Yeah after I picked up the end talent of the defense tree I was playing with where to position it on my bar. At one point I swapped slash for it into the 2 position, but slash refreshes faster and it helps the combat focus cooldown so I moved it next to master slash as my focus dump extra damage attack.
I'll probably move cyclone slash to three I'm thinking, that'll put it right next to force sweep, I can move charge to just being clickable as I don't spam it nearly as often due to cooldown and range.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Yes, on Balmorra. There's like 2 black chicks, asian chick with a bowl cut, red hair dana scully mode, and then a blonde with no scar. I went with that one, because come on, we're in space and I'm not banging a chick who can't even get a scar fixed.
Yeah after I picked up the end talent of the defense tree I was playing with where to position it on my bar. At one point I swapped slash for it into the 2 position, but slash refreshes faster and it helps the combat focus cooldown so I moved it next to master slash as my focus dump extra damage attack.
I'll probably move cyclone slash to three I'm thinking, that'll put it right next to force sweep, I can move charge to just being clickable as I don't spam it nearly as often due to cooldown and range.
I'm 38 now, and I'm taking slash off the bar and putting Guardian Slash in its place at 40. My thinking is that if there is ever a time when Sundering strike, guardian slash, hilt strike, force sweep, riposte, and master strike are all on CD and I still am going to cap focus(I don't ever see this happening) then I will use cyclone slash to lower the CD of combat focus, even though it doesn't hit quite as hard as slash. I don't foresee it ever happening on a single target anyway, and if it does, lord knows it'll be like once in a blue moon, so I am confident in my decision so far.
Yes, on Balmorra. There's like 2 black chicks, asian chick with a bowl cut, red hair dana scully mode, and then a blonde with no scar. I went with that one, because come on, we're in space and I'm not banging a chick who can't even get a scar fixed.
Especially because all it will take is a little dermal abrasion, a kolto poultice, and twenty minutes.
My dude has a scar from where someone looks to have given me a Texas Necktie, so Kira having one could be a personal thing as well (or maybe she had a motorcycle accident prior to shooting...)
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I think guardians are a bit more limited at times than vanguards (lower burst threat, aoe, etc) but we tend to have more controlling and single target options. The system can be frustrating sometimes, but it does keep getting better. There is an alternate defense build using a combination of vigilance and defense trees that is fun as well. Just more to play with.
Guardian is basically a WoW warrior, with all the good and bad. Tons of tools to use, but you can always see the Vanguard aka Paladin over there with his insanely easy AoE threat. That's not to take anything away from that AC either, because they're badass too, but they definitely have an easier time with AoE. Guardian just doesn't come into his own until the 30s, and before that you're just riding on liking the aesthetic of the AC kind of.
And yeah, the tank build you can do where you get the 20% damage reduction when you force leap, then you also get the 20% from doing guardian leap at 50 is a cool spec. More threat too. Me personally I just had to go full defense because I wanted hilt strike, I wanted all the pure defense talents, and most importantly, I wanted Guardian slash. It's awesome that there are options for 2 different good tank builds though.
Yeah Vanguard does seem to decently with AoE, though the 5 target spammeable one does very little damage. One thing I have noticed is that mobs take maybe 2 seconds to 'wake up' after you engage them, and this makes Mortar Shot perfect for opening packs. Just about on the third tick they'll really engage, and at l35 it does about 3x 400 damage, which is a huge lead, and that for only 3 ammo/3s. (And the Jedi / droid CC can be used after).
One thing that can use a slight tweak is the number of NPC knockbacks/knockdowns. Two of those gunners in the L31 instance firing at you means that half the time you are watching your falling/standing up animation. (And the dogpacks are much the same, though shorter recovery time and they die fast).
There's actually a boss in Maelstrom Prison that knocks the tank back like 40 meters like every time you run back in. It's infuriating and amusing at the same time. Like the whole fight was just me either leaping or running back in just to hit a couple abilities and be knocked back again. I've only done it once so I don't know if there's a way to keep it from happening, but it wasn't something that could be interrupted, I know that. He seemed to do it right before he did his PBAoE that the rest of the party needed to run out of.
Annnnyway, powertech query (not really related to tanking): Whats up with high energy gas cylinder? It says it increases elemental and "internal" damage. What attacks are internal? Most of my attacks are dealing kinetic or elemental damage.
Annnnyway, powertech query (not really related to tanking): Whats up with high energy gas cylinder? It says it increases elemental and "internal" damage. What attacks are internal? Most of my attacks are dealing kinetic or elemental damage.
Not 100% sure, but off the top of my head I would guess that Retractable Blade (11 point talent from the middle tree) does internal damage. Might be some ability procs that do internal as well.
Annnnyway, powertech query (not really related to tanking): Whats up with high energy gas cylinder? It says it increases elemental and "internal" damage. What attacks are internal? Most of my attacks are dealing kinetic or elemental damage.
Not 100% sure, but off the top of my head I would guess that Retractable Blade (11 point talent from the middle tree) does internal damage. Might be some ability procs that do internal as well.
Yeah, I think that's about it for bleed (internal) damage.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Guardian is basically a WoW warrior, with all the good and bad. Tons of tools to use, but you can always see the Vanguard aka Paladin over there with his insanely easy AoE threat. That's not to take anything away from that AC either, because they're badass too, but they definitely have an easier time with AoE. Guardian just doesn't come into his own until the 30s, and before that you're just riding on liking the aesthetic of the AC kind of.
And yeah, the tank build you can do where you get the 20% damage reduction when you force leap, then you also get the 20% from doing guardian leap at 50 is a cool spec. More threat too. Me personally I just had to go full defense because I wanted hilt strike, I wanted all the pure defense talents, and most importantly, I wanted Guardian slash. It's awesome that there are options for 2 different good tank builds though.
Guardian is basically a WoW warrior, with all the good and bad. Tons of tools to use, but you can always see the Vanguard aka Paladin over there with his insanely easy AoE threat. That's not to take anything away from that AC either, because they're badass too, but they definitely have an easier time with AoE. Guardian just doesn't come into his own until the 30s, and before that you're just riding on liking the aesthetic of the AC kind of.
And yeah, the tank build you can do where you get the 20% damage reduction when you force leap, then you also get the 20% from doing guardian leap at 50 is a cool spec. More threat too. Me personally I just had to go full defense because I wanted hilt strike, I wanted all the pure defense talents, and most importantly, I wanted Guardian slash. It's awesome that there are options for 2 different good tank builds though.
Yeah, I have found that as a mid level guardian, I cannot generate AOE threat easily. Which is bad. But when it comes to holding a single target, fuggedaboutit.
I can use taunt to grab attention, sunder to build focus, riposte to do damage and buff my defenses, and I have a variety of things to make doing damage to my character an extremely frustrating and very long process.
Mind you even with all this,
Valen, with Kira's "Emperor's Child" incident. He was kicking my ass like it was a brand new sport that he invented. Bam, stunlock, bam knockdown, bam force push me 30 yards away. Sheesh that guy was tough. Died 5 times. I managed to push him into a corner and get him stuck and that is how I won. True Story.
Annnnyway, powertech query (not really related to tanking): Whats up with high energy gas cylinder? It says it increases elemental and "internal" damage. What attacks are internal? Most of my attacks are dealing kinetic or elemental damage.
Near as I can tell, any attacks that do bleeding, or poison (ie. damage to the internal workings of a target which I gather is where the name is derived from) fall under the category of internal damage.
We did the EV operation yesterday, gonna finish up the last guy today hopefully. Got my terminator gloves for my juggernaut.
The normal mode of it is indeed, "babys first raid". I tanked it all in PVP gear remodded some for extra defense. If you compare it to the tionese gear, its already better to get PVP stuff--stat wise. Of course, you can rip the mods out (27k to do so) and put it in the tionese stuff if you dont wanna be a pvp looking tank.
Threat on bosses is no issue, very easy. AOE threat is a bit lacking, just because it decays so easily and the AOE taunt is 30 sec c/d. For most the bigger AOE parts, everything can be CC'ed though... so again as a tank you play a bigger CC role than a threat role.
I assume in the two higher difficulties there will be the need of marking and long trash pulls because of it.
Aside from a couple bugs it was fun and everyone should try to jump into it when they reach 50.
edit: was just checking, and some of the mods from pvp gear are identical to the ones in columi gear, so a few pieces from daily/weekly pvp is easy way to really boost your stats.
I figured normal mode raids were like TOR's raid finder mode. I mean, it's a story based game so clearly they want the lowest common denominator to be able to complete them in a pug, which is a good thing. That's why I'm glad they're doing 3 difficulties to be honest. My guild may or may not have 8 or 16 people interested in doing nightmare modes, depending on how hard they are, but we'll definitely be doing hard.
0
Options
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Yeah after I picked up the end talent of the defense tree I was playing with where to position it on my bar. At one point I swapped slash for it into the 2 position, but slash refreshes faster and it helps the combat focus cooldown so I moved it next to master slash as my focus dump extra damage attack.
I'll probably move cyclone slash to three I'm thinking, that'll put it right next to force sweep, I can move charge to just being clickable as I don't spam it nearly as often due to cooldown and range.
I'm glad I am not the only Guard/Jug having these kind of discussions with myself. I only have one major thing left to get (Crushing Blow from the top of Immortal), and I think I know where it's going...but dang it's rough to shuffle all these abilities around.
Yeah after I picked up the end talent of the defense tree I was playing with where to position it on my bar. At one point I swapped slash for it into the 2 position, but slash refreshes faster and it helps the combat focus cooldown so I moved it next to master slash as my focus dump extra damage attack.
I'll probably move cyclone slash to three I'm thinking, that'll put it right next to force sweep, I can move charge to just being clickable as I don't spam it nearly as often due to cooldown and range.
I'm glad I am not the only Guard/Jug having these kind of discussions with myself. I only have one major thing left to get (Crushing Blow from the top of Immortal), and I think I know where it's going...but dang it's rough to shuffle all these abilities around.
I'm still not happy with button placement! I moved charge to clickable (though because it was 3 for so long I keep hitting god damn three to charge). Guardian slash is now 3, regular slash is 2, force sweep 4, parry 5, bladestorm 6 and masterslash at 7 (which is about the limit for actually hitting the number keys while keeping my hand on the wasd set up) cyclone is at 8 and its pretty good there. After that I've got my tanking cooldowns and rounding at the bar at the end I have opportune strike for jedi bitch slappage on strongs.
My main issue is actually using my high damage abilities to finish off regular enemies early. I have some kind of retard disconnect saving these not very long cooldowns for a mythical other enemy I'm not currently fighting but might fight later. Especially shit like guardian slash which applies the sunder effect and is like 15 second refresh.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Yeah after I picked up the end talent of the defense tree I was playing with where to position it on my bar. At one point I swapped slash for it into the 2 position, but slash refreshes faster and it helps the combat focus cooldown so I moved it next to master slash as my focus dump extra damage attack.
I'll probably move cyclone slash to three I'm thinking, that'll put it right next to force sweep, I can move charge to just being clickable as I don't spam it nearly as often due to cooldown and range.
I'm glad I am not the only Guard/Jug having these kind of discussions with myself. I only have one major thing left to get (Crushing Blow from the top of Immortal), and I think I know where it's going...but dang it's rough to shuffle all these abilities around.
You are not alone. I hate skill bloat and this game has it in spades.
EDIT: @Preacher: That 'too good to use' mentality takes a while to break. I did a lot of paladin tanking in latter-day WoW and there were a lot of really great short-cooldown abilities that I totally ignored and relegated to being 'OH SHIT!' buttons. That was a mistake.
Start slow, just use 1 or 2 in a fight. Once you've witnessed their power go buck-wild. I kill shit pretty damn fast and I'm full tank spec with a healer companion.
I don't think its bloat, so much as you have a lot of different options. I don't see skills that basically do the same thing but our named differently have a longer cooldown. They just give you a lot of different skills. Only thing I wish and maybe it already does this or there is a setting for it, but I wish that the secondary bar was a shift+number key to turn things on, because thats how it was in lotro and it effectively gives you an easy 12 hotkey hits.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
So this apparently came out while I'm on vacation. Whoops. I was thinking about going Sith Assassin for my main, since I typically play tanks (and apparently there are jack and crap for tanks on my server). D,oes that hold up the whole way through as a tank, or should I be looking towards Sith Juggernaught or Powertech? Or are they all balanced fairly well?
So this apparently came out while I'm on vacation. Whoops. I was thinking about going Sith Assassin for my main, since I typically play tanks (and apparently there are jack and crap for tanks on my server). D,oes that hold up the whole way through as a tank, or should I be looking towards Sith Juggernaught or Powertech? Or are they all balanced fairly well?
All tanks can supposedly tank all things tankable when talented and geared properly. Whether that actually holds up in the face of wowtardation we'll see. I know that Echo runs a shadow (the republic equivelent) and I think his issue was lack of variety in tanking abilities. Shadows though can stealth which no other tank gets.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Yes, on Balmorra. There's like 2 black chicks, asian chick with a bowl cut, red hair dana scully mode, and then a blonde with no scar. I went with that one, because come on, we're in space and I'm not banging a chick who can't even get a scar fixed.
You can get Kira costumization options as soon as Taris. In the cantina next to the space port near the jukebox.
People always talk about skill bloat, but honestly, other than opportune and pommel strike(which I don't even have on a bar), I'm perfectly happy with my Guardian. At 50 I will have 25 in combat abilities hotkeyed, some used for certain things, some used for others, but that's not a problem. If anything, having so many CCs/stuns/knockbacks and all that just means every class is a priority system and not a rigid rotation, and the gap between the best players and the average is wider, which I am fine with.
I replaced Slash with Guardian slash, and I explained why I did it in an earlier post in this thread. There will never be a time when you need to use slash to dump focus once you have all your stuff. Literally my only complaints about the stuff I keep on my bars is that I feel Sundering strike shouldn't have a 4.5 second CD, that is should just replace strike for Guardians. I have a feeling they'll remove the CD anyway. This is the first pass of talent trees. Like, this is the stage where Ret paladins' capstone talent was blessing of kings in vanilla.
Joshmvii on
0
Options
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
I don't think its bloat, so much as you have a lot of different options. I don't see skills that basically do the same thing but our named differently have a longer cooldown. They just give you a lot of different skills. Only thing I wish and maybe it already does this or there is a setting for it, but I wish that the secondary bar was a shift+number key to turn things on, because thats how it was in lotro and it effectively gives you an easy 12 hotkey hits.
I don't think it's skill bloat, I think it's an artifact of the combo based combat BioWare was going for. You'll notice that there are almost no hard and fast rotations for a Guardian/Juggernaut, it's very much reactive and combo based. Stringing combos together is how you kill things. So on a silver/gold, I might Force Push -> Saber Throw -> Force Leap -> Force Choke as a combo, then chain that in to a Sunder -> Force Scream -> Retaliate as an example. On groups of small mobs, I might Force Leap -> Smash -> Pommel Strike to quickly finish off one before handling the rest of the group. Things like that.
I enjoy all the options, it requires putting some thought in to how you layout your buttons.
I don't think its bloat, so much as you have a lot of different options. I don't see skills that basically do the same thing but our named differently have a longer cooldown. They just give you a lot of different skills. Only thing I wish and maybe it already does this or there is a setting for it, but I wish that the secondary bar was a shift+number key to turn things on, because thats how it was in lotro and it effectively gives you an easy 12 hotkey hits.
I don't think it's skill bloat, I think it's an artifact of the combo based combat BioWare was going for. You'll notice that there are almost no hard and fast rotations for a Guardian/Juggernaut, it's very much reactive and combo based. Stringing combos together is how you kill things. So on a silver/gold, I might Force Push -> Saber Throw -> Force Leap -> Force Choke as a combo, then chain that in to a Sunder -> Force Scream -> Retaliate as an example. On groups of small mobs, I might Force Leap -> Smash -> Pommel Strike to quickly finish off one before handling the rest of the group. Things like that.
I enjoy all the options, it requires putting some thought in to how you layout your buttons.
Same here, though I'll toss a kick in between the leap and the smash, since it does about as much damage as the pommel strike but with a much shorter window to use it.
Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
0
Options
Dr_KeenbeanDumb as a buttPlanet Express ShipRegistered Userregular
I don't foresee sundering strike losing its cooldown. Because then you could just spam it for an instant 5 stacks.
Perhaps if they got rid of the talent to buff the stack application and made it like 3 stacks that needed to be refreshed before they started ticking down they could lose the cooldown.
I don't think its bloat, so much as you have a lot of different options. I don't see skills that basically do the same thing but our named differently have a longer cooldown. They just give you a lot of different skills. Only thing I wish and maybe it already does this or there is a setting for it, but I wish that the secondary bar was a shift+number key to turn things on, because thats how it was in lotro and it effectively gives you an easy 12 hotkey hits.
I don't think it's skill bloat, I think it's an artifact of the combo based combat BioWare was going for. You'll notice that there are almost no hard and fast rotations for a Guardian/Juggernaut, it's very much reactive and combo based. Stringing combos together is how you kill things. So on a silver/gold, I might Force Push -> Saber Throw -> Force Leap -> Force Choke as a combo, then chain that in to a Sunder -> Force Scream -> Retaliate as an example. On groups of small mobs, I might Force Leap -> Smash -> Pommel Strike to quickly finish off one before handling the rest of the group. Things like that.
I enjoy all the options, it requires putting some thought in to how you layout your buttons.
Yeah I love the combos, and I also kind of like they don't tell you to do them, you have to figure it out yourself. Though its funny that force push, saber throw, charge combo seems to be pretty standard amongst guardians and I don't think we all learned it from each other.
On strong enemies I want to eliminate right off the bat I'll combat focus, saber throw, charge, opportune strike, pommel, hilt. If its still alive past that it won't live past the guardian slash.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I don't foresee sundering strike losing its cooldown. Because then you could just spam it for an instant 5 stacks.
Perhaps if they got rid of the talent to buff the stack application and made it like 3 stacks that needed to be refreshed before they started ticking down they could lose the cooldown.
I would make the no CD a talented thing for Guardians/Juggernauts, in their tank tree. Deep enough that you can't have it and the 2 stacks per talent without being a tank. I think tanks being able to stack Sunder quickly is fine.
I don't foresee sundering strike losing its cooldown. Because then you could just spam it for an instant 5 stacks.
Perhaps if they got rid of the talent to buff the stack application and made it like 3 stacks that needed to be refreshed before they started ticking down they could lose the cooldown.
It takes me 2 GCDs to get 5 stacks of Sunder. Sundering strike puts on 2, and Guardian slash puts on the other 3. That's a non issue. Now if we're talking DPS Guards, that's a different story, but this is the tank thread so my assumption is we're talking about probably removing the CD on sundering by adding it on to a talent in t3 or t4 of defense.
0
Options
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
I don't think its bloat, so much as you have a lot of different options. I don't see skills that basically do the same thing but our named differently have a longer cooldown. They just give you a lot of different skills. Only thing I wish and maybe it already does this or there is a setting for it, but I wish that the secondary bar was a shift+number key to turn things on, because thats how it was in lotro and it effectively gives you an easy 12 hotkey hits.
I don't think it's skill bloat, I think it's an artifact of the combo based combat BioWare was going for. You'll notice that there are almost no hard and fast rotations for a Guardian/Juggernaut, it's very much reactive and combo based. Stringing combos together is how you kill things. So on a silver/gold, I might Force Push -> Saber Throw -> Force Leap -> Force Choke as a combo, then chain that in to a Sunder -> Force Scream -> Retaliate as an example. On groups of small mobs, I might Force Leap -> Smash -> Pommel Strike to quickly finish off one before handling the rest of the group. Things like that.
I enjoy all the options, it requires putting some thought in to how you layout your buttons.
Yeah I love the combos, and I also kind of like they don't tell you to do them, you have to figure it out yourself. Though its funny that force push, saber throw, charge combo seems to be pretty standard amongst guardians and I don't think we all learned it from each other.
On strong enemies I want to eliminate right off the bat I'll combat focus, saber throw, charge, opportune strike, pommel, hilt. If its still alive past that it won't live past the guardian slash.
I don't even have Opportune/Savage Kick on my bar...I never used it. I guess you have the stun on Charge talent if you are doing an Opportune/Pommel right after a charge?
Ever since I got guardian slash, I don't even worry about sunders cool down, because very infrequently do I not already have another attack planned thats not good to go.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Opportune works after a non talented charge because they're considered immobilized for 2 seconds. Pommel I think works after you force sweep, because the "knocked senseless" thing considers them incapacitated, but I do believe that's only on standards. Neither is on my bar, because especially with the CDs, I just don't give a shit. I have sundering, guardian slash, blade storm, force sweep, stasis, push, and hilt strike that all hit hard enough that things explode as soon as I charge in anyway.
I don't even have Opportune/Savage Kick on my bar...I never used it. I guess you have the stun on Charge talent if you are doing an Opportune/Pommel right after a charge?
Hell yeah the stun on charge, its a free stun off the force push which reduces elites damage output, especially ranged ones.
I don't even have Opportune/Savage Kick on my bar...I never used it. I guess you have the stun on Charge talent if you are doing an Opportune/Pommel right after a charge?
Hell yeah the stun on charge, its a free stun off the force push which reduces elites damage output, especially ranged ones.
Hey man, think about taking 2 points out of Momentum(You'll never miss the 66% of the time when leap does not give you a free blade storm) and take the point out of the force leap stun(This is a pvp talent, leap already immobilizes for 2 seconds against standard/weak) and put those 3 points in Pacification. It's +15% damage on Hilt Strike, Force Sweep, and Cyclone Slash. Other than that you have the exact same build as me, including where you're going in vig (double sunder, force sweep dmg/cd, +strength, +accuracy)
Opportune works after a non talented charge because they're considered immobilized for 2 seconds. Pommel I think works after you force sweep, because the "knocked senseless" thing considers them incapacitated, but I do believe that's only on standards. Neither is on my bar, because especially with the CDs, I just don't give a shit. I have sundering, guardian slash, blade storm, force sweep, stasis, push, and hilt strike that all hit hard enough that things explode as soon as I charge in anyway.
They are useful attacks for solo players to wipe out strong or regular enemies off the jump without using another ability. Especially true when you do the jedi knight chapter 2 finale.
Also I recall you mostly play with a sage?
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Ever since I got guardian slash, I don't even worry about sunders cool down, because very infrequently do I not already have another attack planned thats not good to go.
My beef with Sundering's CD for tanks is less about "I want to be able to hit it more often" and more about "It's better design to have the focus builder be one attack that's not on a CD rather than 2." That's the kind of skill bloat people are usually complaining about. It'd be like a wow rogue having to have one combo builder on a 4.5 second CD and then another that has no CD but sucks.
Opportune works after a non talented charge because they're considered immobilized for 2 seconds. Pommel I think works after you force sweep, because the "knocked senseless" thing considers them incapacitated, but I do believe that's only on standards. Neither is on my bar, because especially with the CDs, I just don't give a shit. I have sundering, guardian slash, blade storm, force sweep, stasis, push, and hilt strike that all hit hard enough that things explode as soon as I charge in anyway.
They are useful attacks for solo players to wipe out strong or regular enemies off the jump without using another ability. Especially true when you do the jedi knight chapter 2 finale.
Also I recall you mostly play with a sage?
I do typically group with my wife, but when I post these kinds of things, I'm also doing it from the POV of when I solo my class quests with only a companion. Using Kira, everything explodes so fast even without using those two attacks I don't even think about them. I get why others use them, and honestly if I soloed 100% of the time I would too just because they're such high damage, so there is that.
15% damage increase is not worth the points I'd lose honestly. Remains to be seen, but the charge stun is useful on ranged elites or ranged enemies in general because it interrupts casts and channeled abilities.
And I like having guarenteed bubble after a leap, saved me a few times already.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Posts
I'll probably move cyclone slash to three I'm thinking, that'll put it right next to force sweep, I can move charge to just being clickable as I don't spam it nearly as often due to cooldown and range.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Yes, on Balmorra. There's like 2 black chicks, asian chick with a bowl cut, red hair dana scully mode, and then a blonde with no scar. I went with that one, because come on, we're in space and I'm not banging a chick who can't even get a scar fixed.
I'm 38 now, and I'm taking slash off the bar and putting Guardian Slash in its place at 40. My thinking is that if there is ever a time when Sundering strike, guardian slash, hilt strike, force sweep, riposte, and master strike are all on CD and I still am going to cap focus(I don't ever see this happening) then I will use cyclone slash to lower the CD of combat focus, even though it doesn't hit quite as hard as slash. I don't foresee it ever happening on a single target anyway, and if it does, lord knows it'll be like once in a blue moon, so I am confident in my decision so far.
Especially because all it will take is a little dermal abrasion, a kolto poultice, and twenty minutes.
I mean, come on!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
pleasepaypreacher.net
And yeah, the tank build you can do where you get the 20% damage reduction when you force leap, then you also get the 20% from doing guardian leap at 50 is a cool spec. More threat too. Me personally I just had to go full defense because I wanted hilt strike, I wanted all the pure defense talents, and most importantly, I wanted Guardian slash. It's awesome that there are options for 2 different good tank builds though.
One thing that can use a slight tweak is the number of NPC knockbacks/knockdowns. Two of those gunners in the L31 instance firing at you means that half the time you are watching your falling/standing up animation. (And the dogpacks are much the same, though shorter recovery time and they die fast).
Annnnyway, powertech query (not really related to tanking): Whats up with high energy gas cylinder? It says it increases elemental and "internal" damage. What attacks are internal? Most of my attacks are dealing kinetic or elemental damage.
Not 100% sure, but off the top of my head I would guess that Retractable Blade (11 point talent from the middle tree) does internal damage. Might be some ability procs that do internal as well.
Yeah, I think that's about it for bleed (internal) damage.
Yeah, I have found that as a mid level guardian, I cannot generate AOE threat easily. Which is bad. But when it comes to holding a single target, fuggedaboutit.
I can use taunt to grab attention, sunder to build focus, riposte to do damage and buff my defenses, and I have a variety of things to make doing damage to my character an extremely frustrating and very long process.
Mind you even with all this,
Near as I can tell, any attacks that do bleeding, or poison (ie. damage to the internal workings of a target which I gather is where the name is derived from) fall under the category of internal damage.
The normal mode of it is indeed, "babys first raid". I tanked it all in PVP gear remodded some for extra defense. If you compare it to the tionese gear, its already better to get PVP stuff--stat wise. Of course, you can rip the mods out (27k to do so) and put it in the tionese stuff if you dont wanna be a pvp looking tank.
Threat on bosses is no issue, very easy. AOE threat is a bit lacking, just because it decays so easily and the AOE taunt is 30 sec c/d. For most the bigger AOE parts, everything can be CC'ed though... so again as a tank you play a bigger CC role than a threat role.
I assume in the two higher difficulties there will be the need of marking and long trash pulls because of it.
Aside from a couple bugs it was fun and everyone should try to jump into it when they reach 50.
edit: was just checking, and some of the mods from pvp gear are identical to the ones in columi gear, so a few pieces from daily/weekly pvp is easy way to really boost your stats.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm glad I am not the only Guard/Jug having these kind of discussions with myself. I only have one major thing left to get (Crushing Blow from the top of Immortal), and I think I know where it's going...but dang it's rough to shuffle all these abilities around.
I'm still not happy with button placement! I moved charge to clickable (though because it was 3 for so long I keep hitting god damn three to charge). Guardian slash is now 3, regular slash is 2, force sweep 4, parry 5, bladestorm 6 and masterslash at 7 (which is about the limit for actually hitting the number keys while keeping my hand on the wasd set up) cyclone is at 8 and its pretty good there. After that I've got my tanking cooldowns and rounding at the bar at the end I have opportune strike for jedi bitch slappage on strongs.
My main issue is actually using my high damage abilities to finish off regular enemies early. I have some kind of retard disconnect saving these not very long cooldowns for a mythical other enemy I'm not currently fighting but might fight later. Especially shit like guardian slash which applies the sunder effect and is like 15 second refresh.
pleasepaypreacher.net
You are not alone. I hate skill bloat and this game has it in spades.
EDIT: @Preacher: That 'too good to use' mentality takes a while to break. I did a lot of paladin tanking in latter-day WoW and there were a lot of really great short-cooldown abilities that I totally ignored and relegated to being 'OH SHIT!' buttons. That was a mistake.
Start slow, just use 1 or 2 in a fight. Once you've witnessed their power go buck-wild. I kill shit pretty damn fast and I'm full tank spec with a healer companion.
3DS: 1650-8480-6786
Switch: SW-0653-8208-4705
pleasepaypreacher.net
All tanks can supposedly tank all things tankable when talented and geared properly. Whether that actually holds up in the face of wowtardation we'll see. I know that Echo runs a shadow (the republic equivelent) and I think his issue was lack of variety in tanking abilities. Shadows though can stealth which no other tank gets.
pleasepaypreacher.net
You can get Kira costumization options as soon as Taris. In the cantina next to the space port near the jukebox.
I replaced Slash with Guardian slash, and I explained why I did it in an earlier post in this thread. There will never be a time when you need to use slash to dump focus once you have all your stuff. Literally my only complaints about the stuff I keep on my bars is that I feel Sundering strike shouldn't have a 4.5 second CD, that is should just replace strike for Guardians. I have a feeling they'll remove the CD anyway. This is the first pass of talent trees. Like, this is the stage where Ret paladins' capstone talent was blessing of kings in vanilla.
I don't think it's skill bloat, I think it's an artifact of the combo based combat BioWare was going for. You'll notice that there are almost no hard and fast rotations for a Guardian/Juggernaut, it's very much reactive and combo based. Stringing combos together is how you kill things. So on a silver/gold, I might Force Push -> Saber Throw -> Force Leap -> Force Choke as a combo, then chain that in to a Sunder -> Force Scream -> Retaliate as an example. On groups of small mobs, I might Force Leap -> Smash -> Pommel Strike to quickly finish off one before handling the rest of the group. Things like that.
I enjoy all the options, it requires putting some thought in to how you layout your buttons.
Same here, though I'll toss a kick in between the leap and the smash, since it does about as much damage as the pommel strike but with a much shorter window to use it.
Perhaps if they got rid of the talent to buff the stack application and made it like 3 stacks that needed to be refreshed before they started ticking down they could lose the cooldown.
3DS: 1650-8480-6786
Switch: SW-0653-8208-4705
Yeah I love the combos, and I also kind of like they don't tell you to do them, you have to figure it out yourself. Though its funny that force push, saber throw, charge combo seems to be pretty standard amongst guardians and I don't think we all learned it from each other.
On strong enemies I want to eliminate right off the bat I'll combat focus, saber throw, charge, opportune strike, pommel, hilt. If its still alive past that it won't live past the guardian slash.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I would make the no CD a talented thing for Guardians/Juggernauts, in their tank tree. Deep enough that you can't have it and the 2 stacks per talent without being a tank. I think tanks being able to stack Sunder quickly is fine.
It takes me 2 GCDs to get 5 stacks of Sunder. Sundering strike puts on 2, and Guardian slash puts on the other 3. That's a non issue. Now if we're talking DPS Guards, that's a different story, but this is the tank thread so my assumption is we're talking about probably removing the CD on sundering by adding it on to a talent in t3 or t4 of defense.
I don't even have Opportune/Savage Kick on my bar...I never used it. I guess you have the stun on Charge talent if you are doing an Opportune/Pommel right after a charge?
pleasepaypreacher.net
Hell yeah the stun on charge, its a free stun off the force push which reduces elites damage output, especially ranged ones.
http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500fMG0ubrkuRZ0M.1
This is my current build as of 42.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Hey man, think about taking 2 points out of Momentum(You'll never miss the 66% of the time when leap does not give you a free blade storm) and take the point out of the force leap stun(This is a pvp talent, leap already immobilizes for 2 seconds against standard/weak) and put those 3 points in Pacification. It's +15% damage on Hilt Strike, Force Sweep, and Cyclone Slash. Other than that you have the exact same build as me, including where you're going in vig (double sunder, force sweep dmg/cd, +strength, +accuracy)
They are useful attacks for solo players to wipe out strong or regular enemies off the jump without using another ability. Especially true when you do the jedi knight chapter 2 finale.
Also I recall you mostly play with a sage?
pleasepaypreacher.net
My beef with Sundering's CD for tanks is less about "I want to be able to hit it more often" and more about "It's better design to have the focus builder be one attack that's not on a CD rather than 2." That's the kind of skill bloat people are usually complaining about. It'd be like a wow rogue having to have one combo builder on a 4.5 second CD and then another that has no CD but sucks.
I do typically group with my wife, but when I post these kinds of things, I'm also doing it from the POV of when I solo my class quests with only a companion. Using Kira, everything explodes so fast even without using those two attacks I don't even think about them. I get why others use them, and honestly if I soloed 100% of the time I would too just because they're such high damage, so there is that.
And I like having guarenteed bubble after a leap, saved me a few times already.
pleasepaypreacher.net