I had a bit of a crazy idea.

Remove Impale/OS cooldown and increase Rage cost(similar to Maul/SS but do less damege and spamable), leave the Shatter/PB on 15 sec cooldown but increase the chance to reset MS/Ravage to 45 percent.

Idea for Guardian ability

 

Battle Meditation- Only useable in Shien and Shi-Cho form, A toggle ability similar to guard that increases the damage or/and healing done by both the guardian and the person he is Meditating with by 5%, while reducing threat. Not useable in Soresu Form. It does not do anyting a normal guard does except reduce the threat of both targets by a very small amount.

 

I stole the name from KOTOR, but call it what you want. Increases the dmg of the guardian and 1 other by 5% as long as they are within 30 meters of each other can't use it in tank(soresu) stance or on a tank in a tank stance. That is something I would like to see maybe. (Idea similar to the Captain in LOTRO and Blade Brother ability, but not as powerful). This could be something they add when they increase the level cap or just down the road aways.

 

I posted this in a different thread, but would give us some much needed utility in a raid setting, would increase our dmg and 1 other person's damage or could be used to provide a small buff to a healer on heal intensive fights.

This is something we should look into, and perhaps ask for in our questions - it affects both focus and vig specs. The 5% damage buff would help bring our numbers up slightly so that the RNG and Focused Defense cost changes are really all we'd need to bring us in line with other dps. The 5% buff to heals/dps would give us raid and pvp utility, something we sorely lack, and finally give people a reason to bring a Guardian. My only fear is that they will say no, simply because of Focus, but we all know that if we can get Vig/Veng up to par, Focus will have a day of reckoning.

My goal for thinking up Battle Meditation was to give the Guardian a small useful group utility ability. The name was secondary to how the skill actually worked, call it what you will. My intent was to keep it as more of a DPS guard, a way for guardian and 1 other to increase their battle potency, almost like a Knight and his padawan that fight in unison, or the guardian and 1 other that have melded their attack styles.

 

I like that the community has taken to this idea and like that it has sparked even more Ideas for other classes and different uses, but I stand behind its initial description. I still think it should be a 5% buff applied to both players however, I leave that up to the Developers if they decide to run with this idea, I and it seems many other guardians, hope they do.

 

As for a shadow version, You could make it a secondary effect from Infiltration/Balance phase walk with a 30 meter diameter from placement, but that would be for the DEVS decide if they choose to run with the initial idea.

 

I hope the developers will consider the initial idea in their class development, if not now, perhaps in the future as a new ability from an expansion or somewhere down the road.

I agree, it needs to be a damage/heal buff, not the other form.

I also think that Shadows/Assassins are doing just fine and don't need this. I can see this being really abused to make it a FOTM class for specs that already dominate. DPS spec in tank gear works for Shadows/Assassins because of the way their trees are setup. I don't think that boosting their damage output anymore is a wise idea. On top of that, they already do have utility in both pve and pvp.

My goal for thinking up Battle Meditation was to give the Guardian a small useful group utility ability. The name was secondary to how the skill actually worked, call it what you will. My intent was to keep it as more of a DPS guard, a way for guardian and 1 other to increase their battle potency, almost like a Knight and his padawan that fight in unison, or the guardian and 1 other that have melded their attack styles.

 

My only problem with it is that you don't want Guardians in Soresu to use it.

Why is that?

Guard...doesn't really help the Soresu Guardian...it simply helps the player they are guarding...at the expense of the Guardian.

Yes, the Soresu Guardian wants to protect his allies...and anything to help with that is great...but Guard does NOT buff the Guardian player.

This Battle Meditation buffs both the player their companion/teammate.

I don't really see how that can be compared to Guard at all...to the point where Soresu can't use it.

My only problem with it is that you don't want Guardians in Soresu to use it.

 

Why is that?

 

Guard...doesn't really help the Soresu Guardian...it simply helps the player they are guarding...at the expense of the Guardian.

 

Yes, the Soresu Guardian wants to protect his allies...and anything to help with that is great...but Guard does NOT buff the Guardian player.

 

This Battle Meditation buffs both the player their companion/teammate.

 

I don't really see how that can be compared to Guard at all...to the point where Soresu can't use it.

Guard is incredibly useful for dropping the threat of players. It helps a Soresu Guardian. There's no reason not to use it in ops.

Guard is incredibly useful for dropping the threat of players. It helps a Soresu Guardian. There's no reason not to use it in ops.

I agree that it is a great power.

However, it does NOT buff the player.

Battle Meditation would buff the player and the companion/teammate.

Not allowing Soresu Guardians to use it simply because they have Guard does not make sense.

I can understand not allowing them to use both Battle Meditation and Guard at the same time...but there is no reason they shouldn't be able to use it at all.

Well here's what you have:

Guardian's Favor - The Guardian Focuses the Force on one target Player, increasing all damage and healing be 3%, while also reducing all damage taken and healing received by 3% for both the Guardian and his ally. Range is 30 yards, only one player may have Guardian's Favor on at any given time.

Battle Mediation - All party members within the Shadow gain 5% increase to all damage and healing done and reducing threat by a moderate amount at all times. The Shadow using Battle Meditation also receives this ability increase.

Lets spin it a different way. My thinking on this is if you give these two classes basically the same utility only one operates much better than the other (As I believe this system would) you still create an area that pushes to exclude one. (In the scenario I see here, the optimal MDPS setup with current mechanics would be a sentinel and a shadow. Sent for massive MDPS and Insp, plus Shadow for a smaller inspiration that is always active. You also get a stealth rez, great on call burst and a emergency tank.) So, lets change it a bit, if that's alright to be more slightly more favoring to the guardian counterpart so that these two buffs become interchangeable. Here's my version:

Battle Meld(This talent should be trainable at level 22 when you can unlock Shien Form but only lock this ability out when using Soresu Form, the same way Guard is locked to Soresu Form)- (Thank you previous poster for the name update, I do believe this one works better.)-The Guardian Focuses the Force on one target Player, increasing all damage and healing by 5%, while also reducing all damage taken and threat by 5% for both the Guardian and his ally. Range is 20 yards, only one player may have Guardian's Favor on at any given time.(This way it makes a lot of sense to pair your Guardian DPS with his MDPS counterpart, regardless of what class they are, so in the most common scenario of a Sentinel and Guardian pounding their enemies both players would be able to push their DPS harder. And considering in this scenario both of these players would have Guard from the tanks this virtually guarantees that these DPS will not pull Aggro. However on battles like Op IX where it is more beneficial to give Guard to healers, the tanks don't have to worry as much about swapping guards back to DPS after the phase change.)

Battle Mediation - All party members within the Shadow's team gain 3% increase to all damage and healing done. The Shadow using Battle Meditation also receives this ability increase.(Dropping this to 3% in lieu of the fact it affects everyone. You also would not want to have a agro drop mechanic tied to this for the same reason, you don't want anything hampering the threat generation of your tanks. Because of this, I could easily see this as a replacement for the Shadows Shelter talent in the Tanking Tree. This could easily be done by adding a talent at the bottom of the middle tree (Infiltration) similar to Guardians Single Saber Mastery, that way the ability "Phase Walk" does different things based on which stance the shadow is in. Perhaps Double-bladed Saber Mastery?) With the problems Shadow Tanks have had with their current setup and the fixes coming in 2.5 this could easily push them back to tanking kings. I say this to encourage class diversity in raid groups.)

OK, so, on my guardian, I play focus primarily (mostly PvE, haven't done much PvP since 2.0). Focus isnt amazing in PvE, but IMO is definitely more attractive than vigi.

Simply put, vigilance needs to do more damage, and it needs to be more consistent.

Things working against vigil:

- melee range (obviously common to all melee)

- master strike roots you, and you need to get the full cast for decent effect. This is a major problem on movement heavy fights or fights with knockbacks.

- fairly long set up time/lack of burst

- mediocre/poor aoe (sweep is free, but still, aoe really only beats assassin)

- damage very dependent on lucky master strike proc

- no actual damage cool down (combat focus is a resource cool down)

- fairly weak execute, due to focus problems and dispatch already in rotation

Advantages

- decent survivability

- 15% move speed cool down (does not outweigh disadvantage of casting in melee)

- taunt (and easily the best non-tank spec to throw out a taunt in a ops encounter)

- provides armor debuff in rotation (value dependent on raid comp)

Now, with all of the things working against vigil actually performing to max capacity in ops, one would expect vigilance to be one of the highest dummy-parsing specs in the game, especially since their dummy parse includes armor debuff and they don't have much of an execute. But this simply isn't the case. Especially when you consider that all of the best vigil/veng parses generally have amazing master strike proc rates, and DPS varies down from there substantially based on luck.

Some things I would suggest (just some ideas, NOT suggesting all be implemented):

- increase bleed damage (should be simple change, wouldn't substantially change rotation or PvP ability, can be "dialed in" to the correct amount easily)

- add master strike proc to slash. This would add an interesting element of risk to fishing for procs, and alleviate the pain of your two ~10 second cool downs not proccing your core DPS ability

- increase proc chance. Makes it somewhat more reliable, but still subject to RNG.

- talent to give master strike physics immunity, rather than a root. This would benefit PvE players. Not sure of effect on PvP.

spread master strike damage equally through duration (4 equal ticks like TkT or pulse cannon)

The bottom line is, with the things working against vigilance in an ops environment, it should be one of the best-performing specs on a target dummy, and it simply isn't. If there are any arguments against either part of that statement, please let me know.

My only problem with it is that you don't want Guardians in Soresu to use it.

 

Why is that?

 

Guard...doesn't really help the Soresu Guardian...it simply helps the player they are guarding...at the expense of the Guardian.

 

Yes, the Soresu Guardian wants to protect his allies...and anything to help with that is great...but Guard does NOT buff the Guardian player.

 

This Battle Meditation buffs both the player their companion/teammate.

 

I don't really see how that can be compared to Guard at all...to the point where Soresu can't use it.

The SImple answer would be, they already have guard to use, The point was to provide much needed utility to guardians that wish to dps in an operation setting. By allowing a tank in soresu to use it, you just nullified the reason for bringing a guardian in a dps spot. Why bring a guardian dps and tank, when just the tank will do? Now, this is not my view, I feel the guardian is perfectly capable of maintaining a dps spot in hm/nim operations, but others, usually hard core elite, are not. While this may not change their perception, it would provide much needed utility to the dps guardian.

You could also ask yourself, why is guard only useable in Soresu? Why not allow guard to be used in Shien and Shi-Cho? The answer is, It is a tank niche roll. It is something tanks to use to provide small utility to themselves and 1 other player in the operation as well as the peace of mind that they will never lose threat to said player. The tank knows he won't lose threat to that player and the player knows he can go all out and never pull agro.

Guardians and Vanguards are in need of raid utility in a dps capacity at the moment, however, I don't play a vanguard in operations, so they can come up with their own ideas

EDIT: Your question led me to rethink guard in general and the idea of a dps guard, we already have guard, just add the other 2 stances and new effects. To keep from skill bloating, you could just add it to guard, but stance locked, similar to how force breach changes depending on what stance they are in for the Shadow, Guard would change depending on what stance the guardian is in, Soresu it would function like it does now, then allow it to be used in Shien/Shi-Cho with the suggested changes. You could even go one step further and divide what it does in Shien and Shi-Cho.

The SImple answer would be, they already have guard to use, The point was to provide much needed utility to guardians that wish to dps in an operation setting. By allowing a tank in soresu to use it, you just nullified the reason for bringing a guardian in a dps spot. Why bring a guardian dps and tank, when just the tank will do? Now, this is not my view, I feel the guardian is perfectly capable of maintaining a dps spot in hm/nim operations, but others, usually hard core elite, are not. While this may not change their perception, it would provide much needed utility to the dps guardian.

 

You could also ask yourself, why is guard only useable in Soresu? Why not allow guard to be used in Shien and Shi-Cho? The answer is, It is a tank niche roll. It is something tanks to use to provide small utility to themselves and 1 other player in the operation as well as the peace of mind that they will never lose threat to said player. The tank knows he won't lose threat to that player and the player knows he can go all out and never pull agro.

 

 

Guardians and Vanguards are in need of raid utility in a dps capacity at the moment, however, I don't play a vanguard in operations, so they can come up with their own ideas

 

 

EDIT: Your question led me to rethink guard in general and the idea of a dps guard, we already have guard, just add the other 2 stances and new effects. To keep from skill bloating, you could just add it to guard, but stance locked, similar to how force breach changes depending on what stance they are in for the Shadow, Guard would change depending on what stance the guardian is in, Soresu it would function like it does now, then allow it to be used in Shien/Shi-Cho with the suggested changes. You could even go one step further and divide what it does in Shien and Shi-Cho.

I'm looking at this from a full game perspective...pve, pvp...everything. Not just certain scenarios.

Battle Meditation can't be compared to Guard the way you are comparing it. It's not really a fair tradeoff in the sense that Guard does NOT buff the Soresu player.

In fact...they are actually "debuffed" because they take more damage. If the Soresu player and the Guarded player git hit with an AoE. The Soresu player takes more damage than usual because they are also taking 50% of the guarded players damage.

If Guard gave the Soresu player extra damage reduction...then I could understand the comparing of the two.

Until then...a pure damage/healing buff for both players is not comparable to Guard.

Guardian/vanguard raid utility is primarily off taunt. Especially in PvP this is very powerful. Whether you actually use it or not is completely on you, however.

While they are capable of sustaining a spot in top tier raids, they will still be lower in DPS than an equally geared/skilled player of several other specs.

EDIT: Your question led me to rethink guard in general and the idea of a dps guard, we already have guard, just add the other 2 stances and new effects. To keep from skill bloating, you could just add it to guard, but stance locked, similar to how force breach changes depending on what stance they are in for the Shadow, Guard would change depending on what stance the guardian is in, Soresu it would function like it does now, then allow it to be used in Shien/Shi-Cho with the suggested changes. You could even go one step further and divide what it does in Shien and Shi-Cho.

Okay, so I saw this, and I am in the process of compiling everything so far. This is kinda how I was seeing it to begin with but if we wanted to make it stance specific how would we differentiate Vigis Guard with Focus Guard?

I have an impressive list thus far and I am doing my best to make sure we stay balanced, not OP and definitely not barney-style easy. Once I have it done, i'll post it here, and if we can reach at least some sort of consensus then I'll do my best to get the Theorycrafters in here to look and get the numbers.

Good hunting.

I agree, it needs to be a damage/heal buff, not the other form.

 

I also think that Shadows/Assassins are doing just fine and don't need this. I can see this being really abused to make it a FOTM class for specs that already dominate. DPS spec in tank gear works for Shadows/Assassins because of the way their trees are setup. I don't think that boosting their damage output anymore is a wise idea. On top of that, they already do have utility in both pve and pvp.

I agree. The idea of adding a 5% damage increase to all players within 30 meters of the shadow is far superior to the guard we are suggesting for ourselves. It becomes a gigantic advantage in PvP where match making already stinks.

Well here's what you have:

 

Guardian's Favor - The Guardian Focuses the Force on one target Player, increasing all damage and healing be 3%, while also reducing all damage taken and healing received by 3% for both the Guardian and his ally. Range is 30 yards, only one player may have Guardian's Favor on at any given time.

 

Battle Mediation - All party members within the Shadow gain 5% increase to all damage and healing done and reducing threat by a moderate amount at all times. The Shadow using Battle Meditation also receives this ability increase.

 

 

Lets spin it a different way. My thinking on this is if you give these two classes basically the same utility only one operates much better than the other (As I believe this system would) you still create an area that pushes to exclude one. (In the scenario I see here, the optimal MDPS setup with current mechanics would be a sentinel and a shadow. Sent for massive MDPS and Insp, plus Shadow for a smaller inspiration that is always active. You also get a stealth rez, great on call burst and a emergency tank.) So, lets change it a bit, if that's alright to be more slightly more favoring to the guardian counterpart so that these two buffs become interchangeable. Here's my version:

 

Battle Meld(This talent should be trainable at level 22 when you can unlock Shien Form but only lock this ability out when using Soresu Form, the same way Guard is locked to Soresu Form)- (Thank you previous poster for the name update, I do believe this one works better.)-The Guardian Focuses the Force on one target Player, increasing all damage and healing by 5%, while also reducing all damage taken and threat by 5% for both the Guardian and his ally. Range is 20 yards, only one player may have Guardian's Favor on at any given time.(This way it makes a lot of sense to pair your Guardian DPS with his MDPS counterpart, regardless of what class they are, so in the most common scenario of a Sentinel and Guardian pounding their enemies both players would be able to push their DPS harder. And considering in this scenario both of these players would have Guard from the tanks this virtually guarantees that these DPS will not pull Aggro. However on battles like Op IX where it is more beneficial to give Guard to healers, the tanks don't have to worry as much about swapping guards back to DPS after the phase change.)

 

Battle Mediation - All party members within the Shadow's team gain 3% increase to all damage and healing done. The Shadow using Battle Meditation also receives this ability increase.(Dropping this to 3% in lieu of the fact it affects everyone. You also would not want to have a agro drop mechanic tied to this for the same reason, you don't want anything hampering the threat generation of your tanks. Because of this, I could easily see this as a replacement for the Shadows Shelter talent in the Tanking Tree. This could easily be done by adding a talent at the bottom of the middle tree (Infiltration) similar to Guardians Single Saber Mastery, that way the ability "Phase Walk" does different things based on which stance the shadow is in. Perhaps Double-bladed Saber Mastery?) With the problems Shadow Tanks have had with their current setup and the fixes coming in 2.5 this could easily push them back to tanking kings. I say this to encourage class diversity in raid groups.)

........That's damn near word for word what I said earlier.....

Also rethinking it, well reading what you guys "rethinked", I agree, maybe Shadow's shouldn't get a big old bonus buff of some sort lol

But this did remind me of an old skill from WoW....Paladins....DIVINE STORM!

LoLRet had one of the best moves I had ever seen before in an MMO with Divine Storm, and frankly, I could easily see Force Sweep doing the same thing as DS did for us Guardians (Melee AoE that heals us and nearby allies for a minimal yet blanketing amount of HP). Take the Effluence Talent and in addition to making it free of focus, have it heal for 5 (or 10?)% of the damage it deals. Actually I think 5% would be a max since it's a total thing and in an AoE showdown that'd be ALOT of free heals and decent damage done.

Quite frankly I think the best idea would be remove Master Strike as our top ability and just make it filler. I've got an idea for that, but I think people are pretty heavily tied to the MS = Vigilance way of things as they currently stand. If people are interest I'll post the idea, but for how the spec is currently built here's what I would explore to bring up the spec.

Plasma Brand

Plasma Brand now adds a slow for the duration of its burn and trauma to its target for 9 seconds.

-Rational: While this has no PvE impact its a QoL PvP buff. PB for a capstone is somewhat disappointing. This gives it that little extra oopmh while not increasing damage. It means your less likely to be kited and Vig finally has a free slow like Focus does. The trauma also makes you a single target burner and allows you to pressure healers considering Vig isn't really a burst spec.

Zen Strike [0/3]

Plasma Brand and Overhead Strike have an 15% chance and Dispatch has a 20% chance to refresh Master Strike and grant 1 Focus per point. This ability cannot be triggered for 15 seconds. Each point reduces this rate limit by 2.

-Rational: Zen Strike is 1/2 of the spec's main issues. That being we're too easily victims of bad RNG. These changes improve the proc chance and adds Dispatch into the mix so above 30% every 20 seconds you have a really good chance of a proc. Under 30% it gets better and actually gives us back some of your sub 30% burn with way better proc chances. Because auto-crit Dispatch's would be OP because of Keening, this seems like a better alternative for a sustained dmg spec.

Accuracy [0/3]

You gain +1% accuracy per point. While in Shien your casting time of Master Strike is reduced 11% per point.

-Rational: The other half of Vig's main issues is actually getting all of your MS off. Boss mechanics and PvP abilities can too easily prevent that. Considering MS is Vig's shtick being able to reliably complete your channel is very important. The shorter channel means less likely mezzies, stuns, knockback, and boss mechanics will be easily applied against you. This hopefully will also somewhat reduce mobility issues in PvP and highly mobile PvE fights. This also avoids Debilitate and make us less Combat spec-lite. Also the root is going to bring a lot QQ in PvP and be worthless in PvE.

Djem So Training [0/2] in place of Preparation

Improves the damage of Overhead Strike, Master Strike, Blade Storm by 3% per point. Saber Reflect can redirect melee damage and its duration increases .5 secs per point.

-Rational: A flat damage increase to 3 of our highly used skills that allow us to make up some of that 15% difference b/w the Sents and us. The Saber Reflect change also grants the spec a little more survivability since you'll most likely be giving up Commanding Awe with the 4% passive DR and 15% DR with Focused Defense giving you a choice b/w more defense or offense. It also fits lore wise since Shien/Djem So focused on Reflection and Counterattacks. Its only attainable to Vig so Shadow/Vanguard tanks can't QQ over SR getting buffed because its not a buff to Guardian tanks.

Narrowed Focus [0/1]

Generate 1 additional Focus when you take area of effect damage. You take 30% less damage from AoE attacks.

-Rational: Every tank/dps middle tree gets a 30% less AoE damage talent but us. This is a fix and NF isn't that great anyway. I know BW doesn't want every spec and their mother having an AoE reduction but I think considering Vig is melee and needs to be in the thick of it plus Shadow/Vanguard middle trees have it, this change is appropriate.

Keep it coming. Like the content contained in, and the amount of, feedback this thread has generated.

Save r spec!

So, to sum almost everything up for the devs...

They have 2 options of how to respond to this problem...

1: Ignore it.

2: Address and fix it.

Option 1 seems like a long-shot due to a plethora of reasons. Option 2 is also like a collection of "choose-one's-own adventure-books", or treasure maps. The collection includes the following:

Book 1: Routes leading to fixing the problem WITH master strik included AND is the "centerpiece" ability of the build.

Book 2: Routes leading to fixing the problem WITH master strik included BUT NOT the "centerpiece" ability of the build.

Book 3: Routes leading to fixing the problem WITHOUT master strik included in the build at all (it's taken out).

I M O Book 3's routes will likely be ruled out (despite an interesting idea of one postr above that most hadn't thought of, who suggested reworking the build w/o mastr strik included at all) at least for the "immediate futur".

Rationale: Due to it being too large and unnecessary challenge for the devs to divert resources to, due to tons of upcoming, and wanted, content, and the fact that it can be fixed WITH said ability in place as it's been, AND it'd be too much for 1 update to be about, whereas 2.0 was an expansion, and , likely, the last BIG reworking of builds for a long time at least, and it wasn't that long ago.

Book 2's routes are somewhat likely to be ruled out.

Rationale: But if not, it'd be awhile before there's another "spec-centered update", as 2.5 is going to be, and the notes have already been released for what's coming with it (spec-wise), ALBEIT they being tentative and subject to change, if it'll happen it'll be awhile before done, maybe with the next big expansion, if so.

I M O Book 1's routes seem the best option, fixing the spec WITH mastr strik as it's centerpiece.

Rationale: It'd require the least amount of work, be done the fastest, YET being those 2 things DOES NOT mean it's the half-a-way of doing things or will be, rather, and the fact is, it CAN be fixed WITH the ability staying put, AND most of the ideas peopl r suggesting that could improve the spec, have mastr strik kept and still centered around.

Opening Book 1, one will find many "forkz-in-the-roads", such as skill-point branchez in-gam. Lez start at the bottom...

There's the idea to add uitility, or not to add utility...

If one chooses to NOT add utility...skip dwn to the next part...

BUT if one chooses to add utility...how many? Which types? Involving what? In a moment...

One must then choose which way to go concerning if they should add an increase to the base/direct dmg of abilities already in place, whether or not they added utility...

Then decide whether to add new abilities and/or to just change the descriptions/effects of in-place ones.

Concerning UTILITY: The options ey've gathered thus far from postrs above are either or a combo of...

1: Adding a C C (long-term stun), to (likely) just droyds, not n p cs/plaers.

Rationale: It'd be in line w/ Sentl's ability to do so, maybe give their ability to do so to r build or not, as the thinking behind the pure deeps build having a c c doesn't seem quite right...they should be ableto plow thru things better then JK GRD's do, R BUILD is more about survivability then pure deeps so r build having the long-term stun makes a bit more sense, esp/at least from a lvling perspective, YES r build can OT/has heavy armor for mitigation, but it's something to at elast try out in-house.

2: Adding an op-wide dmg buff (Inspir) Sentl's have, maybe or maybe not takign it away from their build.

Rationale: It DOES seem more of a GRD ability (name-wise at least) being Grd's are more general/leader-like-looking/etc. then Sentl's, who are more hack n slash and would seem as they have the better of the 5 percnt margin of deeps over r build and r's the 5 percnt survivability over em, why do they need EVEN MORE dmg-increasign abilities, when they pump out plenty? This idea was kinda thrown out, but still possible, due to the nrf Sentl's are getting, how ops grps only need 1 and inspir is op-wide w/ 2.5. Nontheless, A NRF TO SENTLS IS NOT A BUFF TO R BUILD/A FIX TO R BUILD.

3: Adding an op-wide energy increase to compliment/mirror Inspir of Sentls, only instead of dmg/healing/etc., outright being increased, it's more or less something to consider r build for hi-end content for due to the CHOICE factor, of what the rest fo the grp may be able to afford, energy/focus-wise, concerning their abilties. Good for brn phases, can also be a 5 min or so CD as Inspir is. What is better? (Discuss plz) An op-wide filling of energy by Grds or increase to dmg/healing by Inspir? It comes dwn to skill, ultimately, regardless of build, in any content, even if one has Inspir if another plaer can pump out bettr stuff/help finish the op if they had more energy/a free rotation, w/o Inspir needed, if speed/time was a factor, this is arguably better then inspir.

4: This could sorta be tied into 3...An op-wide speed/alacrity increase, it may or may not be tied into the energy increase of 3, or even be that itself.

5: An/added effect/s to /an/ ability/ies, such as another brn or bettr dmg dealing brns of OHS/BS/PB w/ or w/o another abiltiy or few having such an effect as well and/or adding other effects such as slow and/or trauma to an ability like PB (as suggested above) or few.

Rationale: R build is known for 2 things, deeps-wise...2 strong base/direct dmg attaks (mastr strik and dispach) and providing FEW DoTz (3 brns at a time and an armor debuff...to a lesser extent an accuracy one from sweep), so either r base dmg needs increase or r DoTz need an increase/and/or MORE DoTz OR BOTH (preferably BOTH).

6: This isn't so much utility as it is just not wanting to add another step above a few dwn the line here...But making more abilities proc mastr strik and/or have a chance to proc mastr strik and/or decreasing the CD on mastr strik.

Rationale: To be in-line more with other channeled abilities of other builds, if not bettr.

7: Be more in-line w/ other tnker/deeps builds (shado n vgrd), as suggested above, in having bettr defense/focus generation against and from area attaks.

Rationale: Shados and Vgrds both get defenses/focus boosts against/from area attaks, r build doesn't...armor has nothing to do w/ it, 1's light other is heavy as well, range isn't either, they both have similar ranges...why not?

8: Add an OFFENSIVE GUARD (fan of this, saw what other's have said about this, this is mey spin on it, at least to mey knowledge, if suggested earlier above, don't remembr seein it soree, this could also replace the battle meditate/meld ideas above, as they seem a teenee tad OP for devs to go for, BUT for 1 single-member per Vig Grd in grp? There's an idea).

Rationale: It'd be cool, 'nuff said. It could have a different effect of a regular guard in which a tnker lowers threat of another membr and their dmg as they take a share of it...lez think of some ways an OG could work...maybe a dmg-healing buff by 1-3 percnt for the guarded, at the cost of a slightly raised threat lvl by the guarder? Adds an interesting wrinkle to grp activities, risk losing threat and needing to retaunt for extra healing/dmg for another member?

After deciding that, then in EACH of the above 2 option's path there's the "intersection" of simply leaving the build as it is, just increase the direct/base dmg of abilities, or not.

Would like both utility AND dmg increases to be added, not 1or the other.

Hope this helped out, tired atm, probly could add more/re-worded some of this, but...meh...but devs, this is a sum-up of some ideas yaz could do to help Vig Grdians out, ey'm a fan of offensive guards, direct dmg increases to all abilities, a faster/more proc chances for mastr strik, and an op-wide energy boost mainly. Add those 4 things, r build should be bettr, yet still not too OP.

Thanks for postn and readn!

Well here's what you have:

 

Guardian's Favor - The Guardian Focuses the Force on one target Player, increasing all damage and healing be 3%, while also reducing all damage taken and healing received by 3% for both the Guardian and his ally. Range is 30 yards, only one player may have Guardian's Favor on at any given time.

 

Battle Mediation - All party members within the Shadow gain 5% increase to all damage and healing done and reducing threat by a moderate amount at all times. The Shadow using Battle Meditation also receives this ability increase.

 

 

Lets spin it a different way. My thinking on this is if you give these two classes basically the same utility only one operates much better than the other (As I believe this system would) you still create an area that pushes to exclude one. (In the scenario I see here, the optimal MDPS setup with current mechanics would be a sentinel and a shadow. Sent for massive MDPS and Insp, plus Shadow for a smaller inspiration that is always active. You also get a stealth rez, great on call burst and a emergency tank.) So, lets change it a bit, if that's alright to be more slightly more favoring to the guardian counterpart so that these two buffs become interchangeable. Here's my version:

 

Battle Meld(This talent should be trainable at level 22 when you can unlock Shien Form but only lock this ability out when using Soresu Form, the same way Guard is locked to Soresu Form)- (Thank you previous poster for the name update, I do believe this one works better.)-The Guardian Focuses the Force on one target Player, increasing all damage and healing by 5%, while also reducing all damage taken and threat by 5% for both the Guardian and his ally. Range is 20 yards, only one player may have Guardian's Favor on at any given time.(This way it makes a lot of sense to pair your Guardian DPS with his MDPS counterpart, regardless of what class they are, so in the most common scenario of a Sentinel and Guardian pounding their enemies both players would be able to push their DPS harder. And considering in this scenario both of these players would have Guard from the tanks this virtually guarantees that these DPS will not pull Aggro. However on battles like Op IX where it is more beneficial to give Guard to healers, the tanks don't have to worry as much about swapping guards back to DPS after the phase change.)

 

Battle Mediation - All party members within the Shadow's team gain 3% increase to all damage and healing done. The Shadow using Battle Meditation also receives this ability increase.(Dropping this to 3% in lieu of the fact it affects everyone. You also would not want to have a agro drop mechanic tied to this for the same reason, you don't want anything hampering the threat generation of your tanks. Because of this, I could easily see this as a replacement for the Shadows Shelter talent in the Tanking Tree. This could easily be done by adding a talent at the bottom of the middle tree (Infiltration) similar to Guardians Single Saber Mastery, that way the ability "Phase Walk" does different things based on which stance the shadow is in. Perhaps Double-bladed Saber Mastery?) With the problems Shadow Tanks have had with their current setup and the fixes coming in 2.5 this could easily push them back to tanking kings. I say this to encourage class diversity in raid groups.)

Why are we giving a Shadow even more raid/group utility? They already have so much it isn't even funny. Not to mention that you'll drop Guardian tanks from pvp in favor of Shadow tanks and dps in tank gear who provide the extra 3% and basically eliminate the purpose of giving dps Guardians this ability in the first place, which is to boost our utility and dps to be closer to the other dps classes.

This is the Guardian forum, we're not looking to discuss Shadows here. If you want to talk about that, take it to that forum.

There are alot of ideas being thrown around here, I've put several out there myself. But I think we need to agree on what the overall issues are with Vigilance and come to an agreement on how that roll is defined.

I see the Vigilance Guardian as a melee "white" damage dealing class. While our dots are force based, they are lacking in true power to be considered a dot class. Yes Our Capstone is an Elemental Attack with a dot, but that is our only 'true" dot in my opinion. A majority of our damage will be from white damage, which is defensible and mitigated by armor. Our dot's being secondary damage, is not the way to look for increased damage, even a 50% increase to our dots damage would not yield the numbers equal to a true dot class.

Instead I think we should look at our White damage attacks and look for ways to increase those by:

1.) Flat Damage Increases, either through % talents or abilities. If/then % increases in the talent trees to set up big attacks, or as mentioned in earlier posts by myself and others, an offensive guard ability with a flat damage increase.

2.) Armor Penetration- Armor pen will net the biggest gain to our white damage. I'm lost count of the times I've lamented that Shien form didn't have Shi-Cho Mastery from the focus tree. While 30% armor pen would too much, 10-15% would be in line with a good damage increase in vigilance.

My suggestions for guardian vigilance dps increase, would be a combo of the above. The Offensive guard I mentioned earlier for the flat damage increase and ops utility, and a 10-15% armor pen on our white damage attacks would be all the Tree needs in my opinion.

My ideas to improve PVE sustained and give some burst to PVP as well:

-get rid of the burns, all of them:

- change Burning Blade into a surge talent for BS

- chagne Burning Purpose into an armor pen talent for OS

- Plasma Brand's dot dmg moved to it's initial dmg

PS: No Vigi suggestion post can go without saying: IMPROVE ZEN STRIKE PROC CHANCE!!!

Root on master strike is a step in right direction, but its only one step for quality of playing this iconic jedi knight class.

Required changes for any spec:

* Focused defence dont required focus cost after activation

* Saber reflect (3 sec duration) need 45 s CD (and 30 s for Vigilance/Shien form)

* Jedi Knights animations of Master strike and Blade storm must be improved, remaked like jugg's Ravage etc. Atm they are looks terrible and have huge delay compared with warrior's animations

The chages for Defence spec (Soresu form):

* Increase all damage +20%, increase damage from Guardian Slash on x2 (200%).

* Blade barricade must give +20% defence instead of +5%

Changes for Vigilance (Shien form)

* All dots damage x2

* Dots slow target to -30% speed (= watchman sentinel talents)

* Saber reflect have 30 sec cd

* Force leap can be from 0-30m, with 12 sec cd (= watchman sentinel talents)

Changes for Focus (Shii-Cho form):

* Focused defence works like for Vigilance (= +15% DR)

Root on master strike is a step in right direction, but its only one step for quality of playing this iconic jedi knight class.

 

Required changes for any spec:

* Focused defence dont required focus cost after activation

* Saber reflect (3 sec duration) need 45 s CD (and 30 s for Vigilance/Shien form)

* Jedi Knights animations of Master strike and Blade storm must be improved, remaked like jugg's Ravage etc. Atm they are looks terrible and have huge delay compared with warrior's animations

 

The chages for Defence spec (Soresu form):

* Increase all damage +20%, increase damage from Guardian Slash on x2 (200%).

* Blade barricade must give +20% defence instead of +5%

 

Changes for Vigilance (Shien form)

* All dots damage x2

* Dots slow target to -30% speed (= watchman sentinel talents)

* Saber reflect have 30 sec cd

* Force leap can be from 0-30m, with 12 sec cd (= watchman sentinel talents)

 

Changes for Focus (Shii-Cho form):

* Focused defence works like for Vigilance (= +15% DR)

I like the changes you've suggested, but would they form specific, such as would you still get the Blade Barricade buff in Shien, or are they just tree specific?