Fellow Guardians! We need to band together and make sure we don't fall behind again! With the current proposed changes, Watchman Sentinels and Assault Vanguards will be out DPSing us by quite a large margin. These two specs are the closest to us on opposite spectrums. Watchman is the other Knight sustained spec, and Assault is the other "sustained" (and ton of burst!) heavy armor tank-able DPS spec. This cannot stand! We need to make our voices heard, and make sure that if Bioware is going to greatly buff their sustained, we cannot be left behind.

PLEASE post on the PTS thread:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=738717

PVPers:

This affects us too! With the uncleansable dots, Watchman could overtake our newly acquired spots in a group ranked setting. In group ranked, ramp up time is marginalized, and it would be rare for a Watchman to lose Merciless stacks. We would still have more control, but not by a ton with the changes to Cauterize coming (strong slow on Cauterize and ranged cleave slow on TST.) But that might not matter due to the sheer DPS that Watchman will be able to dish out.

Likewise, while we might be able to take a hit better than Assault Vanguards, they will have more burst, stuns, more mobile DPS, range, and now way more sustained damage.

I want to be clear here: I'm not asking to do better damage, I just want to make sure we don't become sub-par again.

My post from that thread:

Not sure what to do with Focus spec, we know those changes are coming down the line, but I think a simple fix for Vigilance/Vengeance, just up the damage on Plasma Brand/Shatter, this will ensure sustained numbers go up without raising burst too much.

 

I don't think it really matters whether the buff comes to the upfront portion or the DOT, but together somewhere in the range of a 30% buff would help a lot. Plasma brand accounts for 20% of damage in your average parse, so a 30% increase on a 3800 parse (about the best Vig can do now) would bring you up to a 4k parse, around 6% overall increase, even with what Madness/PT's can do now, and still with its melee channel restriction.

Pretty much this.

 

BIOWARE! DON'T FORGET GUARDIANS IN 2.8!

In your response to the Guardian questions you confirmed that you have plans to increase the single target sustained output of the Focus at some point down the road, but stated that Shadows and Vanguards had priority in fixing DPS problems because Guardians have a viable sustained DPS tree with Vigilance in PVE.

 

WITH THE CURRENT CHANGES THAT WILL NO LONGER BE THE CASE!

 

Watchman Sentinels are reportedly parsing WAY higher than Vigilance Guardians right now. Slightly higher would be fine, as they have more ramp up time and less burst, but not to the extent that is on PTS right now. Additionally, Assault Vanguards are also parsing way higher than Vigilance. So now Assault Vanguards will have more burst, WAY more mobile DPS, more stuns (for PVP), and more sustained. Both in PVE and PVP Vanguards can avoid damage and mechanics that Guardians have to deal with.

 

BIOWARE

It seems like 4000 DPS is the new "goal" for good sustained DPS. If you are to continue on with these changes with other classes, please either consider buffing other sustained DPS specs up to the same levels or reel back the changes a bit to a more reasonable level.

 

Guardian Suggestions

These are some suggestions that could bring Vigilance up to par:

• Merge some talents to reduce bloat
  
  • This is something that the developers said that they would look into in response to Guardian questions. A popular choice seems to be merging Accuracy with Single Saber Mastery.
    

  [*]Buff the additional dot damage boost from Keening

  [*]Buff the damage done by Plasma Brand

  [*]Replace or rework the Preparation talent

  • Preparation was designed to let Vigilance have his full opening resources for every fight back when 2.0 came out. Back then, there were 8v8 ranked warzones, which had respawns and node switching. Even back then, there was little real use for it, but an argument could be made. Now that ranked is 4v4 with single lives, Preparation serves no purpose whatsoever in endgame PVE or PVP. It should have been replaced in 2.4 at the earliest. Replace this talent with something that would increase DPS. This could be anything from armor pen, to crit chance, to surge, or something. Anything would be better than the current talent.
    

Fellow Guardians! We need to band together and make sure we don't fall behind again! With the current proposed changes, Watchman Sentinels and Assault Vanguards will be out DPSing us by quite a large margin. These two specs are the closest to us on opposite spectrums. Watchman is the other Knight sustained spec, and Assault is the other "sustained" (and ton of burst!) heavy armor tank-able DPS spec. This cannot stand! We need to make our voices heard, and make sure that if Bioware is going to greatly buff their sustained, we cannot be left behind.

 

PLEASE post on the PTS thread:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=738717

 

PVPers:

This affects us too! With the uncleansable dots, Watchman could overtake our newly acquired spots in a group ranked setting. In group ranked, ramp up time is marginalized, and it would be rare for a Watchman to lose Merciless stacks. We would still have more control, but not by a ton with the changes to Cauterize coming (strong slow on Cauterize and ranged cleave slow on TST.) But that might not matter due to the sheer DPS that Watchman will be able to dish out.

 

Likewise, while we might be able to take a hit better than Assault Vanguards, they will have more burst, stuns, more mobile DPS, range, and now way more sustained damage.

 

I want to be clear here: I'm not asking to do better damage, I just want to make sure we don't become sub-par again.

 

My post from that thread:

You forgot something about assault vanguards - Aside from the inability to Stance Dance, Assault Vanguards have significantly better survivability than guardians as well!

So for those who missed it, its:

More Burst

More Sustained

More Mobility

More Survivability

More Crowd Control

The ability to attack at more than 4 meters

No channeled attacks required (in fact, they are a DPS loss! - So I took Full Auto off my quickbar and reserve Mortar Volley/Flamethrower for groups of enemies)

Note: I have played Assault Spec since patch 2.3. Back then, the 4/6/36 build was inferior to the 8/8/30 and the 7/8/31 builds

If you missed Assaults DCDs, here they are:

Diversion. Threat Drop. 25% chance to Immune damage taken for the next 6 seconds. 45 second cooldown.

Energy Shield. 25% damage reduction increase, so Kinetic/Energy is a 55% damage reduction after armor. 120 second cooldown.

Adrenaline Rush. Activates when under 35% health. Provides ludicrous healing and 30% damage reduction while under 35% health, lasts 8 seconds. Does not heal if over 35% but still provides damage reduction. 36 second cooldown when under fire.

Hold the Line. 30 second cooldown. 6 second immunity to knockbacks. Doesn't cancel itself just in time to be CCd for the big hit of your channeled attack because you dont have one

Oh and I had a thought about Preperation. What if, instead of having it activate when you leave combat, it reset the cooldowns of:

GUARANTEED

Combat Focus

Saber Throw

POSSIBLE

Plasma Brand

Overhead Slash

on using force push? Similar effect to Preperation, but now actually does something for both PvE and PvP situations.

TAC, I'd rather them do something else. We're not really hurting in terms of focus management, so the Combat Focus reset isn't that huge of a deal. Plus, if you tie it to Force Push, then you're usually going to leap again anyways, which is a gain in focus. As for reseting OHS and PB, that would provide a little bit of a boost, but I don't think it would be that much of an increase overall. Plus, it would be clumsy to use on a consistent basis.

However, I do like the idea of them giving Vigilance some sort of offensive CD. Last time it was brought up, it was decided by the community that our DPS was good enough without it. Now, it might be a good option to bring up to help increase DPS. Although, unless it's a REALLY good CD, we'll need more than that to reach 4k DPS.

Tbh, considering our reliance on a melee channel, we should probably be 4.1k DPS. That way Watchman can sit 100 DPS above us, and Assault behind 100.

Edit: Just sent a PM to Eric and Tait. Hopefully at least one of them reads it and passes our concerns over to the developers.

Here Here! You have got my support. While our DPs is very good it will be being again come 2.8, that coupled with our lack of utlity (taunting and stance dancing imho are not "ulitiy" as a DPS Jugg you should be there to DPS not to cheese things and save a wipe), and squishiness relative to marauders especially , it really starts to become apparent (although every class suffers this when compared to Sniper Shield and BT).

While enraged defence was a buff to survivability it is more of a PvP cool-down I feel over a a PvE one where we are quite susceptible to the background AoE damage going off, espically now that we have lost a short cd small CD with it getting moved up to 2min in duration.

Regarding things that could be changed I'd like to see something happen with retaliation, with us meant to be master duelists and all It'd be nice to see some sort of off the GCD proc. The idea that our superior swordsmenship and footwork has created an opening for a quick thrust or something, like a feint or driving thrust.

TAC, I'd rather them do something else. We're not really hurting in terms of focus management, so the Combat Focus reset isn't that huge of a deal. Plus, if you tie it to Force Push, then you're usually going to leap again anyways, which is a gain in focus. As for reseting OHS and PB, that would provide a little bit of a boost, but I don't think it would be that much of an increase overall. Plus, it would be clumsy to use on a consistent basis.

 

However, I do like the idea of them giving Vigilance some sort of offensive CD. Last time it was brought up, it was decided by the community that our DPS was good enough without it. Now, it might be a good option to bring up to help increase DPS. Although, unless it's a REALLY good CD, we'll need more than that to reach 4k DPS.

 

Tbh, considering our reliance on a melee channel, we should probably be 4.1k DPS. That way Watchman can sit 100 DPS above us, and Assault behind 100.

 

Edit: Just sent a PM to Eric and Tait. Hopefully at least one of them reads it and passes our concerns over to the developers.

I couldn't agree more. Unlike other specs we will always have a tough time putting out our "dummy DPS" on most bosses because of our "melee turret" status. Even if we had the highest dummy parses we would still get outperformed in nearly all boss fights.

I'll pass them along to make sure they see them. I can't promise a response, but I can send them the link.

 

-tait

Tait responded to my PM. There's no promise of a response, but at least it's on their radar now.

Tait responded to my PM. There's no promise of a response, but at least it's on their radar now.

Good work! Andrew and thanks for being on top of things. It sounds like whining and i dont want anyone to be nerfed im happy for vanguards a sentinels. But with their changes vengeance starts looking like bottom of the barrel again. Would be nice for a little bump. Just dots probably though.we are already complained about enough in pvp i dont want nerf bat to come a knocking

WEll folks, it was a good two months. We had fun while it lasted, being viable.

Andrew, I'm not even sure if this is worth it.

Other class players will never let us be viable. The amount of QQ these last two months were off the charts, the entire SWTOR userbase -except for GRDs- called for nerfs to Guardians...

Simply put, the devs are telling us to reroll or get the f... out of the game.

I might give a second try to Secret World, I heard it was cleaned up nicely after F2P.

Latest parses in both shadows, watchmen and vanguards are outrageously high.

 

I hope that you will balance them before 2.8 hits live dear devs.

 

Or buff the rest of us to the 4k range as well.

 

One of the two please.

 

Parses:

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/662271/time/1399002441/1399002687/0/Overview

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/662319/time/1399090367/1399090623/0/Damage+Dealt

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/661901/time/1398978645/1398978893/0/Damage+Dealt

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/655067/1

Felt this should be here also

WEll folks, it was a good two months. We had fun while it lasted, being viable.

 

Andrew, I'm not even sure if this is worth it.

 

Other class players will never let us be viable. The amount of QQ these last two months were off the charts, the entire SWTOR userbase -except for GRDs- called for nerfs to Guardians...

 

Simply put, the devs are telling us to reroll or get the f... out of the game.

 

I might give a second try to Secret World, I heard it was cleaned up nicely after F2P.

Yes, the ************ and moaning has been unreal.

Honestly I think they were just so used to us being easy targets or ignorable that they just couldn't take it when suddenly things were evened up.

This is insanity. The damage inflation in the game is starting to become overkill. First it was concealment operatives, now classes with an abundance of midrange abilities are going to be parsing higher than classes locked down into a melee channel.

As far as damage increases, I would just do this: symmetricalize the rotation. Adjust the plasma brand CD to 9 seconds, condense the dot so that it does the same damage just faster. This will net more master strikes and more plasma brands in the same timeframe as well as allow blade storm to be used fully on CD with 2 stacks of force rush. It has literally NO PVP implications yet increases PVE DPS in a reasonable way for a melee turret class.

We fought and won the battle against rng. It's time to come back out of the woodworks and fight the class balance battle again.

This is insanity. The damage inflation in the game is starting to become overkill. First it was concealment operatives, now classes with an abundance of midrange abilities are going to be parsing higher than classes locked down into a melee channel.

 

As far as damage increases, I would just do this: symmetricalize the rotation. Adjust the plasma brand CD to 9 seconds, condense the dot so that it does the same damage just faster. This will net more master strikes and more plasma brands in the same timeframe as well as allow blade storm to be used fully on CD with 2 stacks of force rush. It has literally NO PVP implications yet increases PVE DPS in a reasonable way for a melee turret class.

 

We fought and won the battle against rng. It's time to come back out of the woodworks and fight the class balance battle again.

I'm tired of fighting....

It's just not worth it.

I'm tired of fighting....

 

It's just not worth it.

Imho I had a 2 month war hiatus. Ts over now and I'm back

Just one thing about those big parses. They are full NIM mod + soph ( duplicating many characters on the pts etc... ). I did the same and im full mod and full power surge 81. I Did 3950 on the pts, same as the assassin.

I think that with a lot of luck i can do 4k so, lets see.

Just one thing about those big parses. They are full NIM mod + soph ( duplicating many characters on the pts etc... ). I did the same and im full mod and full power surge 81. I Did 3950 on the pts, same as the assassin.

 

I think that with a lot of luck i can do 4k so, lets see.

Welcome back

Keep posting parses. If this is really the case we won't need a buff or at least not a big one. A small dot damage nudge would even the gap well enough.

Welcome back

 

Keep posting parses. If this is really the case we won't need a buff.

Here is the parse: http://www.torparse.com/a/662892/time/1399063891/1399064144/0/Overview

I think that i have the same gear as the assassin on the pts. We will be under senti and powertech but not a lot i think.

I have less crit on every atack on this try than my previews record.

Here is the parse: http://www.torparse.com/a/662892/time/1399063891/1399064144/0/Overview

 

I think that i have the same gear as the assassin on the pts. We will be under senti and powertech but not a lot i think.

 

I have less crit on every atack on this try than my previews record.

Your crit rates are fairly outlier ish, so I still think a buff of some sort is in order tbh

Your crit rates are fairly outlier ish, so I still think a buff of some sort is in order tbh

Yes maybe one but just a dot buff i think.

Your crit rates are fairly outlier ish, so I still think a buff of some sort is in order tbh

To be honest I think they overbuffed some classes. They should really just try to put all classes in the 3.6-3.9k dps range, with AoE specs at the bottom and classes with long ramp up times at the top, with Vigilance at about 3.85k.

Assault's buff should have really been a 20% DoT boost (I mathed it out, would have brought it to 3.85k dps in full dread forged outside of lucky crits) so you can understand my excitement and then realization of what it meant when I saw them type 35% boost

Yes maybe one but just a dot buff i think.

That would probably suffice, that or a crit chance increase on ms or overhead slash. It's also worth noting pts and Annie maras are doing 4.2-4.1 now.

That would probably suffice, that or a crit chance increase on ms or overhead slash. It's also worth noting pts and Annie maras are doing 4.2-4.1 now.

Yeah, but that guy got insanely lucky. His usual parse is 3950, and even though he only had 43 Crit Rating, his crit rate was a whopping 40% for that parse. That's double the amount of crits he should have gotten, especially considering Anni has no auto crit talents.

In a real fight he won't be pulling anywhere near those numbers. The ramp up time is still there. Anything that's not a sit-there-and-hit-it will have him pulling less than Vengeance.

Yeah, but that guy got insanely lucky. His usual parse is 3950, and even though he only had 43 Crit Rating, his crit rate was a whopping 40% for that parse. That's double the amount of crits he should have gotten, especially considering Anni has no auto crit talents.

 

In a real fight he won't be pulling anywhere near those numbers. The ramp up time is still there. Anything that's not a sit-there-and-hit-it will have him pulling less than Vengeance.

Well annihilation does get 6 auto-crit bleeds every beserk, and +22% crit rate on bleeds the rest of the time...