If you queue solo ranked, which would you prefer to see on your team - watchman or vigilance? If both played on equal skill.

 

I have both, I know both are far from perfect in ranked, but still, help me pick one and focus on getting better.

 

P.S. I also wonder what up with 12 season leaderboards? So many guardians and a lot less sentinele than one could expect - all top 100 guardians play skank tanks?

Unless you are willing to spec into concentration spec for your sentinel, I would go with vigilance because you will bring offguard to the table which helps you a lot more in more matchups than playing watchman would. You are also always the first target by default pretty much always so you will be forced to learn how to best use your kiting tools such as intercede, knocks, roots, stuns as well as your DCD's in order to be an asset to your team rather than a liability. You will also need to learn how to juggle guards with fellow guardians/shadows/vanguards to maximize both of your survivability.

 

Strongly consider crafting or buying a force bound 4 piece set for your knight classes in solo ranked (it can be used by both your sentinel and guardian) because it helps keep you and your teammates alive and build strong momentum which often snowballs and wins games.

Unless you are willing to spec into concentration spec for your sentinel, I would go with vigilance because you will bring offguard to the table which helps you a lot more in more matchups than playing watchman would. You are also always the first target by default pretty much always so you will be forced to learn how to best use your kiting tools such as intercede, knocks, roots, stuns as well as your DCD's in order to be an asset to your team rather than a liability. You will also need to learn how to juggle guards with fellow guardians/shadows/vanguards to maximize both of your survivability.

 

Strongly consider crafting or buying a force bound 4 piece set for your knight classes in solo ranked (it can be used by both your sentinel and guardian) because it helps keep you and your teammates alive and build strong momentum which often snowballs and wins games.

 

If a team has healer, I would go with vigilance - but if 4 dps match, guardian will be targeted first, so I wount be giving guard anyways. You think even in 4 dps vigilance is still better?

If a team has healer, I would go with vigilance - but if 4 dps match, guardian will be targeted first, so I wount be giving guard anyways. You think even in 4 dps vigilance is still better?

 

As you have mentioned. In a 4 dps game, without a healer, jugg dps is not strong. I recommend going watchman because in 4 dps and tank healer, watchman is actually really good.

 

TBH you can easily play and gear both. They use the same mainhand, set bonus, and left side. Just use the forcebound set bonus.

Edited June 29, 2020 by septru

As you have mentioned. In a 4 dps game, without a healer, jugg dps is not strong. I recommend going watchman because in 4 dps and tank healer, watchman is actually really good.

 

TBH you can easily play and gear both. They use the same mainhand, set bonus, and left side. Just use the forcebound set bonus.

 

Actually I have mained vigilance for months and played so many regs with it that I cant hardly count. Its very easy and fun to play, has perfect animations, but always felt like 1 trick pony.

 

Recently I tried solo ranked and on my first match i got an enemy team of 2 snipers, sin amd op. We were dps sorc, pt, me and merc. You can guess how it ended..After being deleted first, I started to think, that if im investing so many hours into pvp and going to learn ranked, I shoidnt start from the class which is always the first target. Does it makes any sense?

 

I like watchman animations as much as vigilance, while do not like conc, like at all..

Actually I have mained vigilance for months and played so many regs with it that I cant hardly count. Its very easy and fun to play, has perfect animations, but always felt like 1 trick pony.

 

Recently I tried solo ranked and on my first match i got an enemy team of 2 snipers, sin amd op. We were dps sorc, pt, me and merc. You can guess how it ended..After being deleted first, I started to think, that if im investing so many hours into pvp and going to learn ranked, I shoidnt start from the class which is always the first target. Does it makes any sense?

 

I like watchman animations as much as vigilance, while do not like conc, like at all..

 

Veng jugg is generally an easy spec to play, but definitely not beginner friendly for ranked.

 

Keep in mind that for all mara specs, you have to learn to constantly stealth out and run away to heal in any game without a healer. Many don't find that playstyle fun, even if it's quite effective.

Edited June 29, 2020 by JediMasterAlex

The thing to consider here is that when you're new to ranked you're likely to be focused first, as I'm sure you discovered. When you're first target in ranked, you have to play the game of running, line-of-sighting, and hiding to reduce the amount of burst damage you take. As a jugg this basically goes directly against the playstyle the class is designed for (facetanking) since facetanking is not viable on any class in this meta, which makes the class hard to play. With grit teeth it is very possible however and I've seen good juggs do it successfully many times and survive the entire match, basically by hiding until their enraged defense comes back off cooldown. As a mara, kiting line-of-sighting, and healing synergize very well with the toolkit of the class (predation, force camo with cleanse, second force camo, mad dash) which makes it very difficult for any other class to catch you, and often will allow you to out-of-combat heal (which you must learn to do as a mara player, this is not optional.) If you don't kite, camo, and heal as a mara you will have a bad time in ranked. If you learn to do this though, maras are a much stronger defensive class (running the defel spliced genes tactical.) To put this in perspective, juggs are probably the second in the target order, and maras second to last. Not playing fury will limit your toolkit though, as you lack the cc immunity which often keeps maras from being stunned to death. Overall, you will probably have a much better experience as a new mara than a new jugg, provided you learn to spam camo and escape to heal up. You will likely have a couple games where people don't realize you're a good target due to your class and allow you to practice doing damage too, so that's a bonus. Regardless which one you pick, run the force bound set, with either Grit Teeth for jugg or Defel Spliced Genes for mara.

Recently I tried solo ranked and on my first match i got an enemy team of 2 snipers, sin amd op. We were dps sorc, pt, me and merc. You can guess how it ended..

 

Honestly that matchup very much sounds like it favors you more than anything.

 

You just have to play targetdummy for long enough so that your pt and sorc can destroy one of the snipers.

The merc should be able to help you kite and survive.

 

Your job in that game.. your only job, is to just stay alive as long as possible. Don't worry about doing any damage. Just play like a tank would. If there are any sort of elevations like on orbital station or makeb mesa use those to your advantage. Your merc will be able to provide you with a risk free leap angle due to hydrolic overrides and even if the OP and the Sin both have the ability to follow you with Phantom Stride and Holotraverse the Merc should be ready to knock them right back to where they came from. Buying you time to 4v2 the snipers for a second. Both of which will never want to fight downstairs.

 

It's just knowledge, man. Knowledge of where to be, what role to play/how to act, which targets to attack and so on.