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2.0 Guide: Guardian DPS for PvE Raiding


Mattmonkey

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2.6 Update

 

The original guide for guardian DPS raiding had been developed and refined since 1.1. In the thread that followed many top players presented their approaches and challenged that guide and their methods were incorporated where they were superior.

 

Now we are into 2.6 since 2.0 we have been building up a guide new that will assist players of DPS guardians. I will continue to keep this guide up to date as I did the last one please contribute to it by telling us about your methods and include parses – I will integrate what you contribute into this guide if it makes DPS go up.

 

What are guardians like DPS wise

Vigilance is primarily a single target skill tree that has excellent clutch aoe. The main attacks do decent instant damage and they are backed up by mid-range bleeds. We have good burst damage.

 

With the changes in 2.6 we finally have a sound low RNG rotation based DPS. If played well vigilance guardian can top the raid DPS list

 

Vigilance guardians have high survivability. Heavy armour will now mitigate kinetic and force damage. We have excellent Panic buttons and Saber reflect. In emergencies we can switch to tank stance taunt the boss and rotate our cool downs. Our utility is not as great as Sentinals but its OK and unique. We have a poor threat drop in that it costs 14 rage and for this reason alone we should get the guard.

 

Republic & Sith Mirrior Skills

 

Sith - Republic

 

Ravage - Master Strike

Assult - Strike

Smash - Force Sweep

Sunder - Sunder

Shatter - Plasma Brand

Impale - Overhead Strike

 

Build:

 

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/guardian/225/?build=020200000000000000000000000000000302302021200131212203200300010003200001000000000000000000000000&ver=20 This is the build I recommend in starting with your Vigilance Guardian it is the top DPS build – you can take Guard Stance the armour skill from the defence tree to make a DPS Guardian with even better survivability.

 

Essential Skills:

Victory Rush - for focus generation

Burning Blade - Bleeds

Burning Purpose - Bleeds

Force Rush - for Crit procs

Zen Strike - Keening – Plasma Brand

 

Optional but preferred skills:

Unremitting - Many bosses knock back this is an advantage to vigilance over the other melee classes that get knocked back.

Commanding Awe - Vigilance Guardians are significantly less squishy than sentinels this maximises that fact and combat focus is quite a good multi use button with Commanding Awe.

 

Skill Priority:

 

Master Strike (MS) ~30% (no focus cost). Because MS refreshes its cool down when you use plasma brand and overhead slash you can do quite a lot of damage with it if you always use it when its ready - you can further increase this by putting 2 more skill points into it from the defence tree. However you cannot keep all 3 bleeds up if you use MS every time it procs. Master Strike cannot proc more than once every 10.5 seconds with 3 points in Zen Strike.

 

Guardians have 3 abilities that have a bleed associated with them. The bleeds account for ~18% of your total damage if you keep them up as much as possible.

 

Plasma Brand (PB) produces ~8% of total damage + procs a bleed 4 times over 12 sec.

Blade Storm (BS) produces ~12% of you total damage + procs a bleed 6 times in 6 seconds

Overhand Slash (OS) produces ~12% of your total damage + procs a bleed 6 times in 6 seconds

Each tick can crit - also the ticks from PB & OS are only very slightly gear dependent.

 

Along with Sunder, Plasma Brand has a 12 second cool down. Overhead Strike and Blade Storm each have a 9 second cooldown. Blade Storm always crits if you use any 2 of Plasma Brand, Overhead Strike or Dispatch first.

 

This is an excellent guardian Parse http://www.torparse.com/a/565095 (not mine but top DPS at the time of writing) You will see that Plasma Brand is used every 12 seconds, Overhead Strike every 9 seconds and Master Strike every 10.5 seconds. If you master using these 3 abilities on cool down you will do very good DPS.

 

Average Damage

Plasma Brand: 3400 + 4 ticks of 1350 each over 12 seconds = 8800 or 733 internal DPS

Overhead Strike: 4440 + 6 ticks of 245 over 6 seconds = 5910 or 656 energy DPS

Blade Storm: 5000 + 6 ticks of 155 over 6 seconds = 5930 or 658 Kinetic DPS

 

It is useful to think about damage output from these 3 abilities differently. Over a long fight of more than a min you want to think of the tick from plasma Brand as background damage ticking every 3 to 4 seconds the whole time. Where as with Overhead Slash and Blade Storm you want to think of the whole amount as happening when you hit the button, because there is a long gap from when the bleed stops to when the ability comes off cool down.

 

If you think this way you will prioritize Overhead Slash over Plasma Brand when they both come off cool down at the same time because delaying 1x 1350 tick has less consequence than delaying 5910 by 1.5 seconds.

 

Use Blade Storm after Overhead Slash unless you have to squeeze in Masterstrike before Plasma Brand or Overhand Slash come off cool down

 

When Dispatch Procs you have 10 seconds to use it so wait till you got a window.

 

Sunder is your second priority when you need Focus after your free focus generator.

 

Sweep will generate 1 focus and is on a 12 second cool down like Plasma Brand. It does Force damage and so is better than Strike or Slash.

 

Saber Throw is also considerably better than either slash or strike. it generates 3 focus to strikes 2 and it provides more DPS than slash. Without the close range saber throw set bonus you will notice flat patches in your rotation where you are spamming strike - this set bonus is less useful than +10% MS now that we use MS all the time but the extra focus from this set bonus allows you to keep up your main abilities more smoothly.

 

Now that we use Masterstrike every 10.5 seconds you should not need either slash or strike on your bar at all. However if you have more than 8 focus use slash less than 8 focus use strike.

 

I have given this priority list because during boss fights you will have to change your abilities a lot depending on what is happening. However against Dummies we now have a set rotation for maximum DPS.

 

Opening: Saber Throw (1.5) - Leap (3) - Plasma Brand (4.5) - Masterstrike (7.5) - Overhead Slash (9) - Blade Storm (10.5) Masterstrike (13.5) Dispatch (15) - Sunder (16.5) Plasma Brand (18) - Overhead Slash (19.5) - Blade Storm (21) - Masterstrike (24) -

 

Notes:

Uses Plasma brand immediately to get the big bleed ticking.

Uses Master Strike early so that the benefit of the proc after the First Overhead Strike is a available.

Uses Plasma Brand every 12 seconds, Overhead Slash ever 9 seconds & Master Strike every 10.5 seconds

Uses Blade Storm most of the time after Overhead Strike is used.

 

Clipping Masterstrike: You will find the third tick floats up from Masterstrike at about 2.7 seconds even though the ability executes for 3 seconds. you can clip Masterstrike short at 2.7 seconds by using another ability at this point (Dispatch and Blade Storm are good candidates for this). the will increase your DPS quite a bit unless you do it too quick and cut off the last tick.

 

Burn Phase

 

Masterstrike with no bleeds = 12756 over 3 seconds or 4252 DPS

Masterstrike with all Bleeds = 16649 over 3 seconds or 5549 DPS

 

If the Burn Phase is 9 seconds long you optimise you DPS by getting 3 ticks from Plasma Brand.

3400 + 3x1456 = 7768

Overhead Slash 4440 + 6x245 = 5910

 

So unless you can squeeze in 2 uses of Overhead Slash to benefit from the bigger initial damage you should use Plasma Brand first and get all 3 bleeds going before using Masterstrike:

 

Plasma Brand (1.5) - Overhead Slash (1.5) - Blade Storm (1.5) - Masterstrike (3) - Dispatch (1.5) = total 9 sec

total damage 37752 = 4194 DPS

 

If the Burn Phase is longer than 12 seconds you should use your normal opener to get 2 uses of Masterstrike in.

 

AOE DPS

 

Vigilance does excellent AOE dps this is not well known.

 

Leap (1.5) - Sweep (1.5) - Cyclone (1.5) 6x - Sunder etc

 

If you are on 5 targets you will do over 5000 DPS easy.

 

If their is a gold mob in the middle then

 

Leap (1.5) - Sweep (1.5) - Plasma Brand (1.5) - Cyclone 6x etc

 

Note: Always use combat focus when you leap.

 

Gearing:

 

Mods:

Armouring’s provide: Strength + Endurance (choose the ones with high strength)

Mod’s provide: Strength + Endurance + Either Power OR Crit (take the ones with low endurance with the bigest combined total of strength and Power or crit)

Enhancements provide: Endurance + Either Power OR Crit + Either Surge OR Accuracy OR Alacrity (again take the mods with low endurance)

 

Note: all the basic gear from comms are 'bad' mods and Set peace items have 'good mods'

 

Notice that Power and Crit are always together, while Accuracy Surge & Alacrity are always together. This means when you are balancing stats you are balancing Power with Crit & Accuracy with Surge & Alacrity. You cannot swap Crit for Accuracy or Power for Surge etc – you can only swap a stat for another stat in its group e.g. Crit with Power.

 

Take a look at this graph about diminishing returns in 2.0 http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2013/09/1362011240-dr-curve-2-0-swtor.png

 

Strength & Power:

1 point of power = .23 bonus damage

1 point of Strength = .2 bonus damage + some crit. However Guardians get Perseverance which gives us +6% strength also the sage buff gives an additional 5% on primary stat.

 

So 100 power x.23 = +23 bonus damage

while 100 strength +6+5 = 111 times .2 = 22.2 bonus damage & around .25% crit.

So stack strength not power but use mods with the highest combined total. Always augment for strength if you are choosing between augmenting for strength or power.

 

The Diminishing returns do not currently affect power at all or strength in any major way. Crit from Strength is on a separate diminishing returns curve than crit from +crit rating so even after you hit the point at which crit from +crit rating becomes uneconomical you will still get roughly the same crit per100 strength.

 

Crit:

If you look at the diminishing returns curve for crit from +crit rating in the graph above you will see that we can stack up to 300 crit rating without pushing into diminishing returns to far. Additionally in 72/78 gear you will have about 3300 strength and this provides ruffly 8.6% crit.

 

So with 3000 strength you get +5% base crit +8% crit from strength +1% companion crit & +5% gunsliger buff = 19%.

 

I have been running my Guardian on 250 crit raiting and 23.5% total crit and my jugg on 150 crit raiting and 22% total crit. It is apparent in raiding with both that 150 crit raiting is better this means more bonus damage from power that you get when you replace the crit raiting with power. Some people are saying even less crit raiting is better still I think 100 is about as low as i would want to go.

 

What is clear cut is that augmenting with Strength is a LOT better than augmenting with Power because of our perserverence talent giving 6% on main stat and the crit we get from main stat.

 

When my strength was 2794 if i added 100 strength i would get .23% crit. If you add 14 might augments you get 448 strength thats just over 1% crit at around these strength levels (the curve is not quite but almost flat up to 4k - check the DR curves linked in the guide). You also get 99.45 bonus damage (92 if your focus).

 

If you add all power augments you get 103.04 bonus damage but 0% crit. Is 3.5 bounus damage worth 1% crit well comparitivly you get 3.5 bonus damage from 15 power while you get 1% crit from ruffly 1 mod or 70 crit rating (depeding on how much crit raiting you have).... that makes the extra crit from strength augments 3x better than the extra bonus damage from power augments. The best use of that 1% crit is to remove 1 crit mod and replace it with 1 power mod - thats effectivly 14 more bonus damage from stacking strength mods (still 4 bonus damage if your focus).

 

Accuracy:

100% accuracy means our special attacks hit 110% of the time, since boss mobs defence is 10% you will hit with specials 100% of the time. Since most of our attacks are specials after 100% accuracy we are better to stack other stats.

 

Alacrity – Accuracy – Surge:

Pre 2.0 Alacrity was useless so best stat balance meant getting the right balance between Surge and Accuracy.

 

Post 2.0 Alacrity shortens the global cool down (GCD). However while for many classes alacirty now increases resource generation it does not improve focus generation for us. So the up shot is that alacrity is garbage compaired to accuracy & surge. You want Zero alacrity - if you get it on gear get rid of it.

 

Vigilance Guardians get 3% accuracy from the skill accuracy. This skill has now gone up in value considerably since accuracy is now more expensive – it allows us more room to stack Surge. Once you get 100% accuracy you want to stack surge.

 

Keys to high DPS while raiding:

 

Doing good DPS against dummies is one thing being able to put out good numbers in actual raid conditions is entirely another. Against a dummy the only thing that is tested is your ability to exicute skills according to a priority and your gear. Every Boss encounter challenges you to vary your play to achieve the best results given the conditions of the specific encounter.

 

5 Keys to maximising DPS against bosses:

 

1: Time on target is the single biggest factor affecting your DPS output.

 

A typical boss encounter is 5 min in length - 5 min equates to 200 global cool downs. The DPS player that uses the most of the 200 available will invariably have the biggest total output in the encounter. If you do 2500 DPS against a dummy over 5 min that’s 750,000 damage if you miss 10% of your GCD's that’s a DPS loss of 75,000 if the guy DPSing next to you does only 2250 DPS but hits every GCD he’s gona do 675,000 equalling you even though on paper you are 250 DPS better than him. If you look at the variance in a boss encounter you will quickly realise that 10% time off target is small and 20% difference is easy to get to - 20% is only 60 seconds mucking around. Ranged DPS have it easy in-terms of time on target because all they have to do is change target and keep up the same rotation but Melee often have to navigate the space between targets.

 

Example: On the final boss in TFB you hit tentacles then switch to adds then back to tentacle. If you switch to the add as soon as it appears and leap by the time the add is dead your leap will be rdy to go again and you can leap back to the tentacle - DPS is high because the armour of the add is lower and the smooth transfer from target to target means you maintain with little gap. If you stop DPSing to run you might waste 5 seconds, If your target selection is messy or slow you might waste 5 more, If you arrive at the add with all your big hitting abilities on cool-down you will waste maybe 5 more seconds with a full focus bar and no way to use it. You can see that over the course of a 5 min fight it is easy to waste 60 seconds and drop your output by 20%.

 

Ask yourself:

How often do you use force push to refresh leap so you can get back to the target and continue DPS?

(bosses dont move when you push em)

 

How often are you first to arrive back at the boss after some encounter dynamic that requires time away from target? (If the sentinel always leaps back faster than you then your DPS is lower not because you’re a guardian but because he’s a better player than you)

 

How often do you spend time working out what to do next or waiting for something?

(If you have a gap between targets kill an add don’t just stand there)

 

Do you know the number of targets that need to be present for you to put out better AOE dps then single target DPS and do you start doing single target DPS once the number drops below?

 

If you have the biggest DPS numbers during trash pulls it’s a reasonable indicator that your target selection and transfer is good. Try taking longer to select the next target and see what happens to your position on the MOX output list.

 

2: Skill priority.

 

If you spend a lot of time practicing your rotation against a dummy you will refine your sense of skill use to the point where you instinctively maintain the best possible skill use when you are on a target for a long period of time. During an actual raid encounter there are many variables the require you to alter your priority’s.

 

For example: If you are between 4 and 10 meters of the boss (Kephess in TFB moves a lot) your priorities should be: 2 stacks - Use Blade Storm, Less than 2 stacks Use Dispatch, Dispatch not up use Saber throw > Blade Storm>force push> stasis (while running for 1 tick). don’t do nothing when you are moving use ranged skills the fact that you don’t have 2 stacks does not make it wrong to use Blade Storm in this instance.

 

Ask Yourself: do I know the best distance and conditions to run away from the target so I can leap and when is it best to close the distance by running.

 

Do you vary your skill use for short bursty periods? Many people use the opening: PB - OS - BS - MS Dispatch. If the encounter is now over half way through the MS your DPS is a lot lower than it would have been if you had used: PB - MS - OS - BS - Dispatch. There are so many short bursty periods in most encounters and being able to match your skill priority to the length of the period is key to maintaining high DPS. For example when the burst period goes for more than 12 seconds it’s correct to go PB - MS - OS - BS - MS - Dispatch again.

 

Ask yourself: Do I always use my clicky relic during the best phases of the encounter and do I consistently have focus and big skills ready to go when I need them (e.g. when Kephess gets hit by the pillar).

 

3: Don’t Die.

 

If your busy maximising your time on target and you die because you did not want to interrupt a MS cast your an idiot.

 

Dyeing is the single biggest way to lower your DPS - taking damage (from aoe for example) so that you can keep doing DPS is acceptable if the heals are keeping up no problem. If your are constantly taking damage because you want to put out the biggest numbers you’re not gona be liked that much. If you have the lowest damage incoming and the highest damage outgoing your exceptional keep it up. MOX has a tab to tell you the damage incoming as well as damage outgoing you don’t want to be constantly at the top of this list just below the tanks.

 

4: Pulling Threat.

 

Our threat dump costs up to 14 focus to use. For most classes it is free. The raid leader should know this and give you the guard - not because you going to do the top dps but because your DPS will be considerably lower without it. If you don’t have a guard you might consider going hard out on DPS and using your threat drop when you pull threat rather than before (actually use reflect first then after 3 seconds use threat drop if the tank has not taunted yet).

 

I’m not suggesting you try to pull threat by front loading your damage - give the tank a few seconds lead so that you start slower. I am suggesting that if you pull threat you should then ask for a guard and let people know your threat drop is bad. Dont pull threat when it will wipe the raid (for example on the tanks in EC pulling threat eairly causes the tank to use his taunt and can cause issues that then wipes the raid.

 

The guys I am raiding with at the moment told me not to apologise when I pulled threat 20 seconds into the Writhing encounter in TFB (I had a guard). The tanks like to know that the DPS are gona do all they can to kill the boss fast - good tanks will like being kept on their toes like this. But players that want to prove how good their DPS is by pulling threat are a pain in the ARSE - if you do it once sort out what happened.

 

5: Focus on Target

 

Hit the right target. In FP this means killing the weak mobs first so they dont go to the heals. In raid it means making sure you hit the target that has a tank attached to it (you can focus target the tank so that you can hit target of target). Dont hit some random mob that you like the look of. Dont break CC's by targeting the wrong mob or using AOE when there are CC's up. If you get threat while attacking the wrong target dont expect the tank to save you. When im tanking I let these DPS die.

 

 

Parses & Screen Shots:

 

Under Construction

Edited by Mattmonkey
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Thank you for this write-up. I am looking forward to giving your advice a run.

 

Now, who has a 2.0 PVE Tanking guide? :sy_lightsaber:

 

Not to be rude, but talent choices are pretty obvious for Guardian tanks, and our rotation is now a simplified version of our previous one. At most the changes to stats will change the "perfect" mitigation stats, but that topic has been discussed to death HERE and as of now, until we see the latest gear and the math whizes have time to sit down and do the math, it's impossible to say what the ideal 2.0 mitigation stats are, but I'm assuming that if you stack endurance, defense, shield, and absorb you'll be able to run most anything except the toughest OPS on NiM difficulty

Edited by Jossajus
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I see you go without Momentum. I don't think I could live without it. I like this spec better

 

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/guardian/225/?build=020200000000000000000000000000000320302021200131212203200300010002220000000000000000000000000000&ver=20

 

Though giving up preparation/swift slash is more of a personal choice. In raids, I don't know if Preparation would be of any use, due to low cooldowns/planning of pulls/people AFK'ing for bio's and such that it would all reset anyway.

 

Swift slash, meh. I know the 7.5% crit on dispatch would be nice, especially with the nerf to crit on 2.0, but how necessary is it over a free bladestorm that would crit should you do your rotation right? But again, personal choice.

 

And yes, I'm back at theory crafting for Vig guardians :p I'll be here now theory crafting and testing stuff out.

 

Good guide for people though! Much better written than my old one that is outdated :p

Edited by Aienir
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Not to be rude, but talent choices are pretty obvious for Guardian tanks, and our rotation is now a simplified version of our previous one. At most the changes to stats will change the "perfect" mitigation stats, but that topic has been discussed to death HERE and as of now, until we see the latest gear and the math whizes have time to sit down and do the math, it's impossible to say what the ideal 2.0 mitigation stats are, but I'm assuming that if you stack endurance, defense, shield, and absorb you'll be able to run most anything except the toughest OPS on NiM difficulty

No rudeness was found in your reply. Thank you for the response. I have always relied on the crutch of leaning on people much smarter than myself when it comes to this sort of thing. I guess for now I will go play around with my first homemade spec lol.

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Momentum now requires Shii-Cho form and is therefor useless for vigilance.

 

Yea I didn't notice that till I got in game =( I am sad now. No more free bladestorm! But oh well. We make up for it in other ways.

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Lads... What crit and surge I am after in 2.0...? I'll appreciate ^^'

 

As far as I know, crit is capped in 2.0 at 20%. which means whatever rank you need to get 20%. This probably makes surge more important as we'll need more crit damage to balance out the crit percentage loss. but as others, im not a big fan of doing the math. I'll leave that to others. I would think that crit capped, then surge at least 75% or higher, power is probably our best secondary stat by far now once we reach the crit cap though.

 

Conjecture on surge and power, but I know that crit is capped at 20.

 

Nice guide OP. very cleanly laid out, and pretty much along the same lines I was thinking. My biggest challenge in 2.0 is getting used to the asynchronous rotation...very descriptive term! I miss my smooth rotation, but I enjoy the other changes, so Im willing to re-train my habits to accommodate

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As far as I know, crit is capped in 2.0 at 20%. which means whatever rank you need to get 20%. This probably makes surge more important as we'll need more crit damage to balance out the crit percentage loss. but as others, im not a big fan of doing the math. I'll leave that to others. I would think that crit capped, then surge at least 75% or higher, power is probably our best secondary stat by far now once we reach the crit cap though.

 

Conjecture on surge and power, but I know that crit is capped at 20.

 

Nice guide OP. very cleanly laid out, and pretty much along the same lines I was thinking. My biggest challenge in 2.0 is getting used to the asynchronous rotation...very descriptive term! I miss my smooth rotation, but I enjoy the other changes, so Im willing to re-train my habits to accommodate

 

Is crit capped at 20% before or after the smuggler/agent buff? If i get my crit chance to 20% will it increase to 25% with the smuggler buff or will it stay at 20%?

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On PTS with all gear avalible i went with crit at 25% fully raid buffed. Surge is as before although you might like to try swaping some surge for Alacrity so we can work out weather lowering the GCD is worthwhile for guards.

 

Re Surge and Power. You cannot swap surge for power - look at your mods closely. You swap power for crit (you may go with 20% crit raid buffed so that you can have more power).

 

You swap surge for alacrity or accuracy.

Edited by Mattmonkey
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Yesterday I've had 30% crit with 92% surge on my guardian dps. Don't know if it was a bug or not because I can't log in. But from what I've seen, non crit hit for 2k while crit was around 3,5k.. that was first and second hit of master strike.
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So, in other words - stats would something like this, unless tests with Alacrity proves something else;

 

Accuracy to 100%(melee) > Crit 20% > Power > Surge 75% > Alacrity

 

This is with the assumption that crit got a hard-cap @ 20%, same goes with Surge&75%.

 

Carousel_t, what lvl was your guardian?

Edited by Sleggefett
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So, in other words - stats would something like this, unless tests with Alacrity proves something else;

 

Accuracy to 100%(melee) > Crit 20% > Power > Surge 75% > Alacrity

 

This is with the assumption that crit got a hard-cap @ 20%, same goes with Surge&75%.

 

Carousel_t, what lvl was your guardian?

 

Be aware, as soon as you ding 51 the return values on your stats change.

My Juggernaut would sit@180 accuracy which with the 3% talent + 1% from companion was 99.7% accuracy. That same accuracy rating@level 55 is now only 96.5% accuracy.

Likewise, 420 surge rating, which used to give me 78.6% surge doesn't even give me 75% anymore.

 

So not only do I not have 75% surge as is, I still have to drop some surge to increase my accuracy.

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Be aware, as soon as you ding 51 the return values on your stats change.

My Juggernaut would sit@180 accuracy which with the 3% talent + 1% from companion was 99.7% accuracy. That same accuracy rating@level 55 is now only 96.5% accuracy.

Likewise, 420 surge rating, which used to give me 78.6% surge doesn't even give me 75% anymore.

 

So not only do I not have 75% surge as is, I still have to drop some surge to increase my accuracy.

 

That's why I wrote the numbers in % instead of rating. ;)

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Hello! I have been playing as a vigilance guardian since launch and I would like to put my two cents into this! First off, this guide is great on basically everything considering vigilance guardian PvE DPS for 2.0. When I hit 55 I would consider this build for myself or others willing to try it.

 

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/guardian/225/

 

Now onto my speculations. With the changes to both the vindicator and weapon master set bonuses, would it be wise to use a 2pc vindicator and 2pc weapon master? The 2pc vindicator reduces the min range of saber throw from 10m-0m, and the 2pc weapon master gives a +8% damage to master strike. Now, since master strike is already getting a +10% damage from master focus in the defense tree, this would improve master strike's damage greatly since there is more opportunities to use master strike because of zen strike and also, shien form already increases all melee damage by +6%. So technically, master strike already has 6% damage increase, adding in master focus and the 2pc weapon master bonus that gives it another 18% damage increase, giving it a total of a +24% damage increase, which I think is awesome!

 

Concerning the 4pc vindicator set bonus, which provides a +8% to blade storm, blade storm is classified as a force type attack, which is not affected by shien but rather with Shii Cho. Personally, I don't think it is wise to switch DPS stances for blade storm. You lose focus which is, of course, crucial in PvE :p.....

 

 

These 2 points lead me to my main question, as sort of stated in my first speculation.

Should I do the 2pc vindicator and weapon master to help increase my damage of master strike, which has more base and increased damage and more potential usage due to zen strike than blade storm, since blade storm in general deals less damage, than master strike?

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

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Hello! I have been playing as a vigilance guardian since launch and I would like to put my two cents into this! First off, this guide is great on basically everything considering vigilance guardian PvE DPS for 2.0. When I hit 55 I would consider this build for myself or others willing to try it.

 

http://pts.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/guardian/225/

 

Now onto my speculations. With the changes to both the vindicator and weapon master set bonuses, would it be wise to use a 2pc vindicator and 2pc weapon master? The 2pc vindicator reduces the min range of saber throw from 10m-0m, and the 2pc weapon master gives a +8% damage to master strike. Now, since master strike is already getting a +10% damage from master focus in the defense tree, this would improve master strike's damage greatly since there is more opportunities to use master strike because of zen strike and also, shien form already increases all melee damage by +6%. So technically, master strike already has 6% damage increase, adding in master focus and the 2pc weapon master bonus that gives it another 18% damage increase, giving it a total of a +24% damage increase, which I think is awesome!

 

Concerning the 4pc vindicator set bonus, which provides a +8% to blade storm, blade storm is classified as a force type attack, which is not affected by shien but rather with Shii Cho. Personally, I don't think it is wise to switch DPS stances for blade storm. You lose focus which is, of course, crucial in PvE :p.....

 

 

These 2 points lead me to my main question, as sort of stated in my first speculation.

Should I do the 2pc vindicator and weapon master to help increase my damage of master strike, which has more base and increased damage and more potential usage due to zen strike than blade storm, since blade storm in general deals less damage, than master strike?

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

 

yes you should absolutly

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I am contemplating on whether I should make Jugg or Sorc DPS and I really am curious about the Jugg's potential. Is there any chance that you will be making a video like you did with your first write-up and post the parses here? :)
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I am contemplating on whether I should make Jugg or Sorc DPS and I really am curious about the Jugg's potential. Is there any chance that you will be making a video like you did with your first write-up and post the parses here? :)

 

Hey mate good to hear from you. I havent made a video - but indicitavly after getting the expansion and running EC i was between 300 & 400 dps up at level 50. That was pritty much with a face roll rotation.

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My guild mat got through Daravannis HM 16 in Dread Guard/Arkanian gear mix and he's playing Focus on PvE. Claims to parse around 2.2 in most battles :/ :rak_02:

 

Totally possible. I can parse around 2100 on the dummy in Rage with a mix of gear like that. I'll parse slightly higher in Vengeance if the procs go my way.

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My guild mat got through Daravannis HM 16 in Dread Guard/Arkanian gear mix and he's playing Focus on PvE. Claims to parse around 2.2 in most battles :/ :rak_02:

 

Yes Focus produces enough DPS to be playable in raids - but why would you? It is still slightly lower the vigilance, it has low survivability (while Vigilance is top of all melee classes) and it cannot apply its sunder armour from range.

 

On the other hand I have been doing 5000 - 6000 aoe DPS using dread guard gear in the level 55 flash points as vigilance.

Try: Plasma Brand (main mob if their is one) - Sweep - Cyclone 6x - Sunder - Sweep repeat

 

Hard to see any arguments for rolling focus for raiding except if you prefer the play style(PvP is another story altogether)

Edited by Mattmonkey
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Yes Focus produces enough DPS to be playable in raids - but why would you? It is still slightly lower the vigilance, it has low survivability (while Vigilance is top of all melee classes) and it cannot apply its sunder armour from range.

 

On the other hand I have been doing 5000 - 6000 aoe DPS using dread guard gear in the level 55 flash points as vigilance.

Try: Plasma Brand (main mob if their is one) - Sweep - Cyclone 6x - Sunder - Sweep repeat

 

Hard to see any arguments for rolling focus for raiding except if you prefer the play style(PvP is another story altogether)

 

I've liked the playstyle of Focus/Rage myself. Not sure of the best rotation, Blade Storm I think I heard wasn't good to use, but I know I have it free to use after Obliterate and Force Leap!

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