP is fucking OP when played right even with that limitation, and the only recourse the enemies have is to not attack him and give him tons of focus. If Sundering gave 3 and strike gave 2 to a defense spec guardian, I would do 200k+ damage every match in addition to my 70k+ protection.
Only getting resource when you take damage is not a new thing. Welcome to prot warrior in WoW. Focus works almost identically to rage in that game. Guess what, when I'm tanking a single gold star and I chain CC it with stasis/hilt strike/sage force stun/sentinel stasis, my focus gen sucks balls. I don't care, because I'm taking no damage and things are dying, and I can still hold agro, and I have two taunts if I need to use one.
I just fully disagree with your assessment that you need 3 GCDs to get focus. Ask yourself when you need the most focus? AoE. When you AoE you start the fight with 6(saber throw/leap), you get another as soon as you take damage the first time, and you're guaranteed to get 1 every 3 seconds from Soresu. As soon as you run out you combat focus, and keep cycloning or whatever and now the fight is over. On single targets, it's even easier. On a boss, I never get focus starved because I don't dump with slash. I use only my focus dumps that have CDs unless i'm going to cap.
It's a very subtly complex resource and priority rotation, and I can see your point of view, we're just going to disagree on it. And the main reason we do is that our talents are tuned such that our CD focus abilities (Guardian Slash, Blade Storm, Force Sweep, and Hilt Strike) all hit like a fucking mack truck. So as long as you have the focus to use those every time they're up and don't cap yourself, you're good to go.
There are even more tools for getting focus mid fight. Against a single gold, force push->saber throw->leap is another instant 6. Against bosses, Guardian leap to a healer, saber throw, leap back, there's another 6 focus. These are not even things that are necessary, but are just in our toolset.
I enjoy the discussion by the way, even if we're disagreeing. I am a tank and a left brained analytic freak at heart, and it just happens that this is the single greatest tanking spec I've gotten to use in any MMO ever, and so I have a lot of passion for discussing it.
I've straight solo'd my guardian up to 41 at this point and went defensive all the way. With Kira as your companion you have minimal downtime (like only after a couple packs or after fighting an elite) and with your cool downs and stunlocking you can really bring the pain. I tend to have kira set to bleed enemies and that seems to be more damage, or more consistent damage.
Most important thing is to keep your lightsaber with a proper hilt from the best commendation vendor you have available and I'd recommend the same for kira since you can upgrade her saber hilt the same way.
Pommel and hilt strike are still in my rotation because strong enemies are often when you are out in the wild and being able to hurt them from the jump is great. Thanks whoever gave me the tip on using opportune strike off a charge, I love the Jedi Bitch Slap animation. Funny that most of the big damaging abilities for a guardian are attacks that are not actually using your lightsaber to do them.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Yeah, I really only took pommel and opportune off my bars because me, my wife, and our 2 dps companions kill things too fast for me to use them anyway, and out of protest when I realized in spite of how they're tailor made for PvP, they can't be used there. I did discover that I am going to have 25 things that need keybound at 50, which means I only have to put one of them (Awe) off on one of the side bars with all my non crucial shit like mounts, consumables, stances, guard, 20 minute CD, etc.
It's pretty funny that not only do I need 25 mid combat keybinds to tank at maximum effectiveness in this game, but that I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING LOVE IT. It's like they took the gap that existed in WoW between average players and exceptional ones and just threw a nuke down it to widen it. I mean sure, anybody could get the jist of a class in this game and do their thing, but there are about a million subtleties that most won't ever even take advantage of.
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It was an all PA group, so they were really good anyways and it didn't cause any significant problems (in fact we only wiped once due to not knowing the LASEREYE boss mechanics), but I can see a lot of groups wiping when you're faced with three champions that can't be CCed and are so easily broken from the taunt.
Ya the healer AC of consular/inquis get the 1 minute one.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
New favorite thing in PVP in the Alderaan Warzone (capture the 3 towers): Sneak behind a republic group that's making a push for the middle tower, grapple a healer from the back-line to myself and a friend or two, ruin his day.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
I would be so happy if my assassin's starting AoE wasn't a knock back. If it was a knockdown it would be great. Then initial AoE threat would be solid. I'm still having a hard time reconciling what they had in mind when they designed tanking in this game.
Its a second leap with damage mit to save a group member. Fits with the class and makes sense its not really an offensive weapon. Our first leap refreshes fast enough as it is.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Yes but I want to jump around like a crazy person, I can't for 23 more levels!
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
TOO BAD NEWB!!!
My moment of sadness was finding out that hilt strike doesn't work on elites+ and I'm kind of at a loss as to why. Its an on stun extra hit, why that doesn't work on tough mobs seems silly, if anything that should be the mobs it works on most.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Yeah, as Shadow I have a BOOT TO THE FACE spinkick that has equally silly restrictions.
I really have to wonder why they did that, I guess its meant to be a grey arrow killer, thats what I tend to use mine for.
pleasepaypreacher.net
A ranged disarm and passive ranged thorns. Would fit the theme and help with the ranged tanking problem.
A ranged disarm to force ranged targets go melee.
A passive ranged thorns to help with ranged tanking. They don't even need to change the deflect animation, it just needs to do minimal damage and some threat.
BTW the Courage Talent ( the one that gives you one focus discount per deflect on the AoE and ranged ability ) is bugged. It only works at the third stack and it is consumed when you use the free ranged attack after the leap.
EDIT:
Hilt strike ( defense talent ) works on elites, pommel strike doesn't.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I normally use pommel after hilt, so i get to combo two high damage abilities and can even two shot a normal mob most of the times.
You can also Force charge > Opportune strike on strong/normal targets and leave them almost dead.
pleasepaypreacher.net
What don't you like about it? Its a high end defensive talent that lets you grab good focus to start a pull, and then with hitting damaging abilities have it freed up later for more focus.
What's your problem with it?
And opportune strike works off a charge? SOB I was ignoring that strike entirely.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Just don't use your blade storm before the opportune strike because it will clear the root.
So i Blade throw > force leap > opportune strike > blade storm > pummel and a strong target will be almost dead finishing with statis > master strike if needed.
EDIT: On combat focus.
You get force charge, saber throw, strike and then they restrict the focus gain of these abilities on soresu form and give you an ability that generates 6 focus ( half of your bar ) with a 1 min cool down that can be reduced ? What the hell ? Where is the logic in that ?
After you use it you have to spam strike/sunder 3 times per 1/2 focus each and all your other abilities plus the 31 point talent are 3/4 focus, so combat goes 3x basic attack > one ability > 3x basic attack > one ability. Or you're using abilities that have no focus cost chained together.
It has no flow and it feels weak as a recource design.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I get shit done as a Shadow and all, it's just so bland doing it.
Its really cool with Kira also charging with me. Its one reason I really can't swap her out for another companion.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I had to learn it the hard way when a bugged mob prevent me from completing my quests and was forced to kill myself and respawn at the medical center to reset it.
It can be quite aggravating when you just spent the last 30 mins killing mobs to reach the objective.
Yeah I lost a bonus quest boss a similar way, thankfully I was able to summon him again. Makes sense though mobs get stuck in the world, nothing the designers can really do when you have an interesting enviroment to play in.
I do wish that force throwing mobs into walls would cause extra damage, I mean that shit would hurt.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Off topic: I would like to see a vendor with all the companion specific gear. You can only chose one piece per quest and i would like to gear them all with their specific gear.
Note: resource nodes have a new animation since patch.
EDIT: They could do half damage on push and half on end to simulate the kinetic damage on stuff.
I'm not sure if it is common knowledge but +hit after 100% reduces target defense. So that +hit talent may not go to waste once we get to the cap with gear.
pleasepaypreacher.net
FYI if you just really want leaps, Sentinels and Guards can spec into Zealous leap in the focus tree, though you definitely shouldn't spec that tree for anything but PvP or just levelling, since it's really just all about mobility and guaranteed crit force sweeps that hit really hard.
PS Guardian tanking is fucking amazing, and only gets better. I'm an absolute monster in PvE with so much damn control it's ridiculous, plus saber throw and force leap, two of the coolest abilities. And in PvP i'm an unstoppable juggernaut.
like i'm noticing my guardian pretty much goes down faster than a cheap hooker, so i'm assuming it's something to do with spec; will i see a huge difference between tank and 'damage' spec or is it just 'wait til you get your toys chump'
You stab folks in the back and then blast them in the face with lightni-
Oh
oh
Heh
Until you get to Balmorra and get your healing companion, JK fighting just involves wiping out a group, then popping down to use introspection for a few seconds. Maybe every couple fights. You can use T7 and let him tank for you, or you can just double down DPS with Kira, but either way, there's no healing unless you want to use your terrible C2 as a healer.
I'm not the right guy to ask, because I'm usually(not always) with my wife who is a healer, I'm a full defense Guardian, and we both run pure dps companions so questing is about as fast as it can possibly be. That being said, when I do class quests even without a healer out I am never at risk of dying. Some of it is tank toolset(non channeled stasis, hilt strike stun) and some of it is just making sure you're always interrupting attacks, using your highest priority attacks first, etc.
If you're levelling Vigilance though, you should be killing things so fast you don't run a risk of dying unless you get 2 packs or something.
Its like that for every guardian. Till you get your healing companion you will have to just rest after each group and use medpacks as much as possible. The funny thing is, that after you get it, things don't improve. It will only slow down your pace. Sure you don't lose hp but it will take you 15mins to kill a class quest boss and 5 mins to kill an elite or a group of normals.
I use Kira, rest and change to Doc when its an elite or a boss. But i prefer to keep the pace of my game up.
No way. Every single class story boss up until this point has been an utter cakewalk for me, and even though I have the healer now I don't use him. I'm tank spec, and I roll Kira for DPS at all times. If it's one of the end planet class bosses, you pop saber ward, then your 20 minute ability, then saber ward again when it wears off. That alone would probably be enough, but if you really want to make it easy you just actually use your abilities that keep the boss from doing a single point of damage. Force stasis, force push, hilt strike(if you're defense), and make sure you interrupt casts. None of these fights has taken any amount of time either.
I don't think I've ended a class story boss at less than 90% health yet.
Now what you said about resting after groups for a few seconds is true for a solo guard pre healer companion, but if you're DPS you should never be going slow. My defense guard and Kira together kill any group of standards in 3 GCDs or less, and if there's a silver, maybe 4 or 5. She has AoEs, I have AoEs, it's just about using the right abilities.
Don't know what level you are, but Focus has a fine flow for defense guardians once you're fully specced into the tree. You get 6 focus to begin every fight, you get 1 focus every 3 seconds as long as you're being hit, you get 2 every time you sundering. Then half the time storm and sweep don't even have their full cost. Oh, and also stasis grants 3 focus and isn't channeled for us so it should be hit every CD even on bosses for the damage/focus. I'm level 38, and in Flashpoints it's actually hard for me to dump it fast enough to not get focus capped, and that's without using combat focus. I only ever even hit combat focus if one of my major focus dumps(Hilt strike, blade storm, force sweep) are off CD and I don't have enough to use them.
One thing that actually helped me is to pretty much stop using slash unless every ability that costs focus and has a CD is used. With the talents we take, force sweep hits harder even on a single target than slash(and has the accuracy debuff), and obviously blade storm and hilt strike are higher priority than slash because their damage is far better and storm gives you the absorb. It'll be even better at 40 when I get Guardian slash to replace slash on my bars, because Guardian spends focus so I won't run into the problem of capping out that I mentioned before.
Isn't your AoE basically spammable? I know you have regen to worry about, but if you're spamming it and people are still pulling, maybe it does need a threat boost. I force sweep and then I can spam cyclone slash on my guard, but I still have to build focus before I can do the cyclone slashes so it's not unlimited, but I have no AoE issues at all.
Obviously, this probably won't matter once I hit 30, but it seemed to fill in the 20's AoE gap that I found since using Overload in a group situation just pisses most people off.
That talent is bugged. It only works if you all have the 3 stacks.
Do you really think that using Combat Focus is fine ? Soresu form cuts the focus gain of all the abilities and then they slap a 6 focus instant to solve that ? Really ? Whats the point in the abilities even giving focus ?
You get 1 focus every 3 seconds, if you take damage, else you don't. Being in combat or being attacked and taking damage are different things. Again they just cut the focus abilities gain in half and then add such talent ?
Half my skills cost no focus and the other half costs twice as much focus then that that focus generating abilities give. Its weak and pointless. Its like they stopped mid design because there was no more time to do anything else.
It gets even worse at 50. My keyboard is getting worn out of so much Strike spam. The 3 focus from Statis don't even cover the 4 from guardian slash.
I see a resource system that gets barely any use, because either you use abilities that cost no focus at all or you have to spend 3 GCDs to do one ability. I bet they could take the focus bar away and nobody would notice the difference.
I do agree that Force Sweep is pretty much one of the best abilities we have, i like Dispatch as well.
Anyway, that is my personal take on it. To each his own.
Yes, I think combat focus is fine. It's off the GCD, it has a short CD which is also dynamic and gets lowered when you AoE(which is when you need the most focus) The reason Soresu cuts your gain from strikes is that a tank spec Guardian in PvP is fucking OP when played right even with that limitation, and the only recourse the enemies have is to not attack him and give him tons of focus. If Sundering gave 3 and strike gave 2 to a defense spec guardian, I would do 200k+ damage every match in addition to my 70k+ protection.
Only getting resource when you take damage is not a new thing. Welcome to prot warrior in WoW. Focus works almost identically to rage in that game. Guess what, when I'm tanking a single gold star and I chain CC it with stasis/hilt strike/sage force stun/sentinel stasis, my focus gen sucks balls. I don't care, because I'm taking no damage and things are dying, and I can still hold agro, and I have two taunts if I need to use one.
I just fully disagree with your assessment that you need 3 GCDs to get focus. Ask yourself when you need the most focus? AoE. When you AoE you start the fight with 6(saber throw/leap), you get another as soon as you take damage the first time, and you're guaranteed to get 1 every 3 seconds from Soresu. As soon as you run out you combat focus, and keep cycloning or whatever and now the fight is over. On single targets, it's even easier. On a boss, I never get focus starved because I don't dump with slash. I use only my focus dumps that have CDs unless i'm going to cap.
It's a very subtly complex resource and priority rotation, and I can see your point of view, we're just going to disagree on it. And the main reason we do is that our talents are tuned such that our CD focus abilities (Guardian Slash, Blade Storm, Force Sweep, and Hilt Strike) all hit like a fucking mack truck. So as long as you have the focus to use those every time they're up and don't cap yourself, you're good to go.
There are even more tools for getting focus mid fight. Against a single gold, force push->saber throw->leap is another instant 6. Against bosses, Guardian leap to a healer, saber throw, leap back, there's another 6 focus. These are not even things that are necessary, but are just in our toolset.
I enjoy the discussion by the way, even if we're disagreeing. I am a tank and a left brained analytic freak at heart, and it just happens that this is the single greatest tanking spec I've gotten to use in any MMO ever, and so I have a lot of passion for discussing it.
Most important thing is to keep your lightsaber with a proper hilt from the best commendation vendor you have available and I'd recommend the same for kira since you can upgrade her saber hilt the same way.
Pommel and hilt strike are still in my rotation because strong enemies are often when you are out in the wild and being able to hurt them from the jump is great. Thanks whoever gave me the tip on using opportune strike off a charge, I love the Jedi Bitch Slap animation. Funny that most of the big damaging abilities for a guardian are attacks that are not actually using your lightsaber to do them.
pleasepaypreacher.net
It's pretty funny that not only do I need 25 mid combat keybinds to tank at maximum effectiveness in this game, but that I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING LOVE IT. It's like they took the gap that existed in WoW between average players and exceptional ones and just threw a nuke down it to widen it. I mean sure, anybody could get the jist of a class in this game and do their thing, but there are about a million subtleties that most won't ever even take advantage of.