Go guardian or Jugg. BH/vanguards are terrible at mitigating damage, sure the armor is great but most of the people you will be fighting don't simply do Kinetic/Energy damage.

Here's some more anti-Vanguard issues taken from the Vanguard forum:

2) Defenses ineffective in PVP

2A) Shields cannot trigger on Force or Tech attacks. Some player builds, notably Operatives and Sorcerers, can run their whole rotation without ever using a shieldable ability. This relegates any equipment or talents related to Shield Chance to PVE only which is contrary to stated game design philosophy that all abilities should give benefit in both PVE and PVP. Since most of the problem Tech/Force abilities do Elemental or Internal damage types they are also unmitigatable by armor; this contributes strongly to the perception that Ops/Sorcs are overpowered in PVP since neither shields nor armor are effective against them.

2B) Defense and Smoke Grenade are also ineffective against Force/Tech, further exacerbating the mitigation problem described above, as well as being worthless against high-accuracy opponents.

2C) When opponent's chance to crit plus my chance to shield add up to >100%, my shield chance is pushed down. This is imbalanced: if a player who has built and geared for offense opposes a player who has built and geared equally strongly into defense, those investments should counterbalance each other rather than one simnply overriding the other.

Proposed: Shields should work against all attack types in PVP, -or- classes with a large number of unshieldable abilities should have most of those abilities made shieldable. Smoke Grenade should be effective against all attacks and should be reworked from an accuracy debuff to a damage debuff if necessary. The 2-roll combat system should be modified so that if crit chance and shield chance overlap, the result of a roll in the overlap space is a normal hit or a shielded crit hit rather than a full crit.

4) Issues with specific talents

4A) Ion Cell is doing about 25% of its tooltip damage as observed in the field. The actual damage done is laughable and this destroys the value of Supercharged Ion Cell as well as Blaster Augs for ion-specced builds.

4B) Rebraced Armor is mathematically inferior to other mitigation talents, returning less than 1% overall mitigation per talent point even against armor-mitigatable attacks except at extremely high base armor values.

4C) The root from Defensive Measures begins when the ability is activated, not when the target lands in front of you. This reduces the 3-second impact of this talent by the duration of the harpoon animation, making it much less desirable than it appears.

4D) There's widespread feeling that that Harpoon and Storm should be reversed: Storm shold be moved to the baseline as it is useful for all Vanguard specs (Just as Force Leap is for knights), while Harpoon is specifically of interest to tank specs. Note that the community is split on this point with a significant number of players preferring the current implementation.

4E) "Charge", the 4-second speed boost after activating Storm, is almost universally scorned except by Huttball fanatics. Duration should be extended, CC immunity should be added, or this ability should be entirely replaced.

4F) Energy Blast is sadly underwhelming as the 31-point ability in the shield tree. Aside from the animation issues, it's an ok ability in that it's useful to do free damage and help manage your ammo, but it is badly in need of more cowbell. There's a strong community consensus that a taunt effect should be added to this or that it should be replaced with a strong defensive cooldown.

4G) Battlefield Training stacks with neither Sprint nor Hold The Line. Consider allowing it to stack, perhaps at a reduced value, or at least clarifying the tooltip to make this information more obvious.

4H) Kolto Recharge is probably the worst waste of a skill point in any class's trees. A 7% heal, over time, once per 2 minutes. This needs to be completely rethought.

4I) Soldier's Endurance: 1% Endurance per skill point returns a trivial number of hit points. This needs to have a larger effect or a completely different type of bonus.

4J) Ionized Ignition/ Superheated Plasma/ Sweltering Heat: these abilities are fine separately but it is impossible to spec to Tier 3 of Assault without investing at least 3 points into abilities which do nothing but boost Plasma Cell effects (and another 3 points in Soldier's Endurance, see 4I above). No other DPS tree compels a complete waste of points when creating a hybrid spec.

4K) Burnout costs 3 talent points to get the same effect as 1 point in Blaster Augs, plus a very situational low-value bonus to DOT-only damage against low-health opponents. Doesn't offer value for its investment.

4L) Blitz is dropped from many players' bars altogether. Consider allowing this ability to have lesser effect on players and elite+ mobs; or, consider making this ability an instakill on strong or normal mobs; or both.

4M) Neural Surge becomes buggy and does not reliably take effect when the duration bonus from the PVP Combat Tech set is applied.

4N) Damage avoided by Static Field or Smoke Bomb does not count towards protection totals/medals in PVP.

As a Guardian/Jugg you don't have these issues. BHs suffer from equivalent Vanguard issues but not totally. They don't have the damage delays that Ion Cannon and Motar Volley have, making BHs able to dish out more damage faster.

Finally, Guardians/Juggs have the highest burst damage in the game.

A lot can be said for an AoE knockback. I use it often on my sorc healer. The main problem with this spec though, for me is that it doesn't have a charge. I'm used to having a sprint which is amazing, but I kinda want to play with charge. The "quad" charges of a Guardian means it's very difficult to kite the tank.

 

 

 

You make a very excellent point here. He is in fact playing a scoundrel (operative). That ... that just sounds almost too awesome. If only Shadow had charge... Gah. I may have to level them both up just to have some fun with this. I'm certainly intrigued.

 

 

 

This makes sense. With as much as I respec, I'm sure I'll play around with it. Based on what you said, I think I'll mirror your build but with a single point in Heavy Handed (out of Blade Barricade). I'll start removing points out of Lash Out one at a time if I'm having excess rage. Blade Barricade just seems weak to me in a PvP setting. Obviously it's essential in PvE.

 

I can't see me doing a 31 build rager. What draws me to this class is the utility and many CCs. The rage build loses some of this. Plus, I want a very sturdy tank. I'm okay with sacrificing some dps to achieve this.

I hear you.

If it helps any, I had the exact same reservation when I rolled my Shadow...and I do not miss having it.

Darkness/Kinetic have no problems getting around on the battlefield. You've got the 20 sec. speed boost that drops all movement debuffs when you use it (talented), a vanish, and a pull...and then the biggest really is your 40 pts. defense talent...AE snare that lasts for 15 sec on a 7.5sec cooldown. You will find that you do not have issues with people getting away from you.

Besides, when you have a vested interest in staying within 15m of your healer, do you really want to be tempted to "charge" up to that top deck on Huttball and separate yourself from him?

I honestly don't miss not having it. In fact, when I play my Powertech now, my mobility actually feels gimped. Snares are so prevalent in the WZs, he's perma-snared. Not that it matters a whole lot because of his ranged dps...but still, it's very hard for him now, even with charge, to actually GET somewhere that I need him to be. I never have that issue on my shadow.

Go guardian or Jugg. BH/vanguards are terrible at mitigating damage, sure the armor is great but most of the people you will be fighting don't simply do Kinetic/Energy damage.

 

... random and somewhat outdated Vanguard complaints, many of which are applicable to every tank in the game...

 

As a Guardian/Jugg you don't have these issues. ...

Finally, Guardians/Juggs have the highest burst damage in the game.

This is almost completely wrong. Guardian/jugg and BH/trooper tanks have exactly the same issues when it comes to lack of mitigation. And Guardians have the highest burst in the game? LOL

EDIT: Op, if you're going Rage, you need to go 31 Rage. The spec revolves around building stacks to unleash big crit smashes, and without your 31 pt skill you can only do that about once a minute... and you have to spend your Force Choke cc to do it. The 31 pt skill lets you break out your smash fairly close to on cooldown, plus does decent damage, plus provides a nice slow.