Just be patient - they announced awhile back that the hood toggle was coming. It won't be in 1.2, but probably in the patch after it, according to Bioware. Until then, soldier on!

This will also be a great ability in PvE. It'll help your healers out some when you take some intermittent damage.

It seems to me that Focus is now the total Burst Damage spec and Vigilance is the total sustained pressure damage spec. I'm also VERY excited about Focused Defense. If getting 3 percent healed over 10 seconds every time you take damage doesn't seem like increased survivability, I dunno what does. It appears Vigilance is gonna be way fun to play - though I might do what another poster said and try running Defense spec with Single Saber Mastery and DPS gear and see how she flies.

I think we all agree that Guardian tanks need some serious work on maintaining AoE aggro, and 1.2 doesn't seem to have helped that at all. Not much more we can say about it at the moment. That being said, most of the rest of the Guardian/Knight changes look great!

Dang, that actually sounds pretty friggin nice. Especially in Vigilance with oodles of Focus!

Are you sure he wasn't a Twi'lek or wearing some sort of headgear that disabled the hood on his robe? That's the only way to have a hood down currently.

Focused Defense - am I reading this right? Guardians finally get some sort of heal?

I understand the mindset of wanting to be that powerful Knight who strikes fear into the heart of Sith - I have it myself. That being said, there's a few things at 50 you'll need to learn quick. The first is, you'll almost always be going up against groups of highly geared Imperials who are constantly backed up with Inquisitor Bubbles. Learning to deal with this and also learning to focus fire are very VERY important in the 50 warzones. Good groups will mark the healers. Get used to calling out healers if you see them. Second, and this has more to do with your abilities - Vig/Def hybrid is very viable in PvP, but even at your best you'll never put out the huge damage numbers other classes are capable of for one simple reason - Jedi Guardian AoE damage just isn't there. Sure, if you spec all the way up focus you can drop some bombs, but it's nothing compared to Troopers, Sentinels, or Sages. There's a Sith Marauder on my server who constantly gets between 300-600k damage in every match. One time I saw him top 684k damage. Still, for single target damage, Guardians do just fine. I'll leave you with one final thought - interupt, interupt, interupt. However you have to do it. A well-played Guardian can make a caster's life hell. I LOVE making Impies run away from me cause of the interupt pressure I put on em. Good luck at 50, mate!

AFAIK, it doesn't work in PvP.

Focus sure is awesome for the Sweep bombs, but you just feel so much more more survivable in Vigilance. It's a tough call - i'm currently specced Focus, but I think i'll be going back to Vig. I hate feeling so squishy.

Apparently Chat Bubbles are on their way too. I am a happy, happy Jedi!

REJOICE MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS. This is taken directly from the 2/17 Community Q&A Segment: NiklasWB: When will you make it possible for Force-using characters to pull up/down their hoods on their robes? Damion Schubert: This is in the works now. It won't be in Game Update 1.2, but should get done in the next major update after that. And yes, we will extend this functionality to your Force-slinging companions as well. Our prayers are answered. Its coming!

That does look pretty nice!

I'm on Shien, and I feel your pain. Though on my server it really depends on the time of day. Republic seems to dominate early afternoon and mornings are a crapshoot, but the Empire RULES the rest of the day. We have a couple of what i've dubbed "Supergroups" that roll in fairly regularly, and if you get matched against them it's pretty much over before it begins. That's not to say we don't try, but when 5-6 of an 8 man group are rocking nearly full Battlemaster... Now i'm not one to whine about being "outgeared" and all that nonsense - sometimes it just comes down to group composition. Our server sees ALOT of Inquisitors. And though i'm also not one to cry about how "OP" they are, I will say when you have 6 Inquisitors in an 8 man group and they're all cross-bubbling and cross-healing, it makes it very difficult to bring any of them down. But I digress. For the Republic!

I know i've posted this elsewhere, but I think its worth repeating. The main thing that shocks me about this whole issue is that Bioware keeps releasing promo pics and vids that show Jedi with their hoods down. I find it almost silly that with over 600 posts on the main JK class page regarding this subject, we've yet to hear ANYthing from the Bioware staff on this. I think many of us would be appeased if they'd just come out and say "Listen, we know you guys are upset about this, but its not on our "to do" list currently." We just want a response of some kind Bioware - as paying subscribers, is that too much to ask?