I've tried every spec at level 21, seems like every spec sucks balls.

advice?

I've tried every spec at level 21, seems like every spec sucks balls.

advice?

 

Level 50 when you have full artifact gear and a geared up healing companion.

Level 50 when you have full artifact gear and a geared up healing companion.

 

...On second thought, I might just stick to my other character.

I am at level 45 currently and things started to get a lot better around level 30.

 

We are of course at a huge disadvantage in comparison to other classes.

 

In terms of PvP, having moves such as Force Push and Force Stasis were really helpful.

 

In PvE, using Doc and keeping his gear up to date really makes the game a lot easier after Balmorra.

It should be; "When will I get good?"

...On second thought, I might just stick to my other character.

 

This is your best bet.

 

Between all the deluded biodrones who think the class is fine and the buggy game mechanics that cause a lot of the problems in the first place, play anything besides a knight and you'll be much happier.

This is your best bet.

 

Between all the deluded biodrones who think the class is fine and the buggy game mechanics that cause a lot of the problems in the first place, play anything besides a knight and you'll be much happier.

 

I rerolled guardian and love it. It really depends on your playstyle.

Force leap, Guardian leap did it for me. Most fun class I have ever played.

I have a Sorc and Smuggler, both are just sitting ducks getting rested xp.

I rerolled guardian and love it. It really depends on your playstyle.

Force leap, Guardian leap did it for me. Most fun class I have ever played.

I have a Sorc and Smuggler, both are just sitting ducks getting rested xp.

 

You'd like powertech from the sound of it. Jet charge is similar to force leap. PVE is a breeze, (as it always should be, if you're bad at pve then there is something wrong with you). I'm talking about more of a PVP standpoint.

I find being a Guardian in PVP is quite a lot of fun and I feel i'm very effective.

 

It normally takes two or more opponents to bring me down and sometimes the boot is on the other foot and I feel like an unkillable murder machine. I think everyone underestimates what a Guardian can do in PVP.

 

It does take a change of perception to do well though. PVP as a Guardian is not about solo killing opponents its about making your team mates and yourself stronger. Using your taunts, stuns, slows and Guard to reduce the damage to your team mates makes a huge difference. I've found teaming up with a Sentinal or Shadow is the most effective for me.

 

Guard on the Shadow, hit Challenging Call when we get into a fight and he takes 5% less damage from Guard, 30% less from the Taunt and then half of that goes to me. So a 1000pts of damage is reduced to 950 then to 665 then split to 332.5 each. The alternative is they have to attack me and my much higher defense stats reduce it even further. Use your stuns and slows and you've turned a low dps damage sponge and a high dps glass cannon into a team of high dps highly damaging killers that its very painfull to attack.

 

Feel free to disagree, this is my experience based on perceived events and not expected to change anyone else's perception.

I'm completely agree with Kinrain. In team we are awesome.

 

Solo pvp is harder, not impossible, but a lot harder than other classes.

LVL 21 for PvP?

 

You don't have Stasis (your go to interupt)

You dont have push (your only knockback)

No saberthrow (only ranged attack)

Unless you dump all your points into the base stance (shien or shi-cho i cant remember which one) and freezing force your basically there to soak up damage for other players.

 

I run a hybrid 18/23 solo PvE build and as a guardian regardless of build your priority is to get the enemies attention and soak up there damage. You're the distraction, the diversion and played properly can be a fist sized thorn in anyones side. You will die but that sacrifice has lead me to many a pvp victory. In a group the Guardian can turn hard situations into a face roll simply because you can aggro as many as you can and let your groupies/guildies mow them down. I just dinged level 50 and once you have the bells and whistles (pretty much after 35) your gameplay changes entirely in both PvP and PvE (you will have a full and useful rotation to build around charge).

Edited January 20, 2012 by JinsGhost

i felt weakest 18-23

 

i felt stronger after 26.

 

 

the entire time, i've had no issues soloing, or SOLO pvp. i'm consistantly top 3 in dmg on pvp charts. I spent 80% of my time pvping tog rind to 50.

 

I regularly put down 250k+ dmg in pvp's.

 

 

if you're 21 and debating quitting, give it until 26 at least.

 

vigilence spec until 40+, then decide between vigi and focus. I changed to focus at 47.

vigi = pve primarily, pvp decent while grinding

focus = end game pvp, questionable pve.

You get good when you have battlemaster gear and the people you are fighting don't (good luck with that after the recent Ilum fiasco). Or when you have a healer attached to your hip. But everyone, especially tanks, feels awesome with a healer.

 

Guardian armor and shields are not good mitigators in pvp against smart non-JKs. The cooldowns aren't bad when they are available...

 

I'm going to agree with the poster that points out that satisfied JKs are deluded and every other class is more capable in spite of all of the buttons we get to push.

Edited January 20, 2012 by WaywardOne

Level 50 when you have full artifact gear and a geared up healing companion.

 

 

I stell feel "Meh" I don't die, but I don't feel "Heroic" though I'm not COMPLETELY geared up yet.

 

What makes me NOT feel heroic? spending 5 minutes killing a Gold Elite, then repeating that process endlessly.

 

Like I said, I don't die anymore, unless it's because i've made a mistake. But even so. I'm not feeling any of the whole "Heroic" thing with this class. I think that's just the way Bioware wants it.

 

I won't even get started on PVP. the problems are obvious and have been around since beta.

Edited January 20, 2012 by CriticalMasses

This is your best bet.

 

Between all the deluded biodrones who think the class is fine and the buggy game mechanics that cause a lot of the problems in the first place, play anything besides a knight and you'll be much happier.

 

Totally agree. This class has issues to say the least, makes me wonder if somehow it was done on purpose. How could you possibly make a Jedi Knight tanker this weak in a Star Wars game by mistake?

Edited January 20, 2012 by Thaerakiel

I find being a Guardian in PVP is quite a lot of fun and I feel i'm very effective.

 

It normally takes two or more opponents to bring me down and sometimes the boot is on the other foot and I feel like an unkillable murder machine. I think everyone underestimates what a Guardian can do in PVP.

 

It does take a change of perception to do well though. PVP as a Guardian is not about solo killing opponents its about making your team mates and yourself stronger. Using your taunts, stuns, slows and Guard to reduce the damage to your team mates makes a huge difference. I've found teaming up with a Sentinal or Shadow is the most effective for me.

 

Guard on the Shadow, hit Challenging Call when we get into a fight and he takes 5% less damage from Guard, 30% less from the Taunt and then half of that goes to me. So a 1000pts of damage is reduced to 950 then to 665 then split to 332.5 each. The alternative is they have to attack me and my much higher defense stats reduce it even further. Use your stuns and slows and you've turned a low dps damage sponge and a high dps glass cannon into a team of high dps highly damaging killers that its very painfull to attack.

 

Feel free to disagree, this is my experience based on perceived events and not expected to change anyone else's perception.

 

 

I see. this was helpful. Our role is more of a rogue based mindset. Damage mitigation w/o the stuns, you play with the idea of "keep this person alive" and nothing else?

 

Hmm, well if you can reduce the damage that much, I guess your damage would be considered much more effective. A class that depends on cooldowns?

 

Dunno. I'll stick it out, I'm still a low level. I chose guardian specifically beause I figured it would be like a warrior. My damage is really really weak. Where I have 40-50k damage for being in an entire BG smashing people the entire time... and other people have 100-120k. :\

You can be one of those focus guardians, putting everything in stasis building up 4 stacks of damage for force sweep and then leap into a group of enemies with 100% chance to crit with 100% dmg with your next force sweep.

 

Now that sounds fun.

 

On serious note, if you want to go vigilance and do a lot of dmg and be good in pvp I recommend you have an artifice crafting and focus alot on that. Because you will want to make all your hilts and enhancements to artifact level at least.

 

As far as equipment goes I go all out for power and surge, but I take crit rating in augments, implants and earrings wherever I can get them.

 

My guardian is a Vigilance build, level 49 with 90% critical damage and 22% critical rate - I craft my enhancements, my hilts and focuses to artifact level. I use Adept enhancements in all my gear which gives me about 37-38% more crit dmg from surge and the power from the enhancements gives me a nice base attack - going on par with geared sentinels or even higher.

 

Lots of raw damage and critical damage is your best friend. Especially with Force Rush on your blade storm which gives it 60% crit chance for 9 seconds - I'm telling you can't go wrong with 85%+ critical damage and a high rate to crit with a strong attack like that. Using that with Momentum, force leap, overhead slash gives you a 60% chance to crit with blade storm and for free. Let it cool down a few seconds, do another push, leap, and you get another free blade storm - so you will want to stack a plasma brand or overhead slash again to get Force Rush for a high chance to get another free hard hitting crit.

 

Can you say, Demolisherrrrrr?

Edited January 21, 2012 by bamsmacked

I've tried every spec at level 21, seems like every spec sucks balls.

advice?

 

When you reroll a Vanguard or Shadow tank.

 

No seriously, Guardian can be good but it'd just be more of a function to how good a player is. If you give that same player a Vanguard/Shadow, they'd easily do way better. The ONLY thing I can imagine Guardian being good at is as a Huttball carrier because they can leap to friends and enemies and score. Even then, Vanguard/Shadow is awesome for D on Huttball with the Pull ability.

Teens and twenties are bad, I won't lie. You start increasing from 30 as you get tools that you should've gotten at level 5.

 

At 50, you're on par with any other class and things will only get better as they sort of some of the armor/mitigation bugs. I think every good 50 guardian was a little frustrated at times while leveling, especially if you played a ranged class. Don't let it get you down though, as you can still get the job done.

Teens and twenties are bad, I won't lie. You start increasing from 30 as you get tools that you should've gotten at level 5.

 

At 50, you're on par with any other class and things will only get better as they sort of some of the armor/mitigation bugs. I think every good 50 guardian was a little frustrated at times while leveling, especially if you played a ranged class. Don't let it get you down though, as you can still get the job done.

 

 

I want to believe you, and I'm trying to hang in with this class but after watching a sage 3 levels below me on Alderaan tank the same mobs and barely get a scratch and gain health at the same time, while i'm wearing blue and purple gear and wind up having to rest after every mob cause my health bar is almost gone makes me want to re-roll.

 

I'm lv29 the sage was 26 tanking lv28 mobs with out a companion. My health is at 5945 and the sages was a little higher at 60 or 61k. How is this okay? Bioware really either needs to fix this ridiculous class or re-classify it and stop calling it a tanker. Very misleading.

 

As you say, you can still get the job done... just not as well a other classes in this game.

Doubt I'll wait till lv50 to be on par with everyone else. I find that to be to little to late.

Honestly I've noticed my friend's sawbones smuggler out-damaging me (level 20 now). I mean yea, I'm a tank spec so dmg isn't priority, but to be honest I actually feel kind of at home like this.

 

Back when I was playing FFXI (I quit a while before the level cap was raised past 75), I played a monk. I loved it. But I also had to deal with the fact that monks were kind of bad at... well, everything for most of the early levels. Then when you got to the high levels and got all your gear and weapon skills, Monks DESTROYED most other jobs in terms of raw damage. So much so that at 74/75, warrior subjobs were forbidden to monks because no tank could keep a mob from focusing on a 75 mnk/war. That was bittersweet for me, because leveling ninja SUCKED.

 

Anyway, hopefully by the time I hit endgame Bioware will be working on Knights to beef them up a bit where need be. Either way, I'm still enjoying my guardian, even if I'm a little suckish right now.

 

Oh, I also pulled aggro from the Belsaavis world boss today on my 50 shadow. The tank was a guardian, and I was the only one who yanked the boss' attention away from the tank. I died, but tbh I was actually pleasantly surprised I managed to do it. Whether this speaks to Infiltraion Shadow's dps ability or Guardian's tanking ability, I don't know. But My shadow doesn't pvp much and thus doesn't have a lot of uber-endgame gear. Not bad gear, just not uber.

Edited January 23, 2012 by xCOLBYJACKx

If its helpfull the folllowing PVE event happened this weekend.

 

I was doing a Flashpoint with some guild members, Sage (40) Healing, Sentinel DPS (38), Vanguard (41) tanking and me (40) filling in as dps despite being Defense spec.

 

My DPS was acceptable, not amazing but certainly good enough to keep up.

 

The Vanguard is a really good player and I trust him as a good tank. But the healer asked if we could switch and for him to DPS and for me to Tank as the Vanguard was taking quite a lot if damage.

 

So I took over and the difference was really noticable. I took hardly any damage in comparison to my Vanguard friend and had no trouble holding aggro. The healer loved it and I felt like a hero.

 

My 2 creds?

 

PvP as a Guardian is great fun as long as you approach it in the right mindset and PvE as a tank is fantastic.

A lot of the complaints are very over-exaggerated. I've just re-rolled a guardian and it's been great and I came from a 50 BH. I started pvp'ing as soon as I hit 10 and could easily rack up 100k+ which is roughly equal to my BH at the same level. Since then I've been cruising through pve (as everyone should) and pvp has been easy. However, I did have a friend who is brand new to MMOs and has struggled playing both the jugg and guardian class since he isn't used to the mechanics and again, it's his first MMO. This may be the problem with the people who are complaining because as an experienced MMO player (not sure I would consider myself a vet) the class is great to play.

 

It's definitely more difficult than playing a ranged class but every melee class is like that though. Once you get better at the game or MMOs in general things will become a lot easier.

Till 50 level, in pvp, guardian is really gimp. I was frustrated because there was no way to kill at least someone in PVP, ys you can guard, taunt, freez etc, but kill 1v1 never. After 50 level I have reroll from tank to focus tree. For now, I can 100% see that Jug/Guard are the most powerful classes in the game. When people complaining from sorc I am just smiling because that is the most easiest class for us in PVP. In focus tree I have killed all classes 1vs1 on Ilum and WZ. On warzones I have constant 8-9 medals. The only thing that worries me - I hope BW will not nerf us lol . So if you want to roll in PVP: at least take centurion armor, reroll to focus tree and start practice and you will see how many things we can do in pvp (taunt, guard, snare and make huge dmg). That is my prospective. Edited January 23, 2012 by Malack

My Guardian is only at 32 (only been playing for a little over a week), but I have been playing MMOs as my main genre almost exclusively for about 7 years. My advice, especially in a game this young, is to play a class that has a playstyle that you like more than anything else.

 

Power comes and goes relative to other classes, but if you love melee characters, but pick another class because it's OP, you won't be very happy when they nerf that class or buff its counter class.

 

This is actually a really fun stage of an MMO, because there are so many possibilities out there with specs and ability rotations! One of the top tanking specs right now is half in the defense tree and half in vigilence! Come up with your own goals in PvP and create a spec around it. Without a combat log and the applications for heavy testing, there is no "cookie cutter spec", so play what you want.

 

Do you want to protect healers/deadly dps on your team? Do you want to be the most mobile huttball carrier ever? Do you want to focus on single target lockdown with stuns, pushes, etc?

 

At this point in the game, find a niche and stick to it. While at any time there is one "top dps", there are things a guardian can do that no other class can. Guard and taunts are insanely powerful.

 

Moral of the story: play what's fun for you!